That's cold

I meant to catch up with postings this weekend about going to see Avenue Q with the Michigan alumni club, and about taking advantage of New York's Restaurant Week -- but those will just have to wait.

I woke up Saturday morning with a summer cold, so I've spent the weekend sniffling through a sort of mental fog. It's not that I didn't have time to write, just that in my dimwitted state it sounded like more exertion than I could handle.

Upcoming in the next two weeks: work trips to Kansas City, LA and Baltimore.
Goal: get better before then, because flying with a stuffed-up nose and ears is nearly as awful as flying hung over.

While you wait oh-so-anxiously to get my other reports, here's a photo of our first guests -- Bob and Kathleen, stopping by NYC on their way to visit Bob's family. This is the view from our roof patio, with the sun setting over the Hudson River.

Vacation, all I ever wanted ...

We just returned from four days at the far east end of Long Island, in a beach community called Montauk.

If you go past the uber-rich party spots of the Hamptons, you get to Montauk, which feels how I imagine Fort Lauderdale might have in the 1960s -- low-slung motor lodges with names like the Surfside and the Beachcomber, and groovy little restaurants like Mr. John's Pancake House and Shagwong. Not even Starbucks has penetrated this town that somehow balances vacationing city folk and commercial fishing docks.

We picked our vacation time sort of at random. My boss wanted vacation requests for the summer within a week or two of when I started, and we had no idea what summer had in store for us, so we just chose a July weekend and an August one. We got really lucky. It was about 100 in the city, and almost that in Montauk, but with the ocean breeze and swimming in the ocean or pool, it felt more tolerable.

I ate roughly my body weight in seafood, mostly lobster, but with some oysters and mussels thrown in for extra girth. I also tempted the skin cancer gods by lying on the beach in full view of the shiny orange orb.

Who knew we were such trendsetters?

Almost 10 years ago, I invited some girls over to my apartment for my first attempt at this crazy idea I'd heard of -- everyone cleans out their closet and brings over their castoffs, and everyone looks over the other girls' goods to find potential treasure in that trash.

It turned into a tradition, with girlfriends getting together a couple times a year for clothing swapping and potluck dinner.

Frequently I'd get together with a friend and she'd proudly show off that she was wearing a sweater or jeans or something she'd picked up at the last party. Other times I'd get an email saying "I need another party. The bag in my closet is almost full and I've got a lot to get rid of."

It's a thing of beauty when you can pick up a few new treats absolutely free, while simultaneously clearing out all the underbrush. I love the feeling of a closet where everything that's in there might actually be something I'd wear. Erica uses this rule: is this something I'd want to have my picture taken in? I love that. Plus, when your new items are free, it's liberating to try something you might not pay for -- and if it doesn't work out, you take it back to the next party for someone else to try.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the story in the NY Times about clothing swap parties actually becoming a business!
Jo, Kat, Margaret, Katie, Saejin, Mary Jean, Joy, Laura -- did you realize we were part of a national craze?

I haven't yet figured out how to bring clothing parties to NYC. My apartment is too small, you can't exactly bring over 8 bags on the subway, and I think potlucks are completely out of the question here. Hmmmm...

Back online

Today, I am officially back in the 21st century -- John and Jeff worked hard this morning to set up a new router, and tonight, I have wireless internet again. How quickly we get addicted to our new toys: wireless laptops and Treos with email and various and sundry other gadgets.

Tonight we went to a University of Michigan Entertainment Coalition happy hour. Even with only a week's notice, we had about 20 people turn up and that was really encouraging on a hot night in the traditionally slow summertime.

Then we walked home and it was sweltering. I'd been fooled into thinking the evening was really cooling off, because the happy hour was on a roof deck with a really pleasant breeze. Down on the street level, though, it was still h-o-t. What a kooky experience to just be drenched and swampy walking home through Central Park after dark.

Now John's on his computer, I'm on mine, and we're just two nerds enjoying our spacious 695 square foot estate.

I-tal-ia!

My cousin, Anna, recently sent me an email that said something like "you must be on vacation."
I can take a hint. I know I haven't been posting regularly -- we went a few weeks with no Internet at our new place, and even now, our router isn't working so I still can't connect on my computer. I only get to check my email when I boot John off his computer, and I haven't been keeping up with the blog.

But enough of this whining. We've just had a really festive weekend.

First we had John's old roomie Jeff, and his sig O Barbara over for an after work happy hour Friday, followed by dinner at John's favorite Chinese, Ollie's.
Saturday during the day, John hung out with Jeff and I indulged my nesting instinct -- I put up a towel shelf in bathroom and tried to bring some order to the kitchen. (In their infinite wisdom, whoever did the kitchen cabinets didn't install any that are deep enough to accommodate frying pans, so we've been keeping them in the oven. Not a great permanent solution.) In the evening, Michigan b-school alumni chartered a doubledecker bus for a three-hour tour ... a three-hour tour ... of the city. We chatted with some U-M folks, learned some about NYC, then had dinner at a fun cajun place in Hell's Kitchen.
Today we went down to the Village to watch the final game of the World Cup. Our last name being Tebeau, we were cheering for France but we were definitely in the minority -- most of the bar was emotionally rooting for Italy. Or as they said it in a boisterous cheer "EEE-tal-ia!"

Here are our friends Rick and Gladys right in the heart of Little Italy as the fans went wild after the win.





Earlier this week, we celebrated our first Fourth of July in the city by watching what's said to be the biggest fireworks display in the world. Macy's foots the bill for three barges side by side in the East River, and it's sort of like synchronized swimming -- all three of them shoot off the same thing at the same time.
We'd been warned that the crowds would be horrific, but thankfully it rained and thundered until about an hour before we left to claim our spot and it seemed that scared off the faint of heart. Thanks to our fabulous NYC guide, Cecil, and his sig O Rebecca, we got a great spot and really enjoyed the Fourth.

Of course, truth be told, we'd seen fireworks just a few days before. From our apartment. I was sitting in the living room trying to figure out what that noise was when John yelled from the bedroom to look out the window. Fireworks were going off over Central Park a block away and we had a perfect view.









Last weekend we went out to Coney Island, home of the old-school roller coaster, the Cyclone, and some of the best known pizza in New York, Totonno's. We had plans to enjoy a day lounging on the beach in the sunshine ... but the mood was sort of wrecked when some guys next to us on the beach lost control of their volleyball when I wasn't watching, and it smashed me in the nose. My nose went numb, then started burning. Some of you know that I was in a wicked car accident in high school that destroyed my nose and I was nervous that breaking a nose that's held together with paper clips and bubble gum was going to mean serious trouble. Thankfully, all I had as a souvenir the next day was a tender bruise and some pics of John wading into the ocean.







It hasn't been all play. We've spent a lot of time unpacking, or perhaps more accurately, trying to figure out where to pack/stash/hide our goodies. We put our bed on risers, for example, so we can fit our suitcases and some other junk underneath. We've made numerous trips to Bed Bath and Beyond a block away to buy various organizing things -- plastic storage drawers for under the bathroom sink, closet shelf racks so we can stack higher and deeper in the closet, all that sort of thing.






And now for a little virtual tour of our apartment, in mid-unpack ...