Back to Back weekends away... VT and NYC

Vermont. We went to my sister's home in Vermont (near Burlington) for Thanksgiving. One of our two other siblings came from Watertown, NY. All of our children (including my own 2+) were able to join us!

I did post two photos on Instagram.

My Vermont nieces and my own daughter on Wednesday night. Beautiful ladies. They have so much in common (those glasses! the love of each other!) We were at the Stone Corral, a Richmond VT hot spot... a "small-batch brewery on a horse farm offering limited hours at a tasting room in a barn".

Three Thanksgiving pies. I made the apple crumb. Not my best, but it was still good.

The weather was gloomy. It rained on Black Friday in VT. We all went shopping in little groups wandering through Burlington... Then we met as a larger group (11) to celebrate a birthday lunch (Mr K's) at a lovely Vermont-y local-food and brew restaurant, right downtown in Burlington.

We returned to our home in PA on Saturday, and that evening we had another family celebration with my brother (who lives local to me and did not make it to VT) and his entire family (one more niece and three nephews, two of whom live in NYC). Good fun!  

New York. The very next weekend, Mr K and I put our remodeling work on hold, once again, and went off to New York! I love that city only a 3-hour bus ride away!

We did so much and saw so much. I love that we also now have real New York people to visit. (A niece and nephew live in Riverdale. One of the VT nieces is studying in Brooklyn. And we have friends, our own age, who live part-time in a posh downtown apartment.)

[Dear Reader, I started writing this post over a month ago... I need to get it done!... I am sharing only a couple of my photos from New York. There will be a great many links for anyone who wants to see more.] 

Let's get this done!

We arrived at Port Authority around 10 AM on Friday, December 2.

It was not a very long walk (we passed Madison Square Garden and largest post office I have ever seen) to our hotel the Chelsea Courtyard Marriott... very nice.

After a bit of settling-in, we decided to walk to Rolf's for lunch... a longer walk than we expected. (We passed the Flatiron.) Rolf's is a German restaurant known for its over-the-top Christmas decorations. I did post my favorite photo on Instagram.

 
Rolf's decorates in October and un-decorates in May. It was quite a sight to see.

That afternoon, we visited the Whitney Museum of American Art with all of its thought-provoking exhibits and tremendous views. On the way back to our hotel we explored a bit of the High Line. 

Dinner with our nieces... after dinner drinks with our friends... And that was just the first day!

On Saturday, in between a couple of amazing meals, we went to Macy's for the window displays, and a bit of shopping. Later, along with our friends, we saw Exhibitionism: The Rolling Stones. From the website, "The Rolling Stones exhibit features over 500 Stones’ items with 50 years of Stones fashion, 190 original artworks, vintage instruments, interactive sound mixing desks and recording studio, a screening cinema with exclusive content, all culminating in a 3D concert finale." It was all that and more!  

We attended evening mass at St Patrick's Cathedral. And then (for the first time ever) I saw the lighted Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Dinner was at Rossini's.

(Home on the bus after a "downtown" Sunday brunch.)

[Dear Reader, Thanks for baring with me for this post. I just had to finish it. Next time there will be knitting!]   

A Spring Fling -- The Weather and The Rest

I was the one to name it a "Spring Fling".  I thought that giving a name to my trip to join my sister while she was in New York for business was part of the fun.  It was still hopelessly cold and snowy in the northeast when we began our plans.  I was certain that it would have to be (at least a little bit) warmer in New York in (early) Spring.

I was right.  It was a little bit warmer, but it was still cold and windy on the days we were there.

Turtle Pond, Central Park

My only photo from our walk through Central Park was of a frozen Turtle Pond.  I had told my sister that I had never spent much time in Central Park and that I would like to walk through it, and we did.  We walked on or near 79th Street and we made a stop at Belvedere Castle which (I learned from the next link) sits atop Vista Rock -- the highest point in Central Park.

