Very Slow Progress

Yesterday came close to 70 degrees in the city, so it was reported - by those not in all day organizing and cleaning.  A little taste of Spring.  But still not Springy enough.  Tomorrow morning threatens a wind chill of 15 degrees.  The optimistically purchased geraniums will have to wait inside longer.

99 cent geraniums purchased after viewing the Hicks annual flower show.   Too cold to move them outside.  But the apparently dead mandevilla planter moved out.  Her sister planters with leggy growth moved from the guest room to the livingroom window sills.  The Thai lime was moved from the guest room to an end table in the livingroom, the Christmas cacti moved back to the livingroom console

Given the slow progress toward Spring, the inspiration to clean is not strong.  Cleaning is a challenge, not at all fun, mundane and unstimulating.  Is it no wonder the maintenance is so tedious, and the chore so easily allowed to fall by the wayside?  No, no wonder at all.

Structural changes and updates, tangentially related to the impending arrival of the house guests (by allowing for clutter to be better hidden, and the clutter of partially finished projects to finally be put up or away), are far more fun.

Simple paper towel holder, purchased many weeks ago, mounted to closet door to easily hang casual items for multiple occasional wearings.

Simple toilet paper holder,  originally purchased to have the same function as the paper towel holder, mou red to serve as a stand-in for a valet.  Fits the bill perfectly,  cheaper and easier to find than one of those pullout or pull-down versions. 

Curtains, originally mounted the past November after an odd security incident, finally fully installed.  On completion, a different configuration might have been more pleasing, but this will do for now.

With the livingroom curtains finally installed, the guest room closet curtain that had been borrowed for the terrace door finally was returned to its rightful place - to the more important task of hiding LT Guest's remaining stored belongings.

Steeling the Self for the Onslaught

Friday night dining out rituals are musts after a long week, to prepare for a long weekend...

Veggie spring rolls at Jaiya.

The apartment has been in disarray since the plasterers repaired the ceiling to fix the damage exacerbated by last year's building roof repair.  Everything got shoved into the middle of the room.  And then on top of that the new dishwasher caused the kitchen cart to move to the livingroom.  And the big office move occasioned the schlepping home of items from the office.  Piled on to piles that grew during normally lax, at best, housekeeping.  Not helped by the continued storage of belongings of Long Term Houseguest, nor the further relaxation of standards with the demise of visits from NF.

Kitchen cart - still in the livingroom. 

State of the guestroom - decidedly not guest-ready.

But this being the greatest city in the world, friends want to visit, and inevitably ask to be housed.  It is spring break season.  Denial can go only so long.  With the arrivals less than a week away, now there are many, many tasks for the weekend.

Today was barely productive.  So tomorrow will need to be quadruply so.

Modest accomplishments.  Some day, one day, the apartment will be ready for drop-in guests and impromptu dinner parties.  Aspirations.

Kitchen cart, back where it belongs.

Newly installed pot lid rack.  Only took a couple of years from purchase of said rack.

Livingroom - in some semblance of order.

Bye Bye, Plastic Bags?

It seems they may finally be going, or, at least, their numbers may be dwindling in our fair hometown.  So reporteth the New York Times.  A plastic bag ban might become reality yet.

Took long enough.  Although, indeed, it IS a much bigger deal here than in other cities, even San Francisco.  The car is still king everywhere else.  New Yorkers walk, and carry stuff, and having easily available bags does facilitate that.  Hopefully there will be solutions in place to not penalize the poor.

Not to toot the ol' horn too much, or pat the ol' back too too much - just a little, but reusable bags were part of daily life in these parts way before that was in vogue - going back to the late 90s.  Back then, the only bags around that fit the bill were the indestructible ones from dollar stores, the ones homeless people often used to carry around their belongings.  Those bags made for great grocery bags.  Not cute, but they did the job.  Supermarket clerks in Cville were impressed.  They survived the return to New York, and live on as defacto clothes hampers.

The OG reusable bag.

On the other hand, to dampen the ol' horn, a collection that had gotten out of hand did not survive the last move, and, alas, went to the landfill.  Even with the general intent not to take plastic bags, it is hard.  They got carefully stored, with the goal of becoming the stuffing for padded hangers made with upcycled dry cleaner wire hangers (yes, a very late 80s/90s idea, admittedly).  Somehow, all that spare time to sew and craft never materialized.  Those first few years at a BigLaw firm are rough.

Anyhow, the current collection is much better managed.  Slow learning.

