Soil in the City

In my work I have come across so many amazing people and have slowly started to build up a network of wonderful friends - albeit friends on a professional level. Through the events that I get invited to (and there are many!) and the interviews that I have to set up for my boss I have been in the company of many B/C-list (shhhhhh...don't tell them I called them that!) celebrities and people who I really look up to. Another aspect that I'm fascinated by are the journalists that I've gotten in contact with - and I mean journalists from across the spectrum - local newspapers and blogs to writers with the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. I love it.

Last week we were having a meeting with a freelance writer for one of the top shelter magazines here in New York and he mentioned that he was working on a story for the New York Times on dirt and how it affects design and living in the city. Intrigued, both Vicente and I started commenting and telling our own versions of the Battle of the Soot (ask any New Yorker - we all have those stories...) In our house we have a 'no-shoes' policy - those dirty buggers get pulled off feet just as you step into the door. Considering the amount of people, dogs, birds, trees, garbage trucks and food on this small island, you can surely imagine what the streets' dirt-quality must be like! Some friends don't quite get it, but when you clean your own home, there's nothing you wouldn't do to try keep it as clean as possible for as long as possible.

So, back to the meeting with the writer for the New York Times...He took some notes and emailed me on Monday to get an okay for him to use some of our quotes in his article. 'Of course' I said, figuring that as long as Vicente's quote got featured, I'd be happy to have mine edited out. But to my amazement, my quote made it in! See for yourself - my name in print in the New York Times! Who would've ever thought?

Read the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/garden/02dirt.html.

I had to giggle when I saw the title. It was written in the stars? No! Just the Times!

Running with the stars

Last year August John and I went to support our friends Annie and Maxine who were running the New York Half Marathon. Seeing them cross the finish line inspired me to do the same and when the registration opened this year I jumped at the chance to jot my name on the dotted line. Moment of madness? Perhaps. Well, I definitely thought so after I started training for this big milestone at the beginning of May. Yes, it was a half-hearted attempt, but I really dragged my butt all the way over the first couple of 2-mile sessions. I felt despondent and pretty sure that this girl would never complete a 13-mile race.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, this girl tonight ran 6 miles (and did a 5-mile run just for fun on Friday too)! And it feels so good. I am yet to experience that 'runner's high' everyone keeps raving about, but man...I am loving the running.

To add to the exhilaration of tonight's run, I spotted Leonardo di Caprio and his three 'bodyguards/male support system' on their bicycles in the park. He whizzed right be me and I'm pretty sure that 4 miles into my run, on my way up a Central Park hill, I was a sight for sore eyes...quite literally.

But it's nights like tonight, with a light breeze drying the sweat off my back, celeb-spotting and feeling that great rush of happy endorphins that I really appreciate living in this great city!

Open note to my blog

Dear blog - 

Oh how I've missed you! It seems like such a long time since we had an opportunity to sit down and really connect. Weeks have passed in a whirlwind of trips, meetings, dinners, movies, walks, runs (yes, I've signed up for the New York half marathon and started training this past Monday), visits from friends and family, rainy days, sunny days, phone calls, Facebook pages, parties, the arrival of Spring (and all the cold and miserable days inbetween), the death of a beloved grandfather and somewhere in the midst of all of this, I have just not gotten round to sitting down and spending some quality time with you.

BUT, it will all change, I promise!

I will get back to you with renewed vigor and once again share all my crazy New York City (and other exotic destinations) stories with you and we'll laugh, cry, hang our heads in shame and ultimately know that life in the city is amazing.

Til we speak again,

Sue

Verocious New York dogs...

When you live in a big city like New York you realize what a strange, strange relationship most people have with their dogs (and cats, for that matter). People who live in shoebox-sized apartments keep Great Danes or other large breeds and big burly men take their 500gram miniature poodles for 'walkies' on diamante leashes. It's weird and it's taken me some time to get used to it. I always grew up thinking that dogs needed back yards and lots of space, but in the city it seems that dogs are more human than many of the people you pass on the street.

