Author: Bekki

“Your private New York”

On By BekkiIn Musings & Ramblings1 Comment

Tonight, I did something that absolutely terrifies me. I went out, in New York City, by myself.

Let me back up a bit. About a week ago, @amandapalmer hosted a discussion on twitter about going out alone. People were all over the spectrum, from “I’ve found some of my best friends by going out to events alone” to “movies, yes, dinner, no” to “I don’t go anywhere without my wubbie and at least ten friends.” But it got me thinking that it’s been forever since I’ve really gone out anywhere alone. I’ve been with my husband so long that if he’s not around, I don’t go out.

So tonight I decided to do something different. I found a 1920’s themed event going on at a bar in midtown and went.

Actually, that’s not quite true. I got all dressed up to go to the party at the bar in midtown. Then, about five minutes after I left my house, I got cold feet and went to the neighborhood bar instead. Where I sat at the bar with a glass of wine and nobody to talk to, feeling rather lonely, and decided I would got back to the house when my glass of wine was empty. And I would have, but then the bartender asked me where I was going, since I was obviously dressed for something, and I told her there was this jazz party, and her eyes lit up light I had the most exciting plans ever.

So I left the neighborhood bar and headed for the subway that would take me to the bar where the jazz party was, half intending to turn around and go back home the whole time, until I found myself at the subway. And even once I’d gotten on the subway, even once I’d found the bar where the party was, I was still tempted to go back home … worried that I wasn’t dressed right, that I wouldn’t find anybody to talk to, that I’d stand in a corner and feel silly.

As I was walking down the steps to the bar, though, a girl having a cigarette asked if I would bring a candle back in to the hostess. And said she loved my dress. And that with the candle I looked like the statue of liberty. And I thought to myself, this might be a good idea after all.

Which feeling lasted precisely until I got down the stairs and into the bar, where I saw that girl taking the cover charge had a pile of cash and no credit card reader. “Do you take cards?” I asked her.

“I think so,” she said. “Let me check with the guy who’s running this. I think he has the swipe thing.”

But he didn’t, and I, having transferred only a credit card and my drivers license to my going-out purse, had no cash and no way to get any. I sighed, and said thank you and I’m sorry and I should have brought cash. Then a remarkable thing happened. A random guy stepped up and said, “I’ll pay your cover charge.” And the girl collecting the money said, “I’ll pay half.”

So he paid my cover charge, and I bought him a drink, and then I met some really interesting people. Nobody asked for my number or asked to buy me a drink or asked me to go home with them. It was the New York I’d always wanted to be a part of, the New York I was sure was out there somewhere. It was, for the first time, my New York.

“Let’s Go Fly a Kite”

On By BekkiIn Musings & RamblingsLeave a comment

Saturday, A and i went down to the kite festival in Wildwood. He got me into kites right after we started dating. The first time, I spent almost an hour just trying to get the kite off the ground. If you ever tried to fly a kite as a kid, you probably remember the intense frustration of running around in circles holding the kite while somebody else held onto the string and shouted directions at you. It was like that, except that stunt kites take off from the ground, and you get it into the air not by holding it and praying the wind picks it up but by waiting for a good gust and pulling the right way on the string.

Then I got it up into the air – and spent the next hour or so crashing it. Eventually, A took pity on me and we went home, but not before I’d caught a taste of the kite bug. We tried to keep a kite or two in the car, and when he sent me a care package while I was in Den Haag, he packed a kite.

Last year he discovered the kite festival in Wildwood, almost by happenstance, and we went and had an incredible day. This year, we both made sure we were off work for it. There seemed to be less kites this year than last, perhaps because the wind was a bit light. Still, it picked up enough toward the end that I had to work to keep the Flexis in the air and myself on the ground.

Then today, it was brilliantly, wonderfully, summer-y hot, so I made snickerdoodle ice-cream. Recipe to follow if it turns out well.

& I’m not gonna live my life on one side of an ampersand

On By BekkiIn Musings & RamblingsLeave a comment

The house is a catastrophe of shoes, a mad explosion, as if all week we have been running in and taking them off, kicking them into corners and against furniture, only to grab a different pair on our way back out the door. Weeks like this, the house becomes less a refuge and more a way-point: fridge barren, plants screaming to be watered, laundry like a river in flood surging past the banks of its basket. It is like this with children, I suspect, only more so.

***

This was intended to be a longer post, but the day went by in a blur, as sunny Sundays tend to do, and the time I had planned for blogging seems to have fallen away.

I’ll leave you with this thought. I’ve been reconnecting with people I knew when I was sixteen, people I haven’t spoken to in years. What I find fascinating isn’t how much they’ve changed. Rather, it’s how much of ourselves has already settled by the time we are sixteen, so that in talking to someone I knew so very long ago it’s almost possible to make believe it’s only one summer that has gone by.

Friendships are a funny thing. They are more like weeds than garden-flowers, surviving untended and unloved for years at a stretch, existing in the in-between places. And sometimes, they burst brightly and unexpectedly into bloom, setting entire fields ablaze in color.

Ginger Molasses Cupcakes

On By BekkiIn Musings & RamblingsLeave a comment

What do you do on a rainy Sunday evening when all the showings of The Hunger Games are sold out? Make ginger cupcakes with brown sugar cream cheese frosting.

Ginger Cupcake

Adapted from Martha Stuart’s Ginger and Molasses Cupcakes

Cupcakes
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
2/3 cup unsulfured molasses
2 large eggs
1 cup (2 sticks) melted butter
1/3 cup hot milk
6 oz fresh ginger, peeled and minced

Mince the ginger. A husband who’s handy with a knife is a plus.

Mincing the ginger.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.

In another bowl, whisk together sugar, molasses and eggs until smooth. Whisk in melted butter and the hot milk. Add a generous splash of spiced rum if you’d like. Stir in flour mixture until just incorporated, then stir in the ginger.

Adding the ginger

Bake at 350 until a toothpick in the center comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

The Frosting
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp cardamom
1 tbs spiced rum

Whip together butter, cream cheese, and sugar in a mixing bowl. Stir in cardamom and rum until just mixed, then whip until lightened in color, about 5 minutes.

Combine frosting and cupcakes. Enjoy.

“Gold Dust”

On By BekkiIn The Weekly ReviewLeave a comment

Spring coming, and with it the flood tides and the ebb tides and all manner of change.  This is my time of year, the time when the trees become a riot of blossoms and the flowers start to emerge from the earth and everything – everything – seems possible.

1.  I don’t believe in God or Fate, but I do think that the universe has a way of putting what we need in our path when we need it.   Continue reading ““Gold Dust”” →