Brooklyn

  Lazing around the apartment was getting pretty old, and schedules were needing to be aligned pretty quickly, so a fairly last minute trip to Brooklyn ensued.

  I was supposed to do one of those "fast after 8pm and go in and have your blood tested" things this week, and have plumbers come and work on all three fixtures in the apartment.  The plumbers were told they could come when I was away, and I fasted and had my blood tested before Friday's travelling.

   As some know, my birthdate (including year) and first and last names are identical with those of a convicted felon in the Ottawa area, so many times when I cross the border, I have to be handcuffed, yanked across all the lanes of cars waiting at the border, and explain in the little room (where I am handcuffed to a bench set in concrete) that I am a different guy entirely.  Then they let me in.

  Last time, the guy was especially helpful.  He stamped my passport, even though you don't do that to come into America from Canada, just to help indicate that I was let in, and told me to try including a note next time.  I was dubious, but set out with a note in my passport saying "For your information: I share the EXACT first and last names, and birthdate (including year) with a convicted felon" and etc.  After more than an hour-long wait, I gave the border guard a note, saying "In December they said to give you a note."  He took a look, as two miles of six lanes of cars waited.  Border guards were everywhere.  I waited to hear "Sir, can you turn the engine off and place both hands on the steering wheel.  Now can you take your keys in your left hand and give them to me."  

  It didn't come.  He chuckled and said "That was you?" and I realized he was him.  He was the exact same guy who'd stamped it last time.  

  He paused with his finger over his keypad and said "I really hate to type the number in in case it goes off, but I have to."  He entered the passport number, waited, and breathed a sigh of relief.  "What I did last time was I flagged your passport number, saying you were a different person from the other guy.  Looks like it worked for now.  No guarantees in future.  Anyway, you have a nice time."

  Then it was to New Jersey, where I left my car with relatives, who drove me to the train station.  From there, a short train trip to the World Trade Centre, which oddly, seems to have an awful lot of construction work going on.  Some of the most unhelpful, lacking and "arrows pointing in the opposite direction" signage I've ever seen was there.  I asked a guy "Which way to get to the subways?" and he did the whole "are you scamming/on crack/stupid?" reaction, wondering why I just didn't know where to go, like everyone else.  "I'm from Canada" I said, to explain why I didn't 'just know' where to go.  He then escorted me through some Do Not Cross tape and lifted aside a barrier so I could get through and said "You have a real nice day."  Then I was out of the under construction part, and followed better signs "to the subway" which led me out of the building and then sent me to go up a block, turn right, and then walk two blocks and look around the right corner, where a subway entrance was. 

  Then it was a matter of figuring out subway service that has been specially altered this weekend, and arriving at the brownstone.  Then it was sitting on the stoop with friends, drinking a beer and eating ice cream while the neighbourhood went on around us.

  This afternoon, Brooklyn is steamy and sweat-stained, with a thin patina of greyish grease, as always.