No-see-ums chased us off the pavilion after a while, but not before we got in a solid 45 minutes or so.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
dear gravity, you held me down in this star-lit city
It seemed a little cool for a beach afternoon, so I took a Wawa hazelnut coffee and a package of Tastycake chocolate cupcakes and a book and meandered down to 88th Street pavilion with Sunny.
No-see-ums chased us off the pavilion after a while, but not before we got in a solid 45 minutes or so.
No-see-ums chased us off the pavilion after a while, but not before we got in a solid 45 minutes or so.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
nun's beach
Tonight I was on the phone with my mother, and she was kind of glancing at the Cape May County Herald while she was talking to me, which is the free weekly local paper, and is a beautiful work of small-town art. (See particularly the Spout Off section, which sometimes contains true gems. Also, for the longest time they published the arrest records, which mostly were for public urination. Best one ever: same guy getting arrested for public urination twice in the SAME NIGHT.)
And while reading the Herald, she goes, "Did you know about the Nun's Beach surfing competition?"
There's a convent in Stone Harbor, at 111th Street and the ocean, called Villa Maria by the Sea. It's not actually a convent really -- it's a retreat for nuns from the order Immaculata IHM, and it doesn't have any heat in the buildings, so it's only open during the summertime. The beachfront along its edge has been called Nun's Beach for ages, and there's a designated surfing beach just a block down from it. A few years back, t-shirts that said "Nun's Beach" and had a picture of a nun (in a habit) surfing on the front showed up in surf shops. HUGE hit for a couple of years.
And somehow, in spite of having gone to this town every summer for my entire life, I had not know that there is a surfing competition every September. (Possibly because the last time I was there in September, I was about ten.)
Nun's Beach Surf Invitational
Apparently every September they have this competition and sell t-shirts to raise money for the seashore retreat for these nuns. The t-shirts, my mom tells me, have had slogans on them ranging from "Pray for Surf" to "Surfing is our Habit". How can you argue with that brilliance??
Or this picture:
Delightful in every possible way.
Photo from here.
And while reading the Herald, she goes, "Did you know about the Nun's Beach surfing competition?"
There's a convent in Stone Harbor, at 111th Street and the ocean, called Villa Maria by the Sea. It's not actually a convent really -- it's a retreat for nuns from the order Immaculata IHM, and it doesn't have any heat in the buildings, so it's only open during the summertime. The beachfront along its edge has been called Nun's Beach for ages, and there's a designated surfing beach just a block down from it. A few years back, t-shirts that said "Nun's Beach" and had a picture of a nun (in a habit) surfing on the front showed up in surf shops. HUGE hit for a couple of years.
And somehow, in spite of having gone to this town every summer for my entire life, I had not know that there is a surfing competition every September. (Possibly because the last time I was there in September, I was about ten.)
Nun's Beach Surf Invitational
Apparently every September they have this competition and sell t-shirts to raise money for the seashore retreat for these nuns. The t-shirts, my mom tells me, have had slogans on them ranging from "Pray for Surf" to "Surfing is our Habit". How can you argue with that brilliance??
Or this picture:
Delightful in every possible way.
Photo from here.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
there were always golden rocks to throw
My parents just finished building a beach house in Stone Harbor, which is in far, far South Jersey, and is also where I've gone for at least part of the summer for my entire life. I will have to take and post pictures of the actual house sometime soon, but for now suffice it to say that it is, in every possible way, the opposite of every other house I have ever lived in in Stone Harbor. It is new and big and full of interior designer-type things!
The house is the rather epically large thing to the left. It looks ridiculously imposing. The car I drove senior year is to the right! Oh stick shift Honda Accord, I miss you.
Sunny the sleepy twelve-year-old Labrador is a huge fan of the closet.
A couple of bonus pictures of NYC:
A lot of the time I really do love this city.
The house is the rather epically large thing to the left. It looks ridiculously imposing. The car I drove senior year is to the right! Oh stick shift Honda Accord, I miss you.
Sunny the sleepy twelve-year-old Labrador is a huge fan of the closet.
A couple of bonus pictures of NYC:
A lot of the time I really do love this city.
