Finding Iowa in a borough

Visiting Taylor in New York City for a spell.
I made the snap decision to go because I’m getting cabin fever and, quite frankly, exhausted with the coming election, workloads, losing weight, depression, grief, people, and why it costs more to eat healthy than poorly. Shouldn’t that be the exact opposite? I mean seriously, in a small digression, shouldn’t we impose an unhealthy tax on foods that are bad for us like we do oh, for cigarettes and illicit drugs? Wouldn’t that generate revenue while making us all thinner.
Kale, berries, avocado should be what we’re subsidizing. Wouldn’t the subsidy be offset by the savings in health care in this country?
Anyway.
We went to her new apartment in the Kensington district, and I know this because she told me. I’m no geographic guru when it comes to boroughs and neighborhoods in NYC. I just go where she tells me, usually walking or on a train.
On Friday we walked her neighborhood to visit the post office and pick up a few things for her apartment.
This neighborhood is the closest thing to Iowa that I’ve seen in my four trips here.
Large homes with small yards, trees, and my God do people decorate for Halloween around here. I mean Chad Donaldson can decorate a yard, but these folks are nutso.
One house had animatronics with all full-size Halloween characters completely lining a large wrap-around porch. A wicked dog flashes out of a doghouse on the side of the porch that scared Taylor, not once, but twice, before she’d had enough and started walking again.
This house had skeletons climbing all over the house and large blowup figures in the yard.
Trick or treating here is for real.
Trees are large and provide a tremendous amount of shade and they aren’t oak, maple, and elm. These are trees that look like tremendously large ferns with trunks about five feet in diameter. What look like peonies are drying up and browning in the cool, fall air. Sidewalks are old and slanted. It makes me feel like I’ve had one too many Narragansetts, but I’m just walking on slanted sidewalks, and I bump into Taylor multiple times. I keep apologizing to her and she says, “Nah, try this in heels!”
Women are an accomplished gender.
This is hands down my favorite place she’s lived in her 10 years here. I’m here just hanging out and working a little but feeling lonely because tomorrow I’m going home and I already miss her.
We put up some shelving in her room and, like any Vandenberg home project, it’s at minimum two trips to the hardware store. I went through two masonry bits drilling holes in her gorgeous brick walls in her room. I think once I burnt the bite off the bit running it in the wrong direction. Now she has level shelves on both brick walls and she clapped that quick golf clap way with her shoulders pulled up.
Dad’s do things, but she was a big help with some good ideas on marking the holes on the bricks when I couldn’t get a pencil through. She suggested using a smaller wood drill bit to just put a mark on it.  A bit that fit right through the hole.
After about four hours I was ready to move onto the next project. Maybe hanging some pictures or something. She moved in here about three weeks ago so it's still in move-in phase.
But she was hungry and wanted to take me to this Middle Eastern restaurant near where she works. I didn’t change clothes - just freshened up. I should’ve changed clothes. It was a swanky, quaint little bistro with a mahogany look and low lighting. Tables in the bay windows and a New York price tag. It was called “Boutros” and you share plates of hummus, kibbeh, and other words that sound like a baby figuring out its mouth muscles.
We ordered short rib shawarma hummus, labneh (truffle-honey with hazelnuts and rosemary), and butternut squash kibbeh and quail kabobs that weren’t kabob-ed. Just served on a plate. Apparently, they were out of sticks.
It…was…fantastic.
The quail, which I’ve never had before, was charred perfectly with a sweet black currant sauce and vegetables. Quail must be navigated in the mouth because there are lots of small bones. But the meat is tender, and the char is smoky and sweet. Need wet wipes for this one. The rest was all eaten with warmed pita bread about a foot in diameter. You just pull this bread apart in strips and wipe the plates of hummus and labneh with the bread and just eat it that way. Wonderful. We finished with what is called Mom’s Knafeh, this is a like a pancake made with shredded pastries and pistachio ice cream. It was a dessert for sure but left me wanting something a bit more. I found it moments later.
We then went to a wine store where she will moonlight on occasion, and a friend of Taylor’s offered me a couple fingers of a coconut rum that burned the throat but settled nicely in the stomach and had a sweet finish. That did the trick.
We stayed and chatted people up for a bit, then got back on the subway for her apartment. We settled in on her bed and watched Any Given Sunday. She’s on an LL Cool J rip right now.
We were both asleep 20 minutes into the movie. I looked over at her several times before I fell asleep. She was already asleep.
I took it all in with a couple deep breaths and exhaled slowly. A Dyson cool fan blew a light breeze over me and that’s all I remember until I heard her come in in the morning before heading into work.
I’m going to a Vikings bar Sunday for the football game. Tay will be there so I’m sure there will be video footage available of me acting like a Purple People eater. In case you didn’t know MY Vikings are 5-0 and this week’s game will be a big game so everyone must wear something purple today. I mean it. Send me images of your purple. I’ll be checking – But that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.