Arbitrary Snapshots of ChangesAt The Speed Of Life

Preparing for everything

Disappearing at a party

 

Rushing through rain

Building relentlessly

Staring at food on the other side of a locked door

Hoping for a clearer picture

Stopping for nothing

Saying Goodbye To De Robertis - Sunday Memories: Back To The Future

On that last night, we suddenly saw the wedding dollies.  Had never seen them before.  They could have been there, but sometimes you don't see something until you are ready to see it.

Doug had already convinced John that he was also marrying the Mariner and me and that the three of us were all off to marital bliss. 

Doug about to make trouble

So, as I stared at the dollies, John offered to take an extra man off one the others. He thought Doug was serious.

"It's New York so you never know," he said politely.  

I let the Mariner pick out the one we wanted.  We wanted the same one.

Doug said he was thrilled John thought that because he, Doug, was worthy of me, but I think Doug was just being sweet and diplomatic.

And maybe the Wedding sign had always been there...

 ...but the pastries were on the other side, so I never saw it until that last night.

The Pasticceria would have been a perfect place to celebrate getting married.  

And yet with the dollies safely home, it feels no matter where we end up and no matter if the dollies are on top of a cupcake or a pile of latkes, we will be, as we always have been coming for sweets and coffee at De Robertis, home.

Long Live the Pasticceria. And good night, De Robertis, wherever you are.

**
Related Posts:

Saying Goodbye to De Robertis-Part Two: Snapshots of Parting, Such A Sweet Sorrow

Saying Goodbye to De Robertis-Part One: "Life Is Uncertain - Eat Dessert First"

Friday's Child Is Loving And GivingAnd The Perfect Gift To Give And To Receive

Jupiter and Goldie rest up for the holidays

All the many times, sick in bed or curled up on the couch writing or at the desk working, they hang out with me.  So what if they are just making sure I don't get anywhere unless I feed, pet, brush, adore them.  Their company comforts and gives solace.  And all I have to do is open a can of cat food.

GIVE THE COOLEST HOLIDAY PRESENT EVER!!

Social Tees Animal Rescue "Stray Pride!" tote bags for sale! 

They make awesome presents for animal lovers... Great for carrying pet supplies, groceries, school books, etc. Heavy canvas, $20 donation each, stop by Social Tees during regular hours to get yours!

DON'T WANNA GIVE A BAG???

WANT TO GIVE EVEN A COOLER PRESENT???

JD is a Great Pyranees/Lab mix, five yrs old and 110 lbs. 

Woah! He's super sweet and puppy like, good with people and other dogs, and a total babe -- 

He was featured by @thedogist yesterday!!! Please foster him!!! Fostering lasts two to four weeks, unless you want him for like FOREVER!!

Email samantha@socialteesnyc.org AND be the COOOLEST SANTA AROUND!!

SOCIAL TEES IN THE EAST VILLAGE!!!

Come Volunteer!!!

Come Visit!!!!

 Come On In!!!!!

 Social Tees 
325 East 5th Street, NY, NY 10003  
socialteesnyc.org 
www.facebook.com/SocialTeesAnimalRescue

Saying Goodbye to De Robertis-Part Two: Snapshots of Parting, Such A Sweet Sorrow

The front door...

... worn from 106 years of people staring in at all the cookies and staring out waiting for friends and family and business associates and lovers to arrive....

**
Not sure what world series it was made for, but that cake waited a long, long time to be eaten until...



... it was way past edible.  That's the way it goes when some De Robertis are Mets fans and some are the other guys'.

**

**
The Mariner was on jury duty so he got home before too late and the day was called early enough for me to leave work in time and Doug was actually free and join us after he made dinner for Shawn and in the middle of stuffing our faces with cannoli ...

... there was Maureen who was getting semolina cookies and she called Kosky and just as we had for years and years and years and years and years we forgot everything except the joy of being with friends.

 **

**

**
Kosky

Kosky and I decided one day that we would meet a couple of mornings a week away from our internet connections or any place we wrote that had an internet connection because rather than writing, we kept checking our email or facebook or gawker or....

I know! I said.  Let's go to De Robertis! They don't have internet!

Great, said Kosky.  Meet you there Wednesday.  On Tuesday, I walked by and there was a sign:  De Robertis has WIFI. 

We met there anyway.

**
How long are you going to stay open this week? I asked them.

Until everything is gone.

**
John De Robertis


I remember the booths.
I used to sleep in the first one.  We'd get here early and my father would make me wash the dishes by hand, not a machine, and help out and then after I'd take a nap in the first booth.

What do you do other than this?
Nothing.  I've been doing this 60, 80 hours a week.

