After being home for exactly a week, we were leaving again. Friday we had swim class for the Boy, then finishing packing, cleaning out the fridge and getting the cat's zone prepped, making dinner and leaving. That was the plan.
It all went off without a hitch, except that I went swimming with Cass with my phone in the pocket of my board shorts and didn't notice until I got out after a half an hour. Whoops.
Maybe I didn't use enough rice, or wait enough hours, but it was lost.
That's been both a blessing and an annoyance. Being disconnected has been pretty sweet, but not being able to easily take pictures or look things up has been lame. I'm also a bit of an inveterate Simpsons Tapped Out junkie, but having finished their latest mini update with a week to spare gave me confidence that by the time we got new phones (Corrie's phone has needed to be replaced for far longer than mine, just not fully incapacitated), I wouldn't have missed too much.
I'd wanted to put pictures into these pieces about going to the Cabin, but I may not get to it: I'd have to fish through Corrie's massive collection of huge files from her Nikon dSLR, and I don't have the energy right now.
I have other things I need to to be working on, so these may be few.
The trip to New York was something planned for a while and spoken about with many people in my life who are not related to me. The trip to Sacramento and the Cabin was for me, for Cass and Corrie; it was time spent with loved ones and trying to share/create the feelings and memories that I had as a boy like the one we just created.
Without a phone to document certain things, and with the desire to create memories for a thirteen-month old (which is more about smells, sounds, and feelings than concrete experiences) more than to exploit an adventure for literary creation's sake, the narrative of this adventure has broken down in my memory.
Why a quick trip to Alameda seems more vivid and fresh in the memory banks than five days spent in the vicinity to Mt. Lassen, the Cascade's southernmost volcano, is beyond me. Must be a trick of proximity and novelty versus familiarity and nostalgia.
We got the Decemberween picture taken for my mom; saw Jules's new place in the mountains; watched the bats emerge at dusk; introduced the Boy to the Cabin; taught him how to feed Charlie; took him to Mill Creek, then Lassen Volcanic Park, then the Mill Creek Falls hike; got to introduce him to his Great-great-auntie Erm and GG-Uncle Rich; learned about and stayed on Alameda; and then drove the whole way back, because it had just been too long.
Seeing Uncle Dan and Tia 'Pita is awesome and too short, as usual.
Getting to see Grandma Kate thrice in a month's time was very cool.
Hanging out with Uncle Norm and Auntie Holly and their boys, Norman and Simon, expanding Cass's world with cousins, that's what it's all about.
So later on today, maybe tomorrow, I might get some more details up here with pictures, but I'm not sure. This trip has germinated a seed of thoughts in my imagination that's spreading in two directions, maybe even three.
I picked up a book at the Cabin that's written in a style like mine, Shelley Jackson's Half Life; I picked up Islands in the Stream, Hemingway's posthumous novel, from an indie bookstore in Alameda; and I had an epiphany about travelling, its effect on humanity, and how it all could be tied together with anecdotal philosophy (what I call whatever this is---"literary blogging"). Part of me wants to work on this "treatise" and part wants to return to my novel.
Part of me is laughing and yelling at the rest to get ready for work to resume, to be really well prepared. And then I remember that a union conference is this weekend in DTLA and runs late each day.
The fun never ends, the adventure goes on unabated, and the only time I can get over here is when a nap is on or sleep is happening.
I would never change it, of course.
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Monday, July 24, 2017
Having Returned Yet Again
We've returned from another ten day trip. That makes twenty days out of twenty-seven, or three weeks out of four on the road.
On the east coast we stayed in houses (and a hotel) and drove on highways and parkways and the beautiful Taconic.
During this last trip, up the belly of California, through the capital city, and off into the wilderness, I paid a little more attention to the highways, as these held more meaning for a California native who'd been driving for years.
I collected those same highway signs and put them into a graphic as a means of describing our trip in terms of original sightings of particular freeways. Depending on one's acumen with California's system of freeways and state routes, one could probably map out our entire trip, from Long Beach to Sac to Penn Valley to Chester to Sonoma to Oakland to Gilroy and back to Long Beach:
Details should be following soon-ish. The Cabin was phenomenal.
On the east coast we stayed in houses (and a hotel) and drove on highways and parkways and the beautiful Taconic.
During this last trip, up the belly of California, through the capital city, and off into the wilderness, I paid a little more attention to the highways, as these held more meaning for a California native who'd been driving for years.
I collected those same highway signs and put them into a graphic as a means of describing our trip in terms of original sightings of particular freeways. Depending on one's acumen with California's system of freeways and state routes, one could probably map out our entire trip, from Long Beach to Sac to Penn Valley to Chester to Sonoma to Oakland to Gilroy and back to Long Beach:
Details should be following soon-ish. The Cabin was phenomenal.
Friday, July 14, 2017
Pacific Voyages
We got around to watching "Moana" since returning from the east coast. It fit in nicely with a BBC production on Netflix we'd been watching earlier this summer, a Benedict Cumberbatch-narrated collection about the South Pacific.
We both really enjoyed Moana: it's beautiful and fun and paced well, it seems like the culmination of the Disney heroine archetype, and the songs are still stuck in my head, especially "Your Welcome" and "Shiny." (ESPECIALLY "Shiny".)
It helps that I'm a sucker for early human migration---reading about it, thinking about it, writing scenes of it into a novel I'm working on, and getting to watch it fictionalized in Disney animated feature.
[[Digression: between Zootopia and Moana (and maybe even Tangled and Frozen), doesn't it seem like Disney has taken over from Pixar on making the best animated features?]]
Here's a graphic from the migratory patters of those Austronesians over the years:
The South Pacific BBC series had some very cool from-space footage that really captured the true vastness and emptiness of the region, the part of the planet that holds one-quarter of all the water on earth.
A documentary that I put into our Netflix Instacue was called "Losing Sight of Shore", and once I read the description again the other day, I thought, well now, this is fitting.
It's shot in a reality-style (not generally a fan), but that's because it's shot by the four women of the Doris, the members of the Coxless Crew, as they rowed from San Francisco to Australia.
Let me put that in all caps, as it seems ludicrous on the face of it: THEY ROWED FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO HAWAI'I TO SAMOA AND ONTO AUSTRALIA.
They were trying to raise money for breast cancer research and the like, and their documentary kept talking about they m being the first set of four ladies to make the trip, as in there were a few groups that have made the rowing trek before.
To get a sense of their voyage, here's how their trip started: after taking on water in their battery hold, by day 11 they had to turn back for California, but they'd only gone maybe 30 miles out to sea. It took six days to get to Santa Barbara, seal up their batteries, and then it was really on. 17 days at sea, and they'd really just begun.
Two ladies would row for two hours while the other two either napped or did chores that had to be done. Then they'd switch. Two hours on, two off, every day of every week while they slowly headed west and south. They'd planned for 155 days, and it took 257.
In other words, it took three months, and then some more, longer than they'd planned.
Row for two hours, off for two. On, off. For over 8 months.
I made a joke while watching these chicks, their hands blistered and skin chapped while I was comfortable on the couch, and Corrie said something like, "Like you could row from here to Hawai'i."
I snorted. "Honey, I'd be hardpressed to row from one side of Rainbow Lagoon to the other and back."
Rainbow Lagoon is a manmade pond at the Hyatt downtown, and starts behind the bridge I'm standing on to take this picture, but not far behind. It curves of somewhat:
The watery road to Hawai'i it certainly is not.
