I just happened to have this picture, taken last June in Amsterdam, of a car fitted with a boot. Looks like vehicular torture.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Car with Boot
I just happened to have this picture, taken last June in Amsterdam, of a car fitted with a boot. Looks like vehicular torture.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Cops and Parkers
If I am wakeful on Tuesday nights at ten o’clock, I will watch “Parking Wars” (on A&E), but if I’m already sleepy, it is not designed to keep me up. Last night, I fell asleep waiting for the premiere to start (the cats have been getting me up at five in the morning), and also dozed during the show itself. It was a relief to finally go to bed when it was over.
These parking wars, set in Philadelphia, are between the parkers and the enforcers; I was hoping for civil wars among the parkers themselves. There was a segment in the auto pound, with deranged people trying to get their cars back. It features a frustration meter, which is good, and another graphic shows how long the person spends trying to get her car out of the pound. None of the victims come off very well, and the bureaucrats seem cool and rational in comparison. Mostly what this did was bring back unpleasant memories of the Thanksgiving weekend when I was in graduate school, in Vermont, and visited my brother (at the time), who had a loft next to the Hotel Chelsea, from in front of which my 1965 Plymouth Fury II got towed. In those days, it was no mean feat to scare up a hundred dollars, and to complicate matters my wallet had just been stolen, so I don’t know what I was using for I.D. A classic catch 22: the registration was in the car, and I couldn’t have the car until I produced the registration. I did what any girl would do under the circumstances: I cried. A certain Sergeant McEvilly scolded me, shaking his finger in my face and saying, “You can’t get through life by crying.” But he did give me my car back. And Hillary Clinton did win in New Hampshire.
There was also a segment where they followed the booters around. The boot is a medieval-looking contraption that clamps over a front wheel and disables your car. The booters drive around in teams, one of them tapping license-plate numbers into a computer to see who has unpaid parking tickets. If the scofflaw owes hundreds and hundreds of dollars, he gets booted and then towed. One of the booters always has to watch the other’s back, so she doesn’t get clubbed while attaching the boot. The drama lies in seeing the Philadelphians emerge from their houses and beg not to have their cars towed, or curse the booters. People scrawl obscenities on the boots, pee on them. (The booters wear gloves.) The best was when a little kid watching with her father as a shiny yellow boot was being applied (NOT to her father's car) asserted her desire to become a booter when she grew up.
Obviously, these parking wars are going to be weighted in favor of the law. The producers will be hanging around with the enforcers, developing relationships with them. The booters and meter maids and tow-truck drivers will be the steady cast, and the parkers will be at a disadvantage, like guests on "Candid Camera." Maybe in one episode the producers’ cars should get booted or ticketed or towed. Or the cops could lose their parking permits. That would shake things up. Otherwise, "Parking Wars" reminded me of why I don't watch reality shows: too much like real life.
These parking wars, set in Philadelphia, are between the parkers and the enforcers; I was hoping for civil wars among the parkers themselves. There was a segment in the auto pound, with deranged people trying to get their cars back. It features a frustration meter, which is good, and another graphic shows how long the person spends trying to get her car out of the pound. None of the victims come off very well, and the bureaucrats seem cool and rational in comparison. Mostly what this did was bring back unpleasant memories of the Thanksgiving weekend when I was in graduate school, in Vermont, and visited my brother (at the time), who had a loft next to the Hotel Chelsea, from in front of which my 1965 Plymouth Fury II got towed. In those days, it was no mean feat to scare up a hundred dollars, and to complicate matters my wallet had just been stolen, so I don’t know what I was using for I.D. A classic catch 22: the registration was in the car, and I couldn’t have the car until I produced the registration. I did what any girl would do under the circumstances: I cried. A certain Sergeant McEvilly scolded me, shaking his finger in my face and saying, “You can’t get through life by crying.” But he did give me my car back. And Hillary Clinton did win in New Hampshire.
