New Thing #125: My Daughter's Dance Recital

Sometimes, as a parent, you have to make sacrifices. It didn't seem like a large sacrifice when my daughter decided she wanted to do ballet.

A once-a-week commitment for the family, the knowledge that I might end up taking her once in a while, no big deal.

But then came news of the recital.

May 4th seemed like so far away when she first began.

And then it became clear that we were going to sit through 90 minutes of watching a bunch of girls we didn't know doing ballet so we could enjoy our daughter's 3 minute, 30 second performance.

And I fully expected to hate it.

But - and this was a shocker - I didn't.

I wish I could show you a picture or some video of my daughter's performance. But picture- and video-taking is prohibited. (Read: Buy our video!)

I assure you - it was adorable. (And I have to admit - I really enjoyed the song her group danced to. It's called Sun In The Morning And Moon At Night. My mom knew it - I had never heard it before. Apparently, according to the link I just gave, it's from Annie Get Your Gun.)

And that's the thing - the whole recital was pretty adorable. It was a mix of young kids, older (high school-aged) girls, grown women from a hip hop class, and even a group of dads doing a dance. (No.)

The music throughout was pretty good, and the whole thing moved - I never felt tortured sitting there.

And my daughter? She was awesome. And I was proud. Darn near cried. (And if I got that emotional about my daughter doing ballet, I can only imagine how graduations and such are going to go down the line.)

My older daughter enjoyed it so much she wants to be involved next year. My younger daughter was well-behaved watching, and who knows - maybe she'll be a dancer in the future too. I'm just thrilled with the whole experience.

Next year the place that gives the dance lessons will be celebrating its 25th anniversary, and it looks like I'll have two girls performing in that silver anniversary recital.

And...here's something I didn't think I'd say even a day ago....I'm really looking forward to it.

New Thing #124: A Vision In A Cabinet

At a little before 7pm Friday night I saw it. At about 7:30pm I received confirmation I wasn't crazy.

In between I received three indications I might be.

See, what happened was....well, it does sound kind of crazy now that I think about it...

I saw an image of George Washington in one of my kitchen cabinets.

Go ahead and take a close look at that picture above.

I'm talking about the left-most cabinet, below the reflection of the light.

It may not hit you at first - it took my brother a couple of looks before he went from being one of three people to think I was nuts to the only one who confirmed what I saw.

(After I posted the picture on Twitter he first said, "I think there was something else in that Beet Burger." [It wasn't meat! HA! That will never get old.] But after I exclaimed that I couldn't believe he didn't see it he wrote, "whoa. Not gonna lie, just saw it. I was fully prepared to make fun of you again, also. Bummer." So it's possible you'll see it. Joining him in disbelief, by the way, were my friend Dave [via Twitter], and my wife, who didn't see it live and in person.)

Anyway, I've lived in this house for 8 years and I hadn't seen this happen until now, so I guess it's OK if it takes you a minute or two.

The funny thing about it, though, is that the closer you get to the image, the less recognizable it gets:

What does it mean? Is it like that time the crying statue of the Virgin Mary was in my neighborhood and people lined up around the block to get a look? Will a museum come calling to accept it as an exhibit? Will it hit the news like those Jesus faces in grilled cheese sandwiches?

Am I just working too hard and, like Dave said, is it that "summer break can't come fast enough"?

I think that's just absolutely ridiculous.

Because clearly it means that George Washington is trying to send me  a message through my cabinet.

New Thing #123: An Almost Perfect Orange Peel

I realize that title makes it sound like I'm talking about the noun orange peel...but I mean the verb orange peel. As in, Thursday afternoon I had a really good orange peel.

Perhaps this is no big deal to you.

If so, then I commend you for your orange peeling ability.

For me?

This is a huge accomplishment.

A few months ago I saw a friend do a really good orange peeling and I made a bit of a big deal out of it. I started asking some questions about how he did it - not unlike Kramer seeking out advice about how to best use his time in the shower on Seinfeld.

He didn't really explain but said, "I eat a lot of oranges."

I don't peel all that many, because first and foremost, I don't eat that many.

But it's a chicken and egg situation. I don't know if I don't eat many oranges because I'm not a good orange peeler, or if I'm not a good orange peeler because I don't eat a lot of oranges.

But if all oranges were like the one I had Thursday, well, I'd be met with a lot more success.

There are a number of factors at play here. I knew I was in luck with the orange I picked out on Thursday. It was the right color orange - that was a good first sign. There was hardly any green on the peel - too much green indicates it's still too hard to peel. And when the color appealed to me, I picked it up - and I could tell with it in my hand that it was the perfect texture.

