Away We Went

Memorial Day weekend may have only been a paltry three days long, but I latched onto it with an intensity that bemused the boy (and me, to a certain degree).  I was determined to make a mini-vacation out of it, if for no other reason than I have been in school for a long ten months now and I just wanted a break, dammit, but nope, school goes until the end of July.

We couldn't go more than four hours away because of work and school and those other things called "real life."  Also the dog had to come (again, real life).  So my hastily planned weekend basically consisted of three things:
1) Pit stop in Waterbury, VT to go to the Ben & Jerry's factory
2) Stay in northern New Hampshire, because Franconia is pretty and there's a yummy pancake restaurant.
3) Find a B&B that allows dogs, doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and has a room.

Oh, and go hiking.  Fresh air is good for my junky lungs and I wanted to get away from people.

Despite a profound lack of sophisticated thought and planning, we had a blast.  It rained almost the entire time.  It got down in the 30's at night and even snowed three inches (yes, really).  But it was really, really nice to go somewhere different and climb through mountains and wade through a freezing river and play Trivial Pursuit on his Blackberry on the drive home.

Whenever we go somewhere other than here, there's a part of me that lights up and thinks about, Well, what if we lived here? and I have all sorts of fun imagining things like living in the foothills of the White Mountains and driving a four-wheel drive pickup truck out to births, and growing a garden and hiking with the dog.  And it's not like There is better than Here, I think it's just about it being different.  But when my neighbors (who are now my friends) with the baby say things to me and him like, "You're not moving away from New Haven after you graduate, right?" while I snuggle the baby and blow raspberries in his neck, it makes me think to myself, Or, well, I guess we could stay here and be close to Boston and New York and family and friends and I'd grow a garden somehow and as long as we get a goat someday that I can name Cooper, it'll all work out that way too.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that maybe I'm finally realizing that where you wind up living the majority of your life isn't necessarily a conclusion that you draw with a whole lot of profundity.  Maybe it's more like where you end up and where you grow roots and where you fall in love with building your world around you.  And maybe no matter how much you love where you are, you still go somewhere different and romantic for a weekend and think, Hey, what if...

And maybe there's nothing really wrong with that at all.

Snowpocalypse 2013

Blizzard beginnings

It seems like old news now, but the blizzard named Nemo (seriously?) of a couple weeks ago was pretty dramatic.  I grew up in snow country (i.e., western New York) where getting a foot or two of white stuff overnight was not exactly news.  It was also not always a good enough reason for school to be cancelled, and for this reason I remember plenty of school mornings being shuffled outside with all of my siblings, shovels in hand, so that we could clear our own path to school.  Talk about teaching the value of an education.

Before the real stuff started

Yale was (thankfully) not taking chances, and preemptively cancelled clinical and classes the night before, which was a good thing because I didn't dig my car out until five days later and H. and I thought that what was going on in the two pictures above was pretty dramatic and exciting (about 10 PM on Friday night) - until we woke up the next morning.

The next morning.  That's my poor green Honda on the left!

It was insane.  There was at least three feet of snow burying everything, and the wind had blown drifts that were covering our entire porch, all the cars, and that were up to five or six feet deep in places.  But check it out.  Girl power, we shoveled our own porch and walkway, thank you very much.

Quite the workout

The boy and I climbed up our local mountain Saturday morning, before anything was plowed and while the trek up was pretty treacherous and difficult, the view at the top was incredible.

At the top

And then we slid on our bottoms almost all the way down the mountain, which worried the dog quite a bit - he kept trying to run in front of me and jump into my lap - but was great fun nonetheless.

Digging out

Our street didn't get plowed until Monday night, by a bulldozer who was struggling down the street.  Now, almost two weeks later, things are still a bit of a mess.  Workable, thankfully, but still tricky.  There are enormous piles of snow everywhere, and our street has about half as many parking spaces available as it usually does.  But the rain yesterday helped melt quite a bit, and hopefully the temperatures in the low 40's for the rest of this week will take care of some of the rest.

H.'s face the morning after was pretty priceless.  And when she asked me if I had ever seen anything like this before, I had to tell her that honestly, no, I hadn't.  I've seen serious snow before, but this blizzard was unlike anything else I'd ever experienced.  For several days, our house was full of a constant rotation of drying snow pants, boots, hats, and mittens.  We played in it, we dug through it, we slept, we enjoyed the break from school and work, we watched movies, we read books, we went a wee bit stir crazy.  We made lots of memories from the blizzard of 2013!

Puerto Rico, Part I

Two weeks after the boy and I went on our first date (literally), the following took place:

Him: Do you like the beach?

Me: Yes, in fact I am a human and not a vampire who is afraid of the sun.  Ergo, I like the beach.

