Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The Beholder's Eye Is Not For The Squeamish

Warning: The image below may be upsetting.

Today will be the last time I think Florence is looking at me.

The upheaval of emptying closets and preparing to vacate the apartment unearthed the bag of her eye stuff I had stuffed into a corner hoping it would disappear on its own.  The only time things disappear on their own is when you are looking for them.  The things you want to forget stay stubbornly in place waiting to piss you off and freak you out.

How to explain this piece of glass except to say it isn't one.  It is, if anything, the portrait of my mother, still as vibrantly alive as when it resided in her empty socket.


As a little girl, I didn't know this eye couldn't see.  All I knew was that Florence slept facing her bedroom’s doorway with one eye half opened.  I thought it was to make sure I didn't slip past her on my illegal expeditions around the house after bedtime and before breakfast.  I liked the house when nobody was up.  Unlike the angry silences or not so silent anger when folks were up, before breakfast and after bedtime offered rare peace and a world of possibilities. Worth the risk.

Peeking into my parents’ bedroom, I'd stare back at her and if she didn't say anything, I'd wave, just to make sure she wasn't seeing me before scooting past her and into wonderful quiet, empty rooms.

My illicit activities didn't end there.  One day, left alone in the apartment while she and my father were out and about, I, desperate to understand yet an angry silence between them, went through all their drawers and closets.  Spying two beautiful ring boxes in Florence’s underwear drawer (right next to an odd disc made of rubber), I eagerly opened one, hoping for something special.

There she was, staring back at me.

On walks home from TV night at  Gramma's in Knickerbocker Village, my sister and I would ask, "What happened to your eye?"  But Florence never answered.  She'd just glower and continue striding down Madison Street.  Later, my father would tell us her father, whom she never spoke to, said she was born with something wrong and that she was in the hospital a long time and not allowed to see her mother.  Hospitals did that in those days. Fearing it would be injurious to the little kids to be with their families, parents weren't allowed to visit their children for months.

But, years and years and years after that, putting out the fires dementia makes, for some reason, I had to call the place that made her eye.  So, while I had them on the phone I asked, "Do you know what happened to her eye?" 

"Well, she said it was a gunshot accident,” they told me. 

I think she was pulling their leg.  Although it was plausible.  Florence spoke of her neighbors in Bushwick, Brooklyn knitting hunting mittens.

When they first met, the woman Florence loved her whole life didn't even know that eye was glass. All she knew was Florence's hair hid half her face.  That woman, just introduced but knowing something different was happening, pushed the hair to the side and told Florence, "You look better this way."

There were also gentle moments of care when, in public, one of us daughters would whisper "Wipe your eye" if it got too cloudy.  But that was as close as my sister or I ever got to Florence even admitting there was anything wrong.  Even at the emergency room of the Eye and Ear Hospital at 2:30 in the morning, it was I who had to tell the attending doctor the eye that didn't have cataracts was glass.  Florence just sat there tight lipped and furious he dared to even investigate.

So determined to defy and deny her lack of sight, that when coming home from an operation on her one good eye which was completely bandaged up,  she pushed my hand away as we entered the Quartchyard and pretended she was seeing through her glass eye as she literally walked blindly to her lobby door.

However, that last year of her life changed everything.  Like a child needing to hold hands with her mommy after a tough day in the playground, Florence began asking me if her eye was O.K. and could I fix it.  After fifty years of that piece of glass being a wall between us, putting her eye into her empty socket and adjusting was probably the most loving thing I have ever done for her.  The Rubicon had been crossed. By both of us.

Today, I will bring this portrait of my mother over to the Eye and Ear Hospital where it will be donated to a project that refits glass eyes for those in need.   But before I do, I will look my mother in the eye for the last time and for the last time I will think my mother is looking back at me.



**
Related Posts:

Sunday Memories:  Home Where My Love Lies Waiting - Revisited

Sunday Memories: For My Sister's Birthday

Sunday Memories: Our Gods Eat These Foods

Dust To Dust And Then New Cities Rose

The Lionesses Rule The Pride 

What Remains

The Land Of the Quartchyard 

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Sunday Memories Encore: Matthew 26:52

While home reconfigures itself around new events punching forty years of crap in the face, an encore, originally posted February 28, 2009, about welcoming in transitions peacefully.





When I had a crush on the boy, I kicked him or at least tried to, once chasing Costas down the aisle of a rare empty auditorium at PS 110.

