One of my co-workers was an elderly woman, Mrs Washington. I do this only to keep busy, she said. We would give her a key, point to the car, tell her where it was needed, then quickly get out of her way. She'd be there at the destination, patiently waiting for the rest of the crew to catch up.

Once we had to refuel our cars at a local gas station. While being fueled she heard a gas cap door snap shut, thought it was hers and took off, ripping the hose and spewing gas all over.

There was a fire.

*

On I684

Okay, I admit it, it wasn't nice ... but he challenged me when I passed him! He speeded up, I sped up, raced him up the hill where I took my foot off the gas. He sailed past me, triumphant, right past the State Trooper hiding in the bushes where I knew he always hid.

New York, New York

Hi Ho Hi Ho Off to work we go.

Cancers

I'm heading west, crossing Broadway, stop at the light next to a group of 15 or 16 year old boys in heated argument. One turns to me: 'Excuse me. Mind if I ask you a question?'

Sure I say, expecting to give direction to Washington Square or Alphabet City.

'Is testicular cancer the same as prostate cancer?'

ooomph. mmm, uh, I don't think so? The prostate is a gland, a different gland than testicles .... mmm ... you know the mmm balls. I can't believe I making ball gestures to a bunch of teens on the corner of Broadway. There's a triumphant 'see, I told you' from the kid with the question. "I was right!'

just then the light changes and I continue west ...

031903

New York, New York

Street Theater

White Slippers

Mariko Mori's waveUFO landed in the huge atrium on the corner of 56th and Madison where it shimmers amid three-story high bamboo. We take off our shoes while attendants all in white glide by, handing out small white slippers with rubber ridges, paste electrodes to our heads and lead us up clear plastic steps into the pod to nestle in contoured innards where our brainwaves combine to produce a lightshow from rhythmic pulsing alpha, beta and theta waves.

Still deep in reveries on the bus back home, a woman seated right behind me gets on her phone, calls an operator and demands a number in Connecticut, getting louder with each sentence. People are beginning to make faces. "I'm calling from New York" she shouts. I turn and shout a bit louder "She's calling from New York!" I was planning to add more to make sure it covered the distance to Connecticut, but she broke into a series of "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

It's drizzly today, I like drizzly, the walk from the bus gets me back into the lightshow, I notice there is a bit extra spring in my step? That's nice I'm thinking.

Back home I take off my shoes and there are those small white slippers with bouncy rubber ridges.

052103

*

Now that rang a bell. I've been wondering what was there in that aging plastic bag in the back of my sock drawer!

Halloween soon ...

Park Avenue Corners - 42th to 34th Street

Thank you for the pictures of beautiful NYC.  I love to visit there.  It's been quite a while now.

I sit here in my little mobile home in the middle of a big field of pasture grass and tumbleweeds and know I could never live there.  But I do appreciate its unique and intriguing personality.

I also love living in a box in the middle of a field.  It's different -- quiet.

There was an old woman, who lived in a box...