Because 25 years deserves more than just a Facebook status update.

Hard to believe it’s been a quarter of a century.  I’ve been married to Frank longer than I wasn’t.  We were just kids:  I was 24 and he was 26, babies by today’s standards.  Most people didn’t know we were already married – a quick courthouse ceremony to satisfy immigration requirements.  This was the big church do:  white dress, tuxedo, flowers, cake, friends and family.

And they came from everywhere.  His parents had never been on a plane before.  In flying across an ocean to be with us, they missed the birth of their first grandchild.  (My niece Lisa has the dubious distinction of being the only relative whose birthday I will never forget!) Her parents came nearly as far both in distance and in mindset:  her mother had finally come around to the master’s degree marrying the mechanic.  It would be just a few short months before she gave the bride the motherly advice of “you’ve got a good guy there – don’t blow it”.

Because there were so many out-of-town attendees, the rehearsal dinner was more like tailgating before the big game.  In a small room at the famous Brickskeller restaurant, they gathered for drinks and camaraderie.  By the time we arrived at the church the next morning, they would be fast friends.  She got up extra early for the big wedding hair and make up appointment.  It would be days before she got all the hairspray out of her hair.  He had to deal with some slightly hungover groomsmen.  They arrived at the church to be greeted by a march against homelessness through the tony streets of Georgetown led by the famous activist Mitch Snyder.  The church was the one that Kennedy had attended.  It held ten times as many people as would be in attendance that day.

They would be wed by a professor of economics at Georgetown University who was also a Jesuit priest.  The conservative priest in the church near their apartment wouldn’t marry them because they were living together.  The fact that immigration rules required it wouldn’t sway his judgement that we were building our house on sand and not stone.  So we opted to be the fifth couple the economist had married and since 3 of the 4 couples were still together, he thought he was doing pretty well.  They had a full Catholic mass, not because it was something they wanted but because that’s how it worked out.  Readings went off with out a hitch, everyone behaved.  No fodder for reality TV here.

And then the celebrating continued.  Even though it was a morning wedding, the party lasted all afternoon and well into the evening.  They survived the DJ botching the bride’s name (as if Frank would marry someone named Sharon!) and they did the traditional dances. And some not so traditional ones – I haven’t yet been to a wedding where there was such a response to “Take the Skinheads Bowling” on the dance floor. Her mother was having so much fun that she didn’t want things to end and ran around writing checks to people to stay “just one more hour”.

Then it was done.  The months of planning, hours of consultations, gallons of wine, and gardens of flowers had contributed to a wonderful celebration.  And those two youngsters are still together – not so young in age but in spirit.  They have built a fabulous life together, raised two wonderful and amazing children, and have another half century or so to look forward to together.

To our family and friends who were there to celebrate with us that day: thank you for helping us this life off to a great start.  To those who have enriched our lives since then, thank you for helping us continue what they started.  It’s been an amazing ride and we can’t wait for the next round.

And to my beloved husband and best friend, there would be no life without you.

I know that travel horror stories are legion but I have usually been lucky enough to not be caught in them.  However, it was apparently our turn. We had been looking forward to our trip to Vermont to visit Jesse for some time – me especially so since I hadn’t seen my daughter since July.  We paid stoopid money for the plane tickets because it is the beginning of leaf peeping season even though that isn’t why we were going.  We had plans for hanging out in town, eating well, watching Jesse play rugby, and just generally enjoying some family time.  Then some idiot has to set something on fire in Chicago and that starts the dominos.  Our flights were on United which seemed to be particularly hard hit by the air traffic control mess in Chicago and the first domino fell when they cancelled our flight to Chicago on Thursday night.

Fine.  That wasn’t so bad since it was going to get us into Burlington after midnight and really put us in a bind to get ready (since I had just come back from a business trip on Tuesday) so we looked on the bright side:  we got to watch the Packers crush the Vikings and catch some of the Royals win – both of which we would have missed in the air.  So we thought maybe the 8am flight out on Friday morning wasn’t such a bad thing.  It would get us into Burlington around 2:30 – right when Jesse got out of class.  Okay, we’ll manage.

