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.........

Time for a Superhero

             To say the busy corner outside where I live is extremely noisy would be the understatement of the century. In addition to the crackling of the subway tracks, there's racing 4x4 tow trucks with their high-powered engines, constant flow of emergency vehicles with loud sirens, loud trucks, horn-honking cars, and of course, the super-cool drivers who need to blast their car radio at full power so everyone within five miles knows that they're listening to Ludacris. I've become almost immune to all the outside racket as well as the loud TV noise under me from the elderly lady downstairs who is near deafness and has to have her volume on to the max. The only real unstoppable force which can't be reckoned with is a car alarm at night in which there's no other awakened sources of noise to help drown it out.

             A couple of months ago in the Fall I had one of these situations in which across the street there was a car parked and in the middle of the night, its alarm went off and continued into the sunrise hours of the morning. As a result, I nor likely anyone else within shouting distance was able to get any sleep that night. I find car alarms to be a complete waste and nothing more than a noise hazard for decent folk. Some alarms work the correct way in which they don't sound off unless the car is hit very hard, has its window broken, or gets forcefully opened. The problem is the bulk of these alarms sound off at the slightest vibration such as a passing truck or a gust of heavy wind. If the owner isn't aware that their alarm is going off, then that car is honking an beeping its brains out for who knows how long. There's no justice in these situations, the car owner can simply turn off their alarm from afar and there's no payback from the minutes or hours of noise pollution. In the Fall incident across the street, luckily a no-nonsense lady living across the street zeroed in on  the car and was waiting for its owner to return that morning to give him the business on how his vehicle was a  constant annoyance the whole night. I couldn't hear the entire exchange since I was half-asleep in bed from not getting a good night's sleep, but I heard her screaming a complaint in the ballpark of, "It was on all night and I couldn't get any sleep - I have to go to work in the mornings!!", something like that. I frequently see this lady screaming at other people for other things all the time, but this car alarm owner certainly deserved it. She has a mean-looking dog and I was somewhat hoping she would sic' em on the guy for making me have a sleepless night, but I guess the situation never got that out of hand.

             Last week there was a night in which the weather was a little nasty. Nothing too crazy, the rain was nothing more than a light mist, but the winds where very strong. Outside I heard recycling cans getting knocked over, causing bottles and cans to clinked their way down the streets. Heavy winds howled against my windows and once in a while the entire building would vibrate. It reminded me alot of those two long days from about two months ago during Hurricane Sandy. Just like that time, the weather conditions knocked out my cable and Internet connection. Through the evening the cable would try to fight its way back, but then after a few minutes it would just go out again. The Internet showed no signs of life at all and never even made an attempt to come back. Without television, I entertained myself a by watching some old episodes from the television show "Columbo". It was roughly 11:00 pm while I was still watching an episode when I first heard a car alarm sounding off. With the heavy winds and objects been thrown all around outside, I wasn't the least bit surprised, but I figured it would shut off in a minute or two. Ten minutes go by, then twenty, but the alarm kept going. This alarm was centralized around a honking horn and flashing lights. I kept hope the owner would eventually find out and shut it off, but it wasn't stopping. It got so irritating to the point that I couldn't watch the Columbo anymore and my only other choice was to try to go to bed. I knew it would be impossible to be able to fall asleep with the constant racket just had it been back in the Fall, but I tried nevertheless. After about fifteen minutes of tossing and turning the noise was drilling into my head and there was no way I was going to be able to fall asleep.

