Californians in the Snow

Good news: We're getting into a routine now that we're all in the same state and things are good for our little family.

Bad news:  Our cat ran away.

Somewhere in between those two things were snow and Thanksgiving.

It's snowed twice since my last post and we were quite unprepared. I had been waffling about which snow boots to buy, mostly because I just couldn't truly accept that I'd be out in the snow enough to justify the purchase of $200 boots that are wildly impractical outside of one very specific weather condition. So I ordered a pair of Bean Boots, which are back-ordered through March 2016 and narrowly avoided breaking my neck while navigating the icy stairs up to our apartment in my J. Crew ankle boots. Lane thought he could just get by with the ultra light down Arcteryx jacket he grabbed from the lost and found at Locanda and a few layers. Elliott was far more prepared than either of us, but we quickly discovered that playing in snow without gloves is not fun. So off to REI we went in the middle of the first snow of the season. Elliott needed a nap, but he needed "glubs" to play in the snow more and I thought it was ridiculous to go out in the middle of the actual snow to get snow gear (why not just wait?), so we were all a little on edge. However, I found a pair of boots I find moderately cute and Lane found some that kind of match mine. The whole family got "glubs" and some hats and we returned home to play in the snow like people who maybe know what they are doing. We made a janky snowman, but mostly really enjoyed pelting each other with snowballs.

Boots and gloves procured, the Milburns make the world's jankiest snowman.

Thanksgiving was a low-key affair, catered by Whole Foods. I thought it would be a good idea to provide homemade baked goods, but by the time the pumpkin pie was out of the oven and the Parker House rolls were embarking on their final rise, I was ready to face plant into my bed. However, I persevered, put on a dress and a little lipstick, and thoroughly enjoyed a lovely meal with my in-laws. Elliott ate a ton of turkey and spurned everything else except the tender insides of a couple of my rolls. Lane made an excellent salad of greens, radicchio, radishes and seven-minute eggs. The pie was a hit and we ate it with scoops of Graeter's ice cream. We spent the rest of the long weekend inside because it was cold and rainy, playing Play-Doh, watching The X-Files and Seinfeld, snuggling, doing the Sunday crossword and eating. On Sunday, we needed to get out of the house, so we bundled up and drove over to Daubenspeck Park to find some puddles to stomp in. We succeeded in finding some excellent mud puddles (and procuring more Play-Doh during a quick stop at Target -- Elliott will play with it for literal hours), but failed in unknowingly letting the cat slip past us as we left, me lugging an Elliott and Lane lugging the car seat down the stairs.

Yes, this is the picture we used on the missing cat flyer. It really captures his personality.

I didn't notice Max was missing until around 4:00, when he usually starts agitating for his dinner. Ted was curled up on the couch, so I just figured Max had found an exceptionally cozy and elusive nap area. Max has managed to find some very obscure hiding spots in his ten years, so I was looking in kitchen cabinets, in box spring linings and behind the couch. After I tore up the apartment, I woke Lane up from his own nap and he went outside to look for him, even though we were 90% sure that he hadn't even managed to get out. It got dark and Max was nowhere to be found, so I cried and freaked out and eventually went to bed, worried about my cat freezing to death. We put up signs all over the complex and I put a note up on our neighborhood message board -- our downstairs neighbors called Monday morning to say they had just spotted him sitting by the little pond behind our building, but by the time Lane got out there, Max was gone. He's been out for three nights now and I'm terrified that he won't come home. He's done this a few times before, twice right after we moved to a new place. I'm hoping he's enjoying an adventure and I know he can survive on his own, but it's my job to take care of him and I feel so terrible that he's out in the cold when he could be inside with us, with a full belly and people who love him. I've been staring out our windows every chance I get, hoping to spot him and I've been obsessively reading my stupid horoscope expecting it to say YOUR CAT ISN'T DEAD AND HE'LL COME BACK TODAY. So please send some good Max-come-home vibes our way. Max has been with me for my entire post-college life and I've gone through a lot to keep him with me during some life moments where I wasn't even prepared to take care of myself, let alone a domesticated animal. It would just break my heart if after ten years together and this bonkers cross-country move, he just sneaks out the door and I don't get to say goodbye.

While trying not to worry about Max, Lane and I unpacked the last of our boxes and found the Christmas stuff. Elliott is super pumped that Christmas (the tree) is at his house, but not excited enough to respect my amateur crafting and not rip up the packing peanut garland I made last year. But he does look super cute with his "Christmas sock" on his head.

Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year and celebrated on Thursday with friends. The three of us woke up and watched the Thanksgiving Day Parade, which isn't as exciting as it seemed to be when we were little. Elliott didn't pay much attention to the majority of the parade, but did dance a little to some of the marching bands.

Lane made enough rabbit liver terrine to feed the French Foreign Legion, which we brought as a pre-turkey snack to Casey & Jeff's apartment. Casey and Jeff were so wonderful to host our bunch of unruly friends, children and one large dog. Elliott had lots of fun playing with Casey and Jeff's son Henley, who you may remember as the tiny infant at our wedding, and our friends' son Ben, who is four. I finally learned to play dominoes and won the round! We had a great meal with turkey, stuffing, bourbon sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, broccoli gratin, gravy and homemade rolls. We packed up some leftovers and were home in Marin by eight o'clock.

The rest of the weekend was mostly spent in jammies, staying warm and out of the rain. It rains so much harder up on the top of our hill than in the City and we love listening to it. Elliott likes to ask "What's that?" when it really starts dumping. He also likes to look at the moon and stars and the airplanes "fy-ying" in the sky. His vocabulary took off this week and he's starting to speak in little sentence fragments like "milk, please," "water go down" and "Ted funny." He's also starting to enjoy "reading" books to himself when mom and dad need a few more minutes of sleep. As always, we are completely amazed by what he can do and how much he is learning.

2014

It wasn't until a few years ago that I really started enjoying New Year celebrations. Prior to that, I had spent the holiday with too many expectations and a lot of desperation. But then I grew closer with a group of friends who get me, and we now spend the evening drinking too much and dancing too weird (not so much now that we all have kids) and reunite the next morning to eat, drink and watch bowl games. Also, being pretty content with my life makes the end of each year less of a tragic retrospective and more of a reflection on everything I have to be thankful for. And I get to make lists of goals and track my progress and get very excited about organizing everything. Here is a preliminary list of my goals and hopes for 2014, in no particular order.

• No more eating in bed. I have decided that no matter how easy it is, it's just gross.
• Travel outside the United States.
• Sit my family down for dinner together once a week.
• Continue aggressively paying down debt and adding to our emergency fund.
• Find our forever state/city/town.
• Be a better sister.
• Give my time to those in need.
• Continue to purge the useless crap from our home and waste less.
• Take E to swimming lessons.
• Take L to dinner and a movie once a month.
• Learn how to use a camera that isn't an iPhone.
• Break up with the Chemex. (I think I already completed this one -- I bought a Bialetti yesterday!)

This all seems doable in 365 days, right? Good.

Now, I'd like to share a few charities that I feel do really important work and to which I donate regularly. It sucks getting the short end of the stick and making a donation might just give someone a fresh start in 2014.

Homeless Prenatal Program

PAWS: Pets Are Wonderful Support

Planned Parenthood

Heifer International

Here's to a great 2014!

image credit

Happy Christmas

We had a quiet, low-key holiday. On Christmas Eve, Baby E and I met friends for Mass, but quickly abandoned ship when we got to the church early and it was standing room only. We headed back to their house for snacks, wine and Taboo. The babies played nicely and E had plenty of room to scoot around. It's nice to have friends and their families to share the holidays with, especially since L works most holidays. I had E home and in bed by ten o'clock and I did some quick decorating: I stacked red and green books in our giant copper jam pot and put a tiny Christmas tree I snagged from work on top. I added some Christmas lights and some tulle and was done with it. I stacked all our presents around the book tree, set out L's tiny gift to welcome him home and got in bed.

Christmas morning was a cozy, relaxed affair. I was up early with E and let L catch up on some sleep. When E went down for his first nap, I made currant-apple bread pudding and a big pot of coffee. E and L woke up and we all opened presents. The cats came around when we opened their catnip gift from Grandma Nancy and we watched them spiral into feline insanity among all the wrapping paper and ribbons. We all took a big nap and woke up in the middle of the afternoon. L and E watched a little Top Gear and I did a little reading. E played with his new toys; early favorites are a soft handmade ball and the Little Zebra and Little Pig books sent by two of his grandmas. I brushed my teeth with our new Sonicare from my parents. L made some delicious beans and escarole and we snuggled together watching A Christmas Story. E had dinner and we gave him a bath and a bottle and he fell asleep in L's arms. We all packed it in pretty early and quite happy with our first Christmas as three.

