Autumn in New York

This fall there's been biking in the city,

and fishing in the country,

and pumpkin beer,

lots of pumpkin beer.

Rooftop Farm

Mmmmmm, kale...

with a view at a rooftop farm near our house.

The New York Botanical Garden

Welcome to the Bronx.

You didn't know it looked like this, did you? I didn't either. We went to the New York Botanical Garden to see their Edible Garden exhibit.

I liked this idea for a vegetable garden design:

Another design idea I loved, but didn't get a good photo of, was growing corn in a (huge) container along with peas or another climbing plant so the climber could use the corn as a support. We are definitely growing some corn next summer in our garden.

I also liked this idea for pruning (training?) an apple tree along a fence--easy picking!

This lotus was part of a beautiful exhibit of aquatic plants.

After the gardens we walked to the Little Italy of the Bronx, along Arthur Avenue, which was rumored to be waaaay better than the Little Italy section of Manhattan. We had a good dinner at an Italian restaurant, but my favorite place was the Madonia Brothers Bakery, where they fill your cannolis while you wait. If this place was in our neighborhood I would be in big trouble.

Next up will be some photos of our garden. It is doing well, thanks to Erik, who watered for us while we were on the Outer Banks.

Summer Solstice II

After yoga in Times Square I continued to celebrate the summer solstice at Brouwerij Lane, Greenpoint's finest beer store. They were a part of Make Music New York, a huge city-wide event where 850+ bands played in parks and public spaces. Brouwerij Lane hosted six different bands. Originally the music was supposed to take place on the sidewalk because I think Make Music New York is all about filling the streets with music, but the rain came back and everything was moved indoors. The music still went on all afternoon. I caught the last two bands.

Guess who designed and printed the poster? Find out here.

Summer Solstice

To celebrate the summer solstice I went to Times Square to participate in Mind over Madness Yoga. Throughout the day there were several free yoga classes held in Father Duffy Square. I received a flyer about the event in the mail weeks ago and signed up right away for one of the classes, all of which soon filled up. 

Chris thought it was crazy, and over the weeks leading up to today I wondered if I would really have fun doing this. Not to mention it has rained about 17 of the 21 days of June, which has made it difficult to be motivated to do anything. We woke up to another rainy day, and the forecast didn't look good. In the event information the organizers explained that participating would involve rolling out my yoga mat on concrete, and it would be held rain or shine. 

So if it rained I figured I could end up doing yoga in a puddle on the street. I seriously thought about staying home. But I headed to Times Square anyway. This was what it looked like before the class started.

The class was Bikram yoga, which I'd never done before. Bikram yoga is usually done in a hot room. When we started the class it was cloudy and kind of chilly, but as we got going the sun finally came out and it warmed up. I can't say that I liked the Bikram style, but doing a class that was so different from my usual yoga classes seemed to fit the circumstances. It also helped me to concentrate on yoga in the middle of Times Square because I was learning something new. 

When the instructor came out he stripped down to teeny leopard-print shorts, which was a little unfortunate because I'm sure it helped to convince the onlookers that yoga is for weirdos. But I let go of my own assumptions about the instructor and the Bikram style and really enjoyed the class.  

After the class we were treated to live music and samples of Rachel's Wickedly Delicious yogurt. 

It was super easy to keep up a yoga practice on the Outer Banks, with the great instructors at the Outer Banks YMCA, Outer Banks Yoga and the constant connection I felt with the natural environment. I wondered if I would enjoy yoga here in New York. I've been happy to find a new yoga community at the Greenpoint YMCA in our neighborhood that isn't really much different from the Outer Banks yoginis and yogis. I really wanted to do this event because I thought it would be the perfect expression of my belief that I can bring yoga with me wherever I go. And it was. 

At one point during the class I looked up and realized that we were right in front of a McDonald's. It was two-stories high and I could see people sitting inside eating and looking down at us doing yoga, and I thought, well that's a good reason to be out here too. 

Find more photos here.

When I'm Too Excited About Arugula to Notice Anything Else

How did I go to the farmer's market today and not notice that this was also happening in the park? 

I'll have to head back tomorrow for some shopping. 

Another recent discovery is this park on the East River. It isn't exactly in our neighborhood, but the walk isn't too bad. And there's sand there. No lie. And the view looks like this:

A Garden in Brooklyn

I've been gardening away in our little backyard. I've been planting seeds, pulling weeds, watering, fertilizing, and transplanting little tomato and cucumber seedlings up to larger containers. We're not planting our vegetables in the ground because Greenpoint is on top of an oil spill. Apparently our neighborhood is a Superfund site. Although that kind of sounds like a good thing, because it has the word "super" in it, it's not because it means that we're on a national priorities list of hazardous waste sites. Yippeee! Seriously, I saw a map once and our apartment isn't right on top of the spill, but better safe than sorry. 

For a wasteland, the soil is fabulous! After planting seeds once the chance of frost had passed (not that long ago), we're finally seeing some results. Hopefully the following will serve as the "before" shots and I'll have photos of blooms to share in the summer. 

The sunflowers are off to a good start. 

The Hyacinth bean vine is just starting to take off. I was unsuccessful with my first planting, but then I discovered the trick to germination is soaking the seeds for 24 hours prior to planting. 

My favorite are the nasturtiums, which seem to love New York so far. When I grew these in North Carolina they did much better with a little shade, and really took off when it cooled off in the fall. 

Before we moved in our landlady had planted the garden with some rose bushes, shrubs, and an evergreen tree. After we moved in she planted a few more roses for us and they are all doing well and about to bloom. Here's one of the established rose bushes. 

