a little red hen

Poem in Your Pocket Day: What's Yours?

How just-right this casual window at the Bank Street Bookstore --usually carefully arranged with children's books.  For April 30, last day of National Poetry Month, they chose to celebrate "Poem in Your Pocket Day," a New York thing, with an offer of just that.  Don't you love the vintage manual typewriter --much like the one I lugged on the train to  college.

Got my poem, "A Rabbit Reveals My Room" by Nancy Willard:

    When the rabbit showed me my room/I looked all              around for the bed./I saw nothing there/but a shaggy     old bear/who offered to pillow my head....

I'd been on a walk through Central Park's Conservatory Garden, with the Thursday morning walking group (reconvened from last year).  We thanked the volunteers who keep the place so gorgeous. 

Then back to Broadway, past the bookstore, the street seller reading his own merchandise.

On to the Columbia Greenmarket for my favorite wholewheat doughnuts.  And a little lemon thyme plant to try for cooking and keep my yellow begonia company.

FIX-UP NOTE:  Thanks to Kay and her Thinking Cap, the links have been straightened out very early Friday morning.

Newspapers in America Disappear as We Speak: Baltimore Sun

What happens when people buy media simply as a "product" to be manipulated for earnings?  Earlier this month David Simon ("The Wire" & "Homicide: Life on the Streets") and former police beat reporter on The Baltimore Sun talked with Bill Moyers on the sad state of that paper and newspapers in general in the U.S.  You can read it at this link from the Moyers blog.

From Citybizlist Baltimore E - NEWS (arrived as email but could not find on web)…

    "Layoff notices comes as Tribune slashes 18 senior editors and newsroom managers on Tuesday and Wednesday without warning.

BALTIMORE, Md., April 29, 2009 - Members of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild said yesterday that Tribune Co. is bent on gutting what was once one of America's great newspapers after 40 newsroom employees, or 20 percent of the staff, received layoff notices yesterday.

The move comes a day after Tribune fired 18 senior editors and newsroom managers on Tuesday and Wednesday without warning. Many of the editors and managers, who are not members of the newspaper guild, were ushered out of the newsroom by security guards.

"Tribune, through careless management practices, has saddled itself under $13 billion in debt and now Baltimore is paying a price," said Cet Parks, Executive Director of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. "Tribune is siphoning good jobs from Baltimore and sending work that talented editors, reporters, photographers, copy editors and designers have done here to its home base in Chicago. That is not right."

Tribune plans to lay off the 40 newsroom employees by May 27. Targeted employees, who include four columnists, photographers, critics and copy editors, received hand delivered letters Wednesday afternoon signed by Monty Cook, senior vice president and editor. Also, in the last two weeks The Sun has laid off seven employees in other departments including advertising and customer service.

Since Tribune acquired The Sun in 1999, the newsroom staff has been cut by more than 60 percent to currently 148 employees from roughly 420.

'While we understand that media companies, especially newspapers, are reeling from declining advertising revenue, shrinking circulation and a year-and-a-half of recession, we believe Baltimore needs a metropolitan paper that covers the important events in the region," said Angela Kuhl, Guild Unit Chair who works at The Sun. It is imperative that Baltimore maintains a newspaper that brings people news, exciting and provocative stories and enriches the lives of all who live here.' "

Manhattan Apartment Sale: A Lesson in Advertising

 Do you read  "The New York Review of Books?  It is a somewhat intimidating publication with literary and political articles.  Deep, very deep.  Every now and then I buy it.  Nick, our son the academic (father of Roxie) suggested we investigate placing an ad in its pages.  But let me start at the beginning of  our adventure,  "Psychotherapy Blooms Morph into Real Estate."

Longtime New Yorkers who have a history of looking for rental apartments, believe The New York Times is the gold standard of real estate advertising.  But that was yesterday:  when everyone rented.  "Olden days" I call them back when we experienced the City as a truly democratic place, where people of different classes and colors squeezed together on the subway.  

