Ella & I Are Both Ill

I'm worried about her, she's losing blossoms left and right, and her leaves are turning yellow. Some orchid care Web sites tell me that these are signs of either over-watering, or too much sun. I haven't been watering more than once weekly, so I'm thinking it may be the sun. I've moved her away from the window again and hope this helps; because you're really not supposed to move them around too much.

As for me, something upset my stomach yesterday, and I'm still a little queasy. The Bronx can get stifling sometimes, there is a feeling of no-air, especially on muggy days. I went up to the roof, hoping to clear my head, but as I breathed deeply I could just feel all that air pollution filling my lungs. Perhaps that's what did me in...

I left Ella and drove out to the country today. I don't feel great about leaving her in that state. But then, there are plants that need caring for out here, too. There are days when it feels overwhelming like this - too much extremity, two lives pulling. The minute I arrived here I whipped out my laptop, had to get to work on my freelance projects, the ones that earn me money. It's evening now, and it's almost like I'm not really in the country, I've barely gotten outside.

Think good thoughts for Ella - that we'll find the right spot for her, and that she'll revive soon.

They Bloom, Then They Fall

I feel sad every time it happens and start to think "something's wrong." But J. says, "They bloom, then they fall." I dunno. Ella is looking a little bare now.

Little Man, the rubber tree, is now Little Men, which is sort of creepy as a name, so we'll have to come up with something different for the group:

They are much happier now, as a family. Spawning is good. Room to grow is good. But I admit that I was little help in the process. J. spread out a garbage bag in the middle of the room and went to work. I stood there, watching, holding up a branch here and there and refilling the water pitcher while he moved dirt around in bare handfuls. I somehow just couldn't "dig in" to this dirt-scooping effort in the middle of a Bronx living room, the incongruity was a kind of short-circuiting overload for me. We cultivate green growing things here in the asphalt jungle; we read Don Delillo on the porch in the country.

There is a kind of psychic discontent at the root of this behavior, I sense this; I note it not so much as a self-condemnation, because what's the point of that, but more as an observation about two-ness. About what it means and looks like to live in a state of straddle and tension, to seek that state and to devote much of one's life energy to holding that tension, to keeping the extremes alive and dynamic in a single experience, to exploring and cultivating the ways in which the far ends of a spectrum nurture and deepen one another. City and country, yes; and everything else, so much more...

Moths Again, and Junk Shopping

This scared the heck outta me; it was perched on the side of the inner window sill, and it looked like something straight out of Lord of the Rings - like a chunk of animated bark.

This is not an actual photo, but one I found on a bug site, as I was digging around for what manner of creature this thing could possibly be. After the initial siting, I saw it again later in the evening, on the floor by the bathroom. I stomped my foot next to it, but it didn't move. I was convinced it was not a living thing at all; but then, how to explain its original sideways perch, and how did it get from the window sill to the other room?

According to this rather amazing site, whatsthatbug.com, it is a blind sphinx moth, calasymbolus exaecatus. Says the very knowledgeable author of the site: The caterpillar feeds on willow, Hazel and other similar plants. The moth is relatively common in Pennsylvania, and ranges from southern Canada to Florida, and west to the Mississippi River. Sphinx Moths, also called Hawk Moths, are very strong fliers... Bugs seem to come to my house to die; I wonder what I will find when I return next week...

It's been raining buckets in the country. We picked the squash blossoms and will probably deep fry them in a light batter. No actual squash yet, but any day now. The lettuce is wilty but tasty, not too bitter, which is surprising; this is not at all the time of year for lettuce, it's usually best in early spring when the weather is cool. J. says it's had time to "develop personality," without being stressed. I can't help wonder if we're talking about lettuce or something else.

J. changed the water filter; I just couldn't do it. Not this time, anyway. Maybe next time.

At the Salvation Army, we looked for clay pots for Little Man, the rubber tree. No luck (we found them later at Home Depot, alas), but J. found a motorcycle touring book from the '70's and a Tom Wolfe novel; I found a Polaroid Land Camera 104, circa 1965. It appears they still make film packs for it, and I saw a manual for it on ebay. Maybe I'll actually figure the thing out.

