Home Sweet Home: A Q&A

The new digs

Q: So, you guys are moving to a new place?
A:  Yup.  We bought a house in Somerville, at 8 Fennell Street, near Magoun Square.
Q:  Congrats.  I didn't even know you were looking.
A: We weren't.   For a long time, we thought we could fit us and two kids in our current apartment.  I guess, technically, we could, because babies themselves are small.  But all the baby stuff?  That turns into kid stuff?  Forget it.  It became obvious pretty early on that we'd outgrown this place.  So, we started looking in early October, made an offer on October 22nd, closed on November 30th, and we'll move in December 15th.
Q: Yeesh, that was fast.
A: Tell me about it.
Q: So what are vitals on the place?
A: Three beds + study, two baths, almost 2,400 square feet of living space, front yard and back yard with covered patio, fireplace, eat-in kitchen, finished basement with a bonus kitchen.
Q: A bonus kitchen?  So you have two kitchens?
A:  Yeah.  I'm pretty excited about it.  It's common in old school Italian homes; the upstairs kitchen is for show, the downstairs kitchen is where the sausage gets made, so to speak.  I was positively frolicking through Home Depot, picking out my two gas ranges.
Q: Should we be expecting twice as many dinner parties?
A: Maybe not twice as many, but there will be some kind of multiplier effect.
Q:  How's the neighborhood?
A:  Great.  It's about a mile and a half from our current place, on a small dead end street.  It's across the street from a big park that has two baseball diamonds and two basketball courts and close to the best public elementary school in the district.  The closest T stop is Davis Square, which is about a twenty minute walk, but there are some smaller squares close by that have restaurants, shopping, and public transit.
Q:  Sounds a lot like your current neighborhood.
A:  Our current neighborhood has gentrified a lot in the past few years.  The new neighborhood is a little more "Old Somerville", families that have lived there for decades rather than yuppie transplants.  But the footprints of Davis Square and Tufts University are growing, and will probably include us soon.
Q: Tufts, huh?  So you're trading one brand of college kids for another.
A:  It's Boston.  College kids are pretty much unavoidable.
Q: So, how much did you guys end up paying, if you don't mind me asking.
A:  Not at all.  It's nothing that can't be looked on the city assessor's website.  We paid $473,000.
Q: Whoa!
A: I know.  It's more than I ever thought I'd ever pay for a house ever in a billion jillion years.  But for the area and for what we got, it's a bargain.  Similar single family homes are running at least a 100K more.  We actually ended up paying about 75K over asking price because there were eleven other bids on the property.
Q:  What are you most excited about in your new place?
A:  It's the little things.  A dishwasher.  Not having to go to the laundromat.  No ancient shag carpets.  Oven knobs that don't come off in your hand.  A bathroom wide enough for two adults to pass each other.
Q:  Is there air conditioning?
A:  Nope.  No air conditioning.
Q: Seriously?!?  Are you guys secretly Amish or something?  With the apple butter and everything?
A:  Sometimes it feels that way.
Q:  What are you going to miss most about your current place?
A:  The neighborhood.  My favorite coffee shop.  My little fancy grocery store.  My big not-so-fancy grocery store.  The little playground catercorner from our place.  The tree lined walk to Harvard Square. Our crazy neighbor with all the ducks in his yard.  For the past few weeks, I've had to remind myself daily that it's only a quick walk away.  Now it's almost hourly.  In my head, I know that I will find just as many things to love about the new neighborhood.  But my heart doesn't know that yet.
Q: And Mary?
A: And, of course, we'll miss our landlady "Grandma" Mary.  But we'll definitely be bringing Leo by for visits.
Q:  There's a rumor that you wrote a sappy letter to sellers to try to persuade them to take your bid.
A: Guilty.  It was on the advice of our realtor.  And it was high-octane sap. If I put in the whole thing, you might have to squeeze it out over your eggo waffles, but here's the last paragraph.

               "We read in the listing that this home has been occupied by the same family for the past sixty three years, since 1949.  Know that if you let us buy this home, it will stay a family home as long as we own it.  We will take care of it and take pride in it, hopefully for the rest of our lives.  This home has clearly seen some good years, and we hope to add many more good years of our own."

