Monkling's Blog

I’m not sure if that’s a real word but if it’s not, it should be.

This afternoon Theresa and I went into the city to meet up with friends, herein referred to as The Tourists. We were pretty much just tagging along with whatever plans they had. Today the plan was to go on the Staten Island ferry. You see – the ferry is free and passes by the Statue of Liberty.

Did I mention going into the Statue of Liberty in the summer is like going into one of the circles of hell? Seriously, that is how hot it is. Also, thanks to our friendly neighborhood terrorists, security there is tighter than at the White House. If The Tourists had planned on going there, we would not have joined them.

We traveled downtown by train, planning to meet up with The Tourists. They had spent the morning shopping. (2 of The Tourists are teenage girls.) Theresa had not yet had lunch so we grabbed something for her and then looked for a shady spot to sit in while we waited for The Tourists. This is where we ended up:

This is the cemetery behind St. Paul’s chapel. That pale blue in the background, beyond the fence, is the World Trade Center. When Frank worked there, they used to walk across to eat lunch in the cemetery. After 9/11, the fence was covered with things people left – cards, banners, stuffed animals. Every inch was covered. The cemetery is 200 years old & there are famous historic people buried there. Just don’t ask me who. As I said the The Tourists when they asked me what a building was, “I have no idea. I’m not a damn tour guide!”

Hey. Just because I live here – does that mean I should know everything about the city??

This afternoon a friend of mine, along with her family, arrived in NY. Theresa & I went into the city to meet them for dinner. We live way out in eastern Queens so, rather than taking a bus and then the subway, we took the LIRR (Long Island Railroad) in. Then took the subway for 1 stop up into Times Square.

It was during the subway part of our trip that I saw something I have never seen before. Now, mind you, I’m 51 & I’ve taken the subway thousands of times. I used to work in the city and took it every day for years. And yet, I never, ever saw what I witnessed today.

Now you’re probably picturing I saw something horrible because y’all have probably heard horror stories about the NYC subway and how scary it is. (Not really, though. They exaggerate.) It wasn’t anything like that. What we saw was someone trying to get on without paying. Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen people jump the turnstiles. Usually younger people do that. Teenagers, athletic sorts who hop it like they’re jumping hurdles. But this was a middle age woman. And she didn’t hop it. She crawled under it. Theresa and I just looked at each other, mouths opened in shock. Then we spent the next few minutes laughing but trying not to let her see we were laughing.

That’s why I like riding the subway. There’s always something entertaining to see.

This afternoon we had a little trip down memory lane, a flashback to when we were first married.

For the first 9 months of our marriage, we lived in a 1 bedroom apartment 20 minutes west of where we live now. It was an area of Queens that was way more congested – more traffic, more people, close to zero parking spaces. It did have the advantage of being walking distance to the subway, though, and a much shorter commute for Frank & myself. (We both worked in the city back in those days.)

For that short time, our parish was St. Mary’s. It was about 5 or so blocks away from the apartment. We’d usually walk since driving meant spending an additional hour once we got back from Mass circling for a parking space. We liked it there and were happy with our little apartment and our Church until we realized, fairly early on, that we’d be needing a second bedroom.

We moved into our current home a month before Stephen was born and haven’t been back at St. Mary’s since. Until today.

One of the seminarians had his candidacy today at that Church. (Steve had his last year. You were all forced to read every detail about it here and here and all the surrounding days.) We’ve known this seminarian, Chris, since high school and he will be heading to Rome next month.

Y’all know how much I love seeing my boys so of course we had to attend the Mass. I don’t know why I feel like a proud mother when I see all the seminarians (& some of the younger priests) processing in but I just do. I can’t help myself, even if I barely know some of them. But this post isn’t about my boys. It’s about me because this is my blog.

We walked into the Church for the first time in 24 years. I turned to Frank & Theresa. “The last time I was here, I was pregnant with Stephen!” I looked around at the Church. The outside, the surrounding neighborhood – they all looked familiar but the Church itself didn’t. I do remember it being a very beautiful Church but the details were all forgotten. I suppose having only been a parishioner for 9 months and then not setting foot there for so long had it’s toll on my brain & my memory.

After Mass, we stepped outside. Excitedly I pointed across the street at the cake outlet factory. “We used to stop in there every Sunday after Mass!” I rambled on about the cake, about Guido (our landlord’s name -which, by the way, I had to stifle a laugh when he was first introduced, all sorts of things from our past. Theresa was bored but pretended to pay attention.

I have decided that my next trip should be to Brooklyn, to the place I grew up. I’m pretty sure after 30 years, there probably won’t be much that’ll be familiar but I now have this urge to drag Theresa around and show her my roots. And I don’t mean the ones on my head.

