A mystery solved

More than a year ago, Christina bought a Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk
cheese from Star Grocery.  She brought it back to her apartment for us
to eat.  Even before we opened the package, we smelled a ripe,
sour-milk odor emanating from it.  We opened the package and the
cheese had turned an orangey color, and a slimy liquid had leeched out
of the wheel and had smeared all over the inside of the wax paper.
The smell quickly filled the whole apartment.  Christina tried to cut
off the stinky, soggy, orange rind, but it became clear the cheese was
too far gone even to salvage the very center, so we threw it out –
outside.  We were going to return to Star to ask for a replacement,
but never got around to it.

Up at Sea Ranch this past weekend, we all smelled a ripe, sour-milk
odor whenever we opened the refrigerator door.  We assumed that it was
the result of Mr. Gilbert's poor housekeeping.  But on Sunday morning,
as I was putting the unopened Red Hawk cheese into my bag to take back
to New York, I noticed a ripe, sour-milk odor emanating from it.  It
wasn't an altogether unpleasant smell, but it was noticeable.  Several
hours later, as Christina and I were waiting for our bags at the La
Guardia airport carousel, I smelled the same odor and realized my bag
was coming by.  It wasn't until we got home and put the smelly cheese
in the fridge that I put the two things – cheese and fridge –
together, and solved the mystery.

The moral? Maybe buy Red Hawk at Whole Foods or Village Market rather
than Star.  Christina thinks some things sit on the shelf a long time
there, and this would probably explain the reduced price on the
cheese; it had probably been there longer than the other two, more
expensive ones.  One time we had Red Hawk that wasn't spoiled, we'd
bought it at Whole Foods.  Turned out Elise really liked it, too.

Just a photo

Here's my cool West Village Art Deco building where I work! There's even a neat old-fashioned glass mail chute that goes through all the floors by the elevators, and you can see mail slip down it if you watch long enough.

A walk in the park

We walked through Prospect Park this morning with Elise. She got to enjoy about half an hour off her leash, about five minutes of which she spent chasing her red rubber ball. Then I threw it off to the right of our little group and didn't watch its trajectory, and apparently she didn't either because she came back to us a couple seconds later without the ball. We walked over to where we'd thought it landed and looked everywhere for it, but it had apparently disappeared down some rabbit hole, or been snatched by another dog, or been swooped down upon by this neat hawk I keep seeing flying over the park during my morning runs. I only ever see it from underneath, and it appears to be about three and a half feet from wingtip to wingtip and has mostly white underwings with black spots on them. I looked up the types of raptors that inhabit the park this time of year, and several are listed, but all are described as being very, very rare in this season. Christina and I wonder if global warming has confused him and he's stayed behind when all the other birds have migrated. Then again, we're not sure if hawks migrate; we can easily imagine them plucking little rodents from snowy meadows.

Once off-leash hours ended, we hooked up Elise to her lead and walked her towards the tennis courts to look for a replacement ball. Neither of us had ever seen the courts before, and they turned out to be in a huge indoor complex, covered by temporary winter walls, across the street from one side of the park. No balls were therefore accessible. But the weather was cool and breezy, the sun was shining off all the yellow and red and orange leaves on the gingko, oak, and maple trees (among others, I'm sure, only I don't know which), and it was lovely just to walk alongside the lake and watch all the joggers and road bikers swish by us on our right. Eventually we reached the Audubon building and boat house, where there's a small bird exhibition, we think, on weekends from noon to five pm. We couldn't go inside because it was only about 9:30 in the morning, but we made a mental note to return to figure out what that hawk is doing here. We saw him again right about at this point.

From the Audubon center, there are a number of trails that cross through the center of the park, which is mostly wooded. Several, mostly man-made, waterfalls cascade over boulders and into large pools, where boats sometimes cut the water (in the case of the boat house pond), oxidized copper-plated bridges span the waterways, and the occasional fisherperson can be seen casting silvery lures. I wished I'd brought a flyrod out here, but then noticed all the low-hanging trees hugging the banks and reconsidered. Fishing is definitely allowed in both Central and Prospect Parks, though, which surprised both of us when we first learned it. We chose the waterfall path rather than the tall trees path, and walked through dense woods of yellow leaves and nary another person. We couldn't see or hear the city from inside our little forest. Elise was released from her leash in the absence of other people and she loped off into the woods, probably to eat smelly things in the underbrush. We passed a few signs indicating that this area "used to be part of a forest," and wondered why they said "used to," because it still looked a lot like a forest to us. Then we finally emerged onto East Park Drive, which crosses the park and exits into Grand Army Plaza, which has an enormous arch much like the Arc du Triumph (or whatever) in Paris (...or whatever). This one has bronze statues crusted all over it and probably represents something Revolutionary War-related. We should probably find out. Before we began our walk back to our apartment, we tiptoed through a little corner of the park, currently under repair, called the "Vale of Cashmere," where a fountain burbles into a leaf-strewn pool, creating speckled patterns on the surface. We considered pushing Elise in but didn't.

At this point Christina noticed something most interesting about how leaves change color. Look at the two photographs below: they're mostly the same, but some yellow and red leaves near the center are slightly rearranged in the second photo to show that where they'd previously overlapped (and where they'd also overlapped on the tree we picked them from), they'd remained yellow. So leaf-turning has something to do with exposure to light or other elements, presumeably. There's probably an easy answer to this, too, but we don't know it.

2nd week of work -- almost over!

my train was SO crowded and uncomfortable today, I couldn't figure out why cuz normally it's fine, even if i don't get to sit down. i wonder if there's a diff in the 2 and the 3 (i don't normally care which i take, but maybe i should). maybe the 2, which i was on today, goes farther down into brooklyn and picks up more people. this weird round woman sitting on the bench next to where i was standing stared at me the whole time. then when she got up to get out of the train she tugged on my coat, which i was carrying under my arm, and said something i couldn't understand -- either "nice coat" or "nice show," i couldn't tell. there was also this guy standing next to me with an open cup of hot coffee that was sloshing all over the edges and down this plastic bag he was carrying, and i was paranoid it was gonna get all over me cuz he was squished up against my side. he got a drop on my bag, which i sneakily wiped off on another rider's back as i was getting off the train. that's my story!

Morning in the park

Took Elise for a run this morning in Prospect Park. Saw a headless chicken lying on the ground and a man defecating in the bushes. Other than that, a beautiful, sunny morning, if a bit chilly.