Mercy Street

Little project

2009-01-06T13:08:00.000-08:00

Some Christmas gifts inspired me to take on a project--here are the results. I got a few pieces of fun jewelry from my mom, my sister, and Greg. I have a gorgeous jewelry box my grandfather made years ago, but since we have a big closet rather than a bedroom set (i.e. dresser, bureau, whatever) I don't have any place to put the jewelry box except for in the drawer of my bedside table. This makes it difficult to get into the box and keep jewelry organized. My sister had some really neat-looking earring organizers on her dresser in Indy, and I liked the look of them, but decided to go in a slightly different direction.

Step 1: Corkboard (from Ikea, duh)

Step 2: Cover corkboard with fabric (from Ikea, duh)

Step 3: Display jewelry (not from Ikea, duh)

And there you have it! An easy, inexpensive, and if I do say so myself, quite delightful Sunday afternoon project.

Christmas Miracles and New Year's Misery

2009-01-04T08:10:00.001-08:00

It's been a very busy few weeks, with lots and lots of parties and get-togethers and visits and trips and excitement. Greg and I spent Christmas Eve (as well as Christmas Day and a few events before Christmas) in New Jersey, and as we drove home around midnight, we experienced a Christmas miracle: a parking spot right in front of our house! The next morning, as we enjoyed our first Christmas in Mercy Street, we experienced another miracle. I had made pancakes for breakfast, but completely forgotten to buy syrup. Not a problem for me, as I like them plain, but definitely a disappointment for Greg. He ran out to the Rite-Aid around the corner, but alas, no syrup. As he was walking back, he saw a neighbor and explained what he was doing, and lo and behold, the neighbor took him inside and gave him a brand new, unopened bottle of syrup from the pantry!!

We spent the week between Christmas and New Year's in Indiana, which was lots of fun. We played a ton of Yahtzee and some Risk, watched the Colts and the Eagles and Oregon win games, spent some time downtown in my sister's very clean and attractive apartment, and generally relaxed. Then Andrea joined us for the drive back to Indy. We drove all day New Year's Eve, then hosted Greg's brother and some of his friends for the ball dropping. I had a cold, as did one of our guests, and another guest had the stomach flu. I went to bed by 10. The next day, we had a birthday party for Dave and went to the Mummer's parade (see pictures). However, I left early to fetch my sister from a friend's house, where she had also developed the stomach flu and puked about 10 times. Long story short, we're all hoping the inauspicious start to the New Year means things can only get better!

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T07:45:00.000-08:00

It was a year ago today that a brave group of Cesares ventured into a smoky dungeon and realized that Operation: Mercy Street would be no easy task. And yet, with the help of family and friends from all over the country, the dream became a reality.

And now it's Christmas. May you be blessed with sugary cookies, gifts both practical and frivolous, and the knowledge of what's behind it all.

Walking in the city

2008-12-21T10:20:00.001-08:00

Since finishing all my work for the semester on Wednesday, I have done the following: cleaned the house, hosted a small party, attended a large party, cooked goodies for both parties, finished Christmas shopping, wrapped Christmas presents, read my "the semester is done, I can read for fun!" book, and watched all the TV saved on the DVR. Yesterday I woke up knowing that Greg was going to be gone all day, and realizing that I would be bored.

So I decided to take a walk. There's a very cool website called walkjogrun.net where you can map out routes and get the mileage. I had read a while back about an event called "Walk the City" in New York where people get together and walk from the top of Manhattan to the bottom. Philly isn't quite the same shape, and I needed to start and end at home, but I had figured out a route that would hit a lot of the big spots. When I mapped it out, it turned out to be a 7.5 mile walk. I knew that this was probably a bad idea, since I hadn't built up to it at all. I walk quite a bit, but usually only a couple of miles at a time. However, there is a stubborn streak in me, and since I had nothing else to do for the day, I decided to go for it. I brought along some subway tokens in case it turned out to be too much.

My main regret was that I didn't have anyone to join me on the walk, but I loaded up my iPod with podcasts and set off. I brought my camera along to record anything interesting I saw. Above is a sign near our house that made me laugh. I mean, I like liver more than the average bear, but even I'm not clamoring for liver sausage. Apparently some people are.

A band was playing outside of Geno's. I'm not sure why they were there, but I appreciated the music.

This is a restaurant that we planned to eat at for my birthday in October. Hasn't happened yet.

//Buddy the elf voice//: SANTA!

And here's South Street, the ultimate Saturday night destination for college freshmen.

A little place I like to call Independence Hall.

Here's City Hall. But the really exciting thing is that, in between Independence Hall and City Hall, I passed someone famous on the street! Well, famous in the Philadelphia sense. It was one of the ticketers from the show Parking Wars, which Greg and I have been devouring lately.

And here's the new Comcast Center. From here I walked up to the Art Museum, then back home. Sunday I woke up and felt like my entire body was broken. But, it was a nice way to spend the day, and if anyone is ever in Philly and feels like taking a long walk, I'd love the company.

Christmas in Philadelphia

2008-12-14T15:21:00.000-08:00

Today Greg and I did most of our Christmas shopping in one fell swoop, and had the chance to walk around and enjoy some of what Philadelphia has to offer at this time of the year.

-The light show at Macy's. It's a lot of bulbs, that light up to make pictures of things like snowflakes and Christmas trees, and which coordinates to music. It's not super-fancy, but it's quite fun to do your shopping with this going on in the background. I feel like I'm in "Miracle on 34th Street" or something.

-The Dicken's Village at Macy's. Greg will be angry that I'm making fun of this, and it truly is a cool thing to take kids to. It's free, for one thing. Macy's partitions off a big section and sets up a Dickensian village that you can walk through and experience "A Christmas Carol." Very cool. But, if you're just shopping, the high school theater geeks* trying out their (sorry, bad) British accents and yelling, "Oy, Dickens village over 'ere, guvnah," is, like, hella annoying.

-The Comcast center's Christmas Spectacular. The Comcast center has the largest LED screen IN THE WORLD. It's gigantic, and very cool to look at even when there's not a Christmas Spectacular going on. Oddly enough, I found it the coolest when it mimicked the interior of the lobby, so that if you were just passing by, you'd have no idea it was a screen at all. The actual Spectacular was neat, but lacked the charm of the Macy's light show. I don't need to see the Nutcracker's pores, thank you very much.

-Santa's village at City Hall. Ripoff! A bunch of huts full of people trying to sell you unnecessary tchotchkes. With really loud German music playing. Everything else I've listed is basically free, and there are enough people trying to sell you stuff at Christmas anyway.

*I was one of these, so I'm allowed to make fun.

caulk

2008-12-13T16:22:00.000-08:00

Don't read this post if you're squeamish about hygiene! OK, you've been warned.

Greg recently recaulked our shower, but it turns out that when the tube says it needs 24 hours to dry, it actually means much longer. We know this because of the water leaking through our kitchen ceiling.

After we stopped the leak, Greg knew he would have to do it again, and allow a longer drying time. However, you also have to get the shower completely dry first. In other words, we're talking at least a day-long window both before and after caulking. So I haven't showered since Thursday. It is now Saturday evening. (GROSS, EW, I KNOW.) Honestly, I don't feel too bad because it's so cold out that there's no sweating going on, and I have been holed up in my office working, so I haven't even needed to get dressed, much less showered. Greg snuck in a shower at a friend's house last night.

But here's the thing: I FINISHED MY WORK! WOO! I still have odds and ends to do (like grading all of my students' final portfolios, whatevs) but my intellectual work is done. The brain, she is closed for business. And I need to celebrate! So we are going to the movies, something I haven't done since the summer. As I put on a little makeup, I pulled my hair out of its perma-ponytail and was absolutely fascinated by the amount of grease I had worked up. Like, you could deep-fry things on my head if I were hot enough. Therefore, I will be wearing a hat tonight. But I was so fascinated that I played around with my hair and created the fancy bun depicted above.

And then I washed my hands.

Nicole's Top Ten Procrastination Methods

2008-12-06T16:58:00.001-08:00

10. Law and Order. (See below.)

9. Calling Andrea.

8. Emailing my students with advice for their papers.

7. Wandering aimlessly.

6. www.cakewrecks.com

5. Making charts of my progress: 35 pages down, 20 to go.

4. Bugging Greg.

3. Making tea.

2. Staring into the distance.

1. Blogging.

Ta-Da!

2008-12-06T16:49:00.001-08:00

It's Christmastime in the city. Greg did most of the decorating (I helped with the fun part: trimming the tree.) I probably would have gone with the ubiquitous little while lights, but Greg convinced me that the kitsch factor of the big colorful bulbs was preferable.

Meanwhile, my dad and I are competing to see who can watch more episodes of the same show in a short period of time--he's doing 24 (eight episodes in the last few days) and I'm doing Law and Order: Original Flavor (4 episodes in 2 days, but planning to add to the total tonight.) My dad's excuse is that he just had surgery on his foot and isn't allowed to get out of bed. My excuse is that my brain hurts from writing papers. I have also tried to defuzz the synapses by taking walks around the neighborhood, but today was so cold that I never got out of my pajamas and bathrobe.

Speaking of which, another competition just ended. Greg and I were seeing who could hold out the longest before turning the heat on. I declare myself the winner because I was willing to stick it out, and I'm the one who is in the house all day long. But we decided we should probably do it when his dad was here the other day, because if a pipe exploded or something, we'd have someone around who would do more than gape. The house stays pretty warm, thanks to the homes on either side of us. It was settling right at 59-60 when we finally caved. Frankly, I just liked the excuse to wear several layers of fleece. Cause fleece is cosy. And I look so fetching in my pastel bathrobe.

And now, back to Law and Order! Give 'em hell, McCoy.

the after-parade

2008-11-30T15:41:00.000-08:00

After we went to Philly's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the oldest Thanksgiving Parade in the country, we headed over to Greg's aunt's house in New Jersey for Thanksgiving. I brought a pie and some green beans. While the pie looked nice, it was not a success. Underneath that sugary pecan crust lurked sugary pecan soup. Everything else was great, however, especially the deliciously moist turkey, and Barb made pecan bars, so I think everyone was satisfied. After dinner I collapsed on the couch next to Greg, ready to go home, crawl into my PJs, and enjoy the tryptophan coma.

But there was a surprise in store. Greg's other aunt came up and asked us if we had plans for the evening, and then offered us tickets to that night's Eagle's game. Tryptophan or no, the stadium is right down the street from our house, so we took them and had even more reason to give thanks.

Even though it was a cold night, we bundled up and stayed warm. I was particularly excited to realize that the Eagles were playing the Cardinals, former Colts player Edgerrin James' new squad. In fact, I remembered that I own an Edgerrin James jersey! I was so excited to wear it to the game and cheer for Edge, until Greg forbade it and said he would not be responsible for drunken Eagles' fans who thought I was wearing a Giants jersey. (Similar colors, bitter rivalry, blah blah blah.)

Guess what. I wore the jersey. I kept it hidden until the very end, when most people had taken shelter from the cold and we were able to sneak down very close to the Cardinals' bench. I then whipped open my coat and flashed the field, screaming "I love you EDGE!" Alas, he did not hear me. And then some drunken Eagles fans yelled at me to "Get the $#%! out of here."

A perfect Thanksgiving, all in all.

Thanksgiving Day Parade

2008-11-28T09:46:00.001-08:00

Yesterday morning Greg and I got up and headed to Center City to catch the Thanksgiving Day Parade. We followed it all the way up the parkway to the art museum. Frosty was there.

Madeleine was there.

A crying elephant was there.

Dasher and Dancer were there.

And so was Santa!

hamming it up

2008-11-26T07:22:00.001-08:00

This year, Greg and I took part in a sacred Thanksgiving tradition: spending enough money at the grocery store to get a free turkey. Although we chose the ham. I have to give Greg the credit--now that it's cold out and the Farmer's Market down the street isn't open, he has been doing most of the shopping. He's the one with the car, after all. He signed us up for the ShopRite card and monitored how much we needed to spend to get the free turkey. Yesterday, I joined him for the final purchase.

Or final three purchases, as it turned out. We needed to spend $100. We went through the aisles, stocking up on pantry essentials. Of course, when your pantry essentials are cans of beans, it takes a while to get to $100. After filling our cart with what we needed, we estimated we had about $60 worth of food. "We need to buy meat," I said. This was tough, because I don't cook meat often, and when I do it's fish from Trader Joe's. But then I remembered bacon! Oh how I love bacon. It is delicious and greasy and easy and versatile. I grabbed some bacon, and a thing of breakfast sausage to make with biscuit mix my sister sent me for my birthday. Greg picked up some Woolite and detergent (he also does the laundry) and we headed for the line. We had spent $82.

I dispatched Greg to load the groceries in the car and promised I could find $18 worth of groceries. Broccoli, brussell sprouts, spaghetti squash, apple cider. At the last minute, I switched out the squash (we had bought acorn squash the first time through) for some parmesan cheese. I met Greg in the free ham section and we carefully picked out the most expensive one, deciding on shank rather than butt. (hehe). As we walked toward the register, Greg longingly eyed the double-dipped peanut butter candy cakes from Tastykakes, but I told him he would be having plenty of pie in the days to come.

And then, as the lady behind the register rang us up, everything fell apart. I had only spent $16! My math is terrible. But I knew just what to do: I made a mad dash for the Tastykakes, figuring I could show my husband my appreciation for the fact that he does the grocery shopping and the laundry.

So now there is a giant ham in our freezer. I have never cooked a ham, I have generally only eaten ham at Easter, and I vaguely resent it for taking up so much space and for forcing me to buy Tastykakes.* But it was free. That's all that matters.

*They are very tasty, but WHY is it spelled with a K? There is nothing clever or amusing about that!

Oklahoma

2008-11-26T07:08:00.000-08:00

I spent the last weekend in Oklahoma. That is not a typo. My dad was in charge of the National Missionary Convention, which met in Tulsa. It was a really nice weekend--lots of catching up with old friends from around the world, listening to people speak about important issues, and catching the world premiere of a friend's movie.

However, and I say this with love, whoever at Baxter's restaurant was responsible for running our bank card 30 times in one day and draining our account really harshed my buzz.

yum

2008-11-14T11:39:00.001-08:00

One other thing we did while Andrea was here was visit the Italian Market. She was quite confused by this advertisement for oven roasted boneless pigs (seriously, how do they do that?) so I had to laugh when there was a picture of the ad in the newspaper today. They ran a story about the future of the market, which can be found here.

mi hermana

2008-11-13T10:24:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning. I was doing homework. The phone rang. It was Andrea. The doorbell rang. It was Andrea.

