where the wild weeds are

The only time to enjoy a bike ride on a steamy day like this is early.

I was out early. Up Old Sauk hill, down again. (Errands.) It is a steep hill.





And then I packed my bag for a day of work on the porch of the farmette.

It was a day meant for Ed's motorbike. Most often, I’m cold on it and I huddle behind Ed’s big frame to avoid the wind. Today, in the 90 degree weather, I revel in the cooling effect of the ride.

By late afternoon, I’m done with my allotted work tasks. Ahead of schedule!

I suggest a quick walk on one of my favorite paths in the area – the Nature Conservancy trail just a little over a mile south from Ed’s farmette.





No matter what season we go there, it is lovely. Today, I think we may as well be walking with the poets in the lake region of England. The path, the meadows, the woods, allowing quick peeks of the lake in the distance – surely this is what writers need for inspiration.





What I find most humbling are the bunches of wildflowers: phlox, clover, bramble, and the always supremely lovely lupine. I've had at least two occasions to love lupine: one straight out of a story book about a "lupine lady" that I used to read to my little girls again and again, and the other -- straight out of the real book of happy events. My friend got married amidst a field of wild lupines. No one can convince me that lupines are anything but splendid.





Then there is the lesser phlox. How is it that we have come to scorn this sweet, airy flower?





I remember when phlox had overtaken a part of my flower bed some years ago (when I actually had flower bed). I hadn’t the heart to pull the purple flower out – it was so pretty! A friend said – oh, I see you haven’t gotten to weeding either this year... But that wasn’t true: I just could not accept that this was considered a weed!





We end out walk and head back to town, earlier than usual. Tomorrow I’m flying east. My littlest one is graduating from law school. Our family is congregating in Cambridge – indeed, my 86 year old mother is flying from San Francisco to join us for this. It should be a great set of days.

(Ed? No, he’ll stay at the farmette and tend to the tomato plants. One way to enjoy the company of an occasional traveling companion is to understand that sometimes, the companion is not well suited to a particular trip. One of the best lessons for continued companionship is to understand that sometimes it has to be “occasional.”)

updates

All my balcony flowers and tomatoes survived my ten day absence. The tomatoes on Ed’s farmette? Chomped down by the woodchuck. All but two: the two that I gave him. Obviously with cooties, from a woodchuck’s point of view.

The irises (also at the farmette) that were threatening to bloom in our absence did indeed unfurl their bulging heads. But they reserved the tail end of their best days for our return.





It’s all a bit chaotic at the farmette, but somehow, plants continue to grow and thrive. Alongside others – weeds, flowers, berries, tomatoes – they all somehow coexist.







(Note two tomato plants near the bottom; they're in the woodchip driveway; no place is off limits for planting.)



Here’s another interesting update – this one is for the Ocean readers who remember that on April 5th, my purse fell out of my backpack during an Air France flight. I submitted a lost in flight report in ten different places and waited. All I got were form emails telling me that if I didn’t hear back with news of recovery within eight days, I should assume that all was lost forever.

I waited. I did not replace credit cards and licenses and IDs believing that surely at least these would be returned.

After two weeks, I gave up. I notified my credit card companies, got a new license, new this, new that, swallowed the cost of it all ($200 and counting), swallowed my pride as well and moved on.

Of course, you’ve probably guessed the next stage of the saga. For lo, this week I got an email from Air France telling me (only six weeks later!) that my purse has been found! Do I want it back? I can go to their lost and found hangar somewhere outside Paris and claim it, or I can have it shipped for a “tiny” fee of 65 Euros (close to $100).

Now, here’s the dilemma: I think I replaced all but two of my various cards and IDs. And it was an old (though still usable) purse. And there was a change purse with about 125 Euros inside. Nothing else. I never carry much in a purse. So, have it mailed, right?

Ed says no. People are likely to give over property to the lost and found, but not cash, he tells me. If I do not need anything in that bag (except for the cash), let it go.

Is he right? Or, should I trust that all was left as I left it on the plane? Should I pay the 65 Euro merely because I’m so curious to see whether my faith in the honesty of others will be validated?

Sue, an Ocean reader who lives on Isla Mujeres in Mexico (we rented a lovely little apartment from her in January) wrote recently how honest people are (on Isla Mujeres), but I note how even she claimed that people are likely to steal the trivial, useful things. Cash is useful.

I’m truly of two minds on how to proceed.


