up north

hi

today in anchor bay/gualala/point arena

the kids are up by themselves in the morning and i hear them being fed breakfast and then playing outside in the huge huge fenced in yard--maya, miles and toddler kevin. there are tall pointy redwoods, and blue sky and sun by 10. sam the black and white terrier is in love with us, especially miles. we load up and visit the anchor bay beach right down the hill. a small curved bay with rocks to climb on jutting out of the sand and surf, a few blond and red-haired kids digging a booby trap, a tidal pond to splash in. houses on the cliffs above with long skinny staircases down to the beach. a fisherman shows off his pile of orange rockfish. hawks are circling overhead and i bury the kids and cover them with sand: maya a mermaid with little sand boobies, miles a torso being swallowed by a shark. lisa tells the story of a tourist up here for a meditation retreat sitting on a rock in the sea, being swept away forever by a rogue wave.

in the afternoon we go to the gualala river and swim in the cold clear swimming holes. miles jumps off a rock, i even take a dip. kevin throws rock ofter rock to hear the plop, maya is miserable about the lack of a toilet as i help her crouch on rocks under flowers which turn out to be covered by buzzing bees, and we capture a tadpole in a cup with tiny tiny legs.

afterwards i treat us all to dinner in a child-friendly restaurant. the kids are perfect with two huge tvs to watch, and we bump into our one friend up here with a kid miles' age. they play tag on the outside deck looking over the huge pacific and no one cares.

it is huge and clean and beautiful up here. much as i dread and don't enjoy the journey from sf, it is worth it. it is midnight and dead silent and dark. if i stop typing i can hear the quiet ringing in my ears--do you know what i mean?

sweet dreams

keeping busy not taking the yearly trek back east and trying not to be sad about it

the peach tree is dropping about 25 ripe peaches onto the ground every day. on saturday maya and i took two bags out on a walk. we gave the first one to a speed freak guy who is almost constantly in motion around the neighborhood. we went into the little take out deli place to see if they had mason jars to seal up the peaches and they didn't, but the counter guy offered to trade us, which we did, a bag of peaches for a big delicious chicken tarragon sandwich and curried cauliflower salad.

we spent saturday night in brisbane celebrating julia's 40th with naked children dancing, margaritas, water balloons, maya and natalie disappearing for hours to play complicated pretend games while miles and edison happily beat on each other and the grownups got nostalgic. little russell did some head-banging to a thin lizzy song rich played on guitar. where should we live decision of the moment: if we flee the city it will be for brisbane. we can trade in what we've got for a terraced view of the bay and beyond, safety, quiet, christmas light stars and sports and sports and more sports.

sunday i took miles for some culture downtown, the sf free theater festival. we watched lots of adults entertaining kids--psychotic clowns, storytellers, physical comedy, pirates, jugglers. but what i loved where the kid entertainers. we saw our acquaintance isabel singing excerpts from the sound of music, an amazing grease with long-haired drummer and teenagers from the mission singing and dancing, but my favorite was a group called the habit project from petaluma. they were from about 10-17, all beautiful kids in white shirts and black pants, full of joy but somber, singing and playing guitar, very adult songs about being fucked up, being in love, making stupid decisions. while listening i didn't know what the theme was but knew it was deep and the kids were special. i was ready to sign miles up, even if he would be learning about drinking and bad relationships and adult stuff. somehow it all worked, it was beautiful.

we crawled home on two buses. my little big guy has taken to wanting to hold my hand again lately. he does a little skip thing most of the time instead of walking.

today he wore his school uniform to the park. the kids climbed, were friendly enough with strangers to play soccer with them, maya scored a little baby and stroller she took care of for a long time. maya and miles were on the seesaw for a long time, moving the weights back and forth, going up and down, up and down, some bumps but mostly laughing.