Q: Oh, lord.  You were laying it on thick.

A:  It gets worse.  We included a family photo.

Q:  Did it make a difference?

A:  We'll never know for sure, but Aaron went by the house today, and there was a bottle of champagne in the fridge and a note from the sellers, congratulating us on our new home.

Aftermath of a Fall Outing: The Apple Butter Saga

Like many seductive things, the early days of a New England fall are very dangerous.  The leaves begin to turn, and when a breeze catches them, they flutter down like gold tipped confetti.  It’s cool enough for a turtleneck but warm enough for bare ankles, a combination that feels vaguely Kennedy-esque.  And on some particularly buoyant, blue day, while sipping warm cider on the deck of your favorite café, you remember that in an orchard just outside the city, rosy Winesaps and succulent Honeycrisps are reaching their peak ripeness.

And you lean over to your companion and say “We should go apple picking next weekend.  Remember how much fun it was last year?”

Now, if your companion is of the practical, kill-joying bent, he would remind you of what happened last year, with the apple butter.  But my companion is not like that.  In fact, I’m pretty convinced that my companion was a farmer in a previous life, so apple picking is right up his alley.

So, we went again this year, this time with Leo, Grandma, and Gido, and when I came out with just one bushel bag, Aaron gave me the puppy dog eyes until I went in and got another.  And we picked apples and had a jolly good time.  And when we got home, we marveled, “Look at all these apples!”

Then, over the following weeks, after we’d eaten enough apples to repel the medical profession for a decade, the marvel turned to despair.  ::sigh::  “Look at all these apples.”  It was like having one of those weird paintings with eyes that follow you across the room, as if to ask “Are you just going to leave us here to rot on the kitchen floor?”

We're watching you

No, I think to myself.  No, I guess not.  I guess it’s time for apple butter.

Making apple butter is not hard.  Any monkey could make apple butter.  Scratch that—monkeys have too much intellect and curiosity.  You need something a little duller, a little dead behind the eyes.  A cow.  Any cow (who could be trained to wield a vegetable peeler) could make apple butter.

Step one is peeling, coring, and chopping a whole hell of a lot of apples.  This is by far the worst part.  It’s simultaneously slippery and sticky work.  Or, more accurately, it’s slippery at first, when your hands get covered in apple juice, and then sticky as the juice dries into an industrial strength adhesive.  And it just takes so long.  I couldn’t tell you how many apples I actually go through.  Counting would just be too depressing.  Basically, I take the biggest pot in my kitchen and start filling it with apples.  When it gets up to the handles, I stop.  Here’s a good rule of thumb: when you find yourself losing the will to live, you only need about four or five more apples.

See this thing?

Fill it with these things.

Next is the revenge stage of apple butter.  Take your big pot of apples, add 2 cups of cider and 4 cups of water, put it on high heat, cover it, and boil the ever-loving crap out of it.  The only thing that would make it more perfect is if the apples screamed for mercy like lobsters.

When you’ve satisfied yourself that the apples are sufficiently dead (35-45 minutes), turn off the heat and let it cool a bit.  Then, if you have one, get out your immersion blender.  This may be my favorite weapon in the kitchen arsenal.   It’s commercial grade (interestingly enough, made by the same company that makes Aaron’s hair trimmer), more like a power tool than an appliance.  It rarely comes out more than once a month, but ohh, when it does.  The whole pot is pureed in about a minute.  Those apples didn’t stand a chance!

Say 'allo to my leetle friend!

Then the whole thing gets moved to the slow cooker, where I stir in the following: 1 cup white sugar, 3/4 cup brown sugar, a generous capful of vanilla extract, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon allspice, 1/2 teaspoon cloves, a healthy pinch of salt, and a dash of cayenne pepper.  The point is to reduce this down to a dark brown, which in my slow cooker, uncovered on high heat, takes about nine hours.  So turn it on, and go get on with your life.

Like buttah.

As much work as it is, I will say that the finished product is pretty terrific.  Sweet, spicy, with just a tang of heat.  It’s good over ice cream.  It makes a nice glaze for roast pork.  It even makes oatmeal downright palatable.  But, for my money, the best use of apple butter is in what I like to call a Butter-Butter Sandwich.  Imagine, if you will, that the grilled cheese and the PB&J had a torrid New Year’s love affair.  The Butter-Butter would be their autumn lovechild: peanut butter and apple butter, grilled between two pieces of buttered challah bread.  So good.

