Summer vs. Winter - Song on Repeat

There's a song called "See You in the Spring" by the Courtyard Hounds (Martie Maguire and Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks).  It's a duet with Jakob Dylan about two people who are in love but kind of living different lives in different places.  It's also a debate about which is worse - winter in Chicago or summer in Texas.  Right now I'm firmly on the side of winter is worse ("that wind/it just ain't right"), but the argument that summer in Texas can be brutal is a valid one ("that heat/feels like I'm on fire").  

Whichever side you come down on we can all agree that spring is the best!

(P.S. I miss the Dixie Chicks.)

Celebrity Sighting

This is my biggest celebrity sighting to date... and it's a double combo.

Beyoncé and Jay-Z sitting courtside at a Brooklyn Nets game.

Here are my pictures from my phone...

And a better, "real" picture...

Wow, she is gorgeous.  God gave with both hands to that woman.

Winter Blahs

Blah.  That's really all I have to say right now.  I am in winter survival mode.  I dream about sunlight.  I actually had a dream that I was sitting in the sun and just soaking it in.  I feel like a vampire missing the sun.

Actually, I feel like the little girl in "All Summer in a Day", a short story by Ray Bradbury (one of my favorite authors).  The short version of the story is about a school of children on another planet, Venus, where there are constant rainstorms.  They never see the sun, except for one hour every seven years.  None of the children remember what the sun was like, except one little girl named Margot who moved to Venus from Earth just five years earlier.  Margot tries to describe the sun to the other school children, but they don't believe her and they bully her and lock her in a closet.  While she is in the closet, wouldn't you know, is the one hour that the sun appears after seven years of rain.  The teacher rushes the students out to enjoy the sunshine, not knowing about Margot locked in the dark closet.  It's not until the rain starts again an hour later that the students remember her, and let her out of the closet.  She missed the sun completely.

Isn't that a happy story?

I feel like I'm in the middle of seven years of rain, only instead of just rain it's snow and wind and below freezing temperatures.  And of course very little sunshine.

Blah.

Here are some pictures I've captured over the winter… even if they are pretty you should always keep in mind that I am FREEZING while taking them (yes, I will complain through this entire blog).

If you don't live in a walking city where it snows in the winter, you are more likely to think snow is pretty (like I used to!).  And it is pretty while it's falling.  But in big cities like New York with all of the commuting and pollution, the snow quickly turns into slushy sludge.  Imagine a mudslide, only colder.  It's like that.

Puddles are always deeper than they look:

A woman trying to push a stroller through a slushy intersection:

It has been so cold that Hudson River has frozen over more than once.

Little G exploring in his snow day outfit:

Snow coming down overnight on Greenwich St. in Tribeca:

Bicycle snow sculpture:

Sidewalk down Greenwich St. alongside Washington Market Park:

Washington Market Park:

Rockefeller Park next to the Hudson, another snow storm rolling in at dusk:

Grady and I climbing snow piles on an afternoon walk:

These pictures are from the same afternoon that we climbed the snow piles.  Stephen was out walking with us and on our way home we stopped at a coffee shop.  Stephen had gone in and I was waiting outside with Grady when I looked down and could see true snowflakes landing on my clothes.  I took these pictures just with my iPhone, they were huge!  And so beautiful! 

Ok, so winter does have something cool going on with those beautiful, magical snow flakes.  But then they turn into piles of frozen sludge.  

Lounge chairs surrounded by snow, not sand… my neighborhood is in the background:

This past weekend we had FABULOUS weather.  It hit 50ºF and was sunny and it felt like spring!  It was our one hour of sunshine in seven years of winter!

Walking down Bowery:

But I'm back in my dark closet now, it snowed today, there is more snow and temps in the teens in the forecast, and when I ask Siri about the weather she actually says, "It doesn't look good…".  Yeah, thanks Siri.  Very helpful.  I hate you.

