Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn

Strike of Doormen, Janitors & Supers Averted

April 21, 2010 admin

From the NY Times:

The owners of more than 3,200 apartment buildings in New York City reached an agreement on a new labor contract with the union that represents about 30,000 doormen, porters, janitors and building superintendents, averting a strike that was due to begin at 7 a.m. Wednesday.

The talks went right up to the midnight strike deadline, as they often have in the past, with the union resisting the owners’ demands for cuts in health care and other benefits. In the end, the owners agreed to a new four-year contract that includes a total pay increase of nearly 10 percent and no significant cuts in benefits for the workers, an official with the union, Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, said.

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

Traffic Calming on PPW Long Overdue

So says Eric McClure who runs Park Slope Neighbors

The plan for the bike lane includes a four-foot buffer, and there will be an eight-foot wide parking lane between the travel lane nearest the park and the buffer. So a pedestrian crossing Prospect Park West, with or without his or her dog, will only have to cross two lanes of traffic rather than three, and will have the 12 feet of pedestrian refuge between the travel lanes and the bike lane. Shorter crossings are safer.

I emailed Jeanine Ramirez, the NY1 reporter, last night, to provide her with some facts to counter the false and misleading information being put forth in the anonymous anti-bike lane flyer. I never heard back from her.

The claim that a growing number of residents are protesting the Prospect Park West traffic-calming plan is bunk. Park Slope Neighbors has more than 1300 signatures on a petition supporting traffic calming on PPW, including a two-way protected bike lane. The project is supported by Council Members Lander and Levin, Community Board Six, and the Park Slope Civic Council. It was announced more than a year ago.

Traffic calming on Prospect Park West, where cars routinely reach dangerous speeds well above the 30 mph limit, is long overdue.

Some Park Slopers Oppose PPW Bike Lane

April 20, 2010 admin 5 Comments

From NY 1 which also has a video on the topic:

A growing number of residents are protesting the city’s plan to install a bike lane in Park Slope. NY1’s Jeanine Ramirez filed the following report.

Bicyclists are not supposed to ride on the sidewalks along Prospect Park, but residents say they still do.

“I think absolutely essential that they get the bicyclists off the streets, off the sidewalks,” said Park Slope resident Cecil Bergen.

Cyclist John Cianciotta says he’s guilty of not obeying the rule.

“They hassle you if you ride on the sidewalk, but if you guys built a bike lane, I’d ride in the street,” he said.

Soon, Cianciotta will get his wish. The Department of Transportation plans to install a two-way bicycle lane along the park side of Prospect Park West by June.

While that makes many bikers happy, a growing number of residents oppose the plan.

“New York is a beautiful place and the only way to really enjoy it is on a bike,” said cyclist Shahnti O’Neill.

“They should definitely have a bike lane on Prospect Park West because it’s dangerous with the three lanes and the traffic comes so fast,” said cyclist Tony Reid.

“We’re shocked, we’re disturbed, and we’re worried,” countered resident Denise Walters.

Walters lives on Prospect Park West. She says she just learned about the proposed bicycle lane — and thinks it’s a safety hazard.

“I think pedestrians are going to have a more difficult time crossing the street with their dogs. They’ll have to cross the lane of traffic and then they’ll have to look both ways in the middle the street to make sure one of the bikes isn’t coming from either direction,” she said.

Those who live along Prospect Park West, and those who run the Poly Prep Day School there, say they haven’t been included in the decision making process.

“I live right on the park and didn’t know anything about it,” said resident Suzanna Douglas.

But the DOT says this has been three years in the making – starting with a request from the local community board. Community Board 6 says there’s been plenty of notice about planning meetings.

Continue reading Some Park Slopers Oppose PPW Bike Lane →

Food and Drink

Outdoor Drinking in the Slope

Brooklyn Based, a thrice-weekly e-newsletter about Brooklyn culture, has a great list of places to drink outdoors around Brooklyn. The following is their list of spots in Park Slope. To see the rest go to Brooklyn Based.

