Out of Office: A castle, an ocean, and a BMW

When Chris and I initially planned our California trip, his parents made the (very brave) offer to babysit for us so we could take a 6-day-long baby-less field trip. We decided (after joyfully accepting their offer post-haste) to use our time on a road trip to Northern California.

Enter the BWM red convertible. Since high school, I have had an obsession with BMW Z3 convertibles. Snazzy look, (relatively) affordable price, roadster engine that turns on a dime - what's not to love? (The fact that I'd never actually driven or even sat in one and certainly had no prayer of affording one seemed irrelevant at the time). Chris decided to surprise me by renting a Z4 convertible for our road trip in - can there be any other proper convertible/sports car color? - fire engine red.

Yes, please.

The rest of this blog entry will be light on dialogue, heavy on photos. Them being worth a thousand words, and all that jazz.

We set off from Huntington Beach headed north along scenic Highway 1 (usually known by its more glamorous name, Pacific Coast Highway). First stop: Madonna Inn, an iconic - if rather bizarrely pink - inn where Chris' parents spent a night on their honeymoon.  The inn includes 110 guest bedrooms, all "uniquely" decorated in their own individual themes.  I couldn't quite decide whether the place was cute/kitchy or horrifically gaudy, so I'll let you make your own decision:

Continuing along Highway 1, we also passed through Morro Bay, a particularly pretty seaside town:

Second stop: Hearst Castle. Oh my word. Having visited the 250 room Biltmore earlier this summer, I was prepared for an uber house of the opulently rich, but nothing can quite prepare you for the blindingly white Hearst Castle, set among myriad white marble statue/sarcophagi. The interior decorating taste was overly dark/gothic for my palate, but the exterior structures were impressive and the views truly phenomenal. Lots of bonus points to William Hearst for using as his architect Julia Morgan, the first woman architect licensed in California and director of over 700 projects during her lifetime.  (She once said "My buildings will be my legacy... they will speak for me long after I am gone" and that is certainly true here).

Construction on the house lasted from 1919 until 1947, when Hearst's failing health prohibited its continuation. The 28 year span of construction encompassed a wide range of Heart's mind-changes and re-designs, though the structure as is seems essentially complete.  Shortly after his death in 1951, Hearst's family donated the castle to the state of California, where it is now included in the California park system.

The house was at its heyday in the 1920s and 30s, when a bevy of famous visitors included Walt Disney, Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, Charles Lindburgh, and other "Who's Who" of the political and Hollywood hit lists. They enjoyed, among other things, swims in the opulent pools - the indoor "roman" pool and outdoor "neptune" pool (drained for restoration):

Also some pretty sweet guest quarters:

And I mentioned the views were spectacular, right? (That band of darker blue near the horizon is all Pacific Ocean):

From the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, we made our way to Carmel, stopping for frequent photo shoots along Highway 1/PCH:

At last - to Chris' relief - the Nikon took a breather and we reached the Hyatt Highlands Inn in Carmel.  Chris has been accumulating Hyatt points like candy during this last year of frequent business travel, and we are reaping the rewards this week by staying in super-swanky Hyatts using his points. Our room - among other features - includes a wood burning fireplace and balcony overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  Truly spectacular, like most of our day!

Out of Office: Santa Monica, Fried Burgers, & San Juan Capistrano

The California sub-series of the Out of Office series continues. Today's episode finds our motley crew exploring the LA area: Santa Monica pier and San Juan Capistrano.

I'm not sure why I felt the obsession to visit Santa Monica pier, but I did. In retrospect, I think it might have been from watching NCIS:LA with my mother (who is a groupie) - it seems in every episode after they have caught the requisite terrible-person-trying-to-blow-up-innocent-civilians-villain, the NCIS team takes a break to banter and drink beer with the Santa Monica pier in the background, while the sun picturesquely sets, setting everything to a complexion-favoring orange glow.  Whatever the genesis, the obsession was there, and my in-laws graciously offered to battle LA traffic (which was just as bad as they warned it would be) to get us there.

On the way we were able to see Emma's great-grandmother (always a treat) and to introduce Emma to In-n-Out (this reference just caused anyone who grew up in CA to lick their lips longingly; those readers not so lucky to have sampled In-n-Out wares will have to trust my word that they make a mean burger).  Just to keep us on our toes, Emma decided to swallow a penny at great-grandma's house, but is none the worse for wear.

