Yes Man

Yesterday, in my post-Christmas, back-on-my-own-couch exhaustion, I caught part of a Jim Carrey movie called "Yes Man".

I am a closet Jim Carrey fan.  Well, not really even in the closet, "Dumb and Dumber" is permanently on my favorites list.  I just can't help it.  ("Kick his ass, Sea Bass!")

I've seen "Yes Man" in pieces before, it's entertaining and a good way to kill a couple hours.  It also stars Zooey Deschanel, who seems to be a collective cultural crush these days.  The premise of the movie is that Jim's character finds himself stuck in life.  Same old job that he doesn't like, divorced, no social life; basically no area of his life is developed or where he wants it to be.  He runs into an old friend who has expanded his own life and is happy, and he convinces Jim Carrey to try the same philosophy that he has discovered through a self-help guru - to become a "Yes Man".  He decides to follow through on this same philosophy and challenges himself to say yes to every opportunity that comes his way for an entire year.  This means everything he sees, everything someone offers to him, stranger or friend, big or small, he has to say yes to.  Of course, this being a Jim Carrey movie, hijinks ensue.  But in the end his life is overhauled, changed for the better, and expanded way beyond his previous horizons.

This approach to life really resonates with me, and it has actually become my personal philosophy over the past few years.  I kind of fell into it.  I am naturally a bit reserved; I can think of several opportunities I said no to in college that I really wish I had gone and done.  Because it is always easier to say no and stay in the house… not jump off that cliff (sometimes literally, into water)… not get up the energy to travel to a completely unknown place with another language, culture, and exchange rate… not invest the money in experiences… or even just not want to truck all the way to a part of town that is hard to get to (truly an issue here in NYC).  This kind of stuff can be tiring.  You have to think about different steps that you haven't had to worry about before, you have to calculate unknown outcomes, you have to invest hard-earned money, you have to deal with being tired and hungry more often.  Creature comforts could take a back seat.  You have to be uncomfortable!  Emotionally and mentally as well as physically.  Things become less predictable.  But…

I have slowly realized over the recent portion of my life that the more I say "yes", especially when I don't know exactly what the outcome will be, the happier I seem to be.  The biggest and most obvious examples of this have been our moves to London and New York.  Stephen and I said yes to it together. But what happened next was us actively saying yes to whatever we could get our hands on.  The jumping off a cliff I mentioned before?  We did that, a 25-foot cliff into a raging river.  This was not an easy "yes".  Neither one of us wanted to throw ourselves off a cliff with lots of unknowns.  (We are supposed to aim for that dark, swirling corner of the river?  How does one aim oneself while falling?? What happens then?  We are supposed to grab that tiny piece of rope?  Mr. Guide, do you really even know what you're doing???)  That first jump was a doozy.  It was high and the water was freezing.  My entire head filled up with cold, English river water.  But you know what?  With each progressing jump that day it became a blast.  It is easily one of my top memories from the UK.

Stephen, in the white cap, on our Lake District hiking/cliff jumping day:

That was a "yes" to a literal jump, but really everything in life is a yes/no/jump/stay put option.  It's a 50/50 option, but the probability that my "yes" answer will lead me to something I like is a much higher percentage!

I have so-and-so friend who lives in/is traveling to New York, do you want to meet them?  Yes.

There is a charity Christmas toy drive, do you want to participate?  Yes.

All of lower Manhattan is without power after Hurricane Sandy.  Do you want to walk up towards midtown until we find power just to see what we can see?  Yes.

Do you want to join me at my church service?  Yes.

Do you want to keep running and see if we can hit 8 miles today?  Yes.  (with practice)

Do you want to hang out with my kids and get to know children in their crazy, hyper, exhausting, wonderful state?  Yes.

Do you want to climb the 43 flights of stairs up to this castle instead of taking the tram?  Yes.

Do you want to hang upside-down from a trapeze and let go and have a stranger catch you?  Yes.

