Everyone at the airport is looking at their phones. Hopefully I’m the only one working on a note because writers can be vicious when describing strangers. What would they write about me, I wonder? If they had recently been reading a classic work by one of the unfortunate Brontë sisters, they might write something like…
“…in her eyes yet remained the spark of youth, like the last lingering light of a summer’s evening, the gleam of wisdom acquired through years of self-denial and servitude, and in her smile shone the love of a mother: more pure and honest than the spring song of the brook…in her peaceful countenance, the courage to laugh at things yet to come…”
David Sedaris would have been more like…
“I’m reminded every time I come to the airport, why filling my house with stuffed owls was a much better choice than taking a wife and reproducing like mosquitoes in the summer. Why do people even bother having kids? The lady to my right may only have two, but they have evidently done a number on her. Her hair looks like she was attacked by monkeys this morning and it appears the entirety of her outfit came from the bin behind Goodwill, where they toss Black Eyed Peas CDs and broken Humpty Dumpty salt shakers that have seen only slightly better days.”
David Sedaris is mean.
“Please remain seated; this will prevent any furthermore delays”
The lady on the intercom sounds like a 6-year-old girl, and the first time she spoke, at least three people near me visibly cringed. One of these being Graeme, who said he hopes she isn’t married because who can live with that?
We are waiting to board a flight to New York, thanks to my good friend Wren, who talked Graeme into being reckless and spontaneous and go see The Phantom of the Opera, which he’s been talking about for 11 years. “Go do it,” she told him while he thought it over in the kitchen, “When was the last time you did something irresponsible?”
Wren has broken many bones but has had a lot of fun in the process.
Graeme already saw the play once, when he was 11, but wanted to take me and see my reaction to it, like when people take offspring to Disneyland. He is also looking forward to seeing the show again as an adult, because now he has a better idea of what Christine means when she asks Gerard, “Am I now to be prey to your lust for…FLESH!”
Why are people browsing Instagram when there are so many interesting things unfolding in real time? If someone started filming this group of travelers and did a livestream, everyone would be watching it. It would also make a good game, Spot the Weirdo. This is good quality entertainment right here.
Such a variety of clothing, sizes and colors. One lady of considerable magnitude just strolled by wearing what were either transparent pants or loose pantyhose. Remarkable.
A guy with an entire mouthful of golden teeth followed closely behind, grinning widely. Some dude took his shoes off and is walking around in bright blue socks with gingerbread men on them.
But nobody else saw the golden teeth, exposed underwear, or cookie socks because they were on Tinder, swiping right or left or possibly diagonally, I’m not sure how it works. But there’s no way the girl to the right of Graeme is making swipes based on an informed decision. She’s flying through these dude selfies so quick. What if the one gazing dreamily into the horizon with a drink in his hand was the one?
Regrets, she’ll have a few.
The guy sitting to my left is in his late 60s and is not David Sedaris, thank heavens. He reminds me of Bob Goff, except Bob is way too restless and busy saving entire continents to watch squash games on his phone. But they look similar. White hair, glasses, friendly. He turned and smiled tentatively at me, in the way of a stranger who wants to say something but isn’t sure if he should break the stranger-stranger confidentiality. I smiled back, giving him permission, just as the little girl announced for the fifth time over the intercom, that they were sanitizing the aircraft and her favorite colors are pink, purple, and yellow.
“Whew, that voice is something else. Poor girl,” said Bob, much to my delight. I told him how my husband hopes she’s not married, but Bob was more considerate. “I hope she is,” he replied with a chuckle, “gonna be hard to find someone to put up with that noise.”
I won the game. I spotted the weirdo. The pantyhose lady was just recklessly confident, which sounds like an Old Navy ad. But the REAL winners were actually a duo. These guys, man. I was discreet in my examination of them, but there were dozens of other people around who gaped at them simultaneously amused, confused, and appalled.
They were probably in their late forties, but could have also been in their mid-twenties and just had way too much fun at parties where people sometimes die. The woman had turned a glossy green eiderdown into a stiff, floor-length tent-skirt. It seemed like a good idea on Pinterest, but the results weren’t quite what she had in mind…this happened to me once, when I found a cute 3-tier cat cake. I had good intentions, but the final product ended up looking like a white Jabba the Hut with whiskers. But don’t distract me, I was describing this lady’s outfit…
In addition to the sewing project, she wore a tiny crop top, which facilitated the inspection of her entirely tattooed middle. There were tiger stripes, a woman’s face, and a variety of indecipherable doodles.
