Snow in Brooklyn

I wrote this post on February 12, 2007 but apparently never published it. Just read it and thought it needs to be up here.

This morning, while I was cutting up some soppresata in the kitchen for my breakfast, I heard someone outside chipping away at something icey. No doubt an iced up stair or a driveway or a chunk of ice keeping a gate shut. I myself was out there this morning hammering away at the edge of the driveway so that we wouldn't skid out onto the street. But something about being in the kitchen with the sun coming through the window and hitting the side of my face at just the right angle took me back to memories of Brooklyn.

Sometimes I forget I ever lived there. Much about my childhood is fuzzy or shoved down and out of sight. But the chip-chip-chipping sound made me think how things here in suburbia are slow. I suddenly had a flashback to snowy, icy mornings where I grew up and all the sounds came towards me all at once like some sort of orchestral flood except the instruments were shovels and hammers and car horns and all the players were Puerto Rican. I marvel at the difference between where I am right now in my life and where I grew up as a child. There, an icy morning would be filled with noise.

You have to imagine the following bit of dialogue being screamed at the top of the lungs by people who didn't grow up wearing coats and hats and scarves. They well convinced they could neither hear nor be heard while wrapped up like this. Now, imagine they're cold and desparately want to go back to their apartments which are like 90 degrees, because that's what passes for "comfortable" in New York. They are excited and speaking at a speed of 60 words per second complete with flailing arms while jumping up and down to stay warm. This following exchange is just a blur of a moment but I swear it's coming to me from the past.

"No, no, pon lo en riversa! pon lo en riversa!" (No, no, put it in reverse! put it in reverse!)
"Ahi! Ahora si que se chabo!" (Ah! Now it's trashed.)
"Tienes que sacarle mas hielo! Chui, ve y traeme la mangera!" (You have to get more of the ice out! Chewey (a nickname), go get me the hose!")

Chip, chip, chip, chip, chip (coming fast and furious from across the street). Nothing slow, nothing soft. Everything sounded like it was in your bedroom and your bedroom was on fire. So you got up to look cuz you sure weren't going to sleep through it anyway. And that memory brought a smile to my face. I thought to myself, "My childhood Brooklyn was a funny and energetic place to wake up to on a morning like this."

Big Fat Assumptions

I need to rant. I just got off the phone with my mother. I called her to tell her that I'd gone through all of her and dad's health insurance papers and sorted out some issues, wrote some letters and faxed some stuff out. Their doctors' bills should be resolved soon. Then I also informed her that I bought her and dad a lottery ticket today. Cuz I know they could having a much better retirement than they have and, well, you never know.

After this I told her I was about to go do my workout but then I added flippantly, "not that it's doing me much good." To which, after proving myself to be a dutiful daughter, she added dryly, "well then, just stop eating." I figured that was a good time to end the conversation. If my own mother, who's watched me for years cannot understand my plight, then no one can.

I have been working out pretty regularly now for a bit over 10 years. I started in my early 20s when I had gotten into the worst shape of my life and knew I better do something about it. Then in my late 20s I managed to get into the best shape of my life. This is how I managed it. It was the same year I took a year off from singing because I was frustrated with the whole process. So, the time I would have spent practicing, I now had freed up for workouts. I upped my workouts to 5 days a week. I was doing a VERY HARD African dance class (people left there dripping pools of sweat down the corridor - gross, but effective). Generally, after the African dance class, which lasted an hour, I'd go do weights and crunches, which usually took another half hour to 45 minutes. I'm certain that at the height of this, I never spent less than an hour and a half at the gym. My eating habits were generallt like this. I'd take whatever food i thought I might want to eat that day, let's say it was a sandwich (like an average ham and cheese sandwich) and split it in half. One half was breakfast with a cup of coffee. The other half was lunch with juice. The rest of the day I drank water and for dinner I had steamed broccoli or maybe, if I was hungry, a veggie wrap. I had also started running and had a new boyfriend who kept me busy with dates and parties and emotional drama . It took me a full year of this sort of measured eating and perpetual motion to finally take off 40lbs. In essence, any time I didn't spend at work (I had an office job), I was working out and I took the equivalent of one "normal" person's lunch and rationed that out over a full day. This is what it took for me to lose 40 lbs in one year. So, when I say that I'm one of those people who has to work like a dog to lose weight, I know what I'm talking about. I've done it at least once.

