A relief, in a way

This week, RG, the founding partner at my firm made an announcement via email before he headed off to Italy for vacation: we were all to return to full time starting Monday, November 15th. A wave of mixed emotions flowed through the office; on one hand, returning to full time work meant a return to a full time paycheck, but three day weekends every week have been really enjoyable. This all started the Thursday before the July 4th weekend in 2009, and for the most part, I'm glad it's over.

For one, it means there is stability in my work. In the last 16 months, moral in the office has been up and down. The lowest point was when the re-hired a very senior staff person for a project that ended up stagnating, and they've kept him around. There have been many times where I have had nothing to do, and worried how long that could continue. Recently this has changed, as I'm becoming busy having three projects to work on; it was getting to the point where I was going to have to say something because I knew to do my job, I was going to have to work a full week anyway. Glad I didn't have to deal with that conversation with my bosses.

I've looked back at my blog post from July 6th, 2009, talking about how I was going to save money. I did stop shopping at Whole Foods for a while, but since my digestive issues have returned, I went back. I found that sticking to the 365 WF generic brand was about as much as shopping at the local market in my neighborhood anyway. The forbearance on my loans ended four months ago. Over the last 16 months, my parents have been helping me pay them anyway, they did not want me to take a break from paying them since the interest would continue to accumulate (I now owe them for what they've paid). Surprisingly, since I was on a limited budget, I was able to plan ways to save money. I will need to continue how I've thought about savings when I do have the extra money, I've estimated it will be an increase of about $1000 post taxes. Most of that will need to go towards my 401K, which I have not contributed to for the last 16 months. Luckily, my firm never cut out their contribution to our accounts, so something has been going in.

Sea time

This year marked my five year anniversary on Pioneer, and I decided it was time to count up my sea time. It also has been the year I was promoted to relief mate, and I did not want to see that advance as the apex of my sailing career; I needed to look forward to what was next. Over two days I poured through the Pioneer logs dating back to 2005, and did some accounting of my time so far. I haven't tallied it up yet, but I'm hoping that by the end of next season, I'll be able to have the 180 days for a mate's license.

As I was looking through the logs, I wanted to tie dates to certain memories that I have on the boat. There is a certain tedium of looking through five years of logs, endless pages of different handwriting, some good, some really atrocious. I had to find some way of entertaining myself.

July 16, 2005: My first training sail. I had found the boat through a co-worker at Rafael Vinoly Architects, Elaine. She had organized a charter for our office at the end of a substantial deadline, and I went along. I don't remember the exact date of the charter, but it was in June. One of the crew members kept talking to Elaine and I, he mostly trying to convince me that I just had to come and volunteer. I had never sailed before, thought I was completely unqualified, but figured I'd give it a try. I was looking for something else to do outside of work; at the time, I felt that work was all I talked about. I guess that's what happens when you're somewhere 10-12 hours a day.

September 17, 2005: the Mayor's Cup. I was not on this sail, but it's become legendary - t-shirts have been made in tribute. The incident report was in the log, and it was interesting to read an account of the collision. Briefly, it goes something like this: "Schooner Adirondack collides into starboard side of vessel abeam race boat. No serious injuries, 2 stantions bent, lifelines parted."

May 27th, 2006: The first time I was on the boat with Barbee and Tom, two people who have become very important to me. In looking back, I remember each of them being on the boat, but my memory doesn't have them together.

August 13, 2006: My first day back on the boat in eight weeks. I had sprained my ankle in June of that year playing soccer, and really screwed it up trying to play tennis the next day. The doctor had told me that I really needed to stay off of it for six weeks, and that turned into eight weeks away from Pioneer. After the sail, a couple of us went to Fresh Salt. It was the first day I'd spent a lot of time on my feet, my ankle was sore, and Tommy, the mate, offered to give me a foot massage. Barbee was also on this sail, and I gave him the impression that I was a cold person. I didn't know him very well, and have always been reserved around people (especially men) that I don't know.

2007 Season: This was the year that I started sailing more regularly, and Barbee became my mentor. Lots of memories, lots of training - too much to list here. This was also the season I became more confident about my skills.

May 24, 2008: During the week before, Magno, the chief mate at the time, called and asked if I could be deckhand for one of the evening sails that week. I told him that I wasn't a deckhand yet, and he told me that something needed to be done about that. On this training sail a couple of days later, Fielding and Captain Glenn Mariano ran me ragged, having me complete almost the entire deckhand checklist in one sail. After the sail, Magno asked how things went, and whether I was interested in the position. It's what I had been working towards, so of course I said yes. I was physically spent, and went to Fresh Salt and had a huge pile of pancakes, completely content.

May 30, 2008: My first sail as a deckhand. Captain Malcolm Martin was at the helm for that sail.

September 12, 2009: There had been a lot of talk of when I was going to be promoted to mate as I was almost done with my checklist. On this sail, Tom was mate, and decided to give me the opportunity to be acting mate for the sail.

