Now where was I ?????...............

WOW, cannot believe it's been over two weeks since I've entered a new posting. Life has been busy both here and away. Since Janet Jackson, I had the very good fortune to be able to spend an afternoon in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn with the artist, Doug Sefranek.  He's an old friend of an old friend of mine. He actually has made a successful living as a painter since arriving in NYC about 30 years ago. His work is very detailed using a very precise technique of painting with egg tempera and it often takes him well over a year to finish one painting. One of his paintings is hanging in the Metropolitan Museum. He was so generous with his time in showing me his studio and walking me around the neighborhood. He was telling me he has seen so much change over the 30 years he's lived there. The neighborhood has gone from a major danger zone of rampant drug selling and use and major racial tensions to an up and coming hipster haven. Buildings were selling for $10K to $20K back in the day and now are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.  You just had to being willing to take a chance back then, live in a dumpy and dangerous neighborhood, and wait.  It was the artists that brought about the change in Williamsburg with their efforts to find cheaper studio work space and now the rents are going up and pushing them out, same as what happened to them in the East Village. Hanging out with Doug made for a very informative afternoon.

On Friday the 25th, I got complimentary tickets to see the Julienne Moore inspired play, Freckle Face Strawberry.  I took my friend, Margaret, thinking this production would be as good or better than what Seattle Children's Theatre puts on..........what a disappointment. It was really terrible, way over acted, no real story, the singing and dancing was on the amateur side (Sanjaya from American Idol was in this production and he was a weak link in the company). It was rather painful to think about families spending considerable amounts of money to take their kids to this production.  Margaret was a good sport for sitting thru the whole thing with me.  That's the thing about the complimentary tickets, you are obligated to stay for the entire production. We then checked out the spring offerings at the Housing Works thrift store we like to frequent. I found a great print silk skirt for when the weather finally gets warm. We are all so wishing for Spring to really get here. The teasing weather is just torture when the snow returns after a warm day.

Saturday the 26th was a really fantastic day. We celebrated along with the rest of New York state, Maple Syrup weekend.  We drove up the Hudson River Valley about 50 miles or so and visited the Niese Maple Syrup Farm. http://www.niesesmaplefarm.com/ .  It was an absolutely beautiful sunny crisp day. We had a great breakfast (I had french toast and farm made sausage and Bob had the pancakes, both with lots of maple syrup from the farm), learned a lot about the production of maple syrup on this farm and in New York state, visited the goats and chickens, and walked amongst the trees themselves to see them being tapped. We were able to taste maple sap straight from the tree which is essentially water with a very faint maple taste. They burn off 90 percent of the moisture to make it into syrup, even more to make it into sugar. We saw a demonstration of how the Native Americans did it over 300 years ago and how they do it now. It was a really fun outing.  The owner of Niese Farm is 7th generation maple syrup farmer and some of the trees have been tapped for over 300 years.  He talked about the current dangers to maple trees because of pests and pollution and how they are trying to overcome those problems with natural methods.  We learned that only 1% of all maple trees are tapped for syrup in NY state yet they are the #1 maple syrup producing state and are only second to Canada for maple syrup production. He commented that Vermont just really knows how to market themselves for their maple syrup. There was another maple syrup farmer there and both of these farmers commented that no one in their right mind would be a maple syrup farmer as it is so labor intensive and if it wasn't for family ties, they doubt they would be doing it now.  Of course after this short intro to the business, Bob thinks he knows everything there is to know about producing maple syrup and thinks we should buy a grove of maple trees and make our own syrup. 

Chickens at the Niese's farm

Different types for maple tree taps

The modern process of creating syrup from sap

Modern vacuum suction for drawing out the maple sap

centuries long method of burning off the sap water to make the syrup

Centuries old method of collecting sap

Niese's farm friendly goats

We then headed to the other side of the Hudson River to check out the Storm King sculpture garden.  I love the Seattle Olympic Sculpture Garden and Storm King is exponentially bigger with over 100 monumental sculptures spread over 500 acres. http://www.stormking.org/thecollection.html . We were so bummed out when we realized that the Center doesn't open til the following weekend.  We were only able to get a glimpse from the road as to what the Center holds. What we saw was definitely enough to make us want to go back and wander the grounds.  The entrance guard was really nice to us and if our timing had been different we might have been able to be let in on the sly. Hopefully we will get back there in April or May.