I've really been working hard on the garden, and I was ready to take all the credit for the results when the vine next door started to bloom. The lot next door to ours was obviously tended to by a gardener at some point. There are containers lining the fence and a garden plot that must have been carefully cared for once. But the only human activity I've seen over there has been limited to a smoke break or mop bucket emptying by one of the Yummy Taco (a terrible restaurant around the corner on Manhattan Ave.) employees. So my pride in my work was really put to shame when this showed up next door. 

Hey Ya'll

I haven't been saying ya'll much in New York, I guess. The locals don't cotton to it. I don't cotton to the way the locals say they are having a BBQ when they mean they are having a cook-out. Cooking a few hot dogs on a grill doesn't equal this. So there. 

So I'm working now, which is great. Money! A sense of purpose! A place to go during the day! A more comfortable desk chair than I have at home! Loss of free time is not so great but thus was always thus. Lately I've been spending my free time producing a hacking cough, but I hope to be rid of it soon. 

See what my talented husband has been up to right here and here. (He did the designing and the beer pouring as well.) 

More later. 

Love, 

Lee 

Hip Hip Hooray!

Guess who starts her new job on Monday? Me! 

Our first Nor Nor'easter

A nor'easter ripped up the east coast this week and for us that meant waking up on Monday morning to about six inches of snow. This was the view from our back door.

(By the way, check out our neighbor's new fence on the balcony behind our shed. We saw them working on it, and for a day or so we watched nervously and wondered if they were going to put up a solid wood fence. They had the power to block out, oh, half of our sunlight if they did. Thankfully they went with chain-link!) 

The wind was blowing the snow around, so it was piled high in some spots like here on our picnic table. 

It was funny to have a nor'easter bring snow instead of rain, 40mph winds, and beach erosion. You know, like the one that came through the Outer Banks the week before our wedding and had me glued to my computer constantly updating Saturday's forecast. 

Feed a Cold

This has been the scene around our house for the last few days. Only we both have the man cold, and there is no one else around to be the voice of reason. Today we sniffled and sneezed our way through Polish class. (It seems like almost everyone else we encounter is sniffling also, can this be possible?) The nose blowing and sneeze-blocking kept me distracted from asking "Why? Why are we learning Polish, why?" At lunch I was reminded of the answer: the bigos, oh, the bigos. 

Birthday Party

Party on the top floor in East Harlem. I wonder if this is the urban equivalent of tying balloons to your mailbox. 

Happy New Year!

Last Sunday we got to Chinatown just in time to see the tail end of the New Year's dragon dances. We got caught up in Soho shopping at Uniqlo. We celebrated Chinese New Year with an early dinner at Great New York Noodletown, where we looked around and were convinced that everyone else was eating something better than what we ordered. Next time we will know better. We'll order the Chinese broccoli (which isn't listed anywhere on the menu, but everyone except us was eating it) and the salt baked shrimp (which is actually fried). 

What a day off looks like

This must be what a day off looks like for our neighbor. Shirts courtesy of Yummy Taco. YT is another reason I'm not sorry to be cooking at home. 

Saved!

I accomplished an important step in relocating today: I found a place to get a haircut. And I like it. But maybe one day I'll go here, just for the window decorations. 

Gwenyth

Who knew Gwyneth Paltrow had a blog?

Snowy Skyline

Our view of Manhattan on a snowy day. 

StoryCorps

Tonight we went to see the founder of StoryCorps, a huge oral history project, at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. You may have heard some of the stories on NPR. All across America, StoryCorps invites people to come to a StoryCorps sound booth and bring someone they care about to interview. 

The surprising part was that some of the people whose recordings we listened to were present. The founder invited them on stage to speak. There was Annie, of Danny and Annie. Mary read her story in person. We heard this story about a Sunday school teacher named Miss Divine. (If there is a better name for a Sunday school teacher I'd like to hear it. Didn't think so.) This New York city bus driver got up and said a few words after his segment was played. And just in case you aren't crying yet, this was my favorite StoryCorps recording that I heard a while ago on NPR. 

The Smallest Christmas Tree Ever

So this is our first Christmas together and I thought we needed a tree, or a wreath, or something. We went to a studio sale in Williamsburg (Brooklyn, not Colonial) on Saturday to pick up some White Bike Ceramics* that our family and friends gave us as wedding presents. The studio sale was a combination of a few artists, and we found this pot with the smallest, most perfect Christmas tree ever. 

It is a Norfolk Island Pine. I think the artist did a great job, not only with the pot, but he planted it and added moss on top of the soil and also added a couple of teeny pine cones. We brought it home and I decorated it with the wedding cupcake topper turned Christmas ornaments that Lori made for us. 

Christmas decorating--done. 

As predicted, our streak of good luck is broken, among other things. The heat in our apartment is broken, and will be until Wednesday. (Don't worry Mom--our very nice landlady brought us an electric heater which is keeping us from freezing.) Also, this morning the toaster broke. It had a Pop Tart logo on it, so it wasn't a stalwart toaster or anything, no huge loss there. There is a family joke about my fastidious Great Uncle Henry setting out to buy a toaster and researching toasters for at least a year before deciding on a brand and model. No small feat, considering he was most certainly not using the internet, but instead searching back issues of Consumer Reports. The punch line? My parents just happened to own the winning make and model toaster. 

*I'll be posting soon about the beautiful porcelain dishes that Lauren is making for us. In the meantime, check out her lovely website.

 

I Should Have Known

Of the 15 channels we can tune in on our television using rabbit ears, 3 are in Spanish. I knew I should have paid attention during those 4 years of Spanish in high school. If I had I could be enjoying watching Clint Eastwood's En la Linea de Fuego right now.