Tied to New York

I've had a pretty bad cold for the past week, so I haven't gone anywhere, done anything, or cooked anything of interest. I went to work a few times, went to the store a few times, and mostly lay on the couch blowing my nose and watching really awful daytime television.

I'm not kidding about how awful it was.

I watched a TV-edited version of "Burlesque".

I stared into the abyss, and it also stared back into me.

Today I was feeling marginally better, and I needed supplies from the store (in the last five days I have consumed three gallons of orange juice, a gallon of cranberry, and a half gallon of grape; I am full of vitamins, but feel like I'm on some kind of weird juice diet), so I decided to venture out to shop and get the mail. On Saturdays I usually do my rounds of the thrift shops, but today I just wasn't feeling it so I decided to hit the one close to the grocery store. They didn't have any Pyrex, not even the clear kind that I usually don't buy, but I did find an ugly tie that made my eyes glow and my heart sing. It wasn't just me, either. When I brought it to the register, the girl looked at it for a moment.

"Wow. That's... a tie."

"It sure is!"

While I was picking it out, I noticed this other tie:



and thought, "Hey, that's the city seal for Albany!"

I know what the Albany city seal looks like because I used to live there, and I saw a statue of the seal a number of times when I was downtown. Since I will be travelling to New York this week (Long Island, not Albany) I thought that finding this tie today might be an omen, and I was buying another tie already, so I brought this one home, too.

Where I discovered that it's not the seal of Albany.

Here's the tie:



and here's a picture of the statue downtown that I took several years ago:



You can see where I got confused. They're similar, but Albany has a ship above the shield, and the stuff on the shield definitely isn't what's represented on the tie. Even if you consider that the tie has a lower level of detail, what's going on in the center is definitely not a beaver above some sheaves of grain. It's... a propeller? Maybe? What would have a propeller in the 1600's?

Then my knowledge of my home state kicked in: New York was originally a Dutch colony.

That's a windmill.

I googled "New York founded in 1625" and discovered that I was close. The tie is a city seal: New York City.

Where I will be next Saturday.

Possibly wearing that tie.