And yet another update:

One class graded, two to go. On schedule. (Let’s for the moment not pay attention to the fact that I chose to start grading with the easiest of the three.)


And finally, no update, but just a note on today: for me, a day like this gets very close to some form of perfection: hot, summer weather, without the summer bugs. When else can you work outside in Wisconsin all day long and not swat at mosquitoes? I alternate between grading and planting replacement tomatoes at the farmette.

As the day shifts into the pre-dusk hours, Ed and I take a break and lean back on a pair of canvas sling chairs (my childhood was spent in these) on the front porch. I’m thinking how lovely it is to listen to any number of birds around us. Not pigeon birds either.





(Did I mention that my last New York moment was on the West 4th subway stop, waiting at 5 am for the train and watching a rat scamper from one side of track to another in search of a decomposing piece of fast food? )

In the evening, we ride the motorcycle back to town, with a rosebush in a freshly planted pot for my balcony.

New York: refreshing the recollection...

Evening is closing in on a Friday on Bleecker Street. That means the noise level climbs and the crowds are dense. We face the backs of other brownstones and so we don't quite hear it yet, but around midnight, the noise intensifies and travels even to the hinterlands. And I like it. Why stay on Bleecker Street if you want night quiet?

Ed’s dozing already. That’s predictable. I put him through a walking workout today: nearly six hours of crisscrossing Manhattan.

In many ways it was a idyllic and appropriately gentle ending to our ten days here. It had all the requisite elements of closure.

Breakfast, just before noon, is just kitty corner to where we are staying. (Our building is the corner one; we are on the fourth floor.)





The day is summerlike and beautiful and we sit at one of those tables in the doorway, with the full effect of the breeze outside, but without the glaring sun. Is there a better way to indulge in an hour of pure leisure?





Our waiter tells us we must have the brunch special – eggs, smoked salmon, salad, a mimosa and coffee. Ed’s dislike of coffee gains us a third mimosa – one that is very very light on the orange juice. I put in a little peach schnapps for extra flavor – he informs us.

It is a protracted meal. I look up and notice that Ed's gaze is mellower. Almost like it is back home.





After, we turn northwards, passing through Washington Square where the mood is of a summer week-end.









On 18th, off of 5th, we find Adorama – my photo supplies store of choice, even when I am in Wisconsin. They’ll give you a good price. On everything.





I want to get a new filter and I want to ask about the new Sony SLR-like camera that is about to hit the market (it’s small!) and we have some good conversations about possibly trading in my clunky SLR for the new one when it appears (maybe as soon as next week). I’m also enjoying the commotion of a thriving photography store. Photo shops in Madison are dead, no fun at all. I'm remembering  too well how terrific it was to hang out at a photography store back in my late teens, when I would learn just by listening to others talk about equipment.


We’re walking east, crossing 5th toward Gramercy Park (if there is a justification for the existence of a locked, private park in Manhattan, I’d like to hear it).

This is, we're reminded, the neighborhood where TR Roosevelt was born and where he spent his childhood. We spot a plaque on a brownstone and as we pause to read it, someone comes out and asks if we want to join in on a free tour of the premises.

Inside, we are captivated by Roosevelt trivia. As we read descriptions and ask questions, I'm very much aware of the fact that slowly, I'm allowing myself to focus on something other than the trial. I see tunnel’s end light. We will, eventually, leave this mess behind.




But not yet. At least, not entirely.

Exiting the tiny museum, we note that we are very close to where the primary “bad guy” from Ed’s trial is currently living. We’d tossed around the idea of visiting him. To talk. To communicate something. (Perhaps the futility of this line of litigation?) To suggest that there are better persons (his own lawyers!) for him to sue.

I remind Ed that last time they had a face to face encounter nearly ten years ago, the bad guy was inclined to get physical. I weighed the possibility of repeated aggression and decided that we were strong enough to get away. He, after all, walks with a cane now.

At the entrance of the apartment building we study the list of tenants. Not there. The super comes out and asks who we’re be looking for. Ed tells him. The super, recognizing the family resemblance, sends us up to the correct apartment. Ed knocks. No answer. I wait by the elevator, keeping the doors open. No, wait. That's a dumb retreat. I let them shut. Ed knocks again. Nothing.

We leave a message with the super (the bad guy does not own a phone and hasn't, to Ed's knowledge, an email address) and head out.

