The last *prod*

Day 17

Next day was Monday. I went to my 8am meeting and then skipped out of work. I tried to phone Q and Em to arrange to meet somewhere before I hopped on the train. No luck. I phoned them often between here and San Francisco. I was in such a panic when I got off the train and found the station swarming with policemen. It was 11 and they knew my meeting ended at 9 so I tried to imagine scenarios where they wouldn't contact me by then. I couldn't except for kidnapping or murder. I almost approached one of the policemen to ask whether they knew what happened but thought that I should check with the hostel first. Fortunately, I remembered where they said it was. I walked there and completed the journey in half the time as usual. Naturally the receptionist couldn’t divulge details of who was staying so I told him to call the police if they hadn't checked in. I was barely coherent I am sure. I also wrote a quick note where the important part was my phone number in case the police needed to talk to me. Then I came out shaking, figuring that the only thing I could do was sit at a cybercafe in case they email, only to find that I had received a voicemail in the past minute without the phone ringing. Gah. It was Em saying that their phone had run out of battery and she had lost the charger. She said that they were in Union Square and would call again in 15 minutes. So I ran to Union Square which was ten minutes away and found the nearest public telephone but they weren't bloody there. I checked Borders in case they were reading books or comics. Worried that my phone would not ring yet again when they called, I was by the public telephone again and then I roamed Union Square keeping an eye out and keeping tabs on activity around the phone across the street. After 45 minutes past the voicemail they turned up.

Gah. I felt like such an idiot. They were apologetic and had apparently been victim to bad customer service in Macys. I had worked myself into such a state though, having not heard from them for so long.

But let's forget that and start the story again at noon in Union Square. We went for a quick trip to the Virgin Megastore and then wandered up to Chinatown. It was generally agreed that SF Chinatown was more civilised than NY Chinatown and had better shops (kind of posh- expensive yes but wonderful silks). We spent a long time in one and came away with souvenirs. I got a silk covered photo-album and the Australians bought chopsticks after worrying about what they could pack. Q surprised me by claiming a pink silk handbag to be pretty so I just smiled and nodded.

We had a wonderful lunch in a restaurant that a Chinese lady on a street corner directed us to. She had leaflets but wasn’t content to just hand us one. She had to herd us there. When Em crossed the street to an ATM and Q and I just stood outside the restaurant waiting, the small woman kept smiling and pointing to the place every time we glanced at her. We were right to trust her advertising though as the food was delicious and plentiful. We got more than we bargained for; there was Dim Sum and green tea ice-cream as part of their special “being herded off the street” deal. We rolled out of the restaurant rather happy with ourselves and mulled over the idea of getting a cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf. In the end though, we decided that we were hardened walkers and there was plenty more to see in Chinatown.

We crossed to another street, passing a rack of handbags where yet again Q bizarrely relished a pink one. There were many fantastic shops selling Chinese clothing. I longed for an excuse to get one of the red or black silk dresses. Q was searching the racks of light silk jackets for something to buy as souvenirs for people. It took a couple of shops before we found a jacket with enough Xs in front of the L.

Between Chinatown and Fisherman’s Wharf lies North Beach which is not a beach. It is the Italian district with great restaurants and bakeries. We walked through alas too full to do anything but look wistfully at the cakes. We were able to see the Coit Tower though we did not go up it (the climb up Telegraph Hill is horrendous) and also Lombard Street ("the crookedest street in the world"). We arrived at Fisherman's Wharf (the tourist district) by 3pm. The consensus was that it was tacky but in a good fun way.

Even though I declared it “too creepy”, we went to a museum of mechanical amusements. The showpiece of this museum was a huge laughing sailor-woman. I slipped a couple of quarters in and she started laughing. And rocking back and forth. And she continued to laugh. And rock. And generally spook us into scurrying away as fast as we could to escape her whooping. I had brought a bag of quarters with me (which makes me sound prepared but in truth the ticket machine for the train gave me $10 change in quarters which was like winning the jackpot on a fruit machine only more annoying) so we didn’t hold back on the games. We tested the passion of Em’s kiss, the type of lovers we were and the combined strength of Q and Em. For that, levers had to be pulled to raise a hammer which could then be released when the levers grew too hard to be moved. It was meant for only one person but Q and Em were there together struggling to make those levers move. With much perspiration, they managed to raise the hammer by a tiddly amount (note, I did not even try) and the bell barely clunked when it got released. We turned our back on that game and seconds later the bell rang loud and clear from one triumphant and quite weedy looking lad. Em and Q had moved onto arm wrestling, again cheating like crazy only to lose. Em and I raced some horses and I spent 25 cents on inflating a balloon with a felt-tip face on it while Em got a foot massage. Then Em found an arcade game which allowed her to show off her gun slinging skills and she was mighty fine indeed (as was Q when she took over actually). One creepy fortune teller later, and we were all mechanically amused out.

We moved on to have a drink and snack at Pier 39. This is the real tourist trap but of course, being San Francisco, it didn’t quite have the same tacky appeal as English seaside towns. The collection of expensive souvenir shops didn’t get much interest. Instead we just sat in a café. I suffered more Lipton tea while Em went for the soup and Q investigated a cheese muffin. Then we only had a few minutes until our pre-booked boat ride (I was oddly organised). Worried that Em and Q would freeze to death in the Bay, we rushed into one of the aforementioned expensive souvenir stores and rummaged through the various jumpers. Nothing was worth buying and in the end a pained Q and Em chose death rather than fashion victim (with much lighter wallets).

The boat trip started at 5:30. I was anticipating one guy and his boat as the email I got after booking the event was a rather cheery thanks as if this booking represented someone’s sole livelihood. Fortunately we were greeted by uniformed professionals and a stunning catamaran. And even more fortunate, there were fleece-lined jackets available for people to borrow. Q and Em slipped them on and we got out excitedly onto the deck. There was quite a crowd of people some of whom had been on the trip before and knew just where not to sit of stand to get drenched. We heeded their words and stood near the aft of the boat. The journey left from “I dock” and took us passed the sea lions that gather at Pier 39 every year. Once in the open water, the course was set to Alcatraz Island. I adore how wild and wicked the island looks with the foreboding prison dominating it and the jungle vegetation. Em scoffed that she could swim from the Rock to the shore until we actually got out there and discovered how rough it was. We were taken all around the island and from there we went to Golden Gate Bridge. We actually passed under it before turning and heading back.

By this point in the journey I was quite seasick and could not enjoy the food and drink inside (or the warmth). I clung to the side of the boat and braved the bitterly cold wind (having learnt my lesson from Staten Island, I had my hair tied back this time). Em and Q tolerated the cold for me a few times but generally stayed huddled out of the wind. I heard them once say “Spider-man” and I whipped around and looked at them. They were just staring at me and giggled… I got the feeling that they had been trying to get my attention and found that to be the most effective method. However, I continued to cling to the side. Feeling ill is unavoidable for me and in this case, it was worth it, as for our approach to San Francisco was done just as the sun was setting. It set behind a huge bank of fog unfortunately, over the Pacific. But the sky above the city still turned a wonderful shade of pink and lilac and slowly the lights came on in the buildings. I had to drag Q and Em outside to watch. By the time we arrived back at the pier, it was late dusk and the sight was beautiful.

Back at Fisherman’s Wharf, we grabbed a taxi to take us back to the hostel. The drive was crazy. I found myself in the front of the car which I thought was lucky until I discovered myself in the front seat of a rollercoaster ride. This guy floored the accelerator on every hill and barely stopped at the junctions. I swear that when we crested the hills, the wheels left the road and we flew. I was seriously shaken when we arrived at the hostel. I tried to regain some calm by standing quietly in the bar area while Q and Em grabbed some things from their room. It took me a while but as we walked to dinner, I felt the sickness and shock pass.

We passed so many restaurants that were tempting but unsuitable as Q did not want a curry. Just as we were beginning to despair, we found two likely places. One seemed to be a classic 50s diner with red vinyl seating and black and white tiled floor. The other was a slightly nicer Californian Bistro. We chose that one and slipped into a booth with dark red vinyl seating (it makes all the difference). The food was okay but the waitress was terrible, not asking whether we wanted drinks and also giving us the bill only just after serving the main course. Feeling distinctly unwanted, we simply ate our meal and paid up and left without celebration.

I just felt too depressed to continue. This was the end. The real end. After this, there were no more Hobbling Holidays (well, until Thanksgiving). I mumbled my goodbyes and disappeared into the San Francisco night.

Is forcing someone about to vomit up a hill something Myo would do?

Fortunately for my sanity, the Hobbling Holiday did not end there. Coming back to the Real World was made easier by knowing that there would be a reprise just one week later with the visit of Em and Q.

Day 16

At 10am I started cleaning. I did the bathroom and the kitchen but I ran out of time to do the living area (in fact, I ran out of time to throw away the dirty water from mopping the kitchen floor). I threw everything that was in the trunk* of the Dream onto the living area floor just to complete the Dresden motif and raced off to the airport regretting the fact that I hadn’t hoovered and I knew Q to be a vacuum cleaning fanatic.

My timing getting to the airport was perfect as I found them at the baggage carousel. They looked awful, particularly Q. I learnt that they had been out drinking in Spokane until the very early hours of the morning and since they had a flight in the early hours, this was foolish indeed. Maybe I should apologise for my utter lack in sympathy and the events of the day (characterised by bright sun, wine and physical exertion). It wasn’t due to cruelty on my part just ignorance of what it felt like.

Back to the airport, I, as usual, got lost on the exit and just defaulted to the quicker and yet uglier route home. I have never remembered to cross those lanes to the nice route. However, maybe it was for the best I took the faster option as Em was rather squashed in the back of the Dream and blown to bits by the wind.

I gave them the grand tour of chezbob (if you would care to step inside… er, that’s it). Q seemed to die on the floor which she deemed slightly cooler that the sofa while we waited for Mary-Rose to arrive. The four of us then went to a local winery and this time I took the pretty road. The pretty road isn’t terribly pretty this time of year thanks to many months of sun and no rain but hopefully they got an idea of the rolling hills. In fact, the winery was part of the way up a hill and had some nice views.

This was my third time to the winery. On my second trip, I persuaded Mary-Rose to become a club member so we were able to get our wine tasting for free this time. We gathered at the bar and got a guy (who Q and Em debated the sexuality of, but not to his face) to pour us a selection of wines. The whites were surprisingly good actually but we were really sold on the $50 bottle of Zinfandel. By this point in the tasting though, Q was not even looking at the wine preferring to guzzle her Coke and Em was finding it difficult too. And Mary-Rose was possibly too freaked out by the Halloween decoration (“he’s real!” she claimed of the ghoul with the mechanically roving eyes) to savour the delights. There was some distraction when Q’s bag elicited comments from one Californian lass who seemed convinced that it was something designer. Finally, Mary-Rose and I bought some wine and we were merrily on our way past the peacocks, into the Dream and out onto the road.

When I first came to live here, Mary-Rose bugged me all the time to go with her to “the dish” where all the health conscious Californians (actually “health-conscious” is kind of redundant there) went for their daily run. It is a radio telescope operated by Stanford University on the hills just west of campus and east of SLAC. The paths around there are quite steep and provide about eight miles for those that want to run it. Only once did I relent and let Mary-Rose take me. She was Road-runner on those paths, no matter how steep. I was short of breath just walking it and I didn’t even make it to the telescope.

There was no running this day of course but it still seemed hard for our hung-over friends. We started closer to the dish to where I had started before. We passed eucalyptus on our route and Em seemed to feel at home with the smells of it all. We walked up a hill past little squirrel-like creatures running in the long grass. Q seemed to have her delight for them under a little more control this time but there was still a little photo shoot. In fact, one of them seemed willing to pose for us. At the top of the hill was the telescope. It looked amazing. I fell very much in love with it in a way Q described as geeky joy. After I got over this, we squinted into the distance and saw the tall buildings of San Francisco and the Bay Bridge spanning into the hazy distance. Before us was the entire Silicon Valley in its oddly leafy splendour. We were there just as the sun was setting and it was gorgeous.

We returned to chezbob and I left my precious ‘puter in the hands of Em and Q (who fortunately and incorrectly assumed I used Firefox and so didn’t have access to all of my online user accounts) while I shopped. We had a barbeque that was disturbed by the arrival of Mary-Rose’s brother Ed. I do not know where his behaviour sat on the spectrum of normal to off-his-medication but it was bizarre enough to spook Q.