Nowadays I work out maybe between a half hour to an hour anything from 2 - 5 days a week, depending on my week. Lately, it's more because I've decided to try to push the weight loss issue again. I only drink soft drinks once in a while, I drink loads of water, eat salads for dinner and, while it's true sometimes I have a loaded egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast, I make up for it by making the next two meals, light salads with very little chicken, fish or beef on the side. Do I have one drink on the weekends with friends? On occassion. Do I have one or two desserts during the course of the month? Yes, but the point here isn't to defend my eating and exercise lifestyle, it's to make the point that despite my managing to be overweight I'm not some sedentary eating machine. I don't never exercise and/or sit around eating bags of doritos and drinking Yoohoo. If you look at my exercise habits and eating habits, I'm not doing anything that should make me a big, fat, girl. And yet, I am. I can honestly say that the only way I know of to not be a big fat girl is to do what I did 10 years ago. I have to become obsessive about my exercise and eating habits. I have to eat the bare minimum and exercise the absolute maximum.

This is what your "average" person cannot empathize or comprehend. For someone who only needs to lose 20 lbs, you can keep up the perpetual motion, tiny eating for a couple of months or so. After the weight comes off you can taper off and go into maintenance mode. But for someone like me, who really could stand to lose between 50 and 60 lbs, I'd need to keep up that kind of momentum for anywhere from 6 months to a year (as I learned). It's hard work and difficult to keep up. And you know what happened the SECOND I slowed down? The moment I decided to only work out 2 days a week for a month? This is no exaggeration. I gained 15 lbs. the first month I decided I wanted to be a normal person and not be at the gym each night till 9:30pm. I wanted to go home, call up a friend and have a cup of coffee and chat. I didn't want to be in the gym 2 hours each night and then commute home another 1/2 hour. The minute I wanted a LIFE the weight jumped back on my body like a stalker who knew the restraining order had been lifted!!

So, I rant here because I am tired of people, my mother included, making assumptions about me just because they've never had to grapple with this issue personally. I could lose weight - yes. But for several years now I've decided that the full time obsession with exercise and diet that would have to be my life is more than I've wanted to deal with. And no one can better scream at me, "but your health!" That's just bullshit. I eat a pretty healthy diet, I live clean, I do most of my own yard work and handywork around the house, I work out enough so my body is pretty strong and flexible and oddly toned for a fat girl. I don't think I'm in danger of having a heart explosion. And if I am, I'd like to point out that many an athlete has suddenly collapsed.

I worked for a scientific research firm at a very presitgious university for many years. I know that when a field of study is hot, they will crunch the statistics to make it look anyway they want. Right now they want people to lose weight and they want the health insurance companies to have an easy out. But that's a discussion for another day. I'm not saying being overweight isn't dangerous. It is. I'm not saying that there aren't people who are seriously impeding their progress and their success in life by being overweight. There are. I'm also not saying that being seriously overweight and out of shape doesn't put you at risk for certain diseases, it does. But so does being slim and smoking or being slim and never exercising and secretly vomiting up your meals. Many things that aren't easy to spot are dangerous for your health. Being overweight is just an easy target. The scientific and political community is being just as lazy with this issue as they were when they started the "just say no" campaign.

Sorry... back to the current rant.

Mainly, I just want everybody to shut the hell up. When all the people in my life and all the people I come in contact with are spending 2 gruelling, sweaty hours at the gym (walking on the treadmill doesn't even come close to counting) 5 days a week and eating salads and mini sandwiches with water for a period upwards of 6 months, then they can come to me and call me fat and lazy. Until then - shut the F*(# up!