Urban Hounds

I'm happy to report that Brownie the pup is doing great with her new mom. She's a whole new dog, now that someone is there for her. A big improvement from the lonely concrete basement here, minimal exercise, and no training. G. and I walked her around the park near her new Upper West Side home, and people were constantly stopping to pet her or smile at her. It's a happy story for both G. and Brownie, a veritable ABC After-School Special: G. says she thinks she sees evidence of cigarette burns on her body, which is too sad.

I'm sorry to see her go, though. She and my own pup P. were getting to be buds. My guy is seven years old, so he was playing big brother, it was real sweet.

P. is a real city-country dog, he's kinda seen it all. Originally he was a farm dog, but the farm went bankrupt and the family shot all the dogs... except for P. and his sister J. (who was adopted by someone else, and who I had the pleasure of meeting). The two of them, the legend goes, escaped and were found wandering in the woods. They were taken to a canine rescue org, which is how I found him. He lived in Brooklyn with me for a while, and now he's in the Bronx and PA. He seems to make the transition back-and-forth pretty well. I was surprised by how anxious he was in the country at first, it was a bit too much for him - too much space, too much freedom (maybe reminders of his traumatic past). He'll often just curl up inside on his bed and sleep, even on a nice day when the doors are open. Sometimes we hear the gun shots of hunters, and that completely does him in.

In the country, P. gets beef rib bones after dinner and vegetable scraps, and whatever he can swipe off the compost pile when we're not looking. In the city, he gets chicken bones and other icky stuff off the streets (he's often too fast for me to catch him). Of course it's all the same to him. He's a dog, leftovers are leftovers. But I wonder what he thinks about when we're en route from one place to the other. Does he anticipate the country (grass! hiking in the woods! none of that salsa music!)? Does he look forward to getting back to the city (man, I'm beat, I just want to lie around in that small box of a room in peace)?

Good news: D. the landlord backed down on the rent increases. Hopefully he did the math, i.e. a month or two loss on rent for folks who move out, vs. whatever he would have gained by the increase. There's still a hike, but a reasonable one. I hope this means the same for us when our renewal comes up. Also, a new cafe just opened up, it's the only one anywhere around here (it's probably a mile, maybe more, from here). I haven't tried it yet, I think they're Greeks who own it; will post a report soon.

Ella's doing good these days. I saw a mini-orchid at Trader Joe's the other day for 7 bucks and almost bought it, so Ella could have a companion; but I had my hands full (literally), so maybe next time. We're taking the rubber tree to the country so we can re-pot. He has a name now - "Little Man" - after a minor character from Season One of "The Wire." Not such a nice character, but we figure at least he'll be tough.

Tenants Rise Up?

It's been stormy the last couple of days here in the city. Last night we came home to casualties, i.e. the Cuban oregano and the cactus both did nose dives off the window sill because of strong winds through open windows. The oregano lost a goodly chunk of foliage (Mojitos!), and the cactus lost a blossom. Poor guys; such is the rough and tumble of city life.

This morning I went down to visit Brownie the Puppy (G. comes back from vacation tomorrow, when we'll do the official transfer/adoption). There was a guy down there hauling out garbage from the yard next door. This is good, I think. He said that D., our landlord, hired him to clean it up. These signs of landlord concern do seem encouraging.

However, there's a stir among the natives here (or the non-natives, I should say). A number of the tenants who moved in early on when the building was first renting are up for lease renewals, and they received very significant rent increases. They are not happy. We all pay a little too much in the first place, considering the location. Our landlord may be spiffying things up, but he's doing so with the idea that he's making a Manhattan-type community here. And yet... the fact remains that we live out on the frontier, and there's nothing out here but us and the fumes.

