Some Things Just Have To Be Said

I had a rather shocking experience on the subway this evening (don't worry, Mom, nothing dangerous happened). I was riding home on the 5 from work (a personal favorite line of mine as the trip is a little shorter), and though there were a lot of seats when I got on at 59th street, it filled up quite quickly. Once you get farther down in central Manhattan, lots of people are always piling on and off at each stop, and this time I debated grabbing a seat for the rest of my ride to Brooklyn. That is, until I saw the pregnant woman getting on at the end of a crowd of people...there would be enough of a rush for seats, I figured, so I might as well not take one that should go to her. Well, to my shock, a number of people getting on before her made a beeline for the empty seats, and this woman was just left standing there. The grad student type sitting directly in front of where she stood holding the support pole briefly woke up from his snooze, looked around, and nodded off again. The woman next to him also seemed to look at this woman, then put in her earbuds and closed her eyes. The young teenager I assumed to be her son just sat there eyeing her occasionally. At this point, I'm almost overwhelmed with how ridiculous this situation is. There are enough people on this car that all of the seats are taken, but not so many that the standing crowd is packed in; there is NO way to miss this woman. Now, I understand that a lot of times, you can think someone might be pregnant, but not know for sure, and feel awkward offering a seat. But this was a seriously pregnant woman; I wasn't wondering whether or not she was indeed with child, I was wondering whether she would go into labor in the subway car. I just stood there, stunned, against the back door, appalled at the behavior of my fellow seated subway riders. I'm not in any way from New York, or any place remotely close to having even a moderately-used public transportation system, but even I know that when you are on any form of public transport--train, bus, subway, you name it--if you see an elderly individual, a pregnant woman, or anyone who is visibly strained from standing, you get your tush out of your seat before karma bites it off; this is not something you mess with. I was so close to saying something, I can't even tell you how thick the lecture was on my lips. If you know me, you likely know that I don't really have a problem telling somewhat what's what if I think they need to hear it (provided of course that they're not a professional or academic superior of mine). "Excuse me," I wanted to say--and rather loudly--"but is it not immediately obvious to the majority of you that you should be hopping up to offer this woman your seat?! Isn't this common courtesy?! Do you not hear them announce it ten times a day over the car loudspeaker?!" The only thing that kept me from doing so was an insecurity about how socially acceptable it was...there are some things that are done, and there are some things that just aren't, and before I could decide that it was just too ridiculous and embarrassing (you know, for humanity) to let go, we were at the next station and a number of people were leaving the train and the pregnant woman headed for one of the vacated seats. Two people came from behind us at the end of the car, walked right by her, and sat down, while another woman, about to take the final seat, looked up, saw her, made a face that clearly said, "ohhhhh woah now", and gestured for the woman to take the seat, which she did gratefully.

I mean really, I thought we were at a point in this world where adults with extensive public transportation experience could be counted on to look straight at someone who clearly deserves to be sitting down more than they do and offer up their seat, but evidently I was wrong.

On a similar note, Jezebel (a personal favorite blog of mine) ran an article today that talks about the difference between 'gender' and 'gender roles' and how they operate as constructs of our society in general. There is lots of interesting commentary after the article, which you can see here, but it really got me thinking about some of these things. I heard someone today complaining about women who rage against a double standard and then expect to be treated like princesses, never paying for their own food on dates, expecting to have money spent on them constantly, always wanting the door held, etc, essentially turning themselves into hypocrites. I've seen this, and it bothers me as well, but what really irritates me is how that behavior can color people's view of all 'feminists'--or whatever people who dislike the gender double standard wish to call themselves, because we all know what a loaded term that can be. I've had guys say to me on numerous occasions, almost always after some conversation about feminism or gender roles or double standards or something related, "Oh, so if some guy holds a door open for you, you're saying you don't want him to do that because that's chivalrous and chivalry is sexist?". My response always starts, "No, BUT," and before I can finish they're jumping on me for having said, 'no'. Because before I even finish my sentence, I must be a hypocrite, too. Here's the thing, though, the 'BUT', really matters. I don't have a problem when someone holds the door for me, but I don't want them to hold it for me because I'm a woman, I want them to hold it for me because they would hold it open for whomever happened to be coming through a door directly behind them, and were the roles reversed, I would hold the door for them as well. Should a guy pay on a date? Well if he did the asking I think he should offer, but I can't guarantee I wouldn't insist on paying for my food in that situation, and if I'd done the asking, I would offer to pay for the whole shebang. I don't think of things like that as 'chivalry', I think of them as manners.

