Merry Christmas to all!

my roommates and i watched "the nativity story" tonight. remember that hollywood movie that came out a few years ago?

oh it was so so beautiful! why had no one recommended it before? my whole apartment agreed that it should be instituted as a Christmas tradition to watch. it emphasized so perfectly the absolute humility of Christ's birth and beginning. it shows herod with all his anxiety over this great king who is prophesied to overthrow him, crucifying grown men and political dissenters - but who would have thought that the Lord of all would arrive as a humble baby, born in a stable, worshiped by shepherds?

Christ's ministry was meek and lowly, and full of love above all else. such a subtle power and force - and yet He truly is the King of Kings, our Eternal Saviour. how miraculous?

the subtlety of it all is what makes it at once so wondrous and at the same so easily passed over... there are these huge forces at work that we are so blind to - that we hardly detect. i remember seeing elder maxwell speak in a ward in salt lake just before he died - it was Christmastime, and he spoke of the miraculous feat of having a new star arrive at the night of Christ's birth - the ages of astronomic forces that must all align towards this one end. and who but the three wisemen were even aware of such movements? how blind are we to all these grand, yet subtle events at play?

it's just as it says in one of my favorite passages of scripture - which happens to be in the film! - 1 Kings 19:11-12...

"and behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind the earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice."

or as henry james put it "why is there pain? it's not the deepest thing." why no, it may be the most obvious - but how subtly powerful are all the principles Christ proponed in his life and ministry: love, mercy, forgiveness, patience and charity. i hope i won't be so blind to such things - so distracted by other more glaring, but much less important, factors of life. Christ lives and His Atonement is real. hurrah for Christmas and a whole season to just remember Him and love one another a bit more.

*annunciation painting by fra angelico from san marco. i need to go back to florence just to see those frescoes again. mmm...

wisdom of edith and ali.

the last days of the last weeks have been inordinately sluggish and hard, with of course delicate moments of joy sprinkled in. as edith wharton says on the last page of her autobiography (which i just finished yesterday on the A train)... "though the years are sad, the days have a way of being jubilant."

and just now i was hit with a whole WAVE of jubilation, on the receipt of an email from dearest friend ali, who informed me that she has an interview for grad school at yale (!!!) at the end of january, and finally - after more than a year - we can see each other again.

i immediately gchatted her and we shared our excitement. when after a glorious exchange i heartily declared "oh, life is so good!" ali wisely responded...

ali: look at that
toni
maggie
mel
britt
famdam
and ali
not half bad
me: not halfbad indeed

and there you have it - the list of everyone i will once again share company with before the end of january. despite the acute difficulty of the last month (heck, the last 3 months more like - ever since coming back from berlin life has been a bit off...), i have a whole lot of goodness coming to me in a very very short time. ali summed it up perfectly. i think i need to write this list down and keep it tucked in my non-existent-pockets-since-i-always-wear-dresses, just to be pulled out at opportune moments and remember all that is good in life.

i have really wonderful friends. and a really really wonderful family. and on top of all that, a really wonderful german. even if they are all mostly abstract and digital these days, they're still there. and we still love each other. and i'll get to see ALL OF THEM soon. oh joy! :)

by the way.. i do not want to disservice the absolute joy that is found in friendly/familial visits to new york. the last 3 months would have been a whole heckuva lot bleaker had not mom, dad, leslie, stephanie, natalie, xarissa, and now my friend anne (all the way from norway!) not graced the manhattan pavement and kept me company. so thank you to you all for your renewing visits. they are wondrous for the soul.

i love taking pictures of museum galleries and all their goings-on

so at the met yesterday...

the entry hall as train station.


this man contemplating rembrandt contemplating aristotle contemplating a bust of homer.


the scholar's garden in the asian wing. with the omnipresent museum gaurd looking on.


faithful museum companion xarissa in the company of buddhas.

and please tell me that these little 2,000 year old "rustic dancers" from china do not just make your day.

at ghai's*

when i was in niger, i made a little playlist on my ipod to listen to while falling asleep: to calm my mind from the day's thoughts, to distract myself from the excruciating heat, and drown out the constant noise outside the window...

ever since, it's been my go-to playlist when i need calm. i use it on planes to put me to sleep, and today i came home from work, closed my curtains, crawled under my poofy duvet, and put it on. unsurprisingly, the noises outside my window here in new york are comparable in the strangeness and volume of those in niamey, and after a loooong succession of restless, sleepless nights i was in desperate need of stillness :) truth be told i'm the worst napper ever, even when exhausted, but just lying down for an hour in the dark is heavenly. (does that sound weird? but is anyone else the same? c'mon. i'm sure there are others...)

anyway. this series of songs acts almost like a pavlovian mechanism to me now - i'm listening to it as i type, waiting for dear friend xarissa to arrive from DC for a weekend in the city. they're so significant to me at this point, i thought i'd share the line-up:

1. journey to the line + light from the soundtrack to the thin red line, by hans zimmer
at exactly 3:37 into "light" i always, ALWAYS reach a type of transcendence. no joke. it's that beautiful. plus it corresponds to the most poignant scene in an already uber-poignant film. oh it's so good.... it's like everything just winds down, falls away as the chords descend...

2. flight over africa from the soundtrack to out of africa, by john barry
again, at 2:42 = pure catharsis. plus... oh bob.