But when it came to punching, that was a horse of a different challenge, usually issued by Michael or Uriah or Antonio or whoever else felt it necessary to call me to a fight and I held dear to my record of never losing which was much different than always winning. I just punched back long enough for a teacher to rush out onto Cannon Street and drag me back into the school and wash off the bloody nose.

And then Junior High School 56 loomed on the horizon and we were all sat down and told of one kid being stabbed, another thrown off the roof (maybe it was the same kid) and what was a right and skill - to punch back - suddenly had much different consequences.

At 6th Grade graduation, an autograph book filled with well wishes from classmates and teachers alike, a note to myself:

"When I get into junior high school, I must act more mature, try to advoid fights and don't talk back and be quiet...""

...because "all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword," and I was told there was fun waiting for me in high school.

Friday, July 26, 2013

Friday's Child Is Loving And Giving And Ready For Love!



There's a reason Friday's Child is now a part 
of Her New York, if only to say thank you.

THANK YOU TO HAVAS LIFE!!!!

An awesome group of their employees ran a donation drive for Social Tees in their office and collected a huge load of goodies for the critters!!! Pet food, litter boxes, animal carriers, cleaning products, oh my! Social Tees and all the animals are extremely grateful for their generosity. Thank you!!!!!

If you would like to run a donation drive at your office like these guys did (it's super simple!), please email samantha.socialtees@gmail.com for more details.  Social Tees need your help!!


LOVE FOR THE BUSY!!!

 

 Only got a couple of weeks?  Can't do more but want to give something???? 

THEN FOSTERING IS PERFECT FOR YOU!!!

Meet Bronx, the mega hunk. Look at that face! This 18-month-old Pit/American Bulldog mix is fully housebroken, great with most other dogs AND cats and kids, super chill indoors, and very very snugly. He loves to cuddle and give kisses! His current foster mom is going out of town, so Bronx needs a new foster home starting TOMORROW NIGHT. Fostering is short term, only a few weeks.

If you can foster Bronx, please email samantha.socialtees@gmail.com



WHAT'S FOSTERING, YOU WONDER?!

Fostering lasts a few weeks, and Social Tees can provide supplies if you need them.  Fostering is SUPER important because it's much healthier for our animals to be in homes than in cages, and it expands our shelter virtually.

AND for every cat and dog that is placed in a foster home, Social Tees can pull another out of the kill shelter. So if you are an animal-lover with commitment issues, FOSTER!!!

For more info on fostering, email samantha.socialtees@gmail.com or check out our FAQs here

TIRED OF LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES???


 THEN STOP!  BECAUSE THIS MR. RIGHT IS LOOKING FOR YOU!!!

Come on by Social Tees on 5th Street OR at their weekend adoption events at Petco and meet the Stud of all Studs, Mr. Meow Meow.

That's right, ladies and gents, that's right.  Mr. Meow Meow has got it going on.  This little man will woo you instantly if you dare to get near him.  He'll glide up to the front of the cage when you get close, rub his forehead against your finger tips if you slip them through the bars, and purr like a wild man. Mr. Meow Meow is about 5 years old and extremely affectionate. He loves to sit in your lap while you hold his head in your hands and scratch his cheeks! 

He gets along okay with other animals but he's a little shy around them, so he would probably prefer to be your only pet so he can bask in your loving glow without any competition.

HOW DO I ADOPT!

Do you want to meet these guys and all the other great pups and kitties at Social Tees, but you're stuck at your desk during the week? Then come to the weekend events at Petco / Union Square!!

OR

If you have questions, answers, money? time? dry cat food?
Everything helps!

CONTACT SAMANTHA:
samantha.socialtees@gmail.com

Social Tees
325 East 5th Street, NY, NY 10003;
5-7pm Monday to Friday
12-4pm  Saturday and Sunday at Petco at Union Square
212-614-9653;
socialteesnyc.org

Thursday, July 25, 2013

What Remains

The Remains Of The Day, October 14, 2008



The boxes collected from the nearby beach towns of Jersey or from Coney Island or maybe even Seneca Falls are not her voice raging with life and insistence on the work of expression.

Nor are they her hand that last year of life seeking and yearning for someone to hold it.

These boxes are not even her gorgeous explosive silver and white hair that to the very end kept singing her indefatigable lust for attempting once more something of promise.

The Remains Of The Day, July 24, 2013



Those boxes, brought from her place to this home and now residing in a childhood's bookcase, hold new trinkets that remember for a middle-aged befuddled mind brief sweet moments of love, of friendship, of important moments and momentous passages of time and of impulsive purchases always under $10.

