Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Black-Crowned Night Heron under the Belt Parkway, Jamaica Bay



Sunday evening, at the mouth of the Paerdegat.

I really will write something one of these days. Honest.

Maybe next week. :(

Detail re Freya's event...

Oops. I just found out, it's twenty-five bucks to go hear Freya talk. Tickets for sale here.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Upcoming Event Summary -

That was a rather rapid-fire batch of event announcements. Here's a quick rundown in chronological order:

Tuesday, 6/29, 6 at New York Kayak: Freya Hoffmeister, first woman & second person ever to circumnavigate Australia by kayak, speaks about her expedition. For the next stops on her East Coast tour, visit the Epic Kayak site.
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Saturday, July 3rd, 6 - 8:30: Get your hands on some Red Hook Lobster Pound lobster & more at PortSideNY's BlueBQ "FunRaiser", discounted tickets available now, just $35 for an evening of music, fun & great food at Atlantic Basin.

Sunday July 4th - Or, if you are feeling in the mood for a wonderful splurge, you can get tickets for some of the best seats in the house for the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks on Sunday night, donated to PSNY by Capt. Perricone of the historic tug Cornell. Ticket price includes access to the tug while it is docked at Pier 66, location of the festivities.

Details on how to purchase tickets for either or both events available here!
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And last but not least (and probably not really last either, there are doubtless many other fun events coming up, these are just the ones that are particularly bright on my personal radar screen right now), it's not to late to RSVP for Sebago's All-Club Invitational on Saturday, July 17th. Full details available at SebagoCanoeClub.org. And again, you NEED NOT be a member of a club to join in - just have a small boat that you know how to use, proper safety equipment & a way to get yourself to our grounds in Canarsie!

Bowsprite Brilliance...

OK, I was thinking that I needed to put up something to entertain the non tri-state area people. Hooray for Bowsprite and her Drunken Sailors!

And Freya at New York Kayak tomorrow, 6/29 -

One more event:

The next stop on Freya Hoffmeister's tour is tomorrow night at New York Kayak Company. Freya will be there at 5:30, presentation starts at 6.

Again, for anyone who doesn't follow extreme expeditions, Freya is the second person & the first woman to successfully circumnavigate Australia by kayak.

For more stops on her East Coast tour, click here.

2 Fantastic Fourth of July Weekend Events -

I was planning to do a post about the "Blue BarBQ" fundraiser that PortSideNY is having on July 3rd, which I would TOTALLY be attended if TQ & I weren't going to the Cyclones game (woo! go Cyclones!). Did that lobster roll look good? Well, it WAS. It was a CT-style one (just lobster & butter & a sprinkling of green onions) from the Red Hook Lobster Pound - just one of the great Brooklyn companies who are catering the event. Mmmm mmmm mmmm.

I was going to do that tonight. But I'm being bad & posting NOW because I just saw an email from Carolina & Company mentioning another very special opportunity - courtesy of Capt Perricone of the classic tug Cornell, they have got 50 tickets for sale to the 4th of July party at Pier 66. They aren't cheap, but this is about the most spectacular view of the fireworks you can get without being on a boat & I bet they'll go fast!

Click here for details!

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Come One, Come All to the Sebago Canoe Club Invitational!


Good heavens! Is it possible? Why, yes, it's true, we're only 3 weeks out from what could possibly be the biggest event Sebago has ever had!

At least while I've been there. And if I didn't post about it soon, one of our commodores emeriti, who's organizing the whole shinding, is gonna keelhaul me!

OK, not that getting keelhauled is such a big deal when your club's biggest craft has maybe a 5-foot beam, but still, here you are:

July 17th, we'd like to invite pretty much anyone who has a hand-launchable small craft to join us for a day of fun in the sun (we hope, but rain won't stop us) on Jamaica Bay. Not just kayaks, nope - canoes (outrigger or non), stand-up paddlers, windsurfers, rowboats, pirogues, dinghies, curraghs, taraibune, whatever - you name it, if you can get it to our club, down our generously-sized ramp, down the basin & under the bridge (the last being the challenge for the sailcraft, if the winds aren't feeling cooperative it's a few very fast tacks to get through), we'd love to see you!