tomorrow we head up north to point arena. miss you
love, jamie

freedom from training wheels

man i love this stuff. ever since i was a child, going to newark community days and checking out all the arts and crafts booths and live music and hula hoops in the grass and even having a picture hung on a tree in the kids art show. i loved sunday streets in the mission today, with bicyclists blasting michael jackson off their bikes on the closed off streets, my kids walking and biking down what is usually a traffic-filled danger zone, so many happy people, bumping into friends, the freedom from training wheels workshop (miles is training wheel free now!). merchants outside their stores, jumpy castles governed by teenagers from the bernal dwellings, a duo playing songs about coffee and cigarettes, a man offering free massage in spanish and english on a massage table outside his house, and yes hula hoops on the grass.

only once every few weeks, but maybe these sunday streets events really will get some things rolling, maybe someday we will close off the streets once a week, or even more! more and more people will want bikes and want to spend time walking and talking on the wide neighborhood streets. who thought to make this happen? i want to thank them.

we had friends over later and ate burnt grilled chicken and drank just enough beer and the kids played star wars and went to bed happy and quickly.

the wind is blowing hard now, over and out, goodnight.

movie night

well, we survived the giant's county fair today with david and emily. the 48 bus and the fancy new t line took us to borders, we ate burgers and then went to a sleazy kind of carnival by the ballpark, full of vendors desperate for us to throw balls and rings at bottles and squirt water for prizes. miles and emily teamed up for the rides up to 48" and maya and i spent some peaceful moments on the baby rides together. no baby animals or giant vegetables around. afterwards we went to chill out in the grass by the waterfront. a dude was down there having a great time playing electric guitar all by himself and miles and emily and maya played along on their inflatable guitars won at the fair (maya actually played a giant inflatable hammer with pretty pink pirate skulls). we made the journey back up and over potrero hill and met up with a little girl from miles' school.

now it is movie night and the kids and rich are watching star wars for fifth consecutive friday.

i guess it is okay to say this--i have been very anxious lately. i am finally starting to do something about it. everyone tells me it is normal to be worried about things, but all this worry is really getting to be too much, and my world is shrinking. i won't go into the details. but, for those who know me, it does help to share.

does living in the city contribute to the anxiety? if there was no scary traffic outside would i worry about people breaking into the house and kidnapping the kids in a sleepy suburb instead? or about mountain lions carrying them away in the countryside?

this weekend is chock full of things to do. mandarin classes, friends' bbqs, visits with new friends. flipper playing, sunday streets in the mission with all kinds of cool stuff, freedom from training wheels workshop for miles. it's not boring to be here. maybe all this activity keeps some of the worry at bay. maybe it is all a wash. who knows.

maya wants me to watch star wars with her because she is worried about luke. so there you go. i'm going to go and hold her on my lap and watch the good guys prevail.

4th of july

here is the gang that stayed in sonoma for fourth of july, and the two cinder blocks miles and i found and tucked some mexican feather grass into to beautify (?) our sidewalk.

sonoma was all about warm weather and cannonballs in the condo pool, fireworks and the big parade, walks to the square, ducks and ducklings, wine, pizza, and kids getting to wander in and out of front doors without me having a panic attack. miles made a buddy at the pool through an elaborate squirt gun war that ended up with the little boys holding hands while jumping in the pool. maya discovered the joy of floating with water wings and channeled her inner mermaid for a long long time. this was the first time i left sonoma thinking "maybe we could live there, someday, maybe..."

there was one sexy odd float in the parade that got everyone excited, a huge step van with pole dancers on the outside, something butthole surferish playing, a man with a microphone intoning wierd prose about liberty and an amazing vibe that brought me back to me experimental youth--past burning man and parties in philly to the distant past of newark and DAMON KHAN. something about the sight and music of this float actually got me teary eyed, i miss this feeling so much, i want to be on a float like this that gets the sonomans laughing and a little confused, i need my creative partners to be with me and my kids as i slip into my 40s.

rich suggested our own float for next year, "relatives of josy". anyone want to join?

and let's keep fighting for freedom--why do we have less freedom on an institutional level than much of the "first world"???

july 1

maya loving herself some pinata and miles in an abandoned fort on epic angel island, on our hike to quarry beach.

the apartment below us is empty. i had some hopes for a friendly family to move in, maybe even friends, but it will be taken by four women, strangers, though as i keep telling maya, not all strangers are bad.

