Well, I read "The Suppliants" and I gotta say I wasn't a big fan. It's a very early play, where the Chorus was still the main character. All the characters are pretty sketchy and the plot, well, it's pretty weak.
The action starts with 50 girls and their dad turning up on the shore in Argos. They are fleeing their 50 male cousins, who are trying to force a mass marriage. The 50 girls are the Chorus, although I assume the Greeks didn't actually crowd 50 actors on the stage.
Anyway, so the girls are scared and pitiful and possibly a little seasick. They know their 50 cousins are pursuing them, so they pray to Zeus (who is always so helpful to young girls) and wave little olive branches. The girls are called the Danaids after their dad Danaus (he's there too) and they hope the king of Argos can help them out.
The Danaids are still really freaked. "From my living lips my own sad dirges flow!" they moan, vowing to kill themselves if forced to marry their cousins.
Dad doesn't try to calm them down -- instead he points out that an army is approaching and reads a little lecture to the girls on how to behave. The King of Argos strolls over, checks their identification and listens to their story. "I need to talk to my advisers," he says, stalling.
A real king doesn't need advisers, the girls say.
Well, I need to talk to them, the King snaps, sounding a little defensive.
"Yea, I have pondered: From the sea of doubt
Here drives at length the bark of thought ashore."
(That sounds like he's made up his mind -- a bark is a boat -- but he really hasn't. I guess the King just likes nautical images.)
If you don't help us, we'll hang ourselves on these statues of the gods, the girls cry.
"My bark goes forth upon a sea of troubles," the King says, sticking to his theme. But in the end he agrees to protect the girls from their cousins. He leaves to tell his city the joyous news that he's committed them to a war with Egyptians to protect a lot of strange girls.
The girls sing happily, but Dad stops the celebration quickly. The cousins' ship is approaching the coast, he says. Stay by the gods' shrine and I'll run after the King of Argos and he'll bring back an army.
"O father, leave us not forlorn!" they cry.
Don't worry, says Dad. It will take some time for the cousins to land. They're not great with the ropes.
So Dad leaves and the girls freak out again. A herald from the cousins arrive, and he's definitely an unpleasant fellow. Come along or I'll beat you all up, he says. The King, of Argos, however, arrives in the nick of time, chases off the herald and escorts the girls to his city. But the trouble has only started.
"Alas for the sorrow to come, the blood and the carnage of war," the girls sing.
The play ends here, but there are certainly woes ahead. This play was apparently part of a trilogy, with the rest lost. According the Wikepedia, the story continues with Argos fighting the cousins. The king of Argos is killed and the girl's dad becomes the tyrant of Argos. The marriage is still forced on the girls, but Dad tells them to murder their husband on their wedding nights. All the girls do that except for Hypermnestra, who refuses, and she and her husband kill Dad and they become rulers of Argos.
According to another myth, the remaining girls are punished for their crime of murder. In the Underworld, ruled by Hades, they must constantly bring water from a stream with jars full of holes.
The moral of the story? In Greek mythology, you're screwed no matter what you do.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Greek Play Seminar: "The Persians"
So, I read “The Persians” by Aeschylus, written in 472 B.C. Although Aeschylus wrote it for Greek audiences, the play is set in Persia, specifically the ancient city of Susa, which is now in modern-day Iran.
A couple of Persian elders are milling about near King Darius’s tomb. Darius’ son, Xerxes, the new king, has gathered up every Persian guy who can walk to go attack the Greeks. Xerxes was still mad at the Greeks cuz they beat his dad at the Battle of Marathon, so off they went.
Well, they'd left a while ago, and the Persian elders are feeling anxious, so they decide to gather at Darius’ tomb and serve as the Chorus for this play,
To pass the time, they chant a long roll call of all the mighty warriors who went to Greece. Xerxes had gotten the bright idea of tying ships together to bridge the Hellespont, a narrow strait dividing Greece and Persia. This way, he could march his big army right over to Greece:
“The narrow Hellespont’s vex’d waves disdain,
His proud neck taught to wear the chain.”
Queen Atossa then turns up, widow of Darius and mother of Xerxes. She’s a nervous wreck after two dreams predicting Persia’s defeat. (Her first dream, about two women harnessed to Xerxes’ chariot, was disturbing even without all the symbolism.) What are the Greeks like, she asks the chorus.
Pretty darn tough, the chorus responds. “Slaves to no lord, they own no kingly power.”
Suddenly a messenger appears, looking all freaked out. “Woe to the land of Persia!” he cries.
Persian dead are lying in heaps on the Greek islands, the messenger continues. More lie on the bottom of the Aegean. Xerxes is alive, and returning, but most of the Persian host is dead, and in case they don’t believe him, the messenger starts listing every dead chieftan he can think of.
Yes, yes, yes, Atossa says, I’m sorry about Arabus and Artames and our buddy Lilaeus, but WHAT HAPPENED?
It was a dirty, rotten trick, the messenger answered. Some Greek guy turned up at the Persian ships and said the Greeks planned to sneak away in the night. Xerxes immediately arranged all his ships around the area to prevent this and waited for morning.
But the Greeks didn’t flee. They popped up the next morning and started shouting:
“Advance, ye sons of Greece, from thralldom save
Your country, save your wives, your children save,
The temples of your gods, the sacred tomb
Where rest your honour’d ancestors; this day
The common cause of all demands your valour.”
Then the Greeks attacked. Persia’s ships were so badly placed they couldn’t maneuver properly and were defeated.
Then the messenger runs off, leaving everyone horror-stricken. What to do now? Atossa ponders her situation. Since the Chorus is obviously useless, she can only ask her dead husband, Darius, for advice. They’re probably placing bets down in Hades on Persia’s continued survival. Maybe they’ve got some inside dope. Bring Darius up from the dead, she tells the Chorus, which they accomplish with surprising efficiency.
Darius arrives and he’s mad as hell (no pun intended). “With what new ill doth Persia groan?” he asks.
Atossa spills the beans and Darius says, well, what can Xerxes expect if he insists on bridging the Hellespont? Neptune is all mad at him now – “Presumptuous … vain mortal!”
Well, it’s not all Xerxes’ fault, says devoted mother Atossa. He fell in with some bad company. They made him do it. But what should Persia do now?
Leave the Greeks alone, Darius snarls. And clean up a little, Atossa, you look a mess. Put on your best dress for Xerxes and treat him nicely. Then Darius vanishes in the puff of brimstone.
Atossa runs off to dig through her closet, leaving the Chorus to wail for a good three pages until Xerxes makes a surprise appearance.
Since Darius didn’t tell them to be nice, the Chorus guys don’t hesitate to pour as much guilt on Xerxes as possible:
“Asia sinking on her knee, O king,
Oppress’d, with griefs oppress’d, bends to the earth.”
You stink Xerxes, sings the chorus, you’re a rotten, stinky king. Where are all your friends? Oh yeah, they’re, um, “sunk and smeared with gore.” Relentlessly they chant name after name of the tortured dead.
I’m sorry, Xerxes says, really. Look at my clothes – I ripped them all up and I really liked this shirt. You know, this is all so great, let’s all go to my house and we can moan some more. I hear Mom has a new dress:
“Lead to my house, and wail the fate of Persia.”
This sounds good to the Chorus, and they exit singing:
“The haughty arms of Greece with conquest bless’d,
And Persia’s withered force confounded,
Dash’d on the dreary beach her heroes slain,
Or whelm’d them in the darken’d main.”
THE END
A couple of Persian elders are milling about near King Darius’s tomb. Darius’ son, Xerxes, the new king, has gathered up every Persian guy who can walk to go attack the Greeks. Xerxes was still mad at the Greeks cuz they beat his dad at the Battle of Marathon, so off they went.
Well, they'd left a while ago, and the Persian elders are feeling anxious, so they decide to gather at Darius’ tomb and serve as the Chorus for this play,
To pass the time, they chant a long roll call of all the mighty warriors who went to Greece. Xerxes had gotten the bright idea of tying ships together to bridge the Hellespont, a narrow strait dividing Greece and Persia. This way, he could march his big army right over to Greece:
“The narrow Hellespont’s vex’d waves disdain,
His proud neck taught to wear the chain.”
Queen Atossa then turns up, widow of Darius and mother of Xerxes. She’s a nervous wreck after two dreams predicting Persia’s defeat. (Her first dream, about two women harnessed to Xerxes’ chariot, was disturbing even without all the symbolism.) What are the Greeks like, she asks the chorus.
Pretty darn tough, the chorus responds. “Slaves to no lord, they own no kingly power.”
Suddenly a messenger appears, looking all freaked out. “Woe to the land of Persia!” he cries.
