Luminations of a New Wife

Visit to my old house

On our last trip to Miami earlier this year, I took Steve by the house I grew up in in Coconut Grove. We walked through the Grove, through "CocoWalk" and all the cheeziness that entails, with it's flashing neon lights and signs in Spanish advertising free daquiris for high school girls. It's necessary to insert here that "walked" is really a euphemism for "schlepped" - because in this time of year, with this heat and humidity, you're lucky to walk two blocks without breaking a sweat, panting, complaining and nearly out of breath.

I'm such a Miami girl.

Anyways, we pass my old high school on the left - the same one that boasted BMW's and Maserati's in it's parking lot; it's owner some lucky, random, undeserving fifteen year old. But I digress.  We walk under and through twisting mangrove trees till we finally arrive to my street. My street I called home for eight short years - the street I brought my college girlfriends back to, my friends all too excited to spend spring break in my parent's home, leaving behind the boredom of their rural hometown haphazardly nestled forty-five minutes north of Boston.

We approach my old house with some anticipation. It's been years since I've returned - six to be exact (but maybe less?) yet it feels like a lifetime. I have grown and regressed then matured and digressed a million times since I stealthily fled my house past curfew narrowly escaping through my bathroom windows. Anyone who has visited this house and knows my street knows this story. It's no big secret to those in the know.

There's a woman outside my old house, doing some gardening in the driveway, and she places her hand on her straw hat as she stands up to greet us. Actually, greet is too generous an action. She halts us, to be quite honest, mid-stride, as I show Steve my street, demonstrating with some grandeur my high school antics: "That's the pole I backed into each and every time I took the car out of the driveway!" I say with way too much enthusiasm. I introduce myself to the woman, thinking she would like to meet this Spanish villa's previous owner, but as quickly as I do so I wish I hadn't. She awkwardly asks us in and I ponder - do I want to see my old bedroom? had she painted over the graffiti wall in my closet? I look over at her and quickly decline, but to be honest, I wish I hadn't.

Our Anniversary

This summer flew by and already it's back to school - in some way I feel like we never even left save the new teacher's and taller students. I like working in a school especially in the fall, when the air is crisp and there is a feeling of euphoria in the air.

Steve and I celebrated our year anniversary this summer - it came as quickly as it was anticipated.  We seemed to plan forever our wedding, yet as soon as Steve broke the glass and we all shouted "mazel tov!" time has literally just flown by.

We toasted each other and our first year of marriage in the same place it happened, the top of Rockefeller Center. We nibbled on a piece of the cake that was saved, and yes, it was still as delicious now as it was that night. Later that week we boarded a plane for Exuma, a small island in the Bahamas and spent a week delighting in the blueness of this water:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Other weekends this summer were spent at my parents, where we ate leisure dinners outside as my dad BBQ'ed and my mom made enough sangria for the entire block.  Other nights we met our friends out for dinner, trying this place and that place and this one too.  When enough of us came together, we put up a volleyball net and played variations of 7th grade "nucumb" at a friend's rental in Remsenburg. By far the "Cool Girl Award of Summer '06" goes to Alyssa, who at 7 months pregnant and soon to be a doctor, still drinks her wine when her tuna sashimi arrives. When we really mustered up energy and braved the annoying NYC crowds posing as regular Hamptonites, we ran into an old high school friend from Miami who ended up spending the night when her girlfriend split for Montauk past 2AM.  All in all, a very fun summer indeed.

So, now that we are past the year mark, are we still newlyweds?

Humor me and take my litte poll.

My Union Reunion

I'm so bored at work. Bored and...ambivalent. I feel a queasy mixture of anxiety and ambivalence every time I walk into my school. Lately I have not been enjoying work - we still have no phones and internet, and I have such a hard time explaining the bureaucracy of not only Department of Ed, but my non-for-profit as well. This week was terrible. On Monday I was subpoeaned to testify in family court against a monster who abused his child and I had to call the case in. The lawyer referred to me as "Mrs. Gordon" and in a very dramatic fashion had me point to the father who returned my stare coldly looking back at me. Good times. This is the same maniac who came into my school a few months ago trying in his best threatening manner to tell me to "stay away" from his family." I almost had a heart attack as my supervisor told me how to file a police report against this loser. And yet again,as I left court the lawyer talked to me about getting an order of protection against this loser. Fan-freaking-tastic.