The barbeque was tasty even if I do say so myself. I shared one of my bottles with Mary-Rose (and we tried to persuade the Australians to share but strangely enough they turned it down again). I think Em and Q were a bit surprised at how much I had told Mary-Rose about board people particularly Rian. We managed a nice conversation in the cooling Californian evening but eventually it had to end. As I wasn’t keen to drive into San Francisco with the bad traffic and suicidal intersections (and because I wanted to have wine with my meal), I sent Em and Q back on the train. But I did feel a little guilty for this and gave them a ring at eleven to check that they were safe. They didn’t answer the phone. I was a little concerned but mainly tired. So I shrugged it off and went to bed.

* It is an American car and therefore called a trunk.

Appendix

I forgot when Amy and I sat on sus until she said she loved me.
I forgot the bong and pole smoking lessons (er... lessons on what the words meant).
I forgot the laundry key (but that’s okay as the owner did too).
I forgot the luxurious baths with Lush bubbles (and the way I had to clean the bath before hand).
I forgot how I hugged Em when she lent Amazing Spider-man #535 to me. Twice.
I forgot prodding everyone.
And being prodded.
I forgot discovering who were the left and right biters.
I forgot my precious badge from Em that said "What would Myo do?"
I forgot to confess to her how I lost it within hours of being given it... and the heartbreak this caused me.
I forgot to mention the relief and pride I had with how much Amy was loved by all.
I forgot many pointless phone conversations and text messages.
I forgot siding with Q against sus with a Veronica Mars argument.
We all forgot the icecream in the apartment.

I forgot to thank everyone for their photographs that they shared.
I forgot to share the photographs that illustrate this diary. Here

Every event written here should be represented except for the Daily Show which of course had the You Tube links. Very few of the photos are mine. If I have wrongly attributed a photo, please correct me. Nothing seemed personal but if you wish me to remove a photo for any reason, I will do so. Some photos I just liked with little or no knowledge of what it was a photo of so there are a few random pictures in this otherwise chronological collection.

The Goodbye

Day 9.

I awoke to see Q still clasping the torch Amy let her borrow. She had climbed into bed to discover that there was nowhere to put it and was worried that if she let it go, it would roll off the bunk and fall. I am not sure whether this was related to her holding that object all night, but apparently Q had great David Tennant dreams that night. Indeed, Amy said that she noticed something odd as Q was rocking the bunk making her quite seasick.

Moving swiftly on, daisy and I were leaving that day and Amy was moving to a more central and cheaper hostel. The three of us packed up and biped and Em dragged their bags into our room to take over the vacated bunks. There was more bunk shaking but with laughter this time as sus read the Joss Whedon comic. It then got passed onto Q and finally Em before we were ready to go to breakfast. I grabbed a couple of Em’s Wolverine comics and read one at Dempsey’s. I had a larger breakfast this time- a delicious omelette with potatoes and toast.

We grabbed our bags and checked out of the hostel by eleven and wondered what to do next. We ended up back at South Station investigating the luggage check-in facilities. We stood there and realised that even if we checked in our bags, we had nowhere to go. It was pouring down with rain. Kind of at a loss, we just planted ourselves at a couple of tables in the station and bought hot drinks. Conversation ran from stilted to hysterical as we all felt the end approaching. The impending flight and separation from these great friends of mine made me grumpy and I doubt I was much fun but all the entertainment was provided for by Q and then sus, both crying with laughter.

We posed for one last group photo at the station and went down to the T where daisy and I caught the Silver line (actually a bus route) to the airport. My terminal was not the same as daisy’s so we parted on the bus. It was quite an anti-climax really. After over a week of songs and laughter, it ended without a big finale. Without a final song, without a dance, without a moral or punch line, we parted ways. There was no dragon to fight or school bus to commandeer but on the plus side, maybe there will be another season, another time to recapture the magic that was holidaying with Hobblings.

Tea Party

Day 8.

I woke up cold. The window was open a bit because the A/C unit didn’t fit perfectly and the late September morning was not kind to us. We had only been given one thin blanket (each of course) and it just wasn’t enough for anyone except Q who seemed to have discarded hers in the night. In fact, all her sheets were in disarray and she was pretty much sleeping on the bare plastic mattress.

It took forever to get everyone up. As per usual, Amy was first up with sus and me fighting for next in the shower-room. Eventually, I found myself grabbing a cup of tea (Lipton, ugh, with water well below boiling) in the lobby and looking at all the notices including one that boasted that John Lennon had stayed there. A man in a comfy chair tapping at his laptop asked if I was looking for anything. “Oh no, just waiting for my tea to brew,” I replied and then found myself talking to this guy for about an hour. He was studying (mature student) computational biology so there was plenty to talk about within that subject, my own and the unfortunate politics in science. I didn’t quite know whether I wanted to be talking to him or not as on the one hand it was the first intelligent conversation I had had all week and on the other hand… it was the first intelligent conversation I had had all week and who wants that when they are on holiday? So I was kind of glad when finally Q emerged. Everyone gathered and we followed the recommendation of the hostel to go to Dempsey’s for breakfast.

Dempsey’s felt like the traditional breakfast diner place you see in all the movies. It had U-shaped tables large enough for about 15 people with us seated on red-topped swivel-stools. Remarkably, we found just enough seats for us all in this popular joint (though we may have had to ask some of the friendly locals to move a couple of seats). The waitress took our order and showed the typical interest in where we were all from. I had a bagel with egg and a sausage patty inside (and of course tea- Tetley this time) while other people had pancakes or French Toast… and sus decided that she wanted pancakes and potatoes and bacon and egg and toast and sausages. She didn’t quite finish.

Replete, we were on our way. We caught the bus and then the T to Downtown Crossing. We were to meet with Miraba (Lisa) and Emano (Christine- I had never met a Christine before) at twelve thirty and we made it into Boston by eleven so there was plenty of time to shop first. I waved people towards Filene’s Basement if they wanted cheap clothes and otherwise left them to their own devices. I gestured to Amy where I thought Barnes and Noble was in case she wanted to find me later before I left everyone to go off on my own.

My first port of call was my favourite CD shop (second hand and with a vast collection of soundtracks). I surprised myself by remembering the street it was on. Or used to be on for there was nought but empty shelves and a sign on the door that said “moved to Newbury Street”. I repressed my grief and moved onto Brattle Bookshop which I discovered way back in the last century on my first trip to Boston. I carried around my bag from there for ages until it got ripped; it was the perfect size for taking a book to a coffee shop or pack of cards to a friend. Fond memories aside, the shop didn’t have the best selection of second-hand books ever. The most interesting book I found was by Gyles Brandreth, enticingly titled “Joy of Lex”.

There was only so much time I could kill shopping. I thought to wander around the cemetery next to Boston Common. Alas, all the graves were old and if there had been any vampiric activity it was done and dusted centuries ago. I do love the way they carved skulls onto the gravestones in those days. Flying skulls, not your everyday kind that just roll. These had wings. I am not sure if there were any of the later kind here, but in my tours of Boston graveyards I noticed that at one point someone must have said “wait, isn’t this a bit overly morbid?” and they started carving babies’ faces with the wings instead of skulls. The juxtaposition of the old gravestones with the skulls and the slightly less old gravestones with the babies only makes it creepier to me.

After my trip to the cemetery, I tried to go to Barnes and Noble only to find another dead shop with empty shelves. Frustrated, I went to find other people. Q and Em were in Filene’s Basement looking and the cheap man-jeans. Em complained to me that though she had tried to buy a bra, the changing rooms were communal and she had to run away. I wandered the two floors desperately seeking anything in my size, veering with horror from some of the sections and not even finding anything in the petites. I left Filene’s and wondered what to do next.

I just lurked at the designated meeting space. It wasn’t long until daisy came by and then the rest of the contingent. Biped was squirming over a bag she had seen in Macy’s. Not just any bag, but the perfect bag and the only bag there of its kind. And also totally lacking in a price tag. We sent her back to put her mind at ease and not too many minutes later she returned with the bag and a huge grin saying that they let her have it for the lowest price of any bag on the rack. We inquired what that was and she replied some number ten times what I would pay for something to merely carry things in. But she was happy and we played with its tassles.

We went together to the common where we were to meet the Massachusetts Hobblings. There was some sort of subdued fair going on where everyone at it wore t-shirts and stood around looking bored. Fortunately there were also balloons for us to enjoy. We stood under a large balloon arch and posed for pictures until some people, looking in disapproval at how unbored we were, moved the arch elsewhere. We walked to the Boylston corner of the park and laughed at all the balloons that had escaped and were polka dotting the sky.

We sat on benches near the T station and waited a short while for us to be joined by our three guests. It had taken a week but finally we were in the habit of getting to places early rather than late. We were found by Christine and her daughter Liz first and Lisa soon after. It actually felt odd to meet new people after a week of seeing the same people every day. The seven of us had got into the habit of communicating with a system of pokes and by occasionally sitting on each other. Having to re-enter the more civilised world of conversation was tough.

I caught up with Lisa on the walk to our restaurant for lunch. I hadn’t seen her since the Hobbling Meet in London the summer of 2003 (the first Meet of more than three people). It was the hottest day of the year and people paddled in Trafalgar Square fountains. She told me how she had got into publishing now and was moving away from Boston with her boyfriend while she lead us with a fast pace to the Japanese restaurant.

We were seated at a bench which isn’t the best arrangement for a group of people. I made it clear that I thought others should get to know Lisa as I had met with her quite a few times in my year in Boston. The table went me, sus, daisy, Amy and Lisa and then insignificant people and then Christine and Liz. Poor Liz sat at the end looking totally isolated and bored by everything but no one wanted to force her to jump into the group if she didn’t want to. At this point I wish to mention the oddity that was a television in a Japanese restaurant. There had been a few in the Sport’s Bar of the night before but that was to be expected (as the only sport related thing in it was what was being broadcast). Seeing one in the restaurant felt most out of place.

The meal was just as I remembered it to be: more fun than tasty. The dishes were served raw and we boiled it in broth in our personal pot which was on a hotplate below the surface of the table top. I had beef and lamb as well as the standard plate of tofu, lettuce, rice noodles, mushroom and sweet corn. A bowl of udon noodles made this meal too much to get through (but that just meant I could afford to leave the tofu untouched).

I tried to spend some time at the end of the meal talking to Christine. I can’t remember what about but I am sure it was scintillating. At some point I asked to see her socks that she knitted herself. They looked like good socks.

Once out of the restaurant, we went to an Asian supermarket nearby. Em bought all the Pocky in the shop while Q didn’t trust my mochi identification ability and so left mochiless. Outside, Em shared the Pocky around and we all agreed, save her, that it was nasty.

Lisa showed us where the Charles Playhouse was for those that were going there later that day to see the Blue Man Group. Once orientated, we left for a short walk through some of Boston. We went back through the common, pausing at the New State House. Charity called me and I passed my phone around letting everyone talk to her (and hopefully they all said their thanks for being our token local in New York). Once the phone call was over, we went passed the cemetery, King’s Chapel (slightly less impressive than the one in Cambridge but some were overwhelmed with how old it was having been built in the mid-eighteenth century…) and ended up at the Old South Meeting House. The pace set by Lisa was a little too fast to take in the sights properly but with such a large group it is hard to choose a pace that suits everyone. People seemed to be a bit lost in the whirlwind tour but most knew that they had the opportunity to return another day. I wanted to explore the thrills of Quincy Market and see the street performers but I couldn’t argue when consensus became to go to my favourite place in the area- Harvard Square (Cambridge). Nearly all of us purchased tea in Tealuxe and took it to drink outside on a small triangle of grass. Lisa went into an expensive chocolate shop to buy some tasty morsels that cost their weight in gold while we sipped our brews. Sus displayed her tea-inexperience by leaving the tea bag in for about fifteen minutes before I screamed at her to take it out but apparently she enjoyed the first sip enough to return to Tealuxe and buy some leaves to take home. My tea was, of course, gorgeous. Tangerine white. Lisa returned chocolate-less as she couldn’t find the end of the incredibly long queue in the shop and we all chatted. When the overseas travellers started passing around their horrendous passport photos (I thought sus’ was bad until I saw Amy’s) even Liz had to raise a smile.

