Stormy Nights, Clear Mornings

Those of us living in the tri-state area had a bit of excitement last night.

Yesterday was a crappy weather day. It was muggy and grey, with the threat of rain looming. More April-like than January-like, I thought. News was that a monster storm was coming, and when I left my office at six to head home, the flags around the Rockefeller Center Ice Rink were already whipping in the increasing wind. 

By the time I got home the rain had already started, so what were we to do but build a fire, make hamburgers, and settle in for the night with a little Law & Order: SVU?

When I went up to bed it was still raining, but nothing too crazy. I thought maybe the weather predictions were exaggerated, although after experiencing Hurricane Sandy a few months ago and all the devastation she wrought, I am pretty cautious about underestimating any kind of weather event.

It was four o'clock in the morning when I was shocked awake by massive claps of thunder, and the sound of our outdoor shutters banging against the house right outside my window. And I sleep with super-powered ear plugs every single night, so that I could hear the storm through them was instantly a sign that this was a big one. 

Once I recovered from the unexpected jolt, we were both awake, and lay there in the dark, listening as the storm raged, until it finally settled down. It was quite romantic, really. Our first storm in the new house.

I fell back to sleep at some point, and woke up for real a couple hours later. The wind was still howling, but the rain had stopped.

And as I drove to the train, I was greeted with this view. The storm clouds drifting away, leaving clear skies behind them:

We were pretty lucky. Turns out there were bunch of power outages on the streets around us that won't be resolved until later tonight, and there were trees down everywhere in a scene uncomfortably reminiscent of the one exactly three months ago. 

And farther up the Metro North line, the storm wreaked havoc. I know because when I got to my train station this morning, I was greeted by this:

You know it's bad when they don't tell you how late the train is, just that it's late. For a train system that is almost scarily punctual, this was an strange morning.

But right now the skies are a beautiful blue, winter makes its return tomorrow, Thursday night is pizza night, and Grey's Anatomy and Scandal are new. 

So really, all is right with the world.

The Shoe Shine

Life in Manhattan is not easy. I learned this lesson over and over again during my nearly eight years in the city. Between the lightning fast pace, crowded subways, tiny apartment living, and hugely inflated prices, city living is not for the faint of heart.

But there are things that the city offers that make the life just a little less difficult.

Take 24 hour delivery for example. And I'm not just talking about from the hundreds of restaurants all around the island. For a price, you can get literally anything delivered to the door of your apartment at any hour of the day or night. From prescriptions, to clothes, to movies and popcorn, there is a service for that.

Or 24 hour grocery stores on every corner. I tend to do my cooking and baking later at night, and also forget ingredients with a startling frequency. No big deal though when all I had to do is throw a coat over my sweatpants and dirty t-shirt and run down the street.

Or winter weather gear. In some places, forgetting your hat or gloves at home in frigid temperatures means that you will walk around for the rest of the day with red ears and frozen fingers. Not so in Manhattan. Just stop at one of the street vendors that line Manhattan's avenues, and for a mere five dollars your extremities will be warm once more.

I, myself took advantage of these offerings many times during my tenure in this city. And now that I no longer live here, when I find myself out of vanilla at ten o'clock at night or when I forget to pick up my dry cleaning, I miss some of those conveniences of city life.

But there is one convenience of Manhattan living that I never availed myself of during my time here in the city.

The Shoe Shine.

The Shoe Shine first came to my attention during my first week at my first job out of law school.

At eleven o'clock every morning a girl walked through the office with a rolling suitcase, and stopped at each open door asking the men if they would like a shoe shine. And the men would remove their shoes, hand them to the girl along with a twenty dollar bill, and sit for the next 20 minutes in their socks as she opened her suitcase, and proceeded to shine the shoes right there on the floor while the men waited. And for the next hour, the smell of show polish permeated the entire office.

I have had a couple of jobs since then, and they have all been in different buildings. But the one common thread running through them all is the existence of the shoe shine girl.

It seems that men who work in Manhattan have really dull shoes.

Well. I don't live in Manhattan anymore, but I still work here. And every morning I take the train into the city and arrive at Grand Central Station to start my workday. And on the very first day of my commute when I got to Grand Central, what do I see, but a shoe shine station, that one up there, right in the middle of the walkway to the 47th Street exit for people who aren't lucky enough to have a shoe shine girl in the office. It was 8:30 in the morning, and five banker-types were sitting in the chairs and reading some financial paper or another as men scurried around shining their shoes.

And I guess it just strikes me as funny that in this era of technological superiority where there is an app for everything and we spend half our lives immersed in one screen or another, men still sit up in high chairs, reading newspapers, having their shoes shined as the world rushes by them.

Kind of dreamy and old fashioned, right?

You Never Forget Your First Time

They say you never forget your first time.

I haven't.

I was seventeen.

It was a damp and grey Sunday. I was home alone. Rain was spattering on the windows as I cast about for something to do.

I turned on the TV, and then turned it off. There was nothing to watch. I opened a mystery I had started the day before, but it wouldn't hold my interest. I set it aside.

I lay back on the couch, wondering at the sluggish passage of time on quiet, rainy days.

And then it happened.

It started as an idle curiosity. Something I had heard so much about, but never experienced for myself. Today seemed as good a day as any to try something new.

Something mysterious.

I began slowly. Tentatively. Shyly almost.

But the deeper in I sank, the faster the waves of pleasure rolled. And I wondered how I had missed out on something so delicious for so long.

