Holidays, Hot Chocolate, New Haven

I stood waiting for a hot chocolate at the corner downtown Starbucks, listening to the old-timey Christmas music and watching the clusters of pedestrians and bus riders meander by the recently-erected creche. Not seeing any nearby menorahs, I wondered how the city got around the whole church/state issue - but then remembered one of the weird East Coasty quirks about New Haven, that the central grassy square known as the Green is not owned by the city government but rather a group of mysterious life-appointees known as the Proprietors (how snooty!). I guess the Proprietors can toss around whatever religious imagery they feel like.

UPDATE: there is now a menorah on the opposite end of the Green! And a sparkly humanist obelisk.

It's not the most picturesque place to be for Christmastime. If I had marooned myself in New York instead, I might get in some idyllic busy-shopper-Rockefeller-magic-snowflake scenes while wandering about in the Atlantic seaboard half-light. While in Detroit, I benefited from the work of downtown boosters trying to portray a tinsel-covered world-class city (often effectively - Campus Martius skating on a December night is glittery and grand).

But I haven't figured out New Haven. Soon they'll light a giant conifer in the middle of the Green, but until then I've been walking to the bus stop after work along a dusky path, among dog walkers and panhandlers alike. Will Christmas magic find a homesick (and very pregnant) planner in a city that wobbles between charming and forlorn?

The reordering rules of snow

Winner: best use of vegetables and protective headgear

I'm not very accustomed to driving in the snow, because all my winters for the past seven years I've spent in Ann Arbor, blissfully avoiding contact with the automobile type and shuffling frozenly from one point to the next. This year, though, I own a car, and over Christmas break I had the need to use it. The lack of traction unnerves me, the same pit of stomach slipperiness that comes with ice skating. I make a turn onto the main road, the monster I supposedly control does not respond to me, its back and then its front swerve into snowy ruts on the curb. I am a person who likes having control over things, and this gas-fueled beast knows it can now get the best of me.

Cities sufferin from the chillies

Grand Rapids Transit Center, looking wintery. Photo by Carolyn.

This weekend, my homeskillet and I went over to Grand Rapids to hang out with his folks. I really like GR but I'm still not an expert on it, so I asked him to show me around downtown some more. We parked over by the transit center and began walking, ready for an urban adventure.

I looked over at him as we passed Founder's and he was crying.