2021 ConnectiCOUCH Part 3a: A taste of New Jersey, and NYC

[theinfamousj]

... And then it was morning. Wednesday. Our day of 14 hours of go-go-go NYC action.

The Significant Other woke from sleep at 6:30 am thanks to the rising temperatures in the Prius as the sun was up and had taken it upon itself to heat up the world. We had an 8 am appointment in NYC to slide the car into the valet garage we'd scored on SpotHero (mostly in order to prevent the theft of the catalytic converter) for $20. Our overnight parking spot was only an hour away from the NYC parking garage, accounting for traffic, so we had an extra half hour to play with.

The Significant Other woke me after waking himself, because he decided we needed to leave our cozy, wooded overnight retreat and head off to the local Walmart (why Walmart? no one knows.) for morning bathroom usage. I dutifully changed into day-clothes, and then crept through Motel Prius and into my passenger's seat and gathered my toothbrush and toothpaste to make use of Walmart's bathroom. I also located my mask for the day - we had brought along enough masks as to have daily ones for the entire trip - and suddenly brightened at the idea that Walmart meant an opportunity to get a large enough flash drive to be able to finally do the Linux dual-boot install I had been hoping for.

Luckily, the Walmart was on the way, as in exactly on the side of the road we had to take, in order to get to the Lincoln Tunnel. I did manage to get the flash drive (and cheaply, too), but I need to tell you more about the Lincoln Tunnel and why we had to cross the Hudson River just exactly that way.



We had to go through the Lincoln Tunnel because the Prius was a rental from Turo. We'd discovered a use case that Turo hadn't counted for: renting someone else's personal and private car with contactless tolls. All other Hudson crossings offered contactless by-mail tolls which meant they took a photo of the license plate and at some point in the distant future would send a bill by mail to the address on record for the license plate. To ask the Turo "host" to pay our by-mail toll, even if we gave them more than the fee was to cost, would be the height of rudeness. The alternative would be to have an EZPass, but the lead time on an application for one of them was much higher than the amount of time we had available.

I am sure that in the future, Turo will introduce some software-based way to work around situations such as this. But should they not, we'll simply cross the Hudson River in Albany where the closest free-crossing is to be found.

But in the interim, something had gone wrong with the installation of the contactless cameras for the Lincoln Tunnel and that installation was being repaired. Until October, this being August, the toll booths were being manned by humans who were accepting paper bills to pay the tolls. And so, this was an answer to our dilemma: we brought our $16 toll fare with us in cash and handed it to a woman working in a booth.

After emerging from the other side of the Lincoln Tunnel, we quickly navigated to and into our valet garage, gathered our things for the next 14 hours, and at precisely 8:02 am, surrendered the car and reassured the attendants that we weren't going to want it back until 10 pm. Then we set out to see what NYC had to offer us. The day was already starting to broil.

Our first stop? The bathroom of course! The Significant Other pulled up a website that listed all the public accessible toilets in NYC and pointed us to Rockefeller Center where he was sure a toilet would be. After entering the building from a side entrance, we were met by a very determined if servile building security man who wanted to know our purpose, looking not altogether different than Kenneth from 30 Rock. We told him that we were seeking a toilet and he informed us that the toilets in the building we were in were still closed due to COVID concerns, but pointed us to the next nearest toilet, with a much eased manner. As we walked over to the truly opened toilet, we learned that there was an outdoor taping of the Today Show, which would explain why randoms wandering around were unwelcome; Al Roker was doing something with a grill and the story was about cooking food outdoors.

So off we set, skirting around the taping of the Today Show, to the other Rockefeller Center building with the bathroom. Upon arriving at the front, this time, door to that building, we were met by a woman whose nervous energy was exceeded only by the length of her false eyelashes, holding an iPad, and demanding to know our business. Once again, we stated that we were there to use the bathroom and she pointed us directly to elevators - elevators in a time of COVID! - to take down into the bowels of the building to "the Concourse level" where we were to find the toilets.

And ride those elevators we did. Luckily, it was just myself and Significant Other on the elevators because I did not want to spend that much time that closely constrained with randoms bringing me deadly virus. On alighting from the elevators, we were met with the post-apocalyptic wasteland bowels of a building that may have, in wealtier times, sported an underground arcade, but in the present day everything was shuttered and rundown. There, among it all, was another security officer attired in a suit, but one made of tactical fabric, standing in front of the toilets. Significant Other made a beeline into his.

