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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STS-133

I wrote this in February 2011. -- BB


Just inshore from the Indian River in Titusville, Florida, there is a pool of water set off from the estuary by a berm and a metal baffle, and in this pool there is an alligator.

Titusville is widely known as the third-best place from which to watch the space shuttle launch from the Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral, twelve miles east, across the wide expanse of the northern Indian River. The first two best places are both attached to the space center, and you need tickets to watch the launches from there. They’re about three miles closer.

The shuttle launches from launchpad 39A, or at least the Discovery launched from there on February 24, 2011. You can see 39A from anyplace along the western shore of the river, which is a developed strip on the shoulder of US1 running north-south through town. At the northern end of Titusville, just where the causeway to the space center comes to land, is Spaceview Park. Spaceview Park comes recommended because there’s a PA system counting down the launch, and a Jumbotron showing a closeup view of the spacecraft as it takes off. But farther south there are some open areas that work okay for peering across the water through binoculars. Thousands of people come to town to set up their tripods and stake out their places, hours before liftoff.

The alligator is medium-sized. Not a great brooding veteran nor a hatchling, it looks to be about five to six feet long, and on the morning of the launch it lay still, close to the riverward side of the pool, floating perpendicular to the coast, looking almost pointedly away from the launch site.

He or she may have had reason to be piqued. The February 24, 2011 launch of Discovery, to deliver a structural element to the International Space Station, is to be the penultimate launch of the Shuttle. The fleet is old, and expensive, and the hope is that private industry will step in to provide some of the expensive answers to space R&D that the government is increasingly wary of financing.

For the gator, this spells trouble. For strewn around its watery home are the possible remains of meals. There’s a McDonald’s about fifty yards away, a hot dog place across US1, and beside a marquee reading “GO DISCOVERY / ICE COLD MARGARITAS”—next to a branch of the Kennedy Space Center Federal Credit Union—is a palatial Tex-Mex place called El Leoncita. Wrappers and cups litter the shoreline of the alligator’s fenced-off enclosure. The alligator, I suspect, eats well when shuttles go up.

Indeed, it seems an unlikely place to find a reptile of this size. There is little about the immediate environment to suggest any organic sustenance for our friend. There don’t seem to be any fresh waterways nearby (the Indian River is an estuary, and salt). There can’t be too many fish in the little pond, certainly, and the gator is so obvious within its confines that it’s hard to imagine unwary wading birds stopping in. 

More likely it is the by-blow of the shuttle program and its legions of fans arriving to set up lawn chairs along the gator’s fence that keep the animal fed. A few chicken nuggets, a beef patty, the end of a burrito, Mom’s fried chicken—the tourists come, and, intentionally or not, the detritus of their visits winds up fair game. Otherwise, what does it eat? Rats? Maybe. 

Probably, for the gator, the end of the shuttle program means hunger or departure. It’s unlikely that Titusville’s residents—proprietors of the Space Shuttle Car Wash, for instance—will think to spare a Big Mac for the green guy in his pond up the road. He or she is in an out of the way spot, near a public park, but there’s nothing picturesque about it (partly on account of the garbage, and the fence). Its primary advantage is its proximity to the best views of 39A. And the government can’t keep pushing millions at the shuttle program indefinitely. There’s no plan or stomach to build the next generation vehicle. Most signs point to future ships becoming expensive tools, rather than romantic engines of discovery. Robotics. Small scale machines remotely controlled, performing assembly and repairs under orders from Houston. Hard to imagine crowds like this coming out to watch those smaller, less soul-stirring gouts of flame across the lapping waves. 

But that’s tomorrow. On this February, our attention is drawn by the countdown, and the puff of smoke across the water, and the cheers of the crowds as a white-gold dragon’s-scale of flame rises into the sky and a nearly-divine delayed thunder rolls across the miles. A trail of expanding white thrusts upward, piercing a thin layer of clouds, emerging again to take the heavens. A star remains for a time, fading off into space, into its work beyond the blue dome that remains. We shuffle back to the car, wrapped in the glory of the moment, rehashing and stopping occasionally to look back and up at the dissipating exhaust. 

Later, we get caught in the roach motel of traffic from all three prime viewing spots, all converging on a single interstate entrance ramp which is predictably impassable. It’s late, we’re hungry, and there is a bright clot of chain restaurants and hotels surrounding the traffic-filled arena. So we stay a little longer to buy cheeseburgers and coffee by the highway out of town. Later, fed but still stymied by the non-flow of cars onto I-95, we drive back into Titusville and head south on a nearly deserted US1. 

