The Unbearable Banishment: Bombs Away: Parts I and II

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Bombs Away: Parts I and II

Part I

Each morning while my Mac is booting up I stand at my window, cup of coffee in hand, and survey my fiefdom. I'm ten floors above 6th Avenue and from that vantage point the streets look like veins, flowing with taxis, buses and pedestrians.

On Wednesday morning I saw something new outside my window. Overnight, the hotel across the avenue had been ringed with concrete NYPD car/truck bomb barricades.


Many high-profile buildings in Manhattan have cement barricades that are disguised as planters, but the temporary ones used by the NYPD are more function than form. They're pretty obvious. The cops are expecting trouble.


The Warwick Hotel isn't exactly a top-tier hotel and I couldn't imagine what high profile guest would warrant protection against a possible truck bomb. It seems absurd. Then it came out in the news. This week, the UN General Assembly is meeting and this turd will be speaking:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran and "wee man" syndrome sufferer, is staying right across the street. Boy, is the hotel catching hell. There will be protests. Great. I don't want to be collateral damage! Why can't he stay at the Iranian consulate's residence? More importantly, if I see him, would that count as a celebrity spotting? I hope he wears that snazzy 1988 Members Only jacket.


Part II

When I was 18, I thought it wasn't a proper party until someone dumped a beer on the carpet or broke a piece of furniture or the cops were called. Now that I'm ensconced in the suburbs, things don't get wild until the top layer of a two-layer cake...


...slides off onto the floor...


...bouncing off a chair on the way down. Some frosting was quickly applied to the surviving layer and all was forgotten but, my God, I couldn't stop laughing. I don't think it was appreciated when I started clicking photos with my iPhone. I couldn't help myself!

16 Comments:

Anonymous dinahmow said...

Oh! The excitement!
The cake, I mean. Mr Army Dinner Jacket does not excite me.

September 18, 2011 at 9:36 PM  
Blogger tennysoneehemingway said...

What an opportunity! They know where he's going to be! This will save heaps of money; instead of going into Iran, just lock him up now. Brilliant!!

September 18, 2011 at 10:23 PM  
Anonymous daisyfae said...

Part I - can't he use video teleconference like the rest of us? Skype him in, for cryin' out loud.

Part II - you totally need a dog. or a depressed middle aged woman who could sit in the dark and lick that chair clean in about 10 minutes while listening to joni mitchell.

September 18, 2011 at 10:43 PM  
Blogger LẌ said...

Take care. Can you work from home this week?

If you do, watch for falling cake!

September 19, 2011 at 3:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That cake looks bloody delicious!!!

September 19, 2011 at 5:29 AM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

Dinah: I suppose if had been MY cake it wouldn't have been quite as funny.

Hem: Maybe the barricades are to keep him IN! Clever.

daisy: Actually, there WAS a big dog in the house. And I'm pretty sure some of the middle aged women there were kind of depressed, too.

lx: that's not an option for me. Working from home = unemployed.

nurse: I didn't have any so I can't say. The sight of half of it on the floor spoiled my appetite for a slice.

September 19, 2011 at 5:46 AM  
Blogger Sausage said...

That is what my dog refers to as a opportunity of a lifetime....
good luck with the traffic.

September 19, 2011 at 7:45 AM  
Anonymous looby said...

Part Two of Daisyfae's comment is very funny, because it's not far off some people I've been at parties with.

Mind you, Daisyfae pisses herself, so perhaps she's not one t judge.

September 19, 2011 at 9:57 AM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

SF: The annual UN Assembly is ALWAYS a traffic nightmare. This morning on the traffic report, they said it's a good idea to stay off the island of Manhattan.

looby: Yeah, I read that too. You'd think she'd put on some adult Depends if she knew that was going to happen. There's no dignity in soiling your wet suit.

September 19, 2011 at 10:07 AM  
Blogger Kono said...

Here in the burgh we shut down dahntahn every time some bum leaves his back pack somewhere, then the cops come and blow it up and paper flies through the air, it's really annoying and snarls traffic... as for Mahmoud, D-list at best, it's like seeing Kathy Griffin or that chick who barried Peter Brady.

September 19, 2011 at 10:12 AM  
Blogger Ponita in Real Life said...

Hope the traffic doesn't set you back too much.

Lila would be eating that cake in a heartbeat! Who needs a dog when you've got a cat who's got a garbage disposal for a stomach! And she's fast too. I've seen her pounce on things that hit the floor in a split second. ;-)

September 19, 2011 at 4:01 PM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

Kono: The difference being, Kathy Griffin isn't trying to develop nuclear warheads in her basement. And she's a better dresser. But just marginally.

Ponita: I'm looking out my window as I type this and 6th Avenue is at an absolute standstill. More so than normal, I mean. This happens every fall when the General Assembly meets. You get used to it. Or not.

September 19, 2011 at 4:45 PM  
Anonymous daisyfae said...

t.u.b. and looby - yeah. go ahead and yuk it up, you two... don't come to me for sympathy when your penises lose their fight against gravity and you have more hair growing out of your ears than on your head!

September 19, 2011 at 6:02 PM  
Blogger Pat said...

It does seem a little worrying that the Embassy can't have him. At least you won't be there at night - and he will.
Who could resist such an opportunity as the falling cake - not me!

September 20, 2011 at 6:38 AM  
Blogger The Unbearable Banishment said...

daisy: I can't speak for looby (thank God) but, sadly, I stand on the cusp of that stage in life. Burn a candle for what once was.

Pat: The hotel is getting all kinds of bad publicity for "allowing" him to stay there. But if we close the doors, are we no better than him?

September 20, 2011 at 7:00 AM  
Blogger Adam Kenny said...

If only the layer cake had tumbled off of the table and right on to the head of Iran's malevolent despot, staining both his 'do and his Members Only jacket, then you would have had a Pulitzer-worthy photo. Have one baked and poised on the windowsill just in case he crosses to your side of 6th Avenue.

September 20, 2011 at 7:11 AM  

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