I dug my nail in - that's my other hangup. Inevitably you're going to end up with a little bit of orange beneath the fingernail, and then your hand smells like orange for the rest of the day. But this time my nail went to the exact right depth and I created a good divot - a big part of a successful peel.

That divot led to the first big chunk off the orange - all peel, no fruit. That's huge. Sometimes my first peel ends up with a quarter of the orange being thrown away - or me sucking it out of the peel to avoid that instance. My second peel led to the top of the orange (you know, the north pole), and I plucked that out, and then the next one went right down to the bottom (south pole). Pluck.

As you can tell from the picture above, I had my near-perfect peel - I didn't waste any orange and I had no peel patches left on the orange. It's a rare feat for me indeed.

As you can imagine, it was one of the best-tasting oranges I've ever had in my life.

New Thing #122: Beet Burger

What, you are probably asking yourself as you look at that picture to the left, in the world is that?! That's what I was wondering.

It turned out to be dinner on Wednesday night.

I snapped a picture. And then I took another one when the final product was on the table.

And after our first bites my wife turned to me and said, "I have a feeling your review of this meal is not going to be very positive."

I think I've written this before - my wife does the majority of our cooking. And I appreciate her for that, and she does a great job. Usually it's hit after hit.

But Wednesday night was a rare miss.

These were beet burgers.

I asked my wife why she made them. (She knows that I believe if we're having burgers there is no good reason to take out the meat and replace it with beets. So I meant it - and she understood it - as a legitimate question.)

She tells me that every so often she checks out The New York Times' web site, and they have recipes for healthy foods. This was one she came across a couple of weeks ago, and she decided to make them.

I'm sure it was healthy.

But it sure wasn't tasty.

My wife tells me there's rice involved, and parsley, and goat cheese. And beets, of course. As we slogged our way through the meal, she was thinking of ways we (OK, she) could make it less bland. I suggested cheese. She reiterated it had goat cheese. American cheese, I stressed.

But I'm not sure there's an answer to how to make this less bland. Maybe if you throw a bacon cheeseburger underneath it.

And yes, I realize I already made a joke about how a beet burger isn't a hamburger.

But I don't think I can stress that enough.

New Thing #121: Gone Girl

Over spring break I read Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn. (FYI, her name is pronounced with a hard 'g', not like 'Jillian'.)

I had heard an interview with Flynn on the 'Bullseye' podcast back when the book came out (well, I didn't hear the podcast when the book came out - but I listened to the episode from that time recently. Also, while we're going down the parenthetical road here, that podcast is also how I knew how to pronounce her name.), and it piqued my interest.

I'm not so sure it was as good as advertised, though.

It was an entertaining enough read. It wasn't "I can't put this down it's so good!", but it still made me want to pick it up to finish it. More of a "I'm very interested in how this turns out, so I'm going to read it some more. But first I'll do a couple of other things."

I'm not going to ruin the book on you here, but I am going to give the same type of allusions to the plot that I was given in the podcast. I pretty much guessed at what was going to happen based on those allusions. So if you plan on reading the book and you're wary of any kind of a spoiler, I'd stop reading if I were you. And if you don't stop reading...don't hold me responsible if the book is ruined.

See - there's a twist. I don't know if I hadn't heard the podcast whether I would have seen the twist coming. It seems to me like it's almost an obvious twist...but since I guessed ahead of time at what might happen...it really might have colored my enjoyment of the book.

I might have gone from reading it and enjoying it to reading it to see when the twist I was expecting to happen would happen.

The book is about a married couple, and on their wedding anniversary, the wife disappears. The book is told in alternating points of view - the husband's as the investigation unfolds, and the wife's as journal entries leading up to the disappearance.

And I think that's all I'll give you about the plot.

Remember when I wrote about Tenth of December? How my biggest complaint was that the stories were so open-ended? Well, there's a satisfaction for me in reading a novel with an ending.

I just wish it was a novel that lived up to all the hype I heard about leading up to it.

New Thing #120: Getting Lost In My Own Neighborhood

This one's a little embarrassing. I've developed the worst mental block.

I keep making a wrong turn.

What you see pictured at left is Bradford Street.

It is not supposed to be part of my morning commute.

But three times last week I ended up there.

The third time I decided to take the picture...and tell you about my new problem.

So here's the deal: There's a detour in my neighborhood at one of the Sudbury River crossings. That means that a lot of traffic is diverted in the morning to where I begin my morning commute. So, brilliant me, knowing the side streets as well as I do, decided to try to get around the backups.

Except, as it turns out, I don't know the side streets as well as I thought.

What makes this worse is that there have been times when I have successfully navigated these side streets. But then I had the one wrong turn, and I haven't been able to recover. It's like I have the driving yips. I'm like the Chuck Knoblauch of driving through Framingham.

