Labor Day

Lots of putting up shelves, unpacking those boxes of things we didn’t need urgently but might be nice to have out now. We’ve lived in a rather barren apartment for some time, since I recently finished my book deadline and David has been working furiously on his shows. It was lovely to have David all to ourselves this long weekend. We did some home improvement mixed with some play time with the girls.

We took them back to our old playground for a birthday party, where three old friends - Lucy, Sophia and Ruby - remembered why they loved each other and walked around together, their arms linked around each others waists and having conversations about balls and sand shovels and the colors pink and red. They spent a good deal of time picking up each others sandals and trying them on and taking them off, until finally they abandoned them for the freedom of bare feet. I watched them pour sand in and out of plastic cups and huddle together whispering as if they were 12 and talking secretly about boys or some other topic that was just their own.


We stayed late, until the sun was down and the girls were tired and then, hopped on a bus and headed home, dirty and bruised from a hard day on the playground. Edie had a swollen, black and blue nose (from which fall we are not sure, there were quite a few. She has graduated from walking to running and struck off on her own on the playground, so free and not worried about how far away she was from me. She smiled through the falls and the missteps with dirt and tears and roses on her cheeks.

Lucy also got to see her friend Benny this weekend. We went to Sharleen and Marc’s and ate steaks and bean salad and corn on the cob with cayenne & lime butter (very good) and the kids stripped off their clothes and played in the pool and stomped through the dirt and fell asleep on the Metro North ride home. Shar used to live down the hall in our building (before striking out for the more countrified surroundings of Ridgfield Connecticut.) To this day her departure has left me without anyone to borrow olive oil from and without a friend who will sit cross-legged in the hall outside our apartments and drink a glass of rose, while watching the kids tumble after each other, screeching like dolphins and chasing balls and falling on the floor in hysterics. I miss her so much and am thrilled she and Marc are pregnant – complete with all that nausea and projectile vomiting that I remember so well.

We walked to Fairway yesterday for a stash of cheese – some triple crème St. Andre, Brie, Goat, Manchego (for mac and cheese with truffle oil), Asiago (for grilled cheese, tomato and spinach on crusty bread) Pecorino–Roman, Parm-Reg. Some really lovely Australian Picual extra virgen olive oil (slightly sweet with a very mellow after taste), aged balsamic, whole peppercorns, fish sauce and sesame oil, freshly-made pastas, spinach fettucine, hand ground organic peanut butter, smoked salmon, organic pork chops and steaks. Will go today to get bones for broth and some fish – because Lucy is asking for fish every day now and enjoys talking to Charmaine at the fish counter.

Sad to see David go to work this morning. Sad to see the weekend over. Sad that the time flew by and I didn't catch it before it disappeared. Happy for this time together.

xxxooo Kim