It's the Holiday Season.

We have a bottle of Royal's Champagne. Or we did.
I'll have to check with H on that.  

The holiday season is upon us. Someone at work mentioned how happy they were that people were telling them Merry Christmas! at the end of phone calls instead of Happy Holidays!, which made me think of something. When has any one person said to another, Seasons Greetings! I guess that ended up as a saying corporations used in emails and newsletters to employees and clients so as not to offend their sensible natures.

At any rate, that means it's time for eggnog! Do you happen to know where the best eggnog in the world lives? Braums. That glorious thick, rich, spiced nog. One day at lunchtime I opened up my maps app and searched for that establishment. Turns out the closest one is two hours away from my house. What a disaster. So what's a Chuck to do in such a predicament?

Eggnog Taste Test. I do learn from the best, and this particular idea comes from my dad. You need to have tiny paper cups, multiple options, and most importantly, you need to make it a blind taste test.

The Setup. 

I picked 8 nogs of different brand and price value, and brought them to work for a proper sample size. Each eggnog was given a different number, people sampled the wares, and a consensus was reached.

The Results. 

Two of my coworkers had never, ever, ever had eggnog. I believe after this experiment, they have been converted. If you look closely, eggnog #2 (Anderson Erickson Classic) was the clear winner with eight out of fourteen votes (that's over 57%, which is positively presidential). If you look even closer, you'll see that one of the nogs was produced by Silk, that soymilk brand. And yes, I was laughing maniacally on the inside while everyone tried this variety. My personal favorite was undecided; I couldn't pick between #2 and #8. Both were of similar consistency, spice, and sweetness. Although, I suppose #2 did have a je ne se qua, a certain richness the others didn't. So in the end, #2 wins.

The Leftovers. 

Now that I knew which was my favorite, I didn't bloody well need eight kinds of eggnog roaming around my fridge at home. I asked people to take their favorite, then I put these two noggins in the fridge for the night crew. And they were never seen again.

Oh! I forgot to mention - I brought pretzels to have as palate cleansers in between the samples. The salt and relative cracker-ness of the snack worked incredibly well to ensure accurate tasting. These were my sorbets, if you will.

The In-Betweens. 

We were lucky enough to attend the Royals' Front Office Christmas Party this past Thursday. The event was held at a hotel near the Plaza, and it was quite lovely. There were a few speeches by the owner, general manager, and manager, followed by a buffet-style dinner.

The tablescape. 

I almost sat down at the Reserved table - turns out that's where the owner and family sit. Luckily, H noticed and directed me to an open table. I still think I could've taken a centerpiece home without anyone noticing.

Our view over the Plaza.

Just sittin' in a sleigh. 

This design was in the lower floor of the hotel. We captured this gem on our way out of the building, with no one around to stop us. As I went to sit down on the "bench", I realized this sleigh wasn't actually meant for sitting on, and had to pop a squat to get this picture. A million times worth it.

I hope every single one of you enjoy your time off from work, your family, and your friends. See you all in the new year!

Game 5.

On our way back from lower Manhattan, we happened to run into some of H's coworkers a block or so from the hotel. They asked if we had seen the newest email from the front office - there was a flight going out to Kansas City tonight, but they opened up a second flight leaving very early Monday morning. We thanked them and continued our way back to the hotel, deciding I would leave tonight since I had to be at work in the morning and H would fly out on the second plane. The only issue was that the folks heading out on the flight tonight would be leaving right after the game, and my luggage (which we packed up that morning) would be going out on H's flight.

Cue dramatic music.

    IN A WORLD

Open with shots of the streets of New York.

    WHERE ONE WOMAN

Closeup of heroine's forlorn face.  

    WITH ONLY THE CLOTHES ON HER BACK

Zoom out to show sleek Royals outfit.

    SURVIVES A DAY

Fade to black.

    WITHOUT HER STUFF

Framed shot of heroine slow-motion running through an empty Times Square. 

I was actually kind of glad that I wouldn't have to look for the luggage when we landed back in KC. All I had to keep track of was my sweet, yellow, cross-body purse.

