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2006-09-23 - 2:26 p.m. Monica Te Amo Sonia 7-3-05 The German Shepherd Dog and I just returned from a long walk by the East River. The words above were carved jaggedly with a knife into the bark of an American Plane tree, a common NYC tree whose bark is mottled like the birch. I thought, how cool is that to see a carved message from one Latino female to another, proudly, on a city pedestrian path, not away on some lonely tree in the woods somewhere. I have stories to tell, to catch up on the times I've been off D-land. They are written on pieces of paper ripped out of whatever notebook I was carrying at the time. I need to get this stuff written out and toss the crinkled papers, so, I will start. Aug. 29, 2006 - Rainy NYC day Took off a couple of days due me, to get things done in my life apart from work - except to be sure I didn't hold up anything during my time off, I worked an extra two hours that Monday night, transferring four ten-ton lots of Vietnamese Pepper from a warehouse here to a company in Florida, invoiced thousands of dollars of vanilla beans, then it took forever to drive home since there was a 60-90 minute delay on the bridge from Jersey to NYC. When I got home I fed the Creatures, poured myself some vodka - the giant German Shepherd Dog pawed at me as I was watching Weeds on Showtime, and the vodka shorted out my remote. So next day I took a cab to 23rd Street to get a replacement remote, and ohmigod I had the most annoying driver - there's this Passenger Rights thing facing you when you climb into a cab; two of them are 1) You can request the route, and 2) No cellphone use either handheld or hands-free is allowed by your driver. Meant not a thing. "What route?" he asked. "Straight down Second, where we are." He began a diatribe about how the FDR 'would be smarter choice'. I said, "I drive a car. Just not today - I decided to take your cab instead. If I were driving, straight down Second is how I'd go." Well, he turned at 79th Street and then went up to Park and then began to complain for the next 20 minutes about 'traffic.' "All traffic! Miss, you should have listened to me! Every light you pay another 10, 20 cents! You get to destination ten minutes later, not good! Some people go to doctor's appointment or important business luncheons and do not listen to me, and arrive late! You have time to spare? Aaugh, this traffic". I said, "Look. It's my day off work, I'm just casually going downtown to exchange my cable tv remote, no doctor's appointment, no business lunch, and I said I wanted to take 2nd Avenue - you took Park, so there's traffic. Traffic doesn't worry me. I don't want to argue with you." "Not arguing, Lady! Just saying I know best way! You waste 10 minutes of your time! Ridiculous!" I like driving up Park Avenue anyway. I like going through the old Pan Am building at 34th Street, on this ancient roadway that winds around the columns and statues, and under massive stone archways. "You listen to me nexttime!" he said. Meanwhile he was talking on his cell continuously in Arabic, frantically arguing with someone, then, in English, about not mailing him some receipt, all the while swerving and honking his horn. Exchanging my remote at the cable headquarters took maybe 2 minutes. I stopped in at a thrift shop when I got out, to escape some heavy rain, and picked up two books - one, I'm partly sure I have already, called "A Kiss is Just a Kiss", a compilation of famous and obscure kissing photos that makes me smile, and another, "Exhibitionism For the Shy", which, because my glasses were sprinkled with raindrops, I thought read, "Exhibitionism From the Sky", and thought it was such an etherial title I had to purchase it. The subtitle however was "Show off, dress up and talk hot". Huh. I've had no complaints and only kudos through the years on that subject, but you can always use new pointers, whatever. Still raining. I've been sorting vintage photos all day, to put some up on eBay, or to save for myself. Also I paid all my bills, took the German Shepherd Dog for a long walk and some training excercises when the rain slowed, then shut off my phone to be in complete silence for one day. I give myself that sweet present whenever I feel the need, and feel no guilt whatsoever. I've looked over all the other loose notebook pages with accounts of the week gone by, and decided to leave it at this one for now. Must do other things.