Spring Haiku

brooklyn crocuses 
glow amid last winter's gray 
Colors sing of spring

Happy Easter (This Easter I went swimming!)

Hope it's been a happy one!

TQ was working so we missed our usual Easter visit to his parents, so I did something different -

I'd gotten a whim

for an Easter swim

Took a subway trip 

to a chilly chilly dip

Click here for pix!

It was actually really interesting actually going for a swimsuit swim in 45 degree water after all of the talking about cold-water safety I've done. You know that one-ten-one rule - one minute to get your breathing under control, ten minutes of meaningful activity, then an hour that you can probably still be saved if found? Well, I actually had a great time jumping around in the water for about 10 minutes. I was starting to fumble with my camera partway into it, though, and then almost immediately after the 10-minute circle-up, I began to feel ever so slightly light-headed, which my experienced cold-water swimmer friend Capri said meant "Time to get out of the water NOW" (same as winter rolling, actually - you really need to stop when you start feeling spinny).

I had a great time though. Fun to experiment with this stuff I talk about so much in nice controlled circumstances, and it was actually great to be back in the water, even if it wasn't summer-friendly. Boats are great but swimming really was my first love.

Aloha Friday

Look what a nice surprise I got last weekend when I went to the deli just to the east of the Cortelyou Road Q station! The deli's been there since I moved to the area, it's run by the same Tibetans who eventually added on the terrific Top Cafe Tibet (mmm, momos!) in the sliver of space between the deli and the cut in which the trains run. They always have a great selection of beers but this time, 

what to my wondering eyes should appear/ 
but a nicely-chilled six-pack of Island-kine beer!

Wow, lau lau!

I hope it's a hit and they keep stocking it - in the past, I've gotten it at New Beer Distributors on Chrystie Street, which has an amazing selection of brews and is actually on the way home if I go home via the Grand Street B station, but they close at 6 and that's usually the earliest I leave work. 

Plane Zones

Plane zone, Saturday:


Plane zone, Sunday:

Noon to two,
woo hoo hoo!

Holly the Sailing Co-Chair's post-sail comment - "Anyone who didn't plane today is doing something wrong".

Yes, I had a very, very, very good weekend.

Rain, Rain, Please Do Stay!

I think I heard the plants of Midwood & Ditmas Park singing a nursery rhyme today -

Rain, Rain, Please Do Stay,

soak our dry roots for a day

save our leaves that fall away

rain, rain, please, please stay!



I'd been puttering around in my apartment all afternoon when the sounds from outside started changing. First the rustle of leaves, then a long hiss of rain. After the heat wave we've been having, a walk in the rain? Fabulous. Out I went. Wasn't just me, either, everyone was out watching the rain. The young lady with the red umbrella in the first picture echoed my own thoughts so perfectly I laughed to hear it - "Isn't this WONDERFUL?"

Unfortunately, although it started strong, it petered out to barely a drizzle. That did last for some time over the afternoon, but our poor local flora really looks like it could use a good, long, steady rain to begin recovering from this long, dry, hot spell. I hadn't been out much during the heat wave, actually working some extra hours, partly to get ahead of my work so that I can relax & enjoy my upcoming homecoming (ok, technically it's a reunion but it feels like a homecoming, too), but also partly to stay in the AC. I'd known it was dry, I've been worried about my own garden (although when I asked, enough of my fellow gardeners said that they'd been watering that I chose to skip the long trip out - I'll see how it came through tomorrow), but I was a little shocked to see the condition of our area's beautiful trees - it almost looked like fall out there.

Forecast is showing scattered thunderstorms all week. Here's hoping they scatter themselves generously.

Planning a good long paddle tomorrow, so I will see how the garden's doing then & take my turn watering anything that's looking droopy, if today's brief downpour wasn't enough.

Hope my basil is OK - it was doing fine last weekend but I found out from my friends with the chickens that this year's version of the terrible tomato blight is a terrible basil blight...

Bad Poetry Tuesday!

A pigeon on the grass
Isn't quite as alas
When the parakeet class
On the same grass
amasses.

Happy Birthday Proper Course!

No time for a proper tribute right now, would some bad poetry suffice?

Oh My Goodness!
Sakes Alive!
Proper Course
Has Just Turned Five!

Congratulations, "Lord T"! Here's to many more laughs, meditations, writing challenges & may someday, one very adorable granddaughter learning the ropes from her grandfather!

(first rope to learn, of course: It's not a rope, it's a line!)

ps - the photo above is the end result of the Quest for the Peas of Mushiness - a Tillerman-inspired adventure, of course! Mmm, wonder if I could wrap up tonight's project in time to make trip to A Salt and Battery (now featuring sustainable seafood, very nice).

