Call of the wild

I'm going to be in the Houston area this holiday weekend, so expect a lovely recap when I get back!

Fun pre-turkey-day facts:

1) I went to work this morning with wet hair tied up in a bun and my boss said that it looked "cute." This means that I will definitely be coming to work with wet hair more often!

2) It seems that the mornings that I need to get to work early are the ones that the cats decide to vomit all over the place.

3) One of our nearby chicken friends is kind enough to come by and check on the chickens while we're away. What she doesn't know is that in return I'm knitting her one of the most awesome sets of fingerless mittens ever and giving her all of the eggs our gals lay while we're away.

4) As with any trip to see the family in Houston, I may be inebriated for most of the trip, so I may or may not have fun pictures to post. Let's hope I do!

5) I'm going to get to hang out with my sweet, adorable neice!

Y'all have a Happy Thanksgiving!

A dose of my own medicine (Episode 4)

We woke up late on our first morning in Manhattan, but we were in bed late only because we couldn't sleep all night, and it wasn't from excitement. In our ridiculously over-priced hostel the only furniture besides a useless bedside table was a single mattress with no boxspring that had a wallowed-out center. But what upset me the most was that there was no minifridge and 18 billion Norwegian kids in the house, usually smoking and drinking malt liquour on the front porch.

We tried to get started as early as possible, since we wanted to go to MoMA, shop in SoHo visit with Olivia and make it to Shea Stadium in time for the Mets game.

This schedule, as it turns out, made the entire day into one big tragedy.

Olivia ended up having an engagement that she couldn't miss, so we weren't able to meet, which was a real bummer, because it would be the second time that we were in the same city but our paths didn't cross.

There are people who spend entire days in New York's Museum of Modern art, and we had to cram all we could into just a couple of hours. People spend days window shopping and peeking in at different SoHo stores, but alas, we didn't have the time. We windowshopped, just breezed by a lot of them. I grabbed a coffee and a muffin. Dave did, too. We decided to grab a cab and head to MoMA.

I love that place. Not to mention the fact that they had a ridiculously awesome exhibit on Salvador Dali. Also, a cool architectural exhibit on prefabricated housing through the ages. And the permanent collection was amazing (what I saw of it, that is).











This couple (the blonde and the guy in the blue button-up) seemed to tail Dave and I from room to room. She stood with him in front of most of the abstract paintings and sculptures, explaining history and concepts, like an art student dying to impress a date.



And then there was an empty suit, which reminded me a lot of politics. And I'm sure that I missed many very splendid things because there just wasn't enough time.

We really had to hoof it from MoMA to get to Shea in time for the game, so we caught a train from Grand Central Station (which is really both Grand and Central) and headed to Queens instead of heading back to the hostel to change clothes first. It had started sprinkling rather deliberately, and we were wondering if we were going to get to watch baseball at all.

Grand Central Station was amazing, and ridiculously organized. What impressed me the most was the walk-through market where you could buy fresh fish and scallops and then take two more steps and buy a Dutch chocolate cake! You could also buy beer to drink on the way to Shea stadium (!) which is a fantastic idea.

By the time we got to Shea it was gross and rainy, and the gates hadn't opened yet. So Dave and I ducked into the gear shop and I got a Mets hoodie to wear because I was freezing my bejeezers off. We ran in to Shea right when the gates opened, and immediately I could tell why this was its last season standing. The place is a dump! Since it was drizzling, there were puddles everywhere and there were leaky spots all over the place. It smelled like one of my dead grandmothers' closets, too. Good thing the beer stands were open, though, because it was going to be a long wait to see if we were going to play, and the tarp was still covering the diamond.



Here, Dave is double-fisting since we weren't sure how much longer we were going to have to wait to see baseball.



Here you see one of the natives measuring the rainfall, looking out to the Astrodome-ish stands of Shea Stadium. Notice the tarp covering the infield...

So, we got to go to Shea before they tore the sucker down. No baseball though. They had already completed the new park, which is right next door. It looks a lot like Ebbets field from back in the day. Maybe we'll get to see a game there sometime.

We were tired, hungry and a little tipsy, so we took the train back to Manhattan, switiching to the red line at Times Square, but instead of hopping on a train we decided to take a couple minutes and check things out before back to the Upper West Side to grab some grub before turning in.