And NO, you don't actually have to be a member of a club to come! All you need a boat you know how to use & all the related gear & safety stuff.

For full information, including contact information for an RSVP (which would be appreciated so we know how much food & drink to buy), click HERE!

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Menu Du Jour, A La Red Hook, or, The Day's Haul

Appetizer:


Dessert:


The main course.


I can't afford to attend many more six-dollar festivals like this one! :D

But what an absolutely marvelous day it was.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Events - Saturday 6/26 (Red Hook Brooklyn) & Monday 6/28 (Staten Island)

Brian or Karen at A Movable Bridge was kind enough to correct the error I made when I said that last night's "Blue Network" meeting was the last in this go-round of waterfront planning meetings. The people of Staten Island haven't had their turn yet, that happens on Monday. Full details here, and I apologize for the error & I'm glad to have gotten the correction.

AND - just thought I'd repeat this one more time because it really does sound great, and I was being a bit silly in my treatment of it yesterday, in a way that might make a person miss what I was trying to say. So I'll say it again, proper event-announcement style: Tomorrow, Saturday 6/26, the Waterfront Museum is hosting a Waterfront Books & Authors Festival. Full details here. I see 2 favorite books of mine & a lot more that are very intriguing. I think I'd better take a bookbag.

Fishtails on Friday

Mermaid Parade 2010 089

Well, nobody said they wanted more mermaids. Tough noogies, I'm giving you more mermaids anyways. :D This way to the Mermaid Gallery!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

VISION 2020 - LAST WORKSHOP TONIGHT 6/24 - PLUS Waterfront Book Festival Saturday 6/26 in Red Hook.

Click here for ALL DETAILS.

This is the last in the series of development workshops for the NYC Comprehensive Waterfront Plan. I managed to miss the Brooklyn one. I was hoping to go check on my garden tonight, it's hot hot hot and I should have gone & watered this morning but I didn't get up early enough, but I think I may cross my fingers, hope that my wonderful gardening clubmates are once again going to save my garden from my horrible neglect, and go to the Blue Network meeting.

Can't believe they haven't heard that the proper name is "The 6th Boro".

Thanks Nancy at the NYC Watertrail Association for spreading the word.

PLUS...oh Scheiße! Scheiße! Scheiße! Here I had my weekend all kinda planned out nice. A day at the club, gardening and a nice long paddle, and a day at home, housework and errands so it's all nice for when my guy visits next weekend, la la la, relaxed...but then that dreadful, horrid, beastly David Sharps at the Waterfront Museum went and sent THIS around. Drat him all to heck anyways.

Sounds absolutely fantastic. I see 2 total favorites on there & a bunch more that sound incredibly interesting. I think I need to go!

Theoretically I could, tides & weather permitting, paddle there, leaving Sunday free. note, slightly later...oh man. no fair. Tides are almost PERFECT... And if this were on the other end of the summer, I probably would. Problem is, that would be a mighty long jaunt for somebody whose longest paddle of the year so far has been to Manhattan Beach & back. Sort of like running a marathon when you haven't done anything longer than a 5K in months & months. Good way to foul yourself up for the rest of the season.

Ah well, one very nice thing about living quarters of less than a thousand square feet is they really don't take all day to clean!

Possibly The Best Windsurfing Action Shot EVER.

Click here.

Oh, p.s. - anybody want more mermaids?

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Don Sutherland - I wish I'd known him.

I didn't, but Tugster did. A moving tribute in the NY Times City Room blog, with the usual perfect Tugster commentary here.

Lunchtime Mini-Rant, Subject: Oh, Come On, Maureen Dowd.

In her opinion piece in today's NY Times, Maureen Dowd totally loses me at the second paragraph: "Military guys are rarely as smart as they think they are, and they’ve never gotten over the fact that civilians run the military." Don't they say anything in J-school about not making idiotically insulting overgeneralizations unless you happen to be working for a tabloid that specializes in such BS?

Not that what the general did wasn't pretty dumb. But two wrongs don't make a right, and two stupids don't make a smart.

