Lots of people seem eager to bid 2010 adieu, but I don't know, it hasn't been the worst year for me. It's been a weird year. I published two papers, wrote a dissertation, got a job, lost a grandparent, graduated, reached a point where I finally felt at home and secure in a routine and group of friends in Birmingham...and then moved 1100 miles away by myself with two cats in a Uhaul. I did a lot of things I've never done before (see: dissertation, uhaul), which makes me feel like 2010 made me braver and stronger. It was maybe a more deeply felt year than most-more sweetly happy times, more intensely sad times, longer stretches of nearly unbearable stress. At any rate: for me, 2010 was one for the books, and soon it will be done. Bring it, 2011.
PS: new year's eve in a new city with no friends or acquaintances or even a TV=drinking a little bottle of champagne by myself (with the cats? does that count as not drinking alone? The cats don't get champagne, though. They have not been good today/ever in their lives and I don't think wine is good for cats anyways), reading The Blind Assassin and going to bed at 11! This somehow makes me nostalgic for my early teen years, when I spent NYE drinking white grape diet rite soda in a champagne glass, watching Dick Clark and trying hard to stay up until midnight while my mom and dad dozed off on the couch.
31 December 2010
30 December 2010
Holidays
Back in Providence after a long Christmas with my family in Ohio. There was snow and wine and food and family and friends, a good time was had by all.
In my family, many of our holiday traditions revolve around food. My parents are among the last of a kind of solid midwestern type- a generation away from a factory or family farm, with hobbies that include saving money, sticking to a low-cholesterol diet, and paying their bills on time. Christmas has always been a time to let loose, at least in the solid midwestern sense of the word. For us, that means a parade of indulgent food that we only eat once a year. My mom makes six kinds of cookies (a total of 25 dozen), including sugar cookies which we frost as garishly as possible. The highlight is the angel of death, my dad's annual masterpiece
Christmas Eve is Carolina BBQ Pork, Hush Puppies and Coleslaw, followed by church then basically another dinner.
That's Trail Bologna (a local "delicacy"), cheese, apples, pears, crackers, almond cake with cherry filling, and a new addition, gelled cosmopolitans. We tried to make the cosmos in festive holiday molds, but when that failed we put it in a bowl and cut it into wedges. Because we are classy.
Christmas morning involves getting showered and dressed before anyone touches presents. We have fruit salad, Stollen (a german cake-bread thing) and Peach Fizzy, which is actually a recipe for a Bellini with Ginger Ale instead of Champagne. I was about 24 when I figured this out. This year's stollen was a little less bread-like and more sheetcake-like due to my dear sister forgetting to add 1/2 the flour. oops!
To work off all these extra calories, or at least atone for them, Dad and I went on a little hike at a nearby park. It was lovely, and cold.
Even the taxidermied coyotes got in on the holiday spirit.
All in all, a nice restful break. I'm glad to be back in my new home with a few days to organize my life, and excited to start my new job on monday!
In my family, many of our holiday traditions revolve around food. My parents are among the last of a kind of solid midwestern type- a generation away from a factory or family farm, with hobbies that include saving money, sticking to a low-cholesterol diet, and paying their bills on time. Christmas has always been a time to let loose, at least in the solid midwestern sense of the word. For us, that means a parade of indulgent food that we only eat once a year. My mom makes six kinds of cookies (a total of 25 dozen), including sugar cookies which we frost as garishly as possible. The highlight is the angel of death, my dad's annual masterpiece
Christmas Eve is Carolina BBQ Pork, Hush Puppies and Coleslaw, followed by church then basically another dinner.
Christmas morning involves getting showered and dressed before anyone touches presents. We have fruit salad, Stollen (a german cake-bread thing) and Peach Fizzy, which is actually a recipe for a Bellini with Ginger Ale instead of Champagne. I was about 24 when I figured this out. This year's stollen was a little less bread-like and more sheetcake-like due to my dear sister forgetting to add 1/2 the flour. oops!
Even the taxidermied coyotes got in on the holiday spirit.
All in all, a nice restful break. I'm glad to be back in my new home with a few days to organize my life, and excited to start my new job on monday!
16 December 2010
Providence
SO. I moved to Rhode Island! After 5 and a half years in Alabama, I am now calling chilly New England my home.
The trip was...what to say about the trip. It was long. It is 1,100 miles from Birmingham AL to Providence RI. Because I am slightly insane and melt down a little when I don't have control over situations, I made this journey in a Uhaul, towing my car. On the shorter, inland route that had fewer major cities but way more mountains. By myself. Well, not by myself entirely, because I had with me as companions my two cats. Knowing that the going would be slow and that I ( and the cats) could only take so much in a single day (and again, see earlier re:insane and needing control), I broke the trip up into three 375ish mile segments and one 90 mile segment. Then I went to get my truck, and surprise, instead of 10 feet+honda civic, it was 17 feet+honda civic. Fun!
