Not the usual view of New York

New York has been challenging to write about. The last time I did New York in any serious way I was thirteen, but I haven’t avoided the place at all. I’ve passed through, I’ve visited people, and I’ve essentially stuck my head in and waved while on my way to other places. I’ve spent Christmas there without actually seeing the city. I’ve spent days of my life in JFK. I am the tourist version of a native New Yorker, having never been to the Statue of Liberty. This time although I stayed for the guts of two days, I mostly saw the inside of the White Plains hospital.

I mailed everyone I could think of when I planned my mad trip. My friends in the New York area responded with “That’s awesome! Come on by! But, you know, we’re expecting our second kid and he’ll be due towards the end of April, so you’d want to come either before or after that…” Knowing what life with newborns is like, I decided to turn up early rather than late to avoid being underfoot. As it happened, said newborn made a similar decision, and I landed in my gracious hosts’ house to meet a one-week old baby.

The rest of New York was a bit of a whirlwind. I went for my first 5K run along the Bronx river while my hosts took their newcomer to the doctor:

I remarked upon the proliferation of “Irish” stuff in the various places I had been. It hadn’t been that many places at this stage, but I’d already noticed that Irish porridge was really popular in the kitchens of people I tended to visit. Which was confusing, since this was nothing like the porridge I’ve become accustomed to.

I’d brought my own tea with me, which was pretty comforting when I tried to prepare this stuff and failed over and over and over, cleaning out one microwave after another when each attempt led to breakfast-time disaster. I did finally give up and start making it on the hob wherever I went, remarking to myself that it was strange I was driven to make porridge in such a low-tech way while staying in a reputedly high-tech country.

It was all new baby and Uno with the older child and steel-cut oats until after my run, when the family was summoned to the hospital to put the new baby under a UV light for a couple days. This is all pretty standard stuff, especially for a baby who turned up very early, and it’s not really anything to worry about…until it’s your baby. Then it’s pretty fucking freaky, even when you know intellectually that everything is probably going to be okay.

By the time I settled out of the jetlag he was fine, went home and stayed home and is doing well. The days I was in New York just happened to be rather dramatic. We made the most of it, with a sushi dinner in the hospital room and taking turns telling stories. I bungled the telling of my first story but hit my stride with the Salmon of Knowledge (which has apparently been popular since my departure as well).

Over two days in New York I didn’t see very much of the city, but I’d gotten to the important bits.