2 of 3: Endicott

Our first stop in the Triple Cities was at Wegmans, the regional grocery store chain that makes me proud of upstate NY. We picked up some lunch and a few groceries for the week. We never did eat those clementines: sorry, Mom. From there we went to my parents' house, the only house I lived in for the first 18 years of my life. We made dinner that night: stuffed pizza reminiscent of Zachary's in Oakland. We coated the bottom of a deep-dish cast-iron pan with dough. We layered peppers, mushrooms, onions, roasted tomatoes, garlic and cheese on top of that. Then we put another layer of dough on top, sealing the dough layers together. Finally, we coated that with sauce. After baking for 20 minutes in the oven, we pulled out a beautifully imperfect pizza that tasted like success.

We spent Tuesday with Joe. He introduced us to big-screened high-def Beautiful Katamari. The Xbox version of our favorite video game. For those interested and unfamiliar, check out the trailer for a glimpse at the Japanese craziness...

That night Joe joined us as we made dinner (risotto fungi) for my sister Michelle and her family. The next morning we took off to Ithaca with my mom and Erica. We did a little shopping in the commons and met Jesse for lunch. We ate at the Mate Factor. I forgot to take any pictures of our outing that day, but luckily we saw all of those people again, so stay tuned.

It wasn't until Thursday morning that we really wished we had our own, properly-fitting winter gear on hand. The local kids must have been wearing white socks to bed, inside out, or whatever superstition they depend on because there weren't no school that day. And it was a good thing. It started snowing sometime between 8 and 9 and it didn't stop until late day. This was the view we had when we woke up that day. (The Pacific-time thing kept us on an up-late schedule.)

The Friday morning before we left Oakland we had gone for a run with Apollo. I wore a tank top and Andy wore shorts. Our next bout of good exercise happened as we shoveled my parent's driveway and brushed off the cars. As a novelty event when we were on "vacation", this was pretty fun...

While we shoveled, my mom stayed inside baking. She made apricot bars, a German-chocolate log and this pecan cheese cake. For someone who lacks a sweet tooth, she bakes like a pro...

The desserts were meant for an open house at Andy's parents' house on Thursday. The snow forced a hold on that until Friday. We did brave the roads that day just enough to drive the 3 miles from my family's house to Andy's. We split this trip up into 3 nights at one house, and the rest at the other, and Thursday was the switch day. Once we got there and hung out for a while, we borrowed another set of clothes and slid down the hill to visit Andy's grandparents....

It was beautiful outside. The snow was at its best: bright white and still falling. This was better than being there for a green Christmas. Andy's grandmother had put up red ribbons all over the house, adding to the festive weather.

Just past their home, across the street, is a wall that lines the river. We walked down there before our visit to check out the scenery. Andy compulsively pulled out his pitching arm at the sight of holes in the trees and a ground thick with snowball makings.

Before we got too wet and cold we went inside for some grandparent time. As expected, we were served delicious coffee and treats. We sat around and chatted for a little while before we retired to the living room.

Andy's grandfather searched through his collection of VHS tapes for a copy of the episode of The Amazing Race that took place in Holland. Andy's Pake (grandfather in the Frisian language) is Dutch and he and Andy's grandmother raised their family in the Netherlands until Andy's dad was 8 years old. This heritage made this particular bit of reality TV extra entertaining. The teams of racers were faced with various Dutch-themed obstacles such as biking around the flat terrain, and jumping over the irrigation ditches like pole vaulters.

The ditch leaping was the best part, mostly because of Andy's grandfather's enthusiasm. We learned that this is a past time of Dutch children who spend their time running through the fields they are located in. Pake described how he played this way as a youth. Here's a still from the episode that I found on the CBS website...

If I remember correctly, only one (of 10) of the jumpers made it over the ditch without falling in the mud. The mud was thick and black, making it extra funny when people didn't make it over. This simple pleasure was hugely entertaining to Pake, even after seeing it all happen before. His laughter at that moment reminded me of Andy's dad and Andy laughing at their own jokes, too. The men in their family don't really need anyone to get a kick out of themselves, but an audience does seem to add to their fun.

We admired Andy's grandmother's flowers in the window sill as we got up to leave. At age 85, she keeps a much better house than we do if you are judging on cleanliness and greenery.

We headed back out into the snow after the sun had gone down. Our way was lit by houses decked out in Christmas lighting, blanketed in snow.

The intersection of Main Street in Union looked magical under the street lights and white cover.

