1 World Trade Center

For the past year, I've been commuting to New York City to work at 7 World Trade Center. This is located right across the street from the new 1 World Trade Center, also known as the Freedom Tower. Since I've been there, I've watched the construction workers from my window. They walk around the steel beams without fear, they're out there when it's cold and rainy, and most of all, I've never seen the work stop. Often times, I need to be in the office for a 7 a.m. meeting and I will find the area filled with construction workers. When I leave the office late at night, I see them working. The site is consistently busy 24 hours a day. The sounds of daily construction is normal background noise for me.

The transformation of the area is mind boggling. I've witnessed the construction of the Memorial Pool, the 9/11 Memorial Museum and have watched the trees go into Memorial Plaza. Changes are made on a daily basis and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly it happens. Security is always present and you often find pockets of tourists or even jaded New Yorkers, who stop at a corner and look up to see the changes that have taken place. I remember where I was on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. I was in my office at Paul Hastings in Stamford, CT when the plane hit the first tower. I was supposed to be heading into the city for a meeting in New York at 1 World Trade Center. I had planned to drive into the city after dropping Matthew off at daycare and run some errands before my 11 a.m. meeting. I realized after I dropped Matthew off that I didn't have a file for the meeting. That was unlike me. As a result, I had to drive back to my office to pick up my file. If it were not for that, I don't know if I would be here today.

Everything that day is still burned into my memory. I remember hearing the commotion outside my office about a plane hitting a building. I opened my office door and my assistant was surprised to see me in the office. She knew I was supposed to be in New York. We ran over to the conference room and watched in horror as smoke billowed out of the tower. We were all transfixed and couldn't believe what had happened when we watched the second plane hit the second tower.

I left the office to get Matthew from daycare and just held him tight. We were on our way home when I decided to take Matthew over to Dairy Queen for an ice cream. He was 4 years old and sitting on the bench, carefree, swinging his legs and enjoying his ice cream. He didn't understand the reason for the special treat. Everything were eerily quiet. No cars, no sound, no planes overhead. Everything came to a standstill that morning.

The destruction has transformed the city and has forever changed the skyline. What it didn't do was kill the spirit of New York. If anything, it has fortified it. Lower Manhattan was once a desolate place, is now filled with new construction and life. There are lots of young kids and families in the area and it's got the real feel of a neighborhood. Often when I run out to pick up lunch, I will often see little kids playing in the park and hear the happy sounds from the playground.

We will never forget the tragedy of that day. The amazing tribute at Memorial Plaza will serve to honor each of the lives lost.

Pasta Lesson

I spent some quality time with May and the kids today. Dinner time was rolling along and we decided to have home made pasta and Joc was just the right instructor. She learned to make it and was very eager to show me how to do it. Good deal since we have a pasta machine and I haven't cracked it open. Matthew's been begging me to make fresh pasta and I just never got around to doing it. Every time I want to do it, I just think it's easier to buy the fresh ready made pasta or just use the dry version. I admit I was a bit intimidated.

Watching Joc mix and knead the dough and then run it through the machine, it really wasn't as hard as I imagined it to be. All the kids pitched in and we boiled a pot of water and sliced up garlic and I mean lots of garlic and threw it into some olive oil. The pasta was done to al dente perfection and we all enjoyed it.

Now I don't have an excuse. I'm guessing that fresh pasta will be making a frequent appearance on the dinner menu at our house.

Freshman

Summer is officially over. Matthew was supposed to start high school on Wednesday, August 31 but experienced a delay due to Hurricane Irene. Most of the town lost power and the schools had to wait to get the power restored. He got an extra two days and believe me, he took advantage of it by sleeping in as much as he could. Today was the official start for him. He went in for high school orientation. The bus came and whisked him away. I have spent the entire summer with him. I was chanting "Free at last!! Free at last!!" then headed to the station to hop the train to NYC. It was time for me to make my appearance at the office after an extended absence during the summer.

He met some old friends from pre-school and will be making new friends. He's getting the hang of the school schedule and familiarizing himself with the layout of the building. He's on to the next phase of his life. College will be here before we know it. He's even talking about which car he wants when he starts to drive. Little does he know, I'll be rigging the car with ejection seats. If anyone is in that car beside Tony and I, out you go. Oh, and of course, there will be a closed circuit camera and it won't be able to go more than 25 mph. If I can just figure out a way to embed a chip into his head so I will know his whereabouts.

