good influence

miles has been saving up his allowance. first for some star wars lego set, then for a long time it was a snake, then suddenly...a drum. he wanted one like his music teacher plays. so miles crammed about 4 months of allowance into his wallet, and we went to guitar center on van ness. a lot of fun, maya running around playing all the sets and me looking longingly at them, and my son walked out with his very own ( i think) djembe drum. we have been watching master drummers in africa online and my friend lauren of the brass liberation orchestra is going to come and give a lesson. maybe i will learn, too. i miss playing drums, hitting things,the rhythm. thank you mr. tracey, for your good influence.

old friends, bb guns, ballet

so, maybe i sugarcoat things here sometimes, but let me just write this down--i am not happy at all that there are a bunch of kids running around in my just turned seven year old boy's after school program with bb guns. i am imagining bad things going on with kids and teens playing with guns. no, no, no, i don't like this at all. so the kids are not exactly in the program but the parks and rec program is in a public space, a beautiful public space, but not so beautiful with the bb guns and kids with them not following rules real well. i am FREAKING out about this. we will see how things unfold.

what else? last night a and c and two wonderful old friends from back in delaware came over for dinner. we got fancy cheese, rich made chicken and dumplings, i made an arugula and citrus salad. there were juicy vodka drinks and mini cupcakes, a basketball game on the back deck, some cinderella role playing, many old photos to dig through, and maya face, foot and hand painted 75% of the adult guests. i then escaped at 8 and hopped in the car with our visitors. we walked around bernal hill in the dark, a perfect clear and cool night. lots and lots of nostalgia, paired with the bb gun freakout making me long for the simpler, well maybe not simpler, but those old days in delaware and philly--cueball and needlenose the dogs, bands in the basement, awesome shows at the khyber, no kids to worry about--without those kids we all had time to love each other a little more. it is hard to bond with new friends in the same way as old. most of the new friends we have know us in the context of parent. which is a good context, but sometimes you want to be with people who knew you when you were just, well, you.

today suling and the girl cousins and i headed south to the mountain view performing arts center for the ballet "sleeping beauty's wedding". umm.....yawn.....snore. oh, excuse me. i actually was pretty entertained during the show by maya's whispered comments "amazing!!", "that was so amazing!!" and the slightly pathetic "mommy, she is more beautiful than me." after the show the girls ran around in a clean sunny public plaza dancing and trying to boss us around. two men chit chatted with us and one mentioned that his favorite part of the show was when a ballerina was lifted up in the air and a child said "WHOA!", making the whole audience laugh. i was so proud, that was my girl maya being loud in the quiet theater.

anyway, flee the city thoughts creeping in, or at least flee the after school program which i have always thought was great except for that little safety factor. i want to trust the outside world to be good to my kid but it is very very hard. wish us luck figuring this one out.

balance?? denial??

this weekend rich was away and my mom came to visit. we packed the weekend. saturday morning we met at the exploratorium, home of some of the world's greatest toys, where we made instruments, recorded a radio show, played with sand and magnets and air and beach balls and metal waves, observed a decomposing rat, danced in front of rainbow lights, made a steam tornado, and more. afterwards we sat outside and watched young brides and grooms being photographed by the palace of fine arts, and saw a blue heron and a turtle in the water. we walked across the windy street to chrissy field and played in the sand, looked at sailboats on the bay and volleyball players and a ground squirrel. the next day we went to a fancy plant nursery and i listened to a presentation on vertical gardens while the kids made planters out of recycled plastic bottle cloth and paper. we ate out on 24th st at punjab and then miles and i played a little basketball (he beat me) while maya played with grandma josy. she departed, rich returned, and right before dinner i walked with maya to the skate park, enjoying the last of a beautiful day. someone had pooed in the play structure, maya spent her time petting little dogs, and i met a san francisco parents for public schools founder and heard about an alternative budget they are proposing to keep cuts away from the classrooms. she brought me right back to the reality of what is going on with education right now--the words people are using are "horrible", "ridiculous", "crisis".

so, science, music, nature, beauty they are all close around us and that is part of why we are here in this city. and close up to are the budget cuts and swelling classrooms and poo on the play structure.

talking to my mom late at night during the sleepover conversation came back to concern over the crazy economy and basic state of the world. she tries not to think about the future too much and concentrates on enjoying her life, which makes perfect sense. she has spent much of her life taking care of her kids and now helping with grandkids. she is teaching kids about nature up there in sonoma and singing in a choir and learning spanish. she is not freaking out about what the world will be like for her grandkids in 20 years because she does not want to feel bad. i am in a wierd state where i am thinking about the bigger world so much, how we should be socialists, vegetarians, walkers, you name it, thinking about how to make things better in the future for the kids. however, in my real life i am not doing many of these things. i am spending money on museums, succulents, eating chinese food in a restaurant when i could be giving my time and money to, well, lots of nobel causes.

seems like the worse things get in the outside world the quicker i feel off balance in my own. i am positively dizzy lately. right now i am going to put some strings up in the back yard for pea plants to climb. then get my kids and try to have some fun with them. it is hard to feel balanced without feeling denial, but this is something i am just going to have to work out.

miles first post

my mommy and daddy are cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i like my daddy because he plays basketball with me.

i like my mommy because she plays power miners with me.