The documentary is crazy, and you feel for the girls on the days when their average milage dips into the -9.5 range. That's what makes the good 50 mile days all the sweeter.
The BBC documentaries that are not the David Attenborough versions are okay if not great, but listening to Cumberbatch butcher the word "penguin" ("peng-in" and my favorite, "peng-weng") is worth it.
Of the three, Moana is probably the best. They sail more than row.
We both really enjoyed Moana: it's beautiful and fun and paced well, it seems like the culmination of the Disney heroine archetype, and the songs are still stuck in my head, especially "Your Welcome" and "Shiny." (ESPECIALLY "Shiny".)
It helps that I'm a sucker for early human migration---reading about it, thinking about it, writing scenes of it into a novel I'm working on, and getting to watch it fictionalized in Disney animated feature.
[[Digression: between Zootopia and Moana (and maybe even Tangled and Frozen), doesn't it seem like Disney has taken over from Pixar on making the best animated features?]]
Here's a graphic from the migratory patters of those Austronesians over the years:
The South Pacific BBC series had some very cool from-space footage that really captured the true vastness and emptiness of the region, the part of the planet that holds one-quarter of all the water on earth.
A documentary that I put into our Netflix Instacue was called "Losing Sight of Shore", and once I read the description again the other day, I thought, well now, this is fitting.
It's shot in a reality-style (not generally a fan), but that's because it's shot by the four women of the Doris, the members of the Coxless Crew, as they rowed from San Francisco to Australia.
Let me put that in all caps, as it seems ludicrous on the face of it: THEY ROWED FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO HAWAI'I TO SAMOA AND ONTO AUSTRALIA.
They were trying to raise money for breast cancer research and the like, and their documentary kept talking about they m being the first set of four ladies to make the trip, as in there were a few groups that have made the rowing trek before.
To get a sense of their voyage, here's how their trip started: after taking on water in their battery hold, by day 11 they had to turn back for California, but they'd only gone maybe 30 miles out to sea. It took six days to get to Santa Barbara, seal up their batteries, and then it was really on. 17 days at sea, and they'd really just begun.
Two ladies would row for two hours while the other two either napped or did chores that had to be done. Then they'd switch. Two hours on, two off, every day of every week while they slowly headed west and south. They'd planned for 155 days, and it took 257.
In other words, it took three months, and then some more, longer than they'd planned.
Row for two hours, off for two. On, off. For over 8 months.
I made a joke while watching these chicks, their hands blistered and skin chapped while I was comfortable on the couch, and Corrie said something like, "Like you could row from here to Hawai'i."
I snorted. "Honey, I'd be hardpressed to row from one side of Rainbow Lagoon to the other and back."
Rainbow Lagoon is a manmade pond at the Hyatt downtown, and starts behind the bridge I'm standing on to take this picture, but not far behind. It curves of somewhat:
The watery road to Hawai'i it certainly is not.
The documentary is crazy, and you feel for the girls on the days when their average milage dips into the -9.5 range. That's what makes the good 50 mile days all the sweeter.
The BBC documentaries that are not the David Attenborough versions are okay if not great, but listening to Cumberbatch butcher the word "penguin" ("peng-in" and my favorite, "peng-weng") is worth it.
Of the three, Moana is probably the best. They sail more than row.
Thursday, July 13, 2017
New York Trip Epilogue
How can you epilogue a portion of your life? How can you epilogue an essence or a feeling you're trying to impart to your kid?
That's the New York City part...
It was so great and wonderful to see everybody, family and friends, and to expand the Boy's world and have him meet so many new family members.
In one sense it was a rousing success: Cassius was a natural traveler, a flirt, and a hungry boy.
In another: is it possible to pass on an urban aesthetic?
Aren't we doing that anyway?
Also: it's an honor to be a part of the team that's seeing my grandfather to his many final resting places.
That's the New York City part...
It was so great and wonderful to see everybody, family and friends, and to expand the Boy's world and have him meet so many new family members.
In one sense it was a rousing success: Cassius was a natural traveler, a flirt, and a hungry boy.
In another: is it possible to pass on an urban aesthetic?
Aren't we doing that anyway?
Also: it's an honor to be a part of the team that's seeing my grandfather to his many final resting places.
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Day The Last: Sheets of Rain; Flight; Heatwave
Our last day in New York felt kinda like the scene in Goodfellas when Henry Hill finally gets busted.
I woke early in Bedford so I could get a shower. Corrie had showered at night, but I would get too sweaty over night, so I set my alarm. One thing this trip had been fantastic for was messing up the Boy's routine. We knew that would be the case going into it, but it was weird setting my alarm. (I woke up before it, like always...)
It was already raining when we had breakfast, and it started coming down harder as we left for Dobbs Ferry. We had borrowed some things from Marc and Linda and had to head back and return them.
We hung out a bit there letting traffic die down, but the rain picked up. As I ran back to the car with Cass, a few huge drops landed right on his face; he let out quite an angry yelp.
Driving towards Kennedy airport with the windshield wipers on full steam, I could barely see. Certain times, when a car in the next lane would hit one of the interlane puddles, water would sheet over my windshield and I couldn't see anything at all. In those moments I would let off the throttle and hope to not hydroplane.
The rental guys gave us a ride over to the terminal, which was appreciated. We needed to rearrange our bags since the big one was over 60 pounds (over 50 was an extra $100).
Now we got to experience the daytime flight with the teething one-year-old. It was similar to the red-eye, only he slept less, and was more cranky about being fairly restrained.
It would seem the answer to the question posed a few days ago would be: the red-eye allows the child to sleep longer and more naturally.
When we got back to Long Beach they said it was 80 degrees, but it felt like a hundred, and in the apartment it felt hotter, sweltering even.
In the cab I rode in the front seat, as the Boy in his car seat and Corrie were in the back seat. It was 5:15, and my thoughts drifted back east, where it was a quarter after 8. Marc would be home and the kids heading off to bed. Anne and Val may be doing whatever successful executives do on a Friday evening. Clare and Henry likely game planning the future for their beloved dog Lucy, whom they just discovered was more ill than they realized.
The sun was likely mostly down there, From the front seat of the cab, the sun blasted my tired eyes, the cabbie's air conditioning dried them out.
We made it home, tried to get the air to flow, ordered food and started cleaning the cat mess.
Life was back to normal, and we'd just awoke from one of those travel-dreams.
Home Discussions
My Auntie Clare and Uncle Henry have a place in Bedford, NY. This trip is my second time visiting their home: back in 2000 both my brother and I were out for the Sherwood family reunion.
Back then we both marveled at the house: it was huge, the kitchen was awesome, they had a deck and tiny machine-powered pool in the basement and the forest right out past the backyard grass. I had two cousins that grew up in that house, and to the credit of my Auntie and Uncle, they didn't turn out snotty; they're both quite lovely people.
Both Clare and Henry were lawyers before they had kids, and back in 1990 when we visited New York, we stayed at their apartment in Manhattan, a skyrise with a doorman. Like Corrie and I, they waited to have kids, but they waited even longer, which I'm sure helped provide them with the perspective necessary to raise such cool kids in such an amazing place.
We stayed two nights this visit, and in the past seventeen years they finished the basement, which I suppose they were working on back then. Their wine cellar is smaller than it was in 2000, but that's because the theater is finished. The theater connects to the workout area, with the endless pool and the hot tub. That area is underneath the deck, with a secret skylight you only know about from the basement area.
On the highest level of the house there are the kids' two rooms and a bathroom for them, on the 1.5 floor there was the master bedroom and large office, on the first floor was the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, and a breakfast table in a sunny atrium right off the kitchen.