There was also a segment where they followed the booters around. The boot is a medieval-looking contraption that clamps over a front wheel and disables your car. The booters drive around in teams, one of them tapping license-plate numbers into a computer to see who has unpaid parking tickets. If the scofflaw owes hundreds and hundreds of dollars, he gets booted and then towed. One of the booters always has to watch the other’s back, so she doesn’t get clubbed while attaching the boot. The drama lies in seeing the Philadelphians emerge from their houses and beg not to have their cars towed, or curse the booters. People scrawl obscenities on the boots, pee on them. (The booters wear gloves.) The best was when a little kid watching with her father as a shiny yellow boot was being applied (NOT to her father's car) asserted her desire to become a booter when she grew up.
Obviously, these parking wars are going to be weighted in favor of the law. The producers will be hanging around with the enforcers, developing relationships with them. The booters and meter maids and tow-truck drivers will be the steady cast, and the parkers will be at a disadvantage, like guests on "Candid Camera." Maybe in one episode the producers’ cars should get booted or ticketed or towed. Or the cops could lose their parking permits. That would shake things up. Otherwise, "Parking Wars" reminded me of why I don't watch reality shows: too much like real life.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Beemer
The great excitement on the parking block yesterday morning was not the balmy weather, or the premiere of the new reality series “Parking Wars” (tonight at 10 on A&E), or the news that GM is developing a car that drives itself (sounds like a disaster film to me), or that the Catholic Church is fixin’ to exhume Padre Pio (the better to venerate him, or something, the ghouls). No, at my end of the block everyone was gazing at the car in front of me: a razor-blade-blue 1996 BMW Z3 roadster, parked by a tall dark man in a mustard-color puffy jacket and corduroys, who sat with the door open and one leg stretched out, working on a laptop. What was James Bond doing, parking on the street? At one point, he got restless—alternate-side parking is an hour-and-a-half exercise on this block (Mon. & Thurs., 8:30-10)—and got out, lit a cigarette, crossed the street, and came back with a discarded gift box from the recyclables, which he collapsed, laid flat on the sidewalk, and used as a backdrop for digital photographs of novelty metal street signs with the names of car races on them.
Behind me was the Puerto Rican who had witnessed the violence that broke out on this block, back in November. He came to my car door and said hello. It turns out he’s a super for a few buildings down the street. The tenants expect him to do everything, he says—plumbing, electricity . . . “I tell them, You got the wrong person,” he said. His cell phone rang. “I have to go—is an emergency.” He looked up and down the street. "I don't want to go." He didn’t want to risk getting a ticket. Then, “Nothing I can do. I gonna hope they don’t show up.”
Mine was the last car before the driveway for the parking lot, and cars turning into the lot were coming awfully close to grazing my vulnerable right headlight, so after the super left, I backed up a little. When I wasn’t ogling the man in the blue BMW, I studied the parking lot. A person pulls in in an S.U.V. and leaves on foot; the parking-lot attendant backs the S.U.V. onto a corrugated steel slab; he gets out and pushes a button; and a pneumatic lift levitates the car to the second story. Somebody invented this system: bunk beds for cars.
Everybody heading up the block—men, women, dog walkers clutching their leashes and their bags of poop—stops and looks back at the zippy little sports car. Finally, at about ten minutes to ten, when our time is almost up, I cannot resist stretching my legs in its direction. “That’s a beautiful car,” I say. “But don’t you worry about parking it on the street?”
“It’s my wife’s,” the man says, less, I suppose, to explain why he doesn’t worry than to keep me from getting any ideas. (Have I said he's incredibly handsome?) “It’s a wreck.”