One time I ended up going left when I should have gone right, and after a big circle the road spit me out up the block from the road where I entered the 'short cut'. (My daughter gave a decisive "Hey!", recognizing instantly the road on which we had been about four minutes earlier.)

Two other times I ended up going the wrong way, and ended up following another car (hoping they were on their way to work and not returning from dropping off their children at the school bus - if the latter were the case I would have ended up following them to their driveway.) to a main road - not the way I was intending to go, but effective nonetheless.

I am not terrible with directions. I usually have a general sense of where I am and where I am going. But this situation is really getting to me. I've taken my bike through this neighborhood - it's three-quarters of a mile from my house. I should know my way through it.

I'm going to keep trying. Eventually I'll figure it out and get it right.

And then hopefully my muscle memory takes me in the right direction from that point forward.

New Thing #119: Madeleine Peyroux

I'll admit it - I'm mailing this one in a little bit. It's been a busy week, and I haven't had much of a chance to listen to any new music.

Luckily for me, as I headed home Friday night for a late night of preparing for Saturday night's auction, the Starbucks I stopped at for my late-night fuel had some 'Pick of the Week' cards left over.

And double lucky - this week's 'Pick of the Week' was music-related.

The song is "Bye Bye Love" by Madeleine Peyroux.

And if you're wondering, yes, it is a cover of the Everly Brothers' song.

(I'm going to go ahead and think that "Bye Bye Love" is famous enough that everyone knows it. But I think I am skewed by which '50's songs are well-known or not by wide audiences...especially those my age. See, I grew up in New York, and arguably the best station in New York City as I was growing up [or maybe only the one we listened to in the car as a family the most] was WCBS-FM, 101.1. The Oldies station. So my oldies knowledge, I'm sure, far surpasses my peers. But, the point is...I think everyone knows "Bye Bye Love". If not for the original song, then for its appearance in the Paul Reiser movie, right?)

OK. Back to Madeleine Peyroux. I can not for the life of me figure out which of her songs I've heard before. I searched her web page, I searched iTunes - I do not see a title of a song that I recognize. But I know that I heard her once on the radio, and though, wow, she sounds old-fashioned.

I'm pretty sure it was an original, not a cover. So that narrows things down. Because she mostly does covers, though there are a couple of albums of original work. So let me know if you know what her most famous song is. Because I'm sure that's what I heard.

This cover is a slowed-down version of "Bye Bye Love" - and, befitting the category into which iTunes has it organized, much jazzier.

I do like Peyroux's singing, though it's not something I can sit and listen to all day. For reference - think Zooey Deschanel's vocal style. (That would probably burn up Peyroux to hear, right?)

Well, that's all I got. I like at least getting the exposure to these songs I wouldn't otherwise hear thanks to Starbucks.

OK. I'm not confident everyone knows the original. Here are the Everly Brothers:

New Thing #118: A Veteran Auctioneer

Saturday night, for the second time in my life, I was an auctioneer. As I joked on stage, this makes me a veteran auctioneer.

But I'll be honest - I still don't really know what I'm doing.

I like getting up there and telling some jokes, warming up the crowd.

But when it comes to calling out the numbers and selling the items...well, I don't know if I'm doing it the right way.

But I'll say this - and I am not one to toot my own horn all that much (says the guy who is writing about himself for 365 days in a row) - I killed it last night.

You might recognize that picture from my Twitter profile - that's from my first (rookie year) auction, two years ago.

See - my school has an auction every other year.

Four years ago this guy came and did the auction - he had done the one six years ago, too, I think, and he was a comic. He was fine, but the way he talked about some of the items made me think, "Maybe it would be better if someone from the school did that." I asked one of my friends, and she said it would be a great idea. "I bet I could do it," I said. She thought so too.

So I asked, and I was allowed.

And two years ago, I was good. We raised a lot of money.

I didn't know if this year could go any better. But I felt good about my material. And then the day unfolded:

I spent Saturday morning with my girls, and then after lunch I got ready to go. After I showered I needed to lay down. I have never had an anxiety attack, but if I were to come close, Saturday in the early afternoon might have been it.

After a few minutes I stood up, didn't collapse, and finished getting dressed, got my stuff together, and headed for school. And my confidence started to grow.

The closer we got to show time, the more confident I felt. And when the time came for my introduction (the joke-telling part) I was calm. I got a little nervous when it came time to do the money part, but even then - the folks in attendance were so great and patient with me it went smoothly.

My worst fear is that we left money out there - that might have happened once, but I also feel like there were times that I got bids to go higher than they might have otherwise.

I don't know that I'll make a second career out of auctioneering. (I would like one of my 365 New Things this year to get on stage for some stand-up...stay tuned.) But I like knowing that if I have the opportunity to do it that I can feel more and more confident in myself.

