Dan and Bird's Pacific Northwest Journal-News

Oh Crap II

2010-09-20T16:10:00.000-07:00

The house on which we made an offer--you may remember from the last blog post that it was a short sale--has "anti-miraculously" gone off the market. We will probably not get it, although there is a non-zero chance we still could. Thus we have our first gloves-off encounter with the wild and crazy world of real estate. Also known as competitive back-stabbing.

Bird was crushed. We have self-medicated to some degree. Katie went on a shopping spree for Evi; true to Bird form, however, she got everything like 75% or more off the retail price. The clothes are super cute. She is also in planning overdrive for Evi's 2-year birthday party. As for myself, I convinced my good friend to drive down from Seattle and accompany me to Newport, OR where I was playing with the local symphony. After rehearsal, he and I went to Local Ocean and ate a GREAT locavore seafood dinner and then spent some quality-time at the Rogue Public House where we tried many, many samplers of their draft beer and spirits (such as hazelnut rum--delicious if a bit too sweet!), most unavailable at stores up here. We bought two gigantic Dungeness crabs and took them back to the fam. Katie's sister, Courtney, and I cracked the crabs and we had a seafood feast that night. I plan on using leftovers to make crab bisque tonight. Okay, enough obsessing about self-medicating through food.

Now it's back to house-hunting and preparing for Baby Girl #2, who is scheduled to arrive in early January, but who, if she displays her mother's penchant for financial wizardry and economy, will be born on Dec. 31 to take advantage of the tax credit that parents get for having children.

(Wow, only a week between posts...who knew we'd be so quick to post again after the last one? Not I!)

Oh Crap

2010-09-08T23:36:00.000-07:00

Man, we just never post here any more. Luckily, we are very diligent about posting new stuff to our flickr account every couple of weeks or so for the three or four of you who actually care enough to check in on us from time to time (or have an RSS feed). But I feel I have to write SOMETHING, since my cousin just started a blog about her Spanish study abroad and put a link to our blog on hers. D'oh. All her friends are going to think we're totally lame....if they even click through, which they probably won't, since they are all busy college students and majoring in either Applied Apathy or Comparative Anatomy and too lazy or busy, respectively, to actually follow the link on her blog.

Anyhooo...we just had a very pleasant visit from some NYC friends. We never miss the city itself, but we DO miss our friends. It is great for them to visit us here, especially since it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to travel. Especially since Katie is pregnant. Now, there are two reactions a person can have after reading that last sentence. If yours was "HOLY CRAP!! HOW LONG? WHEN'S THE DUE DATE?! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?!?!?" then I am sorry that you had to find out this way. We are bad friends. But you'll be happy to know we are having another girl and everything is going well so far. We both read a hilarious (an hilarious? ...what's the proper article here?) book recently called "Waiting for Birdy" about a woman with a kid who is pregnant. Witheringly funny. But raises some good questions about how to prep the current kid, who is at the moment the center of the universe, to become something like Pluto AFTER its demotion to not-a-planet. I hope Evi likes TV, because she's probably going to watch a lot more of it come January. She'll probably also have a subsistence diet of flat Coke and day-old mac and cheese.

Our cat, Ringo, is becoming quite the porker. Recently, we learned from our Chinese neighbors that "Ringo LOVES Chinese food." Evi says this like a mantra now. It's pretty cute, but slightly socially awkward at the mall when we are around other Asians.

I am playing several symphony concerts in the next few weeks. Yay. My multi-tens-of-thousands-of-dollars graduate degrees are paying off! Time to start debt repayments! Katie is working a lot (refer to last sentence). And, oh, we're buying a house. Oh wait! You didn't know that either?! Go back to the last paragraph and re-read the sentence that says we are bad friends. The house was a short sale, which means we get it as is, so there are a few cosmetic things to do to it before we move in, and it took the seller's bank like 3-4 months to get back to us. So, we're looking at a fun few months where we buy and renovate a house while simultaneously flying to Hawaii for my brother's wedding (lemme guess...you didn't know about that either?) and then have another kid. FUN TIMES. I'd hate to see what busy people's lives are like. If I never post again, you'll know it's because Katie took a heavy-gauge nail gun to my ocular cavities during home renovations.

So that's the current post in a nutshell. The rate we're going, regarding our sporadic blog posts, check back next time for a report on Evi's high school graduation and the latest news about our state-of-the-art, laser-guided pig farm. Did I mention the pigs will play symphonic music while harvesting hazelnuts? Oink.

PS. After reading over this post, I now firmly believe I should always post after drinking a couple glasses of wine (as I have just done). Stream of consciousness blogging is so much more random and spontaneous. All hail the unfettered authorial Id.

Major update--Spring 2010

2010-04-25T21:30:00.006-07:00

So we haven't posted for a very, very long time. Since last September actually. We have been regularly updating our pictures of Evi on flickr though (see the flickr badges at the side and bottom of our blog?). So we aren't entirely leaving you out in the cold here, people. But I thought it might be nice to write an update about life here in the Pacific Northwest, especially for you New Yorkers and other out-of-staters that miss us so terribly. A lot has happened. I'll try to keep it brief. I'll try.

Evi is having an explosion of language. It seems like she is saying 3-4 new words a day. She knows almost all of her letters, colors, and numbers. She counts like this "1....2.....3.....9..10" We're still working on 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. She says "ABCDs" like one word. She's also growing like a weed and definitely looks like a little girl now and not a baby anymore. She's still signs when she talks, which is really cute. And also helpful--juice, shoes, and chase all sound like "shooose." We're also starting to potty train Evi. So far, so good. It is really nice not having to change poopy diapers anymore. She is doing a pretty good job of telling us when she needs to go. She has a funny habit of looking into the training toilet after she goes #2 and saying "biggie!" It's hilarious. She also read the word "diaper" off the side of a plain brown package that she had never seen before. She didn't know what was inside and hadn't seen us take anything out. Yikes! We have been showing her DVDs called "Your Baby can Read" but we didn't know they would work so quickly. We'll let you know when she starts reading Dostoevsky.

Katie is still really liking her job, and has occasionally even worked at the clinic location right by our house (3 minute drive). You may recall that it was at this location that we were told she would eventually be working regularly, but that has not come to pass--other locations (15-20 minute drive away) have been her regular posts. Still, after NYC commutes on the subway or bus, a 15 minute drive with no traffic seems super easy and often enjoyable.

Dan has gone back to NYC for a couple of gigs, and also started making contacts out here, playing several concerts here and one, this past weekend, out at the coast at Newport, OR. A beach-side homestay and free food were part of the package. Fun times! He also recently won a fugue contest at Mannes college. A fugue is a type of composition where a melody, stated by itself at first, is repeated with variations in three or four different voices. There are certain rules one must follow. Every spring Mannes posts a fugue subject on its website and contestants have 2 weeks to write an entire fugue. This was Dan's first attempt and he is very happy to have won, especially since there was a pretty nice cash prize attached (too bad winners can't compete in succeeding years). We included the audio clip below so interested people can listen to it.

We also got a CAT, kitten really. His name is Ringo...we had a Facebook contest to name him, but Dan ended up getting the winning entry (the contest was totally rigged, but some front runners were OJ, Rufus, and Fang). Ringo has orange and white rings on his tail, and his name also pays homage to the Beatles drummer. Evi and he are learning how to live with each other; they are both very fond of one another but occasionally have bouts of sibling rivalry and try to maim/kill each other. Time outs for all!

It's also getting very nice out here in the Northwest. Spring is Dan's favorite season and he's going to try to grow chives, basil, and tomatoes (and some flowers--we'll keep our fingers crossed). Evi helped him plant stuff last weekend. Ringo watched with keen interest.

Come visit us! We have a guest room. With a queen bed and your own bathroom! That is all for now.

Signing Time

2009-09-15T18:37:00.002-07:00

Ah, the Signing Time videos. They are terrible. And amazing. Evi loves them, but the adults are all a bit scared of the host, Rachel, who is, well...scary. But Evi loves these videos which we let her watch a few times a week. She is getting really good at signing and has added about one sign a day for the last week! Here is her list (ooh, a list!) of current signs:

1. food (this is her favorite)
2. more (2nd favorite..she was signing "more food" in her sleep the other night)
3. cracker (we are seeing a trend)
4. banana
5. dog
6. bath
7. baby
8. fan
9. water
10. milk
11. Daddy
12. Grandma
13. book
14. tree

Slap!

2009-09-15T18:28:00.002-07:00

Every once in a while Evi has a bad night. She will usually go right back to sleep in the middle of the night with a little bit of milk and a soothing butt-pat. Not this night. She was fussy and wiggly and frustrating! Luckily we have a great baby carrier that serves to soothe the wild beasty. I wrestled it on in the dark, in my sleep-deprived state, then proceeded to wrestle Evi into it as well. Success! She calmed down immediately, snuggled her head onto my chest and fell asleep. The (very slow) time ticked away and I was thinking I might be able to take her out and put her in her crib. At almost this exact moment, Evi suddenly pushed herself away from me, looked me in the eye, swung her hand back and SLAPPED me across the face! WTF?! She immediately snuggled right back up to me and fell back to sleep.

End of Trip, Beginning of New Chapter

2009-07-19T23:21:00.002-07:00

So, we are sorely behind in our blogging. To recap:

1) We finished our trip by driving from Bloomington to Oak Ridge, TN to visit Dan's Uncle Mike and family. Many games were played, cliffs were jumped off of (into deep, refreshing lake waters--after which muscles were sore), great meals were eaten, three cousins were seen one of whom just graduated from high school and just went off to the US Air Force academy, more games were played, waters were skiied and wakeboarded, more games were played. Awesome.

2) Then we flew to Austin, TX to see Dan's sister Gayle. It was like an oven down there...over a hundred degrees every day we were there. I (Dan) played as a sub for Gayle's softball team as the DH (so I "warmed" the bench when the team was out on the field, but since it was so hot, I was probably more of a "bench cooler" than a "bench warmer") and went 2-2 and scored a run. Evi maintained a cool acquaintance with Gayle's cat Peaches, neither were really sure what to do with the other. Many games were played here too. Katie and I had never been to TX, outside the airports, so it was neat to explore downtown Austin (heard a free concert in the park one night) and drove down to San Antonio to see the Alamo and the River Walk. Very fun.

3) We flew back to Portland, OR and stayed with Dan's parents for awhile before we found a wonderful house to rent in north Vancouver, WA. It has 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms (one for me, one for Bird, and, since Evi is so small, a 1/2 bath for her), a small but nice yard and...we are paying the SAME RENT as our dinky Brooklyn apartment! Love it. Although we hated the whole time-consuming process of unpacking of boxes and moving of incredibly heavy furniture bit. I am slowly mastering the manly art of outdoor grilling, which was sorely neglected in the concrete jungle of NYC. Yum. I am also loving all the readily available, super tasty microbrews from here in the PNW. I do miss me my Brooklyn Lager, though. Katie starts her new job at the clinic soon, and I will be working on my dissertation. It is great to have family (my parents, Katie's Dad and sister, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc.) close by. We are very happy.

4) Lastly, since we no longer live in Brooklyn, I restyled the look of the blog as you will plainly notice. Brooklyn Blogger is dead, Long live Dan and Bird's Pacific Northwest Journal!

We have already posted many pictures and videos of our trip at flickr, and will be catching up even more in the coming days, including pics of our new house, and videos of Evi, who is cutting 3 new teeth in her upper gum! Stay tuned, and, as things fall into normalcy and routine, look for more frequent updates (I hope).

Illinois and Indiana Fun

2009-06-12T14:18:00.003-07:00

We're here in Indiana now, after spending some time in Chicago with our friends there. We saw all kinds of cool stuff, like the Institute of Art with all it's famous paintings and sculptures. Evi did great there, happily vocalizing as we meandered through the galleries. I'm not sure how much she enjoyed the art, but lots of the patrons enjoyed interacting with her. We also went to the Shedd Aquarium and Evi was really interested in the fish there. That was such a cool place...so many cool aquatic animals!! Really good food in the food court, too! We also walked all around and saw the Cloud Gate, which most locals call "The Bean" a giant, reflective, curvilinear form. Neat...see our flickr pictures if you want to actually see what I am writing about.

Then we went to Plainfield, IN, a suburb of Indianapolis, where we spend some time with a family of four, whom we knew as a family of three in Brooklyn. Evi was really interested in the doings of the two kids, 5 and 1. The one-year old was "Evi's boyfriend" according to his 5-year old sister. So cute...again, see the pictures at flickr. Now we are in Bloomington, having got a tour of the IU campus from our friend who teaches there. He and his wife have a super cute 2-year old girl, who, again, entertains Evi to no end. We are having a lot of fun just relaxing now and hanging out with friends.

Family next...Dan's uncle and aunt and family in Tennessee and his sister in Austin. Updates from those places. As much fun as this trip is, we are really excited to return to the Pacific Northwest!! Yay!

