So, I wrote many deep and literary passages in my head during our recent trip to New York. Unfortunately, I was too busy eating to write them down. So here are a few images that characterize our trip.
We did all the regular touristy things that could be crammed into a couple of days, except going to a show. Note that we were too cheap to actually take the Statue of Liberty ferry. We rode to Stanten Island for free. Everybody's surprised we didn't go to a show. Instead...I took Bret to a boxing match for his birthday.
We also toured Yankee stadium, and on Monday while I was working Bret struck out on his own to see Flushing Meadows and Shea Stadium. Because we're both geeks (although Bret wouldn't as readily admit it), we toured the UN and visited the national debt counter. We also visited the World Trade Center Memorial and were too affected to take pictures.
We scouted out a couple of sites for the children, who were busy having a great time with their cousins and wishing we wouldn't even come home.
And, as I mentioned, we ate. Italian, Cuban, Greek. We were able to visit my friend Mika and her partner Jen briefly in Brooklyn. By Sunday night, I was done. I couldn't keep up with Bret. This was my fifth trip to NYC, his first. As Marge Piercy might say, my good nature wore out like a fan belt. I demanded to return to the hotel room and soak up the free cable TV in order to re-energize for my work session the next day. My adventurous husband took off in the dark of a Manhattan night to seek a bar in which to sit, drink, and watch the Packers versus the Giants. Wouldn't you know he managed to find a bar full of Packer fans.
When we got home, both of our kids had sizable fevers, Bret's car gasped its last and broke a head gasket, I was turned down for a teaching job I really wanted, the electrical went out on our dishwasher, we paid someone to fix it and it happened again, and we caved in and bought a minivan--all in the first week back. Still, we had four glorious days alone together for the first time in 6 years, which is gonna make a person put the regular challenges of family living and home ownership into their proper, manageable perspective.
We scouted out a couple of sites for the children, who were busy having a great time with their cousins and wishing we wouldn't even come home.
When we got home, both of our kids had sizable fevers, Bret's car gasped its last and broke a head gasket, I was turned down for a teaching job I really wanted, the electrical went out on our dishwasher, we paid someone to fix it and it happened again, and we caved in and bought a minivan--all in the first week back. Still, we had four glorious days alone together for the first time in 6 years, which is gonna make a person put the regular challenges of family living and home ownership into their proper, manageable perspective.
I've been on holiday (literally+figuratively) since my fall semester course ended on December 18. My new workload starts Monday, so count this as an off-season posting. I have to share one sunny day I spent with Sophie. It was one of those rare days when I felt completely present. I could have played little girl games all day. There was something about the quality of the sunlight, the way she's still half-baby half-girl, the way the day felt comfortably small, carved out of our mountain of responsibilities. We tea partied and barbied, and then she went into my closet and hauled out all of my high-heeled shoes, the ones I only wear to weddings. She decided that we needed to dance in them, not entirely like ballerinas, but sort of. We took each other's pictures and danced to music on the radio, which I haven't experienced this way, in this century I'm sure. What a gift she is.
