September 30, 2007 by kim.

Every year in Fort Tryon Park, they hold a Medieval Festival.

All the years that we’ve lived here, we’ve gone to it. It is usually pretty interesting. Different. Medieval, if you will.

This year we took more time and even watched an event - a “Birds of Prey” demonstration by Flight of the Raptor:

Jennifer Pena and 3 raptors

We then moseyed along and got some food - a turkey leg, sausage on a stick, corn on the cob and water and beer. It was good and I ate the turkey with my fingers, keeping with the “no silverware in the Middle Ages” theme.

While eating, we heard some commotion and realized that the jousting tournament was going on. We couldn’t really see it since we had given up our seats to find food, but we got a few glimpses:

And on we went, seeing a few more people along the way:

I guess they didn’t want to keep with the “no toilets in the Middle Ages” theme…

Posted in Animals, Food, Observation | No Comments »

September 30, 2007 by kim.

On one of our walks, we came across this pretty purple flower:

I have no idea what it is called. Anyone out there have an idea?

Anyone?

Posted in Nature | No Comments »

September 30, 2007 by kim.

Did you ever look at something in nature, see something in it, try to take a picture of it and then not be able to see what you thought you saw?

Bear with me.

We were walking along in Fort Tryon Park, when we came upon this alien face in a tree:

Do you see it? We did see it when we were standing a few feet from it, but it is hard to make out in the picture.

Here is another example.

When we go for our morning walks, we always come upon this foliage that we dubbed the “Elephant Tree”:

Can you make out the shape, with the trunk off to the left? Here is a closeup of the head:

Did you see it? You must have seen it. Tell us that you’ve seen it so we know we aren’t crazy.

Are we?

Posted in Nature | 1 Comment »

September 30, 2007 by kim.

I will admit it - I am a sucker for marketing. Not all marketing, just some. Mainly things that have to do with sugar. I am a marketing person’s dream.

Chris and I were watching a program last weekend on the History Channel, called American Eats. The program we watched had to do with cookies or chocolate or something yummy like that. One of the items they showcased happened to be Mallomars. I have never eaten a Mallomar before. I only really know about them from a short scene in “When Harry Met Sally” when Harry is sitting watching TV and eating Mallomars. I was curious about them then, but when I saw how they made them on television, on the conveyor belt with marshmallow being squeezed onto a graham cracker and topped with chocolate, I was intrigued.

I had to go to the grocery store after that, and what do I see? MALLOMARS. Dozens of boxes lined up on the endcap in the store. At first, I marvelled at them and walked by. What would I need with these Mallomars? I don’t really like marshmallow that much to need a whole box. However, the images of the show stuck in my head, and with my candy obsession, I had to buy a box. Which I did:

It was…okay. Not my favorite, but just writing about it makes me want to go eat one.

Oh, the power of marketing.

Posted in Food | No Comments »

September 27, 2007 by kim.

Somewhere along the way this evening we went through some sort of time warp.

Chris was downtown near where I work, so we decided to meet up after work, which puts us at 5:45pm.

Usually, at 5:45pm, I would be making my way to the train. I would take one across town, and another uptown, and I would get home at about 6:45pm or 7:00pm. Then we would chit-chat for about 20 minutes about what to eat, decide upon something, prepare it and start eating near 8:00pm.

Today, when we decided to meet up, we chit-chatted about whether we would go out to eat or go home. We decided to go out to eat, so we went to a little mexican restaurant about 5 blocks away. We ordered, we ate, we walked to the train, we rode the train, we were stopped at 59th street due to train traffic and the ride seemed to take forever, we ran into our friend Susan when we got off the train, we talked while waiting for the elevator out of the subway, we walked to our apartment to show her around and then talked with her for about 10 more minutes. When she left to go home, we looked at the clock and it was only 7:55pm.

We were dumbfounded. Dumbfounded that we could have done all of that in less time than it takes for me to ride the train home and make dinner. I wondered if I had accidentally left work early. Make way for technology - Chris looked at his call log on his cell phone and he had called me at 5:36pm, so I couldn’t have left early. I did leave work at 5:45pm and we did cram a bunch of activities into the time it takes me to ride the train home.

WEIRD!

Posted in Observation | No Comments »

September 25, 2007 by kim.

Remember the Blue Light Special at KMart 20-30 years ago? I’m sure your mom dragged you there even though you wouldn’t admit it to your little school chums who also ended up there at some point, so don’t bother trying to deny it.

Anyway, when I was a kid and found myself at KMart, I recall seeing the famous Blue Light Special. It wasn’t all that special, really. It was usually a wooden cart with some stuff in it that they just couldn’t get rid of without a huge price markdown, and there would be a pole with a spinning blue police light on top to attract your attention. I probably only noticed it out of the corner of my eye, as I was too busy getting a blue-raspberry slushie and popcorn at the snack counter, but it was there.