             Curious on which vehicle was responsible for the noise pollution, I left my bed and returned to my livingroom to look out the window. There it was - a late-90's model white jeep with flashing lights. Worst of all; as the night grew on, at certain points the alarm would turn off for thirty seconds, giving a false hope that the nightmare was over, then all of a sudden it would start up its cadence again. It was about 2:00 am at this point, the alarm was still going strong, and I was surprised nobody at this point had called the cops (or smashed the window with a brick). The jeep was right in front of someone's home, I couldn't understand how they were able to put up with three hours of pure torture. There was no way I was able to fall asleep with this thing, apparently nobody else was going to call the cops to complain, and I myself had no interest calling any police, so I thought of the next best thing: 7-11. Down the block there's a 7-11 convenience store open 24/7 and there's always at least one NYPD squad car there in the parking lot while the officers are inside getting coffee, Red Bull, and a bottle of water. People stereotypically think cops always take their breaks at Dunkin Donuts or other donut-related businesses, but the best place to most likely find a cop is a 7-11 store. Every time I'm in there I see them, as well as FDNY EMS workers. It seems like the cool hang-out spot for emergency workers. My plan was to walk over there and if there were cops around, I would tell them about the never-ending alarm so there would deal with the matter (with towing it away the ideal solution).

             I slipped on my jacket and began the walk to 7-11. The rain was all about gone and the winds had died down, but the heartbeat of the alarm was still pumping strong. As I walked passed it I stared at it with all the hatred in the world. I probably could've found something to smash the window with and likely would've gotten away with it, but ultimately you never know who's looking out their window, even if it was 2:00 am in the morning. If the car was keeping me up at night and looking out the window for the culprit, I had to imagine there could be others. Even though my effort would likely be received with applause, there's always the risk of an informer, so I felt it was best for the authorities to handle it. Once I reached 7-11 I saw there were no police cars in the parking lot, to my disappointment. I went inside anyways just to make sure and the store was empty, except for two employees. I didn't want them to think I was crazy, so I bought a bottle of iced tea and was back on my way home to decide upon my next method of attack. I passed by the jeep again and gave the rock-to-window option another thought, but had just been recorded on the surveillance camera from inside 7-11 from buying the iced tea, I would be a suspect of people in the area at the time of any incident. A good sleuth like Columbo would've been able to track down a window-breaker that way, so now that option was completely off the table.

             While I sipped on my iced tea, I considered whether I should call the police or not. My cable and Internet were still out, so I couldn't look up the phone number of the local police precinct. The official number for noise complaints is 311, but I always felt 311 was for more long-term solutions, just as a constant noisy neighbor or a nearby construction site. I needed short-term relief and this was way too small a crime to dial 911 for. I went with the middle ground and decided upon calling the police station so there can determine where a car alarm weighs on their emergency scale. Without Internet, I dialed 411 on my phone to find out the number for the precinct. When I called it I expected to reach a desk officer or some type of switchboard operator (human), but instead I heard an instructional recording to the tune of, "Press One for Domestic Disturbance-Press Two for Robbery........". There was a mentioning of noise complaints and it said I should call 311 for that. I had a feeling they would make me call 311 eventually, so instead of trying to speak with someone at the station and wasting further time, I hung up on the police station call and dialed 311. After selecting English as my language to continue in and pressing a few other options, I finally found myself communicating with a human being. The time was roughly 2:30 am. The lady operator asked me to confirm my phone number and the spelling of my last name. After providing her with my complaint, she actually apologized that I was being disturbed and informed me that Mayor Bloomberg is on the cusp of putting law into effect that will ban car alarms within city limits, which sits just fine with me. I have to say the operator was very friendly and courteous. She told me she was going to transfer me to 911 so they could  take immediate action. Although I would be happy about the immediate action part, I felt a little leery about getting involved with a 911 emergency, that's usually for life or death situations. I never been on a 911 call before, and there was no turning back now.

             The 311 operator had me on hold (although I was allowed to listen in) while she connected with a 911 operator (also a female). Both operators identified themselves by their serial numbers and I was finally turned over to the 911 lady. I specified that it wasn't actually a "911 emergency", but told her about the evil jeep anyways. She ran through the same phone number and last name confirmations, plus asked me for a description of the noisy vehicle. She told a police car was on its way, but I really took that with a grain of salt. I felt there was no way a cop car was coming anytime soon for just a car alarm. Perhaps by the morning if two or three other neighbors also complained, but not right now. Once the call was over, I mean within seconds of hanging up the phone, the jeep's car alarm started to fade out. The alarm went from a loud honk to a muffled hum. Then after a few seconds of humming, the noise from the alarm completely died out!! All that was left was the jeep's flashing lights. I'm guessing what happened that after three and a half hours of the alarm sounding off, the acoustics must have finally fizzled out. That, or the 911 operator destroyed the alarm with freakish psychic powers. I was happy in some regards that the torture was over, but what if the cops actually arrive? With no more noisy alarm, it could seem as if I filed a false 911 report. Instead of seeking out the owner of the jeep, the cops would be after me, and they certainly had my name and phone number to track down. Worst of all, there would be no justice against the owner of this jeep. I wanted the cops to see this noisy vehicle for themselves while the alarm was at full strength, and either use their nightsticks to break a window in order to get inside and turn the alarm off, or tow it away at the expense of the owner having to pay for the towing-fee of about three hundred dollars.