(cross-post from facebook)

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

East Coast Design Flaw


Sunset, gorgeous, one: check.


Beach, sandy, one: check. Sea, deep blue, one: check.

Yep. The pieces are all there, but they went and put the sunset on the wrong side of the water!

Solstice on the Boardwalk

From Solstice on the Coney Island Boardwalk


And it just couldn't have been a nicer night. Welcome, Summer.

A few more pictures at the link under the picture.

The piano on the boardwalk was part of the Make Music NY festival. I suppose I should have taken one of my tin whistles along & made a little myself, but I was actually quite content to spectate. The young man was, I think, actually just a random passing piano player - he was good, but it wasn't by any means a rehearsed performance, he was just sight-reading the laminated sheet music that was on the stand. I loved it.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Aquaboogie!

World Famous Hungry March Band!


Poseidon's Paradise -


Save Coney Island

Ol' P Wants Mermaids - PLUS All-Club Invitational Invitation













So here, by "Ol' P"-opular demand, are some mermaids! Plus an awesome car. I am not a big car fan but I do appreciate awesomeness in all forms. And a robot monster fish. And no, that is not a taxidermic parrot on that hat.

More tonight from me, more yesterday from Tugster!

So I've got to ask, did you folks at the Malden Yacht Club get your invitation to Sebago's All-Club Invitational!

If not, consider yourself invited! And for that matter, that goes for pretty much anybody in the area who paddles, rows, or sails a hand-launchable craft who wants to throw their boat on their roof rack & come to Canarsie (afraid this is strictly B.Y.O.Boat - Sebago's club fleet will be reserved for club members). That's coming up on July 17, 2010. And no, you don't have to be a member of a club to come to the All-Club Invitational! Just check out the full details here!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

FIGMENT

182

Just finished up my gallery from last weekend's fun at the Figment Festival! Very glad I decided to go, even though it didn't get off to the most auspicious start (my fault, I made an incorrect assumption about where to catch the ferry, which resulted in a very long walk through a part of the Brooklyn Bridge Park that is decidedly Not Yet Open For Business) - it was a lot of fun!

Full gallery (included a video snippet of Tim & Kate setting up) here.

Definitely past my bedtime, but I figured if I didn't get this done tonight, it was likely to just get swept away by the coming mermaid inundation!

Friday, June 18, 2010

Theoretical Mermaid-Parade Costume


As I was saying over on Facebook - If I was marching, not just spectacting, and if I had lots more free time than I do, and some fabric, and chicken wire, and notions, and a sewing machine, and a small stash of inflatable toy sharks and invisible-dog leashes.

If if if.

I just added "CORNDOGS" to the litany of deep-fried yums on the Blogs Are Evil comment chain.

ps - great pix from Reid's return over on Tugster!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

And Another Event - Reid Stowe Returns Tomorrow

Wow, this one snuck up on me - I can't make it because it's on a work day & I've got painfully few unallocated vacation days left to play with this year, but yes, Reid Stowe returns to NYC tomorrow, 6/17, just shy of three years and two months after he & Soanya sailed south past the Statue of Liberty, bound for the Narrows and beyond. Way, way, way beyond.

Can't imagine what it would be like to set foot on land for the first time after that long...

Soanya came home to have a baby but they agreed that he should keep going - I thought that was pretty incredible of her, but he'd been working on getting this project off the ground (so to speak) forever & it was important to her too, so she got picked up off Australia & he sailed on. So, congratulations to both of them, as well as to all of their friends & family members who worked so hard to help them accomplish this!

I'm blogging this on Flickr, so I think it will have a link to my photo gallery from their departure (this picture is from that day, and a glorious day it was). Let's see...

yep! click on the photo caption & that'll take you over to Flickr.

For more details on Reid's return, visit www.1000days.net

Oh, and p.s. - there's already live blogging going on of Reid's return! A little websurfing tonight & I discovered that Captain Mike at Biankablog sailed in today & is anchored near Reid just off Sandy Hook. He's already posted a couple of photos of a very battered-looking Anne, plans to join in the flotilla tomorrow, and hopes to do some posts over the course of the event.

