Radiate. Or...

It's day three of radiator living, and as far as I can tell, the temperature outside has not significantly changed. My home's response to that temperature, on the other hand, is a whole different bucket of fish.

Yesterday was Thursday, which means that in the absence of pressing needs or impending insanity, I mostly stay home and do work. I did excellently with this endeavor and even managed to watch some internet TV in the meantime. But my apartment, she was cold. I bundled up, and she was cold. I got out the fleece blanket I've had since freshman year of college.* All this did was cocoon me in warmth, which led to an inordinately long nap with my face planted on the pages of "Primitive Marriage."¹

Now, when I am cold I am perpetually hungry.² This was thus a dual threat to my productivity. I decided to throw down my gage and enter the fray by baking the worlds most failed apple crisp. By this, I mean that I sliced up an apple, put in in a dish with some butter and some cinnamon, and sprinkled granola on the top. It turned out to be pretty delicious, and turning on the oven somehow reminded the radiator by the stove of its job.

It kicked on, and started whistling away. At first, though, I didn't know that's what was happening, as the whistling from the bedroom radiator was more of a hiss-and-sputter, and this sounded like maybe there was a litter of mice in the oven. I started to panic, because even though I've seen no evidence of mice since operation-peppermint-oil, I once read that they like to live in ovens.  I did not want baked mice babies in my life.

There were no mice in the oven, and the radiator promptly gave up its efforts, leaving me with my hot apple food and a cold apartment.


This morning (and again, I would like to note that the temperature seems not to have changed outside), both radiators were on when I got up, and the pipes that run in the corners of my living room and bathroom were both hot to the touch. My apartment is 79 degrees³ and balmy. And both radiators are still going (I can hear the comforting hiss).

Now, if my apartment is going to remain at this temperature all winter, I will be able to happily continue my day-to-day. I like a warm apartment. In fact, it could be said that I like a prohibitively hot apartment, if you ask the right person. Mostly, this is because I find sweaters uncomfortable, and I only like socks if they add to the interest of my ensemble.  However, if I'm going to be living in a polarized° environment, on the days when it's cold in here my landlords risk hobo-fires.ª

For now, I'm going to flee to work early, because the sweater I have on in order to deal with the outside world is too much for me here in the tropics of my home.




Notes:
* Because I'm the sort of person that remembers these things, I distinctly recall going to Bed Bath and Beyond with my parents to buy "essentials" during my first week in New York. At the time, it seemed very far away (it, after all, was 4 numbered blocks and half an avenue block away from the dorm). I still have most of the things I got that day; I still use that same fold-up hair dryer, for example. I gave away the towels long ago to the High School Sweetheart, because he really liked them (to be fair, they were amazing towels), but everything else I still have.
¹ Fortuitously, I did not drool on the printout.
² An interesting scenario, given that if I eat a hearty meal I always get cold right after.
³ This is not an estimate. I have an electric meat thermometer (which I also sometimes use to determine whether or not I have a fever, because I am classy like that) that always knows what temperature it is.
° Get it? Because the two temperatures are opposite, and one is reminiscent of the poles? No? Fine.
ª Hobo-fire: n. -- Fires built in found objects, such as Oil Barrels, Trash Cans, etc. Typically positioned under overpasses, with a collective of cheerful wanderers huddled around for warmth. Can be used to cook beans while still in their tins. 

Rock: Steady

It has been a busy couple of weeks, to say the least. The program has installed thumbscrews in all the chairs, and insists upon draconian measures of humiliation and lashings for students who don't keep up.

Okay, so that might be an exaggeration. All of my limbs and flesh remain intact; my pride is holding steady.  But I have indeed been very busy.  There have been a few casualties, such as the cleanliness of my kitchen and my store of clean socks, but don't, dear reader, think that anything has been amiss. I have been having adventures a-plenty.

Adventure One: Doodletown
Two weeks ago, Jess and I arranged for a trip to White Plains (a mere 20 minutes North on the train) and beyond. In White Plains, we rented a car. I had not driven since giving up my post in the White Whale, and so was very excited about the prospect. Jess has a learner's permit (because she's a native New Yorker), and was less excited about her own driving, so I was dubbed captain, she navigator.  Our car was a silver Hyundai Accent.

Photo Credits: Jess L.

Once inside, I sort of felt as though I was trapped in an escape pod for a spaceship; the thing was tiny, had no visibility, and because it was an automatic transmission, moved on its own. The loss of control in an automatic now freaks me out immensely, and I spent a great deal of time on the trip reminding myself not to use my left leg. To do so would have led to hitting the E-Brake rather than a clutch.

