Can Brooklyn count as The Outdoors?

I always find the drive from DC to NY tiring. I95 is always crowded enough that you can't just relax back into your thoughts, and today bad weather exacerbated the stress of the drive. Combined with some sensory overload from a brief stop at a kayak show, I was pretty dazed by the time I hit Staten Island. Is it any wonder that at first glance I misread the "Staten Island Botanical Garden" road sign as "Satanical Garden"?

Brooklyn always brings out mixed emotions for me. It's home. It's my roots. Truth be told, though, it's a pretty gray and grubby place. But dammit, the food is good. As usual, my first goal upon entering the borough is to get a slice of pizza. I squeeze the car into an impossibly small parking space in Bay Ridge and set out in search of a pizza place. The first place I come across, a block and a half up, is closed for renovation. I have to walk all the way to 79th St. to find a pizza place - that's five blocks! Having to walk five blocks to find pizza in Brooklyn is simply unfathomable. Pizza is ubiquitous in Brooklyn, and I am pretty frustrated by the time I finally belly up to the counter and order.

I can't help myself, I somehow pick up a Brooklyn dialect when I visit. Not just the accent, but quirks like calling people "buddy" and using expressions like "fuhgedaboutit". The funny thing is I didn't speak like this when I lived here. I think I overcompensate for my insecurity over being merely an ex-Brooklynite by adopting a comically exagerated Brooklyn persona. So, "yeah, gimme two slices an' a smawwl Diet Coke" is what I sez to the guy behind the counter at the pizza place.

Accent notwithstanding, I soon sit down with my two slices. There's a commercial for Domino's on TV. Domino's?? Who in their right mind would order Domino's in Brooklyn? I take a bite of my slice. It's about average for Brooklyn, which means it's AMAZING. The crust is a little on the crisp side, but the flavor is just right. It just explodes through my mouth. Before I know it I have inhaled the whole slice. I force myself to take a break and then eat the second more slowly. Heaven.

Oh, and I later figure out that had I walked in the other direction I would have gotten to a pizza place in only two blocks. That's more like it.

Wasn't it just snowing?

OK, so five days ago we got slammed with significant snow. But that was then, this is now. It hit seventy degrees today. Seventy! There is no way to describe how good the warm weather and the Springtime air feel when you're so, so sick of Winter.

Today was the annual trip planning meeting for my kayaking group. I usually attend the meeting but truth be told, I don't lead many trips, so this time I stayed home and worked on my taxes. I can add my trips to the calendar later. I swung by the meeting just as it was ending - had time to grab some dynamite coffee cake and join people as they headed for the river.

Oh, the agony and the ecstasy of warm early spring days! You have to dress for the water temperature, which is still in the 40's, so on went the layers and the dry suits. But have I mentioned that the air temperature was seventy degrees? Man, that winter gear is hot. Before I got into my boat I had to wade into the Potomac to cool off.

We launched from Gravelly Point, just north of National Airport. I have never seen the place so crowded. Joggers, runners, bikers, people with strollers, airplane watchers, boaters, walkers. So many people out taking advantage of the break in the weather. It was like a party, like Central Park. The large parking lot was full - we unloaded our boats and parked on the grass.

After zipping up into our oh-so-unconfortable gear we headed out, a group of eight paddlers. We crossed the Potomac and headed up the Anacostia River. The Anacostia is not the world's prettiest river. It has much more of a working river feel than the Potomac - work boats, scruffy marinas, the Navy Yard. We paddled up past the new Nationals stadium, past the USS Barry at the Navy Yard, a little past the Anacostia Community Boathouse. Along the way I splashed myself liberally with river water to stay cool - and you have to be pretty warm to voluntarily rub yourself with the toxic muck that is the Anacostia.

As we turned back we realized we had had the wind and the tide with us on the trip out. It was uphill, so to speak, on the way back for sure. The wind in our faces kept us cool, but it took a little work to keep up a decent pace. As usual, Cyndi literally paddled circles around the rest of us. I haven't paddled much over the Winter so I was feeling the burn for sure! As we rounded Haines Point a soccer player yelled to us asking if we could help him retrieve his ball, which had gone over the fence into the river. At first we said, "sure", but when he mentioned it had gone into the water 45 minutes earlier, we told him it had no doubt drifted too far to be found, apologized for not being able to help him out more, then continued on out into the Potomac.