I recently received the following snippet from a friend and just thought it was so typically 'New York' that I had to share it:

'Older lady with small dog and man with small dog stop on sidewalk because dogs are greeting each other (man's wife waiting impatiently several feet ahead. Man (saying not to the lady, but to the dogs): "This is Clyde." Older lady (saying not to the man, but to the dogs): "Clyde? This is Simon!"  Man: "Simon?! MY middle name is Simon!" 

It was at this point that the friend (a Canadian, possibly my favorite breed!) had to walk away and giggle, rushing to her computer to tell me about this exchange.

Up until yesterday, this was my favorite dog-in-the-city story. However, it just got blown out of the water with what happened while we were walking in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I'll set the scene...

Quiet, trendy neigborhood street, lined with small boutiques and coffee shops, hipsters with too-tight jeans and quirky hats (some wearing suspender belts...yes, I know). Four of us are walking down the street when we hear a big Harley-Davidson-caused roarrrrr coming down the street. Cutting through the roar was the high-pitched barking of a small dog and we also heard a lady scream. What I saw made me laugh so hard that I cried...

Two burly men on a low-slung Harley were slowly making their way up the street - the one on the back clutching his driver's shoulders and peering angstly over his own towards a white Scottish Terrier running full force after the bike, chasing it with all its might. This wouldn't have been as funny if it wasn't for the fact that the Scotty's leash was trailing behind him and that the Scotty's owner was crazily running after the bike-and-dog combo, cluthing her handbag, sunglasses and pointlessly trying to catch the Scotty's leash - uttering faint girly screams!

The day was saved by a third burly man who blockaded the Scotty's tirade, grabbed its leash and handed it to the flushed owner. So funny!

I would have paid really good money for that video clip and thought to myself that this is not a scene you're likely to see anywhere other than New York. Ha ha haaa!

Winning Over Washington

With the arrival of spring has come my travel spirit and sense of adventure. My sofa is no longer satisfying enough for me! It was time to spread my wings and explore a little.

I had a brief (18 hour) visit to Washington DC a month ago for the launch of a new hotel and I saw the Capital Building and that long pointy monument (now I know it’s called Washington Monument) from the cab window. I promised myself that I would go back and explore this beautiful city and this past weekend offered me that opportunity.

Anneen, a friend from Namibia whom I’ve known about 25 years, is currently studying in Washington and invited me to stay with her for the duration of my visit. She also proved to be the most delightful host, showing me all the touristy things, despite probably having seen them all plenty of times before and we ate way too many ice lollies, walked miles and miles and caught up like you can only catch up with someone you’ve known all your life. The gods of great weather were on our side this past Saturday too. Though windy, the sun was out and we could even remove our jackets at times, savouring the sun on our pale, white arms. (I did get a horrible sunburn on a random part on top of my left hand, but let me tell you about that in person – I’m too embarrassed to write about it here!).

I completed the 5 hour bus trip to Washington on Friday after work and had to get on a return bus at 11.15am on Sunday, so it was bound to be a short weekend, filled with hordes of people who were also headed for DC to see the Cherry Blossoms – only in bloom two weekends a year. I was lucky enough to catch them at their peak. Gorgeous! 

Aside from the flowers, other highlights included seeing the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, The Capitol Building, the Smithsonian and all the many museums along ‘The Mall’ – the huge lawn you saw on TV if you were watching the inauguration of our favorite US President. Sadly the grass is still recovering from being trampled on by millions of feet, so the wind caused huge dusty gusts, sticking to our ice lollies and lipgloss…

After walking all over the city to all the tourist hot-spots, we ended the day in perfect style by resting our weary, weary feet while eating Nando’s chicken and chips at the only US location of this fabulous South African restaurant. I’m happy to report that the peri-peri chicken tasted just like it does at home – and the sangria is tasty!

I loved Washington – the openness, the fresh air, the civil-ness of the people, the beautiful architecture…and it’s so clean. Loved it.

Sound Walking...

With the first signs of spring slowly rearing their heads everywhere across the city, that sluggish depressed feeling that I’ve had for the past couple of months is slowly lifting. I almost feel less trapped, but am waiting for the day where I can step outside the house without a winter coat on before I rejoice and officially proclaim that spring has arrived. Until then, I am keeping my eyes on the little green buds showing up – oh, and the fact that my itchy eyes and runny nose is back points to a definite spring-like quality in the air!

