Hudson Valley West Holiday Shopping Gift Guide

If you want to give Hudson Valley gifts this season and don't live nearby (or if your recipients don't live here), here are a few candidates.

• I looked for regionally produced items you can order online and have shipped. 
• I also tried to find a range of item types, from the homey and traditional to the chromium-steel badass.
• Yes, I would like your money to remain in, or enter, the region where I live.
• No, no one asked me to do this. 
• I kept my focus on the west side of the Hudson to the Delaware, from the Highlands to the foothills of the Catskills.
• Suggestions? Please comment, keeping in mind ease of ordering/shipping specific items, produced on the west side of the Hudson River in Orange, Ulster, and southern Sullivan counties.

1. HUDSON VALLEY HARD CIDER MAKING KIT from WILLIAMS-SONOMA
I met Elizabeth Ryan on a recent country drive, tried some cider, and got to talking. She's got a lot of sense when it comes to apples and land preservation. Hard cider is good, and easy, and this kit makes it even easier. So buy it for the apple of your eye. (Williams-Sonoma also offers Ms. Ryan's Mead Making Kit, which you can buy for your honey.) (You can also help with Elizabeth's fundraising campaign to preserve Stone Ridge Orchard as a working farm.)

2. A REAL, FRESH NEW YORK PIZZA SHIPPED ANYWHERE IN THE US
Prima Pizza, of Cornwall NY, has been shipping pizzas around the country for years. As they say it: "Your pizza is cooked to perfection and sealed in a special package using a unique process. It is then ready to be shipped via FedEx (or other overnight delivery service) right to your door the next day by either 10:30am or 3:00pm. All you have to do is heat/cook the pie to your preference. Buon Apetito!" I haven't had one of their shipped pizzas, but I've had dozens of their oven-fresh ones, which are true high-quality New York pies. December 26th dinner, anyone?

3. ORANGE COUNTY CHOPPERS MEN'S SLEEVELESS WORK SHIRT
There's no shortage of cool gear available online from the nation's best-known custom chopper designers and fabricators (their new show premiered on CMT last week), but this particular shirt is modeled by patriarch (and secretly nice guy) Paul Senior.

4. WOODCARVING by CLAY BOONE
Custom woodcarving by a true master. This is a consultative purchase with prices in the high three figures (and up, I assume), which will make sense when you look at the pictures of Mr. Boone's work.

5. THREE thingCHARGERS
It's a plug-in charging station for your devices that looks like an outlet and leaves your outlets free for, like, blenders and whatnot. Switchable "power tips" make it work for any device (the tips store in the back), it has two USB ports on the bottom just in case, and there are NO WIRES. Your phone, tablet, etc., stands directly on the thingCHARGER. You can even plug them into each other to charge more than one device on the same outlet -- again, without taking up the outlet! Invented about a mile from where I'm typing this, by some nice people I know. It's launching on indiegogo (having reached 800% of its funding target), and pre-orders will ship in 2014.

6. A MASK from INTO LEATHER
Sugar Loaf, NY, is an artisans community making everything from soap to furniture. If you can't get there, many of the manufacturers, like Paula and Elie Aji of Into Leather, ship their products. If you're into leather but not into masks, you can also get a jacket or a cool bag or a belt or other clothing and accessories. You're into leather, right?

7. THIS COOL BRONZE BIRD FEEDER from BRIDGES OVER TIME ANTIQUES
Bridges Over Time of Newburgh, NY offers its inventory through 1stDibs, which will ask you to create an account to view prices. This piece caught my eye, but there's plenty more where that came from.

8. A PRINT from HUDSON VALLEY GALLERY
Order by phone for prints of original paintings by Hudson Valley artist Paul Gould, like this vibrant view of a local scene.

9. GO ARMY BLACK KNIGHTS IPAD CASE
For the sports fan/patriot/aspiring officer on your list, the West Point Black Knights lend their distinctive team identity to all manner of cool gear, clothing, and more.

10. A US NAVY SHIP CAP from MILITARY GIFTS
Hint: if you're shopping for me from this Port Jervis concern, here's the ship to specify.

