chitown2beantown

home again home again

I keep thinking over and over that it's been a quiet month. Quiet despite the chaos that was 3 very full days of packing up our apartment and finding another place to live for a couple weeks while our apartment was being renovated.

I found that the only things I really struggled to leave behind were my three cherry tomato plants. About 30 cherry tomatos were on the verge of ripeness. Broke my heart to say goodbye after watching and wondering all summer if they would bear fruit.

A neighbor offered to babysit all of my herbs and my tomatoes. Hopefully she's eating well.

After packing up, we hit the road. Originally we were going to stay in Massachusetts, but at the last minute we ditched that plan and headed home. Our road-leery pup seems to have adjusted to car trips, and knows the command "in the car".

We're starting to think she might sort of like car trips now.

Somehow this packing up and leaving town process helped strip away our usual routine. It was replaced with a slower routine in Michigan. Usually we're running around trying to squeeze in visits with everyone we know, but this time we didn't have time to fill up our schedule with lots of pre-arranged visits. Only one major get-together to celebrate 30th birthdays and an engagement. The four of us haven't been together since my wedding 7 years ago.

It's undeniable, life is just slower here. And quiet. Did I mention the quiet?

Lots of walks in new places. Trying to avoid another round of poison ivy this summer.

But mainly enjoying the pace of the Midwest. I'm glad this is where I was raised, saddled on all sides by fields, water, woods, and simple pleasures.

Tomorrow we head back to our other home on the first coast. Hopefully we can take an ounce of the slow life with us, to carry us through.

One Local Summer: Week Three

I just got back this afternoon from an amazing trip of a lifetime with one of my favorite people. Our travels took us from Wilmington, NC, to Myrtle Beach, SC, to Athens, GA and finally to Atlanta. We had an amazing time, and we made use of every second to experience our shared loves, like music, food, sightseeing, and hanging out together.

I'm a bit tired to share every amazing detail, but it's Sunday which means a post about one locally produced meal I ate this week. But before I get to my One Local Summer post for the week, I feel the need to publish a retraction and an apology for saying in my last post that REM started to suck after 1991. My friend Stephanie and I saw them last night in Atlanta as the finale to our 4-day 30th birthdays road trip. REM you blew us away. I started to feel like one of those Beatles girls, particularly during the encore when they played Pretty Persuasion. I about lost my cool.

Oh, to feel 13 again. Except for the part where I realized 75% of the audience was over 30, and that I've become one of those approaching middle-aged people who buys overpriced concert tickets to see their favorite band from middle school. Now I understand that phenomenon. So if Paul McCartney made you weak in the knees when you were a teenager, I recommend blowing your budget and flying to Liverpool the next time he's playing there. You won't regret it.

During the concert and after, I felt guilty and a bit disappointed in myself as a fan for having totally written them off for the last, um, 17 years. They were my first musical love and I guess like most first loves, it's hard to see them change. To make up for lost time, I am going to give some of the newer songs a listen now. For sure I'm downloading the entire Atlanta set list and the new album. Michael Stipe, with your microphone gyrations, your megaphone, your moaning vocals and your urgent political speeches, you still got it. Even though I didn't know your new songs very well, I enjoyed your performance very much, so I apologize. I'm glad you guys didn't break up the band.

Since REM was the band that first gave a voice to my budding environmentalism, it is appropriate to talk about the local eating we did before the concert -- definitely the culinary highlight of our trip. We had an outstanding local dining experience at Watershed Restaurant in Decatur, Georgia. It is partially owned by one of the ladies who stole my heart away from Michael, Mike, Peter, and Bill.

The Indigo Girls also hail from Georgia, so I was happy we were able to add an Indigo Girls related stop to our pilgrimage.

The restaurant specializes in regional, Southern cuisine and supports local organic farmers. We started out with some yummy cocktails. I was excited to realize that citrus is relatively local to Georgia, compared to New England. My drink featured raspberries, mint, gin, and citrus. Here's my adorable travel partner posing with our citrusy cocktails.

Next we ordered a starter, and luckily Stephanie knew that pimento cheese is a Georgia specialty. Perfect with the celery, which was too green, fresh, and tasty to not be locally grown. The cheese was heavenly. We wanted to lick the bowl clean.

Before we ordered our entrees, I asked our waiter which selection had the most locally grown produce. He said to go for the vegetable plate, and said that they buy produce that is local and organic. The vegetable plate changes daily depending on what produce is available. I had a yummy plate of Southern style vegetables: stewed tomatoes, black eyed peas, okra fried in white corn meal, greens, green beans, and a cornbread muffin. Loved it all, especially the black eyed peas and the delightfully salty fried okra.