Persian dead are lying in heaps on the Greek islands, the messenger continues. More lie on the bottom of the Aegean. Xerxes is alive, and returning, but most of the Persian host is dead, and in case they don’t believe him, the messenger starts listing every dead chieftan he can think of.
Yes, yes, yes, Atossa says, I’m sorry about Arabus and Artames and our buddy Lilaeus, but WHAT HAPPENED?
It was a dirty, rotten trick, the messenger answered. Some Greek guy turned up at the Persian ships and said the Greeks planned to sneak away in the night. Xerxes immediately arranged all his ships around the area to prevent this and waited for morning.
But the Greeks didn’t flee. They popped up the next morning and started shouting:
“Advance, ye sons of Greece, from thralldom save
Your country, save your wives, your children save,
The temples of your gods, the sacred tomb
Where rest your honour’d ancestors; this day
The common cause of all demands your valour.”
Then the Greeks attacked. Persia’s ships were so badly placed they couldn’t maneuver properly and were defeated.
Then the messenger runs off, leaving everyone horror-stricken. What to do now? Atossa ponders her situation. Since the Chorus is obviously useless, she can only ask her dead husband, Darius, for advice. They’re probably placing bets down in Hades on Persia’s continued survival. Maybe they’ve got some inside dope. Bring Darius up from the dead, she tells the Chorus, which they accomplish with surprising efficiency.
Darius arrives and he’s mad as hell (no pun intended). “With what new ill doth Persia groan?” he asks.
Atossa spills the beans and Darius says, well, what can Xerxes expect if he insists on bridging the Hellespont? Neptune is all mad at him now – “Presumptuous … vain mortal!”
Well, it’s not all Xerxes’ fault, says devoted mother Atossa. He fell in with some bad company. They made him do it. But what should Persia do now?
Leave the Greeks alone, Darius snarls. And clean up a little, Atossa, you look a mess. Put on your best dress for Xerxes and treat him nicely. Then Darius vanishes in the puff of brimstone.
Atossa runs off to dig through her closet, leaving the Chorus to wail for a good three pages until Xerxes makes a surprise appearance.
Since Darius didn’t tell them to be nice, the Chorus guys don’t hesitate to pour as much guilt on Xerxes as possible:
“Asia sinking on her knee, O king,
Oppress’d, with griefs oppress’d, bends to the earth.”
You stink Xerxes, sings the chorus, you’re a rotten, stinky king. Where are all your friends? Oh yeah, they’re, um, “sunk and smeared with gore.” Relentlessly they chant name after name of the tortured dead.
I’m sorry, Xerxes says, really. Look at my clothes – I ripped them all up and I really liked this shirt. You know, this is all so great, let’s all go to my house and we can moan some more. I hear Mom has a new dress:
“Lead to my house, and wail the fate of Persia.”
This sounds good to the Chorus, and they exit singing:
“The haughty arms of Greece with conquest bless’d,
And Persia’s withered force confounded,
Dash’d on the dreary beach her heroes slain,
Or whelm’d them in the darken’d main.”
THE END
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The Northern California Coast
Benny and I took a three-day trip to the Mendocino coast last week. We stayed at a beachfront hotel in Fort Bragg and rode the Skunk train through the redwoods.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Christine's New Seminar: Greek Plays
For reasons best known to myself (and too dull to tell anyone else), I've decided to start a reading program of Greek plays.
I'm not overly familiar with Greek plays — I studied a few in school, all tragedies, notably "Medea" and "Antigone." I didn't realize there were plays that weren't about insanely stubborn women. Antigone wanted to bury her brother, so by Zeus she was gonna do it if it killed her -- which, of course, it did. Medea was mad because her man left her and instead of suing him for every last drachma and making his life miserable for years, she killed everyone in sight except the guy himself and flew away in a chariot.
So you can understand why I wasn't totally enthused about this program. Would all the men be arrogant? Would all the women be crazy? What the heck was up with this Chorus, anyway?
But I'm determined, so I've found a page here that lays out all the greek plays in chronological order, beginning with Aeschylus, who wrote about 470 B.C. My first play is "The Persians" and when I finish it, I'll post a summary with comments.
Aren't you all so lucky?
I'm not overly familiar with Greek plays — I studied a few in school, all tragedies, notably "Medea" and "Antigone." I didn't realize there were plays that weren't about insanely stubborn women. Antigone wanted to bury her brother, so by Zeus she was gonna do it if it killed her -- which, of course, it did. Medea was mad because her man left her and instead of suing him for every last drachma and making his life miserable for years, she killed everyone in sight except the guy himself and flew away in a chariot.
So you can understand why I wasn't totally enthused about this program. Would all the men be arrogant? Would all the women be crazy? What the heck was up with this Chorus, anyway?
But I'm determined, so I've found a page here that lays out all the greek plays in chronological order, beginning with Aeschylus, who wrote about 470 B.C. My first play is "The Persians" and when I finish it, I'll post a summary with comments.
Aren't you all so lucky?
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Scrubbing That Grout with a Toothbrush
The most recent figures from the University of Wisconsin’s National Survey of Families and Households show that the average wife does 31 hours of housework a week while the average husband does 14.
Well, well, well.
31 hours a week. That's 4.4 hours a day. And that's with the hubster pitching in his own two hours a day.
I gotta say -- that's a lot of freakin' housework. Six hours of adult elbow grease a day -- what is the average couple doing, picking dirt out of corners with Q-Tips? Where on earth can they find the time? I thought the average American couple was so time-deprived that they lived on frozen Tater Tots and got speeding tickets in the school dropoff lane.
Even when we lived in a house in Michigan B.B. (Before Benny) and I was unemployed for a few months, I didn't clean the house for any 4.4 hours a day. But perhaps that's just a character flaw; I could have six kids, a home knitting business and a petting zoo in the back yard and still wouldn't do four-plus hours of housework a day.
Of course, Ron and I don't live anything like that lifestyle now. We've downsized our lives so drastically in the last year that I still have relatives convinced we sleep on straw mats and eat off a blanket on the floor. At the moment we have a small apartment and that's it. No deck. No car. No playroom. Only two pieces of good furniture (our dining table is a perfect example of the Modern Card Table motif).
So I'd estimate that Ron and I do about an hour a day of housework each. And maybe a total of eight hours over the weekend, if the laundry's really piling up or the cat's shedding again. I'd have to clean from 7-11 each night to fulfill a four-hour daily housework quota and I gotta say, polishing shampoo bottles at 10:40 p.m. doesn't sound all that appealing.
But again, we keep our socks in plastic bins, so we by no means represent the average American middle-class family. So Misguided Readers, (Are you out there? Yooohooo!) share with us how much you clean a week. And keep in mind that the 31-hour number is for women working outside the home. For stay-at-home wives, the weekly quota is 38 hours.
Well, well, well.
31 hours a week. That's 4.4 hours a day. And that's with the hubster pitching in his own two hours a day.
I gotta say -- that's a lot of freakin' housework. Six hours of adult elbow grease a day -- what is the average couple doing, picking dirt out of corners with Q-Tips? Where on earth can they find the time? I thought the average American couple was so time-deprived that they lived on frozen Tater Tots and got speeding tickets in the school dropoff lane.
Even when we lived in a house in Michigan B.B. (Before Benny) and I was unemployed for a few months, I didn't clean the house for any 4.4 hours a day. But perhaps that's just a character flaw; I could have six kids, a home knitting business and a petting zoo in the back yard and still wouldn't do four-plus hours of housework a day.
Of course, Ron and I don't live anything like that lifestyle now. We've downsized our lives so drastically in the last year that I still have relatives convinced we sleep on straw mats and eat off a blanket on the floor. At the moment we have a small apartment and that's it. No deck. No car. No playroom. Only two pieces of good furniture (our dining table is a perfect example of the Modern Card Table motif).
So I'd estimate that Ron and I do about an hour a day of housework each. And maybe a total of eight hours over the weekend, if the laundry's really piling up or the cat's shedding again. I'd have to clean from 7-11 each night to fulfill a four-hour daily housework quota and I gotta say, polishing shampoo bottles at 10:40 p.m. doesn't sound all that appealing.
But again, we keep our socks in plastic bins, so we by no means represent the average American middle-class family. So Misguided Readers, (Are you out there? Yooohooo!) share with us how much you clean a week. And keep in mind that the 31-hour number is for women working outside the home. For stay-at-home wives, the weekly quota is 38 hours.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Living Vicariously through Google
I’m reeling with fatigue today — stayed up to watch the Detroit Red Wings botch their chance to win the Stanley Cup last night. I hope my family from Michigan don't read this, because I truly have no right to complain. My brother and sister stayed up until 1 a.m. (their time), just to see the Pittsburg Penguins win in triple overtime. But even though the game ended before 10 p.m. (Pacific time), I was so revved up I couldn't sleep. And today is a long day, since I'm attending a Most Influential Women event, based on a publication I helped edit in April.