Mission Dolores: World’s most brilliant conversion of an auto shop. Big courtyard, 24 beers on tap, pinball, dogs. 249 Fourth Ave., no phone

Commonwealth: A neighborhoody bar with a good juke box and a sweet patio. 497 5th Ave., 718-768-2040

The Gate: An easy place to watch Park Slope stroll up and down 5th Avenue. Large patio, lots of beers. 321 5th Ave., 718-768-4329

Excelsior: Very cute back deck and garden, filled with cute gay men. (390 Fifth Ave., 718-832-1599) At Ginger’s, the lesbian bar near by, the garden is more spacious and the vibe more laid back. 363 5th Ave., 718-788-0924

O’Connors: Lovable dive with bottled beer, stiff drinks and a huge backyard that’s a relatively new addition to this north Slope staple. 39 5th Ave, 718-783-9721

arts and culture

Tom Martinez, Witness: 4/20 Day (East Village Mural)

4/20 or April 20th is National Weed Day. Legend has it that back in the 1970’s, a group of students at San Rafael High School, who became known as the “Waldos,” met everyday at 4:20 p.m. to smoke pot in front of a statue.

Over time 420 became a code for getting high. It was conjectured that 420 is a police code for marijuana use, but this is not true.

4/20 is now a counter-cultural holiday. There are many “smoke-outs” held on this day around the world in protest of current marijuana laws.

arts and culture

Tom Martinez, Witness: Coney Island Handball Action

Bklyn Bloggage: neighborhoods

Little League opening day parade: Gerritsen Beach

When hipsters meet Russians: Sheephead Bites

A spot for public space in Ditmas Park: Ditmas Park Blog

About the Huron Street kittens: NY Shitty

Ninja vandals in Williambsurg?: Free Williamsburg

Earth Day happenings in Ft. Greene: The Local

Whole Food site hit with stop work order: Pardon Me for Asking

8th Avenue hit and run: Fucked in Park Slope

The baller version of hell: Fucked in Park Slope

Free space this summer in Bed Stuy: Bed Stuy Blog

arts and culture

The National: Brooklyn Band Par Excellence

I hear a lot of a band called The National around the apartment because they’re one of my son’s favorite’s. They will be playing a benefit for Celebrate Brooklyn on Tuesday, July 27th at 6PM and they have a much awaited new album called High Violet coming out in May that has been leaked out slowly.

All of the band members live in Brooklyn. Matt Berninger, the band’s singer and lyricist, lives in Ditmas Park and he had this to say about the band’s Brooklyn roots: “I don’t know how much of the music scene here has to do with Brooklyn, other than the fact that there are so many venues and places to grow and learn and perform in front of a crowd,” he says. “There’s a big difference between writing music in your garage and standing up in front of a hostile room of people who don’t give a shit about you, and doing that over and over again until someone, somewhere, finally starts to care. If we weren’t in New York, music might have turned into a dad-rock hobby, something to do on weekends. But here, there’s always new and exciting stuff you want to chase.”

OKTB Film by Pops Corn: Richard Brody on Godard

In January, I rented Made In U.S.A., a Jean-Luc Godard film I had never seen. I watched it and loved it. I moved on to the special features and loved the insights, both personal and aesthetic, offered by Richard Brody, a New Yorker writer and editor who penned a biography of Godard, Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard. I bought the book later that month and began.

April is now half-over and I’ve finally completed the book. I could have read it faster for a number of reasons, but mostly I didn’t want it to end. Closing the book this morning was like ending a chapter of my life, like pulling away in the moving van. The last few weeks, I commuted with it through New York, like a sign, practically begging for someone to comment and join me in this world. I got nothing.