(kinda fuzzy, but still awesome!)

We quickly had enough of Times Square and we made our way back to the Upper West Side in pursuit of grub and booze.

After way too much searching, the only thing we found that was still seating was a tiny little tapas restaurant called Luzia's. So, as we start to make our way inside to get a bite, a fight broke out across the street at a pub called Jake's Dilemma off Amsterdam near our hostel. People started rushing in there and you could hear glass breaking from across the street. Then all of the sudden four or five men are carrying this guy in a white shirt out of the bar and they drop him on the pavement. Then, the cops show up. Very interesting.

Two beers and some very interesting coconut curry scallops later, we headed back to the shitty hostel to turn in. Nothing may have gone well that day, but I wouldn't say that it wasn't interesting.

Big, big hope and some self indulgence

First: Thank you all for your support. Every drop of kindness and every hug has meant so much. I'm still learning that it's OK to admit that you're overwhelmed sometimes, and that you don't have to be invincible to be strong.

Second: My mom is still in the hospital, but she is doing a lot better. She's gone through a barrage of tests and treatments, and although they're taking a shotgun approach to a hunting rifle problem, she's starting to sound like herself again. Everyone was hoping that she'd be out of the hospital on Monday evening, but her white blood cell count is elevated, so the docs aren't comfortable with discharging her yet, which is frustrating. More tests today, and more treatments. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.


She's just too much fun to be out of the game.

My friend that was injured in a car accident is also on the mend and in physical rehabilitation. I'm so excited at how much he's progressing, and I'm so glad that there are literally tons of people supporting him through his recovery.

Third:

I want to acknowledge that for the first time EVER, DrivingMissDallas is a two-time award winner!

Thanks to the Tex-Pat, a lovely former-Texan-current-German (who knits and feels like I've known her for ever), for her very official Tex-Pat Blog Award 2008!



Also, big ups to the lovely Sequined of Sequins and Glitter for the fantastic kudos of being on her short list of must-reads!



I will soon be doing a couple of awards myself, considering that I've become quite the bloggy connoiseur lately. Keep your eyes peeled right here!

Hold it together

Those who are close to me or work with me know that I've been going through a bit of a rough patch lately. It sounds so self-centered to make this about me, when it's been about all sorts of people in my life dealing with crazy circumstances, and me feeling powerless to do anything.

About three weeks ago I was really, really sick. I had a very severe cold, much like pneumonia, though not as bad. The fatigue, the headaches, the congestion and the overall dreadful malaise made me feel so weak. It made me feel like anything but myself.

When I returned to work, I found out that a friend had suffered a terrible accident, and that he faced an uphill battle in recovery. I was in shock when I heard. This is the guy that I saw in the elevator the Wednesday I tried to soldier on and come in to work, who said that I should go home and take care of myself when I told him that I was feeling awful. He and his wife are two people that care so much about others.

And after what was supposed to be a routine outpatient surgery, my mom is back in the hospital, weak and in pain, and I'm 300 miles away and powerless to help her. I feel like superman, who knows he can do anything, until he is confronted with kryptonite. Not being there for my mom, trying to go on with my life as usual, is really very hard. It's making my periphery crumble and thusly, unexpectedly, I've been bursting into tears.

I hate the fact that this all seems so selfish to me, and that it's my mother in the hospital, and it's my friend battling to recover, not me, but it has become so immensely difficult for me to just hold it together, make it through one more day, and do it all over again.

Endless poppies

My job is all about connections. Specifically, making connections between people. A lot of people read the stuff that I produce, but it is actually written by a horde of different people. Each person has such an amazing, unique history. Sometimes I am blessed to get to know their history. This is a story about a shared history.

One of my contributors wrote about a Veterans Day many years ago, long after the name of the national holiday was changed from Armistice Day, which was actually a day that people recognized the end of World War I. A longtime symbol of the armistice is the poppy, which signifies the vast fields of blood-red poppies that bloomed among the most horrific battle sites.