Do you want to plunge in the freezing cold water in this Turkish bath and then the warm water to see if it really does relax the muscles?  Yes.  (and brrrr!)

Do you want to hold this big owl even though you are scared she will scratch your eyes out?  Yes.

Do you want to talk to this chatty stranger in the dog park even if you are just not in the mood today?  Yes.  (mostly…)

Do you want to blog and actually have people read your thoughts and judge you?  Yes.  (although I appreciate the people who think my blog is terrible not leaving comments)

Do you want to redefine your definition of home with me?  Yes.

Of course not all yesses have led to positive or enjoyable outcomes.  But it feels just as important for me to know what I don't like, what doesn't fit with me, as much as what does.  I feel I should mention again that this philosophy does not come naturally to me.  This is something I had to learn, something I had to teach myself.  It can be a struggle and uncomfortable but that's the point.  This is where all the best stuff in life lives!!  It's not even a matter of the bigger yesses in life, those can be spread out.  Daily, smaller yesses are just as important.  Little steps that take me slightly out of my usual path are what add the color.  I would say that in particular trying to talk to people and getting to know others in my bounce-around life right now has yielded high results.  Not just looking for people exactly like me, but those who aren't.

This is my personal philosophy, and I realized that everyone is a little different and life philosophies don't always translate.  But I do encourage you to do this for a set period of time for yourself, a week or a month or whatever.  I promise it's a fun experiment.

YES.

Frozen Fashion II

The other day we got our first snow… it didn't really stick, but it happened.  And actually it's not even winter yet.  That afternoon it looked like this in Central Park:

Beautiful fall colors!  So fall is still around for a little while longer.  

My wardrobe has changed drastically since moving out of Texas, and I think my coat collection has tripled in size.  There is no longer just one coat for "it's kind of cold outside", I have coats for every drop in 10 degrees with variables for sun, rain, and snow.  Plus, if you spend so much time in a coat, you want a little variety since that is basically your outfit.  I remember a friend of mine from high school (who at the time lived in Chicago, he played for the Bears if you know who I'm talking about), telling me that very thing.  That variety in coats becomes more important since that is pretty much all you wear all the time October clear through 'til May.  I lived in sunny Dallas then so I didn't fully appreciate the need for many multiple coats, but I am living in that reality now, baby!

I have also discovered the fabulousness that are leg warmers.  Like, 1980s-style leg warmers.  Maybe they never went out of style in cold climates because anything that keeps you warm is a go?  Anyway, I don't think I have ever worn them in my life until now.  My friend Amy gave me a purple pair last winter to wear over my running shoes and pants to and from Barry's Bootcamp (which is AWESOME, my favorite workout).  Walking anywhere when it's 15F, even a short distance, wears you down and every little bit of warmth helps.  With leg warmers, the game is in the name.  They keep your legs warm!

My first pair, with my Sperry rain boots which I loved and wore out last winter:

I have since bought two more pairs to rotate around:

The boots I am wearing in that last picture are these from Sorel (the curry/herringbone color).  I also highly recommend these because they are warm, lightweight on your feet, and waterproof!  The laces are really just there for show, because they are a pull-on style.  I broke them in during our trip to Lake Placid and they worked wonders in cold temperatures.  

The temperatures here continue to waver and drop.  I haven't broken out the puffy coat yet because that thing is so warm it needs to be below 35F to wear it.  

New York is so different, summer compared to winter, that it is like living in another country.  And I'm about to get my passport stamped.  

Oscar's Smokehouse

I forgot something about our trip to Lake Placid!  On our way home, driving from Lake Placid back to the city, we stopped in Warrensburg near Lake George and visited Oscar's Smokehouse.  One of the employees at our hotel in Lake Placid said that it was a must-visit.  

