Metroparody Diary

Metroparody Diary
with thanks to Harold Lee

Dear Diary:

One day at the peak of a classic Chelsea late-September warm spell (my ballet-dancer wife and I share a renovated condo atop the Flatiron Building), I found myself stuck in a rush-hour traffic jam at the South Tube entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.

“Well, looks like traffic’s stopped again,“ I quipped to the cab driver.

***

Dear Diary:

My youngest daughter is a graduate student in Culture Studies at NYU, and every Sunday morning I drop by her Greenwich Village apartment (on my way to seniors basketball at the Y) to bring her some fruit from the corner market, a pound of authentic Italian espresso beans, and of course the Times. My other two daughters are a media-relations specialist in Atlanta and a speech therapist (married) in Phoenix.

One Sunday, when I knocked on Lisa‘s door, there was no answer. I knocked again, louder this time. I put my ear to the door, and soon I heard noise from within. After what seemed an eternity, Lisa opened the door a crack and stared out at me through a bleary eye. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” she muttered.

***

Dear Diary:

It was in a Third Avenue Greek restaurant in the lower 80s that I recently sampled a savory tart made of corn meal, spinach, and feta. “Say, this isn’t half bad,” I complimented the proprietor. “All that’s missing are the kalamata olives.” He smiled kindly and asked me which part of Greece I was from. Though pleased that my gourmet expertise suggested such roots, I confessed that I had spent my entire waking life in the Frank Lloyd Wright room of the Met, leaving only to purchase meals within a ten-block radius of the museum. The restaurateur proceeded to explain that olives are not native to the particular region of Greece whence this recipe comes. And what do you think he told me next, Diary! That he was born in Athens, and lived, worked, and traveled throughout Greece before emigrating to the U.S. and opening this Upper East Side café!

***

Dear Diary:

Among my circle of intimate friends (which includes two renowned architects and the best podiatrist on 57th Street), I have a bit of a reputation for doing a good Groucho. Those who know me well will attest that Halloween’s just not Halloween unless I arrive in full makeup and deliver choice Julius Marx pearls until they’re barely funny.

This Halloween, however, I was in for a shock. My favorite Nobel Prize winning scientist has recently remarried, and his new wife—so new that even I hadn’t met her yet—arrived at the annual Halloween soiree in something approximating a Harpo Marx outfit. Her “antics,” I must confess, stole the show, with the result that I was neither in top form nor the center of anyone’s attention.

Harpo just makes me want to spit!

Affectionately,
Sinclair Lieberman, PhD.