For the Beauty of the Earth

Today, I am going to write about a phenomenon going on in my neck of the woods. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, we haven't really had a winter this year. Now sometimes we have milder winters, but we have a winter. This year, we didn't ever get winter. Starting in December, it's been perpetual Spring: brown, muddy, warmish, with occasional bouts of snow that didn't last 1 day. I'd say we got 5 inches of snow all winter (lots of rain though), and those 5 inches came 1 at a time, each melting away the day after (or the day of) the snowfall. It's been absolutely crazy.

Not surprisingly, the plants are confused. Starting about 1 week ago, the trees and flowers started budding:

The Forsythia came first:

And with the temperatures soaring into the 80's (yes, the 80's, you read that right, it was 80 degrees on March 19-20th), the bloom didn't take long, and just about everything is in full bloom  now.

 

 

Look at those buds! They're not being shy. Maybe they know something I don't know, but I'd be worried about another frost. It is March, after all. Check out March last year.  Crazy difference, huh?!

Our favorite ice cream shop opened, so we christened the early Spring with Toad's Ice Cream. 

 

It's called Toads Too because the original Toad's (across the road) is a restaurant. It's by far my favorite ice cream shop.  Check out the options!

Those are the soft serve options. Amazing! Usually all an ice cream place has is vanilla, chocolate, and twist. Not at Toad's! The flavors are endless, because you can combine them: Almond Butterscotch, Cranberry Egg Nog, Orange Blueberry. And the flavors are great too! My favorite is grape, it tastes so much like Concord Grapes. It's like eating autumn!

Brian and I shared a Black Raspberry. It was awesome. 

It's cooled down a bit since last week, but the nice, sunny weather continues. Today it's in the forties. On Sunday someone at church was giving away Strawberry plants. They were pretty beat up, but I took a bunch. 

I planted them right away in soil from last year's raised beds.  The weather's unpredictable, but hopefully they live!

We can't keep them inside, so they're on our porch under the overhang. That's not enough to combat cold nights, so I covered them:

It's gotten colder since last week, and we've had a couple of nights below freezing, but they're doing ok so far! They are a spring plant, so I'm hoping they'll fare well...we'll see. Maybe I'll have strawberries this year! I've never tried growing them before, so I feel like a novice, but plants are resilient, so I'm relying on the power of nature here to make the most of this extraordinarily early Spring.

New York, NY: A Wonderful Town

I'm not sure if you've heard NYC's song, sung by Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in an old musical I saw years ago, but that's what I'm referring to in this title. Although I've lived close to NYC most of my life, I've only been there a handful of times, and to be honest, it's never been such a great experience. I'm just not a huge fan of so many crowds. Also, it seems that the only thing to do in a city and spend money, which I'm not made of, so that has made it even more difficult. Last time we went to NYC, Brian and I decided that we would never go back. It just wasn't enjoyable at all.
But a few months later, we found out that one of our dearest friends, Jay Muir, had moved to NYC. We love this kid. He's one of those people you just can't help but love. Anyway, regardless of our feelings about NYC, we decided to go as soon as possible to see him. We planned a trip, and hoped for the best, knowing that if anyone could make New York City a positive experience for us, Muir could. P.S., Brian was Jay's mission companion, so they affectionately refer to each other as "Muir", and "VanGo". I jumped on that bandwagon too, since we have two friends named Jay, so I'll be referring to him as Muir.
Well, we got back last night from the trip, and let me tell you, He didn't disappoint. We had a full on blast, and we're planning to go back in a few months. Muir had a great plan for us, which always helps, because in the past we've just wandered around not knowing what to do. On top of that Muir made a catalog of options from people he know who had always lived there. It was so much fun.

First things first: on the way down, we passed a golf course with a huge pink elephant. Now, my family may be the only ones who understand why I as so excited. Whenever we asked my Dad to guess, or whenever he was given the chance to be spontaneous growing up, his answer would somehow involve pink elephants on roller skates, or playing tennis, somehow. Always.

Anyway, I made Brian stop and take a picture of me with the elephant.

Also of note: this was our first road trip in our new car. Our beloved Bungalow Bill (Subaru Forester) has been slowly giving up the ghost, so we car-hunted for a couple of months, and ended up with a Honda CRV. I love this car. We affectionately named him Roger (Rog, for short), because it just suited him. He functioned without a hitch, so we're looking forward to many more road trips in the near future!

Muir lives in a nice section of Brooklyn. I love this area. Seriously, it's what I picture when I think of where people actually live in NYC.

It was spring there. This is a freakishly early spring in Ithaca (actually winter never really made it to our neck of the woods), and NY is always several weeks ahead, so there were blossoms on some of the trees! It was so nice. Does anyone know what kind of tree this is? I want one, whatever it is, but I can't figure out what it is...dogwood, magnolia? I have no idea.

Anyway, when we got there, we stewed around the neighborhood. We shopped at the absolute coolest Trader Joe's I've ever seen. It was an old bank that was turned into the grocery store. We didn't get a picture, unfortunately. We stopped at a bakery on the way home and picked up some sweet treats. It was so exciting. I guess I think of that as a classic NYC experience. I could be wrong, but I was excited nonetheless. Muir is one of the best cooks I know (seriously, it's been really hard filling his shoes because Brian idolizes his cooking), and he made us an awesome caramelized onion pasta w/chicken that night. So good!

