Jubilant July

The luau leftovers aside, the day after the Summer Social we had to return Nacho to work at the airport, so I decided to make it an outing and we hit Bareburger for lunch before running some errands including Costco. The girls always love a little day out and about and sometimes when they are being good, it feels like this is real life. This is how it should be. So we brunched and then went off to shop and I mostly wanted to stock up on snacks and fruit, though finding mermaid tale blankets was an early birthday gift from Grandma. That's the kind of stuff her money should buy, amirite? By Monday we were out in the city on a playdate with two sister friends the same age from AOC. I love it when the feeling is mutual and we wanted to use up our Cool Culture pass a little more before it expires in November. So we met at MoMA and then grabbed some lunch on the go before hitting Central Park Zoo and the Billy Johnson playground. The girls were paired well and mostly behaved though they were clearly amped to be out and about with these friends. Summer was getting us all in the mood.

Do NOT sit on these benches. They are art. Apparently.

Nacho returned from his first (of two) trips to São Paulo this week and brought us some wonderful cachaça and havaianas for the girls

I had the pleasure of booking a few little fun evenings out for myself and with Nacho working so much it was a perfect release valve for taking on the brunt of summer by myself. The first was a trip to Summer Stage in Central Park to see PJ Harvey live. I couldn't believe my luck to see her in concert again having done it twice before when I was a slightly more rabid fan. But sometimes you need to dig deep and get back to that part of yourself that was into things like new music from one of your favorite artists ever. And so I went off to hear Polly Jean sing it out into a humid and stormy-looking night sky. She was amazing as always even if being a concert goer in this day in age is a bit annoying. So many people with their fucking iPhones in your face recording or taking terrible photos. I warned one young thang to put hers away only later realizing her English wasn't so good--but hey, she got the point. And a few others around me were equally strict. It helped that they were selling cute little cups of rosé and I had Monica and Maryann to share the fun evening with. Getting another ladies night out at the end of the week courtesy of Dawn was another perfectly stress-reducing evening. Olive came over to watch the girls and I skated off to the Empire Hotel near Columbus Circle to join the group toasting cocktails to our playgroup days and Jessie's eminent departure. We've been friends for 8, almost 9, years already most of us and the connections are hard to recreate. Having a group of moms who I could identify with initially was such a saving grace and it has been a comfort through all these years of child rearing. Losing one of our dearest feels like a harbinger of things to come in a way. More and more these days, I feel like Sunnyside is only part of our story. It's been everything to us so far, but somehow I believe there is more to come...

And yet, we are here and as much as the future might take us elsewhere living in a community where spontaneous music festivals can happen at our park or where we can just pack up and leave for the airport with only 30 min travel time is such a dream. We made the most of our last night in the neighborhood before vacation by spending it with Quinn and Adam and the boys who organized the first annual QUIP festival. Food trucks and live music added to the atmosphere and I enjoyed hanging out in a beach chair while the girls mostly ran around like always. The light rain drove us to seek cover for a bit, but thankfully it ended quickly and we were able to stay out as long as possible. Knowing we'd be captives on an airplane for so much of the following day, it felt like we had to bottle the air and take it with us. Nacho was flying home on a red eye the next morning so I made good on prepping for the trip by getting laundry done and having the girls mostly packed by Sunday morning. Now for the rest of July in Spain. Estamos listos!