Family Christmas Trees, Near and Far

Courtesy of mom and dad, we all have these Vermont Snowflake ornaments — a taste of New England winters and a family favorite!

It used to be that I was Commander in Chief when it came to decorating the Christmas tree. Even after I left for college, my family would wait to decorate the Christmas tree for when I returned home — 1) because it was tradition and 2) for fear that I would hurt anyone who deigned to decorate without me.

But now that we all live across the country and have homes and Christmas trees of our own, the times they are a' changin'. We've been forced (somewhat reticently, on my part) to adjust to life and Christmas preparations (which to me are almost the same thing) on our own.

Of course, The Tree will always be the one at home in Topsham, Maine — and I doubt, no matter how old or far-flung we become, that will ever change. So in honor of London family traditions near and far, here's a little photo tour of our Christmas trees from Maine to Colorado to New York City!

In Colorado, a lodge pole pine from the national park makes the perfect tanenbaum (and Hobbes helps to pick it out!)

Plenty of space between the branches for ornaments (and presents!)

A tree from the stand on the corner makes an NYC apartment cozy and bright.

...and a much bigger tree glitters up the street in Washington Square Park!

In Camden, Maine (one of our family's favorite seaside spots) a tree sets sail from a lofty mast.

At home in Topsham, Maine: The Tree, and The Pup!

Three Mainers Walk Into a Bar...

I’m always amazed at how many Mainers I run into going about my daily life in Manhattan. Of course, coming from a state with such a tiny population (fewer people in the entire state than most U.S. cities…er, fine, towns) tends to make you extra excited about finding your kin (because we are undoubtedly related somehow…duh). Let’s just say that it’s not that same “small town” kinda feeling when my friends from Bergen County catch each other in a coffee shop downtown.

But it’s even more special when I find myself in the presence of Mainers in the city that I actually know.

Cue: this past weekend, when one of my best friends from Colby (who it just so happens is also a native Mainer) came to visit me in New York. Well, fine, she technically made the trip for her admissions interview at NYU Dental School (pshh), but we conveniently kept forgetting that was the reason she was here.

We have always joked about how fitting it is that even on a campus overrun with the “20-minutes outside of Boston” kids, we ended up finding each other. In fact, we’ve figured out over the years that we used to play each other regularly in travel soccer when we were younger, despite our hometowns being about a half-hour apart.

Lane from Maine. She's kind of a big deal.

There’s just something about those good Maine values – family, loyalty, a killer work ethic and refined appreciation for dirty jokes – that created and sustained our friendship over the years.

So, naturally, when she came to visit we had to celebrate….

…By hanging out with other Mainers.

Admittedly, many of my friends here in the city are Mainers of the honorary persuasion, meaning that they are mostly Colby-Bates-Bowdoin kids and….mostly of the first population. But, hey, after spending four frigid Februaries in our fine state I say you’ve earned the prestigious title of Mainer.

So we had to do what Mainers do best: cozy up in a series of bars on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and drink a few beers. Or seven. But who was counting (not me).

Mmm, biergarten.

Throughout our glorious Saturday afternoon pub crawl through the West Village (my neighborhood — convenient much?) the conversation kept returning to Colby and Maine. Who wants to road-trip to Homecoming?  Who’s in for New Years? Did you hear about that thing that happened on the Hill? Two of our dear friends are currently planning their wedding in Boothbay next fall, while neither of them is actually from there.

Wait you went to Colby too? Weird.

Needless to day, after our daytime adventures we woke up Sunday in need of some serious brunch, so we met a close friend in the ‘hood for eggs and Bloody Mary’s.

...A friend who went to my rival high school (boo Dragons!) and then also went to Colby.

We recapped this phenomenon on Sunday night when we met another friend for dinner, my friend’s friend from high school in (you guessed it) Maine. How was it that we had spent the entire weekend in an enormous city surrounded in a cozy bubble of Maine-ness, only to find ourselves recapping it over a glass of wine with the same Mainers that we kicked it off with?

Some would call it luck, others coincidence. Still more might call it acute xenophobia. But we decided it was a sense of place in an otherwise transient city.

I’ll drink to that!

In Memoriam

"Our job is to be epic and tiny, both." — Colum McCann, The New Yorker, September 12

Thinking of you today and always, New York.

Batten Down the Hatches! (Alright, If You Say So)

For those of you who have been living (or hiding) under a rock for the past few days, Hurricane Irene is on her way up the East Coast as we speak. For New York City, this means the following:

- Mayor Bloomberg held an emergency press conference last night, announcing that the city’s transit system would be shut down as of noon on Saturday, effective (at least) through Sunday.

- President Obama declared the state of New York in a federal state of emergency. F-E-D-E-R-A-L, my friends.

- 300,000 New Yorkers have already been evacuated, and hourly updates will ask more to leave their homes or move inland from the water that surrounds the 23-square mile island of Manhattan.

- Flashlights, bottled water, and candles are now relics of the past, to undoubtedly be auctioned off at Christie’s for exorbitant amounts in the coming weeks.

Oh, and perhaps the most egregious of all:

- All transportation is suspended this weekend to and from the Hamptons.

Now, it’s not that I’m not taking this seriously. 90mph winds are a kick to the face – literally – and 15” of rainfall…well, that’s more than a foot, which can’t be good. But, as a Mainer, I can’t help but look on as the increasing panic ensues and think…”So what?”

But it's so nice out!

Back home, preparing for storms is part of every family’s routine. “Look’s like a Nor’easter,” the lady at the grocery store checkout will say. So you buy a few more batteries (to go inside the 17 Maglites you undoubtedly already have at home) and a few jugs of water. And maybe a six-pack of Shipyard, too, to make those hours spent reading fireside by candlelight bearable. If by bearable, I mean, downright enjoyable.

