This was the second to last week of our CSA. The whole family is going to miss it, though Irving might be the biggest mourner. He has stood in our kitchen patiently awaiting the bounty each Tuesday and put up with the many flash-blinding photographs taken of him as he has nibbled each green piece of produce within range. This week he was in ecstasy over the collards.

Because he's been such a good sport and because he has been continuously eating barf-inducing houseplants when we are not home, I bought him some of his own green things: catnip and cat grass. This was a home run gift.

Oh, but there is more. Here's something interesting- we came home on Saturday after our Thanksgiving trip to find Irving's armpit and stomach- his favorite lick-it-raw OCD areas, to be dry and healing. He'd gone over 4 days without his kitty medication and seemed just fine- if not better than ever. So we've stopped giving him the medication. He still licks himself, but not nearly as bad as he has in the past. Plus, the absence of the meds has brought him back to his playful self. We'd forgotten that he used to talk to himself and chase Olive. This week I realized how much I'd missed our little buddy of a few years ago. I think the move to the house really did Irving well- I've never seen him so content. Nervous, yes, but he has been a little worried looking since the day I met him. It's all in the eyebrows.

Slightly related but not really: We've been trying to figure out what to do about the CSA next year. It's definitely something that we want to continue, however Cobble Hill is not longer central to home. Our area doesn't have a CSA, however those nearby- Park Slope and Greenwood Heights- do. The thing is that we've heard very mixed reviews about both and neither has responded to us as to whether we made it onto the wait list. Does anyone have experience with the PS or GH CSAs? Is it worth our switching, or should I just continue the Tuesday field trip to Cobble Hill each week?

Well now, belated greetings. It seems as though I created two posts prior to leaving for Thanksgiving and forgot to publish both of them. This is quite indicative of my brain as of late- industrious but incredibly scattered. I am sitting in the living room at at 4:30p.m. dusk, listening to the cars rush through the rain, the trees sway in the chilly wind and Irving snore on the radiator behind me. I have a horribly sore throat- a cold, I guess, that I have finally succumbed to after fighting it for over a week.

I spent the morning in Brooklyn's Chinatown searching for lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves. Of course, once I got there I realized that I didn't know what either item looked like, so I tromped around 8th Avenue in the rain with a broken umbrella, poking at produce and sniffing things in a lame attempt to find what I was looking for. I finally found the lemongrass after a kind shopkeeper noticed my helplessness. The lime leaves, however, were a bust. Next time I will probably need to visit that little Thai shop in Mosco Street in Manhattan's Chinatown. We're still going to try and make the tom yam goong tonight as planned, though I am sure it will be a lot less lime-y.

Obviously, much more has been going on other than searching for cooking ingredients- some good, some bad, some sad. Hopefully I'll have a little time this week to gather my thoughts and get something more comprehensive out there. In the meantime:

• We decided to go for the mission style bed with the straight headboard (bed on the left below). Unfortunately, a king sized bed won't fit comfortably in our room, though we will upgrade from full to queen.
• Irving can now leap over the cat gate at the top of the stairs, which meant that when we arrived home from LA last night every plant within reach in the living room had been eaten.
• Why don't they sell Spega yogurt on the east coast? Cute glass jars aside, it is one of the tastiest lowfat yogurts that I have ever had.
• We visited our family on the west coast this week, including our two little nieces. It's amazing how quickly they are growing up. With each visit, I think the realization that we are ready for our own little one grows, too.

Now, back to hot tea and soup making. I wish I still had another day or two to kick this cold before diving back into the work week. Meh.

But bed frames. Any suggestions? And more importantly, mattresses? Right now, the frames above are winning in our household, though we need to take a trip to the showroom to check them out in person. All I want is a sleeping environment where I never, ever want to crawl out of the covers- not because I'm dead tired but because I'm so darn comfortable.

The best part about a new bed? During certain hours, the room then becomes a cat-free zone. Woot!

