Inauguration From the Office

We ducked out of our meetings to watch Obama's inauguration from our big "tech talk" videoconference room. We're a predominantly liberal lot, and the one guy who clapped when Obama thanked Bush for his service was briefly the focus of some sixty stares. Ironic, then, that the big screen was tuned to FOX news. I wasn't as moved as the people we saw on TV, even some in the room. I did vote for Obama, and I recognize the history unfolding, but some of the catharsis I see worries me. This is no "mission accomplished;" this is the beginning of a hard, long road. I'm happy we have a smart man in the White House, but even so, progress will be hard-won. I'm hoping that the emotion I saw was not the joy over a supposed savior, but a hopeful rededication of purpose on behalf of all citizens. We'll see.

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Hitting the Bottle: Turley 2005 Howell Mountain Zinfandel, Dragon Vineyard

It's the premier of the final half-season of Battlestar Galactica. We have a Lou Malnati's deep-dish pizza in front of the television, and it's time to hit the bottle. This time, it's a 2005 Turley Zinfandel I've been saving. It's a pretty, translucent color in the glass, like the skin of a black cherry. It smells like I just stomped through a field of red raspberries, but underneath that, there's a whiff of something like Coca-Cola. If they made Raspberry Coke, it would smell something like this. And on the first taste... if cola wasn't sweetened by anything but a squeeze of blackberry juice, that'd come close to the flavors. But this is a hefty sip with tannins that stay on your tongue with a taste that'd come from something smelling of cedar. A couple of years ago, I tried a bottle of this wine that was a fruit-bomb, a riot of raspberry and blackberry jam with lots of pepper and woody spice. Now, it's a little more calm and smooth. This is a food wine, but this pizza isn't the right match. This wine wants something savory, something roasted. Slow-cooked beef ribs, where the meat falls off the bone. No barbecue sauce, mind you. Just roasted meat and the subdued blackberry and cedar of this wine.

Glass number two. Maybe my pizza smell is overwhelming it, but blackberries and cola are tight, reluctant to waft out of the glass. A deep sniff gives me a red streak of raspberry, jazzy and then gone. Is this Turley past its prime? It has been lying around the condo for more than a year, subject to B's 80-degree thermostat and Remy's incessant tail-swatting. I'll get this pizza out of the way... There we go -- dried raspberries and blackberries, and the first sip fills the mouth with dry, woody fruit and spices. This is not a cocktail wine -- you have to keep eating, or it'll suck the moisture out of your mouth. Feh. This wine is too somber. Turley, I remember when you were fun. What happened? I don't have any barbecue for you, and you're just clobbering this tomato sauce.

Glass numbers three. And four. Okay, this isn't a wine for my pizza, so it's time to start dealing with it on its own terms. It's giving me some fruit -- dry and almost bitter -- and a lot of scented wood. This is good. This is a dry dinner wine. It's also thick and hefty in the mouth -- thick as whole milk. Salty bacon bits from our salad make the fruit a little brighter, but this is still dark, deep stuff. After some salt-and-savory, I got a mouthful of blackberry jam with a peppery bite. These are spikes. This wine wants to percolate in the lower registers; it talks like Brando in The Godfather -- nearly incomprehensible if you're paying attention, but sit back, let your mind wander, let its tastes play around on your tongue. This is actually a damn good wine. I'm sorry I doubted you Turley. You're A-OK in my book.

My wife is telling me to drink water. This is a good idea. It's time to say night-night to Turley. I'll see you again when I have barbecue. Or pot roast. Yeah, that'd rock.

Winter Whiners

It has been snowing for days here in Chicago. There has been a lull today -- but that was just because the temperature dropped into the negative double-digits, obliterating moisture at the molecular level. This happens every year. And every year, we Chicagoans start to whine. "Why do we live here?" "This town isn't fit for human habitation." But, of course, it is, and we do. The perpetually cheery kids who want "a moment of your time" to save the environment/children/whales are still standing at every corner in the Loop. The homeless guys are still out in force, asking for change, somehow less bundled-up than they are in the summer. And the Urban Professionals like me scurry from their warm lofts to trains/busses/cabs to the office and then back again, bitching about the weather to whomever will listen.