And as renters, most of us  shared across all differences a certain animosity toward our landlords and took the subway to work.  It's been a sea change with the  ownership of condos and co-ops and so many abandoning the train for cars.

March 1, we ran our first ad in The Times.  Pricey but it did include an online component where we could include photos.  Result:  one caller who did not show for the appointment.  Our management has purchased larger ads at considerable cost and had equally disappointing results for the several apartment apartments for sale.

A neighbor suggested advertising in The Columbia Spectator, published Monday through Friday by students at the University.  Reasonably priced but our online component could not include pictures.  We could include a website address but I have not yet created a separate blog for the apartment sale. 

Through a visit to my podiatrist (you never know) and a conversation about one of the free papers widely distributed at subway stops, AM New York, we began advertising there.  Again, the online component (hard to locate) could not include photos and it is primarily geared to house sales and large ads by realtors.  Yet we did get some action from this as well as the Spectator.

Because many Chinese and Chinese-Americans live in Morningside Gardens, I've wanted to advertise to that community.   A neighbor said she would help me translate an ad into Mandarin.  But how would the potential buyer know that we only speak English? And this week the miracle of multi-culturalism in the Big City happened. 

Jane from The Epoch Times called.  She'd seen my ad in AM New York.  Why not use her Chinese paper?  Why not, indeed, I said but how not to frustrate callers thinking we were native Chinese speakers?  No problem, she said, we'll run it in English!  Signed up for a very reasonable one month.  Jane was anxious to assure me that the paper had no connection with the Chinese government--like other Chinese publications sold here.   Curious that she repeated this fact several times, a visit to their website confirmed what I suspected:  it is an international Falun Gong newspaper.  Oh well.

Meanwhile we have been impressed by the results from The New York Review on a small ad with color photo.  Subscribers receive an issue before it goes on newsstands.  Not knowing this we were surprised when the first call came, then a second.  In the first week it has been out to subscribers, we've had four calls and three visits to see us.  No other publication has produced anywhere near this.

I hear your questions.  Craigslist?  Couple of responders asked for more information, then nothing.    Why not use a real estate agent?  They have little to offer in this market.  Four of them represent apartments for sale here in Morningside Gardens; none have sold.  We decided that we could do a lot of advertising on our own and be more creative for less than the  six per cent charged by realtors.  Might change our minds later on.  It is another kind of 12-step program. 

We await our first offer...and possible attention from the non-Communist Chinese in New York.  Ron and I feel prepared to give a workshop, "Selling Your Co-op on Your Own--Hows-Tos for Risk-Takers."  Could we begin an a entirely new career path? Might there be relevance in our past employment doing co-therapy with couples and presenting  workshops to as many as 100 people? More adventure lies ahead.

Manhattan Apartment Sale: A Lesson in Flowers

For you the time from the end of February to today is a blip in time.  You, of course, are a normal person.  Selling a home in America right now is strictly for the less than normal--folks like me for whom time stretches something like that Salvador Dali watch image.

Seems  ages  ago that I wrote the post, This is my kitchen in Manhattan & it's for sale!   Many of my friends in Elderblogland wished me well and admired my pretty kitchen.  Though our life here has continued with going about the city, seeing off-off Broadway plays, getting together with granddaughter Roxie, the sales project has been quite distracting.

  Figuring out how to be our own real estate agents (more on this in another post) has evolved into at least a half-time job.  Then I thought, why not document the flowers I buy--turning the project into a minor art endeavor. 

 Doorbell just rang.  There are other apartments on the market here in Morningside Gardens, with its six buildings.   Studios, one and two bedrooms like ours. 

Open Houses are held periodically, so we get some visitors on those Sundays.  We straighten the hall pictures,  leave for two hours, fingers crossed!

