i saw this boat in between lexington and third avenues on about 108th street.
i’m a converted jim jarmusch fan. the boat on a rooftop scene was my favorite part of that movie. coming across this tableau in the middle of east harlem made that scene seem a bit less outlandish.
isaac de bankole was awesome too. *adds to netflix queue*
my first time ever at the three kings day parade in east harlem. i was a bit surprised that third avenue bus traffic was allowed to continue during the parade, with the avenue filled with children in the streets and on the sidewalk. other than that, it was a blast (the figurative kind and the arctic kind)!
we even scored two free passes to the museum of the city of new york and a cool coupon book from el museo del barrio for shops and restaurants in the neighborhood.
feliz dia de reyes!
After the United Federation of Teachers recently released its proposal to change the New York State Charter School laws, there has been a flurry of reporting about the “helpfulness” of the suggestions in local papers.
With all the publicity, I thought that I would catch a spirited debate at the public hearing on a new charter school application in School District 4. The only problem… I was the public.
The only person basically not required to be there who showed up – me.
Yay for public input?
we ended up in this park avenue doctor’s office as a referral from the pediatric ER. an unlucky trip and fall sent us rushing to the hospital at mausi’s usual bedtime. after the pediatric nurse and three different doctors examined her, the second resident returned to let us know they were calling the plastic surgeon. i’d asked about scarring.
the resident said something to this effect: she’s a beautiful girl and we want her to stay that way. we don’t want to mess it up.
i wondered what that meant in our “post-racial” world. it’s possible the resident was just trying to be complimentary but it’s worrisome to think that medical care could be rationed on a subjective standard of beauty. i was relieved to have such a skillful doctor stitch up my little one but wondered whether the little girl with a head injury with my skin tone who went in before us received the same treatment.
everyone is suffering from some sort of cold at home. fresh squeezed juice from clementines added a nice pep to a lazy sunday at home.
we’ve had the blessing to experience the oddities of many major urban areas across the globe over the past decade. not one city beats new york in terms of delivery right to your door. clementines from spain via fresh direct.
still in post-1L limbo. there’s a small glimpse of continuity on the horizon. i’m contemplating a full scholarship to an out-of-state law school despite loving the return to new york city.
i’m dedicating the next few months to my love of my hometown.
first photo: flamenco vivo @ meet the artist saturdays, david rubenstein atrium at lincoln center
mausi loved the performance and danced in and out of her seat to the rhythms.
obama jay-z nas blueprint soho*
It was a fine day. Lovely weather. We tried to take the metro at what we hoped was the end of rush hour. It looked a bit too busy for a toddler + stroller + bag of toddler’s things. So a slight detour to Sakuramon and we entered the outer Imperial gardens. Just as we turned a corner, I noticed a line of people across the stone path. We reached the line and seconds later a car with flashing lights appeared. Then the horses. An open palm wave through a carriage door. After the passing of the Canadian ambassador, we turned down the road to the train station. Rush hour was over.
When we got off the metro at Iriya station, I turned the map about 10 times. Walked one way. Then the other. Eventually, a woman on a bike probably wondering what we were doing on this back alleyway asked if she could help up. She gave a push in the right direction, admitting she couldn’t see well enough to read the map. Twists and turns down the road later, an older man on a bike smiled at us and asked Otorisama? YES! He gave us impeccable directions in Japanese which I couldn’t understand but the hand signals were enough.
Soon we were wandering down the stalls at the Otori shrine for the Festival of the Rooster (Tori no Ichi).
It’s very possible that I’m having the time of my life yet I’m not sure what that means.
*so it looks like obama can be added onto the list of random associations that foreign people make when coming across us black folk outside of our native land. guess that’s change.
The first and only time I was in Tokyo we stayed at a quite strangely 70’s styled hotel. The furniture looked like rejected props from the original Star Trek set. For this trip, I was looking forward to exploring a bit more of Tokyo and finding a family-friendly side. I clicked on the hotel link a few days ago and felt a bit of deja vu. Never heard of this hotel. Feeling dismissed.
