Missing Out

November 8, 2010

I won’t get into the whole working vs staying at home debate right now, but I’ll just say that there are obviously things I miss out on during my office tour of duty every week.  Milestones, school happenings and just the silly, fun, mundane stuff. 

Like this.

I don’t know who the strange bear/chef is and why he was roaming the grocery store — though, admittedly, he freaks me out a bit — but my nanny says that the baby was enthralled.   So enthralled, in fact, that said unnamed freaky bear/chef sent them home with a miniature stuffed version of himself, which the baby proceeded to hug all weekend.   The mini stuffed version is far less freaky.

Anyway, I missed it.  It wasn’t a huge, life-changing moment  — but it was awfully sweet.

(Does this bear roam your grocery store?  Just curious.)

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Next Stop: Eataly

November 5, 2010

I am totally fascinated by the Manhattan opening of Eataly — a 50,000 square foot massiveness of Italian food, shops, wine and treats. 

Yes — 50,000 square feet.  But Mario Batali never does anything small, and he is one of Eataly’s backers. 

I haven’t been there yet, but I know this much.  In addition to seven restaurants, a full upscale Italian market, a cooking school, wine bar, vegetable butcher, two wood-fired pizza ovens and a fresh pasta counter, Eataly (awful name, no?) also has the following lures (this is the stuff that really caught my eye):

  • A Lavazza coffee stand
  • Paninoteca (bread bread bread bread)
  • Pasticceria (pastries!)
  • Rosticceria (roasted meats)
  • Gelateria (need I say more)
  • And, finally — wait for it:  Il Laboratoria De La Mozzarella.  *Cue angels singing*

It’s just so much…Italy, I guess.  I can’t decide if this is pure genius or a bit of Vegas.  Or perhaps EPCOT.  

Check out this news clip that covered the big opening day.

YouTube Preview Image

If the excitement of the woman being interviewed in the blue halter dress is any indication, I guess I should really make the pilgrimage.  Or maybe she just hit the new wine bar a bit hard.  Or had one too many espressos. 

The whole thing seems odd for Manhattan, or maybe for the fading Manhattan that didn’t embrace strip malls, big chains or anything too contrived.  (The recent travesty of turning the Limelight into a mall comes to mind, which was a bigger sin than its original conversion from a church to a den of 80s and 90s hedonism.  But let’s cover that another day, if I can somehow dust off those fuzzy memories.)

In the meantime, I hope to get to Eataly soon and check it out for myself.  But if any of you guys get there before me, please give me the scoop — along with a gelato, an espresso and a ball of fresh mozzarella. 

 Grazie mille.

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Sometimes A Week Is a Long Time

October 28, 2010

Laugh if you want, but a week is a long time to be away from home these days.  I didn’t think so in my previous (pre-kids) life.  But now, I miss those little messy faces, those laughs, even that sound of “Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy” 45 times a day.

(And yes, I miss my husband too.  I’m sappy like that.)

A week is also a long time to sit through meetings. 

No, correction.  It’s a ridiculously long-ass time to sit through meetings.

To be honest, I have not technically been in meetings for a full week.  I had a little fun trip on the side before the work part of my travels began (see here), and now that seems like a decade ago.  You know why?  Because I just spent three consecutive days sitting in a conference room with 30 other people for nine hours.  The discussion, the analyses, the PowerPoint decks, the small talk in between.  And then the mandatory team dinners.  By this afternoon, I felt like my spinal column was going to collapse into itself if one more person uttered one more word or showed one more PowerPoint slide in that conference room.  They’re all very nice, but it was massive overload.  It’s going to take a while to regain sensation in my brain.

A week is also a long time not to have personal email access in any reliable or consistent manner.  I’m sure that many smarter people than I have found a quick and easy way to use their iPhones abroad without incurring huge roaming fees, but let’s say it’s not intuitive, at a minimum.  Anyway, this isn’t a tech blog — the point is that I’m more than a little addicted to being connected to an email account other than the one in my office — meaning, other than the one that receives messages from those people in the conference room lockdown.

A week is a long time in some good ways too.  It’s a long time not to have to cook, clean, pay bills, do laundry, organize kids’ activities or go grocery shopping for what I invariably forgot on my last trip to the store.  It’s a long time to not race for the train every morning, but instead walk through St James park and past Buckingham Palace to get to and from work every day.  Definitely an improvement over NJ Tranist and the PATH train.

