Wednesday, August 29, 2007
the gorgeous eagle sculpture (albeit without head) from the old penn station....
it now lives, chained to the sidewalk, near my apartment on 125th street between 2nd and 3rd avenues. it's got to be 9 feet tall before the missing head....i can just imagine the old penn station with 20 columns surrounding the ticket area, each topped with one of these beauts!
phrase of the day for 29 august 2007
- Entre acqui para resguardarme del sol
Ehn-TRAY ah-KEE PAH-rah ress-GWARD-ahr-may del sol
I came in here to get out of the sun.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
phrase of the day for tuesday, august 28, 2007
- amigo, usted esta mal de la cabeza.
Ah-MEE-goh, oos-TED ehs-TAH mahl day la cah-BAY-sah.
my friend, you are a sick man
i love to do laundry...there's something calming and theraputic about washing and folding for me...now i've replaced the oily, city blackened line....
outside my window with a new super-duper clean and bright-white clothesline.....i hung all my underwear up so they could dry in the sun....
and wouldn't you know it, minutes later, i was back in the kitchen and standing near the sink, i kept hearing odd little pops and snaps coming from outside....i thought maybe it was the neighbor doing something with her garden shears below my fire escape...
nope, a few hours later when i went to pull my undies off the line, i found it was the clothespins from the dollar store...seems i bought a bright white line that was too thick to stick. luckily, all the formerly bright and clean unmentionnables landed in the grime of my fire escape and didn't fall thru to the escape under mine...if Angela thought she had a problem with my cutting hair on my escape, or painting, how would she have handled my tossing of underwear down there? she could have felt like a rock star but that's doubtable, since she's established that she's a white witch in a vodoo culture, i'm sure she'd have sacrificed a chicken at me or vexed my home or worse -- hexed my calvins....oh life in the big city isn't always easy.
Monday, August 27, 2007
i've begun to refresh some of my foreign language skills now that i'm living in el barrio.
the majority of the restaurants up here are mexican, which suits me to a capital T. it's my favorite food EVER. out of respect for where i live and the people i'll be encountering, i've decided to refresh my spanish language skills....it's been 16 years since i've used a word of it though, so you'll be able to suffer along with me as i reacquaint myself with some useful if not off the beaten path phrases that may be useful in the city....
a very wise woman once said "just the right shoe will change your life".
but cinderella had inside help - she had a fairy godmother.
i don't even have a godmother.
all i have is a mother. she's great. but she's just a normal, extraordinary person with no magical powers what-so-ever.
i do have great shoes though. so far haven't found the one that will change my life though...i'll keep looking.
i don't even have a godmother.
all i have is a mother. she's great. but she's just a normal, extraordinary person with no magical powers what-so-ever.
i do have great shoes though. so far haven't found the one that will change my life though...i'll keep looking.
i am finally catching on to some things in life that must be obvious to most of you....
tonight's example: when you finally have a picture worth framing, yet alone printing, you'll be out of ink atleast halfway thru printing it.
and in the same vein, last night i learned that no matter how much you like your family picture, which you've never managed to get for the last 25 years, and did finally snag at brunch...as soon as you print out and mail a copy to all the people in the picture, you'll realize you printed it wrong and cut off peoples' heads on one side of the photo (sorry jim, sorry clark....oops.....i'd send a new one in the mail, but i'm out of ink and can't finish what i was already trying to do here.)
and in the same vein, last night i learned that no matter how much you like your family picture, which you've never managed to get for the last 25 years, and did finally snag at brunch...as soon as you print out and mail a copy to all the people in the picture, you'll realize you printed it wrong and cut off peoples' heads on one side of the photo (sorry jim, sorry clark....oops.....i'd send a new one in the mail, but i'm out of ink and can't finish what i was already trying to do here.)
everything works out in the end....if it hasn't worked out, it isn't the end....
i love words of wisdom from random places, this was a bit of insight about life that made me laugh when i overheard it on the subway today....very smart little kid who didn't look educated or well off, but someone who obviously believes in things working out, i'm routing for that kid!
Sunday, August 26, 2007
and then there is my love life....talk about filthy, unhealthy and co-dependant....this relationship has it all....
the empire state building reflected in the sidewalk to sky ceilings along 42nd street
my old office, atleast when i was in new york city between trips to europe and asia for work was in this fabled and foibled building...notice the gargoyles on the corners just below the art deco triangles start arching up to the spire...my office was an upper corner and the gargoyles were amazing when it rained! on occasion i was told they could be seen struck by lightening in a storm. i never was in that office for lightening, thankfully. i do recall that when it rained, because we were so high up there was nothing to be seen, sometimes even on an overcast day, the view was totally whited (or grayed) out.
of course, one of the most beautiful buildings to walk around, inside or out has to be grand central station. most people will never know her secrets, but i used to work across the street when i was at LaSalle Partners (now Jones Lang LaSalle), the 3rd largest corporate real estate company on the planet. the group i worked in (tenant representation, or t.r.g.) refurbished the interior of grand central, which included the removal of old guilt leaf on the ceiling and the revelation of the original gold leafed night sky with all the constellations outlined. during this time, we would do regular walk throughs of the space just to make sure work was going as expected, and that meant walking between the windows -- every giant arched windown all the way around is 4 stories tall which you can't tell, you can just see they're huge. when you're privy to the back office and have access, there are iron catwalks all the way around the interior of the building and you can literally walk right across the top, middle and lower quarter of the window. often you'll see a tourist catch a glimpse of you walking thru, and they always do a double take because you obviously can't really be walking up there....or can you? 
and this is the view i'm talking about...if you look closely, you can make out the catwalks here....
sometimes playing possum is way less fun than being a possum!
this little guy is a chatterbox! but boy oh boy, does he ever love his big brothers...i can tell he's going to be more of a monkey see, monkey do kind of a fella....or is that a sea monkey kind of fella? between the hamster and the hermit crab, the cat, the dog and a house full o'possums, i'm going to hedge bets here and go with the sea monkey!
now which of these two little monkeys, i mean possums, is which? i do believe that would be possum william the webkin wizard on the left and connor the webkin collector on the right. i can't remember who told me what today, but i think it was william that found the hidden gem of the day today....needless to say, they were amused, amazed and possibly all for me knowing, no being involved with, webkins of my own....note to self, go to webkins.com and create a fish called william and a raccoon named connor!
Friday, August 24, 2007
i made the world's best fudge brownies last night...
i had been painting out on the fire escape for several hours last night, not intentionally gold leafing the great outdoors, but hey, it happens. it was such a beautiful twilight in the city after the humidity had started to be noticeable again yesterday with the return of sunshine in the city. as the day wore out and started to fade, the humidity broke again, and it got downright chilly out there. i painted on.
my project for the fire escape was terra cotta planters for my yuccas and diffenbachias. i found that for less than an additional dollar per planter (home depot) i could buy plain terra cotta planters that had already been glazed externally in great colors like chartreuse green, royal blue, white, puss yellow and an orange-red that matches nothing red i've got. so, instead of buying plain orange terra cotta in need of doctoring, i bought the pre-glazed ones for doctoring. i thought gold leafing and/or silver leafing the unglazed rim would be a great color contrast against the blue and the white pots that i'd bought. i also leafed the top edges of the drip catchers to put under the pots. what a project. it started out simple enough - a small bottle of leafing agent in silver and another in gold, an empty pudding container with clean water in it, and a couple of empty pudding containers for the leafing agent, and of course, the kitchen sponge that i cut up after i finished the dishes. turns out that dipping and dripping is messy, and my climbing in and out of the kitchen window is work, so having forgotten my workshop towels under the sink, i found myself totally coated in flecks of gold and silver....then there was the danger of flying sponges....angela, downstairs, never did catch on to my escapade with the black enamel (1/2 a quart poured very quickly between the slats of my fire escape and coated her pepper and basil plants.) maybe she her plants had very LARGE scale....anyway, now her plants have flecks of gold and/or silver on them and somewhere in the mess that is her fire escape, are my golden and silvered sponges. boy those are slippery suckers once it gets a little too dark to see your target....i know they hit her fire escape because they left a trail where they had hit and bounced, but no sign of where they landed....i did manage to grab another chunk o'sponge from inside without doing the window climb again, so i finished the planters, and i think they look great. i had extra gold in the bottom of my pudding cup so i of course gold leafed my handrail outside the kitchen window. i think it will give a nice shimmer in the sun and will definitely be different from anyone else's in the barrio!