With my shiny new bilingual atlas and Google maps, I started looking up things we may need to find to make Tokyo life a bit easier with a toddler. Eventually we entered the hotel we stayed in last time and somehow it came up with the same address as the current hotel. The confusion was cleared up when we realized the hotel had been bought by another hotel group, name changed. And somehow out of all the hotels in all of Tokyo we will be staying exactly where we were in 2005. Hopefully there will be no sheep involved.
photo by swamibu
Yesterday I took on two recommendations. 1) from Bowleserised, Moti Mahal – for coconut oil 2) from a native Kreuzberger and good friend, the Yamashina Japan bookstore in Charlottenburg.
At Moti Mahal, all was in a bustle at around 10am on a Saturday. Vacuuming, little kids running around offering assistance, tidying up. It was probably almost exactly on the dot 10 AM. Just maybe and just by chance. We were probably the first sale of the day but it made me feel bad. One of the bleary-eyed workers had to open the store across the street just for us to sell us this bottle of hair oil. Most of the food products I think we could score at the Afro-Asia-Latino place on Gneisenaustr. in the neighborhood (if it was wheelchair and therefore stroller accessible – another post coming). However, this little bottle will make life that much nicer during our short stay in Berlin.
Over in Charlottenburg, 30 minutes later. I found myself staring through a grate into a dark bookstore. The sign on the front door stated: Sa ca. 10:00. This may be one of the first times an opening hours sign has made me laugh out loud. I looked at my watch and thought that 10:30 is approximately 10 AM. So where’s the dude? I looked down the street in each direction for any Japanese bookstore owners. None. I came back later in the afternoon, which could also be considered approximately 10 AM, I guess. Copped a bilingual atlas for Tokyo. Very expensive but I couldn’t find this particular one on the net so it must have been worth it. Or something like that.
I’m not sure whether these experiences made me feel more faux German or more real American (c) Wagner pizza commercial. But I did kind of expect these stores to be open and ready for business on a Saturday morning. Living next to the new, snazzy open til midnight Kaiser’s raises expectations.
Moti Mahal, Potsdamer Str. 98
Yamashina Japan Buchhandlung, Pestalozzistr. 67
I’m trying to think of something Berlin-related to recommend.
Baraka, expanded since the last time I was here, is still rocking tagines. I noticed a white person serving and couldn’t decide what I thought about that. I’ve read about people opening ethnic cuisine restaurants and having trouble getting authorization for non-Germans due to laws which require to prove that the job has some necessary component that a German cannot do. So I wondered whether a server position at Baraka would get the same treatment as a server position at Creperie Bretonne. Regardless, the food is still great and cheap. Bonus points: new floor seating areas and you no longer have to sit in the creepy yet charming cave section if you don’t want to. Lausitzer Platz 6.
The “raskal trippin” days were the height of my affair with blogging, I think. From here on out, it’s probably all downhill.
No time to blog with a newborn. No time to blog during 1L. Now that Mausi is a toddler and I’m on leave, I have… no wait I don’t really have any more hours in the day. I’ve already wasted a precious toddler-free morning on the net. Damn you, Facebook.
I started this blog thinking I’d be blogging through my year in Berlin. Except now, the year will only be a couple of months. No Berlinale, no Kreuzberg jazzt. All the links are probably outdated. It’s quite a travesty. I need to revamp and refocus. A new subtitle, maybe? My Trip to Japan or Healthcare: Where does it suck more? US or Canada or My toddler Mausi, the integrationskind or MILS(Mother in Law School): Do you actually have to show up to graduate? Either way, probably too convoluted to keep anyone’s interest. Not even mine.
ANYWAY
Some fresh to def new new links:
2009 African Blogger Conference in Nairobi, Kenya via Black Looks
German blogs I currently read: Blacks in NRW and BLACKprint
goldfish in a blender 