and dreaming, they say, is also free

My email address that I created almost 14 years ago is "montereybound." I can remember sitting in front of my new desktop computer at the little desk in the little kitchen of the little apartment I shared with someone I found in an ad, but who would become a friend and a kickass roomie (Hi, Dean!) in Arlington, Virginia and choosing this online identity. Dean was there that day, and Mike, too. I was bound for Monterey - headed for the Monterey Institute of International Studies and an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and I was way excited.

When I asked Mike if he wanted to come, I don't know what I expected, but I don't think I expected him to say yes. Which he did. And which promptly freaked me out completely. He left a condo he'd just renovated, a whole cache of friends, and a government job of seven years to drive across the country with someone he'd known about 9 months in a Honda del Sol with a lot of cassettes (yes, cassettes) and a couple of plants. We were on our way. Monterey bound.

Years later, still here and having acquired wedding rings, cats, that degree...the address worked on another level. "Montereybound," I'd recite to people to whom I was giving my email, "As in, tied here."

I have no plans to change my email, as we start the search for boxes, call for quotes on PODS.

During another long night of research and planning on everything in the world, we got on Craig's List to see if anyone had any moving boxes to give away. Typing "box" into the search under the Free category brought some interesting bits. Lots of box springs, for example. And one ad that had Mike and I about ready to bust a gut

"Small Box of Misc. Food."

Clicking on the ad, it began "I have one of those boxes of random food..." You know, one of THOSE boxes. In college once, my roommate woke up one day and said  to me: "You know when you have one of those dreams when all your teeth fall out?" Sure, Patty, sure.

In case you're in the area and interested, here's the list of Misc. Food available (and I quote...):

Jar of Preserved Squashes (not opened)
banana chips
split peas
microwavable brown rice
Mrs Butterworth
Kamut puffs
multigrain crakcers
a couple of mystery spices
ginger candy

After catching our breath on this little experience, we figured it might be only fair to check out what popped up under a search for "box" in the free section of the Western Massachusetts Craig's List. "Massive Box of Free Stuff" one ad boasted followed by helpful suggestions on what one might do with it all, including, "Some stuff could be burned for heat." Then there was the "indoor/outdoor ceiling fan," which had our imaginations going for quite a while. And finally, "Homemade time machine!"

Perhaps that last one could come in handy since our time here is running out much too quickly.

seeking the tools of the road

Clearly, when we leave this house the spiders will just take over. We're barely holding them off as it is. I am watching one as I type this. An enormous black creature hurrying over the highest line of wall in my bedroom, just below the ceiling. For any of you Harry Potter fans, I'd say definitely belonging to the progeny of Aragog; for those of you unfamiliar with HP, uh, it's a big spider.

Where do these things come in? Is there a spider hatch I don't know about? Do they momentarily stun me when I open the front door and slip in? And why are they never the ones I see in my garden? The tame, sweet eight-leggers trapping flies and feasting on aphids.

Despite the fact that we have no house to end up in on the other end of our impending move, we have been focusing almost exclusively on the road trip that will get us there. It's a bit like obsessing about the wedding day without a clue of what the marriage will require.

We just came from the bookstore where we perused fruitlessly the road atlases and USA travel guides for something useful. The atlas that touted itself as the best and only one you'll ever need seemed to choose its inclusions randomly at best. The chapter on Colorado featured a page on the restaurants of Denver. Nice. And...that was all.

There were “Easy Fold Out!” maps to Washington, D.C., Lima, Peru, Sacramento. There were big fat books of campgrounds across the country and state parks, often so huge you'd also need to pack the coffee table to accommodate them.

Mike found a tempting book called Watch It Made In the USA which took you through any factory tour you might want to go on. So the question here is not whether my son would like to watch how Harley Davidson motorcycles are made, but the problem with books like that is that after you invest $22 and fall in love with the page on blown glass, you find yourself trying to come up with excuses to drive hundreds of miles out of your way into the mountains of West Virginia and when you get there your kid is sick and whiny and no one wants to go. Also, you find things out you'd have been better off not knowing, like the fact that they make teddy bears and jelly beans in California. Remind me why we're leaving again?

It didn't take long before I gave up on the reference publications and zeroed in on the travel literature. There is no shortage. Postcards from Europe, Please Hug Me, I've Been Delayed, Venice is a Fish, Radio Shagri-La, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: An American Journalist in Yemen...Among them was also this title by Doreen Orion: Queen of the Road. The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own. This depresses me on several counts, not the least of which has everything to do with bitter competition. I feel, to some degree, upstaged, outdone, beaten to the punch.

I would like to write about my trip too, since, duh, it's what I do. But here's the thing: I have this crazy notion that I want to get paid for it. I'm hoping to hook up with a publication “on the other side” as I like to call our destination, to take on a series of tales about many fewer states than 47, many thousands of miles fewer than 22,000, about 2 shoes, only 1 cat, no poodle, a husband, a preggo wife, a six-year-old boy and, with any luck, a van that works.

We've also been shopping for used camper vans. If you've ever bought anything so much as a paper clip through Craig's List then you know that experiences with people who post there can range from delightful bargains to psycho scams. Somehow, buying a vehicle that we hope will move our family safely through a month-long 4,000 mile trip feels a bit more risky than scouting out those oak dining chairs we picked up a couple years back. 

There is a story about our first van exchange as I've already hinted at in my previous post, but that will have to wait for another day.

where to start?

Maybe with the road collapse that trapped us in Big Sur? Maybe with the 3 1/2 hour detour that got us home, me with an aching back since I'm now nearly 4 months pregnant. Did I say that? Maybe how we're moving across the country in less than 2 months? Or perhaps how we were nearly swindled out of thousands of dollars by a bunch weenie-ass criminals selling a camper van? Oh, so many choices. Will get to them all in time. Tune in soon.

some soundbites from the last few weeks

(looking out the window as we fly to a layover stop in Las Vegas)

“Is that a desert?”

