Why I Love New York - Reason #34

The NYPD is absolutely amazing!  They are dedicated to their work and a constant presence around the city and, occasionally, they are part of a hilarious moment in your life like they were for me last week.

Last week I was taking an exam to get my Life, Health, Accidental Death and Dismemberment insurance licenses and their instructions very clearly stated that nothing would be allowed in the testing room with you.  I pondered this the morning of the exam and started digging up the phone number for the center to find out if they would have lockers or any other place to securely store your belongings during the test.  My test was to start at 9:00 and it generally takes about 2 hours.  My gallant husband advised that I didn't need to call them and that he would simply bring my purse to me at the testing center at 11:00 and we would go to lunch before I returned to the office.  I was tickled pink and kissed him goodbye on my way to the testing center.  I took my test, passed with flying colors, and was downstairs waiting outside the building at 10:56. 

At 11:10 I walked to the corner and started looking both ways for my husband but didn't see him.  At 11:15 I went back inside and asked the security guard if I could use the phone to call him (my cell phone was in my purse, of course) and was denied.  At 11:25 I walked to a pay phone and started trying to trick it into letting me make a free phone call to no avail.  At 11:29 I started contemplating something I had never considered before: begging for change from strangers so I could make a phone call.  Right about the time I started looking around for a nice stranger who might understand my predicament and give me a quarter I saw my husband running down the street, purse in hand.  As he ran up to me he said, "Did you know that if you are a man walking down the street with a woman's purse the police will stop you for purse snatching?"

Wow.  No, I did not know that!  Apparently as he was walking through the subway with my purse he was stopped for questioning.  The police were incredibly polite and advised him that since he was more than willing to cooperate with them and answer their questions he was obviously not a purse snatcher and they let him go on his way.  We had a good laugh over it and I took him to a tasty BBQ place nearby to say thank you for braving embarrassment and police interrogation to bring my things to me after my test.

As much as it is funny it is also quite wonderful to know that the police are looking out for the citizens of our city by keeping an eye out for situations that are a bit out of the ordinary!  In fact this is the second such incident we've had with police inquiry into an innocent event.  The other was when a friend of ours hosted a post-apocalyptic theme party and we went as zombies.  I even decorated a cake to look like a brain!  We covered our faces with fake blood, green make-up and blacked out our eyes and had a great time.  Over the course of the evening my husband managed to wipe off most of the make-up on his face but mine stayed pretty much intact.  On the walk home we were stopped by the police to make sure that I was okay and not injured.  Once I figured out why they stopped me I laughed and explained the party and told them I would bring them there to see the event if they wanted and that there was even a policeman at the party wearing a gas mask and carrying a machete as his costume.  They let us go on our way once they knew I was safe and did not need medical attention.

I love that I live somewhere that the police are a constant presence.  I lived in Dallas for 24 years and the only time I ever saw a police officer was when I was being pulled over for speeding.  It is comforting to live somewhere that you can actually see the efforts of law enforcement on a regular basis.  It takes away quite a lot of the reputation they have for being "the man" that some people seem to be so unhappy about when you see them catch a criminal or pull someone out of a dangerous situation or even just have them inquire about your basic day-to-day safety.

Wildlife

When most people think of wildlife in NYC they imagine sewer rats and pigeons.  I will agree that there are plenty of those here in the city but there are lots of other animals that live on the streets (or in the sky as I've come to discover) in the city as well.  This week my husband and I saw a prime specimen on the trip home from the store.  It was a peregrine falcon!  I know the picture isn't terribly great but I'll be perfectly honest with you and confess that I am terrified of birds.  I am of the opinion that birds have two jobs-the first is to be delicious and the second is to leave me the hell alone.  That second point is especially true of birds of prey and I have no desire to be anywhere near them.  Because of this I was not willing to get any closer to take a picture so this one will just have to do.

Peregrine falcons are actually really common in NYC and there is even a sign that tells all about them in a park in the financial district.  According to the NYC Department of Environmental Protection there are at least 32 falcon couples in the area (they mate for life) and they apparently nest on high rise buildings and church steeples.  They dine primarily on medium sized birds so the pigeons in New York are essentially an all you can eat buffet for falcons which more than explains their constant presence in the city.  As we were walking home from the store we got to see this particular falcon in action as he grabbed a pigeon and proceeded to start tearing it apart while we watched.  He obviously wasn't too hungry though because after a minute or two of torture he let the pigeon go and then just sat there on the lamp post so that I could take a picture.  Don't ever let anyone tell you that there is no nature in New York City!

