Nobody Doesn't Like Apple Picking

Before moving to New York, I didn't know what the big deal was with apple picking. Like, what, you just pick apples? Off of a tree? How is that a family event? 

Back in Texas, at least in Central Texas where I grew up, we did not have apple orchards. We did not have fields upon fields of Red Deliciousness ripe for the picking. Ne'er had I tasted an apple cider donut. These things were but legend to me.

But since moving here, I have to say: I get it. Guys, apple picking is amazing. Seriously, I don't know who wouldn't like it. Not a year has gone by since I became a New York state resident in which I have not picked an apple from a tree with my bare hands. There is just something so satisfying about heading north out of the city, driving past colorful fall foliage, parking your car in a big open lot, being handed a plastic bag by a man in overalls, and marveling as he points to a vast field of apple trees and says, "All of this can be yours."

Now, if you've never apple-picked before, you might be surprised to know that it can actually be quite an athletic event, especially if you go later in the season. At the beginning of apple season, all of the smart, prepared people come and pick the apples that are within reach. Later, the rest of us have to either maneuver a wieldy pole with a basket attached or actually climb the trees to get our desired fruits. It's work.

Climbing, however, is not usually encouraged at most apple orchards. There are rules against it. In fact, there are a surprising number of rules when it comes to apple picking. No climbing, no throwing, no canoodling behind a granny smith tree, no stealing someone's bag of apples when they are not looking and replacing it with a sack of potatoes.

But arguably the most loathed rule when apple picking is no eating. I mean, what the hell? How do you expect me to labor my life away in a gorgeous field of apple trees and not have a bite of at least one apple? Eve couldn't do it, and neither can I.

That's why, this year, my hubs and I wanted whichever orchard we picked to be the equivalent of a nude beach -- that is to say, we wanted to go to the orchard with the least number of rules (I hope I didn't make it sound like we wanted to pick apples in the nude. That just sounds painful). 

As a result, this last weekend, we ended up at Applewood, an orchard between the small hamlets of Warwick and Sugar Loaf (I kid you not. That adorable town was actually named Sugar Loaf. You can't make this stuff up). 

And we had quite the time. 

That feeling when you realize nothing on God's green earth 
can compare to the glory that is apple picking.

After a long day of apple-picking, we usually we end up taking an impressive bounty home, which honestly just ends up rotting in our refrigerator. I mean, let's face it: apples are fine, but they aren't, like, amazing. While the process of picking them is as exhilarating as, I assume, a coked up ride on Disneyland's Space Mountain, the actual eating of the apples is just...aight. You have a couple and you're pretty good. 

But this year, we decided to not be wasteful little jerks, and instead we turned our apple spoils into THIS:

I'd say that the fact that I turned these apples into a pie instead of letting them rot means that I'm getting more responsible, but then again, I also ate this pie for breakfast, so who's to say?

What sorts of fall activities have you been up to lately?

I Have Emerged From The Mouth Of The Rat

Hey, quick question: does the above image of a tranquil beach scene remind you, even just a little bit, of a rat’s mouth? I ask because I took this picture in a place called Rat Mouth, Florida, which is where I spent most of the last six days. And by the way, I guess I should mention that technically this place isn't actually called Rat Mouth, at least not by anyone but me. The Floridian locals, along with the rest of the free world, refer to it as Boca Raton. Maybe you've heard of it. But look, Florida, I took Level 1 Spanish in high school, and I know that "boca" means "mouth" and "raton" means "rat." You can't get something like that by me. Soy muy inteligente. 

But let me assure you, from my experience, there was nothing rat-mouthy about Boca Raton, Florida at all. The streets were lined with palm trees, the beaches were all white sands and clear, blue waters, and no joke, one of the grocery stores I visited had a valet. It's literally one of the fanciest places I've ever visited. 

I swear I thought this place was a resort or some kind of private university.

So perhaps there is some cute story behind why this resort town was named after a rodent's mouth. I could google it and know the answer almost instantly, but I prefer to speculate wildly (for example, perhaps a five-year-old named it or maybe the town lost some sort of bet).

AAAAANYWAY, all of that being said, this last week I was in Florida. My hubs was there attending a conference and the generous folks who flew him down offered to fly me down with him and of course I took them up on that offer because FLORIDA. Who turns down a free trip to Florida? Not me.