11. 2014 CALENDAR from MOHONK IMAGES
Give your family and friends the chance to look at the beauty of the Mohonk Preserve year-round, wherever they are. (The photos are ridiculously gorgeous.)

12. MOISTURIZING LOTION from HUDSON HARMONY
Based in New Windsor, NY, these soaps and lotions are a favorite at area farmer's and craft markets.

13. A PAIR OF MUCKLUCKS from ROCK RIDGE ALPACAS
Furry friends from Chester (home of Neufchatel cheese and the legendary horse Hambletonian) have been shorn to provide your loved ones with these comfy high-top slippers.

14. A POUND OF COSTA RICAN TARRAZU COFFEE from MONKEY JOE

"One of the world's greatest coffees - light, clean flavor, wonderful fragrance. Silky, full bodied with rich acidity. Well-balanced with a lingering aftertaste." Rain Forest Alliance certified, and roasted in Kingston, NY.

15. SEEDS from the HUDSON VALLEY SEED LIBRARY
"Ken Greene started the Seed Library in 2004 while working as a Librarian at the Gardiner Public Library. Having developed a strong interest in preserving heirloom seed varieties, he decided to add them to the library catalog so that patrons could 'check them out,' grow them in their home gardens, and then 'return' saved seed at the end of the season." They've since branched out in their Accord HQ, offering apparel and artwork in addition to seeds.

16. BALANCING BAMBOO WINE BOTTLE HOLDER from STYLO FURNITURE & DESIGN
Your mother-in-law likes a nice bottle of wine, doesn't she? This holder, hand-made in Cornwall-on-Hudson by Randy Hornman, makes a great conversation piece and offers a beautiful way to display your favorite vintage. Keeps the cork wet, too, if your MIL's not cracking it open right away.

17. PINT GLASSES from NEWBURGH BREWING COMPANY
When I started this list, the guys at Newburgh Brewing didn't have an online store to share their great logo designs with the wider beer-loving world. Their beer and ale is served for miles around (as well as in their incredible taproom) and now you can get the right glass to enjoy it at home -- or make another brew feel better about itself.

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Move

I haven't seen the destruction in New York firsthand. My town was more or less spared by Hurricane Sandy. Trees and power lines down, power out for a couple of days, no major flooding. But I lived in New York City for eight years, my sisters and cousins and friends still do, and I've been talking with my people.

They say that the New York City Marathon is scheduled to go on this Sunday, less than a week after lives and neighborhoods were destroyed by the storm. The power is still out. Transportation is a debacle. There's wreckage in places that hasn't even been touched yet. The race is set to go, and apparently people are angry.

The race ought to go on.

In 2001 I recall being angry. Vindictive. Scared. I thought maybe the marathon would devalue my grief. That a celebration of life so soon after death would be disloyal to the dead. That I might forget, and we were very clearly told to NEVER FORGET.

But I went out to cheer for the runners, cheer for the city, cheer for my living, cheering friends around me eating bagels. In 2003, completely renewed -- a father, a runner, no longer a New Yorker -- I ran that race. I ran it again a couple of years later. Forget? Hardly.

The New York City Marathon is an annual heartbeat in a city that's all heart. If you're angry that the marathon is going on, remember what got you angry. That storm was unfair.

And one day taken from a cleanup and rebuilding that is going to take years is a small price, on top of the price already paid. More important, the marathon is an investment of spirit in a place that needs it. This marathon will be like the news of V-day. It will be like the end of the '68 blackout. It will be like -- well, it will be like the New York City Marathon in 2001.

This isn't an abstract thing, here. The marathon is a real thing. It saves lives. It redirects energy. The city is at a standstill? Not if you let tens of thousands of people run through it. You can't get anywhere? Yes you can. Use your feet. The power is out? The power is right there in front of you, taking in air and turning it into kinetic energy. You're going to tell the world that storm, blackout, and tragedy can shut New York down? You're going to tell people that the place they travel in droves to see is not as mighty as they think it is? New Yorkers: you live in the center of the universe. Light it up.

If you're angry, and you're sad, and you're frightened, make your way to the course on Sunday and let your emotions go. Cheer. Cry. Hand someone an orange. Let the brave men and women running that race -- many of whom also lost much during this storm -- let them help you remember to be alive.


