Leaky Faucets

A few weeks ago, before I left for vacation, I took the E train home from work one day instead of the F that I normally take.  This led me to what I thought was the best food discovery in since Mo’s Barbeque, which turned out to be just a mediocre find, though it easily trumped IHOP as the best sit-down restaurant within walking distance of my office.  Pathetic, right?  That’s why I bring my lunch almost every day.  Anyway, as I was about to enter the subway at the corner of Parsons Boulevardand Archer Avenue, my eyes were  drawn to a Halal street cart.  In addition to the typical meat offerings which do not entice me, I noticed the sign on his cart indicated he sold falafel sandwiches.

I made the 10 minute trek down Jamaica Avenueto the stand.  “Two falafel sandwiches, please,” I said.  “No falafel today,” the Arab vendor replied.  I was flabbergasted and profoundly disappointed.  I had been looking forward to this all day, and looking forward to my first decent meal in nearly four years in . But it wasn’t to be.  Not today anyway.  The vendor could not give me indication of when or how often he carried falafel.  Later I thought that falafel is probably not too popular in this neighborhood; even though there are a lot of Muslims in Jamaica, most of them appear to be from South Asia rather than the Middle East , and there certainly are no Israelis around there.  I called Diana and asked if I could get her something else.  “What are you having?”  I had bought I can of Progresso soup from Duane Reade with the $5.00 coupon I earned from spending over $100 there.  She said she’d take a can of minestrone. 

I’m still dying to have that falafel sandwich, but don’t know if I want to take the risk of walking all the way down there again to come up empty handed.  Stay tuned for more in my quest to find something good to eat in Downtown Jamaica…

I don’t watch much TV these days, and I don’t even have cable, but I definitely watched way too much as a kid.  For instance, as I was tidying up my kitchen yesterday I started thinking of Mr. Belvedere, that corny 1980’s sitcom about the uptight British butler with a penchant for writing in his diary, who moved in with Bob Uecker’s family in suburban Pittsburgh.

Then, with this thought firmly planted in my mind, I actually started singing the theme song to myself.  Yes, I actually remember some of the words.  “Streaks on the china never mattered before—who cares; when you drop kicked your jacket as you came through the door—no one glared…”

The next day I thought that I had been dreaming because it was so weird. But later on, I happened to turn on the radio station K-Rock, which I rarely listen to these days as I usually listen to the mp3’s on my computer. When I turned on the radio, the DJ, Julie Slater, was in the middle of a story about the maple syrup smell. I couldn’t believe it. She said various city agencies had received calls from all over the city and even in
New Jersey and Westchester about the maple smell. She asked facetiously if this was the work of terrorists such as Mrs. Butterworth.

I did some research this morning and found out that the December “smelling” was the second time many people reported the maple odor on the same day. The other occurred in October. Both were Thursdays, as was yesterday. An article noted that on the December occurrence, there were high winds. Yesterday was quite windy as well. The New York Times reported that government agencies in New York and New Jersey have not been able to pinpoint the smell, though many suspect factories in New Jersey. The blog You Can’t Make It Up also mentioned the mysterious smell on October 31, 2005.

Why don’t airplanes have back doors for egress like city buses?  When you’re riding a crowded bus in Manhattan , most people exit at the back of the bus because its easier than fighting through the crowd to get to the front.  On Monday, as we waited bleary-eyed to get off the plane from our seats toward the back this thought struck me again.  Instead of waiting for the twenty or so rows in front of us to get their belongings and get out, I would have been happy to go out the back door even if it meant sliding down an inflatable slide and walking across the runway.  This would go a long way toward reducing the bottlenecks that commonly plague exits from commercial aircraft.

Ever since I was a young child, I have loved cold boiled potatoes.  It goes back to the Passover seders held at my grandmother’s house.  As part of the seder plate–and I don’t think this was traditional–she served a small bowl of cold boiled potatoes that you would dip in salt water.  I was an extremely picky eater back then, but for some reason I thought this was the most delicious thing in the world.  Eventually, my grandma would make extra potatoes just for me.  Later I would ask her to give my mom the “recipe” which consisting of boiling the potatoes and chilling them in the fridge for a few hours.  Nowadays, when I have leftover baked potatoes, I often eat them cold with a little salt instead of salt water. 

