First Stewards

He Came From Fire

First visit to the National Museum of the American Indian.

After decades of walking past, I visited the National Museum of the American Indian - New York (right - not the term we use today, but that remains the name of the institution) for the first time, on an outing with old friends. (Footnote 1)

Abstraction After Wakapana

One of the current exhibits is of works by Oscar Howe, who is an artist who is Native American. The works are gorgeous. The images here are the ones I was most drawn to.

Cunka Wakan (Dakota Horse)

The gallery spaces are just fantastic. And the building itself is beautiful, in that architectural style of old municipal buildings and institutions.

A gardener (of which I fancy myself one) is but a steward of the land. And this patch of dirt on which I live, where I tend to my garden in the sky, was first tended by the Lenape, and then taken from them. That from the trauma of generations such amazing artwork can still emanate is at once surprising, and not - the human spirit is enduring and astoundingly resilient. That said, even it has limits. Same for the earth.

Skylight in dome of the Alexander Hamilton Custom House, which also houses the federal Bankruptcy Court.

There is so very much for us to learn.

Painted ceiling, columns, adornments inside the Alexander Hamilton Custom House.

___

Footnote 1: I am practicing the art of always saying yes to invitations from dear old friends - the ones who see you through the lows and share the highs, through all of your stages. This outing was pulled together on one day's notice. We all used to see each other often, before kids, before COVID. We used to all live near each other on the Upper Eastside, a long, long time ago. Now there are nap schedules, family schedules, travel time, babies that have become teens and surpassed you in height. But, also, with littles about, excuses to visit playgrounds, go down big and tall slides - even for, especially for, adults! Reasons to get in out of the sun into air conditioned museums, ones that used to be walked past. Reasons to go to the top of old teenage hangouts and get introduced to delightful rooftop vantage points that either were not open in the Big Bad 80s, or that as a youngster from modest means appeared closed off and unattainable. 

Reasons to hold on to dear old friends and seize the day.

[Edited September 6, 2022 to add links and captions.]

Summer Sunday Supper and Stroll

The Italian tradition of a Sunday supper with Sunday sauce and slowing down to gather with family is just right for slower summer days (especially without the religious aspect of it all, and when it's done New York City style - by delegating out the food preparation and table setting, and adding in the entertainment of New York sidewalks!).

Sis and I had been out at the Mothership, to deliver an electric lawnmower that I acquired for Mother Hen and Papa Rooster from an old college friend who is moving from Connecticut to Florence. We stayed for fun shopping at Ikea and a late meal out, then longer overnight into the morning to install a storage unit there, and plan for some more at the Bro Satellite. So it was both a fun and somewhat productive weekend.

The Sunday plan was to leisurely return, retrieve Buy Nothing awards, then meander to a Buddhist center on the Upper Eastside for free vegetarian food and go to pick up hardware. The Buddhist center was not so much street festival or open house; it looked like an ambush proselytization set-up, so we skipped it, and just went for hardware.

We happened to be in the vicinity of one of our old mainstays - Patsy's - and a reward was in order after all that walking in mildly sticky heat. We hadn't been in a while; we used to visit more regularly when our offices were nearby.

We ordered old favorites. Arugula salad (with endive, radicchio, sundried tomatoes, balsamic glaze - above), ...

...Margherita pizza, ...

...and something new to us there - whole wheat homemade pappardelle with vegetables, ...

...and capped off with tiramisu. 

Definitely lived up to why we always put in pretty much the same order. Tasty, albeit safe, colorful food is such a delight to eat!

And then a stroll home to burn the calories, past one of my favorite street art walls, where the mural has changed, but is still colorful and love themed. 

And bodega sunflowers!! Summer in the city at its finest.

And even better to be able to have time to savor it all, to live the experiences, see the people I cherish, spend the time, have an actual slow Sunday. Liking the job switch so far - yay, me!

Speedy Summer Spaghetti

Quick recipe for summer work nights balancing time, food waste, and footprint.

Ingredients:

Last of the really good Italian spaghetti that came from a cooking kit sent to me for a workplace event 2 years ago (yikes, that means the olive oil, capers, anchovies from that kit should probably be used up, too)

Container of tomatoes that started to ooze because I am trying not to refrigerate my tomatoes - but I guess that means use REALLY soon (no, I didn't grow them - this is the summer of being behind in the garden)

Snack mozzarella balls sold in a bag with the balls packaged 3 to a little snack pack with use by date of 9 months ago (some of the packs were swollen close to busting - from gases?; I had debated whether to buy all that plastic packaging, and decided it would reduce waste given my slow consumption rate - borne out by this post)

Basil pinches - I AM growing that!! (though not from seed - I tried, but something ate the early seedling outside, so these were from the Mothership, and I am trying to pinch aggressively and fight my urge to coddle the seedlings)

New York City cold tap water (barely enough to cover pasta)

Sea salt

Olive oil

Garlic (shriveled and largely dehydrated from sitting around too long), slivered

Pepper flakes 

Throw pasta in even before the water comes to a boil to save time (technique covered by Alton Brown and also Milk Street, soundly rejected by the traditional cooks who ran the workplace event and believed fervently that pasta should only be put into copiously excessive water brought to a rolling boil), with tomatoes that will boil and burst, it all reduces to create a "sauce" as the pasta absorbs the liquid, sprinkle in pepper flakes, dish the whole thing, bury cut up mozz that will melt from residual heat of pasta, garnish with torn basil.