Except when we woke up Friday morning, our 8am flight was delayed until 9:20 because of a delayed flight crew.  Apparently they had gotten in late the night before and they couldn’t take off again until after the mandated FAA rest period.  Okay, we had been scheduled for a long layover in Chicago and now we would just get off one plane and straight on the next.  We had about 35 minutes and were landing and taking off from the same terminal so it didn’t seem too bad.  We had a nice breakfast and got to the airport and got all checked in plenty early for the 9:24 scheduled departure time.

Domino two:  no departure.  Plane was there, passengers were there, flight attendant there.  No cockpit crew.  At about 9am, the gate agent announced that the crew was somewhere in the airport and they were trying to locate them and as long as we could get wheels up by 9:30, we’d still land in Chicago in time for people to make connections.  Really?  Lost in the Kansas City airport?  Have you been there?  It’s not that big!  Now I begin to worry about boarding a plane with an idiot in the cockpit.

Which I shouldn’t have worried about.  When we hit 9:30, the plane was officially delayed until 10am while they looked for an alternative crew (WTF?  Where did the first crew go?) and we were now going to miss our connection.  The next flight to Burlington was on Saturday so we’d be stuck in Chicago for the day then fly to VT to land 24 hours before departing again.  Nope, not worth the kind of money I paid for the tickets.  By now,  I couldn’t find any other way to get to Burlington before Saturday at any cost so there was no other option:  cancel the whole trip.  The gate agent started the process of refunding our money – no arguments at least.  This one couldn’t be blamed on weather, air traffic control or any other outside force:  the airline HAD LOST THE FLIGHT CREW.  So United, you now have also lost a fairly frequent flyer.  We headed home.

Domino three: in the rain.  The weather hadn’t improved and a cold, stinging rain started as we pulled out of the parking lot.  We headed home, shed a few tears of disappointment along the way, finished the refund request on-line and both headed to work.  Where we had to explain 100 times why we were there.  We could have stayed home since we had taken the day off but Frank wouldn’t have gotten paid and I would have been left alone in a house with no food – because we thought we were going to be gone for three days! So off to work and while I like my new job, I wasn’t supposed to be there so it wasn’t any fun.

[Skipping over the Friday evening frustration of trying to finish a research project at home only to have my password expire in the middle of all my work and then being locked out, having to email the boss begging to be unlocked only to have all my stuff crash. We’ll focus on the Royals win instead.]

So now we are home when we aren’t supposed to be.  Got to run some errands that would have been over due and tried to find a bright spot in prowling around the West Bottoms antinque-ing for First Friday weekend – if you haven’t been here for that, you really should come! But our quest for some stained glass for the front window was for naught and after two hours of prowling through old warehouses, it was time to give up.  We did score some great vinyl (nearly new copy of “Born to Run” for example) but it didn’t feel like a victory.  We still had to go food shopping and had planned on more comfort food for the evening meal:  corned beef and cabbage!  Domino four: Three grocery stores later, and still no corned beef.  We finally find it at McGonigle’s butcher shop but when you start cooking your corned beef at 6:30pm, you are bound to be disappointed or eating at midnight.  And we were pretty much both.

So now I sit on a sunny Sunday morning, still fighting with my research project, waiting to wake Frank it’s past time to get up. (I can’t sleep past 7am no matter how hard I try).  No run for me because my old lady feet are still protesting. No church today because we still don’t have warm fuzzies for the local chapel.  But I do get to look forward to scrubbing the bathrooms. Oh joy. Pinch me – I must be dreaming. I’ll look forward to cooking more comfort food (stew and home made bread – made with plenty of time to spare today) and hope that the Royals win tonight so that maybe I can be cheered up by the joy around me.