             My eyes were peeled out the window to see if the cops where going to pass by, and what would they do if they showed up. The front and back lights of the jeep kept flashing, so at the very least the cops should be able to determine that the complaint isn't completely wrong. About a good twelve minutes after I hung up with 911 and the alarm died out, I saw a pair of bright headlights slowly approach from down the street. I had a feeling it was coming from an oncoming cop car canvassing the area, and I was correct! It was a NYPD squad car and it drove at a slow pace until it reached parallel with the parked jeep, where it stopped. With the description of the jeep and its lights still flashing, they must have known that was the vehicle in question. The cops didn't get out of their vehicle, they didn't check the license plate or registration on the jeep's front window. After a few seconds of pause, the cop car carried on until they reached the corner, in which it made a large U-turn and returned from which the direction they came. They didn't give the jeep a second look when passing it again, they just disappeared down the block and were gone.

             They came from the direction of 7-11 and towards 7-11 they returned....

St. Patrick's Day in Afghanistan

             In all the years I've lived in New York, I never actually experienced the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade in Manhattan. Usually the day landed on a weekday when I would be in either work or school, or the weather would be too cold to be standing outdoors for so many hours. This year the holiday fell on a Saturday anyways, and the mild winter we've been having made for a pleasant day for a parade. Even the morning of, I was still debating on whether to go or not. If I was going to go, I needed to leave early and get down there well before the parade's start time in order to secure a good viewing spot against a rail. With hopes of seeing someone trashed and puking in the street afterwards, I finally decided it was a go. I grabbed a quick granola bar from 7-11 and took the subway into the city.

             When I was on the subway I needed to pick where was it that I should get off at. The parade starts at E. 44th st. and heads up 5th ave. until 86th st. There were two others on the subway dressed in the green gear headed to the parade, and overhearing their conversation they were planning to get off at 59th st. It seemed like a good idea to me, so that's where I got off as well. By time I reached 5th ave. it was around 9:45am and there weren't many people lined up at all along the street. I made sure to take up a prime spot against the railing and was going to plant myself there like a statue till the parade's 11am start time. After a few minutes I turned around a noticed several hundred people bottled up behind some rails on the corner. I was confused; were those people lining up for the parade too? Was the spot I was in going to be cleared soon and those people would take the prime spots? Then a sudden head turn to the left and I saw the gigantic Apple logo on the building behind me. Those people weren't lined up for the parade, they were up earlier than I was for the new iPad3, which had just come out the day before.

            The Apple Store had its own security detail and the entire front was gated off from pedestrian traffic. Every fifteen minutes, an Apple associate would come out of the store to take in five patrons at a time. When it was someone's turn, the look on their face was as if they just won a million bucks. Soon enough the crowds started gathering and next to me of course I had to have one of the worst families right next to me. There was a husband and wife and two pesky kids aged about six and four. The kids didn't even want to be there and kept fidgeting the whole time. Then the dad had the bright idea to give the boy a big Irish flag and told him to start waiving it around. I estimated the amount of time that flag was going to hit and stab me to around thirty. Once the kids wanted a snack or something to eat, one parent would go to the store to bring stuff back. I could've used something to eat too since I only had the granola bar in my stomach, but in no way was I going to lose my spot. Since the crowds were getting fuller, the parent would have to push their way back to reclaim their place against the rail. By that time I probably had at least four out of the thirty pokes I thought I was going to get from that flag. With about twenty more minutes left till the parade start time, I noticed a mysterious black jeep with the window rolled down and a camera sticking out strolling by, with the camera pointed at the crowd. It was probably some type of anti-terrorism tool to read everyone's face in the crowd and matched the pictures of any known terrorists on record.

