Central Park

It’s a Beautiful Day–Join Mrs Fringe for a Guiltshake!

English: One of the “shakes with a punch” at Hot Chocolate at Docklands. Whiskey, Baileys, Very Vanilla & Bee Keeper ice cream, dark chocolate. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been having problems getting online for weeks. Initially I thought it was my laptop, it’s old and freezes up on a semi-regular basis. Then Husband, Nerd Child, and Flower Child were all having problems with their devices. At first it was sporadic, but over the past couple of weeks it’s been a daily hassle to stay connected for more than 2-3 minutes at a time. I thought it was connected to the jackhammering they’ve been doing on the corner. We reset the little box thing. We called the cable company. Lather, rinse, repeat. Then I started asking neighbors, but no one else is having a problem. Hmmm. It occurred to me it had to be something in our hardware. We’ve had our router for a long time. Really long. Purchased when there were fewer and less powerful computers using it. So I asked my fish freak buddies (yes, they know everything) and they told me it likely is my router. By yesterday, we couldn’t stay on for more than a minute without getting cut off. Ugh.

Why is this such a big deal? Because a couple of weeks ago, I bought myself a present. I had done several extra dog walks and was feeling beaten by winter, so I splurged. I bought an e-reader. I love it, it’s made me happy, and I’ve been skipping along, pleased with myself. Except now we need a new router. We don’t have any extra money right now (like this would be different a month ago, or a month from now, ha!). I didn’t buy a fancy e-reader, you can’t surf the web with it, but still, I could have bought a router with that money if I had realized then what our internet problems were. I would have still had the money if I had put it to the side for Flower Child’s upcoming birthday pedicure, the way I should have.

A macro photo of a Maraschino cherry, taken with my Fuji S7000 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

That’s the double ugh glazed with extra guilt cherry on top.

What a selfish bitch. A good mommy would have waited another three years for the e-reader, making sure no one needs anything before spending money on something so frivolous. Am I the only one who hears that voice?

Husband went to go buy a new router. We have stuff for the kids’ schools that needs to be done where we must have a somewhat reliable internet connection, and Husband needs it for work. Ok. I’ll swallow the cherry, figure out where I can tighten the budget this week. He asked if I wanted to go to the store with him. No, I didn’t. I was writing, and only had a couple of hours before I had to dogwalk.

Husband came home with the SuperDuperMegaRouter. I would have gone to the next store, in search of the EconoRouter. And this is me, choking on the stem. Funny how that guilt never completely gets digested, but it sure is absorbed.

But it is still a beautiful day, so I’ll share a spring in Central Park photo, just in case you’re one of the blessed ones who can decline a guiltshake on an early summer day. I was going to upload a bunch, but apparently the SuperDuperMegaRouter doesn’t care to do too much fraternizing with Ricketyoldlaptop.

From a distance, the trees are still saying winter, but when you get close…

Mrs Fringe Learns to Internetz

Not really. It’s magically working again, much the way it magically stopped working. And then started. And then stopped.

Internet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Come to think of it, this is just like the early spring we’re not having. Someone find me that damned ~~woodchuck~~ groundhog, Imma make a stew.

I’ve been dreaming about moving to the country. Husband thinks I’m kidding, but I decided I need a dream that could possibly eventually happen, not just the fantasy of a beach house. This would mean going north, colder but less expensive. I feel the past weeks have been training for a rural life. Internet out, multiple snowfalls in March…yup, I’m ready.

Since we started to have spring, the critters are here. But now it’s cold again, and they’re more pissed than I am. Even the rats are confused, I’ve seen at least three smooshed rats on my block over the past couple of days. They’re usually pretty good at avoiding cars. Let’s be honest, though, better a smooshed rat than a live one.

