very simple

A while back, The NY Times wrote about how mister softee vendors were in a turf war with some upstart competitors who were using gangland tactics to push them out of various neighborhoods. The juxtaposition of childhood treats with straight-up street gang tactics was…something.

It has definitely become harder to find a genuine mister softee truck in parts of the city, but you can still find them on the upper west side.

(By the way, mister softee is the best, because they’re the only trucks that ever have the good sugar cones instead of the regular cones that taste like styrofoam.)

NYT article on the ice cream truck wars

I walk by this little shop on 45th street fairly often, with its classic sign, wedged in between giant midtown office buildings, wondering how it survives, and glad that it does.

Caught this Central Park performer taking a little nap break.

taken last weekend – abandoned newsstand made over into impromptu art commentary on the state of current news.

sorting through some unposted photos, a shot of the fountain in city hall park from last june, when it was sunny and warm.

yesterday was the third women’s march – it was a little colder and grayer, and the national organization leadership has turned into a massive conflict-riddled mess, which of course resulted in various local marches literally disassociating themselves, which IN TURN led to three competing marches here in NY – an actual march organized by the local organizers who have organized the march every year here, a competing “rally” downtown organized by the national group, because they didn’t like getting tossed over, and a third rally for disabled protesters at grand central, because neither of the two other groups took account of the fact that their events weren’t accessible. So far, so…good(?).

Anyway, because supporting women and protesting the ACTUAL shitshow that is our national government is probably more important than any of this crap, I still dragged my ass out to the local march, in part because it seemed like the less objectionable of the two marches AND it also began literally in front of my apartment, so…maybe I’m a little lazy before deciding to walk several miles. As always, the camera came along and I took some pics. It was less crowded this year, probably due in part to the mess above, but also because they’ve been hyping snowstorms all week and the folks who would normally drive in from elsewhere thought better of getting stuck in the city. But people still showed up, and it’s still important to keep our eye on the ball, which is the real horror show in washington.

Today is both the first day of 2019, and the last day of my holiday vacation from work. Said vacation involved pretty much working from home the first week I was home (my own fault – I had a deal closing that I knew about before I planned things), and then trying to do a bunch of long-delayed home improvement projects. As usual, I cleaned out some stuff, but I also got a bunch of prints…printed AND hung up, and I finally painted the built-in cabinet that I had built six years ago when I renovated my bathroom.

So today, being the last day before I have to go back to work, and the weather being unusually cooperative (approaching 60 degrees and sunny? that’s not something to worry about in January), I decided to haul my camera across the Brooklyn Bridge and take some immensely cliched pictures of both the bridge and the eight gazillion tourists who had the same idea (can’t really blame them. It was really nice out).

Most of the pics are either of or from the bridge, but the first image is of the Beekman Hotel, which I will someday stay at just for the experience. It reopened two years ago after being restored – the building had fallen into complete disrepair and was in danger of being condemned completely. Luckily someone had the presence of mind to recognize the beauty of the place.

(As usual, wait for the page to finish loading and then click on the thumbnails to see the full images)

New York City has been absolutely captivated by its latest celebrity visitor – and hey, we all need a little distraction from the unending stream of horrendous political and ecological disasters going on around us – so why not spend a few days reading about and chasing a…colorful…surprise guest from out of town.

Yes, we’ve been graced with the presence of a rare (for the region) Mandarin Duck, who has taken up residence in Central Park. No one quite knows how he got here, but he seems pretty happy to commute between two different park ponds and hang out with our more…native species.

I was going to go attempt to see him last weekend, but in following the bird twitter-verse, he was hiding out, so I went and saw proto-feminist art instead. Today, he was hanging out on a little island away from the crowds, and so I wandered around and took some pics of him, as well as some of the ducks that weren’t getting as much love from the horde.

(as always, wait for the page to fully load and then click on the thumbnails for the slideshow)

When someone draws a map of the Americas, they should just put a giant squid over the United States and say “Hark, here there be monsters”

Another day, another reason to protest against this malicious, mendacious, miserable administration. This protest was organized in reaction to the horrible news that the administration had, as a matter of policy, decided to use the separation of parents from children as a punishment and attempt to deter families for the “crime” of seeking refuge and safety in this country and not filling out the proper forms in the correct order (aka, not presenting themselves at the correct checkpoint – checkpoints, mind you, that the administration has deliberately CLOSED in an attempt to block people from seeking entry the proper way in the first place – Trump likes to talk about entrapment? How is that not a trap?).

Our government is causing lasting harm to children in some sort of petty power play against incredibly vulnerable people. Against CHILDREN. These are folks who have traveled hundreds, if not thousands of miles, often over land that is incredibly dangerous, from the only homes they have ever known because of a tiny glimmer of home that it might be just a tiny bit less bad here. We were never great at living up to that promise, but at least we sometimes tried. At least we gave lip service to the ideals embodied in our laws protecting refugees.

But until we can take back at least some control of the government, we as a citizenry can at least stand up and say that while our government does these things, they do them without our consent.

Pictures from the first part of today’s Families Belong Together protest – I only went to Foley Square, because it was REALLY hot, and I didn’t want to end up with heat stroke (which I’ve managed to give myself crossing bridges on super hot days before). But as usual, there appeared to be significantly more people than originally anticipated.

wandered through central park a few times this spring – sometimes just because it was a nice weekend afternoon, sometimes because it’s how I walk home from work. These are from a few of those walks.