A Holiday Weekend with RQS (Part 1)

 

This was going to be a LONG weekend for us, as I planned to drive down to RQS's place on Friday, and then the two of us would return to Westchester for the rest of the weekend.  So, I made sure that I could get by on what I had left at RQS's place the week before, so that I would have room in my car to bring the remaining luggage from our California Cruise back to my place.

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As usual, I didn't get out of my apartment until 3 pm, and had few traffic problems until I reached Queens.  Then, I couldn't avoid traffic problems until I reached side streets that would take me to RQS's neighborhood.

Normally, I take the Whitestone Bridge into Queens, and then the Whitestone Expressway / Van Wyck Expressway to the Jewel Avenue exit.  From there, I usually take side roads to RQS's place instead of fighting traffic to reach the Jackie Robinson Parkway.  However, the first of the jams I hit was on the Whitestone - traffic on the Van Wyck wasn't moving.  So I decided to take the Grand Central to Jewel Avenue  - and hit traffic until I passed the LIE.  (For those not from the NYC area, I'm talking about major traffic choke points in one of NYC's outer boroughs.)  Then, I got off at Jewel Avenue with only a minor issue with street repaving going on. At this point, I was committed to taking side streets.  Since I expected a major traffic jam when crossing Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills, I took an alternate route that brought me to Rego Park before heading inland to RQS's place.  This proved to be a fortunate choice, as I saved a bit of time in getting to RQS's place.  And even better - I found a parking spot in front of RQS's place!

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The next day, we woke up early, loaded up my car, and proceeded to my house.  While on the way there, RQS remembered that she didn't replace the litter in her cat's litter box.  So it was a quick call to her cat sitter, and we were lucky that he could make it over to her place on a day he was fully booked - the litter box was empty, and the cat wasn't happy about it. 

We were lucky to have started out earlier than RQS had planned.  Traffic was much worse than expected for a Saturday morning, and it took over 2 hours (minus time for lunch) to get back to my place and unload the car.  Once the car was unloaded and we had a chance to rest, we had a choice to make:  Do we go out to see some fireworks, and suffer in the hot and muggy air?  Or, do we go across the river to the historic Lafayette Theater to see the latest Indiana Jones movie, and enjoy a performance on the Wurlitzer Organ?  Comfort won out.  How often can one see a first-run movie for $6/pp and hear a performance on the Wurlitzer organ?  As much as RQS liked the movie, I felt that hearing the Wurlitzer again was worth the $6.  To me, the movie was a nice bonus for a live organ performance.

It's too bad that I couldn't upload the other video I had of this person's performance.  Given the film being shown AND the song being played in this clip, it's an appropriate way to end today's entry.

Today, I saw a wonderful old film in a theater older than the film.

This is the kind of theater in which classic films are meant to be seen.  And that's what I did today.

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Yesterday, MWL called me to let me know that she was feeling under the weather and wouldn't be able to get together.  Later on, she noted that a local theater was starting to show films again, and had a showing of Frankenstein scheduled for 1 pm.  So, I marked this in my calendar, and made sure that I'd be able to get there on time.

Unfortunately, I didn't get much sleep the night before, and I awakened with a desperate need for coffee to stay awake.  Even though I left the house a little later than expected, stopping at a Mickey D's for lunch, I was able to get to MWL's on time.  So we moseyed over to the theater and I took a few photos of the place.

The Lafayette theater in Suffern is a classic, and I hope its phased in reopening works as planned.  So far, they are showing only old films on weekends, probably making merely enough money to rent the film (there were 40-50 people in the audience) and show it to a paying audience.  ($6/pp doesn't go very far, save when showing OLD films.)  Sooner or later, they will have to bite the bullet and show modern films, or find a sponsor to keep this theater alive. I hope they can do so without ruining the atmosphere of the place.

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There's not much to say about the rest of the day.  More tomorrow....