Washing Hands Without Soap

             A couple of Thursdays ago I was on the west side of town and my eyes became drawn to the grand opening of a new IHOP location. Although IHOP is nothing more than a glorified diner, in Manhattan an IHOP seems like a duck out of water. The only other two locations I know of in the city are up in Harlem and a few blocks away from Union Square on the east side. Other chained franchises such as McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts fit the city like a glove, but something about an IHOP stands out. I didn't have time to go in on that particular day, but knowing I had to be back in the city on that upcoming Saturday to run some errands, I planned make that the day I would test out this new location.

             IHOP, short for The International House of Pancakes, has been around since 1958, starting in California, and today has over fifteen-hundred locations across the nation. In 2007 they consumed the Applebee's franchise and are owned by the combined forces which is officially named DineEquity. They're best known for their pancakes, but over the years they've expanded their menu to comply with the traditional foods eaten at lunch and dinner by Americans. I started my day in midtown with grey and threatening skies overhead. Cutting through the city using 53rd St. I stumbled upon a small alley which had a sign labeling it 6 1/2 Ave. I couldn't tell if it was a real street name or some type of joke. The sign looked pretty real to me. Downtown trains on the west side were all messed up due to weekend construction, so my 1 train actually skipped the Houston St. stop I needed and went all the way down to Chambers St. where I needed to switch over to the uptown side to get back. Once I finally reached my stop and was at the corner of Varick and Downing, the new IHOP was only steps away. When you enter you don't get into the restaurant part right away. There's a small waiting room with a hostess desk you must approach first and then you're brought into the actual restaurant section. It's actually a great idea because who wants to be eating their food at their table and watching people stare back at them on the line, using their eyes to say, "Hurry up with your food - I want to sit down and eat". This method allows patrons to eat in peace without angry eyes piercing through their skin like laser beams.

             The restaurant has a weird zigzag shape compared to the usual rectangular shapes of most dine-in eateries. For a place in the city which could get very crowded, it didn't seem like there would be enough tables to accommodate big crowds during peak hours. The time I was going was a lazy Saturday afternoon, so I was seated immediately and there were plenty of open tables left. Basically the entire wait staff had tattoos rolling down their arms; either saying something about the IHOP hiring guidelines or perhaps just a sign of the times. I can't put my finger on it, but having a guy with tattoos in a white shirt and blue apron bringing you fluffy pancakes also seems like a duck out of water. The waiters and waitresses hung out by the kitchen door and were discussing anything except pancakes. I had to make eye contact with my waiter so he could come back over and take my order. I felt bad about interrupting his conversation. I went with the never-ending pot of coffee (which actually turned out to be two cups for me) and kept it simple with the pancakes - just three regular with a side of bacon. The menu features all sorts of pancakes, from traditional blueberry or strawberry to cheesecake-filled which racks up to nearly two thousand calories. I was imagining those cheesecake pancakes in my mouth, but the intelligent part of my brain directed me away from the calorie-nuke. Even though I ordered my pancakes with a side of bacon, I received a side of breakfast sausages instead. I guess IHOP knows whats best for me.

             While I was eating two cops came in and sat down at the table next to me. I never thought I would see pancakes and live ammunition within the same field of view, but it happened. Before leaving I wanted to check out the bathroom which is located on the downstairs level. When I first entered the restaurant I felt there wasn't enough tables for a city-located establishment, but then the downstairs made things clear for me. There was the mother-load of tables located downstairs, probably even more than the upstairs. Since it wasn't busy, the downstairs tables weren't being used and basically all the lights were off, but if they did receive bigger crowds, then they would be able to accommodate them. The bathroom itself was quite clean, but there was one small detail missing when I went to wash my hands - there was no soap!! Both liquid soap dispensaries were bone-dry. I wouldn't have been surprised if there never had been any soap during the grand opening period. If there was some soap previously, there would've been at least some bubbling foam or something seeping out, but this was bone-dry as in no soap ever. I could've reported this to the policemen upstairs, but figuring it was the grand opening and everyone was getting used to the nuisances of the establishment, I let it go, hoping one day they'll get around to putting soap in the soap dispensary. On my way out as I passed the hostess desk there were two more cops standing there and ordering from the take-out menu. This IHOP must be the new "Go-To" for the nearby precinct.

             With a belly full of pancakes, and breakfast sausages I didn't order, I figured I walk it off towards the water by the west side piers. I strolled along the cobblestone blocks of old New York until I made my way to West St., which appears the be the only strip of real estate in Manhattan that's not experiencing a boom. After passing a former gentlemen's club with no ATMs inside and a deserted diner that's too frightening to peek inside, I crossed the street and got a great view of the Freedom Tower which seems nearly finished. I spent a couple of minutes by the water, but once those grey skies finally let down some raindrops, I knew it was time to head back home. I didn't want to have to deal with the construction fiasco of the 1 train again, so my plan was to catch the E train in front of the IFC Theater and take that across town to transfer to the 6. While en route via Bleecker Street the raindrops let up and tourist crowds built up along the way.

