Ed-tastic Weekend

Our longtime friend and Jeremy's old studiomate Ed Charbonneau came into town on Friday afternoon, and suffice it to say, Ed is why I wasn't checking the internet (or getting enough sleep) all weekend. For those who know Ed, you'll understand how much we loved having him here. Ed is a man who inspires antics. Here is a quick recap of some highlights...

* Friday afternoon began at Mike & Arianne's apartment with the traditional sharing of a glass of whiskey among the group.

* We "progressed" to McSorley's, a famous old bar in the East Village, where the only way to order beer there is "light" or "dark," and either way, you get two mugs of it. One of the only food items is the "cheese plate," consisting of a package of Saltines, chedder cheese, and raw onions. This all resulted in much discussion of art and politics, including watching the Presidential debate.

* On Saturday, we had the pleasure of watching Mike's softball game and then heading back to Mike & Arianne's for Ed's famous white chili. Ed surprised Jeremy and Mike by giving them each one of his sketchbooks from college, full of amazing drawings, notes, and memories.
* On Sunday, we made brunch for everyone at our place -- our first "gathering" here since arriving in New York! Everyone commemorated the experience by wearing their napkins on their heads.





* The real highlight of Sunday was the Studio Visits where we all went to Jeremy's studio at Pratt and Mike's studio in Queens to see the artwork and make comments. Visit Mike's website to see his amazing paintings, based on maps of New York. The evening ended with some sizzling Korean BBQ, and a sad farewell to Ed. Thankfully, he keeps threatening to make his visits to NYC a regular occasion! You should, too.

Grand Army Plaza At Night

After our food co-op orientation the other night, we missed our bus by just a minute. The next one was 30 minutes later. It was already 10:15 PM (those co-op people know how to talk...) so we contemplated taking a taxi the 1.5 miles home (with all our groceries in tow), but instead walked an extra two blocks to take in Grand Army Plaza, lit beautifully at night. This large plaza is a memorial for Northern soldiers and sailors in the Civil War (of course I call it the War of Northern Aggression, but I digress...). The plaza is a "gateway" to Prospect Park, and reminds me of something you'd find in a European capital. There is a design competition to redesign it underway, and even that late at night we could wander through an exhibition of the design ideas. Not a bad way to bide our time, waiting for the bus...

My Lifelong Dream Achieved

I got the dream job of a lifetime last night -- being a cashier! Jeremy and I attended our required members' orientation at Park Slope Food Co-op, and because every member has to be a working member in order to shop there (working 3 hours/month), I chose to be a cashier because it is literally what I always wanted to do growing up. Push buttons! My mom can confirm this. Sure sure, I've got interviews set up to be the Vice President at a Foundation, or the Deputy Director of a national public radio program, but don't be fooled, cashiering is closest to my heart! My first shift is next week Tuesday.

I also wanted to share that I've become a reader again! For so many years I've done so much reading (and writing) for work that reading for pleasure took a backseat. One of the ways the pace of life has slowed down a bit here (doesn't that seem counter-intuitive?) is due to the time we spend waiting for trains and riding on trains. I always have a book with me. Here is a photo of our train stop, the dear Clinton-Washington station, and me enjoying Benjamin Percy's book of intense short stories Refresh Refresh, published by the fantastic Graywolf Press (thanks for the book, Jeff!).

Slavic Soul Party!

Our old friend Chris Stromquist plays snare drum in Slavic Soul Party, an amazing nine piece brass band that ripped it up last night at a little bar in Park Slope called Barbés. Chris is over on the far left in these photos. The band was really fun, the room was snug, the vocalist introduced songs by saying things like, "this is an old Hungarian tune, sung in the Macedonian style..." and since they play at this bar every Tuesday, we'll definitely go when you visit. Chris played drums for UHQ, including our west coast tour in 2002, which we fondly reminisced about last night. We're happy to have connected with an old friend in NYC!

Good Weekend, Good News

We had a great weekend, full of both relaxing and invigorating things. But first, some exciting news... Jeremy's sister Jenn and brother-in-law Luis had a baby boy on Saturday! Baby Alex was born in Germany, where they live, so we won't get to meet him for awhile, but both Alex and Jenn are doing great. Photos will be forthcoming. In other great news, I just found out I got an interview for a job I'm really interested in - yea! I'll report more next week if it goes anywhere.

