5 posts tagged “queens”
So, I'm carrying this over from LiveJournal, though I'm sure it's spreading all over the universe.
Consider this a kind of sponsorship, the way people sponsor walkers when they hoof it for a good cause. Only neither one of us actually has to do anything -- you just have to comment, I just have to write a check.
For every unique commenter on this post between now and noon on Saturday, March 28th, I will donate 50 cents to my local library: The Jackson Heights Library in Jackson Heights, Queens, up to an amount of $200 (I'm cross-posting this on my blog, too).
Totally easy: You comment here, I cough up dough, and the library gets more books. You don't have to be brilliant in your comment, just say "I love libraries" and that'll be good enough.
You could also cross-post this yourself and just post the link to your own library pledge.
Note: The pledge is per commenter -- so you can leave 50 comments, but it'll still only be 50 cents. But by spreading the word -- and maybe linking to this post -- you can send your friends here to comment and also raise more money.
Inspiration: The WriterJenn blog, which was linked to by my friend Rose on LJ.
As someone who doesn't actually have a printer right now, the library has been a godsend: It's kind of a PITA to hike over there and sign up, but when I need something printed, they're there for me, 7 days a week. It's clean and mostly quiet and I get what I need pretty speedily. Anyone who knows me at all knows I've been a library fiend for years, once cutting class in elementary school to just go read. Geek! Geek! And yet, who doesn't love a library?
So thanks for making this possible!
(Cross-posted from Facebook)
But before that, there was pie.
A whole group of us got together at Grand Central Terminal for dinner, and in the lower depths of the facility there is this food court, and in the food court is a place that makes pies and cakes. Josh and I spied the pie and mulled over whether key lime or mud was the better option and of course went with key lime.
Over dinner, as the pie sat between us at the table, Josh noted that we should eat it on the subway. "Train pie!" either he or Rose cried, and so train pie was born.
Look, if Improv Everywhere can take off their pants on the subway, we can all share a pie. It was very communal, as well as being very yummy.
But all of this was mere prelude to the evening, and why we were on the subway in the first place: We were taking the 7 train to the Q25 so that we could disembark and walk into the formerly named InSpa World -- now called Spa Castle, clearly after the many whirlpools and hot tubs available back in medieval times.
It might sound a little dodgy, but this brand-spanking-new building looks like a 5-star hotel. You walk in, fork over $35 and can stay all day (we were just going for about four hours, until midnight). You get a uniform of unfortunate pink and orange if you're a woman (gray and blue for the menfolks) in the locker room, and a wristband that resembles a watch with a number on it (and an RIFD chip to access your locker). You leave everything but your bathing suit and the uniform in your locker, including shoes, and the place is yours. Anything else you buy -- from massages to scrubs to slushies -- gets rung up on your number and you check out later and settle the bill.
We hit the pools. You have to hit the pools. On the roof of the building are these large, elongated outdoor swimming pools with spray jets and massage hoses and a little flume area that makes you feel like you're rushing down a river, there's a hot tub alongside the main pool, there's a hotter hot tub on the far end made of cedar (aka "the lobster pot"), there's a kiddie pool (no funny animals, just a lovely shallow reflecting pool), there's a sauna. There's a food area, and a place where you can buy whipped or fruity drinks and drink them while still inside the pool.You can sign up for massages but by the time we got there they were all full up so I can't report on that.
Inside the locker rooms there are mineral (allegedly) baths if you don't mind getting nekkid in front of everyone else -- these went from 102 degrees to 109 and let me tell you, those 7 degrees do make a difference; there are also two
By the end of the night prunes and raisins had nothing on us for wrinkles, and we were tired but happy as if we'd done some kind of major workout. I am absolutely, totally going back there again. Sooner rather than later.
Thanks, Rose!
Arrr, she is a fine tradition we have here in Jackson Heights: The cutting of the hair of the dog.
Just in time for the temps to hit 100, Ciara got herself all shaved off on Friday after almost a year without a groom. (I know, I know, but it's more than I pay for my own haircuts and I've learned to trim her toenails so sue me!) Rainbow Pet Supplies did a nice job, if you're in the market in the Queens area.
