I returned with the cats to Manhattan last Friday morning, and found a Tuesday-Friday 9:30-11 spot outside the good independent coffee shop, which is now closed, gone, defunct, kaput. Then I rushed home (via the bank) to await the bathtub reglazers. The apartment was an unholy mess, having been uninhabited most of the summer: dusty, sticky, stale. I needed a cleaning lady.
I’d been hoping for a Portuguese cleaning lady, because I noticed how clean the Portuguese island of Flores, in the Azores, was (except for the beach: I guess Azorean women don’t swim). My last cleaning lady was Polish, and she was a pro, but somehow, perhaps deliberately, I lost her number. I may be destined never to employ the same cleaning lady twice: they clean once and they know too much.
I asked a neighbor whom I ran into last week on the elevator if she knew the name of the blond girl on my floor who had given me the Polish cleaning lady’s number, thinking I must face down this peculiarity. She didn’t know the girl’s name, but her own cleaning lady happened to be in her apartment just at that moment. “Do you want to meet her?” she asked. Her cleaning lady is Peruvian, the sister of a porter in our building, who died suddenly a few years back. I can still picture him in the basement, energetically breaking down cardboard boxes and bundling them for recycling. Maybe she had his clean gene.
She arrived on Saturday morning, late, with a sore big toe. I ran to the store for proper equipment: rubber gloves (size medium), Clorox cleaner in a spray bottle, scratchy sponges, paper towels. She started in the kitchen, while I sorted my clothes in the bedroom and did the laundry. More than an hour later, she was still in the kitchen. I began to feel anxious. The laundry was in the dryer, and I was running out of things to do. I had already removed the brown paper and masking tape from around the blindingly white, freshly reglazed bathtub, and told her not to touch it (I had to wait twenty-four hours before using it: plenty of time for the reglazers to disappear into Queens with my $335 before I noticed the little nubs on the surface). She knew my vacuum cleaner better than I did, which was heartening. But it looked as if she was never going to get to the part where she mopped. I began to think there might be a reason that I had never heard of a Peruvian cleaning lady.
Finally, after vacuuming the bedroom, she requested the mop, and then she was done. “So,” I said, broaching the mercenary topic, “you’ve been here about four hours—”
“I no work by hour,” she said. Ah! That would forgive a lot of moving at one’s own pace. She considered briefly, and then said, “Eighty, for you.” She had not bustled around, but somehow everything was clean. She had handled all my little treasures—the tile from the Alhambra, the chicken Christmas ornament, the two mosaic-glass candleholders—and arranged them prettily, as my mother would have done. It took me a while to realize that I no longer had to move around my apartment in a spirit of recoil.
On her way out, lying in the hall between her and the door was Norbert, sprawled on his back with his hind legs splayed, airing his prosperous white belly. She got out her cell phone and took his picture.
I think I have a cleaning lady.
***
Too much excitement attended my return to the alternate-side-parking circuit. This morning I put on a new dress that I bought yesterday, the pink of certain French geraniums. I was parked in an ordinary 8:30-10 Monday-Thursday spot. I drove home first, to unload the trunk, which was full of things I had brought back from the beach. In my absence this summer, the Muni Meters went up. I attempted to feed two quarters into one, realizing that I wouldn’t be able to leave the windows rolled down because someone might steal the little piece of paper off my dashboard. The Muni Meter refused to admit my coins. A doorman told me it wasn’t working and pointed me to one up the street. I started out for it, clutching my quarters, and then decided that I might as well take my bags out of the trunk and ride up the elevator and drop them off in my apartment, which, after all, was on the way to the Muni Meter. Then, of course, as I had not yet gotten a ticket when I came out, I couldn’t resist pushing it by going across the street for a cup of coffee from the guy with the cart, and by the time I got to my car, two—not one but two—cops were giving a ticket to the truck that had pulled in behind me.
