Sylvia's violin lesson ends at 3:30 and mother and daughter have no desire to walk two miles home and then back in time for her 6 o'clock first concert and so Sylvia has made our plans. We will enjoy the air conditioning at Au Bon Pain and the Cambridge Public Library.
I could have chosen to only frequent independent coffee shops and of course chains come and go too, no more Finagle a Bagel in Harvard Square but Au Bon Pain has faithfully followed me from the days when bagels had to be ripped into bite size pieces to the mornings now where I am obliged to stuff dollar bills in my daughters' knapsacks so that they can pass the idle hour between dance, violin basketball practice at my community teenage study hall, aka Au Bon Pain.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Friday, Planning's High Holy Day
It's planning day. As well as trying to get some work done I need to pick up socks, buy beer and call my parents. I want to squeeze all the goodness I can out of the weekend starting tonight.
I think I might be able to bike, hike and roller blade this weekend. I don't have to watch Rabiah's basketball games because I live in Cambridge and even though I'm not spoiled by having extra bathrooms and even though my neighbors clean their cars at 9am on quiet Sunday mornings we have a city youth basketball program that provides transportation to Medford for basketball games. I can feel guilty for missing the games if I choose.
Sylvia is 10. I sometimes still look at the children's shoes selection in the thrift store, forgetting for a moment that no one in our house will wear those shoes again. Well I do have mutant square small feet so there is the occasional pair for me there. Sylvia is not 14 though, even her insults are funny and ill formed but she is casting her net wide these days which allows me to sometimes forget that she is only 10.
Last night at dinner she moored herself right where she belonged and dominated the conversation with a 10 minute synopsis of a book who plot turned solely on a misunderstanding of the word miscellaneous which the protagonist thought was spelled Miss Alaleous. As a follow up she offered fascinating and inappropriate knowledge gleaned from the Guinness Book of World Records.
On another note Rabiah was very sad to learn that Pat Sajack and Vanna White are not married or even boyfriend and girlfriend.
I think I might be able to bike, hike and roller blade this weekend. I don't have to watch Rabiah's basketball games because I live in Cambridge and even though I'm not spoiled by having extra bathrooms and even though my neighbors clean their cars at 9am on quiet Sunday mornings we have a city youth basketball program that provides transportation to Medford for basketball games. I can feel guilty for missing the games if I choose.
Sylvia is 10. I sometimes still look at the children's shoes selection in the thrift store, forgetting for a moment that no one in our house will wear those shoes again. Well I do have mutant square small feet so there is the occasional pair for me there. Sylvia is not 14 though, even her insults are funny and ill formed but she is casting her net wide these days which allows me to sometimes forget that she is only 10.
Last night at dinner she moored herself right where she belonged and dominated the conversation with a 10 minute synopsis of a book who plot turned solely on a misunderstanding of the word miscellaneous which the protagonist thought was spelled Miss Alaleous. As a follow up she offered fascinating and inappropriate knowledge gleaned from the Guinness Book of World Records.
On another note Rabiah was very sad to learn that Pat Sajack and Vanna White are not married or even boyfriend and girlfriend.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
No I did not take any pictures
Because I am trying to ease into this blogger lifestyle. The whole thing reminds me of the computer that my parents bought the year that I left home. My younger sister could tell you what the computer looked like and maybe even share heart warming stories of creating her first document. I was born just a little too early destined to experience technology when it was too raw and expensive for the average, over intellectual user.
There were people who had web sites and blogs in 1997 when Rabiah was born. They tracked their obsession with Lord of the Rings and particle theory usually on the same blog. Meanwhile I taught Rabiah how to operate the VCR and I must boast that she could rewind with some degree of patience by the time she was two and she really appreciated the Mary-Kate and Ashley videos that I found for her at the thrift store when she was four. Of course by then I could have had a blog but instead I had another baby.
I am tradition adverse. If the blog had been named in honor of me instead of Rabiah it would have been called "Let's do Something Different". I can however say with both pride and pleasure that co-leading the AMC Memorial Day weekend family camping trip to New Hampshire for the last five years has become a tradition.
