Thanksgiving report

Well, it is Sunday afternoon, the holiday is almost over. In fact, I have gotten quite a bit of work done on one of my incomplete papers. It will be ready to turn in on Tuesday I believe. Nevertheless, it has been a long weekend full of good food and plenty of relaxing.

Katie and I cooked a full meal for ourselves and one other friend, Alex (Katie's old partner on the ambulance when they both worked at Transcare). Some of the people we had invited and had tentatively thought they would be able to come, at the last minute decided not to come after all. So, we cooked an 18.8lb turkey for 3 people! We have frozen some of it, sent more of it home with Alex, and have since eaten most of it. There will be some leftovers for lunches this week. I also used what was leftover after fully carving the turkey to make soup stock. For lunch today we had a great, rich turkey soup. Yum! I was in charge of cooking the turkey and the stuffing (which I also made from scratch) while Katie took care of the side dishes: the yams, the garlic mashed potatoes, her famous green bean casserole, the cranberries, crescent rolls, and such. We drank some really yummy wine (Beaujolais Nouveau) with dinner.

Katie had to work Friday, but has had the weekend off. On Saturday we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to check out the autumnal splendor. It was really chilly, the ponds had frozen over and you could see the carp swimming sluggishly below the icy surface. No sign of the ducks...they must have already flown south for the winter. We spent some time in the greenhouse biomes looking at flowers that were still blooming in the hothouse environments (like the Christmas cacti!) and staying warm. It was a nice break from the gray, cold weather we have been having. It is supposed to warm up a bit this week (getting into the low 60s!) before getting chilly again next week.

We are also looking forward to my parents' visit in mid-December. Until they get here, though, it is back to the grind until the Christmas break.

Before I forget, we have also uploaded some more pictures. Some of Thanksgiving and the Botanic Garden excursion, and others of Katie's Key West adventures. Click the "Pictures" link over to the right, or the flickr badge at the bottom of the page.

Family had a floating house and it went out to sea.

I am back from the Florida Keys, having survived helping Hurricane Wilma survivors. I consider myself a survivor, as well...I survived the Red Cross craziness. Maybe I should start out with what seems to be everyone's first question: how was the experience? Unfortunately I cannot answer that easily. There were many facets of the deployment, both good and bad. Initially it was a chaotic, unwelcoming mess which evolved into different chaos, but with a purpose!
My job there was to do family casework which, in this case, was outreach involving going door to door at every house (or boat) and in every neighborhood in the Florida Keys. In the blazing sun and hair-frizzing humidity. We did damage assessments to homes and people and, based on emergency need, distributed Client Assistance Cards (debit cards) with money on them. I have never seen such devastation before; there were literal mountains of debris (furniture, landscaping, appliances, boats) along Hwy. 1 (the one and only highway through the keys). In some neighborhoods, we couldn't drive to the end of the block, instead we had to carefully make our way around the debris in order to get to some homes. Alternately, the scenery in the keys is amazing. Surrounded by water and palm trees, sail boats and parasailers and wildlife (enormous iguanas, peacocks, huge water birds...and roosters? Roosters love the Florida Keys).
After having a few days to decompress, I'd say it was a good experience. There were families who were desperately in need of our help, so it felt good to be able to provide that help. But it's good to be home, on dry land. What am I thankful for this Thanksgiving? That I don't live on a boat!

Turandot with my friend Ted

Last night I went to see Puccini's last opera, Turandot, which was written between 1921-24. Since Katie is still gone (although she gets back on Friday! Woo woo!) I went with my friend Ted Southern. He was one of the first people I met at UPS when I was on my "Passages" hike. He was also a French horn player (although he doesn't play any more) and a Music Business major. So we shared many classes and ensemble playing experiences. He came to New York about 4 years ago and got work in a prop studio. He has since gone back to school and is working on a Masters of Art at the Pratt Schoot in Brooklyn. I tell you all this because my friend Ted has designed some cool things for the prop studio that have been used in movies, on Broadway, in TV shows, and various other things. Lately, he designed and built the wings that the Victoria's Secret models wear...if you watch the televised fashion show in December, you'll see his handiwork, the most celebrated (risque?) of which was Heidi Klum's electric underwear and illuminated wings, it was in all the papers back here.