Back on Penny Lane (Italian barber, Chinese laundry, Greek coffee shop), the Broom had just passed, and I pulled in behind an S.U.V. with vanity plates, which had not moved. (Later I saw that it had a permit on its dashboard from the D.O.T. The agencies that make the rules are always the first to flout them.) It was hot, sitting out there facing east, once the sun rose over the high-rises. I had with me the ticket for my winter coat, which I left at the Chinese laundry last June. Occasionally in the summer I thought about my winter coat, but not with longing. I never had the ticket with me when I was near the Chinese laundry, and I wasn’t about to make a special trip. Belatedly I noticed the warning on the ticket: “Not responsible for items left over 30 days.” I was almost in front of the Chinese laundry, so I went in to see if they still had my winter coat. Eureka! The cost was $14. I gave the man a twenty and said he should keep the change, to cover the cost of storage. “Thank you,” he said, accepting graciously.
Showing posts with label clothes shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clothes shopping. Show all posts
Monday, September 15, 2008
Thursday, January 25, 2007
My Huckleberry Friend
A sign of spring: pussy willows in the hotel garbage. I may need to scavenge those.
Yesterday I passed my car on the way to work (not that I’m obsessed with this parking spot or anything) and saw a man trying to fit in behind me, not quite clearing the hydrant. “Would you like me to move up a little?” I asked. He certainly would. So I jumped in the car and humped it over the passenger seat and the gear shift, and pulled up for him. He signalled for me to give him another inch, and I obliged. But overnight it occurred to me that I had lost my advantage at the fire hydrant, and it would be harder now to keep my space. This morning, that car is gone, thank God.
7:36 A.M. A pale-blue-green car is lurking when I arrive, and moves up the line of cars, looking for someone who might be pulling out. The driver is a black guy, and he is out of luck. He leaves the block.
The street sweeper comes: 7:41 and all is well.
“Think I can get in?” A new guy on the block has pulled in back of me, near the hydrant, and left the motor running while he goes forward on foot along the line of cars, looking for gaps and asking everyone to pull up. “You’ve gotta get out anyway,” he says, pointing to the bars protecting the street tree, which have prevented me from using the driver’s side door for a week.
“I come in the other way,” I say, but I don’t mind pulling up a little.
“Thanks very much, I appreciate it.”
At the construction site, a man is unloading long sheets of copper from an enclosed pickup truck. One of them is labelled “Rib #2.” Yesterday, when I was approaching this building from a distance, I could see the finished work way up on the roof: dazzling strips of copper fitted over the ridges of gables.
Washington D.C. has her lights on, and probably her heat. A little girl comes out of a building behind her mother, pulling on her gloves as she skips along. Hers is a whimsical wardrobe: she’s wearing a flowered puffy jacket, sneakers, and a pink knitted hat with a built-in Mohawk.
Is this the time to describe my coat? I bought it with the counsel of my friend G., who agreed to act as my personal shopper. Left to myself, I buy only things that look like I already own them. G. is flamboyant, with wavy red hair, a big nose, and leopard-print eyeglasses—very retro. We were at the Burlington Coat Factory. It was our third stop, after Filene’s and TJ Maxx, where I hadn’t seen a single thing I liked even remotely. This coat attracted me on the rack because I thought it was green. (I wear a lot of green.) Then it seemed more purple than green. The tag said it was “Huckleberry.” (I have a weakness for the names manufacturers concoct for things: shoes, bedspreads, shades of paint. I once bought a raincoat called Poetry, and absolutely refused to paint some chairs Nacho Cheese, though it was the closest I could find to Roman yellow.) I don’t think I’ve ever seen a huckleberry, but the coat is a rich gray, with undertones of grape and olive.
When I tried on the huckleberry coat, I laughed at myself in the mirror. It is ankle length, with a piece of hardware at the neck—a chunky clasp that you have to fit through a slot and twist—and a hood lined in fake fur and big turned-back fake-fur cuffs. You know that scene in “The Wizard of Oz” when Dorothy knocks on the door to the Emerald City, and a slot opens, revealing a little man in a Beefeater’s hat and a coat with huge, absurd, over-the-top Persian-lamb cuffs? Those kind of cuffs.