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Soda, Pop

I've been to the bar Soda two times. The first time was about a month ago, for the post-memorial drinks and Mac slideshow in honor of a departed friend, at which no eye was dry and no future seemed quite right to anyone in attendance, without him.

The second time was this past Wednesday, when a kind insider included me on an email announcing drinks and a book signing for Things I Learned About my Dad (in Therapy), where Heather Armstrong, her husband Jon, Alice Bradley, Doug French, Sarah Brown, and Greg Allen (whom I didn't meet...was he there?) would all be in attendance, sitting in a small circle, entertaining the occasional reader who dropped in with stories of human cannibalism, climbing K2, writing novels with q-tips dipped in the jet-black ink of the elusive Architeuthis hartingii, and raising toddlers.

It was sort of like that, toward the end. When I arrived, however, there was a line snaking through the room, the books were all sold out, people were waiting to have non-books signed, and clusters of people who'd already been signed were still settled into booths rehashing their experience. Heather and the others were clearly enjoying real, prolonged face-time with actual readers, and the process aspect of the meet and greet had stalled. I reached this conclusion as I stood aside, waiting to greet my friends in that tiny circle of celebrity: society has reached the point where there are bloggers who need "people." Make of that what you will. It was a little more settled at the end, although even then, when we headed off toward the next venue for this month's Cringe reading, at which Alice and her husband were to perform, Heather and Jon were still on the sidewalk in a scrum of fans. Time and again, the crowd turned un-anonymous, as some long-time reader, commenter or Goodreads connection came forward to one of these folks to say "oh hi, you sort of know me." Perhaps best of all, Heather B. was there to have beer and marvel at the madness.

In traffic, and recognition, and self-identification as a blogger, I am orbiting at the very outermost fringe of that crew. But I've had a couple of tastes of it recently, and there's definitely something there. Whatever that means, I know this: Soda will never be just a bar for this blogger.

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Why New Yorkers Are Pissed

(Hi Jessica Hagy)



Spitzer's Law, Eliot Spitzer, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Bill Clinton, Henry Hyde, Rush Limbaugh, Strom Thurmond, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Bill Bennett, hypocrisy, the appearance of moral rectitude/stridency of opinion regarding "immorality", likelihood that the reality is the opposite.

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A dream you dream together

1995 — I'd never been to the Dakota before, but the woman I had just begun dating loaned me Jack Finney's Time and Again, and I became curious about the building. We met at a bookstore on the upper west side, had dinner, and walked with coffee down to 72nd Street. We talked on the corner outside the building.

Traffic pulsed by on Central Park West, silencing itself with the red lights. During one such lull, I heard the sound of distant singing.

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely

...and the cars started up a again. She hadn't heard.

The next red light, she heard it too. It was coming from the park. It sounded like a crowd. Dark, in there. I persuaded her in.

The full moon shone on a gaggle of hippies with guitars strung around Strawberry Fields, joined by scores of people holding candles and singing. It was October 9th— John's birthday, someone told us. We sang for a couple of hours. And I walked her home thirty or so blocks and at her door she kissed me for the first time. And John sang on our wedding song.

He demanded a lot of people, did John Lennon, and it's hard to measure up. But reading him, hearing his words when he was on topic, you want to measure up. I guess the least we can do is remember what he eventually wanted to be remembered for.



Peace.


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Orange You Glad We Didn't Give out Bananas?

We don't get down to New York City that often—at least not to Manhattan—but the marathon is powerful enough to draw us out of the mountains in our flannel, beards, and suspenders to stand on Fifth Avenue and croak obscenities from baccy-stained mouths at the sneaker-clad city slickers in their polyester gym shorts. Our toddler is especially good at this.



Sunday we went, and a very generous woman who lets me sleep at the house spent some time slicing oranges in the kitchen before we left. I haven't watched the race since 2004, and I didn't hand out fruit then, but I received a slice of orange while running it in 2005. That's when I discovered that oranges are hand-made by Santa Claus, and he uses magical go-juice to make them.