Helio's Ocean

I have been in search of the perfect phone. The phone that makes IMing and Email easy and makes web surfing as easy as surfing on my laptop, whose battery lasts at least an entire day with regular use, has a decent camera and allows me to upload my own personal ringtones, it should have bluetooth and preferably WiFi. And it must have a QWERTY keyboard, preferably one that folds out or slides out because I'm not fond of the permanent kind like you find on a Palm or a Blackberry. All of this has to come in a package that isn't going to cost me an arm and a leg.

So, several months ago I saw a Sierra Wireless Voq on Ebay and thought I'd try it. It has no camera and no bluetooth and is a tad quirky but, in all honesty, for a cheap, early generation PDA, it's mighty impressive. I was able to download the Opera Mini browser to it and put my ringtones on it and download all my email to it and the keyboard flips open on it. All in all, for the money, I was pretty happy with it but I have had my eye out for a better version of it. Plus, Cingular has been killing me with fees for text messaging and web access, which are all separate, as are Multimedia messages.

Along came Helio's Ocean. From all the reviews I read and the pictures and specs I found, it sounded like the answer to all my dreams. Helio's lowest rung service is as follows: For a flat $65/month, I could get 500 anytime minutes and everything else was included and unlimited. Yes, unlimited everything - weekends and evenings, texts, web browsing on a 3G network, multimedia texts, downloads, etc.

So I got one. The phone really is a beautiful piece of machinery. It's a little heavy. Some people might call it a brick. But I like a little weight on my phone. I hate feeling like it might break at any moment. The battery life, for the week I had it, was really good. I texted, surfed (or tried to... more on that later), phoned, emailed and the battery seemed to hold up for more than a full day of activity. About a day and a half worth. It plays MP3s via the speaker and headset, and the quality of the sound was pretty good. The camera is really, really nice. I had no idea a small phone could take such good pictures. The flash is strong and it has many options such as greyscale, sepia, a timer, and 4 through 12 continuous pics per click. The keyboard slides out to landscape view and is pretty easy to use, although my favorite fold out keyboard is still on the Nokia 6800 and N70.

Getting and sending email to any pop account is very easy to set up and it all works quickly. Thanks to the large screen, you can easily see your messages and attachments.

Where it got ugly was when I found out that Helio hasn't yet gotten the software together that is supposed to help you synch your phone to your contacts and calendar from Outlook on your computer. Instead, they recommended that I export my contacts to a .csv file then upload it to AOL or Helio's mail, then download it back to the phone. Very ugly. Then there's no way to save the contacts to the phone's memory from there. You only have access to those contacts so long as you're signed on to Helio Mail or AOL but if you sign off, the contacts are gone. To put your own personal ringtones on the phone, you also need do something totally convoluted. You need to rename an MP3 as an mmf, email it to yourself, download the attachment then save as a ringtone. And then you pat your head and rub your belly while dancing the macarena.

Surfing is also a challenge. Their browser sucks. A lot of sites I went to were either completely destroyed and difficult to see or truncated so you couldn't get to them. So, I tried to download the Opera Mini Browser because I had this same problem with my Voq phone and once I downloaded the Opera browser, all was well. It wouldn't download. It wouldn't download no matter what I did. I figured it was either incompatible or they blocked the site. So, I called Helio.

Customer service admitted they don't have all the software finished yet for the Ocean. They also said that I could possibly install the opera browser from my PC to the phone. I explained that I couldn't possibly make that happen since the sync software doesn't exist. The only thing I can do with the USB cable is see the Music folder and the Video folder. This doesn't help me at all.