“That’s not bad,” G. said. “It moves well.” I had to admit, it was roomy. But I’d have to have the sleeves shortened. “I don’t think so,” G. said. “They’ll be warm.” I retracted my arms into the sleeves. It was hot in the store, and G., for all her virtues, was annoying me. She reeked of booze and kept emitting little involuntary grunts. Loehmann’s was next on our list, and I didn’t think I could stand it. So I bought the coat, for $108. I had to stand in a long, long line to pay for it (G. went outside to smoke), and I was a little disappointed that instead of packing it in a lovely box with tissue paper, the way they did in department stores in days of yore (and may still, for all I know), the cashier stuffed it unceremoniously into a big plastic bag. “For a hundred and eight dollars, what did you expect?” G. said.
Now the copper-sheeting guy is stacking up what look like decks of copper cards. He tosses one to a guy on a platform a few stories up. The first toss goes slightly astray, and the catcher fumbles, but they quickly perfect their act. Then they start on the copper sheets. No pulley today, just ropes. There are three guys on the platform, and one on the street. The guy on the street clips each copper sheet horizontally into two sets of pincers tied to the ropes. Two guys haul them up, hand over hand, while one in the middle talks a lot and helps bring the sheet over the balcony railing. I could watch this all day. Maybe next time I should bring binoculars.
I turn the radio on for the climax of whatever is on WQXR before the 8 o’clock news, to hear Jeff Spurgeon announce the time. It’s a pretty bombastic piece of music. Before landing this gig as the morning announcer at QXR, Jeff Spurgeon used to sing with an a-cappella group I belong to, so his voice is very familiar to me. It pops up in the oddest places. Once, I called the gynecologist and was put on musical hold, and there was Jeff Spurgeon on the line. “That was the Introduction and Entrée joyeuse des vendangeurs, from ‘Giselle,’” he says. Thank you so much, Jeff, I think. I have no idea what that means. (I look it up later: “The Joyous Entrance of the Grape-Pickers.”) The news is brought to us by Lexus IS 250, which I’m not driving any day soon.
How luxurious to get out of the car on the driver’s side, like a normal person in her new winter coat. I am glad I cleared that street tree. I go back along the line of cars to see if I should pluck the pussy willows from the garbage outside the hotel. One car has had a ticket on it for a week now. A red Dodge Neon has a fissure in its front bumper and an amateur repair job that looks like gauze on its rear fender. Stay away from that guy. I give a little tug to the pussy willows poking up out of the garbage, but they are as if rooted, like a stand of trees, seven feet tall. I guess I’ll pass on the pussy willows.
MJN/NYC
Yesterday I passed my car on the way to work (not that I’m obsessed with this parking spot or anything) and saw a man trying to fit in behind me, not quite clearing the hydrant. “Would you like me to move up a little?” I asked. He certainly would. So I jumped in the car and humped it over the passenger seat and the gear shift, and pulled up for him. He signalled for me to give him another inch, and I obliged. But overnight it occurred to me that I had lost my advantage at the fire hydrant, and it would be harder now to keep my space. This morning, that car is gone, thank God.
7:36 A.M. A pale-blue-green car is lurking when I arrive, and moves up the line of cars, looking for someone who might be pulling out. The driver is a black guy, and he is out of luck. He leaves the block.
The street sweeper comes: 7:41 and all is well.
“Think I can get in?” A new guy on the block has pulled in back of me, near the hydrant, and left the motor running while he goes forward on foot along the line of cars, looking for gaps and asking everyone to pull up. “You’ve gotta get out anyway,” he says, pointing to the bars protecting the street tree, which have prevented me from using the driver’s side door for a week.
“I come in the other way,” I say, but I don’t mind pulling up a little.
“Thanks very much, I appreciate it.”
At the construction site, a man is unloading long sheets of copper from an enclosed pickup truck. One of them is labelled “Rib #2.” Yesterday, when I was approaching this building from a distance, I could see the finished work way up on the roof: dazzling strips of copper fitted over the ridges of gables.
Washington D.C. has her lights on, and probably her heat. A little girl comes out of a building behind her mother, pulling on her gloves as she skips along. Hers is a whimsical wardrobe: she’s wearing a flowered puffy jacket, sneakers, and a pink knitted hat with a built-in Mohawk.
