First of all, the NYC subway system absolutely hates me this week as I barely made it to the park in time for the Twilight Tour. I called Gail as soon as I got off the train and she and her friend Elizabeth (who rocks, by the way) were already at the park at the boat basin. Trav tells me that the boat is going to board soon so I haul ass to get there - including RUNNING down the pathway which is thankfully marked by duck prints. I get there and see people boarding the boat but no sign of Trav. I call again and she tells me that they are upstairs. However, the doors are locked and keep in mind that I still think we're trying to catch a 7 pm boat THAT IS CURRENTLY BOARDING as it's just after 7 now. Someone happens to leave the building, so I head in and run upstairs where I find Trav and Elizabeth sitting and chatting, drinking wine and eating little snacks. Oh, turns out we can take a 7:30 boat. I think that this that would have been excellent information to have BEFORE I ran through the park, but I don't actually say that out loud until we are rehashing much later in the evening.
So, we hang out for a bit before the 7:30 boat. Our tour guide was quite chatty and informative - far more informative than I personally care for at 7:30 on a Thursday night when I'm trying to drink wine and chat with my friends. He proceeds to tell us how bats are the only thing saving us from the apocalypse because they eat insects and if they didn't eat insects, the insects would take over the world and we'd have to live in domes and grow food in domes. Then he pointed out an island inhabited by raccoons who only leave it to swim to the park to eat trash. Which - um, thanks for the nightmares, pal. Mercifully, the boat tour ends but marks the "hike" portion of our evening, which turns out to mean we walk down a path to a bridge and use some sort of "radar" to isolate bat noises. But I think this was mostly a ruse to get us to a bridge so we had no choice but to listen to him talk. Cause he wouldn't shut up. Before he even started the bat portion of the tour, he was standing there telling us what a small window we had to see and all I could think was - if the window to observe bats is so small, then why are we standing here? Also - there are 1000 species of bats and some can live to be 30, and grow to almost 3 feet in size with a 6 foot wing span. Oh, and bats are key in the production of something that is necessary to make tequila but I had long stopped listening closely at that point.
Ooh - almost forgot the super awesome sassy black older lady on the tour who asked kind of sarcastic, but sort of serious questions including: what if I wake up a hibernating bat (it dies), do bats live in my brownstone (perhaps), and do they attack men (only if rabid and even then - not really). She was fantastic. I told her that we should hang out and that my schedule is pretty wide open - and she told me she was booked.
So THEN it's time for us to leave the park. Instead of walking down the way we came and going where there is a little bit of a lit pathway - Gail leads us into the park and down a completely black trail and really didn't seem to know where she was going. Thank goodness I always carry this little teeny flashlight (ever since I was trapped on the subway during the blackout in 2003) - so I get it out so we can at least see a little bit. We finally come out on the other end - though not where Gail expected us to come out. Of course. But she's the best - last night she emailed me this:
thank you for guiding myself and elizabeth with your flashlight... i feel strongly that is a sign of your strength and amazing brilliance as a friend....
Which - it totally is. You all are pretty lucky to know me.
So, we survive Trav leading us through the pitch black woods with promises of "this way" only to be met with "where the eff are we" but luckily Elizabeth not only knew where the eff we were but could properly direct us to Farm (with a little help from Google), where we had fancy bar food (i.e. less fried than I prefer) and a bartender who took our picture and let Trav finish the bottle of organic wine she was drinking. Then Elizabeth and I took the train home and some old lady kind of got all up in Elizabeth's face for flaunting her whiteness - which Elizabeth wasn't even remotely doing and pointed out to me (after the lady got off the train) that she is actually Mexican so if she were going to flaunt anything, it might be that.
All in all, a pretty excellent night.
Safe travels, Trav. Already miss you and can't wait until you're back.
The 7:00 PM boat that we were not on:
The lovely water. Apparently that's duck weed on top of it, which you could eat if you were desperate and is also key in preventing the apocolypse.
Us at Farm courtesy of the bartender:
No comments:
Post a Comment