There was some talk of a petition. These are good tenants, it makes no sense to price them out, not after the first year, not when things are still unstable around here. Come on, D. - you need to see the long view.

Ella's Man

Mr. Rubber Tree. Poor guy, we haven't gotten to repotting him, he's all crowded in there.

I Am Afraid of the Bronx

I admit that I feel a little targeted. That someone has been watching - the auto glass guys, the waterproofing guys, the teenage sons of the family two doors down - looking to pounce, an opportunity to steal, pillage, or otherwise disorient (so to speak) the Asian girl, the one who's out of her bounds.

They're not wrong. That I don't exactly belong here. But paranoia probably isn't going to help the situation.

We're talking mostly about clash of the classes here anyway, not the races. A little of both, of course. Our building was renovated in a particular way, by a particular developer, to attract urbanites of a certain ilk. We're mostly professional, a number of artists and teachers, racially all over the map. The Puerto Rican families who live on the block (mostly rowhouses, some rent out their basements) and the guys who work on the block regard us with interest, amusement, suspicion - the whole gamut. It's gentrification in action, I suppose. Our presence brings a new energy, a different energy, people on the block in the evenings, lots of dogs on leashes. I think someone in the building has contacted the city about planting street trees. We take up all the parking spaces.

I suppose a central distinction of classes in neighborhoods is choice, i.e. many of us could live in a number of places, but we've chosen this building on this block, for whatever reasons. The families who've been here a while may not have chosen to live here per se, they more likely just ended up here; and if they had a wider variety of choices, they might choose something else.

Since the weather warmed up in spring, there are always people out on their stoops. The matron of the house three doors down watched me struggle with parallel parking one day, seemed to enjoy it, and has been an enthusiastic greeter (overhead hand-waving) ever since.

But the adage that where there are families, things are safe, is of course not true. Hello? The Sopranos?

I don't go out alone at night. I have lived in "edgy" neighborhoods before, but never so far off the map. If I walk just a block in any direction, there's nothing but factories and warehouses, shady underpasses, the occasional lurker-with-cigarette in a dark doorway. Teenagers with teeth-baring, spiky-collared pitbulls. My mother would be so pleased. We have an agreement, that J. walks the dog after dark, or we go together. There are no women-living-alone in the building as far as I know. There was one (white) woman who tried it out, but left after a month, citing S., the super, as cause: something about drunken untoward behavior, and food missing from her refrigerator.

J. encourages me to walk more "confidently" down the street, that my body language "invites" anyone who can smell fear. A self-defense course might be in order, but I've put this off for years. I am somehow ambivalent about how empowered I really want to be; it feels too far outside my core self, more like taking an acting class than anything else. But you can't have it both ways, I guess...

Every day is an adventure. The city apparently wised-up to the Thursday Only street-cleaning sign in front of the building and this morning switched the sign to Mondays & Thursdays, then promptly doled out tickets to anyone who happened to, you know, go off to work. "@()*$#*(%#()*(%)" was my greeting when I answered the call from J. "I got a ticket!" It must be his fifth or sixth on the block.

Ella has lost some blossoms, but I also see new buds. And we now have a new addition to our green family: Mr. Rubber Tree, who hails from a Korean deli in Chelsea and is in desperate need of re-potting. He and Ella make a funny pair, and yet somehow... it works.

I Am Afraid of My House

We hardly know each other, really. I mean, she's mine, I've got the mortgage papers to prove it; but we're near strangers for the most part. And I'm afraid of her.

I've occupied this house for over seven months now. The winter was cold and harsh, it felt like a season of survival mostly, learning the ropes of country life - of emergency kits and snow plowing and frozen pipes and wood-hauling and propane delivery. Come spring, yard work called, the grass growing tall all around, and bugs bugs bugs. Plus the dust - red dirt - which kicks up like crazy every time a car drives by.

