New York and Winter Trike

• I am going to New York City. This is exciting to me.


• I will write all day every day. And cat sit. It will be a retreat.


• In the evenings, I will be on a tight budget and perhaps only going places I can walk. Walking sometimes hurts because I have arthritis in one knee and both ankles, but I've always kind of loved it, too. If I have to, I think I can walk sixty blocks with all my luggage from Penn Station to where I'm staying on the upper west side.


• I wish I could bring my trike.


• Does anyone know where a stranger might be able to swim on the upper west side?


• I have tons of work to do before I go. I have a grant application to get out. I better do it.

But first, I would like to briefly, once again, wax lyrical about my trike. My friends, I have been riding it in the winter. In the cold. It is invigorating, and means that I have a way to get to the grocery store and to go swimming, which I am also loving with a strange, long-submerged love. This would never work if I didn't have flexible time during the day, because, as it is, I've had to race the sunset home around four pm more than once. Also, the back wheels slip on the snow, but if roads, entryways and sidewalks are cleared, I'm fine. If not, there's trouble. Thursday, we had an ice storm, with snow and rain, both. On Friday, I rode to go swimming. The bike path was cleared, but the exit I needed wasn't. I rattled down over the ice and walked it back up. On the way home, though, I went to the grocery store, then took another route. At one point, there was a giant snow plow gray ice boulder blocking the sidewalk, with high, hard ice on both sides. I couldn't see how to get around it, but a man walking by helped me lift the bike over it, groceries and all. Then, I trapped by a Honda dealer that hasn't moved out and isn't shoveling their old stretch of sidewalk. I had to walk backward pulling the trike along a tiny path in the snow, too narrow for the back wheels, impossible for me to walk beside it to push it because of the snow and a slope. A person pulled into the Honda parking lot, and I scowled at them because I thought they were part of the non-sidewalk clearing team, and then regretted it when I realized it was a kind person stopping their car to see if they could be of assistance to me, my groceries and my trike. I had almost made it at that point, so didn't take the help, but it was impressive.

Fashion

Also, via, matociquala:

Brown vs. Radcliffe Prom Dress Women's Rugby Game.

( Picture behind the cut.  )