This is probably only interesting to me

Recently I dined at The Waterfront Hotel, a Fells Point restaurant best known for its role as the bar on Homicide. While the good food and great view of the water are enough to attract most people to the year-old establishment, this restaurant has special significance to me as it was where my great-grandmother grew up. While there, I couldn't help but look around and try to imagine what life must have been life for her in late 19th and early 20th century Baltimore.

The Waterfront's website provides a little information about the building's history (like the fact that it built as a private residence in 1771 or that it's the second oldest brick building in Baltimore) but I still wanted to know more. The only thing I could remember was that my great-grandmother, Mom-mom, lived in the house during the Baltimore fire of 1904. When I was young, she told me about how they waited for the fire to move from east to west across the city and wondered whether it would make it to them.

For more information, I checked with my father who said he didn't really know much about the time my great-grandmother lived there but reminded me of a family history written by my great-grandmother before her death. Sure enough, in checking this family history, I found out a few interesting details that I will now share with you.

One of eight children, Mom-mom estimates that her family moved to the house at 1710 Thames Street around 1900. (She would have been around 8 years old at the time.) Her father had been running a men's clothing store around the corner on Bond Street and the family lived above it. The landlord, though, who also happened to be a cousin, was upset because the location did so well. The cousin decided he wanted to set up his own shop there and my great-grandmother's family had to move. "As soon as they moved, the cousins moved into the corner store, and that was the beginning of a feud that was worse than the Hatfields and the McCoys," my great-grandmother recalled.

So back to the Thames Street house. Mom-mom said that in its day, the place must have been a mansion because it was so big. "The rooms were enormous, with plaster cornices," she said. "There was a wide hallway with a magnificent stairway and balustrade running to the third floor." (By the way, if anyone knows what a balustrade is, let me know. I was too lazy to Google it.)

The store was on the ground level of the house. Mom-mom went on to say that the first floor had a dining room and kitchen, the second floor was the living room and her parents' bedroom, and then the other bedrooms were on the third floor. Her father built a three-story extension on to the house that they rented out, mostly to other Polish immigrants. The house itself had no heat and relied on three stoves. Her brothers brought coal up from the cellar every morning so her mother could make the fires. Then there was the bathroom: "We had an outhouse with three holes and you had to be careful where you stepped," she said.

Incidentally, as a side note, I should mention that Mom-mom's brothers are a story all their own. Two of them, Ben and Herman, started Channel 13 (now known as WJZ) in Baltimore in 1948 and went on to buy Pimlico Race Track in 1952. It's nice to know that my ancestors had a part in Baltimore's history.

Mom-mom said that during the Baltimore fire in 1904, people from other neighborhoods sought refuge at their house because they were so close to the water. In preparation for the fire, her father hired a wagon and loaded the store's merchandise on it to save it. "The only problem was that he neglected to get horses to pull the wagon," Mom-mom noted.

It isn't entirely clear how long the family stayed on Thames Street. Looking through the family history, it appears that Mom-mom's father closed the store and the family moved to Clarksburg at some point. But after another business venture went bad in 1915, the family moved to 1207 North Broadway and her father opened the store again back at 1710 Thames. He sold men's clothing and items catering to sailors. In 1920, the family moved to Reisterstown Road.

I plan to return to the Waterfront in the near future. This time I want to explore a little more though. Now that I have a little more knowledge, I want to try to imagine what went where back in the early 1900s. Oh yeah, and the food is really good, too.

Broadway in Baltimore, as it belongs

I woke up this morning to a very pleasant surprise. The list of shows for next year's Broadway in Baltimore series at the Hippodrome is out and for the first time, I'm actually excited about every single show. My Playbill holder runneth over!

Typically there are one or two shows each season (usually a play) that don't really pique my interest, but not this time. While musicals are still my favorite, I'm even looking forward to the plays (Twelve Angry Men and Doubt) that are on the schedule. I honestly believe the only way it could be better is if Les Miserables was included. And, considering the fact that Les Mis is no longer touring, I think we really lucked out.

In case you haven't seen it yet, here's the lineup:
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Sept. 19-Oct. 1)
Twelve Angry Men (Oct. 24-Nov. 5)
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Nov. 21-Dec. 3)
Wicked (Jan. 24-Feb. 18)
Monty Python's Spamalot (March 6-18)
Sweet Charity (with Molly Ringwald)
Doubt (May 1-13)

In addition, there are three non-subscription shows also included:
Mamma Mia! (Aug. 29-Sept. 10, 2006); Altar Boyz (Nov. 7-12); and Annie (Dec. 12-17). We'll definitely go to Mamma Mia! (for the upmteenth time... I love it!) and Annie is a possibility as well.