having worked up my appetite for as long as i did out there, i was craving chocolate. i have been cooking proper meals lately, so chocolate wasn't really something i've had around. sure, i've got an eggplant, and yellow and green squash, vidalia onions, red onions, red, green and yellow peppers and tomatoes too boot, but not a pirate to be seen here -- after all, the corn is a buck-an-ear!
i scrubbed down and then scrubbed up again, then for good measure, i soft scrubbed myself as well as my bath tub. turns out that leafing stuff is harder to get off than i remembered. the mildew in the tub, a breeze to get rid of, but finger nails and cuticles coated in silver and gold? not so much....
sometimes when you have worked so hard on your home, you just have to break down and have something chocolate. so i made scratch fudge brownies. i measured and i poured and i put it all into my largest bowl only to find before i added the eggs that my largest bowl wasn't big enough to mix it....where the heck are my revereware mixing bowls with the snap on lids? they must be at mom and jim's house - note to self, find them this weekend....well, i'd already put the dry ingrediants together and there's no saving them here....so i did what needed to be done. i got out my 20 gallon stock pot out of the cabinet (if only i could find the regular sized soup pot that i know i own...ed.) dumped all the goods in and added my egg. mix, mix, mix and the i realize i don't have an 8x8, 9x10 or 9x12 baking dish here. what the heck, i normally have the best equipped kitchen of anyone i know! luckily, i saved the entemman's tin tray last time i bought something at the store (they used to have all entemman's 2 for $5.00 which is a great deal, suddenly since i got back from wyoming, they've gone back to retailing all of their items for actual price...entemman's, it was good knowing you!) i had been using the re-washed disposible tray in my toaster over to make bacon, since i like to do my bacon in the oven - it doesn't splash or get grease all over that way. unfortunately, the oven is too hot lately, but the toaster oven doesn't heat up the place and i think it cooks the bacon quicker somehow.
as i was almost ready to bake the brownies in the regular oven (which i also leveled last night, finally!) i realized i could make them better than my regular extraordinary brownies, as i've got a bunch of raspberries and blackberries in the fridge. i found them for two pints for $2.00 the other night. that's such a deal, i bought a lot, thinking i might freeze them, but then forgot to get the containers or bags to put them in. that said, they turn really quickly so i've been making myself eat them by the handful. so i tossed a handful of raspberries into the batter and folded them under. they baked to perfection and what a sweet treat with all this heat! now they're in the freezer, they're going to toast up nicely in the future. add a scoop of rockyroad ice cream to the top of a hot toasted brownied and you've got the perfect reward for finishing the laundry!
my project for the fire escape was terra cotta planters for my yuccas and diffenbachias. i found that for less than an additional dollar per planter (home depot) i could buy plain terra cotta planters that had already been glazed externally in great colors like chartreuse green, royal blue, white, puss yellow and an orange-red that matches nothing red i've got. so, instead of buying plain orange terra cotta in need of doctoring, i bought the pre-glazed ones for doctoring. i thought gold leafing and/or silver leafing the unglazed rim would be a great color contrast against the blue and the white pots that i'd bought. i also leafed the top edges of the drip catchers to put under the pots. what a project. it started out simple enough - a small bottle of leafing agent in silver and another in gold, an empty pudding container with clean water in it, and a couple of empty pudding containers for the leafing agent, and of course, the kitchen sponge that i cut up after i finished the dishes. turns out that dipping and dripping is messy, and my climbing in and out of the kitchen window is work, so having forgotten my workshop towels under the sink, i found myself totally coated in flecks of gold and silver....then there was the danger of flying sponges....angela, downstairs, never did catch on to my escapade with the black enamel (1/2 a quart poured very quickly between the slats of my fire escape and coated her pepper and basil plants.) maybe she her plants had very LARGE scale....anyway, now her plants have flecks of gold and/or silver on them and somewhere in the mess that is her fire escape, are my golden and silvered sponges. boy those are slippery suckers once it gets a little too dark to see your target....i know they hit her fire escape because they left a trail where they had hit and bounced, but no sign of where they landed....i did manage to grab another chunk o'sponge from inside without doing the window climb again, so i finished the planters, and i think they look great. i had extra gold in the bottom of my pudding cup so i of course gold leafed my handrail outside the kitchen window. i think it will give a nice shimmer in the sun and will definitely be different from anyone else's in the barrio!
having worked up my appetite for as long as i did out there, i was craving chocolate. i have been cooking proper meals lately, so chocolate wasn't really something i've had around. sure, i've got an eggplant, and yellow and green squash, vidalia onions, red onions, red, green and yellow peppers and tomatoes too boot, but not a pirate to be seen here -- after all, the corn is a buck-an-ear!
i scrubbed down and then scrubbed up again, then for good measure, i soft scrubbed myself as well as my bath tub. turns out that leafing stuff is harder to get off than i remembered. the mildew in the tub, a breeze to get rid of, but finger nails and cuticles coated in silver and gold? not so much....
sometimes when you have worked so hard on your home, you just have to break down and have something chocolate. so i made scratch fudge brownies. i measured and i poured and i put it all into my largest bowl only to find before i added the eggs that my largest bowl wasn't big enough to mix it....where the heck are my revereware mixing bowls with the snap on lids? they must be at mom and jim's house - note to self, find them this weekend....well, i'd already put the dry ingrediants together and there's no saving them here....so i did what needed to be done. i got out my 20 gallon stock pot out of the cabinet (if only i could find the regular sized soup pot that i know i own...ed.) dumped all the goods in and added my egg. mix, mix, mix and the i realize i don't have an 8x8, 9x10 or 9x12 baking dish here. what the heck, i normally have the best equipped kitchen of anyone i know! luckily, i saved the entemman's tin tray last time i bought something at the store (they used to have all entemman's 2 for $5.00 which is a great deal, suddenly since i got back from wyoming, they've gone back to retailing all of their items for actual price...entemman's, it was good knowing you!) i had been using the re-washed disposible tray in my toaster over to make bacon, since i like to do my bacon in the oven - it doesn't splash or get grease all over that way. unfortunately, the oven is too hot lately, but the toaster oven doesn't heat up the place and i think it cooks the bacon quicker somehow.
as i was almost ready to bake the brownies in the regular oven (which i also leveled last night, finally!) i realized i could make them better than my regular extraordinary brownies, as i've got a bunch of raspberries and blackberries in the fridge. i found them for two pints for $2.00 the other night. that's such a deal, i bought a lot, thinking i might freeze them, but then forgot to get the containers or bags to put them in. that said, they turn really quickly so i've been making myself eat them by the handful. so i tossed a handful of raspberries into the batter and folded them under. they baked to perfection and what a sweet treat with all this heat! now they're in the freezer, they're going to toast up nicely in the future. add a scoop of rockyroad ice cream to the top of a hot toasted brownied and you've got the perfect reward for finishing the laundry!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
ah, the fifth day in a row of weather perfection slowly dwindles down to a close....
have i mentioned how much i love new york city, particularly in the rain, especially when it's summer and the temperature drops from 90+ and high humidity to a mere 59 and breezy...in case i forgot to say so before, consider it said outloud now.i am so happy with myself this week. i've managed to lift myself out of my funk a bit and i've thrown myself into the long avoided, no dreaded, task of decorating my apartment and making it into a home instead of a place i'll be staying temporarily. it's amazing the difference a rug makes on a room and how much a mirror on the wall or a chair in the bedroom can change the entire feel of a place, not to mention your own perception of it. i guess i'd been avoiding this chore since i hate shopping and i'm generally so broke that i can often times barely even pay attention.
with that said, i'm an excellent bargain shopper, if i do say so myself. due to the consistency with my flea infestation (which i now seem to have subdued, thank goodness!), i had to get rid of the deep pile snow white 8x10 carpet that the landlord put in for showing the place. i think the fleas started in there and just kept on going. sorry mom, but tensor light, schmensor light. chemicals are the only way to go when the fleas have been eating your flesh!
having had so little for so long now, after having had so much for so briefly in the past (ok, who am i kidding, i have it all and i know it....at least i have all that i need and everything i have that is of any value is right here, dead center of my chest under the sternum, the heart, and that is the possession of importance that can't be taken by anyone but it is the possession i frequently give away freely). with that said, i know how to do without. i've been doing it for years. i live without good health. i forgo sanity at times and on occasion, i've figured out some mighty ok meals without the means to grocery shop for staples. now though, i'm very much getting my feet back under myself, and i'm really happy about it, no, more, i'm proud of myself. so this week, in honor of good things going on, i've allowed myself to spend my entire allowance for the month to make this pile of SpaHa bricks into a happening home.
