Keep Me From Blowing Away

Not Ray's Pizza slices

Walking back from the doctor's visit I beelined it directly to Not Ray's pizza, which serves up medicinal food for the sad and lonely.  Their Bruschetta slice is sweet and luscious, light and airy, like a flavor cloud.  Their traditional NY cheese slice is exactly as it should be, thin and healing.  Men serving food fast and efficiently.  Somehow that helps me to feel okay. 

What Goes On in Your Mind

If you daydream long enough about dinner ideas the only thing there is 'time' for is New York pizza slices 

We had a meeting at work including lots of numbers and charts that I can't relate to.  So, as my mind wandered off, daydreaming about what I would make for dinner that night, my eyes suddenly centered on the best graphic I had seen yet.  It was of a clock and every hour said, now.  I would buy this clock if we sold it.  Time is somewhat of a nemesis for me.  Currently at home, we've replaced our wall clock with a framed picture of Ringo Starr, as he represents an easy, calm reminder that the time is right now and actual details are unimportant.  He was such a constant forgiving presence in the Get Back documentary, a real reminder to accept what is happening in the moment and not to concentrate on the future, or the past.  When we begin to get anxious and look at the spot where the clock has been for years, checking the 'time', we now see Ringo, not smiling, just looking back at us as if to say, what the hell do you want from me? 

Feeling Better, 'Cause I'm Over You

Pizza in Bed

Pizza slices, especially while sick, are downright medicinal.  After soup and vitamins, while gaining strength back from a nasty bug, you need spicy, salty foods to reawaken the system.  At no time does pizza fail at  soothing the soul.  Not Ray's Pizza for our Not Omicron flu.

It's a Lonesome Sundown, This is Gonna Be Hard

We all woke up to the news of a mysterious Las Vegas shooter and multiple deaths at an outdoor country music concert.  It seemed it was the largest mass shooting and it was quickly revealed it wasn't an ISIS affiliated terrorist.  The news came in waves as the lightness of the day seemed to thicken like starch in a soup. It's an older white male with no apparent motive.  Hard to understand what to do with the information. Each hour the number of innocent people injured goes up by 50's and hundreds.  And in the coming days it will come out that the killer had planned on harming so many more.  Even writing this days later I feel so worn and heavy.  And then Tom Petty died. just like that.  I read it wrong I thought, this cannot be happening.  He just played, I watched the footage.  I love Tom Petty. Full cardiac arrest.  Stopped breathing.  Life support.  The article held the worst news. All I could think was the word no.   

So many good articles have been written on why we mourn so deeply for these artists so I know it's normal to feel this so personally at this point.  I cried more than a few times thinking of his music, the feelings he gave me, us. All the joy it's allowed.  I know some of his music more than I know certain friends or family.  And he was there literally, his songs were playing during my life as it was actually happening.  My post-high school boyfriend pointed to me as we were breaking up, cranked his stereo as Petty sang 'You got lucky babe, when I found you'.  It was effective.  When I saw Petty live for the first time in Fort Wayne, I heard the kind of life I wanted to live and it actually felt attainable.  I was moved and shook to my core right there in our Memorial Coliseum.  Driving around town with my power booster blasting the Heartbreakers, Here Comes My Girl, my friend was caught up in one part of the song but I was hearing 'but sometimes this old town just feels so hopeless' deep in my plumbs.  My own passage was forming.  Finally, here's this ultra cool cat, not from LA or NY, with a witty restless scope that seemed to be speaking directly to my life.  I hoped to get out of that town someday and I did just that at a time when girls didn't leave, especially girls from the Midwest.  So many instances just like this through the decades, countless simple pure lyrics that seemed to land perfectly on my situations. Years later after multiple blow ups and heated discussions, storming out of almost every restaurant in San Francisco, my now husband told me once to please consider the wise words on Petty's She's a Woman in Love where 'she lets the little things go'.  This actually really helped me to do just that. Southern Accent aided in dealing with feeling like such a goober hick in New York.

Lately I feel like anything could happen in the world, no longer as scared but just a knowing.  Someone walks into the room, they might just announce aliens landed on the white house lawn or a bomb went off in Times Square or Los Angeles just broke off into the Pacific, maybe a tsunami is on its way.  Like that's where we are in my mind right now.

This is a loss.  We don't get Petty anymore.   Sure we still have all his music and his interviews, footage, memories. That is a lot.  But he was more than that.  Because of the current cone of uncertainty that is the new reality we live in I feel the difference overall.  You can't put into words the rush of life, love, vitality, whatever you want to call it, that fills you when you absorb people like him that somehow got slapped up with the bright stick.  His voice and smile, his eyes filling in all the details, speaking to you.  Letting you know that this ain't it babe.  This isn't even the tip of all the cool stuff that truly exists and waits for us someday. You hope for it, you have faith but these real life assurances of tone and intent keep you plowing through.  This one's gonna be hard.

Before I had heard the news I was trying to drown out my Las Vegas anxiety with some Not Ray's Pizza cheap offerings of Calzone and Stromboli.  I had some bites and put it up for another day.  One that didn't hold so much wreckage.

Give Peace A Chance

This year I invented the Birth-stay.  Similar to a stay-cation but much more glamorous and luxurious!  For my non-event birthday this year I took a vacation day off on a Sunday and planned an entire day in bed in anticipation of yet another storm that was possibly going to blow through town.  We did get another coating but it was not a big deal. 

