No Pinocchio Effect Yet

As my recovery continues very well, I've taken to flat out lying to one of my drs. on one issue. I realize this is not a good thing. I still take some anti-seizure medication (even though we are well past the six month point that was initially indicated) and tapering off it increases the risk of a seizure. So he doesn't want me driving. I drove in CA recently when we were out there and intend to do so again when we go to Hawaii next month. But to him, when asked, I reply, "No, haven't. No won't." I shouldn't do that, but people shouldn't text or talk on their cell phones when driving. I don't do that and my rationalization is that is a whole lot more dangerous than driving when tapering.

Opening night at the Met tonight, Das Rheingold and one of my favorites Stephanie Blythe is in it. We have reserved seats to the free showing in Lincoln Center Plaza, but rain is forecast. It poured earlier this morning, but has virtually stopped except for a little drizzle now. Very dank still, however.

Cuffed

More than five years now in New York and, while I'm sure I have seen it before, I cannot remember passing by anyone in handcuffed custody. Until yesterday, when I saw a man taken out of Central Park past the Imagine mosaic in Strawberry Fields. Must have been some kind of enforcement sweep because just beyond that scene, heading down the pathway on the north side of Strawberry Fields toward West Drive, one of the probably unlicensed vendors was being told by a cop with a tape measure that his table did not meet the requirement for twelve feet of sidewalk clearance to let visitors pass. The vendors numbers have increased several fold (it feels) over the last year or so ever since some enterprising seller found an obscure law dating from the 19th century that allows veterans to sell on the street without a license. The area around Strawberry Fields has become particularly congested with them. So much for the park's Quiet Zone designation.

Anyway, back to the cuffs -- and then today, riding back from the museum about Broadway and 113th, another guy in cuffs being led off to a squad car. Will it be the trifecta tomorrow?

Nine Years On

I went to the New York Historical Society to watch again the HBO video made on the first anniversary of 9/11 with Giuliani and others talking of the horrors of the day and the footage, so seared in everyone's mind, of the planes striking the towers, the bodies falling, the passersby covered in dust, the volunteers combing through debris, the sad flyers of the missing, and the funerals. It was horrible to see. My wife made the right decision not to go and sit through it all again. Afterwards, all I could do was bike for an hour until I finally felt a little less awful.

And out of those few days of unity within the midst of horror, we have now come all too often to this -- a reflex demonization of other cultures and other religions, even within the midst of this country; a minister who threatens to burn copies of the Koran; an uproar over a plan to site a mosque near, but hardly on, the site where the terrorism occurred. It wasn't supposed to turn out this way. Maybe it ultimately won't, but for now at least things sure look damn ugly sometimes.

The Day I Really Became a New Yorker (of One Type)

Yes, I know what I've titled this blog, but for five or so years now "New Yorker" was more in the resident sense than the "I am a part of it" sense. That changed yesterday at the fish counter in the recently reorganized Harlem Fairway cold room. I had the headphones on, listening to Magnetic Fields, as the woman currently being served completed what seemed to be an unnecessarily complicated purchase of a couple fish fillets. This went on for another minute or so, during which time I took off the headphones, another customer, a smartly dressed woman in her fifties, drifted up to the counter, and the worker completed her sale and while punching up the code said, "Who's next?"

The later arriving customer immediately began to place her order. I, irritated by much of my day thus far and suddenly no longer the tolerant patsy, said, "Excuse me, I was here first." The woman reacted with that classic New Yorker exaggerated and exasperated sigh, the one that means "oh, all right, if you're going to trample on my right to jump ahead of you in the line, please go ahead," (some Parisians do the same thing when caught out, only the fashion there is pursing the lips and blowing an audible puff of air through them) to which I replied, "I'm sorry, but I was" and gave my order, a couple of tilapia filets for a nice recipe I do with cherries and toasted almonds. It took all of thirty seconds and when done, I resisted the temptation to say to Ms. Annoyed, "See that wasn't so bad, was it?" I'm a big boy after all.

J.'s Gourmet Health Food Deli

Two of the delis in our couple of block area are undergoing makeovers. Based on previous experience, this means they close for a while, you walk by and sometimes see work going on inside, more often see the windows papered over and the door closed, and after several weeks they reopen, perhaps under a new name, perhaps with new ownership, almost always with a brand new awning (BNA), but with exactly the same cluttered layout, the same slightly (or not so slightly) dingy interiors and the same idlers out front. In other words, why bother? Just buy and install the new awning.

So one of the two getting a current makeover is, as it proclaims itself on its BNA, J.'s Gourmet Health Food Deli. And here, as Sam and I walked the other day, in smaller print on the BNA are the first five items you can buy at the health food deli -- coffee, candy, cigarettes, soda, and lotto. Everything you need for body and financial well-being, except later in the day, in larger print, a sixth had been added -- beer.

Back Home in NYC

We arrived late last night and tonight did one of our favorite summer things, the free HD opera screenings in Lincoln Center Plaza, in tonight's case, Franco Zeffirelli's production of Puccini's last opera, Turandot. Dating from 1987, it was over the top and, thanks to the performers, tremendous. I really dislike Zeffirelli productions because the sets are so gaudy, full and huge in scale that they can dwarf the music. In this one, for example, Turandot spends much of the third act wearing what appears to be a chandelier on her head. In another life, Zeffirelli designed cars for Detroit in the 1950s, where no fin could ever be too gaudy. Turandot gets off to a slow start, dominated by opera's version of the Three Stooges, Ping, Pang, and Pong. She doesn't even make an appearance except in short silence until after the Three P's interminable Act II opening as they long to be back in their small home towns or basically anywhere other than the Peking palace where Turandot condemns to death any suitor who cannot solve her three riddles. However, the vocal fireworks arrived shortly thereafter with Maria Guleghina singing Turandot, Marcello Giordani doing Calaf, and Marina Poplavskaya performing Liu, the sacrificial servant girl. All had wonderful voices and great arias to sing. Calaf, who basically lets Liu die rather than reveal his name, which would cost him his life, and Turandot deserve one another and get each other in the end when she says his name is Love. Ridiculous plot as in so many operas, but oh, the music and the warm night and appreciative crowd in the plaza. It is great to be back.

My wife had two nice NYC moments in her first day back. Discussing the lack of flowers and sick trees along our block of Broadway with the woman who cares for the plants in the building next door (she blames Japanese beetles which, in addition to attacking the trees, also get into the soil and feast on plants), she saw a homeless man go up to a streetlight, open the access door, plug in his television and sit down on the sidewalk to watch. The gardener next door called 311 to report, saying it was a very dangerous thing to do. This was either just before or just after DD had seen a young man snatch the chair the the deli guys use to sit on outside the deli during their breaks. Two of them came tearing out after him as he beat it down the street toward 125th, caught him and, after some debate, reclaimed their chair.

Yes, indeed, it's great to be back.