The bad thing about this long winter is that any attempt at being social involves running from the warmth and comfort of your apartment to the train station, freezing on the platform, running from the station to your destination coffee shop/restaurant /movie theater and then freezing your bum off while you’re there before repeating the whole process until you’re back in your warm, comfy sweats and sheepskin slippers (thanks Ouma!) and warmly tucked under a blanket, munching something warm and chilling on the sofa at home. So the natural choice then, is to just stay home in your warm, comfy sweats and sheepskin slippers and order in something warm and comforting. 

In an effort to break this nasty habit, John and I decided to venture out for our first day on the town in a long time this past Saturday. And what a fabulous time we had! It was as though the entire city was sharing our joy and had come out to play. But we had a mission. Before leaving home John had downloaded a ‘Soundwalk’ tour of Little Italy, a small suburb in trendy downtown SOHO. Narrated by one of the actors on the HBO show, The Sopranos, you upload this walking tour onto your ipod and then follow a map of the area while narrator Vinny Vella shows you the local haunts and hotspots. What a fantastic time we had! We ended up spending about fifteen minutes with ‘Sal’ at his barber shop (he’s a friend of Vinny’s and both John and I took a photo with this cool old Italian guy). The most memorable part of the tour was where Vinny handed us over to his Chinese friend who took us into a Chinese food market in China Town, just off Little Italy – What a weird experience! At the entrance to the store were the usual Chinese food fare, but as we moved to the back we were accosted with weird and non-wonderful edibles (?) including pork snout, pork hooves, crocodile legs (fresh…still included skin-covered feet), pork uteri (yes, one uterus, many uteri), duck’s feet, boneless duck’s feet, a variety of birds – all with the head still on, congealed pork blood and a strange variety of fish heads and other seafood that really belongs, well, alive and in the ocean. It was weird and a little freaky. But I guess that’s what part of making life in New York what it is…a melting pot of different cultures, different beliefs and, well, different appetites.

You can listen to an excerpt of our tour on the website, and if you’re ever in the city, be sure to schedule some time with Vinny – it is highly recommended!

The first bud is out there...

I've been neglecting my blog of late and realized this week that I left it hanging for the past two weeks with my rather moody winter blues post, so thought I'd quicly share with you that my blues is on its way out...spring has sprung! In theory at least...

It's still freezingly cold and I'm still so over my winter wardrobe, but on Sunday when John and I schlepped our lazy bums across Central Park to meet a friend for lunch on the Upper East Side, I stopped next to a tree right outside our apartment building. 'John! Look at this!', I shouted. "It's a...a...little leaf!" and true's bob (good old SA saying!), there it was - the entire tree was covered in these little baby leaves. 

If that was not enough of a sign for me that spring is in the air, I could just look in the mirror at my allergy-ridden eyes and snif my watery nose to know that it's true. Now if only the heat would come and join Spring, I would be all smiles!

Winter blues

This week marks the second anniversary of our lives in New York. Two years ago I got on the plane and left my life for the great unknown with a man I hardly knew… And now look at us! 

The most pressing thing on my mind this past week, however, has not been the anniversary, but rather the fact that this is the first (and longest) northern hemisphere winter that I have had to live through – from beginning to end. And I have had enough! On the weekend we had a little break from the monotony of down-filled coats and double sock-wearing with two wonderful days that even had me (gasp!) wearing my Birkenstock sandals – without my summer-standard pedicure. I was just feeling happy about finally seeing the end of winter when, BAM, it hit again on Monday. Rain, ice and that bitchy wind is a combination that I have, after almost five solid months, had enough of. 

For the first time I find myself understanding the northern hemisphere’s penchant for UV lamps and extended international vacations during the winter months. I feel depressed. Caged in and smothered. I need to be outside without being weighed down by gloves, a scarf a hat and heavy coat. I need to have my arms free when I’m out and about on the weekend again! Most importantly, my skin needs to feel the warmth of sun.  

I have never missed Africa more. Roll on spring! Please!

