the drive down.

man, the drive down was something.

it takes a certain person, certain people, to pull off the old just-drive-until-you-get-there thing. apparently, we are those people. what with the tolerance for sitting in the car for that long, the monotony of long road trips, the disparity between the comforts of life and life on a road trip... i won't lie, it's not for everyone.

we'd be going 810 miles point to point. for comparison, Chicago is 790 miles from New York.

google told us it was a 12 hour 40 minute drive. link here. of course, that's just time on the road, it doesn't include stops for gas and food and stuff. I use "50-60 MPH" as a barometer for point-to-point driving with minimal stops over long distances... so by my time-math I was figuring 14-16 hours.

how in the world do you get an 8 month old to be a) strapped into a car seat for 13-16 hours and b) be chill about it?

you don't.

right, you don't, so... so I guess we better drive through the night and hope he sleeps in? that or spend four days of our vacation driving to and from the destination. no thanks!

we tried to leave for around dinner. but of course first we had to:
> pack stuff for his majesty, pack stuff for us, pack stuff for the dogs
> mow the lawn, do a hundred loads of laundry, do the dishes, take out the trash, sweep and vacuum
> cram all the crap into the car in a way that it will fit and you can find it all later and still reach the baby stuff and the cooler bag and the adult stuff and make sure that the dogs are safe and and and . . . . . . . . .

so we didn't leave around dinner. we left around midnight. not exactly the start we were hoping for. there's nothing quite like knowing that you're going to be in the car for hours and starting off at the end of a long day.

on the other hand, on our first road trip reese and i went 1300 miles in 2 days, the foundation for our relationship in many ways was a road trip. our honeymoon was a road trip. so we both felt confident that we could do it, and elated to be on vacation and spending quality time with each other.

reese took the wheel, pointed us south, and we got rolling. our plan was that she'd drive as long as she could then hand the reins over to me and I'd drive the rest of the way. no big deal, right? woo!

i tried to nap, which was a challenge. there was lots of checking on fee, plus I couldn't recline the seat all the way because of all the crap in the back. it's hard to stay asleep when you get a stray blast of high-beams full in the face, you know? we'd been on the road for about 200 miles, we're south of portland, and reese woke me up to ask me if I'd packed the camera. a, yes I did. b, we're not going back for it if I didn't so why did you wake me up - gaah! at that point i gave up on the idea that I'd get more sleep but I did manage to snooze a bit after that.

after another hundred miles or so reese was contemplating falling asleep while driving and killing us all, which is the metric we use to know when it's time for the other person to take over. we just took the next exit and did the chinese fire drill thing in some parking lot. it always makes me nervous being in small towns in the middle of the night. too many towns are funded by ticketing the travelers, you know?

final tally for reese: almost 300 miles exactly with just 1 stop for gas.

I took over and did great for awhile, right up until that pre-dawn dusky dark lightness thing. do you know what I'm talking about? you know how, just before sunrise, it gets light? what i'm talking about is the half hour or so PRIOR to that pre-dawn light. . . . you know, it's still quite dark, but it's starting to light up.

so anyway, i'm driving and of course there's no street lights, nor many other cars on the road. when I can i use the high-beams but there's oncoming traffic so I can't do too much of that. just. fucking. concentrate. so i was just fucking concentrating which was really straining my eyes which was really amplifying my exhaustion which was really not helping the feeling tired thing.

i pulled into a gas station and picked up a few of those starbucks espresso beverages in a can. i immediately drank 2 of the beverages that supposedly contain two shots each. i say supposedly because they didn't do much for me. still tired, so tired.

of course, at this point reese is beyond tired. she's passed out. except if there was a bump in the road, or if it curved a bit faster than the last curve... then she'd wake up in a panic, thinking that i was killing us all. she'd wake up alarmed and ask are you all right? it got to the point that i'd see a curve coming, take the curve, and say I'm ok, thank you before she could ask.

with dawn, beautiful, beautiful dawn, I'm instantly awake. now it's only a matter of time. how long before Fee wakes up? how cranky will he be? how many hours do we have left to be in this stupid car?

a lot. we had a lot of hours to go.

