Category: Life

  • Landlords

    I got an email yesterday afternoon from my landlord’s property office, informing us that they are going to install a buzzer system in our building, and that we need to be available Saturday morning for the installation. and when I read this email, my first reaction was that this was a lie, as they want to enter our apartment, and try to evict us.

    Yes, I am aware of how much that was a completely irrational response to that email.

    My second reaction was to respond to the email, thanking them for the buzzer, and confirming that we would be home on Saturday.

    But in my defense, we are like the last building in Manhattan that doesn’t have a buzzer, and we have been complaining about it for years.

    I don’t know what it is, but there is something about New York, where you can’t trust your landlord or super. Next to the Mayor, those are the most hated jobs in NYC. In the fifteen years I have lived here, I only know one person who had a positive experience with a landlord. For everyone else, it’s just pure hatred.

    In the end, I try to be fair, balanced in my interactions with our landlord; we have to work together as long as we live here.

  • Wait, Is It Spring?

    Wait, Is It Spring?

    It will be sixty degrees in New York City today, and the kid is over the moon to get out to the park and just play! We had a fifty degree day about a week ago, but it was a little cloudy and windy, and it didn’t count. I say that because, it is a blue sky today, and it’s March, and it is just enough of a tease that will make you think this is the start of Spring!

    I know it’s not, because we have had a snow storm in April, so at any moment this early Spring can crumple back into Winter.

    I love this day because people will be out! Out and sweating in their Winter coats and scarves. And then there will be the people who will treat this day as if it’s eighty degrees, with tee-shirts and shorts on.

    I always find it amazing that this Spring preview always seems to find a way to happen right at the moment that I start thinking in my head, “You know, I’m looking forward to Spring. And Summer isn’t that bad, either.” The Spring preview hits, and then my thoughts change to, “Yeah, I need it to be Spring. I can’t take Winter anymore.”

    Also, maybe, just maybe, there just might be a little hope along with this Spring as well.

  • The Joy of Growing Lima Beans

    Remote learning for kindergarteners is pretty hard. I feel very fortunate that we have a great teacher for the kid. She makes the best out of this awful situation we are all in, and the kid really has taken to her. Hopefully, one day, we will get to meet each other in person.

    One of the projects that the teacher has assigned was growing a lima bean in a plastic cup. There was a kit I had to go and pick up at the school, which contained the cup, seed, and dirt. All the kids kept the bean in a wet paper towel until it sprouted roots, and then filling the cup up with dirt, they planted the bean. Weekly, the teacher has the kids bring their bean plant to class, so they can measure it, and keep track as scientists. The kid loves this project, and she gets very excited when she gets to show off her plant.

    The other side of this project, is that I also have become excited about this it as well. Every morning, I open up the curtains so light can come in, which leads me to move the bean plant around the apartment for maxim photosynthesis. I check the leaves to make sure they are healthy, and touch the soil to make sure it isn’t too wet, or dry. I even get excited on the mornings when I see the bud of new leaves starting to pop out.

    I have discovered the joy in keeping a plant alive.

    But I need to watch myself, to make sure I don’t take over this project from the kid. I have even started to think that I might want to plant my own lima bean. Or maybe get a planter box this Spring, and plant my own mess of beans? From working with the kid’s bean plant, I want to have my own experience of growing, of each day checking in on the progress the plants make. I am sure that this has to do with giving each of my days a purpose, which can have a beneficial result.

    In that sense, I would like to try my hand to growing gourds.

  • Fixing Nightmares

    I’m just not feeling today. Part of it is that I didn’t sleep well last night, which was due to my mind not shut off. I was having a negative thought downward spiral, where I was listing everything that I was disappoint in about myself, as well as saying to myself over and over again that I will never succeed at anything I truly desire.

    Good times in the self-defeating department.

    And then at about 3 in the morning, the kid woke up from a bad dream, and wanted me to snuggle her back to sleep. That made things a little better. I didn’t ask her what the bad dream was about, as I have found that asking her to relive the nightmare sometimes makes things worse, as it just scares her all over again. What works better is to play a game of naming all the things that makes us happy. We go back and forth, I normally start, and we do this until she either feels better, or falls asleep.

    I start with an easy one;

    Me- Snuggles

    Her – My doll

    Me – Reading books

    Her – Drawing pictures

    Me – Pizza

    Her – Cheesy noodles

    Me – The dog

    Her – Friends at the park

    After a few back and forth’s, she is out. I hold on to her for a minute or two more just to make sure she’s asleep. Then I slow slink out of her room, with the job accomplished.

    Not that I got back to sleep right away, but I tried thinking about the things that keep me going, the goals I have. Generally, I keep it together, but there are those days when everything feels a million miles away, and nothing will change it.

    That is the Covid-isolation brain talking. I have been pretty much doing the same thing for a year now, and it just feels like nothing has changed. But feelings aren’t necessarily facts.

    I’m just tired.

  • Covid Guilt: I’m Doing What I Can

    I’m ran the kid through her reading drills, and now she is in her remote class, working on writing words and sentences.

    I guess this is now normal for her. I wonder what she will remember about all of this? At what age will she look back and say, this was a completely messed up time to be alive? I can hear her wonder aloud one day, “How did three people stuck in a tiny apartment in Upper Manhattan survive this? How did we not all go insane?”

    I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not sure if I will ever understand how to answer that.

    The other night the wife asked me if I had an exercise plan. My answer is that I’m not planning on working out until the kid gets back into school, and I’m not going to feel bad about that. I am the primary care giver for the kid; parent, teacher, partner in crime in playing around the apartment. It takes up just about all of my time. To carve out an hour a day, three to four times a week, is just about impossible. And I’m tired of beating myself up over it. I’m putting the kid’s wellbeing first, and that’s good enough.

    None of this is normal, but I keep fooling myself that I should be able to get it all done. Some days I can do it all, but most days I can’t. Just making it to tomorrow, happy and health is a victory.