A TRULY BLISSFULLY BRIEF WBW 9-13-20
Because nothing ever really happens at the end of summer, right?
Dear WBW Friends:
Let’s start out by considering the cover of today’s New York Times Magazine. I mailed this to the editors last night, noting that there appeared to be a typo in the title which I fixed up with a Sharpie.
Kind of a crappy crop job, but I’m learning.
That I’m even getting the Sunday Times in its paper edition is a New Thing. I finally cancelled the daily (paper-version) Times, which I had been putting on suspension every six weeks, swapping it for the Sunday Times which heretofore I hadn’t had delivered as I was never here on weekends. I guess this is somewhat of a resignation to the Brave New World I live in now.
As is my recent reconfiguration of my FIOS services. I cut the cord this week, returning the Verizon cable box and upping my Wi-Fi service from 50/50 to 200/200. This will reduce my monthly bill somewhat, though not as considerably as I might have hoped. And it improved by internet service similarly – somewhat, but not as considerably as I might have expected. It turns out that my laptop is so ancient (circa 2018) it can’t process the faster speeds but at least it seems to be incrementally swifter. If it only stops the buffering . . .buffering . . .buffering I will be happy.
I have a slick new 5 GHz router that’s deceptively called a Wi-Fi 6 and vaguely resembles a built-to-scale model of the Capitol Records Tower in Hollywood where I interned in b-school while Bob Seger and his Silver Bullets were recording Like a Rock. Somewhere I have the autographed photo to prove it. The new router is costing me $5.00 more a month than the old one and only took me seven hours to install despite all sorts of promises (in writing on the box, the online instructions, several videos and even the guy at the store where I foolishly returned the old router before hooking up the new one) that it would take seven minutes. Here’s a piece of advice: If you’re installing a new router and it seems not to be working, do check to make sure the plug you pulled out of the power strip wasn’t the modem, which is somewhat essential to the functioning of the system.
Meanwhile . . .
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for the thermometer to drop below zero and stay there for at least the next 50 weeks. That’s because the weekend street parties on 108th Street have turned me into a Grumpy Goldilocks.
I had taken up residence this summer in The Summer Bedroom (formerly known as “Kariema’s Room,” “Blythe’s Room,” “Nora’s Room,” then for the last year, “The Guest Room”). It’s somewhat quieter than The Master Bedroom on Fifth. That is, at least until the music starts around 1:00 AM on weekends.
This is what I do. First, I go around shutting all the windows. And the doors. Then I drag out a pillow and the comforter to either the living room couch (which actually opens up but by then I can’t be bothered) or Elise’s room, depending whether the party is at the Fifth Avenue end of 108th Street or the Madison Avenue end. Then I start to toss and turn and wonder how much half a night at the Four Seasons might cost me, though at one point I believe it was being used as a hostel for coronavirus quarantiners and might still be.
Typically, around 5:00 AM it’s safe to go back in the water again and return to my real bed.
I have given up dialing 311, 911, 867-5789 and the 23rd Precinct. I even drove over there one night to beg them to dispatch an intern in a cruiser to just do a drive through. They just laughed. “It’s just kids!”
I do understand that this particular summer the police are demurring on responding to noise complaints, and why. This was explained in full to me in this New York Times “The Daily” podcast that I listened to as I circumnavigated the Meer at the end of last month.
But still, doesn’t SOMEONE have a grandma living in one of the buildings across the Street on 108th?
I guess not. So, I just hope for rain . . . or snow. Or, best case scenario though 100% unlikely, Springsteen.
And it’s not only me suffering sleep deprivation – it’s all my neighbors up and down the building with south-facing windows. And Speedy. Poor Speedy. He doesn’t have the luxury of exiting his tank. Can he actually hear the music? He is a red-eared slider, so I assume he has ears. Though he does get to make it up by sleeping all day.
The week before Labor Day encompassed seven prototypical lazy hazy crazy days of summer. The worldwide crisis in the depleted inventory of SodaStream replacement cartridges continues. Thank you, WBW readers who actually read the last issue and sent word that these could be ordered online. I was a day short and two cartridges late.
Aside from spending most of my waking hours on hold with the IRS (don’t ask), I don’t have much of a recollection of anything important happening. I went to the beach a couple of times and am happy to report that Sarah and I have mastered the fine art of folding the Manta tent, perhaps the most memorable accomplishment of the Summer of 2020.
