McGolrick

Most New Yorkers dream of an apartment that overlooks Central Park, but I'd be pretty darn happy with an apartment that overlooks McGolrick Park (in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.)

Viewage

Sunset from Transmitter Park, Greenpoint

Beat the Heat

I made it through four NYC summers without AC, with only a handful of uncomfortable summer nights. But the record-breaking heat wave this year seems never ending, and I finally gave in and bought a little window unit for the bedroom, which is now referred to as "the icebox." (the rest of the apartment is still pretty unpleasant.) I'm sure it will quadruple my energy bill, but it sure is nice and chilly in here now. For the record, I didn't buy the AC until I had tried absolutely everything I could think of to cool off, including this DIY air-cooling contraption.

As you may have guessed, it did not work.

Best of Both Worlds in Greenpoint

Afternoon in the Park

The weather was perfect on Saturday, and we spent a few hours lolling around McGolrick Park with scary stories from the 1970s and iced chai.

Dear Maggie

Recently you wrote this on your blog: Having NO idea what to do next year (stay in China? move back to NYC? Try California?)

Jamie and I discussed, and decided the answer is B. Here's some further proof.

Rick Rick Rick

While out to dinner for Kashmira's birthday tonight, I was seated directly across from the wonderful, amazing Amy Poehler. It was pretty distracting, especially because I kept wishing that it was Kaitlin sitting there.

My Great American City

A few months ago, while hanging out with Maggie and Jamie, we got to talking about Jane Jacobs' book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. I was intrigued by their description, and ordered a copy from the library. Turns out they did such a good job of summarizing it, I didn't really need to read the whole thing myself. I ended up reading only the first couple of chapters, but they've stuck with me.

Jacobs, writing in the early 1960s, talks about the misguided goals of urban planning, particularly how high rise housing in low-income neighborhoods are detrimental to a city's "life." She argues for the importance of sidewalk culture, pointing to the protective power of "eyes on the street." Unofficial patrols--old ladies sitting on their stoop, shopkeepers, kids playing in the street-- do the best job of keeping a neighborhood safe. Alternately, outdoor spaces that have been built in between housing projects with the idea that green space equals good space, have become dangerous sites for crime and drug use.

Yesterday I witnessed my own example of sidewalk culture. Upon returning from an early evening stroll with Sprout, I was met at the door to my building by John the Handyman. He had just applied a new coat of finish to the stairs, and it was still too wet to walk on. While waiting for it to dry, I sat with Sprout on the stoop. There are several familiar characters in my neighborhood, and one of my favorites is a sassy young-ish mom of two wild sons. She can be spotted strutting through the neighborhood, cigarette in hand, dyed orange hair slicked back into a tight pony tail. She's got an extremely loud voice and a terrible potty mouth. I was surprised to see her banging on the door of my across-the-street neighbors-- a handful of hipsters living in a basement apartment. It seemed unlikely that she knew them, and I figured her kids' kickball must have gotten lost in their backyard or something. Then I realized what was going on-- they had left their keys in the door. "Do you know who lives here?" she called to me from across the street. "Yeah," I answered, "I just saw the guy leave to walk his dog. I'll keep an eye out until someone's back." Just then, one of the hipster residents poked her out and retrieved the keys, gratefully thanking me and the pony tail lady.

I think Jane Jacobs would have been proud.

The Thing I Carried

A. Bought a new bag of kibble for Sprout at Petco.
B. Went to Nikki's, forgot bag of kibble, retrieved it two days later.
C. Went immediately to babysitting.
D. Returned home. In time for dinner.
TOTAL: 17.2 miles

Rabbit Rabbit

Well it's September, and perfectly on cue the weather in New York has begun to shift. The past few days have been perfect-- clear and sunny during the day, and dipping down to crisp and cool temperatures at night. After August's heat wave I'm ready for some sweater weather, but it's always bittersweet to see the summer end. Sprout took some time yesterday to take advantage of some quickly fleeting late afternoon sunshine.

Ready for the Wild Rumpus

Meredith spotted this while strolling the neighborhood this weekend: a miniature Max along for the ride. Here's a somewhat blurry close-up:

Summer Reading

It's been an incredibly rainy and gloomy June so far here in the City of Dreams. The New York Times ran a story about the "rain rage" developing in New Yorkers, so watch out. And while I'll be extremely happy when real, sunshiny summer finally arrives, I'm trying to enjoy the June Gloom and remember that this is much preferable to the 90-degree, humid, unbearable weather we had this time last year.

So, I've been attempting to enjoy rainy day activities such as more movie-watching, more napping and more reading. Luckily I live just a few blocks away from a branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, which provides me with a steady supply of reading material. After reading Progressive Pioneer's account of the book These is My Words, I ordered it from the library right away.
I guess I misread her post, because I thought it was a fictionalized version of a real pioneer's woman's actual diary, but it's actually just loosely inspired by the author's grandmother. I was about 100 pages in before I started to suspect that the steamy romance with an "ornery soldier" was too good to be true. But oh well, I'm still totally captivated by this book. The main character, Sarah, is awesome and knows how to ride horses bareback and tend gardens and birth babies and raise cattle and fight off attacks from hostile Indians and horse thieves.