When we got back home we found Andy's mom cleaning the snow off her driveway. We took over the job because she will surely end up with plenty of unwanted opportunities to shovel snow later in the season.

The open house that was originally scheduled for Thursday happened on Friday instead. Jackie had to work for most of the day, so Andy, John, Andy's grandmother Mary and me were put to the task of throwing the event.

I ditched the working crew for a few hours to go to see Kate at work. Instead of remembering to take a picture of Kate that first time we hung out, I took a picture of our lunch, instead...

4 slices of Rossi's sheet pizza. So good. Two red, one plain white and one white with broccoli. Hardly healthy, but totally worth it.

Just before 4PM the guests started showing up. We spent the rest of the evening socializing with friends and family...

After all the "adults" went to bed, Joe, Andy, Jesse, her boyfriend Serhan and I stayed up and chatted in the parlor. Jesse and Serhan had to make it back to Ithaca that night, so they left shortly after that. Then Erica came over around 11:30 and we hung out watching Lynchland and having some pretty meaningful conversation until 3 in the morning. We left really satisfied with with who we got to see in while we were there, with the exception of missing Rob and Katie, but that's where the weather comes into play again. Another nor'easter was on the horizon, letting snow screw up our plans once again.

Next stop, Hudson, NH...

December Trip East (1 of 3): Millbrook

I'm writing on the road this week. Things are in reverse right now and I might as well call this blog "Adventures on the Old Coast." On Friday the 7th Andy and I flew out of SFO on a Virgin America red eye. We could have utilized the slick computer system they have at every seat to watch movies and TV, listen to music or IM each other from across the row. But instead, better than the amenities, we slept the whole way. It felt like our five-hour direct flight from coast to coast took about half an hour: 15 minutes up to get cozy under Virgin red blankets and 15 minutes down to find my shoes and shake the drowsiness. I take that back, it was impossible to shake any drowsiness and involuntary crankiness took over instead. I mean, come on, the clocks said 5:45AM, but to our internalized pacific-time, it felt like 3AM. We took a brisk silent ride to Grand Central in an unlicensed cab. The driver wanted to drive us all the way to Poughkeepsie, but he couldn't beat the price of the train. We were forced to sit in the terminal for 45 long, grumpy minutes before we could zonk out on the ride north. An hour and a half later we met Matt and Kristin at the Dover Plains station.



The little bit of sleep we had on the train up gave me enough energy to be excited to see our Millbrook family: Matt, Kristin and the furry Emmy and Oakleigh. Those two gave us our doggy fix while we we we're out of town from Apollo.



Speaking of Apollo, he never left Oakland. He is staying with Molly at her house and having a blast. Molly takes daily pictures of the dogs she has and puts them up on her Flickr page.



Once we got to Matt and Kristin's, Andy and I took a two-hour nap. Feeling rejuvenated, we took off to chop down a Christmas tree. We carried out a quite selective search for the perfect conifer and agreed on a nice one with petite branches and soft, sturdy needles. Andy chopped it down with his brute man strength and we clambered back into the jeep.

We went home and laid low over cocktails. Matt disappeared into the basement and reemerged with two big boxes and a card that he handed to Andy and me. Wedding gifts! And only 16 months after we got married. Here are the images I found of them online...



These images do not do them justice, I promise. They are huge original paintings of Gerbera daisies on canvas stretched across wooden frames. In terms of getting a meaningful gift for us, Matt and Kristin nailed it with these. Andy and I feel special just from the thought they put into their extended search. Gerberas were our wedding flowers. We picked them for their vibrant colors that we love so much. And of all their beautiful colors (orange, yellow, magenta...) red is by far our favorite. These paintings are going to look great in our apartment, and anywhere we live from here on out.

When we were finished admiring our new artwork, we headed over to Kristin's sister Kim and her family's house. Instead of a formal dinner meal, we stood around drinking tree-trimming-appropriate brandy alexanders and munching on fondue and shrimp (a delicious declaration of pescetarianism.) We went home that night and proceeded to spend the remainder of our time in Millbrook within half a mile of Matt and Kristin's house. Before we parted ways for bed on Saturday, we reconvened in the kitchen. Tom, Kristin's dad, came by and joined us for a while, adding a pleasant ending to a good night.