“Yup.”

“A REAL LIVE desert??”

“Yes.”

“Camels?”

“No camels.”

“---.”

(at the rehearsal dinner for my friend's wedding, with an awful cold and knowledge of desserts ahead)

“Momby? It's weawy hard to breab.”

“We need to leave, Isaac, and put you to bed.”

“Whab aboud da tweats?”

(while getting dressed for the wedding the clip-on tie in one hand, holding up the untied tie in the other)

“This one's broken!”

(explaining his recent clingyness through the music & rhythm instruction he's gotten at school – learning basic four-beat bars, “ti-ti” = eighth notes, “ta” = quarter note)

“You've been wanting a lot of Mommy cuddles lately, huh? Do you know why?

“You know how there's “Ti-Ti Ta Ta Rest? Well, you're the Rest!”

(when his video clip wouldn't play on the computer)

“Click again!”

“Honey, I've clicked a hundred times; it doesn't want to work.”

“Punch the computer then!”

“Believe me, that method's been tried.”

(playing demolition with his blocks)
"Everything was wiped out! There was a WIND STORM! A THUNDERSTORM! A HURRICANE! A TOMATO!"

down by the river...take two

“You know, I think it's about time we start looking for a house.” My son said this to me casually enough the other day while we were driving in the car. He means in Massachusetts. Since as much as we all like the school we saw 50 minutes north of here, we can't seem to reconcile the housing prices, neighborhoods, etc for the life we want. We've told him that.

He's not all that thrilled with the idea of moving across the country. He's told us that too. He's been fragile and regressive and generally difficult. It's a lot of unknowns. But he's a realist. Appealing to logic with Isaac has long been a strategy we rely on with him. It works. My son and I are different in that way. And so, he's trying to move his mind forward to a Massachusetts life.

Isaac is, as usual, right. About the house that is. We need to find a house. Problem is not much has been coming through what with that pesky little winter thing going on out there.

We have, however, been checking out vans and other odd vehicles that we might use to drive across the country to our new life we think, maybe, sort of, we will probably, we're not sure, be going to, like this summer, or, not, but well, likely, in a way. (See how much closer we've moved to a decision! Our resolve is stunning.)

The imaginative play is always the first give away to what they're thinking about. “Okay, these people are homeless,” Isaac instructs his dad as they both lie bell down on the living room rug, a dozen or so Matchbox-sized cars and trucks between them. “They live in their camper van.” I've already posted the Chris Farley bit on living in a van down by the river on this blog, so that punchline's out.

random bit

This is the elephant trophy Isaac made and awarded to Mike for winning the scramble from the Sports Center to the car last Friday. (Though Mike maintains the kid threw the race.) Engineering design to get the thing to stand up all his.

It's the end of an era. My kid has been swimming on Friday nights with his dad since he was a baby. At six they kick em out. It's called "Tot Time" after all. They celebrated with pizza and, apparently, an award ceremony. Time for a new tradition.

The Birthday

So Isaac had his birthday and turned six. It must be like the Grinch in Who-ville at Christmas – it comes without blog entries, comments, or tweets. Amazing. Better bloggers/mothers than I am would have posted many words accompanied by many pictures on the actual day of my child's birth. But you, dear readers, are stuck with me and the piece meal retrospective.

As I travel through the first year without my mom, every landmark is a landmine. Isaac appeared at my side at the breakfast table the morning of his birthday with a heart-shaped stone a friend gave him at Christmas time. “When I roll this around in my hand, it makes me think of grandmom,” he says to me. “Try it.” I dutifully take the stone. “Can you feel it?” he asks hopefully. “It makes me think of her because you think of her, honey.” I try to give it back to him. “You can keep it,” he urges, “I don't need it.” And so he doesn't. As for me, I carried it in my pocket for days.

We had a party. Isaac sharing my inability to narrow themes, had requested a T-Rex party with a pirate treasure hunt and a king cobra cake.

We played “Pin the Useless Little Arms on the T-Rex.” We had a treasure hunt for dinosaur bones (Inside, Arrgh, Matey! since the rain refused to cooperate. Successful thanks to my husband's mathematical genius and the small size of the guest list.). We played a dice game where the kids themselves were the game pieces tromping through a giant game board I constructed that I'm sure my son's friends' fundamentalist/creationist parents loved (“Ichthyostega crawls out of the swamp and breathes air! Move ahead 3 spaces!” and “Asteriod hits! Go back 100 million years!”).

What can I say? I'm here to offend. Really, I'm here to amuse myself and it takes priority over much else. How else would you expect me to survive half a dozen women I don't talk to on any regular basis and have nothing in common with parked on my couch for three hours discussing recipes and Facebook? Without other sources of sanity, I'd have to take a page out of Isaac's book and hide in the closet. Which is where I found him at the end of the day – the two girls at the gig otherwise occupied and content, the four boys engaged in a massive balloon fight in his trashed room, and the host, my sensitive son, holed up against the din and chaos. 

Below: Isaac and a friend at their behind-the-scenes tour of the aquarium - only available to 6-year-olds and up. Notice the birthday button.

'tis the season

I wrote this a couple years ago, actually. In honor of the this goofy day of hearts and in honor of Husband-Guy:

Love Poem

Like with every other incidence of toil

in my husband's life,

at each small upturn in his struggle

with the stomach flu

he swears he's over it,

is convinced

he has passed through the worst,

never to return just before

the color in his face drains

and he bolts

toward the bathroom.

