Country Mouse Visits City Mouse
we haven't changed in 20 years, we're still dancing!
The title of this post is somewhat inaccurate. Because Rochester is not the country, it is a city. But it is not New York City. And calling this post “Former City Mouse living in Small City visits Big City Mouse,” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Whenever I go back “home” to the New York Metro area, I make my best effort to try to break away from both sides of the family to see at least one friend from my past life. This is not easy. There is first the six to seven-hour drive back to New York, crammed with kids and DVDs and suitcases, snacks and backpacks. Then the juggling of arrangements with two families. Attempting to see friends who are flung all over the Metro area further complicates the logistics. Sometimes, when I come in, I don’t bother to get in touch with old friends. It’s not that I don’t want to see people, it is just a recipe for disappointment.
But in the end, spending time with old friends is what my soul needs most. Even if the visit lasts no more than an hour or two.
So there I was this Passover, rushing out the door of my in-law’s house to catch a Long Island Railroad train meet a friend for lunch in the city.
Back before I was Transpantednorth, public transportation was a way of life. Now, we go most places by car and the only public transportation my kids know is the school bus.
What great material public transportation provides for the writer: people watching, eavesdropping. Time to think. Even on this trip, I had a great conversation with an older, retired CUNY professor about a Wall Street Journal article that discussed plans to turn the area around the Flatrion Building on 23rd St. into the country’s next high-tech “Silicon Alley.” That conversation led into a talk about the architect Frank Gehry with the professor and a mom sitting next to him who was taking her kids into the city to see The Adams Family on Broadway.
Sitting on a train affords you the opportunity to strike up such conversations with strangers. Would the same topics come up in the produce aisle at Wegmans? Probably not.
And after the LIRR, it was onto the NYC Subway. Ah, the subway! To this day, I always have a Metro Card somewhere in my wallet, though I am nowhere within commuting distance to even 242nd Street, the northernmost subway station. And, if I did still commute by subway, I am sure it would get old very fast. I now only ride a few times a year and it sends me reeling in nostalgia. Even the dank smell of the subway air, combined with the sounds of a musician playing a steel drum for a few coins or bills right there on the platform, makes me want to jump and scream for joy “Hey New York! I’m HOME!” And, if I know most New Yorkers, my outburst would barely bat a glance of attention. A true New Yorker rarely looks up from his newspaper — or now, his smartphone.
Nearly two hours later, I finally arrived at my friend’s apartment, the friend who had after so many years working and struggling had finally arrived as a true Upper West Side Manhattanite. She lives in a beautiful doorman apartment with her new husband and their blended family. My college friend, the one who got nasty looks from our professor because she could not stop turning around to talk to me in class, the one who I helped kill a cockroach the size of a Volkswagen Beetle with a bottle of hairspray in her first Manhattan studio, now has a corner living room with a wrap-around curtain of glass that offers views of Broadway, Lincoln Center and a front row seat to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I am so proud.
Old friends like this can go for months at a time without speaking, but can pick up right where they left off. The last time I saw city mouse was December 2009 at my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. The time before that was the summer before at her second wedding. Needless to say, we didn’t have much time at either of these occasions to catch up. But we sure did dance!
So this time? We sat in at her table that overlooked upper Broadway, drank some red wine from Spain and ate – Matzah Lasagna. Okay, the last part did not sound all that glamorous so what else could we eat?
We talked. We talked about work and not working, kids who had crushes on Justin Beiber and kids who melted their $300 transition eyeglasses (more on that in another post).
Before I knew it, it was time to catch the train back to Long Island. So, she walked me back to the 72nd station. On the way, we strolled in her Upper West Side neighborhood, a neighborhood that could have been mine, maybe with a similar career track, if I would have been her roomate all those years ago instead of following my heart out to California. We walked through the Lincoln Center Plaza where she proudly pointed out the new patch of grass. This may be very exciting to city dwellers, but us country mice get to play in grass whenever we want!
We passed her old apartment building on W72nd street and also saw her very first apartment building, the one with the cockroach, the one I almost moved into almost 20 years earlier.
And on the train ride back to suburbia, staring at the stillframes the train makes of unsuspecting children playing in yards or workers unloading trucks onto loading docks, I wondered what life could have been like if I lived it as a Big City Mouse.