First Spring Weekend - 2019

Tinges of warmth brought the charming (but not unexpected) emergence of crocuses and daffodils, the maturing of the hellebores, perhaps the last glorious days of the witch hazel before they start to wither.

What was a surprise, though, was catching the first, overachieving tulip, the breakout of the camelias.  And a flush of ... not sure what the flowers are ...

A Week in Food - Birthday Edition

Celebration food, then back to the ordinary everyday.

There was too much going on at work.  Planned quick getaway did not happen, would have caused more stress than it was worth.  But birthday days are sacrosanct.  That vacation day got used as planned.  And the day falls within the vegetarianism exception.

Oysters always make the list of "special occasion exceptions" to the predominantly veggie diet.  This day, avacado toast with crab made the list too.

Jeffrey's Grocery in the Village.

No cake.  Instead, celebratory Key lime pie.

Birthday dinner with the fam was at Vegetarian Dim Sum Restaurant in Chinatown.  Yup - they all ate veggie and they LIKED it, well, most of it; there were a few misses.  All good - Bro likes to impose steakhouse dinners for his birthday, so there's payback to come.

Returning to work, the office "restaurant" offered a pre-Passover classic.  Photo snapped to send to a friend, who had coincidentally recently posted about missing it in her adopted North Carolina home.  Also coincidentally, Sissy went down to help said friend with a photo shoot, so boxes of matzo ball mix were couriered down.  Along with gifts of babka and Brooklyn coffee. 

Yiddish granny classic comfort food.

The Sunday intended for housecleaning and guest prep went instead to accompanying Sissy to one of her beloved a capella concerts at Carnegie Hall.  A meal and shared dessert followed.

Moldings at Carnegie Hall.

Molten chocolate cake, chocolate gelato, salted caramel gelato over chocolate mousse at Rue 57.

And then back to the grind, to producing post-work dinners.  Cooking is an effort when one is away from home for 12 hours a day.  Oftentimes a multistage effort of morning prep, or partial prep, and evening cookery.  At least there are inspirational sources... ("Girl Meets Farm" on the Food Network with Molly Yeh).

Beige (and not close to Instagram worthy), but mighty tasty.  Inspired by Instagrammer, blogger, cook Molly Yeh's green beans with a sesame soy tahini sauce.  This was the cauliflower that sat for weeks and had started to go, in a sauce of leftover takeout food soy dipping sauce, with tahini, one clove of shriveled garlic, sweetened not with honey, but years old gifted pepper jam living in the fridge.  The sriracha nozzle was clogged, the sesame oil seemed much when there was so much oil sitting at the top of the tahini jar, so those did not make the cut.  But red pepper flakes were a must.  All over a bed of brown rice and quinoa.  A tablespoon of tahini only serves up 5% of daily protein, so, at most, this was worth 10%, quinoa adds a bit more ... but apparently protein backups to tahini are on the research list of the never ending To Do list.

Hibiscus Doughnut Sorta Day

Rest or be productive?  All week thoughts of Saturdays run toward respite and relaxation.  That yearning runs headlong up against the pressure to utilize every precious minute of "free" time to tackle and tame the disarray of home.  Usually respite wins out.  The body needs its rest; the mind instinctively defends its sanity. 

Today that meant leisurely rolling out of bed, despite the list of to do's that fired up as soon as wakefulness set in, and then going out with Sissy to try a new neighborhood cafe for lunch.  Breakfast burrito was tasty.  And the doughnuts were too tempting.  Hibiscus was the prettiest.

Tasty work of Black Star Cafe.

The day was sunny and bright, with a late winter chill in the air - layering still called for.  So why not let a doughnut sit on the hips a bit?  The protective winter fat layer will have a job to do for at least a few more weeks.  Rationalizations for doughnut eating are surprisingly easy to come by.

To counterbalance the fat-build, though, the doughnut was eaten in the park.  And vigorously walked off (at least partially, one hopes) afterward.

It's bright pinky fuchsia was a precursor to the seasonal hues being hinted at by the crocuses breaking the thawing ground.  The namesake hibiscus foreshadows the bright summer Flora to come in the warmer weather.  The most sultry thing happening at the park today was the pigeon courtship - seemed like everywhere the males were puffing themselves up and chasing after the girls.  Clearly pigeon mating season.

How sad to return home to discover only one of these sweet little boots still attached to their infant owner.  The mate awaits a reunion.

The bed at the base of the stairs on 86th.

Close-up of the stair bed.  Tulips still have a ways to go.

Mossy sign of near-Spring?  Or just moss?