We arrived in New York just as the mail bombs were finding their way to their targets, who happened to be Democrats. One non-Democrat target was the news network CNN, whose office was too close for comfort to our hotel in Times Square. We all know now that no one was hurt; that, for some reason, none of the bombs went off.

Strangely enough, it is in the United States that strange crimes are committed by people, who, for all their madness, get easy access to not just guns but also assault rifles and other handy weapons of war. It’s a madness and meanness matched by a president, who in the case at hand would not even show token sympathy. Understandably enough, the Democrats attributed the crime to him as the inspirer.

And to think we had flown thousands of miles to get away from our own crazy politics back home! But New York will be New York, where fun could be had by uninvolved tourists despite rain and frosty air.

24-hour hotdog stand

It was close to midnight, and our hotel’s restaurant closed at 10. We Discount Economy fliers had starved on the plane, not for lack of food but for lack of the edible kind. (I have promised myself to bring cookies or nuts on the flight back.)

Just around the corner from our hotel, we found a 24-hour hotdog stand. The chili dogs never tasted better. We were, however, a season early for chestnuts.

Now and then an ambulance or a police car’s siren wailed. As we stood waiting for our hot dogs, a police car stopped and parked right at the corner across, its siren turned off but its warning lights still blinking. It was a scene from one of my favorite TV series, “NYPD.” People began to gather, but we left, more interested in satisfying our hunger and getting out of the cold, wet night.

In the city that never sleeps, we crashed and must have slept close to half a day. We rose almost back to normal on the third day to feast on buffet breakfast in our hotel, and later that afternoon my brother-in-law, Vergel’s brother, Lito, and his wife, Grace, came to drive us around. In the evening Grace’s sister, Fiel Zabat, a New York old-timer, had gotten us tickets I asked for to the Broadway musical “Beautiful,” the story of Carole King’s life—friends and generational fellows Tess and Gus Lagman had tipped us off about it.

And, as if that were not enough generous gesture, Fiel treated us before the show to a delicious Chinese roast duck dinner. The next day we stuffed ourselves with the familiar pastrami on rye and the works at Katz for the longer ride south to the Washington, D.C. side of West Virginia, our vacation base.

We’ve been doing most of our sightseeing riding in a heated car. Anyway, we’ll be back again in a drier New York for another three days before we fly home.

On our five-hour drive to Martinsburg, West Virginia, we passed by a classmate, Cielo Lutz, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to deliver 10 copies of her Philippine-published memoir, which Vergel edited, and collect in exchange a white quilt of the sort the Amish are famous for. With little time to spare, we managed to squeeze in an early dinner in a nice homey restaurant nearby.

Living proof

I loved her little Amish town, where Cielo was actively campaigning for the Democratic congressional candidate. I was happy to be in her company again and that of her sidekick sister, Alma, and her charming Mennonite husband, David. Cielo and I are living proof that second marriages are sometimes worth the gamble and risks, and yet our lives are so different.

In West Virginia, we’re doing things slowly, since it’s too cold to move any faster. Our schedule depends on the weather. When it’s good, autumn is as beautiful as autumn can be. Our day’s activities revolve around the sun. Grace and I walk at the command of our Fitbit watches in or out of the warm shopping malls. Our husbands, if they’re not with us, are on the tennis courts.

We’re all on a healthy diet, counting calories, checking on ingredients, but ice cream, pies and dark chocolates are allowed and even encouraged. There’s plenty of fresh vegetables and so many varieties of fruits—strawberries, blueberries, peaches, pears, persimmons. Everybody is polite, friendly and kind; everything is orderly despite Trump.

We attended the first birthday party of Lito and Grace’s grandson, in a community where they don’t lock doors. I could get used to this. Something was making new persons of Vergel and me.

It could be the distance, which allowed us to see ourselves and the situation at home from a different perspective, making things, including ourselves, shrink in proportion to the larger world—“puny factors in the national, let alone universal, equations,” as Vergel would say. Truly humbling, yet it offers a fair share of happiness for us to grab in our autumn years. Distance can be a good teacher, too.