I hope I'm not coming across as cocky. Because I'll tell you what - I almost took last night for granted. After it ended two years ago I was in a celebratory mood - I felt like I conquered something impossible. Last night, I approached it like a job - this is what I'm setting out to do, and I did it. When it was over I was satisfied, but I wasn't ready to do flips.

I did my job, and I did it well.

I expect the same thing will happen the next time.

But it would be great with a little less anxiety beforehand.

New Thing #117: A New Suit

It can be hard for me to pull the trigger on major purchases sometimes. I don't know if it's indecision, or the seeming permanence of the decision I'm making (no turning back and all that), but I have to be in the right frame of mind.

Case in point: A little more than a month ago I went to the mall to buy a suit for tonight's big event.

I left empty-handed.

I saw a suit I liked...but I didn't feel like trying it on, I didn't feel like talking to salespeople.

And then a couple of weeks later...I came back and made the purchase.

I just knew the second time I went that I was ready to buy.

The first time I thought I was ready to buy - it turned out I was only ready to look. I packed up the family, we went to the mall, and it turned out that I only wanted to get the lay of the land.

And it worked...I just felt badly dragging everyone out for nothing.

When we went back - still with everyone - I had a plan. I determinedly walked to the rack where the suit I had seen before was, answered the salesperson's "Can I help you?" with a "You certainly can!" (this might be easy for most people, but it is hard for me), and he eyed me, nailed my measurements, had me try on to make sure, helped me with a matching belt (my wife picked the shirt and tie), and there was the sale.

It helped that the guy was so awesome - I've bought only a couple of other suits in my adulthood, and to be honest, they don't fit great. I like a bigger jacket. But, in retrospect, I admit it looks a little silly.

This guy gave me the better-fitting size...and I now own the best-fitting suit I've ever had in my life.

I'll write about the event I wore it for tomorrow.

New Thing #116: Succumbing To The Word 'Playdate'

For so many years I hated the word 'playdate'. I resisted it.

I thought it sounded silly.

Maybe even elitist.

I swore I would never refer to something one of my children did with a friend as a 'playdate'.

Well...today my daughter had a playdate.

It wasn't her first.

But it's the first time I haven't called it "going over a friend's house." Or "getting together with a friend."

See...it's not like when I was growing up.

I used to be able to go down the street and hang out with my friends. I used to go home with a friend, or have a friend come home with me, or walk around the neighborhood together...it wasn't a playdate. We were just playing together, or later in life, hanging out.

The way we've set up my daughter going to school, she doesn't live down the street from classmates. If she's getting together with someone after school, it has to be scheduled. It requires a car ride to someone's house. It requires more than your average coordination.

Like a date. A play date.

New Thing #115: New Shoes

No, what you see at left is not a Muppet reject. It's the bottom of my black shoes.

First, an overview:

I carry two pairs of shoes. (Carry? Since when do I speak like that? Own. I own two pairs of shoes.)

One pair is brown, one pair is black.

I wear them most every school day.

Usually they'll last me a couple of years, and then I'll buy a new couple of pairs.

But this time the black pair gave out sooner than the brown.

And though I've lasted a bit with the crack in the bottom of the shoes (yeah, there's a crack in each), I need a nice pair for an event Saturday night.

So I now have new black shoes.

That's the new pair at right - they're a little narrower at the toe, but they're very comfortable. I spent a little more on these than I've spent on past shoes, but nothing ridiculous. (I have a thing against spending a lot of money on shoes or sneakers. Or maybe I'm just cheap.)

Lately I've been going with the slip-ons. You know why, mostly? I've had terrible luck with shoe laces. (That space is intentional. I know they're shoelaces. But sneakers have shoelaces too. So the space indicates I'm talking about the laces that are specific to shoes.)

I pull the laces tight, and inevitably they break. Well ahead of the shoes. And I hate buying new laces and threading them through the shoe. I just hate it. So slip-ons are the perfect solution. (Are slip-ons loafers? Because I'm sure they're not called slip-ons. But that's what I do...I slip them on.)

Here's the other thing, though - as I approached the register to pay, I asked the woman if they sold any shoe horns. She said, "No, but I can give you one." I accepted her offer, expecting a little, classy shoe horn like I grew up watching my dad use. He had a nice shiny silver one. Actually, I expected kind of a tortoise-shell one. Slightly less classy. Out of the cabinet behind her, though, she pulled out what must be an industrial shoe horn. It does not seem practical. But I'll use it. My new shoes are too nice to damage squeezing my foot in without it. I just need to find a place to store the thing - this picture might not do it justice - I think it's more than a foot long:

New Thing #114: La Cabane A Sucre

When I was in Quebec I had food like croissants and poutine - typical fare. But the most authentic cuisine I think I had on our trip came on Saturday night - at La Cabane a Pierre...a log cabin-type building in the middle of the woods about an hour from our hotel.

