Beccarama

My Cinderella Story

Posted in life in nyc, Travel, tagged Cinderella Castle, Fantasyland, marriage, Walt Disney World Resort on October 17, 2012 | 7 Comments »

Today is my fourteenth anniversary.  My husband and I have been married for 14 years, together for 19 years, and met each other almost 21 years ago.  It sounds crazy when I think about it in terms of numbers and actual time.

We stopped buying anniversary gifts for each other years ago.  We’d rather spend the money on a shared experience – an amazing dinner or a trip without the kids.  And truth be told, gifts are not the strong point of our relationship – except for one that I was reminded of this morning when I was at a Disney Parks event celebrating the opening of the newly redone Fantasyland and they gave us a Mickey Mouse watch as a parting gift.

The first time I went to Disney World I was 6 years old.  I loved it.  I was a Disney kid – and since this was before VCRs, my experience with Disney was in the movie theater.  When there was a rerelease of classic Disney films we were there.   Disney world was only 7 years old when I visited, having just opened in 1971. So, in many ways it was a brand new kind of place for everyone who visited, but for a 6-year-old, movie addict girl, walking through Cinderella’s Castle was truly a magical experience.

I can tell you exactly what I bought as souvenirs that first time at Disney World: A Snow White figurine, a mug with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves painted on it, and a Cinderella watch.  The first two items traveled with me from home to home my whole life and now are displayed in my daughters’ room.  The last item, the watch, which I irrationally loved, was stolen by a housekeeper who also stole real jewelry from my mom and our bathroom rugs.  True story.

My Disney figurine collection grew over the years since I was lucky enough to return to Disney World many, many times.  Yes, we were/are one of those Disney-fan families.  But, I never got over the loss of that watch.  It had way too much sentimental value, and was the earliest thing I can remember truly appreciating owning.

I told this story to my husband pretty early on in our relationship.  I don’t even know how it came up. He was probably horrified that I still had my figurine collection (not displayed – I wasn’t that bizarre) and I was trying to explain why Disney was meaningful to me.  I never got over losing that watch.  And I never replaced it because they just weren’t the same.

Then one day my husband (who was not my husband yet) presented me with a gift for our dating anniversary.   And there it was, my Cinderella watch.

How did he find it? Well, a little start-up called Ebay made it all possible.  And while it’s not MY watch (mine had a light blue band) it is the SAME watch.  The mid-70′s Cinderella watch that I loved and lost.

So it was so fitting that I started my anniversary day celebrating the relaunch of Fantasyland at Disney World with the Disney Parks people, and will end my day having dinner out with my husband who remembered a tiny thing I mentioned in passing and made it into the best, most romantic gift ever.

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Pregnant Road Trip – Swollen Feet and a Really Good Audiobook…

Posted in pregnancy, Travel, United States, tagged detroit, Gillian Flynn, maternity monday, Pregnancy, Road trip on August 27, 2012 | 2 Comments »

Interstate 80 – Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Dougtone)

This is a Maternity Monday post by guest blogger Jess Levey.  This series appears every Monday on Beccarama.

Well, there is one thing I am sure that I will not do again while pregnant – drive 22 hours roundtrip in a car. Last week, my husband and I made the 11 hour journey to Detroit to see my extended family and to celebrate my Grandmother’s 95th birthday. We figured it would be a fun adventure and would help our depleting bank account. I have been traveling to Detroit every year since I was 3 months old, but this was only the second time that I decided to make the trip via the open road rather than the speedy skies. My husband thought it was great fun! I, on the other hand, was a bit uncomfortable to say the least. With the seat belt simultaneously pushing against both my seemingly always full bladder and my sensitive chest as well as my new found nausea, my aching tailbone, and my inability to find a desirable air temperature, I was pretty unhappy. And, then to top it all off, I noticed when we arrived at our hotel that my feet had begun to swell, REALLY swell! And, since that trip they have yet to be normal. Along with the swelling feet is a strange sharp shooting pain whenever I twist and flex my left foot. So, I am taking my doctor dad’s advice and am not twisting and flexing that foot, although it’s hard not to! Why is it that we always want to put ourselves in agony by checking if that annoying pain is still there even though we are pretty damn sure of it’s existence?

So, onto happier things. The one thing that kept me a bit content during this grueling car trip was the fact that I had just finally started to feel the baby move! I basically just sat in the passenger seat waiting and waiting for it to move again. The movements were rare (but are much more frequent this week!) unless I was driving. It seemed that when it was my turn to drive the baby would dance in delight. I take this to mean that baby already knows who the better driver is in our family ☺, or maybe it’s because I am more relaxed as a driver rather than as a passenger (or more relaxed when I am controlling the situation, eek!) When I was the one driving, I also didn’t endure many of my aches and pains, must be a better position for me to sit in or maybe just focusing on driving took me out of my body enough to actually enjoy myself. Only problem is that I am what you might call a carcoleptic, I fall asleep pretty quickly as a passenger, and get , tired as a driver. What kept me awake, aside from the jumping jacks in my womb, was the awesome audio tape that we listened to – Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. WOW!! That book is sensational. I highly recommend it for any long trips, but we would have been better off driving to the Pacific Coast since even after driving for 22 hours, we got home and still had 27 chapters left! We had to sit in our living room over a couple of nights and just listen to this amazing book, so we could find out how it ended.

