If You Can't Stand the Heat...

Just a few more hours before I head home.  I couldn't wait for another try at the flea markets.  Since Hell's Kitchen is my favorite, I headed there first.

Today especially the neighborhood and flea market are named appropriately.  It's hot as Hell's Kitchen and there's no shade.  I had to buy a $5 sunhat from a vendor selling them for $20 but ("just for you!") I was offered a deal. I didn't pay $20 but I still paid $15 more than what it was probably worth...on a cool, cloudy day.  Today though was another story.

Hell's Kitchen Flea Market

After purchasing my hat, I passed this booth and was offered a Chinese Back Rub.  The guy out front stops you and does some kind of kung-fu on the back of your neck and the next thing you know, you're following him into the tent to join the other tense market goers.  He gives me the hard sell on the 20 minute massage as opposed to the 10 minute one but I stick to my guns here, even when this tiny little lady starts digging her elbow into my shoulder.  "Ve-dy tense.  Ve-dy tense.  Jus for you, 20 minute, 15 dolla!"  No thanks, I'll stick to the 10 minute one.  Then she does karate chops to my back, all the while I am sweating like I'm in Louisiana, not New York.  I lift my face when it's over (they kindly cover the face hole with a torn paper towel) and she looks at me, sees sweat pouring off of me, and makes some sound and then proceeds to wipe the sweat from my face with the paper towel.  I have to admit though.  It was a mighty fine back massage.

Here are some of the vendors' collections.  I love it!  There were lots of clothes, vintage of course.  And people were buying them.  I found a little funky red check skirt with red ric-rac and I tried it on under my dress but it didn't fit.  Too much me for the skirt.

No, didn't try on these!

I tried some of this ice cream not having any idea what to expect.  Holy Moly!  This is the BEST stuff.  You get a little cup of home made ice cream with a cookie of cookie dough in the center.  I had the lemon ice cream with the ginger snap cookie dough.  And yes Tony the thought of getting a parasite from the raw cookie dough did cross my mind but I figured at this point, a tape worm might be the quickest way to lose my NYC pounds!  

I spent more time at the guy's booth who sells old photos.  Last time I bought a few for an art project I have in mind and this time I picked up a few more.  A young woman was standing beside me going through the bins and she commented how fascinating the pictures were.  She was visiting from another country (not sure which but then it seems EVERYONE in NY is visiting from another country).  She said she was in journalism and just wanted a few of them for writing.  The last time I was at the flea market I thought how great lots of the pictures would be for writing prompts if I were still teaching English.  

Red door from the Church in the Village

I am not sure who this is or what he is doing but the young woman is taking his picture.  Some kind of model shoot.  Very dapper.

I loved this yellow door on Greenwich Avenue.

There have been so many crazy conversations I have overheard here.  Many are on cell phones and some between people on the street.  I wish I had a movie of the one-sided conversation this woman had with her dog before she picked her up.  

"You are not a baby!  I do not need to pick you up.  You silly thing.  OK.  I will carry you then, but you are not a baby!"  The dog looked at her like, Oh no?  Look who got picked up!

It Was Right Under My Nose All the Time!

I finally found the anthora cup!  Yesterday when we got down to the lobby of the building there was a guy leaning over the desk reading the paper.  He had a Yankees cap on with the stickers still on it, tats all up and down his arms and a couple of piercings.  He looked pretty tough.  I thought, This guy will know where to find my cup of coffee!  So I said, I have a question.  To which he immediately replied, Oh, I'm not the super.  I said, I know but I think you might be able to help me.  Then I proceeded to ask him and he said, Oh, right next door at the newspaper/souvenir stand.  I had called myself looking there but had not seen the neon coffee sign in the back of the little kiosk.  And the rest is history!  Two days before I leave NYC I find the cup!!

For Tony's birthday, Hannah wanted him to try the peanut butter sandwich shop.  We all got different kinds of sandwiches and then got the sampler too.  We had a rather large doggie bag when we left. 

Happy Birthday Tony!

In honor of your day, I am posting two birthday-themed art pieces from the apartment.

Birthday

by Marc Chagall

I don't know anything about this but it's in the apartment bedroom.  Fancy cake on a fancy pedestal.

On Wednesday Hannah took us to S'Macs which is a little hole-in-the-wall that serves variations of mac and cheese baked in individual iron skillets.  It was as good as you can imagine.  I think one of the secrets is the iron skillet.

We headed down to the Village.  I was looking for a bookstore but it got really hot walking around.  About the time I was looking for a place to go inside and sit down, the Angelika Film Center popped up so we took in the movie Terri.  Tony and I both like John C. Reilly who is in this movie about a high school principal trying to help and befriend an overweight misfit.  About half way through though it goes off the rails and ends up being a little disturbing.  It would not have been a good Shreveport selection; however, it seemed to fit in perfectly with an afternoon in Greenwich Village.

We went to the Nespresso bar in SoHo after the movie for a cappuccino.  There are a couple of these espresso bars in the city.  I love the machines.

We took Hannah and her Baylor friends to I Sodi for dinner Wednesday night.  We had a blast.   The girls are so much fun and shared all kinds of experiences they had had in the city.  All three are doing internships of some sort:  marketing, finance, and music.  I love them!!

Here we are with Lindsey.  She was our second daughter in New York.  I am glad we will have another year at Baylor so I can still see her!