an acquaintance at a birthday party on beautiful sunday in a lovely potrero home told me she had left sf and moved across the street from her best friend in albany and how she was loving it, and i felt a hard pang of jealousy. the kids ended up buck naked, we drank margaritas and chatted, they climbed in boxes and maya sang about butt cheeks and miles watched entranced as his little naked girl buddy did an interpretive dance standing on a cardboard box, about a flower growing up, on a stormy night.

today we went to the samurai exhibit at the asian art museum and it was all very amazing and old but i did not feel connected to the art or the artists. on the way home miles and i found a new seafood store on 24th street, with live crabs and lobsters, eel, huge shrimp. he said to the owner in mandarin "i like to eat fish."

birds are going crazy outside. we made a plum pie with plums from the yard yesterday and it was delicious.

love you, miss you

sidewalk again

category: sidewalk/kid quote/city living/where should we live/tiny ambitions

if you read this blog regularly (and the two of you know who i mean) you will notice that there are a lot of sidewalk and park posts. i think this reflects the urban nature of what i am pathetically trying to write about here, how we intersect and live in the public spaces of the
city.

i wish there were more positive sidewalk posts.


this morning walking past some stinky fluid on the sidewalk miles said "i wish we lived on garbage block (the other side of our block, which has some kind of wind tunnel of paper litter but is much much less travelled than potrero ave) so there would only be regular garbage and not so much poo and pee."

sigh

there are a lot of sick and homeless folks around lately. faces are becoming so familiar. the drunks at the walgreen's bus stop have moved somewhere else. sometimes the down and out people around here remind me of friends from my past in newark and philly. i had two different friends camping on my couch for a combined period of over two years way back when. rich just saw our homeless friend with the shopping cart downtown looking not so great. i know we are lucky. i try hard not to use the poor around here as lecture subjects for the kids "if you smoke cigarettes too much you can get too sick to have a job and end up not being able to pay for a place to live" but every now and then this kind of bs comes out of my mouth.

i guess the upside of all the nastiness on the sidewalk and crazy looking folks pushing shopping carts in traffic and tiny elderly chinese ladies carrying huge bags of scavenged recycling on a stick across her shoulders is that right outside our door the kids are learning about how varied everyone's living situations are. i guess it is my job to make that part of their education positive somehow. i will try my best...

mission pie, mission apple tree, mission plums

hi little journal

evan forced me to go to mission pie
with him yesterday. strawberry rhubarb and peach, with a big blob of thick whipped cream, i reminisced about the 1996 fruit pie and iced coffee national tour i went on. cassie you need to go there next visit.

last night miles and i went out at bedtime, walked down 24th st, through about eight doors into the inner sanctum of precita eyes mural gallery and painted 4 ceramic leaves on the branch of a gigantic apple tree for a big tile mural/mosaic going up at the 24th st snake water park over the next few weeks. i was supposed to go see shellac but passed out at 9 pm instead, with allergies and parent fatigue.

today i picked three ripe plums from the backyard plum tree. firm and sweet. and ate the first big red backyard radish and radish greens. the wind chimes are going crazy right now , louder than the ambulance siren and motorcyle engines gunning. our old windows are rattling in the wind. the kids so cute and so asleep and daddy rich is out with the band.

summer is here

since i am overwhelmed lately by the numerous subjects to write about i will kickstart my writing by analyzing miles' flag he made for the bear flag festival up in sonoma this weekend.

first, the obvious. this is a variation on the california state flag. the pictured variations are fireworks, which usually represent celebration and excitement. they can also be seen in this image as representing massive problems in the california state economy and government. boom, bam, krash.

