NYC Auto Show

Sunday morning we walked over to the Jacob Javits Center for the annual car show.  Two vast levels filled with every fancy glitzed up streamlined flashy body style imaginable - and some pretty neat cars, too.  Pleased to see an S2000 right beside the Lamborghini, Saleen and Astin Martin.  Bentleys, Rolls's's's's, Maybachs, Phaetons, "Wowzer!" K repeated over and over.

Honda displayed a new style Element with a 200 hp engine, 20" wheels, updated body panels and interior.  If it's available timely, will likely be the next addtion to the Thistle Landing Stable.

Walked back toward the Bada Bedford, noticed  lunch being served outdoors at the Bryant Park Grille, a beautiful little bistro in the eponymous park on the west side of the NYC Library.  They had a $25 lunch special - cheap by local standards - that we enjoyed over a glass of wine.  Then we walked back to the hotel to finish the Times, watch a little baseball, and soothe our aching foots.  Dinner this night at a terrific Asian restaurant with a copy of Zagat's in the window proclaiming it to be "NYC's Best."  We heartily concurred.

Day Three

K done with her presentations; very positively received, likely to result in more invitations, trips to East Coast.  We took subway to Coney Island - gorgeous day.  Walked the Boardwalk, rode the Cyclone - rickety, very old wood roller coaster; still a good ride.  Bought a Nathan's dog and some suds and ate and drank next to the Shoot The Freak arcade, where you buy paintballs and use this AK-47 looking pneumatic gun to shoot at a poor bastard in a helmet and body armor who is dancing around piles of junk about 30 paces away.  "You shoot him, he doesn't shoot back.  It's Coney Island's favorite sport!!" the barker intones through his p.a.  Had the targets been small yipping dogs I might have sighted one in.

Rode north all the way to 81st & Central Park West, and as we're climbing out of the station, K says,"Look!! It's the clown guy from the movie!!!"  It was, in fact either David, Seth or Jesse, from the documentary "Capturing The Friedmans" which we had watched just the week before.  I approached him and said, "Mr. Friedman?"  He gave that cautious look, glanced down and said Yes, it was him.  We chatted for a few minutes, I told him we had been touched by his bravery and wished him well.  Not ten minutes later, as we were about to enter the park, I got the familiar elbow in the ribs and K says, "Dan Akroyd is standing right behind you."  He looked so pasty and overweight I didn't think it was him, but others on the sidewalk started pointing him out, too, and he quickly sidled north and ducked into a florist.

Day Two In Gotham

Ridng on the MTA:  Got K's coffee, tucked her into a cab, walked up to Grand Central (everything in NYC is up-, mid-, down-, east or west; no north no south) and jumped into the first train that pulled into the station.  See, I had a 50-50 chance that it would take me north.  As reported separately, I soon found that it took only two consecutive wrong transfers to end up visiting distant, strange lands peopled with colorful, exotic persons speaking in strange tongues.  This visit was accompanied by strange smells, two instances of abject terror and one straightforward but unappealing proposition.

Later that same day, recounting my harrowing experience, it was brought to my attention that even a cursory glance at the subway map might have precluded the Stage Nine Pucker Factor.  Monday morning quarterback.

New York, New York

It's a wonderful town.  Flight scheduled for four-and-a-half hours ended up taking nine due to donder and blitzen in New Joisey.  We were re-routed to Syracuse where we parked on the tarmac with no drink cart and seemingly no air conditioning for a couple hours.  Newark airport Cabbie stiffed us for an extra ten bucks - usual Welcome Wagon For Bumpkins, I guess.  K didn't like the Bada Bedford Hotel.  Kinda old, kinda dingy, but whaddyawant for two hunnert bucks a night?  Was really in a great location, East 40th St twixt Lexington and Park Aves, a mere block from Grand Central.

We went around the corner to Scottie's 24 Hour Deli for a late bite, as the stews had hidden the snack tray with the drink cart, and that didn't improve K's mood at all.  Can't recommend Rude Scottie's.  Late to bed, NY time, and she's up at 5:30 prepping for an all day and half of the night seminar.  I trundle off for her Starbucks and my Times.  It gets better.