I don't know how far we paddled, exactly, but we were out about 2 1/2 hours. As soon as I hit land I downed my extra water bottle in what felt like one gulp. We helped each other load boats, had a few mini coffee cakes that Dave had thought to grab as we headed out from his house, then headed out through the traffic jam - traffic jam! - of the Gravelly Point park.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Walking in a Winter Wonderland ... because the car broke down

So March starts off with a bang - a big, white bang of a snowfall. The biggest we've seen here in a long time. Not anything that would impress anyone from the real snowbelt, but big for Virginia. For Valerie and the boys decisions about what to do are easy - when your life revolves around school, someone else does the decision-making. School's closed - stay home. For me, things are a little more complicated. I'm usually pretty hard-core about making it into work. I've got a calendar full of meetings. On top of all that, I've got an appointment to bring my car into the shop on the way to work.

So, at 7:45 I set out so I can get to the shop at opening time. It's only about a mile from the house, but it turns out to be a crazy drive. Even the main roads are slick like crazy. I get to an intersection where I want to turn left, but the car just keeps going straight. Oh, boy. Fortunately, the roads are empty and so I safely slide to a stop about 50 feet past the intersection. From there I inch the rest of the way to the shop. The shop is open, but none of the mechanics have made it in yet. I leave the car but decide to go home rather than press on to work.

The walk home is amazing. There's a walking trail through a small park that connects to the bike trail that runs near my house. I do the whole walk home through parkland. It's still snowing. It's bitter cold, but I'm bundled up top to bottom. It's white, it's beautiful. It feels more like the Sierra Nevadas than Arlington. A few dog walkers are out, along with a few dedicated souls trudging to the Metro stop. We greet each other heartily.

It takes me about 30 minutes to walk home. I arrive home exhilarated. Another cup of coffee, light a fire in the fireplace, power up the laptop. One by one, my meetings get cancelled and disappear off the calendar. I have a pretty productive day by the fire.

I love March snow. All the fun, knowing full well that it's Winter's last gasp.

Ich bin ein Fredericksburger

A little less than 150 years ago bullets were flying over the spot where we launched. Union and Confederate forces stood arrayed on opposite sides of the Rappahannock River in what would ultimately be a brutal defeat for Burnside's army at the hands of Robert E. Lee. Today, nary a ghost of that time stirred as Tom and I arrived for our trip up the Rappahannock. A group of us had accepted our friend Paige's invitation to come down his way, spend some time on the water, then check out his new house. Paige frequently makes the trek to DC to kayak with us, and we really owed him a return visit.

Tom and I, carpooling, arrived early, so we spent a little time driving around and checking out historical markers around the town. We headed back to the dock just as the rest of our group arrived - Dave and Cyndi, Nelson (without Caroline, who was sick), Kingsley, and Paige. In not time flat we were zipped up into our cold weather gear and were on the water.

The river had a pretty strong current and the weather was iffy so we decided to head upriver, figuring it was better to do the tough paddling on the way out and coast back. The river is narrow and shallow, but we made it all the way up to the base of the rapids in the center of town. A couple of our group went to play in the rapids a little bit. Paige got out of his boat and body-surfed the lowest rapid a few times. Tom and I, being a little more safety-oriented, beached our boats just downstream and walked up the river to hang with the rest of the gang. Definitely a fun interlude.

On the way back we did have the benefit of the current pushing us along, but we were subjected to crazy, very rapid changes in weather. Sunny. Stinging sleet. Sunny again. So windy that you just stopped paddling and ruddered to keep the boat pointed in the right direction. Cloudy. Rain.

After we got off the water we all headed over to Paige's house, which was just a few minutes' drive from the put-in. It's a beautiful house in an attractive new development. He just bought the place this past year and so it has an, um, open look. That is to say, he has very little furniture outside the bedrooms. First we stood around the kitchen eating snacks and drinking the beer assortment that Dave had so thoughtfully brought. Then we all sprawled out on the carpet in the totally empty family room while we waited for the incredibly slow Frederickburg Dominoes to deliver. Once the pizza arrived we discovered how hungry we were, as we devoured it in what seemed like seconds. Then we made equally short work of the brownies Caroline had thoughtfully sent along with Nelson.