Maybe it’s a good thing that no meeting occurred. Still, one has to wonder whether some magic set of words could have now, after all that was already said in court, made an impression.

We belong to the band of the forever hopeful.


Our walk on this day weaves through the blocks of east Manhattan. Here, I lived here, I point out the building to Ed, but I know that I’ve done this before. I'm doing it for all the times you tell me, again and again, where you play weekly volleyball.





We cross over to the west side. Past Rockefeller Center, past 6th Avenue (oh! Here we are! Ed’s attorneys’ offices! Truly, all roads lead to the trial...), past Radio City Music Hall where the Dalai Lama is appearing this week, and where a very aggressive Statute of Liberty is collecting bucks for photo ops.





... due west to the Hudson River, where, for me, exactly fifty years ago my American adventure began. Stepping off the boat, I looked up on the confusing, chaotic city that would be home for at least six of my childhood years. And then I promptly threw up. (It was warm, the air was thick, and the drive across Manhattan was too much for me. In fact, I probably hadn’t seen the inside of a car more than a handful of times in my entire seven years of life.)

The piers along Hudson River. They aren't the entryways for boats from the old country anymore. Indeed, even in the sixties, when I sailed across the Atlantic for the first time, very few were immigrating from Europe by boat. Planes were just beginning to push ocean liners aside.

[For circumstantial reasons of dock repairs elsewhere, there actually is a boat today at the piers – the Queen Mary 2. (Only slightly reminiscent of my old boat – the Queen Elizabeth.)]




We turn south now as we begin our walk along the fairly recently completed Hudson River walkway.

It’s warm and lovely and New York seems almost gentle.









It’s a long hike back, but this is our final review of the city, as it feels on this unusually toasty May day in 2010. Not bad. Not bad at all.





We eat dinner at Fish. Of course we do. At the bar. Two platters of oysters, with glasses of wine, $8 each, just like ten days ago. And a small lobster roll.




And cookies from the Italian bakery.

By five in the morning, we’re walking to the subway, to catch the bus to the airport, to make the connection to Chicago, from where we’ll take the bus back to Madison.

teamwork

If ever you doubt the importance of team lawyering, I would suggest that you observe a case tried by a well integrated group of attorneys. Headed for litigation? Demand good teamwork. Otherwise you'll get the other end of it – the dysfunctional representation, as, for example (in my opinion), the representation of the bad guys in the case before us. So, demand discussions (of narratives, of forests) and demand teamwork. And get yourself an Ed for a client. And hope that the wind blows in a good direction.

An Anonymous commenter posted this message, which I refuse to publish in the comments section, because – how many times do I have to say this – I will not publish comments without a name attached to them. Anyway, this is the comment -- which I found to be thought provoking and so I took the extraordinary step of putting it into the text of the post, being rather a stickler for my policy on not publishing completely anonymous comments in the comments section (see previous sentence):

We just finished our own "Good Guy" vs "Bad Guy" lawsuit in NYC. Like Ed's, ours never should have been filed, but when someone with deep pockets and attorneys for family members wishes to use the law as a bludgeon, the courts say, "Bring it on..." After 2 years of motions, depositions and appearances, our "Bad Guys", just the day before trial is to begin, say, "Never mind.." We, now being some $30,000 lighter, find it difficult to celebrate a win. Our legal system, and the concept of "justice", has left us flat. Here's hoping Ed's side, the "Good Guys", get a better measure of justice than we did..

I do have a thought or two on this.

Justice, fairness... uff! That’s a tough one. Did I mention that the law suits that I’ve been tracking here, in New York, ones that have been draining energy and resources for close to ten years are (in my opinion, but not only) completely without merit? And even as one can expect a favorable outcome this time (though truly, you never know, as judges’ minds can work in mysterious ways), everyone knows it will be appealed. As you say – stuff some money into the pocket of a litigious man and you’re in for years of legal harassment. And I mean harassment. Where not only Ed, but a number of members from his family are suffering simply because one person didn’t like the way two people wrote their wills (Ed is the executor and trustee – a thankless job if I ever saw one).

The solution? Surely there should be a greater penalty against frivolous lawsuits. But of course, we will all squabble endlessly as to what constitutes “frivolous.” (If you want examples, ask me about the ones I’ve just spend ten days listening to. With experts, counter experts, depositions, motions – you name it, we had it.)