We have broken with the tradition of being stuck for four hours in traffic on Friday night by driving to the Campton State Campground (group site please!) early on Saturday morning. In the same way that some responsible parents take pride and perverse pleasure in occasionally staying up way too late with their young and impressionable children, I take pride in occasionally including them in my absurdly early mornings. I actually compromise a lot and allow them to sleep until 5:30 am and to travel in pyjama and flip flops.
The highlights of this years trip, climbing up to Mt. Pemigawsett and Harvard Falls on Saturday. A huge group of 30 for the first hike and markedly fewer on the 2nd but both falling in the exhilarating family fun that did not leave us much worse for wear. Sunday we went hardcore, 11 children and their 10 adult companions and minders undertook the challenge of Mt. Liberty, a mere 4500 feet but 3000 feet of vertical climbing over 7.5 miles. Weather conditions were challenging to the adults who found the damp, hot and humid conditions like hiking through a YMCA sauna with a wet towel in front of their faces. Children were adequately weighed down and I set the brisk pace that allowed me to remain in the lead (just barely). Thick clouds ensured that their was not view from the rocky summit but we all enjoyed what ever food it was that we ate up there in the relative cool conditions that prevailed in the top few hundred feet of the mountain.
Non-stop rain during most of the month ensured that mosquitoes were fierce around camp but they seemed to favor the children and the children were so busy rounding up kids from other sites for games of manhunt and truth or dare that they did not notice how badly they were bitten until we returned home.
There were people who had web sites and blogs in 1997 when Rabiah was born. They tracked their obsession with Lord of the Rings and particle theory usually on the same blog. Meanwhile I taught Rabiah how to operate the VCR and I must boast that she could rewind with some degree of patience by the time she was two and she really appreciated the Mary-Kate and Ashley videos that I found for her at the thrift store when she was four. Of course by then I could have had a blog but instead I had another baby.
I am tradition adverse. If the blog had been named in honor of me instead of Rabiah it would have been called "Let's do Something Different". I can however say with both pride and pleasure that co-leading the AMC Memorial Day weekend family camping trip to New Hampshire for the last five years has become a tradition.
We have broken with the tradition of being stuck for four hours in traffic on Friday night by driving to the Campton State Campground (group site please!) early on Saturday morning. In the same way that some responsible parents take pride and perverse pleasure in occasionally staying up way too late with their young and impressionable children, I take pride in occasionally including them in my absurdly early mornings. I actually compromise a lot and allow them to sleep until 5:30 am and to travel in pyjama and flip flops.
The highlights of this years trip, climbing up to Mt. Pemigawsett and Harvard Falls on Saturday. A huge group of 30 for the first hike and markedly fewer on the 2nd but both falling in the exhilarating family fun that did not leave us much worse for wear. Sunday we went hardcore, 11 children and their 10 adult companions and minders undertook the challenge of Mt. Liberty, a mere 4500 feet but 3000 feet of vertical climbing over 7.5 miles. Weather conditions were challenging to the adults who found the damp, hot and humid conditions like hiking through a YMCA sauna with a wet towel in front of their faces. Children were adequately weighed down and I set the brisk pace that allowed me to remain in the lead (just barely). Thick clouds ensured that their was not view from the rocky summit but we all enjoyed what ever food it was that we ate up there in the relative cool conditions that prevailed in the top few hundred feet of the mountain.
Non-stop rain during most of the month ensured that mosquitoes were fierce around camp but they seemed to favor the children and the children were so busy rounding up kids from other sites for games of manhunt and truth or dare that they did not notice how badly they were bitten until we returned home.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
At the Orthodontist
Maybe this is why there is not much of a market for lyrical and thoughtful books about being 41 or having a 14 year old. Annie La Mott may have been able to find meaning and God in the sleepless nights as a new parent and I would say that there is meaning in waking a sleepy 14 year old half an hour earlier than usual and serving her an under toasted english muffins that her sore teeth can tolerate and taking the bus to the orthodontist.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
My Shredded Days
I have said it said in anger and with irony but the truth is that my days are often shredded usually by the ones that I love and it is has become such an expected outcome to be interrupted that I find myself sometimes shredding my own time.
Time has become the piece of paper that I realized as a child could be folded and ripped infinitely by more perfect hands than mine. Rip a paper in half and I have enough for both my children to draw. Rip it in four and I could bind my scraps together and make a little book.