3. the rest is the ( ) album by sigur ros, in order from untitled 1 down to untitled 8
nothing is more calming.

so, if you need some peaceful quiet facilitated (ironically enough) through music, voila my recommendations :)

also happy friday and impending weekend - oh i'm more thrilled than i can say it's finally here - aren't you?

*ghai is the LOVELY beyond lovely woman who shared her home with me in niger. the sentimental value and layers of nostalgia and meaning in this order of songs is of course the best thing about the playlist. sigh... it will be so wonderful to be in africa again - whenever that may be - ideally soon... :)

only only only in new york

the night began like this:

mom and dad came by my office at the end of the workday, we set off to sneak into the VIP section of the lighting of the tree on rockefeller center. the crowds were big, the rain was starting, it was still 2 1/2 hours until the lights on the tree were actually switched on, and we decided (wisely) that it wasn't worth it.

so on we went up 5th ave to see the Christmas-decorated windows at bergdorf's. alice in wonderland theme, and amazing. amazing.

BUT THEN.

we turn the corner of bergdorf's, i see the quaint and lovely little paris theatre outside the plaza with a swarm of people around it with its very own quaint little red carpet. it's a movie premiere, for the lovely bones. the lovely bones, i mentally note, is directed by peter jackson, as in the brilliant new zealander who directed lord of the rings. anyone who knew me 6 years ago knows that i was dressed as rosie the hobbit for the midnight showing of the two towers.

i LOVE lord of the rings, and LOVE peter jackson for making them.

and i LOVE the fact that out of sheer new york coincidence, this happened tonight:









me, getting an autograph from none other than the masterful director himself! !!! !!! !!!






















don't you think he kinda looks like ringo? and the autograph is addressed to my dear best friend from high school, karla, who was dressed as fellow hobbit merry that night years ago.... she will die!!!

isn't new york amazing?!! ? !?!!! what's elvish for yes yes yes??

ranting lessons learned.

do you know about this blog?

toni pointed it out to me last week (with this satirical piece - hehe amazing), and i'm now glued to it. i've been a big easterly fan for awhile, and this blog is a perfect addendum to his books.

it's also helpful to read, counteracting so much of the donor-speak i deal with constantly at work. oh heavens this morning i was in the most frustrating of all frustrating meetings with a representative from the european commission. to counter balance the absurdity, i've settled on my lunch break of leftover beef negimaki to read some easterly gems and restore some faith in the greater good.

and this has all got me to thinking. and so i compiled a little list of what i have learned whilst working at the UN:

1. yes, the UN is incredibly bureaucratic and largely ineffective.

2. this is a result of many (NOT ALL) employees - adults mind you - acting like they are still in high school - betraying signs normally attributed only to teenagers, viz. laziness, hyper-ego, distraction, procrastination, dodging responsibility, and feigning intelligence on matters in which they are grossly incompetent.

3. these attributes are not limited to the UN - last night i heard dad ('rents are in town - thus the beef negimaki leftovers for lunch - love you guys!) handling a frustrating slew of emails/calls for work in the business sector where i know he has dealt with the same issues for 30 years.

4. we have also dealt with these issues in the NGO world - care for life in mozambique, and the members of our fam may remember PCRF back in the day. they're also in academia and government (duh).

5. the more time passes, the more i realize that there are many frustrations that you simply have to work around, and many of those frustrations are found in the weakness of individuals. and that those weaknesses are in no way limited to one sector, and that for as many incompetent and lazy people there are out there, there are amazing, hard-working, intelligent, and fantastic people working as well. i've met both types at UNICEF, and working with the latter has helped me from slipping into despairing hysteria.

i know this is all very simple and in no way earth-shattering, but i really do need to be reminded of such things every now and then (especially at work)... maybe you do too? plus i think it's all worth pointing out considering the UN is lambasted constantly for its ineffectiveness.

"darkness, light. strife and love. are they the workings of the same mind? the features of the same face?" and then doesn't that mantra simply sum everything up about life from start to finish? am i right? or rather are william wordsworth/terrence malick right?

methinks oui.

venite adoramus

to get me through the next 13.5 gray office-days until sundance (i.e. maggie, family, mountains that aren't made of concrete, and oh yes, toni), i am listening to pandora, more specifically a Christ Church College choir 'o come, o come emmanuel' station on pandora. not only do peaceful medeival Christmas tunes sung by british boys help me feel how little time is actually left before the holiday and all its splendor, it also reminds me that i once lived here.....

where i listened in person.

which is never a bad thing.

sigh, oxford. sigh.

how many times can i mention valerie hudson on my blog?

but really, not only was she HUGELY influential on me (i would not know of fistula, and thus would not have written the masters thesis i wrote, had it not been for her, among many other things...) - but she's also simply one of the most intelligent people i have ever and will ever know. plus she's infinitely caring and kind and thoughtful to boot.

so - today was utterly dull at work. thus i read and read and read some more.

two things must be shared: foreign policy's first annual list of the top 100 global thinkers. while most of the list is absurd, valerie hudson is listed at number 97! AMAZING! so proud!

