Monday:
We woke in bed all together and the 5 year old said “A storm is coming”. “Who told you that?” I asked while checking my phone which confirmed there was thunder and lightning forecast for today. “How did you KNOW?” the 6 year old asked her while I asked “Are you a witch?”. By the time she managed to get a word in edgeways, she pointed to the window and said “The sky is grey” and then we all looked out the window and yes, it did very much look like a storm was coming and if we just looked up from our phones maybe we’d see what’s right in front of our faces.
It’s the last week of school but most of the after school activities have wrapped up. Hooray! I overdid it on the after school activities this year. “I think we’ll keep one day free of activities when we move to Ireland” I said to the 6 year old and she said “Yeah. Maybe two.” So, today, after school, we came home and they played with a toy (a potion-making kit) they hadn’t yet opened from the birthday party in April, while I made bolognese in my red Le Creuset pot and listened to Adele.
Tuesday:
We have a call with a broker about life assurance. Before the call, I suggest to Dave we simply go with the most extensive cover and he agreed. Then I asked him was it worrying that his wife very specifically requested the largest life assurance policy and he laughed, nervously.
A 79 year old Russian lady knocked at my door in response to the ad I’d put up on the building app giving away furniture. “I’m here for the lamp”, she said but once I’d given it to her, she asked if there was anything else I wanted to get rid of. “Well everything”, I said and gave her a quick tour of the apartment. She ended up leaving with 3 lamps, an airfryer, a coffee machine, my 600 bag box of Barry’s tea and the kitchen clock. When I opened a kitchen press to get a shopping bag to put the coffee into, I saw our drinks cabinet and asked if she’d like alcohol. “Yes” she replied and said she’d come back for it later.
I instantly miss the clock. I spend the whole day looking at it to see the time but am faced with only a blank wall. I go to make the kids dinner and wonder where I’m meant to put the chicken nuggets now. The oven?
In the evening I offload a bookshelf, a console table and the bedroom mirror.
The 79 year old comes back for her booze and tells me she will be 80 this year. That’s how I know she’s 79. She told me she’s “European” and never told me what country - that’s how I know she’s Russian.
The 6 year old is in camp Monday, Wednesday and Friday this week and home with me Tuesday and Thursday. Today we went to the Guggenheim, took the elevator to the top and made our way down. Halfway down the spiral she announced “There’s no art in this museum”. (The other main activities in Camp Mom were helping me carry our belongings down to a 79 year old Russian woman’s apartment).
Wednesday:
I have my annual well check. I tell the nurse drawing blood that I skipped breakfast this morning and that I hope this one action alone will improve my blood results from last year, without having made any single other lifestyle change the whole year. She laughs. I’ve noticed in the last month that Americans are starting to laugh at my jokes after years of…not doing that? What’s that about?
The doctor reviewed my notes from last year and asked if I’m still strength training and doing Pilates every week. I was momentarily confused but out of loyalty to last year me (who also definitely wasn’t doing that), I said “Yes”.
Thursday:
Camp Mom again today and we have a lovely day while never leaving a few blocks of our home. We watch TV (Project Runway Junior Season 2), get our nails done, get lemonades and pretzels from an Auntie Anne’s truck that’s parked up outside. We take these to eat in Lincoln Center where we watch graduates and their families pose for photos and celebrate. Afterwards, we play a game of cornhole, go to a playground and then to the grocery store and then it’s time to get her sister, working hard in Pre-K.
It’s a beautiful evening and we eat dinner on the garden terrace with neighbours while the kids all play together - regular bed times be damned.
Friday:
It’s the last day of school before summer! I celebrate the end of my free time by going to Soho and getting a Keratin hair treatment followed by a facial and lunch. I’m wearing an orange skirt and a print t-shirt with oranges on it. It felt good in the apartment (‘felt’ not ‘looked’... I gave away the full length mirror) but down in the all-black/all-cream, trendy, youthful and beautiful Soho, I feel like a gaudy clown. I get a cappuccino and a cardamom bun in La Cabra and while waiting in line with the monochrome beauties, I hang my head in shame.
I go to my hair appointment and afterwards, my hair is SO poker straight and flat (as to be expected in the first 48 hours) but I’m feeling soooo ugly. I feel like a teenager except I didn’t even feel like this as a teenager. I’m thinking how my esteem is aging like Benjamin Button and it’s not right for a 41 year old woman to be walking round thinking like this when, stopped at a traffic light, one of the NYC elite (young and beautiful and in a matching green athleisure set) says to me (and says very loudly because she has head phones in and doesn’t realise how loud she is speaking )“I LOVE YOUR SKIRT”.
To say my mood picked up. I know the neediness is leaping off the page.
“Thanks Penneys” I say to her. No I didn’t. It’s not from Penney’s, it’s from Cos. I’m not actually a teenager, I’m 41 years old. What I actually said was simply “Oh thank you” and tried not to sound too grateful and/or cry.
While I wait for my facial, I’m sitting and scrolling and I see a post on the best bars in NY. “Fuck I’ve never been to any of these bars”, I start to panic. “Or any bars like them. Fuck fuck fuck have I done New York wrong?”. The FOMO that New York city induces is next level. I’m getting FOMO for the city I’m actually living in right now. And I’m saying this as a person who never gets FOMO. I hear you had an amazing night while I was home in bed? I love that for you. I’m so glad you had a good time. I was having the best time too.
Am I becoming fully neurotic right as it’s time to leave New York?
When I leave, I pass a building that says “Lore. A bathing club for serious bathers”. I shake my head and think: the nonsense! Nonsense I’m drawn to, but nonsense nonetheless.
I picked up a Liberty bagel for lunch then collected the kids - one from their last day of school (preschool!) and one from camp.
I’m so proud of the pre-schooler. Her confidence has grown so much and she had such a happy year! She loves her teachers and her friends and being part of the school and learning! While her elder sister favours the tell-you-nothing approach in relation to school (You know the one: monosyllabic answers and if I mention something I know happened in school, she’ll eye me suspiciously and ask “How do you know that?”. And I get it. She has been photographed and videoed nearly every second of her life since birth. All through creche and pre-school and now school, and I get that she wants some worlds to be her own!) - the younger downloads evvvvvverything to me. I hear every class drama. Who’s fighting with who, who played with who at recess, who showed her their butt during rest time, who’s mom was the mystery reader, who supports the Mets, which kids have Pokemon cards, what she learned about the water cycle or what a plant needs to survive. (When I got her to tell my Dad what a plant needs to survive he said in amazement that he didn’t learn that till Ag college).
To celebrate her last day, she wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese in the Bronx, so we did. The kids got to meet Charles Entertainment Cheese (Chuck E’s full name) and they have me plagued to go back.
Saturday:
Dave and my brother are at a World Cup game in Boston so it’s a girls day in New York City. We have a full day of appointments…a birthday party at a climbing wall in Brooklyn, followed by a birthday party in a play centre on the Upper West Side. We start the day with a 10am playground date with the 6 year old’s best friend where we say goodbye forever as he is heading off for the summer! 💔💔💔💔 But also: they’re kids and they’ll be fine.
Dave’s back in the afternoon and we head out for another goodbye dinner with neighbours in the building. It is such a great night and we spend the whole time thinking and saying (and then texting each other afterwards) we should have done this sooner but the sad thing about temporarily relocating somewhere is that building up friendships just takes time. It does.
Sign me up for Camp mom because it sounds like a blast. You perfectly capture the reality of moving (no clock or convenience appliances) while having such a full week. Oh and don’t worry about the list of bars, they’re always changing and never life changing. Hope you are settling in well in Ireland!
Middle name Entertainment! Who knew?!