Archive for the ‘oh happy day’ Category

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Campaign!

December 16th, 2011 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in hilarity, oh happy day, those were the days

Another entry from the journal I kept for my AP Poli Sci class when I was 18, and somehow thought I would be involved in politics:

Last month at the 25th anniversary celebration of NARAL,* I was asked to give a speech as the representative of the Teen Advisory Council. The speech went well, which is exciting, but to add to the exhilaration I felt, was the fact that I gave a damn great speech in front of so many important political figures. Among the people who heard me speak were Rep. Mary Flowers, John Cullerton, Dick Simpson, Richard Phelan, Dawn Clark Netsch, Maria Pappas, etc. etc. The best thing about it all was it gave me a chance to find out how to get involved in some campaigns. Maria Pappas even gave me her beeper number!

At any rate, today I followed up on one of my leads and went downtown to work on the Dawn Clark Netsch campaign.** I helped prepare a mailing of 10,000 invitations to a $1000 per plate benefit. I stuffed, sealed, and addressed envelopes. While I was doing this, I talked to other volunteers. They were of all ages and both sexes, and were very friendly. We shared our excitement over the latest “Tribune” poll results: Burris had 30%, Netsch 28%, and Phelan 13%. We were doing it! We were helping to close the gap and push our candidate to victory!

I personally liked doing the work because it allowed me to do several things: a) witness and observe first hand how a campaign works and b) make lots of connections for when I run for office in the future. Most important, though, is the feeling I got that I am partially responsible for helping my candidate; that I do and can make a difference!

Anyway, I’m very excited about this whole thing and can’t wait to go back! My first chance at voting will be coming up soon, and when I punch my vote for Netsch, I’ll feel part of it all!

*National Abortion Rights Action League.
**She was running for governor, and pretty much rocked, but lost by a landslide, which crushed me.

Crustaceans Are Soothing

December 7th, 2011 by Suzanne | 2 Comments | Filed in oh happy day, random

So last Thursday night I came home and saw what appeared to be a snow globe on the dining room table. Clearly, husband had received it as a parting gift from a luncheon he attended earlier in the day, but he wasn’t home at the moment. (Bob Seeger and the Silver Bullet Band concert, in case you were wondering, and he was home before 11 pm, as one might expect from a Bob Seeger concert, but I digress.) It was an odd scene for a snow globe, sort of like how sci fi movies depict the landscape after a nuclear holocaust, but there it was.

I grabbed the egg-shaped object and shook it. The second I did so, I realized I made a horrendous mistake. The “snow” clinked against the glass and instead of being anchored to the ground, the creepy tree-thing swirled around with the water. When I placed it back on the table, I noticed that there were critters swimming around in a panic. I felt awful. I just disrupted their calm lives with the equivalent of a massive tsunami.

Still, even though I nearly killed the little crustaceans, I also coveted what I quickly learned (once I noticed the package next to the orb) was the EcoSphere. It has four shrimp, which exist in an entirely self-contained aquarium ecosphere. No feeding, no cleaning. Just give it a proper amount of light and don’t touch it too much, and every once in a while use the magnet attached to the instruction manual to attract the magnet in the ecosphere to scrape off extra algae from the glass, and it’s good to go for as many as three years.

The crustaceans, which I quickly named after certain people who have earned my disrespect in the past few months but will remain nameless, somehow captured my cold dark heart even though they are sort of gross. Like, gross in the sense that they are translucent and I can tell when they are full of shit, not unlike the their namesakes. Also, when they shed their exoskeletons, they eventually eat them. Yet they are kind of cute, too.

I brought the EcoSphere to work yesterday and put it on my desk. (More travel trauma for the poor little crustaceans, I hate to say.) All day, I glanced over at them to see what they were up to. They swam, hung out on the creepy tree-thingy, sat on the pebbles, and used their teeny little pincers to eat algae and bacteria. How could I not love something as it stuffed its teeny mouth with bacteria, right?

The EcoSphere is going to change everything for me. I’ll be much less anxious and stressed with them around (and also with my new regimen of acupuncture). I am so pleased that Husband was kind enough to let me have this oddest of corporate gifts, even though I nearly blew it with my rash early shaking action.

Now, if I could just not worry about the crustaceans (damn, I love saying “the crustaceans”) over weekends, it will be perfect!

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The Hipster

August 13th, 2011 by Suzanne | 1 Comment | Filed in Asshole idiots, Damn, fun trips, hilarity, I love New York, Off the (Beaten) Subway Track, oh happy day, random, What is wrong with people?

