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Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

nyc - and work!!

totally rested, we head out to brave nyc traffic & attempt to deliver a sofa we hauled from d.c. - we have to go to the financial district (i.e. by the site of the old trade towers) & we're told that the streets are closed to traffic from 11:00 to 1:00 or so everyday so pedistrians can walk around without fear of being hit.
we do not make it there before 11:00 - the sofa has turned out to be a sofa bed, extremely heavy even tho it is in pieces - and the customer does NOT have help, as she had promised. so rae removes the barricade & we drive in the one block to the customer's apartment. i park & rae gets out again to help the customer take the sofa off the truck. as we're parked, a police officer strolls by, not looking at me but just walking by the truck. one piece is off the truck & being taken up the elevator.
the next piece gets taken off & i notice a paddy wagon has parked about 30 feet back away from the truck. another police officer strolls nonchalantly by, appearing not to notice us.
finally the last part of the sofa bed is off the truck & i decide not to wait for rae to come down but to drive out of the restricted area, which is easier said than done - all the roads are one way & a patrol car has now passed on the perpendicular road & stopped a few feet from the intersection. i decide to go forward instead of turning in behind him. rae catches up & removes the next barricade so i don't have to get out the truck. i turn down another street where i can pass thru onto broadway without moving the barracade. a metermaid vehicle approaches as i proceed, he stops abruptly & begins frantically punching numbers into his cell phone while all the time shooting us rapid glances.
we take off onto broadway & merge into all the traffic! good bye manhattan! off we go to brooklyn for a pick-up. the next customer is moving back to berkeley! she's a chef & we look forward to sampling her food when we all get home. she lives about 4 blocks from the ocean so rae & i head toward the water. we park & find the overpass that lets us walk over the highway and onto the ocean's edge. there are benches all along, mostly covered with snow - and the path around the ocean's edge is also packed w/snow. tons of birds are floating on the frigid waters and as soon as we descend the stairs, a hoard of gulls, jonathan not in site, surround us. we walk quickly around the edge of the ocean, pleased the sun is out, the birds are bobbing peacefully, and we get to experience the atlantic ocean! we find a bench that is semi-clear - snow up to the seat - and we sit & eat our soy ice cream while being blessed by the atlantic!
i head to new jersey; rae heads to manhattan! peace, sam