Powerless

Last night, dear Basil and I were just wrapping up our homemade burrito buffet dinner when the wind started kicking up. The good weatherfolk everywhere had been telling us that a monster cold front was headed to DC, sure to bring some ass-kicking thunderstorms and much-needed relief from the oppressive heat that has been plaguing the East Coast all week.

Well, long before the rain ever showed up, the power went out. We scrambled for flashlights (finding one big one and three small ones) and candles (finding two tapers, one jar and several tealights), and we threw open all of our window treatments to let in the last remaining sunlight. Feeling that we had sufficient lighting to continue our evening fairly normally, we bathed Petunia by candlelight (it was the first time in months that she hasn't screamed bloody murder when we rinsed her hair; maybe she enjoyed the mood lighting?), opened the bedroom windows to hopefully get some sort of breeze going and settled in to spend the evening like the Amish.

I was two-thirds of the way through the new Harry Potter book, so I didn't mind having an excuse to sit and plow through the exciting ending. I was a little irked at not being able to do the remaining laundry I had planned to tackle, as it created an obstacle to packing for our trip to Cleveland (which begins tonight). But Harry proved to be a great distraction, and I figured I'd make up the lost chores today.

I didn't think, however, that I would make them up this morning. Or this afternoon. See, as I was finishing my bowl of Cranberry-Vanilla Crunch this morning, the president of my association called to say that our offices had no power. If there was anything pressing that I felt I could do without my computer or air conditioning, I could come on in, but otherwise he was telling staff to hold off on coming in until the electricity was working.

Well, now it is after lunch and still NOTHING. The phones and voicemail system aren't even working, so I can't check messages or get a status update from the poor unlucky souls who came in early today and are probably sitting in the office playing cards. Our server is, of course, offline because of the outage, so no email either. The work I had planned to do today (most of it time-sensitive stuff that will be needed tomorrow morning in my absence) is getting stale faster than a grocery-store baguette.

And worst of all, I feel like I can't stray far from home in case my office calls to say "Hey, we're online again...get your ass in here!" Basil tells me I should call the president to let him know I've got my cell phone and then head out somewhere fun, but really I feel like if I have this free time, I should stay home and use it to finish packing for our trip (laundry is thankfully done).

In the morning, I was kind of motivated to make lemonade out of my lemons, but right now, I'm just bored and annoyed. I'm literally sitting around in my skirt and sweater, shoes and jewelry (the FlyLady would be so proud...dressed down to my shoes), just waiting for the call to go into work . Somehow, I get the sense that work ain't happening today.

And because I love my husband, I am being nice enough not to watch any of our new Netflix arrivals in his absence. Instead, I'm just looking for ways to kill time. (You should expect about eight more posts today, unless I get lost in the bowels of online shopping or TLC.)

Painting Possibilities

Autumn White or Naive Peach? Icy Mist or Mineral Water? Warm Glow or Summer Harvest?

We have paint chips, people! In three rooms of our house, taped up to the wall for evaluation in various kinds of light. Let the fun begin.

There are a few odd, small experiences in life that bring me surprising amounts of pleasure: studying maps, debating baby names and evaluating paint chips. I think in all three it's the incredible possibility I feel. It's like there's a whole world of infinite choices out there, and all I have to do is decide on something to set a series of events in motion. Like choosing the route, the name, the color will actually influence the future of the trip, the person, the space. It's like the right answer is there, and it's just waiting for me to divine it.

In our last house, we had the luxury of living in our apartment almost two full months after we closed on the new property. There was plenty of time for projects and decorating. We were able to take our time choosing paint colors and then did all the painting in the evenings and on the weekends, when the rooms were still blissfully void of furniture. Before we moved into our little two bedroom house, we painted the master bedroom Hidden Honey (deep warm gold), the tiny galley kitchen Morning Light (very pale butter yellow), the upstairs bathroom Universal Grey (pale smoky gray) and an accent wall in the basement family room Basil Bouquet (medium grass green). When I was pregnant, the nursery got coated with Dreamy Peach (pale cotton candy pink). A year after moving in, we finally tackled the monumental task of painting the combined living/dining room, settling on Blue Willow (medium cool, gray-blue).

(If you haven't noticed, I remember the names of paint colors the way that other people remember the names of their cars.)