Him: We should go on vacation together, like, to a beach.

Me: Okay, you're probably kidding, but in case you're not, my last day of school in December is the 17th but I want to spend Christmas with my family so I'm not free till the 26th.

That was the the only real conversation we ever had about going to Puerto Rico.  Half of me did not - could not - believe that we were actually planning going on a vacation together after knowing each other for less than a month.  Also, school happened and I was a little, you know, busy.  And then, all of a sudden it was Christmas break and I realized I needed to drive back to New Haven in order to catch an 8 AM flight out of White Plains on the 26th because - yes indeed - we were going on a beach vacation.

And it was incredible.

First of all, Puerto Rico is 86 degrees in December.  Every day.  Frogs chirp as you fall asleep, it rains for about an hour in the morning and then clears to breezy, sunshine-y paradise every day.  Every.  Single.  Day.  We stayed at the Puerto Rican equivalent of a B&B - a fun couple that own a horse farm rent out the rooms in the "little house."  Complimentary hammock outside each room.

We had lots of relaxing beach time, mixed in with plenty of adventurous rainforest hiking time too.

This was a 300 year old ceiba tree...

...whose roots actually get stretch marks as they expand to hold water.

Rather than overwhelm my picture-loaded post with a glut of words, I'll save the PR stories for another post.  I'm going back to the mirror to longingly admire my fading tan before it's gone completely.

Memory Lane

Fall break is here.  Mostly that means I have truly epic amounts of work to do, but on Thursday, it meant a long-anticipated day of adventure.  It also meant I needed to get out of New Haven so badly that I was practically giddy by the time the tires hit 91-S and I was headed back to one of my "homes" - good old Northampton.  Given the many locations I could have chosen to see Brandi Carlile in concert this fall, Northampton topped the list of favorites and I bought tickets weeks ago, in anticipation of just such a trip.

Wandering around my old college campus is still surreal.  Less so, now that I'm a couple years out from graduating and I don't always feel like I'm wandering the earth without a purpose or a goal.  Plus, if you are unmoved by the beauty of western Massachusetts in the fall, then I really don't think we can be friends.

Rumor is, you cannot walk through the gates at Smith before you graduate or you won't, in fact, graduate.  Superstitious?  Sure, but I wasn't really willing to bet against superstition considering that my grasp on stability while I was at Smith was sometimes tenuous at best.  Point being, the weekend of commencement, you're meant to walk through the gates.  I forgot.  Two and a half years later, though, and instead of walking, I jumped.  Whee.

I also met up with an old friend - who is now a senior, good lord, she made me feel old.  Poised, and gorgeous, and so grown up - there I am, tearing up at the dinner table, remembering how young she was when she was a wittle first-year.  I felt like I was coming out in reverse, telling her I had a boyfriend now.  I think I even choked on the word a little bit.  It sounds weird coming out of my mouth.
"Does he make you happy?" she asked me.
"Yes.  Like, ridiculously happy." Sheepish grinning ensues.
"That happy?  Good lord.  Okay, fine.  Tell him I said hi."

And thus approval was gained.

* * *

Seeing Brandi Carlile live was the most fun I've had in a long time.  The concert was, in a word, incredible.  Her energy, her band, and good grief, her pipes - girl lights up the stage.  And her music rips my heart out and hands it back, with words that pierce my soul and chords that sound like the soundtrack to every ache in my heart.  I almost made it through the entire concert without crying, until the very last song.

When you're lost you will toss every lucky coin you'll ever trust

And you will hide from your god like he never turns his back on us

And you will fall all the way to the bottom and land on your own knife

And you'll learn who you are even if it doesn't take your life.

But mostly I'm just a sap and I cry really easily, especially to her songs.  On an unrelated note...Hurricane Sandy?  Seriously?  I feel like I should go out and buy some waders so that I can slosh to school if I have to.

A Vacation of Sorts

Not only did we clean, we bought flowers!

