we went to the st phillips yearly fair in noe valley today. lots of nice catholic and irish people running bake sales, jumpy castles, face painting, a book nook, and a stage where there are some cute performances such as 5 year olds playing piano and ten-year-old girls performing a completely indecipherable (but to them hilarious) play, and the roulette wheel win-a-plant booth at which i won a cool plant for the second year in a row. there is marie, the owner of miles' preschool,ladling out pasta at the pasta and salad booth. her older son goes to this parochial school. as does the son of one of my old students' moms, who is selling tickets at the ticket booth. i ask a lady at the bake sale, who kind of sticks out visually in this crowd as she is african-american, with big long dreadlocks and lots of crazy jewelry, if her kids go to st phillips. her son does and he likes it. this is the usual consensus, as i compulsively ask people about their kids and schools. miles spots a little girl from my gym. i know her big brother goes to public school. hurray for him.
this pathetic part of me feels a little sad each time i meet a private school kid, and a little buoyed up when i meet a public school one. maybe half-jealous and half-sad. it is hard for me to feel excluded from a group, from options. i have never cared about this in terms of wanting a bigger house, nicer clothes or car, because of money. when it is about the kids, though, and education, i do want the best for them. and i don't know what that is. and if i did know what it was i don't think we could afford it. and if we could afford it i would feel pretty conflicted about jumping out of the public school system.
noe valley is just up 24th street from us but feels quite different. not many piles of dog poop, shattered 40 ouncers, or beautiful crazy old ladies in purple pants sauntering down the middle of the street calmly stopping traffic. not too many ambulances and trucks and fire engines and booming pounding listen to me stereos passing by. it is quiet and sunny. some tweens are playing football in the closed off street. the crowd at this fair is not really a white bubble, it is not exactly representative of the city but a nice mix of people and lots of comfortable kids of all ages. maybe we should move to noe valley and send miles to catholic school.
aaahh. did i mention i have a problem with obsessive thinking????? someone help me here!!!! i will be mighty happy when the kids graduate college.
my friend gradiva told me today that they started composting because of me writing about it here, and thank you so much gradiva for telling me! that will make me feel better about writing one more slightly annoying thing about trying to be greener...
for the first time in my life i have pretty much stopped eating meat (except seafood) and it has not been hard at all. i've been lenient with myself, and will eat sausage in lentil soup, a piece of turkey that maya has thrown on the floor, etc. try it for a little while. it is much easier than i had imagined, and it feels good to say, (as i did recently when miles' teacher showed me a scary hard unidentifiable hot-dog looking thing a little girl found in a corner) "i don't eat meat." of course i am not trying to convert anyone. miles almost cried the first time i wouldn't eat bacon with him, he wanted me to share the crispy salty joy, but i wouldn't. he's ok with it now and seems to enjoy saying i LOVE to eat pigs.
one more thing i have been thinking about is that a generation or two or three ago kids spent MOST of their time with their extended families. especially farm families. for most of history, really. so kids weren't just around their peers all the time. seems like mixed age groups in general are good. this makes me feel a little better about raising a city kid. i know everyone talks about how it is so sad that the kids can't run wild and play out in the woods and ride bikes all day, but what i see as the kids get bigger is that we are going to keep doing fun things, that they want to do, but with them, and often with our friends with kids. i'm sure sooner or later they will get sick of us but maybe, like city dogs who are actually supposed to be happier as they can spend more time with their beloved owners than backyard country and suburb dogs, these kids who are stuck with their parents more will be closer to us.
who knows?
so, it is 8:30 and everyone is sleeping here including my husband. what shall i do now?
i will say goodnight.
love
jamie
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