On Sunday morning my mom drove down and met us. She fooled around in town too long and missed our delicious breakfast of corn fritters and coffee. Besides that, we spent the morning doing our own things while we digested. I packed our sound recorder for this leg of our journey, so I took the opportunity to capture Jack, the cat, for our aural (dis?) pleasure. Jack is both a vocal creature and a crotchety old man that finds pleasure in bitching. When you call his name. "Jaaack?" he responds with a whiny "Reeaarrrr." He'll have a conversation with you as long as you continue to talk to him, but he never sounds like he's sharing good news. Because he can't really be pleased, he's incredibly fun to pester.

As I was editing this audio I discovered more than just the cat as entertainment. In a more subtle way, this captures my brother's antics as much as it does Jack's...

(Click on the little triangle next to the speaker symbol to play the clip. If you don't see either symbol, try viewing this in firefox. My web skills aren't perfect yet! (and btw, thanks for the help, Andy! And Chuck!))



Can you hear Matt ask Oakleigh where Jack is in the beginning? It's from another room, so it is hardly audible, but you can hear his cackling amusement in the end as Oak comes over to check out what's going on with his feline roommate. Kristin's reaction only fuels the fire.








When we began to feel restless again, we bundled up for a walk. It was the last day of deer season so we were forced to stick to the road and the dogs had to stay tied to their leashes. This was the first outing in which Andy and I realized that we had slightly under packed in consideration of the temperature. It's not like we even have winter coats besides our ski gear, and that felt too bulky to take on a plane. I wore my mom's boots and a set of long johns. Andy toughed it out in his favorite hoodie.






We bumped into a couple of these guys on our stroll. More than the rest that we were passing by, these two seemed to welcome a more intimate greeting. Never one to pass up a chance to pet something covered in fur, I touched a couple horse noses while I could.





Andy had to carry Oak back over the threshold of the driveway so he wouldn't freak out. He's trained to stay inside the yard with an electric fence. He was not wearing his collar over the walk, but he hasn't quite connected that dot and he plays it safe around the perimeter, no matter what side of the white flags he's on.


Remember these chicks? In May they were fluffy, mono-colored babies.



Upon our return, Matt, Mom and I headed out to the chicken coop to check on the hens. The setup is attached to the garage and has a coop up the slope on the driveway end; the penned and covered out-door area is where they birds chow on corn and work out their pecking order. They stay out of the wind and lay on their eggs under a timed warming light in the coop. The roosters, I believe there are 2 of them, play bodyguards/alarm clocks for the hens. Supposedly their virile presence promotes a greater yield of eggs.



I took the job of collecting the day's load of eggs. I did come out with a heaping basket of eggs that I found lying among the decoy eggs stamped with things like Titelist and Slazenger.





When someone enters the coop, the roosters round everybody up and they all scurry out of the holes near the floor of the coop. They line up on the ramps, the males taking up position outside, where they feel safe to turn back and glare at the human through the cut-outs. I'll admit it, they do intimidate me slightly. I wouldn't want to be in a room covered in bird poop, with a ceiling so short I can't fully stand up facing an angry bird charging at me.

As we were gathering back outside, concentrating on staying stable enough to prevent dropping any chicken embryo on the ice, one of the young roosters started crowing. He hasn't quite worked out his voice yet, so he has a goofy-sounding signature crow. By the time I made my way back out with the sound recorder, he was finished for this vocal session. Matt was eager to help me out so he took the recorder out the next morning. Again, from the sound bank of Matt and Kristin's house...

This is about how the standard rooster crows, the sort of crow we're familiar with...


But, like learning to talk and sing, practice makes perfect, right? The end of his crow sounds to me like he's been taking lessons from a horse. This clip has both the mature and the young rooster crows in this order: old, young, young, old.


I'm hoping to find a more seamless way to incorporate audio in the blog, but in the meantime I have been finding it so much fun to record sound that I just want to throw in some more. This one, to me, sounds like a car engine failing to turn over...


But in a little more context it's clear that these squawkers are the egg-laying type...








Inside again, Andy, Mom and I sat on brandy alexander duty while Matt and Kristin trimmed their tree. They have boxes of beautiful ornaments that I don't remember ever looking at closely over past Christmases.




Jack expressed his holiday spirit by fighting with the string of lights.




We started getting hungry at this point and took to working on the quiche. The richest, fluffiest quiche butter, cream and eggs can muster, I swear. It didn't last long, which we each may have regretted silently later on.







In the morning, we woke up leisurely. (Read: 6:30AM Pacific.) We ate bagels, packed our bags and hugged goodbye. It was time to head north for the next leg of our trip.