Cardinal neighbors

 One of the features of my new apartment, which is on the ground floor, is that the back door gives out on a garden with a couple of trees and some benches. I have not been using it this summer because of the heat and because the vegetation is overgrown and harbors mosquitos, but I expect that will change as the weather eventually cools down. Some of my bird neighbors are a family of cardinals. I heard a thumping noise coming from the kitchen and saw that a bird was bashing into the window. I was worried that it was not seeing the glass but when I approached, it flew away. There are bars on the window so it seemed odd that a bird would fly into it. A few days later it happened again. The bird was knocking on my window! I realized it was a female cardinal. A while later I met my landlord for the first time when he came down to mow some of the tall grass. I told him about the bird knocking and he said that this is because one of the tenants used to feed them, and that he himself gives them a nut every morning. I put some granola out and it got eaten but it didn't seem attractive to the cardinal pair. I had better luck with sunflower seeds--I threw a handful out and got to see the pair come down and eat them. I also saw a neighborhood cat try to sneak up on them. Apparently the back yard fence is referred to as the cat superhighway. I haven't heard the birds knocking on the window again but I also don't give them sunflower seeds every day. I did see that a juvenile was with them begging to be fed. I just put out some more seeds and heard their distinctive food chirps. Sure enough, the dad cardinal and one of the babies were out there eating, and the baby was being super-annoying and begging even though it was perfectly capable of eating the seeds off the ground. I"m glad to have cardinals as neighbors here because there were always cardinals near my home in Minnesota and I missed them in Berkeley.

Vintage shopping

 Today is Sunday and my anticipated excursion was to hop on the L and then walk to a couple of vintage shops on 3rd Ave not far from the L stop. But when I got on the L, it said it was only going to Myrtle Ave so I had to change my plan quick. I got off at Myrtle-Wycoff and got on the M that took me to the Lower East Side near the Metrograph and then walked about 30 (short) blocks up to 3rd and 22nd to the vintage shops I had mapped. I was looking for a couch or other living room furniture. The stores only had a few items, and none of the couches I saw would fit or were worthwhile. So I got to see what was in the stores and I got in a long walk. I took the 6 and then the J back. The day was hot and humid and while I was standing in the station waiting for the J I was literally bathed in sweat, completely wet. I had bought a bottle of water so I didn't pass out from dehydration but it wasn't the most fun. Accomplished: left the house and checked out the stores, had a long walk. Did not find a sofa. I need to check the Reuse America site every day.

Came home and finished binge-watching  Partner Track which was a very entertaining romance set in Manhattan law firms with a Korean-American lead and a focus on racism in the workplace. The main character has two love interests who are both white but the audience ships her with the Asian character Z and I can definitely see them getting a story in season 2.

Macosa Trattoria

 After several days of hibernating sluggishly, even though it's no longer in the 90s, I took a long walk to an Italian restaurant in Bed-Stuy: Trattoria Macosa. They were serving a limited lunch menu, so I couldn't get the papardelle with oxtail ragu, but we shared a burrata with peaches and ripe tomatoes, arancino with a spicy sauce, and chicken livers sautéed and served on crostini. For dessert we had a Crenshaw melon granita. I had a Negroni with prosecco. It was just enough food and everything was good. The owner who waited on us was very talkative and friendly, and we got stories about a transformative experience of being waited on kindly in a diner. I'll gladly go back in the evening to try their pasta. It's good to have an Italian place in the greater neighborhood.

Rosemary brought me up to date on her good fortune in her work life, and is off to spend the weekend in a big house with a pool in New Jersey. I walked to and from the restaurant--45 minutes each way. A challenge for my sluggish bod, but I did it and the rain was not too bothersome with my umbrella. Now it's raining harder and humid, but I'm cozy in my armchair with my fan.

In news from Berkeley, one of the two peregrine falcons I watched grow up and fledge, the female chick Lindsay,  was found dead on campus. Apparently the survival rate for falcons in their first year is not high. She might have been attacked by some hawks who have a nest in the area where she was found.  She was beautiful:

Aleppo pepper foiund at Sahadi's

Today I met my friend an we went to lunch at a Palestinian restaurant called Al Badawi on Atlantic Ave just a block away from our shopping destination, Sahadi's. I have been in search of aleppo pepper for months now, and this Middle Eastern deli and spice store had it along with lots of other exotic ingredients. I also bought some dried fruit, cheese, and sweets, and noticed other things I might want to try later. They have bulk nuts, good cheeses, olives, baked goods and even a little produce and frozen food sections. Next time I go I might get the tray of mixed baklava.

