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Friday, May 28, 2010

super urban

this afternoon on the charter bus to the starr king track meet i sat next to a cool little kid who moved here from mexico. i asked him which he liked better and was surprised to hear he liked san francisco better. he said there was not much to do in mexico. EXCEPT go fishing and hunt deer and salmon with a bow and arrow. miles' eyes bugged out of his little city boy head.

things have been super busy, a blur of iep meetings, pta meetings, science fairs. today was my day off with maya and it all slowed down. we walked big brother to school. took the car to the mechanic across the street and while we waited for a repair we walked to dynamo donuts. on the way we met a lady from pennsylvania and her cat scooter. we found a wierdly fresh-looking easter basket full of fake grass and plastic eggs. maya oohed and aahed over the fantastically beautiful houses on york street. we got the chocolate rose donut and split it, while reading a book about donuts. on the block long walk back a man pruning roses cut one and gave it to maya. "that's a nice rose" i said. "that's a nice MAN" said maya.

maya and i went and saw some city and farm animals and the amazing view at the randall museum and then came home and gardened and then i took miles to his school track meet.

i had imagined this event taking place at a big stadium somewhere but a bunch of kids in starr king t-shirts got on a charter bus playing loud r and b and headed to the heart of the tenderloin. there were cool tall coaches and assistant teen coaches in purple and yellow tracksuits. these were all volunteers through parks and rec and various tenderloin youth groups. and a ton of people from starr king, which i guess is one of the few elementary schools with trekkers, which is basically kids running laps around the yard for tiny prizes.

it was a little confusing and i was assigned to the start of the 50 yard dash. which i realized was going to be on eddy street. buses and cars were flying by, crack addicts all around. there were two police barriers blocking part of the road off and another volunteer and i took matters into our own hands and pulled some more out, blocking the street completely. blocking that street felt awesome. the 5o yard dash then proceeded, with kids at the starting lines in groups of 4, a real starting gun which scared the crap out of some kids, and people in purple and yellow track suits with sharpies writing down each kid's time on the sticker on their shirt. older toothless women walking saying how cute it was. inside the rec center there was a softball throw, a long jump, and hot dogs, bananas and o.j. for all. there was a raffle which every kid won. miles won a brown fake wool scarf and a baseball. there were trees to climb and the grand finale was a parent and coach relay race.

a mini track meet in the heart of the tenderloin, about as super urban as you can get.

Monday, May 24, 2010

vegetables

i am feeling very farmy-y right now. today i harvested a big bunch of carrots, parsnips with their greens, arugula and one beet from our little garden. i roasted the parsnips and carrots, and just made up a parsnip greens recipe with what we had:

take all the leaves off the stems, steam until tender
saute one chopped onion and a little leftover turkey in olive oil
add greens, a little wine, some salt and pepper, and a few shakes of jalepeno hot sauce

very tasty and healthy. it is encouraging to be able to grow food in this little not so ideal yard. if we can grow vegetables here with some love and care then a lot of things are possible.

of course my kids won't actually eat these vegetables but that is a different story.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

bus ride

last night i indulged myself and read about 200 comments in the chronicle written in response to the article about the adequacy for education funding lawsuit against the state. the comments were pretty shocking and about 75% found a scapegoat for the education funding problem. unions, illegal immigrants, and even a little special ed (why should we spend so much money to educate these people's messed-up kids?).

walking up 24th street while waiting for the bus up to noe valley to buy facepaint for my son's school fundraiser tomorrow:

i am drawn to the socialist workers table at 24th and mission. i remember my good friend's parents went to socialist labor party picnics and things, they were really into it. i tell the nice young man there with the earnest thin face that i guess i am not so happy being with capitalism anymore, but not sure i am ready to be a socialist either. he gives me a newspaper to read and i hop on my bus.

noe valley is full of happy wealthy people in the sun. everyone seems to be outside today. at the farmer's market i get some spinach. people are all sitting on chairs outside cafes and restaurants. a lone man in a muscle t is playing electric guitar--santana, led zeppelin, dueling banjos.

i bump into a friend whose kid goes to a public school up here. she said at their school auction last week they raised $140,000 in one day--$17,000 of that in "tequila parties"

on the bus on the way home two middle-aged-older men sit in the united nations line-up that is the 48 going from noe to potrero hill. a woman who turns out to be a man sits next to me and these two men feel fine discussing how disgusting it is when men dress up like women. the bus driver has some stories about how he calls these men sir and they are so offended. the other man asks what this world is coming to and starts talking about the bible.

when i get off there is a wierd incident where a very speed-freaky looking man does something a speed-freaky looking woman does not like and then she is at walgreen's asking the clerks to call 911 because she has been robbed and they just avoid eye contact with her and pretend she does not exist. this is what san francisco is like the woman says. "can anyone hear me? i was robbed and i want to call 911. can you hear me??" as i left a serious faced young manager was coming over to take charge of the situation.

