New York virgin. . .(sort of)

My friend Donna and I spent last weekend in New York City. I had never spent much time
there before and she had, so I asked her to show me around. It was a beautiful weekend.

Lady Liberty is doing just fine, thank you. She had a little issue after Hurricane Sandy and had to have her pedestal cleaned up, if you know what I mean. But she'll be open again soon. We took the FREE (!) Staten Island Ferry around her, got off in Staten Island, and got back on the next ferry returning to Manhattan. It's a great way to pay your respects.

Here are some highlights, and a few favorite experiences:

* Jazz Standard for Fred Hersch on piano and Esperanza Spalding on bass and vocals. Rockin'! We decided to concentrate on jazz clubs and local restaurants, because you just can't do everything. Another time for the shows and museums.

* Vin sur Vingt for wine and croque monsieur before music at The Village Vanguard. Perfect little French bistro.

* Having Sarah Jessica Parker and children brush by me while standing in line at The Village Vanguard.

* Being at The Village Vanguard.

* Seeing the newly-raised spire on the Freedom Tower at the site of the World Trade Center.

* Meeting Donna's niece Tracy and boyfriend for Saturday brunch in Brooklyn. Loved Brooklyn, very neighborhood-y.

* All the cab rides - great way to see a lot when it's too far to walk.



* Harlem on Sunday for Marjorie Elliot's parlor jazz and lunch at The Red Rooster. Harlem is so cool.

* The well-dressed couple outside Marjorie Elliot's who helped us decide to eat at Red Rooster.

*The young man on the Harlem street corner who helped us flag down a cab and negotiated the price we wanted. People were so helpful all over Manhattan.

* The memorial concert for jazz great Dave Brubeck at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. This was free, and featured Dave Brubeck's musical sons as well as Chick Corea, Tony Bennett, Roy Hargrove and other musical legends. It was fabulous and touching.

It was an amazing trip! My first time in New York.

Sew-very-British!

I've gotten very excited about a BBC reality show called The Great British Sewing Bee. Those who know me know I don't even have a functional TV - I mean, I have a TV but I don't have cable so I can't get any channels. I hate TV really and only use it to stream movies from the computer or to watch DVDs. Anyway, you can watch The Great British Sewing Bee on YouTube. Episode 1 is here, and there are 4 episodes total. They're all available on YouTube and, believe me, they are addicting. Begin watching at your own peril!

After watching the first two, I was so inspired I went immediately to my sewing stash and pulled out a skirt I started working on a year or so ago. I had been gifted with the fabric, a beautiful soft wool plaid, and I actually drafted the pattern for the skirt myself. It's not complicated, but I decided to put a ruffle of sorts on the bottom of it, and at that point I got stuck and put it away.

These British ladies and gents, who were pulled from the general public in London with varying degrees of expertise with sewing, really cranked me up along the lines of, "I know how to do that - I can sew that well. I'll bet I could do that even better." Well, you can see I got mildly insufferable, but the end product was good. It got me excited about sewing for myself again.

So here's the skirt with its ruffle - not finished, but all that's left is to attach the lining and hem it. Piece of cake, love, as the Brits say!

The Steamer

True confession: I have fallen in love with a home cleaning device. You won't hear me say that often - I personally detest cleaning the house. Unfortunately I like living in a clean house, so I have had only two options . . . get over my aversion to housework, or hire someone else to do it.

When I was working fulltime, I hired someone else to do it. The appointed person usually did a good job for the first few months, then started to slack off as time went on. About the time I noticed waxed-over dirt on the dining room floor, and cobwebs in most of the high corners of the house, I'd let that person go and try it myself for a month or two before hiring someone else. Et cetera, et cetera.

When I retired from my fulltime job, I couldn't justify hiring a cleaning service anymore. I mean, I was theoretically home much of the time, so why did I need someone to come in and clean my house? Drat. The house hasn't been so clean lately, although in reality it's probably as clean as it was when I was having someone else do it. The problem is it's not clean the way I want it to be, and I have no one to blame.

We were visiting our friends in Denver and getting their home ready for 31 people for sit-down Hanukkah dinner, when Yasmin, one of the daughters, pulled out this machine and started running it over the hardwood floors. Everywhere she went, she sprayed a cleaner on the floor, not even bothering to bend down, and then ran the machine over it. Steam came up, and the floor behind the machine was clean, shiny, and beautiful. It didn't even look wet. "What the heck is that?" I asked.

It was a steam cleaner, and I bought one immediately after I got home. Here's the link on Amazon. You sweep or vacuum the floor first, and then you spray with a good cleaning product, like Method, and run the steamer over the floor to wash and deep-clean it. The linoleum in my kitchen, which is seriously trashed and really needs to be replaced, hasn't been so clean since it was new 20 years ago. I mean the corners and edges too. The hardwood in the dining room, the victim of the wax-over-dirt disaster, is starting to look great. A few more passes with the steamer and I should have most of the old wax, as well as the dirt under it, up and out. Couldn't be easier.

Forget mops. Forget getting down on your knees and scubbing. I'm sold on my new love!