halloween 2009

i have to type quickly because our f$&&^ computer is acting up. halloween has come and gone. we spent friday waiting in line for the H1N1 vaccine for 2.5 hours at a public health clinic. a bunch of neighborhood kids and acquaintances were there and it turned into a little block party with candy, chalk drawings, inevitable wrestling and at one point miles and his buddy lying on the parking lot faces up to the sky, surrounded by folks waiting for their flu shots, making synchronized knee-pit fart noises.

last night we trick or treated on potrero hill, star wars style. we went with friends and saw lots of cool spooky stuff and got a TON of candy. people were handing out full size chocolate bars and maya was amazing, i will never have to worry about her finding food if she is lost in the woods somewhere, she could spot a house with candy from a block away and was cute enough to get away with taking more, more, more. my favorite stop was this (see crummy photo above) house we hit on the way home. they had set up a popcorn maker and tv sets with monster house playing and the kids sat and munched and watched, totally spent, while rich and i people watched for a little while.

up on potrero hill it feels a lot like a neighborhood. the guy handing out popcorn had grown up there and seemed to know everybody, young and old.

after the kids passed out i felt a little sad thinking about my boy growing up. how many more halloweens will we have where he will hold my hand and be with his mommy and daddy? he still believes wholeheartedly in mother pumpkin, and there is no way that will be happening when he is ten. i got very sappy (maybe the kamikaze shot at the bar with my trick-or-treating mom friends contributed---and the little whiskey flask) and told the kids how much i loved them and how wonderful they were, etc etc etc. i think is it good for them to hear this.

anyway, i have made it this far without losing power so i should end while i can. good night.

jamie

well, i had to post a picture of some kids in hay, because that's what we city slickers have been doing for the month long holiday of halloween. the pumpkin patch behind ucsf with the hay ride around a parking lot to see some old stuffed animals in trees (the kids loved it). scary grove night at stern grove, a new parks and rec event involving many many many children in star wars garb, no food, rides, magicians, light sabers flashing in the trees, and a major blood sugar let it all out double kid cry all the way home. and this weekend the mother of all pumpkin patches. we were there for.....four hours!! jumpy house. corn maze (maya took off and got lost in it and had to sit next to me on a bale of hay while everyone else ran wild and free and itchy). face painting. expensive hot dogs. we saw a cow being milked which probably turned my kids off milk forever as the cow had her neck in a creepy metal holder thing and she pooped during the demonstration. snow cones. haunted house, haunted barn.


so, we get our country time in.

i know i did not blog for a while. sometimes it is easier just to lie in bed rereading books for the 40th or 50th time than it is to write online about my existance. sometimes it is hard to write about my existance without sharing certain thoughts and feelings that are better left inside my head, or at least not outside a bar or private phone conversation.

what did you miss hearing about blog readers?

one event stands out. we went to a night time outside movie screening put on by the family of a girl miles went to preschool. i know they are community oriented because a few years ago they got a grant and organized community members and rebuilt a decrepit old park into an amazing and lovely playground and garden. we walked over with miles' school friends, and the kids just zoomed along on scooters and bikes. no crazy traffic. the house turns out to be big and magical, with a secret hideout for kids under the house, a huge electric train set hidden in the basement, and an in law apartment out back with guinea pigs and a sweet dog checking out the guinea pigs and hundreds and hundreds of cds. through the back door of the in law and we are in the alley, an overgrown alley with a sandbox and door leading out from all the fences on both sides. people are coming down the alley with their kids, it is getting dark as parents try and set up the outside screen. there is a couch in the alley and food and people coming in and out of their backyards and kids running wild, toddling wild. the little girl miles went to preschool with had invited her first grade teacher and she appeared in the crowd, and then went to check out r's bedroom. there is a big cooler of beer and funny malt liquor drinks and juice boxes and i am just in love with this alley full of people, a big tree leaning over it, a swivelling seesaw in it.
finally the movie starts, and the kids are all crowded onto blankets and the couch, the adults in chairs or around the little fire pit. it is totoro, totoro which i first saw with my best friend long before kids came along. after the movie we go outside and there are little signs of halloween everywhere, glowing pumpkins and lights.

