Cheeseburgers

Since Mark lost his jobs, we've been eating a lot of cheeseburgers.

It's almost like we're back in our York, Pa., house a decade ago.

We used to go running on the trail that stretched from Glen Rock, a little nowhere town in the bowels of Central Pennsylvania, to Gunpowder Falls State Park in Maryland.

After our runs, we both had to get to our jobs at the York Daily Record for the night shift. Mark was news editor and I was night cops reporter. We didn't have much money. So the typical lunchtime fare was veggie burgers with cous cous.

Today, we try to spice it up with homemade pizza - a deal at about $12 a meal when you put sauce, cheese, mushrooms and onions on one of those store-bought crusts - and pasta with hot Italian sausage.

I really haven't had a problem finding decent wines for $10 or less. I used to average $17 a bottle.

I occassionally miss being able to walk into a French bistro _ Les Halles in Lower Manhattan _ at 3 p.m. on a random day off to order Steak Frites and a nice Pinot Noir. So decadent.

But staying home for meals more often has also been quite nice. We play jazz or blues in the background and usually have a candle lit on the table. How many couples can say they've been married for eight years and still have frequent candlelight dinners?

Not many.

(Although, Mark did get a little pissy with me when I grabbed a handful of fries off the pan instead of waiting for him to divvy them out with a hamburger flipper.)

peace,
Tina

Day 2, Jasmine's Chair

There's a very large and ugly piece of furniture in my postage-stamp of a livingroom here on the Upper East side.

I have tried to get rid of it each of the six or so times we've moved in our dozen years together. But I've failed miserably.

The chair is leather. Actually, it's pleather. It was probably built in the late 80's and is the color tan you would normally find in a dentist's office. It's a sort of putrid, yellow tan.

When you sit in it, you're forced to recline in an almost full repose. In other words, you end up staring at the top corner of an opposing wall.

But I had reasons other than appearance and comfort for wanting to throw the behemoth away.

The number one reason was its obvious connection to my husband's bachelorhood.

The chair was a constant reminder of the sparce apartment he inhabited when we met. Just the chair, two end tables and a couch. And the more he seemed to fight the idea of tossing it, the more I wanted it to go.

Then, Jasmine stepped in. Rather, she climbed on.

The cat became enamoured with the chair at our house in Philadelphia. Its bowl-like seat is the perfect place for a 15-lb feline to curl up in a ball and sleep. She was even happier after I covered the cold material in an old afghan blanket that my grandmother had knitted.

As a result, I just couldn't take it away from her when we left Philadelphia. This even though we were "paring down" to move into a place about half the size of our home 80 miles to the south. I knew it would give her a sense of comfort that she would need.

Now, she climbs onto the chair at about 11 a.m. and remains there until well into the night. She only moves to walk 10 feet to her food dish or three feet to her litter pan.

That's how I ended up with the chair, and I hope it's going to be with us for a very long time.

peace.

photo

The photograph is Tina in Mystic, Conn. It was cold.

day 1

So, this is more or less what's happening with Tina and Mark Moore in the Big Apple - a city that Tina finds more or less annoying on a daily basis.

Mark says he'd "like it more if he had a job."

Well, then, that's where we will begin. His job working for an evil Swedish company.

He took the job seven years ago. Back then, we were in Philadelphia, living in an apartment. I was working for the Associated Press at the time, about to move over to the Philadelphia Inquirer - talk about evil empires.

Anyway, his job brought us to New York two years ago. Actually, it brought him to New York. I was just here a couple weekends a month. More often than not, I made him come back to Philly, a.k.a "my city."

Then, as the Inquirer imploded under a new owner, I decided it was high time for me to leave. I tried the Times, the all-so-serious, weighty newspaper that is obviously published for people who don't ride the subway, but was rejected.

So, finally, I gave in. I decided to go to the Daily News instead, a tab, a celebrity concerned, Britney-Spears-loving tab, but a newspaper definitely published for subway riders.

Less than two months after my arrival, I received the shocking call: "They fired me," Mark told me as I stood at the D'Agastino's check-out. After losing the over-priced olives, I rushed home to console him. It sweems the company wanted "a new direction." Bullshit.

That brings us to today.

I'm happy to have more time with him, but the severance is running low and we're going to have to move. And that's fine with me. The commute from the Upper East to the Upper West side invades my senses on a daily basis. The transfer station from the 6 to the E train smells like dirty feet. The subway doors closed on me the other day, bruising my hip. Then, a free-newspaper hawker who was aggressively handing out papers struck me in the arm, hard.

I think he was a Metro guy.

peace.