TooMuchInformation

Labor Day weekend and I was standing on the platform of the train station in Ronkonkoma, a box of cinnabons in my hand as I looked up and down the tracks.   Halfway between Brooklyn and Greenport, I was heading to the vacation home of friends Kelly and Kevin.  A group of seven were already there, me and two unknown others taking the train from NYC. 

The day before I compared the schedules of the Long Island Rail Road and the Hampton Jitney buslines.  The bus looked complicated.  It had multiple points of departure in Manhattan and multiple drop points on Long Island.  The train, with one departure in the morning and one in the afternoon, seemed the easier choice: Go to Penn Station, buy ticket, get on train, read magazine, transfer trains in Ronkonkoma, arrive in Greenport.  A simple series of steps for a relaxing weekend.

And so, in Ronkonkoma, I waited for my next train.  And waited.  The station was not large.  Two tracks, one heading into the city, the other out to the North Fork.  A train sat on the westbound track under a sign announcing it’s departure for Manhattan in 20 minutes.  The eastbound track was empty.  I climbed the stairs to the walkway straddling the tracks and went into the staion house.  The schedule hanging on the wall informed me that the train for Greenport had left (without me) and I would have to wait 5 hours for the next one. 

Cursed weekend schedules.

A quick phone call to Luswin that was passed off to Kelly, I had to answer the damning question ‘how?’  “I don’t know,” I said. ”I got off the train and then I didn’t see another one.”  Her other friends, brothers visiting from Indiana, managed to find the train.   

I sat down on a bench and contemplated the train heading back into the city and the taxi dispatcher sitting in his office, stubbing out a cigarette as he gleefully eyed me.  I was his prey, the fool who couldn’t maneuver through a two tracked train station.

I opened the box of cinnabons and ate one.  ‘If I head back home I can get my laundry done, move the shelves, help Marcos organize his comic books, catch up with Turtle, go shoe shopping.’   I picked up another cinnabon (they were minis).  ‘Or,’ I thought, ‘if I pay for a cab the rest of the way I can endure being teased for the rest of the weekend, eat and drink too much, play with the dogs, and sleep in the next day.’

Two weekends prior, I had been in Ohio for my niece’s baptism.  It was a quick trip, into Columbus on Friday, meet my niece, borrow a friend’s car to drive up to the island, catch up with family, drive back to Columbus, baptize the baby, play with my nephews, fly back to New York. 

Going home only once a year, you see the toll of the seasons.  My father has a new cell phone he doesn’t know how to use.  “Can you send text messages?” I asked him. “Huh?” he responded, cocking his head to a degree, his mouth open and eyes squinted behind dark glasses. “Well, I don’t know.”  My mother sat in a recliner, her broken leg elevated.  She’d been in a car accident travelling with a cousin between the wedding and reception of another cousin.  “Are you guys talking about me?” she asked, her pitch hurt.  “No!” my impatient sister called across the room.  She’d been taking care of Mom for almost a month and had had her fill. “We were discussing an episode of the Jeffersons!”  “Well, I think you’re talking about me,” Mom muttered as she fidgeted in her seat and prison. 

A week before that I had decided that I would no longer call home while walking down 8th Avenue.   Traffic noises,  my hesitation to be one of those people who yell into cell phones, and my mom’s aging eardrums made the conversations experiments in repetition.

On Sunday, after the baptism, my sister asked me a question that I didn’t fully hear.  “Huh?” I asked, cocking my head to a degree and my mouth open, eyes squinted.  She burst into laughter.  “You look just like Dad!”   “Are you talking about me?!” I was horrified.  In the matter of a weekend I’d become not one, but both of my parents.

Back in Ronkonkoma, I contemplated the cinnabons.  ‘If I go home,’ I reasoned, ‘I’ll have to eat the whole box anyway.’  I started a third.  And decided to shell out the money for the cab to Riverhead, where hopefully someone would be willing to drive the hour each way to retrieve me.

My friends Jason and Kristy sold their home in Philadelphia and are moving to California.  They are posting a blog of their trip west.

Going Out West

They’re characters.  Should be interesting reading.

