miles the werewolf at school halloween parade

isn't this a cute werewolf? don't you just want to take off that mask and hug him?

pre halloween

halloween is days away yet some things around here are taking on that element of..."what are we?"this is a house we walk by on the way to school. for a long time it has been the house that needs some love. suddenly it is the witch's house. look closely...creepy, eh?

and this, is it harmless entertainment for kids or an expensive subliminal message filled commercial for those too young to know better?
1974 looney tunes folder propped up on nasty garbage container by sf general. conceptual art? why does the tasmanian devil look so evil? i never before noticed what a carnivore he is. and what is bugs looking at?

wha,ah,ah

little spiral, beasts

well, things have been pretty exhausting lately. my son is experiencing separation anxiety, which i have recently learned can rear its ugly head between the ages of 6-8 and then again for the tweens, as the kids reach new stages of understanding how they are separate from their parents and also what the world may have in store for them. so life has been full of reassurance, logic, worry time, talking back to worry bullies, back up plan after back up plan,making things calm and good and happy, talking to the school counselor. yesterday was one of the worst mornings, and rich had to peel a wailing miles off me as i left for work. he then put scared and miserable miles in the car and just happened to turn on stairway to heaven on the radio which, he said, snapped miles out of his fear and into a normal state. who knew? soon he was playing handball on the schoolyard and things were all hunky dory today. led zeppelin therapy. we are trying our best.

some of this means i am spending quite a bit of extra time making sure i am there to pick up miles exactly right on time every day, which can be tricky with a job and a four year old. today maya and i arrived at starr king too early because she practically sprinted up potrero hill, being ozma of oz with a brown puppy. we had 30 minutes to kill in the starr king open space, and made a baby rock spiral and several maximum volume short movies, mostly about protecting puppies from: the tree monster!! the rock monster!! the earth monster!!! protect your puppies, hold onto them and don't let go!!!!!

shout it from the hilltop maya! protect your puppies from these beasts!! and end your crazy movie with a big long loud laugh.

same clouds

my friend and former bandmate who lives across the city posted a picture of these very same clouds from the same sunrise last week. amazing. the rain has come and everything is wet and gray. suddenly the city seems emptier.

rich is listening to some eery atmospheric guitar down the hall and i hear maya's cough from her bedroom. it won't be long before she gets up and gets into the bed with me to snuggle and go back to sleep. there is some persistently being mailed to us disney family magazine (did you, dear reader, send it to us?) in the bathroom, full of cheery ideas for thanksgiving activities and christmas gifts for kids to make themselves. winter has pretty much arrived. every year i forget about this season, and after only two days of gray i am missing the clarity of the blue sky and the sight of my kids playing outside.

pandora radio music and fancy plant store

i have music in the car now. i forgot how music affects your thoughts as you drive through the world. listening to palace brothers and bon iver as i drove up past glen park canyon in the fog felt very different than driving up with just my own worried little petty thoughts.

it's thursday, my friday. a big sigh of relief as i said goodbye to my last little language-delayed student (who told me a long story i understood pretty much none of, about egg-man, a big ship, and robots) and headed off to pick up my own kids. since i am not allowed to pick up miles before the predetermined pick up time maya and i stopped to browse around flora grubb nursery. i know it is shi shi, and some might hate this place but i love it. all the expensive little glass terrariums full of air plants, and rusty bikes hanging in the air serving as planters, and rocks with holes carved in them growing succulents. what could be more perfect than a plant? we got two pumpkins, one green and one orange. miles is going to make his into calvin's head (from calvin and hobbes that is).

singing, dancing, eating, riding ponies, stuck buses, big fears

the potrero hill festival is my favorite of the year.

maya (and her brother and cousin) found herself on stage again with the mobile arts platform, singing and dancing with the amazing Asheba. less than two weeks ago she was dancing with MAP at the galeria de la raza. i'm liking the MAP.

the kids made their own cotton candy at the potrero hill neighborhood house booth. there were pony rides supplied by an exceptionally crotchety pony lady. politicians and michelin men handing out bags of candy. a joyous dance performance with much audience participation by students from the international studies academy. here is a video of the cupid shuffle, something i was unaware of until saturday. i still can't do the electric slide. we also got to see a muni bus stuck on the crest of the hill at 2oth street and carolina. later on we went to a giants game on tv party and today was a mellow one with miles' sweet friend over for a playdate.

despite all the fun, my little partier son could not go to bed tonight because of his persistent new fear, the terrifying possibility that i will be late to pick him up at school and he will have to go in the dreaded cafeteria after 5;30 and wait for me. it is heartbreaking to see my son crying about this day after day, so i am going to try and take more action to make things better for him. it is not the kids, or the teachers, it is miles' feeling that he would be "in a big empty room, all alone." to be somewhere surrounded by people, but no one he really loves, not a close friend or his family is miles' current fear, and it is a big one. i do understand. it is hard to be patient about this, but i do understand. i do.

i guess the cure will be to somehow show him not that i will always get him from school before the remaining kids in the after school program are herded into the cafeteria, but that if i don't he will be able to go in there, and be ok waiting in that big empty room, and maybe even find that it is not as empty as he thinks.

this is a challenge. let me know if you have any ideas.

