I am an eternal optimist. You may not believe me; at first glance, I seem to be pretty good at complaining, and while I have taken this French pasttime to heart–I can raler with the best of them–I do tend to look on the bright side of most situations, or at least try.
I’m not exactly sure how this happened. I am, after all, from New York. It’s probably a reaction to the fact that my father, the eternal pessimist, was always flipping out over tiny things when I was growing up. Now, whenever anything goes wrong, my first instinct is to try to see the silver lining:
I missed True Blood? Oh well… I can watch it tomorrow on HBO OnDemand.
I have to work this weekend and miss a party? At least I’ll be making money…
I lost 100 bucks? Well, someone will probably find it and have an awesome day because of it.
I got strep throat the weekend I was supposed to go on vacation? At least I’ll have no problems sleeping on the train…
And yes, I do get that ridiculous. And yes… all of those are true stories. It helps, when things are just plain shitty, to come up with some reason why the world isn’t ending… and it keeps me from tearing my hair out on a regular basis.
But today… today, I can’t come up with even one silver lining to the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day that I had (name that children’s classic…).
I woke up, slightly hungover (thank you light beer and jagermeister… where did my alcohol tolerance from freshman year go?) and had to move my car from its perfectly perfect spot on Madison Avenue by 9am to a garage I had found with a 12 dollar early bird special. But then I thought to myself, “wouldn’t you rather just stay here under the blanket and feed the meter every hour?”
So that’s what I did. For three hours, I fed the meter religiously, running a handful of errands in the hour that I had bought myself, but pretty much just hanging around at home, having lengthy conversations with the dog and chatting on Facebook, at which point I found out about an unforeseen financial emergency that had me clambering to find Euros or travelers checks, neither of which any financial institution in a 10-block radius seemed to want to give me.
I called my mom–in my “little” voice… the one she tells me to “stop, or else I’m hanging up.” I explained the situation to her, and she told me to go down to the American Express office.
“Where?” I asked, grabbing my car keys and house keys as I walked towards the elevator landing: I had two minutes to move my car, and the meter maids are tricky on the Upper East Side.
“Just a sec, I’ll call them.” I rang for the elevator and got inside as I heard my mother explaining the situation to the woman on the other line.
“Can I pay with Mastercard?” I asked, as the elevator doors shut.
She repeated the question, then answered in the affirmative. Then the phone lost reception.
You see, I don’t have a cell phone–I was talking on a landline cordless. It’s usually something I enjoy, but today, not so much.
I hopped in the car–gratefully without a parking ticket, and zoomed towards Park Avenue… where I sat in traffic for thirty minutes. I realized that I didn’t remember the cross street my mother had given me… something in the 50s. I watched the angry drivers around me as I searched for an American Express sign, finally seeing it on the right-hand side of the street… but I was in the left lane. So I turned left. It seemed logical at the time.
You can’t park on the street in midtown. Of this I was unaware.
After looking in vain for cheap parking, I finally found a lot where I could park for seven dollars for half an hour. That rate jumped to 25 if I stayed any longer than 30 minutes. I flung the keys at the attendant and took off down 53rd street, weilding my MasterCard and hoping I could get there in time.
“You can’t pay with MasterCard,” the woman at the window said to me, an eyebrow raised judgementally.
“But… I called ahead and asked.”
“You can pay with Visa.”
“No… I asked about MasterCard.”
“You can pay with cash.”
“I don’t have cash.”
“There will be a 50 dollar fee.”
“With MasterCard?”
“With Visa.”
“I don’t have Visa.”
“You can’t pay with MasterCard.”
It was a back-and-forth that reminded me eerily of a two-man play I had done by Christopher Duran about a woman’s exploits at the DMV, but regardless of how much I tried to persuade her (and how much I used my cute American voice… note: that only works on French men, not Dominican women), I walked out of the placce empty-handed. Dejected, I walked back to the parking garage and thankfully made it in just under the half-hour limit, so I pulled the car out and drove it back up third avenue, griping about the fact that I hadn’t just taken the damn train.
An hour later, I was still circling on the Upper East Side. I found the perfect spot, but then a doorman stepped out of his building and told me it was too close to a fire hydrant. I tried, with the aid of a helpful street sweeper, to park on Madison, but the spot was quite small, and a woman suggested I take hers, but as I was trying to pull out of the sticky situation I’d wedged myself into, a hot shot in a black car stole it out from under me.
Finally, after more than three hours of Hell, I decided to put the Damn Thing in a garage and pay the Damn Thirty Dollars… highway robbery. I muttered a bit and started to feel like a crotchety old man.
But here’s the thing…
I missed True Blood, but I got to watch it when I was home alone with nothing to do and nothing good to watch on TV.
This weekend, instead of going out dancing, I made 100 dollars.
100 dollars that I subsequently lost… then found, which was like making it twice.
The weekend I got strep throat before I was supposed to go on vacation, I was living with the Canadian, and when I got back from vacation, I was better, and he had never been sick, because I was away.
And as for the whole car debacle… well… when I really can’t come up with one silver lining to the fact that my day was ruined by a stupid car… I figure it makes a good story and chalk it up to life experience.
This corn and basil pasta is absolutely divine, but the pictures are just so-so. At least I know it’s good! Use fresh, summer corn and more basil, if you like, and you’ll see how great this simple combination of ingredients can be, despite the meh pictures.
Corn and Basil Pasta
1/2 cup pasta (I use shells, but orecchiete would work as well)
2 ears cooked summer corn, off the cob
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese (plus a little extra for the top)
4 leaves basil, chiffonade
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. salt
Cook the pasta in well-salted boiling water. Prepare the other ingredients while it cooks.
Reserve a small amount of pasta water and drain the noodles. Return to the stovetop, the heat off.
Stir in the corn until warmed through. Turn the heat back on for a moment if you have to.
Mix the corn, pasta, cheese, basil, pepper and salt in the serving dish. Add some reserved pasta water if needed. Top with reserved cheese.
this is beautiful.