Fathers take pictures of the mothers

[austin_dern]

bunny_hugger came out east to visit last weekend, in part to celebrate her birthday, in part to attend the A Big Yes And A Small No concert. I didn't have anything to do with the concert, but she did, and by reports had a great time. But travel and that made up her Friday. Mine was spent in grading, including the first exam I've given in years.

Our time together began Saturday, where we figured to meet at the Port Authority about noon. We were doing well on the noon part: I got in almost on the dot, and despite her getting off to a late start was in the bus station just after noon. Where we had a mishap was that we didn't arrange a place to meet. However, we both came up with the same answer to the question, ``where would the other expect to meet?'', which was, of course, the gate for the bus we take. So that reasoning was great.

Where it went wrong was that bunny_hugger had got off to a late start, and called my cell phone to say so. I had my phone on and with me, but somehow didn't get any ringing. I checked as we pulled into the station, and had the message that she was running late, but I trusted she'd call when she got in. So I went downstairs to get a soda, and wait. After about ten minutes, I checked my phone again just as it was announcing the arrival of a new voice mail message. Although I had my phone on and with me somehow it didn't ring for me. But that's how I learned where bunny_hugger was, and I hurried up to meet her.

After hugging, and kissing, for a good long while, which wasn't enough, we went out in search of something to eat. Back in August, when we went to The Daily Show, we found someplace to eat by striking off in a random direction and found we picked the direction which lead to nowhere to eat. We did ... not actually much better this time. We set out east from the Port Authority, which took us to about Grand Central before we gave up and went to the first place we found. bunny_hugger's brother would later compare ``eating the first place you find near Grand Central'' to walking into a car dealership and saying, ``I don't care what car I buy, but I have to buy something this minute''.

However. While it was an expensive place to eat, they had a great salad and even better sweet pastries. We were feeling giddily satisfied as we got the afternoon started.

We've tried multiple times to get to the Central Park Carousel, each time managing to get lost in Central Park while trying to locate it --- they put up a fair but clearly inadequate number of signs and I don't think any of them mention the carousel in any actually useful terms, by the way --- only to come out the other end and find the building closed and the carousel shut down for the night. What's one more time trying to find it?

We walked up fifth avenue and overshot the start of the park looking for it; by the time we walked west we were around the Central Park Zoo's range and while that's a fine enough attraction, we were looking for the carousel. So we got a little bit lost, located the Wollman ice-skating rink, and knew we were near the carousel. We just had to ... find ... some familiar landmark, somewhere, which surely must be there. Ah, the Dairy! We pass that all the time and the carousel is just past that. It must be ... right ... over ... uh ...

On one of those nice and strikingly near-rural trails we saw over to the left a building that looked like it might just house the carousel. We looked a little closer, and bunny_hugger saw something definitely moving inside, and took a photograph of the carousel in motion from this strange angle. The only problem: there was a road, one of those carrying real traffic, between us and it. We did the necessary backtracking and got to the carousel and for a change it was open and present and ready to accept us. Good.

Trivia: As the demolition of the original Penn Station began, the station clock was set to the symbolic time of 10:53, denoting the year the station opened (1910) and how long it operated (53 years). Source: Conquering Gotham: Building Penn Station And Its Tunnels, Jill Jonnes.

Currently Reading: From Sails To Satellites: The Origin And Development Of Navigational Science, J E D Williams.

PS: A Quick Impersonation Of Base Nine. Which finally answers one of those questions bunny_hugger had hoped I'd answer, and marks my little math blog's first successful completion of a point.

PPS: Thank you, bunny_hugger!

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Bunny's brother's description is amusingly apt. My general goal when I am hungry in New York is to start walking in the direction of least excitement, and I'll find it. Still, glad you had a good meal. :)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

We could have done better, yes, if we had started in a different direction or if we had gone just a little farther. We are in many ways still learning.