lucky perro

New Year’s Resolution #6 was:

Try something new every week.

I am pretty literal about what constitutes “something new:” a heretofore untried recipe, a daring lipstick color, a train ride with an 18 month-old–every day presents new experiences and possibilities.  This resolution is intended to remind me to seek out adventure, and I often try to drag other people along for the ride, which is (usually) a good experience for all.

Last week’s new adventure was a trip to Glenstone.  It was, in a word, fabulous.  The collection was superb, the setting is amazing, and the experience of having a private docent for our group of two to talk with about art was completely invigorating.  My friend and I especially loved the Richard Serra sculptures.  They’re immense, geometric, and have this weird liquid, spacious quality you wouldn’t expect in a hunk of metal.  We can’t wait to go back in the spring and check out the new collection and see the property in the sunshine.

One of the things I was interested to see when we were in Brooklyn was the finished Barclays Center, because it’s been kind of controversial.  I really liked it.  It reminded me a bit of the Bird’s Nest from the Beijing Olympics, but the rusted steel gives it a harder urban edge–it’s sleek, but rough and industrial.  And because they were so fresh in my mind, it reminded me of the Richard Serras.  At first I thought this was blasphemous, until I read the following, from someone at the architecture firm behind the Center, SHoP: “it’s what would happen if “Richard Serra and Chanel created a U.F.O. together.”  Is that complimentary?  I have no idea.  But I love the idea.  And apparently I also love rusty metal.

Glenstone doesn’t allow photos, so I have none.  The above pic is Serra’s Torqued Ellipse IV in the MOMA Sculpture Garden, taken by Alexandra P. Spaulding.  Barclays Center photo and quote from ArtInfo.

One of my birthday gifts was a trip to Brooklyn to hang out with these two dudes.  Well, I thought it would just be me and these two dudes, but then…

SURPRISE!  We had rented an awesome apartment in Boerum Hill through Airbnb, and when I heard a knock at the door, I thought it was the owner forgetting to show us one last thing, but actually my friend and her husband had flown out from Chicago!  Such a great surprise.  And I was TRULY surprised.  I like to think it’s hard to pull one over on me, but apparently not.  Thanks, Meegan and Ty, for making the weekend so awesome.

We spent the rest of the weekend exploring, eating, and window shopping.  We hit up one of my favorites, Vinegar Hill House, as well as the Brooklyn Flea.

We also went to Red Hook, which was interesting because it had been really hard hit by Hurricane Sandy, and there was still a lot of evidence of that, from water lines to notices about saving photos to people mucking out houses damaged by mold.  We stopped at this cafe, which seemed oddly familiar to me…

Finally I remembered that was because I’d seen it in Jerry Seinfeld’s new series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.  The episodes are hit-or-miss, but they are thankfully short and sometimes weirdly profound (see the one with Alec Baldwin).

I also met up with some great friends from college, but failed to get a photo of us together, or of any of us, actually.  So sorry, guys!  Thanks for trekking from all over New York and Jersey to meet up, anyway!  Hope to see you again soon in DC or New York, or somewhere in between.

I love making resolutions.  Who doesn’t like to think about accomplishing a life-long goal, or putting a big project to bed, or finally becoming some better version of ourselves–whether healthier, better educated, or simply more positive?  Since my birthday falls shortly after the new year, it’s a great time to reevaluate where things stand and where I’d like to get to.

I plan to cover one or two of my resolutions in each of the next few posts, both to remind myself of why I’ve made them and motivate myself to continue with them.

So, first up, resolution #2 was to blog at least three times a week.  I was motivated to start a blog by a few things: to join wthe great community of people online, to improve my writing, photography, and (currently non-existent) HTML skills, and to challenge my tendency to guard my privacy a little too fiercely.  Ultimately, however, the biggest motivator occurred to me today as I walked past what used to be a Barnes & Noble in Georgetown–and is now a cavernous Nike store with, apparently, no customers.  My first thought was, “I miss that bookstore.”  Not because it was the best bookstore, since it obviously wasn’t, but I remember visiting it occasionally throughout my ten years in DC.  And then I started to reminisce about the years when my husband (then boyfriend) was living in Georgetown, and we would occasionally kill time there at the magazine rack, or I would search for holiday gifts, or just roam the aisles looking for a new book to read.

And then, for whatever reason, I thought about the bookstores that I hope and pray survive the digital age–El Ateneo in Buenos Aires, and Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and El Pendulo in Mexico City, where I spent nearly every weekend when I lived there.  And I could feel my mouth beginning to water for fresh juice and chilaquiles, and then I thought that it was a shame that I had nothing to record my time at El Pendulo, and more broadly speaking, nothing to record my days in Mexico City at all.  I mean, I have some photos, but they don’t really tell the full story.  I wish I had documented some of favorite places, meals, and people there, like my yoga studio, the French-Armenian traiteur with the most beautiful outdoor garden, the Portuguese baker with the best pain au chocolat ever, practically every old building in Condesa, and the little corner of Chapultepec Park where I walked or ran nearly every day.  And then there’s the weather, which was so utterly perfect that it deserves it’s own chapter, especially when the jacaranda trees were flowering outside my kitchen window…

But my homage to Mexico City will have to come later (and I promise, it will come!).

The point is, every day, no matter where I am, is filled with places, people, and meals, both magical and mundane.  And I would like to document them, in order to better appreciate them.

Which brings me to resolution #12, Be present every day.  You know, show up for things.  Be there.  Appreciate them.  I know that I, sadly,  fail to show up more often than I should.  So here’s to remedying that.

Top photo of El Ateneo, credit unknown

Monday was the beginning of a few things around here–Obama’s second term, my 33rd year–and the end of nearly five months of yoga teacher training.  We spent the inauguration at an event which featured the most random assortment of pseudo-celebrities, before watching the parade, all of which was very exciting for me since I missed the festivities in 2009.

As for the end of teacher training, I feel bittersweet about it–it was a great experience, but it’s so nice to have my weekends back, too.  It was a wonderful and amazingly supportive group of people, and I’m glad we’re already planning ways to hang out together in the future.

P.S. All the celebrities (except Wonderwoman, aka Lynda Carter) appeared SO much tinier in person than on TV.  Is this always the case, or did I just happen to encounter the wee ones?

Photo found on Instagram – credit unknown

2012 was pretty swell, but I think 2013 will be even better.  We’ve got big plans, both personally and professionally, for our little family.

(No, I’m not putting the baby to work–aside from vacuuming and sweeping, which, I swear, he loves to do.)

Photo from Key West, December 2012