A new great thing I just learned about being me:
If you Google my name these days, you’ll get a bunch of articles about a crazy mayor's (no relation) flamboyant affair with his chief of staff (who shares my first name) and the legal suits culminating from it. Darn mayor. Before he went nuts, Googling my name yielded a zillion papers from a prominent (and prolific) neurosurgeon in Australia with my name.
A new great thing I just learned about being me:
If you Google my name these days, you’ll get a bunch of articles about a crazy mayor's (no relation) flamboyant affair with his chief of staff (who shares my first name) and the legal suits culminating from it. Darn mayor. Before he went nuts, Googling my name yielded a zillion papers from a prominent (and prolific) neurosurgeon in Australia with my name.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
The Hamster Wheel
By all measurements, this year is a tougher one financially for Americans: the dollar is weaker, gas prices are higher, and home prices nationally fell 14.4 percent in March from a year earlier. We're all running on hamster wheels these days, legs churning madly and getting nowhere fast.
My little family is actually in better shape from a year ago, if only because our financial situation in 2007 was so dire to begin with. We're not out of the woods, but the trees have opened enough to allow a little sunshine through and the occasional sniff of fresh air. We actually took a little weekend trip this Memorial Day, something we hadn't done since moving to San Francisco.
One big reason for my sudden euphoria: Our new apartment. The last two weeks have been a crazy jumble of phone calls, open houses, credit checks and application forms. We came very close to leasing a beautiful place in the outer Sunset; two bedrooms, plus dining room and breakfast nook. Fabulous condition. $250 cheaper a month than our current place. But the commute to Benny's school would have been just as long, if more pleasant. We would've needed a car, with all its attendant expenses. Tempting, but we passed.
Instead, we chose a small place two blocks from Benny's school. $500 less a month in rent. No car needed. CIty Car Share cars nearby. Benny can ride his tricycle or his wagon to school. My 90-minute morning commute will be cut in half. So while I'll probably have to store our pots in the oven and my books in the garage, I can live with the sacrifices.
My little family is actually in better shape from a year ago, if only because our financial situation in 2007 was so dire to begin with. We're not out of the woods, but the trees have opened enough to allow a little sunshine through and the occasional sniff of fresh air. We actually took a little weekend trip this Memorial Day, something we hadn't done since moving to San Francisco.
One big reason for my sudden euphoria: Our new apartment. The last two weeks have been a crazy jumble of phone calls, open houses, credit checks and application forms. We came very close to leasing a beautiful place in the outer Sunset; two bedrooms, plus dining room and breakfast nook. Fabulous condition. $250 cheaper a month than our current place. But the commute to Benny's school would have been just as long, if more pleasant. We would've needed a car, with all its attendant expenses. Tempting, but we passed.
Instead, we chose a small place two blocks from Benny's school. $500 less a month in rent. No car needed. CIty Car Share cars nearby. Benny can ride his tricycle or his wagon to school. My 90-minute morning commute will be cut in half. So while I'll probably have to store our pots in the oven and my books in the garage, I can live with the sacrifices.
Friday, May 02, 2008
May Days of 2007
Spring is anniversary time around our house -- Ron and I were married April 29. But May marks another, newer anniversary, for it was in May 2007 that Ron left Michigan to work in San Francisco.
May was also the month when our realtor showed our house for eight days in a row, sometimes multiple showings in one day, and received no offers. We had priced the house at the amount we owed, prepared to take a bath on realtor fees and STILL couldn't move the thing.
So it was in May that Ron and I faced the prospect of paying both mortgage and rent for an undefined period, and that's when our move back to San Francisco ceased to be a fun adventure and became a perilous gamble. When Ron boarded that plane last May, we were gambling that I would generate enough income to pay the mortgage, that huge budget-busting house repairs would not crop up, that we would sell the house before the July property tax bill arrived.
Looking back, I'm breathless that we had the nerve. Two things gave us hope: My brother had agreed to rent the house from us and my work prospects at the San Francisco newspaper were good. Both panned out beautifully: Andy went crazy over the house and ended up buying it; and I'm still working at the Business Times.
So we're facing May 2008 from a slightly better position, with nothing more worrisome on the horizon than Benny entering kindergarten next year (which is actually a big concern, given the crazy S.F. process, and worth a blog post of its own). These days, instead of emptying out a storage space and keeping a house Swiffer-perfect, I'm planning a family trip to San Diego and working on a fiction project. I wish I could have seen a glimpse of the future last May, when I was arguing with basement contractors and setting up a garage sale.
May was also the month when our realtor showed our house for eight days in a row, sometimes multiple showings in one day, and received no offers. We had priced the house at the amount we owed, prepared to take a bath on realtor fees and STILL couldn't move the thing.
So it was in May that Ron and I faced the prospect of paying both mortgage and rent for an undefined period, and that's when our move back to San Francisco ceased to be a fun adventure and became a perilous gamble. When Ron boarded that plane last May, we were gambling that I would generate enough income to pay the mortgage, that huge budget-busting house repairs would not crop up, that we would sell the house before the July property tax bill arrived.
Looking back, I'm breathless that we had the nerve. Two things gave us hope: My brother had agreed to rent the house from us and my work prospects at the San Francisco newspaper were good. Both panned out beautifully: Andy went crazy over the house and ended up buying it; and I'm still working at the Business Times.
So we're facing May 2008 from a slightly better position, with nothing more worrisome on the horizon than Benny entering kindergarten next year (which is actually a big concern, given the crazy S.F. process, and worth a blog post of its own). These days, instead of emptying out a storage space and keeping a house Swiffer-perfect, I'm planning a family trip to San Diego and working on a fiction project. I wish I could have seen a glimpse of the future last May, when I was arguing with basement contractors and setting up a garage sale.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
I'm back!
I must apologize for the accidental hiatus. Things spun a little out of control, beginning in February. My giant real estate project grew crazier and crazier, and I was spending every spare minute negotiating with our mortgage lender about the sale of our house. In March we flew to Michigan for a few days and SOLD THE HOUSE. Yes, we are no longer homeowners. In fact, since we sold the house three days before the end of March that meant NO mortgage payment for March. Oh, happy day.
I'm still a little dazed by our suddenly reduced exposure to the mortgage crisis. My brother bought the house from us and he seems happy. Now I can listen to NPR Marketplace again without silently sobbing.
I'm working four days a week these days, which is fine with me. Actually I was supposed to go to a four-day week in March, but I had to keep working Fridays because of these crazy projects.
Ron went to Baltimore last week and collected a SABEW award for this story. Next month we're all driving down to San Diego for a week-long biotech conference. (Ron will be at the conference. Benny and I are heading to the zoo.)
Now that we've sold the house (sold the house, sold the house, sold the house ...), I'm trying to figure out how to get 10 boxes of books, three bookshelves and a rack of hanging clothes to California. My latest scenario is taking a week off, flying to Michigan and then driving a little U-Haul van back to SF by myself. It actually sounds like fun, so I'm thinking about it. After all, I had a friend who drove from North Carolina to Montana with just her cat.
Benny is doing well. He was a very good boy while Ron was away, and I'll kind of miss the one-on-one time, which included backing 5 dozen cookies and playing marathon stints of Chutes and Ladders. (C&L moves along more quickly than CandyLand, which can cause brain freezes and excessive drooling after too many games).
Speaking of Benny, his picture above was taken during a school field trip to a Marin County ranch. They were traveling in cars, and I had a Bad Mother moment that morning when I dropped off his carseat. It looked completely inadequate compared to the gigantic space-shuttle couches that other parents brought for their 4-year-olds. Sigh.
Monday, February 25, 2008
The End of an Era
Around 7 a.m. today, when I was in the kitchen eating breakfast, making Benny's lunch and emptying the dishwasher (I'm all about multitasking in the morning now), I suddenly noticed the napkin which had, second's before, contained an entire toasted Eggo.
It was a cheap little napkin, thin and wispy, the type that if you dampen it to wipe the table, it will disintegrate in your hand before you get there. It was covered with faint pictures of witches, ghosts, spooky houses and pumpkins.
This wasn't any ordinary Halloween napkin -- it was the last Halloween napkin, the final survivor of a "10 for $10 sale" at Lucky's supermarket last September. I remember arriving home in triumph with a dozen bags of groceries and Ron's face as he opened grocery bag after grocery bag and said in disgust: "They're all napkins!"
