Tag Archives: New York City

Tiggy goes Tee Tee

19 Feb
Fancy Shmancy

Fancy Shmancy

My job is bizarre. I say this not because of what I do all day, but because of the people I deal with. Upper East Side pet owners are a brand of crazy entirely unto themselves. For instance, I was recently cat-sitting for a woman who has a nanny cam. Not to spy on me. It’s so she can watch the cats eat while she’s away.

But that’s nothing. Dogs that only drink Evian. Gucci leashes. Par for the course. This past weekend, I dealt with one of our most extreme clients.

Let’s call her Celia. I cannot use her real name, because a quick google search will turn up one of the most well-known socialites in New York City. Even google images of her with her dog! She has her own tag on Gawker.com where I found out she owns her own line of travel gear for “rich ladies and their pets.” Celia is a Southern belle divorcee, who now runs with the lady who lunches crowd. These ladies are Chanel-suit wearing frenemies who try to out-do one another with which charity luncheons they attend. These lunches are hosted at the most expensive restaurants in the city, which in my opinion is a complete waste, since you know these ladies only eat arugula salads with a slice of lemon on the side.

Her pet is a toy Yorkie named Tigerlily. 16-years-old, blind, deaf, collapsed trachea, unable to walk, dementia. In summation, a shell of a dog. This dog has been in renal failure for about two years now, but somehow clinging to life. She brought the dog in on Friday for a recheck, and it is clear that this is the end. The bloodwork looks horrible, and the dog is barely alive. Amid tears and hysterics, Dr. S explained that the dog had to be hospitalized. She told the doctor she hasn’t been apart from the dog for more than half an hour in 15 years. She doesn’t know how she’ll go on.

My first encounter with her was during a visit. It was after hours, so I greeted her at the door to the clinic and led her to an exam room.
“I’m going to go get Tigerlily now and bring her to you.”
“Chrissy!” she put her hand to her mouth, stifling a sob. “I just have one question for you. Just one!” Tears streaming down her cheeks. “Can she survive off the fluids for the visit. I don’t want my angel to be harmed by my visit.” Heaving sobs. The friend she brought with her rushes to her side.
“Oh, Celia, pull yourself together! Tigerlily is going to be alright. You need to be strong for her. Let this young lady do her job.” They clung to one another in desperation. It was a scene straight out of a day time soap opera.
“Chrissy!” Celia looks at me. “Just (sniffle, sniffle) answer my question for me!”
“Yeah, the dog’ll be fine off fluids for the visit.”
“Oh God! My baby in the hospital. I just can’t take it!”

I brought her the dog and remained calm in the face of such hysterics. Now she has latched on to me. Asking for me, wanting to talk about the dog. She talked the doctors into letting her stay with the dog ALL DAY. She sits with the dog in a far off exam room, talking baby talk to the dog and crying. I stay as far away as possible. But somehow I get sucked in. She hears me walk by.
“Look, Tiggy! It’s your good friend, Chrissy!” she’ll turn to me. “Did you see her tongue, Chrissy? I’m so worried (gasp, sniffle) about my angel. Look! Look!”
“I think that’s just a spit bubble.”
“Would you tell the doctor? I’m just so worried. Look at the way she’s holding her head?!”
“Yeah, I’ll go tell the doctor. Right now. I’ll go right now.” I inch out the door, trying to shut it behind me, pretending to not hear her calling my name.

Back in treatment, Dr. G is once again the voice of reason.
“Can someone please have a real conversation with this woman?” he asks the other doctors.
“Please don’t go in there,” Dr. Z begs. “You don’t understand this lady.”
“Just let me do it! This is a quality of life issue. She needs to snap out of it.”
“What would you tell her?” I ask him.
“Even a train comes to a stop.”