I had not been there since I was nine-years-old, so I couldn't quite remember what the fuss was about. I mean, I've got some friends who hail from that part of the world, and sure, I've seen Golden Girls. Plus, I've read lots of articles about Floridians finding live pythons in their toilets (if you google "florida + snake + toilet," you will wish you hadn't), but apart from that, I knew next to nothing of the sunshine state. 

But man, once I got there, I fell in love. If you've never been, here's the deal:

In Florida, when you step out of your front door, your glasses fog up immediately due to the ungodly humidity, but somehow you just don't care because everything else is perfect. The streets are drivable, the people have a southern charmy thing going on, the sand is really, really soft, and pink and lime green are acceptable colors for cars. It's a miracle of a place. 

But then there were also parts of Boca that were really was just like any other town in America. CVS on the corner, Super Target down the road, soup served in bread bowls -- that sort of thing. And that's probably what I loved most about this particular trip. Whenever I visit towns like this, I immediately feel a strange sense of comfort. Seeing a big shopping center equipped with a Red Lobster, Payless, and a Chuck-E-Cheese is like taking a long, deep breath. And being able to park a car in a massive parking lot with hundreds of spaces to choose from -- it's bliss.

This sight is strangely soothing to me.

While all of this might sound strange, you have to remember: I live in this place called New York City, and in New York City, everything is weird. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's also arguably the best place on earth. But while most American cities are set against a backdrop of Walmarts and overpasses, New York is characterized by hole-in-the-wall restaurants, one-of-a-kind boutiques, and mom-and-pop shops that can close simply because the owners are tired. Of course, these are all great reasons why people, including myself, move to this city in the first place, but these are also sometimes the things that make life here feel a bit unfamiliar. 

I grew up in a normal-sized city of strip malls and convenient fast food options, and now that I live in this place of so much unpredictability, I sometimes find myself longing for the ease of my old suburban life. Of course, there are plenty of not-so-great things to be said about these cookie-cutter shopping center landscapes that make up much of small town America. But I have to admit, the dependability of being able to drive to my local HEB (or feel free to insert whatever grocery chain is close to your heart) and just fill a shopping cart full of generic products that I can then place in my trunk instead of having to haul everything on a train or down the street in one of those granny carts -- I will never take such a thing for granted again.

That said, Boca Raton was a welcome change of pace over the last few days. Still, at the end of the day, there is nothing quite like coming home to a view like this:

Still love this weird city. I'll take Pizza Rat over Rat Mouth any day of the week. 

What's your city like? Suburban? Urban? Either way, I'm jealous of you.

Four Years Of Marriage & An Upstate Adventure

Last Wednesday, Daniel and I celebrated our four year wedding anniversary. FOUR YEARS, folks. FOUR. That's a solid chunk of time. I mean, have you met a four-year-old before? Those things can talk and walk and count to ten and sing every verse of "You Are My Sunshine." Take any four-year-old child born on August 19, 2011, and that's basically the human embodiment of our marriage. We are growing up so fast!

To celebrate this huge achievement of still liking each other, we did the thing we love to do. We went north. 

To upstate New York, of course. Ah, upstate New York, why are you so beautiful? Why are your antique shops so cute and your people so nice and your mountains so majestic? And why is your real estate so tantalizingly reasonable, so much so that I allow myself to fantasize about buying a house in one of your charming little towns and opening a bed & breakfast even though I am not particularly hospitable and I don't like strangers in my home?

Needless to say, we love going upstate. Over the years, cabin trips have sort of become our thing. We do them maybe more than we should, or maybe we don't do them enough, I can't decide. When we travel upstate (usually just 2 hours north to the Catskills Mountains), I become a different person. I am Catskill Christy, if you will. Catskill Christy doesn't wear a stitch of makeup. She eats a lot of cheese and drinks a lot of red wine. She can't stop singing Dixie Chicks songs, particularly the song "Wide Open Spaces." She only briefly logs onto Instagram to post a picture of a river or something, but then after that, she turns her phone on airplane mode and is totally engaged in the world around her. Once an hour, she looks at a mountain and she sighs and says something like, "Just look at this place. God is so good," and then she eats more cheese. Catskill Christy eats so much GD cheese.

