In sickness and in health...

Well, this weekend in married life, we had a little bit of both.

First, great weekend of poetry and seeing friends. We were invited to the Haiku Society of America meeting in Manhattan on Saturday. Enta Kusakabe was giving a talk about Gogyohka and we were invited. We also saw a very interesting lunar dance and listened to and were encouraged to write some haiku. It was oodles of fun.

I really liked it. I was having a grumpy day - a grumpy few days really. And this was just what I needed. I tried to shed my problems through doing things that made me happy - like plant this fantastic little bulb garden in my window box.

Worked for just a few minutes, but head ache came back and the anxiety was still there. But then, at the meeting, I was surrounded by some of my favorite things - words. And then I could process all the feelings and thoughts that I was having and felt better. And I met and spoke with lots of poets and got to see Enta and watch Tim and Enta and Peter and many other Gogyohkans - sorry Golda.

After the presentation of the society, we had a, well, I don't really know what to call it. Cocktail hour? that works. A cocktail hour at the home of Hiro and Nancy Sato. I won't go into how fun this was but, it was great. The apartment had a fantastic view of the Empire State Building. This was only the second time I've ever been in a Manhattan apartment. So it was pretty exciting! I loved it because both sides of the living room were book shelves. And they were covered with books.

After the cocktail party we went to dinner at this little restaurant called Bar 6. A scene from Julie & Julia was filmed here. Dinner was oodles of fun, we had a steamed artichoke with citrus aioli, moules frites, hummas, and a roasted pear and roquefort salad. Delicious. I watched poor Enta (who had just flown in on Thursday from Japan - and he is not the youngest of bucks) fall asleep into his tiny hand. But perked up after a giant hamburger.

Tim and I arrived home to sort laundry (the laundromat is empty on Sunday mornings) and get some sorely need sleep. However, here comes the in sickness part. We had such a mentally healthy day that what happens next is all the more shocking. Poor Tim. I've known him for almost 13 years. And I've had 3 nights like this with him before (possibly 4, he may have had food poisoning twice). Anyway, it was a night of pain as I woke up to hear these whimpers next to me in bed. Tim had stabbing pains in his stomach. Mind you, we ate exactly the same things last night. But poor Tim got the food poisoning. We had a really rough night - I think I've had maybe 2 hours of sleep total. I had horrible flashbacks of when he was super sick and we had to go to the hospital. But, Nurse Stimpy to the rescue. He is much better today after some pedialite, and homemade chicken noodle soup.

So, I guess I should re-arrange the title so that is says in health and in sickness for yesterday, but, I guess today, we went the more traditional route. Tim is better - that's all that matters. Here are just a few more wedding pics - these are from the Empire State Building photographer - sorry readers if you are tired of these - but I have lots of families in lots of different places. This just seems like more fun than emailing them. Enjoy.

Twirling
Twirling
Twirling

Happy St. Patrick's Day from the Geaghans!

Yeah, I had some fun with photoshop. I really should have added mr. kitty in here somewhere, but what can you do. We couldn't find a tiny orange beard for him and I'm loathe to spend money on non-necessary items for him - like silly hats and bow-ties. If I had a green ribbon, that would have worked. Anyway, first St. Patrick's day with an Irish name! Woo hoo! And I think it helped in my corned beef and cabbage dinner.

So, I think this started in 2006 when I decided to corn my own beef. We get a brisket from Grazin Angus Acres (this year was a 5lb year - I definitely wanted leftovers.). Corning times vary - I've done a little as three days to 3 weeks before. This year, I had a week and half. It is essentially a brined brisket - water, kosher salt, and pickling spices. I crush pickling spices in my mortar and pestle to break up the aromatics - don't really know if this does anything, but I feel like a medieval apothecary whenever I use the mortar and pestle. Rub the powdery goodness all over the brisket and toss it in the salty water. The stock pot then moves into our chilly back area (we are lucky to have a chilly area in the back of our apartment to store the brisket because there is never enough room in the fridge!) A good paddle stir once a day and we get a delicious corned brisket ready for the big day!

I started cooking the brisked yesterday around 7:30am - before I left for work. I know - the brisket is not so lovely in the le creuset (or at least SOME people might not see this delicious hunk o meat as lovely). I hope that the delicious aroma gave my sleepy Irish husband lovely dreams.

Tim had quite an adventure at the New York Public Library and the Union Square Farmers Market yesterday - since the St' Patty's Day parade starts at 5th Avenue and 44th street - two blocks from the library. Poor researcher trying to do work among the party people. But the sight was nice according to him - a sea of green people. I think I even forgot to ask him if he accomplished his task at the library. Maybe? It would have been hard for me. He even spotted some of the orthodox Jewish residents in our neighborhood wearing shamrocks and green ties or shirts. On St. Patrick's Day, everyone is Irish.

