2002-04-15 - 8:09 p.m.
Saturday, 04.06.02
The time-zone change has finally caught up with me--by the time I haul my jet-lagged ass out of bed and into/out of the shower, it�s already noon. I suppose the three screwdrivers I had at dinner last night didn�t help matters either.
Rumor has it I�m losing yet another hour tonight because of Daylight Savings Time. I guess that means I�ll be needing more alcohol. Oh, no, anything but that.
***
Dinner last night at the Redeye Grill with my friends C. and K. The place bills itself as "Home of the Dancing Shrimp"--and if you know me and C., and you guessed that the moniker prompted us to do an index-and-middle-finger can-can on the table with rubber-band musical accompaniment a la Chuck Jones, you�d be right. But the food was great.
***
My goal was to spend most of today at the Met, but my late start--and the snow flurries outside, which further sap my motivation--has already taken a big bite out of that plan. I�m nothing if not goal-oriented, however, so I eventually head out in the unseasonably cold and windy weather and wheel over to Fifth Avenue with the idea of catching an uptown bus.
It�s at this point that I encounter the first major wheelchair-access obstacle of the weekend; namely, this long, freshly-dug trench that hugs the curb on the west side of the street and runs for several blocks in either direction. It�s only maybe six inches across--narrow enough to step over--but that�s plenty wide enough to swallow up the front casters of my chair and catapult me face-forward into traffic. And there�s no telling how deep the thing is, anyway. No doubt it�s got hungry mutant alligators or CHUDs lurking down there just waiting to rip the heads off of clumsy pedestrians. The ones whose skulls aren�t immediately crushed under the wheels of a taxi as soon as they hit the pavement, that is.
I can wheel up and down Fifth to my heart�s content, but the damn trench prevents me from actually crossing Fifth, which I have to do to get the bus. So, cold and frustrated, I head back the way I came, figuring I�ll catch a crosstown bus if I see one and transfer to the uptown--or barring that, have the doorman at the hotel get me a cab.
Just then, I�m intercepted by 10,000 bagpipers.
No, really. Bagpipers. You think I could make shit like that up if I took two hits of LSD, downed half a bottle of absinthe and tried? I�m not that imaginative, even on drugs.
Interrogations of a few bystanders reveals that this is some sort of Scottish Pride parade--"Tartan Day," or something--and that Sean Connery is the grand marshal. No one around me seems to know why the parade is happening, though. There�s no Scottish national holiday on April 6, or any anniversary of some gory battle 1,000 years ago that anyone knows about. It�s New York, it�s a parade, who needs a reason? It�s also the parade�s first year, so apparently until now the Scots were the only ethnic group in the Big Apple who didn�t put on native costumes and prance up Sixth Avenue at least once a year.
But I sit and watch for a while. I�m missing Blivet terribly--if there�s anyone you want to trade quips with at a time like this, it�s him. Nonetheless, I can feel my own Scottish blood rising. Sean Connery is pretty damn energetic for a 2,000-year-old man, and the first 300 or so renditions of "Scotland the Brave" are stirring enough. But not long after, I reach the point where I never, ever, ever, ever want to hear that tune again, and to make matters worse the marchers toward the end of the parade have obviously been imbibing en route and are starting to kick their kilt-clad legs waaay too high, if you know what I mean. I have no moral objections to seeing a Scotsman�s naughty bits, mind you, but (1) most of these Scotsmen are up there, agewise, and (2) it�s fucking freezing out so it�s not like they�ve got a whole lot to show off anyway.
So, I take my leave and get some potato-and-leek soup from the Soup Nazi (who, by the way, makes it pretty damn clear that you�ll be out on your ass if you even so much as mention Seinfeld). Yummy.
Alas, I never do make it to the Met.
***
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