Callaloo!

www.trinigourmet.com

Timbuktu!

Loup-Garou!

Babalu!

Lovable Shmoo!



Kathmandu!

How do you do?

Peekaboo!

Yodelay hee hoo!



Here's a Hullabaloo, And Now I'm Through!

....O
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.O

(OK, that's it, I'm finally adding a tag for Just Plain Silly!)

What the Truck? Another Bad Poem With Pictures

What the truck? Salty truck!
Funniest Truck in Ditmas Puhk!

Under attack by a squid with a...er...a fork!
A Cephalopod odd who's run quite amok!


Thanks, Sunshine Stater for the pickup yuck-yuck!

....O
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.O

Tomatorise.

Everybody sing along:

Here comes the tomato
(doot-n-doot-doo)
Here comes the tomato
(doot-n-doot-doo)
And I say, it's all ripe
(doot doodledy doodledy doodledy doodle deedle)

We escaped the blight!

I'd pretty much abandoned my garden around the end of August because of work & other commitments, but it did OK on it's own & there was a nice surprise when I got to the club yesterday to get a ride to the Alley Pond day (which was lots of fun again). This one was the biggest & would've been the prettiest except it was sort of wrapped up in vines & close to the stakes & I broke the skin in getting it loose. Somebody who was at the club asked me if this was a new kind of tomato and I said, "No, this in an old-school tomato, from back in the days before tomatoes were tamed to be packed in boxes & shipped thousands of miles". Then I gave it to him, it wasn't going to travel well with that gash & he said he'd have it for lunch. I ate another one that was too ripe to travel on the spot (delicious). 3 more that were really ready to be eaten went into the salad at the post-Alley Pond day dinner Rev. Shari threw for us (burp!) & even after that, I still had 5 more plus a bunch of cherry tomatoes to bring home!

Good News, Bad Poetry and Fish on Friday

Awright, here's quick lunchtime post to lighten things up a bit!

Good news:

They freed the whale! It was still hurt & weakened but at least its tail isn't tangled up in fishing gear. Can't imagine getting into that cold cold water & going up to a hurt animal that size. Amazing.

Bad Poetry and Fish on Friday -

Yes, it's a two-in-one:

Scrod

By Me

I wish I had a piece of scrod,
I like it so much more than cod.
A trout's a dandy kind of fish
But scrod is so much more delish.

The golden Koi delights mine eyes
But don't go very well with fries.
For golden feast, think fish of brown,
The humble Scrod of Boston town!

There, is not beautiful?

AND...woohoo...we've got a special bonus atrocious poem by the Ol' Philosopher, one of my new blog-friends (god, I just wrote "blog-friends" with a totally straight face, how big a geek does that make me - oh, PLEASE don't answer that!) from the Malden Yacht Club! He left it on my comments yesterday, it's far too good terrible to let it languish off on Haloscan, such talent must be given a proper spotlight (and PS I bet Ogden Nash would LOVE it). Take it away, Ol'P!


...Maybe I can help by offering some of that atrocious poetry you mentionedThis one is about kayaking in the Hudson in the winter:

The Estuary
(with apologies to Ogden Nash)

The estuary
In January
Is colder than a mortuary
It’s texturary
Is quite contrary
To being a paddler’s sanctuary

But an estuary
In February
With ice, is very sumptuary
Kayaking in this ossuary
Could cause results textuary
In the form of your obituary! 


That's all for now!

And speaking of blogfriends - oof, I typed it AGAIN, arrrrggh - I'm actually meeting some of the other NYC boatbloggers tonight - nothing formal, should be fun!

A Poem with Pictures. By Me.

On A Few Things Observed In Downtown Manhattan On A Cold December Day.

The Squirrels
are Fluffy

The Pigeons
are Puffy

The Cherry
Are Very
Confused.

The End!


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.O

Attrition: A Haiku

Working far too hard
Life compressed to weekend days
Sad to drown on land.

That's right, it's Self-Pity Party Part 2!

1st one was no cake.

This one is worse - no malasadas, no saimin.

OK, the malasada/saimin reference is probably completely cryptic to an awful lot of people...what does that mean? Just that my parents have left Hawaii & on top of half my division leaving & general year-end close madness, I'm howlingly homesick - couldn't even get in a last trip before they left.

That's not to say I've given up on getting out there this year as I'd originally planned. Whether I can pull that off remains to be seen. But god, what I'd give for lunch at the Forty Niner in Aiea...

