A Semi-Sweet White Table Wine and a Very Sweet White Dog

I uncorked the Whittenburg Semi-Sweet White as I went off on one tangent or another about the challenges of my new job. 

I let the wine breath for a few minutes, poured myself a glass, and took a sip. A warm, mellow flavor hit the center of my tongue, and the tartness of an apple draft cider tickled the tip of it.

The wine being more full-bodied than I'd expected, I relaxed, contentedly, sinking a little deeper into the slat-backed wooden chair. 

The first glass was a well-deserved pleasure after a frustrating day at work, and the second glass was pure indulgence. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a white wine as a standalone, without a food pairing. 

Peaceful Bend winery is on the Meremac River in Steelville, Missouri.

all photos by smalltowngirl

Two glasses in, I realized the dog was still outside from 20 minutes before. When I let her in, her muddy paws left footprints across the white quarry-tiled kitchen floor. The dog already in need of a bath, and me having already had two glasses of wine, the dog with little hope.

Into the kitchen sink she went, and any dignity the poor dog had disappeared...

It's the little things in life that make it good. A glass of local white wine and a clean white dog are all it took tonight to lift my heart up to a better place.

More pictures of the (dry) white dog.

Lemons or Lemonade: A Blog in two Parts

Part One:

I'm grouchy today. 

Missouri is so nice, and people here are so nice. It's all so...NICE. 

Where's the grit? Where's the texture? Where's the edge? 

Oh, that's right. It's Missouri. It's not gritty or textured or edgy. It's nice.

Photo by smalltowngirl

Thank God for blogging, FB, and Twitter...And thanks to my NY friends who are following my blogs, photos, and tweets, caring about this journey I'm taking now, back in Missouri after so many years away.

I had hoped that social media would help me feel close to some of what (and who) I love about New York, and though some days I'm not sure it's working, other days it's the thread that keeps me connected, and by extension, keeps me sane.

So thank you, if you're following, emailing, and commenting.  And if you're following but not commenting, it would be so good to hear from you. 

NY=1; MO=0

***

Part Two:

For all the missing New York I'm doing now, I missed small town MO very much over the last 10+ years, too. Sometimes I longed for the quiet, humble, nice Midwest

While I can't walk down the street to grab the Times from a bodega or newstand in my small town, I can read it online from the coffee shop, where the barista visits with me for ten minutes at a time, and I can buy a large latte for less than a small coffee in  NYC.

And while French Press coffee and omelets with hungover 20- and 30-somes isn't quite the same as drip coffee in the pot at home, it's really kind of nice to wake up sober, to family and a little white dog.

So I'm trying here - I really am - to seek out the best Missouri has to offer. 

I want to love life here, or anywhere that I am, for that matter. I want to be one of those people who can find beauty and happiness anywhere.

I've started a community calendar here. I hope that this can become a space for locals to seek out hip, healthy, and interesting events in the area. 

I'm independent, so I can publish any event (unlike other, corporate events calendars I've found in MO). If you have events you'd like published, tweet me, Facebook me, email, or leave a comment.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a few good local things I've discovered this afternoon:

The Tour of Missouri 2009

Go! St. Louis

Trailnet: Promoting Active Living

The Soulard Art Market

The Gift in My Mailbox

As I sat huddled over my Mac, creating a last-minute ad that was already three hours past deadline, writer's block muddled my brain and my half-baked InDesign skills inspired prayers that I never find myself without a capable graphic designer on staff.

Hastily, I created a pdf of the ad and printed it off for editing. I rushed into the dining hall, thrusting the ad upon three witless interns, trying to sound managerial as I begged them, in desperation, to proofread the piece for me.

As I rushed to submit the ad before the weekend, somewhere across the office, someone was putting time and thought into making my day a little happier.

I submitted the ad for publication, and while I was submitting, someone else was someone else was sticking an awkwardly wrapped gift, complete with big, red bow, in my office mailbox.

I present you (pun fully intended, because I'm witty like that) with Evidence A, "The Gift":


Standing at my desk, taking in the boyish wrap-job and Christmas colors, a smile spread across my previously grimacing face. Someone cared enough to wrap up some little something for me.

I snapped this photo, and I proceeded to unwrap the package.

I slid the white box out from the shiny, striped paper, and I grinned goofily as I opened it up.

Inside, this is what I found. Observe Evidence B, "the Empty Box":


Nothing.

I have been the target of an intra-office practical joke. I'm sorta flattered.