Ted's Steamed Cheeseburgers

We decided to take a road trip up to Meriden, CT to experience Ted's Steamed Cheeseburgers. We've seen it featured on various foodie shows like Man vs. Food, the Travel Channel -100 Best Things to Eat, Food Network and even saw little blurbs of write ups in the local paper. What the heck, we were finally getting some beautiful weather and nothing better than a road trip to find our next meal.

Ted's is a place that was established in 1959 and steamed cheeseburgers are a local specialty. The burgers and cheese are cooked in a metal tray that is placed into a metal steamer box. The meat cooks in its owned juices and the cheese gets all gooey. It comes out and is placed on a roll with your choice of condiments. Unlike the Soup Nazi, we were able to order any combination that we wanted. Matthew and I ordered our standard, lettuce, tomato with a slab of raw onion. Tony skipped the lettuce, tomato and raw onion and ordered it with sautéed onions and mushrooms.

Last summer, we took a ride up to Louis' Lunch in New Haven, CT, the birthplace of the original hamburger. Louis' has a more dictatorial style. You can only get it one way and that is absolutely no ketchup and just lettuce, tomato with onion and cheese. Nothing else is offered. You can't even get french fries with that. You will get potato salad. No negotiations.

We liked both and we'll probably have to do this road trip again....just to do another tasting so we can make up our minds.

Whoosh

I can't believe that the summer is drawing to a close. It seems like it was just yesterday that Matthew got out of middle school and graduated. I spent the summer working from home and drove Matthew daily to his volunteer job. He spent most of the summer working at Pipers Hill, his former child care center. He was assigned to work with the two to three year olds and found out first hand, how much work little kids can be. Not to mention, he would come home every day with kiddie snot all over his clothes. Nevertheless, he was a real good egg. Armed with his supply of hand sanitizer, he had a good time with the kids. One of the kids drew a picture of Matthew and it's now hanging in his room. Quite cute.

We also had visitors as well. My sister Sandi and nephew Nicholas came to visit and we had a great reunion. Matthew even took Nicholas to work one day. Kind of like a show and tell display. Tony's cousin Laura and her son, Simone, came to visit from Milan, Italy and we did the usual sight seeing and spent some quality time with them as well.

The weather this summer was hot and humid and then we were hit with a barrage of non-stop rain. Tony and I scheduled some vacation time and did some touristy things as well. We stampeded into New York and set upon exploring Central Park. Something I haven't done in a very long time and Tony and Matthew never really experienced the real beauty of Central Park. We picked a beautiful day, packed up a picnic lunch and wandered all over the place. Starting off at Columbus Circle, we strolled all the way up the West side of the park and then cut over to the East side and exited out through Grand Army Plaza. We strolled down Fifth Avenue, I got to window shop along the way and walked over to Rockefeller Center and then continued down to Times Square. Total mileage clocked that day, 6.75 miles, complete with barking dogs.

Now, the summer is drawing to a close. Labor Day is around the corner, Matthew will be starting high school before the end of the month and I dread thinking about the fall and winter season that will be upon us.

Gourmand

I've made arrangements to work from home most of the summer. I had to be here to keep an eye on Matthew and to drive him back and forth to work. I was lucky that I was able to get this arrangement and am pretty happy with it. That leaves me time to prep dinners. Since I travel to NYC most of the time, dinner preparation has been left to Tony most of the time. Usually we try to do something quick and simple so we wouldn't wind up eating too late. Since I've been home, Tony has been happy to pass the responsibility back to me.

He will often return home from work and will find cornmeal crusted onion rings, Italian pub burgers, pulled pork with home made bbq sauce, double chocolate ganache cupcakes, chicken roasted with fresh herbs and lots of garlic and lots of freshly made banana bread. Today, I decided to make home made pretzels stuffed with cheddar and parmesan cheese topped with sesame seeds, garlic, herbs and kosher salt. I think I've definitely missed my calling as a private chef.

Tony's cousin will be here at the end of the week visiting from Italy. She'll be coming to stay with us and I'll need to come up with a menu for her visit. I don't know if I want to risk trying to make home made pasta for an Italian from Italy. Perhaps I should just feed her Chinese food. Everyone likes Chinese food right?

Sandi's Visit

Sandi and Nicholas came to town to visit. It's been a while since we've seen each other. She's now relocated to North Carolina and due to the constraints of the kids in school, it makes it hard for us to see each other. She came up, May came up with the kids and we had a great dinner at a fabulous restaurant in Downtown Stamford. We celebrated Matthew's graduation and it was great to see the kids chatting with one another...OK- maybe not chatting so much but more like texting. It seems to be the norm these days for Jocelyn and Matthew to be seated next to one another and to be texting. Whatever happened to the art of conversation? Thank goodness for unlimited texting.