It's a family business that has been around since 1943 and serves up some of the best meats and cheeses and accoutrement you will find!  Things like hickory smoked bacon, German sausage with garlic, Adirondack maple syrup, smoked leg of lamb, hickory smoked blue cheese, and (my favorite) XXX aged sharp cheddar cheese.  

We came home with several kinds of bacon and a block of this XXX cheese and it's so delicious!  If you like a sharp cheddar cheese, this will be one of the best you've ever tasted.  We have already gone through the cheese we brought home and I have placed a second order on their website.  They ship anywhere in the U.S., and their products make for great extras to have around during Thanksgiving!  

Lake Placid/Adirondacks

One of my wishes for this year was to explore this area of the country where we live.  This summer I went to East Hampton and Stephen and I just went to Lake Placid, which is in the Adirondacks.  It was really beautiful!

We left Friday morning and took the PATH train from WTC to Hoboken, NJ, and walked to Enterprise just around the corner to get our rental car.  This sounds kinda like a pain but it was really a quick trip and saved us hundreds in rental car fees.  It is so much cheaper to rent a car out of New Jersey than Manhattan! 

The drive up to Lake Placid takes about 5 hours, we were on the tail end of fall but still managed to drive through some absolutely beautiful foliage.  

Trees around Lake George:

Once we got up to Lake Placid, which is pretty far north (closer to Canada than anything else) and higher up in elevation, all of the changing leaves were gone but it was still beautiful.  The name "Adirondack" comes from an Indian word meaning "bark eater", for Indians in the area that used to eat bark when food was scarce in winter.

When we arrived, the first thing we did was take a ride on the hotel's Hacker-Craft boat around the lake.

The view of our hotel from the boat:

We had a boat guide named John - John and his wife retired and moved from California to Lake Placid 6 years ago, where he now has this part-time job of driving hotel guests around in a beautiful boat.  John is clearly a man who loves to talk to people and tell stories, which is perfect for a boat guide, and you just know his wife loves that he has this job and doesn't talk to her in the house all day long.  :)  He was a really nice man!

John the boat guide:

Our fellow boat riders were members of a family there for a wedding, this was the littlest wedding guest:

View of the lake over the front of the boat:

The weather was windy and overcast, but surprisingly warm (58F) for how late it was in the year and how far north we were.  But it was windy because a cold front was blowing in and by the time we left for NYC the temperature had dropped to 27F and it snowed!

The lake is beautiful and crystal clear.  It is fed by over a dozen springs, and the water is completely turned over every 3 days.  This makes for a really cold lake!  Even in the summer the water is quite chilly (65-70F).

John drove us by what he thought was the largest house on the lake - I think owned by someone very high up at Goldman Sachs.  He bought this property as well as the property next door just for the privacy (and never uses the house next door).

John also drove us by the smallest house on the lake:

He said that one summer he was driving a group of "very nice ladies" around on a tour and he passed by this house... where the owner was out sunbathing on his front dock.  Nude.  The owner proceeded to stand up and wave, fully nude, to the "nice ladies".  So now John does not drive by unless he doesn't see a boat out front!  

A boat actually would be a good indication whether or not someone is home - a lot of the properties around the lake have no road access, boat/water access only!  The Adirondacks are a national park that is bigger than Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Glacier Park, and the Great Smokey Mountains combined!  Living inside means you have very limited options about developing your property or the land around it.  You cannot cut down any tree unless it has already naturally fallen (you can trim the limbs), and you cannot expand your dock outside of the original footprint.  The state keeps very close tabs on any and all building and if you go outside of your allotment, you are heavily fined.  John said that one house built a slightly bigger dock, and the state fined them $10,000, made them tear it down, and wouldn't let them build another one for a year.  They are serious!