Dark Was the Night

Disclosure: My best friend works for one of the artists on this album, so my opinion is probably influenced by her talking this album up, pre-release.

Last night, I downloaded "Dark Was the Night", the newly released album produced by Aaron and Bryce Dessner from one of my favorite bands, The National, as an AIDS and HIV awareness project.

Besides Feist and The National, the album features an impressive list of artists, including Beirut, Kronos Quartet, Bon Iver, Arcade Fire, Cat Power, The Decemberists, and more. It's a two-CD set, and it is working much-needed magic in my soul.

Living in the rural midwest is a lot easier in 2009 than it would have been in the past. Ten years ago, I would have needed to drive to St. Louis on the release date of an album like this, hoping that a store like Vintage Vinyl might have it in stock. Last night, I downloaded it from my bedroom.

Ten years ago, I'd probably have been one of the only people I knew digging an album like this one. Now, I can probably find a thousand people online talking about it. 

So as I sit in my big, red, paisly arm chair, feet propped up and sun streaming in my window, I listen to this album, and I don't feel far from NYC at all.

Camping

Photo by Smalltowngirl

Photo also OF Smalltowngirl

Note to self - use the bathroom before putting on four pair of socks, two pair of gloves, and zipping yourself into your sleeping bag. 

Between my bladder and the coyotes, I didn't sleep much last night. (Note the one-eyed, glaze-over stare out from inside the sleeping bag cacoon.

Home and showered, it's time for this small town girl to take a nap.

Week One Recap (spoiler: I held a chincilla tonight!)

It's 9:49 p.m., and I'm sitting in my office in Potosi, Missouri after a full day of work, including eight hours in the office and several more with our board of directors. If ever before this year I had been told I would work in Potosi, Missouri, I would have bet everything I owned that you were lying. (And I'm not a better).

If you had told me I'd love my new position working in Potosi, Missouri, I would probably have laughed in your face. (And I'm generally very polite).

Yet here I am, tired after my first week of work here, but tired in the "sugarplums dancing in their heads" kind of way, where I feel an excitement about what's to come and such a deep peace about where I am in this moment that rest will come easily when I finish this post and crawl into my bed.

This week I have been woken up by the family dog, I've had coffee at the kitchen table with my dad before work, and I've watched my mom get so creative and excited about cooking really great, healthy meals for us.

Wednesday on my way home from work, I saw a deer cross the road in front of me and run down a hill and into a field. The weather has warmed up here, so I've continued to test out my new trail running shoes on jogs in the woods behind the office. Tonight, I held a chincilla in my hands (his little nose was adorable, and his "pricklies" were softer than they looked!).

My coworkers are gracious, thoughtful, and incredibly welcoming. Do not misunderstand me here, they are also hard-working, experienced, many of them very well-traveled professionals. They have brought me into my first week here at the Y with nothing but compassion and kindness, which heals my soul in ways that I didn't know it was even aching.

Do I miss New York City? Of course I do, in little ways, and sporatically. Do I love where I am though, professionally and personally; mentally, spiritually, and physically? Yes, wholly.

All things happen for a reason, and I believe that my new job and new home are no exceptions.

"I Like Your Boots"

Danielle and I parted ways in Times Square as she headed back to Brooklyn, and I tried to figure out to make it down to @socialmedium's birthday bash in sliver of Manhattan between the East Village and the Lower East Side where I'm never exactly what neighborhood I'm really in.

I needed to take either the 7 or the S from Times Square to Grand Central, but the 7 wasn't running, and the S was going to be a twenty minute wait. I opted against @socialmedium's party in favor of invitation #2, a group of Brooklyn friends who were out in a place not far from my apartment.

I left the S platform and made my way back to the jam-packed, Brooklyn-bound N,Q,R,W platform, where I was one of the only people flying solo tonight. 

A girl with a Billy Idol-style platinum blonde spike stopped talking mid-sentence, and looked adoringly, albeit hazy-eyed, at my boots. The boy standing beside her, whose back had been turned as I approached followed her gaze so that I could see a thick layer of foundation, subtle eyeliner, and a light blush.

"I like your boots," the girl said. "Those are fucking sweet."

"Thanks," I said. "I love them."

***

The Q was running local instead of express, so my four stops to Brooklyn turned into more stops than I could count, and I was ready to crawl into bed by the time I got off at Dekalb Avenue for the walk home.

I got off the train, helped some girls from Manhattan find their way to Union Street, and headed down the platform to my exit. I passed a man leaning against a pole, waiting for the R.