We went back to the hotel's restaurant and ordered an appetizer to tide us over until the ballgame. What they ended up serving us was something of a cross between a sushi tower and nachos. It was a cylindrical form with a bean base, diced onion, salmon tartare, smashed avocado and lime juice top, drizzled with a soy sauce glaze, and a handful of tortilla chips on the side. Yes, that was a soy sauce glaze. Some things New York just doesn't get right.

We hopped on our bus and traveled the seven or so miles to the ballpark. Directly behind us were two girls who I'd say were between the ages of twelve and fifteen - probably related to some incredibly important front office person - discussing the woes of the eighth grade. Oh, to have your biggest worry be using FOIL in Algebra, or having to decide which foreign language to take, or wonder why boys are such an annoying pain in the butt. That actually sounds pretty chill - I wouldn't mind being back in eighth grade myself.

When we got to the stadium it was still fairly early; we had about an hour to walk around before the big show began. On our last trip around the stadium, I had spotted a booth selling Lobster Nachos and it was stuck in my brain. H was down for some crazy ballpark food, so we sidled up to the booth and looked at the description. White corn tortilla chips topped with jalapenos, black beans, pepper jack cheese sauce, mango salsa, and chunks of lobster.

This is what it looked like on its first day in the big leagues. 

If I could have gotten all of that in one bite, I'm guessing it would be amazing. What I ended up with was some bites of cheesy tortilla chips, and me having to chase down the other additions with a fork. Would I get it again? Yes, on the one condition that the culinary staff had all day to prepare it and weren't just slapping some cheese on top for the masses. I'm probably being too harsh on it (it is, after all, baseball food), but dangnabbit, I have standards!

We finished munching on nachos just as the game began. Unlike H, I can't remember every out or scoring chance. I just remember having a very good feeling about the players, and that it could very possibly be the night they could win it all. The Mets' starting pitcher Matt Harvey works his way in to pitching the ninth inning. Mets fans thought this would be the stop they needed to get the series back to Kansas City - they loudly cheered his return to the mound. I remember him walking off the field amidst my section of raucous fans whooping, clapping, and possibly yelling some obscenities. I remember scoring in the top of the twelfth inning, feeling like we were just about to reach the top of Mount Everest if we could just make it through their last three guys. H grabbed his phone when it came down to the last batter, opened up his Facetime app and called his younger brother.

It all happened so fast from there. We were cheering and hugging, high fiving random people, walking around to the sections closer to home plate. At one point I was standing next to Johnny Cueto's twin-like brother (someone please teach me how to take a discreet selfie). A few minutes later, H was told he could be with the players in the locker room for the coveted champagne showers. I told him to get himself over there and I'd be fine up here with the remaining KC fans - there were at least one hundred fans (maybe even two hundred) that stayed for the next couple hours.

I wandered around until I learned where the access point to getting on the field was. A man in a security jacket was waving through people with wristbands and turning away those without. I flashed him my golden ticket and stepped past a group of guys trying to talk their way in. Now I was directly behind home plate (I could've sat in one of those fancy-shmancy plush leather chairs, but I didn't have time for games), and making my way towards the gate that separated the seats from the field. One of H's coworkers saw me and flagged me down - he said H should be done soon, and that he'd be waiting for us on the field. We showed our wristbands once again to the security guard on the field, and then magically, we were walking on major league ground.

Players had emerged from their tunnels, and it must've been somebody's birthday because the fans were singing Happy Birthday on loop. There were television and radio reporters interviewing players and coaches, there were families and tiny children running the bases. One thing I can still feel is the crunch of the "dirt" they use to denote basepaths. I thought it would be a mix of clay and dirt with that signature copper color, but it was actually comprised of hard, manufactured chips (possibly made of plastic, I can't be sure), and underneath those was that dusty dirt.

I found H with the rest of his coworkers and gave him a congratulatory hug. He smelled as though a wet dog had taken a bath in wine, and apologized for being essentially soaked through. Off to our right was the MLB Channel's setup, with Salvie and Ned Yost just chilling behind the announcers.

I made a point to congratulate anyone from the front office that I recognized. It felt like I was only on the field for five minutes when H's coworker checked his watch and said, "We better head over to the buses. They're leaving in a couple of minutes." Ever the clever one, H told me to go stand over there while he got a picture of me on the field.