So I'm learning how to exist in the house, how to exist here on this piece of earth, on this dirt road, in these woods, on this farmland. But I can't say I've yet begun to know the place. It's both the unknown, and the larger-than-me, that frighten me. When it comes to tackling house chores and maintenance, I feel more like a lion-tamer than a caretaker (Back, Simba!). Today, I wrestle with the water-filter, which makes the well-water here safe for drinking. It's about a month older than it should be, and it's started to leak, which tells me it's probably saturated. I can't unscrew the cannister, it's too tight, even as I'm using all my strength, my whole body. I give up, demoralized. I am too weak, too alone, in over my head. I am now afraid to use the washing machine, because I see from this morning's load that there's been a lot of leakage. All I need right now is a burst filter.

There are other things: vents that don't quite reach outside, slanty floors that seem to get slantier (or is it just my imagination?), wobbly bannister, a furnace on its last legs (18 years), wood-rot in the siding, kitchen sink pipes that freeze in winter but are housed in an unreachable crawl space. Just that phrase, crawl space, makes my heart sink. Will I really have to crawl in there to remedy my problem?

I wonder what it would feel like to really be at home. To see your home as your ward, your child, maybe even something like a spouse or partner. To know your home, and to love her. To approach her ailments as you would tending to a sick friend.

I guess for now I am still a city person, or even a suburban person, at heart - a renter, a vacationer, an occupier: I live here, but someone else takes care of things. We grew up in a new home, completed just before we moved in, and anything related to the house's care or maintenance was pretty much invisible to us; mom called The Guy (dad is not only not handy, but not even handy enough to call The Guy). Here, sometimes the nearest Guy is sometimes 60 miles away (I learned this when the refrigerator gave out), so this is not really an option.

And besides, I'm here with the idea of place in mind, after thirty-something years of a lot of placelessness, of moving around, and packing and unpacking, and never really knowing a place, a home, a landscape. It feels at this moment - embarrassingly - like an impossibility that I will ever be able to change that water filter; but hope springs eternal. A month ago, getting the lawnmower repaired (I actually have a phobia of repair guys, who I am certain lick their chops when the little Asian girl arrives, ignorant and oh-so-easily swindled) felt like a gargantuan task, but it got done, and now I know where to go; and a few months ago, I thought I was trapped here, snowed in, but I got on out there with the garden shovel (hadn't yet bought a snow shovel) and dug myself the heck out. So maybe, over time, I won't become Bob Villa or anything, but I'll learn a thing or two, I'll settle in to this place, which is - miraculously, a little randomly, and somewhat inexplicably - my house. Maybe, like Annie Dillard, I may even get to know my bugs ("There is a spider in the bathroom with whom I keep a sort of company..."), and I'll hold off on the obsessive vacuuming of spiderwebs, and of the fly and moth and mosquito carcasses which pile up in the corners of every room.

So we are not yet friends, me and this house. It's going to take some time.

Like Any Immolating Monk

Here is the moth passage, from Holy the Firm. I think perhaps it deserves its own post.

Two years ago, I was camping alone in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia...I read every night by candlelight, while barred owls called in the forest and pale moths massed round my head in the clearing, where my light made a ring.

Moths kept flying into the candle. They hissed and recoiled, lost upside down in the shadows among my cooking pans. Or they singed their wings and fell, and their hot wings, as if melted, stuck to the first thing they touched - a pan, a lid, a spoon - so that the snagged moths could flutter only in tiny arcs, unable to struggle free. These I could release by a quick flip with a stick; in the morning I would find my cooking stuff gilded with torn flecks of moth wings, triangles of shiny dust held here and there on the aluminum. So I read, and boiled water, and replenished candles, and read on.