Anyone who says they don't scour their apartment before their parents come to visit is either lying, or should be.  Even - and perhaps especially - when said parents say things like, "Oh, we don't want you to feel like you have to clean up before we get there!"  Right.  Well.  Let's start by removing the dirty laundry from the kitchen table, the ice cream cartons from the TV stand, the sneakers from the counter top, and the dog bone from the bed.  And then maybe we'll get to some actual cleaning.  And incidentally?  Cleaning makes you really, really dirty.  Which then necessitates showering.  All of which Alix and I were frantically doing on Friday morning before my parents arrived for their much-anticipated visit.  Since I had the day off from work, we had essentially let all housekeeping duties slide until that morning and planned on getting everything done before their arrival at 2 PM.  We fueled up on coffee by 9 AM and then set to work.  When they arrived at 3:00, Alix and I were panting, breathless, wet from our showers, but oooh lemme tell you, our house was CLEAN.  It shone.  It sparkled.  Things had found homes that they never knew before. (Yes, empty flower pot, you now live in a closet, not on the living room floor.  Ahem.  Not that I'm saying I actually kept a flower pot on the floor for three months.  Purely hypothetical.)  And I did not do that whole nonchalant oh-why-thank-you-our-place-always-looks-like-this dance.  Nope.  We took full credit for our clean home and had the bloodstained thumbnail bed to prove it. (Well, at least Alix did.  An unfortunate incident with a wicker basket occurred in the bedroom.)

No longer do coats live on the kitchen chairs.

Clean apartment and all, we had an amazing long weekend with my family.  My talented father fixed twenty million things around the apartment that needed fixing, including making my closet doors open and close, making it so the bathroom door can close and lock (this is big news, people), hanging a coat rack, hanging a hook for Rupert's leash, installing an indoor clothesline (remember this problem?), and - most impressively - building and installing a removable gate for the bathroom door that allows Tucker to jump in and keeps Rupert out.  In exchange for all his hard work, I made my dear father a grilled cheese.  It was the best I could offer. 


The weekend also included a blueberry pie (made by yours truly), my brother pulling his badge on a taxi driver, Alix's dad and my parents meeting (also big news, everyone), a whole lot of coffee, a whole lot of wine, and one spectacular job interview.  I want to work for this family so, so bad but it involves me finding another part-time nanny job since they only need me part-time as well.  We'll see what happens, but it's a big step in the right direction.  Did I mention they live a block away?  And that they have three little boys?  And that I love them to pieces already?

With the house empty now, and it being only 7:45 PM (and since I'm not exhausted from baking cookies all day), I find myself a little...bored.  Maybe I'll start drafting a resignation letter.  Or maybe I'll enjoy my little vacation for a few more hours and do something wild and crazy like...read a magazine.

Stress-Free Vacation (Mostly)

Taking the easy life for the last few days in Vermont has been wonderful. I miss my Monkey so much, but not changing diapers or having to wake up at 4 AM for an entire two weeks have made it worth it. After a flurry of packing on Monday morning (and then an unfortunate pissed off twenty minute wait for a man to come move his double-parked car so we could actually get out of NY), we finally hit the road. Rupert promptly threw up (de rigueur), but since we were stopping quickly by Alix's father's house, we were able to clean up and drive the next six hours without any more emissions. Unless you count Tucker's frequent howls as emissions, in which case, our six hour drive was full of them. We stopped in Northampton, MA as a halfway point and ate lunch at one of my favorite old college haunts, indulging in shawerma on lavash (I know, not very vegetarian of me, but I've literally been dreaming of this lunch since I left college in May). After a quick walk through campus for Rupert to do his business - this included semi-frequent fawning by current students over his excessive cuteness - we were back in the car and heading further north. The snow started about an hour later and continued, getting worse and worse until we finally arrived around 7 pm (although it felt like it was at least midnight). Exhausted, we scarfed pizza and fell into bed.

The next day, though, we were up bright and early to shovel the entire driveway - take that Jillian Michaels! I don't need to do your workout twice a day if I burn 311 calories per hour shoveling snow! We did some grocery shopping and then allowed Rupert out for his first true romp in the snow.

He LOVED it. He couldn't believe how high he had to jump to get through it (a foot of snow is practically chin-level for him) but also how fluffy and utterly romp-able this delectable white stuff is. Alix and I had a blast watching him run off-leash, for once, and having the time of his life. And then, tragedy struck. Rupert, despite having previous experience with water at my parents' house, seems to forget that it is not land and found himself unfortunately tumbled into the semi-frozen pond next to the house. We sprung into calm, efficient action: Alix waded thigh-deep into the freezing water to grab our gasping puppy while I held tightly to the back of her coat to prevent any additional swims. She passed our soaked pup to me and we ran into the house where we dried him with towels and cuddled by the fire until he crawled shamefaced off my lap to go chase the cat. Clearly a full recovery was had.

We did our Jillian Michaels last night and will do it again today, probably twice. We're still doing Level 2 since we took such a long break from working out at all. Also, we're both scared of Level 3. I think I might die doing it and that wouldn't be so fun. The plan is to do Level 2 for the rest of this week and then see how we feel about moving on to Level 3 once we are back in the big city (where there is no snow. Sad.)

As a side note, thanks for reading everyone. I love writing this, and I hope you like reading it. Hope everyone's holiday (and finals!) season is going well so far. XO