We're at an odd place right now in our society with all of this navigation of ever-changing gender roles. Between trying to fight them as a stereotype enforced by one gender upon another, and dealing with the fact that we sometimes enforce them ourselves (don't even get me started about slut-shaming), I just hope we're not headed for a social climate like that I experienced on the subway car today, where manners are mistaken for chivalry and everyone tries to avoid it, lest they earn a rebuke for being sexist; perhaps instead of limiting our 'chivalry', we can do away with the term altogether and just extend manners a little more liberally to everyone, regardless of their gender identity.

West Coast Weekend, Part Two

Continuing our seriously packed weekend, we spent Wednesday morning at the Storm shootaround prior to the game (don't ask me who that is, just go educate yourselves: www.wnba.com/storm). We got to sit courtside while they ran through plays for the game, shooting drills, and got some great feedback from their coaches. It was funny, because I'd forgotten all of the little smells and sounds that go along with being up close and personal with the game itself. You don't notice them when you watch a game in a big, crowded gym or arena, but when you're in a more intimate, practice setting, the sound of the ball against the net and the hollow, plastic thunk of the players' fingers catching passes ring out very clearly. It's been four years since I last touched a basketball/coached, and I'd forgotten these simple things that were part of my life for such a long time. Add to that the fact that I was sitting and watching some of the best players in the league (and some of the women I watched play college ball as a little girl--hello Sue Bird, Swin Cash) running through their game day paces, and I was just about the most psyched person on the planet. The ten-year-old inside me was squealing like nobody's business and the twenty-two-year old in me tried to be a wee bit more subdued and was fascinated (and a bit in awe) watching the whole thing.

If that wasn't enough, we sat courtside at the game that evening, which was honestly one of the coolest experiences I've ever been lucky enough to have. Unfortunately, the Storm didn't have their best game--Atlanta had some seriously big women on that team, and I think their pushing everyone around (plus the fact that seemingly ever shot landed, no matter what) just wore our defense down. I'm excited for the ever-awe-inspiring Lauren Jackson to get back from her hip injury rehab and show of some serious skills in time for the end of the end of the season and the playoffs! Despite the loss, I had a phenomenal time, and I couldn't believe how lucky I was.

On my last full day in Seattle we had fabulous sushi and went to a John Legend/Sade concert. Sade was fabulous music, though went veeeerry late, but John Legend opened and man, let me tell you, that guy can SING. He can also flirt with an entire arena via microphone and megatron like nobody's business and is likely the King of Wooing in real life. If Gilder went the way of Marhsall's HIMYM Lily fantasy and died of a rare, incurable hiccuping disorder just after asking me to move on and find some studly man, John Legend, you would be he.

West Coast Weekend, Part One

Many of you probably know that the weather in New York has been generally questionable. The weather people reported that we would, "finally be getting a break from the heat," and the thermometer dropped down to 86. Me? Not a fan. Fortunately, I skipped out on both the heat and the apparent rainpocalypse by jetting out to Seattle for a long weekend, which actually turned out to be the best weekend*.

(*sidenote: yes, I'm aware there may or may not have been some wescrew merriment this weekend, and I'm taking this into account in assigning my superlatives. true story.)

I left work early on Thursday and was in Seattle by a reasonable hour (well, Pacific time) that night. We had a seriously full weekend planned, though, so no rest for the weary!

On Friday, we did that whole sleeping in business and decided it would be the perfect time to start our homemade tiramisu adventure that we'd only been planning for months. A quick trip to the grocery store and some internet research revealed that making your own tiramisu is actually pretty easy (and not too pricey). We went with an online recipe from the food network, and even made our own ladyfingers to achieve real 'homemade' status. We soaked them in espresso and were on our way.

Yum!