And promise to post more regularly both here and at my other support site, Elderexercise.  (Have you noticed that I've made attempts to take some flower photos ala Claude, my co-author of the exercise site?  Looking at her Blogging in Paris images provides a high standard.) Today learned from the New York Times that the big city where most people stay in place is Paris.  Something to think about.

Don't need a full moon in New York City...

A small shift happened in my elevator interactions over the past year.  Sometimes one was being fixed and there was more waiting time for contemplation.  But there's always the chance encounter. 

Holding the doors open for a woman who began to read her mail as she walked to a lobby chair.    She holds the letter at arm's length,"I will not come to your graduation!"

I risk a question (having seen large cursive writing), "Even though you were sent a hand written letter?"

"Hell, no!  My brother is graduating from prison!"  I lead a sheltered life.

Descending from the 21st floor, the doors open for a young Chinese boy we know as a recent arrival.  We've been impressed with how proficient he's become in English, seems to have made a remarkable shift in cultures.  I ask how old he is, "I'm twelve but look small for my age."

I reassure him, tell of our son who surprised us by shooting up in late teens to six feet.

"I have trouble sleeping," he continues.  "I just like to stay up late."  Okay, I have trouble sleeping too but that would have little relevance to him.

Now that both elevators have been replaced, I may have missed more wonderful moment in the lobby but there's always the ride. 

Jon Stewart, Comedian, Marks Passover with Offense

Last night my disgust with "The Daily Show" and Jon Stewart show was tempered a bit by watching an old episode  of "Third Rock from the Sun" before bedtime. This morning I was still angry that he could use his considerable influence to demean old/elder/elderly people-- along with Jews-- by "celebrating" National STD Awareness Month with the most tasteless, offensive skit imaginable.

Did Stewart or cast member Jason Jones, who carried out the segment in a Jewish Senior Center in Miami, have a particular agenda in mind?  Jones began by interviewing an 80-something as he smiled with how his goal in life was to get as much sex as he could--by whatever means.  When Jones asked if this might amount to assault, I thought he might be going in a purposeful way toward highlighting the problem usually addressed in talking about younger men toward women.

Wrong.  The "interview" went on to belittle the Center's efforts to educate members about safe sex.  I believe the woman demonstrating how to use a condom was Miriam, The Condom Grandmother.  Remarkable person who became an educator after  losing two of her bridge partners to AIDS--women who did not demand that sexual partners use condoms--or maybe did not know they should.

When I read  Ronni Bennett's post today, "Elders and Fair Hiring Practices," on the insensitivity of journalists who give job-seekers advice  totally skewed to the not-young, I used that opportunity to express my anger about the ageism of Stewart's show.   Do you ever see an older person there?  Nancy Pelosi, Madeleine Albright have appeared.  The staff must feel quite clever in covering two invisible  categories of untouchable on the program's guest line-up--women and old people. 

Stewart puzzles many of us.  Often his humor is ironic.  But what about his own often expressed discomfort with aging?  Worried about losing his very young audience as he might be mistaken not as their bar buddy but their father?  Frequent references to himself as Jewish more toward the ironic too.  But last night, the night of the second seder for Passover, it was strictly anti-semetic as Jones played for laughs in this obviously Jewish setting in South Florida. 

Have you read the statistics on the high rate of HIV there?  Do you have a suggestion for who should get my complaint about the show?

Old people, we do not have an advocacy group.

Public Housing Still Works in New York City**

Lunchtime on a rainy day.  Ron was making soup, heard a crack, was surrounded by reflection from close by lightning.  A single flash hit the chimney of Grant Houses, the public housing across the way.  "Next a very loud thunder clap,"   he told me when I returned home an hour later. He pointed out where loose bricks were thrown around the roof around the chimney and onto a plaza below--possibly on cars on the other side we could not see.