Holy Cow! Old Fashioned Air Race in NY Harbor (note - includes LINK to CG restrictions)


Or rather, holy Bull, I guess. As in Red Bull, the energy drink, which is sponsoring an old-school little-planes-go-zoom-zoom-zoom-around-the-pylons air race in - well, over, really, at least if all goes well - New York Harbor.

This is normally WAY more commercial an event than I'd ever plug here, but this just sounds wild. I didn't know that kind of air race still existed. Has it always, or did Red Bull resurrect it as a marketing gimmick? Dunno, but...shoot, that's just wild.

Plus, it's totally worth mentioning here because it will, of course, entail some restrictions in the Liberty State Park/Ellis Island vicinity. Nancy from the NYC Watertrail Association has been kind enough to post over on the NYCWA blog. If you are planning on boating in the upper harbor this weekend, you might want to review those - just scroll on down past events & links for full details & a helpful chart.

Thanks, Nancy!

image shamelessly swiped from rcuniverse.com

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Blogs Are Evil

Did I mention that my family has been around for the last two weeks?

Did I mention that my family really likes good food?

Did I mention that there are some very good restaurants in my neighborhood? And in Burlington, Vermont? And that cousin J's idea of a simple brunch could feed a platoon of gourmets?

Did I mention that now that I'm back in Brooklyn & various family people are either back in or on their way to the places they are supposed to be, I had planned to resume my normal somewhat lighter eating habits?

Yeah, that was the plan. Then I read this article while eating my nice moderate lunch this afternoon.

And six hours later, like there was some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion embedded in the article, I found myself sitting at a table at Purple Yam, ordering a dish called lechon kawali.

People, trust me, there is nothing remotely moderate about Filipino-style deep-fried pork belly.

You know that word "unctuous" that food critics like so much? Heavens to Murgatroyd. Yea verily, I did meditate on the true meaning of "unctuous" tonight. And it was good. Mmmmmmm.

I shall attempt to reboard the wagon of moderate eating tomorrow.

Scenes from The Real New Jersey







For anyone who's ever assumed that Jersey is Joisey without actually visiting the place, and for Baydog, who also posts a lot of pictures from The Real New Jersey & will hopefully get a kick out of this post. These are pictures from in & around the New Jersey town where my mom grew up. And that's JERsey, not Joisey! Just ask my mom.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Seeing Double


Norwegian Dawn at the Statue of Liberty, Atlantic-bound on 6/13/2010.


So what's the verdict - is it art, or is it for Bart?

Thursday, June 10, 2010

My Stop on the Waterblogger's Food Tour - A Menu with Pictures! For Carol Anne



So...came home & had to check the Abby news. None so far - hoping this time no news really is good news, I will now carry on with today's intended post. A few days back, I'd posted about my basil being off to a good start. A HAPPY post! Baydog chimed in with an even happier comment:

Pureed with olive oil and drizzled on everything in the universe. Freakin right, Yaaaaaaaaaay!...how about this: Seared Atlantic City Sea Scallops on Jersey sweet corn and tomato relish, drizzled with sweet basil oil and snipped chives.
Drink of your choice.


Oh, YUM. I'm not sure I realized quite how much of a foodie Baydog is, but between that & a couple of other posts he's done in the last week, this one f'rinstance, I now have no doubts!

Now, right around the same time, Carol Anne had posted a favorite simple recipe of her own, Beer Can Chicken. Never heard of it but it sounds fabulous.

And then she noticed what a lot of culinarily-themed posts were going on & what a lot of discussion they were generating & came up with a great challenge: Your Stop On the Waterblogger's Food Tour. The basic idea is that all your waterblogger friends have come to your club, and you've had them all out on a great day on the water on whatever form of boat you fancy (and I think that I could make most people happy if I press some other people's boats into service along with the club boats - we've got Sunfish, Lasers, kayaks, surfskis, a couple of larger sailing dinghies, a couple of Triaks, canoes, I think there's even a tragically neglected windsurfer we could pull out for the Peconic Puffin) and when you get back, you have to feed them!

So it has to be tasty, but it also has to be simple & something you can prepare easily, at or near wherever you are.