OK...this is a ridiculous place.  Again thanks to Hannah Lee for finding it.  How many times did I as a kid ask for french fries for dinner?  How many times as an adult have I secretly made french fries for dinner?  How many times have I gone to CheeBurger and ordered a burger JUST so I could order the fries?  How many times have I been to a nice restaurant and ordered an entree based on how well it would go with the fries that were also on the menu?   You understand now..this is Nirvana...Shangri la...heaven on earth.  They serve ONLY big fat crispy fries with all kinds of sauces that they cheerfully offer a tasting of before you order.  Then you sit with your sauces and diet coke at one of the two or three tables with holes drilled in the tops and wait (im)patiently for the delivery.  Then the guy comes over, all smiles, with a giant cone of fries pouring out the top.  He sticks the cone in the hole (so THAT'S what that hole was for!) and we dig in.  No words are needed.  We share our three sauces.  It's poetry.  It's a song without words.  It's about the best thing ever...in the whole world.

We then actually find the book store we had looked for the previous day, St Marks Bookshop.  It is a quaint, crammed full of books, bookstore in the East Village.  Independent book stores are a dying breed.  A sign on their door said, "See it here.  Buy it here.  Keep us here."  

Then, simply because we are running out of time, Hannah took us to SoHo to Rice to Riches, a little place that sells only rice pudding.  They had lots of flavors and it was delicious.  I couldn't really enjoy it like I wanted though because I was still full of french fries.

Thursday night Tony and I went to Spice Market where we had a great meal.  (Sorry Lynn and Jane E you weren't there!)  A day before his birthday he does something I never thought he'd EVER do!  He ate the raw tuna appetizer.  I love tuna...raw, seared, grilled....doesn't matter.  And I have begged Tony to try it.  Well he did.  You can't teach an old dog new tricks?  No, but you can teach a YOUNG dog!  

Then we took a cab up to Lincoln Center where there is an art/film exhibit of sorts.  The photographer David Michalek has made a series of film portraits called "Portraits in Dramatic Time."  He filmed actors in brief little scenes and then slowed them down from 10 seconds to 5 minutes or more.  It sounds odd but everyone is pretty mesmerized by it.  It's shown on a giant screen against one of the buildings at Lincoln Center.  It reminded me of going years ago to the Hirshhorn in DC and seeing Douglas Gordan's 24 Hour Psycho where he showed the Alfred Hitchcock movie on a giant screen viewable from both sides, dramatically slowed down to cover a 24 hour period.  I stood there and watched Janet Leigh driving down the street toward her rendezvous with a knife in the shower.  It seemed like I stood there for 5 minutes or more and saw her car go about 3 feet.  The Lincoln Center films were at least short enough where you could see an entire "portrait" in just a few minutes.

So Happy Birthday Tony!  I hear we are headed to a peanut butter sandwich restaurant for lunch!  As it should be!

Happy Independence Day!

This post will cover two days.  It's easy to get behind.  I have been looking for these NY cups everywhere (called an anthora cup) and I can't find a place that serves coffee in them!  I have quickly become obsessed with this cup.  Almost every morning when I leave the apartment, the doorman has left one along with a local newspaper on the desk in the foyer.  Then a couple of days ago I saw one on the subway stair railing as I was headed down.

Then last night Tony and I walked home from 12th Street and low and behold the windows at Lord and Taylor had a display that used several dozen of these cups.  They are everywhere and yet they are nowhere!  It's a mysterious paradox.

If you've ever watched an episode of  a New York cop show, then you have seen these cups. They are all over the place in the movies and on TV in stories set in NYC.

We checked out some of the other flea markets Sunday.  We took the train to Brooklyn to the Brooklyn Flea Market which is in Williamsburg.  On the way to the waterfront, we stopped at this little flea market called Artists and Fleas.  It had some pretty cute things...several booths of original screen printed t-shirts, handmade journals, and jewelry.

Outside was a guy selling coffee.  I had a cup of the pour-over which was very good but it did not come in the mysterious anthora cup.

Then we headed down to the waterfront where the Brooklyn Flea Market is.  It had been raining all morning so there were only about six booths set up so we looked at the view of Manhattan and then headed back to the train.

We went to the Greenflea, the flea market that is in a school and on its playground on the West Side on Columbus between 76th and 77th.  It was fairly good.  The most exciting thing about it was seeing Bernadette Peters looking over a pair of emerald earrings.  She was really checking them out and talking to the vendor about them.  Of course, Tony spotted her.

Sunday night we went to dinner at Gotham Bar and Grill and took Hannah and her friend Lindsey.  Dinner was great but it felt good to walk some afterwards.  We ended up walking all the way home, 43 blocks, which is over two miles.  We didn't rush and checked out the store windows along the way.  The Empire State Building was lit up in red, white and blue.

The lights at the 5th Avenue public library were pretty.  

Here's the Chrysler Building above Grand Central Station at the very end of the street.

Today we walked in the park, had lunch and went to a movie at the Paris Theater.  Then we walked to the park and sat for a while.  I was fooling around with the Yelp app on my phone and found this news stand that was fairly close that supposedly had a ton of magazines.  Since it was so close, I wanted to go see it.

I still can't quite believe my eyes.  I asked the clerk how many magazines they had and he said almost 4000.  It was truly amazing.  There were so many magazines I had never heard of and one I picked up was $40.  In memory of old times, we bought Hannah an Archie comic book.

Then we headed home and dropped off our things and around 8:30 walked down to as close to the Hudson as we could get for the fireworks.  We ended up having to watch from 11th Avenue and 54th Street.  It was very crowded but lots of fun.  People just spontaneously would applaud after a really exciting firework.

In fairness, the two pictures below are not mine.  

HAPPY FOURTH!!