A New Use for Maternity Jeans

Patent pending!

My Dear Dog Friend

Living in a semi-urban neighborhood has a lot of good news / bad news situations.  Quaint, walkable streets mean that parking is always an issue.  All the things that make the area desirable also make it expensive.  The  proximity of excellent restaurants, cafes, and other foodie havens pose an existential threat to one's dress size.

But one of the almost completely positive (and somewhat unexpected) attributes of city living is dog friends.  For those of us who don't or can't have dogs of our own, a wet nose and friendly set of scratchable ears is can be a bright spot in an otherwise incorrigibly bad day. 

My best dog friend, Coco, was a chocolate lab with a little too much belly who lived at a house at the end of the street.  Sadly, she passed away earlier this week.  It was sudden, and she was much too young.  Knowing how much she was beloved by the neighborhood, her family put out this poster to let us all know what had happened. 

Rather than focusing on how much I will miss her (which is really an inordinate amount given that she wasn't actually my dog), I want to tell a little story about Coco.  

When I was pregnant, it suddenly seemed like everyone else was too--friends, celebrities, even the girl at the coffeeshop.  One day, I walked by Coco's house and saw two roly-poly little brown puppies.  Rather stupidly, my first thought was "Oh look, they got two new dogs."  Yeah, two new dogs that look exactly like their other dog.  What a coincidence! 

It was only after I saw Coco's chewed out nipples (lord, if I'd only known then . . .), that I realized that those were her babies.  One of the puppies found a home quickly, but the other one, whom I nicknamed Baby Boo, stuck around a while, growing into his rambunctious adolescence.  As I grew to house-like proportions, I'd stop by to say hello to the two of them.  After I'd managed to toss away a toy to distract Baby Boo, Coco would climb to the top of the fence, and we'd commune nose to nose, telling mama secrets. 

RIP Coco.  I hope you find a well trafficked street corner in Dog Heaven.

2 Month Update

On November 6, Leo turned two months old.  We celebrated by getting up at o‘ dark-thirty in the a.m. for a family trip down to our local polling place.

You got me up for what now?

And so did everyone else in town.  Apparently, it’s been imprinted in our collective consciousness that all truly fine, upright citizens vote early in the day, because there were lines out the door . . .

Down the block . . .

And around the corner.

To make matters worse, it was cold.  The first legitimate, no-foolin’ cold day of the season.  You may not be able to tell from the picture above, but the guy ahead of us was wearing a fleece vest over a t-shirt, and I could pretty much count the goosebumps.  But he must have been a marine or something because he was definitely not doing the little back-and-forth, pissy-pants, keeping-warm dance that I was.

I don’t know why, but the first cold day of the year always comes as a horrible surprise to me.  There’s really no excuse for this.  Seasons are not exactly new inventions.  And, after (dear god, has it really been?) 20 years, I can’t claim the ignorance of a southern transplant.  Still, once a year, I step out the front door in my lightweight trench coat and my more-style-than-substance scarf, only to get kicked in the teeth by a burst of cold air.  I then scramble back into the house and hide under the thickest blanket I can find, feeling terribly betrayed by the whole thing.   

People around here like to claim that you get used to the cold (which is only slightly less obnoxious than claiming to love “the seasons.”  Please.)  No, I have never gotten used to it.  Over time, I may have come to realize the futility of complaining about it.  I may have bought myself some boots I don’t hate.   I may have even resigned myself to a life of chapped lips and long underwear.  

Not to mention hat hair.

Which is all to say that I may tolerate winter, but I will never get used to it.  NEVER!!!

But I digress.

Anyway, after about an hour, we voted.  Yay democracy.  And, more importantly, yay stickers.

What else did Leo get for his birthday?  A visit to the doctor’s office. 

Here are the all important vital stats:  our “big galoot” (a direct quote from the pediatrician) now clocks in at a whopping 16 pounds 2 ounces and measures 25 inches.  As a point of comparison, the 50th percentile 2 month old boy weighs 11 pounds and measures 23 inches.  The 50th percentile 4 month old boy weighs just over 15 pounds. 