of course, being a bargain shopper, i'd previously decided to allow a purchase at t.j. maxx downtown to replace the infested pile of white synthetic (did i mention how badly that rug had reeked of plastic and rubber?) i had a problem lifting the rug i'd disposed of, so i knew i didn't want to carry one back to spaha from downtown and if i had to pay a lot for it, i certainly couldn't pay for delivery service too boot....then i priced the rugs down there...they were all around $200 for 5x9 or 8x10. unacceptable. yet, i hate to walk on the floor here barefoot, as they put down deceptive woodgrain flooring made out of 12" vinyl tiles. gross. an entire apartment, 20 feet wide by nearly 100 feet long, wall to wall of plastic woodgrain flooring....ick. feels nasty on the barefeet and gets grimy as hell given the city's pollution thanks to the buses going up the avenue and the bobs going up the fire escape! it had to be covered with rug, atleast in the living room. back to pier1 imports, i'm sure someone would buy a rug and return it....no one ever waits to make sure the purchase is the right one...that is, except me....
score! ok, so it wasn't the sage green with the carved roses, and it wasn't $97 down from almost $500, but it was the right price, the right size, about the right color combination and it was right there....smash and grab? nah....debit and get it. they even carried it out and put it into a cab for me. it's a nice rug, i'm glad i got it, even though the pattern is a bit much for my personal taste...i like old fashioned, classic and tastefully done decor, i tend to avoid modern art, modern furniture and modern fads in general....i guess it's just one of the pitfalls of being born with exceptional taste and an ability to discern the real from the bogus.
subsequently, there is a major paint job in my very near future. i think i should rush out immediately and find what i need, tonight will be ideal for any painting, given the temperature and the lack of humidity. tomorrow would be ideal for further painting for the same reason. i'll be at mom and jim's for the weekend, so can't paint then, and the humidity will be back to stifling, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have painted before i leave on saturday so it has a day or two to dry without me being in the fumes. only trouble with that is, i have no idea what i'm painting yet. oh dear.....
ok, so i know what i want to paint....i'm going to splash the square tin frame mirror that p.j. made me (photo left) as well as the two flanking squares of art tin that i found on clearance sale at marshalls....they were $88 each when they were originally on sale elsewhere...what a crock! i paid $15 total for the pair. luckily they're light since very hollow and cut out, but when i saw them tucked behind some other clearance junk, i just knew they were about the same size as that mirror and that i had to have them to make a wall accent in the new place....i didn't know that when i put up the one on the left it would be a snap to match it with the mirror, or that when i put up the one on the right, i would miss the nail and smash my thumb with the hammer, or worse, that when i did get the nail in finally, i would create a 3" hole in the plaster wall where i couldn't get the nail in (it bent in half in the end) and i had to disguise the hole with the surgical tape from the last time i was admitted to the hospital for a headwound. more on creative use of post-surgical supplies at another time though....
i'm thinking that i want to glaze the wall in the bedroom behind my bed. maybe red with a gold over glaze. that's what i did last time and it was the most beautiful thing i've ever done with art paints. but the wall was a lot smaller that time and the ceiling about 6 or 5 feet lower...i have no idea how i'll paint here to the ceiling...it's 14' tall!!!
i also am going to glaze the living room, but again, i think a single accent wall. since i have the brownish/green rug on the floor and the accent chair in chocolate brown and my throw pillows are brown and gold striped silk as well as french blue and gold striped silk with cream pencil stripes on them....i'm going to see if maybe i can find a matching base paint of that blue tone, it's so pretty and very calming. but i'm not a huge fan of blue, so i don't know if it's the best choice of color since i might be hating it in less than a year and it's very expensive to do the paint this way...i knowthey make a bronze that i can use in here instead of gold, which might be pretty, but what is the right undertone? i originall thought of using chocolate brown, but i have a feeling that's far too fattening, i mean dark, but it would certainly cut down on the evil glare caused by all the natural light in this place...i'll put up a picture once i get that far....first, i must decide what is safe to stand on for such a time consuming and attention demanding bit of effort....
all the pictures i posted on here from exploring harlem today are just random buildings but it's to show you how beautifully maintained it is, whether they're rebuilt, or original, the people up here have done a bang up job trying to take harlem back from the bad reputation that it had earned. 200 years ago, harlem was all farmlands and was a full day's ride by horse or carriage to the walled enclave that was nyc (it's fascinating, the city grew in 20 block increments, starting with the original village which was wall street to the water south of it - wall street is called such because originally there was a wall built there to protect city inhabitants from indians and the british and french). then the city grew from wall street up to spring street (modern day soho - south of houston). i worked at the manhattan bistro on spring street for a while. they have the original well for which spring street is named, it is walled in, in the basement. they also have a famous resident in the same space - she's a young girl, very, very famous, who was murdered in the well. she haunts the place still and they actually did a special on it for the history channel. i never saw her, but the well wall is next to the desk where the manager did the books in the basement office. he used to come upstairs all the time to tell us that we needed to stop something or other...usually something we were doing...he was being haunted. you can read about this factoid in "weird new york" which is a great book of oddities dealing with nyc and state. thanks to p.j., he gave me a copy for christmas a few years back, amazing how many links i've got to the stories in there on many levels....i'll tell you sometime.
moving north, the city soon ended on 14th street. near my old apartment. that's when the astors and gettys and the others with fur trade and railroad or oil money started cultivating mansions along fifth avenue....before the city got to 14th street, there was no fifth avenue.
in fact, fifth avenue truncates at washington square park now, which is on 8th street to the north and 6th street (?) to the south....this was the public gallows back in the day. and it was the potter field where they planted the indigents after cutting down their corpses from swinging repose. now it's the center of life at new york university where i did my m.b.a. there are a lot of young folks who probably feel like they're swinging in the wind down there at all times. that's another haunted place according to city lore. i think it's just haunted by the jamaican weed dealers near the public restrooms in the corner of the park (by my old dog run, and my psychiatrist's office!)
soon enough, the wealthy had each built a tidy little 20 or 30 room manse along fifth avenue and the city ever so slowly crept up to surprise them. so the rich, in their fifth avenue digs, began to crave country life, and began with summer homes along the harlaam meer. so, harlem, former farm, and long time bastion of drownings in the east river due to very severe confluxes of tide between 3 converging bodies of water (thanks be to the spirit of new york boat tour around nyc, best 3 hours ever spent in a boat with a non-english speaking friend who stayed 2 weeks too long with me to be entertained any more!) harlem became the country home and summer estate place to the wealthy...much like jersey city a hundred years before. thus the relatively similar architecture in the jersey city and harlem neighborhoods i've lived in.
the big difference is that harlem, built by the rich, was inherited by the poor and what the rich once coveted, they divorced themselves from and disengaged from. the poor, the hungry, the needy, the willing, the able and the occasional malcontent, all converged to make harlem what it is becoming today....i'm once again living in an area on the edge of tremendous explosive growth and rebirth. i love to people watch and walk the streets in these types of places...i also like to be able to say i was here....or there....i lived in chelsea before the gays and the galleries moved in and made it so fabulous that only one of the two could survive there....i lived in jeresey city when people didn't care how gorgeous the view was - if you didn't have a gun, you weren't going to look away from your purse to check the view. now i'm in spaha and i think it's going to be an easier revolution than the last ones i experienced. after today, i'm feeling good with life, and i'm hoping i'll be around to see what happens.
moving north, the city soon ended on 14th street. near my old apartment. that's when the astors and gettys and the others with fur trade and railroad or oil money started cultivating mansions along fifth avenue....before the city got to 14th street, there was no fifth avenue.
in fact, fifth avenue truncates at washington square park now, which is on 8th street to the north and 6th street (?) to the south....this was the public gallows back in the day. and it was the potter field where they planted the indigents after cutting down their corpses from swinging repose. now it's the center of life at new york university where i did my m.b.a. there are a lot of young folks who probably feel like they're swinging in the wind down there at all times. that's another haunted place according to city lore. i think it's just haunted by the jamaican weed dealers near the public restrooms in the corner of the park (by my old dog run, and my psychiatrist's office!)
soon enough, the wealthy had each built a tidy little 20 or 30 room manse along fifth avenue and the city ever so slowly crept up to surprise them. so the rich, in their fifth avenue digs, began to crave country life, and began with summer homes along the harlaam meer. so, harlem, former farm, and long time bastion of drownings in the east river due to very severe confluxes of tide between 3 converging bodies of water (thanks be to the spirit of new york boat tour around nyc, best 3 hours ever spent in a boat with a non-english speaking friend who stayed 2 weeks too long with me to be entertained any more!) harlem became the country home and summer estate place to the wealthy...much like jersey city a hundred years before. thus the relatively similar architecture in the jersey city and harlem neighborhoods i've lived in.
