New York, New York

Amy and I spent a weekend in New York City a few weeks ago.  I don't spend a lot of time in New York, but there were some things I had been wanting to do there, and in fact the weekend ended up being framed around the opera I wanted to see Saturday night.

We drove into the city Saturday morning, met Rebecca, and took the subway south to Chinatown.  First stop:  bubble tea.

Second stop:  Past the Chinese greengrocer, in search of Fried Dumpling.  They made them while we waited.  A few bucks for 15 dumplings.  Yum.

Then off to the High Line, the elevated linear park built on retired rail delivery tracks.  There were lots of interesting architectural elements along the way

including these beautiful windows.

A quick washing up at Rebecca's apartment, then met Amy's parents at the Metropolitan Opera for a performance of Rigoletto, which I had been wanting to see.  I was interested in the modern set for the classic opera -- 1950's Las Vegas style -- but while the music and singing were fabulous I wasn't wowed by the updated concept.

But I was wowed by the backstage.  Amy's cousin Ray Menard works as a stage manager at the Met, and he met us between acts to show us the backstage transition.  It was awe-inspiring.  What you see below is the entire stage for the second act, elevated by motorized lifts, then hauled off into the wings by motorized winches, to be replaced by the set for the third act.

The next morning our New York tour continued.  Soul food brunch at Amy Ruth's in Harlem (did you know that Amy's birth name was Amy Ruth Eppler?).  I had catfish on a waffle.  Yum again.

Then off to the West Side to ride the bike path south.

Behind Stuyvesant High School, there is a playground\sculpture garden at the north end of Battery Park that we remembered from many years ago.  The Tom Otterness sculptures are just as odd and entertaining as we had remembered them!

This is Sarah riding one of the sculptures in 1996 ...

and this is Rebecca riding one of the sculptures in 2013!  (has the sculpture gotten smaller??)

Looking through the old pictures, I was reminded of how much change there has been in our lives in the last 17 years.  It's a comfort to see the balance between the losses and the gains, with some things like the Otterness sculptures staying exactly the same.

Glass-Blowing

We have discovered glass-blowing.  OK, we knew it existed; I think we watched a demonstration years ago.  But now we have had our hands on the blow-pipe, we have tried to control and form hot glass, and wow! is it fun.

Amy and I have been throwing pots in a ceramics class for years.  We thought some of those skills might transfer.  But glass is different.  When throwing a clay pot, you can go fast, or slow.  If your hands get tired, you can take a break.  The clay is willing to wait for you.

But glass won't move unless it's melting.  When it starts to cool just a little, it may be hot enough to burn you, but it's not soft enough to move.  So back in the blast oven it goes to heat up.  And when is it hot enough to work again?  When you are turning the pipe but can barely keep the glass from falling off.  When glass is just about out of control, it's ready.

The hot glass is beautiful.  It glows red and yellow.  And did I mention that it's hot???

There are two studios we have visited that offer "workshops" - basically a hands-on guided tour of blowing glass.  In the fall, Amy took us to Peter Greenwood's glass-blowing studio in Riverton (my birthday present!).  More recently, we have twice visited Ray Mathews, Jr.'s studio in Branford -- once with Rebecca and Sarah, another time with Karen and Beni.

We have learned a lot about working with glass in our three attempts.  But to be honest, we wouldn't have come out with anything but a blob of glass on the floor if the professional working with us hadn't continually rescued the glass pieces we were forming.

If you want to see a lot of the process in action, click "play" on this video (▶).  (If you're reading this post in your e-mail, go to the blog website to see the video.)

We have been enjoying our vases and tumblers.  And we'll probably be back for more -- glass blowing is quite addictive!

Blizzard Postscript: Good news, bad news

The modern cavalry is yellow and has headlights.

But life remains interesting.

The Blizzard of 2013

The beautiful snowy woods trail above is ... the road we live on, after the blizzard.  Our mailbox is barely sticking its head out.

