BEADS AND THEATRE

We actually got out of bed this morning at a reasonable time, by which I mean 9:30, spent some time playing with the cats, and then went off to Times Square to see what kind of tickets we could get four plays or whatever while we are here.

The main thing we thought we wanted to see was Beautiful, the Carole King musical, but it turned out that there were no seats for less than $200.  I think that seemed kind of pricey to John, because he was mostly going because I want to.

We decided to just walk around to the various theaters and see what we thought we might be interested in and see what the prices were. So we ended up getting tickets for tonight to Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and then tomorrow night to the Sting musical, The Last Ship, which is still in previews.

By the time we finished that we still had time on our hands and not much to do, so of course I went to the bead shops.

I had a very strange experience. York Beach company is my favorite shop in New York, and  there was nothing in the shop that I don't already have.

Sort of the same thing at Tohos. 

But then on the way back to meet John I stumbled into a bead store that was going out of business. They had chain for 60% off, spools of wire for $.35 apiece. I was in heaven.  

On the way back to the subway we saw this odd demonstration of people cheering for as executives as they walked out of the building. I have no idea what that was about.

We came home, had some dinner, and then went back to the play tonight. It was of course fabulous.

THE BEST LAID PLANS

Our plan today was to go to the NYC film festival showing of Seymour, an invitation.  We knew it was today and thought it was probably tonight.  Then we saw on their website that it appeared it was a short feature among a bunch of features at 2 pm.  Since I didn't get my lazy butt out of bed until 11:45 this morning -- three days into the trip and I'm still claiming Pacific Time --it was 1:15 before we left to go to Lincoln center, which is close.  When we got there, we discovered that the actual showing of the film we wanted to see was at 9:00 pm, and it was sold out.  

Now bereft of plans, we decided to go to Chinatown

on a watch-hunting excursion.  It's interesting how Canal Street has changed.  A whole block that used to be open-to-the-street shops full of cheap knockoffs has now become nice glass-front stores selling real gold jewelry.  

We did eventually find a watch, but not what I was looking for.  However, we also didn't just walk on Canal Street, but to some time to explore the other intersecting streets a bit.  The groceries were really interesting.  

I also meant to buy these tights, but the vendor was too busy. 

After we came back from Chinatown, we had an early dinner (Martha is teaching tonight) at a Turkish restaurant called Bohdrum on Amsterdam.  The food was really good.  We had roasted chicken with extra crispy, slightly salty skin and juicy meat inside.  The side dishes of Yukon gold potatoes and mixed squash was delicious as well. As an appetizer we had imam bayaldi, which is the first "exotic" dish I ever learned to cook.  It's an eggplant dish, and the name, roughly translated, means "the priest has fainted" presumably because it was so good.

We came back to Martha's and joined her recorder group for snacks after their group was done with their lesson.  

SUNDAY IN NEW YORK

Sunday in New York

Isn't that the name of a song or something?

We got up quite late today, though early by our time zone,which is PDT, rather than EDT time where we are.  

Martha is having a lot of difficulty with motivation to get out of bed, so we had breakfast together, she had me look at some things on the computer, and then john and I went out to go to a "theatre" presentation.  More about that later.

Of course, as soon as we got out the door and headed up to the subway station, it was obvious that the Broadway street market was going on, and I NEVER miss a street market if I can help it.

I mean really, where can you go and buy, in one place and at good prices, jewelry and beads, tools and other sharp instruments, exotic spices,

art, rugs, clothing, leather goods, makeup, viola da gamba CDs-- yes, really, 

Potato chips on a stick, 

cell phone covers, knockoff perfume, socks, and a plethora of ready to eat ethnic foods?  And I'm just naming the things I bought -- well, except for the rugs.  My suitcase will only hold so much, after all.  

After that, we took the subway down to Greenwich Village.  From there it was a little walk to Hudson park, a long narrow parkway along the Hudson River.  We went there to go to the theatre -- the theatre, in this case, being seven double beds set up in a row along pier 45.  In each bed was an actor in white linens and under the sheets.  

The "audience" went one at a time and got into, or at least on, the bed with the actor.  The rule was that the audience member is to lie still and not talk.  The actor recites lines from a script.  We did not actually become audience members because we were dressed too warmly for this balmy day to lie out in the sun for 15 minutes.  Sadly, if you weren't in the bed, they had "guards" standing there to keep you from getting close enough to hear what the actors were saying.  But it was interesting.  

It was a beautiful day and I snapped a picture of this guy paddle boarding on the Hudson.  You definitely wouldn't want to fall in.  I wonder how fast you have to paddle to finish before the pollution eats up your board?  By the way, that's New Jersey in the background.  