 

Just down the street is a cookware shop called Whisk that does knife sharpening--something I need to get done. You bring in your knives by Tuesday and they return them a week later. Maria says she has a knife block for me that she found on the street!

Death and taxes

 Just when I thought I was done with estate business from my mother's death, I got a property tax bill on her condo that we sold. I was confused because I thought that the bill should go to the new owner.  I called the tax office in SF and discovered that a new law in CA means that her death triggered a reassessment such that we owe money on the difference between what her property tax bill was, based on the Prop 13 valuation at her purchase price, and the price for which the property was sold since none of her heirs made it their primary residence and applied for exclusion; we owe about $4500. We still have some money left in her account for unexpected expenses but not that much, so we will each have to cough up 1/3 of whatever is left to pay after I close out her bank account. The lady who talked me through the explanation on the phone blamed it on the voters who did not understand the proposition that had been placed on the ballot as part of a package about fire relief. I am mildly resentful but resigned.

Heat

 I knew when I moved here from temperate Berkeley that I was in for some torrid summers and cold winters. My experience in Minnesota means I'm not unfamiliar with temperature extremes of both kinds. It's the case that I cannot put a window AC unit in my apartment because of window bars so I've been using a fan. Today it is in the mid-nineties so I will not leave the house. It's a little frustrating to be stuck indoors but I do not do well with heat and the times I've gone out for errands and excursions I have been reminded of that fact. I'm just treating 90+ temps as a reason to stay indoors and catch up on my Criterion watchlist. Yesterday I watched Myrna Loy movies and Charade. Today I will watch Arabesque. I"m halfway through season 1 of Sandman.

Today's event was the arrival of my Task Rabbit guy to hang my art. He is a very small cute guy from Ukraine who is very careful in his measurements and positioning of each piece. I called him back after he hung my drapes and attached the vanity mirror to the dresser. I didn't have him hang the pieces for the living room because I don't have the furniture situation in hand yet, but all the other pieces are up in the rest of the apartment. Yay!

Cholesterol management

I had a doctor's appointment to talk about my blood work. I need to lose weight because my latest blood work showed an elevated LDL cholesterol level. If it weren't so bloody hot, I could go back to my daily walks, but when I have gone out for errands or excursions, the heat has made it really hard. My cholesterol is not bad enough that medication is indicated, but it would be a good idea to lose weight as one way to manage it. For most of my adult life, I weighed between 120 and 125 and was in relatively good shape. When I got pregnant I gained a lot of weight, and after that it took a few years and a lot of ballroom dancing to get my weight back down there. But a combination of factors has meant a significant weight gain. I stopped dancing due to frozen shoulder problems. Menopause changed my metabolism. One of the medications I tried out caused a wild weight gain. Illness and inactivity for a couple of years were also surely contributors. I got up to 180. None of my clothes 'fit any more and I experienced a lot of fatigue and foot pain, A couple of times I have been able to take off ten pounds or so, but I never got below 150. 

In the last month I have started to slowly lose weight due in part to eating at home in my new apartment where my pantry is still not really stocked. I just broke the 170 barrier this morning. If I can continue to lose weight at this rate--about a pound a week--I could conceivably lose twenty more pounds in five months, by the end of the year. A modest goal of losing 20 lbs feels doable. I am cautiously optimistic.

Mattress quest

 I bought a mattress when I moved and had it installed before I actually took up residence. I was so happy to have accomplished this goal. But I woke up every morning stiff and in pain--the muscles of my torso, my ribs and around my spine were sore. I could not lie on my back or my sides without pain when I breathed. I exchanged the mattress with the same manufacturer for a firmer one, hoping that it would do the trick. No luck--I was still experiencing pain every morning. It didn't hurt when I lay down and went to sleep but I'd wake around 4AM unable to get back to sleep and too tired and sore to just get up. Once I was on my feet or sitting in my chair, the pain would mostly go away. I thought it must be the memory foam top layer making my spine curl up funny, so I scouted out the location of a nearby Mattress Firm store and went in and got a new firm mattress with no foam topper.  Thank goodness the store was only a few stops away on the L line. But it turned out to be even more uncomfortable--I overdid it on the firmness. I tried folding my winter quilt and using it as a topper and it was just a little bit better, but still painful. Now I am on mattress number four--I went back to the store yesterday and laid down on a couple of mattresses, and decided to get one that has a gel and foam top layer with coils underneath. The sales people pointed out that if I didn't have proper lumbar support, my body would sag into a bad position.They were very generous and allowed me to do the trade-in  for the same price even though the new mattress was more expensive.  The delivery will be in the next ten minutes or so, and I'll ask them to help put the mattress protective cover on.  I'll hope and pray that I can sleep without pain again. 