It's cold here in New York! I woke this morning to "feels like 16," which I guess is a normal temperature for the East Coast in mid-November, though my body hasn't quite caught up yet. Plus, I can't find my gloves from last year and I accidentally left my hat in Chicago this past weekend.

Speaking of past weekends in Chicago, I was happy to make it to my oldest childhood friend's baby shower, where I met up with my second oldest childhood friend who is also pregnant. I found it rather surreal to watch my pregnant ladies, as we have known one another since we were in elementary and middle school. I cannot recall a time during childhood and adolescence where I was able (or wanted) to think forward to the time when we would all be starting families...it was strange and wonderful to be together as they head further and further toward the creation of a new generation.

**

In house news, we have no heat by choice, mainly because we were both intimidated by having to light the pilot light on our furnace- which received kind of a shaky review by the house inspector- by ourselves. So today a plumber is coming in to service it and show me how to light it up in the winter and shut things down in the spring. Then on Saturday at some ungodly early hour we will finally have the asbestos in the basement removed, which will enable us to safely start some work down there, such as shelves and a new wall/door dividing the common space from the laundry/boiler/etc. And, of course, so that it can be transformed into that grubby yet functional hang-out space where we can throw darts and not worry about piercing toxic matter wherever we turn.

In the meantime, though, I plan on zipping up the coat I've been wearing 24 hours a day (did I mention that my office is freezing, too?) and curling up with a cat until the plumber gets here. Hopefully next year we'll feel more confident when it comes to firing up the furnace by ourselves.

Sometimes life settles into a simple rhythm- waking up, breakfast, the commute to work, work, then the reverse. I don't mind it much, as the routine reminds me that things are calm and that there is time to watch, to observe, to enjoy the life that suddenly seems to be unfolding slowly. Then there are the days when something jars your serenity, when the unexpected details of life in a city rear their heads, for better or for worse. Like, for instance, yesterday, when I seem to have run into a crazy each time I entered a subway station (if you want the math, I walk through three stations in the AM, ran an errand at lunch the took me through two each way, then transferred twice to get down to the gym after the work, finally walking from the gym to our house in the evening).

My general tack in subway cars is to burrow into my music, watch my surroundings through the corner of my eye and just get where I need to go. I won't go into detail now about the guy who basically peed on my shoe, as it's actually grosser than it sounds, but I will share my interaction with Stray Hair Guy.

When I entered the subway car at 96th Street, I accidentally stepped on this guy's foot, for which I apologized and he acknowledged, both politely. As we rolled in toward 42nd Street, I noticed that he had turned toward me, his fingers making almost a pinching motion at my coat, not quite touching me but pulling at the air by my arm. We made eye contact and I raised my eyebrow, at which point I could see his lips move.

Lowering my music, I realized that he was saying, Stray hair. I was removing a stray hair from your coat. Do you have cats?

I don't think I need to say much more about that interaction except that when the subway doors opened, I was ready to transfer to my next train.

This post is all about backlog. In fact, it is increasing my backlog, as while I type this list-like thing I probably could be writing something that lessens the load. Oh well.

So backlog. Let's see here.

• Last weekend, Alexis ran the NYC Marathon! I found him in Bay Ridge but then lost track, despite my searching in Upper Manhattan. Regardless, he did a great job and I am so proud of him. We came home and I grilled pork chops and he began his recovery process.
• And then we elected a new president (!) which is still surreal but wonderful and such a relief.

In between that time, however, there was a death in the family, and then the day after the election, a funeral, further bringing that whole age and mortality thing closer to the surface. I guess what I am saying is that event-wise, the past two weeks have been a bit nutty and emotional. But that is life.

On the lighter side, I have been grappling with a house/architectural mystery as of late. Again, the backlog prohibits me from showing you a photo, mainly because I keep meaning to take a picture of this but it is always DARK when I get home from work. Hopefully, I'll have an illustration soon.

