Signage for the Major Deegan Expressway (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Just a couple of days in Connecticut, sounded simple enough. Hey we’ve traveled to South Africa so this should be a piece of cake.
My husband and I were invited to a post-wedding celebration out-of-state and so we planned to get away for a couple of days and we were fortunate that my dear friend, Susan, offered us the use of her house. She wasn’t going to be there but was happy for us to stay.
Screw Up #1. Too Much Luggage Going away for a weekend that involves 2 or 3 completely different events, involves packing a million different items; you’ve been there, you know what I mean. BUT, I’m not used to packing for a trip away from home mainly because we go away to our cottage and everything I need is there; whether it be jewelry, shoes, make-up or clothes for various occasions! So was obvious when we started to leave the apartment and realized I had 3 bags (instead of one large one) and Peter had 2 bags and a bottle of water and I was carrying a handbag and actually had 2 others in the luggage (one for casual Friday night and one for the party). Well you can see where this went; multiple shoes, multiple outfits = too many pieces of luggage. He put the bottle of water on the roof while he loaded up the car.
Screw Up #2. Rush Hour We left the City at 3:00 pm on Friday afternoon. WHAT WERE WE THINKING??? And we consider ourselves savvy New Yorkers, yet somehow without much aforethought we headed out at 3pm – Could we have picked a worse time to escape Manhattan? NOT only is 3:00 the beginning of New York’s rush hour, it was a Friday in June! Geez, half the City was on the run out-of-town.
Screw Up #3. Wife vs Husband As we drove away from the building, I looked up First Avenue and said, “wow, First Avenue looks pretty busy up ahead, maybe we should take the Drive”. So of course husband sees all of 6 cars in line to access the FDR so he opts for the Avenue. Uh huh, it took us 38 minutes to go 40 blocks! Once we crossed the Willys Avenue Bridge and were on the Major Deegan (I 87) the traffic was actually worse because now instead a couple of lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic, we were now in 5 lanes of inching-forward cars.
Screw Up #4. Subway Series Taking the Major Deegan Expressway is not unusual for us, however, there were other options. I mention this BECAUSE it took us 1 hour to reach Yankee Stadium in the Bronx AND on Friday, there was a Subway Series game scheduled!!! For those who don’t know about the Subway Series; it’s the baseball games between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets. Duh!!!! Thousands of people on their way to the game.
Screw Up #5. Bumper Bully This fiasco was actually our Screw Up #2 but we didn’t realize it until after we were on our way and past Yankee Stadium. So to backtrack… when we finally got all of the bags in the car, Peter realized he didn’t have his cell phone so he went back upstairs to retrieve it and I sat in the car while a large SUV idled right next to our car BECAUSE they wanted our parking space. Peter came back to the car, hopped in and we pulled away from the curb. AND here’s where we screwed up; As we picked up some speed on the Deegan heading into Westchester, I kept hearing metallic noises banging around in the car. I looked in the back, saw nothing and asked Peter what did he have under the trunk cover. The noise was intensifying and he remarked that it sounded like something was under the car. OH BOY – almost simultaneously we realized that the bumper guard had NOT been put into the car before we left. You are NOT supposed to drive with the bumper guard down as it could fly off the car and hit another car. OMG, we were in Mamaroneck with almost no shoulder to pull over. A man in a red car passed us and pointed at our car, we nodded to say we know!. We pulled over and both jumped out of the car to quickly put the guard into the car – me primarily to see if the flapping had caused any damage and yes it did nick the NEW BUMPER.
Screw Up #6. Message in a Bottle We were on the Hutchinson River Parkway cruising along and still terrible sounds were emanating from our car. What the heck? I listened carefully and realized the sound was coming from above and at that moment I burst out laughing. Not just a ha ha ha, or a giggle…no this was a hysterical laugh with tears running down my face. We had now been in the car almost 1 1/2 hours, stressed out and I just realized the bottle of water was rolling back and forth across the roof of the car! So we pulled over again and I removed the errant bottle.