And we all listen, because we're from Chicago, it's winter time, and we're bound together in our annual ritual of suffering. Chicago folks know how wind off the lake can cut through four layers of clothing. We know how shoes and pant legs from the knees down become a dull, uniform gray from the salt. We know how frozen nostril hair crunches as we breathe. And we know that the skin in that unprotected oval between the bottoms of our hats and the tops of our scarves can bypass the sensation of "cold" entirely and go straight to "pain." Most of us have a story about having to eat snow off the roofs of our cars while stuck in an icy five-hour traffic jam. We tell these stories to our friends-in-warmer-climates. It makes us feel tough by comparison, and it makes them feel smart by comparison. Everybody wins.

I do think Chicago blossoms in the summer precisely because it suffers through the winter. The warm weather is a catharsis. It is not taken for granted. But I like winter in itself too, though I don't say that where my wife will hear. Few scenes are as hauntingly lovely as moonlight reflected on new snow, the hush in the air as it falls in big, fluffy flakes. The gray, dirty city turns clean and white, if only until morning. Remy likes it too: after a snowfall, he charges through snow banks, pokes his nose under the drifts, and chases after snowballs that vanish on impact. After the snow falls, the landscape is new, bright, and begging to be explored.

Hitting the Bottle: Jessup Cellars 2003 Estate Bottled Cabernet Sauvignon

It has been snowing nonstop for the last two days, I'm still achey from working out for the first time in months, and it's time to hit the bottle. Jessup Cellars, 2003 Estate Bottled Cabernet Sauvignon, which Bela and I brought back from Napa Valley.

Oh yeah -- plum-dark and thick enough to be opaque, and it smells like spiced blackberry jam. And cream. That comes from the oak, right? Another sniff -- gingerbread. But enough foreplay. Time to drink up.

Thick as milk, this one, and spicy -- cinnamon and pepper -- and raspberries. This is like raspberry jam on a fresh-baked scone. (It's smelling like bread now. That soft, fresh-baked white bread that's just out of the oven and light as air. With a bit of nutmeg floating in the background. It's like Christmas at a baker's house.)

Okay, glass number two. Or is it three? I dunno, we're watching the first half of Battlestar Galactica Season 4, in preparation for the premier this month. The glass keeps refilling. It's so good, though. I can't say that it pairs with the super nachos I made for our BSG marathon, but what would? Nachos are beer food. And maybe Malbec food. But hey, it has spiced ground sirloin, so that kinda goes with a spicy, jammy Cab. Nah, not really, but that's okay -- it's big enough to trounce even my nachos. This reminds me of those gigantic Australian numbers, the Shiraz wines and such.

Last glass of the bottle. So yummy. If there was a BYOB serving venison with a raspberry sauce, this would be the bottle I'd bring. This stuff is like velvet on the tongue. There are tannins, sure, but they're soft. Silky, even. And just like that, it's gone. My beautiful Jessup Cab is no more. And we have five more episodes of BSG on the DVR. But 'tis the nature of pleasure to be ephemeral. Goodbye, fair Cab. Until the next.

O Tannenbaum

Having a woman in the condo makes a difference in all sorts of subtle ways. We're cooking at home more often and the music that's playing is from outside of my own, tired play list. And we have a Christmas tree. Bachelor-Raj didn't bother with such things -- home was a place to sleep in, watch TV, and dump my stuff before going out again. B's putting back the touches of "home." Our tree is tiny, fake, and cost us $5 as a Christmas Eve purchase at Ace Hardware, but it's something to liven up the place while we figure out what to do with all the boxes we need to unpack.

I'm Bringin' B Back

Last weekend, I brought B home from Washington DC to Chicago. Because loading, unloading and driving a U-Haul 700 miles wasn't enough of a challenge, we did it just as the snow and ice storms began pounding the Midwest. Sixteen months ago, we drove to DC in a rented Jeep with a few boxes, a couple of suitcases, and room to spare. That the return trip filled up a ten-foot truck is yet more evidence of the correlation between time elapsed and volume of possessions. It's a pity there's no such correlation with living space. We were fortunate that my brother-in-law still lived like my old college roommate, sleeping on a mattress on the floor -- to him went the bed, dresser, and nightstand. But right now, the condo is decorated with pillars of boxes, a 32" LCD television lying on a beanbag, and clothes. Oh, the clothes.