Under the Purim Moon in Israel – 2008
It was just St. Patrick’s Day in America this week. I couldn’t help but notice all the people decked out in green, so publicly and outwardly showing their Irish pride. People were wearing the green and donning shamrocks in schools and restaurants and supermarkets.
Strangely enough, this visible expression of pride in one’s ethnic identity reminded me of the revelry and costumes of the people of Israel as they celebrate Purim. Purim is a story of kings, queens, and villans. A holiday of reversals. A holiday of masks, costumes, and feasting. And like St. Patrick’s Day, there is some drinking involved too!
In America, Jewish holiday celebrations take place mainly inside synagogues and Jewish community centers. But in Israel, the planet’s only country with a Jewish majority, all Jewish holidays spill onto the streets and shops. And Purim in Israel is one big nationwide party. A party celebrating a victory over wickedness that could hold true today. There was a wicked man in Persia back then that we defeated. There is a wicked man in modern-day Persia, or Iran now. Both of these men pledged to destroy the Jewish people. One wicked man defeated. Many more to go.
What could have been a day of great sadness for the Jews turned out to be a day of great joy. And, we are commanded to be joyous, intoxicated even, on Purim. So drunk in fact, that on Purim in Israel there are special parades called Ad Lo Yada, meaning in English, “That you Shouldn’t know,” meaning on Purim you should be so happy (drunk) you should not be able to distinguish between Mordechi or Haman (boooooo!). Friend or Foe.
Last night I looked up and saw the Supermoon. While this moon was indeed one of the fullest full moons I had ever seen, it did not surprise me that there was a full moon. Purim, always falls under a full moon in March. Or, more precisely, the 15 of the Hebrew month of Adar.
As I gazed at this body of luminescence, I took a deep sigh and reminisced about where I saw it three years ago. 
This was the moon I saw hovering over Jerusalem’s Yemin Moshe neighborhood. Okay, from my amateur photo, it was not as big as the supermoon, but it was special all the same.
I thought about all I saw and ate and felt when I was in Israel. I thought about the people who opened their homes and families to me who hardly knew me. I thought about waving the American flag in a Purim Parade and listening to the cheers from the people along the route. I thought about the traffic jam I got caught in. The reason for the traffic jam? Israelis were clogging the streets because they were delivering baskets of Purim food to their neighbors. That’s the kind of country Israel is – one big family.
Then, I caught a bit of CNN’s Piers Morgan’s interview with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During commercial breaks, the same old images were shown to the world of Israel: The Kotel, The Dome of the Rock.
Excuse me, Piers, but you were in Israel during PURIM!
Are these tired images all you really can show about Israel? Must Israel always be covered with conflict in the backdrop? If you got out on the streets of Tel Aviv or Modi’in or Jerusalem, if you could do one sidebar story, you would have wandered the streets and been treated to the following faces:
Halvah for sale for the Purim Feast
my friend's brother, decked out for Purim, celebrating with a feast at his home
teen girls dressing up and having fun in Tel Aviv
mom and kids wait for bus outside of old city, Jerusalem
Will showing these images make Israelis seem just too normal, too human for media coverage? Would it portray Israel too much for what Israelis are, a people who love to live, who love to celebrate?
Until the media in America show photos like this of Israel, I’ll just have to share my own. And I’ll be taking more. Because we just booked our next trip for this December. Even though it is the first day of spring, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can’t wait until the winter.
Stuck at the Airport with Kids? Here’s what to do!
As I write this, the curse of the Philadelphia International Airport has struck my family once again. I last saw my husband through half-asleep eyes as he kissed me goodbye at 4 a.m. last Sunday. A conference out in California was taking him away during our February “vacation.” My vacation home with the three children. He is now stuck in Philadelphia. I’ve shoveled nine inches of snow off our driveway. I really don’t know when he will be home.
I am sure that the curse of delayed or canceled flights due to the weather is not reserved just for those in the Philadelphia airport. No, with this winter, and this winter vacation coming to a close at the same time another snowstorm rattles our air traffic patterns, our story is not unique.
So this blog post is dedicated to all of you out there who have been stuck at an airport with children.
