It's Been A Year

It's hard to believe, but I've been in New England for over a year! I've survived the transition from school to work, a year in the real world, and even another cold winter. This also means I've seen all 4 seasons come full circle in Rhode Island!

I was so captivated by the view of my daily walk to work that I took a picture when I first moved here to show family and friends back home how beautiful downcity is. Then, as I stood in awe of the changing seasons, I snapped a few more. So, here is a little taste of the beauty I enjoyed over the past year:















Much love from the pretty city, in the tiniest state,

New York, New York

Late last week Andrew suggested we make a spontaneous trip to New York City. "Hmmm...okay," I thought, a little intrigued by the proposition. Andrew and I are the two least spontaneous people I know. We plan everything to the T. Even the grocery store. In fact, I often re-write the grocery list to lump items into categories corresponding to their location within the store--you know, meat, dairy, produce... So a spontaneous trip to the city made the little wheels in my head start to churn.

I was busy with work so I wasn't really able to contribute to the weekend's plans so he had free reign to determine our schedule. He arranged for us to meet up with some friends from our church in Providence who had just moved to the city last month. We headed out early Saturday morning to catch the Metro North Railroad in New Haven, Connecticut. We made it to the train station smoothly, with plenty of time to spare. We jumped on the New Haven line train, bound for Grand Central Station. We marveled at all the families and travelers headed for a weekend in New York City as well. We played a little Gin Rummy, I dominated, of course. And before we knew it the streets of New York City were beckoning us to come play.















We walked a few blocks from Grand Central Station to our friends' apartment and dropped off our bags. Then the four of us jumped on the subway for a lunch date in Madison Square Park. Any of you that know New York City may guess that we were headed to the Shake Shack. And we were. Shake Shack always has a long line so our friends Ed and Rosalynn offered to hold the place in line while we walked around for a bit. This made me a little suspect. "Don't they want to hang out and talk to us for a bit while we all wait in line?" I thought. But they insisted we see the city and not waste any time so we started to walk through the park a little when I spotted the dog park, "Let's go!" I pleaded. "Are we allowed to go in without a dog?" we wondered. "Will we look like creeps?" we worried. Well, we went in anyway and had a blast.















Dog watching is about 100 times more fun than people watching. Dogs have a lot less inhibition. It was like we were watching carefree kids who didn't know they were supposed to behave properly in public. We watched as a group of dogs all ganged up on one little dog and then watched as the sad owner promptly left the park with her little outcast. We contemplated if the owner felt bad about their dog being picked on like a parent would when their kid comes home crying from school. Then we watched the young New Yorkers come in all dressed up in posh clothes with their little yippy dogs--clearly at the park to mingle and meet other young 30-somethings since their dogs were too busy hiding under the bench to play with others. Or there was the little boxer dog that sprinted off his lease upon release, running around the park looking for dogs to play with. We animated his voice as he went from dog to dog looking for someone to notice him and play with him--Milo and Otis style, of course. Lastly, there was the bull dog that we couldn't get enough of. He could not have cared less about the other dogs in the park. He just waddled his fat self around the park pushing a ball with his nose oblivious of the function of a dog park. Then we laughed about how the owner looked just like his dog.















We sat in the dog park for a good 30 minutes enjoying ourselves and learning about the dog culture of urbanites. We even enjoyed people asking us to pick up our dogs poo and then gleefully told them it wasn't our dog. Before long Ed and Ros called us and told us they were getting close to the front of the line. We headed back and enjoyed a lunch of cheeseburgers and french fries in the park.

Next, we split paths and Andrew and I headed out into the city as Ed and Ros headed to a coffee shop to read. We jumped on the subway and headed towards the infamous Wall Street. Took a few pictures and then headed down towards Ellis Island. We got to the tip of Manhattan and realized that we would have to wait in 3 hour-long lines just to get onto Ellis Island. We decided it wasn't the best use of our time and headed toward the Staten Island ferry. We briskly walked toward the ferry that we saw quickly approaching land and made it on within seconds of it pulling away from the dock. The ride was amazingly relaxing. There was a beautiful breeze, we passed Lady Liberty and Ellis Island, and rocked slowly to the hum of the engine. We took the return boat immediately back to Manhattan and ventured off to our next stop: Brooklyn.