Apparently, she had Monday off and had decided, Friday evening, that she wanted to do something more than laze around her apartment for the long weekend. My mom's mad Priceline skillz helped in finding an inexpensive flight, and by noon Saturday the Philadelphia region was blessed with her shining presence.

Greg and I were pretty shocked, and also delighted, by the impromptu visit. We managed to fit in dinner at Standard Tap in Northern Liberties, a restaurant none of us had been to, a driving and heavily abridged ghost tour ("That's Independence Hall. It's haunted. That's Washington Square. It's haunted. That's the Pine Street Cemetery. It's haunted."), some Saturday Night Live election coverage, a Colts win, dinner at Mercy Street with Andrea's friend Amy, and a visit to Temple.

And three exceedingly goofy pictures.

I voted!

2008-11-04T08:39:00.000-08:00

After being sick for the last few days, it felt good to have something exciting to get up for today. I took a shower (it had been awhile) and walked over to the back of South Philly High, where I cast my vote. The funny thing is, when I told the woman at the table my name, she said, "Oh, are you Greg's wife?" and then proceeded to tell me that whenever Greg drives down her street, she yells "Greg Cesare!" You see, shortly after moving in we found out that a woman who grew up with Greg in Magnolia lives on Mercy Street, just one block over. And apparently she started this thing of yelling "Greg Cesare!" whenever he drives by. The woman at the voting booth told me that once she saw me driving by and said, "Mrs. Cesare!" very quietly. The whole thing was very bizarre and kind of cool but certainly not what I expected to encounter at the polls.

Before I headed over, I took a look at the websites of some of the people running for other offices, and my favorite was by far this one. If you spend a little time there, you'll notice that not only does the site look like it was designed by a schizophrenic teenager, but that Mr. Muhammad is both a "disciple of the word of Christ" and a Muslim, and features quotations like "Mike Muhammad is brainwashed. He 100% believes he can make a difference. - Mike Muhammad." Unfortunately, I think that Greg was so entertained by this website that he is indeed going to cast his vote for Mr. Muhammad.

Vote!

Disappointing Halloween

2008-11-02T16:23:00.000-08:00

First there was the pumpkin, which turned into a festering wound on our doorstep. Then there were my lungs, which also turned into festering wounds during the week leading up to Halloween, preventing me from giving ghost tours on the ghostliest night of all. It's not the correct season for the exclamation, but Bah Humbug!

Phillies Phever

2008-11-02T14:16:00.000-08:00

As much as I despise cutesy spellings, I had to go with Phillies Phever for this post title, because that is exactly what the last week has been round these parts. Last Saturday, Greg and his friend Jim went to the first home game in this World Series. Because of the rain delay, it started after 10 and finished close to 2. And then they walked home. That was only the beginning of the madness. Sunday night Dave and Erin came over to watch the Phils win again, meaning that Monday night was their chance to clinch, to win the whole thing.

Monday night Greg came home and decorated like mad man. Dave and Erin returned, bringing Erin's sister Megan with them. So for those keeping track, this was our third game and third set of guests in three nights. (I'm counting Saturday since Greg and Jim at at Mercy Street before heading to the game.)

The Phils took an early lead in the Monday night game, so we headed out to the nearby Adobe Cafe to celebrate with other fans. It was packed, and I even had my picture taken by a reporter for the paper, but it didn't make it into print. However, the weather had other plans for us, and millions of screaming, drunken fans in every corner of the city were suddenly silenced by a rain delay.

We headed home, and tried to get some sleep Tuesday night. The game picked up again Wednesday at the bottom of the 6th inning. It all went so quickly from there--a few hits, a few runs, a few strikeouts, and before we knew it, we were running down Broad Street hugging and high fiving people we had never met, watching impromptu fireworks, and hoping we didn't see any overt vandalism. (We didn't, but people did go nuts in some parts of the city.)

Here I am high fiving people--I made it my mission to get as many germs on my hand as humanly possible.

Greg's trying to talk to someone, but cell phone service was impossible.

Up next: the Parade!

Food and Family

2008-10-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

Last week was my 27th birthday (28th if you asked my mom, but she figured it out eventually.)

Greg told me that he would cook whatever I wanted for a birthday dinner. I thought about a menu for a while, and then it hit me. I left him a note on a yellow legal pad with my specific instructions:

Steak

Garlic bread made with sourdough bread

Salad (the kind from a bag, with little pieces of carrot and the purple stuff) with Ranch dressing

Greg's first reaction was confusion, as this is not the kind of meal I usually eat. However, when I called my mom and my sister and told them about it, they immediately recognized what was going on: I was ordering a Grandpa Yadon dinner. Growing up, this was the meal we ate at Grandpa's house, although often the steak would be subbed out for lasagna or enchiladas, especially for the kids. The garlic bread and salad were nonnegotiable.

Whenever the Yadon family gets together these days, someone does the Grandpa Yadon joke. It goes something like this: "Hey Nicole, do you want some orange juice? Soda? Milk? Cookie? Can I make you a grilled cheese sandwich? Are you hungry? How about a steak?" Because no matter who you were--grandkid, neighbor, even the mailman, Grandpa would try to feed you and take care of you. He lived across the street from an elementary school, and he would take the kindergarten teachers Cokes during their breaks.

I've heard people talk about the generation that grew up in the Depression, that they never got over hoarding and could have been described as stingy later in life. For whatever reason, the opposite was true of Grandpa Yadon. So, belatedly, thanks for all the OJ, soda, milk, cookies, grilled cheese sandwiches, and steaks, and for giving all of us a model of generosity.

My birthday meal totally failed, by the way. It wasn't Greg's fault, because he specifically asked me how long he should marinate the steaks and I told him to go ahead and do it for 24 hours. When your marinade of choice is somethign called Duggan's Dew, that is not good advice.

Sound Pollution

2008-10-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I mentioned hearing people cheer for the Phillies while trying to do homework. Little did I know how much worse it would get. Last night, I was trying desperately to drift off to sleep, but the Phillies were playing the Dodgers in Game 4 of the NLCS (National League Championship Series). The game took place in LA, and the Dodgers' best pitcher was up--in other words, a game we would probably lose. But when Shane Victorino and then some guy named Stairs (?) hit home runs in the 8th inning, it became clear that we would win. And from my second-floor window, the screams and shouts and eager recaps to the guy next door were LOUD.

Honestly, though, I didn't mind. It was kind of fun hearing the street getting so excited. And if you're going to live in the city, you've got to be prepared for a little noise.

However. Right now I am listening to the most terrible, terrible music imaginable, which is being blasted from halfway down the street. It's, like, 80s smooth jazz easy listening with soaring, reedy female vocalists and synthesized drumbeats, and if it continues much longer, I might just jump out of aforementioned window.

Sports fever

2008-10-05T11:03:00.000-07:00

For those of you who may not be huge sports fans, or at least not Philadelphia sports fans, here's what's going on: the Philadelphia Phillies made the playoffs and then took a 2-0 lead in the best of 3 series against the Brewers. Then they lost the third game, leading to a major dilemma for every Philly sports fan: game 3 was scheduled for 1:00 on Sunday, October 5. The Eagles were also scheduled to play at 1:00 today, and the Eagles have been doing well enough so far this season that people are still invested in watching them.

Here's what this means for me: I am sitting at my computer trying to write an essay about the book No-No Boy (a pretty interesting look at experience of Japanese-Americans during World War II, if you're looking for something to read) when, every few minutes, even though my door and windows are closed, I hear screams going up from next door, the houses behind us, and downstairs (Greg). It's fun, but I wish I could just watch the games!

Current scores: Phillies winning 5-0, Eagles winning 14-3, Colts tied 10-10. Boo.

Also, if you read an earlier post you know that I was excited because a friend of a friend was on Survivor, but alas, she was the third person voted out. Thus ends Paloma-watch 2008.

free netflix trial, anyone?

2008-09-25T08:16:00.000-07:00

This is my bulletin board. A quick glance at it will tell you many things about me: my schedule (the blue rectangle on the bottom left), my finances (credit card statement is the white paper at the top), my political leaning (button bottom right), and what I do with Greg's old shirts (the pockets).

If you look a little closer, you will also discover something of a paradox: I have pretensions to scholarly work, but I am one hardcore couch potato. The white index card on the right has the name of a conference I'd like to submit a paper for; the white index card on the left has the dates my favorite TV shows premiere. There are 12 on the list. 4 premiere tonight, and I'm so excited and embarrassed about my excitement I can hardly contain myself. The Office! Ugly Betty! Survivor! Grey's Anatomy! Those first three shows I totally stand by; Grey's Anatomy is probably the guiltiest of my guilty pleasures.

I love Survivor so much. Don't even try to tell me that reality TV is trash, because I'm not buying.* In fact, I am currently grading 20 freshman papers about reality TV, and I didn't even come up with that assignment, so there's got to be something to it. Even more than watching Survivor, I love reading recaps of it here and here. And this season is even more exciting because I know someone who knows someone who's on the show. Paloma is the daughter of a CMF missionary who works with my dad. Will she be cool? Will she go far? I can only hope. And watch. And read the recaps.

Also on my bulletin board: four free monthlong Netflix trials. Most people I know already have Netflix, but if you don't and you'd like to try it, leave your address in the comments (or email me if you don't like making that info public: nicole.cesare@gmail.com) and I'll send one to you.

*Disclaimer: just like any other genre, there are good and bad reality shows. While I love shows like Survivor, Amazing Race, and Top Chef, you couldn't pay me to watch most of the shows on MTV and VH1. But if you enjoy those shows, more power to you! I don't judge! I can't! Have you seen my bulletin board?

It's kind of chilly here in Philly...

2008-09-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

...which can only mean one thing: pumpkins, scarecrows, and fake leaf garlands. After a pretty low-key showing for 4th of July windows, I'm super-excited for the upcoming parade of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day decorations. One of Greg's coworkers who is originally from South Philly told him the best store for finding such items, so if I decide to join in the fun, I'll make sure to let y'all see.

a BRILLIANT idea

2008-09-23T08:28:00.001-07:00

Many years ago, someone decided that what Philadelphia really needed, what would take the city from blah to BLING, was a casino. And then, through a variety of questionable political machinations, the plan progressed and two groups got permission to build casinos on the Delaware Waterfront.

Many people were not happy about this. I was one of them. I have been to Atlantic City, and folks, it is a miserable place. Yes, you can get a rush if you like the feeling that you are adjacent to glamorous high-rollers, but unless you are a high-roller yourself, that's all you're going to be. Adjacent. And yes, Atlantic City has shows and restaurants and even an outlet mall (hallelujah!) but walk one block from any of these fancy entertainments and you will find yourself in the middle of grinding poverty.

I do not want Philadelphia to turn into Atlantic City. I don't think Ben Franklin or George Washington would want that either.

Many protests later, the casinos finally agreed to consider alternate locations in the city, where at least they would not be next door to people's homes and schools and places of worship. One idea was to put the casinos near the airport, which is a bit removed from the city itself.

Instead, our new mayor (for whom everyone had high hopes) and the casino people decided to place the casinos in the very heart of the city itself, sandwiched in between City Hall and Independence Hall, on top of the Gallery (a shopping mall) and one block south of Chinatown (my favorite part of the city).

Right now, that area is a bit run-down. There are no fancy restaurants or outdoor cafes, just dollar stores and an old Burlington Coat Factory. Apparently, once we put a casino in, everyone on the street will be wearing gold stilettos and fur. Or something.

Here's the thing, though. No one is going to come to the Gallery (or as we used to call it in college, hell) for a fantastic fancy night of high stakes and higher wins. For one thing, there are only going to be slots in the casino, no tables. (I have a hard time writing about this because it makes me so angry, so please forgive the rambling and the clarity issues.) I firmly believe that the people who are going to come play the slots in Center City are those who can't afford the trip to Atlantic City. It will be people who do not have a lot of money who will lose it in this giant box full of slots. The rich and fabulous will continue to head for Atlantic City, where there is already an infrastructure in place that makes them feel even more rich and more fabulous.

I don't want to sound like a crusader against vice here. I know people who enjoy a night in a casino, and I don't want to sound like I am condemning them in any way. I'm just mad at the politicoes and Donald Trump wannabes who are so eager to place this monstrosity just a few doors down from the birthplace of our nation. That's all.

In the news

2008-09-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

If only I had $4000 for an ergonomic treadmill desk!

Yaaayyyy!

2008-09-15T07:02:00.000-07:00

Finally, finally, finally, my summer of dental misery is over. I thought it would be over three weeks ago when I went in to get my permanent crown, but apparently "the lab" had messed up on the crown, so they gave me another temporary and sent me away. This morning at 8 sharp, I was in the chair. For those of you who have been keeping track, that's 1 root canal, 1 tooth lengthening, 3 fillings, 7 temporary crowns, 9 visits, and 1 billion painful numbing injections. And 6 months until I have to go back!

In other good news, the superhero that is Peyton Manning descended into Viking territory yesterday, spewing lightning and thunderclaps and bringing the Colts back from a 15 point deficit in 17 minutes.

The Phillies are putting things together as well, sweeping the Brewers and bringing themselves right to the front of the Wild Card chase.

Tonight, Donovan and Co. take on Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson--I mean T.O.--in what will hopefully end with a win and a 2-0 record. Three cheers for football and its ability to completely erase my interest in schoolwork! Hurrah!

Christmas with the Cranks

2008-09-11T07:17:00.000-07:00

Greg has a nickname for me. Cranky. I like to think of it as a term of endearment, but I'm afraid the truth is that it's just a description of the mood I am in 90% of the time. This week has been worse than ever. Perhaps it's being back at school, getting less sleep, feeling the pressure of expectations and performance anxiety. Whatever the case, my general crankiness has escalated into quasi-violent rage.

The primary object of my irritation is the ubiquity of Ipods on college campuses. I know, I know, I sound like that awful guy from 60 Minutes who concludes each episode with a tone-deaf rant against some subject that generally falls under the category of "kids today." Well guess what. I don't care.

My school, Temple University, has 34,000 students. That's larger than most small towns. While I appreciate the benefits of being part of such a large school, the simple fact is that there is nowhere you can go for a quiet moment. There is always a line, everywhere: the bathrooms, the printers, the coffee carts, the elevators. Getting anywhere or doing anything takes 15-20 minutes longer than it should because of the mass of bodies you have to fight through. And when every single person on campus has "ear buds" (terrible phrase) in his or her ears, and can't hear you saying "excuse me," it's even worse.