August 11, 2010: Captain Richard Dorfman had called me on August 2nd to offer me the promotion to mate, and this was my first sail in that position. My first sail was scheduled to be on Friday the 13th, but the mate on the 11th was sick, so I filled in.

arghh, dating

Or not. For some reason, I've gotten a lot of hits on my OK Cupid profile without doing much about it. I keep telling myself I should just take it down, it's been nearly two years, and hasn't done much but provide me with some entertaining blog posts. Some of the latest:

Christopher: Yep. 'Dangerboy' was back, probably with more tattoos than ever. A year after his last disappearance, he sent me a message over the OKC website. I should have known it was suspect; he has (or had) my email and number, and could have contacted me by other means. It took us two weeks to get together, mostly due to my reluctance to let this guy back in although I was dying of curiosity as to why he was contacting me AGAIN. After disappearing twice with only lame excuses of 'I was swamped with work' or the classic 'I was really sick.' I was half expecting, 'The dog ate my phone.' We got together for a drink, he talked about his latest schemes to create the next greatest social networking site, but in the meantime he was working in advertising on Madison Avenue for a firm that has had a mention on Mad Men. It was fun, I was still suspicious. I had to go to Syracuse for work the following week, but he said we should get together when I got back. When I returned, I was busy with other things, got back to the OKC site a couple of days later to send him a message. Shock of all shocks - his profile had been removed! I'm now convinced he's had a girlfriend all this time that he'd occasionally get bored with, and play around on OKC. She found out, and made him take down his page. Finally. I'm sure she puts up with a lot of grief from him.

Old desperate guy in his 50's: With a nickname of 'Has2CU', what can one really expect? This maybe:

"I asked the computer to find me the most amazing girl in the world and added all the things I’m looking for.

The computer came up with way to many people… so I added that the person should be able to be my best friend and that we should be able to talk about anything in trust and respect. The computer took about a week and came up with still to many people…

So I added that when I’m not near her my heart will be sad and when I look into her eyes I will know I have found my soul mate and the person to spend the rest of my life with.

The computer took two weeks and came up with you"

Made my skin crawl, in a way. Definitely made me wonder how stupid he thinks women on this site are since it was obviously some sort of sappy generic message he wrote for the masses in hopes someone would think he was actually talking to them.

Just today: Two guys in their early 30's IM'd me on the site. Didn't find out right away; brand new Android smart phone has the OKC app, and it's on all the time. One told me I was 'hot' and really wanted to get my IM address outside the site, and the other called me 'sweetie.' Really? Is this all younger men have? It's pathetic.

We'll see how much more patience I have.

Salem the cat

So after 11 years, Salem is moving up to a new home upstate. No, that's not a euphemism, she actually is moving up to my parents' house since I unexpectedly cannot have a cat anymore.

The above photo is her shortly after I rescued her from the pound. I got her after I graduated grad school, and had moved to Brooklyn and wanted a pet. A dog was out of the question - I just wasn't home enough. I had originally had the name 'Gris Gris' in mind. There was a French movie, "Chacun cherche son chat" (When the Cat's Away) that I had enjoyed a couple of years before and thought it was a great name for a cat. When I went up to the pound in Harlem, there was a beautiful gray cat that fit the bill, but it had a mean streak. I nearly walked away petless, but there was this adorable black kitty with no eyebrows on the lowest row of cat cages, and I brought her home. I almost stuck with the name, but when I woke up the next morning, 'Salem' popped into my head, and I thought it would be funny to name her after a talking cat from a TV show.

Within days of bringing her home, she was sick. I came home from work to take her for her free visit to a vet that was included in the adoption, and she looked like that sad sick reindeer in "A Year Without a Santa Claus." The vet I took her to coldly told me that I should just return her. Optimistically thinking that the pound had a vet on staff, I followed his instructions. However, when I got her up there, the staff at the front desk were willing for me to return her. There was no vet to care for her, and when I asked what would happen to her, they flatly said that she would probably be put down. I had only had her for a week, but it broke my heart that these people saw this poor little kitten as disposable. I finally brought her to the ASPCA in tears, met with a vet who diagnosed her with an infection from her spaying operation. The vet gave me some antibiotics for her, and we were on our way.

Forward 11 years to present day. Tomorrow, I'm bringing Salem up to her new home. It's my parents' house which she's somewhat familiar with, having spent some holidays up there. I'm looking around my apartment now, running a checklist of the things I need to bring: food? check. remaining litter? check. toys? check (not that she really plays, she's pretty happy just sitting around). She doesn't have that many belongings.

What happened? You may ask. It started with a laundry incident and ended with Salem getting evicted.

A couple of weeks ago, I had gotten an email from my landlord asking if I had been exchanging the laundry for cat sitting services. I had been letting a friend in the building occasionally to use the laundry, although it wasn't in exchange for anything. She lives in the neighborhood, and there's not really anywhere nearby to do your own laundry (that I know of. Since I have laundry in the building, I don't really know where the closest one is, and haven't passed by one), so I thought I'd do her a favor and let her use the pay laundry in the basement from time to time. The last time she was in the building, someone asked her who she was, and she fabricated the story about laundry for cat sitting. Unfortunately, the person she spoke with was a board member, and did not take kindly to the idea that a tenant was bartering away condo property for her own gain.

