June 2, 2012

Yesterday I attended the New York Modern Quilt Guild.  It met at a loft in the fashion district where the president lives.  About 45 women and 3 men.  An intimindating experience for me- to walk into a room of strangers and need to mingle.  I met lots of lovely people- including several women from Minnesota (the president grew up in Melrose). Plus there was a table of  free fabric (having left 95% of my fabric in MN, it was a treat to get scraps to play with).  We also received 6 fat quarters of a new fabric line to make a baby quilt.

Lots of wonderful show and tell- pictures below.

Unfortunately, the quilt groups here don't meet in the summer, so I will get to attend one more meeting in October before we leave.

As to living here- my comments today are on the trash.  With 27,000 people per square mile (I also read a figure of 8 people per 5,000 sq feet of living space- which means that someone else has about 400 square feet of our space), there are huge amounts of trash.  We have a trash chute right outside our door, and recycling bins at the bottom of our stairs in the basement- so trash disposal is very easy (it will seem a burden to have to walk to the alley with trash, and collect our recycling for the week, and put it on the curb on Friday). 

Everyday, I see trash bags piled on the sidewalk. It appears that trash is collected from each building about three times a week.  If the trash collectors ever go on strike, I think it will immobilize the city.  It appears that those living on 5th Avenue may actually ship their trash to Florida (see picture below).

The other thing about the trash is all the stuff that people that people throw out is amazing.  I am confident I would furnish an apartment by simply picking up stuff on the street.  I have retrieved a plastic basket to store things under the sink and a bread basket.  We also got a chair for the living room (thoroughly checked for critters and bugs before bringing it in). I have left behind three book cases, a headboard, three more chairs, and lots of other stuff. 

Al has obtained tickets for us to see the Daily Show on the 28th-  I am very excited!! We are on the ticket pool for Late Show tickets.  They collect names at certain times, and then call you if/when you get tickets.

Sally