I don't know if you fish, but that physical feeling when a fish mouths your bait? And the more decisive tug when it takes the lure? That's what it felt like when runners dipped into the gallon-sized ziploc I was holding, extremely grateful, looking me in the eye, calling me nice things ("lifesaver," "godsend"...I would have given my wife the credit, but she was three or four feet away, and I like being called nice things), asking if they could take one "for a friend."

The three pounds or so that I held outstretched went as quickly as my wife had said it would, and even the last forlorn little orange section, awash in a pool of juice, got snatched up by a Swedish lady whom you could tell felt a little thrill of victory at getting the last orange.

Ordinarily I would sum up by digging out a metaphor and broadening the orange story and the running and the time my wife spent slicing them into something to walk away with and chew over. But not today. Today I would like to simply report that it was really fun to give out oranges to runners during the New York City marathon.



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What You're Gonna Need

You've been renting for eight or nine years and you want to move out of the city and get a house. You can do this, because you can get your landlord to buy out your lease, because even though the rest of the country is hurting, home prices in Disneyland New York are still strong. Your shopping list:

cars (2)
shovels (2)
ice melt (50#)
rakes (4.5)
lawnmower, ride-on (1)
paint (6 gal.)
cat's paw (for prying up nails, carpet, etc.)
lock de-icer
garden hose
sprinkler
cinder blocks
duct tape
bike
kayak
dog
more furniture
hangers (2 dz)
televisions (2)
Duraflame™ logs (4)
needlepoint: "bless this house" (1)
kids (2.5)
seeds
twine
welcome mat

I'll try to keep this list up to date. Feel free to add your own findings in comments.

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Written 9/11/06

The day was diamond-clear, warm where there was sun and cool where there wasn't. No clouds. That was then, and that was today too. This morning my route took me onto a boat across the river, facing into the sun where it rose over the mountain. On the far shore, I entered my train and we followed the waterway south.

The hijackers had done this too; from the north this river is a signpost to the metropolis at its mouth. It gave the city life with its downward flow and betrayed it by revealing its location to its enemies that day. They navigated by its winding path and sped over its waters to strike.

My watch revealed that I would arrive at the station at the same moment the first plane reached its target, and as I looked at landmarks passing, I could only imagine the jetliners coursing over the wavelets on that clear day. Past the nuke plant. Over the bridges. Through the highlands. Despoilers.

Stepping off the train at the terminal I heard an announcement that it was 8:46. Traffic slowed and stopped. A hush fell. A minute. Mostly silent, mostly still, we stood. Reflected. Waited, perhaps, for the next beat of that fell drum. Missed people. Missed the innocent tides and clear waters of that diamondlike morning which seems so long ago now.

And the minute passed, and we went on into our city.


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How It Went Down (A Father's Perspective)

The parents of a very pregnant woman who lived with me last year had come to visit so as to be on hand for the birth of their third grandchild (sorry I keep pausing, although you can't tell, but I'm eating some fried chicken while I'm writing this and it's hard to get the best fried gristle bits out of the ribcage without using both hands and then wiping down so's not to spoil the pretty Mac keyboard, anyhoo). That was a Thursday evening, I guess, and Friday morning my mother-in-law woke up with a numb leg. We took her over to the hospital down the street (the hospital where my wife was born, incidentally, but which no longer has a birthing center) and they looked her over for a day or two, ruling some things out, but leaving plenty of options on the table.

So it was Wednesday the following week, a year ago today as it happens, and the plan today was to get Mom down to Columbia Presbyterian in New York City, or maybe she was already there? I don't remember, but anyway, my wife was planning to go down there and visit her, with the boy and the belly. We had a backup plan for watching the boy when we had to go to the hospital, which was my sister would come up from the city when we called.

In any case, it was Wednesday and I was down at work, and my wife had gone and bought a cell phone for herself, and she and the boy and the belly were about to mosey on down to the city, and if I don't get some dialogue in here this post is going to fall asleep. So she called me at some point.

"I feel weird," she said.

"Having-a-baby weird or uncomfortable-in-these-clothes weird?"