Our house is part of a little attached development and each building is exactly the same, except mirror imaged. For the past few months I have been trying to discern why there are three concreted-over holes in the brick beneath our first floor window. I first thought that they were pipes, however after inspecting the basement I couldn't find any existing or dead connections that would correlate. This morning, however, I took a closer look at the houses down the street, which are also the same pattern, and realized that the three holes may have been the supports for (an original?) window box. Maybe?

I've never heard of houses in Brooklyn having built in (or perhaps more correctly, built-out) window boxes. I wonder if this was an early modification or if the developer decided to include this minor detail in the early 1920's when the houses were built. Now I really need to get down to the Municipal Archives to check out the building photos from the 1930's...

Lastly, we have a natural backlog called leaves. Thousands of them. And a block where people sweep the sidewalk twice a week. Back where I come from, we generally waiting for all of the leaves to fall until we raked them up. Not so in our new neck of the woods. So last night Alexis and I were out there at 10pm with broom and dustpan in hand, attempting to corral a large surface area of leaves while a gentle breeze kept greeting us and encouraging the browns and reds to flutter and fly and never quite make it into our trash bag. I guess neither of us studied leaf physics in high school.

People just do not understand my name. True, Trancho-Robie does not roll off the tongue. I often use Robie in work-related situations, or during instances where I am just to lazy to whip out the full 13 characters. Still, it never occurred to me that people and companies would have this much trouble figuring things out. Chase Bank massacred my name on our mortgage documents- even after writing and rewriting the correct listing, we still receive statements addressed to Robie C. Trancho.

The final straw came this morning as I went to get my voter card. I stood there with my NY State license, which clearly listed my name as Trancho-Robie, Corie L. The man took my license, wrote "Trancho Robie" on the card, then looked my name up in the book as "Robie."

"You're not in the book," he said. "You must have the wrong poll site or you are not registered." I told him that my last name actually began with a "T", not an "R," and he disagreed. I laughed a little, pointed to my license and asked if he was joking. He was not amused. "Your last name is Robie, first name Trancho?" I looked at him again, wondering if I really looked like someone whose first name was Trancho. "No, my first name is Corie. I have two last names. Or actually one last name that consists of two words connected by a hyphen." He looked bewildered. Finally, I convinced him to look me up under "T," where, of course, I was listed.

Is it really that hard? If this is the type of confusion that will occur on a regular basis, it's not just worth it to me. But then the big question is whether to retain the maiden name or use the married name. I like both but not necessarily together.

What have others done?

Gosh golly, I don't think I can recall an election day when I woke up automatically at 5:00 a.m. with no chance of falling back asleep. While making my coffee it occurred to me that I kind of feel the way I used to on Christmas morning. If I had ever believed in Santa Claus, I'd be excited but worried that all he left was a giant lump of coal. Instead, I am trying to believe in the voting power of the American people...who in past few years have consistently delivered giant lumps of coal. Still, this is the first election that I have voted in where I am inherently hopeful. I've tried to suppress the feeling for a long time but in the past few weeks, it's broken through any cynicism that runs through me.

I've never been one to argue with people about who they should vote for. It's your opinion and your right, no matter what direction you lean. All I can say today is to get out there, wait in line if you have to, and vote.

Vote for your beliefs. Vote for your children. Vote for your country.
Make this one count. There is so much riding on it.

Another short batch of Irving Eats Local(ish) is up on Flickr. I can't remember if I explained the series here, as it began while callalillie was on hiatus. We joined a CSA this year, which was probably one of the best culinary and lifestyle decisions that we made in 2008.* As Irving is the ambassador for all vegetarian felines, he was the perfect poster cat for CSA goods.

We'll have to join one closer to the house in 2009, as the hike from Cobble Hill to our new hood is a bit long. Despite the weekly trek, it's totally worth it. With the help of Mark Bittman's vegetarian cookbook, I've learned to create things with vegetables that I'd never considered before (like kolerabi). Plus, nothing beats food fresh from a farm.

