Weekend Escape Upstate

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As promised, here’s an update from the weekend. Harry’s parents have a house in upstate New York, so we went to spend the weekend away from the city, and it could not have come at a better time. I really needed a break post-move, as you probably remember, and this was exactly what I was looking for.

On Saturday morning, we got on the Metro North with friends Laura and Michelle and headed up to spend Saturday planning details of Laura’s wedding. She’s getting married here in June, so needed to hammer out some last minute details so we can really start making final progress on things, and I would say it was definitely a success.

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Of course, no weekend is complete without some serious relaxing, so before Laura and Michelle left in the evening, we spent plenty of time eating barbecue, sitting around, and just generally enjoying being away from the city for a day.

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And, of course, when I woke up Sunday morning, this was the view from the deck outside the bedroom, and pretty much my entire day was made.

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I had a pretty rough week last week in a couple of ways, but this weekend has left me feeling relaxed, refreshed, and very, very happy with life in general. I feel like now I’m ready for summer, ready for fun and friends and lots of time spent together outside.

My Move, or An Actual American Horror Story

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As some of you know, my lease ended in April of this year, so at the end of the month it was time to find a new place, load up, and make the move. I’ve moved most of my earthly possessions multiple times in my life, and so far have found it to be a fairly innocuous process. Maybe a misstep here or there, but overall all accomplished in one day with time and laughter to spare.

However, this time? That was not the case. We had everything planned out in advance, so it wasn’t a lack of planning or coordination that was the problem. Everything was just off by just enough to make it not work, which I think may have been more frustrating than had something been wrong because it was my own fault.

Harry took a day off work to help me, which honestly I could not appreciate more, and I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to do this without him. We rented a U-Haul truck, loaded everything up in it with the help of his roommate and my good friend Michelle, and just when we were ready to leave, I found out that I had crossed wires with one of my new roommates and couldn’t get the keys until later that afternoon, after we had to return our U-Haul. So we put most of my things in Harry and Michelle’s apartment (which is two blocks from my new place, so it’s not too inconvenient) and drove to the storage unit where we were going to put my big furniture. Unfortunately, we then had the wrong key, so all of that had to go back and be put in their apartment, too, and the U-Haul had to go back immediately. So we then cleaned my apartment and got everything out, and then quit for the evening.

So really, we got everything out, but just not quite with the timing we’d hoped for, and most of my stuff is still in Harry and Michelle’s living room, to be moved this next week when we have car access. Not ideal, but it really could have been a lot worse, I suppose.

I’ve had better moves, and even though pretty much everything went wrong with this one, I have to say that it wasn’t the worst day. I still got to spend my day with people I love, and we had a good time, even though I was out of my mind with stress. And the good thing is that now I have six months until I have to move again, so I’ll be able to take this and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

I’m able to take a step back this weekend, though, and relax at Harry’s parents’ house in upstate New York, so I’ll be back with a much more relaxed mind, body and soul after the weekend. See you next week, friends!

Spring Cleaned: An Etsy Super Sale

Posted in DIY, Etsy by

ad spring cleaning1Just a friendly reminder about my Etsy store :) I’m getting ready to move at the end of the month and I’d like to make room for more jewelry, so I’m giving a whopping 30% off code through the end of the month. You have two weeks to use this code and give me a big helping hand, and I would really, really appreciate it!

Use code SPRINGCLEANER to get 30% off your entire order, through April 30th :)

Inequality and the Subway, A Love/Hate Story

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Yesterday afternoon, The New Yorker posted an interactive infographic about the average income per subway stop, for every line in the city (including Brooklyn and Queens, which are, in fact, still New York City). And, in a twist of brand new information, readers realized just how vast the income gap is between not just subway lines, but the individual stops on the lines themselves.

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For example, you can see here on the L (one of the more popular subway lines among the younger crowd) that income disparity increases dramatically once you go through the tunnel into Brooklyn. The total income per stop is still generally laughably high, considering the fact that everything, including salaries, is almost always higher in NYC. But still, the slice through Manhattan on 14th street tells you pretty much what you need to know about the way things are structured here, which is part of the reason I chose the L for this example. I personally live just about halfway through the Brooklyn half of the graph, where median income is still fairly high, although almost everyone I know out here works in a low-paying service industry job, living in Brooklyn to make it work.

Quoth Gothamist,

For instance, despite severalarticlesto the contrary, it appears that even artisan-packed Williamsburg has a ways to go before it will even approach Manhattan’s level of wealth—the median income drops precipitously between 14th Street and the hipster belt, dipping to $23,865 at Montrose Avenue, and enjoying a brief resurgence before plummeting to $12,288 at Sutter Avenue—the lowest point of any stop in the system. For comparison, the median income at 14th Street is $150,110. In just 18 stops—an estimated 30 minutes—there’s an income disparity of $137,822. The line with the most sweeping range, however, is the 2, which shuttles straphangers all the way from Lower Manhattan (Chambers Street: $205,192) to the Bronx (East 180th Street: $13,750).