She walked with a cane in one hand, her service dog’s leash in the other. Although storms are rare inside the airport, she went through security with huge fluffy earmuffs that reminded me of small dogs’ heads. Past service animals, perhaps. Both her and her companion (also peculiarly dressed but not quite so memorable) looked jumpy and whispered to each other a lot, attracting even more attention. But perhaps the most remarkable features of this fellow passenger lady were her tattooed freckles à la Pippi Longstocking. Just for good measure, she had finished off the look with an esoteric tattoo smack in the middle of her forehead.
Who needs Instagram at the airport?
Forest was two years old the last time Graeme and I went on a trip just the two of us. He survived, but just barely, and when we came back, had developed the unpleasant habit of demanding an adult sleep in his crib with him, which my brother had been doing the whole time we were gone.
Now we might come back to the kids making similar or worse demands, since Grandpa Jim is even more accommodating than Uncle Daniel. Maybe they’ll want breakfast in bed. Perhaps I should find some fans and upon our return, ask them, like the Indian in Gerald Durrell’s book,
“Would you like me to make zee wind in your face?”
Because we are tourists with preconceived notions based on movies, we got in the Uber and asked our friendly African driver if it was safe to ride the subway and walk around at night.
“Oh yes, yes. Very safety,” he responded reassuringly, making me wonder if he knows about movies. But he seemed sincere and we’ve seen worse, so after we dropped off our bags at the hotel, we went for a walk.
I realized very quickly I was ill-prepared for the weather of New York City in early March. It wasn’t so much the cold but the wind that got to me. When we got back to our room many hours later, my eyes looked like mid-May cherries. Not all the way red, but mostly.
The wind had been good to my hair, though and it looked kind of fabulous. We stopped by H&M and bought their last small hoodie which I immediately put on over my jacket, tying the hood strings under my chin as tight as they would go for that classic Oompa in the TV room look. My sister’s mother-in-law once spoke these words of wisdom:
“Andando caliente, aunque se ría la gente.”
We walked and walked, rarely waiting for the walking dude to light up, but rather, looking out for cars and then following the people who were crossing anyway.
There is a never-ending air of urgency about the city. Everyone is running late to very important meetings with famous people in famous buildings. A cannibalistic pig ate hotdogs off the sidewalk real quick before his interview with Stephen Colbert.
The coffee truck outside Ralph Lauren is well-stocked with fancy granola bars, and the dudes who take your order and provide napkins are dressed like the models on the billboards behind them.
A ginormous, shirtless Michael B. Jordan flexes his muscles and sniffs his armpit sensually on one of the screens wrapped around a skyscraper in Times Square. He giggles a little as the camera zooms in on the elastic on his underwear. You too, should cover your buns with this superior brand of chones if you want to look like this.
On another giant screen, four sets of giant women smile and pose together. At least I assume they’re smiling. You can’t actually see their faces, just a closeup of their shorts, which you should wear if you want your crotch to look this fabulous. There’s a new Guillermo del Toro film coming out soon. It’s creepy and weird and will get many awards for being weird and creepy, in an artistic way.
Ray-Ban. Chanel. A woman sniffs a flower and that’s an Ad for Burberry. I didn’t know they made flowers. Gal Gadot or possibly that Mexican actress with all the facial surgeries, gosh darn what’s her name again? Anyway, one or the other is on a screen, posing seductively next to a bottle of perfume that will ensure you look just like either one of them, without the bother of all those surgeries…
A yellow M&M guy smiling, some new superhero smiling, A lady in lingerie and lots of rolls smiling, Jesus saves you from your sins.
What’s that now? A lone missionary stands in the middle of Times Square with a Bible in hand, yelling at the top of his lungs “We are all destined for hell because of our sins!” Directly to his left, a group of four dancers work on a choreography while their friend takes a video to post on YouTube later.
“Shake dat ting, Miss Cana, Cana.”
“You can be saved from eternal damnation!”
“Shake dat ting, Miss Annabella.”
“It tells you right here in the Bible…”
“Shake dat ting, yo Donna, Donna.”
“Jesus loves you and wants to save you!”
“Jodi and Rebecca.”
“All you need to do is…”
“Woman, get busy, just shake dat booty non-stop…”
Poor guy. I felt so bad for him and his most likely wasted efforts, and vocal cords. I suggested to Graeme we go over and let him convert us to Christianity, to boost his morale, but we went back to the hotel instead.
The following morning, wearing many more clothes than the previous day, we headed out to do some more walking around the city. At the time, I was still blissfully oblivious of the painful price my back would soon pay for this endless walking…
I don’t remember ever seeing in Friends or Lyle, Lyle Crocodile the magnificent trash pyramids of New York. Those never make it to the movies or the flower sniffing ads. Alicia Keys forgot to sing about them in her song. By the way, that is such a poorly written song, even though it took like 41 people to write it.
