About Yesterday

In a previous post, I promised more detail about our adventure in the blizzard yesterday. The real story begins Friday night when I warily told David that I'd go running around with him and a police officer buddy of his on Saturday. I wanted to go. After all, we're in New York City with free time, but on the other hand there was this blizzard approaching, plus I've had an awful back ache for several days now. Little did I know, it was about to get worse.

Prior to and during Friday night's show I was having severe back cramps. Having endured similar spasms about 5 years ago that ended with a trip to the emergency room and a quick education in kidneys stones, I warned a few band members about what to do if I suddenly began crawling around and howling during the performance. If you've ever had a kidney cramp you'll know what I'm talking about. Angie had reminded me on the phone earlier Friday evening that if I was indeed dealing with stones, I'd probably end up with severe nausea and other fun symptoms as well. I made it through the show and returned to my hotel room. My back was really bothering me and I couldn't get to sleep. Around 1 a.m. I decided to see if I could walk it off. I bundled up and went walking around the city. Don't ask me why, I think I was delirious. I was also beginning to feel nauseated. Hoping that maybe a little food would settle my stomach I only had to forage for a few minutes in the city that never sleeps. By 2 a.m., I realized that I'd made a serious mistake. You can probably guess what I did for the next couple of hours. The good news is, the kidney stone crises is over.

I don't know when I finally fell asleep but I know exactly when I woke up. My cell phone rang.

Angie called me at 8:52 a.m., and I told her I'd have to call her back. I gave David a quick call and he happened to be on the phone with our host who was now 5 minutes from pulling up to our hotel. I don't like to cancel things at the last minute so I brushed my teeth, threw on warm clothes and headed to the lobby. I was sleepy but I felt great and haven't had a spasm since.

I was also very hungry and thought we'd probably go get breakfast first. Things didn't work out that way though. Our first stop was about a 40 minute drive to a store that sells police gear. David had told Allen, our host, that he was interested in buying some police issue boots that he could wear while riding his motorcycle.

The store had every piece of police paraphernalia you can image. It looked like some sort of leather fetish supply and it was only a little surprising to see a picture on the wall of Michael Jackson posing with one of the store owners.

David didn't buy any boots, but I almost bought a pair of waterproof street beat shoes. The price was right, and there was a blizzard coming so perhaps my tennis shoes might be a little inadequate, but a complete lack of remaining free space in my suitcase was the deciding factor. We left the police store with only a few souvenirs for gifts and headed to the Freeport Police Station where Allen works.

Allen has a very interesting job that requires quite a bit of secrecy so suffice it to say David and I enjoyed the tour, and I left with a greater respect for those who put their lives on the line every day to protect us from dangers both at home and abroad.

After we left the station we drove to Long Island's famous Nautical Mile. It was too cold to do much besides snap pictures and get back in the car. It was now noon, and the snow was beginning right on schedule. We still hadn't made it to a restaurant. I was getting very hungry as I had, well, disposed of all of my food the night before. We had a short visit at Allen's house and met is wife, daughter and dogs before finally pulling up to a diner around 12:30. We were supposed to be back by now and I was beginning to get a bit worried as the snowfall began to stick.

Our lunch/breakfast was great (I had an Athenian Omelet), and an hour slipped by as we got carried away in good conversation. As we left the diner the accumulation had reached about an inch, the wind was beginning to pick up and the flakes were getting larger.

About that time Alfreda gave me a call on my cell phone to let me know the show was still on, but there was a chance that our hotel might be sold out for the night and we had to have our luggage ready to at 3pm. Uh oh. We were in trouble. Allen said our quickest option to get back was to take the train. He took us to the Freeport station and as we pulled up a train headed to New York pulled out. The next train wouldn't be there for 40 minutes, unless it was further delayed by the ever increasing snowfall.

Allen agreed to drive us back, estimating that we'd probably make it with ten minutes to spare. He pulled onto the highway and dialed in a traffic report which was overflowing with bad news about worsening road conditions. Twenty minutes later we'd only made it a few miles toward town and we decided to look for another train station.

Allen asked for directions at a gas station and we found our way to an out of the way stop. There were no maps, no schedules and very little shelter. Allen used his cell phone to determine that we'd have about a 20 minute wait for the next train, which we'd take to the Jamaica station, switch trains and travel by subway to Penn station. Alfreda and Hussain were checking up on us about every ten minutes, making sure the 'bumpkins' didn't end up Jersey.

Finally some good news. Alfreda called and said that the show was still on, but we'd be staying overnight in our same hotel so it was OK that we weren't going to make it back by baggage pull time. I relaxed a little but still worried that we might have a tough time making it back for sound check.

Somewhere between Jamaica and Penn station we learned the show was cancelled. Whew! Since we didn't have to be back at any definite time we decided to extend our journey and find the Apple store in SOHO. It took a little longer than it should have but we eventually figured out the rail system with only a couple of unnecessary rides.

We exited the subway at Spring street, leaned into the wind and crunched our way to 103 Prince Street. The Apple store was packed like a night club. The floor was wall to wall wet with melting detritus of slush from customer's shoes.

We played with new toys, I posted a web update and we watched it get dark and colder outside even as the wind grew luminous with glowing snow.

The white sidewalks and snow-filtered street lights made all the stores look warm and inviting on our walk back. The giggles of a pink faced, down and polyester encased three year old boy caught my attention as he hurled snowballs at his dad. This is the good stuff. It didn't even bother me that it was too wet and windy to capture the scene with my camera.

David and I made it back to the Radio City subway station around nine. We went to the front door to see if there was any notice of the cancellation and as I pulled out my camera I was stopped by security people. An officer asked why I wanted to take a picture of the sign on the door and I told her David and I were in the band. She smiled and said "If I were you I'd keep that to myself, because there are some people here who'd like to lynch you!" We slipped away quietly, feeling bad for those who didn't get word about the cancellation.

Rather than head back to the hotel we found a warm place to eat and toasted the end of an enjoyable day. ¶ 3:36 PM