The most ridiculous part, too–though it’s hard to pick just one–is that this is from 2011. With the way Brooklyn has come into being the hip new place to live, especially off the L in Williamsburg and Bushwick, this data may be more invalid than it seems. For example, I really doubt that Montrose Ave is the second-lowest on the income step anymore. Rent increased in Bushwick almost 300% in the last year, which means the average income may be higher now and the next US Census will probably see a sweeping change in the makeup of residents.

None of this is shocking to me, I guess. Everyone knows that Manhattan is ridiculously expensive, and it’s really no surprise that Brooklyn and Queens are headed that way, too. It doesn’t change the fact that I love living here and that every day makes it worth it for me. But really, this isn’t about me, and it is worth studying. As always, things are changing in New York, and only time will tell if it’s for the better.

Five Jurassic Park Scenes Scarier than the Raptors in the Kitchen

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Screen Shot 2013-04-15 at 9.08.14 PMLast weekend, I went to go see Jurassic Park in IMAX 3D with Harry and a few of our friends, and I have to say that it was probably one of the best decisions I’ve made in a while. I saw it about a year and a half ago at a Christmas event at the 92Y Tribeca, but before that it had been at least ten years (maybe fifteen?) since I’d last seen it. When I was growing up, that movie gave me nightmares, and not just, like, one or two. Regularly, and for months. I can’t tell you how afraid I was going around corners looking for dinosaurs to jump out and snap me in half.

I mean, it was the nineties, right? Anything could happen. That with a healthy dose of Are You Afraid of the Dark? and other such things had the very intended effect of the scaring me nearly to death as a child.

However, I remember very vividly from childhood that the most terrifying scene in that movie is the infamous raptors in the kitchen scene. While I’m not saying that scene isn’t scary–because you’d better believe I had my legs up in my seat at that point–I’m just saying that there are some other scenes in Jurassic Park that made me jump a little higher and gasp a little harder.

I tried to make a list of the top ten moments scarier than the kitchen scene, but then I decided that it ranks too high in scary moments in that movie for there to be ten higher. So I went with five, and I’m satisfactorily freaked out again. This list does, in fact, contain spoilers for a movie that came out in 1993, so if you’re worried about that, you should probably back away now.

5. Near the end of the movie, when Dr. Grant and the kids are climbing over the (off) electric fence while Ellie is racing to turn the power back on. I’m not sure that this qualifies as really scary, but it’s definitely suspenseful – maybe one of the more tense moments in the movie, especially when you think that Tim might have really died this time.

4. When Lex falls through the ceiling tile and is barely pulled back up in time to prevent the raptor pulling her down and eating her? Yeah, no thanks.

3. Remember how Laura Dern and Richard Attenborough go to pick up Jeff Goldblum (well, ostensibly, anyone else, but he was there, I guess) and they drive away, chased by the T Rex? Yeah, it’s pretty sweat-inducing to actually feel like a large dinosaur is chasing you, since you actually have your back firmly up against the back of your seat.

2. It’s still pretty horrific pretty early on in the Dinosaurs Have Arrived part of the movie (so, like, 25 minutes in) when the power goes out and the T Rex completely destroys one of the electric cars. Of course, it’s the one that the kids are in, and watching this movie in 3D as it bears down on

1. By far, the moment in this movie that most freaked me out was when Laura Dern goes into the other end of the compound to turn the power back on, and after she does so, the raptor leaps out of the power cords at her. I don’t think that I’ve ever moved that rapidly into a seated fetal position in my entire life. Maybe it isn’t the kitchen scene, but the raptors still reign supreme as the most terrifying part of that movie. And you know what? I’m just, uh, going to let them have it.

Honorable mention in this list of horrifying moments is the iron grip I had on Harry’s hand for most of the second half of the movie. I’m sure it was pretty gross and sweaty along with being a death grip, so a big cheers to him for being a good sport.

All in all, Jurassic Park is a fantastic movie, even if it scared me pretty much as strongly now as it did when I was a small Mustard Ampersand. And no, I don’t think it’s really as scary for most people as it is to me, but no one can deny that there are some moments in this movie that will really get you if you aren’t expecting them.

 

Pre-Christmas Quick Pic

Posted in NYC Living, Personal by

Screen Shot 2012-12-23 at 10.36.29 PMThings have been pretty busy here at Chez Mustard Ampersand this weekend–not only are we gearing up for Christmas and New Year’s, but my family is here for a visit! Things have been pretty action-packed and I’ll update more as soon as I have a free minute.

In the meantime, take a breather with this picture of Davis and me from our hotel tonight while we wait for the elevator. More actual pictures of New York to come, but I think this is one of my favorite pictures we’ve ever taken.