Sleep Like a Baby

2009-05-15T12:19:00.001-07:00

There is a disconnect between the phrase “sleep like a baby” and our actual baby. Unless the original meaning is that babies sleep lightly; fitfully; sporadically. Although I shouldn’t complain, because last night Evi slept for four hours straight! This may be the longest period of consecutive sleep I have gotten in months, although I cannot accurately calculate this, as sleep deprivation makes my already questionable math skills even shakier. And I should mention that in order for me to have gotten this much (!) sleep I had to actually go to bed when Evi did: at 8:15pm. I know, I know! I am an adult! I should have stayed up to get things done, to conquer the growing tower of unfilled boxes and unpacked belongings, to organize like only I can, to eat dinner. None of this was as appealing to me as sleep, though, and so I slept the sweet sleep of exhaustion and I have no shame for the fact that most 80 year olds probably went to bed later than I did.
And what is the deal with this baby, anyway? Why must the conditions be perfect and the stars align in order for her to sleep? She can sleep through a siren on the street but if I brush my teeth her eyes pop open like I crashed cymbals. She is hyper-mobile at all times, going so far as to flip into the air and onto her back, panting like a trained dog when I come in with a bottle. But when she wants to turn onto her belly in order to sleep, she can’t make it over and wails like a banshee unless I give her an assist, pat her back and “shush-shush” like a wild woman. I would write more but I am so tired. So, so tired.

Evi Eats Everything!

2009-05-12T12:44:00.001-07:00

Evi has peas in her hair, squash on her arm and applesauce up her nose. Hello, solid foods! The rate of her development is astounding us; she sits up on her own and flails her arms about as if to happily display her new talent. “Watch me, parents!” We are watching, baby…we can hardly take our eyes off of you! She scoots, and the threat of crawling looms dangerously near. She popped her first teeth this week, two of them, which adds a fun new twist to the aforementioned solid foods, as she chomps down on the spoon with each new spoonful…eating takes a while around here these days.

As for the adult-like figures, we are busily (and happily, gleefully, rambunctiously!) packing our apartment in preparation for the much anticipated flee across the country. Oh, didn’t I tell you? We are moving back to the NW! Why? Bird is employed! As a PA! In Vancouver! The job pays money! And benefits! Four weeks of vacation! So many exclamation points! ‘Tis true, though, all of it. We will be packing up our scant (after a purge on Craigslist) belongings on May 27th and making an incredibly zig-zagging return to the NW via Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee and Texas. (Apparently we only know people who live in states that begin with “I’s” and “T’s”)

We will be maintaining our respective e-mail addresses and phone numbers should any of you feel inclined to call for more information. Adios, New York City!

April Update

2009-04-20T17:12:00.002-07:00

So it's been a while since we put up a blog post--we've just been so busy reveling in Katie's being a newly minted PA that we haven't had time to do anything else (riiiight). Dan's been playing a bunch of gigs lately, starting with his Easter services and then a run of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Sorcerer," a lesser-known operetta, and a gig up in Connecticut. He's also preparing for the last push of academic work: final exams coming up very soon (mid-May)! Katie has been busy getting herself a couple of job interviews in the upcoming weeks: you'll hear/read more about this later.

Although we haven't blogged much, we've continued the torrid pace at which we post pictures and short videos to flickr. Go there! View and enjoy!

Evi is getting so much more mobile and energetic in her explorations of her environment. Sometimes she hurts herself a little bit. :-( (Like today she was holding a highlighter pen and slammed her fist into the table, thereby pinching her knuckles between the highlighter and the table--hilarity ensued. No wait....by hilarity, I mean intense bursts of screaming.) We are really enjoying watching her develop from an immobile, relatively non-interactive eat/poop/sleep machine into a delightfully curious and affable little human. What a joy! She's almost ready to start crawling. She gets up on all fours, but isn't quite coordinated enough to move about this way. Also, all the new foods she is trying are keeping her (and us!) entertained. I'm not entirely sure how this works, but, somehow, babies covered in partially chewed food are both disgusting and adorable.

I am a...

2009-04-04T06:01:00.003-07:00

Certified Physician Assistant! Although, according to the auto-complete function on my cell phone, I am a...hooker. That's the word it offered when I was rabidly texting friends and family the other day when I found out I had passed the exam. Apparently my phone does not think very highly of me, nor I of it after that little incident. We are barely talking to each other and it's merely a matter of time before the quiet seething turns ugly. I am actively searching for a replacement.

Anyway, this bit of news (the certification, not the prostituting) means I can rejoin the world and be social again! Target, here I come! It also means I have a much better chance of getting a job! With an income! In the NORTHWEST! I can't stop using exclamation points! EEP!

Going Bananas!

2009-03-23T18:01:00.006-07:00

A couple of days ago we fed Evi her first non-formula food. I hesitate to call it solid food, because it was a pureed banana, mixed with a little bit of formula. It was pretty "liquidy"--gelatinous at best.

We put a video up on our flickr site.

She didn't really make a funny face or register much surprise when she tasted it. She did put out her hand like she wanted more. We'll have to see if she remains equally unfazed for things like mashed turnip, macerated quince with squash, or liquefied beets.

She also handled the spoon like a champ. She's been fascinated by us whenever we eat--staring at us with an intense, unblinking gaze--so I think she had a pretty solid idea of what a spoon was for. I think she enjoyed being at the table and eating at the same time as Mommy and Daddy. For dessert we gave her formula. Mmmmmm, formula.

After-dinner spit up was somewhat chunkier and more fragrant than usual, but nothing too gross.

We'll keep you posted on our other upcoming food adventures, especially if they yield amusing results.

I am not making this up!

2009-03-16T19:31:00.004-07:00

This just in from one of Katie's industry journals which arrived in the mail today. I am not sure what the article was about or why this graphic was in there, but I figured that you, dear Reader, could not go another day without having seen this. Please, please, please read the descriptions next to each one. (I love that the last one feels the need to use ALL CAPS for part of the description.)

You know what? I think you should do something.

Here's what you should do:

Save a copy of the image and refer to it as necessary.

That is all.

Some Random Thoughts

2009-03-16T19:20:00.003-07:00

I’ve noticed recently that the New York City sidewalks, like the roadways, have a crown or slant to them. Most sidewalks slope slightly downward to the street to shed rain water to the gutters. I noticed this the other day while pushing Evi in the stroller using only one hand. (The other hand was alternately opening doors, holding said doors open for the stroller, holding a coffee cup, or holding a cell phone to my yapping trap.) I soon noticed that my wrist was getting really tired because I was using the “upwalk” hand to steer and the torque was killing me. That is, I had to pull against the natural inclination of the stroller to angle into the street. By switching hands and using the “downwalk” hand to push against the stroller’s natural inclination to turn, I learned that there is definitely a fine art to the act of stroller pushing. In case the foregoing discussion is confusing, I’ve included a diagram which should hopefully make things clearer. (Click on it for the large size.) If my point remains unclear, you have no option but to go out, have a kid, find a friendly sidewalk, and then one-handedly push the kid around in a stroller for a while.

This led me to another thought, namely that many, many other parents have probably discovered other sundry things about their respective environments (and possibly life in general) after having children. Things that had been shrouded in mystery, or perhaps things not even considered or even remotely imagined. For example, I would have never thought that I might accidentally eat some of my daughter’s spit-up while playing airplane with her. Or that baby formula is one of the foulest tasting substances known to man (after regurgitated baby formula of course!). Or that no matter how fast you are at switching out a dirty diaper, your kid will manage to pee (or poop) on the changing pad (or you) during the brief inter-diaper span—NO MATTER HOW SHORT. (I’ve decided to bring this up with a friend of mine who used to work at NASA and knows all about quantum time-spans.) Or that upon returning from work, an entire crappy day can be completely erased by the sunbeam of your own kid’s smile.

Basically, every parent reinvents the wheel because no matter how many books you have read, shows on TLC you have watched, observations of friends who have become parents, or how much you are told about parenting by well-wishing moms/dads/grandpas/grandmas/aunts/uncles/cousins/friends/neighbors/strangers, it’s a COMPLETELY new thing. I have talked to many people who divide their lives into two periods: BC and AC (before- and after- children). I see now how true this is, and I marvel at just how much more I have to learn and how many more mysteries will be revealed before it’s all said and done. It’s pretty exciting, actually. Now I have to go figure out how to install safety tabs/locks/pads on just about everything in this apartment. After all, Evi will soon be crawling and anything not bolted to the wall or floor will go into her mouth.

P.S. Do I really need to tell you that you should go look at more pictures of our cute kid? Ok, ok: I will. CLICK HERE TO LOOK AT OUR CUTE KID!!

Tantrum!

2009-03-08T17:18:00.002-07:00

Well, it arrived. Evi had her first full-blown tantrum today. She had a rough night last night: restless, fussy, and hungry. We took her to church today and she fell asleep in the stroller on the way over, and then she slept right through Mass. It was probably the longest span she had slept for the past 12 hours. We took her to the Botanic Garden and she was pretty happy, but after we got home, she got more and more fussy. We fed her when we thought she was hungry. But she's basically been pretty inconsolable (for her) for the whole evening. Katie and I can team up and make her smile and stop crying for several minutes, but unless she's being totally consumed by entertainment, she starts crying again. We got her to fall asleep for about a half-hour, but she woke up and started crying again.

There are several likely (and less likely) reasons for this: 1) she's finally cutting a tooth--she's been drooling like a rabid dog for weeks, 2) she's got a little hay fever or something--she's just a bit stuffy and the weather warmed up significantly the last few days (like Saturday was almost 70 degrees and toady was in the low 60s), 3) she's confused by Daylight Savings Time, 4) she's decided to stop spoiling us, stop acting like such an angel, and start acting like a real baby for awhile, 5) she's preparing for an audition in which she plays a baby stricken by unrequited love for a teething toy, 6) she has gas...painful gas, 7) she's mad that we won't let her eat cereal and that we keep feeding her this nasty formula again and again and again and...well, you get the idea--and she's NOT GONNA TAKE IT LYING DOWN. But, then again, she has to, because she hasn't learned how to sit up by herself yet.

In any case, we are hoping this is just something that will blow over. But if it's teething, it might take awhile. Good thing we stocked up on bibs, burp cloths, and lots of chewy teething toys (that can be chilled to help numb her gums). We'll keep you posted on the culprit.

In like a Lion

2009-03-03T18:39:00.003-08:00

March is here and boy did it snow! About 7 inches here in Brooklyn. This morning was 15 degrees, with a wind chill of -1. That's right: NEGATIVE one. Luckily for us, the nearby Botanic garden has a greenhouse conservatory in which it is 1) warm and 2) many flowers are blooming and 3) it's green all around. It will take several more weeks before the rest of Brooklyn looks similarly.

We are celebrating Evi's 5-month birthday today (March 3) by staying warm at home, and by adding some new pictures and videos to our rapidly growing media trove that documents her life so far.

To match the newness of the month, Evi has learned a new sound--the "burble" which can be seen and heard at the flickr site (click here). It's very cute and often follows bursts of laughter. We were finally able to capture the baby really laughing on video, but the file size is too big to upload to flickr right now, so I am going to take some time and try to edit it down. Basically, Katie is clucking like a chicken and Evi laughs and/or squeals approvingly. Although she's been laughing for about a month, it's been difficult to capture her laughter on video for two reasons: 1) only in the last week has it gotten really easy to get her to laugh and 2) she often gets distracted by the camera and/or person holding the camera and stops laughing. Luckily (or is that "cluckily?"), Katie's chicken impression is so rivetingly hilarious that I could safely film the whole exchange.

So, that's about all for now. Except that Major League Baseball is in full swing Spring Training (pun intended) and the exhibition games are being broadcast in the sports bars around the city, so Dan is thrilled. We'll try to get to a ballgame in the new Yankees and Mets stadiums (or is it stadia?) before we leave NYC (whose date, by the way, is still TBA).

Breaking News!

2009-02-21T13:39:00.002-08:00

Breaking news: Evelyn Rose has not one, but two feet! This new development was met with wide-eyed surprise followed by ecstatic squealing and clutching of both the right foot and the newly discovered left foot. The novelty of her find has not worn off and, upon laying on her back, she immediately throws all four limbs into the air and grasps her feet with a maniacal grin on her face. This poses many complications when it comes to changing Evi’s clothing or diapers. According to Evi’s mother, “it’s like prying apart a smiling, upturned turtle. But backwards. What?” Evelyn’s mother is obviously still processing this advanced and shocking developmental progress. We intend to follow this story closely as new information becomes available.

Grab bag

2009-02-18T17:59:00.006-08:00

So, even though I'm only four-and-a-half months old, I've been getting requests to blog again in my own words. So I thought I would just share some reflections about my life so far.

Apropos to the title of this blog, I have decided that I REALLY like reaching out and grabbing things. This activity had not occurred to me before about last week, but I have found fun and interesting things happen when I reach out and grab stuff. I pulled Mommy's hair for the first time a few days ago--she made a funny noise. I also try to pull Daddy's hair, but it's pretty short so it's a bit hard to get a hold of, but I do my best. I also grab blankets and toys (like stuffed elephants and plastic rings) and toss them all about.

