Tag: #VacationHomes

  • Thinking About Summer Vacation

    Today was a nice, solid winter day in NYC. It’s only 36 right now, and there was about an hour of snow flurries that fell, though nothing stuck. We have the radiator on in the apartment, and I am bout to make afternoon coffee. It feels like winter, and if you squint, it almost feels normal.

    And if this a normal winter day, then I would start thinking about summer vacation. Like a real summer vacation. (Just humor me, here.) If this was a normal school year here in the City, than we know that the kid would be in classes all the way through the end of June. Most likely, we’d take part in a Summer camp for the kid over the month of July, and I have a good idea that we would get clued in by some of the other parents from school of which camps to take part in.

    That would leave the month of August, and I want the whole month of August 2021. See, I have it in my head that we could take the whole month off, and if so then we are headed up to New England, and I think I would like to try out Maine again.

    Two years ago, we did five days in a small vacation town on the coast in May, and I thought it was great. The day was only 75, and warm enough to go to the beach, and then at night it got into the 50’s so I could put on a sweater while having a drink on the front porch.

    I know the wife wouldn’t be super excited about it, but she could work remotely for two weeks, and then we all could take two uninterrupted to just relax. Maybe boil some lobsters, do a clam bake, or just order take out. And reading books, sketching landscapes, just thinking the day away.

  • Just a Little Tone Deaf

    Just a Little Tone Deaf

    I live in New York, and I read The New York Times. None of this should come as a shock to any of you, as I am sure you have noticed I refer to many stories from The Times. I support what they do as a newspaper still trying to inform the populace, and for holding people in power accountable.

    And now and then The Times fucks up.

    Case in point, “Turning a Second Home Into a Primary Home,” written by Julie Satow for the NY Times Real Estate section, which was published online on 7/24/20, and then in print on 7/26/20. If you can’t guess from the title, it’s about people making their vacation homes outside of NYC into their primary addresses, and with the exception of Newburgh, NY (which isn’t a bad place, just not super wealthy trendy) all of the people profiled are living in rather exclusive places.

    From where I sit, I’m watching people in my neighborhood of NYC move out, and also know a few people who are behind on rent. The $600 a week Covid unemployment payment ran out on 7/26, and evictions are about to start up again soon for most people, so it really struck me as odd that The Times thought it was a good idea to celebrate people who are doing fine. (I don’t fault the people profiled for being successful; they earned it.) Who is this story helping?

    I know I’m not alone in this thought. Just read the comments on the story, and you will see that most people agree that this is the wrong time to be talking about “discovering” the joys of a home you only saw 7 weeks out of the year.