Now some women might hesitate to buy thousands of Halloween napkins in late September. But I'm the one with Easter chick salt-and-pepper shakers in the dining room, stuffed Halloween pumpkins in the living room, three wooden Wise Men in the hallway and Thanksgiving turkey towels in the bathroom. Buying holiday-themed housewares always seems such a cute idea at Target; not so practical in real life. My sister categorically refuses to buy those cute bunny potholders or Christmas tree dishtowels. I fully understand why. But surely, some people out there change their oven mitts for every holiday. I suspect these are the same folks who dress their front-yard geese every week too.
But back to the napkins. Considering how wasteful my family is with napkins (Ron likes to ball them up and flick them at Benny), I thought the 10 packages would last two months, tops, and I could put out cute turkey napkins at Thanksgiving. But weeks went by ... Veterans Day and Thanksgiving and Christmas and Martin Luther King Day and Valentine's Day and Presidents Day ... and still we're eating with the witches and the ghosts.
This morning, however, I held the last Halloween napkin. Triumphantly I wadded it up and chucked it into the wastebasket. Tomorrow I'm heading out to buy cute bunny Easter napkins. Ten for $10, of course. They ought to last us until Labor Day.
It was a cheap little napkin, thin and wispy, the type that if you dampen it to wipe the table, it will disintegrate in your hand before you get there. It was covered with faint pictures of witches, ghosts, spooky houses and pumpkins.
This wasn't any ordinary Halloween napkin -- it was the last Halloween napkin, the final survivor of a "10 for $10 sale" at Lucky's supermarket last September. I remember arriving home in triumph with a dozen bags of groceries and Ron's face as he opened grocery bag after grocery bag and said in disgust: "They're all napkins!"
Now some women might hesitate to buy thousands of Halloween napkins in late September. But I'm the one with Easter chick salt-and-pepper shakers in the dining room, stuffed Halloween pumpkins in the living room, three wooden Wise Men in the hallway and Thanksgiving turkey towels in the bathroom. Buying holiday-themed housewares always seems such a cute idea at Target; not so practical in real life. My sister categorically refuses to buy those cute bunny potholders or Christmas tree dishtowels. I fully understand why. But surely, some people out there change their oven mitts for every holiday. I suspect these are the same folks who dress their front-yard geese every week too.
But back to the napkins. Considering how wasteful my family is with napkins (Ron likes to ball them up and flick them at Benny), I thought the 10 packages would last two months, tops, and I could put out cute turkey napkins at Thanksgiving. But weeks went by ... Veterans Day and Thanksgiving and Christmas and Martin Luther King Day and Valentine's Day and Presidents Day ... and still we're eating with the witches and the ghosts.
This morning, however, I held the last Halloween napkin. Triumphantly I wadded it up and chucked it into the wastebasket. Tomorrow I'm heading out to buy cute bunny Easter napkins. Ten for $10, of course. They ought to last us until Labor Day.
Friday, January 04, 2008
I had trouble in getting to Battery Street
Those of you with children may know the Dr. Seuss book "I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew." It's about this poor little dude who was driven out of his happy meadow by nasty little weasel creatures. A chap with a camel tells him about
"The beautiful city of Solla Sollew,
on the banks of the beautiful River Wahoo,
where they never have troubles -- or at least, very few."
So off our hero goes, and of course, the camel gets sick. He tries to catch a bus, but the bus is canceled. A huge storm blows up and he takes refuge in a shack with owls and mice. The shack is washed away by a flood over a cliff ... our hero falls into a hole and pops out in the middle of a war ... and on and on ...
I feel like that poor little guy today. I woke up to pouring ran and howling winds from the tropical storm pounding the Bay Area, with flooding and winds gusting over 70 mph.
But it wasn't the winds that woke me up; it was poor Ron being violently ill from food poisoning. Poor Ron was sent to bed and I quickly got myself and Benny ready, made Benny's lunch and reserved a car. I ran the two blocks through the wind and rain to the parking garage in my Wells Fargo Regatta slicker, trying to dodge the clumps of wet leaves dropping from the spastically jerking trees. I arrived soaked to my knees, wet hair in my face.
I brought the car back, hustled Benny into it and drove through the storm to his preschool. Then I drove back to the garage, dropped off the car and ran for the No. 5 bus that just pulled up across the street. Like the poor Solla Sollew guy, I thought my troubles were over as I stripped off my drenched slicker and took off my shoes.
Alas, no. All the buses were suddenly rerouted to the Transbay terminal and we were kicked off at 4th and Market. I raced across the street again and took the subway downtown.
So now I'm here. In a rare moment of forethought, I had packed dress slacks, shoes and socks in my backpack, so anyone looking at me would never know I almost drowned on my way to work, except for damp hair and a faintly wild look in my eye.
As for the poor little guy trying to get to Solla Sollew? He never did make it to the city. Instead, he got himself a big bat and headed home, yelling:
"Now my troubles will have troubles with me!"
Rock on, dude.
"The beautiful city of Solla Sollew,
on the banks of the beautiful River Wahoo,
where they never have troubles -- or at least, very few."
So off our hero goes, and of course, the camel gets sick. He tries to catch a bus, but the bus is canceled. A huge storm blows up and he takes refuge in a shack with owls and mice. The shack is washed away by a flood over a cliff ... our hero falls into a hole and pops out in the middle of a war ... and on and on ...
I feel like that poor little guy today. I woke up to pouring ran and howling winds from the tropical storm pounding the Bay Area, with flooding and winds gusting over 70 mph.
But it wasn't the winds that woke me up; it was poor Ron being violently ill from food poisoning. Poor Ron was sent to bed and I quickly got myself and Benny ready, made Benny's lunch and reserved a car. I ran the two blocks through the wind and rain to the parking garage in my Wells Fargo Regatta slicker, trying to dodge the clumps of wet leaves dropping from the spastically jerking trees. I arrived soaked to my knees, wet hair in my face.
I brought the car back, hustled Benny into it and drove through the storm to his preschool. Then I drove back to the garage, dropped off the car and ran for the No. 5 bus that just pulled up across the street. Like the poor Solla Sollew guy, I thought my troubles were over as I stripped off my drenched slicker and took off my shoes.
Alas, no. All the buses were suddenly rerouted to the Transbay terminal and we were kicked off at 4th and Market. I raced across the street again and took the subway downtown.
So now I'm here. In a rare moment of forethought, I had packed dress slacks, shoes and socks in my backpack, so anyone looking at me would never know I almost drowned on my way to work, except for damp hair and a faintly wild look in my eye.
As for the poor little guy trying to get to Solla Sollew? He never did make it to the city. Instead, he got himself a big bat and headed home, yelling:
"Now my troubles will have troubles with me!"
Rock on, dude.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Babyspace has a new name!
Since I'm not really Lost in Babyspace anymore — more like Lost in Cubicle World or Toddler Weirdness or The Yawning Chasm of Peculiar Fiction Writing — I've changed my blog's name. Then I got a little jiggy with Blogger's editing page and this is the result.
The name change, at least, seems necessary. Someone asked about my blog at the bar Friday night and I had difficulty describing it. It's not about babies anymore (obviously); instead my long-suffering readers get posts about writing, military history, business, video games and ... oh yes, almost forgot ... parenting.
The URL remains the same at http://inbabyspace.blogspot.com, so no one has to mess with links. So pull up a chair, relax and stay away from deifacted nethacite.
The name change, at least, seems necessary. Someone asked about my blog at the bar Friday night and I had difficulty describing it. It's not about babies anymore (obviously); instead my long-suffering readers get posts about writing, military history, business, video games and ... oh yes, almost forgot ... parenting.
The URL remains the same at http://inbabyspace.blogspot.com, so no one has to mess with links. So pull up a chair, relax and stay away from deifacted nethacite.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Darn that Deifacted Nethacite
My party of heroes enters the inner sanctum of the grim and ominous Draklor Laboratory, where the evil Dr. Cid awaits us, laughing maniacally in a glowing red coat. My heroes make short work of Cid with some fancy sword-and-sorcery. But despite his defeat, Cid still has the energy to make a convoluted – if not incomprehensible – speech and a grand departure in a flying chariot.
I sit holding the controller, baffled. For the first time in four months, I’ve turned on my PlayStation2, hoping to pick up the thread of the game “Final Fantasy XII.” It’s your typical role-playing weirdo fantasy thing with neat graphics and an imaginative if confusing story line.
Now I’ve defeated a Big Boss, and I have no idea what to do next. I didn’t understand one word of his speech. Before the battle, some guy with big sideburns popped out of nowhere and carried on a baffling dialogue with the villain.
“Cid!” he shouted. “You know deifacted nethacite brought down the Leviathan!”