When it rains in the book, flooding the entire homestead, Sarah has to fend off a swarm of poisonous frogs, deal with a corral of panicked horses, shoot a rattlesnake and then has to ride through dangerous flood waters to help her sister-in-law who is deathly ill, with her toddler, while pregnant. So, yeah. This rain isn't so bad.

The Great Rat Caper

Part I
While still in California, the roomie and I exchange a series of frantic text messages something along the lines of:

I think there is a mouse or rat under the sink
What! Did u see poop?
I hear it, it sounds big
[and later]
Saw the tail!

Landlord (who tends to forget that buying and renting out units in this building requires more than just luxuriating in their renovated top floor apartment) is contacted. His response is basically "what do you want me to do about it!?" After several minutes of snarky comments, he agrees to schedule the handyman to come and patch up any holes through which the mouse/rat is entering. When they show up, they laugh and roll their eyes, essentially accusing us of being silly girls who overreact.

Part II
For a few days, it seems the handyman's repairs have done the trick. But then the roomie hears some familiar scuffling and scrabbling, and upon investigation, discovers several chewed up bags and wrappers dragged from the trash to the back of sink. We purchase various types of traps and set them up. Within ten minutes of setting them, we hear the loudest sound ever coming from beneath the sink. I am not exaggerating when I say, it sounded like a cat was trapped under there. By the time we stopped screaming like silly girls and summoned up the courage to look, it was gone. Here is us investigating from the safety of kitchen chairs.
And here I am trying to convince Sprout that she should catch the mouse/rat (she's a rat terrier after all)So we never found the mouse/rat that night.

Part III
I spend a lot of money at the hardware store assembling what I thought would be a sure fire mouse/rat protection system: 3 more large traps, one of those sonar deterrents, and a new trash can with a lid. Again, within 10 minutes of installing my new system, it's back. And again, it manages to steal the bait and escape. I write a strongly worded email to the landlord, requesting immediate action on his part, and by immediate action, I mean calling a professional exterminator.

Part IV
The next day, The Exterminator (my hero!) arrives. Landlord continues to deny the possibility of a rat until The Exterminator peers under our sink with a flashlight and proclaims, "Yup, rat shit." This made me feel both proud (for being right about the mouse/rat) and disgusted (for having a rat). In a jiff, The Exterminator set up a serious looking trap and spread poison around, promising that the offending rat would be dead within days. He assured me that the rat was not diseased (not sure how he knows, but great) and that Sprout would be safe, unless she happened to someone get a hold of and eat the poisoned rat. I have been checking her jowls for rat blood, but thankfully nothing.

Part V
No more sounds or sightings. I'm glad I never actually saw it firsthand. That way "the rat" can remain an abstract idea, and not an actually furry, warm-blooded reality. I'll continue to imagine this guy instead:

CUTE BRIGHT SPACIOUS HOMEY

A sometimes hobby of mine is looking at Craigslist apartment postings, not necessarily because I'm in the market, but because it's fun just to see what's out there. This one posting caught my eye, it was reasonably priced and located in a neighboring part of Brooklyn. The best feature in this listing was "a private backyard," which is a rare but not unheard of luxury. Now I'm a fan of old school charm and fixer-uppers, and I'm willing to settle for less-than-perfect apartment features (no sink in the bathroom, floors so slanty that you sometimes feel seasick) but come on.

"How do you recover from a food coma?"

I learned a new vocabulary word recently, and that word is "sate," which means to satisfy an appetite fully, or, to satisfy to excess. And that's exactly what Meng and I did yesterday.

Meng is leaving NYC to go to B school, and she will be missed.

Usually, it's me asking Meng for restaurant recommendations (once she made me an Excel spreadsheet to help determine a birthday dinner destination) but after I tried Shopsin's for the first time, I knew that for once I had found something special to share with her, and the week before her departure from the City of Dreams seemed the perfect occasion.

So here's what we ordered. She got chicken marsala with mushrooms. We were sitting at the counter, which gave us a perfect view into the kitchen, and we overheard Kenny asking what exactly went into that dish-- apparently it hadn't been prepared in quite sometime. But once it was, all the wait staff tried it and approved, complementing Meng on her excellent choice. I had "The Pothead," which is a sandwich comprised of an absolutely amazing turkey, coleslaw, mayo, and cranberry concoction. It's kind of like all of Thanksgiving rolled into one, but I'd venture to say it's even better than Thanksgiving.

Then, as if we weren't stuffed enough, we swung by an old favorite, Sugar Sweet Sunshine. An Ooey-gooey for her, a Bob for me. Delish.

And, on a totally unrelated note, here's Meng & me wearing Chinese face masks which, according to her translation, contained "donkey hide" as one of the ingredients. My skin felt great afterwards.

Can't Blog, Outside.

One of the best things about living in a place with real seasons (which I didn't for a significant portion of my life) is when they change. Everyone is very happy here.

