6 Oct 06

Time:

?

Money:

$4, big ol' Maple Macchiato from campus Starbucks (and it was good, but I would have been grateful for it anyway - no coffee in class yet.)
$48, new green jacket from Old Navy.
$14, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, yams, cornbread, coconut cake, and lemonade, Soul Fixins. (In the immortal words of one of my students, "More like Soul AWESOME....")
$4, bottle of cherry beer from this awesome wine, cheese, and beer store on the UWS (they pull off selling both beer and wine because technically, I guess, it's two physical stores.)
$0, pint of cider at Valhalla, because Anne's cousins very nicely treated me.

More interesting things:

Tumbleweeded - it was windy, and it was cold, and it was definitely the start of fall - down WSq South, right over a manhole cover emblazoned with "IN LINE WITH ANOTHER AND THE NEXT." And keep in mind this was actually raised out of the metal, like the opposite of engraving, probably done at the factory because I sure can't see who would drag out a machine capable of doing that in the street. More than that, maybe, I can't see WHY. What the heck does that mean?

Saw chefs - or at least people dressed convincingly as chefs - picketing on Seventh Avenue near Penn Station for chefs' rights. Like... what, for example? If their picket signs (really!) had said something about cooks, on the other hand, that might have made more sense. But chefs, I'm not so clear.

Walked back from Soul Fixins, up Ninth Avenue and under the Port Authority Bus Terminal. I guess since I always saw signs for the bus terminal near Penn Station, I just sort of thought it was for the most part indistinguishable from the LIRR/A-C-E-1-2-3/Amtrak section of things, and that may be true as far as passengers are concerned. But today we passed under two chartreuse skyway-flyover-looking things, like exits to the Fort Lauderdale airport and I-595 suddenly overrun by an absolute parade of city buses. Is that where they get gas or something? Because I simply cannot fathom that THAT many people feel the need to pass through (well, over) Hell's Kitchen that many times a day.

Made it past the buses and up to one of those unusual-grocery stores (that is, the stores aren't unusual; it's that they carry unusual groceries, such as a ten-gallon can of olive oil) which fended off its potential mouse visitors - and possibly human ones as well - by keeping a Sphinx of a fat gray-and-white cat just inside the doorway.

Found a restaurant in Hell's Kitchen called... Hell's Kitchen. Anne's cousin suggested that they should be sure to carry devil's food cake and deviled eggs.

Shared a west side train coming back from Anne's with a bunch of people and a cake box. In most towns your average cake box never has the chance to make it below ground at all, much less onto a subway, but then again I've now brought salmon with me a couple of times, and at any rate it's probably easier to keep the thing steady if you hold it with both hands rather than let it compete for your attention with, like, what's going on outside one's windshield.

Shared a crosstown bus with a field hockey girl. She was wearing Topsiders, a rugby shirt, and a peacoat, of course, and needless to say had a cell phone in one ear and an iPod in the other, and obviously hopped off the bus at Fifth Avenue. This was the first time since I've lived here that I have seen someone who could have come from the Gossip Girl books, and even if I don't particularly admire it, it's kind of fun to see they're out there.