Monday, July 20, 2009
come on, come on, we'll dance all night
I seem to be on a posting time delay! If I were up to date, I would be posting about how I am spending the second long weekend in a row on the Jersey Shore, and am putting my wicked plot of not working a full week between now and Labor Day into action (this coming week will be Week Three of this). But I am dumb and have neither taken any pictures of the Jersey Shore nor brought my camera cable along, and I never posted pictures from my business trip to Switzerland, anyway, so that is what I shall do.
At the end of June/beginning of July, I spent about a week in Lausanne, Switzerland for work. Lausanne is a ridiculous place to try to work, because it looks like this:
We were staying in the Hotel Beau-Rivage Palace, which certainly didn't help matters.
Let's put it this way: the amount that my room cost for a week and change was a decent-sized chunk of what I make in a year.
Pretty hard to argue with that view, though.
Lausanne is a very cool city on a hill with multiple levels of walkways and hidden squares. The metro line we were on ran straight up a hill into the city center -- so very directly uphill that you could feel yourself sliding off your seat when you headed back down.
The Saturday I was in Lausanne, I spent five hours in a copy shop. This was the copy shop (through the archway):
The Swiss thought I was the weirdest thing they'd ever seen, especially since I spoke basically no French and could not properly explain what the heck I was doing there in the first place. Random American making 800 Swiss francs worth of copies? Extremely bizarre.
After the work part of the trip was over, I went and visited my former roommate Inga and her family in Trossingen, which is pretty much directly on a parallel with Freiburg, only the Black Forest is in the middle. I am a fan of the Black Forest.
Inga's family also has a seventeen-year-old cat named Idefix. Idefix really loves to rub all over you and let you stroke his head and back until the point when he decides he is done with you and bites.
After a couple of days in Trossingen, I headed to Frankfurt at the behest of the partner who'd asked if I was interested in transferring there. (Yes! I said. Yes, I am interested!) I was sort of . . . underwhelmed by the city. I'm thinking about moving from New York to Frankfurt??, was basically the way my thoughts went. But my law firm's office is in the Main Tower, which is pretty neat. And the town is cute enough.
(That first picture is of the Römer, which I think would be cuter minus the sound stage!)
The Frankfurt transfer is pretty much totally official, by the way. I'll know timeline details by Wednesday (approximate timeline details, anyway, since it's all still dependent on the visa process) and after that I will be going. A little bit scary but mostly very cool. Also, at a party at the Naumanns' new shore house the other night, half the Naumann clan decided they are going to come visit me in early December to hit up the Christmas markets and the spas at Baden-Baden. Should be a delightful and hilarious time.
At the end of June/beginning of July, I spent about a week in Lausanne, Switzerland for work. Lausanne is a ridiculous place to try to work, because it looks like this:
We were staying in the Hotel Beau-Rivage Palace, which certainly didn't help matters.
Let's put it this way: the amount that my room cost for a week and change was a decent-sized chunk of what I make in a year.
Pretty hard to argue with that view, though.
Lausanne is a very cool city on a hill with multiple levels of walkways and hidden squares. The metro line we were on ran straight up a hill into the city center -- so very directly uphill that you could feel yourself sliding off your seat when you headed back down.
The Saturday I was in Lausanne, I spent five hours in a copy shop. This was the copy shop (through the archway):
The Swiss thought I was the weirdest thing they'd ever seen, especially since I spoke basically no French and could not properly explain what the heck I was doing there in the first place. Random American making 800 Swiss francs worth of copies? Extremely bizarre.
After the work part of the trip was over, I went and visited my former roommate Inga and her family in Trossingen, which is pretty much directly on a parallel with Freiburg, only the Black Forest is in the middle. I am a fan of the Black Forest.
Inga's family also has a seventeen-year-old cat named Idefix. Idefix really loves to rub all over you and let you stroke his head and back until the point when he decides he is done with you and bites.
After a couple of days in Trossingen, I headed to Frankfurt at the behest of the partner who'd asked if I was interested in transferring there. (Yes! I said. Yes, I am interested!) I was sort of . . . underwhelmed by the city. I'm thinking about moving from New York to Frankfurt??, was basically the way my thoughts went. But my law firm's office is in the Main Tower, which is pretty neat. And the town is cute enough.
