That’sALotofPeople!

The famous Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, New York.



Today I ran around doing chores all day. It was one of those days. After spending hours on the phone with HP, setting up my second return authorization on a computer in the past month, I did laundry. One of the 2nd floor washers broke down on me (never drained after the rinse cycle), so I had to do that load twice.

I was already a tad disgruntled about forking over $20.58 for a 12-dollar bag of kitty litter (made of recycled newspaper, no less). That’s the going price in midtown. It actually went up a dollar in the past year. Unbelievable. I remember paying $11.99 for the same cat litter in Washington state – and always thinking that was too much!

I stopped at the Christmas tree stand on the sidewalk outside of Rite Aid on my way back from buying groceries this evening. It was time to get my little tiny tree for my apartment. I asked the tree guy, "How much?" He said, "Forty dollars." I said, "FORTY? Last year they were $25." [Note: last year I thought $25 was too much for a 2-foot tall tree.] His heavily accented response was, "Oh my boss slap my wrist - tell me I not make enough money." Ha. Yeh, well at those prices you'll make even less this year. No tree for me.

So, after an ikky overpriced day, I deserved a treat. I put my blinking Santa hat on and headed toward Rockefeller Center. Holy cow – you would not believe the number of people cramming the sidewalks (and even the streets – we’re talking streets still open to cars, not pedestrians - believe it or not, the pedestrians were winning the turf battle). There must have been an extra million people in midtown. I said to one cop walking alongside me, “You must love this time of year.” Without so much as cracking a smile he retorted, “Bah humbug.”

After a quick trip to the office (the AXA building) to fix a monitor connection for a friend at work, I walked the long block from there to Rockefeller Plaza, dodging tourists the whole way. When I got to the plaza it was wall-to-wall people. But it was beautiful! Lots of lights everywhere! Some workers were still stringing lights on trees near the big Swarovski star. Nearly every person there was holding up a camera, taking pictures of companions in front of the big tree. Even Santa Claus was there. (Hmmmm. . . I wonder who filled in for him at Macy's??)

I was walking back home on 50th when I stopped to take a picture of a pretty store window. There was a couple standing beneath it (in fact, you can see their heads in the lower left corner of the photo here). I recognized a name on the man's cap, so I walked up and said “Catawba? That sure sounds familiar!” He smiled really big and said, in his familiar Carolina accent, “Catawba college, North Carolina. You from there?” I told them that I'd lived in Charlotte for 10 years. (Many moons ago.)

That’s when his sweet wife pointed to her rapidly swelling left foot and told me that one of those bicycle carriage things had run over it. She couldn’t walk. They were stranded there, in the middle of a very long block. They said there were at least five people on the carriage, so we estimated she'd had up to 1,000 pounds resting on her foot. The “driver” didn’t even realize he’d stopped the thing on her foot! She had to yell at him to back up.

So I stayed to help. Which direction to go to get a taxi? I figured that heading back to 6th Avenue – away from the largest throng of people – would be the shortest route. Her husband took her right arm, I took her left, and we held her up as she limped painfully the long block toward 6th Ave. I felt so badly for her. When we got to the corner it was like all the other street corners within 20 blocks – jam-packed with people standing and waiting for the crosswalk signal. People running into each other.

One really tall guy stopped to help us. He even offered to carry the patient! He went one way to try to hail a taxi – most of which weren’t available – and I went the other way. We got lucky. Within a minute a 2-person bicycle buggy came up to the intersection. I ran up to him: “There’s a lady with a sprained foot. How much to take her to her hotel five blocks up?” Fifteen dollars he told me. Sounded reasonable to me, in light of the alternative of limping the whole way. The couple made their way to us and crawled aboard the buggy. Meanwhile, the light had turned green and cars were honking at us. I jumped out of the middle of the road just in time - before someone ran over my foot.

That poor lady. Here they were enjoying a weekend vacation to see NYC at Christmastime, and this had to happen. If her foot is broken, she’s going to have a long night. I’ve only been in the Roosevelt Hospital ER once, and let me tell you, it’s a miserable all-day affair.

So I hope they made it back to their hotel OK. I can’t imagine her having to navigate the airport tomorrow to get back home to NC.

My tip for everyone out there - if you come to NYC to see the Christmas decorations, it's probably best to come the first week of December - on or after the tree lighting. The closer we get to the 25th, the more people cram themselves into midtown.

At home afterward, Martin did a funny thing. I was sitting in my TV chair with my laptop in my lap when he jumped up on the chair arm, walked onto the laptop, and plopped him self down on the keyboard. He proceeded to stretch out and take a nap!

Um. . . you think this is his way of getting my attention? This is one spoiled cat. I didn’t have the heart to remove him. . . until my leg fell asleep under his 17 pounds + 9-pound laptop. Poor spoiled baby is right.