One night, a moth flew into the candle, was caught, burned dry, and held. I must have been staring at the candle, or maybe I looked up when a shadow crossed my page; at any rate, I saw it all. A golden female moth, a biggish one with a two-inch wingspan, flapped into the fire, dropped her abdomen into the wet wax, stuck, flamed, frazzled, and fried in a second. Her moving wings ignited like tissue paper, enlarging the circle of light in the clearing and creating out of the darkness the sudden blue sleeves of my sweater, the green leaves of jewelweed by my side, the ragged red trunk of a pine. At once, the light contracted again and the moth's wings vanished in a fine, foul smoke. At the same time her six legs clawed, curled, blackened, and ceased, disappearing utterly. And her head jerked in spasms, making a spattering noise; her antennae crisped and burned away, and her heaving parts crackled like pistol fire. When it was all over, her head was, so far as I could determine, gone, gone the long way of her wings and legs. Had she been new, or old? Had she mated and laid her eggs, had she done her work? All that was left was the glowing horn shell of her abdomen and thorax - a fraying, partially collapsed gold tube jammed upright in the candle's round pool.

And then this moth essence, this spectacular skeleton, began to act as a wick. She kept burning. The wax rose in the moth's body from her soaking abdomen to her thorax to the jagged hole where her head should be, and widened into flame, a saffron-yellow flame that robed her to the ground like any immolating monk. That candle had two wicks, two flames of identical height, side by side. The moth's head was fire. She burned for two hours, until I blew her out.

Yard Day, or, I Feel Bad About My Hands

Today, I mow the lawn.

The house sits on two acres. I'd guess that 1.5 of those are wooded, the remaining 1/2-acre is grass. It's too large of an area to mow by myself, especially because there are some steep hilly areas. But I do it anyway. For now, while I'm young and foolish. It took me about three hours today - with a couple of breaks to do some weeding - and the casualties include two nasty blisters, one on the inside of each thumb. This would all go much easier if I had a weed whacker for the hills - people driving by must get a kick out of watching the little Oriental girl wrestle with the push mower - but all I've got right now is what I inherited from my father's garage (the mower came from him, as did all my garden tools), which is an electric whacker, and not near enough orange electrical cord to get me around a half-acre. (I am, for the record, in the midst of an email bargaining exchange with someone selling a gas-powered whacker in Rockland.)

Speaking of inherited goods....a curious symbiosis has developed between city and country: almost every piece of furniture in the house is a found object, including an arm chair, a TV, a microwave oven, a CD tower, a lamp, and a footstool/ottoman all found on the curbsides of NYC. I think I already mentioned that we collect food scraps and coffee grinds in the Bronx, bag them up, and toss them on the compost pile here. We burn our paper in the wood-burning stove, but we haul the bottles and cans back to the city (hey, I'm paying city taxes up the you-know-what, so I'm thinking I'm entitled) where I dump them in the recycling cans (which I personally organized and labeled!).

Today, I also wrote to a guy who runs a CSA farm nearby. I read that this particular farm considers workshares, and I think I might like the chance to see how a small farm works, could put in some hours - in exchange for my box of veges. We'll see - it's already late in the season. In the meantime, Alice's farm stand, about two miles from here, is bustling. Look at these gorgeous carrots.

I do have a garden here, and a number of container plants. I grow mostly veges, maybe over time I'll get to the flowers and shrubs (a lilac bush is first on my list, maybe some bulbs around the borders). So there's a lot more to tend to than just an orchid out here. Which brings me to my second title for this post: Nora Ephron apparently feels bad about her neck. Me, I feel bad about my hands. They're awful - calloused, dry, knuckly (and now, blistery). NYC women have such lovely hands (and feet). I'm not sure how they do it. I suppose I could do as a friend of mine does and at least wear rubber gloves when I do dishes. But when it comes to gardening, there will be no gloves; the whole point - the joy - is actually digging your hands into the dirt.

I found the Annie Dillard piece about moths: it's called Holy the Firm and is one of the most intensely beautiful and profound pieces of writing I have ever encountered. I am going to re-read it and may be back with some thoughts.