By the time we moved out, I really liked our house.

On the second round of our home-buying experience, we didn't have any luxury on overlapping residences. We took posession of our new place exactly twelve hours before moving in. (We were lucky to have the house clean!)

Some people would have left things in boxes until they painted and decorated to their taste, but my Virgo nature demanded tackling the task of unpacking and organizing first. And because the previous owners had pretty good taste in decorating, I didn't feel a burning desire to change anything. There was no room that made me want to claw my own face everyday.

Well, it's been almost three months. We're unpacked. We're settled. We are comfortable in the space. We know how we use the rooms. But they still don't feel entirely ours. It feels like we've settled very comfortably into the house of the family who lived there previously.

So it's time to paint.

Not every room, and not in a big rush. We've decided that for starters, we'll probably do the guest room first...some sort of light earthy peach so that my grandmother's beautiful quilt will take center stage, and the color will be neutral enough so that some day (no hurry!) when we have another baby, we can decorate for either a girl or a boy without repainting. After that, we'll tackle Petunia's room (very pale, icy blue) and then the kitchen (muted mustard yellow).

But for now, I've got fun little squares of color tacked up on the walls for studying in the lamplight, the morning light, the evening light. To evaluate against the furniture and the appliances.

The possibilities are narrowing with each little chip that I toss in the trash, but it's exciting to try and discern the color destiny of our new house.

Oui Oui Oui All the Way Home

Sustaining a healthy relationship with food is an important part of being happy with the life I'm leading. What I eat has a big impact on how I look and how I feel, and for better or for worse, those things matter to me.

(From the Jim Carrey movie Liar, Liar: KID: "My teacher says that real beauty is on the inside." JIM CARREY: "That's just something ugly people say.")

Seriously, I don't like myself very much when I'm busting out of my clothes or sporting fat rolls under a fitted shirt. Similarly, I find it hard to get through the day when I'm bloated, starving, hyped up or tired. So I try to pay close attention to what I'm eating and why. A few years ago, really fine-tuning my eating habits had the glorious effect of my losing 30+ pounds (okay, with a lot of regular exercise). And now, my chiropractor has suggested that maybe I'm sensitive to certain types of additives (specifically, MSG), which may be contributing to my annoying migraines.

So it was with a keen eye that I eagerly read "French Women Don't Get Fat" on the plane trip to Portland. The CEO of Clicquot - the champagne maker - whose Frenchy name escapes me except that it begins with an M (don't all the best ones?), basically says,

"Look, you fat Americans. You don't understand food at
all. It's a source of pleasure, not something to be feared or
loathed. Almost anything in moderation is okay. However, you need to get off the processed-premade-foods wagon and start cooking from scratch, you need to use fresh seasonal ingredients, and you need to learn to exercise a little restraint when it comes to portions and frequency. Also, get off your fat gringo asses and walk whenever and wherever you can."

I found myself scanning my memory for French women I had known or encountered, and yeah, pretty much they're all tiny. And the ones whom I've known well, they generally seem to eat and live the way Mme CEO describes. A French party will have tons of sweets on hand, but the French ladies will only eat a bit or two of each. Us Americans? We'll take one of EVERYTHING, thank you, and eat until we reach a nice Homer Simpson state of drooling, glazey-eyed bloat.

The good news is, much of what the author wrote seemed to jibe with what I already think and the way I generally try to eat and live. Even if I haven't mastered every trick or technique (my palette needs more than three bites of ice cream), I didn't find her ideas to be off-base or offensive.

In particular, I liked her comment that French women eat three courses for a meal, but the portions are small and the foods are varied. So a French woman will get lots of colors and textures and tastes in her meal. Americans are much more likely to have a lot of one thing, eg, a neverending bowl of pasta.

We had a good friend over for dinner on Sunday and made a meal that would have pleased Mme CEO: a first course of green salad with fresh lettuce, a little avocado, tomato and cucumber, a few chickpeas and a homemade white wine vinaigrette; a second course of fish in white wine/cream sauce with poached green grapes, sauteed red skin potatoes; and (from the book) grilled marinated peaches with ice cream (Ben & Jerry's Uncanny Cashew). Oh, and some chardonnay all around and then a little spot of coffee with dessert.

