It’s as ominous as it sounds.
The neighbors directly next to us, which means 12 feet away, are having their house sanded down to the bone today before repainting. In a town where all the houses were built before 1930, this means there is a high probability of lead-laden, death dust. Of course, in the “panties-in-a-bunch” kind of town we live in, there are an abundant collection of laws related to this specific act of lead paint removal. And, by law, any house painting company has to tent the house being sanded with tarps, use HEPA-filter sanding machines, know all the state laws on lead paint, etc. But, that’s not good enough for me and my paranoia. They are also covering all of my windows with plastic, covering half the house in a giant tarp, and we’re evacuating the house for three days. (Yes, I inserted myself quite well into my neighbor’s home improvement project.)
Right now, I am sitting on my hotel room couch in the dark and typing this post while Lolo sleeps after a long day of establishing ourselves on the Upper West Side. Soon, I will fork over the $12.95 fee to connect to the Internet so I can keep my readers up to date on all our adventures like sitting down to a nice dinner at 5:30 tonight with Lolo, taking one sip of my wine and then hearing “I’m all done” after she had exactly one bite of her penne with meat sauce.
We hit the city just after lunch, sent Mr. Banks off to work, and didn’t stop until bedtime. If we weren’t walking and talking and looking for parks, we were walking the dog and relearning the art of getting an animal that hates the city to pee on cement. I’m consciously taking a lesson from my free-spirited daughter and learning to enjoy the ride. It’s not really a vacation but we’ve decided to treat it like one.
stinkerbean 