Seen and Heard in New York

All right, it's been a few days since my last entry, so this means I have to find something to write about. Hmm. That will be interesting to do.

We are supposed to get uber snow tomorrow and I hope we don't.

Here are some funny things seen and heard lately:

1. I got my birth control pills from the pharmacy on Tuesday. When I opened then, I noticed a very bizarre bright orange warning label. It said, in big, bold letters, "DO NOT SMOKE."
I had to laugh. That's a new one. Who in the world would ever try to smoke birth control pills?? Is that even possible? Is it common enough to merit a warning label? Sheesh!

Well, damn. That doesn't sound nearly as funny after I googled it. It turns out you're not supposed to smoke cigarettes if you take birth control. (I don't.) I would have never made that connection in a million years, though. Couldn't they have made the warning label a little more informative? As in "DO NOT SMOKE TOBACCO?" Otherwise I bet a lot of other people won't make the connection either. Unless specifically told by a doctor or something.

2. The morning show DJ said "Oy." Only in New York or other similarly Jewish areas, I am sure, would you ever hear a DJ on the radio say "Oy." Oy, did it bring a smile to my face! Ha . The morning show is usually boring as hell, they never have anything remotely interesting to say and their delivery is horrible. But he was going through some long list of community events and then at the end of one, I forget the context, he said, with feeling and inflection, a long drawn out "Oyy!" Yeah. I like those little things that remind me of where I am. Idiosynchracies.

I wish they would stop talking about the impending storm on the radio, speaking of the radio. It's getting old already.

3. Hanukkah display in the window of the art gallery. Lots of tasteful blues and whites on pottery on other items. I like that they have a Hanukkah display here, that it is a Jewish enough place to do so. Not something you would be likely to see in Portland.

4. Notes on people watching at the health food store: On Monday, when I was there for approximately two hours after my appt, I saw three people come in, each very unique in their own way. The first was an English woman with a British accent. The new woman who has been working in the office part time asked her if she was Australian. The woman replied "You were close, only about 30,000 miles (or however much it was) away." She did have a nice accent.

The second person was the first black person I have yet seen in six weeks at the health food store! Score one for breaking stereotypes, lol. He was a middle aged, well spoken gentleman.

The third person was a woman and cute two little girls and baby son. The girls were animated and running all over the store. She said she had never given them sugar before, so they never
wanted it; they were actually begging her for health food. Not a bad tactic when they're young, I guess, if you can do it.

Then today, I wondered if I might see someone else interesting in there to complete this entry that I was planning to write. And lo and behold, after I had been there for about half an hour and was in the back talking to J, who should come in? A Hassidic Jew! Ha! My first Hassidic Jew! I saw him out of the corner of my eye come in and I was like "Oh my gosh." Like out of a movie or something. He was very large/chubby/lots of stomach mass, and was dressed very formally in all black. He had a huge yamulke (how do you spell that? yamaka is how it's pronounced) on his head, much bigger and slightly differently shaped than the ones I've seen, I think; and a HUGE grey beard that went all the way down to his chest and could have fit several birds in it if it was used for a nest. :) Biggest beard I've ever seen. There is a HJ community in the next town over, and I've heard there are a lot here in the summer.

Okay, so I just googled Hassidic Jews and came up with the following interesting items:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Heights_Riot
There was a fatal riot in Crown Heights, NYC in 1991; there were a lot of tensions between Hassidic Jews and black people. A Jewish person accidentally ran over a black child, and as he was trying to get out of the car to help the child, angry black people lunged for him and tried to kill him. An ambulance came for him before the child, which only made people madder, and angry violent riots against Jewish people continued for days. Wow! I didn't know something like that still happened in modern time. Sobering. However, it says that relations between the two groups greatly improved after this incident.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/nyregion/08principal.html?_r=4&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
and

http://allsteim.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/when-a-hasidic-jew-becomes-the-principal-of-a-latino-populated-school-with-a-history-of-violence/

All the more relevant for the above two articles I found about a Hassidic Jewish man brought into be the principal of a failing, violent, falling apart, mostly Hispanic and black Bronx public high school, and succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations where five previous principals had failed. Very inspiring article.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09122008/news/regionalnews/hasid_lust_cause_128750.htm

Finally, we have an article about Hassidic Jews complaining that woman who ride bikes through their town/neighborhood are dressed too skimpily and this offends their sensibilities.

I also found some Yahoo Sullivan county recycling (giving away free stuff) and a Liberty Bike Trail website (there's a bike trail?? Could someone have told me this, I don't know, six weeks ago?) while I was searching for information about Loch Sheldrake, which is the Hassidic Jewish community near us.

Behold the power of Google. You never know where it will take you.

And that is the news for today.

Kate