Tuesday the party continued. Another mom came into school for our scheduled appointment. And as she took her seat, she began sucking her teeth when she realized I was, well, white. The shit hit the fan and she started to storm out of my office, not before telling me to "watch myself" and that her sister was going to "bust into me" if I wasn't careful.  I don't even know what that means but I know it's not good. But honestly, I felt no threat just anger. So angry that here I am putting my ass out on the line for these kids and this is the thanks I get...

Oh yeah. The Bloods and the Crips returned to East Harlem as well. Shots ring out two blocks from my school, and this is just not what I bargained for.

Good times. Perhaps all these great thoughts brought back memories of college, and so I've decided to attend my second Union reunion since I graduated college.  We'll be going here  on November 14th for cash bar and flashbacks.  See you there.

Pictage

Pictage is the newest way of finding out everything about the wedding you weren't invited to. My friend Jessi's wedding had a Pictage photograher - her pictures look amazing! You can choose a Pictage photographer which makes it easy for your guests to buy pictures if they so incline.  Miami weddings are the best!

Happy Halloween!

I'm really not into Halloween. I can't recall a time when I actually enjoyed dressing up and banging on stranger's doors begging for candy like a farm animal. Growing up in Manhattan - I don't know, do kids actually trick or treat here? I do remember going around my building and that was lots of fun - riding the elevator up and down scratching off people's apartment numbers.

And the dressing up? Ugh. What a schlep. So I was somewhat excited to hear about this Halloween party we were going to last Saturday - for starters, it wasn't in the city which already got me excited. It was actually in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Anyone out there ever been there before? OMG. This place is insane! Needless to say, when Steve and I met our friends at the restaurant we were eating at before the party, we definitely were the only non-Italians in the 'hood. Frank Sinatra played all night long, and waiters kept sending over free plates of food (Im sure the other Bay Ridge couple we were with were big timers). It seems like everyone in Bay Ridge knew each other, and everyone spoke Italian...here's some pics from our night:

Later that night we went to a bar in Bay Ridge. It was....SO NOT THE CITY! But really a fun night to just leave Manhattan to see how the other half live. Oh yeh, I was a cat. And Steve was an old school rapper.

Re-Arranged

I just re-arranged our bedroom furniture...again.  I play these little games with myself - "how much furniture can I rearrange before Steve comes home?" "What will he not mind if I 'accidentally' throw out?" "What will he notice first?" "What will he never notice?" But today's rearrangement was fiercely intentional instead of my usual impulsiveness. I even took  my own tape meausure out to make sure the furniture would fit in it's new position before I started my dismantling. And yes, the emphasis is on dismantling. A few weekends ago I got this idea in my sleep to put a bench in the hallway where our desk used to be, and as timing should have it, Steve was on a business trip. So, I trekked to the store where I carried the heavy piece a few blocks all by myself before I hailed and then found a cab it would actually fit in, and once I got it into the apartment I had to start dismantling the old desk apart before I could start mantling a thing on the new one. I even got my drill out and this part makes me boast because yes, I do know how to use a power drill. But I digress. Today's rearrangement was even more fun because we are making room for furniture that we are expecting in a few day's time as part of our anniversary present from my grandmother. Steve thinks I'm insane - "MORE change?" But I love it. In college LT nearly threw me to the curb when she returned from class (er, the pub) sophomore and then again junior year to see I had changed our entire dorm room around all by myself and without her asking (um, neither time). "But I love change!" I shouted back at her before she made me change it all back to the way it was.  All cement bed and all. All before bed time. And all drunk (er, high). Well now I have someone who appreciates my decor so THERE, LT!

Karmic Justice

Tonight at book club at my apartment my friend reminded me of that awful night in college when I fell.  While dancing at my sophomore tri delt formal, I felt myself falling and broke that hideous fall not with my hands, but my mouth. Of course I did.  Who in the name of the lord breaks a fall with their mouth besides me?!?  Nonetheless, I broke my front teeth on that hard, slippery bastard of a dance floor which marked probably the worst day in my life (and hey, if that is my worst day, I have it pretty good).  But tonight my friend reminded me that when I fell, I wasn't dancing with my date (which figured because he was an a-hole), but with a nameless, faceless younger a-hole from Psi U or Chi Psi who, when I fell, did not bend over to help me but turned around to dance with the girl right next to me...Figures.  Why any girl in college finds other 18-21 year old boys mature enough to be attractive beats the @!()@# out of me. But seven years later I still remember that night like a bad re-occuring dream, and still nervously check to make sure i'm okay.  Which I am.

