the twin teardrop chandeliers

Posted on September 25, 2012 by ileana

The work on the entryway is slow going, but it’s going. Back in the winter, I purchased two teardrop chandeliers from PB Teen that were on sale. When I finally got around to putting the first one up in the spring, we discovered that it was defective. I was so disappointed when I checked the website and saw they were no more. The lamp was tinkered with and deemed okay as long as the bulb wasn’t changed. So I stuck a bulb in there that would last for 30 years and hoped for the best. A week went by and then it died for real. Since so much time had passed, I never thought the store would give me a refund so I settled into the idea that the hallway would only have one light. But I didn’t like it. The lighting placement looked lopsided and there was a very ugly glob of plaster in the ceiling at the other end that I’d made worse by gouging at it with a knife thinking there was a box for a light fixture there.

One day I decided to do a web search for “teardrop chandelier” to see if I could find something similar that would look good with the existing light. And the first thing that popped up was the same chandelier from PB Teen! It was back! I called them and told them the story. To my surprise and delight, they said they would send me a replacement chandelier right away even though it was months since I’d bought it. Old school customer service.

PB Teen Teardrop Chandeliers

The electrician that has installed and fixed all of the light fixtures in the apartment is a woman named Deb Lee. I really like the fact that she is a woman electrician. In my mind there are two jobs that clearly fall under the responsibility of the man of the house:

1. Dealing with all potential electrocution scenarios.
2. The removal of dead vermin.

So I’m in awe of Deb.

Deb Lee at work

When the new chandelier arrived, Deb came to install it along with her colleague Eric. She told me that it would look so much better to run the cabling inside the ceiling instead of just hiding the wires with a wiremold. Eric was there to plaster away the holes. He even covered the glob that was such an eyesore. Good craftspeople who are skilled and care about what they do are hard to find – I am lucky. More to come…

Eric hard at work

ham fish in hipstamatic

Posted on August 15, 2012 by ileana

I call it the Loisaida Country Club. It is Hamilton Fish Park on Pitt Street and East Houston – also known as the Pitt St. Pool or Ham Fish for short. It is an Olympic-sized outdoor swimming pool surrounded by a park with basketball courts, playgrounds and a Beaux-Arts structure housing a community center designed in 1898 by Carrère & Hastings, the architects of the New York Public Library.

Hamilton Fish Pool in Hipstamatic: Lens: John S, Film: Blanko

Hamilton Fish clock – Lens: John S, Film: Ina 1969

At the start of the summer, right after the public schools let out, the Hamilton Fish pool opens and you see clusters of children and teens beating a path to the pool in brightly colored swimsuits and flip flops, or on their way back in the late afternoon with wet towels slung around their shoulders, their faces sun-kissed and relaxed.

Bike Parking – Lens: Helga Viking, Film: Blanko

Outdoor Showers – Lens: Hornbecker, Film: Alfred Infrared

The pool, like all the other city pools has a very civilized program in the summer for adult swim – hours for purely laps, no playing or floating around. I am a big fan of the Early Bird swim and I will only miss it when there is thunder or a downpour and they close the pool.

Lens: Matty ALN, Film: Blanko

Since I’ve never been able to still my thoughts enough for meditation, swimming is the closest I’ve been able to get to it. The smell of chlorinated water signals pleasure to my brain – a Pavlovian response. The 50 meters length at Hamilton Fish is a blissfully long stretch to swim without having to turn. Plenty of time to enjoy the sight of the sun ripples in the turquoise blue water and as you turn your head to breathe, the dark green gingko trees that frame the lifeguards in their orange suits under their orange umbrellas. The rhythm of my strokes and the sound of the bubbles of my exhaling breath, gets me to thinking in a slow and focused way.

Lens: Hornbecker, Film: Ina 1982

Lens: Lucifer VI, Film: Alfred Infrared

I run into a lot of my neighbors at the Loisaida Country Club. Some are swimming friends that I only run into at the pool year after year. One summer when I missed weeks of swimming, one of my swimming friends actually hunted down my phone number to call to see if I was okay. There is a comforting routine to it all. Swimmers come at the same time every morning and mostly swim in the same lanes. Scott always does sun salutations before his swim. Robert likes the water icy and complains when it’s too warm. I asked Barbara who bikes over from Williamsburg why she doesn’t go to the newly renovated McCarren pool. Isn’t it an Olympic sized pool, I ask? Yes, said Barbara, “But they make you swim the short way, 25 meters”. That’s stupid, I responded. “Yes, it is”, says Barbara, “25 meters is indoor pool”.

Lens: John S, Film: Blanko

All the photos in this post were shot with the Hipstamatic app. I love it because it is like the old film cameras in both effect and the delightful surprise of the results. A great resource is Schmutzie’s Hipstamatic Lens, Film and Pak Guide.

el jardin del paraiso – the middle years

Posted on July 31, 2012 by ileana

In the middle of New York City, I can hear bullfrogs and see fireflies at night in the summer from the community garden next to our building. Until the kabosh came down, for many years we woke to the sound of roosters crowing. The garden had been a rubble-strewn lot that was reclaimed by the community and became a park (click here for early history and photos). As soon as the green took hold, children flocked to the garden. It was a good place for playing tag and red rover and climbing trees. The mulberry tree feeds neighborhood kids every June with organic berries. They perch on the branches like birds focused on berry picking with their mouths and fingers stained purple.