This post falls into the “People Are Stupid and Lazy” category. Y’all will recall that I live across the street from a school. You may even recall me complaining about people who pick up their kids and park in my driveway, in the middle of the street, and all sorts of random places.

This afternoon, Theresa went outside to see this:

The gray car on the right is her car. Well, my car that she has temporary custody of. The green car on the left belongs to a parent. Now wouldn’t you say they are parked just a wee bit close to my car?

I was hoping to give the woman a bit of a scare by being out there with my camera. She was unfazed and unapologetic. Another woman who was about to park in my driveway, however, thought better of it and drove further down the block to a real parking spot.

The offender, on the other hand, was belligerent and acted as if her parking skills were perfectly fine & that she did nothing wrong. What was I worried about? A slightly crushed license plate? I couldn’t help remarking that, since it wasn’t raining out and was, in fact, rather nice out, that I didn’t see the necessity in trying to park as close as possible to the school doors instead of finding a legitimate parking spot. I didn’t add the next part – that she certainly looked like she could use the exercise that walking 10 extra feet would give her.

Her rational in parking so close to my car may have been that she thought she was clearing the driveway of my neighbors. If that was the case, then she needs her eyes checked:

It seems to me that she’s hanging into their driveway by a good 2 feet at least. Judging by her crumpled license plate, I’d assume her parking skills could use a bit of work. Meantime, I’m thinking it sure would be fun to post the license plate numbers of people someplace on line, with their pictures.

It’s kind of interesting looking out your window and seeing a news truck, camera people & a reporter doing a live broadcast and watching the broadcast on TV at the same time.

I also had no idea just how noisy news trucks can be. There’s this loud, humming sound coming from across the street. Sounds like a generator.

2 weeks ago there was a gas leak and a house on the block behind me blew up. The explosion was so powerful, everyone on my block, including myself, thought it was in our own house. That’s how badly our homes shook & how loud the blast was.

Now they’re having some sort of community meeting in the school across the street with a bunch of politicians and the local utility company. I guess I should be there. That is, if I wanted to sit for 2 hours and listen to a bunch of garbage.

Frankly, they can tell us all they want about what they’re doing to make sure this never happens again and that I’m safe and my house isn’t going to blow up but I won’t believe a word of it. And I’m pretty sure it’s little comfort to the husband & 3 kids who lost their wife/mother in the explosion.

Yesterday morning, as I was driving Theresa back & forth to a local public school (she has to observe a 1st grade class that has learning disabled kids in the same class as ‘normal’ kids) I learned a few thing about driving rules in NY. It’s kind of strange because I’ve been driving in NY for 30 years now and yet, it seems I am ignorant of the rules of the road, as well as requirements for crossing guards.

Rule #1 – If you are a utility trunk, a garbage truck or a parks department truck, that means you can completely ignore one way signs. They’re not for you. They’re just for ordinary folks like me.

Rule #2 – Despite what you may think, people driving straight do not have the right of way over people making left turns. Nope. Here in NYC, apparently people making left turns can go first and cut off the drivers who are going straight.

Rule #3 – Hire crossing guards who are sight impaired and can’t see turn signals. That rule makes driving by a school kinda fun. The crossing guard will wave frantically to you, signaling that you should proceed through the intersection. Clearly she did not see the right turn signal, nor the woman standing in the middle of the street.

Now there’s where it pays to not be a rule follower. If I had blindly obeyed her and had made my right turn, the woman would be road kill. Instead I chose to roll down my window and state the obvious. “I can’t run her down,” I said, pointing to the woman.

“Oh, I didn’t see your turn signal.” Yep, don’t you want her helping your child cross the street?

Recently I was trying to explain to a non-New Yorker the difference between the subway & the LIRR. Her thoughts were a train is a train & they’re all the same. Ah, the poor misinformed woman! Let me point out the differences:

The subway has entertainment (story to follow). The LIRR usually doesn’t. The LIRR is way more expensive (one way during rush hour can range from $6 – $21 depending on the distance while the subway is $2 regardless of time or distance). The LIRR has soft, cushy seats. The subway has hard, molded plastic seats. The subway runs trains more often. The LIRR runs fewer trains. (If it’s not rush hour, they only run once an hour from one of the local stations nearby. Miss that train by a minute or 2 & you have an hour wait for the next one.)

So – yep, big differences between the 2. I’ve also found a lot of people who live near me, where the nearest subway stop is 7 miles away, are afraid of riding the subway. They’re a bunch of wimps. I, on the other hand, having grown up in Brooklyn sorta like it. You never know what you’re going to see on the subway.