With food this tasty, we couldn't leave without dessert. We choose to split the Georgia Pecan Tart with Shortbread Crust.

Short of walking into the kitchen and grilling the chefs or buyers about where each ingredient came from, I can't imagine a dining experience that would cater more to a locavore. The only thing I would have changed is adding some information to the menu about the local farmers whose produce the restaurant regularly uses. Overall, a truly lovely restaurant housed in a renovated gas station - another nod to sustainability.

There was also a restaurant in Athens, called Farm 225, that featured local and sustainable foods. We wished we could have eaten there, but they weren't open for breakfast Saturday morning when we were in town and looking for some grub. Next time I'm in Athens, eating there will be at the top of my list of things to do. As always, there is never enough time on a good trip. We wanted to visit a farmer's market and the Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, but had to cut them from the schedule when our time in Athens was running out too soon.

Georgia, motherland of some of my early musical influences, we loved you so much!!! I will be back. More on our wonderful time in Athens later this week!

Pilgrimage

1991 was a pretty good year to be 13 years old. Stephanie and I had been friends since sixth grade, and have been ever since, but eighth grade was definitely our year. While the other girls were in puffy dresses and Z cavariccis, we were rocking the black, the Chucks, the vintage, and discovering Urban Outfitters back when it was way cooler. We were reading Spin and Rolling Stone and Sassy.

Eighth grade would not have been eighth grade without the REM obsession. It is the defining feature of our 13th year. The only fan letter I ever wrote was penned with Stephanie to the band, and it was 10 pages long. We had every album, and knew all the lyrics even though they didn't publish linear notes and we didn't have access to the internet, that I can remember.

1991 was before Automatic for the People, and before Bill Berry left the band. Before, I'm sorry to say, they started to suck. But this year, they seem to be making a comeback. And since we're turning 30, we decided it was finally time for our long planned pilgrimage to Athens, Georgia. REM is playing in Atlanta and we're going to be there. For the first time ever, we will be seeing the remaining three band members play live, instead of watching them on VHS over and over and over again.

I'm still a little annoyed at them for not breaking up at the millennium like they promised, because they didn't want to be one of those aging hipster bands. But, now that I'm almost 30, aging hipster doesn't seem like such a bad thing.

So wish us luck on our 13 going on 30 pilgrimage. I'm leaving tomorrow.

And just curious, if you could take a pilgrimage of a similar sort, where would you go and who would you see?

Greetings from Michigan

We left Massachusetts at the crack of dawn Friday. I finished my final term paper on the way, making a longer than expected layover at Panera in Schenectady, NY, to finish up the final edits and to take advantage of the free wi-fi. Turns out there was wi-fi at every service station for the next 200 miles. Still, by the time we left Schenectady, I was free! As far was I'm concerned, summer arrived!

When we finally crossed over the Bluewater Bridge from Ontario to Michigan, at 2:30am, we sang along to Sufjan Stevens' "Say Yes! To Michigan".

"If I ever meant to go away, I was raised, I was raised
In the place, in the place. Still I often think of going back
To the farms, to the farms, golden arms, golden arms
start to remind me.

If the lakes took the place of the sea.
If the cars drove themselves, way to be!
Opposite to the trains moving in
Rivers run, interstate, Michigan!

Still I never meant to go away
I was raised, I was raised, in the place, in the place.
Still I often think of going back
To the farms, to the farms, golden arms, golden arms.
Tried to change the Made in Michigan
I was raised, I was raised, in the place, in the place,
part to remind me"

The song's been in my head all week, as I've been savoring the freedom from school and work. This is what freedom looks like to me...

Lots of celebrating the lives of our moms and grandmoms.

Spending time in the sun and the grass. Especially introducing the new pupsky to her extended family.

Playing around with our nieces in the springtime.

Going on scouting adventures together.

Writing down everything we see along the way.

Kaia, along for the adventure, did just fine with three little girls clamoring over her, taking her toys, and poking her in the face.

Her favorite part of this week was going to Auntie Stephanie's to play with her new pals Heidi and George.

She also has been very fond of running the basement obstacle course (stairwell, ping pong table, water softener) at my parent's house, going for walks in the woods, trying to chase birds, and playing with a whole box of new dog toys at Matt's parent's house.