Anyone who's ever had tiramisu knows it's all about layers of cookies and that oh-so-delicious mixture of mascarpone cheese and a certain something that never seems to identify itself, but makes things ever so fluffy and wonderful. Turns out it's various and sundry whipped egg components, a little bit of gelatine and, you know, sugar. Construct the whole thing in a pan with cinnamon and shaved chocolate, chill, and you're ready to enjoy the fruits of your not-very-strenuous labor.

We were pretty popular. Or unpopular, depending on you feel about having delicious, unhealthy food tempting you from your fridge!

On Saturday night, I went to my second ever MLB game, this time in Seattle where the Red Sox were in town. Having been kept awake by many a Mariner post-game show, I was excited to see these guys in person. I have to say, I'm not a big fan of baseball on tv...with just the one point of view at a time, it gets a little boring and I just lose interest unless it's a World Series final. Watching a game live at the ballpark is a lot different. It's dynamic, it's exciting, and there are lots of fun people with great energy. Of course, we showed up two hours early to watch batting practice so, as I soon found out, a bunch of fans exhiting various levels of crazy (and some certain levels of awesome) could yell as politely as possible at a bunch of outfielders who didn't seem like they wanted to throw any balls into the stands. We met a guy visiting from NH who clearly thought I was crazy when it became clear I was the girlfriend sitting in the stands holding the bags, tickets, etc, while he and Gilder chatted it up. A ball was acquired however, with questionable reaching in front of a small child....I made some guilt-inducing comments, and though it was offered to me, it was not offered to said child (who got his own a few minutes later). The whole thing was almost more of an anthropological culture study than my day at the beach club! Needless to say it was a great time, and we actually had pretty excellent cheap seats, too. I managed to get a shot of the Mariner Moose who came up to dance in the rows behind us (any team with a moose mascot I can definitely get behind). Oh, and those blue shirts you see? Ichiro-designed, baby. Mine's a little big, but like I care.

Proof! I can officially live in New England now that I've been to a Sox game (even if it was in Seattle). And I'm only 15 years late!

Birthday

Well, I guess technically I'm very late to my own party on this one, but I did have a birthday this month, and what a birthday it was! At my dear Aunt Jane's suggestion, I had a "birthday week", which is basically just an excuse to have as much fun as possible. I even extended it a bit, but more on that later.

My week started with a fabulous weekend out of the city at the lovely home of a friend of Jane's. We ate, we lay about, and the only advice I have for any of you is that finding the right floating pool lounger is entirely worth it. Ours allegedly came from Bed, Bath and Beyond. I couldn't find them online (I was heartbroken), but they were essentially just mesh with a floating border....so comfortable that I stayed out a little too long and got a little too burned. Oh well.

I had work at the museum on my actual birthday, and promised all of my co-workers that I would bring in cupcakes for the occasion. Now, normally when I bake cake, cupcakes, anything, well, cake-y, I go as far into the realm of chocolate as possible. This time though, I figured it had been hot and especially summery lately and decided to go a bit of a lighter route so that we wouldn't all regret indulging for those last two hours of the day post-cupcake break. I chose a "key" lime cupcake (I couldn't find key lime juice in my hoity toity local store...but I can't find a lot of things there) with cream cheese frosting, and boy was it good. I did a quick google search and came up with a recipe that I can't see to find again. Rest easy though, because if you want to do something similar the internet absolutely abounds with recipes for just this dessert. Bon Appetit has one, the food network has one...everyone, so go forth and bake with ease. I decided to color the frosting (which was the easiest thing I've ever made. quite literally.) instead of the cakes, because something about green cake just wasn't floating my boat, and here is the result.

These were a biiiiiig hit at work. One of my friends had three. Top the day off with happy hour at our usual haunt and a delicious dinner at Nice Matin with the aforementioned dear Aunt Jane, and it was a stellar day.