Nothing but an education. I have long admired Godard’s revolutionary cinema—his reckless abandon and theoretical challenges to standard filmmaking rules, his disregard for narrative construction and his inability to separate life from the cinema, as the title of the book suggests. Yet, I had much to learn. The seminal works–Breathless, Masculine Feminine and the entire 1960s—are covered brilliantly, but Brody applies the same detailed, thoughtful study of later Godard, demonstrating value and Godard’s growth as an artist, a concept generally refuted. Brody doesn’t buy into Godard being dispensable post-1968 because he understands the work. He nails that film critics—long thought to be the sector of the world who prop Godard up—are generally just as in the dark about his work as the uninitiated. And while the book is not a journey of the writer’s personal opinions about the artist’s work, Brody finds himself in the position of defending Godard’s work against disinterested dismissal and lack of critical comprehension (King Lear, In Praise of Love), and does so the way a scientist might prove a theory.

Understand cinema. Read the book. Watch the films. Everything you can find. Or the ones you’ve never seen. Or the ones you think you’ve seen, but are different to you now.

As Brody states in its final paragraph, the cinema will live on as long as Godard does, as long as his films do. And so it is that the cinema lives on at Cannes in a few weeks, where the latest film from one of the cinema’s true masters will premiere. The trailer for Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard; 2010):

Food and Drink

Undomesticated Brooklyn: Cooking Ennui

by Paula Bernstein

“Cooking ennui is an inevitable test of your character to which you must rise.”

At least that’s what my friend Beau, says. Beau cooks a full meal for his wife and kids every night and makes it seem effortless.

“What’s your secret?” I ask. “How do you manage to maintain your enthusiasm for cooking when it’s so routine? And how do you come up with something to cook every night?”

“The secret is pre-planning for easy predictability occasionally interrupted by novelty,” said Beau. “You’ve got to plan a handful of days at once, so you won’t have to think about it all too much. Then, most of those meals have to be things that are relatively easy and well-liked, so going on auto-pilot isn’t too taxing. Add one (relatively easy) thing you’ve been meaning to try (you may have to dig for this: another reason to subscribe to Fine Cooking) that keeps the week from seeming like endless repetition, and you’re good. time will pass and suddenly, you’ll find you’re over the hump. definitely takes deliberate planning and will, though.”

Of course, relatively easy is all relative. For me, it means taking out a bowl of cereal and pouring in milk! Maybe some fresh fruit to add some color.

With Beau as an inspiration, I’ve come up with the following ideas. Keep in mind that I don’t practice what I preach, so let me know if you have any ideas to add to my list:

Ten Tips for Easy Meal Planning:

1. Designate a “Meal Planning Day,” where you compile a list of recipes and ingredients you’ll need for the week. Try to pick at least one recipe that you can incorporate in several meals.

2. Keep your pantry, freezer and refrigerator organized so that you can cross-reference the ingredients needed for a recipe with what you have on hand. Plus, this way you’ll be sure to toss old stuff before it becomes rancid.

3. Plan for every night of the week (and lunch if you prepare that too). Try to mix it up so you don’t have pasta or red meat two nights in a row. Designate one night “Leftover Night.”

4. Create a recipe binder to organize recipes from magazines, friends, and family. We use a photo album to store favorite recipes and keep it handy in the kitchen

5. Rely on old favorites, but be sure to experiment with a new recipe at least once a week. Or else you’ll get bored fast.

6. For new recipes, rely on websites such as CookingLight.com, myrecipes.com or allrecipes.com where you can enter a particular ingredient (or a list of ingredients) and get recipe ideas.

7. When in doubt, just cook something. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Make the effort and it will be worth it.

8. Cheat with household gadgets like a rice cooker, a microwave and a crock pot to speed things up.

9. Cook in bulk and freeze individual portions.

10. Don’t feel bad about ordering in or going out to dinner every once in a while. You deserve it!

arts and culture

5th Annual Gathering of Brooklyn Bloggers on June 8th

April 20, 2010 admin 1 Comment

“Where better to take the pulse of this rapidly growing community of writers, thinkers and observers than the Brooklyn Blogfest?” ~ Sewell Chan, The New York Times

How many bloggers does it take to fill the Brooklyn Lyceum? Come find out on June 8 at 7:00 PM when the borough’s most opinionated and dedicated bloggers (and surprise special guests) step away from their keyboards to sound off about how and why Brooklyn remains such a rich source of material and inspiration.