Life's Persistent Questions

So, if JS Bach loved his work so much, why would he entitle a piece, "I'm Inclined To Knock Music"?

Texas Governor Race

Kinky Friedman, raconteur, bon vivant, author and band leader (remember Kinky Friedman & The Texas Jewboys?) is a semi-viable candidate for Governor of the grate state of Texas. His campaign bumper sticker says "Kinky Friedman for Governor, How Hard Could It Be?"  Gotta love it.

Emergency Room

It doesn’t take much blood at all to send a four year-old’s mother and grandmother into paroxysms.  Everything seemed to be going so well.  Gabe was home, otologically enhanced and adenoidally free, playing video games with Tia.  Something happened.  Accounts vary, but what ensued was profuse bleeding from Little Big Man’s nose and mouth.  Mother and Grandmother were unable to stanch the flow (imagine the scene and the decibel level).  A call to the offending surgeon’s office produced a trip to the emergency room, during which trip LBM began convulsing, flailing, kicking his mother in the throat.

 

It doesn’t take much in the way of a report of blood and convulsions coupled with a tearful request for an ad hoc ER meeting to rouse a grampa to frenzy.  I jumped into the roadster, utilized all of its capabilities in most of its gears and arrived at the hospital, let’s say, post haste.  LBM so brave, wouldn’t complain, still saying he was ok to any green frocked questioner.  A glance at aforementioned mother/grandmother team dissuades.  (How many times do they have to stick needles into different places on the boy?  Look lady, he whimpers, you die!) Off to his second surgery of the day.  45 minutes later, he’s back, sleeping fitfully.  Two hours later, he’s home.  Slept all night, tired, sore, but not leaking blood from anywhere today.  Updates as they become available.

"Grampa! I can hear!!

The boy had surgery this morning to put tubes in his ears and scrape out his adenoids, like his father and tia before him.  Concern is always warranted when general anesthetic is involved, even for a Burly Boy, but while walking to the bank I got the phone call.  "I didn't cry or kick or anything!" 

Aforementioned is now perched in front of the video game console, reveling in even more attention than usual.  My little guy.

Sunday in the Saddle

Immediately following a vigorous and wide ranging, yet succinct discussion with K, I jumped on the scooter and rode to Christopher Creek for brunch.  The Creekside still offers the Mad Jack from the same menus as were extant lo those many years ago when we had a trailer there. The rain was cold, I'm talking very cold, but the mesquite smelled so good and the snow pack on the rim was beautiful.  The new highway misses CCreek by about a mile, so the hamlet is again as quiet and unruffled as almost twenty years ago.  Prolly even more so as there won't be any more Jake Braking through town from those big riggers who haven't yet mastered the intricacies of gravity. 

Doubled back down through Payson and Rye, and turned east onto the 188.  Rode through more rain past Roosevelt Lake - what was cold and unpleasant for me was rejuvenating for the lake - and down to Globe.  What a gorgeous ride.  If I could only find one thing I don't like about the 'Wing I could prolly talk myself into a new one, but it seems to run better by the mile. 

Back to the Valley, where I finally warmed up coming down through Gonzalez pass.  Made it home literally seconds before thunder and more rain.

Bush / Cheney

George II has agreed to appear before the Sept 11 Commission only if "to save time" he can bring his life sized Vice President to help jog his memory. 

Some fun (cribbed) quips heard so far:  "Never has a public appearance been so carefully crafted to elicit a Saturday Night Live sketch;"  "I'm waiting to see if Cheney ever takes a drink of water when Bush is talking;"  "Do you think they'll use two chairs?"

Golfing with my Homeys

Golfed w/K's brother, who doesn't do arithmetic, Kid Krakow and Ron. KK became frustrated with Kb's inability to award himself a score greater than five on any hole, though he had that many before he got greenside on most.  When KK gets frustrated, he hits his drives with his putter.  And he hits them about 220 yards.  Ron just turned 69, and he was pounding them out there, too.  Hate to be out-driven by a guy using a putter and by a guy 15 years older than I.