we can also analyze my son's kindergarten education, which was in mandarin for 90% of his day all year. he learned what the state flag looks like, from the red stripe and star to the bear which happens on this flag to look like a prehistoric sloth. he learned to use pictures and words to represent ideas, and how to tape a piece of paper on a long stick and make his little sister envious of his flag. he learned how to write simple words like boom, bam, and krash, but has not picked up many sight words, which makes this overly worried mama nervous. he learned how to make thought bubbles and fancy exclamation points. note the absence of chinese characters. i would guess that this means miles has not yet learned the characters for boom, bam, or krash. i'm pretty sure he hasn't. this brings up a whole host of concerns about mandarin immersion and what it entails as far as comprehension and expression of content. i am going to give it another year, and see how it goes.

summer is here and i had my first partially kid-free day in a long time. i went to dmv and waited in several lines, shopped at rainbow grocery, indulged myself at a bookstore, cleaned the guinea pig cage, did laundry, emptied and filled the dishwasher.

oops, i did not have time to do exercises, call phobia therapists, or start making my massive to do list. i also seem to have run out of time to call several of my loved ones who i am procrastinating calling until i have some good news, like i have found several million dollars and will be buying houses and plane tickets so my loved ones can come visit or live here and we can spend some quality time bbqing and gardening and drinking and listening to music and digging in the sand with our toes and watching kids swim in blue pools and all that summer stuff.

face painting at home

weekend notes

friday night review scribbled on parking ticket envelope:

king of coffee
for years this was a scary meat market, and then for the last 2 it was a plant shop full of homeless plants leftover from hotels and closed down companies staffed by a friendly older man who sat on a plastic chair on the sidewalk surrounded by his potted trees and plants, smiling. orchids, palm trees, japanese maples, cacti, tiny fruit trees, spider plants. walking by tonight out by myself before the mandarin immersion mom's night out i notice some new art in the window, a dragon, an abstract metal sculpture. the plant shop is now king of coffee, with the plant guy's friendly son josue serving coffee and telling me about the incredible paint job--you just have to see it. bush and bob marley and james brown singing out from behind a mass of plants. it is a one cup at a time place, like philz, and i get the magic joe, which is quite special. a young punk looking bruce springsteen is making silver rings for chain mail, his mellow pit bull at his feet and his hip friend discussing her fashion show for the maker faire. then a guy pulls up in an electric golf cart with a kid in the front in a car seat, the kid wearing a mexican wrestling mask. he checks to see if the tiny cupcakes he makes have been selling. through the window where i sit i see pink and white and purple petunias dancing around in the wind, growing in a big homeade planter on wheels. a vaguely familiar guy with his daughter walks in and the guy smiles at me and asks where my little ones are. i don't know exactly why but i am feeling good about my neighborhood. if all my loved ones are far away i'll just have to love these strangers around here.

circus review:
miles got tickets from school to see the maker faire (incredible, we went last year) and the circus (i went last year but had forgotten it somehow). turns out the maker faire tickets were gone so saturday we checked out carson and barnes circus at cow palace.

now this is one seedy circus. miles ate a scary hotdog served by a man with major fingernail fungus. inflatable spongebobs and doras, cotton candy and snow cones came by us every 2-3 minutes held in boxes by desperate looking men. a lot of the performers had a lot of ace bandages on various joints. there was a six year old performing. the ponies were biting at themselves obsessively. the animal guy didn't look very nice.

of course maya was in heaven, literally screaming with delight each time a teenage girl dressed in a sparkly bathing suit with feathers on her head hauled herself up a rope or ladder, swung from something or clung to an animal's back. "mommy look at the LAYYYYYDEEEEES!!!!!!!" the clowns appealed to miles, and i was laughing pretty hard myself at ajax's physical comedy. but there was an edge there, the kids getting a little frantic for a toy, a light up sword, more sugar. we had snow cones but they were not satisfying.

on the way out were about 15 very serious looking men and women holding signs, video screens, handing out flyers with photos of elephants being poked and hurt and an elephant foot in chains looking infected as well as some quotes right out of a horror film. "these poor animals" they were muttering, shaking their head sadly, and "carson barnes tortures animals", etc etc. maya started crying about how the people didn't like the elephants and miles wanted to know what the hell was going on. we got into a little discussion and then the whole thing felt awful and i never want to go to a circus with animals again.