In other cat news, the Littlest Feline, aka Olive, ventured down to the bottom of the stairs tonight- a real first. What is more, the Robettes did not try to chase her like a cat toy.

Note: Two weeks ago I had a meeting out in eastern Long Island that caused me to miss the CSA. On the way home, a colleague and I stopped at a random farm stand and it turned out to be the farm that provides our CSA with produce. Random and satifying.

* CSA = Community supported agriculture. You pay a lump sum in the spring and receive weekly shares of fresh produce through the following December. I highly recommend it.

Four years ago, I ran the NYC Marathon and Alexis managed to find me twice while on the route. It was truly impressive. This coming Sunday, Alexis will run the marathon! I am so proud of him and in awe at his ability to stick to something as grueling as first-time marathon training while in the midst of a crazy work schedule and our nutty few months of home buying, moving and settling in. I will try my best to locate him, as well, though I am wishing that I could just install a tracking chip in his neck. Actually, you kind of can do that. If memory serves, I can get email updates on his whereabouts through his running chip (though his 2004 mathematical calculations of my location based on pace were way smarter).

ANYWAY, if I you are in the city next Sunday, please keep an eye out for Alexis and give him a hearty shout of encouragement. While I doubt he will need any push, he certainly could use encouragement, so give him a cheer. There's probably no better way (in his mind) to spend the last day of his first month of being 35 running through all five borough of New York City.

[Contrary to the activity on this website, I have actually been up to a lot of things as of late. A combination of being busy and a crawling internet connection and eventual purchase of a new router kept me from the posting frequency that I would normally be paced at, I think. So I actually have some old school postings about little places in Brooklyn and the city that I am dying to get written...hopefully once I get through this hump of a week and weekend, I will have the time to get them all out.]

The most wonderful fall weather has swept across our corner of the world- my favorite crisp air, slight wind, the kind that shakes yellowing leaves from the trees and makes bike rides feel like the best thing ever. On Saturday morning I rode over to the farmer's market to get supplies for our weekend dinners- a chicken stew with dumplings and white bean, kale and escarole soup- then stopped en route home for a hot cup of coffee, which I drank with my feet up the iron railing outside the coffee shop, watching Brooklyn wake up.

We were bereft of a full bathroom for the weekend while contractors ripped out the tile around our shower/tub and replaced the wall. The tile simply cracked when they tried to remove it (we'd been hoping to recycle), so now we have an all-white tiled area surrounded by the nasty old purple tile everywhere else. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. The white tile will always remind us of how much better the bathroom will look when we are finally ready to renovate it for real. Mostly, though, I am really looking forward to taking a normal shower again without being surrounded by sheets of plastic.

Also accomplished this weekend: the Red Hook Harvest Festival, the transplanting of two trees from one area of our garden to the other (why someone planted two fir trees smack in the middle of a garden plot is beyond me), the hanging of a laundry line (and of laundry) and one good old fun game of bowling.

Upcoming: What should we carve into our pumpkins? And trick-or-treaters! Apparently there will be many in our little neck of the woods this year. I grew up in a neighborhood with about 1 trick or treater per year in it, which meant that the candy bowl was inevitably for the grownups. We currently have three bags of candy which loosely translate into a bag for me (Snickers), a bag for Alexis (peanut butter cups) and a bag of Smarties for everyone.

P.S. The other night we looked over at the top of the stairs and found Irving perched atop the baby gate- well, less perched than lounging, in full paw dangle. We still can't figure out how a 15lb cat managed to lounge on a 2" thick gate.

Yesterday I went out east on Long Island for work. We spent the car ride there talking about collecting memory, then met with the person we had an appointment with only to find out that age and time had virtually erased the past from their brain. It was sad and painful. Nature can be so unfair. We drove home and talked about memory loss, Alzheimer's and strokes. A heavy, heavy day.