It's all very rectangular, and Uncle Henry joked that anything curved they added. They bought it back when they did, when their eldest child Danny was a toddler, because of the vicinity to the wilderness.
It's also the largest by square footage of any place we stayed this trip. It's very lived in, and beyond a few quirks (the monkey wallpaper in the bathroom?), the only thing that harbors a second look is the toilet paper.
Corrie made some professional observations about the era it was built and about the craftsmanship back then as well as the era of their upgrades, but it's more technical than I have the time for here.
Both Uncle Tom and Auntie Clare have awesome ranges, and kitchen setups in general. Clare was telling me about how she and Henry returned from their honeymoon in France carrying maybe four copper pots and pans onto the airplane. Henry has always been handy in the kitchen, and I guess he got a deal.
That was 1986, back when it barely mattered what you brought on the carryon...
Anne and Val's place in Leonia gave off the vibe of a very successful and sophisticated mancave,
Josh and Elizabeth bought a house in Poughkeepsie from the original owner. Her daughters were moving her into an elder care facility and were excited to be able to sell it to a young family. I hear they keep in touch with Josh and Elizabeth.
It was a mid-century modern kit house that was designed by a gentleman's name which I can't remember. He designed buildings in Manhattan that I recognized, and this particular design of a house won an award in 1954-ish.
It had tons of character. There were things I may have wanted to change, but the appeal is definitely there. Plus the backyard is huge and is also ringed with some wilderness on the back side.
The shape was very rectangular, but not exactly like the Bedford place---that was more of intersecting rectangular planes---this is like one large rectangle, but it feels very dynamic.
And that brings us back to Marc and Linda's. They had a two story place with a basement, so three stories. Plus a garage they don't put cars inside of, only storage. And there's plenty to store. With two kids, hockey, and general getting around, they have...stuff.
They even have a bounce house in the basement, along with a kitchenette ad bathroom. The basement is almost a self contained place to itself.
It seems funny to me that between Otium, the Bedford house, the Leonia house, and the Poughkeepsie house, that the Dobbs Ferry place with a bounce house in the basement and the forest up the street, is the most normal place we saw.
Back then we both marveled at the house: it was huge, the kitchen was awesome, they had a deck and tiny machine-powered pool in the basement and the forest right out past the backyard grass. I had two cousins that grew up in that house, and to the credit of my Auntie and Uncle, they didn't turn out snotty; they're both quite lovely people.
Both Clare and Henry were lawyers before they had kids, and back in 1990 when we visited New York, we stayed at their apartment in Manhattan, a skyrise with a doorman. Like Corrie and I, they waited to have kids, but they waited even longer, which I'm sure helped provide them with the perspective necessary to raise such cool kids in such an amazing place.
We stayed two nights this visit, and in the past seventeen years they finished the basement, which I suppose they were working on back then. Their wine cellar is smaller than it was in 2000, but that's because the theater is finished. The theater connects to the workout area, with the endless pool and the hot tub. That area is underneath the deck, with a secret skylight you only know about from the basement area.
On the highest level of the house there are the kids' two rooms and a bathroom for them, on the 1.5 floor there was the master bedroom and large office, on the first floor was the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, and a breakfast table in a sunny atrium right off the kitchen.
It's all very rectangular, and Uncle Henry joked that anything curved they added. They bought it back when they did, when their eldest child Danny was a toddler, because of the vicinity to the wilderness.
It's also the largest by square footage of any place we stayed this trip. It's very lived in, and beyond a few quirks (the monkey wallpaper in the bathroom?), the only thing that harbors a second look is the toilet paper.
Corrie made some professional observations about the era it was built and about the craftsmanship back then as well as the era of their upgrades, but it's more technical than I have the time for here.
Both Uncle Tom and Auntie Clare have awesome ranges, and kitchen setups in general. Clare was telling me about how she and Henry returned from their honeymoon in France carrying maybe four copper pots and pans onto the airplane. Henry has always been handy in the kitchen, and I guess he got a deal.
That was 1986, back when it barely mattered what you brought on the carryon...
Anne and Val's place in Leonia gave off the vibe of a very successful and sophisticated mancave,
Josh and Elizabeth bought a house in Poughkeepsie from the original owner. Her daughters were moving her into an elder care facility and were excited to be able to sell it to a young family. I hear they keep in touch with Josh and Elizabeth.
It was a mid-century modern kit house that was designed by a gentleman's name which I can't remember. He designed buildings in Manhattan that I recognized, and this particular design of a house won an award in 1954-ish.
It had tons of character. There were things I may have wanted to change, but the appeal is definitely there. Plus the backyard is huge and is also ringed with some wilderness on the back side.
The shape was very rectangular, but not exactly like the Bedford place---that was more of intersecting rectangular planes---this is like one large rectangle, but it feels very dynamic.
And that brings us back to Marc and Linda's. They had a two story place with a basement, so three stories. Plus a garage they don't put cars inside of, only storage. And there's plenty to store. With two kids, hockey, and general getting around, they have...stuff.
They even have a bounce house in the basement, along with a kitchenette ad bathroom. The basement is almost a self contained place to itself.
It seems funny to me that between Otium, the Bedford house, the Leonia house, and the Poughkeepsie house, that the Dobbs Ferry place with a bounce house in the basement and the forest up the street, is the most normal place we saw.
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Last Full Day: Finally the City
For those of us infected, the pull is stronger the closer you get. The Siren's call grows from a quiet lullaby you can ignore while living 3500 miles away to a dull roar with which you want to converse when the proverbial doorstep is atop your head.
For us, that conversation was finally able to be had, and on our last full day in the Empire State.
We had wanted to share lunch with Marc down where he works, in lower Manhattan close to the WTC site, but having left Bedford too late (the Boy went down for a nap and we had to let him sleep), and getting out of the Grand Central by 1:30 after lunch, pretty much ended those plans. We took a train down to the area anyway, mostly to see if Marc wanted to get coffee, but also to see a few sights that were either not finished while we lived here or are on our personal list of attractions.
From there we started walking, and walked and walked, which is what you do in New York. We had a dinner reservation with one of my dad's younger sisters, my Auntie Anne, who works for NBC at 30 Rock. We were going to have dinner at her place in Jersey, and were mustering at Rockefeller Center between 4 and 6.
The map below shows, mostly accurately*, our walking path from the Calatrava-designed Oculus shopping center/train station way downtown all the way up to 30 Rock, between 49th and 50th Sts and 5th and 6th Aves:
*[We were on 5th Ave for longer than Broadway, which is only glaring for me and Corrie, who can pinpoint where the error is.]
Corrie had never been to a Santiago Calatrava designed building before, but had always wanted to see one. He's designed a museum in Milwaukee, bridges in Dallas, opera houses in his native Valencia, Spain, as well as other places all over the world.
Calatrava's work is always so obviously his that even I could recognize it. We came up from the subway, heads whipping around, "Where is it...?" Corrie was asking. We turned a corner from the subways stairs and, well, there it was:
White bony spines and spires are the earmark of Calatrava's work, and they're unmistakable. The Oculus shopping center and train station was always under either discussion or design during our time living in New York, and finally under construction when we visited back in 2013. To see it finished was really cool. That center between the spines in the picture above is the zipper like window in the picture below:
The space is so much larger than the outside suggests, and the PATH trains to New Jersey have their terminal entrance at the far side of this area.