And our favorite part has been seeing more family and friends than we generally see at Christmas. And meeting two new members of our family, baby Evan and baby Ruthie.

Coming home is always a wonderful thing. Especially lovely in the springtime, after a long winter and a very long stretch of busting my brain to the limit. Freedom is a wonderful thing!

reconnecting in Chicago

As Matt had to travel in Illinois this week and our niece Elora was going to be baptized, I decided to book a ticket and head to Chicago for the weekend so we could spend a little extra time with the family.

We had a good time soaking up our nieces. I guess the one good thing about seeing them less often than we used to is that we notice all the changes we see in them.

We thoroughly enjoyed this little one. She's all chub, cheeks, and smiles. She's kicking her legs and rolling over like she is gonna crawl soon. Next time we see her, she might be walking and talking a bit. This is her swimming for the second time on the afternoon her grandfather baptized her. Pretty cool.

This one jumped into bed the first morning we were there with "Wake up. Wake up. Wake up! So, when are you going to have a baby?" It was too early for a response this time. Next time she has questions about expanding the family gene pool, I'm sending her directly to her Uncle Matt.

She's right out of kindergarten, and read to us out of a book about space intended for third graders, hardly stopping to ask how to pronounce a word. She read the word "research", and many others, without skipping a beat. Sunday afternoon we all went to the park district water park. These are one of Chicagoland's best features. Matt and I both took a couple loops around the "crazy river" with her. I tried to convince her it is actually called the lazy river, and that you were supposed to lay back and relax, but she looked at me totally unconvinced right before we hit the waterfalls.

And the little one below I'm now calling a flibbertijibbet. Amazingly, she used to obediently march right up to bed when she heard, "It's time to take your nap." Now she's using every excuse to delay bedtime. She tried the, "Read it one more time," tactic on me and I firmly said no. Then she said, "Let's have some snuggle time." Right for my soft spot. So I gave in and laid down with her for a minute. She had her little arm on my shoulder, was smiling at me all content that she'd won, and then explained to me, "Snuggles are hugs."

Matt stayed an extra night and told me that last night she pulled the same trick on him.

She also charmed me into handing over the camera, after I got a few of her. So Matt and I had a short photo session with a 3 year old. I didn't crop these at all. I think she has some serious potential.

I also got to quickly catch up with a couple friends. Met my college roommate's adorable 11 week old little peanut, Sophie. My knitting mojo is super low right now, so she got my first attempt at embroidery instead. Finally gave in and bought a kit from Sublime Stitching.

And before flying out, I went downtown and very quickly reunited with a grad school friend I haven't seen in three years, before she moves back to the Philippines to finish up her dissertation. She was really nice and rode the L out to O'Hare with me. She doesn't know it, but awhile back she introduced me to this cool home for kids in Honduras that's worth checking out.

And then, after a thunderstorm and 2 hours of sitting on the runway, I got to see my favorite city from above again. Always forget how big it is and how many people live there. It's nice to feel at home in more than one place.

it's candlepin

I had a great birthday weekend. Along with our newlywed friends, Lori and Greg, we went candlepin bowling. It's a New England thing. And my bowling expert brother also told me, it's also a Canadian thing. As the commercial around here goes, "It's candlepin! It's candlepin!"  They make it sound so fun!

Three of us had never played a "string" of candlepin before. It's a mix between bowling and skee-ball, and surprisingly harder than regular bowling, even though you get three balls with which to try to knock all the pins down. None of us broke 100, which I am told by Greg is a good score. I read online that no one has ever gotten a perfect 300 score. The high score record is somewhere around 240. The alley was very retro and on the second floor of a building in Scituate, that we didn't even know existed when we lived there. Bummer. It was wicked fun and cheap. We will definitely be playing again.

Afterward, we took a little stroll down to the Scituate beach. It's a birthday tradition now. And then we went back to our place, made pizza, and enjoyed the wonderful birthday cake Lori made for me. :) So nice! Matt, not a cake guy, liked it quite a bit and gave me rave reviews of the sprinkles.

Aside from the birthday fun, we got a ton of errands and neglected tasks done. Today we finally dealt with my ailing car, which I haven't drive in several weeks. We called a tow truck because we couldn't get it started yesterday, and the tow truck guy started it right up. Figures. But it's still sputtering so we drove it to the mechanic and dropped it off.