Another thing I like to do is throw up on things. You probably already knew this from prior blog posts, but I've had to get sneaky. Like, for instance, I'll throw up on my outfit several times to the point where it's pretty slimy and so Mommy and Daddy change me--but I don't let them know that I'm primed and ready with another salvo for my new outfit when they get it all fixed up. It's so great to see their reactions when I soil my nice, dry pants. The funny thing is, I am getting fatter (let's be kind: pleasantly plump) all the time, so there is no cause for alarm at my skill at vomiting. My favorite thing in this department is to wait awhile after eating so that the consistency is more thick and curdled and the smell is more potent. Mommy and Daddy seem to really appreciate this.

I also like dancing. Daddy stands me up and kind of moves my arms around in time with whatever music we are listening to and it makes me smile, or even laugh. I also enjoy watching dancing. Daddy knows I like this and he dances around like a crazy person to make me smile. He hopes that no one ever, ever sees this (besides me and Mommy). I think he is a bit embarrassed by his lack of dancing ability--and of course, that is really what I am laughing at.

I also have a hero. He's a big kid (like 9 months old) who had a video on the internet. You can watch it here. I can only aspire to this level of havoc at this point. I do roll over from front to back and from back to front, but not often and usually not serially. I still tend to stay put, although I am getting more mobile.

Speaking of mobile, my parents cell phones fascinate me. Before you know it, I'll be texting all y'all. Maybe I'll start my own Twitter feed. For those who don't know what Twitter is, see here.

What else can I talk about in my grab bag of Evi-isms? I like to talk...my parents can't really understand what I am saying yet, but I don't let that stop me. I happily babble away making all kinds of cute, adorable sounds. Often while I am sucking on my fingers. My gums are kind of tingly, so I chew on my fingers quite often--they say I might get something called teeth soon. It doesn't bother me at all that my drool tends to overflow my mouth, run over my fingers and slowly drip out onto the blanket or my clothes! It's like vomit-lite(TM).

I've also discovered that it's much more restful for me to sleep for long stretches of time, like from 10pm to 6am. I sometimes wake up to eat or get a diaper change, but for the most part, I am sleeping through the night and really liking the results: increased energy during the day, fewer embarrassing narcoleptic episodes when friends are over, and less cranky parents. Who knew they would be so pleasant after they stopped having to wake up every few hours to tend to my every need.

Lastly, I've been practicing my modeling skills. Mommy takes LOTS of pictures of me doing wonderfully winning things. Check out the flickr site to see more. Lots more. Daddy went a little bit crazy uploading pictures and one new video. Sorry about him.

Parenting Haiku

2009-01-28T19:54:00.001-08:00

Oh, no. What was that?
Baby vomit in my hair!
And down my back, too.

New Year's Stories

2009-01-28T19:12:00.004-08:00

Hello everyone!

Well, here is our belated New Year's blog. We were on vacation for 2 weeks, which was wonderful. The first leg on our journey was to Palm Springs, CA where Dan's maternal grandparents live. It was their 60th wedding anniversary, and the entire 22-person family was there to celebrate. We had a special Mass to celebrate (at which Dan played the music and several other family members sang and played instruments). Katie and I loved this part of the vacation because there were so many willing, eager babysitters including aunts, uncles, and teenage cousins. And the 75 degree heat sure beat snowy, icy, NYC); we got in a lot of games of cards, board games, chess, you name it; eating; drinking; and just feeling like normal adults for a little bit and not 24-hour baby monitors (not that that job is so bad). A highlight for Dan was going to the Rose Bowl with his brother, Alan, and watching USC trounce Penn St. with 80,000 other football fans.

After Palm Springs, we flew up to Portland, OR to hang out with Katie's family and Dan's various paternal-side relatives. Evi finally met her Papa (Katie's Dad) in person and he inducted her into the family traditions of watching sports (mostly golf) on HDTV (see the pictures link for photo evidence of this). We also went over to the house of Papa's Uncle Shorty, a decorated WWII vet and all-around great story-teller to get a 4-generations of Ponsfords picture (see the above picture). We also drove up to Seattle to see Dan's paternal grandparents, which meant that we got 4-generation photos on each side of the family (double that for Dan--paternal and maternal sides). That's pretty special.

Katie also had an agenda of types of food to eat, including Mexican (which seems to taste slightly different in the NW...maybe it's the water?) and non-NYC-syle pizza. Katie just really dislikes the ultra-thin crust of most true NY pizzas (I, on the other hand, LOVE LOVE LOVE NY pizza). Dan's goal was to drink as much local beer as possible, the kind you can't seem to find most places in NYC...can you say Henry Weinhard and Alaskan Amber? :) And eat local sea-food. Steamed Pacific mussels in vermouth sauce, baby!

Dan's parents threw a generous, festive open house to which many family friends came to say hi. Some of our friends have got married since we last saw them, or had babies, so it was a great time to catch up with all these wonderful people.

Now we're back in slushy, cold NYC. Back to the grind. Dan is teaching, though not as much because he quit at Hofstra to spend more time helping out at home. And Katie is looking for PA jobs and studying for her PA certification exam. The management of our building is upgrading the electrical wiring (I think it's STILL from the 1920s) so there is dust and crap everywhere: in the hallways, the lobby, and our own apartment, whose walls were punctured recently to install a new fuse box and thread new wires through several other newly-hewed holes. But we've had visits from some friends since returning to the city, which has been nice. Dan's been playing gigs again (after taking some time off after Evi was born), lately in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center and at Brooklyn's Bargemusic this coming weekend, both relatively well-known venues back here.

We're looking forward to warmer weather when we can take Evi to the nearby Botanic Garden for morning walks and work off some of the excesses of the holidays. One of our New Year's resolutions is to blog more frequently, so check back soon!

PS I guess I forgot to remind everyone to check out all the new pictures at flickr (which we actually have been updating much more regularly than the blog).

Respect my Power

2008-12-09T19:52:00.001-08:00

Let me tell you about the kind of power I wield over my parents. First the back story: the other day, I was feeling very full and ready to unburden myself of excess waste. My parents put me in one of my favorite places, the vibrating chair. So, while they were not watching closely (they were getting the laundry ready to go), I pooped EVERYWHERE. It escaped the confines of my diaper and got all over my blanket, caked the fabric of the vibrating chair itself, plus gooped up my clothes, my legs, my back and my stomach. I was feeling pretty proud of myself at that point, but the crowning glory is when I convinced my mom, by looking so cute and huggable, to come over and lift me out of the chair. I knew I got her good when she yelped in dismay to see everything, now including her hands, covered in poop!

And yet, I tell you…this is the kind of unsurpassable power I possess…they DID NOT EVEN GET MAD AT ME! Can you believe that? I messed up everything within a two foot radius of my rear end and they had the gall to SMILE. Of course, I could see the veiled looks of disgust on their faces as they cleaned up after me, the way the balled everything up and threw it into the bathtub for a good soak before adding it to the laundry pile, and the way they gingerly pulled my extremely soiled onesie over my head and shoulders, careful not to get poop on my face.

Although my mom will tell you she had to restrain me from putting my dirty fingers in my mouth, I assure you, I was only testing her to ascertain the extent of her already formidable mothering skills. Even I, an infant, know this: one does not eat one’s own feces—it’s in tremendously bad taste.

Now it’s time to take a nap, and dream of new and improved ways to soil myself.

In any event, I just wanted to share with you all just how much influence and control I now exert after just two months of living here. You know you are jealous….

[Editor’s note: in the picture above, Evi sleeps very soundly after her mighty poo.]

Post Turkey Day Update

2008-12-07T13:14:00.002-08:00

So we meant to blog the weekend after Thanksgiving, but somehow that Saturday and Sunday were swallowed up by this GIANT mound of laundry that had developed and needed to be neutralized. Who knew that a single child, weighing in at fewer than 10 pounds, could generate more dirty clothing than two adults? Now that everything is clean again, we are finally able to give you our Thanksgiving update.

We originally thought it might be nice to spend the holiday as a small, nuclear family, but we had enough friends who were also far from home that we decided to host a substantial party. All told, we had 8 adults and 3 children here. I cooked a 21-pound turkey and about 5 gallons of stuffing. Katie made her famous cranberry bruschetta, yams, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes. We had plenty of wine, including a sparkling Malbec, and a good time was had by all. So many leftovers, too. I used the turkey bones to make a delicious turkey noodle soup, and we enjoyed the leftovers until they petered out today, over a week later.

We've also taken Evi to two holiday parties since Thanksgiving. She is turning into a real party animal. She always cries when we leave...or maybe we leave because she cries. There is a cloud of mystery around this latter point. We don't keep her out too late, we are usually pretty tired by about 9pm. I guess we are the real party poopers here.

There are new pictures up at flickr (click the link over in the right hand column), including some of her smiling and laughing. It's really hard to get her laughing and smiling because every time Katie or I trots out the camera, she gets interested in what we are doing and stops looking amused. She may also be camera shy. This last point, too, is shrouded in mystery.

I am readying myself for the onslaught of finals, starting at the end of this week, but then I will happy to have some time off. Katie and I are traveling to the Northwest during the holidays, so we are looking forward to seeing family and friends that we haven't seen in a while, and looking forward to introducing them to Evelyn Rose. I've decided not to return to Hofstra, and I am looking forward to being more present for Katie and Evi starting in January.

Victims of Vomit

2008-11-22T18:14:00.001-08:00

If parenthood has taught us anything it’s that babies vomit. A lot. It is almost as if Evi bides her time and meticulously chooses the right time to release her venom. For instance, I was changing her entire outfit after a particularly prolific episode. I had finally wrestled her into one of those button-up contraptions that requires an engineering degree and a clearly written instruction booklet (with pictures, please) when I noticed a maniacal glint in her wee, beady eye. As soon as I snapped the last of the four million buttons into place, she gave me one of her winning smiles and proceeded to barf all over the new ensemble. Lovely. Another instance found me securely wrapped in two burp cloths to ensure that my shirt would be stain free for at least 20 minutes out of the day. I put Evi up on my shoulder, checked to make sure all systems were go and began to tenderly pound on her back. No sooner had I landed the first gentle tap-tap did Evi bob her head left, then right and, miraculously avoiding the aforementioned burp cloths, formed her mouth to enable an accurate hit and expertly (and intentionally, I am convinced) landed the majority of her lunch down my shirt. Again, lovely. How much do I miss having a washer and dryer? Let me count the ways.

6-week update

2008-11-16T06:27:00.003-08:00

So Evelyn is smiling for real now--she used to smile only involuntarily, like when she was falling asleep or passing gas. Katie talks to Evi in a high, excited voice and Evi just lights up like Christmas tree. She also likes this soft giraffe rattle we have, and if you shake it at her and poke her cheeks with it she gives a huge, open-mouth smile. She's also a couple inches taller now, and is learning how to flex her leg muscles; she can support herself on her legs for several seconds in a standing position (but needs to be held to stabilize her balance).

One other thing that is good is that after going to sleep at 10-11pm, she only wakes up once at night (although she can be up for an hour or hour-and-a-half) and then sleeps until 7-8am. Katie and Evi are often sleeping (so sweet!) when I leave for work in the morning.

We put up a bunch of pictures on flickr detailing Evi's baptism, already 2 weeks ago--wow! Needless to say, we were very happy to have my whole family here and many of our friends who all celebrated with us afterward at our apartment, where, of course, there was plenty of good snacks, lots of good stuff to drink, and football on TV. We feel so blessed to have such great friends and a wonderful family and A SWEET BABY!

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Halloween--Evi's first holiday (and Katie's favorite). We stayed in, but did go "trick-or-treat" at some of our neighbors' places, not for candy, just to show off Evi's lady bug costume. If you have seen the pictures link, then you know that Evi really wanted to be a brain-eating zombie. We also played lots of card games with my parents and sister who were already here for the baptism. Gayle and I went to this cool beer store and got some yummy, Halloween-appropriate drinks: Rogue Dead Guy Ale, a Belgian beer called Delerium Tremens, and two British types called Wychcraft and Hobgoblin. Fun times!

We'll try to get more pictures up this weekend.

Obama!

2008-11-05T15:25:00.004-08:00

There are few words that can describe the emotion and the pride that the election results have brought forth, so I wanted to post this poem by Maya Angelou that has a few very poignant passages. Go America!

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Chevy

2008-10-28T09:36:00.000-07:00

There seems to be some confusion about Evelyn’s nickname. Now, I am not endorsing any product here, only using a brand name to illustrate a point of pronunciation. We are calling her Evi as in “drove my Chevy to the levy.” Now you know.

In other news, I am mothering like crazy and getting absolutely nothing done. The ceiling is leaking water from the current downpour of rain. My chest is throbbing from the constant assault by the aforementioned Evi. The garbage needs to go out. I have watched more morning news shows than I would like to admit. On the bright side, I did take a shower today! Woot! We are all doing our best to survive.

