On hygge

So I haven't been writing much lately, which is due to my non stop schedule. I'm a jet setter, didn't you know?
No, really, I owe posts on a plethora of things, so I'm going to start with my most recent adventures and work backwards, and we'll see how that goes hey?

So did you know I went to Copenhagen? Because I did and it was one of the most amazing cities I have ever visited. There is really too much to talk about in one post so its gonna get a BREAKDOWN!
Have you ever been to Denmark? In the winter? No- I haven't- but apparently its cold like woah. I mean, New York is cold, Chicago was cold, Quebec, well-we don't even have to talk about that, so I can holler at the idea of wanting to stay in and bundle up. In Denmark this is a way of life for their short winter days and braving the weather to go out is just not going to happen. From this self imposed pseudo imprisonment emerged a way of life that seems to permeate how people live year round. Its called Hygge, and defining it is impossible as there is no translation into English and not one Dane could give me a solid interpretation of it. When they talked about it they seemed to get lost in their thoughts. Trying to tack it down and give it a rigid definition is, apparently, besides the point, and also impossible. However its one of the loveliest things and I'm going to do my darnedest to get it right.
We stayed in this very adorable apartment in Copenhagen for the first couple of nights, and the woman whose apartment it was made it clear that the lit candles (it was day time) on the silver platter on the dining table were for us to use so please use them, just make sure you blow them out when you are done. So every night we used them. And sometimes also at breakfast.
It should be known that I am not really a candles kind of lady, and if you get me soap or lotion I usually re-gift that to someone else. I'm not really a girly girl in this regard, but something about doing candles while we had our mini dinner parties every night seemed right. Just like taking that five minute walk to the bakery every morning was exactly what I had to do because that fresh rye baguette made the room smell great and made our fresh eggs and cheese taste that much better. Which is almost impossible.
Then we went up North to spend two nights with Anette and Morton, Blaine's host parents from many years ago. Phenomenal does not even begin to describe the kind of hosts they were. The food they prepared for us every night was just SO GOOD. And again, there was a tray with a few candles on the table which got me to thinking, "Well is this, like, a Danish thing?" I eat up authentic local activities like candy when I travel, so I had to know- are candles on a platter a thing? So I asked.
"Well, no, not just candles, this is hygge."
And then I got schooled.
Basically it goes like this-
Hey, we're stuck at home, but lets celebrate that. You invite your neighbors, family, et cetera and have dinner together, sitting together around a table. Douse the lights and get the candles going. Eat until you're past full, drink until you are warm. We have to be home but we're making it special.
In attempting to write this post I did a little research about hygge and found this which seemed to adequately surmise the Danish inability to define hygge exactly. "Luckily, we didn't have to use near-synonyms like coziness, fellowship, security, reassurance or well-being. They just don't add up to hygge. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. "
So making dinner together with the music playing and glasses of wine is hygge.
You can't tell from this photo but every night Anette folded the napkins differently to create a little bit-o-hygge. But its not like she was trying- its just how it is. This is their lifestyle.
In writing this post I now realize how hard it is to nail down hygge and why my Danish friends had such a tricky time explaining it to me. Because it doesn't sound any different from being a good host, but it somehow is- and isn't. Its health and wealth and living life very fully. You make things comfortable and homey and welcome. You light candles and fold napkins and make sure there is always cheese to snack on. And hope that your new American friends, who eat dinner in front of their computers and grab the exact same lunch day after day in plastic take away tubs will somehow get it.

Dino Don's

Hey hot stuff? What's going on with you?

My darling amazing friend and super duper pinkie-holding buddy invited me and some pals up to her dad's estate in a Philly suburb. I jumped on board right away, since it sounded like a nice relaxing weekend away from the city. Plus her dad is Dino Don.
I didn't know what that really meant but I soon found out it meant more good times than I had initially imagined. He is more or less the coolest dad.
Greeting visitors as they enter the estate, a Raptor. Its tail might be kinda molding off, but still, a highly original entrance. Little did I know that dinosaurs were wandering all around the estate.
Can you spot the Triceratops?
Also, a garage full of them.
Does this guy look familiar? Just a lil bit? This is why-
Yeah- Dino Don has the dino's from the movie. Baller? Totes!
And bubble Jimmy had fun with a fellow carnivore.
Another cool thing on the property was this electric car. ZAP! Check out what's under the "gas cap-"
A plug! That's right, you can pull it out and just plug it in. (that's what she said) Dino Don said that you can travel up to 40 miles on one charge, though it doesn't really go fast enough to sustain highway speeds. It can totally handle over 80% of most people's driving needs though, such as trips to the grocery store and stopping by your neighbors for a visit. Most errands essentially. And at (if I remember correctly) 20 cents a mile, totally worth it!
This is Paris and Nicole, the goats on the land. Yeah, that's right, Erica's dad is so impressively with it he picked out amazing pop culture names for these goats. And like the real Paris and Nicole, the goats were kinda vapid and stupid, only caring about food, but they were fun to watch!
The boys declared this a mostly shirtless weekend, which was good because there was swimming to be had!
You can't tell from this photo, but a dinosaur was totes creepy watching us from the corner.
The weekend was amazing, I got to see several kiddies from my Israel trip, hang with my best Barbara and my favorite pinkie buddie, eat good food and relax the shit out of the place. Thanks Erica and Dino Don!
Also, I got to wear my hippie dress. I just thought that was important to note.

