Short musings . . .

A sampling of short musings today . . . This weekend brought the first taste of cool weather – by Thursday of this week we’re looking at a high of 66 and a low of 54.  Funny thing this morning, I was walking the five blocks down to Citarella’s – my favorite little gourmet market – in my shorts, tee and tennis shoes.  It was probably around 64, but there was a pretty brisk wind. Most of the people I passed were in pants, many had light jackets. I laughed – I thought it was people in the South who needed jackets and scarves as soon as it dropped below 70 degrees . . .

One of the cool things about living in the city is everything is packaged for small spaces – and the groceries are definitely stocked for the season.  Butter is packaged in four tablespoon servings instead of eight; you can’t find a large jar of mayonnaise. Herbs are packaged in plastic containers half the size of ones you find in Florida and you select your own vegetables from the bin – very few are pre-packaged. I’ve been to five different groceries trying to find Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix for a recipe I want to make – still haven’t found it (everyone says come back closer to Thanksgiving).  :D

It’s been such a blessing to have our friends – Jon and Monica Marshall – up in Connecticut. I’ve known Monica since my days at RTI when she headed the Ketchum team we worked with in Washington, D.C. We stayed friends after I left RTI and she moved to Rome to work for the UN World Food Programme. A few years later, Dana ended up working for her as an intern in Rome and again when Dana joined WFP in NYC after grad school. Jon is a lot like Larry – they both love sports (although Jon likes the Red Sox – LOL). So far in the nine weeks or so we’ve been here, we’ve already been able to see them three times – once for dinner in the city, once for a cook-out at their house in Connecticut – and last night, dinner at our apartment.  It was cool enough outside for me to make clam chowder (with fresh clams from the aforementioned Citarella’s - yum) and a wonderful scallop salad with sautéed apples and potatoes. It was a great evening.

We left Gainesville on July 17 (my birthday), and to date, we’ve only had three days where it rained in Manhattan (and even on those three days, it wasn’t an all-day rain). It’s been extremely dry and much warmer than normal. The forecast calls for some rain this week – so maybe that’ll help ensure we have beautiful fall foliage. The colors of the leaves on trees aren’t as beautiful if it’s been too dry of a summer – hope it’ll be pretty here. Can’t wait to walk in Central Park and see all the colors.

Today I started pulling fall/winter clothes out of storage (a large box in the closet) and putting lightweight summer items away. We’re in pretty good shape with coats and sweaters (I bought a couple of coats and 6-7 sweaters at the end of last season, knowing we were moving sometime in the summer).  We still need to find snow boots – and I’m looking now for another pair of boots to wear with leggings and sweaters. It’s going to be so cool (literally and figuratively) to be able to wear real winter clothes again.

We are now officially New Yorkers – we get the Times delivered to the doorstop every morning. Larry is excited – he’s back to doing his crossword puzzle every day – we even bought a small computer lap desk so he can work on the puzzles comfortably . . . I still can’t quite get used to the NYC 9-5 schedule – literally position descriptions list a 35-hour work week – it’s that way because of commute times, but it’s still weird for me to not leave the house at 7:15 a.m. so I can find a place to park close to the J-School. We’ve been early riser for years – and I literally get ready – and look up and it won’t even be 8 a.m. yet.  Since it’s only a 12 minute ride/walk to work, it gives me time to do a little around the apartment, fix lunch without feeling rushed and bop around on the internet a little.  

So we’re very pleased with the way the transition has gone; haven’t driven a car in 73 days which feels a little weird, but definitely don’t miss sitting in traffic. We’ve gotten into a routine and are feeling pretty settled. Yes, it’s a very different lifestyle – but we’re loving it. 

It's our two-month-iversary!!!

It’s our two-month-iversary!  Just two months ago today we moved into our new apartment in Manhattan – and contrary to a few emails we’ve received saying “Okay, the joke is over – when are you coming back?” we are here to stay.

When we announced we were moving to New York City and leaving a city we’d lived and worked in for 35+ years, our friends and colleagues fell into three groups:  the first group said, “OMG, I want to go with you.” The second group was those who said, “Wow, I’d love to have the courage to do that, but we never could.  We’ll live vicariously through you.” The third group was more succinct: “Are you crazy?”