We are so unalike:

me - staring into the black

of the world and knowing it

for darkness, him –

riding the tunnel again and again

to the light, unfazed

by the echoing chamber,

the swelling nausea no reason

not to perk up the next time

he feels a spark of relief.

It is optimism

that borders foolishness,

at the very least, a disregard

for simple reason. This

must be why I married him,

to sleep next to that sense of wonder,

bathe in the electricity

of an essential determination

that everything is fine,

to trace the stubbled chin

of goodness with my cheek,

and then, to write it down.

the break up

I've said for a long time that Monterey is like a bad relationship. It has all this potential, you see. You keep waiting for things to get better. (He's really a great guy when he's sober!) Because it has so many great qualities.

It's gorgeous, for one thing. The two best-looking men I ever dated I dated for about a week and a half combined. One was a guy I met in a bar that my friends and I continually referred to as “Random Guy” throughout our brief time together. He was hot alright, but I brought him home for the cat test and he failed immediately. Bunda didn't like him. He had to go. Then there was the Mexican exchange student. Yum. And he could DANCE. Isidoro. (“Jus' call me Izzy (wink).”) Except he was so full of himself I could barely breathe standing in the same room.

And now, as we consider this move, Monterey has become even moreso the relationship you can't quite shake. (You'll never find anyone else who wants you like I do...) I mean, after all, it's not perfect, but it's what you know – and isn't that better than venturing into unknown territory? There'll never been someone like so-and-so in my life again! Surely the east coast won't be able to support me in this way. By “this way” do you mean half-assed? Why, of course it will! But I'm blind to it.

As a tourist town, Monterey is that boyfriend that everyone else L-O-V-E-S, that'll do ANYTHING for ANYONE when they ask. (Read: whore itself for tourist dollars – AT&T Pro-Am, anyone?) Everyone thinks he is super AWESOME. But you ask for a little time and whaddayaknow he's out helping everyone else, or else he's just asleep.

The worst part is, if Monterey and I break up, I know he'll steal all our mutual friends.

valid question

Isaac: "Which do you think is smarter, an elephant or a zebra?"

Me: "I don't really know, bud, but if I had to guess off the top of my head, I'd say elephant."

Isaac: "So, what's on the bottom of your head?"

coastal comparisons

A biased, abridged list of the differences between California, where we currently reside, and Massachusetts, where we may possibly move...

Current Weather:

(central coast of) CA – 70 degrees and sunny. MA – nowhere left to put the snow

Native Heritage:

CA – usurps the names of Native Americans for spa and resort facilities. MA – usurps the names of Native Americans for highways

Town Names:

CA – typing random CA towns into Google may bring results including Beach Boys' lyrics. MA – typing random MA towns into Google may bring results including Puritan England

Driving:

CA – known for the rolling stop, tagged the “Hollywood stop” in Northern CA. MA – known for completely f-ed up intersections that were paved sometime slightly after the Mayflower landed.

Politics:

CA – liberal lipservice done in every time by Orange County. MA – Gay marriage legal.

Housing:

CA – just because it's bank-owned, doesn't mean you shouldn't pay half a million for it. MA – affordable housing options

Money:

CA – largest deficit of any state, but thank god we've cut the car tax and filled the prisons. MA – also in debt, yet their residents enjoy the anomaly of health insurance.

Food:

CA – Awesome Mexican food on every block. MA - ---

The pro/con list has long failed to fit the bill when it comes to decision-making.

birthday as cultural commentary

Isaac's birthday will be here in less than a month. He really wants a party. To date, I have managed to avoid any controversy or heartache over his lack of parties. Of course, it's not that we haven't celebrated.

When he turned one we had just moved and had a combination house-warming, bring your one-year-old over too kind of day.

When he turned two, we had – eh-hem – just moved again and served the friends that helped us some carrot cake with a candle on it.

At three, we tried a very small at home thing where a couple kids and Isaac dug in dry beans to find bouncy balls and took home seeds in clay pots instead of goodie bags.

Four was the new adventure of roller skating topped off with some ice cream and shared with our friends' twin girls.

I billed five as his big family/snow birthday, two things he doesn't usually experience. We spent that one at his grandparents' house in Massachusetts where grandma made him a strawberry topped cake to order and his cousins pulled him around the ice outside on an inflatable tire.

All in all, not bad, I'd say. And now we approach six. I thought I had this one in the bag – six is the year they are allowed to do behind-the-scenes tours at the aquarium. I mean, dude. Pick a friend, hit the tanks, twenty bucks later call it a birthday. Only problem is, it's not flying.

You must understand, I am contending with the insidiousness of things like the pony party, the bounce house blow out, and what I call the “drag net birthday” - invitations handed out to every flipping kid in the class before their parents even get a say, invite ev-er-y-one, doesn't matter what you think of them, what they mean to you, collect your present and eat your cake, too – which undoubtedly has been bought from Costco and contains five-inch thick day-glow green icing, and then send them home with gender specific goodie bags filled with plastic dollar store crap and candy.

Truth be told, I keep Isaac home from every birthday party I possibly can. I'm a proud evil mom. And he still goes to plenty...with Mike. I have no tolerance whatsoever for these fiestas or the idle chit chat that circulates among the parents during same.

The other day Isaac had in hand his second invitation in a week. There would be ponies. There would be lunch (MAJOR red flag – Capri Suns and pizza if you get off easy. Or else burgers and hot dogs your veggie kid can't eat at all served with Hot Cheetos and soda. It's like a psychedelic trip down the river of processed foods brought to you by your guide and companion: high fructose corn syrup.). We planned a family day and told the birthday boy's mom we'd be out of town. That Friday, the family brought cupcakes to school and the ponies were all the buzz. “I wanna go to Duncan's party!” came my boy's well-practiced whine.