There was large installation which I photographed from a distance, a mostly life-sized replica of the Sistine Chapel, with accompanying closeups and explanations:
We might have checked it out, but getting around the velvet barrier cost twenty bucks a head.
We exited and figured out we weren't going to get to see Marc, and headed to one of our favorite quiet attractions: the Irish Hunger Memorial. Much to our dismay, it was being worked on:
We chilled in the grass and let Cass meander out of the carrier for a few minutes. We'd decided to walk to 30 Rock, and knew that he'd have to be cooped up for the duration of that 4 to 5 mile walk, so we needed to let him get out some energy.
We took one last look at the Lady Liberty, and headed north:
Cass fell asleep pretty soon, and we sauntered up the Hudson on Manhattan's west coast. If there's one thing Cass sees plenty, it's water and boats and marinas:
Eventually we headed into the island and turned up Greenwich, but before really the Village itself. We went up to West 4th, through the Village a tiny ways, up 6th Ave to 10th, and over. We were heading for the Strand, another one of our favorite attractions: an enormous bookstore. West 10th is an amazing and beautiful street, and one of the things those of us infected treasure about the City. How much is a chance to live on W 10th worth to us? Hard to say...it'll never happen, but still. The following picture doesn't do justice to the tranquility:
After making it to the Strand we headed up Broadway for a bit, switched over to 5th Ave at the Flatiron Building, and switched back later on. Broadway is a long street, and by that I mean it's an ancient Indian trail from Canada that goes by NY Hwy 9 from the Canadian border all the way down the east side of the Hudson River to the Bronx, when it switches its name to Broadway.
By the time it hits Manhattan, it runs the entire length, from Inwood to the Battery, and cuts a bit diagonal through the normal grid work of Manhattan. When it hits major avenues, big intersectional jazz happen.
The gridding works like this: Avenues run north/south, with 1st Ave on the east side of the island and 12 Ave on the west side, facing the Hudson and Jersey. 5th Ave is the middle and about which the streets gain their East/West determinations. 5th Ave is also the eastern edge of Central Park. Streets run from 1st just above Houston all the way uptown, to the 240s in Inwood. The George Washington Bridge, the massive connector of Manhattan and Jersey, is around 180th St. South of Houston (SoHo) is its own thing, and then it all mostly breaks down from there into random nomenclature. There's the Bowery, the triangle below Canal (TriBeCa), the Village, and all sorts of other neighborhoods before Wall St.
Back to my earlier train of thought: when Broadway hits 8th Ave, it creates Columbus Circle. When it crosses 7th Ave, it's Times Square; 6th Ave and Broadway is Bryant Park; 5th Ave and Broadway is Herald Square and the Flatiron Building (that's what causes that shape: the strange leftovers from an irregular street intersection). 4th Avenue is Park Ave, and it creates Union Square at its Broadway intersection, and down even further gets you Macy Square at 3rd Ave, the final stop for the the Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Anyway, I'm a sucker for the slow undulations of this street, as you can see it curving off in the distance, a mostly unseen thing in a city with miles and miles of straight streets:
After the bookstore, we switched wearing the Boy, and at some point Corrie started nursing Cass as we walked. She wanted a picture to help normalize public breastfeeding and baby-wearing:
It was during this time that we were stopped by a group of young ladies who asked if they could interview us for a segment on the Today Show. Cass let go of the boob and started flirting as we answered questions about "beauty tips for beating the summer heat." They had us pinned for locals (KICK ASS).
We made it to 30 Rock, took a quick walk around, got a tiny boost of sugar and fat because we were famished and tired, and went on to do one of the worst things during our entire NY trip: we took an Uber.
From essentially Radio City Music Hall to Leonia, New Jersey, a cute berg just north of the GW Bridge, we rode in somebody's sedan. There was no car seat, and we felt that it was both dangerous and illegal, but it was what it was. On a bus you wouldn't need a carseat...what about a yellow cab? We didn't know, and with an Uber it seemed another layer removed from a plausible idea.
Nothing bad happened, thank goodness, but still it felt like a bad idea at the time when it was happening.
Here's picture from the bridge looking back at Manhattan:
Both my Auntie Anne and her husband are executives at NBC. They have no kids, so their house in Leonia is quite large and quite full of all sorts of cool shit that I could spend hours checking out and pouring over. On this trip I had to keep Cass from becoming his own form of the Tasmanian Devil, the "Cyclone of Long Beach" we called him as he destroyed Marco's Baroque Lego garage.
Auntie Clare came and retrieved us, her Tesla having our car seat, and we headed back to Bedford after a nice Italian dinner. The highway we were on cut through Connecticut momentarily, so we got to add that to Cass's list.
Clare and Henry's place in Bedford will be looked at more closely in an upcoming piece. Their generosity and hospitality were top notch, and we appreciated all the time we got to spend with both of my Sherwood Aunties.
For us, that conversation was finally able to be had, and on our last full day in the Empire State.
We had wanted to share lunch with Marc down where he works, in lower Manhattan close to the WTC site, but having left Bedford too late (the Boy went down for a nap and we had to let him sleep), and getting out of the Grand Central by 1:30 after lunch, pretty much ended those plans. We took a train down to the area anyway, mostly to see if Marc wanted to get coffee, but also to see a few sights that were either not finished while we lived here or are on our personal list of attractions.
From there we started walking, and walked and walked, which is what you do in New York. We had a dinner reservation with one of my dad's younger sisters, my Auntie Anne, who works for NBC at 30 Rock. We were going to have dinner at her place in Jersey, and were mustering at Rockefeller Center between 4 and 6.
The map below shows, mostly accurately*, our walking path from the Calatrava-designed Oculus shopping center/train station way downtown all the way up to 30 Rock, between 49th and 50th Sts and 5th and 6th Aves:
*[We were on 5th Ave for longer than Broadway, which is only glaring for me and Corrie, who can pinpoint where the error is.]
Corrie had never been to a Santiago Calatrava designed building before, but had always wanted to see one. He's designed a museum in Milwaukee, bridges in Dallas, opera houses in his native Valencia, Spain, as well as other places all over the world.
Calatrava's work is always so obviously his that even I could recognize it. We came up from the subway, heads whipping around, "Where is it...?" Corrie was asking. We turned a corner from the subways stairs and, well, there it was:
White bony spines and spires are the earmark of Calatrava's work, and they're unmistakable. The Oculus shopping center and train station was always under either discussion or design during our time living in New York, and finally under construction when we visited back in 2013. To see it finished was really cool. That center between the spines in the picture above is the zipper like window in the picture below:
The space is so much larger than the outside suggests, and the PATH trains to New Jersey have their terminal entrance at the far side of this area.
There was large installation which I photographed from a distance, a mostly life-sized replica of the Sistine Chapel, with accompanying closeups and explanations:
We might have checked it out, but getting around the velvet barrier cost twenty bucks a head.
We exited and figured out we weren't going to get to see Marc, and headed to one of our favorite quiet attractions: the Irish Hunger Memorial. Much to our dismay, it was being worked on:
We chilled in the grass and let Cass meander out of the carrier for a few minutes. We'd decided to walk to 30 Rock, and knew that he'd have to be cooped up for the duration of that 4 to 5 mile walk, so we needed to let him get out some energy.
