Spring: New York City Style

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New York, postaday2015, spring

      

   
   

   
 

Today I was in New York and my mother and I took the subway to walk around Battery Park City to explore a new French eatery and market place called Le District located at Brookfield Place. New York in Spring is glorious, all of the trees are in full bloom, the tulips are everywhere and people were taking advantage of the gorgeous day everywhere.

It got up to 77 degrees, it was wonderful! 

It took us a while to find Le District, but we did find it and the market aspect was nice but I was expecting a little more variety. We didn’t eat at the restaurant so we have a reason to go back some time in the near future.

We did go upstairs to investigative the other food venue, I think that it was called Hudson Street something or other,  it was a variety of food stalls, one that intrigued us was the Skinny Pizza one. They had paper thin crispy pizza served with an assortment of toppings and everything was organic and the dough was whole wheat, very tempting. We decided that we would take a nice leisurely walk and come back to taste the pizza. I was not disappointed with the pizza, one slice was particularly tasty, it has arugula salad and tomatoes in a vinaigrette with fresh mozzarella over the crispy pizza crust, it was really good. The other slice that we tasted was a mushroom and cheese, which was pretty good, not as tasty as the aruglua one, but still it was good.

It was a really nice treat walking around New York City with my mother, according to my mother’s step app on her iPhone we took 15,600 steps, that translates to 5 miles, it didn’t feel like it because we had so many beautiful things to look at while we were walking.

I had a great time.

Daily prompt: Happy Wanderer

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pictures, postaday2015, trips

What’s your travel style? Are you itinerary and schedule driven, needing to have every step mapped out in advance or are you content to arrive without a plan and let happenstance be your guide?

   

     

   
     

   
     

   
   

   
 

I am definitely a happy wanderer. I pack up one bag and I go, go, go. These pictures are from the stupendously beautiful trip that I took my daughter on for six weeks in 2012, to expand upon what she had already seen in France when she was very little. I wanted to show her a bit of the North, a bit of the East and a lot more of the South. 

As you can see from the pictures, I like to mix my travels up with visiting both my family and tourist attractions as well as national treasures and farmer’s markets. During our trip I made great use of the wonderful travel site, Trip Advisor, using it to find cool bed and breakfasts and inexpensive hotels throughout the regions that we visited. If you are ever in need of a retaurant, a hotel or even a flight, I have yet to be steered wrong by Trip Advisor.

I taught my daughter well in packing lightly, we each had only one bag and considering all of the train travel we did, on top of all of the walking, she was so happy to only have one bag to lug around. One bag for 36 days, I was so proud of her.

I think that if I asked my daughter to accompany me once more on a trip overseas, she wouldn’t say no. She may become a happy wanderer just like her mother.

Daily prompt: Barter system

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barter system, food, pastry, postaday2015

If the world worked on a barter system, how would you fare? Would you have services to barter? Would you be successful, or would you struggle?

   

   

I am in love with farmer’s markets plain and simple, but the ones in France are particularly dear to my heart. I think primarily because I associate France with family and very happy memories. Food has always played a major role in my life from the negative to the postive; anorexia being the negative and cooking and baking being the positive. My parents invested a great deal of emotion, time and interest into food and its preparation and that has not only rubbed off on me, but it has had an impact on how I view food.

So I can pinpoint the origin of my passion for food. I then nutured it by experimenting in the kitchen as soon as I was allowed near an oven in my early teen years; those were the days of Jello, pudding and Cool Whip. As I progressed, those ingredients lost their luster and I moved onto adult cookbooks which called for more complicated techniques such as puff pastry recipes, pastry cream recipes and other types of pastry making techniques.

If I had had the talent for pastry decoration or even just the finesse necessary in, not only creating delicious desserts, but beautiful ones as well, I may have thrown my hat into the ring in opening a Patisserie shop, a small place where one can sit and order a cappucino and a pastry while you read your newspaper or your iPad. That has always been a dream buried beneath a realist assessment of my limited talent.

All of this conjecture does bring me to the heart of this prompt, if we ever re-engaged in the barter system, I would feel very comfortable trading my skills in the kitchen for supplies or services that others would be willing to barter in return for say an apple tart or a cream puff. I might even find a home at a local farmer’s market, bartering my pies, cookies and cakes for cuts of meat, beautiful produce and other sundry items that I would need. I would definitely have a lot of work to do if I wanted to be able to run my household based solely on my edible wares. That would be quite the challenge. 