Then we hit two comic book shops. In the first I bought the Civil War Files in the hope that I’d be able to follow the actions of some of the minor Marvel characters. In the second, I found Stan Lee Meets Spider-man. We lost Christine and Liz in between comic shops as they had to travel to get home. It was a shame they missed the second comic shop as then they could have witnessed some rather extreme Angel fans go nuts over Smile Time puppet Angel (vamp form) on sale for $50.

After that, we split up even further. Q, Em, biped and daisy were off to see the Blue Man Group (something I shunned as I had seen it before, Amy shunned for reasons only a Trekkie seems to follow and sus for reasons unknown to me but possibly because the others booked tickets without asking whether she wanted one first). We remaining four chatted at the entrance to Harvard Square T about books, Lisa brightening up for the first time. She said that she’d hang around if we wanted to talk more about books with her but otherwise would go home as she had things to do. Obviously, having done the talking about books thing to death in our everyday Internet lives, we regrettably informed her that we couldn’t do that and we parted company. I dragged sus and Amy to yet another bookshop. Just outside there was a table of second-hand books and I made sus buy “The Left Hand of Darkness”, shocked that such an important scifi book had slipped passed her. The bookshop I took them to had a basement full of second hand books and an excellent selection of scifi. In fact, I had done most of my book shopping here all those years ago particularly with getting old Spider-man books. I bought one of the Essential collections of old issues and I thought I also bought a Jonathan Carroll but that book seems to have got lost in transit.

Then I directed them along a route that I walked often while I lived in the area. Normally I walked it in snow up to my knees letting nothing deter me from getting to Harvard Square to buy my comic fix. I actually found that I didn’t recognise much. It was a straight route, however, so it was no problem to get to Central Square. Pika was just down the street from Central. About ten minutes walk (in the knee-deep snow), but I was not going to visit as I don’t know anyone that lives there anymore. I thought that I would take Amy and sus to a Caribbean restaurant that I knew for variety but as we neared Central we all began to yearn for curry. As we walked, I pointed out such highlights as "the place I bought my wine" (once I turned 21 of course) and "the Starbucks where I read lots of Spidey comics". I mulled over the fact that had I never gone to America and chosen to live in this strange hippy commune called pika, I would never have found the cupboard of comics and grown quite so Spidey-obsessed. Only some-what obsessed. At the very least, I would probably be a thousand dollars richer. We talked briefly about what events in our lives had made us what we were.

We picked an Indian out of the many present in the area by the way it was the only one to have any customers. We ordered and chatted and laughed and observed the presence of a television screen. We also discovered that our handwriting was all disturbingly similar. I made a mistake in asking for a mild curry as this restaurant seemed to interpret that as spiceless but overall it was a very nice meal. As my final meal of the Hobbling Holiday, it was great. The night before had been a nice group dinner and this night was with the two friends I was closest to. And I had a mango lassi. Mango lassi makes everything good.

The evening still being young, we didn’t take the T at Central and instead walked to Kendall, a walk that took us on the so-called nostalgia tour around MIT. I showed them the outside to the Student Center and pointed out where the scifi library was but no one wanted to go in (possibly there had been enough books for one day). We passed the gym that I never used to see the Space Waffle from a distance. Officially Simmons Hall, the Space Waffle is the newest dorm building on campus and it is like marmite in that you either love it or you hate it. I fall into the loving category as the different colours to the window frames and the randomly removed segments of building are just so much fun. Next up, was a stroll down the Infinite Corridor grabbing a copy of the student paper, The Tech, in lobby 7 (which was as boring as ever) and discovering that the doors in lobby 10 to Killian Court were locked depriving us of seeing the famous shot of MIT’s columns and also Boston across the Charles River at night. I advised Amy and sus to go back there but I doubt that they did. At the end of the Infinite, we exited back into the cool evening. I showed them my favourite little MIT oddity: the concrete benches in semicircles. I made a confused sus and Amy stand in a certain place and speak. Their surprise when their voices seemed amplified amused me greatly. There were two such benches and, once we scared a student from sitting on one of them, we tried the other with some evil laughs. My two more musically orientated friends declared the pitch to be different (discuss) and one of the semicircles to be more evil than the other. I was pleased to find people as delighted by this as I was. My family just looked at me as if I was mad. After this, all that was left was Kendall T. We didn’t have long enough to get the music to play (we needed to move a handle back and forth to hit a resonance and increase the amplitude of swinging hammers that would then hit pipes) but the people on the other side of the platform were playing their set so Amy and sus got to see it work.

We did the standard trip back to Everett. Once at the hostel, Amy and I got the cards out and taught “quiche” to sus. There was much giggling (though I can’t remember what about but it was probably at sus’ expense) and somehow we managed to get the obligatory Mallory Towers conversation started. We made Q’s bed for her and discovered that it was indeed tricky as the mattress was too narrow and too long for the fitted sheet. Finally done, we took it in turns to prepare for bed in the shower-room. I read some of Stan Lee Meets and was giggling like crazy at the Joss Whedon story, shaking the bed for sus above me. Q came in as we were settling down to sleep and borrowed Amy’s torch to aid her in getting from the bathroom to the bunk with the light off.

Transitioning

Day 7.

Today was the day we had to leave New York for Boston. I cannot sufficiently describe how much I love New York to people and how much I loved the apartment and company I had had for the past week. It was so sad to leave. I feared that it wouldn't be the same in Boston, that our perfect holiday was ending. In a way I guess that it was but in having this one weekend in slightly less-perfect circumstances helped eased the transition.

That morning, I threw biped out of the bathroom hissing “do you want breakfast?!” at her. It was an attempt to be threatening but it probably came off petulant or just weird. Biped let me in and I was ready for the world by quarter to eight. Amy and I set off on our final brioche run. Well, brioche skip. We like skipping.

We bought our goodies (this was the day of the mandarin brioche as well as apple and raisin and chocolate) and on the way to the subway I saw one of those newspaper containers with The Onion inside for free. I grabbed one and Amy and I got back to the apartment around 9am. We needed to be ready to hand over the keys to the apartment at 10am but this was plenty of time for us to devour everything. Soon we had put the entire apartment to rights (and set our final dishwasher load going) and were on the streets.

We stood in front of the house on West 130th Street with our many bags, remembering the good times we had. When they come to do the film of this (or maybe Broadway musical) this would be a great moment to do flashbacks, a little reprise of Once More With Feeling, futon maiming, lying on daisy’s curtain-covered sofa-bed singing Queen, Q’s marathon showers, biped’s melodious snores… The scene would end on the freshly-set cement outside the apartment in which someone etched “Hobblings 06”.

We trundled or carried our bags to the subway and then got off at 42nd Street for Port Authority. We were very early but given how long it took each of us to go to the toilet and buy some lunch, it was fine. We took some seats in what passed for a waiting area and had a loud conversation about comics. The fun was both in Em’s ability to summarise Marvel’s Civil War in a handful of words and the way in which we discussed it seriously, talking about the war and clones and registration as if they were current events. We started off being surrounded by people. They soon left. We also passed The Onion around, a brilliant issue.

The bus journey set off at 12:30 and didn’t get into Boston until nearly 6pm. Amy and I sat near the front of the bus (to help me travel- I do not know if this works, but I do know that much of travel sickness is in the mind anyway so as long as I believe sitting near the front works, I will continue to do it). The film was Chicken Little, watchable if… odd. When we passed Stamford, Connecticut (where Civil War began), I leapt up and careered down the bus to the back where Em was just to point it out. Otherwise, the journey was uneventful (and sporadically filled with traffic jams and also phone calls to Massachusetts Hobblings) and I slept. We had a quick break at some awful fast-food joint (“Roy Rogers” I think) where Q discovered bad American fries.

As we came into Boston, I was struck with how the city had changed. The roads were either elevated or in tunnels. The traffic, once in the city, was quite good. When I was last there, Boston lay exposed thanks to the Big Dig. We came into South Station and started replacing the word “subway” with “T” as we took the red line and then the orange line to Sullivan Square. From there we squeezed onto a very busy bus (fortunately run by the same people as the T so our passes worked). The instructions were to get off at Church Street after five minutes but after ten minutes passed and the announcement for “Church Street” had never come, someone asked for help with our stop. A kind local informed us when to get off and we found ourselves on a random street in the town of Everett. There was no more than a moment’s panic before we found Church Street and did the trundling and carrying up to the Prescott International Hostel.

It took us ages to get checked in. The lady on the desk was confused by the way the seven of us were under two bookings and had in fact, before cancellations from jes and Rian, been nine. Years later, we were checked into two rooms of four beds. Amy and I were checked in last and came up the stairs to find sus sitting forlorn on her suitcase as the others had voted her out of their room and into the second one. The three of us found our room complete with shower-room and television. I made sus take the top bunk with the plastic mattress as I figured she needed the plastic more than me while Amy had the other set of bunks to herself and nabbed the lower one. Q came in to see our setup and her jaw dropped as she declared our hovel to be huge. She called dibs on the bed above Amy (which unfortunately lacked a ladder) as the others poked their heads in and cursed at our good luck.

After our session of musical beds, we went out to dinner. Amy and I had inquired about places when we checked in and were told about an excellent Brazilian barbeque place. Following directions, we found an absolute dump with food looking worse than college canteen and everyone in it looking depressed. We scurried out and looked further up the road. There was a Sport’s Bar (which is like every other American bar in my experience but with better food). We went in and found ourselves the only people eating. The seven of us took the large table in the restaurant part and looked at the menu. It was vast and mainly comfort foods like mashed potato with garlic and macaroni and cheese. I opted for the turkey dinner. We got a bottle of red wine to share around (we needed two in retrospect) and had a great time. The waitress was very interested in us, asking where we were from and being intrigued by the variety of answers.

The evening meal was so good it seemed a shame to end the night but somehow we ended up at the hostel checking emails and board posts (seeing the terrible pictures of us singing on certain blogs and also Emano’s odd comment that when she had phoned me earlier, she expected me to have an American accent) and then retiring to our room to watch Doctor Who. We saw the Christmas Invasion and most of New Earth. Watching Q watching Who was fun. She had the most transfixed look on her face, utter joy.

My head in the stars

Day 6.

This was our final day in New York and in keeping with all the other days I will declare this one too to be fantastic.

As our last day, we wanted to do something special as a group and so we kept the jewel in the New York crown for last. The pinnacle of what that city has to offer. The stupendous, the spectacular, the magical Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Which only two of us ended up doing.

Making arrangements to meet on the steps of the Met at 5:30pm, closing time, I left the apartment first. There were a couple of places I wanted to visit before leaving. I abandoned the six in the apartment to the dregs of their breakfast and walked to the 125th Street subway passing, as I did every day, a wooden fence surrounding a construction area with the words “Do Not Post Bills” on it. By this point my confusion over why a fence would be protesting the mailing of invoices had cleared but it still gave me some amusement.

I went down to the Flat Iron district to see the offices of the Daily Bugle (in the film). I enjoyed changing my perspective: three dimensional, two dimensional, three dimensional, two dimensional. I wandered around the adjacent Madison Square Park looking at the sculptures that blended in well with the trees and absorbing the relaxed atmosphere.

I strolled up 5th Avenue buying a banana on the way. One cheap shop drew me in with some clothes in their window and I bought a top out of one of the boxes inside. I felt suddenly spendy and happy to be with myself. I continued up 5th Av until the Public Library (where Uncle Ben died in the film- he died at their home in Queens in the books). I poked my head in and wandered the hallways for some time but all of the doors seemed to be closed and I was too scared to open any of them.

I detoured to see the Chrysler Building (where the King Pin operated in the 90s cartoon series) and then hopped onto the subway to, I believed, join the others in our planned activity. On the way down Museum Mile, I passed people selling pictures. The money in my pocket almost leapt out when I saw one print. It was of two angels, one a classic angel with feathered wings and the other something futuristic with wings of circuitry. I steeled myself and walked on.