Nonetheless: We set off, and found ourselves a place called Doodletown. Here's what Wikipedia says about Doodletown:*

Doodletown was first settled in 1762, at least partly by descendants of French Hugenots. The name is said to derive from the Dutch for "dead valley", or Dood Dal, with the "town" suffix added later by English-speaking settlers. Early residents worked as loggers and miners, and the remains of the mines are still visible today. There were also small farms and businesses. 
The settlement was a crossroads for soldiers during the Revolutionary War during battles at Bear Mountain and Stony Point along the Hudson River. For this reason, it may have been immortalized in the Revolutionary tune "Yankee Doodle", but this is probably apocryphal. 
In the 1890s, Thomas Edison bought property in Doodletown to prospect for iron ore, although iron mines had been developed in the neighborhood at a much earlier date. Bear Mountain began to be developed as a park in the early 20th century. 
By the 1920s, Doodletown had a school, a church, several small businesses, two cemeteries and approximately 70 homes. At least several families had lived there for generations. Around this era, military and tourism-related enterprises on nearby Iona Island employed residents, as did the Palisades Interstate Park Commission. Other residences were maintained as second homes or were inhabited by retired people.
Bear Mountain State Park began to expand around 1920, in part by purchasing property from the landowners in Doodletown. By the 1950s, most of the residents had moved away, many to nearby Stony Point or into southern Orange County. Those who refused to sell lost their land through eminent domain by 1965, and most of the remaining structures were demolished or disassembled and moved out by the late 1960s. Debris was buried, the roads were closed, and the surrounding woods were allowed to grow over the properties. In the early 1970s, a dam was built on the Timp Brook, creating a sizable pond. The last remaining building, the stone school house, was kept as a shelter for hikers until vandalism caused the park commission to tear it down in 1980.

Jess and I actually wound up seeing very few remains of anything, but we did tromp around in the woods for several hours, and enjoyed some nice views.

Photo Credit: Jess L.

Photo Credit: Jess L.

Adventure Two: Em Comes to Town

Last week, Em came to stay with me for part of her Fall break.  Although Much of the time I was a terrible host because I was doing work, we managed a few exciting times. A few f'rinstances:

a) On Friday, we went to "Danny's Bar and Restaurant," which has caught my eye before. It claims to be a Mediterranean style Restaurant. What it actually is, however, is apparently the last haven for the Russians in my neighborhood.  A Russian man smoking a cigar invited us in. A Russian woman, fully decked out in Moscow fashion, was surprised that we were old enough to order drinks. 

There was no restaurant, much less a Mediterranean style one. What was Mediterranean style, or somehow intended to be, was the decor. I guess.  Stuccoed into every wall were bunches of grapes, bananas, coconuts, palm trees, and waves. An archway to the back of the establishment was adorned by two figures: one, a bronze naked youth reaching forward on point, the other, a very busty bronze naked lady arching backwards. Their fingers touched at the peak.

This photo is poorly framed because I had to
pretend I was looking for reception so the
Russian men wouldn't think I was photographing
them.

I would say it was all very classy and tasteful, but I think we all know that would be a lie.

Em has declared it her new favorite place in the Bronx, and says we will be returning.

b) On Saturday, we went to the Botanical Gardens. There isn't anything inherently thrilling and adventuresome about this. It was just a nice day for a walk, and there were lots of plants to look at.

c) Also on Saturday, we went out in the City. This involved eating at a restaurant that not only was nearly empty the entire time we were there, but only had half of the menu items available. What we managed to get, though, was delicious.  It involved prancing through a halloween costume store and trying on all the masks, hiding from people in the Strand, eating dumplings in Union Square, and walking around on the Lower East side.   On this walk, we passed a scene. A commotion. Some hubbub. Curious as to what it was, we noticed the police detaining a rather small man and talking to another, who had been the victim of a crime. 

The man had been stabbed in the neck with a fork, and was bleeding profusely. Not into a bandage, though. Into an entire roll of paper towels.  The situation was under control, and the victim was fine; the crowd around the victim, being consummate hipsters, were all standing as close to the action as possible while pretending not to notice it.

Adventure 3: The Terrors of Apartment Living

This one is all me. This morning, while it was still dark outside and I had no desire to recognize the world, I woke up. I woke up because of a strange hissing noise and the smell of a small furry creature on fire. I sat straight up in bed, worried that I'd been having a nightmare about a cat bonfire or something, and tried to shake it off, but it was all too real. So, I focused my little ears, and tried to determine if something was ablaze or if my gas stove was about to explode. 

Then I realized my room was warm. The radiator had finally been turned on.  Having not lived in a place with an honest-to-goodness radiator before, I was woefully unfamiliar of the sounds and smells it produces when it first kicks on for the season. The places I've lived in Portland either had fully customizable heat, or the building  regulated the electric baseboards. In New York, I've pretty much always lived in places with pipes that make the place excessively hot in the winter.  There was 6M in the dorm, which would always manage to be 85 degrees even in January; Baxter Street, which was probably just heated by ire and spite; Metropolitan Ave, which was a basement apartment that had once been a laundry room, so acted as a sauna; and naked Anthony's place (above Black Betty) was warm enough that Anthony didn't mind being naked.  But none of these places had visible, monstrous machines that hissed and clanged and rattled. 

I don't mind, of course. If it keeps me warm, and I don't have to pay extra for the privilege of not having my fingers freeze off, they can clang and rattle 'til judgment day.

Notes:

* Yeah, I cut and pasted that. What of it? 

Digs.