OK, back to the weekend. Some highlights...

* We had dinner at a lovely French restaurant called Jolie with my college roommate Jay and his wife Leah, who were recently married and live in The Tri-State Area, so we hope to see them a lot! Jay likes ketchup, as you can see.

* We took our bikes out for the first time and rode down to Prospect Park. The 1.1 miles on city streets on the way there were quite harrowing (for me, Jer is tougher), but biking on the closed roads in the park was great.

* Our friend Mike had a great birthday bash on Saturday, and the theme was "Cowboys!" Yippee-i-ay and kudos to Mike and Arianne for the great time.

* We went to the MoMA, twice... Jer gets in free with his Pratt ID, and I got an individual membership, which has almost paid for itself with two visits. Jer had to see five different shows as part of a school assignment (see photo below of Jer watching some very modern art, as the name of the place suggests). As were were leaving the first day, we realized we could check out MoMA's new VanGogh show (exploring painting the night and light) on the first "members only" preview night - ooh la la. It was a great show, and it was amazing to see so many masterpieces up close with few people in the gallery. Membership has its privileges.

Street Greening

I learned today of a cool "reverse" graffiti artist, Paul "Moose" Curtis, who cleans away dirt from city walls to depict beautiful natural images. Here is a shot of a project he did on a busy highway area in San Francisco. 

Maybe I'm connecting with this work because of how much time we're spending around dirty areas of the subway system, and the streets in general. It's frustrating that the subway stations in poorer areas (including ours) are in much worse repair than the ones around the financial districts and wealth in Manhattan. I'll take some subway photos someday, but in the meantime, here are some shots of what my iPhone can capture while walking down the sidewalk. 

In this case, we were on our way to an opening in Chelsea on Thursday -- the best work we've seen in Chelsea so far! Continuing the theme of green, I took the photo below of my wine cup in front of one of the photos on display to point out a problem with all these gallery openings we keep attending... the ubiquitous plastic cup. I keep using the first one I get for re-fills, but of course my goal is not to take (and throw out) disposable anything. I need to get a sturdy plastic cup to take with me each time we go out. Maybe a collapsable camping cup? I'd be the envy of the fashionistas, for sure...

Close to Close

I wanted to call this post "OMG, we met Chuck Close!!!!" but Jeremy had a cleverer title. That's right, tonight on the street, we met one of Jeremy's great art heroes! Chuck Close is an amazing painter and photographer who had a huge show at the Walker this past year. He happened to roll by us while we were hanging out on the street after gallery openings in Chelsea. Jer nudged me and said, "Chuck Close is coming down the sidewalk!" Of course, being the assertive gal I am, I trailed him and asked if I could take his photo. He was very gracious. What a night!

Jeremy's First Show

Yes, that's right, the MFA students at Pratt have already organized their first show - Bring Your Own Art - and it opened last night. Each first and second year student installed a piece. Jeremy and I were pretty impressed with the quality of the work in general, and many pieces in particular, which is a great sign. Below is a photo of Jeremy's work (you'll recognize it from this past year). We also stopped by his studio on campus and below are a few shots from two different angles. It is a really decent space, although is missing three key elements... Ed, Jon, and Debb! Our friend Heidi and her boyfriend Sam came to the opening, and then Heidi came over to our place for some drinks after -- our very first houseguest! Heidi is also job searching and also hating it, so we had plenty to gripe about together. Below is a photo of Heidi, graciously welcoming you to our home... plan your first visit soon!

No more boxes

We were in Chinatown over the weekend, and I loved this sign. Anyone who helped us move will recognize the pattern of putting random items all together (in our case, in our moving boxes), and then carefully labeling the contents. While I didn't ever pack "Perfume, T-shirt, Belt buckle" together, I feel that "Travel, Sewing, Erin's Red Shoes" (the contents of an actual box we moved from the Marshall house to Minneapolis) is of the same spirit. A lady came and bought our 45 empty boxes yesterday, and Jeremy installed a curtain rod in the kichen, a shelf in the closet to hold cat supplies, and an under-sink paper towel holder, so you know we're getting close to "moved in."