cheap pink camera and a little good news

we have all been having fun with maya's cheap pink camera. here is something arty, and something ridiculous.today was again sunny and perfect, reminding me of one of the reason's i live in this effed state. all week we have been eating arugula, collard greens, and some carrots from the garden. i am trying to work on some wind blocks, and it is not the explosion of produce we experienced in the summer back east, but it is nice to have food growing in the backyard all year long. maya and i sat in the open space for a long time after dropping miles off at school, finding ladybugs, meeting small dogs and their owners, and deep listening to birds all around.

and good news, the pta at miles school scrambled over the past month and together we donated $40, 000 in 3 weeks to try and fund an additional teacher next year, since things are looking so grim for next year with 16 teachers. so things still look quite grim, but it is great to know that people will dig deep when they need to. we will be doing more of that soon i am sure.

it is hard to get kids to bed when it is sunny so late. daddy rich is away up north playing music in a wooden dome. my children are winding down from a crazy after soccer playdate which involved a bunch of kids eating popsicles and then taking off their shirts and wrestling in the sand. grandma is coming tomorrow. i hear wind kicking up and people laughing and someone learning how to play drums. time for two stories and then maybe a long hot bath with a little pear cider and a new yorker.

goodnight.

milesssss is sssseven

look at that happy kid. i spent much too much time obsessing about miles' birthday again but it was worth it. scouring the internet for the right basketball shoes and lego set. finding the perfect recipe for a cake shaped like a snake. making sure there were the correct juicy kid's afternoon birthday party drinks to keep the adults happy. creating a snake craft activity which no one looked at. putting together a snake treasure hunt which concluded with the extra-special event, rich's co-worker's two ball pythons who came to visit. renting air bud at le video. the party went well and concluded as several have, with our oldest and closest friends' kids dancing around in their underwear with miles and maya.

does it make sense to worry so much about things being perfect for your kid on his birthday? maybe i worry so much because the rest of life seems kind of hard. parents both working, this tough urban environment, a school day mostly in a foreign language. maybe i worry because miles has trained us well...when he is disappointed he sure lets us know. or maybe i just really want my kid to be happy on his birthday.

i am a little depressed lately about the way scarcity of resources in the schools is dividing people and also taking away from the kids' childhood. miles looks longingly at photos and videos on maya's preschool blog and wishes he could return to preschool. for 1100/month she gets art projects, tons of nurturing, visiting animals, time to run, dig, build, act, hear stories, swing, splash, ballet dancing in the loft, cooking, making forts and more. deep down i agree with miles, and wish there was enough money for kids so that even with they are great big old kids like first grade miles they could live and learn the way his little sister gets to. like kids should.

ninja hip

on the way home from school today miles pulled out this piece of paper. on the side he wanted to show me was a "ninja hip". i guess hip is hippie, and hippie obviously means rock music, man. if you look closely you can see how the ninja's swords were erased, and then replaced with guitars. there are two plants in the foreground which are also holding guitars. miles is feeling a powerful love vibe, dude, good for him! must be all the marching and talk about schools needing money more than wars needing money.
on the reverse were some chinese characters, pathetically not a one of which i know. miles rattled them off as we walked down our oddly starting to hail block and then we were inspired to stop at lily's drycleaning shop (i have posted about lily before, our amazing tiny chinese senior citizen neighbor who survived a very violent assault in her little shop a few years ago and is back and perky as ever). i know miles was hoping for a treat as he read all the characters to lily, and maya sure was (she was actually looking around the little store and behind the dry-cleaned clothes for a box of cookies or stuffed animal, both of which she has scored in the past), but all he got were about 10 hugs, big squeezes, huge smiles and multiple suggestions to go home and read the characters to his daddy who would be happy he knew how to read so much. when we left miles mentioned how lily might have a treat next time, or the next time.

so, we will keep trying to be nice and communicate with our neighbors, and get treats sometimes and not others. it's all good.

peace out

p.s. oops, the characters are upside down

march 4 day of action

here are a few photos from the day of action march for education. a BIG group of parents, school staff and kids marched down potrero hill to 24th and mission, waving signs and chanting, kids chit-chatting about webkins and darth vader. we got honks, waves and smiles from sf general nurses, store owners and walkers, huge grinning enthusiasm from a woman drinking out of a brown paper bag, and car-blocking and loud honking form ms. evangeline. as we reached 24th and mission our little group became hundreds, people stretched out mission street as far as we could see. there were kids in strollers, kids chanting in spanish, crazy skeletons and giant marching paper mache puppets from sf state. we saw our friends from leonard flynn, buena vista, fairmount. mr. tracey played his drum, lots of union-led chanting, and the kids were amazing troopers--miles walked all the way to the civic center. my favorite sign said "I Can't Believe We Are Still Protesting This Crap".

there were thousands of people at civic center and a somehow upbeat mood. are we all just in denial as our society is starting to collapse? is there any money or any way things are going to get better? lots of signs about taxing the rich and corporations, educate not incarcerate, and children are the future. it all makes sense but can grassroots efforts like this change anything? people seem so excited and hopeful. lots of talk about repealing the 2/3 majority. we will see. my friend told me about a teacher at school of the arts who told her teenage students not to go to the march because it was a waste of time. is it ok to teach kids to be cynical and passive? i don't think so.

i guess part of me is still very hopeful about the future, but i think a lot of things will be rough for a while. in our little world there is a lot of love for the kids. i marched so long my feet hurt and i had to take a bath with my "tired old a*& soak and take some advil.

messed up as this all is i am glad to be here right now.