The morning of the grand event our plans had shifted and I could no longer be a part of the family day. Isaac hadn't mentioned the party since his token whine, but Mike and I were careful not to let it get past the time of the soiree without directly addressing the fact that we wouldn't be there, lest it prove meltdown material later. We reminded him that we'd already told Duncan's family we couldn't make it and that maybe he could do something really special with Daddy that day. He was quiet for a minute, then he asked Mike to play “ice cream truck” with him (You have to walk up to the windows of the car as different customers and order.). No mention of ponies. Nothing. They went on to have a day involving a hike and homemade cookies.

When I think about this little incident, it's not unlike the triumphant feeling I had over the holidays when, killing time during intermission at a concert, Isaac sat oblivious to the two young boys in the row in front of us playing games on their parents' iphones while our family played several rollicking rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Look, I've got nothing against ponies or iphones, not exactly... It's just, well, those birthdays? They'll fly by faster than we're ready to admit. We live in a complicated world. Why drag our kids into it before we have to? Let's skip the bounce houses and ponies and let them take it one birthday at a time, with their feet firmly on the ground.

almost six years old

In a week that included discussions of who Martin Luther King, Jr and Cesar Chavez were, and why grandmom was cremated and not buried, and how anyone knows what the center of the earth is like, and if dogs or cats can see better, and why hurricanes don't come to where we live, and are we sure?, and whether alligators are omnivores... there was also the following conversation, which reminds me once again that children require simple answers, not because they are simple, but because there is just so much freaking else to get on with.

"Do Lily and Emma have a dad?"

"Nope. They have two moms."

(concerned look, big sigh) "So, I have a question..."

"Yes?"

"Do computers know EVERYTHING in the whole entire world??"

the hummingbird that watches over our house

"I guess when we leave here he'll move on," Mike says matter-of-factly one day watching him perched in the tree outside our bedroom window.

"Why would he do that?" I ask.

"Well," he says turning, as if the answer were already obvious, "because he's our hummingbird."

I'd like to be a frog

It's almost Christmas. A holy season
some say. The evidence, I suppose,
is around us indeed: Gloved hands clasped
at the steering wheel, "Please, turn over."
The cat worshipping at the altar of the heater.

For my part, I am applying make-up - going for
the sun-kissed look, but an easy slip
ends me looking more bruised than anything,
a truer vision for sure.

Somewhere deep, deep in the muddy earth
there are frogs asleep, dreaming of sun,
creatures that have no use for Nutcracker
tickets, or a spot with a good view
of the lighted boat parade. They wait
for better times, do not, like the humans
tromping above over the slick skin of their heads
have to move through the cold to catch
a ray of hope on the other side.

shadow shot - succulents

detail of a succulent wreath I've been tending since May as a Christmas present for a friend. interesting that the succulent with the most prominent piece of the shadow isn't itself visible in the picture.

Thank you to Tracy for hosting another Shadow Shot Sunday.

house hunting

We spent a week at my in-laws' house hunting in nearby towns. It's a strange and curious base camp, my in-laws' house, where all the pens advertise prescription meds and my father-in-law's hearing aid whistles feedback, a fragile trapped bird.



At one point we are having lunch with our real estate agent, discussing how Mike grew up in the area, how his parents are watching Isaac at the moment, etc. etc., when suddenly he turns on me. "And do you have parents?" he blurts innocently.



For those first few moments I am balancing my thoughts on the question like the intricate rock piles I've found on occasion on the beach, then, a wave, and they topple, granite chunks falling unceremoniously with soft thuds to this side and that.



"They're both gone," I say after a long time, and at that a black space extends out in front of me though this otherwise innocuous man in a green wool hat, tunneling beyond the diner booth, beyond main street bustling along outside the window, to somewhere that belongs to me but that I cannot fathom, that I do not know all the corners of, like the basements I've spent the morning creeping down to, poking around in, a foundation of some mystery, a less than usable space, cold and musty. One can drop into this arena with little warning - it might be the door off the kitchen, or sometimes the front hall. Headroom can't be guaranteed, the steps down can give way at any time, the things stored there stuff you can't yet deal with.

magical futures

Already out of place in the early morning of the parking lot blitz, I take in the population of grungy men climbing from the cabs of pick ups squeezed into spots marked "compact" and slamming their rusty doors one-handed while they sip steaming coffee and head for the entrance.

To his credit, the man in charge of Home Depot's plumbing department did not get on his radio and call security when I approached him and noted plainly, "I want to make a magic wand."

We look at each other for a while.

"Maybe PVC pipe?" I offer. "Thin? Doesn't have to be black, I can paint it. And those white rubber stoppers for the ends? Like on the legs of metal chairs? Or step stools? What are they called?"

Ah, but in the aisle of  pipe we discover the thinnest pipe is not thin enough. My box store shepherd has an lovely island accent (The Isle of Pipe?) and informs me, "All we 'ave is dis size 'nd oop." Though he's already gotten big time gold stars for not having me hauled away, for listening to my magical needs with more regard than most of my closest and dearest would ever dream of, he continues with serious intent: "Does de flexibilidee mattah?"

We look at hoses. Good potential, but I'd have to buy the whole coil. I consider my prospects, while my host takes a call from another customer - something about warranties, normal as all get out. I congratulate myself for adding spice to his day - the crazy lady whose son wants a magic wand for Christmas. When he ends his call, I thank him in that way that means he's off the hook. He looks relieved.

When I was in college studying languages madly, my career advisor washed her hands of me early on. "I'm sorry," she said, pushing my resume back across the desk at me. "I don't think we can help you." While others reveled in summer internships, I found out that the way I move in the world, doesn't always have a name or a space.