this was in mission terrace, which is in the city about 10 minutea away, but which in my little slice encounter seems to be the coolest suburb i have been to. no cool factor of huckleberry donuts and murals and theaters, but what could be better than totoro on a big screen at night, outside in an alley, your boy and girl cuddled together watching, a mike's hard lemonade and some reminscing about old times, strangely but nicely, with people you have not known for all that long.

tired now, goodnight, love you
jamie

why am i doing this?

why am i writing this blog anyway? there is no clear subject which might be of interest to people--say, education or food or knitting or raising chickens. there is no point, as in trying to make people laugh, or convert to my religion, or give me money.

i suspect this blog is a primitive version of why most writers write--to decrease the feeling of isolation. i'm not sure about this, though.

why feel isolated? look at today. kids wake me up at 7 am rolling on me and shrieking about star wars. soon we are at the park with very nice newish friends and kids, eating salami and dried apples, kicking a soccer ball, listening to the cars, admiring our children and planning a night out to drink some wine. then we drive through this beautiful city to check out the amazing mission science workshop with the kids, where we see more friends and their kids along with dead bats and live reptiles and batteries and clay and little boys making things out of glue guns and band saws and cardboard and putting bones together. all this started by one man who wanted to bring more science to kids in the neighborhood. after this we go with suling and natalie to valencia st and visit the pirate store 826 valencia, where the kids looked at all the wierd stuff in the drawers. and then miles and maya and natalie spent some time in the dark little tiny three seat theater watching the very clean aquarium with the puffer fish. they spy what seem to be some old fish bodies on the floor of the tank and speculate about them. poor little adorable fish says maya, really meaning it.

we get sandwiches and walk right by cassie's old old house to dolores park. it is a huge party. drunk 30 year old ish people everywhere, some younger, some older, drinking, eating birthday cake. playing with hula hoops, even walking on a low tightrope that has been set up. we get to see a man and a woman about my age strip down a little and full-on wrestle, an activity that ends when they roll in dog poop. there is a man with a long red ponytail and droopy handlebar moustache just hanging out in a tiny bikini bottom. someone has set up a small mobile art museum. i swing with the kids and we are all befriended by a wasted young guy with dreadlocks and pants below his baggy underwear. he makes funny sounds as he swings and then jumps off to almost smash his head on the sidewalk several times and maya sure loves that. the view is fantastic. i remember coming here 13 years ago and playing acoustic token white boy songs. it is a scene like a good city park should be, full of people having a good time.

so what is it? some middle-aged dread? after all this warmth and display of humans (maybe too much today for my tired mind to handle), after my kids go to bed and rich is in listening to music land i just need to read, and read, and this is often good. but some nights it is not enough, and it is too late to call my most far-away loved ones, or just not the right time for a call, so i babble and ramble on in this blog about the details of my day.

are you out there? do you want to read about something else? i will do it for you, if you ask.

goodnight.

cursed block?

MOMMY, SOME PEOPLE EAT ANIMALS!!! SOME PEOPLE EAT, DEAD,ANIMAAAALLLLS!!!
maya came running into the bedroom this morning to tell me this, which she learned from some cartoon character on PBS kids.

i am beginning to think our block is cursed. two nights ago i heard a commotion outside and looked out the window. about 25 very excited police officers and a car completely turned around and on the sidewalk right in front of my house. then a flurry of confused looking cops grabbed a woman and shoved her into the backseat of a cop car. this didn't go over well with me, even though i found out later that no one was hurt. the cops had chased the woman, driving a stolen unmarked police car, all the way from daly city to end at 1107 potrero avenue. boom, into a spot where we often park.

more upsetting to the kids, the top portion of a nice tree on our block, you know, the part with branches and leaves and sometime fluffy pink flowers, disappeared. poof. maya has been talking about it for days.

and for the second time someone stole the nice bright green succulent we planted in the cinder block outside. miles noted with disgust that someone had thrown a dirty tissue in it.