Last weekend my friend Michael visited from Boston.  Michael was the first person I met when I moved to Boston.  He was sitting on a bar stool in a coffee shop up the street from my apartment.  I asked for the sugar, he handed me the Sweet n’ Low, I asked if that was a hint.  He had just moved to Boston from Wisconsin a few months earlier.  We talked about being new in Boston, how New Englanders are difficult to meet, and became friends. 

While he was staying with me in Brooklyn, we went to a bar in the East Village.  A few other friends of his were also down from Boston and met up with us.  One of them was a man whose name I can’t remember.  But he had lived in New York a few years ago and he was excited to be back.  It came out in the conversation that he was born in Pune, India.  “Pune?” I asked. “Did you ever take the train from Pune to Delhi?”

“Of course!” he said.  Everything about his conversational style was exciting.  “Whenever I go home to visit relatives I always go to Pune and Delhi!  But now the airfare is not so expensive, so I fly instead of taking the train!”

“I see,” I said.  “And tell me, on the train between Pune and Delhi, is there a stop called ‘Monkey Hill’?”

“Oh yes!” he said. “How do you know about Monkey Hill?!  It’s a wonderful place.  The train stops and everyone gets out and feeds peanuts to the monkeys and takes pictures and laughs and has a great time!”

I knew about Monkey Hill from my friend Nisha.  She was another English teacher in Grenoble and grew up in Pune.  She wasn’t as excited about Monkey Hill as this guy, but close.  I can’t imagine being on a train, probably in a rush to get from one place to the next, and have it stop halfway so everyone can go feed the monkeys.  I can’t imagine buying a ticket on a train with a scheduled monkey stop.  “Express train only, please” I’d probably say.  “I’m in a hurry and not much of a fan of the monkeys anwyay.”

Nisha would smile when she spoke of Monkey Hill.  “They dance and do tricks and pose and wave for pictures!” she told me.  I wasn’t sure if I believed her.

But, here I was, walking down Avenue A with a stranger who glowed at the mere mention of Monkey Hill.  We started our conversation discussing the differences between Boston and New York, but ended with him reliving his childhood in Pune, feeding the monkeys.  “You should see all the pictures I have of Monkey Hill!” he told me.  

Lost in thought, I wondered what the US equivalent of monkeys would be.  Squirrels, perhaps?  Buffalo?  Rats?  I wondered if Amtrak added a stop called Groundhog Hill on the route between Boston and Philadelphia if more people would make the trip.  And with the growing ease of air travel in India, what will happen to Monkey Hill if train traffic becomes a thing of the past?

Someday, I’ll visit my friends in India.  I’ll be sure to see the Taj Mahal, the faithful bathing in the Ganges, and the Aga Khan’s jewels.  And I’ll pack a bag of peanuts to feed to the monkeys at Monkey Hill.

“Candy in the morning?”  It was the first thing Luswin said to me today.  Shortly after 6am, I was woken by the coffee grinder instead of my jetlag for the first time since arriving home last week.  I climbed out of bed and had my hand in a bowl of Hershey’s Kisses on the dining room table.  Already the night before I had to hide a bowl of red and green M&Ms to stop myself.

Being back has been a junk food tour de force.  I arrived in Washington on Tuesday night and gorged on pecan pie, mini-brownies and some raspberry pastries in George’s kitchen.   And again Wednesday morning.  Then an egg and bacon (hmmm, bacon!) croissant at a buffet downtown DC.  Dinner that night was a taco salad with college friends Rachel and Bryce.  Craig joined us too. 

Thursday morning was round three with the mini-brownies.  Some secret ingredient was keeping them fresh.  I flew to the dedication of the Asia Trail in the National Zoo and afterwards grabbed a Blimpie sandwich.  After the memorial service at the National Cathedral I continued my diet regimen with rocky road fudge, assorted cheeses, and tarts.  And an herbal tea.  That night at the second reception I nibbled on beef satay and a carrot stick.

Back in George’s kitchen I had another mini-brownie.  They’re so small, you know?  Friday morning I made waffles, and managed to eat three throughout the day.  George wisely stuck with one before heading to work.