Unfortunately, after a four-month hiatus from the game, I have no idea what the Leviathan is, or nethacite, or how it was deifacted – if I ever had. Now Cid was gone.
“Now what do I do?” I wondered aloud.
The little 3-year-old curled up next to me came to my rescue. “Go after the guy in the red coat, Mommy!” he commanded.
I looked down at Benny. “Really?”
“He wants you to follow him,” Benny said confidently.
Um, OK. Apparently my young son managed to pull a relevant thread out of that tangled speech, so off we went to the holy city of Guggenheim or Googleville or whatever.
Yes, I play “Final Fantasy” with my kid. Video games are supposed to be a troublesome issue in children’s lives, an addictive, time-wasting, antisocial pastime that leads to thumb sprains, learning disabilities and bad skin. And here I actually promote this cerebral drug.
Worse than that, FFXII has become a little routine, a 15-minute mother-son bonding session after dinner. It’s a fairly innocuous-looking game, mostly picturing Our Hero running around various scenic landscapes, contending with various monsters that emerge from trees, lakes, stone ruins, glaciers or sand dunes. (This game’s world, called Ivalice, has a very diverse climate.)
Benny likes the running part, although he gets a little restless when we have to shop. “Can we chase monsters now?” he asks.
“Our friends need new clothes – maybe even a new staff,” I said. “Poor Penelo will never stop falling down if we don’t get her some new armor.”
So Penelo got some neat Diamond Armor and Ashe received an Embroidered Tippet -- increased her skill level and was still cute enough to show her friends – and it was time to hit the road again.
We found ourselves in a some haunted castle and all these ghouls kept coming out of the floor. Not just ghouls, really, but ghosts, skeleton soldiers and some creepy, glowing, floating balls. But the ghouls were especially prominent, slithering out of the stone floors.
“Why do those guys come out of the floors?” Benny asked me.
“That’s what happens when nobody mops,” I answered, defeating a ghoul with a flick of the thumb and a lovely fire spell.
Benny stared wide-eyed at our own wooden floor, obviously expecting a skeleton to rise up, because clearly that floor hadn’t seen a Swiffer in some time.
“Mommy?” he asked. “Will the good guys always beat the bad guys?”
“Oh yes,” I said confidently. “No monster can beat Mommy.”
“Because you have the best magic?’
“Nope,” I answered, and pulled a computer printout from behind a sofa cushion,. “I have the best walkthrough.”
I sit holding the controller, baffled. For the first time in four months, I’ve turned on my PlayStation2, hoping to pick up the thread of the game “Final Fantasy XII.” It’s your typical role-playing weirdo fantasy thing with neat graphics and an imaginative if confusing story line.
Now I’ve defeated a Big Boss, and I have no idea what to do next. I didn’t understand one word of his speech. Before the battle, some guy with big sideburns popped out of nowhere and carried on a baffling dialogue with the villain.
“Cid!” he shouted. “You know deifacted nethacite brought down the Leviathan!”
Unfortunately, after a four-month hiatus from the game, I have no idea what the Leviathan is, or nethacite, or how it was deifacted – if I ever had. Now Cid was gone.
“Now what do I do?” I wondered aloud.
The little 3-year-old curled up next to me came to my rescue. “Go after the guy in the red coat, Mommy!” he commanded.
I looked down at Benny. “Really?”
“He wants you to follow him,” Benny said confidently.
Um, OK. Apparently my young son managed to pull a relevant thread out of that tangled speech, so off we went to the holy city of Guggenheim or Googleville or whatever.
Yes, I play “Final Fantasy” with my kid. Video games are supposed to be a troublesome issue in children’s lives, an addictive, time-wasting, antisocial pastime that leads to thumb sprains, learning disabilities and bad skin. And here I actually promote this cerebral drug.
Worse than that, FFXII has become a little routine, a 15-minute mother-son bonding session after dinner. It’s a fairly innocuous-looking game, mostly picturing Our Hero running around various scenic landscapes, contending with various monsters that emerge from trees, lakes, stone ruins, glaciers or sand dunes. (This game’s world, called Ivalice, has a very diverse climate.)
Benny likes the running part, although he gets a little restless when we have to shop. “Can we chase monsters now?” he asks.
“Our friends need new clothes – maybe even a new staff,” I said. “Poor Penelo will never stop falling down if we don’t get her some new armor.”
So Penelo got some neat Diamond Armor and Ashe received an Embroidered Tippet -- increased her skill level and was still cute enough to show her friends – and it was time to hit the road again.
We found ourselves in a some haunted castle and all these ghouls kept coming out of the floor. Not just ghouls, really, but ghosts, skeleton soldiers and some creepy, glowing, floating balls. But the ghouls were especially prominent, slithering out of the stone floors.
“Why do those guys come out of the floors?” Benny asked me.
“That’s what happens when nobody mops,” I answered, defeating a ghoul with a flick of the thumb and a lovely fire spell.
Benny stared wide-eyed at our own wooden floor, obviously expecting a skeleton to rise up, because clearly that floor hadn’t seen a Swiffer in some time.
“Mommy?” he asked. “Will the good guys always beat the bad guys?”
“Oh yes,” I said confidently. “No monster can beat Mommy.”
“Because you have the best magic?’
“Nope,” I answered, and pulled a computer printout from behind a sofa cushion,. “I have the best walkthrough.”
Peewee Basketball
Gosh, those basketball recruiters start young these days.
For the fourth day in a row, my gmail inbox contains a note from a fellow parent at Benny’s Dinosaur School. She’s trying to organize a PeeWee basketball team for Saturday mornings.
For the mere sum of $140 ($90 for the class and $50 for a year’s membership), Benny can get bounced on the head by a basketball multiple times in a noisy gym. Which he might enjoy – but for heaven’s sake, he spends 40 hours a week with these kids already. Now he can go to a weekly class, along with the class-wide birthday parties we’re invited to about once a month. I swear, next these Dinosaur School parents will want us all to live in a commune so Benny and his 15 classmates can spend every waking hour together.
The New York Times published an op-ed piece about year ago which discusses how much families turn inward and have little time for outside friends, extended relatives, neighbors, fellow church members and so on. Titled Too Close for Comfort, the article cited a study from the American Sociological Review that found that, from 1985 to 2004, Americans reported a marked decline in the number of people with whom they discussed meaningful matters.
Generally, I think that’s true, perhaps because many mothers are working outside the home, and so parents’ schedules don’t allow for lunches with friends, long phone calls with relatives and little chats over the hedge with the neighbor. I’ve discovered this myself, with this temporary full-time gig at the Business Times. Since working full-time, I have to call my sister during the walk between Benny’s school and the train stop, call my friends on my lunch hour and talk with relatives on the weekends. I meet some girlfriends for dinner and drinks once a month, and we get together with friends as a family every few weeks. Right now, that’s all I’m up for.
But I’d also stipulate that families are getting lots of interaction with others, but it’s all school-based. Children’s school takes up an enormous amount of discretionary time. It’s not just the homework and activities, it’s all the involvement: the volunteering, the fundraising, the driving to and fro. So other sources of social involvement – the church, the neighborhood, the extended family gets squeezed out because all this school stuff seems so nonnegotiable.
I’m practically shivering at the prospect of Benny starting kindergarten in a few years, because I’m under no illusions that I can drop the kid off for half the day, bring him home and go about my business with a light heart. Whatever school he’s in, there’s going to be expected parental involvement and I’ll find myself pounding pies with a mallet at 2 a.m. so they look homemade for a school event, like the poor mother in this book.
Okay, so I’m a grinchy hermit and indifferent to my child’s education and social development and deserve to die alone in a hidden cave. Well, fine, then. And in the years before Benny hits kindergarten, I hope I can develop the maturity to fulfill my schoolmom duties with a happy smile.
But why rush it? Our experience with structured child activities has been discouraging anyway – although God knows Ron has tried. He took Benny to a baby massage class when he was six weeks old. The teacher told Ron he didn’t have the right hormones and to bring me to the next class. Ron never went back. He also took Benny to some sort of Teeny Tots Soccer Team last spring, but Benny just ignored the ball.
Perhaps our little guy is missing out. But Benny spent last Saturday morning riding his tricycle with his daddy in Golden Gate Park, and I’d guess that he’d prefer that to any peewee basketball.
##
For the fourth day in a row, my gmail inbox contains a note from a fellow parent at Benny’s Dinosaur School. She’s trying to organize a PeeWee basketball team for Saturday mornings.