I hereby submit to you, dear reader, a long overdue look at my mostly furnished apartment.  I am quite proud to own my own furniture, all of which has been acquired new. I refuse to let the ownership said articles tag me as a grown-up, however. Just for the record.

Living room, sans chairs.

The dear, simple couch that took way too long to
replace an air mattress

Kitchen + takeout menus. 

My old roommate KW will be happy to note the resurgence
of the mirror-cum-notepad tradition started at the Perch.

Office, also sans chair.

Bedroom, clean.

It's my first real bed!

This brings me daily joy.

More soon. 

XOXO.

Call me Templeton, 'cuz I'm gonna scrounge.

I have always been a frugal girl. This has, at times, manifested in abnormal and obnoxious ways, like being willing to drink kool-aid with half the recommended sugar and calling it "juice," or refusing to shop in retail stores where articles of clothing cost more than fifteen dollars. I am the sort of girl who cannot re-sell those clothes at hipster hangouts like the Buffalo Exchange (or Beacon's Closet, if one is in Williamsburg) because the clothes are "affordable brands."*

This proclivity has reached new heights in grad school. A few illustrative cases follow:

Case the first:
Last week, When Em was here, her father stopped by the Bronx¹ and took us to dinner. This was a wonderfully kind gesture and meant that I got to eat a real protein and some actual vegetables (normally I consume a lot of beans/peanut butter/eggs for protein, and vegetables...um, well, sometimes I eat fresh tomatoes).  At the end of the meal, Em had some leftovers, and realized that she had to take the bus all the way back to Philly; thus, she didn't want to haul the food along with her.
I took the leftovers. No big deal,right? Well. Let me tell you what, dear reader: I knowingly took her leftovers filled with cheese.

For those of you unaware of the implications of the above story, you should know that I am allergic to dairy fat.  Not lactose intolerant, not having-a-distaste-for, but actively allergic.  We're talking hives and vomiting in all their sexy glory.² 


Then, I ate the leftovers, because they were free. And I got hives. And I did not regret it, because as I mentioned before, it was free. 


Case the second:
Last weekend, I went to a lecture at NYU; beforehand a few friends and I met up in Union Square for a beer, and to generally enjoy one anothers' company. After the lecture, which was excellent, we hung around for the free refreshments. Most people hang around to introduce themselves to other people in the field, or to schmooze with the speakers, but I, I was definitely there for the snacks.  I stood by the refreshment table for over a half hour, casually conversing with members of my party and occasionally grabbing pieces of fruit or olives from the tray.  Then came the official-looking lady, with several Washington Mutual banker's bags in her hands.  


She approached us with: "Take some with you. We have to throw it away otherwise."


And thus began my attempt to fill, gracefully, a gallon-sized ziploc bag from a defunct financial institution with brownies, lemon bars, and grape bunches.  I got it half-full before I reached the tipping point between "poor graduate student" and "shame," folded up the bag and sealed it, and shoved it in my bag.


I found it the next morning, still in my bag (I had come home late and gone straight to bed without remembering I'd put it there). Some of the grapes were smashed, and some of the brownies had a coating of lemon. I ate it all for breakfast.


Case the third:
Later that same day, I wandered off to campus in hopes of using the printing room alone (I print in large quantities, and never again want to be the jerk whose documents are shooting out of both available printers for 20 minutes while students with real tasks are trying to print things for class).  While there, the printer ran out of paper.  The attendant who usually fixes these things was absent, so I started rummaging in search of more.


I found a Fordham sweatshirt, buried in the detritus of a drawer.  It was clear that it had been there a long time, as the scrap paper on top of it had a layer of dust (and this was a closed drawer, so that's saying something) and was of a color that is no longer available in the Fordham bookstore.


Having determined that the article was abandoned, and the drawer a zone for forgotten relics, my next step was obvious: I pulled the sweatshirt out. And smelled it.  I turned it over and around in search of identifying markers that might clue me in to its original owner, and I also examined it for stains (marinara sauce, coffee, blood--you know, the usual). Nothing was found. Nor was a size label. I eyeballed it, then quite calmly took the sweatshirt over to the desk where I was working, placed it with my things, and returned to the task of searching for paper.

The sweatshirt fits. If anyone reading this lost, sometime in the last decade, a Fordham sweatshirt in aquamarine,³ and would like it back, feel free to contact me.

Otherwise, I'm keeping it, and going off in search of some free snacks.





Notes:
* This was an actual critique I received this summer while attempting to rid myself of a large portion of my closet. It wasn't that my tank tops were lame, it was that I bought them at Target.
¹ That sentence was as weird for me to type as it was for you to read, trust me. No one comes here willingly, despite the awesomeness of my neighborhood.
² To be fair, the vomiting thing isn't that strange. It happens all the time (totally against my will, I promise you). My high school sweetheart used to call it a "delicate constitution," which was really awfully considerate and understanding of him given that I probably threw up in his car (and mine, with him driving) a half a dozen times before we headed off to college.
³ Another surefire indicator of the shirt's antiquity is that no one has worn aqaumarine since the last New Kids on the Block Concert. The sweatshirt was almost certainly worn with a collection of snap bracelets and a confident up-do of crimped hair.