When the Snow is on the Punkin...

All in a day's [search for] work

It seems that I am most moved to blog in the eery afterglow of natural aberrations such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and, this past weekend, an October blizzard that dumped 12 inches of heavy packed snow on Jersey City, downing powerlines and felling leafy trees all over the tri-state area. Nine of our teachers trudged into school this week with hair slicked back and clothing rumpled, having no light or heat to dress by. As for me,

Mums on apt. stoop pre-blizzard

I weathered the weather relatively unscathed, unless you count Margaret's grand scathing, having taken 14 hours of traveling to arrive after midnight on Saturday when her plane was diverted to Syracuse because Newark airport had to close down. Diverted to Syracuse because of weather? Who does that?

Mums next morning after blizzard

Then after her Monday morning job interview to which I dropped her off two minutes before the appointment with a roomful of New Jersey college and university presidents after a two-hour drive that we "dry-runned"the day before, clocking 36 minutes door-to-door, I suggested we relax with a fall hike through the Watchung Mountain reservation. Three hours of driving after that, with GPS lady in meltdown mode as we "recalculated" about two dozen routes with fallen trees and precariously dangling power lines in search of the trailhead, we decided to head back to Jersey City and have a celebratory or at least "good luck" drink. Margaret suggested the hardscrabble Astor Bar across the street from the school where, the day I moved in, we first met "Riter" (Rita) the barkeep and her surly band of Irish Foo dog ex-Marines who routinely kick the "other" locals (Arab, Dominican) out. I declined that setting, not because we planned to tie one on, but because I really didn't want to know which of my staff were in there doing their own tying. So, I proposed we relax in one of the trendy taverns in Hoboken near Carlos' Bakery (The Cake Boss). Somehow, an hour later, our car illegally parked at a 7-Eleven, I and poor, sainted Margaret ended up downing a stale Blue Moon as the sole patrons of the only bar we could find on the main drag of Bayonne with the neighborhood kids filing in and out the door every few minutes for aborted trick or treat attempts.

Weather aside...What I'm really thinking as I pace my 2-room apartment

In what I believe Margaret and you other disability folks would call stereotopy, or locomotive ritual repetitive behavior, I shuffle from room to room in my cozy space and I think things. And these things I think teach me some new information about myself that in almost 50 years of living with me I had not yet known. 

It's my blog so I'm going to say it: I like my poor people quiet. I don't like them shouting Arabic over the fire escape into my apartment a yard away. I like them compliant, polite, clean, and patient. I like them to give me personal space of at least a foot in a check-out line. I like them not to demand my backpack when I go into the grocery store and then give me a dirty old wooden clothespin with a number on it in exchange for the backpack so I can retrieve it when I leave the store. I like the raisins I buy in that grocery to be in a box marked Sun-Maid or some other namebrand I can email when I find they are hard as little pebbles. I like when the expiration dates on the yogurt, milk and lettuce I buy at the bodega not to be two days from now. 

 I like to walk to work on Monday mornings and not pass at least five toppled trashcans along the way. 

True, could be Bloomington outside a student rental

I like poor people who don't maneuver their wheelchairs between the cars when I'm caught between lights at an intersection and rap on my window with their..stumps. I like smiling, happy poor people who don't curse loudly in the long line at the post office that has no self-service kiosk to buy stamps or shelves with priority mailers and boxes I can just pick up and mail from work. I like poor people with teeth who can eat the egg flatbread I just bought them when they stand outside of Dunkin Donuts begging for change. I don't like the eyes of poor people when they "win" a white elephant prize for $20 they just bid on at a school Moms Night Out fundraiser  because the box was wrapped pretty and all that was inside was a bottle of ketchup. I don't like the kind of poor people who stand on the top bleacher and curse out the refs, the coaches and the cheerleaders at their children's sporting events and then get in the face of the cops who then get in their faces until everyone's red spitting angry and throwing punches. I like poor people who don't lean on their horns when the third firetruck in two blocks weaves among all the traffic that has nowhere to go unless they take a few pedestrians out to make room. I don't like the combination of poor people, thin walls, squeaky floors and loud sex next to and below my apartment when I'm trying to read.

I didn't know all this about myself. Now I do.

I know this is not the greatest blog I ever wrote and I'm not proud of it. But it's true.

Honest, next blog I'm getting to the kids, the reason I came here. I promise!

Heard and Seen on the Blvd

"Ninety-nine percent of Congress is Jewish. I guarantee you! I guarantee you!" thus spake Walleed, my landlord, from under the bathroom sink last night last when he came to repair my drain, ceiling fan, toilet paper holder and stove burners.

"That would be interesting if it were true," I said. "Do you really think that the Tea Party conservatives are all Jewish?"

"I know they are. I guarantee you."

This conversation, it seemed to me, came out of the blue. But because there's a wooden cross my Dad made me years ago hanging on the wall outside the bathroom, I guess the concept of religion was already out there and he was just adding to it.