We took one last look at the Lady Liberty, and headed north:
Cass fell asleep pretty soon, and we sauntered up the Hudson on Manhattan's west coast. If there's one thing Cass sees plenty, it's water and boats and marinas:
Eventually we headed into the island and turned up Greenwich, but before really the Village itself. We went up to West 4th, through the Village a tiny ways, up 6th Ave to 10th, and over. We were heading for the Strand, another one of our favorite attractions: an enormous bookstore. West 10th is an amazing and beautiful street, and one of the things those of us infected treasure about the City. How much is a chance to live on W 10th worth to us? Hard to say...it'll never happen, but still. The following picture doesn't do justice to the tranquility:
By the time it hits Manhattan, it runs the entire length, from Inwood to the Battery, and cuts a bit diagonal through the normal grid work of Manhattan. When it hits major avenues, big intersectional jazz happen.
The gridding works like this: Avenues run north/south, with 1st Ave on the east side of the island and 12 Ave on the west side, facing the Hudson and Jersey. 5th Ave is the middle and about which the streets gain their East/West determinations. 5th Ave is also the eastern edge of Central Park. Streets run from 1st just above Houston all the way uptown, to the 240s in Inwood. The George Washington Bridge, the massive connector of Manhattan and Jersey, is around 180th St. South of Houston (SoHo) is its own thing, and then it all mostly breaks down from there into random nomenclature. There's the Bowery, the triangle below Canal (TriBeCa), the Village, and all sorts of other neighborhoods before Wall St.
Back to my earlier train of thought: when Broadway hits 8th Ave, it creates Columbus Circle. When it crosses 7th Ave, it's Times Square; 6th Ave and Broadway is Bryant Park; 5th Ave and Broadway is Herald Square and the Flatiron Building (that's what causes that shape: the strange leftovers from an irregular street intersection). 4th Avenue is Park Ave, and it creates Union Square at its Broadway intersection, and down even further gets you Macy Square at 3rd Ave, the final stop for the the Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Anyway, I'm a sucker for the slow undulations of this street, as you can see it curving off in the distance, a mostly unseen thing in a city with miles and miles of straight streets:
After the bookstore, we switched wearing the Boy, and at some point Corrie started nursing Cass as we walked. She wanted a picture to help normalize public breastfeeding and baby-wearing:
It was during this time that we were stopped by a group of young ladies who asked if they could interview us for a segment on the Today Show. Cass let go of the boob and started flirting as we answered questions about "beauty tips for beating the summer heat." They had us pinned for locals (KICK ASS).
We made it to 30 Rock, took a quick walk around, got a tiny boost of sugar and fat because we were famished and tired, and went on to do one of the worst things during our entire NY trip: we took an Uber.
From essentially Radio City Music Hall to Leonia, New Jersey, a cute berg just north of the GW Bridge, we rode in somebody's sedan. There was no car seat, and we felt that it was both dangerous and illegal, but it was what it was. On a bus you wouldn't need a carseat...what about a yellow cab? We didn't know, and with an Uber it seemed another layer removed from a plausible idea.
Nothing bad happened, thank goodness, but still it felt like a bad idea at the time when it was happening.
Here's picture from the bridge looking back at Manhattan:
Both my Auntie Anne and her husband are executives at NBC. They have no kids, so their house in Leonia is quite large and quite full of all sorts of cool shit that I could spend hours checking out and pouring over. On this trip I had to keep Cass from becoming his own form of the Tasmanian Devil, the "Cyclone of Long Beach" we called him as he destroyed Marco's Baroque Lego garage.
Auntie Clare came and retrieved us, her Tesla having our car seat, and we headed back to Bedford after a nice Italian dinner. The highway we were on cut through Connecticut momentarily, so we got to add that to Cass's list.
Clare and Henry's place in Bedford will be looked at more closely in an upcoming piece. Their generosity and hospitality were top notch, and we appreciated all the time we got to spend with both of my Sherwood Aunties.
Someone's First Yankee Game
Back in March Corrie had a dilemma: she wanted my birthday present to be a surprise, but she also needed my advice and input on the acquisition of said present, which needed to be done right about then.
She was buying us Yankee tickets for the day game the one day we might have time, July 5th. It was early enough in the preseason to get nice tickets for a reasonable price, and she wanted some input on which seats.
We chose front row seats on the rail of just the second deck down the right field line. Essentially, they were glorious seats.
Check out Aaron Judge at the plate:
Well, the lenses of phone cameras always makes things too wide-angled and thus look far far away, but it felt super close.
The only real issue was that it felt super close to the sun as well.
We chose the seats because we were pretty sure they would be shaded by design of the stadium for the majority of the game. That turned out to be incorrect, but we never would have known until getting there, so we weren't upset.
Rundown and sun bleached, sure, but not angry.
We would take turns every so often taking Cass up into the shaded food- and beer-selling zones behind the seats to get out of the heat.
The game was exciting, against the Toronto Blue Jays. Aaron Judge hit a homer, his 29th of the season. That home run tied him with Joe Dimaggio for the most ever by a Yankee rookie. (Judge hit his 30th the next day.) Later on Korean rookie Choi hit a homer in just his second big league at bat.
The Yanks fell behind, battled back to take the lead, then lost the lead on a bases loaded walk, and eventually lost the game. That was a bummer, but it was exciting nonetheless.
Here's a weary surprisingly un-sunburned kiddo in need of a nap:
At the game we learned about something new: they give out certificates for first games! Corrie waited in line (with the Boy in the shade) to get the certificate, and we trucked it home, waiting for a frame:
After the game we headed back to Harlem on the 4 train, walked back to the Metro North stop, and rode back up to Kisco for the short drive to Bedford, so we got to skip most of the rush hour traffic.
It was my and Corrie's first trip back to the new Yankees Stadium since it opened back in 2009.
Poughkeepsie for the 4th of July
Corrie's cousin Josh and I missed having the same birthday by a few hours. He's older by a day in technical terms. It was with him and his then-girlfriend Elizabeth that we bunked in Kingston, NY right when we first moved to the east coast back in 2006.
Kingston, just over an hour and a half from the City up the Hudson, was a wild introduction to the humidity, summer thunderstorms, and the general lushness of the northern Atlantic states in the summer.
Now he and his wife Elizabeth live in a nifty starchetect-designed house in Poughkeepsie, the last stop on the Metro North Hudson-line out of Grand Central, about 90 minutes from town. (More on the house coming later.)
Josh and Elizabeth have two daughters: Emlyn, who at four and half years old is a very witty and chatty young lady who never seems to stop talking. I think she's saying something right as Josh took this picture:
Josh and I had gone to the grocers to purchase dinner fixings before heading to their wildly complete beer store when I saw the package: it was only forty bucks and overflowing with the kinds of wares we never got as a kid back in Northern California. It wasn't as cool as that mortar year back at the Farm in 2004 (when I met Corrie's extended family), but it was a helluva time.
The next morning while Corrie loaded up the car I fielded advice from my dad's older sister, my Auntie Clare, pertaining to the best ways to get to the Bronx for our Yankee game. She lived in the Bronx for years as a student at Fordham and now she and Uncle Henry live in Bedford, a ritzy town east of Dobbs Ferry, and our staging ground for the last two nights in New York.
Auntie Clare gave good advice: we found the easy and affordable parking places at the Mount Kisco train stop, took it in to Harlem, switched to the subway, and made it to the ballgame.
Kingston, just over an hour and a half from the City up the Hudson, was a wild introduction to the humidity, summer thunderstorms, and the general lushness of the northern Atlantic states in the summer.
Now he and his wife Elizabeth live in a nifty starchetect-designed house in Poughkeepsie, the last stop on the Metro North Hudson-line out of Grand Central, about 90 minutes from town. (More on the house coming later.)