From there, we walked to the yarn shop, Knitty City.  That space was smaller than I expected, but packed full of all the yarns you could imagine.  And there were books, and needles, and hooks and buttons, and trinkets, and more customers than I would have expected on a weekday afternoon... but that makes sense, if you think about it... NYC.   

A major highlight of our trip was to see the Broadway musical Kinky Boots.  It was all about "be who you are" and "accept other people for being who they are" and I found it very uplifting.  My sister had previously seen and liked the (not musical) movie.  The Tony award winning score was the solo work of Cyndi Lauper, and we all know that "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", and we did.

Of course we had a couple of fantastic dinners, and we found time to visit a few of the shops at Rockefeller Center.

On our last day, it was a bit warmer, but it rained in the afternoon.  We decided to spend the day at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.  The memorial fountains are spectacular.  Do you remember my post that included an aerial view?  There is still a lot of construction all around the site.

I thought that everything about the museum was well done.  Though we were in the museum for hours, there was no way we could see and read about everything.  Truthfully, it was incredibly overwhelming emotionally and I am not sure that I could have stayed longer.  Just two photos, because I had some issues with my camera that day.

I am already looking forward to my next trip to New York which will be in May.

A Spring Fling -- The Art

For the better part of three days during the week that followed the Spring Equinox, I was very lucky to join my sister while she was in New York on a business trip.

On Day 1 we were at the Guggenheim Museum, and I came home with these photos from that beautiful place.

 
It had been a good number of years since I last visited the "landmark" museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  The work of conceptual artist, On Kawara, was displayed throughout the central, spiraling part of the museum.  I won't try to describe On Kawara -- Silence.  Instead I will quote from the Guggenheim web page:  "Through radically restricted means, On Kawara’s work engages the personal and historical consciousness of place and time."  (That does sum it up very well in just one sentence.)

Day 2 (while my sister did her work thing) I walked to the Museum of Modern Art where I spent the morning trying to see as much as I could see.  It really was a lot!  I took pictures of a small fraction of what I saw.  Before starting to put this post together I realized that I did not know the names of much of what I photographed.  Happily, I did find some names at the MoMA website.

The Olive Trees ~ Vincent van Gogh, 1889

Bridge over the Riou ~ Andre Derain, 1906

The next three shots are from Making Music Modern: Design for Ear and Eye.  This was a bright and colorful exhibit that made me happy.

The medium used in Crowhurst is "gouache on gelatin silver print".  It is an image of "the 'Crowhurst yew,' located on the grounds of a twelfth–century church and said to be over four thousand years old."  The image was rather breathtaking, and I found that "four thousand year" thing kind of mind boggling.

Crowhurst ~ Tacita Dean, 2006

I liked this pairing of two works of conceptual art.  I am sorry that I am not able to give you any names on these.  I do remember enough facts about them to safely say that both involved life, death and mortality.  I don't want to get anything wrong, so it's probably best that I don't try to say more.

The "medium" for the last work, Sallim, is "steel frame, perforated metal plate, caster, aluminum venetian blinds, knitting yarn, acrylic mirror, IV stand, light bulbs, cable, electric fan, timer, garlic, dishes, hot pad, and scent emitter".

Sallim ~ Haegue Yang, 2009

The "knitting yarn" was actually a piece of crocheting.  All of the yarn ends floated gently in the breeze from the fan.

Sallim Detail ~ Haegue Yang, 2009

An interesting piece.  Of course I was intrigued by the yarn.  But the multi-layered meanings of everything put together were a bit beyond me, so I searched online and from this page I learned that "for her sculpture Sallim, Yang reproduces a full-scale model of her Berlin kitchen. Sallim (roughly translated from Korean as “running a household”) considers the noncommercial space of the kitchen as a site of preparation for action and the organization of life."

I did see a lot more, but this is enough for now.  (I need to get back to my kitchen or my knitting because there is work tomorrow.)  I love the way that modern art can give you a lot to think about.