I have a new (used) car picked out, but we're going through a drawn out transfer of ownership process, having to deal with multiple loans and whatnot. I'm hoping I have it sometime soon after Labor Day. It still makes me cringe a little, having to buy a new car. It took me a couple months to sort out what was most important to me: size, gas mileage, cost, features, make, model, domestic/foreign, etc. In the end, gas mileage won out. Couldn't afford a hybrid, so a Honda Civic was about the next best thing. I really wanted to buy American. I really did. And if I bought new, I probably would have. But American automakers are just so behind in this whole hybrid/fuel efficiency thing. It's really sad how poor gas mileage is in most cars. I applaud Ford for making a hybrid Escape. It looks pretty cool, although it was out of my price range for now. But for some reason, there is a proliferation of V6 and 4x4 gas guzzlers out there. What gives!

Which leads me to a plug of sorts. Matt and I went to see Inconvenient Truth this afternoon. SEE IT! You have to deal with a bit of doomsday stuff (which seems to be a theme in many movies these days) and a little too much political slickness from Al Gore, but the argument he presents is really compelling. I mean REALLY REALLY compelling. Having spent our summer vacation walking on the snow at Rainier, it was really powerful and chilling (no pun intended). We'll be buying new energy efficient light bulbs this week. And we're reading more about this company called NativeEnergy that "helps you help build Native American, farmer-owned, and charitable purpose renewable energy projects that create social, economic, and environmental benefits." Interesting stuff.

Oh, and I also want to include a link to my Uncle Mark's new website and blog about being a writer. It's pretty slick. He has this third book coming out very soon. It's affordably priced, he's a great writer, and the money will help support by cousins! :) So buy it and enjoy! For those of you who want an autographed copy, I might be able to arrange it for a nominal fee. ;)

keep watch

There is too much running through my head as I sit down to write something this week.

Do you ever have one of those weeks that leaves you reeling? Events touch your life and shake you to the core.

I’ve been asking myself lately, why I blog about our life? It’s not to show off. It’s mostly to stay connected when I feel far away.

Sharing the good things helps, especially when I have a week like this past one, where the good and the bad are just too much to absorb. Too much to wrap my head around. It’s been a helpful exercise to take time out about once a week to track the wonderful and quirky things that happen. It helps me keep a sense of humor. It keeps my glass half full. The danger in sharing the highlights is that it might look like we have it all together, when in fact we struggle like everyone else.

So, for a week that started off with the tunnel we regularly take to the airport becoming the tragedy Bostonians feared...

...here’s to seeing the silver lining, and remembering the highlights of the life I was blessed to live this week:

Imagining Matt skeet shooting in Texas (yes, he really did and enjoyed it too);

Realizing that we have strong bonds with our friends, and that no matter what happens, we’re in it with them for the long haul;

Spending Saturday hanging out and catching up with a good friend, eating breakfast for lunch, then going to pick blueberries in the summer heat;

Going to the airport to pick Matt up after a difficult six days away from each other;

Finding a new singer I dig--Corinne Bailey Rae. Think a young cross between Erykah Badu and Norah Jones, if you are in to that sort of thing;

And remembering my favorite prayer was tucked away in a journal I kept in college.

"Keep watch, dear Lord, over those who work, or watch, or wait this night. And give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous. And all for your love’s sake."

[Sorry to the non-religious, but this was a week that called for prayer.]

And thanks for the comments about the last post. I love them! And yes, I was referring to Powell's Books in Portland. :)

yummy weekend

A couple of food related shots from the weekend. Friday night was my friend Lori's bachelorette party and the years of training from my mom paid off, as I volunteered to be in charge of the food. We had a dinner of appetizers. I found one new recipe which I will be making again: Mango Black Bean Salsa. Yummy. The Cucumber Toasties were really yummy too and easy to put together. One of my co-hosts didn't realize you could make vegetable dip from scratch, so I was feeling so knowledgeable as a cook.

Although it wasn't a wild and crazy night, I didn't make it home until 2:00am because of closed tunnels and horrible detours downtown which left me lost for 45 minutes. Typical. This has actually happened to me before after 1:00am.

The next morning, Matt and I got up and headed back into Boston to give a tour to his co-worker from Hong Kong. His flight was later that evening. 20 hours 20 minutes back to Hong Kong from New York in case you were curious. That seems like a long flight, until you realize you can go half way around the world in less than 24 hours.

When we picked him up at his hotel, he presented me with this lovely gift. It looks a little suspicious but it's just packets of vacuumed sealed high quality green tea straight from China to us. I love the gold packaging.