             In semi-relation to that, a few minutes later a large corrections bus drove by, probably on sight as a place to store anticipated drunken and disorderlies. On the news there was mention that the police were trying to make this a family-friendly parade and there were certainly cops all over the place; streets, subway stations, etc. After the corrections bus drove by, a smaller van came by passing out bags of potato chips. I was legitimately hungry and tried my best to catch one, but known were thrown close enough to my range. A few minutes before the parade was to start, a group of people walked alongside of the rails to hand out mini-Irish flags. It wasn't food, but I took one anyways. One thing I learned early on from the logistics of the traffic, was that the street wasn't completely shut down for the parade. At least where I was at, a busy crosstown street like 59th st., police would let traffic cross over 5th ave. all during the parade, which held it up several times. A few minutes after 11am, the vibration from the street and echos of bagpipes gave the signal that the parade was approaching. The first items on display were a number of Ford vehicles; Ford was one of the official sponsors of the parade. I couldn't believe what passes for a Ford Focus these days. I was surprised I was asked to head the parade, I have a Focus, and its even green!

             Once the horses showed up, then it was time for the real parade to begin. The biggest applause early on went to a pair of sanitation workers to where pushing trash cans. The next big buzz not too long after that was the appearance of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. Both were walking together and had about twenty bodyguards on each side of the street in case someone wanted to throw a pie in their face. With that was also a handful of cops with plastic twisty-tie cuffs  ready to pounce on anyone daring to jump over the rail. There was small group across the street from where I was standing that seemed to be protesting the Catholic Church's stance on not allowing homosexuals to join the parade, but they didn't take any chances with the mayor. From there was a complete onslaught of all sorts of parade participants; army, navy, marines, air force, cops, correction's officers, firemen, state-troopers, high-school bands, college bands, bagpipe groups, boy scouts, Gaelic societies, more sanitation workers, and sometimes it seemed like thousands of people from some town in Upstate New York would be marching. They just kept coming and coming, it looked like this parade was never going to end. In about the three hour mark I was starving, my legs were cramped, and I had enough of those pesky kids next to me, so I decided to escape from my position along the rail. Even as I leaving, more and more of the parade kept continuing.

            With it being St. Patrick's Day, my ideal place to get something to eat was going to be a real Irish bar. I figured being in the city, that wouldn't be difficult at all. So I would walk a few blocks, then walk a few blocks, and every Irish bar I encounter was absolutely mobbed with lines out the door. My stomach was growling in hunger and I didn't have time for wait on some line. I figured I could at least get a Blarney Stone, they're all over the city like Starbucks. I kept heading east of the city in hopes of finding a place, but was getting no luck; they were all packed (with firemen most the time). My journey took me to 1st ave. with no further east to go but into the East River. I was somewhat surprised to see the named the Queensborough Bridge after former New York Mayor Ed Koch. The city was an absolute toilet under his tenure, can't see why he gets a bridge, but whatever. I didn't want to continue on this wild goose chase any further, so I told myself I'll just go into the first anything that serves food. I went back to 2nd ave. and encountered the Afghan II Kebab House. The sign gave me the impression there was an Afghan Kebab House Part 1 somewhere lurking in the city. It was the polar opposite of an Irish bar to have a beer and a shepard's pie, but under the circumstances it was going to have to do. I started out with an sambosa as an appetizer. It's a fried turnover filled with ground beef, herbs, and spices, then topped in their minted yogurt sauce. For my main lunch dish I went with the lamb tikka kebab that's served with a side of jasmine rice and naan. Everything tasted excellent and silence inside the place allowed my ears to get re-adjusted from three hours of bagpipes.

             To make amends, next time there's an Afghanistan Day Parade, I'll go to a Blarney Stone.