Some quick Evi facts to tide those of you who have demanded updates:
1. After a short stint of not gaining weight Evi is packing on a solid ounce a day. She still has little bird legs and arms, but she is SO CUTE. We should be back up to 7 lbs by her one month birthday.
2. Evi gives the cutest wide-mouthed smile when she is falling asleep, like it is the best thing that’s ever happened to her. Hoping to put up a video of this soon.
3. We have put a moratorium on clothing gifts for Evi, as her wardrobe is literally bursting forth from our closets and dressers. She will never wear all of her clothes, people! Knock it off!
4. The only other things I can think of involve soiled diapers, so I will spare those of you non-parental units the graphic details of what has become big business (no pun intended) at Casa Dan & Bird.

Feel free to call or stop by, it seems that everyone is afraid of disturbing us, but we welcome the social interaction of adults! Don’t abandon us!

3-week Update

2008-10-26T17:12:00.003-07:00

Evelyn is 3 weeks old as of this past Friday! We have been hosting family the last few weeks. Katie's sister Courtney was here. She helped us out a lot, from making the world's best zuppa toscana (with sausage AND bacon!) to doing dishes and diaper duty to holding Evi so we could get some sleep. After she left, Dan's parents came. They are staying in a one-bedroom place about a 10-minute walk away that we found on Craigslist! Mom and Dad (or should I say Grandma and Grandpa?) are so excited to meet their first grandchild! They have been helping out by cooking dinners, doing dishes, and holding the baby. Of course, this being our family, we have also found some time to play card games and board games, and drink some good wine! The baptism is this coming Sunday, so stay tuned for the next update! Also, click the pictures link at the right to see more pictures of our little darling!

It’s a girl!

2008-10-04T21:37:00.002-07:00

We’re so happy to introduce Evelyn Rose to everyone. I’ll let Katie write about the whole (very long) labor and delivery. I was there the entire time helping out and cheerleading, but I think only she can give the full account of the entire 37-hour process.

Evelyn came out pink and squalling—really, for a newborn she has a set of pipes and uses them to cry very loudly. She’s strong too. She grips my index finger like a champ. I think she might grow up to be some kind of singing weightlifter (wouldn’t you pay money to see something like that?). She and Katie, who, by the way, is sore but fine, will probably come home from the hospital today. I’m going to take the week off from work to spend some time with them both. We would love to hear from people via email or phone and will try to answer both. We also upgraded to Flickr Pro which means we will be posting more pictures (and short videos!) there to supplement our occasional blogs.

For those who like these kinds of details: she was born on Oct. 3 at 2:45pm and weighed 7 lbs., 2 oz. I don’t know how long she is yet. She has downy, reddish hair and blue or brown eyes depending on if you ask me or Bird. Her favorite activities are sleeping, holding my index finger, sleeping, eating, sleeping, crying, sleeping, and pooping (after which: sleeping). She is adorable in every way.

Horses!

2008-09-29T08:34:00.002-07:00

Charlie horses! One of the late incarnations of misery associated with this pregnancy. I get them in my calves at night, sometimes on the side and you can see the indentation from the extreme muscle contraction. Holy pain. But my favorite so far has been the one I got in my armpit. Twice. And no one around to laugh at me.

Bird's quick food post

2008-09-28T17:35:00.001-07:00

I have come to the conclusion that the absolute worst part of pregnancy is that I cannot partake of the sweet, sweet nectar that is cake/brownie/cookie batter. What is the point of these foods if one cannot eat the majority of them during preparation? Don’t get me wrong, the final product is worthy of ingestion, but I am at the point of adding raw eggs to my list of things to take with me to the hospital, so that I may partake after the baby is born. It will be a strange meal: soft cheese, raw eggs, deli meat and pink champagne.

Quote o' the day

2008-08-20T16:59:00.001-07:00

"Sometimes, even though we love America, with its amber waves of purple mounted majesties fruiting all over the plains, we get a little ticked off at our government." Thank you, Dave Barry. Thank you.

Farm weekend

2008-08-18T13:00:00.003-07:00

Katie and I just got back from a wonderfully relaxing weekend in upstate NY. We accepted a generous invitation from our friends Brian and Lindsay, who own over 250 acres of farmland and forest about 2.5 hours north of the city. We hadn't seen them in about 2 years, so there was a lot of catching up to do. Since the last time we were there, they had added chicken, sheep, goats, llamas, and a new pond to the farm (which already had horses, barn cats, peach and apple trees, and gardens). So we had lots of fun getting acquainted with the new critters.

We had fresh food from the garden: yummy tomatoes, summer squash, and all kinds of fresh herbs (basil, dill, oregano, thyme, and mint, to name a few). We also had fresh food from the farm stands along the county road: eggplant, peaches and nectarines, apricots, beets, swiss chard, kale, farm-fresh eggs, etc. So there was good eatin' up there at the farm.

Lindsay took us for a trot around the farm in a horse-drawn cart (only sat two people, so Dan had to stand and hold on for dear life on the back board). We got some shot of Dan climbing pear trees in the orchard (Brian and Lindsay insisted we take this photo)--so now we have documented evidence of a Partridge in a pear tree. Plus, there was a lot of relaxing to be done: laying in hammocks, reading on couches, drinking beer or wine on porches, more reading on lawn chairs, etc. Plus, there were lap dogs who loved to play fetch with Frisbees, chew tows, and tennis balls.

All in all, we were happy return to their farm after a long hiatus to experience their warm hospitality, and we hope to be back before another two years elapse (a bit easier since Katie will no longer be swamped with school stuff).

PS. They MADE us bring a bag of peaches home...probably about 20-25 peaches in all. So many peaches!!

Take a look at our pictures !

Nesting

2008-08-14T17:15:00.001-07:00

The stages of pregnancy are pretty clear: First Trimester, Second Trimester and Nesting. In honor of my eight month I have begun the rituals of our ancestors which include such activities as cleaning house and throwing unnecessary items away. Many of you may not think this strays from my typical state of neurotic hyper-cleaning, but I can assure you this is far superior to anything I have attempted in the past. I have vacuumed the oscillating fan. After disassembling, soaking, washing and drying said wind-blower. I used an entire package of Swiffer wet cloths on the kitchen floor. At one time. I have used methods I am not proud of to persuade Dan to get rid of his Mountain View track & field sweatshirt, among other closet-clogging clothing.

Bird (screeching, on the verge of tears): “How many pairs of pants do you need?!”
Dan: “At least one!” This said as he desperately tried to disengage my death grip from the pants he was currently wearing.
Bird: “Think of the baby!”
Dan (obviously missing the point of my plea which was, of course, Think of the Baby!): “Huh?”

And so it goes. I continue to eye the light fixtures menacingly, wishing I could reach them to scour them thoroughly before the baby gets her hands on them. I curse the wainscoting every day for its dust-collecting insubordination. I Clorox wipe our keys. I have pressure washer fantasies…think of the possibilities! And, of course, I find all of this perfectly rational. Think of the baby!

Thanks for the clarification

2008-08-07T07:53:00.002-07:00

Bird to Dan: "Why are you yelling?"

Dan: "I'm not yelling. I'm yelling at you."

Things your mother won't tell you: Hitting things solves problems

2008-08-02T09:52:00.003-07:00

So Katie and I have this great digital camera: a Sony DSC-S40. We took it to Europe with us and took a ton of pictures, and continued to use it as much afterward. In fact, almost every picture on our flickr account was taken with this Sony camera. So, you can imagine our dismay when the LCD screen just went blank--pure white as soon as you turn it on--when we were on our trip to Charleston last weekend. So, today I was surfing around Sony's troubleshooting website, which was most unhelpful. Most of the hints told you to dig around in the menus to reset certain parameters. I can't see the darn screen, so how in the world is that advice helpful?!

Google to the rescue! I found a discussion group in which MANY, MANY people had faced the LCD "white screen of death." A certain man named Bob from Allentown, PA had posted a "quick fix" for which most of the respondents were professing eternal thanks, since it fixed their camera at no cost to them. I was skeptical at first, but so MANY people claimed that it worked, that I decided to give it a try. Here's the text from the website:

"I fixed the camera myself as follows:

1. Hold camera firmly in left hand
2. Smartly rap front of camera with knuckles of right hand on the 'Cyber-shot' logo.

It worked, now the LCD is working again for free.

Guess I don't need to pay Sony $111.00 for repair service."

Sounds crazy, but I tried it. HOLY CRAP, IT WORKED!! So our camera is back to normal and I only had to hit it to fix it. Apparently, Sony customer service knows about this "quick fix" but understandably does not share it with angry customers. What self-respecting company would advocate violent, but corrective, abuse (at no cost to the customer) to fix its products?

I wonder if fixing children's behavior problems will be that straightforward? Hmmm....

Shrimp 'n' Grits

2008-07-30T05:42:00.005-07:00

Hello all. It is hot here in NYC...but it was even hotter in Charleston, SC where we spent last weekend. In fact, on Monday, the day we left, it was about 95, and with humidity around 80-90%, it felt like about 105. Ugh. Katie said she'd never been more uncomfortable in her life. Of course, she is pregnant, and we were touring a rice plantation where we were in the direct sun for much of the time.

But the discomforts of heat and humidity were no match for the pure, unbounded joy of seeing my family. All of 'em: Alan, Gayle and my folks. We stayed at Alan's palatial house that he shares with two other guys (both USAF), which overlooks the marsh that abuts the Ashley River. It's a tidal river at that point, so the water is brackish and supports all kinds of yummy critters: crab, trout, minnows, flounder, shrimp, etc. Alan and I went fishing one morning and caught that day's lunch!

The whole trip was a kind of graduation gift to Bird (thanks Mom and Dad!) and we tried to keep it a surprise. She basically figured out that we were going to see Alan in Charleston a few weeks ago, but she didn't know Gayle and my parents would be there too. Some highlights: We visited Alan's Air Force base and toured the plane he flies, the C-17. It's about 5 stories high and can fit several jeeps, or a full-size tank, or helicopter in the cargo area. We also took a horse-drawn carriage ride through the historic downtown area of Charleston and enjoyed gazing at the stately homes and public buildings there. As always, after any outdoor activity, we were happy to get into an air-conditioned restaurant, church, home, or store, but especially restaurant. We ate like Kings and Queens, from the regional dishes "She Crab Soup" and "Shrimp 'n' Grits" which are both freakin' DELICIOUS, to Alan's wood-smoked cheeseburgers, to seafood extravaganzas, it was a good eatin' weekend for us.

Of course, it wouldn't be my family if there weren't some games. We all played Hearts and a game called Five Crowns (with up to 6 people), while Alan and I played some chess and also Halo on the 15' wide by 10' high projection screen TV upstairs. (Did I mention the house was palatial...'cause it was!)

Everyone was excited to see Bird's baby belly and some of them, especially Gayle, got to feel the baby kickin' up a storm in there. It was also kind of strange to refer to Mom and Dad as Grandpa and Grandma, but I bet we'll all get used to it pretty soon. The next time we'll all be together will be at the baby's baptism sometime in late October.

Katie says next time I take her on a trip, the requirement is that it has to be at least 20 degrees cooler than NYC. Next stop...Nunavut, Canada (I guess...I hear Baffin Island is quite pleasant this time of year...no wait, I just made that up).

Oh, and before I forget, here are some pictures from the trip. Our camera started to malfunction about halfway through the trip, so we're only putting up pics from the beginning of the trip.

Speaking of Therapy..

2008-07-17T18:06:00.003-07:00

I know it is a bit presumptive to assume anyone will buy us anything for the baby, but I have to steer you away from our traditional registry and urge you to consider one of the items listed here:

http://www.cracked.com/article_16475_20-baby-products-great-traumatizing-infants.html.

(It's a guarantee that any one of these will be a hefty source of income for some lucky psychiatrist in the future.)

Baby vs. Bladder: Round One

2008-07-15T16:37:00.001-07:00

Today marks month seven of my pregnancy and to celebrate, the baby has been bounding about within me, using my bladder as her trampoline. As you might expect, it is difficult to reprimand her for this behavior so I am forced to add it to my list of things to punish her for when she is born. So far she will be grounded for the first year of her life. Also on the list of offenses: knocking me down with fatigue, making me sick for three months straight, forcing me to eat cheese for every meal and magnetically drawing the hands of strangers onto my belly. Why are strangers compelled to molest pregnant women? I have been brainstorming a way to deter this behavior but many of my solutions are a bit impractical, such as constructing a barb-wire fence around me, electrifying my low-rise support maternity pants, carrying a taser. It’s really too hot to have electric pants right now. I welcome other suggestions.

Dan and I have been getting a lot of inquiries about what we are going to name the baby. We thought we had a fail-proof method of selecting a name for her: we would each create our own list of possible names from our 100,000 baby name book and then compare lists…surely a few names would overlap, you say. You are wrong! There was quite a cacaphony of pencils scraping as we each scratched out each others carefully selected names. Dan suggested we attempt to pick a middle name, instead. Maybe her first name can be _____. All was not lost, however. There are a few survivors for when we decide we want to pay for therapy for all of her adult life:
Tusnelda
Macuilxochitl
Capaquiupanqui and
Tupaquiupanqui
As it is, we are still working on the name and once (if?) we choose one we will make sure she likes it before announcing it to the world.