Other than his jaw-dropping size, he’s a pretty healthy boy.  One thing you may have noticed in the photos is what I like to call his “super outie.”  It’s actually an umbilical hernia, which occurs when part of the intestine protrudes through an opening in the abdominal muscles, making the bellybutton blow up like a balloon.  Don’t worry, it’s a) pretty common, b) totally harmless, and c) usually resolved on its own by age 1.  That doesn’t stop it from sounding totally horrific and seeming like it should hurt a lot.  Thus the cutesie euphemism.  On the plus side, it works a handy dandy baby fullness meter.  Like that little plastic thing that comes in a turkey, it pops out when he’s done.  So that’s something.

He doesn't seem to mind.

He also got his first big set of shots, two in one thigh and one in the other.  This resulted in a lot of screaming.  First was the standard red-faced, eyes squeezed shut, “ouch!” screaming.  But then came a more expressive screaming, a wide-eyed, accusatory “how could you do this to me?” sort of screaming, which was both heartbreaking and more than a little funny.  Conveniently, all it took to restore his faith in humanity was a quick walk in the stroller.  We should all be so lucky.

Battle scars

Streeeetch!

It's a full body event.

A Budding Republican

When Leo was born, my Uncle Fred (a.k.a. Pappaw) remarked that he looked like a Republican.  For those of you who don't have the privilege of knowing Uncle Fred, trust me--that was deepest, sincerest compliment possible.

I can see where he's coming from.  As a child born in the People's Republic of Cambridge, Leo very well may go through a Republican phase at some point.  How else does a blue-state kid adequately rebel against their NPR-contributing, worm-composting, locavore liberal parents?

Look!  He's already having it out with the old man!

This isn't fair or balanced!

With a number of strong conservative influences in his life, I will not be remotely surprised if teenage Leo starts carrying around a copy of Atlas Shrugged and asking his barber for "The Reagan."  So, in honor of Election Day Eve and all the wonderful conservatives in our life, here's a collection of Leo's best gassy old man faces.

::grumble::  socialism . . .

. . . hippies . . .

OBAMA!

Small Fry

This photo was taken at a weekend brunch a few weeks ago.  The crazy thing is, I can already see a difference between then and now.  What everyone says is true; they do grow up so fast!

nomnomnomnom!

Happy Halloween

With all the costumes we got from family, yesterday just seemed like one long photo session, complete with wardrobe changes.  But I'm happy with the results.

So, this first one isn't a costume exactly.  I mean it says "Mommy's Little Pumpkin", but he's not really dressed as a pumpkin, so, I don't know.  I guess this is the thinking person's baby costume.

Ceci n'est pas un pumkpin.

I thought the orange hat would make him look a little more pumpkin-y, but he just looks like he's about to rob the 7-11.  But the butt pumpkin is hellaciously cute

Awww.

 The next costume was, fittingly enough, a lion costume, provided by honorary Cool Aunt Camellia.  (We're pretty fast and loose with the honorifics.  You wanna be auntie, tio, nana, second cousin twice removed?  No problem.  The more the merrier!)  Unfortunately, fitting was exactly issue.

But when you're named Leo, lion costumes are appropriate for every occasion.

Which brings me to my personal favorite: a skunk costume my mom got us.  The little paws just kill me!

Our little stinker

So we took our show on the road, trick-or-treating with my cousin Melanie's family in Framingham.   Little did I know that all the neighborhood kids go trick or treating together, so we got to see a whole herd of little beasties.

Darren is to the left in the very awesome Boba Fett which he and his dad MADE THEMSELVES!  Paige is the pink-haired  rock star just to his right.

Sydney went as Sleeping Beauty, and even though I didn't manage to get a front shot, I had to show off those perfect natural princess curls.  Is it wrong to be jealous of a four-year-old?  Maybe a little.

But, seriously, look at that hair!

And, surprise surprise, this is how Leo spent his first trick-or-treat.

The best part about trick-or-treating with a baby?  When the chocolate starts disappearing, you have a perfect fall guy.

I was framed!