[We somehow end up talking about cooking]

I hate cooking.
Really?  You want a personal chef?
Do you like cooking?
I went to culinary school.

**
Taking flight...

John: Everybody has been coming in to say goodbye.  Ninety-year olds coming in with their walkers and canes, yeah everybody has been coming in.  It's been really ....

[An entire family with a billion kids come in.  "I just saw the sign you're closing!  Thank you.  Thank you for everything you've done for the community...."]

**

Michael:  I'm 69 years old.   I've been working here since I was nine.

He says nothing much after that.

**

**
Upon reflection....

...of all the pictures taken over all the years in that mirror... 

...this is the one most filled with love and the best chocolate mousse tart in the world.

**

The 100th anniversary cake knife

Signed by Dana, John and Michael De Robertis

**
Family

Michael, Dana, Michael, and cousin Anthony Abramo 

(whose mother's maiden name was 

Lanza as in the restaurant next door)

 Hey, you all look like a strip of paint chips, I tell them.

Their faces, like their mirrors I watched myself age in, reflect back...

...the faces of their parents, their aunts and uncles and grandparents and great-uncles and great-great... the faces that greeted me long ago and for years after... the woman who was then just the daughter and then the mother and then the grandmother, telling me on Thanksgiving Day decades ago that she was going back and forth from upstairs to stir the 'gravy' - the sauce for the pasta. 

**
Even knowing the old adage that heartbreak is just the heart breaking open into bigger.... 

 .. still, that first moment, that first moment, stepping out, snapping pictures furiously as if it would make time stop and sweets stay longer, finally turning back onto the street and beginning the brief walk home, in that first moment the heart breaks.

And it becomes impossible not to weep.

**
Related Posts:

Saying Goodbye to De Robertis-Part One: "Life Is Uncertain - Eat Dessert First"

Sunday Memories: Play Ball

Sunday Memories: Lets Go Mets Or Something...

Sunday Memories: Hot Lunch

Part Five: Home Work

First In The Eyes Of God, Then In The Eyes Of New York And Now By The Law Of The Land!!!

Saying Goodbye to De Robertis-Part One: "Life Is Uncertain - Eat Dessert First"

There's a story about Jackie O.  She was battling cancer.  A friend took her to lunch at 21 or the Four Seasons or some place like those rarefied places that were her versions of my diners.

The dessert cart came around.  The friend watched Jackie O., a woman who exemplified "never too rich, never too thin", pick one of each, line them up and dig in.  That's when she knew Jackie had decided to stop battling.

That story haunted a bit tonight.  For years, in and out of De Robertis, buying boxes of sweet pastries for others or having a perfect cappuccino or steamed milk with friends and once in a blue moon, a little pastry of my own, the fantasy was that one day I would walk up to the front glass counter and pick one of each of everything they had on display.

With the family closing their 106 year-old pasticceria whenever the pastries run out which looks like maybe Wednesday or Friday, it was time to forget a healthy dinner, gather some friends and, as much as middle-age limitations allowed, start picking.

We tried our best.  But, walking home with a stomach that could no longer handle the aftermath, I pondered wasted years of not picking out the best dessert the neighborhood had to offer and eating it first.

Coming Thursday:  

Snapshots and stories from 

the De Robertis family.

**
Related Posts:

Saying Goodbye to De Robertis-Part Two: Snapshots of Parting, Such A Sweet Sorrow

Saying Goodbye To De Robertis- An Encore: Thirty Years Of Pressing My Nose
Up Against The Bakery Window

The Last Meal

Saying Goodbye To De Robertis-An Encore: Thirty Years Of Pressing My NoseUp Against The Bakery Window

 It is with heartbreak to announce the closing of De Robertis. This week's posts are dedicated to the first bakery I got used to going into.

Originally posted September 9, 2009. 



The first time I went in here was in 1982.

There was a women's theater group I was beginning to get involved with, and sometimes they would hold meetings at De Robertis.

I was shocked. I had never met anywhere for anything unless it was the principal's office because I was in trouble or the bar (which was certainly a place to meet but not for meetings). So stepping both into the unknown of this group of women, none of them from here, and a bakery I somehow thought was against the family law to enter (the wonderful cake beyond our self-esteem and wallets), it all felt very foreign.

I got used to going in but it still took years to order a pastry.

Now it's a place I meet others at often. Old friends, former classmates, even blind dates. In this picture, I'm meeting with Robyn and Joyce whose writings and struggles to write urge me forward.

Still have trouble ordering pastries, though.

De Rebertis Pasticceria
176 First Avenue
New York, NY 10009
(212) 674-7137

Friday's Child Is Loving And GivingAnd Was On TV!!!!