The US Open started last week and it’s been on my TV pretty much nonstop, thanks to the ESPN app and my cousin’s login. Alas, lots of exciting matches did not ease the longing to be there in person, which seems to me might be an appropriate ask for the Make-a-Wish Foundation if this pandemic extends into next summer and I can convince then that I am the mother of a 9 year-old. As the competition narrowed this week and I fished around for additional matches to watch, I got totally hooked – and am totally in awe of – the wheelchair tennis competitions. These games have been quite astonishing and I readily admit that any of the players would totally wallop me were I to meet them on the court using my own two legs.
YIKES IKEA NOT AGAIN. YES AGAIN.
Other excitement included a Labor Day weekend day trip excursion to Stony Brook so Sarah could pick up a tapestry bequeathed to her by her recently departed Ph.D. advisor. I told her I’d drive her out to help make up for all the times I’ve been mean to her in the last three years, though she indicated I had a lot more to make up for, dating back to 1954. She accepted the offer anyway.
It would have been a quick two and a half hour trip if I hadn’t insisted on making a pit stop on the way back not only in Smithtown for cheap gas but at the Hicksville IKEA to “just run in and pick up a few things.” Two hours later we dragged out with not much in hand other than a firm commitment never ever to go to IKEA again.
I had hoped to purchase a 74” piece of fake poured concrete countertop but instead had panicked picked and purchased the last one that was 98” which then didn’t fit in my car no matter how far toward the door Sarah squeezed as we tried to take advantage of angling it in. After last year I would certify myself as a competent driver of a vehicle with zero visibility out the back window, but it concerned me that this created a barrier completely blocking my view out of the passenger window (and of Sarah as well). So, we hoisted it onto the roof and flung some straps over it, then decided either we were going to die, or someone else would on the journey home. Defeated, I had to arrange for delivery, etc. It was basically a nightmare.
I believe at this point I hold the Guinness Record for most trips to Ikea in a single summer. And the countertop is sitting along the wall of my bedroom until I can find someone to install it. It arrived Thursday by truck.
POLITICS AND POKER
This last week I’ve been involved in serious electoral matters. Not the national type -- though I did send $50 to the Biden campaign which I understand helped make this his biggest month ever in terms of contributions. The 1270 Fifth Avenue Board of Directors elections, typically held in May, were put off this year until such time as it became obvious that the show must go on and all the voting and election rituals leading up to this were moved into cyberspace.
I am deeply involved in these shenanigans, which often recall the trauma of seventh grade student council elections. I serve as a highly unpaid political consultant to the several candidates I support. Voting will take place online this year which is instantly resolving the annoying and vexing situation that for the 23 years I’ve lived here there’s been no means of absentee or proxy voting, basically disenfranchising anyone who is not in town or able to get to the ballot box on the designated evening of the election. For years I sat on committees and wrote letters and put out petitions to change this situation to no avail. God Bless the Pandemic! In one fell swoop it’s made it possible for everyone to vote. Which just goes to show that if you leave a serious problem alone for a couple of decades or centuries, it resolves itself sooner or later. Though that doesn’t appear to be the case for Black Lives Matter, sadly. Or, for that matter, the sneaky feeling that your primary peritoneal carcinoma is metastasizing to your left kidney.
This morning I am heading out after hitting the SEND button to attempt to cram what remains in my 5-foot-by-5-foot storage space in East Stroudsburg into my car, and then on to Hartford to deposit it in storage there or the trash bin. I am hoping to make it before the start of the Men’s Finals, which I will watch with Alex. After four postponements, with luck, I’ll see the oncologist at Hartford Hospital on Monday and then my mother, in person, for an hourlong visit which is the state of visitation regulations at Brookdale Chatfield at this juncture. Though thanks to the Echo Show, finally functioning properly, I drop in on her at least once, sometimes a couple times a day. so it feels like I’ve been with her. Then back Tuesday to dig in on a much anticipated, much appreciated writing assignment.
Fall is here – it felt as if someone threw a switch last Monday, and I have grudgingly removed the beach chairs out of the trunk of the car. My kitchen project is still not finished nor have I written the 38+ articles I’ve had on a list all summer, and my Meer photography project has been languishing for weeks and I just can’t seem to find the time to write up (or down) the recipes I intend to gather in a collection. Though I did fool around with the cover for the cookbook, what do you think?
Some day I swear I will catch up on all this. It’s the end of summer and start of something new. Here’s hoping it’s exciting, even if whatever it is involves wearing a mask.
In the meantime, as soon as the shipment of SodaStream refill cartridges arrives, I promise you’ll be the first to know.
Cheers
mbl