Randomness

Dear Readers (mostly Parental Units),

Yes, I'm fine.
Really.
I just couldn't get my act together to write a series of real post(s).

So you don't a) call my boss b) call my other bosses c) call the neighbors d) contact my friends or e) call the NYPD (as you have threatened to do before), here are some random entries dating back a ways to prove that I'm fine, my weird observational humor is still intact, and that I am traveling/functioning/documenting on other forums other than this one.

In no particular order,

Drew might appreciate this concert poster. Killer Stegadons playing the trombone? The brass players at the Big J are a bit crazy. I think they blew too hard and ruptured some brain cells. This was just 1 of a series of concert posters for this particular musician.

In a fit of spring cleaning/blog writing procrastination, I've been going through the buckets and buckets of stuff in my Attic. Look who I found! My hand-made, vintage, childhood dollies. *Sniff* Proving once again, even though you thought you didn't need your childhood friends, your mother knew better and saved them for you.

I've been thinking about the CT house lately. (STILL ON THE MARKET, almost 2 years later. *Sigh* Send a prayer up for the market to swing upwards soon.) Some of the gang are cleaning up/out their houses and showing off the "decor" of their kitchens. I think I have the oddness beat -- Nothing tops 1950s vintage plastic turquoise tiles that only come up half the walls, topped by rockin' stripped mustard/orange/puce floral wallpaper. Good times. I enjoyed the latest incarnation, the reno Grumpa assisted with sometime in the last 10 years, but my formative year? Were spent looking at this -- on a much larger scale. [What? YOU don't have a tile and wallpaper sample from your childhood home framed for posterity? What's wrong with YOU!?]

I did manage to go exploring and enjoying time with friends. On Easter Eve, I had a delicious series of appetizers in the Bronx's "little Italy" Arthur Avenue with Christine. We did notice, however, that apparently you can only celebrate one religious holiday at a time on Arthur Avenue.

Christine and I also have spent time stress-eating/venting at other restaurants over the last month or so. In March, after, oh, 20 years or so of being a New Yorker, and over 5-7 of those years, heading in and out of Grand Central twice a day, I finally ate at the Oyster Bar. Here's the thing: The restaurant at the Oyster Bar is super $$$, but I had the best sea bass I've ever had. If I go again? We're eating at the bar/counter, where things are more in my price range. If I divide the cost of dinner by 20 years? Pennies on the dollar, but still.

What else?

Oh yes. My Internet/cable/wifi were down for a whole 30 hours - driving me crazy and forcing me out of the house. Sometimes when your technology doesn't work/keep you locked to a screen, you have go out and smell the flowers/blossoms. So I escaped to the New York Botanical Garden.

I've been working late a lot lately, so sometimes I get a ride home from my pal Cynthia. On our walk to the parking garage/street, we pass a bunch of day care centers that have their own version of social media "walls." Here are some humorous updates. (I want to be a kid again!)

Music AND art classes. AND playground time? Am I too old to enroll in this school? I wonder if there is nap time?

Another option: maybe if there was "juice time," my "self portrait" wouldn't be the title of their Book of the Day.

One particular morning, NOTHING went right with the subway portion of my travels, and I had to hoof it from stops that were nowhere near my normal. I was rushing, but I did happen to catch this shadow out of the corner of my eye. Cast by the eastern sunlight across one of the many new sculptural installations by the artist Woytuk on Broadway, it is supposed to be a normal sized bird perched on some apple -- with the shadow, it looked like a raven to me.

Spotted once upon a commute so ghastly.

Shadows of a sculpture Woytuk-ly.

Quoth the Raven Nevermore and nothing more

Let's see. What else has been happening? The semester is rushing by. Check it out: Apparently, even our work-study student is a little punchy - a wreck, you might say. I came back from some errand or another and discovered thatthe fund-raising ship had sailed. She adorned my computer, and

my desk was adorned with origami. Instead of shredding or filing the papers, she left these for me.

Maybe she was trying to tell me something? I usually am thinking this about MY boss.

Even though the winter wasn't cold, didn't have too snow, and generally wasn't much to complain about, the unrelenting greyness -- grey skies, concrete, asphalt, subway grime, travertine -- started to get to me. One day, though, a burst of color gleamed through the dim of Grand Central. Japan Week celebrations in Vanderbilt Hall brought cherry blossoms, kimono silks, and red lanterns to break up with the winter gloom.

You see all kinds of things on the commute.

You probably can't tell from this grainy, much zoomed, edited, and cropped iTouch photo, but this type of randomness happens a lot on the trains. You get absorbed in your book, 'nook, i-thingy, you look up, glance to yourself and go "huh": That Sudoko player is totally not paying attention to the stressed out bride-to-be next to him who just picked up her bridal bouquet of calla lilies and is clenching them for dear life. Maybe he's afraid to look at her, for fear she'll freak out. That, or this is the worst commute to a funeral EVER. The lilies were pretty, but I like lilies of the valley. Callas just make me miss Katherine Hepburn.

Check this little one out. Traveling to NYC via the train is fascinating at any age, especially if you have your best friend to snuggle.

Just ask my fellow Big J commuter friend Jess. Commuting is hard. Stuffed animals help. Hey. Whatever gets you through the daily grind.

Finally. I'm popping multivitamins, aspirin, and Vitamin D like candy these days -- just to stave off the stress. I'm also popping Vitamin C. I prefer to get my vitamins from actual fruit (stop laughing people). However, I'm not sure I want to take any of these floozies home.

How's that for a random set of updates?

More soon. When I don't have writers block.