Our Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas Everyone.

Here is our Christmas Letter that we sent to some, and posted here for others.

Dear Friends and Family,

Holiday Greetings from Brooklyn! This year Katie and I have decided to send a Christmas letter since we’ve been swamped with work and/or school and, impersonal as it is, a quick note is the best way to avoid hand cramps from writing all this down over and over.

The year in review: In April, we moved into a 2-bedroom apartment across the hall from our old one. Our neighbors had been evicted (sad for them, good for us); the landlords re-sanded and re-varnished the floors and put in new kitchen appliances and cabinets. We are happy to be in a bigger space (with more closets!) that is on the back corner of the building, off the busy parkway, and so much quieter.

At the end of last January Dan took all three days’ worth of his doctoral exams (including orals), and is now ABD (“all but dissertation”). His PhD dissertation, on which he is now hard at work, explores the music of the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. Beginning in the Fall Semester, he was offered an exapnded role teaching at the Mannes (pronounced MAN-ess) College of Music; he had already been teaching elementary through high-school kids in the Mannes Prep division on Saturdays, but is now teaching an additional five classes in the College division during the week. He also was offered a job teaching an evening course in music at Hunter College, part of the CUNY (City University of New York) system. All this in addition to his continuing work at Hofstra University out on Long Island. He also stays busy playing his French horn in various free-lance orchestras around the NY metro area.

In the Spring, Katie was accepted to the Physician Assistant (PA) program at SUNY Downstate here in Brooklyn. Only 34 people were admitted out of an applicant pool of over 500. Yay Katie! She proceeded to spend the summer taking Gross Anatomy and some other courses, the “highlight” of which was working in a cadaver lab and dissecting (with 3 other students) a gentleman they named “Pall.” That’s right, not Paul—Pall. She just completed her second semester (of six) and Dan thinks he may finally get to see her again. She has been spending upwards of 80 hours a week at school, either in class or studying (which means Dan has been doing lots of the housework and cooking—look out!). This doesn’t count weekends, on which she works at New York Methodist hospital as a phlebotomist (the person who draws blood for donations or lab tests). Under her tender care and expert needle-sticking Dan has donated about a quart of blood this year. She has two more semesters of classwork before embarking on the clinical portion of her program.

If you wish, you can keep tabs on us if you check our blog (unfortuately infrequently updated) at http://www.danandbird.blogspot.com/(it does have links to more pictures). We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

Love,

Dan and Bird

Christmas eve blog

Katie is working here on Christmas eve morning so I am trying to get caught up on the blogging. She is FINALLY done with this semester. She says if anything, it was harder than the summer semester (which she and her colleagues already refer to as "last year" although it wasn't even more than about 6 months ago). I am also working Christmans eve--tonight, playing a Christmas eve service at the giant St. Paul's Catholic church in Manhattan. It has been nice to finally spend some time with Katie again. All my teaching wrapped up on Dec. 22, so now I just have to grade final papers and enter grades. We are going to travel to Washington, D.C. after New Year's to visit our friends Rachel and Sean who moved there recently from Oregon. We'll blog that when we get back.

The real reason for this post is to boast about our very first Christmas tree. Our apartment had really been too small for a tree in past years, but this year, with our new, larger digs (see previous posts), we have space for a tree. No tree stands sold Christmas trees in our neighborhood though, so we got this 7 foot tree at church lot in Park Slope and carried it back (2o minute walk) to our place. I think I smelled like a Balsalm Fir for about two days after that. My muscles were a bit tired too, but it was lighter than you might expect, and it was all wrapped up at that point, so it wasn't as bushy as it is in the photo. Although it's our first tree, we weren't at a loss for ornaments, since we get some as gifts every year and had bought some on our European vacation in 2005, as well as acquired some along the way during our 5 years together already. Enjoy the picture, and we'll send out an email on Christmas Day with a picture of us and the tree (plus post it here on the Blog with our Christmas letter).

Belated Thanksgiving Update

So it seems that after a massive silence every 2 months there is a flurry of activity on the blog. Sorry about that, things just get a little crazy. We're going to break up this weekend's post into several smaller, more easily readable ones.

So here's the first one, involving our Turkey Day. Katie’s Dad, Mike, came out to visit from Portland, Oregon (pronounced "orygun" to all you East Coast readers). As you can see, Mike brought with him, a very yellow jacket, we took a picture of him in front of a cool yellow mural in Park Slope, Brooklyn to achieve this little picture we like to call "Sunburst." That crazy Mike. He also got the crazy idea to rent a car and drive 4 hours upstate to Cooperstown, NY to see the Baseball Hall of Fame. Why Cooperstown? It is where baseball's rules were officially codified, according to legend. Anyway, Katie had to be at school, so it was just Mike and me. We had a great drive up, very picturesque. We are both big baseball fans and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at the museum (click here for more pictures). It was pretty neat to see all the memorabilia from 100 years of baseball. One of my favorite parts was the wall of baseball cards where they had some legendary cards: Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, and a rare Honus Wagner tobacco card from 1909. My brother and I both collected baseball cards in elementary school, and some of those cards enjoy a status of mythical proportions in my memory.

On Thanksgiving itself, I cooked a 17-lb. turkey (4^th year running) and the stuffing and Katie did all the other fixin’s, her famous green bean casserole, for example, among others. We had lots of great food, some good beer on hand (including Brooklyn Lager, of course!) and good company, including our neighbors Keith and Katia who came over for dessert. It was really great to have some family here, especially since no one from Katie’s side has visited for about three years. While Katie was in school, Mike and I hit some museums, walked the Brooklyn Promenade, ate the best pizza in New York (in Brooklyn!) according to the Zagat survey, and probably watched parts of a million football games. The three of us played monopoly Thanksgiving morning, and also went to the Brooklyn museum and Botanic garden. With all the walking everywhere while he was here, he said it was like an "excercise vacation." In spite of all the walking, it was nice to relax a bit before Katie started the final push of her semester.

Dan's Fall Update

It took me awhile to dig myself out of the giant mounds of various college students' assignments to get to the computer to write this blog post, but I finally made it here. Yes, it has been busy teaching 6 days week at 3 different colleges but I have still found some time to work on my dissertation. I do really enjoy the majority of my classes and students, and I am still shooting for summer of 2008 for the completion of the PhD. Let's see if I can do it.

I am also playing quite a bit. I have played in the Bronx, Long Island and New Jersey in the past few weeks. This week I am playing Beethoven's Ninth symphony at Carnegie Hall with some group whose name I cannot recall at the moment, but rehearsals start tomorrow. Next week I am playing the John Rutter Requiem at a big church in south Brooklyn.

