a little better

hi

sorry for those miserable last posts, but a shooting on top of general stress will do that top ya'.

this is the kids watching a very cute performance by ballet folklorico at miles' after school program (which i think he is turning his back on).
rich has been in delaware and i have been super mom this weekend, carting the kids to star wars playdates (i did get a good red wine buzz out of this event) martial arts, soccer (hey, we have a nice view of the golden gate bridge and alcatraz from the soccer field), and two bday parties.

the party today was right down the street and we dragged poor grandma j along and ended up staying all day. it was a good party because there were lots of adults there, and adult food that kids liked too, and it was not 100% about the kids, but they were certainly there. there were lots of tatoos and people talking about the beauty bar, and homework, and a hello kitty jumpy house, and another bday party for another friend right under the next group of trees. homeade tamales and tabouli salad and pulled pork and fancy meatballs and fruit salad and speakeasy beer and the new and improved riunite wine. maya made a crazy mud hole with some water and a fork which splattered all over her face, and then took a little snooze on a slab of concrete next to the jumpy house generator while miles participated in a quiet but very complex and endless boys stalking unaware girls kinda game. there was a friend face painter who made maya into a sparkly blue dragon with lips, and a pinata chock full of sugar.

grandma josy kept her word and we took miles to st francis after the party for his grandson hamburger and ice cream. i had a little tiny bit of trouble breathing as we walked past the shooting site from last week, got a tiny bit teary eyed but it is hard to feel too bad when maya is dancing in the restaurant and miles is laughing so hard he slides under the table. the hipsters were coming in and out, and some dressed up latino couples, and a group of cute people doing the wave at the counter top. out the door i could see strollers, homeless folks, skateboarders zipping by, a pink balloon. it was okay. i took a deep breath and took my babies home and they went right to sleep, pinata candy, ice cream, cake and all.

xo

still feeling sourish

oh, ho, it is wednesday and i am a single mom for a week. trying not to think about gunshots. once a month i see an old friend at our department meetings (which we use as 2 hours to catch up, whispering in the back row like the bad and disrespectful people we are) and she makes me think about another mythical suburb, albany, where she is friends with all her neighbors and half the neighbors are old friends. someone recently moved there called it mayberry. tra la la all the kids walk together to the great school down the street where hardly any kids are bombing out due to poverty or experimental immersion programs. birdies chirping rather than sirens and truck engines on the highway. little green gardens and sidewalks devoid of trash heaps and feces.

yes, i am in a down mode. what the heck are we doing here? mode. and doubting our choice of schools for our kid. sure it is a place with a good feeling and lots of people to like, and miles is happy to go there and he can speak chinese now but the more i think about it (in this negative frame of mind) are we NUTS? not only is he only getting one hour of crappy houghton mifflin english time per day, taught teachers who great but undeniably ESL, but there are many many kids in the school who are dealing with great poverty and difficulties. seems like we picked a very cool place with huge challenges.

kind of like the city. can we do anything to make things better? are we being bad parents? am i just very very grumpy?

on a lighter note--maya was moving cinderella's paper arm in the pop-up book up and down during story time in the bed tonight and told us cinderella was making a fart sound in her armpit. we all lost it and i laughed for about ten minutes as miles went armpit and kneepit noise bonkers and maya joined right in.

one more day of work and then my fabulous four day weekend begins, full of creative movement class(not for me), wushu class (not for me), soccer game(i get to watch), two birthday parties (not for me), library benefit. i can hardly stand it, i love it all but i can hardly stand it.

anyone want to come over for cocktails one night soon? i miss you, people.

xo
jamie

nice weekend sour end

here are some weekend photos. we went to the roadworks street fair in potrero hill sponsored by the center for the book. many artists had made linoleum block stamps, and they rolled on the ink, laid the linoleum blocks down on the road, covered them with paper and a rug and then a guy rode a two-ton steamroller over them to make prints. cool to watch and then there was a table for people to make their own prints which miles took full advantage of. today we met mike and suling at the beautiful walter haas park. perfect weather, good monkey bars and pretend castles, kids sharing scooters and bikes and tricycles. later julia met us at the skate park and we got to see some kind of crazy voodoo ceremony with women singing and dancing, an older man spraying liquor from his mouth, an altar, some ritual looking sword fight, drums. there were tons of kids of all shapes and sizes playing together on the playground.