My week is over tomorrow.  Back to the household lists and things to get done.  But I’ll be sprung free of the conference room and I’ll get my email back in order — and I get to see my family.  Then it will feel like it has been forever.

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Sunday in a Favorite Place

October 24, 2010

I have an uncle who is one of my favorite people on the planet.   He gets me — he always has.  I rarely have the chance to see him because he lives in Amsterdam, but this weekend was one of those rarities — and on his turf.  Even better.

I have to go to a meeting in London this week and I was really glad that P did not blink at my idea to take advantage of the proximity and jump on up to Holland, even though it meant leaving him and the kids behind for a full week.  (I’m fairly certain he’s planning a secret revenge golf trip or something, but that’s OK.  Huge points for encouraging me to tack on the Dutch mini-vacation.)

My uncle moved to Amsterdam 26 years ago to live with his Dutch partner, so he’s practically a native at this point.  I’ve been here to visit probably about five times and, every time, I love it more.  It’s an amazing city — the food (more on that soon), the history, the people, the architecture, the weather (just kidding — it’s usually raining Biblically when I’m here — ditto yesterday).  I could live here.  I love it.

So you combine a favorite place with a favorite person and it makes for the most lovely of weekends.  And, there’s more…

My dear friend Grace, who recently moved from New York to Switzerland, met me for the weekend.  How lucky am I?

My uncle and his partner, Gene, live here — the uber-charming, uber-narrow grey house in the middle.  It’s like a postcard, but better, because I get to go inside and stay there.  The house was built in 1732 and is to die for.  The details and decor deserve an entire blog.  I cannot do it justice here, but suffice it to say that they have flawless taste, coupled with backgrounds in art and antique dealing. 

Every time I come, I take this same photo.  I love this view, right at the end of their street.  Can you imagine walking out to get a newspaper and seeing this every day?

A few other shots of their immediate neighborhood.

It’s hard for me to describe the feeling I have when I am here.  This city feels so familiar, inviting and comfortable to me, and yet is still a distinctly foreign place.  This ain’t New Jersey (no offense to my fellow Garden State dwellers).

Another reason to love Holland:  Some of the best cheese and chocolate on the planet.  There are no other words to accompany this photo — let’s just give it the moment of respect it deserves.

Speaking of food…Last night, we had an epic dinner prepared by my uncle.  Great conversation, great family, great friends — old and new.  It was one of those evenings when everything just worked out beautifully. 

Today, we walked the city, with no particular destination.  We chatted, we ate, we drank.  We window shopped and took cover under awnings when it rained horizontally, and then hailed.  Twice.  And it was just about a perfect day.

(Oh, and if my photos aren’t appearing or other formatting stuff is off, it’s because I’m trying to figure out Windows commands in Dutch.   I can repair any damage when I get back on an English computer.)

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Fear of Flying

October 22, 2010

I don’t know that I’ll ever be comfortable flying.  On the “dislike scale,” I range from hesitant to terrified pretty unevenly.  Today, I am somewhere closer to really, really nervous.

I know the odds are always in my favor.  It still rattles me, especially when flying alone and far like I’m doing tonight.  I don’t know how the road warriors of the business world do it — all that travel, all those planes.  Not for me.  Perhaps I’ll just conjure up images of George Clooney from “Up in the Air” to calm my nerves.  That could work.

Or maybe seeing an image of a nice, peaceful-looking flight will help.

Now that I’m looking at it again, it sort of reminds me of the opening sequence of “Lost.”  Perhaps not the best calming tactic.  I would be terrible going up against the smoke monster and drinking Dharma beer in a hatch.

Or maybe I’ll just have to rely on wine and in-flight enterainment to be my travel friends.  And fun awaits me when I land, so here’s to a calm head prevailing.

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Fall Skies

October 12, 2010

Sunday was gorgeous.  It was one of those incredible fall skies.  I dropped the father-son duo off at the Y for their Sunday morning swim class and grabbed a coffee in town with the baby (she opted for just a milk, slightly warmed).  We took a quick walk before we had to pick up the boys, and it was the best 30 minutes of sanity I had all weekend. 