I really think that going away to get a few days of sunshine over February break is just not worth it in our age of “Welcome to the Hellish Skies.” Indeed, we did a few years ago make an attempt at a Florida getaway. But due to storms, we instead had a 13-hour destination vacation to the Philadelphia International Airport!
My son, an avid New York Mets fan, was dressed head to toe in Orange and Blue Mets paraphernalia. He cowered the whole time in his jacket, hood pulled up all the way. He actually believed that because he loved the Mets and hated the Phillies, someone in the airport of the City of Brotherly Love was going to kill him.
Our efforts to escape the cold of Rochester for just one week had failed. We missed our connecting flight from Philadelphia to West Palm Beach. Every flight to southern Florida was booked and overbooked for the next three days.
As we looked at the flight board, we slowly came to the harsh realization that the palm trees of our vacation dreams had been yanked out by the roots. We could stay in the airport as standby refugees, or head back to cold icy Rochester. We were not going anywhere.
But then I had an epiphany. I realized, Hey! We are still on vacation! Vacation can be a state of mind, even if you did not make it to the Sunshine State.
So here are my hard-earned tips of what to do you if you are on a 13-hour standby hoping in vain to get your flight to paradise:
- Immediately go to the “customer service” line and demand you get a pillow. Take two or three and don’t feel guilty. The airline has ruined your original vacation destination and they owe it to you to make you as comfortable as possible.
- Forget the food court. You are on vacation and deserve the best of airport dining. In our case, it was Applebees. Any frugalities of ordering from a restaurant menu with children- like sharing – should be lifted. We were on vacation. Kids, if you want a beverage other than water, go for it! That naturally blue-colored smoothie? Go for it!
- As far as the adults in your party, order an alcoholic beverage. You are going to need it.
- After your meal, order dessert. Those desserts that stare at you all throughout your meal from those triangular placards placed strategically on the table. Remember, this may be your only vacation meal!
- After your meal, don’t bother checking on your flight status. You know you are not boarding any time soon, if you board at all.
- Find out if the airport you are stranded in has a Sharper Image or a Brookstones. Loiter there for an hour or so. Spend most of this time on one of their massage chairs. Ignore looks from salesperson.
- Is the hot stuffy airport getting to your children? Do what my kids did and let them pretend that the bathroom is their own personal water park. Cool off by dunking your child’s head in the sink. Just like dunking into the pool at grandma and grandpa’s condo. How refreshing!
- Around 10:00 p.m., entire sections of the airport should be clear enough to let your kids run completely wild. Make sure you pack a jumprope and maybe some in-line skates in addition to some healthy and sugary snacks.
- At 11 p.m or later, if you are still waiting on standby in a nearly empty airport, abandon the rule about indoor voices. And the no running rule. And the no climbing and jumping on furniture rule. Moms, that glass of wine at Applebees must have worn off by now. Use the extra space to do a little yoga stretching to relieve the stress.
Airport authorities, if you cannot tolerate the wildness of unruly children, who have spent over 10 hours cooped up in your airport, you should have done more to get good, hardworking parents to their original vacation destinations. Airlines, you should have done the decent thing and not have overbooked your flights. So go ahead kids and parents, make all the outdoor voices, and screams, and wild laughter you can conjure up. This is family time!
YOU ARE ON VACATION, REMEMBER?
Happy Year of the Rabbit
My brother and I at Ko Shing Rice Shoppe's Grand Opening, circa 1977
Growing up, all roads led to Chinatown.
My family went into “the city” a lot. That is what Manhattan is called, even if you lived in one of New York City’s outer boroughs, as we did. We could be uptown at the Museum of Natural History, at Madison Square Garden catching the Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus or the Ice Capades, or schmoozing on the Lower East Side. But when we got hungry, we ended our day in the city in Chinatown.
And most of the time, we ate at the same restaurant: The Ko Shing Rice Shoppe.
The Ko Shing Rice Shoppe was located right across the street from the brand-new Confucius Tower apartment buildings. Its dining room was sparsely decorated with wood panels and mirrored walls and plain tables and chairs. It was not a tourist spot so it did not have the usual Chinese kitsch of gongs, pagoda-sloped ceilings or dragon tapestries on the walls.
What it had was great food.
