Nature: NYC Style

Let it not be said that us New Yorkers don't get exposed enough to nature. True, we do have to travel to Central Park in order to see more than 300 square feet of grass all in one place. And in an average day, the only flowers you see are the ones for sale at a bodega. If you're lucky, you walk down a street that has trees planted in intervals along the sidewalk, which is lovely, except for the way the roots of those trees push against the concrete and create mountains and valleys in the sidewalk that you can twist an ankle on in far less than a New York minute. Dogs and cats are about as wild as it gets animal-wise. (And yes, I have seen a cat on a leash). No deer passing through to eat your garden. Mostly because your garden is on your fire escape 6 flights up. Well, I suppose there are pigeons of course. And they are wild in their way. Particularly if you've watched them nearly fly directly into you as they attempt to make a dramatic exit from eating the last of that bagel that someone dropped while crossing the street. And yes, let us not forget The Great Squirrel Episode of '08. But beyond that, this is a man-made urban jungle, not a natural one. Concrete, smoke stacks, sky scrapers, cars, bridges, iron, steel and brick.

So imagine Geoff's surprise, when he gets up from his desk this afternoon and walks past this guy, hanging out on top of our living room air conditioning unit.


Yes. That is a hawk. And yes, he is ginormous. To give you perspective, that is a pigeon he's having for lunch. Can you believe how HUGE he is? I mean, he's nearly 2 feet long from beak to tail feathers at this angle below. I can't get over it. I'm sorry to the queasy, please forgive the carnage. But that sure is nature, isn't it? See, we get plenty of nature. Plenty. As Geoff said, this guy was just really going after that pigeon. Just eating him like it wasn't even wrong.


I like how he's clearly judging Geoff in this picture. "ExCUSe me? Pointing? Really? Oh please, One does not POINT."


And here, clearly contemplating Geoff's finger for dessert.


I think he kind of looks like a muppet. Except for the blood and guts part, of course.

An Unexpected Guest

Well, what an adventure we had this morning. I was all ready for work, sitting on the bed chatting with Geoff for a few minutes before heading out the door when we heard the wind blowing the blinds quite violently. Which was odd, because though the window was open, the blinds weren't actually moving that much. Then I had an unusual sense that we were not alone. And sure enough, moments later, the little head of a SQUIRREL peeked out from behind our curtain. He was on our windowsill ON THE INSIDE! IN OUR BEDROOM! I screamed like a girl and lept off the bed, backing out of the room and alerting Geoff to his presense.

Geoff told me to calm down, it was only a squirrel. Which was true. And at least it wasn't a scorpion or armadillo, which my friends Mike & Michelle have to worry about. But as you may remember from my recent post about Colette, I don't do well when wild animals show up in my home unannounced. We learned this morning that this does indeed apply to squirrels as well as mice.

Meanwhile, Geoff tried to usher the little guy out. And told me to grab the camera. Now, screens did not come with our apartment, so we bought some ajustable screens from Home Depot and have installed one in just one window of our bedroom (after wrestling for a good hour to get the childproof bars off just one window, we have momentarily given up on the rest). Now, after we installed it, we noticed that when the bottom part of the window is open (i.e. the window is not closed and locked) the top half of the window slides down a little bit, leaving between 2-4" gap at the top of the window where there is no screen. We think that's how he got in.

Another thing I learned this morning - squirrels can really climb. In a way that is disturbing.


Here's our buddy Cyril, (yes, we named him), trying to high tail it away from us. I think he looks kind of like a cartoon.


Cyril really wishing he could get the hell out of here.


And yet, admiring our view. Which was nice of him, considering he must have been having a panic attack.


Cyril being bashful.


Cyril being sassy and attempting to wink at me I think.


My reaction to it all. I needed a moment.


And then I could not stop laughing.


Certainly not the way I expected to start my morning. Not remotely. Can't believe I was such a damsel in distress about it either. SO glad Geoff was home. Even the pictures kinda make my hair stand on end a little bit, if I think about it too much. Now, squirrels are cute and fun in a park or any other of their natural habitats. Our bedroom just doesn't happen to be one of them.

Our Italian Furry Friends

Anyone who knows us, knows how much we love animals. Well, our love affair continued in Italy with a few very special friends.

When we were in Tuscany, we found our way to the Castello Gabbiano, where our friend Robert Norman (more on him in another post) was going to be shooting a wedding. It was gorgeous (shocking, I know) and we were there at the perfect time of day.



As we looked around the place we met two dogs that we instantly fell in love with. One was super friendly and wanted to be our friend instantly. He had an injured back leg but that did not stop him from from bounding ahead and showing us the way. We named him Guisseppe.


His brother, who looked just like him, was much more introverted and extremely mistrustful of us. He didn't want to come anywhere near us, but barked up a storm because we were clearly SO dangerous. You could see it in his eyes - he was scared and slunk away from us every time we came near him. We named him Alfredo. He would not even let us take his picture. But we loved him in spite of all that.

Just because it wouldn't seem like a complete blog post if I didn't talk about food, I have to say that I had one of the best, if not THE BEST dish of my life at the ristorante at the Gabbiano Castle. It was an appetizer. Arugula, proscuitto, and some sort of pan-seared pecorino romano cheese.


I cannot even DESCRIBE how good it was. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised, it was, after all, fried cheese. But not the dirty, plastic fried cheese of your average American chain food restaurant (which is wonderful in its own way, make no mistake). This was a clean, and complex fried cheese with layers and layers of subtlety. It was so good, it made me close my eyes. It was SO good that it caused us to coin a new phrase. Now, i am pretty expressive with my hands, as many of you may know. Apparently, when I tasted this dish, Geoff said that it made me "hang up the phone". I closed my eyes, and, with my hand mimicking a phone (with thumb & pinkie extended), i brought my hand up to the inside of my shoulder...making it look like I was hanging up the phone.

This picture illustrates, even though it was taken at another EXCELLENT meal in Cortona several days later.


Our other favorite friend was a cat that we named Luigi. I don't really even much care for cats in general but Luigi won me over. We came upon him in the tiny town of Monteione, which we stumbled into after striking out on spending a day by a pool (as the pool was "closed for the season" - since it was summer we didn't really understand that). We walked through Monteione and came upon Luigi, sitting in the middle of this tiny almost-piazza all by himself. He was slow and sleepy and Geoff decided he had a deep gravelly voice and a thick Italian accent (of course). We also discovered that Luigi loved to have his picture taken....