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Honestly, I haven’t a clue what to title this post so let me just give a quick little update.. On Tuesday, August 4th we got hit hard by storm Isaias and lost power, wifi, and cell phone service for 6 (very long) days. It was scary because I couldn’t communicate with anyone, or drive anywhere. Tree’s uprooted, cables down, roads blocked – you name it. Our house was 500 degrees, the food in our fridge/freezer was rotting and (to top it off) I had a whining 6-year-old little boy who was bored and perplexed at why he couldn’t watch his iPad.
On day 3 we headed to NYC and stayed at The Lowell Hotel. It was our first time back since COVID. I didn’t know what to expect, but there’s no “nice way” to say it: the city was dead. It felt eerie, dangerous, and foreign. I grew up with the city as my playground. I spent weekends in the presidential suite at The St Regis eating King Cole Pancakes (Can I have my 13-year old metabolism back. Please?), and as soon as I was old enough: moved there, convinced that I would live there forever & ever and never look back.
There was (once) NOTHING that I didn’t like about the city, even when taking a subway home from Lavo at 4 AM in the morning. As I grew older (and wiser) my outlook changed. I was ready for a house and so was Aspen. I would walk through Herald Square on my way home from work, noticing the stench, the dirt, the drug addicts on every block. It was no place to raise a child.
We moved to the suburbs in November right before the madness, but until I got back to the center of it last week, I was oblivious to how hard NY (as a city itself) was impacted. It wasn’t the city I had grown up in, or grown to love. I was almost eager to get back to my powerless, 100-degree house! My parents still had no power, so my dad stayed in the city with my two sisters. My mum and Clementine came to stay with us. We made the best of the situation, taking the kids out to lunch and/or dinner, painting, baking, and making tents.
So that’s where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to! I can’t wait to get back to regular content and posting. Let’s hope 2020 is only up from here!