I hugged H goodbye, told him to have as much fun as he could, and that I'd see him in Kansas City. As the coworker and I made our way to the buses, we couldn't stop smiling. We walked past a couple that was absolutely making out like no one was watching on a bench just outside the stadium, clapping as we went by. We hopped on the bus and talked about our favorite moments from the night. The buses roared to life and we were off to find our plane.

I thought we would be using LaGuardia, but we drove past it and onto a nearby empty tarmac. We stopped in front of a plane the size of Texas and filed onto the aircraft. We had assigned seating, but the person that I was supposed to fight over the armrest with never showed. The seatback in front of me had an embedded touchscreen and over forty different movies to choose from. It also had a navigation tab that showed the approximate location of the plane over the United States. Every five minutes a flight attendant would walk by with some sort of food item, but I was reserving my appetite for the main entrees they were going to serve.

As the plane took off, I figured it would only be appropriate to take a quick nap before the main course since it was approximately two in the morning. That quick nap turned into three-quarters of the flight. I was both upset because they didn't wake me for filet mignon and thankful that they didn't wake me because that's possibly the deepest sleep I'd gotten all week. I stayed awake long enough to consume a ginger ale and an oatmeal raisin cookie, then back to sleep I went. The next time I awoke we were grounded, and people were beginning to file off the plane. We had landed at Terminal A in the KCI airport, a bona fide vacant lot ninety-five percent of the year. H's coworker grabbed his luggage and was kind enough to give me a ride to the parking lot where H's car sat. I told him to go get some sleep, and he told me to do the same. I looked at the clock and saw that it was six in the morning.

I should go home and go to sleep.
If I go to sleep, I'll be taking a day off work.
If I take a day off work, that's one more day I can't be in Texas for Christmas.
I want to be in Texas for Christmas.
I should go to work.
How cool would it be to go to work after winning the World Series.
So incredibly cool.

And there you have it, folks. I made a quick pitstop at the house to grab food, grab my work badge, and make some coffee before heading out to work quite a bit early. I loved the feeling of walking into work with a set of World Series winning clothes, coffee in hand, and surprising my coworkers with my presence. Apparently everyone with ten brain cells reasoned I would be off that day, but boy did I show them what adrenaline can do for eight long hours. Luckily, I was able to leave somewhere between four and five in the afternoon (I honestly can't remember when I left - I believe it was dark outside?) and go pick up my husband from the baseball stadium he tends to work from on weekdays. I pulled up to the curb as he stuffed our luggage into the trunk of the car.

"How many hours of sleep did you get last night?" I asked him.
"Uh ... maybe four? Why?" he replied.
"I'm working off of three. Want to switch seats?"
"Yeah, you crazy person."

We trucked along back to the house, muscled up enough energy to bring our luggage inside the house and up the stairs to the bedroom, and went to bed. It may have been seven o'clock. Which, if you think about it, is eight o'clock New York time, and a perfectly respectable time to go to bed.

My husband is a badass. 

Remembrance.

I was struggling with trying to piece together our last day in New York activities with the last game of the World Series, but H suggested I make this its own post. I felt as though I may be diminishing these events by following it up with a celebratory yeehaw, so I've split up the two experiences.

We stopped for an early lunch at The Halal Guys cart to grab some gyros. We hadn't tried gyros before, but it'd be safe to say we are complete converts now. I got to the bottom of my gyro-filled naan wrap and had to make a very difficult decision - stuffed as I was, should I toss out the remaining ten bites of my lunch, or eat just munch on the inner layer of naan where the piping hot gyro meat had essentially seared the dough making it a crispy, crunchy delight? Come on, now. H gave me a sideways glance not unlike the face he makes when I lick the remaining crumbs off a dessert plate at home. We chunked the last food bits in a nearby trash can and triangulated the location of the nearest subway entrance two blocks over.

