Thanksgiving Week - a long one

Hey remember me - I used to blog here!!

So it was quite a week last week. Did two things that involved getting dressed up in grownup clothes (this is anything without an elastic waist as far as I am concerned these days) and leaving the domicile.

One of course was the annual thanksgiving meal with the family. It is always a very nice occasion and this year was no exception.We traveled to Westchester, PA to my sister-in-law's sister's house, about 2 1/2 hours from here (except on Thanksgiving when it is closer to 3 hours). We have it there as it can easily hold the 25+ people and has the biggest TV you ever did see (for the football, obviously). The family is as quirky as ever (I wouldn't have it any other way) and as welcoming as ever. Although I don't really understand why I am the only person who has remained as youthful as ever over the past almost 30 years. Everyone was well behaved and we didn't have one argument about religion or politics (usually my bad) although we were teetering on the edge when the Freemasons came up. The appetizers and main course were delicious but the desserts were a mixed bag with some of them tasting very commercial - others including the pumpkin pie were homemade with love and tasted as such!!

The drive there was hard with a few bottlenecks on the NJ turnpike but the journey home was easy!!

I think that all countries should have a holiday equivalent to Thanksgiving, where no-one expects a gift, no one person is more important than any other (although it is always near Bob Longstreet Sr's birthday and no-one begrudges him a chorus of Happy Birthday to You), and the food is delicious. It really is a nice family occasion.

The other big day out was our trip to the World Trade Center memorial site. We got our tickets on about September 11 (free but you need to get tickets) and the day finally arrived - Tuesday November 22nd at 4:30. The problem was that it was POURING with rain. the good news is that the rain was coming straight down and it wasn't too crowded so umbrellas worked very well (my feet did get a bit wet but otherwise not too bad). I wasn't too sure how the site would strike me - I knew several people who had very close calls that day and it is hard to live in NYC without being very aware of the heartbreak that the day brought to many in the city. I also know that I also burst into tears when I am within striking distance of the Vietnam Memorial in DC.

Anyway, I don't know whether it was the weather or the waiting in lines but it was a completely unemotional experience for me. The site itself is a beautiful thing, the pools are spectacular the names are all wonderfully presented, the visit is nicely organized and the site very respectful to all but currently without emotion - at least for me.

Univ Reunion

On Thursday 28th Sept, my university (the University of East Anglia)  was having a pub reunion day. So in every city throughout the world where there were Alums, people arranged to get together. The New York one was very small, about 12 people as well as 2 development people from UEA, and was held upstairs in a Midtown Irish bar.

Now, I graduated in 1977, which as explained earlier isn't that long ago in my opinion, but everyone else had silly graduation dates like 2001 - there was even one that had 2007. Really, 2007? Anyway I digress (see earlier post). It was quite strange in that I remember a small almost intimate university with about 3,000 students but the current UEA is a very different beast, and realistically one much more suited for today. The University system has evolved into something much more like the current American system, with fees, league tables and competition for any and all students. There are many more universities now and as in the US there are good ones and less good ones.

UEA is in the top 10 of the league table, has about 13,000 fulltime students and has the biggest....., well I'm not sure what it has the biggest of because I stopped listening because someone bought me a drink. It has added a medical school, a business school, a pharmacy school, a nursing school, a law school and many more. It also has a large art collection and state of the art museum. Defintiely not the place I remember which had 5 schools covering the basics including CMP (Computing Studies, my school which still exists) a library, a sports complex and a bar. To be fair that was my world but there may have been more.

Anyway I was very pleased to have gone to the event. I am looking forward to next year's event and I expect the letters asking me for money to start at any time. The price of progress I suppose.

Chickens

There was part of my sister's visit that I forgot to mention. I don't know how I could have forgotten but... (see earliers posts).

It seems that as a team Jill and I are in the top 1% in New York City when it comes to chicken trivia.

Let me explain. On Saturday (or Sunday, whatever)  mornings the local TV station runs a quiz which you watch on the TV and answer over the internet. You get points for correctness and speed of answer. This particular quiz was about chickens and we got 9 out of 10 correct and came in 20th out of almost 3,000 people taking part.

That's finger lickin' good!!!

Been & Gone

Well, my sister has been and gone. A short trip, especially when she came from Australia, but a nice one nevertheless. It is funny how a visitor, no matter how welcome and accommodating, can throw you off schedule, which is my way of apologizing for the tardiness of this posting. It is also quite interesting that Friday seems a long time ago and the day seems an indistinct blur. Oh well life often seems like that to me.

The visit started with us picking her up from JFK on Thursday, her plane being about 3 hours late, bad enough at any time but when it finishes of a 24 hours flight from the other side of the world, no fun at all.

Friday was a quiet day for all (I think - see above) and in the evening my daughter and her boyfriend came over to see the visitor. After that they went to a french restaurant around the corner and  we (sister, wife and me) went to the Meatball Shop, a place visited a couple of weeks ago. So we got to the restaurant at about 7:30 and had to wait about 20-25 minutes, not bad for such a fun place. The good news is that the food was as good as ever (in fact it may have been better as the specials were very much to my liking), the bad news is that it is really LOUD at that time of the evening. Now it turns out that old people and Australians like meatballs but don't like loud. So in the spirit of the blog take old people to the Meatball Shop before it gets loud.

