the big apple

this is a bit from our boat tour of manhattan. the tour guide reminded me of frankie avalon if he never made it in show business...

subwoofer

The other day, Dave and I had one of those weird New York experiences. We decided to meet in Manhattan - Dave was studying at NYU and I had just gotten home from school. It was a Friday night.

One of the gifts that I received when I left Chicago was a dual membership to the Guggenheim. The first Friday of each month, members can get into the museum for free and they stay open late. Nifty, we thought. Let's go. But first, let's meet in midtown (a.k.a Times Square-ish), look at the Christmas decorations, then dinner, then museum. I keep thinking that New York just isn't that cold.

In the bitter, frigid air we searched for Bergdorf Goodman...this block, no....this block...no. Oh. Here's Bergdorf Goodman. These windows are so lame. But wait! Rockefeller Center and the looming, glistening, mammoth tree and lots and lots of people with "I heart New York" T-shirts stretched over their jackets! We stuck around for the light show projected onto Saks Fifth Ave. It was totally worth Dave's acid dance...make sure you watch until the end.




So after the family-friendly fun, Dave and I took a cab to the Guggenheim and arrived to see a line around the block. At first glance, it seemed like hordes of posh, young New Yorkers...perhaps celebrities. Leaning in and squinting, it was clear this was a group of tourists from Tennessee and the Ukraine wearing new outfits. I was wearing a huge wool coat, cardigan, a thrift store dress over pants and pinchy boots, but with our member cards, we were swept into the museum past the line. We were easily the oldest people there and wandered around the portraits of transgender people and performance artists and giggled.

thank you parents

Dinner on our extra dining room table shoved into the living room, between the TV and the couch. No matching plates, paper napkins, only a couple of wine glasses, but lots of wine.


The parents came in droves for Thanksgiving. I was the most thankful that Dale and Mom didn't wear matching Cubs hoodies.

This one, on a boat tour around Manhattan, goes a little like this..."Dave? What's that tall building with lots of windows next to the tall one with less windows? Have you been there?"

Dave and his mom singing together. Adorable.
A cold, cold walk in Prospect Park. I mistakenly thought
I had thick skin from Chicago and wore only a trench coat.
We went to a wine bar, one of the best pizza places in Brooklyn, a cabaret show sung in five languages, gliding around Manhattan on a boat, and walking through Bryant Park. It was family bonding at its finest. And we got a Christmas tree with tinsel.

i'm supposed to be doing report cards.

wait until the camera sniff at the end

under the sea

From inside my apartment I can hear the cars and trucks driving on the BQE. Sometimes I can imagine that the gentle, but consistent whoosh is the sound of ocean waves coming ashore. When I try to sleep at night, the sound creeps in through a small crevice above the window...where the sash doesn't meet the frame. The sound washes over me as I try to muffle it out with talk radio. The jabber of late night news in an exaggerated monotone, crackling on top of the sea.

Sometimes I can hear children shouting in the courtyard behind my kitchen and I wonder if they are swimming in the water...isn't it late? Are they dreaming or playing? Shouldn't they be curled up in pajamas, teeth brushed, eyes closed?

The backyard garden, in the courtyard, is full of drifting leaves and vines, swaying in the wind like sea anemones, seaweed. Some yards and patios have little rusty grills or white plastic chairs like relics at the bottom of the ocean. If you close your eyes and listen you can hear groups of men bursting out together, cheering, booing. Pirates?

halloween

Halloween in New York is kinda crazy. Not like driving through Chicago, dodging illegal fireworks set off by cops or drifting in and out of clouds of smoke in Humbuldt Park. No, in New York, it is a wildly celebrated holiday - costumes everywhere, huge parades, businesses giving out candy, drunk and bald kids going to raves (yes.....raves! people still GO to raves). We started out the evening very innocently. Dave and I threw together costumes - farmer and engineer- and took the train to Park Slope. I teach in Park Slope and every year there is a parade on 7th Ave. I was like, oh cute...I'll see my students and they'll be all happy that I'm dressed up as an engineer. Dave and I climb out of the subway into a mass of bedazzles and face paint, strollers decorated as little blobby newborns slump over in costume, and giant, awkward inanimate objects, like sandwiches, walking down the street. This isn't a simple, oh-how-cute-parade. This is a major, everyone in Brooklyn, insane, drum circle extravaganza.

