its a mad mission

As we left Williamsburg, the skies parted, the late-day sun beamed, and the rays reflecting off the rain-soaked city made us wish we’d packed sunglasses instead of umbrellas. I think Central Park was more beautiful the rest of the night because of the day’s rain. All the lights glimmered off still-wet stone and remaining puddles, and tree trunks were saturated black.

Across the way from the Boathouse.

Not skyscrapers, just a giant wall of pumpkins with hearts carved in them.

Poets Walk leading up to the festival

Mmm…guitar and strings, my favorite combo, near Bethesda Terrace.

Some photos from the past few weeks. Autumn in the Northeast is glorious! Today is a little rainy, which give me time to catch up on here, but the past few weeks have simply reminded me again and again why I moved back. Cool winds, unbeatable foliage, soccer games…all the good stuff. This afternoon they are trying to break the record of number of jackolanterns lit (in central park), so if that doesn’t get rained out, I hope to get some cool pics there. Until then, some from the past weeks…

Above and below: Downtown Granby, CT, where I grew up.

Being silly at the corn maze. Jon and Jules were flying through it, trying to finish in record time, and Mom, Dad and I purposely took every single wrong route. At $7 a person, we were getting our money’s worth and seeing every corn stalk.I got to catch up with the owner of the farm, my former 4-H leader, as well.

My beautiful (inside and out) grandma and I watching my siblings’ soccer games. She has just started helping in an ESL class, my first love, and I’m so proud of her.

Jason and Amanda are doing well. Number three is on the way, Weston Walter.

My girls…getting so big. Abby is homeschooled this year, and doing very well. Nay is running and around and talking (not intelligibly, but don’t tell her that).

Rosie Thomas!!! She was amazing (and quite funny) live.

The first time I ever came to New York City was in 2003, the summer following graduation, for a 3-week journalism course. This article was my favorite piece that came out of that experience (though I might differ a bit on the design choices where it was published), and I’d like to share it here. Yet another glimpse of this teaching city…
andrew.pdf

I’d like you to meet Deb. She’s my roommate and the source of much hilarity in our apartment. She’s mortified that I am spending an entire blog entry on her, but I don’t care much about her feelings, and am more interested in posting a good entry.

Deb is many things, but I’d like to boil it down to the essence.

1. Deb is short. We look like Laurel and Hardy, except that she is not fat. Or mustached. While I was busy buying a closet at IKEA, she was scoping the step stools. She claims that she can sleep quite comfortably in a toddler bed, and she’s been called “Little Debbie” more times than she cares to count.

2. Deb is Chinese Singaporean, but says she can’t cook a lick of chinese food. Not that she can’t cook. Her enchiladas are muy buena and her baked goods delight my soul. But ask her to make you some fried rice, and you’d better have the local Joy of China on speed dial. This is what she tells me, anyway.

3. Deb cannot dress herself very well. She was trying on some clothes of mine, and complaining that my stuff just didn’t fit her right. I looked, and she was wearing a dress backwards (Lib, it was your bridesmaid dress). She gave me permission to write about that.

4. Deb has had malaria twice and tested positive for tuberculosis. She tells me that I have nothing to worry about, even though we share an apartment. I trust what she says, because she is a scientist. She works as a genetics specialist at Mt. Sinai and knows everything about medicene and blood. She says she likes to wear a white lab coat because everyone thinks she’s a doctor and treats her with respect.

5. Deb is a lot of fun to commute with. We start the morning with a 12-minute walk to the L train. We have to cross this one atrocious four-lane highway, so if I see a break in traffic, I burst into whatever conversation we’re having and yell, “Look, run!” I’ve done this three times so far, and every time she gets frantic and screams “What?!?” and runs after me across the road. I guess you’d just have to be there. We look pretty silly.

Three cheers for Deb!

addendum: I think Deb’s the coolest roommate ever. This blog was not meant to insult her at all, and we actually discussed what I could post.

On commuting…
I finally figured out why I’m not a fan of this New York pastime. It’s not so much the sardine feeling or the unreliability or the dirtiness of the trains. It’s that I can no longer belt out songs at the top of my lungs like I could in my CRV. Fellow commuters just don’t appreciate me harmonizing with my ipod. I can feel my voice waning a little more each day.

On living in a Polish neighborhood…
Last weekend the president of Poland participated in mass at the catholic church that shares my backyard. That’s how Polish this neighborhood is. Kielbasa is much more accessible than hot dogs. I’ve yet to try a Polish restaurant, but my roommate Deb and I are determined to feast on pierogi and lody very soon. We’ll avoid the golonka and flaczki, though.

On IKEA…
Ubiquitous to the city apartment. I bought a closet, drawers, and chair the other day, and am afraid to attempt their assembly. Muddling through this is like a New Yorker’s rite of passage. Months and years later they still swop stories about it, pat each other on the back, and together hope they will never have to go through THAT again.

On laundry…
It’s cheap, it’s around the corner, and it’s a great place to drop off church cards (ours have a hard-to-come-by map of Williamsburg/Greenpoint on them). People waiting for the washer or dryer to finish their cycle are grateful for anything to look at, especially when the only other diversion is Polish television and they don’t happen to speak Polish.

On screeching 6 a.m. garbage trucks outside my window…
I have nothing to say to them.

Just got this pic on email. Was my favorite from vacation.

And these two as well. We were really tired at the lake.