so proud not only for mama hudson, but for the cause of women. you must read this too. look at the pictures if you can, but do be aware that they are shockingly hard to view. anyone who says that feminism is no longer relevant, and argues against specific programs which help alleviate the uniquely brutal forms of suffering women of the world face, must gaze at the pakistani women in these photos.

thanks to foreign policy for recognizing that the work and research of a brave and amazing mother of 8 in provo, utah is not on the fringe or of special interest, but is actually some of the most relevant and potentially earth-shattering work of all. i sincerely believe that valerie and the work she inspires do make ripples through the world, and will ultimately lead to more equitable societies where girls and women are no longer treated as worthless objects of exchange and abuse. (even if it may be such a slow slow road to such a world...)

the point is, even though the horrors of this article on pakistani acid attacks are excruciating to view and swallow, at least there is now an ever-growing cohort of people speaking out against it, and dedicating their lives and work and all efforts to helping ensure such gender-based violence does not continue unchecked. and valerie is responsible for so much of that. so thanks, mama hudson :) you're my hero.

i have officially arrived.

my day started very early with a much needed boot buffing at the grand central terminal shoe-shiner stand. yes, like back in the 1930s. they're still there. so it was me, plus 6 very well-heeled and spiffy businessmen. needless to say i did not fit in AT ALL - however, i feel this was an omen for the rest of the day, in which i actually felt like a real, official, working person of very, very minor importance.

you see, it's the 20th anniversary of the convention on the rights of the child, the most widely ratified treaty in existence (only the US and somalia have not signed on - how often are those two countries put in the same category?). in commemoration, UNICEF is of course hosting a plethora of art exhibitions and events and all sorts of loveliness. lucy liu was here yesterday. (i didn't see her.)

but today! it was the official commemoration, held in the main UN building, with ban ki-moon chairing and speaking. a few co-workers and i walked across 1st avenue to the sectariat, placed our little badges on all the security devices to open all the doors and barriers between the street and the interior vaults of the united nations. that alone made me feel worthy of sitting there getting my boots shined with investment bankers and the like.

the event itself was mixed: i have to say... ban ki-moon? hm. the most non-charismatic, quiet, and low-key person in power i've ever seen. he very quietly came into the chamber, gave a very very plain almost wikipedia-like speech on how the CRC is important, and then quietly exited out the side door. now maybe this is a good thing? that he's not super pompous and self-aggrandizing? but really - i'd like to see SOME conviction in what he's saying. we are talking about human rights violations against children here. could there be a more important topic?

but on the up side, the event also had multiple youth activists from around the world give little speeches, which were heart-breakingly moving and inspiring. kids in their teens who have come from kenyan slums and brazilian flavelas and actually mobilized change in their community and who pleaded for everyone in the room to not only talk about violence against children, child labor, trafficking, early marriage etc - but actually DO something. they should be at every meeting. to keep us from getting dull in our commitments and forgetting that these things have profound meaning.

oh, and did i mention that i actually had to sport the classic UN-ear-translator during various speeches given in languages i don't speak? yup. amazing.

it was actually a fantastic day, one in which i felt proud to work where i work, and one in which i felt inspired to pick myself up and be more impassioned in completing assignments which could potentially change the lives of children. (if even in a very, very minute way.)

and to close, a picture of new, darling little maggie, held by dear friend and honorary aunt brittany for your enjoyment (sorry i don't have a close-up!) :

(p.s... are my blogposts too lengthy? too many words? also - are they too self-aggrandizing? is that the point of a blog? do i need to take a lesson from ban ki-moon? in any and all cases, sorry - please tell me if you could care less about any of this stuff and i'll shorten. <3)

so remember when i went to boston to visit lindz? and looked like a total dork?

photos courtesy of lindz. thank you dearest - boston was loverly.

(and p.s. please tell me you have seen this and this. OMG. as if i couldn't be more excited for Christmas [listening to nat king cole right now, btw]... the whole fam at sundance! seeing newborn maggie! it will be the biggest cute-fest of the century.)

(p.p.s. for more WRI updating... check this out too. oh dear vraneshka! love you.)

welcome, dearest little maggie!

melanie burk, a friend as close to me as a sister, had a blessed little baby girl tonight. what can i say to convey how much emotion i feel? melanie is so dear to me, and i am overwhelmed with gratitude for her, for her precious new maggie, for other dearest dear friends brittany and sara who provided untold support to melanie throughout the labor today, to dan for being such a perfect husband for her, and to Heavenly Father for entrusting us with the wondrous miracle of childbirth and families.

at work today, knowing melanie was in labor, i could hardly concentrate. when i got home, as she was reaching the eleventh hour, i could NOT contain my excitement. i had to DO something... so i cooked. and cooked and cooked... i poached pears, i created home-made creme fraiche... i baked pumpkin bread, i kneaded a loaf of whole wheat bread, i made red pepper soup... and as i sat on my couch, eating the pears over spoonfuls of greek yogurt (AMAZING), gazing out my window at the nighttime scene on broadway - at all the other apartment buildings, i couldn't help but think of all the other families and lives and babies that have been born and will be born that will occupy just this little stretch of upper manhattan - how eternal and amazing and wondrous it all is...

at work i'm confronted too often with the sorrow that results in childbirth and families torn apart. fistula and maternal mortality and abandoned children, and a higher degree of sadness and tragedy than should ever be known in mortality. so to know melanie safely gave birth today, with a hoard of loved ones supporting her as she went through it, to know that little maggie will now have a loving home to grow up in, it's just too huge a blessing and miracle to not sit and pause and reflect on.