For the last few years, I’ve meant to head out to Ft. Tilden, a former military base turned park in the Far Rockaways section of Queens.  A friend at work highly recommended it.  I finally semi-made it there today with Husband and some friends. 

Since my preferred method of travel, subway and/or bus, would have taken us about 2 hours, we decided to drive.  The park website had car directions, but when we arrived, we learned there was no parking without a permit in the summer.  Then, after ditching Augustus Gloop (our car) at the parking lot for neighboring Jacob Riis and walking along the concrete boardwalk back to Ft. Tilden park, we learned you cannot have a picnic there without a permit halfway through our picnic.  (The ranger let us finish, though.)

As came back from the trash after cleaning up, I passed by a woman sitting under a tree to my right.

“Hey hipster!  Go to the beach,” she hissed.

I looked behind me to see who she was talking to.  There was no one there.  I looked to my left.  Also no one there.  I looked back at her.  She had a straw hat pulled over her face so I could not see who she was looking at.

“Hey hipster!” She hissed again.  “Go to the beach!”

I realized that she was directing her comment to me.  This made me want to laugh, as I am about as close to a hipster as Snooki to a Greek scholar.  I wondered if she thought of all white people as hipsters, although I thought she was white, too.  She hissed at me a third time.  Then I felt awkward and weirded out.

The day was not a total bust, though.  After having our picnic rushed, not being able to use the hiking trail with the cool wood stairs, and being called a hipster, we headed over to the nearby Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.  It was gorgeous and not even the osprey circling the air seemed to mind our presence.  Or maybe birds of prey like fake hipsters.

Live Nude Music

June 4th, 2011 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in oh happy day, random

In general, I am not a fan of live music, even with musicians that I love. When I listen to music, I like to hear the songs the exact way I know them. I also am not terribly patient with songs I don’t already love. The point of shows is to let musicians riff on their hits and play some of their less popular catalog.

Given the shows tend to be expensive and that I don’t enjoy them as much as the price of the ticket, I don’t go to hear music often. The exception to this is The Loser’s Lounge. This cover band powerhouse is so much fun that I go almost every single time they have a show, whether I know a lot about the musician they are covering or not. The set up is lots of musical instruments and singers and then a different lead singer for each tune. They banter. They wear cheestastic costumes. I boogie down.

Last night they performed a tribute to Queen at the Bowery Ballroom. I have already been to two of their Queen tributes, the previous one about two months ago at a much more restricted setting (Joe’s Pub, set up like a cabaret so only chair dancing), and I was psyched. Husband, who also loves these shows, was in London for work, so it was just me and friend.

It was just awesome. We danced and laughed and danced. We marveled at the singer who was covered in glitter and wore a pair of chaps and a leopard print thong pouch. (I kind of love him.) We were disturbed by the singer in the unitard who used a lot of mime gestures and looked a little dead somehow. We tried not to look at the man standing in front of us, who donned ill-fitting acid-washed skinny jeans (which he cuffed), suede loafers with no socks, and a shirt that clung to his midsection in a way that enhanced his slight bulge.

During “Bohemian Rhapsody,” I jumped up and down at the fast part along with the rest of the crowd. As I looked around me and observed several hundred people experiencing the pure joy of fun that surged through me, I realized the point of live music. It was one of the greatest feelings in the world.

Royal Wedding, Royal Schmedding: It’s Marcus’s Birthday!

April 29th, 2011 by Suzanne | 1 Comment | Filed in family, oh happy day, warm fuzzy

The Royal Wedding may have the attention of millions of people around the globe, but mine is, as always, focused on my nephew.

Two years ago today, my cell phone rang in the morning. The caller ID said it was my sister, who was 7.5 months pregnant, which concerned me. Why would Dana be calling when she should be at work unless something was wrong?

Indeed, her water broke that morning. Dana wanted me to know that she was going to the hospital. We were all worried because it was six weeks earlier than the baby’s due date, but hopefully everything would turn out OK.

Marcus was born that evening and weighed 5 pounds, 2.5 ounces, which led me to conclude that the doctors got his due date wrong. Can you imagine if he had another six weeks of gestation? He would have been at least ten pounds! He did her a favor by arriving early. What a thoughtful little fetus!

Everything seemed fine until he came down with NEC a few weeks later and had to be hospitalized. That was awful. But I’ll not dwell on it here because it all worked out and today he is a super smart, adorable toddler. Certainly, I am biased, but his child care provider told my sister that he is the smartest kid she has ever cared for. Yes, I am kvelling! I so love this little goober!