After waiting for him for a bit, it occurred to me that I probably would benefit from going to the toilet as well, even though I didn't have to urgently; like when you were headed out on a long drive as a child and your adult encouraged you to visit the loo before the trip even if you didn't need to go. And so I walked in to the Ladies'. No sooner did I enter the inner sanctum where I was considering my stall, than an alarm started blaring, announcing an active shooter and encouraging us all to take cover. I quickly exited the restroom to find the same building security lady still nonplussed and lounging against the wall across from the toilets.

"Can we still use the bathroom with the sirens going on? Or do we need to go somewhere?" I asked.

"Nah, he just hit it with his hammer while doing renovation and it isn't a real alarm," replied the woman. "Go do your thing."

So, back into the restroom went I, to use the toilet, and to refill my water jar.

Water jar full, I collected the Significant Other and, with now a fair amount of building administration milling around us and heading over to the utility cabinet which I am sure housed the sensor for the offending alarm, we exited the Concourse level and the building ... but on a different side from The Today Show taping. Now, we were facing Saint Patrick's Cathedral which the Significant Other made a beeline for as it was a tourist attraction. I pointed out that as a tourist attraction, it was going to require an admission fee, and he had to sit with that information for a bit before absorbing it. Indeed, a fee was being charged and we, being neither of us Catholic nor extravagant travelers, decided to pass on this tourist attraction this time.

And so, we set off on foot for the nearest subway station with the plan of going to the High Line. We got a few blocks when I espied a giant inflatable rat on a street corner.



Image Description: My Significant Other stands before a two story tall inflatable rat perched on its hind legs, on whose belly is a handwritten poster just too small to read, adhered to the inflatable rat with an X of duct tape.

This was interesting! This wasn't something done by NYC to attract tourists, but was clearly something being done to attract public attention to a cause. I made a beeline. It turns out that the rat was just one of three inflatables that surrounded a building: rat, mouse, and fat cat (a cat anthropomorphized in a business suit with a pinkie ring on one claw and holding a smoked cigar), all of which were trying to shame the owner of the building they were surrounding for his poor support of the health of the workers completing the renovation of the building, both in asbestos PPE as well as COVID PPE. I thought it well done and probably quite important and hoped that along with inflatables on sidewalks, there were also lawsuits as the charges certainly sounded like something to be settled in civil court.

After that, because I'd headed in the wrong direction for the subway in order to get to the inflatables, the Significant Other pointed out that if we just kept walking as we already were, we would be in Central Park. I will admit that despite having grandparents on Long Island who I visited often, Gramps working in Queens and me going to work with him from time to time, and another Grandmother in Brooklyn, and cousins and uncles umpteumph times removed, I've never been to Central Park. So of course I requested that we go to Central Park! And so we did.

Once there, I marveled at how much free hand sanitizer was available to grab - and I did - at the Central Park Zoo. Again, because the zoo had an admission fee, we skipped it, but the hand sanitizer was freely available before that point. Beyond the zoo were wealthy living buildings and from the entrances of Central Park came strollers filled with children and being pushed by nannies. I marveled at the fact that my Nanny-dar worked beautifully in NYC, but also at the difference between NYC nannies and my work environment in NC; they were almost exclusively accented minorities and seemed quite isolated from one another whereas here in NC we have a healthy mix of everybody-at-all-ever serving as nannies (college students are the bargain nanny) and we cluster together even if we've never met before and collaboratively playdate supervise. I suppose this is why it is so uncommon to find truly experienced nannies in NYC vs where I am that the majority of the nanny market - save college students - is 10+ years of experience, because that level of NYC isolation can burn a person out quick (and probably the pay isn't great either as I've noticed that internet parents tend to think that minorities are the bargain option when it comes to childcare).

Even the Significant Other was suprised at the number of nannies in Central Park on a Wednesday morning and asked if there were any parents. I did point out one Mom, strolling in her athleisure with a gal pal by her side, talking about how much money her husband earns so that she could be priveledged to be a stay at home Mom and take her own kid to the park. Had she not been so loudly boasting of her family's financial situation, I still would have pegged her for a parent because she had a friend.