all my thoughts and love go out to melanie and her new little family tonight! i'm so proud! :)

all the cool kids are doing it.

i've emailed it, even facebooked it (wha? i know), and now time to blog it:


http://supportwri.blogspot.com/


to anyone who has not received this petition yet, please sign it, and please tell your friends. this is a very constructive response to the WRI's closing. join us all to keep women's studies alive at BYU! we don't want it to go the way of social work, african studies, and international development... BYU is more than the marriott school!

today would be a good day to hug sadie.

i watched the documentary children underground last night, and i simply cannot get the images of the tragic film out of my head.

the movie documents the lives of 5 of the 20,000+ street children in romania, a result of the anti-contraception policies of former communist leader nicolae ceausescu. as many of you know, orphanages in romania were overflooded, and now as the children are growing up, nearly all have simply taken to the streets and live a completely tragic life of drug abuse, physical violence, neglect, and starvation.

i have seen many a tragic movie in my day - i know i'm uniquely drawn to them. but this may have been the worst. perhaps it's because i now deal with children's issues for a living that it all particularly hit home.

today at work i'm writing up a text for unicef on civil society groups in mozambique, how unicef can better work with these groups to help protect children and secure their rights. this assignment is also particularly hitting home because of the summer i spent in mozambique five years ago, working with kids at the colegio infantil, and seeing first hand how widespread abuse and neglect of children is in mozambican communities torn apart by civil war and poverty.

the point of the text i'm writing is to argue that engaging with governments will never be enough, especially for children. a child is completely vulnerable to his/her family and community. national legislation or even state-run programs have little sustained impact on the lives of children. not compared to home-grown change in communities. in children underground you see how social workers fought to improve the lives of the romanian street kids - but ultimately they could do so little. the kids needed homes, families, people who loved them consistently and gave them daily support. i applaud the social workers and their indefatigable efforts, but after watching this documentary in addition to my own experiences with battered children (in the US and abroad), it is so obvious that external programs can only reach so far.

the problem is i'm writing this text for unicef in response to the donor community at large, which simply wants little to nothing to do with civil society (meaning community groups, churches, NGOs, etc.). donors want to work with governments, and this is where they will put billions of dollars into. perhaps it's good to leave civil society groups outside of the corruptible aid-machine, but at least there needs to be further recognition that it is only in the grassroots that children are actually protected. local groups need support from unicef and others to develop their capacity to affect change, which i know they can do better than almost anyone else. i want local action to be supported - and i'm happy unicef does actually stress this as much as it can.

sigh. sorry for the long, downer post. posting helps me release a bit, and these things are critical and need to be talked about... it just absolutely breaks my heart when i see films like children underground, or come into work and try to politically argue for the protection of kids i knew and worked with - ah, just to see families torn apart and children left scattered and abused. it's all too much.

but just remember to hug your kids a lot - even though i know all of you do :) they're all so lucky to have such love in their lives. so huzzah for that! and here's a scrumptious picture of moe and sadie just to make everything feel all better :)

so proud.

i'm in the middle of the busiest day of a very busy week at work (sigh) - but just wanted to point out the profound snowballing effect that has occured from monday's revelation that byu was shutting down the WRI. when i found out, i emailed my closest feminist friends from byu, one of whom, dearest sara vraneshka, is still a student. she then alerted the masses - one of her most profound talents :) she has truly taken up the call and the fight, and is hosting a save the WRI rally in provo tonight on campus (ah! how i wish i could be there). newspapers, bloggers, and commentators are also now coming out with strong voices of concern.

if you have a moment, please read this wonderful post an old co-worker of mine from the womanstats project wrote. it expresses so many of my same feelings. this is all so important to me, and i'm sad to be far away and swamped in unicef work. but i'm happy the call has gone forth and the response has been so strong! it shows how critical this issue is, and how deeply so many care about it. which is fantastic news. (as an aside - some of the bloggers etc. have taken this to an erroneous level, however, that i very much disagree with. this decision does not negate the doctrines of our church. remember, the WRI was founded by apostles. and i agree with what elliott wrote in the comment below, that this is in many ways a reflection of the short-sighted action of a handful of professors. it still needs to be protested, but i sincerely hope it does not cause undue wrath. passion, yes, but thoughtful, intelligent passion.)

also! i have to mention quickly the golden moment of my week: last winter i was asked by some lawyers here in new york to write an expert affidavit for a nigerien woman who was seeking asylum in the US from her family who would force her to undergo FGM and forced marriage upon return to niger. i met with the woman and the lawyers many times, wrote my bit, and found out yesterday that her asylum is now granted! huzzah! she's safely installed in new york, under the care of catholic relief services, and her life is truly beginning.

so it is a good week for women after all :)

feminism is the radical notion that women are people.

i can't shake this - and i had to share/vent/cry: a few hours ago i received the news that my first alma mater, byu, is shutting down the women's research institute (WRI), which just celebrated it's 30-year anniversary after its founding by apostles dallin h. oaks and jeffrey r. holland. (bless them.)



i'm totally devastated, and my utter disappointment in byu has only been amplified. byu has already shown zero support for african studies - they shut down the international development major, and now this!