So, in answer to the commenter's generous hope that Ed should fare better: no, that can’t happen. Moreover, there is no feeling of relief after the trail. It went so well, so brilliantly well, but should I believe that fairness will prevail? The drain on resources will continue, the bad guys will not stop. The reality may, in the end, have little to do with fairness.

Sigh...

But I’m straying from the narrative of Ocean, so let me step back and begin earlier, at a time when we were still grabbing a very good muffin and an espresso at Once Upon a Tart. I like that place. Customers are regulars and they like to hang out. Of course. A West Village habit.






A few more blocks and the scene changes. We're approaching the judicial hub of the city.





The name tags come out, Ed reaches for the rolled up shirt and tie in my bag, we go in.

In the morning portion of the proceedings, Ed has another chance to address the monumental incompetence of the work done on behalf of the “bad guys.” He is passionate and extremely in command of detail. His attorney (teamwork!) ask all the good questions, Ed sails with emphatic and forceful answers. His narrative is superb.

...even as it depletes his energy for the rest of the day. Ed is not a confrontational person by nature, his New Yorkedness notwithstanding.

We recess for lunch and Ed and I eat at the wonderful Odeon on West Broadway, where you can have eggs even at 1 pm and where the teamwork (!) of the wait staff is exceptional. But I can see it in Ed’s eyes: he’s spinning back to the court room. His mind is on the trial. (Yes, it's true: he sheds the court clothing the minute we leave Chambers Street.)





We have an hour still before the resumption of proceedings and so he and I head for the southern tip of Manhattan. My goal is to reach the Battery Park, but we stray toward 1 World Trade Center, where the new tower is now finally under construction.





Did I mention how almost painfully sunny it is on this day?


The final testimony is of another expert, testifying well but irrelevantly about matters that have little meaning and even less consequence for anyone. And finally we're done. As a last task, there is a review of the issues remaining before the court. Of some forty idiotic ones, about a dozen (still idiotic) remain.

And that's rather discouraging: to realize that the “bad guys” have stubbornly insisted on keeping on the table issues that should have been thrown out with last year’s trash.

Being rather sentimental about good work and especially good teamwork, I am sad to say goodbye to the attorneys. From this point on, their work will not require (I don’t think) Ed’s presence (and therefore my presence) in New York. I’ll have memories of the excellent skills that went into the arguments offered in response to the absurd arguments of the bad guys. I’ll surely have these lessons with me next time I discuss a legal issue with students back home.


Ed is completely spent. We pause at Bruno’s for a sugar boost...





...but upon our return to the Bleecker Street walk up, after making reservations for an early flight back on Saturday, he cannot stay awake.


It’s late now. You think maybe we should celebrate? No, my travel companion is the one with the “every day’s a birthday” slogan running through his brain. I go out and get him egg rolls from his new favorite egg roll place and for myself – a pizza.





We are often of different minds as to what constitutes a good meal. But I have to say, in the matter of the trial, we were completely in agreement. Along with the attorneys. Teamwork.

New York, New York

Suddenly, in the middle of a direct examination of an expert witness for the bad guys, I’m struck by how exhausted I am with paying attention to the detail. And how terribly difficult it is to remain sharp and keep the juices flowing during hours and hours of this kind of proceeding. The attorneys for the good side never falter. I think yet again, amidst all the snarky put downs of lawyers, how undervalued the work of a good lawyer can be.


I’m starting to type my post for Ocean in the heavy cloud of a tired mind. (The rose? Oh, Ed would say that at $3, it’s an awfully cheap way of getting days worth of goodwill from me.)





And it was a rush of a day. Straight out of the shower, we did our usual walk to the courthouse. Yes, wet hair and all. Both of us.





We search for a quick bite to eat, find nothing good and settle for a standup muffin. Greasy and sweet. Bleh.

At the trial, things proceed with a certain degree of sanity. I find myself wishing for the moment where everyone would stand up and say – let’s all go home. We know this entire proceeding should not have come to pass, we’re sorry that we let it go this far. Not surprisingly, the judge does not say that. She admits evidence, even unnecessary evidence, because it’s better to err on the side of having a complete record than to make hasty pronouncements that later will be appealed by the party who sure as hell loves to appeal everything, even though he has never won (known here as “the bad guys”).


Walking home, I notice, as ususal, the traffic lining up to get into the Holland Tunnel. It’s rush hour, and the cars are clamoring to get in, or rather out of the city.





