Saturday, March 15, 2014

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:

NYC tie (1)

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:

NYC tie (2)

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

assiduity

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.

4 comments:

Marcheline said...

I don't know what your plans are on Long Island, or where on the Island you'll be, but if you'd like to meet up and say hi, toss me an email! I can take you for the best pub burger on LI, too. 8-)

wallowithnail at gmail dot com

leonor said...

TL, DR: HANGING OUT WITH LEO!!!!!

Joel said...

I will be all the way out on the East end of Long Island, except for when we take the train into the city.

Marcheline said...

I'm smack in the middle of the Island, so you passed me twice - once on the way out east, once on the way to the city. But it looks like you had your calendar pretty well full, anyway. Next time, maybe.