The Bronx Zoo

     Today in the mail I received my membership card to the Wildlife Conservation, otherwise known as the little laminated card that cost me $275 two weeks ago that entitles me "free" entry to the Bronx Zoo, the Prospect Zoo, the Queens Zoo, the New York Aquarium, and the Central Park Zoo.  And it is worth every penny.

     As a family of five, everywhere we turn, whether it's seeing "The Lorax" at the UA Theatres, learning about geology at Liberty Science Center, or going for Mexican on a Saturday night, it's about $150 any way you cut it, so naturally we become members whenever memberships are offered.


     The Bronx Zoo is one of my children's favorites and there never seems to be enough time to see all the attractions they'd like to see, mainly because they have very long attention spans.  My three daughters, ages 12, 8 and 8, can stare at birds or monkeys till the proverbial cows come home. 

     At our last trip there, I think I must've memorized the path one of the two giant tigers took, as Bronx Zoo enthusiasts marvelled at his tiger beauty!  He paced decidedly back and forth, and then up the rock canyon and then back down toward the pond, and then up again the little mountain.  Then he'd snooze there for what seemed like an eternity, only to emerge eventually up to the glass, where my kids can snap a few photos on their iPhones. And then he would turn again and retrace his path. 


     This lasted for close to almost 45 minutes and my daughters' interest waned not one iota. Amazing. Where are these beasts when I need them in my chaotic house during the week? Anyway, my girls' eyes were peeled, their mouths ajar, their voices giggled after having captured some cool photos of these beautiful mammals. They were thrilled. They were hypnotized. They were learning. And that is the beauty of the zoos in general. First-hand experiences with wildlife that would otherwise just be confined to color photos in textbooks.


     When my girls finally extracted themselves from this exhibit, we high-tailed it over to the Ethiopian highlands! The girls immediately forgot about their beloved tigers and feasted their eyeballs on.... the baboons. These charming creatures, all fluffy with manes of fur and interacting with each other with what seemed to me to be very human gestures (ie, holding their young close, fighting with each other fiercely and relentlessly--- this reminded me of my twins, especially), were situated in the “African Alps," which boasted the largest primate collection in the country.

     Then there was the Okapi calf, which one of the twins said looked like a hyena wearing zebra trousers, the Polar bear, the giraffe, the birds, the reptiles, the butterflies and a whole bunch of fish too many to mention. The afternoon flew by.

     The girls were rightly exhausted from wandering the trails of the Bronx Zoo, and even too tired to ride the famous Bug Carousel, but not too tired to get an ice cream cone before we found our way back to our minivan in their parking lot. Where it was parked. For free. Thank heaven for memberships.

The Supermoon    

     Evidently, photographers as a whole, generally get excited about a few certain things:  good, available light; street photography, especially when shot in black and white; decayed, abandoned buildings, and the more graffiti and rusty remnants, the better; and something called a Supermoon.  Yes, that's right, a Supermoon.  It's much like Superman or Supermom or Super-sized fast-food value meals.  The Supermoon.

     The Supermoon,  the full moon at its brightest and biggest in the entire year because of its extremely close proximity to the Earth in its elliptical orbit, got my friends in my photography circles all abuzz, talking it up as if the Pope himself were coming for a visit, or if the Jets were going to be playing in the Superbowl.  There were lengthy discussions on how marvelous it would be to behold, there were practice shots days taken days before. Lengthy conversations about camera settings at which they planned to shoot ensued, as well as where in New York City would be the best vantage points to capture the magnificence of the much-anticipated Supermoon.

     But of course, as intrigued as I was about something that would be so awe-inspiring as to be dubbed as "Super," I had better things to do than worry about a big, fat, bright moon. I had to be a mom.  It was the weekend, after all.  Who really cared about a large, big ball in the sky, which most of my friends who were not photographers had never even heard of.  Not me! I had things to do, kids to taxi around. Never mind also that that it was Cinco De Mayo, and the rest of the single world was plotting where they would consume the most Coronas and margaritas with their compadres.  I had a job to do. I have three children.

     So that Saturday, my girls, ages 12, 8, and 8 (yes, twins... please continue to pray for me), got it into their heads that they should go to the Bronx Zoo (prior to their swim meet later in the afternoon), where we had visited a couple of weeks earlier during their Easter break, because they had not adequately enjoyed all its exhibits and because they had not the desired time to ride the carousel of bugs, they explained. Nor did they fully enjoy monkees long enough or the tigers and the tiger parade around the tiger area behind the glass, where I'm pretty sure they had their noses pushed up against the glass for nearly an hour at the last visit. They made a pretty convincing argument to head up to the Bronx.

     But alas, times restraints dictated we go to the closer in proximity Staten Island Children's Museum, where the girls (well, the twins really;  my eldest daughter pretty much texted the entire time) were able to run amok on all three levels, building houses with giant wooden boards, pretend to rock-climb in the Arctic and rock-hop in the "Great Explorations" area.  They played ad-nauseum on the fire truck, and pretended to be ladybugs and veterinarians in "It's a Bugs Life."  The good news is that they had a great time. The bad news that they tired not one iota after a couple of hours of wild playing, which was a good thing, because off we went to a swim meet immediately thereafter.

