So I have all this really great literature to read every week (e.g., the New York Times and the New Yorker), which always has great well researched articles written in very compelling style, world reknown and award winning, and yet I do really miss the PARADE magazine insert that came with the Seattle Times/PI Sunday paper. I grew up with Parade Magazine on Sundays even as a kid. Maybe it is a West Coast thing....it's kind of like comfort food only in paper form, kind of filling but not all that good for you. It's strange where we sometimes draw comfort and familiarity.....a sense that all is right with the world.
So we went to Sardi's for dinner last night with colleagues of mine in town for the AACAP meeting, the atmosphere was less than what I expected....I really couldn't make out many of the caricatures on the walls and somehow I just thought it would be more intimate but the food was actually better than I thought it would be.....certainly Per Se has nothing to worry about but, overall, it was a pretty good meal (crabcakes for me, spinach canalloni for Bob) but a bit overpriced. It's really a theatre goers restaurant. They are expert at getting you fed and on your way to make the 8pm curtain. The place was virtually empty except for the four of us after 8pm and when we were leaving at 10:30pm, all the Broadway shows were letting out and a new waves of diners was coming in. That was kind of cool to see the rhythm of the Theatre District play itself out.
I finally got to see a full episode of Cash Cab....it's great fun. I saw a glimpse of it on 30 Rock a couple of weeks ago with Tracy Morgan answering the questions ala Slumdog Millionaire and had no idea what they were referencing. Then my niece who will be visiting in early December told me all about it. She really wants to try to get in the Cash Cab. I think btwn the 4 of us (my niece, her husband, Bob and me) and our two shoutouts (a phone call and a random person on the street) we could probably get all the way to our desired destination with a wad of cash in hand. While Bob and I were checking out the Bryant Park Ice Rink and walking down 5th Ave to see the 34th street Autumn decorations I was totally checking out the cabs to see if I could spot him......HA....7000 cabs in this city, what are the chances? Anyway, it's kind of fun knowing the possibility can happen. I clued in my colleagues about this just in case they get in a cab and all kinds of lights starts flashing.
The Bryant Park Ice Rink is NOW OPEN -- the parks around here really do it right in creating fun and welcoming places for people. It's very joyful to watch the skaters--the really good and the brave ones new to the ice. Clearly New Yorkers love to skate, there were old, young, males, females, body shapes across the spectrum and it being so close to Halloween, people in all kinds of costumes were on the ice. I am terrible at pretty much every activity that requires some serious balancing ability. It's truely a miracle I can ride a bike. I have terrible ankle support, I literally fall off my shoes all the time, I've fallen off my flip flops my gait is so bad. But I think I will probably sign up for a private skating lesson and see what comes of it. Bob would really love to skate together and it does look like a lot fun though I do harbor very bad fantasies of shattered knee caps and multiple people pile ups. Plus just how many of us really awful beginners can hog the skating rim? I will need to look into ankle strengthening exercises.
There was several kid halloween activities going on about town so we got to see lots of little kids in their costumes which I love....though one kind of disturbing costume was a boy who could not have been older than 4 or 5 years dressed as the Joker from the Batman movie (the Heath Ledger version). We wondered if he even knew about the movie but I have to say that so many parents do not screen much of what they see and so their kids watch the same movies. It would not surprise me if he knew full well who he was dressed as...........this can't be a good sign for longterm outcome.
The Autumn decorations of hay, pumpkins, squash, dried ears of corn, and corn stalks along 34th from Herald Square to 8th Avenue were very thoughtfully done. I wonder if that is as close as many New Yorkers get to farmlike surroundings.
The weather has turned from summer (balmy mid-70's and sunny) to COLD pretty much overnight! So abrupt but I was wondering just how long the warm weather was going to go on for, afterall, it's going to be November on Monday. We've had to pull out some sweaters and warmer jackets. The days are getting increasingly shorter but the sunsets over the Hudson River that I see from our apartment window are just as beautiful as ever.
I was up at the New York Psychiatric Institute on 168th yesterday to further discuss job opportunites. NYPI is just one part of a HUGE conglomerate of the Columbia Medical School, Morgan Stanley Children's Hosptial, and every other university/medical affiliated program. The streets were just swarming with patients, docs, residents, hospital personnel, etc. A real hub for the ill and those trying to help them.
