Looking for an Answer, Trying to Find a Sign

The day of the famous eclipse - pictures shared with me from other states

This is about what I saw (above) when a kind stranger allowed us to look through her glasses on the street here in Brooklyn.  

Another shared photo from another state

You can see an eerie glow on these burgers from Black Forest. The light in Brooklyn wasn't life changing but it DID get us to focus (for about 45 long moments), while waiting for the magic to begin.  We sat outside at a booth facing the sun to reel in this spiritual awakening or whatever was supposed to happen.  Of course, when you talk about something for weeks, about how amazing it will be to 'see', it was impossible not to look up at least once.   We're sort of idiots when you break it down and did not come prepared with glasses.  

Like ordering these amazing grass fed burgers on Brioche buns from the German place that hand makes their own sausages. spaetzle and kraut.  Such a Hoosier move.  I make no excuses for my lameness, other than a burger sounded perfect.  

Yes, we'd love the booth next to the compost bins please

I'll Be There and You'll Be Near, That's the Deal My Dear

Black Forest Brooklyn Burger

When COVID's in the house, there will likely be take out food happening and this time was no exception.  Black Forest burgers came via a delivery app, a mistake if you want your food fast.  We try to avoid using the apps for the restaurant and because it can add too much time before that food hits your stomach, plus the cost.  Too much money goes to the app and the restaurants prefer us to go direct.  It's a crap-shoot though because as the restaurants are operating on less staff, managing more things, they've lost our order or simply forgot us a few times.  This place is literally on the corner, so these are all ridiculous problems.  

There is a man that is homeless who we befriended that likes to stand in front of this particular restaurant.  We call him Liberty.  He grew up in the housing near here and has amazing stories to tell when he gets to feeling talkative.  He's not above asking you for a few bucks after the conversation.  I've tried giving him food, but he's rejected most of my offerings.  He wants money for alcohol.  One time I told him I'd get him anything in the market.  He wanted a sandwich which they don't sell, so I bought him bread, cheese and cold meat to make several sandwiches.  He got upset and said, what the hell am I gonna do with this!?  That's the day I stopped looking at him like a homeless guy and more a personal character in the neighborhood to get to know.  I often thought, back when we were sick as dogs in 2020, if we just knew his number, because yes, he does carry a cell phone, he could bring the food and we'd give him the money and it would arrive hot and fast.  This could be a direct community outreach solve but I'm pretty sure he's not interested in working anymore, and just needs money to get drunk, which would make him unreliable for any real commitment.    

Introduce Your Heart to Mine

Intensely deep flavored French Onion Soup - Broth to die for!

Valentine's Day Black Forest Brooklyn Take Out - House made sausages over apple and wine-brined sauerkraut and roasted garlic mashed potatoes.  Chicken Brat basket below.

Valentine's Day is a bogus holiday and it's origins are vague, so I don't buy in, necessarily.  But as an excuse to order take out and try to make an impromptu party, I'm all for it.  Party of course is stretching the word a bit but I did find an amazing thriller-crime series called The Outsider based on Stephen King's novel with Ben Mendelsohn and Jason Bateman, that we binged and loved.  

Romance isn't something you can create by lighting a candle or handing a bunch of red flowers to your mate.  It's elusive and mysterious.  But you can celebrate your bond with your mate and friends, which is a healthier way to interpret this holiday.  Being in love with life services your mates and palentines more than anything and it's also a gift to give yourself because we must first put on our own oxygen mask before we could help anyone.  

 

Loving You Has Gotten Weird

A low key day off, it was morning and I was still in the bedroom lounging around.  I heard a song end, then a loud crack, like wood splitting coming from the living room and then a low 'oh shit....(pause).... oh no'.  I ran in and P had cracked his Martin guitar, the one I gave him for his 40th birthday.  The Mahogany wood splintered and dented, somehow he'd bumped it between his leg and the arm of a chair.  He turned it towards me to expose the injury and it was like looking at a bone sticking out of a wounded person at a car accident.   I was going to touch it and he flinched as if it was going to hurt.  I pulled back my hand.  Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!  What happened, I asked.  It was a simple accident but one that somehow had never happened in all these years and he's not one to take good care of his things.  I felt the devastation, so I suggested a long walk to ease the anxiety.  We landed at the corner biergarten, where we talked about the guitar as if we were giving it a wake.  How special it was and how he'd rode with it on his back several winters to record at a friend's in sub-zero weather, took it to play in Europe, featured it in movies.  How it had been through so much.  

He got his favorite Guinness and I ordered a just baked giant pretzel with mustard.  As all the great stories came out about the history of the guitar, the mood lightened and we ended by ordering this amazing sampler plate of 4 different sausages, fries, sauerkraut braised in apple cider, spicy kale and German potato salad.  