remember this article from nick kristof on how critical it is to support women for poverty reduction and general social benefit? and how important it is to acknowledge that women are grossly and disproportionately maltreated and mutilated and abused - the majority of their perpetrators met only with impunity? his article only gave a prominent voice to research and truths that many of us have been saying for decades, and that the faculty at the WRI tried to project to BYU's (often narrow-minded) campus.



the WRI gave me a grant to go to syria to do research on women. they housed the womanstats database project i worked on for 2 years. but most critical of all, they gave an actual voice and call to the world that byu was concerned about women, understood that their problems were critical, and should not be shelved as "special interest."



and now? oh byu - you're steadily making me lose hope in you completely.

these pictures are from the glory days: my last semester sara, thelms, brittany, ali, and i mounted a grand domestic violence advocacy event on byu's campus for international women's day. we had to be so political in framing it to byu's administration, but we did it. and it was a great success. and mom and dad stopped by, and lincoln helped out TONS. sigh. i miss those days. i hope byu students will continue to carry the torch for women's rights! down with domestic violence! help us break the silence!

Gottes Bild auf Kräutern und Steinen

"I tried taking pictures, but they were so mediocre. I guess every girl goes through a photography phase. You know, horses... taking pictures of your feet." ha! perfect. 100 points for identifying this quote... or 5,000,000 for the one in the post title... a bit more obscure...

happy november to you all from the trees of manhattan's own central and fort tryon parks! :)

[quiet] is the winter of our [dis]content

if my blog accurately reflected the comings and goings and otherwise -ings of my life, i would still be utterly ill at the moment. but luckily this blog is really only a snippet of daily proceedings, so no i am no longer vomiting out of taxi windows, but am instead happily healthy once more. huzzah for health!

to celebrate my last week of non-sickness, i returned to normal new york routines: a great deal of working, meetings, film screenings, lots and lots of park-walking (the leaves! the leaves!!!), park avenue-apartment wine/cheese-ings, but mostly i feel that the best moments of my hours outside unicef are filled with an ever-increasing amount of home-cookin'.

i tell you. something snapped when i was in berlin. the combination of working from home, having a loveable someone to cook for on a regular basis, and the uber-attractive glow of food blogs has turned me into a bona fide domestic:


maybe it's also that i'm getting "old"? ha! i will be a WHOLE quarter century this week - and look at this picture i just took with my computer (laughing whilst looking down at my roommate):


old - right? ok, maybe it's just the dark lighting.

but in addition to those scrumptious lemon-lime baby cakes above, tonight i made the best curry possible, and am wondering if one can start a food blog which simply reviews all other food-blogs? i may go down that road should i find myself for-whatever-reason-unemployed within the next year. (not likely, however - unicef is very good to me.)

but in other news, i'm staying in tonight. is this further proof of my burgeoning domesticity + age + eventual boredom? if so, bring it on. i'm incredibly content to step my way into a quiet winter. revisiting authors i've let fall by the wayside, make more yummy food, and simply bask in calm - so utterly scarce in manhattan. my life is so very full: there is a great deal of love in it, i am healthy and comfortable, i feel regularly renewed to learn and grow, and the future is hopeful. could i ask for anything more at this stage? methinks no.

so here's me transmitting love and baked goods to you all from my quiet apartment tonight in upper upper manhattan :)

[oh yes and duh - happy halloween! nowadays the only point of this holiday as far as i'm concerned is to see nieces and nephews look cute in their costumes. blog away with pictures fam! i can't wait to see! :)]

tender is the night

i'm horribly ill today... worse now in the night. sicker than i can remember being in a long while. it came suddenly - violently - today at work, forcing me into a cab at 3pm - vomiting out the side window as we drove up the FDR from midtown to harlem where i crawled in between sheets, bowl at my side, and tried to sleep to prevent myself from feeling all the pain and yuckiness.

since then i have watched a full 2.5+ hour documentary and then fictional film on rembrandt's "nightwatch", whilst (nervously) eating saltines to regain some strength...

and all this rembrandt night watching (literally) reminded me that i live within a subway ride from a whole room of gorgeous rembrandts and resolved myself to go to the met more than i have been this last year. (when i can actually stand upright that is.)


sigh.

i really do need to sleep now! i simply can't seem to. sickness and all that mean sleepless, long, reflective, weary, and tender nights for me...

so in the meantime i'm reading keats...*

*ironic, yes - considering i'm just nigh on turning 25. (weird!) but i'm comforted to know it's not 1821, and i do not have consumption. even if it kinda feels like it.

back at my desk (with a few alterations)

1. i'm wearing the FAB red curdoroy dress that steph very kindly made me. (click on the link and you can get one yourself! they're wonderful!)

2. i'm sipping the DELISH mighty leaf african nectar tea that mom lovingly bestowed on me.

3. i'm staring at the INTENSE playbill posted on my cubicle from the broadway production of hamlet (with jude law no less) which leslie and i were privileged to attend on saturday.

in other words, the weekend of the p fam women was a success, and i'm still reaping the benefits. thanks mom, les, and steph for coming all the way back east to the freeeezing cold city :) it was absolutely the best new york weekend i've had in a long long while :)

love you all lots and lots.