And tucked away next to those baubles are her own memories.  Of love, of friendship, of important moments and momentous passages of time and, knowing Florence, of impulsive purchases always under $5. 

 **
Related Posts:

Sunday Memories: Florence As A Memory

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Precious In The Eyes Of The Beholder


The one or two 'pieces' Florence had held long histories and were rarely brought out.  I remember Seymour got Florence something at Bailey Banks and Biddle in Philadelphia during their honeymoon or their early days.  It was talked about as if he had scaled Mt Everest, entering the bastions of the ruling class.  And on a late birthday he surprised me with gold earrings, reminiscent of those worn by every Bubbie on the lower east side.  Bought at Fortunoff's he told me.  He had, once again, scaled Mt. Everest. 

If I ventured in to any place other than Woolworth's for earrings, I went to places like Kathe's on First Avenue.  Besides all the billions of ways a ring could be fashioned from a semi-precious stone and 14k gold or silver, there were multiple crucifixes and Star of Davids to choose from, not to mention tons of pins, each different from the next, and the perfect place to find the perfect gifts to celebrate those major turning points, like someone's first Timex watch for graduating 6th grade.

Other than the 'pieces' and their histories I've inherited, the things I have may not be precious but they are precious to me.   They get broken or beat-up or tarnished.  Clasps break on necklaces given by a favorite aunt or the one I gave the Mariner.  Pretty woven rings get unwoven.  Or you need to buy a chain, a simple chain (for a pendent that couldn't be worth more than a couple of bucks) without breaking the bank.

There is no mountain to scale walking into Kathe's.  You just open the door and whatever you have in your hand to be fixed or cleaned is as precious as everything in the whole store put together.

**
Related Posts:


Kathe's Jewelry Store on First Avenue

Sunday Memories: On The Road

Mechanic's Alley

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Sunday Memories: Moving Day


The Mariner moved in.

There was a real moving van and real movers and four-wheel square skateboards that carried hundreds of things across the lobby and floors, and, in what felt like just a couple of minutes, every room in the apartment burst open with boxes and lamps and coffee tables, all cooking from the heat wave.

A much different day than the one that I moved on in 1976.

For one thing it wasn't a day; it was a night.  And whatever small belongings I was taking in this forced expulsion from the Quartchyard fit into the trunk of my father's beat-up Valiant.   There wasn't much.  A record player and hifi set, clothes, maybe some books (I can't remember), and this chair.

Bought for $2 at the street fair held by Odyssey House on 6th Street probably 1971.  Florence and I carried it back together to Grand Street, me a 12 year old attempting to be the adults she saw in old movies and her a 48 year old furiously fighting the storm her life had become.   The chair lived in my childhood bedroom, which she took over when I fled to relatives' home.

When vacating this second time, now the adult age of 17, I took the chair.  I remembered it as being paid for with my $2 and living in my room all those years.  Florence was pissed as hell when she saw it gone and for the next three decades she'd comment about how that chair was really hers.

However, I had no intention of ever letting go of it.  Moving into an apartment of many rotating roommates and room changings, that chair followed me from bedroom to bedroom until one day, with most of my life filling those walls, it took its final spot outside the front door, a rest for the cat in his wanderings, a seat while the Mariner opened the door, a safe place to put the bag of groceries with the eggs in it, a reminder of that night I left to seek home.

**
Related Posts:

Sunday Memories:  Lonely Town

Days Like This

Dust To Dust And Then New Cities Rose

Sunday Memories: On The Road

Stories From The Crossing

Encore To Celebrate Exodus And Resurrection - The Exhaustion Of Diaspora: Part Six

In Memory Of Cindy: The Land Of The Quartchyard

Friday, July 19, 2013

Friday's Child Is Loving And Giving And One Coooooool Cat (And Puppy!)

There's a reason Friday's Child is now a part 
of Her New York, if only to say thank you.
 

The James Bond of Kittens! Up for adoption!!!

So are the Fred and Ginger of Kittens, the Manx Kids!!!



HOW DO I ADOPT!

Do you want to meet these guys and all the other great pups and kitties at Social Tees, but you're stuck at your desk during the week? Then come to the weekend events at Petco / Union Square!!

OR

If you have questions, answers, money? time? dry cat food?
Everything helps!