Lately, we have been house hunting. I walk into a 250-year-old colonial renovation project and hear it screaming to me about its future as a writers' guest house. I call the planning board and they "can't find anything in the zoning bylaws that matches" what I'm talking about. "I'm trying to grasp exactly what it is you are wanting to do, ma'am." Me too, sir. Me too.

So Home Depot is not my resource for magic. Somehow this doesn't surprise me in the least. Neither are planning officers stewards of dreams. So what. What I've learned in the time since Egyptian hieroglyphs excluded me from employment, is that just because those in charge can't define you, and even when you can't explain what precisely that vision looks like yourself, it doesn't mean you have to give up your dreams of magic.

Chaos Code Orange

Kitty: I can't find the glue.

Mike: Well, isn't it next to the blender?

Kitty: Whaddaya know, there it is. Thanks.

shadow shot - dinosaurs

Waiting for the dinosaur phase to end is like waiting for the truck phase to end. In other words, waiting in vain. I don't mind so much though, I'm beginning to be able to tell my anchlyosauruses from my iguanodons quite well, thank you..

Pictured: Oviraptor and Isaac

Head over to Hey Harriet for all kinds of shadowy visions.

more audio: When a Teacher Goes to Jail

Okay, so here's my first attempt at a produced piece using the Audacity editing program. My friend, writer and teacher Paul Karrer, had a story to tell and so we recorded it and I put it here. You might want to give it a listen. And, hey, times are such that you might was to "share it" around. (It is also on my sidebar under Cool Stuff/Me Stuff.) Thanks.

And if anyone is an expert on Audacity, for godssake write me and give me all your tips.

Danielle Evans - Book Review

Weary of waiting for my buddy to get this up on his podcast, so...Here's my book review of Danielle Evans' killer collection of short stories, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. I've also put the link on my sidebar under "What We're Reading." Anybody prefer the text over the audio? Can create a link upon request.

(Beware, adult language in some excerpts I read...Just in case you feel like blasting it in surround sound and prissy Aunt Felicity is visiting.)

shadow shot - PG Museum

These pictures were taken about a month ago, when the sun was favoring us a bit more than it is now. Isaac and a friend were searching for plastic glow-in-the-dark bugs hidden in the rocks at the Pacific Grove Natural History Museum - an activity connected to an exhibit on bioluminescence. The spinning sculpture watched over them as they studied the ground.

I often think that children should be considered bioluminescent, as clearly they make their own light.

Hey Harriet has all the shadows to beat. Check it out.

These Days

Isaac: These days I've seen people with shopping carts. I mean, not at stores, just people have them, like they must have bought them. Have you seen that man that sits on the ground and he has like hundreds of blankets in a shopping cart?


Me: Yes. That man has those blankets because he doesn't have a home. He uses them when it's cold if he had to sleep outside. 

Doesn't have a home?


He's homeless. Some people choose that life, but other people are homeless because they are having a hard time. Maybe they don't have family to go to or the money to get somewhere to stay. 


He must have friends, though!


Let's hope so.


Because you don't need money to have friends!

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. With much gratitude for all we have, for you and for my son whose wit, innocence, and intuitive intelligence knock me off my feet by the hour. And who has inspired from me so much writing.

failure

let's just see how much longer the kid can enjoy treats such as this popsicle...

So far we have failed to convince Isaac to vigorously wiggle his two front teeth (both loose) so as to aid and abet the departure of the little bones from his gum line prior to a certain upcoming holiday, antagonism which we would follow by then inciting him to sing the song apropos of the event while dressed in some elf-like costume that will embarrass him heartily in only a few short years, completing our parenting manipulation duty by posting the performance on numerous social networking sites.

But it could be worse. I could make him watch this video. (if you make it to the end, watch for the green Christmas pig.)

Shadow Shot - Fuchsia

A simple shadow shot this weekend from my garden.

Check out all the camera creatives this week at the blog Hey Harriet

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jeans circa 2010

It had been a VERY long time that I had been in a retail store looking for clothes. I buy a lot of my stuff second hand, and lately I don't buy very much stuff period. But after one more basic of my wardrobe was scarred with an irreversible flaw, I decided to take the plunge.

I can remember being in Hungary in the mid-nineties and thinking I needed to get home before this email “craze” got too out of hand. I didn't want to be too far behind in learning what was what. I was twenty-something with a lot more energy and no clue of just how fast technology was about to fly along the spectrum of new.

Apparently, technology wasn't the only thing to speed ahead. So, I let a bit too much time pass since I've pawed the racks. Now, there is a whole code to finding pants and I didn't get the decoder ring in my cornflakes. Jeans all have coordinates that refer to how long, how stretchy, and how fitted they are. Perhaps you are normal and know this already, but if you are a fashion outcast like me never fear – because it's all made simple by assigning each of these formulas a woman's name.

Let's just called them “Clarissa,” “Lexie,” and “Madeleine” - to protect the innocent. It's a little like being back in high school – and who wouldn't welcome something that fun! “Clarissa” is relaxed through the hips, boot cut. “Lexie” is slim in the waist and hips, fitted down the leg. (Bitch. We hate Lexie.) “Madeleine” sits just below the hips, regular cut.

But the award-winner was something called “the Boyfriend” - and I quote, “slouchy through the hips and waist, relaxed leg.”

One boyfriend to share around with all these women. Trouble.

So far I had survived mostly unscathed and under the radar with only a few “you doin' okays?” Next, I just had to battle the sales clerks at the registers. Mine was surprisingly tolerable, minus her distinctive overuse of the two-syllable descriptor “Sah-weeet!”