Golden Marriage Therapy

Did you watch any of the Golden Globes this past Sunday night?  My husband usually hates that kind of thing, but for some reason we had the TV turned on to that channel and watched part of it.  (Well I did, Stephen looked at cars online.)  

There was a moment in the broadcast that I wasn't expecting.  It was a bit of marriage therapy.  Did you notice it?  It came out of the mouth of one of Texas' golden boys, Matthew McConaughey.  The free marriage therapy starts at 2:08, but here is the whole speech just so you can hear his drawl.

Basically, he thanks his lovely wife.  Not just for being his lovely wife, but for "kicking" him out the door each morning to work on this big project for 3 years (the roll he just won for, and lost 45 pounds for).  Kicking him out the door saying " 'Go get it!  Go get it my man, my king!'  Yes, ma'am!"

I loved this.  Not only did it display a strong and loving marriage, it showed the importance of supporting your spouse.  Verbally and otherwise.  Without a doubt, I believe in you and I believe you can do this.  Now go show the whole world. 

I would like to say that I am an expert at this, but I know there is definitely room for improvement.  I try, but I doubt I get it right all of the time.  But look at what that kind of support can do!  He noticed, the whole time of filming, he noticed.  He remembered.  And he thanked her publicly for it.  

Your partner may not be able to stand on a stage on national TV to say thank you, but it's not felt any less when that kind of support is given.

Marriage therapy from Matthew McConaughey.  All-riiiight, all-riiiight, all-riiiight.

Foggy Day

This was New York this morning:

Looking from Brooklyn:

I was walking Grady at almost noon and the fog was clearing, but still so thick I thought there was a big fire somewhere.  

So pretty!

Saturn: Put a ring on it.

In May 2012 we went to our friends' Dallas and Lindsey's wedding in gorgeous Scottsdale, Arizona.  I love this part of the country!  My mom lived in New Mexico for a while before I was born, which she loved, and I think she passed it on to me in utero.  

Here are a few pictures of that beautiful desert wedding:

Me and Stephen before the ceremony:

The happy couple:

This was my favorite picture from the wedding.  Mandy and Lauren, who have been friends with the bride since college, were glowingly beautiful, pregnant bridesmaids.  Who wouldn't want to be this beautiful in flowy dresses while pregnant?  Their babies were later born within 24 hours of each other.

It was a great weekend, and it also coincided with our 5-year wedding anniversary, so we took a few extra days and drove up to Sedona.  Sedona is other worldly.

While we were in Sedona, the hotel where we stayed hired a scientist with a giant telescope to set up on their grounds one night so that the guests could look at the stars.  The telescope was so big that we had to climb up a ladder to look through the lens.  The first thing he showed us was the the moon.  I looked through the lens and it was like was standing in a crater, that telescope was amazing!  I swear I could feel the movement of the Earth while looking through that thing.

I love astronomy and could have stood out there all night.  He showed us stars and planets, and for the grand finale he showed us something without telling us what it was but said "every person standing here will know exactly what it is".  The first person walked up the ladder and looked in the lens, and immediately said, "Saturn!"

Standing on the surface of Earth and looking straight at Saturn was transportive!  I felt like I was going to float right off our planet and out into space, like I could touch Saturn.  

Just recently, NASA released a new picture of Saturn taken from the unmanned Cassini spacecraft.  It is a special shot because it includes not only a close-up of Saturn and its rings, but out in the distance, photo-bombing Saturn's beauty shot, is Earth.  That tiny bright speck is us.

Hello, Earth.

The view of Earth captured here was my view of Saturn, only in reverse.  When I was staring up at Saturn, it was staring back at me.

This particular picture was taken on July 19, 2013, a day that NASA designated as "Wave at Saturn" day.  They encouraged people to take pictures of themselves waving at Saturn to be "captured" as Cassini took this photo of Earth.  Thousands of people participated, and NASA put together a collage of the event.  Click here to see the Earthings waving at Saturn.  This is a hi-res file and might take a while to load, but it's worth it!  Click the collage to see the details.

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.