‘TWAS A WEEK AGO yesterday when we got the call. Daughter #1 and Significant Other #1 had journeyed through the Holland Tunnel, up the Henry Hudson Parkway to Washington Heights and were at New York Presbyterian awaiting the birth of their own Daughter #1. So we jumped in the car and headed south from Little Rhody. A few hours and 180 miles later we got there in time to hear the doc tell D1 she could start trying to push D1D1 out into the world if she wanted to. Which she did.
Two hours later, our family includes a perfect little addition who could be mistaken for a bambina delivered by C-section. She didn’t look at all mooshed & squished by the natural delivery she had undergone.
Needless to say, the bride couldn’t wait to hold her.
D2 and D3 arrived in the morning, bearing gifts.
After 12 years together, a big event for D1 & SO1.
The bride was in her glory. She took over the kitchen at the apartment in Jersey City and cooked & froze like mad. We were in town for a week and by the time we left she had stocked the freezer full of lasagna, chicken parmesan, quiche and veggie soup.
By the way, about their kitchen… and this really made me smile when I saw it. Remember the late Frank LaFleur? How he used to read his newspaper first thing, then put it back in the bag and toss it on our front porch?
I had forgotten about this, but when Frank heard that D1 was expecting, he put these baby booties in with the newspaper one day. This was a token gift he had received in the mail for contributing to a charity, no doubt. He gave to every cause there ever was. This one must have been to benefit newborns. So dig it, after Frank’s gone we drive down to New Jersey and see a little gift from him on a refrigerator door. He’s really not gone at all. What a caring man.
People hear “Jersey City” and imagine some kind of derelict industrial ruin. In reality, it’s quite a livable town, redevelopment going on everywhere. The family’s apartment is an easy walk from the downtown subway, which scoots you under the Hudson and over to Lower Manhattan, seen here, or up to Midtown. Notice the One World Trade Center tower.
We stayed at the Westin. Nice digs & with a decent and not-too-pricey restaurant off the lobby, they serve a good $15 burger and a $22 rotisserie chicken. But you will absolutely burn through yer dough around here. We spent over $200 just parking the car for the week.
Lower Manhattan, from our window on the 15th floor. The bride snapped this pic with her iPhone.
After dark. Isn’t it nice that we’re headed back toward the light now? Every day has a little more of it. I took this night shot, which is kindly crooked. Oh, that reminds me, the hotel had Brooklyn Lager on tap.
D1, SO1 and D1D1 live on this street, a 5-minute walk from downtown. The parents-to-be moved here from Brooklyn last summer. Rent is similarly expensive but it’s a much nicer apartment and they have on-site landlords who are good people. Needless to say, it’s crazy expensive to buy. Fixer-upper brownstones in greater New York start at around $1 million. You can get in cheaper if you want to gamble on a neighborhood’s future, be an urban pioneer on an Alamo-type street somewhere. Truth in advertising: “Short run to subway!” Yep, run it serpentine, Moe, I’ll cover you from here!
Nice little park just down the street. I think the bride had the new baby in the bag, or everything but. I don’t get the concept: A full field pack that’s not wearable, you have to hook it on your elbow instead. That ain’t right.
Something else I don’t get, and seriously now, but I felt nothing at the 911 memorial. What an artless thing it is. Clearly there was no Maya Lin at the drawing board, and no Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. I find this hole in the ground as incomprehensible as the attack. The way I’m wired I can’t help but hear everything I see; what gets in through the eyes auto-translates into language. What this place whispered in my ear was, “Down the drain,” and, “A committee was here.”
Look up, that’s what I say. Here’s Jackie O looking up.
Nothing happened down in the ground, it was all up in the air. When you look up, there’s the New York unbowed by the worst that a 16th-century mindset could unleash on it.
Dig it, D1D1–there’s your Big Apple. Go get ’em!
Here’s the up-in-the-air memorial that moves me. But I understand they light it just one day a year. Why? And don’t say the electric bill. SO1 snapped this pic from Brooklyn on September 11, 2013.