At first I was joking that I was just gonna have L&L cater the thing. Spam musubi, laulau, kalua pig with cabbage, kal bi, teri chicken & haupia for all!

But I think I'll cut my order with them down to just a plate of spam musubi.


Because I would DEFINITELY want to share some of my club-grown produce, too, and I've got a nice midsummer menu that would feature a nice range of the stuff I like to show off here in the "Urban Gardening" section of Frogma. It's all yummy stuff I've made myself. I would have to make some of it in my kitchen at home, but the stuff that has to be prepared is pretty simple & the best part is that that stuff, I can make a day or two in advance. It can all be waiting in the 'fridge at the club, all that has to happen is maybe heating the main dish (and if it's hot, that's actually optional - it would even be fine just left out long enough to take the chill off).

Sides first. Along with the spam musubi, there'll be tzatziki with pitas. Hummus too, just cause it's easy, but the tzatziki will be homemade with homegrown cukes. Cucumber salad, too.

Heirloom tomatoes
Big Tomato

and...muahahahaaaa...you-know-what!


will be paired with fresh mozzarella & olive oil in a nice caprese salad.

The basil will be a featured player again in the main dish - this time in the form of pesto,


and teamed up with my pretty Northern Lights Swiss chard.


I don't think I ever posted about this but I came up with a really good dish that combined the two for the first time last year. It was on a day when I'd been out to the club, gone for a paddle & then picked some chard & onions to have as part of dinner.


I had a turkey kielbasa in the fridge & also pesto in the freezer (once the basil gets going there's almost always pesto in the freezer). I was initially picturing a nice dinner of kielbasa, with a side of sauteed chard & another of pasta with pesto. But that all just seemed too complicated after a long hot day so I decided to just do it all in one big pot. I got the pasta going in a medium saucepan. In my big stewpot, first I sauteed the kielbasa. Then I added some olive oil & threw in the chard, the onions & some minced garlic. Sauteed that until the chard was just done. Drained the pasta, added that & the pesto & continued to sautee until the pasta was all flavored up too. Dished up a bowl & was frankly amazed at how good it was - the various flavors worked together much better than I had expected them to!

And it ended up working really well in the wintertime with the chard & pesto I'd frozen at the end of the summer. So much fun having my own homegrown produce in the middle of January!

So that's what I'm feeding you folks at this party. Can either warm it up in a crockpot or, as I said, if it's too hot for hot food, the stuff isn't bad without being heated up.

What's to drink?

Well, what else but a nice selection from the Brooklyn Brewery? One of the original founders is a club member - I'd never dream of serving anyone else's beer!



Anybody still hungry for dessert? There'll be a choice - watermelon, because all summer picnics need watermelon, or (drumroll please) -

Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pie! And don't worry, they do come bigger than this!

So, who's coming? :D

oh dear

oh dear oh dear oh dear

the next would-be youngest circumnavigator of the globe is missing

i hope i hope i hope that they find her.

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Freya Hoffmeister speaking in Annapolis

Hot off the servers on NYCKayaker, here's an event I WISH I could go to - Freya Hoffmeister, the first woman & the 2nd human being to ever successfully circumnavigate Australia (yes, the entire freakin' continent) by kayak, will be speaking about her 9,400 mile expedition on Saturday June 26 at 5 pm, at the Eastern Mountain Sports store in Annapolis, MD. Little too far for me but I can't resist posting it here!

Click here for full info about the store - location, phone number & links to maps & directions.

Thanks to Chuck Sutherland (the gentleman behind my favorite "Cold Water Paddling Safety" site over on the Trip Planning Tools section of the sidebar) for passing that on.

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Atlantic Sunset


Sorry, thought I was going to do an actual post today explaining where I've been.

Blogger thought otherwise, crashed a little too far into uploading pictures a little too late at night to re-start. So here, how about a nice sunset instead? Sunday evening. Worth a click for the full sun-on-the-waves-far-below effect.

Sunday, June 06, 2010

The Brave One

Independent Mermaid Festival Bonus Clip - Selkie Sunday!


And just because I've got 10 minutes before it's time to get going on today's fun - here's the conceptual trailer from Cartoon Saloon's next feature film, Song of the Sea.

