Day 2

We woke up fairly early today—there was a lot to do. I called my friend Don at work and we agreed to meet for dinner at a Chinese place by his office. We are meeting him at 5:30 this afternoon, then we’re going to the Village to see Suzanne’s friend, Sarah Boone, do her first caberet show in New York at 8 o’clock. In the meantime, Suzanne had some errands to do before she left town for a couple months.

The day started out on a disappointing note upon my discovery that I left all my bathroom stuff in the car. Some may ask what the big deal is, but I am fond of my soap and shampoo. So I didn’t shower this morning figuring I’d get the stuff this afternoon and shower later.

We got dressed, ate a pop tart, and hit the streets. Of course, the amount of usable energy from two pop tarts will be expended by the time you reach the front door of the building, so this was not exactly a suitable start to our day.

This notwithstanding, off we went on the errands. First stop: the drug store. Suzanne needed a few necessities like a toothbrush and toothpaste for the summer. I think she chose the green toothpaste and the blue toothbrush, but I could be wrong, there were so many and we considered all of them. She even bantered with the security guy standing by the door, commenting on all the different types of toothpaste and toothbrushes to choose from. While in the Duane Reade drug store, we also looked at shaving cream (pretty sure she took the green kind) and as for chewing gum, she likes the red kind (cinnamon).

Next we hit the bank and then the gym. She had to do her final banking before leaving town and suspend her gym membership. Then we went to this take-out place called The Old Garden Deli near Suzanne’s place. We each got a meatball roll-up which resembled a mini stromboli. They hit the spot and she said goodbye to the old man who owned the place. With food in out tummies, we ventured up toward Central Park. We went to a record store looking for a CD holder, Suzanne needed one for the summer. I looked at the bargain bin CDs on sale while she shopped. Found two Bob Dylan CDs I had wanted for a while. The special was 3 CDs for $25 so we needed to find one more.

Suzanne wanted to shop a bit more so we went north a few blocks to Tower Records and looked at their selection. They had nicer cases and more variety. Suzanne chose the one-hundred-capacity case. Once she reclaimed her backpack from the bag checker, a guy who must have had two dozen earrings in one ear alone (and god knows what other bodily mutilations and disfigurements), we went back to the other record store and I got my two Dylan CDs and she rounded out the $25 special by getting the Indigo Girls CD with the Hammer and Nail song on it. I got Highway 61 Revisited because I really like that album and my LP is not in the best shape. I also bought the Freewheelin’ album because my LP has a muffled sound on the second side. I don’t know if this is intentional in the recording, but I knew this was not present on the CD because I borrowed it from Morgan Besson, a physics professor at Villanova. I was happy to find those at the decent price of $8.33 each.

With our errands complete, we walked up to the park for a while. By now it was about 2 or 3 in the afternoon and we figured we should be back at Suzanne’s by 4 to take showers and change for tonight. We walked up to about 77th Street and entered the park walking over to The Lake. This is the name of the lake, not too original. However, it fits in with the name of the reservoir in the park—The Reservoir. While I’m on the subject, frankly, the name of the park itself, Central Park, is pretty bland. No one would name a park that today, it’s too plain. It would, at the very least, be named after a Kennedy or perhaps Martin Luther King, Jr., and with the number of streets, highways, bridges, stadiums, schools, mountains, and parks already named after Kennedy (take your pick) and King, this also would be bland. Not that the Kennedys and King didn’t achieve greatness, but if everything is named Kennedy or King I think it loses its significance. What do you think of when you hear Roosevelt Island? I know what I think of.

This is my first visit to Central Park and I found it to be a beautiful oasis in the middle of the bustling city. People were all over the place, which leads me to wonder what these people do for a living that allows them time in the middle of the afternoon to come to the park and rollerblade, work on their Judo exercises, or sunbathe. Many people also paint by the lake in oil or watercolor, but most of these people were older, living off the retirement funds in their rent-controlled, Central Park West apartment, no doubt. We saw a photo shoot of some kid modeling a lightweight waterproof outfit for some fall catalog like L.L. Bean or Lands End. He was probably very warm because it was a hot day and he had pants and a long sleeve top on, not to mention the lights shining on him. A more refreshing sight was the retriever frolicking in one of the large circular fountains. The dog was trying to get a small ball floating in the fountain, but the ball only bobboed up and down. He chased the ball all around the fountain, but could not grab hold of it. Finally he was able to gt the ball, but now there was a wet dog running around greeting the people in the grass. Its owner was trying to catch up with it, but was unsuccessful until the dog stopped by a group picnicking and decided to sample some of their food. We left before the beating commenced.