Social Tees and other rescue 
organizations and people 

were celebrated tonight on

CAUSE FOR PAWS!

OK so the show only had dogs on it.  That's because there's no way you could get cats to cooperate.

Still, no matter if it is a cat.... (Goldie, rescued a year and a half ago from Social Tees)

... or a bigger cat.... (Jupiter, rescued from Queens Boulevard four years ago and who went on to keep my heart alive)

... or a cat who pays the bills... 

(Ada, rescued five years ago from Social Tees by Jillian- she was brand new to the shelter, dirty, stinky, and mean. Named Ada (after the mathematician Ada Lovelace) because of her mathematically complex hiding places. These days, she sleeps next to Jillian's mom, dances for ham, is a fan of Doctor Who, had a NYFringe play written about her)...

... Or Lotus who is doing amazingly well!!!  (in a loving warm foster home!!!)

Thanks is given to the hard working people who go out and rescue and find homes and work tirelessly for a better world.

SOCIAL TEES IN THE EAST VILLAGE!!!

Come Volunteer!!!

Come Visit!!!!

 Come On In!!!!!

 Social Tees 
325 East 5th Street, NY, NY 10003  
socialteesnyc.org 
www.facebook.com/SocialTeesAnimalRescue

Encore for Thanksgiving: HAND-TO-HAND-COMBAT! LIFE OR DEATH DECISIONS! SLOW CAR CHASES! IT'S THANKSGIVING, THE MOVIE!!

Originally Posted November 26, 2009


This really happened.

It was right before Thanksgiving and like a billion other people, my friend ordered dessert from Veniero's on 11th Street to bring to the family gathering in Pound Ridge. It was probably pumpkin pie, or pastiero di grano or maybe even a cheesecake with little cannolis on top.

This woman is very attractive and she is over 30. Maybe even over 40 but her seamless attractiveness is elegant and well appointed. Oprah's makeover couldn't improve on her classic outfits, highlighted with tasteful touches of contemporary accessories.

So... as she waited on the long line she grew a bit tired. Noticing a bunch of round tables stacked along the wall, she sidled up to one and gently, as only elegance and class could, sat down.

The woman behind her, generously described as perhaps not very attractive and very unhappy about not being attractive, snapped I'M IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY AND YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SITTING ON A TABLE. My friend politely pointed out that these were tables being stored, not being used for service. At that point the counter guy called "Next." Which was my friend.

YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO TAKE A NUMBER yelled the Unhappy Woman. My friend pointed out that not only did she have a number, she had the one they were calling and off she went to pick up the family dessert. Turning to leave she came face to face with the Unhappy Woman who then... punched her.

"Why'd you do that?" the counterman asked.

My friend quickly left and joined her husband in their car. As she began to tell him what just happened, the Unhappy Woman ran out of Veniero's and began yelling at the car. Windows rolled up and doors locked, her husband began to drive away. My friend pleaded for her husband to go slow because all they needed was for him to run over the foot of the Unhappy Woman as she followed the car down 11th Street yelling things at them.

That Thanksgiving Dinner the dessert was brought out to many ooos and ahhs.

"We almost died for this cake," the husband said.

A brief discussion ensued. Did the Unhappy Woman attack my friend because she was Asian? Did she attack my friend because she was Asian AND pretty? Or was this Unhappy Woman just basically nuts?

Nothing was decided. So they ate the cake.

...One Story At A Time

The United Nations is all orange, campaigning to stop violence against women.  Those lights are trying to paint a more beautiful world where if you have a vagina you'd be safe.

Writing this, live coverage of Ferguson show the police crouching behind riot gear and while the President of the United States quotes Michael Brown's father asking his son's death not be in vain but bring change, the Channel 11 WPIX reporter at the scene gets tear gassed.

It's also Florence's birthday.

I think of all the untold stories and unspoken words about all the blows she took, the acts on her body she did not agree to.

Her stories and all those Michael Brown could have told become lost, become ghosts.

Suddenly the TV shows young men kneeling in the street, hands in the air with an American flag, defying the order to vacate the area.

And suddenly those ghosts start speaking back. 

**
Related Posts:

UNite To End Violence Against Women

A Special Encore of Sunday Memories: I Hear It Was Her Birthday

Sunday Memories: Mathhew 26:52

Use Your F*#&$*g Words

Sunday Memories: The Expansion Of Family Burgers

Adrian and Alon come to burger-visit

For years, we - Adrian and I - wove burgers in and out of our travels as we headed to love and art and other places in our hearts. 