“It is?” It doesn't look like a wreck to me, although his front license plate is almost as mangled as mine, and his driver's-side rearview mirror is attached with duct tape. “Have you seen my car?” I look back at the Eclair: its right eye is held in the socket with transparent packing tape, and the passenger’s-side rearview mirror is down to just a plastic skeleton and some springs. When I was looking for a spot last Sunday night, I paused on my second-favorite block (Mon. & Thurs. 7:30-8), wondering if I could fit into a small space behind a van (it’s hard to parallel-park behind a van, probably because you can’t see), and a woman who was double-parked across the street honked, to tell me that there was a fire hydrant in that spot (which explained why she wasn’t parked in it herself). When I rolled down the passenger's-side window to talk to her—I have automatic windows, which I hate—the window would go down only about three inches. Luckily, it went up again. I guess when I got sideswiped that time and the door got dented, the slot the window goes up and down in got bent out of shape. Also, the keyhole on that door is gone.
James Bond pointed to the hood of his BMW and said, “They jumped on it.” It was true: there was a big dent in the middle of the hood. “It’s the only explanation,” he said. “The whole thing will have to be replaced. But as long as we are in the city . . .”
I understood. It would never occur to me to replace my passenger's-side door, and I have been thinking of not replacing the passenger's side rearview mirror again. The only time I miss it is when I'm watching for the street sweeper.
When we left, a woman cop was writing a ticket for a car at a meter across the street. The super's car did not get a ticket. At the corner, the man with the BMW stopped and turned back to his car. "I think I forgot to lock it," he said.
Behind me was the Puerto Rican who had witnessed the violence that broke out on this block, back in November. He came to my car door and said hello. It turns out he’s a super for a few buildings down the street. The tenants expect him to do everything, he says—plumbing, electricity . . . “I tell them, You got the wrong person,” he said. His cell phone rang. “I have to go—is an emergency.” He looked up and down the street. "I don't want to go." He didn’t want to risk getting a ticket. Then, “Nothing I can do. I gonna hope they don’t show up.”
Mine was the last car before the driveway for the parking lot, and cars turning into the lot were coming awfully close to grazing my vulnerable right headlight, so after the super left, I backed up a little. When I wasn’t ogling the man in the blue BMW, I studied the parking lot. A person pulls in in an S.U.V. and leaves on foot; the parking-lot attendant backs the S.U.V. onto a corrugated steel slab; he gets out and pushes a button; and a pneumatic lift levitates the car to the second story. Somebody invented this system: bunk beds for cars.
Everybody heading up the block—men, women, dog walkers clutching their leashes and their bags of poop—stops and looks back at the zippy little sports car. Finally, at about ten minutes to ten, when our time is almost up, I cannot resist stretching my legs in its direction. “That’s a beautiful car,” I say. “But don’t you worry about parking it on the street?”
“It’s my wife’s,” the man says, less, I suppose, to explain why he doesn’t worry than to keep me from getting any ideas. (Have I said he's incredibly handsome?) “It’s a wreck.”
“It is?” It doesn't look like a wreck to me, although his front license plate is almost as mangled as mine, and his driver's-side rearview mirror is attached with duct tape. “Have you seen my car?” I look back at the Eclair: its right eye is held in the socket with transparent packing tape, and the passenger’s-side rearview mirror is down to just a plastic skeleton and some springs. When I was looking for a spot last Sunday night, I paused on my second-favorite block (Mon. & Thurs. 7:30-8), wondering if I could fit into a small space behind a van (it’s hard to parallel-park behind a van, probably because you can’t see), and a woman who was double-parked across the street honked, to tell me that there was a fire hydrant in that spot (which explained why she wasn’t parked in it herself). When I rolled down the passenger's-side window to talk to her—I have automatic windows, which I hate—the window would go down only about three inches. Luckily, it went up again. I guess when I got sideswiped that time and the door got dented, the slot the window goes up and down in got bent out of shape. Also, the keyhole on that door is gone.
James Bond pointed to the hood of his BMW and said, “They jumped on it.” It was true: there was a big dent in the middle of the hood. “It’s the only explanation,” he said. “The whole thing will have to be replaced. But as long as we are in the city . . .”
