Urban Adventures

I spent yesterday at City Harvest in Queens, sorting through 11,000 oranges to pull out the duds and toss them in what Danny called the “bullshit,” bin. When people find out that I grew up on a farm, they are generally surprised to see how incompetent I am when it comes to 1) directions and 2) manual labor. Unfortunately, yesterday required both. I had to meet the rest of the team late due to a doctor’s appointment, and having already been to Harlem and the Bronx on my own this week, I was starting to think of myself as a bit of an urban adventurer. Whelp, yesterday was humbling. After walking the wrong direction for say 20 minutes, I finally got my orientation and eventually ended up where the star on my map seemed to be, (see picture below). There was one man in the stock-yard and fortunately for me, I was intent on self-improvement last spring a took a few months of Spanish classes, which meant I knew about six words. These six words were just enough for me to inaccurately communicate to the man that I in fact was the “guy” coming to meet the “other guy” for the job loading some truck. (Note: At this point I think I have told them I am looking for the group volunteering at City Harvest). Long story short, I end up being introduced to this guy who looks at me with shock and disappointment as I stand before him in my little fur hat, Burberry pea coat, and stupid grin, and he says “you can’t be the guy.” Well, I’m not a guy at all so I quickly concluded a) I was in the wrong place and b) this guy spoke English. I explained my situation to this dude who was kind enough to tell me that I was not so far from the star on my little crumpled map. I eventually found the team who were a little curious why I was 90 minutes late. No more urban adventuring for me.



 

But things just got better. What is that new sent I am wearing you ask? Oh, hunny, that is not Channel, that is the consequence of me falling in the bullshit bin. I had the honor of standing on a stool and reaching into a 5 foot high bin to fill crates of oranges. As I filled more crates, the lower went the oranges, and the farther I – a creature of grace – had to lean in to reach them. You know how the story goes, I fell in. It was nasty. This wasn’t like toppling into a pile of oranges at Dean and Deluca, this was more like falling into your gradma’s compost pile out back. At least at the conclusion of this internship, they will remember that I provided a little entertainment here and there.

We spent part of the time playing the “restaurant game,” you know, that annoying game where you go around and talk about places, saying if you have been there, what you thought of it, etc. It’s a terrible game and I love it very much. However, needless to say Danny won, but only after I admitted to him that all I had really eaten in the last week was generous quantities of dodgy duck from Chinatown and dollar a slice pizza. Was this oversharing? Probably. Was the duck good? Absolutely. And do I rationalize my not so eloquent contributions to the conversation because of my earlier incident? Of course I do.