We knew that it would be hard to tour the museum as a large group so accepted that in all likelihood we’d just bump into each other a few times. I wandered the rooms expecting at any minute to run into their familiar faces. Amy and I had decided on a particular meeting place and time, however. It was 1pm at the Egyptian temple. Having been to the Met before, I choose the place to be somewhere obvious. It was large and on the museum map. I figured that there was no way Amy could miss it. Just as every supermarket starts at the fruit section, every museum begins with Egypt. I expected that she would pass through Egypt and notice the great big incredibly impressive temple bathed in light inside it.

Except of course Amy only just got to the Met at 1pm and hadn’t orientated herself. She stopped at the first temple she came to (minor compared to the one on the map, undoubtedly the Met’s star attraction, and so insignificant I had forgotten its existence in choosing a meeting place). I was seated in the great white chamber, windows from floor to ceiling on one side letting in the late-summer sun, statues guarding the small temple around a fake lake for half an hour. Amy was… elsewhere.

I thought perhaps I had the time wrong so left for half an hour to return at 2pm. During that short interval, I went to the American Mansion where the façade of a building dominated a plaza filled with statues and Tiffany glass work. There were many small Tiffany pieces as well as the main two windows (which required much gazing). I went into the adjacent rooms filled with European works of art. I tried to remember my pre and post Renaissance lessons from my holiday to Florence. I was amused by one picture of Jesus feeding at his mother’s breast, which was definitely in the centre of her chest.

I returned to the temple at 2pm but alas no Amy. Shrugging, I went to the café in the American Mansion plaza. In the queue I received a text message from Amy asking where I was and whether I was okay. I bought some tea and chocolate cake- I was very much okay. I sat and ate my cake and texted Amy to tell her where I was. Forty-five minutes later, I received a reply saying that she was coming. I waited ten more minutes and grew too impatient so texted to say never mind and left. I had spent most of my time in my favourite building in the world waiting and just wanted to get on and see things. Besides, I knew that our tastes in exhibits conflicted so it was for the best that we went around separately.

In my last visit to the Met, I toured around the historical exhibits falling in love with the temple and also the medieval choir screen and entire rooms decorated in period styles. This time I was going to concentrate on the parts I breezed through those years ago: the art. My first trip after refuelling was to the roof. Last time it was Roy Lichtenstein, this time an artist I didn’t know and found comparatively boring. The sculpture in the centre of the roof was a pane of glass with “dead birds” on either side, apparently because they flew into it. It was moderately amusing. Another piece just seemed to be a plaque. I looked in vain for the exhibit but couldn’t see it. Looking at the plaque more closely, I discovered that it was a black cloud, visible at noon each day the museum was open. There was a video by the lifts which I watched later depicting the daily show, firing chemicals into the air to produce a black cloud. The other exhibits were alligators perched on the sides of the roof. They were stabbed with an assortment of scissors and knives confiscated, so the plaque told me, by airport security.

The gallery of European art continued up to the 19th century and it was what I was really there for. It had entire rooms of Degas, the greatest collection of sculptures by him that I had ever seen. Monet, Cezanne, Renoir, Van Gogh: they were all represented well here. I felt like I was in a labyrinth as the rooms twisted and turned but never ended. I may have missed rooms in the serpentine layout but I tried to cover them all.

Next up was a selection of 20th and 21st century art which was, as always, patchy with some good pieces but many just begging the question why. I was actually surprised that one piece caught me and made me pause. It was a series of coloured panels, exactly the type of art that is ridiculed: just coloured canvases. But they were arranged in a rainbow of the artist’s choosing, stretching across a wall so clean and perfect. I looked at it from all angles I could muster and mulled over using my precious film to take a picture. I didn’t in the end- I felt confident that some Hobbling with a digital would take a picture.

I passed a photography exhibition of New Orleans post-Katrina and found my way to the Vollard exhibition.

Just after I returned from this holiday, I was asked what my favourite part of it was. I had to think for a while. Was it the madness of Accomplice and herding a party of thirteen? Was it laughing in the park with brownies and strawberries? Was it singing and dancing in the safety of the apartment? I thought about it long and hard and came to the conclusion that it was re-visiting the Met. Is it bad of me to prefer the afternoon I spent alone above all the others?

I don't think it had anything to do with being alone, just that the Met is amazing. The Vollard exhibition of Impressionists took my breath away. I was shaking with excitement to see some of the paintings; the deep colours, bold strokes, raw emotions of it all. Each room contained one or two artists with a piece about Amboise Vollard’s relationship to the artists or the paintings. He was the art dealer that brought many of the French impressionists to fame even though their talent (oh so obvious now) was not seen at the start of their careers. I looked at Van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone in awe. And then read how it remained unsold after being exhibited. Without this man it seems that none of my favourite artists would have made it. I cannot put into words how I felt learning about someone who changed art for the world and for me. To put some names to my raving, there were paintings by Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Renoir and Rousseau.

I was racing the clock to see this entire exhibition. The shops in the Met had closed by the time I was out and filled with the urge to purchase something beautiful. I burst through the front doors of the Met and grabbed at the print of two angels from the stall on Museum Mile. In the highest spirits possible, I went to the steps to wait to be joined by my fellow museum goers.

Indeed, Amy joined me fresh from her tour of the Met. And then Q and Em came from the street. They hadn’t been to the Met, they had gone off somewhere else including a luggage shop and the Empire State Building (which apparently they had had some problems finding and had to ask a policemen for directions: “Look up, ladies!”). Soon biped, sus and daisy joined us too. Also from the street.

Even though we planned the Met as something for everyone to do, only Amy and I actually had. This really hurt me actually. I had seen such wonderful dreams and even though I was alone, I thought others were sharing them with me. So I guess in the end my trip to the Met was bittersweet.

We sat on the steps for a while planning our next move. Amy scoured her guidebook for restaurant suggestions and we decided to try the Upper West Side (what a surprise). We walked through the park to get there. It was a pleasant stroll (or quite probably, skip). The lamps were just coming on. A set of swings provided a momentary diversion. Q complained that her pictures of that were coming out blurry just as I adjusted settings to make things more blurred. Emerging on the other side, we merely had to walk one block to find a selection of possible restaurants. Deciding where to go based on what we could afford, we went to a Mexican.

I hadn’t eaten well that day so had a large meal at the restaurant. It was chicken in a lemon sauce with rice and also garden vegetables. It was simple and delicious. As we exited the restaurant, Em declared that we were right by the Prohibition Bar, famous for being the place where Dana drowned her sorrows in chocolate martinis after Em stood her up on day zero. We went in and strode past the little tables set out at the front and the area for the band. At the back of the bar there was a separate room. In the centre was a red pool table. The walls were red. The lights were golden. And it was all for us. We took a table in the corner and ordered martinis all round, chocolate or apple, and a cranberry for Amy. Amy and I talked as the others played pool. I took a sip of my chocolate martini, looked up and saw that there was an empty martini glass on a ledge near the pool table. I am pretty sure it was Q’s. A little shocked, I got back to conversing with Amy and watching the game from afar. The waitress came up to Amy and inquired whether she was not drinking alcohol which I felt to be overly nosey. There was a reason though, it appeared, as she brought out strawberry shots for us all and left the alcohol out of one for Amy. I am still not sure why she did this. I am sure we freaked her out by calling people by their board names.

The evening was not long (it was over by 10pm) but Q got through quite a few drinks. When she went to the ATM to get money to pay for the evening, I felt like I had to accompany her to keep her safe. It was odd to be with someone that was drunk and I was extremely unnerved. We paid the bill and left. On the way she pinched my bottom. I didn’t quite know how to respond to that and tried to avoid her for the rest of the trip back to the apartment.

As we approached the apartment, a thought occurred to me. I wondered whether anyone bothered to set the dishwasher going that morning as it was normally something only I thought to do. Indeed, it had been forgotten. Someone put it on when we got in. I daresay it kept sus and daisy up as they shared a room with it and I could hear it as far as my room the floor above. I was a nice enough person to feel bad that I hadn’t reminded people to do the dishwasher before I left. A little bad.

Dates

4th -> 16th November - Japan
23rd -> 26th November - Spokane
19th December -> 3rd January - UK

Possibly a Japan trip in December too.

Village People

Day 5.

I want to say “this was another fantastic day” because it was but I feel like this is rubbing it in when some of the group were losing their stomach contents.

Meh. It was another fantastic day. And I haven’t learnt how to be sympathetic to sick people.

We had a breakfast appointment to make at nine which meant for an early and rushed start to the day. Daisy was enthroned on her pile of curtain material and not coming out with us; she had had a bad night of illness.

A little guilty about leaving her but wishing to see Rian and Paul before they left for the airport, we hurried to the subway. Just outside the 125th Street subway, Q threw up into a bin. Feeling useless as usual, I hung back and let other people do the sympathy thing. I think I did the “in awe” thing (or if I didn’t, I am now) when Q said that we should just continue to the diner. She bought some water from a store. It was given to her in a brown paper bag as if it was alcohol- “I guess they are not used to people buying water and didn’t quite know what to do about it,” she speculated.

We hurried to the Manhattan Diner a little late and one man down but there are always casualties in breakfast. I spotted Rian in the window of the diner. She met us at the entrance and apologised that they had already got a table and ordered. Given that we were there to talk to non-Harlemites it seemed daft to get a table for ourselves but what else were we to do? The waitress wouldn’t let the others move. So the six of us grabbed a booth and in varying degrees of health, ordered our breakfast. As we waited for the food to arrive, I weaved through the diner to the other table.

It was nice to talk to Rian, Paul, Lars and Dana even if it was only for a couple of minutes. I never did find the chance for quality conversation with them so I prized these few moments. It turned out that Lars discovered he was allergic to something he ate (so obviously it wasn’t just an excuse not to be involved in karaoke the night before). Dana showed a book she had put together of Paris Hobbmeet photographs. It looked amazing and for the first time I was introduced to Dana’s talent. I assumed that she did that professionally as it had that quality about it but on asking her I learnt that she was more IT-orientated (someone could possibly remind me of her occupation…).

I returned to the Harlem table for my breakfast. My bacon was more like ham. My French Toast not great compared to what I get in Japan, oddly enough. My tea was Lipton (‘nuff said). Em was back and forth to the toilet (victim number three). By this point I think there was speculation that biped doling out vitamin c overdoses to the antipodeans was the problem. I am not sure why she was doing this in the first place or why they accepted the pills from the crazy German lady.

After we settled the bill, Amy and I left. Just as we were leaving, sus declared that she wasn’t feeling too good and yet still wanted to roam the city by herself. I expected that I’d soon be getting lots of phone-calls from hospitals telling me that Hobblings were dying on the streets. Even so, Amy and I managed to forget their problems and have a great time. I find myself struggling to remember the details without the aid of a guidebook or photographs but I will give it a go.

We followed a couple of routes from her guidebook. We started in Greenwich Village, an area that I hadn’t visited before and was recommended by Heather. I forced Amy to do the route backwards which made her job of guide tricky but she did well, pointing out famous streets from films and album and showing me the slightly stranger buildings of the area. One I think was given a non-integer house number. I was thrown by how English looking the area was. The streets were quiet, the houses quite modest. The fire escapes were uniquely New York but on the whole it felt very much like London. There were some cute little shops in this area too (including “Amy’s Bakery”) and Amy and I had fun in one shop which was filled with buckets of herbs and spices. I bought some camomile flowers and caused a stir when my purchase (calculated on weight) came to the same amount as the previous person.

Our route took us to Washington Square Park. It was closed off with “Do Not Cross” tape, only allowing us to go around the main square to the arch on one side of it. There were police cars and many uniformed individuals but it soon became obvious that they weren’t the police but actors. Something was being filmed there. Amy and I lurked near someone who looked involved with the operation and overheard him talk to a couple of people mentioning “Danny Boyle” and “28 Days Later”. Maybe these are hints about what they were doing but I couldn’t work it out.

We backtracked to a little tea shop we saw en route. It was a small but bright place, not busy but not quite empty. I chose a Ceylon and Amy went for Christmas Spice, an odd blend to offer in September. We sat and chatted over our brews, planning the route for the afternoon and generally enjoying ourselves. We packed up and finished the Greenwich Village tour, ending where we started and hopping on the subway to go south.