Eat on a summer sunset, pink sky, buck supermoon (I didn't actually know that was happening) evening.

Chicks Flew The Coop

Procrastigardening. A "Before" and "After" mini project report.

I should have been studying for a FINRA licensing exam. I may hate myself for letting most of the weekend go. But I couldn't. I needed to calm myself, needed to be in the garden.

One of the gutter planters along the parapet railing has always been inhabited by hens 'n chicks - a legacy of one of Sissy's indoor planting failures. Everything else in that succulent pot had died, survived by a small clump of hens 'n chicks, maybe even barely at that - they might have been sickly, or had pests; she brought them up and they went outside, and survived that winter, and many since. That gutter planter was overflowing, growing over the side, with chicks smushed up against the railing.

I recently set up the bird bath again (after it was disassembled from last year's terrace construction work). It came from Vietnam, shipped, after a trip there by Mama Hen and Papa rooster. There was supposed to be a figurine of a girl, but she either arrived broken, or not at all, or grossly out of scale. So I inherited it, without the figurine.

The basin got dirty quickly, as did the water. There was never a good perch for the birds. So at some point, I decided the robust moss in some of the planters could simulate water. The moss-as-water plan just never worked - the moss never grew in as lushly as I hoped, and when it was dry, it just looked sad. So over the last few days, I added a few stray chicks that had fallen out and separated from the hens. Yesterday, thoughts racing in my head at how behind I am in my studies, I decided to go whole hog on populating the basin with chicks.

I began pulling candidate chicks and realized carrying them in my hand wasn't going to work, so went looking for a vessel. Voila! Rediscovered a seashell - I think from a trip with law school friends to the Delaware shore - that was tucked away during last year's terrace construction and temporarily forgotten - and deposited that first little clutch of chicks.

[Aside: Isn't the orange thing cute? Gotta love New York City curbs. Not sure what it was conceived as - stool? plant stand? side table? It may move inside, or maybe just stay outside and extend the indoor pop of orange scheme to the Jardin.]

Finally, the shell with all the migrant chicks was perched in the center of the bath basin, ready for them to be resettled. 

It rained Friday, so the moss was soaked, and there were some pools of water - seemed like a gentle way for them to transition into their new home.

Final result in the last photo. Decided to leave the shell out as a water receptacle for thirsty pollinators. [I had thought about getting a small glass terrarium and tiny solar fountain for the center, but solar burblers don't seem to come small enough.] Fingers crossed that the chicks like their new home and grow and thrive.

Fingers crossed that I survive this exam. The procrastigardening continued today, only moderately abated. And I had sworn, after the first, "easy," exam that I wouldn't do this. Yet, here I am, a week out, doing just that. Sigh. It is a mental illness. 

Years ago, in college, I took a babysitting stint from Sissy's roommate when I should have been writing a Chinese Foreign Policy paper. I never did manage to finish the paper and took a C+ in the class - on the strength of my exam grades and participation in the class. It remains the lowest grade I have ever received. We still refer to the behavior as "Chinese Foreign Policy."

Hoping I haven't Chinese Foreign Policied myself. There remains a week to see how it goes.

Kill Vill(ainous Invaders)

Invasive aliens and edibles.

Spotted three spotted lanternfly nymphs; offed all three. I left the carcasses about, like heads atop spikes in medieval times or Roman crucifixions, hoping they might be a warning to other nymphs to steer clear.

By the appearance of the successive two, though, perhaps this was not the most effective strategy.  And then, one of the bodies disappeared, and my mind ran to zombie nymphs. But then I saw the ants attack - a feat of collaboration and coordination, slowly, but surely, they moved the many times larger carcass.

And, with that appetizing lead-in...

I also offed the invasive chickweed and shiso, too (yes, the shiso got ahead of me, way, way ahead - and what is a weed but an unwanted plant, growing misplaced, even if cultivated in other quarters), and turned them into lunch with pinched Vietnamese balm and mint, and some celery and walnuts, simply dressed in olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and lemon pepper. Gardening, fresh lunch preparation - the joys of working from home.

So I guess we all feasted on the invaders today. Gruesome vanquishment of the alien enemies.

Dobbs v. Jackson

F*****. 

A bit of how some of us are feeling today.

Then I wondered whether flies can feel, if they have brains... turns out they do. And in my internet scrolling, I also learned there are female flies that can stab with their ovipositors, and that the babies they lay are capable of commandeering and, when they are old enough, eventually decapitating unsuspecting ants. And this made me feel a little less helpless.

Photo is of recent activity in the peach tree in the Jardin.

[Edited June 25, 2022.]

Soggy Summer Solstice

It sprinkled on the first day of Summer, which was not a bad thing, even if it did curtail the opportunity to soak in the extra minutes of light on the longest day.

Three days away without rain, and the Jardin showed signs of stress, though not evenly.

The sugar snap peas bulged, so I harvested.

The daylily leaves have started to yellow, even while bejeweled with rain droplets.

The maple and bush beans were thirsty.

On the other end of the spectrum, the red amaranth couldn't be happier. Now I know what my summer leafy vegetable should be.