I won’t bum everyone out with the whole sad story, but the short version is that Dave and I were supposed to go back to Toronto for the holidays. Maybe you’ve heard (or experienced it yourselves), but the weather’s kind of screwed up people’s plans.  After two days and three cancelled flights at two different airports (and, between cabs to and from the airport and two nights of our Toronto hotel reservation that we wouldn’t be using, lost cash expenditures in the mid-three figures), we finally decided to cut our losses and resign ourselves to not seeing our closest family members for the holidays this year.

This, among other things, is what I’ll be missing.

Destined to become the web-sensation heir to “Kids Watching Sneezing Panda,” please enjoy my niece Olivia cracking the hell up at “Hamster On A Piano“:

Olivia just heard McCain might still win the Presidency.

Fortunately, my niece only has ONE of everything she’s supposed to have one of, and she’s even cuter now than she was two months ago.

My sister had her baby. Dave was in Toronto dealing with Glarkware while she did baby things. And my parents were coming back from Karachi for the first time since they’d moved there for Olivia’s 30-day party, and I was already planning to stay in Toronto (and work from here) the whole time they were in town. Ever since we’d found out we wouldn’t be moving out of New York, we’d been talking about redoing the floors and the kitchen, so with the apartment about to be empty for a while, it seemed like a good time to get all that done. Our real estate agent recommended a project manager who would hire the contractors, he came to look at the place and measure it, and by last week we were all systems go. At that time, he mentioned that I would have to stage the apartment — by which he meant clear off the surfaces of all our furniture so that the floor guys could maneuver in there. He recommended getting some banker’s boxes that would be easy to stack and move around. I thought that sounded reasonable — and fortunately, the weekend before I left, Joe would be staying with me for a few days, and I told him he’d have to sing for his supper by helping me pack up the few bookshelves, to which he readily agreed. We finished in half an hour and twelve boxes. What could be easier?

And then, at 5 on Monday (the day before I was to leave), the project manager called back to arrange a time to come pick up the keys. In the course of the conversation, he reminded me about staging the surfaces of the furniture, and “reminded” me that I’d have to empty out the kitchen cabinets as well. And I put that in quotation marks because he hadn’t said a thing about the kitchen before. Now, in retrospect, of course I should have assumed I’d have to pack the kitchen as well, but maybe I thought they showed up with a bunch of Rubbermaid bins and stuck everything on their truck. Or maybe I just didn’t ask because I didn’t want to know the answer. But the upshot was that I had to take Tuesday off, go buy an assload of boxes, and pack up both the kitchen (including all the tchotchkes on top of the cabinets) and everything that was on the floors in the closets (where the floors would also be replaced). It took six hours and forty-two boxes, I did it all myself, and I cursed Dave almost the entire time. I only almost started crying when I had to unhook all the electronics on Dave’s desk and around the TV, because: complicated. But what made me feel better was realizing that since I’d had to pack everything by myself on an inflexible deadline, it will only be fair when we return for Dave to unpack them by himself while I get a massage.

(Credit to Sarah for coming up with a name for what I’m doing (in the last podcast) while Dave is in Toronto for the summer, facilitating my sister’s maternity leave from Glarkware.)

So it’s been a week — and so far, it’s gone pretty much as I thought it would.

Day 1: Worked, and stayed in my my pyjamas until about 8:30. Got out of the shower at 8:45, debated not going to the store for supplies, remembered I was out of toothpaste, and went after all. I celebrated temporary singlehood by getting non-Dave foods like white bread and Froot Loops, and takeout McDonald’s for dinner.

Days 2-4: Went out very rarely, just to run errands — bank, mail, takeout salads. Earlier in the week, I had made a note on the calendar to clean out my closet on Friday night and the drawers full of toiletries and medicine on Saturday. However, I got through both tasks in about half an hour, so I ended up making Friday a very early night, half-watching TV in bed with a Sudoku book. Oh, speaking of bed: I’m sleeping on Dave’s side. My left hip has been bothering me lately (kind of like a cramp; sometimes puts my left leg to sleep), and I had theorized with my vast knowledge of orthopedics that the cause was the bed, since it has a bit of a peak in the middle and sags on the sides. So if I sleep on Dave’s side, with my left hip elevated, maybe that would correct the problem. And guess what? It has! (We’re getting a new bed and frame when Dave comes back.) Oh yeah, I also made a lovely fruit salad.

Day 5: Slept in like a mofo and puttered around with a special project. Installed Skype and had my first video chat with Dave. “Oh my God, you look like Saddam Hussein when they found him in his spider hole” might not have been the most loving thing I could have said, but it was accurate. Maria came into town and we hung out, which was nice — it’s the most I’d physically spoken to another human using my voice the whole week.

Day 6: Slept in just a little. Hucked three green garbage bags of castoff clothes and other soft goods down to the lobby, hailed a cab, and dropped them off at Goodwill. Had a quiet lunch with my New York magazine and then went to Mamma Mia! with all the other middle-aged ladies of the Upper West Side. (Review: goofy but delightful.) Quick stop at Kiehl’s; considered getting some stuff from Magnolia for later but it was so hot the thought of a cupcake made my throat close up. However, seeing Magnolia reminded me that I’d wanted to try making an icebox cake their way (stacked in layers) instead of my mom’s way (in a modified log in the shape of whatever year birthday I might be celebrating), and I stopped for supplies before heading home. The result is pictured above. I just made a miniature version — four chocolate wafers per layer, for maybe nine layers — but was pleased with the results. Dave doesn’t like the chocolate version much, but when he comes back I might try it with ginger snaps. It turned out so well that I dragged out the Magnolia Bakery cookbook I’d bought years ago and from which I’d never baked a thing and looked up the recipe for chocolate cupcakes (my favourite) to see if I could make them from scratch. Got intimidated by the mention of a double boiler, but Stephanie — who’s having her own Spinster Camp on the west coast — has assured me via email that there are ways to MacGyver the recipe without one and not to be scared.

Day 7: First day back to the gym! Shut up, I did so. And oh, God, it sucked. More errands.

Day 8: Biggest day yet! I put everything on the same day to get it all over with, and started very early and ended late to make up for the chunk I was taking out in the middle of the day. We’re thinking of redoing the floors and kitchen in the apartment, so a contractor came to look at the place and take measurements and stuff. Then I had lunch downtown with Nsenga, and got my hair cut. Finished work and put laundry away.

Day 9: More work. More groceries. More of the same. This is why I’m looking at cupcake recipes and trying to invent projects for myself. I already miss Dave. Sigh.

Since I mentioned her in the last post (and on the podcast for the night she was born: June 20!), please say hello to my perfect new niece. Congratulations to proud new parents Leah and Derek!