Vagabond life

C.J. said to me the other day, "I'm tired of living like criminals."

With genuine curiosity I replied, "What do you mean?" as I sat on a blow up mattress in a stranger's apartment in Brooklyn.

He said, "We could pack up all our things and be gone in 30 minute and no one would ever know we had been here. We haven't even unpacked our suitcases."

I looked around and realized he was right. We are living like gypsies. We barely own anything, our poor baby has no toys, suitcases are crowding the floor, there's no food in the fridge and we have a trashcan full of take-out containers.

We have five addresses on record at the moment:

1. Merrie Lynn Avenue is on our driver's licenses
2. Crockett Street is the address we use for our credit card and bank since moving to Grenada
3. Pack Saddle Pass is where our mail is being delivered
4. 41st Street is our physical address
5. Berkshire Place will be our new home in Hackensack

What kind of crazy people are we? That is ridiculous. We are living like the underbelly of society, slumming around like runaways.

We vow to get our lives in order starting tomorrow when we move to Hackensack. The mail will be forwarded, credit card companies will be called, driver's licenses will be updated, housewares will be purchased and we will again be upstanding citizens.

It has been a great vacation in Brooklyn, but I can't post pictures, because I don't know where the USB cable is for my camera. I am looking forward to being settled and official.

City of immigrants

Living in a city of immigrants
I don't need to go travelin'
Open the door and the world walks in
Living in a city of immigrants
- Steve Earle


We are living among the huddled masses. Sunset Park, Brooklyn is almost entirely an immigrant community, about half Hispanic and half Chinese with a few other cultures sprinkled in as well.

Brooklyn's Chinatown runs about 20 blocks along 8th Avenue just a short walk from us, while Hispanic storefronts and restaurants are ubiquitous along 5th Avenue, the commercial strip next to our building.

Brooklyn is an incredibly diverse city within a city. Beyond 8th Avenue lives one of the largest Orthodox Jewish communities in the world and the neighborhood 40 blocks South of us is traditionally Italian.

I love this simple video on the Brooklyn Children's Museum Web site. Watch it with sound. It plays images and music from all the diverse cultures living in Brooklyn, including West Indian (you should recognize the Carnival costumes), Mexican, South American, Chinese, Irish, African, Orthodox Jewish, Russian, Italian and Middle Eastern populations.

Living here keeps you guessing. Try to peg a white person as American and they are speaking Russian. Think that man is African American? He is Puerto Rican and speaking Spanish. The Asian girl is clearly Chinese - no wait, she is American and speaking English like me. On several occasions in my neighborhood someone has spoken to me in Spanish, not because they can't speak English, but because they think that I don't.

I'm blown away by how un-American this part of America is which actually then makes me reconsider what exactly is America. That melting pot saying has never seemed so real. And the whole world is right at our doorstep, no need for a passport or a plane ticket.

Had I not lived in Grenada, I might not enjoy it so much. But Grenada taught me how to appreciate things that are different. Grenada gave me courage to approach someone and ask them, "what is that?" without feeling self conscious and to taste or smell or touch things I'm not familiar with.

Grenada also taught me humility that stops me from making assumptions or feeling superior or thinking that I can begin to understand the forces at work in other people's lives.

Instead of being scared of our neighbors, what we have found here is that people are kind and they love their kids and they sell odd things and eat good food and are shorter than us (that is no joke, we got separated in Chinatown and I looked back and could see C.J.'s head above the crowd from two blocks away).

We love to stroll up 5th Avenue. All the street vendors selling watches and hand-shaved ice and sunglasses and roasted peanuts and aguas frescas and flowers and mangos on a stick sprinkled with chili powder and roasted corn. The bakeries and restaurants and shops packed with people.

We crave the guacamole at the deli around the corner and the tacos el pastor from the truck that parks in front of the grocery store at night. Horchata is a regular refreshment on our outings. Mexican pastries are delicious.