Oona – Rites of Spring celebration. Photo: David Schmidlapp.

Oona – Rites of Spring celebration. Photo: David Schmidlapp

The elementary school on the block holds classes in the garden. One year the students constructed a weather station that I thought was brilliant and I would watch from the window as they measured the wind and humidity and jotted down data in their notebooks. The children identify plants and test soil and study in the sun.

Photo: David Schmidlapp

Children have always helped with the work in the garden, because they like the dirt and moving rocks around.

Photo: David Schmidlapp

Camelia and Julie on a garden workday

By the year 2000, the garden had turned the corner. It became lush and wild. The dirt was soil and not brick dust. Things grew by themselves. Wild birds and firefiles came. You can smell the dirt and the green as soon as you approach El Jardin. You can hear crickets in the middle of Manhattan.

Pirates in the wilderness at a birthday party.

A lovingly handmade pinata at the mulberry tree

All photos thanks to David Schmidlapp – www.lapphoto.com

woolly pockets for the bathroom wall

Posted on July 24, 2012 by ileana

I’m putting the finishing touches on the bathroom and I wanted to hang Woolly Pockets for an indoor garden to add drama to the stark white walls. The only visual pop in my bathroom are the Cuban tiles on the floor, the rest is clean white subway tile (see more here). My neighbor Brad gave me the idea. Our bathroom window faces the community garden adjacent to the homestead and the weeping willows can be seen as you are taking a shower. Brad said he wanted plants in his bathroom in order to extend the green into the room. I liked that thought, but our bathroom is tiny so the walls had to come into play. An extension of the outside garden in the form of a hanging garden was the vision and Woolly Pockets Wallys are perfect. I like that they are made of recycled plastic bottles. Being a lover of yarn, I like that they are felt. Felted plastic bottles that are soft and feel like wool. Beautiful.

Plants were procured from the farmer’s market. I got a Bird’s Nest fern, a Rabbit’s Foot fern, Jasmine, various Coleus plants and others. I used cuttings from old Philodendron plants that had been my mothers and grandmothers.

plants at the ready

I was very surprised at how easy it was to hang the Woolly Pockets. They give you all of the hardware, all you need is to drill a hole in the wall. You don’t even have to find a stud, the anchors that are included sit right in the sheetrock wherever you want to place the pocket.

Now, to care for them so that they flourish.

the newest community garden in loisaida?

Posted on July 20, 2012 by ileana

Rumor has it that this lot is up for grabs because it is owned by the city. A beautiful spot on Houston St. between C&D. Take it people! Bring some dirt.

el jardin del paraiso – in the beginning

Posted on July 18, 2012 by ileana

It is said that ten tenement buildings stood where El Jardin del Paraiso now grows. When I first saw it, El Jardin was called an empty lot and it was a desolate place. It was clear to the eye that anything that once existed here had been razed and pulverized in a brutal fashion. The ground was nothing but fine brick colored dust.

Photos by Marlis Momber – http://www.vivaloisaida.org

The first twinkling of reclamation came in the form of a wooden platform where homesteaders sat in the sun to eat lunch and drink a cold beer after a hard day’s work in the warm summer months. There was also a primitive swing set for children that was two wood boxes that held a frame for the swing. Medieval-like wooden structures in a sea of tenement dust. One of my favorite memories is the sight of Camelia at three years old in the early garden barechested and clad in a pink lace skirt working hard with a tiny rake.

Photo by Marlis Momber – http://www.vivaloisaida.org

Once the reclamation began there was no stopping it. Raised garden beds arose in a corner of the lot. A teepee was built. It spread. People dug, watered and planted. The roots of weeping willows drank from the underground springs you saw bubble up when you dug deep enough.

People tapped into the electricity from the streetlights and connected amps for concerts and projectors for film screenings on warm summer nights. The renaissance had begun.

Photo Marlis Momber – http://www.vivaloisaida.org

Camelia with wings atop a good dirt delivery

For a chronology of El Jardin del Paraiso click here

Stay tuned for Part 2 and maybe 3

the sleeping beauty

Posted on July 2, 2012 by ileana

I have been on a hiatus from my blog and I’ve been feeling guilty and unsettled about it. I have turned ideas for blog posts around in my head but they have felt half-hearted and incomplete. Then I realized I’ve been avoiding the reason for my hiatus. Millie, my three-year-old Toy Fox Terrier suddenly went blind on Mother’s Day. Of course, this has nothing to do with home improvement or Loisaida and I thought it had no place here. But it has everything to do with us, and so, I feel the story must be told.