I understood. It would never occur to me to replace my passenger's-side door, and I have been thinking of not replacing the passenger's side rearview mirror again. The only time I miss it is when I'm watching for the street sweeper.
When we left, a woman cop was writing a ticket for a car at a meter across the street. The super's car did not get a ticket. At the corner, the man with the BMW stopped and turned back to his car. "I think I forgot to lock it," he said.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Epiphany
I experienced something of an epiphany today, the Feast of the Epiphany: The revocation of parking permits, even though I don't have one, is going to affect me profoundly. Already one person whose parking permit's days are numbered has asked my advice as she contemplates joining the ranks of the Alternate Side Parkers. So I am going to suffer from the inevitable trickle-down of these permits' being revoked: more competition for my space.
For whom the bell tolls, indeed.
When I first started this blog, almost exactly a year ago, I had some idea that people would be curious enough to try to find out where my favorite blocks are by studying the clues—no way I was going to tell. I have been very careful to keep the clues vague: lots of blocks in Manhattan have a hotel on the corner or a view of a skyscraper, or a barbershop and a Chinese laundry, or are within walking distance of a river. But it seemed to me glaringly true that there was zero interest in this game. So I thought it wouldn't matter if I got a little careless. Then I thought, Nah. Good thing.
My best hope is that having had a permit will spoil these people for the alternate-side routine, the way keeping your car in a garage would spoil you for parking on the street. If it happened that I got crowded out of the city (and it will, it will), I'd probably park in Rockaway. My car is in such bad shape right now that the woman who sold it to me, who used to let me park in her driveway, has said outright, "I don't want to see it." I figure I'd have to pay at least $100 a month (the lowest I've found in the city is $275 a month, and that's only if you pass the Morgue) and commute to my car by A train.
I can imagine that if you didn't have a car in the city, you couldn't work up much sympathy for someone who does and who is losing her parking privileges. But just because a person lives in Manhattan doesn't mean she's not American, and that she doesn't think of having a car as an inalienable right: the pursuit of happiness. It's hard not to take these things personally. The Times ran a piece yesterday: Pairing Down Parking Permits, and Raising a Fuss. It also published the definitive clip-and-save version of the Alternate Side Parking Calendar. (You have to go to this page and look for the place to click on the calendar; I attempted to copy and paste, as a reader service, but somehow I got last year's calendar, which would have been a disaster.)
On the plus side, the Smart car has now come to New York, the little Fortwo that you can park à Romano: perpendicular in a parallel parking place. Somebody really ought to write a song about it, along the lines of "Funiculi Funicula": Parking, Parking, Who will win the race? Parking, parking, Smart car finds a space! We park it here, We park it there, We park it long, we park it SQUARE...Joy is everywhere, we park it here, we park it there.
Hurray!
For whom the bell tolls, indeed.
When I first started this blog, almost exactly a year ago, I had some idea that people would be curious enough to try to find out where my favorite blocks are by studying the clues—no way I was going to tell. I have been very careful to keep the clues vague: lots of blocks in Manhattan have a hotel on the corner or a view of a skyscraper, or a barbershop and a Chinese laundry, or are within walking distance of a river. But it seemed to me glaringly true that there was zero interest in this game. So I thought it wouldn't matter if I got a little careless. Then I thought, Nah. Good thing.
My best hope is that having had a permit will spoil these people for the alternate-side routine, the way keeping your car in a garage would spoil you for parking on the street. If it happened that I got crowded out of the city (and it will, it will), I'd probably park in Rockaway. My car is in such bad shape right now that the woman who sold it to me, who used to let me park in her driveway, has said outright, "I don't want to see it." I figure I'd have to pay at least $100 a month (the lowest I've found in the city is $275 a month, and that's only if you pass the Morgue) and commute to my car by A train.
