We're heading back to Michigan over the holidays. Tomorrow, in fact. Going to spend the celebrated Turkey Day with my parents and brother, who will be flying up from Texas. We will have single-handedly doubled the population of Port Hope upon our arrival. The girls will be staying here at a canine "hotel" (we just tell them it's a hotel - better than letting them know they're going to the kennel) and having their feast with about 20 other friends. Echo will be telling everyone about the good old days back in Chi town, when food was scarce and she ran the joint. She'll then try to stage a revolt, egging the other dogs on and telling them they're too pampered and soft. It will come to an abrupt end at meal time, though, when she gets distracted by the food. Sarah will be staying here, and enjoying visits from the feline cuddle specialist, and has put in a special request for beef-fish for the holiday.

Anyway, thinking about them enjoying the holiday makes me less guilty about leaving them here, but there was nothing for it. The holidays are all about spending time with family, and bonding, but we didn't have the time to drive to MI, and we're not about to put them through the rigors of air travel just so we can be selfish and have them with us. Besides, it would cost too much, which, when all is said and done, is the real decider.

My mom and I will be getting the dinner ready on Wednesday, as much as possible. Which basically means that I'll be making pie, and she'll do everything else. I've volunteered to help because a) she'll need it, and b) what better way to bond with your mother than in the kitchen, right?

She said that she has an order in for a fresh turkey (not frozen), which gives me pause...how long does a turkey stay 'fresh' after killing it? A couple days? A day? So that means that the bird we'll be eating on Thursday is alive right now??? Oh, God - my cooking habits (if you can call what I do cooking) are so far removed from the food 'processing' chain that I've never really had to think about the fact that the animals I eat have at one time been living and breathing. I prefer it that way. Frozen/prepared meals are great for perpetuating that remoteness. But I can't escape it this time. It doesn't bother me enough to become a vegetarian...tried that once and failed miserably. (as a college student, I once found myself in the meat isle of Meijers, looking for ground beef, and came face to face with a saran-wrapped cow's tongue, which grossed me out enough to quit meat for about 2 months...but being a vegetarian is especially hard when you're too lazy to make even cous cous...so I gave up and went back to meat). I just hope my mom doesn't want me to stuff the bird or tie its legs or anything like that, because I don't like touching corpses. Somehow it doesn't bother me after it's cooked, but before hand, when the skin is all white and loose and slippery and the thing flops all over the place, that bothers me. Please, mom - we can bond some other way...like getting pissed at the men folk for not helping with anything. I'm good at that.

Hope everyone gets the opportunity to spend some time with their loved ones this Turkey Day.

shorthand, anyone?

Got a comment that my entries are too long. So I'll make this one short.

High heels & travels

I'm SOOOOOOO glad I'm no longer a slave to fashion. Okay, I was never a slave to fashion, but I've noticed that a lot of professional women here, much more than in Chicago, refuse to bend to comfort when selecting a pair of shoes for their commute...to the point of wearing 3 inch stilletto's to, on and from the subway in the morning. Which is fine by me, but get the hell out of my way, cuz I'll run you over with my comfy shoes on. Especially going down the stairs to catch a train. Nothing irritates me more than having some woman in front of me whose crippling choice of footwear slows everyone down and I end up paying the price of missing my beloved train...because you never know when the next one will come, so hey, if there's one waiting in the station, you make every effort to get on it.

Sorry if I sound like I'm being untrue to my sex, but it's the god's honest truth. You can't get around them, either, because there's usually either someone coming up the stairs, or the high-heeled wearing fool is taking up the entire staircase, while listening to her iPod and talking on the phone so you're reduced to pushing impolitely past...which I've not yet been able to bring myself to do (damn my midwest upbringing). Now, don't get me wrong - I like a good pair of heels just like anyone else, but I try to limit the time I spend on my feet when wearing them. So, basically, I just wear them at the office. I've got an entire file drawer full. Which means I never have to wear them commuting to/from. To the women of NY, I challenge you to think outside the fashion box, and try this for a while. You might actually save yourself a few corns and bunions, or at the very least, from being pushed down the subway stairs.

Sorry to start out my blog with such a petty, catty thing (sorry, Sarah, just a figure of speech), but there you have it. They say that you shouldn't let things fester, so I'm getting this pet peave off my chest. This is a lot cheaper than therapy.

Anyway, Mike and Carrie spent some quality time with us a couple weekends ago, and Carrie has the GORGEOUS pictures to prove it. Carrie - I think that photography class is paying off, because these are great pictures. Everyone - check them out at http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=z243904.17rjfkvw&x=0&y=nhg247
Not only are the pictures great, but Carrie introduced us to a few cool places that I probably never would have checked out on my own, and the commentary on the boat ride around Manhatten was well worth the chill. Mike introduced us to some new pubs we hadn't been to yet in our own neighborhood. And then there were the cupcakes from Magnolia's...mmm, mmm, good.

