PBW: Reckson Effects.

Not long ago, my friend Rey said I was a “tool”. Obviously such a remark would merit me taking a swing at him, and I'm sure readers are confident that I immediately rendered him unconscious, gave him a bloody nose, or at the very least removed an ear. However, I did none of these things for the following reasons:

1) The last time I attacked him, about 12 years ago when we were stupid college kids, I ended up with my face mashed against a radiator so fast I didn't know what happened. We're both older now and although I go to the gym regularly, I also eat a lot more. I'm not sure who's in better shape, and I wouldn't want to find out the hard way.

2) In addition to asthma, he recently suffered some petit mal seizures. Should anything seriously harmful or fatal happen to him, if his wife didn't kill me, his son would hunt me down seeking righteous vengeance in about 14 years when he was an adult with martial arts training in the tradition of the best kung fu movies. It's not something I should risk.

3) He wasn't actually speaking in a crude sense, and went on to elaborate that the way I live my life, I provide functions for my job, my parents, and my band leaders and then put myself away in my room until it's time to be utilized again, the way someone puts a tool in a drawer. To some degree I did that this weekend and wasted many of my days off doing absolutely nothing, waiting until it was time for me to go back to my job. Today I was completely inefficient. I had a game plan, but kept letting myself get distracted. I knew what I had to do and by when, but it was pretty late before I finished something I wanted to get done by noon, and something else I wanted to do this afternoon is going to have to wait for tomorrow since I didn't want to skip going to gym again tonight. At one point in the afternoon I vented my frustration aloud, to the chagrin of my colleagues, and questioned why my mind was so fuzzy after so much time off. I felt like I was pulling cobweb strands from my mind the way Dumbledore pulled memories for the Pensieve in Goblet of Fire. I had five solid days away from work. Normally, I come back from a long weekend and tackle whatever needs to be done. Insurmountable odds from the week prior don't seem as daunting. I should have been refreshed and razor sharp. I'm paraphrasing, but Rey responded that I didn't maximize my time off, or something to that effect. I didn't really think about work at all this weekend, but I didn't exercise my brain either. There has to be some mental stimulation.

At least yesterday, when I was really feeling the effects of my extended vegetative state, I forced myself and my camera out to collect enough images for not one Photo Blog Wednesday, but two. My second stop will appear in an upcoming PBW, but my first one is appropriate for the season and thus the subject of tonight's post.

Every year, Long Island's Reckson center, a large glass office complex with a skating rink next to its parking lot, boasts a tree to rival the one in Manhattan, as well as a plethora of decorations. I haven't skated there since I was a child, and I wasn't even aware that the name had changed; I had always known it as the “EAB Plaza”.




Despite the steel cables holding it in place and the sandbags at the base of it, I wondered if it would withstand the strong winds. As I stepped back toward the building, I noticed some interesting displays in the windows.





Beyond a family of polar bears, I thought I saw falling water. I ventured inside the lobby, amazed at the tropical environment in stark contrast to the weather outdoors, and was shocked to discover a family of musicians frozen in Carbonite!



I don't know what villain or crime lord could perpetrate such a horror, but I wasn't going to hang around to hear a throaty chortle or suffer the same fate. The indoor waterfall beckoned, and I soon had a close-up view, followed by one taken from an escalator on my way up to the next level of the complex.




The indoor tree, while not the behemoth outside, still loomed impressively, with far more decorations. The thing looked like it could devour the tree in the lobby of my office, and use my family's sad tilted tree as a toothpick.



A family of captive snowpeople were on display, restrained from the public and cruelly forced to shovel piles of cotton over and over and over again.



I might have set them free but the folks at the security desk were already giving me some odd looks. Instead, I settled for a bird's-eye view of the ice rink and a funky sculpture outside.



Finally, I headed outside for a last look at the tree before returning to my car with the holidays behind me, and other destinations ahead.