Baby, I’m from New York
Concrete Jungle where dreams are made of
There’s nothing you can’t do
Wait a second. Go back. Where dreams are made of what? Garbage bags? That sentence is as unfinished as Trump’s wall and even more upsetting, really. I mean, how irresponsible for a writer not to finish a
The trash is everywhere. Piles of garbage bags as tall as myself, stacked neatly along sidewalks every day. Pigeons pooping everywhere, expensive stores with no one in them except security guards, scaffolding around every other building, street magicians, more security guards, women in skirts and heels, admirable not for their fashion sense but rather, their commitment to it despite freezing winds.
There are many stores selling trinkets and clothing to prove to your friends you came to New York (and love it), and outside one of these fine establishments, stood a magician whose appearance was so unsettling I think his father might have been Mungo Jerry and his mother Jafar. I have a theory that very impressive magicians really have made a pact with the devil, and I typically avoid them at all costs, not because I’m superstitious, but because I am a little stitious.
This time, however, we lingered a little too long, fascinated at the levitating cigarette that wasn’t attached to anything at all. Jafar Jr. then made eye contact with Graeme, without his consent, and my husband of eleven years, who has always been a very grounded man, began slowly rising up in the air, involuntarily, until his shoes were at least three inches above the sidewalk, to the astonishment of every onlooker. That didn’t happen. Would have been a cool story, though.
What really happened was unsettling enough. They really did make eye contact, and then Jafungo walked over and asked Graeme if he could look in his jacket pocket. Upon opening said pocket, we found the lit cigarette that had just been floating a few feet away a moment ago. We backed away slowly and I added this experience to my list of accidental sins. I truly suspect this fellow with the evil eye twitch has friends in even lower places than Garth Brooks.
A bearded fellow plays Simon and Garfunkel on his guitar at the park. Ah, so peaceful. Takes me back to a simpler time. But wait, he’s doing a Facebook live. Never mind. Some friendly Asian ladies sell handmade knitted trinkets that serve absolutely no purpose. We pay them and continue on our quest to find the house on 88th street, where, if you listen closely, you can hear SWISH, SWASH, SPLASH, SWOOSH! That’s Lyle, Lyle, the anthropomorphic crocodile having a bath. And the books are much, much better than the movie, just so you know. In the books, the mother’s behavior and singing voice doesn’t assault the senses.
The house is actually on 85th street, and also, crocodiles don’t usually sing, but the kids really liked the movie, and seeing as we abandoned them for the first time in five years to come on this trip, sending them a selfie in front of the house was the least we could do.
Except we went the wrong way. Crossed Central Park, walked down the entirety of 85th street, and then realized once we reached the water, that it was on the opposite end. By now my back was beginning to show the first signs of abuse. But I was determined to find this reptilian residence, so after sitting on a sticky bench where someone probably peed recently, we got up, walked all the way back up 85th street, crossed Central Park again, and continued our quest on the other end of the street.
Graeme may have his ears pierced, but he is a true man, and I know this for sure because he never, under any circumstances, asks for directions.
I don’t have a manly reputation to upkeep, however, so I approached a lady who looked like a local, walking with her ten-year-old son who had just gotten out of school. Graeme stayed a few feet behind, withering a little because he knew what I was about to do.
Did she know where they filmed the movie? She seemed a little embarrassed to admit it but yes, yes, she did. She pointed to the place where we needed to turn, and explained that although the door is green in the movie (Lyle’s preference), the real door is not.
Would we have figured this out on our own? Yes, we would have, says Graeme with a grunt and a beer in his hand. But not really because it was too cold for that.
I thought there would be a small crowd taking pictures and annoying the real people inside this famous house, but we were the only ones loitering outside, taking selfies. It was very satisfying, standing right in front of the very steps where Javier Bardem made a fool of himself with song and dance. Very heartwarming.
Take a look at us now, take a look at us now ♫
We stopped by the library where Christopher Robin’s original toys are kept. The ancient toys that inspired his father, A. A. Milne to write the Winnie the Pooh books. In a cruel twist of fate, the heartwarming books written for and about a beloved boy, were the very thing that kept Milne away from his family in the end, and Christopher wished he had been into LEGOs instead, because nobody could write heartwarming books about building blocks, but they hadn’t been invented yet…
Piglet is small, brown, and scarfless. Roo was lost somewhere in the hundred-acre wood, leaving behind Kanga, whose pouch is now free for storing useful things, like her chapstick and driver’s license. Pooh is beige and fully nude, as opposed to the yellow, half-dressed Pooh you know and love. Eeyore is gray and depressed, and Tigger looks like he bounced a little too much in his youth.
We also stopped by the Museum of Natural History to see where Ben Stiller did all those embarrassing things, but the round desk was gone, and it was daytime, so the big dinosaur hadn’t yet come to life and just stood there looking like a lot of bones.
