Dedicated to the Fashion Week, Tommy Hilfiger and Nice Subway Strangers

It's Fashion Week in NY.  Did you know?  I only found out this Thursday under peculiar circumstances...

My closet ate two of my skirts and countless number of tops.  It's true and it can happen to you if you are not vigilant and stuff your closet with everything: from bags of old clothes prepared but never quite given to donations to ill fitting shoes you are not ready to part with to confiscated toys.  Somewhere in between the bag of unmatched children's socks and an old pillow are my missing clothes.  But to find them, I would need to organize my closet, so for now I am doing without.

The absence of skirts coupled with the fact that quite a few of my other skirts have salt and snot stains on them - winter, I know you are here! - resulted in having nothing to wear one fine Thursday morning.  Frantically going through every piece of clothing I own and rejecting them one by one - snot, too small, too summery, too dressy, salt, snot, yogurt, snot, too small, wore just yesterday, damn it, I should've left 5 minutes ago!!!!- I finally came to a piece that resulted in a "maybe".  It was kind of summery, somewhat ill-fitting (yes, I gained weight like I do every winter and summer and fall ) and a jumper to boot, but running 15 minutes late made the "maybe" piece a winner.  In retrospect I realize that even my closet exercised a better sense of fashion by refusing to consume this jumper.  But maybe my closet just got overly fastidious, after all it was Hilfiger! 

Despite my unseasonal garb, the entire day went just fine.  Going back to work, the subway was overflowing with people, but I don't think that it's fair to blame my jumper for it.  As I squeezed myself between two people who insisted on standing close to the doorways, I came standing right in front of a seated guy about my age.  "Asian," I thought, so I figured that I had about 50% chance of getting his seat at Delancey, only three stations away.  Yes, racial profiling in NY subway system is so rampant, it's appalling.  As I was shamelessly calculating my chances to get his seat, our eyes met and he uttered the unicorn of subway phrases, only few of the riders claim to have heard and scientifically proven to be non-existent.  "Would you like a seat?"

 I was caught a bit off-guard.  I was not pregnant - did he know something I didn't? - or sick or elderly.  But then my instincts kicked in and I said, "Sure!  You are being awfully nice.  Thank you."  "He must be getting off next stop," I told myself.  He did not.  I stubbornly pushed away the obvious.  "He must be a REALLY nice guy," I thought.  We passed Delancey, and my benefactor was still standing only a few inches away from me.  I looked at my jumper, my protruding stomach and remembered slightly greenish tint on my face from watching Interny till wee hours the night before; all the dots connected and I could no longer deny it.  "The nice SOB thinks I'm pregnant."  As this thought entered my mind, I glanced to the left and saw my neighbor studying pictures from the Fashion Week shows.  "Is it Fashion Week?  Again?  (Sigh.)  I am so out of vogue.  (Deep sigh.) I bet this fashionista would never wear a jumper that made her look pregnant, " I sulked.

And then another thought entered my mind.  "Too bad for her."  I got a seat in an over-crowded subway car.  Half of those well dressed fashionable women were getting killed by their high heels and poked in the ribs by neighbors' elbows.  And frumpy and pregnant looking me was comfortably sitting.  Right then and there I made a decision to upgrade the jumper to an all-season regular.  With that thought I peacefully drifted off to dream about fashion, jumpers and Interny.

I wanna hold your ... hand?

For various reasons we had to take our kidlets on the subway last week. Going to Manhattan presented little problem since they (SubHub and kids, I was at work) were going against the traffic. We naively thought that going back shouldn’t be a problem either, but we were dead wrong. Apparently there are almost as many people on the train at 8 p.m. as there are at 6 p.m. So when we boarded Q train, there were no seats available. Surprise, surprise, no one offered a seat either. We had no choice but to tough it out.

SubHub was holding DD and our bags; I ended up with DS. I was holding him tight, but the little fella got a big scared on one of the steep turns and started looking for something to grab on in addition to my hand. Due to his height limitation, he couldn’t find anything suitable, except for some woman’s jeans-clad calf. I asked him to stop, but to no avail; he was grabbing on for his dear life. Both SubHub and I got beet red and couldn’t wait for this ride to be over. The woman half turned, gave us one annoying look, but then submitted to her fate. After all, being molested by a handsome cute 2-yr old is not the worst thing that can happen to one on the subway.

The steep turn was over in about a minute and things returned to normal, except that both SubHub and I were still beet red. In a few stops one of the seats in front of that woman became available. So seeing a family with two little children, this young woman did the most natural to any decent human being thing - she offered the seat to us, NOT. She grabbed it just as fast as DS grabbed her calf three minutes earlier. The woman still kept on throwing annoyed glares in our direction, but she looked a bit relieved at the same time. Finally she was in relative safety, rescued from unwanted advances of our son. That’s when my deep feeling of embarrassment was replaced by an even deeper feeling of regret. Why didn’t DS pinch her while he was at it?

