me time | One Summer At Home

I haven’t officially thanked my sponsor yet this summer, so huge thank you to my piece, Matthew O’Rourke, who brings home the bacon while I occasionally eat it on some kind of BLT lobster roll while gallivanting with our children. Not only does Matty financially sponsor me over the summer, missing out on all the fun while he’s at work, but he also has to deal with my frequent full-on kid handoff to him the second he gets back from work. It’s like I’m back on maternity leave, except instead of handing over a newborn, I’m like, “They’ve been whining all day. I’ll be in my bathroom with this rosé. Also, the dog needs a walk.” To top it all off, I went to a wedding in Long Island with my friend Ajit last weekend, and Matty held down the fort solo like a champ. Thank you, Matty. You are the hot butter on my lobster roll.

Matty, Hazy and George are my three absolute favorite people on Earth (sorry, other people on Earth), but I have to admit, sometimes it’s pretty nice to have some me-time. I took the train to NYC, and had four hours to read, do some work, and take a quick power nap. (I also got assaulted by a 3-year old via head butt, but that’s another story.) I got to see some old friends in NYC (shoutout, Misong & Francois!) and Ajit and I totally dominated this wedding. There was a little framed sign about a photo scavenger hunt and one of the items was “worst dancer in action.” Ajit and I took this as a challenge.

Worst dancer? More like best dancer!

We tore it up to everything from Taylor Swift to the Beastie Boys and dominated that dance floor. I also dominated the all-you-can-eat dessert buffet, because Matty wasn’t around to shame me. I showed him! And my pants. On the train ride back, I stopped by my favorite hole in the wall sushi joint, Canaan, and made it onto my train one minute before departure time.

sushi from Canaan NYC — Special bonus: no children head butted me during this train ride!

When I got back on Monday, the family met me at the train station and we walked to Chinatown for dinner. We tried out a place, Bubar Cha Cha (five stars for the name alone!) and they had both shumai (shrimp/pork dumplings) and char siu bao (BBQ pork buns), so the kids loved it. Chinese whole steamed fish is always a favorite dish of mine, because it reminds me of one my Nana makes. Theirs was really good, once I took off the mountain of cilantro, the devil’s herb.

whole steamed fish — That’s how I feel about cilantro too, G.

On Tuesday, we were back to full speed OSAH action, and we went to our favorite beach, Wingaersheek.

Wingaersheek Beach — Look how many people George got to kick sand on during his sprints to and from the water!

We spent most of our time splashing in the water and digging this hot tub/mud bath. If you haven’t attempted to dig a hot tub sized hole while simultaneously building a wall to create a deep pool of water and prevent the incoming tide from coming in, well then you haven’t truly worked out. Advanced level: do it with the third-best shovel in your arsenal, because your “teammates” insist on using #1 and #2. On the plus side, the kids did enjoy the resulting hot tub/mud bath quite a bit.