So my first business trip in my new job was two days in Baltimore last week.  It was a System meeting where I was representing the research community in a new “oversight group” for information management.  There were at least 30 people in the meeting and we started with each of them spending 7 minutes or so going through a standard set of slides discussing “pain points” and new initiatives.  At some point during the proceedings, I sent an email back to the office to tell them that I was ready to poke my eye out with a fork.  It didn’t get better.  For two days, we sat in a room doing half of a SWOT exercise (we did the strengths and weaknesses but apparently skipped the opportunities and threats).  We set “high priority objectives” and created “initiatives” to support them.  And I was back in the hell I thought I left in my old job.  Only saving grace was sitting with a research librarian colleague and friend snarking under my breath at the proceedings.  It wasn’t pretty.

Fast forward to this week.  I get to attend a conference at another System location but now I’m surrounded by my peeps.  It’s all about economic data and research.  Friends and colleagues abound and we talked about Federal statistics, providing research services and generally chatted about all the things I care about.  I gave a presentation that was well received and even garnered a complement with photo via Twitter  from an audience member.  Then I got to play hostess for a dinner gathering for my favorite professional organization, IASSIST.  We had planned for 16 people to attend and instead had nearly 30.  Great conversation, great pizza and beer (including GF for me!) and a good night all around.

In fact, I didn’t even mind starting the second day with a *7 am* breakfast meeting (really?  who’s bright idea was that?) mostly because it was on one of my favorite geek topics: metadata. Then more good conference sessions before heading home.  To complete the contrast between the two trips, the mode of transportation was so much more agreeable this time around.  The flights in and out of BWI were fine (gaining more respect for Southwest every time I fly) but I still had to deal with the inconveniences of air travel:  flights on their schedule, getting nearly naked to go through security, cramped seats with the inevitable recliner in front of you or seat kicker behind, etc.  This trip, I made the 256 mile drive across I-70 on my schedule. Granted that because I was driving, I didn’t get any work done but I did have a seat that my butt actually fits in, I could turn up the music as loud as I wanted, and didn’t have to worry about bathroom schedules – either mine or those of others in my row.  And I packed full sized bottles of liquids just because I could! Downside to the drive:  when running near 80 across Missouri with the AC on, my little diesel couldn’t average better than 46 mpg…. 😉

I don’t know that Frank differentiated between my two trips other than he had no requirements to meet me at the airport.  For him, it’s still a bit more lonely when I’m gone because he doesn’t have the same network of friends to entertain him while I am away.  I would have thought that he would use that time to knock some things of his “honey do” list but apparently I don’t really understand. And nothing is getting done tonight because the Royals are in the Wildcard game. (And maybe I’m becoming a baseball fan – but that’s another post!

I’ve written at least a dozen blog posts in my head over the last month but never actual typed them up.  Why?  After years of writing a travel blog about exotic places, these potential posts seemed pretty dull.  I’m used to writing about exciting things and it seems odd that I should write about everyday things even if they are new everyday things for us.  I was then reminded that the reason that I started the blog and the reason people read it is to find out what our life is like now.

So here we go.  For those who aren’t interested but keep getting notified on Facebook, you can switch that off.  For those who want to figure out what on earth we do in KC (or who want to feel better about where you live!), read on.

Today I made my first foray across my new home state.  I have a conference in St Louis for the next two days so instead of flying, I drove the 256 miles.  In just over 3.5 hours.  It’s pretty flat.  And impossible to go less than 80 mph – good thing the speed limit is 70 most of the way.  In case you are curious, it takes one Imelda May CD and all 4 Zac Brown CDs to get across Missouri.

And then there were the flashbacks.  I lost count of the number of winery signs I passed, especially around Hermann, Missouri.  Unfortunately, Missouri wine is NOT Virginia wine.  (Good thing I brought a bottle of the latter with me just in case. 🙂 )  Then there were the signs for Sydenstricker (who else names something that?), Warrenton and Montgomery County.  If I wasn’t doing 80, I would have snapped some photos to add to this post.

