After living in Virgina Beach for several years, my daughter, Miss WHo, decided to take a shot at living in NYC. For a farm girl like me, it sounded like moving to the moon. But she needed a little help, and that's what Mom's are for, so let's see how that move thing went....
She stayed with a friend in New Jersey for awhile, til she found a job, and a landlord who would give her a break on the rent in exchange for cleaning the common areas. When she was ready, she took her car off the road, and left it upstate with us. My husband, who is her step-dad, and I helped her move from NJ to Bed Stuy.
First, you have to get into NYC. OMG! A tunnel!
I don't really like to drive anyway, and driving through Manhattan was not my idea of fun. Crossing over into Brooklyn, we were stuck for what seems like forever in front of a fire engine with sirens screaming. I guess New Yorkers are like honey badgers, they don't care. No one is going to force me out of my turning lane! Not that other American's are all that civic....
She found a room with a shared kitchen and bath. It was a few blocks from the Nostrand Ave subway stop to Manhattan. But she lived on the wrong end of a one way street, so we had to make three left turns to get to her building. Why is there so much construction going on constantly in New York? As we waited to make the last turn onto her block, we heard a loud "pop."
Mr. WH: "That sounded like a gunshot."
Me: "Don't be silly. It was just the construction we passed back there." But sure enough, when we swung onto her street, there in front of us we saw an unmarked police car with all four doors wide open. An undercover cop brandishing a gun crouched behind one of the doors. He glanced back at us, making momentary eye contact, and then ran down the street away from us. Miss WHo was walking rapidly away from me, in the direction of the cop car, which was still sitting in the middle of the block.
She turned to us. "Find a place to pull over and park." We found a spot, and I wondered what I should do next. I mean, my baby is walking toward danger! Mr. WH is a [sometimes] hunter, but neither of us was prepared for this.
I looked further down the block where my daughter was heading. A lady was sitting on her stoop, parallel to the cop car, eating her lunch. Oh, OK. This is normal. I wasn't sure how we were going to get the rest of her stuff down the block with the traffic stopped unless we carried it, but soon the uniformed police showed up, and we were able to move our van. And we proceeded to help her move her stuff into her new place.
Stay tuned for Episode II of "Adventures in New York City," coming soon to a diary post near you!
Preview: Where I "kick back" in Bed Stuy!