on our way home, however, we saw some police cars on 24th street and i went home to read online about a shooting one block away. and miles has decided he wants to return to his latch key program which i feel a little nervous about.

the urge to flee is somewhat strong tonight.

poor poor pitiful me

well, this was a tough week for me. i know, i know, i've got it good but we all have different levels of tolerance and this week brought me pretty close to quitting it all and going on welfare. does welfare still exist?

work was chock full of kids not getting what they need and me feeling very bad about it. i will leave it at that. maya started her new waldorf-y pre-k. i had convinced myself the drive would not be too bad and then managed to get panicky on the highway so it kind of is bad since i am meandering a long long way on city streets and then at night thinking about all that driving and thinking of comforting quotes i have heard/read recently like "why worry about flying or earthquakes, when driving is the most danger you can put your kid in?" so is the cool pre-k worth it or should we out her in the nice cheap co-op walking distance from our house? the deed is not quite done because we have not paid the waldorf-y pre-k yet. miles also started his first week at the starr king asp and kind of liked it, but i think the asphalt is getting to him. monday: "can we go camping soon?" wednesday: "can we visit brian soon?" yesterday: "i just want to go somewhere....green soon." so we have to make that decision still, too, about after school programs.

i found myself emailing private speech and language therapy clinics late last night after, i admit it, yet another bout of loud crying and just feeling too pathetic to drive all over and feel guilty about kids at work and worrying about kids in cars and afterschool programs and too much asphalt.

today was my day off. maya and i took miles to school and then very slowly meandered down the hill,taking a full 30 minutes to let maya sit on the steep sidewalk and sing songs and then through the mission with a stop for a dynamo donut (chocolate rose) to her first creative movement class at dance mission theater. it is a huge high ceilinged place with lots of studios and light and mirrors. a hot hot day and no fans turned on. maya jumped right in, as she did at pre-k this week. at one point they played some beautiful floaty music which i think was bjork, or sugarcubes, and watching maya twirl around and hold hands with a new little girl friend and feel the music was amazing. we made it home in the heat with a lucky ride from one of miles' schoolmates moms, driving around the mission unemployed.


after school miles made the brave leap to join the starr king soccer team. i watched him skipping around the soccer field, yes skipping, i'm not sure why, this is his latest thing. maya messed around in the shade with me and some cool moms and dads and the little siblings. afterwards was smoothie day and miles had a nice mandarin conversation with the lady at the deli.

so, deep breath, in writing this all looks fine. sometimes it just feels like way too much for me, though. i can barely handle my own life--when the needs and worries the parents i work with come in to play i really want to flee. for a nice life of being a mom and taking care of our house and maybe taking care of me a little.

darn you, facebook

dave milsom just sent this to me, and i felt like sharing. twenty years ago! i was thin! token white boy.

scroll down to wednesday, march 18th on the link. thank you ilhan.

wish i could go bang on something or yell into something right now. maybe tomorrow.

everybody everywhere

waahh. my baby, pictured here in a stunning ensemble, started preschool today. she barely said goodbye and walked off toward the group of kids, then shot back across the room and squeezed my legs ferociously, then joined the group.

i missed her during my three hours of food shopping and cleaning the kitchen. and i felt disconnected from the well-heeled group of moms waiting outside to get their kids, all tall ladies with smooth hair and nice shoes and cars. second guessing my decision about this preschool, of course.

miles started his after school program today, which we are trying out 5 days a week. i was itching to go get him at our usual pick up time but had to wait.

walking down the rock hill from school i told him how maya had been brave but was a little teary and mad this afternoon. he told me when he started preschool he cried for six weeks but then he had a good time, which is pretty accurate.