We emerged from the station and started another guided tour out of the book at Battery Park. There were some of those people pretending to be statues there (all of them male statues of liberty) which made us detour to avoid them. Is there a single person on the planet that likes them? We passed many stalls selling glossy photos of New York. As always, I was seriously tempted but I resisted the urge to buy. I love New York and I just could not choose one single photo to sum it up for me. There were also some guys who looked like they were going to put on some break dancing performance or something but all they actually did was shout “we’re gonna start” over and over without actually starting anything. Perhaps they were waiting for a crowd but of course we just edged away in fear. The park tour ended at a sculpture that had once been in the World Trade Center and still bore scars. There was also an “eternal” flame and many dead roses.

On our walk we passed the American Indian museum, a great big bull, a man selling half price comics (I bought Kraven’s Last Hunt and The Watchmen) and a famous pub where patriots frequented. I was thrown at the way the tourist information board talked about a famous patriot acting against the king. It feels like being through the looking-glass. There was also the first cobbled street in New York and the surrounding buildings. Many were restaurants and cafes that sprawled out into the street, Italian-style. Again I was thrown and pleased by how European New York was in parts (and borrowing the best from Europe, not the worst).

We eventually came to Wall Street with its huge and impressive buildings. The Stock Exchange boasted the second largest flag I have ever seen on its front. The street was lined on each side with the most spectacular monuments to power and yet, right at the end and dominating the street was a church.

The church was not that impressive compared to cathedrals all around the world but its location was certainly unique. Inside it had pews that were divided up and slightly too wide. I was reminded of similarly old churches in Boston which had boxes rather than pews. Families would rent a box and burn a fire within it during the service to keep warm. I could not see any signs of a fireplace in the widened pews of this church, but possibly it was based on the same system of families renting. Outside the church, the “911” theme was continued with a cast of some tree roots from the site.

We walked back to where we started Accomplice all those days ago. We used the toilets there but soon realised that we couldn’t do anything more if we were to get back to the apartment by 6 (the meeting up time). We traced back our steps and worked our way to Chinatown (on the way passing a public park of 0.05 acres) where we attempted to buy some unusual fruits and vegetables. What had been so plentiful a few days ago, was suddenly hard to come by. By this point I was tired from a day of walking and particularly grumpy, forcing Amy to do the shopping while I sulked (she is such a sport for putting up with me when I am in a mood). Not having much success in Chinatown, we hopped on the subway and went to Union Square.

Where there is a Forbidden Planet. For this was the day that Ultimate Spider-man number 100 was released. I had already had a teasing text from Em boasting that she had it and now I was to have my own copy. There was also a Whole Foods here so I lurked at the entrance flicking through Kraven’s Last Hunt while Amy shopped (again, she put up with a lot at this point). We then took the train up the east side and took an unusual route to the apartment, making it there by 6.

Everyone bar biped (who decided to spend the night with the adults, Dana and Lars) was already at the apartment. Daisy had not left, choosing instead to watch the entire series of Wonderfalls (a great choice). While everyone gathered to watch that, Amy went off to relax by herself and I ground my teeth over when to start making dinner. In the end, I decided to get started and also get stressy with other people until they helped. Sus and Em lent some hands but it was still mainly up to Amy to do the cooking as I chopped and then laid the table (noisily). Ultimately though, dinner was served. And being able to rest and relax with food in me improved my mood no end. I spent the evening engrossed in my Ultimate Spidey comic and then a selection of those bought by Em including a fantastic Amazing Spider-man (or at least, long-awaited).

Electrodes of Freedom

Day 4.

It was another glorious day. I believe this was the day I overslept and was the last to emerge, discovering that Amy did the brioche run on her own. It was good stuff, of course.

The planned event of the day was the Daily Show. It was the event that I suggested and arranged with the aid of Rian and sus (as tickets were only four per person and there were twelve of us). With it in mind that I had to be at the Daily Show doors around 3pm, I didn’t expect to do much that day.

It was suggested that we seven go back to some of the locations we had gone through while doing Accomplice. And so we found ourselves back at the Brooklyn Bridge. This time we all went to the first tower (on foot) which was further away than it looked and a nice little walk. I talked to Em about Spider-man for most of the time. Not obsessed, honestly. Brooklyn Bridge was recognisable to me as the place Gwen Stacy died at the hands of the Green Goblin (though I thought that the actual place was the George Washington Bridge- oddly enough it was named as the George Washington but drawn as the Brooklyn n the comic… well, I find it odd). To add to the whole Spider-man thing, the bridge was an astounded mass of cables making me feel caught in its web.

We didn’t feel that it was worth crossing the entire bridge and so came back to Manhattan. We bought lunch at a bakery (I was glad to have some tea with my bland “Thai” wrap as I couldn’t wake up that morning) and sat in the park where we met the blind guy in Accomplice. Q spent much time and effort trying to capture the squirrels on her camera.

We walked a little way to Ground Zero. When I went there over three years ago, there was nothing but a fence around the site and tarpaulin over nearby buildings that still bore the scars. This time there was a plaza with a fruit market, some tourist information and a gallery of photographs as well as the expanse of cleared and unused land. It wasn’t hidden away anymore; it was more of a promise of new ideas. However, I found it quite offensive to see the poster showing off the proposed “Freedom Tower”. And apart from that was quite bored and couldn’t see why biped and sus were keeping us all there. Q, Em, daisy, Amy and I waited patiently and then impatiently. Amy spotted biped and ran up to her tapping her on the left shoulder and then moved to the right making biped do that humorous “huh?” look when no one seemed to be behind her. Though we had rounded her up, it took even longer to drag sus away.

We walked up Broadway and ended up in Chinatown. We headed west and looked into the odd knock-off shops on the way. I saw perfume called “Angelus” and then “Spider-man”. I doubt either was good. We spent a while in a shoe-shop that sold some rather nice boots for $30. Daisy and Q indulged. Another shop boasted cheap t-shirts so Em, Q and daisy went in.

Sus, Amy and I took this opportunity to vamoose without the hassle of obtaining group permission, aware that someone had to hold a place in the Daily Show line if we were to get good seats or indeed any seats at all since even a ticket couldn’t guarantee us that. It was easy to find the Daily Show studio and we sat in the queue munching on cookies and drinking water that we had bought from a nearby store. People behind us in the queue were studying chemistry and though she tried, Amy utterly failed to start a conversation. I feel that I have been remiss in my retelling of the days for not mentioning how dreadfully some of the Harlemites were bitten. Amy and I were okay but certainly the “itch cream” was passed around the others quite a lot (often in public which I found amusing for no apparently reason). Anyway, point is that it was at this moment sus realised that she had the cream and no one else did. She cackled in evil glee as she applied it generously.

After we had been there for an hour, people started to join us. Rian and Paul arrived first with Lars and also the remnants of the Harlem Seven shortly after. Dana arrived just in time as an organiser was handing out numbers to us for admission (we got numbers around 200). Our wait continued though, broken slightly by being informed that we could not bring food or drink into the studio. We scoffed the cookies and drowned ourselves in water while Dana and sus spent the time testing Latin vocabulary on each other and Amy and I played I-spy.

Finally the queue started to move albeit extremely slowly. It was painful to shuffle forwards a metre and then wait even longer. As we neared the front of the queue, entering doors with the legend “abandon all news ye who enter here”, we saw that the reason for the slow movement was the intense security. They checked our bags thoroughly and made us go through metal detectors. All water bottles had to be disposed of. We were pretty grumpy by all of this and I couldn't have been the only one thinking that the American television studios were overly paranoid.

Except that they weren't. Because the guest for the night was the President of Pakistan. Suddenly it made sense that there were impressive people with guns all around us (we thought they had just heard that we were coming...).

The set looked surprisingly shoddy. I don’t know why I expected anything more than a desk and projection screens. The projection screens showed a mish-mash of landmarks oddly including the Big Ben tower. One stage-hand had the very important task of putting a pen on the desk. That was the sole adornment.

The audience was in three sections and we took up an entire row minus one seat in the largest section directly opposite the desk. The two smaller sections on either side were the ones that had the camera pan over them at the start of each segment of the show. A warm-up guy tried to rouse some cheers from us in our sections. I find that rather pathetic. He did better by doing the old “ask people where they are from and insult them” trick. One guy he picked on he recognised from a previous show. Not as hard as it sounds as this guy looked like Sigmund Freud and was indeed a psychiatrist. Would you trust your sanity to someone that likes to play dress-up?

We didn’t need some fake warm-up routine. All that was needed for us to make a noise was for Jon Stewart to come onto the set. I wonder how his ego copes from the worship (mainly) students give up to him. He always seems a little bashful and embarrassed at the attention but you know that is just to encourage people to give more of it. You see it a lot… “Oh, I’m terrible at this.” “No, you’re not! You’re really good.” “Really? I don’t think so.” “You are. You are excellent, quite simply a genius.” I hate that kind of fishing for compliments…

But to get back to events, Jon Stewart offered to answer questions from the audience. One girl had a long speech to make which ended with a question she could have asked right at the beginning: How do you prepare to speak to President Musharraf? Stewart shrugged and said that it was just like any normal show… he wheels in drunk at 5pm… Much laughter.

The show was started just as abruptly as it is on television. I expected some faffing but these were all well-practised professionals. I don’t think a single line was fluffed. Stewart sat behind his Kevlar-reinforced desk and did the first section of the show based on footage of Bush proudly stating that he didn’t understand the Geneva Convention. An expert was brought in (some English comedian called John Oliver) to explain how “outrages upon human dignity” changed depending on the person’s level of dignity observing how what would be degrading for Desmond Tutu would be fine for Paris Hilton. There was much fun involved in just watching them try not to crack up during the spiel.

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The middle section was the main event. The President of Pakistan entered. Jon Stewart offered him some Jasmine tea… and a Twinkie: an American delicacy consisting of purely inedible ingredients which when put together become edible. As always, his interview was carefully balanced between serious issues and humour. Musharraf played along well. Biped was sitting next to me and would occasionally whisper over that this was amazing, to witness such a rare event as the President of Pakistan on a comedy chat-show and also how this was the first Hobbmeet protected by the Secret Service.

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The interview spanned two portions and then we had a break before the epilogue with the obligatory teaser for what was on the brother show, The Colbert Report, and Moment of Zen. During the break they “tested the link” between Stewart and Colbert in his studio with a very amusing piece of witty banter. How much of what they do is off the cuff and how much is rehearsed is totally unknown to me.

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After the “Moment of Zen” I expected us all to be ushered out after this twenty minute show but we were kept back for one more piece. It was being recorded for something later this year. It starred Dave Gormon of Googlewhack and other fame. I was a bit too excited but still couldn’t muster a whoop, just a hearty round of applause. He did a piece on statistics which is always a source of much humour.

Alas, the show ended. Rian, Paul, Dana and Lars declined our offer of dinner at the apartment but promised to come around later for goodbye drinks. Shunned yet still happy from the entertainment, we Harlemites and Charity went merrily to Whole Foods and bought a selection of goodies. We actually gathered a great selection of food (roast chicken and salads mainly) in super-fast time for us. We took it all back to the apartment and set it out as a buffet in the kitchen, eating all together on the glass dining table. It felt very civilised and it was probably the best meal I had during the holiday. The food was great of course. The location perfect. The company unsurpassed. The conversation was a little too music-heavy for me but I was well entertained just being in the moment.

There were brownies for dessert again. And ice-cream.

Charity thought enough of our company to invite a friend over to share it. The nine of us talked through the evening with what remained of the alcohol purchased the day before. The music from the ipod was set to 80s with the odd 70s track creeping in including Bohemian Rhapsody which, of course, got everyone singing again.

Rian phoned some time during the evening to apologise that they couldn’t visit even after dinner as Lars was ill. This was met with a little scepticism but we agreed that we could just meet up for breakfast instead.

Interlude

It is a bit late for the opening credit sequence, but for those of you that don't know the people involved may I present six of the Harlemites.




Sus (skittledog)





biped





daisy





Q





Em





Amy

(Once More With) Fluffy Feelings

Day 3.

Monday was a special day. I look back on it with an odd fondness possibly because of the way it is book ended with Buffy.

It had a slow start. The only thing planned was to go to an Ethiopian restaurant in the evening as our farewell to Heather. We knew that everyone was going to come to the apartment after the meal so we had to tidy. The sofa bed had to be put to rights, cushions needed to be placed on chairs… actually it sounds like very little had to be done but I am certain it was a more daunting task at the time.