The contributor, an American military veteran, was looking for some artificial poppies on Veterans Day, but was very dissappointed when he found that there were none offered by any of the florists near him. He was disabled, so it was not an option for him to travel across the city to find poppies to memorialize the day. He then lamented what appeared to him as a loss in shared national history, that the greatest known memorial for our heroes of World War I could be forgotten is a very real tragedy.

Several weeks after his missive was published, I received a large padded envelope inside a mailer box with a note asking me to forward the envelope to the contributor. No problem.

Later that week I received a call from the contributor. Another reader had been so moved by the disabled veterans search for a personal memorial to those fellow vets that had died in World War I that the reader, a World War II vet himself, procured some artificial poppies for the contributor and sent them along with a note describing his memories of the armistice. The poppies and the note had meant so much to him, and he said that with future Armistice Days, he'll never forget that so many men died on battlefields to preserve the freedom of others.

This is our shared history.

Let us not forget.

No one could care about your life that much

One of my friends just sent me an e-mail about plans for Thanksgiving. After we were done with our back and forth she sent me a link to find her on Twitter. Part of me was able to supress the compulsion to e-mail her back and tell her that no one could possibly care enough about what you ate for breakfast or how big of a dump you took this afternoon to not be able to wait and read it on your blog.

I had yogurt and Fiber One for breakfast, but still nothing to report this afternoon...

Truth hurts

Nothing is more painful than making a budget.

Nix that.

Nothing is more painful than actually scrutinizing how very little money you have left over after paying to keep yourself sane and alive.

Dave and I hash out a relatively modest existence. We don't do any crazy traveling. We don't exactly spend exorbitantly. We do drink a lot. We don't have extensive credit card debt (but the little we have makes me uncomfortable, nonetheless).

We eke out a living. We're happy. Things are OK.

But we pay a lot of taxes. We pay a lot for our healthcare. We pay too much for (unreliable) cable internet and (ridiculous) satellite TV.

Sitting down and budgeting, though, is depressing.

So, instead, I prefer to admire the fruits of my frugality...



Here's a recession-proof recipe to ease the strain on your wallet:

Easy Peasy Pea soup

1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large bag frozen peas, defrosted
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup half and half, milk or soy milk
1 tablespoon corn starch dissolved in 1/4 cup water

In a heavy-bottomed stainless steel soup pot, heat olive oil over medium heat and then add onion, sauteeing until translucent. Add garlic and continue sauteeing until the garlic is light brown. Add peas and stir vigorously.

Once peas are coated, add chicken broth, reduce heat and simmer for 10 to 12 minutes or until peas are very soft but not mushy. Remove from heat and blend with an immersion blender or blend in batches in a standing blender until a creamy consistency. Return peas to pan, and milk, continuing to stir. Then add corn starch.

Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

Think, thin and the occasional hairball

A chicken friend of mine recently adopted a shelter dog. This same friend at one time bought an AKC German Shepard only to turn on a dime and take it back to the breeder because, holy cannoli, the dog required more investment.

These same people got chickens soon after visiting my sweet lay-dees. Now they have a sweet shelter dog. Unfortunately, that same sweet shelter dog got Parvo.

If you are unfamiliar with parvovirus, consider yourself very lucky. I remember my first encounter with parvo. It was my first stint as a veterinary technician. I was working at a very tiny clinic in a very tiny strip center in the small Houston-area town in which I was born and raised. There was a miniscule area in the very back-back-back of the clinic for isolation, and in one of those tiny cages was a Great Dane puppy, whose name escapes me, though I wish it didn't.

The puppy was in the top right hand cage of the two-by-two cage block. It was so small and fragile, so scared and weak. I remember the dog well: all black except for a small triangular patch of white right at the tip of its breastbone. It also had little white tips on its very tip-toes, but you could hardly discern them because he was rarely on his feet.

He was on IV fluids for most of the beginning of his life. Parvo is especially hard on larger breeds, and usually only puppies are gravely afflicted. Most older dogs are already vaccinated for it.

The poor thing. Constantly evacuating a messy pool of smelly goo, too tired from being drained dry from the virus to even stand or to whimper. No tail-wagging. Hardly a breath of a dog.

But the sweet little Great Dane eventually got over it. Lots of dogs don't make it through parvo, so he was very lucky since most odds were stacked against him.

