Friday night at home . . and all is well!

Ahhhh. Friday night. Got home (12 minutes door-to-door – YAY!) around 5:30 p.m. Dana came over to visit and drink a glass of wine. Then I took leftover pork tenderloin from a meal we had earlier this week and whipped up pork fried rice. Pork tenderloin is one of my favorite two-meal opportunities! Now sitting down to watch the Yankees play the White Sox, eating popcorn and sipping on a cool glass of white wine.

It was a great first week of work at Barnard College. I remain impressed with our Communications team and the construction/operations folks I’ll be working with. I was fortunate to start this week – the Communications team held its yearly retreat yesterday. I was able to learn about the activities of the past year, observe the team members’ personalities in action and help plan for the future. Great timing!

Larry has started reaching out to contacts to talk about opportunities in New York City’s sports broadcast industry – if you know anyone up here, please share. He is interested in taking some time and really looking for all kinds of opportunities. He’s behind me in the job search because we didn’t expect him to move this summer, but to come to NYC towards the end of the year.  Things changed, of course, but it’s for the better. Thankfully, he can take some time and really explore what’s out there!

Levain Bakery's chocolate chip/walnut cookie

The apartment has really come together and we are super pleased with the neighborhood. It is so convenient to walk a couple of minutes down the street and pick up anything you need. This weekend we hope to explore a few new places – including this bakery -http://www.levainbakery.com/ - which is literally supposed to have the best cookies in the city (and it’s only three blocks away)!  Looking forward to another first next week: ordering Chinese take-out!

And finally, after a week “off-the-grid,” we heard from Jenni yesterday. She climbed Mount Kilimanjaro this  week – and made it all the way to the summit!  The percentage of climbers who make it to the summit is around 50 percent – so we’re super proud of her!  Now, she’s off on a safari, followed by rafting the Nile (don’t ask) – and then back to Atlanta in a few weeks to finish her master’s degree.

It’s been a great start for me and Larry – this time two weeks ago we were in our hotel, anxiously anticipating moving into our new home. Tonight, we’re settled in for a normal Friday night – the view outside the window is a little different, but it certainly feels like home! 

Top 10 best things about our first week in New York City

1. Almost daily walks along the Hudson River. I think we’ve only missed a day – and Missy has figured out the way to and from the apartment – which is almost a mile. Pretty cool! There’s a great route along the river going south that bicyclists can’t take – which is better because you don’t have to play dodge-bikes.

2. Going to the corner fruit/veggie stand on the way home from our walk to buy a red pepper for this morning’s breakfast burritos. It was the only ingredient I didn’t have – and instead of having to go into a store, fight crowds and wait in line for a cashier, we just stopped by the stand and paid 50 cents for a huge red pepper!

3. Being able to find fresh halibut at Citarella’s for our first home-cooked meal in the apartment. Citarella’s is a specialty grocery store – with seafood and meat counters, a great cheese shop, fresh pasta and a diverse deli counter. Yes, I’m going to spend a LOT of money there!

4. Being able to see Dana and Nate. Nate was great in helping put together the furniture we ordered and he and Dana worked extremely hard on move-in day.  Dana and I met one day after (her) work for a quick glass of wine!

Elliott Hall on Barnard's campus

5. Taking the subway up to Barnard College and showing Larry where my new job will be! It is a beautiful urban campus – a mix of old and new buildings, beautiful trees and small greenspaces.

6. Meeting several people who have stopped, chatted and welcomed us to the area – especially when we’re walking Missy. People with dogs are SO friendly (except for the one stupid woman who in a tiny enclosed park a couple of doors down from our building let her dogs off leash and let one of them attack Missy and didn’t even say sorry. I grabbed Missy and left).

7. Getting to know the staff in the building and finding out how great they are. I ordered a hanging pot rack from Williams-Sonoma (super heavy) and the guys patiently figured out how to hang it for me in our tiny kitchen. It is so cool – and really helps with our space issues.

8. Going to a day game at Yankee Stadium – sitting in the shade, eating a hot dog and watching a big Yankee win over the Orioles.