Zabar's

Yesterday we made a trip to Zabar's.  For those of you who aren't familiar, Zabar's is a fabulous Jewish shop on the upper west side.  They have a wonderful cheese section and olive bar as you walk into the store.  My husband loves their brie!  They have a magnificent bakery section where you can get breads, muffins, donuts, bagels, and most importantly rugelach, which is an amazing pastry that is a crescent roll with delicious filling.  I prefer the chocolate rugelach, but I prefer the chocolate version of pretty much everything so take that into account when considering anything I recommend.  They have a separate cake section where they have at least a dozen different cakes and tarts and other tasty things.  Then there is the fish section where you can get lox, salmon, white fish, caviar, and lots of other traditionally Jewish fish.  Across from the fish section you can get half a dozen different kinds of cream cheese and various free samples!  Then as though this isn't fabulous enough they have an entire upper floor full of kitchen appliances, bake ware, and other kitchen gadgetry.

The store is so popular that it is difficult to walk through!  The aisles are full of people and you have to squeeze by to get from section to section.  I don't know that I ever would have noticed the place if my husband hadn't introduced it to me so long ago.  Everything they sell is wonderful and actually have a section of our household budget set aside specifically for Zabar's.  If you are in the city go now and bask in the fabulousness!  If you are not in the city I highly recommend checking out their website and placing an order post haste!

Fondue

Today a few of my girlfriends and I went to a restaurant downtown for fondue.  It was yummy!  The place we went is called Taureau and they have the most fabulous fondue menu.  We had a cheddar and monterey fondue and a fondue called Devil's Whiff, which was a cheddar, peperoncino, and red wine fondue.  We had garlic bread and a side of potatoes for dipping.  There was steak and chicken in boiling oil for the meat course and that was followed by a milk chocolate fondue with a fruit tray on the side.  It was super tasty and the atmosphere was lovely, though I didn't realize it was next door to a funeral home until I uploaded this picture!

I've been to a few fondue restaurants in the city and so far I have to say that this one is my favorite.  They had a wide variety of fondues to choose from and a tasty selection of chocolate fondues for dessert.  The cheese was so good and there was unlimited bread to go with it!  It wasn't the healthiest dinner in the world to be certain but there is not much in this world better than melted cheese.  Honestly, there is very little in the culinary world (outside of desserts, of course) that would not be improved by covering it in melted cheese.

For those of you not from NYC, the black thing with an orange cone in front of it is where food, clothes, and whatever else a store sells is brought into the building.  Most stores have all of their storage in the basement (because every building in the city has a basement) and the stairs to get down there are generally pretty narrow and wouldn't support hauling large boxes of stock.  The gates in the sidewalk make it much easier to bring things down into the storage section of the stores and cause paranoia in NYC residents.  We are all a little afraid of stepping on a closed gate and having it collapse underneath you leaving you injured and embarrassed.  The only thing worse would be stepping in the gap between the train and the platform...talk about dangerous and embarrassing!

Why I Love New York - Reason #12

There are lots of things to love about this city, one of my favorites being that I am constantly surrounded by history.  NYC is positively teeming with enough historical sights to give a nerd a mental hard-on.  There is something historical for everyone, from Stonewall to the Margaret Sanger Clinic.  You can pray at St. Paul's Chapel where George Washington attended services or visit Central Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in NYC if that is more your style. 

One of my favorite sites is the grave of Alexander Hamilton.  I work in the area and I absolutely love that I get to pass by his gravestone every day.

For those of you who are having trouble placing the name you might want to pull out your wallet and check out your $10 bill.  That suave looking gentleman is Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.  He did a lot of amazing things for the country and died in a duel against his arch-nemesis Aaron Burr and I absolutely adore that I get to walk by his final resting place every single day on my way to and from work.  I half want to stand there and shake my fist at his grave, screaming, "What a foolish way for such a smart man to die!  Next time just flip him the bird!  Jeebus, have you no sense?" but I don't.  That would be nuts.

The Brain

Yesterday my husband and I took his aunt to the American Museum of Natural History.  It was awesome!  The AMNH is one of my favorite places in the entire city and I could (and have, in fact) spent days of my time just wandering through the exhibits like it is the Holy Church of Chocolate and Awesome.  While we were there we saw the IMAX movie Sea Rex which did an excellent job of introducing me to some marine reptiles I hadn't heard of previously including the liopleurodon, a short-necked plesiosaur of enormous size that looks like it has the head and body of a crocodile and the flippers of a sea turtle.  It was fascinating!  We also saw the planetarium show Journey to the Stars as narrated by Whoopi Goldberg which was lots of fun.

The best part was the brain exhibit though!  They had a full exhibit on the workings of the brain and discussed the evolution of the brain, memory, addiction, love and other emotions, and the 5 senses.

This is a display showing the different parts of the brain as they apply to your 5 senses.  The various colored sections show which parts of the brain work your sense of smell, taste, touch, hearing and sight.