Barbara-Q!

Every year I invite my friends up to the suburbs to partake in a little mom and dad coddling-dog loving-backyard grass-ing-hammock swinging-frisbe throwing-bbq good time! Its really amazing to be able to open my house up to my friends to provide a quick escape from the city. Plus FREE FOOD!
This year the eats were all vegetarian (my first all veggie bbq-ever!) and mostly vegan. I made delish portobello caps marinated in terayaki sauce. MMmmmm! Also available were asparagus, cold sesame noodles, gazpacho, chips, vegan hot dogs and burgers, and sword fighting corn on the cob. To drink-lemonade, beer, beer, beer and mint julep! The day ended with vanilla ice cream, and soy pomegranate chip ice cream. Soooo good!

Bob and Josh brought a guitar and drum box that one sits on and hit between one's legs whose name I've forgotten, and I brought my uke so we could pump up the jams. Lisa's dad and James delighted us with an awesome collaboration. Guitar and Uke unite!

A freak rain shower forced us all in quickly, but the party still continued! We all sat around my mother as she told us kiddies the orgins of Fritz, our mounted reindeer head. And the night ended with Brendan and I playing two hands piano, of which I feel its pretty clear that I haven't played in 10 years. I even screwed up Heart and Soul.
It was a great gathering of my birthright peeps and my home town friends and moms and dads. Super good times!

Upstate New York

My recent obsession with rock climbing has not gone away at all. Its increased, there is more or less nothing else I want to do (except be the owner of every fancy dress and fabulous shoe out there, and lets face it, that will probably never happen) (also, except for laying in grass in a park, and/or listening to live music) (and also, drinking good beer in perfect weather) and last weekend I was given the chance to jump on some real rock in the Adirondacks, or the 'dacks if you like speaking in climber lingo, which I totes don't.
So I took a two hour train ride, and a two hour car ride to somewhere near Albany, and then the weather was stupid cold and stupid raining and stupid stupid. No outdoorsing for me. We did hit up AIR, an indoor gym, where I lead climbed (or lead, or leaded, what is the past of this?) for the first time and totally got high (ha ha, I'm very punny) from that alone. They also had miles and miles (or like almost two) of indoor caves, the only gym like this in the nation, which will make any claustrophobe throw up and any kid or kid at heart pee their pants with glee. Yours truly especially liked the zip line. A playground for adults!

So- upstate is nothing like the city, and its kind of boring, and you have to take cars everywhere, a personal annoyance of mine. And yet I had SO much fun on my break from the city (even though I was away I insisted we watch New York, I Love You) I only took this one photo of Brendan with his dog, Cooper. I was too busy drinking at bizarre bars, eating delish veggie food, and pulling plastic.
I love dogs, and Brendan's were really special and you should go and holler at them if you like handsome dogs.

Shabbat Brunch-o

Last Saturday I invited many of my peeps for my very first Shabbat. For those of y'all who don't know, the Jewish sabbath is from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. And there are all sorts of ways people choose to observe the sabbath, from not carrying keys, using money, or actively turning on lights to hanging out and getting piss drunk. And some people choose not to observe at all.
Since I just returned from an amazing trip to Israel, and love so many of the people from that trip, I decided to continue my ride on the enthusiasm train and host a Shabbat to gather my Birthright peeps with my non-Birthright peeps. Jews, Gentiles and us half-eys all ate the most delish bagels from Bergen Bagels (no really, you'll pee your pants, these bagels are boner inducing) and I made a fruit salad, cut up peppers for the hummus, pancakes were a plenty as were oj, grapefruit juice and mimosas. That's right this was a vegetarian event darlin! Mostly organic, and totally local. Wassap!? And all the vegans had plenty to choose from because that's how I like to do a thang.
Tara (pictured below; left) was the pancake master and made all sorts of amazing shaped pancakes. This was her crowning glory though, a dino shaped pancake. It was requested, I had no idea how to carry out such a demand, but Tara was allz like "I know everything pancake," and knocked it out of the park. The Jurassic park. She also made a star of David pancake,and just a normal star pancake. Because she knows everything pancake.
Hey peeps! Thanks for coming and making it the best brunch ever! And thanks Birthright for picking up the tab! I can't wait to have another one- so amazing!

Happy Friday!

I'm just excited about life- I'm hosting my friends for Brunch tomorrow- and that should be amazing (hello Bergen Bagels) and Sunday I'm off to Philly to holler at some bubbles, and getting out of the city for the day is never a bad idea (I love New York! Really!)
So because I'm in a good mood, here's a lil' something for you to feel jazzed about too.
xoxo!