Many pieces of paper, many tiny shreds only make a mess. It is not snow, it will not melt away and I can drink cold coffee and eat the burnt toast but I can not make anything of shredded paper and I cannot make anything of a shredded day but a joke.
Time has become the piece of paper that I realized as a child could be folded and ripped infinitely by more perfect hands than mine. Rip a paper in half and I have enough for both my children to draw. Rip it in four and I could bind my scraps together and make a little book.
Many pieces of paper, many tiny shreds only make a mess. It is not snow, it will not melt away and I can drink cold coffee and eat the burnt toast but I can not make anything of shredded paper and I cannot make anything of a shredded day but a joke.
Monday, March 28, 2011
They Hated It
Because Rabiah says she hates buffets and Sylvia says she hates museums we took them up to Lowell this weekend for a Cambodian buffet and a tour of the nearly deserted National Park Museum.
I am a little wary of buffets myself but Max had been there with friends from work and it was good although it left us all so thirsty that we made at least four trips a piece to the water fountain at the Museum. The weather was and still is January freezing and I was sulking about the walk across Lowell to get to the Museum. I had gone out at 6am for a bike ride so it's not really the cold that scares me, it's the cold with the children that is frightning
The museum is hot. They are trying to give you the full industrial worker experience and what can I say, my frozen toes appreciated it. They also give you ear plugs for the noise of the machines but if the 19th century proletariat didn't have them I'm not going to be a wimp besides most of the exhibits are removed for the area where the looms are making their music. Very 1830's techno.
Yesterday plans were less Family Fun Magazine in nature and more odd urban family. I offered the girls the opportunity to see Jane Eyre with me but they opted to see Beastly without me. Actually they would not have cared if I attended. We walked the 3.5 miles from our house to the somewhat 1990's trashy Alewife cinema and I let Max indulge in his favorite type of retail therapy at Whole Foods while the girls enjoyed their movie in the suitably numb condition that is induced by sharing a slushy and large popcorn.
I biked again yesterday. Having a new bike will induce crazy behavior. I also understood why my knitting was looking strange, I had been overlooking part of the directions for my lace pattern. After ripping the whole mess apart and turning the page I have been able to produce lace.
I am a little wary of buffets myself but Max had been there with friends from work and it was good although it left us all so thirsty that we made at least four trips a piece to the water fountain at the Museum. The weather was and still is January freezing and I was sulking about the walk across Lowell to get to the Museum. I had gone out at 6am for a bike ride so it's not really the cold that scares me, it's the cold with the children that is frightning
The museum is hot. They are trying to give you the full industrial worker experience and what can I say, my frozen toes appreciated it. They also give you ear plugs for the noise of the machines but if the 19th century proletariat didn't have them I'm not going to be a wimp besides most of the exhibits are removed for the area where the looms are making their music. Very 1830's techno.
Yesterday plans were less Family Fun Magazine in nature and more odd urban family. I offered the girls the opportunity to see Jane Eyre with me but they opted to see Beastly without me. Actually they would not have cared if I attended. We walked the 3.5 miles from our house to the somewhat 1990's trashy Alewife cinema and I let Max indulge in his favorite type of retail therapy at Whole Foods while the girls enjoyed their movie in the suitably numb condition that is induced by sharing a slushy and large popcorn.
I biked again yesterday. Having a new bike will induce crazy behavior. I also understood why my knitting was looking strange, I had been overlooking part of the directions for my lace pattern. After ripping the whole mess apart and turning the page I have been able to produce lace.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Eye Doctor
Up the hill to Somerville this morning. I think walking makes you feel young because it's mostly high school kids out walking at 7:30 a.m.
Rabiah is trying to put her contacts in while her eye doctor coaches her. I've read all the magazines but I'm not quite ready to start my work and besides I need another cup of coffee before I can work. They had free coffee in the waiting room the first time we came here but never again. Maybe I imagined it.
Rabiah is trying to put her contacts in while her eye doctor coaches her. I've read all the magazines but I'm not quite ready to start my work and besides I need another cup of coffee before I can work. They had free coffee in the waiting room the first time we came here but never again. Maybe I imagined it.
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