the big difference is that harlem, built by the rich, was inherited by the poor and what the rich once coveted, they divorced themselves from and disengaged from. the poor, the hungry, the needy, the willing, the able and the occasional malcontent, all converged to make harlem what it is becoming today....i'm once again living in an area on the edge of tremendous explosive growth and rebirth. i love to people watch and walk the streets in these types of places...i also like to be able to say i was here....or there....i lived in chelsea before the gays and the galleries moved in and made it so fabulous that only one of the two could survive there....i lived in jeresey city when people didn't care how gorgeous the view was - if you didn't have a gun, you weren't going to look away from your purse to check the view. now i'm in spaha and i think it's going to be an easier revolution than the last ones i experienced. after today, i'm feeling good with life, and i'm hoping i'll be around to see what happens.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
exploring the new 'hood....from spaha to morningside heights....
technically, NYC consists of Manhattan Island (in order to be considered a resident of nyc, those of us in the know snobbishly delineate between our beloved apple and the outer boroughs), Staten Island, the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn. The five boroughs house a combined population of about 8 million people (the last time i heard a census count at least). another 4 million people arrive in nyc by train, plane, auto or other means every business day. pretty impressive when you consider the size of manhattan - she's a tiny, no, petite, little place...yet she has wide shoulders and tiny feet if you check a map!
i live on first avenue between 118th and 119th street now. i moved here in over the course of 3 agonizing weeks in may of this year. i brought a single rolling suitcase of possessions at a time. in order to economize, i walked from my old place in chelsea, all the way on the west side of nyc between 10th and 11th avenues, over to first avenue where i caught an uptown bus in front of bellvue hospital. the walk across from this old place to first avenue is about 2 miles. then the bus would crawl up the east side, oh so slowly...thanks to the united nations and all the bridges that leave nyc for long island, queens, brooklyn and the bronx being on the far east side near the river.
after 3 weeks, and one all nighter with a rental s.u.v. where i moved 3 truck loads on my own, i finished and was a true resident of "el barrio". you've heard of el barrio. there are barrio boys (i think they're thugs, but not sure honestly), boriquas (those who are from puerto rico originally, but now live in nyc, atleast part time - amazingly, 2/3 of the puerto ricans in nyc spend only part of the year living here, and they are somehow able to afford to stay in san juan or environs the rest of the time. that's so common that the hospitals, medicaid and medicare all offer something called "air bridge" where you register with your local medical staff before heading to puerto rico, and then, if you need medical help or prescriptions, you can go in puerto rico without being billed.) i find this to be amazing. and of course, i find it to be offensive, racist, anti-white and in very bad taste, especially since i went to visit my folks in nj, a mere 2 hour bus ride or 60 vehicular miles from here, and wound up in the e.r., and subsequently, the hospital for 11 days due to a staph infection on my face. i couldn't get a prescription filled without paying cash for it and i am still handling the bills from the hospital stay since medicaid doesn't cover expenses when you leave nyc. what a crock of bull if you ask me. if only i had flown to puerto rico instead, i'd be drugged and covered.
anyway, that's
another issue...now i'm in el barrio, spanish harlem, or as it's becoming known, SpaHa. it's an up and coming place for the hotties in the crowd who want more space for less money but want to maintain nyc residency without having to live in an outerborough. i'm one of those up and comers i guess. or maybe i'm just a snob about my address. but the former is more true than the latter, as i'm living in what most call the ghetto. i disagree.
today, finally, i was motivated and moved to explore and find more in the neighborhood than my grocery store and laundromat. what i've found has delighted, surprised and even excited me a bit today. it has been cool and overcast for the last 3 days, yesterday was torrential rains, my personal favorite weather other than anything autumnal. today was perfect. 58 degrees and overcast with showers earlier but just an on going light drizzle for most of the late afternoon and evening, as you can tell from the gray skies in these pictures and the lack of nyc skyline in the distance.
as i walked from my apartment, past the post office i discovered yesterday with the old glass windowed mailboxes and real customer service inside, i found myself suddenly at the foot of the Triborough Bridge. it's almost mythical really, it's like a unicorn, or maybe a doodlebug, you know, something you've heard of, read about or even heard others claim to have seen, but it's one of those new york urban legends that i hadn't personally seen. guess what? it's real! and it's simple, but large. i like it.
about 1,000 feet from the bridge is a 3-D piece of artwork that i've seen on tv and know to be quite famous for public works of art, but i had no idea where it was....it's called "day at the schorr" and it's a 3-D landscape mural that is about the size of 1/2 a city block, the fences are painted with greens like dune grass and of course waves like the ocean at one end. inside, there are walls painted with sand dunes and driftwood and the occasional portrait of someone laying on a beach towel sunning. then you see the over all whimsy of it....this fence and artwork are part of the morris park which is a city swimming pool. the water outside overlaps the real water inside and the tanning portraits mingle, albeit, quietly with the kids who line up for the high dive. this is all 3 minutes from my apartment. i fell in love with this place. it's part of the city's green streets initiative which includes a lot of reclaimed derelict lots that have been cleaned out by volunteers from the 'hood, then planted as community gardens. they are gorgeous. and i've now seen about 5 or 6 of them in my immediate vicinity since last week. next year, i'm going to get involved with one so i can be part of the fruit and vegetable exchange. why buy the tomatoes when i can grow them for free like all the others in the area?
when i finally got to 125th street, which is a very short 6 blocks from my home, i was mesmerized by the sights and the sounds on offer. now i've been to 125th street many times in the past, but never for the sheer experience offered by walking and watching, i was always leery of the area since it's reputation preceded me by a long, long time. the shopping on 125th street is destination shopping at it's best. that says a lot about the area! on my end of 125th street, there are amazing antique emporiums. by amazing, i mean, 1/2 a city block that used to be a bank and is now the demolition depot...outfront of this one building, they have an actual eagle which was the top of a column in the original penn station of the 1800's. the original penn station was torn down in the 60s to build madison square garden and the gorgeous, ornate and very old fashionned carved masonary was carted off, sunk in the river, broke into rubble or just abandoned who knows where. but there are a few important historical remnants that are being ecked out now that they're building a new penn station across from the garden (conversion of the farley post office annex, which looks like the parthenon in athens - it's a fantastic building, but lacks the character or historic charm of what was destroyed across 8th avenue for the garden). anyway, they have this eagle, he's taller than me and about 10 or 15 feet wide. he's missing his head. but seeing it up close, i was moved. in fact, i get emotional when i think about how much they've just thrown away in this city in the name of improvement and modernization. they've turned what was gorgeous and historic into a mass of never ending similarity and most of it is just atrocious to look at, that's why so many people covet big buildings with a higher floor being desirable - it's so you don't have to look at the architectural vomit that has become the city. they also have the original gas lamps that used to line nyc streets....a pair on either side of the front door really tells you where you are. the building is from 1891. i'll put up pictures next time i'm walking by there!
then i found clinton's office building. not impressed. wasn't looking. couldn't care less. but still, it's there. around the corner and across the street.
oh, i can take the train here. ...and i mean the TRAIN! i can get into or out of manhattan thanks to the 125th street station. it's an old time elevated train trestle and waiting room. it's still used, and i've been on trains (metronorth) in and out of the city that stopped there, but i could never figure out who'd use that stop. now i realize, i will! i can drag a bag 7 blocks from my apartment, climb the steps and 5 minutes after boarding any train, i will be on 34th street and 8th avenue at penn station. which is PERFECT for going home to see mom and jim by train, it's no bus, and no subway with 3 transfers, it's one train into penn and then on to the midtown direct! better, when mom comes to visit, if she comes by train, we'll take the 5 minute ride up to harlem and dismount on 125th so we can walk and enjoy the sites between there and my home....i am stoked for her to visit. then again, i'm really excited to have anyone visit now that i feel like this is home.
let's see....what else did i find....oh, coolness...in the 1800's nyc had turkish baths in each area of the city. now they're gone. except in the east village, where bette midler and barry manilow found fame in the 70's thanks to the gays in the baths....if you've never seen it, i highly recommend viewing the movie "the ritz" with chita rivera and an all star cast - it's campy at best but pee yourself funny overall. it takes place in the east village baths which had a fire not many years ago and are since then condemned and closed down...but, up here, in mount morris, there is a men only turkish bathhouse that i have read about in magazines and seen on the news when they do historical insterest segments. i just didn't know where mt. morris was. turns out it wasn't, but still is...and it's a few blocks from me. it's another phenomenal piece of architecture that has been beautifully maintained or refurbished on the outside. i didn't go in, but eventually i might....after all, i can always use a bath...but maybe i'll have them hold the part where they beat me with the birch branches....
the last thing i found was the apollo theater.
turns out it wasn't missing. i didn't go inside, but it's close to marshall's which is my favorite store. there is only one marhall's in all of nyc and it's walking distance to my apartment. does this make me the happiest boy in spaha? you betcha! i found a bathhouse, the apollo, the body shop, the former president and the eagle i always wanted to meet, all while walking from el barrio...but the one place that welcomed me and my debit card was marshalls...2 escalators up to heaven on 125th street...it's an entire floor of mens' stuff mixed with furniture and other treasures....i spent my month's allowance in there over the course of two days....but look at how much more my apartment is looking like a home for it....