It didn't matter that it wasn't true. This indiscretion led to questions of my apartment situation, and why I had a cat when the building had a no-pets clause for tenants (that was news to me since there are a lot of dogs in the building). I hadn't been on a lease since the year before when my first lease expired, so the solution was easy enough - sign another lease.

The next issue was harder to deal with. I spoke to a friend of mine who is a real estate lawyer as far as whether I had any recourse. Unfortunately, since I am a renter in a condo building, it is legal for them to have different rules for renters and owners (the happy dog people). I also found that there is a Pet Law in New York State that protects renters with pets, but unfortunately doesn't apply to condos in Manhattan. So it was the end of the line for Salem.

In a way, I think this will be a better life for Salem. My parents' house is large, and she'll have more room to run around in. I'm also going to be traveling a lot for work in the next year or two, and that's a lot of cat sitting to ask of someone. The only downside is she'll have to get used to living with my parents' cat, Finn.

Hopefully, they'll be fine.

The evils of delicious food

No wheat. No dairy. To add to that: no sugar, no caffeine, no red meat, no processed foods. oh yeah, and no alcohol. Of course the one I asked the nutritionist on a break on was the no alcohol. She relented, saying I should take it easy. So I have, for the most part.

Yes, my body has decided once again that it doesn't want anything delicious, and is going to rebel and show me who's boss. Or at least, things I once thought were delicious. After things you once enjoyed turn on you, you no longer crave them. Pizza? The combination of wheat and dairy is right now the worst thing ever. Cupcakes? No thanks. Crunchy right out of the oven french bread? Well, that still sounds good, but no. No thanks. One would think it's a sacrifice giving these things up, but feeling healthy is so much better.

My doctor has run some tests, which I'm guessing will be inconclusive. There's not much you can do when your system just develops an intolerance for certain foods. Part of me wonders if by overindulging in these things, I've caused the problem. One of my fellow sailors was talking about how sometimes for dinner, he just eats a whole loaf of bread. Not sliced white bread in a bag, mind you. Good bread. In my current frame of mind, I'm thinking, "Dude, you're just asking for trouble when you get older."

The plus side - I've lost about 12 lbs. I guess there's something good that comes out of everything.

the IKEA saga

A couple of weeks ago, I had had enough. My creaky old bed frame had caused me to wake up in the middle of the night for the last time. It had served me well for the last seven or eight years or so, but it had to go. Time to buy a new bed frame.

This new frame would be the first I've ever bought - I had survived with a futon through college, living in San Francisco, and my first couple of years in New York. I upgraded to a mattress on the futon frame until Heidi moved out of our apartment on Union Street to move in with her boyfriend. She offered me her bed frame since she wouldn't be needing it anymore. With a box spring and the super cushy pillow top mattress, my bed looked like it was right out of the Princess in the Pea story; the top of the bed was at least three feet off the floor, and I felt like I needed a step stool to get into it. I traded the box spring for sheets of plywood, and the bed was down to a normal height. Having dumped my college era sleeping furniture, it was one of those many moments of feeling like an adult that I had in my early 30's. Silly, I know.

On one of my Friday's off, I headed down to Pier 11 to catch the Water Taxi to IKEA. I had spotted a bed on their website that I liked - it was simple, basically a wooden box with drawers, no headboard - but wanted to look at it, sit on it, and basically make sure it wasn't a total piece of crap. I also just liked the idea that I could get to IKEA via water; I didn't have to deal with taking the subway to the decrepit Smith / 9th Street F station over the Gowanus, and then taking the bus through the no man's land that is Red Hook. There are good things in Red Hook, the Lobster Pound comes to mind, but taking that B61 bus is not one of them.


After a relatively short journey, I find myself quickly winding my way through the maze of IKEA in search of their bedroom furniture section. I'm not looking at anything else, I'm on a mission, I find the bed, it looks good. I buy it, then take the ferry back home to wait for delivery. After a couple of hours, the delivery guys arrive with the bed. They bring it inside my apartment, and I'm pretty excited to have my new bed.

That is, until I open the box. Three of the pieces are damaged. Unfortunately, there is no white glove service with IKEA. I briefly consider trying to jury rig the pieces to get them to work, but realize it's no use. I call IKEA in defeat to see what can be done.

After many phone calls with customer service where the low point was their representative suggesting that I could go out to Paramus, NJ to go buy a new bed, I settle on reordering the bed from their online store. I'm now waiting on a call from their delivery service for tomorrow's arrival of the new bed. Hopefully, it will all arrive in one piece.

For the past two weeks, I've been sleeping with my mattress on the floor, since I had dismantled the old creaky bed prior to seeing the crushed IKEA pieces. I feel like I'm back to the days on Union Street, back to before I had a bed and felt like an adult. It's slightly unsettling, but at least my bed is not waking me up at 3AM.

The Food of my Ancestors

I recently discovered I have a real talent for cooking potatoes. Shocking, I know, the staple of the Irish diet. Growing up, we had some form of potatoes for dinner nearly every night, usually mashed or baked. I had no appreciation for the tuber. Blech. Boring, boring white food.

