Little project

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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.