HAPPY 25th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY JIM & MOM!!!!!!
I LOVE YOU BOTH.
Looking forward to the Silver Anniversary Brunch with you, P.J., Clark and the Possums this Sunday.
xoxo
wadeo
Looking forward to the Silver Anniversary Brunch with you, P.J., Clark and the Possums this Sunday.
xoxo
wadeo
Saturday, August 18, 2007
look really closely at the flowers here -- can you see the vase?
for those of you who love your fish, and you know who you are....this is my much coveted pet fish. his name is bob. also bob. i'm sensing a theme here....i forgot i'd bought this vase a few years ago in a little gift shop that had all hand blown glass things. i was going to use it to put fish in when i got around to it, but it's been tucked away in my storage locker downtown and i found it yesterday in a drawer - can you believe that all that time and all those moves to and fro, and i managed to have it survive intact! when i opened it up to see what i had in the box, i was disappointed to see my zeal at being creative with my aquarium idea was all for naught - the opening on the top of the fish is barely large enough for the stalk of flowers and the sprig of greens i put in it tonight....jokes on me, right? i'll get over it, it's still the best 8.99 handblown glass i've got, and i've got a bit of good hand blown glass....
now i feel like this is home
the living room as of right now.... flowers make a house a home....and now i have canisters so i have flour really making my kitchen totally my own!
i just decided where i'm going to take my next vacation
i'm really excited, i'm going to go to Oz. since i really want to make this happen, i've even gotten myself a map so i can work out directions. not that it much matters, after all, i here the city's a wiz to find....
at the end of a long yellow bricked road or something like that....
i'm off....
just a little.
my bedroom is shaping up....
new drapes from diligent discount clearance shopping at bed bath & beyonce (her name is on everything else these days, why not here?)
notice the chair, one of a pair....the match of which is living in my closet in a box, in many pieces. mom offered to come and put together furniture for me, and when i immediately accepted her offer and told her to come in immediately, she laughed and laughed and laughed. sometimes i think i must be touched. little did she know, after the adventure and misadventure of butching up and building the first chair all night, i've decided i can quite easily live without the second one until she manages to catch a bus or a train or another ride of sorts into the city to see me. too bad she didn't come in today - it's the most gorgeous summer day i can remember seeing in the city in a long, long time - it's about 70 degrees outside, bright sunshine, blue sky with great clouds and an amazing breeze off the east river outside the kitchen window (which is scented with the deliciously wafting smell of fresh bread as the bakery downstairs makes bagels for all the consumers on the island of nyc.)
that reminds me of a joke....
do you know the difference between judo and karate?
think about it for a minute.
nope, i don't think you've really thought about it....
got it?
karate is an ancient asian form of self defense. jew dough is what they make bagels out of.
Friday, August 17, 2007
sharing the wealth....
given my burst of good fortune with the bed bath & boredom windfall of recent days, i felt like i should help someone else out.
therefore, last night, i spent hours on the phone with my mom while simultaneously logged into the blogspot as i tried to guide her through the basic point and clicks of getting her self up and ranting...i mean running...of blogging.
i see she had a late night of typing after talking, and, it is now apparant that she has conquered the demons of photo posting too boot! way to go mom-o!
check her for yourself at: http://andersonranch.blogspot.com
:+D
wadeo
therefore, last night, i spent hours on the phone with my mom while simultaneously logged into the blogspot as i tried to guide her through the basic point and clicks of getting her self up and ranting...i mean running...of blogging.
i see she had a late night of typing after talking, and, it is now apparant that she has conquered the demons of photo posting too boot! way to go mom-o!
check her for yourself at: http://andersonranch.blogspot.com
:+D
wadeo
Thursday, August 16, 2007
today i'm the windshield....
as the song so eloquently states: some days you're the windshield. some days you're the bug. some days you're the louisville slugger. some days you're just a fool in love.
why am i feeling so windshield-esque you ask? is it because i'm so emotionally transparent? is it because the high heat coupled with unbearable humidity outside in nyc today leaves me thinking i might melt? (nah, that would make me the lipstick in the cupholder, not the windshield). nope, it's because today, i proved once again (to myself), that good things happen to good people. what happened you say? well, baby steps...one man's good thing is another's frivolously spent afternoon in an otherwise leisurely life.....
so, i went back to the much dreaded but equally anticipated bed bath and beyond today....why you wonder? what is left to exchange? why, almost anything in my apartment that i don't use, i'll reply! in fact, last night, i spent a good amount of time digging thru my non-treasures and found a lotion dispenser that has never dispensed, a trash can that i many times almost put in the trash and a pencil holder that has never met a pencil in the time i've owned it (i'm an ink kind of guy - if you're afraid to commit to using permanent ink, you're probably not someone i'm tight with - after all, ink is the only way to right down a date on the calendar, pencil is far too easy to get out of. yep, you got it, i'm anal retentive about writing stuff on the calendar, ink only, and sticking to my commitments. sometimes i mess up or miss something, but not for lack of trying to be a responsible grown up.) so while my apartment fumigated yet again....i deserve, no, i NEED, a discount on bug bombs, i hit bb&b.... how much did i get you wonder? let's see....trash can was $40 bucks. damn. i got full price. i've owned that freaking thing since 1992 when i got it as a take home from work after the photo shoot on an advertisement i wrote for at&t. i think at&t paid for it originally...it matched the lotion non-dispenser. that thing has lived in 5 apartments with me. some very pricey realestate and life experience has been going on right in front of it's drip-proof spout. $17.99 for the spout! you must be kidding me. i don't know where i got that from, but it was a concerted effort to scrub it all down and air dry it in the sun on the fire escape. this brings my 2 day total for reverse shopping at bb&b to well over $200 in credit to buy things i really need!
astounding, really. i'm now scouring for more things to return....i have time and with my attention span being what it is, the shiny things on offer at bb&b really do appeal to me in this disgusting heat. oh, right, and i get to suck in all the free air conditioning i can handle until they close. only thing better than that would be if i were on payroll but didn't have to work there.
i got another one of the simplest but most life changing purchases while i was there today....i'm not even remotely sure how i missed it yesterday...but i was very busy for the 6 hours it took to find new ice cube trays there....it shouldn't be so challenging to locate them, yet alone, to decide on which ones to buy...they run the gambit from $2.99 per 2 pack (my personal final selection and so far they've made great cubes and i haven't had a tray shatter, unlike the ones they're replacing). today, i found: a butter dish.
butter is my favorite. like paula deen, i find butter makes me happy. like jello, there's always room for butter. in fact, i got an anchor hocking glass butter dish with lid, a mere $2.99, that's such a bargain i almost feel like i should buy a backup...just in case....but i'm trying to outfit the homestead, not go all philanthropic at bb&b!
the proof of my good things quorum occurred during my second trip to bb&b today. yes, that's right, i went back after 3 hours of free a.c. - i really was consumed while i was there but i had to leave for the post office to mail ron's package before they closed and then i wanted to get my other stuff from storage....needless to say, ron's getting his box. my stuff is still locked in the basement of 524 west 23rd street since i couldn't get a car service willing to pick me up since i wasn't leaving the city. jackass! i know! the moving company that moved my furniture told me they could do it around 8pm (this was before 5), and it would be $108. yeah, let me explain how that works....it doesn't.
so the man at the storage place told me to hail a cab. i told him to bite me.
that's when i decided to leave. i decided i needed to see HARRY POTTER tonight instead. you know, dark theater, padded comfy, lot's of air conditioning, some people watching and junk food from the drug store across the street. turns out harry wasn't playing near me. damn the fickle finger of fate.
