I'm sitting here in my kitchen working on a tiny corner of table I've reclaimed from our vast array of kitch. Normally I, along with the kitch, would be in the other room, but currently there are men here fixing the fragmenting ceiling (once, long ago, our building decided to shuffle a bit in its sleep. The resulting spiderweb of lines stretch through most of the apartments). So, banished to the kitchen, I thought it a good time to catch up on some of the events of the last couple months (as for once my lack of writing has been due more to pure laziness than lack of news). My last post was in October, so I'll start there.
Halloween this year held so much promise. Jess and I had planned on a trip to Sleepy Hollow on the Monday prior to tour the graveyard, say hi to Washington Irving and perhaps hunt down a headless horseman. Then Tuesday, Mischief Night, we had planned to join some friends for a night of music, drinks and dancing at the Delancey. Finally on Wednesday we would hand out some candy in the neighborhood before heading down to the Village for the Halloween Parade; a perfect end to our three days of festivities. Instead I spent the week prior watching weather reports and hoping that Sandy would veer off into the sea or fade into a rain storm, neither of which was forecasted. By Friday I had resigned myself to the fact that our plans would be washed out and, indeed, Sleepy Hollow cemetery confirmed that afternoon that they had cancelled graveyard tours for the duration of the storm. So on Sunday, with mass transit scheduled to go offline by 7pm (a serious problem in a city where roughly 70% of the 8 million residents don't own a car) I left work at 5 to go meet Jess. She, unfortunately, was stuck at work awhile longer and advised I try and scrounge supplies at Whole Foods before we left. After waiting in line for 15 minutes just to get into the store, here are the "supplies" we procured:
- French Bread (1 dry loaf)
- Sausages (x 4)
- Assorted Vegetables (non-perishable for at least a few days
- Assorted Cheeses
- Beer (forgetting that Jess had picked up a six-pack the week before, and that I'd also got her a 6 pack of pumpkin beer a couple days later before it was sold out. This left us with no less than three full six-packs plus a bottle of wine I picked up later Sunday night. It may be time for help.)
- Kale Chips
- C Batteries (though our flashlight takes D)
Its more of a list one would make for a Superbowl party than a survival kit for a natural disaster. That night we sat round the television like 20 million others in the tri-state area and waited for the worst of it, which unfortunately we got. Jess and I did luck out, though. We live in Inwood/Washington Heights which is near the northern tip of Manhattan and the highest point on the island. In spite of a couple anxious flickers, our power held and there was no flooding by us. I was also happy to hear that, for the most part, our friends in Brooklyn had escaped relatively unscathed. For the next three days we tried to make the most of being marooned in northern Manhattan, just thankful to be safe and warm. We spent quite a lot of time at the restaurants in the area, had some friends over for an 80's goth themed horror movie marathon (Jess just wanted an excuse to wear the vintage black velvet dress she picked up recently and I just wanted to watch Friday the 13th; luckily Christian and Sam were into the idea also and we made a night of it). For Halloween we walked the neighborhood in costume (I a raven and Jess a magpie) and handed out candy to the throngs of children happy for an excuse to be outdoors after two days of seclusion. Jess was back to work Thursday while my work stayed dark until Friday evening (which is somewhat funny since Jess and I work literally around the corner from one another; on 26th street and 25th street respectively). The oddest experience of the whole storm was when I went down to meet Jess after work on Thursday and stood on the dividing line between the powered and the powerless; south of 25th draped in the thick black veil of darkness, unspoiled in the absence of light and sound. Though it wasn't what we originally planned, it honestly turned out to be a nice few days together and again I'm thankful we were so lucky. Hopefully this doesn't become an annual occurrence, though. The next Tuesday was the election and I'm equally thankful about that. Then a blizzard, then a brief bit of normality to soak in the full scope of the previous weeks, and then suddenly it was Thanksgiving.
Jess and I flew out to Indianapolis on the Monday before Thanksgiving. Our flight took us through North Carolina so I was able to check off two more states I've visited (Indiana and North Carolina, if ever so briefly). Indiana would be my first trip back to the Midwest since I was a teenager and I didn't notice too much difference between it's landscape of alternating fields and trees and Iowa's landscape of fields and trees. We drove south to Columbus where we would be spending the next few days with various grandmothers, aunts and cousins. Columbus, despite being a small Midwestern town, has the unexpected honor of being one of the country's top architectural design destinations. Cummins engines, based in Columbus, made a pledge that they would cover the architectural design fee of any public structure if the city agreed to choose from a list of architects provided by Cummins. Because of this, the city is now home to buildings from some of the 20th century's foremost architects (Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Robert Venturi, etc.). The highlight of the city's seventy plus architectural treasures, for me anyway, was the Miller house. J. Irwin Miller, the 2nd CEO of Cummins, was deeply interested in architecture and was responsible for spearheading the architectural program with the city. Set behind a row of hedges, his expansive single story home was designed by Eero Saarinen (one of his few private residence projects) while the interiors were warmly decorated by Alexander Girrard; it is truly a masterpiece of mid-century modern architecture and design. In addition to various architectural tours, our time was happily spent with family, overindulging in good drinks, good food and good times. It was a great escape from the city and I hope we'll make it back again soon.
By the time we returned to New York the weather had improved dramatically from the snow and rain we bid farewell to only a few days earlier. Jess' birthday was the following Tuesday and it was a much welcomed quiet dinner out at our favorite spot (the Garden Cafe on 207th street and Broadway beats the hell out of anything you'll find in Little Italy). Since then, the city has looked a little more like Christmas with each passing day. I wish the days weren't going so quickly, though. Rather than sitting here watching plaster and paint go up I really need to be starting my Christmas shopping (Jess and I fly out to Wisconsin on the 22nd). Unfortunately my seemingly rational question last week of "can't the repairs wait until after the holidays?" was met with the not quite as rational response of "no, the insurance company wants to get the repairs done quickly". This would make sense if the repairs hadn't remained unattended to for at least the two years we've been in this apartment in addition to however long it was between the building's little shift and our moving in. But, in the spirit of the holidays I'm trying to stay positive and make the best of an annoying situation; hence writing. Hopefully the next entry will be a little less mundane and clouded by paint fumes.