Well, ok....where do I go? Down the block? Near the school where big kids are having shaving cream fights? Back home? So I see one of my students retreating with his dad because the parade is starting and it's too loud. Daaaaaaad...he says when they stop to talk to me. Dave and I stand and watch....I don't know why I thought I would be able to recognize any of my first graders. I finally see another student and she is so excited, it makes it all worth it. Her dad captures my first ridiculously happy expression. After spending an hour standing there regretting my totally lame costume, we decide to get dinner.

Let's fast forward to hours and hours and hours later. After dinner and drinks, Lauren's Halloween party and more drinks.... We are standing on a street corner for, what seemed to me to be all night, but I'm sure was only a little while. If I closed one eye and squinted with the other, I could figure out where the cabs were. Here we go. Instantly asleep in the cab, wake up - where are we? The TV in the cab was playing the news over and over again. Mute it. Not home. Wow....I feel really, really gross. Keep eyes closed. It's ok. Breathe. Not a big deal. Wait......waaaiiiittt....Stop the cab! Stop the cab! Open the door.

I'll let you imagine the rest. It was lovely.

day to night

In New York it is not unusual to go out right after work....to a restaurant, the ymca, a bar. It's just not worth it to trek home, then turn around and go back out again. Expensive and time consuming. Due to this web of public transportation, people bring stuff with them wherever they go. Umbrellas - just in case, jacket - just in case, map - just in case.....oh wait, don't forget the waiting list for a locker at the y that's three years long! Bring your gym bag to work, then to the y, then back home. My classroom doesn't have a computer...better bring the laptop to get stuff done at school! And lunch....and bring back the tupperware later. Travel mug? Stop and get groceries? Library books?

It's fun to carry this stuff around all night. Especially Fridays when you're in it for the long haul. And let's not forget about the whole day-to-night wear. I always thought this was so weird when I read about it in magazines - 'For a nighttime look, throw on a string of pearls and a cropped jacket!' Why not 'Just go home and change?' Well....not here.

I am a teacher. I wear sensible shoes. Sometimes I wear overalls. People in New York City do not wear overalls. People certainly don't wear sensible shoes. We're meeting your friends for drinks in the city at 7:00? I'm still at work and it's 6:00? Wearing a cardigan and khakis and a ponytail and sensible shoes? And carrying a laptop, gym bag, leftover lunch, travel mug, purse, raincoat, gourds for my class, and covered in cat hair? Jesus.

lice are gross

There is a woman in Brooklyn who sits in her kitchen and picks nits out of the hair of children. Children with lice that go to my school. If I get lice, I am totally going to the nit picker.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE2DC1E39F937A35751C1A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

garden jewel

you really can't get the full experience without watching this...

misc

kids sliding down a cement stairwell in harlem
brooklyn bridge & waterfall
this is just funny. say it out loud.

free decomposed plant matter

hot dirt

New York City collects fallen leaves and scoops them into piles to form compost and then gives it away free to residents. Dave and I decided to take a drive to the Bronx to fill up containers with hot dirt and lug it back to Brooklyn. We were surrounded by steaming piles of compost and had only ten minutes to fill up our tubs. It was the richest compost I've ever seen.

