Merry

Just sent out my annual report. I think I've emailed in lieu of cards (not that I ever sent cards really) for the past four years or so. It's been good to review. Kind of exhausting. But maybe that's just cuz I helped watch kids today. I don't think I'm going to shut down the blog just yet. First I need to get settled (in Tucson or otherwheres) before I let go of this means of feeling accomplishment. I recently read someone's blog about blogging and how one should really know why one is blogging to have a good blog. And as my subtitle indicates, I don't want to stray too far from travelogue. Unless I repurpose. Again. :) Happy Christmas, as they say in other places.

Exit wounds

Not that I've been shot. It's just the pin prick-sized scabs on my hand just healed from helping arrange roses at the TSC volunteer banquet--and that was about two weeks ago. And there's a fading bruise on my shin from when I ran into Juanita's granny cart containing her Christmas tree. And, well, the gap in my heart whenever I leave NYC. And, well, well, it's time. I'm done. Time to shut down the blog because there are no more travels.

Nancy (of Richland) asked me today if I plan to be temporary for much longer. And it's like: yes, I not only plan to be temporary, I AM temporary. And eternal. Confusing right? It's the dot, not the line--according to Randy Alcorn. But no, I want to be Somewhere. I don't like being elsewhere. I like location, I just don't like fixed location. (A big thank you to Nancy for the lovely lunch and chat!!)

My dad said I need to own things to teach me responsibility. Like a computer. Or a car. Using things that don't belong to me, I don't learn to take care of them. I didn't get mad, visibly. Certainly my internal resume ticker was flashing: I just took care of my sister's FOUR kids for a week! My Linkedin recommendations rock! I bought and installed RAM for your computer...Oh hollow justification.

Anyway. Here's some pictures to lighten the mood of this post.

Some of my ex-colleagues at the Deutsch department party I crashed.

Kristin and Linsey prepping lemon tart.

Closeup of tart.

Juanita and the tree. :)

Ten lepers-esque

Waiting for my re-booked flight out of Salt Lake City (free wifi!). I volunteered to take a later flight in return for 300 Delta dollars and a $7 meal voucher that I just redeemed at Wolfgang Puck Express for a turkey avocado sandwich. And after making up the 86 cent balance, I have 25 cents left in cash.

This is what Christians call a praise report. i.e., I didn't want to spend the subway fare to head into Manhattan but I did want to see Nancy one last time. Remembered that my two-week unlimited expired today and not yesterday. So I got to see Nancy without extra cost.

Then, Nancy paid for my beef goulash at Hallo Berlin after we met Diane--a lonely elder lady who is family-less in NYC and said her company voted to stop paying for health insurance instead of doing layoffs. She said her insurance bill is more than her rent. Nancy shared with her about the only For Sure we have.

As mentioned, my metrocard expired today but I didn't have to use it because last night I went to Jersey City and stayed the night at Linsey's place. And she and Kristen made curry split pea soup, linguini and meatballs, and a huge lemon tart with freshly whipped schlag. Then, they both woke up at 5:30am to drive me to Newark. Did I mention I don't have enough money to pay for the path/nj transit/airtrain? No worries.

Moreover, as far as my Tucson plans I don't have a job yet nor a place to live. I was beginning to wonder: is this happening? Am I gonna have to bum off my parents indefinitely? How am I even gonna GET to Tucson? Cue overbooking of my Salt Lake-Pasco flight. Now I have $300 to fly to Tucson! Wow. Thank you, my God. Love, me of little faith. What kind of volunteering ends up with $307 in compensation? Wow.

Also, on my Newark-SLC segment, I uses the free wifi trial, flight attendant gave me extra Biscoff (dude I love those cookies), and I had the row to myself.

Oh, and since I'm on a roll, at _two_ upstairs climbs on my trip from Juanita's in Queens to Jersey City, a young woman offered to help me with my luggage. Two angels. At separate places at the right time.    

Ninth morning in Queens

I've got two hours to post some photos. Let's go!



Thanksgiving! My whole family at my sister's house with her husband's family too.



