Central Park Behind Skyscrapers

Here's a quick picture from yesterday. I don't go into the city for work much, but the only times that I have it has been to demo software that I'm evaluating for my company. Three of them have been in upper floors of skyscrapers and it's amazing. This picture doesn't do it justice, but this is the 47th floor of a building on 52nd St and 7th Ave. I was able to look out from two different sides of the building, one facing the Hudson and one facing the park. All of it was amazing, but this one is the best picture. I don't know how people in window offices can focus up there. It's too beautiful and distracting for me, so I sat far from the window, transfixed on the ever present computer screen.

commercial armed robbery

Trolley Dodgers

I just found this trolley footage of my street from 1948 (contrary to 30's title on video):



Some baseball history on my grandfather's favorite team to boot: By 1890 New Yorkers (Brooklyn was a separate city until it became a borough in 1898) routinely called anyone from Brooklyn a "trolley dodger," due to the vast network of street car lines criss-crossing the borough then. When the second Washington Park burned down early in the 1891 season, the team moved to nearby Eastern Park, which was bordered on two sides by street car tracks. That's when the team was first called the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers. That was soon shortened to Dodgers (link).

Here's to hoping they make a comeback in Red Hook.

New Rug!

My feet are so grateful. They've been tired of the hard floor, since I threw out my old rug (see previous post).

Pretty red rug! This photo is wide angle and makes the room look almost spacious! I assure you, it's an illusion.

Veggies!!

So exciting. We joined a local CSA and now we pick up fruit and veggies every Tuesday for 22 weeks and it's like Christmas every time. Today was our 3rd week. We share the goods with a friend, Liz, but this week's full veggie share was as follows:
2 cucumbers
4 summer squash
2 kohlrabi
4 garlic rabes
a bunch of snap peas
broccoli
bunch of radishes
bunch of kale
bunch of swiss chard
and 2 quarts of cherries for our fruit share.

Last week we got some turnips (which I've not used yet) and dandilion leaves, and the past two weeks we got strawberries. We've also gotten lettuce and bok choy which made a delicious stir fry.

It's so much fun. And local! And fresh! I caught Kevin putting swiss chard on his veggie burger.

( )

Lately I have been thinking about how all of my CD's are at the bottom of a closet--in a box that's underneath another box. And about how I'm happy with this, listening to records instead. I've thought, "I should just sell them."

...but then I just fished out Sigur Rós's "parenthesis record" -- () -- and I can't help but admire how beautiful it is. Plastic.

5th Ave street fair

There was a street fair/craft festival directly outside our door a couple weeks ago. So fun! There was a "sunshine machine" out in front of our building...which had something to do with soda, and citrus...and when you walked through (it was a big white box the size of a large movable storage POD) there were fluffy yellow boas hanging down, like a mini car-wash. Really confusing.

The craft/artisan part was great - I bought myself a locally made bag. Further down the street, however, (past many, MANY, mouthwatering food booths) I saw things like this:





Oh, and right across from the fancy fixed-up-old-car-display was this super weird (charming?) fixed-up-old-bike-display. (dig the characters walking the streets. Click to enlarge).


Everything you could hope for at a street fair.

This makes me sad.

Let's all kill the earth together.

Cheap Date series

We've started an every-other-week cheap date series, and it's off to a brilliant start. Our second in the series was last night. We took the free Staten Island ferry for some beautiful views of our beloved city. Then we found a dive Mexican joint and had cheap food. So great.

Ack!!

Dog poo in my house. On my favorite chair, which came from the bottom of my sock, which came from a patch of poo on my rug where it was tracked it in from a Brooklyn sidewalk. I removed the chair cover, thoroughly cleaned it, and sterilized my floors and my house. Threw out the rug.

So. no more shoes in the house.

Why do dogs poop all over the sidewalk??? It makes me so crazy. And now it's on my chair. God help me.

I don't understand dogs in the city.

Update: I apologize for ranting like a crazy OCD dog-hater. It's not so much the shoes in the house I have a problem with....it's the possibility (and now the reality!) of things like dog poop on my rug. We now have a lovely welcome mat which people are welcome to use. And I've ordered a new rug! It's pretty and bright and red. I want to roll around and do yoga on it. Here's what it looks like:

my recent craigslist post

before/after/before/after

where:


before:


after:


With regards to both soccer and history, my neighborhood just got rapidly cooler. (click)

numbers

Update: we now have four chairs.

We did have friends over for dinner a few weeks back though and it came to our attention that we only have three full-sized plates. Also, I am working on a desk now and no longer on a keyboard stand!

13 seconds of sound and two photos from life under the ground

- Bulletin from The Blogisphere re: MoMA subway alterations

(And the original as well.)

Subway Piano - Unknown