We had a great dinner and wandered over to a crepe place after dinner for dessert. The kids each had crepes and were nicely sugared up before we headed home. Sandi and Nicholas will be here for the week and it will be great to spend some time with them. Matthew has started to work his volunteer "job" for the summer. He's volunteering 25 hours a week at Piper's Hill. That's the childcare center that he started with when he was an infant and I was a member of the Board of Directors. I figured it was better to have him there than frying his brains out playing mindless video games. At least he's giving back to the community. This will continue through the whole summer and maybe he'll work some hours once he start high school. Matthew will be taking Nicholas to work with him on Friday and Sandi and I already have plans for the few hours that we will be without kids. That is a luxury that we don't get too often.

Reunion with Amy

Amy (far left in the photo) is a former colleague of Tony's from ATC in Shanghai. They worked together while in Shanghai and we've kept in touch. She has arrived in the United States for business and it was nice to see Amy again. Amy stated that the whole gang at ATC misses the baked goods that I used to send in. I'm now starting to think that I should have started my baking school in Shanghai. Hmmmm.

We had the precursory dim sum and Amy was quite happy to have Chinese food versus Western food. One solid week of Western food and I figured she was ready to scream. Earlier this week, I did send two containers of homemade congee to hold her over and she was thrilled when Tony showed up at the office with them. She's heading up to Boston for some more meetings before she returns to Shanghai at the end of the week. We hope to have another opportunity to see Amy and the rest of our ATC friends sometime in the future. Who knows, maybe I'll head back and start a cooking school to teach the Chinese how to bake.

Graduation

It has been quite a while since I've written anything. Life seems to be going full speed ahead and it never ceases to amaze me when a period of time has passed that I wonder where it has gone. Case in point. Matthew graduated last night from middle school. It was just three years ago this summer that we returned from living in Shanghai. We returned to adjust to life back in the United States and he had to adjust going to a Catholic school without his friends that he made in Shanghai. It was a rough transition year for him, for all of us to tell you the truth. Now, three years has flown by and he is now out of middle school. He will miss his friends since they'll be attending different schools. Matthew will be attending the district school by the house and he's moving along with this passage of his life.

It dawned on me that college is definitely around the corner and not something that I am ready for. I doubt that I will ever really be ready for that since it forces me to face the fact that he is no longer a baby. He is well on his way to adulthood and there is nothing that I can do to stop it. The braces may be coming off before he starts high school, he'll be getting his drivers permit to learn to drive in a few short years. The voice has definitely changed, he's getting taller slowly. Sometimes when I call home and he answers the phone, it jolts me to hear his voice so deep. He sounds like his father over the phone and it can be a bit confusing. Matthew is on a journey to adulthood that he's anxious to get to quickly, but I am not ready to let him grow up yet. I keep telling him to enjoy this time since you have a lifetime to be an adult. A lifetime of responsibility. Then again, I wanted to grow up quickly and now wished that I can be his age, carefree. Sigh.

Chinese Speech

About two months ago, Matthew was given an assignment in Chinese school. He had to write a speech about his journey in learning to speak Chinese. Easier said than done. The assignment sat on the kitchen table for about two weeks before he even drafted the speech. I had to help him translate some of the words and then convert the speech into pinyin and write out the traditional Chinese characters. He handed the speech in and the teacher modified it a bit and sent it back.

Today was presentation day. All the upperclass had to present their speeches to a panel of judges. OK, he wasn't expecting judges. He thought he just had to read it out loud and then take a bow. He was a good sport. He did recite his speech, though not from memory. All the kids did well today. The speeches are something to help them get comfortable with public speaking in Chinese. Hopefully this will give him more confidence and he'll do it more often.

iPad Happiness

Daily inquiries about whether I've received an email from Apple notifying me of the iPad shipment. Nope. Sometimes you can hear the frustration in his voice when I tell him no. Then suddenly, an email appeared and came a tracking number. After a month of anticipation, Matthew was chomping at the bit to get his iPad. Happy days. The tracking number indicated that it was on the truck to be delivered in Stamford. Finally, the FedEx truck was in the driveway and the package was finally here.

The FedEx driver needed a signature. I signed for it and then told the FedEx guy that I was going to shout out that the package was lost. He asked me not to do that since he knew that would entail a very unhappy person and would probably get him hurt. Just kidding I said. I closed the door and told Matthew that it was a false alarm. The package was for me. A pair of shoes. I know. I just needed to torture him one last time.

He got a hold of the package and was giddy with joy. He opened up the package carefully and finally freed the iPad2 from it's packaging. He promptly set it up and hasn't been without it since then.

