Big Applishness

New York is an overwhelming and wonderful place. Spent the past 9 days there before heading up here to New England where I’m writing from now. Most of the time I was in Brooklyn, but had some moments bombing around Manhattan too… near our digs in Bed-Stuy I kept passing this closed establishment, but it sure had an enticing name!

Over in Manhattan for a lunch meeting, we found ourselves staring up at this lovely iconic view:

To get there, we went back and forth across the Williamsburg Bridge at least 20 times in the past week. I love that ride! I kept bumping over various graffiti images, but this one I finally stopped to puzzle over. I think it says “memories of the past, design for the future” but it’s a bit hard to be sure:

While walking around searching for produce for a big dinner Francesca threw us this past Tuesday, we came up on this awesome community garden at Bedford and Clifton Place in Brooklyn. Adriana wandered in and struck up a conversation with William, a 60-something black man who proudly walked us around the garden showing us all the different things starting to grow, how they were going to put in a new patio, their rain-catchment system, and just shared the lovely vibe of a mid-May spring evening, gardeners and neighbors puttering all about us as we wandered the immaculate corner:

This is their rain harvesting tank, gathering the rains from the apartment roof adjacent to the garden. They drain it during the winter to avoid freezing, but now it’s up and running again, and providing most of the water the garden uses.

Strawberries are emerging in one beautiful plot:

So it was a wonderful visit to NYC. Had four fun events, full of stimulating conversation and interesting exchanges. The last night at Bluestockings drew about 35-40 folks and they sold out of Nowtopia, so I’m happy to report I’m selling out all over the place!… but the best part, night after night, has been the intelligent responses, the skepticism in some cases, the earnest enthusiasm in others. All most welcome, and most gratifying!