Birthdays and baby galore!

2008-06-19T10:03:00.006-07:00

As many of you already know from the deluge of email from Katie over the past few months, she threw me a surprise 30th birthday party last month. And let me tell you, it was a huge surprise. I had no idea, not even an inkling, that this was happening. It was fantastic. Notice the surprise on my face in the above picture! People came from all over: Washington state, New Orleans, Indiana, Buffalo, Texas, and all over the tri-state area. Over the course of the afternoon probably about 40-50 people ate, drank, and merrily made their way through the apartment. Katie got two 6-foot hero sandwiches from the local Subway sandwich place, and made (or had people bring) devilled eggs, peanut butter cookies, brownies, olive trays, and all other sorts of yummy food. Wine, beer and soda pop flowed like water. I got some great gifts.

One of the best parts about the party was that several out-of-town friends (and one out-of-town sister) stuck around for a few days. So the party atmosphere persisted for a while. I got together with people during my lunch breaks and after work to eat or play Frisbee in the parks. A bunch of us went to Carmine’s one night (which, for those of you who haven’t visited us and eaten there, is a family-style Italian restaurant with huge, delicious portions of good good good food), and had a great time.

Of course, the next week Katie also turned 30. It was a (much) lower key affair, but still nice. I made her brownies, which is probably her favorite food, EVER. So now we’re both old. Just kidding! We feel great and are enjoying the beginning of the summer, which, apart from a blistering heat wave last week, has been temperate and pleasant. I’m forging ahead with my dissertation and she is working at her current rotation, which is conveniently just across the street (talk about a great commute!). We’re going to take advantage of some of the free summer activities the city has to offer, starting tomorrow with an opera highlights concert by the Metropolitan Opera in Prospect Park .

And for those who are wondering, Katie is feeling fine, and we’re both having fun feeling the baby kicking and punching around in there—she (the baby) is usually really active right before bedtime and she (the Katie) makes sure I am there to experience it, too.

I’ll post some pictures to our flickr account.

Customer Service

2008-04-21T19:07:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to find a OB/GYN affiliated with Methodist hospital. The following is a brief glimpse into this process:

Insurance Company Customer Service Representative (La’Shantisha): “How can I help you?”
Bird: “I am trying to find an obstetrician at Methodist hospital.”
La’Shantisha: Okay.

*Three minute interlude of some wild tap-tapping of the keyboard while La’Shantisha maneuvers through what I can only guess is the top level of Tetris*

La’Shantisha: “How do you spell that?”
Bird: “Spell what?”
La: “The doctor’s name.”
Bird: “What doctor?”
La: “Dr. Obst…Obste…Ob..”
Bird: “An obstetrician is a type of doctor, not the name of a doctor.”
La: “Oh. What kind of doctor is he?”
Bird: “An OB/GYN”
La: “Oh. We only have listings for Obstetrics.”
Bird: *silence*
La: “Where is the doctor located?”
Bird: “I am trying to FIND a doctor!”
La: “Where?”
Bird: “At NY Methodist hospital!”
La: “We don’t have any doctor affiliations with that hospital.”
Bird: “Oh.”
La: “For our records, can you tell me if this service was helpful for you today?”
Bird: *incredulous, exasperated sigh*
La: “You can say yes or no.”
Bird: “Let’s say no.”

Baby

2008-03-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

Many of you are already aware: Dan is my Baby Daddy. Translation for those of you who don’t live in the ghetto or watch Jerry Springer: we are going to have a baby! We spread the word to family and friends on Easter weekend. The following are some of the responses we received:
“Congratulations!”
“Oh my God!”
“Finally!”
“You’ve been naughty.”
“EEEEK!” (there may have been a spider in this person’s hair)
As for me, I have been pretty sick with what I call the “heaves” which means that I have a very sensitive gag reflex and tend to gag at the most innocuous of stimuli like people, animals, automobiles, paper, food, clothing and thoughts. For me there is no such thing as morning sickness; it’s pretty much an all day affair; let’s equate it to being hung over all the time! Yay! I made this analogy to someone yesterday and he responded with “how do you know what it feels like to be hung over?” Really, who are we kidding? How do you think we got into this mess in the first place?!
And when, you might be wondering, will this baby arrive? The estimated date is October 15th, give or take two weeks. So be prepared to be ignored in about six months, because we will be busy trying to figure out what to do with a screaming, demanding, pooping infant. EEEEK!

Snow!

2008-02-22T14:25:00.004-08:00

Today Katie and I woke up to a blanket of pure white snow over the city. It was the first significant snowfall of the winter (I saw on the news that it was largest snowfall in the last 2 years.) Hofstra canceled classes and so I got the gift of a free day. Katie didn't have to work until 3pm (she goes till 11pm), so we took a walk through 6 inches of snow in Prospect Park and finished up with a yummy tomato, basil and mozzarella sandwich at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Cafe.

It was just about 32 degrees so the snow was pretty wet and stuck to the sides of trees, the lattices of wire fences, and our faces. It also made great snowballs and snowmen. At one point, I made a snow angel, which Katie then proceeded to step in once I got up. Grrrr.... and Brrrrr.....

We haven't blogged since Christmas because not a whole lot is happening. I am just teaching, she is plugging away at her different rotations at the hospitals. Last week she finished internal medicine and this week is experiencing the clamor and hectic life of the emergency room. She is at Kings County Hospital which is a VERY large urban hospital, so she's seen all kinds of people with all kinds of ailments already!

I guess one item of note was the Winter Ball that her school put on. Katie is on the student council so she had some part in the planning and execution of the thing. It was held at a movie studio that occupies the formerly unused Brooklyn Navy Yard. There was a great view of Midtown Manhattan and several of the bridges. Apparently, this is the largest lot for movies outside of Hollywood. There was a very nice catered dinner and an open bar (though we gave up alcohol for Lent, so we didn't take advantage of it!) and a very good DJ. We danced for a few hours and drank soda instead of wine (I figured I'd a least order fancy sodas, so I got several Roy Rogers--they're like Shirley Temples but with Coke instead of 7-up).

Anyway, I'm already looking forward to the Spring Break mid-March! We hope all of you who check in periodically on the blog are doing fine and we hope to speak to you personally in the near future!

'Tis the Season?!

2007-12-14T15:45:00.000-08:00

I understand the lure of sales during the holidays: Black Friday and all the sales leading up to Christmas provide the perfect opportunity to procure the perfect holiday gift at a perfectly discounted price. Of course, huge numbers of other people are also aware of the sales and can be counted on to make your shopping experience one that will have you cursing the very holiday spirit that brought this plague upon you in the first place. Those upbeat, fun-loving Christmas carols will become a soundtrack to the terror; the jostling for position on the sidewalks, in the stores and finally on the subway home with your arms full of Christmas booty will beat the last remnants of good cheer right out of you. Personally, I make every attempt to avoid the holiday rush, as I value my sanity and want to continue to enjoy the John Denver and the Muppets Christmas album without flashbacks to the carnage at Macy’s. In light of this, I have to say that one advertisement has changed my perspective on holiday shopping forever. Nothing says “Merry Christmas!” like a whole goat! Or better yet, burnt goat head and feet! You know how you shop and shop for the perfect gift and when you turn around it’s staring you right in the face…literally? You can bet I was at the store waiting in line hours before it opened, elbowing my way to the goat isle hoping to get my hands on as many whole goats as I could possibly carry.

Ah, the joys of living in Carribean Brooklyn. Seriously though, if I buy a whole goat will it still be alive, struggling in the meat section under cellophane? What if I opt for the burnt head and feet only, what will happen to the rest of the Christmas goat? And lastly, what the hell do I do with these goats and goat parts?! These are important and thought-provoking questions that I will leave you with during these few weeks leading up to Christmas. When you receive a package in the mail from us this year, remember the trouble we went through to acquire the goat and subsequently wrestle it into the mailbox with postage perched precariously on its burnt head and/or feet.

Merry Christmas, everyone…goat heads and feet for all, and for all a good night!

Thanksgiving Blog

2007-12-14T15:24:00.000-08:00

Here's the belated Thanksgiving blog. We got so busy after Turkey Day I didn't have time until now to blog about it.

My mom and dad came out to visit; and they stayed with us for the first time ever! We had lived in a one bedroom until last year, so they always stayed in a hotel before. So, of course, we had to pull out all the stops. Katie made an excellent cranberry bruschetta (using cranberries instead of tomatoes), and we had a very yummy cheese and veggie tray. We cooked a great dinner for them, including Dan's now-famous cheese-cloth basted turkey, gravy, and stuffing from scratch (I cooked it in the bird for the first time this year) and Katie's famous green-bean casserole, candied yams, garlic-cheesy mashed potatoes, and homemade cranberry sauce (from scratch). We also had copious amounts of tasty wine. We took walks in Prospect Park (and the neighboring historical neighborhood of Park Slope) and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. For our "only-in-New York" fix, we took a 90-minute backstage tour of the Met Opera followed by a great jazz brunch at the Blue Note, one of the flagship jazz clubs in NYC. Between the two activities we took a nice long walk through Central Park, which is where the above picture was taken. We played tons of games like Quiddler, Taboo, cribbage, hearts, UNO, Phase 10, Five Crowns, and probably some others, some of which spurred the formation of several inside jokes...like: PUD-ding?!

All in all, a good time was had by all. And the time really flew. Then it was back to the grind and the push to the end of the semester, which is only now finally wrapping up. Katie just finished school today, and I have a few more days to go, but I have basically given all my finals so I can mentally cruise to the end of the semester. We'll try to put up some more posts during the holidays since we can't be with our family in the Pacific Northwest. Look for a repeat of the Christmas letter and also check out other recently added pictures!

Bruckner Blog

2007-11-06T14:17:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday Katie and I got to take a trip out of New York by virtue of my association with the Mannes Orchestra. You see, I am playing as a "ringer," someone brought in from the outside, for this concert--Mannes has 6 horn students this semester, but the Bruckner symphony they are playing requires 8. The concert is this Thursday at Carnegie Hall, but for a quasi-dress rehearsal, they performed Saturday up at Bard College, a rural campus about 2.5 hours north of New York City.

I was asked to drive the equipment van since I am not a student and therefore not subject to the same sorts of legal liabilities. I said I would if I could bring a navigator, and that's how Katie got involved. She was also deputized to take pictures for the school and given the school's digital camera. The "van" ended up being a 25-foot-long truck (shown above)! Navigating the narrow lanes on the NYC streets was quite an adventure. But after getting out of the city into the less trafficked regions of the Hudson Valley, we were able to enjoy the autumnal beauty of the multi-hued fall foliage. Bard has a beautiful campus, and a brand new concert hall designed by Frank Gehry, all glass and polished steel curvilinear surfaces.

We had a two-hour dress rehearsal and then were given a complimentary dinner at the Bard cafeteria, which had remarkably good food! The concert went well, although it seemed that there were few Bard students in the crowd, so maybe they could have done a better job advertising. The piece was Bruckner's unfinished Ninth Symphony (he died while composing the last movement), a massive, slowly-unfolding late-Romantic work (1896) whose 3 completed movements still clock in at about 60 minutes. It has great brass parts and is a lot of fun to play.

Next post will probably be Thanksgiving when my parents come to visit! We posted some more pictures of the Bard trip on our flickr account (click the "pictures" link at the right or click here).

Staten Island

2007-10-24T17:03:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends.

This is a friendly reminder that a person should not take a gig on Staten Island, even on a weekend, without having first procured a car (or at least a ride in one). Staten Island is very suburban, and thus, many areas are quite poorly served by public transportation. For example, if a person were to take a weekend gig there and attempt to use public transport, it is entirely possible the process of commuting could take over 2.5 hours. It is also possible that a certain bus schedule was incorrect on the Internet and that it had stopped running by the time the person got to the bus stop, at which point the said person would have had to hire a cab. This only costs $5, which is very reasonable in another context, but could definitely feel like the proverbial back-breaking straw (especially if one is feeling already somewhat camel-like because he or she has been toting around a rather heavy musical instrument--such as a French horn--on his or her back). Adding yet another insult to injury would be finding out that after taking the pleasant 30-minute ferry ride at sunset, a cab to the same place would have cost a mere $7, but would have only taken 10 minutes (bringing the musician to the rehearsal space in the waning daylight), rather than the 70 minutes the abortive attempt at public transportation had taken (in close to pitch-darkness).

Yes, friends, a person would almost be at his or her wit's end by the end of the evening, especially when finding out that the orchestra which had hired this person was not efficiently rehearsed, and had several members with little right to be holding an instrument in the first place, unless the purpose of their playing was one of misanthropic, nay--diabolical!--intent.

Thus I caution you, lest you feel the slightest temptation to augment your salary by accepting a job on Staten Island, to make sure you know someone with a car or are prepared to take a taxi. Better yet: take the night off, pour yourself some wine (a good Bordeaux is recommended), and listen to a Beethoven String Quartet or a Mozart symphony on your stereo played capably by the major professional ensemble or orchestra of your choice. You'll certainly save yourself heartache and frustration, and, who knows, you may feel fully rested by the end of the weekend!

