Thoughts on the New Year

Another year. Another year of what I didn't want. Tomorrow I will dress, dress in my funky red dress and my boots, and put on the laughing jester. What I want I do not want, and what I do not want I want. I will look forward instead of to the past, but the future is a mirror that cannot resist reflecting. I will dance when the ball falls, and turn my head so others do not see my glistening cheeks or lie and say it is champagne sparkles.

The Beach, Ah, The Beach

It's been a very long time since I have just gone to the beach locally - not on Mexico or in some exotic place, just the familiar shore. If you grew up in the Northeast, you know what I'm talking about - one of those weekends on the Jersey Shore or in Long Beach. Small towns that blend into one another, one main drag lined with small shops and a couple of blocks stretching off it lined with closely spaced, old-time summer cottages. A wide, sandy beach, sometimes framed by a boardwalk. You find your plot of sand, and you set up shop, unloading beach umbrellas, chairs and towels, finding a shady spot for the cooler. Settle in, warm up, and head for the surf. The water's a perfect temp, and even a little rough, with wave after wave cresting as it reaches shallower water. You dive in, and in, and in again, into the wave. Boogie board or body surf, if you time it right you can ride the wave almost back to the beach. The wave throws you under sometimes, and you get sand in your suit and swallow the salty water and come up sputtering - and you turn around and do it again.

Hours later you gather your things and stagger the two blocks back to the house. A shower never felt so good, sluicing off the accumulated sand and suntan lotion. Off to the wine shop and then the small market for some last minute supplies. Grill an enormous grass-fed London Broil and lots of organic summer veggies, and dig in with a big salad, crusty bread, and summery red wine. Finish off the meal with a selection of ice cream and grilled organic fruit.

Things get even better if you decide to spend the night when you find out there's an extra bedroom for you. Then it's time to change and go out on the town - the bar scene's perhaps not quite as enticing as it was 15 years ago, but it's still lots of fun. Back before 2 and sack out to wake up to another perfect sunny day.

Strong black coffee, enormous organic local breakfast sausage links, eggs, sunny side up, give the right energy to hit the beach once again. The surf is calmer today, but still with a big wave once in a while to ride into shore. The water temp is absolutely perfect and you dive, dive, and dive again and then return to sun and sand, with the ceaseless crash of waves giving rhythmic punctuation to the hours slipping by too quickly.

Ride back home in a convertible, wind whipping through your hair and the music makes you want to dance. We don't want the weekend to end, so we go to the butcher, buy enormous steaks, and everyone comes over for a little more grilling, a little more relaxing, a little more wine, and a little more time with friends.

The Best Rainy Day

Under threatening skies I navigate down my one-way street in reverse, necessary to avoid the Greek Orthodox street procession that is the culmination of the three-day long street fair. Collecting friends, we jump on the BQE and into the traffic that slows as we enter Brooklyn and a downpour that will be with us for the rest of the afternoon. I exit at my old haunt, Atlantic Avenue, and we make our way down a crumbling Columbia, then over and down Hicks, skirting the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, until we arrive at our destination – the Red Hook Ball Fields.

With umbrellas, dodging drops and waterfalls from tarps, we listen to a mingling of English and half a dozen Spanishes and breathe in the smells of Mexican, Central and South American street food. For this is why we have come, to sample the freshly made huaraches, tortas, tortillas, tacos de chiles rellenos, ceviche, crispy hot empanadas de carne or queso glistening with hot oil, all washed down with tall glasses of jugo de piña, or the crowd favourite, horchata. Pupusas con chicharron, queso and jalapeño, or frijoles con queso, or calabaza, made by quick fingers dipping in the large bowl of soft masa dough, circle formed around the mound of filling, pinched together and flattened into a disk and thrown on the griddle, made to order while you wait. The crowds were thinned by the rain and the glowering skies rent by streaks of lightning and booming thunder, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of those who were there for the food or to play their weekly game of fútbol.

Slipping through the familiar beloved streets of Brooklyn, stitching the neighbourhoods together, weaving among the half-broken streets on the edges now lined with gentrification rising. Past warehouse shells and factories-cum-condos encrusted with scaffolding, down the narrow streets nearly to water’s edge and the new home of the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. Dodging thick drops and laughing our way inside the old Bleu Drawes space transformed with ice cream machines and newly exposed brick wall and fireplace. A warm welcome from owner Mark Thompson to his cool treat – smooth, rich chocolate, crunchy butter pecan, intense (decaf) coffee that’s not too sweet. Dense and creamy, it’s Philadelphia-style ice cream, made without eggs and with turbinado sugar that adds a round note of caramelisation to every flavour.