Sue, my roommate from my Israel trip, with Mooch's cousin!













The view from Sue's kitchen window. You better believe that I want to take her up on her guest room offer! Amazing.



Currant scone and curd at Rice in Fort Greene.















Nini! Just as cute as last time we hung out.




Linsey with her fabulous new hair cut!

















Anna and Ben's menagerie: Bubbles (the bear), Nay Nay (the donkey), and Pigletta. I didn't get the little ones' names. Hung out with Anna yesterday, met for lunch at Zemi, where the tofu was quite good, and then I saw her apartment in Park Slope. It's beautifully decorated and there is lots of light.




After leaving Anna's, I traveled deeper into Brooklyn to Nancy's mom's house where she persuaded her mom to cook for me (and the rest of the family and half the neighborhood). Chicken and spaghetti. Oh my! Yum! This is it cooking.




And here it is plated, my plate to be exact.


Final shot is Evelyn (Nancy's mom), Alexis (Nancy's brother), and Nancy. What fun! We decorated and laughed well into the night. I am thankful for good eats and shared eats.

Eight days a week

Back in NYC for a few days. Tonight, I had dinner with Amy, my friend since the 3rd grade(!), in Hoboken, NJ. It was nice to catch up and she treated. (Thanks, Ike!) Her baby just turned a year old and I have yet to meet him but she seems to be taking motherhood in easy stride and he sounds like he's taking to life in the real-world with great ability.

Since I arrived here a week ago, mostly I've been doing small apartment improvements for Juanita: got rid of a busted window A/C unit; organized under the kitchen sink; hounded the building maintenance to fix a leaky toilet. Today I obtained a fresh 5-foot Christmas tree! I'm going to decorate it tomorrow. Juanita says, "Why aren't you married? I come home after work to a clean house and dinner waiting." I've even fixed lunch for her to take to work a couple days. So, folks, please note: Irene has domestic potential.

Not to say I've been home exclusively. You know me: volunteering at Times Square Church, lunch with Nini in Fort Greene, a missed-play-so-coffee-instead with Linsey, the Met and Bergdorf Goodman windows (my favorite is the Reflected Serenades and Meticulous Metronomes), dinner with Jessica, a lunch and dinner with Nancy, MoMA to see the over-hung Bauhaus exhibit...

Wrapping up this year is bittersweet. I've had such a fun time. Yet the bank balance is a sort of reddish-black and even the Bible limits Jubilee to a year. So, for all those interested in my 'plans': I hope to go to Tucson and hang out near Olivia for a few months til it gets really hot, say June. Then maybe I'll go to Seattle and enjoy my favorite time of year there. Then...???

Seven 7-and-unders

I went medium-sized photos this post, only because I think my nieces and nephew are so cute.

Here's the older three of the Seattle set calmly reading together. A lovely thing.

The middle two goofin'

The youngest playing with rubber kitchen gloves.

Nephew with his Play-Doh creation complete with ears!

Nap time...

Every is dressed up as princesses. And prince!

Violin recital.

Six days you shall do all your work

For me, the fourth commandment begs the question: does taking care of kids count as work? Well, after seven days of watching my Seattle set of 4, I am very ready for today's rest. I left Tucson last Saturday and arrived to Seattle in time for a three-hour briefing on the week's activities from my sister. She and her husband left for Paris in the early hours of the following day and I became in charge, along with my mom who was official Meal-Maker and Keeper. I have no photos to post today because I left my camera at their house and now am at my other sister's house in Bellevue.

What to say about the last week? I can liken it to working on a pitch for Deutsch: all hours, many hours, lots of surprises, few rules, high impact, stressful, constantly short on time. I can also liken it to touring "Flicker" with Big Art Group in France back in 2002: go-go-go, corralling several rowdy and obstinate humans, lack of sleep, barrage of questions--sometimes in a language I couldn't understand, and an abundance of body fluids.

