Thursday, June 6, 2013

What I did yesterday - the day before that, and the day before that.

Dagnabbit!!
I done got behind here.
Cuz I got a wonkity schedule and I jus cain't always git it all squared away and get all of everythin' I wanna do done. You ever been thar??
I'ma bettin' that ya have.
And I ain't got much time today neither, so's I'm gonna do this at a bit of a clip.
Startin' with Monday - Not much to say about that - so I'm not going to dwell on it.
(A cop out!! I know!! Call the cops.)
Tuesday - went to therapy. I probably do have stuff to say about that ... but I don't got no time to get into that now - so - I ain't gonna say nuthin' about that either.
(Withholding! I know! Or is it resistance ... Call the therapy cops and ask them why don'tcha)
Then I went to Trader Joe's - which I love. And bought stuff I like to buy there - like wine (great prices! and no - I'm not talking about $2 buck Chuck or that cheapo crap. I'm talking nice bottles that are $15 to $20 elsewhere and $10 to $15 there - and you  know - other great stuff they've got there. Their toilet paper. (I like it! Don't know why really) Kind bars (good price point) Organic Celery! (great price on that!) (Brie Bites! Perfect for diet's - portion controlled goodness 'on the go'! - etc.
Then I did a very large party - I was a KA (kitchen assistant) and it was on the water (on the shore though - thank God - as I don't like to work on boats!) and it was gorgeous! And nice weather! and it was stressful - high pressure! But  went great - and the food was great - like really great - etc.
OK - Wednesday. Yesterday - got acupuncture! For nagging knot of pain in shoulder/upper back that continues to plague me - (Acupuncture is included in our health plan! Which is so great! + a free mini-chair massage from the massage/yoga guy at our "health collective" - Yes! We have a health collective!! And it's great!!) - then I went to Macy's - quickly - to see if they had one more shirt there like the other one I got that I really liked. It had a peplum waist, and that is what I should wear almost all the time for my body type - that's what I've learned lately about dressing -- but - they didn't have another one. That's OK
And there was a lady there who was an  "out-loud shopper". Which means that she narrated everything she was doing, VERY LOUDLY, as she walked around the store. "Two for $15.99!! That's a good price that's what that is!!" She declared at the top of her lungs. "I'm gonna get six of 'em!" Then - "I don't like them "boy" lookin' shorts for MY underwear - No I do not!" "I don't like them high cuts either. I like me a hipster brief! Ain't none a' them on sale?" "Can't nobody help me in this store?" "Don't nobody work here?" "This here is a good price too. I'ma get me six a' these here."
And so on. And - she had a young child with her, her grandson I'm guessing, who kept running away.
"Why you keep runnin' off Peewee!" she shouted.

"I know why you run off Peewee ..." I thought to myself. "Run Peewee Run!!"
And that's it - for now. :-)

Monday, June 3, 2013

What I did yesterday ...