For a Fourth of July afternoon cookout at the Community Boat House, I planned to make a roasted potato cold salad. I typically just cover the potatoes in olive oil, and put in some rosemary, salt, and pepper. I decided to change it a bit, and added some cayenne pepper and nutmeg. I also had some tomatoes that needed to have something done to them, so I cut them in half and through them in with the potatoes for the last couple of minutes. Then I spotted the sliced almonds in my cabinet, and they were added as well. I was making it up as I went along, and it turned out pretty delicious.

My friend Heidi had a party for the final game of the World Cup, so I was on the search for a recipe for patatas bravas to root for Spain. When I lived in San Francisco, there were a couple of tapas restaurants that had the most amazing potato dish, and my hope was to find something to replicate it.

I sent out a plea on Facebook, asking if anyone had a recipe for the amazing potato. My friend Alex emailed me a recipe he had from a book by Penelope Casas, Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain. Recipe is listed below.

Serves 4
2 Medium-Large potatoes
2 medium-large potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
Olive oil
Salt
Alioli Sauce (below), thinned to sauce consistency if necessary

AIOLI SAUCE
1 cup mayonnailse, preferably homemade
4 or more cloves garlic, mashed to a paste or put through a garlic press

To make the Alioli, combine the mayonnaise and garlic. Let sit at room temperature until ready to use

TOMATO SAUCE
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons minced onion
1 glove garlic, minced
3 medium tomatoes (about 3/4 pound), chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon minced parsley
1/2 dried red chili pepper, seeded and crumbled, or 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
Dash of Tabasco sauce
1 bay leaf
1/8 teaspoon sugar
Salt
Fresh ground pepper

Grease a roasting pan and arrange the potatoes in one layer. Brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and bake at 375ºF for about 45 minutes, or until golden and crisp.
Meanwhile, make the tomato sauce. Heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the onion and garlic until the onion is wilted. Add the tomatoes and sauté for another few minutes. Stir in the tomato paste, wine, water, parsley, chili pepper, Tabasco, bay leaf, sugar, salt, and pepper. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain. The sauce should not be too thick---thin with water if necessary.
To serve, arrange the potatoes in a bowl or on a dish. Spoon on several tablespoons of the tomato sauce, then 3 or 4 tablespoons of the Alioli. (note: You may make this dish without the Alioli, if you prefer.)

Today in sports

As most of you probably know, I'm not the biggest sports fan, but today was crazy! US wins their group in the World Cup! There was screaming in the streets, strangers hugging each other over the win, you'd think we were anywhere else in the world other than on American soil.

There was spontaneous National Anthem singing:
http://nymag.com/daily/sports/2010/06/the_scene_outside_dempseys_aft.html

Although when I first saw this without headphones, and it looked like a bunch of flag waving folk protesting the UPS truck. At least they knew all the words, unlike half of the US team.

After spending the morning watching Univision.com, the only site with live streaming of the games (although the only word I can understand is "GOAL!), and then a brief celebration with co-workers who all wished we could just go out and get a beer (unfortunately, we had a continuing education seminar scheduled for lunch), things seemed to setting down. Then a friend sent me this link, a live feed from Wimbledon:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/8753437.stm

10 hours? 59-59 in the 5th set? both players winning aces on their 58th point? This is pure insanity. This one match will be going into it's third day tomorrow. It's also only the second round. If these two guys are fighting this hard just to advance, who knows what they could do in the later rounds. We'll probably never find out though as they both collapse from exhaustion tomorrow.

World Cup Fever

New blog templates, thank you Google. If only I could make one myself, if only I was that clever...or knew someone who was.

Anyway, every four years or so, most of the world's attention turns to the World Cup. Except for the US. With the exception of New York City. Nearly every bar with a TV is broadcasting all the games, and my only regret is that they are not timed to typical lunch time. 10AM? Too early. 2PM? Too late. I only have the upper reaches of ESPN channel 170 which repeats the games at night so I can watch The Beautiful Game as the Brazilians like to call it. I don't care that I already know the score.

On the eve before the final matches of Group C, I find myself actually hoping that the US gets into the Knockout Round. I'm not a big fan of US Soccer; it just pales in comparison to the European teams, not to mention the South Americans. In general, they're inconsistent, and just seem to lack the passion of the world powerhouses (that may be because they have relatively so few fans). But this time seems different. Keep in mind, this US team nearly won the Confederations Cup last year, losing only against Brazil. England also is just not up to their usual standards, and it looks like the second spot for advancement will be us or them. As a person of Irish decent, can I really route for the English? No, I say! That may have more to do with the fact Becks isn't playing this time around, even if he is there as silent support for them. I just hope it doesn't come down to a coin toss between them. It could happen - those are the crazy rules of the World Cup.

England isn't the only traditionally strong team that is having a poor showing - Italy lets the match with New Zealand, a team that consists of a mix of professional and amateur players, end in a draw? Spain loses to Switzerland? Don't even get me started on the train wreck of France. They've just fallen into soap opera histrionics and even seemed to be throwing their match today to South Africa in protest.

There is one good thing about the high number of upsets - what teams will end up in the round of 16 is unpredictable. NY Mag online had a list of scenarios for what would have to happen for each team to move on to the next round, and it's mind boggling. Lots of 'if/then' situations that read like math proofs and information about goal differential. No one seems safe, which makes for some interesting games.