Fee was good. due to his interrupted sleep the night before he actually slept in quite late, until 9 or 10. his standard crankification upon waking gave us an opportunity to get out and stretch our legs, change his diaper, give him breakfast, etc. the dogs also appreciated being able to eat... that was the longest car ride they've ever had (with us, anyway) and they did admirably - no real issues other than luna's breath-of-doom.

onward! couple hundred miles later we're getting close. everyone had to pee so we hit a rest stop, where we were descended upon by the bums with some made up story about an alternator. here's some money, leave me alone. then they came back, can we have more money. go away! you're creaping us out. so we bailed and took the next exit and did the diaper change at the gas station. the attendant pumps gas for you in oregon, same as in jersey, and that guy was cool, he gave us milk-bones for the mutts.

onward! damn it's hot. open the windows. we were hoping to get to oakland near 9am (HAHAHAHAHA). that was revised to noon then later revised to 2. the thing is, we're going out to the beer garden in SF tonight. it's not debatable, we're meeting like 10 people there or something. so! we gotta bust out butt to get there so we're not holding people up, you know?

so it was I-5 south for 717 miles, then 505 south for 33 miles, 80 west for 47 miles, and 580 east for 9 miles. about 716.5 miles into the trip i asked when our next turn was hey it's right here turn here! whew, made it.

33 miles on 80: no problem. first 40 miles on 580: no problem. I've gotta pee but we've only got 50 miles left to go. hold it! five miles later, with 45 miles to go... we stop. dead stop. I'm thinking that we've run into the famous bay area traffic nightmare. after 5 miles or so of 15 miles per hour we cleared a car accident and were on our way.

40 miles later and we pulled up in front of matt and haydee's. for reese it was the first time she met matt, for me it was the first time i met either of them. not to worry, tho, because they are both awesome.

sooo.... unload the car, setup the dogs, feed the baby, change a diaper, shower*, setup the car seat and stroller in matt & haydee's car, and drive to SF. on to zeitgeist!

but that, my friends, is another story for another time. . .


* I honestly can't remember if I showered. reese told me that I did, but I was so tired that I really have no clue. so, so tired. good thing we went out drinking!

Beard Papa's

for our recent vacation, we ATE our way through Oakland and San Fran. if only we'd had more time!!

one of our guilty pleasures was Beard Papa's. I'd do a whole write up on it... but there's a really good write up on it already over at curiously ravenous, so go check that out.

i could live in sf...........

I really could. But alas it is far out of our budget to purchase a home there so we'll stay up here in the pacific northwest.

SF was really good to us. Jason and I had both been before we met each other but never together as a family. And of course this was Fenix's first time down there. I can say that we *all* had a really great time.

Where to begin.....
First day we got there, we quickly showered and jumped in the car with our friends to head over to Zeitgeist where we shared several pitchers of beer, burgers and delicious tamales with friends. Fenix bonded with the famous Tamale Lady of SF. She was really sweet and pretty infatuated with Fee. Oh and her tamales were sublime!




After Zeitgeist we headed over to another great spot in the Mission.... Bombay Icecream and Chaat. I had a scoop of mango and a scoop of coconut but there are many more exotic and delicious flavors (cardamom! sesame!!) to be had.


We stayed at our friend's house in Oakland and what a lovely house it was. Very spacious and well kept with good minimalist design. Alas I did not take many photos of the interior but we had a good time sitting in their cute and cozy backyard.


We made plans to leave Fee with a sitter so we could enjoy a night out with friends. We went to eat at Cha Cha Cha, purveyors of some very potent sangria. I don't remember much after we started our second pitcher but I know that we had a good time. Here's the view from across the street (after many glasses of the aforementioned sangria).


On Wednesday we went to Alcatraz. I was surprised at how cool it was - the weather was beautiful which made for a lovely ferry ride to and from. We saw so many interesting plants that we'd never seen before. It seems so sad that such a pretty piece of land was just a prison and military outpost.



That night was our first night on our own in our friend's house as they had headed off to more exciting things at Burning Man (maybe one day we'll get to go!). That night we went shopping at the local Trader Joe's and made a nice meal at home.

So much of our trip was food centric which makes sense since our lives are pretty much the same way. There were several things that I knew I wanted to try so we made it our business to hit those spots in the course of our travels. I'll make another post in a bit about the last couple of days of our trip.

the city by the bay

ohmygodohmygodohmygod we're having so much fun. it's awesome here.

the drive was something. we wanted to leave at 7pm, we left at 1130. that put the 14+ hour drive with too many hours with fee awake in the a.m.... but it was alright. reese took the first shift while I attempted to nap. she rocked the house and drove for 300 consecutive miles, handing off to me around 4am, deep into oregon territory. i took over and drove for the next 500 miles with stops for coffee, food, and bathroom. reese can hold it like a camel so she busted my chops every. single. time. that i had to pee. hey, i drank like 5 cups of coffee! a man's gotta pee, that's all i'm saying. all in all, we averaged 65 MPH with 32.1 MPG for the 800 mile trip.

we got hustled by bums at a rest stop, that was pretty awesome. everybody had to pee that time, so we did it and got out. his majesty needed some new clothes, too, but we just went down the road to the gas station and fee and the dogs did their business and we were on the way.

