Parking

Parking in New York has some essential differences from parking elsewhere in the U.S. For starters, parking in Manhattan is more expensive than anywhere else I've seen. It is totally feasible to find a garage that charges $20/hour in midtown. You can find cheaper in other neighborhoods, but do be careful in your choices. The most fun parking garages are fully automated vertical storage units - no pics for you, I'm afraid, but it's sort of like the door sorting scene in Monsters, Inc. Paying for a parking space in your condo or apartment would probably cost similar to the rent for an apartment in most other cities.

As you can imagine, this means many people park on the street. You may recall me mentioning that being a problem during our repeated heavy snowfalls - big piles of snow at the sides of the roads eliminated street parking almost entirely for January and February. Even the birthing center we checked out in Brooklyn only had street parking. Can you imagine circling the block while in labor: "Wait [pant pant pant] there's one! Rats! Another stupid hydrant. There!! [pant pant] What on earth is that loading dock for?!!! This kid isn't going to wait much longer. [pant pant pant] Just drop me off at the door or something already!!!"

When parking in New York, it is crucial to have a precise feel for the size and capabilities of your vehicle because at some point you are going to be required to park in a space that looks no bigger than your car. When you encounter that space of last resort, you will need to employ a set of parking skills that can only legitimately be perfected here in New York - the nudge. Signal your claim on the space as soon as possible. Position your vehicle perfectly to back into your space, check for traffic and swing in as quickly as possible to secure your claim. Now that your tail is in, you should have a solid claim. Edge your way back from here quite slowly: your goal is to slip into the space so gradually that when you nudge the car behind you it is so gentle as to prevent the car's alarm from sounding. Usually, you'll get an extra inch or three of rollback from the rear car. Now you can adjust your wheels and edge closer to the curb in the forward direction, again proceeding slowly so that your nudge of the car in front of you doesn't set off their alarm either. A skilled New York parker can manage this with just one or two nudges, depending on the size of the space. Lest you think I'm totally making this up, take a look at New York bumpers some time. These are a couple in my neighborhood who put special protective devices on their bumpers to protect them. I've also seen giant metal grills (a deterrent against nudges, to be sure), welcome mats and other more creative protective devices.

Whew! You have made it safely into your spot. That's a real test of nerves. You can now prepare your car to be parked. Make sure anything of value is tucked out of sight - CDs, spare change, jack for iPod, candy bars, anything that might look even mildly interesting to a passerby. Dan prefers to keep the car a "carry in, carry out" facility - it is completely empty as a baseline. He usually tosses in the trunk anything we won't carry while we are out of the car. You may choose to use a club (a funny metal stick that locks into your steering wheel so the car can't turn and escape from your parking spot). Check the mirror on your car and those on the cars around you. I always wondered why the side mirrors folded in, but now I know. If the road is narrow or traffic moves too fast for your taste, fold those babies in. Get your money ready. Note your time and location.

Now you can check for traffic and find some way to get from your door to the sidewalk (can't walk between your cars because it's just too darned small a space, remember?). No meter - awesome! Wrongo. Check up and down the entire block: there is likely a parking vending machine somewhere on the curb. The City discovered long ago that it's quicker and easier to empty one machine for the block than a million little meters. Plus, meters couldn't hold the amount of cash you are about to drop to park here for a bit. Go to the machine, put in a boatload of money and it will spit out a little ticket to stick inside your windshield indicating your suggested time of departure. The city is currently in a budget crisis, so you better believe they'll be checking those parking slips and distributing tickets with alacrity. Now, at long last, you can head to your destination.

This is one of the many reasons I prefer to take public transit whenever I travel to the other boroughs.

Spring Has Sprung

The evergreens here on the island had a tough winter - all the blizzards dumped loads of snow too heavy for them to bear. Then the melting snow and rain dampened the soil, so when the high winds came the evergreens toppled or snapped. We got lucky because when our tree fell, it missed vital structures. Mom's trellises are a mess, but there was no damage to the siding and minimal damage to the outside power lines. We've spent the past week or so dicing it up and slowly putting it out for the garbage crews.Now all that's left is the trunk leaning on the side gate.