Lost & Found In the City

The city is a place of motion - constant flux - in every way. Friends come and go, as do jobs, studio apartments, corner pizza joints, express trains, umbrellas (I had an umbrella once that I loved; I must have lost it 3-4 times, and recovered it every time... until this last time, boo hoo). Think spirograph: round and round she goes, there is a strange beauty and order to it.

A couple of lost & found stories:

My car was stolen, right off the street around the corner from the apartment, about three weeks ago. It was broad daylight (based on when I parked and when I realized it was gone). I had just sunk a chunk of money into repairs/maintenance - more than my old beater is actually worth - just a few days before. It was a big old SUCK.

Then, it was found, two weeks later. It was found in Yonkers (or maybe Lost in Yonkers, depending on how you look at it). The only damage was the driver's side lock. There was no evidence of hot-wiring, which is creepy and makes me think it was the auto glass guys down the street, who had my key the day before it was taken. They were so nice and smiley, but now, I give them the stink eye whenever I walk by. It cost me $400 to get it out of the tow yard, and I had to reinstate both registration and insurance... but other than that, so far, it seems to be a full-circle event. What they took: my Kashi cereal (giant Costco size), parking quarters, the owner's manual. What they left: library books, cassette adapter, dog leash, EZ-pass, motor oil, umbrella. Go figure. The day I brought it home, I bought The Club.

Now, on to Brownie. Brownie is a sweet lab/shepherd puppy. She belonged to a family a few doors down, who were recently evicted. They abandoned her when they left. She wandered a few days, hungry and alone, until J., from upstairs, took her in. Between J. and M., another neighbor, they'd been feeding and walking her for two weeks, keeping her in the patio area in back of the building. When I heard about it, I immediately contacted G., who's been thinking about having a dog for a while. I shuttled Brownie over to G. (in my newly-recovered car), and they hit it off. She (Brownie) has got some biting issues - anxiety and defensiveness, we think, from the trauma of abandonment and perhaps mistreatment - but overall, she's a real sweetie. Yay for G. and Brownie, who we hope will live happily ever after. Cesar Millan, look out.

(I don't know why the color is off like this - a blogger problem, I think.)

Ella By Night

So here she is - Ella - by night. I moved her, thinking she was getting too much sun; but then moved her back to the window, where she seems to be happy in the heat.

Ella By Day

Here is Ella by day. I took these with a cell phone camera, so it's not the greatest. It's been 95 degrees and humid the last couple of days, and when we came back from the country, she was happy as a clam; this is her weather.

Bugs (Moths, In Particular)

A little orchid research: Ella is a phalaenopsis - commonly known as a Moth Orchid. From the American Orchid Society:

"An American Orchid Society demographic survey showed that
phalaenopsis have become America’s favorite orchid. And no
wonder. Perhaps no other orchid is better suited to home orchid growing.
Plants with long-lasting sprays of lovely mothlike blooms in a broad array
of colors are inexpensive and widely available, ready to give weeks of
pleasure in your home or office. Simply provide modest light and consistent
moisture, and they will delight you with their relative ease of culture.
The main flowering season is late winter into spring, though commercial
growers today can make flowering phalaenopsis available year round."

Speaking of moths... city and country life have one thing in common for sure: bugs. But very different bugs. Here in the country, we have lots of moths - moths of all sizes, that knock on the windows constantly, especially when there is a light nearby. Sometimes, when we open the doors to get air flowing through the house, the moths come flocking, and the ceilings and walls are covered in moths; it's quite something. I don't mind the moths at all (wasps and giant mosquitoes I could do without). There's some psychic/creative assurance for me there, because they remind me of one my primary inspirations for both living in the country, and the writing life: Annie Dillard.

AD wrote A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - the book I was reading at the moment (yes, there was actually a moment) I realized/decided that I needed to be a writer. That there was really no other path for me, not a true one. Pilgrim is chock full of bugs. AD has written a lot about moths in particular; here is one link to a section from An American Childhood. The intro to this excerpt states: As a student, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Annie Dillard encountered a moth that changed her life.