And Frank?  He’s holding down the home front.  Which tonight meant walking to the 75th Street Brewery for dinner.  And he’s likely to be adopted by the next door neighbors tomorrow for dinner so he won’t *really* miss me.  Right?

It’s my first weekend alone in the new house as Frank is back east helping Gillian move into her new dorm in Vermont. So I took the time to do some of the less fun things that needed attending to. As I was doing some paperwork today, I realized that it has been one month since the furniture arrived and we officially moved into the house.  People are still asking if we are unpacked or if we have settled in.  I say no to the first and yes to the second because they are not really the same question.

For the last month, we have worked to get the house and our lives sorted out.  In unpacking, we tried to see how to fit things from our old house into our new house.  It works for the most part, although there are still things that we don’t need now and we had to buy some new things that we do need.  That’s how I know we’re done catching up and ready to move on.  There are so many instances where I find myself objecting to something that is “wrong” when it is really just different.  They say old habits die hard but they do die.  At work I’ve stopped thinking about how things were done in my old job.  Truth be told, I think very little about my old job anymore; I’m so happy with the new one that there is no reason to look back.  I’m moving on.

Same in our personal lives.  We’ve attended a few churches locally, trying to see which one fits us.  The one closest to the house seems the most logical choice and we’ve enjoyed going but there are things that are just wrong  different than what we are used to so we decided to see what else there was.  Last week we went to a different church.  The ushers were in shorts; the priest sped through the service. It was very quick and casual – something I thought Frank would have appreciated.  But he was the first to say that it wasn’t just different, in this instance it was wrong – unfulfilling and uninspiring.  So now we have a measure that we can use:  instead of comparing things to what we know, we compare them to how we feel.  

So yesterday I decided to try the local yoga studio.  It’s a one room outfit that teaches a variety of styles with no set type it follows.  A far cry from the dedicated Baptiste studio that I used to attend – the one that now offers spinning and crossfit and lots of other options. It was wonderful and I loved it but “The Yoga Patch” is nothing like it.  The Saturday afternoon class was supposed to be “yoga for athletes” although the three of us that were there wouldn’t necessarily have called ourselves that. Kelly was subbing and wasn’t really sure what “yoga for athletes” was supposed to be so we did some flows and then spent half the class working on inversions.  I made progress on my classical headstand and handstand but didn’t have quite as much luck with the tripod headstand or forearm balance.  There were no warriors, no wheels, no core work.  It could have felt wrong but it’s time to move beyond that.

This morning I biked to the early service at our neighborhood church and noticed the differences but didn’t name them as wrong.  Mother Anne gave a great sermon on why people go to church – Frank would really have loved it – and then I biked home.  Different than what it was like before even though this church is no closer than the old one was to the old house. Then I walked to yoga – VERY different – and had Kelly as a sub again for power yoga.  This class was more in line with what I thought of as “normal” yoga and both the attendees from yesterday afternoon – Lauren the freshly-minted teacher and Christine who owns a boxing studio – were in attendance again this morning and the class was wonderful.  Different, yes but enjoyable nonetheless. 

And now to look for opportunities that may be different.  I’d like to find a book club here but understand it won’t be the same as previous experiences.  I’m looking into joining a local running club and checking out the alumnae chapter of my sorority – activities I had little time for before the move.  We wanted this to be a new adventure and the change of scenery alone isn’t enough.  It’s time to make a new life in the new place and stop trying to fit the old life in.  It’s not to say we don’t miss the people from the old life – we do every day.  Now we look forward to having friends new and old come see how well we are getting on with our moving on.  

The pictures and plants really make a difference upstairs. It took some time to explain to the adult children that there would be no “Duncan’s room” or “Jesse’s room” but there would be a spare room (back bedroom) and a sitting room (front bedroom) and they could arm wrestle over who stayed where when they are both home.