The rainstorm seems to have ushered in some warmer weather, which made cleanup a little more pleasant. I'll admit I went out to saw and bundle in part to absorb some of the sunlight in short sleeves and shorts. Penny and I have also been taking regular walks to enjoy the fair weather and the many plants and animals that seem to be showing their faces at long last. I think Penny has really missed the walks we used to take in Grenada. She tends to get a bit stir crazy staying in the house every day.

The most fun part of going on walks these days is that she can actually do the walking. Earlier this week, Penny walked a whole four blocks on her own. I then had to carry her back because she got tired. She really enjoyed the opportunity to call the shots - if she's on the ground walking, she determines if we stop to take a closer look at something. She found all kinds of interesting things to investigate. Unfortunately, the street seems to be absolutely fascinating, so she often veers down a driveway toward traffic. She is still perfecting her limp fish impression, so I'm able to get her back onto the sidewalk with some ease. There are other dangers to having a Penny on the loose in the neighborhood - more a danger for anything too slow to escape her evil clutches (see illustration). So even though I have two functioning arms now, I'll still have to work hard to capture images of wildlife while on walks with Penny. I managed to get this crocus image before it was shredded.

Public Health Care Rant

With all the last-minute travel for family over the past few months and Dan being ineligible for financial aid for the spring semester, we have needed to conserve our cash since our arrival in the U.S. As such, we have been dabbling in our country's wonderful government aid programs. As soon as I arrived in Ohio, I researched Medicaid and the application process for Ohio. I was pretty pleased that they made the application form and many other great resources available on the web. This allowed me to gather the appropriate documentation, construct a good application and get approved almost immediately. Penny took the regular amount of time. I made sure to see a doctor that took both our medical insurance (which wouldn't have covered the full cost of a pregnancy and delivery) and Medicaid. These folks happened to be the medical practice linked to the book distribution company my mom worked for. They were awesome and didn't even begin billing until I had my Medicaid card in hand.

The Medicaid folks referred me to WIC as well. I learned that WIC is not food stamps. WIC is a program that provides coupons for food to supplement the diets of kids under age 5 and pregnant women, so Penny and I qualified. The goal is to reach people at risk of having bad nutrition if they don't have help. After four hours in a waiting room filled with children and signs saying "No food or drink permitted" (and guards enforcing the rule), I walked away with a little fistful of coupons. The coupons are REALLY specific - certain brands of whole grain breads, certain names of cereals (not brands, specific boxes), a certain size of formula can, certain brands of juice, etc. The specificity of the coupons made grocery shopping a bit tedious and tricky. You don't get "change" on a WIC coupon. If I buy a 32oz bottle of juice and the coupon was for 64oz, then I just don't get as much juice this month. The store was tricky and would stick little "WIC approved" stickers on the smaller bottles of juice and always the cheapest approved brand (so they're losing $2.50 on Juicy Juice instead of $3.50 on Welch's). Once on WIC, you are required to go in for periodic check-ups where they weigh everyone, check blood iron levels and generally see how you are doing. Goody, more multi-hour starvation fests for the purpose of paperwork.

Then we moved to New York. Each state runs their own Medicaid and WIC, so I had to apply all over again. I researched while in Ohio, but could find no NY Medicaid application online. I called the NYC Medicaid hotline (1-877-472-8411) to have the application mailed to me in December. It never arrived. Things were a little hairy when we first arrived in NYC in January with Augustine's death, so I put off applying until I could handle the headache. In Ohio, Medicaid will cover pregnancy costs up to three months prior to the application date, so I figured I might have some leeway here as well. I called the Staten Island Medicaid office, but the number wouldn't connect, the answering machine filled and eventually it just rang indefinitely. After a week or two of that silliness, I decided it was time to suck it up and head down to the Medicaid office in person to apply.

