[Composed 8/26/2025]
You could give what we did today in NY a fancier name, but mostly, we just took a walk without a care in the world. What made this deliciously relaxed day especially meaningful is that for the last 50 days, we've had at least one bonus child in our home.
Instead of taking a week-long summer trip with the Florida kids, we've had a series of adventures. This included hosting the older kids for a few weeks to enjoy some in-depth activities. The extended time we've had with the kids has been a pleasure. Hitting up a resort with G and T was tons of fun. And watching J and D play in a battlebots tournament using bots they built with teams was super rewarding. Exploring DC with C was exactly the treat I hoped it would be. Sure, my commute went from 0 hours to a day to what felt endless, but even that was a pleasure in its own way: I got to enjoy J's DJ skills, learn about D-Day with D as we listened to Soldier, Sailor, Frogman, Spy, Airman, Gangster, Kill or Die: How the Allies Won on D-Day and rock out to the K Pop Daemon Hunter's soundtrack with C.
A few days before D left, baby K joined our home. At 4 months old, she's the cutest, most adorable bundle of joy. Mostly, she just wants to sleep, eat, and cuddle.
When we landed in NY, we left all of that behind. For the last 12 hours or so, we haven't had to think about running to our next activity or changing a diaper. So sure, I could tell you that we went on Mindful Urban Exploration, but really, we just walked without thinking about whether someone was going to ask how much farther, or if someone needed a diaper change. It was glorious.
While on our walk we saw a mix of nature, street art, and other randomness that Queens effortlessly delivers.
Nature in the City
We saw some fine examples of nature finding a way. Like these flowers growing in cracks:
Or this Great Egret wading in the shadow of the Van Wyck Expressway.
This Monarch Butterfly was the highlight of a stop at the Garden of Meditation in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. I'd never guess from these photos that 8 lanes of the Long Island Expressway are a mere 600 feet away.
This is my favorite urban nature scene of the day. At around 1:30 PM, I snapped a pic of this Yellow-crowned night heron, chilling along the seashore.
About 6 hours later, I captured this picture of the 'seashore' he was chilling in.
Oh New York, you're so full of contrasts.
Street Art
We've established that Shira thinks graffiti is a nuisance crime, while I think it's a fascinating opportunity for artistic expression. Our stroll through NY gave each of us an opportunity to reinforce our own perspective.
Consider these trucks. Are the owners infuriated that their property has been defaced? Or do they appreciate the splash of color and chutzpah of the artist? And are the artists recklessly defacing property, or are they following an internal code that ensures that this is a sort of victimless crime?
All around us where I saw interesting expression, Shira saw society crumbling.
At various points, I'd stop walking and be like "babe, babe, seriously check this out! How'd they do that?" I'd ask, waiting for her to be impressed. She never was.
Random New York
Of course, a stroll through Queens is going to deliver plenty of random sights. Like this future lock bridge, remains of the 1964 World's Fair and a scale model of the Eiffel Tower.
The Eiffel Tower sits atop the Paris Suites Hotel. The website claims to be "Perfect for those seeking distinctive accommodations with a European touch." Alas, the Google Reviews suggest that, yes, this 3-star hotel may be distinctive, but maybe not always in a good way.
Finally, consider this Frankenstein-looking vehicle:
I thought this was someone's DIY conglomeration. In fact, it's a seen-better-days Mercedes AMG G 63 6x6. In mint condition, this truck goes for about 1.5 million dollars. This particular model isn't worth quite that much, but it does have a cool passenger-side neck pillow.
Destination: Lunch!
Our walk wasn't without a destination. Our goal was to make it to lunch at Nadezhda, a kosher restaurant in Forest Hills that specializes in kebabs and borscht.
Given my affinity for trying new foods and that we keep kosher, it's kind of amazing that we've been to NY so many times but haven't checked out the Uzbeki kosher food scene. There were a handful of restaurants to pick from, but Nadezhda looked as good as any of the others.
The day was nice, so Shira and I opted to sit outside. The menu was basically a mystery to us, with many unknown dishes and no real sense of scale. We ended up ordering what seemed like quite a few dishes: bread, soup, salad, two types of kebabs, fries, and a meat pie thing. They were relatively small portions, so the long list was the right amount of food. I was impressed by it all. I'm sure part of me was just excited to eat a new genre of food, and who doesn't love warm bread and hot soup? The kebabs were legitimately tasty, with excellent seasoning. Shira was less swayed by the novelty. The fries were OK, and her salmon wasn't, to her, anything special.
I'm ready to go back and try more exotic dishes. Shira, not so much.
Undeniably, the restaurant fit our day of carefree living, with no worries about who would eat what, and how many dishes we'd need to order to satiate a gang of starving teens.
After about nearly nine miles of walking, we made it back to our hotel for the evening. Where we finally crashed and hoped for an uninterrupted night of sleep.
Tomorrow the serious work of enjoying tennis begins. That was enough relaxation, it's US Open time. Let's gooooooo!
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