Thanks to all who made that moment possible for him. It is a birthday gift that he will cherish for a very long time and will never forget this birthday....ever.

Birthday Celebrations

Another year has gone by and Matthew is now 14 years old. He'll be starting high school in the fall and it never ceases to blow my mind how quickly time has passed. As usual, he had the celebratory dinners to fete his birthday. He had a goal to save up enough money to purchase the iPad2. He was very lucky. He was able to attain his goal due to the generosity of all our loved ones. He was able to order the iPad2 and will now have to wait about 4-6 weeks before delivery.

We had our first celebration with May and the kids, the second celebration with Tony and Gus and the third celebration with Justin. It's an annual ritual to celebrate with Justin since Justin and Matthew entered the world together as cousins and friends as well.It's weird not celebrating with Justin and it's something that Matthew looks forward to. They are going through the same rites of passage together and have common interests. Hard to believe that they will be starting high school this fall and will both be off to college at the same time. Time has passed too quickly and it makes me realize how much older I have gotten. Sigh.

Brutual

I returned home from Budapest only to have to turn around and head down to Atlanta, GA for a week filled with meetings. I got a lot done while I was there. Bonding with colleagues, met with vendors and am pleased to say that I fulfilled a lot of my goals.
While I was there, Tony's father was still in the hospital and waiting to get the date and time for his triple bypass surgery. He was still being treated for sepsis and was getting tired of being at the hospital. Can't say that I blame him. I would have probably been climbing the walls myself if I had been there for that long.

We got the word that the surgery was going to be on Friday morning at 7:30 a.m. I was scheduled to return home on Friday afternoon. My boss insisted that I leave on Thursday evening and return home to be with my family. Pulled some strings and got me on a flight out of Atlanta scheduled at 7:40 p.m. Thursday evening. I was supposed to land in LaGuardia in New York at 10:15 p.m. That would be great. It would allow me to get home and be there in the morning so Tony could leave for the hospital and I would be there for Matthew. Mother Nature on the other hand, had other plans. It was pouring rain all day in New York with high winds. Atlanta had a funky weather day as well. Clouds then breaks of sunshine. I got to the airport, dropped off the car, went through security and decided just hang out by the gate. Then the announcement. Due to high winds, the flights to and from New York have been grounded. WTF*(_!!*$)#(*.....does this mean I am sleeping in the airport? I gave up my hotel room.....uh oh.

Miraculously, my flight was called at 9 p.m. and then we were on our way. Landed at LaGuardia around midnight, waited for my luggage and was greeted by 65 mph winds, driving rain and just sheer flooding. My car had to take a diversion and go up I95 for me to get home. All the parkways leading to the house were all shut down. I rolled into the house around 2:30 a.m. Long day at work topped by long travels to get home but at least I was finally home.

Tony headed down to the hospital first thing Friday and was diverted all over the place. We still had rains and the roads were flooded. He got to to the hospital. My father in laws surgery was a success. He had one artery replaced and the surgeons were able to get the artery from the chest versus the leg. Unfortunately, the surgeons had to go through the top of the chest to do the surgery instead of the side as we had hoped.

He's doing well and will have a long recovery ahead of him. I'm planning to stay put for a couple of weeks before I have to take off again.

Heading Home

Day Two of the conference consisted of intense workshops that took up the entire day and I was feeling it. I was up late on Monday night working on the proxy, getting little sleep and then had to be downstair. It was painful. I looked around and all my colleagues were feeling it. After the conference, we had dinner at a local Italian restaurant and rolled back to the hotel at 11 p.m. Of course, I was up late again until 2:30 a.m. working on changes to the proxy statement.

Today was Day Three and the end of our conference. Thank goodness, it was relatively light. We finished up and stampeded out of the hotel for a guided tour of Budapest. Mind you, we had to work on this tour. Throughout the conference, we had designated seats. We were rotated and had to sit with different people for meals and at the conference workshops. I understood the reason was to have you get to know your colleagues and meet everyone. It reminded me of being at a wedding. You didn't know who you were going to get and you weren't allowed to switch seats. To do so, you got called out and then chastised. Ouch.

For the tour, we were put into groups and we had to search for clues throughout the city. Sort of a Survivor game against all the teams. It was cold and it was windy. Two of the teams dropped out. My team and I finished everything. It was nice to see the city during the day, we did a lot of walking and we even took the train. I wished we had more time to explore the city. Part of the assignment, we had to learn a nursery rhyme and repeat it in Hungarian and recite it to all our colleagues. OK- we all learned what we needed to learn and was constantly repeating it under our breaths. The locals thought we were insane.

