Notes from the Cape

Hello from a rainy day on the Cape. Per usual, the Cape got rain while the rest of Massachusetts got several inches of snow from the latest snowstorm. Gotta love the ocean effect. One thing about the Cape though is the wind. There's always wind blowing.

Relaxing at home after a busy week. Spent Saturday night in Boston with Boxa for a long over due visit (w Boston and Boxa). We had several heart to hearts and laughs about the good old days. She also showed me hoe to hook a rug - considering taking it up as well. I've been enjoying my needlepoint kits (key fob kits from Etsy - my initials in nautical flags of course) and it may be time to move on to the next handicraft.

We hit up the Legal Seafood in Harborside (I may have just been living in NYC for too long but the prices were quite reasonable) then the Liberty Hotel (used to be a jail! Glad to have gotten it off my bucket list) and then of course the BHP. We opened it up and shut it down and the patrons enjoyed my jukebox selections. This is how I dropped $100 in beer, music and ATM fees.

We also decided to get tattoos for our 30th birthdays in March. We're young and life is short so we're going for it. Boxa was in favor of doing it on Sat night but the way she was talking about it was pretty much the definition of what you're not supposed to do so i convinced her to wait a few mths. I'm thinking either a compass for its nautical affiliation, and the fact it's on the cover of my favorite Jimmy Buffett album 'Changes in Latitudes' as a representation of all I love about JB or the word 'hope' in script as it's my middle name courtesy of my grandmother and it's something I keep coming back to. Stand by.

Went to a 10 PM church service at Saint Andrews by the Sea in Hyannisport on Christmas Eve. There's no heat in the church and being made of stone it's pretty cold even in July so we were bundled up in hats and scarves. Someone described it as people getting dressed like they do to go to a Patriots game. It was chilly but also sort of the best possible way to reflect on the meaning of Christmas.

My parents got a Roku so I've been watching Cheers on Netflix and quite enjoying the Boston humor and boy is Ted Danson is verrrrry easy on the eyes. And after that there's Wings for the Nantucket references!

Hope everyone had a great holiday. More to come.

we are the people our parents warned us about

2012 was my parents' 30th wedding anniversary so us kids (aka me) made a photo book for them that we're giving them for christmas in a few days.

we're each writing notes to go along with it - here's mine:

dear mom and dad - we wanted to take some time to say thank you for all you've done to make us the people we are today.
for my part here are just a few of those things. thank you for:  

• teaching me the value of hard work
• showing me the US and the world through travel
• instilling the importance of family
• hours and days spent driving us to sporting events and spending hours in the driveway practicing with me
• teaching me to coach myself
• welcoming my friends into your home 
• teaching me good manners - especially writing thank you notes
• showing me what a loving and equal marriage is
• sending me to college and all the work and sacrafices you made to help me get in
• showing me it's not only okay to be silly it's necessary
• introducing me to music - ragtime and classic rock, singing, and the radio, even all the oldies on B101 (note: radio station in providence that my mom always made us listen to)
• introducing me to movies that are now my favorites like a funny thing happened on the way to the forum and james bond
• catch phrases to fit any situation
• giving me a love of reading
• letting us grow up near by our grandparents so we know them and have a close relationship

so much of who i am is because of you both - thank you so much. i have always felt loved and supported.

happy anniversary sd4life!

and tomorrow - dec 16 - is the seven year anniversary of this blog.

what a long strange trip it's been

303 and an overdue update

well hello! apologies, as usual, for the radio silence. this blog has been on the brain and though the spirit has been willing the words have not.

blogging today from downtown denver - came out here on thurs night for work meetings. it's such a funny city! one thing that always strikes me about the west coast is how much 'younger' the cities are compared to the east coast. not in the demographic sense but the historical sense. 1858 vs 1650? it's a tangible difference.

heading back to nyc later this morning - another week in the city before i go home to the cape for xmas. going to stay there for another couple days after the holiday - my dad is having day patient surgery and won't be able to get out of bed for awhile. there are dogs and ducks and chickens to take care of and wood to bring in so i figured i'd help my mom out.

here's the recap from the last 6 weeks:

florida - last week i was in florida for a mini break and to see my grandparents. it was wonderful to have a few quiet days to myself - i walked the beach in the morning and watched the sunset at night over the gulf of mexico. my grandparents seem to be doing very well too which i was really glad to see. i really cherish every moment i get to spend with them as we all get older. trying to recognize what we have while we have it.

dominican republic - spent a weekend in the dominican republic in late october for a friend from the cape's wedding. it was a long way to go for a quick trip and the hassles of the resort were ridic (lost reseverations and ridiculous policies) but the beach and the wedding were beautiful. after the reception everyone took our beer and rum into the ocean for some frolocking. laughing and splashing while tipsy with 40 other people under the stars was a definite highlight.

hurricane sandy - and then of course there was hurricane sandy - a storm no one thought would be as ridiculous as it was. at my parent's request i left brooklyn on sunday night before the subway shut down to go out to stamford and stay with my brother. we lost power there but the bar around the corner let us charge our phones and could cook up some food so we muddled through (incidentally the owner's family used to own the coolidge in white river junction. small world.) went straight from stamford to hanover for alumni council weekend (more on that below) so i didn't get back to brooklyn heights until late sunday night. it didn't appear that anything had happened to my area of brooklyn - in fact my microwave clock was still correct. we're up high enough (heights?) and the power lines are still underground that it didn't seem to be an issue but we were in a unique vantage point for the devastation in manhattan. i still can't take my preferred train to work, as the R train tunnel was flooded the worst,  but at least i can get there right? work - however - was another story. my office is on 21st and 5th in the flatiron district and not only did we not have power for a week but also our servers that were down in the financial district were completely knocked out when the financial district flooded so we couldn't serve ads. our tech team worked 24/7 for six days straight to move our servers to the cloud. to put this in perspective for the non-techies that's about two months worth of work. we're back up and running now - although we did have to manually move our servers from the 31st floor of the building which required a shopping trip to home depot for electric screw drivers, rope and headlamps - but crazy! poor kevin picked the worst week to come to nyc - he ended up stranded in manhattan without power for three days. i guess i can't blame him if he never comes back (but please do!)

alumni council - had my first alumni council meeting in hanover in early november - alum council is comprised of one rep from every class, club/region and affinity group and i'm the NYC rep. we meet twice a year in hanover to hear from the college and report back to our constituents. it was a busy two days of meetings but i did get some pong in and it was really exciting to be part of the alumni leadership board. i feel like i want to educate every d alum i know about AC as i knew nothing about it going in and it's an important part of how alums interact with the college. more to come from me i'm sure. in other dartmouth related news i saw megh at the holiday party in early december and he asked for more blog posts - so sorry for the delay megh!

otherwise - i'm still LOVE LOVE loving living in brooklyn heights - my apartment has really come together to the point where i'm not obsessing over what i still need to buy all the time. the neighborhood is so awesome and i love coming home to it. i'm getting to know all the shops and the stores and even some of the faces are starting to look familiar. it's amazing what a difference having a place that feels like home in nyc makes. i actually want to be there more. and it's so so so so quiet. to the point where the last time i heard sirens it was b/c someone was jumping off the brooklyn bridge. yeah.

another year winding to a close - it's been a good one. still, as ever, amazed by how far i've come since last year at this time. the fact that i'm even in denver right now is a testament to that. always liked the quote 'there are the years that ask questions and the years that answer'. this year answered. and i can't wait for what comes next.