Finally sated, we make our way back across the Pulaski bridge, up Vernon, and under the Queensboro Bridge toward home. We promise ourselves another pilgrimage under sunnier skies, before the summer’s close.

How not to have a good morning, in 11 easy steps

1. Wake up late for the second morning in a row, cursing the early introduction of Daylight Saving Time, knowing you have to do the following before leaving for work:

a. Make sure husband has signed the post office "You missed a package delivery" notification slip and put down you as the authorised agent to pick up said package at the world's most annoying post office;
b. Discover that said husband has not signed name in the area you carefully circled the night before, but next to the big X on the other side of the page;
c. Call said husband and leave an annoyed, pre-coffee message explaining that he signed the wrong part;
d. Make sure you have copy of marriage license, in addition to picture ID and incorrectly signed package slip, since you have different last names, and the last time you went to the post office to pick up a package for said husband two days before Christmas the overworked postal worker yelled at you and told you you could be anyone trying to pick up what turned out to be a miniature fake tree that was supposed to be a whimsical invitation to a New Year's Eve party;
e. Remember the bag with two packages that said husband also needs to have mailed at the post office. Fortunately, said packages are already stamped.

2. Walk six blocks to post office. As you are passing the bank, realise that you need to speak to the bank manager (for the second time) about the $50 Amex gift card promised to you as an award for opening an account in 2006, which you never received but for which you received a tax statement.

3. At the bank, you wait, pacing, while a man explains is broken English to the bank manager that there must be some mistake about his $4300 overdraft. Finally, you are able to speak to the bank manager, who remembers you, expresses apparently genuine dismay that the problem was not resolved when you spoke to him last month, and promises that it will be straightened out by 6pm tonight.

4. You make you way to the post office, and get on line, with six people in front of you. There are two windows open, one of which is occupied by the man speaking broken English from the bank, who is insisting that he be allowed to add his name to a postal box, since he receives very important mail. You wonder whether it was a $4300 check that went astray.

5. You finally get to the window, where you present the package slip, your driver license, and the copy of your marriage certificate. You watch as the clerk looks at the marriage certificate in bewilderment for at least a minute. Finally, you say, well, since the package is for my husband - "oh!" She interrupts. "This is a registered package. I must see his ID." You scratch your head in mounting rage. The package notification slip says nothing about requiring the ID of the person to whom the package is addressed. "So does he need to come back?" I ask. "No," she replies. I only need to see his ID." "So I can come back with a photocopy of his driver's license?" "No. No photocopies. You can bring his driver's license, passport, whatever. If you come back today I will be here, and you can come directly to my window without waiting on line." Ok, so she was reasonably pleasant.

6. You leave the post office, gibbering into the phone in a rage. You go up the subway stairs, and your rage increases exponentially the moment you realise that because it is suddenly warmer than it should be, you switched jackets this morning, but left your Metrocard and your work ID in the pocket of the heavy winter coat you have been wearing until now because until yesterday it was hovering around January lows at midday.

7. You storm down the stairs on the other side of the subway station, still gibbering and cursing into the phone. Your husband is getting tired of listening to your rage, but you explain that you are not mad at him, but if you don't gibber into the phone, you will punch a light pole and break your hand.

8. You dump the two other packages you forgot to mail while at the post office into the first corner mailbox that you see, because you know you are not going to be going back to the post office that day. You make your way the five blocks back home.

8. As you walk in the door, slightly calmed down, you realise that since you are back home, you might as well pick up your husband's passport and tackle the post office once again.

9. On your way back to the post office, you pass the bank for the second time, and suddenly realise that you have been walking around with several hundred dollars in checks to deposit for at least a week. You go inside the bank, give a harried smile to the bank manager, who says, "what, you're back?" You end up telling him the whole story after you deposit the checks. He smiles in sympathy and says, well, at least the day has to get better, right? Right.

10. You make your way back to the post office, and go back to the window with the semi-sympathetic clerk. You wait as a woman purchases $3000 in money orders and wants to know the pricing for various express mail options to Jamaica.

11. You finallly go up to the window, presumably angering the six other people on line, but not caring, because the woman told you to. You hand her your husband's passport and the package slip, and smile slightly, tensely, finally, when she returns from the back room out of which New Order is blaring, with the small envelope from Hong Kong.