When we left for vacation the Saturday before last, we had one small baked potato that had been sitting in the refrigerator for a few days.  Not wanting it to go to waste, I decided to take it with me, planning to eat it cold at the airport with a breakfast sandwich.  Upon arriving at Newark Airport and checking in, I purchased a sub-par bacon and egg croissant sandwich at Au Bon Pain.  I sat down ready to devour my sandwich along with my eagerly awaited cold potato, but I could not find my potato in my back pack.  I frantically searched my backpack taking everything out but it was not there.  Somehow, I must have left it at home.  I was so disappointed. 

As time went by, and I enjoyed one great meal after another in Arizona, the lost potato became a distant memory.  In fact, I forgot all about it until the cab ride home.  Aya was afraid that the potato would be all moldy and discolored, and worse that insects and rodents would be snacking on it as we walked in the door.  We came in and the potato wrapped in aluminum foil was sitting on the kitchen bar.  I opened it, afraid of its likely metamorphisis from a simple delicious snack to a moldy blob, but to my surprise it’s appearance was unchanged.  It even smelled okay.  But, since it had been unrefridgerated for 10 days, I threw it out without hesitation while I contemplated the waste and kicked myself for my careless mistake.

Maybe this is why I never became a bar fly: I can ‘t stand sitting on bar stools.  If bars had more comfortable chairs, I might be quite a drunk, so I guess for me it’s a good thing that they don’t.

Last night I had a little argument with my dad’s third and current wife.  We were in the car on the way back to their house and were almost there when it began.  She was telling a story to illustrate that people from the East coast are rude or pushy.  Being a New York resident, I was a little offended by her insinuation, though if her point was valid I would have conceded.  It wasn’t.

Here’s the story.  She was with a few friends at the café inside Borders to play mahjong.  There was one tiny table available; however, there was a large table nearby occupied by one woman.  One of her friends, who happened to be from New Jersey , asked the woman if she would mind switching tables so their larger group would be able to use the larger table.  My father’s wife said only someone from the East coast would have the nerve to do this.  I said her behavior was perfectly reasonable and not rude, as long as you ask politely, and that I would have done the same thing.  It was assertiveness, not rudeness, I argued.  The person occupying the large table by herself had every right to say no.  She said this is what Jewish people call “chutzpah.”  I don’t consider myself a rude or aggressive person but I would certainly at least consider doing the same thing that the woman from New Jersey did.  Maybe this opinion only comes after living in New York City for over eight years, but I’m glad I have become more assertive.

Here’s a similar scenario in which I have found myself on both sides of a few times.  Say you are sitting on an airplane in seat 19C, an aisle seat.  A gentleman approaches before take off and asks if you would mind switching seats with him so he can sit next to his wife, who is sitting in the middle seat next to you.  The man is sitting two rows back in 21C, also an aisle seat.  I would gladly switch to another aisle seat.  If I was asked to trade an aisle for a middle seat I would turn down the request.   My father’s wife would probably find the very question rude, and would not switch seats.  This denial of a reasonable request would be rude, not the question itself.

Unfortunately, this argument was likely a proxy for the tension between us: she probably feels that we’ve stayed at their house too long and I don’t want to be around her any longer.  Good thing we’re leaving tomorrow.

Walking down Mill Avenue, the main drag in Tempe, a college town hosting Arizona State University, Aya, Brida and I passed a small group of college-aged punk kids.  If they noticed us, I imagine that they thought we were a bunch of mindless yuppies.  But, little did they know that I was listening to the Circle Jerks and Black Flag while they were in their mother’s wombs and scraping my elbows and knees in the pit while they were in diapers.  I never felt the need to dress a certain way to tell people who I was or what bands I listened to, unlike many of the new generation of so-called punkds who wear studded leather jackets and have nose rings and spiky blue hair but listen Top 40 poseur bands like Green Day and Blink 182.   If ever confronted or snickered at by these young punks, I’d remind them that being punk is not a fashion statement; it’s about being an individual and not judging people by their looks, and not discounting someone who doesn’t look like you.