This past weekend, I was in Chicago, ostensibly for work, but also for personal. Got in Thursday evening and met up with my Chi-town sista's (okay, I'm just sounding like a big dork, here, I know), Steph, Lauren and Michelle for dinner at Mambo Grill. Josh came round toward the end of the evening, as he'd already made plans (I didn't finalize anything till the last minute - my bad), but at least I got to see him too. I worked from the Chicago office on Friday after my presentation, and then the plan was to go out to the house and work to get things organized and packed (for charity or storage) Friday night and Saturday during the day. However, by Friday evening, I was sick as a dog (the 3rd time in 3 months!!!). Thank god Jim & Gisela came down Friday because if it hadn't been for them, very little would have gotten done. They worked like crazy - and I have to say that they think of everything. I got to the house on Friday, just wanting to eat and go to bed, and she'd already made the futon up with sheets, blanket and pillow she'd brought down from Milwaukee, and on Saturday, they took care of lunch as well, and let me sleep for 4 hours after my big trip to the dump. I'd also had plans to visit with Sheila and Imre and Alex and Ava and kid#3 (Sheila's due over Thanksgiving, I believe) on Saturday evening and spend the night at their place, but I really didn't think that was wise, considering she was already fighting a cold so I cancelled my trip in to town to see them. Hopefully we'll be able to catch them on the next trip in to town.

Anyway, this is rambling a bit, but to finish off this post, I thought I'd give my impression of Chicago on my first trip back...
Chicago's streets and buildings are much less compact than NY, things seemed cleaner, and office hours are much earlier, but the Mets/Yankees rivalry is as bad or worse than the Socks/Cubs rivalry, so at least there are some similarities.

Where in the world???

Must...find.....permanent parking spot........

Street parking restrictions around here are pretty severe. Never say that the streets of NY are dirty...they're obsessive about keeping the damn things clean. The parking restrictions are obstensibly to facilitate this street cleaning obsession, but I suspect a more nefarious reason - cash collection from the lazy and hapless. But, as I occasionally do see the street sweapers, I suppose the $415 in parking violations we've paid since we've been here may be coloring my view.

Half the streets have restrictions Monday and Thursday, b/t 8-11am, and the other half have the same time restrictions on Tuesday and Friday. So, a typical week means that by Sunday evening, you've got to be parked on a Tuesday/Friday street; then Monday night, we move the car to a Monday/Thursday street. Then Wednesday night we move it again to a Tuesday/Friday street. Then Thursday night we move it again to a Monday/Thursday Street. Then Sunday, the fun starts all over again. It's really kind of nuts. There are some who actually just move their cars over to the other side of the street for 3 hours (essentially, the entire street is double parked for 3 hours), but obviously these people don't work far from home, so they can do that sort of thing.

We've got the opportunity to get a parking spot for $160/mo (which is actually a really great deal), but we're still toying with the idea of just subscribing to the Zip car service. No gas, no insurance, no parking hassle. The only problem is that they don't (at this time) allow pets. (don't get me started on this particular bit of discrimination...if kids are allowed in the cars, I don't see why pets can't be. At least my dog isn't going to smear an ice cream cone all over the upholstry - how is that any better than vacuuming up a few pet hairs???) And it can get expensive if you need the car for, say, an entire weekend. Besides, I can't imagine being entirely car-less. I know a lot of people do it, but save for a couple years at college, I've always had either my own or a family member's car a my disposal. So, anyway, for the time being, we're playing the car-owners-parking-shell-game. At least Suki isn't getting lonely.

Anyway, enough about the car. We've found a nice, legal spot on President's street for SJ to be in, until Wednesday night, anyway.

The girls adjusted almost immediately to city life. They didn't really have a choice, but they seem to be totally unaffected by the lack of yard and having to pee in the streets. We've burned through more poo bags in the last 7 weeks than I care to think about. If any of you is thinking of Christmas gifts, don't get us any...just send poo bags. The girls love their 4 walks a day, as every one of them affords them the opportunity for extracurricular snacking. It took them a couple weeks to really come to appreciate this bounty, but the streets of NY have plenty of delicacies for dogs, not to mention the smells. And now, every walk is more about finding and eating everything edible or even questionably edible before the humans can get it out of their mouths, than about going to the bathroom and enjoying the aroma of eau-de-other-dog's-behinds. If I let them, it could take them a half an hour just to go around a block, so thorough are their mouths and noses. Echo has taken to terrorizing the local enclave of ferral cats, or at least thinks she is. She gets the doggy mohawk, and if she's really excited, she gets totally puffed out. What I don't understand is that she shows almost no reaction to Sarah...in fact they've settled into a nice little routine of I'll-ignore-you, you-ignore-me.

