Thursday, July 05, 2007

• Slightly Longer Update

  Huh.

  How to summarize the past few days? I mean, other than "chaotic" and "packed"? 

  OK. Where to begin?

  We had planned to head down to be with my mother before my Grandfather died, but fate intervened, in that he passed on Friday evening, before our planned Saturday flight. So while our original plans allowed for indetermined downtime, the reality was one of constant travel. 

  We basically got to Florida late Saturday and then returned to the airport early Sunday, arriving in Newark about 2ish, then taking a long time to find the rental car and make it out onto the road. We ran into considerable traffic, then found that Google Maps had managed to give us directions to a suburban road called "Hilton Court", instead of, you know, the Hilton hotel. Fortunately, we were only a few miles away.

  Sunday evening was a family argu^h^h^h^h dinner. Monday was the funeral. This is the first funeral I'd attended, and apparently Jewish funerals are not much like those shown on TV. For one thing, no flowers. You place rocks on a grave to show you've been there. I can hear my distant ancestors now. "Flowers? Flowers cost good money! The dead can't smell them! Look, leave a rock. Rocks are free!" The eulogy was delivered by a rabbi who didn't know gramps and was oddly disjointed and incoherent. We then all spoke to say something about him and share some sense of who he was. I commented on the fact he was truly alive all of his life -- he never stopped trying to learn or do things, and even when his body began to fail him completely, he struggled to snatch every bit of pleasure he could out of what he had left. 

  Then the coffin was lowered, and we all shoveled dirt onto it. I liked the symbolism, the way of concretizing the death and driving home the psychological reality of it via physical action.

  Following this, there was a gathering at a cousin's house, since she lived nearby. I got to interact with the rest of my family for the first time in several decades. I also got to meet my cousin's kids, which I guess makes them my second cousins. Chris, a six year old boy, is my current hope for the next generation. He's into Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, knows how to use the web, is looking forward to seeing the Transformers movie. 

  Tuesday was the trip to NYC. This was my first return to the city since October of 1992. A lot has changed. It's much cleaner (at least Midtown) and has a lot fewer random wandering homeless and guys running 3-card monte games. Our first stop was the Empire State Building, but the line surrounding it was such that we decided to move on. (We got there late, and might have been later still. Parking at Farmingdale LIRR was non-existent. You either had a city-hall issued permit, or, you were screwed. We were about to go back to the hotel and take a cab, when we spied a short stretch of block allowing unmetred parking. W00t! Go us!)

  Our next stop was the Compleat Strategist. It is pretty much unchanged. Indeed, some of the product there was very likely there in 1992, still marked full price. They were trying to unload stuff I've seen at GenCon in the "Buy 1, get three free" bin. (Yes -- buy ONE, get THREE free.)  

  After that, we made our way downtown to Battery Park, where we waited on line to buy tickets, then on line to use tickets. They weren't allowing anymore people onto the Statue of Liberty, so we headed to Ellis island. We got to witness a supremely dysfunctional family have an explosion of hissy fit which ended up in cheese on the ceiling.

  Ellis Island was fascinating. We basically only managed to do one floor before we were exhausted from information overload. It is amusing how the arguments against immigration in the ealry 1900s were exactly the same as the arguments today, almost word for word. I found the place fascinating. The thought of putting your life into a suitcase and moving overseas, where you don't speak the language and don't have any friends is extraordinary, and yet, people did it by the millions. 

  Two things in particular stood out, both quotes. One went:"I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold. Then I came here and learned three things. First, they weren't paved with gold. Second, they weren't paved. Third, they expected me to pave them." The other said something like "It suddenly occurred to me that I was free here, that I had a fair chance to make something of myself."

  Both of those quotes sum up the essence of the American dream -- not entitlements and social programs and cradle to grave security and the nanny state, but the simple opportunity to do honest work and be paid an honest wage for it, demanding nothing of society and owing nothing to society. As far as I am concerned, anyone who comes to America with that attitude is welcome here. 

  After Ellis Island, we made it to Forbidden Planet. This was very disappointing. In 1992, FP was a bookstore, with row after row after row of science fiction and fantasy, including many small press editions, reissues of old out of print books, and books from England which were never printed in the US. Today, it's almost all graphic novels, toys, and DVDs. If that's what you're looking for, cool, but it's not what it used to be.

  Then came dinner, at Kinoko. This is an all-you-can-eat Sushi joint, where you tell what you want and how much, and they bring it to you. Fried clam rolls...mmmm. Got to meet up with Avram, Lisa, and Josh, and had a typically rambling and disjointed conversation. Then the trek back to Penn and a return, late, to our hotel. 

  Wednesday was a bit more relaxed. We arranged for dinner with my old SCA crew, namely Turk, Larry, and, uh, someone else. For that, we went to a place called Sushi Park, which might be the Best Buffet Ever (albeit pricey). Jumbo Shrimp wrapped in prosciutti. Lobster tails gratis with each buffet order. All kind and manner of sushi. Many things I'd never heard of. Wow.

  Lastly, finally got to Transformers. Overall, pretty good, though the movie did spend too much time on the humans. The robots themselves got very little chance to develop any kind of personality; most didn't have any lines. (And, of course, the "black" robot died first.) A "ten things" list will be coming soon.  

  Logging off now.

  • 7:22 PM
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