After being entertained back at home in the Pacific Northwest this summer by various friends and family, we have had the opportunity to host some friends here in NYC. My good high-school friend Mark was here on business last week, he works for a large PR firm, so they put him up in the Sheraton in midtown. We managed to hang out on a rainy Tuesday night, and then catch a NY Rangers hockey game at Madison Square Garden the next night. Fun times, we saw a fan wearing a NY Islanders shirt (the cross-state rival hockey team) get de-shirted and pushed around a bit. The Rangers lost, but a good time was had by all. This past week, another good high-school friend Laura was here. She lives in Bermuda now, where she teaches music (viola and violin), so she stayed with us since no music school will put someone up in a NYC Sheraton. Katie and I are hoping to visit her at some point...in Bermuda! Her friend Greg came out to see her for awhile, and we enjoyed showing them around and eating out at some fun places. I made sure they tried out the ambrosia that is Brooklyn Lager, while Laura brought us some Gosling's Rum, Bermuda's unofficial national spirit, which we mixed with ginger beer (much punchier than ginger ale) for the official drink of Bermuda: the "Dark and Stormy." Yum!

Next week our newly-married friend Rachel (one of Katie's college roommates) will be visiting on business. She lives in Washington DC now, but will stay with us for a few days. We read that the average night in a NYC hotel costs about $240, so if you want to save some $$$ and have fun, come stay at Chez DanandBird. We accept advance reservations and all major credit cards. We absolutely do not tolerate nail clipping except in designated areas.

Public Groomers Need Not Apply

Okay, New York. I have had just about enough. I have been very tolerant of the enormous flaws in your late night/weekend public transportation. I endure the incessant sirens and honking and the elderly in their Sunday best shooting snot rockets onto the streets. I have learned to avert my gaze from the constant public urination (because, let’s face it-given the subway situation here even I have been close to joining the crowd). But what I cannot, will not, absolutely refuse to condone is public grooming. Specifically clipping one’s finger and toenails in public: on the trains, in the library, in church (holy nastiness).
Case in point: Dan was innocently commuting to Hofstra the other day when he heard the familiar “clip, clip” of the nail clippers. Briefly averting his attention from his paper, Dan had time to make a disgusted face before becoming engrossed in his article again. And then it happened: a sharp, dangerous crescent came shooting toward him launched by the filthy offender. We are lucky Dan is still with us today, as the bioweapon merely arched threateningly over the seat and landed on Dan’s newspaper. I shudder to think of what might have happened had Dan been helplessly mid-yawn and the trajectory of the Chinese star slightly altered.
I am disgusted and outraged by this behavior, it cannot continue. I am here to rally a following to put a stop to this socially corrupt practice. We need signs and support! Why should “no smoking” and “no spitting” and “no knife fighting” signs dominate our walls when there is a real threat to our quality of life at stake? Why should we always be forced to wear safety glasses while commuting? There needs to be repercussions in place to discourage this debauchery in the future; perhaps disabling the offender’s “clippin’ hand” or securing them in straight jackets while in public. I am still working on the particulars of the punishments, any suggestions and/or donations are welcome. Until we can get this thing under control, I implore you all to protect yourselves and to stand up for what is hygienic.

Testing, testing...is this thing on?

Avast ye scurvy dogs, ye can set aside the relentless pursuit of a fresh, new Brooklyn blog post. We are back with a sincere apology; we were remiss in our duty to provide our rabid fans with timely updates of our fascinating doings. Yes, the Harvest is upon us (thank you Marc), the leaves and the times they are a-changin’ but before we move forward, let us take you back to a land far, far away: the Northwest.
Many of you were witness to the glory of our summer trip home; the weather was awesome, people cooked for us and paid for our meals, we boated and shopped and barbequed and generally basked in the goodness of a NW summer. We packed in so many visits with family and friends (30 peeps in the first weekend) that by the end of our two weeks we were completely exhausted and in need of a vacation. Let me just say that going back to PA school was hardly a vacation, thus the amount of time which has elapsed between blogs. But I’ve already apologized! Geez, get over it!
You might be wondering what exactly has been occupying our time of late. Good question! Personally, I have been living at SUNY Downstate (or so it seems). We have an average of two tests a week (three this coming week) so once we are done with one test, they literally hand us a packet of information to know, retain and love for the next test. PA school is a relentless pirate who is constantly making us walk the plank. So far I am surviving, but really, really REALLY looking forward to our Christmas break when we get almost three (!) weeks off.
Halloween is coming up! For those of you who are aware of my sickness, you will understand how distressed I am that we will not be throwing the 2nd annual Monster Bash this year due to my hectic schedule. Never fear, though; the decorations are up, complete with orange lights, witches and spider webs aplenty. Thanks to those of you supporting me with new ideas for decorations, food and such for the next Halloween party. I am looking forward to implementing all the ideas, especially the Thorax Cake (thanks, Ragan). Also, look for pictures of the pumpkin I will be carving to enter in Downstate’s pumpkin carving contest. I plan to be $50 dollars richer by next Tuesday.
This ends my tirade (for now) and I promise to be much more compliant when it comes to blogging. Warning: Dan’s post coming up next.

Corpse alive and well and living in Brooklyn

So, it's been a while since we posted last. That's because not too much stuff has been happening that is worth blogging. Katie is still slogging away at her classes (she finishes her first semester in just a few days) and I have been finishing up some of the admin work at Mannes and then working on my dissertation.

Some of the things that did happen of note were the leaving of Ben and Jara on the one hand, and Kyle and Nancy on the other. Ben and Jara, the owners of the four birds, moved to Madison, Wisconsin to start masters degree programs. We helped them load up their U-Haul truck after having them over one last time. Kyle and Nancy left for Bloomington where Kyle just got a job as a professor at Indiana University. We didn't have to help them load a van since IU is paying for their move. At least we have some folks to visit across the midwest if we ever take a big driving trip.

As to the title of this post, Katie and I went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden ( http://www.bbg.org/ ) yesterday to see the blooming of the corpse flower. Scientifically known as the Amorphophallus titanum, it was first discovered by Westerners in 1878 in western Sumatra. It flowers only rarely in cultivation--BBG has had their specimen since 1996--but the botanist said it blooms about every three years in the wild. The last time a corpse flower bloomed in NYC was in 1939 in the Bronx (and then they made it the borough's official flower!) Anyway, it gets its name because it smells horrible, which attracts the carrion beetles and sweat bees that live in Sumatra. We stood in line to see this beast (about 6 feet tall). The botanist at the garden said it had smelled like a rotting rat, but it only emits this awful, penetrating stench for 8 hours, and it had done so the day before we saw it. There was only a slighty musty smell when we saw it. Oh well, maybe we'll get to smell a corpse flower someday. One final, amusing note about this interesting plant: if you look again at the scientific name, you'll see it means "gigantic mutant phallus!" In Victorian England, where this flower was first cultivated in the West, governesses would shield the eyes of the impressionable young women when visiting the botanical garden. Needless to say, among the hundred or so people who were there when we viewed it, I saw no evidence of such protective activity.