sunday notes:
sunday morning we went to the skate park and there was a starr king family. and a family from maya's day care. and it was fun and nice. then miles and i cut out for his bud's bday in beautiful koret playground in gg park and we spent more time with starr king families and it was fun and nice. then since we were right there and i felt so free and light with only one child miles and i walked over to the academy of science joined by two little girl friends from his class and their accompanying parents and it was fun and nice and actually an adorable time with the three kids running around so excited about the rainforest and the fish and the alligator and the cool rocking bench and holding hands etc.
it was not QUITE so nice walking back to the cars when miles and his little friend got a little too happy and started stripping and running into the trees and wouldn't listen but what can you do. to top off this day miles and i went to a vietnamese restaurant to eat and he actually chewed and swallowed an egg roll with all kinds of unidentified things inside, a baby bok choy, a gnomish looking mushroom and some bean sprouts. incredible.


this was my weekend. i'm sure you are all fascinated. how to take all these bits and pieces and write them into something whole is beyond me. school will be out in a week and i will have a little time to...myself. whatever will i do? suggestions are welcomed.

memorial day

carnaval! it was a cloudy grey day, good for the performers. we headed down to our usual watching point, outside of boa on 24th. maya wore her faux fur cape and glass slipper flats for the occasion. miles was on the prowl for candy.

i walked the unicef parade as a preschooler, then was a band geek for years. in college i organized the first and last pagan ritual. a somewhat tamed and child-friendly version of mardi gras, carnaval makes me feel good. brazilian drumming, sexy dancers, little kids dancing with their schools, more sexy dancers, a scary african procession with skulls and machetes and crazy long-haired costumes, more drums. salsa bands on floats, followed by tiny bolivian women dancers with flutes and surprisingly loud voices. goofy middle school kids dancing to tonto jump on it. you gotta love this stuff.

later miles and rich went to play basketball and came upon a man lying in the street with a bloody mouth. rich said he couldn't talk and looked scared--maybe a seizure. he made a big impression on miles, who asked many questions about him at his favorite discussion time, after he was supposed to be going to sleep.

it is memorial day and i am thinking about my poppop. he was a combat photographer who in his grandpa days became a combat photographer for peace, veteran for peace, fought against landmines and helped protect voters in elections in central america. he grew up in a city like my kids are doing, in a poor neighborhood with a garden out back. he told some good stories about pea shooters and horse poo pranks. he built houses, made tiles, was a studio photographer. he made delicious oatmeal, built a house for my grandmother and himself next to a gorgeous green river in massachusetts, raised goats for a while, then ended up living his last years with a wonderful retired schoolteacher in staten island, ny. he led a full long life and was very much against war.

xo

ilhan first told me about this place

last night we bickered with each other about various issues (mostly miles and rich--miles has been pretty grouchy lately) and almost didn't go, but finally packed our stuff in the car and drove down to the dreamy butano state park campground. the ground was moist, the redwoods tall, huge logs everywhere for kids and banana slugs to climb on. the smell of fire and evergreen leaves. dogs barked and kids yelled, an occasional clank of pan or loud crack of fire, and our breath made clouds. the kids went bezerk for marshmallows, but it seems like lately the kids just ARE bezerk. how did we end up with these crazy little folks? hmmm...

we survived a night of heavy snoring and awoke to the sound of stellar jays and little waking noises. after breakfast we hiked down the trail where ten years ago cassie and i trailed kaveh to his friend's wedding and drank some danish liquer (that word must be spelled wrong) while elf like wedding guests cavorted around. today we were highly entertained by a park ranger named mountain who led a junior park ranger presentation about birds. we sang a song about quail, miles got to wear a sign around his neck that said BEAK: you got a beak, you got a eat, and finally there was an insane game with camoflauged nests full of checkers and 30 kids running around flapping their wings and trying to protect their checkers from the predatory adults. as we drove out we saw bunnies and quail and talked about native americans and how modern society was quickly changing the entire planet.

we balanced out all this nature nicely with a stop at burger king and a "name that cartoon theme song" game in the car. upon arriving home rich and i collapsed and miles and maya watched 2 hours of rocky and bullwinkle.

