One of my favorite of the weekend trips Aron and I took when we lived in New York was a September one to Montauk to celebrate my birthday. It was full of lobster rolls, clam shacks, and I recall the town had a low-key surf vibe that made me feel like I’d gone home to California in a setting that felt nearly New England. That said, we stayed in a completely disgusting motel and talked about one day going back and doing it better.
We finally got our chance! We tacked four nights onto our New York stay, renting a car from Manhattan with a JFK return, to drive out to “the end.”
Aron and I finally watched (binged) both seasons of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s brilliant Fleabag a few weeks ago, and I’ve joined the ranks of those who can’t stop thinking about it. (The show just earned 11 Emmy nominations!) Bazaarcalled it “head-splittingly, tear-jerkingly and disarmingly romantic,” and if they mean you’ll fall in love with Waller-Bridge they’re right.
We also happen to now be watching the second season of Killing Eve—which Waller-Bridge developed and authored—and it’s interesting how much more I appreciate Eve’s fixation with the assassin having watched Fleabag. I’m much more ready to appreciate her complications, her toying with those self-destructive behaviors, if I think of her as someone in her own love-story and not as an out-of-depth MI5 agent. (Because she totally is, right?) If you’re watching any good shows right now, I’d love to hear about them. We’re back to episode-to-episode waiting for that one and Big Little Lies and I’m already missing the binge.
Beyond the television, we’ve been busy celebrating Hudson’s birthday this week! He turned eight on Wednesday and we are throwing a kid’s party tomorrow. He requested a pool party with an origami and baseball theme, so… we’ll work on interpreting that as best we can.
Ever since we moved away from New York—seven years ago—we’ve talked about how much we’d like to return with the kids to share with them all of the places and things (and foods!) we loved there. And whenever we would watch a movie that featured the city, and the kids would point out at all the taxis, skyscrapers, and crowds, we’d look at each other and smile: if only they knew! If only Hudson knew, when he was a toddler for example, that he once lived on the 12th floor of a tall building, crib in a closet, across the street from a fire station (with fire trucks!) and down the block from a subway (with trains!) that could whisk him to a museum full of fossils (with dinosaurs!) in an instant. We showed them the movie Enchanted not long before we left and they asked us, almost incredulously, if we’d seen rats in New York. Ha! If only.
So finally we planned a summer return, and it was full of taxis, skyscrapers, crowds, dinosaurs, and yes… even a few rats. But mostly, it was full of food. Here’s what I mean…