(That first picture is of the Römer, which I think would be cuter minus the sound stage!)
The Frankfurt transfer is pretty much totally official, by the way. I'll know timeline details by Wednesday (approximate timeline details, anyway, since it's all still dependent on the visa process) and after that I will be going. A little bit scary but mostly very cool. Also, at a party at the Naumanns' new shore house the other night, half the Naumann clan decided they are going to come visit me in early December to hit up the Christmas markets and the spas at Baden-Baden. Should be a delightful and hilarious time.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
a tree grows in brooklyn
There are some books I've read that I've known, from the very first page, I was going to love. Middlesex is one of them. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is not. I actually said to my friend Ann, "Is there a point at which I am suddenly going to start loving this book?"
"I don't know," Ann said. "I sure hope so, since it's one of my favorites!"
I emailed her from a train in Germany to say, Have started to love this book. Emailed her again to say, NO REALLY IT IS 100% AWESOME.
When I got back from Europe, she said, "When did you realize you were going to like it?"
"On page 62," I replied.
Ann laughed at me -- "On page 62? What??" -- but seriously, this is where I first got the sense that I was going to like this book a whole lot, and it is indeed on page 62 (of my copy, anyway):
She had been a virgin when she married and had humbly submitted to her husband's brutal love. His brutality early killed all of her latent desires. Yet she could understand the fierce love hunger that made girls--as people put it--go wrong. She understood how a boy who had been driven from the neighborhood for rape could still be a good boy at heart. She understood why people had to lie and steal and harm one another. She knew of all pitiful human weaknesses and of many cruel strengths.
Yet she could not read or write.
And this is where I began to fall in love with this book (pages 72-73):
And the child, Francie Nolan, was all of the Rommelys and all of the Nolans. She had the violent weaknesses and passion for beauty of the shanty Nolans. She was a mosaic of her grandmother Rommely's mysticism, her tale-telling, her great belief in everything and her compassion for the weak ones. She had a lot of her grandfather Rommely's cruel will. She had some of her Aunt Evy's talent for mimicking, some of Ruthie Nolan's possessiveness. She had Aunt Sissy's love for life and her love for children. She had Johnny's sentimentality without his good looks. She had all of Katie's soft ways and only half of the invisible steel of Katie. She was made up of all of these good and these bad things.
She was made up of more, too. She was the books she read in the library. She was the flower in the brown bowl. Part of her life was made from the tree growing rankly in the yard. She was the bitter quarrels she had with her brother whom she loved dearly. She was Katie's secret, despairing weeping. She was the shame of her father staggering home drunk.
She was all of these things and of something more that did not come from the Rommelys or the Nolans, the reading, the observing, the living from day to day. It was something that had been born into her and her only--the something different from anyone in the two families. It was what God or whatever is His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life--the one different thing such as that makes no two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike.
"I don't know," Ann said. "I sure hope so, since it's one of my favorites!"
I emailed her from a train in Germany to say, Have started to love this book. Emailed her again to say, NO REALLY IT IS 100% AWESOME.
When I got back from Europe, she said, "When did you realize you were going to like it?"
"On page 62," I replied.
Ann laughed at me -- "On page 62? What??" -- but seriously, this is where I first got the sense that I was going to like this book a whole lot, and it is indeed on page 62 (of my copy, anyway):
She had been a virgin when she married and had humbly submitted to her husband's brutal love. His brutality early killed all of her latent desires. Yet she could understand the fierce love hunger that made girls--as people put it--go wrong. She understood how a boy who had been driven from the neighborhood for rape could still be a good boy at heart. She understood why people had to lie and steal and harm one another. She knew of all pitiful human weaknesses and of many cruel strengths.
Yet she could not read or write.
