To be a New Yorker you have to be many things all at once. You have to be tough, street smart, aware of what is going on around you without looking like you are, and most importantly be able to walk and talk at the same time. When you are a native New Yorker you do not question what it takes you just do it. It is only once you are grown that you are able to look back and see what your experiences have given you. Recently I was talking to a friend and we were venting about living in New York City. Though we are both born and bred here that doesn’t mean it is all sunshine and rainbows. Commuting on the trains and buses is no picnic. Getting a cab especially in bad weather or rush hour is nearly impossible. Thank God for Uber or no one would be able to leave their house, especially us bridge and tunnel people. New York City is a crazy expensive place to live and always has been. Nowadays they are building condos by the truckload but I don’t know who is going to live in them. I...

Out of the seven federal holidays ( http://bit.ly/2dCtItg ) of the year Columbus Day is the one I think the least about. What I remember off hand about the man behind the holiday is part of the rhyme they taught us in school, which is how I know Columbus landed “here” in 1492. “In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue……The first American?  No, not quite. But Columbus was brave, and he was bright.” But if we want to be factually correct Columbus never actually got to North America. The first of the four trips he made to and from Spain landed him on the Bahamas, which I think is even better. I would have stayed there in that natural beauty. However poor Columbus thought he had discovered India as he had hoped, hence the turn of phrase (American) Indians. In the name of research I checked with my younger peers who are in kindergarten and first grade and they confirmed that in school they are still learning about the names of these ships and Columbu...

I should really be a millionaire by now. There are so many ways this could have come about but I believe the easiest means would be as a coffee pusher. By that I mean I should have received commission, probably from Starbucks since that’s my favorite, for all those non-coffee drinkers I have made caffeine addicts. Let me assure you those new coffee lovers have never regretted a moment since this wondrous beverage entered their lives. It is not only delicious it is what saves many from murdering someone at work. I have loved coffee for what seems like an eternity. College I suppose was what made me need it on a regular basis, then graduate school and working full time made me a morning, noon, and night consumer. I am the type of coffee drinker that has espresso in my cup while I am yawning. At this point I honestly don’t know if it helps keep me awake but I just love it. There is something about smelling freshly brewed coffee that makes getting out of bed to go to work...

P.T. Barnum, 1869, where he wrote: "'Every cloud,' says the proverb, 'has a silver lining,' and so I did not despair.” Some days you just need to catch a break. You can be having a decent day, nothing out of the ordinary has happened, but for some reason you just need a little emotional lift. That was me yesterday. The irony is that as I felt that way I was researching this topic, it was not lost on me. But I didn’t manage to write anything down until today. Scarlet was right, “tomorrow is another day”. So now that it is officially Find Out Friday I am here with the quickness. I decided that the phrase “silver lining” is used very often in our daily language but like many of the other topics researched in this series I had no idea why. I don’t think anyone around me could tell me either. The saying is easy enough to understand; you are most likely trying to cheer someone up and thus find their individual silver lining for the situation. According t...

I have only ever been to one other “ice cream factory” in my life, the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory ( http://bit.ly/2duYu9s ) and that was a total success. Now I was ready to make room in my heart for the one I have come to love in Chinatown. As you read in the previous blog I had spent a lovely Sunday eating dinner at the infamous Nom Wah Tea Parlor. It was my first visit there but it will certainly not be my last. Any good Italian like myself knows that a meal isn’t officially over until dessert is served no matter how full you are. Those fat ladies never sing. We eat until we can’t breathe and then eat some more. I thought since we had shared all of our dishes at this dinner we should have some room for a tad bit of ice cream especially since it was so close by. After a very brief walk around the corner, also a block closer to our car, I saw the line that signaled we had arrived. The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory is small but they are dishing out c...