Hallet's Cove species count

Yesterday I saw three swans in the cove. This would be Hallet's Cove, in Astoria Village, where I live. Astoria Village:

Hallet's Cove is on the bottom left corner of the map. The wharfs are fenced off now, alas. This probably has something to do with the housing project that they abut. But even though I don't get to dangle my toes off of a pier as if I were some kid in the country, I do get to bird-watch alongside the coves, and yesterday I saw three swans, which was cool, because I had never seen more than one swan in the cove at once before. One swan was bigger than Ruby (my rottweiler), which is a damn big bird. When Ruby spotted the swan, she raised all the hair along her back and stood on the riverbank, posturing and growling. Meanwhile the swan, which had been serenely floating on the water, puffed up all the feathers on its neck, and started swimming towards the bank. So I called Ruby off of the swan, and because she's a good girl, she listened to me. I didn't really want to see blood-stained feathers everywhere. I mean, I kind of did. But my better angels didn't.

Last week I planted garlic in my garden. The "Italian Late" Variety. I should be harvesting it in what? August? I don't know for certain because I've never grown garlic before. But it is a very uncharacteristically optimistic thing for me to do- sow for such a distant harvest. (Edit: It's not actually called "sowing" unless you put a seed in the ground, is it? What's a poetic way to describe putting a clove in the ground?)

And tonight I cooked dinner!

**The Ornery Mechanic's Sublimely Delicious Turkey Stew**

Soak chickpeas: Take chickpeas, wash and pick over, put in a pot, add plenty of water, bring to a boil and boil for a few minutes, cover pot, put in refrigerator overnight.

In the morning, put the following ingredients in a crockpot:

• Soaked chickpeas
• Smoked turkey wings
• Cubed potatoes
• Tomatillos (from my garden! still!)
  
• Garlic
• Vegetable bouillon
• Kasuri Methi
• Fresh herbs (from my windowsill!): Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme
• Chili powder
• Salt

Go to work. Come home. Examine the content of the crockpot. The flavors will have melded by this time, but if the chickpeas are not yet fully cooked, put the content of the crockpot into a pot on the stove and simmer for another half and hour or more, stirring occasionally. While the stew simmers, remove the turkey wings from the pot, scrape the meat from the bones, return the meat to the pot and give the bones to your salivating dogs. Make a beautiful salad of baby spinach, tomatoes, red onion, avocado, orange pepper and fresh parsley from your windowsill. Make a salad dressing of tahini, water, lemon juice, garlic, brown sugar, salt and black pepper. Cut up a hero roll and toast it.

Serve stew, salad and bread. Put away mucho leftovers.

Happy Halloween

Halloween is my favorite non-Jewish holiday. I like Purim better, since Purim is like Halloween and St. Patrick's Day combined. But Halloween does have sexy nurses. Since I never got to celebrate Halloween as an Orthodox Jewish kid (in fact, I have vague memories of my parents locking us indoors to make absolutely sure our minds wouldn't get corrupted), I'm thrilled to celebrate it now as an adult, even if putting on a costume and eating candy until your teeth fall out might be a little childish.

Anyway.

So I was at the big Halloween store on Broadway and 8th St. yesterday. The one that's a total fucking madhouse, like Toys R Us on Christmas Eve, the one with the checkout line that stretches around the block. Madness! M. and I are dressing up as Thing One and Thing Two tonight. Should have been easy enough. We already have the red onesies, buttflap and all. I found them at the Salvation Army one inspired day last winter. All I wanted to do yesterday was buy a couple of blue wigs and some white face paint. So after gently fighting the crowds to find these products, I get in the check out line and wait. And wait. And wait. After what may well have been an hour I get to the cashier and try (idiotically?) to pay for my purchase with a bank card, because that's all I have on me. But homeboy wants picture ID. I offer to use the bank card as a debit card. I offer him, as proof of ID, a checkbook with my name on it AND a piece of mail with my name on it. I have multiple proofs of ID, but what do you want? I have no driver's license because I CAN'T DRIVE. Homeboy won't budge though. I'm wheedling with him for a minute, and then the guy behind me in line offers to pay for my items. Even though they cost $41! He says, "Yeah, it would be such a bummer to wait in that line for so long and not be able to get your costume." So anyway, he pays, I am amazed, flabbergasted, stunned, grateful. I give him my email address and offer to do any bicycle repair work he needs. And I am telling you this story to let you know that there are nice people out there! In New York City! In seasonal retail hell! So go out there and do something nice for a stranger, would you?

Dreams

Neither M. nor I slept well last night.

I had another terrifying sci-fi nightmare loosely based on the movie I Am Legend. I have a lot of these,which means that something in this movie really tapped into my subconscious. Maybe any movie in which the protagonist ends up killing his own dog is going to cripple me psychologically.

M. dreamed about visiting my mother. He was waving a white flag of peace, but there were cruel Jewish grandmothers in the kitchen and they kept saying (Brooklyn accent here), "Oh, look what they let in". So he jumped into the air and flew to Africa, where he got some magic jelly beans from a tribal witch doctor. He brought these back to my mother, and said, "I've come to marry your daughter".

Working for the weekend

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Melodious Thunk

Yesterday would have been the 91st birthday of Thelonious Monk. He made the world a better place.

