Soup is good for the soul, especially when others benefit as well

I know not everyone who reads this is in New York City but I received this press release today and I really liked the idea and wanted to spread the word.

Every year, New York City hosts Restaurant Week, where a bunch of high-end restaurants reduce the prices on prix-fixe lunches and dinners giving "regular" people a chance to dine in places they normally wouldn't. It's very hard to get reservations and I've never been able to take advantage of any of the promotions.

This year for the first time ever Restaurant Week is coming to New Yorkers, through the Restaurant Week Truck. The truck, which will park at three locations throughout Restaurant Week (actually two weeks) will be serving gourmet soups provided by 24 different eateries. The soups are priced at $6, which isn't really very much for anybody who normally buys soup in the city.

But while I think the soup truck is a great idea, what I like the best is that $1 from each soup sold will be donated to The Haiti Relief Fund at the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City. So you're not only getting that nice warm feeling from hot soup threading its way through your tummy, but from knowing that you're also helping someone who really needs help.

The NYC Restaurant Truck will feature two to three soups each day from NYC Restaurant Week participants. On top of 19 other soups, the menu will offer such selections as lobster bisque from Blue Water Grill, roaster butternut squash soup from Charlie Palmer's Metrazur, Mexhattan clam chowder from Dos Caminos Park, tomato and fennel soup from Tribeca Grill, and coconut and galangal soup with organic chicken and straw mushrooms from Kittichai. All soup cost $6 and come with bread from Tom Cat Bakery.

Coca-Cola will also offer free sample drinks on select days over the two weeks.

The soup truck begins its schedule on Monday, January 25. The truck will first cater to patrons in Midtown, on Broadway between 50th and 51st Streets. It will be parked there each day from 11 am to 2 pm, Jan. 25 to 29.

From Feb. 1 to 3, the truck will be parked in the Flatiron District, on Fifth Ave. between 18th and 19th Streets. Also, 11 am to 2 pm.

Folks in Tribeca can visit the truck on Feb. 4 and 5. They'll find the truck from 11 am to 2 pm on Greenwich St. between Warren and Murray Streets.

One nice photo from Anguilla

There was one other nice thing that came out of my trip to Anguilla. I took a really great photograph of a tree lizard.

I know that sounds pretty lame, but I felt like I had taken a great nature shot that could rival most any nature photo you've ever seen of a lizard.

I submitted it for critique on some photo Web site, got lots of great comments and the photo was selected for inclusion in the site's annual published photo book. Well, it was selected along with about 1,000 others and really the published photo book is the site trying to make money by selling the books to the photographers whose photos are included -- but I still think it's pretty cool. Come on, tell me this isn't a nice picture!

Caribbean Memories - Anguilla

The second Caribbean island I ever visited was Anguilla. I went as part of a travel agent FAM trip -- I was the only non travel agent in the group (other than the PR folks leading the trip).

The FAM (which is short for familiarization) was billed as the ultimate luxury trip, including a stay at a luxury resort, with fantastic meals and all sorts of high-end experiences. I believe they even valued the trip at $20,000 per person, or something like that. Basically the kind of FAM that sounds like a dream come true. I practically begged my editor to let me go when I received my invitation. I wish I hadn't.

My first impression of Anguilla was... blah. It's not a particularly attractive island from the interior. Lots of scraggly brush areas, kind of brownish, and really not much to see. There are no rolling hills, no stretches of green. But then, no one is coming to Anguilla for the interior of the island. They're coming for the beaches. And the beaches are beautiful. White sand beaches, turquoise water -- very pretty.

We stayed at a well-known resort called Cap Jaluca. It's a luxury property that has attracted the likes of Paris Hilton. Accommodations are spread throughout several villa buildings, each building having two to four "rooms."

The group of us were distributed among the varying room categories. One agent and I were given villa rooms. My villa room included: a full-size kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom, balcony, small enclosed patio (which I could never get to because the door wouldn't open), bathroom, changing room, and private pool with large patio. It was enormous, well at least for just one person it was pretty big.

I found being in that "room" very lonely. There was too much space for one person to occupy and so it always felt empty in there. I did however take advantage of my private, enclosed pool to go skinny dipping a couple of times as I had not brought a bathing suit with me. I enjoyed that, but wished my husband could've been with me.

The resort was OK in my mind, but doesn't really offer anything to do beyond relaxing on the beach. There are only two restaurants, a small gym and a tiny spa, though to be fair they usually do massages in your room or on the patio's outside the rooms. We were all given a half an hour massage (part of the luxury aspect of the FAM). I traded my massage for a spa pedicure, which was very well done and lasted quite a while. All the agents told me they loved their massages.

