Friday Dinner - or Why Jersey Rocks #1

When I de-trained in Millington on Friday night, my friend Lena picked me up with her three kids, and we went to her house, sipped wine, sat in the sun and she prepared to hold "Friday Dinner" at her house. This involves an array of family showing up, casually spreading out some chow, grown-up tables, kid tables and just lots of happy people. Being an only child (and even an "only cousin"), I have always looked upon fully-packed kids' tables with the longing of a kid without a nickel staring into a candy shop. And, at the grown-up table, there's just something -beyond the words themselves - about Jersey conversations that set them apart - in the best possible way. Oh yeah, and did I mention that the SUN was out and it was hot? Because today in the Pacific Northwest, it's like 50 degrees and totally cloudy in the middle of June. So, yeah, that made a difference.

Here we are:

...and Lead us Not into Penn Station

I was a kid in Jersey in the 70's and New York was that scary place to the east. You might visit, but you damn well better have known where you were going and gone directly there without looking to the left or right along the way because who knew what you might have seen and how it might have scarred your precious bucolic view of the world in general. So, now, I am older and New York is gentler. But, thoughts put into one's head when one is at an impressionable age don't just fade away. So, it was with a degree of trepidation that I walked out of and closed the door to Dan and Leslie's place on Friday morning - leaving my key behind, dragging all of my possessions behind me in my carry-on and taking on Manhattan alone.

Luckily, I got no farther than the elevator outside their door before I confessed my unease to a total stranger who was waiting for the elevator with me. "Good morning this is not my place it's my sister-in-law's and I have to go work now and I have to get to the client and I have never hailed a cab before and it's a little freaky for me." I guess I looked an appropriate combination of "normal enough" and "needy out-of-towner" that the kind man offered to walk me to a sufficiently-cab-friendly artery and then he actually did the requisite flagging-down. (Not that I couldn't have done it by myself, mind you, but I was appreciative, if not blatantly embarrassed. This is what happens when the person who used to be on the road for work as much as I was home moves west, settles down in a land best summed-up as "unincorporated" and starts working part-time in her pajamas for a few years.)



Anyway, the cab ride was uneventful, save some traffic in Times Square - which actually provided a few minutes of sight-seeing. After a short workday, I was off again walking to Penn Station dragging my belongings behind me like Mags drags her soft blanket - with stolen glances behind me at regular intervals to make sure no stealthy ne'er-do-well pedestrian had sidled up too closely to my stuff. The previous day I had wandered over to Grand Central Station, which is glorious and obvious in its architecture and attitude. Penn Station, unless I missed the front entrance somehow, really just exists below ground. There are buildings above and they hint at the fact that there's a portal to the underworld below - there are a sign or two that say "LIRR" or "Train" or what have you, but I kind of just walked in a door and descended into the ground. I got in at an area that served the Long Island Railroad and just hoped that by walking for long enough I would eventually see a sign for New Jersey Transit. I did and made my way over there. The other "carriers" seemed to have manned ticket counters, but NJ Transit has only self-serve machines, and the Information desk had a little laminated sign on it that read, "Be Back in 30 Minutes." So, I grabbed a train schedule (seriously, click the link -it's CRAZY), put my glasses on, reminded myself that I am at least as smart as the average person and determined that I would figure it out. No simple task, if I do say so. But so rewarding once I was actually zipping in air conditioned comfort toward the Garden State...

Giving New Meaning to Walking to Work

Keep in mind that "walking to work" for me usually entails sliding on the old bunny slippers and shuffling from the bedroom to the kitchen for coffee and off to the home office off the great room.

Last Thursday, Leslie and I followed this approximate route from point A to point B. (Two important exceptions - 1. the exact starting point has been modified a bit to keep from revealing her address and 2. although Google maps won't let me show it, we walked on the paths through the park). After spending the day with my client at Point B, I walked to Point C to meet Dan (Leslie's husband) at his office. We then walked to Point D to meet up with Leslie for dinner.


View Larger Map

No wonder my ass hurt the next day... But it was a good hurt. The city really does seem a little smaller when you cross it on foot, and a week with the (wonderful) East Coast Food "Carb-o-Rama" and without Jazzercise or Rugrat Chasing needed a little something to keep the metabolism in check.

