Giving thanks

Third day of the heat wave on the east coast, and I'm here listening to and watching a rollicking good thunderstorm which (a) chased everyone off the beach, (b) dropped a little rain - so far - on my parched tomato plants, and (c) sounds as though it started a fire somewhere on the other side of the bridge, there is emergency equipment still rolling fifteen minutes after the alarm went out.  That's not so unusual, actually, the emergency personnel around here generally have so little to do they jump at any opportunity to suit up and go to an event, whatever that event might be.

So it got me to thinking, some days it isn't all that bad to live at the beach.  The entertainment is free - I got to watch people run like heck to their cars when the thunder started sounding serious.  I got to hear a couple of guys exclaiming about a sting ray they saw in the water - and I'm pretty sure they weren't referring to an old Corvette.

The interruptions can be irritating, like the fact that the power went out about five minutes ago (between the last paragraph and this one), but thanks to some sort of switch that resets itself most of the time, we're back online already.  Some days technology is pretty cool.

So, where was I?  Hmmm.  At any rate, the power coming back on seems to have stimulated the rain to do more, so maybe the plants will get a good drink after all.  Among the new additions to my yard this spring, I have four day lilies that were just planted on Sunday, a hydrangea, and a butterfly bush.  Tomatoes are an annual labor around here, some years more successful than others.  This year's tomatoes are courtesy of Alice, one of my best train buddies, which is another thing I was thinking about today, before the power blipped.

I wonder if train buddies are specific to the North Jersey Coast Line, or if they happen elsewhere?  I can see reasons they might be specific to our line, we have the longest run in the NJ Transit system, and I see a lot of the same people every day, some of them in both directions.  Over time there develops a bit of espirit du corps (some days we really need it), and sometimes we even trade names, and even better, get to be friends.  We say hello to each other when we cross paths in places other than the train or one station or the other, and sometimes socialize or help each other out.  Another of my train buddies, Jeff, came home with me the other evening to help put the air conditioner in my bedroom window, since it was going to be in the 90s and I hadn't even thought of getting the unit set up last time I had someone with muscles here to lift it for me.  I think that's awesome, to help out someone you barely know, just because you "conversate" (a NJT coined word - as in, if you are seated in a quiet car and wish to conversate, please move to a different car) on the train some mornings.

So I think I'm counting train buddies as one of the things to be thankful for, and yes, it is a part of living at the beach.  If I didn't live here, I wouldn't be riding the train with such nice people. 

Other things to be thankful for, which are definitely a part of living at the beach, include my lunch today (and dinner the last two days), which I was enjoying before the thunderstorm arrived.  One of my neighbors stopped by the other evening with a large baggie of crabs, cooked and cleaned and ready to eat.  Crabs are probably my favorite food on the planet, and it's awesome to be handed a sack of them, free of charge.  Even better to not need to spend the rest of the night, after getting home from work after 8.00, cooking and cleaning them.  And what bliss to park myself at the table and enjoy the zen of eating crabs, poking and sucking every last bit of meat out of the shells, and especially on a Friday afternoon, when I ought to be in the city working!

 Another thing to be thankful for is neighbors like the people next door to my Mother, who sent over freshly caught fish this morning - I think it's stripped bass - and also as needed babysit Pablo.  Pablo, if you haven't visited here before, is my Chihuahua, who was so melted this morning he hopped in the car to go spend the afternoon with Grandma, who has the a/c on.  Here's how he looked before she came for him:

He couldn't decide if the floor in my office was cooler than the tile floor in the bathroom, so he was going back and forth between them, splatting out on one floor or the other.  I always thought Mexicans liked hot weather?  A friend of mine who grew up in Mexico loves hot weather.  Maybe Pablo is really part Husky, or something.

So, the storm has passed thru, it's somewhat cooler now, though still pretty humid, and gee, there goes the thunder again....but the birds are back to their singing - there's a colony of mocking birds here, and they make the most glorious racket at all times of the day or night.  The bird with the most songs gets the girls, you know.   I think it was Alvin Ailey who said that's not noise, it's part of the music of life.  Hard as it is some days, I'm trying to think that way, too.