My favorite aspect of Cap Jaluca -- the golf carts that all guests are allowed to drive around. I definitely had fun putting pedal to the metal on those things and seeing how fast I could take the curves with them. I don't think they ever went faster than 10 or 15 miles per hour, no matter how hard I pressed the pedals.

There are also two boutiques at the resort, with everything way overpriced. And they had two small library rooms with computers with free Internet.

We only ate at one of the resort's two restaurants. They do have a very nice beach barbecue, which normally costs $75 per person -- a bit pricey for what you get, if you ask me.

Actually, everything on Anguilla is pricey. Even the most moderately priced resorts were still at least $200 a night. In those rooms, you usually get a kitchenette, so I suppose you could save money by doing some light cooking.

There are no all-inclusives on Anguilla. Some of the resort's included breakfast, some did not. Some included Internet, some did not. One of the more moderate resorts offered free laundry.

But really what Anguilla seemed to offer were the four- and five-star resorts. One, CuisinArt Resort & Spa has the nicest spa I have ever seen in my life!!

The other accommodation option on Anguilla are the exclusive villa resorts. each with a small number of extravagant villas that fit four to 12 guests. These villas typically cost $12,000 and up per night.

But these are dream villas -- multiple bedrooms; private theater rooms; activities rooms with billiards, ping pong and more; gyms; meditation areas; gorgeous dining rooms; private pools and private beaches; multiple Jacuzzis; and more. We saw one amazing villa that Beyonce and Jay-Z have vacationed in -- they were that nice!

These places were the only properties I saw that I could imagine coming back to Anguilla for -- not that I'll ever be able to afford them. But if I could, I can imagine that it's very nice to come with a large group of friends or extended family and spend a week or more there.

We saw other nice resort properties, but all are so expensive and include nothing but the room. Somehow it always just seemed so extravagant to me and I could find no value in any of it. But then I don't make a lot of money so maybe someone who is making half a million dollars a year sees it differently. Certainly to the travel agents I was with, these properties represented significant income for them if they could sell them to their affluent clients.

We had some nice meals on Anguilla as well. Most of the restaurants say they offer the best fine dining and some of them did offer very good meals, but my favorite meal was actually at a private restaurant off property. Truly delicious food.

Overall I did not enjoy my stay on Anguilla. The luxury FAM I had been expecting was really mostly time spent going from property to property for tours in the hot sun. The only luxury we experienced were the resort we stayed at, the meals we ate, one half-hour spa treatment and a half-day speed boat tour of the island, which included a stop at a restaurant on a secluded cove. The restaurant is owned by a local character whose name escapes me now. Guests have two choices - crayfish or chicken, there is no vegetarian option. I don't know if the drinks were included in the $75 price tag or not. I guess the food was good -- all of us who had chicken thought the meal was okay, but those who had the crayfish really liked it. The best part of the time there was wading in the light waves on the small beach and talking to the owner who really is a character.

I was also lonely most of the time on this trip. I don't know if it was something going on in my life at that moment, or if it really was the trip or the island itself, but even though I talked to the others and socialized, I felt extremely lonely the whole time.

I think it was partly because the island is sooo expensive and I couldn't even begin to relate to the kind of people who must come there. I probably felt out of place a lot. And it was exhausting going from one resort to another all day long.

I doubt I'll ever go back to Anguilla again. Unless I win mega-millions and decide to rent a villa there someday there is nothing on that island for me. I leave it to Beyonce and Jay-Z, may they enjoy it to their heart's content.

Book Review: Get Out or Die

First of all this is not really your normal book review, but more an exploration of my reactions to this book. I will say I liked the book; it kept me interested though I figured out who the "killer" was on about page 100 or so (its a 348 page book).

I'll give you a brief summary. Aurelia Marcella is a Roman citizen living in Roman Britain in 91 A.D. She is an innkeeper. At the start of the book two Romans are found with their heads cut off, having been brutally beaten, with a tablet pinned to their clothes that says "Get Out or Die." These are the first in a string of brutal murders. When one of the targeted victims is found on her inn's doorsteps, having survived the attack on him, Aurelia takes him in and inadvertently gets involved. As it turns out, there is a rebellion brewing. A group of native Britains want to take their country back from the conquering Romans and they're using scare tactics, including almost daily murders, to do it. The leader of the rebellion is someone she knows, but she must figure out who before she becomes the next victim.

Aurelia is an engaging character and its definitely interesting getting a glimpse at life in the early days of Roman Britain. The identity of the leader was fairly obvious early on, but I enjoyed finding proof throughout the novel that I was right.