     Swim meets for me are always fun nowadays as a spectator, because I have three swimmers in the meet, and not just one, which is how it was before the twins took up the sport competitively.  Because when you think about it, hours of driving and sitting in the stiflingly hot and humid indoor pool is really a sacrifice to watch only one of your darlings swim for a total of about 2 minutes over three events. So I'm lucky in that my three girls have a cumulative, approximate 9 minutes to reward me for all my troubles of driving them and feigning interest when other people's kids swim. It makes the boredom, well, less boring.

     The meet went "swimmingly" well, as the girls were triple and doubles winners each (which means they won two of their three of their events in which they raced, if not all of them), respectively to their descending ages, and the side effect for me was that they were aptly exhausted, finally, at meet's end.  So much so that my husband and I had no qualms about calling my in-laws for last-minute babysitting duties and embarking upon... (drum roll , please) the hunt for the Supermoon!

     The drive into Manhattan from Staten Island is always a glorious one, and not because we were leaving behind, at least for a few hours, the constant, sometimes delightful, but often annoying chatter of young children, but because the bridge into Brooklyn is the gorgeous Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. As night falls and Manhattan becomes lit up with a million twinkling lights, the splendor of New York City is unyielding. And even though there was oodles of traffic on the Gowanus, too... who cared? Not us! We were on furlough. 

     Now, mind you, the drive in a car with just my husband and me is quite different from when our girls are with us. The music is Frank Sinatra or Erasure, instead of One Direction and Justin Beiber. There is not a constant narrative of how many other cars on the highway have dogs as passengers or who was invited to whose party and who wasn't. There are no arguments about who gets what Go-Go and there is an absence of sharp crackling noises of the Cheetos bag being passed around because they are "starving," even though they were invariably just fed a nutritious lunch by yours truly an hour prior.  When the girls are at Grandma's, it is just Michael and me!

     The search for the Supermoon required first that we made a stop for dinner.  The sky looked cloudy and we thought we'd give it time to clear up with some mulligatawny soup. We went to Little India, around 6th Street and First Avenue, walking for a few blocks, perusing menus and some really gawdy storefronts along the way, but all smelling delicious, until we found an Indian restaurant that looked authentic enough so we knew it would be good, but modern enough so we didn't contract dysentery, should we need to use the facilities. 

     And we were not disappointed.  Everything was savory and just-right spicy. And cheap.  And good service to boot. Plus, there was live music, comprised of a solitary Indian man, cross-legged on an elevated platform, chanting, singing and strumming his sitar, right next to our table.  So an order of chicken tikka masala, shrimp vindaloo, nan and aloo-palak, not to mention a couple of drinks (leave it to us to have Taj beers on Cinco de mayo), later, we were full and happy. 

     And above all, we laughed.  We talked and we laughed and it was as if we were dating again (although I do recall when we actually WERE first dating, and he took me for Indian food for the first time, I was kind of offended how literally distasteful and way too spicy and not to my liking the indian cuisine was. Who'd ever think it'd be my favorite now?).

     That night, in search of the Supermoon, was reminscent of the days before the stresses of running two dental offices, the times before discussions of where our eldest daughter would consider attending high school in a couple of years, the days before mortgages and taxes and our parents' health issues.  It reminded me of our past, when we were younger... and happier. 

     Now mind you, our marriage is in good shape, don't get the wrong idea and start making a list of divorce lawyers to recommend to us. If you have been married for more than seven years, I think you can totally relate.  And if you can't, then I think you're lying. In our case, in the few weeks leading up to Supermoon weekend, things had been very stressful at work and the kids' swim, soccer, and softball schedules, not to mention piano and tennis lessons, were hectic. In additon, generally I was easily annoyed at something (or everything) poor Michael did or said, or even the WAY he did or said something (or everything).  You know, the normal stuff that couples married 16 and a half years feel.  At times. And at times more often than others.  It had been one of those times.

     But the night of the Supermoon, we were unfettered.The kids were safe and were NOT with us. I rambled on about my photography and some patients at the office, what I wanted to wear at our friends' upcoming wedding, my plans to redecorate one of the kids' bedrooms, how I would like him to have fixed the broken sliding door on our minivan, and did he like the color I had my nails done last week, all mundane stuff... but with one big difference:  I had Michael's undivided attention! It was long time in coming and quite refreshing.

     So after our mango ice cream, we sauntered out into the street and looked up. There was not a star to be seen. The sky was cloudy as can be, beyond the thick layer of fog hanging under it. We had hoped the sky would clear up, even for just a moment so I could just snap a couple of frames, my trusty Canon at the ready. No luck. All that hype for naught. No Supermoon. No incredible captures to post on my Facebook tomorrow or email my sisters and my closest photographer friends. No anything. None. Zippo. Nada. Kaput. 