Afterwards, we had our farewell dinner to close out the conference at Spoons,a floating restaurant. My team and I were able to repeat the nursery rhyme in Hungarian. We did OK. Twenty seconds after it was over, I couldn't recite it even if you paid me. My colleagues and I have spent an awful lot of time together the last few days and we have definitely bonded. Three intense days locked in a conference room, team building exercises and three meals together...you either have to accept the fact that you have to like them or throw in the towel. Luckily, I like them all and we had a great time tonight at our farewell dinner.

So, I have decided not to sleep since I will be leaving for the airport in about an hour. I packed my bags and decided to take a last look at the proxy and sit by the window and watch the snowfall. It is quite pretty to see the snow blanketing Budapest. My last image of the town before I head out. I figure when I get on the plane, I'm probably going to pass out. It will be nice to be home in time for dinner tomorrow and spend some time with the boys. I'll be packing up and leaving again on Monday...this time for Atlanta.

Brutal Schedule

Day one of our legal conference and we all had to hit the ground running. Most of us from the US were hit with jet lag. Mind you, after the dinner event last night, I was up half the night editing the proxy statement with Chanda, my colleague from Duluth, GA. We went to bed around 2 a.m. local time and had to be downstairs for breakfast and at our first event at 8 a.m. We had to be bright eye and bushy tail and I was feeling it.

Powerpoint slides, guest speakers and then we managed to run out of the conference for a tour of the ATM plant that we operate in Budapest. I must say, I was very impressed. In fact, I even offered to stay behind in Budapest and learn to build the ATM's. I watched the workers clock out at 2:30 p.m. on the dot and the shift changed. WOW. They don't leave with anything to work on at home. That's actually not a bad deal. I have been working 17 hour days due to the nature of the time of the year for me. This is proxy season. I have a filing that is due with the Securities Exchange Commission in less than 10 days and I have been working on this document since mid-December. I have been living and breathing this proxy statement and the filing couldn't come soon enough for me.

After our tour of the plant, we were scheduled to be on the dinner cruise and head down the Danube River. It was nice to see the town at night lit up and get a bit of information about the sights around us. The history lesson was really great too since I didn't really have a chance to read up on Budapest. We had authenthic Hungarian food and it was nice to sit and get to know our colleagues from the different offices. It was a shame that we didn't do the cruise during the day but despite the zaniness today, it was nice to be able to bond with my colleagues.

Arrival in Budapest

I had to leave Saturday afternoon to fly to meet my colleagues in Budapest for the legal conference. I said goodbye to my father in law and went over to the airport for my journey to Eastern Europe. I must say, I wasn't too happy with the flight on KLM Airlines. The seats were extremely narrow and there wasn't any legroom. I am not a tall or large person but if it was uncomfortable for me, I can't imagine what it's like for someone who is taller than me. Not to mention, there were screaming babies on the flight and the audio equipment didn't work. Halfway through the movie, they had to shut the system down.

OK- enough whining. I made it into Amsterdam and had a two hour layover. Found Starbucks and was pretty content having my chai latte in the Netherlands. My colleauges and I got on our connecting flight and met up with the balance of our US colleagues in the Budapest airport. We hopped the bus and made our way to the hotel.

We all checked in and threw our stuff into the room and wanted to go see a little bit of Budapest. Well, we kind of forgot that it is Sunday here and lots of things are closed. We wandered around a little bit, found a restaurant that was open and of course, we ate our first meal in Budapest. I had a tasty potato dish with cream and lot of garlic. The kind of chef that makes my heart sing. Afterwards, we managed to find Vaci utca, a main shopping strip and then headed back to the hotel for our first event.

We had dinner with our colleagues from around the world. It was nice to finally meet the faces that went behind the voices on the phone calls and emails that we've been trading back and forth over the past few months. We've got a lot to cover over the next few days. We're going to be spending a lot of quality time together.

Lemonade

This week was an absolutely crazy week. Tony's father was admitted into the hospital with a 103 fever, gallstone issue and as a result, developed sepsis. The doctors removed the stone but wanted to remove the gallbladder. Easier said then done. Tony’s father was being treated for sepsis through an intravenous antibiotic, had developed gout and failed the stress test. We thought he’d get a stent put in but when the doctor’s went in, they found three valves completely clogged. So, gallbladder surgery has been put on hold indefinitely, the sepsis is a very resistant strain and new antibiotics had to be started. Once the sepsis is under control, he’ll go in for open heart surgery to replace the three valves that will need to be replaced. We’re lucky he didn’t have any issues and could have had a fatal heart attack.

