Vacations, Hurricanes and Moving On
The last time Salomé and I took a real vacation (without the kids), a long weekend in New Orleans back in 2005, we missed a devastating hurricane by about six weeks. Back in 1992, when I was still in the Army, Hurricane Andrew derailed a planned Labor Day weekend trip down to Miami Beach.
Katrina hit New Orleans on August 25th, Andrew tore through South Florida on August 24th…so the timing of our trip to Cancun this summer is just a tad worrisome: August 25-29.
It took a couple of weeks for us to finally decide where to go this summer — looking to take advantage of the kids going on their first extended vacation without us, heading down to my mother’s place in Virginia for two weeks, the way I used to go to Baton Rouge and Puerto Rico as a kid — and we flip-flopped between a B&B somewhere in New England or the Poconos; anywhere in Florida that wasn’t Miami; anywhere in the Caribbean; or a return to our honeymoon destination, Cancun. With each option being within a few hundred dollars of each other, Cancun ultimately won out for most “bang for the buck” as I found a great deal via Jet Blue last night at the Presidente InterContinental Cancun Resort and booked it.
Unlike the first time around, when we crammed a ton of activities into a 6-7 night stay, this time we’re looking forward to just decompressing for a few days on the beach, eating a lot of seafood, reading a lot of books, and maybe taking a day trip back to Isla Mujeres. Maybe. We’re refusing to put ourselves in the usual “need a vacation from the vacation” position, especially since Salomé heads back to work the day after we get back. I’ll have a couple of days to relax at home before we head down to pick up the kids and then head back to work and…prepare to move!
Ugh.
There’s few things I hate more than moving, and since we’ve been living in our current apartment for four years now, I’m REALLY not looking forward to it, especially since we invariably end up doing it all ourselves. We’ve accumulated a ton of stuff, some of which will get thrown away, but it will easily be the most stuff we’ve moved since we’ve been married. But it’s time — past time, really — as our building is inexplicably on the decline, and many of the things that were keeping us here are no longer a factor, including the fact that our frustrating but essential daycare is now gone, and Isaac’s school just hit the dreaded “Needs Improvement” list. On the latter, to be honest, I think he’s had a very good year, fulfilling my belief that a good teacher, an attentive student, and involved parents are a winning combination in any situation. But still…
We’ve once again ruled out buying a house (or condo) because we need to stay in the City for at least another year while Salomé completes her NYCTF program — and if India gets into the program she’s being considered for, we’ll likely be here for as long as she remains in a special ed setting — and property is just too damn expensive. Meanwhile, our once reasonable rent is now more expensive than comparable (if not larger) apartments in nicer areas of the Bronx, and even if our building wasn’t becoming unacceptable, it’s gotten to the point where it’s too small for the four of us anyway.
So we’re sending our landlord our 90-day notice to get out of our lease, per a rider we added a couple of years ago when we first started looking to buy — and the anxiety-inducing countdown begins now for finding a decent apartment for September 1st.
Ugh.
We’re really going to need that vacation!
As if the end of summer won’t be hectic enough, a couple of weeks prior to Cancun, I’ll be heading down to Austin, TX for the National Poetry Slam, attending purely as a spectator for the first time ever, returning to the scene of our 1998 National Championship which remains the only time the Nuyorican Poets Café ever won the damn thing. (After digging through my archives for Cristin’s Words In Your Face book and getting a head rush from the flashbacks, I take a certain amount of satisfaction in that little bit of trivia.) Austin has always been of my favorite cities that isn’t NYC, and I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of living there, though I suspect I wouldn’t like it quite as much if I did, in that whole not every girlfriend makes a good wife kind of way. It’ll be nice to see how much things have changed since the last time I was there — 2000? 2001? — and I’m especially looking forward to having some good Mexican food and getting back to the Boiling Pot.
I’ll also be celebrating my birthday a little bit early while I’m down there — I’m calling it my 30th this year — hanging with the recently-relocated-to-Dallas Eric and hoping to catch up with a bunch of poets still on the scene whom I haven’t seen and/or spoken to in years. I’ll definitely need a vacation when I come back, so Cancun will be perfect timing; the proverbial eye of the storm, if you will.
Assuming, of course, that we’ve found an apartment by then and there’s no hurricanes, real or metaphorical.
Fingers crossed…
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