Yesterday, at the end of the day, her friends (you know, the heiresses of New York) convince her that she should go home and shower, try to sleep a little. She places the dog in my arms and follows me back to the treatment area.
“Don’t worry, Tiggy. Your good friend Chrissy is going to stay here with you!” I don’t have the heart to tell her that my shift is over, and as soon as she leaves, I’m out the door as well.
“Oh, Chrissy! I have such good news. Tiggy went Tee Tee!”
“Huh?”
“She did a nice Tee Tee!”
“Come again?”
“A Tee Tee! On the paper y’all gave her.”
“Oh, she peed?” Her face scrunched up as if I called her dog a motherfucker.
“Well, she tee teed.”

From what I gather this stands for tinkle tinkle?

The thing is, she’s a very nice woman. She bought us all Magnolia cupcakes on Saturday and last night she gave me a bag of Potpourri. Not just any potpourri, Officina Profumo Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella potpourri. Imported from Italy. She told me to place it in a bowl as soon as I get home.
“It smells like heaven! I’ll bring you a different fragrance for tomorrow.”

I said my thank-yous and wished her a good night. I changed into my street clothes and headed home. On the smelly subway, I kept getting a whiff of the potpourri in my bag, the flower petals gathered on a Tuscan hill. I couldn’t stop thinking, “God, my job is strange.”

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Storm Nemo

14 Feb

For all the media hype and fuss about how this was going to be the blizzard of the century, it was just a blizzard. I was a little nervous, because I had been rather nonchalant about Hurricane Sandy and that did kind of turn out to be a big deal. But I think the city was just better prepared for a snow storm. We’d never had a hurricane before. There have been plenty of white winters in the city. The trains ran a little bit slower, but that’s really the only think I noticed.

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This is what I saw when I left my apartment the next morning to go to work. I’ve come to like working on Saturdays. It keeps me relatively sober on a Friday night, and I get a couple of weekdays off. But sometimes, like this day, I wish I could have been frolicking in the snow with my friends.

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Oh, Upper East Side. You can be pretty sometimes.

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One of my co-workers on Saturday is kind of a con-man, always trying to get out of doing work, trying to make an extra buck. He always leaves early on both our Friday and Saturday shift, even though him and I are supposed to take turns. But I need the extra hours, so I let it happen. On this day, he once again asked me if he could leave early.
“Yeah, but I’m taking a long, fucking lunch break,” I responded. My co-workers laughed around me while he looked at me bemused. “And she’s coming with me!” I pointed at one of the other technicians who always wants me to stand up to the con-man. So we ate our lunches and headed to Central Park.

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It was perfect. We flopped in the snow, attempted to throw snowballs, admired the winter wonderland, watched kids sled down the hills.

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This is my favorite one. A beautiful park with New York City in the background. Oh, and a dude drinking a beer in the foreground. I do wish I could have joined him.

 

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Mango Chutney

30 Dec

imageWelcome to a lazy Sunday in Queens. I have been a complete recluse of late, and as I’m typing this, I’m realizing by “of late” I mean one week. I haven’t gone out in one week. I’m used to going out a lot, and the last week, my bed and a pile of books is just much more appealing to me.

Today I decided to break the spell of constantly ordering in by cooking something in my crock pot. It’s a crock pot kind of day. Throw something in there, get a bunch of stuff done around the apartment, then have a beautiful home-cooked meal. I decided upon a “Sweet Chicken Curry.” I put on my winter coat and began the 10 minute walk to the nearest grocery store.

A word about my neighborhood. I live in a little-known area of Queens that is the intersection of Asian, Indian, and Latino communities. Everyone in my building is Chinese, and most everything around me is Chinese in one way or another. The markets are small and niche, they have plenty of rice noodles, but no cheese. I need cheese in my life, so I typically walk the 10 minutes to the Latino neighborhood that has a somewhat larger grocery store. It usually has what I need, but it is also niche and doesn’t have major things like fish.

So I arrive at the grocery store and find everything on my list, except mango chutney. I needed half a cup of mango chutney. I started beating myself up. How could I be so stupid as to pick a recipe with an ingredient so classicly Indian. Of course my Latino grocery store wouldn’t have it. They have bags of rice labeled “Arroz” not “Basmati.” I had left my cell phone at home (because I sometimes need to prove to myself that I’m not a slave to it) and was trying to rack my brain for what I could use to replace it. It’s just a jelly-like thing, right? Could I use jam? Could I use fresh mango and extra curry powder or something?

