Tag: New York City

  • First and Second Day of School

    This academic year, we switched schools that our daughter attends. It wasn’t an easy decision, and there were many family discussions, and up and downs, but we landed on a school we are all happy with. This did cause us to have a short Summer, as her old school got out on the last week of June, and her new school started this middle of August. Again, we had discussed this as a family, and the kid said she was okay with all of it.

    And when the first day rolled around, she was up and ready to go – full of excitement and itching to start the adventure. The new school required a uniform, which she felt was like Harry Potter and Hogwarts. Though she did mention that it was a little sad not to go to school with her old friends, she said she was ready to make new friends. This school was out of the neighborhood, so we had to ride the subway, which was a new adventure. Everything was new and exciting, and we were all ready for it. And it wasn’t surprising that by the time I picked her up from school, the excitement and adrenaline had worn off, and she was tired, and in the end, though she likes school, it was still school.

    Today, was we got up this morning, there was no joy or excitement in getting up to go to school. The newness had worn off in 24 hours, and we returned to the world of her asking, “Why is school so early?” Sprinkle on top of that and nice bit of grumpiness. She did get up and go, and as we got closer to the school, her attitude got better, but she was still closer to grumpy than nice.

    Again, I am not surprised at this reaction. Going someplace new is hard. It’s hard to walk into a room full of people, who all know each other, and fit in. Being new brings up stresses and anxieties in her, and I am powerless to assuage them. I can support and be there and listen, but dropping her off is the first time I really felt powerless in helping her. I’m confident in her to overcome this, and make this school work, to make friends, and thrive in this new environment.

    She’s got this.

  • School Days

    As we get closer to the end of Summer, all of my focus begins to move towards getting the kid ready for school. For the past few years, she attended a local neighborhood public school, and even though we loved our school, the wife and I decided that our daughter needed to attend a different school that would better meet her needs.

    I say all of this because today was Orientation Day for the new school, and we were up and out, bright and early, on this late Summer morning.

    I clearly love my kid very much, but one of the things I am most proud about her is that she is unafraid to try new things. When I was her age, anything that changed my predictable pattern scared the shit out of me, and is still an issue I deal with today. But not my kid – she sees the new school as a chance to make new friends, try new things, learn new stuff – it’s all exciting to her.

    As with this Orientation, the kids went in one direction to find their classrooms and meet their teachers, and the parents went to the auditorium to get a Power Point presentation. (I don’t mean to sound like I am mocking, I’m not. It was a well-done presentation.) But we still had to sit and wait, as there were a good number of new parents and kids to this school, and processing all of us wasn’t a quick or easy task.

    I sat in the middle back of the auditorium, and I have always sat in the middle back in any theatre or auditorium I have even had the chance to select my seat. I’m pretty sure I started doing this in high school, nearly thirty years ago. I had read once that seat selection says something about you psychological make up.

    Not sure I believe it, but let’s say it’s true. So, the type A’s sit on the front row, and the bad kids are in the back. The people who don’t want to be noticed sit in the middle, and the people who don’t want to be there sit on the isle. (I think my selection says that I want to be “bad” but also not get noticed.) According to this group of parents – almost everyone didn’t want to be noticed, a handful were type A, not that many people on the isles, and I didn’t look behind me, so I don’t know how many “bad kids” were there.

    What I did see was a very diverse crowd of parents. None of us looked the same, and we all did look rather tired for being up that early. It’s one of the aspects of living in NYC that I enjoy, and I know will benefit my kid, which is that she has and will continue to go to school with kids that different from her, and they all will help each other broaden their horizons. Also, this was a room full of dedicated parents, which is something that we all had in common – we want what’s best for our kids.

  • ODDS and ENDS: The New Summer, NYC Summer Smell, and Hungry All the Time

    (Clever One-Liner!)

    It’s hot. And not only that, its steamy, too. Not the good, Faulkner Southern Gothic steamy, but the awful humidity life sucks steamy. I’m not a big fan of Summer, and I am even a smaller fan of heat, but when it comes to Summer heat – I hate it. I grew up in Texas, and about my junior year in high school, I had enough. I was going to live up north. I’d rather freeze in Winter than melt in Summer. I had no idea how hot and steamy NYC gets in Summer. Honestly, someone should be out there telling tourists and perspective residents how bad July and August can be in The City. Sure, if you have a half a brain, you’d notice that NYC sits on a bay and well… you know… humidity follows. The thing is that now, just about the whole country, if not the world, lives in this awful extreme heat and humidity now. And it’s not going away, or getting fixed for a very, very long time. Its rather depressing that this is the world that my kid, and yours, is about to inherit – weather that is unbearable to live in. I still hold out hope that we can fix this, but if we can’t… People are going to start moving north and Canada could start having immigration issues from all of these illegal Americans.

