Skipping Town

This weekend was an exceptionally busy sideshow.  Friday: 3:00 - 5:30: Lucia had musical rehearsal 3:00 - 10:30pm: Greta went to a friend's house directly after school for a birthday party 7:30 - 9:30: Margo and Andrew to a neighbor's party 10:30: Pickup Greta In the very constricted time slot I had to make dinner, I was almost done preparing linguini with clams when I asked Lucia to unload the dishwasher. The pasta was boiling in its pot; the clams were simmering in their pan. A one-cup Pyrex measuring cup was standing by to scoop up some pasta water when the time came. Lucia carried a (in retrospect, obviously too-heavy) stack of plates over to the cupboard, which is next to the stove. She somehow miscalculated where the shelf was (?) and dropped the entire stack straight down onto the measuring cup. None of the plates broke. The measuring cup, however, exploded into pieces that flew all over the stove, floor, and even onto the table. By "pieces," I mean "shard...

We are tired of living in the basement, shrouded in dust. But progress is being made every day. The old windows are out; new windows will be in by the end of the week. As usual, there is a new temporary wall to hold up the house while work is being done. I'm glad these construction guys know what they're doing.  I'm behind this week on blogging, for no reason other than the house is chaos, evenings are chaotic, and there's always a lil' piece of extra chaos each day to make things interesting.  For example, on Tuesday the cleaners came, at the exact moment a dumpster arrived and the street construction settled directly in front of our house for the day.  For example, last night Farrah managed to find, steal, and eat an entire chocolate bar Andrew had brought back from Germany. Fortunately, it was milk chocolate with a lot of peanuts, so she wasn't in too much danger. But there was a tense half hour of finding chocolate toxicity calculators online and using Googl...

The kids and Andrew had no school/work on Monday, but, alas, I did not have the day off. At least I was able to work from home. Andrew took the kids ice skating in Schenley in the afternoon, which they seemed to enjoy. And we all played Splendor.  We've been watching the Olympics each night, mostly figure skating. Lucia observed that the next time the Winter Olympics are on, she will be in college. I feel like the next two years are going to be a series of realizations like that. I've been trying to put together our schedule for the summer and it's almost complete. I registered Lucia for an SAT class, and Greta for a summer geometry class. Lucia will be applying for a job. Greta will do some summer rowing. We have our NH and Cape May plans in place. It is going to be a very full but fun summer.

Today, Skipping Town turns twenty. I have a lot of feelings about this. And so, a few words: "The past is never dead. It's not even past." --Faulkner On February 15, 2006, I sat down at my small desk by the window of my apartment on 5th Avenue in Brooklyn and created an account on a blogging platform called Blogger. After some thought, I titled my new blog Skipping Town. It made sense: I was just a few months away from moving from New York City to Barcelona, and “skipping town” was exactly what I was doing. The phrase was light, breezy, confident; a little reckless. Though this was unquestionably a major life move--it involved quitting my job as an editor at an office in Union Square, breaking my lease on a beautiful Park Slope one-bedroom, selling all my furniture, and closing a chapter on the city I loved most in the world, where I’d been building a life since 1999--“skipping town” left little room for what I was leaving behind. I was twenty-nine, moving abroad, chasing...

Lucia tested negative for covid on Friday so we have removed isolation and masking from the chaos of our household. There is still a lot of other chaos ("I'm just gonna rip up this whole floor" is not something one generally wants a plumber to announce) and our house is beyond filthy with dust. Are we halfway through the reno? Perhaps. Perhaps. Friday night the girls and I watched This Is Us while Andrew went to a rodeo downtown--it was a work event. He had a bit of difficulty deciding what to wear, truly uncomfortable with any deviation from his typical put-together ensembles of a tucked-in button-down shirt. He still wore a tucked-in button-down shirt, but it was flannel. He tried to wear a wool blazer. Greta and I said no. Saturday Lucia had a track meet in Youngstown, and Andrew, Greta, and I went to watch--my first track meet. She did well despite having been sick and not doing intense workouts this week. We stayed for her two events (a relay and the mile) and then w...

Lucia stayed home from school on Wednesday, though she's feeling mostly fine--a very mild Covid case. I'm still masking in the house which is a HUGE pain, but unavoidable. The week's renovation work is focused on plumbing and electrical. Sometimes the water is turned off; sometimes, after everyone leaves, we realize Greta's room has no electricity and she lights twenty candles so she can see while she gets ready for bed. One positive step forward is that the plumber is getting closer to solving The Mystery of No Cold Water. And I'm not going to make too bold a claim, but it's very possible that I provided the clue that unlocked the whole case. No, I haven't "examined the plumbing" or "tested any pipes" or "identified any crossed valves," but I did provide a logical path forward by pointing out to the plumber that the people we bought the house from had renovated all the bathrooms using very unskilled contractors, and that had to...