Skipping Town

It's a new year--and a new blog. Starting today, I’ll taking most of my blogging elsewhere: to http://saclights.com/blog/MargoOL . SacLights is a new Sacramento entertainment and lifestyle website published by The Sacramento Bee . I’ll be writing a blog called “Desperately Seeking Sacramento,” where I’ll more or less continue writing about what I always write about here on Skipping Town: exploring Sacramento and trying to figure out what life looks like here. It’s an exciting opportunity to be a little more aggressive in my search to understand the “real” Sacramento, and I hope you’ll visit my blog, leave comments, etc. I’ll still be posting occasionally to Skipping Town, but my Sacramento musings will all be on “Desperately Seeking Sacramento” now. Happy reading!

I haven’t kept very close track of the books I’ve read this year; that will change in 2008. Fortunately, I kept a partial list of books I read during my trips in Spain, and I have a bookshelf-full here to jog my memory. Here’s what I read in 2007, more or less: Books Read While Waiting to Return to Spain After My Visa “Exile”: 1. Babel Tower—A.S. Byatt 2. The Sex Lives of Cannibals—J. Maarten Troost 3. The Secret Life of Salvador Dali—Salvador Dali Books Read in Europe: 4. Sister Carrie—Theodore Dreiser 5. Perfume—Patrick Suskind 6. Notes on a Scandal—Zoe Heller 7. The Good German—Joseph Kanon 8. Winter in Madrid—C.J. Sansom (Madrid) 9. Exit into History—Eva Hoffman (Romania) 10. Gaudi—Gijs Van Hensbergen 11. City of Falling Angels—John Berendt (read after Venice) 12. The Country Girls trilogy—Edna O’Brien (Galway and Edinburgh) 13. The Sea—John Banville (Galway) 14. That They May Face the Rising Sun—John McGahern (Galway) 15. Dracula—Bram Stoker (read in preparation for Romania) 16. A...

This weekend, in pursuit of some holiday spirit, Andrew and I went to the Mondavi Center, a wonderful performing arts venue in Davis, to see the a capella ensemble Chanticleer. Owned by the Mondavis of wine fame, the center hosts performances in theatre, dance, and music as well as film screenings and lectures. It was our first time there, and we were duly impressed: the venue itself is modern and airy, with a large auditorium and pleasant, window-encased lobby atrium, and the lineup from 2007 and for 2008 almost (almost) rivals what we would have found at the (much-missed) BAM. The Merce Cunningham Dance Company is among the upcoming dance entries; Azar Nafisi and Seymour Hersh spoke in 2007. I’m not sure if the Mondavi Center is up to hosting a performance from, say, the Ballet Preljocaj, led by the French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj, which Andrew and I saw at BAM a couple of years ago and which featured, among much other strangeness, dancers with wine glasses affixed to their li...

It’s official: I’ve changed my name. After spending the morning visiting the Social Security Office and the DMV, I’ve both changed my name and switched my driver’s license from New York to California. I’ve registered to vote out here as well. It was time-consuming to drive between the two offices (especially because—not surprisingly—I got hideously lost), but ultimately far less painful than my DMV experiences in NYC. In fact, I walked in at 11:00am, got a number, and was called immediately: no need to line up outside the office two hours before it opened. You might argue that this makes Sacramento superior to NYC. In this instance, I suppose you’d be right. Well, perhaps not: California’s state-changing process required me to take a written driver’s exam of 36 questions. I passed. But if I hadn’t, it would have been really annoying. So I’m now officially my new married self, though my credit cards, passport, and other sundry items still have my “maiden” name. I've made the name-ch...