The cars stand frozen and you can do a dance between them and not get hurt. I am always surprised the next morning when we pass this way, that nothing of their mess remains. They do eventually get into that tunnel. People reunite with families, sleep and the next day it all repeats itself.

We stop at Bruno's Italian bakery for cookies. It's our aperitif. To help maintain the pace for the closing hours of the day.





Ed has a quick meeting with the attorneys in the evening. We’re really on the last stretch. Everyone expects tomorrow to be the final day of the trial.

I take a walk, weaving my way through the Village, taking it all in, sometimes mesmerized by the hyper crowdedness of it all, sometimes confused by it all, watching people hang out in the neighborhood that has made a cult of hanging out, so long as it includes lots of late night food, late night drinking, and in between, things I can’t really give a label to. Colorful? Sure, with insanely dizzying color.





Again I think back to when I was a kid here. After Warsaw, New York’s frenetic buzz was a stunning distraction. But I missed even then the quiet of empty spaces. Now, too, I’m starting to itch for an espresso in the stillness of a flowering garden. Or a walk where the birdsong isn’t that of a pigeon.


Ed comes back and we head out to dinner. Not far. Sammy’s Noodle Shop and Grill. Ed wants Chinese. Sammy’s, he later tells me, served up the best egg roll ever.

waiting in New York

...for the rain to stop. I know it wont, but I want an excuse to go outside, to walk and stretch myself, after a day of work while sitting on a rapidly deflating mattress.

Earlier, we did go out for breakfast. It was noon and when I reported this late start to my daughter she said – you’re becoming like me! Without a schedule, mealtimes get pushed around. Without a schedule and with Ed, they become random.

Our breakfast was at Café Borgia, a place noted for having daylong breakfast. Fine and hearty and very honest...





...but my eyes kept wandering to the store across the street.





It was one of those unusual moments when you know more about a place or person than what the world imagines you to know. I happen to have heard small details about the Vesuvio Bakery in these last weeks. A movie could well be made about the secrets of the spot. (Ed tells me that movies have been made, where the Bakery appears as a fleeting backdrop where a director needed a shot of Village life, but that’s not the same.)



Before I saw that we were in for a rainy (and therefore work-filled) day, I thought of going one last time on a circuit of childhood paths. But it would be like walking through a rebuilt city and trying to remember what was once there. So little remains of what I knew here as a child. My yellow brick apartment building, sure, there’s that. But my school building has been demolished (it had been condemned during all the six years I went there, so it’s good that they finally moved), the pizza place with the great take out pies closed decades ago. A&P, where I bought my first American powdered sugar doughnut is gone, Woolworth’s is gone, even the dreadful Korvette’s -- the place that spearheaded the drive to keep stores open on Sundays in America, the place where my mother sent us for replacement underwear, closed and eventually filed for bankruptcy.

New York doesn’t hold on to the inconsequential. And most places are terribly inconsequential.

There is of course, the consequential: I could spin around and visit the family for whom I au paired while in college. They still live in the same place they did when I was with them in the early 1970s. What’s left of them, anyway. The mother of my charge died a while back and the new wife of the father also just recently passed away.

But the thing about being an au pair is that you are just a tad more connected to your employer than the cook, no matter how much the family likes you and how well they treat you and no matter where you wind up down the road in life’s patchwork of interesting places. Once you leave, you leave.





The rain continues and I stay in my half reclining position.

Until I can stand it no more.

Outside, it is raining hard.





But isn’t it the case that in the city, you go about your business and ignore the weather?





I stay within the neighborhood. I wrestle with the umbrella, the camera, and occasionally I dart into a store to catch my breath. When Ed is with me, I almost never buy anything. We practice the religion of nonacquisition pretty steadfastly. I’m not as rigorous about it as he is, but I’m getting close. When I lost my watch last week, we studied every cheap replacement imaginable. My footwear is nearly as pathetic as his. My TV is the size of a cereal box.

But Ed is not with me today. He’s with attorneys and later with his aunt. And so I relax a little. I think about the graduation, a wedding, the foreign lectures I’m to give – all coming up, all requiring proper dress. I try on things. The familiar and unwelcome feeling of want creeps in.

New York is indeed a dangerous place. Even as it looks so childishly benign.






I finish the stroll with a return to a place Ed and I ate at back in October – Pearle’s Oyster Bar. Soft shell crab just started the season. Pan fried, with a glass of white wine, at the counter.