There is another AD moth essay that changed my life. I'll track it down for the next post. And coming next: Bronx bugs.

I Make Friends With P. the Librarian

P. is the head librarian at the local library out here in the country. Her husband B. is the head librarian in the next town over. I haven't gotten around to finding out if they met because they're both librarians, or if they became librarians together. We're not that familiar yet.

P. and I bonded over our passion for HBO original programming. Actually, it's dramatic series in general. I was trying to place holds for complete season disc sets of "The Sopranos," and I kept getting single discs (like "Episode 4, Season 3), which did me no good, since I was looking to get hooked. P. showed me the trick - only the librarians know it - of how to get full disc sets. So we set me up for Seasons 1-3. And we talked about "The West Wing," which we'd both just finished watching (all 7 seasons). In the midst of the mix-up - single discs kept showing up - P. really paid attention, trying to get me my full season. When it finally came in, she left me a long message on my answering machine, and even gave me her home #. She really wanted to make sure I got my Sopranos. Country people are sure nice.

More nice news: my car, which was stolen off the street in the Bronx two weeks ago, has been recovered. I had a voicemail message from Officer Garcia at the 40th precinct. They found it in Yonkers, I have to go pick it up Monday. The report says the only damage is the driver's side lock, but I'll have to see for myself. It was stolen in broad daylight, around the corner from our building. Probably kids going for a joy ride. Maybe they drove it until it ran out of gas. The EZ-Pass is apparently still in there. I'm curious to see if they ate my Kashi cereal and took my books-on-tape (Evelyn Waugh and Robert Stone).

Fireworks down on Brook Road. We can hear 'em but can't see 'em. The weekend boys who ride around on four-wheelers, my guess. My pup is shivering in the bathroom, wouldn't even come out for a hunk of leftover burger. We made Shake Shack style cheeseburgers, grilled eggplant, and grilled corn on the Smoky Joe. A taste of the city, country-style.

My Inner Norma Rae

So I decided to take charge of recycling

It's not hard, you just have to give a shit. And no one really does in our building in the Bronx. Which is sort of silly, given that there is a major recycling plant two blocks from us... probably the source of some of the fumes which are killing my orchid.

Let me just say: NYers are really some of the most environmental citizens in the world. Not because we give a shit, but because we live communally, we live densely. We share things - like electricity, water, gas. We ride public transportation. We do not water lawns or heat single family homes.

We'll see how it goes. I asked our landlord to buy some extra cans and clear bags. I went to the NYC recycling Web site and ordered decals. When the cans and bags arrived, I labeled everything. S., our super, couldn't quite get it straight - the clear bags, the blue can, the green can, the bottles and cartons, the mixed paper. But we're working on it. We're working on it. I'm keeping an eye out.

We've also started collecting coffee grinds, egg shells and vegetable scraps. We actually bag them up and take them with us to the country, where we throw them on the compost pile.

Next up: trying to do something about the derelict building next door. Our landlord has been trying to track down the owner. Apparently, he won't sell. Meantime, the building is a wreck, there is garbage everywhere, and the rodents are visiting us regularly. J. and I have each filed complaints with the NYC Dept. of Health & Mental Hygiene (what the heck is mental hygiene??), we're encouraging others to do the same. Our landlord says he's looking into fencing for the back patio area - so we don't have to look at the garbage, so we can maybe create an outdoor space. I have volunteered to do container plantings back there.

J. came home the other day with a little spray bottle. Maybe it needs some humidity, some spritzing, he said. Hope springs eternal. I have decided to name the orchid: her name is Ella.

Independence Day 2007

Uh-oh. The buds are starting to shrivel and fall off. A few blossoms are also withering. A little research reveals that "certain fumes in the air - methane or ethylene - may trigger bud or flower collapse." Temperature, water, and light all seem fine, so... darnit. J. just bought an air purifier, because we know that we live in "the asthma capital of New York." There are probably "certain fumes" in the air.