I will note, gentle reader, that you can always tell a nanny since nannies are not, in fact, the parents of the children in their charge. Much like the professional dog walkers were toting a bunch of leashes and a backpack full of poop bags and their faces said, "I do this to earn money I need to eat," while their eyes barely passed over the dogs in their care, so, too, do the faces and eyes of nannies say that as they push strollers; they walk because they have to in order to eat, not because they want to take a walk to bond with the kid in this moment.

Aside: There was a period in my life where I had a charge whose Mother made it abundantly clear to me that the first thing I was to do within no more than 5 minutes of my arrival at work was to bundle the child off into a stroller and take them for a half hour walk, rain or shine. I did because I needed to eat, but let's just say that I wasn't goodie goodie gumdrops about it and didn't view the walks as anything other than the Mom wanting me the hell out of her whole entire house while she finished her morning routine and went to work, herself. This is not endearing of a nanny to a family; we ought to be able to share the space.

As I mulled all of this over, I started to get hungry and hot so it was then time to leave the park to go to any subway station at all for that ride over to the High Line.

We exited Central Park on a street first filled with very fancy hotels, and then later as we walked further from the park, with consulates for the United Nations. The Significant Other noted that the GDP of the countries could be seen in their NYC consular presence: wealthier countries had shiny new cars with diplomatic plates and flags whereas less wealthy countries had beat up Dodge minivans with printouts of flags taped in windows and diplomatic plates. Personally, I think the beat up Dodge minivan is probably more respectful of the taxpayers of that country, anyway, as it isn't throwing good money after bad for nothing but image; the minivan gets you from place to place just the same.

And then I saw it! A food truck offering something for breakfast that wasn't just sugar! It had egg and cheese bagels. I demanded one. I had cash. I was willing to pay. And as I sped up to make sure I was in line before a gaggle of construction workers, I saw another option, for $1.50 vs the $3 of the egg and cheese bagel, I could get a bagel with cream cheese. Are we frugal or are we frugal? I switched my order to the cheaper one which was quickly prepared and handed to me.

I started to look around for somewhere to sit to consume said breakfast. NYC doesn't seem to believe in public seating. I understand the hostile architecture as a concept, but why anyone would be so evil I'll never know. The Significant Other kept me walking on and on to his bank so that he could withdraw money while I kept on the lookout for a bench, a ledge, anything really. I never found it. But the Significant Other did find his bank.

Knowing I had to remove my mask to eat, I opted to stay outside of the bank and forego its air conditioning in order to eat my bagel while leaning up against the bank's front wall. In so doing, I attracted the attention of the bank's security from inside who were on their way to come confront me when a man, who was scanning the crowd like a predator for prey, walked up to the front door of the bank; from the way he looked at me, I determined that he thought I'd be his mark. The door opened moments before the man was an arm's length away from me and instead of concerning himself with me, Bank Security told off the man I'd pegged as a predator. After the predatory man left, Bank Security was just then turning to me, and I was just putting the final bite of bagel into my mouth and balling up the wrapper, when my Significant Other walked out the conveniently held-open door and addressed me. Bank Security brightened as if coming to a sudden understanding and wished us both a pleasant day before disappearing back inside the bank.

From there, mask re-engaged, we walked less than half a block to the subway station and descended into the bowels of the Earth.

I've been to NYC before. Several times in fact. Which is why I have an NYC MetroCard. For whatever reason, whichever card I get seems to expire the subsequent year and I'm used to walking up to a person in a booth and exchanging it for a new card and having the balance transfer over. New cards cost $1 unless you are exchanging an expired card, and the initially expired card in my chain of exchanges came from litter plucked off the sidewalk in Washington, DC, some half decade or more ago. However, due to COVID, I hadn't been able to visit NYC and so the MetroCard (with balance) I had in my possession was now two years out of date. It turns out that the people in the booth were not able to, themselves, do the exchange for a new MetroCard with balance transfer after a single year of expiration and I have to mail it in to the MetroCard people via postage-paid envelope. It is true that balance is recoverable for up to two years after expiration of MetroCard, after which time the balance is forfeit, so I could still recover my balance and get a new MetroCard ... just not at that moment.

And so, form in hand, I went to the machine and purchased a brand new $1 MetroCard for myself and loaded on a new balance so that I could get to the High Line. While on the train, I pulled out my trusty purse pen and filled out the form, adding my expired MetroCard; I planned to drop the envelope into the next available mailbox and wish the MetroCard godspeed along its way of getting resolved.