We stopped at the pier 45 tavern and split a beer, which was $8!!  But it was outside and shady and cool and there was a nice guitar/woodwind/drum trio doing Simon and Garfunkel and things that they wrote that sounded like Simon and Gardunkel, so it was very pleasant.  From there we went on to just wander around Greenwich village with the idea that eventually there would be a gelato.  Which there was.

As we were walking back to the subway, I followed some music down a street, of course --the children of Hamlin had nothing on me-- and came to an event that was for this dog's birthday.  

His name is Rhett,and apparently he had partied quite a bit and was resting.  He is a "therapy" dog at this bar, which apparently means he'll come sit at your table for awhile.  

The other thing I learned from chatting with a guy who was there was that the street wasn't officially closed, but he had noticed a police barricade and simply pulled it across the entry to this one-way street.  Gotta love New Yorkers.  

We ended the day with leftovers from our delicious dinner last night, which came out very well for a second night, as well as the Tiramisu we didn't have last night.  And it's now 11:15, and I just finished doing the dishes.  As the sophisticated New Yorkers we are, we dine late.  

Tomorrow we have to find out where the Lincoln center film festival is.  I'm wondering if it might be at Lincoln center.  I saw an article in the Times about what looks to be an interesting documentary tomorrow night.  It's about a pianist.  

Other than that, my plan is to get up late and loaf around tomorrow.  I imagine I will be able to succeed at that.  

GREAT DAY IN NEW YORK CITY

Hooray, hooray, we are in New York.  Yesterday was very inauspicious for starting our trip.  I hd been up for about an hour when I had such a horrible pain in my back that I couldn't move and had to drag myself into the bedroom and kind of fall on the bed.  It was excruciating pain, enough that I was crying.  And of course thinking that in 12 hours I had to get on the plane and sit for six hours. 

To make a long story short, I think it was some horrendous muscle cramp, because after Naprosyn, heat, and gentle walking, it was more or less okay by the time we went to the airport.  

There's some new thing TSA has called pre check.  It's kind of a lottery.  If you get it, you don't have to take off your shoes or belts or open your computers, etc.  I won!  Just breezed through.  John didn't.  But he doesn't have to take off his shoes anyway because after 75 you are apparently too old to be a terrorist.  However, while I was feeling bad earlier in the day, I ordered a limo so we didn't have to take the subway into Manhattan.  By the time we arrived, I could haves one the subway, because I'm perfectly fine now, but I didn't  know that then, and it certainly was nice to have the car pick us up.  

When we arrived at Martha's, her viol group was here, which made me miss our harp group I would have been at were I at home today.  They were just starting, so we went down to EuroPan and had breakfast.  

One of the things we do a lot of with Martha is have afternoon wine, so our first order of business was to get our subway pass and head down to Trader Joe's to stock up on wine.  It's usually crosstown bus and subway and walk three blocks, but this time we did one subway and a crosstown bus at the other end,  and it was easier.  

TJ's wine store is near Union Park.  There was a farmers market in Union Park, and I really wanted to stop there,but one of the disadvantages of being in NY is that you need to plan your journey based on how much you can carry, and we put our carrying ability in wine.

We came back to the apartment, read the Saturday paper and took a little nap.  John actually woke up before I did and went to Starbucks and took a walk on his own!  

We went to the Manhattanan Diner with Martha for dinner tonight.  

We all had various forms of pasta.  John had salad with his, but Martha and I had matzoh ball soup.  Why, you ask?  Because we could, and they have good matzoh ball soup.  And on the pasta, the servings were so gigantic that we have tomorrow's dinner.

Afterwards John and I went to a very interesting and quite wonderful concert at St. Ignatius church by a women's choral group called Amuse.  (www.amusesingers.org) They did a program called Hildegarde, then and now, which used Hildegarde Von Bingen's chants as a jumping off point and put them in more modern contexts.  It was a lovely concert.  Since putting the work of someone born in 1098 into a modern context can simply involve adding harmony, it wasn't ear-jangling modern, but it was fresh and interesting.  Most pieces were a capella, a couple had organ accompaniment, one included tambourine played by a choir member and finger cymbals played by someone somewhere else in the church, I couldn't tell where, and one had organ and violin accompaniment.  I liked that one the least, but that was primarily because the main soprano was too operatic for my taste, with a kind of wide vibrato.  But then, I suppose it was what the modern composer was looking for.

We stopped and bought tiramisu on the way home, but ended up putting it in the refrigerator for tomorrow because Martha had had a  canola and wanted to have some wine.

WHY I LOVE LIVING IN SACRAMENTO

First and foremost I like living in Sacramento because I have lots of friends and family here.

I love to go other places.  As my friend Kim said when we had just returned from Oregon and mentioned we were going to New York at the end of the month,  "What is it with you two?   Do you have wings on your butts?"

So here's what I think about Sacramento in general, it's a nice place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit here.  

