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May 31, 2009
1873: CELEBRITY SIGHTING: PRINCE HARRY
Whenever I leave a concert or any other fairly large-scale event, I'm always awed by the way in which the city can so quickly absorb everyone in the audience as soon the show is over. Venues empty out and crowds disperse in such a short span of time that at no point does it ever feel like this mass of people caused any notable interruption in the natural flow of the city's traffic. If you passed through that same space only a short while later, you might ever know anything had taken place there.
Similarly, you can miss crossing paths with a celebrity by a matter of seconds and not know it. Had I taken another elevator or chosen a different cross street, for instance, I wouldn't have found myself walking up Lexington at precisely the same moment that Prince Harry was leaving the Intercontinental on Friday.
I was strolling along, enjoying the weather and anticipating my phone buzzing any second with dinner plans, when I found my path blocked by an exceptionally large and grim-looking man in a suit. He was standing in the middle of the street, blocking traffic in both directions. I glanced behind him to see half a dozen black SUVs, virtually identical, taking up the width of Lexington above the point at which he stood. He turned his head slightly and I saw a bright white earpiece; obviously, I had stumbled into the way of someone more important than me or this guy in the suit.
I didn't have a moment to actually wonder who that important person might be, because at that very second, a crowd of people in suits emerged from the hotel and shoved a very tall, very red person into one of the SUVs -- Prince Harry! As soon as the door on his vehicle shut, the whole group was off and running, windows down, grim faces peering out each with the butt of a machine gun tucked under each arm. It was impossible to know which vehicle he'd gotten into -- the SUVs were identical, and the way in which they turned together onto the cross street made them even harder to differentiate. But perhaps the most impressive thing about it was that it happened so QUICKLY -- in fact, I hadn't heard a single car horn sound, so it they must have interrupted traffic for only a few moments. And in nothing flat, they were gone; you'd never have known they were ever there unless you'd happened to be right there to see it yourself.
Sadly, it was only at the last possible second that it dawned on me that maybe I should take a photo of all this; even sadder still is the fact that THIS is the result of that effort:
But I guess I'll have to be happy with the knowledge that I managed to be there to see anything at all -- 8.2 million other New Yorkers weren't.
Posted by ashley at 02:47 PM | TrackBack
1872: The following caused me to nearly fall off the treadmill this morning...
Posted by ashley at 01:52 PM | TrackBack
May 24, 2009
1871: I am inappropriately excited about this:
Posted by ashley at 11:32 AM | TrackBack
May 02, 2009
1870: Stray kitteh got his hair did
My parents have been working on making the stray cat they recently found "adoptable." This entails getting the cat examined (and fixed, if necessary) by a vet, which they've already managed to do after a few weeks of winning the cat's trust.
The cat, as it turns out, is younger than they'd assumed it to be -- it's about 2 -- and in excellent health. Since it had already been neutered, we can only assume it used to be someone's pet but it's unclear whether it was abandoned or lost.
Although it wasn't entirely visible in the photos I took over Easter, the cat's fur was heavily knotted from a lack of grooming. The vet recommended taking the cat to a professional groomer to have the matted sections cut out, shaving the cat down to give it a "lion cut." The thinking behind this was simply that bugs would irritate the cat's skin if they were allowed to nest in the matted fur, which was now very close to his skin.
And here's how that turned out...
My parents have been researching no-kill shelters in the area, but every one they find seems to be full. The recommendation they receive wherever they make inquiries is to care for the cat as much as possible on their own until a slot opens up for him. Being an outdoor cat, he seems to be adjusting just fine to all of this, and spends a lot of time hanging out in my parents' backyard where he's fed, has a box to sleep in, and can come and go as he wishes.
I asked my dad the other day how the cat was doing. Here's the email I received in reply...
The cat seems a little depressed since his hair cut.
He just sits around in various places in the yard and
on the porch as if he's thinking.
When he's not doing that, he's sleeping in his box
on the porch we fixed for him.
He's eating OK. And he spends just about all his
time here instead of roaming the neighborhood
as was his habit.
I guess it's just the trauma of getting a lion cut.
Love,
Dad
Embarrassing as the new haircut is, I suspect the cat is just becoming more and more comfortable with my parents. It's not a feral cat by any means; it seems to like being around people, undoubtedly because it still remembers being loved and cared for by someone. And, whatever shame the kitty feels about his awkward new coif, he's in good company -- after all, when the weather gets warm, Winston rocks the lion cut, too.