I started with these amazing chocolate treats from some uppity Manhattan homemade chocolate shop called L.A. Burdick.  We shared the most chocolatey looking one with coffee.  

There were four separate pastries, each one more uh-mazing than the next.  We nibbled on them all day and the flavors became more intense and clear. like the orange cake.  Here's the web's description: A deceptively simple cake generously enrobed in gianduja (that's a chocolate with 30% hazelnut I learned). Fresh, bright orange accentuates the flavor complexities of this sophisticated hazelnut cake.       

Let me say, I haven't eaten bread in what seems like years, but has only been a couple of months.  For a foodie, that's a lifetime. My dream lunch, another facet of the birthstay,  was a slice of NY Pizza from Not Ray's and it was a dream... I'm almost tearing up thinking back on it because words cannot express how great that slice was.  The smell, the cheese was just hot and stringy enough, the pepperoni was nice and spicy, oily.  The crust was thin and crisp but still had the fresh bread type of edging.  But because deep in my heart I know I deserve none of this, I forbid myself to eat (much of) the second slice.  We both took a couple of bites and stopped.  But let me tell you about that third slice.  It is the stuffed meat slice. The name doesn't begin to do it justice. It's really big and thick and the taste is something like biting into lasagna with sausage and pepperoni's on top, straight out of the oven..  It's more a real pie slice with that amazing crust underneath.  It was my favorite slice and just looking at the picture now makes my heart sad.

 
 And a diet Coke, that is another thing we never drink but it just seemed so right for that frosty mug.

 It all seemed so right on the bed, with the sun coming in.  A nice bowl of olives and peppers.  Hot sauce, of course. 

I had the pepperoni and P had the cheese.

A bunch of horizontal hours passed...some calming tea...and then a nap.  In Search of Ancient Mysteries documentary and then reading the debunking breakdown.  It was a loser's paradise.

 And it wasn't over yet.  For dinner...67 Burgers!  Mine with bleu cheese and bacon, their specialty. 

  P had the Cheddar Cheeseburger.
 
 Spicy curly fries and onion rings! 

 

I was doubly blessed on this birthday.  If it was in the spring or summer then my dream day would be completely different. But being that it's dead of winter and a stormy grey day, living in a busy city that never stops or shuts the hell up or gets out of your way or gives you an f'ing break, a little peace and quiet in your own warm bed is about the best gift I could think of.  I'm gonna say best birthstay ever!

Chain of Fools

Monday brings a brand new week.... so I'm shifting my misery. I have a sparkly new manager that is hot off the prick press, reciting handbook jargon. And he's straight to boot. There is no god in retail.
He'll be much harder to control than the last one. This one has a bigger brain and tons of misguided vision. But just like the former, major ADD. Sometimes that comes in handy, just direct them to the shiny new handles and they're off like a special needs butterfly. He's also demanding we all open up our availability to nights and weekends..and weekend nights. In one swipe of his boney tattooed arm he's changed my whole world.

To deal with this I had only one choice but to march over to Not-Ray's Pizza and pick up two regular slices, lots of pepper flakes.

I Need An Around The Way Girl

Let me tell you a tale about the dangers of having a pizza place on the corner of your street. Not Ray's Pizza in Fort Greene is like what they call an Around the Way Girl. Its right next door practically, the guys are super friendly. They have a lively atmosphere, feels like a little taste of real Brooklyn inside with history. I'd travel to it if I had to but I don't and that's the beauty of it. The pizza isn't the best you've ever had but its pretty damn good and certainly real NY pizza. They sell slices too, of all kinds. They sell a stuffed meat slice that makes you wanna kiss every person behind that counter...with your tongue! They're always busy so the pizza is fresh and never sits around long at all. It's affordable.

We ate this whole pie. A large sausage and mushroom pizza. That's kinda scary.New York takes its pizza seriously though. Did you ever see this great clip from Jon Stewart?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Me Lover's Pizza with Crazy Broad
www.thedailyshow.com
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'Cause I Got a Peaceful Easy Feelin'

Not Ray's Pizza is our neighborhood corner pizza joint. We tried to buy whole pies but it is the slice that is king here. It's not the best slice you've had, but you don't even want it to be. Its on your corner. That would be too dangerous. However, the stuffed slice is damn good. Damn good.


Before the hurricane was to come we rode out to look in on our friend J's cat, Fanny. She, like female cats tend to do, musta got upset and pee'd and poo'ed on J's bag. I like that about cats. They're not real emotional like dogs, but they sort of let you know what's up when you screw up. In this case, J left the house for an extended period of time. Fanny wasn't havin' that.



Fanny was all purrs when we visited but she'd said her piece already. She'd made her statement.


They had me spooked to the bejesus about this hurricane hitting directly over the city for the first time ever and what that might mean. The day before you think your life might change drastically, things look different. It's like the day before you finally decide to cut your hair. All the sudden, your hair looks not too shabby. Hey, its kinda flattering! I like my hair! You think, but you're wrong, your just scared. Brooklyn looked beautiful this day. It had started to rain and the gothic beauty of the buildings and architecture was very visible.





We rode back and stopped for that slice at Not Ray's. Just a plain cheese slice and Coke. It tasted like heaven. A quiet peaceful heaven before you die.