Happy 5th Anniversary

Katie and I just celebrated our 5th anniversary. It's hard to believe it's already been that long! We didn't do anything too fancy since Katie had to be at school all day studying for a huge anatomy test the next day. I was working at Mannes doing some scheduling for the fall. But I did get her 5 red roses and took her to dinner (both surprises) at a place called the Garden Café. It is about a 15 minutes walk from our apartment but is rated as highly on its food as the best restaurants in the city. A couple runs it; the husband cooks and the wife is the hostess (and main server). The dining room is very small (about 9 tables, most of which are for 2 people only) and reservations are a must.

Before getting to the restaurant, however, we noticed a wine store that had a placard out front advertising free tastings of caipirinhas, a Brazilian drink made with lime, sugar and a Brazilian liquor called cachaça (ka SHA sa). We had never had them, they were good, and we purchased a bottle of the liquor thinking we could make some of these drinks later. It came with a wooden lime-crusher (pestle). So we ended up getting a nice pre-dinner cocktail.

At dinner we had the prix fixe (which included a first course, main course and desert). For the first course, Katie got an endive salad with fresh tomatoes and Irish cheese; I got a Maine crab cake with capers and cornichons (little pickles). Of course, we shared tastes of each other’s food, and they were both excellent. For the main course, Katie had wild Coho salmon with sesame and scallion noodles and I had an orange-ginger boneless duck breast with rice. So good! We also had an Austrian dry Riesling with everything. Yum. For dessert I had hazelnut gelato with wafers and chocolate and Katie had coconut pound cake with vanilla ice cream and fresh mango sauce. We switched desserts halfway through. It was a very pleasant evening, and Katie said it was just what she needed to take her mind off studying (however briefly) and her upcoming test.

Last night, after her test (the results of which she won’t know until next week), we went to Prospect Park’s band shell and heard the Brooklyn Philharmonic do a great program including excerpts from Copland’s “Rodeo,” Bizet’s “Carmen” and Stravinsky’s “Firebird.” There were probably 3,000 people out there. We sat in the seats, but some people were in the back spread out on the grass. Others were outside the fence at the barbecue pits where they could grill burgers and still hear the music (though not see the orchestra as well). One positive about New York in the summer is the fact that there are many free concerts and activities. It almost balances out the heat, humidity and various unpleasant odors that assault one’s senses from time to time. Needless to say, we are looking toward a visit to the Northwest later this summer!

Jazz at the Blue Note

Last night Katie and I had a great New York moment. Our friend Ben (of Exotic Bird-Sitting for Ben and Jara fame) took us and his younger brother, Charles, to the Blue Note, a famous jazz club in New York City down in Greenwich Village. This was partly motivated by our recent week’s worth of bird-sitting (so why didn’t we go to the more appropriately named Birdland, another jazz club, you might ask—the program at Blue Note was more interesting). We got there relatively early, about 45 minutes before the show started, and got a table that literally abutted the stage. I was concerned about volume, but I needn’t have been since they didn’t amplify the music too much. There were two acts, a 19-year-old phenom on piano named Eldar (he immigrated from Kyrgystan when he was 11) and an 80-year-young piano legend named Randy Weston. We had yummy drinks before the show and dinner during. Katie got crab cakes and I ordered steak. Great food, great jazz and (most importantly) great company! Afterwards, the four of us went to an Italian bakery and had little yummy things like gelato and almond tarts.

Although both acts were great, we really liked the standards as rendered by Eldar. We could see the keyboard and his hands were blurry as he was playing so fast! He just released an album called “Eldar, Live from the Blue Note”, so we decided to get it since we heard him live at the Blue Note and it seemed fitting. If you want to read a little about him and hear some of his stuff, click this link: http://www.eldarjazz.com/

We hope everyone had a great 4th of July!

Museums and Birds

Happy July 4th Weekend!

We just got back from a rooftop party down the block from us. The views of the Museum and Manhattan were great (7th story). It was being thrown by a friend of a friend: Katie’s friend Marc, a graduating Physician Assistant student, had a friend named Josh, also a PA student, who hosted the party. We had just gone to the Brooklyn Museum, too, for its free First Saturday. The current temporary installation is one on New York graffiti and I put up some neat pictures if you click here, or over on the right-hand side of the screen in the side bar under “Pictures.” One of the points about the exhibit was the controversy over whether or not graffiti is really art worthy of a museum installation. If you look at our pictures, we’ll let you decide. Definitely thought provoking.

Some other interesting things from this week: we are over half-way done bird-sitting for our friends Ben and Jara. They are in Alaska, where Jara teaches at a music camp (4-5 weeks every summer for about 4-5 years). Ben is finally getting his chance to visit Alaska, so they let us take care of the birds. So far so good, although the birds can get quite noisy. We put some pictures of us and the birds on our Flickr site. (Click here). I had two gigs on Tuesday and Wednesday. The former was a graduation for a Cornell University program. The latter was a neat Catholic Mass honoring Mary under her title of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. There is a huge Filipino population in midtown Manhattan, and people were actually visiting from the Philippines for this particular service. Apparently they really like this particular role of Mary. They paraded an icon of the Blessed Virgin all around midtown and were waving long-stemmed yellow roses in the air, sang all kinds of hymns I’d never heard before, including Latin chants, and were very appreciative of the brass quartet that played during the Mass. Katie has been studying like crazy, spending long hours at the library because the noise of the birds can be quite distracting. We did some socializing last night with our friends Ted and Dena, going out for drinks and dinner. It was great fun. I am working a lot at Mannes for the Prep program, helping out with the scheduling of music theory/history classes for next fall.

We should be doing some fun/interesting things for the holiday this week, although we are not sure what exactly. We’ll let you know in the next blog installment.

I See Dead People

You are all aware that I started PA school at the end of May, thus the absence of Bird blogs of late. Well, I happen to have a rare opportunity to write up our adventures, being that I just finished my first anatomy test (3 hours for written, 2 hours for practical) and I am actually home before 7:30pm. The test went well, by the way, although I won’t have the results until tomorrow, after which I will not be disclosing that information to anyone. Usually I have 12 hour days filled with anatomy lecture, a 3 hour gross anatomy lab, an hour for lunch then class until 5pm. After class we (my friends Kim and Lauren and I) can be found in The Hole (the room in the library where we hunker down) scrambling to complete assignments and reading and studying for the next day. Weekends also find me in either the cadaver lab, at a study session or at a blood drive earning some book money because it seems we have a new $50 book to buy every week. If you find that this sounds like a lot of boring work, I can assure you it is. It’s very hard, but also challenging and fun at times. I am also happy to report I have only cried once during the last three weeks and it mostly had to do with my frustration at not having time to go to Target. (see list below)
So what about Dan, you might ask? Dan has been great, making me dinners (some experimental) and lunches and doing the grocery shopping, laundry and most of the cleaning. He usually even does the dishes and cleans up after me when I go into study mode and forget to clean up after myself. (see list below)
He’s also been working a bit at Mannes and playing gigs randomly.
Oh, and it’s getting hot back here. And let me tell you that the hotter it gets in Brooklyn, the worse it smells. And the hotter I get and the worse everyone and everything around me smells, the angrier I get. Enter Dan and his A/C installation magic; he slaved away and now it’s nice and cool and somewhat bearable in Brooklyn.
In other news, we will be getting a shipment of birds (four of them!) from our friends Ben & Jara on Sunday because they will be in Alaska at a Music camp Jara works at every summer. The blessed event is scheduled for this Sunday until July 4th. Pictures to follow, of course…it will be a bit of a mad house. A Mad Bird House, if you will.
In conclusion, I will leave you with a list to give you a better understanding of my life now that I am in school. Should you see these signs in anyone you know, at least you can attribute it to something justifiable instead of insanity. Enjoy.

