18 July 2007

On the Streets of New York

Yesterday, the temp in NYC reached 87° with 93% humidity. Sane people hid someplace air-conditioned. I dragged twenty-seven pounds of demo equipment into Manhattan for an afternoon presentation.

For this fun, I elected to wear a long, short-sleeved dress casual enough to be worn with Birkenstocks and without stockings. Underneath, I wore a half-slip to keep my legs from sticking to the dress.

If the weather wasn't the first sign that my day was not going to be stellar, the baseball game that filled up every parking lot around the stadium - and my train station - was. I had to park in the most remote lot, about a half-mile away from the train platform. Thankfully, I still made the train! By the time I got to the presentation, I was sweat-soaked but a quick stop in the ladies' revealed that I didn't look as bad as I felt - phew! I made it through the demo, answered questions, and packed up for my return trip. As I walked back toward Penn Station, reflecting that the bad parking karma had balanced the good presentation karma, I felt something very odd around my stomach, as if I'd undone a loose belt, and then I tripped. Recovering awkwardly due to all the gear I was lugging, I found myself standing on Sixth Avenue mid-town, in a puddle of my own slip - the elastic of which had given up. Since nothing really fazes New Yorkers, I stepped out of the puddle, whisking the garment off the sidewalk and into one of my bags. If anyone I knew saw my shining moment, they did not say hello and, for that, I am deeply thankful.

6 comments:

Ginger Johnson said...

I have done this. That's all I'm going to say about that. :)

Anonymous said...

At least it wasn't a gramma puddle! Here in AZ we had a very "dry" 114F yesterday. Today it's only 106F right now, with a breezy 17% humidity. Only feels like 104F and we got cooled off with .02" rain the other day.I told you NYC wasn't as comfy as AZ!

Anonymous said...

oh where's the pic of THAT?! :) oh, and where's the rain? and what 104F does it feel like? my car said 118 (sun or not) and i was drenched today to prove it. ironically, inside the office i wore a gigundo sweatshirt. siiiiiiiiiiiiigh.....keep cool...ice cream does the trick!

karen said...

@grandmoo: I wouldn't go bragging about your weather too much or I'll tell everyone that I think it was YOUR slip to begin with! :)

The Plaid Sheep said...

Brava. Very nice.
My aunt had a similar experience. She found herself walking funny and when she looked at her reflection in the shop window discovered that her slip had gone south. Though it was 1950 it was still New York and no one even batted an eye as she slipped it off and stuffed it in her bag.

Anonymous said...

I confess: The dry heat has some drawbacks that result in nearly identical problems: Just the other day I attempted to wear my favorite two-piece dress (it's dry; we don't need slips) for airy comfort on the way to the bank, only to realize that the elastic in the waistband had totally disintegrated... it would now comfortably fit around three or four of the WMEs.

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