Friday night, we nearly had a repeat experience of our hideous incarceration with the Wyndham timeshare presentation. Earlier in the week, Andrew called me from work and said, “I’ve done something you’re not going to like.” He’d gotten a phone call from a salesperson from the Sacramento Kings—the local NBA team, for anyone who, like me, drew a blank at the name—offering him free tickets to Friday’s game in order to learn more about season ticket packages. Andrew’s love of any sporting event led him to momentarily forget the consequences from the last time we’d accepted a “free” offer, and so we found ourselves heading to Arco Arena for a game against the Clippers. During the second quarter, a man in a suit introduced himself, offered Andrew a folder of information about ticket packages, and left. That was it. Whew. This weekend, we also had a Sacramento breakthrough: we used public transportation, including the Sacramento light rail, and Amtrak train, and an Amtrak bus, to get ourselve...

A review I wrote of the Nisbet Plantation, where Andrew and I spent our honeymoon, was just published on a new travel website called Vezeo, along with a couple of pictures I took. Check it out! http://www.vezeo.com/2007/12/10/a-sophisticated-honeymoon-at-the-nisbet-plantation/#more-447

I feel like I've somehow slipped into the wrong season. Today, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, the still-red leaves are sparkling on the tree-lined streets of our neighborhood--it's a perfect October day, warm enough for just a sweater if I decide to head out for a walk. The Northeast, meanwhile, has been pounded with snow, truly December-like; hats and gloves and scarves and boots are--I imagine--piled beside front doors, school delays are being hoped for, and lighted Christmas trees are framed in frosty windows. Ah, the Northeast. I miss the winter. I miss walking through New York on cold December days, wearing my very silly fur-lined, ear-flapped hat, tucking my hair around my neck, beneath my scarf, for extra warmth. I miss the overabundance of radiator heat in my old Brooklyn apartment, which turned the rooms into cozy havens, warm protection from the icy wind outside. I miss seeing people toting armsful of shopping bags on the subway; the Christmas tree at Rockefelle...

Today, our doorbell rang, and when I answered the door, I was greeted by a policeman holding a photograph of a fugitive. "Do you know this man?" he asked. "He's wanted by the police and gave this house as his address." I studied the picture but, not surprisingly, did not recognize the fugitive. "Sorry for disturbing you," the policeman said. This incident would be unremarkable except for one thing: this is the second time that I've been confronted by policemen seeking a fugitive who'd given my apartment as his address. Long-time blog readers will remember that I was in Barcelona the first time this happened and had to give a lengthy statement to the Spanish police about who I was, who I rented the apartment from, who'd lived in the apartment before me, what I was doing in Spain--all in Spanish. I consider that the highlight of my brief Spanish-language endeavors. And now, here in Sacramento--a world away in more ways than one--a fugitive ha...

Last night, Andrew and I attended our first Sacramento event: the Best of Sacramento party, a benefit for the March of Dimes put on by Sacramento Magazine . We joined the crowds at the convention center and were given a wine glass, plate, and tote bag, then headed inside, where 300+ winners of the magazines annual “best of” competition plied their wares—which included excellent food, wines, desserts, music, shops, and services. We had Indian food; Greek food; Italian food; sushi. We had tiramisu and petit fours. We had some delicious wines, and local beer. Our hands-down favorite: the extensive cheese selections elaborately presented by The Firehouse Restaurant. The dance floor was packed by that time, but Andrew and I were content to look on, enjoying our cheese from the sidelines. There are few things more enjoyable—no matter where in the world we happen to find ourselves—than a cheese plate. Newcomers as we are, watching Sacramentoans in action was as captivating as pursuing the foo...

On January 10, 2008, or thereabouts, all of our belongings will be joining us here in Sacramento. Unbelievable! We’ve found a moving solution that will, hopefully, work out; and we’ll be packing up our wedding gifts and repacking all the other boxes in the attic after Christmas, in preparation for the move. Among the things that will be arriving in a few short weeks are my books—the many, many boxes of them that have remained sealed since I left New York. The kitchen things I didn’t throw away or sell will arrive as well; I have very little recollection of what I actually saved. Will my blue bowl be in one of the boxes, or did I leave it by the curb? Did I keep or pitch my soup ladle? Blankets; lamps; my alarm clock—I know they’re packed away, somewhere, among many other things I can’t even remember owning. It will be strange discovering all of these things again. They’re relics from a different life—my New York life, my single life. I’ve gone through two hefty rounds of belongings sin...

