Sunnyside Sings Happy Birthday

It's not very often that you get to sing Happy Birthday to someone turning 100--let alone 106. But this Thanksgiving we were honored to join the neighbors in Sunnyside Gardens who have turned out for the past few years to celebrate Ethel Plimack, Sunnyside's oldest resident. I haven't been in town other years or I couldn't pop out from the stove, but this year I knew I had to try. And I'm glad we did. With the turkey already roasting, I gathered the girls and Nacho and we ran over to 46th Street just half the way down to see the crowd already assembled just before noon. It was a gray day with a light rain developing, but that didn't dampen the mood one bit. Roger Hitts poured some celebratory champagne which they encouraged Ethel to enjoy. She took a small sip and seemed to pucker a bit at the taste, but she smiled big and we all had a nice laugh. Yes, I can imagine that at 106 day drinking with your neighbors isn't something that happens often, but man, what an occasion. Elisa and Carolina were a bit shy to go up to say happy birthday to her, but Skylar had a rose and plucked them along with her to pay their respects. I told Elisa how Ethel used to chat with me when I'd see her on my way back from Sunnyside Gardens Park with Elisa riding along in the stroller. She once asked me which house I lived in and I had to admit I could only dream of living on her street. She remarked at how big Elisa was getting and I might have even been pregnant then with Carolina. It's hard to believe that Ethel was already 98 when Elisa was born. She's the living embodiment of all that I wish I knew about Sunnyside. I've thought many times of what I would ask if I could interview her. I have such a curiosity about the neighborhood and all of its history. I suppose at 106 there is as much that you've forgotten as remember, but somehow I have the feeling Ethel knows quite a bit. Singing to her was just a small way of saying thank you for being part of this community for so many years. I'm glad to have been there on that special day. It makes living here feel like a real small town in the big city. 

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Gratitude

The lead up to Thanksgiving this year was kind of like the whole of November--a little off. I found out Nacho would be home that day early enough to have made plans to travel with or without him. But with Mia getting her wisdom teeth out that week, it seemed wise to perhaps skip that whole affair and stay put. So we started thinking about our holiday weekend in two parts. Nacho would be off most of the beginning of the week and then had to go to London on Black Friday so I'd be alone with the girls for the rest of it. I couldn't really get motivated to do much of anything except survive the onslaught of weekend photo work that was beginning to pick up. This time of year is always so tricky for me in that there is so much going on that I want to enjoy and yet it's my busiest time for family photos. Mostly I love taking the odd assignment here or there and it always seems to work itself out, but there are weeks when I'm glad to have a little break. Thanksgiving week there was already one family reunion and then a reschedule shoot from a week earlier. But the weather held out so I wasn't too upset about having to shuffle things and I am thankful for having friends around who help me manage the girls when I'm working. This year I've found more of a rhythm with asking for and accepting help and that has been a blessing. It's so much easier when you lighten the load. 

Fifth Avenue blockades post election near Trump Tower...protests daily. I still love NYC

LIC views after picking up the kids from Carmen's

Carolina's new name: Flexa. Why? Because she's flexible. 

Carolina made this at school. When I asked her why she included God, and what that means, she said, "God is a very special person." Okay then.

The week leading up to Thanksgiving might not have been too stressful, but there was still a lot to do the day of and we weren't even sure if we were having guests or not. Carmen and family made other arrangements, Jose and Irene were out of town and Joan and Pepe were trying to sort out other invitations with just hours to go. I knew I was making the whole meal whether we had company or not, but keeping it simple meant I was really just cooking for myself. And that's always a joy. So really the giant turkey and the pies were just part of my Thanksgiving therapy. Pie therapy. Yes, I like the sound of that. In the end, we had the Spaniards over and we enjoyed their company and another viewing of "Elf" very much. My gravy wasn't as delicious as the year before, but hey, there's always next year. I hope we'll see family again soon but sitting this one out was okay. We made it to the balloons the night before and the rest of the weekend promises to be nice and chill. So thankful for a lot this year and ready to see what December has in store. 