I think that this would be a very good lesson for many of us, a lesson in understanding the how’s and why’s of value and precisely how objective, and alternatively, how subjective both value and perception can be; because in the final analysis, there is not one concrete method to apportion value to something that could be devoid of one’s inherently emotion based perceptions, thereby thrusting subjectivity into the equation. The last item involved that I neglected to mention is the need factor, there is where I may have trouble, how many people out there really “need” my pastries? Moreover another factor to take into consideration would be how many people want my pastries? Need and want are two different scales in the human value system and how one perceives their relative importance is yet another factor to be considered. I can see how one can view economics the discipline as both simple and complicated at the same time. I have just seen first hand how tricky it is to satisfactorily explain what I mean even when in my head it seems so clear. Good luck trying to decipher my gobblygook. lol

Daily prompt: Menagerie

Tags

companions, loss, pets, postaday2015

Do you have animals in your life? If yes, what do they mean to you? If no, why have you opted not to?

I am going to be away from home for the next  few days and already my lap feels empty and naked without fatty Magoo  and skinny Magee. 

   

   

   

 

I would never tell our two dogs this, but recently I have been missing Rex a lot, he was a magnificent dog and I miss his big head,, he would put his head right up to my face to will me to wake up, it worked every single time and at night he would rattle the house when he would let his big head drop to the floor after deciding that he was ready to lay down completely.
I also miss Marshall the black Lab and Tuck our eccentric Beagle ; they were very special, each in his own way. I had wondered to my husband if Marshall had been happy, but when we started to reminisce about his life with us, we decided that a dog who would not even put a piece of steak in his mouth because it had some gristle or a little too much fat on it, couldn’t have been too sad and his tail had always been high and perky whenever he agreed to go outside, he was most certainly a character; as was Tuck, who was very discerning with people as well as with his food. Tuck  had been the most dainty eater, however if there had been the slightest threat that his morsel might have gone to either Marshall or Rex, he would have gobbled it down no matter how hot it was or how big it was, it was his and no one else was ever going to have it.

Rex’s only concern was for the well-being of his family, if the family was all squared away, then and only then would he allow himself to relax and that was when his singular obsession with the ball, any type of ball, would appear. He would stare at you and then at the ball and wait for you to throw his beloved ball so that he could retrieve it and he was such an athletic dog, he would jump so high vertically and catch the ball directly with his jaws of steel, no matter how hard it was thrown or kicked at him. He was such a gentle giant, a tremendous babysitter and a phenomenal companion. 

I warned you that I was really missing Rex as of late, these feelings come in waves, though the love always stays constant, the missing part flows and ebbs, thankfully because I wouldn’t want to miss him this strongly all of the time.

Pets are a definite blessing in life.
   
       

Some more signs of spring

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asparagus, daffodils, postaday2015, spring

          
Not only spring bounty in the garden, perhaps bounty isnt’t the correct word since I only have the one daffodil, but spring bounty in the kitchen, asparagus!

These are the most beautiful asparagus that I have seen in such a long time, I am not a fan of the pencil skinny aspargus, I much prefer the thick stemmed sized and when I saw them in the supermarket, I grabbed them immediately. I am going to make a dijon mustard vinaigrette to serve with them, it’s going to be so delicious, the firm bite of the asparagus with the thick creaminess of the vinaigrette, it makes for a delicious pairing.

I can’t believe that I only have the one daffodil, he is very cute all alone in the side bed, poor lamb. I think that maybe come fall, I will plant a whole bunch of daffodil bulbs to give my little guy some more company next spring, he looks like he needs it. 

Furious Seven: a movie review

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Furious Seven, movie, Paul Walker, postaday2015, review

    

What a fantastic movie, it was just my husband and me, the kids were unavailable, but we loved it even while we sadly mourned the late Paul Walker throughout the movie. The action sequences, the insane stunts, the incredible usage of the locations both as stages and as characters within the adventure.

Kurt Russell was such a treat and Jason Stratham was extremely believable as the bad guy bent on vengeance for his little brother; I hate to admit that both times that Jason Stratham had to go up against the Rock and then against Vin Diesal, I had a hard time rooting for anybody because I like the three of them very much as action heroes.

I am terrified of heights and the flying car routines were just insane and as Paul Walker repeated himself a few times, cars don’t fly, but in this movie, it was as close as you could get to flying cars. I felt as if I had been on a giant roller coaster ride each time a car was careening through the open air, it was majorly intense.

This movie was an incredible tribute to Paul Walker and they did him justice in making him a permanent feature in film history, his audience and fans won’t ever forget him and neither will his family and friends. He was taken too soon, only 40, what a tragedy.

