An almost nine-year-old is the perfect traveling companion. As long as he has a DS, a couple of comic books, and an unlimited supply of attractive mom-figures offering him (banned in normal life) ginger ale and cookies, he is silent and you can encroach on most of his seat. I suffer from a touch of claustrophobia, so I try to book the aisle seat. Oscar takes the middle. Every other average sized human in a window seat should be thrilled to sit next to this kid. You can overflow into his seat and even use the armrest, which all people who are civilized recognize is for the person in the middle seat. Kids don't care about the armrest. They just want their ginger ale.
We got off at JFK, fetched our luggage, and made our way through the skyway to pick up our rental car. At the counter, there was an enlisted guy that was renting a car to get down to Cape May. He didn't know how long it was going to take to get there or how many tolls he was going to pay. Here was my advice: on Friday at 4pm from JFK, it;s is a REALLY long way down to Cape May and there will be a hell of a lot of tolls. I had brought my old EZPass for that reason.
We got our car on diving into NY traffic at 4:30 pm. GOD IT WAS AWESOME. People in California drive kindly in the Valley. Everyone is going within 5 miles of the speed limit and in 9 months, I've never hand a problem merging.
But then you get on the freeway and everything goes south. Everyone goes 80 miles an hour and there's a brutal accident every couple miles, and that, my friends, is why LA traffic is so notoriously awful. People are kind on the local streets, go apeshit crazy on the freeway, and cause accident after accident, which tears up traffic.
But AHHHHHHH. I'm back in New York. People in New York are terrible, self-centered, defensive drivers. But it's okay, because I am one of them. We suffered through the Van Wyck and sailed through the Midtown Tunnel.
And then, my friends, I was home.
Jaywalkers who did not care about oncoming traffic. Not a bright color in sight -- everyone was in shades of gray. It was a soggy, chilly day: not a pair of Uggs to be found. Tall, tall buildings as far as the eye can see. Yellow taxicabs. Big piles of garbage bags on the street. I yelled out landmarks to Oscar as we made our way down 34th Street: Macy's! Herald Square! That Old Navy that I used to buy your toddler clothing at! Look out for the Lincoln Tunnel! Aggressive merging!
Oscar was confused that I was waxing poetic about piles of garbage bags and wanted to play his DS. (I took pictures of those garbage bags. Never, in my 10 months in California, have I ever seen piles of garbage bags on the street, much less on a tony thoroughfare like 34th street.)
It took us (seriously) 45 minutes to make the turn into the Lincoln Tunnel and I loved every moment of it. I had to seriously restrain myself from getting out of my rental car and hugging every single tired commuter or hipster doofus or crazy homeless person.
We made our way to the Maplewood exit and drove by our old house.
Now, keep in mind, I didn't attend the closing for our house because it was too emotional for me. We drove past our old house and…
There is was.
We circled around the block and looked again. The new owners had torn out the overwhelming bushes to the right of the steps. They moved the rocks around in the front garden. My dad's tulips and daffodils were blooming. There were unfamiliar curtains in the windows.
It was our house. But it wasn't anymore.
We went to the Brody-Kaplans and let ourselves in and Charlie, their gigantic, lovely, poorly-trained dog got out, and our reunion with Robyn, Izzy, Hank, and Lily went just as every visit went: Izzy running after their lovable mutt and Oscar and Hank giving each other a look, and heading right up to Hank's room to plot something evil. Lily was shy for about two seconds but the moment I lifted her out of the car, she cuddled right in. Sarah was on a business trip and we completely missed each other this trip, which means that she needs to come out and visit us in CA so we can have pedicures and go shoe shopping for our gigantic feet in the West Hollywood drag queen shops.
We ordered some Chinese food from our old favorite, Tung Tin, and I asked for some extra duck sauce. Arlo loves dumplings, and he loves to eats them with duck sauce. Duck sauce doesn't seem to exist on the West Coast. I packed up a passel of duck sauce packets in a couple ziplocks to bring home.
The kids ran, and ran, and ran. We gave up. My friends Johanna and Lisa showed up, and we drank wine, and gossiped, We shared the weird fruit I smuggled in and I was reminded how much I love my friends.
Oscar eventually passed out. Robyn very graciously gave him and I the master bedroom, so I snuggled up to my kiddo and went to sleep.
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