So while I'm talking about great theater, here's my list of my favorite Broadway shows of all time.

1. Les Miserables (This story is timeless and I can listen to the music over and over. It really doesn't get any better than this.)
2. Mamma Mia! (While people complain that the plot is thin, I think the writers did a remarkable job creating a story out of a series of songs. I only wish Movin' Out had been done so well.)
3. The Life (This was a short-lived Broadway musical focused on Times Square prostitutes in the 1980s. The soundtrack is incredible.)
4. Fiddler on the Roof (This is the first Broadway musical I ever saw. From then on, I was hooked.)

Honorable mentions go to Hairspray, Oklahoma, Little Shop of Horrors, The Lion King, Evita, and Chicago, and to a lesser extent, The Producers, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the Sound of Music, Phanton of the Opera, and Music Man.

Feel free to respond and tell me your favorites.

Obligatory Valentine's Day tribute to the man I love

For the first 23 years of my life I was always alone on Valentine's Day. Because of this, I determined that the so-called holiday was nothing more than a stupid Hallmark invention. After all, if people are in love, they should tell one another all the time and not allow the greeting card industry to dictate when and how they share those feelings of love. Sounds plausible enough, right?

Ah, but therein lies the rub. While this functions quite well as a theory, I haven't done so well with it in practice. Saying that Rich is the most amazing person to come into my life is a vast understatement. So understated in fact, that I usually don't say it at all.

I've never been the lovey-dovey, touchy-feeling type. I don't cry at sappy movies (unless there is a cute animal that somehow meets harm) and I don't get misty-eyed at weddings. In other words, it doesn't hurt that once a year society forces me to tell my husband how much I love him.

I don't think it makes me a bad person to need something every once in a while to remind me how much I love my husband. Sometimes it's a story about those who have loved and lost and other times it's a silly holiday filled with heart-shaped chocolates.

So anyway, here goes:

I love you, Rich. I love how you laugh at all my silly little quirks (or at least don't make me feel like I'm that strange for having so many.) I love how you're always there for me and you treat me like a royalty. You know the stupid little things that make me happy and avoid the ridiculous things that annoy me. Simply put, I love you. Happy Valentine's Day!

Let's get ready to Relay (for Life)

As most of you know, I am a two-time cancer survivor. Now that I've nearly reached the two-year mark of being cancer-free, I've decided it's time to do something to help raise money for cancer research and outreach. To that end, I'm putting together a team for this year's Relay for Life at Owings Mills High School on June 10.

Relay for Life is an overnight walk to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Team members take turns walking throughout the night and one team member must be walking at all times.

I am looking for people who are willing to sign up as team members and/or donate to the effort. If you might be interested or would like more information, please let me know.

Or, if you've already made up you're mind and you're ready to go, you can sign up and/or donate here.

Thanks in advance for your support!

Happy Birthday, Dorks

Today my twin brothers achieve a birthday milestone. They're hitting the quarter century mark. The big 2-5.

It's actually pretty hard for me to believe that my baby brothers have gotten so old. It seems like just yesterday they were skinny little punks who made mommy and daddy do everything for them. (Okay, so maybe it was just yesterday.)

At any rate, I really struggle with the fact that my brothers are, technically, adults. I often forget that when I was 25, I got married and bought a house... both adult things to do. And I do realize that my brothers both hold down full-time jobs and make car payments and do other mature things. They're even house-hunting. But they're still my little brothers.

The guys were born two months premature and my parents didn't know they were even having twins until maybe two weeks before the little alien babies were born. They had to stay in the hospital for a whole month because they were so tiny... only 5 lbs. together.

Danny came first. He's always been the impatient one. Matt came along about 12 minutes later, but only after the doctors went in after him. He's never liked being rushed.

I had just turned two and I remember the first time my grandparents took me to the hospital to visit the boys. My dad held one of them, my mom held the other, and the doctors said I had to stand just beyond the doorframe if I wanted to see them. I moved a little closer to see them (they were so little, afterall) but the doctor shut the door in my face.

Over the years, I've been a so-so big sister. When they were little I was actually pretty mean to them, probably out of jealousy. I'd like to think that I've gotten nicer over the years. Apparently my favorite game early-on was watching my mom give each of the boys a bottle. When she would put the bottle down next to her, I would pick it up and take it over to the other side of the room. Then when she put the baby down and got up to go get it, I would say "Well as long as you're up, can you get me..." What a darling child I must have been.

Lucky for me, it took my brothers quite a while to realize that if they only joined forces, they could overtake me. And now that they're bigger than I am, we actually get along for the most part.