I was only a bus passenger, but I got the impression it was in the middle of nowhere.

It's an establishment with long wooden picnic tables, lots of meat, and lots of maple syrup.

This is one of those two-fer New Things, though, because in addition to the food at La Cabane Pierre, I also got my first look at a Cabane a Sucre: A Sugar Shack.

I hate to say it, but the Sugar Shack was the first time in 2013 where I had an opportunity to try a New Thing and I passed on it.

See - in the shack they boil the sap in a big vat to get maple syrup. (At right you can see buckets on trees to gather the sap.) At least, that's what I think - the guy who told us about it spoke only in French. So pardon me if it wasn't even a sugar shack at all. I don't know what he was talking about.

But at the end of our visit inside, he allowed everyone to stick a finger into the vat and taste the raw syrup. I'm sorry. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Who knows what can get into that vat. I wasn't going to put my finger in there and then in my mouth.

Afterwards, we went into the cabin for dinner. They had a guy on a violin playing songs throughout the dinner:

They sold maple syrup and maple butter (I got a little bit of each), and they served ham, sausages, a vegetable soup, and for dessert a pancake. (Maybe it was called something else. I don't know. It was essentially a pancake.)

The catch, though - you're encouraged to put the syrup on everything. It was like in "Elf". "Try some syrup in your soup!" "Put some syrup on your ham!" I did. And, I figured, what the heck - I put some syrup in my coffee. WWBTED? What would Buddy the Elf do?

It's a mild type of syrup. Not very sweet. So it wasn't gross when I put it in those things. You didn't quite notice the syrup. What you did notice - especially taking off my coat and clothes that night - was the smell of meat permeating your clothing.

It was a nice night. It ended with a long journey from the middle of nowhere back to the city and civilization.

Not unlike "Elf".

New Thing #113: Funiculaire

In all the excitement of Quebec City and its beauty and the new food and new activities I tried, I almost forgot about one of the first New Things I did there...which was also one of the coolest. Quebec City has a funicular.

Do you not know what that is?

Don't worry - I didn't either.

It's what you see at left - a vertical rail car.

And I guarantee you - even if our group didn't end up taking the 'Funiculaire' (that's French for funicular) shortly after we arrived in the city, I would have made sure I did it before we left.

One of the teachers I was with was familiar with the idea of a funicular. She thought there was one in Lake Placid - I couldn't find evidence of it other than a vaguely-captioned picture, so I can't 100% confirm this as true.

What I can say is that funiculars are not all that uncommon. There's some in the United States - San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles - as well as internationally - Italy, Austria, and Switzerland.

I did a little bit of research on the Quebec funicular (and was dismayed to find it had been shut down from 1996-1998 after a cable snapped, the emergency break didn't work, and a woman was killed in the crash...good thing I didn't know that last week): It covers 59 meters (that's 193-and-a-half feet), and it's a nice option because I forgot to mention this, but Quebec City is quite hilly. Like, San Francisco hilly. (I remember the hills in San Francisco but I don't remember the funicular. I'll have to look out for it when I go back.) So it's probably a nice option every once in a while other than all the staircases.

The 'Funiculaire' dates back to 1879, though in 1945 it was destroyed in a fire and rebuilt. The ground floor (or bottom, depending how you say it) of the funicular is the building known as the Louis Jolliet house - you might know that name because he discovered the Mississippi River. (Or, perhaps, it might be better to say he was the first European/non-Native American to discover the Mississippi.)

But the best thing about the funicular is the view it offers of the 'Lower Town'. It's such a picturesque city - the funicular is another spot where you can really appreciate the beauty of Quebec City:

New Thing #112: A New Life

Here's another music New Thing courtesy of Starbucks' 'Pick of the Week': It's "A New Life", by Jim James.

You may know James from the band My Morning Jacket - this is one of his solo efforts.

I'm sorry to say that if you're interested in this song you're going to have to buy it yourself - this 'Pick of the Week' is actually the 'Pick of A Couple of Weeks Ago'.

First, some history: I own one My Morning Jacket song (I think thanks to a free Starbucks download from a couple of years ago, actually), and I don't know that I'd heard any Jim James solo music before now.

But I certainly know about him - my brother cites him as one of the major influences on his own music career. (Also there's this, which I've always found amusing: apparently this is no longer true, but when he did solo work in the past he went by 'Yim Yames' rather than 'Jim James'. And for all I know he still spelled it 'Jim James'.)

What's interesting about this song - "A New Life" - is that it's like it comes in three parts - the beginning is almost a cappella, very vocal with limited background music; then the middle is more rhythmic; and it ends almost sounding very oldies-like - the vocal sound changes and James sounds like he's channeling his inner Jay and the Americans when he sings his last words. Then as the song fades out it has a very 1950's-sounding feel to it.