Moving on - I got a text from Tim sometime yesterday afternoon - something that could have completely derailed our festivities - the farmers market didn't have cabbage. Gasp! Ol'reliable Key foods had some and in a late dash to the grocery after work, our dinner was saved. Just a few more shots of the Geaghan family St. Patty's Day - Here we see how happy Tim is that we found the cabbage. Remember to take your Beano! Tim! He was also the bar tender yesterday. We had a delicious Irish Red beer from Sly Fox called Seamus Irish Red - chosen with love and filled in the growler that he gets from Bierkraft in Brooklyn. It was so tasty - I had 1 1/2 glasses - and I drank from one of the Geaghan's pint glasses from Geaghan's Pub in Bangor, Maine (this was a lot for me).

If we could have been anywhere else yesterday, it would have been with the family at Geaghan's. We'll hopefully be with them sometime this summer. Geaghan's is super fun on St. Patrick's Day. I've only been once - 3 years ago now. But what a great time. I hope they had a great day yesterday!

While I completely forgot to take a picture of our finished meal (inner fat girl really wanted to eat), here it is cooking with all the delicious winter veggies. I think St. Patrick's day is really the day that we say goodbye to heavy winter foods. After we have leftovers - tonight is Reuben night! - I'm completely ready for asparagus, ramps, fiddle heads, and oysters. It's going to be around 70 degrees here today and I'm ready for sprouts. I'm longing for light greens and I think that the farmers market will be delighting my palate soon.

That's all for today kids. More news soon. We just got the cd of wedding pics from the Empire State building of photos from the day before the wedding. They're pretty cute. I'll post some over the weekend. Also - new blog name? I'm still not sure what to change it to...thoughts? Help?

Video Cleep!

Hello readers. I'm drinking a delicious brown ale. It's a Dogfishead. Not as good as Smuttynose Brown Dog. Tim and I decided last night that we are going to brew an imperial stout and name it Imperial Russian Blue Stout - for kitty of course. So, just a short post tonight - got a super fun email from the Knot today.

For those of you who have cable (rar - just got sneak attacked by oscar. Not awesome. No beer named after him now. Jerk). Anyway, if you have the learning channel, you can catch the Empire State Building couples on the Cake Boss sometime in the early summer. We'll have an exact date at some point. Yay. cake.

Next, we'll be getting an official photos sometime in the next few weeks. Will update you with that too... hunh, lots of promises for updates... that's kind of crappy. Oh well.

Finally, drum roll please..... as the title of this post suggests, we have a video clip. This came from the knot today - it's very silly and you have to go through about half the video before the ESB weddings come up. Make sure to watch Season 2 video 2. I think it's queued up with this link, but just in case, I don't want you to have to watch all the wedding tip videos. These would have been fun with a group of girlies - or Tim since he IS such a girly man. Anyway. The video is short but it's pretty fun. And lots of shots of my shark fin nose!
Just click on the photo of New York skyline (taken with my sassy new camera) and enjoy!

Links to photos

Hello readers. It's been a while. I miss you. What have I been doing since the last time I wrote to you? Enjoying life. Many things in motion right now as the upcoming visit from Enta - Tim's poet sensei. We are really digging in and making Gogyohka a focus right now - many events in NYC. I don't know if there is a schedule up yet, but I'll post it once I get it from my dear husband (I like writing that).

I still haven't changed the name of the blog, as you can see from the title. I'm trying to be a bit to creative I think. I've been reading books like mad and maybe one of the fantastic books will give me some inspiration. I've been dreaming a lot lately as well, so somewhere between saving wizard friends with a chomped wand or visiting grocery stores in the cold northern regions (yeah, my dreams are kind of weird) or maybe from conversations between Tim and I about our future, I'll figure out what to call this lovely blog.

So, I've promised some links. I cannot remember if I've posted the link from my sister-in-law Traci. Nope, just checked. I didn't. Click on the photo and you'll be directed to her flickr page and you can watch a fun slide show. Yay slideshow!

And now for our friend Margaret. She is the wife of Peter Fiore and just a lovely lady. I'm so glad that I had the chance to meet her. I hope I get to meet her again. She took some beautiful photos and you can see them here:






Still waiting for photos from my parents - no rush mom! And if you all are sick of photos - let me know. I'll change up the monotony with some pics that I took at the zoo a few days after our last snow storm!! The tigers and bears were quite playful in the snow!!

Ok. Think that's it for now. Enjoy!