"I like your boots," he said.

"Thanks," I said to him before I walked up the steps and out of the station.

***

I emerged from underground into the lights of the Applebees at the corner of Fulton and Dekalb. A sanitation truck came down the street at the first intersection, so I paused, not sure if he'd yield to me. He stopped to let me cross, and as I did, he flashed his lights once. 

I ignored him.

"I like your boots," I heard him say from the cab of the truck.

I gave a quick glance over my shoulder as I headed up the street towards my apartment.

***

I got home, and I sat down to take off my boots. That's when I noticed that the leather at broadest part of the boot was coming apart from the sole. I took of the right boot and looked closer. Sure enough, a seperation about an eighth of an inch long had developed on the right boot. 

I set the right boot on the floor, slipping off the left. I looked at the same place on it, and once again the leather was no longer attached to the sole.  

Before New York, I probably would have taken these holes as a sign that the boots needed to be retired, but in New York, we have cobblers. Lots of them. And one of them happens to be just down the block from me. 

Chalk one up to New York for cobblers.

I like my boots.

Baby Owls in Central Park

After an hour of walking through North Central Park, craning my neck upward to search in the trees; and after the group leader lent me his binoculars, I finally saw two baby screech owls perched high up in the trees above our heads.

Just as Bob, the bird watch leader, had promised, the fluffy baby owls made exaggerated movements of their heads. Since the owls can't move their eyes, they move their entire head to see what's around them and to approximate what's directly in front of them. And so the awkard little baby owls started stretched up tall, and while keeping the faces directed at us, swung their necks down and around in a clockwise motion. Up high....swoop around down low, and up high again...not unlike the motion of the Egg Scrambler at Country Days when I was a kid.

It was dusk, and I was witnessing a little bit of magic. I wouldn't wander solo in the park at night, but we were a large group of maybe fifteen or twenty people, and we stood watching the little owls until the sun went so low that we could no longer see their profiles in the trees.

If it were only possible to reign in the inspiration on any particularly wonderful day and redistribute it along equally among the other days of the week or month, I would do exactly that; I would bottle inspiration and give it away free as a public service to the people who need it most.

When the anorexic woman came around that corner, jogging and crazed a few days ago, I wanted to have the power to pass peace to her. I wished that with the touch of my hands I could calm her; make her understand that she could stop running, and that she would be alright. It's not the first time in my life that I've longed for the gift of bringing peace to someone who was hurting.

Yesterday was a day of inspiration and relaxation. I loved yesterday. I loved looking out onto Harlem, unhurried conversation, and an unending supply of black tea with milk and sugar. Hot tea, quiet, and good conversation are three of my life's sweetest pleasures, and yesterday had plenty of each. Today I felt like I was in on a little secret...Like I'd figured something out that so many New Yorkers never do; how to capture cups of tea, good conversations, and moments of quiet reflection in one of the world's fastest-paced cities.

I've longed for the ability to bring people's guards down; to lower their defenses and to get to know them as individuals beyond their 30-second elevator speeches and easy answers that are customarily given to new acquaintances.

Tonight I met lots of new people at our organization's volunteer dinner, several of whom opened up to me really deeply in a very short period of time. After talking for just fifteen or twenty minutes, I learned the story of her silver ring; of his four years in the Marines...Of his fascination with Native American cultures; of her friend's dying with cancer; and of their mutual love for the American Southwest.

In ten minutes or less, I learned that the woman on the other side of me at the table was laid off earlier this year form Bear Stearns, and that she didn't even realize she was depressed until she started volunteering at our organization a few times a week and remembered what it was like to want to wake up in the mornings. She seems surprised at herself for opening up to me about all of this. The couple expressed to me how surprised they were at themselves for sharing so much with me about their lives in such a short period of time.

I've been praying to learn to ease the defenses of the people I meet in order to truly get to know them as individuals and not as a career title or a company association or by their appearances alone. Tonight I had the power of a calming touch; the ease with others that they opened up and really talked with me about their life's experiences.

A small glimpse into the life of another perfectly imperfect, individually fascinating human being is humbling. If I could bottle up the inspiration I felt after watching my new friends' defenses fall at dinner tonight, I'd give it away free.

Since it's not possible literally to bottle inspiration in the sense that we bottle up our pickles or olives, I suppose the best I can ask is that my words will capture something that can be passed on and that will serve as a hand of peace on the shoulder of someone who needs it most.