Speaking of dinner at Point D. We went to The Holy Basil. Finding a Thai place to love can be dicey, but when Leslie spoke of this one, it was with a sparkle in her eye that told of a long-standing love, so I knew it would be good. It was really wonderful - and the place had a little, well, a lot - more atmosphere than our old fave Thanh Thao in Portland... Leslie and I both had the Thai Salad (yum, peanut dressing) and the chicken Kang Ped (red curry) - can't go wrong with coconut milk. I have no idea what Dan ate - I was too busy shoveling my own food into my pie hole to look across the table to see. Mmm...

Big Apple

Got in last night, and after 2 hours on the Super Shuttle van from Newark(!!!) sans A/C (triple !!!), arrived at Leslie and Dan's place in Manhattan. We went for a good dinner (and beer - needed beer!) at a cozy place called Good Enough to Eat, and then retired for the night. I don't actually mind a 21-hour day now and again.

Heading East

Early in the AM, I'm leaving on a flight bound for one of my favorite places on earth (she said, smiling)- Newark International Airport. Where it really does smell a bit and strange almost-certainly-petroleum-based gunk that mere wipers cannot budge has been known to accumulate and cling to car windshields. I believe I have a lifelong right to actually reveal such things because I am actually from New Jersey, and I have first-hand experience with the window gunk. I know that the entire state gets a bad rap because people drive down the Turnpike or fly into Newark on their way to other places and notice that it's kind of like a stinky armpit right in that little area - and I am probably a little bit of a sell-out for trashing even the smallest corner of Jersey here. I love New Jersey. Really I do. It is truly lovely in many ways, but that area by the airport... Not so much.

I will head directly into NYC to work for a few days, stay with Sister-in-Law Leslie there and then head out to bucolic Sussex County for a weekend with the folks.

Who Knew Strep Throat Came with a Rash?

Okay, so Mags has strep throat. The itchy rash that's she's had since yesterday morning was not a result of rolling around in cut grass at Fun Days, it was a telltale symptom of a nasty bacterial infection. Fortunately, she pretty much feels fine. No sore throat or anything - just a puffy, itchy red rash and a fever. We've just started the antibiotics and with some ibuprofen, she is feeling okay and currently making a "cake" out of dry cat food (I have just been informed that it's done and that we need to go sit at the table.) This is a request that I am going to ignore because I intend to remain restraining-order-distance away from her until I get back from the east coast next week. Knowing that she has been diagnosed and medicated now allows me to turn my attention directly to myself and how much it would suck to get strep throat while away from home. Jay must have told Mags on the way home from the doctor that she cannot come too close to me because as soon as I went out to ask how the visit to the pediatrician went, Maggie yelled out, "No Mama! Papa says I can't come near you. You have to stay away." So, she has spent her day eating popsicles and watching old Pink Panther cartoons (These have recently ceded the screen to Barbra Streisand as Dolly Levi.) Basically, she is lounging about as if she's on vacation from KinderCare, and I am crawling in my skin and trying to sterilize things in the hopes that the rest of us will stay disease-free. I did catch her yesterday hiding in Ellie's room eating toothpaste off of Ellie's brush - and I DID throw said toothbrush out, so maybe, Maybe, MAYBE Ellie won't get it. I know there were a few sloppy sister kisses at naptime yesterday. I don't know how long we'll have to wait to see if we've made it or not...

My Baby's Famous

Yesterday was the culmination of the annual Hockinson Fun Days - This includes a giant all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast at the fire house (not to be missed) and a rather impressive parade (clowns, llamas, , old tractors, church groups, the middle school marching band, the Jazzercise ladies...) through "downtown" Hockinson. (For the uninitiated, "downtown" means the parade starts at the high school, passes the Kountry Cafe, three or four houses, the fire house, and the corner market and ends at the middle school.) It was beautiful out, and aside from some unfortunate peer-pressure-driven pre-parade accessorizing decisions among the Jazzercise set (which involved large red ribbons and garish red nail polish), a good time was had by all.

But, even the most enthusiastic parade-goers could use a nap by around 2:30 in the afternoon... Here's my baby in the newspaper. (Just to make it easy for you, here's the photo from the paper so you don't actually HAVE to click the link unless you want proof that I did not actually take this picture myself. Remember the days when you had to buy up copies of the paper if you wanted to show the grandparents?)