Bringing the Parade to Life

Tonight we made good on a promise I had to myself to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade inflation some year. It takes place the night before Thanksgiving on the Upper West Side near the Museum of Natural History. And the only other time we went, Nacho and I subjected ourselves to a sleeting rain and didn't last very long before popping back underground to come home. This year was definitely better but it was a little chaotic to start. I did zero research but fortunately our friends Mindy and Andy were heading up there so I figured we'd meet up at some point and just see whatever we could. But when we came up out of the subway at 81st we were already somehow inside the barricades and seeing plenty of floats. Then I tried to figure out how the heck we were going to find them in the mass of people exiting our first block and looking for the re-entry point along 77th. The streets were mostly blocked off as we approached the other set of barricades. There was a bag check area that seemed to be creating a bottle neck, and after finally reaching Mindy and Andy we opted to walk along the outer edge of the barricades just to say hi and bye before packing it in. Elisa had been bugging us since we arrived about seeing Poppy and so I figured it was enough to see her and then split. But the more the crowd lurched forward the more I wished we might be able to join them. And then I pulled a total dick move. I asked the cops guarding the last barricade before Mindy et al went past us if we could jump in there and join our friends. I offered up my purse for a bag check and the cop said, "Bag check? Don't get me in trouble." Then he asked Elisa her name and waved us in. I didn't look back in case there were angry throngs. I figured you're allowed a few of these moments in life. So we used ours tonight and it was wonderful. Mindy and Andy were relieved to have some company in this adventure and we ended up seeing even more floats. The craziness was paying off. 

Of course nothing involving children out past their bedtimes in the city ever ends entirely well. There was Poppy falling (possibly because Elisa pulled her too fast) on the stairs at the museum and then there was Carolina getting boxed in the ears in this photo. It's hard to say exactly when it all went south, but for the most part, they held it together pretty good. Elisa begged for a drink I didn't have. Charlie got a little over eager bouncing around his seat on the train. But we made it. And really, when I think back about what these kids will remember, it will hopefully be the pure magic of sneaking up under the cover of darkness to check out some giant balloons before a very special day. I often think we have years and years ahead to do these things, but then again you just never know where you'll end up in life. So we seized the moment and went for it tonight. And I'm so, so glad we did. Tired but glad. 

Election Hangover

2016 felt like the year in which all things were possible. And then weren't. It was the year in which Democrats had a hotly contested run-off between a centrist hawk of a woman and a truly progressive Jewish man. It was the year an idiot like Donald Trump could ride his Celebrity Apprentice star power to the top of the Republican food chain and score a nomination despite having no actual platform or proven ability to tell the truth.  I felt at times the most hopeful I have in decades--I was phone banking for Bernie for Christ's sake--and the most despair I've felt since watching the Twin Towers come down and knowing that the winds of history were not blowing in our favor. It's been a rough ride this 2016, but still I was thinking that all of this election ugliness would be behind us by now and we'd be welcoming our first female president into office soon. Somewhere in that second debate, with my hands half over my face, I just felt so ashamed that we had subjected Hillary to this spectacle against Trump. It was so far beneath her as a political opponent. She is many things and many of them I am not enthusiastic about, but as a political animal, she has few peers. I might not agree with her at times, but I have no doubts about her abilities as a leader. I know she can run the country. And yet, by the third debate, she was being chided as a "nasty woman" by a man I can barely stand to look at, let alone entrust to run this nation. It was all too much and I was buoyed by the sense that this was her political moment. It felt like women were finally uniting around Hillary and we were going to get this thing done. 

