giving thanks for photos

I grew up watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade every year. On a day when my football-loving dad typically controlled the TV, it seemed that much more appealing. I'm not sure I'd even seen Miracle on 34th Street -- the best commercial the parade ever got -- and even so, the parade thrilled me. All those enormous balloons and marching bands on the streets of New York seemed exciting and exotic.

So last year John proved his love for me by standing in the worst imaginable weather to watch my first Thanksgiving Day parade in person. It was probably mid 30s, rain/sleeting and so windy that umbrellas were useless. I was soaked, frozen and still unwilling not to watch.

Thanks to global warming, this year we watched the parade from the roof of our building in shirt sleeves, no coats required. Instead, I was frustrated that I haven't found a new pair of sunglasses because it was so sunny and beautiful that I spent a lot of time squinting.

Besides getting to watch the parade live, and talk to my dad on the phone as he watched it on TV, another bonus for my inner 8-year-old is getting to go to balloon night. The night before the parade, streets get blocked off on the upper west side to prepare for the parade. When I heard that you could go watch the balloons get inflated, I imagined a cool backstage pass sort of thing, something in-the-know New Yorkers do. Instead, imagine the crowd trying to press into Michigan Stadium 10 minutes before kickoff. It's a dozen people across shuffling block after block before you're even anywhere near the balloons.

Somehow, though, our visiting friends Bob and Kathleen put up with it and we got an advance peek at some of the balloons, including Hello Kitty.













Back to Thanksgiving. After the parade, we got on the subway and trekked out to Brooklyn for dinner at Jim and Courtney's apartment. They decided years ago that Michigan isn't their home any more, New York is, so this is where they want to spend Thanksgiving. And they invited about a dozen of us who similarly wanted to spend our Thanksgiving in New York.

Part of me felt bad -- I'm an only child and not going back to Michigan meant my dad didn't have family to have dinner with -- but the thought of fighting the crowds to fly back on a crazy holiday weekend so I could pretend to be thrilled to eat turkey made Jim and Courtney's a hands-down winner.

Pay special attention to the geometry skills involved in getting a table long enough for the crowd diagonally wedged into their living room. Kudos to the hosts for a great meal, and for squeezing us all in.

You light up my life

Even though we're renters, John and I decided to splurge on a real chandelier recently. We'd spent more than a year being annoyed that there was no light over the dining table, and after seeing the six-figure works of art in New Orleans antique shops last year, we were inspired by the beauty that can come with an every day thing like lighting.

This isn't as decadent as the ones we saw down south, which looked more like they should be hanging in the grand entrance of the Titanic, but it makes us happy.

There's a whole district down at the south end of Manhattan where there's block after block of lighting stores, adjacent to the same sort of thing for furniture, and then the same thing for kitchen supplies. For people who live in teeny-weeny apartments, New Yorkers obviously spend enough money on furnishings to keep these places in business.

Should I stay or should I go?

John and I have been indulging in a little real estate fantasizing lately -- yes, you know you're a middle aged married couple when ...

We aren't ready to give up on Manhattan yet. I remain committed to the idea that I moved to New York to live in New York, and there's no other experience in the U.S. like being here. I can walk out my front door and within minutes be at my choice of grocery store, book store, clothing store, news stand or restaurant, not to mention a couple of world-class cultural institutions and Central Park. It's a really amazing way to live, not needing a car and feeling so integrated into a community.

But let's be honest. It's tough being a grown up couple living in 695 square feet. (our rental agent corrected me when I called it 700. thanks for not letting me delude myself into that extra 5, Nick) And if we wanted to own our own place again, this itty bitty place we're in now would go for more than $1 million.

Sometimes we really miss certain parts of Ann Arbor life. For example, we miss having a back yard and a deck. We spent a lot of mornings drinking coffee out there, and most of the summer we'd cook on the grill and eat at the picnic table. We're outside a lot here, too, but it's different when it's a space that's just yours. Here it's pretty infrequent to be able to escape other human beings.

So the fantasy we've been kicking around is getting the best of both worlds. We'll buy a house someplace outside New York but within a semi-reasonable commute. We'll have a little pied a terre in the city. I'll work from home at our country estate a day or two each week, and we'll spend a few nights at our city apartment.

John's starting to look for a day job, so having his steady income contributing to the mortgage could make something like this doable, though maybe a stretch until his children's book sells and maybe I get a promotion or something. It doesn't have to happen tomorrow to be a good idea, right?

That hasn't stopped me from looking at real estate listings to figure out just how big a stretch it is. Back in Ann Arbor, a $300,000 house sounded pretty darned fancy. You know you've been reading the NY Times real estate section too much when a $600k house starts to sound reasonable.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about Tarrytown, a community north of here on the Hudson River. Interestingly, when Lara came to town this past week, she interviewed a Michigan grad who has a high-end farm in Tarrytown. John went with her as the photographer, and several people made offers to come back and check the place out. Is the universe telling me I'm on the right track?

Here's a house I keep daydreaming about. Is it coincidence that it's on John Street?

This one is worth the wait

Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last blog.

Much has happened since the end of August -- my dad visited us in NYC for the first time, I was on a team that presented recommendations at our corporate retreat, John and I took mini-vacations near Washington, D.C. and Pittsburgh.

I'll share some photos soon to catch you up on the high points of events as fall arrived in Manhattan, but ultimately, it's the Columbia band that's lured me back to Blogger.

John and I have been wanting to check out a Columbia football game for a while. When you move to New York from a Big 10 football city, the concept of Ivy League football is curious. We drafted Jim, Courtney and Rick to journey way up to the northernmost tip of Manhattan for Columbia vs. Harvard, and my first observation was that more people filled the stands at my high school football games.

Then came half time. A tiny, rag tag marching band took the field as the announcer narrated a skit. Even as I write that it featured Faust's deal with the devil, characters representing the presidents of all the Ivy League universities, and the phrase "As Faust ponders her bargain with evil, the Band now forms this devil's trident and plays 'Shaft'," I know you won't believe me.

Here are photos (that's Harvard's president/Faust in the red cape, getting tugged on by Satan in the black cape) and the link to the band's script for the halftime show.








http://www.cumb.org/scripts.php?script=50737






At one point during the half time extravaganza, Courtney leaned over and said "I didn't realize I'd dropped acid on the subway up here." Here are our fellow witnesses to the first marching band performance I've ever seen that included a Goethe reference.