I remember seeing him for check-ups after his recovery, and he became the epitome of a good dog: kind, loyal and obedient, and never straying from the young family that pulled him out of that hell.

I've had the pleasure of loving many animals in my life, but they were always cast-offs. The abused, the hurt, the abandoned and the unwanted. Sometimes they were trouble, but they were always forgiven. These animals are the ones that make pet ownership look deceptively easy. They are the ones that know you were there to save them when they needed it, and they are working so hard to repay your kindness.

A tonic, a distraction

If you weren't aware (and I'm sure that by now the world is watching with baited breath), the United States will elect their new leader today. I voted. I'm pretty proud of that.

But today marks the end of what has been a long, turbulent and emotionally taxing campaign. One of which I have been a sometime captive spectator. I've never felt such relief at having the end in sight when it comes to politics.

Now, my blog has never really been too political, other than to skewer some of the morons in Dallas' municipal charade, and I don't intend to start spewing about national politics, but all Americans should take a deep breath tomorrow, take a look outside the window and see that the world, in fact, did not end, no matter who is elected tonight.

----------------------

I've been rather ill for the past week, and I've finally found the right cocktail of drugs to get me through the workday. Our autumn has arrived in Dallas, and I'm desperate to roll in the leaves that cover our drive, though Hornsby has already beaten me to the punch.

Also, if you can muster a few drops of solitude or energy, a friend of mine has been in a dreadful accident, and I'd appreciate it if you can send any thoughts or prayers you can spare here.

The city that never sleeps kept me awake, too (Volume III)

It was a very, very cold morning that we rose early to make our way to Boston's South Station for our NYC departure. We rode the T there, which, as I mentioned before, is dirty and antiquated through much of downtown. But to be fair, they were undergoing extensive renovation, and much of the dirt and grime was due to construction. I think they're going in much the same direction that NYC's Metro is headed: artful mosaics with modern features, though harkening to a more elegant time.

Some of the lines are a little more modern, but for the most part they look like something unexpectedly hung over from an earlier, simpler era. The cars have that rounded sort of art-deco look, with chrome accents and bright colors. We used the Green line mostly, which is America's oldest subway line.


Much of what I enjoyed about our Boston experience was that the city was easily navigable. I never once was lost when we were in Boston. I always knew with just a hint of a map which way we should head. It's too bad we were only there for two days and that much of those two days was held captive to baseball (though it was really great baseball, and those two games that would go on to forecast much of the the ALCS championship). I was thinking about our trip thus far, and this is what I wrote in my travel journal, my Moleskine:

It's been an OK trip so far, but I'm excited about finally going somewhere and doing a few things that Dave hasn't yet done or seen. I feel kind of lashed, haphazardly, to Dave's plans, and what he wants to show me. Along with the lack of sleep, I'm a little bitter.

But one amazing thing is how Boston has this palpable grit. I kept thinking about how you might truly experience the city, and it really is best through your feet, in subway cars, your butt in Fenway's Grandstands and your back stretched out in a sunny spot on a grassy patch near the Frog Pond in Boston Common after a lunchtime brew.

So, we got to Boston's South Station pretty early, which was OK. Gave Dave and I plenty of time to eat our Dunkin' bran muffins and drink our coffee (I asked for Splenda with skim, and they were happy to oblige this time). The South Station pretty much set the bar for the other Amtrak stations: It was clean and easy to navigate, lots of friendly people around to ask questions, and lots of seating available, with easily accessible and well-lit newsstands. It even had wifi.



We hung out and waited for our train to be called, and Dave was much less nervous than we were before departing DFW for Logan, mostly because riding on a train was much less dangerous (statistically) than flying (or driving for that matter). I was just stoked to ride on Amtrak. I never had before, but my grandmother took my brother and my oldest sister to Dallas to see the Ramses exhibit many years ago via Amtrak.

Our train is called, we stow our small, small bags, dig out our iPods and off we go.


I wish I had taken pictures of our ride from Boston to NYC, other than the obligatory ones of viewing Manhattan for the first time. But if it's any consolation, this is what I wrote in my Molskine:

Sure, I like warm weather, endless azure water, white sands and an island's warm breezes that lazily your bare legs, and yet, cool mornings on the eastern coast, taking a ride on a train down New England to New York, stokes a hunger for thick cable sweaters, sailboats and long piers into a quiet bay, clapboard houses cheery in their idyll lawns, shining like a mirage, quaint and beautiful.

