adventures in nyc

The 1898 Hat continues to take me places. My first foray thanks to the Seaman's Church Institute was to Port Newark and a cargo ship last year. Today it was to New York City proper, to attend a knit-a-long for the Christmas at Sea program. The first pattern chosen was the 1898 hat, and Paige invited me to the inaugural event today.

I am trying a whole new program of trying to say yes to such unexpected invitations, when my unfortunate natural inclination is to politely decline. My new mode of reasoning is that the laundry will always be piled sky-high. Floors will need vacuuming, filing will need filed, paperwork will need finished, dishes will need washed. But I probably wouldn't be doing those things when I was home anyway, so I may as well seize the day.

So today: off on a train ride (or two) to New York City with my youngest, the only one left at home and so the only one left to gang-press into my crazy plans. Plus I didn't want him sitting at home playing xBox all day.

The event was in Bowling Green Park, which is way down on the southern tip of Manhattan, near the World Trade Center. I had not been to that area since before 9/11. The new building, while not quite finished, is striking; we could see it from the train on the other side of the river.

We hiked down the island, using the compass on my iPhone to figure out which way was south, and amazingly enough we found the park and the knitters!

Yep, my eyes are closed. And when will I learn to sit up straight when someone is taking my picture? Paige knows to sit up straight!

Terzo was a bit bored during this part, but he was a good sport about waiting for an hour or so while we chatted and knitted. I may have denied him the xBox for a day but he figured out a workaround.

Could be that a few bribes were involved in exchange for his patience. The first was a trip to the National Museum of the American Indian, which sits on the edge of the park.

It is located in the former Alexander Hamilton U.S. Customs House. The rotunda alone is worth a visit.

We only saw a fraction of the collection, but many stunning pieces were on display. Best of all, it is free, so even if you can only spend 45 minutes or so, it is worth it. This headdress, made of feathers, was a beautiful example of the use of texture and color evident in so many of the pieces (and the color was remarkably well preserved).

The second part of the bribe was food, of course. He had spotted an ice cream truck (a mythological beast in our neighborhood) from across the park and had mapped out a visit. That's the famous "Bull of Wall Street" sculpture behind him, but that's the closest we could get with the mob of tourists snapping pictures around it.

I'm not sure what it says about me that my knitting has to take me places, but I did enjoy a great day out with a great kid.