25 Random things about me...

A new trend on Facebook has been going around for a while where you are prompted to create a list with 25 random things about your life in it. While I do feel that these lists almost cross the line in taking your public Facebook prolife too far, I finally succumbed to the not-so-gentle persuasion girlfriends on four different continents and did it. With my blog being pretty personal as it is, I figured I'd share this list with you as well.

1) In my life I’ve kissed many frogs and had my heart broken too many times. But I have never loved as fiercely and unconditionally as I love John. Not only is he my best friend, but he’s everything I’ve ever wanted in my Prince Charming.

2) My dad died at 2am on the night after my 23rd birthday. Before that I wasn’t sure about after-life and spirits and all that jazz. Now I know. He came to say goodbye that night and it changed my life in more way than one. I was also the one who had to tell my middle sister about it. Having to do that broke my heart even more than losing my dad did.

3) My mom is a strong, stylish and independent woman for whom I have a lot of respect. After spending most of my teenage years praying that I’d never turn into my mother, I now think that it wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

4) I don’t have a very solid relationship with my two younger sisters. I’m not sure why that is, but I do hope that we will all one day be able to go on a holiday together and have nothing but fun.

5) My friends are the most important part of my family and I have never missed anything like I miss my friends. 90% of tears I’ve cried in New York have been because I miss my friends, their weddings or the birth of their babies.

6) I grew up in Windhoek, Namibia, then I lived in London for a year, and then moved back to Windhoek for a year, then I spent seven years in Cape Town and now I’ve been in New York for two and I’m married to an American-Swede. Where is my home? Mmmm…Definitely Cape Town…I think.

7) I am not religious (despite trying most of my life to be). I just don’t believe in all that BS. But I’m not an atheist either. I believe that there is a higher being/power/spirit and I see the effect of this higher power every day in my life and in the lives of those around me. I strongly believe that you don’t have to follow any one religion to be spiritually aware.

8) I love my grandmother (after whom I was named) to bits and am so scared to know that she’s getting old. In the face of adversity (and a sometimes very grumpy husband), she has always stayed happy and positive. I hope to get old as gracefully as she has.

9) I went scuba diving in Mozambique and started hyper-ventilating before I could go underwater. I was petrified of the waves and of not being able to see land or the boat. However, after a couple of minutes of breathing into a make-belief paper bag, I put my mind over matter and spent 40 minutes 9 meters below the surface, hanging out with Nemo and his friends. I’m not sure I could do it again, but I really want to try.

10) I always believed myself to not be very sporty. I was the clumsiest girl in ballet class, on the hockey field, in front of the netball goalpost and couldn’t run very fast. Now that I’m an adult, I’ve started to realize that I’m actually pretty good at sports. I kicked ass (literally) in kickboxing for two years and am front of the class in spinning and yoga. I like to go hiking, have learnt to cross-country ski and ice-skate and have even taken up running recently, completing a 6-mile race in just over 30-minutes at my first attempt. Downhill skiing still gets the best of me, though. Ugh.

11) I am lactose intolerant. I am wheat intolerant. I cannot digest MSG and get really sick from it. But the problem lies in the fact that my symptoms are not constant, so while I could eat a sandwich with spicy grilled cheese today and be fine, the same thing could make me feel really sick tomorrow, and I just wouldn’t know. To try and remedy that, I have adopted an all-natural or organic diet for the past couple of months. No more M&Ms, Diet Coke, coffee, pasta or regular milk for this girl. I have not been able to give up chocolate, though, always opting for the melt-in-your-mouth stuff like Lindt.

12) Chocolate is the only thing I’m really addicted to. I have kicked my one-a-day coffee habit but see no reason to do the same with chocolate. I get actual cravings for the stuff and cannot stop myself once I start. It’s pretty scary for a control freak.

13) Oh, I am a control freak. I get scared when I’m not in control. Which is why I will never bungee jump. Never.

14) I am an absolute bookworm. I love, love, love to read. If I had to choose between watching a movie or reading a book the book will win, hands down, every time. John finds it amusing that I will sometimes wake up an hour before my alarm goes off and read until I have to get up. To me it just does not make sense that some people do not read.

