Last Days in New York

There was a bridge, near our place, that was destroyed in a recent flood. No, it wasn't the flood that complicated our lives back in 2011 during Hurricane Irene, but rather a different, earlier flood.

Ever since we moved in people have been unable to find our place with a GPS because, for some reason, it tells people to go over this bridge that hasn't existed even though that would actually make you drive past our place and have to circle back.


Now, for the last two weeks we live in our current place, the bridge is back! That means if you're trying to find us by GPS in our last weeks here you are in luck!

Rejoice!


I had Thursday off of work which means I took the guys around town on many walks. Martin and I played for a while in the grass where he took a particular interest in the car of the guy across the street. The only man more interested in that car is its owner, a man who spends 50% of every snow storm out there brushing his car off as the snow falls.

Today he caught me outside and told me that he was impressed with Jen's demeanor and that she is always so pleasant as she leaves for work in the morning. He also warned me of the rot on the tree in our front yard, all while bearing a striking resemblance to Jen's grandfather.

He is one of the nicest men I've ever had the pleasure of talking to but probably still only about 40% as nice as Jen's grandfather who may be the nicest man alive today.



Before Jen got home from dinner we enjoyed one of our last swings at the park before our move.

I spent most of the week recovering from a respiratory infection and, after seeing the most comical New York doctor you can imagine, I was recovering and on antibiotics. The doctor was very impressed with my "nice, chesty cough" and informed me that I should take the antibiotics in the morning with a coffee and a buttered roll.


On Saturday we hired a babysitter and went out to dinner with our good friends, Mel and Jule. We'd been discussing going to Frankie & Johnnie's steak house for about five years and our departure from the Empire State was the final shove we all needed to finally get it done. The last time Jen and I went to a steak house together I think it was 2004 or 2005 so it was nice to notch off another decade with a steakhouse visit. It was delicious but not half as delicious as the company of some dear friends who will be greatly missed.

Like with everyone we have extended the offer to them to come and stay with us in Chicago in the posh guest room of the house we have yet to purchase.


After returning home the guys slept for a tiny bit but woke up around midnight and would not sleep for the rest of the night. They were both quite irritable and had fevers. This proceeded for two nights and left Jen and I in a zombie-like state. It also meant that we fell asleep in weird spots of the apartment and that Martin and Elliott sometimes fell asleep lying on the floor or whatever else it took to finally get them to shut their eyes.


Martin has been making a new face, a face that I didn't quite capture in this photo. He makes a face that seems to be a mixture of horror and annoyance. The best part is that he doesn't really make it at appropriate times. Sometimes he makes the face because you have told him not to do something. Other times he makes it simply when you say his name.

The ladies at daycare were the first to really identify this face and I'm afraid he will move past this phase before we get a really good picture. Until then enjoy this partial photo of him looking disgusted, possibly because I told him I was going to get him his sippy cup.


On Sunday we started off the day with a nice breakfast before heading out to the farmer's market.



Martin took a particular interest in the samples of waffles being offered by Pika's Farm Table so I purchased a waffle for him. Then I discovered that what Martin had discovered was the world's most delicious waffle.

This is good because we've gotten to eat them two weeks in a row. It is bad because we know that we only have two weeks left in the near future with access to these tasty waffles. I actually thought about sneaking behind their booth and trying to see if I could find the recipe so I could steal it.

I didn't think about this like some sort of fantasy, I actually, truly thought about doing it.


It is convenient, with all these sugary waffles, that I have successfully tricked Martin into brushing his teeth nightly by purchasing these new toothbrushes. The old ones would just make him squirm and fuss. He loves the new brushes so much that he will actually brush his own teeth at night.

Elliott, unfortunately, has not been fooled by my tricks.


On Sunday Jen made a quiche out of the broccoli and other assorted items from the farm share. She and the Wombats enjoyed it for dinner and I got to have some leftovers the following day.



Jen, unfortunately, has had the unenviable task of picking up the babies from day care and picking up the farm share for the past two weeks due to my work and travel schedule. She has done an admirable job and has even made the time to take pictures of the recent hauls.


The latest game to keep the babies occupied has been to just set them loose on the dishwasher. They love it. While they are very good in emptying the dishwasher they are not necessarily as good at putting the items where they belong. I'm thinking of just keeping all our clean plates and utensils on the floor moving forward as that would save us a tremendous amount of time and these guys would do a great job of taking care of this chore for the future.