Our week in New York flew by but we did manage to see one of our favorite people, our friend Vincent Ogutu, a Fulbright Scholar from Kenya. He’s teaching and finishing up his Ph.D in economics at Rutgers. We met up with him at an Indian restaurant on the Upper West Side, where we feasted on naan, chicken curry, chana masala, shrimp saag, and a smooth mango lassi for dessert.
Then, before it was time to catch the 1 train down to 33rd Street and the Hoboken train under the Hudson, we took a little walking tour of Riverside Drive and the 19th-century mansion Vincent has called home during his New York adventure.
I saw Vincent last in May, while riding the iron piggy to Georgia. I like that he’s a big-sky thinker, a discerner of connections that others often miss. He’s all about the history of ideas, how they interact and change and where they likely point to from here. If you’ve ever tried to wrap your mind around, say, The Great Chain of Being by Arthur O. Lovejoy, or Isaiah Berlin’s The Crooked Timber of Humanity, you won’t find anything in those pages that Vincent can’t talk about; and with the great generosity and intelligence he brings to every conversation. At lunch I thought I had him when I alluded to the Gülen movement that’s giving President Erdogan fits in Turkey. Ha! He’d clearly read more about it than I had.
Here are a few more mansion pics…
Up through the main stairwell.
Fancy ceilings throughout.
Then our time was up, and a New England snow was bearing down. We ransomed our car out of the parking garage yesterday and crossed the mighty George Washington Bridge.
Interstate 95 felt pretty loose here in Little Rhody. We were definitely drifting about at speeds higher than 45 or 50. Slowed down and followed a sand truck for a while.
Not much else to say, except that the new tool & storage shed I knocked together this fall is all trimmed out and buttoned up for the winter. These pics might be a few weeks old now. The shed is looking snowy as of this writing.
That little deck is handy. I can roll the table saw out through the double doors, clean up the dust with a leaf blower instead of a shop vac.
Made a sliding barn door out of two sheets of T1-11 and 30 feet of rough pine 1×8’s. I like the contrast between the vertical and horizontal lines. Given that I was playing it by ear– nothing on paper, no drawings to work from–I’m pretty happy with how the little building turned out.
Additional storage underneath. That’s my scaffolding stacked under there.
Next project, long delayed: Get the iron piggy running! She’s living on the back of the ’49 truck now. Will probably build a shed for her in the fall, and maybe a KLR650 or whatever’s going to Patagonia if we go.
Tony DePaul, January 4, 2015, Cranston, Rhode Island
Wonderful photos & text. Glad that Pam’s shoulder has healed so she can tote baby and baby gear. Suggestion: Drop the D1D1 tag — your granddaughter is much prettier than a robot.
Haha! Indeed she is, Tom.
Port Orange even sounds like a milder place to be today than deep-frozen, wind-scoured Little Rhody.
Tony. Grandchildren are God’s gift for not killing your kids. As a new member of the Grandpa Society, it is your duty to help the grand kids come up with mischief they never dreamed about.
Other guides of life:
buy cool noisy toys that require batteries
botch a few diaper changes and they won’t let you do it again
get ’em hopped up on sugar before sending them home
grandpas can do anything
In between times I know you will teach them the values that are most important to you.
Too bad the iron piggy’s down for repairs, I could take the little one out for her first motorcycle ride! Well, but it is chilly, 16 degrees… I’d probably hear about that.
Congrats, gramps! Damn, babies sure are cute. Echo your observations on 911 Memorial – and now I’m salivating for some Indian cuisine. Best of the new year!
Thanks, John! So far I’ve noticed that once you have a grandchild it seems weird not to see her every day. Oh well, today I think I might set the writing aside and paint that dollhouse/bookcase thing I built for her. Won’t do anything outdoors; it’s cold here & the sky looks as if it has some Michigan to dump on us.
Congratulations, good Sir! Dang glad to see that D1 and D1D1 are happy and healthy.
Thanks, Iron Butt! Hey, did the paperwork go through yet? I’ve been wondering if you ever got that official bobblehead doll they owe you, the combination floor jack/electron microscope, blender/jerky-maker thing whatever it was?
Congrats Tony! Thanks for the update!