I always thought getting compost in Chicago was kind-of a pain. You know, get the bags at Home Depot, lift them onto your cart, lift them into your car, dump them into the backyard. Inevitably one tears and you have dirt chunks everywhere. Well, imagine that you have a backyard, but you can't get to it from the first floor....there is no back entrance, no alley. You bring giant tubs of compost up to the second floor, through the apartment and back down the stairs into the backyard. Dave's got eighty five pounds on me and I was having flashbacks to our move from Chicago. Lift here, easy, easy....wait....raise it up higher, oh no! the bag is ripping! shit - piggie got out, dirt is all over the entranceway, can't see the stairs, hold on....ok, got it. I'm not that good at helping

must see!!! virtual apartment tour!! cozy! a handyman's dream!! pets welcome!

target

By popular demand....here is my very first blogless post:

I guess it really isn't considered travel tips if you live somewhere - but I thought I would give my sound advice to those of you who would like to visit New York and are inclined to go to Target in Brooklyn.

1. Make sure you decide to drive the mile and a half - it's actually quite close, but you never know how much you'll think about in the bumper to bumper traffic.
2. Get lost.
3. It's two levels - and you won't know where anything is, so go up and down the escalator a lot
4. People like to read at Target in Brooklyn - on the sample furniture. College students in rumpled clothes - perhaps to escape their roomates? Yes, they sit around and read.
5. Formulate a question...such as "Do you have those carts? You know, the kind that you carry laundry or groceries in? The kind that grama's use? They fold up...have wheels? Do you know where those are?" and ask many different employees - trust each one and search in sporting goods, home storage, luggage, kitchen stuff and laundry supplies. No carts. If i'm sending you this email, you are most likely from the midwest (or just NICE) and you will be polite - that doesn't really help.
6. That's another good point - Brooklyn is really, really big and this is the only Target. Plan on interacting with A LOT of people and be prepared....most of the stuff that you came here to buy will be out of stock.
7. Buy everything and wheel the cart out of the store. There will be a cop there who won't let you bring stuff to your car. Go get the car.
8. $7 parking!
9. Drive around, put on flashers and walk in to get the cart from the cop. There will be a few men standing there - don't worry, these are not target employees! They will "help" you push your cart out to the car and you'll need to pay them a couple of bucks.
10. Don't forget to find parking in the neighborhood and lug all of your shit down the block and up the stairs.

not recent and not in new york

Gracie is one of my mom's golden retrievers and she doesn't like to swim. Dave and I took her to the dog beach in Chicago during the summer. She's so damn cute. I want a dog.

chris moore

If you have ever met my dad, then you know he is a genuinely charismatic man. Jovial in a fat-free way. Congenial. Chatty.

My dad will be driving his bubbly 1949 Ford down the street in Libertyville, Illinois and with one choppy little salute out the window, ten neighbors are calling his name. He's a marathon runner with tons of energy. He also works in New York so I have hung out with him in Manhattan a number of times. He knows a lot of the locals...bodega managers, deli workers, bartenders, hotel clerks. Each time I go anywhere with my dad - and this is true even when I was a child - he talks to people.

Standing on an escalator at the airport he'll comment about how heavy someone's luggage looks. Waiting for an elevator, he'll ask if he can have a sip of someone's starbucks and chuckle. Going through the line at the grocery store and he's already telling somebody all about his kids in college....and oh! This is Kimmie....she's a first grade teacher, yeah...(laughs)...those little rugrats. It's amazing how complete strangers smile and joke with my dad - especially in the middle of the biggest city in the world.

Years ago, I used to roll my eyes and step back a few feet. Or I might have tugged on his sleeve....daaaaaad. Later on, I could settle down, knowing I was in it for the long haul. All of my siblings do this.

And then.....one day, all alone in NYC, I found myself making eye contact with some woman at H&M....wanting desperately to ask her opinion on a purse. Then I'm walking down the street on Rosh Hashana and I can feel myself ready to say 'Happy New Year!' to total strangers. Or even just waiting in line at the bagel place - I just want to turn to the person next to me and chuckle, 'Ha....bagels. They are so good!'. I have very few inhibitions about joking with old ladies behind the counter at the post office or telling the heavy lidded hipster behind the counter at the coffee shop that I've been 'locked out again! can you believe it?'
It's insane.

catskills wedding

We went to a wedding this past weekend next to the Hudson River. It was amazing...

