Behind the Scenes

I realize that I didn't tell you the biggest thing that was on my mind last week.

"But no," I hear you say, "you told us all about your basal cell carcinoma."

Yeah, well, though some parts of that floated to the top pretty much all the time, what I ended up concentrating on was my job.

Unfathomable, eh?

See, when all of a sudden around midday on a Wednesday, when you have a few of those very rare actual deadlines to meet, your computer goes entirely black and will not respond in any way. Any. Way. It seems that the internal power source was probably zorched.

The only computer in our tiny company that has access to everything and can process everything and provide everything is mine. All the information is backed up but not in a coherent and easily accessible way. So the week was fraught on pretty much every front. One awesome, I Love New York moment came out of it, though.

Wednesday at 4pm found me cabbing to the Apple store with my boss to buy me a new computer. 4:25pm found us in line with the new 20" screen iMac, some software, an extended warranty and a 500 GB back up drive. Once we'd gotten checked out and everything, I was standing on 5th Avenue trying to hail a cab at 4:45 on a weekday. This is possibly as futile an enterprise as any we have ever invented on earth. Knowing that I wanted to get home and breathe again before 8:00pm I had an idea. I beckoned over a pedicab driver and asked him for a price. My boss was entirely skeptical. As a matter of fact his last words to the guy were , "Be careful with her." Very sweet, eh?

It was the best decision I made all week. "Rickshaw Andy" loaded my things into his cart, tucked me in with a quilt and took me on a cycle down 5th Avenue and over to my office. He even went all the way up onto the sidewalk (highly illegal but his cousin's a cop so he has a get out of ticket free card) right to the door of my building and unloaded my heavy burden. He's hilarious and kind and he talks non-stop. He talked to me, he talked to other drivers, he talked to pedestrians and doormen, and he sang. It was glorious. From here on out whoever comes to New York to visit me is required to take a pedicab ride. It's fun and silly and a nice way to appreciate the city.

It's a little expensive, though, so it's not like I could do it every day. Come visit soon, ok?