Friday, November 10, 2006

Monkeyminding in NY

By the way, the blog that should precede this one is called "Is there an easier way?" It's dated 10/24 for reasons too mundane to explain, but was actually written just a couple of days ago.

Woowoo Charly and Yorestrewly, call me Yores for short, are ensconced in Kira's 4th floor Brooklyn apartment overlooking the third, second and first floors of other Brooklyn apartments.
The view, charming as it is, is not the principal incentive to live here, it's the low rental of a square foot of large bills per square foot that makes the building so attractive to New York's middle class. Hey, come on, I'm almost not kidding. The smallest monetary denomination of any practical use here in the Big Apple is a twenty. Singles are the new pennies. Yesterday Charly and I had lunch at a place called Snookys. We had the Special. After that I got carried away and ordered a second beer. Lucky for me the bartender needed a watch.

Today we are going to take a long walk in Prospect Park. I don't know what that is going to cost because I'm told the price varies depending on the guy wearing the ski mask who does the collecting. After that we are going to see the baby. Our daughter is going to give us a nice discount on the viewing because we are the kid's grandparents. Just don't tell the other people in line.

The weather has been nice though. Indian Summer. Of course I don't know what that means, Indian Summer. What do the Indians have to do with it and which Indians are we talking about? The ones over there or the ones that used to be here? Did Little Brain chief of the Wahhunkas and a distant relative take advantage of a warm November day to catch some rays at the beach and declare it Summer? Some body look this up in your Funk and Internet and get back to me. I need to know and I'm on the need to know basis so it's okay to tell me. Don't tell anyone else though, it's against the Patriot Act and we all know how Patriots act. They applaud when the Dems take the Senate, the House and several hotels.

Okay it's clear the monkeymind is loosey goosey which is mixing both metaphors and animals so I'll close for now because I didn't really have anything to say anyway which is a thing that goes without saying in most cases. Just not mine.

A guy pointed at me as I walked by him and he said, You walk like a New Yorker, you've been living in Brooklyn way too long." I have no idea what that means and he didn't explain. It's a mystery. Like Indian Summer.

Monday, November 06, 2006

New kid on the block

I'm sitting on one of those large exercise balls people use to work out with for a day or two before they roll them into a corner. This one is fitted into a desk chair frame of some sort so it doesn't roll around or bounce your butt right off. It's comfy and easy on the cheeks but it makes you sit up straight backed and perky like. I'm not sure that's the right fit for my corkscrew spine and lazy mind. I think I'll write faster than usual.

Here's a word about the miracle of birth...Yikes! If all miracles were this messy, bloody and painful we wouldn't hold them in anything close to the high regard we now do. Miracles would be up there with dentistry and bone resetting on the scale of desirability.

"Aunt Sally's sinking fast, I'm praying for a miracle.

"You never did like Aunt Sally, did you?"

Of course at the end of the birth miracle you do get a nice reward. Once you've wiped off the slime and the blood you get a crying poop machine you can love for the rest of your life. The latest one of those in our family, Jackson Walton Hyde, made his appearance on the big stage at 1:26 p.m. November 3rd to a big round of applause, his mom's "Oh my god oh my god!", his dad's look of wonderment and, in the distant background, his new gramps saying, "alrighty then!" Jackson himself seemed to take it all in stride apart from a couple of facial expressions that could be read as "Whoa Dude" and "It's cold out here."

There were a number of interesting things that happened before Jackson made his debut that I will detail at a later date. I am recovering from shock and awe and an airplane cold and don't really feel up to the task at this moment. The highlight though, was when the heavy set woman doctor crouched over center like an NFL quarterback, put her hands up where, fortunately, my view was blocked and said something that could have been hike but probably wasn't and a second later took a one step drop and reappeared with the ball, I mean the baby in her hands. A smooth handoff was then made to the mom and somewhere, on some scoreboard, points were awarded.

Go Jackson!

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

New York Blogging

Walking down the street in Brooklyn on a warm Halloween night with my very pregnant daughter; costumed characters of all sizes streaming by. One guy, bearded and garbed in something that could be a costume, but may also be his regular Tuesday night look, approaches us from the opposite direction. "Hey, he says, pointing at Dara's belly as he passes by, "THAT is very convincing."

We had landed in Newark earlier that day and negotiated a ride from the airport to Brooklyn with a guy whose name was beyond the grasp of both my Spanish and English tongues and who, we learned as we rode along keeping our eyes on the road - a skill that frequently eluded our driver - was a Sikh from Punjab, India. Alrighty then Toto, we've put Kansas in the rearview mirror. Sikhs, we learned as we sped along through Newark's thick traffic and thicker smog, represent only 2% of India's poppulation. (And of course I'm thinking two percent of India is what, the population of Europe?) We also learned that it is possible to drive with one hand on the wheel, one hand waving about for either emphasis or air stimulation and that an Indian's life story could be told by looking back at both his past and his passengers, life and traffic to the fore be damned. A thing, I might add, that by journey's end, had made me real close to Sikh as well.

Nevertheless Horatio, we are here! New York City, The Big Apple. The place where our daughter will either explode or give birth to a son in the very near future. Both seem like very real possibilities to me so I'm doing the smart thing and staying at her back. It's weird though, for a person who could blow at any moment, the kid looks great. Clear skin, bright eyes, shiny hair, lots of smiling. She isn't even impatient to have the whole thing over. In fact she acts as if being pumped up like a pair of Nike Airs is kind of fun. Weird I tell you, weird, but then women and their stuff are always mysteries so stay tuned and see how this one plays out. It will either be "It's a boy!" or "Thar she blows." Either way, it's gonna be messy.









Stay tuned as the