I gathered all the documents I had used in Ohio, plus some extras that seemed to be mentioned on the NY Medicaid website. By 10am or so I arrived to find a line for the info desk where I would find out where to get the form. I got the form, completed it as best and fast as I could and put it in the wire basket to await the "interview" where I actually got share every detail of our identities, income and medical expenses. Now I was in the actual line. Numbers were called (I didn't have a number), names were called, hours passed and the room emptied. I found myself in a room where the staff had all gone to lunch, none of the folks there when I arrived were left. I checked with the one guy left to cover while everyone else was on break - my application had disappeared into the abyss "behind the door" so it was impossible to tell how much longer the wait would be. That was 2pm and I hadn't brought a lunch for Penny or myself. She had eaten all her goldfish, put a good dent in the grape supply (she looks cute with grapes in her cheeks, doesn't she?), and wow she loves dried cranberries and raisins! She had been really patient and playful with the other kids who went in and out, but she wanted an actual meal and we were starting to infringe upon her nap time.

By 2:45pm, I was getting ready to give up and just reapply another time when I could have Mom babysit Penny. At long last, our name was called and we went through the infamous doors for our interview. The case worker started her checklist of forms she wanted to see. When we got to the income section, I explained we didn't have any, showed her what documentation I had, and she began to make notes on what additional proof I'd need to show. I'm sitting there as she's writing notes (I'm writing them too because sometimes people's handwriting is tough to read and it's always good to have a backup) and she glances over and sees Augustine's death certificate. She asked why I hadn't given her that birth certificate earlier and I explained that I was applying because I had pregnancy expenses related to the loss of my baby. "You should have mentioned that earlier. That changes what you need to bring. Let me have that to copy." I was somewhat taken aback by the sudden lack of monotone the death certificate had elicited, so complied immediately. I must have just made her job more complicated or something.

When we were finally released at 3:30pm, my application was woefully incomplete (only one pound of documentation had been presented and I needed quite a few more forms and supporting letters). I had a checklist that stated I must be back with the missing documentation by March 22 or else my application would be assessed using solely what I had provided in this meeting. Great: some of the items requested would have to be mailed to me, which might take a while. Thankfully, I've procured most of what I was told I needed since the horrible first visit. Now that Mom's back in town, I think I'll head to the office again on my own.

Having gone to the office and filled out the form...I later discovered that it IS available online. It's just called an application for Family Health Plus. It has a more complete picture of the documentation required for the application than the NYC Medicaid website as well. When you apply for NYC Medicaid, you are also required to apply for a specific Managed Care Provider (essentially the same as a brand of insurance). To do that, you check to see what MCP your doctor takes. A bit of a challenge when none of the MCPs listed on the Medicaid site have links to provider lists and some doctor's office staff are too lazy to list for you which MCPs they accept. They do have a HELPFUL list of phone numbers you can call, though - egad!! Only phone numbers on the WWW? Ohio had all that info available online so I could compare policies, find my doctors, etc. Here, they had a guy in the waiting room with a laptop who could look up your doctors and tell you which plans they accept. You then find the plan that all your doctors accept from a list and play eenie, meenie, miney, mo. You have to choose before you leave the office, so hope you choose well. There is a short window in which you can switch, but what is going to happen in that time period that will inspire you to switch? Do you think they'd get policy info to you within a month? Do you have anything to compare that info to?

You might be able to tell from the tone that I did not enjoy my experiences applying for public health care and supplemental food aid. You might think that means I don't like public health care. Exactly the opposite. I think having health care available for people is important, especially with so many people who used to be middle class having financial problems these days. Medicaid has helped fill in the gaps our insurance doesn't cover at a time when we just don't have the money to cover those costs. I spent much of last week trying to figure out whether my insurance would cover $4,000 worth of genetic testing to determine whether I have a genetic clotting disorder that could have caused Augustine's death. I wanted to know BEFORE I took the tests if I could AFFORD to know the answer. The doctor recommended I take baby aspirin until I know the answer, so it's not a purely academic question. People shouldn't have to make those kinds of choices.

