As I was working today an email went out to the entire NY firm - active shooter at 345 Park Ave, stay inside and wait for updates. Since I now work from home it didn't impact me, but I remembered my times of WTF when I was in NYC. When the steam pipe blew up Lexington Ave, two crane collapses, an earthquake, random shootings, stabbings, and robberies on Jay St and Willoughby, and a few others.

It's part of living in an old city packed to the gills with people and occasional disasters, and I came to accept it fairly quickly. Stay safe, be aware of your surroundings, always have a plan B, and bring food & water everywhere in case you get stuck under the river on the subway. In all of my time there, however, there was never a random active shooter situation, much less down about two blocks from where I used to work in Midtown.

It sounds like this was a murder/suicide from someone who came from Las Vegas, but active shooters are equally frightening no matter where it occurs since it is random violence, often without a motive, that you can't predict. Luckily I don't know anyone who works in that building but there is that initial spike of adrenaline I still have when I hear of things happening around where I worked for over thirteen years. At another time I could have been caught up in a similar situation even though they kept security pretty tight at LIB.

Despite the insanity though, I still miss NYC. I don't think I'll ever stop but at least I'm happier here, since the trade-offs in living there were getting greater as I aged and the city changed, but I guess that's a metaphor for life.

I just logged on to check news before bed and damn. Anne Burrell's death was ruled a suicide by the ME. I was hoping that it was natural causes despite the reports about pills being found around her body, but whatever demons she had must have been too much for her that day/week/month.

She was one of my favorite Food Network personalities and Worst Cooks in America was always required viewing since I discovered it around the 6th season. Her ability to teach well with tough love and her genuine enjoyment of the profession rang true much more so than other "celebrity chefs," and she will be sorely missed.

I hope she's found some form of peace now, and I will always cook with "slices, sticks, and dices" and "brown food tastes good" in my mind. 

One of the many times I saw Counting Crows (at SummerStage in Central Park that time) I LOVED the band that opened for them, even though I'd never heard of them before. I went to see that band again a few years later at Terminal 5 and it was just another amazing experience which I cherish to this day as one of my best concerts.

The band is Michael Franti and Spearhead, and I was scheduled to see them again before Covid hit, so naturally it was rescheduled and canceled a few times. By the time there was another definite date I had been working for over a year, living in South Jersey, and even though I booked a hotel I was just too tired to make the trip for a Wednesday night concert.

So I was thrilled when I saw he was coming to Ocean Resort & Casino in Atlantic City since that's a relatively easy place to get to for me nowadays. I planned to stay over my parents' house since they live even closer, and asked if they wanted to come. They both said yes, which surprised me, but great! I booked 3 tickets in the seated section since they're 80 years old and their standing days at a concert are long past.

When I saw him in the past it was very peace and love, but tended more towards African beats and reggae/dancehall. And he was more open and honest than I'd ever seen him since he's obviously come a long way in his life since I saw him about twelve years ago. He's found his soulmate, had two children (one just arrived a couple of months ago), gone through his midlife crisis, and recently lost both his birth mother and adopted mother. He told us about it with such poignancy that it was easy to forget you weren't talking to him, that he was speaking to a concert hall full of fans, but I could relate so much and was so happy that he had found some peace for himself.

A lot of his recent songs are from those times and I will definitely be downloading a few that really hit home for me since he is sharing that hope that we find our place, things do get better, and there will be sunshine even when it's dark in your life at the moment. If I ever see him performing and am in the area I will definitely be at his concert again. Not many bands can give me hope, but he does. 

I can actually eat normally again, although I'm more careful about minimizing processed food because of the sodium content. Yesterday we headed down to the Wildwood BBQ Festival, shared ribs, pulled pork & coleslaw, and cornbread and my stomach and pancreas had no trouble. The cornbread was so good it inspired me to bake some today, and I was so happy to have something other than fish or chicken!

 I'm slowly getting through the backlog of things on my to-do list since I normally wake up around 7-8am now so I have the whole day. Shredding, recycling, trash, laundry, peach-cherry banana muffins, and blueberry lemon cornbread have all been done, and cleaning was last weekend so I'm fairly caught up at this point.

I also went a little crazy during Prime Day since I'm still nesting in the apartment and getting things ready. It's easy to fall into a routine, and one of the major things I did when I moved out of NYC after 11 years in my last apartment was throw away things I still had with me from college (I bought them in 1997-2004 between undergrad & grad) since I never replaced them. Now that I'm pulling in a good salary, my retirement accounts are set up, and I have savings, I'm trying not to literally use things that are worn out/don't work/don't use/don't fit any more.

Not that I'm doing a full purge, but I really do hang on to things beyond their useful life. The next major clean will be to evaluate my wardrobe, partly because I no longer physically go to work, partly because my weight has fluctuated so much, and partly because (again) I have 20+ year old clothes that have seen better days and are just taking up space. I ordered some new tops/dresses/shorts during Prime Day and hopefully it will be a place to start next weekend.

 Yesterday I went back to my parents for the fireworks down there and was reminded of two things:

1) Do not try to go south on the Parkway on Friday or Saturday or north on Sundays in the summer. I had to take a secondary route home unless I felt like waiting hours in bumper to bumper traffic (spoiler alert: I didn't).

2) Dear lord, how in the hell did I put up with the yelling and dysfunction for three years during Covid or the 6 weeks recently? I think I just learned to shut it out which makes it that much more jarring when I return.

 Those two things notwithstanding, I very much enjoyed the fireworks and also brought down corn on the cob and pumpernickel bread from a farm stand near me as well as banana-lemon bread I had baked. I have baked oatmeal with fruit in the fridge for breakfast and tortellini to make for the week's food so I'm good to go. I also managed to mop my wood floors and vacuum the rugs today, although scrubbing the kitchen and bathroom floors will have to wait for another day since I'm still (mostly) pacing myself.

Speaking of which, I'm still finding myself more tired than I remember so I must still be building back my strength. I'd say I'm about 85% though, which is a VERY significant improvement, and more so since being back in the apartment since I am more physically active just by cleaning, doing errands, hauling groceries, cooking, and baking.

I also am down 90 pounds from my heaviest in May 2023 at 227 lbs, and barely fit into the clothes I had when I left NYC at 140, so I may have to go shopping at some point, but that can wait for now since it's not like I'm going out to work every day. Now I get to see if I can maintain that weight!