Renting Citibikes In NYC: What You Need To Know
Apr 17, 2013 Around NYC
I’d never understood short-term bike rental programs until my husband and I vacationed in Montreal last summer. I thought the only option for a bike was to rent from a bike store or a resort for a day. And why would someone want a bike for just half an hour? That’s crazy! When I take my own bike out I’m gone for hours!
I really didn’t understand the pluses of short-term bike rentals until I used them. I’m so in love with the concept that I actually squealed with delight last week when I dropped my daughter off at school and saw this out front:
Bonus: the stations are solar-powered!
I’d read something about this coming to NYC years ago, and had forgotten all about it. Then, out of the blue, wham!
Over the next few days I passed four more citibike stations in my Brooklyn neighborhood. Urban kudzu.
Intrigued, I went to the citibike site a couple days ago, and signed up for a one-year pass for $95 (the bikes won’t be in until May, but the year doesn’t start until you activate your key). The other options – better for visitors – are $9.95 for a 24-hour pass and $25 for a 7-day pass.
Here’s how it works:
You go to a citibike station. Where are they? Everywhere! At least, if you’re below 60th Street in Manhattan or in a small-ish part of Brooklyn (Brooklyn Heights, Downtown, Fort Greene-Clinton Hill, a little bit of Bed-Stuy).
Having a ton of stations is key to this working, and if all of these planned stations actually go in, I think the program will be a success.
When you get to a station, the unlocking process is different depending on whether you have a yearly pass or a shorter one (with the shorter passes, a $101 hold is put on your card in addition to the fees). With the yearly pass you get unlimited 45-minutes rides, with the shorter passes you get unlimited 30-minute rides. Going over those times racks up more fees. You can read more on the citibike pricing page.
But here’s the key: you don’t ever need to take these bikes out for longer than that. You should never be incurring overages. If you’re close to your allotted time, you just check that bike into a station and take another one, starting the timer over! This is why having a lot of stations is so important.
The only scary parts of the rental agreement are the charge for a lost bike ($1,000) and the charge for keeping the bike for more than 24 hours ($1,200). And this is why you should never be leaving this bike anywhere other than safely checked in to a citibike station. Don’t lock it outside of a store, don’t lock it in a park. It doesn’t come with a lock anyway. It is meant to be locked into a station. I don’t think anyone would really want to steal these bikes – they’re clunky, utilitarian three-speeds – but I don’t understand why most people do the things they do, so why take chances?
You should know that you can also be charged for damage to the bike. And what’s to stop someone from vandalizing the bikes sitting in the stations? Here’s what I’ll be doing to protect myself: when you check a bike in, a light and sound lets you know that the bike is checked in, and then you have the option to also print out a receipt. Do it, then grab your phone and take a picture of the undamaged bike with the receipt in the foreground of the picture. Just a little extra insurance against troublemakers.
So what if you get to a station and there’s no open spot to put your bike? You can press a button to get 15 minutes added to your time, and go to another station. What if you want to rent a bike and there are none available? Each station has a map that can tell you in real time where the nearest stations are and if they have bikes or empty spaces available. Brilliant!
For round trips I will undoubtedly continue using my own bike. But there are lots of times where I don’t want to show up somewhere all sweaty and gross, but don’t care once my meeting or appointment is over. I could take the subway there and a citibike back! Or, if I’m out and about I could take a bike between stops – quicker than the subway or walking for short trips, cheaper than a cab.
The one thing that bothered me about renting similar bikes in Montreal was that I didn’t have a helmet. I was terrified that I was going to wipe out. I will be taking my helmet with me when I anticipate grabbing a citibike. Or maybe I’ll just buy one of these:
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: bike riding, citibike
My Awesome Cookie Lesson With Gail Dosik
Feb 4, 2013 Around NYC
Last week I had a private cookie decorating lesson with cookie maven Gail Dosik of One Tough Cookie, and it was an awesome day. First of all, her home is one of those gorgeous NYC apartments that, when seen on TV in a fictional show, you snort and say “Those places don’t exist!” Turns out they do.
I even got to meet the cutest, most well-behaved dog in the world, Mitzi.
I’ve been stalking Gail’s blog for a couple of years, and had already learned a lot from her before I ever stepped in to her kitchen. She has the absolute best method for rolling out cookie dough, and tells you how to remove icing creations from parchment without tears. She’s the reason why I throw all of my freshly-baked cakes right into the freezer.
If you want an idea of Gail’s awesome sense of humor, read this and this. And if you’re just looking for a good cry, read this.
