Hanging by a moment

RITING IS THERAPY ...

for me.  That's why I have this daily blog...I wanted to add more to my little Mercury story...about the feeling of Thankful.   In that car I was safe from the brutal wind, the brutal people, and the overload of sound in the city.  As I stated it became my safe haven.  You have no idea how hard getting around in a city like NY is when you first arrive and you don't know squat about anything, and have no one to take you by the hand and show you the ropes. 

So I bought one of those plastic tourist maps and tried to figure out how the street system was set up, and it had the bus and train stops on it too...Saved my life literally.  The parking regulations was another story...got my fair share of tickets most were pure BS and I fought them via "Mail in Traffic  Court"  One time near my Base (an ambulance base) I parked on the sidewalk as had Others...they backed up to the side of the building and over the sidewalk so the fronts of their car was the only thing seen.  My little car was so small I parked right beside them...no problem...

 End of my night shift I had a ticket the only car there with a ticket...and there must have been 10 of them... My ticket said I blocked a cross walk....the crosswalk that includes this sidewalk filled with cars!! NO one could walk there..so I fought it took photos the next day of the cars all parked on the sidewalk...

They did not dismiss my ticket but reduced it...OMG I think I was belligerent for like a week following...I actually wanted to vandalize those cars who didn't get tickets.. 
Instead I called my mom and her advice was----> PAY THE TICKET!

I had a little crash in the little car when on an icy morning after getting off the night shift I slid into a car that was left with the motor running in the street while the guy ran into a bodega to get a paper, I hit ice and glided right into his back end...damaged the front right side of my little car....I eventually had that damage repaired...

So I did...One night I drove home in a blizzard after work...parked and fought a stiff icy wind to get into my apartment.. the next day when I went out to start my car, get it cleared of snow to drive into work, I had to be there at 2 pm....I put on the defrost, while I dug the wheels free of at least 2 ft of snow and ICE I started to see something become visible on my windshield...UNDER the coating of ice and snow a F'kin parking ticket glued to my windshield and unreadable'...I took a photo of it, because I knew it would come back to bite me somehow...and it did.

The car was still licensed to my son and had his SC plates...so when the ticket was not paid in a timely manner another copy was mailed to the address of the registered owner...I got a Phone message from my son.

I GOT A $106 NYC PARKING TICKET in the mail....do you know anything about that??

uuuu yeah maybe....

Can you believe that so  he mailed it to me...it said I blocked a crosswalk???? What crosswalk?? The one buried under 2 foot of snow?  And what kind of cop drives around in a blinding snow strom at 11 pm and gives out parking tickets??? 

Mom's advice ------>PAY IT..
Parking in NYC can be hazardous in many ways...in 2003 when my son graduated college, I flew down for that.  I had a weeks vacation and I used it...but what to do with my little car?  While the drivers door looked locked it never was,  it was broken, my little car was broken into 3 times when I lived there once they broke a back window even tho the car was not locked...I left a damn little cd player where it was visible..

SO 2003...where to park?? So I started looking...I was leaving on a Thursday night...I had to figure out where to park and how to get to the airport from there...I wanted a safe Jewish neighborhood.  

I started looking for Thursday cleaning day Streets near a train....and I found one.  No parking Thursday 2-4 pm...so all I had to do was park there on Thursday after 4 pm and then be back before 2 on the following Thursday...So I went there exactly at 4 when all the cars were still on the other side of the street for cleaning, and found a spot only one block from the train, this one happened to be a elevated train stop...so when I got on the train I looked back at my little car thinking I may never see it again..

The week at home was great, son graduated, we had a party all good stuff...then t4 days later the flight home and the bus ride to the city then the train to the street where I had left my car...I got off stood on the platform and looked THERE IT WAS ...omg no broken windows, wheels still on it, no vandalism...it was dirty and dusty but it was there...that was the most relieved and thankful moment I had experienced in a long time. My very future hung on that moment...and that little car to keep me moving in the city of 9 million people. 

It cranked right up and off to the studio I went. 

                           My little car buried in snow not long after the slide n crash