Screw Up #7. A Colgate Smile We arrived so late to CT that I said to Peter that I would just have time to change my clothes and brush my teeth so we could get to Sully’s Pub in Hartford where we planned to surprise my dear friend, Mary Lou. It was then that Peter announced he had forgotten to pack a toothbrush!
Screw Up #8. Who Moved the Bridge? Because my eye was bothering me and I removed my lens 10 minutes after we left the apartment, I wasn’t able to look at the map so I could figure out the quickest way to get from Berlin to Hartford, once we arrived in CT. OK so I thought I would wing it and sure enough I had us lost in less than 10 minutes. Well actually I don’t think my lack of remembering the roads around there was the problem as much as the fact that many of the roads and underpasses have been altered and expanded. That is the truth, really!
Screw Up #9. Nail It My husband wasn’t the only one who forgot to pack some important items; Saturday morning I drove to the nearby CVS store to Q-tips, stockings and nail polish!!
Screw Up #10. Belated Belated Greetings More forgetfulness – I brought my friend Susan’s birthday gift to her house and apparently left the birthday card home.
Well now we are back in New York where I am able to recount the crazy trip we took. Of course I might have been able to start this post while in CT because I brought my iPad BUT forgot to ask Susan for the Wi-Fi password!!!!!!
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Bill Ding and his band of clowns are the security patrol for this blog site. He is a favorite toy from the 50*s. By the way sometimes a blog is just an ego-maniacal stream of conscience.
Pbenjay's Blog 
UNA NOCHE – It’s Only 90 Miles
Posted in From My Point of View - Personal commentary on Movies and Books, New York Speaks, Only in New York, Smooth or Crunchy, tagged Cuba, Elio, Film festival, Miami, New York, Raul, Tribeca Film Festival, United States on April 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »
FREEDOM!!!
That’s what they say…. it’s only 90 miles away! FREEDOM seems so close yet it is another world and century away. I had the great joy of viewing UNA NOCHE at the Tribeca Film Festival last week.
UNA NOCHE takes us to Havana Cuba where we get an intimate glimpse into the lives of three young adults. They are poor, discouraged, desperate and oppressed. Their lives are minimal, sometimes miserable and they reveal life in Castro’s Communist Cuba, sometimes not so bad and sometimes very.
It’s the story of three teenagers who try to escape their island home and life of poverty. Actually, only one of the three yearns for freedom from oppression and he longs to reunite with his father, who left years ago and has never been heard from again. It’s Raul’s fantasy that’s the impetus of the expedition. He can’t do this on his own, so he entices Elio, his friend and obsessed admirer to take on the task of building the raft. And then there’s the very pretty Lila; She is deeply attached to her brother Elio, her own savior in a chaotic household. Her teenage angst is fueled by the scorn some cliquey classmates and the knowledge that her father is cheating on her mother.
Overall the snapshot of life in Cuba that we see, is quite dismal. The fact that it is a police state is quite evident and the dark side of Socialism, the black market flourishes. As one line in the movie states, “Nothing is for sale in Cuba and you can buy anything….”
The movie is a powerful 86 minute drama and I don’t want to be a spoiler. The film and its actors won awards at the Film Festival– well deserved!
However, it was the disappearance of the two twenty-year old actors, Javier Nunez Florian and Anailin de la Rua de la Torre, a real life couple who portray the brother and sister in the movie, that has gotten more press than the film itself. The three actors were invited to attend the Tribeca Film Festival. When their plane landed in Miami for a layover before flying to New York, the two disappeared. When the plane landed at JFK airport, it was discovered that their luggage was empty, implying this was a pre-meditated plan. Indeed it was, as now 10 days later, the two have surfaced in Miami and announced their intention to defect and have hired a lawyer to assist in their claim for asylum.
I wish them the best and hope they are successful in their desire to remain in America. I’ve been to Cuba and although life as depicted in the film is somewhat exaggerated for effect, and I understand that although things are loosening up since Fidel stepped down, it’s still basically a repressed society.
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