Happy Healing Home

                   "Above all , be the heroine of your life, not the victim."  Nora Ephron




Our Buildiing on the Upper East Side of NYC!

           A good Friend once said to me that we will only be as happy as our unhappiest child.  I thought she was brilliant.  It was many years before I realized it was not really her quote!  She’s still brilliant.
             No matter how old my Ladies get, I’m realizing this statement is true, for life.  My Girls and I have so much to heal from this year.  And, one of the things that my younger Daughter needed was a sane, clean place to live in New York City. (a tall order these days).  Well, I reached out to a lovely Lady I met during my “Winter in Manhattan Odyssey”.  Remember the Lady I met on the Brooklyn Foodie Tour?  I asked if she’d consider renting her UES (Upper East Side) apartment to us.  She loved the idea.

            Thus began our adventure into the Co-Op world of Manhattan.  Everybody has heard about how crazy it is, I assume.  I think of the Sex and the City episode where Cynthia Nixon’s character, Miranda, was on her Co-Op Board and they interviewed a Doctor played by Blair Underwood.  Hello, would there even be a question?!

            Well, we are not Doctors, and we’re not Blair Underwood, although one of us is an actor.  Anyway, the paperwork we had to fill out made college applications and the FAFSA (one of my most hated and frustrating experiences to date) look easy.  It seemed they wanted to know every penny I ever made and where it was.  Then the interview.  I had to take a day off work and go to NYC for it.  Being totally honest, the Lady who hosted the interview was lovely and we had a nice chat. She loved the fact that my Daughter was an actor/singer.  She also loved that we were sharing in this adventure together.  Then, the Man came, a half hour late, a frustrated comedian I think, and accountant by trade, he had major misgivings that our financial numbers didn’t make sense.  I had assured the lovely Owner that though it was a stretch for my Daughter and me financially, but that we would not have started the process if we didn’t think we could do it.  She was on our side.

Our first dinner @ Home!

            When we left the interview I felt like a helium balloon whose air had just been sucked out of it.  I didn’t think we were going to get the apartment.  We had dinner before Kristi went to work, and I jumped on a late bus home.  At the end of our meal, the text came.  We were approved for a year’s lease on a beautiful studio apartment on the UES!

            Labor Day weekend traditionally ends summer.  This year it was yet another moving one. (I do wonder how many times we as Parents will move our “Kids”.)  But, this time, it was a move forward for both of us, and hopefully Katie may reestablish her love affair with Manhattan by joining us sometimes in our little “Happy Healing Home”!