Speaking of Sarah, she's also fine. Although the apartment doesn't afford her as much space as the house did (she's still mad about not having a basement to retire to), this place has significant improvements to the amount of sunlight she gets exposure to. And, the windowsills are nice and deep, so she likes that too. Everything else with her is the same routine, so she seems to be okay with the relo. Now, if she could just find a way to get rid of the dogs...

This weekend was nice. We took advantage of yet another unseasonably warm weekend to go into Manhattan. On Saturday, Chris took me to Tea & Sympathy, a proper British Tea house in the west village that serves a proper afternoon tea. There were exactly 23 seats crammed into this tiny restaurant, but we new it would be good b/c there were several ex-pats waiting their turn to get in when we got there. So, 23 seats, and 9 million people in New York...what are the odds of running in to one of the 100 or so celebrities that supposedly live here? If I were a betting person, I'd say slim to none, but lo and behold, we had our first official celebrity citing, right there in the little tea house. She was sitting right behind and kitty-corner to Chris, and so close he could have reached out and touched her (glad he didn't). I only noticed because she turned around to have a look at something on a chalkboard behind me, while I was busy admiring her friends' short hair, and wondering whether I should get mine cut again. I saw her face only briefly, and then sat there for a few minutes, my subconsious mind working it out while Chris and I were engaged in a stimulating discussion about how many finger sandwiches one could make out of a medium sized cucumber. Suddenly, it popped, and I realized that the person I'd subconsiously recognized was, in fact, Madonna...just kidding, it was Julia Styles. I'm not sure anyone else in the place noticed. The place was so small as to require patrons to participate in that strange ritual of completely ignoring the other patrons so as to give the illusion that you're not sitting practically on top of one another. Does that make sense? Anyway, she was there, and that will probably be my one brush with fame. Which is fine by me, except, of course, if I ever run in to Sting, at which point I'd probably embarass the hell out of myself by singing Roxanne, or Englishman in New York, and gushing about how much I love his music.

Anyway, we finished up our tea, and then went up to 81st street and became members of the Museum of Natural History. By this time it was almost closing, so we went to central park and wandered around for awhile, occasionally consulting Chris' phone for directions. We ended up on the other side of the park, at 90th, and walked down to 53rd, hopped on a train and got back in time to prevent destruction by dogs left alone too long. (er hem, Harley). The next day was similarly beautiful, and we went back to the Museum to see one of the temporary exhibits called Mythic Creatures. I really enjoyed it because it reminds one of youth, and yet, most of these creatures are also so ingrained in our culture and psyche that to be reminded that they are, in fact, not real, is a bit of a slap. My favorites, of course (for anyone who knows me, this will not be a surprise), the Unicorn, and Pegasus. I actually also learned a great deal about the origins of some of these creatures, and the meaning behind them. Very interesting. If the exhibit comes to a museum near you, I encourage you to go.

Anyway, that was the haps, here. Feel free to drop me a line any time.

And so it begins...

I honestly wonder whether I'll be better at this than Chris is with his...but I would really like to find a way to stay connected to those we've left behind in Chicago & Milwaukee, and to better connect with others strewn around the globe, so I'm giving this new-fangled 'blog' thingy a try.

So, what to write about...hmmm...
Let's start out with last weekend, and then work backward. During the week, I had seen playbills slapped all over town for one of Chris' favorite DJs - Sasha. We've both been working crazy hours, been sick more times in the past 6 weeks than we have in the last 5 years, been stressed with the move, and generally unable to really enjoy any of our weekends here since we moved. So I thought to surprise Chris with some tix to the set. It was only after I made the purchase that I thought to check and see when the doors opened...turns out the doors opened at 11pm...and there were 2 other DJs on before Sasha. Now, I'm not very good with numbers, but I quickly realized that not only would this mean staying up into the double digits, but more than likely we'd be out into the mid single digits. Wonderful. No problem. All we needed to do was nap after work, and then we'd be able to get up refreshed and go out. Which would have worked well for 20 year olds, but for 2 out of shape sleep deprived people in their mid 30s this proved somewhat challenging. After hitting the snooze button for a good hour and a half, I finally got up and took a shower and got ready, all the while hoping that Chris would tell me that he really wasn't up for it, at which point I would have pouted for about a minute, and then gladly gone back to bed. Apparently he was hoping for a similar declaration from me, as I found out on the way to the subway (yes, mom, we took the NY subway at 2 in the morning, and are still alive to talk about it). But by this point, we were committed, and pumped full of starbucks and redbull, so we pressed on, and made it to the venue, Webster Hall, on 11th street in Manhattan, just after Sasha started his set at 2am. It was a decent show; we both danced the entire time, and by 4:30 I was ready to leave. (Sadly, my knee was starting to give out). It was interesting people watching, and strange to be there as a married person, as neither of us have really done that sort of thing since being married. So the element of suspense (you know - the, gee, I wonder if I'll meet anyone tonight type of suspense) was replaced with the ability to actually go and enjoy oneself and really like the music and not care whether anyone is watching you do the white man (or woman's) overbite.