Quick note: I recommend taking all the knives and forks out of the dishwasher before allowing babies to play in it. I'm not going to tell you how I learned this safety tip, I'm just going to tell you that you should consider it if you have babies you'd like to have play in your dishwasher.


Last night I made this pumpkin tortelloni with rendered bacon, onion, butternut squash, cream, salt, pepper, and grated Parrano cheese, and fried sage leaves. It worked out well but it also just happened to be what I had lying around in the fridge and freezer. The Wombats even had some though they only had a few saving room for their favorite food of all time: peaches!


I'm saying goodbye to New York in many ways. One way is in trying to tick off as many beers and breweries off my list as I can that are not available in the Chicagoland area. Last night was Captain Lawrence's Brown Bird Ale, a beer brewed not even twenty minutes from our house that we have shamefully still not been to visit.


I picked up several different local beers that I won't be seeing in the midwest and will be making my way through them over the coming weeks. While it's nowhere near as sad as not being able to see our good friends and family as much, it's a way of saying goodbye and opening myself up to a great number of beers in Chicago that we don't get out here.

I hope our friends and family come and visit often. Our room rates are quite competitive and I'll offer one extra night for anyone who brings me beer I can't get in Illinois.

Little Italians

On Monday morning I woke up with a severe pain in my neck, so bad that I almost couldn't get out of bed. Jen had kindly done all the laundry for me on Sunday, dragging the Wombats with her to get it done, so that I could enjoy my day on Monday. What ended up happening is that I was just glad I didn't have to lug anything up and down stairs.

By Tuesday the pain had subsided quite a bit and I stayed home with the Bubses all day.


The day started with an early morning wake up call and me wrestling with the Bubses in bed for a while before walking Jen to the train and bidding her farewell for the day.


I took the guys on a walk to the beach and to Playland. It was a very cool and breezy day that soon turned extremely humid and stuffy.


Then, at our farthest point from home, it began to rain. I was able to fish out the rain cover and clumsily rest it over the top of the stroller. Elliott, who doesn't like to be covered by anything, managed to poke a toe through the bottom and stick his foot out the bottom getting it wet with rain water.


After getting them home, and to bed, I started off dinner with an Italian theme. I made this salad with Romaine from the farm, grape tomato, olives, pine nuts, mozzarella, and a balsamic vinagrette.


I also made another Italian dish with this classic Italian ingredient from the farm: bok choy! I sauteed it with some olive oil, garlic and onion, then finished it with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.


Since the Wombats have moved on from purees and spoon-feeding we had a little bit of a backup in the freezer. I had all these ice cube-shaped bits of salmon that I needed to use up.


I decided to cook them up with some garlic, onion, olive oil, butter, white wine, cream, oregano, and roasted tomatoes to make this capellini. It ended up turning out really good as a pasta sauce.


To accompany all this I enjoyed this Femme Fatale Blanc from Evil Twin Brewing, an anniversary gift from Jen. This was a very nice, very light, very refreshing IPA.


Tonight, after a very easy night of getting the babies to bed, I put together this sweet sopressata plate with Camembert while I waited for Jen to get home from work.


I also made this salad with avocado, shrimp, grape tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella with lemon and olive oil. I put peppadews on my salad as Jen sort of hates peppadews.


With dinner I had this Cerise from Founders Brewing Company, another gift from Jen. Then I realized that this beer was way too sweet and sour to have with dinner so I put it in the fridge until I could enjoy it as an after dinner substitution for dessert.

At the NICU one nurse, also the mother of twins, let us know that just when we think we've figured things out the babies would switch things up on us. She could not have been more right. While weeks ago Elliott would go to sleep with basically no effort, lately he eats has his entire bottle then looks at us wide awake and ready to party. Martin, who used to be such a challenge, falls asleep almost instantly after starting his bottle.

So it is that we take things day-to-day and try to enjoy those small slivers of time where we think we have it all figured out. It's best to support the illusion.

We totally have nothing figured out.

Meals and Mischief

On continues the rains and my unending worries that we will wake up, once again, to our apartment surrounded on all four sides by water. The flood watch remains in effect until Saturday so, until then, I will just continue to worry.