But forget about filling the room. Here’s the real question the Brooklyn Blogfest will answer: How many bloggers does it take to wrap their arms around New York’s most happening borough? So, whether you are a blogger, wannablogger, reader, or media maven, you’ll want to come see for yourself. And meet up with this year’s most tenaciously keen tribe of bloggers as they gather to celebrate all the reasons Brooklyn is such a potent source of runaway creativity.

Since it was founded in 2005, the Brooklyn Blogfest has established itself as the nexus of creativity, talent, and insight among the blogosphere’s brightest lights. This year will be no different as a panel of blogging’s best disect the unique brand of entrepreneurial creativity flourishing here. Also on tap: a video tribute to Brooklyn’s most visionary photo bloggers, special networking sessions for like-minded bloggers (i.e. Blogs of a Feather), the return of the ever-popular Shout-out, when bloggers are invited to share their blogs with the world, and a roof-raising after-party with ABSOLUT® VODKA cocktails, food and music.

“The borough of Brooklyn has always been front and center in the world of blogging,” says Louise Crawford, founder of the Brooklyn Blogfest and onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.com. “Whether you live by a blog, blog to live, or live to blog, you’ll want to come out on June 8.”

FIFTH ANNUAL BROOKLYN BLOGFEST 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Doors Open at 6:30 PM
The Brooklyn Lyceum
227 Fourth Avenue at President Street in Park Slope Brooklyn
$10 ($5 for students and seniors)

The 2010 BROOKLYN BLOGFEST is sponsored by ABSOLUT® VODKA

Freddy’s Bar Moving to Park Slope’s 4th Avenue

It’s good bye Prospect Heights for Freddy’s Bar but hello to Fourth Avenue starting this summer. The Victory Party is on April 30th and the new place should be open by summer. I got this press release from the owner of Freddy’s this morning:

Freddy’s Bar is not closing, it’s moving.

We are presently in negotiations with a landlord who is not a billionaire at 4th Ave and Union Street.

We will be having a Victory party on April 30th to celebrate what the little guy has been able to do in fighting a billionaire and the corrupt government agency that he controls. We feel we have dealt fatal blows to Ratner’s organization. The nets will not be sold to an international criminal, because the NBA can’t afford to be associated with organized crime.

Freddy’s Bar is not giving up the fight, we stand in solidarity with Prokhorov’s sanctions-busting victims in Zimbabwe, and with the people of Yonkers who are paying the price for a Ratner bribery scandal. We will continuing to stand against the corruption that has dominated our lives for the last 7 years, and are looking forward to moving out from under this sword of Damocles.

Forest City Ratner will leave Brooklyn a thousand years before Freddy’s Bar does. . . they have missed mortgage payments on their Metrotech Center, and the Yonkers and Zimbabwe sanctions busting scandals are criminal acts. The question is will they run out of money first, or face prosecution first. I am sure that both will happen.

The move is about the employees, and the business. We’re little guys. We can’t run our business into the ground as Ratner has and still survive. We have a lot of mouths to feed and we are not billionaires. The move is strategic. Very soon “Freddy’s Next Bar” will be standing tall, and Ratner will be in rubble, with no stadium, and hopefully with justice and karma finding him. This is a guy who closed a family homeless shelter in the dead of winter.

In order to assure our capacity to keep Freddy’s alive in a another location, and keep people employed… we have to move the contents of the bar in a particular timely fashion to “Lock down’ the next space, and thus we will not be facing an eviction situation in which a protest by chaining ourselves could happen. The Chains (“The Chains of Justice”) have served their purpose…to raise awareness of corruption, and they will move with us, forever installed on that bar as a symbol of a united community and that community’s power for affecting change.