But fun, oh, what fun! Rolling around on inflatable tubes with my nephew waiting for his little sister to finish her soccer session was exhilarating. Doing the youngest's hair with no screaming on her part--I learned to laugh and she would follow suit--was a great accomplishment. Figuring out she was saying "helmet" and "yogurt" from "heh-meh" and "o-gur" was as good as telling the bus driver, in broken French, to turn down the heat. Walking the older two to school, hand-in-hand, "SQUEEZE!"ing past the overgrown shrubs along the sidewalk was hilarious. And plenty more.

Even after they were all tucked in at night, I got the bonus to chat with my mom about my grandparents and her family history. Great great stuff. Yes, I'm tired. But it's a sweet fatigue.

Happy Thanksgiving, all. I am thankful for you, my family and friends.

Guns & Noodles

This is Elegua, Olivia's pitbull mix puppy. We took him to Bad Dog training class yesterday and it was educational. For me. He got a lot of treats and got to pee indoors. But I think he'll grow lots.






On Saturday, we went to the gun show!








They don't allow photographs inside so here's the one I got caught taking. The rest you'll have to use your imagination if you haven't already been to a gun show yourself. Olivia owns an old Beretta that she was looking to get a magazine for. But no one had one that fit her model. I amused myself by practicing apologetics with a nice lady whose father has self-published literature asserting the King James Version of the bible is the only one we should be reading, because it's "the best".

Guns of all sorts.











Later that evening, we went to Lee's house in the desert. We took the scenic route for my benefit.






















The stars were beautiful and the fire nice.











Lee's dinner. Yum.








Sunday I went to church with Peter and his family. Here he is with his sons James and Joshua. The family, who used to live in Richland, are friends of my parents.
Ellen cooking my favorite veggie.











As promised, this is the scarf Lynn knit for me!











Monday, yesterday, after a busy day of pilates and puppy training class, Olivia was exhausted. Luckily, Peter called to see if I could come over for dinner in fact their in-laws were waiting for me in a van across the intersection. I've been watching lots of forensic TV shows with Olivia and Lynn. This was funny.

Ok, so this photo is only funny if you have a Chinese mother. Who saves Styrofoam trays that meat comes on for future use. These are powdered and ready for noodles.




Peter and Ellen's parents have been friends for a long time having lived in the same village in Beijing. Peter and Ellen have known each other since elementary school. But Peter was only able to get Ellen's attention after college when there was less competition. ;) This is their moms.








Ellen's dad is making noodles (chang sho = long life and is homonym for long and thin, thus birthday noodles are long and thin)










Fresh off the press.

Fresh out of the pot and freshly dressed with mushroom egg sauce.








The whole clan including cousin and Kathy, their daughter, and her boyfriend Ethan, who works at the hospital where Olivia will be receiving treatment.

Bloomin' Desert

So this is kind of like when I was staying with Karen in Turkey: lots of posts and lots of photos.

This is Olivia. My friend from college and NYC. She reminded me that she lived with me on the Lower East Side for a few weeks back in 2000 when she was between apartments. It was grand. Now, after a bit more than a year in Ecuador, she's living in Tucson. I was going to visit her and her parents' farm in South America but things changed. She got sick and now is awaiting treatment back in the States. Aside from diminished energy, startling weight loss, and sensitivity to germ/bad people exposure, she is the same rambunctious intellectual that I've always loved.




Here, Olivia and her mom took me to Tohono Chul Park for lunch and a walk. The gallery was my favorite.







Olivia and her cute mom Lynn.








Desert flora.












Lynn and her sister Lee. Lunch at Roma Italian Imports. Almost like Chelsea Market except for the large seating area and freestanding-ness. I joked with Olivia that the guy there who recommended the strawberry tiramisu is her boyfriend...





Lynn is knitting me a scarf too! :) Will look similar to Lee's.











Yesterday, we went to Bisbee, an old mining town, and took a tour of Queen's copper mine. We were going to have a stroll about Tombstone but settled for a drive through Wyatt Earp's town instead.






















Paella before cooking. Olivia and her mom whipped this together in about five minutes.
Cook at 500 until you can 'hear the rice boiling' and then reduce to 350 for another hour or so.