(sorry les: totally stole those pictures from you! hope you weren't going to blog them! ha!)

excited! excited!

SO excited that ...the angels will be in town this weekend to kick the yankees' trash.
(though NOT excited that the cheapest way-in-the-back-bench-not-even-real-seats-tickets are over $150 - dang yankee stadium)

...my boss is working from home today, so after my afternoon meeting i'm bookin' it home to complete my assignments there.
(NOT excited that she didn't tell me friday or earlier this morning she would be working from home, or else i would have never left)

....i can eat more of my banana bread yumminess stored in my freezer this afternoon while working. seriously everyone - make this stuff. it's amazing.

but above all, i am STOKED beyond STOKED that mom, les, and steph (and maybe stella!) are all descending on the city this weekend! ah! it will be so fun. i'm bouncing in my seat now thinking about it. i love visitors. especially when they happen to be the fam.

huzzah! go angels!

home early tonight

ah! i'm getting into this hyper-stimulation mode again. stepping into a thriving place like new york just morphs me into this huge sponge where every subway encounter and cultural event i am exposed to soaks up into me...

and after 3 over-full weeks of such sponging, i end up feeling really, really tired. ha.

today was such a day of almost overindulgent absorption: 'twas the first day of open house new york, where hundreds of awesomely interesting locales in the city typically closed and locked to the public are opened up for free perusal. awesome, yes? yes. after visiting 10 such sites scattered far far apart throughout the boroughs, topped off with an excellent film screening tonight at the maysles institute, i just had to come home. i planned to stay for the post-screening poetry reading, and then meet more friends to go dancing on the lower east side... but... all the way back down from harlem to avenue A after a week of readings and screenings and subway insanity and i just couldn't muster the strength. heck, i can't even muster the strength to tell you all about what awesomely interesting locales i went to and visited.

instead i was home by 10 to bake some banana-cinnamon-sugar-chocolate-bread-cake amazingness. and speaking of that, why yes that photo is in fact 3 stacks of oatmeal chocolate chip cookie pancakes that me and dear xarissa made last weekend to celebrate general conference. we feasted that weekend, with a perfect farewell-to-summer key lime coconut cake as well. oh and did i further mention that i also made my first scones recently?

homemade bagels are next.

and a very large p.s./fyi.. i cannot express in proper words how much i miss this:





















and maybe that's where most of the actual exhaustion comes from after all. :(

11 weeks until we're reunited. (not that i'm counting or anything)

there are lots of snipers, but hey - i might be in a commercial with nicole kidman

the last two days at the UN have been MADNESS. MAYHEM.


in case you haven't heard, there was a global environmental summit of all world leaders at the general assembly yesterday where obama gave a lackluster speech, and today is the day when american delegates get to walk out of what is sure to be another america-bashing diatribe by iran. maybe they'll rip up the UN charter the way qaddafi did in his speech. yay for UN politics! but i tell you, the security around my building is insanity. i have to wave my little blue UN badge to get past multiple police blockades, and the whole area is guarded by roof-top snipers and large men roaming the sidewalks in full battle-gear yielding large guns. there are myriads of protest/support groups around the blockades of every denomination and political affiliation - huge groups of orthodox jews, green peacers, and my boss even saw a man with an "i <3 qaddafi" t-shirt. really? of all people to heart?


this is most definitely the closest i'll ever be to so many world leaders and a genuine global event, and i am incredibly jealous of all my coworkers who have caught a glimpse of obama.


on the upside, just a few floors below me UNIFEM is filming a public service announcement against the global abuse of women with nicole kidman. they've asked UNICEF staff to come by for 5 minutes and serve as extras. hello, of course i'm going to go by. if i can't see a crazy world leader (think how close i am to chavez, qaddafi, and ahmadinejad as i type!), i'm at least going to see nicole kidman. but i'm thinking that maybe we should have roped in all the world leaders to serve as extras instead - think how great it would be if politicians actually took a real stand on a critical issue rather than snarking at each other like high school kids and puffing up their own egos. nice thought, yeah? :)

i no longer have dad's name on my checks

one of the guaranteed markers that you are traveling abroad are the ubiquitous HSBC ads (example above) - please tell me you have thoughtfully read them as well while shuffling through the gangplanks and corridors of european airports? they actually have made their debut in the new york subway recently as well, which makes me super happy. i absolutely love them. i remember first seeing them in heathrow a few years ago and thinking them clever. though i can absolutely see how some people would find them cheesy and easily mockable.

whatev'

i fell for it. they totally worked their magic on me. because today on my lunch break i finally began the process of phasing out the union bank of california checking account i've had since i was 16 for brand new ones at HSBC. ["ones" meaning checking AND savings - take that adulthood! and is it ok to be talking about this on a public blog? i mean, i'm not giving details, right? hm. i'm worth hardly anything anyway, so no one should be getting too excited.]

in any case, i owe a great deal of my decision-making process on which bank to switch to to those lovely ads which have comforted my jetlagged self on many an occasion. and this has all just proven to me that don draper was right all along. and by don draper i mean the main ad exec on mad men, the fabulously written and lusciously designed tv series that toni and i shamelessly fell in love with via rented dvds while together in berlin. SO GOOD.

