The best time to shop on the Commons is now! The majority of the shops are small boutiques run by locals, and they offer plenty of nifty merch suitable for unique Christmas giving. Though I’ve been in Ithaca for nearly 18 months and walk by these places many times in a week, this is the first time I’ve really poked my head into most of the stores.

Usually when I walk on the Commons the only storefronts I ’see’ are Ithaca Books and Autumn Leaves, both used bookstores with great selection. Most everything else falls into my blind spot.

So I give you my Quick Guide to Gift Shopping on the Commons:

For Kids - Alphabet Soup.
How convenient it is that this store has a large display window and rotates what’s in it very regularly. The best, most fun and newest stuff is in the window, which means you can pick what you like before going in and save yourself further confusion.

For Teens, Women and/or couples - House of Shalimar
Being a lover of textiles, his store offered me the most surprises. They have ‘Ethnic and contemporary clothing, jewelry and gifts from around the world’. Not only did I find a few gifts on my list here, but I bought myself an original felted handbag from Nepal. They have huge, drool-worthy woven rugs at the back, a large selection of batik linens and cool handknit sweaters, but that’s just a smattering of what’s offered.

For Mom & Dad - Handwork or American Crafts
These stores are where local craftspeople get to shine. Handwork has a huge selection of art, woodcrafts and pottery by different artists. In the windows you’ll see several handmade teddybears that need good homes. I picked the one I wanted to adopt for my niece, but the $180 price tag didn’t convince me to bail him out. Many items are more reasonably priced though, so don’t let that deter you. American Crafts is the home of blown glass and jewelry and, if you’ve got the bank for it, stunning wooden jewelry boxes.

For Grandma - April Cornell
Frilly stuff - primarily clothing and linens. The most original items here sit in the jewelry case under the cash register. Granny loves a brooch, so give her a beautiful one!

For The Cook - Now You’re Cooking
A lot of stuff is packed into this store, and I really wish their cookbook selection was organized. As it is, the selection is limited but more hassle to browse through that a used bookstore, which is just ridiculous. But any cook would be pleased with a gift from here.

For a Knitter - Homespun Boutique
Pick out something pretty and buy it. Just make sure you’ve got enough balls.

Stocking Stuffers - Spirit & Kitsch
All matter of very affordable knick-knacks, including fun smaller art pieces made locally.

Also of note: the other day I visited CognoscenTea for their grand opening where I hooked up with Dave, who designed their website. Aside from offering a good collection of teas that make lovely gifts, check out the super-special silver teapot handbag :O)

If all else fails, get some Christmas shopping done where you buy your groceries! GreenStar Co-op on Buffalo St. has organic and natural personal care products in the back…

Unfortunately this weekend marks the first real chill of fall, which means the balloon game and ferris wheel on Cayuga Street aren’t doing much business. At the moment the temperature is 42F/6C - yikes!

The rain didn’t stop some people yesterday from touring the Commons, browsing tables of goodies made from apples. We picked up a half-peck of macoun apples from the Cornell Plantations stand. I think a half-peck is five pounds, but I’ve never heard the term before so can’t be sure. I know it was enough to make 4 1/2 pints of delicious apple butter! I used Elise’s recipe at Simply Recipes and highly recommend it if you’re in the mood for canning. YUM! We also bought a mini apple pie from the Amish booth.

Yesterday was also the opening of the fall Friends of the Library book sale - “One of the largest book sales in the country, with nearly 250,000 selections which are collected over a 10 month period.” We arrived around 8:30 and waited in line for about 1/2 hour to get in. I overheard the line monitor say that some diehards started lining up at 4am! The used booksellers in town show up first thing to snap up the best deals. Matt saw a guy with a handheld scanner, entering all the book UPC’s for whatever reason. Small paperbacks are $2 and trade’s and hardcovers are $4.50. Hot deals! We got out for 26 bucks, definitely a feat for Matt who eats books for breakfast :O)

After the book sale we tried dim sum at Hai Hong restaurant, which runs on weekends from 11am-2pm. My favorites were the crab-stuffed shrimp ball and sweet red bean paste-filled sesame balls.