And this is where I began to fall in love with this book (pages 72-73):
And the child, Francie Nolan, was all of the Rommelys and all of the Nolans. She had the violent weaknesses and passion for beauty of the shanty Nolans. She was a mosaic of her grandmother Rommely's mysticism, her tale-telling, her great belief in everything and her compassion for the weak ones. She had a lot of her grandfather Rommely's cruel will. She had some of her Aunt Evy's talent for mimicking, some of Ruthie Nolan's possessiveness. She had Aunt Sissy's love for life and her love for children. She had Johnny's sentimentality without his good looks. She had all of Katie's soft ways and only half of the invisible steel of Katie. She was made up of all of these good and these bad things.
She was made up of more, too. She was the books she read in the library. She was the flower in the brown bowl. Part of her life was made from the tree growing rankly in the yard. She was the bitter quarrels she had with her brother whom she loved dearly. She was Katie's secret, despairing weeping. She was the shame of her father staggering home drunk.
She was all of these things and of something more that did not come from the Rommelys or the Nolans, the reading, the observing, the living from day to day. It was something that had been born into her and her only--the something different from anyone in the two families. It was what God or whatever is His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life--the one different thing such as that makes no two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
gone away, queen of the highway
A weird and kind of staggering thought that occurred to me while I was sitting in business class two weeks ago today, about to fly to Switzerland for an arbitration hearing: if I hadn't randomly decided, at age fifteen, that my high school's German exchange program sounded pretty cool and hey, I should start taking German, my life would look nothing like it does.
Maybe 'nothing' is strong. It's entirely possible that I still would have gotten hooked on the idea of Pomona. It's rather unlikely that I wouldn't have still been friends with Katie, and so maybe I still would have ended up living in New York with her and Ana and Diana after college. But I certainly wouldn't have studied abroad in Freiburg, wouldn't have filled Cleary's need for a German speaker, wouldn't have been sitting on that plane at that moment two weeks ago. And that was a crazy thing to think—much as we can't have any idea what it was exactly that we did that will lead us to where we are in life—that I could say with so much certainty that, if I hadn't started taking German as a fifteen-year-old, I wouldn't have arrived at that particular point.
Incidentally, it is also pretty staggering to think that, eight years ago, I could not speak a word of German.
More about this after I talk to my boss today, but I very well may be moving to Frankfurt within the next few months. Big things are afoot!
Maybe 'nothing' is strong. It's entirely possible that I still would have gotten hooked on the idea of Pomona. It's rather unlikely that I wouldn't have still been friends with Katie, and so maybe I still would have ended up living in New York with her and Ana and Diana after college. But I certainly wouldn't have studied abroad in Freiburg, wouldn't have filled Cleary's need for a German speaker, wouldn't have been sitting on that plane at that moment two weeks ago. And that was a crazy thing to think—much as we can't have any idea what it was exactly that we did that will lead us to where we are in life—that I could say with so much certainty that, if I hadn't started taking German as a fifteen-year-old, I wouldn't have arrived at that particular point.
Incidentally, it is also pretty staggering to think that, eight years ago, I could not speak a word of German.
More about this after I talk to my boss today, but I very well may be moving to Frankfurt within the next few months. Big things are afoot!
Monday, June 15, 2009
big dog run, small dog run.
Unexpected Saturday afternoon free of work = more time on the West Side. Riverside Park, between 59th and 79th Streets, plus one bonus from the 59th Street sidewalk.
Monday, June 8, 2009
the matrix is everywhere.
My roommates and I went on a walk up the West Side Highway this afternoon, which has one of the most gorgeous walking/biking paths in New York. We cut through TriBeCa to get to it and saw all kinds of lovely shops, and then headed uptown.
We wandered up to Hudson River Park, where in the summer there is free kayaking! Downtown Boathouse is a non-profit that lets you go paddle around on the Hudson on sit-on-top kayaks on weekends in the summer (and some weeknights), 100% for free. Very awesome! Katie got to try paddling for the first time, and Ana and I were delighted to be back on the water, and geeked out over the possibility of volunteering there and having access to cockpit boats. "We could practice our Eskimo rolls!" At one point I could do three different kinds of rolls (on-side, off-side, on-side hand roll) and though I haven't done any of them since I was in high school, it's mostly about not panicking while in an upside-down boat. And having a buddy to wet rescue you if you completely cannot remember the motions.
After kayaking we went for appetizers and wandered around the West Side.