Yesterday

A picture from our afternoon/early evening walk yesterday.  I like the "painterly" sky, and I'm impressed the phone actually did a decent job of recording it.  Of course, it looks like a lot of newer houses do - too many different "features" used at the same time.  I'm not a cloud-name expert, but it seems it might have been better to just have the white ones that look brushed on, without the passing thunderstorms (those dark blue-grey masses) cluttering up the view.  But that's how the weather has been the last week or two.  If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes, it'll change. 

The light on the rocks and beach grass is a product of the sun peeking out from under one of those thunder clouds. 

The changeable weather has two results that I've observed.  One, more people get to go to the beach.  With a very limited number of parking spaces available, the number of people who can find a place to park to go to the beach is also limited.  The weather contributes by making the personnel turn over more quickly than it ordinarily would.  It's sort of like the tables at a restaurant.  When one group of people finishes eating, the next group can be seated and fed.  With the beach, one group of people gets rained on or hears thunder, and leaves quickly.  The weather gets bad for its allotted five minutes, then the sun comes out again, and a new crew takes to the beach.  We've been having three or four turns per day lately, where normally the same people who arrive in the morning don't leave until it's time for supper.

The other oddness created by the weird weather is an unseasonable flowering of our Montauk Daisies.  Normally these plants are green all summer, and only bloom once fall arrives, so we have full flowering from the end of September thru the first hard frost, late October or so.  Not this year.  We've got flowers already, and it's only June.  So while the roses are in  full bloom, the Montauks are joining them.  It will be interesting to see what happens in the fall.  Maybe we really are turning into California.

A view of...what????

 I was going to title this a view from the bridge.  Except we weren't really on the bridge, we were waiting for the Morgan bridge to close so the train could proceed.  I'll never understand why a train, which runs on a schedule (for the most part) would need to wait for a bridge (which has no particular schedule) to open for river traffic then close and maybe if we're lucky lock back in place.  Which is besides the point, at the moment.

Then I considered calling it a view of the bridge - with the human eye, even with my glasses which badly need to be updated, prescription-wise, I could see the Verrazano Narrows Bridge from where we sat - but you really can't see the bridge, in the picture.  Cameras (especially ones in phones) do that, sometimes - totally miss the point.

What you can see in the picture (maybe, with a microscope) is Raritan Bay, with Staten Island to the left (the tree-covered edge on the top left), some kind of tanker either incoming or outgoing (white blotch on the green edge), sitting and waiting for the tide, and someone's modest sailboat (aka a hole in the water into which one pours money, white wedge towards the right of the picture) just hanging out.  The train was a double decker, and I was sitting on the lower deck, where I really don't prefer to sit, but that accounts for the relatively low perspective.

Interesting?  Not particularly.  But the lack of visual stimuli gives one the opportunity or excuse to sleep on the train, which the woman sitting next to me was doing, Kindle on her lap.  Which caused me to start feeling trapped, by this stage of the trip.  Which is not a nice feeling.

Now, just south (or east?) of the Morgan is a wetland, and continuing on an outbound (from NY) heading, one passes into a relatively wooded area with houses and such along the tracks.  As the train came out of the wetland, I saw a youngish looking deer at the side of the tracks, and it ran alongside the train for a while, till we picked up speed and left it behind.  That was pretty neat, and in my opinion, worth staying awake to see.  

ambiguity

I find it annoying when someone can't make up their mind, but this one takes the cake:

The bright colors caught my eye yesterday in Foggy Bottom.  I particularly like the blue, which I can see relates to trust, or is a trust-worthy color.  I don't particularly relate to orange as a color, unless it's included in a palette of fall shades, gold and orange and scarlet and brown, like a stand of trees after a light frost.  But orange representing doubt is new to me.  Considering it is a "hot" color in fashion this year (or so I am told), even more odd (to my way of thinking) it should be associated with doubt.

But the real question is, what is the message here, or is there any message at all?  This is a front yard of one of those cool little townhouses I've always liked, and it is a new installation, it wasn't there last time I was in the neighborhood.  The pavers are new, too.  Nice little courtyard.  Nice to have a place to sit, it's a pretty block, lots of cool little townhouses and lovely gardens with traditional garden gates and such.  If I had piles of money and a reason to live in DC, this is likely a neighborhood I might choose to live in. 

So, back to the question.  If I sit on the blue bench, am I trusting?  What does that say about someone who sits on the orange? 