I could go into a philosophical meditation here on community and individualism and the danger of total disconnect from the world that develops when people have their own private soundtrack pumping all day and no incentive to chat with those around them, but I won't. Because, again, I don't care. I just want to get to class, and you are in my way.

weekend review

2008-09-08T08:40:00.000-07:00

After months of dentist appointments, free time and ghost tours, I finally had a real week in Mercy Street. Like, a week in which I had a schedule that will be my schedule for the next several months. I'm happy to return to routine, because as great as summer is, I kind of need to be told where to go and what to do. One of the perks of a week of routine is the weekend that follows. So, in list form for easy reading, here was my first real weekend at Mercy Street:

grading papers

Trader Joe's

hurricane

ghost tour

church

reading

bratwurst

football

Not bad, although the Colts game was miserable. Also, I blasted my Rent CD for the first time in many years in honor of the last performance on Broadway. I'm sure the neighbors were thrilled, but come on, people! This is a moment. No day but today, and all that.

sysygy

2008-09-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

In my post about our trip to Chicago, I mentioned briefly that we went on a river tour of Chicago's architectural landmarks. Today, when I visited one of my favorite design blogs, they mentioned going on the exact same tour last weekend! Here's the link.

Above is Donald Trump's new building, still under construction. Much like the man himself, it's not too well put together on top. I watched one of those cranes lower a container from the top floor to the ground.

And this building, which I completely forget the name of, is simply enormous. There was no way I could get the whole thing in my viewfinder. I recommend the tour to anyone visiting the Chicago area, even though there are no ghosts on it!

party!

2008-09-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

This is what a block party on Mercy Street looks like, at least when you're surreptitiously taking a picture from your bedroom window. I snuck out early since I was exhausted and fighting a head cold after our trip to Chicago, but Greg hung around and learned the fine art of half-ball. He tells me he had two home runs, but I'm not sure what that looks like in this space.

Chicago, Chicago

2008-09-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

Every time we take a trip to Indianapolis, Greg asks if we can fit in a visit to Chicago. I've promised to do so many times, but it has never happened. Thus, we realized that we would have to plan a trip to Chicago without trying to sandwich it into another excursion. Then, the perfect alignment of the stars produced this: Labor Day weekend, our friends Jamie and Jimmy who live in Chicago, Greg and I both being off of work, and the Phillies playing the Cubs at Wrigley Field. Tickets were purchased, plans were made, bada bing bada boom, a weekend of destiny.

I wrote a post from the Pittsburgh airport during a layover, griping about the hassle of air travel these days, but then I decided to skip it and focus on the positive. I will say this, though. In addition to charging for checked baggage ($15 for the first, $25 for the second, and a staggering $125 if the bag is over 50 pounds) and charging for drinks--even water--during the flight, USAir has covered their tray tables with advertisements--on our flight, one for Verizon. The rub, of course, is that since they don't give you any food or water, no one actually opens his or her tray table. /Nelson voice/ Ha ha! /Nelson voice/

We fit an astonishing amount into 3 days and 3 nights: the baseball game, a boat tour of the city's architecture, Millenium park, the Art Institute, downtown Evanston, Guitar Hero, live band karaoke, the beach, Miracle Mile, the Newberry Library, the Dark Knight, World Market, Cajun food, deep dish pizza, Chicago-style hot dogs, homemade lasagna, bi bim bop and bulgogi, Jamba Juice, Red Mango frozen yogurt, and some Old Style (or Old Bile, as our waiter said.)

The highlight of the trip for Greg was the game at Wrigley Field, in spite of the fact that the Phillies lost. We sat in the rowdy and coveted bleacher seats, and had the honor of seeing a grand slam hit land right next to our seats. (Wrong team, but what can you do?)

I especially enjoyed the architecture tour and swimming in Lake Michigan, especially when I discovered a previously unknown talent for walking on my hands underwater. According to Greg, I have great form.

But of course, the best part of the trip was catching up with friends, talking and joking as we walked around the city and relaxed in between events. Andrea came up Saturday afternoon, almost got discovered during karaoke, and drove us to the airport Sunday morning. Now it's back to school for both of us!

Jimmy, Jamie, Andrea and Greg enjoy Red Mango in Evanston.

2008-08-27T04:53:00.000-07:00

The Old and the Beautiful

Last time on The Old and the Beautiful: Rita offered to lay in a parking spot for Greg, Nicole's husband.

***

Last night, Nicole returned home to difficult news: Rita had told Greg's father Dennis that she had a little bit of a crush on Greg. She had also mentioned her desire to adopt him. Dennis, attempting to prevent her homewrecking ways, mentioned Greg's grandfather. Rita agreed that there might be room for him in her heart also.

However, Nicole had a little news of her own. Nick, one of the trio of Nick, Frankie, and Nick who often sit on their stoops in the evening as a de facto neighborhood watch, had given Nicole a nickname. Because he usually saw her returning from her ghost tours, decked out in a black cape and holding a lantern, he dubbed her Spooky.

***

Next time on The Old and the Beautiful: Greg and Nicole go to Chicago to see if they can make things work away from the trials of Mercy Street. They return home Sunday, the day of the Mercy Street Block Party. Will the simmering tensions rise to the surface? Will Rita make her move over a hamburger?? Will Nick use his pet name for Nicole in front of Greg???

the dog days

2008-08-20T07:12:00.000-07:00

With summer winding down, it seems like time for a little review of our first few months here at Mercy Street.

-The most recent, and most fun, event to be reviewed is the little housewarming party we had for some classmates and coworkers last Saturday. Believe it or not, we fit 30 people into our house, and most of the time most of the people were standing in the kitchen. I hope that a great time was had by all--we were certainly grateful to be surrounded be friends in our new home. The picture above is the roasted red pepper/eggplant dish that I made and garnished with basil from our garden. Alas, it is the only picture I captured from our party because once that doorbell started ringing, it didn't stop.

-Something else we are pleased about as the summer comes to an end is that Greg does have a job lined up for the fall. After tons of resumes and close to 10 interviews, he will be staying where he already is. Considering that he really enjoys his job, this is a good thing.

-For my own part, as usual, summer began with many lofty goals and concludes with few of them being met. I've got to look forward, though, because bright and early Monday morning I begin my orientation for my first semester teaching. I'll teach one course of a class called Analytical Reading and Writing. Yes, folks, believe it or not, I will be entrusted with teaching vulnerable freshman how to think. I'll let that sink in--and the mad rush of parents withdrawing their children from Temple begins.

-Before that though, we do have a few fun things coming up. Saturday we plan on taking the only trip to the shore we will get this summer. Greg will be pleased because I will finally stop whining about how desperately I need to be surrounded by water. Seriously, though, I always grew up with a pool nearby (not in our backyard or anything, but accessible) or at least taking several trips to the beach, so the fact that I have not been swimming in any capacity since last summer is driving me nuts. We're also going to visit friends in Chicago over Labor Day weekend, which we have been looking forward to for months.

-A recap of my summer would not be complete without mentioning my job as a ghost tour guide. It has been the most perfect summer job I have ever had--luckily I can keep going til Halloween. How cool is it that my job involves walking around a beautiful part of town, telling stories, learning history, and meeting people? I realized that the great thing about being a tour guide is that people are predisposed to have a good time and appreciate you. It's the exact opposite for waiters--your customers are just looking for you to mess up so they don't have to tip you. The best part of my job, though, is how whenever I tell someone about it, they think it's the coolest thing ever.

-And finally, the house itself. Two months in, I am in love with the house, our neighborhood, our city, everything. When we planned to move into the city, Greg and I thought that we might be sacrificing some of the convenience of the suburbs for the excitement of the city, but this is so far from the truth. Everything is at our fingertips, I can get anywhere in half an hour or less, and I don't ever have to gas up the car. I had also assumed, based on our renovation experience, that during the first few months here, pipes would burst, the fridge would break, there would be an electrical fire, and some walls would come crashing down. None of this has happened. We do, however, continue to stumble across unexpected treasures, like the cat toys Greg found buried under the stove just a few days ago.

nightmares

2008-08-13T20:44:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched the U.S. female Olympics team lose to China. Then I had nightmares about young girls being worked to death. Literally, death. It was a terrible dream. But was it a coincidence?

in which I rant

2008-08-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

If the following buzzwords don't interest you, I suggest that you don't read this post, because it will probably bore you: Scrubs, Jane Austen, Emma, feminism.

Here goes:

Greg and I have been watching the TV show Scrubs lately. I love it for the zany humor, the serio-comic approach to working around sickness and death, and for its depiction of "guy love," a phrase coined to describe the relationship between J.D., the protagonist, and Turk, his best friend. J.D. is a general medical intern and Turk is a surgical intern; they both work at Sacred Heart hospital where they are often tormented by superiors.

The episode we watched the other night began with a gag where Turk is talking to a cute woman J.D. has never seen before. (Turk is happily married; J.D. is bad with relationships.) Turk explains to J.D. that the woman, Kim, has actually been around Sacred Heart for years, but J.D. has never noticed her because she is wearing a wedding ring. Turk asks all the women present to take off their wedding rings, and J.D. is suddenly surrounded by tons of attractive women. Then they replace their rings and vanish.

OK, haha. Cute. Kind of. J.D. only sees women who represent potential relationships/mates/fill in the blank. It's funny on the surface, slightly disturbing if you think about it, but clearly draws on the way some people operate. It didn't bother me because I don't think we're supposed to root for J.D. here, just to see that he has typical, if unfortunate, tendencies.

As the episode progresses, J.D. finds himself increasingly attracted to Kim. She is gracious enough to be friendly to him although he has apparently ignored her for years because of that pesky ring. (To be clear: the show doesn't make a point of her graciousness, it simply shows them interacting in friendly ways.)

However, J.D. discovers that Kim has opted to forego surgery on an elderly patient because of the risk the patient would die during the surgery. The medicine is glossed-over, but the point is that Kim doesn't want to risk her surgical stats looking bad. J.D., who is defined by his commitment to his patients, is disappointed by Kim's decision. As he has every right to be.

It is clear that J.D. is especially upset about Kim's decision because he has begun to think of her as more than just a friend. He learns that her wedding ring is a bluff, as she has been divorced for over a year. It is at this point that he creepily begins talking about her as though they were in a relationship, when he has never done more than interact with her.

J.D. finally summons the courage (or self-righteousness, but I don't want to tip my hand here) to chastise Kim about her decision. As he lays into her, expressing how personally disappointed he is that she balked at the surgery, Kim's face crumples and it seems clear that J.D.'s words are hitting home, a fact which is confirmed when she decides to go ahead with the surgery. Up until this point, she has appeared as a spunky, driven woman with a quirky but fun sense of humor. However, in the face of J.D.'s disappointment, she can only hang her head in shame.

Watching this storyline play out, I wanted to scream. J.D. has no right to play the shame game with a woman he barely knows. The show clearly wants you to root for him, to think he is right in correcting Kim. But what irked me so much is that he presumed that his attraction to her was grounds for his disappointment in her. If she had been someone he didn't find worth knowing (as she was before the wedding ring vanished) he wouldn't even have noticed the surgery. Additionally, before he approaches Kim, J.D. has a conversation with Turk in which Turk admits that he has done the same thing--avoided high risk surgeries to protect his stats. J.D. completely ignores Turk's confession.

Why? Why can he wag his finger in Kim's face while Turk gets no similar "I'm so disappointed in you" speech? Turk is J.D.'s friend, someone he actually has a right to be disappointed in. I may be overreacting (and I'm certainly spending way too much time putting the whole thing into words) but it felt like a very gendered confrontation to me, the kind you would never see between a guy and his buddy, but which people can accept between a guy and the woman he wants to put on a pedestal.

Perhaps one reason this stupid scene from a two-year-old episode bugged me so much is because it reminds me of one of my favorite moments in literature, when Mr. Knightley confronts Emma after she has behaved poorly to a woman of lesser social status. (Disclaimer--I've read the book, but the movie version is clearer in my mind.) Mr. Knightley is aggrieved that Emma has been so catty and unfeeling, and he chases her down, explains very carefully to her the nature of her transgression, and then says, "Badly done Emma, badly done."

At first, the two scenes seem very similar, and one would think that if I take offense at one, I had better take offense at both. But the difference between Emma and Scrubs is that Jane Austen realized that Mr. Knightley's opinion would matter to Emma. She respects him, and for good reason, so his dressing down is a serious matter. (Not to mention that Austen clearly is willing to allow women to give as good as they get--see Lizzie's fantastic multiple dressings-down of Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.) Kim, on the other hand, has no reason to respect J.D. On the contrary, she should probably think he's a toad for the way he refused to recognize her as a colleague because he thought she was married, i.e. not available. And yet, she completely caves in to his blowhard smackdown. There's just no reason for it.

Greg was watching with me, and his quarrel with the scene was much more succinct, and perhaps even more significant than mine: it just didn't make sense for either character. And bad writing is just as offensive as bad morals.

Savory Cannoli

2008-08-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

One thing people like to do when they visit us here at Mercy Street is pick up some cannoli. If you're not familiar with cannoli, they are an Italian dessert, in which a cookie-like tube is filled with a sweet ricotta filling. You can read about them here. The problem is, I am not a sweets person generally, and I don't enjoy cannoli the way Greg and others do. When my parents were here, we stopped by a famous local bakery and I looked at all the offerings but didn't feel pulled to any of the cakes, cookies, etc. Later, when everyone was crunching into their cannoli, I felt a little left out.

And so, my friends, I have reclaimed the cannoli for us savory folks. It was actually a two-step savory intervention, because it all started when I decided to make the zucchini-ricotta cheesecake featured here. It was a delicious way to use some farmer's market zucchini, but the problem was that it left me with some ingredients I don't use often and wasn't sure what to do with: fresh dill, ricotta, shallots and goat cheese. I also had some zucchini and summer squash left. Usually when I have odds and ends of veggies, we have an omelette night and clean out the veggie drawer, so that was my original plan for the zucchini. But that left the problem of the dill and ricotta.

An idea began percolating...and I have to say I was quite pleased with the results. I decided that, instead of doing a traditional omelette, I would make very thin, crepe-like rounds of scrambled eggs, then fill them with a zucchini-ricotta filling and roll them up. I chopped up some fresh dill to put in the egg mixture, and sprinkled the goat cheese crumbles on top. All in all, it was quite delicious, although it left poor Greg with a big mess to clean up.