For the mere sum of $140 ($90 for the class and $50 for a year’s membership), Benny can get bounced on the head by a basketball multiple times in a noisy gym. Which he might enjoy – but for heaven’s sake, he spends 40 hours a week with these kids already. Now he can go to a weekly class, along with the class-wide birthday parties we’re invited to about once a month. I swear, next these Dinosaur School parents will want us all to live in a commune so Benny and his 15 classmates can spend every waking hour together.
The New York Times published an op-ed piece about year ago which discusses how much families turn inward and have little time for outside friends, extended relatives, neighbors, fellow church members and so on. Titled Too Close for Comfort, the article cited a study from the American Sociological Review that found that, from 1985 to 2004, Americans reported a marked decline in the number of people with whom they discussed meaningful matters.
Generally, I think that’s true, perhaps because many mothers are working outside the home, and so parents’ schedules don’t allow for lunches with friends, long phone calls with relatives and little chats over the hedge with the neighbor. I’ve discovered this myself, with this temporary full-time gig at the Business Times. Since working full-time, I have to call my sister during the walk between Benny’s school and the train stop, call my friends on my lunch hour and talk with relatives on the weekends. I meet some girlfriends for dinner and drinks once a month, and we get together with friends as a family every few weeks. Right now, that’s all I’m up for.
But I’d also stipulate that families are getting lots of interaction with others, but it’s all school-based. Children’s school takes up an enormous amount of discretionary time. It’s not just the homework and activities, it’s all the involvement: the volunteering, the fundraising, the driving to and fro. So other sources of social involvement – the church, the neighborhood, the extended family gets squeezed out because all this school stuff seems so nonnegotiable.
I’m practically shivering at the prospect of Benny starting kindergarten in a few years, because I’m under no illusions that I can drop the kid off for half the day, bring him home and go about my business with a light heart. Whatever school he’s in, there’s going to be expected parental involvement and I’ll find myself pounding pies with a mallet at 2 a.m. so they look homemade for a school event, like the poor mother in this book.
Okay, so I’m a grinchy hermit and indifferent to my child’s education and social development and deserve to die alone in a hidden cave. Well, fine, then. And in the years before Benny hits kindergarten, I hope I can develop the maturity to fulfill my schoolmom duties with a happy smile.
But why rush it? Our experience with structured child activities has been discouraging anyway – although God knows Ron has tried. He took Benny to a baby massage class when he was six weeks old. The teacher told Ron he didn’t have the right hormones and to bring me to the next class. Ron never went back. He also took Benny to some sort of Teeny Tots Soccer Team last spring, but Benny just ignored the ball.
Perhaps our little guy is missing out. But Benny spent last Saturday morning riding his tricycle with his daddy in Golden Gate Park, and I’d guess that he’d prefer that to any peewee basketball.
##
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Busy Busy Busy
"I'm busy busy busy and I've got a lot to do,
and I haven't got a minute to explain it all to you …"
Those are the first two lines of a great children's song performed by
Kevin Kline and it describes our lives perfectly for the last two
months.
"… For on SundayMondayTuesday I have people I must see,
and on WednesdayThursdayFriday I'm as busy as can be …"
Busyness, of course, has its own momentum. It's the lack of advance planning that kills me. It's a vicious cycle. Let's take Friday night's birthday party, for example, for Benny's little friend Lily.
Ron and I wanted to bring Lily a songbook and CD called "Philadelphia Chickens" (which contains the "Busy Busy Busy" song, actually). If we'd thought ahead, we would have picked up a copy while touring the Retail Heaven district in South San Francisco last weekend. Piece of cake.
But, of course, we don't think that far ahead. So Ron and I have been dashing out on our lunch hours this week to Financial District bookstores to find something suitable. Pickings were slim. Ron finally went over to the giant Borders on Union Square, where eight copies of the book were stacked near the back. I told Ron he should have stocked up. Benny has 15 classmates and they're all gonna have parties. I can feel it.
"… With the most important meetings and the most important calls,
we have to do so many things and post them on the walls …"
The list just grows. I still don't have a California driver's license. I still don't know my phone number by heart. Benny's preschool needed a form filled out by a pediatrician, which required finding a pediatrician, making an appointment, finding the office, etc. Now I've finally got the damn form, but I keep forgetting to bring it to the
school.
And I just realized we've never washed Benny's nap stuff at preschool. Not once. In Benny's other schools, the staff just stuffed the bulging pillowcase under his cubby. But this school obviously expects parents to be proactive about blankies and sheets, which in our case means they never get washed. God knows what they look like. I'm afraid to find out.
One sad result of all this busyness is that I have limited time with Benny. I take him to school every morning, which is actually nice, because he's a sunny little guy in the morning. Ron picks him up in the afternoon and plays with him while I get dinner going and then the whole bath-story-bed landing cycle begins.
"…And we have to have our lunches,
though we don't have time to chew
and we have order many things in gray and navy blue …"
So I decided to slow things down a little. On Tuesday morning I stuck around the preschool a little bit
instead of dashing off to catch the train. Benny's been a little resistant about going to school lately, not fighting it, but unenthusiastic. I spent a little time watching the kids and chatting with a teacher. She's concerned about two bigger boys in the school, that they're not listening to the teachers, not gentle with the younger kids. Should she talk to the parents? "For Christ's sake yes," I said, trying not to roll my eyes. Certainly that's a better solution than telling the mother of one of the smallest boys in the class.
At 2:30 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, I picked up my backpack, said goodbye to my coworkers, and lit out of work early. As I walked up to the Dinosaur Preschool 30 minutes later, a 66 bus creaked to a stop nearby, and a familiar little face popped through the curtains to see the bus.
Well. The look on Benny's face when he saw me, two hours before the regular pickup, was indescribable. He wasn't in a hurry to leave, though – the children were singing songs while a teacher played the piano, so he zipped back down the stairs to join the fun.
This gave me a chance to corner the preschool's director, in the tiny kitchen. I gave one small hint about "bigger children" and the director immediately pinpointed the two boys and talked about how she would address that. Then I headed down the stairs, where Benny and some other children were performing a little Halloween play. (Benny was the Happy Pumpkin.)
As we walked back to the bus stop, I asked Benny what was his favorite part of the day.
"When you came to my school!" Benny shouted.
I wasn't sure whether to be happy or sad about that. But at least I'd stepped off that busyness treadmill and spent some time concentrating on Benny.
"… Yes, we think there is a reason
to be running neck-and-neck
and it must be quite important —
but if not, well, what the heck."
and I haven't got a minute to explain it all to you …"
Those are the first two lines of a great children's song performed by
Kevin Kline and it describes our lives perfectly for the last two
months.
"… For on SundayMondayTuesday I have people I must see,
and on WednesdayThursdayFriday I'm as busy as can be …"
Busyness, of course, has its own momentum. It's the lack of advance planning that kills me. It's a vicious cycle. Let's take Friday night's birthday party, for example, for Benny's little friend Lily.
Ron and I wanted to bring Lily a songbook and CD called "Philadelphia Chickens" (which contains the "Busy Busy Busy" song, actually). If we'd thought ahead, we would have picked up a copy while touring the Retail Heaven district in South San Francisco last weekend. Piece of cake.
But, of course, we don't think that far ahead. So Ron and I have been dashing out on our lunch hours this week to Financial District bookstores to find something suitable. Pickings were slim. Ron finally went over to the giant Borders on Union Square, where eight copies of the book were stacked near the back. I told Ron he should have stocked up. Benny has 15 classmates and they're all gonna have parties. I can feel it.
"… With the most important meetings and the most important calls,
we have to do so many things and post them on the walls …"
The list just grows. I still don't have a California driver's license. I still don't know my phone number by heart. Benny's preschool needed a form filled out by a pediatrician, which required finding a pediatrician, making an appointment, finding the office, etc. Now I've finally got the damn form, but I keep forgetting to bring it to the
school.
And I just realized we've never washed Benny's nap stuff at preschool. Not once. In Benny's other schools, the staff just stuffed the bulging pillowcase under his cubby. But this school obviously expects parents to be proactive about blankies and sheets, which in our case means they never get washed. God knows what they look like. I'm afraid to find out.
One sad result of all this busyness is that I have limited time with Benny. I take him to school every morning, which is actually nice, because he's a sunny little guy in the morning. Ron picks him up in the afternoon and plays with him while I get dinner going and then the whole bath-story-bed landing cycle begins.
"…And we have to have our lunches,
though we don't have time to chew
and we have order many things in gray and navy blue …"
So I decided to slow things down a little. On Tuesday morning I stuck around the preschool a little bit
instead of dashing off to catch the train. Benny's been a little resistant about going to school lately, not fighting it, but unenthusiastic. I spent a little time watching the kids and chatting with a teacher. She's concerned about two bigger boys in the school, that they're not listening to the teachers, not gentle with the younger kids. Should she talk to the parents? "For Christ's sake yes," I said, trying not to roll my eyes. Certainly that's a better solution than telling the mother of one of the smallest boys in the class.