My grandfather knew the owner from many years before. He worked nights at the New York Daily News for over 50 years. His lunch break was around 3:00 a.m. Over the years, he became a regular at one of these all-night Chinese kitchens that operated out of a midtown basement. There, he met Lee. One day, or night, Lee said he was opening up his own restaurant in Chinatown and wanted my grandfather’s whole family to be there for the celebration.
That is where the above picture is from. I was about nine, so my brother was only five. We were the only non-Asian family there among the celebrants, and we were treated to plate after plate of chicken & cashews, crab, bowls of winter melon soup and other delicacies.
From that age on, until my 20’s that was the restaurant of my family’s choice, above Italian food, above Kosher Deli, it was Chinese food that was our exotic cuisine of preference. Chinese food is as inextricably linked to my identity as Matzah Ball soup and gifelte fish.
So, on day outings to the city, we would get there at an odd hour: 3:30 or 4 o clock. The restaurant would be all but empty except for our family: my parents and my brother, my grandparents, and friends who would meet us there, locally and from out-of-town.
In the back at a huge round table, the cook staff would be chopping mountains of Bok Choy and broccoli in advance of the evening rush. My grandfather would take us into the kitchen to say hi to Lee and the chefs. Then we would order, my grandfather would order for the whole family not bothering to even look at the menu. He would just ask Lee to make us a dish of this and a plate of that, always with extra ginger and garlic at my grandmother’s request.
If the waiters had time, they would patiently instruct my brother and I how to use chopsticks. We would have to eventually abandon our practice and resign to use our forks when my mom and grandmother said we were taking too long in our attempts to pick up every individual grain of rice.
After dinner, it was still early in the evening. No matter the weather, summer or winter, we would walk through the narrow streets of the heart of Chinatown. And before vegetarianism or veganism was hip, my grandmother was the first person to introduce me to tofu. After dinner, she would have to make a stop at the Tofu factory to bring some home.
The Ko Shing Rice Shoppe was a place where we held our family birthday parties. My mom’s 40th. My grandfather’s 65th. I even found myself there with my grandfather after the funeral of my paternal grandmother, with whom I did not have a relationship.
But on the ride home, seeing that I was a bit glum, my grandpa found our way somehow from the funeral home in Westchester to the Ko Shing Rice Shoppe. We talked over the events of the day over steaming cups of tea and a dish of beef lo mein.
I don’t know if the Ko Shing Rice Shoppe still exists. I went back to Chinatown on a recent visit but didn’t have the heart to walk the street where it was, in case it was boarded up or another restaurant had taken its place.
In young adulthood, visits to another Chinatown – this time in San Francisco – were a highlight of my newlywed life when my husband and I lived in Berkeley, Calif. We ate at San Francisco’s famous house of NanKing, where lines would snake around the corner during the Chinese New Year to sit in a crammed dining room and feast on sizzling plates of vegetables drenched in the most incredible hoisin sauce I have ever tasted. In the evening, we squeezed into the crowds for a view of the parade, complete with Chinese Dragon dances, drumming bands, and marshall arts demonstrations.
Now I live in a town without a Chinatown. But there are still some good family owned Chinese restaurants in Rochester, like Golden Dynasty and Chen’s. My diet has changed from consuming everything to only sticking to vegetarian items. But still, on Chinese New years, my children delight in the traditions of getting a dollar in an envelope and opening up fortunes.
Have a great New Year!
Welcome to Canada: Did you bring your Skates?
after a skate, a young couple takes in free samples of beer in a Toronto Brewery
This Christmas vacation, my family took a mini getaway to Toronto. As an alternative to our New York City visits, we love exploring this cosmopolitan city to the North for its great restaurants, theatres, shopping, and museums. Going round and round on an outdoor skating rink in sub-zero (Celsius) temperatures we regret to say was the farthest thing from our minds.
Because our children go to sleep away camp north of Toronto, not only are we having fun getting to know Torontos’ sites but its people. My daughter spent much of our visit not with us but with the family of a friend she made from summer camp. All arrangements were made over Skype through the girls and without one conversation between the adults. All directions were found via GPS. Welcome to long distance friendships in the 21st Century, I guess.