Yesterday was Sunday - and the living was easy. Relatively easy anyway. But for the pain. the nagging constant pain in my back (upper left - sort of under the ol' shoulder blade and up over the top of the shoulder). An awful, self-massage-resistant knot that will not go away.
I remembered my friend Mary recommended a massage place, around the corner, that she said was pretty cheap and very good. I put it off for another hour or so, just to ... I don't know, suffer more?
Then I called. AND THEY ANSWERED!!!!
"Hi, I was wondering if you've got time for a one hour massage today, like ... within the hour?"
I think I sound desperate, and it's kind of embarrassing.
The woman on the other end, or was it a youngish girl? ... hesitated a moment.
"OH NO! Oh no..." I shrieked silently to myself, "... what if they're all booked!???"
Then - happily - she said, "Maybe ... 6:00pm?"
"Yes! Yes. That's great, thanks."
Oh my god! Relief. Now I'd just have to wait two whole hours, and I'd be in, Flynn-like.
I used the time to straighten up the apartment and lay on the floor hugging my knees to my chest, and to enter the calories I'd eaten so far into the calorie counter website and figure out what to have for dinner, and how many calories that might be.
Then - before I knew it,  I was lying on a table wearing only my underpants, face-down under a sheet with my face in the hole-thing you put your face in when you get a massage, John Tesh-ish music playing softly, and the massage therapist arrived. God love her. I pointed out the spot that hurt the most, hoping that this wouldn't be just the usual, sort of "general" massage, but that she would truly, sincerely, address my knot.
Well. I'm happy to report - that she addressed the hell out of it.
I have never experienced a massage exactly like this one. She was psychic. Or more specifically, her fingers were psychic. Or maybe she had X-Ray fingers. I don't know. I just know she was all up in there, working the hell out of my whole shoulder carriage, both sides, but with special attention to the sorest side. Climbing on top of me, elbows, knees, her head maybe? I don't know. But I didn't need to know. This woman had a plan. She knew what she was doing. What truly blew my mind though, was the way she attacked me armpit. As a way to get to the underside/backside of my shoulder? Mashing, digging and probing around in my arm-pit as if it were a drain and she'd just dropped her wedding ring down it.
"What is she doing?" I wondered, alarmed. "Is this a Lymph thing? A Qi thing? An Exorcist thing?"
It hurt. It hurt so much I almost asked her to stop. Almost. But I didn't. I rarely do. Because, nine times out of ten, whatever they are doing, no matter how much it hurts, seems like something that should, no must, be done. I trusted her and was willing to let her hurt me however she saw fit. And sure enough, at some point during the arm-pit thing, I felt some release. And relief. Not cured. Not gone. But better.
One time - years ago, I got a very cheap Chinatown massage, on a whim, and it hurt - a lot, and I finally DID tell him that he needed to "do less". It didn't work though. I thought he was going to crush my skull, or maybe tear off my arm and use it to pry my other arm off. He had no plan. He did not know what he was doing. Maybe he didn't even work there. I was sore for days afterwards.
Yesterday, as I was having that great, and surprising massage (arm pits!), I thought of my mother. Not because she loved massage, but because it would be so completely surprising to her that I, or anyone, a woman especially, would do that. Take ones clothes off and lay under a sheet, while a total stranger touches you for an hour? With oil? And sometimes it's a man instead of a woman??! Incredible. Unbelievable. Unfathomable! I like to imagine that she can see me, from her special place in heaven (the kitchen, if they're lucky). And that she thinks it's cool.  An exotic adventure. Something that takes balls. Like lots of things I've done, move to New York, acting, cooking for money, the whole thing. I like to imagine her watching me at an audition, or on a set, or getting a massage, or searing duck breasts for a  dinner for 20, or running down the subway steps and catching that damned train. And I imagine she's smiling, her eyes crinkling up at the improbable stuff this daughter of hers has done. And I know there were times that her back hurt like heck. And I'm sorry that she couldn't have gotten a massage, but ... that's OK. I'll just take her to mine.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

What I did yesterday ...

Yesterday I slept too late. Late for me anyway. I woke up initially at 6:30am, but that was too early, considering that I'd gone to bed after 12:30am the night before. I need at least seven hours of sleep - maybe seven and a half - though seven is fine, really. But - it was kind of hard for me to go back to sleep. I finally did, but then I didn't wake up until 8:45am. I hate that. I have friends who consider 8:45am early though - and a couple of friends who regularly get up at 5:30am (and not just because they have kids - they just LIKE it) - so - I guess it's all relative really. I, personally, like to get up around 7:30am. That is my ideal.
Then I had tea - watched NY1 (favorite news channel) and ate one of my favorite breakfasts: 1/4 of an avocado, mashed with a little salt and lemon juice then spread on a piece of toasted Ezekiel bread , with 1/2 ounce of goat cheese, an over-medium egg, 2 ounces of smoked salmon and a small salad of arugula and grape tomatoes with olive oil, sea salt and lemon juice.
Somewhere in there I came up with this idea to write "What I did yesterday..." - so I did that, yesterday, for the first time. (this being the second time - for those following along at home)
Then I went to work.
A wedding - Indian Muslim - in a gorgeous party space in Brooklyn that used to be an old bank. Back when people had money and banks looked like a cross between a palace and a very large, well appointed mausoleum. Not like now - when a new bank is indistinguishable from any other business: Charles Schwab, Edible Arrangements, Super Cuts ... only the presence of fruit on skewers, ribbons and baskets or barber chairs and scissors make one discernible from the other. Old banks are uplifting. New banks are depressing. No one will ever have a wedding in a new bank.