The only countries that seem to have a slight cushion are the South Americans. All the participating countries won their first match, and then there is Argentina who won all three. Brazil and Chile may match that feat in their groups, but they are each facing Portugal and Spain respectively. I hope they pull it out, especially Brazil. Two reasons: I've chosen them to take it all in my office pool, and I cannot stand the Portuguese pretty boy, Christian Ronaldo (apologies to all my Portuguese friends).

With South Africa hosting, I think there was a lot of hope for more African teams advancing. Unfortunately, it looks like it may only be Ghana, but with the way things could go, who knows?

Back to my original point: why isn't the US consumed with soccer? Why do we call it soccer when it is called football nearly everywhere else? Some people say that it's the low scoring potential. To this I say that low scoring has nothing to do with the excitement of the match. There is constant movement, the ball is always in motion, and if you've got a lot of shots on goal in a game, there's nothing more nail biting even if the score is 0-0. The time keeping is better than any US sport: 45 minute halves with a couple of minutes added for injury time. With a cushion of 10 minutes, you know pretty precisely when the game with end. There is no overtime, a tie is an acceptable result (maybe that's why it's not popular in the US, no winner).

Obviously, most Americans have not watched soccer on Univision. If that had, there would be no resisting the excitement when the sportscaster yells, "GGGGGOOOOOOOAAAAALLLLLL!!!!!!!

Four years from now, I'm definitely headed to Brazil. What better place to see the World Cup?

Where the winds come sweeping down the plain

My firm recently was awarded a project in Tulsa, OK (see, "the big Driller" on the left). When the marketing team was putting together the proposal and told me that I would be the Project Architect if we were to get the contract, I joked about how I couldn't wait to work on a project in Oklahoma, so I could go to the land of The Flaming Lips. Well, we got it, and I found myself on Tuesday, frantically finishing up some plans so that I could be ready to leave for the airport when the car came at 3:30PM.

There had been talk the week before. Tulsa? Really? A project in The Middle? Jimmy had joked about not knowing who would be more out of place, me, or Richard, the partner in charge of the project. Other than Chicago (which doesn't even really count), I'd never really been anywhere in The Middle. I'd driven across country once, and ridden the train when I moved from Virginia to San Francisco, but I don't think that really counts.

Tulsa is green, and has a few small rolling hills. Since I was expecting total flatness, almost to an oppressive amount of sky flatness, this was somewhat surprising. Even more shocking - Tulsa has a great number of interesting buildings. As I learned while I was there for a couple of short days, Tulsa was a very wealthy city during the oil boom, and had done an impressive job of creating a beautiful sky line (well, at least until skyscrapers found their way there). They have a great collection of Art Deco architecture throughout the city.

The most well known would be the Boston Avenue Methodist Church by Bruce Goff. There is a rumor however that a woman working for him was the true designer (just like Camille Claudel and Rodin!) The project I'm working on is for the Philbrook Museum of Art, and the founder of the Museum was Waite Philips, an oilman of the Philips Petroleum family. As we toured around the city on our last day, we saw a couple of the other projects commissioned by him - The Philtower and Philcade - and both were impressive in their own right.

All in all, it doesn't seem like a bad place to spend some time. All the consultants that we met with while there are going to be great to work with, and the client is really satisfied with their decision to hire us (we found out that our competition was two other NYC architects).

One nagging question I have, which was the same as with the Cooper-Hewitt project here: Where are the other women? Why are all of the architects or engineers at a project manager level men? It seems that there are always women at the client side of the table, and Historic Preservation offices have no shortage of women, but why is it always me, alone at the table on the consultant side on these larger institutional projects? It's a bit frustrating.

The vasty deep

SPOILER ALERT: This post may be depressing.

One of the things that has surprised me about settling into my forty's is the number of times I've spent comforting my parents when a friend of their's dies. My parents have a lot of friends; they are in their 70's, and unfortunately over the last couple of months, they've lost a lot of people close to them.

A recent conversation with my father:

ME: How's Mr. Condon doing? (Back story: right before Thanksgiving, a dear friend of my parents, a contractor who had rebuild their kitchen about 18 years ago, had been diagnosed with Kidney cancer. Being 82, he had decided not to undergo surgery.)
DAD: Oh, he died.

Then there was silence. The last couple of times I had asked this question when I talked to my dad is that his friend was still in the hospital, but was doing ok.

A couple of weeks later, when I was in San Francisco with my mother for Erin's baby shower, she casually mentioned that Mrs. MacVicar had died. Being in her late 80's, she was one of my parents' older friends. She hadn't been sick, so it was a bit of a shock. A couple of weeks later, my dad told me that Mr. MacVicar had died. He had been my father's barber for 20 years. A couple of years ago, my mother made my dad stop seeing him, because he would cut and talk and cut and talk and talk and talk, and my father would come back with a very choppy cut with very little hair left. He really enjoyed talking to Fred though.