With best wishes,

A concerned and caring friend.

Oops, I did it again!

2007-09-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

You have all heard the rumors. Yes, it’s true…I have chopped my hair off once again. Now many of you may be thinking “but remember last time?!” and to you I say, of course I remember last time! The tears; the bitter, bitter disappointment; the Aunt Jemima handkerchiefs wrapped lovingly (and tightly) around my mutilated locks. Alas, your concern is touching but unfounded as I was much, much more cautious this time. As you will see by the accompanying picture, the luxurious strands are quite a bit longer than they were on that fateful day in summer 2003. They will be no tears shed in mourning this time, no hours spent in front of the mirror trying desperately to slick down those cursed cowlicks.
In other news, I have started my clinical year of PA school. I am currently three weeks and 180 hours into my general surgery rotation. We are a team of five managing about 40 patients in the ICU and on the telemetry and medical floors. I have had the opportunity to do a bunch of cool procedures including arterial blood gasses and a central line. Of course, this may mean nothing to many of you, but I assure you it’s cool. And now, I must mentally prepare myself to wake up at 5am again tomorrow. And for the next four days. Sigh.

Dan’s aside: Some of you know I took the Oregon Symphony audition for 4th horn. There were 80 people there, all good, to audition also. The committee only advanced about 8-9 people to the next round and, sadly, I was not one of them, but I did really enjoy my parents’ hospitality. I also got to see some family and friends, which was very nice. Now, back to work! (And yes, I do miss Katie during those 60 hour workweeks of hers.)

Icewine

2007-08-29T13:57:00.000-07:00

Did I mention that when we came back from Toronto (but before the crappy 2-hour delay at the border) we stopped off in Niagara-on-the-Lake, a small, picturesque town at the center of one of Canada's most important viticultural regions? We visited two wineries, the first of which was great. If you ever get a chance to visit Konzelmann vineyards, I highly recommend them. They have an extremely friendly staff, and all tastings are free, including the extraordinarily wonderful icewines (some are very expensive too: 200ml for $60). They also have a beautiful sloping vineyard overlooking Lake Ontario. Needless to say, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on that little side jaunt. And of course, brought home some bottles!

We went on Vacation....Together!!

2007-08-29T09:25:00.000-07:00

Katie and I just got back from a great vacation up north. We flew to Buffalo where we visited our friends Autumn and Eric for one night. The next day, we borrowed their Mini Cooper and drove to Niagara Falls. What an amazing place. We extensively explored both US and Canadian sides of the falls by walking over the Rainbow Bridge spanning the Niagara River. The Maid of the Mist boat cruise was one of the coolest parts, which we reserved until the end of the visit since we knew we would get soaked (in spite of the blue ponchos they give you to wear). The boat takes you into the midst of Horseshoe Falls, and if you look straight ahead, all you can see is falling water all around you (even in your peripheral vision). The roar of the falls is extremely loud, and the mist it kicks up can feel like a torrential rainstorm. Did you know that the Niagara river is not really a river at all, but a strait linking Lake Erie with Lake Ontario? Neither did we. You have to love state parks and all those information signs posted everywhere!

After spending all afternoon at Niagara Falls, we drove on further into Canada up to Toronto. We stayed four days at a pretty nice hotel right on the waterfront on the western edge of the city. High Park, essentially the Central Park of Toronto, was a short walk from our hotel and we had easy access to the subway (which is quite paltry compared to New York’s) and to a streetcar that could both take us downtown. We slept late every day and then I practiced my horn (while watching baseball highlights on TV) while Katie worked out in the gym facility. One night we used the hot tub and met a nice couple from Montreal (originally from Cuba) and their daughter. They didn’t speak a lot of English, so we got to practice our French and Spanish. We didn’t do a ton of touristy stuff. We have great museums in New York, and we aren’t hockey fans, so we didn’t feel inclined to visit the art museums or the hockey hall of fame. We did take a ferry out to the Toronto Islands, which are car free. They have bike rentals and an amusement park and some great beaches, plus amazing views of the downtown skyline. We also walked the PATH, which is an underground maze of tunnels (totaling 16 miles) connecting department stores, malls, commercial skyscrapers, the symphony hall, metro stations, restaurants, parking facilities, and other buildings. There were so many shops and food courts, it was quite a sight. I would imagine that Torontonians really enjoy all the enclosed shopping when it is wintertime. Plus, you could get from one block of the city to another without walking outside or paying for the subway (which is $2.75 per ride, or $21 for 10 rides, a discount we took advantage of).

One of the highlights of our trip was the CN tower. This is tallest freestanding tower in the world (1,815 ft). The main observation deck was the one we visited, along with the revolving restaurant, 360 (at 1,150 ft.). They added a glass floor to part of the tower in the 1990s, so you can look between your feet and stare straight down to the ground over 1,000 feet below. It was pretty funny to see skittish people who refused to even set foot on the glass. Even our level-headed Katie eventually decided she’d had enough of the dizzying, vertiginous view. Since we had dinner reservations, we didn’t have to wait in line for tickets, and got up to the observation deck just in time for sunset. So we saw the city in both daylight and at night. During dinner, the restaurant actually revolves 360 degrees every 72 minutes and the view is spectacular. We got especially lucky since the moon was almost full, and in the clear night, we could see its reflection splayed out across the expanse of Lake Ontario. The food was superb and we got a yummy, non-oaked Ontario Chardonnay with dinner. (I think only British Columbia and Ontario have noted Canadian wineries.)

I’ll let Katie tell you more about dinner. She writes: "my leg got stuck to the bottom of the table by gum which was probably a remnant from some bratty kid. The restaurant manager was extremely apologetic and gave us free dessert and after-dinner drinks. He will also be paying for my dry cleaning. That is all."

Finally, we drove back to Buffalo, interrupted by an exceptionally crappy 2-hour delay at the border crossing. We spent a few more days with Autumn and Eric and their two little girls. Those kids were adorable. Naia is 2 and talks a blue streak and Chloe just turned 1 and has a very sweet temperament. One of the great things about the vacation was that we were able to get away from New York together. We’d both traveled a little earlier this summer, but separately. Now we had some time to get reacquainted, since Katie has been working so hard on her degree and we don’t really see each other during the week when she’s in school. Next week I start teaching again and Bird starts her clinical rotation in surgery at the nearby Interfaith Medical Center…sounds exciting, and possibly messy.

Don't forget to check out all our new pictures (click here)

Dan's True Colors Revealed

2007-08-28T17:34:00.000-07:00

It won’t surprise any of you to know that Dan is a criminal. And it’s finally been confirmed by one of the largest enterprises is the United States: the NY Yankees. It all began innocently enough; my Dad was visiting on business and wanted to see a game at Yankee Stadium during his trip. Fine. After quite a lot of other adventures (Coney Island, a Mets game, my white coat ceremony) we found ourselves in the swarm of people converging on Yankee Stadium that fateful night. We scaled our way to the pinnacle where our seats were located and settled in for an exciting NY experience. I, of course, was plowing through the first of many non-medical texts since the end of the summer semester as Dan and Dad happily spouted forth facts from their reserve of seemingly infinite baseball knowledge. Before long a brood of frat boys set up shop right in front of us, obviously intoxicated and pretty vocal about their disgust for the opposing team. And then it happened…the literal spark that will forever be ingrained in our memories; the most inebriated of said frat boys lit a cigarette. A wave of protest went up all around us and at least four people asked the guy to put it out, as the smoke was billowing toward us all. When I finally asked him to put it out because it was aggravating my asthma, he made some flippant remark and blew smoke in Dan’s face. Suffice it to say, that didn’t go over well. The details remain a bit blurry, but a hat was aggressively ripped from the guy’s head in protest of the smoke, followed shortly by the entire row of frat boys holding their buddy back as he attempted to attack Dan. Words were exchanged. Security was called. Dan was kicked out. Okay, he did go willingly at the hearty request of the frat boy’s friends (frat boy was screaming at security that they would have to drag him out). As we watched Dan descend the stairs flanked by two security guards, I said to my Dad “that’s the son you never had.” I don’t think he’s ever been so proud. In the end we joined Dan on the outside because we’d already missed the most exciting part of the actual baseball game while Dan was in the midst of “Frat Boy Battle.” So ends the saga of Dan being ejected from Yankee Stadium, a mere confirmation of what we already suspected about Dan: he is trouble with a short fuse and should be dealt with cautiously.

Running

2007-08-11T06:16:00.000-07:00

So, here's a quick note: Katie is making me run. Miles of running. Her school shut down the gym for 2 weeks for maintenance and so she is making me go to Prospect Park to run with her. I haven't run distance of any measurable length since college, so, obviously, I am dying. Today, our friend Jara was visiting (she runs marathons and has her own blog about running, to which I've put up a link over on the right) and totally kicked our butts, mine especially. But we are out there running about 2 miles at a time. We took this picture when we returned after running for 40 minutes; notice, if you will, how fresh and fit Katie and Jara look while I am standing off to the side, a somewhat pleasant grimace on my shiny face, indicating that I am totally drenched with sweat. (Click on the picture above for the full size if you dare.) Not that I am complaining, I'm in better shape now. Also, check out the new pictures we took with Jara's computer! It has a photo-editing program that makes regular photos into fun-house style photos, and other types of effects (pencil sketch, comic book, etc.).

Now it's off to the Botanic Garden (it's free Saturday mornings) where we will feed the fish, ducks, and, if we're lucky, the turtles (they are so slow, the ducks and fish mostly beat them to the food). Jara leaves this afternoon, and Katie's Dad comes this evening. We'll update you on his visit in the next post.

Summer Update

2007-07-22T11:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay...

I know it's been awhile since we put up anything remotely resembling a significant blog post. So, you'll get the works...long narratives, pictures, and--well, I guess that's about all I can offer in this online medium. In any case, I (Dan) am back from my "sans Katie" travels and adventures. The first of which, some of you know was to the exotic locale of Canada--Halifax, Nova Scotia to be exact--for a two-week music festival at the beginning of June.

My woodwind quintet, whose picture you can find (here and maybe here, this link is for the quintet's Myspace page), was invited to be one of the ensembles-in-residence. They flew us up and quartered us in the tiny, but clean, Dalhousie University dorms. We played several concerts, including a live-to-air CBC broadcast from which I received a nice one-time royalty check. Below I include a description of the lobster dinner to which we were treated by the festival.

On Saturday afternoon, all 60 something people piled onto two old yellow school buses and drove about 45 minutes south and east to the coast of Nova Scotia. There, we unloaded at the seaside home (on about a 10-foot bluff overlooking a small cove) of the former contrabassoonist of the N.S. symphony. They had an outdoor fire pit in which they had a vast cauldron full of boiling water and lobsters. Since they had been preparing for our arrival, they already had a big blue laundry tub full of cooked lobsters and we all grabbed one (pictures to follow!) and, crossing over to another part of the lawn, went to a narrow, 30-foot long table, really just two long boards perched on wooden barrels. Daniel, our bassoonist who has attended this festival before, ran a "lobster-eating masterclass," and walked us through the eventual dismemberment and consumption of the red critters. There was also free beer. I ate two whole lobsters, a very yummy charred hot dog, several cookies, cheese and crackers, and probably some other stuff. Did I mention there was free beer? Daniel ate three lobsters and many other people ate at least two. So you can imagine the scene of carnage with all the torn-apart carapaces of the lobsters littering the table and the surrounding grass. It was wonderful. Lobster is very tasty (I sometimes dipped it in liquified butter) and I imagine I will now have to go find some in New York (probably Chinatown) and indoctrinate Katie into the lofty world of lobsterfeasts. After all this, we went for a walk down to the tide pools and crashing surf. All in all, it was very fun.

Of course, you need not only imagine this in your mind's eye, you can visit our pictures page to see the carnage first hand.

The second big trip I took these last two weeks before returning yesterday was to Oregon and Washington where I had 1) a week-long family reunion and 2) a week's visit to Seattle environs and then to Portland environs. The reunion is on Mom's side and a (mostly) triennial event for which about 20 relatives show up (see above picture) from all over the USA, more specifically: NY, TN, WA, OR, SC, TX, and CO. The reunion was actually capped by an even larger reunion in Tacoma of Mom's extended family (over 200 people were there) to celebrate my great uncle's 50-year anniversary as a Jesuit priest. Some relatives came who hadn't seen each other since 1937! Needless to say, I didn't know many of the relatives there so the great ice-breaker was "So, how are we related?" After this big party, it was off to Seattle to see my Dad's parents and visit with my college friends from the University of Puget Sound. I played many hours of video games, caught a Mariners game at Safeco field (they won! yes!) and visited with my grandparents again.

