We parked outside in what we thought was a secure, legal location. My Sweetheart went inside the bar to set up his video cam to record the "Tanith" concert. It was hot inside. So hot I had to go to the car to wait for "Tanith" to perform at 10 pm. I go to the car about 9:05 and once in our car began to take off layers of clothes, I was hot!
(For any Southerners, you wear layers of clothing up north for this purpose)
So I thought I'll cool off and sit here until about 9:55 and go back in. Reality had another plan I had to just go with it. As I was sitting in the car I came across one of my husband's shirts. I thought excellent! I can leave my turtleneck, my vest, my overcoat and scarf here and just wear his shirt over my spaghetti strap top. That will keep me cool inside the venue.
So I'm sitting, looking around, enjoying the coolness for about 30 minutes when a NYC cop car pulls up alongside our car and shines light on me, turns on their siren briefly, "yurp, yurp", and waves me to lower my window. I had to jump the hump of the middle console, get in driver's seat, put key in the ignition, start the car to let down the electric window.
"Yes? Is there something I can do for you officer?"
"You can move your car you are parked in a bus lane."
"I thought this was a legal space?"
"No."
Seeing the bus stop sign I thought the bus cannot take up the entire block space to pull over to pick up passengers so I asked the cops.
"Can I just back up 50 more ft? I'm from out of town, where do I park?"
"No, you cannot park in the bus lane. Move up to the next block, not here."
"Thank you, I will move."
I pull out and the cops park in my space and get out. He began putting tickets on every car on that side of the street on that block. Then they begin walking the block looking into windows, talking to cafe people, I presume looking to have people move their cars. No one came out, no one moved a car except me. Guess the cops had no luck finding the owners of the other cars.
So now it is 9:37 pm and I think, "Good luck! No ticket!"now I will ride around the blocks and find a space in plenty of time... no that did not happen. I rode up and down every street careful not to go up the wrong way of a one way street, of which there are many at this location. I rode up and down and around, again and again. No luck.
Watching the clock 9:37 turned into 9:58 and still no parking space. Great! Now I will miss the opening of "Tanith." Well, at least my husband is recording it so I can see what I miss. I keep riding, circling the blocks until I saw a space so short I was not sure the car would fit but I would try with my expert driving skills to squeeze this Cruz in. Oh yeah I squeezed the car in but it took me another 25 minutes of back and forth, back and forth, get out of car, eye distance, get back in car, back and forth, back and forth, repeat until success! I parked legally in NYC and possibly avoided towing. The last thing I wanted to do was go buy my car out of the impound at 3:00 am. Yes I have had to do this before... 40 years ago. Long process, not fun and yes expensive.
So now it is 10:27pm I jump out of the car head to St.Vitas, across the street. When I get to the front door, a car pulls away that was parked right in front of the entrance. Grrrrrr, if it would not take me another 25 minutes to get the Cruz back out of that small space I would have brought my car over to this most convenient one. Hey, "Loving what is" popped into my mind.
Thankful I was sitting in the car to move it and park it legally, after such an exhilarating night of fun and music I would not like to end the night with a NYC ticket. NYC tickets are never cheap to pay or easy to fight in court, you might as well plead guilty because we live too far away to make the trip to court over this and "ignorance" is not a valid box to check on the plea side of the ticket.
"Loving what is" a motto to live life by that eliminates stress. I'm into peace or did you pick up on that from reading my blogs?
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