9. The beautiful flowers Phil and Paula Vettel sent and several cards and messages we received from Gainesville friends.

10. Walking an average of 4.55 miles each day – Larry’s average is higher because he did some errands yesterday while I stayed at the apartment while the maintenance guys hung the pot rack. It is so invigorating to look at your phone app and realize how many steps you take in your everyday life if you’re living in an urban environment. Added bonus: I’m sleeping better. Physical exhaustion helps.

My grandmother, heirloom popcorn and gas stoves

As I mentioned in the “About me” section of this blog, I grew up in Hartford, Ky., a town of 2,000 people in the western part of the state. Hartford and its sister town Beaver Dam, a similar-sized town just a couple of miles to the south, were home to the majority of people who lived in the county. 

In the 1960s and 70s, most men either worked in the coal mines or farmed – there weren’t really other places to work. People were comfortable, but very few families had lavish lifestyles. It was the type of place where most women stayed home with the kids while the men worked to support their families. In the fall and winter, we went to school with the same kids we’d known all our lives and participated in church choirs, Girl Scouts and 4H; in the summer, we played at the elementary school’s playground, watched the softball leagues play, went to the local ice cream parlor (butterscotch sundaes were my favorite) and swam at the city pool. 

The downtown consisted of the courthouse, a few retail stores, two pharmacies, a movie theater and a couple of banks – but no traffic lights. Interestingly enough, though, Hartford did have two newspapers – the Times and the News. On Thursdays during the summer, all the kids in town would head to the movie theater to watch the latest G-rated movie – admission was six RC bottle caps.

Our tiny house on the left; Pop and Honey's house on the right

As a small child, my life was centered on Frederica Street where my Mom, Dad, two older brothers and I lived in a tiny house next door to my maternal grandparents, who we called Pop and Honey. Before I was born, they were actually called Mom and Pop – but for some reason, when I started talking, I christened my grandmother “Henny;” after a few months, they finally figured out I was saying “Honey.” From then on, everyone in the family called her Honey.

My Dad was a coal miner (thankfully he worked in a strip mine and never went underground) and my Mom stayed at home. They’d married when my Mom was only 17 – and while she had me at 28, she was always young and vibrant. My Dad worked the 3-11 p.m. shift so I spent mornings with him and then afternoons either at home or at Pop and Honey’s house.

My brothers and I were the only grandchildren who lived in the same town as Pop and Honey, and as the youngest child – and the only girl – I was particularly close to my grandmother. I spent a lot of days at their house – especially when I wanted to watch something on television that was of no interest to my brothers. Honey and I would hang out all day; I’d watch her cook, we’d go out and collect the eggs from the chicken coop, pick grapes from the vines behind the house and play Chinese checkers.

My first memory of anyone cooking was Honey hovering over her gas stove. I was fascinated watching the blue flames lick up the sides of the pans.  As a little girl, I didn’t realize how hot it was to cook on that stove – particularly in the summer – but I now understand the moisture I saw pouring from her face was sweat.

Now, for the first time as an adult, I am cooking on a gas stove in our new apartment. After the first few days it’s clear gas cooks a lot faster than an electric stove (both on the burner and in the oven) and handles of pans get hotter than they did with electric.

For me, the best thing Honey made on her gas stove was “sugared popcorn” and I was often the recipient of that amazing treat – especially in the fall and winter when the temperatures dropped. She’d make a huge batch – drop off a bowl for Pop as he sat in his recliner – and then together, she and I would sit on the couch, watch the Andy Griffith Show, eat every morsel of that popcorn and drink our Frescas. There are very few memories from my childhood as special as these.

There is a specific process to making sugared popcorn just right – you have to heat up the popcorn for a little while, then add the sugar early enough so it melts, but doesn’t caramelize and burn (maybe that’s what Cracker Jack does), while the corn pops. The result is popcorn with a light, golden brown sugar coating – and when you add salt, it is absolutely irresistible.

The other thing that made Honey’s treat so wonderful was she grew the popcorn she so lovingly popped. It had a wonderful taste – small, tender puffs of air so unlike today’s popcorn that while it pops into a huge morsel, typically tastes like cardboard.  After years of trying to replicate her sugared popcorn using store-bought kernels, I have finally found a brand of heirloom popcorn that is great. It cooks into small, tender morsels lighter than air.  Now, I can add a gas stove to the equation.

So when fall rolls around in New York City and temperatures start to plunge, I’ll stand at my gas stove, work on mastering the proper cooking time for my sugared popcorn and remember Honey.