I am learning that I need to keep a very close eye on tabs charged, just this past week, I got overcharged $4 for a pair of really crappy earphones on the plane coming back to NYC. I didn't let it go and Delta is sending me a check for $4. You have to wonder if this is just an honest mistake or a scam for the airline to make money because it's just enough that people might not bother to follow up with if they even notice it on their statements but enough that over time, accrual of these overcharges could be substantial profit for the airlines. It probably was an honest mistake but anyway. Then at dinner at Sardi's, it was only after we paid and had left the restaurant did I notice that we were charged $9 for coffee that was supposed to be part of our fixed prix dinners. I had a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, which since I don't drink much, I am sure dulled my attention when reviewing the bill. I HATE being overcharged for an already over priced anything!
So I continue my struggle of sorts with what to do about defining my life since work is no longer central. In the past it was all about getting things ACCOMPLISHED and being HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL at getting things ACCOMPLISHED. Now not so much. It felt pretty good when I was living that lifestyle but it also took it's toll on me. I could re-enter that whole scene pretty easily here yet am choosing not to. The choosing to be more selective and really prioritizing less stress and fewer demands to ACCOMPLISH is harder than I thought it would be mostly because I am in such an unusual life situation. I worked long enough to have a very successful and accomplished career and yet I am young enough that barring this move, I would still be very much in thick of my work. Now I don't have to be, but by not being, I keep feeling like I am not living up to some standard --of the origin I am not even sure of. I am still settling out a lot and re-orieinting to life here. Bob and I are both confident that things will shake out as they should over time. I don't think I've ever had enough down time to have an existential crisis of sorts, so maybe this just comes with the territory. I've always liked that bumper sticker that read, "It's just the stress that's holding me together."
Tomorrow we check out the foliage along the Hudson River Valley.......and if the timing works, we will attend a Satsang in Queens in the late afternoon.
Happy Halloween!
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
A shout out for Newark Airport
Before I forget, I want to give a big SHOUT OUT to Newark Airport. Bob and I recently flew out and in from Newark Airport. We'd had been somewhat offput to travel thru that airport but were very pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to get to and from there from our apartment. The airporter bus run by Olympia Trails leaves and returns just a block from our apartment (doesn't get more convenient than that) at the Port
Authority Bus Station. You can buy your ticket on line or on the bus, $25 dollars round trip or $15 one way. It's really easy to find and get on both at the Port Authority and at the Newark Airport. It will also picks up and drops off at Bryant Park and Grand Central Station. I highly recommend it and now we have no qualms about traveling thru the Newark hub.
Authority Bus Station. You can buy your ticket on line or on the bus, $25 dollars round trip or $15 one way. It's really easy to find and get on both at the Port Authority and at the Newark Airport. It will also picks up and drops off at Bryant Park and Grand Central Station. I highly recommend it and now we have no qualms about traveling thru the Newark hub.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
What is it that I do with my time that I can't even write routine blahg entries??
I swear to the almighty powers that be that I am in some kind of really bizarre time warp since moving to NYC. I DON"T WORK and yet I honestly do not know where the time goes each day that I can't find the time to make regular entries. I am simultaneously VERY BUSY and NOT BUSY AT ALL (kinda like from a Laurie Anderson song or something). I can make any time for any thing pretty much all the time except the things I need/want to do. --it's like a bad sci fi movie. Sometimes I get a bit distressed about how easy it is to fritter a day away, especially since one day just leads into another day of frittering. I can not believe it is now coming on to two months since leaving my job and moving to NYC. I have to remind myself (as does Bob) that I have attended to a lot of the necessary details of getting situated in a new home and city but still..........it's a weird experience. I always have felt very grounded by my professional life but also really stressed by it, so now I am not stressed but not grounded either. It's an interesting trade off. I feel a bit like a balloon floating about and easily directed one way or the other depending on how the wind blows--in this case the wind being some interesting article or fragment of informaton in the paper or one the many magazines I subscribe to that sends me to the internet to look it up and one thing just leads to another. When friends in Seattle ask me, so what do you do with all your free time?, I am so embarrassed as to how to respond. Anyway............on to life in NYC for those expanses of time that I can account for!!