While all this was going on, we were waiting to find out if Matthew had been accepted into the magnet high school, Academy of Information, Technology and Engineering. The drawing took place on Friday and we received the notification on Saturday. We all held out hope for the one thing that Matthew wanted the most. To be accepted into the upcoming Fall freshman class for high school. The unfortunate thing is he didn’t make it in. He’s on the official wait list and he came in as number 50 which means, unless 49 kids on the wait list turn down the spot, there is a slim chance in hell that he will be admitted to the school. This came as a total shock and disappointment for Matthew since he was truly looking forward to going to AITE. He felt he was a part of the school and he was excited about the curriculum and the technology. It is unfortunate that he didn’t make it to the school. I can feel his pain and his disappointment from where I am right now. In the midst of all this, I had to leave for Budapest for a legal conference. I was so upset to find out from here that Matthew didn’t make it in and it is the one thing that we all hoped and prayed that he would be accepted to but it is out of our hands. Tony and I will have to decide what to do about which high school to enroll him in for the upcoming Fall semester.

Please don’t take it the wrong way. We count each and every one of our blessings. The fact that the doctor’s discovered my father in law's valve problem by sheer luck and will perform open heart surgery is a major blessing for us. I just know that sometimes life’s disappointments get in the way and we have to find a way to vent out our frustration and pick up our chin and carry forward. I know that Matthew will do well wherever he applies to and this too will be part of his life lesson that when life throws lemons at you, you've got to make lemonade.

Winter Blues

We've been experiencing some pretty nasty winter weather in the area. I was in Atlanta, Georgia for a business trip and had my ear to the weather forecast. We were going to get a storm that was going to wreak havoc across 22 states. Some weather forecasters nicknamed it "The Beast", pretty appropriate if you ask me. We were expecting snow, flooding and ice. Great formula for an adventurous ride home.

My original flight back to New York was cancelled 30 hours before I was even scheduled to take off. I scored a seat on an earlier flight and was going to be on it regardless. Then a miracle happened, I managed to score a seat on the company plane. That works. I knew I was going to get into the area regardless. Getting home from the little airport in New Jersey was going to be another matter.

I beat the storm and made it home and was happy to see the boys. Conditions made it hard to travel to school or work so I worked from home and school was cancelled. All was well until at 8:15 a.m., when we heard a very loud crack and then an explosion and saw a huge fireball on the main road. A tree fell on the road by the house, took out the transformer and blew out the power in the area. We had a live wire in the middle of the driveway and were essentially trapped in the house. I called the power company to report it and was told "Stay in the house. Do not go out." My initial verbal reaction was "Really, I shouldn't go out there and get a jolt of electricity running through my body? Gee, I really wanted to touch the wire." Seriously? OK- sarcasm needs to stop.

The picture posted is the tree that wreaked havoc for us. We didn't have power, heat or water since we're on well water for twelve hours on a cold day. My sister asked if I had enough food in the house. Are you kidding? Those who know me know about my overflowing pantry. Food is never an issue in the house. Cooking it without an oven or microwave was another matter We managed to do pretty well and then the power came back up. We were pretty happy and were busy hovering over the heat vents to warm up.

The Groundhog didn't see his shadow which means we'll have six weeks less of winter. I think the Groundhog knew what he had to do. We're all pretty tired of this weather and giving us a sliver of hope was in the Groundhog's best interest if you know what I mean.

Christmas Miracles

Okay, I don't want to get all religious here, but this past Disney cruise convinced me that miracles do happen. In fact, no less than seven miracles happened on this trip. So let's go to the video tape:

Miracle #1 - Dinner seating (Okay, we will call this a quasi-miracle)
Disney, as well as most cruises ships, makes you sit with people, you don't know, at dinner so that you can socialize. This lasts for the duration of the cruise. Now, don't get me wrong. I like socializing, really, but after a long day in the sun, children and parents tend to be, well, a bit annoying. Dinner is the time to unwind, socializing is the last thing you want to do. Sometimes you get lucky and sit with someone you like. Other times, not so much. Take for example, the family we sat with on the last Disney cruise. It was a single father with his two daughters. The youngest daughter would fall asleep in her plate, literally, while the other one would not stop, talking. She drove me crazy! She would be asking me stupid questions about my shirt or something while her father ate all three dinners. I swear, those kids never had a chance to eat. Needless to say, we were not looking forward to meeting our dinner guests this time around. There are two seating times for dinner, 5:45 pm and 8:00 pm. Most parents want the earlier seating because their children need to be in bed by 8:30. Here's where the miracle comes in. Since Matthew is older now, we decided to changed our seating time to 8:00. This would give us a chance to digest all the other food that we've eaten during the day. As a result, we got our own table. I think we were the only ones on the ship with our own table. No annoying kids, no yelling parents just blissful dining, yeehah.

