SUMMER IN THE CITY

The move is over. Our downsizing these days has been reduced to taking out the garbage. What a change to be living in a one-bedroom place compared to our large spread out old six-room apartment back in the Bronx. There is certainly a lot less to clean but on the other hand everything really needs to have it’s own place because it doesn’t take long for this little home of ours to look sloppy and unkempt.

We made a trip to the Bronx Zoo the weekend before the big move and I got a couple of cool photos before the summer heat drove us home.

In fact we visited a few of our favorite Bronx haunts in the weeks before the move, not to say ‘good bye’ but to say hello in a different way. It’s easy to take for granted the common everyday events and places, but this time we visited our old haunts with a renewed affection for all the pleasure they’d given us.

We took a trip to Arthur Avenue for a bite of Italian delights.

We took a short walk in Vancortlantdt Park again and visited the lake where we had frequently fed the ducks with our grandson, and then we headed for Broadway and ordered a juicy steak dinner at Jakes located across the street from the park at the end of the #1 subway line.

But now we have all of Manhattan to play in and this weekend that’s what we did. Well, we played until the heat got so bad we had to go indoors.

I love the deep summer shadows.

And the concept of city boating has some interesting twists.

Sitting near any water in Central Park is like visiting a cooling station. But when it’s time for lunch, everyone has to put on his or her shoes and go home for a rest.

There is always something fun to see in the New York City Parks and juggling is just one of the surprises that we saw in a cool shadowy glen.

Oh yeah, and we sold our car. For us a vehicle would be more trouble than it was worth so we stuck it on Craigslist and within three days this reliable Toyota belonged to another family. If you look closely at the photo you can see that we forgot to take off the last of the Spiderman decals that our grandson stuck on the back window. If we need wheels in the city we’ll just have to figure something out, but what a freeing feeling not to have to deal with the alternate side of the street parking.

This is the parking sign outside of our building. It takes a while to figure out this stuff and if you’re not fast enough plan on getting a few tickets.

I come from a long line of car owners and this will be the first time I’ll be without a car in many, many years and this is just fine with me.