It continued on Tuesday when I fed the Bubses their food after work and they made a holy mess of the place.


It rained all night, even after I got the Bubses to bed and enjoyed this fantastic oak aged quadruple from the Trappist brewery Le Trappe, the only Trappist Brewery in Holland. This is a fantastic beer for a cold night in December, or a miserable rainy night in what must be the wettest, nastiest June of my life.


Yesterday Elliott got to crawling everywhere and it was all I could do to contain both of them as I struggled to put together dinner. As we drove home I saw him squinting in the backseat and I couldn't figure out why since I'd put down his canopy to block the sun from his eyes. Then I realized that he had somehow pulled the shade free and repurposed it as some sort of waist guard.


He continued at home by becoming fascinated with our wine/beer fridge and attempting to liberate its contents.


And finally he discovered that he could pull down the container for their toys and that nothing would be more fun than taking out all of its contents one-by-one to scatter them about the room.


After we finally coaxed them to bed I made this gnocchi with kale from the farm, onion, garlic, andouille from the freezer, olive oil, butter, and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.


I also opened this 2011 bottle of Burton Baton from Dogfish Head. It was a nice oaked beer that only could have been better if we'd been able to have it a few hours earlier and I hadn't passed out on the couch immediately afterward.


Tonight Martin was up to his own mischief as he finally discovered the secret of how to drain the tub. I knew this was just a matte rof time but I thought for sure Elliott would figure it out first.


After another Wombat wrestling match where I used all my cunning to get them to sleep I had some toast for dinner and enjoyed it with this Simple Malt Fumee from Brasseurs Illimités. I haven't had a tone of smoked beers but this was probably my favorite so far. Most that I've had have been very ashy but this was very rich and almost tasted like a barbecue. I'd highly recommend it if you are passing through Quebec at any point.

As I right this the streets are turning to rivers and Jen, sadly, is stuck in Manhattan trying to make it to the train in high heels. Our cars are parked high up the street in preparation for the worst.

We need to move.

On the Move . . . Almost

With each day the Wombats become more mobile. The countdown to the end of our relative freedom as parents is quickly coming to a close. Soon there will be no end to the horrors these little guys will put us through. For months we've been saying that we should clear out the bottom shelves of the cabinets beneath our television.


Tuesday morning the guys decided to show us the true cost of our procrastination by scattering Wii games all across the living room.


Our last day in France, during our honeymoon, we had dinner with Jen's old host family in which Jen's host mother made a fantastic dinner. I, getting over a mild bout of food poisoning, sadly could not enjoy how amazing it was.

I do remember there was some delicious duck with wonderful, crispy fried potatoes. I unintentionally did a really poor recreation of that on Tuesday night with some waffle fries and a salad made out of the leftover corn with feta cheese.


For beer we had this 2011 bottle of Robert Johnson's Hellhound on my Ale from Dogfish Head. It's yet another absurdly malty music collaboration from the experimental Delaware brewery. It claims to be 100 IBUs. I couldn't really taste it. I think that's mostly due to the extreme hopping that seems to go in just about every limited release these days.


Yesterday I arrived to an empty day care only to find out that the Wombats were at the park. I went over to meet them and was greeted with the opposite of what I normally find: a sleeping Martin and a wide awake Elliott.


At home Martin woke up and reminded me, again, how dangerously close they are to being able to get into just about anything they want. Fortunately I had spent the afternoon doing some minor baby-proofing which meant that at least our Wii games and DVDs were safe. This was convenient seeing that our Wii is broken and nobody watches DVDs anymore.


The Wombats like to pretend that they aren't hungry. Their favorite thing is to swat away my spoon as I try to feed them. Last night, after many attempts to feed them, I just cut up some cheese and put it in front of them. I turned my back and then, after a minute, I turned back to see that Elliott had eaten all of his cheese and was making moves to steal some of Martin's.


After wrestling these clown to bed again I made this beet salad with feta and cherry tomatoes.


I also made the dinner I was going to make last Friday but ended up putting into the freezer after discovering my cousin was stuck in Stamford after the train ahead of him derailed. I grilled up some sirloin and lobster tails and sauteed some beet greens, serving it all with a baked potato.