At 2:30 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, I picked up my backpack, said goodbye to my coworkers, and lit out of work early. As I walked up to the Dinosaur Preschool 30 minutes later, a 66 bus creaked to a stop nearby, and a familiar little face popped through the curtains to see the bus.
Well. The look on Benny's face when he saw me, two hours before the regular pickup, was indescribable. He wasn't in a hurry to leave, though – the children were singing songs while a teacher played the piano, so he zipped back down the stairs to join the fun.
This gave me a chance to corner the preschool's director, in the tiny kitchen. I gave one small hint about "bigger children" and the director immediately pinpointed the two boys and talked about how she would address that. Then I headed down the stairs, where Benny and some other children were performing a little Halloween play. (Benny was the Happy Pumpkin.)
As we walked back to the bus stop, I asked Benny what was his favorite part of the day.
"When you came to my school!" Benny shouted.
I wasn't sure whether to be happy or sad about that. But at least I'd stepped off that busyness treadmill and spent some time concentrating on Benny.
"… Yes, we think there is a reason
to be running neck-and-neck
and it must be quite important —
but if not, well, what the heck."
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Military History Seminar: Here Come the Cannons
Makers of Modern Strategy
From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age
Edited by Peter Paret
These days I'm endangering my spine by carrying around "Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age," edited by Peter Paret. It's a weighty collection of essays by about 30 historians and
experts. I knew I was in for it when I opened to the introduction, which began: "Carl von Clausewitz defined strategy as …"
Crap, I thought. I've already done this. I've read Clause's "On War." Don't make me go back!
But the book is actually pretty valuable. Step by step, essay by essay, "Makers" leads us from medieval Europe to the Cold War. I'd just finished two Civil War books (the novel "The Killer Angels" and the nonfiction "Battle Cry of Freedom") and I was looking for someone to explain to me why these Civil War generals did so many crazy
things. If that meant going back to Machiavelli rubbing his greedy little hands together in 16th-century Italy, so be it.
In Mach's time, warfare moved away from knights and castles to guns and armies. The development of gunpowder rendered the knight's armor useless. The new money economy made raising armies much easier. Everyone went on the offensive.
This prompted Mach to write his book, "The Art of War," which harkened back to Roman times, because back then, if anything was Classical, then it must be great. Mach wasn't promoting chariots and bronze swords, but he did like ancient Rome's discipline and use of a citizen militia.
So I'm reading along, and Mach is this great genius, busy "transcending his time" or whatever, and then the essayist Felix Gilbert throws a wrench into the whole thing on page 28.
"However," Felix tells us sternly, "Machiavelli misjudged what was possible and feasible in his own day."
So instead of Mach's notion of a citizen militia, Europe's rulers went on using paid mercenaries for the next two centuries. Mach also didn't consider the rising costs of warfare, since somebody had to pay for those shiny
new cannons. But Felix insists that all subsequent military thought proceeded on the foundations that Mach laid.
And therefore (insert drumbeats here) warfare Enters A New Age. It's always nerve-wracking when that happens. Somebody is bound to get pounded, and probably more efficiently than ever. Mighty thinkers declaim grand ideas; then narrow-minded pinheads do everything totally wrong. Nobody can think clearly about what they're doing, and the next thing you know, some crazed Civil War general is leading an infantry charge up Cemetery Ridge,
But I'm getting ahead of myself, of course. It's time to leave Mach behind and march into the seventeenth century.
From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age
Edited by Peter Paret
These days I'm endangering my spine by carrying around "Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age," edited by Peter Paret. It's a weighty collection of essays by about 30 historians and
experts. I knew I was in for it when I opened to the introduction, which began: "Carl von Clausewitz defined strategy as …"
Crap, I thought. I've already done this. I've read Clause's "On War." Don't make me go back!
But the book is actually pretty valuable. Step by step, essay by essay, "Makers" leads us from medieval Europe to the Cold War. I'd just finished two Civil War books (the novel "The Killer Angels" and the nonfiction "Battle Cry of Freedom") and I was looking for someone to explain to me why these Civil War generals did so many crazy
things. If that meant going back to Machiavelli rubbing his greedy little hands together in 16th-century Italy, so be it.
In Mach's time, warfare moved away from knights and castles to guns and armies. The development of gunpowder rendered the knight's armor useless. The new money economy made raising armies much easier. Everyone went on the offensive.
This prompted Mach to write his book, "The Art of War," which harkened back to Roman times, because back then, if anything was Classical, then it must be great. Mach wasn't promoting chariots and bronze swords, but he did like ancient Rome's discipline and use of a citizen militia.
So I'm reading along, and Mach is this great genius, busy "transcending his time" or whatever, and then the essayist Felix Gilbert throws a wrench into the whole thing on page 28.
"However," Felix tells us sternly, "Machiavelli misjudged what was possible and feasible in his own day."
So instead of Mach's notion of a citizen militia, Europe's rulers went on using paid mercenaries for the next two centuries. Mach also didn't consider the rising costs of warfare, since somebody had to pay for those shiny
new cannons. But Felix insists that all subsequent military thought proceeded on the foundations that Mach laid.
And therefore (insert drumbeats here) warfare Enters A New Age. It's always nerve-wracking when that happens. Somebody is bound to get pounded, and probably more efficiently than ever. Mighty thinkers declaim grand ideas; then narrow-minded pinheads do everything totally wrong. Nobody can think clearly about what they're doing, and the next thing you know, some crazed Civil War general is leading an infantry charge up Cemetery Ridge,
But I'm getting ahead of myself, of course. It's time to leave Mach behind and march into the seventeenth century.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
The Cable Car Kooks
So here I am, tapping away in an office every day, bringing in the money for rent and child care and lemon Snapples, and I’m feeling pretty good about it all. But there are those darker moments – we all have those darker moments – where the bus was late and bagel was burnt and that little flip to my hair that looked so flirty in my bathroom mirror looks a little bit stupid now. Oh, the future looks dim indeed.
But wait, a guaranteed pick-me-up is always at hand, in the form of my local online mother’s group. The group shares its name with a famous San Francisco landmark you can probably guess, but let’s call them the Pyramid Popsies or Alcatraz Escapees or whatever.
Now, I’ll admit, I was a little bemused by my Ann Arbor mother’s group. A nice bunch, but a little twitchy. Well, I’ve hit the big time now, because the maternal members of the Trolley Trilobytes have hit a new level of freakiness.
I find myself staring goggle-eyed at the posts on the Yahoo group site. One mother recently received a Pottery Barn cloth pumpkin bag as a gift, with a handle for trick-or-treating and the name "Jayden" embroidered on it. “Unfortunately,” she wrote, “this is not how my son’s name is spelled. If anyone knows a Jayden, I would be happy to mail it to you.”
First I tried to consider all the name’s alternate spellings (Jaiden, Jaeden, Jaydan, Jaeidyan …). Come on, I wanted to write. Your child is two. He can’t read. It’s a pumpkin and he can carry it and that’s all that matters. But then, maybe I can’t judge. Benny’s name on his birthday cake was “Bennie” and I didn’t care, and the sticker on his preschool cubbie says “Beny” and I still don’t care.
Meanwhile, another mother is becoming a bit hysterical about the state of her house. “My floors are being neglected. I am on the lookout for a cleaning lady who agrees to do only the floors,” she writes. This mother is willing to pay $15 an hour to the paragon who can “clean the floors so that they are good enough to eat off of, all the corners as well as the baseboards.” She thinks it would take 3 hours to do a “sparkling job” on a 1,500-square-foot house.
A third mother wants to know if anyone can recommend a great piano player for a dinner party she’s hosting Saturday night. Still another mother wonders if it’s okay to have permanent makeup tattooed to their face while breastfeeding. (I say fine, but put the baby down first.)
Finally, a mother’s 2-year-old is getting bossy and controlling, constantly telling the mom where to sit. If she moves, and he isn’t satisfied that it’s not just the right spot, he makes her move again. She wants to know what we think. “I want to be respectful of his need to control his environment,” she writes. I don’t think she wants to know what I think.
With such great material only a click away, how can I ever feel down? I laugh in the face of balky freelancers and crazy deadlines because I have my Bay Bridge Bananas group.
But wait, a guaranteed pick-me-up is always at hand, in the form of my local online mother’s group. The group shares its name with a famous San Francisco landmark you can probably guess, but let’s call them the Pyramid Popsies or Alcatraz Escapees or whatever.