Sunset Park, the namesake for our neighborhood, is one of our favorite spots in Brooklyn so far, and we go there almost every day. The Asian women move in a slow-motion martial arts ballet to music in the morning while the old men of all colors and nationalities play cards and dominoes at permanent concrete tables under huge trees.

Hispanic ladies sell ice cream and fried dough in the shape of pinwheels while children play soccer or chase balloons. Middle-aged men play a relaxed but competitive version of volleyball and the basketball courts and hand ball courts and the baseball diamond are packed with people. Families fly kites, and the splash fountain is ringed with strollers and kids laughing and soaking wet in their clothes.

From the park, the second highest point in Brooklyn, we can see the Statue of Liberty, Mother of Exiles, guarding the harbor. It seems fitting.

This is not the nicest or cleanest neighborhood in the city. If we lived in Brooklyn permanently I would probably want to move to an area where I had more things in common with my neighbors and could enjoy American cuisine and coffee shops and stores.

For now though, it feels like an appropriate introduction to New York City. Walking around the neighborhood makes me feel proud. American ideals of hope and liberty for all are in action here. It is the promise we've made to the world - give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Comfortable with it or not, it is amazing to witness. Certainly nowhere else can you find so many diverse groups coexisting in relative peace and prosperity. This city is a special place.

Texas summer

Before the memories fade I have to post a few pictures of our summer in Texas. There were many more special moments, but my patience with blogspot is up. These are particularly out of order, but highlight all that's fun and wonderful about a summer in Texas - family, food, music, alcohol, water, friends...and gators.

Is there anything better than cousins?

Short hike to the Pedernales River

Rewarded by a long swim with the Crouches

Ninth annual Girl's Weekend at Lake LBJ


Hill Country wine tasting

Crabbing on Taylor Bayou in Southeast Texas


Liam's first boat ride with Uncle Keith

Live music on a Saturday afternoon

Cruising Congress Avenue with the Wincklers

Crab boil

Cooper's BBQ in Llano

Wake boarding on Lake LBJ

Camping at the Guadalupe River

Liam and Sadie's first trip to the river


Blues on the Green - free live music on a Wednesday night

Sunset in Zilker Park at Blues on the Green

Our crabbing buddy in Taylor Bayou (best known for his role on reality-TV show Gator 911 )

Urban living

Living in New York reminds me of every Law and Order episode I've ever seen plus that scene in the movie Beaches where Bette Midler comes home after work and walks over a bum to get to her front door and then bangs on the steam radiator in her tiny apartment.

There are no bums sleeping on our stoop and we thankfully haven't seen any murders, but we do have a steam radiator and our apartment is not so big and we are inundated with the sights and sounds that we formerly knew only from TV.

Out our living room windows we can see the gray brick of another apartment building that sits maybe 10 feet from us. There is a narrow concrete walkway dividing our buildings which serves as storage for old furniture and a place for the occasional neighbor to use a garden hose.

At night I can look out the kitchen window and see right into our neighbor's apartment through their curtains. There is a light in the little walkway - it is a light bulb enclosed in a simple wire cage, and it eerily illuminates our apartment after dark.

Our bedroom window overlooks the fire escape and the alley behind our building where the trash cans are kept. There is a brownstone on the other side of the alley from us. We only have windows on these two sides, so it is not very bright in our apartment since the sun is challenged to creep between the two- and four-story buildings.

There are a lot of city sounds you might expect. The occasional car horn or engine, neighbors walking above us and next to us, the door buzzer sounding as people come in and out the building door which is adjacent to our first floor apartment.

The occasional dog barking, Spanish rap, furniture being moved next door. Early in the morning we hear people dropping their trash or moving the trash cans just below our bedroom window. We live right behind a commercial street, and as I type this I can hear what sounds like dishes being stacked in a dishwasher in a restaurant kitchen.

Although the apartment is large by some standards (in a city where people pay to sleep on couches), it is lacking some amenities, like closets. The bedroom we're sleeping in is barely big enough to fit a queen-size mattress and a rolling clothes rack that holds our clothes.