All and all we had a fun time driving around Boston in the rain. We had lunch at the Union Oyster House (which claims to be America's oldest restaurant, and is not nearly as fancy as it sounds) and coffee/dessert in the North End. We also watched two different World Cup games, so that was fun to do with a non-American visitor. Matt's co-worker had funny jokes, so it made for an entertaining Saturday. One example (in the Italian coffee shop):

Me: "Anything look good in the dessert case?"

Him: "Yes." {Pause}

Me: "Are you going to try anything?"

Him: "Yes" {Pause}

Me: "What are you going to get?"

Him: "Sweet and Sour Pork."

We'd just had a conversation about Americanized Chinese food while walking through Quincy Market, so it was not only ironic but relevant.

On top of all this deliciousness, we came home and our roommate, Katey, had made Monster Cookies. Not quite as many as the recipe makes, but close, so we're satisfied in the cookie department for awhile. :)

Post in Three Parts

Part I: Going Home

We have officially lived in Massachusetts for two years. To celebrate, over an extended Memorial Day weekend, we drove many hours to my parents’ condo on Higgins Lake in Michigan. We had not been up in two years, so it was worth many hours in the car to be with my parents and Matt’s parents. We relaxed and enjoyed the lake, good meals, long walks, and warm weather. The highlight was all of us watching the sunset out on the water. The sun setting over a Michigan lake is a beautiful thing. It’s always good to go home and there was lots of time in the car to listen to The Weepies…

“Now my feet turn the corner back home.

Sun turns the evening to rose.

Stars turning high up above.

You turn me into somebody loved.”

--Somebody Loved by The Weepies

Part II: Coming Home

On the way back to Massachusetts, we swung by Toronto for a night. The trip between Sarnia and Toronto is boring to say the least. In case you ever go that way, pointing out signage for bizarre museums in the Ontario farmlands passes for entertainment. Here’s a sampling (with real descriptions from their websites):

Oil Museum (wagon tours of the oil fields in the July and August)

Tobacco Museum (summer programs for children available)

Ingersol Cheese Factory Museum (see the murder mystery ‘Who Shot the Big Cheese?’)

African Lion Safari (drive through a wild game preserve in an air conditioned tour bus)

Toronto traffic snared us on the way in and out of the city, which added a couple hours to an already long trip. But, once we arrived, we packed a lot into 18 hours. We saw some great stand-up comedy, ate waffles and pancakes for dinner, and one of Ontario’s better-known museums--the Hockey Hall of Fame.

[more pics]

Part III: Leaving Home

When I started writing this Friday evening, Matt called to say he landed in Boston after two days in Newark. Yes, right after we got back from Michigan/Toronto, he had to fly off for work. Trust me, he was not happy. Actually, he’s had to fly into Newark three times in the last month, so at this point he is just resigned to the whole unfortunate situation. Before he left, we put together his calendar for the next six weeks, and it’s daunting:

June

Week 1—Philadelphia

Week 2—Virginia

Week 3—Home two days, then New Brunswick through the weekend

Final week—(fingers crossed) Home

July

Week 1—Vacation (YAY!) in Oregon & Washington

Week 2—Austin, Texas through the weekend

So there it is, the first month and a half of summer. Our friend Steve lent us his wife for two months while she does a law internship at a DA’s office here. So she’s our temporary roommate and is keeping me company during the week. She's from Toledo and we're enjoying watching her immersion in Boston culture. One greeting from a new co-worker was, "Oh, you're from Toledo? Holy Toledo! You must like corn."

What a weekend in Boston!

The masses were out in force, for a whole host of reasons. Spring finally sprung, which always brings out the crowds, but there was also Easter, Passover, spring break, the Boston Marathon, opening week for the Red Sox... The list goes on.

We were lucky to have my two good friends from graduate school come for a weekend visit/reunion. We "went into town" and experienced a whole lotta Boston. So much that I won't bore you with all the details. But here are a few highlights...

1) A new activity--a tour of the Samuel Adams brewery. It was free and included free samples! Enough sampling to make us happy we came. This tour is now at the top of our 'favorite things to do with visitors' list.

2) Gorgeous weather, and a boat ride on Boston Harbor for a buck fifty. Sweet.

3) An excellent Italian dinner in the North End, which was so good we had to head up the Freedom Trail to walk it off a bit before going for dessert.

4) And lastly, I finally made it to the marathon. The beauty of Patriot's Day: a random day off to see the race and very little traffic (except on foot or subway).