Also, ice cream.

On this particular occasion, Catskill Christy and Daniel (he's the same good-natured person wherever he goes, so he doesn't need a Catskill persona) went to a little town called Narrowsburg. Back in November, we traveled to this very same place for Thanksgiving. Since we drove up during a terrifying blizzard, we remember that trip as the time we narrowly cheated death. I'll never forget driving up a hill of ice, certain that I was about to meet Jesus. Honestly, though, our near-death experience was totally worth it because THIS is what greeted us upon our arrival:

Meet The Cutest Little House in Narrowsburg (it's actual title on Airbnb). We loved our stay at this place so much that we agreed we would have to come back and see what it was like in the summer. We'd heard there was a swimming hole nearby, and given the fact that neither of us could even picture what a swimming hole was (we assumed it was a hole filled with water, but how deep? how wide? how many snakes?), we figured we'd need to see it for ourselves. For the record, in the summer, The Cutest Little House in Narrowsburg looks like this:

I've got a hunch it's cute in any season.

While in Narrowsburg, we did some antiquing and for a moment I genuinely considered creating an Instagram store with all of my favorite vintage clothing and oddities (jk lol no but srsly would you buy things from me? I have good taste maybeeeee).

We also did some mountain-hiking, some river-splashing, some steak-cooking, some fire sitting-bying, some premixed margarita-drinking, a hefty amount of cheese-eating, and some boggle-playing (and for me, specifically, some boggle-dominating).

On our way back home, we stopped at Storm King Art Center, which is a huge -- no, I mean, HUGE -- sculpture park. Actually, scrap whatever mental image you've conjured up after hearing the words "huge sculpture park" because I promise you it's not good enough, and just feast your eyeballs on all of THIS:

Seriously, Storm King had me at hello. While we were there, I actually discovered that I had a TICK on my arm, sucking all of the life force out of me, and even so I still could not stop feeling like the luckiest kid in the world (We removed the tick. Everything is fine). I can't wait to return to take pictures that don't include my frightening tan lines. 

While I love so many things about these little getaways, the best part by far is getting to spend them with my favorite travel buddy, Daniel. Did I mention he and I have been married for four years? Well, we have, and they've been four of the coolest years I could imagine, full of adventure and friendship and laughter.

Four years ago, before we got married, I remember mentally preparing for hard times. It's what a lot of well-intentioned people warn you about as you enter into marriage. And sure, those times creep up every once in a while because life is life and life is tough. But honestly, at it's best, I think marriage can just be easy. It's something I feel like Daniel has always understood. When he proposed to me, I remember very little about what he actually said because, well, my brain was exploding, but one thing I do remember him saying was this: "I can't wait to sing in the car with you for the rest of my life." On these trips upstate, that's exactly what we do. We crank up some 90s country music, we sing, we laugh, we eat chips. Easy. 

So here's to vacations, A+ husbands, and easy, easy love!

Four more years! Four more years!

It's Been Three Years

Three years ago, my husband and I arrived in New York City, our Ford Focus packed and overflowing with things that only very young married couples own – plastic drawers from The Container Store, old camp T-shirts, a Swiffer Wet Jet. Since we only had one month to prepare for our move, we were starting off our New York life in a unique living situation. The plan was to sublease an apartment for the summer while the owner was away at a yoga retreat, and in exchange for caring for her three cats, we would pay a reduced rent of $1,000. It was the best deal we could find by a mile.

However, that day as we circled the block looking for a parking spot in Ditmas Park, our new Brooklyn neighborhood, I remember feeling a deep sense of uneasiness. What if this was all some sort of scam? What if we got to the apartment and no one was there to greet us? What if there was no apartment at all? Or worse, what if there was an apartment but inside it lived an ax murderer waiting to chop us to bits and steal our Swiffer Wet Jet refills? Maybe we had been too hasty in deciding to sign on to a Craigslist sublease. Maybe we had been too hasty in deciding to move at all.

But as we walked into what would be our new home for the next three months, my fears subsided. The apartment was real and as far I could tell there was not a murderer in sight. Every inch of the place positively reeked of cat urine. It was a cluttered mess, but it was real. This was going to work, at least for a little while.

