This “tiny love story” by Adriana Pichardo in today’s NYT has a lesson in it for me. First, let’s read it.
I met Ángel at a wedding that wasn’t meant to be — mine. I was the bride, waiting. While the planners searched for my groom, I joked nervously, trying to hold the moment together. “This party will happen. If he doesn’t come, I’ll marry you,” I said, pointing to the photographer. He lowered his camera, and I saw Ángel’s eyes for the first time. “I do,” he replied. Years later, life miraculously brought us back together. At 44, I’m walking hand in hand with someone entirely unexpected who feels like home. The angels brought Ángel.
For me, the moment in the story that soars is Ángel’s perfect response: “I do.” He seized the moment. That’s what you have to do. I missed it last night at dinner, as I so often do. When you don’t miss it, it’s a story you have for the rest of your life. I’m not talking about major stuff here, like Adriana and Ángel, just funny lines you might have said but only think of later. Here are two I didn’t miss. We were eating at an Irish restaurant in Denville (NJ) and I noticed there were decorative plates on the walls all around the dining room. I waited for the right moment and said to the waiter: “I have a question about those plates.” “Yes?” he replied, glancing up at them. “Doesn’t the food fall off?” He went with it and said something like, “Yes, it’s a problem.”
The second one I didn’t miss was in Bell’s Tavern, a very nice spot tucked away in a real neighborhood in Lambertville (NJ) right up the street from a fantastic ice cream place: O Wow Cow. I was contemplating their “signature burger.” This time it was a waitress. “I have a question about your signature burger,” I said. “Yes?” she said. “Is there ink all over it?” There wasn’t, she assured me.
Getting back to last night. We had just attended a Princeton women’s ice hockey game that we loved. We sat right behind a goal so were totally involved in the action for half of the game (we actually ducked once), and pretty much missed the other half. Unfortunately, all four goals were scored away from us, but the whole experience was riveting. Princeton lost 3-1 to Harvard (boo!), but the rubber match is today and we’re hopeful the girls will do better in our absence. [Note: we won 5-1! On to the semis!]
Anyway, so we stopped for dinner at an Italian place we like a lot north of Princeton (in Montgomery NJ) called Beniamino’s. We were going to split a chicken dish along with a large veggie pizza, Brooklyn-style (square, thin crust). The cute waitress warned us the pie would take 35 minutes. I said, “that’s fine, we’re not in any hurry,” and we opted to receive all of the food together, rather than get the chicken before the pizza. (Thus, we were unable to answer the age-old question: Which came first — the chicken or the pizza?)
Well, the line I was rolling around in my head seemed obvious to me. I would wait about twenty minutes, and then call her over and, with mock anger, say: “What the hell is taking so long!!??” But I didn’t do it. Mostly because I am a f*cking coward. That worked well to keep me out of Nam, but it worked against me last night at Beniamino’s. Oh, well. I may get another chance. We get back there pretty often.
There were two musical references in today’s NYTXW: Abba, and Hall and Oates, but when I listened to the tunes Rex shared by them, they were both too pop-py for my ears. Then he threw this one on the pile. Ever hear of The Idles? I haven’t, but I live under a rock. They are a British post-punk band with two #1 albums in the UK.
Turn it up!
BTW, did you know this about H&O, via Anony Mouse? “In a losing battle fought with with the public all through their time working together, they rejected the term ‘Hall and Oates,’ insisting that they were not some single entity joined at the hip, but were distinct partners, Daryl Hall and John Oates, and wanted to be known as such.”
Wait! I was wrong! There were three musical clues in the puzzle. At 18D “Music that’s a little offbeat?” was SKA. Here’s a classic example from a band I think Linda and I saw in England on a musical tour we took back in the late 70’s. (We suffer from CRS: Can’t Remember Sh*t.)
Rex took exception to a weather-related clue and I agree with him, especially since he backed up his position with data. At 30A the clue was “Like Buffalo, N.Y., about 167 days a year, typically,” and the answer was RAINY.