Somewhere in my lack-of-geographic knowledge I thought that Brooklyn and the Bronx were interchangeable. I expressed my lack of desire to go to Brooklyn because it's dangerous, but Andrew convinced me that he found a list of famous people who live there and we had to walk through and admire the architecture and Brownstones. We strolled through the beautiful Brooklyn Heights neighborhood and then ended up on the Promenade overlooking the skyline of Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. We found the perfect bench and relaxed for a while. My wish for the weekend was to spend all day laying in a park and relaxing, so sitting and watching the sunset over NYC was perfect.















As we sat admiring the scenery and the glamor of New York City, Andrew told me he made something for me. He proceeded to hand me a flat object wrapped in tissue paper with a card on top. The card was a collage of pictures of us, pictures of NYC, a poem, and at the bottom was a hint to a location somewhere. I wasn't allowed to unwrap the tissue paper yet and he proceeded to hand me five more of these. The promenade was pretty empty...right up until this point, of course. Then a flood of people began passing by steadily and I began to realize what was going on. After handing me 6 cards with something wrapped in tissue paper under them, he said he had one more. He handed me a blue pouch and began to tell me nice things about me and our future. I knew what was coming next. Unfortunately, I had noticed when we first approached the bench that we were sitting on one of probably two benches (out of a string of 15) that were surrounded by dirt and mud. At this point he began to get down on his knee and I panicked. A combination of gawkers and the thought of him wearing a pair of khakis for two days with a huge dirt-stained knee caused me to beg him to not get down in the dirt. He protested, but like a wise man he eventually obliged. At this point he pulled out the ring and asked me to marry him. I said, "Yes," of course.

The ring I received was my great-grandmother's ring passed down to me from my mom. As part of the gift, my mom gave me a picture of my great grandparents with it. By this time I was pretty emotional, so to lighten the mood a little he said, "Your mom wanted you to have this picture with it." He paused. "...She didn't mention that your great grandfather was Dwight D. Eisenhower!" We had a good laugh and then I was able to open the presents.





There were 6 DVDs of locations we had talked about wanting to travel to someday, but now they are presented as potential honeymoon destinations. [With Andrew's permission I'm putting up a sample of the sweet cards he made me].








Next we began processing and talking about all this entails. We were ready to take some pictures, but of course, it was about to downpour so all passersby whom had been ever-present before were suddenly nowhere to be seen. Typical. We snapped a few shots of us, the ring, our bench, the view and then headed up the hill to a pizza joint in Brooklyn.


































We were told we had to try this pizza place right under the Brooklyn bridge. We made our way to the restaurant, had a celebratory drink, and waited out the rain. When the rain let up we walked outside to hear people shouting about the incredibly bright rainbow we had to see.















Next stop: Central Park.





































We snapped a few more pictures before sunset and then headed to the Upper West Side for dinner with a friend of Andrew's from grad school. We enjoyed some wonderful Italian food and then exhausted, headed back to Ed and Ros's place. Our sweet friends eagerly awaited our arrival. They ran down to the door to greet us with hugs, champagne, and my first wedding magazine. We all spent the next two hours talking about the day and then passed out from exhaustion.

We had an incredible, fun, and memorable weekend in New York, New York. The weather was beautiful for the first time in a month. Ed and Ros were incredible hosts and accomplices to Andrew's plans. The timing for his proposal worked out perfectly (minus his disappointment for not getting to get down on one knee). And the rest is history!















We aren't certain about any plans or dates yet, but you'll be in the know! Check back often and enjoy the wedding-planning ride with us!

Date in Hell?...

...Date in Sprawlville!

Andrew received an Olive Garden gift card for Valentine's Day from his parents so we decided to go out for dinner. We looked up the nearest Olive Garden and it was in Attleboro, Massachusetts. No problem, that's only 7 miles away. Interestingly we'd been wanting to go to Attleboro. A friend from church works there and was telling us how terrible the town was. If he was using reverse psychology on us, it worked. We felt so intrigued to see this awful place that we planned on it even before the OG excursion. In fact, we went out to eat while it was light out just so we could see the town. Pathetic, I know.