And the other question.  Why are the benches next to each other?  Reminds me of a waiting room, or a train station.  I would rather see them across from each other, but not too far apart, or better, at right angles to one another, forming an outdoor conversation nook.  That to me would be inviting, in spite of the orange and that word punched out of the backrest.

Then I would also need flowers in ceramic pots, with all different colors there.  And maybe a small table to put your iced tea on while watching the world go by.  And a way to put your feet up after a long day at the rat race.

I'm not too picky, am I?  I doubt it. 

Nonsensicalness

Well, maybe that's not really a word, but it makes a strange sort of sense in this instance.  I've always wondered about a particular sign, which I hope you can read for yourself in the picture:

It's faded from the sun, and of course the picture was taken through the train window on a sunny morning.   It says no trespassing, in English and Spanish. Which on the surface of things is a not so unusual sign to be found in quasi public places.  Except the location makes me wonder what someone was thinking.  The steps that lead to the gate bearing the sign go from the ground in an area where people are basically not allowed to be, to the platform, where one would wind up if one entered through the gate, where people are expected to be.  So I would think the sign ought to be on the opposite side of the gate, warning people on the platform not to leave it, rather than telling folk who might be on the ground not to climb to the platform.  The gate, by the way, appears to be permanently locked. Or maybe rusted in place, by now.  This is the Jersey Shore, where everything rusts.

Just one of the many incompetencies exhibited by NJ Transit on a daily basis.  If I cared, I might find it embarrassing that someone in an official capacity made such a silly mistake.  As it is, I just find it mildly amusing.  There's not very much entertaining about the daily commute, so you have to enjoy the little things.

Picture of the week

This may be one of the last vestiges of the Harrison that was.  I almost missed getting this picture, I didn't think this would be the first building they would take down.  It's probably my favorite train-side graffito.  "False" is an omnipresent artist, we see his (and why do I assume it is a he???) signature up and down the Northeast Corridor tracks in NJ.  But this time it's different, and likely one of his older works (I'm guessing).  The thing I like about it is the "R" at the end, which is actually a dancer, or perhaps a street dude wielding nunchucks.  Unfortunately, the topmost part of the dancer is already gone in this picture, taken yesterday morning.  Arms formed the top of the "R"; ok, maybe arms with nunchucks, I can get behind that interpretation, with a ball in the center representing his head.

And why, you ask, is the building coming down?  So they can make space for the new multi-million dollar PATH station which is going to bring new life or something to the blighted former industrial town.  A new station which, by the way, noone can afford to build, the town is pretty much bankrupt, but it's going to get built anyhow.  Part of the renovation of the entire rust belt town, which began with Red Bull Stadium and will end who knows where.

So then we will have another overpriced bedroom community attached to NYC.

When I was a kid growing up in this area, people used to make things in Harrison.   No more.  Now they sleep there.  If they are able to sleep.

My elementary school is a few blocks from this former factory.  The Annie bridge is a few more blocks away.  I used to take the PATH to college.  Now I try not to take the PATH, it's kind of like standing in a sardine can.

 Progress.  Bah, humbug.

Reflecting on where I've been since 1976

I just reread my posting about having visited Pace's downtown campus, and can't help but consider the long and sometimes arduous road I've traveled since I left there in 1976.  I certainly can't say it hasn't been interesting.  And I don't need or want to go into great detail here.  But....wow.  There were days (weeks, months, years) when I didn't think I would make it.  And in spite of everything, while I wouldn't say I triumphed, I can state that I have survived a lot of stuff I didn't think at the time was survivable, and here I am, pretty much still intact.  The psychic bruises are finally fading a bit, and some of the memories of the better times are coming back, after years of being locked behind some kind of door in my brain.

That is a very fascinating process, the one where the memories of pretty much everything having to do with a traumatic time get locked away so you just don't remember them, and those months or years feel like a huge blank space in your head.  Then, when time and distance work their magic, little snippets of the past come leaking out, like melting ice seeping under that door, and then you realize the memories are still in there somewhere, just hidden.  If things seem to be ok, little pieces of memory pop back up into the active category, usually triggered by association with something you are currently doing or saying or in my case especially, smelling and hearing.  I get a lot of things triggered by smells and sounds. 