I’m hoping the rain lifts later in the week so I can take a drive out to Taughannock and Treman falls for some fall foliage photo sessions. Next week is apparently peak color time and all the rain makes for better falls.

The other day I looked up The Namgyal Monastery Institute of Buddhist Studies to answer a question about this photo - Are there monks in Ithaca?

Yes, there are! They have a very colourful house in downtown Ithaca, and it’s not that uncommon to see monks out and about. They have plans to build a much larger monastery here in the near future.

While doing a wee bit of Ithaca+Monks research I came across this article Kurt Cobain’s Final Tour from Esquire Magazine’s Feb 96 issue.

I suppose locals who were around in 1996 could tell us more tales about Courtney, who made a pilgrimage to the Namgyal Monastery with Kurt’s ashes:

Cobain was first brought to Ithaca in the summer by his widow, Courtney Love, and packed with her wedding dress in a small knapsack shaped like a teddy bear. He’d been dead for three months, and Courtney, the bear, the dress, and the ashes had traveled cross-country twice before landing at this little monastery in the middle of nowhere.

Wow, there’s lots of dish about Ms. Love’s 2-week stay here… as well as a humorous description of Ithaca:

It’s a tolerant place, a college town where PH.D.’s from Cornell bag your groceries and stage poetry slams, a place with one trouser leg caught in a charming time warp, where it’s always 1970.

Possibility is high that some of Kurt’s ashes were spread around these parts. An interesting read.

In this town it’s possible to eat too much Thai food since there’s approximately five Thai restaurants per square mile. We like Taste of Thai on the Commons once in awhile, and also Taste of Thai Express on State St, though their food can be inconsistent. Order the same dish on three occasions and it will taste different all three times. Thai Cuisine is really good too, but we’ve only been there once.

We liked Bistro Q, but it went out of business without fanfare (or a sign on the door) a few months ago. Over the weekend we saw the building has been repainted and will be reborn very soon as another BBQ restaurant. We’ll definitely check that out.

Maxies is great for oysters, jambalaya and po-boys - tasty stuff. Everytime we’ve been the service has been less than stellar, though, as some part of our order is inevitably forgotten.

Our new favorite is Asia Cuisine (Japanese & Korean) on the corner of Aurora and Seneca. Wow! We had a yummy (cooked) spicy tuna and lobster roll, a perfect bi bim bop served in a hot stone bowl, and a spicy tofu stew. We thought it wouldn’t be possible to find any better sushi in Ithaca than what Wegman’s sells, but this restaurant may have the answer. Next time we go we’re going to try some raw sushi.

Other notes: Jamaica Pat’s, new on Cayuga St, offers Caribbean comfort food - they do an awesome jerk chicken. Ruloff’s in Collegetown has a good burger. Best pizza is Pizza Aroma on the corner of Cayuga & Green.

So yeah, there’s no shortage of great restaurants in Ithaca.

The All Season Nautical company is offering 101 beginner sailing courses for women only on Cayuga Lake next week.

The cost for non-members is $380, which gets you two days of sailing for ASA certification in Basic Keelboat: “Able to sail a boat of about 20 to 25 feet in length in light to moderate winds and sea conditions in familiar waters without supervision. A preparatory Standard with no auxiliary power or navigation skills required.”

Other courses are open to everyone from June through August.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has live, active feeds from at least six bird nests rigged with cameras in different parts of the US. It doesn’t appear there are any cams here in Ithaca though.

Some images from my favorite, the Texas Barn Owl Cam:

From May 27, IT’S AN OWL ARMY!

From today-

And don’t these Western Bluebirds in Oregon look hungry!