But what I found particularly interesting while reading this book was my reactions to it. For most of the book, I was rooting for the rebellion. Of course I didn't want Aurelia or her family and friends to be killed, because I did like them, I wanted the rebels to get their land back. At least half the population in this fictional world were British slaves to Romans who had moved in to the area less than 20 years prior to the time the novel was set. There were also free Britains and even a few who had been granted Roman citizienship, but most were slaves.

Almost all of the people who worked at Aurelia's inn were slaves. The author of the novel, Jane Finnis, does not spend any time exploring the lives of these characters. From what I could tell they lived fairly free-ish lives but based on what I read in this book I have no idea if they had their own families, if they were allowed to marry, what kind of living conditions they were given, etc.

But it almost doesn't matter. They were slaves. One minute they were free people, the next the Romans showed up, "captured" them and sold them as slaves. And throughout the books, that's simply taken as a given, as the way the world is. Even Aurelia doesn't question it or care, that's just not part of her character.

Well, it's part of mine. I object fiercely to the idea of slavery and the idea of conquerering. And I want to see the slavers and the conquerers defeated. And in the case of this book, that's the Romans, which includes Aurelia.

So, on the one hand I don't want Aurelia to be killed but on the other I want the rebels to win.

To a certain extend I think Finnis deals with this by giving a slight twist to who the leader of the rebellion is and what that person's motivations are. He's not really looking out for the best interest of the rebels, just using their unhappiness and hatred to his advantage. So of course in the end I do want him to be caught and punished.

But I was definitely not happy that the rebellion was simply broken and that the Romans get to continue their life just as before. Even Aurelia doesn't "learn" anything from her experience with the rebels.

I think its important to note that I read this book shortly after seeing the movie "Avatar," which is about people from Earth invading a planet that has mineral resources that Earth wants/needs. Because the Earth people don't understand the natives, they treat them as "less than human," as vermin who need to be exterminated. Of course there are a few exceptions -- i.e. the scientists who are trying to act as a go between while learning about the planet and the people. But in the end, the way the soldiers want to do it (wipe 'em all out) is the way the mining expedition goes and hundreds of the native people's are killed. In this movie, Earth people are the enemy and the natives are the good guys -- it's a classis nature versus industrial industry story (other examples: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings).

Also, I think its important that I'm American, and the author of this novel is British. American comes from a rebellion, and we have slavery in our past -- something most of us (the better part of us) have been taught is most definitely wrong in every way. As Americans I've always felt we have a tendency to root for the underdog (although as a society we've become invaders now), so its unsurprising that I'd root for the underdog rebels in "Get Out or Die."

It was an interesting experience reading a book during which I was simultaneously rooting for both the protagonist and the rebellion (though not the main antagonist).

I'm curious what kind of reactions people from outside of the U.S. have to this book, other British people especially since it was most likely written with them in mind. I'm curious to know if other Americans had similar reactions to me.

Anybody else out there ever read this book? What did you think?

Out of practice

Two days ago I opened the document containing my work-in-progress novel for the first time in over a month. I was terrified to do it. It's like an old flame you've never quite gotten over and you're going to be seeing again after a long time apart. I missed my novel desperately, but what if after all this time I don't like it anymore? More important, what if it doesn't like me? What if no words come?

I won't lie. My first day, I barely wrote anything new. I re-read the most recently written chapter to catch myself up again, looked over my outline, made some changes and then wrote a whopping half a page!

And it was hard! Getting those ten or eleven sentences out was like pulling teeth. The words were slow to come and felt clumsy. My story seemed unfamiliar.

It took me a half hour to write that half page and so I had to stop and get to work. But in spite of how difficult it had been, I was proud of my few sentences. They were the first of the new year and proof that I can fit writing my novel into my life.

The next day I wasn't so nervous opening the file. Oh maybe there were a couple of butterflies flitting about inside me, but I felt much more prepared to tackle the challenge of my story. The characters felt more familiar to me. The words flowed a little more easily. Of course I didn't do too much more than half a page again, but it felt better.

I couldn't write today because of work (that'll be true every Thursday) but I can't wait for tomorrow morning when I can keep going. My story is back in my mind and I can't wait to get it out on paper.

Walkabout

Two blog entries ago I mentioned that it was in the Bahamas that I first truly realized the possibility of going on Walkabout. And I said I would blog a little more about the concept.

Walkabout is an Aboriginal concept. Most sources say it was a rite of passage for adolescent boys who went out into the desert for a certain period of time. During their time in the desert they follow their tribe's songlines through the desert, seeking their own strengths and weaknesses. I've also read in some places that older men also occassionally went, or go, on Walkabout when they feel an urge to do so.