Is this the time to describe my coat? I bought it with the counsel of my friend G., who agreed to act as my personal shopper. Left to myself, I buy only things that look like I already own them. G. is flamboyant, with wavy red hair, a big nose, and leopard-print eyeglasses—very retro. We were at the Burlington Coat Factory. It was our third stop, after Filene’s and TJ Maxx, where I hadn’t seen a single thing I liked even remotely. This coat attracted me on the rack because I thought it was green. (I wear a lot of green.) Then it seemed more purple than green. The tag said it was “Huckleberry.” (I have a weakness for the names manufacturers concoct for things: shoes, bedspreads, shades of paint. I once bought a raincoat called Poetry, and absolutely refused to paint some chairs Nacho Cheese, though it was the closest I could find to Roman yellow.) I don’t think I’ve ever seen a huckleberry, but the coat is a rich gray, with undertones of grape and olive.
When I tried on the huckleberry coat, I laughed at myself in the mirror. It is ankle length, with a piece of hardware at the neck—a chunky clasp that you have to fit through a slot and twist—and a hood lined in fake fur and big turned-back fake-fur cuffs. You know that scene in “The Wizard of Oz” when Dorothy knocks on the door to the Emerald City, and a slot opens, revealing a little man in a Beefeater’s hat and a coat with huge, absurd, over-the-top Persian-lamb cuffs? Those kind of cuffs.
“That’s not bad,” G. said. “It moves well.” I had to admit, it was roomy. But I’d have to have the sleeves shortened. “I don’t think so,” G. said. “They’ll be warm.” I retracted my arms into the sleeves. It was hot in the store, and G., for all her virtues, was annoying me. She reeked of booze and kept emitting little involuntary grunts. Loehmann’s was next on our list, and I didn’t think I could stand it. So I bought the coat, for $108. I had to stand in a long, long line to pay for it (G. went outside to smoke), and I was a little disappointed that instead of packing it in a lovely box with tissue paper, the way they did in department stores in days of yore (and may still, for all I know), the cashier stuffed it unceremoniously into a big plastic bag. “For a hundred and eight dollars, what did you expect?” G. said.
Now the copper-sheeting guy is stacking up what look like decks of copper cards. He tosses one to a guy on a platform a few stories up. The first toss goes slightly astray, and the catcher fumbles, but they quickly perfect their act. Then they start on the copper sheets. No pulley today, just ropes. There are three guys on the platform, and one on the street. The guy on the street clips each copper sheet horizontally into two sets of pincers tied to the ropes. Two guys haul them up, hand over hand, while one in the middle talks a lot and helps bring the sheet over the balcony railing. I could watch this all day. Maybe next time I should bring binoculars.
I turn the radio on for the climax of whatever is on WQXR before the 8 o’clock news, to hear Jeff Spurgeon announce the time. It’s a pretty bombastic piece of music. Before landing this gig as the morning announcer at QXR, Jeff Spurgeon used to sing with an a-cappella group I belong to, so his voice is very familiar to me. It pops up in the oddest places. Once, I called the gynecologist and was put on musical hold, and there was Jeff Spurgeon on the line. “That was the Introduction and Entrée joyeuse des vendangeurs, from ‘Giselle,’” he says. Thank you so much, Jeff, I think. I have no idea what that means. (I look it up later: “The Joyous Entrance of the Grape-Pickers.”) The news is brought to us by Lexus IS 250, which I’m not driving any day soon.
How luxurious to get out of the car on the driver’s side, like a normal person in her new winter coat. I am glad I cleared that street tree. I go back along the line of cars to see if I should pluck the pussy willows from the garbage outside the hotel. One car has had a ticket on it for a week now. A red Dodge Neon has a fissure in its front bumper and an amateur repair job that looks like gauze on its rear fender. Stay away from that guy. I give a little tug to the pussy willows poking up out of the garbage, but they are as if rooted, like a stand of trees, seven feet tall. I guess I’ll pass on the pussy willows.
MJN/NYC
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