Oh wow!

I don't know about you, but I am running out right now to get me one of these!

I am too kind to myself

After some contemplation, I’ve decided not continue with my list of annoyances because I am annoyed with it. So, being a somewhat thoughtful person, I decided to stop annoying myself.

But don’t fret, I am sure those two specific annoyances will pop up on this thingee at some point in the future.

On another note, I was walking down a street in Greenpoint and saw an old man talking to pigeons. I am fairly bad at guessing a person’s age but I think it’s safe to say that he was in his 70s; he was somewhat physically fit - he stood upright on his own, but not active enough to guess that he recently retired. In front of him there was a pile of bits of bread and about 20 pigeons.

I am fairly good at guessing the number of items, persons, steps etc in front of me because I have a tendency of counting things and by now, I’ve counted different things enough to guess somewhat accurately the number of items in front of me. I wouldn’t go as far as say that I can tell how many jelly beans are in a 3 liter jar but when it comes to 20 pigeons, I think I am right. Now, I realize that counting things is some sort of a sign of mental illness but there is nothing that I can do, I can’t stop counting.

But I digress.

The point is, the old man was standing in front of bunch of pigeons making pigeon noises. Not that there is something wrong with it, I like to sit around and stare at things, too. But as I passed the pigeon man, I really hope I too won’t turn into a 70+ something pigeon woman.

But then a few nights later, as I was chowing down my dinner, I watched a documentary on PBS (oh, how high-brow) about Mary Cane Honeysett, a lovely, quirky, and funny old lady who lives in London and despite her failing vision, she spends her days painting. Her goal in life is to get one of her painting accepted to the annual show at the Royal Academy of Arts (they accept submissions from any artist, somewhat unusual, considering the hoops an artist needs to jump in order to get her work considered for a show in this city). And I thought “Whew! Perhaps talking to pigeons is not the only option.”

I procrastinate. Back to writing about a trauma informed parenting group for women who have post-traumatic stress disorder and are currently in treatment for alcohol and/or drug abuse. Hmm, or maybe I'll go to make myself a sandwich... The fun in my life just doesn't stop.

Fram

I am going to end the month of February with a list of my annoyances. Not to say that February is more annoying than other months and not that this blog lists anything else besides my annoyances, but the in past month, month and a half, there have been several things that I found really annoying. And since no one wants to hear others whine, I am just going to write about them (in no particular order)!

Annoying thing #1: Spam from acquaintances/people I forgot about.

I have set up several email accounts, each serving its own purpose. I have specifically designed accounts for spam, list-serves, “professional” contacts, school, etc. My day-to-day email account is set up for friends/family/people I'd like to email me and it gets no spam or useless emails on purpose.

Except that increasingly I find that several people are setting up list-serves to send out announcements about random things like getting involved in Amnesty International campaigns or some band’s performance I’ve never heard of. More annoyingly, people who barely know me put me on their announcement lists and I get random crap email I have no interest in. Or people whom I have not seen or heard from in years send out their announcement but when I reply with a personal note, they fall from the face of the Earth.

Clearly, there are times when it makes sense to send a mass announcement – but these announcements are sent by my close friends and I have interest in my friends and their activities. Plus, I receive such mass emails maybe once a month or so.

But the Amnesty International letter campaigns – oh c’mon – I live, breathe, sleep human rights. I don’t need them crammed down the throat every minute. If we used to make out and have not spoken to each other in years, I think this is a good indication that I have no desire to see you under any circumstances ever again. And if this is a ploy to see me, then send an individual email, inviting me to see your crappy band play.

Of course, these email start or end with instructions on how to be removed from the list-serve. Now, that’s nice. The question is, why put me on a list-serve without my interest/permission in the first place? Especially if I barely know you.

Sneak preview for the next editions (in no particular order): “Boy, are you stupid!” and “Oh, it’s really… um… pretty?”

Oh boy

According to the IRS, I am a low-income working individual. I should be the one getting sliding-scale services, not providing them...

Jealous, Tom Powers?

So, in hockey news, Latvia tied US 3:3 on Wednesday but was defeated Thursday 6:3 against Slovakia. They're facing Sweden and then Russia next week, which pretty much means that there are going to be 2 more losses.

Clearly US has a crappy hockey team if they tied Latvia. Although who knows, maybe they were "jetlagged." And victory against Kazakhstan doesn't indicate skill or ability to play hockey well. Also, I know English is not my first language but who says "that'll learn you"?!

Tie with Latvia lacks luster
TOM POWERS
TURIN, Italy

Don't worry, there's plenty more where that came from. I'm pretty sure Team USA can tie Kazakhstan today, too.

Take that, Latvia! Thought you were going to beat the U.S. men's hockey team, eh? Well, that'll learn you. Our guys never quit. That's not the American way. All you're going to get is a tie. A clutch third-period goal by Minnesota's own Jordan Leopold saw to that. So go ahead and choke on your 3-3 tie.

There hasn't been such a glorious moment in U.S. hockey history since the Americans rallied to tie powerhouse France in Lillehammer in 1994. And when Wednesday's game ended, a Latvian journalist asked Mike Modano if he was satisfied with the result.