You may be in PA school if:
1. You never get home before 7:30 in the evening.
2. Your spouse just hands you food like the passing of a baton on your way in the door and leaves you alone to study for the rest of the night.
3. Your habits go from meticulously neat and tidy to leaving yogurt cups and cereal bowls lonely and abandoned in the place you were last studying.
4. Charts and graphs of anatomical origin pop up on bathroom mirrors, walls and cupboards in order to facilitate studying while flossing/cleaning/doing the dishes.
5. You only have one dream: your anatomy professor pointing out structure after structure on your cadaver and demanding, with increasing vehemence, “what is this? WHAT IS THIS?!”
6. When you wake up in the middle of the night you actually consider reaching over your sleeping spouse to get at your anatomy notes just to check that your answers in your dream were correct.
7. You feel guilty for taking a shower because that time could be spent studying.
8. You have a three-minute window between studying and sleeping and God help the person who interrupts this precious time.
9. It doesn’t bother you when someone taps you on the shoulder in your gross anatomy lab and it turns out to be the outstretched arm of the cadaver behind you.
10. It’s been three weeks since you’ve been to Target. Or any other store, for that matter.

Food Journal

Today's post is all about food.

Katie's birthday was last Tuesday and, besides me making her breakfast and then going to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, we went out to dinner to eat sushi. This is one type of food we don't have a lot of experience with. The restaurant we went to was called Tomoe. It got a rating of 27 out of 30 on food in the Zagat survey (this little book is an absolute must-have for any New Yorker). Just for comparison, the highest rated restaurants get a 28. The survey also said to be prepared to stand in line for a while.

Well, it was as if they knew Katie was coming because we waltzed right in and got a seat in the small space. We had miso soup, seaweed salad (6 different kinds of seaweed!), pan-fried noodles with veggies, and a sampler platter of sushi and sashimi. Both sushi and sashimi are raw fish, but the sushi comes with rice wrapped in seaweed (as opposed to sashimi which is just the raw fish). Among other things, there were pieces of red snapper, yellowtail and blue-fin tuna, salmon, shrimp, mackerel, octopus, squid, clam, roe, and spicy tuna rolls. You could tell the fish was super fresh because, though raw, it didn’t have a “fishy” smell; it was all very, very good. Then we had a bowl of red bean and green tea ice cream for dessert.

The next entry in this food journal is to describe a party we went to on Saturday night (which dribbled into Sunday early morning). My friend Ted, whom I have known since freshman year at college, is an interesting character who stumbled across a publication from a European art movement from the 1920s and 30s called the Futurists. They were all about the juxtaposition of disparate elements. This particular document was a cookbook: The Futurist Cookbook. Apparently, it not only had explanations of their artistic objectives, but recipes incorporating those objectives as well.

For example, at Ted’s party we sampled variously named dishes from the “Sunrise” (stacked beet slices, smoked salmon and orange slices), another named something like “Apparition of Liberty” (biscotti, date, gorgonzola cheese, salmon roe within a radicchio leaf), there were also foods whose artistic names I cannot recall that consisted of pineapple topped by tuna and macadamia nut; appetizer of fennel, cumquat and olive; bread topped by mustard, banana and sardine; and rice cooked in either beer or wine. To drink we had “Alcoholic Joust” which was red wine augmented by soda water, lemon-lime and bitters (kind of like a weird sangria) and served with Swiss cheese and chocolate on the side. Everything was surprisingly good, which made us eager to try the dessert: vanilla ice cream covered with one of the following: 1) cayenne pepper, 2) wasabi beans, 3) chopped green and orange bell peppers. The contrast of spice to sweetness was very striking and for me, the wasabi ice cream was absolutely delicious. There were also cayenne pepper soaked maraschino cherries.

A good time was had by all 20 or so people who crammed into Ted’s studio apartment, and Katie and I found ourselves at home around 2:30am. Yikes! We haven’t stayed out that late in some time. Now Katie is at school from 8-5 everyday (a subject on which she will probably write about here on the blog sometime next week) and I am doing some work for Mannes, playing some gigs, and trying to get some good work done on my dissertation.

The End Draws Near

Ahoy, maties. There has been much going on here, which has made it hard for us to update our beloved blog. I am here to give the update. Behold: a few weeks ago we went to see the Bodies Exhibit (www.bodiestheexhibition.com) and were completely impressed with the incredible nature of the human body. Dan insisted that I would learn something while we were there, and learn I did: the human eyeball remains the same size from birth until death, which is why babies have that doe-eyed look. It’s very difficult to describe this exhibit, so I recommend visiting the website listed above.

In other news, in his quest to force me to like opera, Dan insisted that I attend an opera with him, Mario and Elly at the Metropolitan Opera. We saw Rigoletto by Verdi. The opera was in Italian complete with subtitles on the seats in front of us, beautifully staged and three hours long. What do I remember the most about the evening, you might ask? David Blaine outside the opera house at Lincoln Center trying to beat the world record for living underwater in a bubble. See picture in our PICTURES section. Long live opera. Haha!

Dan also had a birthday recently, which we celebrated by visiting the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, a bird sanctuary 9,000 acres large. It was a really nice, sunny day and the birds were out en masse. We spotted many ducks, geese, gulls, swans, etc. one of which you can see me viewing (read: chasing) in our pictures. After this adventure we were off to procure Dan’s birthday gift of a baseball mitt and ball. We then had dinner at a really great Chinese seafood place in China Town. Age 28: success!

Speaking of adventures, we finally procured a bike for me, as I will be riding my bike to school for the next two years since it’s so close to our apartment. K-Mart was our destination, which was very fortunate considering the close proximity to our favorite wine store, Astor Wines. We rolled the new bike down to the wine store for a tasting before heading back to Brooklyn. My new bike, Wheeler, sullenly resides in our hallway.