The Santa Monica area is actually quite cute. While the pier ended up giving me slight Coney Island flashbacks (which is in no way a complement - Chris & I visited once while we lived in NYC and I found it grungy, mobbed and over-priced), it was actually quite well-maintained and managed to retain some bit of local cultural flavor even amidst the touristy shops and rigged carnival games.  The 3rd Street Boulevard offers an interesting mix of restaurants, trendy clothing, and water-spouting boxwood-bush-made dinosaur fountain sculptures (no, really).  We paid for our folly by sitting in 90 minutes of traffic on the way home with an over-tired baby shifting deliriously from belly laughs to red-faced tears, but still worth it to experience the area at least once.

 

I am here officially skipping over a visit to the Orange County fair - while enjoyable, it being almost identical to every other county fair in the country, I won't try your patience with stories of pig races, pastry competitions, and fried food bonanazas - except to note that I found the idea of fried White Castle burgers to be perhaps the most nausea-inducing sign I have ever seen.

We checked out San Juan Capistrano the following day. This was my first experience with a California mission, I was surprised to see a well-maintained building (I had imagine picturesque but crumbling ruins, somehow). The mission was built over 200 years ago as one of the Alta California missions set up to bring the Catholic faith to the native people groups. Every March 19th, the Mission celebrates the return of the swallows (also made famous by the 1940 song When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano):

When the swallows come back to Capistrano
That's the day you promised to come back to me
When you whispered, farewell in Capistrano
Was the day the swallows flew out to the sea

All the mission bells will ring, the chapel choir will sing
The happiness you bring will live in my memory
When the swallows come back to Capistrano
Thats the day I pray that youll come back to me

While actual artifacts at Capistrano are somewhat limited - most of the structure has been rebuilt - some of the original areas remain, and the mission as a whole retains a peaceful, contemplative air that I think must have been there when it was founded so many years ago. 

Out of Office: Disneyland

The "Out of Office" series continues, and like any good series, it will be stretched into a series-within-a-series. The subseries aforementioned: California.

With a two week vacation ahead of us, we began with a week in Huntington Beach, the site of my husband's Raising Through Childhood. A one year old certainly makes the cross-country plane trip more - how shall we say it? - eventful (to be polite), but the chance to see her California grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins made the (seemingly infinite) plane ride worth it. (Though I felt rather like I was living with the Up movie dog Dug. "Light!" "Window shade!" "Hair of person in front of us!" "Cheerios!" ... repeated every 30 seconds).

We kicked off our Huntington Beach time with a family exodus to Disneyland, where Emma's grandparents arranged to have all us kids/grandkids stay at the Grand Californian hotel - the gorgeous lobby was perhaps only surpassed in benefit by its location right in the middle of California Adventure park. While the 1 year old and 8 month old were a bit young to really "get" Disney, the four year old had a ball (as did the adults). Cars Land was in particular a hit, including fun with " 'Mater ":

While I had been to Disneyland several times (it being just 30 minutes from Huntington Beach), the Aladdin show was new to me, assisted in amazing-ness by the VIP seating scored for us by my brother-in-law (who not coincidentally worked at Disney for 10 years). Emma's eyes were the approximate size of space saucers as she soaked up the lights, dancing, and "magical" camel that walked down the aisle beside her.  We also enjoyed "meeting" Minnie Mouse, an aviator (hurrah for jobs for women!) mouse by the Soarin' California ride.

 

With two dinners to fill, we enjoyed southern style cuisine at Downtown Disney's Brennan's Jazz Kitchen the first night and a fancier meal the following night at Steakhouse 55 (including Sequoia Grove wine, which I wholeheartedly recommend). Even the Starbucks at Downtown Disney is fancy:

After dinner and putting the kiddos to bed, a contingent of adults went hardcore and returned to the park from 9-11:30pm to catch the fireworks and hit the rides that were crowded during the day. All in all a stellar - if exhausting - opening chapter to la vie de la Californie

Asheville to Asheville, Dust to Dust

It has been many moons since I had summers off as a student, but still in August it seems even in the corporate world that more emails than not return an "out of office" response. In this spirit, I am kicking off an "out of office" blog series, detailing a few of our summer travels.

The temptation here is for me to drone on and on like any newly returned traveler worth their salt who has invited over for dinner a friend who is unsuspecting that food actually serves as a cover story for deluging the unsuspecting guest with copious amounts of dreaded photos.  I will endeavor to be succinct while interesting, though the beauty of the internet is that you can pop right over to Google as soon as you feel your eyes glazing over.

Entry 1: Asheville, North Carolina

With family in Alabama, we picked Asheville a bit haplessly, in the sense that its geographical position betwixt Virginia and Alabama served as its main selling point. Nonetheless, the area offered several interesting haunts. Given a steady rain that settled in shortly after our arrival, plus a fair amount of time waiting for either my daughter (1 year) or my nephew (15 months) to wake up from various naps, I'll spare you the enjoyed family time and skip to a few of the local highlights.