Well, we had been trying to spend money wisely and we hadn't gone out too much since Andrew's been in town, so we were really excited for this outing. We got all dressed up for our fancy date and headed out on the town. Well, town quickly turned into townie. We soon realized that Attleboro was so sprawled that OG was 3.5 miles from the town center (a big deal when you're expecting a small town). After a few wrong turns, some impolite words, and 20 minutes of irritation, we arrived in the downtown. It was cute, but dying. Traditional, historic storefronts occupied by less than desirable businesses. We drove around in circles for a few minutes and then headed back out to OG for dinner. Not much of a looker. We came, we saw, we went.

We pulled up toward the restaurant and realized that we had to turn onto the opposite side of the street to get to the restaurant. (The little sign is on the other side of the road telling you to go the opposite direction than seems logical to get to the parking lot with the big sign!)

The intersection was so convoluted that they forced you to enter a large parking lot on the left, use the outside lane like a service road, turn left under the highway and pull into the parking on your left...three lefts, aka, what would have equaled a right turn into the lot in the first place except it wasn't allowed. There was no entrance. And to make things crazier there were no stop lights on the main street, no no, they are all in the parking lot. What?! I have to stop at a light next to my parking space?!
Notice that mess of intersections that look more like something you see in the L.A. highway system? That's the parking lot traffic structure! What on earth are all those lanes for?! Really, Mr. Developer, are there that many Saturday morning shoppers in this town? The population is just over 40,000...what do you think, they all shop at the same time?!

View Larger Map

By this point we're absolutely floored by the desolate suburban conditions we're in and we've kicked into psycho urban planner mode complaining about suburbia, blaming the developer for the parking lot fiasco, cursing the city for the entrance dilemma, you get the drift....two planners on a rampage.

Well, when we get done laughing at how horrible our experience had been thus far we notice that not only are we in the world's largest parking lot, but that we're in the world's largest parking lot and way over dressed. We watch people in gym clothes, basketball shorts, cut off jean shorts with combat boots, sweatpants, you name it, walk into OG. We're not trying to judge what the other people are wearing, we're mostly feeling really awkward, overdressed, and out of place. We'll never pass as townies. They'll know we're outsiders the minute we step inside the Italian mecca. Well, we didn't drive all the way there to shrink back with our tails between our legs, so we go in. First, we can't find anything we want on the menu, next our waiter mistakes the salad for soup and gives us about 2 cups of dressing on our bottomless bowl of salad, and then we experience the saddest "Happy Birthday" singing we've ever seen at a restaurant. Usually waiters and waitresses at least pretend to be happy for you, sing, smile, fake well wishes....these people didn't even try.

Full, but thoroughly disappointed, we drag our overdressed behinds back home. No offense Attleboro, but you stink. Thanks for the gift card though, Mr. and Mrs. P.!!

Snow Day?!?

Times two!?!?! Never have I heard of this, but perhaps it's quite common in urban areas. We are possibly having our second snow day, FROM CHURCH, on Sunday!! That's right, snow day from church! Crazy, I know. Apparently, churches or other businesses located downtown can't really function on days with parking bans since downtown, which generally relies on street parking, has been prohibited from allowing parking. The city bans on-street parking to allow the plows to be able to clear the roads without obstacles. Plus, it's really unsafe for people to be driving as the snow is pouring down, the plows are trying to do their job, and cars are slip-sliding all over the place!

Well, now that I think of it, I bet this is a lot less common than I first hypothesized. If you think about it, Providence is not exactly the most urbanized city in the U.S. Most cities, like Chicago or New York City are comprised of residents who walk or take underground public transit to get around town. They can probably still go to church through mounds of snow.

But, then again, I guess it's not just cities that have this problem. Think about suburban Buffalo, NY. They regularly get feet of snow. Imagine the motivation and preparation it takes every Sunday to dig your car out and drive through possibly poorly-plowed local streets. Plus, the added work for churches to make sure that their parking lots are plowed and usable! Gives the term fair-weather Christian a whole new meaning, huh?

