Tag: Upstate New York

  • Apple Pickin’

    This past weekend, we took part in our annual tradition of going apple picking! I dusted off my red and black flannel shirt because there was a chill in the air, and I had a need to the great taste of crisp ripe apples!

    We started apple picking when the kid was two, and my folks came up to visit us in October 2017. My parents were here to see us, especially to see their granddaughter, and my Ma wanted to experience a New England Autumn. My wife was the one who came up with the idea of apple picking, and it was great Fall activity. It was cool out, slight mist in the air, leaves were changing, and it was something that my parents had never experienced before. Me as well.

    After that, on the first of second weekend in October, we head up into the Hudson Valley for an orchard to spend the morning weaving between trees, picking away.

    This year, I had been looking forward to this more than anything. Part of it is that Autumn has been late in arriving up here. Seems like two weeks ago, we still had the air conditioners on dealing with several days of 80 degrees. But Fall did arrive, and like magic the leaves started changing, temps cooled, and we even got a little rain. Driving up out of the City, it was rejuvenating to feel that the season had started changing. For me, Summer is oppressive while Autumn is liberating.

    This year, as the season was changing, there were other changes too. The apple picking was fine, we all had a good time. But as I looked around the orchard at all of the other families out there with their little kids, I noticed that my daughter was one of the older children out there. I was sort of amazed that there were no teenagers; Like almost none. And the few that were there looked like they wanted to die. I know that apple picking is a cheesy cliche thing to do in Fall, and when I looked over at my kid, who was having a good time, it was apparent that I have a limited time left to do this stuff with her.

    Things will change, as they always do. It will be sad when the day comes and she doesn’t want to do this stuff anymore, but it’s also normal for her to get older and not want to do the old things anymore. Maybe she’ll prove me wrong. I know that she’ll still want to apple pies that her mother makes after these outings. That part won’t change.

  • Need to Get Outta Here

    Need to Get Outta Here

    I have been feeling a little stir-crazy in the apartment of late. Spring has arrived, we even had two days of Summer, and with the windows open, warmer weather, and everything turning green, being in the City all the time has started to feel like a drag. It’s time to do some travelling and see something new. Well… newish would also work.

    We are fortunate enough to have a car, and during the Pandemic, it was a lifeline as it allowed us to get out of New York, and see green spaces, or spaces that had no people so we could spread out. We even went through, what we can now define as, our hiking phase which took us all over the Tri-State area. But the wife has a back injury, so hiking has taking a backburner role in our life, at least until the wife gets her full mobility back. Yet, with the car, we can travel in the realm of day trips.

    That’s where I am at right now. I’m a bit anxious to get in the car and just drive up along the Hudson, and look at antiques. Maybe even a charming café would be nice. I won’t say no to a craft brewery, as I am a man of that age, and the wife can drive home.

    But what I really want is to just go. To move, get action, sully on to someplace. To be in motion and not feel static.  

  • Apple Pickin’

    Apple picking is hokey, corny, and a sad excuse for city people to play farmer. We drive way out to the country to go to a “farm” and then pay to pick apples, which half of them will rot in our homes as we try to figure out what to do with 10 lbs. of apples.

    I have a fraught relationship with apple picking, but after nine years of it, I have come to love this part of our Fall tradition.

    The first time I went a’pickin’ was when the kid was a baby, and the “farm” was this almost amusement-park-of-a-place why out in the sticks of New Jersey. It took like thirty minutes to get into the place, the parking was so bad. The line for tickets was long, and then when you got in the joint, all the trees had been picked over. (There were pony rides!) And leaving the place took an hour. It was like leaving a rock concert, but with way more produce. I felt silly being there, like I was being conned.

    The next time I went was when my parents came to visit New York, and were staying upstate, as they were traveling in a motorhome. My wonderful wife found an orchard not too far from where my folks were staying. That was a way more enjoyable experience. It wasn’t crowded, lots of apples, a large orchard to wander around, and most importantly, the kid had a good time. With the exception of the Covid Years, we have gone back to the apple farm year after year.

    And as each year goes by, I start looking forward to it, more and more. It has become our tradition, and an activity that we can yardstick our year, and also gage how much the kid has grown and changed. It’s also the gateway into Autumn for us, as the drive takes us out of the City and into the woods of small town upstate. The changing leaves, and Halloween decorations sprinkled about every corner. Maybe it wasn’t as cool as it was last year, and the leaves were more yellow than any other color… but Fall had arrived for our family.