This recipe is much more delicate and labor-intensive than much of what I cook, but it was worth it for the feeling of glee at using things up rather than throwing them out.

(A few notes about the recipe: I used minimal oil, low-fat ricotta and some egg whites to make it as healthy as possible. It still tasted very rich, and yielded 8 cannoli.)

Savory Cannoli

(makes 2 large servings)

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

1 shallot, minced

1 zucchini or 1/2 zucchini and 1/2 summer squash, grated

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup skim ricotta

6 eggs (I removed the yolk from two to cut down on the overall cholesterol/calories)

1 tablespoon dill

goat cheese crumbles

Warm olive oil in a large saucepan. Add garlic and shallots, stirring until they develop a nice aroma. Add zucchini/squash. Saute until the mixture is soft and tasty. Remove from heat. Strain off excess liquid. Stir in salt and ricotta until blended.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with a fork and stir in dill. Pour a small amount of egg into a small frying pan coated with Pam or oil. Turn pan so that the egg mixture coats the bottom, as you would with a crepe. Flip over to other side and leave until the egg-crepe is just cooked on both sides. Remove to a plate. Repeat until egg mixture is finished.

Spoon the zucchini-ricotta filling onto the egg-crepes, and then roll them up so that they resemble cannoli. Sprinkle with goat cheese.

The Olympics are here, the Olympics are here!

2008-08-08T18:27:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd try my hand live-blogging the Olympics opening ceremony. It is ridiculous on my part to think that anyone would want to read what I have to say, minute by minute, but guess what: it's my blog! And I'll liveblog if I want to.*

7:30 -- "The footprints and their histories stretch back 5,000 years...China is welcoming the world, but the question is, who will they be when this is over?"

Intro: cool visuals, loaded commentary.

7:30 -- I begged my dad to take me to China when he went once. He refused, even though I offered to pay my way and work for free. Watching the footage, I realize that I AM STILL BITTER.

7:31 -- First Karolyi sighting!

7:31 -- Philadelphian or no, I have no use for Kobe Bryant.

7:32 -- Beach volleyball player whose name may be Misty: "To get the chance to defend my gold medal? I couldn't write a better story." Really? What if you wrote about being sucked into beach quicksand in the midst of your comeback game, only to be pulled out by your long-lost coach/father, who is tragically sucked into the quicksand himself, his last words: "Get the gold for me, Misty."

7:34 -- Intro officially over.

7:34 -- The announcer says "Bob Costas." Greg cheers from his position flat on his back on the couch.

7:39 -- Tom Brokaw tells us about how important the games are for the Chinese people.

7:40 -- Tom mentions Tiananmen Square. I remember being in elementary school, the moment when the young revolutionary stood in front of the tank in Tiananmen square. My mom said, "You'll be able to say you remember when this happened."

7:41 -- Ping pong diplomacy! Run, Forrest, run!

7:42 -- The earthquake footage is wrenching.

7:44 -- The whole 8/8/08 thing reminds me of when I was young, driving with my family through Malaysia. When the house numbers got to 88, they started repeating 88 1/4, 88 1/2, etc.

7:48 -- Matt Lauer is bald! Perhaps if I watched The Today Show I would know this.

7:49 -- So excited that Zhang Yimou is directing the ceremonies. I've only seen The Road Home and Happy Times, but I really like his work. Note to self: put House of Flying Daggers on Netflix list.

7:51 -- The beach volleyballers are talking, revealing that I misidentified the one speaking earlier--it was Kerry, not Misty.

7:52 -- BOO, KOBE.

7:57 -- Say what you will about Bush, I think it is the right call that he's here.

8:00 -- If I were in grad school mode, I would talk about the semiotics of the human technology of the drums, but luckily school has been out for weeks and my brain is officially mush. I will say this: it is neato.

8:03 -- I was wondering why they weren't doing the countdown in Chinese numbers, but then they did both once they got to 10-9-8. So cool.

8:03 -- That aerial view of the stadium looks like something...I just can't put my finger on it.

8:06 -- The predominant colors during this performance are silver and gold--methinks there's a double meaning in that.

[[This live blogging thing is tiring. Time for a chips and salsa break.]]

8:48 -- Mmm, salsa. Meanwhile, floating LED screens, and Greg's irritation that the commenter who is not Bob Costas points out that the performers are evoking China's naval history figurally, not literally.

8:51 -- Not to be make light of China's famous pianist, but Lang Lang's demeanor and hair are a little odd. The 7-year-old sitting next to him doesn't help.

8:54 -- Oooh, I want a light-costume.

8:55 -- Scratch that, I want to float through the stadium pulled by a kite in pigtails and pink dress.

9:03 -- The perfect circles made by the tai chi practitioners are unbelievable.

9:12 -- Sarah Brightman looks like a corpse. Greg: "Where's Bjork?"

9:16 -- Parade of nations is next! I'm going to sign off. Well done, all involved.

*Not really a liveblog since I am watching a recording. But who cares.

ah, the internet

2008-08-07T11:50:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. I am not an internet-humor kind of person, for the most part. What I mean by that is, when someone says to me, either in an email or in person, "Oh my gosh, I found the funniest website/blog/YouTubeclip/etc., you totally have to check it out!" I tend to not do it. My reaction to that kind of statement is usually "eh." I am not defending this behavior, because if or when I do actually follow the person's advice, what follows is almost always funny, and I usually enjoy it. But for some reason, perhaps the same [unknown] reason that I hate stand-up comedy, I just don't seek out funny stuff on the internet.

Which is not to say that I don't spend ridiculous amounts of time online, frittering away my life, but it's usually on entertainment, news, or lifestyle (cooking, etc.) sites.

With that said:

Guys, I found the funniest blog today! YOU TOTALLY HAVE TO CHECK IT OUT. I'm not sure if it's because I actually for once had a fairly pleasant experience at the dentist today (6th visit this summer, one more to go) or because I am tired, but I have been looking at this site and laughing out loud, giggling, even occasionally whooping with laughter.

What is the site, you ask? It is this: cakewrecks.blogspot.com. The blogger simply posts pictures of cakes that are terrifying and funny, all in one. For example, you wouldn't think someone would want a cake that looks like a messed-up foot or a piece of raw fish, but you would be wrong. My personal favorites are the ones that demonstrate egregious misspellings and use of quotation marks by the decorators.

Please please check it out and let me know which is your favorite. I'll tell you mine in the comments--don't want to ruin anything.

projects

2008-08-05T06:32:00.000-07:00

We've been in our house for about two months now, and have been slowly tackling some little projects here and there--hanging some stuff on the walls, adding little pieces of trim where necessary, etc. One project that makes a big difference visually was recovering the dining room chairs. They originally came from Greg's aunt, and although we really like them, we thought they could do with a little update. I hit the fabric section of Ikea (I really need to find a new store someday) and found two fabrics that matched (in color, not pattern) the cushions I had bought (at Ikea) for the futon we bought (at Ikea).

Then I got to work. The first step went quickly--removing the seat cushions from the chairs and prying out all the rusted old staples to remove the original fabric. Once that was done, nothing happened for a week, except that we didn't have chairs to sit on. Finally I hauled out the staple gun and started putting the new fabric on. We realized instantly that we didn't have the right kind of staple gun, and that we would have to hammer in all the staples. It was a pain, but not that bad.

It was during this stage of the process that I injured myself. Explain to me how for months I can go around swinging hammers, using power saws and crowbars and tearing down walls, and not hurt myself in the slightest, but give me a pair of regular, everyday scissors, and I slash up my fingers. I was simply cutting the fabric when I stopped paying attention and ended up cutting a nice V into the tip of my middle finger. It bled for a couple hours despite my best attempts to elevate my arm and keep pressure on the wound. Greg kept threatening to take me to the emergency room, but I refused. Finally I sent him out for a popsicle (what? when is a popsicle not a good idea?) and put about 5 band-aids on it. It's fine now.

Once we had all the seats covered, Greg sprayed them with scotch guard and we screwed them back into the chairs. That last step is not as easy as it sounds. I laid down on the ground; Greg placed the chair over my face and then sat on it, and then I maneuvered the drill around upside down and around chair legs, with about one square foot of wiggle room.

Here are the results! The color is kind of off in this picture--the walls are not really puce.

clear eyes, full hearts, always lose

2008-08-02T06:44:00.000-07:00

Friday Night Lights, source of the above quotation (although I modified it a little) is one of my all-time favorite TV shows, and I consider myself personally responsible for introducing it to some other people as well. It's a sort of verite look at the life of a small town through the lens of its treatment of high school football. The acting is fantastic, the stories are poignant, and the ratings are terrible.

FNL is based on a book written by one H. G. Bissinger. A movie was made based on the book, and the TV show developed out of the movie. If you like your sports stories all Disneyfied and inspirational, this is perhaps not the show for you. But if you like a little grit with your soap (because there are the requisite teen romances--probably the only reason the show wasn't canceled after its first season) then I encourage you to check it out.

However, I'm not posting simply to praise FNL. This does connect back to my larger subject matter of Philadelphia. Because Buzz Bissinger is a local, a Philadelphian, and he has a piece in today's New York Times about how losing is a badge of pride for Philadelphians, particularly in their baseball team, the Phillies, who are the losingest team in all of pro sports history. Check it out.

quatre vingts huit et douze font shoot me now

2008-08-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

The last few sections I did in my French book have dealt with fairly complicated grammatical points, so when I turned the page and saw that I would be learning numbers, I was thrilled. What could be easier?

Oh. My. Goodness.

It started off easy enough: un, deux, trois, one, two, three. Direct correlation. But then I noticed something funky going on when I got to the number 70. The number 10, I had learned, is dix. The number sixty is soixante. 70 is soixante-dix, literally "60-10."

Hey, that's not how we do it in English! That's addition!

I kept going, and it kept getting worse. 80 is "quatre-vingt," literally "4-20." That's multiplication!!! Are you ready for 99? It's "quatre-vingt-dix-neuf." In other words, "4-20-10-9." So first you have to figure out that 4-20 is 80, then add ten, then add nine. Or 19. It's all the same.

At the end of each section of new information, there's a section called "Reading Preparation," which is basically like a little quiz where you go through a bunch of phrases and try to figure out what they mean before looking at the translation. Guess what. For the numbers section, the phrases are actually Math Itself. [shudder]

For example, "Quatre-vingt-deux et douze font-quatre-vingt-quatre/quatre-vingt-quatorze." Et means and (or plus) and font means makes. The bold parts are the two answer choices.

SO. I first have to figure out what the first number is: quatre-vingt-deux (4-20-2 but actually 82). Then I have to figure out the second number: douze (12). Then I have to add them. This takes a minute. 94. Then I have to figure out which one of the answer choices means 94. Either (4-20-4 but actually 84) or (4-20-14 but actually 80-14, which is indeed 94).

There were 38 of these problems. I'm going to go cry now.

can't get a date

2008-07-31T12:49:00.000-07:00

Tuesday I met my friend Leslie at La Colombe in Rittenhouse Square to study French. Of course, considering that Rittenhouse Square is smack-dab in the middle of Center City's shopping district, the French was merely an excuse. After the study session, we hit up Anthropologie, where I finally spent 1/3 of the gift card I got for my birthday last October. What can I say, I'm a hoarder.

I was also excited to be able to make my way to Trader Joe's, which is just a little Northeast of the park. I had a very specific mission: to buy dates. I'm planning on making an appetizer that uses them (thanks for the recipe, Mom!) and figured TJs was a good place to start. The recipe also calls for pecans, and TJs is a great place for nuts. However, I was disappointed because the only dates they sold were really gourmet and expensive, and I'm working with a budget here.

Later that night I did some internet research (OK, I googled "Mediterranean grocery" and "Philadelphia") and the first item that appeared was a place right next to Pat's and Geno's! For you non-natives, those are the most celebrated cheesesteak establishments in Philly, and they are less than a mile from our house. Alas, Bitar's also only sold really expensive dates. I kept going to the Italian market, and after poking my head into several establishments, found dates at a significantly reduced price. Lesson learned: start close to home!

Later that day, Greg and I poked our head in the Italian specialty store at the end of our street. It opened a few months ago, and we hadn't looked in yet. Boy, we were missing out. Sitting at the cash register was a large man with a gold chain and his shirt unbuttoned down to his belly button. He chatted us up, informed us that everything in the store was straight from Italy, and then made us some espresso free of charge. I'm convinced it's a mafia front, but the espresso was good, so I'm not complaining.

summer fun: weddings and travel

2008-07-28T09:35:00.000-07:00

Greg and I went to a wedding this weekend and had fun dancing the night away. The bride was Greg's good friend and longtime neighbor Lauren, who he says is responsible for the fact that he passed his high school math classes. Greg grew up in an almost Norman Rockwell-like neighborhood, where all the neighbors know each other, there's a traditional Christmas party, and you can always run down the street to borrow sugar. It's an experience far removed from my own (I grew up on the mean streets, baby) and I get a real kick out of hanging out with the neighborhood crew.

It was also a good chance to spend a little time with Greg's parents before their upcoming trip to Spain and Paris. They're going to see some friends who they have hosted in the past as foreign exchange students, and about whom the well of stories never runs dry. Greg and I are super-jealous, but wish them a lovely trip.

However, we do have a trip of our own scheduled for later in August--we'll be heading out to Chicago to see our friends Jamie and Jimmy, as well as to watch the Phillies play the Cubs at Wrigley Field. (Three guesses as to who is more excited about that.)

The only problem is that, as the date draws nearer, we are getting more concerned about actually getting there. You see, we are flying US Air.

If you have flown US Air before, I probably don't even need to say anything else, but if you haven't, let me clue you in. DON'T FLY US AIR. I started regretting my decision as soon as I booked the tickets, but they were so much cheaper that I couldn't resist. When I have flown US Air in the past, it has almost always been an experience of delayed flights, no communication from the people in the know, lost luggage, and even having things stolen out of our luggage. Oh yes, and the time that we had to get off the plane after sitting on the runway because the luggage truck had CRASHED INTO the plane while loading the suitcases.

Our fears are only compounded by the sorry state of air travel in general right now. Andrea's friend Amy recently tried to get out to Indianapolis for a visit, only to be delayed for over 24 hours.

Sure enough, last night I had an email from Orbitz. It was very cryptic, something along the lines of this: "Mr. Gregory James Cesare, your Orbitz itinerary has changed. Please call this number 1-800-OH-CRAP and enter the following record code: !@#$%^&*()ABCDLKE))*WERNSDLKFNWERS.

