Coney Island Boardwalk, Christmas Eve Day

Christmas Eve Day was another beautiful early winter day here in NYC. In my last post, I'd talked about the first 2 of 3 things I'd wanted to do during my staycation. 1. Help TQ move in - check; 2. Go for a paddle - check. Third thing was way more optional, but the weather on the 24th was just perfect for checking out the new Ocean Wonders: Sharks exhibit at the Coney Island Aquarium.

In my last post I mentioned that there was more blue sparkle, plus sharks - figured I would start off today with the the sparkle and move on to sharks in the next post. This short stroll on the boardwalk wasn't really part of the plan, but it looked so lovely when the Q train got out to where you can start seeing out to sea that I decided to get off one stop before the aquarium and walk there. Just gorgeous.

The beach grass patches you'll see in 2 of the photos are actually fairly recently planted, a volunteer effort with which a lot of my swimmer friends helped out. I was interested in joining them but I think that ended up being one of those "do I paddle or do I go plant beach grass" days, and I ended up paddling - that turned out to be a good call because this was a really popular volunteer project for a whole lot of Coney Island folks, not just swimmers, and I heard they had it all planted in something like a quarter of the time planned! Anyways, the grass seems to have established itself pretty nicely, people were good enough to respect the guard fences that were up during the summer and it's great to see it doing well - had to share a couple of pictures. Nice work CIBBOWS and Bears!

That's it for the write-up - click on any photo for a slideshow view. The one above was my favorite, for some reason! 

12/23/2018 - Sebago Canoe Club to Cross-Bay Bridge and back

Merry Christmas Almost! 

And I'm absolutely delighted to finally be blogging a Brooklyn trip report here on Christmas Eve - it's been way too long since my last one! Lots more photos at the end, btw, so if you haven't got time for the full report, skip on down to those, my camera battery is on its last legs so they aren't as extensive as sometimes, but it was a very photogenic day!

I took last week off from work, and it's been quite a staycation - this isn't a relationship blog and TQ's not into social media much, so I don't talk much about us as a couple except for where we go do fun things together, but I will just say that after over a decade together, I finally suggested that my place might work OK for a couple, if he wanted to think about it, and he thought about it for a bit and decided that sounded good to him, too. That was this summer; since then each of us took an independent week off to do our own sorting and prep, and then we both took last week off from work to move most of his stuff over here, and now I have a roommate and I'm liking it so far!

The moving went pretty well, he only lives a few blocks away and he has a car, so rather than one big moving day, we were doing lots of little runs. The most New Yorky moment was when we loaded up his sofa on dollies and walked it over through the streets, because it was too big to fit in his car; we both realized later that we really should've taken pictures, but we aren't about to recreate it. It was pretty funny, though.

I did manage, of course, to throw my back out - I think it's pretty likely that when two people in their 50's decide they're going to do a move themselves that at least one person is going to end up hobbling around with back spasms, and with TQ having worked for years at a retail job that involved moving large, heavy, awkward objects (specifically, small boats, that's how we met, in fact), I was by far the more likely candidate. Fortunately that wasn't until the 22nd, and we'd already moved everything that took two people, so I was able to take a break on Saturday while he kept working on the move and took care of the day's meals for both of us.

I was OK sitting, which was good, because there were 3 things I'd wanted too do during this staycation - 1 that just had to happen, 1 that I really, really wanted, and 1 that was nice but not necessary. 1, obviously, was getting TQ moved in. That was a must-do. 2 was going paddling. I've been absolutely aching to get out for a paddle, between bad weather, busy weekends, and weekends that were both busy and crappy, we hadn't been since October. My paddling bag was still packed for for cool, not cold, water from a paddle we'd planned a few weeks back (water temps were hovering at 50 but it's always hard to put on the drysuit for the first time in the off-season, and the forecast had been really nice, so I was shooting for one last paddle in a Farmer Jane & neoprene top), but that one got called off for one reason or another.

