Thanksgiving Weekend

It’s the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I’m on the C train heading toward my sisters to watch my neice for the night. There’s a man to my right with in-ears molded for his iPhone and an Obama pin on his green canvas jacket. The door right next to me only slides open on one side. Luckily, there’s not many people on the train this evening. It’s late in the day on a rainy, Fall, Sunday.
Thanksgiving is an easy Holiday for Jews, which is why so many of us probably like it. It’s like showing up for class and getting an A in Being American -just show up, eat, and go home. No synagogue. No guilt. No main characters or traditions like gifts or fireworks or anything else that might require stressing out (do you even know what it’s like to go to the kosher butcher?)
This year My mom was off duty to her dismay (she likes making this holiday), and so I brought Starr and we went to my sister’s in-laws since we were holiday orphans. Starr made a Feta Dip that was good, but was strong and bit too salty fro all that feta (I was hoping for pumpkin pie). Overall, the food was nice and we didn’t overstay our welcome since my sister had to get her kids home at a decent hour (kids are the perfect exit strategy).
It was a pretty straightforward Thanksgiving, unlike, say, my aunts on Saturday where we went to spend some time that we missed Thursday, with my dad and grandma. There, my neice stands on chairs and throws imaginary balls to evryone. My nephew tells my aunt to use her ‘indoor voice’ when she’s talking too loud (always). We start the meal with chocolate hip cookies and Tostitos. And this is all around a main course of vegetable lasagna which happened to be really good.
There’s a lot of kids there and between my cousin Jodi (19), Liat (18), Stacey (16), and Starr (21), it almost felt like I was in The Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants.
Last night Starr and I got pretty drunk at our friends concert at the Bowery Ballroom. We got into a fight over chicken fingers and onion rings at 3:30 in the morning in front of the bulletproof glass at Palace Fried Chicken. We ended up getting the 6piece chicken smackers an I took some Laughing Cow cheese and put it on a pita chip for her.  Unfortunately, this didn’t appease her.  Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and collapsed into bed.
I awoke with a headache. I took two ibuprofen, and then a third one later. I tried to get away cause I wanted to watch football but more, I wanted to figure out how to backup legally purchased DVDs on my mac.  I had borrowed Fiddler OnThe Roof from my grandmother, and promised I’d get it back to her soon.  But it wasn’t so easy.  It was a rainy, nasty day and we decided eventually to grab a late breakfast at a place called Autour Du Monde.

This is a really nice cafe/restaurant in a neighborhood that doesn’t really have the clientele (yet), so it wasn’t surprising that we were the only ones in the place.  I was cranky, and was getting upset that I wasn’t getting water poured down my throat instantly, or that the coffee didn’t come faster.  But it is a french place, so I let it go (til my stomach started to growl).  The food eventually did come out and it’s really, really good. A few more customers came in too, by the time we left.  I had a poached egg on a brioche(?) that I thought was a little sandwich, and Starr had the Veggie Burger (which wasn’t that good).  I could never go out of my way for Autour Du Monde (not like 12 Chairs), but I would like it to stay in business, if, for nothing else, it keeps yet another hairdresser out of that neigborhood.

 I guess I ate more than enough this Thanksgiving weekend.  What more could I ask for than a country that allows me to eat so many different flavors in just a few days.  Did I mention I went to Dinosaur BBQ too?

Thoughts on the Tracks

Here I am in our nations capital.  They have the nicesest subways here.  I mean the NICEST subways I have ever seen in the United States (maybe the world, well, no -in Budapest they had a celebratory 100 year old car in their subway to celebrate being the first subway -That was the nicest subway).  This is by far the nicest in the States, though, and despite what Bill -The employee of the MTA who I met at Brian’s party last week (really nice guy)- says, it runs pretty smoothly (Bill said it was starting to need maintenance).  Not perfect, (there were a few jerky starts after a stop at the DuPont Station), but overall, it’s much smoother than NY.  Sorry Bill, this is one nice ride.

And cleaner too!  Check out these pictures I took of these tracks!  If you were a rat in this subway system, you’d starve!  And every station had a clock telling you when the next train was coming -I had to wait 6 minutes for a train in Union Center, which isn’t very good at 8pm, but who cares cause at least they told me!  Oh, and the walls!  Great, big waffles of concrete arching over to the other side like a giant, Roman stadium entrance.  They’re massive and intimidating.  They kinda reminded me of Blade Runner.  In the middle of the tracks they have florescent lights that give a futuristic glow to the trains cutting through the station (all we have in NY is a third rail with 10,000 volts and has everyone wondering what someone touching it will look like).

They have cushy vinyl seats too, and carpeting.  Not that crappy orange drink color seats that we have that make you slide everywhere when you stop.  And they seem roomier too.  I just felt like putting my feet up and relaxing.

I’ve thought about going back to school, getting a law degree, running for public office and obtaining civil authority just so that I can work to positively influence the NYC Subway system.  It’s that much of a mess.  And it’s not just me.  Everytime there’s an article on Gothamist about a fare hike or a subway something, dozens of people comment.  And why?  Because the subway affects everyone that takes it.  And if you take it frequently, it becomes a part of you and you begin to take it personally.  Here is a picture of what the NYC Subway looks like:

So last Friday I, along with a bunch of others, had a long conversation with Bill about the MTA and all its problems and needs of fixing (the system takes in millions a day, but still takes millions more to run).  It’s an ancient system and in need of lots of work.  I made my two cents heard by pushing for an Adopt-A-Station type program where you give spare change and what not to your station and all that money can only be used to beautify your station.  I also requested more entrances because nothing is worse than getting off the train and having to stare at a guys butt because it’s so packed and there’s not enough exits.  

I could go on.  I haven’t given up my dream of running the MTA, though I know nothing about it (and yet surprisingly more than most).  It’s one of those things we NYer’s take for granted.  That it’ll just work.  And for the most part it does.  Even if employees sleep on the job.  Even if the smell is awful.  Even if it drips in weird places water tainted with rust.  Bill said his favorite part of the subway in NY was it’s people, and I can’t help but agree.  I remember telling my cousin once after he told me how he hates the subway.  ’It’s poetry’ I said.  And I believed it, though not everyday.  Then, last year, sure enough he emailed me an article from the NY Times stating the obvious fact in a 1000 words or so…The Subway was indeed Poetry.

That said, watch this….