The Big Apple in a Nut Shell
9:14 a.m.
Joe is from an agrarian background; his parents are Dutch immigrants and he grew up in the Ottawa valley, then went to university to study trumpet, where he met and became my husband’s roommate for several years. He was one of those lost souls who couldn’t figure out what to do with himself. After a couple of months of teacher’s college, he decided that wasn’t for him, went to the far north to assist in the construction of satellite dish installations (top secret government work), and then the next thing we heard he’d become a monk in a monastery in Miss0uri. We were living in Ann Arbor at the time, and so we made a trip out there to visit him for a weekend. That’s a story for another time.
He left the monastery before he took his final vows and went to study art at a nearby college which he had been attending part time. After getting a B.F.A. there, he enrolled in a M.F.A. programme at a university in D.C., where he met Sally, the girl he eventually married. Her story is truly incredible (not that Joe’s isn’t also incredible), and the upshot is that she and her family are possessors of untold wealth. Hence, they own a house in the Village literally right around the corner from the Village Vanguard and paint. They’re both artists, after all. They have two beautiful daughters who are delightful to spend time with, especially the younger one who is 8. The girls were for me the high points of the trip.
On Saturday Joe took us for a ride on the Staten IsIand Ferry
so we could go past the Statue of Liberty.
While we were waiting to board the ferry, he showed us where a pigeon had flown into the glass and left its mark. I had to take a picture.
Isn’t that cool? This is me on the ferry:
On Staten Island we took a bus to a shop that sells guitars and both my husband and Joe spent a couple of hours playing instruments. I was extremely bored. After all, I hear him practise at home all the time. Apart from the fact that there were some very beautiful instruments, there was nothing new for me. Finally I started wandering around the store and this guy who works there asked me what I played, and I confessed that I sang. So he pulled out a guitar and suddenly we were singing Simon & Garfunkel tunes together, me melody, him harmony. It was a lot of fun and I was no longer bored. But we had to return to the city, so we left. This is a view of Manhattan I snapped on the way back.
That night we went to dinner at a lovely restaurant, thence to hear a Latin ensemble at the Village Vanguard. Lots of brass and a very tight blend. I was tired, so I went back after the first set, but the boys stayed for another. We had rather weird weather all weekend: hot sun, torrential downpours. Rather schizophrenic. I was taken with the sculpture of Ghandi at Union Square and took several pictures of it.
I slept very poorly while we were there. First, we were on a pull-out couch with no support. I was fine until my husband got into bed next to me and suddenly I was contending with a slope and a constant battle against gravity. The sounds of the city are intense, and our room faced the street at street level. Sirens, car horns, and other noises bothered me. But the worst was their cat. She is 18 years old, which is ancient for a domestic feline, and she’s insane. At any time of night or day she starts screaming for no apparent reason, and it sounds like a baby in distress. I couldn’t get used to it. I woke up with hot flashes (as I often do anyway), and then would lie awake for a long time unable to sleep, trying not to roll into my husband’s trough and listening to the sounds of the city and the cat.
Coming home, just before landing, we hit some rather severe turbulence. I was trying to keep my orange juice from spilling, in fact, it was that bad. Suddenly the plane dropped and the orange juice in my cup flew up and out and then came down and showered me. I was soaked. As we were waiting to disembark, I was able to take a picture of the ceiling of the plane where someone’s Sprite had reached the ceiling. I thought that was pretty cool.
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