So I think I mentioned that I went to Gracie Mansion but what was most significant about that outing was that I finally made it to the other shore of Manhattan island. I finally got as east as to walk along the East River. It's UGLY over there..........at least on the Upper Eastside where I was roaming that day. Not really worth the walk across town especially after being SPOILED by the beauty and sereneness of the Hudson River, my new found love. I wish they moved all the good stuff on the east side to the west side---by that I mean all the museums on the east side. All the really good ones are on the East Side, luckily not as far as the east river. I went to the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum up at 91st. As part of some art event in NYC, admission was free and being the scrounger I am for cheap entertainment and freebies, I went! It came highly recommended by a Seattle friend. It's a very cool place.......the building itself is a wonderful historical landmark, probably several hundred years old, and the contents of the museum are all modern innovations for everything imaginable--fashion, furniture, transportation, housing, jewelry, engineering, cities, etc. Very cool and very clear that the place to be is in the Scandanavian countries--they have the most exhibits in the museum and are very advanced in their thinking for ecological salvation for all of us---thank GOD for the Scandanavians!
After the C-HNDM and my walk along the UGLY east river, I went to Sotheby's auction house because they were having a FREE exhibit of a collection they put together themed after Dante's Inferno. They had three exhibit rooms representing works that were grouped as representing hell, purgatory, and heaven. It was spectacular. The art pieces ranged across time (modern abstract to classical) and included paintings, sculpture, etc. There was one REALLY DISTURBING modern sculpture piece that looked like a representation of the worst psychotic hallucination...it was a collection of naked child mannequins with penises for noses and vaginas that joined various parts of their bodies and other really bizarre juxtapositions of genitalia and these child mannequins. I got into a rather thought provoking conversation with the security guard there. I asked him what was it like to have to stare at something like that for hours on end. He really got into telling me how he could not possibly see how this could be called ART and that they were all a bunch of kooks for buying and selling such crap. (Everyone's a critic!) He then took the conversation in a direction of telling me his experience in meeting an "in process" transexual in a bar and how he didn't want to get into a "dualing sword" situation with this person so told herm that he could only be friends. He then went on to say how this is happening EVERY DAY that men are becoming women and did anyone really sit down and ask them if they really wanted to cut their "swords" off. I think these poor guards are ABSOLUTELY STARVED for conversation, just standing around all day having to guard things they could not care less about. I would not be able to do their job or the job where people stand as human billboards for various companies. They have a work ethic that goes way beyond mine ever could go. So it was quite a fun time at Sotheby's! I highly recommend it as a FREE outing to see some really great and highly conversation starting artwork.
We had our first dinner party in our new home......Bob had a couple of his colleagues and their wives over for dinner. We made a selection of Indian curries and accompanying dishes. Despite our apartment kitchen being about a quarter of the size of our Seattle house kitchen, we managed to work well together preparing the dinner. In our old house we could easily sit 8 to 10 people with all the food on the table. Here we managed to squeeze six of us around the table and all the food had to be dished out in the kitchen off the stove. It was funny in that Bob had mentioned that we had such a smaller place to entertain than what we had in Seattle. OtO (one of our guests--who I only realized that night is Egyptian thus making him being an Oracle even WAY COOLER) stated that size is all relative and he has a right to talk. He and his wife just recently moved from a two bedroom two bathroom apartment that was 375 square feet (yes, non-NYC dwellers, you read that right, NYC archictects managed to squeeze 2 bdrms and 2 bthrms and a living room and kitchen into that tiny of square footage!) They now live in a spacious 975 square foot coop!
Our other guest and his wife gave us a terrific handy dandy compact book titled NFT (Not For Tourists) Guide to New York City. It breaks the whole city down to very specific sections, provides great tips on what all is going on in each neighborhood (culture, food, shopping, parks, etc) with maps, short descriptions of highlights, transportation, directions, etc, etc as experienced by the locals. I think it is going to become my new bible, especially when Paul gets here to visit. Such a great gift for newcomers to the CITY. They also brought some great Jacques Torres chocolates and tipped us to Magnolia Bakery cupcakes. Haven't gotten there yet to try them but I did spend time on the internet checking them out---one of my many frittering time internet explorations. I will take my niece there when she and her husband and baby come to visit in early December.