The real fun began Friday night when I relocated to Karen’s home in Alexandria.  The piece de resistance was a bag of Cheetos.  It called to me from on top of the refrigerator (sorry Rachel, they weren’t the baked kind).  And then some potato chips and French onion dip.  Karen and I went to a bar on Capitol Hill where we found Tommy Yost.  He’s in the process of moving to DC and she let me know that he isn’t in the habit of eating everything in sight when he stays with her. 

We lamented the fact that Kristin couldn’t join us, but deduced that having just the three of us in the same room was the equivalent of 16% of the PIBHS 1989-1990.  Math is hard and took a little bit to figure it out.  The biggest laugh came after we counted everyone in HS that year using only fingers and toes. 

In the morning the eating continued when I discovered a secret stash of rice krispy treats in the laundry room and Karen made a bowl of popcorn.  I put my foot down at lunch time and had a salad.  Which I then smothered in creamy Italian dressing.  Tangy!

Dinner was at Alper and Jeremy’s house where they were having a holiday party.  The first thing on my plate was a chocolate chip cookie made by Gerry Altoff.  (He wasn’t there but Kristin and Cyndee were.) 

For breakfast on Sunday I discovered a packet of apple and brown sugar oatmeal next to the bag of cheetos (which I finished).  Karen’s roommate Leeana made me two sausage links too, even though I only asked for one.   But I ate both. 

On the drive up to NJ with Nate and Naomi we stopped twice for gas and bathroom breaks.  Somehow I just wasn’t interested in the honey roasted peanuts Nate was pushing.  Not the trail mix Naomi offered either.

But there were the bowls of candy at Luswin and Fritz’s.  And the grilled steak and mashed potatoes.  And the cheese and crackers. 

It’s good to be home.  Even if I get tsk-tsked for my morning food habits.

 

We spent Saturday afternoon at a picnic in Central Park.  My friend Nicole, from college in Ohio, organized it.  Excellent afternoon.  Douglas, Nicole and her son Kai,  our friends from college: Turtle, Eric and his wife Erica, Monifa; my friend Mark; and many friends Nicole made in graduate school - I can’t possibly remember all their names but a few stand outs: Eboni, Rich, Raul, Fiona, … oh geez, and about 10 more. Hopefully at the next meeting I’ll do better about remembering names. 

Central Park is huge.  It was created via eminent domain in 1853.  It is 843 acres, situated between 59th Street and 110th Street, making the park larger than the nation of Monaco.   (By another contrast, the park is a rectangle 2.5 miles long and half a mile wide.  South Bass Island is a wobbly 3.7 miles long and 1.5 miles wide.)

The plan of the day was to meet on the Great Lawn.  Which, as its name suggests, is immense.  Thank God for cell phones and the gift of patience.  Nicole’s voicemail message informing me that she had set up camp under “a big tree” was amusing.  My call to Mark telling him we were lost and “near a big pond” was followed by a discussion disagreeing on whether it was the reservoir or the turtle pond. 

Endurance won and we all met up successfully. 

© 2005

Newark, New Jersey - founded 1666; population 280,000 (2005 estimate); 24.14 square miles (smallest of 100 largest US cities); 5 miles from Manhattan

Newark is the red headed step child of the US East Coast Megalopolis that stretches from Boston to Washington.  To the eye, it’s a rather depressed city.  It’s downtown has the necessary infrastructure of a large city: subway and tram system, large corporate buildings, parks, sweeping city hall plaza.  But it just doesn’t feel right.  It’s dirty and loud.  Some of the buildings have scaffoldings that look like they’ve been up a long time.  As if the intended refurbishing project never happened and the scaffoldings are a part of the building now.  Like wearing a brace on your leg after an operation and then deciding the brace is too comforting to be temporary.  I saw in Newark some potential.  It’s a city that can’t decide what it wants to be, so stands committed to just being the best run down city it can.   Which I’m sure makes Detroit nervous.

I found the city to be depressed not only economically but emotionally also.  The people were not friendly.  I witnessed a bus driver arguing with two passengers, drivers cutting through pedestrian walkways, and train station staff ignoring passenger questions.  It made France look like a customer service paradise.

© 2005

Caldwell, New Jersey is the birthplace of Grover Cleveland - the 22nd and 24th president of the United States.  I have no idea what else he did.  But Caldwell is a great town, with tree lined streets and beautiful homes.

© 2005