Here, on the river side of town, and in the endless towns along this highway on this summery February night, every strip mall boasts a bail bondsman and a pawn shop. But for now, and for another month, the shuttle swings overhead.

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Benchmarking: a Study in What Passes for Discomfort Among the Affluent

I’d never really encountered the word benchmarking until I came to my current job in the financial services industry. I’ve since warmed to it. Because it’s what I do all the time as I wonder just how other people are making it.

Don’t get me wrong: we’re making it. I’ve been told that enough times by enough people who know, and things are definitely more comfortable around here this year. I’m convinced, finally. But if we’re making it, why the pit in the stomach? Why the sense that we’re one room short of a full complement of rooms? Why do the ceilings seem a couple of inches too low and we powerless to change that?

I started writing this entry, then came up against the fact of our making it and had to cast my mind back, had to relocate my principles. Oh, that’s right: we chose it. A manifesto was perhaps written.

Once in a while, that rankles. The principles and justifications seem a little more elusive, a little less apparent. Are the kids just growing faster than we thought? Are the toy piles and innovative storage solutions (nooks, crannies) getting overfilled? Is it just the persistent sugar ants and nonresponsive exterminators that make us feel a hair below the comfort zone of privilege we feel we should inhabit? Hard to say. The people I meet, the bloggers I read, I want to know: how are they making it? It’s not about status per se. It’s more about the practicalities. "Look honey, that’s a one-income household but their ceilings are higher than ours!" It’s not about the high ceilings. It’s about the how. How do they have higher ceilings than ours?

If we’re making it, and we wanted higher ceilings, why do we have these low ones? I go back to our decisions, and realize again: we chose it. [Just squashed an ant.] Tonight, again, writing that first paragraph, I reran the math we ran when we sold the more expensive, larger house to purchase this 1,100 square foot one. I see what we did. I remember why. And I calm down a little.

But here’s the rub, for me: my fiscal conservatism is characterized more by fear of failure and pessimism than it is by frugality and intelligently converting money into more money.

So I benchmark, and it comes out like this: There are people with a near-innate self assurance. It comes across as street smarts, business savvy, negotiating skill. Sometimes there’s physical handiness. It combines tolerance for risk with an apparently willful lack of imagination regarding risk. Some of the least socially adept people I know have it. CEOs have it. It’s in the easy self-assurance of the lawyer, or the contractor, or the banker. It’s not just blind certainty; it’s that coupled with skill at mitigating risk. Many entrepreneurs have it—but it doesn’t seem prevalent in the more distant reaches of the cube farms. Sometimes those who possess this complex of traits actually fail, but I suspect they simply pick up and move on to the next project.

I haven’t got the gene. So what I DO have is a small old house whose purchase was very safe and which left us in pretty good shape for college down the road, PLUS a job in a cube, swoopy floors, little sugar ants, unfinished novels, a floody basement, poor air circulation, bats, and, sometimes, a sense that even this can’t last.

And that, friends, is what passes for making it. How are you making it?


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Christmas Part XXXVIII: The Encheapening

Hi everyone! You're all going to get Christmas presents from us this year! But we're going to spend VERY MODESTLY. (Read: some of you might get HAPPY THOUGHTS directed your way! Merry merry!)

That circumstance is a result of one of those empty bank account situations that happen once or twice a year. Could it have anything to do with us buying a MODESTLY PRICED but still BRAND-NEW car? Why, yes, yes it could. Could it have something to do with rapidly up-spiraling health care costs and a new health plan, a hospitalization and some new prescriptions? Sure it could. How about the money we had to front to the plumber for the first of several repairs related to a leak? Yessssss. Anything else? Gas $3.24 a gallon and a combined daily commute of about 136 miles? Toss that in the hopper. How about a little oil heat? Why not?

We keep looking for evidence of our profligacy, but it's nowhere to be found. After moving upstate, my wife sold the caviar hose, the truffle flinger, and all but one of our diamond-encrusted hookers. We took back the shoe dispenser and the Armani tissues and the complete set of life-sized farm animals executed in Amedei Porcelana chocolate. Gone are the vintage solid gold nosepickers that once belonged to a notorious governor of Oklahoma, not to mention a Jeff Koons heart sculpture AND Jeff Koons's actual heart (sold it to a medical school in Grenada just to cover a heating oil delivery).

So, yeah, cheap holidays this year. It's just that, even recouping the funds from the loot acquired during our New York years, there's occasionally this HOLE just over the horizon. Sometimes it allows us a look inside. It's so big, and so deep—if we could figure out a way to sell it by the cubic yard, we'd be rich.


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