Anyway, I cannot wait to celebrate Marcus’s birthday tomorrow with the family. In the meantime, I hope that my nephew has a very happy birthday today. He has brought so much joy to everyone in our family and others who are privileged enough to spend time with him.

Another Hand-Wringing Post about Careers

April 25th, 2011 by Suzanne | 4 Comments | Filed in oh happy day, sadness, writing

For seven months, I worked from home, stringing together consulting jobs, trying to work on my book about my grandfather/grandparents. For six of those months, I had writer’s block. Nothing I wrote was interesting, not was it even guiding me in a direction toward writing anything interesting. I just wanted to go back to my career in nonprofit management/public policy.

Then on March 9, as I rode the subway home from my friend’s reading, the outline for a book came to me. Because I struggled with not enough information for a compelling nonfiction book, I would take the few facts I had and use research to make up the rest. Yes, I was attempting fiction. My first drafts were nuggets of ideas. In the past few weeks, I finish the first chapter. I’m very close to finishing the last chapter of part I, which is set in Warsaw from 1927-1939.

I have never felt like I was a real writer. For the first time, when people asked me what I do, I came close to telling them that I was a writer. I loved the hours of research, my notes, and my maps. I loved the sentences that were coming out of me and the scenes that were taking shape. I loved the mostly positive feedback I was getting, and the constructive criticism.* This is what writers do. Instead I said that I was an unemployed person from the nonprofit/public policy world filling my time pursuing my writing hobby while waiting for a job.

Then I got a job. My first day is May 9. I’m excited and nervous, as anyone is when she starts a new phase in life. I think I will learn a lot. It may even help the book, as it is a nonprofit/foundation that aids Holocaust survivors. It is good work that should fulfill the part of me that misses being out in the world and working for positive change in low-income people’s lives.

Now, of course, the progress on the book will slow down. Instead of sheer glee at my stroke of luck, I also am sad for the career that is being set aside while I do what I need to do to pay the bills and add to our savings. For the first time, I might have to consider myself a writer with a do-gooder job. It’s kind of crazy. I like it.

*If anyone is interested in reading it and offering me feedback, I would love to send it to you!!!

A Medical History Museum and Spotted Dick

March 23rd, 2011 by Suzanne | No Comments | Filed in fun trips, hilarity, I am a bad person sometimes, oh happy day, yummy eats

The weather in London has been amazing. It has not rained the entire time I have been here and the sun has been out at least for an hour a day. The temperature is in the mid- to upper 50s. Delightful!

Yesterday I took another walking tour. One of the stops was at the Hunterian Museum. The Hunterian Museum is a medical history museum with tons of deformed specimens in jars of formaldehyde, skeletons, and surgical equipment. It is part of the Royal College of Surgeons. I tried to visit this museum in 2001, the very first time I was in London, but was told that it was not open to the public; to visit, a surgeon had to vouch for you. At the time, I knew no surgeons. I am so pleased that this policy has changed. My absolute favorite type of museum is a medical history museum. In fact, I would love to write a guide book to medical history museums around the world. This seems expensive to research, but I have visited a fair number already.

After my walking tour, I met my friend Mara for lunch. We stopped into Ye Olde Chesire Cheese pub, which was rebuilt in 1667, and super cool, with lots of wood paneling, fireplaces, short doorways, and cave-like rooms. I didn’t want to eat a heavy lunch, so we headed over to Gordon’s Wine Bar, which is another old restaurant with cave-like rooms. Then we went to Mara’s flat and took an afternoon run along the Thames and by Chiswick House. I really, really love running in London. The parks and scenery are gorgeous.

Eventually we headed back into the denser part of the city for dinner. This was taken at the Golden Hinde, a fish and chips place since 1914. I feasted on fried haddock, feta fritters, peas, and Greek salad. I’ve never been one for fried potato products, whether American or British style chips, so I skipped out on that. (I know – who eats fish and chips without the chips?) For dessert, I had that excellent British classic of spotted dick. This is some sort of raisin bread pudding in a bowl of hot custard. Not only is it delicious, but I can make many awful jokes about eating spotted dick and custard. Sort of the perfect end to a perfect day.

Today I am going to run in Hyde Park, eat some sort of fancy yogurt at lunch, and then go on a “Fair Maids, Feminists, and Philanthropists” walking tour. In the evening, though, I need to get back to working on my novel, so I’ll grab something from Marks & Spence Food on the Move and have a working dinner. I’m actually looking forward to that, too.