carnaval tomorrow. i'm in a i miss my friends mode. i miss you, friends.

i want to go back to bed and daydream

procrastinating before work

summer is almost here

stopped to get money from the little liquor/party store on 24th street. they have made an effort to reach new customers and now have "organic food". i expected some healthy cereal, soymilk and annie's mac and cheese. instead two cute stoner/skateboard dudes sit behind a deli counter with sandwiches and salads they have made themselves. they have home jarred fruit and vegetables in big mason jars. the salads are 2 bucks and things like corn, mint and baby bok choy. acme bread in huge bags. rasta music playing. good for them.

across the street i see a man peeing sneakily in someone's doorway.

our little garden out back is growing but slowly--the morning sun takes a little while to hit the ground. i just want to go lie in bed and daydream.


kids are waiting at school, better go.

"let us cultivate our garden"

just returned from seeing:
my friend sheila starring as candide in the theatre of yugen's version of candide, or optimism.
in case you didn't noh, which i didn't, this is a highly stylized form of theater from japan. after getting over my astonishment at seeing sheila on stage as a man in crazy japanese costume courting a baroness in west failure i settled in and enjoyed it thoroughly for 2 hours.

and on the optimism tip, we took the kids this weekend to the life is good festival
in gg park where for almost six hours a bunch of people played music, did some top-notch juggling and ventriloquism, kids cavorted on parachutes and threw balls through openings, the face painting and ice tea were free, bubbles were blown, and all donations went to charities. as we sat and made arts and crafts out of old clothing catalogs i got the story that life is good is a clothing company that decided to give back after 9/11.

ahh, what a nice place our earth is, the best of all possible worlds.

and maya's quote, unrelated:
"here are some books i got for you. i got them all in china."

me: "okay, can you read me one?"

"no, they are all in spanish."

nighty night

bee babysitter

we went to point arena last weekend. i was singing the hazy hit where should we live so much that maya started crying "stop it, stop it." so beautiful up there i just want to stare around me for hours but the kids made certain i didn't do that. every rock and plant and tree and cloud seems perfectly formed and positioned. i ended up staying up until almost 3 with brian and his friend listening to recordings he has made in the dome. it's amazing the creative projects our (mostly childless) friends have produced!!

back in sf things are way too busy. i was kind of half-hearted about the starr king open space board and didn't invite anyone to vote for me. so, phew, i am not on the new board of directors, but feel my slight involvement and vote helped create the new school friendly board. soon there will be kids out there with clipboards sketching bugs and writing in their journals. if there is still any money left for schools to function...

maya and i sat on the path in that open space today for a while. she came up with a game about us being birds that were babysat by bees. it was nice to not be a mean stepsister for once. some nice folks with dogs wandered by. we picked some teeny flowers. after coming back down the hill i was cornered by our star trek loving cross-dressing older neighbor walking his inherited dog peanut. i heard him rant about how he couldn't stand the city much longer and how when his wife retires in 18 months they are moving to a country house 20 miles from any town up in northern california. he is very pissed off because more parking will be removed for bike lanes. he also informed me that peanut has diarrhea.

maya started to pick someone's geranium's but before i could stop her the man stepped off his front stairs and said she was welcome to pick a big one. she said that was nice of you to let me pick this wery big flower.

and rich and miles are at a giant's game, tickets purchased through a fundraiser for miles' school. a weekend ahead of kid events, cleaning the bathroom, maybe a little cousin time.

life is whooshing by lately. i have been up a lot at night, thinking about present and future.

love you

me a board member?

not so long ago i was making jokes about bored members. haha. thought of that just now, actually. anyway, i was asked to submit my candidacy for the board of directors of starr king open space and i did! there is debate about how democratic the current board is, and there are plans for new blood to come in and make things more inclusive, democratic, etc. i have said yes because it might lead to kids at miles' school having access to this great natural space, but i am no politico. when i think of a board meeting i just feel bad about going out in the evening after work when i should be home squabbling with my family.