why did you cry so much, anyway? i asked. this was when he was three. because i wanted you, he answered.

this is the answer i wanted to hear, i suppose, but it hurts a little too. we want to be together but have to go into the world.

of course at home the kids were fighting over markers and bickering as they counted each other's stirs taking turns making sweet potato pancakes (wink wink, deceptively delicious), and then miles drove me nuts at bedtime making fart noises under his armpit while i tried to sing baby beluga to maya. i yelled at him and he went into the closet for about ten minutes but finally emerged to say sorry. he had to make just one more fart noise, though. then we called each other exquisite and he went to sleep.

big meeting tomorrow, the thing i never mention here, work.

and i just reread one of my favorite autobiographies, nobody nowhere by donna williams. you can borrow it from me if you would like.

night night

6:45 a.m.

rocking out to patti smith, horses, at 6:45 this morning.

note new and thrillingly realistic lightsaber. life is good.

idealistic hippie post

here is a link to a photo that made me wish i had been at burning man this year. maya would have loved loved loved this sculpture. if i could get a few humane leashes and hire a full-time babysitter i would love to attend burning man with the kids next year. who knows! my two trips there were two of my best trips anywhere.

thinking a little more about the myfarm business difficulties is really motivating me to study sustainable gardening more seriously and get to work . maybe i will be out there with a flashlight (listening to rem) because that is the only time i will have, but i am very interested. making a small, semi-shady, windy space into a productive vegetable garden on a limited money and time budget is definitely a challenge.

i'm extrapolating my thoughts to lots of the things about living in the city that made many of my friends leave, such as wanting a bigger house, bigger yard, safer places outside for kids to play, less conflicts/crimes, the complications of public school assignments, the noise and crowds. these things can be considered challenges if you are in the right mood. all these issues are issues facing the entire world right now--overcrowding, not enough food for everyone, dealing with pollution, tolerating different folks as we are crammed closer together, making sure people have enough education and resources so that they can be happy citizens and not criminals.

so, on a good day, i look at these issues that our entire city living family faces daily as challenges to learn from. if we can deal with them here our kids will be better equipped to deal with these problems wherever they go. maybe they will learn to grow food in small spaces if their mama does. miles fought saying goodbye to the grass in our yard but now likes the little garden even more. maybe they will learn that people don't need huge places to live in since we are making them share a room. maybe they will understand how hard most people have to work to survive when they see those muscled shirtless older men dodging traffic on potrero ave as they push their piled-high bottle and can filled safeway carts to the bayshore recycling center. we will make sure the kids are just fine by spoiling them rotten in our own way.

i can hear some 60's music playing in the background, is it simon and garfunkel? call me idealistic, or an early childhood educator, these are just thoughts, that's all.
goodnight

david i. was right

well, there is trouble in urban farm paradise.

if you don't remember this important fact, we are members of a "decentralized urban farm" in sf. we received a very sad email this morning from one of the farmers in this group saying that they had not been paid in two months and that things were not going well. which we had kind of noticed since our little backyard farm has been a little neglected.

on my way home from a trip over potrero hill i stopped at the eat-in at the awesome 18th and rhode island permaculture garden. they were eating all kinds of gourmet vegetable creations but i was mostly mesmerized by a tour with the main gardener, who is all about permaculture, which invloves cool stuff like building up soil, everything being a perennial, climbing perennial squash vines, low maintenance, training out of control fruit trees to behave and fruit within reach, lovely pineapple guavas (hi nat),sharing food, sharing systems, and not constantly going to floorcraft for more bags of soil amendment and little plastic six packs of baby vegetables. he said to come back on friday during their weekly workday and i could pick his brain some more. so maybe there is hope for our backyard farm yet.

the eat-in is an awareness-raising event, i guess they were all over california, to raise awareness of the need for healthy local food in kids' lunches. right now at miles' school the achievement gap even follows the kids into the cafeteria--more educated and affluent parents pack whole grain breads and nut butters and organic apples and yogurt and sugar snap peas in their kid's cute little lunch bag while most of the kids from lower income families get the fake juice, processed food pizza, extra sugary corn muffin, you get the picture. click on the permaculture link above to get more info about the eat-in.

