Nora settles in and looks content

"Yeah, this is my new spot! Oh, a couple of days. Why do you ask?" (Sigh)

The Lucille

On Thursday of this week, Kevin's company had a boatride/lunch for the NYC office. Kimberly agreed to go along, meet the colleagues, and eat. It's a good thing she did because attendance was a little light. Anyway, we got some really good views of lower Manhattan. (Note Kevin's windblown hair in the pic above.)




The trip started an hour late because the captain of the boat wasn't there. But he made up for it by taking it nice and slow around Liberty Island so there were lots of photo opportunities. And so here is a pic of a lovely lady...
(What? just one of them is lovely???)




We watched them loading containers onto ships, and wondered about what was in them and where they were going and just how much frickin' stuff it was.

Here is the Long Island equivalent of the famous Hollywood sign, in case you couldn't figure out that it was Long Island. We were less certain about the names of the other islands...Ellis Island was clear, Liberty Island, Roosevelt Island, too, and we think we knew which was Governor's Island. There were some teeny tiny islands, the kind castaways land on, and one had some kind of weather monitoring devices on it.

We were both surprised to see the Pepsi landmark, as we had heard it was being taken down.

We went under a bunch of the East River bridges. I think this one is the Williamsburg Bridge...I remember snapping it because Kevin wanted a picture of the bridge he rides over to work most days (you can kinda see the train in this picture, too). I guess he looks so happy in the picture because he's not on the train going to work?

We almost missed the cake. We knew there was supposed to be a sheet cake, and we kept waiting for the announcement, and waited and waited until Kevin asked a colleague under his breath "hey, I thought there was supposed to be cake" and she told us that yeah, it was downstairs with the food. So 15 minutes before docking we snarfed down some chocolate cake.

Oh, and did we mention that after almost 2 months straight of sunny, hot weather, this trip happened to fall on a drizzly, cold, gray day?

This boat followed in the Lucille's wake for a while. In the background you can see Lady Liberty, and even fuzzier behind that you can see the container boat lading machinery, probably on the NJ side.

We didn't get a photo of the other boats moored at the marina (one is a huge paddleboat that can hold 400 people) or the pontoon airplane that landed and docked there to much interest and surprise by all of us waiting for the tour to begin.

And happily, neither of us got seasick and there were no tidal waves.

Things I Hate

Oh, where to start?

I hate the driver of this vehicle, who tried to run me off the road as I was driving down Metropolitan Avenue. He decided he didn't want to wait his turn because his time is so much more important than everyone else's. So he tried to get by me on the right hand side, and when I didn't give way he went anyway because he had the bigger car and I found myself veering into the oncoming lane. When I spoke to him about it when I caught up with him a bit further up on Metro at a red light, he was a complete dick. His wife, who he probably beats, was properly upset about the situation, but the world would definitely be a better place without him, and I hope he has a massive coronary while sitting in his living room. Soon. Very, very soon.











I hate the business of leaving flyers and other unwanted crap at people's homes. That's a bad business model, and I'll digress to say that one thing I LIKE is that in NYC you can post that you don't want crappy fliers, oops I mean "soliciations", and then they're legally not allowed to leave them. And so I additionally hate what went on in this picture. Really? You couldn't take your stolen cart with you to deliver the crap (for which I hope you get at least minimum wage)? And who exactly did you think would steal said crap that you needed to chain it up? And you chose that defenseless tree instead of the metal signpost just a couple of feet from it because why? Well, the one right thing you did was choose to park it in front of the house where an ancient old lady lives who doesn't have the wherewithall to chastise you about it; if you had parked it in front of my house you would have gotten an earfull. Well, actually, if it hadn't been Kevin who took the pic you would've gotten an earfull anyway.


I also hate when film or TV is shot on location. It's nothing but an inconvenience for the locals, and it doesn't benefit the locals, except maybe the fuckers who are renting out their home or business for inside shots; not even the local food places benefit since they always have that fucking huge catering truck which idles all day. And it's never for anything good. Check out the name of the filming for this one; I'm sure if I watched it I WOULD be Bored to Death.


