locals

another full day. potrero hill rec center for a pick-up soccer game, lots of little boys running in the green. rocket sprinted around the field like a maniac and maya and her friend lucy made bead rings and shared a bottle of orangina on the playground. i took miles for his first violin lesson with one of the teachers from his school. on her block were several extremely friendly cats who greeted us with purring and rubbing. miles really liked the big grey guy, who a neighbor informed us was named chewie.

later we visited with an old friend and my brother and kids in parque ninos. miles and edison looked pretty huge on that big seesaw. i remember the first time he walked the 7 blocks to this park without being carried or strolled and what a big deal that was. the free farm stand was there, giving out free organic produce and acme bread, surplus from the ferry building farmer's market. the acme bread is a little too good with our fake butter right on the crust. on the way home we stopped to buy ice cream cones and have some cheap thrills on the water park swing. we ended our full day by having dinner with our friends and their three boys, the boys wild, temperamental, sweet, maya taking the three-year-old as her special little friend.

feeling sad that my fear of flying is keeping me from spending time with my friends and family on the east coast this summer. it has been a long time since we were in delaware, and this august my best friend will be there too. i tell myself we can't afford a big trip but of course we have a credit card. it's just still too scary. julia suggests hypnosis, but what if it worked? then i would be in a plane, which is just not at all safe. back to my old mantra, why can't we all be together, why are we so far apart? documenting the pleasures of our very local existence makes this pain a little less.

been a while

i got out of the blogging habit there for a while, sorry. lots going on for you and me.

here are my kids and two others we picked up walking to school yesterday. you can almost feel the cool wind and smell that dry starr king openspace grass, can't you? not bad.

i went to walgreen's today to pick up some allergy medicine, allergies are killing me lately. as soon as i walked in the door i saw this woman whose name i can never remember but who i have known for years. we worked together at cadillac head start in the tenderloin almost ten years ago, and now i see her around my son's school, where she picks up kids from the preschool and brings them to her daycare. she is an african-american woman, about 65, very nice. at cadillac there was a boy with autism who was very smart but just learning to communicate, and he would only listen to her and had to hold her hand on all the field trips. she was shaking and her eyes were bugging out and told me that the security guard had stopped her and searched her bags because he thought she stole something. her daughter was there with her and calling some head honchos at walgreen's to complain. she told me the security guard didn't like black people and she was the only black person in the store. trying to make her feel better i went up and told the guard i had known this woman for years, she took care of kids, and she was very upset. he said he had apologized ten times, but she was still mad. happy day before mother's day at 24th and potrero. at least they were making sure he would be more careful with accusations in the future.

last night my friend with the beautiful mansion hosted a teacher appreciation party for all the starr king staff. i was on the wait staff and helped bring out and clean up the amazing donated food and drink parents made. sangria, ceviche, paella, lemon squares, grilled chicken, donuts. a dad and his two friends played music and the teachers seemed pretty happy and mellow sipping sangria in the dusk looking over the city. i bonded a little with the special education teachers and once again offered up my offspring for integrated playgroups and any reverse mainstreaming which might happen. i stayed late drinking manhattans and laughing with the funny parents after the teachers had gone home and we had cleaned up. there was not much talk about the drastic budget cuts and crazy state of education funding. more about that later.

i got to talk to my best friend far away today. she called while maya and i walked home from dance class on 24th street. it was some kind of communion day with girl after girl walking by in beautiful white dresses, juxtaposed with the hipsters and tourists checking out murals. while we chatted maya took at least four pieces of gum from my pocket, removed her shoes, and tortured the dog on some concrete steps.

we are all hanging in there together in this random world.

probably the best (legal) way to watch a disney movie with your kids

birthday party cancelled, rainy day, so i looked online for something to do. miles and maya and i ended up heading to the castro to see the singalong little mermaid at the castro theater. i was surprised to see a line around the block and many folks in costume, but was assured we would get in. we did! taking our goodie bags to our seats we walked through a sea of happy people wearing golden paper crowns, waving light sticks, laughing. the pipe organist was playing "under the sea" and soon the hilarious emcees sebastian and ariel took the stage. there were some subtle sex jokes that the kids did not have a chance of understanding. there was a children's parade across the stage of little girls in mermaid and princess costumes. the very large and beautiful ariel introduced each one with great appreciation in her voice, even maya who was wearing jeans and a red shirt, and was introduced as "a beautiful princess from a far away land" and given her bag of fruity snack to great applause. then a brief adult costume contest and the movie began.

why ever go see a kid's movie the regular AMC kinda' way when you can see it this way? we were given props and instructions. "tell ariel to look out when the sharks come", "hiss when you see the eels", "make kissy noises when eric and ariel have a kissy moment", "blow your bubbles when she takes the bubble bath", "wave your glow sticks to warn ariel not to listen to ursula". everyone obeyed and added their own cheers and boos and gasps. oh yes, and it was a sing along with words for all the songs provided on screen and a majority of attendees singing out loud.

afterwards we stopped in at cliff's variety and i impulse bought a snoopy snow cone machine.

super camp. super fun. on the 33 bus on the way home a rough looking twenty-something-year-old overheard us talking about the movie and asked if we had been at the castro theater. she said she had been to the sing along sound of music. she thought they should have the rocky horror picture show, which brought me back. i used to love seeing that,everyone throwing toast when a toast was proposed, and squirting squirt guns in the rain, watching ridiculous meatloaf and sexy tim curry. and before the kids were born i used to go to the castro way more, for serious movies, silent movies, and to throw pills at the screen during mommy dearest.

there used to be more silly adult behavior in my life and i miss it.

the campiness today made me feel so much more connected to my fellow audience. and paying a little bit more was worth it, especially knowing that the theater can then afford to show non-commercial important films. i think we will be back next month for the sing along wizard of oz. wanna come?

cassie, missed you today...

xo

love letter

i went and saw rich's band carlton melton play at cafe du nord last night. j mascis played a song with them and it was pretty exciting, especially for rich and andy. a loooonnngg jam.

afterwards i went out to a nice gay bar with a few friends for a quieter drink. we discovered everyone in our group was jewish, at least in theory, and i enjoyed a few hours of talk talk talk. i discovered a good number of jews don't believe in god, but are in it for the community. my brother gave me a ride home and we stopped at el farolito for an unnecessary taco. jam packed at 1:00 a.m. with drunken people scarily walking around ignoring traffic. i gave a skinny homeless woman a buck and felt bad about not giving her my warm plastic bag full of a grilled chicken super taco.

at home i read a little bit of the new yorker at 2 a.m. and skimmed an article about how social connections and interactions create the most happiness for people.

and this morning sipped coffee in a big sunny room with huge windows and watched maya smile her way through her creative movement class at dance mission theater. she "loved it", "it was SO FUN because three girls i know were there."

the mother beside me, hugely pregnant, noted that the girls looked like a lot of little pretty birds.

the thought comes and goes sporadically that this blog is just a long letter to those people i love who don't share much time with me. those folks i fantasized about having an intentional community with at one time. those who have slipped away to places that are hard to travel to.

and check out the carrots! i had been waiting for some spindly carrot tops to grow big and strong in the garden but pulled a few today and discovered these short, thick, very tasty little guys. the potatoes were a surprise, some growing in the dark below the compost. the green onions are amazing roasted with olive oil and salt.

night night

love,