The name of the album on which you can find the song is called (I think) 'Regions of Light and Sound of God'

Just for the heck of it I re-visited the original My Morning Jacket download I had - it's called "Wonderful (The Way I Feel)". It's a good listen. I've heard enough good things about My Morning Jacket and Jim James himself that I'm not surprised to find that I enjoy these songs...and find that I'll probably be looking into their music in the future.

Meantime, I found this video of James singing "A New Life" at this year's SXSW for you to enjoy:

New Thing #111: A New Will Shortz Puzzle

A couple of years ago I spent the summer with the New York Times daily crossword. I worked on it every day over the summer, essentially mastering Monday through Wednesday, figuring out the occasional tricky Thursday puzzle, and getting stumped almost every Friday and Saturday.

I achieved my overall goal, which was to put in a good showing on the Sunday puzzle.

Actually, I surpassed my goal - I became quite good at the Sunday puzzle.

Not like tournament-worthy good, but sucessful.

Nowadays I just do the Sunday crossword...but I always scour the Magazine for the secondary ('Variety') puzzle.

Too often it's an acrostic puzzle, and I don't love that one...but every so often you get a surprise new puzzle.

That happened last Sunday.

The puzzle was called "Getting To The Point".

The point (pun intended) was to take the letters given and arrange them in an inverted pyramid so that eight words would be formed beginning in each of the top four squares.

It sounds complicated, and it kind of is.

And it gets harder as you go. The beginning pyramids feature four letters in place already for you (there are 10 available blanks), then there are a couple with three in place, then two, and then one.

I did OK with the 4-letter ones, I got one of the 3-letter ones, and then I took a break.

I'll really try to get the other 3-letter ones. And I'll take a shot at the 2-letter ones. But I won't get my hopes up too much on the 1-letter ones.

If I've learned anything from my practice with the crosswords, it's that success doesn't come from just one puzzle.

I'll save the puzzle, I'll save the answer key.

And I'll wait.

Because the next time Will Shortz publishes a 'Getting To The Point' puzzle, I'll be ready for it.

I'll know how to approach it.

And I'll have one goal: To improve.

New Thing #110: Stephen Strasburg vs. Matt Harvey

On Friday night I went to Citi Field to see the Mets play the Nationals. Or, more accurately, so I could see Matt Harvey pitch against Stephen Strasburg.

I know not all of you are big sports fans, so here's why this is a big deal:

Stephen Strasburg is the Nationals ace - he was the number one overall draft pick and has lived up to all the accompanying hype.

Matt Harvey is a Mets first-round draft pick who came to the majors last year with significantly less fanfare...and has far exceeded any accompanying hype.

Here's all you need to know about Matt Harvey Friday night: In the 7th inning he gave up the only run the Nationals would score, and, after an error and a couple of hits, was facing a bases loaded, no out situation.

He dug down, consistently surpassed 90 miles an hour as his pitch count ticked past 100, and got a strikeout, foul pop, and ground ball to second to get the Mets out of the inning. (The above picture is Harvey's last pitch of the night - number 105 - on which he induced the grounder.)

The Mets went on to win 7-1. (Another highlight? 2-homer games by Ike Davis and Lucas Duda - both homers coming one batter away in the 6th and 8th innings. The Killer D's!)

I have to be honest, though. While I was hoping I would see a Mets win, I was really hoping I would see a no-hitter...if not by Harvey, then by Strasburg. In the first inning the Mets notched their first hit, which was fine by me...but Harvey lost his in the 3rd inning to the opposing pitcher. (Reminding me that I was at R.A. Dickey's one-hitter when the only hit he gave up was to the opposing pitcher.) So while it was an exciting game, it wasn't all that I was hoping for. (I also hoped, once I saw where we were sitting, that I'd leave with a foul ball. I barely missed an Ian Desmond foul pop that bounced off the hands of the woman sitting in front of me.)

The other thing about this game is how distracted I was by what was happening in Watertown, Massachusetts. I was on Twitter and texting with my wife throughout the game to find out if there was any progress on the hunt for 'Suspect #2' in the Boston Marathon bombings. And there was a lot of progress. Amazingly, it was the first time I was able to consistently use my phone at a baseball game - usually my 3G at ballparks is terrible. Friday night I had a clear connection. (In the 7th inning the Mets put the news of the arrest on the scoreboard.)

I bought the tickets for Friday night's game on Thursday afternoon at Citi Field. I knew a while ago that I was going to go to the game...it wasn't until the Mets played on Thursday that I knew Matt Harvey would be going for the Mets and pitching against Strasburg.

