City Views, Country Dreams

Good evening from New York on Columbus Day.

I am writing this as I near the end of a rare occasion, a three-day weekend. The weather has been so beautiful, and the days have been relaxing.

Let me take you along to some places I visited.

Saturday, October 9, was what would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday, and I walked over to Central Park's Strawberry Fields area to add my thoughts to those of many others who crowded in to this special place all day.

The following photo is taken from the vantage point of Strawberry Fields, and shows through the trees, a view of the famed Dakota apartment building where Lennon lived.

From there, I travelled downtown to the Union Square farmers market to find some apples and a tiny pumpkin to bring home. The pumpkins below are destined for the homes of others, and might be carved into Jack o'lantern faces.

I have used my mixture of apples to make a delicious cinnamon, butter, and sugar flavored apple crumble. Yummy, and so easy to make. Just the aroma of this dish baking signaled autumn's arrival.

Sunday was another gorgeous day, perfect for a parade. New York City has two Columbus Day parades. The traditional, Italian, parade took place today, Monday, and went on for many hours as lots of school bands and polititians made their way up Fifth Avenue.

I elected to visit yesterday's Hispanic Columbus Day Parade, that honors Spain for funding Columbus's voyage. It is filled with wonderful music and costumes and dancing, and its route covers about three miles of Fifth Avenue.

There are always some wonderful mounted police officers at the beginning.

Then, the parade contingents from Spain arrive. As you might guess, yesterday there was evidence of the Spanish pride in having won the World Cup.

This fellow turns up every year, with his tie-died beard and dog, and party dress. He has a grand time, and no one seems to mind his joy at parading. I do not know which country he represents!

It was at this point that I realized that my camera's battery was not going to last for the entire parade. Alas.

Spain was followed by Argentina, with lots of graceful tango dancers.

Next in line were the representatives from Bolivia, and I did manage to click a shot of one of hundreds, hundreds of costumed dancers. These ladies were able to twirl rapidly while moving forward briskly, and this got their mini skirts whirling around waist high. No photo of that.

I am so sorry not to have a photo of the group from Chile who honored the about-to-be-rescued miners. They each wore a miner's hard hat and scruffy work clothes. The crowd applauded, and some eyes were very moist.

Another event that took place this weekend was the second annual NYC yarn crawl, organized by a group of prominent yarn/knitting shops in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Each shop had special offers, a lottery drawing, a scavenger hunt for visitors to find the hidden knitted apple (NYC is known sometimes as the Big Apple.) The event went on from Saturday through today, Monday.

I did visit some shops on Saturday and Sunday. At the Purl SOHO shop downtown on Sunday, I had the pleasure of meeting a delightful and skilled knitter, Kristina McGowan, whose new book has just been published. It is called Modern Top-Down Knitting, and is a guide to creating various dresses, hats, sweaters, etc., from the top down ... so that each garment is made in one piece. It is a very clever concept, and I wish Kristina great success with her lovely book. I bought a copy and the cover is in the following photo.

Today was another blue sky day, and I traveled across the Park to meet a friend at the Metropolitan Museum. We went up to the roof exhibition space. The Met is actually located on the Fifth Avenue edge of Central Park and so its roof garden has fantastic views. I share the southern view with you.

I wanted to visit the roof not only for the view but also to see the Big Bambu construction that has been made by the Starn twins, who usually are known for their big photos. Big Bambu will be dismantled at the end of October. Every summer, some artist has the roof space to display some sculpture that is just for the roof.

What do you think? Is this a nest gone crazy? A unnatural thicket?

Within this mass of bamboo staffs, carefully knotted together, is an actual pathway in which one can climb up inside the assemblage...a few at a time, please. I did not take the path up today.

Perhaps you can make out the lady in the red dress who did make the climb.

Here is a close up view of how the poles are connected. Would you want to climb?


Here is a mother and son debating whether they want to join the queue for the ascent.

After seeing all that we wished of Big Bambu, we went back downstairs (real stairs) into the Musuem and saw an exhibit of beautiful Renaissance paintings by Jan Gossart and others. It provided a huge contrast to the roof.

After that, we ambled through a few other parts of the Museum and then left in search of a quiet cafe for lunch and lots of chatting. It was a lovely day.

I got home in time for a few errands, and then sat down to work on one of my current knitting projects, a multi-cabled, chunky weight scarf in a gorgeous soft yarn. Project on top of Rowan pattern book. (Yarn is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky.)

Tomorrow morning, I will return to work and hope to carry with me the relaxed state of mind that the past three days have granted.

Best wishes to you all.