I hope I don't make a return trip any time soon, though I'm praying the information cache I've gathered won't devalue. I'm hoping this trip was education enough and that if I come back in another bazillion years it'll be kind of like a soap opera where nothing ever really changes except who's hanging next to the Boyfriend.

holiday greetings

 Every year since Isaac was born, Mike and I shun all those cool templates at Snapfish to make our own holiday cards. The wisdom of this tradition is under investigation and has some interesting predecessors – build your own wedding invitation anyone? Make it a size and shape that you are forced to also make your own envelopes? See bride and groom. See bride and groom fume. See bride leave in a huff. See groom finish envelopes alone. See this pattern repeat – For. The. Rest. Of. Their. Lives.

This year, I'm having more trouble than most working on the card. I had decided to do an original linoleum block print for the design after an old interest in the art form was recently rekindled for me. Months ago I snapped up some paper on clearance at the craft store. It was still spring and juices were flowing.

Oddly, my plan for a block print Christmas card was one of the few things I got to tell my mother the last morning before she died. I didn't tell her how beautiful she was or how I wished we'd stayed longer in April after our flight to Ireland was canceled. I didn't tell her about the miscarriage. But, as she lay bloated and laboring to breathe in a hospital bed in cardio-ICU: “Hey, mom, we're gonna do block prints for our Christmas cards!”

It was June. Did I think that might be the one thing to keep her hanging on? Maybe elect for surgery or heavy duty cardio meds so she could be around to get some winter wonderland scene in the mail pressed onto sale paper?

At the time, I think she nodded. With that, her job was done. Child number four had arrived at her bedside while she was still breathing. She'd beckoned the nurse, calling her into the room by name to show her the 11x14 print I'd brought of Isaac grinning out from a tangle of tree branches and subtitled “I love you, Grandmom! Feel Better!” What else was there to do?

I was starting to get the idea that our usual personalized greeting could become something of a tinder box this year when I tried to come up with a tag line...

“Hope maybe your mom is still alive this holiday season.”

“This year sucked, the new year should be better because at least my mom can't die again.”

“Wishing you joy – somebody might as well have it since it appears unavailable to me.”

“Keep family close this holiday season, unless of course your mom is dead, then, it'd be a little weird.”

I keep hearing from people how my mom “would have loved...(Fill in the Blank).” There's a block print in it for you if you can come up with a card slogan that she would have loved.

for the love of produce

“It's beautiful!” exclaims my son. “Look at it!”

He is referring to a carrot.

I am speechless. Overcome with joy and pride. It's worked. All that time other children spent at the park, or soccer practice, my boy was in training at the farmer's markets.

My work is done here. Thank you. Good night. 

We've come a long way, baby.

shadow shot - Seattle

This past September our family found itself in Seattle because of a conference Mike was attending. The first two shots below are me over a plaque in the sidewalk at the famous Pike's Peak Market and then the detail of that plaque.

Later in the visit we met up with friends that live there and Isaac got to reunite with his buddies - their 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son. Wandering around with the kids on a rainy afternoon, we found ourselves at a (mostly) abandoned skate park where the kids had a blast racing around and sliding down the slanted sides.

For all kinds of shadows check out host Tracy's Shadow Shot Sunday at Hey Harriet.

 
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having kids is a series of ups and downs

The End of the Dinosaurs: a Shakespearean-like Tragedy, by Isaac

(Scene: Earth. Post-apocalyptic asteroid hit)

(Cast of Characters: Dinosaurs; Baby Frog)

And then, all the ones with wings started picking up the smaller, defenseless dinosaurs and taking them to safety!

Wow! That's so nice!.

But the dust was too thick (Cough! Cough!). They were choking. Then, another rock the size of (drops voice to a dramatic whisper) the whole entire Universe falls (raises voice to top volume again) CRASHING FROM THE SKY!!! KA-GUSH- BA-FOOOM!!

That sounds bad, dude.

But there was one baby dinosaur... (attempts to cram small dino into a plastic egg, but seeing it doesn't fit abandons it for a stretchy frog)...No, no! A baby FROG is left.

A baby left! Yay!

And the ash is everywhere! And the asteroid sucked away all the gravity and turned it into lava, and, and...

???

The baby frog hatches in the air.

Go baby frog! Way to survive!

But then, when it leaves the egg it lands right on top of the volcano and it burns up!

I think our days have evolved from Christopher Robin and Pooh to Calvin and Hobbes.

I don't know what you're talking about, Mommy, but get out of the way – the volcano is still erupting!!

Shadow Shot - Emandal

I've been hoarding my shadow shots and have a back log. This week's goes back to September when we visited the fabulous Emandal: A Farm on a River in Mendicino County, California. The marigolds and zinnias. The children traipsing back from a harvest. The funky shadow of a little friend's tail. The bowed trees along the trail.

A beautiful diversity of shadows can be found at Tracy's blog Hey Harriet.

school search, part VII: our children as our best attributes

“Are you on any waiting lists?” my friend asks me when the topic of Isaac's school choices comes up.

“What waiting lists should I be on?”

“I don't know. It just seems like when people discuss schools, they're on waiting lists.”

This is how we talk about education these days.

Mike recently posted his class picture from kindergarten on Facebook to much acclaim. Mike is not one of these people who has a million Facebook friends, or, for that matter, who spends much time on Facebook. At all. So when 20 extensive comments showed up following that shot of a bunch of five- and six-year-olds in dorky plaids and collars to their elbows, it spoke of something significant.

People's comments read like a theater usher's directions: “Third from the left, bottom row, next to the pillar– is that Dawn Shields???!!”

There was discussion about the spellings of names, about the parents of the little fashionistas and which of them may or may not have served as den mothers and scout leaders. There was an ongoing volley about one of the classmates and her battle with cancer. The excitement in the banter (cancer aside) was palpable. There was a liberal use of punctuation – ellipses, dashes and question marks, perhaps followed by an entire row of exclamation points. In other words, it was a scene, man.

