Spring Break, Day 8

So this weekend, various realtors in NYC have an open house in which they let rabble like me tour some amazingly high-end properties, the kind of residences where the doormen (who are virtually always men and mostly white to boot, which suggests what a genuinely lucrative/desirable job door-manning is) barely deign to notice you even when you're standing at their desks. My partner, a former architect, adores looking at buildings and can tell you the cost and quality of every piece of hardware, every countertop, and every appliance. She wanted to go look at some of these apartments, and the Child and I were nothing loath. (Of course, la-di-da Scandinavian appliances are wasted on me; I don't even know the cool brands, but my partner understands them all.)

So we set off for a newly-developed complex called Chelsea Enclave, which is built around a lovely old Gothic seminary. (That's right! Your apartment comes with its own church!) It's the sort of place that brings out all my socialist rage and all my capitalist avarice at the same time. I deplore it and want it both.

We first looked at the four-bedroom (in NYC, mind you!) suite with terrace, which, at nearly 3200 square feet (295 square metres) is more than twice the size of my entire house and retails for a mere $5,800,000 (about 4,216,000 Euros). The bathtubs (there are four; and four separate showers) were about three feet deep. There was a built-in, temperature-controlled mini-wine-cellar. And a butler's pantry. The fixtures tended toward the slab-like and aggressive and manly; my partner speculates that the properties will be mostly bought as investments and rented to well-to-do gay men, Chelsea being the current center of the gay community in NYC. The smaller apartments (you can get a 900-sf one-bedroom for $1,325,000) were not as breath-taking, but they were still great fun to see. Like a theme park.

We would have gone to other buildings, but it was sheeting rain so hard all day that we simply couldn't stand it any longer and had to go have lunch and then come home and sit in a hot bath. It was the sort of rain that makes unbrellas useless; the wind blew so hard that we were drenched, unbrellas notwithstanding. Every street corner was flooded; the drains simply couldn't keep up with le deluge.

I was wearing these clunky, old, very comfy black suede boots that are my footwear of choice for walking in NY in winter, and I'm not kidding, the rain actually soaked through the tops of them. I have never had this happen with any shoes before. My socks were literally wringing wet, and yet there are no holes in the boots.

But brunch was lovely. I was tempted by the savory bread pudding with fennel sausage and herbed eggs, but in the end, I had a spiffy grilled cheese sandwich made with lots of really sharp cheddar, apple slices, ground mustard, and candied pecans. On really good, crusty bread (At Hundred Acres this was, woldy). If I had to choose only one food to eat from now until the day I die, it would be cheese. So I was happy, if wet.

When I got home, though, I looked in the mirror and burst out laughing. My hair is a frizz-fest at the best of times, and today, with its Noah-like downpour (it is STILL raining), isn't even close to the best of times. After our humid trek to Posh Land, my hair set a new record for bushiness; I looked like one of those cartoon characters who sticks their finger in a light socket. Bzzzzt.

But all in all, it's been a great day. I'll be heading home tomorrow, provided the airport hasn't washed out into the Hudson.

And yay! The US goes on Daylight Savings Time tonight.

FIC: "Still Waters" (Minerva/Wilhelmina)

Title:Still Waters
Author: Kelly Chambliss
Pairing: Minerva McGonagall/Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank (with guest appearances by Amelia Bones, Augusta Longbottom, Neville, and Trevor)
Rating: light R
Summary: In 1995, Albus Dumbledore invites Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank to serve as a substitute professor of Care of Magical Creatures. Will isn't sure she should accept, but she thinks it over while sleeping with a unicorn. (No, not like that! What's wrong with you?)

This story was written for tetleythesecond, who submitted a generous winning bid for it at the help_haiti auction. My grateful thanks to you, Tetley!

(And thanks to the other kind bidders as well.)

Illustrations by my and my partner's excellent Child (age 13 and soon not to be a child any longer. As he is fond of noting, it's only a little over two years until he can [please, no!] drive). (NB -- the original pictures are larger, but these are as large as I can seem to make them in LJ)

And speaking of grateful thanks, I extend many to my fine beta-reader, therealsnape

---///---



~ ~ Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank ~ ~

---///---

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? ……
How do they come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin?
--Sharon Olds

---///---

( Still Waters )

Spring Break, The End

Here I am at home again, all travel safely concluded -- although it did look for a while as if I was going to miss my connecting flight. We had to sit on the tarmac in NYC for over an hour (various weather-related delays). My scheduled lay-over was less than an hour, so by the time we were 90 minutes late in leaving NY, I assumed the connection was history. But we were actually only 20 minutes late in arriving, which just goes to show you how much extra time is built in to the stated itineraries.

But I'm not complaining. I got my day's exercise in running through the airport (because of course the arriving flight and the departing flight were at the far ends of totally opposite concourses), I made it to the gate with about four minutes to spare, and my luggage even arrived with me at the final destination. (I'd planned to carry it aboard myself, but there was no overhead space left, so I had to check it.)

And so it's back to school tomorrow, but that's fine. Once Spring Break is over, the spine of the semester is broken. My favorite moment of the year will be upon us before we know it. (What moment is that, you ask? The moment I and my row of extremely dignified, regalia-draped faculty colleagues sedately exits the graduation ceremony -- and then rips off said regalia faster than you can say "Pomp and Circumstance." The feeling of taking off that mortarboard and gown and looking at three months of freedom is better than Christmas, better than gin, [not] better than sex.)

Also, congratulations to all the talented flist members who won OWL Awards: machshefa, annietalbot, duniazade, mountainmoira, and celta_diabolica. Excellent job!