    Say, did you know that New York City’s Official Summer Smell used to be wet garbage on a sidewalk. Well, not anymore! NYC’s new Official Summer Smell is Pot Smoke! You can’t go ten feet in this town without being hit by the smell of weed this Summer. Hey, I’m for legalization, but holy crap! It’s like the entire City is getting high. Right Now!

    I don’t know what’s going on with me, but for the past three days, I have been hungry all the time. When I say that, I don’t mean that I feel the urge to have a snack. I mean that I feel like I have been working all day and that I am starving for lunch or dinner. And no matter how much I eat; I never feel satisfied. Back in college, me and my roommate used to call this phenomena “Ravenous Days.” I don’t know what causes it, and eating doesn’t seem to solve it.

  • The Heat

    I hate hot weather, in general. Sure, on vacation, down near a beach, warm weather is pleasant and fun to be in. Having a little sweat near a pool or the ocean is always acceptable. But what I am talking about is my despisement for hot weather.

    Though I was born in Illinois, I spent most of my childhood, and the early part of my twenties in Texas, which is a place known for hot weather, in case you having been living under a rock, which is a nice place to cool down in Texas. Summer does last from May to, sometimes, the start of October. When I was a kid, it didn’t bother me, it just was what it was – Summer is the hot time of the year. As I got up to high school, the heat really started to bother me, and when I got to my twenties, I hated the heat. The odd thing was that in my twenties, I was doing outdoor theatre in the Texas Summer. Somehow I was okay with that, but I think that had to do with the amount of beer I was drinking.

    Living in New York has been an improvement, though not an escape from the heat. Oh, it’s not as hot here, but living on the water means we get the added bonus of humidity. That is what makes July and August awful up here. Everything is sticky, and the City smells worse for some reason. The silver lining is that by September, things do begin to cool down.

    I say all of this because we have just started the Summer of 2023. The kid’s off of school, and we still have a few weeks to kill before camp and vacations start. Right now, we are all squatting in front of air conditioners, trying not to move, like splooting squirrels.

    I don’t think there is any hope for a person like me on this planet. Things keep getting warmer, and I don’t know how far north I want to move. I think about Vermont and New Hampshire, but the locals there keep telling me that most people can’t handle the winters. Sure, I know they are out to scare the New Yorkers from moving to their state, and mission accomplished. I don’t want to shovel your feet of snow, New England. I just would like a cool place to stay for the Summer.

  • Busy Morning

    I wouldn’t say that I was dreading today, but I knew I had a lot to do. That was the reason that I didn’t sleep the best. Sure, there was a good/bad late movie on last night, which didn’t help.

    But, today was the last day of school for the kid, and there was a finely dusted glaze of excitement in our apartment this morning. The cusp of Summer vacation was upon us, and the kid was bubbling over with glee to get it all started. For us the parents, we needed to take the appropriate pictures of “The Last Day of School,” so we could compare them to the shots we took on the first day of school. There was a noticeable bit of nervousness in me as we all walked to school. Something about last days that fill me with melancholy and the feeling of saying goodbye to people you’d grown accustom to seeing daily. The kid bounded off with her friends into school. No one really works on the last day – it’s just a fart around day.

    My next task was to take the car in to be serviced. As Summer is almost here, we are about to start our serious driving season – traipsing around the Mid-Atlantic states, and New England as well. I never thought I would be the type of New Yorker who owned a car in the City, yet here I am. And as such, the responsibilities of car ownership are thrown on me – the maintaining of our car which requires that I drive it to the service center on the westside of Midtown. I like to take West End Avenue to get down there, as it’s an avenue, and an area of the City that I am never in. Full of big old apartment buildings that I’m guessing were built in the 1920’s or so. It is a land of doormen, and people who have to go to work, but well to do jobs, because these people have expensive bills. Like I said, it’s a part of New York I never go to, so I always feel like an explorer when I am there.

    Then to round out my morning, I hit up the Trader Joe’s on 93rd. In the mornings, the place is a mix of older people, and people who look like they just got done working out, and aren’t in a hurry to get to work. Usually, I’m in and out rather quickly. I don’t dottle as this isn’t my favorite chore. Today though, 93rd TJ’s music player was ripping it up with some forgotten 90’s rock. Yes! I am now their target demographic, and they are catering to me! About damn time! Awesome choice with the 311 – and maybe I was too harsh to them when they came out! “I Alone”!!! I haven’t heard that song in years. Alive was a great band! Remember Alive? Me either! Because their name is actually Live. Good memory, I have…

    Now home, it’s blog and making a Summer playlist for all the driving that I’ll be doing. Yes, Live and 311 might make the cut. Going to eat lunch and pick the kid up from school. Hopefully the rain will hold off so she can have some park time with her friends. I still have to make dinner, and start planning the rest of her vacation.