If Mike's little FB experience is any indication, who you hang with around the art table, the first bunch of people you wrestle with for your turn at the water fountain, create a lasting impression. No one talked about math lessons or reading circles. They talked about who they were in relation to each other. The social ins and outs. The personal hurts and triumphs.

We search for the right “academic” environment to set down our little people. We rank schools based on test scores. I suppose because it's measurable and this other stuff is messy. When did we decide we don't have the time for messy? Who's getting in the sandbox with me?

Look. We are fucked up as a people. But it wasn't always so. We used to be them – the kids – innocent, joyful. We have the power to help them. Furthermore, there is potential for them to help us.

A scruffy-faced man in slouchy, dirty jeans and a ballcap that reads “Go to the Edge” walks into the sports center pool area. He looks tired. Truth be told, he looks even a bit frightening. Except that he is flanked by two little girls, each grasping one of his rough hairy paws. They are probably around three and six. They are golden-haired with purple butterfly clips in their curls. Both wear pink bathing suits, the younger one's complete with tutu bouncing about on her tiny hips. He grins down at them and they bound away for the water. As context, these little girls change everything about the scene. They presumably share the genes of this hulking scrap heap of a man, or more to the point, he shares theirs. Somewhere inside him there is something this delicate. Something precious. There is a pink tutu. I just know it.

school search - part VI

There is a hair cutting school in my neighborhood where you can get walk-in five-dollar cuts. It's a good deal, if students with scissors don't make you too nervous and if you have some extra time (cuz these cats are trying to get it right...). I took Isaac there to get the hair off his ears and out of his eyes.

While waiting in the reception area, the young man who would be our hair dresser for the day approached and introduced himself. Before he could lead us to the hair chair, however, a woman stopped him to ask for his urgent help. The dryer her mother was sitting under was too hot and was beginning to scorch her scalp. The man turned down the heat dial and confirmed with the customer that the new temperature was good for her. Before leaving them, he addressed the daughter. “If it heats up too much again, just turn this dial to a lower number,” he said, pointing out the huge white markings on the chair's controls affixed in plain sight. “Oh,” replied the woman, as if this were new and strange technology she wouldn't dare have thought to tamper with. “Okay.”

Now, nothin for nothin people, and with all due respect for the 10 months these hair folks spend studying how to give perms and fool your friends with extensions, did that woman seriously not think it was within her own power to turn down the heat? Did she never investigate? Did the mother never consider removing her head from the assaulting burn? Are we so helpless as a species? Such obedient sheep to follow along until we are in physical danger or worse? Such rule followers as to be completely out of touch with our own instincts?

I have two major concerns about public schools and they have nothing to do with academics. The first is demonstrated above. We think that “discipline” issues are bad in schools, but consider this blog to weigh in on the problem of obedience, the lost art of free thinking.

So, Isaac gets his booster seat and settles in for an hour-long cut. (Don't try this at home folks!) The poor thing was having to pull out every little bit of hard-earned Montessori concentration to sit there in the chair. I wasn't any less fidgety since I was pretty certain I was going to die of bad pop music while there and kept swiveling this way and that hoping to find the radio switch to smash.

Of course, we did have plenty of time for conversation, the young man and I at least, since Isaac was refusing to speak. During that time I made sure to point out to my son his hair dresser's Barbie pink fingernails.

Isaac has been very influenced by a couple friends, who don't even live in the area anymore, but whose rigid ideas of gender they managed to pass on quite successfully on some level to my son.

(“I'm not going to have an earring when I grow up. I'm going to be a real boy!” he once said to me. Images of Pinocchio in a sterling earcuff float through my mind. WTF??)

I learned that hair dresser guy, had a Halloween party for his birthday every year, since it fell at the end of October and that this year he was going to be a pirate. I also learned that he was graduating next month. And finally, I learned that he was born and raised in Salinas, which caused me to have to stop myself from grabbing his arm, the one with the black rubber bracelet that said “Vanity,” and blurting out, “Oh my god! That must have been terrible for you!” Salinas, California, known as it is for its associations with Steinbeck, big agriculture, and gang violence, isn't quite as note-worthy in its general ideas of tolerance.

Which brings me to problem number two in the public schools: a lack of emphasis on compassionate social interaction and integration.

I mean, let's face it people. We are at war. What do we have to teach our kids about empathy or cooperation? Gee, can't imagine why bullying is a problem...

I'm planning on going as my worst nightmare for Halloween this year: a soccer mom. “Are you gonna scream a lot?” my friend asked me, “Because you need to scream a lot.” (Capri Sun, anyone? Pictures to follow.) While I went searching for a blonde bob wig in the drug store the other day to round out my costume, my gentle, loving son battled an invisible victim with a bloody plastic hatchet, behavior I find all the more disturbing since the kid's only ever watched a few hours of television in his life and most of that consisted of Dinosaur Train and the Olympics. You might find it odd that I connect fumbling foreign policies, youth sports teams, dumby weaponry and the absence of kindness, and if so, then, I still have more convincing to do. Later. Just how I like to think about where to send Isaac to school next year. Later.

pomegranates as religion

I knew it would be the perfect time. Late October. I hadn't been to the market in a few weeks – well, not to THE market, the one that has my favoritest farmer with my favoritest fruits. Tuesdays are market day (THE market day), and Tuesdays have been a challenge lately with our current family schedule. It takes more time and effort to get to downtown Monterey than I am able to sustain some weeks. The neighborhood where I live isn't so down with the organic produce, though you can run into any number of steeples within a stone's throw of my house. (If you are craning your neck skyward toward those steeples too long though, you better beware of the ragged chainlink waiting to snatch at your legs, such is the beauty of my 'hood.) Four years ago I moved to a neighborhood where it was all about a healthy soul. Too bad I'm more interested in cultivating a healthy body and somehow cling to the notion of aesthetics as integral to my happiness. But enough about fenced in evangelists.