             Walking by small eateries and ice cream shops, I was hit with this sudden urge for bubble tea. It's a flavored Chinese drink with soft jelly/gummy-bear like beads at the bottom. The straws for bubble tea are always wide so you can suck up and eat the beads. I was hoping I would find one of these on Bleecker Street, but I was having no luck. They're all over the place in Chinatown, but I really didn't feel like going out of my way to get it. It would've been a great cherry on top for the IHOP experience, but as I drew near the West 4th train station, it was looking like I was going home without my bubble tea. Then as I was about to head down the stairs for the subway, my head turned left and I caught a series of Chinese lettering. I had no idea what they meant, but in English the store has the word bakery on it. In Chinatown, all the Chinese bakeries serve bubble tea. This Fay Da Bakery knew I was in need of bubble tea and it was almost as if it magically appeared as I was about to leave the city as a bubble tea loser. Had I taken the 1 train instead of walking to the E train, this would've been the case. In the end, the construction fiasco worked out well for me. There was no mention of bubble tea in the front window, but I knew they had to be serving it. I went inside and said the words "Bubble Tea" to the lady behind the counter about three or four times before she picked up on what I wanted. You can get bubble tea in all sorts of flavors, unfortunately the lady didn't hear me when I asked for mango, so she gave me generic brown tea, which was still okay.

               If you want something sometimes, it will appear.........

A Cheeseburger or the Mouse

             There is never one single, solid, reason for me to travel to the borough of Staten Island. I've been there perhaps twice, at the the most, in my lifetime and the last time had to have been more than fifteen years ago when I was at the Staten Island Zoo. Beyond that, there hasn't been a person, place, or event that has required a trip to Staten Island. I figured its silly to have this borough as part of New York City and never get to see it, so I wanted to spend an afternoon there to see what might exist on this mysterious island.

             Up until 1975 it was officially called the Borough of Richmond, and its the third largest borough in geographical size but features the least amount of population. There's really only two method to getting there, at least from the New York side; the Staten Island Ferry which sails off from Lower Manhattan or across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge from Brooklyn. I was taking my car with there since I know little of Staten Island public transportation and the thought of driving into the city, waiting on line for some ferry, the ferry ride itself, driving off the ferry, just seemed too much of a hassle, so I decided to take the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) towards the bridge. Naturally that turned out to be quite a headache as well with traffic congestion piling up as soon as I got on the BQE due to the usual unnecessary road work in which lanes are closed down and orange cones are put up, yet there's no workers around at all and it stays that way for three years to steal as much overtime out of the city budget as possible which causes a third grader in a public school to have to learn from text book published in 1985. As I approached the Brooklyn Bridge and had a glimpse of Lower Manhattan, I could see the Freedom Tower was finally coming along well and was beginning to look like one of the Twin Towers. After another traffic patch that went painfully slow, I was finally over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, made famous by the 1977 hit film "Saturday Night Fever", but what I didn't know about the bridge was the thirteen-dollar toll to enter Staten Island. That's worse than the George Washington Bridge, but luckily there's no toll for leaving the island en route back to Brooklyn.

             There are signs on the side of the road once exiting that direct you to the Staten Island Zoo, which is where I was heading, but for some reason I ended up getting lost and found myself in the luxurious Todt Hill area with large houses all around. I turned around and retraced my car tracks and was finally back on the direction of the zoo. At a red light I turned left and caught an army vehicle in the corner of my eye, then I saw there were actually a bunch of them and I had been driving passed some type of army base or something, probably the local National Guard to prevent the Soviets from invading. Then while still waiting for the light to change, some guy in a jeep across from me yelled out to someone in another jeep behind my car. The jeep behind me had two kayaks strapped onto the roof. Apparently, the driver who was in the jeep behind me was named Larry, and the guy in the jeep across from me had a dead squirrel caught in his air conditioner. The light eventually turned green and I was off, so I didn't get to catch the rest of the conversation. The zoo was a couple of blocks away from that military base-dead squirrel situation and the lot was looking pretty full. On Wednesdays the zoo is free after 2pm, although actually its whatever "donation" you feel like contributing after 2pm, but after spending an eye-whopping thirteen dollars on the bridge, my contribution to the admission's lady was just a "hello". Normal adult admission is eight dollars and the zoo itself isn't very big; nowhere close to the sizes of the Bronx Zoo or the Dallas Zoo that I visited a few months ago. There's basically one main building that covers Africa, reptiles, and underwater life. Other than that there's a horse barn, pony rides, a few outside bird cages, a nursery, and perhaps this zoo's best attraction, the Kids' Korral, which is basically a petting zoo.