I can imagine that if you didn't have a car in the city, you couldn't work up much sympathy for someone who does and who is losing her parking privileges. But just because a person lives in Manhattan doesn't mean she's not American, and that she doesn't think of having a car as an inalienable right: the pursuit of happiness. It's hard not to take these things personally. The Times ran a piece yesterday: Pairing Down Parking Permits, and Raising a Fuss. It also published the definitive clip-and-save version of the Alternate Side Parking Calendar. (You have to go to this page and look for the place to click on the calendar; I attempted to copy and paste, as a reader service, but somehow I got last year's calendar, which would have been a disaster.)
On the plus side, the Smart car has now come to New York, the little Fortwo that you can park à Romano: perpendicular in a parallel parking place. Somebody really ought to write a song about it, along the lines of "Funiculi Funicula": Parking, Parking, Who will win the race? Parking, parking, Smart car finds a space! We park it here, We park it there, We park it long, we park it SQUARE...Joy is everywhere, we park it here, we park it there.
Hurray!
Friday, January 4, 2008
Cold Snap
Quick before it thaws, I have to complain about the cold. It was freezing in the car yesterday morning. My breath and the steam from my coffee fogged up the windshield, and I finally turned on the defrost (but not the engine). When I arrived, there was a delivery of MX 19 Uprights in progress. MX 19 Uprights are not pianos or military ordnance but construction equipment: mobile scaffolds the size of fork-lift trucks, with a platform on an accordion-like riser. They were bright blue, and a man was backing them down the street one at a time into a garage-size elevator across the street.
Amazingly, there was a spot available behind me, and it was still available at 7:35, after the broom came. Just goes to show that you should always check your favorite spots, because you never know. Across the street, on the Tuesday-Friday side, was a black pickup truck whose owner, like me, had found his spot on New Year’s Day. I know because as I was waiting sedately in the right-hand lane for the light to change so that I could make a right turn and look for a spot on this highly desirable block, the black pickup, coming from the opposite direction, made a squealing left-hand turn before the light had changed and, in a maneuver worthy of a stunt-car driver, zipped into a spot that I hadn't even seen yet. I felt like an amateur.
After the broom passed, I relocated to be last in line, leaving the free spot in front of me. (It's an advantage to be first or last in line, because you can't get parked in.) Now this huge candy-apple-red Dodge van with New Jersey license plates lucks onto the spot, but the guy (and it does turn out to be a guy) can’t parallel park to save his life. He begins his approach from way out in the middle of the street, instead of the standard foot or so away from the car in front of the spot. It’s torture to watch, and I repent my end-space strategy, but now there’s a garbage truck double-parked next to me and I can’t move until he leaves. As soon as the garbageman has squeezed back into his cab and driven away, I pull up into the space I started out in, leaving myself a little room in front, because this van is gigantic and this guy from New Jersey is clearly challenged, and he manages to back into the space behind me.
'Tis the season of Christmas trees in the garbage. The guy in front of me, in a black Chevy pickup, leaves his vehicle, but only to get coffee. For a minute, I thought he knew something I didn’t know—something about the new, “simplified” Alternate Side Parking rules. Could it be? Would they have the sense? Surely it’s clear that after the street sweeper has gone by, there’s no further need for us to be sitting in our cars, freezing our asses off. It would just be a matter of the cops' knowing that the sweepers had gone by. I suppose this would be difficult to coordinate, block by block, but if the cop can’t tell that the street is cleaner, maybe there was no point in the sweeper’s having come anyway.
Meanwhile, the Mayor and the Department of Transportation have bigger things on their minds. The Times reported today that as part of the congestion-pricing plan some city employees will be losing their parking permits. These permits, regarded as a perk of the job, have been fairly easy to obtain since the advent of the color Xerox machine—I even had one once (it expired, and anyway I was afraid to use it). If the Mayor thinks that the police are going to give up the privilege of parking their private cars near the precinct house (and anywhere they damn well please, because who is going to issue a ticket to a fellow police officer?), he is in for a surprise. The cops are probably chuckling over their doughnuts even as I write. The Times quotes Ed Mullins, the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, sounding not so benevolent: "I think we're going to get into all kinds of issues if they start saying cops can't have parking places."