Us on the lake:

The residents of the area are very protective of the land.  If you want to live in a buzzing, well-developed area, Lake Placid is probably not for you.  John told us the story of Charlie, a man who still lives on the lake.  He owned 2,000 acres of property.  One day the state came to him and asked if they could pay him to build a road through part of his property.  He told them no, that he didn't want his land disturbed.  The state then told Charlie that they were going to take the property through eminent domain and do it anyway.  Charlie said over my dead body!  He donated 1,500 of his 2,000 acres to the state into wilderness; the law says the state has to accept it, and once land goes into wilderness it doesn't come back out.  So Charlie sacrificed ownership to keep the land pristine, and the state had to figure something else out.  

Where we stayed had little lakefront cabins complete with Adirondack chairs out front and a wood-burning fireplace.  The perfect antidote to the city!

Cocktail hour view from our cabin:

Dinner at the hotel:

The next day we rented bikes and rode them around the lake, off-roading style.  Stephen loves mountain bike riding.  I love the mountains, I love hiking, and I love bikes, but I am not good at getting those things to combine.  It's not my most coordinated effort.  But this trip I got the hang of it a little more and we had a great time.

Man-made bench in the woods:

The view from the bench:

Riding around the lake gives you the best views!

That night back at the hotel, there was a man there who was a bird of prey expert and he had an owl and a hawk with him.  I got to hold the owl!  She looked right into my eyes.  Her handler said she loves to be stroked on her beak and the feathers right above it, which I did with my free hand, and her little eyes closed and she looked exactly like my dog when I scratch his chin.  

She's so good with people because the first part of her life she spent in a school around children and has grown up with lots of noise and hands around her.

Where she likes to sit:

He wouldn't let anyone near the hawk, he said "if it looks like she's sizing you up, she is. She has been known to go after deer, so she is not afraid of you!"

Our last morning was clear but very cold:

We had gotten a dusting of snow overnight and it was now 27F!

Whiteface Mountain in the background: 

Lake Placid was the site of the 1932 and 1980 winter Olympics, and driving back out we saw the 1980 ski jump which looked SO HIGH:

One of my favorite things at our hotel was a cocktail called the Buck, made with Gentleman Jack, which is my favorite!  

If you want a good autumn drink, here is the recipe:

2 oz Gentleman Jack

1.5 oz Hard Apple Cider

0.5 Tbs cinnamon simple syrup, or to taste

Shake and serve over ice with a cinnamon stick

Dads are the Original Hipsters

Dads are the Original Hipsters is a website dedicated to showing all the current "hipsters" that they are late to the party.  "Sorry hipsters, your dad was the original hipster and he was killing it back in the day."  I just saw this picture for the first time, taken by my dad's lifelong friend, William Kruidenier, and I think it's fantastic.  It's my unofficial submission to the website.

This is the greatest picture ever.  Everyone in the world was jealous of his hair.  Joe Cool.

Movember

It's Movember!  If you're not familiar with what that is, it's a world-wide charity drive in the month of November benefiting various issues in men's health, most notably prostate cancer.  To raise money, men grow mustaches all month long (thus "Movember") and raise money for donations.  And with the (worthy) high profile of breast cancer month and women's health, I think it's great that men's health is highlighted in November!

Stephen has participated in Movember.  It is a very worth cause!  He raised money and exceeded his goals! 

I hope he never grows another mustache again.  

We will donate!  Will will participate in other ways!  But I truly hope to never see another mustache gracing his face.  Why?  Because it looks like this:

These are from November 2011, the night he shaved it off, giving his best "mustache" look:

Don't get me wrong, I think Stephen is very handsome in any light, but I don't think a mustache allows him to be... what does Oprah say?... his "best self".

Toward the end of Stephen's Movember we went to Paris with our friends Alex and Candice.  Our first night there we had one of the best dining experiences, if not the best, in my life.  We got dressed up and had a 3-hour meal at Le Cinq inside of the George V Four Seasons Paris.  It was amazing!  We had endless courses and wine... Ryan Seacrest and Julianne Hough were a few tables over... at the end of the meal yet another dessert car was brought over for us to choose from a variety of small delights to take home with us... the last thing they presented was some kind of superfancy glacier water in a superfancy cobalt blue crystal goblet... we were surrounded by fresh flowers, crystal chandeliers, more waiters than diners, a Parisian courtyard with the night sky... and Stephen's mustache.  