My father-in-law just happened to be visiting the Seattle area also, so I caught a ride back to Portland with him. Time was spent during my stint there mostly with my parents and in-laws, but also with a few select friends from high school with whom I am still close. During the entire two weeks I played a ton of cards (pinochle mostly), outdoor sports, board games, and, yes, video games. I ate a ton of great food and drank copious amounts of wine and beer. I visited extensively with most of my family and many of my friends. (Of course, during all this, I missed Katie terribly and am very happy to be back in Brooklyn, if only to be with her.) Finally, I was able to parry the spate of questions about my dissertation with polite deftness and a calm, serene demeanor. Now that I am refreshed and relaxed, I must get back to work on the cussed beast, by which I mean the dissertation.

So check out some of the new pictures (click here) I posted and we'll try to be better about blogging more frequently. Katie has only 20 days left of her coursework and is survival mode. She is studying like crazy. Once her coursework ends, she goes through a "white coat ceremony" where she is given, strangely and counterintuitively, a white coat of all things, but also the go-ahead to practice medicine. Then then one-year clinical portion of her degree begins. In her white coat ceremony and the commencement of her first clinical, we are going to visit our friends in Buffalo and, from there, take a little trip to Niagara Falls and then on up to Toronto. It should be fun. We'll try to blog it when we return.

Quick Update

2007-07-16T18:27:00.000-07:00

This is a brief post to bring your attention to some pictures of Dan while he enjoys his time away from me in the NW. I will continue to slave away here in the humidity of NY, ever careful to avoid the putrid stench of raw fish, human urine and tuberculosis emanating from the parched sidewalks. Love to you all!

Dragons!

2007-05-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

After a long hiatus, Bird is back blogging belligerently about the life and times out here in NYC.

First on the agenda today I would like to speak a little bit about food. Wait! Come back! I promise this will not be done in the style of our beloved Dan; rather, I need to extend a serious warning regarding eating free Chinese food without first ingesting a special drink I like to call ‘alcohol.’ A short preface: the hospital I work for (NY Methodist) had purchased a table at a fundraising event for the Brooklyn Chinese Association’s somethingth anniversary. I was invited to join in the festivities because I am awesome (or really, really hated… this has yet to be determined). Upon arrival at the Chinatown restaurant (in Manhattan… the theory is that the BCA was kicked out of Brooklyn) we were promised free (!) drinks and some good food. Instead, what we were given was:

the option of $2 beer (who pays for beer?!)
room temperature Coke and Sprite and
a hassle when we asked for some ice water

Not the best of beginnings, I would say. Fine. We endured the off-key warbling of many Chinese songs, both by children and by the very elderly. We were wowed by the dance of the dragons, even as they trampled our coats on their way by. We sat through all of the announcements and congratulatory toasts (to which we raised our luke-warm soda, as the ice water was MIA)…all in English and then in the Chinese translation. But we were stoic, determined to get some free food out of this if it killed us. Or we killed that dragon, which was a distinct possibility at this point of the evening.

We made the best of it, chatting and laughing about the craziness of the circumstances and continually eyeing the menu, which promised some tasty sounding dishes, accompanied by the Chinese translation, of course. And then it happened: the first course! According to the menu we were about to embark on the culinary adventure known as “cold-cut platter.” To our relief, it was served on a platter. Unfortunately, what was occupying the platter was significantly less appealing than the platter itself:

Duck tongue
Tripe
whole, creepy, glowing-eyed squid (one of which I promptly dropped into my neighbor’s Coke)

Now, had we been able to read the Chinese translation of the contents of this course, we would have been spared the subsequent groaning, looks of disgust and stomach churning. It is speculated that the actual translation was something to the effect of “Eat at your own risk! Food not suitable for human consumption! But you can’t read this so HA-HA!”

The next fifty courses (or so it seemed) were pretty much inedible, as well. We were able to stave off our hunger by pillaging the vegetables from each new dish and by making food art. Although my friend Lorelei was really creeped out by the head of the whole fried chicken, so I had to contain the beast within one of those really nice, red Chinese money envelopes. You’ve stared your last stare, chicken.

So this sounds pretty bad, but there was one redeeming factor: cake. It was delicious, but not worth the wait. Or the post-traumatic stress. OH! How could I forget? We were also given “goodie” bags complete with a bag of frozen dumplings, a Chinese newspaper and a coupon for $10 off our next visit to Dr. Wong, Ophthalmologist. Sweet.

This ends our epic journey through the world of food; I can almost guarantee Dan will write the next food blog, because it’s really his baby and I have interfered enough. Cheers!

More visitors!

2007-05-04T03:44:00.000-07:00

Our friend Ragan is here right now. He came out for a business trip for his company, Cingular wireless; that was close by, in New Jersey, and then took a train to our place for an extended stay. Katie and I have been pretty busy, but we've managed to see him for dinner, or for a quick lunch during the day, and he's been out doing his own thing for much of his visit. This weekend, the Brooklyn Museum is hosting its First Saturday event (free admission, dancing, movies, activities, curator talks) and we'll check that out and Sunday we go to see the Mariners take on the Yankees at the "House that Ruth built." I'm not sure how vocal we'll be in our support of the Mariners since Yankees fans are known to be rabid. Seriously, they foam at the mouth when their team is losing! I think another friend from college, Richard, is coming this weekend, too. He is planning on going to the Yankee game with us also.

Katie has her last final next Tuesday and then she'll be going back to the Northwest to visit, so for those of you who live there, brace yourselves! I finish up in the next 2 weeks also. At some point, she and I may actually SEE each other. That will be great.

We've really been enjoying the weather the last week. The past few years, NYC hasn't really had a Spring. It goes from being very chilly to hot and uncomfortably humid in about 3 days. This year, and for the past week, it's been sunny and in the high 60s or low 70s every day. Wonderful! Ragan and I have been to Central Park 3 times in as many days. We are also about a month behind the Northwest in terms of plant blooming, so trees buds are only now starting to turn into leaves, all the cherry trees and magnolias are in full bloom still and tulips and daffodils are all over the place. So places like the Botanic garden and the major city parks are glorious.

That is all for now... Go Mariners!

Teaching, Gigs, Food and Baseball

2007-04-09T09:48:00.000-07:00

Katie ended her blog with "....but I will leave you all now to allow him to expound upon his teaching, gigs, food choices and baseball obsession." So you should scroll down and read hers first before reading mine.

....

Back already? Good. Now, as far as teaching, I am on a quasi-spring break. While I am still teaching at Mannes, I do not have to teach at Hunter and Hofstra. Katie, too, is on break. Which is how she found the time to write a blog post. Because the three places I teach never lined up for spring break, I joke that I don't really get so much a "break" as a "bend." But it was a nice bend, and Alan DID get to see me teach at Mannes during his trip here. My classes were all very interested in meeting him and tried to get him to dish gossip on their teacher. Classes at all three places wrap up within the next month, so I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Gig-wise, I just wrapped up a busy Easter weekend (Alan hadn't heard me play for over 10 years) and am now busy playing a run of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Yeoman of the Guard." I will play a run of Carmen in May with an opera company up in the Bronx, and have several other small concerts and things coming up as well. The best news is that my woodwind quintet is being flown up to Halifax, Nova Scotia for a two-week music festival at the beginning of June. (A woodwind quintet is composed of a flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn...the horn is technically a brass instrument, but it blends so well with the other winds, it is traditionally included in the quintet.) We'll play some concerts, coach some high-school chamber music groups, and play young composers' new pieces. It should be fun. I'll blog more on this later.

I don't think I have time or space to write about food now. As many of you know, I have become more and more interested in food lately; I can actually have long talks about it, without realizing I my interlocutor is bored to tears. So, for now, I'll spare you all.

And yes, my baseball obsession is back. I've been waiting for the season to begin for some time. It's not only the national pastime, but also the harbinger of the balmy spring months and the lazy days of summer (or, at least for me, the less busy days...not so much teaching). Alan and I went to a Yankees game on Good Friday, and they lost to Baltimore 6-4. It was still pretty exciting, and we were among the first 18,000 fans (out of some 50,000 that came that night) so we got a free Yankees baseball cap. I am also watching the Mariners' box scores and can sometimes follow them in real-time on the Internet. They may have a good season (they started off well) and I am looking forward to seeing some games when I visit the Pacific Northwest in July.

I Like White People!

2007-04-08T16:24:00.000-07:00

Life continues to throw us around like rag dolls out here in NYC. We have been busy with school and work and a continuous stream of visitors, beginning with my sister’s surprise visit about a month ago. Her second visit to NY since our move, she seemed to be a bit more relaxed about the neighborhood and we had a lot of fun and many mango margaritas (minus the one Dan sloshed across the dinner table and then attempted to hoover clean with his mouth).

About a week after my sister was here, Dan's Uncle Rob came to Long Island for a quick business trip. It was snowing/sleeting/freezing raining all day, but the trains were working, so we were able to get out there and meet him for a Friday night dinner. We spent quite a while in pleasant conversation, mediated by good wine and lots of seafood. By the time we were finished, there were about 5 inches of snow. Yikes! But the roads were plowed okay and he gave us a ride to the train station. From this nice reprieve we went back to Brooklyn, with its work and school obligations.

School for me is a lot like prison: we are in the same, windowless room for 8 hours of lecture a day, trying with all our might not to let the other 30 people in the room get on our nerves while attempting to commit an entire textbook of medicine to memory. I have one more semester of academics to conquer this summer, after which we start our clinical rotations. Hopefully this will lend itself to a more regular, somewhat enjoyable kind of existence. It's not all so serious: some of my friends from school and I did take one night early this week to do some extracurricular activities at a certain bar in NYC; this was a much needed reprieve and we were only slightly hazy the next morning.

Quick subway story: riding home the other day there was a little black girl, maybe six years old who I was playing hide-and-seek with…very cute. As she was getting off she waved to me, I waved back and she proclaimed very loudly to her mother: “Mommy, I like white people!” Score one for the white people!

In other news, we are considering the installation of a revolving door to accommodate the visitor traffic we are experiencing. Rachel was here again for one night. We went out to a new place in the city that only serves mac n’ cheese. Also making an appearance were our bird friends Ben and Jara. They were here this week while I was on spring break and Dan’s brother, Alan, has finally made an appearance after many close calls in the past. They all overlapped for one night making the overnight total in our apartment five…we set a record! Next week we expect Tom and Ellen, followed by Ragan and finally Dan’s sister Gayle. At this point we will put up the “No Vacancy” sign and I leave mid-May to flip the tables and become a houseguest myself in Portland for about 10 days. Dan has a lot of stuff going on, too, but I will leave you all now to allow him to expound upon his teaching, gigs, food choices and baseball obsession.

In the bleak midwinter

2007-02-11T08:25:00.000-08:00

Katie and I are going to co-write this Blog entry. I will write and Katie will dictate from time to time.

Dan says: It is very very cold here. Or at least it has been, today it's supposed to finally get above freezing. The cold has got to me, as I caught a bad cold after about 2 years of healthiness. It got me last weekend and I even had to cancel some classes at Hofstra on Wednesday for the first time ever. Some of my students were very worried, one went so far as to take a picture of the class cancellation notice since he knows he'll never see one like it again in his tenure at the school. Other students just rejoiced at the unexpected gift of a freed-up hour. I just needed to stay in bed one day. Now I feel fine again.

Katie says: Penicillin and cephalosporins are bacteriacidal, they inhibit transpeptidation which in turn inhibit cell-wall prostaglandin synthesis.

Dan says: Our friend Rachel came to stay over the other night since she was up on business from Washington, DC. Fun times, and we ordered out for sushi for the first time here in Brooklyn. You might expect to be a bit nervous about raw fish home delivery in one of the outer boroughs, but it was very good and very fresh. Yum. She went home the next morning.

Katie says: I'm reading my Pharm review! Protein pump inhibitors reduce and/or block histamine, acytocholine or gastrin mediated h-plus extrusion by parietal cells.

Dan says: Yesterday at Hofstra I heard about 6 prospective horn players audition. All would be welcome additions to Hofstra, although some of them are applying to quite a few places and my choose to attend elsewhere. They were all nervous, and I did my best to make them feel less uncomfortable. Then I took the train home and Katie and I kicked back in front of the TV and watched part of my Christmas present, a 7-DVD long documentary about the history of NYC. Very neat.

Katie says: Stop bugging me, Dan, I'm trying to study pharmacology! [but she goes on to say] Sulfonamides and trimethoprim potentiate pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic parameters of each other.

Dan says: So there you have it, life flows on, some fun stuff, some not fun stuff, and pharmacology (which has elements of both, but mostly the latter). I hope your weather is warmer than ours.

End of January = Beginning of Donkey Season

2007-01-23T19:21:00.000-08:00

This strange heading may take some of you surprise, but I assure I did not mis-type. Katie is already experiencing the back-breaking loads of classtime and school work that raise her into the rarified atmosphere of feeling like an academic pack-mule or work-donkey...and it's only week 3 of her 3rd (of 6) semester.

I have been holding down the fort here (doing laundry, errands, cooking, etc.), and working 3 days a week at Mannes; but next week I go back to work at Hofstra and Hunter both. Therefore, my rocketship is about to blast off to a 6-days-per-week work-donkey orbit. So, the blog may be woefully neglected in the coming months. Fear not, as we will try our best to periodically update and post new pictures. It may just be that you have to wait 2-3 weeks between posts. And they might be tantalizingly brief.