I could get used to this.

We lose power at home all the time. In fact, I think that one of my roommates was starting to wonder when we didn’t live without power, until she finally made the trip to Maine with me this summer and witnessed our (working) lightswitches for herself. Because nearly every time I called home from New York my parents were sitting in the dark, sipping nice wine by a huge fire and…loving every minute of it.

“Omg, ew, I thought they meant you all had to bathe in there,” one of my friends said with relief when I explained to her that, no, filling the bathtub with water before a storm is NOT for taking communal baths, but for flushing the toilet (manually), brushing your teeth and using for drinking water should the power go out and faucet’s not work. No. Big. Deal.

It’s funny, but to see uptight, jaded New Yorkers in panic-mode is honestly a little refreshing. After all, beneath those stern, too-cool-for-school exteriors are real human beings. Human beings that would rather not get carried away from their townhouse apartments in a flash flood.

Or, maybe, I just have more salty Mainer in me than I realized.

I hope it’s the latter.

Spotted: Mainers in their natural habitat.

The Nomad Shuffle

My life had stood -- A loaded elevator --

It's late August in New York, which means one thing: everyone under the age of 30 (at least, everyone I know) is in the midst of what I like to call the "nomad shuffle."

As young, mobile professionals, we lead lives in constant flux: changing jobs, going back to school, moving across the country, or — gasp! — settling down with a special somebody. Add to this mix the fact that most apartment leases last twelve months and you have an annual ritual of epic proportions: the yearly apartment search. While you usually have the option to renew your lease for another year, the stars rarely align for three or four roommates to find themselves in the same circumstance year to year that would make staying in the same apartment feasible. In fact, I don’t have many friends who haven’t moved every year. 
 

To exacerbate the problem, most of us moved to the city shortly after graduating, which — you guessed it — was sometime during the summer. This means that most of us signed our first leases in the summer…and got stuck in an endless cycle of moving at the same time every twelve months thereafter.

(Oh, and by the way, approximately 2 million people live in Manhattan, an island that covers only 23 square miles.)

Trying to rent a U-Haul? Good luck with that. When I moved last year, a friend and I had to go all the way to 300-something street in the Bronx just to rent a 14-foot truck for the day.

All of this is to say: moving in New York is not easy. In fact, it may be just about the most painful thing you do all year.  Surgeries, all-nighters, and extreme hangovers included. It’s stressful, sweaty, and always takes longer than you think it will.

Let the games begin.

And, as an added delight, it’s also painfully expensive, with most moving companies charging $125+ an hour for a minimum of three hours, plus traffic and parking costs.

If you’re lucky enough to live in a nice building, you’re also un-lucky enough to have a building manager who thinks he’s operating the Plaza Hotel. Our manager recently insisted that one of my roommates hire a moving company — even though she’s moving across the country, so she’s shipping everything, and doesn’t actually have any stuff to move.

“So…what you’re saying is, that I need to pay movers $300 to move my bed from the apartment to the curb?” she asked him, jokingly.

“Exactly,” he replied. Not jokingly.

But, all gripes and UMIs (Unidentified Moving Injuries) aside, there’s a reason we put up with this nonsense every year. There’s a reason we haul our belongings like hermit crabs across town, only to settle in for what feels like a few months and then do it all over again. There’s even a reason we eat oatmeal for a week (er, make that a month) after signing away an entire paycheck to the movers…and then next month’s paycheck for the first month’s rent and security deposit which are required by most NYC landlords.

We endure because, at the end of the day, we get to live on this 23-square-mile scrap of land. We get to close our eyes at night against the twinkling lights of the city, and wake in the morning to a glorious cacophony of car horns and break pads. We get to walk out our front doors and be a quick walk, train, or cab ride away from the best theater, dining, shopping (you name it) in the world. We get to order Thai food on a Sunday night at 2:00am from our favorite restaurant just because we can.

Goodnight, moon!

Of course, I can only say this now because I just finished this year’s nomad shuffle. After the most stressful week of my life, I’m settled into my new home, and — like we all do — have already forgotten how terrible it was in the excitement of exploring a new neighborhood.  I’ve forgotten about the boxes, grumpy building managers, and stalled elevators in favor of picking out new bathmats (more thrilling than you’d think!) and deciding which way the couch is going to go. 

Welcome home, my fellow New Yorkers…until next summer.

Home sweet home.

Forever Plaid

There is nothing more comfy and comforting than crawling between soft flannel sheets at the end of a long day. Or changing out of your stuffy work clothes and pulling on a worn flannel shirt with leggings. It’s the same feeling that I get when I step off the plane at PWM after a brief but typically stressful flight from my (current) home in New York City – the air smells, tastes, feels different. Like home. 

That is what flannel (especially of the plaid variety) means to me.

Bliss, is that you?

Anyone you knows anything about me knows that I am a Mainer, a Maineiac, a native of the north – and am darn proud of it. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have grown up there, between the mountains and the sea, and I find almost any excuse to bring it up in conversation. That’s easier to do here in New York than you might think; I am constantly running into people who summer in Maine or went to summer camp there as kids, and for those people Maine holds a very special place in their hearts.

As for the others, those who haven’t been so fortunate as to experience the Pine Tree State? Not so much. I get a lot of “Wow, you’re a long way from home” (not true – it may be psychologically worlds away, but in actuality is only a 50-minute flight up the coast). Or, more often than not, a blank look followed by: “What’s up there, exactly?”

As my opening quote says, "what's up there" is no secret if you’ve ever lived there. But if you haven’t, I hope that this blog will give you a glimpse into the wonderful world of ME…and me.