Day Three in New York

Day three was much the same as day two. We walked until our shoes dissolved and then walked a little bit more. There were a couple of interesting stores around. One called Auto advertised itself as “the mini department store”, but it looked like a regular store to me. We went to Soapology which is like Lush but classier. Inside, there was a little man in what looked like a 19^thcentury riding outfit, or at least, what I think a 19^th century riding outfit would look like. Upon seeing him I thought somewhere a grandmother is looking out her front door wondering where her lawn jockey went. Soapology has a bathtub in the store and they give each customer a hand wash, followed by a rejuvenating scrub and then some softening lotion. I couldn’t stop smelling my hands for three hours afterwards. I don’t remember all the product names but one of them was a walnut polisher which of course sent me into a fit of giggles. I would repeatedly tell Monkey that I needed to go polish the old walnut. This tickled me to no end and got absolutely no reaction out of her.

Another of my favourites was Mondo Kim’s, which has to be the greatest video store ever. It’s three (maybe more) stories of bizarre, obscure videos, the exact kind my brother and I love. An entire section devoted to women in prison flicks. Are you a fan of Blaxploitation? I know I am. Blacula, Blackenstein, Black Mama, White Mama, they’re all there.

I asked Monkey if she saw a comedy section anywhere and she replied, “no . . . oh wait, here’s UK directors.” Not really comedy, but good effort. I asked the cashier if there was a comedy section, he said, “like stand-up comedy?” I said, “any type of comedy”, he said, “no”. If you have no kind of comedy, why did you ask me what particular type of comedy I was looking for?

Me: Absurdist comedy?
Him: No.
Me: Physical comedy?
Him: No.
Me: Highbrow comedy?
Him: No.
Me: Three Stooges comedy?
Him: No.
Me: Vaudevillian comedy?
Him: No.
Me: Teenage coming of age comedy?
Him: No.
Me: College comedy?
Him: Yes. Wait, what did you say?
Me: College comedy.
Him: No.

We also went to Chinatown to purchase our bus tickets to Boston and visited the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory while we were there. The little man at Soapology told us about a brand of green tea ice cream that we could get in K-Town. Quickly realizing via the glazed look in our eyes that we had no idea what K-Town was he said, Korea Town. Well, that was convenient because we were staying in old K-Town. All this is moot though because we ended up getting the ice cream in Chinatown. Around the corner from the Ice Cream Factory is a Chinese candy shop. Rows and rows of glass jars filled with things you’d only see in medical labs. Pickled squid, honeyed hog snout, crunchy granola chicken beak; this is what they were trying to pass off as candy. There were also samples freely available so I tried one and immediately asked if they had a pair of scissors I could borrow to cut out my tongue.

After rinsing my mouth with bleach we went to the Fung Wah bus company to purchase our bus tickets. The Fung Wah travels New York to Boston and Boston to New York. Tickets are $15.00 and the bus leaves every hour, or when the driver is finished his cigarette and feels like it.

Day Two in New York

Busy, busy, busy. I’m normally the kind of guy whose social calendar for the year can be written in large print on the back of a postage stamp. I go to work, I go home, on rare occasions I’ll go to a Christmas dinner or birthday party but of late I’ve barely had time to throw eggs at old people or yell obscenities at children, never mind update the blog.

I’ll try to finish off the New York/Boston trip shortly but my heart just won’t be into it since it happened so long ago.

I’ll preface this by saying that Auntie Monkey has a bit of an obsessive personality. The way I like to visit a city is to do a lot of research and mark down anything I think may be of interest and try to group them by area and priority so I can minimize the amount of time wasted looking for stuff. Maybe, it’s actually me that has the obsessive personality. The way Auntie Monkey likes to travel is for me to do a lot of research and mark down anything that may be of interest to her (i.e., any place that sells shoes). Once we get to the city, if it’s on the list, it’s getting a visit, no matter how much time we have, or far away we are or little interest we have in it at the time.