Here she is, all fresh and clean and wide-eyed.
For reference, this is Ciara after her first "cut it all off" grooming in June 2003, and I think we've come a long way, baby:
By the way, folks? It's goddamned hot here in New York.
For a moment, I was back in the 19th Century.
Just sitting at the computer, checking mail, this morning. No traffic sounds, no people sounds, just a nice quiet Queens morning. (For those who don't visit Queens, I promise, it happens.)
And then ... the distinct sound of clop-clop, clop-clop. A pleasant, easy sound ... clopping. Horses!
I got up and looked outside my window. And there they were, two mounted policemen, their two horses casually walking the wrong way down the one-way side street past my building.
It only took a moment and they were gone, along with the sound, but for a minute I could imagine needing to get into my hoop skirts and bustle this morning, rather than jeans and a T-shirt.
I don't think -- whatever form of transportation comes after cars -- anyone will ever feel warmly nostalgic towards the sound of the combustible engine internal combustion engine.
I watch a lot of "Law & Order" -- or, at least, at one time I did. It got repetitive, and after 10 years watching a show, it got a little old. I also got myself a paralegal degree when I was certain I would never get a full-time job with a magazine. And inherently, I like the logical arguments that go with discussing law and the legal system.
Not so much the jury duty thing.
It was all going a lot like it did six years ago: I showed up at a governmental building in Queens which was designed by a guy named Edward Mills. Despite having a wall of windows, civil court building typifies all that is wrong with so-called "modern" architecture: Square, soulless, and sitting right beside a much more lovely piece of architecture -- the courthouse itself, which is unfortunately hidden behind a black wrought iron fence.
Anyway, inside near the wall of windows are rows and rows of soft black seats, not unlike in an airport waiting room, or the DMV. A wisecracking bailiff sits at the front of the room and tells you in excruciating, first-grade detail what you're to do next with your summons, and the rest of your day. I suppose they have to; not everyone in the room is well-versed in the English language, to say the least. I was left wondering if they save all of the class clowns from the police academy for this particular position.
I sat around for a couple of hours, reading "The Waste Lands" with increasing speed (there are just whole sections you know have no real bearing on plot or character development and ultimately it's just arduous to read, though this book has Dave McKean doing the drawings and he knows what he's doing) and New York magazine. Over lunch I wasn't hungry so I wandered the neighborhood, which is even more utilitarian and somehow cheaply sad than most I've seen in Queens. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a $1 store, or the equivalent, and the hair places don't take credit cards. Twenty minutes and a stop in a Duane Reade later, and I was back in the building.
After lunch, a group of us were called by name and ushered up to a small room with several rows of seats, and at the front a desk with several chairs and a device with a handle. Here's how it works: When you tear up your summons on the dotted lines earlier in the day with Officer Clown, you give them one strip of paper with your name and juror number. A collection of those are given to the lawyers in the case, you're sorted into a room, and those little strips go into this bingo-like drum, which is rotated. They pull out six names (a civil trial needs six and two alternates) and those people go to the front row of the chairs. They are then quizzed relentlessly as part of voir dire. The plaintiff's lawyer is -- believe it or don't -- a guy named Larry Love, a name you just can't forget. His client was working what seems to be a construction job, put his hand in a ceiling space, got "zapped" (Love's word) and fell off the ladder, injuring himself. The other three lawyers (considerably whiter and in better suits than Love) represent the electrician, the construction company, and the contractor. I think. Each of them gets to also quiz you. Then they all leave the room and come back and either send you back down to the general pool to be picked again (or sent home at the end of the day) or they say you're on the jury and go sit outside in the hallway.
I got picked at 4:30.
The trial started today. Or, I should say, the trial was supposed to start today. Around 11:30 I noted a fire truck parking outside the big glass windows, and smelled an odd acrid odor. Smoke was billowing outside the courthouse. As we learned, a manhole had exploded (subsequent muffled booms indicated more problems) and transformers had blown and ConEd was called in. They gave us a two hour lunch, and then at 3:30 excused us for the day. So, back again. Your tax dollars at work, folks!
(And not very "Law & Order" like at all.)