In the plans I always make for the lottery money I'll never win, there is a seaside home in Mystic, Conn.

And finally, we were in NYC.



We arrived at Penn Station just before lunchtime. Penn is a huge, dirty, disgusting port of arrival. I was immediately disenchanted when we got there. I began to think that if this part of NYC is this gross, then the rest is likely the same. I wasn't that far off.

We were staying in a small hostel on the Upper West Side, which is a neat, sleepy little area. We rode the Red Line up to 86th I think, and then stared about at the city, looking lost and Texan. A nice Jewish man took pity on us. He gave us directions and then suggested a decent place for us to eat. We thanked him for his hospitality and then made way to the hostel.

I was rather disillusioned by our accomodations. We are budget travelers, but even as budget travelers in NYC, I atleast expected a mattress that wasn't sunken in the middle. The room was equipped only a shitty bed and a table. It was definitely a situation that you don't really hang out in, accommodations for those who intend to see the city, and not the inside of their hotel room.

We were both dreadfully hungry, so we headed over to the Fairway cafe and market that the nice Jewish man suggested, and lo and behold, him and his lunch mate were both there, seated at a corner table near a window. We went over and said hello, asked what they might suggest (turkey burger or the salmon) and then bid them both adieu.

We sat, got situated, ordered coffee and our dinners (Dave had the turkey burger with swiss, I had the mediterranean vegetable plate, both were very good). We then started hatching our plans, when Jewish man and his friend decided to stop by and see what we were planning on doing (I guess having our guidebooks and maps sprawled all over the table, dodging the coffee with them, invites locals to sit down for a chat).

They said that we should avoid ground zero or any area south of TriBeCa, but we were determined to see Ground Zero. They relented, although saying that we'd most likely regret it (they were right).

So, we arrived in NYC on 9/11. This was just a casualty of arranging a vacation around baseball games. We were catching Tampa Bay on a road trip between the Red Sox and the Yankees, so it wasn't like we planned on getting into NYC to see Ground Zero, but we did anyway.

It was a really weird experience, and not one that I'd recommend. I figured we'd see a little bit of progress on the construction of what is supposed to be America's living monument to 9/11, the Freedom Tower. It was little more than a concrete hole in the ground, swarming with people who were there to see something, though were unsure of what. Just our luck that Barack Obama and John McCain were both visiting on that day, so there were dozens of news crews there as well, only compounding the melee.

There were also protesters. (More irony on that front, later).



And we saw a few things beyond the hordes, too. Like this sculpture.



It looks familiar for a reason: we have one in Dallas, too, outside the Dallas Museum of Art.



There were several interesting things to see and to shoot in the area around Ground Zero, even if Ground Zero itself was a big let down.

There was a gorgeous Episcopal church on Wall St. called St. Paul's Chapel, the home of Trinity Episcopal.





It had this fascinating sculpture in the courtyard, which was a bronze cast of a tree uprooted by the 9/11 attacks.



There was also a flag memorial in Battery Park. It was touching, but was also swarming with tourists. Not my bag, but a decent photo op.



But this is my favorite shot of the day.



We were both spent, and we decided to get a beer and some dinner at Famous Original Rays.

I will post another episode about our trip very soon...

... but I'm in the middle of a existential pseudo-crisis.

Please be patient!

In case you couldn't figure out what to get me for Christmas ...

I know this is awfully presumptuous, but since I'm already knitting Christmas gifts for my loved ones, I bet they're wondering what lovely thing they could get me this Christmas/Birthday. A few ideas:

A set of two poach pods.

A mandoline slicer.

A food grinder/slicer attachment kit and a pasta maker kit for my kitchen aid stand mixer.

A juicer.

A set of 2.5mm and 3 mm Harmony Wood double pointed knitting needles.

A food scale.


And a gift card to KnitPicks, for yarn, of course. :D

Oh, and you know, I like fabric, too, so how about a gift card to Ikea and one to Joann's?

I know I sound greedy, but people, I have dreams. Domestic ones.