TQ was up for a paddle too - my last paddle in October was with him, and I don't think he's gotten out since then, either. We'd been watching the forecast for Sunday all the way through the move, and it had cooperatively staying just about as nice as you can ask for this time of year - air temperature mid-40's, breeze 7-10 kts (enough to get your heart rate up on the upwind leg without quite becoming a slog). When Sunday came around, we'd moved enough stuff to reward ourselves with a play day, and anyways, I still wasn't going to be up to actually moving anything (my back was feeling enough better to be encouraging, but still pretty twinge-y), so we packed up our gear and headed off to the club, where we found exactly the weather NOAA had promised.

I let TQ move the boats - I did help him carry my Romany out of the container, but it didn't feel very good at all, and the most annoying thing possible would've been me re-throwing-out my back this close to the water, so I told him "OK, I am not gonna be a hero here" and he took over. We were launching around 11, low water was at 2:30, and this was just a paddle for the sake of paddling; taking into account the fact that I didn't know how my back was going to feel, I suggested that we just hang a left outside the basin and paddle against the current, as that way if things went wrong we would have a tidal assist going back (now, I know he would get me home one way or another if things went wrong out there, but I figured this would make it easiest for him). Once we were out in the bay and had been underway for a mile or so, I was feeling good, so suggested we go to the North Channel section of the Cross Bay Bridge.

It was just gorgeous out there, one of those clean blue sparkling days that reward winter paddlers for schlepping and donning all the winter gear. We saw 4 boats over the entire paddle - one little white motorboat out fishing, one Harbor Police launch patrolling, and 2 Sebago racers who were launching just as we got back. I can never get over that sense of having so much space to ourselves, so much of the NYC experience is about crowds and hustle and bustle and being able to be anywhere in the city where the only creatures you see are birds is just magical. We've got the winter birds right now, by the way - bufflehead and brant, a laughing loon (love that sound) just outside the basin, and even a couple of longtailed ducks. I've seen more of those out in more open water, but one popped up from a dive about three yards in front of my boat as we were cruising along! I'm not sure who was more surprised, me or the duck - it responded to seeing my kayak bearing down on it with an emergency crash dive, so fast I wasn't sure what it was, just that it was a black and white duck but not a bufflehead, but then I saw another pair swimming along a little ways away.

We turned around just shy of the bridge, we'd gone most of the way there sheltered from the ebb current by the marsh islands and when we got closer to the bridge and started to have to push a bit more to make progress, I decided that it would probably be smarter to not overdo it. That meant a nice current assist all the way home, the entire paddle was just under 8 miles, and I got out of my boat back at the dock to find that Dr. Romany and Dr. Werner are pretty good chiropracters - TQ and I had thought that the gentle repetitive rotation of paddling at an easy cruising pace would probably help loosen things up, and it did. I still let him take care of putting the boats away, it still wasn't perfect, but this (probably) last paddle of 2018 was just what the doctor ordered in every way.

Here are some photos from the blue & sparkling bay - click for a slideshow view, as usual.

Oh, and I did pull off the third thing I'd hoped to do today - that'll be another post, it was lovely, with more blue sparkle, plus sharks! 

Escape from Black Friday - Thanksgiving warmup!

Sorry, this one's not open to the public like the walk I did with some family members the day after Thanksgiving, or the neat park with the elaborate cement bridges. This one goes way way back for me though - this is on the farm where my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Bill (mentioned here and there on this blog as "Canoe Building Uncle", he's built and restored so many beautiful boats) brought up my cousins, and then handed it off to my cousin Sharon and her husband to raise their kids. Visits to this branch of the family were where I think I got my earliest taste for paddling - Michigonians (or is that Michiganders?) LOOOOOVE their canoes and I think I was being plunked down in an old aluminum Grumman on family trips here since before I can remember. No paddling in November, I was traveling light with just a carry-on stuffed with books and fancy chocolates, no room for a drysuit, but there was plenty of time on Thanksgiving day for a quiet walk around the pond. 

It's deer season in Michigan, nobody was supposed to be hunting this private property on Thanksgiving, but I did ask my cousin's husband for some blaze orange, just to be safe. So stylish, right?