And I know I've talked about this one before, but let me mention again that I hate oversized trucks. They don't fit, and so instead they terrorize parked cars, cause noisy traffic jams, drive up on curbs, take down tree limbs and stop signs, and are generally motherfuckers because they think their business is more important than doing the right thing. Here are 2 separate trucks, from about a week apart earlier this Spring.



And I also hate having my picture taken when I don't feel like having my picture taken.

Saturdays at McCarren Park

Our Saturday trips to McCarren Park have been important to us over the last few years and we will miss them. I think we will especially miss the terrific Greenmarket. One of the larger markets, it's a bustling place with vendors of veggies, fruit, cheese, grain, mushrooms, dairy and bakery goods, as well as a lot of neighborhood folk. In addition to our friends at Garden of Eve, we always stop at Red Jacket Orchard for their applesauce, Consider Bardwell Farms (goat cheese), and our favorite New Jersey bakery, for strombolis, olive semolina loaf, or pies. Lastly, Ronnybrook Farms for pints of flavorful ice cream and yogurt.

The Greendome is a quiet refuge. You can almost forget you are in the city once you enter and find a corner of your own to sit for a few minutes. And it is cared for by a mysterious guy who says little and keeps the place up to snuff all by himself.

Taxes

We did them. Or I should say she did them and "we" got 'em in. I suspect that in most households the burden of preparing the income tax return falls on one partner--probably the same partner that a lot of other burdens fall on. Thanks, hon.

On this day, we usually hear talk of a "Fair Tax"--an idea that comes around and then fades. I won't get into what our pols do with what was, for a brief time, our $, but my views on this Tax Day are:
--Taxes are way too high
--Taxes are way too high because many do not pay and many do not pay enough
--Fixing the above would bring our individual tax burden down, in my estimation, by a third!

--Everyone should pay something
--Taxes should be fair to all and onerous to none, meaning....
--We should not gouge the rich, but they should pay all they should pay. Let's close loopholes!

--Businesses benefit from what tax dollars go to, so businesses should pay taxes (many don't).
--Offshore investments, main offices in foreign countries, and other dodges need to stop.
--Local incentives to business, in the form of tax waivers, serve no one and are unnecessary.
--Non-profits, charities, the religious--should be on the tax rolls.

As one who did not pay for several years and who found out years later when I became more responsible and late filed that I would have gotten money back all those years, I say: Enforcement serves the common weal.

So...File, bitches!

Organic Village

Glendale has a new place to eat--on Cooper Ave. at the underpass--and believe it or not it is a "raw" restaurant called Organic Village. We stopped in for a smoothie on Sunday afternoon, and it was tastey and energizing. Tonight, we were a little lazy/tired and called in for a delivery. We ordered salad, an enchilada, a taco. Then we called back to add chocolate mousse to our order. Tastey, healthy, but maybe just a little high for our budget. This is a place to watch. A new raw food place would not cause a ripple in Bklyn--But here in Glendale?

A House in Park Slope, Brooklyn

Where were we...

....oh, yeah. We spent late afternoon walking around the neighborhood looking for a possible distribution point for the CSA, and we eventually wound up in Forest Park. Near the bandshell and carousel we took a path to the right and saw a greenhouse. It reminded me of our visit to Coe Hall on Long Island. As we got closer, we saw it was pretty beat up and abandoned. There was one guy standing around outside, smoking, and we figured if we were not supposed to be there....well, he would say something. We stepped through the door, turned this way and then that, and we went room to room as I took some pix.

Some of the rooms were pretty lush with ripe, colorful plants, and others were empty, with just hoses, sinks, and old signs and equipment. Off to the side wasa small alcove, with a chair, a radio, and a newspaper and I imagined we had come on someone's cooping spot. Time passed or it didn't, and then we heard steps and someone came by, said he was locking up, and told us we were not allowed in there. So we started back out the way we came. It is sort of a labyrinth in there. Outside, our quiet and mysterious worker was still smoking and looking off into the distance.