1. The bride wore a gold dress and a feathered headdress.
2. The weather was perfect.
3. The best nyc r&b/funk band played.
4. At dusk, while playing old shoegazer, they set off fireworks. Yes.....huge, fourth-of-July-style fireworks. It was so cool.

blob

So last night I was running out to go to the grocery store for some dinner stuff....I was thinking - how about taco buffet? Refried beans, cut up tomatoes, shredded cheese, sour cream...I even considered hard shell tacos, but they looked supergross in the yellow box. As I was leaving, I noticed that the door didn't really close on it's own. Hmm. Doorknob is not working. Interesting.

I was able to leave eventually by slamming the door while unlocked and locking it from the outside. OK - Dave, it was way too easy for me to break into our apartment last week AND the doorknob is not totally working anymore, so let's use the deadbolt from now on. And call the fucking landlord.

Today I am wandering home from the train after school. It's 6:30. Once again, I climb the stairwell to the second floor, attempt to enter my apartment and I am LOCKED OUT for the second time in one week because I don't have a key to the deadbolt! See attached photo of me eating a salad alone in the local coffee shop while I write my blog. (I think I even have a little blog of goat cheese on my lip....charming).

underwear bag

In New York, if you don't own a washer and drier....you have your laundry 'done'. I was initially opposed to this, because, honestly, I like doing my laundry and laundromats are kinda interesting. Plus, it's a little weird to have someone else washing and folding my clothes. My plan was to do it myself every other time...drop it off, then do it myself, drop it off, do it myself. Well, on a do-it-myself-day, four or five hours and 857 quarters later, I was totally annoyed. Our laundromat is not a "sit down and watch novellas while kids run around and shriek" laundromat. It's more like a "everyone has their laundry 'done' so all of the machines but one are being used by the laundromaters and you need to go home and come back each time you need to switch the load".

So the upside of this is that when we pick up our laundry, the super nice laundromaters have separated our clothes by gender - which is very convenient. But the best part is that they fold all of my underwear into perfect little squares and stick it in a tiny plastic bag.

sweats

Do you ever have one of those days when you wake up at 5:30 and pick out - what you think is - a normal, cute outfit. You get through part of the morning and realize that you are wearing something that is so annoying, totally uncomfortable and now, not cute at all. Now imagine, if you will, that you decide to make it an easy night and leave school at 5 pm instead of 7 pm....all you can think about is changing into sweatpants and drinking a beer. Let's just pretend that you notice - minutes before walking out the door of your classroom - that you inadvertently SENT HOME YOUR HOUSE KEYS WITH ONE OF YOUR FIRST GRADERS.

You know what? Not a big deal. Call the dad....oh, he's in Manhattan? Ok....get the keys tomorrow. Now - call the only other person who has a set of keys. Maybe his phone is dead? Maybe it's turned off because he's in class until 8 pm....won't be home until 9. No problem. This is New York! You have plenty to do. Work, clean up some more, work....take the subway home, wander to a corner store and buy a cheesey magazine, walk slowly to a pizza joint and get a beer, page through....chat with mom on the phone.

9:00....go home. The security door doesn't catch everytime, so let's pretend it's open and you can sit in the hallway on the indoor outdoor carpeting. What if? What if you tried to break into the apartment with a credit card for a half hour and nobody heard or cared? Except maybe piggie who pressed his fat face to the crack at the bottom of the door and cried. It's quite easy to break into an apartment with a credit card, I would think, especially if you had 40 uninterrupted minutes and a need to pee. And all you could think about was sweatpants.

I'm 34

We went out to eat at a shmancy vegetarian restaurant for my b-day and I ordered a "stone fruit sangria" - see attached photo....looks like a fetus, right?

This is piggie and his new friend, carry internet....dave's fat cat. They are in love.

our lovely bathroom

It was late one night and I was awake rearranging furniture for the 85th time. Hot, sticky and covered in cat hair and dust, I needed to take a shower. But wait, let's reminisce...