It was two years ago today...well, almost

Ok, so I got sucked into another contest. I can't help myself, I am an addict... This one is from Michelle at My Semblance of Sanity who is now collecting the birth/adoption stories. The best story will get a prize... Since I already wrote this one on my pregnancy blog and only had to tweak it a bit, i.e. no thinking required, I decided to participate. My apologies to those who already read it...


This is the birth story of my DS, and it happened almost two years ago... Time flies..

Since my daughter was born 2 weeks early, I was ready to go into labor at approximately the same time, but at 38 weeks along, I was still working. I told my boss about four different times that "a day after tomorrow would be my last one because I can't take the commute any more" only to push it off by a few more days. Then I finally decided that my due date would be the last day at work. Everybody told me that I was crazy (well, no argument there), but what was I to do? My maternity leave was 10 weeks, so every day taken off before baby's birth meant that I would spend one day less with him after he was born. And I would rather spend as much time with him as I could afterwards. Plus, any housework was much more physically demanding than anything I did at work. My biggest fear was that I would go into labor on a subway, but what were the chances of that happening? I finally cleared my desk on my due date. I had ob/gyn appointment that night, and the doctor said that I was 2 cm dilated. He also jokingly added, "It's my turn to be on-call in the hospital, so I might see you tonight." Yeah, right.

I came home that night hoping for a couple of days of quality time with DD. Around 9 p.m. I got a call from Gevalia Coffee. They were desperate to get us back as customers, and the sales guy was describing me the beauty of the coffeemaker we would get if we signed back on. I actually wanted that coffemaker, and their coffee would probably come in handy after the baby's arrival to battle exhaustion. Nevertheless, I had to cut him off, and he asked when would be a good time to call back. I said, "I don't know, probably a couple of days or a week because my water just broke." I don't think he believed me, but I bet he never heard that excuse to hang up on him. I called my mom and asked her to come. (Being a strep-B positive, I had to go to the hospital immediately.) When we arrived, the first thing I asked my doctor was, "Couldn't you have said that you might "see me tonight" about two weeks ago?"

When I was about 6 months along, my OB's office signed up for the cord blood donation program. Since I wasn't planning to bank it, I decided to donate. The only thing was - you had to remember to bring in the kit b/c they could not collect the cord and the placenta without it. In addition, they have only a minute or so to collect it, so the kit has to be ready; otherwise, no donation. So I brought the kit. Hubby dropped me off in the admissions and then came back later with a couple of bags, but without a kit. He said he would get it once I was admitted into the labor room. I didn't think much of it since I wasn't yet in labor. By the time I got admitted into my own room and induced with a dose of pitocin strong enough to floor a horse, it was about 12. DH went to get the kit, but turned out the parking lot was closed from 12am to 6 am and NOBODY had the keys!!! Isn't that weird that the parking lot of a hospital would be closed, EVER??? Don't people get sick at all times of day and night? I really wanted to donate, but the doctor wasn't very reassuring and said he didn't know whether I would or wouldn't be done by 6.

This time around I decided I would tough it out and not get an epidural. Right after DD was born, DH was kind enough to show me what exactly they had inserted in my back. I don't think I was ever that mad at him in my life. After that I was more scared of that needle than of any pain and thought I would never get an epidural again, unless my life depended on it. That notion lasted until I got the first contraction, and DH quickly went looking for the anesthesiologist. When they came, I got even more scared. The guy refused to turn on the light; he said he was more comfortable with the lights off and moonlight was more than sufficient for what he had to do (ok, ok, there was a teeny lamp in the back of the room and some light was getting through the closed door from the hallway - so much more ressuaring than the moonlight, right?). Then the head of the department came to supervise the procedure, but instead turned his back to me and bent over to check on the equipment - and WOW. The entire thing was just surreal - I was sandwiched between Dracula and his boss' butt crack (and no, his boss was not young and gorgeous, not that I judge beauty by that body part anyway). All the while, Dracula was inserting something very long and scary into my spine and neither I nor his boss were quite sure that he could properly see what he was doing (no, the guy didn't turn the lights on even for his boss). I was whimpering and moaning during the entire procedure, not because I was in pain, but out of fear. It was over soon, though, and afterward - bliss and no pain.