even so, today was a beautiful day off work. maya and i made a dollhouse, muffins, and did a little gardening. we split our weekly dynamo donut (meyer lemon with huckleberry icing) and after school walked miles and friends to soccer practice under a blue sky. on the walk home my kids both held my hands with no major meltdowns and we found a secret little block between 22nd and 23rd and wisconsin and carolina, funky old and new houses, one with a shady front garden with a stone lion head.

we watched looney tunes and then at bedtime miles asked lots of questions about what we were going to do with his body when he died.

it was a kinda strange, good day. my friend suggested that all the bad things that happened on our block make the chance of more bad things happening unlikely.

i know this is not how it works, but i will try to believe it.

bye

do you have an extra 600,000 dollars?

sonoma weekend. we called the clydesdales and they came right over to say hello. met kids in the park and miles and rich played football for a lonnnnngggg time. we drank red and white wine and ate salami and cheese and tomatoes from The Patch and even made it through a grandparent brunch without driving grandpa david nuts. my mom fed us tidbits from her training as a sonoma county naturalist--vultures are the only bird that can smell. yellow jackets are wasps. she tells us about a dog chasing a deer through nathanson's creek behind their house.

the way home was pretty for a while, with rolling hills of grapes on vines, and a stop at the beautiful stanly farm to pick pumpkins and run between tall sunflowers and corn stalks and pretend to drive rusty old tractors.

then we hit the traffic on 80 and the world started to seem not so nice. sitting in a mass of barely moving cars for two hours gives you time to think about all things wrong: from too many people to collapsing economies to oil wars to unsustainability to people just being jerks as they honked and shoved their ways from lane to lane. and the bridge, the bridge, well if you know me you know how i feel about that. suspended so high in traffic i bit my lip and felt my hands go numb as rich drove and i silently begged my children to be quiet and happy and patient. miles put his new yoda mask on to make our neighbors in the traffic jam smile as we eased our way down into our tall city.

i want to take the ferry next time.

back in sf we dropped rich off and went to the friends of potrero hill at i.m. scott raise a roof benefit. maya and i rode on a bike to provide pedal power for blenders and spin art, and we all pedal powered the bluegrass musicians amps. as kids ate treats, poked at weeds growing through cracks in the asphalt, played with hula hoops and rode things with wheels we heard educators plead for money. friends of potrero hill has found a home in the i.m. scott building owned by sfusd. sfusd will lease to to foph for $1 a year, and in return friends of potrero hill will build a new little sustainable beautiful place in which to teach preschoolers. all the preschool needs is 600,000.

it is time, time, time, time, time, time, time for some big changes. is it crazy to think that in these very scary economic times there is hope for donations of $600,000 to build a little neighborhood preschool that wants to teach kids about peace and sustainability? just hearing the plea, amongst the rock the bike people and joyful kids, was in a strange way inspirational. like, it's insane, but it is gonna' happen anyway.

i hope so.

night night

gifts before noon today

ahh, friday, i love you.

we climbed up the rocky way to starr king this morning, scrambling up like rock climbers and being snow leopards. maya cut her wrist but did not cry. on the playground a parent gave her a pink rubber bracelet for her suffering.

miles got involved with a pack of kids and did not seek me out to say goodbye when the bell rang, a first.

maya and i walked down 24th st and watched ants crawling out of cracks with white food in their mouths. a stooped and smiling old lady threw rice for the pigeons. we ate a hipster donut listening to old soul music and then a stranger gave maya two metal bicycle-shaped keychains she made for her business.

we saw lobsters in tank with rubber bands around their claws. disney princess on ice posters, religious statues that look like queens, a cute little doggie, aww, some broken glass to step over. a bus stop poster with a man and a woman wearing gas masks.

at maya's dance class a little bit of her tinkerbell dress ripped and she let another girl have it for a bracelet. then she shocked me by giving away the pink rubber bracelet to a little girl named frankie.

on the way home i got maya rice and beans and the waitress gave maya a floating green balloon with a pink string. we walked by two memorials, candles and flowers and photos huddled around trees.

then maya's balloon got away. she started to get upset and then decided against it.

home now in our dirty apartment, maya watching a little bit of little bear, quiet green trees blowing around in the back yards.

happy weekend
xo,
j