    Which also included the dog.

    (The dog was totes ready for some apple pickin’)

  • Personal Review: Arcadia by Lauren Groff

    (Spoilers, I think. I’m writing this now, but it might change.)

    I got Arcadia as a Christmas gift back in 2015, and then never read it. I want to believe that I am normal in that regard; that I receive books as gifts, and then never get around to reading them… for like a decade. In my effort to catch up on my reading, I made the time for Laruen Groff’s book. As I am a fan of her short stories, I was looking forward to reading one of her novels.

    Arcadia is about a guy named Bit, and the novel follows him through his life; childhood, adolescents, and adulthood. Bit’s real name is Ridley, but when he is born to his hippie parents, he is a very small baby, and is nicknamed “Bit” because he is “Little Bit of a Hippie.” His parents are part of a hippie commune on a sprawling, but neglected, upstate New York estate, Arcadia, which the commune is in the process of repairing and repurposing. This is the first section of the book, and it establishes the dynamic between the community, leadership, and family life for Bit, and the community as a whole. The next section of the book deals with the Arcadia, and the second wave of people who want to join the commune. Here we find Bit in his adolescence, experiencing love and sex, and the pressures from his parents to behave and act in support of their desires and goals. Inevitable, all of this leads to the breakup of the commune, and Bit’s family escapes to New York City. And though there are several sections, the book moves into the third part, which is Bit’s adulthood, and the creation of his own family.

    I will say this, the first section does go on. It is laying the groundwork for this novel, and it does pay off in the end, but getting through it did feel taxing at times. What we are getting in this section is seeing this world through Bit’s eyes, and his not fully understanding what is happening. We see the dynamic between his parents, Abe and Hannah. We see Hannah’s bouts of depression, and her inability for a time to get out of bed. We also learn about Bit’s empathetic nature, his desire to care for others as he is taken in by the women who handle the childbirth in the commune. Arcadia is a magical world to Bit, yet Bit also thinks the whole world is like Arcadia. It’s an innocence that we know is doomed to conflict with reality eventually. This point is made with the end of the section as Abe falls off the roof of Arcadia house, breaking his back, and leaving him in a wheelchair. I respect the point that Groff was trying to make, but I didn’t like the way it was executed. Abe’s accident is treated like a button to end the section, like a dramatic trick to get the reader hooked to move on to the next section. It felt odd against the flow of the prose and the telling of the story.

    With this ground work completed, and Bit entering adolescence, he begins to view Arcadia differently. He starts to notice the divisions between adults, the hypocrisy of the commune, and even his parents lack of commitment to the commune’s ideals. This is when the novel starts to pick up. A plot is laid out, actions are taken, and Bit starts to develop into a rounded character. We are also given Helle, the daughter of the commune’s leader, and the girl that Bit is in love with. She is a troubled girl, and more than just a free spirit, she wants to run as close to the razor’s edge as possible. She is destructive, and Bit’s attraction to her is understandable; he thinks he can save her. The commune is now being inundated with new arrivals, runaways and burnouts, who aren’t interested in the communal living so much as being away from society. As I said before, this all culminates with the commune breaking apart, but what I found very interesting was how the nearby Amish community stops by. In a sense, the Amish are an older version of Arcadia, but on the opposite end of the spectrum – ridged, disciplined, and closed off. The Amish hang on the edges, as if saying there is a way to make this work, but it is work, and not sex/drugs fun. The world does come crashing in, and when that happens, this book tells us the only people you can count on is your family, ideals be damned.

    And we jump to 2018, which was the “future” when this book was published. Bit is now an adult, having been living in New York City since the fall of Arcadia. He is a photography professor at a NYC college, and father to a daughter, Grete, whose mother is Helle. It is explained that Bit and Helle reconnected later in life, and though she tried, Helle cannot change who she is, and continues her destructive ways; she up and leaves Bit and Grete, and is never seen again. I want to give credit to Lauren Groff here. I think every other writer on the planet would have had Helle come back at the end of this book, to have some sort of reconnection or closure. I loved that this book has shit happen to people, it doesn’t make sense, and they have to deal with it. Bit and Grete have to be hurt, and learn from it, and move on, but that doesn’t mean the hurt goes away, or doesn’t stop affecting them years later. It was an honesty that I wasn’t expecting in this story, but was so grateful that it was there.