The take home message here is that the system needs fixing. How on earth can someone who is just making ends meet by working one or more jobs going to be able to spend days prepping and then an entire work day or more in an office on an application? Seriously?! Sadly, I seriously doubt that the folks in the room discussing how to reform health care have ever applied for public health care. Each state has a different system, different levels of info available: heaven help those who manage to move while in the system! I sincerely hope that whatever Congress comes up with is actually helpful and capable of being implemented. This is too important to rush, yet too important to wait forever on.

Borough Profile: Staten Island

Last time, you got to see some images of "the City," but we live in Staten Island, so what is THAT like? For starters, we have lots of free-standing homes with at least some semblance of a yard. Now that the temps are finally starting to rise, there are lawns littered with snowman corpses. Yards are a major distinguishing factor between here and the other boroughs as far as I have seen.

Staten Island is definitely the greenest of the five boroughs. There are a whole bunch of parks and even some well-manicured beaches to enjoy on the "South Shore" (I'm hoping to get a picture of the manicuring in action when it starts getting warmer because I found that funny the first time I saw it). Winter here is funny because it suddenly reveals the Boy Scout camp at the end of Dan's street. There is something not quite right about camping within earshot of a busy road and a high school. For me, the parks and green spaces are essential features. I need a space where I can retreat periodically where the trees have chosen their own locations. When I first moved to DC, I was pleased to discover Roosevelt Island - nature that was Metro accessible and I could get away from the sound of cars. Rock Creek Park is nice, but it's got a network of roads running all through it and safety was kind of a concern at the time.

The trees here on Staten Island are somewhat endangered. The population has doubled in the last 10 years or so. That means lots of construction, shrinking forests and horrible road congestion. The average household on Staten Island has something like four cars. Those obviously don't all fit in the garage or driveway, so the snow caused some serious parking shortages as it got piled in the parking spaces. The number of cars combined with the plowing, salt, etc. has also done a number on local roads. Last Sunday, we were one of the hundreds of pothole victims searching for new tires after having a blowout on the way to church. No worries, we were within walking distance of church, so Mom, Penny and I walked there while Dan changed the tire and checked for an open auto shop. He picked us up from church, dropped us off at home and then headed to get the tire replaced. Choices were few, but he got there while the desired tires were still in stock. It was a long wait, though, because every bay was full. We now have a shiny new pair of front tires and drive much more carefully.

Into "The City"

For those of you who don't hang out with New Yorkers or folks from the area on a regular basis, "The City" supposedly refers to New York City. More often than not, it refers specifically to Manhattan. I can't remember where I was, but I happened to glance over at a poster that showed the cover of New Yorker magazine's map of the world. I feel like this generally captures how New Yorkers see the world. There is New York and then there's everything else. After a visit to London, my brother-in-law recently said, "I think I could live there."

Getting from Staten Island to Manhattan isn't exactly the quickest easiest trip, so I try to keep visits there to a minimum and assume such trips will be many hours. I've been feeling a little directionless in light of recent events, though, and knew I needed something to help me feel like I'm going in a specific direction. So when I remembered the Cornell Club Career Change seminar being held in Manhattan, I geared up for a trip into the City. I've got two main options - 1) an express bus that goes from a stop one mile from our house to downtown and then on to midtown (within a block of the seminar) or 2) a local bus to the ferry to downtown, then subway to midtown. The express bus is about twice as expensive and runs the risk of traffic ensnarement, but there's just so many transfers with the ferry route and I didn't feel like messing with them - not in the rain.

So, off I went. The express bus picks up pretty close to our house, then runs along the highway picking up more Staten Islanders before getting onto the highway and going across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge into Brooklyn. The Verrazano was the longest suspension bridge in the world when it was completed in 1962. As someone who visits New York City and stays in Staten Island, this is how I picture Brooklyn - speeding past on the highway. It feels short and crowded compared to Manhattan (which is tall and crowded) or Staten Island (which is short and not as crowded). Everything is covered in advertising, likely because I'm seeing it from the highway. I have been on the ground in Brooklyn and it has some really fun neighborhoods. I have enjoyed the Museum of the Moving Picture, the Indian/Bengali section (ready to haggle for expensive stuff all in cash? want to pay for a necklace by weight rather than by design?) and briefly entertained the thought of having to cross the bridge while in labor.