But enough of her blog, I had her all to myself – in person!
Gail had warned me that she was a taskmaster, and after going over the basics of royal icing consistency she put me to work, starting with lines, then squares, then the dreaded circles. At times she had an amazing resemblance to Béla Károlyi (in voice only, of course), standing over me yelling “Come on- come on- you got it – stick the landing!”
Gail showed me how it was done with circles…
And I showed her just how hard they actually were.
But she made me keep at it until I had a handle on it – how to grip the icing bag, how high over the paper to hold it, how much pressure to put on it. Once Gail was satisfied, I was allowed to try it on actual cookies.
Then we moved on to the flooding, and Gail taught me some neat techniques for decorating the cookies while they’re still wet.
She even decorated some cookies especially for my kids.
I learned so much in just a couple of hours, I couldn’t wait to get home and try my new skills out, but I made myself wait until the weekend – otherwise I would have gotten nothing done all week. I could have easily just decorated cookies all day.
I’ll write tomorrow about my first solo attempt at decorating them. Getting the icing to the right consistency is the key to the universe of cookie decorating, and that’s a frustrating learning curve, but I can’t wait for my next project!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Cookie Decorating, Food, One Tough Cookie
Happy Birthday To Me, Continued…
Jan 28, 2013 Around NYC
I turned forty a few months ago. I handled it with my usual grace. In other words, I was a mess. But then I was fine. My friends helped me through it with fun and cheese, and then it was over.
Only, it wasn’t. Today, months later, is my gift from my husband. He gave me a private cookie decorating lesson with Gail Dosik. But since she is ridiculously in demand around any holiday, this was the earliest we could coordinate our schedules.
I’ve stalked her blog since I first heard about her. I can just sit there and watch the cookies go by on her homepage.
And now, I get to learn how she works her magic.
I’m not sure she realizes what she’s gotten herself into. Sure, I can make good looking cookies (thanks to her amazing method for rolling out cookie dough). But I can’t make them pretty. Yet…
Looking very much forward to the arrival of @selfishmom for cookie decorating lessons. Trying not to giggle already & be very serious.
— Gail Dosik (@THEToughCookie) January 28, 2013
I will report back on our fun, but not on her secrets – you have to take a lesson from her to get those.
One thing’s for sure: the people who know me will be getting some cookies soon.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: baking, Tough Cookie
Our First Rally
Jan 19, 2013 Around NYC
I’m not really a rally person. If the rallies happened on my street on 75-degree days, I could be persuaded more easily. But they don’t tend to happen that close, and a lot of them are in winter. So I’ve always convinced myself that it wouldn’t matter whether I went or not.
But the one on Monday is different. I can’t talk myself out of going, no matter what I do. This one is about me – and my kids. And your kids. It’s a rally in support of gun control. And even though the kids have the day off from school, and I could probably sleep in until 10 if I wanted to, we’ll be out in the sub-freezing weather, holding our signs.
Jake, Fiona, and I will be joining with lots of other New York City-area families in showing our support for common-sense gun laws. The sensible suggestions announced by President Obama this week are getting a lot of pushback from the gun lobby, despite the fact that a majority of Americans support gun control measures. So even though New York State has been a gun control leader, and even though New York City’s mayor heads up the Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition, it’s still important for us to gather at City Hall on Monday and show the world that we support the politicians who support gun control, to join together and be louder than the small fringe who wants to play Rambo.
Fiona was enthusiastic about going from the start (she’s especially looking forward to making a sign), but Jake doesn’t want to go. I’m making him go anyway. I think it’s important that he experiences this, that he sees what can happen when people get together for a common purpose. And I promised him I’d take him wherever he wanted for lunch afterwards.
We’ll be meeting in Cadman Plaza Park at 9:15 and walking over the Brooklyn Bridge to the rally, which starts at 10:30. Bring your gloves, hat, and scarf, and your (respectful) sign, and we’ll see you there.
You can get more information on the One Million Moms for Gun Control website, and on their facebook page.
Fiona’s Broadway Dreams
Jan 8, 2013 Around NYC
One of the things I want for my kids is for them to be able to pursue their dreams. They’re both very lucky in that their dreams seem to line up nicely with their talents: Jake, who has a great mind for math and science, wants to do something with computers or video games. Fiona, who has a sweet voice and a lot of dancing ability, wants to perform professionally. Thank goodness. It’s so heartbreaking to watch kids on shows like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance who want desperately to excel at something they simply have no talent for.
