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I wanted to post a cyber-welcome back to MeganMonkey. MeganMonkey was offline for a couple days while she attended the Manhattan war protest. I wanted to post a welcome back thread for her and a short summary of my time with her in the big apple.
MeganMonkey informed me that she was heading to NYC, and we were able to make partial plans to meet sometime before the Saturday protest. We exchanged emails and mobile phone numbers.
On Wednesday, I called MeganMonkey and offered to pick her up at the airport the next day. She telephoned me and informed me that she was coming in on Friday. I agreed to pick her up at the airport.
On Friday, I drove down to pick up MeganMonkey. I passed three airports (Stewart, Newark, and J.F.K.) before making it to LaGuardia Airport.
Although I had never met or even seen MeganMonkey, we were able to locate each other with almost no problem at all. We were quickly on our way off of Long Island and into the Big Apple.
I am not a city slicker. The city is a huge mystery to me, and I am often overwhelmed by it. I almost always go to the city with some urbanite that knows their way around. Today I was that urbanite.
While I tried to navigate the streets of Gotham, Meganmonkey and I talked politics, music, and life. I was glad that we were able to communicate so easily, because it helped hide the awful driving job I was doing getting us around Manhattan. Luckily, all the other drivers were so bat-shit insane, that my hesitation and lack of familiarity with our surroundings was pretty much a non issue.
Eventually, the roads started “to make sense”. There was 57th Street; the next road was 56th Street, and so on. We found Meganmokey’s hotel without too much trouble.
I dropped Meganmonkey off and went to park my car. I found a local garage, parked, and returned to the hotel. Meganmonkey met me in the lobby and we went out to explore midtown.
We walked towards Central Park, and checked out Park Ave and 5th Ave. When we found Central Park, we decided to walk around explore for a while. We stopped at the pond and grabbed a couple of beers. We drank our beer and looked out across the pond as the sun set over the west side. Central Park always reminds me of the movies.
After a while we decided to go get something to eat. We walked back towards the east side, and stopped at a pub for another drink. While at the pub, there were two other couples, two sets of guys, sitting on either side of us. The guys had been drinking for a while, and were loudly talking about politics. The guys to the left of us were discussing Valerie Plame. The guys to the right of us were discussing the illegal wire tap program. Both Meganmonkey and I attend events / protests to “charge our batteries”, and the patrons of this pub helped to psyche us up. We decided to eat at the pub, and went into their back room to dine.
After dinner, we returned to the hotel. We smoked and talked for a long time before I left to return to the Hudson Valley. I planned to take the “peace train” from Poughkeepsie down to Grand Central Station for the protest. There was no way that I was going to drive down to the city during a war protest. That would be insanity!
I got home around 1:00 AM. I needed to be at the train station at 8:55 AM the next morning.
I ended up missing the train. Meganmonkey telephoned me, and I informed her that I had missed the train, and that I was going to try to drive down to the protest.
I was on the thruway (I-87) when I realized that I didn’t have the location of the protest march. No biggie, I thought. I knew that it was on Broadway, and that the protest started in the north, and proceeded south. I could find it.
I decided to call Meganmonkey when I got on to the Palisade Parkway, the last road that I would take before reaching Manhattan. I didn’t have my phone! I stopped at the first service station and checked my car. My phone wasn’t with me.
I now had a choice. I could head down to the city, find the protest, and then find Meganmonkey at the protest. I actually thought that karma would ensure that I found her. I was pretty certain that we would run into each other.
Better safe then sorry, I thought. I decided to return home and pick up my phone. It would be a 65 mile round trip from where I was. It had to be done.
When I got back to Newburgh (that is where I live), I found my phone and called Meganmonkey. I told her that I had got tied up, and that I was running late. Meganmonkey was still marching in the parade at this time. I told her I was on my way back down.
While I was at home, my roommate / landlord came home. He has a 3000.00 dollar electricity bill that has resulted in our house being without electricity for over ten days now. He told me that his girlfriend was loaning him the money to pay the bill, and that our power would be on some time next week. This was good news.
I called Meganmonkey from the Palisades Parkway, the George Washington Bridge, and from Midtown. She informed me that she was hangin at the after party that was way downtown in the village, and I started making my way south.
I met back up with Meganmonkey as she was walking north with some of the protest foot traffic. We went back to the hotel and hung out for a little while. We had a drink in the top floor bar at the hotel and watched the sun set over the west side. After our drink, we decided to go out and get something to eat and to take in the city.
We went to eat at a diner, and then walked around the city. We got to see many cool shops (Tiffany’s, Prada, Channel, Armani, and Ghurka) and interesting sites. We heard many different languages (Dutch, French, Spanish, Yiddish, Russian (?), Chinese, and Japanese). We went to Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and up and down 52nd Street. We saw the MTV and NBC studios. We walked the theatre district. We got to look in to the Hershey store (as a chocolate addict, this is my Mecca) and see many more interesting people, including Spiderman. We also stopped and got ice cream.
We returned to the hotel and smoked a little more while watching the late night news. As I left to return to the Hudson Valley, we promised that we would try to hang out again in the future. “There will be other war protests,” I said, “Perhaps other wars.” I am sure that we will meet again.
I hope that I do get to hang out with Meganmonkey again. Next time, perhaps, it will be in Washington DC, perhaps to celebrate the Dems taking the Senate and the House. Perhaps we will get to meet during an impeachment celebration. Perhaps it will be in 2009 when a new leader will be elected to represent us.
I hope that the next time that we meet it is not in protest, but in celebration. I know however, that if there is a need to peacefully assemble to address grievances with our leadership in the future, that there will be plenty of people like meganmonkey out in the streets, and that they are real cool people to spend time with. My batteries are charged, and I feel great! Welcome back, MEGANMONKEY!
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