Speaking of beautification and greenery... we spent the afternoon at a film wrap party in Brooklyn. The owner of the rowhouse has made a lush oasis of his backyard - a gorgeous garden, with stone paths, a gazebo, and the most enormously excellent charcoal grill you've ever seen. Something out of "Little Shop of Horrors," a giant kettle drum of a grill, you could lay a whole pig on this thing. It was a nice afternoon, a rainy, green, urban afternoon. Someone brought bratwurst from Chicago, and the party - a very casual affair of about 25 people - was actually "sponsored" by a well-known liquor company, compliments of a friend of a friend. Good stuff.

Back in the Bronx, the rain had chased away many of the BBQers, but the die-hard PR families gathered underneath the Triborough Bridge. It's real garbag-y down there, and the kids were splashing around in mud puddles, but... oh well. Freedom! US of A!

At 9:20, S., the super of our building, who lives on the block with his mother and wife and teenage kids - they've lived on the block forever - rang the bell to make sure we knew the fireworks were starting. So up we went, to the roof. It's cold and wet, it's just us, S. the super, the couple upstairs, and the cute blonde-family-with-infant with Kentucky plates on their Honda. We're Korean and Puerto Rican and Chinese and Italian and Filipino and Irish, the fireworks are big as ever over the East River, there's meringue music blasting somewhere nearby.

I wonder what happens in Wayne County, PA, on the 4th of July. Maybe no meringue.

(*Click here for a later follow-up to this post.)

The First Post: An Orchid Grows in the Bronx

I brought the orchid home a week ago. I'd been wanting an orchid for a long time; but they're expensive, so I kept putting it off. Last week we were in Flushing, in Chinatown/Koreatown, and we found a plant store that sold healthy, inexpensive orchids. So I got one. I'm not sure of its botanical name, the species, but I'll find out.

The urge to beautify has been growing. Six months here in the Bronx - a mostly uninhabited area, treeless with lots of medium-to-heavy industry (waterproofing, metal workers, plumbing, sanitaton, marble, newspaper, electrical, auto) - and the intensity of concrete and machinery and mystery warehousing gets to you. Not to mention the garbage on the street and the air quality.

The few houses on the block and the next block over are owned or rented by families who've been here a couple generations at least - Puerto Ricans and Italians. A few weeks ago, I was on the roof (we have a great roof), and I noticed it: the roof-deck garden growing two doors over. The matron of the house was growing everything you could imagine, huge lush climbing plants - green beans, tomatoes, lettuces - a veritable family farm. She uses contractor buckets and halved burn barrels as containers for these gorgeous plants. I was inspired. Time to bring some green, some life, into our place.

The first was narcissus. Bulbs given to me by a co-worker. They bloomed quickly, and died down just as quickly. Next, I brought home an herb planter - basil, oregano, and rosemary - for the window sill. So far, so good. Then, I discovered something called Cuban oregano, a fuzzy-leafed fragrant herb which is supposed to flower, but is also lovely just as foliage; and is apparently used in cooking and, most notably, in Mojitos, in Cuba. Also happy in the windowsill. The day after we got the orchid, J. brought home a compact flowering cactus. So we're enlivening the place, little by little.

Last night I worried, irrationally, that the orchid might be harmed... by the eardrum-busting building alarm that went off for hours across the street. It's sitting on the sill facing the street.

I should mention: I live here only part-time. The other part-time, I live in an 1840 farm-house in a rural area of northeastern Pennsylvania. There is no cell service, no high-speed internet, no postal delivery (I have a PO Box at the local general store), and no noises at all in the middle of the night...except for crickets and the occasional moth flying into the window. The house is on two acres, mostly wooded, and we recently built a garden (by "built," I mean a fence, to keep out the deer and bears). I live there half the week, and in the Bronx the other half.

It is a life in contrasts, to say the least. But not uninteresting. From this place - these places, shifting perspectives and vastly different experiences, week to week, day to day - is born this blog. Tales from the city and country.