We were off to a wedding that afternoon on a boat circling Manhattan.  It could have been a disaster, weather-wise, this time of year, but they got the best possible outcome.  I felt like a tourist (in a good way), getting that great perspective of the city, going under the Brooklyn Bridge and right in front of the Statue of Liberty.  I am a jaded New Yorker in many ways, but sitting on that boat, listening to music with a glass of wine and taking in that view — you really can’t beat it.

I would love this second photo even more if I didn’t  work in one of these buildings…but it’s still very pretty.

A great day for a walk, a wedding and quasi-tourism — all under the same brilliantly blue sky.

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Who Says You Can’t Go Home?

October 11, 2010

I distinctly remember my parents going to their 20th high school reunion.  It was 1986.  There were diets, new hair cuts (my mom sporting the then-stylish asymmetrical look) and certainly new outfits involved.  They had, after all, been high school sweethearts and they were really looking forward to meeting up with old friends. 

I was 14 at the time.  I hadn’t yet entered high school and surely couldn’t imagine being 20 years removed from it.

On Saturday, it was my turn to go to my 20th high schoool reunion.   I am as old as I remember my parents being on that night of the new hair cuts and outfits.  And this old gal had a great time catching up with old friends and chatting with others I literally hadn’t laid eyes on since 1990. 

If you didn’t grow up in New Jersey in the 1980s, I don’t know that I can sufficiently prepare you for the tragic fashion and hair that we grew up embracing.  I’m starting to think that Snooki owes us all a few bucks for stealing our look and trademarking it.  Here are two shots that an old friend unearthed for the occasion.

And here’s one from Saturday.  I’m really glad we gave up the Aqua Net.  It wasn’t all that becoming.

My parents moved away from my hometown after I graduated from college, as a result of their divorce.  Because they aren’t there, I rarely go back, although it’s not more than 40 minutes from where I live now.  It had probably been a couple of years since I had last driven up there. 

Every time I do make that drive, it really has an impact on me.  It’s that feeling of space and time being all mushed up.  Sure, things change — the old Grand Union is a Stop & Shop and they added a McDonald’s where no fast food had ever existed.  But so much is the same — The Old Forge where my dad would meet up with his buddies, the crazy winding roads that I can’t believe (really can’t believe) we learned to drive on, the gorgeous reservoir, the billion stars you can see at night because there are no streetlights.  And I like that it’s the same.  I like that this place is hermetically sealed in my memory as is, and that I can think of a thousand stories to go with every street I passed on the way to that reunion. 

I drove past my grandmother’s old house and the house my parents first bought a few blocks from her.  I drove past the lake where we had spent many summer afternoons, where I learned to swim and dive and play Marco Polo.  ??I drove past the old check verification business where I had my first job.  I drove past the neighborhood where we all drank bad beer in the woods. 

I felt 5 years old, I felt 12 years old, I felt 16 and I felt 38.  I felt both like the small child who had grown up here, and like the mom who had her two young kids back home with a babysitter while driving to the reunion. 

And the reunion itself was a lot of the same — this feeling of bouncing between nametags, bouncing between “I know I knew you,” and “I wish I had known you more” and “I’m so glad we still know each other.”  It’s odd, right?  Because it’s not just about the fact that you spent four years in a school together — it’s about all that stuff in between.  Being from that same town, that same place — and being happy to come back to it, to see what has changed and what has stayed exactly as your memory has preserved it.

So thanks LRHS Class of 90, it was really so much fun.

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Pancakes, Pumpkins and Productivity

October 4, 2010

First, it’s on. 

The garage sale, that is.  My neighbor Donna and I are both woefully unprepared but we’re getting our stuff out there come 9am next Saturday.  Remember how P and I were going to go through all of the items in question this weekend?  Never happened.  We decided it was enough to know we need to unload a bunch of crap.  Which items specifically will fall into the “for sale” bucket are tbd (probably around midnight Friday).  Plus, it was just too nice outside to hang around the basement wondering how we accumulated all of this junk. 

So instead, here’s what we did.  It was a wildly productive weekend, and anytime my to-do list makes good progress, I am happy.  Even better that we had fun along the way.