More exciting was our Memorial Day weekend day trip on Sunday out to the North Fork of Long Island with Ben and Jara for even more wine tasting. We took off in the Ben&Jara Mobile at 9:30am and arrived at the first vineyard around 11am. There are many wineries out there, of which we hit 6, tasting over 30 wines throughout the day. We now understand the disgusting practice of spitting wine into a bucket when tasting…had we consumed that much wine during our 7 hours of wineries we would have been very sick. As it was, we took advantage of the sunny weather and visited many wineries, having the lunch we packed at one of the vineyards and taking a tour at another. We also ventured out to the Horton Point lighthouse (commissioned by George Washington in 1790, built in 1857) and took advantage of the grounds, including the beach where Dan and Ben had a rock-throwing contest (again, see pics). We ended the day with dinner at a great seafood place called Eon, which came highly recommended by the locals. In the end, we came home with a greater understanding of wine and a few more bottles to put in the wine rack.

As for me, tomorrow I live it up not only because it’s the last day before I start school and disappear from the face of the earth, but I also catch up with Dan; I will be 28. With that, I will sign off. I have to go buy some wrinkle cream.

Rigoletto, Orchestral Performances, and Medical School

This week has been a fun, but busy one (and it's only Thursday!) Last Thursday Katie and I discovered a new fun thing to do in New York City. Our friends, Mario and Elly (the Italians whose wedding we attended in Italy last year), took us down to Chelsea (around 8th Ave. and 23rd street) to see art gallery openings. I didn’t realize it, but this area of Manhattan has well over 100 galleries. Any given Thursday between 6-8pm several galleries will be having openings for new artists. You can tell which ones are doing this because of the small crowds of people gathered around outside. Inside the gallery (sometimes a small as a small bedroom), the gallery owners are usually pouring FREE wine and people are milling about and pondering the art. All the art is modern, but often quite striking. It is also very expensive (like $20,000 per piece). It was a lot of fun, and there was wine!

Monday through Wednesday afternoons I played with a group called the Seniors' Orchestra. I was subbing for an acquaintance of mine, and was the youngest person in the orchestra by at least 20 years. It is a group for retired union musicians, many of whom played with the New York Philharmonic. The first-chair horn player was the principal horn player of the Philharmonic some time ago. It was a good horn section and we played some hard literature (Sibelius Violin Concerto among other things), but some crowd pleasers, too (a medley from the Lerner and Loewe musical “My Fair Lady.” On Monday and Wednesday nights, I played with the Graduate Center Contemporary Ensemble—performing all new music written by my colleagues at the Grad Center. Tonight I go up to the Bronx to play Mozart’s “Così fan tutte” with the Bronx Opera Company. So, it’s been a busy playing week for me as well.

Katie, who had been waitlisted at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, just found out she was accepted. YAY KATIE!! So, this program begins May 31 and she is scrambling to fill out her paperwork and buy books. She had also been accepted at Long Island University’s Medical School, but SUNY is a public university and LIU is private, so SUNY will be much less expensive for us. The programs are comparable in terms of rigor and prestige. So now begins the long, arduous road to becoming a Physican Assistant. She will go 2 years straight (no breaks for summer), taking 1 year for “bookwork,” what is called the didactic year, and one year for hands-on work, the clinical year. She starts off this month with Anatomy (where she will work on dissecting real human cadavers….eewwwww) and Microbiology. Look for her updates in the coming year.

Adventures in Raganland. (part the last)

Hosting our first houseguest in our new, grandiose digs has proven a success. After Ragan departed (grudgingly) on Monday, Dan and I made the observation that our apartment wasn’t so different after he was gone than it was when he was here. As opposed to our old apartment where we rejoiced and did pirouettes through the living room once a houseguest had gone-to celebrate the reclamation of our space. Not to celebrate the absence of friend and/or family member. I swear. Except Mitch.
I believe the adventure left off with Dan at a gig and Ragan and I left to our own devices. We joked that while Ragan was here Dan had so many gigs that he was the one who woke us up at 5am and again at Midnight when he got home. Sans Dan, we had many adventures including, but not limited to: happy hour at Gin Mill, Costco excursion, wine run, Trader Joe’s on a Saturday (I don’t recommend this), French food, a subway incident in which I was punched, our neighbor’s housewarming party, and finally, our own 10 hour long housewarming party.
Really the only two things that need to be expounded upon are the subway incident and the housewarming party, so hear this: it has come to our attention that when we have people staying with us we are more susceptible to the miscreants and other dangers lurking on the subways of NYC. For example, when Mitch was visiting he was approached on a subway platform by a perfectly normal looking guy who proceeded to scrutinize Mitch’s shoes for hidden cameras and demand to know if said Mitch was an American. Enter Ragan. After a very nice dinner (without Dan, of course) we wondered back to the subway a few stops from our apartment. Everything was going as planned (one never plans to be accosted on the subway-at least I don’t) when our attention was turned to a woman in the far corned doing her best to yodel. Loudly. Ragan and I proceeded to go about our business of looking straight ahead so as not to attract her attention, and trying desperately not to laugh out loud. But this was not to be. The woman decided to get up and perform her rendition of pole dancing, dirty dancing and lap dancing with the patrons of the subway. Notice I say “with.” Woman or man, it did not matter to this woman. She was literally grinding up against and straddling anyone in her way. When she finally got to us, we were doing the best we could to avoid contact. But Ragan, as this crack head so eloquently put it, was too much of a “Pretty Boy” to leave alone. And here comes the leg! As she tried to straddle Ragan, she inadvertently straddled me because we were sitting right next to each other. So I pushed her leg off of me to which she replied, “don’t touch me!” HELLO?! DON’T STRADDLE ME! Then I made what everyone claims was an inflammatory comment, “great, Ragan, now we have to wash your clothes.” To which Crack Head Woman responded with “what did you say?” Thus the punching began. She reached across Ragan and punched me in the upper right arm. This caught us both off guard and Ragan put his arms up to ward her off. We both got up, with Ragan protecting me as CHW is throwing punches OVER Ragan to try to get at me. Now, there were other words being hurled at us, but I fear they may be too descriptive for the children or the faint of heart reading this. So please, censor this: CHW was so enraged that she conjured up the most rancid, horrible phrase she could to shout at me. Doo Doo Mouth. That’s right, this woman who was obviously high on something was only able to come up with the insult of Doo Doo Mouth. Ragan and I got off the subway at the last stop laughing all the way up the stairs, grateful to get away from this foul woman. My arm is healing well, the bruise a mere triangle of knuckles at this point, thanks for asking.
As for the housewarming party, it was also a success, but what is there to say about a successful party? We had about 18 people all together throughout the afternoon and evening. I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Our Adventures with Ragan! (part the first)

So, Ragan is here now...there is fun in the air! He arrived on Wednesday and came out to Hofstra to see the campus and sit in on a class that I taught. Unfortunately for him, the class was doing a task called Sing and Play that didn't allow him to fully enjoy the normally energetic interactions I have with my class. Then we went back to Brooklyn...Ragan says I am verbose, but he doesn't know jack...and hung out, looking at some computer stuff and going to a very tasty Jamaican place for lunch. I went to a rehearsal in the evening and Ragan and Katie (who had just gotten off work) went to go get a bite to eat. Later, we all joined up to watch some DVDs and drink wine. Thursday, we all went to Lombardi's (one of the oldest pizza places in NYC) and decided we liked Grimaldi's better (the place in Brooklyn that Katie and I have taken many of our visitors that gets rated best pizza in NYC). Katie went to go run errands, and Ragan and I went to Jacques Torres choclatier and he got some tasty goodies. I went to another rehearsal (in Connecticut) and got back pretty late. Today I had to teach at Hofstra and Katie had to work, so Ragan went to the Met Museum, and then joined my at home to wait for Bird. Then it was on to the Brooklyn Brewery (from which we stole our logo but also purchased a case of Lager for our party on Sunday--see their website, linked at the right) for happy hour. We ordered pizza and sampled many of the offerings, including: India Pale Ale, Smoked Porter, Saisonal, Brewers' Reserve, Weisse, Brooklyn Brown, and Pilsner. All were tasty and good. Ragan leaves on Monday, so we'll blog again about the rest of his trip and our housewarming party.