The Eats:
Tupelo Honey Cafe: Probably my favorite of the trip, a southern-food-turned-modern cafe with killer fried green tomatoes and goat cheese grits. My fish was rather overwhelmed by a heavy cream sauce, but all other dishes at the table were home runs.

Asheville Brewing: Solid pizza & brew, a casual and family-friendly restaurant in downtown Asheville. Family friendly is certainly our gig these days; in fact, I will take this moment to officially apologize to servers everywhere for the blanket of cheerios dropped under our tables.

Chocolate Fetish, Chocolate Gems, and French Broad Chocolate: We did a bit of a chocolate tour through Asheville (someone had to do it!), sampling the wares from all 3 places. Chocolate Fetish won for most interesting displays (handpainted chocolate seashells and such), Chocolate Gems won for my overall favorite (dark almond bark was phenomenal), French Broad won for best brownie (though a killer line to go with it).

The Ogles:

1. Biltmore: There's really nothing I can say to do justice to the largest home in America. The 250 room French-Renaissance style home was built by George Vanderbilt, the grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt.  The Commodore initially established the family fortune through steam ships and the New York Central Railroad. While the acreage of the estate is significantly less today than it was in George's heyday, it still offered beautiful gardens much more extensive than we could explore in an afternoon.

George was one of Commodore's younger grandchildren; the majority of the family wealth went to the eldest grandchild Cornelius Vanderbilt II, who created a similarly opulent summer home in Newport, RI, The Breakers.

2. Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway
We barely scratched the surface here, but enjoyed a quick hour-long tour on the Parkway before deciding that night-time on a unlit road with steep drop-offs probably wouldn't be the wisest life decision.

3. Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands: An extensive hand workshop-type fair, featuring crafts from woven cloth to hand-carved brooms and furniture. We wisely decided not to take two babies through the tight aisles and "you break it, you buy it" mecca: they enjoyed causing trouble outside the center.

All in all, an excellent trip!

Win the Hour

When our daughter was born she was seriously fussy. Like purple-faced-screaming-for-hours-on-end-inconsolably fussy. Colic, reflux, whatever it was, it wasn't pretty. What I knew would be hard (bringing home an infant) started to seem impossible, and I plagued myself with questions of "What if it's like this for months?" "How will we survive feeling like the living dead?"

My husband's solution: Win the Hour

Pulled from a book on Navy SEAL training he had been reading in his abundant free time (read: pre-arrival of said screaming infant), Chris explained that all we had to do was "win the hour."

For those not familiar with SEALs, the training is notoriously brutal (not surprising), and the third week is aptly named "Hell Week," described by the Navy Seals website as "5 1/2 days of cold, wet, brutally difficult operational training on fewer than four hours of sleep." If that doesn't sound sufficiently terrible, they helpfully add:

Trainees are constantly in motion; running, swimming, paddling, carrying boats on their heads, doing log PT, sit-ups, push-ups, rolling in the sand, slogging through mud, paddling boats and doing surf passage. Being still can be just as challenging, when you’re standing interminably in formation, soaking wet on the beach, or up to your waist in the water, with the cold ocean wind cutting through you. Mud covers uniforms, hands, faces – everything but the eyes. The sand chafes raw skin and the salt water makes cuts burn. Students perform evolutions that require them to think, lead, make sound decisions, and functionally operate when they are extremely sleep-deprived, approaching hypothermia, and even hallucinating. While trainees get plenty to eat, some are so fatigued that they fall asleep in their food. Others fall asleep while paddling boats and have to be pulled out of the water by teammates. Teamwork and camaraderie are essential as trainees alternately help and encourage each other, to hang in there and not quit.

What is one of the hallmarks of those who can survive Hell Week? Those who can survive mentally, not getting bogged down by the thought of all the impossible training ahead, but knowing that all they have to do is "win the hour." Make it through the next hour, that's all you have to do. Don't think about the next one, don't ask how you're going to make it through tomorrow, just focus on this hour. All you have to do is get through it.

Bizarrely, this was comforting as the parent of an infant - and sure enough, the hours passed, then the days and weeks, and our purple bundle of terror turned into a happy, amazingly mellow baby.  I found myself pulling back the "win the hour" motto recently, when my aunt (an active Air Force colonel) asked me to run a half marathon with her. At the time, my longest run post-baby was 5 miles, and the half was only 6 weeks away, but a "win the hour" mentality helped make the idea of 2 hour training runs less indomitable. The run was last weekend, and we had a great time - beat our goal time - and put a bug in my ear to maybe train for a marathon. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's to not get too wrapped up in thinking about all that a marathon entail. All I need to do is win the hour.