fuggedaboutit. i went back to bb&b since it's on the way to the subway....all the way across town from where my things are in limbo.
now for the 3 hours i'd shopped earlier and spent 3.27, i'd been looking at the clearance rack...a 4 sided rolling treasure trove of nothing but color and very expensive drapes and curtains....i found the most gorgeous red velvet drapery buried in the mass of crap. they were $89 per panel originally and i found them marked down to $29. i would have bought 2 and just used one on each window, but alas, they only had one. next.
i found gorgeous red silk drapes, fully lined with blackout lining, which has been my issue lately since the bedroom is way to freakin' light in the morning. they were originally $99 per panel. i found two. one was $29 and one was $19. i bought them both, i asked the cashier to give me them both for $19 since it's obviously mis-marked at the higher price. she didn't. they weren't. one is 84" long which is the exact size of my window. the other was 105" which just reaches the floor. i thought i might keep them and put the shorter one over the a.c. unit since it needs to be unblocked anyway, but turns out, i don't like the one that goes to the floor - it doesn't puddle and it doesn't look nice. maybe if i'd found four...but i hate to be greedy....after all.....
i also found a very nice red print fabric drape from nautica. it's the ludlow pattern, which is kind of viney. there were 2 packs of them, they're heavy, they're lined, and they have a good pattern with kind of a gold color. they were $49 per panel originally, and they were marked down to $14.99. i bought both, thinking i'll try another bb&b and maybe find 2 more....now I MUST. when i checked out, these panels were super duper reduced and i got them for $6.99 each!!!! granted, i only put one on each window, but i tied them back, so the a.c. isn't impeded and i'll put the other down to block out light before bed tonight.
when i moved in here, i said i would have a red kitchen. i'm working on that. turns out, i've been collecting red for other parts of home, way before i ever had one here....even my throw pillows, for couch and bed are in shades of red! who knew?
so as you can tell, having a lot of time to burrow into the depths of certain clearance racks can really pay off...i mean, sure, it cost me 5 hours of my life, but what else was i going to do with it?
oh, and too prove that good things really do occur....harry potter was playing at the theater a few blocks away from the subway after i finished shopping tonight. and, for once, when i got there, there was only 1 person ahead of me in line, the movie start time was within 10 minutes of buying my ticket (meaning i didn't miss the first 15 minutes and the previews), i didn't pee on myself while i juggled my bags and my business which almost never works for me, and the movie was really good - in fact, it was long and i was shocked to find i'd just sat for 2.5 hours when i hit the sidewalk again.
now, that's what i call good things happening to good people.
why am i feeling so windshield-esque you ask? is it because i'm so emotionally transparent? is it because the high heat coupled with unbearable humidity outside in nyc today leaves me thinking i might melt? (nah, that would make me the lipstick in the cupholder, not the windshield). nope, it's because today, i proved once again (to myself), that good things happen to good people. what happened you say? well, baby steps...one man's good thing is another's frivolously spent afternoon in an otherwise leisurely life.....
so, i went back to the much dreaded but equally anticipated bed bath and beyond today....why you wonder? what is left to exchange? why, almost anything in my apartment that i don't use, i'll reply! in fact, last night, i spent a good amount of time digging thru my non-treasures and found a lotion dispenser that has never dispensed, a trash can that i many times almost put in the trash and a pencil holder that has never met a pencil in the time i've owned it (i'm an ink kind of guy - if you're afraid to commit to using permanent ink, you're probably not someone i'm tight with - after all, ink is the only way to right down a date on the calendar, pencil is far too easy to get out of. yep, you got it, i'm anal retentive about writing stuff on the calendar, ink only, and sticking to my commitments. sometimes i mess up or miss something, but not for lack of trying to be a responsible grown up.) so while my apartment fumigated yet again....i deserve, no, i NEED, a discount on bug bombs, i hit bb&b.... how much did i get you wonder? let's see....trash can was $40 bucks. damn. i got full price. i've owned that freaking thing since 1992 when i got it as a take home from work after the photo shoot on an advertisement i wrote for at&t. i think at&t paid for it originally...it matched the lotion non-dispenser. that thing has lived in 5 apartments with me. some very pricey realestate and life experience has been going on right in front of it's drip-proof spout. $17.99 for the spout! you must be kidding me. i don't know where i got that from, but it was a concerted effort to scrub it all down and air dry it in the sun on the fire escape. this brings my 2 day total for reverse shopping at bb&b to well over $200 in credit to buy things i really need!
astounding, really. i'm now scouring for more things to return....i have time and with my attention span being what it is, the shiny things on offer at bb&b really do appeal to me in this disgusting heat. oh, right, and i get to suck in all the free air conditioning i can handle until they close. only thing better than that would be if i were on payroll but didn't have to work there.
i got another one of the simplest but most life changing purchases while i was there today....i'm not even remotely sure how i missed it yesterday...but i was very busy for the 6 hours it took to find new ice cube trays there....it shouldn't be so challenging to locate them, yet alone, to decide on which ones to buy...they run the gambit from $2.99 per 2 pack (my personal final selection and so far they've made great cubes and i haven't had a tray shatter, unlike the ones they're replacing). today, i found: a butter dish.
butter is my favorite. like paula deen, i find butter makes me happy. like jello, there's always room for butter. in fact, i got an anchor hocking glass butter dish with lid, a mere $2.99, that's such a bargain i almost feel like i should buy a backup...just in case....but i'm trying to outfit the homestead, not go all philanthropic at bb&b!
the proof of my good things quorum occurred during my second trip to bb&b today. yes, that's right, i went back after 3 hours of free a.c. - i really was consumed while i was there but i had to leave for the post office to mail ron's package before they closed and then i wanted to get my other stuff from storage....needless to say, ron's getting his box. my stuff is still locked in the basement of 524 west 23rd street since i couldn't get a car service willing to pick me up since i wasn't leaving the city. jackass! i know! the moving company that moved my furniture told me they could do it around 8pm (this was before 5), and it would be $108. yeah, let me explain how that works....it doesn't.
so the man at the storage place told me to hail a cab. i told him to bite me.
that's when i decided to leave. i decided i needed to see HARRY POTTER tonight instead. you know, dark theater, padded comfy, lot's of air conditioning, some people watching and junk food from the drug store across the street. turns out harry wasn't playing near me. damn the fickle finger of fate.
fuggedaboutit. i went back to bb&b since it's on the way to the subway....all the way across town from where my things are in limbo.
now for the 3 hours i'd shopped earlier and spent 3.27, i'd been looking at the clearance rack...a 4 sided rolling treasure trove of nothing but color and very expensive drapes and curtains....i found the most gorgeous red velvet drapery buried in the mass of crap. they were $89 per panel originally and i found them marked down to $29. i would have bought 2 and just used one on each window, but alas, they only had one. next.
i found gorgeous red silk drapes, fully lined with blackout lining, which has been my issue lately since the bedroom is way to freakin' light in the morning. they were originally $99 per panel. i found two. one was $29 and one was $19. i bought them both, i asked the cashier to give me them both for $19 since it's obviously mis-marked at the higher price. she didn't. they weren't. one is 84" long which is the exact size of my window. the other was 105" which just reaches the floor. i thought i might keep them and put the shorter one over the a.c. unit since it needs to be unblocked anyway, but turns out, i don't like the one that goes to the floor - it doesn't puddle and it doesn't look nice. maybe if i'd found four...but i hate to be greedy....after all.....
i also found a very nice red print fabric drape from nautica. it's the ludlow pattern, which is kind of viney. there were 2 packs of them, they're heavy, they're lined, and they have a good pattern with kind of a gold color. they were $49 per panel originally, and they were marked down to $14.99. i bought both, thinking i'll try another bb&b and maybe find 2 more....now I MUST. when i checked out, these panels were super duper reduced and i got them for $6.99 each!!!! granted, i only put one on each window, but i tied them back, so the a.c. isn't impeded and i'll put the other down to block out light before bed tonight.
when i moved in here, i said i would have a red kitchen. i'm working on that. turns out, i've been collecting red for other parts of home, way before i ever had one here....even my throw pillows, for couch and bed are in shades of red! who knew?
so as you can tell, having a lot of time to burrow into the depths of certain clearance racks can really pay off...i mean, sure, it cost me 5 hours of my life, but what else was i going to do with it?
oh, and too prove that good things really do occur....harry potter was playing at the theater a few blocks away from the subway after i finished shopping tonight. and, for once, when i got there, there was only 1 person ahead of me in line, the movie start time was within 10 minutes of buying my ticket (meaning i didn't miss the first 15 minutes and the previews), i didn't pee on myself while i juggled my bags and my business which almost never works for me, and the movie was really good - in fact, it was long and i was shocked to find i'd just sat for 2.5 hours when i hit the sidewalk again.
