Yesterday there was an earthquake in Virginia that was felt all the way up the east coast to New York City. Everyone has a story to tell about where they were, how they felt, how scared they got. Me, not so much. I was eating (what a shock!) lunch in the city with a friend after a rather boring exhibit in Times Square, and I missed the earth moving under my feet. (apologies to Carole King) The exhibit was, fitting enough, the ruins of Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted back in 79AD and covered Pompeii in ash and lava. The exhibit was coupled with the Harry Potter exhibit which for an additional $14 you could see both. Never a Harry fan, we just opted for Pompeii and its molten residents.
The crowds lined up to see rocks…..basically. Not moon rocks, or even lava rocks…they were cement rocks…casts of people who apparently were too slow to out run the lava flow. And to add insult to injury, they were not the real bodies, (those were either melted or disintegrated) they were casts they made when they found that inside the hardened rock-like lava was an empty hole. So some genius archeologist said, ‘let’s fill it will cement to see what it used to be.’ And guess what, dead people! (“Let’s make an exhibit and charge the tourists and unsuspecting Brooklynites way too much and have an overpriced gift shop at the exit”) In fairness, there were two, no…three interesting things in the exhibit. One was the dead dog mold which looks like my dog when he is sleeping upside down, legs in the air….until I read the caption that said that the dog probably died climbing higher and higher to beat the lava flow and choked to death because his lousy Pompeiian owner never unleashed the dog before fleeing. Lovely. The second thing was the ‘sex for sale’ exhibit, cleverly hidden behind wall warning of its unsuitability for children where everything from paintings to plates depicted someone doing something to someone. Damn those Italians were kinky. Short, but kinky. The third thing was the Buddy Valestro (Cake Boss) life-sized cut out that we posed for pictures with. It was our free souvenier. I didn’t need a $12 coaster that looked like a broken tile, I didn’t want a imitation lava rock for $9 or even a t-shirt that wouldn’t have fit anyway with a picture of an erupting Mount Vesuvius for $26 (the same amount it cost to get in the exhibit) so the gift shop was a bust. We wandered into the Harry Potter gift shop and there were people dressed as wizards and owls. And they didn’t work there!! We left, looking forward to lunch. The earthquake was about a half hour away at this point.
Times Square was the typical circus it always is. We went into Lidz where I bought NY Mets hats for my traitor grandsons and was talked into buying a discount card for future purchases by a quick and savvy salesboy salesman, and then the Yankees store for my grandson who has stayed true to the pinstripes. $75 dollars later I have souveniers. (My granddaughter got stiffed!) Still no earthquake. We walked the two blocks towards the parking lot and found a rather interesting looking restaurant. We were offered a seat in front by the window, but after being seated we realized that the view was that of the side of a parked moving truck and besides, the wicker seats just did not sit well with my ass. (even with all my padding) We moved to the back of the restaurant with minimally better seating….ditto our view. At this point the earthquake hit and we had felt nothing. The waiter laughingly asked if we wanted bread. He brought a basket and a small bowl of….ummm, chick pea paste? Maybe hummus?? Looked like something beige and pasty in oil. Hungrily we buttered it on the bread and it was delicious. I had an omelet with asparagus and a glass of house merlot, my friend had fish and chips. (considering she is Irish I thought this a bit disloyal) We speculated about the men lunching at a discreet corner table…were the observably gay couple married, planning on getting married, or having an innocuous affair. Either way we never considered them to be straight which was terribly unwarranted since they could have been saying the same about the two woman sitting in the other corner…us! I went to look up something on my cell phone and had no service. Just then a phone call from my friends job informed us that there had just been an earthquake. And then the call went dead. I tried using the internet. Nothing. I tried calling my kids. Nothing. One by one all the calls checking up on us came through. And everyone of them had felt the earthquake. The most vibration we had felt thus far was during the fake volcanic eruption at Pompeii exhibit. Since we had missed the movement, we decided on dessert. Or at least that’s what I told myself. Two coffees and a Creamsicle Crème Brulee to share. (Let’s give the corner guys something to talk about!) Lunch was sumptuous and quite expensive considering I had what equated to a diner meal…except for the beige pasty stuff which I personally though classed up the menu.
We walked out of the restaurant and saw no evidence of an earthquake. No panicking, no running, no one looking skyward for falling buildings. Just tourists looking at maps and street vendors hawking cheap t-shirts. Had he thought quick enough he could have sold dozens of I SURVIVED THE EARTHQUAKE OF 2011. I’d have bought one, even if it didn’t fit.
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