Before the recent spate, in October, there was also Mr. Fagan, one of my parents' oldest friends from the Irish crowd. He died of a long battle with Prostate Cancer. His death was somewhat of a comfort - he had been sick for six or seven years. Shockingly, two months later in the days leading up to Christmas, another friend from the NJ Irish crowd, Mr. Lynch, died suddenly at home.

They have lost five friends in six months. When I was up visiting my dad the weekend of my nephew's and my birthday we were talking about it. After a draining conversation, he simply said, "Kerry, I'm just tired of going to funerals."

Last week, my cousin Maureen sent an email about my Aunt Totta, her mother. She had been diagnosed with Bladder Cancer. She's 78, and she's my last aunt/uncle on my mother's side. The other three, my mother's brother and sister, and my mother's sister's husband, have died of cancer. There is way too much of that disease in my extended family. She's doing well right now, but I keep thinking it's just a matter of time.

Right now, I've very thankful for my parents' health. Even considering my dad's heart attack from two years ago, they're both relatively healthy.

gadgets

I have a thing for gadgets. I'm just really intrigued by things that can make certain tasks easier but are, in reality, totally unnecessary. I could be wrong, but it seems like a truly American thing to get the brightest minds together to come up with devices to make life in the US even more convenient, as long as you have the means to buy them For example, the image to the left is an egg topper, that allows one to remove the top of a hard boiled egg without burning one's fingers.

I recently received an electric toothbrush for my birthday, and was so excited that for a moment I thought that this was the best present I'd received in a long time - dental hygiene is high up on my list. I'm convinced that my teeth are so much cleaner, and that my dentist is going to be so happy with me the next time I see him. This is what the best devices do; they make people believe that machines are the way to better living.

Other devices that are in my future (that is, once I'm returned to full time work...):

The KitchenAid stand mixer: A friend once told me that this kitchen tool is one reason to get married; it at least has to be the number one item that brides (and some grooms) put on their registry. It's an expensive item, and probably not one that many people receive as a gift. The last guy I dated had one, and I really took it as a sign that things were going to last - he knew how to cook and appreciated well made gadgets. Alas, that was not the case, so maybe I should take the stand mixer off its pedestal. I don't have room for it anyway.


The at home seltzer maker: A couple of my friends have one of these, and it's just a brilliant idea. I love seltzer, but don't buy it often since bottles quickly lose their fizz. The Europeans (or at least the Irish) were way ahead of us on this invention. When I was younger and my family took a vacation to Ireland, one of my parents' friends had one of these, and I've wanted one ever since (that was 1985). Fresh seltzer all the time. You can also carbonate anything - imagine fizzy coffee...luckily, this item doesn't take up much counter space.

Now if only Apple and Verizon would work things out, I'd finally have an iPhone. I may need to look into the HTC Incredible or the Google Nexus One.

The Compound

For the past six years, I've gone upstate for a weekend around my birthday since it's also the time of my nephew Parker's birthday. Seven years ago I spent my birthday in the hospital waiting for him to be born; he finally arrived at 4AM on March 26th, missing my birthday by mere hours (dang kids, always trying to upstage the adults).

In the last two years, he's gotten very bratty about gifts, and if he sees a GAP box he moans and groans and completely mortifies my sister. He hates getting clothes. Unfortunately for him, that's usually what I get for him. As I've told him, he grows too fast, and he can't walk around naked. This year, I got him a pair of Converse sneakers, denim colored, which he liked.

After a dinner of pizza and ice cream cake (Carvel with the chocolate crunchies) I went up to the Compound with my dad. The next morning, I saw the destruction my parents have been talking about since the blizzard that brought them 21 inches of wet, heavy snow; large tree branches down all over the yard, and smaller trees destroyed by the larger branches that fell. The yard was littered with the wooded casualties of that storm. The late February storm was a boon for the tree removal industry of Dutchess County; it was only this Saturday night that the contractor called my dad to tell him that they were coming out on Sunday to start the work, more than four weeks after the storm.

I returned back to the city today on the 12:50 train. I wanted to get back so I could pay attention to Salem and make my usual Sunday yoga class. At the Beacon train station, this group of four got on the train, and immediately two small dogs started barking. I looked up from my book, and sitting across the aisle from me were two guys, both probably 6-feet tall, dressed in fake fur squirrel costumes. One was carrying a briefcase and wearing a "I heart NY" t-shirt. One of their companions asked if I would switch seats with them since she wanted to get the Hudson River in the background of the photos. I of course complied with their request - how could I refuse two guys willing to go out in public dressed as squirrels? Lots of passengers were asking questions, and the conductor joked with them about forgetting his squirrel traps. One of the squirrels quipped that that is how he lost an uncle. There were lots of photos taken, and they ended up getting off the train at Tarrytown. Story is, they were putting together a proposal for an "I heart NY" campaign.

People like that are indeed a reason to love NYC.

Moving

My office is moving. The partners are looking for a permanent space (my fingers are crossed for the space at 39 Broadway, a 15 minute walk for me), but for the next three to six months, we will be in the same building seven floors down.

As I've been cleaning up my desk, I'm having to finally deal with all the personal items that have accumulated under my desk over the past 4 1/2 years, such as:
A picnic basket: I inherited this from an ex-coworker who was moving to New Orleans. This has been under my desk for, oh, maybe 18 months?
A single black slingback shoe: I'm hoping it's match is at home.