Josh and Elizabeth have two daughters: Emlyn, who at four and half years old is a very witty and chatty young lady who never seems to stop talking. I think she's saying something right as Josh took this picture:
Their younger daughter, Juniper, is barely two months old, and wasn't photographed by me here. Where Marc and Linda have a 4.5 year old and a 3 year old, Josh and Elizabeth have a 4.5 year old and a 2 month old.
Cass went from being the youngest baby to the only baby to the middle baby on this trip.
The visit was way, way too short, as we could just talk with Josh and Elizabeth for hours. We got to play on a slip and slide (Cass was a little too frightened to go for a ride), check out their trampoline in the basement, collect some help from Emlyn during bathtime:
And purchase---and then set off---a big ol' package of fireworks:
Josh and I had gone to the grocers to purchase dinner fixings before heading to their wildly complete beer store when I saw the package: it was only forty bucks and overflowing with the kinds of wares we never got as a kid back in Northern California. It wasn't as cool as that mortar year back at the Farm in 2004 (when I met Corrie's extended family), but it was a helluva time.
The next morning while Corrie loaded up the car I fielded advice from my dad's older sister, my Auntie Clare, pertaining to the best ways to get to the Bronx for our Yankee game. She lived in the Bronx for years as a student at Fordham and now she and Uncle Henry live in Bedford, a ritzy town east of Dobbs Ferry, and our staging ground for the last two nights in New York.
Auntie Clare gave good advice: we found the easy and affordable parking places at the Mount Kisco train stop, took it in to Harlem, switched to the subway, and made it to the ballgame.
Hillsdale
While I spoke at great length about Otium, my uncles's place, I purposefully didn't mention that we stayed at a hotel in Hillsdale. I didn't want the realities of who was staying where to be part of that discussion.
In any case, we were put into the large offset room because it had a tub and we had a baby. We thought that was generous and cool, and then we got inside the room itself: it was muggy and damp inside, smelling like mildew. The carpets were damp, the sheets were damp, the pillows and towels were funky at best (sickening at worst) and the AC seemed to be fighting a valiant fight to keep the temperature reasonable.
While we visited one place named for a Roman thing, this hotel was also named for a Roman thing. Because of the funkyness of the room I did make a few off color jokes at the expense of the hotel's name, but they're too easy and vulgar for this medium, so I'll just give you the Roman name and let your imagination run with it: Silvanus.
The night before the picnic where we divvied up Grandpa Tom I made dinner for everyone. Actually, I ran a little cooking clinic while putting people to work and had my Uncle Tom as a very willing sous as we cooked more chicken than was reasonable.
Uncle Tom had wanted to spatchcock a chicken, grill a chicken, and roast a chicken. That was his original idea: three chickens, three different cooking methods. He'd just heard of spatchcocking and was intrigued.
Of course we couldn't get three whole chickens, so we ended up with: one whole chicken; six half chickens; two double breast roasts; and two sets of leg quarters.
We sent two halves to the freezer, spatchcocked the whole chicken, carved and grilled two halves and the leg quarters, pan seared a breast and the wings, wrapped both double breast roasts in cheesecloth and slathered them with butter; and roasted the last two halves with oregano and paprika as an ode to their mother and my grandmother.
There was so much chicken: the oregano halves were coming out of the oven as we were sitting down to eat.
It was a good time, and while I felt like I was in the weeds for the first hour or so, everyone seemed to like the food. We got fresh bread and salad greens from the market, as well as braising kale and baby fennel. And the chicken...everything was from the local market, which is how we like to do it.
On the 4th of July we left for a quick drive into Massachusetts---to add a state to Cass's travels---and then headed to Joshua's, Corrie's cousin in Poughkeepsie.
In any case, we were put into the large offset room because it had a tub and we had a baby. We thought that was generous and cool, and then we got inside the room itself: it was muggy and damp inside, smelling like mildew. The carpets were damp, the sheets were damp, the pillows and towels were funky at best (sickening at worst) and the AC seemed to be fighting a valiant fight to keep the temperature reasonable.
While we visited one place named for a Roman thing, this hotel was also named for a Roman thing. Because of the funkyness of the room I did make a few off color jokes at the expense of the hotel's name, but they're too easy and vulgar for this medium, so I'll just give you the Roman name and let your imagination run with it: Silvanus.
The night before the picnic where we divvied up Grandpa Tom I made dinner for everyone. Actually, I ran a little cooking clinic while putting people to work and had my Uncle Tom as a very willing sous as we cooked more chicken than was reasonable.
Uncle Tom had wanted to spatchcock a chicken, grill a chicken, and roast a chicken. That was his original idea: three chickens, three different cooking methods. He'd just heard of spatchcocking and was intrigued.
Of course we couldn't get three whole chickens, so we ended up with: one whole chicken; six half chickens; two double breast roasts; and two sets of leg quarters.
We sent two halves to the freezer, spatchcocked the whole chicken, carved and grilled two halves and the leg quarters, pan seared a breast and the wings, wrapped both double breast roasts in cheesecloth and slathered them with butter; and roasted the last two halves with oregano and paprika as an ode to their mother and my grandmother.
There was so much chicken: the oregano halves were coming out of the oven as we were sitting down to eat.
 |
| Spatchcocking a whole chicken (Courtesy MNB) |
It was a good time, and while I felt like I was in the weeds for the first hour or so, everyone seemed to like the food. We got fresh bread and salad greens from the market, as well as braising kale and baby fennel. And the chicken...everything was from the local market, which is how we like to do it.
On the 4th of July we left for a quick drive into Massachusetts---to add a state to Cass's travels---and then headed to Joshua's, Corrie's cousin in Poughkeepsie.
Otium
My uncles built a castle on a wooded hill in the country. They call it Otium.
Otium is an abstract Latin word that means rest and absence of work. The word is adorned on many things inside, usually in the all-caps Latin styling with the "V" instead of the "U": OTIVM.
From the street entrance to Otium visitors find the gate and a winding road up into a wooded hill, and that's all. There's no sign of a dwelling beyond the trees at the hill's apex. Following the narrow asphalt driveway for a steep mile through wilderness brings guests to the main entrance.
As far as castles go, Otium is modest. And feels lived in, which is probably a hard thing to do for folks who build houses on secluded hills. It's not the largest place we stayed by square-footage on this trip, and while it's not opulent per se, the guest rooms do come with laminated instructions.
It's also a museum, but not just a place to stash old things to which people attach value: it's a museum to the life my uncles have lived together for the past thirty plus years. Making that realization was important for Corrie and I, because that's exactly what we have.
Obviously we don't have a castle on a hill, we have a tiny beach apartment. But the essence of no frivolous things for pretty's sake and everything has a story attached to it and reasoning behind it is shared. The world today and our backgrounds are different, but my uncles and Corrie and I share a specific decorative philosophical outlook.
Anyway, I've been calling it a castle rather than a house because to me if you build the walls with stone and floors with reclaimed wood and make every door fifteen feet high and the glass doors to the veranda open and shut using a bolt and rod mechanism that looks lifted from Firenze circa 1550, you're allowed to go with "castle."
From the back veranda of Otium you can see for miles, just not the road below. Here's a look at that back, with the kitchen offset from the main stone footprint on the left:
The kitchen was awesome, but not overdone. The Great Room, or main living room, is that central cylinder above and opens onto that veranda, and it's pretty cool. You could probably tip our apartment up perpendicular to the ground and fit inside the Great Room. There's a double sided couch in the center, splitting the room into two distinct halves, but never really feeling like you're separated from the other side. Looking up, there're views of one half of the upper library:
And from that side of the library looking down, the central couch is visible as well as the other half of the library:
That picture is blurry and not my first choice, but it shows the symmetry better and has more of the library and chandelier than my other picture.