I have to say, though, it is much nicer having an extra bedroom for guests. I don't have to worry so much now about turning on lights and making too much noise during my very early mornings. I can eat my cereal sitting down at the table (rather than furtively scarfing it in the the kitchen while standing). Ragan claims he is sleeping well.

Check out the pictures we have posted (click on the link at the right of this page).

Cereal Nirvana

Those who know me well, know that I LOVE cereal (even more than Coke). I eat at least two bowls of cereal for breakfast every morning. Naturally, I go through cereal like it was going out of style. Katie and I usually stock up on three big boxes of cereal when we go to Costco. This lasts me about a month. She eats cereal only very occasionally. Which is fine with me. We also look out for good sales at the supermarket. So I now find myself situated at a wonderful confluence of events: a "premature" trip to Costco in order to prepare for our housewarming party on Sunday (at which we bought more cereal), remaining cereal from our last trip to Costco, and two separate sales at Pathmark Supermarket--one on Kix (at which Katie bought 3 boxes) and another sale: buy one, get one free on Life and Oh's. So now, instead of Cheerios and Honeynut Cheerios as my only two cereal options (which I don't mind, since I will gladly eat Cheerios any day of the week), I now have, get this: Cheerios, Frosted Flakes, Kix, Life, Oh's, Frosted Mini-wheats, and Honey Bunches of Oats (not pictured).

Each morning I am almost completely paralyzed when faced with the difficult decision of which cereal to ingest. I don't know if you've ever been faced with such an overwhelming sensory overload that you were rendered helpless, but I assure you, it is disorienting and confusing. Sometimes in order to combat this feeling (I am almost ashamed to admit this), I will actually eat TWO DIFFERENT TYPES OF CEREAL for breakfast...can you imagine!? I tend to start with a less sugary one first, and work my way up to a more sugary one. Not that any is totally laden with too much sugar. No Fruit Loops or Lucky Charms here...I can tell you that right now, boy.

I could go on about cereal for some time, but I feel like I might bore some of you. Besides, it's lunchtime--I wonder if we have any milk left?

Happy Easter!

Although Spring officially started a few weeks ago, it's only been in the last week or so where the weather has been nice. The cherry trees in front of the museum are in full bloom and the moon was close to full. We were coming back from Holy Thursday service (at which Katie and I had our feet washed! We were asked by the priest to participate after Katie drew his blood at the parish blood drive last Sunday! The feet washing represents Jesus' washing of his disciples feet at the Last Supper.) and I just couldn't resist taking a picture as we walked by, and the picture hardly does the whole scene justice. This part of our neighborhood can be quite beautiful (witness the New York City tour buses coming down this way with tons of sightseers) and it is only about a 5 minutes walk from our place.

Today it will get into the mid-70s. It is kind of misty, but I think it will burn off later in the day. Katie and I are going to the Easter Vigil since I am playing two Easter services tomorrow at an Anglican church. We are still working at getting our apartment into a state where in can be photographed. There are fewer mounds of things (papers, books, pictures, posters, appliances, food, etc.) around the apartment, and big pieces such as tables, beds, bookshelves and futons are now in their fixed places (I hope!). We have had to be a little creative in setting up the apartment because, being an older building (built in 1928), there are very few electrical outlets. Only one in our bedroom and only 2 outlets in each of the other 2 rooms. Yikes.

I am enjoying my Spring Break from Hofstra. It will be good to get back, though, to finish out the semester (only about 3 weeks left!) starting next Wednesday. It would have been very hard to move and get the apartment into shape if I had been teaching all last week.

Katie worked Good Friday, and she is working today. I work tomorrow at the Anglican church, but we both get a chance to relax at our friends' apartment tomorrow afternoon. Ben and Jara are preparing a feast, according to what they have hinted at, although we are not exactly sure what they are making.

If you read the blog before Easter, we wish you a very happy holiday, and if you read it after, we hope you had a happy, relaxing holiday!

Moving...moving...moving

So we are slowly getting things moved to what will become their new places. Katie has been very helpful with this, as I was studying for the retest for the oral portion of my comprehensive exam (which I didn't quite pass in February). The good news is that I passed this time around (I had brushed up on some current theories of music that I hadn't quite studied enough last time around). Now I just have to write the dissertation. Yikes...I'll report back 200-300 pages from now (ugh).

To celebrate this academic good news, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and spent some time at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (www.bbg.org), a 5 minute walk from our place. We fed the ducks, took pictures for tourists, strolled through the different areas (Japanese garden, rock garden, magnolia plaza), and just enjoyed the sun and the wonderful fragrances! I posted some of the pictures (click here to see them).

We'll post new pics of the apartment once we get it a little more organized.

We've Moved!