This is a GIANT brain that shows memory and how the brain functions with a dancer.  You see a video of the dancer rehearsing and the brain lights up in different places as she memorized this pattern.  They talked about how similar brain patterns would be when you learned to tie your shoes or do other repetitive things.  I'll never be able to look at another 4 year old without imagining the inside of their head lighting up like the Las Vegas strip at 2 a.m.

This was a display showing the parts of your body most sensitive to touch.  The more sensitive the body part the larger it is on this statue.  Before you ask, no, they left the sexy bits normal sized.  I guess they didn't want to deal with 7,000 5 year olds saying, "Daddy, that statue has a huge wiener!" so they left that bit out of the display.

This is a giant, light up neuron that was part of a larger display about synapses and such.  There were several of these and you could watch the light travel from neuron to neuron to show how information travels through the brain. 

It was incredibly fun and informative!  If you are in the city and can make the trip I highly recommend it.  We didn't stay for the whole day unfortunately because the puppy needed to be let out of her crate so we limited ourselves to 3 hours at the museum.  It was a fabulous 3 hours though!  Then we went home and spent some time with our pets.  Here is a picture of the puppy taking a walk in her sweater for those of you who love adorable pet pictures.

Restaurant Week

This week in NYC it is restaurant week!  Yay!

For those of you who aren't familiar, restaurant week is the time of year when all the super schmancy restaurants that charge a gazillion dollars per dinner acknowledge that there are many of us in the world who, while not destitute, are not exactly wealthy either and so they bring their prices down to a more affordable amount for a short while.  The husband and I decided to take advantage of this and go to 21 Club for dinner for $35 for a 3 course meal instead of their normal $35 an entree.  Seriously, they sell $125/oz caviar and their normal prix fixe meal is $73 per person.  This is someplace that would normally lock the doors if they saw me coming and send out guard daleks to advise me that perhaps my empty wallet and I should go to Wendy's or something instead but for their low, low price of $35 a person we were able to make a reservation.

21 club has a dress code that requires men to wear jackets and women to wear nice slacks or a nice dress.  No jeans and sneakers.  No t-shirts, not even the one with a picture of the front of a tuxedo on it.  Basically you have to look like you aren't going to steal the silverware before they will let you inside.  When we got there and sat down my husband looked around and said he felt better seeing all the other men were wearing suits too.  When I said that of course other men were in suits and asked why he would even wonder about that he said he thought I might have made up the whole dress code thing just to trick him into wearing a suit to dinner.  The thought hadn't occurred to me before!  I think from now on I will start making up dress codes for various places.  "Yep, that's right sweetie, the theater has a strict 'neck tie and swim fins' dress code.  We can't go see the show unless you have on swim fins!" 

Dress code issues aside, this was such a fabulous meal!  I had chicken in a tasty mushroom sauce with whipped potatoes and broccoli rabe with a lemon meringue tart with blueberry compote for dessert.  My husband had the salmon tartare appetizer (by which I mean he had two because I don't eat seafood so I ordered one for him and he ate mine as well) and grilled pork with fried potatoes and homemade sauerkraut and vanilla bean creme brulee.  It was probably one of the best meals I've ever had and worth every penny.  Now I understand why they get away with charging the prices they do on a regular basis! 

You know what wasn't worth it though?  The $6.25 diet coke.  This kind of thing is why they have those guard daleks, because people like me go there assuming that no one would ever charge more than $3 for a soft drink, no matter how hoity toity the restaurant, and they assume that obviously anyone who set foot in their restaurant knows to assume that everything there is at least 300% more expensive than anywhere else in the world.  I have a feeling that Tavern on the Green and all the other schmancy places charge similar amounts for diet coke too.

They have a bunch of tiny horse jockey statues (I'd bet there are 21 of them) on the outside of the restaurant.  It kind of takes away from the super expensive atmosphere they have going but otherwise they are just adorable!

Mexican Food

I hate Mexican food.

No, that is a lie.  I really like Mexican food.  But I hate it.  Hmm, lemme 'splain...

I am originally from Texas.  Specifically, the part of Texas with the purple X over it in this picture.

Being from Texas I assumed I had eaten a TON of Mexican food in my life when, in fact, I had eaten a TON of Tex-Mex food.  There are pretty dramatic differences between the two but because people who own restaurants in Texas are jackasses (okay, not all of them, but some) they name their restaurant So-And-So's Mexican Restaurant and then serve Tex-Mex food so that little white girls who go out to eat with their families assume that people in Mexico eat lots of deep fried foods covered in molten cheese.

When I moved to New York I found a lot of Mexican restaurants and thought, "Awesome!"  Then I tried to eat at these places and they served me foods I was unfamiliar with, like soft corn tortillas filled with vegetables and small amounts of meat.  No cheese.  No sour cream.  And when I say I want salsa I mean this:

Notice that this is a liquid.  It is full of deliciousness that has been blended and pulverized beyond recognition into a sauce-like substance.