The rug in that room was so lush; I didn't even know that a grey ordinary looking rug could be so fantastic.
This was my third trip to Otium. The first was 10 years ago for my Grandpa Tom's 80th birthday; the second was 4 years ago for my cousin's wedding. This trip was for the gathering and discussion of and divvying up of Grandpa Tom's remains, he having passed last summer. The memorial was last October.
Cassius, with his Roman reminiscent name, was a star this visit:
To have convened to make final arrangements for the remains of a powerful family figure needed this influx of promise and hope, this little bit of human vitality. Cass was a very important piece of this, or at least I've convinced myself he was. The next chapter in many legacies, one of which was Tom Schumacher II, Cass embodies.
Grandpa Tom was cremated last summer, and during a lovely afternoon in July of this summer on a hill in Hillsdale, his family discussed who was taking ashes where. Dozens of glass jars with screwtop lids were acquired, partially filled with remains, and handed over to volunteers to take all over. There is no timetable to get this done, which is necessary because some places are further afield (Berlin, Tahiti) and some won't be available for intimate visits anytime soon (the White House).
This was the motivating event for this entire trip. I came away with four jars; three within a hundred miles of Long Beach, and the Tahiti jar.
Otium is an abstract Latin word that means rest and absence of work. The word is adorned on many things inside, usually in the all-caps Latin styling with the "V" instead of the "U": OTIVM.
From the street entrance to Otium visitors find the gate and a winding road up into a wooded hill, and that's all. There's no sign of a dwelling beyond the trees at the hill's apex. Following the narrow asphalt driveway for a steep mile through wilderness brings guests to the main entrance.
As far as castles go, Otium is modest. And feels lived in, which is probably a hard thing to do for folks who build houses on secluded hills. It's not the largest place we stayed by square-footage on this trip, and while it's not opulent per se, the guest rooms do come with laminated instructions.
It's also a museum, but not just a place to stash old things to which people attach value: it's a museum to the life my uncles have lived together for the past thirty plus years. Making that realization was important for Corrie and I, because that's exactly what we have.
Obviously we don't have a castle on a hill, we have a tiny beach apartment. But the essence of no frivolous things for pretty's sake and everything has a story attached to it and reasoning behind it is shared. The world today and our backgrounds are different, but my uncles and Corrie and I share a specific decorative philosophical outlook.
Anyway, I've been calling it a castle rather than a house because to me if you build the walls with stone and floors with reclaimed wood and make every door fifteen feet high and the glass doors to the veranda open and shut using a bolt and rod mechanism that looks lifted from Firenze circa 1550, you're allowed to go with "castle."
From the back veranda of Otium you can see for miles, just not the road below. Here's a look at that back, with the kitchen offset from the main stone footprint on the left:
The kitchen was awesome, but not overdone. The Great Room, or main living room, is that central cylinder above and opens onto that veranda, and it's pretty cool. You could probably tip our apartment up perpendicular to the ground and fit inside the Great Room. There's a double sided couch in the center, splitting the room into two distinct halves, but never really feeling like you're separated from the other side. Looking up, there're views of one half of the upper library:
And from that side of the library looking down, the central couch is visible as well as the other half of the library:
That picture is blurry and not my first choice, but it shows the symmetry better and has more of the library and chandelier than my other picture.
The rug in that room was so lush; I didn't even know that a grey ordinary looking rug could be so fantastic.
This was my third trip to Otium. The first was 10 years ago for my Grandpa Tom's 80th birthday; the second was 4 years ago for my cousin's wedding. This trip was for the gathering and discussion of and divvying up of Grandpa Tom's remains, he having passed last summer. The memorial was last October.
Cassius, with his Roman reminiscent name, was a star this visit:
To have convened to make final arrangements for the remains of a powerful family figure needed this influx of promise and hope, this little bit of human vitality. Cass was a very important piece of this, or at least I've convinced myself he was. The next chapter in many legacies, one of which was Tom Schumacher II, Cass embodies.
Grandpa Tom was cremated last summer, and during a lovely afternoon in July of this summer on a hill in Hillsdale, his family discussed who was taking ashes where. Dozens of glass jars with screwtop lids were acquired, partially filled with remains, and handed over to volunteers to take all over. There is no timetable to get this done, which is necessary because some places are further afield (Berlin, Tahiti) and some won't be available for intimate visits anytime soon (the White House).
This was the motivating event for this entire trip. I came away with four jars; three within a hundred miles of Long Beach, and the Tahiti jar.
Monday, July 10, 2017
Dobbs Ferry
Marc and Linda were so important to us during our time in New York. That they populate so many posts from 2009 when I started this blog, speaks to that. They were our best friends and confidantes at a time when we had virtually no family or other friends close by. They both had both family and friends all over the place, and still spent so much time with us.
I always felt that Marc understood what it was like living on an opposite coast from the bulk of close family, having done so for years in San Luis. I also always felt that being around Corrie and I was relaxing for him, like he could happily be his own dirty hippie self and feel at ease. There are plenty of upstate-dirty-hippie-types, but left on their own in the City they either conform or move back upstate. There are plenty of stoners in New York, but Phish loving dirty hippies need a moor of some kind.
That's where Corrie and I came in. We provided that rock; we were laid-back California folks, no matter how harried the day-to-day got---and it was always full of stress---and some people really liked it and our energy. Other's never warmed up, and I understood. I got it...but being that laid-back-Caliboy steroetype is what aloowed me to "get it." That, or empathy...
Anyway, it took about a half an hour of hanging out with Linda to feel at home again. We talked about parenthood, about schools, about travels, about what to make for dinner, and just like that it was just as it had been, eight years before became yesterday.
They came out to visit California before I broke my leg, and soon after called back to announce that Linda was pregnant. We were all so close that Marc joked that it was our couch that helped them conceive. I told him in full honesty that that would have been an honor.
During our visit to Hillsdale and Otium for Lizzie's wedding, we met Marco, then six months old. On that same trip we met Corrie's cousin Josh's daughter, Emlyn, just a month older than Marco.
This trip was our first chance to see both kiddos again, now at four and a half.
Marc and Linda had their daughter, Laila, two years to the day before Cass, so as he turned 1 this year, she was turning 3. As always, he's mesmerized by girls:
I was also pretty sure his first intelligible word was "Laila," but he never repeated it. Anyway, they moved to a condo in Dobbs Ferry in 2009, and were looking at a house when we came through in 2013. They since got that house.
Up the street from their place is a nice little collection of trails, reminding hikers what the greeted the first waves of humanity to the North Atlantic region:
My camera always makes things look more purple that they render with the human eye. Whatever.
I was wearing Cass for the duration of the hike, the vast majority of which he slept through. He woke as we finished up the loop, and I directed his attention to a deer chilling on the edges of the park, possibly macking on some garden offerings:
With storm clouds looming, after an all to brief stay, we went our separate ways: we headed to the Berkshires further north up the Hudson Valley while Marc and Linda and brood headed east to Cape Cod for the week.
I'm going to mention their house in later post, as it was cool and probably the most "normal" place we stayed.
