A City of Two Tales

Today is my mom’s birthday and I use the occasion to celebrate in relative high style via dinner at Gordon Ramsay At The London (yes, a mouthful for a restaurant name, but then if you have your own reality show by the name of Hell’s Kitchen, you can name your restaurant any length you like), followed by A Tale of Two Cities, one of the latest productions to hit Broadway (full house). I couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that the restaurant was packed and Time Square was mobbed with people. Where is recession or the imminent arrival of it?

Over the past month I have taken out-of-town guests from the other coast or from 8,000 miles away to sample the culinary delights of NYC. Without fail every high end bar or restaurant was packed with people or next to impossible to get a reservation on a weekend; and Time Square was forever packed!! It seems that the more expensive a restaurant, the harder it is to get a reservation!! Ostensibly on the surface it does not look like anyone is worrying about job losses or the slow down in the economy. So now it begs the question: why are people still spending in spite of the recent economic woes and the loss of perceived or real wealth from the stock market? Perhaps you have people like me who will celebrate special occasions such as birthdays by splurging. Perhaps the foreign tourists who booked their trips 6 months ago are here using their strong currencies (well less strong by the day)? Perhaps people have saved enough from the great bonuses of the past 2 - 3 years that a minor dent in the stock market won’t alter their spending habits? Perhaps people feel even more compelled to spend for fear there is no tomorrow? Perhaps those who do not have the means to spend simply just put more on their credit cards since presumably Uncle Sam will bail them out? Perhaps people are still using their corporate cards to take their clients out?

I know not the answer but I do know that sometime in the next few months this picture should be very different from today as various firms are cutting their staff in NYC – ranging from Wall Street to media to publishing. It is estimated that close to 200,000 private sector jobs will be cut by end of 2009 in NYC, not to mention the public sector. Certainly from the closure of retail store fronts on the Upper East Side alone in recent months (seems like one every few blocks along Lex, Third and Second Ave) should portend a period of significant slow down. There is a retail clothing store 2 blocks from me that has a ”Going Out Of Business” sign accompanied by a 75% off notice on its window – less than 6 months after it opened. I wonder what the rest of NYC will look like in the spring of 2009?

I Should Have Listened to My Fortune Teller

It is amazing that only in hindsight one believes in the accuracy or uncanny-ness of fortune telling. In the summer of 1995 I went to a fortune teller in HK (renown I was told, with laser precision accuracy) who told me there are 2 things in life that I must avoid, one of which I heed, the other one I did not. The first was NEVER to play the stock market, in spite of the fact that I was a stock broker and continued to be one till 2007. He told me in no uncertain terms that while I would make a good living as a stock broker, I will not fare well if I invest in the stock market on my own. I remember quipping to him that I shall not practice what I preach to my clients then, he affirmatively stated, “NO”. I thought perhaps he read my in past that I had bought HSBC warrants in 1993 and the Fed hiked interest rate 14x in the next 2 years causing my warrants to expire worthless in 1995, so I really did not pay him much attention.

Along the line of money, he went on to tell me that it isn’t my lot in life to win any lottery tickets or for that matter, raffle tickets, therefore I ought to save my hard earned savings and don’t waste it on such frivolous items. He told me I will never win anything gambling so I should never step into a casino. Over the next 13 years what did I do? I did exactly the opposite of what he told me, and the stock market proves to be my Achilles’ heel!! I have won a few lottery or raffle winnings, but in aggregate lost more than won. The same went for my occasional visits to casinos.

The one thing that I did heed was not to drive. I have a license that renews automatically every 4 years on my birthday, but I have not been behind the wheels (for more than 5 blocks) since that fateful reading in 1995. Call it superstitious, but I do have terrible spatial distance recognition issue – which will compel me to go at 75 miles per hour on the highway while I am merging with about 10 inches of space between me and the car in front of me, rendering me absolutely dangerous on the road and a hazard to all around me.

So now I will most astutely heed any future fortune teller’s warning!!

Nightmare On Main Street

Last night I had the most bizarre nightmare ever. Ordinarily I do not recall most of my dreams and rare is the occasion that I have nightmares, but this will give any dream interpreters a run for their money.

I succumbed to the vicious attack of a flu bug 2 days ago and had a severe sore throat and ear infection that made swallowing excruciatingly painful, a persistent scratchy cough that rendered me sleepless till 3 in the morning. I was squirting 10 sprays of Chloraseptic sore throat spray (it is suppose to be alcohol free, aspirin free and sugar free) to numb the pain every 10 minutes in the span of an hour, when the instruction on the bottle read 5 sprays every 2 hours. When I finally dozed off to la la land, I dreamt the following:

I was walking at night on a desolate but well lit street in an evening dress heading somewhere in NYC, and suddenly a large number of dogs of all shapes and sizes came out of nowhere and they were either on fire or their tails were attached to blazing lanterns. They were approaching me but none hurt me as they ran pass by me. I hurried pass them and ducked into the side door of a non-descript building. The building turned out to be a hotel. I went into a room where a group of people in black tie and evening gowns were having dinner and I joined them. Shortly I realized that someone had stolen my make-up case, my blackberry, and my cell phone. As I was searching for those items by walking around the dining table and rummaging thru other guests’ properties, we were told that we need to evacuate the building as the dogs were coming up the staircase to burn down the hotel. We could clearly hear the barking of the dogs (by now they sounded like they were howling) and them approaching our stairwells. We were instructed to leave by elevator. We congregated by 2 elevator banks. The first elevator door opened, it was rather smoky and hazy inside, packed with people and could take only one more person, but no one would get in as there was an announcement from inside the elevator that whoever gets into this elevator may die, and yet if no one enters into the elevator, it will not move (and surely everyone will die when the dogs burn down the hotel). Finally a brave young lady volunteered to go in and the elevator turned into a train once the door was closed. The young lady sat next to another young lady and both chatted and laughed away, but as her train car sped by me, the light went out and became pitch black, while all other cars remained lit. By now the second elevator door has opened, and there were room for a few more people, that was when I woke up, in shock!

Perhaps the nightmare was a manifestation of the demise of the financial markets and the turbulent times we live it; or perhaps it was a result of over dosing on Chloraseptic, I know not which, but I hope I will never dream of anything so dark and disturbing ever again. Perhaps now I can write a novel that rivals Stephen King's!!