Last week, as I waited on a platform for the E train, an elderly man walked by. He had one of those signs – a wooden stick with cardboard, sort of like those, “The World Is Coming To An End” signs. I only caught part of what it said because the number 1 rule in the subway is you don’t stare at people. The part that I did catch said something like, “Everything isn’t peachy in Georgia.” (I assume he wasn’t referring to the state.) Now you just don’t see that sort of thing if you’re riding the LIRR.

Nor do you usually experience what Frank did recently. He leaves for work early and usually falls asleep during part of the train ride. He was woken up by the sound of banging and cursing. Smack in the middle of the car was a woman sitting on the floor who was demanding that someone get up and give her a seat. After listening to her for a while, the man next to Frank offered her his seat. She didn’t want his seat. She pointed to Frank. “I want his seat!”

Most of the people watching this chuckled, as did my husband, as he got up to give her his seat. The first man had already gotten up as well when he made her his offer. She then sat down, sprawled across both seats. She then continued to curse and bang so I guess she was a bit angry over something other than the lack of seats.

Now while that sort of thing can be entertaining, there really is actual entertainment at some of the stations and occasionally, in the actual train. Most of the entertainment involves musical instruments, some of which are quite unusual. Last week someone was playing something that looked like a pumpkin with a broom stuck in it. In spite of the odd appearance, it sounded really nice.

And there you have it – trains aren’t all the same after all.

It’s not for lack of trying, though. In 2002, the first year following the attack, we were able to see the blue pillars of light from here, all the way in Queens. Today I was hoping to get a photo to post here so I drove to the highest point I could think of but no luck. I drove around for about half an hour, hoping to find a decent vantage point where I’d be able to see the lights. Couldn’t see a thing. I suspect it had something to do with the cloudy weather.

Frank walked by the World Trade Center on his way home from work tonight to pay his respects. He said during lunchtime, you could barely walk around downtown because of the crowds. He’s on Wall Street now, not far from the WTC. (If anyone’s new to my blog, Frank worked in the World Trade Center. I posted about it last year.)

On a lighter note, tonight Theresa asked me if I would drop some sorority stuff off to her that she left home. It’s a lucky thing her college is close, eh? So I park the car & walk into the dorm like I belong there. The girl manning the front desk wasn’t familiar but she didn’t question me. When I got to the 4th floor, I hear a chorus of girls yelling out, “Hi Theresa’s mom!” I found that pretty funny. But not as funny as one of the girls saying to me, “Make Theresa do her own laundry!” (Earlier this week, I did a load for her and dropped it off.)

A few minutes ago I opened the door to let the dog out. The air outside was filled with smoke. It seemed to be coming from in front of the house. I ran to the front, thinking my house was on fire. Nope, no flames shooting up. I checked the neighbor’s house. (Sure I dislike them because they are loud & obnoxious but I wouldn’t let their house burn down, as much as I might like that idea.) No fire there, either.

I followed the dog to the back of the house. Smoke was billowing over the fence from the barbecue grill of Loud Obnoxious Teenager Boy. I have no idea what on earth they could be cooking that would produce that much smoke. Maybe they’re burning remains? Or maybe I watch way too much TV & read too many books that involves using the word “remains?”

What would be really funny is if I grabbed the hose & started spraying over the fence. As they yell, “What the heck are you doing!” I can say I thought something was on fire. Which clearly must be the case. But if Frank caught me doing that, he’d get angry & he should be home from the nursing home any minute. Darn!

Or, perhaps, woman. I wouldn’t know exactly who was doing the ironing although I did find this quote by Erma Bombeck: “My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.” I’m thinking someone up in the Bronx must have felt the same way.

Yesterday, as we were getting onto the highway to go back home after being at the nursing home, I looked out my window and saw an ironing board on the side of the highway. There wasn’t an iron and this entrance isn’t near anything else aside from the nursing home. So what I want to know is how did the ironing board get there. Did someone toss it out their car window? If they did, what the heck were they doing with an ironing board in their car in the first place? Who wanders around with an ironing board and then just chucks in alongside a highway?

I think the only explanation is that someone just got fed up with ironing and shot the ironing board out of a cannon. What? Too unrealistic?

And speaking of driving… What? I wasn’t talking about driving? Well yes I did. I mentioned how we were driving home. Anyway, today I was driving to pick up Theresa and I had to pass a railroad crossing where I normally make a left turn. (No, not onto the tracks so don’t be funny!) There’s a bit of a lineup of cars waiting for the same left turn. The guy in the car in front of me is on the tracks. Who the heck stops on railroad tracks??