Arrivals

We’re in New York City, after a blessedly uneventful moving-day schlep from New Hampshire. John and Mike supported us mightily in our last several days by providing meals and packing help; Tim and Rachel supported us by driving down with us and helping us unload our truck, and my mom supported us by looking at online pictures of our still-chaotic rooms and making (mostly) helpful suggestions.

It takes a village, apparently, to move Adam and Kate.

The apartment is on the top floor of a 3-story building, and the cable installer confirmed what we’d already expected: it’s got a very black, very heat-absorbent, black roof. We’ve been running one air conditioner at a time, depending on where we are in the apartment; for the last couple of days, any room without an air conditioner running quickly shot up to around 94 degrees. (This according to my instant-read thermometer as I waved it around in the air.)

Today’s cooler outside and tolerable inside, but man: it was brutal. During the worst of it, the cats discarded their skeletons someplace else and draped themselves like furry Dalí watches over any available surface.

Firsts: attended Morningside Quaker Meeting this morning, followed by a trip to B&H; Photo. Shopped at Fairway Market on Thursday evening, and have never felt so much like an immigrant from the Old Country. (The store is large and strangely laid out, so I spent a lot of time pushing a cart around and looking lost.) Our street has a church on it, and Saturday was their annual street festival. The block was filled with trays of food from various corners of the world – the cassava was a gluey mass, but I could eat fried plantains for days – as well as geysering fire hydrants and bouncy castles and loud latin music which only shut off for about 20 minutes to let the wedding (!) inside the church complete without unwanted backbeats.

Finished unpacking the kitchen yesterday, working on the living room and my desk today in hopes of being ready for my First! Day! Of! School! tomorrow.