Born this way or learned behavior- the age-old debate.

I'm pretty sure I was born a beer drinker.  It wasn't simply a choice, It's in my blood. Many have tried to refine my taste by building a case for wine enthusiasts but it just never appealed to me. Not even my grandmother, who I brag is the Godfather of Napa, (due to her area knowledge & connections) nor living in Temecula (mini wine country) could get me to relinquish my beer drinker's card. I could feign interest in the belief that wine drinkers are simply superior beings, and pretend to be one of them, but I don't. I find beer drinkers much more worldly and interesting... I remember the look Trav gave me when I ordered Peroni with my Fettuccine Alfredo on one of our first dates at a nice Italian spot.. Is there a problem? Nice to meet you.

One could argue I am a product of my environment. I was born in Denver, Colorado so my Dad is a Coors Man. I remember him judging a camping spot by the size of the snow drift nearby which would soon be used to refrigerate his Coors for the duration of the trip. I could always tell my Dad's favorite t-shirts by the holes at the bottom where opening too many twist offs had taken their toll. We share the love of cooking and football but most importantly, we share the love of beer. 

But growing up, like most young people, I always knew there was something better out there for me. Of course everyone gets through college drinking whatever they can afford & not complaining about it. But following collegiate binge drinking is a blur of countless kegs, filled with boring domestics, where putting fruit in my Blue Moon was considered mixing it up. I couldn't be the only one hopping, I mean hoping, and dreaming of a better world, complete with better beers.

Enter craft brews..

Microbreweries have taken the world by storm becoming synonymous with innovation and uniqueness. While we continue to tread water while trying unsuccessfully to recover from The Great Recession, we now have plenty of options of which brew to drown our sorrows. Beer sales may have been down in 2010, but the wiser get drunker as craft brew sales were up 15% in the beginning of 2011. The President may not have a clue how to create new jobs but apparently knows a thing or two about beer. The White House brews their own suds with honey from the White House Garden. And in the most important political news, Sierra Nevada is shipping the White House hops from the West. Complete with their own personalized bottles and labels, this has to be the answer to World Peace. 

I discovered my own peace in this world upon moving to Long Beach at the dawn of fall. Discovering the only good thing about winter and Halloween: Pumpkin Ale. 

Call it love, call it obsessed, here's what I've discovered. 

Here are a couple of my favorite pumpkin brews. A tribute to the season and a reason to give thanks!

The best pumpkin ale should be served on tap in a chilled glass rimmed with cinnamon & sugar. The best ales pour a good head so you can lightly dust with cinnamon. The result is perfection!

A little about your judge’s impeccable taste. While living in San Diego, my brewery of choice was Karl Strauss and my beer of choice was Red Trolley. Whenever I couldn’t get my hands on this amazing local brew, I would settle for a New Castle aka Newky Brown. When I moved to Temecula, aka wine country, I found myself at Killarneys Irish Pub much more often then the popular wineries like Wilson Creek, home of the famous Almond Champagne. When I moved to Manhattan I drank whatever I could afford. A six-pack of New Castle was close to $15 at the bodega beneath my apartment. In the summer, I like to drink Stella, but only as a shandy. Upon moving to Long Beach, my first question for the realtor was how much LB locals paid for a six-pack of beer. He thought it was funny but I was dead serious. Some people work for food, I work for beer.

Now that you’re highly confused by my eclectic (or not so much) taste in beers, here’s my top Pumpkin Ales!

TOP CHOICE: Punkin Ale by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. 

I don’t care what anyone says, Dogfish Head can quite simply pee in a bottle, label it,  and I would think it was the best thing on earth. This is my favorite brewery by far. So much so that my current read is Brewing Up A Business- Adventures in Beer by Sam Calagione, the founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, a very thoughtful gift from Trav. (Does he know me or what?)

Dogfish Head beers are the best thing to happen to New York (although they are located in Delaware). Everything they touch is gold. While I love the 90 and 60-minute IPA’s, they are my least favorite, though the 60-minute IPA accounts for 95% of Dogfish Head sales. My all-time favorite brews include Aprihop which is limited in Spring, Raison D’Etre- a Belgian-style brown ale with beet sugar and raisins, and Midas Touch brewed with papaya and saffron.. amazing. These are my special treat beers as a Midas Touch FOUR-pack costs $15 in Long Beach... ouch.

This very hard to find pumpkin ale is brewed with "pumpkin meat", organic brown sugar and spices. For $14 a four-pack, it better be brewed with gold but this beer is too good to pass up... if you can find it!

Named after the local & famous Punkin Chunkin event,  where it claimed First Prize in the 1994 Punkin Chunkin Recipe Contest.  If you can even possibly still grab one of these before Thanksgiving, consider yourself thankful!

#2) Bluepoint Pumpkin Ale

Bluepoint is the most served pumpkin ale on tap in Long Beach. Makes sense as it's Long Island's only microbrewery. The Brewing Up Business book by Dog Fish Head states that the average person lives within 14 miles of a microbrewery- I think if that were true, the world would be a much happier place...

