Who says you can't go home

06/01/2010

This is long, if you read it all, you will see my ups and downs of an interesting trip to NJ but I don’t expect anyone to read it all

Thursday

I took the 10 AM grayhound from Bos to NY, getting me there at 2;30 (ish) and an employee from grayhound was appointed to assist me to get my bus to NJ. So he said he had no idea where the Lakeland terminal is and he had to keep asking people. I am thinking and through my frustration I said, you work here, you don’t know this place? He said that he works for grayhound and never goes to other parts of the station. (for those who never been to the NY port authority, it is 2 New York street blocks longs.) He finally brings me to the Lakeland part and hands me over to a Lakeland employee. Instead of taking me to a window to buy my ticket, he brought me to a machine which ended up being a lot faster however, I couldn’t get a disability discount and had to pay 16 dollars for round trip instead of 8. The man asked me where I was going in NJ, I told him I didn’t know the stops but if he listed them, I would know. so he listed them and I told him which one it was and he said there was an express bus leaving at 3;15. I thought... great! I will call her and let her know as soon as I get on and I will be there at 4 instead of 5ish, the planned time. I get on with no problem. I start calling her cell. However, it was off. I called the house because her fiancé Anthony had the day off (Hayley took a half day. She had a baby naming to attend at 2pm of her best friend's baby daughter) Anthony doesn’t pick up and I continue trying to dial both numbers. The house number going to the machine and her cell, because she doesn’t have a voice mail set up, I get this message "the person you are trying to reach does not have their voice mail activated. goodbye" Now I am starting to worry. I am going to be let off and I still can’t get in touch with either of them. I leave a message on the house phone for Anthony and at 4pm, Hayley's phone finally goes to a ring I am relieved. It rang and rang and rang and ... stopped. She never picked up. so I call again and again. The bus driver says "ok this is your stop" I am a little scared but I'll be ok. I got off and I asked the driver if there are any benches around. she said no, call who ever you have to call, I have to go. ME: wait, what's around? BUS: there is a bank across the street and there is a highway behind you so don’t go over there. ME: can you walk me over to the bank? BUS: no, I have to go. and she gets in the bus and leaves me stranded. At about 4;15, after 15 minutes of calling Hayley's cel, just standing there in the middle of a high way and another road, on a patch of grass, Hayley answered I said I am here. she goes you are in NY? no, I am here, in NJ, at the bus stop. She said I told you to call when you got on. I told her that I did. She said that I couldn’t have, I only had 5 miss calls and they were all within the last 10 minutes. I try to explain to her that her phone was off so it never registered on her phone ID. she just said, okok, I will be there in 10 minutes.

She calls me in about ten minutes and says "I am here, where are you?" I told her that the bus driver told me that there is a bank across the street and that I was standing on a strip of grass that divides a highway and a road. She: ok, I am here too and I don’t see you. Are you sure you got off at the right place? I told her that I don’t know. I told the driver where I wanted to go and she just told me when I got here that there was a bank across the street... she goes Jonathan, if you are at the bank, you would have had to cross 5 lanes of traffic. I definitely didn’t do that. After an hour of Hayley riding slowly up and down this major highway looking for me and even going to the other 2 bus stops lakeland has in this town. , she was like... I don’t know where you are. She said that she was going to go to the police station (on the way, she calls lakeland but I call her...) I am in a panic now. I hear people on the other side of the road at the bank, so I start screaming "can someone help me!" "I need help" After about 10 minutes of doing this, a car door closes and says "hold on" and this guy walks across the road from the bank and says "can I help you?" yes, can you tell me where I am? he says I am on Beverwyck Road. That's what I told my cousin. I told him the story and asked if he could explain to my cousin exactly where I was. He said no problem. I call her and she was at the police station. The guy takes the phone from me and explains where I am. Hayley says that she will be right there. He hands the phone back to me. He sees I have my redsox jacket on, asks if I am from Boston I said I am and that I am here for the bon jovi concert tonight. He said that he built the new stadium, that he was a construction worker. Eventually Hayley gets there and gives me a big hug. we thank the man a few times. then we figured out what happened.
The bus didn’t drop me off at Beverwyck Road station on the west side of R80 but right on Beverwyck Road, on the east side. (I guess one runs off of the other) and the bank was not "across the street", I was on the edge of the parking lot of the bank and even more so, it was this tiny bank that sat right in front of the only apple bees in town. Hayley was perplex why the driver didn’t give me apple bees as a point of reference where there was only 1 of those and countless banks. However, she finally found me and it was about 5;50.