As I look back on these past three years, that hoarder’s nest of an apartment stands out as a metaphor for my life here. New York is a place that always feels like a sublease. You can’t quite own it no matter how hard you try. Even though my husband and I have since bought an apartment here in Brooklyn, there is still this sense that it doesn’t quite belong to us. Everything here belongs to history, to the millions of people who have come together over hundreds of years and collectively declared, “Let’s all live on top of each other on this tiny island! Let’s spend way too much money, work way too hard, and get our asses handed to us on an almost daily basis! Let’s deplete our savings accounts, question all of our major life decisions, but still, let’s somehow find beauty in the small threads of hope this city dangles in front of us.” Just like that cat-filled subleased apartment, New York often fills with me anxiety, it smells vaguely of pee, but dammit, it’s home.

Daniel and I in front of our second NY apartment, but just pretend it's our first.

And for better or for worse, this place has changed me, irreversibly so. It’s made me tougher, more vulnerable, more suspicious, more appreciative of small kindnesses. It’s made me a better sharer, a more intent listener, a faster walker. At times, this city has made me radiate positivity and hopefulness. Other times, it’s made me a petulant child crying on the B train. I have been my best and worst self in this place, as in BEST-best and worst-worst-worst-worst.

And I’ve got to say, through it all, despite how Carrie Bradshaw-esque this is of me to say, I’m still in love with this city. After all, it’s the one I chose. In my life, I’ve had three important relationships with cities: my hometown of Helotes, my college town, Waco, and now New York. I look at my hometown as though it were a dear family member whose quirks I cherish and whose cooking makes me feel safe. I look at my college town like I would a friend who makes me laugh hysterically every time I see them. But I look at New York with romance. I see New York as the one I pursued, the one I decided on even though it continually rebuffed my advances. I’m stupidly, crazily in love with this city.

And it’s been that way from the beginning. For proof of this, please enjoy this excerpt taken from my journal the first week I moved here, dated May 28, 2012:

Every day here is like a small battle, but I’m kind of falling in love with it. New York summer is going to be uncomfortable, possibly more so than Texas. I get sticky everywhere I go. My feet are already hideous. Today is the first day I’ve worn eyeliner since I got here. I feel like I am getting tough, and I adore this.

And if that’s not true love, I don’t know what is.

Now, look, folks -- I have no idea what my future here entails. I’ve already told you that, and don’t press the issue any further because I’ll get all sweaty and develop hives on my neck and it won’t look all that dignified. But in the meantime, while I'm unsure of everything, I’m taking this time to look back. It's been three years since I moved to this weird, wonderful town. My life was one thing back then, and now it’s something else, and maybe that’s all I need to know to move forward.

Spring-a-ling-ding in NYC

It's finally happening. After months of icy winds and exploding manholes and snowpocalypses, I think we can officially call it: Spring is HAPPENING! It is no longer this illusive concept which simply exists on the Instagram feeds of all of my friends back in Texas. It is here. In New York. New York City. WHERE I LIVE.

And this Saturday was the springiest of all spring days that I have ever experienced. Honestly, I'm trying to think of the perfect cultural reference to describe the sheer joy that was Saturday afternoon, but I'm coming up short. The closest I can think of is that scene in The Wizard of Oz when the house lands in Munchkintown and Dorothy steps outside from her world of black and white to a world of vivid color. Only, it was better than that, especially because nothing about Saturday afternoon involved inadvertently murdering a witch (seriously, shouldn't Dorothy be, like, at least a bit more traumatized over that whole thing?)

Every New Yorker flocked to green spaces on Saturday. We ate Mister Frostees, gave each other knowing glances and smiles, and drank cocktails at outdoor tables. All of us. At least that's what it seemed like. The population of NYC genuinely seemed to double in size. The picture above was taken in Union Square, where I spent a good part of the day, but Gothamist shared some pretty amazing pictures of Central Park looking like a giant quilt of humans. Needless to say, we were excited.

This weekend reminded me of how much I love living in a place with actual seasons. Back when I lived in Texas, even though we had queso and bluebonnets and pretty much every wonderful thing on the planet, what we didn't really have was a vast difference between our seasons. It would be hot, it would be less hot, it would be semi-chilly, and then it would be hot again.