And then that fateful Tuesday morning came and I was getting nervous all over again. It had been a long week with the FBI Director's last minute muddling of the email scandal and I was not sure which way the winds were turning.  And then just 48 hours before voting, I heard the Clinton campaign had cancelled fireworks planned for the celebrations in NYC. I couldn't help but feel that was a bad omen. Why? What did they know that we didn't? Still I woke to a beautiful November morning in the city and Nacho and I made a quick dash into Manhattan before coming back to vote around lunch time. I soothed my Bernie or Bust conscience by voting Working Families Party line and that allowed me to support Hillary but not the Democrats who had so turned against my values this election cycle. They were not the party I could support with enthusiasm. We were in and out of there in about 35 minutes which is longer than usual and I was seeing and hearing from people in New York and beyond that lines were long. High turn out tends to break Democratic. I was feeling optimistic....if cautiously so. Lunch at Soleluna was Nacho's first time there and everything tasted great. Our kids had school that day which was at odds with most of the NYC public schools taking the day off.  We went home to relax knowing our work was done, and yet as evening fell, I wasn't sure what I expected to happen next. I watched on social media as friends took their kids to vote with them and had them color in maps of the electoral college. Personally, I didn't do any of that because I didn't want the kids too emotionally invested.  And yes, I say that as someone who had their kids march in a parade holding Bernie signs. But that was different. That was for the primary--a clash of ideas and ideals--and I believe it's important to come out swinging hard for your candidate. But in this mess of a general election pure evil had raised its head. It has been such a hateful year watching the worst in people manifest itself politically.  Knowing what was at stake in this election made me sad and scared and somber.  I actually opted to keep the TV off the news before bedtime because I didn't want them going to bed wondering who would win. I wasn't sure who was going to prevail and I didn't need their anxiety to mix with mine. They forgot all about the election by the time it was lights out. They slept soundly. I did not. 

By early evening, I knew we were in trouble. We were hoping to get projections by 8:30 or even 9 p.m. that would clear a path for Clinton's victory. By 9:30 it looked bad. The New York Times projections were already leaning heavily towards a Trump win. I kept refreshing the page hoping an update would reverse the tide. But the unfathomable was happening. I was at turns stunned silent and reeling with a furious I-told-you-so certainty that this was exactly what so many Bernie supporters knew was coming. We fucking knew. It's partly why his loss in June in the primaries was so heart breaking. Clinton might bend the Democratic Party to her will and get that coronation she always wanted, but the American public couldn't be so easily bought. At every turn she seemed at a loss to understand how she wasn't winning with bigger margins. But for me it was easy to see how people like my parents who supported Bernie for his unflinching honesty and seemed ready to rock the vote for something different this year would fail to get behind the Clinton machine. Voters were turned off and those who were motivated were largely turning out to vote against her. It was exactly what Bernie had prophesied in the spring: Trump won the Electoral College decisively. I went to bed not knowing exactly how bad it would be. Still holding out a glimmer of hope that I would wake to some kind of miracle and Clinton would have lawyered up ready to fight. But no. By morning all the news outlets were shaking their collective heads. No one saw this coming. It was a total miss by the media and it made me sick to my stomach. I didn't know what to tell the girls but I had to think of something. I couldn't chance them hearing it first on the bus. So I opted to go the good news/bad news route. The good news being that we were going to see Disney on Ice that evening. The bad news: Hillary Clinton didn't win. "Who won?" Elisa asked. "Donald Trump," I said. "He's going to build a wall!" Carolina wailed. "Well, no, not yet. I mean, he can't do that without others saying yes. And Obama is still the President today and until January." It felt better to think that Trump wasn't anything yet. Maybe there was still a way to avoid this disaster in the making. "Donald Trump....he's a...fuckin' person!" declared Carolina with all the anger in her sweet little face. "Um, yes. Yes, he is, but we don't say that at school, okay?" We went outside and this seemed like an appropriate response: 

Can't argue with that. Thanks, Sunnyside

I enjoyed the distraction of the ice show...even if I felt like I should apologize to everyone who had to work it. It felt like it should have been a national day of mourning.

By Thursday night, I needed to get out and socialize with my ladies...still feeling fragile but better with good company and good drinks!

And somehow the sun still rose and the moon shone brighter than ever. We ended our week with a moonlit walk through Sheep Meadow in Central Park. It was one of the Super Moon evenings and it was an incredible sight to watch that giant golden globe rise over the park. People stopped to take too many bad photos (myself included) and yet there was a sense of calm silence watching this bit of nature overshadow us all. Our problems are so minuscule compared to the history of the universe. When will it end? Will Trump hasten the final whistle? Who knows. Right now, I only know that misery loves company and having Nacho home to make me a killer margarita was a welcome bonus. We will get through this. I know we will. It might be four year hangover, but that too shall pass. As Bernie says we started this revolution and we still have a lot of work to do. I believe that more now than yesterday or the day before. It's time to fight.