And now Katie, Ana, and I are eating oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and watching The Matrix. Excellent day all around.
We wandered up to Hudson River Park, where in the summer there is free kayaking! Downtown Boathouse is a non-profit that lets you go paddle around on the Hudson on sit-on-top kayaks on weekends in the summer (and some weeknights), 100% for free. Very awesome! Katie got to try paddling for the first time, and Ana and I were delighted to be back on the water, and geeked out over the possibility of volunteering there and having access to cockpit boats. "We could practice our Eskimo rolls!" At one point I could do three different kinds of rolls (on-side, off-side, on-side hand roll) and though I haven't done any of them since I was in high school, it's mostly about not panicking while in an upside-down boat. And having a buddy to wet rescue you if you completely cannot remember the motions.
After kayaking we went for appetizers and wandered around the West Side.
And now Katie, Ana, and I are eating oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and watching The Matrix. Excellent day all around.
Friday, May 22, 2009
i'll be back.
I went to see Terminator Salvation last night with Katie, Ana, and Ana's brother. Oh man. They called it Terminator Salvation for a reason, and that reason was made clear about three minutes into the movie when they equated Sam Worthington's character, Marcus, a death row inmate who was in the process of receiving a lethal injection, with Jesus. After which he became the new Terminator, and angsted in extremely unsurprising ways about it.
I completely lost it in the middle of a scene that's meant to make us think sexy times are about to happen ("I'm just cuddling with you for warmth. Your heart is so strong!") and after the movie was over a guy in the row in front of me turned to me and said, "Thank you for snorting out laughter at that point, because it gave the rest of us permission to cut loose."
It was pretty reminiscent of seeing Spiderman 3 with a bunch of Americans in Freiburg -- after the Americans burst out laughing at Spiderman landing in front of the American flag during the middle of the big fight scene at the end, the entire theater was like, we can laugh, too! THANK GOD.
Still, not a total waste of two and a half hours. I had a good time! I would still recommend seeing Star Trek for the third time instead, except that . . . I already did. Fourth time?? Seems a little excessive, and yet.
I completely lost it in the middle of a scene that's meant to make us think sexy times are about to happen ("I'm just cuddling with you for warmth. Your heart is so strong!") and after the movie was over a guy in the row in front of me turned to me and said, "Thank you for snorting out laughter at that point, because it gave the rest of us permission to cut loose."
It was pretty reminiscent of seeing Spiderman 3 with a bunch of Americans in Freiburg -- after the Americans burst out laughing at Spiderman landing in front of the American flag during the middle of the big fight scene at the end, the entire theater was like, we can laugh, too! THANK GOD.
Still, not a total waste of two and a half hours. I had a good time! I would still recommend seeing Star Trek for the third time instead, except that . . . I already did. Fourth time?? Seems a little excessive, and yet.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
the hills are very freaking alive.
I spent all of last week in Germany and Austria after a rash yet excellent decision a couple weeks ago that what I really needed to do with my life was visit Suz in Bad Ischl. This visit expanded to include a couple of days staying in Freiburg with my former Mitbewohnerin, Inga, where I also met up with Cheryl and Jane; the better part of three days in Bad Ischl, Austria with Suz; and then a day and some change in Salzburg crashing at Amanda's place.
I made the decision early on that this was going to be more of a people-visiting vacation than a seeing-things vacation, and I think that was totally the right decision. Anything I wanted to see and didn't just means I'll have to go back soon, which, oh darn. What a horrible thing to be forced to do!
Ten Really Awesome Things That Happened, in No Particular Order
1. Wandering down the path on the banks of the Dreisam between Littenweiler and Wiehre, Freiburg:
2. Drinking coffee in the sunshine with Inga, Freiburg:
3. Hanging out in Zähringen, Freiburg and meeting Jane's (then) 12-day-old niece, Lia, who makes excellent faces:
4. Eating lunch by the lake in the Alps outside of Bad Ischl, Austria:
5. Being growled at by a swan that decided it wanted our lunch more than we did, outside of Bad Ischl, Austria:
6. Going on a hike by a lovely lake in the Alps . . . along the edge of a highway.
Suz: You never said you didn't want to be on the side of the road!