We get back to her house, Anthony was grilling the stakes and she had planned on corn but because the corn takes 20 minutes, no corn. She microwave some asparagus, but I don’t really eat it. (no rice, no potato, no salad, these people don’t eat much as far as amount) I had the stake which was amazing. I than said that I had brought gifts. I went and got them. I handed Hayley a bag and told her that it's for the house and handed Anthony a card and wished him a happy birthday. (the day before was his birthday) I got the house a 3 candle set of beach Yankee candles. She loved it. Anthony says he even likes one of them. I got Anthony a 30 dollar gift card to gamestop, a video game store. I guess it is national or at least, on the east coast. He is constantly playing video games when he is home. Hayley yells at him some times for playing too much. He thanked me about 10 times. She also said that I was the only one who got him a 30th b day card. She got him a from your love card. ... we had to get going though, we had a concert to attend. However, it was raining and raining buckets. We walked quickly to the car and got in. She put the address into her navigation and with xm8 on blasting 80's music, we were on our way.

As we approach the stadium nearly 2 hours later, the rain was letting up. I had my handicap parking card so we got to park very close. As we were getting out, the rain... STOPPED.
We got into the stadium. It was a bit confusing, you can’t walk around the entire stadium from the level you walk into, so you have to go up and down stairs. Eventually we found our way to the field level. The stage was set up in the end zone then was the floor seats there was a few steps up, but technically still on the field and we had first row right there. Hayley thinks we were on the 50 yard line. So we didn’t have 2nd row in front of the stage, we still had some unbelievable seats. There was an 80 foot screen behind the stage that during the concert, had live shots of them and shots of things that would go with what ever song was being played.


EAST RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY, USA - NEW MEADOWLANDS STADIUM - MAY 27, 2010
Blood on Blood
We Weren't Born to Follow
You Give Love a Bad Name
Whole Lot of Leaving'
Born to Be My Baby
Lost Highway
Have a Nice Day
When We Were Beautiful
Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars
Bad Medicine w/ Bad Case of Loving You [Robert Palmer cover]
It's My Life
Love's the Only Rule
Lay Your Hands on Me [Richie Sambora on lead vocals]
(You Want To) Make a Memory
Bed of Roses
Never Say Goodbye [acoustic]
Something for the Pain [acoustic]
Someday I'll Be Saturday Night [acoustic]
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Work for the Working Man
Who Says You Can't Go Home
Keep the Faith (With fireworks)

ENCORE:
Always
Wanted Dead or Alive
Living on a Prayer

Before keep the faith, John says "I wish there was a roof on this place so we could blow it right off!"
On the big screen during the song, it was live but there was fireworks on the screen but not in reality. When the first coris comes, and he says "faith" the fire works went off from the top of the stadium and every time he would say "faith" in the song. It was amazing. He thanked the crowd about 10 times during the concert. My cousin was telling me how good John looks, especially below the neck. "you can tell he works out every day" The concert was amazing.
I could have done without Richie singing lay your hands on me and there was a glitch the night before in playing "run away" so they didn’t play that but all and all, I would give the concert an "A"
Sure enough, as we started getting in the car, the rain started again. *grin*

Friday
We went to this high end mall that has this store where she gets a specific skin cream from. We got the cream then we went into Victoria secret, she had a coupon for free underwear. (I am a manly man, I am ok with going into Victoria secret) We went into a few other stores but than left. We went for lunch at a Chinese restaurant. yum. Then it was off to her friend's mother's house, Banita, who is also her friend.
Benita and her S husband jerry, their son Paul (Hayley's best friend) and his baby girl. *don’t remember name* His wife Heather was visiting her own father so she wasn’t around but they were up from SC. Then Wendy was Jerry and Bonita's daughter, and her partner Liz who were up from Kentucky. A friend of Bonita and her 13 year old son Sam stopped by, a neighbor stopped by, We just sat there talking and laughing and I was just listening to the various stories of the different countries Paul has been to with the army and Sam, the son of the friend, has been to other countries too, to play lacrosse. I guess he is that good. The Party broke up about 4;30. Hayley and I were going to be good Jews and attend Friday night services. That was nice too. The rabbi is a very nice down to earth guy. When he saw me he remembered me. "Shabbat shalom, It is nice to see you again. You came all the way from Boston."