We're on our way . . .

Whew! After two crazy days, today we were able to stop and catch our breaths. Everything went well with the move – although the schedule was a little off. 

Gainesville’s office of Two Men and a Truck (or as Larry calls them Two Ducks and a Horse, Two Dogs and a Mouse, Two Frogs and a Pig – you get the idea) did a great job. Only issue was instead of arriving between 1-3 p.m. on Saturday, they rolled up to the curb at 6 p.m.  With a move of this distance it’s difficult to know how much traffic and weather you’ll hit – and they got both.

We decided to use them because they literally have their two guys load your stuff, then drive it to your new city and then they unload your belongings at your new home – two guys, one truck. If you don’t have a lot you’re moving (which we didn’t), the big moving companies stick your stuff on a large truck with who-knows-how-many-other-families’ stuff.

The furniture we brought looks great with the few new pieces we purchased (Larry hadn’t realized everything I ordered had “some assembly required” – he was NOT happy with me.) Thankfully, our son-in-law is great at putting furniture together – so my life was ultimately saved.

The only other issue with the last few days is it has been Florida-hot. The heat is supposed to break on Wednesday – and get closer to the mid-80s/mid-60s NYC usually sees this time of the year.

This morning we got up (well, Larry got up at 6:15 a.m. and I managed to pull my lazy butt out of bed around 8 a.m.) and took a walk along the Hudson River. We are only about a six-minute walk to Riverside Park – and other than being a little warm, it was a beautiful morning. We managed to get Missy to agree to go along – she’s still struggling a little with the transition. She hates the big, loud trucks – and don’t even get her started on the buses. 

We explored the neighborhood around lunchtime – and then this afternoon, I left Larry behind to watch the end of the British Open while I popped into Williams-Sonoma and Bed, Bath and Beyond to buy the last few things we needed for the apartment.

One of the great things about New York City is its walk ability. We are averaging about 5-6 miles a day – and I hope to build up closer to 10.  It is hard on my back and hips, but I’m hopeful my muscles will get stronger in the coming weeks.  The other benefit is I’m sleeping better – nothing like physical exhaustion to help with sleep.

We love the neighborhood – I’ve already found my favorite grocery stores and started shopping like a New Yorker: only buy what we need for the next day or so. I also love that you can buy small amounts of produce from carts on street corners – a banana for a quarter, a green pepper for 50 cents, $2 for an avocado, two pints of blackberries for $5. It’s so much more convenient than having to go into the store!

We're going to continue organizing the apartment for the rest of the week (and I’ll continue figuring out where to hide all the stuff Larry thinks I shouldn’t have brought)! LOL. Thanks to all for your warm wishes. We’re on our way!

So, you're probably asking why . . .

Well, here's the answer:

In October of 1981, a mere two months into our marriage, Larry and I had a crazy opportunity to visit New York City. At the time, I was Assistant Sports Information Director for the Gators and Larry was the sports director at WRUF – and it was football season. Thanks to the late, great Ray Graves, we had a chance to not only visit New York City, but to also attend a spectacle that is on most sports-fans’ bucket lists.

Major League Baseball historians will remember that 1981 was a strike year – and baseball had decided to have the first-half season winners play the second-half winners to determine which teams would go to the World Series. The outcome: Yankees/Dodgers.

On the Saturday morning of the Gators football game before the World Series was slated to start in NYC on Tuesday, Ray Graves (who at the time was working for the Steinbrenner family) strolled into the UF Sports Information Office prior to the game, and announced to no one in particular, “If you know someone who wants to go to the World Series in New York City, let me know.”

Well, I was too bashful to say anything to him, but upon entering the Gator press box, I tracked down my new husband and said “Hey, Ray Graves said he could get us tickets to the World Series at Yankee Stadium.”

Now, you have to understand I was teasing, because we had no money. As Larry would say, “We couldn’t afford to pay attention.” Larry was like, “Let’s go!”

As a native of the Bronx, Larry had family there. His dad and step-mom as well as various aunts and uncles (and people they called uncles and aunts, but weren’t really) still lived there. So he got on the phone, confirmed we could “sleep on cots” at Aunt Dot’s and my boss Norm Carlson helped us get in touch with Ray Graves – and those World Series tickets.