Once back in the city, we got ready to go see That Championship Season.  I was excited to see this play as I like all the actors performing in it and the play garnered much recognition when first staged. Perhaps my expectations were too high because Bob and I were both underwhelmed by the play. There wasn't much chemistry among the actors, it was hard to know if the play was a drama or comedy. Their seemed to be scenes that should have been drama yet came off (perhaps unintentionally) as comedy. The material was hard to have much sympathy for or feel engaged. I thought Jason Patric had the best performance, then Keifer Sutherland, then Jim Gaffigan.  I thought both Brian Cox and Chris Noth were a big disappointment. Looking back at reviews, I guess others didn't think much of it either. 

On Sunday we went to Queens for our second Satsang there. It was very nice and we are increasingly feeling more comfortable attending.

I had a chnce to get together with my co-workers in the research study I'm involved with. It's always interesting to see where and how others live in NYC.  Rachel lives in the upper westside, a much more quiet and considerably cleaner neighborhood than Hell's Kitchen/West Midtown where we live. Regardless, I still really like where we live. We ate dinner at the Peace Cafe which reminded me alot of a favorite restaurant of mine in Seattle called Thrive. It was nice to have more relaxed interactions with these two women.

I then took off for a week in CA to visit my family for a couple of days then join up with Bob to visit his family and celebrate his mom's 90th birthday. We spent several days in Santa Barbara where Kelly joined us from Seattle. It was so heavenly to be in warm sunny weather. It snowed in NYC while we were there. Spending time with family went well.  My mom is coming out at the end of the month to visit for a week so we are making grand plans for a great visit with her.  We will be pushing her in a wheel chair around NYC and as I walk about the city, I'm trying to imagine how successful that will be. All I know is that we will need to give ourselves plenty of time to get anywhere. I got us tickets to see Billy Elliott, I think she will like that musical. We will be taking a 5 hour bus tour of NYC and a 1 1/2 boat tour of the Manhattan skyline among other things.

Since being back, there was just a lot of details to attend to in getting settled after the trip. It's kind of crazy how busy I am day to day with our lives here and keeping it all on track. I did get my first paycheck from my job.......I joked with Bob that it's good he is the breadwinner because all I am bringing in are the crumbs left after the birds and mice have had their fill. After mapping out all the time I will be either traveling with
upcoming trips (practically one a month and then a 5 week trip to India with Bob in August/September--the first time I can finally accompanying him) and entertaining visitors (at least 4 and possibly 6 by end of the year) over the next several months, it is becoming clearer to me that I could not possibly take on clients or a more involved work position. I can't believe that 7 months has gone by and that Bob is coming up to his first anniversary of employment with Morgan Stanley. The time is just zooming by.

I've been working on managing a portion of the proceeds from our house sale. Bob and I had lunch with Paul Herman who manages an investment firm HIP (Human Impact + Profit) that works with S & P 100 companies to improve their social consciousness.  I recently invested some of the house proceeds through HIP and have also been dabbling in purchasing stock.  Whole Foods has proven to be a good choice and it is looking that way for Costco as well. Tryng to focus my independent stock choices with socially conscious companies.

Tomorrow, I am meeting up with a friend in Soho for the afternoon (an area I've been wanting to explore and experience more) and in the morning buying tickets for the Russian ballet at the Lincoln Center for a couple of performances in July. This is an ongoing passion for Bob who has been doing a lot of reading about Russian ballerinas.

Saturday we will go see the Macy's flower show which is supposed to be pretty spectacular but otherwise the weekend will be pretty low key. We are going to the Jersey Shore (though not THAT Jersey Shore) for a long weekend next weekend. Lots of plans coming up for the next several months so we will be really busy. It's all good. Overall, our lives here continue to be full and satsifying on many levels.