Motherhood & Social Justice

Mother’s Day naturally sparks contemplation of motherhood. Your mother, your parents’ mothers, perhaps yourself as a mother. (To which I find Jane Churchill’s point helpful that “there’s no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.”)  In contemplating Mother’s Day yesterday, I ended up reflecting on social justice. 

Wait, what?

Let me back up a bit. Traditionally, the ideas of life and philanthropy have been distinct spheres; I have my job/family, and then I separately (hopefully) do other good things, like give money to charity.  The ultimate goal of philanthropy is social justice (in other words, improving the human condition), but this is not accomplished solely by cutting checks. It is accomplished through a mindset of the heart that meets the needs of the socially marginalized – the widows and orphans, to borrow biblical terms – through sacrifice, be it service in time or money.  This idea of service is broad; one example Tim Keller gives in his teaching “An Everlasting Name” centers around a friend of his who owns a string of car dealerships in the south. Like most car dealerships, the salesmen had an amount of leniency on price to allow for customer negotiation. The owner began to realize through a study of his sales data that distinct patterns appeared regarding what buyers received the best deals: men were better negotiators than women, white people were better negotiators than non-white, the wealthy were better negotiators than non-wealthy. The result was that elderly African-American women were receiving terrible deals on cars as compared to their male, white peers. The owner saw this as an injustice, that one people group was getting better service over another, less-resourced, group and decided to institute fixed pricing across his dealerships so that all customers received the same, fair price. This ties into Keller's explanation of the Hebrew word for justice (mishpat):

“Mishpat means acquitting or punishing every person on the merits of the case, regardless of race or social

status. Anyone who does the same wrong should be given the same penalty. But mishpat means more than

just the punishment of wrongdoing. It also means to give people their rights…. Mishpat, then, is giving people what they are due, whether punishment or protection or care. This is why, if you look at every place the word is used in the Old Testament, several classes of persons continually come up. Over and over again, mishpat describes taking up the care and cause of widows, orphans, immigrants, and the poor—those who have been called ‘the quartet of the vulnerable.’”

(Keller, Generous Justice, pg 3-4)

Parenthood is perhaps the ultimate reflection of the kind of service that creates justice. Not only are your constituents dependent upon you for (literally) everything, they are constantly around you. There is no mental or physical distinction of “now I am headed off to the soup kitchen, where for the next 4 hours I will serve in a specific time and place;” rather, parenthood service runs around the clock: whatever kiddos need, wherever they are, with the ultimate aim of turning dependents into independent, productive members of society. In fact, service is so ingrained in parenthood that you often meet a need even before the child knows s/he needs it. This doesn’t happen immediately – parents bringing home a new infant hear the screaming and try everything before figuring out what the problem is. Meeting unarticulated needs comes from being so familiar with your child that you know their every expression, their every necessity.

The familiarity and integration of service into daily life that begins with our families must be expanded to those around us if we ever hope to achieve social justice as a society. It means really getting to know those around us, being on the lookout for unspoken needs, and finding ways of dealing fairly with everyone we meet – be it family, colleague, car-buying customer, or stranger on the street. In our society of looking down at our gadgets, it means looking up and looking out. 

When I was pregnant in NYC, I rode the subway regularly, and in 9 months exactly two people got up and offered me their seat. It wasn’t that subway riders were malicious and didn’t want to get up, it’s that they simply didn’t notice me. On long rows of seats, everyone was looking down – at their kindles, newspapers, iphones, ipads, whatever. They just didn’t see me. Having been for a long time the person with her nose buried in a kindle, this was a startling revelation to me to have the feeling of invisibility, a need un-noticed and un-met.While I had the resources and social standing to simply ask someone to get up, those most vulnerable in society typically cannot so easily resolve their injustices.

And so it is that in a society of injustice, I want to both challenge us to seek justice more voraciously and to toast those working to make it more just: those serving their children through 3 am feedings and scrubbing vomit off the bathroom floor, those dealing fairly in their businesses with employees and customers, those looking up from their gadgets to listen in the silence for unspoken cries for help.

Eating More than Apples in the Big Apple

The buzz. The lights. The bagels. These things can only mean one thing: NYC.

Chris, Emma and I spent last weekend in "the city," and besides a marathon of revisiting cherished friends/colleagues, I also did my darndest to hit all of the food I miss the most from living in NYC - all in a span of 3 days. I have since developed a slight waddle (just kidding - sort of), but hit many of my favs from the city.