As far as four day, 1100 mile journeys across the Appalachians in a Uhaul towing a car with two cats go, it was pretty much ideal. Driving the truck was actually not difficult. I got slightly stuck the first time I got gas, but thanks to some super-helpful truckers (I am guessing they had not so much as seen a lady in several weeks), I not only got out of my jam but also got a lesson on maneuvering a longer vehicle. I could even back it up semi-competently by the end of the trip. The cats were ok. One cat (the simple one) took about 45 minutes to forget she had ever lived anywhere other than a small crate inside a Uhaul and did fantastic the rest of the trip. The other cat (ie helper cat) did not quite thrive. Howling and Wailing, usually calming down only at about the fourth hour of driving. I covered the crate with a blanket and told her it was nighttime which helped a little, if only in muffling the crying.
The drive was pretty-Tennessee and Southern Virginia were all sparkling rivers and snow covered hillsides. Even the less picturesque regions of Appalachia had something lovely about their bleakness. The rolling farmland of Maryland and Pennsylvania reminded me of where I grew up, even though the farms were never quite so pastoral in my little section of Ohio and are long gone anyways. And Oh, once I hit New England...there is something in me that feels so at home in northern rocky woods. The streams and ponds, bare misty trees, dark rocks, winding roads that come around a curve to reveal a cold stony shore. It's so beautiful to me, way more so than a tropical beach.
And now I am here. The movers brought in my things, i'm slowly unpacking. I've been to several grocery stores, found the nearest Wal-mart, Target, and mall, gotten a library card, tried and failed to get a drivers license, made vegetable stock and 3 kinds of soup. My apartment is great although sort of empty at the moment while I save for some real furniture. My two fears-that no one would be nice and that everything would cost an arm and a leg-appear to be unfounded. Everyone I've met has been kind and welcoming-not necessarily the surface friendliness of the south (which I frankly always found kind of fake) or the earnest openness of the midwest, but nice nonetheless. And while gas and rent are more expensive here, produce (my big grocery expense)is cheaper than in B'ham, even without taking the 10% sales tax on groceries in Alabama. The cold is cold, but bearable. The only bad thing so far is the drivers! I swear I have a near-death experience everytime I go out on the road!
All in all, I think I'm going to like it here.
The trip was...what to say about the trip. It was long. It is 1,100 miles from Birmingham AL to Providence RI. Because I am slightly insane and melt down a little when I don't have control over situations, I made this journey in a Uhaul, towing my car. On the shorter, inland route that had fewer major cities but way more mountains. By myself. Well, not by myself entirely, because I had with me as companions my two cats. Knowing that the going would be slow and that I ( and the cats) could only take so much in a single day (and again, see earlier re:insane and needing control), I broke the trip up into three 375ish mile segments and one 90 mile segment. Then I went to get my truck, and surprise, instead of 10 feet+honda civic, it was 17 feet+honda civic. Fun!
As far as four day, 1100 mile journeys across the Appalachians in a Uhaul towing a car with two cats go, it was pretty much ideal. Driving the truck was actually not difficult. I got slightly stuck the first time I got gas, but thanks to some super-helpful truckers (I am guessing they had not so much as seen a lady in several weeks), I not only got out of my jam but also got a lesson on maneuvering a longer vehicle. I could even back it up semi-competently by the end of the trip. The cats were ok. One cat (the simple one) took about 45 minutes to forget she had ever lived anywhere other than a small crate inside a Uhaul and did fantastic the rest of the trip. The other cat (ie helper cat) did not quite thrive. Howling and Wailing, usually calming down only at about the fourth hour of driving. I covered the crate with a blanket and told her it was nighttime which helped a little, if only in muffling the crying.
The drive was pretty-Tennessee and Southern Virginia were all sparkling rivers and snow covered hillsides. Even the less picturesque regions of Appalachia had something lovely about their bleakness. The rolling farmland of Maryland and Pennsylvania reminded me of where I grew up, even though the farms were never quite so pastoral in my little section of Ohio and are long gone anyways. And Oh, once I hit New England...there is something in me that feels so at home in northern rocky woods. The streams and ponds, bare misty trees, dark rocks, winding roads that come around a curve to reveal a cold stony shore. It's so beautiful to me, way more so than a tropical beach.
And now I am here. The movers brought in my things, i'm slowly unpacking. I've been to several grocery stores, found the nearest Wal-mart, Target, and mall, gotten a library card, tried and failed to get a drivers license, made vegetable stock and 3 kinds of soup. My apartment is great although sort of empty at the moment while I save for some real furniture. My two fears-that no one would be nice and that everything would cost an arm and a leg-appear to be unfounded. Everyone I've met has been kind and welcoming-not necessarily the surface friendliness of the south (which I frankly always found kind of fake) or the earnest openness of the midwest, but nice nonetheless. And while gas and rent are more expensive here, produce (my big grocery expense)is cheaper than in B'ham, even without taking the 10% sales tax on groceries in Alabama. The cold is cold, but bearable. The only bad thing so far is the drivers! I swear I have a near-death experience everytime I go out on the road!
All in all, I think I'm going to like it here.
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