I’m sitting on a bench in the little park across from my building. The whole world seems out in various attire: shorts, suits, dresses with bare legs, blazers over jeans and those like me clad in warm jackets just in case of a sudden weather change.
Directly in front of me two dog owners, their respected pooches sprawled nearby, sip coffees.
A little boy still in his pirate Halloween costume including an eye patch making him trip every few steps, his patient dad hoisting him up by his pants collects smiles.
A nanny sits idly pushes a baby carriage back and forth.
You could cut the contentment with a knife.
But of course, all it takes is one person who wouldn’t recognize the feeling if it bit her, and here she is…
your typical Upper Eastside rich bitch with a Prada bag she carries like a trophy with its arrogant giant gold logo.
She’s plops right next to the nanny at once getting on her phone.
The nanny to her credit, moves a little without making a fuss.
So what does obnoxious woman do? Talks louder. I’m sitting there ready to do battle for a baby I’ve yet to meet.
I get up, peer in the carriage and sure enough, a little bundle snoozes away.
“Come sit by me,” I suggest to nanny, “its quiet.”
Actually there’s not enough room, so when she comes over, smile then leave still hearing that old Prada bag bloviating in the distance, the reason I don’t own a firearm.
The Guggenheim Museum Fifth Avenue and 89th Street
There are 8 museums on what’s called Museum Mile from the Met at 82nd Street to 110th.
I’m sitting in front of the Guggie, as it’s affectionally called, basking in the sun. It’s not my favorite museum, though appreciate that Frank Lloyd Wright designed it, giving it a certain cache.
What I find more interesting is the story of Benjamin Guggenheim who died on the Titanic.
As you can well imagine, making its maiden voyage in 1912 was a hot ticket, state rooms scarce. So when banker, J.P. Morgan decided to stay in Italy with his mistress offering Ben his accommodations, he was at once, alas, on board.
Well, he was last seen on the upper deck with many of his peers, prepared to go down as gentlemen, a witness quoted, his remains never found.
I think of him now the family name gleaming behind me.
Three vendors are set-up in front. One selling New York City photos and magnets, another with hats, bags and sweatshirts, while a third will sketch your likeness for 10 bucks.
I see them parked during my early walk sleeping in their vans after claiming their space. I’ve actually bought two photos, one of the Statue of Liberty the other the Chrysler now hanging in my bathroom.
Tourists saunter by nibbling king-size pretzels. Others patiently wait in line to go into the museum while two beefy security guards man the doors.
Another woman sits near me rubbing her feet. She smiles. “I’m just not used to all this walkin,” she says with a touch of a Texas twang.
“Maybe you need a little fuel,” I say, hauling out a box of Oreos, offering her one.
She giggles. “Could ah have two?”
I laugh. “You can have as many as you want.”
So me and Lily from Dallas sit in the sun while I tell her all about Ben.
That the Oreo cookie was created in what is now Manhattan’s Chelsea Market in 1912.
ICE stands for, Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
BOLO, in policespeak: be on the lookout.
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. Mahatma Gandhi
When 26 year-old actress Sharon Tate Polanski was murdered by the Manson Family in 1969, she was eight and half months pregnant.
She was then buried with her infant baby boy, bundled in her arms.
Toni Morrison, The Noble Prize winning author always believed O.J. Simpson was innocent until she died in 2019 at 88.
Actress Elizabeth Taylor was the first woman to be paid one million dollars for her role as Cleopatra.
Chester A. Arthur, New Yorker born and bred, 21st President of the United States who as Vice-president stepped up for one term after President James Garfield was assassinated, was the first President to walk across The Brooklyn Bridge.
That you can talk to yourself and everyone will just assume you’re on your phone.
When actor Robert De Niro was asked who was the best actor he ever worked with said, “Myself.”
At Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland where John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Abraham Lincoln is buried, what is believed to be his tombstone is covered with pennies.
When President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, granted permission for Booth’s mother to have him moved from the prison graveyard to the family plot, it was with the stipulation his name wouldn’t be added; keeping him obscure from martyrdom.
There are two theories: the pennies are to honor him, the other Abraham Lincoln.
Politicians and diapers must be changed quite often. And for the same reason. Mark Twain
Words etched on journalist Barbara Walter’s gravestone…
No Regrets-I had a great life.
The actor Bill Murray was in a New York taxi, his driver with a violin next to him on the front seat. When he told Bill he always brought it hoping he’d have a chance to play but was always too busy, Bill hopped in front and drove, while the driver sat in the back and played. 🙂
A guy I hadn’t seen in a while asked what I was doing?
