On A Stormy Day When I Didn’t Want To Leave My House…
Apr 12, 2013 What's Going On
Jennifer and Julia, the cure for my rainy-day blues.
This morning I woke up reluctantly. My son wakes me up around 6am on his way downstairs, and I make him breakfast and get him out the door. I’d stayed up late last night. The house was cold. (Wasn’t it just a few days ago when we didn’t even have to turn the heat on?) And unlike most days, when I get the kids off to school and then can do my own thing, I had to actually leave my house. And not in my usual workout gear or ill-fitting jeans, but looking half-way decent to meet two friends for breakfast.
I’m not in any way agoraphobic, I just really like being home. My house is comfortable. It’s very “me.” There are many days when I leave only for short walks to Fiona’s school – usually only in the afternoon, since the best neighbor in the world takes her to school most mornings. I don’t get restless or antsy when I’m home alone all day. I like being alone.
But I also like being with my friends, and since they won’t just come to my house, I have to go to them.
I dragged myself out of bed. Got Jake fed and out the door. Did not climb back into bed as I often do, but instead got a shower and found something decent to wear, muttering “Only for Jennifer and Julia.” I had some extra time so I even contemplated doing something with my hair, but then I looked out of the window and saw that the wind was already whipping along.
When it was time to leave I couldn’t find a singe umbrella. I mean, I own about a dozen. They were all hiding. I didn’t want to be late, so I just left. It wasn’t raining too hard yet.
The trains were ridiculously crowded, and everybody smelled like wet dog.
By the time I got out of the subway in Union Square, though, it was pouring. I headed for a newsstand and grabbed an umbrella. Then I realized that I had no cash (I never have cash!) and got some money out of an ATM, and handed the newsstand guy a crisp $20.
It took him a long time to get me my change. He was fumbling around behind the counter. I don’t think I was giving him any attitude, I wasn’t late and I was staying relatively dry under the overhang. But he apologized to me, three or four times. Finally, he handed me a wad of bills, none of them remotely flat. And then he held up his other hand and said sorry again. His other hand was deformed, in a claw shape. He said he couldn’t use it and that getting lots of bills was hard one-handed (stupid ATM $20 bills!).
I told him not to worry. He said “It’s hard when your hand doesn’t work.” I smiled and said, “At least you are.” I didn’t know what else to say. But my mood was instantly brightened. By someone who was out working and wanting to do a good job instead of feeling sorry for himself. By someone who actually cared that he was holding me up a little bit. By the fact that there were umbrellas being sold within fifty feet of where I got off of the subway in the pouring rain. By the fact that I can just get money out of an ATM without having to think about it too much.
I’m spoiled in many, many ways, I know that. I’m spoiled in that comfortable, middle class, non-breadwinner-with-kids-in-school way that allows you to get to the point where having to actually leave your house in more than sweats seems like a burden, where some bad weather actually makes you wish you hadn’t made plans with dear friends. Where the most difficult thing you’ll have to do all day is put on a little make-up and maybe get wet, and it seems like such an effort.
But of course in the end I was glad I’d gone out. As much of a loner as I am, I do love my friends. We had a spectacular breakfast at Maialino. Afterwards, Julia and I stopped at Bedford Cheese, where I spent another good chunk of the gift certificate my friends had given me for my birthday. And as Julia left the W Hotel for the train station, she asked the doorman to give me a nice umbrella, since my brand new $5 newsstand one was already falling apart.
When I got home, before I lost my momentum, I changed my clothes, put my cell phone in a baggie, and headed back out into the rain for a jog.
It had turned out to be one of the most fun days I’d had in a while, despite the fact that I got soaked – twice. And it isn’t even over yet, because my whole family will be home for dinner tonight – a not very common treat.
All of this on a day when I really didn’t want to get out of bed, and definitely didn’t want to leave the house.
Reading over this post I’m not really sure what the point is. Keep things in perspective? There’s a lot of suffering out there, so count your blessings? Friends are the tonic for ugly, stormy days? Newsstand umbrellas are designed to break within two blocks of leaving the newsstand?