So anyway, happy birthday guys. Enjoy your birthday season!

The Best and Worst of Music in 2005 (courtesy of guest blogger Adrian)

Meet Adrian. He is my best guy friend from college and he's almost ready to take the plunge and start his own blog. Almost. To help ready him, I've agreed to post his evaluation of the best and worst music of 2005. Adrian is really a musical genius. He has the Billboard charts memorized. You can name a song or artist and he can tell you how far up the charts they went and when.

So please help encourage this future blogger and give him tons of encouragement so he'll finally start his own blog. And remember, seeing as though I'm not cool enough to even recognize a quarter of these artists and/or albums, I take no responsibility for the opinions expressed below.

The 10 Worst Singles of the Year:
Beverly Hills - Weezer
Candy Shop (if only cause it bites from Magic Stick) - 50 Cent
Have a Nice Day - Bon Jovi
Just the Girl - Click Five
Laffy Taffy! - D4L
Listen to Your Heart (was it really necessary?) - DHT
My Humps (or actually anything by the Black Eyed Peas incl. "Don't PhunkWith My Heart" and "Don't Lie")
Photograph ("What the hell was on Joey's head?" That's gotta qualify as worst lyric of the year, though, again, the Black Eyed Peas gave them a run for their money). - Nickelback
Scars - Papa Roach
Soul Survivor - Young Jeezy

The 10 Best Singles of the Year (Okay, 18... I cheated)
All These Things That I've Done - The Killers
Cool - Gwen Stefani
Dakota (You Made Me Feel Like the One) - Stereophonics
Do You Want To - Franz Ferdinand
Feel Good Inc. - Gorillaz
Gold Digger - Kanye West
I Don't Feel Like Loving You Today - Gretchen Wilson
Lighters Up - Lil' Kim
Making Memories of Us - Keith Urban
Mr. Brightside - The Killers
Rich Girl - Gwen Stefani
Since U Been Gone - Kelly Clarkson
Sugar, We're Going Down - FallOut Boy
These Words - Natasha Bedingfield
Wait (The Whisper Song) - Ying Yang Twins
Wake Me Up When Sept. Ends - Green Day
The Widow - Mars Volta
You and Me - Lifehouse

Albums! Ooh, now this was tough.
Anniemal - Annie (Ah, Swedish pop... you gotta love it)
All Jacked Up - Gretchen Wilson (didn't get too many props from critics, but it really is a good album, if only for "Skoal Ring" and "I Don't Feel Like Loving You Today")
Confessions on a Dancefloor - Madonna (Classic Madonna. No more of that artsy crap that the world has come to hate. It's about time Esther learned to stop taking herself so seriously, and it pays off.)
Hot Fuss - The Killers (Pop? Rock? Unbelievably catchy? All of the above.)
Kerosene - Miranda Lambert (Reminds me of Gretchen Wilson's debut. The girl got famous from a TV show - Nashville Star - but her lyrical ability and vocal talent are amazing. And props for keepin' it country! And I think she's legal now.)
Late Registration - Kanye West (This almost didn't make the list because I hate how freakin' arrogant he is. Then again, he reminded the world that George Bush hates black people, so that redeems him. Oh - plus it's a great album, as he'd tell you.)
The Naked Truth - Lil' Kim (Another phenomenal rap album. I was never a big Kim fan, but she comes up with some killer lines on this one. My fave? "Star Jones don't like me/she's cheap and I like the best/Damn - Must feel good to Payless!")
There's More Where That Came From - Lee Ann Womack (Very retro country. And while she's really imitating Dolly Parton, she's got one heck of a voice.)
Tough All Over - Gary Allan (Warning: Do not listen to this album if you are remotely depressed or want to be happy. You cannot enjoy this if you're happy. And conversely, you should not listen to this if you're sad. It was recorded shortly after his wife shot herself. And while that makes for hard listening, it's great listening.)

Now, some critics may tell you that Fiona Apple's "Extraordinary Machine" and MIA's "Arular" should also be included in this list. They are wrong. Sorry - that was too harsh. They are both great albums, but not Top-10-of-the-Year-great.

Does my blog deserve a standing ovation?

I love live theater, especially Broadway musicals. And lucky for me, my husband loves them too so we go to several shows a year.

But there's a troubling trend in live theater: The standing ovation. Once reserved for the best of the best, it now appears that it's an expected conclusion to every show.

The scene plays out the same way every time. As the actors take their curtain call, a few assorted people in the audience rise to their feet. Then a few more and a few more after that. Before long, you too are forced to stand due to the peer pressure. (That, or appear to be an ungrateful theater-goer.) We're lucky enough to usually have pretty good seats to most of these shows so the pressure for us is even stronger. If we're not on our feet, the actors know it.