Let’s start with the front bedroom which is now the sitting room. Here’s how it looked when we bought the house, including the closet door that didn’t actually close.

 

And the closet behind the door wasn’t much to write home about:

So here it is on move in day:

And now:  no rug yet but it’s a cozy place for knitting and watching the little TV.

And now the de facto “linen closet”:

The back bedroom, or spare room, is the same size but has a useable closet. On the day we bought it:

And on move in day:

And today:

So guests can now choose between a room with a queen size bed with storage space or the room with the futon, no closet, but a TV! (I’ll let you know how the allocation goes when everyone is here for Thanksgiving!)

And now, the master bedroom.  I was alternatively leery and ecstatic about the layout of the master bedroom.  Now I’m just deliriously happy.  Jesse tried to capture it in panorama when we bought the house:

But the closet needed special panoramic attention:

Lots of space there! Enough to stuff in lots of boxes on moving day:

But now, here’s our fabulous master bedroom.  Half the square footage of our old one but much more useful:

And the dream of a closet – unheard of for a nearly 100 year old house:

And the piece de resistance – the washer and dryer are IN THE CLOSET! No more traipsing up and down stairs with baskets of laundry.  It all gets washed and dryed in the same place where it gets taken off and hung up:

But again my friends, you’ll need to come to KC to see it for yourself.  Then you can make the choice between the big bed and closet and the room with the TV.

Hope to see you soon!

Because I don’t want to use all my space on WordPress with one post (and because I really want you to read more than one blog post), I’ve decided to break things up a bit.  For those who are interested in how oor wee hoose is shaping up, here are some comparison photos from the main floor.

Kitchen:

When we first looked at the house:

T

The day we moved in:

And today:

Notice the pictures and other flotsam and jetsam.  While have gotten quite adept at cleaning up to staging standards, this is how it really looks after Frank cleans up after dinner (which is only fair since I cooked!)

For those who are morbidly curious where all the stuff in those boxes went:

 

Now the study.  How it looked when we first saw it (complete with realtor):

The day we moved in:

And today:

 

(Special photo: Frank’s bar so everyone knows that the whisky made it okay.  The rest of the liquor is hiding in the cabinet.  It’s not nearly so important!)

Dining room: sure sign of a civilized home!

The day we bought the house:

The day we moved in:

And today – complete with wilting flowers from last week’s farmer’s market:

(Note: art on the walls! It was hard to line them up with the crooked floors.  For example, the wine rack has corks from wine bottles under the right side to make it kinda straight sortof:

Yes, that’s just the red wine that lives upstairs.)

And finally:  the living room.  This room is now a combination of the formal living room in the old house and the very informal family room. (I’m slowly getting over the fact that there is a TV in my living room which I don’t really like….)

When we bought the house:

When we moved in:

And today:

 

And there are more pictures on the walls:

Hard to see on this rainy night but at the top of the tower on the right is a turntable! We’re having soooo much fun with all the 80’s vinyl – right now it’s “Faith” by George Michael.  Who doesn’t love library book sales where Men at Work LPs go for 50 cents!

(And the white wine lives here.  It’s just to the left of the small table.

(And isn’t quite as crooked as the photo but notice how many bottles are missing…. )

But to really appreciate how cute it is you’ll have to a) wait to see tomorrow’s pictures; and b) COME VISIT US!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Our first real weekend (read: break from working) was both enjoyable and successful. We discovered the City Market on Saturday morning which has a fabulous farmers market. We scored lots of great produce, fresh flowers and some new houseplants.