only a couple times where i had the falling-asleep-we're-all-gonna-die moments. the pre-dawn dusky non-light is murder on my eyes. when i said that to reese she was like yeah try driving through the dark with one good eye. uh, no thanks! i have to concentrate so hard to see anything that i get exhausted. on the way back we're going to pull over for that half hour and take a goddamn rest.

anyway, blah blah, drive drive, and we're here. gas is cheaper than i expected, it's about the same as in seattle.

we went out last night to zeitgeist, then for kulfi, then home to take care of the dogs and cater to his majesty's every need. the city was awesome. it felt like parts of hoboken and seattle and queens and chicago and a bunch of other places. and everybody - everybody! - was dressed like super fucking sharp, it was awesome. super chill city, too.

anyhoo, so we're here. we're going to go do some stuff. we'll post pics soon as we can.

shame on us and vacation musings

yeah yeah i know what you're thinking... we haven't posted in ages. it's a travesty. But we've had good reason. First Fenix was sick and let me tell you that the trajectory on puke from the belly of an 8 month old is surprisingly far reaching. Blech. So no surprise that Jason and I both got sick too. It was a bad scene all around. But we are finally on the other side of that nonsense. As a matter of fact we are headed out for a much needed vacation. Me, J, Fee, Luna and Noodle are driving down to SFO:

We will be on vacation all next week. I can't wait to see friends and for Fenix to see his new friend that he doesn't even know yet, Declan. It's going to be a blast.

We'll be trendy types and make our way to Burma Superstar for lunch. We'll be tourists and visit Alcatraz (we've both been to SFO but have never been there). We'll shop. We'll drink. We'll drive over to sonoma wine country and restock our home wine supply. All this in one week.

I really can't wait!

See you when we get back.

we're going camping kids!

We are not the backpacking/wilderness/hike to the campsite sort of people so traveling ultra-lite is not a goal of ours. We basically just car camp but we have so much other crap (dog gear, baby gear, etc...) that we do try to minimize the amount of extras.

We're headed out to the Olympic peninsula for a bit of car camping with a couple of other families. This will be our first time camping with Fenix but my confidence in our ability to pull this off is growing as I talk to people who have done it before and realize that if all goes to hell, we'll just pack up and leave. I have a feeling though that Fee will love it - it's in his blood after all since his dad lived outside for a bunch of time. He'll have to tell you all about that some day. It's a pretty great series of stories that I don't mind hearing over and over again. Aaanyway....

As far as tools/utensils go, we bring:
camp stove and fuel
a bit of firewood for the campfire
compact cutting board and knife

1 small pot
1 cast iron skillet
cheap flatware that we bought from the bins at goodwill (who cares if it gets lost!)
wooden spoon, wooden spatula
scissors
french press (after a fitful night of sleep in a stuffy tent, I must have the kind of viscous coffee that only a french press can provide)
*cast iron popcorn popper for making popcorn over the campfire
enamel coated dishes and cups
Several big jugs of filtered water - just sterilize some jugs that we have and dump in Brita water (I do not want h. pylori, no, I really do not)

For meals we like to make things that can go in one pot:
Southwest skillet ragu
or
Braised chicken thighs with pinto beans (I'll post the recipe later)

It's also good to have some sort of charcuterie plate for snacking before the meal is done because salted cured meats are awesome and of course we throw some cheese, fig jam and crudites on there too. You could always just do chips and salsa but I think a meat and cheese plate with delicious olives and fresh raw vegetables and fruit brings an air of elegance (if that is even possible on a campground).

There is always wine - white because red makes you groggy and headache-y and you want to stay bright and fresh for as long as possible or at least until the neighboring campers tell you to pipe down.

What about breakfast? A granola bar is the easy way out but that isn't very exciting, now is it?
Have you ever had the pleasure of being lured from your tent by the smell of bacon frying?

Up round these parts we get beautiful morels that grow in wooded areas and if your trip included a little mushroom hunting you could make a wonderful scramble with a sautee of minced shallot and chopped mushrooms in butter - fold that into some scrambled eggs - and serve with a side of bacon of course. For bread we just do english muffins because they hold up better than sliced loaf bread.

Lunch is usually pretty spare, just a piece of fresh fruit and snacky things like the aforementioned granola bars and maybe some jerky or a piece of cheese if you want some protein.

For Mr. Fenix who eats his fair share of solid foods now, we are going to go the easy route to avoid an accidental case of baby botulism and buy some of the organic jarred stuff and supplement it with bits of mild cheese and freeze dried fruit (which he LOVES).

We'll take lots of pictures so that you can see how it goes. I'm off to find my headlamp.....