In a few hours I drifted off to sleep. DH brought the donation kit at 6 a.m. Around 7 o'clock my OB's shift was over and he bid us farewell (he works in a group, so they are on-call only for twelve hours at a time). I was relieved in a way that he didn't have to be the one delivering the baby because he looked so tired. I ordered myself to sleep and then, around 9 o'clock, another doctor from the group came in and told me that I was ready to go. Unlike the last time, I didn't panick, at least not as much. The nurse asked me why I looked so surprised, after all I came here to have a baby. I told her, "I wanted the baby, I never said that I wanted to push." DH was nowhere to be found - he went out for coffee, but then suddenly reappered seconds before I started pushing. I was too busy to get mad. And then after about half an hour of pushing, I heard the doctor say, "It's a boy, it's a BIG boy!" He was surprised that I was told the baby would be average b/c the baby looked like a ten-pounder. Turned out he was only - lol - 9lbs 14oz! In the process of recording the data, they got the last name of my pediatrician wrong - instead of Vernov, they wrote down Vermin. It was a shame because she really is a nice lady and an awesome doctor.

One of my first phone calls was to my boss, and I told her that I would be late for work that day (it was only 9.30am). Poor woman was so exasperated with me, she said, "Wasn't yesterday your last day? Are you sure you want to do this?" Hehe...can't miss a chance to make a joke... Not to be outdone, she sent out the following email, which I only read a few weeks after delivery, "SubWife had a 10 pound baby boy, so she will be available to answer any work-related questions this afternoon. Feel free to call her on her cell phone." FYI, no one did, and if they did, she would probably bite their head off...

Kindness of strangers

I have to say that although I find Americans nice and generous, New Yorkers are completely different story. I have experienced complete indifference many, many times while pregnant, when no one on a subway would give up their seat. Later on I found that people of New York have even less sympathy for a woman with a stroller, and a woman with a double stroller trying to get in or out of the store is more likely to elicit impatient grunts than help.

All of my negative views on New Yorkers changed today. Almost... I had to run several errands and took the kids with me. They behaved exceptionally well; their stroller, however, was giving me some trouble with the narrow doorways. For those of you who never had to open the door while trying to roll the stroller inside, the best strategy is to open or hold the door by leaning on it with you back and wheel the kids in backwards. There's a chance of bumping into someone while doing it because they still haven't figured out how to place an extra pair of eyes on the back of your head, but frankly choices in this situation are very limited. Unless someone offers to hold the door for you, which doesn't happen often.

Today's trip didn't promise to be very different. When I wheeled the kids into the liquor store, I got a few funny looks from passerbys. They read, "She should be reported to social services" or "I wish my parent would let me drink when I was three", but no offers of help. When inside, to my amazement, some customer actually cleared out a few boxes in a relatively secluded area to allow me to park the stroller. That NEVER happened before, NEVER. Then when I was leaving, someone else actually held the door for me. I got lucky, twice in one day! Maybe it had something to do with being in a liquor store. My faith in New Yorkers was slowly restoring.

Then we went to the bank (no help), then - to the bakery (also no help) where both kids got cupcakes for their good behavior and patience. And then we went to a candy/dry fruit store. That was the last and the most challenging stop because a) the store has two steps in front of it and the door has to be pulled, which created and extra inconvenience; b) we had to rush because hubby was waiting in a car, and c) I BROUGHT TWO SUGAR OBSESSSED TODDLERS TO A CANDY STORE. Surprisingly kids didn't create a scene. I quickly made my selections, paid, and started working out the exit strategy. I was leaning on the door with my back trying to figure out how to wheel down the stroller from the two steps when I felt someone holding the door for me.

OMG!!!! I couldn't believe it, third time this day. I make this errand trip about once a month, and I never was so lucky! While I was having these thoughts simultaneously trying to bring down the stroller and thanking that kind stranger, this great man grabbed my stroller and helped me carry it down the steps. I was so grateful and overwhelmed with his kindness to a total stranger! When the stroller was safely down, I no longer had to walk backwards and was finally able face that wonderful man - and a stranger he was not. It was my hubby who lost any hope of us ever getting out of the candy store. Truth be told he actually did come to help me.

So while my faith in the citizens of this city didn't improve greatly, I can at least count on one New Yorker to come to my rescue!

And the jackpot goes to...

Unfortunately, the world is full of ignorant, disturbed and stupid people (all different things). Also very unfortunately if you take the New York subway, you are bound to meet all three kinds fairly regularly. And sometimes you hit the jackpot and meet someone who possesses all three of those attributes at once. And I got lucky yesterday!

As I was walking on the subway platform towards a train, some black man stared at me and said with smile and pleasure, “Heil Hitler!” I am usually lost for words on such occasions because, even though I have been using the subway daily for the past 11 years, I am just not prepared for unwarranted hostility. This time, however, my reaction was almost immediate. I looked at him, smiled back and said, “Idiot.” And I needed no proof for my theory - the guy did it for me. Because based on what I learned, Fuhrer had a special place in his heart for the black population of this planet, and that place was very close to the one held by Jews. How dumb/ignorant/disturbed does one have to be to not know that? But then again, he didn’t look like someone who paid attention to his history teacher.