Us with Candice outside of the George V:

Like I said, Stephen is a very handsome man and I love him unconditionally!  And I am so proud of him for participating in such a worthy cause!  I just kinda prefer he show his support in another way next time.

Love, you babe!!!!!  

xoxoxo

P.S., the very next weekend Ryan Gosling was in Paris.  Why did I have to see Ryan Seacrest?  I really would have preferred the other Ryan...

Sandy Anniversary

Hello!  I don't know if anybody is still out there, but I'm back!  My last blog entry was when the weather in NYC finally turned warmer, and apparently I've been so busy staying outside and enjoying the fabulous spring and summer that I forgot to blog.  It's now fall, and I have to say I love living in a place that has all four seasons.  Spring, summer and fall here are all wonderful... you already know how I feel about winter.

The past couple of weeks I have been feeling very uneasy, almost anxious, about the weather changing and the coming winter.  More so than I should, really.  I finally realized why - because last year winter started off with a bang:  Hurricane Sandy.  Being that it was our first full winter here in NYC, I was subconsciously associating the start of winter with a giant superstorm/hurricane coming to town.  After I figured out what I was doing, and could tell myself that it's probably not going to happen again this year (or any other year we're here, God willing), I felt much better!

Today is the anniversary of when Sandy hit, and being that I never blogged about it I figure now is a good time.

Sandy hit the night of Monday, October 29.  The preceding weekend I had spent in Nashville with my BFF Merritt.  Her wonderful husband, Dave, had flown me to Nashville to surprise her for her birthday.

Surprise!

The day I flew to Nashville I was aware of the hurricane in the Atlantic (kind of), but not paying much attention to it.  By Saturday night it was pretty obvious that the storm had turned northwest and was heading towards New York.  I was scheduled to fly out of Nashville back to New York sometime on Sunday afternoon, but instead I decided to head to the airport early Sunday morning to try and get on an earlier flight.  It was either that or not get home to New York for a while.  

I did get on a flight, it was the last one to New York before they shut down that route.  My plane was so small - rows of just one seat on the left and two seats on the right.  The storm system was already disrupting the air even though it hadn't yet made landfall, and that tiny plane had such a turbulent ride into Newark.  The flight attendant was handing out free booze to anyone who wanted it.  I took two bottles of bourbon!  

When we landed, Newark airport was slammed full of people trying to fly out.  Not me, I wanted to be home!  I didn't want to leave Stephen and Grady alone; if they were going to have to struggle through something I wanted to be there, too.  I caught a taxi into the city and have never had better (nonexistent) traffic into Manhattan.  The other side of the road with people evacuating was a different story.  

When I got to our apartment, Stephen had already packed a bag for himself and Grady, and he had booked us a hotel room on the Upper East Side.  Our apartment building, which is located in TriBeCa, sits in the city's flood zone and we were under a mandatory evacuation.  Mandatory meaning that the police aren't going to come and drag you out, but if you stay and something happens to you, don't expect quick service.  So Sunday night, one day ahead of the storm, we headed to the hotel.  Stephen decided that it would be kinda fun to use this time as a staycation, so he booked a great room at a nice hotel.  And they accepted dogs!  

I stole Grady's bottle of Fiji water for myself:

We didn't really need to be in a hotel that first night weather-wise, the storm didn't hit until the next day.  But I am so glad we got out of our neighborhood early because after the storm hit and the flooding was so bad, everyone wanted a room and so many were booked up.

Monday, October 29

I took Grady out for a long walk in the afternoon a couple hours before the storm hit, we were on the Upper East Side near the Met.  This is 5th Ave how it normally looks, and then 5th Ave how I saw it a couple hours before the hurricane:  

Ghost town:

Grady on the normally-crowded steps of the Met: 

Empty Madison Ave:

The subways were closed.  Buses and commuter trains were closed  The tunnels and bridges were closing.  Taxis and pedestrians were off the streets.  It was CRAZY how still New York was.