We dropped Jolie off at her friend’s house and were greeted by the girl’s mother. In the small entryway of the house, we made some awkward chit-chat as the girls settled in for a weekend of catching up and shopping. When we mentioned that we were staying at the Westin Harbour Castle, the mom’s first reaction was:
“They have a lovely ice skating rink just a block from your hotel. Did you bring your skates?”
About a half hour later, the father came home after participating in the traditional Canadian Boxing Day, which is the equivalent to our Black Friday for shopping deals and sales. We were introduced and then his wife went down to the basement to get something from their pantry.
In another awkward introductory chit-chat, the father of my daughter’s friend independently asked us the same question:
“There is this great outdoor ice skating rink near your hotel. Did you bring your skates?”
Now, both my husband and I looked at each other with great amusement. We were struck that Canadians make the assumption that we actually – all of us – owned our own pair of skates. And there was this second assumption that – upon our arrival to this vast cosmopolitan city, the first thing we would want to do was skate.
Another inquiry of our skating habits was made as we were checking out of our hotel. As we waited with our luggage, the bellhop looked at me and my boys and asked me in his French Canadian accent: “Do your boys skate? Do they play ‘ockey?” I had to say no and I asked him why he asked.
He then pointed to a well dressed young man standing in the lobby. “Because, ma’am, that young man plays hockey for the Pittsburgh Penguins. He is only 20 and makes over 2 milion a yaear. So, your boys should liarn to play ‘ockey!”
Now, I am sorry to say that I did not recognize this young man, so this brush with fame was completely wasted on me. And I also appreciated this bellhop’s hope that my young sons held the athletic prowess to be hockey stars, but again he was sorely mistaken. I’m afraid, Canada, that we Americans are just not that into skating.
Or are we? Do you skate? And if so, do you own your own pair?
What you can learn from a Lizard Named Sue
seemingly fragile, anoles make quite resilient pets
This is the story of a lizard named Sue. Her given, formal name is Susan.
Why Susan? Susan the anole started her life as a 4th grade class biology project. My son’s science partner Sarah declared that this animal must have a name that started and ended with the names of her caretakers: Sarah and Nathan. Hence, the moniker Susan was bequeathed to this tiny, sometimes green, sometimes brown reptile.
Anoles are very delicate creatures. Adapting an anole is free, but the stuff that the anole needs to live is not. It needs a large glass tank and proper humidity and temperature levels that are maintained with a heat lamp and daily squirts of a water mister. Within the tank, it needs a water dish and natural or artificial plants to hide within.
Then there is the strict diet anoles follow: Crickets. Live ones. Though the anole requires no walking or training, the anole owner must frequent the local pet store and bring these creaking creatures home in a plastic bag.
The crickets are kept in a separate container, and must also be fed lettuce, potato peelings or other vegetable scraps. In other words, the anole owner has a little ecosystem going on.
Anoles, unlike fuzzy and loving puppies, are not fuzzy or loving. But unlike puppies, you can leave an anole by itself for a night or two if you give it a supply of crickets and put its light on a timer.
One early spring weekend, my family decided to take an overnight road trip to Cleveland. Nathan threw some crickets in Susan’s tank and bid her farewell.
Unlike leaving a dog or a puppy, who become sad and traumatized when they are separated from their master for any length of time, I don’t think Susan really noticed we would be gone.
We returned from a short but great trip to the city where the phrase Rock ‘n Roll was coined. At the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum, we enjoyed looking at all the rock memorabilia and learning which musician inspired which musician in the attraction’s vast interactive database. In the special exhibit on Bruce Springsteen, viewing the original notebook where the Boss scribbled the lyrics to Thunder Road was almost a spiritual experience.
We cheered on the Cleveland Indians and ate some great food in the Flats Arts district. We couldn’t wait to come home and tell Sue all about it.
Only, when we climbed the stairs to Nathan’s bedroom and peered inside Susan’s tank, either she had hidden herself extraordinarily well, or she had fled.
Now, if you scroll back up a bit, you will notice that my son had fed Susan some crickets. But, alas, he did not completely close up the screen on top of her tank.
Our lizard named Sue was gone. So tiny and capable of crawling into any crevice of the house, including our ventilation and/or plumbing system, all hope seemed lost.
Nathan went to bed devistated.
“Suzie, Sooooozzie!” he cried in his bed. He cried himself to sleep.