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Groundhog Day 2011

February 2nd, 2011 by Suzanne | 7 Comments | Filed in oh happy day, random

The good news is that Staten Island Chuck was hauled out of his nice warm borough at some ungodly hour this morning and did not see his shadow. This is great because New York City (as well as a large swath of the country) cannot afford much more of this insane snowy, stormy winter. I am sure that the early spring is coming, as Punxsutawney Phil did not see his fuzzy shadow either. If two groundhogs agree, well, then, it must be true. I think that is an old adage that should be repeated as often as possible.

Snowman, Take Two

January 27th, 2011 by Suzanne | 1 Comment | Filed in I love New York, oh happy day

I took this picture on a miserable day in March two years ago. I reran it on a miserable day in February last year. Now it makes its debut for 2011 in January. (I’m thinking that next year it will be December based on trends, although if I had been in NYC during the late December blizzard, I suppose it would have shown up already.)

On the day I snapped this picture, I was leaving my apartment for work. I was already in a foul mood for a variety of reasons, but the car with the tiny snowman on top made me stop in my tracks and smile. It was parked directly in front of my building and I could see through the glass paneled doors before I stepped outside. It was just what I needed to get going.

I reposted it today because it still makes me smile. We had about 11 inches of snow overnight, which is a lot of snow for New York City to deal with. I know that my Chicago-area hometown would maybe find it not such a big deal, but generally New York has a milder winter. So while I grew up with lots of snow, coping with it in New York is actually a lot harder. Sometimes, though, I think it is worse here when the snow all melts than when it is just mountains of snow to climb over in order to cross the street or board a bus. The puddles and slush are often deceptive on the street, so they look shallow but when I put my foot down, it is engulfed in cold wetness up to my ankle.

For now, I’ll not think about the snow and it’s aftermath or how this is going to blow a hole in our already tenuous city budget, leading to cuts in other services down the line. (I know that in the US, cities are supposed to clean up snow at all costs, but Husband went to Helsinki a few years ago, and was amazed to find that everyone just walked – in regular dress shoes – on piles of snow because cleaning the snow all the time was not cost efficient. They were just used to it and accepted it. I believe in Denmark people ride their bikes through snow in winter. Hearty people, I tell you!) Instead, I will look at this cute little snowman and smile.

Furniture Ramblings

January 21st, 2011 by Suzanne | 4 Comments | Filed in oh happy day, random

If I were left to my own devices, I would be a furniture hoarder. I love furniture. Couches are OK, but there is something about a nice piece of wood furniture that gets me excited. So gleaming! So sleek! The thing is, whenever we need some new piece of furniture, I am loathe to throw the old piece out and try to repurpose it.

For example, when we got a new dining room table and chairs on sale (amazing deal, something like $700 for six chairs and the table, all real wood with fancy cushions on the chairs), I moved our old dining room table (a compact piece from Crate & Barrel that we got from a group of friends for our wedding) into the living room and called it my writing desk. Two of the four blond wood chairs from that set became my writing table chair and the computer desk chair. It didn’t matter to me that the wood matched only that of our Ikea computer desk (great deal – $59 in 2000 and it lasted through a move and holds up very well today).

When we got our new purple couch, I had to throw out a side table that I scavenged from the garbage room at my old apartment building (the couch is longer than the old one, so there was not enough room), and it nearly broke my heart. It had a funky inlay pattern. Same story with the broken-ish rocking chair I got at a street sale for $5 when we took a road trip to Boston in 2003. Oh, how I loved that thing even though the arm would come off and I feared falling backward when I rocked a little too hard.

Anyway, as a DINK (double income, no kids) couple, Husband and I have upgraded recently to some nicer stuff than Ikea or things I find the trash, which given the bedbug infestation in NYC, I would no longer take. In 2008, we picked up a stained black bookcase from Gothic Cabinet & Craft. We bought a nifty, very dark (someday I will learn what wood is what, but the stains and finishes confuse me) trunk coffee table from Crate & Barrel in 2009. Neither match the dining room/writing table, computer desk, unfinished light wood stackable bookcases, “Sverker” (the small unfinished wood Ikea shelving unit that is piled with junk of the paper, tape, scissors, and battery ilk), or the medium brown bookcase that I found on the street in 2003, but that is how I like it.

The motley crew became more so when we selected a new TV hutch this weekend. It might be our nicest piece of furniture yet. I am very excited to have it. Yesterday the smell of fresh wood tickled my nostrils whenever I walked by it:

New TV Hutch

And of course, it matches absolutely nothing. I love that Husband does not mind that we look like we live in some sort of fancy thrift shop. His colleagues probably live in big houses with immaculate, matching furniture sets in every room, but I would feel out of place in something so, well, normal. This hodgepodge feels like home.

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