I don’t know. This is my blog, I’m not sure I need to have a point. What I do know is that I’m very lucky, and very happy.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
I Did Not Move To Brooklyn For The Wildlife
Dec 12, 2012 What's Going On
About five years ago some young raccoons tried to get into our house, every morning at 2am, for about two weeks. They would squeeze between our bedroom window and the security bars and scratch on the glass, waking us up (although by the second week, I wasn’t really sleeping). They would make a ton of noise, and nothing bothered them. We shined flashlights right in their eyes, they didn’t care. We pounded on the the window right in front of their faces, they were unfazed.
We didn’t have use of our backyard then (it was still a trash-strewn jungle), but our next door neighbors couldn’t use theirs, because the raccoons had taken to hanging out there. And that whole nocturnal thing? Nope. I saw the entire family crossing the street in front of our house one day at noon.
Our neighbor finally put a trap on the roof, and once he took one of the raccoons away, the rest disappeared. I’d heard stories of sightings nearby in the years since, but our immediate area was blissfully raccoon free.
Until tonight.
I was putting the kids to bed, and we all heard the most terrifying sound – at first we couldn’t even tell if it was human or an animal. I can’t even describe to you what this sounded like, but it was absolutely horrific. It was just pure pain distilled into a noise.
Whatever it was, it was trapped or hurt or something bad. Hanging out of a back window I couldn’t see anything, but finally I was able to pinpoint among the echoing buildings exactly where it was coming from. I grabbed my coat and ran outside.
Some people up in a third floor window saw me searching with a flashlight and pointed out to me what was going on: several raccoons had viciously attacked another raccoon, up in a tree. The wounded raccoon was still in the tree whimpering.
The crazy thing? The women up in the window had called 311, and were told that unless the raccoons attacked a person, there’ was nothing they could do.
This is not something I thought I’d have to deal with in Brooklyn. Isn’t this the kind of thing people in the suburbs complain about? What’s next, am I going to find a deer nibbling around my vegetable garden?
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
How Can You Help? There’s No Wrong Answer
Nov 6, 2012 Around NYC
Tragedies always bring a desire to help. When I was stuck out of town in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy I felt very removed and helpless, but then when I got home I felt overwhelmed. Where to give money? Go with a big national organization that we’ve given to when the tragedies have been farther away, or the mayor’s fund, or smaller, close-to-home efforts that had sprung up specifically for Sandy relief?
And how should I spend my time? My instinct was to help people close to my neighborhood, but they weren’t the hardest hit – did I owe it to the people who didn’t have houses to help them first? Or did I owe help to people whose streets I drive down every week?
In the end, I decided there was no wrong answer, as long as I did something. Not doing anything, being paralyzed with the overwhelming nature of the destruction, would be the real tragedy.
As much as I wanted to roll up my sleeves and go to the people whose lives were completely devastated, I really wanted to stick closer to home, having just been away from home for much longer than I’d planned. I gave money to a friend of mine going to the hardest hit areas, so that he could get supplies into the hands of people who needed them the most.
I put my own energy into feeding people just a few miles away – people who didn’t have much before the storm, and who still didn’t have power or heat. I made bread to go with the pasta that was already coming in for their dinner that night. And after I talked about it online, a woman from my daughter’s school dropped off lots of cleaning supplies and paper towels, and my friend Molly sent me money so that I could buy even more badly needed supplies – I’ll be dropping all of that stuff off in Red Hook this afternoon.
And today I gave baked goods to Fiona’s school’s Election Day bake sale, which is giving half of this year’s proceeds to hurricane relief.
None of those were huge efforts – not like the people who came from across the country to help, or who put up displaced families in their own homes, or who have been volunteering all day, every day in some capacity. But in a situation like this, every little bit really does help. There are people whose first instinct is to put on work boots and gloves, grab shovels, and go help clean up. There are people who can’t give time but can afford to give money. People who have no money to give can volunteer making sandwiches, or reading to older people flooded out of their nursing homes. There’s always something you can do, and you shouldn’t slow down to wonder if you’re doing the thing that will help the most. Because to the people you are directly affecting, you are helping the most.
Need inspiration to get you moving? Look at these pictures of kids affected by Sandy. Or these people, doing what they could to help. Or these people. The devastation is on their faces.
Just do something. It will be appreciated. It will make a difference.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Hurricane Sandy, NYC
When Kids Overschedule Themselves
Oct 2, 2012 Kids
So I never wanted to be the mom with the overscheduled kids. I like hanging out at home. But my kids have other ideas.