Yes, we probably are a little bit crazy, but as we neared the upper end of fiftysomething, we felt that if we were ever going to do this, now was the time.  We are still young enough to enjoy all the things the city has to offer, to get meaningful jobs that we will enjoy, and to have the time and resources to relish an urban lifestyle.

When most Americans think about New York City, they immediately imagine Times Square, 30 Rock, the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. While those are certainly the iconic images of the city, the real New York City resides in its neighborhoods and is not the city you see portrayed in the media or by celebrities. 

It’s real people living in real neighborhoods – from the trendy Meatpacking District to the upscale, designer store-laden Upper East Side. From Chinatown (which most visitors think is only about buying knock-off handbags, but which really has a rich culture and fabulously authentic dim sum restaurants.)  And from DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) to the Upper West Side, one of the greenest areas of NYC – nestled between Riverside and Central Parks – and home to small bistros, local bars and Museum Mile (where we live).

This fall once the weather cools, we can’t wait to start exploring those neighborhoods that over the last 30+ years we never quite made it to. Yes, because of the numerous trips we made to NYC over the years we had discovered some of these neighborhoods, but we still have many areas that we’ve never stepped foot into. That is, really, at the heart of our new life.

If you are interested in discovering that New York, I highly recommend “The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 Miles in the City,” by William B. Helmreich. He literally walked EVERY block in New York City – not just in Manhattan, but also every block in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

Thank you to all our friends who have sent supportive messages, who have called to check on us, and who are thinking about when they can come to the city to visit. Yes, we’ll be super happy to see you. No, at 572-square-feet we can’t accommodate guests, but we’ll help you find a reasonable hotel, plan a “different NYC vacation,” and enjoy a city we have loved for decades.

Happily settled at Barnard College

Two days before the movers were scheduled to arrive in Gainesville in mid-July, I received a call from the Vice President of Communications for Barnard College, offering me a position that would combine my experience in communications, higher education and economic development. 

Barnard, an all-women’s college that partners with Columbia University to provide an outstanding liberal arts education, is one of the original Seven Sisters women’s colleges. In 1927, the name “Seven Sisters” was given to Barnard, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, and Radcliffe because of their parallel to the Ivy League men's colleges.

My new job is to work with the communications, campus services and construction teams to provide up-to-date information on a new teaching and learning center and to serve as a resource to students, faculty, staff and neighbors who will be impacted during the two-year construction project. I am working alongside engineers, construction professionals and Barnard staff as we plan for the demolition of a 1950s-era library and the construction of a new 128,000-square-feet building that will bring students and faculty together, facilitating collaboration and fostering dialogue.

The jobs that combined communications and economic development are the favorites of my career: the Council for Economic Outreach, where we attracted Dollar General, the first large-scale distribution center to Alachua County, Nordstrom’s Distribution Center, and expansions for RTI Surgical and Exactech; the work I did to assist a group of developers including Phil Hawley and Jim Shaw, who expanded Progress Park and built additional commercial and business space in Alachua; and the years I spent working for Wal-Mart Stores – as both a consultant and a full-time employee – to gain approvals for new stores and redevelopment sites.

The new position at Barnard is more than I’d hoped for.  I have joined a group of positive, supportive colleagues who believe in the Barnard mission and who value my opinion on how to handle the communications for the construction project and the upcoming capital campaign. It is refreshing to be part of a positive team, to have colleagues who are supportive and to be valued for my experience in communications and development. It's been years since I've felt this welcome in a new job.

I started seeking positions in New York City back last fall – and we are fortunate and excited that this position came up. It is truly a perfect job for me.  Now that we’ve moved, Larry’s starting to look for his first job in the city.  I keep urging him to be patient – it took me more than nine months to find this great Barnard job – and he has to know that his time will come.

We’ve been here almost two months – and we are incredibly happy. We’ve settled in – are exploring new restaurants, walking the city and enjoying the urban lifestyle. Stay tuned . . . more to come!

My 9/11 . . . and 9/10 story

The anniversary of these next two September days are always difficult for me to get through. Even now – 14 years later – these dates weigh on my mind, play with my emotions. Each year, I try to make sense of Sept. 10-11, to make clearer what is still a fuzzy, foreboding, overwhelming, dreadful feeling. Everyone has a 9/11/2001 story.  Mine starts the day before. And this year, my 9/11 story resides with me in New York City.