We took a cab home and by 5 we were asleep, only to be awoken 2.5 hours later by the obnoxious ones (Harley & Echo). Harley could barely contain herself because she knew it was a dog park morning, and so up we got, and off we went to Prospect Park, in which, every day before 9 a.m., you can let your dog run off leash. The first time we went there and unleashed the hounds, I swear I thought we would never see them again, but alas, they came back. And so, this has become a weekend morning ritual, because 4 walks a day just doesn't tire Harley out. I'm beginning to think our only option is to overfeed her to the point of obesity where she really can't move anymore, but I think that would probably be considered animal cruelty or something, and we'd likely go to jail. But anyway, I digress.

After the dog park, we came back to the pad and everyone slept some more except me, because I suddenly came down with an impulse to do laundry and other general housekeeping and puttering. Then I fell asleep around 1, and was awoken by Chris at 4 to ask whether we were still going to try to sell the Fit. Which sounds like a simple proposition, except that we had decided to take the car to Carmax, instead of a regular dealer, [we had originally had this crazy notion that we could sell it ourselves, and then reality set in (available for test drives...test drives with complete strangers in NY...who were we kidding??)] and the closest Carmax is in East Haven CT. I was tempted to put it off again, but we'd made plans to see Tom Bontley in New Haven (which, as you might have deduced is close to East Haven). Besides, we wanted to see Tom (he's one of Chris' friends from childhood - their dads are professors in the same English dept at UWM), and we really needed to unload the car before we got ticketed or towed or both again, so we loaded the girls into the Accord, and we drove both cars the 2 hours up to the Carmax, sold the Fit, and then dropped in on Tom.

We passed a great evening with Tom (his wife Allison was at a conference in New Orleans, unfortunately for us), and I was very impressed, not only with the neighborhood, house and yard, but also with Tom's cooking. It was a wonderfully cool autumn evening, perfect for grilling, so Tom had thought to get some steaks, and he grilled them to perfection in some sort of seasoning which I'm sure he told us the secret ingredients and I've already forgotten. We also had a great Shiraz, salad, tomatoes from their garden, potatoes...a veritable feast. Quite lovely. I really look forward to spending more time with both of them (apparently Allison cooks as well, and - get this - enjoys it, so Chris and I are quite interested in this behavior of couples who not only cook but actually enjoy it; Karl and Steph are like that too, and Josh and Lauren, although I'm not sure how much Josh cooks, or whether he truly likes it, but still), and to having them show us some of the better skiing areas in NE. After all, I've skied Iron Mountain, so that means I can handle real skiing, right?

We drove home that night in our one remaining car (her name is Suki Jones, or SJ for short), and for a 16 year old car with 120,000 miles on her, she does pretty well. I'm sure she was kind of pissed off when we bought her (she was expecting a nice quiet undemanding retirement in Port Hope), and then drove her 500 miles from MI to Chicago, and then turned around and drove her another 1000 miles to NY, but she seems to be adapting quite nicely.

On Sunday of last week, we did all the usual things...dog park, dog walks, tv, more laundry, cleaning, house puttering, groceries...and one unusual thing, which is to say that we went to see an art 'installation' that I never would have guessed was art - at least, not in the traditional sense. We found out about it from a neighbor who was the curator for it. I can't really describe it, other than to say that it was pretty neat, and interactive, so if you're curious, check it out on the website www.creativetime.org - look for the "A Psychic Vacuum," by artist Mike Nelson.

Anyway, that was last weekend, from which I've almost regained my normal sleep patterns. This weekend, while not containing as many late nights, promises to be fun and exciting too. Chris has something up his sleeve for tomorrow, which involves comfortable clothes and shoes and Manhattan, so my guess is that we'll be walking a lot...hmmm, perhaps a museum, or central park, or shopping...or any combination of the above. The only thing we have planned for Sunday is a halloween party for the girls at one of the dog parks in the area. The girls are already complaining about their costumes, as Echo's is too small (she's long since outgrown her bad-ass skull and crossbones hoodie) and Harley says she feels like a clown in hers (which is appropriate as it's a clown costume), so maybe we'll look for some new costumes for them, if we have time.

2 weekends from now, Mike and Carrie will be our very first overnight guests, and we're really looking forward to taking some time off to be 'tourists' with them. I'll definitely be in Chicago on the 8th and 9th, but don't yet have my travel itinerary hammered out yet. And we'll be in FL & MI in November as well. Lots of travel coming up, but December is looking pretty travel free, so if anyone is so inclined...take a trip to NY...you now have a place to stay and we'd love to see you all.

Take care - more to come, I promise.