Our last stop in the park was Sheep Meadow, which, if you saw The Fisher King, was the spot in Central Park where Robin Williams liked to be “free.” It is a large field of grass above which is a buffer of trees in the distance and beyond the trees are the skyscrapers that line the southern edge of the park, a magnificent sight which we gazed upon for five or ten minutes. It was a nice sunny day with blue skies and low humidity. There was a cool breeze that would make you forget the hot afternoon sun.

Looking at the time, we decided to head home and we began walking south toward the apartment at 50th between 10th and 11th Avenues. Before we could get out of the park though, we were approached by a crew from ABC who wanted us to speak on camera about what I find annoying about women and then have Suzanne tell them what she finds annoying about men. I think they thought we were a couple. I wasn’t too keen on this idea and declined, but Suzanne hesitated for a moment. This woman immediately began to work on her, “It’ll be fun, just take a second.” But Suzanne also declined, bringing up the fact that the people who do those things always look like such idiots on TV. I agreed.

I was bound and determined to get my bathroom stuff from the car so we went back to the garage and asked them if I could get some stuff out of the car. They said yes, but only one of us could enter the garage. So I went into the garage to find the car wedged in between two other cars with about three inches of clearance on either side. I wonder how they get the cars out without denting the hell out of the bumpers. They must have to move half a dozen cars to retrieve just one. I got the stuff, popped an allergy pill (my nose was running all day), then we walked back to the apartment.

I must admit, taking my clothes off in the one-foot-wide strip of floor space in the bathroom was a challenge. By the time I got out of the shower, Suzanne asked, “Do you know what time it is?” Knowing that she knew the time, I knew the answer was not going to be good. I was afraid to look but it wasn’t too bad. It was 4:55 and we had to meet Don at 5:30. So we’d be a little late. We dressed quickly and walked to the subway. We had to get to Lexington and 40th Street. We hopped off the subway and changed to the subway shuttle that goes east to Grand Central Station. Once at the station, we only needed to walk one or two blocks south.

We were going to meet at a Chinese restaurant that Don occasionally visits. We briskly walked to the corner where we were told we would find it but we didn’t see anything that looked Chinese. All of a sudden from behind us came the word, “Ovaltine.” I knew this was Don, it’s one of those stupid quotes we’ve made into an inside joke. It’s a line from Young Frankenstein.

Don showed us where the place was and we went in and sat down. Sweat was streaming down my face since we had walked so fast and when we weren’t walking we were crammed on the subway sharing heat with strangers.

Don noted the more expensive dinner menu and the addition of tablecloths. I got the sesame chicken even though I was warned ahead of time by Don about its strange appearance. When the dish arrived it was at this point I began to appreciate the warning I was given. It looked like meatball-sized balls of fried chicken covered in this dark orange-red sauce which might possibly glow in the dark. It tasted good though.

We ate dinner slowly, updating one another on the current events in our lives. After dinner, Don generously picked up the bill and we walked toward Penn Station, where Don takes the Long Island Railroad home. Time does fly in the big city and before we knew it, we were rushing around again. Don thought about coming to the village to see Sarah’s cabaret, but decided against it. We parted at Grand Central and Suzanne and I took the subway south to the village. However, the train we jumped on turned into an express train while we were on it so we had to get off about five or ten blocks north. We hopped off the train at 7:45 giving us fifteen minutes to get to the cabaret theater, a place called The Duplex. We were meeting Suzanne’s friends Rob and Laurie Ann at the bar to see the show.

The show started a bit after eight and lasted about an hour with one encore. It was a good show. Having never been exposed to caberet, it made me appreciate the tacky lounge singer skits of Saturday Night Live. After it was over, Sarah came out and talked with her friends in the audience eventually making her way over to Suzanne. Sarah and her family and friends were celebrating the show and her first performance in New York at the bar next door, but Suzanne thought that we should go home so she could start packing. Rob and Laurie Ann decided to walk home so we decided to join them. We walked and walked eventually making our way to Times Square. Laurie Ann and Suzanne found a good place to take a quick break, the Haggen-Dazs store.

After ice cream, we walked home, tip-toed through Scott’s room again, and collapsed on the bed. Earlier, our plan was to do most of the packing tonight so we could get out of the city by lunch tomorrow, but Suzanne was too tired and began to choose the 100 CDs that she would take with her for the summer. This took more brain power than I think either of us expected and sucked the remaining energy out of Suzanne. So we hit the sack and planned to do the rest of the packing tomorrow.