It may end up that I'll see future Harvey-Strasburg matchups. Ace versus ace for division rivals...it'll happen often over the next 10-15 years, if their arms cooperate. But walking up and buying tickets the day before such a matchup? And ending up with the great seats we had?

That might make this New Thing a Once-in-a-Lifetime Thing as well.

New Thing #109: Foreign Currency

At various times in my life I've been in possession of Canadian money by accident. I'm sure you have too.

Sometimes you get a Canadian penny, or a Canadian quarter, as change, and then you turn around and sneak them off into a purchase and your economic life moves on.

Last week for the first time I intentionally used Canadian money....and it was my American money that I used apologetically while I was in Quebec.

There are a couple of points I want to cover about the Canadian money I used. First is how I got it: You can get Canadian money at the bank. I did not know this. And thanks to my wife, who actually went to the bank for me, I was able to get the $80 you see above for my trip. (For those who don't know - it costs $83 American to get $80 Canadian these days.)

The second thing is how nice Canadian money looks. I was afraid to even fold it up to put it in my pocket, it was so crisp and neat. And look at those images! They're so pretty.

The third thing is that above you see the bills. There are also 2-dollar coins and the dollar coin. (I think that's the one called the Loon.) And this is where it gets slightly embarrassing. After I bought some souvenirs that came to about $45 (or 45$, as they write in Canada), I gave the guy $50 and got only change back. I paused, considered, and said to the guy, "I thought I gave you $50." He looked at me, I looked at him...and then I realized...I held $5 in coins in my hand. "Oh. These are dollars, aren't they?" I said.

Imagine how lost I would be in a country whose money didn't so closely resemble what I'm used to.

I was dumb tourist a few times on this trip...but I learned from my experiences. Which I guess it part of the point with international travel.

And there's a happy ending. On my last day, I spent my last few Canadian dollars on my last few souvenirs. And the last store I went to allowed me to pay the difference on my Nordiques glass with American cash.

New Thing #108: Poutine

Until about a week ago I had never heard of poutine. But as I got ready for the trip to Quebec someone at school mentioned it.

And then on the way up on the first day, we stopped at a mall food court on the other side of the Canadian border.

It was my first genuine French-speaking experience - the mall was not a tourist stop, so people were not catering to English speakers.

I was thrown  - I felt uncomfortable, I didn't know what to do or what to say.

I recognized the signs for poutine at the A&W shop.

And that's when I remembered that I was going to try at least one new food on the trip.

I did not have poutine at A&W. (There were a couple of fast food-type places I was hoping to try in Canada, but didn't have the chance. Prime among them was Tim Horton's - I at least wanted to try a coffee there, but no dice. A&W [you know, like the root beer] looks like a kind of Woolworth's, or Friendly's...a burger-in-a-booth-type place. I don't know if there are any of those in the U.S. None around here anyway.)

But our first dinner in Quebec, at a place called 'Les Trois Garcons' on Saturday night, is where I had poutine for the first (and only, actually) time on the trip.

Wikipedia says poutine is "a typical Canadian dish (originally from Quebec) made with french fries, topped with brown gravy and curd cheese."

'Les Trois Garcons' is kind of a slightly upscale burger place, so I have a feeling their version of poutine is intentionally a little different.

The picture I saw at the A&W had fries slathered in gravy and cheese. As you can see in my picture above, there's some, but not a lot of, gravy in the poutine I had, as well as some cubes of cheese. It's a neater form of what I guess I expected - less sloppy.

It was very good...but I think I'll withhold final judgment on poutine until I have it from a few different places.

As for that mall experience? I had an excellent steak and cheese wrap at some sandwich place. I had to take a leap into my discomfort and communicate with someone who spoke a different language than me...and I was in the minority.

It was a great tone-setter for the trip for me. And it came at the perfect time for me - because a new cultural experience is the perfect thing for someone trying his hand at some new things.

New Thing #107: Quebec City

I told you last week that I was going to Canada. Quebec City, to be precise.

I had a great time, and I'm coming back with a ton of New Things to tell you about.

I suspected going in that I was going to enjoy myself, mostly because here's something you probably didn't know about me:

I have loved Quebec from afar for quite some time.

In 1995, the Rangers played the Nordiques in the first round of the NHL Playoffs. I don't know why I remember this so clearly...maybe because it was the follow-up to their Stanley Cup championship and I was watching closely to see if they could win back-to-back titles.

I attended one of the games at Madison Square Garden, and watched the other games in New York and Quebec on the MSG Network. And when the Rangers were in Quebec, as they bumped back in from commercial, MSG would show beauty shots of Quebec.

They were the single most impressive beauty shots of any city I've ever seen on any sporting event.

That sounds like an exaggeration, but I assure you it is not.