The drive itself wasn't bad. Yes, there was a learning curve with the truck -- even the smallest U-Haul is exactly as wide as some of DC's narrower streets, and the side-view mirrors stick out a good deal wider. This means that it's entirely possible for a tree branch to thwack the passenger-side mirror, which, even at speeds lower than 30 mph, will shatter half the mirror. (Yes, I know this empirically.) Side mirrors are important on a truck; there is no other rear-view option. And yes, I learned that if you accidentally get turned around on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, you'll have to drive 30+ miles to get turned back the right direction. And yes, U-Hauls don't have CD or tape players. But the drive from Washington DC to Toledo Ohio had clear weather throughout, and when the storms hit between Toledo to Chicago, the truck could plow through the worst of it.

The unloading was the bad part. In -30 degree windchill, unloading 15 boxes, some suitcases, paper bags of odd, loose items, and a television was decidedly unpleasant. Unloading the bedroom set on the ice-buried street in front of my brother-in-law's place was pure hell. People parked on the streets were trying to free their cars using shovels and pickaxes. Arjun and I carried furniture over a jagged obstacle course of snow-covered ice, with the wind tearing through our scarves. But I will give credit to the U-Haul folks. Maybe it was the Christmas spirit, or maybe it was just too damn cold and too close to closing time, but the people at the U-Haul dropoff told me not to worry about the broken mirror, and said they wouldn't charge me the $361 for returning the truck to the wrong office.

It's done. I had nightmares about driving the truck the following night, but I slept hard. The condo is a disaster, and the clean-up and organizing effort will take up our holiday, but that's okay. B's back, and we're one household again. That makes it all worth it.

It Begins

This seems like a good time to begin a personal blog. The year has been full of changes and transitions, and for those with whom I haven't spoken in a while, I have updates to provide.

Most importantly, my wife is coming back to Chicago, and we're going to live like an actual married couple again. Though being a "commuter couple" is oh-so-trendy (many are doing it, and the lifestyle even had an article in TIME Magazine this year), we've had a long-distance marriage since August 2007, not too long after our first anniversary. Seeing each other only a couple of times a month does not help when trying to build a life together. We never intended to be apart for this long. The planets of our professional lives just aligned in strange ways.

Without getting into the details (that's for B to disclose), her work took her to Washington D.C. at the end of August 2007. During this time, legal proceedings were underway in America and Europe to approve Google's bid to acquire DoubleClick, the company in which I had worked up from a sofware developer, to a technical lead, to an engineering manager. The deal was expected to close in April 2008, after which I would learn whether or not I still had a job. If I was laid off, I would move to DC and look for a job there; if I became a Google employee, we would figure out what our options were and do our cost/benefit calculus. (Google stock was still in the 800s at the time.) Either way, we expected things to be decided before the summer of 2008.

But come April, instead of hiring or firing me outright, Google offered me a one-year contract with a completion bonus hefty enough that I couldn't take my wounded pride and simply storm out the door. So we remained in limbo, with me needing to stay in Chicago until April 2009, and with no good reason for B to leave DC, where she had found both interesting work and success in her career.

Mentally preparing myself for moving to Washington DC was a process. I love Chicago. I love our River North loft, walking distance from my last two jobs. I love the friends I have here, and I love the cheap Southwest Airlines flights from Chicago to Omaha, so I can visit my parents. But I love B and her professional happiness too, and if I can't put my wife's needs ahead of my own, then I've failed to learn the lessons of the third Spider-Man movie. For the record, I would have done it. I would have moved to DC, and done so cheerfully, when the time came. But again, events took a different turn. B found a new opportunity in Chicago, which made the issue moot.

B and I are excited that she's coming home, even as we acknowledge that we'll have to get past our "set in our independent ways" mentality again, just like when we got married. It's a little bittersweet, because she has made some great friends in DC -- good people who have taken care of her and made sure she didn't get too lonely. I think I value them for that almost as much as she does. B's departure will be bittersweet, but mostly sweet. My baby's coming home!