Miracle #2 - Broken Bus
In the previous blog entry, Susan mentioned that our tour bus broke down in Cozumel on our way from the Mayan ruins. Let me clarify why this was a miracle. Cozumel is a small Mexican island East of the Yucatan peninsula in the Western Caribbean. Only 35% of the island in inhabited, the other 65% is dense forest. In fact, our tour guide told us that there are probably many Mayan temples that have not been discovered yet because of this dense forest. Okay, now, we are stuck on a bus, on the remote side of the island. Yes, there was no electricity, bathroom, food, nothing but Iguanas. So, when the bus motor died, I thought, great, here we are stranded on the side of the road, 45 minutes away from town, in Mexico. We are not going to see the ship or civilization for hours. By the time I finished bitching to my self about the situation, another bus shows up. Holy crap! It took five minutes for the bus to reach us, in fact it didn't even delay our trip. Now you have to admit, that was a miracle.

Miracle #3 - Luggage
Disney can actually check you into the airlines and issue your boarding passes while you're still on the ship. Your luggage is identified with a tag that has all your flight information and they take it straight to the airport. That's Disney for you, you pay through the nose but you get great service. Anyway, I digress, since 9/11, the customs regulations have changed for disembarking the ship. In the past, we reported to the movie theater and everyone got customs approval at once. Now, you need to go through customs and find your bag as you would in an airport. Close to 1600 people disembark from the ship at once, given that an average family has four pieces of luggage you are talking about 6400 bags. Well, we go through customs quickly and begin looking for our bags. Guess what, no bags. We looked everywhere. There is no carousel like in the airport, just a giant room filled with 6400 pieces of luggage. To cover more ground Matthew and I went one way and Susan another. Well after a little panicking and lots of cursing Susan found one bag, in the corner of the room, without a tag on it. Apparently, the tags got ripped off during handling and would probably still be in Florida today if she didn't find it. Matthew found the other two pieces of luggage in a roped off area that was being loaded onto a truck for delivery to the airport. We informed the luggage handler and he placed a new tag on the bag and loaded it in the tuck. Finding one bag in 6400 pieces of luggage is pretty miraculous to me. Lets see if it makes it to LaGuardia.

Miracle #4 & 5 - Missed Connecting Flight

I used my frequent flyer points to fly to and from Florida. The whole flight for the 3 of us, was 30 dollars. Because of that, we had to fly south to Miami, get a connecting flight and then head North to Orlando and visa versa for the return trip. Stupid, right? Then again, what do you expect for 30 dollars? Going down was pretty uneventful. The return trip on the other hand, was not. We missed our connecting flight in Miami due to a delayed takeoff in Orlando. We landed, ran 10 gates which felt more like 10 miles, only to to have the agent close the doors before we could board. This is the same airline as the connecting flight, mind you, but apparently they could not hold the plane for 5 freaking minutes! Missing a flight is bad, but this was not the worst part. You see, a few days earlier the Northeast got pounded with 24 inches of snow. 10,000 flight were cancelled. Hundreds of people were stranded in the airport for days. So what do you think the chances were to get three standby tickets for the next flight? How about slim to none. Okay, it's Thursday night at 6:20 pm. The next confirmed seating the ticket agent could give us was Sunday, yes, I said Sunday. Well, here comes the cursing again which seems to be the only thing I could do at this point. I didn't want to piss off the ticket agent too much because she was the one getting me home. Matthew is panicking, Susan is strangely calm and I've resolved myself to the fact that we are going to be spending some time in this airport. Our standby flight was at 8:20 pm. I plant myself in front of the ticket agent, looking as pathetic as possible so she would not forget that I was there. Everyone boards, things don't look good, then suddenly they call out our names. Miracle #4! Not only did we get on this flight but all our luggage, including the one that Susan found, made it to LaGuardia. How do you like that. We'll count that one as miracle #5. In retrospect, I realized that If they did hold the plane for us to board in Miami, then our luggage would not have arrived in LaGuardia at the same time as we did. So if I have to be stranded in an airport then it might as well be Miami.