So the big question: how to do this with almost no money? Well, some people our age will remember the airline People’s Express. If you think you’ve been on a no-frills airline, trust me, you had more services than People’s Express offered. Even a Coke cost extra. We grabbed two round-trip tickets from Jacksonville to LaGuardia for $35 per person, each way. And we did actually sleep on cots at Aunt Dot’s.

Larry’s Dad picked us up at the airport that Tuesday morning – and the rest of that day, I got my first taste of the Big Apple.

Now, people familiar with New York City in the late 70s/early 80s, will tell you it was NYC at its worst. Homeless on every street; Times Square was a proliferation of bars, strip joints and worse; dirt and trash everywhere. And yet, I fell in love.

I spent most of the day with my camera turned to the sky, taking photo after photo of tall buildings that upon developing my film showed little of the impact. But for the little girl from Kentucky, it was the most amazing place I’d ever seen.

That evening as we sat 20 rows behind home plate with his Dad and friend Chuck Cooperstein ($20 a ticket, thank you Ray Graves), for Game 1 and watched the Yankees beat the Dodgers, I thought to myself, “Okay, you’re 23, you’ve never visited NYC and you’ve never been to a Major League baseball game, and you’re starting at Yankees Stadium with the Yankees versus the Dodgers. Exactly, how do you do better than that going forward?”

The next night – Game 2 – we had an extra ticket because Larry’s Dad decided to stay home and we were riding the subway to the game when we started talking to a nice African American gentleman who was heading to Yankee Stadium as well. He didn’t have a ticket, but was hoping to score one from a scalper, when Larry offered him our extra ticket – at face value.

I’m not sure he really believed it was a legitimate ticket – but we promised him it was and he kept saying to Larry, “Do you know how much money you could get for that ticket?” But he bought it and sat with us during Game 2. After the game, Larry and I took a cab to LaGuardia and flew back, landing in Jacksonville at 2 a.m.

For the past 34 years, Larry and I have talked and dreamed of living in New York City. We worked hard in Gainesville, raised our wonderful daughters, but always tucked away in the backs of our minds, was “Someday, we’ll move to NYC.”

So last summer, after saying good-bye to my dear, sweet, wonderful Mommy after she passed away on July 7, the door opened. We could move. Our girls were grown and doing wonderfully on their own. Was it possible at fifty-something to move? Get meaningful jobs? Enjoy the city while our health was still good?

So after months and months of discussions, we decided, yes, it is time for us to take a risk. Live in a city we’ve only dreamed of. So tomorrow, we’ll pack up our things that (we hope) will fit in our new apartment and take another flight to NYC. This one – again out of Jacksonville – will land at JFK.

And instead of sleeping on a cot at Aunt Dot’s with only enough money to buy a couple of hotdogs, we’ll move into our own apartment on Saturday. And Sunday morning, we’ll look out on the city we love and start building a different life. Not a new life or a better life, but just a life in our favorite city.

You know, life is short – and sometimes it’s just time to take a risk.

We have many fabulous friends we’ve made over the past 35+ years in Gainesville and we hope you’ll keep in touch.

For now, we’re off on our big, crazy, wonderful adventure.

New York City move - final checklist

Find apartment. Check.

Order cable, internet, and electricity. Check.

Decide what to take and what not to take (and try not to kill each other). Check.

Pond at Central Park

Get renter’s insurance. Check.

Find healthcare for the bridge between jobs. Check. (Thanks, Obama)

Pack, pack, pack, pack and pack. Close.

Get rid of everything we’re not taking. Close. (Estate sale at our home Friday & Saturday, July 24-25)

The move is almost here – thankfully – just two more days. As Larry says, some days it seems like it’ll never come; other days, it seems like we have too much to do in the remaining time left.

So here’s the schedule:

Movers arrive – Thursday afternoon

L&Q drive to Jacksonville – Thursday night

L&Q fly to NYC – Friday morning (also my birthday!)

Get keys to the apartment – Saturday morning!!!

Movers arrive – Saturday afternoon

Our new address:

Larry and Quenta Vettel
228 W. 71^st Street, Apartment 6i
New York, NY 10023

New York City Weather Forecast for Friday: Partly cloudy. High 82 Low 68. Yay!!!!!!!! 

Our 572-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment. Yes, 572 square feet.