Plus, there are kids who’ve learned how to do one thing very well but can’t do anything else. I remember one of my first auditions was for a local production of Annie. Just about every kid got up on stage and sang “Tomorrow,” and some of them were phenomenal. But then the director would ask the kids to sing a scale, and a lot of them couldn’t. Or the director asked them to sing the song a different way, and they couldn’t. These kids had potential, but they hadn’t learned the fundamentals. Luckily, Fiona hasn’t had enough training or experience to learn any bad habits yet. If she wants to perform, I want her to have a good understanding of the basics. I want her to do the work.
Recently Fiona got to participate in two workshops, courtesy of Broadway Edge: One was a very fun and intense weekend audition workshop with other Broadway Edge students. The other was a no-less-intense (but much shorter) class for bloggers and their kids to see what it was all about.
Director/choreographer/movement coach Michael Schloegl and owner/audition coach/director Jill Jaysen, with the kids at the Blogger Workshop
Working with Broadway Edge was amazing for many reasons. As a proud mom it was so much fun to see what Fiona could accomplish in a short amount of time. Performing professionally is intense, and it was reassuring to see that Fiona’s stamina and excitement did not waver from beginning to end.
It was also interesting to see the way that the Broadway Edge instructors treated the kids. They were gentle, but realistic: they expected a lot out of these kids, some of them very young. They would ask the kids to do something several different ways, so that the kids could learn to take direction. They worked the kids like they were pros but made sure to work on fundamental concepts that would give the kids an edge over the kids who are just told to smile and sing out.
Choreographer Michael Schloegl, working with the Audition Workshop students
What kids learn at Broadway Edge doesn’t just apply to auditioning and performing. At some point, just about everybody has to get up in front of a group and do something, so learning how to speak with confidence, how to present your ideas without questioning them and making them seam weak, is invaluable, whether your kid ends up on a stage or not.
The instructors that Fiona got to work with are all pros who know the business because they work in it. (And they have access to casting directors!) Some Broadway Edge students have gone on to Broadway, and it was thrilling for the kids to get to talk to a former student Adam Riegler, who has performed on Broadway in Shrek The Musical and The Addams Family.
With the help of owner Jill Jaysen, Fiona chose a song from Mary Poppins and worked on memorizing the words the day before the workshop started.
She loved every minute of the two-day workshop, which culminated in a performance for the parents. After each kid performed either a song or a monologue, he or she was given a direction and asked to do a part over again – not an easy thing to do in a room full of people! But the kids were all great. They listened, they internalized the directions, and showed that they were learning to perform, not just memorize.
These first two performances are from the weekend Audition Workshop. The kids worked on dancing, singing (or a monologue), improv, and other skills. I’m so impressed with what they were able to accomplish in just a couple of days.
This performance, from the blogger workshop, is not as polished as the one from the weekend workshop, but the kids were working on this number for less than an hour, so it’s quite an accomplishment! But I’ve really included it so that you can get an idea of how Jill and Michael speak to the kids, how they encourage them, and how they treat them.
You can get more information about the next Broadway Edge workshop, which is being held the first weekend of March, and register here. I can’t wait to see where Fiona goes after this. She’s more fired up than ever before, and Broadway Edge gets the credit for that.
UPDATE: Guess what? Just for being one of my readers you can get $50 off of the next Audition Workshop! Sign up by February 4th, 2013 and enjoy $50 off using the code MBLOG.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 1. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
How Can You Help? There’s No Wrong Answer
Nov 6, 2012 Around NYC
Tragedies always bring a desire to help. When I was stuck out of town in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy I felt very removed and helpless, but then when I got home I felt overwhelmed. Where to give money? Go with a big national organization that we’ve given to when the tragedies have been farther away, or the mayor’s fund, or smaller, close-to-home efforts that had sprung up specifically for Sandy relief?
And how should I spend my time? My instinct was to help people close to my neighborhood, but they weren’t the hardest hit – did I owe it to the people who didn’t have houses to help them first? Or did I owe help to people whose streets I drive down every week?
In the end, I decided there was no wrong answer, as long as I did something. Not doing anything, being paralyzed with the overwhelming nature of the destruction, would be the real tragedy.
As much as I wanted to roll up my sleeves and go to the people whose lives were completely devastated, I really wanted to stick closer to home, having just been away from home for much longer than I’d planned. I gave money to a friend of mine going to the hardest hit areas, so that he could get supplies into the hands of people who needed them the most.
