Ji-Soo and Ginna Try to Leave Brooklyn: Take Four

I could not spend another day cooped up in the apartment and Ji-Soo had the great idea of going to the Botanical Gardens. We chose to go to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, which didn't get us out of Brooklyn, but we had to take the J train into Manhattan to get the 2/3 so technically, we got out. And, a pleasant surprise upon arrival - admission was free! Here are some highlights:


This area was hot and humid. I was pretending to be some sort of jungle animal - maybe a howler monkey.


Ji-Soo loved this flower because it looks like there is a little puppy inside.


I don't know what this is, but I liked it.


Ji-Soo thought this one looked like it had a little alien in the middle with head, eyes, out-stretched arms and a funny leg/butt part. I like the color and the markings.


Hanging roots.


Little guys at work.


Symmetry.


No. Clue. But it looked cool - colorful, like a fruit dessert, sprinkled with confectioners sugar.


Jamaican poinsettia.


Bonsai.


I fell in love with the little leaf in the center. I think this is an elm - Ulmus?


More Ulmus.


I love these sad, dried out little guys. Ji's take: resilient, not sad.


We made a little friend.


My favorite of the day, vine lilac, snuggling with rosemary.


I thought these guys looked like little snakes.


Bromeliads - in the desert! I have only ever seen them in the cloud forest in Costa Rica.


Don't touch.




More ants.

Ji-Soo and Ginna Try to Leave Brooklyn: Take Three

We waited and waited. We told ourselves that if the plow came by 7 p.m. we could still make it to Rochester. At 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday night the plow came by. We could see it from the window of Ji's living room and were very excited and talked about the plausibility of leaving for Rochester at this hour. We decided it would be a dangerous headache to drive all night let go of the idea of a trip to Rochester (this was difficult for me).

We looked out the window and saw that the plow had come to a stop on the corner and had not moved for five minutes. Across the intersection from the plow we saw a group of about 15 Hasidic men congregated in the middle of the street. What were they doing? I hoped that they were protesting the lack of public services. Ji and I decided to put on our layers and wander out to investigate.

The situation on the street was this: the plows (we could see now that there were two, one behind the other) could not pass through the intersection because on the other side the intersection a mini van was stuck in the snow, dead, halfway into the street. Close to 30 Hasidic men and young boys were swarmed around the van, pushing and rocking, hoping to move it back into its spot to allow the plows to pass. While this project was in in the works, the plow driver was having a discussion with a group of 6-8 Hasids on the corner. Imagine this:

Hasidic man, very think Yiddish accent: "What about in '96? You guys had everything plowed by the next day?"
Plow driver, very think NYC accent: "We are short 600 men! We had 600 more men back then. We're just short men."

There were very few other people on the street and being surrounded by so many Hasidic men gave an odd feeling of being in the 1800's. I'm glad Ji had his phone and the wherewithal to use it.


Group work getting the mini van back in place.


Waiting. The plow driver is the man across the street dressed in green.

Finally, the mini van is moved. Finally, close to 9 p.m. the plows move. And Genius Ji-Soo takes a video.

Ji-Soo and Ginna Try to Leave Brooklyn: Take Two

This morning, more than 24 hours after the snow stopped, S 9th st. in Brooklyn still has not been plowed. I convince a very unwilling Ji-Soo to try to dig the car out of the street with me. This involves digging a car wide path through 1-2 ft of packed down snow from Ji's car, past a van, another van and out into the intersection. I think this sounds like a fantastic challenge. Ji-Soo does not.

But he is kind and supportive and starts the project with me. After about 30 minutes he decides that he is not having fun and heads back inside. I continue the project, not with any real hopes of being successful, but because I can't stand another day in the apartment waiting for something to happen. After about 30 min a garbage truck with a plow on the front goes thru the intersection and yells out his door.
"I'm trying my best to get to you!"
"Are you coming through?"
"If not this time, then the next time around!"
"Thank you!"

But, I've been waiting over a day for a plow to come by, so I don't get my hopes up or stop digging. 10 min later I see him on the street, one block down, slowly working his way toward me. I can't yet believe that the plow might actually pass, so I keep picking away at the snow. I'm about to call up to Ji and tell him the plow is coming if he wants to come down to watch when Ji shows up with a Thermos of hot tea. He pours me a cup of steaming hot chamomile tea while we stand in the middle of the street watching the plow, less than a block away, get stuck in the snow. I finally realize that my toes and fingers are cold and that I want to go inside.

From Ji's apartment on the 15th floor we are able to watch the plow stay stuck. A tow truck arrive to help but ended up leaving the plow stuck in exactly the same place. He is now sitting sideways in his cab, door open, legs out.