Already a big fan of Bluepoint's Toasted Lager and Blueberry Ale, I fell hook, line, and sinker, for their pumpkin ale.

The crisp pumpkin flavor is refreshing, and is 6.0% alcohol by volume. Not bad for a flavored brew.

#3) Lakefront Brewery's Pumpkin Lager

Many could argue that Milwaukee is the beer capital of the world. Home to the Brewers and Laverne and Shirley. Before Lakefront,  I honestly didn't care much about Milwaukee.

Known for their gluten free beer (sounds not so awesome), this Pumpkin ale is light and pours with perfect head to hold the cinnamon on top. The flavors of nutmeg, cinnamon and clove give a nice finish to the beer that gives it a sweet and overall refreshing taste. You are left with a candy taste in your mouth due to the caramel and munich malts. A great after dinner beer.


#4) Small Patch Harvest Ale- Tommyknocker

Maybe the witty name or the fact it came from my home state of Colorado attracted me more to this beer than the taste. It doesn't overwhelm you with pumpkin flavors, although the smell might lead you to believe differently. I like that it resembles a basic nut brown ale. It goes well with everything which is refreshing when flavored beers can get a little out of control.

#5) Fire Island Pumpkin Barrel Ale

Fire Island is an island off Long Island that is only accessible by ferry and no cars are allowed. Sounds perfect. Their Red Wagon IPA is inspired by their car-less ways on the island.

This is only the third beer and the first seasonal beer for this brewery. Apparently in a quest to provide the utmost quality, this LI brewery joined forces with a sustainable New York farm to source local hops. In addition to copious amounts of pumpkin, this ale is brewed with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and allspice.

This beer is actually better left in the bottle as the sweetness of the cinnamon and sugar on the rim seem to overpower the brew.

#6) Sam Adams- Harvest Pumpkin

I like Sam Adams contribution to the pumpkin ale fest mostly due to it's pumpkin pie spices. Who doesn't like pumpkin pie? Sounds like a match made in heaven.

Of course not everyone was successful at the pumpkin ale brew. Brews that should be left in the bottle, in the fridge or better yet at the store, are Smuttynose Pumpkin-a New York brew, Shocktop Pumpkin Wheat (although everything is decent when on tap), Sixpoint Autumnation, and of course Harvest Moon- which I was told was the largest selling Pumpkin beer in the nation. Give me a break America...

Tis the season and CHEERS to amazing pumpkin beers!

When the weather outside is frightful...

I’ve been coined the Grinch of Halloween for several years now- which might make the perfect costume. I don’t necessarily abhor the dark Holiday dedicated to things that are dead or scary or scary because they’re dead. I just find it annoying. I don’t always boycott the traditions and have even been known to wear a costume although it’s always a contender for least creative and may or may not still have the tags on it from being purchased the night before. So sue me if every year I put out an empty bowl for the trick-or-treaters that says “Please take one”. And go ahead and call me Un-American for not shoving my adult nooks and crannies into a child-size costume. Just because you can wear it, doesn’t mean you should ladies...

I finally discovered this year that it isn’t the Vamps and Tramps or the incessant door bell ringing and “trick or treat” being yelled in my face (wait, didn’t you see the bowl!?) that bother me about this holiday. It bothers me like back to school commercials in mid-August bother me. It represents what has become a miserable time of year.

Anytime I had visited New York, prior to moving here, it was winter time. I loved the Macy’s store windows decked out for Christmas, the giant Christmas Tree in Rockefeller Center and the constant brisk chill in the air. It was that same chill that forced me to buy my first wool coat while visiting New York for the first time one November. I had arrived unknowingly dressed for Jersey Shore rather than Manhattan. I didn’t wear that coat again for years until I finally came to New York for good.

I even moved to NYC on January 1st- smack dab in the middle of winter. You could say I might have had a slight fascination with winter at that point. I think every San Diegan, having been raised at the beach, grows up longing for a Winter Wonderland-a so-called White Christmas or a reason to light a fire at Thanksgiving. I spent my last Christmas in San Diego at Disneyland in my usual shorts and flip flops. Winter and snow is synonymous with football weather, how could that be bad?!

It was in this honeymoon period with Frosty that I ran into some great friends at the mall last September. While catching up over food court munchies, the topic of the impending winter was also on the table. Our friends had come to the solid conclusion that they were not going to live through another New York winter. At the time, Winter and I were still fine acquaintances. I didn’t mind when the cold would slowly creep into our lives after a miserably hot NY summer. I actually got excited to dig out my winter clothes- it was like shopping, there was always a favorite sweater or pair of boots I had forgotten all about. At the time of seeing our friends so unhappy with the cold, I thought they were being a bit dramatic. But months later when they had picked up and moved to Nice France, living it up on the French Riviera and I was spending countless hours digging to China trying to make headway in the snow to find my car... I thought they were brilliant. My love affair with Jack Frost ended last year.