We did it: we found a Wii game I like for more than five minutes! It’s Guitar Hero III, and it is incredibly fun. After several days of experimentation, we've entered the Medium level, fumbling through songs including "Barracuda" and "Slow Ride." We’re making progress, definitely getting better; and it is far from the boring, exploratory drudgery that seem to weigh down all the other games I’ve tried. Hopes are high that this is the start of a renewed enjoyment of the Wii, and a glowing review in the Times of the new Mario Galaxy gives me hope that there just may be a second game out there for me as well...

It was our first Thanksgiving together—not the first we’d ever spent together (we spent a Thanksgiving together in Barcelona in 2005), but the first Thanksgiving for which we cooked an entire meal ourselves. The fact that we just returned from the East Coast wedding festivities three weeks ago prompted us to spend the holiday this year in Sacramento rather than fly cross-country yet again. Just because we weren’t with our families, however, didn’t mean we had to do without the traditional feast; so we set out to prepare it ourselves. The bulk of our kitchen things are still in Pennsylvania, but over the past few trips we’d managed to squirrel away quite a few items, and with the purchase of a few extra necessities (a turkey platter, a carving set, a gravy boat), we were ready to cook Thanksgiving dinner. We bought the smallest turkey we could find (still twelve pounds), and everything we needed to make butternut squash, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy, cranberry/pumpk...

We made it out! We’re free! I can hear traffic outside my window; there are non-chain stores and restaurants nearby; there was a crazy lady behind me in line at Target yesterday. Even more importantly, I can now walk from room to room —a studio apartment would be no problem if NYC was right outside the door, but a studio apartment in a suburban apartment complex was, to put it mildly, not really tenable. We now have a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom, and an office alcove—as well as a large storage room and a walk in closet. It’s a huge apartment, and beautiful—lots of light, beautiful details, great wood floors. Pure charm. The bathroom and kitchen also have “charm,” in the form of the following: only one electrical outlet in the kitchen; no garbage disposal; and separate hot-and-cold faucets in an ancient sink in the bathroom. The character of the apartment makes up for these deficits in modernization, of course, and we’ve made the rooms pleasant and fully...

We hadn’t planned to take a honeymoon. Having spent the last year or so traveling, we decided we weren’t hurting for vacations and that we’d wait and plan a big trip once Andrew had been at his job a little longer. But it turned out that he was given two weeks off for the wedding—so we decided a honeymoon was in order. Our plans started small—spending a few days in New Hampshire—but quickly grew larger. We went to a bookstore one night to peruse guidebooks for Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, Puerto Rico. Fabulous as all of those destinations sounded, they didn’t say honeymoon . The Caribbean did. We chose Nevis, a tiny island that’s part of the Dutch Antilles, with a population of around 10,000. Far from touristy, it’s a true tropical paradise; wild goats, sheep, and pigs wander about, and there are “monkey crossing” signs along the roads. Getting there required a long series of flights (Pittsburgh-Charlotte-St. Maarten-Nevis), with the final flight to Nevis on an old, tiny propeller plane...

It was exactly what we wanted, and much more than we expected—that’s the only way I can describe our wedding. It’s perhaps too soon to write about it; it doesn’t seem possible that our wedding was actually our wedding. It also doesn’t seem possible that it was only a little over a week ago—it was all such a whirlwind. The day of the wedding someone said (or perhaps I said) that the day would be like a runaway train—once it started, there’d be no stopping it; anything that hadn’t been done would just have to remain undone. And it was very much that way. Early in the morning, after the bridesmaids’ hair appointments, we began setting up for the ceremony and reception. Determined not to see Andrew until the ceremony, he, the groomsmen, and assorted spouses handled the ceremony room; the bridesmaids and I handled the reception room. I was pleased that the hundreds of pinecones Andrew and I had shipped from California added the perfect fall touch to the tables. Everything looked splendid, t...