This was the first day of the Vaccine Card Mandate in restaurants.  When we walked in, the first moments were awkward, feeling like a wild west gun shootout where every man has his gun pointed at the other.  We stood circling each other, P not realizing he didn't have his mask on, me struggling to find my card.  Apparently, our sudden appearance gave the waiter anxiety.  We were just wondering if we wanted to eat inside or out not realizing the new protocol.  They treated us like lepers.  The waiter said, I need to see your vaccine cards and as I was trying to signal P to put on his mask while finding my card I hear the bartender yell, 'you aren't allowed to eat inside without a Vaccine Card!'.  The place had one patron and it's huge.  Usually this would be enough to send me eff-you'ing right outta that place but we got ourselves together and presented the cards that look like something you'd get from a bubble gum machine and after that we were told, rather coldly, that everything was app only.  As I held the laminated QR code handed to me in a little metal holder, I tried not to let it spoil the little ritual we had going on ourselves. 

When the waitress came to clear the beer glass, P asked for another and she said, you can't tell me, you have to order it on the app.  Yesterday this place was booming with business, inside and out, waitresses and waiters alike running around serving the multitudes.  They even have tents set up in the courtyard and are so full I can barely walk my bike through the sidewalk coming home from work.  Today we don't even get to talk to them and the bill seemed much higher.  We paid on-line and left without any acknowledgement.  The food was great though.  This place has proved time and time again that it does not deserve our love, but we keep going back because it's close, the food can be delicious and they serve a particular type of Guinness that P loves.  

Days later, cleverly placed wood glue and you can barely see the break.

I Do Believe I've Had Enough

Black Forest Brooklyn 4th of July bag of treats!

Yeah, well we've had fireworks for weeks nightly here in Brooklyn and I for one am all done with that noise.  The shots heard out of the blue that sent me scrambling to the window constantly to make sure someone isn't laying dead on the street.  No thank you.  So the 4th of July although a day of celebration would be super low key for us.  Take out from our corner German Biergarten seemed appropriate mainly due to their menu being the closest relation to grilled hot dogs we could find.  Plus they're so delicious!

House made pretzel with mustard dipping sauce

What the visual display lacked, we made up in this amazing sampling of all their sausages, Spicy Citrus Kale, fries and a nice warm giant pretzel to dip in hot mustard.  Watermelon not shown but was there cubed and juicy!  Contrary to popular media belief, Liberals love America too!

A box of small fries - I wonder how big is the large!

The amazing Spicy Citrus Kale

A box of sausages!!!

Now's the Time that We Need to Share

One interesting thing about online ordering is that you can make a good cheap meal from the ala carte menu.  Spicy Citrus Kale, sausages and fries supplemented with my leftover quinoa salad and watermelon was the variety and taste sensation I craved.

Plus P was able to enjoy a growler, I get a cool bottle and we support a neighborhood business.  Everybody wins.

She Talks to Angels

Reopening of Lean Crust Pizza

box of fries

My husband makes short films with his brother and because I work for free, and am handy, sometimes I get a role.  Most times left on the cutting room floor, I've long since stopped taking it personally but I always take it seriously.  Today I played the lonely, Purgatory angel who's guiding a drunken dead man home.  How fun to act, let go and be free to be someone else.  Also, since I've been into this shedding of the ego concept and living through consciousness (even though I know that sounds so pretentious and smells of patchouli oil), it's hard to ignore that amazing center that we truly are when we can shed our preconceived notions of a set personality and put on another just like a new pair of shoes.  There are difficulties, because of course nothing is that simple otherwise we'd all be living in Nirvana.  You still need to use your mind as a tool to come up with the improv dialogue but have to be careful not to allow it to attach history and beliefs around those thoughts.  Maybe wanting to help, it keeps trying to remind you that you're embarrassed or at times takes over your eyes, blocking your act like a little sister. Acting is such a freeing mental exercise and I wish I would have been into it earlier in life, I probably could have saved myself some headaches.  In the 80's I did have a short stint singing in bands and playing guitar, becoming an alter-ego but she ended up being even dumber than I was and had no conception of boundaries, so I had to ditch her before she got me killed. 

fresh made salad

P tasked me with being enchanting, angelic and curious for the role and of course that is the absolute last thing I probably feel like after these last two months but was excited to get there because that's exactly how I want to be.

A Growler of Köstritzer Schwarzbier

The set up was extensive so I was able to sit in my trailer (bed) and await the craft service which was to be pizza slices from the just partially reopened Lean Crust Pizza later.  And because it was a wrap on this particular scene, P treated himself to a local German take out Growler from Black Forest Brooklyn and I get to keep the cool bottle. 

Baby, I'm in the Mood for You

I hate the term date night because it smells of desperation and pathetic attempts to connect.  In reality, sometimes you just go out together and it does feels like a stranger because some effort is made.  But unlike a date, there is no stress.  You can't screw this up, they already love you and have accepted most flaws.    He pays, and you talk to each other differently then you do when you're home.  There are no computers, books, TVs, phones to distract so its sort of surprising how much there is to talk about or how funny you each can be.  And attractive!  It's really good to see your mate in a different light once in awhile and to be seen.  Mainly though a public setting forces you to act awake and be your better self.  To listen and respond. You'd be shocked how 29 years can make a man deaf to the tone of your voice.  Or how many times both of us have talked to the other one when they've had their headphones in and didn't hear.  That's a super depressing modern reality.  It's no one's fault but I think a great remedy is to make a point to tune in once in awhile.  But regardless of all of that, what a treat it is to eat great food and not have to cook or clean up! 