Twas the day after Christmas last year, and like Santa Claus, the snow tiptoed into the city overnight except no one was happy about the gift Mother Nature had in tow. It was soon to be known as the snow storm of the century, breaking records for the most consecutive days New York had snow on the ground. In one word, it was miserable.

In the months prior,  all of the usual signs of winter were present, just no snow itself. Tourists, fascinated with the city’s holiday attractions were wearing scarves months earlier than the locals. Ice cream shoppes were closed for the season and almost everyone had gotten rid of any evidence of outdoor seating. After having a beer with some out-of-town friends at an outdoor cafe in Central Park in mid-november, I thought we might actually be in the clear. I was wrong.

When the snow finally blanketed the tri-state area, it never left. Day after day, sometimes several times a day, I had to dig the car out of a snow bank. This is a science in itself in the city. Parked bumper to bumper on tight streets with narrow sidewalks, there is literally nowhere for shoveled snow to go... except onto the cars parked next to you when no one is looking.

The permanent layer of snow eventually turned black like the rest of the city, as it refused to melt. Parking became horrendous as shoveled snow took coveted parking spots. Abandoned Christmas trees piled up in the streets as trash collectors were at the mercy of the snow plows. People became angry and meaner than usual.

It finally became the end of February and the snow was only just starting to disappear. I remember walking by an old Church in Hoboken that yearly serves as a Christmas Tree stand. Evidence that we had all been taken by surprise by this storm came in the form of tightly wrapped unsold Christmas trees, piled high & only halfway revealed, still green from being completely preserved in the snow. Hoboken became a time capsule as the snow finally melted. After being covered for months, everyone’s Christmas trash was revealed and finally picked up. Shreds of Christmas wrapping paper flew down the streets and boxes that once housed new toys cluttered the sidewalks for pick up. It was a very eerie scene. Spring couldn’t have come fast enough.

Everyone thought this severe storm could only mean that we were in for a punishing summer. That thankfully wasn’t the case. Although I consider enduring a hurricane pretty punishing.

As if we didn’t have our fill of eternal winter, we were again caught by surprise. This time by EARLY snow. You’ve gotta be kidding me.

Sitting on my couch on Saturday of Halloween weekend, enjoying my coffee as usual,  I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was that snow? At the beach? In October?! What?!

I was surprised and depressed. I hadn’t retrieved any of my winter clothes from storage as it seems I had just put them away. I haven’t bought a new snow shovel or windshield scraper either. I was again.. caught unprepared. Damn winter!

New York City received 2.9 inches of snow this past weekend, the most in October since records were first kept in 1869, according to the National Weather Service! Before Oct. 29, the city hadn't received as much as an inch during October since the 19th century. 300,000 people are still without power on this side of the world. Tree branches haven’t even lost their leaves yet, making the additional snow too much to bear and snapping them like twigs, causing chaos all over the place.

The scariest part of this Halloween is the realization that this is not the Winter Wonderland I had imagined...

IRISH DAY... Long Beach 2011

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO TRAILER: IRISH DAY LONG BEACH 2011

I had never seen anything like Hoboken St Patricks Day,  prior to moving there a few years back. A holiday to celebrate Irish culture, held on the first Saturday in March. Their own St. Patricks Day holiday. A drunk-fest celebrated solely by Hoboken, with the exception, of course, of the B&T making the once-a-year pilgrimage from Manhattan, passports in hand.

Not even a summer weekend I had previously spent at the Jersey Shore, (in a house stuffed full of 20-something's), could compare to the debauchery that takes place at the onset of March every year on this Hoboken holiday.

I wonder if Ireland ever pays tribute to our drunken ways by designating a holiday to wasted Americans. That would be worth the trip.   

During Hobo St. Pats, the streets fill with "green" people as every liquor store within 10 miles sells out of kegs and every rooftop, balcony, and patio is equipped with beer pong and flip cup tables. Drunken parties start as early as possible, and are sometimes merely a continuation from the night before. The next morning the streets are littered with beer bottles and pizza, obvious evidence of a good time.

Every year city officials threaten to close down this city-wide block party. It’s very possible that the bottles being launched at passersbys from balconies, the rapes, and the overwhelming alcohol-induced comas of 2011 will soon make this threat a reality.

I thought only Hobokennites, having an obvious void of pleasure in their daily routines, were the only ones to create such a holiday (as well as an excuse to day drink- my favorite) all on their own. But I was wrong.

Having only lived in Long Beach for a week, all we had heard was "have you been to Irish Day?", "Do you know what happens at Irish Day?", "Beware of Irish Day!"..

Wait, what's this Irish Day? St Patricks day is still 6 months away... Another community inspired holiday that pays tribute to beer and food?! Awesome!

Turns out Irish Day is Long Beach's version of St. Patricks Day and includes an Irish Heritage Day Parade and street festival. It has been running strong for 22 years and is held in the bar-studded West End of Long Beach the first Saturday of October. Put on by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, America’s oldest Catholic Irish-American fraternal organization, founded in NYC in 1836. The day begins with a morning Mass at the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Long Beach (how’s that for irony?!) and is followed by a proper Irish breakfast before kicking off the parade at noon. The parade travels down West Beech Street (just outside of our apartment) through the west end of Long Beach. Afterwards, the families take in the street fair just in time to be home before the bars are overtaken by patrons looking to continue the fun.