The Opposite of SITC

Sometimes I feel like my New York ideals all come from Seinfeld or Sex In the City. Yesterday, I was feeling very much the opposite of SITC. Instead of expensive high heels, I choose to wear my running shoes to the Guggenheim, because all this city walking is taking a toll on my feet and joints (yes, I'm old). On top of that, I was wearing a blouse my friend "almost gave to Goodwill," but sent me instead. And, it was hot. We were so sweaty all day, especially waiting on the subway platforms, where the air is dead still, humid, and probably about 100 degrees (no exaggeration). Trying to live up to SITC a little bit, we finally sampled some Tasti D Lite, which was both Tasti and Deliteful. Things really improved after we stumbled into a little cafe in SoHo called Antique Garage, where there was a live three piece, antiques everywhere, and excellent food. We thought our friend Abby would have loved it, so I ordered a chilled rosé in her honor!

Chelsea 0, Williamsburg 1

We've kinda struck out both times we've tried to see interesting new art in Chelsea, but last night met up with friends to go to openings in Williamsburg (a neighborhood north of us in Brooklyn) and we found the good stuff! The art world is redeemed! After going to about five galleries, we sat down and refueled at Chula Taco, which was excellent. Two big yummy tacos for $4.50! Oh, but the maragaritas are $8. Can't win them all. Here's a photo of Jer with Mike, and Arianne (on the right) with her old roommate Tiffany. We were also with Mike's friends Tim and Jen, both from Minnesota - yea! Today, we are unpacking the final boxes and trying to sell them on Craig's list -- 45 boxes for $30. What a bargain!

Your Assignment: Art

In one of Jeremy's classes, he was assigned to go see three specific art shows around town and choose a piece from one to write about. I guess when you live in New York, it is no big deal for the professor to assign this, even when the three shows are at the Met, the Guggenheim, and the Jewish Museum! So yesterday afternoon we went to Museum Mile on the Upper East Side to see two of the shows. I went early to see the Jewish Museum, since we've been studying a lot of midrash and the Hebrew Bible lately at House of Mercy. It is amazing place, and I want to go back (maybe when you visit?!). Their special exhibition was about Abstract Expressionism, and two Jewish critics' roles in the creation and acceptance of it. They had amazing Pollacks, DeKoonigs, etc. I learned a lot, which is good, because I've never taken an art class in my life and need to know more.

Then, it was off to the roof garden at the Met to see three pieces by Jeff Koons. We were a bit late, so we literally walked as fast as possible through the Classical Greek and African art to get to the elevators -- doesn't that seem like something that only happens in the movies? OK, maybe on bad TV? We weren't super into these pieces, but it made for some nice photos of us and the Manhattan/Central Park skyline...




After our 15 minutes at the Met, we walked to a quick dinner at the Central Park boathouse, and continued walking across the park to get a train to meet Mike and Arianne for openings in Chelsea. We all felt underwhelmed by the art we saw, but at the end of the evening walking back to the train, we looked up to see the two beams of light that are lit from the site of the Twin Towers on each anniversary of the attacks. The lights are massive and go up to the sky, as high as the cloud cover. They were not underwhelming.

Top Chef at the Speakeasy

For our anniversary last week, we walked three short blocks to a neighborhood restaurant, the Speakeasy. We sat outside and had some amazing food -- lamb for Jeremy and sea bass for me, with a caprese salad to share. To quote our friend Jodi (the way she writes on her blog from China), "when you come to visit, we'll take you here!" When the host heard it was our anniversary, he gave us a lovely free dessert and convinced our server (an aspiring singer/actress) to sing out a sweet and passionate version of "If I Loved You" from Carousel right there at our table on the sidewalk. We also found out later that the chef of the Speakeasy was a finalist on the Bravo show "Top Chef." It goes without saying that last night (after I hadn't left the apartment all day due to job searching) we had to go back and try the happy hour, where all wines are $4 and beers $3. The funny thing about this photo is that I look like I'm afraid someone will steal my fuzzy green purse, although I wasn't, and that shouldn't stop you from visiting us in Brooklyn! Shout out to Elizabeth for the jewelry and purse I wore last night... miss you!