Apparently in Mexico salsa is this:

Notice that this is a solid foodstuff.  It is more like a tomato-onion-cilantro salad than a sauce.  I have always known this to be called Pico De Gallo (pronounced Peeko-De-Guy-o) and I don't like it.  As far as I am concerned uncooked onions and tomatoes should not be considered edible food much the same way that we consider harvested grains that haven't been processed not to be edible foods.  Unfortunately not everyone agrees with my ideas of what things should be and this stuff shows up on my food every time I order tacos in New York.

When I got here and went out for Mexican food the first couple of times I just thought that maybe people in NYC didn't understand true Mexican food, as though people from Mexico got across the border into Texas and stopped going when they hit the Dallas area or something.  They didn't understand that all of these uncooked vegetables and the lack of dairy was obviously a gross error on their part.  I even asked one of the restaurant's owners about it once and he advised me that he was born and raised in Mexico and he had never heard of a sopapilla and that most people in Mexico don't eat much cheese.

Now, the food I've eaten in NY that calls itself Mexican food is tasty, I'm not going to lie.  But my expectations are always set for Tex-Mex when I go for Mexican and then they give me my tacos and I am sad about my lunch when I see that it is authentic Mexican food.  Then I get about 5 or 6 bites in and realize it is pretty dang good and I shouldn't be sad anymore but the first few bites are always filled with sadness.  I feel like I have been misled by the restaurant.  It is kind of like if my husband called me at work and said, "Sweetheart, when you get home from work I am going to rock your world so hard you will temporarily go blind" but when I got home he said we would just sit on the couch holding hands and watch Under The Tuscan Sun.  I would love to hold hands with my husband and watch an adorable movie but not when my system is all geared towards sweet, sweet lovin', you know?  That is how I feel about Mexican food in NYC.

Kitties

I had a long talk with the cats and they told me that they feel we are paying too much attention to the dog and not enough attention to them.  I explained that the dog is just a baby and needs lots of attention right now but they would have none of it and insisted that I get out the camera and take pictures of them too.  I obliged to keep them from feeling all left out.  Here are the kitties:

They are cute and fuzzy and just as lovely as the puppy.  There, hopefully they feel better!

I got the grey cat when I lived in Texas and he came up north with me to the Big Apple.  He has never known anything other than living in my home and loves to follow me around and sleep in the bed with me.  The orange fella, however, is a New York native.  He was actually feral for part of his life and lived on the streets of the city, eating out of trash cans and such.  The woman I adopted him from who brought him in and put him through kitty rehab thinks he was abandoned by someone before she found him.  He is less snuggly and has more attitude (I suppose that could be because he is a native New Yorker as well, you never know) but he is lovely just the same.  After I adopted him I found out that she had him in a facility with other cats and several pot bellied pigs she was trying to adopt out as pets.  Seriously, pot bellied pigs!

The pup came from a breeder in MN and was shipped here before we adopted her.  If we had adopted her straight from the breeder we would not have let them dock her tail, but since it has been done already there isn't anything we can do about it except love her extra to make up for the unnecessary tail removal.  I am very excited for her because now she has finished her vaccinations and is almost done with her meds, which means that soon we can start taking her for walks!  She will love going for walks and the kitties will love having her out of the house for short bursts of time.

Why I Love New York - Reason #132

In NYC you see a ton of things you can't see anywhere else.  A naked cowboy playing the guitar, alternative theater, and a store devoted solely to Pop-Tarts are all reasons that I adore living in this city and just one of the many things I love about NYC is this guy:

Today is February 4th.  It is icy and cold outside.  In fact, there are huge mounds of snow covered in ice where the plows and the shop owners have shoveled it into piles so it can melt without being too much of a bother over the next several weeks all over the sidewalks and the roads.  Yet this man is wandering around Manhattan with no shoes on as though the city were actually a soft spring meadow.

And it isn't as though this is the only time I've ever seen him.  I actually see him every single day catching the train in the Financial District with all the people in suits and ties like he considers himself an Executive Hobo or something like that.  He really isn't even a hobo actually.  He is always clean and appropriately dressed (except for the shoes, of course) and very polite to everyone on the train.  He even has one of the world's most awesome hats to keep his head warm in the winter!

He has this massively large fuzzy hat.  It is one of those Russian hats that is super fuzzy with a big badge-type thing on the front.  It is so Russian that every time I see him I want to yell, "In Soviet Russia hat wears you!" but I know that would be very rude so I just think it very quietly in my head.  He gets +3 cool points for the hat.  He loses a point for the lack of shoes though.  Or should the lack of shoes earn him an extra point?  I haven't decided for sure yet.