Then we went through the Battery Tunnel, which pops out at Battery Park right at the southern tip of Manhattan. This is the earliest part of New York City (aka New Amsterdam) to be settled, so the streets here are a little more tangly than midtown. We passed the World Trade Center site, which now has construction that is visibly above street level. The express bus is Greyhound style, so you're up pretty high and can see right into the fenced-in construction pit, which I've always found kinda cool. This is what Manhattan looks like to me - lots of pedestrians, tall buildings, all of which seem to have store fronts at least on the ground floor and sometimes for the first few floors. Even when it's miserably raining, look how many people are out and about! Note in this picture: no snow. Back in Staten Island, we were still working on melting away the 15 in we got. In Manhattan (and perhaps Brooklyn a bit too, from the look of the pictures), they shovel the snow into trucks and drive it away. They can't afford to lose the precious street and sidewalk space to heaps of snow. Where it ends up exactly is some fish's problem. I hate to think, personally. They're at least amazingly organized about dealing with snow here - awesome since we've had 15 in falls two or three weeks running now.

I got to my lovely career workshop in midtown and was relieved to see I wasn't the least dressed up in the room, though I was close. I was as old as or older than all the presenters and other folks in the room, however, because it was a "Cornell Young Alumni" event and I no longer qualify. Thankfully, no one was so unkind as to point that one out to me. They provided some of the usual advice about cover letters and resumes - hey, it's good to see that some things don't change. Then they talked a bit about LinkedIn and the online resources Cornell allows alumni to access through their web portal. Here I felt old and out of touch. How does one keep up with all the great portals and software available for job searching?! Even if I'm not ready to jump into work just yet, I do plan to explore the resources so the process is hopefully a little less painful than last time. It's really just so depressing to send out more than 100 applications, get maybe five interviews and then one offer that is ok at best. To then read materials that recommend that you try to negotiate a better salary...gosh, I felt lucky to get an offer, why risk it by asking for more than they may be able to afford (yes, I did get that answer when I tried to negotiate).

I enjoyed the seminar, got some feedback on my resume (yes, it really DOES have to be only one page, regardless how much experience I may have), had an entertaining time "networking" with all the younger alumni who were obviously hunting for jobs themselves, and enjoyed some funny snacks. I ran into one of Dan's fraternity brothers, class of '02 who remembered him fondly. He mentioned that half his class is unemployed. Now where he got this statistic is mind-boggling to me because usually a university goes to some trouble to research and disseminate POSITIVE statistics about their graduates. He said he found it encouraging, though, because it meant it wasn't just him having trouble finding work. It still sounds daunting to me, though.

Going home was a piece of cake - just hop back on my comfy bus and ride it all the way home. Call Dan when I enter Staten Island and he waits in the nice dry car to pick me up at the bus stop and finish the ride home. It took me a day or two to organize my thoughts and get a profile started on LinkedIn. I'm still revising my resume to make it fit on a page. Eek! I may have to get rid of my moth-naming experience. That would be so sad. I think it's a fun conversation starter that I used to work in entomological pornography. Please do check out my profile when you have time.

I'll find a way to get the resume ready to roll. I like having a spot to put more details in case people want them, though. I'm still trying to figure out how to capture 2009 for the purposes of a resume, though. I'm pretty proud of my Flickr photostream, but I don't know how to just list a URL that will refer strangers to it. So far, I only know that when I search for "Grenada, tree, flower" I come up in the first page of results for now. If you do a bad search, you then have the option to search by person and I've found my "SandyOverseas" there. I appreciate any feedback/critiques on this work in progress. I also welcome links. I've been having fun connecting with long lost coworkers and colleagues. It's a little addictive, as I am told Facebook is, but I am willing to put in the time because it is less recreational than Facebook.