So, because Helio apparently shipped out the Ocean before having all the support for it, thereby making it difficult for me to fully enjoy it, I am shipping it back to them this week. First I need to figure out how to take the pictures I took off of it. Since the USB cable won't do it, I am told I should buy a micro SD, copy the photos to that, then to my laptop. So, even in trying to return the thing, they are making me spend time and money to be able to do so. You see my frustration?

In conclusion, if I discover that Helio has the necessary support for this phone and will either pre-install or support the Opera Mini browser, then I would be willing to try this again. Cuz Cingular is nickel and diming me to death and I'd love a good reason to be rid of them.

SOFRITO

My friends and I went to an upscale Puerto Rican restaurant in New York this weekend. It's called SOFRITO. For those of you who don't know what sofrito is, it's pretty much the basis of all latin cooking in the islands. It's used by Puerto Ricans and Dominicans mainly, but it's also used in parts of South America. It's a paste made in a blender of herbs, onion, garlic, special peppers. In a typical latin household, the wife would make this up about once a month, put it in a large plastic container, then spoon it out throughout the month into various dishes she was cooking. It's absolutely awesome and, without it, you cannot get an authentic latin caribbean meal. The name of the restaurant says it all.

The food was phenomenal. Having grown up eating sancocho and pernil and maduros and arroz con habichuelas, I can attest that this is the real deal. It was nice having a birthday dinner with my childhood friend, her sister and her cousin because there we were, all grown up now having each become professional women after having come from humble Puerto Rican and Dominican backgrounds. Our group was comprised of a doctor, a speech pathologist and an opera singer/voice teacher. (I didn't ask what her cousin does but she seemed pretty well put together and smart as a whip.) There we were, four girls from "the hood" in a very chic restaurant on third and 53rd reclaiming our roots yet celebrating our accomplishments all at the same time. Actually, we were there to celebrate Mary's 40th Birthday! It was like a coming of age party for us all. The restaurant owner, Jimmy Rodriguez, who has owned several well-known spanish restaurants, has apparently realized that the new latin generation needs a place like this. A place where the next generation can meet and carry forward.

However, because of its east side, New York location, we each assumed the same thing when we got there. This is going to be some watered-down-for-the-gringos experience. We were wrong. We couldn't have been more wrong. The food was completely off the charts good!! Nicely presented, charming, warm service and tasty, tasty, authentic flavor. We were seriously shocked. I ordered sancocho as an appetizer. It came in a small "caldero". That's a small pot, but it's a very typical pot you'll find in most latin kitchens all over New York. It was a nice touch. I dipped my spoon in and could not believe my taste buds. It tasted like my mom's!! It tasted like my godmother's!! It tasted like home and it was gooood. I looked to Mary and Goldy and Soett and I said, "You have to try this. You're not going to believe it." They each did and then we just had to share it. Soett's comment was that it tasted like her grandma made it. Mary said "I'm so sorry dad's not here. He would love this." Seriously, it's comfort food for the Puerto Ricans and Dominicans who have arrived. We also ordered maduros (sweet plaintains) which were heavenly good and sweet, as they should be.

Mary ordered the pernil. You can judge a latin restaurant by it's pernil. If the pernil is good, then they are the real thing. Mary's eyes rolled back in her head. "You have to try this." We all did. Seriously. It was so good I feel a need to scream it out to anyone who might give a $hit. That adobo/garlic flavor that is supposed to be the defining taste in the pernil experience - it was there. I have tried pernil in many places over the past several years and this is by faaaar the best I've ever had. And I don't mean the best I've ever had in a restaurant. I mean, the best I've ever had running neck and neck with my godmother Sofia's, which was good enough to make you weep with joy.

I cannot leave out the drinks. The drinks were completely out of this world too. The mojito is one of the best out there. I've been disappointed by mojito's I've had elsewhere but this is a really, really good mojito. And, if you grew up liking Coquito (even if you didn't but like coconut) then do yourself a favor and order the Cocotini. It will send happy burbujas (bubbles) straight through you.