There seems to be an abundance of cardinals in our area, and they’ve got their favorite hangouts. Often one sits on the power line that crosses our driveway and sings songs just for us :O)

I’ve just returned from a trip to Pyramid Mall. On the bus ride out a National Weather Service warning came over the bus radio. It was pleasant enough out that the driver thought NWS was doing a test.

APPARENTLY NOT!

I was in the mall for about 20 minutes and came out to see the sky overcast. The entire ride home was like driving through a mild tornado (and there is a tornado warning, by the way).

Bad news though, for the people of Ithaca: the big tree at the very center of Dewitt Park has toppled from about 3.5 feet from the ground… right onto the tents remaining there from the festival this weekend. It’s a sad sight - I may go out to grab a pic now.

UPDATE: And just like that, the storm has passed but the cleanup will take awhile I’m sure - here’s the Dewitt Park Tree pics.

Last week a fresh yellow center line was painted down Cayuga Street. In hindsight it was a sure sign of the mayhem that would come to this small town, because today traffic is heavily bloated out there on the streets of Ithaca. Why? It’s commencement time again! That special time when ‘the parents’ descend on Ithaca, turning simple activities around here into a hassle.

Today I even spotted a car with Saskatchewan plates and was tempted to leave a friendly note of recognition and national solidarity on the windshield.

It’s not as hectic as it is just before classes begin in the fall though, when even a humdrum grocery run becomes a battle with ‘the parents’, who generously take their freshman kids on a shopping extravaganza to stock their new dorm rooms for the year ahead.

And tomorrow, following last year’s address by Bill Clinton, Gen. Wesley Clark will be speaking at Cornell. Tickets are restricted to graduates and their guests, however, so we won’t be attending.

I think after this weekend it will be significantly quieter around here. As I’ve mentioned before there are six units in our house, and come August (lease time) just us and one other tenant will be sticking around. The rest are moving on.

We switched yesterday to digital phone. Since we were using Time Warner (Road Runner) cable for high-speed internet, this was a painless transition and we’ll save 30 bucks a month - not bad!

Previously we used the Verizon Freedom package for calls, which seemed like a great deal: $59.95 per month for local service and unlimited long distance to US and Canada. But once you add in taxes the phone bill was $80 per month. Also, Verizon’s billing service was ridiculous to the point where we received monthly disconnection notices. We had signed up for email billing, but never received the emails. When we finally requested paper bills we started receiving the email bills (and still no paper). Verizon can’t get their services straight.

Time Warner was far easier to deal with, so from here on the cost for high-speed AND phone with unlimited long distance, including tax will be $99.

The only drawback we could see with digital phone is if the power goes out your phone access does too. Considering we live downtown this would never be a real problem.

So the Time Warner guy came and installed a new modem yesterday, cancelled our Verizon service for us and that’s that. Here’s the TWC Digital Phone link for more info.

I finally got around to creating an album of some of my favorite photos from the recent trip to NYC. Check it out, and any and all comments are welcome.

There are probably too many shots of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Gates though, but it’s tough to argue their photographic beauty. There’s also several black and white images, a direct response to my work in the Cornell darkroom and the fact that I’ve been tremendously enjoying B&W magazine.

I have explored using several different web gallery software packages, but still like JAlbum for its customizability (if that’s not a word, oops!). The software batch-processes images which saves quite a bit of time, but along with the benefits come some nit-picky quality issues. Sigh. At any rate to share images here it does the trick nicely.

FYI the Rated Films page has been updated but I get too overwhelmed by the length of the list to start adding relevant comments for each film. In the theaters we recently watched Hotel Rwanda and Bad Education. We love Pedro Almodovar’s stories and directing style, but not all people do apparently. I recently came across some reviews of Talk To Her saying it was ’sick and pointless’ and ‘beyond morbid’, so I guess that’s the kind of movie I like then.

Another update to the site - I took out the Ithaca Links on the sidebar to create a separate page full of even MORE Ithaca links. Many of these are resources we used to coordinate our move from Vancouver last summer.

And I suppose we can kiss yesterday’s taste of spring goodbye because I see snowflakes.