Today is the first day of Summer on NYC. Did you know that?
Yeah, it’s Summer.
Lucky for me and my little family, we got our A/C’s cleaned and in the windows last weekend, and we were prepared for this event. Not to brag, but I’m going to brag. It’s nice a relatively cool in my apartment.
In other news; I sure am sweating a lot when I go outside.
(I’m going to make time stop…)
First of all, the China bots seem to have gone away, but they have been replaced by what I can only assure is another data scrubber out of North Bergen, New Jersey. I say this because someone/something in that town is hitting up my blog close to twenty times a day is not more. Now, I do think my writing is amazing, and I should have millions of followers, but in the real world of reality, we all know both of those things aren’t true, and as such there is no reason for one person in North Bergen to go about and read this blog that many times a day for the past month. Now, if you happen to be a real person, then by all means, please leave a comment, and let me know what you find so interesting. If this is an AI bot scrubbing for information, please, there are other, better sites out there, and your mother was a Hoover because she blows!
Part of the reason I’m in a hurry today is that I gotta get a jump on all of my errands, because I need to start painting window sills and get air conditioners in the windows. Come the start of next we, NYC is about to have three f not four days of Summer (Temps in the 80’s) and we’re going to need those a/c’s.
And the wife is doing our taxes this weekend, which also means that she’s going to be in a bad mood. Not because our taxes are particularly difficult. No, it’s more a matter of no one wants to do this chore. That’s it.
(I’m in a hurry, gotta go…)
First of all, I had to move the car today as Alt Side Parking is back in effect in NYC. I haven’t had to move my car for almost three weeks due to the snow that changed to ice. But after a week of the temp being above freezing, and the ice mainly having melted, the City said we had to move our cars for the sweepers. I’m cool with that, as the trash and dog poo has been piling up. What I wasn’t expecting was that it would be raining today, which, sure, helps with melting the ice, but also makes it rather raw outside in 38 degrees. I did it, moved the car that is, but also it made me have my first moment of looking forward to Spring.
I have two new, to me, music discoveries; Mapache, and Labi Siffre.
The other thing that has entered my life this week is that I have a correct nabe pot. (Which is a funny thing to write as “nabe” is Japanese for “pot” so I have been saying “pot pot”.) This has been a long time coming as I have mentioned, about a year ago, that I was looking to start doing some hot pot cooking. Well, we started it, and it has gone over rather well. We’ve done a little shabu-shabu, and last night we tried our hand at mizutaki. I can say that it has been some of the healthier eating we have done, and the kid just loves it. The downside is that we started doing this cooking late in Winter, so we don’t have too many cold nights left to gather around the nabe pot.
In my opinion, the City was pretty much back to normal last night. This morning? Business as usual. Sure there are huge piles of snow everywhere, and I still have to dig out our car, but we are in the thick of winter.
Oh, and slush. There is gray, ugly slush at every street corner. That part isn’t very much fun.
It’s been a couple of years since we have a big snow store that stuck around. In the past, in about three days, it pretty much had al melted away, and it was like it never happened. These piles of snow are going to be around for over a week, because it’s going to stay cold.
I know that January is over half way over, but in my little world, the wife and I are still trying to figure out what our 2026 is going to look like. This is more than “New Year’s Resolutions” which are I feel are doomed to fail. No, this planning is more like setting out birthday and holiday budgets, if and where do we want to travel, do we remodel the kid’s bedroom this year. Stuff like that. You know, planning.
And then there are goals. Paying down debt is high on the list, and it would be nice to drop ten pounds. I think that 2026 is the year that I need to start earning an income. A few dollars here and there from writing has been cool, but it isn’t enough to actually make a dent in the family’s finances. I’m not sure/confident that 2026 will be the year that writing starts bringing dollars, or if I will need to go out and get a traditional job. And if I go out and get a job, do I return to my former career of arts admin, do I try something different, or do I go after a part-time gig to keep my stay-at-home-dad creds current?
Now, 2025 didn’t actually work out the way we planned, but I do know that God got a good laugh outta it; per normal. Yet, 2025 wasn’t a bad year. We made progress as a family, and the kid is good and happy, which is our paramount concern day in and day out. But, I have to take responsibility that I didn’t complete the number of stories that I had set as my goal, and I did fall one story shout on my publication/acceptance goal for the year. And I did drop ten pounds, but put it back on during the Holidays, so that was a wash.
But as I look at 2026, and even with all the shit that is flying around in this country and in the world (I’m still doom-scrolling in the morning) I haven’t given up yet. I hope that one day I will get to rest and relax, but I know life is struggle and I don’t see that changing. Struggle for a better day, a better world for my kid and yours, too.