Finally Tom and I said our goodbyes and headed back North, away from the civil war and back to Sunday afternoon chores.

Blammin' Valentines Say

I started today with a dilemma - erg or run. I really wanted some time on the rower, because I needed that kind of workout, but with the end of the deep winter chill, the outside beckoned. The answer? My own little biathlon. I did about 2/3 of my normal workout on the erg, then threw on a jacket and did about 2/3 of my normal run. An invigorating and challenging way to start the day.

I was sipping a cup of coffee after cleaning up when Ted comes running in. "A new geocache just got published right near the Wilson Boulevard McDonalds," he shouted, waving a printout. Now, being the first to find a newly placed geocache is something of an honor - sometimes the hider will even put a little prize inside for the finder. Some people are real First-to-Find (FTF) chasers. We tend not to be, since I rarely care to drop everything and run out to a cache. This one, though, was too good to pass up, being less than two miles from home in an area we knew well. The cache had been published earleir that morning (it was about 10:00), and so we figured we still had a chance. We hopped in the car and headed right over.

Well, it turned out to be a tougher find than we expected. As I mentioned, we know the area well - we bike over to the McDonalds all the time. The hider, though, had done a good job and after about 10 minutes we were still stumped. We were about to give up and move on when another pair of cachers showed up, then another one, then another one. We knew all of them and so it became a little search party. In the process we claeaned quite a bit of trash out of the little corner of the urban park in which we were searching. Finally, Ted made the find. We had thought about hitting one more, but realized we had to go home and make sure David was awake, because ...

Next it was time for BLAM, or Blazing Lightly Armed Mensans. BLAM, a monthly Mensa outing to the shooting range at the NRA headquarters, is an invention of the febrile mind of Adam Beslove. The range draws a wide assortment of people, from hunters to Virginia rednecks to people like us - a bunch of gun-totin' engineers, surgeons, executives and such [nb: I am not actually a gun-totin' anything, as I don't own a gun. I just borrow other people's weapons at the range]. Ted, David and I all went. Today, thanks to the generousity of Scott, we shot 9mm to our heart's content.

After that, the day slowed down a little. Right now David is baking a complex triple chocolate ganache cake for Valerie's birthday, which is tomorrow.

An ice blast from the past

An old photo of mine was selected as the January picture for this year's Chesapeake Paddler's Assocation Calendar. Reprinted here is Susanita's excellent write-up of our trip that day:

Post subject: Mason Neck Trip Report -- December 30, 2004 http://members.bellatlantic.net/~jaronson/pirates/MasonNeck123004_005.JPG How much would you bid for a hundred dollars? I'm hacking away at yet another layer of ice with a three foot piece of wood I've scavenged from the shore when I hear my paddling partner, Jesse calling my name from his kayak. He's just launched and is moving slowly in the water. As I turn to towards his voice I feel my mouth drop. I can't believe how far away he is. I have hacked my way through ice clearly 300 yards from shore. I can just barely make out the image as he begins to paddle through the ice. But I can clearly hear the crunch of ice meeting fiberglass. http://members.bellatlantic.net/~jaronson/pirates/MasonNeck123004_000.JPG What were we thinking? Minutes before Jesse and I had been hacking away at the ice together. In between conversations about Christmas, the tsunami, and Alias ( my new favorite tv show), Jesse shares with me this story. A group of executives has gone to a training conference. As part of the training they are told to 'bid' on a $100 bill. The trick is that if you don't win the bid you are forced the pay the value of your last bid. How much would you bid to 'win' a $100 bill? The executive who won bid $200. The point of the exercise was to show how easily people can get caught up in competition. The need to win. ************************************ Why would anyone spend over an hour breaking up an ice jam just to go kayaking? Was it perseverance or sheer stubbornness? It was 10 a.m. when Jesse and I met at Mason Neck State Park. I met him at his car and told him we may have a little problem with the launch. It was covered with ice. We walk to the beach to assess the ice. There is what looks like a 20 foot swath of ice blocking the beach from the open water. Beyond the ice we can see the glimmer of water. As it turns out, that glimmer would be a mirage. It is high tide and the water has spilled over the ice creating the illusion of moving water. And all I can think is, "It's my birthday and I want to go kayaking." http://members.bellatlantic.net/~jaronson/pirates/MasonNeck123004_003.JPG "Oh c'mon Jesse," I plead. "It's just a little ice." He looks around and grabs a stick and throws it across the ice. It skids for what seems like forever and finally stops, never breaking the ice. "Try a rock," I say. "The stick was too light." He hunts around the beach for a rock. He throws the rock across the ice and mercifully it breaks the ice and sinks to the bottom. We exchange glances and smiles. "Yeah," he says. "I could just plow right through with my kayak." Yes! We're not going to let a little ice stop us. "I'll go first," he says. "I know how you are about your boat." Jesse hasn't known me that long but it doesn't take long to figure out that I am very particular about my boat. Anyone who meets me has to hear about how I came to buy the Mirage 530 with the custom purple fade and integrated rudder. How I talked for weeks with the designer of the Mirage in Australia. How nice the Aussie accent was to hear at 2 am in the morning. How I had the boat custom painted then shipped to L.A. then picked it up at customs. How it only weighs 40 lbs even with the electric bilge pump. How it's made of kevlar and cost about $1000. And now I'm thinking of putting my precious Purple Mirage in a bed of ice! Oh, how I was wishing I had a plastic boat. We zip into our drysuits and carry the kayaks down to the ice. Jesse courageously launches into the ice with greenland paddle in hand. He pushes off and his kayak hits the first wave of ice. Crunch. The sound of ice crushing against his boat sends a chill up my spine. I look at my Mirage and think of how I'd feel if it was crunching in the ice. I also realize he's not going anywhere. So I race into the water and start breaking it up with my foot. Like I said earlier. It?' my birthday and I want to be kayaking. I'm making good progress and we agree that the ice can't be that thick or go too far into the bay. We can see clear water ahead. So with each step I crunch down on the ice, breaking a path that Jesse follows in his kayak. Then the ice gets thicker and my boot lands on the ice with a thud. I bring my foot up higher and try hitting it harder. It's not working. I glance back at Jesse sitting patiently in his boat. http://members.bellatlantic.net/~jaronson/pirates/MasonNeck123004_002.JPG "I'll get a stick," I say. "This ice is a little thicker." I run back to shore and search around for a stick. I find a long spear like stick and wade back through the broken ice to where I left off. The stick works. The ice is breaking up now. We can see the glimmer of water not far ahead. "Just 10 more feet," Jesse says. "And we'll be in open water." At this point he decides it will be quicker if he breaks the ice too. So he gets out of his boat and goes back to shore for another stick. We break through the ice section by section. The ice is now almost 2 inches thick. We reach the section which is covered in water and realize we're not even close to being free. But now we have time and effort invested. We look out at the water ahead of us and agree that the ice can't go on forever. I'm sweating and cold at the same time. I have three layers of clothing on underneath the drysuit but my feet are like ice cubes. If anything, we agree that this is a good test for the drysuit. We continue working never looking back. After a while Jesse leaves to get his kayak that he left near shore. Standing in frigid water up to my waist surrounded by a flotilla of ice chunks, my feet numb from the cold, I stare determinedly at the remaining ice that stands before me and the clear moving water. How far would you go to break through ice just so you can go kayaking? It looks like my limit is about 300 yards. Or is it? I'm still hacking away when Jesse paddles up beside me. He continues ahead breaking through the next section of ice. I hear the crunch of resistance from the ice but it breaks easily and pretty soon he is out in open water. It's 11:30 and we're finally going kayaking! http://members.bellatlantic.net/~jaronson/pirates/MasonNeck123004_001.JPG

Signs good and bad

This morning I went out for a run despite feeling really crappy (I have a cold). I find it painful to breathe out in the cold when I'm sick (and even when I'm not). This can be a real problem for me when I go running. Today I got a really bad side-stitch after about 1/2 mile, so I droppped back to walking and forced myslef to breathe deeply. After about a minute I felt better and continued with running, still focusing on breathing. No problems after that.

The bike trail still had signs up pointing the way to downtown DC for the inauguration. That made me smile. I was tempted to take one as a souvenir, but they're actually useful on a longer term basis and so I decided to leave them be.

In one of my recent posts I talked about the Bluemont Park restroom. When I stopped there today I noticed that someone had etched "Property of Arlington County Parks and Rec" onto the flush valves of the toilets. Last time I reported on how I found the restroom inspirational; today the measures to foil potential plumbing thieves reminded me of man's darker side.