It was absolutely the best meal I've had in ages. And I think a big part of it was the effort put in. Yknow, getting out the real linens, dirtying up extra dishes (not eating the salad off the dinner plate). It made it feel more like a restaurant, and it certainly made the meal more well paced. The food was also fresh, and everything was tasty. At the end, I felt so satisfied but not stuffed at all.

So I don't think I'll be sporting a beret anytime soon (though I was fond of them in college until that damn whore Lewinsky ruined them for everyone with dark hair FOREVER), but I will be trying to think a little more en Francais when I'm cooking or reaching for something to eat.

At the very least, I'm hoping that I will start eating fresher, better tasting, healthier foods and feeling a little better...more energized, fewer headaches, less bloated sometimes. But just maybe I'll be looking like one of those skinny, snooty French chicks before you can say "Coq au vin"!

Sea to Shining Sea

Holy cow. Where did the past three weeks go?

Oh, right. I've literally been from one coast to another with a brief interlude between trips for laundry and mail sorting. While exhausted from all of it, I feel really lucky to have visited two oustanding destinations: the Outer Banks of North Carolina and Portland, Oregon.

The Outer Banks, of course, was the much anticipated beach trip. It was a blast. Mostly pleasant weather, a great rental house, good friends and lots of relaxin'. Really, we enjoyed ourselves last year when Petunia was still a baby, but this year (with a 21-month-old) was SO fun. She absolutely loved playing in the sand and walking on the beach. We took her to the dunes and let her watch kites. She played in the pool with her friends and stood on the balcony overlooking Beach Road, blowing bubbles and watching motorcycles. Basil and I did plenty of reading and swimming and lounging, and having a chilly alcoholic beverage in hand pretty much from morning til night made the days just fly by. (See Yummy Yucky for our Whiskey Slushie recipe. I found this drink to be an appropriate all-day libation...from late morning to evening without any trouble transitioning!)

And then it was off to Portland for work. A short trip, by cross-country standards, with half of my three-day adventure devoted to travel and half to being in the city. But man did I fall in love with that place.

I've never been to the Pacific Northwest, and I guess it's a good thing. If I were younger and unattached (read: NO FAMILY), I might have just picked up and moved. Seriously, the downtown was so clean and pedestrian/transit-friendly. The scenery was gorgeous, with all those evergreen trees surrounding the clean rivers and the mountains in the background. The weather was perfect...cool mornings but warm days. And the most amazing coffee I've ever had. Those people take their java SERIOUSLY, like Californians with wine.

There were very few stuffy pin-striped suits, and people riding public transit didn't have fourteen kinds of personal technology hanging off their belts. People seemed patient and polite. On the whole, a far cry from the self-important, go-go-go culture of DC.

Really, when Friday morning rolled around, and it was time for me to leave, I wished that my family was on their way to the West Coast instead. I regretted that we hadn't had the time or money to have tacked a week onto my business trip and driven around to the Williamette Valley wine country, done a little hiking, seen the coast, explored more of the city of Portland itself, etc.

Getting out and seeing more of our fair nation is always something I enjoy. So much of the time, our family travels involve heading to see our relatives, who live in greater Cincinnati and greater Cleveland. While I've got nothing against the I-71 corridor of Ohio, it gets a little monotonous sometimes. Not only does the traveling itself feel a little stale (memorizing the Pennsylvania Turnpike is NOT a good thing), but we get kind of bound into our families' ruts and comfort zones, always visiting the same restaurants and doing the same things. One of the great things about going somewhere we don't know anyone is that we are free to explore and take in new sights, smells, sounds and tastes. (A little tip: Berries in Oregon are incredible.)

Unfortunately, our vacation time accruals and our family budget do not allow for a ton of excursions. But I'll be in Seattle next month for business, and Basil and I are planning a trip to Vancouver, BC, for our five-year anniversary next spring (which will piggyback on a business trip to the same location...clever me!).

Anyway, all of this is really whetting my appetite to get up and go a little more. Unfortunately, unless the Trip Fairy (no, not one of those dolls from the Gay Orbitz ads) sticks some airline tickets under my pillow sometime soon, we'll have to just wait patiently for opportunities to travel. In the meantime, if you've been someplace fabulous, tell me about it so I can live vicariously!