After temple, we got back home and Anthony was still working. He worked till 9. He was suppose to get out at 7. We ended up getting dominos and we watched a movie. Because, that's what they do at night. Every night is movie night in their house. They have over 300 movies. We watched one called "girlfriend from the past" or something like that. Where this jerk of a guy is visited by all the girlfriends he had and who he treated badly. (it was a knock off of ghost of Christmas past) The first 2-3 of the movie was alright, the last third was drawn out and lame. (mean while, I knew the Boston Celtics were playing vs the Magic’s for a chance to go to the NBA finals, but I didn’t say anything. I knew they didn’t know or cared about sports at all.

Saturday
We went to her friend's Julie's place. I had met her the last time but not her housemate who was a loser but I wont get into that. Hayley was taking me to a minor league baseball game and she convinced Julie to come along. We got seats just right of home plate. I could hear the ump say "strike!" and when the ball would hit the bat. That part was good but that is where it stops. I am afraid to say, it was the first time I was at a baseball game that I didn’t have fun.
Hayley has no clue about baseball and had no interest in it either. I had no idea what was going on. Hayley at one point, asked what a foul ball was. here is a 39 year old woman who was asking what a foul ball was. I could understand if it was a 5 year old or maybe 10, but an adult? How could someone be that sheltered from sports? When I heard the crowd cheer really loud once, I asked Hayley "what happened?" she says "I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention to the game" another time the crowd was loud and I asked her what happened, she just said "some guy caught a ball" a fan caught a ball? a player caught a ball? I don’t know because she wasn’t that detailed.

OH! it was raining on the way over and just like the concert, as we were pulling up, the clouds went away and replaced by a nice sun. On the way back to Julie's, they stopped at a store. I stayed in the car so I could listen to some sports. I found out the Celtics won the night before and that Roy Halladay pitched the 20th perfect game in major league baseball's 131 year history, earlier that day.

We got back to the house and Hayley was trying to figure out what we could have for dinner. I felt so bad that I am a picky eater. They didn’t help the situation. Everything they mentioned, I didn’t like. Anthony was still in work anyways but eventually (9pm again) he got out and we ended up meeting up at TGI Fridays and The food was good as always. We got there first and Hayley ordered infernal wings for Anthony for an appetizer because she didn’t see buffalo on the list. When they came out and Anthony tried one, they were too hot for him. I was like... what? these are normal for me. (as I was munching away) I told him the wings we got from dominos the night before weren’t spicy at all. He was just amazed. We had our burgers and Hayley got a grilled chicken salad. We went to an ice-cream place after. It was kinda like cold stone, they will mash what ever you want, into the ice-cream but again, I got a cherry something ice-cream so I didn’t want anything else. It was very good though. We got back to the house. Hayley was very tired so she was going to sleep. I had her put the lakers - suns game on for me. I caught the second half then I went to bed.

SUNDAY
went to a bagel place, had a bagel and got one for the trip. Hayley decided she'd drive me to the port Authority. She took one wrong turn and I ended up being late for my bus. I had to wait an hour till the next bus. I didn’t get home till about close to 6 where all I wanted to do was listen to sports and unpack but my father said we were going out for dinner with two of his friends so I dragged myself to go and it was good, well, it was Chinese food, so what do you expect.

I truly can not live without sports and familiar music. She had the xm 8 on when ever we were in the car. I only knew about 10 songs of all the many hours we drove around during that 4 days. Songs would come on she'd be like... do you know this? how do you not know this one? That 7 years age dif is a huge difference plus she listened to music before her time where I don’t.

It was nice to get away, but it is even better to be home.
"who says, you can't go home"