A Trip to New York

I took my mother to New York last week. She turns 80 this year and to my surprise jumped on the opportunity for a trip.

Moving slowly seems anathema to this high-octane city but we did. A full day at the Met, focusing only on Flemish painting and Islamic art, mostly Persian miniatures — there’s no way to do the whole Met no matter how much time you have so you have to be selective. We were just very selective. Moving slowly.

I got on the bus back to Davis from the airport. Two large suitcases marked “Heavy” careened around the bus while their owners, weary with transcontinental travel and a small cranky child, looked on helplessly. They got off in Woodland and in their place a bearded man, well-dressed but belligerent, got on the bus after a lengthy argument with the bus driver about whether he was going to Sacramento. He emanated a patronus of stink: vomit, stale tobacco, urine, repelling riders to the back of the bus or even off if they preferred to wait an hour rather than stuff their faces down their sweatshirts. I am cursed (or blessed, in this case) with a poor sense of smell so I made it to Davis, where a new passenger in his 80s in a wheelchair boarded the bus and was strapped in—incarcerated, really—across from the man with the stench by the driver whose plumber’s crack mooned us like some 90° rictus.

I should ride the bus more often.