Tonight my husband treated me to surprise tickets to Beauty and the Beast. Earlier this week, we attended a performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Both shows were enjoyable I had a wonderful time. But I just don't think they were standing ovation-worthy. Still, both shows resulted in standing ovations.

The same way that a teacher who gives every kid in the class an 'A' minimizes the accomplishment of those who really deserve it, audiences that insist on giving an automatic standing ovation take away from those performances that are truly extraordinary.

So I urge my fellow theater-goers (or concert-goers for that matter) to take a stand and stay seated unless you feel a performance truly warrants it. Let's make the standing ovation something special again instead of just a perfunctory response.

Read this book

I love to read. And while there are many books that I've enjoyed over the years, I think I've finally found the one that may very well claim the prize of my favorite book of all time.

The little tale (or perhaps more appropriately, large tail) in question is called Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog. In it, newspaper reporter John Grogan details the story of his newlywed days when he and his wife decided to get a dog as a test before having children.

While I'm only a few chapters into it, I already connect with the book on many levels. First, I'm still a newlywed myself, and second, Grogan and his wife are both reporters like my husband and I were when we first married. (Yes, I realize I'm no longer a reporter, but my wonderful husband still is... Although he prefers the term journalist.)

But more than anything else, I truly believe this book could very well be about Buddy, my 115 lb. Labrador Retriever who resides with my parents. Grogan's story of picking Marley from the litter mimics our selection of Buddy. And much like the Grogans, we didn't know quite what we were in for either.

So if you grew up with a dog, ever thought about getting a dog, or maybe passed by a dog on the street one day, this book is a must-read. It's already racing up the charts so don't get left behind.

Plus, unlike Oprah's book recommendations, I can pretty much guarantee this one's a true story.

By the way, once you're on a reading kick with dog books, I have a few more to recommend:

Amazing Gracie: A Dog's Tale by Dan Dye and Mark Beckloff
Timbuktu: A Novel by Paul Auster

I have a copy of each of these three books somewhere and I'll loan them out if anyone wants to borrow them. I just have to figure out what I did with them first.

A disaster of olympic proportions

Nagano. Atlanta. Athens. Lillehammer. Seoul.

Quick: What do each of each of these cities have in common? That's right... each one has been responsible for ruining my TV viewing pleasure for weeks at a time. And now get ready to add Turin to the list. Damn Olympics.

Episodes of The Office and other quality NBC programs will soon be replaced with video following a torch around the world. Once that's over we'll be treated to extensive coverage of obscure sports like skeleton. Somehow it doesn't seem like a fair trade-off.

By all accounts, NBC has quite a lineup planned. According to some reports, the network and its various entities will be broadcasting 24.5 hours of Olympic coverage every day. I'm not sure how much of this I can handle. The opening ceremony is still more than two weeks away and I'm already sick of the whole thing. The only saving grace is that it lasts just over two weeks whereas the last summer Olympics dragged on forever. Or maybe it just seemed that way.

This year should prove to be exceptionally annoying for those of us in the Baltimore area. For the second Olympics in a row, we have a local athlete who will be competing. We had swimmer Michael Phelps in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and this time around we have figure skater Kimmie Meissner. The local TV newscasters will be sure to inundate us with detailed, hard-hitting stories featuring Kimmie's favorite breakfast spot and where she buys her jeans.

I still haven't determined whether I like the fact that the summer and winter Olympics are staggered so that we get to go through this interruption every other year. It used to be that a whole year's worth of TV viewing would be ruined by the international gathering. At least it's a bit more spread out this way.

And finally, so I don't come across as a total cynic, the Olympics do give us one thing to look forward to. No, I don't mean the chance to see people who have spent their whole lives training for a world-wide competition. I'm talking about taking bets on how long it will be before Kimmie Meissner is picked up on drunk driving charges.

The clip show

There comes a point in time for every creative entity where the juices just aren't really flowing. When it happens on a TV show, you get a clip show. When it happens to a newspaper or magazine, you get a "best of" style recap.

We're now at the point in my blog where I'm out of ideas, or at least I've been out of ideas for a week. Rather than turn this into a weekly update of my diet progress (though I did lose another 1.6 lbs this week), I've decided to pick some of my favorite articles from my reporting days.

So sit back, enjoy, and see what the Recovering Journalist did in her former life. I promise to be back with new material soon enough.

Counsel vs. Cancer

A primary case of déjà vu

No love in these elevators

Blind seek changes to Light Rail machines, policies

State expected to wrap up Randallstown shooting case