New York celebrates MHC

The first night, Mom and I went to the American Museum of Natural History, to attend a celebration for MHC. I love that the college logo is projected past the blue whale! Saturday night I skipped the group dinner and went out to Brooklyn to visit the Big Brother. Odd that Brooklyn seemed like "reality" after what I'd been eyeballing in Manhattan! People were wearing color!
Here's the BQE at night:
And my first NYC rat!
The conclusion of the trip? Art is everywhere.

New York Art Weekend, continued

Our group, outside a private gallery of Dutch masters, on Madison Ave (aren't the flowering trees great?): Looking up Madison Avenue:
The foyer at Christie's - loved this!
MHC class of '64, patiently waiting for our tour of the Greek and Roman galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art:One-third of the group, having a tour of the Roman works by one of the department curators at the Metropolitan (that's a porphry bathtub!):
Dinner at the home of the tour organizer, MHC class of '64:
Look at all of these Uncommon Women!

Art Adventure, MoHo Style

I am dying to provide a New York Art Weekend Update. However, until I am able to compare notes with Mom and others in the group, I'm going to have to just post some photos from my amazing visit. Incredible, incredible, incredible. I've been on a cloud for weeks!

The first thing Mom and I did when I arrived was eat lunch. I felt as though I were in a movie! It was 75 degrees and we were in this wonderful West Village cafe:
Then we wandered around the West Village, which I loved. Here are some of my observations:
Look! Over there! Architecture!

This is the park memorial for the Stonewall protests:

And here is the Palazzo, which we happened upon, that I had just read about in Vanity Fair (the big pink building top):

Here is the view from the sofabed where Mom and I stayed (in a suite! with a view of the East River!):

The following morning, we met the group at the Whist Club (where they apparently still do play whist! Who knew?):
Ladies lunching (well, coffee at 10 am):

Obviously, we had no idea what we were in for....

Luna Update

On with the joys of dog ownership...
One week ago, Luna got up for breakfast as usual. She went outside to the front yard to "do her business" also as usual, and went tearing across the (fenced) yard after a dog that was being walked down the street (also usual). The not so usual part is that in the process of tearing across the yard, she managed to tear her left hind "ring toe" nail off the nailbed. This was not such a pretty sight when she came back inside. I wasn't too keen on another trip to urgent care, so I waited 40 minutes until the vet clinic opened for the day, and fortunately they could see her that morning. She was sedated (this makes it the third time I've signed a wonderful "if your dog dies under sedation it's not our fault" waiver) and they shaved her toe and removed the torn toenail. It looks terrible, like the tip of a red marker instead of a toenail - essentially, it's just raw quick with no nail on top. She had to wear this little bootie for the first few days (tore it off once tearing around the yard again), and has caused it to resume bleeding all over the floor only a few times. Can't wait to see how much of the $230 vet bill the pet insurance folks will cover!
(I'd attach a photo, but am afraid it would be too gross.)

Motorcyclin'!

Jim has been very patient with me and even counseled me through a meltdown last week (I was driving around with the choke out and it turns out that's not so good if you don't want to stall all the time). We're just back now from a trip across town, where I unsuccessfully tried to show off my cool getup to two pals (neither of whom were home). Oh well, it was still grand!

Here's the First Big Trip: home to Point Woronzof weekend before last.
Safety First!

Passing time...

Well, since I'm not getting anything productive done right now, I thought I might work on one of my to-do list tasks. I like how "to-do" is close to "ta-da" and sometimes if I read it quickly, my brain reads the latter and has a little jump of excitement. Perhaps if I finished all the tasks on my to-do list I could exclaim Ta Da! and be done with it. Not the case right now. I have been making to-do lists daily for about a week. The only difference seems to be the date I assign to the top of the list – yes, still the same list. No, didn't get any of these tasks finished up yesterday. It's not much, just small things that take personal time that I don't want to give, but at this point it's becoming more of a to-do that these items are hanging out on the list than it is to just buckle down and do them.

Of course, several of the tasks have to do with rifling through files and checking up on insurance claims and settling some money accounts, which on one hand is a great task because it would be a really good and important one to finish, but on the other hand is a lousy task because it will involve a lot of confusion and calling around and pointing out the insurance company that one claim was for me and the other claim, that they're saying is "suspected duplicate," is actually for the same service on the same day, but for my dependent spouse (eye exam). If they actually read the fax cover page that accompanied the claim, then they'd know that and could stop fielding my calls! I've only called once. It was great, they said they'd take care of it right away, and apologized for the mistake and the delay. The next day I saw it was in pending status, and the day following was denied for "possible duplicate." Right. This will be more fun to call them the second time.

