My particular brand of spring fever

In the past couple weeks I've been plagued by near-constant Vienna nostalgia accompanied by a solid dose of general Europe-missing. Combined with all the usual wishing for home and CM and the Bossy Cat, emotionally I've been a bit of a mess. This despite the fact that New York has been utterly gorgeous, springing into Spring with total abandon—outdoor seating popping up at every café, ballet flats appearing on the feet of every stylish Manhattan girl, park benches overflowing with canoodling couples. Leave it to me to be wishing I were somewhere else instead of enjoying it.

I thought I was alone in feeling this way, but when I made an offhand remark in an email to a friend that I was enjoying the weather but ready to go home, he wrote back, “Yes, this weather is inspiring spring-ish fever and nostalgia and all kinds of emotional things. I bet you're ready for being home.” YES! That was exactly what I was experiencing, wrapped up in one sentence by someone I don't even know all that well. So perhaps I'm not the only one… What say you, readers? Are you suffering from spring nostalgia these days?


I'm back home in Houston as of last night for a good long month off (yay!), and that seems to have assuaged the spring fever somewhat, although a large part of me is longing to whisk CM off on an impromptu tour of Europe. Seems to me that the only thing for it is to relive some of our oh so brief glory days, in the form of devoting this week's posts to sharing the rest of our wedding and perhaps a bit of our honeymoon. I hope you'll indulge me in a little walk down (recent-ish) memory lane. Blame it on springtime.


Stay tuned for a wedding post this evening!


Photo taken by me on June 5, 2011

Right place, right time

One of the best weeks in recent memory ended with an epic journey: from Vegas to Chicago, 4 hours in the Hilton at the airport, from Chicago to New York, 4 hours wandering bleary-eyed through Manhattan, New York to Vienna, and what felt like 4 hours of dragging our suitcases home from the airport (but was actually more like 1 hour). Let me say, we are very happy to be home. I get to stay here about 3 weeks this time, but I'm settling in like it's my job.

I'm home in Vienna at just the exactly right time. Our week in Vegas was hot hot hot (not that we cared, as the sun did nothing to detract from our enjoyment of our adorable niece, whose picture you will all be tiring of soon, I think), and our few hours in New York coincided with ugly, cold, wet, MISERABLE weather. We actually left and went to JFK early, just so we could get out of the mess.

Vienna, on the other hand, is like an advertisement for itself, all tulips and blooming trees and sunshine. Everyone's out enjoying the weather, and all the good things about this city are even better. The parks! The benches! The outdoor cafés! The gelato! It would be hard not to be in a good mood, despite the jet lag and the all-over body soreness.

So, I won't be wasting nearly so much time sleeping as I usually do. Instad I'll be spending as much time outside as possible, reading on park benches, exploring on a Citybike, taking long walks with CM, and throwing our windows wide open.

Spring in Vienna. What could be better?

Oh, and LOOK!

Spring is in the air

Spring sprang for real today here in New York. I wore yellow to celebrate. And for once, I didn't have to spend the entire day in a windowless rehearsal room, only to emerge into the chilly air after the sun has gone down. No, today we got out of rehearsal early. 3 HOURS early. I brought my sandwich outside and ate it on the Plaza in the sunshine. And then I took a long walk through Central Park (along with every other person in the entire city), and sat on a park bench to read my Kindle. Just as evening fell and a chill settled into the air, I met The Fashionista for moules frites and Stellas on the Upper West Side in one of those restaurants that opens its entire front wall when the weather's nice. Simply put, it was a great day—even the obscene amount of time it took me to travel from 86th Street to my apartment couldn't get me down.

Two years ago today I went to the courthouse in downtown Houston to finalize my divorce. Then I wrote about it here. It's amazing for me to re-read that post and see that, even when it was all so fresh and painful, I already had a glimmer of hope. I already knew that I was going to be okay. And I was right. I am okay. I'm more than okay. I haven't cried today. In fact, I hardly ever cry anymore about my divorce, what might have been or what should have been. Which isn't to say that I don't regret it. I think I always will, on some level. But I have, for the most part, accepted that this is part of the story of my life. It's not the story I thought I would be telling, not by a long shot, but every good story needs conflict, right?

Today my story goes like this: I thought it would be a hard day for me, like it was last year. I expected to brood, or weep, or both. But then the sun came out, and instead of this being a day all about the end of my marriage, today became a day all about the beginning of Spring.

Craving the cute

It's opening night tonight (yay!), which means I get a few days off to go to Houston (double yay!!) where the weather forecast says it's going to be gloriously warm and sunny for my whole visit (triple yay!!!). After a rough week of rain and umbrella-destroying wind gusts (seriously, if it hadn't been so windy I would have taken pictures of the streets littered with dozens of sad umbrella carcasses), I am more than ready for the sun.

And for the cuteness that goes with it. I'm itching for a shopping spree. I want to wallow in floral sundresses with cotton cardigans in shades of pink and yellow, ballet flats and a-line skirts, subtly embellished t-shirts with straight-leg jeans. My orange bag is feeling too big and all wrong; I need something in a pale metallic just big enough for my Kindle and a wallet. And wispy hand-dyed scarves to go with everything.

And if it must MUST rain, I would like to be wearing this coat.



Pretty please?