OK, delivery complete: the mattress has to poof up because it was rolled up in a box. They did put the cover on for me. These delivery teams are so efficient--not a wasted motion as they strip off the plastic, set it up, then bundle up the one to be removed with plastic as well. I hate the idea that I'm "wasting' a mattress, but pain-free sleep is a basic for life.

UPDATE: first night with the new mattress, woke up with ALMOST no pain. Still just a teeny bit stiff but able to lie on each side and turn over without pain.

Pee Wee's Big Adventure

A great Saturday matinee at the Metrograph: Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985). It was apparently the film that launched the careers of its director Tim Burton, composer Danny Elfman, and writer/comedian Phil Hartman. I had seen it with my daughter when she was a kid, and it's a favorite of hers still, so it was fun to see it again. I hardly remembered any of it, except my favorite bit of the whole film:

DMV

 With a move comes the need to make a trip to the DMV to get one's license transferred. Today, I took the C train to downtown Brooklyn to the DMV, armed with all the documents required to get a Real ID: passport, social security card (that I got in Berkeley), a utilities bill and a bank statement with my address on them. It was an easy ride on the subway, no need to transfer, and a short walk to a little mall that had the DMV on the second floor. (I noticed a Burlington Coat Factory store where I can go to get a winter coat when it comes time). I had made an online appointment. A greeter gave me the form I needed to fill out and a number. A robot voice announced which window each number was called to. I was called fairly quickly to get my signature and  photo done, then told to wait for my number to be called again. The overhead announcements were continuous and you had to pay attention to the display monitor. It took about fifty minutes to be called again, during which time I experienced chest pains of the kind that had me go to the ER the first time it happened. Now I know that if I drink water they will go away because it's some kind of esophageal spasms probably due to acid reflux. But there was no water to drink so I just sat there trying tot endure the pain while I sweated. Finally the pain subsided and my number was called. The actual process went smoothly and now I have a temporary license and my new card will come in the mail in about two weeks. Back to the C for the short ride to Rockaway station, about four blocks from my place. I stopped for a juice at Beets, a little juice bar near the station: beets, celery, kale, apple, carrot, cucumber. Super healthy and delicious, a better choice for lunch. I'm continuing to be encouraged by my slow and steady weight loss; I've lost 4-5 lbs. If I can keep this up, I hope I can get rid of the meno-potbelly. Today I feel competent because I overcame DMV anxiety.

Watching in July

All this sitting around because of the heat has meant lots of binge-watching. Lately I have watched:

All of the Sopranos, yes, all seven seasons of it. Made me want to eat Italian pastries!

Better Call Saul, seasons 4-5. So good!

The Great British Baking Show's latest season. Peaceful.

Stranger Things, all four seasons. Some pacing issues in the last season that had to do with dropping long speeches into propulsive action sequences.

the last ten episodes of Luoyang. Glad I finished it.

the first half of Loot, with Maya Rudolph. Great cast, sometimes weak writing.

For All Mankind, the first half of the latest season, a show I really like.

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, a movie with Emma Thompson. B+

a miniseries on Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman directed by Ethan Hawke.

Empire Falls, an HBO miniseries based on a novel by Richard Russo, with Woodward and Newman, and a very strong cast. It was decent until it threw in a school shooting. 

Just started The Expanse, on Amazon Prime, a space opera.

Two of those "Before" Linklater films with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy. Can't say I share the level of enthusiasm of fans of this series.

Finally watched Pakula's The Parallax View after having it saved in my queue for ages. Another of the 1974 paranoia films (like The Conversation)

kdramas galore. I finished Tracer, in spite of the challenging dialogue that was never quite translated with enough context for a plot based on rivalries in the internal revenue service and tax corruption. Right now I'm in the middle of two that I like, Extraordinary Attorney Woo (great characters) and Alchemy of Souls (shows the influence of cdrama blockbusters with its "schools of mages" fantasy).