New York, 1999
I opened my email on Sunday to find a letter from Siobhan asking if I wanted to
go to New York City and visit Carla and Krista. My calendar being woefully
empty, I agreed. :) I stipulated that we had to leave after my appointment
on Tuesday morning with the ENT about my recurring ear aches and she
agreed that she had some errands to run also on Tuesday. Monday we met at
the writers group meeting and agreed to leave at 4pm on Tuesday since we
were both feeling antsy and wanting to get out of the city, added to which
night driving is easier since the traffic is lighter.
Aug 31
I rode my bike to Toronto General and was early for my appointment, which
of course meant that I had to wait even longer than normal to see the
doctor. A resident examined me first and then was called away to see
another patient by the doctor. They eventually both came back to look at
me and the doctor found that it wasn't my ears at all, but my jaw joint.
He mumbled TMJ, take two advil a day, come again in three weeks then
shuffled me out. I made the appointment and left in a bit of a huff - he
didn't even explain what TMJ was to me, leaving me to do some research on
line when I got home. I did that after a trip to the gym to work out the
soreness from the last workout, showered, finished packing and let Siobhan
know I was ready to go. She had to pick up her car from the repair shop,
but came by to pick me up by 5:20. I threw my things in the hatch, but
kept the food I'd brought in the back seat. We were on the Lakeshore and
then onto the Don Valley easily enough, but traffic caught us halfway
north. It wasn't too bad, since it was mid week, and we made it out of the
city relatively quickly. We headed east on the 401, made a brief stop at
The Big Apple
and stopped for gas
just before Kingston. I took over the driving there and turned us through
the border crossing at the Thousand Islands. It was dark by then so we
didn't get to see the gorgeous view, but we got through the border
relatively quickly - they wanted to know who we were visiting, what they
did, if we'd been denied access to the USA and if we'd ever been arrested.
They ran our IDs but passed us through without pulling us over. I
continued driving down through Watertown on 81, and we changed over
drivers at some point, heading through Syracuse and turning at Scranton. I
managed to navigate us through Manhattan and into the Bronx, but at that
point the Yahoo directions failed us, and we missed a turn since it was
listed as being onto a street that didn't exist off the highway we were
on. We made it up to a few suburbs north before turning around and making
it on the next try. We parked just down from Carla's house, and she came
out to let us in. It was around 4am. I staggered downstairs and threw my
sleeping bag and myself onto the couch in the basement and was immediately
dead to the world.
Sep 1
I woke up at 1:30 and made up a breakfast from the fruit and granola bars
that I had left over from the drive. I sat and read for a while, then took
a shower, talked to Carla's mum a bit, and then heard some movement from
upstairs. Siobhan came down at around 4 and injected some coffee then went
up to wake up Carla. We sorted ourselves out and walked over to the diner
for food. Siobhan had called Krista and she was going to meet us at the
diner and then we'd go from there. I had a huge Belgian waffle with fruit,
but the lack of real maple syrup lessened the experience. We drew out the
meal as long as we could, ordering Irish coffee, floats, and sundaes until
Krista arrived. She had a coffee and we finally vacated the booth, leaving
our ghost waiter to find someone else to spook. Krista drove us back to
Carla's house and we pulled ourselves together for the evening, planning
on going to the Raven for the punk night. Since it wasn't going to start
until at least 11, and it was only 9 at that point, we decided to hit a
movie first. We drove over to a mall complex and got tickets to see The
13th Warrior with Antonio Banderas. I have to admit, he looks yummy as an
Arab, but he also played the part well, showing his assimilation into the
Norse culture when he got picked to round out a group to aid a chieftan.
The action was a bit disjointed, but overall it was good.
We stumbled out of the dark theatre and found Krista's car again, heading
into Manhattan. We crossed over onto the island then followed the Henry
something parkway down the west side of Manhattan to the Village. We ended
up stopping to call information to find out where the Raven was, since our
vague directions from the DJ weren't sufficient to actually find it. We
found a parking spot fairly easily and trooped into the pub. They had
Guinness on tap, so Siobhan was happy. Emily talked to us for a while, and
Krista was cornered by an ex's ex. We left when the music started to get a
bit too loud, and Krista dropped us back in the Bronx. Somehow we ended up
getting home at 3am. Siobhan and Carla took a short walk, but I went
straight to bed.
Sep 2
We all woke up a bit earlier today, I was up at 11:30 and the others at
1pm or so. I packed up my stuff since Siobhan implied we'd be leaving that
night after seeing Voltaire. We walked to the diner and had a quicker meal
this time, though I still didn't get real maple syrup on my French toast.
We decided to walk back to the mall where we'd seen the movie last night
to go to Party City, since Siobhan wanted to pick up some decorations for
Hallowmas. Half an hour later, we found it but there wasn't anything there
that she wanted. I drooled over some of the ready made costumes, storing
up ideas for the various costume events I plan to attend. We stopped off
in a Dunkin' Donuts to get liquid refreshment then caught the bus back to
Carla's. She packed up her stuff and we headed into the Village to meet
Krista at St. Mark's place. I remembered to ask Carla if she had her
passport or proof of citizenship, and since she didn't, we ended up
getting a bit lost trying to get back to her house from the highway. We
eventually got back, she got her passport and we took off again for
Manhattan. We managed to miss the highway down the west side of the
island, going down the same one as last night. We found parking near 2nd
Ave and 14th St, but then we found out that we were supposed to be at 3rd
Ave and 8th St instead, so we hoofed it over there. We ran into Krista
just as we spotted the sign for St. Mark's, she'd gotten stuck in traffic
and had just arrived. We stopped into Religious Sex and the Sock Shop, and
a CD store, where I bought another Tom Waits disk. We decided to get some
food and went into a tiny place called Sushi and More for supper. The
sushi was liberally laced with wasabi but quite good. They gave us lots of
freebies too, picked carrots, extra salmon roll, two kinds of fish
appetisers, though we had to struggle to get our water refilled. They let
us use the tiniest washroom in the world in the kitchen before we left. We
decided to skip seeing Voltaire and just hit the road. I navigated us out
of New York, managing to confuse Siobhan onto the wrong highway but
recovering us and getting us into NJ. I then dug out my pillow and dozed
until we were about half an hour before Syracuse.
Sep 3
We stopped for gas and I dosed myself up with sugar and tea and managed to
get us back on the highway eventually. The signage was somewhat lacking. I
drove us up to the border with Canada, over much more easily this time,
not even a check of our ID, and back onto the 401. I stopped just outside
Kingston and let Siobhan take over the driving again after her nap. I woke
up when we hit Toronto and just managed to wake up enough to drag my
things out of the car and up into my apartment. The sun was well up at
this point, but I burrowed under the covers and managed to get to sleep
for a few hours. I checked my email when I woke up and agreed to meet
Siobhan, Carla, Steph, Jean, BC, and Lindsey at the CNE and much fun was
had. I went on the roller coaster and a haunted house that managed to
scare me, causing me to burrow into Carla's shoulder when ever it was
black as pitch. She kept her eyes and ears closed the whole way, the
cheater. :) I managed to get myself a snow kone and froze my mouth eating
it too quickly. I watched Sio and Steph take advantage of their all rides
pass and played a couple of games with everyone. BC managed to win a
stuffed parrot that was very cute, and Sola won a lion. I walked home and
made the mistake of starting to read a story that TSM had sent me and dove
into bed when I realised that it was 3am. I'm heading back to NYC to drop
Carla off on Tuesday and then will head south to visit Twilight in Baton
Rouge, along with a few other people on the way there and back.
Back to my diary page.