put down that book!

stop reading and get ready for school! i found myself saying this about ten times this morning as my two kids sat at the table eating oatmeal as if they were inside a black hole, and reading (in maya's case looking at) comic books. here is miles attempting to brush his teeth while reading

eric shanower's adventure in oz.

so yes, we have an avid reader here, despite the mandarin immersion, and part of me is pleased to see miles stumbling around our halls reading, and lounging on the couch reading, and sloppily eating oatmeal reading, and sneaking a flashlight into bed. much of me is pleased. but part of me sees myself in this reading fiend, the self that does not like to be left with my thoughts too much, and is too lazy to write a book even though i love to read them. so, my little reader, do beware that reading can be the enemy of writing.

now i am off to read my own book, the only thing i can do to get to sleep. i'm reading louise erdrich's the red convertible, selected and new stories. ahh the sleepy lullaby of heartbreak and humor. the benadryl helps too.

glen ellen parade

here is a purple cheetah with a flower lady, representing the nonprofit my mom volunteers with, the bouverie nature preserve. we joined a tiny parade in tiny glen ellen. everyone knew each other. lots of dogs, lots of happy kids,a very small town surrounded by woods. we ate a pumpkin cookie from a booth raising money for kids with cancer. miles stared at their bald photos a long time. the kids played a bunch of games and won candy and plastic crap. it turned out later my poor son had strep throat while he was marching in a parade in the 90 degree heat.

kind of like a street fair in sf, except a longer drive to get there, i didn't know anyone, pretty much only english being spoken, no buses, and hotter. did i mention i didn't know anyone? my mom says she can see me here in this little town. miles rolling down the streets on his heely's, maya a star in the dunbar school musical. what would i be doing here? writing a novel in my room that trees peeked into? feeling new and unknown? missing the gourmet donuts, garbage and traffic on my street, and the familiar faces?

so many people i know have fled the city for little towns like this. everyone seems equally happy no matter where they are.

this afternoon

here is a little plug for project-based learning. a few girls from maya's pre-k went to hawaii, and taught some other girls hula dancing. they started bringing in and reading books about hawaii, making grass skirts, painting a mural with hawaii themes, and the culminating event was tonight's hawaii christmas party, where we witnessed a dance these four-year-olds choreographed themselves, and opened presents they had made for and addressed to their parents. very impressive. and very cute. aloha. of course the night ended with everyone running around in circles very fast and banging into each other.

and walking home from soccer the kids and i were lucky enough to see this painting being created:
definitely the most amazing oil painting ever of the stop sign and party store at wisconsin and 23rd.

million fishes

very halloween-y art exhibit at million fishes art gallery at 23rd/bryant

hardly strictly afternoon

after a morning at the skate park i fled the home scene and took a cab to hardly strictly bluegrass. my cabbie was from morocco and philosophized to me saying loudly "just live your life!" several times while telling stories about an ex-girlfriend. the festival was a huge mob scene, but fairly orderly, with a few youngsters attempting some sort of rebellion by smoking clove cigarettes and limbo-dancing with their friends' digeridoo (as it was being played, really!). i spent a lovely reflective 45 minutes or so sitting on a little hill near the stage listening to patti smith play. heroin was the first song, and gloria the last, with lots of songs going out to poets in between. i found my friends and their irish bachelor party in the meadow during her last song, and things rapidly devolved. i joined them and their whiskey for a ride in a stretch hummer down to broadway and made my exit while i still could.

ducked into house of nan king and sat cozily between two older than i am couples, one from new yawk and one from munich. when i came home i was a bad mom and gave the kids, lying one on each side of me in the dark, a chocolate and caramel treat to eat with their freshly brushed teeth.

more happens without the car

this evening, after an afternoon watching my boy play a soccer game and then an impromptu tennis match with a sporty friend in the richmond fog, i got the urge to go to the library. maya and i hopped on the 48, not realizing the route had changed, and it no longer went near the potrero branch. we had a ride up and over potrero hill, down to 3rd st., then back over the hill again and into the flat mission and 24th st. we got our goods at the library and headed home in the dusk, neon lights starting to come on, kids in soccer uniforms seemingly everywhere. we shared a delicious plate of rice, beans, and fried chicken at usutalan. we stopped to check out a window display with chuckie and two live dogs in pink dresses.

then we continued on, starting to get a little tired. across the street i saw lights were on at la galeria de la raza and thought we would stop in for a minute to check it out. we ended up staying for about 45 minutes enjoying the singer songwriter theresa perez. maya was amazing, she got up and danced right up in the front, all by herself. not completely unselfconscious, the opposite really, because she was very pleased to have everyone watching her and smiling. the musician thanked her for dancing and at one point even stopped singing and said "dance solo" for maya. i was proud.

my daughter is a very good dancer. now there are some big plans to dance in a show, a band, wearing a floor length red ball gown with a diamond necklace and a crown. and white gloved that go up to her shoulders. luckily there is the upcoming hawaiian christmas party at her school, planned by the kids and supported by the teachers.

i got off track a little there. anyway, all this would have been missed if we had hopped in the car. thank you, 48 bus, and thank you foot for not hurting today so i could feel happy walking home through my neighborhood.