Holiday Cheer On the Cheap

This year, we're forgoing the out-of-control spending that comes with the holidays and instead, we're making things and getting satisfaction out of time well spent. (Ugh, that sounded so lame and smug. I swear we're doing this out of necessity, so please don't think we're that kind of yuppie.  Please.)   Here's some of the stuff I've been doing to get in the holiday spirit without busting our budget.

Garlands. I love garlands -- making them and admiring them. I'm planning on making three this weekend:

-  Simple Gold Triangle Garland from Almost Makes Perfect

-  Pom Pom Garland from Crab + Fish

-  Origami Paper Garland from Minieco

Homemade Gifts. My mom picked and bundled up a couple dozen lavender stems and mailed the whole fragrant bunch to me. I'll use most of it to make lavender-rosemary simple syrup to give as gifts and I may throw a little into these tiny rosemary wreaths to hang up around the apartment. I'm also planning on making and giving these things:

-  Lacing Bookmarks from Handmade Charlotte  

-  Fabric Covered Notebooks from A Pair and A Spare

Treats. We keep a fairly well-stocked pantry, so baking up delicious bits is something I can do without an expensive trip to the grocery store. I think I'll make some tangerine-clove balls and I may get this combo simmering.  Here's what else I have my eye on:

-  Soft Gingerbread Cookies from A Cozy Kitchen

-  Vegan Chocolate Pie from Choosing Raw via Food52

-  Holiday Quick Bread from Food52

Photo credits:  1 / 2 / 3

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving from ours to yours. We're headed to Mass and then to my parents' house in the South Bay for wine and food and family.

Please take a moment to check out the Homeless Youth Alliance, which is on the corner of our block and yesterday announced that they had received a notice to vacate by Christmas. Homelessness is a major problem in San Francisco and the kids living on the street in the Haight are easily dismissed as selfish nuisances, but many of them have nowhere else to go through no fault of their own. HYA is run by former homeless youths who provide counseling, social service referrals, access to health care, animal care and a safe place to catch a few hours of sleep. HYA's landlord is evicting the organization with the excuse that they are paying far below market rent and he is now responsible for thousands of dollars of seismic retrofitting. Our neighborhood is one of the last holdouts against gentrification in the city, but in the last year, rents have skyrocketed and regular folks and marginalized populations are being pushed out. I encourage you to take a few moments to read about what HYA does and what it means to the community and to donate, if you are able.

Peace.

(image)

Poor Old Turk. Let's Eat.

We spent Thanksgiving at my parents' house in Aptos, with a quick stop in Sunnyvale to visit my Granny before her noon Thanksgiving feast thrown by her apartment community. It was a bit chilly when we left the City, a little warmer in Sunnyvale and absolutely gorgeous by the time we got down to Aptos. I was very disappointed. I prefer fog and drizzle on my holidays, Bay Area. My dad and sister did all the cooking while I guzzled juice and milk (the vicious cycle of heartburn!), looked at baby stuff with mom and snacked. I also napped.

My parents finally replaced the cat castle/giant cardboard box their new (it's two years old now) dishwasher came in with a proper cat tower. Otis was quite keen to show it off and mugged for the camera, which is weird because he's a neurotic little curmudgeon.

Kate showed Alex pictures of our odd American customs like dance recitals, Thanksgiving pageants and trips to the beach. I think she had more fun than he did.

Then we ate and jabbered, but not before saying my late grandfather's Thanksgiving grace, "Poor old turk. Let's eat," and clinking our flutes of champagne. If you want to check out a more eloquent Thanksgiving speech from my grandfather, go here. It was 2008 and Obama had just won and we were all very happy. I miss him a lot. He sure loved the holidays.

I grabbed half a pumpkin pie and we drove home. Poor Lane white-knuckled it over Highway 17. It's one scary stretch of road if you don't know it, but I just wasn't into driving and I don't even know if I can reach the pedals without my stomach bumping into the steering wheel these days. The last thing that road needs is an exhausted pregnant woman with pregnancy-induced t-rex arms tailgating the slow pokes and passing the drunk drivers.

It was a quiet little day and I am quite thankful for my family and the time we get to relax and enjoy each other.