For beer I had this Imperial Stout from Brasseurs Illimités, another from our trip to Montreal.


Tonight I tried a new tactic and only fed them pieces of food they could feed themselves. It's started already that these ungrateful little buttheads don't want to have anything to do with me feeding them. Instead they want to feed themselves because they're so good at it. Just look at how little mess they make! They're pros. Pros, I tell you!


After feeding them I tried a new technique where I gave them their baths then fed them their bottles after they bathed. This calmed them down a bit from their normal post-bath frenzy and it was relatively easy to get them to bed afterward.

I celebrated by opening this Tokyo by St. Bernardus, a beer brewed only once for the opening of St. Bernardus pub in Japan.

It was light and refreshing, the perfect way to celebrate a successful new technique used to get the babies to bed. Once again I think I've figured everything out and found a foolproof technique for putting them to sleep.

It's going to be a great three or four days until this doesn't work anymore.

Have Your Ice Cream and Eat it Too

Friday night took an unexpected turn when two trains collided in Connecticut and derailed. My cousin Jeff, who was on his way back to New York on the train behind the collided trains, was diverted to a station back by us. I met him at the station, picked him up, and we had dinner with Liz who drove down from Rhode Island to pick him up.

Silver lining #1: miraculously no one was killed on the train. Silver lining #2: we got to have a nice impromptu dinner.


Prior to the impromptu dinner Jen had the next phase of her dental surgery to repair the damage done by the large, unwieldy melons of her two sons, the fatal blow delivered by Elliott some months ago. This left Jen in a fair deal of pain. Luckily the ice pack acted as a source of great amusement to the nasty little critters who separated her from her tooth.

Those guys have a sick sense of humor.


The next morning we headed out to the latest round of swim class.


Class went well, particularly for Elliott who chose to take an extra ball so he had one to hold and one to chew on. All the other babies in the class were far more restrained.


It was Elliott's turn to join me in the locker room this week. We stagger it by weeks so that both guys have equal opportunity to look at nude old men shamelessly combing their hair in the mirror.


After I went to work Jen took the guys up to hang out with their uncles Joe and Ryan.


Apparently it was a great day for the guys. They got to pat on a horse and they got to watch their mother score some shrimp cocktail serving pieces at an estate sale.

Overall it was an important day of firsts in the life of any growing children.


Yesterday, while I was at work, Jen painstakingly repaired the sheep mobiles that the guys had done their best to rip to pieces. Was this a much-needed chore or a fruitless attempt to stop the unending wave of damage they are doing to our living quarters?


Elliott's crawling attempts have been getting better and more frequent. He's got the part nailed where he gets onto all fours.


Then he kind of flops onto his belly.


Then, after not knowing what to do he gets really angry.

Almost there, Buddy.


For dinner we thawed out two burgers from the freezer and Jen made them with onion gravy and mashed potatoes. I made corn with olive oil, butter, garlic, onion, and chopped bell peppers. We had hoped to grill but what may have been the last bit of cold drizzle cancelled those plans. The rest of the week looks like it will usher out the chilly spring weather for good.


After dinner I settled back with this 2011 bottle of Twelve from Victory Brewing Company. The year-and-a-half it aged certainly didn't mellow it much. At 12% ABV one glass was more than I needed. It is supposed to be a Belgian-style quadrupel but it was much lighter in color and heavier in alcohol than I would have expected. Still, a nice after-dinner beverage.


One of our favorite things to do during hockey playoff season is to go get ice cream. In recent years this has been at our local Longford's. With Jen's dental work and getting the babies to sleep it seemed unlikely. On Friday, after picking up her prescription, I decided to stop by Longford's and pick up some ice cream to bring home to her since bringing the sleeping babies in a stroller seemed like a fool's game.


This never materialized so, instead, I made up some ice cream cones last night with salted caramel and coffee chunk ice creams. This went nicely with an exceedingly boring match up between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Ottawa Senators as well as the first sixty minutes of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Normally the movie release date to our viewing lag time is eight years so we were beating the odds with this one.

With the exception of the cones being incredibly stale, and possibly rancid, this was a great Sunday night treat before entering another week of work, Bubs day care, and a pile of laundry that if you laid it out end-to-end it would stretch half way to Saturn.

You can't have it all.