Right now, I'm thinking about food. From our house I can easily walk to a farmers market on Saturday, Sunday Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.   Some of them don't go year around, but the big one on Sunday under the freeway is all year and it is huge.

My friend Elizabeth and I have been busking at the Tuesday farmers market (for very little money) but last week we were on TV for about 15 seconds on the weather section.  We have a good time doing that, and it's good experience playing in public.  

Here's a picture of what I've bought at the farmers market this week.  Some on Tuesday, most today.  

The heirloom tomatoes this year have been fabulous.  I'm in love with this big yellow and red striped one called pineapple.  We have a BLT at least once a week, and one slice (very thick) is exactly the right size for a sandwich.   When I got some smaller tomatoes, I made this delicious tomato tart.  

I also got some figs this week, so there will be some chicken ras al hanout with figs some night this week.  Tonight we had a farmers market salad, which has chicken, corn, dates, berries, nuts, greens, avocado (mine had gone bad so I put a pear in it instead), goat cheese, and cornbread croutons.  That was just so we'd have something nutritious before we went to the birthday party for Tim and Dennis at the old firehouse.  The usual suspects, plus Daniel and his daughter Devorah.  We had a giant chocolate cake from Costco.  Any excuse that will get enough people together to buy that cake is good enough for me.  We added Lynda as a birthday girl at the last minute since her birthday was only a week ago.  

CRATER LAKE

Today our goal was to drive from Portland to Medford.  We actually left Portland before 8:30 am, really impressive for us.  The drive to Roseburg is boring, but we turned off there for Crater Lake.  This is a part of the trip that we hadn't planned, but it's only about 50 or 60 miles out of the way, and we had planned to stay overnight in medford anyway.  

As soon as we got into the park, we came to this big files, where nothing will grow because it's covered with pumice.  Of course, I'm looking for some pieces. 

So, mostly,these are pictures of Crater lLake, and yes it is really this blue.  the Crater Lake Lodge (an Arts &Crafts gem). 

the Crater Lake Lodge (an Arts &Crafts gem). 

And finally, a stop at the Rogue River Chasm, totally unexpected.  

And still made it toMedford by 6:30. 

PORTLAND HOUSES

We have always heard about the cool neighborhoods of Portland, so today we went house gawking.  

We checked out the Laurelhurst neighborhood --lots of Craftsman houses in the area farthest from the park, which looks like a small version of Golden Gate park, houses more from the 20s and 30s nearer the park. I think this is a park designed by the Olmstead Brothers.   Some okay gardens around the Craftsman houses, manicured gardens around the park edge houses.  

We had lunch at Whole Foods -- finally, some vegetables.  Then we moved on to the Dolph neighborhood, which is the Fab 40's of Portland, or at least one such neighborhood.  We walked around there for quite awhile.  Lots of fancy Craftsman houses, a number of Federalist style, etc.  the oddest was a house that had Art Deco lines, but was made of red brick.  Just didn't seem to go together.

 They were getting ready for a block party.  We discussed the possibility of crashing the party, but didn't stay around long enough.  

Our final home visit neighborhood was Irvington.  When we walked up near this house rand the corner, the cat jumped off the porch and ran over to see us as if his tail were on fire and we had a bucket of water.  

The house(s) across the street looked like some kind of a little co-housing affair, with a little community type garden   

This garden was part of a front garden tour, according to the sign.  There were some other signs in the neighborhood that suggested the gardens were something like habitat gardens.  

It's another neighborhood of bungalows.  Some nice gardens here.  The only thing I didn't like was the number of spiders and spider webs.  

I carried a stick to move the spider webs from out In front of me, even though I couldn't always see them, because they were so often there when we walked through places where there were bushes on both sides of the sidewalks.  Yuck.  

There were some interesting smaller modern homes, too.  Very cool.  

Our last stop of the day was an area called Mississippi, because a street of that name runs through it.  It's another hipster haven -- is there anybody under 40 in Portland?  The street had a few cute shops, a gallery, (which was just another cute shop) and a bunch of beer places.  Breweries pop up here like mushrooms, probably because of the rain.  

This is a cool fence in front of a salvage place.  

When we first drove up, we saw yet another little place where people were lined up.  Were these people raised in the old USSR?  Do they just routinely line up for things?  This line was for a little taqueria called Porque No?  We laughed at their in-crowd desires, but later decided to go see what all the fuss was about.  

And waited in line.  There were only two other couples in front of us, though.  It was worth it.  We both had a fish taco and I also had a pastore and John had a chicken adobo.  The fish ones were good enough, but the other two were fabulous.  

Tomorrow we leave Portland.  We've decided to go to Crater Lake on the way home, since it only adds about 40 miles to the trip to medford, and not likely we would go any other way.  I was awake until almost 4 a.m. Last night, so I'll probably be asleep by 9 tonight.