Can't wait!

Friday, June 04, 2010

Independent Mermaids, Day 4: Frivolous Friday, Betty's Back & Sing Along With The Weavers!


Rounding out the week by bringing back Miss Betty Boop in another mermaid role - she's not quite as independent here but it's still a fine bit of Fleischer freakiness.

And here's a sing-a-long version of one of my favorite mermaid songs, Keeper of the Eddystone Light. This one's the Weaver's version, and there are a few mistakes in the lyrics, but they were done by a 15-year old Italian, so it's pretty understandable!

I did like the mermaid song Dennis G. Moonstruck pointed out the other day - but I think this one's my favorite 'cause I first heard it one night in Maine, on board the Lewis R. French, a grand old schooner operating out of Camden. What a vacation that was...oh, the lobsters...

But I digress - here's the Weavers singing the song!

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And that brings us mostly to the conclusion of this week's mini-froggy-bloggy edition of the Independent Mermaids Film Festival. Not a lot of comments, but lots & lots of visitors, I hope that means folks have been enjoying this rather silly whim in honor of visitors, year-end close & the first week of boat & beach season!

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Independent Mermaids Film Festival, Day 3: Luscious Russian Folktale


The Mermaid, paint-on-glass animation by Russian master animator Aleksandr Petrov. I think this has to be one of the most beautiful pieces of animation I've ever seen.

Did you like that?

Have you got a bit more time to spare?

You might like Petrov's rendition of The Old Man and the Sea even more. Link takes you to part 1, part 2 is 3rd down the related-videos thumbnail list.

Special thanks to Never Sea Land, where I first saw today's installment of this week's Independent Mermaids Film Festival - the mini-froggy-bloggy version.

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Independent Mermaids, Day 2: A Much More Modern Mermaid!

For a brief & bubbly moment, NYC (NY-Sea?) had its very own mermaid bar. I never actually went myself, but I admit to having been terribly intrigued. Fortunately for me, the Coral Room's prima sirena, the lovely & talented Julie Atlaz Muz ("measurements...35-25-and $9.99/lbs.") memorialized her mermaid experience in a charming short film, High Art at Low Tide. Click the link & enjoy!

Note - brief nudity, although presented rather sweetly (she's a Burlesque Artiste, not a strippah!), renders this possibly NSFW.

p.s. - Dennis G. Moonstruck says, "loved Muz but the second clip.... Mermaid Song was hysterical." I can't verify until tonight (no YouTube at work) but it sounds worth a look!

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Independent Mermaids Festival!



If I had lots of free time (and maybe a little more money) (oh, yeah, and knew anything at all about movies), I have an idea for a tiny independent film festival. It would be a little sideshow-y movie short festival run during the Coney Island Mermaid Festival. It would just be short films about mermaids, showing all day! Maybe it would be in an nice cool air-conditioned room, or maybe in a tent, and people could just come in, rest their poor tired feet (or fins!), watch a few short films about mermaids & then head back outside again, and it would be called the Independent Mermaids Film Festival.

I actually thought of the name over the winter (think it was this post, where I was talking about a forthcoming animated version of an Irish selkie legend. Once I had the name, then I started picturing what the event would be.

Of course it's not ever going to happen for real -- in reality I'm just excited about the possibility I might actually get to go SEE the Mermaid Parade this year, it's sort of been on my list of Things I Want To Do Before I Leave NYC & I might get to this year.

But another thing that's not happening this week is blogging. There is one yummy writing challenge that I might have to do, but beyond that, we're closing the books on Fiscal 2010 this week, my sister is here & my folks get in on Thursday, so I'm gonna be a busy lady!

So in the meantime, and in honor of the first "official" week of beach & boat season, I borrow a page from Never Sea Land and give you the Mini-Froggy-Bloggy version!

We start with Ms. Betty Boop. Don't blink at the wrong time, you'll miss the Merman!

November 2010 update - went back to tag all the Animation posts after trying a bit myself and found that both Betty Boop links were broken. Went to find them elsewhere on YouTube & discovered that the mermaid was just part of much longer one including Merman singing!