A pair of black patent leather heels: These have only been there for a week. By the end of the day, my feet were killing me, so I wore another pair of shoes home that had been sitting under my desk for a couple of weeks.

An insulated lunch bag: Not really sure how long that's been there.

A lamp: Not sure about that one. Maybe free swag from ICFF?

A vase: Flowers from my 40th birthday. Almost exactly a year ago.

15 CDs: Half of them are from the Score! subscription a group of friends got me for my birthday last year, so they've been under the desk for the past couple of months. Brought them in to add to my iTunes.

A 15 foot long carpet runner: This was a new addition to the under the desk collection last week. Benefits of working in an architect's office.

I swear, I'm not a hoarder.

Soda Bread, Corned Beef, and all things Irish

Growing up in an Irish community, St. Patrick's Day was a big day for celebration. When my sisters and I were in elementary school, we would give an Irish Step Dancing demonstration in all the other classes in the school. My mother cooks corned beef and cabbage for dinner every March 17th, and she would bake a soda bread in the morning (that is not reserved strictly for March 17th though). After an overindulgence of currants when I was four years old I would pick them out of the bread when ever she served it - my mother would keep boxes of them in the pantry since they were hard to find, and Erin and I split a box of them once (about 2 cups between us). That experience ruined my stomach lining for a while, and I couldn't stand the sight of the shriveled fruits for a long time - this also extended to raisins since they were so similar.

No matter what my aversion was to currants, I liked the taste that they left in the bread. Since the recipe was my Nana's (my Irish born grandmother), I always saw currants as the authentic fruit for Irish Soda Bread. To this day, when I see The Bread with raisins, I scoff and dismiss it as a pretender.

This predisposition against raisins left me surprised when my cousin Maureen was raving about her Soda Bread recipe which she had gotten from her mother (my mother's sister-in-law). I assumed it was the same recipe, but she sent it to me, and it was not. Her recipe called for raisins, and also eggs and baking powder. Shocking! I was all astonishment. It differs from my mother's recipe quite a bit, and I assume that its a totally different type of bread. We've agreed to try each other's recipes since we each swear by the one we have used for years. We'll see.

Yoga Challenge 2

It's yoga challenge time again at OM Yoga, the yoga studio where I practice. By 'challenge' they mean practicing yoga everyday, and the most challenging thing I've found has been finding time to do yoga every day. Out of the past 15, I've only missed 4 days, which is a 73% success rate. Two of the days were due to work deadlines, one due to a hangover (damn strong dark and stormies at the Harbor School Benefit!), and one because I felt I needed a break. I'm half way through, we'll see how the rest of the month goes.

I've been taking a lot of classes with Brian, one of the senior instructors who I hadn't taken classes with before. He's very soft spoken and relaxing to be around, which is good characteristics for a yoga teacher. He also talks about movies and TV during class, and that's entertaining - it loosens things up, sometimes yoga can be so serious. The other day he was talking about Alice in Wonderland, today The Partridge Family.

Strangely, all this yoga is making me want to run. I've been running on Fridays and Sundays, days that I don't need to be up for work or boat maintenance. I tried getting up this morning to run, but with daylight savings, that just wasn't going to happen. Maybe tomorrow.

SPRING!

I know it's still technically winter, and we just got through a powerful Nor'easter, but with the arrival of Daylight Savings Time it feels like Spring has arrived. I'm looking forward to it being light later, I'm looking forward to it continually getting warmer, and I'm looking forward to sitting in sidewalk cafes.

In a way, it reminds me of Spring days in Blacksburg, where after dinner, people would gather at Henderson Hill to catch the last sunshine of the day, drinking coffee (or eating ice cream) from Gillies. It would stay light until about 8PM, and the architects would all resign themselves to getting back to Cowgill Hall to finish our projects.

It's also time for Spring cleaning. Cleaning is definitely a chore, but in looking at my closet and shelves, I need to cleanse. I'm going to try to start that today.

Facebook issues

Since I joined Facebook, I've always been entertained by what some people have posted, photos that have been shared, and just getting in contact with friends from my past. In the past couple of weeks, I've had some interesting things happen among my Facebook 'friends', in reaction to which I've had a variety of responses. All in all, it's still entertaining, and yeah, some of it, just plain silly. First, a couple of things about my experience with FB.

Earlier this year, a friend told me about a seminar that NYU ran for incoming Freshman about what a friend is. The future students had been questioned about how many friends they had. When the university started getting responses from the kids, the responses were unreal - students were claiming to have friends totaling in the thousands. It didn't take too long for administrators to realize that the kids were referring to their Facebook friends, most of which were people that they hadn't even met. Apparently, NYU felt they needed to explain to the incoming youngsters what the definition of 'friend' was.

In my experience, I have had people that I've never met extend a friend request to me. I ignore all of them. I've also ignored requests from people from high school that never gave me the time of day when we actually could have met face to face. I've somewhat relaxed my standards for friend requests, and have accepted people that I've met once, although recently. This has led to issue number one.