Amy was in our room only to be drawn downstairs by the siren call of “Once More With Feeling”. We tidied singing along to “Going Through The Motions”. It gave me pleasure to see her watch us with a (baffled) smile on her face. Plus of course it was great to do. I am a terrible singer but it feels so good especially with a group of people who are just lost in the moment of sharing.

Moments like these made us the Harlem Seven rather than just any old group of people: sharing songs, jokes, the time of our lives. The sun was shining (once more with feeling) and the park beckoned. As one creature, we left the apartment skipping (probably literally knowing us) down the street to the subway. In fact, so well in tune to each other were we that we came colour-coordinated that day in red and green. Through instinct we sat on the subway train with reds on one side and the greens on the other. Q hummed the Star Trek fight music before realising that she was on the doomed red-shirt side.

Finally our vision of a picnic in Central Park was realised. We had a short wander around the west side of the park and then got some lunch from Whole Foods thanks to a recommendation (and directions) from Amy’s guide book. Seven people shopping with no plan is something that has to be seen to be believed. Some items were put into the trolley (I mean, “cart”) without debate but others were put in and then sneakily removed. In the end though, we managed to get to the till and through the doors, laden with goodies.

We walked back into the park and settled on a small rise near one of the roads that runs through it. No cars used it except a couple of taxis; it was mainly for the horse and carts that serviced the area. We sat in the sun and ate our sumptuous food… the French bread and ham and hummus and tomatoes and… actually my memory fails me as it really only recalls the strawberries and chocolate brownies with any clarity. Delicious.

Amy dozed a while. Sus acted like she was six. I basked in happiness. The time was golden but uncompromisingly moving on.

With optimism in the air, we skipped down to the Staten Island Ferry (actually this time I can say with certainty that there was no skipping, just a lengthy time on the subway, reds facing greens). Having been on the ferry to Liberty Island before, I tempted people to take the Staten Island ferry instead by informing them that it was free and didn’t require booking. That was pretty easy. We had fifteen minutes to wait for the next ferry and then the doors opened and we were privileged to see a master at beating the crowds aside as biped somehow made it far ahead of the rest of us. Fortunately her pink rucksack was a great beacon to follow and we made it to some good seats on the starboard side of the boat.

The view of Manhattan as we pulled away on the ferry caused a flurry of photographs as did the approaching Statue of Liberty. Then the focus of attention was on my wind-swept hair, bizarrely. There was a “Rescue Me” moment at the skyline and an “Angel” moment at Ellis Island but on the whole the moments were created on the boat in the usual way: by prodding each other and giggling.

Staten Island was fascinating. We could have spent hours there but chose not to over-excite ourselves. On the return trip, I spent a humorous amount of time communicating mainly via text with Charity and Heather to find an Ethiopian restaurant. It would have been so much easier had I just given them each other’s phone numbers but like an imbecile I thought “surely this will be the last text message” each time only to find that another was necessary a few minutes later. Eventually we managed to get the address of a restaurant recommended by Heather (or was it her local friend?) and we decided to meet there at 7pm.

I hate phones. I will take much joy in destroying the sim card when I leave the states. In fact, I could wreak vengeance on the phone already as I have a spare.

We disembarked and went up to 42nd Street yet again. Being incredibly well-organised people (please bow down in awe of us) we bought our bus tickets for Boston at Port Authority. Then I got back to my favourite hobby of texting so we could meet Rian and Paul at their hotel (in Times Square) before finding dinner. Meanwhile, there was shopping at the touristy shops there and a trip to Best Buy for dvd fixes.

We invaded the “W” where Rian and Paul were staying. The air was scented. What kind of hotel has scented air? The kind that was more spa than hotel I guess. Water ran over the glass ceiling! The lobby was a work of art. Low tables and seating with large lantern-type lighting and er… pots of grass growing everywhere.

Rian glided through the lobby in her element. Paul had a flannel shirt and jeans. What a couple.

Amy and I secretly snacked on strawberries as we hopped uptown and waited outside the restaurant- the restaurant that didn’t exist. Though we had the address correct, there was no sign of the Ethiopian. We were soon joined by Charity who was unsurprised at this development as they didn’t answer her call for reservations. Dana, Lars and Heather arrived and we tried to make other plans, complicated slightly by Heather’s friend who was meant to join us but arrived at the spot before she did, saw the ten of us and scarpered. As any sane man would. Fortunately, making new plans was facilitated by the amazing Charity who came armed with a back-up plan.

Heather stayed at the meeting spot to meet up with her friend (who returned eventually so obviously wasn’t too shocked by the people he had seen) while the rest of us hopped on the train to go a bit more uptown. It is possibly worth noting at this point that this was where I exchanged some words with Lars and discovered a fun and witty mind (though the words that lead me to this discovery are forgotten now- we were arguing over how to optimise our route to the restaurant which you would have thought would not lead to much witty banter but somehow I got a taste of it). Heather and friend actually beat us to the back-up restaurant as they took a taxi. We were seated at two tables of seven. Again we split: adults and children. We pleaded for people to mingle more but were brutally ignored by all but Rian who hesitated before sheepishly ducking under the protective wing of her husband (sorry for the menagerie of creatures in that sentence).

Rather pathetically, the waitress failed to give us the drinks menu but eventually we managed to get an order in. I had a glass of honey wine (surely that is more commonly called mead?) which apparently was a typical accompaniment to an Ethiopian meal. The meal itself was interesting and dare I say it even good? It was certainly food I could imagine eating more of. Refreshingly different, slightly spicy and pretty varied as we had a few different dishes served on the same large plate. Plus, it was fun to eat using the flat pancake-like bread.

It was a good meal. I couldn’t follow much of the conversation when it got onto fanfic and slash, but I had Amy for entertainment in those moments.

After the meal, we declared our intent to have everyone back at the apartment (minus Heather’s friend who, it seemed, decided we were crazy after all and left early). Conveniently, a “liquor store” was across the road. It was a cold night and I hugged Amy for warmth, a hug that grew more popular and soon most of us were in a huddle while we waited for people to buy their poison. It was a nice moment, with Amy on one side and Dana on the other and everyone else similarly entangled.

Amy and I warmed ourselves up back at the apartment with some tea while Em played bartender to everyone else. The single shot glass saw a lot of use that night. Em also demonstrated how shaking a bowl of M&Ms immediately makes them irresistible to Rian after she turned down a non-shaken bowl. Conversation started about the board. We offered up a toast to all Hobblings and compared notes on who had the lowest post-count. Obviously Paul had never posted. Lars revealed himself to post as Yephoe, a name I recognised but never knew to be him.

I do not know how it happened, but someone put “Once More With Feeling” back on over the television speakers. There was singing. Dancing. And it ended on a kiss, of course, between the Buffy of Q and the Spike of Em. I apologise to those that watched in shock. Needless to say, no one out of the “adults” took us up on any more invitations to spend evenings at the apartment.

Blue Sun against a Starry Night

Day 2.

Waking at quarter to eight, I looked at Amy (undoubtedly awake for hours again) and asked, “Do we wait for everyone? Do we just get up and go? Or do we buy breakfast and come back, the heroes of the hour?”

Amy’s eyes obviously lit up at the thought of riding triumphantly into the kitchen bearing breakfast, so we dressed hurriedly and got out of the apartment, banging on the bathroom door and shouting at biped that we were off shopping and she had better let us in on our return.

We took the subway to 110th street at the north entrance to Central Park. This was where we had sheltered the day before. It wasn’t raining today but it was pretty muggy. We had in mind that we would return to the Upper West Side to a bakery we had seen, hoping to buy bread that wasn’t laced with sugar and preservatives. We wanted to take the pretty route there though so walked a short way through the park.

It really was quite amazing: a quiet oasis of green grass and trees and serene lakes. However, like something out of a horror film, we found ourselves caught in a tide of joggers, speed-walkers and *shudder* lycra-clad cyclists. Crossing the road required using every skill learned from Cambridge and then some. We made it out of the park alive and retraced our steps from the day before.

Before we could get to the bakery we spied, we found an even better one. It was white and bright and had dozens of bread varieties and, oh my, tastier brioche than in my wildest fantasies (okay, you’ve got me- I don’t actually fantasise about brioche but I should). We bought bread, two chocolate brioche, two raspberry and chocolate brioche and two apple and raison brioche. Somehow we contained ourselves and instead of starting on it straight away, we picked up orange juice and loo roll (hey, we needed it) at a grocery store before heading off home on the subway, brioche untouched.

There was a general fanfare as we entered and everyone fell to their knees to praise us except Q who was in the shower. As always. There was also some giggles as we realised that three of us (daisy, biped and myself) were wearing the same t-shirt design. We could not persuade sus to join our ranks and put hers on though she too owned a matching t-shirt. That’s the problem when you share obsessions with people- they all buy Blue Sun t-shirts.

Eventually, we were on the road. I debated whether I should stick with the Hobblings or drag Amy away so we could do our own thing (you can’t imagine how hard it was to get around New York as a large group unless you were there- everyone needed the loo at moments when there was only one available and walking paces varied considerably). In the end apathy won and Amy and I followed the other Harlemites.

We took the subway down to 42nd Street and came out into Times Square. Now this is where I get my New York buzz. The lights: they dazzle. I feel like I am thrown into a film. My head whips and the camera swoops in large arcs as I try to take everything in. It is full of outrageous camera angles and dangerous close-ups. I feel like at any moment there will be a screech of brakes as a yellow cab comes close to hitting me and Spider-man swings down and carries me off in his arms.

Or something. It doesn’t have to be Spider-man related. I get visions of pretty much every film ever set in New York. Except Highlander- that didn’t show Times Square. Alas.

Moving on from my poor film knowledge (that is poor knowledge of films, not knowledge of poor films), we gaped as we walked up Broadway. We stopped off at the Virgin Megastore being a group of dvd freaks and then turned down a street past “the Muse Hotel” much to Em’s delight (she treated us to some Muse at the apartment through the cunning technology of the ipod- I was mainly unimpressed and even covering my ears begging it to stop at some point. I think sus is quite right to say that if you’re going to like that kind of music at least listen to Radiohead…. Though I would prefer something cheerier). Turning up 5th, we saw St Patrick’s Cathedral and the roof garden opposite where Spider-man took Mary Jane.

Obsessed? Moi? At least people joined me in this obsession. Even Q which was a surprise.

Eventually we reached our destination (just as it was beginning to rain): The Museum of Modern Art. It was, I believe, Heather’s recommendation. Though she, Rian and Paul were out driving to Massachusetts that day, the remaining nine tourists decided to come here anyway. We split up quite soon into the museum tour. Biped and sus went off on their lonesomes and the antipodeans made themselves into a group (I think- I may be wrong). Amy and I stayed together of course. I spent a comical amount of time exchanging text messages with Dana trying to find her in the large building but we were always one or two steps behind the other.

There were a couple of good pieces towards the start of the museum mainly involving video or photographs. Or a fake prison-cell window. I particularly enjoyed a room with a video projected onto each wall of a tour through some former Nazi interrogation rooms. One video seemed to show a person hanging though a different angle later would reveal her to be levitating. It was spooky and rather disorientating.

Amy and I decided to inspect the top floor café for lunch prospects but found it both much too expensive and much too busy to seat us. Collapsed outside were four other hungry hungry Hobblings. We all decided to get outta the joint and find lunch. We had different ideas of what we wanted so Amy and I split up again to get something light (I hear that the others had large diner-style food). We ended up at Jamba Juice and got some healthy concoctions from there. We had a free “boost shot” so I chose “energy” and Amy chose the dubious “female health” option. We also grabbed some more solid food from a shop and scoffed the lot in next to no time. I think this was really our first time to sit down and chat. It was nice.

We went back into the museum and continued with the tour around the pieces. It seemed slightly better than the Tate Modern but that wasn’t saying too much. We eventually found biped, who introduced us to a piece that was created from chocolate and steel. Nice. She directed us towards the better pieces on the uppermost floor (if I designed a modern art museum, I would put the better pieces near the start in the same way that history museums start with the Egyptian section and supermarkets start with fruit – cue Eddie Izzard sketch). There were some genuinely good pieces up here. I left the museum having seen some Magritte, Picasso, Van Gogh ("Starry Night"- beautiful), Monet and some other names I have forgotten and so was moderately happy with the experience. Given the weather, I am not sure there was anything better that we could have done with the day.

