Confessions Of A Splenda Stealer

Ear muffs, Hoboken. Ear muffs. You know I love you, but NYC still knows how to tug at my heart strings.

Enter: a quintessential New York moment. By definition, moments like these are when you encounter a humbling, human, crazy, embarrassing, or wickedly funny situation, aka, a “you can’t make this stuff up” moment, on the streets of NYC.

As much as this city can be a fickle, it can also deliver these wonderful instances where for even a split second, you feel a connection with fellow strangers just for having witnessed or experienced something together.

Case in point: a stroll in the new High Line Park. For those of you who have not been hit over the head with coverage of this park, it’s an elevated public space built on a 1930s former freight rail structure that runs from W. 12th St. to W. 20th St., with plans to continue up to 34th St. Currently, the space is so trendy, it even has its own blog.

Nonetheless, it’s pretty cool. Greenery pops up among thoughtfully placed planks, which in some spots playfully reveal the old railway, and benches with backs that permanently recline provide an interesting and relaxing environment.

Friday evening, after dinner at Los Dados, a Mexican restaurant next to one of the park’s entrances, Ria and I decided to go for a stroll to see what all the fuss was about. But it wasn’t until we reached the end of the park at 20th St., where things got interesting. A small crowd had formed. Walking closer, we realized the warm glow and soft voice we heard from further back was not an installation of the park, but instead a singer, entertaining with some jazz standards from her very own fire escape.

courtesy of NYtimes.com

I felt like I was watching an Edward Hopper painting spring to life. Between the old standards and the look of her red dress against the building’s rust-colored brick, the colors were so rich in contrast to the park’s pale greens and grays, you could not look away. She even had a few colored stage lights out in front to soften the spot lighting from the park lights that actually shine directly at her window, creating the perfect space for a stage.

It was such an intense moment that even when this incredibly creepy man seemed to curl out from behind my right shoulder and ask, a little too closely, if I thought that this was just as amazing as he did, in awe of the scene, I didn’t even back up as I told him that I did, I really did.

Of course, when I got home, I Googled to see if this cabaret singer popped up–and of course she did, and her “renegade cabaret” is profiled here. This article made this moment seem a little less special, but I’ll conclude with a great quote from the article, that seems to sum this all up.

“As for the lights that shine like kliegs into Ms. Heffley’s [the singer’s] windows, Robert Hammond, a founder of the Friends of the High Line said ruefully, “We screwed up on those.” But he brightened when told that she had said they were good for a stage. The Renegade Cabaret, he said, “is born of a mistake, just like the park.”

We’ve got another one!!

Guest of Honor

Thanks to our St. Patty’s Day parade, or the rumor that we have more bars per capita than any other city in the country, we may have a slight reputation as a party town. But it’s the weekends in the summer, when Hoboken becomes a little bit of a ghost town that I truly anticipate. When the beachgoers flee the town for the weekends, the ones left are free to celebrate whatever occasion, however we fancy. Continue reading →

Lately, I feel as though I’ve developed a greater awareness of how my surroundings as a child have affected my current perspective of the world. This, of course, seems like a pretty obvious realization, but it’s easy to forget just how impressionable your mind was back in the day.

Memory is quite a mysterious phenomenon. Overall, as the years progress, our minds prefer to hold onto the positive memories instead of the negative, or the funny instead of the sad, but what’s even more fascinating to me are the bridges between objects or visions that are linked with memories, that flash in front of our eyes when you see, smell, or hear something in particular, as if life is just one jumbo game of free association.

Example one: When I was five years old, I had a Playskool puzzle of the United States. To this day, I still visualize the states as puzzle pieces: Louisiana will always be pink, Colorado green, Florida orange, and PA, NJ, and Delaware will always be clumped together into one piece. A font resembling “Cooper Black,” only in blue, displays the name of each state across the piece.

Example two: Motown and Sesame Street. The song, “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me,” by Smokey Robinson will always, ALWAYS play this Sesame St. parody in my head, “U Really Got A Hold On Me,” which lucky for you, I found on Youtube:

And last, but not least, there’s Example three. Does anyone remember Disney TV, aka, DTV, which aired in 1986? They ran some of these specials on Valentines Day or select Sunday nights, and it was quite entertaining. Basically, these specials were like an MTV for little kids, pairing cartoons and clips of Disney movies to Motown or current hits of the 80s.

When I hear “I Just Called To Say I Love You,” by Stevie Wonder, I think of this, at minute 2:38.

I also think of the Jack Black character in High Fidelity, when he responds to a customer looking to buy a copy of the same song:

Barry’s Customer: Hi, do you have the song “I Just Called To Say I Love You?” It’s for my daughter’s birthday.
Barry: Yea we have it.
Barry’s Customer: Great, can I have it?
Barry: No, no, you can’t.
Barry’s Customer: Why not?
Barry: Well, it’s sentimental tacky crap. Do we look like the kind of store that sells “I Just Called to Say I Love You?” Go to the mall. Oh wait, is she in a coma??

That reference definitely stems from my adulthood, but since it always makes me laugh, I just had to share.

What random associations do you have, that leave you chuckling to yourself because no one else would understand??

Behold, a coupon I received today after picking up a few things from my neighborhood CVS:

A coupon for $4 off a Futuro brace, complete with my name.

I never thought that the CVS kept track of my spending habits, but I guess that makes sense to give the CVS ExtraCare customers a few breaks on the items they buy regularly. Not that I regularly buy braces and splints, but I’ve had a rough year in terms of my foot sprain and wrist tendinitis.

God only knows what else they have on file, ink cartridge ready and waiting to print out my confidential information during my next purchase. Would the next coupon be for Sunkist Diet Orange Soda? Or perhaps Skippy Crunchy Peanut Butter? Or eggs?

While these items aren’t exactly embarrassing, what if I frequently bought something a little more blush-inducing, such as Metamucil, and my coupon for extra-strength Metamucil fell out of my purse, to lay on the floor for someone to find??

Oh, how we are tracked by our habits without even realizing.