New York City!
May. 3rd, 2003 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quislibetWe were drinking some of the best espresso I've ever had, when J. pointed to the sidewalk and said, "Is that blood?"
I recommend the espresso at "Panino Giusto" on Hudson and Perry in NYC, and presumably there isn't a pit bull attack there *every* day.
(Seems earlier in the day the dog's owner had suffered arm damage restraining his animal from mauling another customer's dog.)
The following was written yesterday morning, although I take the liberty of changing it a bit because it will be too late for you to try to stop me:
---
I'm sitting here in Washington Square Park on a glorious spring day, dressed for fall (thanks to a misleading weather report), waiting for J. to finish a meeting with a professor in the NYU anthropology department (in the same building as the classics department, so maybe we should both aim for jobs there). On our way from the subway stop a man was passing out brochures for the oddly named Space Market on University Place. I know what the brochures were for because I took one, resulting in the most bizarrely effusive thanks which did not cease until we were out of earshot. So I am drinking iced coffee from there [wow, the man who just walked by is wearing the biggest cowboy hat I've ever seen in the northeast], and anyway I wasn't going to buy it from Starbucks or Au Bon Pain.
I think it's Beltaine according to the Changeling RPG -- as close to the ancient cycles of the earth as observed by some but not all of my ancestors as I get, I'm afraid -- which puts it a day or two after non-imaginary people celebrate it. But I could be wrong about one or the other.
I saw the most gothic septuagenarian on my way to the Space Market -- slicked back hair, sunglasses, black leather duster, black pants and boots, dark red shirt and black vest (and a cane/walker thing and a large backpack). Neat.
Overheard conversation that did not involve a child:
"...they don't have mozzarella."
"I want one with cheese and mozzarella."
"They don't have mozzarella."
"I want one with cheese and mozzarella."
"They. Don't. Have...."
So I thought that creepy guy across from me was staring at me, but I see now that he is in fact staring at the woman sunbathing on the grass behind my bench who keeps adjusting her tube top and rubbing sunscreen on her chest and stomach. Fair enough.
---
J. eventually joined me, her meeting a success. We went for expensive peanut butter sandwiches and, after a round-trip subway digression to Steven Jenkins' cheese counter, we roamed Greenwich Village, the East Village, and the Lower East Side. We failed to find a particular store on St. Mark's Place that we suspected (by reason of being the manufacturer) would sell more sizes than the one that didn't fit of the jacket J. wanted at Eighth Street Lab, and we failed to get fresh bialys at the place recommended for such, but then our friend Ann had served bialys at breakfast (even if not from this particular location), so it was not a serious problem.
Wherever we went, we were accompanied by a reblochon-fresh scent.
We had an embarrassingly early dinner at Café Charbon on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side, and after two visits over the course of a year I can say You Must Go, should you be seeking an affordable splurge in the area. Their "authentique" chalkboard menu in French has been replaced by printed ones in English, but as the chalkboard was hard to read (language aside), that is not a serious loss. Nor was the more casual look affected by employees (one woman, for instance, in a Powerpuff Girls baby-tee, instead of Euro black) a sign that things had changed for the worse.
I hope we didn't disappoint the goth woman at the spooky threads store nearby (Machine, I believe), where we stopped for a few minutes after dinner, by not attending her fetish fashion show, but at the time it was scheduled to start, midnight, we were in the area of Mystic, CT. About that drive home the less said, the better, apart from a blanket condemnation of Route 95 from Stamford to almost New Haven, but no surprises there.
Last anecdote: as we waited for our train at Grand Central back to Pleasantville and our car, I bought (rather inferior) espresso and J. a small snack. She went into a bakery in the station and asked if they had any chocolate cupcakes. "Only chocolate cupcake here is him," said one of the employees, indicating a co-worker, and hilarity ensued.
Oh, I lied; one more: I believe the middle-aged women in front of us on the subsequent train ride would have referred to the employees of that bakery as darkies, at least if I heard them right, and I am not entirely convinced that I did, not because I can't believe some (relatively youthful) grandma with a midwestern accent can't be a racist, but because, well, more sophisticated people nowadays say "mud-people" or "black-a-moors." No, it is more likely that this charming lady, when she disparaged to her friend some "darkies" whom she had heard ask the conductors about a particular scheduling irregularity, she meant simply people who were in the dark about that matter.