now, that's what i call good things happening to good people.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
the smallest things make me happy....
a friend of mine that i loved tremendously died last winter in a horrific accident that may have been suicide. about a week after i found out of his death, i received a giant bag that weighed close to 75 pounds, delivered to my doorman by a messenger. there was no card attached, but inside the bag there was every single conceivable and necessary gadget to outfit a kitchen if you were someone who cooks. i called the messenger service to find out who the package was delivered from...and of course, it wrenched me to the core of my heart - it had been picked out and bought a month earlier with delivery scheduled to surprise me for my birthday since my friend knew i was trying to move.
as everyone knows, when it rains, it pours. my friend died. my apartment got ransacked and i was robbed of every penny saved for the move and then the worst thing - an amazing apartment was promised to me (they were even willing to take my Section 8 Housing Voucher!) and a few days before i was supposed to move in, i found out the residents of said apartment weren't moving as planned due to a delay in the job transfer they were taking.
so, more and more of my life was put into a bag or a box and dragged around the corner from my old apartment and locked into a little storage closet at manhattan mini storage (you can store your mini here, but you'll have to keep your maxi somewhere else!) i couldn't bear to look thru the birthday gift bag. it sat in storage with the memories of Grandma Hulit and some of my most cherished, if not (but probably!) cheesy possessions.
of course, i finally pulled it all together, thanks to mom and jim, and got myself out of that old little apartment without a kitchen. sure, it was in the best address area of new york city. chelsea, right across the street from anderson cooper's home, now that's worth walking home every day just to see him on the street. it was also right nextdoor to sandra bernhard's apartment. she's really unattractive, but of all the famous people you encounter in nyc (why is she famous, by the way?), i saw her every time i left my apartment and every single time, she said hello and chatted with me while we waited to cross tenth avenue. i give her extra credit for that. i feel like i stalked anderson cooper for the two years i lived across from him and he still doesn't call, doesn't write and doesn't love me for me.
yesterday i finally went down to get stuff out of storage. i am missing a few essentials in the new place, like kitchen towels, a non-stick saute pan, etc. i knew i had towels in storage, but the rest was a gamble. i discovered the huge gift bag and realized it was all stuff i don't need and won't miss, so i dragged it back to bed bath and beyond (which i hate, as a store and as a shopping experience). it turns out as much as i dislike bb&b, they have a very liberal return policy in place, atleast in nyc. i didn't have a receipt. some of the items didn't even have tagging or barcode on them, but the customer service desk was able to look up every single item, and there were a lot of them - from placemats (8 gel mats, 2 silver metallic lacquer, 2 red metallic lacquer) to some sort of wire organization system that i couldn't figure out a use for or how to put it together (large rack and extra hooks plus 9 seperate pieces of add on shelving). granted, they take 25% restocking fee off of whatever they give you back, and everything is always marked down so you only get clearance pricing, but i still got around $100 to use for some things i didn't have and can't justify spending on right now.
the biggest item to put a smile on my face yesterday is my new 10 inch RED teflon coated sautee pan. i finally can cook eggs! what a lovely thing! granted, i try not to eat eggs, as they always make me sick, immediately after ingesting them. but i do love a good mushroom and cheese omlet when i want one. and last night, i wanted one. i have wanted one since coming back from wyoming, but i'm loathe to ruin my good copper clad cookware with something so horrible to clean off since the only dishwasher in this apartment happens to be named wadeo.
of course, there was another item that has been driving me up a short wall since moving in here - i lost my cheese grater somehow...perhaps i still own it and haven't uncovered it yet, but i'm starting to think not. having not had an apartment and/or a kitchen for nearly 5 years has allowed many many things to slip away. that's why for $5.99 i can now easily grate my cheese. which is very important as i have a beautiful block of imported parmigano regianno cheese in my fridge and i have been grating it with my vegetable peeler which isn't really the right way to do it....and when i say imported, i mean, i had to walk to the subway, go all the way down to 77th and lexington avenue to d'agostino's to buy it. apparantly, as i live in the famous area known as "el barrio" italian cheese is not available to the locales. on the other hand, i can get excellent oaxaca cheese in 32 different renant combos. now that food network did a show on oaxaca, i plan to start buying and using it in the near future. i'll start slow, i don't want to live another tofu like experience, but live and learn, right? they say it tastes like chicken. no, wait, that's possum. oaxaca tastes like mozzerella....or so they'd have you believe. check back here to find out.
as everyone knows, when it rains, it pours. my friend died. my apartment got ransacked and i was robbed of every penny saved for the move and then the worst thing - an amazing apartment was promised to me (they were even willing to take my Section 8 Housing Voucher!) and a few days before i was supposed to move in, i found out the residents of said apartment weren't moving as planned due to a delay in the job transfer they were taking.
so, more and more of my life was put into a bag or a box and dragged around the corner from my old apartment and locked into a little storage closet at manhattan mini storage (you can store your mini here, but you'll have to keep your maxi somewhere else!) i couldn't bear to look thru the birthday gift bag. it sat in storage with the memories of Grandma Hulit and some of my most cherished, if not (but probably!) cheesy possessions.
of course, i finally pulled it all together, thanks to mom and jim, and got myself out of that old little apartment without a kitchen. sure, it was in the best address area of new york city. chelsea, right across the street from anderson cooper's home, now that's worth walking home every day just to see him on the street. it was also right nextdoor to sandra bernhard's apartment. she's really unattractive, but of all the famous people you encounter in nyc (why is she famous, by the way?), i saw her every time i left my apartment and every single time, she said hello and chatted with me while we waited to cross tenth avenue. i give her extra credit for that. i feel like i stalked anderson cooper for the two years i lived across from him and he still doesn't call, doesn't write and doesn't love me for me.
yesterday i finally went down to get stuff out of storage. i am missing a few essentials in the new place, like kitchen towels, a non-stick saute pan, etc. i knew i had towels in storage, but the rest was a gamble. i discovered the huge gift bag and realized it was all stuff i don't need and won't miss, so i dragged it back to bed bath and beyond (which i hate, as a store and as a shopping experience). it turns out as much as i dislike bb&b, they have a very liberal return policy in place, atleast in nyc. i didn't have a receipt. some of the items didn't even have tagging or barcode on them, but the customer service desk was able to look up every single item, and there were a lot of them - from placemats (8 gel mats, 2 silver metallic lacquer, 2 red metallic lacquer) to some sort of wire organization system that i couldn't figure out a use for or how to put it together (large rack and extra hooks plus 9 seperate pieces of add on shelving). granted, they take 25% restocking fee off of whatever they give you back, and everything is always marked down so you only get clearance pricing, but i still got around $100 to use for some things i didn't have and can't justify spending on right now.
the biggest item to put a smile on my face yesterday is my new 10 inch RED teflon coated sautee pan. i finally can cook eggs! what a lovely thing! granted, i try not to eat eggs, as they always make me sick, immediately after ingesting them. but i do love a good mushroom and cheese omlet when i want one. and last night, i wanted one. i have wanted one since coming back from wyoming, but i'm loathe to ruin my good copper clad cookware with something so horrible to clean off since the only dishwasher in this apartment happens to be named wadeo.
of course, there was another item that has been driving me up a short wall since moving in here - i lost my cheese grater somehow...perhaps i still own it and haven't uncovered it yet, but i'm starting to think not. having not had an apartment and/or a kitchen for nearly 5 years has allowed many many things to slip away. that's why for $5.99 i can now easily grate my cheese. which is very important as i have a beautiful block of imported parmigano regianno cheese in my fridge and i have been grating it with my vegetable peeler which isn't really the right way to do it....and when i say imported, i mean, i had to walk to the subway, go all the way down to 77th and lexington avenue to d'agostino's to buy it. apparantly, as i live in the famous area known as "el barrio" italian cheese is not available to the locales. on the other hand, i can get excellent oaxaca cheese in 32 different renant combos. now that food network did a show on oaxaca, i plan to start buying and using it in the near future. i'll start slow, i don't want to live another tofu like experience, but live and learn, right? they say it tastes like chicken. no, wait, that's possum. oaxaca tastes like mozzerella....or so they'd have you believe. check back here to find out.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
...and then i accidentally hit Reply All.
