On my morning walk to BART I see the usual suspects. Professionals hurrying to work. Homeless curled in doorways. Panhandlers hustling for a quarter, a dollar, anything you got. He approached me in a wavering unanticipated movement. “Hey!” I kept my eyes lowered and kept walking. “Hey! You! In the green jacket.” Oh. That would be me. You would think 10 years in the city would render me impervious to such beckonings. You would think. I turned and raised my eyebrows to indicate, “Yes? What do you want?” “You! You’re as beautiful as a squash!”

On the 38 Geary, squished in the evening commute, attempting to avoid the jostles and jabs of my fellow passengers, I tower over the two minute Asian women in front of me, one older, one a student. A burly specimen towers behind me, constantly poking me as the bus jerks, starting and stopping abruptly. He rings the bell, indicating this is his stop. He tries to dart out of the door. The tiny student gently places her arm on his. “Excuse me,” she susurrates, “I believe you have my wallet.” Without looking he hands it back to her and bolts out the door.

While browsing here, I saw this and thought it to be the perfect gift for a friend, somewhat tongue in cheek. I placed my order on Amazon, requesting it to be delivered to my work address, since I’m never home. The day it was delivered I was not in the office. Unfortunately, it was delivered to my old department (I recently moved from Training to Human Resources). My former administrative assistant was expecting an order from Amazon, reference books for our corporate library. Not paying attention to the address label, she opened the box. And was shocked to find what lay inside. Needless to say, it wasn’t what she was expecting and she expressed her dismay at the contents. Did I mention I work for a fairly conservative company?

I returned to the office the next day after attending an employment law seminar about harassment in the workplace to an opened box and a explanatory note on my desk. Oh, the irony.

The headwinds were against us – the flight that usually seems to pass in an instant drug on. and on. and on.

The pilot finally announced our descent into Oakland; my popping ears verified his words. I peered out the window. I love to watch the lights of the city grow larger and larger as we near the ground. All was dark, except for what appeared to be the runway lights. Had we landed? Not possible. I hadn’t felt a thing.

A deep, silky, let-me-be-your-man voice came over the p.a. system. “Smoooooooooooooooooooooooooth.”

We so had landed.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

“We’ve got to get up! It’s the Chinese New Year parade today!” I couldn’t believe my luck. Not only did I get to experience The Gates while in New York City, I also was able to attend the Chinese New Year Parade. It doesn’t matter what the cause, if it’s a celebration, I’m happy. Gloriously, deliriously, drunkenly happy.

We pushed, shoved, fought our way through the throngs of people gathered to watch the parade. Floats with waving beauties passed before us. Elegant dancers gently waving fans glided past. Dragons of all colors, shapes and sizes slithered by. And then. The parade was over. The police, New York’s finest, hustled us out of the streets and back to the sidewalks.

I heard a loud “pop!” then was hypnotized by the enchanting confetti drifting from the sky. Blues, greens, magentas, yellows, twirling, swirling, spinning, twisting from the sky. Another “pop!” behind us. Another deluge of colors, landing on us, beside us, underneath us. For half an hour we made our way through the crowd, every so often stopping, mesmerized by the shower of colors around us. “Happy New Year,” an elderly Chinese woman spoke in broken English. I replied, in broken Chinese, “Gung Hay Fat Choy.” Smiles were exchanged, wishes conferred. A magical moment in New York City.

The Gates – Central Park, New York City

I read an article in The New Yorker over a year ago about the works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. How odd. They do things in public spaces with fabric. At the time, their upcoming project was The Gates, a series of 7500 saffron flags in Central Park, due to “open” in February 2005. “I think I’ll go to that,” I mused.

It opened this past weekend. Saturday morning, just off the red-eye, we found ourselves walking through Central Park, strolling under Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s saffron gates, relishing the random rays of sun that sliced through dreary skies. I’m not sure if it was meant to represent anything, but it worked. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people, New Yorkers and tourists together, descended upon Central Park. No one seemed to mind the crispness, the cold that confronted them. People were pleasant, smiled greetings to one another, engaged in polite small talk, talked about “the art.”

I attempted photographs. Each one disappointed. How to capture the majestic feeling? The treasure of being outdoors on a beautiful day? The glory of being awash in a wondrously happy color on a dreary day? The connection to the multitudes with a similar mission, to enjoy something without a stated purpose? I laughed as I tucked my camera back into my purse. I knew that my attempts to capture the moment, either in words or in graphics, were in vain. I looked around, then focused on one flutter of one flag of one gate. I snapshotted the feeling inside me, one of pure happiness, of being at the exact place, with the exact person, doing the exact thing I wanted to do.