I was in the kitchen at this particular wedding, so didn't get to see much of it. The people I saw on my way downstairs to the bathroom were strikingly beautiful, as a group, and they seemed to be having a good time. The music was unusual, a live string quartet playing hits from the 60's through 90's, in Muzak fashion, like what they played in the dentist office when I was a kid. "Benny and the Jets" for viola and violin. And this wedding - being Muslim, had no alcohol. NO ALCOHOL. I was released before it ended, but I'm thinking it didn't run late.
I've worked other weddings like that, with no alcohol. One in particular I remember, where I was on the floor, not in the kitchen.  A white couple, very Christian, from the Midwest. They'd moved here for work. She wasn't "un-pretty" - just very plain. She wore no make-up - a very simple, unadorned, long white dress and had her hair up in a "banana clip", as if she were just running out to the store for a quart of milk, rather than about the get married.
He, on the other hand, wore a Prince Valiant hair-cut - very precise, a simple, light colored suit with slightly larger than usual lapels, a tie I can't remember, eye-liner, mascara and blush.
Seriously.
They toasted with Twizzlers which were placed in glasses on all the tables. It wasn't yesterday, but I remember it like it was.
Back to yesterday. I came home on the G train, operating with delays due to track work (so it took an hour) had a snack and a glass of white burgundy, watched a little TV and was then saddened to learn, via Facebook, of the death of Jean Stapleton. I loved her.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

What I did yesterday ...

Hi - I'm trying something new. It's called "What I did yesterday". In an attempt to make myself - cajole myself - insist to myself that I write more I'm going to write "what I did yesterday" and put it on here - every day. I suppose it's possible that I might miss a day here and there - but I'll try not to. And if I do - I guess it will be a special feature called "What I did for the past 2 days" - which isn't as good a title. (I'll still write other stuff too and hopefully, writing "what I did yesterday" will help with that as well.)
I predict that this will take off like a "house'a'fire" (an expression that people who've actually had their houses catch on fire do not care for) - and that readers will soon flock to find out - yes - "what I did yesterday".
Here goes:
Yesterday I got a manicure and pedicure and let me tell you - things are not going well for Reese Witherspoon, but I couldn't really find out why, exactly, because someone tore out the key page with the info (probably someone working for Reese) (I know it involved alcohol - and some poor decisions) Also - Jason Sedeikis and his new girlfriend went to Hawaii and kissed a LOT, and she loves him because he "can actually 'see' her." Kim Kardasian bought an ... $8000 crib and a $17,000 stroller and has gained a lot of weight, especially in her face. And there are women who's entire days seem to revolve around exfoliating. (these women also buy skirts and tops in the $300 to $700 range - sometimes just to wear to the beach)
I also had to go back to a catering company I'd done prep for the day BEFORE yesterday - because I'd left my knives there and needed to go get them. And - I spoke with a young couple - black - "middle-class or at least they went to Catholic school" looking - maybe 16 or 17 - native New Yorkers (I think) - who were trying to decide if they should go to Coney Island or Brighton Beach - as they'd never been to either. (yes - you can be a native New Yorker and still not have gone to Coney Island - but - they could also have just moved here from New Jersey - or - maybe they were from the Bronx. I don't know - but they didn't seem like tourists). I mention their race because I think it is relevant to their reaction to me, e.g. when I first started talking to them they looked a little wary, or surprised, or both - this could just as easily have to do with their age though, since they were so young, and I, in their eyes, probably seemed very old - or maybe just irrelevant. (I remember this from my own youth - when people over 35 or so just weren't ... relevant.) Never the less, I was sitting right next to them (elevated platform on the F/G train - Smith and 9th Street) so chimed in that they could go to both - as Brighton and Coney were basically right next to each other. They asked what was the difference - and I said that Brighton was very Russian - with a lot of Russian people - and that Coney ... was not. They seemed genuinely delighted by this news - as if they'd never imagined that there were actually people - from Russia - here - and that they had their own beach no less. Then I came home - made dinner (whole wheat pasta with chicken and greens) watched TV and went to bed.