My poor students, landlords of tomorrow. Because of Walleed's unqualified remark, this week they'll get a double barrel right between the eyes of: "Your opinion is only as good as the data you have to support it." Teachers. Keepers of democracy.

More free speech
Today I was scurrying across a pedestrian crosswalk in busy Journal Square after 5 p.m. with horns blowing obnoxiously all around. A woman crossing with me grabbed me by the shoulders mid-way and squared me to the facing traffic, yelling authoritatively: "Fuckers! We be crossan' an' you be pumpan'. Yo wait yo turn." Women. Always speaking truth to power.

***
Picture this: I pass the firestation. Men in blue tee-shirts and slacks like leaning storks relax against the sandstone doorway, awaiting the next adrenaline fix. Across from the fire station, in the spare space for a car out front of a tattered rowhouse, a canvas canopy is pitched, lashed onto the aluminum stair railing. Underneath is a man seated ramrod straight on a folding chair. He plays a violin. Facing him, two young boys at the edge of their seats, chins cocked, bows wielded, carve music out of the street. 

***

White people use these
At rush hour each morning and evening, I notice a lot of 20-and 30- something White people on Razor scooters enroute to and from the PATH mass transit to NYC. Only at dawn and twilight, and dressed in office clothes, they whiz by. I don't see them any other time of the day or weekends, the Razors or the White people. I'll have to walk over to the PATH station and see if they chain the scooters to the turnstiles during the day or if they fold them up into their briefcases and tote bags when they go to work.

***

I live like a celebrity or a sports team in my apartment. Every time I turn on the TV, a voice inside my head announces, "Brought to you by Sandi and Jeannine." I make a cup of tea and think: "Sponsored by Martha." "This microwaved meal made possible by Jamie." "Today's blow-dried look compliments of Paula." "Flowers by Ada and Vonnie." The books I read, the dresser in the bedroom, frequent flyer miles, wine stopper, lamps, clothes and first aid kit--all lent or given to me by friends and family outfitters. I'm surrounded by love.

Not yet
I know you want to read about the school, the kids. The reason I came. You will. Just not yet. I haven't hit my stride--the days are long and absolutely unpredictable. There's no discernable rhythm yet to anything I do. I'm getting to know the students, and I'm out working the crowd at each passing period, the frenetic four-minute delerium that punctuates every 40 minutes of closed door containment. My "people" right now are the teachers, for whom I would already take a bullet. Their names should be in lights along Bergen Avenue and they should be signing endorsements rather than autographing lavatory passes. Here is an open invitation to every critic of public and private education: You do it. Seriously. See if you could be equal to or better than these 180-day heroes.

***
Did I mention Margaret's coming to visit me in two weeks and four days?

When Is the Pyrotechnic Show?

This will be mercifully short for you to read as it my first attempt at a real blog. All I can say is: "An earthquake and a hurricane in one week? Really?"

Mofongo (it's not a curse word) Puerto Rico's answer to a falafal

I didn't feel the earthquake this past week. I was crossing the street to eat mofongo with a teacher at Coconuts, a little place across the street from school, and was oblivious to the shaking which prompted people to pour out of their buildings and stand on the sidewalk moments later, covering their ears to the firetrucks screaming down to the Holland Tunnel.

I did feel the hurricane. Like a big baby, I opted to take off to Princeton to spend the hurricane with my sister and her husband. I figured if I were to be without power and water, I'd rather be hot, smelly, and in the dark with loved ones than by myself in my little two rooms with one usable window. However, the Sisters kindly offered me to come to the convent to ride it out for three days. Even a hurricane couldn't move me to do so, much as I appreciated the warmth and sincerity of their gesture. In the end, all was well and we have much to be thankful for, as Margaret and my family members were truly in harm's way, yet came through with little damage. As it turned out, Princeton was hit harder than Jersey City (downed power lines, felled trees, flooded streets, no traffic lights), at least in the section where I live in JC.

Huge Princeton mushrooms grew before our very eyes in the deluge

When I took a walk this evening to survey the damage in my neighborhood, you really wouldn't know that we had a hurricane in my part of the city. I think it's because we don't really have trees and the buildings have flat roofs. They are close together, squat, old and made of stone, not glass. We really don't have any buildings over 10 stories.

Bottom of my sister's street, but it's not her car

The only other highlight to my week was that I decided I would touch up my roots. My Bloomington hairdresser urged me to color my hair myself to save money out here and promised me it was "so easy a monkey could do it." Some of you have heard me say over the years that if I moved somewhere for 6 months where nobody knew me, I'd stop coloring my hair, but I lied. In this environment, I need all the confidence I can muster or purchase. So if my fake auburn hues ward off would-be attackers, so be it. It is not vanity. It is a form of self-defense.Anyway, I figured that in the wake of two natural disasters, it would be a good time to try my hand at auto-cosmetology. If I messed up and looked like a freak, people wouldn't notice or would just be glad I was alive. I'm not posting a picture of the outcome, but I assure you there are no further disasters to report.

Next week we finally start school and STUDENTS come for real!I am so excited!
Peace and thanks for your good thoughts and prayers and well-wishes.