I’ll give you an example. There’s a famous picture of Marilyn Monroe, taken during the filming of The Seven Year Itch. She is standing on a subway grate holding her dress down as it is billows around her. One of the tourist books I was reading mentioned that the grate was located at 52^nd and Lexington (I think, I don’t remember the exact address). I thought, hmm, moderately interesting and marked it down in case we were directly passing it. If we were at 53^rd and Lexington I wasn’t about to walk down to 52^nd to see a grate. Each time we finished a little section we would decide where to go next. Inevitably Monkey would say, what about the subway grate, and I would reply, it’s a little out of the way from here. As in about 40 freakin’ blocks out of the way. When we had finally finished looking at every single woman’s shoe in Manhattan Auntie Monkey said, where to now?

I’m going to give you a little perspective here. Health experts recommend that you walk 10,000 steps a day. This is equivalent to about 5 miles. The day before we had walked 28,000 steps and at this point today we had walked over 31,000 steps (that’s right, I wear a pedometer).

I suggested we go back to the hotel room and get pedicures (because I’m a little fruity at times). She said, how about we go check out the subway grate. Several blood vessels burst in my eyes and just behind my forehead. I calmly explained that there could be nude ballerinas giving away hot caramel sundaes and iPhones there and I still wouldn’t go. I then carved the words out of the page with an exacto knife, set them afire, encased the ashes in concrete and dropped it in the Hudson river. Auntie Monkey then said, does this mean you don’t want to see the subway grate?

New York - May 06, 2008

I went to New York and Boston over May 6 – 11^th. I was hoping to do daily blog updates but the wireless connections in the hotels were terrible. Plus, I was really tired at the end of each day.

I’ll still spread out the entries by day to keep things easier in my little pea brain. I should also mention that I had a traveling companion; you may know her as Auntie Monkey.

We decided to drive to the airport ourselves and park there. The reduced rate lot is $65.00 a week and there was a 20% off coupon on the website so the amount was actually $52.00. The reduced rate parking lot was packed, what a bunch of cheapskates, we ended up parking at the back of the lot. You then have to take a train to the terminal. The trains come fairly frequently, and despite all the cars in the lot, were practically empty.

I got in the wrong line at customs. The guy ahead of me seemed to be trying to use his business card as identification and the customs officer was oblivious to the growing line-up at his booth. I switched lines with no success as that customs officer wanted to get to know each person as a friend and dismiss with all this stuffy customs business. I finally got through, even with my carry-on full of tiger blood. I did have to dispose of my orange though.

In the washroom at the airport there is a vending machine that sells:

1. Condoms – in case you get lucky while waiting for your flight to Duluth.
2. Polo cologne – you increase your chance of getting lucky if you smell like the gymnasium at an all-boys Catholic high school.
3. Looney Tunes temporary tattoos – these will entertain your illegitimate child while you are getting lucky.

The flight was on a tiny plane but otherwise uneventful. We had prepaid for a shuttle to the hotel and went in search of that. This was a terrible ride. The driver barely spoke, he just kind of grunted and we intuited to follow him. The shuttle was van size with three rows of 3 seats. We made three more stops at the airport to pick up more passengers until the van was at capacity and then dropped each of them off individually. The shuttle ride took a half hour longer than the flight.

Checking into the hotel was very smooth. The front desk woman asked how many keys I would like and I told her 27. I’m a very friendly person but I don’t want to stay in the room to let people in all the time.

The hotel was nice enough for the price. I think hostels run around $200.00 a night in Manhattan.

Approximately four seconds after we checked in (Auntie Monkey doesn’t like to sit still) we went to play the giant game of Frogger that is New York traffic. Here are a few of my observations:

• The time between a traffic light turning green and the time you hear the first horn blast can be measured in nanoseconds.
• New Yorkers are always in a hurry with the exception of when there is a vehicle barreling toward them; then, it’s saunter time.
• Traffic lines are merely suggestions.
• No matter how far you stand in the middle of the street waiting to cross, some New Yorker is going to elbow his way ahead of you in order to get to the other side a fraction of a second faster.
• Sidewalks may be driven on provided they are a faster way of getting somewhere.