"Not really," Modano said. "I'm kind of disappointed."

Isn't that just like our guys? They're always pushing themselves to do better.
Can we get serious for a moment? Team USA looked old and slow Wednesday night. The Americans were lucky to tie Latvia. Worse, they made awful decisions on the ice. The question is whether they were mentally and physically a step behind because of jet lag.

Or just because.

"We've obviously got to do better," said Brian Rolston of the Wild. "We'll go back to the drawing board and see what we come up with."

Can they draw up some smarter, quicker defensemen? How about a goaltender with sense enough to smack his stick on the ice good and hard to let his teammates know an enemy skater is about to leave the penalty box?

John Grahame's failure to properly warn his teammates of a man leaving the box cost them a goal. There is no reason for that.

Well, people probably are dancing in the streets of Riga today. They were dancing in the aisles of Palasport Olympico, too. It was a very pro-Latvian crowd. They especially cheered for goaltender Arturs Irbe, whose true age is a closely guarded state secret.

Irbe was a North Star when the Gund brothers still owned the team. He was a North Star when Lou Nanne was still general manager. But he was spry enough to baffle the Americans.

I will say this, though: They must play some sissy hockey in Latvia. If you were watching on TV, and not losing your lunch, you saw that every time there was any sort of physical contact, the crowd hooted and whistled. Apparently, hockey players don't touch one another in Latvia.

Not that the Americans touched them very often Wednesday. They had a hard time catching them. Rolston, like most of his teammates, refused to blame the travel. The entire Latvian team, except for two players, has been together since Feb. 6.

"Give them credit," he said.

"We're definitely going to have to get better," winger Bill Guerin said.

You think so?

Said winger Mike Knuble: "We're going to learn a quick lesson here."

It better be in a matter of minutes. These games will be coming at them rapid fire. Coach Peter Laviolette says his guys basically need sleep.

"That's a competitive group of guys in there," Laviolette said. "I'm not making excuses."

A lot of people don't remember this, but it was a goal by Laviolette that helped Team USA rally for that glorious tie against France in 1994. I'm not sure what that means, other than he probably doesn't want to be connected to another disaster. And that 1994 team was the all-time worst.

"I definitely agree we need to play better," he said.

Good, we're all agreed.

It is probably too early to toss them under the bus. With luck, we haven't seen the real Team USA yet. The guys will get some sleep and come back with good jump. Let's not panic.

Am I talking you off the ledge? I'm trying. I really think things could get better. Play close attention to today's game against Kazakhstan. Team USA should win by a lot.

But, you know, a tie isn't bad.

Tom Powers can be reached at tpowers@pioneerpress.com.

The pride of Latvia

Well, here is to the first Latvian to win an Olympic medal after Latvia declared its independence in 1990. You know there is going to be a party when Martins Rubenis comes back to town.

What makes it even cuter is that he made his own luge sled. That so "developing country." Oh wait, I meant to say "transitional nation."

Crap, Latvian hockey team's first preliminary game is against the United States.

More importantly (how could I forget), the Olymics are here. Now, is anyone actually really watching the Winter Olympics? Not me, it lacks my favorite sport - anything that involves short swimming shorts, shaved chests and water - that's when the high definition TV comes in handy. But the Latvians (who strangely looked like Pilgrims in the opening ceremony) already won a medal so hats off to them. And watch for the Latvian hockey team - this year will be the year to break the top 10!

it started snowing in NYC around 6pm on feb 11; on feb 12 around 3pm, it kept on snowing. this is what i saw in greenpoint on the way to feed a cat. and i think i am one of very few people who loves snow, it's the latvian in me. (for the more "romantic" manhattan pictures, go to nytimes.com) 

dig baby, dig 

too bad it's Sunday rather than a Monday 

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McGuinness ave 

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my Polish buddies 

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greenpoint bank 

manhattan avenue 

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pride of greenpoint 

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Babies, babies, babies!

So to follow up on my Stylish Trends posting, MSN has compiled a website with all the celebrity moms to be! So sit back, relax, enjoy the show and start thinking about ordering that fake belly. I'll give you a special price (man, am I gonna be rich!.

This reminds me of the time when I lived in a room that was 7ft X 8ft

From NYTimes

February 3, 2006
Talk About Renting a Hole in the Wall
By JANNY SCOTT

So you think your place is small? One night recently, a group of architecture students staying up late in a loft in Brooklyn took to amusing themselves by stuffing a mattress into a hole cut into the wall above a bedroom door. Then they tried the mattress out for comfort. Not half bad! It occurred to one of them, Nick Freeman, that people might pay money to call that elevated mattress home.

So Mr. Freeman posted an ad on the Web site Craigslist: "$35 — elevated mattress-sized space between rooms." He used a minimalist pitch. "Opening between hall and room available for long/short-term use, accessible by ladder, sheets and pillows not provided." The ad went up around noon, and by the end of that day, Mr. Freeman had a dozen potential takers.

"I was actually surprised with the amount of places that fall into that category — kind of like 'I'll rent a corner,' " said Drew Hart, who answered the ad. "I went to look at a place recently in Queens; I wasn't aware until I got there that it was a cloth shower curtain separating part of the living room."

