Urban astronomy

We always seem to see celebrities whenever we go to The Big Apple.

One year I saw Yoko Ono in SoHo. The next, I bumped into Meryl Streep near The Met. Another time we saw that guy from Law and Order (never forget Ol’ What’s-His-Name) somewhere on the Lower East Side. 

My husband had breakfast (in the same restaurant) with Kate Winslet. Later that same day, Ethan Hawke laughed at my husband’s humorous t-shirt when their paths crossed in Chelsea.

But never has a trip to the city been as star-studded as this year.

At this one address in the theater district, Celebrities. Were. Everywhere. 

I couldn’t quite see who was straddling the trapeze three floors up. 

But we had paid $29.95, plus all applicable taxes and fees, to find out.

“She looks and sounds like Pink,” my daughter said with conviction as she thrust out her phone, which was belting out “Fire,” and for the briefest of moments, I had to consider the chances I was experiencing some form of synesthesia.

“The wax figure? Up there? It’s the singer, Pink. I recognize her tattoo.”

I squinted up at the figure twirling above and could only see a minimal splotch of ink next to a maximal exposure of gluteus.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

We stepped into the elevator and headed to the ninth floor. During the ride, our elevator operator coached us on the guidelines for interacting with the stars we would encounter: “Please be careful with hands and faces as they are the most delicate parts. Otherwise, have fun and take lots of pictures!”

“Really? People touch them?”

“And they do a lot more than that! Thousands a day,” our elevator operator said with a wink. 

I could tell that wink was code for: “You will find hand sanitizer stations near all emergency exits. I suggest you gargle with it at least once during your visit.”

“This wasn’t my idea,” I wanted to tell her. “I abstained from the vote!” I had visions of lunch and a Broadway show. The extra hour of free time, I thought, could be spent at Bryant Park sightseeing and window shopping.

But the children saw golden phalanges dangling the letters that spelled out “Madame Tussaud’s” over her West 42nd Street wax museum, and that hand might as well have swooped our entire party into the lobby as if dusting the sidewalk of breadcrumbs. 

It was awkward at first, taking a selfie with Jennifer Anniston. Inspecting the shoes of Patrick Stewart. Wondering why Salma Hayek looked like no one we recognized in particular.

We weaved through the hall of world leaders and marveled at the incredible likenesses of England’s Royal Family and the Pope in Rome. Even our dislike of the waxwork POTUS held true.

By the time we got to the movie sets, we had lost every bit of self-control. We were making funny faces with Ghost Busters and piling on E.T.’s bike, not caring who witnessed our spectacle.

Only one of us had any composure by the time we came to the last exhibit.

In fact, my son had so much composure; it occurred to me that he hadn’t moved in quite a long time.

It turns out he had aspirations of his own for fame.

“I figure if I stand here long enough, and stay perfectly still, someone will take a selfie with me.”

Dream house

The door had opened and closed at least a dozen times. In between the snap of the latch and the thud of wood against its opposite wall, buffered as it happens by winter coats draped over pegs, the evenly paired slaps of my son’s sneakered feet pummeled the floor.

Click-click, slam. Thud. Wubba-wubba. Wubba-wubba. Click-click, slam.

Then the tell-take clattering of rummaging hands.

Over and over and over again, the mantra and melody of boyhood made its cacophonous presence known.

Ordinarily, this racket of repetition would have made me grit my teeth and pull out my hair by the root. But the house’s standard silence, granted only by the solitary play of pocket devices, can be overwhelming to a mother’s guilt.

You see, my son had been puttering around outside in the crisp fall air for longer than I would have wagered money. This communing with his imagination and the great outdoors was a miracle of modern proportion, and I didn’t want to jinx it.

His brief trips back to civilization eliminated any inclination of mine to hover. As one might when children are building their own pint-sized version of the American Dream, a clubhouse in the trees.

Notice I did not say “treehouse.”

This distinction, his father assured me, was the key to safety when it comes to allowing 10-year-old builders to do-it-themselves.

“Mom! Have you seen my hammer?”

For the better part of a week, since his father had planted a decommissioned packing crate in the center of a small grove of trees in our backyard, this has been the boy’s routine after school.

Just a few boards, some nails, what little remains of a half gallon of green paint and some ingenuity is all that’s needed to live this dream.

In a few hours time, the bits and bobs he begged from our closets and castoffs began to take the shape of a diminutive dwelling.

A blanket tacked up for a door. A little more begging (of his father’s time) would buy him a second floor and some railings for safety, but not a roof. A roof on his budget, his dad, explained, would go over budget and wouldn’t get OSHA approval.

Soon friends would clamor to help.
Pairs of pals, happily hammering away into the afternoon. They would hone the fancy curved-nail technique of tacking various lengths of thin plywood paneling to studs that been safely secured by a Dad.

A proper clubhouse with a patchwork of ruff-edged walls, inexpertly aligned so that the resulting gaps accidentally provided the perfect peepholes to help protect all the club’s secrets, which, at this point in its development, amounted to a couple of floppy bean bag chairs and an armload of pilfered snacks.

“Mom, do you have any more blankets we could have? We need something to keep out the wind.”

I hand him a stack with a smile.

“We’re almost ready to give tours,” he exclaimed with a new seriousness that turns his inner wood shop elf into a shirt-collared docent.