Me: That is accurate.
7. Hiking up a never-ending mountain, and being rewarded with an excellent view of Bad Ischl:
And an even more excellent view of Radler and Strudel afterwards:
8. Somewhat purposeful Sound of Music tour, Salzburg:
9. Eiskaffee at Stein Terrasse, on the seventh floor deck of Hotel Stein, Salzburg:
10. Second night in a row of the Biergarten Augustiner Bräu, Salzburg:
We were approached by a bunch of (halfway cute!) guys from outside of Salzburg while sitting at that very table. It was wildly entertaining and also super frustrating to realize that while my German might be very good when it come to Hochdeutsch, Austrian Dialekt is a whole different ball game.
Guy, to me: Blahbiddy blah blah, blah?
Me, to Amanda: Um . . . help.
Amanda: He wanted to know what your name was.
Me: Er. Right.
It's all about what you're exposed to, but still -- yikes!
It's been a little rough coming back into NYC's time zone and work schedule, but I'm managing. Katie and I made our escape from One Liberty Plaza right at 5:30 (practically unheard of!) and went to see Star Trek with Ana. All I can say about it is, dear Lord, go see that movie. I catch only the barest of Star Trek references and have seen maybe two episodes of the original series, both in tenth grade Modern European History with Mr. Oberdorfer, delightful Trekkie that he is -- and so I was a little worried that the movie was not going to be my thing.
Oh. But it is. I knew enough to know that there were plenty of references I was not getting, but this in no way prevented me from loving the stuffing out of it. It's action-y and flashy and wildly hilarious, and did I mention that Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are really attractive? Because they are.
I made the decision early on that this was going to be more of a people-visiting vacation than a seeing-things vacation, and I think that was totally the right decision. Anything I wanted to see and didn't just means I'll have to go back soon, which, oh darn. What a horrible thing to be forced to do!
Ten Really Awesome Things That Happened, in No Particular Order
1. Wandering down the path on the banks of the Dreisam between Littenweiler and Wiehre, Freiburg:
2. Drinking coffee in the sunshine with Inga, Freiburg:
3. Hanging out in Zähringen, Freiburg and meeting Jane's (then) 12-day-old niece, Lia, who makes excellent faces:
4. Eating lunch by the lake in the Alps outside of Bad Ischl, Austria:
5. Being growled at by a swan that decided it wanted our lunch more than we did, outside of Bad Ischl, Austria:
6. Going on a hike by a lovely lake in the Alps . . . along the edge of a highway.
Suz: You never said you didn't want to be on the side of the road!
Me: That is accurate.
7. Hiking up a never-ending mountain, and being rewarded with an excellent view of Bad Ischl:
And an even more excellent view of Radler and Strudel afterwards:
8. Somewhat purposeful Sound of Music tour, Salzburg:
9. Eiskaffee at Stein Terrasse, on the seventh floor deck of Hotel Stein, Salzburg:
10. Second night in a row of the Biergarten Augustiner Bräu, Salzburg:
We were approached by a bunch of (halfway cute!) guys from outside of Salzburg while sitting at that very table. It was wildly entertaining and also super frustrating to realize that while my German might be very good when it come to Hochdeutsch, Austrian Dialekt is a whole different ball game.
Guy, to me: Blahbiddy blah blah, blah?
Me, to Amanda: Um . . . help.
Amanda: He wanted to know what your name was.
Me: Er. Right.
It's all about what you're exposed to, but still -- yikes!
It's been a little rough coming back into NYC's time zone and work schedule, but I'm managing. Katie and I made our escape from One Liberty Plaza right at 5:30 (practically unheard of!) and went to see Star Trek with Ana. All I can say about it is, dear Lord, go see that movie. I catch only the barest of Star Trek references and have seen maybe two episodes of the original series, both in tenth grade Modern European History with Mr. Oberdorfer, delightful Trekkie that he is -- and so I was a little worried that the movie was not going to be my thing.
Oh. But it is. I knew enough to know that there were plenty of references I was not getting, but this in no way prevented me from loving the stuffing out of it. It's action-y and flashy and wildly hilarious, and did I mention that Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are really attractive? Because they are.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