My Dad, Quentin, (in case you wondered where my name originated) died on the Friday before 9/11, losing his fight with heart disease, a battle he had won for more than 24 years. We had his funeral on Monday, Sept. 10, 2001, in a small town of 2,000 people in in the heart of western Kentucky. The sign leading into our hometown says, “Welcome to Hartford, Kentucky, Home of 2,000 Happy People and a few Soreheads.”  The day before, more than 700 people – roughly a fifth of the people in this rural county – visited the funeral home to pay their respects.  We greeted these folks for more than nine hours. On Monday, my Mom – married to my Dad since she was 17 – guided the casket out of the church to the song, “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” 

On the morning of 9/11, Larry, Dana and Jennifer were in the air, flying Delta back to Gainesville from the Nashville airport.  There was no time for them to stay in Kentucky; there was school to attend for the girls and Gator games for Larry to work.

Thankfully, we didn’t have the television on in the family room of my Mom’s house that Tuesday morning.  Instead, my brother and I were talking with my Mom, planning the day ahead.  We still had legal issues to address and final payments and arrangements to settle with the funeral home.  So when Dana called to tell me they were stuck in the Atlanta airport – which I immediately assumed was because of the incompetence of ASA – I never envisioned that Atlanta was as far as they would fly that day.

“No, Mommy,” Dana said.  “You don’t understand.  Turn on the TV.  Planes have just flown into the World Trade Center.”  She didn’t need to go on and say what I could hear in her voice: that we’d just had Father’s Day Brunch at Windows on the World, three short months earlier, that New York City was a second home to our family.

Suffice it to say that Larry and the girls finally made it home that day, thanks to a UF student from Atlanta who was on their Atlanta-to-Gainesville flight and after realizing no one was flying back to UF that day, asked her Dad to drive her, her new friend and his daughters back to Gainesville.  

Me?  I had a rental car in Kentucky (gold in those early days after 9/11) that was due in Nashville Thursday morning when I was supposed to fly back to Gainesville.  Instead, I drove it 11 ½ hours back to Gainesville on Wednesday and upon delivering the sedan to the Budget Rent-a-Car counter at the Gainesville Airport, said “You know that car you THINK is going to be in Nashville tomorrow.  Well, instead, it’s in Gainesville today.”  Budget didn’t charge another penny: no additional drop-off fee, no additional mileage – and to this day, if Larry and I have a choice, we rent Budget.

The toughest thing of the entire 9/11 experience for me?  It was and still remains today: it was difficult to mourn the loss of my father.  Instead, my loss is still wrapped in the loss the collective country felt.  Whether it was the families of those people who died that day, or the citizens of the cities of New York and Washington, D.C., where life will never be the same, or for those Americans whose sons and daughters have died overseas in places most of us will never view, I can’t separate my loss from the whole.  My Dad – who landed on Normandy on what we believe was D-Day+5, would have been devastated to view 9/11.  The first words my Mom uttered after we turned on the television that Tuesday morning shortly before the first tower fell was, “Thank God your father didn’t live to see this day.”

This year will be especially poignant. Larry and I have moved to our adopted city. Just yesterday, Larry sent in our membership to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. What are the membership benefits? We get priority tickets to view the plaza and museum. While we’ve been a couple of times to see the monuments, we have yet to gain the courage to enter the museum. I hope this fall, we’ll be able to.

So let’s all send our love to the courageous first responders from 9/11, to those soldiers who have fought around the world for the past 14 years, and to our nation’s police officers and firefighters who today are fighting a different, domestic battle.  

The Kentucky I know and love

Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go. ~James Baldwin

I’ve always been proud to say I grew up in Kentucky. It is a beautiful state. Its people are kind and industrious with strong values. Yes, religion is a significant part of its make-up, but most of the citizens I’ve known are tolerant of others.

Here are some points that might surprise you: 

• Kentucky is not a red state – it’s actually purple. Contrary to what most Americans probably think, registered Democrats in Kentucky still outnumber registered Republicans. In Ohio County where I grew up, Democrats had 212 more registered voters than Republicans in 2014. 
•  Kentucky has fully implemented the Affordable Care Act, including Medicaid expansion – and has one of the best healthcare exchanges in the country.
•  In 2010, Lexington elected its first openly gay mayor.