And I am almost ready to view this rickety palace of our dreams. I just have to quiet my inner child’s green-eyed envy.

My warmest thoughts

The clocks turned and all of a sudden summer had ended. The days are getting shorter and the temperatures plummeted. The furnace yawns and roars to life.

As I started digging through bins of hats and gloves and scarves, I noticed the first smear of blood across my knuckles.

Winter already?

I wonder if it's possible. Had I packed my winter skin inside a box of winter wear?

But I will not complain about the cold. 

I will find my warmest thoughts and fixate on them. It will help if I pull a chair up to the wood stove and sit all cross-cross-applesauce, scrunching my toes inside shearling slippers as I watch the flames dance for me.

It doesn't matter that the temperature outside has only dipped to a little above seasonal, inside I am ice. I have to plan every move as I was trudging through the tundra. 

I consider using the blowdryer on my hair ... and my knees ... and my feet. But first I must endure the split second of spray from the tap. Once it warms up, I will linger in the shower, turning the lever ever-so-slightly to the left as the heat of the water dissipates. 

 I will hover over the kick heater until its motor cuts out, letting the air chill and the room fog up. 

My children hate this weather. It forces them to wear socks and shoes and pants that are longer than shorts. They will refuse coats of any kind, keenly aware that wearing one now would betray some ethos of their youth.

The internal thermostat that allows their swimmer's lips to turn blue throughout the summer is evidently still on the fritz.

The sight of this throws off my internal furnace. Bare arms flailing around bare trees makes my skin bumps multiply.

My mother's words ricochet around my brain for a while and eventually escape through my voice:

"Put on some clothes; I'm freezing!"

They ignore my chattering pleas and continue wearing the wardrobe of summer. 

And the only motherly thing I can do I will have to do unto the dog, for she lacks thumbs and the will to stop me.

We will go for a "Double-u, Ay, Elle, Kay" (I spell out these intentions to minimize excitement and unnecessarily jumping).

It also gives me a chance to wrestle a fluffy, plaid coat over her head. 

She doesn't care about the cold, or that she looks ridiculous. She doesn't flinch at my ugly green beanie, uneven bulk, and faux fur boots.

She only cares about straining against the leash and that squirrel just around the corner neither of us has seen.

And she won't care about the human children who will laugh at the sight of us: a rag tag and a rover wearing the unfashionable costume of warmth. 

"I don't think I could admit knowing you," says the girl who hibernate under her quilt on the couch but wouldn't be caught dead in a quilted jacket.

I don't need to tell her the feeling is mutual the moment she ventures out of her blanket fort and stands at the bus stop in shirtsleeves. 

I will just inwardly shiver.

The dog gives my hand a brief nuzzle before she starts to dance around me in circles. And I will wave goodbye to my daughter thinking about how much easier it is to be the mother of dogs.

I have a few questions

Do you spend an inordinate amount of time trying to wrap your mind around events, small and large, that float from The Cloud and trickle down into this thing some call the collective consciousness?

Do you get this same tingly sensation I get when some jolt of understanding breaks through the insulators and microchips and stands your hair on end?

Are you ever able to connect all the dots?

For instance, why is there ALWAYS room for dessert?

Why do dogs roll in deer poo?

Why do those two thoughts occupy my mind at the same time? 

What is the driver in the circle supposed to do if they encounter a pedestrian in the crosswalk at their exit?

Should we keep circling?

How do the laws we follow get so bound up in knots?

Why is Pinterest suddenly draped in things that look like elaborate fishing nets? Who resurrected macrame?

Are platform shoes next?

Why did Amazon send my husband two parts of a used "dancer's pole" and its dog-eared installation instructions with the children's bicycle helmets he had ordered?

Did the person who received the other pole parts also get my husband's order of Phillips-head screws?

How do I keep those two thoughts from occupying my mind at the same time?

Why is it so difficult and costly for drinking establishments in New York City to get a license allowing their patrons to dance?

How has it been possible for law enforcement (ever since Prohibition apparently) to crack down on dancing places that don't have these magical cabaret licenses?

Do they know something I don't know?

If we allowed folks to sway to the music of a house band at a corner bar, are we saying it's no big thing to crowd surf at a rave in a warehouse without fire suppression or adequate emergency egress? Is that what we mean when we shrug and say it's a slippery slope?

And why is it that virtually anyone can be a cab driver or an hotelier thanks to the interwebs, but no money can change hands for dog-sitting your "friend's" Bichon?

If a kennel takes fewer than three guests (including resident ruffers) couldn't it just be considered a home daycare?

You understand that I'm asking for a friend, right?

Why do people like pets more than preschoolers?

Is it possible that everything old could be new again if we just keep the definitions vague?

Is that why my daughter is listening to the 80s group, Journey?

Why do we pretend to know the answers and then get enraged when we see everyone else faking it?

Why does the President knee-jerk Tweet?

Why can't we admit to making mistakes? Is it because old dogs can't learn new tricks?

What am I supposed to say to my children when they ask why one mass killer using guns isn't called terror, while another mass killer using a car gets that label?

Does the future now depend on what crawls out from under the dark corner of the internet a person unearths?

Do you also secretly hope the cloud will burst and wash all this nonsense away?

Why am I suddenly thinking of “Flashdance?”