Then I realized how silly I was being. It’s a 15-minute walk from that grocery store to an Indian neighborhood. I can tough it out. So I put some “Exile on Main Street” on my ipod and began the journey. I stopped in every grocery store along the way, just to check and was amazed at what I found. There’s this gigantic Asian supermarket close to me with an amazing fish and meat market, free samples of dumplings, every sauce imaginable. It made me realize how foolish I am to spend so much time on American foods and not taking advantage of what is around the corner from me. I make it to the Indian markets and wander in and out, finding mint chutney, mango puree, pickled mangoes, and even more specialty markets I wish I’d taken advantage of sooner.

So I stop into my seventh market of the day, scour the aisles, until I found a promising section with glass jars. There it was, the above jar. I thrust a mittened fist in the air in victory. I was the idiot white girl in line at the all Indian-store and absolutely all smiles.

My spicy chicken curry is slowly warming in my crock pot, and I feel so accomplished today. I’ve been reading a lot of books about redemption lately, about people going to far away places or doing crazy things to save themselves. But sometimes even the smallest adventures are equally redemptive.

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The Ultimate New York Stigma

5 Dec

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When I tell non-New Yorkers that I live here, they almost always say something like, “Oh man, I’m so jealous. It must be the best!” While I do feel fortunate to live here, and my life tends to exist on the edge of awesome and amazing. There are drawbacks. Getting elbowed in the gut on your morning commute. Paying $3 for a shitty cup of coffee. Waving goodbye to about 25% of your paycheck. But today tops it.

I have motherfucking bed bugs. Pardon my language, but this has been one of the worst New York days I’ve ever had. All because of motherfucking bed bugs.

Last Saturday, I was getting ready to go to Brooklyn to meet up with friends for indoor bocce ball, as I grabbed my phone off my nightstand, I saw something on my bed. I grabbed it and sprinted into my living room to confirm my fears with my roommate. A bedbug. I panicked for a moment, before killing it and flushing it down the toilet. Maybe it was a stray?

This morning I woke up and quickly noticed blood smears on my pillow (a sign that they’ve fed and drooled as they walked away. I looked in the mirror to see to my horror, that I had two bites on my neck and one on my forehead, which means that a bed bug was ON. MY. FACE. I ripped apart my bedding and mattress, searching for any signs of where they were. Nothing. I freaked out and demanded my landlord send an exterminator to take care of the issue ASAP.

“Well, they’re really expensive,” she told me.
“Yeah, but it’s kind of the law that you need to take care of this.”
“I’ll check the lease and the law.”
“Housing and Maintenance Code Subchapter 2, Article 4. You have 30 days to take care of this.”
“It’s just really expensive, and I’d really appreciate it if you chipped in.”
“No way, you are legally obligated to take care of this.”
“Well, you are morally obligated to chip in.”
“You just raised my rent. I always pay it on time. This isn’t my fault! I’m not morally obligated to do shit.”

So my apartment is getting bombed tomorrow. I just spent the last 7 hours bagging everything in my room. cleaning every inch, boxing everything I own, moving all furniture to the center of the room. I’m exhausted, and when I get home tomorrow after working, I won’t have access to any of my things, or bedding, or pillows. I have to wash ALL of it. The good news is that in my extensive cleaning, I didn’t find any signs of infestation, so it really must not be that bad, and we’re nipping it in the bud early. Bad news? A tiny blood-sucking insect kicked my ass today.

 

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A Humble Account of Sandy

30 Oct

While the barrage of phone calls/text messages/emails from my friends makes me feel more loved than anything, it also reminds me that the nation is looking to New York City in this catastrophe. Those that aren’t here keep asking me what it’s like, what’s happening. While I’m blessed not to be in the thick of it or strongly affected, this is what it’s been like.