The kitchen has about two feet of counter space adjacent to the sink (mostly taken up by the dish-drying rack) and one small row of cabinets. The current tenants hung shelves to hold their spices and kitchen staples.

There is no air conditioning in the living room and only window units in the two bedrooms. We haven't really needed it - we only run the units at night - because the weather hasn't been much above the mid-80s. But it does get a bit stuffy in here during the day. There is no room for a kitchen table so we eat on the couch.

This is the trade off for living in the epicenter of the universe. Walk out the door and you have access to the best art, shopping, eating, parks, entertainment, night life and museums in the world. Stay inside and your feeling, well, a little trapped.

Or, no, cozy. That's what I meant to say. It's very cozy.

No sleep 'till Hackensack

Last week we said goodbye to our home in Texas, boarded a plane and moved to Brooklyn. Sort of.

We secured a sublease for the month of August, bought our plane tickets for the 5th, whittled our worldly possessions down to four suitcases and then...got a letter on August 3 stating we were being sent to Hackensack, New Jersey. Ouch.

Since the apartment was already leased and the tickets bought, we came anyway. This will be our jumping off point to get over to NJ by August 31, when C.J.'s hospital rotation begins.

We knew this could happen. But really, we did not believe it would happen to us.

Had we known we were going to Hackensack, we would have done things differently. We would have bought a car in Texas and drove it to New Jersey and kept some of those things we sold or dumped on our poor family and friends.

If I had received word in May that we were going to Hackensack, I would have accepted it willingly. It's only 12 miles from midtown Manhattan, close enough to go to the city for the day or even commute to work. But since we had our minds set on Brooklyn for so many months, it is disappointing.

We are loving the city life. It is so vibrant, busy and diverse. I can walk out the door of our apartment and in one city block do my laundry, get a taco, buy a movie, buy a wedding cake, get a tattoo, pick up fresh flowers, eat pizza, grocery shop or buy a toy for Liam. We walk across the street and we are in a
huge park with a view of downtown Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty.

We feel robbed, even though lots of people have tried to convince us that New Jersey will be an easier place to live or a nicer place for families. I cynically think they are just trying to be nice, and they really feel sorry for us.

When I told people we were moving to Brooklyn I got a lot of responses like, "I have great friends in Brooklyn that you will love, I will introduce you," and "I lived in Brooklyn for five years. You will love it!" and "We can't wait to come visit you."

When I told friends we were switched to New Jersey, I get responses like "you better get some hairspray," and "maybe you can be on a reality TV show," or just "oh," followed by an awkward pause.

In Brooklyn, it seemed we would have plenty of house guests with all the people promising to come visit us. When we ask our friends if they will still visit us in New Jersey, they hesitate and then say a drawn out "yeah," with their voices ending on a high note. Uh, huh. That sounds like a polite, "no" to me.

I'm trying to think ahead to winter and picture myself loving my car and on-site laundry when there is a foot of snow on the ground. All I see in my mind is a big, ugly, suburban shopping mall and a row of chain restaurants off a turnpike.

Unfair, I know. I haven't even been there yet. We're heading over on Thursday to check out the hospital and do some apartment hunting. Maybe it is a charming hamlet full of green space, art galleries and one-of-a-kind eating establishments. But I'm not holding my breath.

Somewhere in Brooklyn tonight there is an SGU family wishing they got sent to Jersey. Can't we just switch places?

By the way, we did ask SGU if there were any spots in Brooklyn for us. They said (not exactly in these words), "tough luck, we told you this might happen." They weren't interested in how we felt, which is mostly frustrating because they did, in fact, ask us how we felt back in April. They asked us to rank our top three choices, which, you guessed it, were all in Brooklyn.

Am I sounding bitter? I'm feeling bitter.

I keep reminding myself there is nothing we can do about, except enjoy our little Brooklyn vacation while it lasts. On the up side, rent will be a bit cheaper and C.J. is having the most fun he's had in years researching a car for us to buy. Also, we are grateful that we got a placement and are moving on after a stressful summer of preparation for year three.

It's really not all bad. We'll get over it. Eventually.