But living in New York, I feel like I get to experience the full scope of seasonal beauty. This weekend, as I marveled at how the trees seemed to explode with blooms, I was reminded of the blatant ways in which seasons accurately mirror the human experience. If you'll indulge my sentimentality for a minute, allow me to say this: In life, a metaphorical sun really does come after a metaphorical snow, even if it comes later than we would like. Metaphorical blossoms really do metaphorically bloom from things that once appeared metaphorically dead. I know it's cheesy, and I know it's been said before, but give me a break, I'm still new to this whole seasons thing.

This weekend, I came to realize that while flowers are beautiful things at any time of the year, they are practically a miracle after a miserable winter. And maybe life is like that too.

How are you enjoying Spring (literally or metaphorically)?

What's Your Hobby?

I don't remember who it was that set my most recent existential crisis in motion, but whoever it was did so by asking me one simple question: "What are your hobbies?"

I immediately drew a blank. The blankiest of blanks. Hobbies? As in, like, the things I do in my free time? Hobbies, as in amusing activities that have nothing to do with my job, my platform, or my financial security? I mean, writing used to be my go-to hobby, but now it's my livelihood. And I don't knit or sculpt or do zumba or write letters to a pen pal in South America. So...do I actually have any hobbies?

This question haunted me for a while until I approached my husband with it. "You have hobbies," he assured me. "They are just slightly untraditional."

And he's right. And when you think about it, who really has traditional hobbies anyway? Here's a short list of mine:

-Listening to podcasts
-Antiquing (alright, this one's pretty traditional, and by "traditional" I mean that it's what old ladies like to do.)
-Watching documentaries
-Improv, standup, storytelling -- all of the bits of comedy I do
-Reading short stories
-Trying different kinds of ramen of varying levels of spiciness
-Taking pretty pictures
-Singing showtunes in my apartment to the delight of my unsuspecting neighbors

See? I've got hobbies! I'm an interesting person! I swear!

But recently, what I've come to realize is that I have one hobby which really seems to trump all of the others. In fact, I'd say this one crosses the line into passion territory.

Friends, I love to travel. To be more precise, I love to explore. It's just my favorite way to spend my time. In fact, I would say that my heart of exploration is the reason I'm living in New York City right now. Three years I've lived here, and I have never grown tired of discovering all of this city's nooks and crannies. I just love a good nook, and I adore a good cranny. New York has several of both.

And I feel so profoundly lucky to have a best friend who shares this same thirst for adventure. His name is Daniel. He is my husband. And together, we are so committed to a life of discovery that when we decided to move here, it didn't even cross our minds to get rid of our car. In a town dominated by public transportation, we know it's crazy to park our Ford Focus on the street every day, but what can we say? We're explorers.

And honestly, our car (and our flexible schedules) gives us the opportunity to see New York in a way that few people have the chance to. Such was the case this last Monday when I woke up and suddenly asked, "Hey, do you want to go to Beacon?"

The answer, of course, was yes. Beacon is an artsy village about an hour and half north of NYC, and it's been on our list for a while now. We had heard that there is a phenomenal art museum there, Dia Art Foundation, so we set that as our arrival point, hopped in our Focus, and just left. Nothing could have prepared us for how unique Dia was, and the whole town of Beacon was positively brimming with charm. I could ramble on about the events of our day, but a picture is worth a thousand words, isn't it? Man, as a writer, I hope that's not totally true, but still, here are some pictures from the day:

While I love the destinations, one of my favorite things about these day trips we take is the experience of driving. I will never take the experience of driving over the Brooklyn Bridge for granted, nor will I ever feel anything but amazement whenever the landscape suddenly shifts from skyscrapers to mountains. This time, I decided to film our drive to Beacon as well as a bit of our visit to Dia. Warning: I just got this fancy camera, and I have legitimately no idea how to use it, but if you're into the concept of moving images set to an Avett Brothers song, have at it:

I guess I was reluctant to even consider exploration a hobby because, I don't know, it's just what I do. Also, now that I've written it about a thousand times in this post, I think I kind of hate the word "hobby," but that's neither here nor there. Discovering new places truly is the ultimate way to spend my time. It revives me in a way that nothing else does, and if that's what a hobby is, then I guess it's my hobby.

What's your hobby?