ding dong, the mouse is dead, set off bug bombs, fumigate my bed, ding dong, that little mouse is dead. he's gone where the rodents go (in the trash, mashed in low) below, below, below, below, below, below, below (ding dong the mouse is dead, plastic trap, his small head). ding dong my little mouse is dead.
if something ever was worth singing about, this might just about be it. that little s.o.b. scared the life out of me each, and every single time he re-emerged from his pre-doom abode. that said, i've now set off my 10th or 11th bug bombs, which is not inexpensive. i've thrown away the deep ile shag carpet that the landlord had just put in my living room to soften noise for the neighbor. somehow, the mouse always left a trail of mouse beans deeply embedded in it. worse, he left me a legacy of lice or fleas which i've battled since shortly after my first week of living here. (for full affect, one needs to see the battle scars - literal - on my ankles from the gnawing and biting of the invisible itch offenders. hopefully one more bombing in short order will stop this expensive and toxic habit for a while. i hope so, there's almost nothing worse than when the people at the local home depot know you for regular visits filled with deep and insightful questions about the rodent control products in aisle one.
bob and bob junior number 2 both seem to be doing well. i guess they're "in lurve" she follows him everywhere he goes, even when his path trajectory changes (i.e. another attempt to enter my window while i was standing there - abort! abort!) bob is pretty quick on the toes so had no trouble avoiding direct hand-to-hand combat with me, however, bob number 2 junior, seems to be a little slower on the uptake, and almost got bitch slapped, or is that squirrel slapped?, backwards off the fire escape this time. she must be young. she'll learn.
i had a really nice afternoon on the fire escape yesterday. the trumpet vine i'd removed in may, at great effort, had finally had an upswing in growth from the neighbor below me. this means, again, my wall, my bathroom window, my fire escape floor were coated in vines. so i spent the day cutting, bundling and packing them so i could easily get them to the street for removal. in the course of doing this, i also removed an old air conditionning unit that was between my escape and the next building (vacant but currently being completely gut renovated, owned by the same guys that own my building). also found in the rubbish piled in the vines, a life size transformer/robot/thingy made of shiny silver and bright red plastic. he's missing an arm, as all well loved toys seem to be, but he still has potential. so, i stood him in the empty plastic planter i've saved full of dirt, squirrel poo and an occasional nut from bob's stash. he's now on the corner of my escape, standing guard against any evil that might fling in thru a SpaHa kitchen window. my favorite find of the day, absolutely, no exaggeration, a disembodied life size arm (black - or perhaps hispanic tan?). several of the fingers were severed and relocated before my arrival. over all, like any car crash, it was fascinating to see it in the pile of debris, but, for sheer normal reasons, i had to carefully (with rubber gloves - rodents you know!) remove the arm from the debris and relocate it into my rubbish sack for the sidewalk. not to worry, the car crash idea was still on my mind as i took out the trash, so i rearranged the arm to stick out the top of my closed and very lumpy bag of trash....i put it on the sidewalk and watched out the bedroom window occasionally, just to see the neighborhood reaction. needless to say, my bag of trash was gone from out front when i got back from the laundromat late last night. if i'd paid attention, i would be able to say what happened to the body parts, but alas, i really don't care.
i am trying to function like an adult of normal circumstances here. not always with the best results, admittedly. i'm still suffering depression, but it seems to be abating. the bad thing with this ebb is that now i'm having anxiety attacks and what i can only describe as paranoia. my doctor told me they can give me something for that now that i know how to explain it. i do need to go back to the doctor and get the medications and the bloodwork and the health straightened out. if i weren't afraid to answer the phone, listen to voicemails and finally return calls, maybe my life wouldn't always be so over whelming to me. it's weird, i used to talk on the phone for hours. back when i could be succinct. closer to succinct? now, it seems, i really only speak with my mom because it's ok. my friends are gone. i'm alone. 24. 7. it's quiet. it's scary. it's lonely. it's my life. and i need figure it out so i can play the leading role here. i mean, in every movie, there are two characters, right? leading man/woman and the best friend. i've always been the best friend. every time. for everyone. but shouldn't i be the leading man, atleast in my own life? that's what i've concluded recently. drugs aren't the solution, but they sure do help.
in the meantime, i'll continue to sit in my new, empty, mouse-proofed, flea-festered apartment and watch food network and movies on dvd. when i re-read that, i have to admit, life isn't bad. it's just ok. but i deserve better than ok. anyone does.
if something ever was worth singing about, this might just about be it. that little s.o.b. scared the life out of me each, and every single time he re-emerged from his pre-doom abode. that said, i've now set off my 10th or 11th bug bombs, which is not inexpensive. i've thrown away the deep ile shag carpet that the landlord had just put in my living room to soften noise for the neighbor. somehow, the mouse always left a trail of mouse beans deeply embedded in it. worse, he left me a legacy of lice or fleas which i've battled since shortly after my first week of living here. (for full affect, one needs to see the battle scars - literal - on my ankles from the gnawing and biting of the invisible itch offenders. hopefully one more bombing in short order will stop this expensive and toxic habit for a while. i hope so, there's almost nothing worse than when the people at the local home depot know you for regular visits filled with deep and insightful questions about the rodent control products in aisle one.
bob and bob junior number 2 both seem to be doing well. i guess they're "in lurve" she follows him everywhere he goes, even when his path trajectory changes (i.e. another attempt to enter my window while i was standing there - abort! abort!) bob is pretty quick on the toes so had no trouble avoiding direct hand-to-hand combat with me, however, bob number 2 junior, seems to be a little slower on the uptake, and almost got bitch slapped, or is that squirrel slapped?, backwards off the fire escape this time. she must be young. she'll learn.
i had a really nice afternoon on the fire escape yesterday. the trumpet vine i'd removed in may, at great effort, had finally had an upswing in growth from the neighbor below me. this means, again, my wall, my bathroom window, my fire escape floor were coated in vines. so i spent the day cutting, bundling and packing them so i could easily get them to the street for removal. in the course of doing this, i also removed an old air conditionning unit that was between my escape and the next building (vacant but currently being completely gut renovated, owned by the same guys that own my building). also found in the rubbish piled in the vines, a life size transformer/robot/thingy made of shiny silver and bright red plastic. he's missing an arm, as all well loved toys seem to be, but he still has potential. so, i stood him in the empty plastic planter i've saved full of dirt, squirrel poo and an occasional nut from bob's stash. he's now on the corner of my escape, standing guard against any evil that might fling in thru a SpaHa kitchen window. my favorite find of the day, absolutely, no exaggeration, a disembodied life size arm (black - or perhaps hispanic tan?). several of the fingers were severed and relocated before my arrival. over all, like any car crash, it was fascinating to see it in the pile of debris, but, for sheer normal reasons, i had to carefully (with rubber gloves - rodents you know!) remove the arm from the debris and relocate it into my rubbish sack for the sidewalk. not to worry, the car crash idea was still on my mind as i took out the trash, so i rearranged the arm to stick out the top of my closed and very lumpy bag of trash....i put it on the sidewalk and watched out the bedroom window occasionally, just to see the neighborhood reaction. needless to say, my bag of trash was gone from out front when i got back from the laundromat late last night. if i'd paid attention, i would be able to say what happened to the body parts, but alas, i really don't care.
i am trying to function like an adult of normal circumstances here. not always with the best results, admittedly. i'm still suffering depression, but it seems to be abating. the bad thing with this ebb is that now i'm having anxiety attacks and what i can only describe as paranoia. my doctor told me they can give me something for that now that i know how to explain it. i do need to go back to the doctor and get the medications and the bloodwork and the health straightened out. if i weren't afraid to answer the phone, listen to voicemails and finally return calls, maybe my life wouldn't always be so over whelming to me. it's weird, i used to talk on the phone for hours. back when i could be succinct. closer to succinct? now, it seems, i really only speak with my mom because it's ok. my friends are gone. i'm alone. 24. 7. it's quiet. it's scary. it's lonely. it's my life. and i need figure it out so i can play the leading role here. i mean, in every movie, there are two characters, right? leading man/woman and the best friend. i've always been the best friend. every time. for everyone. but shouldn't i be the leading man, atleast in my own life? that's what i've concluded recently. drugs aren't the solution, but they sure do help.
in the meantime, i'll continue to sit in my new, empty, mouse-proofed, flea-festered apartment and watch food network and movies on dvd. when i re-read that, i have to admit, life isn't bad. it's just ok. but i deserve better than ok. anyone does.
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About Me
- © wadeo 2012 (every last word, part, and pixel)
- New York, New York, United States
- part mad-scientist (it's kind of like being an angry bovine only i'm still not that heavy!)