I can't catch up, now can I? I keep putting off blogging in the hopes of getting it all down, and life just moves right along whether I get it down or not. Grin.
There's a been a lot going on, most of it good. The best part is that we're finally getting real roots in our own community here in Brooklyn, and it feels GOOD. New friends at Douglas' school (though today's drop off at school was a disaster ... any moms who know what your heart feels like when they have to pry a screaming child's fingers off of you and carry him away so you can walk out the door and try to hold it together till you're past the other parents?! I had my first chance to find out this morning. Ugh. Perhaps there are better ways to handle it, but it seemed to be the only option at the time, and we did all survive). New friends the neighborhood, including the solid beginnings of a real friendship with our roommate, not just the perfunctory "how was your day?" that we'd been using. So nice.
And then our building is starting to have it's own dramas and connections, not quite like Friends but it does have it's moments! I'm going to cheat and paste below something I wrote to my sister at the time it happened, but never managed to write about here. It tells the story fairly well :)
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had a delightful afternoon/evening today, dk is here and we just 
hung out at home. got lots of veggies/fruit/fish at the farmer's market, and then home for dov to nap. our block had a block party today, and it was like nothing else. given the size of the buildings on this street (all huge co-ops except for our little corner), it was quite the crowd :) charles, our landlord, had something to do with the organizing of it. lots of food stations, all free, you just had to ask to be served by one of the 'organizers'. we didn't know about the free food thing till after we'd bought the world's cheapest grill (9.99 down the street) and i'd made salad and corn and we went out front to grill the fish. charles was tickled pink that we joined in, and convinced charlie and sir james, the pair on the top floor, to come down and hang out. michael took his easel out and that was the end of feeling like the "not quite sure we fit in whites" at the end of a very black block. he was totally swamped, and d took names and did a lottery to decide who got free portraits. i think he did 18 or so with a break for supper. douglas careened up and down the block on his tiny tricycle, made friends, followed kids who had cooler transportation and begged rides, and generally had a heyday with the freedom of riding in the street. we all sat on the stoop, chatted, and had a hilarious time. the truly funny parts were when michael was describing what it's like to draw ppl all day, and how he focuses on seeing what's beautiful in each one and then after hours of doing that *everyone* looks gorgeous. charlie turns to me and says "wow, he must be a *great* husband!" too funny given the source. then later douglas invited sir james into our apartment to play pirates (they both had glow sticks they were using as swords) and off they went. mind you, james has never been in our apartment, and no one else was in there. I let them go in w/out saying anything, and came up with a pretext for going in myself about 10 minutes later. james was sitting cross legged under the edge of our lofted bed, where douglas has his toys, and douglas was walking towards him with his underpants and shorts in his hand, having obviously just been to the bathroom. that was quite the frozen moment ... and me walking in on it. james was saying something about him "needing help getting those back on?", which he does, so i stepped in and helped and convinced douglas that it was time to play outside again. both charlie/james really do love to hangout and talk to him, but it was just a rather funny confluence of events :) we truly felt part of the neighborhood, despite seeing only one other caucasian the entire time (amended, one white kid, and charlie is also white), and it was very very enjoyable. sat on the stoop for several hours after most left, chatting with ppl who came by and really feeling at home. nice :)
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end of snippet, yup.
Must go to bed if I hope to actually get up before Douglas in the am and have time to get the day started before getting him up and both of us out the door. Michael is scrambling to get his stuff together for his first NYC art show! that starts on Wednesday. It's a The Tea Lounge, a cool and funky place in Park Slope. Come on down and visit, it runs for a month!
G'night.