Into the six-ring circus that is the housing market in New York City — where a house can sell for $40 million, an apartment can rent for $25,000 a month and extended families sleep in shifts in single rooms — came the airborne mattress, at least briefly.

As real estate prices remain stratospheric and people keep pouring into the city, some housing experts believe the market for space within other people's space is on the rise.

On Craigslist alone, one can find hundreds of ads for rooms within apartments, beds within bedrooms, even the occasional couch — if not living quarters, then living eighths. Some are available from Monday evenings through Friday mornings, some only on weekends. Some exclude kitchen privileges, request teetotalers, insist upon plant care, limit sleepovers.
A few will take some of the rent in trade.

"The regular value of this studio is $2,000 per month," one recent ad seeking a roommate for a West Side apartment said. "Your share of the rent is specially reduced to only $250 per month for a female in exchange for doing small chores a few hours a week (i.e. cooking, cleaning, answering phones, massage, etc.)."

The ad suggested helpfully, "Perfect for a student, tourist, actress, etc."

What, no cabdrivers?

"You're in the subterranean world in this particular issue," said Frank Braconi, executive director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, a policy research group in Manhattan. "So little of it is aboveboard and legal and monitored, nobody's counting anything. You're inevitably going to be in the realm of anecdote rather than data."

He added, "Anecdotally, it's overwhelmingly the case that it is going on more and more."
Caroline Adalian, a 33-year-old "child life specialist" in a Queens hospital who figures she has lived in 10 different places since college, recalls being required in one New York apartment to say she was a friend of the family and never mention rent. Another woman was told to say she was the cleaning lady.

A few years ago, Karen Falcon, whose family owns a brownstone on Broadway at 152nd Street, tried to find a family to rent the three-bedroom upstairs apartment. When her ad went unanswered, she tried advertising the rooms separately instead.

They went almost instantly, she said; so she turned herself into an informal rental agent for a friend with a 60-unit building full of large apartments nearby.

"We were inundated," said Ms. Falcon, who said tenants in the building now affectionately call it a dorm for adults. "Because young people are pouring into New York City. It's like we are such a magnet. I really feel I'm on the front lines of this."

The mattress episode began sometime before dawn on Jan. 16. John Ivanoff, a 22-year-old architecture student at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, who shares the 1,500-square-foot apartment on Taaffe Place with five others — the person with the only room with a real window pays an extra $50 in rent — said he and his roommates and Mr. Freeman, a friend, had stayed up drinking and suddenly decided to stuff a spare mattress into the rectangular hole cut into the wall above one bedroom door.

"There were three of us up there at one time," Mr. Freeman recalled. "All three of us hung out there. After the night was done, I said it would be funny if I put this on a room-share thing on Craigslist and see if anyone responds."

One who did was Adam Kriney, a 29-year-old experimental jazz drummer "looking for living spaces for under $200, if possible," as he put it later. He had given up his share in an apartment in Williamsburg and had been staying on various couches of friends.
"Look, I'm looking to live in a crawl space," said Mr. Kriney, who said he spent his money on rehearsal space. "What do I really need besides my laptop, a sleeping bag and a suitcase?"
The mattress ad caught his eye.

"I kind of thought it was like a cubby cubbyhole where I could hang out," Mr. Kriney said in an interview. "I didn't realize it was suspended. Which isn't a problem. That wouldn't be a strange thing. It's just where I lay my head. I'm only here to do my music."

Tywan Williams, a 27-year-old "celebrity hairstylist" at a beauty salon in Queens who had found an apartment but could not move in until Feb. 1, answered the ad after sleeping on the A train the previous night.

Another response came from Melissa Sanfiorenzo, a 25-year-old photographer just back from Spain and trolling Craigslist for a room for $400 to $500 a month.

"When I saw the ad, it's like, 'This is really nuts,' " Ms. Sanfiorenzo said. "I figured being there, with time maybe something would open up. Maybe someone will move out — of, like, the room. I mean the bed is on top but maybe there's a table or a big space."

Mr. Hart, a 19-year-old student from Manasquan, N.J., returning to New York after a semester of travel, fired off an e-mail message to Mr. Freeman: "well O.K. I already know I'm crazy, but . . . if that bed's really for rent and you're all really as crazy as you seem as well (and those strings are strong) I'm there."

He added, "Will also sleep in corner, in tent, etc. etc."

An open house for the mattress was scheduled for that Saturday, Jan. 21, between 6 and 9 p.m. Mr. Hart arrived, checked out the real estate and was willing to give it a shot. But, according to Mr. Freeman, the existing inhabitant of the bedroom in question was unenthusiastic. "Pretty much that was the point where it fizzled out," Mr. Freeman said.

Mr. Hart ended up finding a berth in a small bedroom in Woodside, Queens. He said he was sharing a room with another man in a four-bedroom apartment — "kind of like a dorm situation." The rent is $250 a month.

As for the mattress, Mr. Hart has only one regret. "I think I would have done it," he said. "Because it's, like, a good story to tell your kids."