Yesterday, in an ill-advised bout of procrastination, I entered our address in Barcelona into Google Street View. Suddenly, there it was—our street, Pau Claris, in near-real-time, cars and motos and pedestrians captured in situ. There was our building’s doorway; there, next door, were the stylishly filled windows of the design shop Vinçon. I “walked” down the block—there was a bakery; there was the French restaurant where we went for steak frites. It felt like looking at pictures of someone who had died.
I then Google Street Viewed our current apartment. All it showed was garbage cans in the alley.
Andrew’s at work and won’t be reading this blog for a few hours, so, free from his disapproval and his reasonable reassurances, I’ll indulge in a brief spell of pregnancy-hormone-induced hand-wringing. Where the *&^% are we? What on earth are we doing here? Where are the people, the places, the things we love the most? How on earth can we live in this remote, godforsaken outpost with a baby who should have a village (perhaps a West or East one) to raise it? Though Andrew’s picking up the keys to our new house today, and though yesterday we talked of how excited we are to move in, I’m having one of those mornings where I’m ready for us to just chuck it all and move to a studio in Brooklyn where we might not have much space or money but at least we’d have a city outside our door. A city where, if we indeed decide to use Andrew’s corporate cash baby-bonus to buy the Lamborghini of strollers, people will raise their eyebrows and actually recognize that we’re pushing the Lamborghini of strollers. Or, more likely, not raise their eyebrows because they’re pushing Lamborghini strollers too.
What a horrible thing to say. We’re not Lamborghini stroller people; we’ll probably start a college fund. This is a strange morning. It started off just fine, with grapefruit juice and a bowl of cereal, and it’s sunny and blue-skied outside and Andrew’s dad is arriving tonight and we’re going to have a lovely weekend in San Francisco, but then BAM. I began this blog post and this weepy mood just descended on me like the Devil’s Breath of summer will soon descend on Sacramento.
Stupid Google Street View. It should be banned for pregnant women who are far from all the places they once considered home.
I then Google Street Viewed our current apartment. All it showed was garbage cans in the alley.
Andrew’s at work and won’t be reading this blog for a few hours, so, free from his disapproval and his reasonable reassurances, I’ll indulge in a brief spell of pregnancy-hormone-induced hand-wringing. Where the *&^% are we? What on earth are we doing here? Where are the people, the places, the things we love the most? How on earth can we live in this remote, godforsaken outpost with a baby who should have a village (perhaps a West or East one) to raise it? Though Andrew’s picking up the keys to our new house today, and though yesterday we talked of how excited we are to move in, I’m having one of those mornings where I’m ready for us to just chuck it all and move to a studio in Brooklyn where we might not have much space or money but at least we’d have a city outside our door. A city where, if we indeed decide to use Andrew’s corporate cash baby-bonus to buy the Lamborghini of strollers, people will raise their eyebrows and actually recognize that we’re pushing the Lamborghini of strollers. Or, more likely, not raise their eyebrows because they’re pushing Lamborghini strollers too.
What a horrible thing to say. We’re not Lamborghini stroller people; we’ll probably start a college fund. This is a strange morning. It started off just fine, with grapefruit juice and a bowl of cereal, and it’s sunny and blue-skied outside and Andrew’s dad is arriving tonight and we’re going to have a lovely weekend in San Francisco, but then BAM. I began this blog post and this weepy mood just descended on me like the Devil’s Breath of summer will soon descend on Sacramento.
Stupid Google Street View. It should be banned for pregnant women who are far from all the places they once considered home.
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