Prayers for NYC…

First off, sorry for not writing for a while. We’re home now, and the last few days of travel and readjusting to life at home have been C-R-A-Z-Y. I think the only thing I hate more than packing for a long trip is unpacking afterwards. I just keep making little piles of stuff: Greta’s room, bathroom stuff, souvenirs, my stuff, oy…I swear, it takes forever.

Anyway, just read that they are evacuating Coney Island and other beach front areas and actually closing the subways in New York City in preparation for Hurricane Irene hitting land soon. Closing the freaking subways? Insanity! Wow…

I know there’s not much we can do from here but send good vibes and prayers and such, so, that’s what I’m doing. It’s gonna be a rough couple of days, but, stay strong, NYC. If anybody can show a measly hurricane who’s the boss, it’s you.

New digs and a dog too!

Moved from our hotel to the upper west side apartment of our good friend’s Justin & Nadine on Wednesday night. Their place is very cute and super small, but it has tons of windows, is one block away from a major subway line and Central Park, and best if all, they have a sweet, gigantic dog named Kismet.

I’m not sure what breed Kismet is, but, Greta is already wildly in love with her. The only problem is that she thinks poor old Kismet (she’s nine human years old) is a boy. Greta keeps saying: “Good boy, Kismet! Good boy!” Our friend Justin tried correcting her a few times, but then totally gave up. Boy, girl, who cares…as long as the kid ain’t crying everyone’s happy.

And speaking of Greta being happy…she’s still getting wiggy around the dinner hour, but she has been going to bed much earlier since we moved and it seems to be helping her tantrums. A little. I wouldn’t say she’s been the best toddler in the city this trip, but, she’s trying.

Amazingly, we’ve also all been sleeping way better sleep since we left the hotel. I don’t know if it’s the quieter neighborhood — the upper west side is like the country compared to Times Square — or what, but the three of us are sleeping way better on a shared Aerobed than we ever did in a fancy, King-sized bed at The Paramount. Go figure…

Oh, and one more thing that makes us all sleep way better are our nightly walks in Central Park with Justin and Kismet. Dogs can go leash-less after dark in the park, so Kismet just takes off running with a barefoot Greta in hot pursuit. It’s the cutest thing ever, but more importantly, it puts both of them, baby and dog, right to sleep when we come home. Yay!

People need to be pruning their shit, yo…

OK, maybe I’m just saying this because we are more than halfway through our vacation up here in Oregon and we are still helping my Mother-in-Law unpack her belongings from the move. Yep, part one of the vacation involved the helpful side of my wife’s family (don’t get me started on that other half!), Greta, my wife and I, a moving truck, two cars and four sweaty-ass days of moving. And yes, it was as totally not fun as it sounds.

But what really made things suck was the fact that my very sweet Mother-in-Law — really, she is the best and I love her to death under normal circumstances — had failed to prune anything from her vast collection of crafting gear. I’m not kidding, man, if you took the time to actually create something from every scrap of fabric, yarn and crafting paper in that damn moving truck, you could clothe an entire city for a year. Or, you know, maybe a small island community. But still, it was a lot of shit!

And you wanna know what sucked even worse than the sheer volume of shit we moved? Now that we’re unpacking her shit, my Mother-in-Law has decided that she is finally ready to part with tons of it. Hmmm…that kind of thinking would have been so much more helpful, you know, before we loaded your boxes onto a truck and moved you to another state! Oy…

Anyway, having just gone through something similar with another aging relative, all I can say is: “People need to be pruning their shit, yo…” We have had two garage sales recently and every time we have one, my wife and I prune more shit from our already cluttered garage. And yeah, it sucks to get rid of stuff you love or loved, or thought you could never live without, but, man alive, it sucks even worse to have to wade through someone else’s boxes of insanity later on down the road. So, do you loved one’s a favor, people, and please, for the love of God…prune your shit!

Alright, this concludes my anti-hoarding rant for the day. Thanks for reading!