I've never been on a subway - I haven't lived in a city that's offered them (I don't think DART counts as a subway, just a railway system) - so this was an experience in itself for me. H negotiated with the older gentleman seated in the glass booth for a card with enough money for two roundtrip tickets. THe card was sort of like a super bendy library card with a swipe stripe. I think I still have ours somewhere in my suitcase, actually. We made our way down the thin steps to the station and waited for a while before realizing we probably just missed the train. The air was warm despite the cold aboveground, and it felt like I was breathing the same breath from a million people. I saw some benches a few feet down from us, and we started to walk over until we noticed a couple of guys were already seated on them and didn't look like they would be moving anytime soon. The train pulled up in no time, though, and we hopped on and easily found seats together.

At some point, H said there was no way I would be able to sleep on the train, what with all the stops and mechanical noise and all the people. Challenge accepted. I pulled my coat hood up and leaned my head on his shoulder. I was just at the point where recollection ends and unconsciousness begins when the train came to a stop and I unwittingly slid an entire foot away from his shoulder. I guess the person that was sitting to my left had gotten up because this was her stop, which allowed me to travel a respectable length of the bench as the train decelerated. H laughed at me, but I felt as though I'd proven my abilities. A few stops later and we had arrived at our destination.

One of the places I hoped we would visit on this trip was the World Trade Center Memorial. I wonder if that's an odd thing to admit - yes, I wanted to see Central Park, and I liked the feeling of being taller than NYC, but I really wanted to travel to the place where thousands had lost their lives. I suppose it's similar to wanting to visit Auschwitz (but obviously on a much smaller scale) - something about the incredible backwards thinking that led thousands or millions of innocent people to their deaths. A need to understand how the events unfolded as an attempt to understand why it happened. And I suppose for me, I needed to see it with my own eyes.

Walking up to the memorial you first notice the fountain, the loud sound of water rushing over stone both eerie and soothing. Droplets mist the names engraved around the perimeter of the structure. Oak trees were chosen for their varying leaf colors and were transplanted at varying  ages, so that as they grow none are identical.

To the left of the fountain is the entrance to the underground memorial. A long staircase leads to a hallway with photographs and audio on loop of witnesses relaying their first thoughts when they heard or saw the plane hit the tower. As we walked past these accounts I remember feeling like it was harder to breathe, as though I was moving through air thick with emotion and sadness and the premonition of what would happen.

Past the hallway was an overlook onto the ground floor of the structure.

The original concrete-embedded cable mounts for the World Trade Center. 

Taken from Ground Zero. Notes for loved ones, missing person pictures,
and a bouquet covered in dust that has since dried up. 

The antenna from the top of the World Trade Center, circled in the picture. 

While the larger objects in the memorial allow photography, much of the inner enclosed portion did not. Whether that is out of respect for families or for other reasons, I'm not sure, but I'm glad that they don't allow it. There was enough silently shocking material inside that taking photos of it would just be a distraction to everyone else inside.

In the center of each room would be artifacts from the morning, and timelines were posted along the walls with minute-to-minute events as they took place. Underneath the timelines were phones for visitors to listen to pieces of audio, including transmissions from the aircraft to towers, and phone calls from passengers to their loved ones. On the timeline would be the transcript of the message, and that alone was almost too much for me to handle. I couldn't listen to the audio. There were so many items left behind, so many items found by first responders, so much hope that a person would be alive just underneath this next piece of rubble. You feel heavy with the weight of all those lives. Somewhere in the timeline was the fact that this was the largest number of people successfully evacuated in the history of America.

There are many pieces of the memorial that stay with me. One of the final videos was taken by astronaut Frank Culbertson on the International Space Station. Underneath the video a sign tells us that his friend was the pilot on the flight that hit the Pentagon. There was a bike rack that had been preserved, dust and all, taken from a street marked with spray paint to "Save This". In the public part of the memorial, this wall created by an artist to resemble how blue the sky was in the hours before the attacks.

And after we had seen what we came to see, we take the escalator up to the hallway where the day began. We walk up the straight staircase bringing us back to ground level, and with every step I feel lighter somehow, as though I can breathe a little easier. We walk past the fountain, and this time it seems less frightening.

We hop on the subway taking us back to the hotel. We didn't talk to each other, we were still taking it all in, remembering the feeling. We stop on a stone bench on our way, just for a moment, because we have the time. I look up, and the sky is so intensely blue.