We have officially relocated. Our hopes were such that any official move would land us back in the NW. Alas, we are making baby steps and have merely moved across the hall. At this rate we will return to the NW, let’s see…never. Never fear, though, this move is only temporary while we wait out our last two years in NYC.
Now might be a good time to update our address in your books. We are in the same building, only the apartment # has changed. It is now 6F. Also, we severed our landline and are now completely wireless. (Dan still has wires.)
Some of you might wonder how, when, where, why this move has taken place. Others don’t care. And the privileged few who have had to put up with my constant (and endearing) recounting of my “lack of storage space” dreams can breath a sigh of relief: We have an extra bedroom! And closets (5)! But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me begin at the beginning:
It was a dark and stormy night. Wait, that’s a different story…
About three weeks ago we noticed a notice (haha) on the door of 6F stating that the apartment had been seized by the fire marshal. Intent on doing some seizing of my own, I cornered one of the maintenance men I had seen doing work on the apartment and found out that it’s a two bedroom. This set the wheels in motion. I called management and was told the apartment would be ready in a few weeks, to call back at that time. Meanwhile, my “lack of space” dreams were intensifying and my Dan was making plans to have me institutionalized. Dan and I were able to do a walk through of the place before it was finished and I immediately began planning out where all of our stuff would go once we moved in. They had redone all the hardwood floors, painted and put in brand new kitchen appliances, tile and cabinets. Of course, when I called back in a week to inquire again the landlord had someone in mind to put in there. THE HORROR! I expressed my disappointment and asked that, should the other renter fall through, we be kept in mind. After some minor haggling over rent and the craziness of finding a renter for 6H on Craig’s List, we are in the bigger, better apartment. Yes, bigger is better.
Our friend’s Ben and Jara helped us move in yesterday. Dan and Ben mostly moved, Jara and I mostly went to Target and Bed Bath & Beyond. We had dinner here (courtesy of Jara-I told her we would feed them for helping us if they brought the food). After realizing our new stove didn’t have gas yet, Jara was forced back into our old apartment to heat up the enchiladas and make the rice. We joked that she was cooking in the servant’s smaller quarters and would be bringing us our meal in the “big house.”
And this brings us to the end of our saga. More pictures will follow once we have everything organized, arranged and cleaned. Which may never happen.
The idea now is to weed out the stuff we haven’t used in five years and maintain a nice, capacious home. Dan is resistant due to the “pack rat” genes he inherited from a certain someone, but he is coming around. Some things may have to be mysteriously “lost” in the move. As for my Monday evening plans? Takeout.

Out like a Lamb

I am including some more pictures of the big snow storm from last month. I am also including some new pictures of Spring (see the fish and swans are back in the parks!) and of our NEW COMPUTER!! We are online from home again will our new Dell laptop. It is really fast and does all sorts of neat things we are just now discovering. I can get the new pictures up online with the memory stick reader in the computer rather than wasting camera batteries while hooked up via a USB cable. This is a good thing.

Besides being incredibly fun, the computer is supposed to help us with our academic pursuits. I plan to take it to the library to do work on my dissertation. Katie may take it to school sometimes. We are keeping our old laptop around for when we both need a computer. This new one only weighs about 5 pounds though. It has wireless capabilities, too. We can tote it down to the museum or botanic garden and take advantage of the free wireless hotspots there. This is literally 100 times faster than dial-up. Yikes!

It's been a while since we last posted anything here. I have been very busy playing my horn this month. Maybe only 3-4 evenings off since the second week of March. It is good to be playing often again. I feel like a musician again. Studying for the huge exams at the end of January really took me out of the running for awhile, which coincided with a dropoff in work anyway (so it worked out for the best). I am hoping now to submit a dissertation proposal in May. We'll see if I can beat the deadline.

Katie is working a ton (she took my blood when I donated last week) sometimes 6 days a week. They have her doing all sorts of things at the hospital. Drawing blood being her chief occupation, but she is also working at times in the lab. Helping process and order tests for the various fluids that come there from different far-flung reaches of the hospital.

I hope you enjoy the new pictures, and rest assured that now that we have an at-home computer and connection, we'll be posting more often.

In like a Lion

March is here.

We had another little ice/snow/sleet storm that only left about a 1/2 inch encrustation of icy muck on the ground. Not enought to cancel the LIRR trains, like the last storm (of which more pictures are shortly forthcoming).

Katie and I have just been working and working the past few weeks. This week, however, I will take a break from my normal duties at Mannes College to help with their college auditions (read: everyone else is on a spring break while I am still working at Mannes). This is fun work though. We test the theory and ear training skills of incoming students, some applying for undergraduate programs, some for graduate. If you have ever watched the TV show American Idol, there is an element of the early stages of that show wrapped up in college auditions; some people truly do not belong in the audition process of a conservatory--they can barely read music and wouldn't know Edward Elgar from their elbow. It's also a chance for the teachers to get together and shoot the breeze in between auditioners. Plus, there is free food there!

Katie is still waiting to hear from SUNY Downstate. They just keep telling her to call back. So she does, and the cycle repeats. She is also working at the hospital more since a pregnant colleague of hers was put on bed rest.

Last night, we had leftover lasagna which was vert tasty and a really good red wine. Vitiano by Falesco winery. Imported by Winebow (see their website at www.winebow.com). Very, very yummy and only about $8. We watched a Bollywood movie from India called "Lagaan." It was a period drama about the early 1890s when the British were still in control. Lots of singing and dancing and a wicked game of cricket. I don't really understand the rules of cricket, but the movie overall was pretty fun to watch. Subtitles for the Hindi parts, but still, much of it was in English.

The next two weeks, I'll be super busy with gigs up in the Bronx (South Pacific), a music theory conference at Mannes I am helping with, and a friend's concert at Juilliard on which he is playing two piano concertos, one by Mozart and a new one of his own. I'll also be subbing for another Hofstra professor for about 6 classes. When it rains, it pours. Sometime in there, hopefully, we'll be buying a new laptop computer....till then!

Winter Update Part 2

So, the winter storm that is being called the "Blizzard of '06" is here in full force. Luckily, our friend Mitch decided to bail out last night by getting bumped to the jetBlue flight leaving yesterday. He would have been stuck if he tried to leave today as originally planned--all 3 major airports in the NYC-area are closed. We are officially snowed in. Another few inches in Central Park and this will be the biggest snow storm here since they started keeping records over 100 years ago! In Brooklyn where we live, there is already over a foot of snow, and talking to some of my friends in other places north of the city, they have over 2 feet!

We went to Mass this morning, and even Mass started late! On the way home we took some pictures, which you can see if you click here . The wind was gusting to up to 50 miles an hour at times, and it blew snow into our apartment through some chinks in the window frames (yay for old buildings with single pane windows in wooden frames). Our apartment is on the chilly side at the moment. We spent some time this morning putting towels over the places in the windows where the snow was blowing in, and cleaned up the few inches that had accumulated on the window sills in the living room. Yikes! If we had decided to watch the Winter Olympics then, it would have felt like we were actually there, experiencing the cold and the snow.

Winter Update Part 1

Well, here's the report on the massive test I took. It was a 12-hour exam spaced over 2 days (6 hrs/day). The first day was 3 essays of about 2 hours each. There were two questions per essay from which one could choose. The second day was a musical analysis. I was given a piece I had never seen before and had 6 hours to explain it, using whatever means I had at my disposal. A week later, there was a 1 hour oral exam. I found out that my written test was mostly very good, but during the course of the oral, I discovered that my knowledge of current research was not as up-to-date as I had thought. I need to read up a bit more and go interview with my panel once again in about 2 months. Then the only hurdle left is the big dissertation. Meanwhile, Katie found out she got into Long Island University's PA program!!! We are super excited. She has worked long and hard to get accepted. She will write more in this blog later, as she recently interviewed at another PA program at SUNY Downstate (also in Brooklyn), and wants to give a complete account.