The next morning was St. Patrick's Day. We didn't really plan this, but we had fun with it. Luckily we had both brought something green, so we weren't completely out of place. There were so many crowds, all displaying greens of every shade and alcohol of every kind.  We didn't stay at the parade long (Brian and I are short so we could see much), but we did get some pictures!

This was a beautiful church (St. Patrick's Cathedral, I think). So pretty. The old buildings always enthrall me.

I'm not exactly sure what the historical significance was here, but there were tons of old-fashioned armed forces-type bands and marchers.

And Bag Pipes! My favorite part of this holiday. There were so many of them everywhere, I just had to get a picture.

We left the parade pretty early (we only stayed a 1/2 hour or so, I get bored of parades pretty quickly) so that we could get a restaurant before they were bombarded by the crowds. We went to a restaurant for the "best corned beef and cabbage of 2012" according to some magazine:

It was super expensive, so we all shared it. It was really good! I bought canned corned beef with Kenny once for St. Patty's day...yuck! But this? This was a different dish altogether.

Then we went to a nearby library. (Brian and I are suckers for libraries.) We stewed around in there. The extreme quiet was a nice break from the festivities outside. It was a beautiful library. Flashes weren't allowed in there, and it wasn't very bright, but I did my best to get a few pics.

Isn't this awesome?! I didn't even notice that it was legos until Muir pointed it out.

We spent some time at Muir's other apartment. He'll be moving to the Upper West Side next month. It's a nice place, with a cubby-type room that I totally want in my future home.

It had a wall of books, a cute reading nook, and a small loft big enough for a bed. 

Later we spent some time with Muir's roommate (Steve). Seriously, funniest guy I have ever met. He is a riot.
He works for Fox News, so he gave us a quick tour and we watched them prepare for last Saturday's live "Mancow" show.

You can see the seats for the studio audience. We were invited to stay for the show, but we had other plans, and the show didn't start for another 3 1/2 hours, so that would have been a long wait. It's crazy how much preparation goes into a live show.

Here's a quick video with a scan of the whole place. Pretty small considering how much there was in that room. The entire ceiling was literally covered in lights. It was pretty interesting. They each sent a different kind of light, and by some magic they weren't in each other's way. Check it out:

Check this camera out. It was like a crane. The long neck looked over the audience.

On our way out we met Mike Huckabee. I don't particularly like the guy, but it was interesting nonetheless. He was a lot taller than I would have thought. Anyway the visit was super fun. That's Steve in the middle of the picture below, sporting his leather jacket. A former Hell's Angel, I hope to see him again.

After Fox News, we crossed town and went to Williamsburg in Brooklyn. This is a pretty "hippy" (as Muir called it) part of town. It was cool. Small shops, bookstores, and thrift stores (our main destination, of course).

We had some great food at a bar and grill (we lucked out picking it. We just picked it because we could get right in, and it was good!), and checked out some thrift stores until they all closed. Then we made our way over to the Barcade.
 


 So much fun! This place is amazing. And before you freak out about the beer glass on the table, it wasn't ours. There were hardly any tables in the place, so people stashed their used glasses wherever there was space.

Barcade is just like it sounds: a bar filled with old, vintage arcade games. Each game was a quarter, so our money went a long way.

Moon Partrol!!!!!!! I was so stoked to find this. My family will undoubtedly recognize this game as one of the only games on our old green-screened computer. I did so much better than I ever did growing  up. There was also PacMan (also on our old computer).

Brian and Muir battled the bad guys on Contra (which was new to me).

There was Frogger, Centipede, Tetris, Rampage, and so many more. Totally going back.

The next morning we did the only free thing to do in NYC: The Staten Island Ferry. We wanted a closer look at the Statue of Liberty, so we rode over and back. It was cold and foggy out, but it was fun!

The movies must portray the Statue of Liberty differently than it is, because it was different than I expected. Smaller for sure, but I also didn't know that she stood on a pretty tall pedestal, and that there are woods behind her on the island. But it was beautiful nonetheless. I love how the copper has turned such a beautiful green. She really is a symbol of everything this country stands for.

Next we went to Hi-Line Park (sp?). It's an old elevated subway (like in Batman Begins, kind of) that they've turned into a green-way. It's super cool.

You can see the railroad tracks as they were here, but usually they were melded into the walkway:

It was neat to walk through the city above the road. Gave a different perspective.

And the cool thing was, the noise of the city was still there, but you weren't in it, so it felt so peaceful. Needless to say, we spent a good amount of time there.

Last Stop: B&H. This place is like a mecca for Brian. It's a huge, and I mean huge, camera store with everything you could ever dream of in regards to cameras. We didn't buy anything, but Brian was in heaven just stewing around.

Then we parted ways with Muir, and tried our luck on our own on the Subways to our car.

That's Muir across the tracks. He was headed in a different direction. He gave us good directions, so we made it to our car and made our way home; not quite as eager for the country as we usually are after a NYC trip.

Thank you Muir for such an amazing weekend. Looking forward to our next visit!