tonight after dinner i took the big kid to the skate park. we rang his buddy's bell on the way over and they accompanied us with a.'s DOUBLE-BLADED LIGHTSABER. his mom had a nice little buzz from an afternoon bbq and i remembered why i like having so many cool neighbors as we gossiped about the school and the boys twirled their plastic sticks around in the cool and sunny almost bed-time evening.

i have to do some work for real work now. the kids are asleep, visions of star wars in their heads. it is kind of quiet and last night's huge moon has vanished.

more sunday streets

we drove out to sunday streets at ocean beach today, a somewhat miserable trip with miles very dejected in the back seat and assuming the worst, that there would be no bike for him to ride. this culminated in a full-blown temper tantrum, which we have not seen in a while, miles refusing to get out of the car and even saying he hated us. we could have been tough and cruel but instead babied him through it, and thank god there was ONE miles' size bike left at the free bike rental out at the great highway. i decided to get one too. i guess riding the bike feels so good to him it was worth freaking out in advance against the possibility that his desire would not be realized.

we met my mom and brother and family and bumped into lots of folks we know, which always reassures me. it was a perfect temperature greyish day and rich and i took turns biking with miles south and north from gg park to (almost) the zoo and back, while the other parent supervised maya flinging hula hoops around her neck, begging to ride the crazy cyclecide carousel, making origami penguins, and rolling in the sand with her cousins.

it feels very good to bike by the pacific ocean pretty much ignoring traffic lights and riding right on top of that painted dotted line. some kids on training wheels, people blasting music, a few dog walkers, mostly bikes bikes , a salty smell in the air, nothing for sale and no cars, no cars, no cars.

it felt a little bit like riding into the future, when cars will be less and less and then just fizzle away to nothingness. maybe. i will be an old lady and miles and maya can pull me in an old lady bike trailer cuz they love their old mama so much.

night night

vegetables, decisions

tonight i hear a bunch of kids yelling and playing out back their little voices louder and clearer than the car beeps, motorcycle vrooms, and trucks rumbling down the off ramp. go kids go. rich says the little girl sounds like maya, i think she is yelling and singing in spanish.

in our neighborhood at this time of night the sky turns a very cool shade of purplish blue.

today we got our first big bag of vegetables from myfarm. sadly our yard has not turned out to be incredibly productive so we are sharing vegetables with other myfarm members in our neighborhood while we work on boosting our soil, deciding on which plants can thrive back there, etc. the kids got very excited about the bag left in our backyard with apples, lemons, parsley, lemon cucumbers, greens, zucchini, lettuce, big beets, leeks, a turnip, some yellow squash, beans, and two orange squash flowers which i guess i should go online to find out how to cook.

this fits in with my new obsession, the deceptively delicious cookbook by jerry seinfeld's wife (sorry, that doesn't sound very feminist does it). i have been cooking vegetables and pureeing them night and day so i can sneak them into all our food. sweet potatoes in the pancakes, avocado chocolate pudding, choco chip cookies with chickpeas, butternut squash and broccoli in the red sauce for pasta, cauliflower puree in the mac and cheese, you get the picture.

wow, a half page of words and the loud happy kids seem to have quieted down and gone inside. the sky is very dark now with what appears to be a very bright star visible out our center window. laundry is tumbling in the dryer. the zucchini is calling me--put down that laptop, chop me up and make me into a cookie...

i have avoided what i am really thinking about, the decision between after school programs which i must make by tomorrow. it is kind of the whereshouldwelive decision, stick with what we have, which miles enjoys, and work on the kinks, which include safety and security and equity. or switch to a program that is safe and secure and takes us away from each other a little more. that probably only makes sense if i have talked to you about this already.

whoa, if i lean a little to the right now i can see a bright almost full moon shining down on me.

i am 41 and still confused about why the stars and moon seem to move so fast in the night sky. guess i have a lot to learn.

peace out