Babysitting

Sorry that it’s been so long between posts. I’m still recovering from the weekend. We babysat Snake and Rooster. Please allow me to refresh your memory on the cast of characters:

Snake – a dynamic, almost seven year old, who sees and hears everything. Snake makes the Tasmanian Devil seem like an arthritis riddled 80 year old trying to make her way through quicksand.

Rooster – Two and half and has me wrapped around her little finger. Rooster has warmed up a bit since we last met. She now lets me pick her up without fuss. Rooster enjoys jumping and running. When she’s excited, which is 98% of the time, she will jump straight up and down for a few seconds and then go tearing through the house giggling before stopping to jump some more.

Pig – Just turned one. The happiest boy I’ve ever seen. At the stage where he is pulling himself up to a standing position. Very often you’ll see just the top of his head over the arm of the couch.

Jabberjaw – Pig’s mom. I call her Jabberjaw for two reasons; one, she had a Jabberjaw lunch box in grade school which I believe she still has to this day and two, she talks a lot. Jabberjaw deftly weaves the art of conversation with the inability to stay focused so having a discussion with her is like trying to map out the path of a superball to its eventual destination.

Gook Gook (rhymes with hook hook) – Pig’s father and coincidentally, Jabberjaw’s husband. A well-spoken gent who regales the children with tales of the real estate market in the GTA.

Auntie Monkey – Jabberjaw’s older sister. The thought process of Auntie Monkey is different than anybody I’ve ever met.

Given the premise:

1. All men are mortal.
2. Socrates is a man.

She would round out the syllogism not by saying “Socrates is mortal” but “why is it pronounced Sock-rah-tees and not Sew-crates. I would think it should be Sew-crates. Did Plato invent play-doh? Or did he invent plates? I can never remember.”

Myself – Fat and cranky. Bit of a bastard at times. I will refer to myself as Uncle Fatty where necessary.

Mommy & Daddy – Snake and Rooster’s parents.

This weekend we also had company from:

Jook Jook – Rhymes with Gook Gook and is his brother.

Auntie Lola – Married to Jook Jook.

Coco – A mischievous three year old monkey.

Chili – A one year old with a head the size of a cantaloupe.

The babysitting started on Saturday at around 1pm. Mommy and Daddy unloaded an incredible amount of luggage and started bringing it in. Snake immediately wanted to play and dragged me down to the basement to put together a water activity toy. This thing came with various plastic parts attached to a plastic frame. Normally you can snap the parts of but in this case they needed to be cut so Snake ran upstairs to get two pairs of scissors. There were blue pieces and red pieces. She gave me the red pieces because she likes blue. She also instructed me on how to cut the pieces. “Cut pieces should be put here, if they need to be trimmed they go in this pile, cut close to the frame.” Thanks kid, I’ve used scissors before.

During the assembly I asked what Mommy and Daddy would be doing this weekend. She said, “they’ll have their fun.” I bet they will kid, I bet they will.

After the toy was completed we all went five pin bowling. Six adults, five children, one bowling lane. Coco has a peculiar bowling stance in that he holds the ball as if he were shot putting and tries to throw it towards the pins. Rooster was able to roll the ball halfway down the lane leaving it for the bowlers behind her to try and hit. Snake was a pretty good bowler and managed to get a couple of strikes.

We went five pin bowling because we were afraid that if we went ten pin, people would mistake Chili’s head for a bowling ball.

After bowling it was back to Jabberjaw & Gook Gook’s for a barbecue and soccer in the backyard. Snake loves soccer. I think I played about 15 hours of soccer over the weekend and was fortunate enough to be hit directly in the nuts only twice. I probably shouldn’t have been playing naked but hindsight is 20/20.