If I had such a permit—and I have a good friend, not a cop, who does—and it was taken away from me, I would be aghast. I would go on strike. I would be tempted to quit my job. I would definitely be part of the problem, not the solution. So I guess it's just as well that I don't.
Amazingly, there was a spot available behind me, and it was still available at 7:35, after the broom came. Just goes to show that you should always check your favorite spots, because you never know. Across the street, on the Tuesday-Friday side, was a black pickup truck whose owner, like me, had found his spot on New Year’s Day. I know because as I was waiting sedately in the right-hand lane for the light to change so that I could make a right turn and look for a spot on this highly desirable block, the black pickup, coming from the opposite direction, made a squealing left-hand turn before the light had changed and, in a maneuver worthy of a stunt-car driver, zipped into a spot that I hadn't even seen yet. I felt like an amateur.
After the broom passed, I relocated to be last in line, leaving the free spot in front of me. (It's an advantage to be first or last in line, because you can't get parked in.) Now this huge candy-apple-red Dodge van with New Jersey license plates lucks onto the spot, but the guy (and it does turn out to be a guy) can’t parallel park to save his life. He begins his approach from way out in the middle of the street, instead of the standard foot or so away from the car in front of the spot. It’s torture to watch, and I repent my end-space strategy, but now there’s a garbage truck double-parked next to me and I can’t move until he leaves. As soon as the garbageman has squeezed back into his cab and driven away, I pull up into the space I started out in, leaving myself a little room in front, because this van is gigantic and this guy from New Jersey is clearly challenged, and he manages to back into the space behind me.
'Tis the season of Christmas trees in the garbage. The guy in front of me, in a black Chevy pickup, leaves his vehicle, but only to get coffee. For a minute, I thought he knew something I didn’t know—something about the new, “simplified” Alternate Side Parking rules. Could it be? Would they have the sense? Surely it’s clear that after the street sweeper has gone by, there’s no further need for us to be sitting in our cars, freezing our asses off. It would just be a matter of the cops' knowing that the sweepers had gone by. I suppose this would be difficult to coordinate, block by block, but if the cop can’t tell that the street is cleaner, maybe there was no point in the sweeper’s having come anyway.
Meanwhile, the Mayor and the Department of Transportation have bigger things on their minds. The Times reported today that as part of the congestion-pricing plan some city employees will be losing their parking permits. These permits, regarded as a perk of the job, have been fairly easy to obtain since the advent of the color Xerox machine—I even had one once (it expired, and anyway I was afraid to use it). If the Mayor thinks that the police are going to give up the privilege of parking their private cars near the precinct house (and anywhere they damn well please, because who is going to issue a ticket to a fellow police officer?), he is in for a surprise. The cops are probably chuckling over their doughnuts even as I write. The Times quotes Ed Mullins, the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, sounding not so benevolent: "I think we're going to get into all kinds of issues if they start saying cops can't have parking places."
If I had such a permit—and I have a good friend, not a cop, who does—and it was taken away from me, I would be aghast. I would go on strike. I would be tempted to quit my job. I would definitely be part of the problem, not the solution. So I guess it's just as well that I don't.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
2008 in Preview
As I have nothing better to do at the moment, I am returning to my project of annotating the 2008 Alternate Side Parking Calendar. The version provided by AAA (see below) is suspect, I’m sorry to say, partly because the phone number provided for the New York City Department of Transportation, with its tantalizing promise of “new, simplified Alternate Side Parking Regulations,” is still out of service. Of course, in a sense this does simplify things: you don’t even have to bother to call.