The owner of Freddy’s has had to consider those employed at Freddy’s as well as his own situation, needing employment and food on the table. He made a difficult decision to pull out in such a way as to keep the contents of the bar and move it into another location. If we wait for condemnation we might sacrifice too much. I can’t yet confirm the location since everything is moving very fast, and it is not locked down yet, but the area we are hoping to secure is on 4th Ave near Union Street.

We hope to open this new space as soon as possible, 2 or 3 months hopefully. The email address will not change… nor the web address.

Freddy’s has been the culmination of everything I am and everything I ever wanted in a bar.

I could not be prouder of Freddy’s, it’s community, and it’s accomplishments.

Freddy’s is not an address, it is an idea.

I’ll See you at “FREDDY’S NEXT BAR”…the first one is on me!

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

Bklyn Bloggage: civics

Councilman Noach gets promotion and raise: Brooklyn Paper

Is privatizing parks a good idea? Brooklyn Paper

Homeless services commissioner resigns: NY Times

New Yorkers brace for doorman strike: NY Times

Brooklyn’s volcano experts: McBrooklyn

arts and culture

OTBKB Music: Useful Lists and A Video

A couple of useful lists are waiting for you over at Now I’ve Hear Everything: music venues in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan (provided by radio station WFUV to celebrate the fact that with changes to their antenna, the station can now actually be heard in those places, including Park Slope) and a calendar for this week which highlights many good but conflicting performances.

If that’s not enough, how about a video of John Hiatt and his top notch band performing the title track from his new album, The Open Road?

–Eliot Wagner

What To Do With The Food Coop Profits

It’s a good problem to have. The Food Coop is making a ton of money — to the tune of $39 million a year, and profits of $500,000. So what should they do with the profits. Lower the prices, start other coops, give it away?

An article in Crains NY reports on this problem. Here’s an excerpt.

The first sign that Brooklyn’s Park Slope Food Coop is unlike any other supermarket in the city are the people milling outside wearing orange-and-yellow vests. Their task is to accompany shoppers on walks home with their groceries—and then return the shopping carts to the Union Street store.

It is a job that reflects the mission of the co-op to cultivate a sense of community, but it also helps solve a growing problem for the organization: finding enough stuff to do for the nearly 16,000 members who must work 2.75 hours for the co-op every four weeks in order to shop there.

Founded in 1973, the Park Slope co-op has grown so dramatically in recent years that it has been forced to limit the number of new members. Its balance sheet is so strong—the co-op paid off its mortgage in January—that general manager and founding member Joe Holtz wonders what to do with more than $500,000 in profits. Last year’s revenues were $39 million.

“If we continue to accumulate cash like this,” he says, “we’ll have to have a meeting and maybe lower our prices again.”

For the first time in its history, the co-op is confronting the fact that it can’t grow its physical space any more. It has purchased all of the available buildings in its path. If the weekend checkout lines get much longer, Linewaiters’ Gazette—the co-op’s aptly named newsletter—won’t be enough to keep shoppers amused.

“We’re pushing the capacity of the building,” says Mr. Holtz, who was the co-op’s first paid employee in 1975.

In trying to alleviate the pressure on the Park Slope store, longtime members like Mr. Holtz are now looking beyond Brooklyn to help other communities replicate their success.

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

arts and culture

Catherine Bohne’s Journey to Valbona

April 18, 2010 admin 2 Comments

Yesterday at the sale of Catherine Bohne’s personal book collection on 8th Avenue in Park Slope I learned why she is selling her books and where it is that she’s going.

I will share just a bit of the story now and will continue over the coming weeks. Think of it as an unfolding. The facts will be told as the facts are known.

What Catherine told me yesterday is that she has fallen in love with a new place and a new man. The place is Albania and Alfred is the name of the man.

It is a very romantic tale of one woman’s serendipitous adventure that led her to what she’d always wanted.

Last January, after eight exhausting and laborious years of running Park Slope’s beloved Community Bookstore, Catherine decided to take a vacation. Two weeks away. Some time to relax, explore and think. As someone who has always loved travel it seemed like a fine idea.

So she drank a bottle of red wine, talked to friends and eventually cashed in a pile of air miles and booked a ticket to Albania.

