Dreams With Words

1. On Thursday evening I went to a lovely dinner hosted by a former rower. It was a nice chance to do some catching up! However, I got a ride over there with someone (location is only about a mile from home), in part because they had made noises about planning to leave early. They did not. I can't really burn the sleep candle at both ends, so there went my plans for exercise Friday morning. I should be grateful that so much of my life is organized around early mornings these days, instead of resenting the fact that most other people have no problem staying up late.

2. Speaking of which, one of my cousins who is a professional early music singer told me over the holidays that she was going to have a concert in NYC on January 16, in case I might be interested and able to attend. To date I've only ever gotten to see short snippets of her performances, so I thought to myself, aw heck, why not. I didn't really want to spend the night in the city, so I found train tickets for a train departing Albany at 1 pm, and the last return train of the day, leaving Penn Station at 9:24 pm. That itinerary cut things close on both ends; I had an important work meeting on campus in the morning, and the concert was likely to run until 9 pm, so I might have to sneak out of the show early.

The other complicating factor was that the New York State Department of Transportation had announced last fall that they planned to close the Dunn Memorial Bridge bike-pedestrian access for ~3 weeks for maintenance work, once again cutting off the only convenient bike-ped accessible river crossing for reaching the train station from Albany (the next accessible crossing would add 20-plus miles to the trip, which is a distance that can hardly be called accessible!!).

The closure was originally scheduled for late November, but later there was some sort of vague update noting the work would occur in *mumble mumble* early 2026. Anyway, when I biked past the onramp on Tuesday, I observed some work crews on the ramp. It looked like they were drilling holes for a more permanent replacement for a wood guard fence. But in any case, in my bike-by it was unclear from those observations whether the path would be accessible. SO annoying.

The New York State Department of Transportation claims that local bus line 114 is an adequate replacement for bike-ped bridge access during these closures. This, frankly, is a joke, and a cruel one. It might add slightly less time than the 20-mile bike detour, but throws the uncertainty of bus schedules into the mix.

Therefore, I drove.

I also deluded myself into thinking I'd get lots of work done on the train! I even brought along some knitting!

Dear reader, I did not. One the trip to the City, the train was already pretty full by the time we boarded, so I wound up sitting next to someone who might have been some sort of mild schizophrenic, to judge by the babble up until he got off at Yonkers. Harmless, at least. So, no majestic views of the Hudson River in the winter for me, sigh. The return train was late enough at night that I mostly just dozed.

But! Hanging out in the West Village was lovely, as was getting to catch up with a cousin and her fiance who live in the City, and the concert was sublime.

Behold! The Secret Garden at St. Luke in the Fields!




Glorious delivery bike biketating (bike spectating)!


Across the street, observe: a Surrey with a lighted billboard display mounted on top!



You can't make this stuff up.

St. Luke in the Fields was a beautiful and peaceful church. I didn't want to disrupt the performance with a lot of photos, but here's a good one from the end when I had to discreetly sneak out early to make the train back to Albany:



-

3. Questionable choice 3 was deciding to stick with my plan of biking over to the Troy Farmer's Market this morning, to make up for the lack of exercise the prior 2 mornings. Between midnight when I got home last night and 7:30 am when I got up, it snowed an inch, and it was still snowing when I departed for Troy at 10:30 am after sweeping the snow off the walks.

Here's the thing about the decision: I burned through an entire set of brake pads over the course of just the one single bike ride. It's not that I was doing an excessive amount of braking. It's that these weather conditions lead to rapid sand buildup on my bike, which acts like sandpaper when I brake.

This is a strong argument in favor of a fixed-gear bike for winter riding. By this point I'm considering it. I'm generally okay with dealing with the discomfort of getting wet and a bit cold while biking around, but having everything get so utterly grimy every single time I ride is a bridge too far. And this is WITH fenders, mind you. Started giving me flashbacks to a particular long ride in Texas before I put fenders on Froinlavin.

Anyway, I hope I stop making quite so many questionable choices soon. The semester is about to start and the to-do list is still long.

Just so I can try and remember this for later:



The Cabot cheese were the most smooth out of the lot. The Land O Lakes had a distinct twang to it. The Tillamook had something of a nutty flavor, somehow simultaneously creamy-crumbly. I tend to get sharp rather than extra sharp when I'm shopping for Tillamook; at this point I'd view the Cabot extra sharp as a fine substitute. It isn't the same thing, but it's fine. These are not gourmet specialty cheeses, they are cheeses to be put on tortilla chips to make nachos and on bread to make grilled cheese sandwiches. And sometimes, mac n cheese.