In the park, lots of screaming birds. I assume they’re protesting the lack of soft earth and worms. But maybe not. Maybe they’re screaming in fear. We seem to have a new predator bird in the neighborhood. (And when I say a new one, I mean new to me, they could well have lived here for fifty years without my noticing. I also don’t know if there’s one or a dozen). In any case, the other afternoon I was walking a dog along a path in Central Park when something whooshed overhead. It was the coolest freaking bird I’ve ever seen outside of the colorful ones that live on people’s shoulders. Cool enough for me to forget to be afraid. I only saw it from underneath, beige, tan, and brown with an awesome, almost diamond pattern across its feathers. Sort of the colors of the piebald pigeons, only not ugly. The wingspan had to have been five feet across. In between the internet being down, I googled, trying to figure out what this bird is. Almost a falcon, but no.

Another sign that it should be spring, Nerd Child is home for Spring Break! Yay!!!!!! I’m thrilled, Flower Child is thrilled, we miss the boys when they’re away.

What to do with your first day of spring break when you’re *almost* fifteen, home from boarding school and just finished finals? Get up early, meet the priest who runs the middle school you attended, and go to the St Patrick’s Day parade, of course.

Green Bagel! (Photo credit: pirate johnny)

Nothing a Latino teen likes better than corned beef and green bagels. My mother in law will take care of the obligatory flan this evening. Why yes, flan is a necessary component to St Patrick’s Day. Ask Nerd Child, he’ll happily explain flan is a necessary component to any and every celebration.

Apparently, while chatting, the priest mentioned ospreys have been taking out pigeons by the church. Nerd Child came home and told me this, and I looked up ospreys. YES!!! That’s exactly the bird I saw in the park. Already super impressive, and now I find out they eat pigeons? Mrs Fringe has a new favorite critter. I wonder if I can keep one on my terrace?

Osprey (Photo credit: Gregory Jordan)

Holiday in the City Photos

Flower Child’s school had a field trip today, so I brought my camera. Yes!! More bad New York photos.

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Thwoka thwoka thwoka

English: NYPD helicopter patrolling New York City. Photo taken from the Empire State Building Observatory. Deutsch: Ein Helikopter des NYPD patrolliert über New York City. Das Foto wurde von der Empire State Building Sternwarte aufgenommen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I hate the sound of those blades beating the air. When I was younger, it was a sound I associated with wit and laughter, the opening credits of M*A*S*H.

Now? Forget it. When I hear a helicopter I look up to see where it is, and assess which direction will take me away from it. Leftover PTSD from 9/11, I suppose. But it seems as if it’s never neutral. I don’t live in a part of the city where tourists would be taking rides, and I’m not en route to the Hamptons. So a helicopter means something is happening; police searching for someone, news crew filming, either way, I don’t want to be out in it.

Yesterday evening I was out walking a dog in Central Park when I heard them. I felt that unwelcome pitch and roll in my stomach, and then realized the odds were excellent that the choppers were part of the Parks Dept, doing a recon mission to see what trees it would make sense to trim in case Hurricane Sandy does hit New York and have the impact they’re predicting. Does the Parks Dept have helicopters? I have no idea, but the thought worked for me. I reminded myself to buy a couple of gallons of water just in case, and kept walking.

After I was home, I found out why the helicopters were out. A mother’s nightmare, every mother’s nightmare. Two young children were stabbed to death in their apartment, allegedly by their nanny, who was also stabbed but not killed, while the mother was at swim lessons with the third child. The entire Upper West Side, a neighborhood is filled with families, dogs, and nannies. I don’t know the circumstances, don’t know the family, don’t know the nanny, but my heart breaks for their loss.

I heard the mom is a successful blogger, documenting her children and family life in the city. I can’t even imagine the push-pull that will take place for her, not wanting to see the documenting of a happy and complete family, and yet maybe she’ll be glad to have those moments enshrined in cyberspace.

I’m not sure why I feel especially captured by this tragedy. My youngest is considerably older than this mom’s oldest. I don’t live a similar lifestyle. This is, after all, New York. Things like this do not happen every day, but violence is a part of the city. This type of violence, or at least what it appears to be at this point, can and does happen everywhere, city, country, suburb; someone “snaps,” and there are victims: young, old, innocent.

As I am typing, I hear more of those evil blades. Please tell me the Parks Department does in fact have helicopters.