FRIDAY: For days, we have been hearing about a storm brewing that could possibly affect us, but this is the first time that I’m hearing the terms “Frankenstorm” and “Superstorm.” People are starting to get nervous, and it is just about the only thing people are talking about. Most people are making jokes in reference to Hurricane Irene (correction Tropical Storm Irene) that hit us last August. All the media hype amounted to about two hours of rain and winds that knocked leaves off of the trees in Central Park. No one was taking this year’s storm seriously, and absolutely no one was cancelling their Halloween weekend plans.

SATURDAY MORNING: The head doctor arrives at the clinic in the morning with bags of flashlights and batteries. My co-workers and I laugh at him, telling him he is over-reacting. He fights back that the storm is coming, and that we should all be prepared. The standard response is still “I’ll believe it when I see it.” He was in Morocco one year ago and didn’t experience the over-hype that was Irene. As he leaves for the day, he solemnly wishes me luck. I roll my eyes.

SATURDAY EVENING: I’m texting with a friend about what her last-minute Halloween costume should be. We come up with a brilliant idea that she should be the Hurricane itself. Hair all messed up, an inverted umbrella, a spray bottle to squirt people with water, and a poodle skirt to identify her as Sandy from “Grease.” We joke and laugh about this throughout the night on the town.

SATURDAY NIGHT: Bars are overflowing with drunken New Yorkers in skimpy costumes, no one speaks of the storm. I start to see reports on my phone that the subway system is going to be shut down. I start to feel a little nervous.

SUNDAY 10AM: I wake up in Murray Hill where I slept over at the boy’s apartment. Cuddled in his warm bed, the sky outside is dark, and it sounds windy. I can hear the noise of what sounds like an abandoned swingset, that metal creak of post-apocalyptic movies. Things start to feel foreboding, and I try to figure out in my head when I should plan on heading back to Queens. We spend the morning looking up news reports on his computer and listening to a Velvet Underground record. For an hour or two, the hurricane once again feels like a joke.

SUNDAY 1PM: We finally make our way across the street to buy bagels and coffee before the Jets game. The lines are around the corner out of every store. We make jokes about our last meal.

SUNDAY 2PM: While watching the Jets game, his roommates start showing up with cases of water and forties of Bud Light.
“Maybe we should get some pasta or something?” one of them says.
“Make sure you get some solo cups for beer pong.”
“Do we have flashlights?”
“I think I need to head back to Queens,” I tell the boy.
I still only have my Halloween costume, so I borrow a flannel shirt from him, and head home. Among the raincoats and rainboots, I’m wearing two inch heels, short shorts, a flannel shirt and a trench coat while carrying a large foam M&M suit. The most epic walk of shame of my life. Correction: Stride of pride.

SUNDAY EVENING: Back in my Elmhurst and changed into jeans and chucks, I decide to stock up on some supplies myself. I prepare thusly:

  • two very large bottles of water
  • a box of cheez-its
  • a flashlight
  • two candles
  • generic breakfast bars
  • pasta
  • a People magazine
  • a liter of Diet Ginger Ale…because I already have the whiskey

SUNDAY NIGHT: I reassure my mom over the phone that I’m in the safest neighborhood possible and that, yes, I bought bottled water. I watch the New York Giants edge out the Dallas Cowboys while consoling the boy over the phone about the tragic New York Jets loss. I watch the San Francisco Giants win the World Series with the mildest of interest, as I mildly dislike the Tigers. I look out the window to see no rain, although there is a light breeze.

MONDAY DAY: In the morning, still no rain, not even very windy. Cabin fever sets in early. Texts start pouring in from worried friends. I watch “Breaking Bad”, “Ru Paul’s Drag Race”, “American Horror Story,” and read a bunch of pointless articles on the Internet. I check facebook every 20 minutes, to see my New York friends are pretty much all fine and drinking either wine or whiskey.

MONDAY EVENING: Winds start to sound fierce outside my window, and I start to feel nervous. I keep my blinds shut in case the windows blow in, which sounds completely possible. It sounds so strong, that I imagine cows swirling past my window a la “Wizard of Oz” although what a cow would be doing in Queens, I can’t tell you. I live close to a hospital and the ambulance sirens have been going for hours, back and forth, up and down.