We were impressed how quickly  firemen, fire officials, public housing dark suited men had arrived to  inspect the damage.  That night workmen appeared after dark to place layers of planking to protect the roof of the heating plant below the chimney.  The next morning, scaffolding was erected.  One evening later at 9 p.m., we  repair in progress.  In the last photo it is 11 p.m. and the complex effort continues on this 21-story building. 

   **PUBLIC HOUSING THAT WORKED

Harry, His Mom, the White Peacock

Up and down  weather, fooling us with spring then turning cold.  Thursday, April 2, was a spectacular day all sun and flowers.  Walking along Amsterdam Avenue, we saw the white peacock who lives in the garden that surrounds the famous Episcopal cathedral,  St. John the Divine.

I began taking pictures from across the street, soon realized the peacock would not be leaving soon.

We  crossed 111th Street for a closer look. She (Ron's guess) seemed to be doing a "preening performance."  We began to talk with Harry, the fiftyish son of the woman in the wheelchair who lives in a nearby nursing home.

An unmarried man who works as an elevator operator, he visits her every day.  She has dementia. The toy dog she holds on her lap, very real to her, is one of two always with here. 

They provide so much  comfort, Harry explained, that when she refused to eat after her leg amputation, the dog provided a solution.

In much detail,  he told how he demonstrated that the dog was still eating-- fed the dog as his mother watched.  She began to eat again.  He also washes both dogs to keep them clean.  The one on Momma's lap looked pristine.  the one she holds in the photo is the $60 one he found to use while the $20 dog is drying.

Our time with Harry moved us into another world, the one where a grown child dedicates most of his or her time to caring for a declining parent.  My sister-in-law did that for her mother.  Usually it is the daughter who takes the responsibility.  My own instincts have always moved me to believe I'd never want to burden my own children in this way.  But even using the word "burden" indicates how far my world is from Harry's.  His comfort with his role moved both of us, let us feel that we, in turn, were adding to his pleasure by taking time to talk about his family and ours. 

Japanese tourists had just come off a tour bus to visit St. John the Divine.  They joined us for their own excited photo shoot of the white peacock. 

When people ask if I will miss New York when we move to Portland, I think about these kinds of moments.  Harry's mother enjoys the sensory stimulation of the City.  I do too.

Knit, Eat...Winter's End

The brightly colored red, yellow, blue yarn that Ron's knits here was all spun on his wheel.  He's making a  simple pattern that I talked him into trying for our youngest grandchild, Elianna.  He  prefers  producing more hats but agreed this time.  Because the sweater I tried to make, Elizabeth Zimmerman's famous "Baby Surprise," proved too painful to my right arm.  It required  many, many stitches on a #11 circular needle.

  Meanwhile I'm trying to finish a pink and black version of the little hen sweater knit for Roxie, our local grandchild last year.  This one is for Zoe in Portland, the three year old.  I've completed all the pieces.

 It's a little odd since I decided to carry the pink yarn across the back of the sweater rather than use a separate ball on each side as I did on Roxie's.

This has produced a puffy surface on the front.  You can see how the pink knitting around the black hen has been stretched out.  I'm not sure how cross-stitching a feather design on the front will work out on a not-flat surface.  I'm trying to decide if each piece should be blocked before putting it all together.  Time to visit Knitty City for more input from Aryn on the next step.

In the food department, we've focused over the past year on eating at home.  Mostly this is about liking our own cooking better--except for two Vietnamese restaurants--one in the neighborhood, the other in Greenwich Village.  Oh yes, and  weight control is an excellent "excuse" for eating in our own space.

 A very long time ago, I bought this packaged soup.  Later realized it required coconut milk.  Turned out quite well.  Spring for Ron is about buying a box or two of Matzohs; this is a new one from Israel.   Nothing religious here; we do not observe Passover.  He has explained that this is when they are freshest.  Matzohs went well with  the coconut ginger soup.  Definitely  but would have tasted really good with the addition of real coconut from Hattie's Web in Hilo, Hawaii.  A long trip.