I believe in Kentucky’s people and its beauty, but I also know that like any other state there are people who decide their personal values are above the law. This week a woman from the eastern part of the state has decided she knows more than our nation’s Supreme Court and her decision is reflecting badly on all parts of our state. 

As an elected official, she’s decided she doesn’t have to perform aspects of her job because it’s “against her religious principles.” Bullshit. She wasn’t elected to a public office to apply her personal values to the law and decide what she will or will not do. She was elected to apply the laws of the land. I agree with those who have called for her to be impeached. I don’t care if the Kentucky legislature has to convene in order to do that – it’s the right thing to do and they should be prompt in firing this woman.

I have no problem with her personal decision – it’s her right as a citizen to determine what she does or does not believe in, but if her personal, religious values get in the way of her doing the job to which she was elected, she has to go. Quit, be impeached, fired – I don’t really care, but she can’t stay and apply only those laws that fit within her religious beliefs.

Even more absurd to this entire situation is – according to NBC News – Kimberly Davis is being paid a salary of $80,000, a ridiculous amount that is almost double Kentucky’s average household income.  If she wants to keep this high-paying job that most Kentuckians would be thrilled to have, she can get her butt back to work and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples who have waited a lifetime for the ability to marry.

Daniel Boone once said: “Soon after, I returned home to my family, with a determination to bring them as soon as possible to live in Kentucky, which I esteemed a second paradise, at the risk of my life and fortune.”

Please don’t let this woman cause you to place an unfair label on a beautiful state and its people.

So you're saying to yourself, "something must have gone wrong. It can't be that perfect."

Okay, so I’m sure you’re sitting there saying, okay, “Something must not be to your liking or something must have gone wrong.”  Well not much, actually, but here are the five things that have gone wrong or or haven't worked out since the move. 

• Our house in Gainesville hasn’t sold. Beautiful house, wonderful neighborhood in Ashton. Across the street from one of the top three elementary schools (Talbot) in Alachua County. We missed the early summer selling season (originally Larry was going to stay longer, but that changed) – and then we had to move, sell what we weren’t taking, etc. – so we got a late start.  So if you or someone you know is looking for a great house, look on any realtor’s site for 4502 NW 58 Ave., Gainesville or call Craig Wilburn at 317-8216.  Price just reduced!

• It’s been WAY too hot in New York City - 21 days above 86 since the beginning of August. These last few days we’ve been averaging 10-12 degrees higher than normal.  Holding our breath for mid-September when it looks like we’ll get back to cooler temps. Still, it’s better than having to wait until sometime in late October or early November for a day that feels like fall. 2a – as a result of aforementioned high temps, the electric bill was higher than we’d hoped.

• Missy left last week for her home in Atlanta.  Yes, I’ve gotten attached to the pup.  She’s lived with us for more than 11 months over the past year and a half – and I’m pretty smitten with her, but she belongs in Atlanta with Jenni and Amado. She’s the most adaptable dog I’ve ever seen – she’s lived in the Dominican Republic, Gainesville, Atlanta, NYC – spent vacations in hotels in the DR, NYC, Atlanta. Stayed 10 days in a puppy hotel when we were in NYC for Dana and Nate’s wedding (granted, she wouldn’t eat and lost a lot of weight) and stayed with Nate’s parents when we were in Kentucky for Mommy’s funeral. She just kinda goes, “Okay, whatever.  I’ll deal with it.” Good news is – now I can spoil Siena and Alila. Once it cools down, I see walks in our future!

• Sometimes our desire to walk exceeds our ability, aka “getting old sucks.” Even with the heat, early morning walks along the Hudson River have been wonderful. We end up walking 3-4 miles on both Saturday and Sunday mornings; then my poor, old hips complain all day Monday and Tuesday. LOL. 

• The Yankees haven’t been playing very well.  After leading the AL East seven games earlier this summer, they now are a game and a half behind Toronto. Ugh, Toronto. The good news is we no longer have to pay for MLB Extra Innings and can watch the pre- and post-game shows on the YES network.  The bad news is the Yankees are 5-6 for the last 11 games. Here’s hoping for a strong September.

And here’s hoping you keep reading.