On the way home, I pick up Ed’s favorite cookies at the Italian bakery. Why do you like rainbow colored cookies? I once asked him. They have jam in between the layers.





The rain is quietly retreating. By tomorrow the sidewalks should be dry.

men

Some of them can be quite persuasive.

You have your law text with you. (I do.)
You can call and find out about postponing your meeting. (I can.)
Do you want to stay until the conclusion of the trial? (This from Ed, and the answer is yes, I do.)

We’re at a critical juncture in the proceedings and things are at an explosive stage. There is a trial within a trial as various parties are scrambling to throw in their version of what they would like you to believe before the whole thing shuts down. In other words, a circus!


We eat an attorney’s lunch at the place just around the corner from the courthouse (Allbella). The waiter is happy to tell me that I can have an espresso. As of this spring, we have the machine!

Okay. Thanks. Make it a double.

We walk back from the courthouse and think to the days ahead. Tomorrow there is another pause in the proceedings, giving me time to catch up with work. Wednesday, the drama resumes, but only briefly. We expect to be home Thursday or Friday.



On our walk back to Bleecker, we pass the well tended these days world of SoHo. A guy is giving his point of view and it strikes me that everything about him exudes confidence.





...and, north of Houston, enter the more quirky world of the Village. I’m so used to seeing younger adults here – maybe because older types can’t handle the constant stair climbing in the elevator-less buildings. But, there are the exceptions.





There’s a grocery store here and I suggest we pick up a few essentials so that we can cut back on snacking on the run. The store is predictably expensive, but we get the bananas and the tasteless crackers that’ll work well with the $6 bottle of Cava we hauled in earlier.

A few steps before our entrance to the walk-up, we pass a pizza joint. New York style pizza, eaten at a narrow counter, on the run. Thin crust and light marinara. A slice with mushrooms, Ed says.





I think to myself – I’m glad I’m here. Even an occasional traveling companion needs a helping hand, or a person with whom he can share a pizza slice. And of course, the trial is at this point riveting. Speeding along to a brilliant (I hope) denouement. In the alternative, I’m picking up a truck load of observations on trying a complicated family/property case and enjoying feeling just a little like a New Yorker again.


Late, very late, we cross Bleecker and eat supper at a table on the sidewalk. Spanish rice on a warm spring evening.





But why is it that the half dozen photos I took today are all of men?

Sunday in New York

What would you do with it? I can’t think of a block of Manhattan left undiscovered. Yet here we are – another beautiful warm day, telling us to get up and get moving.

It’s not easy to get up from a deflated mattress – to push aside the computers, to put away anything when the only place to rest things on is a radiator cover that we carried over to serve as a shelf.





But by noon, we have a plan. Pickles. We’ll chase down the pickle place that Ed has proclaimed as the only good pickle place left in the city. Except that it’s not in Manhattan anymore. This March, it closed its doors on Orchard Street and moved to Brooklyn. We’ll find it. Inferior Brooklyn map in hand, we set out on foot. Starting in the West Village...





... with a pause for a nutritious breakfast. We’ve not paid attention to food during the daytime here. Sometimes it comes at us in large quantities (attorney lunches), sometimes in junky batches of scones and cookies, until a late dinner attempts to correct the imbalance. But on Sunday, we do it right: a simple egg and avocado sandwich on seven grain bread. There is such beauty in the ordinary!






Wanting to avoid the standard trek toward the court buildings, we cut in toward the east and pick up Mulberry Street in Little Italy. And what a surprise – the street has gone pedestrian and here it works! The sidewalks are taken over by people eating, the street belongs to the ramblers. Little Italy has turned into a lovely place for a Sunday stroll.





We cross Canal Street and, of course, everything changes. The Chinese fruit and vegetable stalls are squeezed into small spaces along the curb. I note that the exotic fruits are taken from crates that are from Vietnam.





But not only. Cherries from Florida are a steal at $4 for two pounds. And mangos – 75 cents each, most likely from Mexico or Guatemala. We buy two mangos and cover our hands with sticky mango juice as we peel the sweet fruit and eat it on the crowded street. I need a sink with running water.

On Chinatown’s Mott Street, we pass restaurants and food shops, but we’re not eating here. I can’t see us barging in with mango on our hands asking for bathroom privileges.

