The East, part 4: More fun with Dick and Jane

Actually, I don’t know anybody named Dick and Jane.  But now, Casey and Emily?  Yeah, we had tons of fun with them today.  This is so amazing, to be within walking distance of places that suck the money out of your pockets by the fist full, and make you feel great while it happens.

Think of your life.  When was there ever enough magic in it to land you in a house just across the street from a toy store?  A great toy store?  

Here it is by night, the light inside warm as a hearth fire.  Danged if it doesn’t look like home, just waiting for you to come in.  Looks like Christmas.  With a little snow, it would be Dickens’ Christmas Eve.

Casey and Emily, from whom all that warm light is emitted.  They know their toys.  They know kids.  And they know hospitality.  Gin and I wandered around the store today, trying to remember to keep an eye on the Frazz.  Casey found me with an arm full of Scooter things and offered to pile them up by the register for me while I continued to shop.

“HA!” I said.  “Now, that’s smooth retailing.  You know that by taking those things out of my hands and sending me back out into the store, you’re making it so that I’ll just forget how much I’ve already spent and get more stuff than I mean to.”

“Oh,” she said.  “Then here – “

But I didn’t want to remember how much I’d spent.  I wanted to spend more than I meant to.  So I let her take the things from me, which she did.  But as she did, she said, “But I’ll keep an eye on you.”

It’s the kind of store that has wonderful things hanging from the ceiling.  Not the usual see-it-on-TV junk, but the strange and wonderful: wooden toys from Germany, lovely chunky European plastics in bright colors and charming designs, games that teach you things, and games that don’t – trains and fake food, rattles shaped like stars and aliens and polka dotted monsters.

And how can Emily wrap that Christmas present so casually while an alligator is staring at her?

These people are serious about children – they know their venders, and make sure the toys are safe, that they’re inspected and tested for lead and all those things.

The Frazz spent almost an hour with the wooden trains this morning (this is not he) while we shopped, playing side by side with a little boy whose French mother hovered over him cheerfully.  “He’s in pre-school, here,” she explained to me, “so avec moi, c’est Francais toujours!”  Her Russian husband is doing research at the university, and so they are both far from home, but seem happy to be here with their son.  We got to exchange a little French with them – G more than I (who can ask questions in French, but rarely understand the answers).

Random monsters seem to be the fashion these days, odd creatures made out of carelessly shaped bits of felted sweaters – things with odd faces and stranger tails—soft and silly.

Stacks of boxes and books and balls.

Games – I always loved games, the more little pieces the better.

Creatures animated by your own hand.

I want one of these.  I picked it up to take it to G and show him – but as I did, Casey walked by and gave me a stern look.  “You need to put that down,” she said. And eventually, I did.  When the French lady left and we could pry the Frazz away from the trains, we left our purchased haul for Casey and Emily to wrap – some in Christmas paper, some in birthday.  We didn’t buy everything we wanted.  Our bags weren’t big enough.

This is another store near by, a sliver store owned by a man who used to be a flea marketeer.  The stores have made an “honest” man of him now, no longer playing the field.  Again, fifty steps away from our door, silver gathered from all over the world.  And on sale.  So this is my taste of the urban life – where you can walk to a restaurant as we did tonight, a great pizza place – a REAL East Coast pizza place, like I remember from my childhood.  The chef is a greek guy who showed us to our table and told us the specials in so wonderful an accent (exacerbated by a cold) that we had to ask the waitress to translate.  And she was wonderful, like the lady down the street, who just happens to work in the pizza place.  Pizza and souvlaki and spinach pies.

And when we were finished, and we were leaving—I saw the chef leaning out from behind the ovens to watch us.  “It was great!,” I told him.  “Wonderful.”  And he smiled with satisfaction and disappeared again. 

If you lived in such a place, you would know them all.  And when you said, “The regular,” they would know what you were talking about.  And they would know your kids, and you would know when they were having a bad day or a particularly good one.  It’s been like living in Disneyland.  Your bank a block or two away.  Milk cheaper at the gas station down the street than it is at the grocery store.

This is, in short, a great place to visit.  My heart remains, however, in my quiet yard.  It would be fun to be able to walk to a restaurant – maybe somebody will finally build one on that corner that’s been for sale for thirty years.  And my bank is supposed to put in a branch just across the street from that.  Nice, not to have to drive everywhere all the time.  But only if the places you’re going are like these – the small, real people shops, the unusual, not the some-assembly-required cookie-cutter franchises.  The world at your doorstep, one hand made creature, one personality at a time.

Of course, there has to be a bakery in all of this.  And here it is.  We went there today – and it is wonderful – earthy, artisan breads and scones and pastries.  And it was packed to the rafters – every little round table full, and conversations going at all of them.  Now here’s a fun thing: this is the restaurant you see in Dan in Real Life when he picks his middle daughter up from school.  This is where that scene was shot – you can see the ballet school across the street and the CVS pharmacy just briefly, but you wouldn’t know if you weren’t looking pretty close, and you’d have to be familiar with the area, which you now are.  There was a different sign on it that day, which was pretty confusing to the natives.  But ta-da!!!— just another fifteen minutes of fame.

I am hoping that you are not wearied by all of this, because I’m having a great time showing it to you.  And tomorrow, I will show you our shots of the stormy beach and some of the fine and excessive houses we saw, driving through Newport.  Oh, and we were driving along that same road Dan was taking when the cop stopped him.  Twice.  Maybe you’ll recognize it.