Bearshorty's musings

Really long day. I was going over to Bear’s house this weekend and yesterday he had to decide if he is coming to get me in Brooklyn at my grandparents’ place or if we would meet at Manhattan to hang out with his friends and then take a train to his house. Both of us would rather sit in stasis rather than be very adventurous and both of us don’t like sudden alteration of plans. But after some thinking and wavering back and forth, Bear decided that Manhattan was a go. And it was nice to do something new.

I started my day in Brooklyn and, after visiting my grandparents and hanging out on Brighton with my parents a bit (and eating a nice stuffed cabbage roll), I got on the subway to go into the city. That took surprisingly less time than I thought it would. Bear met me at our usual Penn Station corner and we went to have some lunch at Wendy’s. I do like their baked potato and chili. I showed him my “Eat This” book I bought the day before and we talked about food and modern food processing and gardens. Then we spent a few hours in a book store. I basically read “Changes” while Bear looked at some graphic novels.

I was reading on the floor close to the window while another person was sitting close by on the window grate (which was a bit cold to sit on and my Russian training makes sitting on cold ground or anything cold a bit no-no). The book store person came by to tell me that I could not sit on the floor and read but it was OK to sit on the grate. I would be blocking the books unless I move two inches. Yeah. It is ok to sit on something that is more flimsy rather than the floor when both are blocking pretty much the same section. Sometimes the world is amusing in its absurdity.

Around six we met up with Bear’s friends and went to an art gallery they wanted to see. The gallery is located in a shady building in a bit of industrial area on the third floor. I was not expecting much. But I was really pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed it. The Last Rites Gallery , a self-proclaimed New York’s only “gallery of dark art” has a haunted house vibe with incense filled air and really original paintings. There were two rooms of exhibition of two artists: Chet Zar and Ewelina Ferruso . I liked Chet’s art a bit more; his colors and red eyes had appeal. But Ewelina’s work was also very creative with lots of bloody body parts in more fairy tale settings. The gallery is owned by a tattoo artists and they also have tattoos as art exhibitions. I definitely would be interested in going back and seeing new things in that gallery. I think they have new artists every few months.

After the art gallery we made our way to Greenwich Village to get some food. Bear’s friends, one of whom is a vegetarian, recommended a place – Red Bamboo. This was a vegetarian restaurant that serves fake meat, which I really don’t see a point of. So we got our name on the waiting list, prepared to wait forty minutes, and sat down right by the host in practically the only chairs there. It was not a big place. And so we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally some table opened up in front of us and we thought that was for us. And some other people got it. Finally, Jeremy, Bear’s friend, went to check on the reservation and the guy told him they tried to call his cell phone. Jeremy’s cell phone did not have said missed phone calls. (In fact, the voice mail showed up three hours later). And we were sitting right there! They didn’t even call names outloud. But we already waited an hour and so we were promised the next table and just waited some more. Finally after twenty or so more minutes we got the table. By then, it was clear that we would miss our 9:24 train to Bear’s house and the next train would not be until 11:23 due to track work. Well, at least we won’t have to rush. I though the restaurant should have at least offered us a free appetizer. Anyway, after all that wait the food was a bit of a disappointment. I ordered a bamboo ginger chicken and while the curry and ginger were pretty good, the fake chicken tasted nothing like chicken and was really just tofu lamely pretending to be chicken and not doing a good job. And the vegetable were too crispy for me. The food was not terrible but was not worth the wait. Luckily, the company was good and so was where we went next.

Since we didn’t want to spend more money at that place then necessary since we were miffed at the wait period, we went to a crepe place to get some delicious desert. Bear and I shared a crepe with a banana and blueberries while Jeremy and Fran got one with nutella and other sweets and we all sat on the doorstep of the neighboring house and ate our treats.

After finally getting on the train I tried reading for a bit, but I was too sleepy so I was sort of napping on Bear’s shoulder. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to sleep because there was some crazy person recounting in monotone the good old days of 1975 and how he is 44. It was really getting on my nerves and amusing me and Bear at the same time. Thank goodness he left at a certain stop. I don’t have patience after midnight where I just want some peace and quiet. We finally got to his house around one. It was a long but interesting day.