We were in CA last week visiting family with very intermittant internet access so that also explains some of why the entries have been few and far between lately. I just noticed (or one just opened recently) a hole in the wall pizza place at the END OF OUR BLOCK---with 99 cent plain cheese pizza slices-----They provide the extras--Italian seasoning, hot pepper flakes, and parmesan to doctor it up. It's actually pretty good with all the FREE extras on it----------DANGEROUS!!!!!!! I gotta watch myself in this town lest I go from a floating balloon to a giant hot air BLIMP!
Okay, enough for today.......this brings us up to date. Trying out Sardi's Friday night with colleagues in town for the AACAP meeting--it's a little corny but it is quintessential NYC and I would have gone at some point anyway, besides we couldn't get into any of the really good restaurants, looks like you have to reserve any of those well in advance. If the storm this week doesn't blow all the leaves off the trees and continue into the weekend, Bob and I are going to hopefully take a drive to see some of the remaining Fall foliage along the Hudson Valley and maybe into Connecticut or Vermont. Cheers everyone, I now need to get busy doing something I actually have a deadline to meet-------a little grounding and stress here and there can be a good thing!
So I think I mentioned that I went to Gracie Mansion but what was most significant about that outing was that I finally made it to the other shore of Manhattan island. I finally got as east as to walk along the East River. It's UGLY over there..........at least on the Upper Eastside where I was roaming that day. Not really worth the walk across town especially after being SPOILED by the beauty and sereneness of the Hudson River, my new found love. I wish they moved all the good stuff on the east side to the west side---by that I mean all the museums on the east side. All the really good ones are on the East Side, luckily not as far as the east river. I went to the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum up at 91st. As part of some art event in NYC, admission was free and being the scrounger I am for cheap entertainment and freebies, I went! It came highly recommended by a Seattle friend. It's a very cool place.......the building itself is a wonderful historical landmark, probably several hundred years old, and the contents of the museum are all modern innovations for everything imaginable--fashion, furniture, transportation, housing, jewelry, engineering, cities, etc. Very cool and very clear that the place to be is in the Scandanavian countries--they have the most exhibits in the museum and are very advanced in their thinking for ecological salvation for all of us---thank GOD for the Scandanavians!
After the C-HNDM and my walk along the UGLY east river, I went to Sotheby's auction house because they were having a FREE exhibit of a collection they put together themed after Dante's Inferno. They had three exhibit rooms representing works that were grouped as representing hell, purgatory, and heaven. It was spectacular. The art pieces ranged across time (modern abstract to classical) and included paintings, sculpture, etc. There was one REALLY DISTURBING modern sculpture piece that looked like a representation of the worst psychotic hallucination...it was a collection of naked child mannequins with penises for noses and vaginas that joined various parts of their bodies and other really bizarre juxtapositions of genitalia and these child mannequins. I got into a rather thought provoking conversation with the security guard there. I asked him what was it like to have to stare at something like that for hours on end. He really got into telling me how he could not possibly see how this could be called ART and that they were all a bunch of kooks for buying and selling such crap. (Everyone's a critic!) He then took the conversation in a direction of telling me his experience in meeting an "in process" transexual in a bar and how he didn't want to get into a "dualing sword" situation with this person so told herm that he could only be friends. He then went on to say how this is happening EVERY DAY that men are becoming women and did anyone really sit down and ask them if they really wanted to cut their "swords" off. I think these poor guards are ABSOLUTELY STARVED for conversation, just standing around all day having to guard things they could not care less about. I would not be able to do their job or the job where people stand as human billboards for various companies. They have a work ethic that goes way beyond mine ever could go. So it was quite a fun time at Sotheby's! I highly recommend it as a FREE outing to see some really great and highly conversation starting artwork.