As I tried to sleep that night, I was simultaneously touched that a boy could care so much for a tiny creature and creeped out that it could be anywhere in the house and we would probably smell it before we found it.
Two weeks passed.
It was a quiet afternoon before the kids got home from school when I decided to do some deep cleaning in the boys’ bedroom. I had moved the large bookcase from the wall and was dusting behind it when, from the corner of my eye, I noticed that a small, plastic toy lizard had appeared.
Only this plastic lizard darted across the floor before my eyes.
Susan! She was alive. I was elated and completely spooked all at once. I threw a small toy bucket over the found creature and waited for my brave daughter to come home and pick it up and place it in it’s tank.
Back in her cage, we looked at Susan, and she looked a bit humiliated and, well – pissed off. Her vacation and her adventure were over. She remains in her tank, now with a more securely fastened screened top, to this day.
Susan had lived on her own wits. She survived with no heat lamp or daily spritzes of water. And we guessed that she lived on the spiders and occasional ants that enter our house in the springtime.
So, what can we learn from a lizard named Sue?
- when all hope is lost, miracles can still happen
- Creatures, if left to their own devices, are very resourceful and resillient
- Nature, if left alone, can survive, even in the wilds of a boy’s bedroom
- anoles don’t read the manuals they come with and can live on pretty much any creature that creeps and crawls
- you really don’t need all that many creature comforts to get by
- Never miss out on an opportunity to break out of what ever cages that might hold you
Over the River and Through the Woods: Tips from Thankful Road Warriors
How do you get from here to there?
Thank goodness for Thanksgiving. The long weekend affords most of us a breather from modern life’s breakneck pace. We pause to focus on coming together with family and friends, preparing a meal, tossing a football and sleeping late in your own bed.
But, if you are like my family – transplants – Thanksgiving means hitting the road. Or, heaven forbid, the airports. That is the only way the family-coming-together aspect of the holiday happens for us.
In our case, traveling is not as idyllic as over the river and through the woods. It’s more like Down the Thruway and over the Outerbridge Crossing to Staten Island We Go. Where there are hardly any woods left to go through.
For eleven years now, we have traveled to see our family every Thanksgiving but one. This is another consequence of being Transplantednorth. If you leave the area where one’s family roots are still entrenched, the roads are rarely traversed the other way. It’s just expected. We are the only part of the family “upstate.” We left. Everyone else still lives Home — the New York Metro Area. Or, in a term I only learned when transplantednorth – “downstate.”
And on Thanksgiving, just as the larger planet pulls on its smaller orbiting moons, down the Thruway we go.
One especially hectic year, we stayed in Rochester for Thanksgiving. The weather was beautiful – warm even — and we spent a relaxing weekend feasting and playing into the evening at the Brighton Town Hall playground. I prepared perhaps the only Thanksgiving feast I will ever make. I made the turkey on the barbecue. I made a chestnut stuffing ala Martha Stewart. Everything tasted delicious. But the lonely looks on my childrens’ faces taught me a lesson: Thanksgiving tables are too empty without grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
So, after traveling for 11 years with two and then three kids in tow, I have become thankful for a thing or two on what I have learned and would like to share them with you, especially if you are a novice at parenting on the go:
- I am thankful that cries for Sippy cup refills and diaper changes have been replaced by three contented souls in the back who can pass snacks to each other, operate the remote to the car DVD player, and participate in family sing downs and games of 20 Questions.
- I am thankful for every rest stop we have discovered between here and there, especially to kind workers who have supplied us with buckets, hoses and slop sinks for carsickness cleanups. Really, if you do have a kid that gets sick in the car, find a truck stop like the Flying J Travel Plazas that have showers and washing machines. The folks there are all too kind to help you in your distress.
- I am thankful that we finally come “home,” we have relatives who bound down steps and out into driveways to greet us, no matter the lateness of the hour.
In our 11 years of travelling down to New York City, here are my family’s dos and don’ts when traveling the Western New York-to-New York City Route:
- DO strap everything down very carefully. On our first trip back to Rochester, on a windy, windy passage of Route 78 in New Jersey, our Peg Perego Stroller came loose and flew off our roof rack. One minute, there it was, and then it was on the side of the road, thankfully killing or injuring no one in its catapulted flight.
