Manhattan on $25

We go into Manhattan every year. Last year Joseph was not old enough to walk long distances (but too old for a stroller) so we were stuck driving into the city. But this year we decided to ditch the car and take public transportation. We took the Staten Island Ferry into Manhattan and the subway to the American Museum of Natural History.

The kids' first subway ride!

I love the origami tree the AMNH has every year. This year's theme was fossils, so the tree was covered with delicate origami skeletons, ammonites, etc.

Joseph had a meltdown in the Hall of Birds of the World. He sat down in a corner to sulk, and I sat down on a nearby bench. He attracted the attention of a crowd of young Japanese women, who took pictures of his spectacular pout. When Joseph peeked up to make sure that I was still watching him, caught me looking at him, and then dramatically turned away and scowled, the girls all giggled and "Awwed" at him. Eventually Sam came over to show Joseph the secretary bird, which got Joseph out of his funk.

There was a Kwanzaa festival in the Hall of Biodiversity, so we didn't get to see most of the exhibits that the kids were looking forward to. There were dancers, though.

Because we didn't have the car, we had the chance to go out of the museum to find lunch. I had an amazing chicken cutlet sandwich at a deli. Now why can't they do that in Normal?

Yet again, I tried to get a good family picture. No luck, but here are the attempts.

Back from Ohio

Ahh how relaxing. We went to Cleveland for Thanksgiving, where we had a lovely time enjoying the company of friends and family. We ate some fabulous meals, drank some lovely drinks, and generally relaxed and had a good time. I have been back in Normal for 16 hours and I think that my head may explode at any minute.

Here we are enjoying a delicious Thanksgiving diner. My mom does not (and probably should not) cook. In fact, 10 years ago she decided to move her oven to the basement to make more space in the kitchen. Consequently, cooking Thanksgiving dinner was a bit of a challenge. Michelle and Rich brought over the turkey, and I made sides as best I could.

Turkey shredding after the bash.

Michelle and Rich came over to hang out and give Danny a birthday present.


We took Danny out to Lolita in Tremont, which is one of Iron Chef Michael Symon's restaurants. Everyone looked very dashing. The food was amazing, especially the smoked meats. The kids snarfed down a big plate of goat cheese mac and cheese. Danny had a duck confit pizza and I ordered various sides, including chicken livers, and Dorinda had the MahiMahi.

Danny gave his seal of approval to the cappuccino (and the martinis!)


I haven't been back to Cleveland more than twice in 10 years, and it is striking how some things have changed and some things never change. The houses remain, but the people have all changed. I didn't randomly run into anyone that I knew, and in in fact I ran into few people may age that I could conceivably have known. It never occurred to me that people that I knew who remained in Cleveland have moved off into other (younger and hipper) neighborhoods.

I met up with my long-lost friend Jennie and her family. The kids had a great time playing with each other and Argos and we helped my mom eat up Thanksgiving leftovers.


The road trip back was a pain--we had two traffic delays (@30 minutes each). The kids were happy travellers because I introduced them to Mr. Bean.


We were all rather shocked to discover that it had snowed 6 inches while we were gone, and we came home to a winter wonderland (and a plowed-in driveway).

Goodbye Charm city!

Sigh... We have left Baltimore for Staten Island. Here is one parting shot of Saul and Martha. Still so romantic after 66 years of marriage!

Normal bodily functions

One persistent problem with road trips is that neither Joseph nor Argos like to go to the bathroom in a strange place. In the past, this has cast a pall over our vacations and caused us to spend an inordinate amount of time cajoling them to obey their supposedly natural bodily functions. Argos has been know to hold it all in for up to three days, meanwhile eating and drinking normally.
However, so far on this trip we have been lucky: both Joseph and Argos have been exceedingly regular. Hooray!

Road trip!

Perhaps you have noticed an absence of blog entries? Well, we're on the road again, and although we have had many bloggable adventures, wireless access has been especially scarce for various reasons.

Our adventure started last Saturday. We had a delightful 12-hour drive from Normal to Baltimore. Highlights included our bathroom break at the Warm Glow Candle Outlet. The least pleasant part of our road trips is always the bathroom breaks. Joseph is always adamant that he does NOT have to go to the bathroom, and there is usually some anger and tears as we inform him that he will indeed be using the facilities. The freakishly large and lumpy candle-castle on the highway has been calling out to me every time I drive past, so I felt compelled to investigate. (Of course, the bathroom at the candle outlet is likely to smell really great, right?)

This place was amazing! It was as if a crowd of midwestern grandmothers on speed vandalized the place. There were thousands of candles of all conceivable scent formulations, but all of them were the size and shape of a roll of paper towels and warty all over like an oatmeal explosion in a microwave. Between the candles were piled every manner of midwestern craft/crap tschochkes (wreathes made of raffia, decorative birdhouses, inspirational wall plaques, teddy bears in clothes, etc etc etc). The vaulted ceiling was painted with clouds like the Sistine Chapel: it was awesome to behold. It was also one of those places that despite the extensive stock, I would be hard-pressed to find a single item that I would want in my own house.

Indeed the one-room family restroom smelled nice, which was fortunate because one of the kids dropped a deuce while the rest of us had to hang out and wait for it in this tiny enclosed room. As a parent, I don't want the kids to feel ashamed about their bodily functions, but secretly I wish that they felt ashamed enough of their normal bodily functions to give me a warning to get the hell out of there before they start.
The gardens were also lovely. Joseph magically lost a shoe right next to the pond. I had Argos with me, so all I could do was yell warnings from afar not to step in a puddle in his socks or let the shoe drop into the water.