I've showered, I've eaten, and I'm going to watch a movie.

Ji-Soo and Ginna give up

Ji-Soo and I were supposed to drive to Rochester this morning. When we woke up the sky was clear blue. The blizzard was over. We ate breakfast, showered, packed and headed out, knowing that we would have to dig the car out. Digging the car out only took about 20 minutes even with the three foot drifts. What we were not expecting, however, was for the road that the car was parked on to be unplowed and covered with 1.5 ft of snow. We went back inside.

Back inside I got grumpy. Why couldn't we buy snow shovels and dig a path for the car out to the paved road? We had just given up! We had run from the adventure! We were so close! Although Ji was not as eager I to spend hours shoveling snow, he did agree to bundle up again and give it a shot.

Step One: Find a snow shovel. Result: Failure.
We asked at the front desk but he said he had to use it. We went to a hardware store and they were sold out. We tried to find a second hardware store and decided we would not pay more than $35 for a snow shovel, imagining that with such demand they could jack the prices.

On our shovel hunting expedition we passed:
-about ten cars stuck in the street
-plows sitting on side streets not willing or able to plow thru three foot drifts that had accumulated
-a city truck stuck, fishtailing dangerously close to a parked car.
-people of all types out in the streets shoveling out cars, rocking stuck cars
-traffic jams caused by cars stuck in intersections
-a car who took a turn too fast and slammed into a snow bank
-tons of Jewish kids shoveling sidewalks all over the neighborhood
-a man with a plastic snow shovel, snapped in half
-cars that had gotten stuck halfway into or out of a parking spot and were then abandoned

This is when I realized that even if we were able to dig a path for the car to get out of the unplowed road, there was still real potential disaster. We never found the second hardware store. I said to Ji: "You were right. Let's go home and watch movies."

Blizzard of 2010

Last night at 11:30 Ji and I decided to wander out into the blizzard. A block away from his house we saw a minivan stuck in an intersection, a Hasidic Jewish man frantically shoveling snow away from the front of the car. Since Ji moved to Williamsburg I have become fascinated with Hasidic Jewish culture. Earlier in the day Ji's brother in law had joked about whether or not after 6 months of living here Ji has made eye contact with any Jewish people. They are an insular people.

Dire circumstances, however....

As we passed thru the intersection, past the man and his shovel, we heard a voice from the window of the projects on the corner.
"You better not hit my car! Watch out for my car! You better not f***ing hit my car! Motherf***er!"
And on and on.
The Jewish man ignored for a minute then turned toward the voice and yelled, "Which one?"
"That one, right there. Right next to you. You better not f***ing hit it!"
"It's ok!"

The window voice turned into inaudible grumbling and the Jewish man returned to his shoveling. Barriers broken down, cultures crossing, ground covered. Or just some crazy person yelling out a window.


Ji's car


Cold and wind blown Ji-Soo. Total outside play time: 20 min. We couldn't last much longer.


We weren't the only ones out for a midnight stroll. Notice how little snow there is on this street because it was out of the wind. The next morning we saw five foot drifts in some places.


A happy little sign.


Our poor bikes covered by a snow drift. The tassels on the bike to the right show how windy it was.


Ji-Soo defrosting in the elevator.

International Christmas Eat Fest

Phase One: Christmas Eve

Stage One: Ji's cousin's house in Wayne, NJ. Lots of Korean food I don't know the name of but it was good and I wanted to eat more but did not because we had Stage Two to go to. There was meat and noodles and dumplings and mung bean cakes and green tea cake and almond cookies.

Stage Two: Ji's friends house in Leonia, NJ. Cuban cuisine. Suckling pig with rice, beans, yuca, avocado with onion and lemon juice. Ribs, crispy skin, cheeks. I almost busted my button off my pants.

Phase Two: Christmas Day

Stage Three: Ya's house in Plainview, LI. Enough (mostly) Thai food to last 3-4 months: lo mein, spring rolls, ginger noodles with shrimp, chicken, spinach cakes, green curry soup, baked ziti, fried sweet potatoes and taro. Having nothing to do with food, this get together also included Senegalese sabar drumming by Mass and some cousins and some really enthusiastic dancing by my aunts. Ji, Mindy and I got sabar lessons and I only smacked my hand with the stick once. Mass says this means that I'm really starting to understand sabar.

Languages spoken during this 24 hour period: English, Korean, Spanish, Thai, French, Wolof.

When Ji and I got back to his apartment we watched How To Train Your Dragon and then spent about three hours working on projects - Ji-Soo fiddling with his guitar and me sewing a sewing pouch.

And I am happy, happy, happy.