Of interest to gearheads only (Part 1) + Civil liberties on the road in NYC

If you read Continental's ad copy for its Grand Prix 4000 tire, you will read about a tire made with an "activated silica compound" and "Vectran liquid crystal fibres". BO-RING. Starting tonight, I'll be reviewing bike gear on the ornery mechanic blog, and liquid crystal fibers do not interest me. I don't quite understand how a tire can be liquid while still holding its shape, anyway. What does interest me is the way a tire feels when you ride it. In fact, in all my gear reviews, I plan to present a phenomenological impression of the product tested. How the tire made the city streets feel like they were lightly coated with butter, for example. And I'll try to report back to you when the product wears out, so that there's a record of how long it lasted me, maybe even a rating on some kind of bang-for-buck-o-meter. Because, for example, The GP4000 tire retails for $59.99. EACH. (I only bought a rear tire, for now, because today it was my wimpy Hutchinson Carbon Comp tire that bit the bucket. I plan to buy a GP4000 tire for my front wheel when my current front tire does the same.) When you're rolling on $120 worth of motherfucking liquid crystals, they should really make the road feel like butter for at least 6 months in order for you to get your money's worth.

Anyway, back to the review. Tonight I purchased a black GP4000 tire from Manhattan Velo (why black, when the GP4000 is available in, like, every damn color? Word in the shop is that black tire is made with "more carbon" than the colored version, and will theoretically last longer) and installed it on the rear wheel of my 2003 Jamis Comet road bike. I rode home to Astoria, a ride of about 5 or 6 miles. The GP4000 was VERY smooth-rolling. I'm not the fastest or strongest rider out there, but let's just say that I had to hold back a good portion of my strength while riding in traffic. This tire wanted to GO FAST, and while I wanted to do that also, I did not want to rear-end a bus. However, what impressed me so much about the GP4000 was not the fact that it's smooth-rolling; I've ridden lots of smooth-rolling tires. What impressed me was the way that the tire grabbed the road. I got amazing torque when pedaling AND when braking. I found that switching my tire actually improved braking performance, which is to say that between this morning (riding a Hutchinson Carbon Comp tire in the rear) and this evening (riding a GP4000) I did not adjust my rear brake at all, and yet, between morning and evening the performance of my rear brake improved dramatically. I mean, earlier in the day it was working okay, but now I hit the lever and WOMP, it feels like the tire is instantly glued to the ground. Good stuff, and I'm going to join the chorus of bike snobby voices out there recommending this tire.

In other news, my friend B. has told me that recently he experienced, firsthand, a phenomenon that we all knew was coming eventually, it was merely a matter of when. The NYPD has finally profiled all cyclists ("messenger type" or not) as drug dealers, and as a result there are unmarked cars stopping and searching law-abiding cyclists. The operation is illegal in many ways, but it seems like the best way to protect yourself is this. Listen to your man, Jay-Z:

"License and registration and step out of the car"
"Are you carryin' a weapon on you I know a lot of you are"
I ain't steppin out of shit all my paper's legit
"Well, do you mind if I look round the car a little bit?"
Well my glove compartment is locked so are the trunk in the back
And I know my rights so you gon' need a warrant for that
"Aren't you sharp as a tack, you some type of lawyer or something'?"
"Or somebody important or somethin'?"
Nah, I ain't pass the bar but I know a little bit
Enough that you won't illegally search my shit

In this case, I recommend locking the zippers of your knapsack/messenger bar/pannier together, in which case the popo will need a warrant to break the lock. Do they call in the K9, as they did in Hovah's case, or do they relent and go harass another cyclist? I don't know. Maybe someone here can leave a comment about their experiences. Ride safe!

The joys of motherhood

My 80-pound Rottweiler puppy, Ruby, got into my toiletries on Sunday. This was 100% my fault, of course. I was the one who left the drawer open when I went to work, even though I've always closed it before. Anyway, this curious doggy helped herself to:
- A jar of vaseline
- A bottle of aloe vera
- A BIG bottle of mineral oil
- A bag of antelope musk perfume (I liked that stuff too, I got it in Morocco)

So, explosive diarrhea and vomiting all over the apartment of course. A very sad and sick dog with her entire rear end encrusted with mineral oil and feces. When I called the veterinarian, the receptionist panicked and told me I had to take Ruby to the animal emergency room so that they could induce vomiting. But luckily, she had already vomited. The first line of treatment (M.'s idea) ended up being bubblegum flavored Pediolyte, which is like Gatorade for babies. Ruby recoiled from the flavor, but for 36 hours I offered her Pediolyte and no water, so eventually she drank it down and started shitting solids again. Which is a good thing, because this is a big dog. We already call her turds "Mount Ruby", and I much prefer dealing with Mount Ruby than dealing with Toxic Sludge Lake Ruby. I ended up spending most of the day yesterday cleaning the dog herself and cleaning the apartment. And Ruby's not out of the woods yet. Even though she's energetic again, and she's eating, her bumhole is red and inflamed, and she cries in pain whenever we lift her tail to inspect it. I'll be taking her to the vet this afternoon, so that they can shine a light where the sun doesn't shine. The whole experience has left me well-trained, as I will NOT be leaving drawers or cabinets open again.

In other news, M. and I are still harvesting eggplant, tomatoes, and tomatillos from the garden. The eggplant are even still flowering, so I'm going to fertilize them once more with our homemade compost tea. (Take food scraps, leave in a sealed container, wait 3 weeks, drain the liquid off of the bottom, dilute 8 oz liquid in 5 gallons water, fertilize with 1-2 cups of dilution per plant.) M. has proposed sheltering the plants through the winter using shelters made of chicken wire stuffed with leaves. Always thinking, that one is. So, perhaps I'll be eating eggplant all winter. Which is good, because my eggplant are so much more flavorful and succulent than anything you suckers are getting from the store.