I called the number, and in a reasonable 10 minutes, had managed to connect to a real live person and enter the code (and get dinner on the stove). 20 minutes later, the operator informed me that our flight out of Chicago would be delayed by 2 hours. As she prepared to dismiss me, I asked, "Will that affect our connecting flight?" She seemed confused by the question, but eventually managed to inform me that: "Your flight arrives in Pittsburgh at 11:36 AM, and your connecting flight departs Pittsburgh at 11:28 AM." Long pause. "And I can tell you that that will be a missed connection."

She put me on hold, I put the phone on speaker, and Greg and I proceeded to eat dinner and watch an entire sitcom before she came back on the line, only to let me know that she had to put me on hold again. When she finally came back, I was so overexcited to grab the phone that I actually hung up on her.

Jamie, I hope to see you in August, but it's not looking good.

the great debate

2008-07-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS

VS.

THE CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE

It's time for me to weigh in on another debate on which my opinion doesn't matter at all and is obviously ridiculously biased: Philly vs. New York.

The Philly vs. New York debate is a big deal to Philadelphians; less so to New York. It's like how the Colts hate the Patriots and the Pats don't even really notice, but at the same time, the Colts don't realize that folks in Jacksonville hate them. Peyton's like, "Jacksonville? We play them sometimes." The point I'm trying to make here is that when there's a rivalry between two unequal players, the smaller fish tends to make more of the rivalry, and that's the sense I get of the Philly/NY thing. New Yorkers might make a disparaging comment about Philly being the Sixth Borough, but they don't think about it much. Meanwhile, Philadelphians are fuming and declaring not only their independence, but their superiority. (And then, there might be someone out there writing a Lancaster vs. Philly great debate blog entry.)

Well, Philadelphia, I am convinced. I haven't lived in New York, so I am not terribly qualified to speak on the matter, but I now consider myself a Philadelphian and have compiled a list of reasons as to why Philly is better.

1) It's a big city, but it's still small. I live in South Philly, work in Old City (which is as far east as you can get) and go to school in North Philly. I can easily get to any of these locations in half an hour. We have friends in suburbs and in South Jersey, and we can get to them (driving) in a half hour. If you lived in Queens, worked in Manhattan, and went to school in Staten Island, it would be much more complicated.

2) Underdog status. Living in New York's shadow, with perennially losing sports teams, a Philadelphian can always claim underdog status and get some sympathy.

3) History. I didn't pay much attention to the historical aspect of Philly until I started doing Ghost Tours (a woman once asked me where the Liberty Bell was and I couldn't tell her) but I'm starting to realize how significant it is that this is where it all started.

4) Perhaps most importantly, the reason I choose Philly can be best explained by this NY Times article. It's about people who buy houses and end up having to do a ton of work renovating them, a process with which I am familiar. I was reading the article and really identifying with it until the story mentioned some of the price tags for these fixer-uppers: $699,000, $770,000 and so on. Holy cow! I know it's a cliche to talk about the high price of New York real estate, but seriously. In Philly, a beautiful condo in the absolute nicest part of town will run you around half a million. And a fixer-upper in South Philly costs far, far less.

AAAUUGGH!!!

2008-07-26T08:04:00.000-07:00

And, cockroach.

HOT HOT HOT

2008-07-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's Greg, my exceedingly handsome husband. We took this picture during his two weeks between regular school and summer school, during which he refused to shave or, in fact, take part in any kind of grooming at all.

But here's the rub, and this is why I'm posting. The little old ladies of Mercy Street have themselves a new hunka hunka to keep their eyes on, and they are doing everything short of throwing themselves at him. Luckily, I keep my man well-trained, so he reports back to me whenever one of them attempts to seduce him.

Trina* is the most forward, and unfortunately, the most attractive. Her gray curls are expertly styled, and her muumuus are most fetching. This was the exchange between her and Greg the other day, when Greg was walking back from his parking spot:

Trina: Oh, you didn't find a spot on the street?

Greg: Nah, but I'm not far.

T: That's too bad.

G: I don't mind.

T: I bet you don't mind too much, you're too cute!

Hello? Ladies, he is married!! The next day, Greg stepped outside and there was a big open parking space in front of our house. Trina told Greg that if he wanted to go get the car, she would LAY in the SPOT for him to save it.

!!!!

*Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

you might be wondering...

2008-07-24T13:29:00.000-07:00

...what exactly I've been doing with my time, now that most of the house stuff is done, I'm not in school for the summer, and I only do ghost tours in the evenings. The idea is that I'm supposed to be spending my days doing things like exercising, learning French for an exam I have to take in the fall, and preparing for the class I have to teach in the fall.

Alas, progress is slow. I've barely gotten through the first few chapters of my "French for Reading" book, and I've only read the first few pages of the First Year Writing Program Instructor's Handbook (to say nothing of the actual books for the class.) Months ago, when the weather was just getting warm and I was spending every moment either writing papers or painting walls, I dreamt about how much I would get done in the summer, how I'd spend the mornings on the French and class prep and spend the afternoons on other projects, like reading for personal and professional edification, finding conferences to give papers at, planning for what happens when I'm done with coursework. Now that it's turning to the dog days, I'm simply hoping that I'll have been able to do the bare minimum by the time fall rolls around.

With that said, then, what have I been doing? For one thing, I set up my workspace (pictured above.) That has to come first, right? I've also done OK with the exercise in the last few weeks, finally getting comfortable using Temple's gym (which I have free access to.) I've never been a gym person. The idea of sweating in front of others, who I imagine to be much fitter, tanner, more beautiful people, is not my idea of a good time. However, I've found that if I get there early enough, it's not too crowded. And the guy who is usually on the treadmill next to me has such an overwhelming stench of B.O. dressed with cologne that I feel much less self-conscious. (Horrible but true, and by the way, I have a real soft spot for this guy because he runs at the same miserably slow pace I do. I don't even mind the smell.)

I've also been distracting myself trying out new recipes, checking out the market, and doing nest-y things like blanching zucchini and freezing it for when it's not in season. I am aided in these kitchen activities by my best friend, the internet. Here are some of my favorite websites for recipes and general cooking advice:

thekitchn

Yes, it's missing an E, I don't know why. But this blog updates with new entries almost 10 times a day, making it hard to beat for browsing. They feature recipes, ingredient spotlights, kitchen tour slideshows, and features like "learning to cook without recipes."

101cookbooks

This natural-foods focused blog is written by a cookbook writer/photographer, and it's a beauty to look at. She posts new recipes once or twice a week, and they always look delicious and expand my awareness of healthy ingredients.

smittenkitchen

My friend Rachel turned me on to this site, and I enjoy the author's (or maybe authors'? Not sure how many there are) sense of humor and writing style.

pleasepassthepie

Since I have no baking experience aside from the cake in the last post, I haven't tried any of the recipes featured so far in this blog. AND YET, I read it religiously because my witty and lovely friend Abbie writes it, and it is muy entertaining.

kiplog's food blog links

If you enjoy reading food blogs, check out kiplog's list of food blogs. It is tremendously lengthy--back when I "worked" at TV Guide and didn't have anything to do all day, I spent weeks going through each and every entry...and the list has only grown in the intervening years. There's a food blog on here for everyone--vegans, carnivores, people who only eat at restaurants, bakers, even shakers probably. I enjoyed all the international ones--quite a few from Singapore.

Now you too can spend your days not doing what you should be doing.

busy week

2008-07-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

Whew. It's after noon on Monday and I am still recovering from a somewhat exhausting, but totally fun, weekend. My parents arrived in town Wednesday afternoon, and we kept pretty busy the entire time they were here, with trips to the Italian Market, cheesesteaks, a birthday party for Greg, a picnic, the Art Museum, ghost tours, and even some handyman stuff.

One of the minor household irritations since we moved in has been the toilet bowl's tendency to rock back and forth when being, ahem, used. Spending time on the throne, as they say, was nerve-wracking, as any kind of sudden movement could result in the sensation that the entire toilet was tilting on its side and all the pipes attached to it were shifting in the walls. Luckily, my dad knows his way around toilets, and with a quick trip to Lowe's for a wax ring and some hardware, he had everything under control. Next time you're in town, come sit on our toilet! You won't regret it.

Greg's birthday party was a lot of fun. We had his parents and his brother and soon to be sister-in-law over. I made the Spider Man birthday cake pictured at the top, my first attempt at baking a cake. Luckily my mom was there to explain what "grease and flour the pan" means. Seriously, I wasn't quite sure. Greg did some swordfish on the grill which turned out to be very moist and delicious, and Barb brought some asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and provolone. Between all that and my quick and easy paella, and the beautiful flowers Erin brought, we felt as though we were really dining in style. It surprised Dave, who up to this point has been served pizza pretty much every time he comes by.

the last word on dentists (I hope!)

2008-07-11T11:12:00.000-07:00

The only occasion I have had since getting rid of the Neon to regret our one-car existence was riding the subway home from the dentist yesterday. It was full of happy, shiny people heading to an afternoon Phillies game. As they chatted and laughed, all I could do was hope desperately that bloody drool wasn't sliding down my numb lips.

the great debate

2008-07-09T09:29:00.001-07:00

vs.

I'm going to come out with my opinion on this debate right up front so that there is no confusion: I am a TJ's girl. I have happy memories of stopping by after church when we lived in Southern California circa 1990. It was always a special treat, and my favorite product was the Hansen's All Natural Peach Soda. Then, the wasteland years, when Trader Joe's was a distant memory, and the best we could do in Central Indiana was Marsh. I went away to college on the East Coast, and one day received a call from my mom, who was so excited she could hardly get the words out: "Honey, they're putting in a Trader Joe's near your dad's office!" I was jealous, but a few years later I got to make a phone call of my own: "Mom, they're putting in a Trader Joe's--within walking distance of my apartment!!!" Those were the glory days.

I know Trader Joe's has been criticized as snobby, unnecessary, even expensive. (See here and here.) But I'm a sucker, and a fan, and many of their products have a permanent spot in my pantry (their Breakfast Blend fair trade coffee, the roasted tomato red pepper soup, frozen tilapia and crab cakes...). I find it fairly inexpensive compared to even your standard grocery store, although it can be frustrating if you are simply looking for basic cooking items. And I will admit that I don't buy their produce because it tends to be subpar.

Being such a fangirl of Trader Joe's, I have always argued with the Whole Foods people, pointing out that Whole Foods can legitimately be called overpriced, and that its patrons are the real snobs.

But.

The other day, coming out of the dentist's office, I needed pita bread and escarole, and figured I could find them both at the Whole Foods around the corner, which would be much easier than making my way to the grocery store near our house later in the day. And I discovered that, in one area at least, Whole Foods has Trader Joe's beat. That area is the realm of whole wheat pita bread.

I buy pita bread often, because I make hummus about once a week. It's a quick, easy, healthy lunch. When I manage to get to Trader Joe's (now a 10-minute drive) I often linger in front of the pita breads, knowing that the whole wheat is better for me, but also knowing that it will taste like I'm eating a paper bag. The whole wheat pita I picked up at Whole Foods, on the other hand, was as fluffy and tasty as regular pita bread, and the pitas were bigger as well. (Same number of Weight Watchers points as the smaller Trader Joe's ones, too.) As reluctant as I am to admit this, it's going to be tough to make myself buy Trader Joe's whole wheat pita bread from here on out. Luckily, Whole Foods isn't close by, although at my current rate of dental visits per week, I'll be in the neighborhood often enough.

Hummus Recipe:

1 can garbanzo beans, drained, with liquid set aside

4 tablespoons tahini

zest of 1 lemon

juice of 1 lemon

garlic clove

pinch of salt

pinch of cumin

pinch of pepper

Blend together, using reserved liquid to facilitate the blending when necessary.

I prefer it plain, so I avoid flavored hummus, but you could easily throw in the items they use to market all kinds of varieties: roasted red peppers, eggplant, extra garlic, spinach, pine nuts, olives, feta, etc.

"If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman?"

2008-07-09T09:04:00.001-07:00

To market, to market, to buy some phat veggies.

The good news: I got all of the above veggies--broccoli, red onions, lemons, cherry tomatoes, plum tomatoes, cilantro, basil, kiwi fruit, and a jalapeno--for $10.25 on my trip to the Italian market this morning. And I walked, a mile each way, so I got some exercise in as well.

The bad news: With apologies to the 3 Doors Down (and if you recognized the post title, you are only half as lame as I am for using it), I found my kryptonite at the market as well. It was one of those specialty kitchen stores, full of fancy-dan items that will likely only be used for one recipe in your repertoire, like a corn slitter or a Le Creuset Tagine. This kind of place makes me drool and imagine that I have my own cooking show...perhaps "Nicole's Simple Kitchen" or "The Rice and Beans Hour." And then I remember that, really, rice and beans is my favorite meal to cook and eat, with fish and brown rice a close second, and that maybe I don't need the set of six ravioli molds or the grain mill with stone and steel burrs.

I did grab a lemon zester, though. I'll use that a lot.

Here's the website for the store, in case you too indulge fantasies of winning Top Chef: www.fantes.com

4th of July/Happy Birthday Greg!

2008-07-09T06:45:00.001-07:00

Greg's birthday was July 2, and in honor of the occasion, we decided to clean out the back "yard" and get a grill as his birthday gift. He already knew that he wanted a charcoal grill rather than a gas grill, which was convenient because the charcoal ones tended to be much cheaper. We ended up with a pretty basic little number and decided to try it out for the 4th of July.

Making the occasion even more fun, our friend Rachel came up from D.C., and our friend Michael, who lives in Philly, also joined us. I marinated a bunch of veggies and fresh fish and made a couscous/mango/lime dish to go with it.

It turned out to be pretty clear why so many people prefer gas to charcoal. We're going to have to practice a lot in order to figure out how to get enough heat to really grill, rather than simply warm, the food. But we played liberally with lighter fluid, and with an assist from George Foreman, we eventually had a pretty tasty meal.

We also landscaped our entire yard for the occasion.

After dinner, we set off for the city's big 4th of July celebration--a free John Legend concert on the steps of the art museum, followed by fireworks. The concert was good, in spite of the rain, and the fireworks were impressive. The only complaint I have is that I expected the grand finale to be set to some rousing, patriotic anthem--the Star Spangled Banner, God Bless America, etc., and instead, it was a treacly, boring song I had never heard before--I'm a Red White and Blue American. Come on, Philly! Where is John Philip Sousa??

