Due to backlogging, I'm over two weeks late posting the rest of my trip to the tri-state area.
December 31st, I was still staying with the Feldmans. Having visited the Cloisters and the Metropolitan Museum on the 30th (my Mother's birthday), Peninah and I decided to visit the Liberty Science Center on Monday the 31st. Although the exhibits there are aimed towards a much younger audience than the two of us, we still had a good time together. Peninah, as usual, ended up revealing that she knew more about everything than I did, about astronomy, physics, pathology, and, of course, agriculture. As for the museum, I was semi-impressed. It's three to four times as large as the Ithaca Science Center, but, doesn't have the amazing George Rhoads ball machine that I know and love so much. It does, however, have a good room of interesting physics puzzles, a nice exhibit on infection and disease, a decent aquarium, and some excellent videos on current events in environmental preservation in the New York City area. It also has one of the Da Vinci surgical machines (for long-distance surgery): I've always wondered how those things worked. In the evening, Peninah and I awaited 2013 with some of her friends from high school, and promptly returned back to her home right after midnight, and hit the sack.
The next morning, Peninah drove me to Five Towns. The drive, which normally lasts over an hour, took only about forty minutes, because everyone else was sleeping in or hung over. Eli has a big beautiful house, full of sunshine even at this time of year. His Israeli mother and all three of his sisters were home -- we two were the only males in the house. Whereas I grew up the youngest of three boys, Eli is both the oldest and the only boy (that must be hard). We watched the end of Star Wars Episode VI, beginning just before the ewoks appear. Eli pointed out that I... resemble CP3O in certain ways. I'm afraid to say how correct I think that he is. We took a long walk through Five Towns: compared to what I know, it's both very wealthy and very Jewish. I'm just not used to seeing a restaurant full of black hats. Eli is wonderful, and makes such good conversation because he's so knowledgeable (he's a philosophy major, after all). We ended up wandering fairly far from his house, and didn't make it back until after dark: Eli showed me where the restaurant that his father owned used to be. I got into bed a little bit later than I had planned, and, the next morning, didn't get out of bed until about 6:50 am. I caught the train to New York City at around 8:00, and took the subway from there to my appointment. Again, I had a lot of reading time, but luckily, I had my Kindle with me. I made it a few minutes late, but I think that everything went well: I took the subway a few more stops, and ran the remaining blocks to the Cornell Club, where I caught the 12:30 pm bus back to Ithaca. I hadn't seen much snow since I had left upstate New York, and it was comforting to pass through the pall of snow in the air, about two hours' journey south of Ithaca. I made it home -- and just in time to leave, just a few days later, for my wonderful trip to Boston, which I described in the last post.
Before I close this post, I'd like to mention that, among the pile of mail I received today, I received a letter from one of the teaching programs to which I've applied -- soliciting me for money. A tad ironic, don't you think, especially considering the fact that, as of yet, I'm still unemployed? The situation reminds me of a quote from Moby-Dick: "And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being
paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction
that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But BEING PAID,--what
will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives
money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe
money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a
monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to
perdition!"
~JD
No comments:
Post a Comment