Now, I’ll admit, I was a little bemused by my Ann Arbor mother’s group. A nice bunch, but a little twitchy. Well, I’ve hit the big time now, because the maternal members of the Trolley Trilobytes have hit a new level of freakiness.
I find myself staring goggle-eyed at the posts on the Yahoo group site. One mother recently received a Pottery Barn cloth pumpkin bag as a gift, with a handle for trick-or-treating and the name "Jayden" embroidered on it. “Unfortunately,” she wrote, “this is not how my son’s name is spelled. If anyone knows a Jayden, I would be happy to mail it to you.”
First I tried to consider all the name’s alternate spellings (Jaiden, Jaeden, Jaydan, Jaeidyan …). Come on, I wanted to write. Your child is two. He can’t read. It’s a pumpkin and he can carry it and that’s all that matters. But then, maybe I can’t judge. Benny’s name on his birthday cake was “Bennie” and I didn’t care, and the sticker on his preschool cubbie says “Beny” and I still don’t care.
Meanwhile, another mother is becoming a bit hysterical about the state of her house. “My floors are being neglected. I am on the lookout for a cleaning lady who agrees to do only the floors,” she writes. This mother is willing to pay $15 an hour to the paragon who can “clean the floors so that they are good enough to eat off of, all the corners as well as the baseboards.” She thinks it would take 3 hours to do a “sparkling job” on a 1,500-square-foot house.
A third mother wants to know if anyone can recommend a great piano player for a dinner party she’s hosting Saturday night. Still another mother wonders if it’s okay to have permanent makeup tattooed to their face while breastfeeding. (I say fine, but put the baby down first.)
Finally, a mother’s 2-year-old is getting bossy and controlling, constantly telling the mom where to sit. If she moves, and he isn’t satisfied that it’s not just the right spot, he makes her move again. She wants to know what we think. “I want to be respectful of his need to control his environment,” she writes. I don’t think she wants to know what I think.
With such great material only a click away, how can I ever feel down? I laugh in the face of balky freelancers and crazy deadlines because I have my Bay Bridge Bananas group.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Say 'Cheese'
Picture Day.
Those two seemingly innocent words strike fear in the most courageous of parents. I’d been in deep denial about Picture Day for about three weeks. Frankly, I was hostile about the whole thing – why, in the name of God, would a school take the always-crazed month of September (and let’s not mention the still-unpacked moving boxes and a giant, two-week project) and toss in a Picture Day? (1)
But last night I could hide no longer. Ron needed to work late, so it was just me and Benny. The poor kid needed a bath, and I had to comb his wet hair this time instead of letting it dry all stuck-up and freaky. He actually needed a haircut, too, but it was too late for that. He needed new shoes as well, I suddenly realized, since one of his blue race-car shoes had a gaping tear in the front.
I dug through a few boxes and found his black dress shoes, which required his dress slacks and a buttoned-down shirt. Benny stood quietly, watching the movie “Charlotte’s Web” while I draped various clothing combinations on him, including two ties. (I had to give up the tie idea, since they made his shirt collars stick up.)
This morning we turned up at the school, wild-eyed and nearly 30 minutes late. The scene was total anarchy. Bright lights, harried parents, crying kids. Benny was all psyched, though, and kept trying to get into other kids’ pictures. When his turn came, he lit right up. He smiled and posed and giggled; he was practically saying, “where do I hit my mark?” The whole school was watching him, then turned to me. I shrugged sheepishly.
I’m so relieved it’s over. I seem to be saying that sentence a lot lately, but relief is my dominant emotion today. I’m so relieved to b
e finished with that crazy huge project, and yesterday’s tense editors’ meeting, and now Picture Day. Relief as an emotion gets little attention, but it’s so important. So often we rush from stressful thing to stressful thing that we never get a chance to look back and feel good about our accomplishments. Even when said accomplishment is as small as combing your kid’s hair.
_____________________________
(1) There was a Parent's Night event on Wednesday as well, but Ron went to that, thank heavens.
Those two seemingly innocent words strike fear in the most courageous of parents. I’d been in deep denial about Picture Day for about three weeks. Frankly, I was hostile about the whole thing – why, in the name of God, would a school take the always-crazed month of September (and let’s not mention the still-unpacked moving boxes and a giant, two-week project) and toss in a Picture Day? (1)
But last night I could hide no longer. Ron needed to work late, so it was just me and Benny. The poor kid needed a bath, and I had to comb his wet hair this time instead of letting it dry all stuck-up and freaky. He actually needed a haircut, too, but it was too late for that. He needed new shoes as well, I suddenly realized, since one of his blue race-car shoes had a gaping tear in the front.
I dug through a few boxes and found his black dress shoes, which required his dress slacks and a buttoned-down shirt. Benny stood quietly, watching the movie “Charlotte’s Web” while I draped various clothing combinations on him, including two ties. (I had to give up the tie idea, since they made his shirt collars stick up.)
This morning we turned up at the school, wild-eyed and nearly 30 minutes late. The scene was total anarchy. Bright lights, harried parents, crying kids. Benny was all psyched, though, and kept trying to get into other kids’ pictures. When his turn came, he lit right up. He smiled and posed and giggled; he was practically saying, “where do I hit my mark?” The whole school was watching him, then turned to me. I shrugged sheepishly.
I’m so relieved it’s over. I seem to be saying that sentence a lot lately, but relief is my dominant emotion today. I’m so relieved to b
e finished with that crazy huge project, and yesterday’s tense editors’ meeting, and now Picture Day. Relief as an emotion gets little attention, but it’s so important. So often we rush from stressful thing to stressful thing that we never get a chance to look back and feel good about our accomplishments. Even when said accomplishment is as small as combing your kid’s hair.
_____________________________
(1) There was a Parent's Night event on Wednesday as well, but Ron went to that, thank heavens.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Hello September
You may recall my last posts, where I waxed poetic about our woes in August and looked forward to a calmer, sunnier September.
Hmmm ... well ... it didn't quite turn out that way.
The weather cooperated, I must say: lovely sunny days with just a little more nippiness at night. I was returning to the newsroom full-time six weeks early. Everything was bubbling cheerily until a 32-story freelance project came along and smashed my schedule flat. Ron's been taking Benny to and from school every day so I can show up to the office bleary-eyed at 7:30-8:00 a.m.
Even that wasn't enough, so I'm here at the office on a Sunday morning, churning out 500-word profiles at an alarming rate. They're all due tomorrow, which of course means I'll finish them Tuesday. I also have to rewrite a 1,400-word article on a certain program that teaches economics to kids because it simply wasn't fawning enough for the publication's sponsors. This is the LAST time I write an advertorial.
Benny is settling nicely into his preschool routine, I'm told. I wouldn't know, since the Dinosaur School hasn't seen me in over a week. Ron had to quit wearing his wedding ring for a while due to an irritated spot in his finger, so the teachers probably think we divorced. But I remain a behind-the-scene presence, setting out Benny's clothes, making his lunch, writing the tuition check and finally, baking 20 pumpkin muffins with mini-chocolate chips for Afternoon Snack.
But this should all change tomorrow, when I begin to emerge from my profile-writing haze and rejoin my life. My next big project is getting Ron and myself California driver's license, which will necessitate a trip to the dreaded DMV. It's a frightening place, last time I went in 2001 I wrote a column about it. Let's hope things go better this time.
Hmmm ... well ... it didn't quite turn out that way.
The weather cooperated, I must say: lovely sunny days with just a little more nippiness at night. I was returning to the newsroom full-time six weeks early. Everything was bubbling cheerily until a 32-story freelance project came along and smashed my schedule flat. Ron's been taking Benny to and from school every day so I can show up to the office bleary-eyed at 7:30-8:00 a.m.
Even that wasn't enough, so I'm here at the office on a Sunday morning, churning out 500-word profiles at an alarming rate. They're all due tomorrow, which of course means I'll finish them Tuesday. I also have to rewrite a 1,400-word article on a certain program that teaches economics to kids because it simply wasn't fawning enough for the publication's sponsors. This is the LAST time I write an advertorial.
Benny is settling nicely into his preschool routine, I'm told. I wouldn't know, since the Dinosaur School hasn't seen me in over a week. Ron had to quit wearing his wedding ring for a while due to an irritated spot in his finger, so the teachers probably think we divorced. But I remain a behind-the-scene presence, setting out Benny's clothes, making his lunch, writing the tuition check and finally, baking 20 pumpkin muffins with mini-chocolate chips for Afternoon Snack.
But this should all change tomorrow, when I begin to emerge from my profile-writing haze and rejoin my life. My next big project is getting Ron and myself California driver's license, which will necessitate a trip to the dreaded DMV. It's a frightening place, last time I went in 2001 I wrote a column about it. Let's hope things go better this time.
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