“When I was 11 years old, I was on a boat with my mother and father. The boat went past the most mysterious landscape I’ve ever seen and I wanted to get off the boat. I said “Dad – what’s THAT?” “That?” answered my father, “That’s Albania, Catherine. No one can go there,” she told me yesterday standing in front of her apartment building.

A little back story: Catherine’s mother is Italian/Croatian and her father is from Brooklyn. As a child she spent summers in Croatia and as a teenager she lived in Africa. “I have almost always felt more at home in the world, than at that home in the home where I’m supposed to belong, she writes on her blog.

Thirty years after that boat trip with her parents, Catherine got to Albania. Most of all she wanted to see Northern Albania, a very difficult place to travel to. “Why do you want to go there?” she was asked constantly by the Albanians she met on her journey.

They could not understand why this solo traveling American woman wanted to see Northern Albania. But as those who know Catherine will attest, she likes to do difficult things and she likes adventure. Not surprisingly, Catherine did her research and found out (from a travel blog) about the Hotel Relindja owned by a man named Alfred in place called Valbona.

On her long journey north through rural Albania, which included long rides on small buses and ferries, she would tell the people she met that she was looking for a man named Alfred.

Coincidentally (or fatefully) she met Alfred’s cousin on one of those small buses and when they arrived at their destination she introduced Catherine to her cousin. “He is tall and regal looking. Like a prince,” she told me. He speaks good English (after four years in England working at a German car factory), is in his mid-thirties and lives on his family’s farm.

Love. Destiny. Life on a small farm in Valbona.

But that’s not all. From the sounds of it, Alfred is the Catherine Bohne of Valbona. A man of the community, he is a trusted leader, a compassionate and helping person, a connector, a creative thinker.

Within days, Catherine was in love, helping Alfred on his rounds visiting neighbors and friends. She was learning Albanian. She was figuring out ways to make Valbona a tourist destination, which could be an economic engine for this impoverished and extraordinary region, which has little in the way of modern conveniences.

In the months since that first trip, Catherine has been back to Valbona more than once. She is planning to sell the bookstore, she is moving to Valbona for good and she started a website about travel to Valbona called Journey to Valbona. Here is an excerpt from one of her blog posts:

Like all smart children, I have always wanted to run away from home. Is this why my reason for traveling always seems to be to get away to somewhere? I mean get away but also to GET to somewhere. Be somewhere else. Perhaps be someone else. Live in a different world, but I mean live, not just visit. I don’t want to go: where there are lots of tourists, to generic resorts that could be anywhere, to places that make me feel like I’m in a frozen, pre-prepared, pre-packaged museum (though those can be amusing), or to places which have been somehow warped by the traffic of tourists. I do want to go: to places which are really real, to places of that particular joyful solemnity that accompanies true beauty, to places where I can wander and get lost, to places where I will learn something, to places which are quiet and to places where I can know and be known. I’m not very good at doing nothing, so I like joining in and lending a hand, being useful. My idea of “doing nothing” is writing and drawing and having adventures, so I also like places where I am free to wander around and where people will allow me to prove myself, and just laugh if I seem a bit eccentric.

arts and culture

The Sunday List: Blossoms, Bondu, Olesker, Indie Market

CHERRY BLOSSOMS:

They’re in bloom and you won’t want to miss them. Hanami is the Japanese cultural tradition of viewing and cherishing each moment of the cherry blossom season. At Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Hanami is a New York City “rite of spring.” You can stroll under a canopy of cherry trees, savor Japanese entrees at the Terrace Café.

FILM

Sunday, Apr 18 at 3, 6, 9pm at BAM: Boudu Saved from Drowning (Boudu sauvé des eaux) + A Day in the Country directed by Jean Renoir

THEATER:

Sunday 5:30 – 7PM at Proteus Gowanus: Shrink, a reading of a new play-in-progress by Lizzie Olesker, is inspired by the micro-universe of toy theater. Alice, of the traveling Tiny Universe Theater, faces another sleepless night as she waits for her teenage son to return home. And it’s the anniversary of her brother Joe’s disappearance 25 years ago. As Alice waits at the kitchen table, the seemingly random objects in her old touring suitcase shapeshift into a world that seems small enough to hold in her hand.