We needed new plants because the moving company wouldn’t move any of ours and we only had room for one: mama plant. Apparently pothos are about the only plant that I can manage to not regularly kill and we had been given such a plant many years ago. Like maybe 20 years or so. We know it was a housewarming gift but we cannot recall if it was for our first house that we bought in Madison in 1992 or for our house in VA which we bought in 1997. Either way, this is a really old plant. And it has spawned many other plants – at least six that we left behind and every housewarming plant we have ever given to any of our friends. So mama plant had to come and rode along in the car with us on our journey and is happily ensconced in the alcove at the top of the stairs. But she is lonely. So we bought some new plants to keep her company. The stall at the farmer’s market was attended by a lovely man who, while sad to hear that I regularly kill plants, was heartened to hear that I do earnestly try to be a good gardener. So he recommended several plants that can be treated like pothos – low light, can stand drying out between waterings, etc.

In the afternoon, we wandered off to West Bottoms to go antiquing. Apparently “First Fridays” are a big deal in KC and the weekend associated with said Friday also have special things going on and playing in this area of town is one of them. While it would have been unbelievable overwhelming to just wander aimlessly through the maze of shops, we had a quest to keep us focused: a coat rack. Not any coat rack but one that was the right color and had big antler-like tines for hanging hats. The closets in oor wee hoose have been redone to allow for the maximum amount of stuff to be hung but what that means is that there are usually two bars for hanging short items instead of a single bar across the top which accommodates items of all sizes. So no where for long coats in the hall closet. We don’t have many of these (2) but we do have to accommodate the ones we have. A coat rack seemed the perfect answer – and it is!

Throughout the weekend, we spent time unwrapping and hanging the pictures and paintings that had been in the old house. It now looks familiar and feels like it’s our space and not just space with our furniture. There is an air of permanence now that shedding boxes wasn’t enough to accomplish alone. Once those empty boxes are hauled away today, it will be time for the big reveal. Stay tuned!

 

Today’s experiment was to act like we actually live here: I went to work and Frank didn’t. Typical for the summer so it seemed normal. I didn’t even bring a travel mug of coffee because with a 15 minute commute, I wouldn’t have time to drink it. I got to the Bank and was issued my badge and parking credentials, filled out paperwork and then headed to my department where I proceeded to be scared witless by the number of people hinting that there were high expectations for what I could do now that I’m actually here.

Frank, on the other hand, had a more harrowing experience: dealing with the cable company. Yes, we signed up for Google Fiber; yes, we will have 1000 GB download speeds; and yes, it might take several months for our house to be wired. We can’t wait that long for basic internet and TV access so we made a deal with the devil and signed up for month-to-month basic cable and internet with the local evil empire, Time-Warner. After close to a dozen text, email, and phone reminders to repeatedly confirm the installation, the cable guy came by this morning and got our basic wiring sorted so we can at least watch the local news and compose blog posts using more than my thumbs.

I spent the day shaking hands, smiling, and trying to create secure passwords while my spouse tried desperately to finish putting together the storage furniture which we need to get rid of those last few boxes in the living room. Then there was the invitation to happy hour for me- not because of me but one doesn’t say no to margaritas with the boss, the boss’s boss, and the Bank president on one’s first day regardless of the reason.

Then a fabulous dinner out at a local establishment (Julian – fabulous!) to which we can, and did, walk. And now to collapse in exhaustion after our different but equally taxing “normal” day.

Apparently reality TV has affected me more than I care to acknowledge. I think I had subconsciously been planning a big “Ta da! Look at how quickly we unpacked” post. Until today when I realized how far in the future such a post would occur. We have made significant progress – Facebook friends might have noticed it by the various meal photos that have been posted

But what you have been spared (or have missed depending on your perspective) as blog readers is a blow-by-blow account of the initial trials and tribulations. It is also due partly to our lack of internet access (I will whine about that soon) and there is only so much wit and wisdom I can relay from my phone.

So I ask your patience and promise to regale you with tales of establishing residency, meeting the neighbors, the bunnies of Brookside, finishing the unpacking, and starting work. And of course more photos of food, the new house and tallies of wine consumed!