We had our first dinner party in our new home......Bob had a couple of his colleagues and their wives over for dinner. We made a selection of Indian curries and accompanying dishes. Despite our apartment kitchen being about a quarter of the size of our Seattle house kitchen, we managed to work well together preparing the dinner. In our old house we could easily sit 8 to 10 people with all the food on the table. Here we managed to squeeze six of us around the table and all the food had to be dished out in the kitchen off the stove. It was funny in that Bob had mentioned that we had such a smaller place to entertain than what we had in Seattle. OtO (one of our guests--who I only realized that night is Egyptian thus making him being an Oracle even WAY COOLER) stated that size is all relative and he has a right to talk. He and his wife just recently moved from a two bedroom two bathroom apartment that was 375 square feet (yes, non-NYC dwellers, you read that right, NYC archictects managed to squeeze 2 bdrms and 2 bthrms and a living room and kitchen into that tiny of square footage!) They now live in a spacious 975 square foot coop!
Our other guest and his wife gave us a terrific handy dandy compact book titled NFT (Not For Tourists) Guide to New York City. It breaks the whole city down to very specific sections, provides great tips on what all is going on in each neighborhood (culture, food, shopping, parks, etc) with maps, short descriptions of highlights, transportation, directions, etc, etc as experienced by the locals. I think it is going to become my new bible, especially when Paul gets here to visit. Such a great gift for newcomers to the CITY. They also brought some great Jacques Torres chocolates and tipped us to Magnolia Bakery cupcakes. Haven't gotten there yet to try them but I did spend time on the internet checking them out---one of my many frittering time internet explorations. I will take my niece there when she and her husband and baby come to visit in early December.
We were in CA last week visiting family with very intermittant internet access so that also explains some of why the entries have been few and far between lately. I just noticed (or one just opened recently) a hole in the wall pizza place at the END OF OUR BLOCK---with 99 cent plain cheese pizza slices-----They provide the extras--Italian seasoning, hot pepper flakes, and parmesan to doctor it up. It's actually pretty good with all the FREE extras on it----------DANGEROUS!!!!!!! I gotta watch myself in this town lest I go from a floating balloon to a giant hot air BLIMP!
Okay, enough for today.......this brings us up to date. Trying out Sardi's Friday night with colleagues in town for the AACAP meeting--it's a little corny but it is quintessential NYC and I would have gone at some point anyway, besides we couldn't get into any of the really good restaurants, looks like you have to reserve any of those well in advance. If the storm this week doesn't blow all the leaves off the trees and continue into the weekend, Bob and I are going to hopefully take a drive to see some of the remaining Fall foliage along the Hudson Valley and maybe into Connecticut or Vermont. Cheers everyone, I now need to get busy doing something I actually have a deadline to meet-------a little grounding and stress here and there can be a good thing!
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
On Becoming a New Yorker
I was told by a couple of my blog followers to add any new entry as a new post so that they get alerts that a new entry is available for viewing. This is in lieu of my first approach of updating within old posts. So I will try this and see if it works better for folks. So in an effort to dress in uniform like the legions of NYC women I also bought what I call a booty cover, which is essentially a bandeau of a black skirt that covers my backside enough so that I don't have to buy a dozen new sweaters and can just wear my own favorite sweaters when I wear my leggings and boots. When I modeled the "look" for Bob, he thought it looked very NYC, so hopefully I don't just wind up looking like a dork. The other thing that has become quite evident as I walk and walk and walk the city, my right foot is definitely bigger than my left foot.......never noticed before because I wasn't walking nearly as much as I do now, so had to take a couple of boots into be stretched. Once I collect those back, I am really ready to rock the legging and boot look.
I also felt it my duty to go check out the mayor's digs and took a stroll around Gracie Mansion. From what I could see of it, it wasn't that impressive. It's a historical landmark and all but really, I would have thought the mayor would have a more impressive residence. Maybe it's better on the inside. The park that it is in is very nice so that's a plus.
I also felt it my duty to go check out the mayor's digs and took a stroll around Gracie Mansion. From what I could see of it, it wasn't that impressive. It's a historical landmark and all but really, I would have thought the mayor would have a more impressive residence. Maybe it's better on the inside. The park that it is in is very nice so that's a plus.
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