So one of my goals on this trip was to see if Quebec in reality lived up to the beautiful city I had built it up to be in my mind for 18 years.

I'm here to tell you it did.

None of my pictures quite captured the exact image I had in my head from those MSG telecasts in '95, but all of my pictures convey the beauty of that city.

The cobblestone streets, the old-fashioned shops and storefronts...I felt like I was walking through a Disney cartoon town. ('Beauty and the Beast', if we're being specific.)

So the beauty of the city alone helped it live up to my expectations. But then there was its history - there are elements of Quebec's history (and its relationship with England) that dovetail nicely with the Boston history that I love so much. (Though I admit even after three days of learning about Quebec's history I don't know that I have a great handle on it.)

I also enjoyed (and this was really unexpected) having the chance to learn a little bit of a new language. First of all: I kind of felt like a dolt in Quebec, where so many people are fluent in both French and English, needing to make them speak my language because I didn't know theirs. But, to my credit, I tried.

See, I took Spanish my whole life. I went on this trip to help chaperone...but I don't know a word of French. What I discovered, though, was that immersion is amazing...I worked really hard to listen to conversations and use context to figure out what was going on around me. I got OK after three days at picking up here and there what people were saying, and I could read things like street signs or menus...but I was helpless when it came to speaking French. I can not get the pronunciations or the inflections. It was an important learning experience for me as a teacher about how the brain processes information. (My most fun immersion experience was back in the hotel Sunday night, with the Canadian broadcast of the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball game. I spent most of my time reading the crawl in French rather than listening to the announcers, but picked up that a home run was a 'complet circuit' [I might have that backwards], abbreviated 'cc' in the box score. And I interpreted that Johnny Cueto was placed on the disabled list [la liste des blesses] with a shoulder [epaule] injury.)

I did a lot. I don't know how much I'm going to write about - I could have two weeks' worth of New Things to share...maybe I'll spread them out, maybe I'll write about them for a couple of weeks straight...I'm not sure yet. But I will share them all.

They're not exactly New Things I sought out on my own. They sort of happened to me because of the trip's itinerary. But they were New Things nonetheless, and I enjoyed them all.

The last thing I bought there was a souvenir for me. (Don't worry, I took care of my family first.) It was a mason jar glass, which I thought was perfect because I was in Canada, after all. (At least, I think a mason jar glass is appropriate to Canada.) And it was decorated with the logo of the Quebec Nordiques, which I saw in almost every shop throughout the trip. When I did, I knew I had to get something with that logo, because that's the reason I knew anything about Quebec in the first place.

The biggest endorsement I have for Quebec is that I can't wait to go back. I want to visit with my family. And between now and then maybe I'll get myself a French-English dictionary and start practicing saying a few of those words.

New Thing #106: Identifying As A Bostonian

I grew up in Queens, New York. My whole family is still in New York.

I'm proud to be a New Yorker.

But the fact is, for the past 17 years (14 straight), I've lived in Massachusetts.

For about half of that time I lived in Boston.

And for the second time in my life I've seem somewhere I live and care about be attacked.

I happened to have a chance to reflect on this "where I'm from" idea quite a bit these past few days.

In Quebec I was asked a number of times, "Where are you from?"

Usually when I'm asked that question, I'll say something like, "Well, I live in Framingham, near Boston...but I'm from New York."

This weekend, though, that answer became simply, "Boston."

I don't know why. Maybe because it was easier to explain to people. Maybe because I knew they didn't care about my life history - they just wanted to know where our group was from.

Whatever it was, for the first time in my life this weekend I uttered the phrase, "I'm from Boston" with no qualifiers.

Then on the way home from Quebec I waited on pins and needles for updates from my wife as I heard awful news from Boston trickle in bit by bit.

By the end of the day I was proud of the Bostonians who responded at the scene...and I thought about how I or someone I know could have easily been among the victims. (More than 140 victims in a small city like Boston makes you feel like you have to have known someone affected.)

I've written before about how upset I was on September 11, 2001.

At the time I was only out of New York for five years.

The Twin Towers were a backdrop for so much of my New York experience, but they were never a place I spent a lot of time. In my life, I maybe spent a total of six hours in that immediate vicinity. I didn't know anyone who worked there. While shocked at the loss of life on September 11th, I did not spend much time thinking, "That could have been me."

But I've spent countless hours where the explosions happened on Monday.

And rare have been the moments I've been there by myself.

Usually I'm with friends or family - really, the people I care about the most in the world.

And if I'm not there, I know of numerous instances where friends or family have been there without me.

And these friends I mention -  friends I've spent time with there or who spend their time in that area - they're the friends I made in the city where I've now lived for half my life.

Explosions at the Boston Marathon. That kind of tragedy really hits home for me.