- If you are traveling with very young children that might become carsick, but may not alert you at the most opportune time that they will become carsick, DO pack a puke kit. This kit includes a roll of paper towels, a bottle of Lysol all-purpose liquid cleaner, and a change of clothes that is easily accessible.
- If traveling with those same small children, DO invest in one of those Art Cart on the Go Tables that can be placed over a child’s lap. The Art Cart has legs that double as side pockets that keep paper, crayons and markers handy. Or, in the worst case scenario, those pockets also can come to the aid of the carsick child. I speak from experience.
- For a meal break, DO stop in Scranton or Dickson City, Pa. It is exit 191 A or B on Route 81. Home of The Office, it is a great little town to stop for meals. If we hit Scranton for lunch or dinner, we eat at Tonalteca. The place is clean, the decor features hand crafted carved booths from Mexican artisans, and there are plenty of choices for vegetarians. The guacamole is outstanding. And, for those of you who get stir crazy in the car, they play great salsa music in the bathroom. If they have the security camera going by the sinks in the ladies room, they might have footage of me doing some salsa steps I learned in Zumba for all I know. Anything to work off that guacamole.
- DON’T stop in the Poconos for any reason. There really is no place to stop. The gas stations for bathrooms have nothing more than outhouses or bathrooms around back that you have to carry in those huge keys for admittance. And, if you see a billboard for The Cheesecake Factory, don’t believe it. No, it isn’t The Cheesecake Factory, the upscale eatery. It’s just – a cheesecake factory. So, unless you want to sit in your car with your family consuming a cheesecake for a meal, ignore the sign and keep driving.
- DO find the small village of Whitney Point along Route 81 and stop at Aiellos Italian Restaurant for the best pizza you can find in Western NY. And I am not saying this is good pizza for Western New York. I mean, this is thin-crust Brooklyn Pizza that somehow found its way to Western New York. And, the quaint restaurant in the back will be decked in its Christmas decorations this time of year. You won’t want to miss out on this.
And as for traffic…..
- DON’T be anywhere near Binghamton or Syracuse on Sunday afternoon if you can at all avoid it: college kids coming back from Thanksgiving break.
- DON’T go near the Delaware Water Gap if you don’t want to get stuck in traffic during peak hours
- DON’T go over the George Washington Bridge or traverse the Cross Bronx Expressway. Ever.
Safe travels to you and a very happy Thanksgiving.
Carrying In, Not Carrying Out – The Trashing of our Parks
can people not pick up after themselves? Even on a nature trail?
I was glad to see that there exists a blog category such as a rant. This blog should have been a rave, but I will woefully have to rant instead.
I spent a beautiful day last weekend with my husband and our youngest child at Stony Brook State Park in New York, just north of Corning. If you have been to this park, you know what a treasure it is. If you have ever been to Watkins Glen State Park, near Ithaca, you have had a similar experience. But, at Watkins Glen, there is absolutely no going in the water, as inviting as the water looks. It’s too rough. The current there would pound anyone to a pulp.
But Stony Brook State Park features a gently sloped, rambling stream that invites you in to make your way through its swirls, try out its natural water slides, stand under its gently cascading falls. All around you this brook over the centuries has carved out a ravine which is now lush with forest and ferns. And, there is also a parallel trail to the brook for those who want to stay dry.
One would think that any visitor would hold a place like this, or any park, state or national, in high regard, to keep it clean and pristine.
Not so.
The first disgusting thing I found in Stony Brook was an empty pack of cigarettes floating in the water. Gross as it sounds, I snatched it up and put it in the pocket of my cargo shorts. Those pockets were meant to hold stuff, and if I could put them to use by carrying out some litter, all the better.
Then, I passed a few water bottles, sitting empty on a slab of stone, abandoned by their consumers. I shoved them in my son’s backpack. I got a complaint from my husband when I added to my litter collection a crushed empty can of Coors Lite.
After picking up this my next piece of trash out of the brook, that public service announcement came to mind, the one from the 1970’s when I was a kid, that Native American crying that one tear. He has to be long dead and gone, but he is most likely still crying in his grave by the looks of things.
This item of litter did not please my husband.
“Don’t do that, then our backpack will smell like beer! They have people to pick up….”