I give Sofrito 5 stars for flavor, 4 stars for general presentation, 5 stars for service and 4 stars for decor. (The bathroom, I was told, was too small for the place, but the rest of the restaurant is really chic and sleek and nicely done with a kind of nouveau latin flair.) The biggest surprise of the evening was the bill. For four women, including appetizers, drinks and tip amounted to roughly $175. For a New York restaurant, that is an inexpensive night out but there was nothing cheap about the experience.

Suburbia is making me a nasty girl.

Okay, I have some observations here. I lived in New York most of my adult life. In upper Manhattan in Hudson Heights. On a beautiful tree lined street, in a pre-war building, surrounded by many artistic and smart people. There was a beautiful park within walking distance and Lincoln Center, my usual haunt, was a 20 minute train ride away. It really was the Nirvana of my existence.

I now live in suburbia. Suburbia in New Jersey. It's not Nirvana but it has it's definite selling points. For starters, there's space. I have suffered a need for space for a long time. I lived with a lover in New York for several years in a studio apartment. That probably started it. Then I got a spacious, sun filled, 1 bedroom in the aforementioned building. It had an eat-in kitchen and a deep soaking tub. For a single girl living in Manhattan, I'd hit the jackpot. This was loads of space for me. But then I met my husband and, once again, I wanted more space. When his job had him commuting between Princeton and New York, we figured we needed to move to some location between the two points. That's how we ended up buying a house in Middlesex County. I fell in love with the house because it too was pre-war. It had the familiar plaster walls, the high ceilings, old oak floors. It felt somehow familiar, and since I've never lived in suburbia, I needed familiar. I needed something to link me to my Nirvana. This house was it.

I instantly fell in love with the concept of gardening. I love putting things in the ground, caring for them and then watching them bloom. For a city girl like me, this seems like some kind of miracle. I used to frequent the garden in Ft. Tryon Park and admire the blooms, photographing the butterflies and the people on benches, the George Washington Bridge, the Hudson. It was all breath taking and wonderful, but now I am experiencing nature's beauty from a much more hands-on experience. Digging in the earth, putting in the seeds and bulbs, watering them, weeding them, then watching them grow into gorgeous, colorful flowers. That seems miraculous to me. Before, I just thought these things appeared around me, as if by magic. But now that I am responsible for picking them, placing them and cultivating them, I realize how much I took for granted in my beautiful uptown park.

I am now getting to the crux of the problem I'm having today. In the midst of all this beauty and nature, I have noticed a disturbing trend in my personal upkeep. When I lived in New York I would never leave the apartment without makeup. I would never "just bum it". Even if I went out in jeans, they were always neat jeans and a cool top and good hair or a cap. I just wouldn't dare just run out of the apartment any old way. Not even to throw out the garbage.

But something happened in suburbia. I would like to preface this next bit by saying this only happens once in a long while, but it does happen, and I should be more disgusted with my behavior, yet, oddly, I'm not. I have allowed myself to fall asleep late at night in my t-shirt (I know this is probably TMI but I'm blogging here). I awake, having not showered, having fallen asleep in my t-shirt, throw on a ratty pair of jeans or, worse yet, holey sweatpants. I grab the car keys, jump in the car, drive my husband to the train station, then sometimes I stop to pick up some coffee and lotto tickets. I come home, do a workout and THEN I shower before teaching. Eeeeeeew. You don't have to say it - I will!! And what's worse is my hair on some of these mornings. Sometimes it's homeless lady hair. Sometimes it's really God awful. And yet, I have very little shame. I behave this way. It's piggish. It's disgusting. And yet, since moving to suburbia, I find this behavior to be fine so long as no one knows (of course, now you all know). I guess I'll continue to do it unless I'm caught in the coffee shop looking (and possibly smelling) like a homeless woman by someone I actually care about. But the thing about suburbia is that it seems to me you're less likely to run into people you care might see you looking this way than in New York.