15) I hate being locked in to a clock-watching 9 – 5 type job, yet I seem unable to change that. My creativity gets completely squashed if I feel that I am forced to be somewhere I don’t really want to be and I end up procrastinating, ending up in a spiral of unhappiness. It seems like such a relatively easy thing to change my mind about, but it seems that my brain wires are connected in such a way as to hate the clock-watching kind.

16) I have a blog! (And you're reading it!)

17) We will be in New York for at least another year, but after that, I have no idea where life will lead us. Which is kind of scary, but very exciting. Don’t even ask me about my 5-year plan! I’ve never had one.

18) When I was in high school I always said that I wanted to be married at age 27 and have my first baby at age 30. Without planning it at all, I ended up married at 27 (though the wedding is still to happen), but I really don’t see how I’ll have a baby by 30. Dammit. I’m too young for that kind of responsibility!

19) Memory is not one of my strong points. Whole chunks of my life are gone from my memory bank, only to be brought back to life by random things / people. I live in constant fear of one day getting Alzheimers (my dad’s mom had a severe case of it). And I sometimes joke about having Alzheimers Light. But sometimes I do think it’s true.

20) I am anal about spelling and just cannot understand why everyone cannot get the difference between its / it’s / its’ and the usual they’re / their / there. I mean…it’s not that hard, is it now?

21) Languages come pretty easily to me. I speak German fluently, although not as fluently as I used to when I actually had times to speak it. My mother tongue is Afrikaans, which is a lot like Dutch. But I dream in English, which I have kind of adopted as my first language. My first line in Swedish was ‘Hurry up I have to poop’. Hey, you never know when you might need it! I also have a very basic knowledge of French (Je suis Namibienne…Je travaille a la bank).

22) Even though my IQ reports were always slightly higher than the average, I still live in constant fear that someone will figure out that I am actually not smart. It’s silly, but I am forever questioning my intelligence. Which IS rather stupid, if you think about it.

23) I am very good in social situations and get energized by meeting new people and introducing my connections to one another. Politics, on the other hand, has never interested me (until I ended up living in the US and saw how much of a soap opera it is here…).

24) I’ve always had issues with my weight and hate it when people dismiss it when I say something about having a ‘fat’ day. I’m tall (5’11” / 178cm) and have always feared that I’d turn into one of those BIG girls, which I know is what will happen if I gain too much weight. I don’t want to be big. But strangely enough I wouldn’t have minded being a full 6’ / 180cm. It’s almost as if I’m not tall enough to be a really tall girl, and too tall to be of normal height.

25) As I get older, I cry more easily. Sometimes a TV commercial will yank open the tear-taps (and if you’ve ever seen the crap ads on TV here, you’ll understand the severity of this statement.). I always cry on The Biggest Loser.

A different kind of book club

Those of you who know me knows about my absolute passion for reading. I love it – in fact, one of my quirks (according to John) is that I will some mornings wake up and grab my book to read for about an hour before my alarm goes off. I devour books and chocolate with the same intensity, but I find I suffer much less caloric impact from reading!

John - being Mr Amazing - decided on the most perfect Christmas gift for the girls this past year when he started a virtual book club that me, my mom, his mom and his brothers’ wives belong to. The concept is that he would buy us all the same books, based on my recommendations, over the coming year. What a fabulous idea! On Christmas eve in Stockholm, he went out to buy us all copies of one of my favorite books and couldn’t find it at the book store he went to. Never one to be deterred, John worked with what he had, asking the shop assistant for the best seller of the season - Hanif Kureishi's 'Something to tell you' I got a copy as well as he hadn’t ever seen this book on the shelves at home.
Imagine our surprise on Christmas eve when we opened this book that no one had ever heard of! How inventive of him! His mom (as much of a book worm as me) immediately settled down with her copy and I got a little suspicious when I asked her about it and she didn’t really go into too much detail. 'It's fun,' she said. On the flight back from Sweden I tucked into my book and immediately realized why she had been a little evasive.

The theme of this book was completely sex-focused! I’m talking nipple-clamps, leather fetish suits and dingy London underworld orgy-type sex. And the main characters are middle-aged! Ha ha ha! After reading out loud to John from this book he had bought his sisters-in-law, his mother and his mother-in-law a couple of times, I stopped the torture! The poor man realized his mistake.

The next book will be much more above-board, I’m making sure of it!