CONTACT SAMANTHA:
samantha.socialtees@gmail.com

Social Tees
325 East 5th Street, NY, NY 10003;
5-7pm Monday to Friday
12-4pm  Saturday and Sunday at Petco at Union Square
212-614-9653;
socialteesnyc.org


OK YOU DON'T WANT TO GET MARRIED, JUST DATE?
THEN FOSTER!!!!!





This sweet angel Aussie mix here has nowhere to go! She is only 2 years old, very sweet with dogs, cats and humans. Quiet and not hyper, taking her in for a week or two could make this brutal summer feel like heaven!

WHAT'S FOSTERING, YOU WONDER?!

Fostering lasts a few weeks, and Social Tees can provide supplies if you need them.  Fostering is SUPER important because it's much healthier for our animals to be in homes than in cages, and it expands our shelter virtually.

AND for every cat and dog that is placed in a foster home, Social Tees can pull another out of the kill shelter. So if you are an animal-lover with commitment issues, FOSTER!!!

For more info on fostering, email samantha.socialtees@gmail.com or check out our FAQs here:

Thursday, July 18, 2013

The Promise


Everyone rushed to the railing to take a picture of the Lady.  Everybody, not just the tourists.

She was still and forever our promise for a fair, an equal, a just life in a fair, an equal, a just country.

A younger than me but older than young woman, dragging her older than me but younger than ancient mother behind her jockeyed their way closer to the view.  Then, in what sounded like Russian, the daughter told her mother to pose with the Lady and quickly snapped several pictures.

Whatever journey that mother and daughter had traveled to that moment,  they now had, from those quiet camera clicks, proof of the promise. 

**
Related Posts:

On The Ferry Monday Morning

Love Letters From The Most Beautiful Harbor In The World

Sunday Memories:  Getting Out Of Town

Midnight At The Oasis

The Walk To Hope

Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Taking It To The Streets


Stuck upstairs sick, I heard the roar first, almost like a ferocious chorus from one pissed-off opera.  The street got fuller and fuller with shouts and chants,and going to the window I watched for the next forty minutes thousands of people - every age, shape, race, gender, walking, wheeling, being pushed - call for justice.

The cars weren't going anywhere and they weren't happy about it.  But all these crotch rocket bikers wound their way to the front. They revved their engines like crazy and borrowed signs from marchers to wave to the never ending pouring of people fed up and incensed. 

The 80-year-old in his Birkenstock and cargo shorts exchanged power to the people fist salutes with them and then he stood in front of cars attempting to cross to the other side.  Not on his watch.  The cars would wait this time; the people would come first.  And the bikers, delighted with his 'don't fuck with me' attitude, revved their bikes even more.

And when there were no more marchers, just the police van coming up from behind, the old man stepped aside and the bikers revved even more and burst ahead popping wheelies and zipping down an empty avenue.

**
Related Posts:

A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Summer Reruns - Sunday Memories: Home Where My Love Lies Waiting - revisited


This is Florence somewhere in Bushwick. She told me she could tell how their fortunes were diminishing by how bad the new home was. This move was one of the bigger steps down.

The trip from Trenton to Brooklyn was taken illegally in the front of the truck with the driver who, according to Florence, took pity on Gramma and her, two lone females on the border of destitute.

I know nothing of that apartment on Patchen Avenue, except that Florences flourished at Eramus High School, was neighbors with someone who knitted mittens used for shooting rabbits, and had someone mailed her a little letter so that she could have this special stamp for her collection.





***

original post:

The Exhaustion of Diaspora: Part Six - Home Where My Love Lies Waiting
Saturday, April 4, 2009

Friday, July 12, 2013

Friday's Child Is Loving and Giving And Smells Of Success!!!!

There's a reason Friday's Child is now a part 
of Her New York, if only to say thank you.


EVERY BIT HELPS!  EVERY BIT COUNTS!

Success story!!! 
 
Here are Bobo and Stella (euthlist last week) in their amazing foster home in NJ!! Thank you to Melinda C., Social Tee's regular foster who ALWAYS steps up in the craziest situations! Thanks to her BOTH dogs were pulled out of the shelter and into the same home! This is what rescue is all about- team effort and taking on the hard cases!! One tail at a time!!!! 
 
A REAL HAPPY ENDING!!!
 
 
"We adopted Molly, a Weimaraner, in September and just wanted to say how much we love her. Her favorite things to do are swim in the ocean, walk in the woods, play with our Vizsla (Delta Blue), and snuggle under the covers! So glad that we found your organization. She is very loving and attached to us at the hip. I've had many dogs in my life, but she is really something special. I think she knows that, too! Thank you again for the great work that you do."

