3/24/03 Louie is my Evening Activity counselor as I meet his aunt on the pier, party of 9 at Joe's Shanghai, first bubble tea, and good times in my lobby:





Today was way more recreation and way less work than I had planned for my Monday. But, these things happen.


In camp, we had an "evening activities" counselor. This was the person who came up with the movies for watching on the lawn, and scheduled the roller skating nights, the carnival, which shops would be open at night, etc. I like the idea of having an evening activities counselor. And as I strive to make reality more like Buck's Rock camp, I have appointed Louie Pearlman as my evening activities counselor... for real life. And he's doing a wonderful job. Today was evidence of that.


Yesterday we made tentative plans to meet at "the pier," as we knew I would be on my bike, and Louie wanted to get some fresh air. He's been living with Jarrett Karlsburg, who's been staying at his place for the past month. AND, two of his friends from the University of Vancouver, his old roommates, actually, are in town, in the middle of a nationwide roadtrip together. And they're at Louie's place as well.


Louie lives in a studio apartment on the ground floor of a brownstone on the upper west side. It's a bit smaller than my apartment, about 400 square feet, I would say. We're now calling it, "Louie's Tenement."


Anyway, he called this morning, just as I woke up, at 1am, and we planned to meet at the Pier at 2:30.


Here's my bike, all taped up and ready for the trip. That's the April 2003 issue of Wired Magazine, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the aluminum foil, and a Tropicana pure premium, no pulp. Never pulp.




Here are some more photos from on my bike, on my way up to the pier. These are of the current construction of "Phase 2" of Riverside Park South, just to the south of my "pier," which was completed as part of "Phase 1."

















In fact, there is a sign up that shows the construction that is planned:







And I sat on the pier and ate my sandwich and drank my juice and read my magazine. And after a while, Louie showed up with Phil and Tina, his ex roommates from College in Vancouver.





And then, out of nowhere, Louie's Aunt shows up with her dog! I used to go to this pier exclusively alone. Now, it's the information booth at Grand Central, and I love it! She uses the bike path like me, I think to run with the dog.




Aunt Peg had some chicken in her fanny pack. She was semi-training the dog to do all sorts of things, like "talk" (bark), put a paw up, sit, put his head in her lap, etc.

Then we left the pier:






And we made plans to meet later in the evening at Joe's Shanghai. They went in search of comic books in Times Square and then SOHO. I biked down to Battery Park City, and sat on the bench there for a half hour, reading an issue of The Battery Park City Broadsheet, a newspaper about Battery Park City stuff. I love that crap. Community Board #1 type issues. And while sitting on that bench, I got these pictures of Pier A's ferry terminal. I was impressed by how many NY Waterway ferries dock there at once!





So then I searched on line for a bit for job opportunities for the summer... to augment my income when the school plays completely dry up. I sent a few e-mails off. We'll see who responds.


And then Louie called, telling me to meet the enlarged crew at Joe's Shanghai at 8pm.


Joe's Shanghai is a total crowd pleaser. Everyone who is visiting the city is tickled by this place. It's the perfect, "I want to hit Chinatown" kind of place. They have an item on the menu that they are famous for, and it's a perfect food/gimmick: The soup dumpling... a dumpling with soup inside. More on that when we get there.


So, I arrived at 8:01pm, and they were all there waiting for me, including some new characters:



There was Louie, Phil, Tina and Jarrett. The new people were Mike, Caitlin, Other Girl, and Other Guy. I forgot the names. Fill me in!


From the left in the above photo:

Other Guy, Kaitlin, Other Girl, Mike, Louie, Jarrett, Phil and Tina.



We got a nice, big, round table, with a lazy susan, which was very exciting. Here we are looking at the menus. We got one order of non-crab steamed dumplings for me, and 3 orders of with-crab steamed dumplings for the table. These are the soup dumplings. There are many ways of eating them. Some poke a hole in it to let the soup drain out in the spoon, eating the dumpling with chop sticks, following it us with the soup. Some nibble a little from the dumpling, and as they pick it up, they let the soup drain out. Some eat them whole, exploding in their mouth, often with burnination. Some eat the pork/crab out of the dumpling first, then the dumpling's exterior, and then the soup. I've never seen a person eat the soup first. Someday.













A good time had by all, though the conversation was dominated by topics mostly Canadian, as the four Canadians at the table had a field day being an almost-majority in New York City. So the rest of us sang the U.S. national anthem. Just kidding.