MUSIC

Sunday at 8PM at Barbes: Dean Olsher. Funked-up ragtime. This is the music Scott Joplin would have written had he lived to the age of 143. With Dean Olsher, bass clarinet and accordion; Brian Drye, trombone; Kurt Hoffman, tenor sax and clarinet; Meg Reichardt, guitar and vocal and Suzannah Scott-Moncrieff, viola.

SHOPPING

Sunday at 11AM: Brooklyn Indie Market. Peruse your favorite indie designers at this open market on Smith Street.

Current Weather in Park Slope

Brought to you by the Feldman Family from the Park Slope weather tower.

Smartmom

Smartmom is Suspicious of OSFO But She’s Only Meeting A Friend

A recent Saturday morning at 7:30, Smartmom woke to the sound of someone walking up and down the hallway.

“It’s a burglar,” Smartmom said aloud to her sleeping husband. “Omigod. Someone has broken into the apartment and he’s walking up and down the hall.”

Smartmom was too tired to get out of bed, even if burglars were, theoretically, making off with the family’s iBooks and cameras.

But instead of jumping up, she shook Hepcat awake.

“There’s a burglar in the house,” she said.

“Maybe it’s Teen Spirit,” Hepcat said.

“Teen Spirt,” Smartmom screamed. “Is that you?”

No answer. It was pretty unlikely anyway as he’d come home close to 3 am, and unless he wasn’t feeling well there was little chance he’d be up and around so early in the morning.

“Maybe it’s the Oh So Feisty One,” Hepcat said sleepily.

“OSFO!” Smartmom yelled. “OSFO!”

No answer and then:

“Yeah?” OSFO sounded irritable.

“Are you awake?” Smartmom said.

“Yup. I’m going out.”

OSFO was awake? That was a shock. She rarely gets up so early on a weekend morning. And almost never goes out at that time.

The adrenaline kicked in, and Smartmom was out of bed faster than a speeding mother. She stood in front of the bathroom door and listened to the sounds of OSFO blow-drying her hair.

“You’re going out?” “Yeah I’m meeting up with Kate. She just got back from her vacation.

Smartmom was smarting. Suspicion pulsed through her veins. Why would OSFO meeting up with Kate at 7:30 in morning? And why was she getting so dolled up?

When OSFO came out of the bathroom, Smartmom could smell the grapefruity body mist she’d bought her for her birthday.

It all seemed VERY STRANGE. What was her daughter up to?

“Are you really meeting up with Kate?” Smartmom asked firmly.

“Yes!” OSFO sounded simultaneously annoyed and insulted that Smartmom didn’t believe her.

“Really?” Smartmom tried again. To that OSFO slammed her bedroom door.

Smartmom didn’t know what to do. Was her daughter telling the truth or pulling a fast one? In a quandary, she went back to bed and told Hepcat.

“Huh? Meeting up with Kate? Now?” Hepcat sounded hazy. Clearly, he sounded suspicious, too, but not enough to get up and put his foot down. Then Smartmom heard OSFO walk to the front door.

“See you later. Bye,” OSFO said. Slam.

Smartmom ran to the front window. If OSFO is really going to Kate’s house, she’d walk towards Sixth Avenue. If she’s lying, and is on her way to an illicit rendezvous in Prospect Park or elsewhere, she’ll walk the other way. If that was the case, Smartmom decided she’d follow her little girl.

Smartmom, ready to be a maternal James Bond, waited for OSFO to walk through the front gate of their apartment building’s yard. She waited. And waited. And waited.

Then she heard the girls talking. She couldn’t see them from the window but she could tell that they were sitting on the front stoop.

OSFO really was meeting up with Kate. But what were they doing? Maybe they were plotting some illicit activity.