Writing a lot, I told him.
“No, what are you really doing?”
“Like I said, writing.”
“You mean, as a hobby.”
I had to talk myself off the roof after allowing him, whose only claim to fame is a trust fund, to slice a foot off my height.
It’s not a hobby. Stamp collecting is a hobby. So is crocheting.
The good news?
I never felt more like a writer than I did at that moment, solid in who I am.
I was a dispassionate model, and Lassie was a better actress than I was, regretting not going to college rather than Milan with a tote bag bigger then I was.
But as trite as it is, better late than never.
Am I Virginia Woolf or a Joan Didion? Hardly, but my commitment could rival theirs. I’m never happier than when I’m working on a story; every cell in my body pinging.
After regaining my height, finally was able to say, “I’m a writer, right down to my socks!”
When the skies opened with buckets of rain, it was the last thing anyone expected, though chilly, on such a lovely fall day. I ducked beneath an awning watching everyone run for cover.
The way it came straight down, reminded me of fake rain on a movie set.
A man standing near me said, “It won’t last. The harder it comes, the sooner it’ll stop. It means the worst is over.”
Five minutes later, he proved right.
When I get home, my doorman said a box was left for me. I knew right away it was from Anthony’s store. It had olive oil and a dozen cans of tuna and sardines along with two cans of Megaglia d’Oro Espresso Coffee. They were making the final sweep so someone, more than likely his daughter, sent them.
I found a note at the very bottom.
“The store is finally closed. Thought you’d like these. Going back home tomorrow. It’s been so painful, but we’re finally done.”
Wallet Litter: cards from stores like Walgreens and CVS along with various business cards you have little need for.
Theodore Roosevelt, in 1901, was the youngest U.S. President at 42 when as Vice-president stepped up after President William McKinley was assassinated.
John F. Kennedy at 43, was the youngest elected U.S. President.
A Tiger Mom is a mother who will go the extra mile to make her child a success, and above all, protect him or her.
New York City’s first newspaper was the New York Gazette founded in 1752.
President John Kennedy, at the insistence of his father, Joseph Kennedy, appointed his younger brother Bobby as his Attorney General siring the Anti Nepotism Law, a.k.a. The Bobby Kennedy Law, passed in 1967, prohibiting the hire of a relative to any congressional office that still stands today.
When the actress Carrie Fisher was having marital problems with her singer husband, Paul Simon, her friend the director Mike Nichols told her…in every relationship there needs to be a gardener and a flower. One needs to give.
Well after two tries at marriage both flowers called it a day.
When Ivana Trump, Donald Trump’s first wife and mother of three of his children died in 2022, she was buried on the Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey. According to the New Jersey State Tax Code, any land used for cemeteries is except from all taxes.
Tacky…adjective; showing poor taste and quality…cheap, vulgar, gaudy behavior.
A lie can travel halfway around the world, while the truth is putting on its shoes…Mark Twain
Arlington National Cemetery came into existence during the American Civil War (1861-1865) when Montgomery Meigs, the Union Army’s Quartermaster General, bitterly grieving for his 22 year-old son John recently killed in battle, began burying the Union dead in Mrs. Robert E. Lee’s rose garden while she was still in residence at her family home.
Those tombstones can still be seen though sliding into the earth, the ancestors of the 400,000 graves surrounding them.
I’m standing on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge. My intention was to walk across, but the wind whipping keeps me where I am.
I love the Bridge, and after reading a favorite David McCullough essay about The Great Bridge, came to visit her. I’ve always felt it was a she, the way the cables outstretch to greet you, like being welcomed home.
When I think during September 11th there was a plot to blow her up, I don’t need the wind to shudder.
Next to the Chrysler Building, it’s my favorite New York City landmark, for all she stands for. What they went through to build it. The brave men who died, including its original chief engineer, John Roebling, of lockjaw after stepping on a rusty nail.
A well dressed older man approaches me. Asks if I’m okay. “Couldn’t be better,” I tell him, then realizing, he might have thought I was a jumper. Not me brother. But it was kind of him to care.
A woman with a little boy comes up the ramp. They’re both smiling.
“A little cold,” I say, as she picks up her son to let him see the harbor.
“Not for us. We live in Munich. This feels like summer,” she says, still smiling.
“Are you walking across?”
“Yes, want Jacob to see both sides, it’s so beautiful.”
“May I join you?” Her enthusiasm contagious.
“Absolutely.”
When we get to the Brooklyn side, say, “So Jacob, what do you think?”