Here’s Rex: Almost half the year? Really? I live only a handful of hours away from Buffalo [in Binghamton], and I had no idea. We don’t get nearly that much rain here. We do get around 150 days with precipitation, but much of that is snow. I knew about Buffalo’s lake effect snow. The snowiness of Buffalo is legendary. Infamous. The rain, wow, real news to me. In fact, I’m not sure the clue is right. It’s at least misleading. I’m looking at data that says Buffalo gets 166 days of precipitation, annually. That’s rain or snow, not just rain. I submit to you that snowy days are not RAINY.
Interestingly, for me, the top city on the chart was Rochester, NY, where I spent some time several hundred years ago. Here are a baker’s top ten:
This young lady would not let Phil huddle under her umbrella with her. Good move, girl.
Here’s another exchange on the topic that I liked:
William M. wrote: RAINY has the sense of something continuous and steady and widespread. Not fine mists in the morning, a few sprinkles in the afternoon, a quick shower in the evening, “lake effect” flurries almost any time of day, or very localized participation alongside clear skies just a few blocks away – much of which in Buffalo is the result of condensation from the lakes that gets “dropped” when the cloud moves over land. I’d hardly call that RAINY weather. The clue is misleading (and not in a clever or good way).
But Anony Mouse may have popped his bubble with: “Condensation that gets dropped when the cloud moves over land” is pretty much the definition of rain…
The theme of the puzzle today was ski slopes, and “going downhill.” In the theme answers the word HILL appeared embedded in other answers, going downhill on gentle or sleep slopes depending on the ski slope symbol the puzzle gave you. Here:
The first symbol (the green dot) near 17 is the symbol for a bunny slope, so the HILL is gradual. And the double diamond down near 107 is super steep (essentially a cliff), as you can see.
Anyway, the wonderful Commenter Lewis shared this with us:
“I only snow-skied one time. I was 20. I was waiting for a lesson and had on beginner skies – metal, thick, huge. I was several yards away from the lip of a bunny hill, and the ground I was waiting on ever so slightly tilted toward that hill, and I started slowly gliding toward its lip. Not knowing how to stop, I just kept going, and the next thing I knew, I plunged down, keeping my balance.
“The bottom was curved like the bottom of the letter U, and when I reached it, I kept going because, again, I didn’t know how to stop. I went up, then down (backwards!), and up and down, like the bottom of a pendulum, in ever decreasing arcs, like something out of a cartoon, until I finally stopped.”
I responded by noting: “Happily, your cartoon didn’t include a giant mallet appearing out of the sky and pounding you into the snow. Nobody needs that.”
Commenter Easy Ed responded with: Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m another one-time skier. I went skiing with a friend who was practically born on skis. We got separated and there were no difficulty signs so I started down what l thought was a pretty trail. Suddenly I was moving at a scary speed with trees whizzing by and no end of the hill in sight. I basically panicked and the only way I could think of to stop was to jump into one of the snow drifts on the side of the run. Luckily I landed in thick snow and not on a hidden boulder. An exhilarating memory that I have no urge to repeat. It turned out that the slope was one that the British Army Rangers used for training, another career opportunity missed…
For the clue at 9A “Move awkwardly (up)” the answer was CLAMBER. Good word! Here’s an oddly compelling song called Carousel by Siouxie and the Banshees.
Rex took exception to the clue/answer at 9D: For “It’s all there in black and white,” the answer was CHESS. Rex: “There?” Where? Also, not all chess sets feature black and white men. In fact, if you do an image search (right now, go ahead) you’ll find that very few of the results are black & white. There’s always some form of dark and light, but the “white” pieces are often more of a light brown, made out of a light wood. Something like this:
But Commenter Andy F. explained: “The opposing sides in chess are always referred to as black and white, I believe, even if the specific set colors are turquoise and tangerine.”
And Chick Little chimed in with: “I daresay that it was the introduction of turquoise and tangerine chess pieces that put civilization on the slippery slope from which it will never recover…”
Amen to that, brother. See you tomorrow, gang.
The Wellington Files 