Even though we had been heavily warned, Trav and I were ready to throw caution to the wind and take Irish Day by the horns.

It was a beautiful day and after watching the parade festivities get set up from our balcony, we decided to start our day, the way all days should be started, at the beach- beer in hand.

As the sun warmed the beach, we came up with a game plan for the day. Plan A was more beer and Plan B was food. Perfect.

After the beach, I showered to got ready while Trav concocted shots out of anything and everything in our depleted liquor cabinet. I was told the last one contained strawberry jelly and some unrecognizable schnapps only after I was able to keep it down.

With a "bring it!" attitude, we walked across the street to where Irish Day was in full swing. Not before passing our neighbors who asked "First Irish day, huh?!" and added " good luck!" I don't think it was even lunch time yet. What were we getting ourselves into?

We passed an empty stage that had been set up at the end our street and wondered who'd be playing there later & what kind of crowd it might bring.

The bars already had people spilling out of them and tents were set up in parking lots making make-shift beer gardens. Parking lots and porta-potties are no longer my style (since the Padres were moved from Qualcomm, devastatingly ending tail-gate traditions!) so we marched on.

They had every type of "fair" food that you can imagine from food trucks shaped like pigs, fried Oreos and Twinkies, zeppoles, and of course sausage & peppers.

We stopped at a bar, Bahia Social Club, with the intent that this would be the first stop on our Irish Day bar crawl. We found a table outside to watch the crowd and drink cheap beer so it soon became our only stop on the Irish day bar crawl for the the next couple of hours.

The incessant smell of food provoked us to give up our spot and search for the best food. We first grabbed an awesome corned-beef Cuban sandwich which started my newest craving. Next we discovered Pickled Me Petes. The sweet chipotle chips were the best I'd ever had. We've already had them delivered to the apartment since.. My sausage and peppers craving was cured by a giant sandwich as we snacked on zeppoles for desert.

All in all- Irish Day had been a successful but VERY tame one by our standards.

By 6pm we were having a beer on our couch, happy to be home. We heeded our favorite bartender's advice and decided not to attempt the bars that were now full to the rafters of belligerent New Yorkers. One elbow to the boob or collision of someone's high heel & my flip flopped feet would be a bad combo- we considered ourselves lucky to have survived Irish Day. Looking forward to 2012

The dirty C-word...

Becoming a commuter has been an interesting experience.

There's a whole other world that I never knew existed when I used to wake up and walk two blocks to work, while living in Hoboken. Commuting takes skill and is a breed of it's own.

When I first moved to Manhattan, I learned quickly that other Manhattanites looked down upon those that flooded their bars, their sidewalks & their jobs and didn’t actually live in the city. They condescendingly referred to these intruders as "B&T.", short for "Bridge and Tunnel". Obviously, for our not-so-quick readers, this is a term used to describe those that take the bridge or the tunnel in to infringe on the island of Manhattan. I technically became “B&T” when I moved across the river to Hoboken. Call this an excuse if you must, but Hoboken is so closely integrated with Manhattan,  I definitely couldn't tell a difference between a Hobokenite and a Manahattanite. A night in Manhattan or Hoboken was all the same to me. Same prices, same people, same city feel. I felt like if I threw a rock from Hoboken's pier, it might land in the beer of someone sitting at our favorite summer happy hour spot on the west side, the Frying Pan. Or if I could stomach the stench and dared to swim across the Hudson, it might take me 20 minutes, max..So, it really didn’t count.

It didn't take long to discover that if you really wanted to see a true version of B&T, then you should definitely check out the ladies room at Penn Station after a recent arrival of the LIRR (Long Island Railroad) on a Saturday night. Whoa! In San Diegan terms- It's the difference between going to PB Bar & Grill (my "city" attire) & going to TJ (B&T "city" attire). Where are these girls going dressed like that? As if a night in the city only happens once a year, or once a decade, these chicks had bought out "shouldn't be wearing that in public-R-Us"! It was hilarious, as well as a bit disturbing. Is there a hidden spot in Manhattan that harbors the scantily clad? I hadn't seen these ladies anywhere that I  had frequented in the last four years, thankfully. They definitely would have stood out, hard to do in New York City. Bravo ladies- this is how stereo-types are born.

A commuter develops a routine that is dictated by train schedules that causes very unnecessary stress if anything in your day goes awry. Long Beach trains on the LIRR are few & far-in-between so most of the time, no matter how much time you’ve left yourself, you’re always rushing to catch your usual train home. Missing it can reduce a grown chick to tears or in my case, to eating Taco Bell Express at Penn Station. Don’t knock it- the cheesy Gordita box for 5 bucks rocks...Missing the train heading into work, just doesn’t seem so bad.. Or maybe that's just me.