Friday, May 21, 2010

it's okey, im an old man now

it's a little hard to see, but this is a crying bunny saying "today my mom died" and an owl with a broken wing saying "it's okey, im an old man now." does this make you laugh? if it does, i like you, or at least i like your mood.



wierd images today. a trail of hockers up 23rd street on the way to school. i passed through that lovely forested area between laguna honda and behind ucsf and looked across the water to see a person in an e.t. like hazmat suit pulling a vacuum of some sort through the trees. a huge blind woman across from dynamo donuts tapping with her cane and chanting "i'm right here" at the top of her lungs until a friend pulled over in a truck and she got in.

today maya said goodbye to her best friend lucy who is moving to boston. poof.

we picked fava beans in the garden and turnip greens and found some roly polys. maya actually sat down and helped me peel the favas like some sweet little fantasy and i cooked them with olive oil, garlic, and the turnip greens and they were pretty tasty.

rich is at band practice being creative and having fun. the kids are passed out, maya with a smeared butterfly face and miles nestled in the bed with a pair of electronic wolverine gloves with retractable approxmately 18 inch claws. aww. i just did the peeping tom thing with facebook again. my boss seems to be going bonkers or playing head games with me but i can't write about that here. a group of students and organizations is suing the state of california because the schools are so screwed up and poorly funded.

i need a project to sink my teeth into. summer is here in 2 weeks.

come and visit!

xo


Friday, May 14, 2010

ahhhhhh ARTS

in the face of the may revise crazy terrible budget cuts and looming economic crises, collapse of life as we know it, better work on that backyard garden and maybe get some chickens too, etc etc i took miles to the de young museum tonight to see the stagewrite presentation of some fifth grade playwrights at starr king's work. we got to the museum to see a ton of kids there for the young at art celebration, and lots of great kid art up at the museum. we went into the koret theater, a medium big place, and the show began.

IT WAS SO AMAZING!!!!!!!

stagewrite has worked with the kids at starr king for four years, starting with drama games and working up to being playwrights and producers in fifth grade. they do all kinds of great stuff like taking the kids to the de young to be inspired by visual art, taking them to the zeum to make claymation introductions to their plays. then they assemble an amazing cast of actors, a live band, a fantastic sound effects person, and the actors perform the kids' plays live, while the kids sit one at a time on the stage at a desk labeled "the playwright". then one by one there was a sweet little claymation intro with the kids voices saying who they were. and then the awesome, awesome plays, introduced by a very cool fifth grade girl. i didn't know these kids but i feel like i do now, and their plays were deeper and realer than pretty much any adult plays i have seen. the kids even wrote the lyrics to songs that were in many of the shows. each play was inspired by a piece of art which was shown on a screen behind the stage. then the background scenes were pictures the kids drew, projected onto the screen.

i can't remember them all but every single play was so good.

a sculpture of a church made of bullets: inspired in one playwright's mind an eerie funny story about a misguided soldier with a bad sense of direction. it took me a while to get it, but i realized the soldier was being taught by a wicked haunted mansion in the bermuda triangle to be anti war.

a painting of a woman picking picking cotton: became a play called "go north" about a girl picking cotton on a plantation who thinks her life is good until a talking four leaf clover which was her mother until she was killed trying to escape slavery tells her to go north. she follows stars and ends up escaping and planting four leaf clovers up north.

a sculpture of a fist with two eyes becomes a story about an angry boy living in a tree house in a future world ravaged by meteors who feels his father does not care about him. he goes to kill a panther for his family to eat but when he fights the panther the panther scratches out his eye. he throws the eye at his father in his hut and leaves home.

a painting of superman becomes a hilarious story about a man who is bored sitting around his house reading comics and watching cartoons. his bored and frustrated cell phone comes to life and they go into the world to fight crime but fail miserably. they go home and back to their existence as "total morons".

a sculpture i couldn't quite see became a story about a litterbug girl growing up in a part of new york full of people littering and fighting. when mother nature comes down to earth to teach her a lesson by raining cats and dogs on her, making her shower burn and freeze her, and directing a flower up her nose, the girl gets mad that she is being targeted while everyone litters. then she and mother nature sing an amazing duet about how she can be good to the earth and teach her friends to follow her. they have a party and stop throwing hot chips wrappers on the ground and learn to recycle and the overly serious mother nature becomes a member of an all girl rock band.

and a painting of a woman with a necklace becomes a story of a diamond necklace with a french accent who falls in love with his owner. he is dropped in a sewer accidentally and travels around the world. when he finds his owner does not love him but just wants to use him for her prom, he decides to stay in canada and finds true love.

anyhow, i was excited about this performance, because it was to me real art which is voices and visions which give the audience a new perspective. and i'm tellin' ya', for 90 minutes, really, i laughed and cried. i was pretty much in awe of these awesome playwrights, and got a little insight into their lives.

thank you art and those who think it is important.


Saturday, May 1, 2010

beehive tree

these kids are posing--if you can' t tell they are supposed to be eating honey. this tree in glen park canyon has a fence around it and it took us a little while to figure out why--there are hundreds of bees buzzing in and out. today the kids and i took a little hike through my favorite park this side of town. the playground area full of birthday partiers, tiny t ball players, soccer teams running across the huge field, a tennis player playing in (only) skin tight white jeans. maya spotted a box of chocolate cupcakes on a bench and the kids were given one by a friendly woman who said she baked too many. as we leave this busy area and walk the path between the creek and the huge grassy stony hill the crowd thins down to a few dog walkers. we see an excited man and woman with binoculars and they let us use them to see baby owl heads poking up out of a nest in a huge eucalyptus tree. there are signs up about the coyotes, there is miner's lettuce, wild radish, blackberries with blossoms everywhere we look, little creeks with secret hideouts, aggressive robins, blue damsel flies. i am proud my kids can spot poison hemlock and deadly nightshade, they know their dangers well. we meet a tough looking lady and somehow in minutes have made a connection and she is telling me how she rescued one of her pit bulls out of a neighbor's yard because they were letting him get ripped up by other dogs. "if you spend five thousand dollars on vet bills for an animal they become yours, right?", and then wierdly i have teary eyes and she does the bam thing on my fist and tells me i have a lovely family. which i do.