Monday night the hurricane blew in and we were glued to the TV.  We could hear the wind and the rain, but what we were most concerned about was the flooding coming from the Hudson River.  Our apartment building is just a few blocks from the Hudson, across the West Side Hwy, in the flood zone.  The Hudson had a 13-ft storm surge that flooded most of Lower Manhattan. 

The storm as it hit:

The day after the hurricane we were due to check out of our hotel, but the city wasn't letting anyone back into Lower Manhattan because the flooding was so bad.  Initially we were told by a hotel employee that we had to check out of our room because someone else was checking in at 1:00 p.m.  We went through a couple of hours of pure panic because we couldn't find a single available hotel room and we had no place to go.  Eventually the manager knocked on our door and told us that due to the emergency situation no one would have to leave, whoever was in the hotel could stay.  Hooray!  It's funny, because Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber live in our neighborhood and I often see them walking around with their kids, and they had evacuated to the very same hotel!  They had their little dog with them, too.

Outside of our hotel after the storm:

Even though Upper Manhattan wasn't affected by the flooding or power loss, it was still crippled because there was no easy going in and out of the city for a few days - very few food delivery trucks.  Restaurants opened and served whatever they had until it was gone.  Menus were obsolete, they would just tell you whatever options they had left.  Which was fine, at least we had food and power.  Gasoline was of very short supply - the storm surge damaged the local supply terminals and gas stations ran dry.  There were people fighting in lines for gas.  

Flooding in the subways:

Two days later as the water receded we were finally able to go home.  We ordered an Uber car, which charged us 2.5x the normal rate (A LOT) to take us home.  We had to though, we couldn't walk because we had 2 suitcases, a dog kennel, and Grady.  Once we got to our building the power was out, and we had to climb 13 flights of stairs with all of that crap.   Before the week was out I would say we climbed those 13 flights of stairs about 15 times.  We made Grady do it, too, we didn't carry him the whole time!  

Flooding in Lower Manhattan:

The nights back downtown were so eerie.  The whole of Lower Manhattan had no electricity and the first thing we could see lit up was the Empire State Building, 48 blocks away.  It was a little creepy to walk around in such darkness, but Grady still needs to be walked even in an emergency.

The day after we got back into our apartment we set out to walk back up north just to survey the damage.  Water was being pumped out of buildings, and that continued for weeks.  Underground parking garages were flooded and cars inside were lost.  There is an underground parking garage right next to our apartment building, which flooded, and basically saved our building from the water.

Water being pumped out of a building:

The National Guard was here, it was so strange to see them parked on NYC streets:  

Food trucks lined up to feed people:

Some places had charging stations available for anyone to use:

That afternoon we walked all the way from TriBeCa to Grand Central Station before we found a street with electricity.

A very important delivery, seriously one of the first trucks I saw on our street:

We finally got our power back on in our neighborhood on Saturday, 5 days after the hurricane, which really wasn't so bad.  We were so lucky, our building didn't flood and our neighborhood didn't catch on fire.  So many people had their homes completely destroyed.  Entire neighborhoods are gone.  At $68 billion, this was the second-costliest hurricane in U.S. history (after Katrina).  It killed 160 people in the U.S., and about 290 total.

There are parts of Lower Manhattan that are still damaged and not up and running from the hurricane.  One of Stephen's company's buildings located in the Financial District was so badly damaged that they just moved.  

Because Sandy was so big, it stretched into Canada and swirled some of that freezing nor'easter weather down into New York; a week after Sandy we got our first blizzard because of this superstorm swirl.  

Snow leftover from the nor'easter:

So that was the beginning of winter last year.  Not awesome.  This year is going to be better!  Bring it on!