The Last Cuke of Summer

'Tis the last cuke of summer
Rip'ning there all alone
All her crunchy companions
Sliced for salads in days long gone
No flower of her kindred,
No growing gherkins nigh,
To reflect her glossy greenness,
Or give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine on the vine;
Nay I'll pluck thee and grate thee,
to mix with yogurt sublime
I'll add feath'ry fragrant dillweed,
And some garlic crushed so fine
Plus vi-nay-gar, and some juice squeezed
From a lemon of sunny shine.

As a bowl of tzatsiki,
You'll be welcome to stay
in my refri-ger-AY-tor
for a week and a day
Fresh and tangy on a pita,
far from autumn leaves so dry,
I can't wait for next summer
When more recipes I'll try!


With apologies to Thomas Moore.

Although the sincerity of said apologies could well be questioned.

As for the rest of the world, well, I don't think I've inflicted bad poetry on you guys since The Ballad of the Schooner Anne. And there I was merciful, I didn't finish the other 72 verses I would project being necessary to do justice to that particular adventure! Be grateful for small blessings - and come on, two bad poems a year won't kill ya!

Note, slightly later - oh, ok, maybe there were three poems this year. But I didn't think the cute feet one was really all that bad!

note 2, later still...oh, ok, and then there was my entry in Tillerman's Clerihew Day challenge. That was HIS fault, darn it!

Spring Spruce-Up 2! And a Nod to Poetry Month.

The boat wasn't the only thing that got some attention over the weekend - the raised bed got finished off, filled up & spiffed up too. Not quite in that order though!

Weekend before last, it looked like this:


I left having gotten just BARELY enough rocks propping up those boards. This weekend, on Saturday, I reinforced those - I think they'll stay up now - and that means I was able to turn my attention to a little decoration!

I actually found the coral & the big pink barnacles while I was walking from the bus stop to the club - it's a little odd because I'd been thinking that it would be fun to start keeping an eye out for pretty shells & beach glass & stuff to decorate with, and there they were, and don't they look nice? Let's see now, more dirt, and then...oh, there's something else, what was that again...

Oh, right, some PLANTS! I did actually get the acorn squash planted on Sunday. We'll see how they do - they really were looking poorly. Maybe some good sun & room to spread out will help. I'm sort of sorry I wasn't packing the camera on Sunday - in addition to the inaugural planting, the parakeets were around working on their nest all day.

In closing, in honor of National Poetry Month, I'd like to inflict - wait, I mean SHARE - the first verse of a song I've been making up.

It is called "The Ballad of the Schooner Anne". Because if a trip that supposed to last a thousand days isn't crazy enough to deserve to have a ballad written about it, I don't know what is.

This is the first verse. It is meant to be sung to the tune, The Rights of Man - appropriately, a hornpipe. Sailors? Hornpipe? Get it?

Next verse after this is going to start "At a pier in Hoboken the words they were spoken 'Now cast off every line!'". This could get ugly...

Oh, whatevahs. Anyways...here you go.

The Ballad of the Schooner Anne
first & only verse so far. But assuming all goes well, knock wood, I've got a little time to finish.

On the twenty-first of April did the Schooner Anne set sail
For to spend a thousand days among the albatross* and the whale
It was Reid and Sonya all alone ya can believe your ears
When I say they meant to sail away for two and three-quarter years.

Oh Reid built the Anne to a sturdy plan in his parents' own backyard
She had a hydroponic rig to grow alfafa sprouts and chard**
She was carved about Both in and out
With phoenix, and mermaids and sea gods
and a giant squid a-fightin' wid' a sperm whale stout.

*albatross to be sung as a triplet, otherwise the scansion gets all effed up.

**I don't think they're really growing chard. But it is a vegetable and it rhymes with backyard. So there.

SantaCon 2006

Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the city
The shop-windows sparkled with gimcracks so pretty
In the Union Square station I ran from the Q
On my way to Grand Central to visit TQ
My scheduled departure was 5:36
I was rushing to transfer, not pausing for pix.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a hundred St. Nicholases, sodden with beer!

OK, enough bad poetry. That's basically what happened, though. I wasn't actually late, but I was at the point where I did not have all sorts of time to futz around. However, when you are running to catch the Lexington Avenue Express, and you're not actually late, and suddenly the stairs from the platform begin spewing hundreds of drunken Santas (santi?), with the odd reindeer, elf, Elve-ira Mistress of the Toyshops, and angel mixed in, and you happen to have a digital camera on your person, you simply owe to yourself to at least take a FEW pictures.

Otherwise people accuse you of hitting the eggnog too hard, y'know?

Thank goodness I had read about the phenomenon last year on NewYorkOlogy.

Sometimes, this ridiculous city has it's points.