Luckily, it's, for some odd reason, legal to drink on the LIRR. They sell beer at Penn Station outside of the tracks (Rose Pizza outside tracks 13-19 has the best deal!), a habit I had to nip in the bud (no pun intended) the first week.  I do think it's weird that even though it's technically "legal" to drink a brewski on the train, there's still a need to hide your bottle in a brown paper bag. Maybe it’s a “rule” but it’s not a very smart one.  I can only guess this is solely to the benefit of those budget beer drinkers. I would hide Natty Ice Light, or Lucky Lager as well. (C'mon, those riddles under the cap were fun when we were in college.. And too poor to have taste buds) But I often wonder, is the brown bag to beer, the equivalent of an invisibility cloak to Harry Potter? If you can't see the label, it must not be alcohol? Who drinks Orange Fanta out of a paper bag? If anything, it calls attention to exactly what you're doing right on the spot. I once got off the train in Long Beach at three in the afternoon, on a week day- where there are no beer vendors in sight - & saw a guy getting on the train headed to Penn Station with a beer in a brown paper sack. Did you really just bring that from home & take the time to disguise it in your kid's lunch bag? I know what you're doing.. And I don't get it. Drink beer & be proud. Even (actually, especially!) if it is in the middle of the day.

At first I didn't sit in the same seat on the train every day and learned the hard way. People will sit wherever you are, if given the chance. There is no personal space on this side of the world. I've been sat next to, across from, and more often then not, sat ON. The seats that face each other are always a "no-no". Soon your knees, ankles, and shoelaces will be intertwined with some stranger sitting directly across from you, awkwardly staring at you, as you try to find something else to gaze at. I've been crawled on by kids while their mom conveniently looked the other way and have become the filling of an ice cream sandwich while two large Jamaican (not Jamaica Queens) women sat on either side of me and continued to talk through me. It is in these moments that trains should adopt the airline rule of purchasing two seats...each.  I've been talked to, talked about & even asked to borrow my phone. Too shocked to say no, I just handed it over. It's been an interesting experience.

Eventually one stops fighting the gravitational pull to the same seat in the same car & starts to notice the same people everyday, though they all pretend not to notice you. Like the guy who rocks out so hard to his music while wearing his extra large headphones, you can't help but assume he thinks he's alone. Or the people who talk incredibly loud on their cellphone as if we all are dying to hear about what "Brenda" said or what "Bill" had the nerve to do last night! Be careful...

I don’t dare talk on my cell phone on the LIRR. It initially sounded like a good idea because on the subway you don’t have cell phone service as all subway cars are underground. However, an hour-long train ride above ground on the LIRR seems like the perfect opportunity to catch up on phone time. This is a big mistake. Never really being a phone person, I didn’t ever take advantage of the supposed opportunity just out of respect for the other passengers on a very quiet train and honestly, I don’t enjoy broadcasting my personal business. However, now I don’t use it simply out of fear. I watched a man next to me lose his mind on an unsuspecting airhead who was yapping loudly on her cell phone. He told her, in his very thick Long Island accent to “shut the f-up” and that she must be divorced for a reason and that he paid way too much for his train seats to listen to her bullshit- all in one breath. She must be used to such outbursts as she didn’t even bat an eye and continued to blabber on. I was terrified.  The guy who was also sitting next to him was as well as he pretended to use the bathroom and never came back.


I have been lucky enough to make friends with one of the ticket-takers on my train rides home. Only because he readied himself to call an ambulance when he thought I was under extreme duress during one of my first train rides. I guess I was, I had just run full speed from the Path train at Herald Square all the way to track 19 at Penn Station, in less than 5 minutes, with an extra large sub sandwich in my bag! Which I have to guess weighed more than my laptop with the homemade mozzarella. When I finally took a seat, I was heaving like a 90-year old man with emphysema, so I appreciated his concern. He hasn't forgotten almost saving my life so we chat when he sees me feverishly working on my lap top daily on the train. Sometimes I get lucky & he doesn't clip my ticket. Yes, a free ride! At $8.25 each way, this is a very nice perk! $16.50 a day adds up fast, especially for me who then takes another train to Hoboken- another $3.50 a day. Doesn't quite seem worth it to commute 3 hours a day for two hours of work but the drones we are, we do what we have to do..

Everything seems completely worth it when I see people looking at my feet on the Path train in the morning- my final train that takes me from Manhattan in to Hoboken. I follow their gaze to my feet & just smile, as I casually brush the rest of the beach sand off my sneakers.. “take that” ladies & gentlemen!

"All glory comes from daring to begin." Eugene F. Ware

Everything is magical when it’s new. That new car smell... until your kids have McDonalds in the backseat and scatter fries under the floor mats. Those new shoes you thought were so cute and comfortable... until they left you blistered after only one night out in Manhattan. That new jacket that you wear every day... until someone calls you out on it.  That new relationship that gave you butterflies... until you’re doing twice as much laundry and dishes. (So I’ve heard...)

Every new beginning has an “until” but that will have to come into play later as Long Beach still has that “new” magic.