Miracle #6 & 7- Snow Removal

This is a bit out of sequence for the story but while we were out at sea, we found out about the snow storm back home. My driveway is 125 feet long on a steep hill so driving up it when there's snow is impossible. As soon as we could get a cell signal, we called our landscaper to plow the driveway. If you've read any of my previous blog postings you'd know that I usually do the snow removal myself. Why, you ask? probably because it involves a power tool. I'm still figuring that one out myself. Anyway, the landscaper informs us that he would like to help us but his plow has broken down. In desperation we asked if he knew someone that could help. He told us that he would check and get back to us, but the call never came. So I expected that we would get home after this hellacious night, have to park the car at the bottom of the hill and wade through 2 feet of snow. The luggage and snow can wait until the morning. It didn't matter anyway. All I wanted to do was sleep in my bed and for this day to be over. It's 2:00 a.m., we are exhausted, I drive up to the house and the driveway is plowed, Miracle #6. The final miracle was that a tree had fallen due to the intense snow storm and high winds and by all logic should have landed on the roof of the house based on it's location, but instead fell to the right, defying all laws of physics, Miracle #7

The next day we went out and bought power ball tickets hoping to ride the miracle train one more time but to no avail. I guess it was a bit greedy but it was worth a shot.

Christmas Holiday

We've been really busy the past few months and haven't been writing as much on the blog. We hit the holiday season with the usual mad rush of picking up gifts, mailing out the holiday cards and all the other zany things that happens with the holiday season. We hosted the Christmas holiday dinner the Saturday before we were leaving for our vacation, crazy I know. We were going to set sail and visit the Western Caribbean. We were pretty excited about this trip. School, work and other day to day activities have taken a toll on all of us. We were anxious to detach ourselves from email, voicemail and other daily obligations.

We had the usual suspects at the holiday bash. We had a roasted turkey and all the other side dishes that go along with it. As soon as I packed up the Christmas china and stemware, I pulled out the luggage for the frantic packing. Murphy's law, you know how it is. The way you want things to work out, never really does. The day before we were going to leave, I had planned to work at home. It was going fine until the call I was on pretty much summed up that I was needed in the office. I had to high tail myself down to New York and was stuck working at the office pretty late. OK- it's all good. We're leaving tomorrow. I can finish any packing in the morning before we leave. Nope. The day we were going to leave, I was tied up on conference calls all morning dealing with the last minute emergencies. Running around on the phone and trying to finish the packing didn't go as planned. I resolved myself to whatever is missing, I'll just deal without it. Ran out of the house, picked up Matthew from school, threw him in the car and high tailed ourselves to the airport.

We made it to Florida and I wasn't able to unwind. We were leaving from Port Canaveral on the Disney Wonder the next day and sailing to Key West. Nope, not feeling the "ah" moment yet. My mind was racing with a million things in my head to do for the office. I was worried about Matthew's midterm exams, Chinese homework assignments, Kumon assignments and all the other things that run around in my head. While we were in Key West, I was still able to see emails from work and though I was far away, I wasn't far enough.

We sailed to the next port. We arrived in Grand Cayman on Boxing Day. Not a great day to arrive on the island since it is a holiday. We didn't find a whole heck of a lot going on so we wandered back to the ship. OK- so my phone doesn't work, I don't have emails coming in. For that, I was beginning to feel a bit detached. So detached, that we didn't realize that a blizzard just dumped a ton of snow in the Northeast and screwed up air travel. Ignorance is bliss and I can surely attest to that.

We sailed off to the next location. Cozumel, Mexico. Now, we're talking. I'm now starting to unwind a bit, catch up on a lot of reading and took a historical tour through San Gervasio,one of the largest Mayan ruins. Not bad. Got a lesson on history, got some sun, spent a nice day in Mexico. Murphy's law, when things are going well, something is bound to get screwed up and it was on our last part of the Mayan tour that we experienced our first miracle. Our tour bus broke down in the middle of no where. We were about 25 minutes from the center of town. The tour guide called in for a replacement bus which will take about 30 - 40 minutes to reach us to pick us up. We were running up against the time to be on board to the ship and we were wondering if we were going to be stuck here and the ship will set sail without us. Then out of no where, another tour bus picked us up since it saw us stranded on the side of the road. If it weren't for that bus, who knows, Matthew may be mashing guacamole dip on the side of the road and selling it in order to sustain us until we got rescued. OK- my imagination gets the better of me. We made it back to port on time and we were on our way to our next stop.

Last stop, Castaway Cay. Disney's private island. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, a bit on the cool side, but I must say, it was quite nice. Read on the beach, got some sun, I was digging this. I can get into the island life. While there, we started to hear about the snowstorm that screwed up the Christmas holiday air travel. Well, all I can say is I timed this trip perfectly. If we left the day after Christmas, we would have been sleeping on the airport floor instead of on the beach. The news of the snowstorm snapped me right back to reality. So much for the "ah" moment. It as great while it lasted.