Designing Woman

We have a routine. We always go to North Lake Tahoe, stopping at our favorite mom and pop cafe for an egg bagel to fuel a day of boarding. Having been offered free lift tickets to South Lake Tahoe for the weekend, we accepted. About 2 hours into the trip, we were famished. McDonald’s and Burger King’s greeted us. Fast food snobs that we are, we pressed on.

We stopped at Caffeine Cuisine. It looked promising. Fresh baked goods greeted us in the display case. As I perused the menu, E asked the counter girl, “Do you have egg bagels?”

The young thing peered at us and in all seriousness replied, “Well, not now, but we’re in the process of designing one. We should have one designed by, you know, April or so.”

I suppressed a snicker. I’ve got a design for an egg bagel. Scramble an egg and throw it on a toasted bagel. Design fees payable to LoriLoo.

Unsolicited Support

Heavenly may be heaven for skiers, but for us snowboarders it was hell. Half the day was spent with our boards half-way or completely off, traversing across flat runs. Flat. No slope. No inertia. Struggling to make our way across an unwelcoming plane. In the chair lift, our jackets zipped to the top, breathing into our scarves to generate heat, we watched the skiers and snowboarders below us. One boarder had just reached a flat area, unnavigationally narrow, the mountain ascending on one side, the cliff descending on the other. He shuffled. He hopped. We felt his agony. We knew the torture of being stuck on a flat. He started, ever so slowly, to slide across the flat plane. We cheered, ecstatic he had succeeded. He had challenged the mountain and won. Hearing shouts, distracted, he looked up. We gave him thumbs up, as excited for his success as he. Our ecstasy turned to astonishment, then to appall, as we saw him lose his balance, tumble, his helmet disappear over the edge of the path, down, down, down…

Living It Up

After a tiring day of traversing, we returned to the hotel. As we entered the lobby, beat and bedraggled, I suggested we grab a bottle of wine from the bar to take up to our room to sip while getting ready for dinner. The bartender presented E with a lovely bottle of Merlot and 3 glasses; I carried our helmets and gear. Walking down the long corridor to our room, we passed a young man, perhaps our age, perhaps a tad younger. “Living the high life, are you?” he laughed. E smiled , tinkling the wine glasses. “We’re trying,” she answered demurely. He seemed startled and quickened his pace. I burst out laughing. “E, he was on his hands free, talking on the phone; he wasn’t talking to us…”

Rockin’ at the Hard Rock

To get to the Sports Book we had to pass through the Hard Rock Cafe. We entered, lights low, neon signs illuminating the edges of the establishment. Delicate sounds drifted our way. He stopped in his tracks, rolled his eyes, and exclaimed, “Great. Just what I want to hear when I come to the Hard Rock, a flute solo.”

Right-Handed Man

We sat down in the booth, our plates loaded with Sunday breakfast foods: bacon, eggs, pancakes, biscuits. Exactly what we needed to fuel a day on the slopes. As R finished his plate, our waitress, Kathy, came by, offering to refill our water glasses. As she poured Ignacio appeared along side her, silently removing our emptied plates. She laughed a maniacal laugh. “This here is Ignacio. He’s my right-handed man. He makes my job look easy.” Laugh, laugh, laugh. When she left, E leaned over. “Her job is easy – it’s a buffet.”

While at a baby shower the topic of the future bambino’s name invariably arises at some point during the evening. While discussing potential names, one guest said, “My parents didn’t name me until I was three.”

I looked at her in surprise. Surely I misheard. “Did you just say that your parents didn’t name you until you were three?”

“Yep.”

“So, what did they call you?”

“Many things: ‘hey you,’ ‘sweetie,’ ‘honey,’ but mostly just ‘baby girl.’ That’s what’s on my birth certificate.”

“Your parents called you ‘baby girl’ for three years?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeah. They wanted my personality to emerge before they named me. Then one day when I was three Mom said, ‘Sunny!’ and I turned my head. It stuck. That’s what they called me from then on.”

To her, I simply smiled and nodded. In my head, I played out various scenarios. What if her mom had just dropped a hammer on her toe and in pain exclaimed, “Crap!” What if her husband had asked her what she wanted for breakfast and she yelled “Pancakes!” What if a friend had asked her what movie she wanted to see and she had enthusiastically answered, “Alien!” Sunny’s a lucky gal.