There are also some things that I don't like but can't figure out why, particularly sounds.  For example, I can't stand the sound of car tires crunching on gravel.  There must be some unpleasant association for me, but I have no idea what it might be.  Another thing I can't stand is the smell of beef being grilled.  Burgers, steaks, anything beef-based, the smell makes me nauseous.  I do eat beef, occasionally but not often, and it's ok, it's not that I don't like the taste, I just can't bear the smell. 

Go figure.

back to from whence I came, in a manner of speaking

It's been years, no, centuries, since I've visited Pace University's NYC campus, but I had an opportunity to be there on Sunday for a concert by someone I know.  The concert was great.  The being back was weird.

The neighborhood has changed.  Of course.  In the space of 36 years, nothing much stays the same, I guess.  The Pace building itself has an addition on the top, which to my eye seems odd, and the open rooftop I used to see from my dorm window is now a building, or what could theoretically exist as a building on its own, except it is sitting on the roof of a building.  Weird enough.

And those parking spaces along the Pace building where we all used to take turns in the free spaces created by the fire hydrant being involuntarily removed by a friend of mine are no longer parking spaces, there is no parking on the entire block.  And Nassau Street has been turned into a pedestrian mall.  Good idea, I think. It's way too narrow for cars.

Then there's the space across the street that used to be a ground level parking lot for Beekman Hospital.  I remember keeping an informal count of the predominant color of the cars parked in the lot from day to day - it always amused me that, in a place one would expect might be occupied by the same personnel's vehicles every day, the predominant car color would change daily.

Well, no more parking lot.  Of course.  Manhattan real estate is way too valuable to be used as a street level parking lot.  So they built something on it.  Actually, they built a number of things on it, all contained in one slightly twisted building designed by Frank Gehry.  Apparently, and I recall reading an article about this not so long ago, the lower floors house a school, while the tower is apartments, and rather pricey ones, at that.  The school portion of the building is kind of square and red brick-ish.  The tower is a twisted, dizziness-inducing silver thing, that looks like it is moving even if you aren't.  I recommend standing still and holding onto something stationary if you want to take a close look.  Here's a glimpse:

It's more than a bit disconcerting to have this tower growing out of this base, and both looking like they are from alternate universes, not part of the same building.  But ok.  Whatever.  What fascinates me (and I've been up the ramparts of Gehry's Disney Concert Hall in LA, so I tend to be fascinated by this type of thing) is how the tower seems to move and twist in the wind as you're watching it. 

I think I'll try to go see an apartment up there.  No, I can't afford it, but I can't not take a look, if I can wrangle my way inside.  Besides, the views have got to be spectacular.

By the way, here's a link to the website of the building, go take a look:  http://www.newyorkbygehry.com/

my kind of hummer

We're not talking those oversized suv type things here.  This is a real hummer, the kind nature makes:

And yes, it is a real photo, of a real bird, which I took last week in the real Mission San Juan de Capistrano, with my old as the hills Canon point and shoot.  For anyone who might not know, that is a bird of paradise he is eating from, which is a really awesome kind of flower that I don't think can survive our weather here on the east coast.  I wish it could, though, and if our climate change continues to make NJ feel more and more like California, I might just try planting some in my yard and see what happens.

We do have hummers here, in the right season, which is certainly not February.  Usually people put out fancy hummer feeders, which one fills with sugar water, colored red, since bright colors seem to attract the little guys.

I'm also attracted to bright colors, so I understand how they feel about that.   

rainbows 'r us

One morning this week I arrived at the train station to find people actually smiling.  Never having seen such a phenomenon, I asked around as to the cause, and found this hanging overhead:

Granted, they are not the best photos I've ever taken, and the color seems a bit less intense than the real thing, but then, it's a phone, not a camera, and I was trying to catch it before it faded, and the train was about to pull in and block my view entirely....well.  The long and the short of it is, this was all one rainbow, a full horizon to horizon arch in much more glorious color than you can see in the photos.  I think this is the only place I've ever seen a full arch, really - you see a lot of partial rainbows, like this one from a November day in LA that went from Pasadena on up, but stopped somewhere in the sky:

Sometimes we get full arches over the ocean, and once there was a circular rainbow, also over the ocean, for which I of course did not have a camera handy.  Pretty amazing, someone bigger than any of us is playing with paintbrushes up there.