In New York, you immediately have your building elevator and/or lobby to contend with. Your neighbors are close to you. If you stepped out into the hallway looking and/or smelling bad, there is a very high chance that the cute professor down the hall will be waiting for the elevator or just stepping off of it. If you walk to the corner store to pick up milk, you are very likely to pass at least 5 people you know in the neighborhood who you might prefer not see you looking your worst. Dr. Ruth Westheimer, lived two doors down from me. I had gay male friends in the neighborhood. They are the absolute worst of critics. Even the gay men in the neighborhood I didn't particularly know would give you "the look" if your hair looked like a brillo pad. So, really, if you cared at all, you showered and brushed your damn hair before going outside.

I blame the cars here in suburbia. There's very little "walking to the store" here. You leave your house, where no one will see you but your immediately family and pets. You jump in your car. Again - no one to see you. You dive into the store where maybe you'll see a few people, but most of them are either too self-absorbed to notice how bad you look or they look just like you do cuz they're caught in the same routine. You grab the milk, the eggs, the whatever, and dive back into your car. You enter your house where there's no pressure that the cute guy on the 5th floor might see you and puke.

Yep, suburbia has taught me to dig in the dirt, take fewer showers and brush my hair less. Not sure I like it but I get to practice whenever I want, I work out in my basement, I love my garden and cardinals feed at my bird feeder. I do manage to shower and dress before my students show up, although they'll attest that sometimes I don't quite get to the hair and makeup. If they want me to always look good, they may have to wait till a celebrity or a gay man buys the house next door.

Beauty

I have ceased my quest for perfection. Many beautiful things are imperfect. I will now begin creating beauty and accept it's flaws as the necessary contrast required to bring out the perfection within the imperfections.

Life on Earth

People! We spend so much of our time here bemoaning the human condition. Bemoaning our fates. Some of us go as far as to wish for death and hope for a better after life. Sweet heaven, loving Lord, virgins, enlightenment, milk and honey - on and on we go about how much better it will be after we're on that other side. The side beyond the light.

But what if what's actually happening is that we all clamored and begged and lined up to come here? What if all us souls were somewhere else - bodiless and bored. Perhaps we were fine enough. Happy enough. But without the ability to really feel, to run, to jump, to breath in and out. Without all that we felt incomplete. Maybe we entered a lottery or did favors to get here. Maybe we chose this - somewhere else. And maybe by not fully living each and every moment we're here we are cheating ourselves out of a huge opportunity. What if, despite the disease and the wars and the terrorism and racism and global warming, this is the pinnacle of what it means to be human and thus we have chosen to return here over and over again? What if the blessed other side is us?

Just call me DDR Super Dork! (lol)

OH MY GOD!! I AM OFFICIALLY A SUPER DORK!!

I know some of you have been waiting for me to post a new blog - Jen. So, something finally happened today that I feel a need to blog about.

I finally did it!! I did DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION!! I loved it! I freaking wanted to play all afternoon long except like I already felt like some loser degenerate adult skulking around the kiddy arcade at lunchtime waiting for no one to be watching before I guiltily put my four tokens into the slot and then attempted to encrypt the freaking JAPANESE WRITING ON THE FREAKING SCREEN... WTF??? Anyway, luckily, it's not that hard to figure out. I looked around to make sure no one was looking. There was a guy in his 50's or so shooting at something a few machines over (another obvious lunchtime lurker) and a guy in his 20's not too far away winking and smiling. I decided to ignore him cuz he seemed like a bigger loser than me sitting in his little race car game.

I chose the Beginner level, followed the instructions and started. I looove this game! I want one for my house! I made it through the first two stages and got to the final stage but then I think I must have screwed up cuz the game ended. I haven't the foggiest what my score was. Except I guess I had to do relatively okay cuz there were lots of those pop up "good" or "perfect" flashes. I wanted to put in 4 more tokens but I didn't want to chance being spotted by anyone I knew so I fled like I was hiding a crack addiction or something.

But... I'll be back...