Israel oddities

This was the first vegetarian option available to me. It was this weird corn kernel patty with a smoked flavor, and then it was breaded. Its one of the grossest things I've ever put in my mouth. I put it immediately put it out of my mouth and into a napkin. And was never fooled again by any kibbutz's attempts at veggie friendly options.This man likes to take birds, put film canisters on their heads and flip them upside down to weigh them, which we all quite enjoyed watching. What he really does is capture birds, tag them, and set them free in order to collect data at a later point.
We met him on a trip to a nature preserve. One we had to tour in a bus, which made no sense and was kinda contradictory to, you know, a nature preserve. Our nutso tour guide kept talking about raptors, which also made no sense. We did keep a look out for dinosaurs, but saw none. They must have been lurking in the distance beyond.
There were alot of Jewish folk artists in Zefat. I'm not sure this is an oddity, but it is nice to know it exists.
Break in case of passover?
Why is there Matzoh in a box?
This cray cray man from Yemen made some really delish Yemenite food and yelled crazy things at us. It was kinda sorta love at first site.
See below, that one he's making. That one went in my stomach.

Barbara's Birthday!

Lisa made Barbara this fawesome cake by hand! Since our Barbara is really really into the jamz, Lisa fabricated a cake with this inspiration in mind. It was probably her best and most innovative cake yet! AND the fondant is vegetarian. What what!?
So the celebration took place at our favorite place Tortilla Flats. It was Monday which meant BINGO TIME! Which means tons of shots. Which is reason enough for everyone to go. And by everyone, it was really a nice mash up of people. Babs' co-workers who I adore, plus Babs' not co-workers at all, plus friends of friends who love Barbara. We all had the most fabulous time eating Mexican food, drinking and wearing party hats. Anyone who doesn't love wearing a party hat is a fool.

When its someone's birthday at T-flatz they make the birthday boys and girls compete in a PBR tall boy chugging contest. Whoever finishes their Tall Boy first gets a round of shots for the table, and also is a birthday winner. Barbara kinda won, by the most amazing of flukes. You see, in order to prove you finished your beer you have to turn it upside down over your head. Babs executed this a wee bit prematurely and poured upon her dome some flat, foamy beer. We loved her for it, and she won because she is so darn endearing! More SHOTS!

I wasn't kidding about the tons of shots. There were so many left over from the people who had enough (or were sick like me) that when three more people showed up, there were enough for them to take four shots, each.
This is me- partied out! Great timez Babz!


Note:
I'm leaving the country for two weeks. A travel excursion! I'm taking the camera along so I'll have plenty to share about "Not New York" Get excited y'all! I may be able to sneak in a post or two along the way. See you when I get back!
Any guesses to where I'm going?

Happy Thankful Groundhogs Day Parade

Pikachu saw his shadow! Five more years of parades!

Okay so its a bit of a reach-all the way back to November, but worth talking about because
-I woke up way earlier than I do even for work (to which I am habitually and consistently 15 minutes late to every morning. What can I say? I'm most definitely not a morning person, its a shortcoming of mine that I've come to terms with. I've got plenty of, ummm, tall comings. (Nora- people call those admirable qualities, not tall comings.))
-Brian hosted a very cool Parade Watching par-tay complete with bagels and great views of the parade. Which led to a great photo of spider man's ass.
I also managed to get some really great images of the parade watchers from other buildings. Everyone was slightly risking their lives by dangling their upper torsos out of the 26^th floor window in hopes of watching the parade. Okay- it wasn’t really that dangerous at all- just really cool. The marching bands look so different from a birds eye view, and since we were much higher than any of the balloons, for the first time I was looking down at them instead of looking up.

Dodecahedrons! The posh-est parade balloon, and definitely the most memorable.
Happy Groundhog's Day, ya'll. 6 more weeks of winter- as if we expected anything else in the first week of February. Its cold like a mother and that isn't changing for at least 6 weeks. A-doi, Puxatony Phil.

Jazz Age!

Last Sunday Jordan and I hopped on the Governor's Island Ferry and went to gasp Gov's Island. The ferry terminal is GORGEOUS. It has an old fashioned exterior with beautiful arches re-painted olive green and a muted red. It really stands out especially next to the -barf- "contemporary" Staten Island terminal, a blah combo of glass, metal and concrete.
We were on our way to the Jazz Age Lawn Party. It was fabulous. Me and Jordan, totally under dressed, because people just dressed to the nines. Everyone was in costume, and dancing. The music was perfect, even if I didn't know how to dance to all of it. Sometimes me and Jordan made up our own dances and that was great too.

And while we weren't dancing, there was plenty of people watching to be had.

Oh and dhalinks, I found this terribly equisite velvet coat. That I need. Right now.
Can you say winter time project? Because that's what I'm thinking.

And Jordy found a car.

Albert Einstien came to the party.
(note- later her talked to Tara about how he met Martin Scorse twice, and that her dress was vintage, even though Tara insisted it wasn't. It was also bright yellow and made of a poly-mesh, so I was inclined to agree with Tara, but Albert did come up with the theory of realitivity)

The weather was pheonmenial, the drinks were -aparently- amazing, and there was fudge that made me cry it was so tasty. All in all, the perfect way to spend my day.