“Really????” I snapped, annoyed that he was annoyed with me picking up litter rather than annoyed that someone broke the hiker’s rule of littering!
The truth is, there are no people to pick up after us along the trail. You bring a water bottle on the trail, YOU bring it out of the park with you when you are finished! You need a cold one as you watch the waters bubble over the smooth stones, YOU don’t smash it and leave it there for someone to pick it up.
The thing that bugged me also was the NUMBER of bottles and cans I saw in this beautiful place and the NUMBER of people I saw just walking past it.
But the most disgusting bit of abandoned refuse, I must say, was the dirty diaper. Crammed into the crevice of a rock, a rock I almost used as a place to hold on to on a slippery stretch of brook.
Well, I had to draw the line there.
People, pick up after yourselves when you go hiking! Do you need a reminder of the hiker credo: Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints!
And, if you are hiking, and you see something fouling up the surrounding natural beauty, PICK IT UP!! Imagine how much cleaner our nation’s parks would be if we picked up one or two pieces of trash along the way.
Happy trails.
A lesson in art and New York City appreciation
Seeing New York City through my daughter’s eyes is quite refreshing. She loves the pizza, the culture, and the excitement, She was blown away by the hip-hop performers that flipped and jumped through a crowded uptown train. I also wondered, how did they do that without kicking anyone in the face and when do they find an empty car to practice?
And now, just like me, she loves the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As they get bigger, I want to expose my children to as much as possible of the city where I was born and raised. Good and bad. The culture definitely falls into the good column. I’d like to thank my parents, who for one summer, took my brother and I to a different museum in New York City every weekend. Even if my brother gaped at the nude paintings and sculptures.
I’d like to thank them for staying in New York City while so many other of their friends have moved away to Florida.
I’m also thankful for art history professors who sent us to the Met to see works of art up close and personal before we wrote our final papers on them. Visiting a building that contains so many masterpieces, seeing the actual brushwork, standing before a painting exactly where the artist once stood gave me an appreciation of color, line and composition that stays with me to this day.
It’s been 15 years since I have made a pilgrimage to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a place that feels (I hate to say it) as sacred to me as the inside of a house of worship. It has been way too long. So off we went to the Met: my mom, Jolie and I.
At some point, surrounded by Picasso, I switched my cell phone off. This was holy ground and should be treated as such.
I watched Jolie work her way through the Picasso exhibit, then allowed her to pull me this way and that through European Baroque furniture, Greek and Roman sculpture, all the while looking for the next work of art to take in and all the while wishing she had taken her sketch book. And asking when would be the next time we would return to another day at the Met.
A switch has been turned on inside Jolie to love all that is great and cultural about New York City. But she could do without the noise, the smells, and the crowds. There was a bit of a learning curve with using her Metro card in the subway.
She has yet to understand that putting up with the city’s unpleasantries as they hang on to their claim to living in the Big Apple is what give New Yorkers their character. For her, she wouldn’t trade the relative peace and quiet of Rochester for the center-of-the-universe qualities of New York City. It is turning out to be a nice place to visit but she wouldn’t want to live there. It’s just not where she is from.
Rochester, in all fairness, with all of your wonderful quality of life aspects, your great suburban school districts, incredibly affordable housing and 10 minute commutes to anywhere, you are not New York City.
Yes, I have come to appreciate Rochester’s cultural treasures, like the Memorial Art Gallery, the Eastman House, and the eclectic Artisan Works. But nothing compares to the treasures that dirty, crowded, noisy New York City holds. When I describe any of Rochester’s “tourist attractions” to friends back in New York City, I always preface it with “for a city of its size, Rochester has …..”
The MAG can never be the Met, and that’s okay. It is 10 minutes from my house, contains wonderful sculpture gardens and amazing traveling exhibits of Monet, Degas, and O’Keeffe since I have lived in Rochester. It has free parking.
NYC friends and family: I love and miss you all very much in the months and years I do not see you and the few precious days I visit with you over lunch or a holiday meal while living up North. But I have decided that when visiting NYC, I need to start playing the tourist instead of spending much of my time in living rooms. Please try not to be offended and try to understand, and make plans to come along with me to a visit to the Met or MOMA next time I’m in town.
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Stacy Gittleman 