So nice to get a little time to myself outside, and stretch my legs after my very sedentary work/fly Wednesday, and I got back just as Canoe-Building Uncle was taking the turkey out of the Weber kettle - oh was it ever delicious!

Great great visit - a little too short, and the last-minute plane tickets were steep, but I'm so glad I went. That's it for the writeup, click any photo for a slideshow view. 

Happy Solstice!

Here's a beautiful song to celebrate this day. It's gray and rainy and windy here in NYC today, but I'm happy to think that the days will now start stretching longer!

And I say to myself...

what a wonderful

world

As usual on Blogger, click any photo for a better view. 

This one's for Laura over at Coast of Illinois who got me going on one odd reason why I'm especially fond of these guys when she commented that her sad train commute needs buskers. 

Yes, a good busker is a blessing to a commute. Bad ones can be another story but I love these guys.

They play at my stop in Soho pretty regularly (sometimes together, sometimes trombone guy on his own). Funny thing is that they really won me over by their habit of sticking to their regular jazz standards right through the holiday season - NYC loves doing Christmas, and although I do love singing and hearing traditional carols, the incessant aural bombardment of pop Christmas songs in every store sometimes gets to me, especially if I'm feeling a little blue or stressed anyways which sometimes happens to me. I get nipped at by mild depression from time to time and when that happens at Christmas all the be-of-good-cheer stuff can get overwhelming and I get to  where I'd just like to crawl under the covers and stay there until December 26th if not January 2nd. Call it "Holidazed". Can't imagine what it's like for people with deeper depression - if anyone's reading this who goes through that, you have my respect and sympathy.

These guys are good and and if they wanted to, they could go with the holiday theme and do some wonderful brass arrangements of Christmas songs. I would like them and I would give them money, but there's something so refreshing about coming out of the office and walking past all the Soho shop windows pushing you to buy stuff with their holiday glitz, and then getting to the subway stairs and then hearing the strains of "Mac the Knife" drifting up to greet you and know you're getting a jazzy little hiatus from the season while you wait for the train. The first time I heard them was one of those times when my holiday spirits were wearing thin and I was just delighted to find them playing their tunes. Just the break I'd needed. I could just feel myself unwinding while I listened.

I was delighted to find them at 14th street yesterday, I'd gone to the main post office at 34th street (open all night) to put a couple of items in the mail (there some candy and there was some hair, I sure hope I got the mailing labels right!) and was switching from the C to the D here to get back to Brooklyn. I was down on the other end of the platform when I realized I was hearing "Hello Dolly". Went down to investigate 'cause the performing style sounded really familiar, and sure enough, there they were. Nice surprise, made the sort of long wait for a D train way better.

And as long as I'm posting about running errands in NYC - the Empire State Building (also on 34th St.) looked neat with its head in the clouds last night. I'm glad I had a camera along. 

Keepers of the Game - a documentary

Keepers of the Game | Theatrical Trailer from Flatbush Pictures on Vimeo.

Just a quick post tonight to share the trailer of an documentary I got to see last night at Sebago, courtesy of Steve the Paddling Chef -- long may he paddle and cook!

He's the organizer of the movie night series we enjoy at Sebago over the winter. It's a nice way to gather as a club in the off-season, when not everybody has the gear or the skills to be getting out on the water. Steve brings a crockpot full of some hearty home-made soup and gets a fire going in the woodstove, others bring other treats or drinks, we catch up for a while and then watch a movie.

Usually it's boating-themed but for this first one of the winter of 2018-2019, he had a special treat for us - a good friend and neighbor of his, Judd Ehrlich, is a director and producer of documentaries, and Steve thought we would enjoy Keepers of the Game, his film following a courageously groundbreaking girls' lacrosse team through their first season together. Here's the description from the Flatbush Pictures website (link):

Lacrosse was born in Akwesasne Mohawk Territory as a sacred game, traditionally reserved for men. Just off the reservation at Salmon River High in Fort Covington, NY an all-Native girls lacrosse team comes together, seeking to be the first Native women’s team to bring home a Section Championship. But first, they will have to overcome their crosstown rivals, Massena High. As the season comes to a head, the team is faced with increasing ambivalence in their own community and the girls must prove that the game of lacrosse is their rightful inheritance. With more than just the championship on the line, the girls fight to blaze a new path for the next generation of Native women, while still honoring their people’s tradition in a changing world.