And four year-old Jacob says, “Legos, big Legos.” 🙂
I feel like an owl in sweats and a hoodie who left its tree. There I was in bed wide awake, reading another Patterson, when jump up like a fireman hearing the bell. I need air, my excuse padding downstairs in my socks so not to wake my neighbor who as a light sleeper, periodically complains about my midnight ramblings.
My doorman is fast asleep in a lobby’s easy chair. I sneak out, not slipping on my sneaks till hitting the street.
The all-night fruit man dozes on a discarded sofa cushion. I help myself to a banana I’ll pay for later, my integrity making a note.
I pass sleepers in doorways while garbage precedes me like tumbleweed.
The diner is well lit with the intimacy of a bowling alley. An amorous couple canoodle, sitting so close they could be Siamese twins. His hand rests comfortably between her legs while she feeds him chocolate cake. She licks the frosting he now has all over his face.
Porn, by Duncan Hines.
I sit at the counter. “Coffee?” the waiter asks, pouring it before I nod, adding yesterday’s Daily News.
I have a yearning for rice pudding. It comes with a stale Biscotti I dunk in my coffee like hardtack.
Two hookers saunter in on 4 inch heels wondering if their ears pop.
One’s dress is so tight her rear could be a base drum. The other is in an oversized red T-shirt that says…Come Tell me How You Feel…
catchy.
They sit in the back. The waiter brings them coffee. Base drum pinches his cheek and says, “Gratsiass Pedro.”
He reddens…hurries away.
They giggle like devils in Spanx and too much eyeliner; quiet down when two cops walk in, scanning the room before ordering coffees to go. One notices my rice pudding. “That any good?” I say yes. He nods but orders apple pie instead.
His partner already at the door ogles the two working girls.
“Hey, you over there, got my eye on you.”
This annoys me. It has an ICE feeling to it. He then looks at me. I smirk. “Got your eye on me too Officer?”
His partner says, “Don’t mind him. He’s havin’ a bad night…. hemorrhoids.”
There’s something special watching a little boy grow up. With the exception of feeling ancient, a definite grace to witness…
the caterpillar turning into a butterfly.
I hadn’t seen Andy in a while. First his family was away, then he got very busy with school starting. He’s also quite the passionate soccer player and captain of his team.
He’s been on my mind with Christmas in the wings. I always give him something and know need to upgrade from silly, Spiderman and I waving a heartfelt goodbye.
There’s money of course, but prefer being more personal than that.
He loves to read so there’s always a gift card in his future.
I believe in energy, so when he knocked on my door with cookies, just to see how I was, it came as no surprise.
“I know I usually bake with Mom,” he said, the kid he was, making a rare appearance, “but had school, then practice, so I’m sorry they’re from the store.”
I wanted so much to hug him for that, the concern, the innocence to think it would matter, but instead, invited him in, broke out a quart of milk while he taught me all about soccer.
Did you ever feel as if you’re shadow boxing with Mother Nature? It’s raining and freezing when it was just warm and cozy.
Many of my fellow New Yorkers are in denial still in shorts and T-shirts while I’m layered like a Sherpa. I check the weather before going out when others never do, assuming nothing’s changed from the day before.
Are they brain dead?
The weather across the globe has never been more unpredictable.
I have a friend in England refusing to believe in Global Warming. A myth, he says. I’ve stopped arguing since, what’s it going to take, King Charles exploding like a cantaloupe in the heat?
I’m now in Butterfield Market buying poached salmon. There’s a woman in front of me with goosebumps along her bare arms. Takes all I have not to give her the sweater I’m wearing beneath my Barbour. She’s trying hard not to show her discomfort. She sees me looking. “You’re so cold,” I say. “Do you live nearby, to maybe just hop in a cab?”
She’s so cold she can barely speak, even when the deli man asks what she’d like. She finally tells him, ignoring me, but to quote Lisa on her blog, Life With The Top Down… just be fucking nice, so kindly tell her to wait inside and I’d get her a cab.
Not only was she cold, she’s cold, not as much as a nod of thanks.
I don’t care.
That’s the thing about being fucking nice, you’re the one left warmer.
That the Oreo cookie was created in what is now Manhattan’s Chelsea Market in 1912.
When 26 year-old actress Sharon Tate Polanski was murdered by the Manson Family in 1969, she was eight and half months pregnant.
At Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland where John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Abraham Lincoln is buried, what is believed to be his tombstone is covered with pennies.
When the skies opened with buckets of rain, it was the last thing anyone expected, though chilly, on such a lovely fall day. I ducked beneath an awning watching everyone run for cover.
I’m standing on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge. My intention was to walk across, but the wind whipping keeps me where I am.
SB