Jer likes school

Many have been asking about how school is going for Jeremy, so I thought I'd share that he is loving it, and after going to all five of his classes, likes all his professors and likes the other students he's met. I keep asking, "is anyone super annoying?" and so far so good. He signed up to have one of the first studio critiques of the year in his Painting Seminar -- where all the students and the professor visit his studio and comment on his work. That's happening this afternoon -- wish him well on that! In other news, we finally emptied all of our "kitchen stuff" boxes last night! This is a huge feat, since our new kitchen is tiny and we have a lot of kitchen stuff. We installed an Ikea shelf for all our glasses, we're storing some things on our new mini kitchen cart, bought potracks, etc. Note the fine job that was done installing the kitchen cabinets by some previous owner/landlord -- every cabinet hangs at a different level! Tonight, we take on the clothes closets...

Hurricane Hanna / A Tree Falls In Brooklyn

We had a scarey moment here on Saturday night. Hurricane Hanna dropped a lot of rain and wind on New York (we're living on a coast now!) and we were sitting at our dining room table next to our back windows that evening. I commented to Jer that it looked like a few tree limbs were taking a beating out back. Less than 10 minutes later, I heard a terrible cracking sound and looked up to see a huge tree falling toward the building -- I couldn't even get out of my chair before we heard a ton of broken glass. Our apartment was OK, but the unit next to us and one floor down in the next brownstone had tree limbs break through their back windows. We called 911 right away, and don't think anyone was hurt. The tree was taller than our building, and is still resting today (Monday) against the back of our building and our fire escape in particular (see view from our back window).

Tack så mycket, Ikea!

Jer and I spent four hours at the new Brooklyn Ikea yesterday, whew. We feel somehow changed by the experience, and are proud of our perseverance getting through it. Before this Ikea opened this year, there was no Ikea in NYC, and seriously, multiple New Yorkers have asked us in the past two weeks, "Have you been to the Ikea yet??!!" People, calm down, Ikea is great, yet very grating. It was crazy town there yesterday with so many people. It is nice, however, that people in Manhattan can take a FREE water taxi from the island directly to the store -- tourists can just ride the taxi if they want, too. We got plenty of cute and necessary items for our new apartment, like a mini butcher block cart adding 20 inches of valuable counter space to our kitchen. We also had a little pre-shopping Swedish treat (Dajm tårta, Kristian Regal-äpple, kaffe) at Cafe Ikea. Jeremy didn't look so calm and collected by the end of the visit there...

Art Scene

This past Thursday was the biggest gallery opening night of the year, so we met up with friends Mike, Arianne, and Heidi in Chelsea to check out the scene. We started at the opening of a Minneapolis friend, Lex Thompson, at Point of View gallery. Lex's photos looked great there. Then we walked (see Jeremy and Heidi walking, with Empire State Building in background) to another building that had several galleries in it. There were so many people, it was hard to see the art. We didn't find anything we loved, but it was great to be out and having fun. We ended the night at a Mexican place, with dinner, drinks, and a bonus free (but nasty) tequila shot (note Arianne's opinion of it...) Oops, can't turn that photo around, maybe that's OK...

Home Sweet Home!!!!!!

Great news came unexpectedly on Friday -- we signed a lease on our apartment! It is ours! We don't have to move! Erin spent about five hours putting together all our financial information, taxes, bank statements, her contracts, etc. in order to "prove" our financial status, we went to meet with the property manager, and poof! She wanted to finalize it there and then. We are SO happy about this. A video tour of our place will be forthcoming...

Jeremy's First Day of School

This was taken right before he left the apartment for his first day. Doesn't he look handsome and ready for his big day at school? The report from the first day, "It was intense, but good."

Furniture/Purrniture

There is a pet store in St. Paul called Purrniture, where they specialize in cat furniture. We don't own any cat furniture, and until last night, it felt like we would never have any furniture, but then some Russians arrived to move in our stuff! It was quite an ordeal. The two pods that carried all our belongings from Minneapolis to Brooklyn showed up 5 days and 2.5 hours later than scheduled. We knew about the five extra days last week, when, "due to the holiday weekend," we were told to wait until Tuesday. Then, after being told our pods would arrive around 3:00 PM, they didn't come until 5:30. In the meantime, we had hired some movers to help move the things up to the third floor here, and they arrived at 3:00, but don't worry, they filled their time sleeping on the curb (literally) until 5:30. And yes, we paid for that time. And yes, many of our things looked a lot worse for wear once they arrived, but it's all here now, and boy are we happy. We have a bed! And some chairs! And there are things for Mabel to perch on, too! This is a before and after photo of the living room...