Millie In Sheets – Feb 2012

Millie, the night before she lost her sight – May 11

Millie’s catastrophic blindness came quickly in a few stages, each one more terrible than the last. The first was the shock of seeing the dog suddenly bumping into things and with a growing horror realizing that she could not see. There was the frantic call to the vet on the weekend and the sickening research on the Internet while we waited for Monday to arrive. At her first exam, there was a glimmer of hope because she still had some sight in one eye. She would walk down the street kind of fine, only hesitating at the curbs and we said to each other, “This is not so bad, we can handle this”. Then a week later, her eyes literally broke and with that came the glaucoma with all of its pain. We tried to control the hurtful pressure of the eyes with drops, but it was to no avail. Millie became worse. When I picked her up, she would press her body into my chest as if to be absorbed. There was no hope of saving her remaining sight and very quickly it became clear that because of the pain, there would be no saving her eyes.

Millie underwent surgery for the removal of both her eyes three weeks ago. Some of our friends reacted in horror to the idea and thought we should put her down. People have a visceral response to the notion of a blind dog. Perfect strangers are visibly saddened by it. It is like when you pass by a child in a wheelchair, the sadness is almost physical like fingernails scrapping your skin.

Millie, post op – June 11

It never crossed my mind to put down a vital three-year-old dog. Sight is the third sense for dogs. Their sense of smell and hearing are primary. Millie’s vet at the ABC Animal Hospital kept reassuring me “In a month, you’ll forget the dog is blind”. My friend Raquel said, “don’t fret so much, it will make our hearts bigger”. It’s been only 10 days since she has been off pain meds and was cleared for normal activity post-surgery. Here is what Millie can do now:

– She walks down the noisy and smelly streets of Manhattan with her usual tough girl demeanor – head held high, prancing fast. Everyday, she is a little more confident and she now barely reacts when people walk too close to her.

– Millie can fetch! She is fetching toys that make noise and if you throw a ball, she can find it by the sound of the bounce. She is very quickly learning the commands “hot” and “cold” when she gets too excited and misses hearing where the ball landed.

– She went to the dog park and was not fazed by other dogs. Blind dogs can be intimidated because they cannot see the body language of other dogs.

– They say blind dogs shouldn’t swim because they rely so much on their sense of smell and the pads of their feet to feel out texture. In the water those tools are gone and it is distressing to feel themselves in nothingness. Well, Millie didn’t care, last weekend she jumped in the water and swam in our favorite swimming pond upstate.

Millie, fetching in the garden – July 1

Millie – the Sleeping Beauty

When people notice that she has no eyes, they express so much pity, that I worry the dog will pick up on this. They imagine a blind dog as crippled and sad. How deep and old is the relationship between humans and dogs that strangers react so strongly. But when they catch a glimpse of her spirit, they light up. Very soon, all we will see is her heart. When I see that tiny dog overcoming obstacles with such grace and verve, I think she is teaching me to look adversity in the face and bite it!

Millie, you are one heroic kick-ass bitch!

*for a video update of Millie posted December 2012 go here.

garden alley party menu

Posted on June 18, 2012 by ileana

The homestead is adjacent to one of the most beautiful community gardens in Loisaida. We recently marked a celebration with a little party in the alleyway that abuts the garden. We call it the alley, but it is really a long courtyard that is below the surface of the garden. There is a wind tunnel there, so even on the most blistering New York summer day, breezes will stir. We have garden furniture there and a communal grill.

It was a late supper party so most of the food was prepared beforehand and we just grilled burgers. When I was a kid, all my friends raved about the burgers my mother made. It was because they were seasoned. They were Cuban hamburgers.

Garden alley party menu:

Crostini with tomato & basil
Chipotle deviled eggs – this is my recipe from a previous post

Cuban Hamburgers recipe
2lbs ground beef
1 med onion super finely chopped
4 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano – I use dried oregano from the Dominican Republic, but that is hard to find. Rancho Gordo has comparable oregano. Or use fresh.
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients and shape into patties. Do not pack tightly into patties or they will grill up dry. Grill or broil. Serves six.

Beet Salad with Feta Cheese and capers
French Potato Salad
Califlower Gratin

Chocolate Pound Cake – your family and friends will love this cake and beg you to make it again. The recipe is from chef Douglas Rodriguez’s book Latin Flavors on the Grill. One of my favorite cookbooks.

king

Posted on May 22, 2012 by ileana

I brag about my children. It’s fun. It comes from being proud of them. The next best thing to bragging about your children is bragging about their friends.

Elle King and my daughter Camelia became friends in high school. Now I feel sure that Elle King will become a superstar. Her debut EP will be released on June 12th. Currently, she has three songs on iTunes including “Playing for Keeps” which has been selected as the theme song for a new TV Show “Mob Wives Chicago”.

Elle King has a molten voice and eyes as blue as the Mayan cenotes. If I had to use one word to describe Elle, it would be – EXHUBERANCE. I remember the college road trip we took in upstate New York. Elle and Camelia spent hours in the woods building a fort. Later that night when we were sitting around a bonfire, they laughed about how into it they were, hardly talking while they worked, intent upon building that fort like children, schlepping wood and sweating under their jackets in the cool autumn air. Elle does everything “with feeling”, so no wonder her music is so true.

I hope that the next time Elle plays New York, she will invite me backstage. I will bring her roses, and then I will delight in bragging about that. cierto.