I highly recommend seeing this movie, for all of the stress and chaos, you have great moments of levity, as always thanks to Tyerese, he had me laughing out loud so many times, him and Ludocris; they most certainly are a pair.

I am such a coward sometimes

Tags

books, drafts, postaday2015

There have been times in my life where I have let my fear lead me in my decision making, not something that I am proud of and I have spent time trying to change by leading with some semblance of confidence and optimism. Cowardice has been on my mind these past few days because in the back of my mind I keep wondering why all of the literary agents that I sent my manuscript have yet to answer me back, I know that it hasn’t been the six months,  but still and I dread checking my spam box for fear of what I may find. I do force myself to do it every other day, but my stomach churns with butterflies. On top of that, if that isn’t pathetic enough, two weeks ago I left a copy of the first part of my baby, my novel “The Chic Bootlegger” with my mother. I still haven’t asked her if she had read it, I am terrified to hear her opinion and the fact that she hasn’t said anything about it, tells me volumes. She must hate it and doesn’t want to hurt my feelings, which means I will never ask her about it, because I can tear myself down for her in my own imagination, hearing the words first hand from her lips will hurt too much. Why did I leave her the manuscript? Why didn’t I listen to my instincts, I had promised myself to never show her and in a burst of misguided optimism, I relented and left it with her the time before I was at her house. She had seen my red pen with my draft copy, asked if she could read it and I didn’t know how to craft an excuse giving me cover to refuse her request. That was at least 3 weeks ago and I haven’t heard anything, so my imagination is running amok. I can just hear her words in my head; “I don’t want to criticize you BUT ……..” The power of rejection is crazy.

Trying and failing to get a performance

Tags

dogs, postaday2015, video

Over the past several days I have noticed a big difference in Lulu’s behavior during our walks, she is now convinced that she is a bird dog, it seems that she is mimicking Jack yet once again. If she wasn’t so strong, it would be cute, but it has been quite the workout walking and restraining her from bursting through bushes to get at the poor birds.

I thought that I would video her antics while off the leash in the back with Jack acting as the ringleader. Well obviously Jack was behaving as he always does, happy as all get out, running and skipping to asert his dominance over his domain. Lulu, of course since I was filming, didn’t follow the script. She didn’t feel like showing off her newly found talents of bird dogging, nope she stayed with her baby sitter, me.

Happy Earth Day everyone!!

Tags

Earth Day, postaday2015

  

   
       
In celebration of Earth Day, I wanted to photograph the promise of nature’s renewal. I have to confess that taking these pictures was quite the challenge; between the gusts of wind, my essential tremors and forgetting my reading glasses, I am shocked that aside from the slight blur of the budding lilac, the pictures came out crystal clear. LOL

I wish that Earth Day was as important to most people as Christmas is because perhaps we wouldn’t have as many worries over the future as we do now given what has been happening over the past four decades. We only have the one planet to live on, you would think that we would take care of it slightly better.

It is exciting to see my Lamb’s Ear waking up, my Lilac budding, my Vinca Majora and my Bleeding Heart emerging, all ready to unfurl their flowers and leaves.  I also included my upright Phlox, they won’t be ready to bloom until mid summer, but they like to peek out of the ground as early as possible.

I hope that everyone takes a moment and enjoys their Earth Day, walking down the street, taking a drink of water, taking the time to bask in the sun and breathing in that spring time air. All that is possible because of our Earth, we desperately need to remember and appreciate it.

Daily prompt: Karma chameleon

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chameleon, Karma, postaday2015

This just in: let’s pretend that science has proven that karma is a thing. Your words and actions will influence what happens to you in the future. How (if at all) will you change your ways?

  

I have never subscribed to believing in Karma, I have always felt that the whole point of being kind and compassionate is not because there is some sort of prize in the distant future that will reward you for acting that way, but simply because this is who I am as a person.

Mistakes are part of the human condition and forgiveness is also, so when in doubt, it isn’t hard to forgive or to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. I have made many mistakes in my life, I have either hurt or made other’s angry with me, not intentionally, but I have asked for forgiveness and tried to make amends. On the other hand, anger never stays with me, I have a hard time staying angry and I don’t try to, it doesn’t feel good and after a night’s sleep, I never see the point in embracing anger, forgiveness is more my speed.

I do like the concept of Karma however, it is a nice idea that positive energy circulates around the world even if Karma doesn’t rule my way of life or my priorities. I like visualizing waves of different hues weaving gorgeous threads throughout the world, sparking positive forces everywhere; the entire globe would be resplendent in glorious light.

   
 
I wonder if those who came up with the concept of Karma did so under the lights of the aurora borealis.