A quick comparison of the AAA calendar with the city’s—a joint project of the Department of Transportation, the Department of Sanitation, and the Police Department (see link)—reveals a discrepancy: the AAA says there are 43 days when alternate side is suspended, and the city says that alternate side is suspended for 34 legal and religious holidays. Laboriously, as if balancing my checkbook, I added up both lists and got 40 (both times). It turns out that the city counts two- and three-day holidays, such as Shavuot and Succoth, as just one, while the AAA counts each separate day of multiday feasts but fails to take into account the overlaps among the world’s three great religions: in 2008, Good Friday coincides with Purim (March 21), Rosh Hashanah overlaps with Idul-Fitr (October 1), and the Immaculate Conception kicks off Idul-Adha (December 8). Can’t wait.
A reader points out that because 2008 is a leap year it would be fitting if alternate side was suspended on February 29th, a day that barely exists anyway, but the authorities have yet to fall in with this plan. On the plus side, alternate-side parking is suspended for my birthday (February 7th), which happens to fall on Chinese New Year. Western Easter and Orthodox Easter are more than a month apart, so Christ gets to suffer and die and suffer and die, but we alternate-side parkers will be twice redeemed. Unfortunately, Gerald Ford (January 2nd) and Our Lady of Lourdes (February 11th) have once again been overlooked. But this year a feast associated with Padre Pio, the patron saint of stress relief and the post-Christmas blues—Don’t Worry Be Happy Day—should fall on January 21st, the same day as Martin Luther King Day, and is therefore already on the Alternate Side Parking Calendar. Can’t wait.
A quick comparison of the AAA calendar with the city’s—a joint project of the Department of Transportation, the Department of Sanitation, and the Police Department (see link)—reveals a discrepancy: the AAA says there are 43 days when alternate side is suspended, and the city says that alternate side is suspended for 34 legal and religious holidays. Laboriously, as if balancing my checkbook, I added up both lists and got 40 (both times). It turns out that the city counts two- and three-day holidays, such as Shavuot and Succoth, as just one, while the AAA counts each separate day of multiday feasts but fails to take into account the overlaps among the world’s three great religions: in 2008, Good Friday coincides with Purim (March 21), Rosh Hashanah overlaps with Idul-Fitr (October 1), and the Immaculate Conception kicks off Idul-Adha (December 8). Can’t wait.
A reader points out that because 2008 is a leap year it would be fitting if alternate side was suspended on February 29th, a day that barely exists anyway, but the authorities have yet to fall in with this plan. On the plus side, alternate-side parking is suspended for my birthday (February 7th), which happens to fall on Chinese New Year. Western Easter and Orthodox Easter are more than a month apart, so Christ gets to suffer and die and suffer and die, but we alternate-side parkers will be twice redeemed. Unfortunately, Gerald Ford (January 2nd) and Our Lady of Lourdes (February 11th) have once again been overlooked. But this year a feast associated with Padre Pio, the patron saint of stress relief and the post-Christmas blues—Don’t Worry Be Happy Day—should fall on January 21st, the same day as Martin Luther King Day, and is therefore already on the Alternate Side Parking Calendar. Can’t wait.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Whoops!
I meant to post an annotated list of alternate-side-suspended days, but it got away from me. The previous post is lifted directly from the Automobile Association of America. I called the number at the bottom saying that new "simplified" alternate-side rules were in effect, because of course I hadn't been consulted, and the number was "out of service" at that time. Stay tuned.
Happy New Year! I just returned from a weekend trip to Massachusetts and New Hampshire, where I rang in the New Year among friends, with lobster, champagne, and Scrabble, and found a spot on my second-favorite block, where I hope it will not be too cold at seven-thirty this Thursday morning. The homeless guy had decorated the cart of his belongings with a stuffed cherub from a painting by Botticelli.
Happy New Year! I just returned from a weekend trip to Massachusetts and New Hampshire, where I rang in the New Year among friends, with lobster, champagne, and Scrabble, and found a spot on my second-favorite block, where I hope it will not be too cold at seven-thirty this Thursday morning. The homeless guy had decorated the cart of his belongings with a stuffed cherub from a painting by Botticelli.
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