Well, flash forward to 2007 in NYC. KMart no longer has the same stigma of the 70s and 80s, and it is now a somewhat cool place to shop since Martha Stewart moved in. As I was walking there today, I passed some people with a bunch of balloons wearing white t-shirts, trying to hand me a flyer about the big linen sale taking place. I found it a bit odd to put so much into towels, but I went on. Then, I saw the little feet pictures pasted on the pavement with the picture of Mr. Bluelight (the name of their logo), leading to the front door. Oh – and Mr. Bluelight himself was standing outside.

It got a bit flashier when I got inside. Aside from the woman giving away free freshly popped popcorn in little blue bags, they had set up a mock photo shoot, where you could get your picture taken against a background of the KMart logo and the Mr. Bluelight logo. There were a couple of young, hip, unshaven guys there in their sunglasses looking oh, so ultra-cool, apathetically beckoning customers to “come on over” for a picture.

So much razzmatazz for some sheets and washcloths!

It makes me nostalgic for the simple cart with the spinning light.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

September 23, 2007 by kim.

Remember when you were a kid, and you went to school, or to a restaurant, and you were told to use your “inside voices” so that you didn’t disturb others? Common sense, common courtesy, right? Apparently somewhere along the way, some of today’s parents forgot to pass this information on to their own kids.

We went to pick up pizza at the local pizza parlor, and there was a table full of parents and kids screaming their fool heads off. The kids, not the parents. Did I hear anyone pipe up with a “Shush” here, or a “Please be quiet” there, or even a full out “SHUT UP”? No. I’m guessing these parents have that ability to turn off all noise except for the sounds of their own voices talking to each other.

I can see how you may tune out a toddler saying, “Mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama” over and over again, but how do they, in good concience, allow even the people working at the pizza place to suffer the screeches and general melee? Where is the concern for others? Where is the control?

Where is the mute button?

Posted in Annoyance | No Comments »

September 20, 2007 by kim.

Hey - looky here! On the Chicago Tribune website, there is a section where you can submit your Chicago photos. Well, Chris sent one in that he took when we first moved back to Chicago after living in New York (back in ought-five), and they posted it!

Chris found it and took this screen shot of the site so you wouldn’t have to go searching all around to try to find it among the hundreds of photos that they post.

Here it is again, in a larger size:

Go Chris!

Posted in Art, Happy | No Comments »

September 16, 2007 by kim.

It was a trip, all right. We decided to take kitty in to the vet for a checkup. The last time we went to a vet, they said she was in good health. This time, you’d think she went completely downhill. She hasn’t. She’s just as good as she was the day we got her, if not better.

Kitty is a bit plump. She’s 10 years old. She doesn’t do that much running around, although we play with her every day and she does run from one end of the apartment to the other. We feed her good dry food, and follow the directions on the bag. She gets a treat once in a great while. What’s the problem?

We were told she was fat and needed to lose weight. She’s 15 pounds. Normal is 12, I guess. She used to be about 17 pounds when we got her, but she lost weight. She’s a long cat - not a petitie little thing. She just scrunches up when she’s nervous, and looks all puffed out. He pushed in her sides and said, “She doesn’t have a waist. She needs to have a waist”. What - is she modeling now? Does she not fit into her designer jeans anymore? We were told to stop giving her dry food - we should switch her to wet food. This is the first I’ve heard about it, but apparently it’s the thing to do now. Better kidney health and all that.

Then, he looked at her teeth, and discovered that she has no front teeth! We never noticed that before. What happened to her teeth? I wish I knew. Chris asked if that happened with older cats (losing teeth). Mr. Smartypants vet said, “Not if you take care of them, they don’t”. Chris strongly reiterated the fact that we only just got her from a shelter in Las Vegas a year and a half ago, and the vet there didn’t say anything about her teeth. We have no idea what happened to her. The sign on her cage said she was returned because she didn’t get along with dogs. Is that how she lost them? Did she get in a fight and get her teeth punched out? Who knows. We’ll never know. I wish shelter cats came with a book of memoirs so we didn’t have to guess.

Anyway, he gave her a round of shots, we paid a bunch of money and left. The kicker is, we have to go back in a few weeks to get another shot. Dagnabbit. We were just ticked off when we left because it seemed like he was down on us for her being a bit overweight and having no front teeth. We are good pet owners. We are not giving her bon bons and letting her sit on the couch watching Jerry Springer all afternoon while her teeth rot out of her head. She’s a cat. She does cat things. She sleeps. She eats. She plays. She poos. She meows. That’s it. That’s what cats do.

I don’t know - I’ve seen fatter cats.

Posted in Animals, Annoyance | 1 Comment »

September 12, 2007 by kim.

What happened? On Monday the temperature was in the 80s and the humidity was in the 90s. On Tuesday, the temperature was around 80 and it rained.

Today - leaves - everywhere - all over the ground!

Crazy weather!

Posted in Nature | No Comments »