Mid-Autumn Moon Nor'easter

Before, after, and the in between elements.

We had a September nor'easter, so lots of rain. The forecasters wrung their hands about another Sandy because of the high tides. Parts of the city did flood; global warming makes this a regular occurrence now, and we'll have to rethink policies and zoning. But for the most part, it was just windy and wet. 

Right before the rains arrived late Friday night, though, the sky was extraordinary. Lots of New Yorkers seemed to take note.

Friday was also the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, and at the Mothership, we had a moon cake. Then, outside, the clouds rolled in and we couldn't even find the moon. It just rained, and the clouds sat over us and poured - all weekend, through to this afternoon.

But then as I made my way home from the office in the early evening, the skies started to clear. The setting sun shined on the Upper Westside, and at the bandshell a band played and people gathered to listen...

... Little trace of the big moon (the photos were just shy of full, within days of the harvest moon) that tugged at the ocean. Little trace of the gusty winds that, days before the nor'easter had even formally arrived, blew over a sizeable planter with a small apple tree (acting like a sail, catching the wind). 

Almost like the nor'easter was but a paranoid forecast.

To a New Mix in 2026!

Greeting the new year.

Happy new year!!

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, successful 2026! And may there be enough joyous noise and light to ward off all the troubles, and those who would foment and abet them.

2025 felt heavy on the troubles and trials front - in the world - Cheeto-in-Chief and his ilk, among my circle - four notable deaths, routines out of balance. I would point to the overall effect of these as a culprit in the lack of blog posts here. So I am looking forward to a fresh start, and this post is part of that renewal.

New Year's Eve day was spent taking care of administrative tasks - not losing money and benefits: spending down my limited purpose flexible spending account to make the salary dock count, collecting on as many credit card perks as made sense. And then, toward evening, finishing up my charitable gifts that happen to get me a better deduction this year than next.

I still cut it close, so hopped into a cab with Sissy (at her insistence), and we arrived at the Central Park loop just as the fireworks 🎆 started and the NYRR New Year's run 🏃🏻‍♀️began - a fun, low key way to start the year. It was our fallback plan, but a darn good one; next year maybe it will just be the lead plan. I might even be inspired to think about signing up to run one of these years...

As for ever going down to Times Square? Unlikely. Though I was not beyond peeping the lit "2026" in the days before it was hoisted up for the big show - and, no, I did not wait in line with the tourists; no self respecting New Yorker has time for that stuff (hence the sideways shot). We have ordinary tasks of day to day life to get done in this big city of ours.

As we exited Central Park, a light dusting of snow began to fall - so lovely. As was the strikingly illuminated Ukrainian Institute (may the people of Ukraine have lasting peace and security soon).

Nothing better to wrap up New Year's Eve than a late dinner of local pizza - with veggies for a healthy start! (That's what Sis and I told ourselves; it was her first real meal of the "day," and my way late dinner.) Lots of other folks had the same thought, arriving dressed up (the women in short skirts and heels - open toed! the men more casual and sporting nice sneakers, as Gen Z does) from their fancy parties - I imagine overpriced, crowded and noisy, where perhaps they were underfed? We rather relished that our casual plans allowed for bundling up in appropriate cold weather attire and comfy footwear - no more cold legs from the scanty New Year's Eve fashion choices of our youth. So over that! (Clearly rolling into my cantankerous older lady phase.)

And on the first full day, I accepted the bounty of my Buy Nothing community as incentive to (late) start my day. On one of my returns, encountering a spent Christmas tree adorned with a giveaway hat from the prior evening's festivities, branded with a corporate gym logo, captured the mood pretty perfectly - done with the old, marking aspirations to do better in the coming year.

My first attempt at better: Selecting the quinoa bowl for lunch! Sissy got a couscous based bowl with similar healthy salad and protein fixings.

Here's to good choices and good outcomes in 2026!

This Upper Eastside Life (aka WWG-G-MaD)

What would Great-Grandma do, or think, of my recent ventures out and about the neighborhood?

On this Where We Were Wednesday (yes, just made that up so I could publish a catch up post), we have the photos from our companion Instagram posts "Blume, Blooms, and Botaniste" and "WWG-G-MaD" to provide a lookback at a fun evening Tuesday last week and a weekend in "the life" (this past weekend, to be exact).

Cụ Bà loved oranges. Ông Nội loved watermelon. Papa Rooster loves cookies and snacks.

Let's go in reverse chronological order and start with this past weekend, with a vase full of flowers from the Mother Garden for my great grandmother's giổ (death anniversary). She died over 75 years ago, in a very different time and world. What would she make of...

...Her great granddaughters graduating from Ivy League colleges? Her daughter-in-law's younger sisters (all but the baby, who was a mere 4 years senior to Papa Rooster) stopped their education at 8th grade, which was quite common in the first half of the 20th century in Vietnam, and their father was highly educated for the time.

