It was a Saturday, about as random as summer Saturdays go and I was with my girlfriend, well she wasn’t my girlfriend at the time. We were just friends and spending the day in Greenwich Village in Manhattan (I thought I’d make it clear as I’m sure someone will tell me about the other Greenwich Village: “Haven’t you heard of Greenwich Village in downtown Boise? Where you been dude?”). The friend, I’ll call Iza, well because that’s what I called her, a lot of people called her that, was the easy going gal who could laugh away the afternoon just sitting on a curb talking to a stranger. We'd mostly just wing it as it makes for those Singing in the Rain moments.
We’ve spent the night in Brooklyn goofin' with Ingrid Michaelson and her boyfriend after Ingrid dished out her buffet food incorrectly and I called her on it: “the soupy chicken stuff goes on top of the rice, not next to it….this is why we can’t have nice things” (she invited us to be backstage at one of her concerts), we've had more than one back-alley adventure with Kellie Pickler, and once we woke on the big rocks in Central Park well after dark as the vultures were descending.
We waltzed around for a few blocks and she brought up ice cream again. There was none in sight and none on the horizon and her just bringing it up made me melt just a little bit more. Rule #1: don’t say it until you see it. Iza was never good on rules.
I have the ability, call it a skill really, of making a long story even longer, I am quite talented, and what was five minutes of walkin and talkin (with Joaquin and Walken - that’s my on the street reality show starring Mr. Phoenix and Chris Walken) has turned into a twenty minute rant; I tend to do that. She broke Rule #1 so there was no point in having rules, well the normal ones anyway, and she kept doing it and I tried everything, well everything just short of poking her eyeholes, to get her to stop: I rubbed butts with her and I tickled her and I hip checked her into strangers and still she giggled a muffled ‘ice cream’ through my cupped hand; she licks first and asks questions later.
I am one of the more goofy people I know and when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I didn’t answer because I won’t, grow up that is. At work we have bagels on Fridays and we get to wear jeans and a small group of us used to wear hats, but that made us stand out too much so I switched to socks, well, mismatched socks; it’s something me and eight year old girls have in common, well that and our love of Justin Bieber. And ever since I bought the Apple Watch and got three replacement bands, red and green and white, to swap out from my blue band, I mixmatch the bands on Friday.
During the course of an average week, I’ll start out with the white Apple Watch band on Monday and then swap it out for red on Tuesday, and then by Wednesday, I’ll switch to the blue, and then I’ll move to green, and then Friday, I’ll go half blue and half green. I tried the blue/white and the white/green and red/white and red/green (reserved for the holidays) combinations but they just looked weird and cheap like a Swatch so I typically run with the blue/green mix, and I alternate them, which seems to work best.
So Fridays have become, happy casual bagel mismatched socks and mixmatched Apple Watch band Friday. It’s something I say over and over again to the point where now coworkers notice my watch band and they actually want to see what sock combo I’ve come up with; I turn my feet in and grab down by my knees and I lift my pants, revealing my socked ankles; they’re my best feature and it’s a shame they have to be covered for most of the day. Others have asked to join the fray, which I decline as I’m riding this horse solo no matter how long it’s been dead, and one time a guy actually told me that was wearing two different socks but they both turned out to be black.
I told you that story to tell you this story, about the ice cream dance, as this behavior is not totally out of my wheelhouse. With my niece and nephew I have secret, not so secret, handshakes, because we do them in front of everybody and my other niece, the six year old, I do the “I’m watching you” Robert DeNiro move from Meet the Parents; she giggles and does it back in that overexagerrated kid-like way; with her brother I tell him to ‘give me some hungry chicken’ and I put out my hand and he pecks at my palm with his hand like, well, like a chicken pecking.
So the dance, the ice cream one, is a dance I invented, a sideways jig really, that she would have to do, we would have to do, every time one of us mentioned ice cream. She was a model, the runway kind, and she can do that model walk with her cheeks sucked in and with the turn thing at the end, with hundreds watching and she rocked it. But I could always, and will always, be able to embarrass her in public, which is odd to me, and the ice cream dance was just another way to add to the list.
She brought up ice cream first, of course she did, and I did the dance, just to show her, and then I tickled her until she joined me. Then I said it, and I jigged, it was probably more of a jag, and a minute later, she zigged, then zagged like she was Ginger Rogers.
We spent the afternoon doing the dance and before the words ice even made it to my lips, she was be-bopping right alongside me and bumping butts and we bounced the blocks away in the West Village. We Kevin Baconed through crowds and Fred Astaired across streets and Michael Jacksoned around corners and Elvised while holding doors; I got a dollar tucked into my shorts for that one. She wore her best poker face which made a strawberry look pale. I’m not sure if she remembers either but I don’t think we ever found ice cream, and it didn’t matter.
We dated briefly; it was like a next door neighbor’s fireworks display: by the time the oooohs and ahhhhs started, it was over. We’re still friends, as much as two people who dated can be friends; today is her birthday - the odds. She married someone she met while I was with her. I have a photo with us in the center; we’re framed by a reporter and a priest; she married one of them on a hot summer Saturday; there was a sundae bar and I jigged my way up to it as she laughed off in the distance. I’d like to think she remembered.