Since it was my first birthday in three years that I'd spent in the good old US of A, I figured I had to do some celebrating with my stateside friends. Turns out I have a lovely group of friends in New York, so I had everyone over for what was supposed to be cake and some bar time, and turned into cake and some inside time because the rain refused to stop pouring. Again, I went with a non-super-chocolatey cake, and I was pretty pleased. I used the Smitten Kitchen birthday cake recipe, which calls for a sour cream chocolate frosting. I loved it. Most people either loved it or said, "it's nice but I wouldn't choose it for myself", and I'm happy with that. It's just not super sweet...the sour cream adds a nice tang, so while it doesn't taste like eating cake smothered in sour cream, it tastes like cake smothered in....something not out of those handy little quasi-cans that we used to keep in the German Haus fridge (Heather. Anya. Yes.)

Here is the recipe: http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/07/best-birthday-cake/

The cake itself is so moist, easy, and delicious that I can't recommend it enough. She offers a great substitute if you want a sweeter, more traditional frosting, so have at it!

Here are the tasty, two-layered results of my labor. Complete with birthday-appropriate sprinkles.

Gilder came for a visit, and the weekend was spent being lazy and trying out the perogie's down the block. Not bad, if I do say so myself. I mentioned a little, er, "birthday week extension," which was a trip home for a fabulous Pinot Noir tasting dinner with my dad. The wine....the food...oh dear. There was a lot of it, and it was incredible. If I said more I'd pass out from hunger.

If you decide to give either of these a try, I highly encourage it, and do let me know!

While Halfheartedly Watching the All-Star Game

Brief but serious question: Do MLB players all secretly have stage names? I swear, some of these are great, but put them all together into one organization and they're just too interesting a combination to not wonder about. Jacoby Ellsbury? Jhonny Peralta? Prince Fielder? Willy Mo Pena? Trot Nixon? Coco Crisp? Okay, so Coco is a nickname I guess, but Cavelli Loyce Crisp isn't much more normal.

Just saying.

Amateur Anthropologist

I have to admit, the only anthropological observations I've ever made in any formal sense have been about long-dead people who left behind their potsherds. I do often muse to myself about the people around me, though, mostly out of frustration, because in crowded places I have only so much patience for people who keep me from doing what I need/want to do. (I've also been told this translates to grumpiness or judgment...I guess I can't dispute that!)

Living in Brooklyn and commuting to the museum, I get a lot of opportunities both for frustration and for observation, and usually wind up with a firm reminder that there are, in fact, other ways to look at the world and oneself than the way I do that (go figure, right?). For example, thanks to my mother I think, I tend to be hyper-conscious of people around me. This drives some people crazy because I hate creating lots of noise, taking up lots of space, or generally creating a scene, and I unload that onto whomever I'm with. I usually write it off as, "It's better to be overly cautious than inconsiderate," but who really knows. The other down side is that I have zero patience for people who don't show any consideration for others around them. I would have thought that in a city full of people, a good portion of them would have figured out how to happily and relatively unobtrusively coexist with each other. Perhaps this was naive on my part, but I figured given humanity's propensity to adapt its behavior to make the best of its environment, I couldn't be too far off with this one. Clearly I was wrong.

Take, for example, the woman in front of me on the escalator today. A crowded subway station...you can probably figure that the people who got off the train with you and followed you in a crowd to those glorious mechanical stairs that carry you out of the station-oven and into the...well, street-level oven...will be, you know, behind you on said stairs. Even though there was a stair between us, when she swung her arm around in a wide arc to heave her purse back up onto her shoulder, she came so close to clocking me in the nose with her elbow that I felt the breeze. I couldn't decided if this represented an extraordinarily well-honed sense of space--because of which she knew exactly how many spare cm she had of clearance between her arm and my face--or an extraordinarily unsuccessful one.

The other thing I notice on a daily basis is people who are completely oblivious to the fact that they share the sidewalk with others. Now, you are entitled to walk as slowly as you want to from Point A to Point B, but if you're going to do with with your friend(s), significant other, companion, or whoever you happen to have by your side, might it not occur to you to, you know, keep to one side instead of walking down the middle?