     But what I did get in return that evening in the hunt for the elusive Supermoon, was an evening with my husband.  And we had a great time. And we had a lot of laughs and a belly full of great food in the most fabulous city in the world. I was reminded why he was my best friend and why I decided to accept his offer to go on a date with him in August of 1990. And why, after 22 years and three beautiful children together, I still like him. And for that I was grateful.

The High Rock Challenge 2012    

     It's almost 11:00 PM and I am in still in my work clothes. It has been the usual, hectic day that starts out with the "easy" part:  actual work (in my case, dentistry) and ends up with not the necessarily "hard" part, but it is most certainly grueling:  driving my three girls to all their after-school activities and then waiting for them to emerge from these said activities.  This can last anywhere from three to five hours.  Tonight happened to clock in more toward the latter.

     Anyway, work, as I mentioned, is the easy part.  One of my pedo patients commented to me that she could NOT believe that I had competed and actually finished the High Rock Challenge over the weekend (having seen this newsflash all over my Facebook wall, proclaimed by me, of course, more out of shock than wanting to boast).  This has been the conventional sentiment by my friends, family, staff, and fellow softball moms with whom I've chit-chatted since the race's conclusion this past Saturday afternoon.

     As a matter of fact, I'm glad to report that my thighs have regained feeling in them as of this morning, 72 hours after the 8-mile adventure race.  Not bad for an old lady, whose birthday marked yet another year last week, right?  I must tell you that I kind of was astounded myself that I did it, and am very much pleased with finishing the race, comprised of mostly buff and svelte 1,200 participants, with a median age of I would say 25.

     I raced with my very good friend, Rob, an attorney, older than I, and very outdoorsy (yes, participants in the High Rock Challenge must race in teams of two).  This came in very handy indeed, especially in one of the challenges that peppered the 8-mile course through the woods.  This particular challenge involved getting heavy-duty zip-lock tied-together at the wrist, and racing as a twosome for one entire mile!  And if that weren't bad enough, one of us had to be carrying a ten-pound bag of sand on his or her shoulder.  Thank heaven that was NOT me.  I kind of felt bad for my good, old partner about that part, but hey, God didn't give big broad shoulders to men for nothing!



     And if THAT weren't enough to make a participant vomit, the challenge also involved a sort of scavenger hunt, wherein our team, aptly named "The Whole Tooth and Nothing but the Tooth"  (clever, for a dentist/lawyer team, right?), wherein we had to find the three numbers of a combination that would open a padlock, traipsing all over the 120-acre woods (well, ok, just a section of it), nailed onto a tree of five spots you had search for, one of them in the middle of a swamp (seriously!) with only a very rudimentary map the sadistic event organizers drew up, with what I thought looked like their feet.

     So anyway, my partner was quite good at this whole thing, and we were three for three in the scavenger hunt, swiftly finishing this part, which was after we had to scale a steep Mount Moses, and right before I had to be blindfolded and then paint onto his face a goatee, a mustache, and lamb chop sideburns. I kid you not. You'd think there was a million dollars at the end of this race but there wasn't.  Just a great big party, studded with vegetable wraps and Voss water, and potato chips, apples, protein bars, massage stations, and great, big garbage cans into which most of the participants threw their muddied socks and sneakers which had all seen better days prior to the race.

     If only the High Rock Challenge involved the math/algebra sheet that Rob and I did in 5 seconds flat, we would have been OK.  But there was KAYAKING!  Did I mention the kayaking?!?  Life vests on and oars in hand, I was quite terrified to actually tip over during the race, embarrassing myself, my partner, my family.  So after plopping myself into the kayak, which was quite wet and very slick from the hundreds of racers before me, I steadied my lower body, back and buttocks, and rowed...  When we had encircled the entire course mapped out for us kayakers/crazies, it was the most amazing and exhilarating feeling ever.  What a high I got, really from just accomplishing NOT embarrassing myself!





     There was also an obstacle course thing, where we were required to scale this climbing-wall type-thing with netting that one had to body-roll across (there was no body roll for me, though.   All I can think about at that moment, in all honesty, was that my three young daughters needed me, and who would make their lunches this week, should I fall through the netting and plunk down to the ground with a great, big thud?).  So there was butt-walking across this netting, at which my partner Rob shook his head in disgust, and chuckled. But, hey, I'm alive! 

     Too bad there was lots of crawling through sewer pipes and rock-hopping through moss-covered gigantic stones and squat-thrusts and going knee-deep in a swamp to retrieve a padlock combination cover, because I would have loved to bring along my DSLR camera, instead of just snapping a few shots throughout the 8-mile race. 

     But really the memory is stored in the granddaddy of all cameras: my brain. And my heart. This race proved that even though I finished the race in double the time of many of the participants, I am almost triple the age of some of them, and I was NOT in their company when they were falling by the wayside with twisted ankles and sprained wrists from falling.  Haste makes waste. Slow and steady wins the race. I was reminded that the best things in life are free (the race registration fee, excepted, of course) and that Motrin is a girl's best friend.

Some of My Own Favorite Photographs

Upper West Side, Mahattan