Isaac was starting his second month of swimming lessons. He's a confident swimmer for whom being submerged in chlorine is a dream come true. I can remember us taking him to the pool long enough ago that many weeks he'd conk out for a nap before we could get him in the car. Long enough ago that we've added “swim diapers” to our family's personal responsibility for landfill waste. Now, excited to be learning strokes and dives, he's a better swimmer than I will ever hope to be. In fact, he's a polar bear.

Living in Monterey and its environs means that swimming levels are not called things like 1, 2, 3, or 4. Oh no. We'll save that kind of ho-hum for the landlocked, the impoverished souls that don't have a National Marine Sanctuary off their shores. In Monterey, the swim levels are called things like “Dolphin” and “Starfish” and “Sea Turtle” and it's up to the parents to buy into this clever but bizarre culture of the appropriate sea life corresponding to your child's ability to do the breast stroke.

I recently had a conversation with the aquatic director in which the terms “Seahorse,” “Penguin,” and “Polar Bear” were tossed around to such a degree it was impossible to follow what the hell he was talking about, though he acted as if rational adults speak this way every day. It was a bit like inserting the Jabberwocky into casual conversation. “He's very good with the vorpal sword. I really think he'll be ready for the Bandersnatch next time. The jaws that bite and the claws that catch shouldn't bother him a bit. Now, if he's worried about the Jubjub bird, then I'd say he might want to stay away from the slithy toves, but otherwise, O frabjous day! Callooh Callay!”

The point here is not supposed to be how magnificent my son is in water, nor how oddly labeled his skills might be. The point here is that the sports center is a mere two blocks from the market. Doubtful I was supposed to leave the premises, I abandoned Isaac with his new instructor, his fellow Polar Bears, gave up my spot on that horrid metal bleacher filled with a crowd of parents leaning toward the poolside to see how little Xavier the Guppie was doing and dashed out and down the street toward my one true love: Pomegranates!

When I arrived, the pomegranates were even better than I'd even hoped for.(O frabjous day!...) They were monstrous, engorged beauties their crowns glistening in the sun. A day of rain over the weekend had split them and their juicy rubies showed through the cracks. (I'm pretty serious about my fruit.) Dale, my buddy, the farmer himself, was not there on this day and one of the other farm workers who doesn't know me was minding the stall. As I started to pile the poms bigger than softballs into a bag, he grew concerned. “Lady,” he said to me. “They're three dollars a pound!”

Some women shop for clothes. I spend all my money at the farmer's markets.

“Mommy! Mommy! Why is it so cold in the house?”

“Put on a sweater and eat your pomegranates, Isaac.”

“But Mommy! Why can't I go to swimming lessons anymore?”

“Wouldn't you rather float on a bed of pomegranate seeds, honey? Now pass the bowl.”

In my defense, pomegranates are high in vitamin C and potassium. The little immune boosters contain yummy antioxidants. If these pomegranates could swim, baby, they'd be Orcas. Amen.

Pomegranate Season Again

and here I am with pen

in hand. Each year I try:

tiny baubles I call them,

rubies, gems, clusters

of cranberry eggs sparkling

like Christmas – all of the metaphors

lacking or taken, though I go on

spilling blood

on my kitchen counter -

a California slasher movie

starring Persephone.

And once she comes into it,

well, it's all over, isn't it?

A girl in the dark, a mother

pacing above, her grief enough

to keep the blossoming world

at bay. Is any fruit worth this --

family fissures, death, and blood-letting?

Even Neruda with his Odes -

the tomatoes, to the onion,

didn't have to contend with the maiden

cum queen, the hungry earth

wrenching open in a muddy maw.

One must grow into one's majesty

the immature among us

fastened to the branch

by the crowns

of our heads.

To know so young one is royal,

to spoil such sweetness.

Now on my counter they lie

huge and heavy, weighted down

by their own juices,

oversized doorknobs locked

against innocence and painted

for all the world to see

like the lips of a geisha.

I take the knife to them. The berry bodies

explode with a spray of red-black droplets,

not unlike the octopus before surrender,

a final message as the end approaches --

secrets never told,

blotchy reminders of a simpler love.

found out

Iz: Do we have any cardboard? I want to make a sign.

Me: What kind of sign?

Iz: One that says, "Please Don't Park In the Driveway" so Daddy won't drive on the beautiful chalk mural I'm going to draw.

(After obtaining cardboard and pen, we sit on the front step...)

Me: (writing) "P-L-E-A-S-E... Dddd-Oooo-Nnnn-Tttt...  Hmm. "Park." How do you think I'd spell "Park?"

Iz: Pppp P!

Me: Okay. And Aaarrr...Aaarrr...

Iz: ??

Me: A-R...

Iz: A-R!

Me: What would "Park" end with?

Iz: K!

Me: Oh, right - K. Oh, and Isaac, wait til you see -- "Drive" has one of those silent E's!

Iz: Hey! Are you trying to learn me to read??

Me: Wouldn't think of it, kid.

musical leanings

Is it my fault that Isaac is in love with the "Rent" Soundtrack? The boy has taste. Is it any worse than him running around the house singing "Ay ay ay, put your hands up high, 'cause you never know how long you're gonna live 'til you die" from Spearhead? Like I said, taste.

"The opposite of war isn't peace, it's CREATION." 
- from "La Vie Boheme" (Jonathan Larson)