Adopt a rescue pet, and YOU could be a future Social Tees Success Story! socialteesnyc.org
 
It's as easy as reading more below!
 
 
HOW TO SUCCEED IN LOVE 
WITHOUT EVEN TRYING!
 

MEET LOVER BOY LANCE!
 
This elegant little man is eager to wine and dine you. He's even dressed for the occasion -- tuxedo! Lance is a wonderful young senior at about 10 years old. He's got a sweet balance of playful energy and laid back laziness. He's good with other cats and dogs, and he adores snuggling and being brushed. He was recently rescued from the euthanasia list and is now living it up in an awesome foster home nearby. Lance is very affectionate and completely wooed his foster mom. Now it's time for him to find a forever family that will give him as much love as he gives everyone he meets!
 
WHAT'S FOSTERING, YOU WONDER?!

Fostering lasts a few weeks, and Social Tees can provide supplies if you need them.  Fostering is SUPER important because it's much healthier for our animals to be in homes than in cages, and it expands our shelter virtually.

AND for every cat and dog that is placed in a foster home, Social Tees can pull another out of the kill shelter. So if you are an animal-lover with commitment issues, FOSTER!!!

For more info on fostering, email samantha.socialtees@gmail.com or check out our FAQs here:

HOW DO I ADOPT!

Do you want to meet these guys and all the other great pups and kitties at Social Tees, but you're stuck at your desk during the week? Then come to the weekend events at Petco / Union Square!!

OR

If you have questions, answers, money? time? dry cat food?
Everything helps!

CONTACT SAMANTHA:
samantha.socialtees@gmail.com

Social Tees
325 East 5th Street, NY, NY 10003;
5-7pm Monday to Friday
12-4pm  Saturday and Sunday at Petco at Union Square
212-614-9653;
socialteesnyc.org

 

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Passages


Just off of 14th Street, moments of cool peace in the midst of hot changes....

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

"Jewish Geography"


This is Perry. 

I had never even heard of that kind of geography and I had no idea that's what we were doing.   But, in fact, we were and not only that, it's what I've been doing my entire life. 

*His step-father was best friends with Bob.

*He had a crush on Bob's sister.

*He married a woman whose grandmother lived in the Quartchyard.  B Building.  I'd know her if I saw her.

*His (former) mother-in-law lives in the buildings Dana and George lived in for years. Betcha bottom dollar they know each other...

*Bob and Carola moved into Second Avenue.

*Tom was friends with Bob.  Tom and Laura moved to Second Avenue.

*I moved from the Quartchyard to Second Avenue, right above Bob and Carola.

*Perry and his then wife moved into the Quartchyard.  A Building.  One floor above Florence on the other side of the elevator.  Yeah, he knew Mrs F. and the family.

*Bob's sister moved to Second Avenue.

*Perry did work in their apartments, including connecting my apartment with Carola's via a hole in the floor/ceiling and an internet cable and other cool stuff I used to envy.

*Laura now works with friends I grew up with. 

*Perry now has brass window pieces from Second Avenue that Joni saved during the 1980s window installment (otherwise known, wtf or in yiddish, mishaghas)

*And thanks to Perry, there are now parts of my apartment that look as nice as what I used to envy in Bob and Carola's.

However, I didn't even broach the subject about him going to Stuyvesant High and all the people we knew in common there.  Because, after all, I gotta stop talking at some point.....

**
Related Posts:

Jewish Geography

It's A Small, Small, Small World After All

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Last of the Native New Yorkers

Sunday Memories: In The Happy Cacophony Of A Visit...

Sunday Memories: The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future

In Memory of Cindy: Land Of the Quartchyard

Sunday Memories: Guest Artists: Dana  - Encore-"If I Bring Forth What Is Inside Me, What I Bring Forth Will Save Me"

A Poem Becomes Her

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Sunday Memories: Long-Ass Journey Into Home


At 17, I had, newly ensconced in the small room, envied the big room.  But rent was divided up by size and I could at that time only afford small.

Don't exactly remember exactly when 'we' moved into the big room.  It was ours for a while and then as things changed, mine.

I don't remember when I moved back into the small room.  It was definitely years, maybe decades later.  The big room became someone's bedroom for a while.  I was in a new 'we' which lived in the small room.

Roommates came and went and lived in small rooms and the big room and then small rooms, a constant parade of different sized shoes.

