The friend who had a nanny for her dog

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‘Way up on the Upper East Side’

One of the many things I enjoy about living in New York City is the, well, mix of people. Where I grew up in the Midwest — at least when I grew up there — a brunette was pretty darned exotic.

But here you get to rub elbows (and sometimes much much more) with a wide variety of folks. Some of whom live on a scale that can take some getting used to. Like, one day The Child came home from nursery school with this to say: “Mommy, Helen’s mommy has a couch in her bathroom!” Me: “How nice for Helen’s mommy!”

And I once shared Safety Patrol duty with a very congenial fellow mommy who, it turned out, had the same last name as a whole wing of the Metropolitan Museum. (No, she wasn’t named after it; it was named after her.)

My mommy friend’s namesake

And you may recall (from my story “Three, and You’re Under the Host”) that when The Child was attending that Quite Distinguished Private All-Girls School, we were invited to some pretty swell parties. (All the parents, not just us, were invited to these parties. But still.) Continue reading

The Agent of Destruction

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‘Dealing with the drama of domestic disaster’

Those of you who (virtually) tagged along on our recent African Adventure may recall that The Child proved her mettle in more mature ways than one. While we were away she dealt with a couple of disasters, a feline medical emergency and a fire in our building.

Well, she’s back in Cambridge now, dealing with her own (disaster-free, I hope) life, while we soldier on. Wombat’s crisis, except for the rather unfortunate bare patch that remains on her butt, has passed. Continue reading