All nine of us gathered at closing time and left the museum to go to the closest bar. I am of course not used to bars having avoided them for my entire life due to the smoking. Despite living in California for 18 months now, I am still not used to the concept of a smoke-free bar. And so I sat quite awkward watching other people drink (obviously my early afternoon drink the day before was an anomaly caused by extreme circumstances). It wasn’t long actually before four of us were yawning and we left for the apartment.

Amy, daisy, sus and I went back to 42nd Street subway via the Virgin Megastore (to buy things this time) and a small shop where I made the mistake of buying a Milky Way (aka Musketeer Bar). On very little food, the sugar made me feel ill and faint. I wolfed down a pastry in the Virgin café which helped matters a little being slightly more substantial but really I didn’t feel better until after dinner. We reheated some of the pasta from Carmine’s as they boxed our remains up for us. There wasn’t a nifty button on the microwave that said “pasta “ so we weren’t sure what to do for a while but we figured it out. We settled down that evening to watching “From Dusk Till Dawn” with all the bad language and rude bits cut out (I know, what is the point?). Amy left first for bed and then I followed, enjoying a rather nice bath that night. I found it hard to sleep that night until the others returned. But once they did I slept happy and well.

How much for a twist, little pale man?

Day 1.

Another early start to the day. Being three hours behind the east coast, getting up at 8 felt like getting up at 5. Amy had almost certainly been awake for hours but had somehow restrained herself from getting up and moving about. However, the consensus of the Harlemites was that everyone should be up at 8.

Seeing daisy actually awake and bright that morning was a bit of a shock. One wonders if New Zealanders are fully human. She seemed quite happy perched in the centre of the sofa-bed in the middle of her curtain material bed sheets (it was all we could find that would fit).

The morning blurs in my mind. I made tea. Of that I am certain. I made tea for Em and she asked where the sugar was. I gave her no sympathy. Or sugar of course. Biped probably had coffee and Amy peppermint tea but the beverages of others were not my concern so I will stop trying to remember them.

There was a bowl. I am certain that other people experienced the bowl more than I did. I knew it to be an elusive bowl and much in demand by those that ate the mysterious cereal. As I said, mornings blurred. The only item of import was my tea.

The plan for the day was to meet the other Hobblings and their SOs for a picnic on Great Hill at 106th street. With two showers and one Hobbling that seemed incapable of spending less that 45 minutes showering, getting ready to face the day was slow going. And yet the troop of seven was out of the door by ten thirty.

And once outside, it decided to rain.

It took a while to make new arrangements after rain scuppered the picnic plan. I rather pathetically phoned Charity to ask her to be the decisive one, sheltering under scaffolding near 110th street subway station. Aimless, we headed downtown with the general idea that those without umbrellas really ought to purchase one. Halfway there, we realised that we were missing the assigned meeting up time in the park so Amy and I (being armed with brollies) volunteered to head back and gather the stragglers.

I was in the midst of phoning Rian when my mobile told me I had voicemail so I clicked the dial voicemail button and listened to the response. Rather comically it was an American going “Hello? Hello? Keppet, hello?” and I sniggered that obviously someone had not worked out that they were leaving voicemail.

Oops, the request to access voicemail had not gone through but my call to Rian had. I kicked myself and called her back claiming some sort of technical difficulty. Moving on from my embarrassment, I told her to stay put in her swanky hotel in Time Square to be collected by Hobblings rather than come uptown. Meanwhile, no one had the means to tell Heather of the change of plans.

Amy and I rushed uptown and walked across to 106th street and Central Park West on our way passing some wonderful shops including a bakery we swore to return to. I think in the future I should note that the Upper West Side is the place in NY to stay. We made it to the designated meeting place a little late but Heather was not there yet. Amy bought some fruit at some stalls there while I peered around corners and under hedges wondering where the geneticist was hiding. Not many minutes later, a figure was striding up the avenue. A figure reminiscent of Xena the warrior princess… Well, maybe not but she was instantly recognisable. I waved, she waved and we met with a manly handshake (much more sensible than that hugging business, particularly when someone is carrying a hot cup of coffee as she was). Heather took the news that we were pathetic and changing plans at the last minute remarkably well and we wandered back to the subway discussing our backgrounds, mainly professional. Between the three of us, we covered the main sciences. Which I felt was remarkable. On route, I talked with Charity and between Charity and the ex-local Heather, we arranged a new meeting place at Canal and Mott in Chinatown.

Heather, Amy and I had to fight the crowds along Canal Street. Every few metres, someone was thrusting a bag in Heather’s face asking whether she wanted a designer item for a fraction of the price. Amy and I followed in her wake and were much less hassled by hawkers but more distracted by the odd vegetable and fruit stalls. Again, there were frantic phone calls to make sure that people were at the correct meeting place. I heard from Charity that she was there. I heard from Rian that she was there with the other Harlemites. However, Charity and Rian did not seem to be together. I guess that they eventually realised who they were standing on a street corner with because when we three got there everyone was together and Charity had identified a restaurant large enough for us all. (I am amused to read sus' blog entry on this).

Eleven people (nine Hobblings plus Rian’s SO, Paul and my sanity-keeper, Amy) sat around the largest table in the Chinese restaurant. A bit of musical chairs meant that Amy and Charity could sit next to each other and share vegetarian meals while the rest of us shared the meaty dishes. There was a bit of a communication error when they didn’t bring rice with our meal but that was soon sorted and we span the rotating wheel of dishes around each taking a small portion of each delight. Dana and Lars joined us just as the meal was getting started and we all shuffled around fitting a record breaking and some say unlucky thirteen people around the table.

The meal was excellent thanks to a table that encouraged conversations and, well, the people that populated it. Paul showed amazing generosity and paid for the meal for thirteen people. He deserves many thanks for that and so I think I will dedicate this paragraph to him. To Paul, whose tolerance of crazy unprepared Hobblings knows no bounds.

Then we rushed off to our Accomplice meeting spot. We had been given it in most dramatic fashion the day before over the phone. I had to go to the bother of setting up my voicemail account in fact to receive a message that began with a shouted “Christine if that is in fact your real name…” and went on in semi-coherent mumbles to give the location as by a fish tank in a bar called Sequoia, South Street Ferry. I am glad that others were more on the ball than I was because I assumed that this would be at the most southern point of Manhattan and was all set to go to the Staten Ferry terminal. Well, when I say more on the ball…

We trusted Charity and Heather to guide us. Charity drifted back down the group, giving up the lead to Heather who took us on a massive hike in the wrong direction. I get very stressy when it comes to appointments and things so I was not pleasant company when we were running late. By the time we realised that we weren’t going to make it, there wasn’t even time to catch a cab even if we could find enough for all of us. The map was handed to sus in the end who took us straight to the location albeit twenty minutes late. Once there, I got all pathetic and declined to go into the bar to initiate contact with the man in black nursing a lemonade. In a thirteen-person huddle, we shuffled forward and surrounded the poor chap nervously. I don't recall anyone saying anything... we just exchanged glances, unsure of how to proceed. Perhaps there were giggles, whispers of “what if this is just a normal guy?” and the observation that a fish tank usually holds fish. And also water. Then he turned on us and pretty much shouted that we were late and this was unacceptable... and to come back at 3pm. He stormed out leaving us to look at each other open mouthed.

I drowned my shame in a bar... most of us did. Was it too early in the day to be drinking? Sus went off to do her own thing (probably involving a trek through muddy fields) and Amy vanished on us too (causing me some alarm). The remaining eleven took over the entire length of a bar (not the Sequoia). Em bought Frangelica and lime for me. It was sweet but good (better once I put more lime in it) and I can see why she drinks it a lot. In the middle of my drink, I went out to look for Amy and encountered a street performer who bent himself into various positions. He was saying how nobody could move as the balance of the universe had to be just right in order for him to do some particular bend… I moved and found Amy who was struggling to phone her parents. I gave her entirely the wrong country code and returned to my drink.

At five to three we were gathered outside the Sequoia. We took the opportunity to take group pictures (well, Amy took them and there were many). As 3pm struck, or would have had there been a clock nearby, we moseyed into the bar and took stools around some tables. Biped observed that the contact would probably arrive late by twenty minutes just to punish us. He did indeed arrive a little late. Looking shifty, he breezed past us and gestured that we should follow.

To the other end of the bar. I can’t help but feel that as far as covert operations went, this one needed some work. All thirteen of us followed the man in black a full five metres and watched in (be/a)musement as he checked around for lurking “feds”. We were instructed to make a circle so that he could see us all. After berating us yet again for being late (I do think that a location that is actually near a subway station would be better…) he got on with the plot. He introduced himself as Louie. Apparently he had some friends… well, maybe not friends… business colleagues… well, acquaintances… who needed a quick way out of the city. We were to go around New York and find them and give them plane tickets. Biped: Have you considered e-tickets? Louie observed that online activity was too easily traced and moved on. The whole spiel took about forty minutes, the time mainly taken up with a bit of “audience interaction” such as asking where we were all from and telling us what we could do with the money we’d be getting for doing this task. I recall I was to buy a spade for use in the Garden of England… More time was used up with him saying words such as “seeked” leading to an incredibly pained look on Q’s face and some subsequent tension between her and the institution-educated New Yorker. We also had to sign accident waivers and two of us were given blue baseball caps to wear (myself and Rian) to help the acquaintances identify us.

Eventually we were moved another couple of metres out of the bar and into a mall where Louie and Em pretended to be considering whether the bar was worth a visit in rather loud voices. With spectacular sleight of hand, Louie shoved the plane tickets into Em’s bag and ushered us outside to stop in front of a door with a “no blocking” sign. “Look at you,” he observed, “already breaking the law.” We moved on past many people Louie pointed out as feds including a small child in a pushchair (I was more distracted by the Spider-man balloon animals on sale from a street vendor). Bringing us to a quite industrial spot away from the shops and bars, he made us gather in a circle again and told us that we had to watch out for those small feds. I forget who but let’s pretend it was Heather commiserated that the FBI were putting midgets into child suits nowadays. I do believe that sus, Amy and I giggled something about robot midgets in the corner causing the wrath of Louie to descend on us for not paying him attention. And then we were punished with a bad John Wayne impression. Louie gave Rian a collection of photographs and Q a Dictaphone with “walking music”. She played it: Frank Sinatra, Come Fly With Me.

The photographs were all of buildings or objects just within sight. As we walked towards each subject, we looked at the next photograph and looked out for that location. In this simple way, we found ourselves outside a bar with the note on the photo to ask for Milton. Em, in her natural habitat, took the lead and inquired of the barman whether Milton was around. The man behind the bar was unruffled when he claimed the honour of the name and invited us to order a drink- beer, wine or whatever. Feeling that I had been extravagant enough that day, I opted for an orange juice. We all grabbed our drinks and sat at a long table in the centre of the room. And admired the décor.

Bras. Everywhere. Em declared it her type of bar. Amy was looking to nab one of them apparently. The guy behind the bar passed a letter to Amy and she opened it, read it aloud and then passed it down the table to those that could not hear her. The letter gave us further instructions as to what to tell the acquaintances when we passed on the plane tickets as well as a lot of preamble and “in character” waffle. Cryptic Bar Guy (there is always one… I thought that we’d have more time to talk toot with him than we actually did) was looking at us and holding a laminated sheet of black paper. Q grabbed it and noticed the holes in the sheet. Placing it on the letter we read… rubbish. Realising that there was possibly another orientation to try, Q turned the sheet around and we read instructions about the next location.

We left the bra bar and trusted sus to guide us yet again (a choice that never failed us) to a payphone by the Enterprise Car Rental place. Expecting a phonecall, daisy volunteered to accept it and we all hung around the phone. A person from the rental place came up to us asking rather pointedly if he could help us. “Oh, we’re just waiting for a phone-call,” I said. He went away and returned with a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. Looking in the pack, I saw that they were rolls of paper so I took one and thanked the man, inwardly upset that we wouldn’t have that mystic payphone ringing experience. Q took the roll of paper and opened it. There was a map to a fountain. Sus lead the way yet again.

