Missing a shoulder to lean on

Wow. Have I been gone a long time! So much to catch up on! Oh, and happy new year!

I can't believe that I was gone for ten days. I walked back into my apartment today and it felt a little surreal, like I was on a studio television set. I had cleaned before I left, so everything was picture-perfect, in the right place, but the apartment wasn't lived in. That was made obvious when I went to grab a water from the fridge, and only a lone carton of orange juice and some condiments stared back at me.

Where to begin? I suppose the beginning:

Sunday morning I woke up bright and early for my flight out of Burbank. I had been worried about my layover in Denver but everything was smooth sailing, and I landed in Boston surprisingly on time. I spent Christmas Eve at my dad and stepmom's house, and Christmas Day with 25 of our closest family members. It was great to see everyone, meet my two new cousins (twins) and catch up. Faithful blog readers, they all asked me endless questions about the boy in New York and I was happy to oblige with answers.

Tuesday my friend Maria came over to visit, and we spend a good few hours catching up. She's one of those friends you can just sit and talk to for hours without getting bored or running out of conversation. Wednesday, my friend Rebecca picked me up from my mom's house and drove me and my three huge bags into Stamford, where she lives, and where I could catch the train into the city that night. Me and my three bags made it onto MetroNorth just before rush hour, and into a cab across town where we sat, gridlocked, for 45 minutes. Two cross-town blocks from his apartment, I gave up, got out, and walked the rest of the way. Holidays in New York? Bah humbug.

John had to work on Thursday, but let me stay and play in his apartment all day. A while back, I had lost my mind and offered to cook him dinner, so I knew that I would need a good portion of the afternoon to take care of any disasters that were likely to ensue. I met my friend Lauren for brunch around 11:30, and we spent a good hour and a half just catching up, and then another half hour walking uptown together continuing our chat. Lauren is my former assistant and now makes a hell of a lot money more than I do, at the same place we used to work together. I'm generally happy with all the career choices that I've made, but a few extra tens of thousands of dollars wouldn't hurt.

By the time I got back uptown, I needed to go food shopping, only I couldn't remember exactly where the supermarkets were. I didn't want to bother John at work, so I figured I'd just keep walking and I'd be sure to pass by one. Um, not so much. He lives in Hell's Kitchen, which is still rather "up and coming", and while his apartment is amazing and there are plenty of bars and restaurants, other things like supermarkets are a bit more scarce. Finally, after walking in concentric circles so many times that even my Uggs were starting to hurt, I found D'Agostino's a street over from where I had walked the last two times around the block.

My mom had given me a fail-safe recipe for chicken parm, and I had also planned to bake Toll House cookies for the Vermont house. I should tell you that while I'm terrified of cooking, I am actually an excellent baker, and figured that if I ruined dinner at least my cookies would prove that I had some talent. I got back to the apartment, unpacked all the condiments, and stared at the unopened chicken breasts with disdain. I have a slight phobia of raw meat. Possibly the only thing grosser, in my mind, than raw meat is fish, and that's when I looked at John's goldfish bowl on the kitchen counter, and noticed Bob floating belly up in the tank. Then I started to cry.

Remind me to tell you about my fear of fish another time - this post is too long already. The goldfish bowl was situated on the counter directly in front of where I'd be chopping, kneading, mixing. I considered moving the bowl, but didn't want to risk the water sloshing and me being infected with fish-tainted water, or having to look at the thing any longer than necessary. Instead, I grabbed the D'Agostino's bag and tried to position it over the bowl, like a shroud or something. As I adjusted it, Bob the fish sprang to life and started swimming as if his life depended on it. I guess it kind of did.

With the fish drama settled, it was back to the chicken. The recipe called for boneless, skinless breasts, but since I have never actually bought raw chicken before, I made the mistake of buying the breasts with bones. I wouldn't have minded throwing away the $8, except that I had to touch all the slimy parts before I figured it out. Tears reappeared, and I called every female in my phone book until I confirmed that I had, indeed, bought the wrong chicken. I was physically and emotionally spent by this point, and for a minute considered just calling for takeout, but I gathered myself together and went to the Amish market where boneless, skinless breasts were there for my choosing. Turns out, these were not at all slimy or gross and I barely had to touch them before dipping them in breadcrumbs. Dare I say that I rather enjoyed the challenge?