After a manic gathering of boxes and bags and suitcases and cookie trays, we managed to get ourselves to The Summit on Friday afternoon. There was just enough time to unload everything into our rooms before we had to get dressed, speed through the rehearsal, and head to the rehearsal dinner. The dinner was held at Caileigh’s, a restaurant in Uniontown inside a beautiful historic home. The dinner was organized around a Spanish theme—tapas-style appetizers, Spanish wine, and a steak/shrimp dinner. The tables were named after Spanish cities. The dinner was lovely, and the perfect kick-off to the weekend—I had the sense the whole time that we were embarking on a kind of wedding adventure, and that this was the first big piece of it. My acceptance into the Littell family was solidified during Andrew’s father’s toast, when he bestowed on me a beloved Red Sox baseball cap—how far Andrew and I have come since those very first Yankees games he took me to! Gathering back at The Summit’s bar was ...

On the Thursday before the wedding, after a big gathering at the Orlando house, Andrew, Molly, Ian, Katherine, Barbra, Chris, and I went to Lynn’s for a beer. It’s a great little place, but it doesn’t see a lot of new faces; every head turned when our group walked in, not losing much interest even when we were settled at a table. We ordered drinks and settled in to enjoy the night’s entertainment—a one-man band. Ah, Connellsville. You never know what to expect when you visit a place like Lynn’s. In this case, it was a true spectacle: a man singing, playing guitar, and playing drums simultaneously, using his right hand to both strum the guitar and hold his drumstick. Ian began craning his neck, explaining later he was trying to identify the source of a cowbell. A wild-haired woman materialized at his ear. “You lookin’ for the cowbell?” she asked in a low voice. “Look at his foot.” Indeed, there it was. Our bill was delivered; it was $14, for 7 beers. Our amazement at the low cost drew y...

Andrew and I returned to Pennsylvania on Saturday, October 27, to begin preparing for the big day. Foolishly, we thought we’d spend much of the time packing up our voluminous belongings that keep building in the attic to prepare for the big move West in the next couple of months; little did we know how much wedding work remained to be done. Really, for being more or less organized and staying more or less on top of things over the past few months, the sheer amount of things to do was staggering. Of course, a lot of the work was self-inflicted—like the multi-step process that went into assembling all the little details, including the escort cards, cookie name labels, guest hospitality bags, favors, ceremony programs. It took a small village, gathered around the kitchen table, to get it all done. But it was all worthwhile—things turned out beautifully. My birthday fell amidst all the craziness; I was surprised anyone remembered it at all. Indeed, Andrew baked me a cake, seizing a rare mi...

So much to catch up on! It’s been a whirlwind two weeks, and now, back to real life, it’s hard to believe it’s all over—the planning, the wedding, the honeymoon. All of these months of details and ideas and errands led up to an absolutely perfect event. On to married life now. My husband (!!) and I are both back at work; and we’ll move this week to our new apartment. In the meantime, I’ll work on catching up on my blog…

I came across this Letter to the Editor in the Times yesterday, and wanted to share it. As the writer says, this event is absurd in a way that seems somehow particularly California. Here's the letter, copied from the Times website: To the Editor: It was evening of the third day of fires whipped by the infamous Santa Ana winds. It felt like sunset on another planet as I saw a truck drive slowly by with a driver staring up at the palm tree in our front yard. Later, there was a knock on the door. I answered. It was the truck driver. He offered to buy the palm tree in our front yard. There was an eerie silence as I stood there in the orange smoky haze, ashes falling like snow on Mercury, and blinked two or maybe three times. By motivation, this had absolutely nothing to do with the fire — it just seemed like something that would happen in Southern California. As I quietly closed the door, I thought about Joan Didion; she would understand this. Tom Impelluso San Diego, Oct. 24, 2007