Fiona signs up for after school classes every day they’re offered, Monday through Thursday. She loves it. They’re at her school, so I love it too – I just pick her up two hours later than usual, no running around required. This year there were no classes on Monday that she wanted to take.
She took one anyway.
She said she didn’t want to be left out, and if her friends were in the class (digital photography) she’d have fun no matter what the class was. My little social butterfly. At least she doesn’t have a commute, and her homework load is still relatively light.
Until this year, Jake was my fellow homebody. The only extracurricular activities he’s ever participated in with any consistency were Tae Kwon Do, which he’s been taking for years, and Robotics, which happened mostly at his school. Perfect.
Then he started his new school, and signed up for Robotics again. And TWO bands. And, still, Tae Kwon Do. Except for TKD, all of it happens at his school, so again, no running around for me. And he takes drum lessons, but those happen at our house.
I talked him out of a computer class, thank goodness.
So now, between homework, and chores, and the 5K training the kids and I have been doing together, and flute and drum practice, and dinner, and a little thing I believe in strongly called time to relax and do nothing, I’m not sure how he’s going to fit it all in without burning out.
But, I also don’t believe in setting limits for arbitrary reasons. I don’t limit TV to a certain amount of time, or say that chores have to take this much time each day. We do an amount that works. So, I’m handling this in a way that puts him in control of the situation.
I made it very clear that if his homework suffers, or if I ever have to drag him out of bed in the morning, or if he has so much to do that he can’t get to bed by 9-ish, he drops out of something.
Maybe he’ll be able to handle it. At that age I would have killed to have all of those opportunities. And it’s still two more weeks until every activity will have started up, so at least he gets a phase in to get used to it all.
He’s so much like me. Lazy at his core, able to sit on the couch like a champ, but a joiner who wants to do everything too. I hope he learns to handle it better than I do!
Tags: activities, Kids, NYC
Middle School: taking a chance
May 24, 2012 Around NYC
It’s middle school selection time in NYC, and with our oldest being in 5th grade this is our first time going through the process. Without going into too many specifics, it’s looking like our choice will come down to two public schools, which couldn’t be more different: Giant & Established vs. Tiny & Brand Spanking New. We have no idea what to do.
I’ve been going over the pros and cons of each school. The first has its own building and contains 1,800 middle school students. It has every in-school and after-school extracurricular activity you could name (and its teams do amazingly well in competitions). It is long-established in its neighborhood and universally well-regarded. Despite its size it does not seem crazy or disorganized at all. There’s an accelerated program, yet the more average kids don’t get forgotten. A large number of students go on to elite NYC high schools.
Jake took a tour and absolutely adored it. However, it would be a bit of a commute for him – 20-30 minutes door-to-door. He’d be taking the subway. He could possibly get lost in such a huge student body, especially if there’s a subject he’s not crazy about and just wants to coast through. If he’s doing after-school activities in the winter he’d be coming home after dark. And the wonderful principal recently left, so that’s a big unknown.
The second school is being started by a group that has a great track record of starting similar schools. I love the principal. Being new, there will be plenty of supplies and an enthusiastic staff. It will be very small – no hiding! And did I mention, it’s on our freaking corner? No commute at all – an extra hour a day is nothing to sneeze at. Plus it will be super convenient for other activities and performances. The principal is taking the kids on a retreat over the summer – she’s really invested in getting to know them and starting off right. The transition from the local elementary school he’s been at for seven years would probably be easier at this small school. The first class will get to help the school find itself, choose activities, etc. – something that really excites Jake.
But, of course, the entire school is a great unknown. It’s in a building that it will share with an elementary school. We have no idea what the student body will be like – often new schools get stuck with kids who aren’t wanted anywhere else. Past success doesn’t guarantee a great school.
The great thing is, I think the odds are in our favor whichever we choose. But the experiences will be so different for Jake. And which one we choose could severely impact where he goes to high school. And I have to admit, I’m excited about getting in on something new and all of the advantages that come with that. Then again, plugging him into a place that is running already would be the easier choice.
Thoughts?
Posting from my bathroom for charity
May 8, 2012 Charity & Volunteering
So I’m sitting in my bathroom writing this post. No, I’m not doing that, I’m waiting for my hair dye to penetrate my gray hairs and dark roots. What would make me dye my hair on a Tuesday when I have so many other things I should be doing? The RBaby Foundation.