The other day at work, I was running around the office a lot, and when I got back to my computer, I had an IM over gmail from someone I didn't recognize. I ignored it, figuring it was in error. When I did realize who it was, I was somewhat surprised - it was someone that I barely know, but had accepted his friend request on Facebook, so I guess he felt a certain familiarity. I don't IM with a lot of people, in fact I think I can count them on one hand. There are even fewer people with whom I will carry on an electronic conversation with during the day, especially when I'm at work. So I blocked him. The assumed closeness of Facebook can be disturbing.

Issue number two: defriending. Or is it unfriending? I use the two terms interchangeably, not knowing which is correct. Have you ever severed a Facebook friend? I've thought about it, there are definitely people from who I've accepted a request, and then wondered why. It could be because I haven't talked to them in years, but they found me and I didn't see the harm in accepting from them until they started sending me Farmville or Mafia Wars requests, or posted views that are in complete opposition to mine, like thinking Rush Limbaugh is The Man. That's not to say that I don't accept people into my life that have different opinions from mine on the issues of the day. However, if the only thing that we seem to have in common is the proximity of where our parents decided to live, I think I just may cut the cord.

Then there are the people who you were actually friends with, but have had a falling out with for whatever reason. Same with ex-boyfriends/girlfriends. I recently had a former friend drop me from her Facebook family. I've also had an ex drop me. The ex dropping me had a much more profound effect. The former friend, well, no big surprise.

The greatest revelation about FB lately has been the announcement and instant comments about life events. My sister had a baby last week, and the past four days has been a constant parade of photos from her husband, and congratulations from family and friends. Since my sister lives across the country, it's been a great way for the family (all of us on the East Coast) to share in their happiness. I won't be able to see her until mid-April, so this is a satisfying way of keeping up with what's going on in California.

Nostalgia

nos·tal·gi·a (nŏ-stāl'jə, nə-)


a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time: a nostalgia for his college days.

I was looking through some old photos and thought I'd share them. They are from a simpler time - how could they not be? I'm probably not any older than four in any of these photos. I was 18 months old in the above one. It was my second portrait from the Sears portrait studio; an earlier one was from my first year where my head is peaking from beneath a blanket (I do not have a copy of that photo) . My grandmother used to have 8x10's of all of these portraits in her apartment in Staten Island.

This one is from Easter of 1971, I think. Most of the old Polaroid photos that my parents have were taken before Tara, my younger sister, was born in September 1971. At the time, I was the baby of the family. That's me in the yellow coat and matching bonnet, and Erin is in the stylish red tights with the plaid kilt and Aran sweater. The women from left to right are Nana (paternal grandmother), Grandma (maternal grandmother), and Aunt Rita, my Grandma's sister. My mother always made sure we were impeccably dressed for Mass, especially on Easter. At the time, were were living in Old Bridge, NJ. The wooded area in the background of this photo is now entirely built up with more suburban houses. When we lived there, we were one of three houses on the street. That was 1980.

Summer 1972 or 1973. We were at a picnic thrown by the Friendly Sons of the Shillelagh, an Irish group that my father belonged to. That's my mother standing next to me. I've always thought it was funny that whoever took the photo (probably my father) left all the adult's heads out of the frame.

I wonder what I had stuck in my teeth. Although this was a picnic, and my mother wore shorts, she still had my two sisters and I in cute little dresses. All the other kids were in more casual clothes.



Summer of 1971. My uncle lived down in Keansburg, NJ, and we would go down there to visit. I especially liked going there during the summer so that we could go to the amusement park. This photo shows Erin and I on one of the kiddie rides - that's me in the front, 'driving.'

Although I don't remember when I was young enough to ride the kiddie rides, I do remember later visits to the park where we would ride the big slide, the one you would ride down sitting on a burlap sack so that your skin didn't burn on the hot plastic. I also won a mirror from one of the sideshow games, and we'd always get candy cigarettes where you could blow a puff of candy powder smoke.

This is probably from the summer of 1970. I know it's from a petting zoo we used to visit, located up in the Poconos. That's Erin in the stroller.

My favorite thing about this photo is how my grandmothers are dressed. They are so stylish! When I was in college, my friends and I would go shopping at either the vintage shops or the Salvation Army. Dresses like this would always be a real find. We would not wear them with white low healed pumps however. We'd usually wear them with motorcycle boots, Doc Martens, a leather jacket, or an old man cardigan. That was the height of style in Blacksburg, VA.

Summer of 1973. That's Tara in the foreground, I'm in the back with my mouth open, and Erin is next to me. This was taken in our backyard in Old Bridge. This must have been before my parents had the above ground pool installed in the backyard, but I don't recall having only a kiddie pool.

When we had the big pool installed, hanging out in our backyard was a big event for the neighborhood. Erin, who's birthday is in early September, always had a pool party over Labor Day weekend to celebrate.

These are a few of the photos taken while I was growing up. My mother had finally organized all the photos into albums, and we went through them when I was home for Christmas. I always enjoy looking through the old photos; they are a reminder of what a wonderful childhood I had where although my parents were very strict, we were raised with a lot of love, surrounded by friends and family. One of my parents always had a camera ready to capture these moments.