Of all the fates for tourists in NYC, there is little more tragic than standing in Times Square and watching them wander blindly towards Olive Garden and TGIFridays. Not that I have anything against Olive Garden - my husband and I would occasionally go and duly enjoy our unlimited salad and bread sticks - but when you have one shot at sampling the fares of the big apple, to fall into the trap of the known/predictable is lamentable. So where should you go instead? Oh, let me count the ways of my favorites (alphabetic by meal):

Breakfast

Joe's Coffee (Grand Central Terminal & others): Great coffee - mellow but flavorful roast, not as bitter as Starbucks. Nowhere to sit, and pastries in my opinion are nothing to write home about, but coffee is amazing. (They do also sell Doughnut Plant dougnuts... check out the Doughnut Tour post for more on DPD.)

Manhattan Espresso Cafe (49th btwn 3rd/Lex): Don't bet on finding seating (grand total tables = 0), but this little cafe offers great coffee and is a hidden gem of baked goods (pastries, cookies, yum). 

Paris Baguette & Financier (various locations): A tie for croissant deliciousness. Also check out Financier's oatmeal and PB's loaf bread.

Zuckers Bagels (Lex btwn 40/41): Mmm, bagels. There are many winners in this category, and New Yorkers will frequently draw blood (at least verbally) over their personal favorites - Esso, Daniel's, Zaro's, the list goes on and on. This one wins for me for a chewy factor, and a ton of spreads, including great fresh lox.

Lunch

Just Salad (all over): This is a bit of an odd addition since it's a chain/fast food, but man am I addicted to the Immunity Bowl salad wrap.  Mesclun, grilled salmon, butternut squash, dried cranberries, wheat berries, seedless cucumbers, fresh lemon juice, chopped and rolled into a wrap. Bring it on.

Nobu (57 & Madison, among others): Really more of a nice dinner place, I think this is best at lunch. If you're going to "eat the ocean," best to do it midday to digest. Pricey, but ohhh the seafood amazing-ness.

Ronin Bar & Grill (37th btwn Madison/5th): Don't be deterred by the sketchy website - or the fact that it is called a "bar & grill" - this is actually a great ramen shop. There is arguably better ramen in the city (if NYCers don't draw blood over what bagels are best, they will over ramen). Ippudo in particular is great, but the spicy ramen at Ronin is fantastic, and you can usually walk right in ... unlike the 2 hour typical wait at Ippudo.

Dinner

El Rio Grande (38th & 3rd Ave): The mexican food is (very) good. The margaritas are phenomenal. Seriously. If the weather is nice, hit their outdoor deck but be prepared to get approximately 3 inches of personal space between you and the other patrons. It's worth it.

Kunjip & BCD Tofu House (both are 32 btwn 5/6th): Both great Korean. But if you don't know someone Korean (or at least speak Korean yourself), skip Kunjip - you'll never make it through the line, much less convey your order. Be prepared to wait at either place, but so worth it.

Old Homestead Steakhouse (9th btwn 14/15th): Many great steaks in NYC. I love this one for the flavorful meat, great seafood, and unpretentious/old school charm decor.

Peking Duck House (53rd btwn 2/3): A family tradition for over 30 years, when my parents started eating there. Get the duck. Even if you are alone and have to eat 10 pancakes worth. Seriously.

Dessert

Levain Bakery (74/Amsterdam & others): Chocolate chip cookies. Gigantic. Gooey. Unhealthy. Delicious.

Magnolia Bakery (various): Do NOT get cupcakes. Tourists get cupcakes here. (The cupcakes here are rather dry/boring in my opinion - look elsewhere for cupcakes, and don't worry, they're everywhere in NYC). Get the banana pudding. My word, it is fluffy, delicious, and addictive.

Momofuku Milk Bar (13th/2nd, among others): Major points for creativity, this place specializes in using cereal milk (ie milk mixed in with cereal and strained so it retains the cereal sweetness/flavor). Get a couple of compost cookies - way better than the name implies.

Ok, let's be honest. This dessert list is short. There are many, many, many more alcoves of deliciousness tucked away in the city. I don't have the time or space to describe them all - perhaps another post to come just on dessert? - but the above can fuel plenty of calories in the short term.

Caveats

A few caveats for those who cared to read all the way to the end of this tedious list. 1: All donuts are excluded - I wrote an entire post on doughnuts, and no one wants to sit through yet more doughnut prattle. 2: Non-Manhattan boroughs, sorry - you have amazing eats, but I am a wimp in terms of traveling to try them, so the above is very non-representative. 3: NYC readers, what did I miss? A ton, I'm sure. Tell me your favorites so I can improve my list next time I get to NYC!