The first thing we experienced in our first week on the island was the eery feeling that everyone is extremely nice. I remember being a kid in Arkansas, walking down the street and a stranger waved at me. It was shocking. This is the same experience. I say eerie because it’s a forgotten feeling having lived three years in Hoboken. Case-and-point was the small cop with the big attitude that wanted to write me a ticket on moving day.

We met the entire Maryland Ave block the second we stepped out of the moving truck. Everyone was gathered in the streets, as if it were a block-party, chatting with one another when we arrived and they continued chatting well into the night. We met Mike and Andrea, the school teachers who live below us who have two adorable small children. One of which, Blake, asked if he could ride Bob as if he were a rented pony.( Not a bad idea if we get strapped for cash). We met Rich and Caroline who live to the right of us, who also have young kids and two dogs, one of which is a bulldog with a large under-bite named Penelope. There were others whose names that I don’t remember as I’m terrible with such things, so I use nicknames whenever I get the opportunity, like Fire Marshal Bill who lives across the street and works for the NYFD.

We had rarely met any of our neighbors in Hoboken throughout the years so this was a first for us. We embraced it cautiously as every up has to have a down...

It seemed a common theme as we continued to meet people all throughout the island. I received free breakfast one morning as I was getting coffee and the cashier noticed I was new to the neighborhood. She introduced herself, gave me my coffee for free and threw in free danishes for me and “my husband”. On our first Sunday Funday, we didn’t yet have cable, so we headed down to The Inn- a sports bar on Tennessee Ave, two short blocks away. We met Anthony the bartender. By the end of the amazing first Jets game of the season, we were hugging people we’d never seen before, drinking with the owner (whom Anthony had introduced the newbies to) and heading home with a $22.00 beer tab. If anyone thinks we only drank $22 in beers, then we obviously haven’t met yet... We had  hit the jackpot.

Later in the week, I discovered The Cabana. Not really a fan of Mexican food while I lived in San Diego ( I know, an unspeakable crime! ); I had adopted a requirement of Mexican food in my weekly diet since moving to New York. The Cabana and it’s $1 Taco Tuesdays was like water in a desert oasis. I couldn’t ask for anything better. We’ve been to the Cabana more often then the local grocery store and by the second trip we were making friends, and once again drinking (surprise, surprise), with the owner, Bob.

We've been making friends left and right. I met the bartender for the local pub, Speakeasy, on a train trip home from the city and ran into him one night at the Cabana where he bought Trav and I a round of the Long Beach famous Pumpkin Ale draft beer rimmed with cinnamon- a fall must-have! This place is amazing.

We were thoroughly enjoying our first week in Long Beach. We have quickly adapted to our new routine which consists of being woken up every morning by a very excited Bob-O. We all pile into the car and drive Trav to his early morning train to Penn Station. Bob & I head across the street & park on the East End of town. Our early morning long walks are much more enjoyable on this side of town as homes are more spread out with lots of trees and grass then where we live on the West End. We love our peaceful walks before the island wakes up. I had forgotten what it was like to not have to continuously cross the street to avoid rude people and unassuming dogs. Ok, I'll try to stop ragging on Hoboken.

Every other day, before the weather turned, after driving back to the West End, Bob and I would take a quick trip to the beach, at the end of our block to play fetch and swim in the waves. Equipped with a towel & puppy shampoo, I'd give him a quick bath with the free hose at the base of the beach and be home before the sun rose. We'd then have coffee, or at least I would while Bob passed out, on the deck. A fantastic way to start the day.

Around 9, I drive to the train for a long but enjoyable commute back to hell, I mean Hoboken, for work & am back to my car by 4. Before the chill set in last week, I would hurry to walk Bob before hitting the beach one more time before I picked Trav up from the train. On our luckiest days, Trav & I would grab a cigar for him & a beer for me & we'd head to the beach yet again to let our bad days in the city sail out to sea.

It was on one of these fantastic days when it seemed the magic had come to an end and my "until" had finally come and interrupted my "new" magic.

It was a Thursday and I had gotten off the train on a particularly sunny day and was rushing to the side streets to retrieve my car, get home to quickly walk Bob, and get to the beach as soon as possible. I had just met James, the neighborhood bartender who advised he also parks on side streets before catching the train but hides his keys in his gas-tank, a surfer trick. I barely left the door unlocked while I was home, so this was a habit way too risky for me.

As we parted ways, I fumbled for my own car keys, praying I hadn't lost them as I pulled out my trusty smart-phone to see the marked location where I had previously, intelligently, marked my parking spot in google maps, by "dropping a pin" where I had parked before rushing to catch the train. I followed the directions across Park Ave and down Edwards. The pin showed it was right here on West Olive & yep, this black jeep looked perfectly familiar.. Only, that wasn't my car now parked in front of it. Panic set in as I briefly told my dad about the current events & hung up the phone. I stood in the middle of the street dumbfounded & looked all around me, hoping to recognize my car.  It was gone.

