Nothing new from New York

I was supposed to see the Dark Knight yesterday, but didn't. Thus I have nothing to post this week. Pretty much my weekend was a bust and I spent it by the pool and cooking Key Lime Pie, which I have now mastered. Although I don't actually like it myself. I should have take a picture of the most perfect meringue which I'll probably ever make and post it here, but I forgot and now my staff at work has eaten the whole thing. Oh well. Instead I'll post this flower. Peace and stuff.

79th Street Boat Basin

Have the steak sandwich. It's pricey, but tasty. And it goes great with a bucket of beer. All in all, this bar & grill at the boat basin is a perfect place to go on a casual, lazy-day sort of date.

Soldiers and Sailors Monument

Commemorates Union Army soldiers and sailors who served in the American Civil War. It was dedicated on Memorial Day in 1902 and, apparently, for years was the terminus of New York City’s annual Memorial Day parade.

It is located at 89th Street and Riverside Drive in Riverside Park on the Upper West Side. Nice place to read, especially when the weather was perfect as it was on Monday.

Beacon Riverfront

Boats on the Hudson River.

Green stuff on the Hudson River.

Latin America Festival, Beacon

Today was the perfect day for an outdoor festival - sunny, but cooling wind. There was good food, good music, friendly people. I could have stayed all day, but it was just me and my dog (as it almost always is, in these stories) and I hadn't brought a book. Though I did have an offer to go for a ride on someone's motorcycle (actual motorcycle, not a euphemism) and I probably could have found plenty of dance partners, but I didn't really want to leave the dog tied to a tree or anything.

It was at the Riverfront Park, which is right next to the Metro-North train station. Very convenient and from conversations I over heard many people had come to the festival via train from other parts of the region.

Lemon Creek Park

So, it only took me a week to get around to writing this post. (Very lazy, I am.)

On Tuesday past Roland and I were in Staten Island. I was looking for a place to eat my breakfast where I could walk him around before beginning the hike back home. Also, I was looking to wait out the morning rush hour. So we happened upon Lemon Creek Park, which is located at the end of Seguine Avenue in the Prince's Bay part of the island.

The park was pretty interesting. In addition to stumbling upon the afore mentioned horseshoe crabs, we learned that park is known for its large and pristine salt marshes, which is part of the reason the crabs like to mate there. It also attracts the Diamondback Terrapin (mascot of the University of Maryland; go terrapins!) and fiddler and blue crabs, as well as the ducks, et. al. you'd expect wherever there is water.

The park also is home to a purple martin colony, the only one in New York City, according to the city's parks department. I found it pretty interesting that the purple martin is the only bird that does not nest in the wild. They are totally dependent on human-supplied housing. Thus the odd assortment of bird houses on polls — like a retirement community for birds. I expected to see a purple martin come out on the porch of one of the bird houses in a mumu waving a cane at me. But alas, nothing that amusing happened to us while we were there.

And in case you are wondering about the park's name, according to the park's Web site:

Lemon Creek, which empties into Prince’s Bay and, ultimately, Raritan Bay, has been known by several names over the last few hundred years. In 1830 the freshwater stream was known as Seguine’s Creek, and later, as the Little North River in 1885. Shortly thereafter, the name of Lemon Creek began to appear on maps, although the origin of this unusual name is not known.

Brooklyn Crabs

I'm not the only one feeling the crab love these days. I'm just ahead of the curve.

New York Times has video of it.

Got crabs? Not like these!

I am of the South and also Greece. This means on my beaches I am used to dead things like shells, jellyfish, fish heads, the occasional car tire. I am not used to this:



This is the shell formally known as horseshoe crab. Something that until Tuesday I had never seen in real life. Not in an aquarium, not in a zoo, not in passing on the highway (I'm talking to you 'gator!) and certainly not on a stroll with my dog along the bay waters of a major waterway.

Now I'm an expert on horseshoe crabs. In fact I've spent the last two days telling everyone everything I've learned about horseshoe crabs and they all think I'm absolutely insane. But look at it! Look at it! How can you not be totally transfixed by such a thing?

On Tuesday morning Roland and I were at Lemon Creek Park on Staten Island (more on that later). The park overlooks Prince's (or Princess, depending on who you ask around there) Bay. So we were walking along the beach. He was trying to catch gulls, I was enjoying the salt air. When I heard the seaweed drying. Actually heard it drying in the sun. That's when I looked down and realized the beach was littered with the shells of horseshoe crabs. Thus my obsession began.

It turns out every May and June, horseshoe crabs emerge from the bay onto the beaches in Lemon Creek Park to reproduce. These guys were the ones that didn't survive the process, I guess. The females emerge from the water with their male counterparts literally in tow. Males grasp onto the back of the female’s shell using their hooked legs, sometimes as many as four males onto one female. The female horseshoe crabs dig a hole in the sand and lay up to 20,000 tiny olive-green eggs inside.

The crab had been around since before the dinosaurs, about 1.2 billion years. Though it is called a crab, it is actually more closely related to the spider and scorpion.

But I was really shocked to find out is that, among other things, the horseshoe crab is used to make contact lenses. That's right people! You are putting horseshoe crabs in YOUR EYE every friggin' day!

I'm supposed to be writing my column, but instead of life as a 30-something all I can think about are horseshoe crabs. And that's probably NOT a column anyone wants to read.

On the News tonight

Ch. 9 (My Nine) has covered the following in the first eight minutes of it's newscast:

Shooting
Stabbing
Stabbing
Car Jacking
Plane Crash

Oh. My. God. The world must be ending. Seriously, you'd think all hell had broken loose if all you did was watch the news.

The Pool

Something strange happened today. I went to the pool at my apartment complex. On my way there I passed a group of Asian families (women and children) leaving. A few seconds later I passed a Hispanic family, also leaving. I get to the pool and the lifeguard, a nice, blond girl, is under an umbrella with some man looking at the chlorine tester. There are about 10 people at the pool, all white and I think all shade of blond. The reason I mention their race is because the lifeguard says to me, looking very uncomfortable, "The pool is closed."

I said, "Ok. Can I just lay out by the pool and read, then?" as I looked at the other people doing just that.

"Uhhhh...." says the lifeguard.

"No," says the white man with the tester. "When we close the pool, everyone has to leave the area."

Meanwhile the 10 people have not moved and appear not to be doing so anytime soon.

"Does the pool close every day at noon?" I ask the lifeguard.

She looks increasingly uncomfortable with my questions.

"No," answers the man. "We're having some trouble with the chlorinator, so we're shutting down the pool until we can work it out."

"In the past when there's been trouble with chlorine levels we've just been told not to go in the water," say I. (Who chrorinates during the middle of the day, anyway. Isn't that something you should do before the pool opens or after it closes?)

"You have to leave," responds the man.

I ask about the people already there and get no answer, only again that the pool is closed.

I know I'm white, but people never think I am because of my olive complexion and my name. So the entire experience wound up feeling like something out of movie set in the 1960s south.