"Eventually having-a-baby weird, but not yet. More like, some contractions, but pretty much like Braxton-Hicks ones, but something's definitely in the works. I mean, I lost my mucous plug. But it's definitely not soon."

"Today?"

"Maybe, but not anytime soon. I guess it can't hurt for me to go down to the hospital to visit, right? I mean, at least I'll be at a hospital," she said.

And down they went, and around 1:00 she called and said something like "Hmm. Maybe it would be easier if instead of taking the train home, you just caught a cab up here and drove us home."

"Are you having a baby? Should we stay at Columbia?"

"Oh, heavens no," she said. "Let's just go home. After all, Our Friend Who Is A Nurse is bringing over that really good pasta and chicken dish."

"True dat," I replied, or words to that effect. I called my sister at her office.

"How'd you like to come to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital?"

"Uhhh, sure, I guess. Any particular reason?"

"I think it's today, and That Pregnant Woman Who Lives With Me is there and I figure I'll drive her and the boy home. But don't worry, a nurse is bringing us dinner at home tonight."

"Uhh. Okay."

Two cabs later we were having a nice chat with my Mother in Law (ideopathic transverse myelitis! go figure) and wrapping up the visit and heading home. It was all very relaxing and nice. We got home. Our Friend Who Is A Nurse came over a little while later. She and my sister busied themselves making the chicken and pasta. We made sure we had a bag packed. We hung around.

"How's it going?"

"Oh, you know, little contraction every once in a while," she said.

"Sure," I said. I'm smooth like that. "Little contraction. Roger."

So we sit down to this meal and let me tell you, Our Friend Who Is A Nurse is not just a nurse, she can cook like the dickens (she's also a star athelete and a potter and a baker extraordinaire and you don't want to get into a garden contest with her and she's on the library board a couple of towns over from here and I don't know how she does it but anyway) so we tucked in to that chicken and pasta.

That increasingly pregnant but-about-not-to-be woman came in from the salon with a fluffy bathtowel and sat on it and served herself seconds and said something like "we got water," and then something like "this pasta and chicken is delicious."

At this point, we all stared at her. "Just what the hell is going on here?" I asked.

"Huh?" she said, mouth full of food. "Nothing, I'm just really hungry." She put down her fork. "Think I should call the doctor?"

She called the office and they paged the goofball on duty and he said something like "sure yeah right whatever are you in any pain how far apart are the contractions, you say your water just broke, call me when it hurts" or whatever.

"Hey," I said. "Where IS the hospital anyway?" I pushed my plate away and wiped my hands on a napkin (actually I just did that now because of the chicken, but it's atmospheric, no?). "Do we have a map?" I asked my sister.

She stared at me. No help at all.

My wife was back on the phone with the doctor. "Well, it'll take us a little while to get there," she said. "Oh yeah? Sure, I'll hold."

"Hey, honey," I said. "It ought to take us about forty minutes, I guess. How're you doing?"

She was having cute little contractions, but didn't seem to mind. They still had her on hold.

Then I heard her do a little inadvertant Lamaze breath, and I thought something like holy shit — this feels just like denial! Just then Our Friend Who Is A Nurse walked over and murmured something like "think maybe it's time you guys hit the road?" I nodded.

That's when it sped up. I grabbed the phone out of my wife's hand, she started doing a LOT of Lamaze breathing, we ran outside and bundled her into the car, friend, sister and boy in tow and screeched out of the driveway. The boy yelled from the porch in a sudden panic "WHAT TIME SHOULD I GO TO BED!?"

"8!" We didn't even have time to spell out the word, is how fast we were going!

My car is a, how you say, heap, and I pushed it to 85 the entire way, and sure enough it was a 40-minute drive and we had entertaining conversation as it became apparent that things were Much Further Along than we'd thought. Chat like:

"Don't push!" and

"I'm going to have this fucking baby in the car!"