Absolutely, Ralph. Thanks for reading. Best wishes to you & yours in the new year!
Congratulations once more on D1D1. So happy that you and especially Pam came over to see me – hadn’t seen her in years! Thanks for that touching story about Frank – so inspired by his generosity, humanity, and attention to the tiny things that really count in life. Oh, and by the way, great pic of the stairwell.
Yep, so true, Frank was our own George Bailey, “the richest man in town.” Hope to see you again soon, Vincent.
Heartiest congratulations to you and your family on happy addition… ‘Badhai ho!’ (as we would have said in Hindi, our Indian National language) … 🙂
Many thanks, Prasad! Hey, tell me this: If you were riding to Patagonia, would it be on a KLR650 or a Royal Enfield Bullet 500? The Bullet, correct?!
Hey Tony,
IMO, KLR is a good choice for Patagonia (I also wish to touch that end of the world one day… Amen)
Dual sports are a good type of bikes to take you that far. I am seeing your latest post and looks like you’ve already bagged one nice piglet.
Royal Enfields are a bit heavy for that kind of off-roads. In India we do not have much choice, so we use them there anyways… lolz.
BTW, your’s truly has shifted base to the USA (for couple of years), so any time you are passing through or visiting Raleigh-Durham (NC) or around, you know you have a place to crash-in.
RideSafe – Doc
Great news, Doc! Just a few weeks ago I thought I might be passing through your area. I was interested in a KLR for sale about 30 miles south of Raleigh Durham. Checked out another KLR on Long Island, came very close to buying one in Pennsylvania, and then ended up chasing the DR bikes because of the somewhat lighter weight and air-cooling versus water. Either bike, though, is built for just this sort of thing.
DR is a good choice (KLR is equally competent too). Single cylinder thumpers are very good choice for single rider+luggage+no roads conditions. I am eyeing Tiger800 as my first US bike, but I am not sure how early I can lay my hands on one.
Looking forward to meet you in person… 🙂
RideSafe
Doc
Hi Tony, congratulations on your anniversary and also becoming (more) grand. There are so many wonderful events in this post that is hard to stop smiling. Then, I see poor Iron Piggy sitting forlorn under a tarp. You need an outbuilding for the truck and the bikes. Cheers, brad
Thanks, Brad. Yeah, actually I need to strip that tarp off the piggy today just in case some water got through. Let ‘er dry out a bit.
Loved this whole post – gorgeous pictures of the baby and New York, Frank’s last gift, even your new shed. Happy New Year Tony and Pam!!!!!
Thanks for the good word, Jen. Come see us soon!
Hey, gramps, congratulations. They say that grandkids are the only thing in life that’s not overrated. Hope it continues to be true for you, Moe, looking good so far!
Jon Brush
I wonder what the baby will say first, Mimi or Tone? I think Tone wins out, one syllable, easy. Well, except Mimi is the same syllable twice, so…
Congratulations Tony and family. She is a beautiful little girl! Nothing like being a grandparent….. Greatest joy of all..
Oboy, but now I’ve got to live long enough to enjoy it. Hopefully the texters won’t get me and the piggy anytime soon. Well, not with the piggy on the back of the truck they won’t. Thanks for reading, Barbara!
Congratulations Tony!! Excellent write up and, pictures as always. Love it. Thanks for sharing.
Huzzah! Hey, haven’t heard from you in forever, Zach. Many thanks for following the scribble.
Congrats Tony to you, the wife and daughter #1. You have a beautiful grandchild. God bless!!!
Thanks, Vin! Your Road King’s not on the back of a truck somewhere, I hope!
Complimenti nonno!
I’m telling strega nona you said that.
WOW
…soooooooo happy for you all:) What a life event. Congrats in the biggest way…you are blessed!!
Thanks, Mari. A new phase of life indeed.
Loved this! Congrats on the family expansion, and so bummed that it didn’t work to hang out while you were here (my fault). Will definitely see you next time!
Couldn’t have you barfing on the train! Wouldn’t wish that on the barf.
Hey Tony,
Happy anniversary! Another great scribe. Tybee. June. Boom.
June. Wilds of Labrador. Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! That’s bugs dying.