I first heard about this organization when Julia Beck (in that picture with me over there), founder of Forty Weeks, invited me to hear Phyllis Rabinowitz speak a few years ago. Phyllis and her husband Andrew lost their newborn because the ER they took her to wasn’t prepared to deal with an infant. They were sent home when their baby needed treatment.
They took their incredible grief and turned it into an organization that trains ERs to deal with babies, and provides the right equipment. They took the biggest tragedy of their lives and turned it around and helped others. There really are no words for people like that.
And Julia Beck has been one of their biggest supporters. She brought me into the RBaby fold, getting me to run my first race, a Mother’s Day four miler in Central Park that raised money for RBaby. (Heck, she even got me to craft for another charity – what won’t I do for this woman?) When I heard that Julia was being honored with the first ever Champion Award, and that I was being invited to a huge charity gala at the Plaza to celebrate Julia and the fifth anniversary of The RBaby Foundation, I was just thrilled.
Then I got scared. Me and high society? We don’t mix. I was the last person in NYC to get the memo that panty hose were out. I can’t walk in high-heeled shoes. And I can’t wear nice clothes and eat at the same time. I can guarantee you that tomorrow night I will say or do something to embarrass Julia, and she probably knows this, which is why I’m even more honored to be invited – she’s willing to risk public humiliation in the name of friendship. Hell, I’m already in trouble with her mother for calling her a hippie, but that’s another story. :-)
Tags: charity, Julia Beck, NYC, RBaby Foundation
Fresh Direct–actually making this mom’s life easier!
May 7, 2012 Paid/Sponsored Post
This giveaway has closed. Congratulations to the winner, Eve L.!
I can’t tell you how often I get pitches from PR people for things they claim will make my life easier. Usually it’s something that would make no discernable difference at all in the level of ease in my life. But when the folks behind Listen To Your Mother asked if I would give away a Fresh Direct gift certificate in conjunction with their show, I said of course! Fresh Direct has been making my life easier since 2003, and I support them wholeheartedly.
My life has been unusually busy lately. I was away for a week, and then I only had two days to catch up on a week’s worth of emails, clean my entire house, work a big fundraiser at the kids’ school, bake a birthday cake, and get ready for Fiona’s birthday party. And of course, having been out of town, we didn’t have the basics when we got home – no milk, eggs, etc. Thank goodness I was able to put in a quick Fresh Direct order for the very next morning, and get not only the groceries we needed, but the bulk of the food and drinks for the party, too. It saved me at least two hours at a time when I didn’t have two hours to spare.
I’m so thrilled that Fresh Direct was a major sponsor of Listen To Your Mother, because I know some of the people involved with the show (which was performed Sunday afternoon) and I know how hard they worked on it. I hope Fresh Direct was able to make their lives a little easier, too.
As a long-time Fresh Direct customer, I can personally attest to the quality of their food. And if something isn’t perfect, their excellent ratings system tells you, so that you can decide whether to buy it or not. Their customer service team is outstanding, taking care of any problems that may arise, usually within hours.
Tags: Fresh Direct, NYC, Shopping
Don’t like the ice cream truck? Here’s what you can do
Apr 6, 2012 Around NYC
Every single spring, on some listserv or moms group or forum I’m on, somebody complains about the reappearance of the ice cream trucks and slushie carts in Brooklyn. This year, since it happened on the much-maligned Park Slope Parents listserv, it’s getting a lot of attention. Everyone from the San Francisco Chronicle to my friend Marinka (writing on Babble’s MomCrunch) to some Park Slope Parents members themselves (with a hilarious parody clarification) have been writing about this latest bit of whining from parents who blame the rest of the world because they have trouble saying “no” effectively to their kids.
The specific complaint that started the brouhaha involved carts entering the actual playground, and personally, I think that sucks. I get aggravated when anybody comes into the playground to sell anything. Most days in good weather we get pestered to buy slushies, cold water, balloons, stuffed animals, and cotton candy. My problem with this is that those people simply aren’t allowed in NYC playgrounds. If you’re not there with a kid, you’re there illegally. I’m sure you’re breaking other rules about vending inside the playground as well, but I just care about the rule that keeps creepy loners in trench coats out. So anybody who wants to ban selling anything within the wrought-iron-fenced confines of the actual city playgrounds, you’ve got my support.
