Showing Off “My City”

When I lived in Manhattan, I often got so focused on work that I forgot my surroundings.  My office on 40 Wall Street was more of an irritant than it was a novelty.   I always seemed to be running late for meetings with my clients in office buildings scattered throughout lower Manhattan.  I used to mutter under my breath, “I WOULD have to work in a f*@&ing tourist attraction!” as I would run the gauntlet through sight seers stopping to pose at every landmark, clogging up the subway entrances while checking their maps, and walking in the wrong direction down the sidewalk during rush hour.  (Yes, there is sidewalk protocol in the Financial District.) It wasn’t until someone Continue reading

Urban Honey

When I was in Jersey City last September visiting with so many good friends, I got a little behind on the blog because there were so many people to see and old haunts to revisit.    Yet one of my favorite days while there never made the blog.   Now, my dear beautiful friend Paige is in the hospital, weighing heavily on my mind.  So I am inspired to go back and finish one of my best memories…

It was over dinner of burgers and brews at the White Star Tavern with two of my sailing buddies, Dan and Paige, when Paige announced, “We are beekeepers now!”  They bought a bee hive. 500 bees.  In Jersey City.  On their third floor rooftop.  Who knew there were “penthouse bees? “ Continue reading

Slooooowly, I turned…

The title of this blog post could refer to my northernmost turning point.   Having tagged the Canadian border, I am now slowly turning my way back in a southwestern direction to be with my family in Texas for the holidaze.

Or, it could refer to my reluctance to turn 59 years old, as I did last Wednesday.  Just one more year until I have to form my lips into that utterly scary word of “sixty.”  (A bit of personal trivia; I share the same birthday with John Lennon, so my annual tradition is to listen to the White Album, if for no other reason than to hear him sing, “They say its your birthday…its my birthday too, yeah!”)

But no…..instead, it refers to…. Continue reading

Journey to Ithaca

I got a “bonus day” in Ithaca, due to my own stupidity.   I was all set to pack up on Saturday and head north, when I realized I had made my reservation for my next destination starting on Sunday.   At first, I just thought “No problem, I will find a Walmart along the way.”   But time had run out before I got to complete the list of things I wanted to see in Ithaca, Continue reading

Uncork New York!

The Finger Lakes region is known for its wineries. The steep sloping sunny hillsides around the deep cool lakes offer the perfect growing temperatures and good drainage, providing ideal ground moisture levels for vineyards. Of the eleven lakes in the region, three of them offer a “wine trail.” Never one to pass up an adult beverage, Continue reading

Hello darkness, my old friend…

I have gone from one extreme to the other – from the floodlit parking lot in Jersey City were the street lamps were almost as tall as the skyscrapers, and I needed an Ava Gabor eye-mask to get to sleep, to a State Park in the Finger Lakes where nary a street lamp exists, and the brightest light in the park is Venus in the night sky overhead.  Continue reading