Maybe I just sound like a whiner--(although we established over lunch today at the lab that it's definitely okay to be too lazy to fix something and just whine about it instead!)--but I guess when you think about it, there are two outcomes for someone who grew up or spent a lot of time in a busy place. 1) You adapt to living as efficiently and easily as possible for you and the people around you, and you're generally conscientious of how you affect them, or 2) You frankly don't give a damn and expect that everyone is entitled to do whatever they want to do, however they want to do it. Maybe it's personal, but maybe it's cultural? We asked Fumi once at a taiko ta session how to respond to someone's sneeze in Japanese. She thought for a second, laughed at us, and said that, in fact, you just don't. Everyone kind of looks around and thinks "oooooooh you just spread germs". Now, I don't feel guilty about a well-covered sneeze walking down the street, but that's some cultural conscientiousness I could get behind.

Whirlwind Weekend

My mom came to visit last weekend, and it was incredibly lovely not only to have her around, but really to have anyone around. I've said it before and I'll say it again--living alone is a bit weird, and during this transition, while nice, definitely a little bit lonely. She came down on Thursday while I was at work, treated me to a quick lunch on my hour long break, and then wandered about on the UWS until I finished. We had a delicious dinner at Sarabeth's with my Aunt Jane (the 80th and Amsterdam location), where I chipped away at my continuing New York mission: trying as many burgers as possible at as many locations as possible!

On Friday, when I actually don't have work, we spent the day shopping, visiting the Met, and of course, eating. I had only been to the Met once before, on a quick trip with the Wesleyan Classics Department, so it was great fun to go again and see a bit more. Given the state of the US dollar right now, it seems like everyone and their entire extended family has hopped on planes to come visit the states...that being the case, the museum was insanely crowded. I dragged my poor mother around to look at all of the Greek pottery and sculpture, and we roamed a bit on the way to the Room With A View exhibit (it was exceptional, so if you get the chance, definitely go and see it) and the Temple of Dendur (which I declared I had to see before the end of the visit). It was full of people, but still absolutely stunning. If anyone wants to build me a huge wing like the exhibit room to live in (water feature and windows included, please), I'd be eternally grateful.

The gate, which spent a large chunk of its modern life partially flooded post-dam construction.

The temple itself, with part of the winding line to get in to see the small room that's open to the public. The temple was originally covered with graffiti, at least as far as I understood, and I'd be curious to find out what kind of restoration and preservation work they had to do to clean it up.

The view from the front. Columns. They get me every time.

We also did some serious eating this weekend: post-Met we made a quick pit stop a a cart outside called "Cake and Shake". The cupcakes were fantastic, and I highly recommend them. Lots of fun flavors (I had a chocolate cupcake filled with white buttercream and covered in nougat ice cream. It doesn't get much better!). Then we decided it was time for real lunch, and headed over to a place called "Le Pain Quotidien" (there are a gazillion locations; see here ). I'd been here once before and their open-faced tartine sandwiches were so delicious, I knew I had to take my mom. Not only did I get to have my sandwich again, but I tried their 'watermelon cooler', which also had agave and cucumber blended into it. It was great fare for a hot day, and I'm going to have to find to make it for myself, because I definitely can't afford to trek over for and buy one on a daily basis!

Yum!

My mom reminded me to snap some pictures for the blog, so here is my sandwich! Black bean hummus, avocado, and a little bit of lettuce and tomato with spicy tahini on the side. Yes please!

Sunday was filled with more walking and shopping, topped off by a delicious dinner at Gabriel's (11 W 60th, right near Lincoln Center), which never fails to disappoint. I've had several things on the menu now, and am blown away every time. If you haven't been to this place, you need to pay it a visit (and if you're a poor, recent college grad, make sure to *ahem* invite your parents). I had their sausage and peppers pasta dish this time (Hil, I'm looking at you here), and while it was phenomenal, you really can't go wrong with anything. Try it out!

Our final--and perhaps most important--food discovery was a place just down the street called Teresa's Restaurant (80 Montague St out here in Brooklyn Heights). We had several breakfasts here, and although we stuck to the standard egg dishes, they have a real selection of what looked like (and if they're anything like the rest of the food, should be) delicious, traditional Eastern European fare. Pierogis, potato pancakes, borscht...I'm making plans to go back and try most of it, so if anyone is interested, do give me a call. If we're feeling particularly hungry, we could even go for the babka french toast...