Take My Hand, We're Off to Never Neverland

Stuffed Japanese Yams

Fall is as pretty as spring and just as fleeting.  I thought it was starting very late but it turns out the first week of November is right on time for this area.  After all the leaves fall off the trees in the coming months, this colorful time feels like a dream.  Not my dreams mind you.  My dreams are creepy and dark.  I have many a recurring and some are for the books.  I have a house that lives somewhere in my slumbered mind complete with back rooms that keep going for blocks in every direction.  There is a blocked off entrance to separate this desolate area of the never ending building complete with furnished bedrooms, kitchens, offices, hallways, windows that look out onto empty space all interconnecting and endless in every direction.  After some wandering, there is often evidence of someone lurking there suddenly and then it becomes a rush to find my way back through the maze, running frantically back to the safety of the living room of my first apartment in my mom and dad's house.  I might stop in a bedroom with the feeling of someone living there that is loving and I'll feel momentarily protected. Doilies on the nightstand, a cigarette burning in the ashtray.  Signs that person was just there but we never pass.  Sometimes I see a barely visible shadow just out of the corner of my eye.  Last night, I never made it out of that living room or through the boarded up entrance.  Instead the normally still space itself turned into a wet carpeted, feces filled disgusting room that I had to maneuver through. There were mic stands and lots of coiled wires.  How did it get this way?  I remember thinking I knew it was getting bad but didn't realize how much.  But apparently this was not the plot.  The dream was centered around the fact that the neighbors who are my real neighbors here in Brooklyn, rented the downstairs of my family's second home on Webster Street, the one with the bizarre portal entrance.  They came home and found me asleep on the floor in one of their rooms, which was actually my mom and dad's bedroom at one point in real life.  When I awoke still in the dream, I was also very surprised to be downstairs and not in my own flat upstairs.  I was on the floor between the dresser and the bed.  That back room had it's own entrance and was often very cold as it was right then laying on the floor.  Cold like winter.  I heard them talking about me in the other room and the wife asking if this has ever happened before to her husband.  All the while I pretended to stay asleep because I was embarrassed to be there.  Then when no one was looking, I crept up the back stairwell to my own bed where P was awake and I had to tell him the story that I didn't even understand myself.  But not before walking through that horrible, revolting, stinky living room again. 

For breakfast we went to eat at Black Forest Brooklyn, hoping to have bit of a celebration seeing as P got a new job.  We had fun but were starving and my plate came about 10 minutes after P's and not before we had to beg the inexperienced but friendly waiter for it.  In the end, it was mediocre and we know better than to keep expecting excellence from this place but it's a few doors down and we like close.  They have great coffee.

But for dinner I matched the Fall colors with these stuffed Japanese yams and sweet potatoes.

Are You Alright? Just Tell Me That You're Okay.

Champignons Im Bierteig and homemade aioli.

So good.  Even better because they were unexpected.  While going to the corner market to get vegetables for dinner I whisked P into Black Forest Brooklyn Biergarten for a quick pint of Guinness and a snack.  People talk about dating their spouse.  I suppose they call it that to try to make it sound fresh, but I really can't stand silly notions or pronounced romance. But it's actually really helpful for both parties to spend time as you would with a stranger.  When you're across. facing each other, in an outside setting, you witness all in a very different light. They also grasp that you aren't just some apparition.  That you are conscious, not an unaffected drone slash roommate.  You can have a real conversation and be sincerely interesting. You remind them and yourself what it is you originally saw in each other that made you coo, way back when but now it's even better because you knocked all the stupid out of one another.  When you're in your home it can be easy to be dismissive especially when you don't have pants on or you resemble Phyllis Diller and Foster Brooks. Easy to slide into your computer haze or text chats and ignore the real live person in front of you.  Sometimes I need to be seen and recognized as not just some crazed sweaty tired lady but a funny magnetic person that can tell a joke and finish a sentence. I also want to see my mate with real shoes on and a shirt that isn't covered in cat hair.

So Many Things I Would Have Done But Clouds Got In My Way

Brunch at Black Forest Brooklyn

This was one of those severely clear afternoons.  Everything was super bright.  You could say the day was gorgeous.  Cool enough for a light jacket and the clouds didn't let the sun burn ya.

It's kind of nuts how much more you can do so easily when the weather changes. A ride out to go repark the car is a breeze and stopping to eat a quick brunch on the corner is no big shakes. A reroute to simply look at a park or check out the water, make a short video along the way, take some photos, feed some cats, all so effortless.  In the winter these things feel so distance and foreign.  I ride my bike all year but only as a means to get to work.  To think of doing it for pleasure again is something I can't yet wrap my brain around.