Two-and-a-half feet of snow fell Friday and Saturday -- some parts of Connecticut got even more!  I have been a little under the weather (I guess all of us have been under this weather) but the amazing thick blanket of snow looked like too much fun for me to stay inside all day.  We first tried going outside in our boots, but the snow was too high to be able to walk.

So we put on our cross country skis and ventured first down the road, then through the woods.

Where the trees still held leaves, there were dappled patters on the snow.

There is a big boulder under this pile of snow (it's called "Sarah's rock") leaving the tree's shadow beautifully altered.

The photo below on the left shows Amy virtuously using the roof rake to pull piles of snow off the roof.  The photo on the right shows her reward.

There is  some water coming in the house, but a lot less than if Amy had not worked so hard to clear the lower part of the roof.

In the late afternoon, the slanted light cast beautiful long tree-shadows.

36 hours after the end of the road, we are still not plowed out.  Perhaps tomorrow ?

Inversion As Seen From the Mountaintop

Amy, Sarah and I spent an extended weekend downhill skiing in Vermont with Amy's parents.  Amy's Dad Klaus is amazing - at 82 years old he still skis down the mountain with little visible effort. And Amy and Sarah zip down the hill quite elegantly.

We had beautiful weather at first. It was cold enough for the snow to be easily skied on, but not so cold that our fingers, toes or noses complained.

Then it rained overnight, and the weather changed.  We woke up the next morning in a dense fog.  Skiing is hard in the fog.  You no longer have a visual sense of the trails.  You have trouble finding the people you are skiing with.  And in the dim flat light, it's hard to see where the bumps or icy spots on the trail are.

But amazingly, as we took a second lift higher up the mountain, the sun broke through, and we were surrounded by clear weather. It was a weather inversion, warmer and clearer at the top than at the bottom of the mountain.  As we looked down the ski trail, a sea of fog stretched out below us, with occasional mountain tops sticking out.  It was like the view from an airplane at 30,000 feet (fortunately we were only at 3,300 feet).

As we skied down the hill, we could see the fog ahead of us.  (Yes, that red dot is Amy's Dad.) We took the lifts up from the middle of the mountain, rather than skiing the whole hill, to minimize our time in the fog.

The skiing wasn't as nice as the earlier days; with the combination of sun and fog, cold and warm, the snow underfoot varied from frozen and bumpy to soft and forgiving to heavy and wet.  But the spectacle was breathtaking.  We would make our way down the slope, from light into fog; then ride the chair lift back up into the light.  Before each run, we would look around again and the ocean of fog below and the beautiful sky above, and say to each other, "Wow!"

Will Travel For Winter

It has been quite warm on the East Coast.  But Saturday evening, I flew into Minneapolis to see my friends Robert and Andrea.  Sunday morning I looked out the back door, everything looked white, and the snow was still coming down hard!

I had remembered snow, despite our lack of it last winter.  But I had forgotten how monochromatic everything looks on a snowy day.

By the time we went outside, there was at least 7 inches of snow on the ground.

Robert and Andrea were very brave to squint into the snowstorm for me to take their picture

but mostly we slogged along through the fresh snow, through the local park (another thing I forgot: that Minneapolis has great little parks scattered everywhere).

We walked around a small lake, peering through the mist to the shrouded shapes on the opposite side.

We came back to the warm house

and Robert showed off his tremendous snowblowing skills (despite appearances he was not actually covering his neighbor's car with snow).

Sunday night we went out to a great restaurant downtown, recently opened, as the snow continued to come down.

This morning we woke up to clear blue skies and the temperature at 10 degrees and dropping.  Now I'm sitting at my computer back in Guilford, Connecticut; outside it's foggy and around 50 degrees.  If we don't get some winter on the East, I'm going to have to go back to Minnesota!

Blog e-mail was hacked ... I think I've fixed it.

My apologies.
It appears my blog account was hacked, and you received a spam e-mail about "handcrafts."
I have changed my password, and hope that takes care of it.
If another spam message still comes through, I will discontinue the existing and find a new way to continue distributing my photo blog.... thanks for your patience!