and now... i'm offiicially declaring the workday over, i feel awake and over jetlag, i have a 3-day weekend because of Eid (yay UN multiculturalism!), and i'm off to the whitney to see the new o'keeffe abstraction exhibit. bon week-end!

coming back to new york city is not the same as coming back to america

there are so many wonderful things that just scream new york city and it's insane uniqueness. it really operates on its own planet (and seems to be quite content to do just that). my flight from berlin landed at jfk earlier this evening, and just in the few hours of being home all these idiosyncratic delicacies of the city have jumped out and greeted me again after nearly 3 months away...

fast talking street vendors, loud dominican music, harlem cat calls, ubiquitous notices of subway service changes, old men playing dominoes on cardboard boxes, jazzy latin hair salons, the mr. softee tune...

noise noise noise... that constant background noise of the city that never ever ever goes away, adding to the general buzz/hum/energy/freneticism of the place...

and just plain and simple multiculturalism... (berlin is surprisingly homogeneous) new york is really unlike anywhere else in terms of world representation (maybe london?) - each subway train is filled with chinese, arab, bangladeshi, dominican, african, palestinian, puerto rican, anglo-saxon, micronesian, visigothic etc etc etc people of all shape and size..... it's remarkable.... what brings everyone here?

in any and all cases i am back. manhattan is a glorious and absolutely mad place to return to... it will never get old, and i admit that i am quite content to be here at the moment - knowing that i'll be back in berlin again before too too long - berlin is also a fantastically interesting place that has endeared to me a great deal by now, and that i will truly truly miss...

and also... i can be content (and not cry too much) knowing that toni will be here before too too long as well... :)

and so p.s... everyone call me! i have an american cell phone again! let's chat! for real! huzzah!

AND everyone excuse the fragmentary nature of all sentences in this post. i am fighting major jetlag tiredness right now, having been awake for nearly 24 hours, and having spent my 9 hour flight from europe squashed between loud increasingly drunk russians...

grammar and coherent verbalization are not my priorities at the moment :)

we went to dresden to visit toni's little sister ...

... and it was super beautiful.

food blogger for a day

i'll just tell you off the bat that the cake[s] were a HUGE success.


the chocolate zucchini cake was divinity. i used applesauce with a bit of maple syrup, cinnamon, and nutmeg to substitute for the apple butter, and toni chopped up ritter sport 50% cacao bars for the chocolate chips. AMAZING. i think i may just do the ritter sport thing back in the US, even with the option of chocolate chips. because seriously - the germans do chocolate right.

i put an uber creamy cream cheese frosting on it, which was divine. toni's flatmates have already commissioned my services for january for the next birthday in the apartment. this cake alone will now be responsible for my multiple trips back to deutschland. thanks ginger! :)

and so the tradition in germany is that you eat cake for breakfast on your bday, and since this chocolate cake of divinity was for the lovely dinner party last night, toni and i decided to make yet another cake yesterday to enjoy this morning. so this is what our breakfast table looked like:


french apple tart from allrecipes.com. SO GOOD. make it. for real. you won't be disappointed.

let it be said that this my first time:
1. making a cake from scratch
2. making any kind of pastry dough/pie/tart crust from scratch

and yet they both turned out amazing. i owe this to 2 factors:
1. heavenly recipes that i dutifully followed [ginger was SO RIGHT ON]
2. the subconscious skills i accrued from the dozens of cookie sessions at grammy's house growing up. yes grammy i remember! they were my favorite! and look how they payed off! :)



sigh. celebrating toni's birthday for the full weekend was uber fun. i will spare you all details, but to sum up:

it will be really hard to leave germany in 10 days.

*toni checking out the apple tart as it carmelized in the oven. DIVINE.

this is what happens when you work from home

i have been a baking machine since coming to berlin. now ok, i understand terms are relative: for me "baking machine" means making one loaf of bread and a batch of cookies in less than 2 years. i don't bake at home - the whole measuring exactness has never meshed well with me. so why oh why would i pick up baking when i'm in europe? where...

1. you have to attempt to successfully convert all measurements to grams/ccm?

2. you have to go to 3 separate little berlin grocery stores just to find baking soda?

3. you have to translate every ingredient into german and write them down before you go to all those stores?

4. they don't even believe in extracts over here so you have to use creativity? [which with my no baking experience, i don't have]

but mostly i do it because elliott's google reader always has the most delicious looking things, i actually have a boy right next to me who can share the bounty of my baking journey with me, and most importantly, i really really have wanted to make this cake ever since ginger posted it. and it's toni's birthday on sunday and i'd love to make it for him and his 10 friends at their fest tomorrow evening.

and just for a quick recap: so i tried steph's cinnamon banana bread, and it turned out more like banana granola bars. still yummy, but not loafy enough. SAD.

but THEN i found this masterful website which calculates every known baking substance from any US measurement to the annoying metric systems. brilliant. so yesterday, i made these cookies to resounding success - even with substituting for almond and vanilla extracts. they are SO GOOD - and because of the olive oil they stay moist and yummy and fresh.

so i'm revved up to tackle this cake tomorrow. but ging [and everyone] - i won't have apple butter at my disposal... what should i substitute it with? also i'm concerned about finding cocoa powder... and i'll have to just chop up a chocolate bar because chocolate chips don't exist here. gah! i'll let you all know how it turns out.

