NYC, November 2010, Day 2

Waking up in New York this morning felt wildly natural, as if it is normal to be here.  I suppose this is an effect of staying in a friend's guest room, especially when you have stayed in that guest room eight months earlier.  There are many items on today's agenda.  Firstly, we are going to the City Clerk, then up to the Times Square McDonald's (because our friend Jodi designed an event there), and then, finally, after wanting to do so for several years, we are seeing the Knicks play in Madison Square Garden tonight.

Not only are we finally seeing the Knicks at the Garden, we are seeing them play Orlando.  This means that Barbie gets to see her favorite man in the NBA, Dwight Howard, play in person.  She met him in Vegas once; therefore, I made sure to add that she gets to see him play, since she has already "seen" him in person.  And boy was that an experience she should have blogged about.

Time to wake up!

Oreo looks a little sleepy this morning, though I suspect he slept well.

While getting ready for the day, we got a call from Denise.  She was around the corner and had spotted some fantastic chairs on the street.  Would I come and help her take them to an upholsterer?  I would have said yes no matter what, but considering I am sleeping under her roof...  it was an absolute yes.  I only share this story to explain the following pictures.

Here is the storefront of the local upholsterer.

And here is the awesomeness inside.  Ceiling to floor... stuff.  This is the kind of place that Letterman used to visit for remote segments, to show how quirky and wonderful many Manhattan businesses can be.

Another local merchant, Stuffed: Artisan Canolis.  Let us imagine for a minute that I was a jerk.  Specifically an anal jerk.  More specifically a grammatically anal jerk.  I would have walked into this place of business and said, "I thought you might like to know that I you meant Artisanal, not Artisan." Nouns being used as adjectives!  What is the world coming to?  That would be like naming this blog Colossus Waste, not Colossal Waste.   I am certain that you, the loyal Waster, would have been far too repulsed by that name to not click away instantly.

Enough.

Barbie and I headed over to the New York Office of the City Clerk, to do a little research for a friend of hers.

NYC Subway Candid, November 2010.

After emerging from the subway, we spotted the New York City Supreme Court.  The influence of the Greeks will never diminish.

And guess what?  The New York City Clerk is closed today for the election.  Methinks the city employees union fought for that one, to make sure that everyone who works for the city has time to vote.   Conspiracies aside, I should probably mention that other democracies which treat election day as an official non-working holiday have significantly higher voting rates than the United States does.  It kind of makes sense, does it not?  A democracy considering its elections important enough to not force people to squeeze it in before work, during lunch, or after?  Back on the conspiracy train, I should probably mention that vote suppression is often the goal of our political parties.  Tragic and dangerous.

Coming to the City Clerk's office had taken us far enough downtown that we were a short walk to...

...the future site of the hotly debated Islamic Cultural Center, right THERE.

You can still spot where the letters of the Burlington Coat Factory sign once rested.

We made a point of visiting this place.  We wanted to see first hand where it sits and take it in, in person.  And I will tell you this after being there, the term, "Ground Zero Mosque," is one huge, brilliant lie.  Standing in front of it, it is just another building along another street in Manhattan.  I suppose this is a lesson in the power of language to distort reality.  And, of course, once reality is distorted, so is the entire debate that follows.

As much as I would enjoy pontificating on this subject, and tough on the fundamental values that make America a great nation, I will move on.  Except for the next pic, that is.

New York Dolls, Street Candid, November 2010.  (This is the adult club around the corner from the Islamic Cultural Center, one block further from the World Trade Center.  Too fun to ignore it.)

Reflective buildings are cool.

There it is.  The World Trade Center site.  Just to anger some people even more, I am going to go ahead and share that I am fairly unhappy with the name Ground Zero for this place.  My entire life I was taught that Ground Zero is the name for places where nuclear bombs  off, specifically in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.  In fact, the Pentagon was considered by the military to be the most likely target of a Soviet nuclear missile, and for this reason there is a cafe at the Pentagon called, "The Ground Zero Cafe."  Between you and me, I am not a fan of de-nuclearizing this term.  Then again, what is done is done; the World Trade Center site is Ground Zero, even if it is a misnomer.

By now, we were hungry.  Fortunately we had met friends at a Le Pain Quotidien in this neighborhood a year or so ago.  Sometimes it is surprising how well we know our way around Manhattan.

Happy people ready to lunch at Le Pain Quotidien.

I got the Quiche Végétarienne (gruyére, spinach, mushroom, leeks); Barbie got the Organic Red Quinoa Salad.  (If you do not know what Quinoa is, look it up.  In no time everyone in America is going to eat it all the time.)

But this, this Noisella, is the reason to come to this restaurant.  You spread this Nutella equivalent on that bread in the background and it is a heavenly treat.

While we sat there, enjoying our lunch, I noticed men with cameras gathering outside.  One by one, they kept arriving.  They were looking all over, cameras at the ready.  I knew pretty quickly that they were Paparazzi.  Taking a photo of Paparazzi?  Delicious.

I later realized that this Paparazzi shot is a candid.

NYC Paparazzi Candid, November 2010.

Walking to the subway, we spotted the paparazzi again and Barbie asked them who they were stalking.  Goldie Hawn.  Perhaps that makes 2010 the year of Goldie Hawn, since our suite in Florence this summer was next to a suite occupied by her daughter, Kate Hudson.  Nah.  That connection is way too weak to name the year after.  I suspect 2010 will more likely be remembered in the Howard Household Brentwood Edition as the Year of The Rally To Restore Sanity.   Two hundred and fifteen thousand people cannot be wrong.

NYC Subway Candid, November 2010.

We emerged on 42nd Street a bit early, and ducked into Starbucks.  Barbie had some work to do, and Starbucks has free WiFi.  You do the math.

While sitting in Starbucks I checked my phone and saw an email that made me want to break the no cursing rule established by the Colossal Waste editors.  Tonight's New York Knicks game was postponed.  Yesterday they were doing some maintenance and a ceiling tile fell.  They tested the air after and there were traces of fibers, possibly asbestos.  And that is that.  Are we ever going to get to see an NBA game at the Garden?  Are we!?!

As the Latter Day Saints like to say, "Flip!"

Okay, it is just a basketball game.  Time to accept it and proceed.  We went to the McDonald's thingy and saw our friends Jodi and Dmitri, and soon enough it was time to head back the Lower East Side.

NYC Candid, 42nd Street Crowd, November 2010.  (Note that nearly nothing in that picture is in focus, except for the gentleman's profile closest to me.)

One thing about the NBA game being postponed, we knew that Denise was having some friends over for wine and cheese tonight, followed by dinner in the neighborhood.  We certainly wanted to go to the game, but we were happy that there was something fun to do with friends waiting at home.

We returned to Denise's, got to meet three of her lovely NYC friends, and then the seven of us headed out to dinner.  This is an advantage, clearly, to having Kim, Barbie and myself all staying with Denise at once.  We are nearly an automatic dinner party.  Hemingway would call it a moveable feast.

Il Bagatto, a great Italian place in the East Village.  It was so very dark in there, and we were with such lovely people, that I opted to not use the flash on my iPhone.  This means that the pictures I took of the food are too dark to bother sharing with you.  Suffice to say, there was pasta and sauce and fish and beans and beef and pasta and sauce and it was all very, very good.

After dinner we returned home and chatted while the muted TV displayed election results.  At one point, I pulled out my iPhone and opened Photoshop Mobile and played with a picture of, yes, Oreo.

Though taken earlier in the day, I would say that this is the perfect shot to use for, "Good night."