I knew it! Everyone loves their new place UNTIL their car gets towed, or worse.. Stolen! I walked up and down West Olive for a mile. No car. I even went back to where my trusty map showed me parked and decided to knock on the door of the house I had parked in front of.

"Ummm excuse me.." I started to say, when the gentleman opened the door. "First, I'm really sorry if I did this, but did I possibly park blocking your driveway & as a result, did you have me towed?" his immediate response was "no way! People don't do that here". That was the second time I had heard this today on this new quest. "So could it be stolen"? I asked with the wind seeping out of my I love this place! sails. He quickly replied "that doesn't happen here either. Maybe you lost it.."

Now, being a female, maybe some of you would take offense to this supposed stereo-type. But if you were one of my lucky friends who were called on once a semester during my college days at SDSU to drive me through the parking structure to find the car earlier parked by yours truly, then you really can't blame the guy & either did I. But looky here, this was the new & improved Sarah as I showed him my proactively & diligently placed google maps "pin". Hmmm-the confusion continued as he was the second person to point me in the direction of the police department. With my tail between my legs, I walked back towards the train station to file a missing car report.

When I arrived at LBPD, I was quickly helped by the dispatcher and advised her, deflated, that my new bubble had been popped & my car was either towed or stolen. She quickly said she doubted that, of course with a smile. She quickly checked her log, nope no cars had been towed that week (I'll avoid the obvious opening to again point out the cavernous difference from Hoboken) and asked me if I wanted to report it stolen but ended with "that doesn't happen here". Again I heard , "are you sure you know where you parked it" & I again held up my pin which at this point was doing a fantastic job of counter-acting the blonde hair in response to the repeated question.

I told her I'd look for it one more time before going that route & with hunched shoulders left the station. There were two cops shooting the breeze out front & I was surprised to hear "aww honey, what's wrong? Why do you look so sad?" as I headed down the block. I turned and told them the story, leading with, "I know what this looks like but..." and ending with holding up the now infamous pin on my phone. One of the cops jumped in his car & pulled up the computer screen. He asked me if the car was mine, umm no (it was Trav's), and if I had the registration on me, um no again (it was in the car) or if I had the license plate number.. Umm strike three.. No. But Trav knew it by heart so I acquired that info with a simple phone call. Well, telling someone you need the license plate number of their car because you either had it it towed or stolen wasn't that simple.. The cop entered it into the system and told me they had a plate-reader car that drove the streets logging plates into a system. They would run the plates & see where it was the last time the plates were read. Amazing! With a smile, he told me to wait in the air-conditioned office while he went to look for my car! Where was I? This was surreal.

When he came back minutes later, I jumped up when he said he'd found it for me. It hadn't been towed, it hadn't been stolen and hadn't been on West Olive either. It was parked where I left it a few blocks south on West Beech St. Oops. So much for my smart-phone! He smiled, listened to me profusely apologizing for wasting his time, then lied & said it happens all the time.

Awesome.. my "until" was still yet to be discovered.

Welcome to Long Beach, an island of bliss in New York

Click here to see video of Long Beach and our place

or visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mTa1psoAps

Some say it’s the journey and not the destination. In moving to Long Beach, I’d have to say it’s quite the opposite. The journey, frankly, sucked!! (Sorry Noni but it did...)

After a whirlwind week of finding an amazing location, then negotiating on an incredible place, then signing the lease, (all separate trips), while temporarily living 80 miles away- it was time to move in. We were almost at the deadline of having to have our stuff out by Sept 15th and this was the only weekend we had to move since our request to extend our move through one more weekend had been denied.

Moving day was just another day of waking up at 6am. We packed our suitcase that we had been living out of for two weeks in Freehold New Jersey, packed up Bob, and headed back to Hoboken for what we hoped would be the last time. We dropped off Bob in the backyard, the only thing left standing, and rushed to Jersey City to pick up the U-Haul by 8am. The first crisis of the day was that they were out of 24-foot U-Hauls and only had a 17-footer. I had moved to Manhattan almost four years ago with just four suitcases, so it was appalling in the first place that we absolutely required that 24-foot truck. It was also appalling that the manager didn’t seem to care that what we had specifically reserved was now not available, and seemed content in offering us their crappy $50 off “service guarantee”. I was not happy to advise him that $50 would not cover the movers we had waiting at our apartment, nor the pro-rated rent we were paying to have the apartment available.. TODAY. He wasn’t happy either as he advised me he would no longer be dealing with me and only spoke to Travis. Either way, we were stuck with a 17-foot truck and an apartment full of furniture.

We met three of Trav’s friends that had blindly offered to help us, prior to seeing our apartment full of boxes and furniture. The nightmare began. The couch and most of the other furniture had to be moved out through the front window. The heavy three-piece couch, all seats containing recliners, broke into an additional piece during the last push. Knowing that everything wouldn’t fit in the U-Haul, we decided to place everything outside, on the sidewalk, so we could have a full view of all furniture and meticulously place items one by one into the u-haul.