Brooklyn with the mac&cheese side we liked better than the burger, Avenue C with everything on it, St. Marks Place traditional, fried onions for me, cheese for him, bacon for both of us, Buenos Aires but there it was called steak, London too many to recount but each one noted in full detail, 13th Street small and spectacular, Cape Cod during a break from fried fish, at a french restaurant in Tel Aviv, tonight on 14th Street. 

Eating them and pondering their place in our exploration, even while lovers left, partners stayed, marriage happened, unions were made, families got bigger... perhaps it was the burger that got us to go places we never thought we would.

**
Related Posts:

The Eyes Have It

Metamorphosis:Après Le Déluge,Avant Le Déluge

The cupboard, painted, fixed, shelved.....

There is no history in it and there's no storytelling coming out of it. 

It suddenly looks like the homes all the expensive magazines tout, insisting real people really do live there, and all the clothes match in neat, small piles.

But, real life isn't small, monochromatic or neat.  It's overflowing, messy and filled with color.  It gets stuffed into corners and falls on the floor.  It clashes and sticks out and everything seems to be arguing with everything else.

Still, for just a brief moment, ignoring all the stuff piled all over the place, waiting patiently to be put away, the fantasy of a life this still entices.  Sorta like interior design porn.

 **
Related Posts:

Metamorphosis: Skeletons In Closet

When One Door Closes And You're Headed Towards The Other Door Opening...

Emptying Into Open

Rainy Day and Monday Encore: "You Say You Want A Revolution..."

Rainy days and Mondays lend themselves to glancing back at other times.  Although not necessarily better.  Or worse.  Just a reminder of the original home

Originally posted July 5, 2009

Monty's Mom asked what everyone in the courtchyard asked. "What are you doing with your mother's apartment?"

(actually it was more like "whatcha gonna do wit ya motha's apartment?" note: the "t" is silent)

I gave the usual answer about renting and the piano.

"You still play?"

No. I had put my foot down at 13 and refused to play anymore. If I was going to be forced to study music, go to music school and attend the music department at the School for the Performing Arts for violin, I wasn't also going to study the piano. In a rare nod to my individualization, Florence agreed.

I never liked it, I told Monty's Mom.

"Well," she said, "You were a rebellious one."

I was? I had played with Monty when we were little little but like most of the neighbors in the courtchyard it never really felt like anyone knew me, just of me as I ran past in a game of tag.

"Oh yeah. You were power to the people. I mean it was the 60's. But yeah, you were. You were little, too. Yeah. Power to the people."

Sunday Memories: When Late Comes Early

When the sky gets darker, the lights brighter and the streets come alive, Childhood reappears in the middle of middle-age.

The delight of staying up late, the excitement of holidays coming even if we didn't celebrate them, the flurry of promises made between pedestrians and cars...

**
Related Posts:

The Sign Of Things To Come

Lights Of Autumn

Sunday Memories Of Light And Night

Miracle On Grand Street

Friday's Child Is Loving And GivingAnd Happy And Healthy!

GOLDIE UPDATE!

(RESCUED BY SOCIAL TEES 
AND ADOPTED BY HER NEW YORK)

Goldie, no longer a painfully skinny girl, runs the show at home.  

And when she needs a nap, she curls up in curtains by a good poem and rests...

LOTUS IS SO HEALTHY 

SHE IS READY TO GO HOME!!!!

YOUR HOME!!!

Lotus, the super cute munchkin, and FORMER-abused dog is well on her way to total recovery. Needs a loving, fun, warm foster home with someone who can send Social Tees lots of great photos so it can continue sharing her story at Facebook.com/SavingLotus. 

She's 5 years old, 15 lbs, and wee pad trained and housebroken.  Loves going for walks and playing, great with other animals, very food driven, needs daily meds and to gain weight. 

Email samantha@socialteesnyc.org if you can foster her!!

AND DAISY IS DANDY!

Daisy, the diabetic Shih Tzu mix that was stuck in a cage at Social Tees' vet for months and recently FINALLY found an amazing foster home where she could be a dog again?    She's still doing awesome... but STILL NEEDS A FOREVER HOME!!!!   Her foster mom says: "Nothing excites Daisy more than going for a walk or meal time. She jumps and dances, she talks and practically sings.  When she's tired she either curls up next to you on the couch (she's a great snuggle buddy) or puts herself to sleep by sprawling in the middle of your bed by herself, ha!   She's a sweet girl who just wants to be loved with a spunky little attitude who loves to have a little playtime each day. She's great about getting her shots at mealtime, so it's not a big deal at all. Daisy is a wonderful, sweet girl who deserves a home with as big if a heart as she has!!"

CAN'T FOSTER OR ADOPT??  HOW ABOUT A PARTY!!!

    ** Related Posts:    GOLDIE'S STORY 

LOTUS' STORY

DAISY'S STORY