MONDAY 9PM: I haven’t been watching the news, so I finally start browsing photos on CNN, checking live blogs. I see my friends posting about the transformer exploding on 14th street, the fires in North Queens, the extreme flooding in Brooklyn, the blackout in Manhattan, the failed generator at NYU Langone Medical Center. I start to feel blessed and extremely lucky to live where I do. I send out texts to the people I care about in those areas to make sure they’re okay.

TUESDAY MORNING: I awake to a flood of text messages from worried family and friends. I reassure them that I’m okay. I turn on the news and stare jaw agape at the destruction around my city.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: My roommate and I dare to go out in our neighborhood. We walk the 15 minutes to a 24-hour diner. Along the way, we see leaves strewn and one fallen down tree. The streets are crowded with people trying to get fresh air. The diner is also crowded. But my roommate and I bond a bit over cups of coffee, greasy diner food, stories of boys and hurricane updates we’ve read. We browse the dollar store. We buy Uno.

TUEDSAY EVENING: I figure out that walking to work tomorrow will take me two hours and debate whether I should or not. I sign up for a volunteer list serve. I sit down, bored, to write this, which if you’ve made it this far, you must be equally bored. C’mon over! We have plenty of whiskey, and that rousing game of Uno is about to start.

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Tourist Tuesday: A Salt and Battery

23 Oct

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My job is very physical, and I work 10-11 hour shifts. In recompense for this, my co-workers and I are allotted a three-day weekend. All of my friends gush over this and tell me how lucky I am, but in my line of work, it’s really necessary. For the last couple of months, I picked up an extra shift and was working 5-6 days a week, clocking in on average between 50-60 hours. While a lot of people do this, a lot of those people sit at a desk. Not that their jobs aren’t challenging or tiring, but there’s a difference between staring at a computer all day and lifting 60lb dogs and trying to avoid getting killed by a cat.

So now, I finally have my three-day weekends back. While I spent the last two weekends relaxing and catching up on so many things that fell by the wayside, I can already feel that three days off can get a bit much. I’ve picked up my knitting, I’ve become a football fan, I’ve been reading and writing. But I also decided that I wanted to explore my city more. I’ve been in New York for two years, and I fear I’ve fallen into a routine. With so much in the city to do and see, this is unacceptable. I subscribe to a ton of email lists, people are always telling me about cool things to do and see, I even own a 1001 things to do in New York book!

My three-day weekend is Sunday-Tuesday, so I have designated Tuesday: Tourist Tuesday, on which I will try to force myself out into the city to see something new. This week “A Salt and Battery.”

One of the best parts about New York are all the ethnic neighborhoods. It has your obvious Chinatown, Little Italy, and Spanish Harlem. But there’s also Koreatown, Little Bombay, a Dominican neighborhood, a Haitian neighborhood, a Hasidic neighborhood. Every nationality is represented, even the ones that don’t seem to need representation. For instance, there is a small street in the West Village that has a string of British places. A pub, an amazing tea house, a grocery store of British thing, and this amazing fish and chips place.

I’d been craving fish and chips for weeks. But all the places near my work were too expensive, and when I went to local bars with friends, I’d already eaten a healthy dinner at home. So I left it to Tuesday to go to the most authentic place in the city for a traditional British snack. The weather was perfect, and by perfect I mean 55 degrees, cloudy and drizzle. The perfect London weather for my British day. I threw on my raincoat and went.

The place itself is very hole in the wall, with only a couple of stools against the walls for seating. I got the Pollock and chips, as they don’t serve cod anymore. It was exactly what I wanted. I doused it in the Heinz vinegar, sat on a stool, and looked out onto the streets of the West Village, watching people scamper home from work.

The men that worked there were adorable, slinging fish with their British accents. The radio was broadcasting a station from London. It was perfect. My meal came to be about $13, including a bottle of water I bought. And it was filling. I didn’t even get to finish all my chips, which is not a common thing for me. I only wish I had room for their deep-fried Mars bars.

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