  • Friday night, date night for P’s birthday.  Good food.  Nice drinks. 
  • I had a solo trip out to Long Island on Saturday to visit a friend and her first baby.  Sorry Long Islanders, it’s lovely there, but it’s never an easy trip.  But I actually didn’t mind all that much because it was the first time in years I had that much car time to myself, which meant 1) songs with adult lyrics played very loudly and 2) nobody in the back seat who minded.  Oh and the baby is precious.  5 weeks old.  I love newborns, though they make me ache for just one more resident of Fordeville. 
  • I made pancakes for breakfast on Sunday.  This really isn’t a big deal.  I have no fancy recipe to share because it was plain and from a box, but the reality is that we just never seem to have time to cook anything for breakfast recently (unless you count toasting).  And it’s one of the few foods that the whole family likes.  So that was nice.
  • We went to a local nursery and found they were doing hay rides, the pumpkin patch, the whole “fall is here, despite your denial” deal.  My son loves a good tractor ride and both kids had a ball picking out their pumpkins.  Bonus points that it was right up the road.
  • Off to the mall we went in search of an iPhone for me (done!  and wow), Halloween costumes for the kids (done! even one for the poor pug) and a birthday present for P (done!).  The baby napped through my iPhone consult and they both slept in the car on the way home — we could not have planned this if we tried.  True planet alignment. 

Here are a few shots from the pumpkin picking.  While this fun ensued, I’m sure that alien pods continued to multiply our stuff in the basement.  But I’m too scared to look, until maybe Friday.

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The Great Escape

September 20, 2010

Well, we pulled it off.  Three days away, kidless.  By “pulled it off,” I mean barely and not without huge favors, but off we went.  And it was great.

I won’t even get into the logistics entailed to ensure our children and dog had their basic needs met for three days.  I owe some people huge — I’ll say that much — and I’m grateful for their kindness.  But we were getting in that car come hell or high water (cue high water).

Once the last item was stricken from the to-do list and we were on our way, it took me a few hours to decompress.  I liked being in the car (mainly because I did little driving) and I had envisioned some great “talk time” for P and me to discuss the big ticket items in our life right now — endless potty training, aligning on a better discplinary approach for our son, prioritizing the home improvement list, etc.  But we clearly both needed just to think about a whole not of nothing.  It was enough to surf the satellite radio and make decisions about what music we wanted to hear (I lost — see: “I did little driving”).  I checked my work Blackberry less and less as the day went on, and finally felt myself checking out by the time we reached the Vermont state line.

Vermont is gorgeous.  I’d been before, skiing over the years, but it had been a while.  It really feels worlds away and it just oozes charm.

Even the rest stops are charming

As much as the impetus for our trip was a friend’s wedding, we tacked on an extra night beforehand to spend on our own.  This was a great decision.  Months ago, I had asked a colleague in Vermont for some advice about where to stay for this pre-wedding side trip and she totally came through with great ideas.  Hello, Woodstock Inn. 

What a beautiful place.  Totally charming (down to its address on “The Green” and its in-room fireplace) and also modernized (complete with 17 day-old spa, which we visited promptly, and bathrooms right out of Restoration Hardware).  I’d go back in a heartbeat.

We hit up nearby Simon Pearce for browsing and dinner, both equally great.  I wish I had bought something — their pieces are so gorgeous — but I was short on time to make our dinner reservation.  It was over dinner we were finally able to unwind and start to sort out that home improvement priority list, other happenings and just fun nonsense.  Very low key and really lovely. 

Oh and we got 8 uninterrupted hours of sleep — I don’t think I’ve had that since our son was born in 2007.

The town of Woodstock was just, as P would say, out of a Chamber of Commerce brochure.  Picturesque, quaint, welcoming.  Add the blue skies and perfect fall weather, and I’ll tell you, it was exactly the idyllic New England day I had hoped for in my head.  Here’s a few scenic shots, though they’re always better in person.

If you want to know what's happening in town...of course check the blackboard

And here I was feeling all “Bridges of Madison County” (yeah, I know, Iowa, not Vermont — but come on — this is pretty damn close).

Anyway, it was a great day.  I felt relaxed, truly. 

Then we were off to the main event in Killington — the wedding.  It was the perfect day for an outdoor wedding in September.  The bride and groom were thrilled, as they should be.  

Logistically, we were a crew of 40 under one roof (literally, we were all staying overnight at the inn where the wedding was held — a whole lotta togetherness).  So it was a little different but really suited the whole event.

More wine, more relaxation.

And I got 7 more hours of uninterrupted sleep.  But right before I did, this was the mental image I was left with.

The shotski.  A big Vermont tradition.  Who knew?