            Once in the midst of the center of the zoo I entered the main building and begun with the reptile wing. There were some (small) alligators, lizards, turtles, but the emphasis of that section was snakes. The Staten Island Zoo is the first zoo on record for featuring all thirty-two types of US rattlesnakes, and this was mainly due to the work of Carl Frederick Kauffeld. In addition to a number of rattlesnakes on display, there were boas, anacondas, cobras, and some other type of snake who was busy swallowing a mouse by the time I got to it. That actually reminded me I didn't have lunch yet since I rushed out for the thousand-mile journey to reach Staten Island. Knowing there would likely be some type of cafe around, I figured I would get to eating later. I was quite amazed when I entered the fish area when I saw a gigantic puffer fish that was about the size of a bulldog. I never knew they grew that large and even had teeth like a human. When I went to the Africa area I saw a pair of leopards, but frankly they were quite boring. One was napping behind a rock, that I didn't even know was there until the other one started growling at it, and the one was did the growling was itself hiding behind another large rock. The show-stopper in the Africa section was without a doubt the meerkats. I had seen some good ones at the Dallas Zoo, but these Staten Island ones were much friendlier and had no problem posing for the crowd.

             Like I thought, I found myself a snack place/gift shop and with their very limited menu, other than the mice that the snakes get, I went with the cheeseburger and fries combo which came out to a reasonable seven dollars and change. While having my burger I looked out the window and saw a peacock roaming free, just as they allow them to do at the Bronx Zoo. With a hardly meal of zoo food in my stomach I was back out to see the rest of the animals (non-human). I passed by the horse barn with its bizarre wooden fence that warns of electrical shocks, though I don't know how wood can conduct electricity. The nursery only featured two young lings; one looked like some type of fox, the other was an anxious groundhog which left running left and right. Eventually I had a chance to stop by the Kids' Korral, which is where I had the most enjoyment. For fifty-cents you can get a handful of feed and disperse it to goats, sheep, lamas, donkeys, and pigs. The lamas where actually not in the mood and weren't accepting food from anyone, but the burrows (donkeys) were drawing the most attention. I checked out a row of outdoor birds before exiting for the day. There were some owls, a vulture, and an American Bald Eagle on the floor surprising the whole time I was watching it. It was almost closing time, so I headed back to my car in the crowded parking lot (which neighbors with a large cemetery) and was off to see a little more of Staten Island.

             Not really knowing where to go next or what I was even looking for, I picked a random street and saw where it would take me. A few things I got to notice about this borough; there's a ton of buses and bus stops available, and red lights are open to interpretation. I made sure to drive very cautiously and deliberate while red lights were being taken frequently by other motorists. Another issue I was running into was that my gas light was giving me a warning that I was low. After seeing nothing but auto parts shops, I figured I better pick another street as well as seek a gas station. I came upon a project at one point which featured a NYPD mobile tower, which is usually a sign you're in a troubled area, in fact I think that's where the Wu-Tang Clan might hail from. I did come upon a friendlier-looking road soon after and found myself a Shell station to fill up with. Parked at the station were a pair of old model cars for sale, but I could see those breaking down on the BQE, so I figured I should just stick to what I have. Before leaving Staten Island I would've liked to try out some restaurant there, but the zoo cheeseburger had done a good job filling up my gas tank as well. While on my way to find the highway back home, I drove pass a sizable park that looked intriguing enough to want to visit. Since I wasn't going to do a restaurant before leaving, I decided I could do a park instead. Close by where I parked my car, I first encountered the Clove Lake Book Store, an old fashioned used book store you really don't see anymore. Before entering the park I saw, Clove Lakes Park, I made a quick stop at a Dunkin Donuts to try the new Oreo Vanilla Bean Coolatta while I was was going to take that walk in the park.

             It had been nearly a year since my last Coolatta and this new Oreo flavor was quite amazing. The park had a small lake and I walked to the edge of the grass to get a closer view. Then suddenly I saw little bubbles popping up from the water, as if something was breathing. I figured maybe it was fish, but looking in even further I saw a couple of small turtles swimming around, maybe they escaped from the zoo or something. I continued on the trail and kept peeking at the water to see if any other turtles might appear. While in the reptile section at the zoo and reading about the various types of turtle shells, I remembered that it mentioned the Snapper Turtle's shell was designed to look like a piece of wood, to give it camouflage as a method to ambush it's prey. Looking back at the lake again I saw something that resembled a small log or piece of wood sticking out of the water, and since I already saw turtles there a few minutes ago, I felt there was a strong possibility it could be a Snapper Turtle. I walked down to a pile of rocks to get as close as I could to the water, and sure enough I was faced with a large turtle that very closely resembled a Snapper. This thing was more than a foot long, and unlike most turtles found in the wild, it wasn't afraid of my presence at all. It was even coming towards me in hopes of a snack I presume, perhaps to get a taste of my Oreo Vanilla Bean Coolatta. I wish I had something to give it as I think it would've likely eaten anything I would've tossed in the water. It came close to my finger, but I made sure not to get that close to it as I didn't feel like visiting a Staten Island hospital. That turtle must have been living in that lake for quite a number of years as I never saw one that big in the wild. I was getting some extra zoo experience for free, or at least the price of a used book and a Coolatta. I would've liked to stay longer on the island to find more turtles on the loose, but knowing traffic would be a disaster again getting back, I needed to shovel off.

               After meeting the large turtle of Cloves Lake, for the first time ever I can say there's someone on Staten Island I can visit.....