So, 572 square feet, you might ask. Seriously?

Yup, seriously, but the ceilings are 9-feet high. LOL.

So what do we do? Think functionality. Think tall. Think well-designed pieces with great storage. Think lean (but not long and lean).

How did we start figuring out how to go from our 2,200-square-foot home to a 572-square-foot apartment?  Before we left for NYC in June, we measured every piece of furniture in our home. Then once we narrowed the apartment to the one we wanted, we measured every inch of it as well (even though we had a floor plan).  Then, we started putting the puzzle together. What will fit; what won’t? Love seat and recliner, but not the sofa. The coffee table and end table are too large; better to buy something lean with clean lines. The wine/baker’s rack will fit, but not Mommy’s beautiful antique dining table (at 46” diameter, it’s too large so Jenni’s taking it). The king-sized mahogany sleigh bed will fit, but only if we leave the matching dresser at home.  Next question: can Larry and I fit all our tees, shorts, undies, etc., in one chest of drawers? Guess we’ll have to. For storage: my Mommy’s beautiful huge cedar chest (which will also work as a television stand/end table – remember, functionality) in the bedroom, hanging pot rack, and the aforementioned baker’s rack.

Thankfully, this apartment has better closets than most so we should be okay clothing-wise (although Larry still thinks I’m taking too much). Kitchen storage is still to be determined. We’ll have to learn how to sort and store clothes by the seasons (that’ll be a first since my days at Western Kentucky University).

We promise photos within a few days (some items are still on order, so it’ll be a work in progress). So what floor are we on and how’s the view: 6th and not ideal. For this first apartment, we’ll be looking across a courtyard at another apartment building (one of Larry’s biggest disappointments so far), but we wanted to go a little conservative this first go-round – maybe find a larger apartment, with a better view, in the near future.

I mean – really – at 572 square feet, how hard will it be to move our stuff to the next apartment? 

Transitions

The hardest thing I’ve had to part with for our upcoming move to New York City was my Browning .22 short, smokeless rifle – a rifle my father and I shared for years. Daddy bought the gun in 1957, the year I was born; the sleek, exquisitely-balanced and handsomely-oiled rifle felt wonderful in your arms. If ever a gun could be called elegant, delicate, it was this Belgium-made Browning .22.  Many a cool, fall Kentucky afternoon my Daddy and I would take it deep into the woods on my grandparents’ farm and shoot at targets – never animals – for hours. Only in 2001 did it become just my gun after Daddy passed away on a bright September morning just four days short of 9/11.  Until today, the rifle was the most concrete item left of my transition from a small-town Kentucky girl who loved nothing more than target practice on a cool fall day to a 22-year-old young woman who boldly moved to Gainesville, Florida to work in sports during the infancy of intercollegiate women’s athletics to a 50+ year-old woman who along with her husband has dreamed of leaving the South and embracing the New York City urban lifestyle. Today, I sold the rifle. It hurt.

It’s not easy coming to grips with leaving behind the tangible parts of a life lived in a small town that still boasts “2,000 happy people and a few soreheads,” but I also understand that a 572-square-feet New York apartment will only hold so much. While I certainly collected items during our 34+ years in Gainesville, these are surprisingly easier to part with – it is the items still left from my childhood that are the hardest to let go of. It’s not just the gun; it’s other items: a butter mold with a pineapple design that belonged to my grandmother who shares her name with our oldest daughter; a vintage popcorn popper that I’m sure my Mommy and her siblings held over an open fire on brisk winter nights, mouths watering awaiting the white kernels popping from the corn they had raised that summer; a quilt my great-grandmother made during the Depression. Or what about the dozens of pieces of Fostoria crystal my Mommy saved for more than 60 years – glasses, pitchers, vases my brothers and I bought from a downtown clock shop each December while snow flurries swirled through the air. I still remember the dark, musty clock shop where every 15 minutes a cacophony of chimes, coo coos and buzzers would intrude upon the quiet. The sparkling crystal didn’t quite seem to belong.

So today, I parted with my rifle, our rifle. Next week we’ll leave behind the popcorn popper, the Fostoria, the butter mold, the wreath my Mommy so lovingly decorated for our guest bathroom.  Although we’ll walk out of the house without these items, they will – thankfully – live in my memory.