Instead, I see this weird set of stairs and bridges called Vessel that the Significant Other really wants a photograph with; it is temporarily closed because a child committed suicide off of one of its many open air opportunities. There is talk that it will not reopen until it is safer for all at any level of mental health, which would require changes that would undo its artistic vision so in fact it may never reopen. But what we can do is stand near it and have photographs with it.



Image Description: Significant Other in the foreground with the art installation known as Vessel behind him over his left shoulder, to the right side of the photograph. Other passersby are captured in the photograph as well. Vessel looks like a handrail and stairs salesperson's best sales-day as it gleams coppery in the light.

After that, we walk on to the High Line, stopping to talk to a woman at an information booth about where the nearest mailbox might be. She informs us that she doesn't know, but as the post office is a mile away, there is sure to be one. And, after some walking in oppressive heat and relentless sun, for it is now close to noon and the sun is directly overhead, we do see one from one of the spurs. I descend three stories to the ground level and pop the MetroCard envelope into the blue USPS postbox, and then, mask on, huff and puff my way all the way back up those three stories to rejoin the Significant Other who has managed to find a small bench in a smaller patch of shade. I stay there until I catch my breath which is not a short period of time; I contemplate whether or not I am a candidate for heat stroke.

During this long period of time where I was fighting for my very survival, the Significant Other was searching for Little Free Library locations nearby to help me on my quest to deliver the NYC book to its final resting place. He managed to find one not too far away from the High Line and on the way to a subway station, built into The Leo House hotel/hostel run by the Catholic Church. Can I just say that after seeing Saint Patrick's Cathedral and its admission price and now this hotel which houses a ginormous Little Free Library comprised of two different phonebooths and a book case besides, and they were willing to let me use the computers and the restroom in the office center housing the Little Free Library, that it feels as if within the Catholic Church the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing; I like the charity of the latter experience with the Catholic Church but then someone else said I would since the hotel was originally the brainchild of a nun wanting to serve the traveler of below-modest means.

I dropped off my book and happened to find the exact next book in its series in that Little Free Library.



Image Description: J, in a mask, holds two books in front of her. On the right is the book she is leaving at the Little Free Library at The Leo House, and on the left is the book that follows it in series. In the background is the Leo House's Little Free Library comprised of two phone booths.

I considered picking up the next book in the series to read when my eye spotted a BookCrossing label on the spine of a different book. BookCrossing allows you to log a book you encounter but leave where you found it, so I took photos with the intention of doing just that, however I then saw that the book was also a movie and, well, ya girl runs a Movie Book Club, so I considered this a sign from the divine that I was supposed to exchange for the BookCrossing book instead to read and Book Club.

4 Hours Spent, 10 To Go

And with a refilled water jar and an emptied bladder, we were then off to finish our jaunt to the subway station and then on to Staten Island for lunch and to look around.

We get to the station and board the subway without issue. An announcement is made that the next stop will be whatever station for Wall Street. I'd marked rubbing The Bull's balls a 10 out of 10 in importance when making the must-do list for NYC and so we hopped off the train a stop earlier than intended to go rub some metal mountain oysters.

Here in NC, we have a city called Durham and it, too, has a metallic bull statute, and rubbing its balls is a superstitious way of collecting good luck. I wanted a photo of me rubbing Wall Street Bull's scrotum to collage with one from Durham, NC. And despite the line at the head of the bull for photos with its face, easily was able to just walk right up and take one with its rectum. Et voila.



Image Description: J poses, rubbing the well polished and not at all patinaed scrotum of the Wall Street Bull. The polish indicates that she is neither the first nor likely to be the last to do this tactile behavior.

After rubbing on The Bull, we desperately needed a sip of water and a sit down; it was hot-hot, so we wandered a whopping five steps into Bowling Green Park and had a seat. It was then that the Significant Other's cell phone turned itself off due to overheating and a lack of electricity. He plugged in to his backup battery and I considered pulling out my heretofor yet unused telephone when he said, "We are just going to have to ask for directions to the Staten Island Ferry." Perhaps it was where he was sitting vs where I was sitting, but I had a full view of a sign which indicated that the Staten Island Ferry was dead ahead, and told him so.