One aspect of the story that made this film particularly resonant for me was that there's a lot of focus on how the Mohawk tribe has been reclaiming a culture that was nearly driven out of existence - so similar to the inspiring story of the Hawaiian cultural renaissance that was just beginning when I was a kid growing up in the islands and is in full flower today, and I was remembering stories I heard during Hokule'a's visit as I watched. But anyone whose heart is moved by stories of young people with the spirit and drive to excel even when an awful lot of the world (sadly, the part most of us live in) is doing everything it can to tell them that girls like them can't shine is going to love this.

I'd especially recommend it to friends with young athletes in their lives - at first I was thinking of girls and young women, but I think any sports kid will appreciate this story.

It's available on Netflix, iTunes, and on YouTube Movies. 

McCourtie Park, Somerset Township, Michigan (Summer 2017)

Backtracking to August 2017 tonight, when I made another trip to Michigan (and Indiana) for a really fantastic family event, my cousin once removed (that's your cousin's kid, right?) Shea's wedding to lovely Emily, which was held at the Potawatomie Inn in Pokagon State Park, Indiana. I'd never been to Indiana before that I know of and my first impression was really good, but I ended up having kind of a lot of fun stuff going in September and I never got around to sharing pictures.

I was reminded of visiting McCourtie Park in Somerset Township on that trip by this pretty little rustic bridge in the park where we went for the 2018 edition of Escape from Black Friday.  

It looks like branches but it's actually concrete (a variety of "faux bois", making something that's not wood look like wood for an artistic effect) and I found myself wondering if it might be by the same concrete artists who made the amazing structures in McCourtie Park. The story behind that park is that it was the grounds of the estate owned by William H.L. McCourtie, a local who was very successful in the cement business. He wanted to showcase the product that had made him rich on the estate, so he hired two craftsmen from Mexico, George Cardosa and Ralph Carona, to come to Michigan to build 17 concrete bridges across a little stream that runs through the property (plus some little benches here and there, and two chimneys (masquerading as tree trunks) for a rathskeller and garage complex that was also on the property.

Carona and Cardosa must have been incredibly creative guys and very skilled at what they did - when I went through my photos of the park tonight I decided the bridge above probably wasn't by them because although it was nice enough, next to the McCourtie Park bridges, it's pretty darned ho-hum! This bridge was, in fact, what I was picturing when my folks and my aunt Kathy were describing it when we were discussing a visit, but what's really there is SO much more fun. Definitely worth a visit if you ever find yourself in that part of Michigan. You can read more about it at the Atlas Obscura entry on the park, and here are my photos from last summer - no more writing, click on any photo for a slideshow view. The Scottie at the end was just there with a volunteer who was doing some work there, he was very friendly and too cute to leave out. Enjoy! 

December Ducky Doodle - The Famous Fancy Duck of Central Park (with review of the Harry Potter History of Magic exhibit)

So, hooray, last week I broke out the colored pencils and crayons again and produced another ducky doodle. When I shared this one on Facebook I called it the "Ardith Bondi Duckydoodle Challenge"; the inspiration for it was twofold, with the original prompt being the stunning photo below of the increasingly famous "Hot Duck" of Central Park. Seriously, I've been thinking of him as the "Fancy Duck" -- because isn't he just the fanciest duck you've ever seen? -- but apparently "Hot Duck" is getting to be his accepted nickname as his likeness spreads across media both social and traditional, to the point that if you google "Hot Duck" it will most likely auto-suggest Central Park.

He's not really supposed to be here, the best guess is that he's a pet somebody released, but he seems to have settled in just fine and posts about him are all the rage among the NYC social media set. I will most likely try to go see him at some point, I don't really have a zoom lens that will do him justice but I'll take my camera and just plan a picture-taking day in the park, and if I get to see the duck, yay. If I get to take a picture, double yay, but with so many great photos of him out there, getting the shot is not really that important (kind of like I don't worry so much about getting whale shots on the American Princess because I know Artie Raslich will almost certainly share something spectacular from the same trip).  