LAME! blogger is digitally messing up my swiss photos, but i post for you nonetheless!

so yes, toni and i went to switzerland. his wonderfully kind cousin barbara runs an amazing little mountain hut hotel in the alps - 3000 meters high, tucked into a tiny village of cow farmers, and invited us to stay for a full week, with no expense to us whatsoever. we had 4 course dinners and scrumptious breakfasts and mountain views. in a word, it was heaven. we have been back in berlin for a week now, and BLAH... how does anything compare to the beauty of the swiss alps? it really makes you want to quit all jobs and make cheese on a mountaintop. sigh.


at the matterhorn [even if it's covered in clouds, it's the real thing - promise!]

alaskan fireweed in switzerland too! [one of the views from our hikes around the hotel]

this was our hotel and our view. we spent lots of time reading here :) [pictures do no justice. i'm not a professional photographer, obvs.]


i really want to go back.

in other news

1. had my first experience in a legit public city pool last night. dang, germany does those right: this one was more four seasons resort than a scene from the sandlot. [when i think of public pools, it's all about wendy preffercorn. this vision was subsequently dashed last night - but in a good way.]

2. speaking of swimming, had my second experience swimming in a bona fide lake this weekend. [first experience was with toni last year at the lago maggiore - i grew up next to the pacific ocean! i couldn't help it - forever lakes just seemed like waveless, green, puddles to me. this has also been categorically dashed.] toni and i went to wannsee, a super short trip out of central berlin to a gorgeous, huge lake with all the sailboats and mansions and former-genocide-planning-sites that you could ever want. [wannsee conference. in between eating plum cake and scoping out a beach location, toni and i did stop by the historic site. in case i had forgotten i was in germany, and they happened to be the instigators of WWII.]

3. i have many mixed feelings about nicholas kristof, but i am a HUGE fan of this article. it is basically a summary of everything fave byu professor and former employer dr. valerie hudson ever taught me. everyone should read it. it renews my vigor to want to work with women in africa forever.

4. tomorrow toni and i head to visit his cousin in the swiss alps for a week, where there are absolutely no computers. HUZZAH!!! so i'll be hiking and eating cheese in remote locations but not checking email. i do have a german cell phone that i will have on me that if anyone wants the number to, you have but to ask :)

5. love everyone so much. realizing that germany is even farther away from dear fam and friends than new york. alas.

famous!

mom just rang me on my little german cell phone with the thrilling news that me and toni (well more toni) made the cover of august's anthropologie catalog! i had to post immediately.

check it out yourself.

thanks to matthew/katie for spotting us! :) it's absolutely dead on of toni. hahaha!

berlin! berlin!

today is beyond gorgeous in berlin. i mean look at those clouds!

too bad that even though the whole ruse of "flying to europe" would make one think one was on holiday, one is in fact still tied to an actual kinda-hectic-at-the-moment fulltime job at unicef back in new york. [thus lack of communication. oh that and the fact that i'm with toni again. sorry. ok, maybe not really THAT sorry :)]

good news: toni's apartment is the breeziest, sunniest, most wondrous place to call my office. [photo above taken from his kitchen window. I KNOW.] i don't mind being trapped here to my laptop on a day like this. i mean look at my new desk:


yup.

and in case any one was wondering, i would recommend visiting berlin in summertime - though my january stint was nice, HOLY HEAVENS the city is so transformed with some sunshine! it's pleasant and beautiful and inviting. so hurrah!!! :)

and an adorable side note: when uploading these pictures to my computer this one popped up from my camera too:
































:) :) :)

[i do miss alaska lots btw.]

these are not from the hothouse

towards the end of the 2-hour hike mom and i took this morning i couldn't help myself and just had to start collecting all of the various species of wildflowers lining the paths for a lovely bouquet now on our kitchen counter.

isn't it lovely? mmm...



just fyi, i am in heaven. sundance is paradise........

please don't make this harder

last day in the office for 2 months!!! !!! !!!

i know that within a week my belly especially will be missing new york: pumpernickel bagels, pretzel croissants, likitsakos mango + peach yogurt, mutsu apples from union square farmers market... i'm sure i'll miss the subway and the parks and the galleries and films and bookstores and all that...

but hey. i'll be back. and missing all that stuff doesn't compare to missing babies, friends, and germans.

in my last hours in the office i am actually getting a huge amount of work done [despite what it may seem by blogging], all whilst listening to the marie-antoinette soundtrack. plainsong and what ever happened seem to absorb my mood PERFECTLY right now :)

see you all soon!!! (for real this time!!!)

what i learned this weekend

my initial "grand" plans as noted before fell through, but no matter! the weekend was still perfect and fabulous and as new york-y wonderful as ever.

so. onto what i learned:

everyone (and i do mean EVERYONE) must see this film. i tell you, there is no movie/documentary about rwanda (or maybe even africa in general, or war), that compares to this film. it was beyond belief. i really cannot explain how much i feel or felt after seeing it except by sighing and weeping. see it.

everyone (and again, i do include everyone here) must read this book. yes it is in german. yes there is an english translation. yes it is out of print. but yes, that is what amazon is for.

they will make you wiser, open your perspective, deepen emotions and feelings, and overall make you a much better person.

or at least that's what they've done for me. it has been a much richer 3 days than the 3 days before, and i hope to continue that trend for awhile.