Okay, well I'm done over-analyzing this whole experience they call winter. Either way, it's crazy and exhilarating for me! We're only expecting 3-6 inches this weekend so it's unlikely that it'll happen, but exciting nonetheless (in an impious and rebellious kind of way :D)

Music to an Urban Planner's Ears

MSNBC Article:
Public Transit Ridership Soars 6.5 Percent

I realize this will make many of you cringe at the thought of using, let alone relying on public transit, but like I revealed last week, I have a crush on most large cities and all of their urban amenities.

My Urban Fairytale

It doesn't matter if I'm in Providence or Boston, Chicago or New York City, when I'm riding through downtown at night, on public transit, with the skyline lit, streetscape decorated for Christmas, bald leafless trees greeting me, and the bitter cold just out of reach...it's an urban paradise to me! I think growing up in the suburbs, in the warm south, has given me an appreciation and fascination with cities and seasons. I can't imagine anything prettier than a city in the Wintertime. (Okay, I can, the Swiss Alps or Salzburg or a plethora of other places. Perhaps, to state it better, I can't imagine anywhere else I'd rather be than in a city at Christmastime.)

As I sat on the bus headed to the airport, forging through downtown Providence, vying through traffic for the right of way, with city lights twinkling and Christmas lights gleaming, and the warmth of the heat on the bus juxtaposing the pedestrians enduring the cold, I was overcome with a sense of excitement and bliss. Life felt surreal. Looking out the window I felt like a movie star. Like Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle or in When Harry Met Sally. Or like Julia Roberts in Notting Hill or My Best Friend's Wedding or Erin Brockovich.

I think there is a reason why so many movies are set in cities, I'm just not sure what it is. We as a culture, have a history of love affairs with cities. Perhaps it's the allure of the urban lifestyle or the attraction of its efficiency. Or maybe it's the joy of watching the fast paced life, while being thankful it's not our life. Or even more plausible, it's the foreignness of it all; its rarity.

Thriving urban areas are a dying breed. With the invention of the automobile, assembly line, and cookie cutter housing, we spread out to the suburbs, yet we often find suburbia hopelessly unsatisfying. It's interesting that suburbs were created as a compromise between countryside and city. Frederick Law Olmsted, created one of the first "suburbs," Riverside, outside of Chicago, so he could have the best of both worlds. Ironically, we don't. We take vacations to get out and enjoy nature or make day trips to go into the city-- since we're not actually getting either. I don't really have a purpose of this blog and I didn't plan on going on an anti-suburbia tangent, but thought I would share with you my love for the city!

And who says fairytales never come true?! I think my urban fairytale is a present reality:)

貧窮, φτώχεια, povertà, pobreza, yoksulluk, pauvreté

Poverty.

It doesn't matter how you say it or how you spell it, it affects us all, worldwide.

Poverty is such a heartbreaking issue and something I work with daily. It's a tragedy sweeping the globe and a pandemic that I have grown to feel tremendous compassion for.

I saw a link to this poem-like statement on a friend's blog, I found it to be very touching, enlightening, and revealing: Being Poor

I also received a pdf from a doctor I work with of a document just published on health issues from a public health perspective--viewing health not only as being sick or having a disease, but relating social, environmental, occupational, etc. factors into overall well-being. There are some really interesting and encouraging case studies all over the U.S. of helping those in need in our neighboring communities: Social Determinants of Health.

Confession: I'm so un-urban sometimes

I must confess, I've embraced those dreaded Dwight D highways lately. I look forward to driving to meetings because I get to spend 20-50 minutes basking in nature's glory!

New England is BEAUTIFUL in the Fall.
















While I'm at it talking up the automobile...
I was at the gas station filling up for the first time in about a month (I drive very little) and I was stoked that gas was $2.73. I pulled into the station, got out of my car and started gearing up to fill my car up. I couldn't figure out why the button to select the fuel grade said: $3.23. "What? That's not what your sign says! Gas is under $3 nowadays!" I got into my car and then started to drive away when I looked at the pumps across from me and saw they advertised $2.73. I quickly turned and pulled into the pump, looking over my right shoulder I realized that I had been at the full service pump! I didn't even know that full service still existed besides in New Jersey and Oregon!