I recommend the espresso at "Panino Giusto" on Hudson and Perry in NYC, and presumably there isn't a pit bull attack there *every* day.
(Seems earlier in the day the dog's owner had suffered arm damage restraining his animal from mauling another customer's dog.)
The following was written yesterday morning, although I take the liberty of changing it a bit because it will be too late for you to try to stop me:
---
I'm sitting here in Washington Square Park on a glorious spring day, dressed for fall (thanks to a misleading weather report), waiting for J. to finish a meeting with a professor in the NYU anthropology department (in the same building as the classics department, so maybe we should both aim for jobs there). On our way from the subway stop a man was passing out brochures for the oddly named Space Market on University Place. I know what the brochures were for because I took one, resulting in the most bizarrely effusive thanks which did not cease until we were out of earshot. So I am drinking iced coffee from there [wow, the man who just walked by is wearing the biggest cowboy hat I've ever seen in the northeast], and anyway I wasn't going to buy it from Starbucks or Au Bon Pain.
I think it's Beltaine according to the Changeling RPG -- as close to the ancient cycles of the earth as observed by some but not all of my ancestors as I get, I'm afraid -- which puts it a day or two after non-imaginary people celebrate it. But I could be wrong about one or the other.
I saw the most gothic septuagenarian on my way to the Space Market -- slicked back hair, sunglasses, black leather duster, black pants and boots, dark red shirt and black vest (and a cane/walker thing and a large backpack). Neat.
Overheard conversation that did not involve a child:
"...they don't have mozzarella."
"I want one with cheese and mozzarella."
"They don't have mozzarella."
"I want one with cheese and mozzarella."
"They. Don't. Have...."
So I thought that creepy guy across from me was staring at me, but I see now that he is in fact staring at the woman sunbathing on the grass behind my bench who keeps adjusting her tube top and rubbing sunscreen on her chest and stomach. Fair enough.
---
J. eventually joined me, her meeting a success. We went for expensive peanut butter sandwiches and, after a round-trip subway digression to Steven Jenkins' cheese counter, we roamed Greenwich Village, the East Village, and the Lower East Side. We failed to find a particular store on St. Mark's Place that we suspected (by reason of being the manufacturer) would sell more sizes than the one that didn't fit of the jacket J. wanted at Eighth Street Lab, and we failed to get fresh bialys at the place recommended for such, but then our friend Ann had served bialys at breakfast (even if not from this particular location), so it was not a serious problem.
Wherever we went, we were accompanied by a reblochon-fresh scent.
We had an embarrassingly early dinner at Café Charbon on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side, and after two visits over the course of a year I can say You Must Go, should you be seeking an affordable splurge in the area. Their "authentique" chalkboard menu in French has been replaced by printed ones in English, but as the chalkboard was hard to read (language aside), that is not a serious loss. Nor was the more casual look affected by employees (one woman, for instance, in a Powerpuff Girls baby-tee, instead of Euro black) a sign that things had changed for the worse.
I hope we didn't disappoint the goth woman at the spooky threads store nearby (Machine, I believe), where we stopped for a few minutes after dinner, by not attending her fetish fashion show, but at the time it was scheduled to start, midnight, we were in the area of Mystic, CT. About that drive home the less said, the better, apart from a blanket condemnation of Route 95 from Stamford to almost New Haven, but no surprises there.
Last anecdote: as we waited for our train at Grand Central back to Pleasantville and our car, I bought (rather inferior) espresso and J. a small snack. She went into a bakery in the station and asked if they had any chocolate cupcakes. "Only chocolate cupcake here is him," said one of the employees, indicating a co-worker, and hilarity ensued.
Oh, I lied; one more: I believe the middle-aged women in front of us on the subsequent train ride would have referred to the employees of that bakery as darkies, at least if I heard them right, and I am not entirely convinced that I did, not because I can't believe some (relatively youthful) grandma with a midwestern accent can't be a racist, but because, well, more sophisticated people nowadays say "mud-people" or "black-a-moors." No, it is more likely that this charming lady, when she disparaged to her friend some "darkies" whom she had heard ask the conductors about a particular scheduling irregularity, she meant simply people who were in the dark about that matter.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-04 05:13 pm (UTC)Did they have mozzarella?
no subject
Date: 2003-05-04 05:19 pm (UTC)