I thought for a minute how I should feel ashamed in some way. But I didn't.

I felt strong. I felt alive.

I lost track of time. The rain stopped. The sky darkened. But I stayed there, absorbing the wonder of this virgin outing.

Already knowing with certainty that I would return soon. And often.

As the finale drew near, I unconsciously picked up the pace. Straining for a resolution. Wishing it would never end.

I was a woman possessed.

The garage door opened. The phone rang. And rang again. I heard it all dimly, as if I was at the bottom of a pool and the sounds were coming from dry land. And I ignored it all.

I stayed on the couch.

Remained fixed in place.

Unable to move;

until the final, satisfying conclusion.

Exhausted, exhilarated, already ready to try again.

No, I'll never forget the very first time -

I read a romance novel.

This post is in honor of yesterday's 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice, the book that set the stage for my beloved romance novels of modern day. 

Lady Jane, generations of women thank you.

For a different version of my first brush with romance novels, check out the very first post I ever wrote on this blog.

The Robot In My Living Room: A Follow-Up

There was an overwhelming response to my post Friday where I wrote about the surprise waiting for me when I walked into my house last Thursday night in the form of David sitting on the floor surrounded by tools, building a life-sized robot. Turns out, people think a robot in the living room is pretty cool, if that robot happens to be R2-D2.

Well, there is a bit more to the story.

All week last week small packages were arriving at the house addressed to David. This is not too terribly unusual, and I did with them what I usually do when the packages are addressed to him. I stack them up by the door, and forget that they exist.

It was a little strange that, when I left for work on Thursday, the packages were still sitting in the foyer, unopened, but ok, I thought.

Well.

Turns out that most of the robot's parts were delivered to David's downtown office, and it was there that he did the bulk of the assembly. Thursday afternoon when he left the office he brought R2 along. As he was loading his new friend into the car, it seems a bit of a crowd gathered to take pictures and ask all sorts of questions about why in the world a normal looking guy would be toting an extremely realistic model of one of Star Wars' most beloved characters on a very regular Thursday afternoon. Wanting to give them a bit of a story, David told them that he had been contracted to build the R2 for the new J.J. Abrams directed Star Wars movie expected sometime in 2015.

As you can imagine, the crowd went wild.

By late Thursday night, the robot was built, but there were a couple things missing.

Cue the packages stacked by the door.

One by one David opened them. And every time he removed the contents of one of the packages, he shouted with glee, and ran with it into the kitchen where I was making dinner to show it to me, and tell me what it was for.

A remote control to turn the head.

A circuit board for flashing lights.

A second circuit board and remote control for sound.

Wheels for movement.

So when all is said and done, I will have a flashing, rolling, beeping R2 flying around my house, just like the movies.

And he's pretty cute really. But my only question is, can I teach him to do laundry?

Oh, and also, there is talk of adding a fully functional C-3PO to our family when R2 is finally done. No need to take your kids to the theater to see Star Wars, guys. Just bring them on over to Casa Merel. We'll provide the entertainment.

When I Get Home At Night, I Never Know Quite What I Might Find

So when I got home last night, I walked in the door to this scene:

Then this happened:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And finally, after an emergency trip to Home Depot for glue and replacement screws, this:

I now have a fully functional robot in my living room. Someone is adorably excited about the news of new Star Wars movies on the horizon...

This is Winter

My Car. This Morning.

It was nine degrees outside when I left for work this morning. That's pretty cold. So cold, in fact, that my car never warmed up enough to use the heater for the entirety of my ten minute drive to the train station. So cold that after walking without gloves so that I could finish reading an American Idol recap on my phone during the half a block between where I park my car and the train platform I was pretty sure my fingertips had just frozen solid and cracked off. So cold that my phone, after being outside for just a couple of minutes, was doing that weird sluggish thing smart phones do in the cold, making the reading of the aforementioned American Idol recap awfully difficult.

It's brutally cold.

But you know what? It's also winter. January in New York. This is what's supposed to happen in January in New York. We haven't felt winter like this in the past few years due to scary global warming, but let us not forget that while every meteorologist in the northeast is talking about this week-long cold spell like it has never happened before, forty-five and fifty degree days in January is just not normal.

Winter has always been my favorite time of year. Maybe it's because I grew up in Pittsburgh, which is basically a frozen, snowy tundra from Thanksgiving through May. Or maybe it's because I spent my high school years in Florida where there is no winter. Or maybe it's because I spent college in Boston, where it was so cold that I now have a shelf of sweaters in my closet I call my "Boston Sweaters," because they are too heavy and hot to wear anywhere else (except maybe this week, in New York).

Most of my best childhood memories are winter memories. Playing "snow olympics" outside with my friends. Hot chocolate and cookies on snow days. Walking to the local movie theater when the snow was too high to drive. Ice skating on the outdoor rink until I couldn't feel my fingers or toes.

And my adult memories too. Sledding down a massive hill on my college campus on trays we stole from the cafeteria. Running double digits for the first time in a snow-covered Central Park. Walking eight blocks in a raging blizzard when we decided we just had to eat at the famed Shake Shack that very night, and then deciding to walk some more to a diner for dessert. Curling up in front of the fire in our new living room as frigid wind howls outside.

No, nothing beats the winter.

But for anyone who is counting the minutes until winter moves on and spring takes its place, head on over to Rockefeller Center ice skating rink, where there is an oasis waiting, just for you.