It was only after everything we owned was on display on the sidewalk when instantaneously the sun disappeared and the rain started to fall. You have to be kidding me! Irene's last laugh? We rushed to cover everything with U-haul blankets as it became a guessing game as we blindly put the puzzle together and placed soggy items into the truck.

It was the weekend of 9/11 and after a valid terrorist threat in the city, everyone was on high alert. We just happened to live across the street from a Jewish Synagogue that was being highly guarded by a short cop with a large attitude. Having sat in his cushy cop car all morning, watching us move, he watched me pull my car up behind the U-haul so I could drop off a 40-lb bag of dog food I had just picked up at a local specialty store before heading out forever. He waited until I had the 40lb bag over my shoulder and was walking to load it into the U-haul to call over his loud speaker, too lazy to even get out, that I wasn’t allowed to park there. Since when?? He had watched me load the car in the same spot all morning! I took my free hand to hold up the number two, signaling that I was only going to be two seconds and he nodded. In the time it took to drop the bag of food and rush back to the car, the little man was writing me a ticket. Gotta love Hoboken's finest. I argued with him that I had been moving all morning and had told him that I would only be parked there for two minutes, to which he had even nodded.  Apparently he hadn't met his ticket quota for the day, or was miffed at his less-than high-profile assignment, so he wasn’t budging. I couldn’t believe it. It took everything I had to keep myself in check as I begged him to have a heart. He finally turned on his little shoes and went back to sitting in the air conditioning of his cruiser, without finishing the ticket. I drove my loaded car all the way around the corner to abide by his new rule. I seriously loathed this place. We couldn't leave soon enough.

While I was moving my car, my neighbor had pulled up in front of her apartment with her family. Because Park Avenue is a busy street and the cop was, of course, double-parked (rules don't apply to little men in uniforms) guarding the empty synagogue, and because people in Hoboken are always in a hurry, it only took a minute for some idiot to clip her back bumper in their haste to get around the cop and to their must-be important destination. Now the cop had an accident on his hands. It didn’t take a scientist to point out, which my neighbor didn’t hesitate to do, that the accident was the cop's fault for being in the middle of the road. Redemption at it’s finest. Arguments bursting out on the street at 3pm on a Saturday aren't a foreign sight in Hoboken so we brushed by the arguing parties as we continued to load our truck.

Lucky for us one of our movers just happened to bring his van. As expected with the U-haul packed to the gills, there were still boxes that needed to be packed somewhere. We loaded the van and chose what we were going to leave behind. At this point, we just wanted out of this place and didn’t care about any casualties. We could always buy new furniture.

Only leaving my desk and a few other items as dead soldiers, it was 3pm and we were finally loaded and ready to go. We still had an hour to travel (only 30 miles but over an hour with traffic). My car was full and only had room for me and Bob. Trav drove one of his friends in the U-Haul and Alex took another friend and the van that was also fully loaded.

The cigarette lighter in the U-haul didn’t work and the Tom Tom hadn’t been charged so I was elected to lead the caravan. This was a terrible idea. One thing I had always stuck to while living on this coast was that I refused to drive in Manhattan. It had taken me months to be able to drive in Hoboken. Anyone who chose to drive in the city had a death-by-taxi death wish. There was no way I was going to be responsible for the lives of 5 others, including my dog, and refused to lead the pack, forcing Alex who was driving the van, as if he hadn’t done enough.

As my car started, and the U-haul started, the van didn’t. You’ve got to be kidding me, the battery was dead. I pulled as close as I could without suffering the same fate as my neighbor on the busy street and with borrowed jumper cables tried to jump his van. It wasn’t working. We started to panic that maybe it was the starter or something more tragic. We couldn’t believe this was happening. One more minute in this place and I was surely going to die.

Just then, the cop was moving his car to close down Park Avenue. It had apparently become too much with cars double parked trying to jump a dead battery and an accident that he was still filing the report for. This gave us the perfect opportunity to pull the U-haul up and jump the van. My prayers were answered as the van’s engine finally came to life. By 4pm, we were on our way to Long Beach. Still, not without incident.

Alex was leading the crew, which we found later was a bad idea and I took back over as the leader. I was freaking out as the GPS led us straight to China Town. Again, it was 9/11 weekend so the truck was stopped and searched the second we arrived through the tunnel. When Travi opened the truck door, I was afraid everything would come tumbling out. This led us to lose Alex immediately as he was forced to keep going, without any GPS. I refused to lead so had Travis driving the large u-haul as he listened to me over his cell phone, scared to death, and screaming directions. We were searched twice more before reaching the Williamsburg bridge. What a nightmare. At this point Alex was nowhere to be seen and he wasn’t answering anyone’s calls. I can’t imagine how mad he was at what we had gotten him into. I thought for sure he had turned the van around and headed home to Queens.

We fought traffic for another hour only to arrive at our apartment in Long Beach. We had neglected to let the guys know we had chosen an apartment that was the second level of a beach house. The only way up to the top was a very narrow stairway- remember that couch? It took four more hours to unload the truck and van.

It was quite simply the worst day of 6 people’s lives. But it was finally over and we now lived in Long Beach. Let the games begin