I am a homeowner. I renovated the bathroom in my house in Chicago. It's cute, clean, white and baby blue. It was not cheap. Now, I am also a renter. Our bathroom in New York is not cute, not clean, not white, and the only thing that's baby blue is the 3x3 bathmat from Ikea.

So there are problems with the bathroom. During our first week back in New York, the downstairs neighbor knocked on the door while Dave was taking a shower and told me that there was water leaking into her bathroom. She called the landlord and about 20 minutes later, the landlord and her husband showed up wearing terry cloth visors and carrying giant cups of bubble tea asking about the leak. With a brief "we'll take care of it ASAP" they were out the door. "Oh - and don't forget to cover that part of the tile wall with a garbage bag," they said.

The following week, nothing fixed, we noticed a large blob forming in the ceiling. Slowly it began to drip into our shower, the dampness spreading across the bathroom ceiling like sweat. Bubbles appeared in the plaster around the shower head, rust stains formed above us. We call the landlords again. They call the plumbers again. Two Danny's and one Tommy later, nothing has been fixed. They walk in, look at the water seeping into the wall, tell us it isn't a plumbing problem and don't come back.

Cut to one month later, I'm in the shower, garbage bag taped to one side of the wall, heavy bubble above my head, a light dusting of mold on the wall. I look up to see a small blob coming out of the ceiling. Not rust, not plaster, not a water bubble. It's a bit like gnochhi, actually, plump and beige with little ridges. I start to think....god, what if this is a larvae? What if this is a weird bug sack - and if I pop it, millions of bugs rain down on me? I get out of the shower, dry off and push on it with the end of a hanger while standing on the toilet. It feels stiff. I'm exhausted and wearing a towel. It's probably nothing. So I go to sleep.

The next morning, I'm moving around more furniture and I hear Dave...Eeeww! What is that? Kim! You gotta see this. I come into the bathroom and it is BIGGER. It is coming out of the ceiling....out of the ceiling and it's bigger. Gross, gross, gross...what is it? Bug sack! Bug sack! Dave stands on the toilet, pushes on it gently - awaiting the deluge of baby spiders.

It snaps cleanly in half. Growing out of our bathroom ceiling is a mushroom.

rockaway beach

I spent hours sitting on a beach on Sunday. In Queens

Dave and his friends share an apartment at Rockaway Beach. The walls are covered in surf boards and the closets filled with wet suits. There is a futon and sleeping bags and no curtains. The fridge is mostly empty and there are six or seven beach towels hanging on the bathroom door. It's a beautiful place, tiny and full of light. The porch is covered in wisteria and a hammock swings right underneath. Just down the street is the ocean.

We spent the night in Rockaway - listening to the hoards of drunks spilling out of the bar next door. We fell asleep watching the olympics, waking up at 3am to turn the TV off during a ping pong match. In the morning, with bagels and coffee we went down to the beach. Dave brought his board and I brought my book. Slathered in sunscreen, I watched the tropical teenagers nearby, all shiny and brown from the summer sun. A mom, missing several teeth and wearing a tight flowered bikini, yelled, "Christopha! Get ovva here! Christopha!" Just in front of me, a rotund man with a tight, round tummy tottered around in the sand on a cell phone, jabbering away in Polish. A family gathered on the other side, buying Italian ice from a vendor with a rolling cooler. The two young boys wore hand-me-down Winnie the Pooh bathing suits, a size too large, Pooh's face sagging in back. Directly above me, a flight path from JFK airport, the belly of planes inches from my face and a deafening sound.

I cautiously tested out the water, the waves pushed my feet and then tried to suck me in. The sand just eroded under my feet, sliding back with the waves. Dave wants me to surf......not ready yet. I am ready to just stand there and walk out until the water hits my waist, thinking about jellyfish and sharks and pee. The water - a little bit cold. Just enough to make me suck in my breath when the waves crash.

When our friends met us at lunchtime, they brought tacos from a place down the street. Cabbage and tofu and avocado and hot sauce, breaded fish for some, pork. Fried plantains and fresh tortillas.

Sandy and salty and a little suburnt, I am happy.