Finally, one day the big room was empty.  And very few roommates remained.

It became a quiet parlor room, filled with plants and soft green walls.  It was like that for a long time.  Until that 'we' suddenly stopped.

The green walls became a prison.  They told and retold every lie of that 'we'.  A friend helped pick out new colors, soft blue and creamy yellow and bright, bright white, that opened up the walls and expanded light and joy back into my world.

However, when the yellow can was opened...  a bottle of tequila for the painters and a hastily bought can of white brought that creamy yellow onto the walls.

The room finally became itself, unfolding into a quiet place to write, to pray, to laugh, to have wonderful cake and tea.  Plants that could withstand neglect filled it.

But the old floor, beaten to bare planks hadn't changed.  They had for at least forty years if not sixty years been stomped on, tiptoed on, danced on, sat on and in return had given splinters to any foot too much in a rush to be careful.

Before death or eviction, one must leap into making home a home. In under two hours the Mariner emptied the room and the cat, bewildered that his hiding spots and scratching posts had disappeared, settled in with us waiting for transformation to begin.

**
Related Posts:

Sunday Memories: A Room Of Her Own. With a Door!


Thursday, July 4, 2013

When All Was Said And Done



There was trouble in the corners.  Mothers were roosting on eggs that weren't hatching.  Nests were being abandoned, and for weeks, fights were breaking out.

One nesting spot that had always been filled with babies from spring to late fall remained empty.  And in the other corner, one mother didn't move for months, no matter what the other pigeons did to her.

I thought about the canary in the mine, the bird dying to give a signal to the miners that they too were in danger.  Watching the sudden break from almost four decades of consistent breeding, I wondered what these pigeons might be telling us.

Then this morning, movement not seen in a while but quite familiar in the other corner, the one where several failed eggs still remained, there she was, proudly and fiercely feeding one of her baby chicks.

**
Related Posts:

Sunday Memories:  What The Stork Brought

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Last Of The Landsman* At The Pass

 

We didn't know what hit us, but it was very familiar.  Like home you didn't know you were missing until it was right in front of you.

We were headed down Orchard Street to the Untitled Store.  Towels.  I wanted to look at towels and, as we crossed Grand Street, I wonder what it would be like to have a set of towels not fifteen years old or mismatched.

Mr. Gluck didn't head us off at the pass. We couldn't even get near to the pass.  He headed us off half a block away, one look at the Mariner, he knew a good suit would be the answer to everything.

And before we could stop ourselves, Mr. Gluck, clearly an expert at herding baby ducks, sheep and middle-aged strollers, got us into his store filled with suits and coats and jackets and ties and they were beautiful.

And we said no,  no, every step we took deeper into full wardrobes for sale we said no, every cent we had was going to root canals and fresh paint on old walls so, no, no, but yes tell us stories of your father who made the store we will tell you stories of Poppy who lived around the corner and was one of the first striker to get arrested and...

I don't know how he did it but before you could say thank you or oh really or yes such a shame or even no! how old is your father, Mr. Gluck had the Mariner in a suit jacket you couldn't even imagine the cashmere the silk the flow the feel the dark blue so subtle it didn't have to say a word it was so intriguing but you could hear it singing ok so maybe the lining looked like you'd wear it to an over-the-top bar mitzvah but still...

The price was what that root canal costs, so I said NO in the voice of authority because when a Jewish woman speaks in a clothing store that's the end of the discussion, at least when it comes to spending root canal money we don't even have  and I said (as a joke) we'll come back and maybe you'll get married in that, and Mr. Gluck said married again because in his mind we were and he turned to the Mariner as I laughed so hard and said, see?  A happy wife, a good couple... then dragged me over to the pants on the hanger to look and feel and touch and just try to wrinkle that cuff you can't, for you I make a good price...

So, if you want a suit that flows and feels and sings and is cashmere and silk and you can't wrinkle it it is such a good fabric, go... go to Mr. Gluck.  It won't be hard to find him because all you have to do is walk down Orchard and once you cross Grand...

GLOBAL INTERNATIONAL
62 Orchard Street between Grand and Hester
New York City
212.431.4530

*Landsman: A fellow Jew who comes from the same district or town, especially in Eastern Europe.

**
Related Posts:

Sunday Memories - A Visit from Another Her New York: "It Looked Chaotic But It Was Quite Organized."

Orchard Street

The Untitled Store

It Was His New York

Days Like This

Stories From The Crossing