The fountain was in a small garden and utterly wonderful. Being tourists not taking Accomplice very seriously, we posed for photos around the fountain and then hung around wondering what to do next. Rian: Do you think that has something to do with us? (pointing at a man on a bench with sunglasses, a white stick and a sign hanging around his neck saying “does anyone have a blue hat?”). We approached him and Rian and I sat on the bench with him. As perhaps the lamest opening ever, I asked him whether he liked out hats. Oh dear. I never claimed to be good under pressure or indeed to know when pressure was being applied or, as in this case, clearly not. Others were more on the ball however and soon we were in the middle of the next act with the blind guy waving his stick at everyone, just missing them and complaining that he could smell rotten avocados. Em handed over a plane ticket and Heather read out the instructions from the letter.

The plane will take you to the airport at Miami. You will meet an albino midget. He is called Abe. You will know him because he is albino. And a midget. He will be holding a lemon. You will go up to him and ask “how much for a twist little pale man?”.

What can I say? Heather delivered it most eloquently. I think of all the things that are admirable about her, surely the ability to keep a straight face under these circumstances must rank pretty high.

The blind man quite rightly pointed out that he would find it hard to identify an albino midget- what was he to do? Feel up all the little people to see whether they were holding a lemon? He’d get arrested. I think someone suggested that maybe he could smell the lemon… but in the end he had his own solution. He turned his sign around and it read “is anyone an albino midget?”. He gave us a key and let us look into a large box he had been guarding (well, actually Rian had been sneaking peeks into it the whole time). It had a little wooden model of the area and the location of our next meeting place marked with a man standing next to a red box. Yet again trusting sus, we were on our way.

And she missed the man by a few metres. There was a small triangle of land with benches between two roads and she thought that he was in the larger park area across the road. To be fair, he didn’t have a red box with him but a little chest so I am surprised that someone identified him and we found our next post so easily. This man was dressed like an accountant having a mental breakdown and he stuttered and jiggled from foot to foot. As we went through the routine of handing over the plane ticket and having Heather deliver in most Shakespearean tones the midget speech, I thought that this was quite an interesting setup. He was acting (rather well) as someone mentally disabled and yet of course we all acted towards him as a normal human being. Because that is what he was. It just struck me as interesting that I could relax in his presence and I think that he was doing me a service in a way to show me that I was capable of this. Anyway, we had a box to open. And what do you know? It was locked. Not with a key but a combination. But don’t worry- the combination was a year, we were told- the year that the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge died (two months after his bridge was approved apparently). And we could find it written at the first tower. Which was miles and miles away (well, some distance possibly not far but we were lazy) but don’t worry for he had a bicycle we could use. So sus borrowed the bike and strapped on an ill-fitting yellow helmet. Looking as ridiculous as possible, she pushed the bike off and almost failed to mount it, knocking some pedestrians into the East River for luck. It should be mentioned here that there was a plaque giving the date just a few metres away from where we were standing and had we come to meet the man by the quickest route, we would have seen it.

Meanwhile, for it took the peddling sus some time to make the trip, Paul read a newspaper article in practised tones (I note this because I know that I couldn’t read anything out loud) about diamonds and Bill Gates. Honestly, I was bored and more interested in keeping a look-out for sus, calculating the odds of her taking the bike and abandoning us to the game. But she returned in style (well, in her ill-fitting, yellow cycle-helmet), a real photo-finish. “1869!” I noted that we could have just tried guessing and would have got that faster but of course where would the fun be in that? Daisy opened the chest. Inside was a fortune cookie, three dollar-bills and a paper place-mat with a map drawn on the back.

Q ate the cookie. The fortune was in Chinese. Twitchy Guy noted that the map took us through Chinatown where, maybe, there would be someone that could read Chinese. Yet again following sus and her mighty map skills (which makes it odd that we dubbed Em “map girl” for the trip though I suppose that is because we kept on giving her maps to carry), we found ourselves battling Chinatown. We stopped off on the way to let a couple of people use some public toilets while Rian and Em tried to get the fortune translated. The first person they asked was of course not Chinese. The second person was more helpful (“it says Green Frog”) but not actually accurate as it said “Buy a frog”, or so the organiser told us at the end of the day.

The first place on our map was an address and the words “pick-up”. We went there and were offered… a frog in a bag. Daisy paid the three dollars and we all watched it squirm in its polythene prison. It was quickly dubbed Gulliver and on its travels to the next place on the map- “Inglesia, drop-off” in Little Italy. Sus found the church and we hesitated over what to do next. There was a woman with a carrier box for a pet sitting on the steps but she didn’t pay us any attention. Another woman was hanging around and she came up to us and asked where we got the frog and er, why exactly we were carrying one. Charity decided to go into the church to see if the drop-off was in there but came out with no sign of anything. Finally we attracted the attention of the frizzy red-head on the steps as she inquired about the frog too. Speaking at many miles an hour, she also explained that she was out looking for her cat. Within seconds she had us calling for her cat before saying “oh, that’s right- he died in 1992.” Sensing that perhaps, just maybe she was our contact, Em asked for her name and handed over the plane ticket. Heather read her piece about the albino midget. Called Abe. Red had a problem with the concept of a midget. Heather explained, “a short person but not underly aged”. Then they commiserated with each other at what the humid Miami air would do to already quite frizzy hair. Red took the frog. I hoped that it would go to a good home- perhaps Accomplice was a front for a frog liberation group? We later discovered that it was just returned to the Chinese shop and undoubtedly ended up as someone’s meal. Poor Gulliver. We prodded her for further instructions and she passed over something written in code and instructions to go to an Italian restaurant.

The street was chaotic. There was a street fair going on and herding thirteen Hobblings to the mystery location was not easy. We ended up in single file so I am not sure what exactly went on at the front- how contact was initiated with the Russian guy. But it was and he ushered us into a restaurant with a large table laid out for us. There was wine and water and he poured us all a glass if we wanted it (mine was woefully small and the bottle too far away to help myself). Waiters came around with appetizers and there was bread on offer. I stuck to the bread, not being able to identify much that was on the olive-oil drenched plates. Meanwhile, the Russian guy was showing off his Elvis impersonation and offering to get a Russian mail-order husband for Em. Some people were still playing the game, however, and there was a large box for us to inspect. The key we received earlier opened it and inside were LPs of some of the worst music Q had ever had the misfortune to rummage through- or at least that is what her face told me. Finally she came to a Frank Sinatra LP, “Come Fly With Me”, and she declared “finally something decent”. Russian Guy asked whether we had heard any music that day and I could almost see Q roll her eyes as she removed Frankie from the box and opened the record sleeve. Inside was a code wheel and within seconds she had done her mojo and deciphered the coded message we had been given. “Look at the key ring”. With some difficulty and help, she got the picture that was on the key-ring out of its plastic protection. It was a photo of a slutty girl with a blue feather boa. There were also instructions to go to a local Australian bar and find Bunny.

We grabbed the final item from inside the big box (a small cigar box) and gave Russian Guy the plane ticket and midget speech. Out on the crazy Italian street again, we elbowed north past stalls selling deep-fried Oreos. We found the bar but it was small and couldn’t handle all of us so we sent token Aussie number one (Q) inside while Em stayed outside and argued which were the best Aussie beers with the doorman. The rest of us observed the skeleton watching us from the roof of the building across the street and worried that the game was about to get more serious. Q came out with no success so other Hobblings went in to try to spot the feathered friend. As we waited, a peculiarly petite girl wearing a feather boa and little else darted past us and into the bar. She emerged with the Hobblings trailing and told us all to follow her. She went down some stairs next to the bar entrance that lead down to the basement level of the Aussie bar- obviously we had been searching the wrong section. We were ushered into an area with a low table and many small stools. We got settled and listened to Bunny squeal. “Have you got them?” “Yes,” said daisy. “Have you seen them?” “Yes,” said daisy, the rest of us all confused. Did she mean the cigars? “Well, hand them over!” squealed Bunny. Daisy handed over the cigar box and Bunny peered inside, tutting that there were some cigars missing and that we must have been smoking them. At the bottom of the box, she fished out some tacky costume jewellery. “You know what these are of course!” So, there had been a point to the Bill Gates and diamonds article. And yet as far as a story goes, it did perhaps need some work done to it. Bunny said some stuff about not going to Miami and maybe it was something about double-crossing the others? But I really wasn’t following. I was staring at the dodgy old man who was leaning over a railing and peering down Bunny’s top (actually, I don’t think he was but I reserve the right to embellish). Bunny kept on squealing and rabbitting (ha) on and then broke off- “Why are you so quiet?” I pointed out the man behind her in a kind of “you should watch what you say because you are being listened to” way. Bunny tried to shoo the lurker away much to my confusion as I was sure he was part of the show. She said that they were busy and it wasn’t a show for the public and so on. More squealing, and he didn’t go. She gave him a cigar. She called the barman over to throw him out. He continued to come back and leer. And then lunged forwards (and apparently Hobblings near to him were pretty shocked by this) and slapped cuffs on Bunny, revealing himself to be a detective. “Are you with her?” he asked. “No no…” we all said (of course).

Bunny left her handbag behind. With a couple of exchanged glances, we pounced on the tacky item and emptied its contents. Some rather personal effects and one dictaphone tape fell out. Spotting some speakers behind us, we hooked up the dictaphone we received from Louie to allow the tape to be heard by all. It was the Man of the diamond operation (I really wasn’t following… were the diamonds stolen? Or just bought from a dodgy source?) giving a private message to Bunny (and telling us how to hook it up to the speakers- oh we were so ahead of the game when it came to technology). It told Bunny (or rather us) where we could find a briefcase with our reward money. It was hidden in the bar so we got it and placed it on the table. The recording told us that the combination code was the name of the midget. Despite having heard it a number of times that day, I hadn’t a clue so I let daisy seated next to me do the hard work. She turned the case around to open it, letting those opposite us both see the contents first.

Or rather, have the springy snakes fly out at them first.

I was most pleased with daisy’s aim.

There was triumphant music and out from the shadows came a man and Bunny. The man introduced himself as the organiser. "You know the funny thing about the internet," he said, "is how you can record the IP addresses of visitors and see what site they came to you from. And one day we noticed people from all around the world... coming from one site... and so we read it." I was delighted by this. Fame at last! He went on to ask who it was that found out about Accomplice and after we went around denying knowledge it dawned on us that the person that wanted to go to it was the person that at the last minute didn’t show up! So there was laughter and thanks given for them accommodating our lateness. He asked us to stay a while and enjoy the drinks at the bar but we had to be on our way for our dinner reservation at Carmine’s.

The restaurant was on the Upper West Side which I think we have already covered was a great area of the city. Carmine’s, the family pasta place, was a zoo. I have never been in a restaurant that busy or noisy. I had a lot of problems hearing the person sitting opposite me at the table. Hey, I had problems hearing the people next to me. Since we were such a large group, we were split across two tables. Amy and Charity stuck together as non-meat eaters (the food was in large, sharing portions) and I of course stuck by Amy as abandoning her on the first day to Hobblings seemed a tad cruel. Sus, Q and daisy made up the rest of the table. We observed that apart from Em, the other table were all (how to say this politely…) old and decrepit (from the perspective of a fresh-face person in their early twenties) and joked that we were the children’s table. Apart from that joke, dinner was a rather subdued affair as we were all shattered. The waiter talked us into getting more food than we knew what to do with. We grimly shovelled down our pasta (rather bog-standard stuff that you could whip up in a few minutes if Sainsbury’s was nearby) and asked for the bill without fussing over dessert. Every few minutes during the meal, there was a burst of “Happy birthday” from a nearby table with the waiters delivering huge ice-cream cake things. I understand that there was some sort of plan to get in on this action but nothing came of it. We paid our bill (a cheap-skate $15 each) and lurked on the pavement outside for Em and biped to join us so that we could all go back to the apartment together. It appears that the bill on the adult’s table was twice as much and the party only got started once Em and biped left.

Worn out, we eight (the Harlem Seven plus our good friend Charity) went to the apartment. We collapsed in the living room and Charity shared out her comics (I said she was our good friend). Em got to read Civil War #4 first and I had to suffer her gasping every few seconds. But then I had to suffer the actual comic which I do not rate highly at all (the parody is better- link on request if you don’t want to look for it on the Board). Amy of course retired first and I am pretty sure I followed soon after.