A few sips of water later, we were ready to follow the sign which led us to a food cart whose smells got my tummy grumbling. "I think I am ready for lunch," I announced, "So we'll eat as soon as we get to Staten Island." Right behind the food cart was the ferry terminal and we walked right in and right up to the ferry just as the doors were opening for boarding, and then right out onto the ferry without even breaking stride. We then walked through the entire length of the ferry to the front and out onto the front deck. The Significant Other wanted to sit inside because he perceived that there would be air conditioning in there (spoiler alert: there was not) but I wanted to be in a space with a lesser COVID risk so out on the deck we went.

There was very limited seating on the deck, a mere two benches, and those were quickly taken by the elderly and infirm, so I decided to stand to Staten Island. I quickly changed my mind under the torments of my hunger and the oppressive heat. I sat. Directly on the deck. @ me if you will, but I lived and didn't contract any weird diseases.



Image Description: I sat. Directly on the deck. @ me if you will, but I lived and didn't contract any weird diseases.

As the ferry rounded the Statue of Liberty, the social media influencers started to emerge onto the deck on which I was perched. Duck face, selfie sticks, heavy makeup (which to the camera would translate as light makeup), brand names, and frowns as photos were reviewed and reshot took over the deck. When they finally cleared, all but one woman whose companion had grown bored with her quest for perfection and had wandered back inside, the Significant Other and I posed with a teeny tiny Lady Liberty in the background.



Image Description: J and her Significant Other pose for an us-ie on the deck of the Staten Island Ferry with an extremely tiny Statue of Liberty barely noticeable and certainly not identifiable in the background.

If this is how the Statue of Liberty looked to our selfies, I'm not at all sure what all the posturing was with the other social media folks as they weren't getting any better photos of Lady Liberty, themselves.

After the Statue of Liberty was passed, the passenger manifest of the deck abruptly changed - gone were the elderly and infirm, and now we had children and toddlers and their adults. This meant that I was able to get a seat on a bench and moved to sit next to a man who was wearing a tshirt that promised to be representing Staten Island's best deli. My tummy grumbled on reading the shirt and I turned to the Significant Other and said, "We are going to eat at that deli. I'm famished."

We got to port and disembarked. At this point the Significant Other's phone had enough charge and enough cool to restart and he quickly checked the distance between us and the deli of the shirt. It was a half hour walk.

In this heat.

There was no way.

I wasn't going to make it.

So we wandered through the ferry terminal seeking COVID-safe eating options. We passed something that proclaimed it was a deli but resembled a convenience store; they didn't even have a section for making pastrami sandwiches. We passed a few other sit down restaurants for indoor dining. I nixed both, sure that the cure to my hunger was around the corner. We rounded the corner to find a COVID testing and vaccination site and no food. And now we were in an outlet mall: Empire Outlets.

The Significant Other spied a sign pointing the way to a food court and took me off to follow it. My feet had joined my stomach in protest at this point. "Just a little further," he said.

It turns out that the signs took you in a giant loop and there was no food court. Maybe the outlets aspired to a food court or had one prior to COVID, but the closest thing to where the signs were pointing was the convenience store cum deli we had passed in the ferry terminal.

But across the street? Across the street from the outlet mall was a small 4-shop strip mall with 3 of the 4 shops selling food. "We are eating there!" I declared and set off crossing the street.

The first store we tried was another self-proclaimed deli but this one did have a pastrami counter serving (groan) Boar's Head and zero vegetarian options. "You can eat here," I told the omnivorous Significant Other, "but I need to look at the Yemeni restaurant to see if they have anything I can eat." Like a good partner, the Significant Other decided to come to see if he could eat where I was going to eat.

So next door we went to the Yemeni restaurant: Mandi House. It was the sort of place with large trays of pre-cooked food that they'd pack for you into a (bless their zero waste hearts) aluminum go-pan with a light cardboard lid held in place by folding down the aluminum rim. I walked in and told the man behind the counter three things: (1) the food was to go, (2) I'd never had food from Yemen before, and (3) I was a vegetarian. I ended with, "Feed me!"

I must have been scarily convincing because he grabbed the pan and started filling it with things, telling me not their names but their ingredients. I got rice, cooked carrots, cooked root vegetables, and lentils.

The Significant Other, less famished and more able to make conversation, pointed at a dish that a man sitting outdoors on the strip mall's curb was eating and asked if that was from this shop and upon learning that it was, declared, "I want that." And so, this was lunch.

We paid a very modest sum ($10) for our very large portions of food, were given a complete picnic kit, and were sent on our way where we crossed back the streets to the outlet mall.

