White Noise, Old Friends, & Dining with the Help!

It is a very curious thing: at home I am disturbed and distracted by the doggy daycare behind the building I live in. Add to that the racket that comes through the very low ceilings in my apartment -- slamming footsteps, vacuum cleaners at rather odd times (10:30pm?), washers and dryers that shake the walls of the living room, the howling beagle...... But right now I am in New York City where, even on the 36th floor in my son's flat, the jackhammers, sirens, honking of horns, all become white noise to me. I am rarely conscious of it and it certainly doesn't keep me awake. I grew up on a dead-end street in Brooklyn. A train went by frequently when I was very young. Then, after the war, it could be heard only a few times a day. Noise from the avenue across the lots behind our house -- must have been. I don't recall a disturbance. But there were clanging trolley cars and car traffic and screaming kids. On our street, there were delivery trucks arriving regularly. I suppose I absorbed the sound as city music. The sounds I hear from my current home are dissonant; noise pollution. Living two streets from the ocean -- I expected a different concert. I don't know why the racket in New York plays out like acceptable background to me. But it does.

I came to the city for a birthday get-away. Last year I went to Italy for six days. I couldn't replicate that trip since I've been unemployed for almost 11 months. But I had promised myself a trip of some kind to celebrate my birthday from then on. So I commandeered my son's charming apartment in mid-town Manhattan for 6 days. I traveled by train which was fine except that getting to Amtrak from where I live is a hassle with luggage. Though it is March, it was summertime in the city. Of course I was wearing my P-jacket (coming out of New England) and shlepping my suitcase the mile from Penn Station -- well, I was a bit warm by the time I arrived at the flat.

I saw a play that first evening; my son left me a ticket as a birthday gift. A good play -- NEXT FALL -- and so a good start of my holiday. The next day, a school chum bussed it in from Pennsylvania. We had a lovely lunch (her very kind treat), a long walk through the Metropolitan Museum of Art in search of a newly acquired Monet; tea and pastries at the Neue Gallerie Cafe Fledermaus. The latter is the German museum and the cafe serves Viennese desserts. Very elegant; felt for the hour as though we were in a foreign country. The waiters spoke Spanish instead of German, but no matter. The next day, Sunday, I went down to the Chelsea/Soho neighborhood to visit with a friend who had been at my little acting school -- The Acting Place, Inc. -- back in the day. We visited Chelsea Market, had lunch at a little French restaurant (again a very lovely treat for me), and then strolled the new High Line elevated promenade. We chatted a bit in my friend's delightful little penthouse apartment. On my way back, not ready to end the day, I went to see ALICE IN WONDERLAND at the movie theater. I love Lewis Carroll. I liked this film -- had it been called "ALICE RETURNS TO WONDERLAND" it would have been right on the mark. Another wonderful day. Visiting with friends who share history -- the best, truly. A classmate of my son bought me lunch at a great diner on rainy Monday. My Sunday friend, after reciting the weather report for Monday, said to me: "It's going to rain all day Monday. What can you do in New York in the rain?" So I told her: " The same things I'd do if it didn't rain -- except with an umbrella." So I bought an umbrella and walked and walked and walked. I love to wander around New York. Looking for yesterday perhaps. Do we search always for our lost youth? (Mine was Manny Luftglass, a kid in the Navy, and he was a heck of a kisser! Lost him over 50 years ago.)

On my birthday day, I visited the Museum of the City of New York. My dad and I used to go there together. I believe I wrote about this in an earlier blog. It is worth mentioning again. The exhibits are always fresh and enlightening and fun. On the third floor the toys and games are kept. Bits and pieces of my childhood. Yours, too, if you're as ancient as I am. They have my older brother's favorites: an erector set; Lincoln Logs; cast iron fire trucks, and on and on. But my favorites are the doll houses. All hand built. All magnificent. A number of years ago, my son, Jamie, built a doll house for me. He built my fantasy house. It took him six months. It was indeed a labor of love. And love it I do -- so much.

On my way back to my son's flat, I stopped at one of my best liked restaurants on 9th Avenue -- Basilica. It was a few minutes past three o'clock and I hadn't eaten all day. They were not open yet, but I was invited to sit down anyway. A waiter appeared and after looking at the menu, I told him what I wanted wasn't on the menu. He asked me what it was; I told him a simple pasta pomedora, a salad mista, a glass of red wine (well, the latter was certainly on the menu). They prepared the meal for me. The staff sat at a table across the way having their meal and took turns checking up on me. They put on some lovely music -- Andrea Bocelli -- and I was transported to the same time the year before, when I had the same birthday dinner in Florence, Italy. That evening I saw the play RED. I liked it very much; the performances (Alfred Molina) were brilliant. It is rare to see a new play, done well.

One more day. A visit with a friend I worked with when I lived in the neighborhood a few years ago. I went up to the office and saw some of the folks and then ate some Indian food with my Indian friend. I had meant to walk through the West Village or the Lower East Side, but I was suddenly tired. I went back to the apartment; chatted for an hour with my son's friend, then left to see the preview of the Twyla Tharpe ballet -- an homage to Frank Sinatra. (a college friend left a comp for me at the box office. Nice!) In the elevator on my way out I met a man who - it turned out - was from the same part of Brooklyn where I grew up. We chatted onto the street like a couple of old friends. It is rare for such an encounter to happen in Massachusetts -- unless you meet another New Yorker. If you smile at a stranger in Boston he/she will turn and run. If you smile at a stranger in New York, he/she will either say "What??!!" or " I know you? " or something else that acknowledges your existence.

So I thank all my friends in the city who treated me so well; my long-distance friends and Facebook friends who wished me so well; my son who shared his crib with me; and the blessed universe that has permitted me to reach this age with mind and body pretty much in tact. And now, like the March Hare, I will celebrate all the un-birthdays until the next actual one. We journey on.