I have to thank my Aunt M for that recommendation because listening to that piece of amazing fiction made our road trip much more enjoyable and bearable. I am shocked that I am only 5 months along and am already dealing with discomfort. I thought the second trimester was supposed to be the honeymoon period! Yesterday, I was up on a tall ladder pulling books from our ceiling molding (it’s the only place where we can fit my sentimental book collection) so that I could sell many of them at spontaneous stoop sale (sold 50!). I was feeling so proud of myself, and also feeling physically fit and strong. But, by the end of the day, my feet had blown up, I had to cancel plans to go to a friend’s outdoor party in the city, and I passed out on the couch at 7pm. I guess I just can’t do that much anymore, and it’s only going to get harder, especially since tomorrow is my first day back at work which entails standing for long periods of time teaching and/or photographing. We will see how that goes, in the meantime, I am keeping my feet up and enjoying the baby’s reassurance that relaxing is the best position there is.

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Dream Cruising in Michigan: Classic Cars Hit the Road

Posted in Travel, wordless wednesday, tagged americana, Bloomfield Hills Michigan, Classic car, detroit, Dream Cruise, photography, Woodward Dream Cruise on August 22, 2012 | 1 Comment »

This past weekend was the Dream Cruise, an annual drive along Woodward Avenue starting just outside Detroit and heading north.  We drove the route from around 18 mile road (Long Lake Rd) in Bloomfield Hills down to 9 Mile Road, ending in Ferndale with dinner at Local Kitchen and Bar, a new restaurant.

Here’s a glimpse into the cars we saw, parading down Woodward just for the fun of it.

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Maine and Camp Visiting Day (lobster and lots of hugs)

Posted in Travel, United States, US, tagged GMC Terrain, Maine, summer camp, travel on August 1, 2012 | 4 Comments »

For the second year in a row my daughters headed to Maine for overnight camp for seven weeks.  If you gasped at that number 7 I am guessing you were not a camper- me neither.  But, my husband was a serial camper, starting at 4 weeks when he was 7 and then 8 weeks when he was 8.  And he never looked back.  To him, summer meant, and still means, only one thing – camp.  My daughters put on their bravest smiles and boarded the bus last year bound for Maine, and we held our breath.  Luckily, they inherited the camp gene.

This year, they are veterans.  They knew exactly what they wanted to master – long rope water skiing – and what they needed to pack that wasn’t on the official packing list – school spirit attire, jean shorts, neon socks (that’s a big deal at a uniform camp like theirs.)  But, seven weeks is still seven weeks.  They are only 10, and homesickness is bound to sneak in, especially when it rains for a few days in a row like it did their first week this summer.

So, visiting day is this wonderfully bittersweet break right in the middle.  The girls are settled in and have found their groove.  We’ve adjusted to the quiet, to the empty fridge, to the laundry and dishes that barely need to be done – and gotten spoiled by the unfamiliar absence of needing to find a babysitter in order to go out to dinner, or a movie, or anything!  But, I have to admit, I barely slept the week before visiting day because I was so excited to see them, and anxious to see – were they really having a good time?  Did they make friends?  Do they seem content?  You just never know.  And, I should add here that my daughters’ camp does not share pictures.  For this I am eternally grateful.  There is also no electricity in the bunks, no tech allowed at all at camp, and an adherence to old-fashioned camping skills – canoeing is required, marksmanship and archery are taken very seriously, and it’s all girls.

We don’t own a car, but I was incredibly fortunate to have a car-fairy godmother in the form of the wonderful people at General Motors!  They lent us this outrageously fabulous GMC Terrain for our trip.  My Super was outside hosing down the sidewalk when we were loading the car and now, a week later, he still can’t stop asking me about that Terrain.  First I have to mention that my husband grew up right outside Detroit.  My whole family is from Detroit, and I was born there.  So, we had an extra hefty dose of happiness driving this American Beauty.

I’m a tech girl, not a car girl – though I realize these things are not at all mutually exclusive – and the Terrain did not disappoint.  Pure joy for me was plugging my fully audiobook-loaded iPod into the mp3 outlet and having it show up in the in-dash screen.   Plus it had Pandora and Sirius and bluetooth sync and all sorts of fun tech buttons and menus to play around with on our drive.  The hours to Maine flew by.

Our audiobook for the trip?  Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard.  I will review that in another post, but if you also know nothing about James Garfield, his assassination, the role of Dr. Lister and Alexander Graham Bell, and the origins of pleading insanity as a defense – read it!  This is an unbelievable part of American history.

And so to Maine we went.  We made an unplanned pit stop for lunch near New Haven at Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, not knowing that it was a famous pizza joint.  Worth the drive alone.  Check out the ginormous brick ovens that must go 30 feet deep.  The pizza was spectacular, but next time I’m getting the clam pizza instead of the tomato.

When we arrived in Maine we headed to…Target.  When a city girl leaves the city it’s really not for salty fresh air and trees, it’s for big, beautiful Target!   Stocked up on supposedly forbidden visiting day candy, toiletries that actually needed replenishing after 4 weeks at camp (only toothpaste by the way – the soap, barely