Ed pulls me into a building that announces itself as the Chinese Community Center. Downstairs, in a packed auditorium, two singers are performing.





We watch with clean hands, after making good use of their restrooms.


Sunday. We’re near the courthouse now and of course the area is completely shut down. The financial district of lower Manhattan on a week-end looks as if an eraser has taken out every New Yorker from the streets. But we’re also at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge and here, you see again the comfortable mix of tourists and city folk. We make our way across the bridge to Brooklyn.





So now we're in Brooklyn. Oh course, I could do a search on my iPhone and I would get some sense as to where the pickle store is. But it seems so pleasant just to walk, vaguely in the direction of the store. We continue past the Brooklyn courthouse buildings, past parks where joggers run and children kick soccer balls. But after a while, I falter.

Okay, Ed, I’m lost and I don’t know where we’re going.

You have an address?
Yes, even a subway stop, were we to take the subway. I thought we would walk. (We’d been walking for a couple of hours already, but in my mind, no walk is uninteresting or too long.

We ask a police officer to assess the distance to our final destination – 39th, around the Church Avenue stop.
You need to take a bus there. That’s really far.
No no, walking is okay. I count the subway stops. Eight. Eh, what’s eight stops on a beautiful day.
There’s a free shuttle from here to Church Street.
Free? – this from Ed.
Yes, because they’re working on the F line tracks. So we’re shuttling people between stops.

I give in. It’s already late in the afternoon and we have pickles to buy.

The bus takes us just to the edge of Borough Park: home to the highest concentration of Hasidic Jews outside Israel.





It hard for me to digest this abrupt change in neighborhoods. New York, to me, has always felt looser in its religious boundaries. Of course, there are conservative Jews and conservative Christians in every urban center of the country. But in Borough Park, there are nearly 100,000 people who appear, at least to the casual observer, to be as traditional in their lifestyle as the Amish in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania.





Indeed, I read later that they maintain the highest birthrate in the city: nearly seven children per family. The children are quite beautiful and they seem to be dressed in the same way as their siblings – perhaps to distinguish them from the children of others?





We go into a bakery and pick out a handful of very tasty in a bland sort of way cookies.





Ed is the Jewish boy who stands out: no head cover, no traditional attire. I stand out in all ways. But unlike the Amish communities, the people here are not especially shy or suspicious of strangers (even as they like to protect their children from the bad influences of the outside world). They are, more than anything, oblivious to us.





And, unlike other insular communities, they are not opposed to the use of modern technologies.





We find the pickle lady. They calls themselves Ess-a-Pickle now.

So, you like it here?

Yes, it’s good for us to be here. I didn’t think I’d still see a camera once I left Manhattan! She laughs.

We buy a gallon and talk abut transporting the pickles back to Madison in a carry-on.
Drain the brine and make new brine once you get there – she tells us.
We also buy a quart for now. I know Ed will finish those by the time the day is done.
Please, the newer ones for me! (I like them to be new, not even half sour yet.)
Throw in a few for her, Ed sighs. Every pickle for him is a treasure.


We walk back to the bus that will take us to Brooklyn Heights. And once we cross an empty street with closed warehouses, we are crossing a great divide, as if crossing Canal Street, or any other street that manages to completely transform a neighborhood.

We’re in Bangladesh now.





And there is a street fair. Crowded, fragrant with grilled meats and the sweet smell of mango milk, colorful and almost exotic, particularly to us, having just spent an hour in a completely different environment.





I want to know what the festival is about. I ask the policeman, standing out as the only other non-Bengali in the crowd (besides us). He shrugs his shoulders. There’s another one coming up at the end of June – he points to a sign announcing this.
What’s that one about? I ask.
I don’t know. I don’t read their writing.

We stroll a little longer, but the music is loud and the day is quickly ebbing away from us and we still have quite the walk...

...back across the Brooklyn Bridge, back to Manhattan.


It’s late by the time we feel ready for dinner. For an hour or two we discuss the trial of the week ahead. Ed is staying and he has some small points that he wants to pay attention to. I’ll be leaving Monday evening. I haven’t enough of my work with me to continue doing it in New York.

But for this night we go back to an Ed family favorite – Katz’s Deli in the East Village area.










We buy a pastrami sandwich for me, a turkey one for him, on rye, with cole slaw and more pickles. Beers are sold late in grocery stores. We pick up those as well and head back for a picnic at our deflating mattress on Bleecker Street.