At the end of the night, after standing in the rain for hours, we were pretty beat. Luckily, I had my ghost tour cape with me to keep me warm.

nightmares in dentistry part two

2008-07-07T06:48:00.001-07:00

My temporary crown fell out. I guess it's not a big deal but I haven't been able to get ahold of the dentist yet. It's strange having a stump in my mouth instead of a tooth.

nightmares in dentistry

2008-07-04T08:23:00.001-07:00

About a month ago, I went to the dentist and learned I had to have a root canal. This information wasn't really surprising, because over a year ago one of my fillings cracked, and a few months ago it fell out, leaving a giant hole in Tooth 3. (That's how the dentist and hygienist refer to it. I refer to it as...well, it would be impolite to say. Let's just say the adjectives "dirty" and "sonafa" are involved.)

I returned to the dentist for my scheduled root canal last Thursday. I was very nervous because I hate dental work, but I took a magazine in with me to read during any downtime so that I wouldn't fixate on the pain and terror. Also, Greg came with me since he was off work.

Things started out OK. The numbing process involved multiple injections directly into the roof of my mouth, which was painful, but I had been numbed up before and knew what to expect. Then the dentist set up the area (my mouth) which involved clamps and a tiny rubber sheet. If you've watched hospital shows on TV and can picture the big blue sheet with a hole right over the area to be operated on, that's what I imagine my mouth looked like, just in miniature. Although this was uncomfortable, it was interesting. So far so good.

Then I sat there, mouth open as far as I could get it, for two hours. Drool began collecting in the back of my throat, and swallowing was difficult because I imagined my tongue somehow getting in the path of the drill, leading to bloodshed and a future without being able to speak or lick ice cream. Eventually the dentist realized I was drowning in my own saliva and put one of those suction things in. Although I was developing lockjaw, I thought things were going surprisingly well.

Then the dentist told me my root canal was so bad that she would have to close me up and send me to a specialist. This is where I almost started crying for the first time, because of the wasted terror and the giant bill I knew a specialist would involve. Luckily, she called in the senior dentist and he figured out whatever was confusing her, and she told me I wouldn't have to go to the specialist. At this point, I was elated, and I loved the dentists and wanted to hug both of them. But I couldn't because I was still trussed up like a roasting turkey.

Time went by. At about the two and a half hour mark, the root canal proper was finished. [Any descriptions of actual dentistry in this post, by the way, are based on my conjecture. I don't really know anything of the process.] The dentist had cleared out the decay and inserted multiple little plastic toothpicks into my mouth, I assume to serve as fake roots. She then went in with a burning rod, I imagine to burn the tops of the toothpicks together and make it secure.

It was right here that everything went to pot. The dentist did not realize that she was resting the burning rod on my lip. I did realize that I was suddenly feeling intense, burning pain. I halfheartedly waved my hand, figuring she would realize her mistake and move the rod any second. But the pain got worse. The rod didn't move. I started to panic, and tried to scream, but of course I couldn't make a sound, except perhaps "urgle urgle!" I started thrashing. She noticed. She realized she was burning me and moved the rod, with the slightest hint of an apology: "Oh, whoops."

My heart was pounding, and I felt I had just lived through one of those nightmares where you see something bad coming towards you but you can't run or scream. I tried to breathe deeply and relax, but I was getting seriously worked up. I managed to get a tenuous grip on reality and continue to sit calmly in the chair. The dentist began taking molds of my teeth for the temporary crown, and I could tell the end was near.

However, the experience would not be complete until I had been utterly humiliated. At about the 3.5 hour mark, the numbing agent was beginning to wear off for the second time. I felt a little more than I had earlier, but it didn't hurt, so I just went with it. At one point I must have winced, and the dentist realized I was less numb, so she grabbed the giant syringe again. As she began the round of injections, my mind took leave of my body. I knew the shots into the roof of the mouth were coming and I knew they would hurt. She must have seen me getting nervous, so she asked, "You don't feel this, do you?"

Yes. I felt it. And it hurt like a Tooth 3. That she didn't realize I was in serious pain made me panic again, and this time I couldn't control it. I started crying and drooling and trying to sit up and making really loud "waauuugghurrgle gurrgle" noises. I knew I looked like a fool, but that just made things worse. The dentist and hygienist sprung into "Oh no, we're dealing with a crazy person" action, pulling clamps and pins out of my mouth. They returned me to a seating position and plied me with tissues and a glass of water. I tried to drink but my mouth was numb, so the entire gulp dribbled down the front of my shirt, leaving me soaking wet and completely embarrassed.

After I calmed down, they finished up pretty quickly and sent me out front to pay the bill. When I saw Greg standing there holding a beautiful flower (pictured above) I started weeping again, and ran straight into the bathroom. Eventually I composed myself and we went home, with a stop at the pharmacy for hardcore painkillers.

I'm doing fine now, but I have to go back for "tooth lengthening"--I'm not sure what that is but the dentist said it involves sutures,--a filling, a cleaning, and replacing the temporary crown with the permanent one. Part of me figures it can't be any worse, but the other part of me knows that it can.

barefoot and in the kitchen

2008-06-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

Setting up the kitchen was one of my favorite parts of the moving in process. I invested in some (cheap!) Ikea jars for having all my grains accessible, and some spice jars for the same purpose. I'm happy with the result, although it kind of makes me look like one of those rice hoarders who have been in the news lately.

A few years ago I tried to maintain a food blog, but it didn't last long. However, I still love cooking and taking pictures of what I make, so perhaps I'll bring some of that to this blog. The first meal I cooked in our new kitchen was an homage to South Philly--a tomato, basil, mozzarella pizza. Unfortunately, the dough--whole wheat pizza dough from Trader Joe's--stayed goopy no matter how long I put the pizza in the oven, so I ranked it a failure.

My next meal was more successful--I marinated some orange roughy in a blend of olive oil, cilantro, lime juice, garlic, red pepper, and blue agave nectar (which tastes a lot like honey, but is less sticky.)

ikea-ed out

2008-06-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

After many many trips to Ikea, our living/dining area is finally set up! We had some furniture, but needed to get a futon (which will be important since we don't have a guest room) and an Expedit, the cube bookshelf that's serving as a room divider. Putting these items together was loads of fun (sarcasm) but they are together now. We also picked up a coffee table and countless other little doodads. I love Ikea because it's so inexpensive, but after countless trips for returns, exchanges, and extra hardware, even I am glad for a break.

The dining room set is from Greg's aunt, and it fits just about perfectly. We had to forego the hutch because of space reasons, but luckily, I have my magical floating hutch in the kitchen.

Here's a view of the living area from the stairs. Eventually I'd like the TV to go in the basement, both because it looks goofy here and because I like to pretend that I'm too intellectual to waste time watching it (exactly the opposite of the truth), but that will have to wait until we gather the energy and budget for another huge project.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with how everything fits. My big concern, based on a lot of the rowhomes we looked at pictures of when we were househunting, was that the space would feel really cluttered. I think we've avoided that, and still managed to come up with enough places to sit, etc.

going green

2008-06-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

In honor of our living room color, and as penance for the many, many truckloads of paneling, carpeting, drywall, etc. that we took to the dump, we are trying to implement some environmentally friendly habits. Here's what I've come up with so far:

-Get rid of paper towels in favor of rags made out of Greg's old shirts: reducing waste and recycling all in one!

-Eliminate dryer sheets: reducing waste and saving money!

-Trading in my car for public transportation and possibly a bike: reducing emissions and saving money!

-Replacing rolls of toilet paper with a bidet: just kidding.

So far it's been going well, although as I wash out plastic baggies, I have to wonder whether the net impact is positive or negative. I'm not throwing it in the trash, but I'm using water and soap to clean it out.

Any other suggestions?

adventures in private transportation

2008-06-21T13:59:00.001-07:00

A week or two ago I wrote a post titled "Adventures in Public Transportation," thinking that I would occasionally post funny observations from people-watching on the subway. Little did I know that it is actually private transportation that yields the real drama.

(All photos in this post were taken by intrepid reporter--and former Waltonianite--Shannon Whiting.)

As is clear from the most recent posts, my sister Andrea and her friend Shannon visited Philly last week. The trip was mainly to attend a friend's wedding, but Andrea was also planning to get her stuff out of our storage unit. After lots of deliberation over the best way to accomplish this, Andrea and Shannon decided to fly out to Philly from Indianapolis (to which Shannon had driven from Wisconsin) and rent an SUV to drive back with Andrea's stuff. The complicating factor was the fact that Andrea was picking up her rental at 9am on the Sunday she and Shannon planned to drive back--Andrea to Indianapolis (a 10 hour drive) and Shannon continuing to Wisconsin (another 5-6 hours).

In order to facilitate their departure, Greg and I got up at 7 that Sunday and took his pickup to our storage unit, located in New Jersey, loading up Andrea's stuff. Andrea and Shannon set off in my Dodge Neon from Mercy Street around 8, planning to meet us in King of Prussia, site of the car rental agency, right before 9. Considering all the driving they had to do, they wanted to get off as quickly after 9 as possible.

Things began smoothly. Greg and I got Andrea's stuff into his truck easily, and they left Mercy Street with plenty of time. As Greg and I were approaching King of Prussia, my phone rang. It was Andrea. The conversation went like this:

Me: Hey, did you guys get up in time?

Andrea: Something bad happened.

Me: What do you mean?

Andrea: Well, we were driving along the Schuylkill and we had an accident.

[Just so that I don't sound completely heartless, it was clear from Andrea's tone of voice that no bodily injury had occurred.]

Me: What happened to my car?

Andrea: Umm...

Greg, from the driver's seat: Are they OK?

Me: What happened to my car????

This is what happened to my car:

As I understand it, a grate from the road somehow got airborne and cartwheeled toward the Neon, ultimately mauling the driver's side tire. Andrea and Shannon pulled over to the side of the Schuylkill (a local highway commonly known as the Surekill Expressway), assessed the damage, and realized they couldn't drive the car in that state. They called me, and Greg and I turned around to go help them out. As we were driving toward them (we were about 10 miles up the road), a cop pulled up beside them and informed them that the grate had caused two other flat tires, and told them they could fill out a police report. He told them to wait where they were, attempt to change the tire, and promised he would return once he closed down that section of the road to prevent any further accidents.

Greg and I arrived. A friendly man whose car had also been attacked by the grate had helped them change the tire (not that Shannon wasn't completely capable). He and they were waiting for the cops to return in order to make a report.

So we all waited. And waited. Considering that the girls still had a combined 16 hours of driving ahead of them, we finally called 911 to try and figure out how long we would have to wait.

They sent along a member of the Philadelphia Parking Authority, whose contribution pretty much consisted of letting us know that "that road is f-ed up," and "that s--- is crazy!" We ended up driving the Neon to a nearby dealership and leaving it there, then all piled in Greg's pickup truck and made our way to King of Prussia. The girls got off just after noon. They made it to Indiana without any problems, but when they got back to Andrea's apartment, Shannon's car had been towed. After getting it out of the impound lot around midnight, Shannon decided to stay in Indy instead of making the rest of the trip to Wisconson.

Here's a closeup of the damage to my tire. Doesn't it look like a bear attacked it or something? The whole ordeal was actually lightened by the fact that Greg and I had already been planning on getting rid of one of our cars, and the Neon is worth a lot less than the truck.

Most importantly, considering the fact that metal was flying through the air toward a car going 60 mph, no one was hurt. That is something we are truly happy about.

more sweat

2008-06-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

Andrea demonstrates what happens when you sit in a car without air conditioning in bumper to bumper traffic for an hour: major back sweat.

entertaining

2008-06-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

You've just moved into a new home, nothing is unpacked, there's no furniture, and it's the hottest weekend on record. What do you do? Have houseguests! Andrea and her friend Shannon were in town for a wedding, so we put them up in the office. It's the perfect size for some bookshelves and a desk, but add two sleeping bags and things are pretty tight. Above, we have a picnic lunch while Mr. Sandless works downstairs.

One of the nights they were here we went out to dinner at a place called the South Philadelphia Tap Room. Greg loves the place because it serves Boar Burgers, which he describes as tasting like bacon but in burger form. One of the members of our party didn't have ID, so the waitress regretfully informed us that none of us could order from the bar. We didn't mind drinking soda, but apparently they felt so bad about it that they sent us out a free dessert! It was very tasty, but visually, well, it resembled feces.

After that we broke in the new floor with a game of cards. Below, Andrea and Shannon dolled up for the wedding. I have to put this cute picture of Andrea in to soften the blow for the pictures I'll be posting soon...hehehe.

Mr. Sandless, bring me a floor

2008-06-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

We moved in June 7th, but the hardwood floor was still in bad condition. We were waiting on moving in any furniture until we could get it fixed, and the first date we got from Mr. Sandless was July 2. Luckily, they had a cancellation for June 12! I spent the day hiding out upstairs while Mr. Sandless himself (or so I'd like to believe) buffed and polished and stained and did whatever else.

I liked his car a lot--silver Scion with flames AND pictures of restored floors!

We were pretty happy with how everything turned out.

back in business

2008-06-19T08:28:00.000-07:00

Comcast came by this morning and our internet is up and running! The same cannot quite be said for our TV, because figuring out how to wire a VCR, DVD Player, cable box, and Nintendo to a TV with only one input is kind of tricky. But Greg is working on it, and meanwhile, I will be blogging!

It's hard to know where to begin because it has been such an insane two weeks. The excitement of living in our new house has been balanced out by a series of crazy events, including but not limited to: a dental mini-emergency, a change to my fellowship, my car being (basically) totaled, and Greg losing his job. That's all the bad news--the good news is that no one was hurt in the car accident and we will be fine in term of the other stuff. Greg may even be able to stay on at his job--they want him to, but it's a budget issue. He does get to work through the summer, though, so he has plenty of time to find something else if it comes to that.

As for the other stuff, it's all pretty boring except for the car accident, which I plan to write about as soon as I get some pictures. Stay tuned!

thoughts from the toilet

2008-06-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

We moved in! Friday afternoon Greg called to say that he had wrenched his back at work, which made us wonder if we'd be able to move, but he felt better Saturday and we had lots of help from his parents and Dave and Erin.

Comcast is coming out next week to set up our internet. I did discover (don't ask how) that I can pick up a wireless signal if I am sitting on the toilet. It's right up against the back wall, so it must be a proximity thing. In any case, I'm pretty much offline. But I will be back with pictures and details and lots of scintillating updates!

progress

2008-06-06T08:06:00.000-07:00

I don't have any pictures from yesterday's activities, so just for kicks, here's a reminder of where we were about 6 months ago.