With my bare hands

I hear that a lot of people did fun things this weekend. A few people went to the UT/OU Red River Rivalry game at Fair Park, others went to the State Fair of Texas just for kicks. Others even went to the movies and hung out and had drinks with friends. What did I do, dear readers?



I built a new run for our flock of SIX hens.



It has a full-sized door. Now I don't have to crouch on hands and knees to give the gals food and water.



I also painted the exterior to resemble the magnificent Fenway Park.



The girls are loving it!

I couldn't have done it without the patience and understanding of my dear husband, Dave. Thanks babe!

To collapse in a heap, Episode 2

So, I left off where Day 1 in Boston ended, but there are a couple of things I left out: We had to get up ungodly early to catch the shuttle to the airport, so by the time we were done with dinner and about to head over to Fenway, I was exhausted. I've never done this, but I fell dead asleep on the hotel bed, face-down, and stayed right there for an hour and a half. That's crazy tired.

So, when the game was over that night, I was ready for bed. Besides that, we had to get up kinda early to see a few sights before our Fenway Park tour. Since there's a Dunkin' on every corner in Boston, we grabbed breakfast and coffee (there coffee is surprisingly good, but I forgot to ask for splenda instead of sugar with my coffee, so it was ridiculous sweet, but good nonetheless).

We ate, walked around Yawkey Way and the neighborhood nearby, where there is a community garden that was so cool. Since I live in a state best known for its wide-open spaces, I had never been familiar with not having my own backyard. Some of the plots were beautiful, with koi ponds and climbing roses. Others had neat little rows of veggies, and maybe a stool to sit on and contemplate.

We headed back to the Fenway area, which is so neat because the ballpark is literally carved into the neighborhood. In the area we saw:



Manny Who? (Shortly after Manny Ramirez left Boston for the greener pastures of LA)



So, we went on a very cool tour of Fenway Park with a very knowlegeable young lady named Christina (I think) and we got to go to some really cool areas of the park that I'd probably never get to go unless I bought a heinously over-priced ticket to be there.



From the top of the right-field deck ...



From the 406 club boxes looking at the retired numbers (this was before they retired Johnny Pesky (# 6)...



And of course...



From the left-field foul pole atop the Green Monster.



Best. Tour. Ever.

So, from Fenway we decided to go to Cheers after a beer at the Cask n' Flagon. We also thought we would walk, which is very ambitious because it's REALLY FRIGGIN' FAR!



We got to Cheers, and of course, it was packed. Nobody knew our names, either. Well, besides Norm, nobody knew us.



We hung out for a while with the Cheers gang ...



And then we went on a stroll through Boston Commons.









And then we did some window shopping. I then spied a yarn store!



Then we hoofed it back to a subway station and made it back to our hotel to change and get ready for the game. So, we get to the ballpark and there's all sorts of crazy fun going on.



And Dave and I are drinking a few Octoberfest Sam Adams and we start to get really hungry. We're standing in the beer line, though, not the food line (priorities?) when this guy gets in line behind us with THREE sausage dogs, done up just like I like 'em (plenty of peppers and onions with spicy dijon mustard). Dave turns around and asks him where he got the dogs, and the guy says "You can have this one for $5." Now, I don't know about you, but I have this thing about second-hand food/drink. So we just laughed it off. But the guy was serious. Which is kinda gross. His friend shows up and we all start joking around and Dave says we're from Texas, and the guy says, "I'd have never guessed! You don't sound Texan, but you [me] do a little." WTF? No one says I have an accent. If I have a Texas accent, then Dave sounds like one of the Waltons.

Anyway. We get dogs, we couch our asses down in our excellent seats, and we proceed to watch the longest game I've ever attended. It was 14 innings. Fourteen riveting innings.

I once saw Josh Beckett pitch when he was still in high school, pitching for the Spring Lions. He's still got it.



And we saw Terry Francona get up in an official's face ...



and we saw Kevin Youkilis and his funky stance.



But nothing was more beautiful than cheering with the dedicated fans of Boston for 14 innings. We lit up Fenway until we couldn't anymore.



After that, it was showers and bed, because we had to get up early for the journey to NYC.

More on that, next time...