My original plan was to eat at St. George Park, but I knew I could walk no further. It turned out that the entrance we used for the outlet mall to walk through from the ferry terminal had outdoor dining tables located exactly nowhere near any dining establishments. There were three tables and two were alerady in use: a man wearing a kitchen uniform for one of the restaurants we'd seen advertisements for but not actually seen the location of, playing on his cell phone, and a woman eating a pizza whose box indicated that it came from across the street so was clearly outside food. I registered this and savagely grabbed the remaining table, not that there was competition.

The table was flat, stable, and most importantly in both shade and in a corridor that frequently caught breezes off the New York Bay. We sat and, because of how hot we were, ate slowly and sipped slowly, so as not to make ourselves sick, despite the fact that our ravenous hunger demanded a faster pace.

We drank all the water in our respective water jars, and then the Significant Other wandered off to the bathroom to refill them and empty himself. I hadn't yet needed to pee because I was sweating out all excess liquid; and now you know too much about me.

He returned, announcing that there was air-conditioning in the bathrooms, that they were enormous, and that there was a water-bottle filler at the water fountains.

I finished my meal and fell into a bit of a food coma. Then the thought occurred to me: I had my pink backpack with me, and within it were my bandana and microfiber cloth. I could wet my bandana and wear a wet neck wrap, as my Significant Other had been doing up until now, to help me contend with the outdoor temperature ( I admit defeat) and I could use the microfiber cloth to give myself a mid-day sweat-removal cleansing. I took my emptied-yet-again water jar with me to the bathroom to attend to these ablutions.

You know the problem with cleaning oneself mid-day on a Hot Town, Summer in the City kind of day? The moment you step out of the air-conditioning and back into the heat, you realize just how grimy salty sweat makes you. Having eased into my dirtiness from a cool-ish morning, I hadn't noticed the abrupt change; but now it was an abrupt change!

After we had digested and each of us refilled our water jars and done some cleansing ritual, with sopping bandanas and a wetted microfiber cloth pressed against various pressure points to help our bodies feel cooler, we gathered our belongings, made sure to recycle, and headed back to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal to go back to Manhattan for our 3:30 pm timed entry appointment at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). More on that awesomeness in a bit.

First, this time we did not have the luck we had last time and had to wait inside the terminal for our ferry. Second, I received a text message from my employers wishing me a happy vacaiton and letting me know that they had cut their concurrent vacation short because their youngest was sick and they were worried it was COVID.

The Significant Other and I offered to take tests ourselves so that there would be more data and because we'd passed zillions of street corner testing vans all declaring that they would provide free COVID tests so I was sure we would happen upon some in the remainder of our NYC adventure (spoiler: it was not to be; we were tested elsewhere). However, I was now gripped with the fear that I was asymptomatically spreading COVID all willy nilly throughout our vacation and perhaps we should head home, instead. I'd been wearing a mask and staying as distanced as made sense, but nothing is completely foolproof and I didn't want to be Typhoid Mary. These thoughts consumed me during the ferry ride back.

We disembarked the ferry and caught a subway ride to the stop closest to MoMA. We had, as previously mentioned a timed entry for 3:30 pm (we were late) that we'd managed to get from a generous nanny colleague's Brooklyn Public Library's Culture Pass. Culture Pass is a program for certain library card holders whereby they get free admission to various NYC cultural attractions just for the asking.

I thanked her by mailing her some Girl Scout cookies (these have a high favor-market value the further we go from Cookie Sale Season so I recommend supporting your local troop and tossing those boxes in the deep freeze to use as bartering material later in the year).

This Culture Pass saved us $50, collectively, and cost my colleague nothing as she's entitled to one Culture Pass to MoMA per annum per library card (and she had access to three library cards between herself and her charges). On showing our paperwork and printed out Culture Pass, we were then given MoMA tickets which were also coupons for free admission to MoMA PS1 within 14 days. I quickly popped those tickets into the mail to the generous colleague so that she could make use of this additional ticket as she wished since it was rightly hers.

MoMA normally has a coat/stuff-check but much like the American History Smithsonian, had suspended that for COVID, so we had to wander around the halls with our bookbags on our stomachs. We did, however, have to check our umbrella into the umbrella depot.