I put my own energy into feeding people just a few miles away – people who didn’t have much before the storm, and who still didn’t have power or heat. I made bread to go with the pasta that was already coming in for their dinner that night. And after I talked about it online, a woman from my daughter’s school dropped off lots of cleaning supplies and paper towels, and my friend Molly sent me money so that I could buy even more badly needed supplies – I’ll be dropping all of that stuff off in Red Hook this afternoon.
And today I gave baked goods to Fiona’s school’s Election Day bake sale, which is giving half of this year’s proceeds to hurricane relief.
None of those were huge efforts – not like the people who came from across the country to help, or who put up displaced families in their own homes, or who have been volunteering all day, every day in some capacity. But in a situation like this, every little bit really does help. There are people whose first instinct is to put on work boots and gloves, grab shovels, and go help clean up. There are people who can’t give time but can afford to give money. People who have no money to give can volunteer making sandwiches, or reading to older people flooded out of their nursing homes. There’s always something you can do, and you shouldn’t slow down to wonder if you’re doing the thing that will help the most. Because to the people you are directly affecting, you are helping the most.
Need inspiration to get you moving? Look at these pictures of kids affected by Sandy. Or these people, doing what they could to help. Or these people. The devastation is on their faces.
Just do something. It will be appreciated. It will make a difference.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Hurricane Sandy, NYC
Stephen and Me: My Close, Personal Relationship With Stephen Colbert
Oct 3, 2012 Around NYC
That title is a total lie. The closest I’ve ever come to Stephen Colbert is last night when he signed my copy of his new book, America Again (Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t). If I could get closer, I would. I’ve been to tapings of his show, and I’ve calculated how fast I could leap over the audience railing and sprint to his desk and tackle him and soak in his essence before security would taze me, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to get faster before I try it. Last night it would have been stupid to try – his bodyguard was very close. Dammit.
Actually, it wasn’t just Stephen who signed the book. All of the writers who worked on the book were there, and they all signed it!
This is part of the greatness of Stephen Colbert. He didn’t show up at his Barnes & Noble book signing alone, taking all of the credit. He shared the stage with the people who helped him get there.
I got there – to the signing – with the help of my friend Ellen, who works for the book’s publisher, Grand Central. She not only got me in (Barnes & Noble was packed with people waiting in line for the signing), but got me a kick-ass seat in the front row. I think I told her I’d give her my next born child. She doesn’t know I’m not having any more. Shh.
Me, trying to act reserved. (Picture courtesy of Ellen Gerstein)
Waiting for a lot of writers.
Stephen started out by doing a reading from his book. I was busy taking pictures of his writers when he started, so here are the words I missed recording:
I wrote another book. I hope you’re happy. Because this book is your fault. You see, everywhere I go I hear bellyaching about how we as a nation have lost it.
Then he took audience questions. I was prepared. I brought this with me:
Here’s the story behind that picture of Stephen Colbert and my husband. Go ahead, read it, I’ll wait. What? You don’t have time? Here’s the short version: I gave that picture to Jon Stewart four years ago, and asked him to give it to Stephen Colbert to sign. I got it back less than a week later, signed. But I always wondered…had Stephen really signed it, or was it some intern at The Daily Show?
Well, I showed it to Stephen last night, and he confirmed that yes, he remembered signing it!
I don’t know why he looks like he’s sneering at me. I swear, he was really nice! (Picture courtesy of Ellen Gerstein)
I thought that the best audience question was from a woman who asked why there was only one female on his writing staff. Stephen let that particular lone female writer, Meredith Scardino, answer the question. She said that while late night might be dominated by men, the men she worked with were not dominating men. Good answer. And Stephen added, some of the men on stage started out as women. :-D
Stephen Colbert talking with Meredith Scardino, surrounded by allegedly male writers
There was also a very special guest in the front row with us, Christianne Aman-purr. You may remember this “Egypt expert” from The Colbert Report:
Well, Christianne Aman-purr and Stephen had a very uncomfortable looking reunion. Uncomfortable for the cat, I mean – she did not look happy!
After the Q&A it was time to get my book signed! Thanks to Ellen running back for her camera, I got to be the first person through the line. I got the freshest signatures. I think that makes my book the best.
I don’t remember what I was saying to Stephen at that moment, but his bodyguard was hovering very close to me. (Picture courtesy of Ellen Gerstein)
If you’re at all a fan of Stephen Colbert, or his show, or his previous book, I Am America (And So Can You), or America itself, or politics, or just comedy in general, you have to buy America Again. I just finished it, and I have to wonder how much lead time they had, and how late they could make changes. Because there’s so much in the book that is current right now, leading up to the election.