I got the doctor on the phone -- I was remarkably calm, I thought, driving 85 in a stick on a dark highway with one hand, doing Lamaze coaching out of one side of my mouth, talking to a lackadaisickal doctor on a cell phone out the other. I asked if he thought they ought to alert an ambulance corps on the way, or maybe the police. Calm radiated outward from the phone. He wasn't concerned. Everything was going to be okay, except that I was going to smash the phone hard enough to make his head hurt because dammit, my wife said she's going to HAVE THE BABY NOW and WE'RE NOT AMATEURS, we're DONE THIS BEFORE, she was CONSCIOUS THEN and SHE REMEMBERS WHAT IT'S LIKE.

I'd bought that car on eBay, as previously mentioned, for $2,500. Goooooood car. We pulled into the emergency entrance — practically INTO the emergency entrance — and I hopped out and ran around to get my wife out. Some dude did one of those Hollywood "hey, you can't park he—" deals as I ran inside calling for a wheelchair.

They tried to hand me paperwork while I wheeled my wife along a corridor asking where the maternity ward and Doctor McChill were located and while my wife did the end-stage no-pushing breathing. I tried to explain that I wasn't a panicky first-time dad convinced the baby was coming when it wasn't, but was in fact a panicky second-time dad who had some idea that they were about to have a messy desk area, and that we weren't going to flee without doing paperwork.

We entered the birthing room with nurses in tow. Despite about an hour's warning, they hadn't set anything up yet. Doctor Cool ambled in, chuckling, and had my wife lie down.

"Well now, let's just take a look and see what all the fu---ck!" he said, or something like that. "Okay, don't push!" A stream of commands and the rapid setup of ping-machines followed, my wife pushed for a few minutes and presto.

A girl. Happy birthday, Little.




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EX-urbitude

I’ll never forget the day I parachuted into the walled island of Manhattan on assignment – very much against my will – to rescue the President, whose plane had crashed but whose crash-proof pod had landed intact. The authorities were getting strong signal from his personal transponder, but to stage a recovery op they needed someone who could navigate the city’s complex criminal hierarchy and treacherous back alleys. That’s where I came in.

It’s twelve years later. While I never did find that darned president, I did get a series of comfortable temp jobs and had some extremely limited, tiny success writing pieces for the “Internet,” which at the time was a source of limitless money that ran on a crank and pulley system from someplace on the west coast. I had friends who worked there. Later, after getting in good with the thugs who ran the island (from their heatproof dome in the volcano located under Grand Central Terminal), I was given a temp job at a well-known company in the recycling industry, where I quickly became a permanent employee and rose to some prominence as the one least likely to quit. Failed again, I suppose.

Having some years ago moved to the outlying farming districts (principle crops: onions, McMansions, tree stumps), but bound by honor and paycheck to make a daily pilgrimage to the city (especially daunting because it meant being fitted for a new customized high-velocity parachute harness and dropped from 6,000 feet every morning, then digging through the base of the wall with a spoon and swimming through the nematode-enthickened waters of the Harlem River every afternoon around 5:30 to make the mainland to get home in time for dinner), I sought in vain some way out of my predicament. Rescue came this year, in the form of a squad of revolutionaries from Westchester who rappelled in armed with an excellent benefits package and a job description. I accepted their gracious offer, but, of course, was apprehended digging through the wall.

Which is why you find me live-blogging from a small platform set over a pool of lava in the catacombs below 42nd and Lex, tied to a rather comely woman who attempted to help me escape (to my wife: I’ve never met her before, I have no idea who she is and besides, I think she’s going to betray me), with only my trusty laptop, oh, and Blackberry and cell phone — uh, and my PDA, thumb drive, VPN token and headphones — to help me get out alive.

The barbarian overlords of this granite and steel enclave shouldn’t have brought me here, of course, so close to the heart of their base, because naturally once I’ve used Google’s new UnderStreetView™ to research the best way out of here, I’ll be passing by the vault containing the bagel and pizza recipes that are the source of their stranglehold on power (it’s not “the water,” people). Easily overpowering the overly-complacent guards, I’ll take those with me, thank you very much, and be on my way, synchronizing my departure perfectly with the eruption of said volcano and the destruction of the entire complex. Which will work out nicely, because it’s June and everyone will want to be in the Hamptons anyway and they’ll get everything cleaned up by Labor Day.

In other words, it’s my last day here. Thanks for the adventure, New York. See you soon.



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