From there, we had an hour and a half in MoMA before they closed, and we wanted to make sure to see Starry Night, so we took the escalators all the way up to the upper-most floor and wandered around the top floor where we knew Starry Night was located. We figured we would stumble upon it shortly, and then could work our way down the museum as time allowed. We certainly thought that this would be one of many visits to MoMA and hoped to see the entire museum before we die, but were in no rush to gobble it all in this one setting.

But the first thing we spied was The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí. It was small. Not miniature. But still, much smaller than any encounter with the image would lead one to believe.



Image Description: J and Significant Other pose in front of Dalí’s "The Persistence of Memory". J is making a pinching motion with her fingers to indicate that the painting is smaller than one might expect it to be.

We wandered further around, encountering some good art, some Picasso art, some video art, some abstract art, and some tableware with deer fur glued to it. I must admit, the tableware with deer fur glued to it is absolutely the kind of art my artistic-talent-lacking self could do and so I wondered why my elementary school art classes focused on oil pastels and fruit still lifes, when we could have been gluing things to other things all along. I am only jealous that I didn’t think of going to the thrift store and buying one item from home goods and another item from textiles and gluing them together and selling them for five figures by calling them art; don’t mind me.

8 Hours Spent, 6 To Go

And then, there it was! Starry Night was right in front of us looking altogether exactly like the Ikea rendition, except this one you had to stand further away and it was in a frame.



Image Description: J and Significant Other pose with the actual, real "Starry Night" by Van Gogh. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

And then, we wandered through the remainder of the exhibits on the top most floor, just finishing and planning our next move to a different floor when we heard the announcement that the museum was closing shortly and that the gift shop would remain open.

My Significant Other quickly yelped and said he needed to get something from the gift shop and left me to visit the restroom for a final fill of the water jars and emptying of my internals. By the time I came out of the restroom, there were barricades around the restroom and blocking off access to the gift shop for me, and security was ushering me downstairs and out of the building.

I pulled out my phone to send an explanatory text message to the Significant Other when I happened to see him descending on the escalator. He’d similarly been shooed out of the gift shop, despite the announcement that it would remain open for longer, and still needed to visit the restroom facilities, himself. We managed, with ten minutes to spare until closing time, find a restroom that a security guard allowed him to visit. After that, we snagged my umbrella from its resting spot at the umbrella-check and walked into the muggy air of a New York City summer evening.

“Where to?” I asked. And the Significant Other directed me to the nearest subway station. On the way there, we happened upon a Privately Owned Public Space, which I had read about on the internet before our trip. These are small amounts of real estate that are privately owned, but must be designated for the free/gratis use of the public in order to receive a building or renovation permit. There are ones that are rooftop parks, beloved of the bagged lunch crowd. There are ones that are public toilets like what we’d encountered in Rockefeller Center at the start of our day (though those didn’t have the Privately Owned Public Space placard that they all are supposed to have, so that one was a voluntary rather than forced public space). And then there are ones like what we were walking through: an opened-at-either-end arcade, air-conditioned, and lined with seating, tables, and plants. “I could spend a few hours here just sitting and taking it all in,” I declared. And so we sat for a few minutes to take it all in. All of it. Including the air conditioning.

After that, it was off to the subway station and then from there to SoHo for the Muji. You see, on a previous trip to Switzerland (EuroTrip 2019), I’d left my tiny little Muji washboard behind in the hotel room I shared with my mother in Zurich. For a tiny, ridged piece of plastic, I didn’t think it was worth covering the cost of postage to have the hotel return it to me. Since it was so inexpensive, I figured that i would simply pick up a new one at Muji the next time I was in a Muji. Well, now was the next time.

We get to Muji in SoHo by way of the shadiest route. At this point the sun is relentless and broiling and so we stuck to smaller streets (one lane each way) because we could walk in the shadows of buildings vs the parallel boulevards with multiple lanes preventing us from having convenient building shadows in which to traipse. On the way, we stop for a photo op with a street that shares the same name as my Significant Other. No, there won’t be a photo of this because then you’d know his name.

Inside the Muji, I scour the entire store for a replacement washboard and there was none to be found. I corralled a store employee and told them of my plight, only to be told that Muji doesn't sell the wash board in the USA (and in fairness, I bought mine in Canada). Saddened, I walked back out into the baking-hot evening to eat dinner to fill the void that not having properly sink-washed laundry had created.