Smartmom ran to the intercom in the kitchen and pressed the listen button, which enables her to eavesdrop on conversations in the front yard.

“How was your vacation?” she heard OSFO say to Kate.

“Great,” Kate told her.

Smartmom felt very Harriet the Spy as she listened to their mumbled conversation, which was, truth be told, pretty boring.

Relieved, Smartmom got back into bed tired from her morning stint as a maternal detective. Then the front door opened.

“Hello,” she heard a low voice say.

Omigod, thought Smartmom. It’s another burglar or maybe OSFO. But why is she disguising her voice?

“Someone’s here,” Smartmom said to sleepy Hepcat, who just rolled over feigning sleep.

“Who’s there?” Smartmom shouted out.

“It’s me,” Diaper Diva responded. “I used my key to get in. I have to pick up my computer that I left here yesterday. I brought coffee.”

So, it was Diaper Diva. Not a burglar or OSFO disguising her voice at 8 am. A cup of coffee sounded great.

“Do you know what OSFO and Kate are doing downstairs?” Diaper Diva asked Smartmom.

Smartmom braced for the latest in adolescent girl misbehavior.

“They’re playing with their American Girl dolls. They’ve got about 8 of them lined up. They’re brushing and cutting their hair. Putting them in clothing.”

Smartmom was shocked. OSFO hadn’t played with her American Girl dolls in years. They still lived on a high shelf in her bedroom posing in their finery, but they weren’t high on the list of preferred activities for OSFO and her 13-year-old friends.

Smartmom ran to the window, pulled up the screen and saw for herself. OSFO and Kate were running a make-shift beauty salon for their American Girl dolls in the front yard.

There was Felicity, Josephina, Molly, Kim and all the others. Smartmom remembered how much those dolls used to mean to OSFO. She thought back to their many pilgrimages to the Manhattan store. Ah, how young OSFO was then (Smartmom was not younger). Ah, how OSFO (and Smartmom) loved playing with those dolls.

Smartmom didn’t know what to think. At this age, girls straddle childhood and adulthood. One minute you think they’re lost to social networking, Sephora and seventh-grade socializing, the next minute they’re clinging to their childhood imagination and brushing the hair of a beloved doll.

The whole thing gave Smartmom a bittersweet feeling. Maybe the demands of adolescence were sometimes just too much and it was a relief to return to playing with dolls.

What a complicated time of life. Even that early in the morning.

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

April 17, 2010 admin

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

April 16, 2010 admin

Lyceum Spring Food & Craft Market: Vendor of the Week

April 16, 2010 admin

OTBKB is a proud sponsor of the Lyceum Food and Craft Market on May 1 & 2, which will be a super duper show of artisanal crafts, food and workshops.

I’m looking forward to it myself and in anticipation I’m doing a shout-out of one vendor a week. This week my pick is: Andy Pratt Design. He makes journals, cards and other paper products and his work is fun and bold.

I love his new NYC journal (pictured at top of post) and I also like his sympathy card (above) because, y’know, a good sympathy card is hard to find — and more and more I need them. The illustration on the card is lovely, I’m pretty sure there’s no weird message on the inside, and I plan to buy a few.

Call for Bike Lane After Fatal Accident

April 16, 2010 admin

Transportation Alternatives is calling on the city to put a bike lane on Flatbush Avenue after an 18-year-old cyclist was dragged and killed by a driver there on Wednesday.

“[A Flatbush Avenue bike lane] is definitely something worth serious consideration,” Transportation Alternatives spokesman Wiley Norvell told the Brooklyn Paper. “It’s a dangerous street for bicyclists, pedestrians and motorists as well. It would definitely be a design challenge, but that’s what we have traffic engineers for.”

Norvell said a bike lane stretching from the tip of the Manhattan Bridge in Downtown all the way to the Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge in Marine Park would not only help calm traffic, but “link the borough together” for bicyclists.

“It’s a critical corridor — if it was made safe for cycling, it would be utterly transformative,” he said.