Fall Festivities

Fall has arrived! It's generally my favorite season of the year, but this year it has failed to capture my heart and steal my affection. My guess is that previously I was a student so I didn't mind it getting dark outside at 4:30 pm because I had been romping around outside all day between classes, but now that I'm working it means that the day is over by the time I get out of work! Boo:( [Ha. Nice pun, in light of the Halloween/Fall season] . Speaking of light, I should just get a summer home in Alaska, then it will be light out all day. I've always wanted to see the Northern lights. But wait, I guess to see the Northern lights it has to be dark out, so summer is probably not gonna work. Oh well. Plus to have a summer home that means you don't work, and let's be honest, urban planning is not exactly a field that's going to send me into early retirement.

Well, I love the changing of seasons so I won't let it get me down. I will continue to lounge on my couch  inhaling the sweet aroma of my Pumpkin Spice Yankee candle and bundle up like a blizzard just arrived. Also, I must apologize to my faithful readers for being MIA the past weeks, I was on an excursion of monumental proportions, but didn't forget about you. Where exactly have I been and what exactly have I been doing you wonder? Oh wait no longer!

I went to a wedding in Rockford, Illinois last weekend.

We watched the baseball playoffs. Bad news: Cubs lost. Good news: the Rays are holding strong and playing better than anyone could have imagined they ever would! I enjoyed a week of evenings filled with cable TV and nightly baseball games! But let's be honest, I couldn't stay awake to watch the ending to any of them. And to be more honest, I couldn't even keep myself awake for the debate, which started at 8pm in the central time zone! I make Mr. Bean in Rat Race look less narcoleptic I'm so pathetic.

I went to my first (and possibly last) corn maze!! For those of you who aren't familiar with this crazy autumn activity let me explain. Some entrepreneurial farmer out there decides to make a little dough by creating a maze out of their cornfield. Well, in this case it was a 10 acre corn field with a maze cut through it. The path is about 3 feet wide, the corn is about 8 feet tall and your goal is ...well there are many goals 1) Have fun roaming around in a maze of corn 2) Find the 8 checkpoints in the corn maze 3) Make it out of the corn maze alive and with all limbs. Option 3 was definitely my goal.

So Andrew and I had never been to a corn maze before, so we had this picture in our minds. We thought there would be kids, parents, strollers, clowns, balloons, baseball lights like in the Field of Dreams. Basically, we thought we were going to the county fair. Well to our surprise we pull up at 7 pm and no one is there. "Maybe it's closed. They said they were opened til 8 tonight, maybe they changed their mind," we discussed. Lo and behold, a guy walks out of his house towards his shop and flips on all the lights while we sit in the car wondering what we're thinking. Here's your visual: A house in the middle of the country, surrounded by cornfields, with a barn for his animals (reindeer of course), a Christmas tree farm, a banquet hall that is nothing short of Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede, and pitch blackness. Oh, and two people: me and Andrew.
"You open?" we asked.
"Oh yea, I've got a group of 45 coming out in about 20 minutes," he replies.
As we are paying he says, "Oh good, you brought your own flashlight" as he points to a lone flashlight on the counter.
"No we didn't, but can we borrow this?" Andrew asks, with the determination to accept nothing short of 'yes' from the man.
"Alright, here's an index card, there are 8 checkpoints hidden out there with different hole punches for each one so I'll know if you cheat. Good luck."
And that was it.
Andrew and I wandered out into the pitch blackness armed with a flashlight, map, and two index cards! Definitely not the kind of people that would survive Man vs. Wild. I'm not sure if you can imagine what it feels like to wander out into cornfields in pitch blackness on a windy night, but I'll sum it up with four words: Children of the Corn. There was no way we were making it out of there alive. Every wind that blew and crack of a cornstalk freaked us out. There are probably foxes or coyotes or wild raging deer! Are there snakes in cornfields? Probably. Who knows. All I knew was that I wasn't making it out alive.