Anyway, that was one of the many conversation topics for us last evening, another major one being the opera we had just seen. City Opera is not the Met, but it is a darn good opera company and the production was lavish and the orchestra played the romantic score beautifully! A major drawback was the choreography, which was insipid and silly. Nevertheless, I had never seen the entire opera live (although I myself have played parts of it) and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I am looking forward to Katie's arrival back to New York tomorrow afternoon. We may travel back to Hofstra to listen to the choir concert, or we may just relax and crack open a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau which hits the shelves today! For those of you who are of legal drinking age and have never tried this wine, it is a harvest wine, rapdily fermented and released the first Thursday of Novemeber. It is grapey and young and very tasty. It is like a cross between grape juice and wine; it has a lower alcohol content and does not age well. It is meant for drinking...now. We think it is a great Thanksgiving wine. Yum.

Saturday, we are going out with a group of friends to see the new Harry Potter movie. That should be fun. Stay tuned for the review!

Nothing exciting

There is not much of anything exciting to report. A friend of mine is leaving Monday for boot camp because he joined the army band stationed in Heidelberg, Germany, so I went to his going away party. I taught all day Saturday and went home to the empty, empty apartment. Good new is: Katie comes back on Friday. Woo!

Katie has a day off tomorrow and will finally get to explore the more touristy part of Key West. She and her other Red Cross folks have been going around to different places in the Keys trying to get help to the people who need it most by interviewing them door-to-door. I guess she has been through some pretty needy areas. Anyway, she is going to go snorkeling and after that, she is going to a bar called Captain Tony's (mentioned in a Jimmy Buffett song) and then to Jimmy Buffett's own Margaritaville.

If any former Mountain View HS people ever read this blog, our 10-year reunion is coming up next August. Kevin Ball set up a home-page which can be found at http://www.mvhs96.com/policy.asp?rname=kevandcan. Hope to see you there!

Katie in the Keys

So, now Katie has gone from Miami down to the Florida Keys. She is working in Key West and helping do evaluations of people's homes (as far as damage is concerned--how much sea water and mold is in the house, is is structurally sound? etc.) by going door to door in some of the hard-hit neighborhoods. Apparently, many homes were flooded with several feet of sea water during the Hurrican Wilma storm surge and are now growing a particularly nasty kind of black mold. Many houses are condemned, but people are still living in them because they have nowhere to go yet. I didn't know much about the Keys; if you don't either, here is a link to a interactive map: Florida Keys Map! Katie is staying in the Marathon section of the keys, on an island called Duck's Key, which is near mile 65 on US 1.

She is staying about an hour away in a resort hotel called Hawk's Cay (visit www.hawkscay.com if you want to see more about it) that has opened a certain number of rooms to Red Cross volunteers. It sounds very nice, having 5 pools, hot tubs, a dolphin habitat and access to beaches and a lagoon. Katie's dad, Mike, says that she has been pretty clever in getting the Red Cross to underwrite her trip to the tropics; but she is just trying to help those affected by the hurricane and is happy to stay anywhere. This is one "anywhere" that she is not complaining about, however! She was certainly not expecting these kinds of accomadations when she bought her sleeping bag for this trip.

I guess Katie is seeing the best and worst of the Keys and having quite an experience. She is meeting new people and working hard to help those whose lives were seriously affected by the hurricane. Hopefully, she'll get access to a computer so that people can read about her experiences in her own words.

Until then, you'll just have to rely on my second-hand accounts. As for myself, I made banana bread last night, and a pork and mushroom stew in the slow-cooker the day before so I have not yet resorted to squirting Cheez-whiz directly into my mouth quite yet! I am teaching lots and working on my incomplete term papers from last semester. I am also playing in the Graduate Center Contemporary Ensemble, which is premiering some works by fellow grad students here tonight. Next week, I will be going to see Turandot at the NY City Opera since I got 2 free tickets through my connections here at CUNY. The question now is, who will go with me now that Katie is in Florida...?

Bye Bye Birdie!

Katie has left the building.

That's right, she was called up by the Red Cross and is on her way to Miami....that's right, Florida. She'll be gone for 2 weeks. I will be living larely on Mac and Cheese, cookies, various forms of cereal, Hamburger Helper, take-out, hunks of cheese, Subway sandwiches, instant oatmeal, reconstituted gravy, and beer. Then I'll get desperate and do things like eat raw powdered jello, Bisquick from the box, stale bread crumbs, and semi-thawed meat from the freezer. If I'm lucky, she'll be back before I begin gnawing on the metal radiators and/or my own fingers for my daily nutrition.

Of course, I'm just kidding. I like to cook and I'll be fine. After taking care of when and what I eat, I will take the opportunity to stay late at Hofstra or CUNY and work on some lengthy academic papers that need to get finished before Christmas so that I can take my comprehensive exams in January.

We'll be posting news of her adventures here, and any pictures she may be able to take (she didn't bring the camera with her, but may buy a disposable one).