Yesterday, Greg, his dad, Roger (the contractor) and a friend who goes by Kemosabe put in a lot of hours and crossed almost all of the remaining items off of the list. They installed the final challenging outlet, reinforced a joist in the basement which also reinforced the kitchen floor, dealt with an unexpected leak, and even got the box springs upstairs. (You were right, Aunt Peggy, it had to be completely dismantled and reassembled.)

I wasn't there because I had a dentist's appointment. I'll spare you all the trauma and only share the one funny moment from the appointment: after getting me settled in the chair, the assistant said, "Let me know if you start sneezing." I really didn't know how to take that. Why would I start sneezing? Wouldn't it be pretty obvious if I did? Is this a standard dental comment that I've simply missed before?

Anyway, while there are still some things to be done at Mercy Street, primarily refinishing the wood floor, our plan is to officially move in this weekend--in other words, start sleeping there and give the Cesares their spare room back. We won't be able to move in any of the furniture that goes on the main floor, but we can manage without that for now. We haven't hooked up our internet service yet, so it may be a little while before I get the chance to update, but I'll definitely keep track of the inevitable mishaps for future posts.

Adventures in Public Transportation

2008-06-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

Observed, on the PATCO line from South Jersey to Philly:

A large woman whipping out a six-inch switchblade to open a package of craisins.

sweat and books

2008-06-03T18:25:00.001-07:00

A new gym just opened down the street from our house. It's called Sweat. But as I proved today, one does not need a gym membership to sweat.

Why am I so sweaty and disgusting? Well, because first I carried these bookshelves up the stairs, all by myself.

And then because I carried these 18 (yes, 18) boxes full of books (yes, heavy heavy books) up the stairs by myself.

I realized that maybe we have too many books, so my friend Leslie came over and helped me sort through them. As a fellow English graduate student, she was well-equipped for the task, reminding me that I don't have to keep the 800 page book of John Updike criticism since my field is African lit.

Speaking of books, here is a link to a list of 1001 books to read before you die:

http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.22845/

It's certainly a debatable list, but my mom, dad, sister and I had fun going through it in Arkansas last weekend. I read all 1001 titles out loud and we kept score. I won't say who won, but all performed admirably. I had between 115 and 120, depending on whether I count books that I read abridged versions of, and allowing for errors in memory. Check it out if you're bored, and leave a comment if you beat my score and feel like bragging.

good news bad news

2008-06-03T18:15:00.000-07:00

The good news: we have carpet!

The bad news: our box spring doesn't fit up the stairs.

horror

2008-06-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

I'm not afraid of bugs, heights, or spiders. If a piece of cheese or bread has mold on it, I will cut it off and eat the rest. I don't always shower every day. The point I'm trying to make is that I don't think of myself as overly squeamish or high maintenance. Generally.

But mice. I hate mice. They have fur and bones and blood, and if you step on one, it might squirm under your foot. Bugs don't do that.

The first apartment I lived in after graduating from college had mice. Luckily, the nice gentlemen downstairs emptied the traps for us, and I managed to put them out of my head. Until one morning, a few months later, when I looked down as I was shutting off a lamp and saw a long, curled tail poking out of a trap. I called Greg, cried the entire way to work (a 40 minute drive) and by the end of the day had plans to move.

So I am not joking when I say that I hate mice.

Well, this week, Greg found a dead mouse in our storage facility (pictured above). The fact that I was not present did not stop me from shuddering, curling up into a fetal position, and calling my mom. The mouse was in between two boxes, but the nibbled hole in a tablecloth suggests that he was also inside one of the boxes. The storage facility said that he probably ate some of their bait then wandered inside and died. So far there is no other evidence, but it is taking all of my zen to continue reaching my hands into boxes full of newspaper and packing peanuts.

Christmas in May

2008-06-01T11:53:00.000-07:00

When Greg and I got married on May 29, 2005, many people gave us many wonderful gifts. We used some of the gifts, but lots of them were packed away for when we had our own house. I already had a set of hand-me down dishes, and most of what we needed for our apartment, so we decided to wait on opening the nice stuff that we had registered for.

On May 29, 2008, our third anniversary, I started unpacking our gifts. The kitchen is ready, so we are setting that up while we wait on the carpet and unpacking upstairs. It's been so much fun to open boxes and find things we forgot we had.

One thing I didn't forget was my popcorn. I've been called a popcorn snob more than once--I won't eat microwaved popcorn, only stove-popped. And I only buy Amish red or ladyfinger popping kernels at that--no Orville Redenbacher for me! Made the right way (light on the oil) popcorn is a healthy and cheap snack, and I can eat it every night of the week. Last spring, my usual supplier stopped carrying Amish kernels for a few months and I went crazy. Greg finally ordered me a box of twelve bags online. I didn't get through all of them before we moved, so we took a few bags to New Jersey and put the rest in storage. My New Jersey rations gave out long before Christmas, and both my sister and our friends the Mulhearns can attest that I nearly cried when I opened their gifts to me and found Amish popping corn. Those bags disappeared quickly, so I was thrilled when I unpacked the stored bags. They already have a spot of prominence in the pantry.

I've been slowly working my way through the boxes, trying to get stuff organized for when we have places to put it. One thing I've realized is that we have a lot of junk. For example, there is a box in the basement labeled "Bobble Heads." Greg promises me he will weed his collection down to only Philadelphia teams.

Thanks Greg and Michael!

2008-05-29T18:57:00.000-07:00

This is what our basement looked like when I left last Friday.

And here it is now!

city murals

2008-05-28T18:20:00.000-07:00

If you spend much time walking around the streets of Philadelphia (apologies to Bruce) you'll notice the murals that decorate the city. They are part of an initiative called the Mural Arts Program (www.muralarts.org) and they really do bring a sense of community to the city--there are murals celebrating everything from Philly boxers to Old Blue Eyes to feminism.

However, the mural that I pass every time I drive to Lowe's or Ikea confuses me. It's the face of a child surrounded by what appear to be white clouds in a blue sky.

A closer look, however, reveals that the clouds are actually cat heads. Why?

Even more strange is the one two doors down of a woman shooting a basketball surrounded by purple squid. I'll try to get a picture.

2008-05-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANDREA!

weekend away

2008-05-28T08:26:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend in Northwest Arkansas, at a sort of impromptu family reunion. This is funny, because my family is not from Northwest Arkansas, they're from Oregon (my dad's family, that is). But my cousin Mindy and her husband Jonathan moved there a while back, and her parents and my grandmother were visiting, so my mom and sister drove down from Indianapolis and I flew in from Philly. And my dad just happened to be in Tulsa, which is not far away, so he came by as well. We played cards, ate a Southern Boil, and talked new homeowner stuff, since Mindy and Jonathan bought a house when they moved. They're painting their bathroom, working on GFI outlets, and growing lilies.

Not everyone in the family could make it, but my grandpa sent out one of his handmade cutting boards for my sister. I got one in January (pictured above) and have been eagerly waiting to display it in my kitchen at Mercy Street. It's so beautiful that I'm not sure I want to use it for chopping and cutting.

Speaking of Mercy Street, I missed all the activity there over the weekend. Greg and our friend Michael made lots of trips from storage, filling the basement with boxes and furniture. We can't put stuff where it goes yet, because the carpet isn't in, but we're getting ready so that once it's installed, we can unpack!

general update

2008-05-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

This is our basement before I scrubbed it yesterday. It looked pretty much the same after I scrubbed it, but it was an important psychological step. It is now ready to accept boxes from our storage unit! Greg's dad and cousin Roger (who together have done all of the skilled labor on the house) did the work of five men Friday, finishing up the electrical and plumbing work, fixing our refrigerator so that it is FINALLY not sitting in the middle of the kitchen doorway, and some other odds and ends. There are one or two more projects to go (propping up a joist in the basement, figuring out the best approach to "refinishing" the wood floor), but once the carpet goes in (we're measured and ordered, just waiting for the order to come in and the installation to happen) we will start moving stuff in upstairs.

2008-05-17T20:11:00.000-07:00

"Why don't I ever learn? It's never as easy as you think it's going to be."

That was Greg this morning at Home Depot. We had a few simple plans--to return some unused copper wiring (that stuff is expensive!), to buy some wood, and to buy some jacks. We failed on the first and last--we didn't have the right receipt for the copper, and the jacks weren't the right size. We did get the wood, though. This is Greg trying to get it into the basement:

We decided to bring the copper back to New Jersey, look again for the receipt, and return it to the Home Depot there. We also loaded up the car with all the scrap copper we had accumulated during the plumbing work, and which we are going to take to a junkyard and try to get some cash for.

The bundle of really thin pieces represent quite a bit of painstaking labor--I removed them all from scraps of leftover wire by cutting through the plastic sheathing.

Here's Greg digging through the many Lowe's and Home Depot receipts. We did eventually manage to return it for store credit, which was good. We're not sure what to do about the jacks, though. We need them to prop up a joist in the basement, which is only six feet high, but the smallest size we can find is 6'6".

curtains

2008-05-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

This is the bathtub nook in our bathroom--the tiles are an ugly peach color, and there's a somewhat tacky plastic insert that covers sits on top of the tiles. The bathtub, as pictured in the previous post, is also not in good shape. We decided early on that we would use the area as storage and use the shower, which is in a separate stall, for bathing. We thought about putting up a shower curtain, but decided that the blinds we got from Ikea would look better--i.e., less plastic.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out! We'll keep cleaning supplies in the tub.

I also hung this curtain on the bathroom window today--very plain, keeps things bright.

And I hung curtains in the bedroom. The blue is really not that bright--I just couldn't figure out how to get the lighting right for the picture. The curtains here are a basic beige.

This is just to show the detail of the curtain rod--we got the kit at Ikea and thought it fit our bedroom well. We call it the Oxford room--Greg studied abroad there and has some pictures that we're going to hang, and something about the deep blue seems to fit.

clean clean clean

2008-05-14T17:37:00.000-07:00

This morning, I cleaned the bathroom. But before I did that, I cleaned the cleaning supplies.

Much better!

The bathtub, which we are not going to use, has served as a receptacle for all kinds of dirty rags, paintbrushes, buckets, etc., and it's become quite colorful. After some serious elbow grease, I got it looking a little better. The previous owners had painted it at some point, and painted the tile around it, and as I scrubbed, I realized I was getting that paint up, so I decided to stop.

the magical floating hutch

2008-05-12T16:17:00.001-07:00

Our kichen has a magical floating hutch in the corner. I was really excited to see the hutch at first, because I've always thought the corner ones are a neat use of space. I didn't notice the magical floating element right away, but when I did, I felt even luckier! You'll notice that the previous owners didn't bother painting the whole radiator because it's mainly hidden.

As excited as I was to have a magical floating hutch, it wasn't particularly attractive. However, a little paint and elbow grease (thanks Greg!) and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

One of the first steps was to try to attach it more securely to the wall, but our efforts were pretty ineffective. It's attached fairly loosely--in other words, if you shake it, it does indeed shake. But we can't really take it down and rehang it because we're afraid of what we'll find behind it if we do, knowing that the house is kind of like a giant game of pick-up sticks. Greg spackled the big holes and cracks to at least make it look a little better.

Here are some more views of the finished product.

I really like these crazy coral handles. It took Greg a few minutes, but I think he's come around.

Carpet!

2008-05-11T06:46:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, Greg and I stopped by Lowe's to get an idea of what's out there, carpet-wise. Now, between the two of us, we do all right in terms of negotiating daily life--we make some funny mistakes sometimes, but we're not totally devoid of brain cells. However, the conversation we had with the Lowe's employee made me feel comically stupid, like I had forgotten how English works or something. We asked him about the deal Lowe's was currently advertising, and this was his answer, as it sounded to my ears:

"Well, if you look at these ones here, they're going to be the price you see listed, but you have to add in blah for installation and blah for padding and blah per yard for tacking strips. If you look at these ones on the back wall, this price here [gestures to sign] is what you're going with. Total. Except for [gesturing vaguely toward a wall covered in carpet samples] that one, that one, and that one. Those go for the sale price, plus installation, but we might not have them in stock, in which case, blahblahblah. Is there carpet already in your house? No? So you can subtract blah, but you'll have to add blah because blah."

We smiled and nodded, and he walked away so we could look around. Greg and I turned to each other:

"So, that one is blah?"

"No, that one is blah, plus blah. But minus blah because it might not be in stock."

"Wait, I thought THAT one might not be in stock. Which adds blah, right?"

We called him back and got even more confused. Greg claims that he understood everything perfectly while the guy was talking, but that as soon as he left and I tried to figure out what he said, I confused Greg. A likely story.

We left Lowe's and went to Carpet Mill Outlet. We saw a carpet that we liked. An employee came over, asked for the dimensions of our space, and with a few quick sums on a notepad, said, "OK, with that carpet, in your space, you're looking at a price of X. Installation and padding included."

Carpet Mill Outlet got our business. We picked the middle carpet in the above picture. It's a very tight Berber without any pattern or anything. It will go in the office, the bedroom, upstairs hallway, and on the stairs. Hopefully we'll get to schedule the installation soon!

Ew.

2008-05-07T17:43:00.000-07:00

I was sitting at home this last Sunday, finishing up a fascinating paper on postcolonial geographies in Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman when I thought I would procrastinate--er, give Greg a call.

Me: "Hey, how's it going at the house."

Greg: "Um."

Me: "What's wrong? Plumbing? Electrical? Termites? Just tell me."

Greg: "No, it's just that I found more treasure."

Me: "Money!?!?!"

Greg: "No."

Me: "OK, what?"

Greg: "A half-eaten chicken bone."

Me: "....ooooh, ewwww, that's soooo grosssss."

Greg: "Yeah. I know. I'm the one that cleaned it up."

Me: "Eeewwww."

Greg: "At least we know we don't have rats."

Success!

2008-05-07T17:39:00.000-07:00

1) High intensity lightbulb: replaced.

Doorstop in Nicole's office: installed.

Faceplate: attached.

What a difference a day makes.

Three Strikes

2008-05-03T08:50:00.000-07:00

From our favorite guest blogger, pictured above:

I thought I would stop by the house today, essentially to get some trash out. Getting up to 12 bags of trash out of the house every Tuesday has become essential in not letting it build up and getting as much junk--some of which you've seen pictured in this blog--out as possible. I couldn't stay long, as the 76ers were on tap for a pivotal game five with Detroit, but I figured I would make the most of the toll and gas money by stopping at Lowe's on the way and doing some minor odd jobs that have been lingering.