Great Grates

These are the new subway grates that have appeared around Queens, I saw some today while in Astoria. Not only are they attractive, apparently they divert rainwater toward the sewers and prevent floods, which the Queens train lines are particularly prone to. I could have used these awesome grates back when I commuted daily to Queens, and stuff like this happened:

(email excerpt, August 8th 2007)
Let me just tell you about my morning, and it will help you not miss NYC as much. So I happily leave my apartment at about 5 min to 9, plenty of time to get to Astoria by 9:30, maybe even stop at Metro for a bagel... or so I thought. Because of water on the tracks, the G train is completely 100% shut down. Keep in mind, the storm was in the early morning hours, it seems to me that would have provided several hours in which to clean up the tracks or whatever, but no. So I figure I will take the L to Union Sq and transfer to the NRW and that should only put me 10 min or so behind schedule, no big deal. I soon discovered that what they say about taking the L into Manhattan during rush hour is true-- it's heinous. So crowded, I thought it couldn't get any more crowded or gross... until I got to the NRW platform at 14th street. Where I waited, pressed oh so close to hundreds to other disgusting sweaty people, for TWENTY MINUTES. I kept thinking, this is a way to torture people. I could die if I was stuck here for an extended period of time. This is like a concentration camp. I was soooo sweaty. Like I had just done two yoga classes. Finally the train comes, and I was like, I'm gonna have to be tough girl here, because everyone and their mom also wanted on that train and off the sweaty platform. The pushing to get on the train bordered on violent. If I was an old person or something, I think I might have been killed. I have never EVER been so pushed and prodded and squished, but I made it on. And it was the N train, so I was like yay express! But no, it was running local. Slowly yet surely we made our uptown, and finally by like 57th street the train emptied out a bit and I could sit down. I'm actually amazed I was only 30 min late to work...

The Week in Review

I have been 25 for a week now, and what a week it has been.

Friday

Meredith (who had surprised me the day before by taking an earlier flight than expected) and I journeyed to Beacon, NY where we visited Dia:Beacon, explored Main Street, and ate at Homespun Foods.

Saturday

I met up with pals for a delicious brunch at DuMont. It was a great first day of spring; I had made little seed packet party favors, and was given tulips by both Meng & Kashmira. After eggs benedict, a handful of us went to PS 1. The best thing thing there was Leandro Erlich's swimming pool. Afterward we headed back to Brooklyn for a neighborhood promenade. We eventually ended up at our old haunt, Brooklyn Ale House, where sadly, the free bagel brunch was not happening. But there were plenty of peanuts.

Sunday

The day began with brunch, my favorite meal, at Enid's, followed by a routine stop-in at Spoonbill & Sugartown and Catbird. On the way home, we decided to brave the moody proprietor of Cheeks to pick up a dozen cupcakes. Later that evening we met up with the old museum gang for bowling (and the aforementioned cupcakes) at The Gutter. Even though I lost, I bowled a strike for the last two frames, so that was pretty sweet.

Monday

We met up for brunch with a couple of Meredith's pals at Clinton Street Baking Company. We shoe-shopped unsuccessfully. We had a Sprout photo shoot.

Tuesday
We went to hear Heather Armstrong (aka dooce) read from her new book at B&N and dreamt of one day being Internet moguls, too. Then we saw Sunshine Cleaning at the Landmark Sunshine.

Wednesday
Double trouble. We met Megha for delicious food in Prospect Heights: Mexican at at Chavella's and ice cream at Blue Marble. I think my dreams came true when I saw they offered banana chip. Then we headed to trivia night at Pete's Candy Store with Meredith's pal, Katie. We placed 7th (out of about 16, not too shabby) and learned what a philtrum is.

Thursday

Dinner at Westville East, where we enjoyed brussell sprouts, beets, artichoke hearts, plantains, and many more vegetable delights.

Friday
Today we had brunch at Shopsin's with James. They have macaroni and cheese pancakes, and they're delicious. After we checked out Economy Candy, we walked up to Union Square to catch a matinee showing of A Haunting in Connecticut. The theater was full of rowdy high schoolers, but the ectoplasm was cool. Now we're about to head up up uptown for a sleep over at Stiggy's. Fun fun fun.

Getting A Lot of Play

I can't stop listening to Matt & Kim's recent (and I think first) album: Grand. Check 'em out.

Their music is loads of fun, and it seems like they are too. Also, they sing a lot about Grand Street, and apparently live on Grand Street, which is also my cross street. Who doesn't love music about their neighborhood? Do you guys want to meet up at Gimme Coffee sometime...?

Are You Taking the G Train Too?

After leaving Connie Converse's record release party last night, I had the pleasure of caravaning home on the G train with a group of pals. Despite its short comings, the G train is most near and dear to my heart, and I think the Smith & 9th Street stop is the most enchanting of all. In order to demonstrate, here are some photos I stole from flickr.


Thanks JonCombe.


Thanks Victoria Belanger.


Thanks .aG


Thanks i mei