    I say this because the climax of the novel is Hannah’s slow death. It is handled with a brutal honesty and also with a poetic melancholy, which mixed together in an authenticity that was wonderful and difficult to read. Watching the person you loved first in life, slowly waste away, and become the shadow of themselves is one of the cruelest acts in life. The pain is immeasurable, deep, and crushing, and all of that is shown here. It made me have flashbacks to my mother in her final days in hospice; it was so painful, but I wanted to be there for her, so she wouldn’t be alone in her final moments. I sympathized with Bit, and I saw how all the events and experiences he had been through had prepared him for that moment with Hannah. It wasn’t surprising that Bit crawled into bed and didn’t get out after Hannah passed away. And it also wasn’t surprising that Bit pulled himself out of that bed after a week. After everything he had been through, I knew he could handle this. He was hurt and wounded, but his family did prepare him for this world.

    But, the real reason why I loved this book, was Groff’s prose. I have been trying to find a way to describe it, but the world I keep falling back on is poetic. Every word feels deliberate, contemplated, and purposeful. Maybe the plot/narrative had a few minor issues, but the prose, the language, was impeccable. It captured a feeling of the commune, but also of an idealism and connection to nature, and between the characters, which was so vital to the emotional development of Bit. Yet, the language also evolved with Bit as he grew, never staying stagnant. It is an impressive accomplishment in writing.

    I’m embarrassed that I waited so long to read this book. I’m also embarrassed at how impatient I am with novels. I want stories to get going NOW! I have forgotten that a good novel needs time, which might be one of the most obviously naïve things that I have said in a while. Clearly I needed to be reminded. This story took it’s time to create the journey it’s characters needed to take; one that allowed them to grow, become better versions of themselves. And the ideal society we need is the one we create with our family, and the friends we keep. Who we let in, and who we choose to love.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Apple Picking, I Like Teams that Frustrate Me, and Halloween Costumes

    (By Mennen!)

    It’s Fall, which means apple picking. This is the one stupid Autumn tradition we have that I cannot quit. It’s… it’s just dumb. We go to a farm and pay the farmer to go out and harvest his crop for him. It feels like such a con, but damn do I love doing it. And we do take it too seriously. We’ll get up at the crack of dawn and drive way out to a farm in upstate New York, so we can be the first people there. And we’re gun’na buy a pumpkin too, maybe pickles as well, because I think we did that last time. The dog will be with us, and we’ll wander around the orchard, picking, then sampling apples, and if they don’t meet our standards, we’ll toss the half-eaten fruit on the ground, like some inconsiderate Patrician. Then for a week afterward, we’ll find a way to work apples into every meal. But the wife will make a really great apple pie, so that does make it worth it. It is a little bit of a cliché thing to do, but aren’t stupid traditions the ones we love the most?

    Oh, I sure know how to pick sports teams that end up confounding and frustrating me. I will say this, Tottenham accomplished the bare minimum in their Champions League Group match against Frankfurt – They didn’t lose. At the half way point in the group stage matches, Spurs are in second place with four points, so they are not out of the woods, and could still blow this. And that is the thing with this team – they still don’t seem to have found their groove. The Kane/Son duo still hasn’t shown up this season, and I think without that threat up front, it gives opponents the confidence to try added pressure against Tottenham’s back line, especially in the final ten minutes. And this Saturday will be another test against upstart Brighton, who is in fourth place behind Tottenham in the Premiere League. With only a month left to go before the World Cup break in November, Conte has to get this club into some cohesive championship form. The goal this season wasn’t to just be good, it was to win trophies.

    And, I spent two hours this morning searching and ordering a Hermione Granger costume for my daughter. Not that tie and robes boarding school stuff, no sir! She wants a very specific version of Hermione from a certain scene from a movie. I didn’t mean to, but I think I am teaching my daughter how to Cosplay.

    (Don’t forget! If you are enjoying this blog, please be kind and give a like, share, comment, or even start following! It would help my case to the wife why I need to stay in my pajamas on the sofa all morning writing this stuff.)