Dinner had been pre-determined: Bodhi. You see, I like a good dim sum/yum cha and it occurred to me that I’ve had the best my local area had to offer but had nothing to compare it to and while I couldn’t go to Taiwan during a pandemic, NYC’s Chinatown ought to be as authentic as one can get. Being a vegetarian, Bodhi was repeatedly hailed by all in the know on the internet as the best vegetarian dim sum in all of NYC (both Chinatown, Queens, and Brooklyn; there was contention about the best non-vegetarian dim sum).

And so we walked over, passing street markets resplendent in ingredients that are usually cooked at home (including my home) at prices that can only be had in major cities with ethnic enclaves. More than once, a quiet gentleman tried hawking knock off handbags at me, and all seemed pleasantly surprised by my gracious refusal. I don’t understand why New Yorkers cannot kindly hold boundaries with one another.

As we approached our dinner spot, my significant other announced that on a previous trip to NYC with his mother, they’d eaten at the dim sum place next door and found it to be authentic. “This is how you know the food is good,” said the Significant Other who’d grown up partially in Taipei, home of restaurants with identical menus being next door neighbors, “Because if it weren’t, the neighboring place would steal all of its customers and it would go out of business. It isn’t a great hardship for the customers to simply go in the next door like it is when you’ve driven a half hour to the middle of nowhere for a restaurant that has no neighbors.” Given that these two restaurants claimed the same menu, albeit one of them (ours) vegan and the other omnivorous, I could see the merit to his argument.

I wanted to eat outdoors, as I was still very COVID cautious, and there were outdoor tables set up, but the host quickly switched to Taiwanese with my Significant Other and persuaded him that the heat index was too high to do that to the poor servers, much less for us to suffer through, and so wouldn’t we like to come in and enjoy the air conditioning. My Mandarin is coming along, but I only understood this exchange through context; the context being that my Significant Other agreed and decided that we would be dining in the restaurant. As a concession to me, they placed us at a table they’d located to the rear (air intake) side of the oscillating fan that was recirculating air within the restaurant, meaning we weren't breathing other diners' air. I was very, very nervous because we hadn’t yet had our COVID test that we were supposed to take, and my employers had warned me that we had possibly been exposed to something. And now, our exhalations were going to be spread hither and yon to the other diners. (Spoiler Alert: I should not have worried as we were negative.)

But yet, we sat and removed our masks and ate.

And ate.

And ate.

And more than once, there was a conversation in Taiwanese when the restaurant employees thought I was being ridiculous: I refused western flatware and said I was content with chopsticks, I ordered Sichuan faux beef which was really spicy (their words) and didn’t seem to have proper reverence for how spicy it would be (it was less spicy than what I was used to at home but Bodhi’s was actually spiced with szechuan peppercorns rather than the capsaicin that was used as a cheater in North Carolina), and so it went. Ever the diplomat, the Significant Other managed to leave everyone with a smile on their face.

I also learned a few interesting tidbits about Chinese dining habits: In the summer, for hot tea, you fill your cup with just a sip and frequently pour additional sips of tea into your cup vs in the winter you fill your cup fully. This allows each sip of tea to cool down and allows you to have plenty of cup real-estate to grab that isn’t scalding whereas in the winter you want your tea to stay warm so as to warm you and holding on to a warm cup is also a desired activity. Also, I learned that every bite of food should be touched to my bowl of rice so that at the end of the meal I have rice that has become flavored by the stray juices from the other dishes, similar to wiping one’s plate with a slice of bread and then eating the bread at the conclusion of a western meal. And now you know, too!

After we were quite stuffed full of delicious food, and had paid the bill, we once again visited the toilet (in a city that never sleeps, one must take every advantage of toilets!) while the kitchen staff refilled our water jars with ice water. There were apparently two toilets for the restaurant and the one I happened to go into had toilet paper stored in the boxes that the vegan protein had been shipped in … directly from Taiwan. I returned to the table and told the Significant Other that I would appreciate if his Mom or his grandmother could find some of this protein and ship us a box so that we could use it for home cooking. Alas, at the time of writing this, the request has not been fulfilled. So, internet at large, if you happen to be in Taiwan and want to make a pen-pal long distance friend, @ me for details of how you can send me some of the protein and I’ll send you something you don’t have: US Girl Scout cookies.

Full and unable to justify lingering any longer, we stepped back out into the still muggy, but now dark night to find a place to be until 9:30 pm. ( >)