Rowing season is right around the corner, and I've been attempting to spend a few minutes thinking about what I want to get out of the season. The fees aren't cheap, and I'm on super budget, so the first conversation I have to have with myself is whether or not participating in rowing is really worth it. I've decided it is. Even when rowing in a crappy boat with a bunch of people who don't know what they're doing and end up jerking you all over the place, there are always a few moments of good glide on the water that feel great. Not to mention, a good boat with synchronized teammates is ecstatic feeling. I've been erging all winter, and pulled a 2,000 m time last weekend that I'm quite pleased with, so I may as well indulge myself. I just have to be careful not to complain about club politics to Jim so much, I think it wears on him.

So I'm not going to any Outside regattas this year, and I'm missing one of the two in-state regattas for the MS bike ride, so my racing opportunities are obviously quite limited. I'm hoping that if I'm a good sport, then I'll get to practice in racing boats even if I'm not racing, instead of being boated in more of a misfit ship. I've been talking with some friends about arranging a 4 to row once a week so we can have some guaranteed good water time.

Tomorrow morning I'm doing round two of the hydrostatic body fat test. It's strange to think it's been 6 months since the first one! This time I have all the rules about not eating and drinking, and have a good mind to adhere to them. Suppose I'll be posting the results for all of you tomorrow; be sure to tune in for the next update.

Red Dress

Here are those pictures I promised from the work awards ceremony:

Getting Ready

I was talking on the phone this afternoon to Mom and got completely excited about the New York trip! I'm leaving tomorrow night, which means tonight becomes a frenzy of procrastination: one more episode of SATC, clean the house, do the laundry, pack the clothes...that's the plan, anyway. Currently, I've done the first task and am sitting with my mug of Red Zinger and listening to the best of JJ Cale. Life is good.
I'm approaching this trip with a new idea, a new mindset. It's personal, it's likely boring to all others, but it's pretty exciting to me. I'm going to track my food and ww points this week, even knowing I'll go over my dailies. I'm going to stick to my quite limited budget, and essentially try not to buy anything. It sounds ridiculous; more to the point, it begs the "WHY?!" question. But I am going to New York to look and be on a tour, not to buy things. And what would I buy? I've so far identified my two mine zones as the museum gift shops and the bar. Figure I'll make a list of things from the gift shop (and then turn it over to Jim around my birthday), and make Alex buy all my drinks. Fair warning. So, I have a food and money budget. I'm quite excited.

In other news..cleaned the office today: a clear sign of procrastination. I've been working a lot lately; last week we had the feds in town to give legal advice on a big project I've been working on (for the last 4 years), so there was a field trip and lots of meeting coordination and good discussion going on, not to mention staying a bit later and checking email and generally following up on the rest of work. I'm officially finished with my year as chair of the national committee of my company's employee recognition program, which is good. A year is the right amount of time for that. And the presidents of the company (we have two) and the CEO and the head of HR all signed a very nice letter thanking me for all my hard work and finesse - yes, I think they used that word, I'll check tomorrow - getting the committee through it's first major budget increase in 14 years. Original signatures and everything. I have honestly never seen these signatures in pen, they're always scanned and printed. It was presented to me at our annual awards ceremony (which I mc'd, in a flaming red evening dress, pictures to come when I get them), and I was totally surprised. The letter was matted and framed, so now it's on the wall of my office. I wouldn't have matted and framed it, but there you have it.
Anyhow, I cleaned the office - divided the enormous African violet, repotted some other plants that badly needed it, wiped down all the desk surfaces and computer with germ killer wipes. I have this wood goose mobile, the kind with a string that you pull to make the wings flap, that used to hang in my family's cabin when I was growing up, hanging over my desk. Because of the way I engineered the hanging apparatus, it's been facing the corner for about 2 years - until today, when I finally got up there and moved that paper clip in the acoustic tile and now my goose is looking out at the office. A little bit of feng shui that actually made a huge difference!
I felt I was allowed a little procrastination, since I worked 9 hours on Sunday and 5 or so on Saturday, trying to make up for this Thursday and Friday when I will be in NYC. Those days were so productive, it almost - almost - made me want to trade out a weekend day for a weekday on a regular basis.
So, that's enough rambling for now. I promise I'll post a picture of the red dress (on loan from a colleague) when I get some, and I'll post NYC pics when I return. Not taking the laptop and pretty darned excited about that!