And for some reason, I just can't shake it. There is an irony somewhere- or perhaps a desperation- in people like me and maybe you who document and save everything- that over time one's brain might fall prey to the natural course of life- that whole episodes, decades, relationships could be erased- and no body of artifacts will jar those memories back to life. I dreamed of empty shells last night.

##

In other news, the ceramic soap dish thing fell off our shower wall this morning, taking pieces of tile with it. After some inspection, we suspect that whomever cheaply renovated the bathroom before us put sheetrock behind the tile, which is apparently a no-no. So now we are trying to figure out the quick fix and a contractor who can let us know what financial damage we might be looking at in the future. Hello, home ownership. At least we might get some new tile out of it, as the current decor is a bit, um, dusky purple.

Well, busy for me. I've got some traveling to do and a spotty internet connection. In the meantime, I thought you might enjoy the latest photo of our attempts to achieve cat peace. Not bad, right?

Also: Any recommendations in the Brooklyn area for a) an electrician and b) a locksmith?

While one of us pushes forward with the final month of marathon training (Alexis), other more furry members of the family are being coached on how to navigate the wide world of a two-story house. Because our last move and cat merger was such a disaster, we are going about this one cautiously. We've kept the two sects isolated in two different bedrooms for the past two weeks and on Saturday, we bought a baby gate.

I took one look at the 3.5' gate once we unpacked it and said, "There is no way that this thing is going to keep the cats from going downstairs/upstairs. It's too low." But here's the thing- for right now at least, they are not jumping over it. When we let Irving and Olive out into the upstairs hall, they simply try to shove their heads through the banister slats, then they go to sleep. I guess this has affirmed one thing- cats are dumb. Either that or this is just a grace period.

10/9/08 Update: Last night while eating dinner we heard a very loud thud-plop. A few minutes later, Irving was ambling into the kitchen. Grace period over.

In the meantime, all of the cats have been granted supervised visits of the first floor when we are home. Oddly, Olga was completely freaked out. Irving has been most at home, mainly because he loves following us around, especially when I make dinner. This week he got to sample the CSA products again. Things are slowly going back to normal...

About six months ago, a good friend gave us a car. It was a complete donation based on karma- someone had given it to him, it was in fine condition for what it was and he wanted to continue the chain. We accepted it without hesitation. After all, it is rare that a car just shows up on your doorstep with just the cost of insurance and gas accompanying it. We'd been tossing around the idea of a car for a while, anyway, and there it was.

I don't know anything about cars or car culture. My only experience with such things stems from the guys who hung out next door to our old apartment building, and their focus was on building and rebuilding sporty, racy things with loud engines. The Great White Whale is neither sporty nor racy. Nay, GWW is a Buick Park Avenue. We are often mistaken for a car service, which I think is really awesome.

So here's my question. Is it normal for people to lean out of their windows in parking lots and city streets and ask you if you want some reasonably priced body work done on your car? Because the GWW attracts this ALL THE TIME, in any borough we happen to be in, and I think once when we were in upstate NY somewhere. It always elicits the same raised eyebrow response from us, mainly because we kind of see ourselves as the least likely people to be driving a Buick Park Avenue in the first place (when I drive it, you can barely see my head over the dashboard. Between its nose and its ass, I never know where the car begins and ends, and for the first time in my life I have come to understand what it might be like to be a little old lady).

In other news, this was the first weekend in eons where we didn't have any mandatory heavy lifting or painting to do, so we spent it at Lowes and IKEA. Well, that's a slight exaggeration. But we did manage to get the blinds installed in the living room and test out our donated BBQ in the back yard. I also spazzed out and built a makeshift kitchen island out of crap in our basement (to make the kitchen more workable until next weekend when our next temporary but real island arrives), then baked a loaf of bread and make a tasty green pozole on Sunday.

We did miss Open House NY, though- the first time in years that we didn't go. Next time, I guess.