The saving grace of the blog might be friends' visits. Such as the wonderful visit we had this weekend from our good friend Jara (who is now in Madison, WI with her husband, Ben, both working on MBAs). She was here as part of a delegation from her school; there were giving a presentation at a conference. She is a huge Chicago Bears fan and Sunday was spent parked in front of the TV with some snacks and drinks. Fun times, especially since the Bears wiped the floor with New Orleans! Jara is also an excellent baker and the tidy supply of extremely scrumptulescent cupcakes she baked are in danger of becoming extinct tonight.

Other visitors in the next few months include Ragan and my sister (both of "Dan and Bird's Eurotrip 2005" fame), and maybe Ben and Jara (again) ... and who knows else may pop up? So stay tuned...never a dull moment!

New Year's Stories

2007-01-07T18:32:00.000-08:00

On New Year’s Eve I played a “Concert for Peace” at the massive Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Katie came along to listen and afterward we went to visit with our newly married friends Rachel and Sean. Rachel’s dad had rented a brownstone in Harlem for their family and a circle of their friends, one of whom was a piano teacher. We were roped into playing a horn and piano rendition of “Auld Lang Syne” after we watched the ball drop on TV.

Coincidentally, we visited Sean and Rachel at their Washington, DC home just a day later on Jan. 2 and enjoyed their wonderful hospitality for 3 more days. Since they had to work, we were on our own to see the sights during the day. Katie had never been to DC and I hadn’t been since I was about 15, so it was a journey of discovery, education, and wonderment…and really, really sore feet by the third day. It was a lot like the Disney World trip of a few years ago, which we dubbed a “Bootcamp for Fun” except this was a “Bootcamp for Education.” To get to DC, we took the “Chinatown Bus” (a very cheap roundtrip ticket) that goes, not surprisingly, from Chinatown NY to Chinatown DC. This was no luxury liner, but it wasn’t too bad, except for some confusion about where the pick-up spot in NYC was. We had actually anticipated a much more harrowing experience and considered ourselves lucky after only being screamed at in Chinese a few times. After NYC and our Europe trip last year, Katie and I are becoming transportation gurus, or “professional tourists” as Bird says. We became fairly adept at taking the Metro (subway) and some of the buses around DC.

We saw the Declaration of Independence (really faded now, sadly, almost to the point of invisibility. The ink, not the actual document. It would be very confusing to look into a glass case and see nothing, like abstract art but with a democratic tinge.) the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (in better shape) at the National Archives. We went to about a million Smithsonian museums, and the National Gallery of Art. Of course we also went up the Washington Monument, gazed lovingly upon the statues of Lincoln and Jefferson in their respective memorials, reflected on the sacrifices of many Americans at the Vietnam and WWII memorials, and took a tour of the Capitol. We also took a tour of the Library of Congress which was one of the most amazingly beautiful American buildings we have ever seen. In the evenings we spent some time with Rachel and Sean for dinner, which was a lot of fun and mostly uneventful, save for one unfortunate guacamole incident which lead to another Chinese tongue-lashing by our waitress. We also visited one night with our other friends from college, Clare and Ross (and their new baby Jackson). Right before leaving we had coffee with my friend Steve, a conductor in the DC area and fellow Mannes College of Music alum.

It was a whirlwind trip and we had to get back to NYC because we were both back at work by Saturday. Katie starts school again tomorrow, so I won’t see her for another 3 months. Boo. Even though I am back to work at Mannes, I don’t start at Hunter or Hofstra again till the end of the month, so at least I get a little time to work on my dissertation (I hope!). If you have the time, take a look at some of our pictures (click here)! And given our prior record, I guess you’ll have to wait about another month until the next blog update!

Our Christmas Letter

2006-12-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

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

2006-10-29T11:39:00.000-08:00

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

2006-10-23T17:59:00.000-07:00

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?

2006-10-22T07:49:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-15T04:41:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-09T06:16:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-01T19:32:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-22T13:29:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-05T04:40:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-29T17:18:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-11T05:47:00.000-07:00

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)

2006-05-06T07:14:00.000-07:00

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)

2006-04-28T19:26:00.001-07:00

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

2006-04-25T07:05:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-04-15T04:36:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-04-10T14:51:00.000-07:00

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

2006-03-29T19:04:00.000-08:00

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

2006-03-05T14:07:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-12T12:27:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-12T12:04:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-24T15:43:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-18T14:09:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-03T16:25:00.000-08:00

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.

Bird. Bird. BIRDS!

2005-12-27T10:53:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! As many of you know, Dan and I have friends. Ben and Jara are our friends, and they have birds. Since they are lucky enough to be spending the holidays with family, we were enlisted to watch two of their birds: Cleo and Alfie. And thus the adventure begins. Picture this: a bird on the boxes, the incessantly screeching, pooping, flailing, food-flinging, Dan-biting heathen by the name of Cleo. Cleo does not like Dan and Dan has sworn off Cleo for life. Alfie is a much calmer, and larger, poop machine. He is positioned on the desk and he likes to shred paper, eat broccoli and sit for long periods of time on my knee. It should be known that Alfie does like Dan, so the theory that Dan emits an odorless bird repellent does not fly, so to speak. I take turns holding the birds and keeping them away from Dan, but they really hate it when I leave the room. There is an ear-splitting cacaphony that follows my exit which consists of screeches, whistles, clicks, hoots, flaps. Dan contributes to this by swearing and cursing the noisy beasts. So things are very lively at our place.
In other news, we have been busy with visitors (see previous blog), holiday happenings and work. Our other friends Kyle and Nancy have an annual holiday party we would be crazy to miss. We get to catch up with people we rarely see and meet new people we won't see until the next holiday party! And the food! Nancy is serious about her party fare, and we look forward to her yummies every year.
I have been working at the hospital a lot lately, mostly filling in for those lucky enough to have vacation time. The 3pm-11pm in the lab is actually a lot of fun because the people who work that shift are great and there aren't any supervisors around that late so we get to screw off a lot and wear tennis shoes! I hope none of them read this...
On Christmas Eve I worked 3-11 and Dan met me after work so we could go to the Midnight mass at St. Saviour's which is right behind the hospital. We walked home and fell asleep around 2am.
We got lots of cool stuff for Christmas, most notably (for me) a bunch of kitchen accessories like the Pampered Chef chopper and the Williams Sonoma aprons! Dan got some CDs, a new man-purse made by Victorinox, Pictionary and some stuff we have yet to open. Which is why I will sign off, because I need to get home and open more presents!

Sorry for the delay...

2005-12-27T10:27:00.000-08:00

Hello again. Sorry for the delay, we'll try to stay more current with the blog. It's been a couple of crazy weeks. Katie has been working at the hospital quite a bit and I have been studying hard for my comprehensive exams for my PhD. This 3-day test starts Jan. 17. Hofstra won't start again until the end of January so I am looking forward to 3 weeks of basically non-stop cramming. Woo hoo. :(

One of the highlights of the last few weeks has been my parents visit the week before Christmas. They came overnight and arrived Friday morning on jetBlue to JFK and then took a cab out to Hofstra where I was hearing sight-screaming...I mean, sight-singing exams for my sophomore ear training classes. I took them on a tour of the campus and we took the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) back to Manhattan. Fortunately, the subway workers had postponed their strike until the following Tuesday.

We did so much fun stuff with my folks including, but not limited to, getting a architectural-themed walking tour of Park Slope (a very nice Brooklyn neighborhood) from a former Mannes extension student of mine who happens to be a well-known architect, eating some good food, going to Ellis Island, eating pizza at Grimaldi's in Booklyn (the best pizza in NYC according to the Zagat survey), buying quality chocolate at Jacques Torres, seeing the NYC Transit Museum, eating some good food, sight-seeing at Rockefeller Center, looking at the holiday window displays, eating lots of good food, seeing the Rockettes at the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, seeing some wonderful illuminated manuscripts from the 1200-1600s at the New York Publick Libraries magnificent building on 42nd Street, and did I mention eating good food? It seemed like they were here longer than the 4 days since we packed so much fun stuff in.

They didn't escape the transit strike though, since they left on Tuesday (when the strike started). Fortunately, I was able to take the LIRR into Penn Station (from Hofstra where I was administering more torture, I mean finals) and we spent a few more hours sight-seeing, and then endured a 2-hour cab ride to JFK, ouch. I was able to take the AirTrain to the LIRR going back to Brooklyn, but there was still a 30-minute walk for me to get home. We are glad the strike only lasted 3 days!

So check out the new pictures at flickr.com, you can click on the pictures at the bottom of the page or over to the right-hand side of the screen. Katie is writing the Christmas report that you have probably already read since it was published later than this post. And we'll try to report back on our New Year's doings and not have a month-long reporting lapse again!

Thanksgiving report

2005-11-27T17:35:00.000-08:00

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.

2005-11-18T13:59:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-13T12:26:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-09T15:20:00.000-08:00

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!

2005-11-04T12:53:00.000-08:00

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).

Shostakovich concert!

2005-10-31T15:17:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, after Katie got done working at the blood drive, we joined our friends Ben and Jara (who were at our party the night before) for a concert at Lincoln Center. Jara is the manager of education for the Chamber Music Society, and was able to bring us into Alice Tully Hall as her guests. We saw an all-Shostakovich program (his centennial starts in 2006, since he was born in 1906), which was really very good. The Chamber Music society played his Cello sonata; the wonderful Trio for piano, violin and cello; the string octet; and his Concerto No. 1 for Piano, Trumpet and Strings.

Katie and I got to go backstage for the reception, and I was able to talk to the trumpeter, Phil Smith, who is also the principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic. What a thrill! And the wine and petit-fours weren't bad either! It was quite an eventful weekend, and now we are back to the grind this week. But we can't complain. Life is good. Until the next adventure....

Halloween Hijinx!

2005-10-31T15:00:00.000-08:00

Here we are! This is Katie as the witch, Dan as the creepy doc, Nancy as a bee, and Kyle as her bee keeper. Click on the picture for a bigger version. You can see more pictures of our spooky Halloween adventure by clicking the Pictures! link to the right or by clicking any of the pictures in the flickr badge at the bottom of the page.

Halloween!

2005-10-31T14:35:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I have many obsessions. I like to be clean, and I love Halloween! (It was not my intention to rhyme that, sorry.) Dan and I put together the first annual Monster Bash, which seems to have been a great success! We were honored with six guests (any more than that would have violated fire codes, I am sure, as our apartment is absurdly small) and closed the doors around midnight, since many of us had to work the next day.
We created a scary atmosphere by using colored light bulbs, lots of orange and purple Halloween lights and candles. But I know the question everyone is dying (haha) to have answered is "what did you make to eat?" Don't you people think of anything else?! Here it is:

MONSTER MENU

Creepy Chili
Boo Cups (pudding, cool whip and crushed oreos)
Candy Corn Cups (grape and orange Jell-o, cool whip, candy corn)
Graveyard Crunch
Devilled Eyeballs
Firey Pumpkin Seeds
Green Goblin's Guts Punch
Kitty Litter Cake
Pumpkin Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting (courtesy of Jara)
Bee Larvae AKA white chocolate truffles (courtesy of Kyle and Nancy)
Pumpkin Fluff with Cinnamon Grahams (also courtesy of Kyle and Nancy)
Plasma (white wine)
Whole Blood (red wine)

Everyone who attended reported to have had a great time! Either they are too nice to say anything else, had too much to drink and don't remember or really did have fun! We are inclined to think fun was had for all, we definitely had a good time.
I was particularly grateful for the extra hour the next morning, as I had to go to a blood drive (dressed in my costume, of course) very early on Sunday.
As for a general update, we are doing well and enjoying the much anticipated Fall weather! We will write again soon when (if) something interesting happens!

The Engagement Party

2005-10-18T20:12:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was Alan and Lyndsey's engagement party in Lyndsey's hometown of Atlanta, GA. Again we found ourselves on a plane (courtesy of Lyndsey's Dad, Rob) and reunited with Dan's parents and siblings. The Goodman's are the epitome of Southern hospitality. They made us feel very welcome and won us over with an immediate offer of alcohol! We were given a brief driving tour of the neighborhood in which the houses all have closets bigger than our apartment. Literally! We helped prepare for the cocktail party on the 8th, mostly by hanging out with the Goodmans and the Partridges and drinking more wine! That's the best kind of help. The party was a success, with speeches given by Dan, Gayle, Alan, Lyndsey, Rob and Sharon (Lyndsey's mom). Much laughing, eating, music playing and general good times. We flew back to NY on Sunday, dreading getting back into the real world of work. There won't be many trips that do not involve the subway for us in the near future, but we will keep you all informed, even if it is boring!

2005-10-18T18:45:00.000-07:00

Katie came along to write a photo-essay on "Mike's Junior Golf School." See a few more summer pictures at flikr.com by clicking here, or on the "pictures!" link in the sidebar at the right. We miss our families!