*now honestly we would not even have this thing had it not been for the fact that we discovered it for some insanely low price at the goodwill. i'm not a big fan of single use kitchen tools but it's for popcorn (!) over the campfire (!), how could we have left it in the store?

and we're back....

Well that was a really great trip. Our only regret is not having the time to see more people and do more things.

So let me recap the highlights for ya. We stayed with my sister and her husband in their very adorable (and much larger then ours) house in Englewood. My sister lives next door to the house where I grew up. We spent alot of time sitting around telling stories, taking care of the babies, playing with the Wii and making each other laugh. Most of the time my mom, and other sister were around too.
Here is a pic of me and my sister and one of her twin babies:

Another one with my mom, Feeny McG, the twins (Sebastian and Sienna) and my other sister:

When we weren't chillin' in the cut with my family we were out and about. We made a trip to the Ikea of clothing and accessories, H&M, and both got a few cute things. We made our way through 50 and 45 Rock where we both used to work and that was intense since we were rolling around down there with Fenix. It was crazy to think about the time when J invited me to the Rock center Christmas tree lighting party that his company held. That was when I met some of his friends for the first time. It was also the first time when we held hands in public and we really were starting to look like a couple. Then suddenly there we are... married and pushing our son in a stroller through those same halls. My how things have changed.

On another day we went out to Queens to see Jason's uncle and cousin. We had a nice lunch at a diner (I miss diners!) and just spent time talking and catching up. It was cool to see the place where Jason first lived when he moved back to the east coast.

Here's Fee with Jason's uncle:
We also made 2 trips to Staten Island. My Italian twin, Chris lives out there with her husband and their freaking adorable son Jake. Jake was born 3 weeks after Fenix. I am so jazzed that they finally got to meet each other and they hit it off famously. I mean like for real, they were holding hands and babbling at each other for a really long time. I even have video proof of this but certain technical difficulties prevent me from posting said video today. So you'll have to settle for this still photo as proof thereof:

and a cute one of John and Fenix:

When we were with Chris and her husband we did plenty of eating. We also spent alot of time comparing various baby notes... "does he do this?", "oh yeah he does that", etc.. etc... It was cute.

We also went to see my grandparents. It was awesome to see their faces light up... finally got to see their first great grandchild.

At one point we tried to get a pic of all three babies together. This was not exactly a success but it was funny. Fenix was hamming it up and the twins were soooo not interested. Check it out:

J ended up going into NYC one night to hang out with his friend Mike. They went to J's cousin's bar, The Emerald. They also had brunch, shot pool and swung at the batting cages at Chelsea Piers. I am sad that I didn't get to see The Emerald but it was cool that J got to spend some time with his good friend, unencumbered by wife and baby. On his way to NYC he met a guy at the bus stop that carved this amazing bass:
Here's Mike swingin for the stands:

And J being an uberdork (but we love him):

My cousin came up from Virginia to see Fenix and the twins. She brought her dog with her. His name is Shoney and he is very cute but I think all our loudness made him nervous.


Regrettably I did not take pictures of any of the food that I ate because I am too greedy to pause and take a picture when a delicious meal is placed in front of me. We ate lots of bagels and pizza. I have the belly to prove it. We ate lots of yummy italian food too. I had a delightful pint of matzo ball soup, piping hot from Sol & Sol Kosher Deli in Englewood. We did not make it to Baumgart's and we spent almost no time in Hoboken - again, not enough time. For Mother's Day we went to Dos Caminos on Park Ave where Jason proposed (it was packed and they happened to sit us at the SAME TABLE and no we did not ask for that!). Jason gave me a really cool pair of titanium hoop earrings. I love them. We rented a Prius for the trip and now I desperately want one. Everyone showered Fenix with so much love and nice material things, I am blown away by their generosity and kindness.

So we are glad to be home but it's bittersweet because we definitely had a good time in New York and New Jersey. I can't wait to go back and see everyone again next year.

going home....

So we just bought our tickets to fly back home (well my home at least) to nyc. God I miss it so much. We will get to meet my sister's twin babies that will be brand new when we arrive and we will get to see all of our friend's and family that we miss so much. This will be Fenix's first official visit to the big apple and the first time he'll get to meet alot of his maternal family.

Anyway here's a list of things that I am looking foward to:
Food from a real Jewish deli (knish! matzo ball soup!!)
Bagels
Pizza
Baumgart's in Englewood
Rockefeller Center (Jason and I both worked here)
H&M on 5th avenue
Jersey accents
The shore
My family
Aggro drivers
Hoboken!
The subway
The PATH train
The skyline

Sigh... I can't wait :-)