Ardith Bondi, the photographer who got this lovely shot of the fancy duck, is another friend I've met through Gotham Whale, the local citizen science group that researches our local marine mammals from seals on up to the humpbacks who have returned to our area with increasing frequency as our waterways (which have grown cleaner and cleaner since the Clean Water Act was enacted) support larger and larger schools of menhaden (the small oil-rich fish that is a favorite summertime food for whales). I'm not sure I've ever met Ardith in person but we're Facebook friends, I love her photos and always look forward to her postings. Click here to see more of her photography.

She'd gone to Central Park to see if she could get some fancy duck photos back at the beginning of November; she said there was a mob of people there and it was hard to get a clear shot, but her patience was rewarded with this lovely photo of the mandarin in a perfect showboat moment, fluffing out his feathers at some pesky mallards. I'd seen a few shots of him at this point but this was the one that made me think "Oh, wow, I gotta draw that duck!"

That ended up not happening until Inspiration Part 2, which was (of all the unexpected sources of inspiration ever) this year's Scholastic Trade holiday party.

Ordinarily, "inspirational" is the last adjective I would apply to a company holiday party. I'm an introvert, not an extreme one but enough so that the small talk just feels awkward. I like Scholastic's more since the company's been doing them in house for the last few years, it really helps to NOT have music blasting the way they do at the catering spaces you can rent for your company's holiday shindigs (I hate that, I'm bad enough at small talk without having it be impossible to hear what anyone says back to you), plus the food service company that runs our company cafeteria and coffee bar actually does a really good job with the food and decor, but I still just consider myself bad at company parties.

This year, though, the Trade division got an extra special treat - somebody on high decided we were going to have our party at the Harry Potter: A History of Magic exhibit at the New-York Historical society. I'd already been to see this as a fun warm-up for seeing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Halloween, but I was delighted to have more time to go back and look over the exhibit again. The Harry Potter series is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and the exhibit was curated by the British Library in honor of that milestone. They did a wonderful job of putting together examples of real-life historical artifacts and tying them in with the world that J.K. Rowling created, and the art is plentiful and luscious -- there are Harry Potter drawings and paintings by Mary Grand Pre (the illustrator of the American editions), Kazu Kibuishi (my favorite of all the Scholastic Graphix imprint artists, who did a lovely set of covers for a 15th anniversary paperback box set), Brian Selznick (Hugo Cabret illustrator who did covers for the 20th anniversary box set), Jim Kay (illustrator of the magnificent illustrated editions that are the latest offering in the Harry Potter re-issues, just glorious stuff so far) and J.K. Rowling herself - she's quite talented on the art side too and you get to see a lot of these charming little drawings she did to help herself envision Harry's world. So those are scattered all through, and then many of the historical artifacts are also beautiful, with illuminated manuscripts and scrolls and globes and, oh, all sorts of lovely things to look at.

This did actually end up being the first time I've ever gone home from a company party hungry. Food and drinks were not allowed in the gallery, just in the lobby area. I had one drink and a couple of hor's d'oeuvres and then dove into the exhibit. By the time I came back out it was five minutes before time for us to get out and all the food was gone - but I didn't care and if I were to go back and do it again I would do the same thing. Sometimes you feed the mouth, this time I feasted my eyes and went home going "MUST ART! MUST ART!" - fixed myself a super-quick dinner (because I was ravenous, lunch had been a long time ago) and then set myself a challenge of drawing Ardith's duck in half an hour. Nothing to do with the exhibit, just been thinking of drawing him for a while so being in a drawing mood, I picked him as my subject. And the 30-minute challenge was just because with no art training, I can be really slow figuring out how to show something, but I needed to get some sleep and it was already late. I dispensed with my usual obsessing over the reflections in the water (seriously, I think I spend twice as long on the background as on the subject when I do these drawings) and pulled it off it 45 minutes and was pretty happy with it too!

So there is both a review of the Harry Potter History of Magic AND my NYC social media participant mandatory #hotduck entry!