Twixmas Upstate

Happy New Year!

Christmas Day

Kids’ Christmas Day excitement never gets old. The 4 year old got the Barbie camper van she has been asking for since July and the exaltation was extremely gratifying.

We had a quieter Christmas than previous years and when I told my brother the only reason we didn’t have the usual Christmas morning drinks was because everyone we’d previously invited has since moved to the suburbs or back to Ireland and we haven’t replaced our friends yet, he replied sagely, “That’s living in New York”.

Stephen’s Day

David, through work, is rubbing shoulders with the great and good of Manhattan and this year, a partner at a New York law firm that he met a couple of times, casually offered us her Upstate holiday home to stay in over Christmas. It’s the kind of thing you might say in the moment but when she followed up with an email insisting that we take it, along with the use of their cars, we said: OK!

Imagine having a fully spare house. With spare cars. Filled with spare things like spare couches and spare beds. Spare towels, a spare washing machine, a spare fridge. Spare coffee machines, a spare rice maker, spare fruit bowl, spare hoover, spare floor brush, spare Ottolenghi books.

It was a beautiful home. Spacious yet cosy, minimalist yet lived in. Modern but classic. It had a games room and toys for the kids. TV rooms and TV-free rooms.

It was the first time, in my many years in, and adjacent to, law firms that I thought: OK becoming a partner is actually worth it if this is what it gets you. I’d always looked at partners and pitied them. There was literally nothing I envied about their lives. (Whenever I said this to my mother, she suggested maybe I didn’t know enough about their lives). If I hear someone has made partner or is going for it, my brain says to my mouth: “Say: ‘Congratulations’”. Because all my body wants to do is give them a hug and whisper in their ear: “Get therapy”.

But this house changed all that. It was the softness of the carpet underfoot. You really have to feel it. They should let junior lawyers kick off their shoes once a day and plunge them into carpets like this to motivate them.

“Yeah, I think I could live like this”, I thought. “Maybe I could be a rich person…if they’d have me”. Then David lit the fire and that dream went up in smoke.

He lit the fire but he hadn’t opened the flue (What’s a flue? A rich person thing?) and the house filled with smoke. There was thick smoke on the ground floor and a lighter fog upstairs. The chimney breast, which had been painted a light grey, was now black with soot. A piercing fire alarm was going off. We closed doors and opened windows. We opened the flue. Then we heard sirens. The local fire department had been alerted. And the police department arrived too.

Ten minutes ago I’d been thinking I’d enter the world of the rich if they’d have me, now looking at the once grey chimney breast, I knew we’d never be invited back.

27 to 31 December

Shout out to these magic sponges which, with a lot of elbow grease from David and his mother, restored the chimney breast to good as new. I, for one, did not think it would be possible. “It’s OK, we can paint it” was my contribution to proceedings last night, while the fire alarm screamed in our ears.

The days were long and largely the same. Long in the best possible way. Long and slow and restful. We were snowed in but quickly settled into this extremely comfortable home.

We had long breakfasts, we watched TV, we played board games and card games. We sledded on the red plastic toboggan we’d packed on the train from Grand Central and we played with the pink Barbie camper van, we’d also packed on the train from Grand Central.

Barbie & Ken living their best Upstate lives

We shot hoops at the outdoor hoop and built a snowman. We looked out the windows and said “There’s no life at all. Not even a bird”. Then one day I said “I see a squirrel!” and everyone ran to look at the squirrel and a bit of life returned and we saw birds and then the biggest birds I’d ever seen - three wild turkeys!!

Photo by Claude Laprise on Unsplash

We made many hot chocolates. We read, we napped, we had baths and long showers. I applied every potion and lotion I owned after my daily shower, before getting back into my uniform of thermal leggings, slippers and an old jumper. We made dinner and lit the fire and drank Baileys. We had dance parties. We took to jigsaws. I found a 550 piece jigsaw and thought I’d give it a go.

I’d never done a jigsaw like this before and had always thought they were for the elderly. In fact, it turns out, they’re for people with nothing else to do. I took this one out and the 6 year old helped me with the edges, then gave up because it was too hard and I continued on by myself. Nobody interrupted me. I did it in fits and bursts over a few days. It was a cartoon scene of a busy airport (like a scene from Where’s Wally) and on the third day, David approached me and asked how it was going. “This pile of pieces is red clothes, this is blue clothes, this is feet, this is hats and this is luggage”, I said, explaining my system.

I realised I sounded like I hadn’t spoken in hours and also that David was looking at me like he was concerned. But then he picked up a piece and placed it. And then another and another and then he said “I can see how this could become addictive” and then maybe because we were close to the end or because there were two of us doing it but we were really building momentum and the kids were looking for our attention - we’re talking jumping sofas like hurdles, towards coffee tables and in front of an open fire - and we responded to these dangerous screams for attention by saying, distractedly “Very good. Mammy and Daddy are doing a puzzle”. We were getting faster and faster and it was really very thrilling and David said “Will we get a jigsaw for home? It might be nice to do on a Saturday night”.

We did leave the house on one occasion to go to the grocery store. The kids were running wild and in Day #1186 of Americans not understanding sarcasm, David said jokingly to the lady at the till “Who owns those children?” and the lady very sincerely said “You know, I don’t know”.

Coming towards the end of the year, slowly as it was, my mind naturally turned towards next year. The year we return to Ireland. Squeeeee!!! (This blog is going to pivot so quickly into I-actually-hated-New-York-all-along, you are going to get whiplash. Brace yourself.) I arranged a rehabilitation programme for the kids and booked them into a farm camp and a GAA camp. To complete the Irish childhood experience, I booked us a week in Center Parcs for the midterm break. The midterm break from which school - who the fuck knows because the closest I’ve come to getting them a spot in a school is that one kid is 29th place on a waiting list for a religious school….of which we are not the religion. I’m becoming so desperate, I’ve considered having them baptised, just to jump them up the list. The only thing stopping me is when I picture telling my parents that they’ve been baptised and my parents saying “Oh that’s great! Thank God! That’s brilliant! At last you saw sense!” and then picturing their faces when I have to tell them: “No I…I baptised them….eh…they’re….they’re Protestant”.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡ Happy New Year! Hit the ♡ below if you enjoyed ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