Anyway, the drive home was sort of a drag — I’ve always had trouble transitioning on Sundays back to the work week mindset ahead.  It’s always worse when you leave behind a great weekend.  We made the rounds and picked up the dog, our son and then relieved my aunt from her truly generous (and sort of not what she signed up for) weekend with the baby.

Back to reality.  But it was a long-overdue, great break and I do feel recharged (or at least refocused, or perhaps just less annoyed/exhausted).

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A Woman on a (Selfish) Mission

September 16, 2010

It never ceases to amaze me how much prep work it entails to get out of town.  This time (cue angels singing), P and I will escape sans kids.  It’s been about 18 months since we’ve had a night away by ourselves (oh, unless you count my colleague’s wedding last year when I spent more time with my breast pump  — the baby was 4 months old — than my husband in a NJ hotel room).  This getaway will, God willing, be two nights — though the plan is hanging by a thread.  Still, I remain determined to be in the car this time tomorrow, headed north.

Specifically, we’re off to Vermont for a wedding.  In my head, I have this vision of an idyllic fall weekend in New England — gorgeous scenery, some nice shopping, delicious food and the swank inn (w/spa treatments) that I booked us in the night before the wedding.  And then of course the wedding itself — fun with friends, drinks, drinks, fun, friends.   All good.

I booked my mom for this huge babysitting favor months ago and she was game, God bless her.  Now, today, she sits in a hospital in Manhattan with my stepfather, who has just come out of surgery for prostate cancer.  Thankfully, all went very well and his prognosis is excellent.  He should even come home today (robotic surgery).  But of course it shifted what she could take on this weekend, understandably. 

This did not deter me.  I had nothing but resolve (albeit selfish resolve) to get out of Dodge and for the full two nights, damnit.  I need a break from the all-consuming potty training, the terrorist negotiations with a 3 year old and the non-stop climbing of a 1 year-old.  Just a quick break, just two nights, please, and I think I’ll be as good as new.

I have never done this but I called my sister-in-law and begged her to take our son for the weekend.  Our nephew is 4 and they would have a blast (the kids, I mean — I can’t say the same for the parents).  My SIL and BIL have 4 children, ages 12 to almost 3.  They don’t sweat the small stuff.  They have a great time and — thank you God — they were more than willing to take on a 5th kid  for the weekend (they were actually game to take both of our kids, but even my selfish motives couldn’t overcome the guilt associated with that big of a favor).  Our son and his cousin will be as thick as thieves all weekend.  Who knows — maybe the potty trained 4 year-old will rub off on our son.

One kid down, one to go.  The baby — the precious 14 month old who looks like an angel but has the devil in her eye.  It’s that phase of nonstop exploration (translation = danger at every turn).  My husband has our son calling her “The Destructor.”  So cute, so curious — sooooo hands on.  For her, I have devised a revolving door of caregivers, which consist of our nanny working overtime, my aunt and maybe my mom, depending on how my stepfather is doing.  It’s kind of a precarious series of hand-offs and I feel slightly bad about it.  But did I mention I’m getting in that car and going tomorrow? 

Oh and the poor sweet pug, Senor.  His weekend whereabouts are tbd, depending largely on a matrix of events that involve my mom, stepfather, aunt and possibly SIL.  But he’s a good boy and very flexible about where he lands.  As long as there are ample treats.

So, with all of that in play (breathe in, breathe out), it’s time to get to the to-do list:

  • Grocery shopping for aforementioned revolving door of people in my house all weekend.
  • Type up a list of all reminders for the baby’s schedule, details, oddities, etc (per my aunt’s request)
  • Pack the kids’ stuff
  • Move the baby’s car seat to our second car in case my mother wants to take her to her own house (see Plan III.A.3.b)
  • Figure out dog’s weekend whereabouts
  • Leave weekly pay for the nanny and dog walker at the house
  • Make up the guest room for my aunt
  • Pack up our own stuff for the weekend (I have no idea what I’m wearing to the wedding and probably need to buy a wrap or something for outdoor September Vermont festivities.  Weather.com says low in the 40s.  Hm.)
  • Go shopping (see above)

Did I mention I have a dinner tonight that I committed to ages ago (add to list: Make appetizer for the dinner)?  Oh and I need a manicure (badly).  And I’m at work all day today (let’s not even get into that list).

But I’m getting out of town tomorrow.  Somehow.  Wish  me luck.

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