Stephen’s TV persona is a much bigger part of this book, I think, than his last book, giving him leave to say many many things that just aren’t right, but are hysterical (and sadly, probably going through the head of at least one conservative billionaire at any given moment). Gems like this one:
[Reagan was] right, America was put here by God for us to find. America was like the sculpture existing inside the block of marble, waiting for the Artist to chip away a few Cherokee to find it.
It’s also, amazingly, instructive. I knew the basics of the mortgage crisis: when banks lend money to people who can’t pay them back, that’s bad for banks. But since not everyone in the country was defaulting on a mortgage, I never really understood how the defaulted loans snowballed into the major crisis that they ended up being. Well, thanks to a little story about kindly old ladies putting actual shit in brownies at a bake sale, I now understand. I think reading this book should earn you college credit for an economics class. (As Stephen states in the book, it’s already being used as a textbook in Texas.)
From hilarious footnotes to meaningless charts, it’s all there. The sad thing (about reality, not the book) is that some of the bits he’s come up with are very close to things that actually exist or have been said by real politicians and companies. It makes you want to weep for the country. For example, in the book there’s a cartoon character named Tyrannosaurus Frax who teaches kids how awesome hydrofracking is. It’s a parody of an actual coloring book for kids that a Canadian energy company produced a few years ago.
Gah. To quote one of my favorite West Wing characters, Bruno, “We make a joke out of it? What would we have to do to it? It is pret-a-porter.” And yet, being the hilarious writers that they are, they take an already ridiculous premise and improve upon it.
Or a picture of Mitt Romney making a campaign stop at a restaurant with the caption, “This is fun! I didn’t know napkins could be made out of paper!” That totally sounds like something he would say.
Or drawing a straight line between Germany implementing government health care in 1883, and Hitler being born six years later. “Call me crazy, but I don’t think the Greatest Generation should have to pay for Baby Adolph’s wellness care.” Frankly, I can’t believe someone hasn’t tried to make this argument for real.
The state of the political world today makes the job of a satirist so much harder.
Luckily, Colbert and his writers are up to the challenge.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 1. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
If you like Stephen Colbert, you’ll probably like my huge collections of signs from the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
Tags: America Again, books, Stephen Colbert
Middle School: taking a chance
May 24, 2012 Around NYC
It’s middle school selection time in NYC, and with our oldest being in 5th grade this is our first time going through the process. Without going into too many specifics, it’s looking like our choice will come down to two public schools, which couldn’t be more different: Giant & Established vs. Tiny & Brand Spanking New. We have no idea what to do.
I’ve been going over the pros and cons of each school. The first has its own building and contains 1,800 middle school students. It has every in-school and after-school extracurricular activity you could name (and its teams do amazingly well in competitions). It is long-established in its neighborhood and universally well-regarded. Despite its size it does not seem crazy or disorganized at all. There’s an accelerated program, yet the more average kids don’t get forgotten. A large number of students go on to elite NYC high schools.
Jake took a tour and absolutely adored it. However, it would be a bit of a commute for him – 20-30 minutes door-to-door. He’d be taking the subway. He could possibly get lost in such a huge student body, especially if there’s a subject he’s not crazy about and just wants to coast through. If he’s doing after-school activities in the winter he’d be coming home after dark. And the wonderful principal recently left, so that’s a big unknown.
The second school is being started by a group that has a great track record of starting similar schools. I love the principal. Being new, there will be plenty of supplies and an enthusiastic staff. It will be very small – no hiding! And did I mention, it’s on our freaking corner? No commute at all – an extra hour a day is nothing to sneeze at. Plus it will be super convenient for other activities and performances. The principal is taking the kids on a retreat over the summer – she’s really invested in getting to know them and starting off right. The transition from the local elementary school he’s been at for seven years would probably be easier at this small school. The first class will get to help the school find itself, choose activities, etc. – something that really excites Jake.
But, of course, the entire school is a great unknown. It’s in a building that it will share with an elementary school. We have no idea what the student body will be like – often new schools get stuck with kids who aren’t wanted anywhere else. Past success doesn’t guarantee a great school.
The great thing is, I think the odds are in our favor whichever we choose. But the experiences will be so different for Jake. And which one we choose could severely impact where he goes to high school. And I have to admit, I’m excited about getting in on something new and all of the advantages that come with that. Then again, plugging him into a place that is running already would be the easier choice.
Thoughts?