The ivy in this planter off Park Avenue or thereabouts, as I walked home before driving out to the Mothership, is exactly like the kind I used to draw back in high school; it was a motif I was pulled toward, even before heading to college, and that college led to jobs, and law school, and a life I was able to build mostly myself.

Earlier that day, on Madison Avenue, it was the Saturday of gallery walks, of abstract art...

Plume Chaser happens to love doughnuts. This work had a price tag of $45,000. I texted him the photo and teased it was just a bit above my budget; he said he would have chastised me if I ever spent so much on such a thing.

... I must have been hungry.

In addition to snacks, Papa Rooster very much likes lobster. This isn't the depiction of one, but the piece was uncannily like a cooked crab, with the same coloration as our meals whenever Papa Rooster gets to call the shots.

And I respond to vivid colors.

This one reminded me of Sissy, who has gone full into her jigsaw puzzle hobby in recent years since the ease of getting new ones from Buy Nothing.

The gallery visits were broken up by bits of nature.

Mama Hen would have appreciated this sweet topiaried shrub in a planter on Madison Avenue.

And some of the art subjects themselves were natural. 

Asked Plume Chaser if he would have preferred this instead; he finds blue jays annoying, with which any gardener would agree.

Including by a Viet artist. How far - literally, figuratively - we've come from where, and when, GGMa died.

Back in the Jardin this same past weekend, a flower with a name that reminds me of travel by sea came into bloom - armeria maritima...

Though far we've come, still, we are not completely severed from the motherland - the rains left lush chickweed, and dandelion greens, also tía tô (perilla - so begins the battle for control of the planters) and kinh giới (Vietnamese balm - less ubiquitous than the tía tô), which I had dressed and tossed with chili lime cashews for lunch. And that was all I had for that meal; perhaps why I was drawn to food art at the gallery walk.

And from Madison Avenue gallery walks to talks at a Fifth Avenue synagogue... Could Cụ (Great Grandmother) ever have imagined her great granddaughters there! But how could we pass up...

JUDY BLUME!! Sissy and I were in the same (very large) room with THE Judy Blume! Who didn't read a Judy Blume book in their youth? Well, any Gen X'er, anyway. Got us tickets to see her right in our neighborhood (the chi-chi-er part, the southwesternmost edges of our neighborhood, far from where we plebes dwell in Yorkville). And Judy Blume (as she tells it, all the kids have always called her by both names) was delightful, and energetic, and still so sharp for age 87! (Far sharper than Papa Rooster, who is her age.)

And afterward we walked to find dinner, past St. Vincent Ferrer Roman Catholic Church on Lexington Avenue, with its most lovely rose garden out front. Just like a children's photographic picture book version of "Sleeping Beauty" we had growing up, of dolls as the princess and prince and witch, posed in settings with lots of vivid roses in the background castle garden.

We ended the night with a wonderful vegan meal at Le Botaniste - clean, delicious, ethical, reasonably priced - a nice bow-tied ending to an outing in the nabe.

I chose a half portion of African stew and zucchini soup, with a vegan brownie.

Sissy had a pasta with vegan Bolognese, the same zucchini soup, and a chia pudding with berry topping.

Cinco Por Cinco de Mayo

Highlighting recent encounters with fauna - feathered and furry.

In the Jardin, we've had visits from some fine feathered friends.

Striking mostly-white pigeon.

House finches, I think.

Morning dove.

And then there was a different set that I met in Central Park yesterday - the Other, back from his last (most recent, and final one for his current stint) deployment, and his wild fauna crew in the Rambles.

Red tail hawk.

Squirrel.

May the Fourth Be With You

Leaning into the life force of the world.

Getting out and living is so easy when the Force just sweeps everything and everyone up in beauty and vibrancy.

Bitter Chill

The irony that this inauguration should fall on the day that MLK, Jr.'s birthday is observed is lost on few who witness this transition with trepidation.

View out the door to the Jardin...

...and then on to the park, where miniature snow people and many pigeons were taking a view of the river.

That today's outgoing Executive branch pardons were contemplated, then determined necessary, is chilling. That the incoming pardons were granted was disgraceful.

What I was able to do today: Not be counted in viewership. Mother Nature graced us with snow; I went sledding with my bestie, my Sissy. 

Joy and connection are a new form of protest, the strengthening of bonds and community to battle the misinformation and divisiveness that they hope to achieve. Taking refuge in this storm, practicing some self care, pacing my outrage. This will be a marathon.

On this holiday celebrating the reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it is helpful to remember that he reminded us that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Storing up my reserves and strength to help keep that arc bending.

Vegetarian options aplenty at Effy's! Including seitan shawarma!