This is what the rest of the place looks like:



And here is some of the food. All good:



"Other Girl," who sat next to me, ordered the Yellow Fish something or other. We all "oohed" and "aaahed" when she placed her order because it sounded exotic and wonderful. We were partially right. It was very exotic. Her dish came last, and as all of us were eating (how polite), they plunked a WHOLE FISH down on the table. And it smelled funny.











She tastes it:

She said it was interesting. When asked if she would have it again... she said NO.


And so, a little later, I covered the fish's head with some of my napkin. And Jarrett put a cross, made of chopsticks, on top, and we had a little funeral.



And then we argued for a bit over the bill as we came up short. And we had oranges and wet-naps with the American flag printed on them:







And on our way out, we looked at tomorrow's supper:





And we spent some time outside the place to decide where to go next:






A view down Pell Street, which goes from the Bowery to Mott:



The consensus was to walk to the nearby bubble-tea place. I had never been, and was quite excited, primed by seeing a similar place in the Garden State Plaza a few days ago, to wet my appetite.





Here we are deciding whether or not to go in:





In the end, we ended up being a party of 5: Me, Louie, Jarrett, Phil and Tina. The others decided to go back to wherever they came from. And we went in for some tea and things:

On our way in Jarrett stopped at a table of some other people, and said that he recognized one of the fellows faces. We figured out that he went to Buck's Rock in 1998 or thereabouts. I didn't recognize or remember his name, but he remembered me as the "guy on the unicycle." I made it a habit to occasionally unicycle through the shop area... for exercise. It was fun, and I got some crazy looks. So here he is... he's in the top corner of the photo, with his friends. He said, "I knew it was only a matter of time before I ran into some people I knew from camp in New York City." Awww.




We got our own table in the back:





I decided to get a green tea smoothie, which is much like green tea ice cream, which I very much enjoy:



It came without "pearl," those balls of tapioca in the bottom, even though I ordered it. So they threw some in and put it in a new mug:



Tina had standard black tea:



Phil had some tea thing with coffee flavor in it. Can you mix those? And with pearl in the bottom:



You suck the black balls through the straw while you drink. You never know when you're going to get one. It's kind of like the lottery ball machine. Except without the numbers. And you get to eat them. And they're like slimy gummy candy. Louie was fond of comparing them to snot balls that you can swallow and not get sick from, especially, he said, when you swallow them whole in your tea. Blech.



Louie got a melon juice concoction with pearl in it. It was good. Very melon.



Jarrett didn't get anything, but he finished off my green tea when the pearl had reached critical mass... enough to make me nauseous. Yet, I would get it again. Hmmm. Like Grey's Papaya.



Louie took this photo.


And the waitress took this one:



And we left. Very cool. The green tea smoothie was a winner. This place was on Mott, just south of Baxter, south of Canal, but north of Pell. I look forward to trying their Mango smoothie, but I have a feeling I will come back to the green tea in the end.


So we decided to come back to my place, as Jarrett is leaving for Boston soon, and has yet to see it. In the lobby, Owen was the concierge on duty and he was playing with his new digital camera. It must be going around. So we took pictures of each other. It is a hoot to see myself from his perspective!





And we went upstairs. I made hot chocolate:






I do make the best. Everyone says so. It's probably how I get people to come over in the first place. I get the chocolate myself. In person. From the Swiss...in the... Alps? A little town called Swiss Miss? Where chocolate grows. Naturally. Bygones.


And here's Jarrett, taking a picture of himself:



And Jarrett attacking Louie:




And the crew watching a clip from the RMS school play, "The Wizard of Oz." Louie wanted them to see the songs that were added to the play from pop culture.





And then I showed them some more videos until their attention spans were totally shot. And they left hastily. But not before Louie collapsed from his responsibilities as my evening activities counselor. Nobody survives that job. Nobody. Poor thing.





And we head for the lobby, where, as usual, there is a dog convention. And I watched Jarrett literally fight off the impulse to lay down next to the dogs and cuddle with them. If he was more comfortable in my building, he absolutely would have done it.




Jarrett loves the fact that my lobby is completely original art deco. It's his favorite style by far. He had a conniption over the back-lit glass etching of a picture of the building:








And then they left. This is a picture of Jarrett in the revolving doors, with my lobby reflecting in them, as he was on the outside and I was on the inside:



Leaving me and Richard, the Concierge now on duty, all alone in the world. Or... the lobby. Well... us and the dogs. ...and their owners. And I went to my room, evening activity over. Worst part of the day. Still.