The model T club was next door. It looks like Danny is taking a leak on this rare vintage car. (I will let you decide for yourself whether or not this is indeed the case.)

Normal again

After our whirlwind tour of Cleveland, we have returned to Normal. The drive home was lovely--we are used to driving 12-14 hours to Baltimore and New York, so the 7-hour drive to Cleveland was no big deal. We slept in, I took Argos for a run around Shaker Lakes, we had a leisurely breakfast and arrived in Normal in time for dinner.

My hair was horribly fuzzy and disagreeable for the wedding, but of course, as soon as the wedding was over, it went back to normal...a good hair day wasted in the car.

During the drive home I finished Sam's blanket.

So now Sam and Joseph each have their own blanket.

Back to Cleveland

I grew up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, but for various reasons I haven't been back there for 7 years. This weekend, my sister Michelle got married, so we all piled into the minivan and headed back to the old homestead.

The kids were so eager to get started that they buckled themselves into the van 30 minutes before I was ready to leave. The dog, who does not like to be parted from the kids, busted out of the backyard to get into the car. So, pretty much everyone sat outside while I made sandwiches and cleaned up.

Despite the sporadic torrential rainstorms, the 7-hour drive was fairly painless. The kids were very busy with their DVDs and books, and the dog in his gianormous crate was completely silent for the entire trip (probably because he was taking up all the space and had tons of room to stretch out and relax).

And how was Cleveland? (And by the way, if you are from Cleveland Heights, you are allowed to say that you are from Cleveland and no one challenges it. It is not like Chicago, where suburbanites are required to say that they are from Chicagoland. There is no Cleveland-land.) Cleveland was EXACTLY THE SAME.

I suppose that it can be reassuring that some things never change, but I found it a little hollow and soul-crushing. Every 100+ year-old house in the neighborhood was approximately the same as it ever was. The colors are unchanged (or changes are too subtle to detect, like "Saguaro" to "Relentless Olive" or "Quicksilver" to "Icicle"). Also, no one ever changes the landscaping around the houses in any substantive way. In CA where people are constantly flipping houses, drastic changes to increase curb appeal are no big deal, but not so in Cleveland Heights. Most people do their own landscaping, and don't really go for anything too ostentatiously original. Also, there are extremely militant home inspectors who literally check the ratio of grass to non-grass plantings in your front yard, the height of any cracks in the sidewalk and the number of dandelions per square foot in your yard.

Now the creepy part of all of this isn't that the homeowners in our neighborhood are resistant to change. The creepy part is that these houses have had a series of owners since I lived in the neighborhood, yet the forsythias and azaleas in one yard and the miniature windmill and crumbling brickwork in another seemed to have remained, owner after owner. It is as if the people are superfluous to the neighborhood. We are just the short-lived parasites milling around in the airy/drafty rooms and down the slate sidewalks under the ancient trees.

Inside my mom's house, although some minor decorating changes have taken place (I think the goal is to "update" the interior color scheme to only include whites, creams and beiges), very little has been thrown away. In the medicine cabinet I found a tube of face scrub that I bought 20 years ago in high school. The television (the same one that I watched Hee Haw on as a kid) is so old that you have to turn a knob to make it work (and ironically, all that I could find to watch on TV was Miami Vice). The kids were delighted with the Peanuts sheets and vintage Legos from my childhood. They were also enthralled by the multitude of rooms and closets to explore. Argos loved pounding up and down the stairs, and was inexplicably drawn to the basement. As you might expect, the neighborhood is ideal for running, and Argos and I had some good runs.

The only thing missing was Grandma Dorinda! Grandma was staying in the hotel near the wedding venue to help out with wedding and visitor arrangements.

We Go Chicago

This week the kids were on Spring break. Among other fun and games, the kids have started their own blogs (see the links below). I took off work Wednesday, and we drove to Chicago for edutainment and window shopping. We spent most of the day at the Field Museum which was awesome. It was a great museum, although neither the webpage nor the floor plan of the museum sold it very well--once we got there, we had no idea where we were going or what we would see. However, we were continuously surprised by the diversity and detail of the exhibits.


Sam decided that he wanted to read every word of each display, so we proceeded methodically through the mammals, reptiles, dinosaurs, and the evolution of life (with added bonus extinction!)

Tyrannosaurus Sue, the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton of them all...

Watch out for the giant sloth!

A rare picture of Sam without his cheese-eating grin (the trick is tickling!)

After the museum, we went to historic Old Town. (I needed some "foundations" to go with my maid-of-honor dress, and Normal was surprisingly lacking.) Old Town has all sorts of neat little (gentrified) stores that are missing in Normal. The kids played in a courtyard park. We smelled things in the spice store. We tasted many fantastic olive oils and vinegars, and bought a pricey (but transcendent) bottle of Pomegranate Balsamic Vinegar at the Olive Oil and Vinegar store.

We spent a long time lèche-vitrine at the chocolate shop, which seemed to specialize in random molded chocolates like chocolate T rexs, swans, tools, toothbrushes, etc.

There was also a fantastic aquarium store with the best invertebrates that I have seen since I left CA. (I am a fan of the invertebrates. In my opinion, if your tank doesn't have great invertebrates, then why bother with fish--just keep a tank full of rocks and mold.)

A good time was had by all. The kids were very good with the 2.5 hour drive each way, likely because of the portable DVD player. (They saw Destroy All Planets on the way to Chicago and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians on the way back). I was worried about the dog, because we had never left him alone and loose in the house for such a long time, but he was completely fine. When we got home, the kids went to sleep right away, and slept for so long that they were still out when I left for work the next day.