In other news, Mitch Mankowski, our friend from Mtn View High School came to visit. He came out last Friday. We went to the free night at the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) and saw some pretty outlandish stuff. We DID get to see Van Gogh's "Starry Night" which had been on tour somewhere last time Mitch came to visit (this is one of his favorite artworks). The following night, I went to go see the Hofstra production of Bizet's "Carmen," which the students (many of whom I teach or have taught) played/sang exceedingly well. Mitch and Katie went to the Brooklyn Museum. The next day, we went to our friends Ben and Jara's apartment to watch the (very disappointing) Superbowl. They are such gracious hosts--they made homemade guacamole and chili. Yum!!

Speaking of food: also during his visit, Mitch and I went to Grimaldi's (the best pizza in the city), an Ethiopian restaurant, an artisinal chocolate shop called Jaques Torres, and the three of us went to Thai food, really good Chinese food, an all-rice-pudding dessert spot called Rice-to-Riches that had over 20 flavors of rice pudding, and Katie and Mitch visited the renowned Carnegie Deli.

Mitch also brought his laptop computer, which has many TV shows stored on it; we basically watched an entire season of Arrested Development (a Fox network sitcom) and most of the second season of the sci-fi hit Battlestar Galactica (not the 70s show). Fun times. We drank lots of beer/wine/liquor while he was here (never to excess of course). He had the foresight to move his departure up one day to avoid the huge storm that was forecast on the news. It turned out, that was the best choice he could have made, and, although we were sad to see him go, we are glad he's not stranded at the airport.

A visit from Mark Mohammadpour

Last night Katie and I had the pleasure of seeing Mark, our friend from high school. Actually, Katie and Mark went to elementary school together. Wow. I didn't meet him till Mountain View HS. Mark is now working for a PR firm in Portland, OR. He was in NYC representing Microsoft among other tech companies. He stayed at this really Euro-style hotel on 58th called the Hudson. We took him to see the new Time Warner building and figured we would go to the West Village for dinner. It was Mark's first time ever on the NYC subway. Had really yummy Italian food and afterward we went to the Magnolia Bakery for dessert--cupcakes of course.
Katie and I had been there many times in the past, but it recently became famous in a very funny Saturday Night Live skit involving the new movie based on CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. And yes, they do have incredibly delicious cupcakes. Katie and Mark were overwhelmed by the richness of the frosting and couldn't eat it all, but I was able to overcome the mighty challenge the über-rich frosting posed, eating my ENTIRE cupcake while STANDING UP and ENJOYING EVERY LAST CRUMB. Take that Magnolia Bakery cupcake! Mark was able to pick some up for his client, who had also seen the SNL skit (now making the rounds on the internet) and had expressed desire for the cupcakes. So we helped Mark score some points. We then saw him off on the subway and went home.

I am getting back into the school grind--Mannes classes have been running since Jan. 3, but now Hofstra is starting Monday, Jan. 30 so I will be back to basically full time. Katie is working a ton and working on polishing her interview questions for schools. We'll write more on certain things (such as my comprehensive exams and her interviews) in the next few days or weeks once they are totally complete (for example, I have taken the written exam, but I won't know if I pass until I take the oral exam on Friday). After that, we'll give you the post-mortem. So stay tuned....

Female Partridge Found, Housed

Things are finally getting back to normal for us after the craziness of the holidays. Although “normal” for us is right around mach speed, so I will get on with the update. Gayle, Dan’s lovely sister, was lucky enough to have a business conference in NYC recently. And since her company was picking up the airfare, she decided to extend her stay at our place and soak in the luxury that is Casa Dan and Bird. Okay, so I am using the term ‘luxury’ loosely, a point to which Gayle can attest should you ask her about our shower, especially after she experienced the Marriot Marquis in Times Square. In our defense, I told her that if the water pressure changes she must immediately remove herself from the stream. Aside from all of that, we managed to have a lot of fun beginning with the formal gala dinner Gayle was able to invite me to at the end of her conference. Sorry, Dan, you do this stuff all the time. Gayle and I got dressed up and took advantage of the cocktail hour before the dinner, during dinner (five courses) and after dinner (at the after party held in a two-level hotel room on the 43rd floor). We stumbled our way to the subway with Gayle’s bag in tow and back to Brooklyn at around 3am.

The next day was pretty relaxing for the girls, as we needed to recover a bit from the festivities. We made cinnamon French toast (and I do mean cinnamon, thanks to Dan who neglected to gently shake said cinnamon into the batter, and instead poured half the contents of the cinnamon bottle in) and bacon for breakfast, played a few games and basically sat around. I should mention that Dan was in a flurry of studying for his comprehensive exam (which he finishes today) and was rarely heard from during Gayle’s visit. We included him in certain things, like eating and ice skating. For the most part, Gayle and I shopped and chatted, played games and watched the Sound of Music sans the Dan.

Speaking of ice skating (were we?), the ice rink at Bryant Park in the city was in its last days of winter operation, so we took advantage of the 60 degree weather, donned rented ice skates and blazed into the rink. And by blazed I do mean wobbled, lurched, careened, reeled and bumbled, threatening to take out anyone who might dare cross our path. Generally we were successful skaters and became more confident with each turn around the rink. The one actual contact with the ice came when Dan unsuspectingly said to me “I love you, Bird” to which I replied “AIYAAAAAAA!!!” and proceeded to plummet to the icy ground. My attempt to bring him down with me as retribution failed and he has since been instructed never to say those words again while I am on ice.

Alas, my rambling narrative is nearing its end. We should have something new to post later on in the month, once Dan gets the results of his exam and I have (mentally) healed from the ice incident.

New Year's Update

Happy 2006 Everyone!

Katie had to work New Year's Eve until 11pm so we had a late dinner. I made a cheese soufflé with bay shrimp, a creamy onion-parmegian-cheese soup with mushrooms and parsely, and peas. There was also champagne involved as we ate dinner until midnight and watched the ball drop on TV. They said on the tube that something like 85% of the people at Times Sq. are from out of town. I believe it; no way am I going to wait 9 hours in the freezing cold to watch a ball drop for 1 minute in the middle of the night.

Katie and I also wait until New Year's to "open" our "Christmas" stockings (long story). I got some Hickory Farms sausage and cheese (mmmmmm......sausage...drool drool), some chocolate, new ear buds since my old headphones broke, a very small bottle of wine (more of a vial really), and various other things. Katie got some stickers, a very small bottle of Champagne, some arts/crafts stuff for her card-making hobby, the new Paul McCartney CD, a cinnamon candle in a red glass holder that looks like a Christmas ornament, and some other stuff. Fun times!

Also, Ben and Jara came over this morning and took their birds (Cleo and Alfie) back home. We will miss those little squawkers....although not really. (Note to Ben and Jara: we will be happy to watch them again at some point in the future, probably NOT next week.)

My huge huge huge exam is in exactly 2 weeks. I am studying like a crazy man who loves to study. Wish me luck. It is unfortunate that this exam coincides with the NFL playoffs. I guess I'll just have to read box scores in the paper and enjoy watching the Superbowl in Feb. (go Seahawks!).

That is all for now.