It was all uphill from there. I prepared the chicken and let it cool before baking. Then I made the cookies which I knew would come out well. While those batches were in, I chopped and prepared the salad. Then, I boiled water for the pasta, put the chicken back in, and the meal miraculously came together at the quite appropriate dining hour of 7:30 PM. My work there was done.

Friday was the big day! John's friend Ryan and his wife Dina were picking us up for Vermont at 10 AM sharp that morning. We piled into the car and it was exactly like going to a formal, only instead of packing dresses and tuxedos, we had ski pants and parkas. It was clear and sunny in the low 40's - a beautiful day for sightseeing through picturesque upstate New York and Vermont, but the further we got out of the city, the more worried we became about the lack of snow.

After a stop at Walmart to get food and drinks for the weekend, we arrived at the house around 3:30. The house was great - a ski lodge with a rustic look but completely modern technology and fixtures. There were 10 people in the house - 7 of them had gone to Syracuse. We spent the night playing poker (or, in my case, watching poker) and other games, ordered pizza for dinner, and went to bed at a relatively early hour to prepare for our big day ahead. The weather was calling for snow flurries that night, so it looked like skiing was a viable option.

Saturday morning we were out the door at 8 AM, and skiing on the freshly powdered mountain by 9. The first run was an easy green that everyone skied down together, but the second one was a more challenging blue so John let the group go on ahead to make sure I could take my time with it. He'd ski down a few hills, wait for me as I tried to snowplow, and then we'd go on again. I was just getting my ski legs back after two years away from the slopes, starting to feel really confident, and then he went down.

I skied down to him, and he said, "I think I broke my collarbone." I guess some people's instinct might be to panic; I think mine was just disbelief. He's such a strong guy and I've never seen him in pain, so I didn't know if he was serious or exaggerating or what. I mean, if I broke something or even just thought I did, I'd be crying and carrying on so that the whole mountain would know. He just kind of sat there, stoic and matter-of-fact about the whole thing. I asked if I should ski down and get a snowmobile sent up, but he said that he thought he could ski down the rest of the way, but that something was wrong.

He did ski down the whole way, in pain, and we went right into the first aid station. They diagnosed him as having a dislocated shoulder, but the ski lodge wasn't legally allowed to fix it. They referred us to a hospital about 20 minutes away, and Dina and Ryan came in off the mountain to drive us. By this time, the snow had really started to come down, and the 20 minute drive took more than half an hour.

Long story short, it wasn't a dislocated shoulder or a broken collabone, but a separated shoulder, which is an injury to the AC joint that connects the shoulder to the clavicle. They gave him a sling to wear for the next 6 weeks and a prescription for Vicodin to manage the pain. According to the doctor, surgery is almost never required in these cases, but it's a serious enough issue that we're all looking forward to a second opinion from a NYC doctor. Either way, he's spending 6 weeks in a sling, on his dominant (left) arm/hand, and I can't even imagine.

The rest of the weekend was a bit mellow. John was okay to hang out on Sat night, but Sunday the Vicodin made his stomach queasy on and off for the whole day. Since he couldn't ski, we went outlet shopping, but in a group of five people, even that was exhausting. Thankfully, we both had time to rest before going out for New Years Eve. The night started with dinner at a local restaurant, which was pretty decent. Then, we headed across the street to Christopher's, a local tavern with live music, emphasis on "local". The band was surprisingly good but the crowd was a mixed bag, and John's medicine was starting to bother him again. We did a champagne toast at midnight, and our whole crowd was out the door at 12:05, ready to head back to bed. Just like a formal, only ten years later and two hours earlier. You can see my pictures here.

Monday morning we repacked the car, went out for a goodbye breakfast, and settled in for the drive, which, with sleet and holiday traffic, took a seemingly endless five hours. I always find it interesting how different the car rides UP to a trip are versus the car rides BACK from a trip. Not only were we tired and deflated, it was like the weather agreed, trading in Friday's sunny optimism for Monday's cloudy grayness.

I spent one last night in John's apartment, and woke up early this morning for my return to LA. I traveled a lot this summer, for long periods of time, but usually I was anxious to return. Today, while it was nice to come home to my own computer, my own shower, my apartment is lonely, empty, void of the energy I've gotten used to. If my apartment is a sound stage, the quiet is deafening.