I first heard about the concept of Walkabout on an episode of Babylon 5 where the station's doctor leaves his job and home and goes on Walkabout in an area of the space station that is considered dangerous. He is seeking himself, literally, and resolves to stay on Walkabout until he meets himself. He walks and walks until eventually he does meet himself, and even fights himself. Afterwards he has had an epiphany about who he is and what he wants out of life. He returns to his daily life, more fulfilled.

Though the Babylon 5 episode takes the Walkabout concept completely literally (the doctor literally meets another version of himself), on a symbolic level, when someone goes on Walkabout they are seeking themselves. Who they are, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, what they are capable of during hardship, when they must throw in their cards... and you stay on Walkabout until you meet yourself.

That concept has stayed with me since I first saw the Babylon 5 episode. The idea of leaving everything behind and setting out into the desert, the wild open world, and just walking until I met myself resonated with me.

Then when I first began planning my travel abroad, the idea of going on Walkabout began to insinuate itself into my thoughts. Once I realized that leaving for six or nine or even 12 months wasn't actually that much different than leaving for three months, in terms of job searching when I came back, going on Walkabout began to seem possible.

It wasn't long before I began referring to my upcoming journey as my Walkabout. I was going out into the big, scary world, without my usual support structure, and I was going to meet myself -- whoever that was.

It was terrifying really. Not just the thought of going out into the world alone and facing who knows what, but also the thought of meeting myself. What if I didn't like who I met? What if I was weak and incapable of being on my own? What if I failed altogether and didn't discover anything about myself? What if I came home exactly the same as when I left?

It would take a book to explore what I learned about myself on Walkabout, but learn I did. I believe I learned more about myself in the nine months I spent traveling than in the 30-something years prior. It wasn't an easy process. It wasn't pain-free, but it was totally worth it.

Have you ever thought about picking up and leaving? Would you ever consider going on Walkabout, walking until you met yourself?

New Year's Gratitudes & Resolutions

Though it's already the third day of the new year I figure the best way to start my new year off, as well as my blogging for this year, with a list of all the things, people and events I'm grateful for from 2009, plus a list of my resolutions for 2010.

Gratitudes

Though I believe that 2009 was a tough year for so many people, including my husband and I, I also believe that many things happened for which all of us can be grateful.


For the year 2009, I am grateful for:


I am grateful my neice being born healthy and beautiful in September of.

I am grateful for getting to go to South Africa (in May) and see zebras, giraffes and other African animals in their home environments.

I am grateful for being freed of my oppressive job environment in July, and getting a new job in November, one that I truly believe has the potential to be a great job.

I am grateful for helping my husband achieve the first part of his Big Dream, seeing AC Milan play against Inter Milan, in July.

I am grateful for building a stronger relationship with my sister throughout 2009.

I am grateful for my husband getting a job in June, after too many months of unemployment, one that gives him the opportunity to make a lot of money -- enough to run off to Romania for just a weekend in August!

I am grateful for all the progress I made on my novel in 2009, going from page 0 to more than 120 pages.

I am grateful for celebrating my grandmother's 90th birthday with her in August.

I am grateful for starting this blog in August.

I am grateful for going to Epcot Center with my husband, sharing a taste of Disney with him, in March.

Resolutions

Awhile back I blogged about all those things we always say we wish we did, all the things we believe would enrich our lives and I vowed to try and add more of them to my life. Well, as usual I didn't. There's always a reason why, time and finances being the main culprits. Well, a new year is a great time to make resolutions about the things we'll do differently in the coming year. I've never really used the opportunity the new year presents, other than to casually say to myself "this year I will do such and such" but not really meaning it, not really taking it seriously. This year I'm doing it differently. Within each part of my life, I want to achieve certain goals. And at the end of the year, I want to look back and see how I did.

Writing Resolutions

I resolve to finish the first draft of my novel in 2010.

I resolve to write at least two short stories of 10,000 words or less in 2010.

I resolve to write at least five flash fiction stories of 500 words or less.

I resolve to blog at least three times a week for the entire year.

Work Resolutions

I resolve to write at least one article a month I am truly proud of and that I will feel totally comfortable entering into competition.

I resolve to continue to build my reputation and my personal relationships with people within the industry.

Life Resolutions

I resolve to continue to build my relationship with my sister.

I resolve to be a better friend -- to stay in touch more often and to see my friends more often.

I resolve to write at least one letter a month to friends who live further away.

I resolve to take at least 4 vacations of 3 nights or more.

Financial Resolutions

I resolve to build all of my vacation funds.

I resolve to get a real start on my retirement savings.