I always felt that Marc understood what it was like living on an opposite coast from the bulk of close family, having done so for years in San Luis. I also always felt that being around Corrie and I was relaxing for him, like he could happily be his own dirty hippie self and feel at ease. There are plenty of upstate-dirty-hippie-types, but left on their own in the City they either conform or move back upstate. There are plenty of stoners in New York, but Phish loving dirty hippies need a moor of some kind.
That's where Corrie and I came in. We provided that rock; we were laid-back California folks, no matter how harried the day-to-day got---and it was always full of stress---and some people really liked it and our energy. Other's never warmed up, and I understood. I got it...but being that laid-back-Caliboy steroetype is what aloowed me to "get it." That, or empathy...
Anyway, it took about a half an hour of hanging out with Linda to feel at home again. We talked about parenthood, about schools, about travels, about what to make for dinner, and just like that it was just as it had been, eight years before became yesterday.
They came out to visit California before I broke my leg, and soon after called back to announce that Linda was pregnant. We were all so close that Marc joked that it was our couch that helped them conceive. I told him in full honesty that that would have been an honor.
During our visit to Hillsdale and Otium for Lizzie's wedding, we met Marco, then six months old. On that same trip we met Corrie's cousin Josh's daughter, Emlyn, just a month older than Marco.
This trip was our first chance to see both kiddos again, now at four and a half.
Marc and Linda had their daughter, Laila, two years to the day before Cass, so as he turned 1 this year, she was turning 3. As always, he's mesmerized by girls:
I was also pretty sure his first intelligible word was "Laila," but he never repeated it. Anyway, they moved to a condo in Dobbs Ferry in 2009, and were looking at a house when we came through in 2013. They since got that house.
Up the street from their place is a nice little collection of trails, reminding hikers what the greeted the first waves of humanity to the North Atlantic region:
My camera always makes things look more purple that they render with the human eye. Whatever.
I was wearing Cass for the duration of the hike, the vast majority of which he slept through. He woke as we finished up the loop, and I directed his attention to a deer chilling on the edges of the park, possibly macking on some garden offerings:
With storm clouds looming, after an all to brief stay, we went our separate ways: we headed to the Berkshires further north up the Hudson Valley while Marc and Linda and brood headed east to Cape Cod for the week.
I'm going to mention their house in later post, as it was cool and probably the most "normal" place we stayed.
Day Zero: Red Eye for the One Year Old
Question: is is better to take a teething one-year-old on a red-eye flight or a regular hour flight?
Bookending a voyage to the Hudson Valley and environs in the states of New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, we attempted to answer just that question.
The first flight was the red-eye. After a delay, we left Long Beach around 10:30 pm and landed around 6:30 am local time in Queens at Kennedy Airport. Cass, our teething one-year-old, did pretty well. He slept for a large portion of the flight, which was mostly made possible by our splurging on an extra seat.
I had the aisle, Corrie the window, and spread between us---feet in her lap and head in mine---was our surprisingly long toddler. In the moments when he came to, or roused but not truly waking, as babies do (right?), he would start screaming. We'd comfort him, he'd chill out, and a little bit later it would repeat. That was sleeping. When awake, Cass was a flirty ham, like always, making eyes at any woman he could see.
All in all, couldn't really ask for anything better.
We landed and got our luggage. Being experienced travelers, we try to travel as light as possible, and throwing an extra tiny human into the mix was a neat wrinkle to work out. We brought our car seat, and still felt like we packed relatively light. Once at the rental car, we had our first hold up.
It was one of the new push-button start autos, and we couldn't start it. I ran back to the lady at the rental desk to ask for advice. She looked at me like I was an idiot and said, in a thick Jamaican accent, "Just like ya' cahr at 'ome, press the brake and turn it on."
"My car's a manual..." I was saying as I left, not finishing the sentence because she had no idea about that which I spoke. If I'm in neutral, like many other stick-shifts, you don't need to press anything to start it beyond the key.
We decided against breakfast in the nearby Far Rockaway, a beachy enclave nestled in the far reaches in Queens not unlike the town from Jaws, and headed the other way, to Brooklyn. We ate at Junior's, locally famous for its cheesecake.
Does this look like a boy fresh off a red eye flight from coastal California?
The food wasn't very good, but morning diners in downtown Brooklyn are surprisingly rare. We felt like it was too early to head to Dobbs Ferry (the first town past Yonkers, which is the first town past the Bronx) without getting swamped in traffic, so we headed to Fort Greene Park and played for a while.
Eventually we hit the road for Marc and Linda's place, finally getting to meet their daughter and getting to see their boy for the first time in four years.
Bookending a voyage to the Hudson Valley and environs in the states of New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, we attempted to answer just that question.
The first flight was the red-eye. After a delay, we left Long Beach around 10:30 pm and landed around 6:30 am local time in Queens at Kennedy Airport. Cass, our teething one-year-old, did pretty well. He slept for a large portion of the flight, which was mostly made possible by our splurging on an extra seat.
I had the aisle, Corrie the window, and spread between us---feet in her lap and head in mine---was our surprisingly long toddler. In the moments when he came to, or roused but not truly waking, as babies do (right?), he would start screaming. We'd comfort him, he'd chill out, and a little bit later it would repeat. That was sleeping. When awake, Cass was a flirty ham, like always, making eyes at any woman he could see.
All in all, couldn't really ask for anything better.
We landed and got our luggage. Being experienced travelers, we try to travel as light as possible, and throwing an extra tiny human into the mix was a neat wrinkle to work out. We brought our car seat, and still felt like we packed relatively light. Once at the rental car, we had our first hold up.
It was one of the new push-button start autos, and we couldn't start it. I ran back to the lady at the rental desk to ask for advice. She looked at me like I was an idiot and said, in a thick Jamaican accent, "Just like ya' cahr at 'ome, press the brake and turn it on."
"My car's a manual..." I was saying as I left, not finishing the sentence because she had no idea about that which I spoke. If I'm in neutral, like many other stick-shifts, you don't need to press anything to start it beyond the key.
We decided against breakfast in the nearby Far Rockaway, a beachy enclave nestled in the far reaches in Queens not unlike the town from Jaws, and headed the other way, to Brooklyn. We ate at Junior's, locally famous for its cheesecake.
Does this look like a boy fresh off a red eye flight from coastal California?
The food wasn't very good, but morning diners in downtown Brooklyn are surprisingly rare. We felt like it was too early to head to Dobbs Ferry (the first town past Yonkers, which is the first town past the Bronx) without getting swamped in traffic, so we headed to Fort Greene Park and played for a while.
Eventually we hit the road for Marc and Linda's place, finally getting to meet their daughter and getting to see their boy for the first time in four years.
Sunday, July 9, 2017
Mr. Cassius Goes to New York
We returned from a ten day voyage to New York with a teething one-year-old. It was a rousing success I hear. At least that's what everybody was telling us. I'll have to take their word for it.
We stayed with friends and family the entire time, which was awesome and special, but it also timed us out of any full days in the City, where we feel home and wanted to share that feeling with the Boy. We may have pulled it off in our last day before flying home.
Anyway, the posts will come fast and furious in the next week as we prepare to head off on another trip, this time up and down the length of the state of California.
So, as a taste, here's Cass on the Metro North as we barreled into the City for a Yankees game:
We stayed with friends and family the entire time, which was awesome and special, but it also timed us out of any full days in the City, where we feel home and wanted to share that feeling with the Boy. We may have pulled it off in our last day before flying home.
Anyway, the posts will come fast and furious in the next week as we prepare to head off on another trip, this time up and down the length of the state of California.
So, as a taste, here's Cass on the Metro North as we barreled into the City for a Yankees game:
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