Saturday was quite a normal day, grocery store, wave to the Statue of Liberty and then home. In the afternoon we went into town to show off the WTC (World Trade Center) saw the building, it's coming along. On the way back noticed a lot of police presence and later learned it was to do with the Wall Street demonstrations and in fact we were right behind the police van containing an arrestee who was all over the news.  That evening we went to St Anselms (again) and we were waited upon by the same lady as the very first time and she remembered us and we her. It was a very touching moment. The food was great as always and the highlight of the evening was the table behind us ordering a 64oz steak.(almost 2kg for those metric among you). It looked like something Fred Flintstone might eat.

Sunday, we went to the Coffee Shop in Union Square for brunch (don't go there!!). Shopping was performed and reading was done by me (i try not to go shopping). In the evening we took Claire (and would have taken Seth but he wasn't felling well) to Eataly where we had a lovely meal at the Birreria paid for by my Mum (Claire's granny :-) ). Thanks Mum - we were very restrained.

Monday was Jill's big meeting day - dropped her into midtown and came home. She was quite pleased with it and believes that the funding for her next project took a major step forward.

Next day, Tuesday, she was on her way home.  A short but very nice time was had by all. It was very nice to see her and catch up with her news. Always good to hear about Mum, Bob, Jessi (niece), Saffie (cat) and Bailey (dog). Hope to see you all soon.

A Quiet Weekend

The weekend was a quiet one with a trip to New Jersey to a friend's grandson's 2nd birthday party. There were lots of very cute children many of whom were bilingual. I hope they know how lucky they are. Old people like grandchildren, it's like having your own kids but you can give them back when they get noisy/smelly/cranky/hungry etc etc. - the best of several worlds. Driving back home we made the mistake of try to drive down Canal St. A kangaroo and an emu holding hands walking backwards could have done it faster. Here's a hint - old people also like slightly silly, slightly intellectual riddle-y type things (answers in a comment to today's riddle-y thing please). Hint - the flag might seem upside down to us.

Sunday was mainly taken over by a trip to the grocery store. Now my grocery store, in Redhook, in addition to having most of the grocery stuff we need, has a wonderful view of the Statue of Liberty. I never get tired of that and in fact when special people come to visit they get taken to the grocery store just to look at the view.

After coming home, my daughter and boyfriend came for dinner and the Patriots won. What could be better? (Apart from the Red Sox winning too - getting slightly anxious now).

My sister is coming, my sister is coming!

Just had good news that my sister is coming to NYC on business and will be staying with us. She is much younger than I, having stopped having birthdays in the mid thirties (her mid thirties that is not THE mid thirties). She lives in Sydney, Australia so we should see some antipodean reactions to our neighborhood. More on her arrival soon.

Williamsburg has balls

Meatballs that is. Michael Chernow and Daniel Holzman's 2nd Meatball Shop (after the LES) has recently opened a restaurant on Bedford Ave - WIlliamsburg's main street.

I should, at this point,  explain the meaning of recently when spoken by old people. Recently means "probably within the last couple of years but definitely within the last 5". In fact, I recently heard myself telling a friend that 1966 didn't seem that long ago. But I digress. Old people do that a lot, usually to tell a story that is extremely tangential to the actual story they are telling. Anyway in this case recently means July 2011.

Everytime we went past on our evening constitutional the place was packed, so we thought we would let it calm down a bit. So last night we ventured out and into it a little bit earlier than usual at about 6:30pm. We normally eat at about 7:00pm which seems a very good time as it is slightly before Williamsburg usually starts. But at 6:30 the place was packed and we were lucky to be seated right away.

The average age of the place was probably about 25 before we arrived (bumped up to about 28 when we got there) but the good news is that there were kids (people with age less than 7) there. Usually kids stop a place from being too pretentious, always a good thing in my opinion.

The menu was a little unusual needing a little explanation from our tattoed server (on the whole, old people don't like tattoos) but being edumacated people we got it pretty quickly and ordered some from the menu and some from the specials. You get to write on the menu too - how cool is that? I started with a SixPoint IPA, she who must be obeyed had a prosecco. Biggest disappointment was that the risotto was squash. I hate squash (although my mother told me i mustn't say hate, I should say it's not my cup of tea - she's English and now lives quite warmly in Australia). So I had the spicy pork with polenta on the side and my wife had the special meatballs (mediterranean - lamb with mint and stuff) with the aforementioned risotto. So how good can meatballs be? The answer, surprisingly, is really good. The meatballs were excellent, the sides were delicious and a good time was had by all. We even made room for a shared ice cream sandwich (caramel between macaroon cookies) - again extremely delicious. The tables are close enough that it seems to encourage discussion about what's good between neighbors without seeming all up in your business. We had nice conversations with the people on either side of our table. We learned some good tips for our next time, and i'm pretty sure there will be several next times. Just to rub in that "we youngsters have all the power in this place" feeling, they changed the risotto from squash to saffron just as we were paying the bill. (which at about $50 for 2 including tip was excellent value).

So all in all two very enthusiastic, albeit slight arthritic, thumbs up.

And in the beginning

It has been a long standing joke in the family that we are the oldest people in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NYC, NY. It probably isn't true but it makes us smile. There are lots of old Italian and Polish people here but there are only a few of us that have recently moved into the extremely trendy northwest section of Brooklyn that we call home.

I have decided to write down a few ongoing observations that may help when your aged parents (or heaven forfend, your grandparents) come to visit and you wonder what they may like to do or perhaps what you may be better off avoiding.

So watch this space for a few, hopefully humorous, observations from the oldest people in Williamsburg.