1) Objective: Replace high intensity light bulb in entryway. With the help of a Lowe's associate, I found the right teeny, five dollar halogen bulb to replace the one that blew out the other day. When I got home, I realized that the light socked is not designed to support the wattage of the bulb that was in there, indicating another dangerous shortcut by the previous homeowner. Result: Failure.

2) Objective: Put a doorstop in Nicole's office door. Except I could not get the dang hingepin out, even after taking the hinge out and banging it with a screwdriver. Result: Failure.

3) Objective: Put a faceplate on only remaining open light switch in the house. It was far more challenging than you might thing to find the right configuration for the switchplate cover I needed, which was CGI outlet, switch, switch. After buying the wrong one twice, having my dad try to saw one to fit, and the aforementioned Lowe's associate telling me you can build your own configuration only to tell me they didn't have the right pieces I need, I thought I struck gold when Home Depot had the right one. Only it didn't quite line up. So I figured, if I can just loosen the one switch and push it over a centimeter or so, that baby will fit. I just need to be careful to not this screwdriver to the metal in the BOOM SPARKS EXPLETIVE! With the circuit breaker tripped, the screwdriver charred, and myself thoroughly shaken up, I decided to put the trash out and call it a night.

It wouldn't have been so bad if the Sixers didn't get thrashed.

another basement discovery

2008-04-28T19:13:00.001-07:00

I have no idea what this is, but Greg found it behind some paneling in the basement.

bathroom update

2008-04-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

Over the last few years, Greg has been slowly turning into an old man. It's not that he has gone gray or hard of hearing, but that he's started shaving the old-fashioned way, with a non-disposable razor and badger bristle brush rather than a Bic and a can of Barbasol. This stuff was his Christmas gift last year, and this year he got a terrycloth bathrobe and slippers.

All that is to explain why he hung two hand towel racks in the bathroom--one is for a hand towel and the other is for his shaving towel. I'm cool with it as long as he doesn't start referring to me as a broad or a skirt.

And here's the new light fixture above the mirror.

And very important as well, the toilet paper dispenser. I much prefer this kind (slide-off) to the kind you have to squeeze and maneuver while you're indisposed.

Penang

2008-04-27T13:04:00.000-07:00

If you know me well, you know that my favorite place to eat is Penang, in Philly's Chinatown. So imagine how cool I thought it was that the local South Jersey paper did a review of Penang! Well, then I read it. I don't want to be the stereotypical hyper-PC grad student, seeking out racial, ethnic, or gender slights at every opportunity.

But DUDE. He said the waiters looked like NINJAS.

I sent the author an email. I won't reproduce it here because I tend to get long-winded and rhetorically self-indulgent when I write angry emails, but I'll let you know if he responds.

good art, good food

2008-04-27T07:25:00.000-07:00

When I first came to the Philadelphia area for college, one of my first trips into the city was to take part in College Day on the Parkway. On a Saturday in September, all of the museums located along Ben Franklin Parkway are free for college students. It was such a great experience, especially because it coincided with the Steuben Day Parade, so as we walked up to the museums, we watched people in lederhosen shepherding ducks along Philadelphia streets.

The Ben Franklin Parkway is a wide avenue with City Hall at one end and the Philadelphia Museum of Art at the other. It's lined with museums--the Franklin Institute, the Moore College of Art and Design, the Rodin Museum, the Free Library. It's a very grand section of the city. It's also lined with the flags of the nations, but as you can see, the United Arab Emirates flag is showing some wear.

Yesterday, Greg and I and two other couples met up at the Art Museum to go to the Frida Kahlo exhibit, which was a nice break from working on the house and on papers. The exhibit was really interesting--they displayed a lot of photos from a private collection that had never been exhibited before, as well as, obviously, many of Kahlo's paintings.

I'm no art critic, so I won't try and make up some kind of uninformed review of the exhibit, but I will say that one interesting element of the exhibit was that the walls were painted really bright purples and blues. I'm only used to seeing art displayed on clean white walls, so the colors were interesting. Either it was a really cheesy way of recognizing the "exotic" "vibrancy" of the Mexican artist, or it was meant to evoke Frida's house, the Casa Azul, which was painted in these kinds of colors.

I'd like to give the exhibitors the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't cheesy, but the gift shop that the exhibit dumps you into seriously undermines that reading. Frida prints! Frida postcards! Frida notebooks! Bright paper Frida flowers! Frida umbrellas! Frida jewelry! Alas, I didn't see any Frida shot glasses. I guess that would be considered tacky.

After the exhibit, we had reservations at a tapas restaurant called Tinto. (Greg and I decided to count this as our anniversary gift to each other for last year, since we had celebrated by me cooking tilapia and green beans, which I cook roughly once a week. In other words, it had been nothing special, so we used it to assuage our guilt about going out to such a fancy place.)

Tinto's chef is considered one of the bright lights of the Philly restaurant scene (wow, that sounds sooooo lame for me to write that, sorry) and the food did not disappoint. We ordered the Chef's tasting, which meant we didn't have to decide what we wanted. They just kept bringing food! At one point they cleared our plates and we thought we were done, but then they brought new plates and several more dishes! Most of the people at our table thought that the duck wrapped in serrano ham and served on a slice of baguette with blue cheese and a cherry was the best, but my humbler palate was delighted by the mini crock of black beans, sausage, and braised cabbage. There was also a dish that was basically really fancy tater tots.

Greg and I are such dorks that on the way home, we stopped at Blockbuster and picked up the movie Frida. I had seen it before, but Greg hadn't. All in all, it was a totally indulgent, educating, and appetizing day. And now it's back to work!

basement treasure

2008-04-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

We really haven't had the stamina or the financial wherewithal to address the basement yet. The original listing called it a finished basement, but what that meant was that someone, many years ago, stuck up some paneling against the dungeon-like stone walls. It's really dirty and shoddily done. We plan to refinish it at some point, but it's not a priority. However, we realized that we should probably at least try to clean it before filling it up with our junk. Greg attacked one of the closets today. He pulled the paneling down to reveal some haphazard insulation, mouse bait, piles of dirt, and, oddly, the painting pictured above.

cool product

2008-04-21T18:49:00.000-07:00

As I pointed out in a post last week, we have lots of leftover paint. More importantly, we have lots of half-full or less-than-half full gallons. We don't want to get rid of it because we'll need to touch-ups every now and then, but the gallons take up a lot of space. Luckily, Greg discovered these really cool little tubs. You can fill them with leftover paint, and the top has a brush attached so that when you do touch-ups, you don't have to dirty a brush. Best part: they cost only $2.

Big week for PA

2008-04-19T19:20:00.001-07:00

(Disclaimer: This post mentions politics, but it's not political.)

As you probably know, Pennsylvania hosts its primary Tuesday in the hotly contested race for the Democratic nomination. It's been fun to see the city so engaged--Mayor Nutter was on the Colbert Report! Greg and I went to see Obama speak last night, and it was quite a feeling to be sandwiched in between Independence Hall and the National Constitution Center, surrounded by 35,000 people who are excited and hopeful about the future. I should probably say that we went to hear Obama speak, because we were too far back to actually see him.

Below is a picture of Independence Hall. This building has recently taken on new meaning for me because I'm training for a new job this summer. I'm going to be a tour guide for the Philadelphia Ghost Tours! I can't even explain how excited I am about the job, and everyone I mention it to seems excited as well. And then they threaten to come see the tour, which dampens my excitement and makes me nervous. I'm still in the early stages of training--I've only memorized one of the stories--but it's giving me a whole new appreciation for Old City.

minor announcement

2008-04-19T19:10:00.000-07:00

If you've been reading this blog lately, then you might have noticed a decreasing number of renovation-related posts and an increasing number of posts about life in the city. This is partly because the stuff going on with the house right now is pretty boring--it seems like we've been painting for weeks. Oh wait, we have. But it's also because I've been enjoying the blogging so much that I want to write posts even when there's not much house-related stuff to talk about.

When I started working on the blog in December, I figured it would be a good way to let off steam while we were doing the repairs, and when we moved in, I'd have a record of all the work we had done. But now I'm planning on continuing to post even after we move in, writing about the places we discover in our neighborhood, what it's like to move from the suburbs to the city, and probably many other things.

So if you're only reading for tips on how to gut a rowhome, feel free to jump ship. But I hope you'll continue to read and comment!

Leftovers

2008-04-18T12:48:00.001-07:00

I have packrat tendencies. I've managed to keep them fairly well-hidden because I've moved a lot, and when you move, things tend to get thrown away whether you want them to or not. I remember a particularly traumatizing experience when an unexpected move meant that someone else--who meant well and whom I love dearly--got to go through my stuff and decided that I'd rather keep my stuffed animals than my box of letters, notes, and poems. I was 13. I didn't really want my stuffed animals.

In any case, as we plan to move into a space that some might consider small, Greg and I are determined to keep things light and as clutter-free as possible. I've committed to parting with a few of my 20-odd boxes of books, and Greg is going to do one of his routine T-Shirt purges.

Also weighing on my mind is all the stuff we have in storage that we won't need--a microwave, a set of dishes (we're finally going to break open our wedding gifts, yay!), the list goes. Yard sales, Craigslist, Ebay--hopefully we can dispose of things without having to throw them away.

But then there's this stuff. Paint, plywood, drywall, an almost-whole roll of insulation. What to do with it? It will surely come in handy at some point in the next ten years, but it's cluttering up our basement and we haven't even moved in yet!

Temple

2008-04-16T09:50:00.001-07:00

One of the reasons we ended up buying the house we did was because of that old real estate maxim: location, location, location. For those of you not familiar with Philadelphia, it's very helpfully laid out in a grid. Broad Street runs North-South and Market Street runs East-West. The two intersect at City Hall. Our place is about two miles south of City Hall, and Temple University, where I am a student, is about two miles north.

All I have to do to get to school is walk a block, hop on the subway, and ride for 15 minutes. It's very convenient, especially compared to my current commute: drive to a regional rail station (10 minutes), ride the train (30 minutes), walk a few blocks to the subway (5 minutes), ride to Temple (10 minutes). When you add in waiting for the trains, it's easily an hour-long trip. I don't mind too much because I get a lot of reading done, but it's not like I can just hop on over to school to pick up a book at the library or check my mailbox. Additionally, it's not cheap--the round-trip fare is almost $10. When we live in the city, I will be able to get to school quickly and cheaply, and we will be able to get rid of one of our cars and reduce our expenses and carbon footprint.

These are a few pictures of Temple, which I took Saturday. I spent the day in the library while Greg was busy working at the house. These pictures show the more picturesque parts of the campus. The building I spend most of my time in is actually really ugly and poorly-designed to boot. It's a very neat place, though. The campus is huge (at least compared to the other schools I've attended) and urban and always PACKED with students--total enrollment is over 35,000.

One of the best-and most dangerous-aspect of the school is that you can get any kind of food your heart desires, from Middle Eastern to pizza to Vietnamese to cheesesteaks to Korean to crepes to salads. I have to walk past a lot of these food stalls to get to my building, and resisting the delicious smells is definitely an act of willpower.

There's the Temple Owl.

two amazing images

2008-04-12T18:36:00.000-07:00

This first one, which is right around the corner from our house, pretty much speaks for itself.

This second one didn't turn out too well in the picture, but I still have to post it. It's an ad that came in the South Philly review for Glock Day! According to one of the little bubbles, "Members can win a Glock just by walking in the door." To which there is only one appropriate response: AWESOME.

Mmm, tasty

2008-04-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

These are just a few of the items I pulled out of the basement ceiling a few weeks ago. There are probably a hundred more where they came from, so if anyone does found art with rusty nails, let me know and I'll get them to you.

odd jobs

2008-04-11T19:07:00.000-07:00

When the drywall first went up, this is what the doorbell looked like.

Now it's got a nice cover.

Also, the holes in the bathroom ceiling (from removing the high hats) have been patched and spackled.

And resident handyman Dennis patched a few holes in the floor. I guess these holes were for the cable, but there isn't a very good explanation of why they had to be so big.

Nothing as exciting as paint or fixtures, but these things do have to get done.

A South Philly favorite done right in South Jersey

2008-04-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

We didn't make it to Mercy Street this weekend. Greg is nursing a sore throat and I'm working on end-of-the-semester papers. However, we did make it out for a stroll to the Water Ice Factory, which is just a few blocks away. Water ice is a local delicacy, not to be confused with slushees, sno-cones, or Italian Ice. It's frozen yet creamy in texture, and in my opinion, tastes best in some kind of tropical fruit flavor, like mango or coconut. Looks like we'll have to do the hard work of testing all the options in our new neighborhood.

The bathroom sink

2008-04-05T08:46:00.000-07:00

We continue to find new problems that have to be taken care of. The good news is, we are running out of rooms to discover problems in! Hopefully the bathroom will be the last, because at this point, we've rewired every other room and torn down the walls in every other room. The bathroom and kitchen both looked like they had been redone in the last few years, but we're coming to realize that only means that the coverup of faulty wiring and electrical hazards was more recent.

For some reason, the bathroom has a ton of lighting fixtures. A three-bulb fixture over the sink, 5 high-hats in the regular ceiling, a fixture over the tub, and another high hat over the shower. Roger had been working with the electrical in the kitchen and bathroom, but couldn't figure out the wiring in the bathroom because of how shoddily the previous owners had done things. So, he made the executive decision that he didn't want us to live in a house that could explode at any moment and decided to put some holes in the ceiling and redo things. Frankly, we think it was the right decision.

Apologies

2008-04-01T19:26:00.001-07:00

APRIL FOOL'S DAY, EVERYBODY.

Goodbye to Mercy Street

2008-04-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, Greg and I got a call from a local South Philly developer. It turns out they are interested in razing the rowhomes on our street and putting up an apartment building. We talked to a lawyer and there is not much we can do to resist. They are giving us quite a bit more than we paid, which is nice, but it is also bittersweet because we have put our blood, sweat and tears into that house.

So, thanks for reading, and hopefully before too long we'll find something else.

Cosmetic work

2008-03-29T18:27:00.000-07:00

Our Tahiti Breeze fan is up and working! This might be a good time to admit that I have a bit of a theme going (in my mind, at least) for our house. The problem is, I don't like the idea of a theme because of how easily it can turn into kitschy knick-knacks and tchotchkes. Perhaps what I should say is that I'm hoping to evoke a sense of tropical calm, without resorting to little palm tree statues. To be honest, the fan itself is a little close for comfort in terms of a theme, but we found it on sale and I do like the way it looks.

And we made the blinds work!

Stain: a story in pictures

2008-03-29T18:23:00.000-07:00