At F.A.O. Schwarz, we marveled at the wide selection of toys and candy you wouldn’t find anywhere else. All sorts of food-looking candies, including sushi and a disgusting gummy pizza, a giant gummy bear with a menacing face, challenging you to eat him without throwing up, and a 3-pound gummy worm in a huge box, good for self-defense, or as a gift for someone you hold a grudge against.
Perhaps what I enjoyed the most in this excellent toy store, however, was the employee who went to college in Texas. In an effort to make this establishment a magical place in which to separate you of your money, everyone who works here wears a headset and they describe what they’re selling as if it were a magic show. Some of the employees take this task very seriously and rehearse their lines and jokes, which they repeat all day. But this one guy, distracted from his magical duties by a couple of attractive female employees across the way, stood in the middle of the store having a private conversation with the ladies through his microphone.
“So, how did you like living in Texas?”
“Ah, it was a good experience, overall…”
At the LEGO store, we posed in a LEGO taxi, where Graeme withered further, because men with high testosterone levels don’t like it when their wives ask strangers to take pictures of them.
It was time to head back to the hotel and get our fancy clothes on, because in Graeme’s childhood recollections, all the men in the theater wore tuxedos, and all the women stilettos. He also remembered vividly a majestic stage of formidable dimensions, and the most spectacular chandelier, not just for its tremendous size, but for its intricate beauty, coming down from the ceiling as the dramatic pianist played the theme song, which goes, as you know:
DUN! DU-DU-DU-DU-DUN!
We arrived in our fancy pants and got in line, behind a lady in yoga pants and a sweatshirt that read “I look better bent over.” This sweatshirt exists and I saw it a few months later at the airport in San Diego, but it goes well with the story now, so we will pretend the lady in front of us was wearing it. She was definitely wearing yoga pants, though.
Lots of running shoes, raggedy backpacks, hoodies. Graeme looked around sheepishly and thanked me (not out loud, you see, but in his mind, perhaps) for not letting him buy a suit for the occasion, a dream of his I promptly shut down, reminding him most of his life is spent in a woodshop, and the rest of it, shirtless on the trampoline.
We took our seats and the sheepish look lingered on his bewhiskered face, as he (and I) realized the theater really wasn’t much bigger than the one here in town where little kids of dubious talent hop around the stage, and sacrificial parents clap, mostly out of love. The Majestic, whose name should be reconsidered (The Acceptable) was a little old, a little dingy, a little little. Graeme turned and smiled at me, silently, apologetically. I smiled back and clapped, mostly out of love. We’re here now. Chin up and all that sort of thing.
The show started and we braced ourselves as lot 665 gave way to lot 666, and a chandelier, way bigger than a couple flashlights swung from the ceiling onto the stage as the music went DUN! And well, you know the rest. I gave Graeme’s hand a reassuring pat. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.
The show was good. It really was. But 11-year-old boys are much more easily impressed than their future selves and wife. As we walked out, a guy in sweatpants asked his girlfriend, “Well, what did you think?” She sighed and replied, “The movie was way better.”
But I didn’t say that because what sort of uncultured swine admits a movie is better than a live Broadway performance? Not this swine.
The following night, Graeme walked through our front door, and I hobbled closely behind, wondering how much walkers cost. Everyone was already asleep, so we didn’t get to see the kids until the morning.
I had been looking forward to this, imagining a heartwarming reunion with the kids who loved us so dearly and missed us tremendously. I got up at 7:30, to find Grace in the kitchen. She looked at me from across the room and with a worried look on her face, inquired, “Is Grandpa Jim still here?” Ah, well. I really can’t blame her. Grandpa Jim is an excellent fellow who considers all tears to be genuine and is unfamiliar with the word “no.”
Forest’s welcome was equally anticlimactic, which reminded me of the time I planned an elaborate surprise trip to see my brother in Australia. I jumped out at him from behind the couch, expecting to give him the shock of his life. After a full eight seconds, he turned around slowly and said, “Oh, hi,” or something equally memorable. Then he walked over, cool and collected, and pinched my butt.
Two days after getting back from New York, I could barely move. Graeme drove me to the chiropractor and then had to help me get out of the car and into the office, where a couple in their early 100s eyed me with concern. You know you have a serious problem when someone named Ruth is in better health than you.
As I sat in the waiting room, wincing, Forest, still slightly bitter after having been denied the opportunity to see a man hanging from the neck onstage, leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I guess going to see the Phantom and the Opera wasn’t such a good idea, was it?” I laughed weakly, “I have no regrets.”
I repeated that to myself many times over the next two weeks, which is how long it took for my back to revert to its normal, acceptable condition. During this time, I laid in various surfaces throughout the house, examining vents and ceiling fans, reminiscing about our recent reckless trip while eating gummy pizzas.
I do regret those. They were the worst.
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