But tonight I feel that karmic justice has been served. My college friends from book club fill me in on Union gossip and I realize that so many of the old crew have not changed, despite the fact they now have seven years on them.  Seven long years to work out your childhood kinks, seperate your identity from that of your parents, and cement your own sense of self as you step out into the real world.  But the kicker about karma is that when you find someone you choose as your life partner, karma's paybacks not only effect you, but your spouse as well. Moral of the story? Life always has it's way of working itself out. 

And What a Reunion It Was

Well at least I wasn't exaggerating about the flashbacks part.  My little "Union Event" was nothing but flashbacks - if you graduated from the earlier part of last century. Mind you I had limitted expectations - I knew none of my friends were going but thought I would least run into some old recognizable faces, some professors, something to remind me of my old glory days.  Steve and I got to the event which was held in the upstairs room of a communal library of the Union Leage on East 37th Street.  So i'm standing there sheepishly with my $10 glass of wine and Steve keeps nudging me to socialize with my fellow alumns from the 1890's, and if that wasn't bad enough - the drinks weren't even free.

We left in under thirty minutes and on the way out, ran into someone, someone!, who I had gone to school with. In school we were pretty close in the sense that our sorority and his fraternity did a lot of partying together. He kept me abreast of his Union gossip and I must write here that I am shocked that so little has changed with some people. We traded "grown up" stories - "She's married now;" "He has 27 people working for him;" - and then there's always the dud that brings everyone else down - "It's amazing how well he performs at work being he pulls bong hits before work;" or "He's sleeping with a married woman." Nice.

Sometimes I wonder about where I went to college. In high school, many of my friends left Miami for big schools, well-known universities and the Ivy League. I ducked out of Florida to return to New York but came to a school where I felt so few were like me. Of course I found my niche of amazing girlfriends, but I never felt like we as a group fit into the complacency around us. I used to think what if all the time - what if I went to another school? what if we never started dating in the first place? But then I realized I wouldn't be where I am today, and I wouldn't trade that in for anything.

Gobble Gobble

For this year's thanksgiving, we spent the weekend in South Carolina with Steve's family, who are lucky enough to live part of the year in a small island in Charleston's Lowcountry.  Though I love leaving New York as much as I love living here, I must say I was at first skeptical my first visit down south. First of all, people in the south are....so.....nice. They never get impatient, or angry, and everyone is so damned social and friendly. I'm just not that used to it - or should I say, it takes me awhile to get out my New York City mode, drawl out my vowels, and not care if people cut me in line or walk too slowly down the street. I don't know if it was the weather (which was gorgeous! Each and every day!) or this book I was reading (Eat Pray Love) about a woman's devout journey to find balance in her life and just take it easy, that I began to, well, take it easy myself. My second day on the island I started saying hello to strangers as I passed them on my morning walks before they even had a chance to say hi first. I commented on the weather, and even remarked with strangers that Christmas was right around the corner, could you believe. I small-talked with the clerk (yes, me!) as she rang up my iced cappucino. I didn't even give her a hard time when she messed up my order switching my skim-milk for whole. Who cares!? Life on an island was good.

My brother-in-law and his wife brought their neighbor friends from North Carolina to spend the week with us as well. And though I've met this couple before, I never spent that much time with them and didn't realize how different and yet how similar we were. Though I was only the second (the second!) Jewish person they ever met, they were the first true Southerners I've ever met. It was beyond interesting to hear how different life in the South is - beyond politics and the fact they would never watch "The Daily Show" we still had a lot in common. They are a young, recently married couple as well and yes, Southern wives can be just as cool as Northern ones.  (Well at least this couple was). So, despite the fact that Steve and I would never join them hunting on the weekends in Raleigh, they would probably never try gefilte fish up north either.

I tried a lot of new things this weekend - fried green tomatoes, hopping johns, jambalaya, she-crab, fried turkey...but that's the obvious.  More importantly I learned how different people live - and realized that at the end of the day, once those from both ends of the Mason-Dixie line accept the fact that the Civil War is indeedover, we are more alike than anything else.