Well about an hour into our carefully calculated excursion (as planners we used the map like a treasure map to ensure that we covered every square foot to get all 8 hidden posts) we heard voices. "Oh good, there are more people out here than just us now, this will feel safer" we thought...wrong! Imagine what it would be like to be in this already frightening situation with 45 college students now in the corn, probably intoxicated, and traveling in packs like sorority girls on their way to the bathroom. Well if the children of the corn weren't going to get us, a heart attack was. Around every corner was a college student, who in the pitch darkness didn't know that we weren't with their group. So, we now had to actually watch our backs and respond to cracking of corn because there were in fact real people hiding in the corn like a haunted house to grab us or frighten us. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs "We don't know you so don't mess with us--we're that pair of two random people in blue jump suuuuits!!!!" (Yea, that's right, we thought it was going to lack fun and we needed to help out a little bit by wearing all dark clothing and acting Mission Impossible in the maze). Wrong. In the words of my favorite Verizon commercial: We got hosed! Well, as you can predict, since I'm writing this post, we made it out alive. But not after the nice farmer family gave us a tour of the entire operation including the banquet hall and bringing out one of the reindeer to pet. In case you didn't know, there is apparently an actual species called Alaskan reindeer. They are very feisty and their antlers are so sharp they make the running of the bulls look like a safe operation. I was pretty sure little Elizabeth was going to gourd me. Luckily, she was on a leash. Well we left the ranch, went out for some ice cream and called it a night. We try to collect the mini baseball helmets (We've got 4. One from Yankee Stadium (fancy!) and the other 3 from ice cream dates).

Then I worked the rest of the week. Working "remotely" is not remotely fun. Your heart says your on vacation but your brain says you have to work and there is constant inner warfare until you cash in your vacation time.

Lots of baseball, lots of eating, lots of sleeping, lots of shopping. I had the most incredible beef tenderloin fondue and got a killer ski hat with tails!

I went to my first apple orchard and picked apples. I saw my first pumpkin patch and bought an overpriced pumpkin from the vine. We went on a Lake Geneva boat tour and saw the fall colors surrounding beautiful, historic homes. Kids in the tropic of Florida really miss out on this Fall business, this season of harvest, if you will. We do, however, not miss out on the art of pumpkin carving. We bought a pumpkin carving kit and made some pretty awesome pumpkins. Mine is the pirate ship on the far left, Andrew's the window (typical architect) on the far right, and Team Grandma with his sisters made the rockin' bat.

I concluded my trip with a stay at the Grand Emy Hotel in the heart of the University of Chicago campus. We enjoyed a dazzling double date with our men at the Med, a brief stroll through a park only blocks from Obama's house, and a night of random stories and laughs (to come in subsequent blogs). Well, this has turned into a really long blog...that's why I shouldn't allow too much time to pass between postings!

Curious What I do All Day?

Probably not, but I'll give you the info just in case you are!:) 40% of my time is spent working on projects for and with neighborhood residents on a grant from the American Academy of Pediatrics. If you select the state of Rhode Island on the drop down list on the following website it will give you some links to read the brief project descriptions. The projects are pretty fun and very interesting.

1. http://www.aap.org/commpeds/grantsdatabase/grantsdb.cfm
2. Under "States, Territories, and Countries" select Rhode Island
3. Click, "Basic Submit"

Just a little snapshot about what I learned yesterday at work:

Urban Living

So finding time to blog while being the little urbanite that I am has proved to be more difficult than I thought it would be. After work last Wednesday I walked to the mall and did some shopping for baby Reagan. Thursday I walked to Wickenden to meet up with a friend in town from grad school. And Friday I went out to dinner downtown with co-workers.

I had a pretty eventful weekend as well. I finally got to go to the grocery store, now that my car is out of the shop, and got much needed groceries. It must have looked like I was feeding a large family! Ha! I did get a little extra because Andrew will be coming in town this weekend. I bought some stuff to make chicken Alfredo, chicken enchiladas, and chocolate cheesecake bars.

I also went to a surprise birthday party for a friend from church. It was a lot of fun and I am starting to get to know people and make friends. I even have a date! I'm meeting up with a gal Emily for ice cream on Tuesday night when her husband has class...sneaky!