after almost a year my son is finally loving his lord of the flies type after school program, and now it is in danger of being shut down by parks and rec budget cuts. today i got there to see a the kindergarten tennis gang arriving at the court at the same time as a dad and his two sons with their racquets. at any other program the adults would have stepped in and told the kids to wait their turn, etc etc. the staff here is, um, very loose, and barely registered the possible conflict ("oh, are there kids around here somewhere doing something?"). then miles and his little buddies suggested to this very large stranger and his big boys that they share the court, and they did, for about an hour, while maya and i played bluto and olive oyl (feminist olive oyl) and squashed some unripe passionfruit.

maya is finally ready for bed, so night night to ya'

quick while the kiddos are working on a secret project

well, in a nutshell i am worried about swine flu. call me paranoid and a media believing loser but we are lying low this weekend. i think we will skip the my gym birthday party with 30 kids sneezing and coughing into plastic balls, and also the pump it up party with 30 kids wiping germs all over inflatable fun.

oh no, conflict already. i like this little dude a lot--cute and evil with swords on his forehead.

gotta go

at the car wash

this morning i hid in the garden so i could talk on the phone with my dad and not be interrupted by little crazy people. he had just put his boat in the water for the first time, in lewes thousands of miles away. my sister is living at home now with her toddler who is getting lots of grandparent time. i miss my dad more than i can write here. miles found me and talked to his poppop a little about fishing.

sometimes it seems very wrong that i am so far from my father.

around 11 we hiked the hill with some brownies for the starr king carwash and bake sale. woo hoo. the kids ended up washing and detailing, rich vacuumed many many cars and i hung out and fed kids and tried to help make sure no one got run over. it was a sunny perfect day. sf recycling donated a huge grill and two griller guys, and double rainbow donated a big ice cream truck with cups of ice cream for all. kids playing in the streams of dr bronner smelling soapy water, shooting hoops, chasing each other, actually staying still and lounging in the sun. an excellent dj, watermelon, scooters, meeting new neighborhood folks. it was nice. the starr king friends were there but what made things seem a little more whole in this disjointed people all over the place life of ours was that a bunch of our rock and roll friends came. baby suzette and john and danielle, and eric and his girlfriend from the warehouse, shannon from philly and her buddy. they were psyched to come to this school event near their houses. then they got to go and drink mimosas and we got to take the kids down the hill.

on the way back down i heard my name called and it was a content specialist from work sitting in a camp chair outside sf general, on a vigil with a good friend whose good friend was very sick inside. i finally get to see your real life! cried this co-worker with some real pleasure in her irish accent, a goofy basball cap shading her eyes. for some reason miles laid down on the sidewalk and then maya laid down with her head on his tummy and said he was her pillow. it made everyone laugh for a minute.

i'm tired now and rich is down the hall in music land again.

love you

mummy shots

sunday night i took off at 4:30, hopped a quick 48 bus to valencia street and walked through the dazing yet soft heat to amnesia to hear the mummy shots. four of my lovely lady friends were all in ghostly white with red eyeliner. they are the back up singers, xylophone and tambourine players. the band played a show with a deathly theme, with a little funny sex stuff thrown in. accordion, guitar, a wierd stylus instrument david bowie used in the 80s, piano, drums, sounding almost a little like daniel johnston at times. i had a few pint glasses of sangria on ice under the shimmering pink fabric hanging from the ceiling. my band played here a few times in a different lifetime when the bar was the chameleon. the basement thren was full of kind of dirty looking happy punk rockers and cigarette smoke and furry dogs. that was almost a decade ago. afterwards there was more drinking and talking and a little cool breeze coming in a window off the street.

looking at all the death-referenced song titles on the free cd yet feeling so light and happy i remembered out loud that most people who think a lot about death are very in love with life. then i had one last slurp of my vodka and grapefruit juice.

not a profound thought but it pleased me at the time. it is still very very hot here. time for a wet washcloth and some short stories in front of the fan to wind down. i should be doing work, oops.

so, my husband went out and played with his rock band last night, and will do so again tomorrow, yet i can't go because we don't have a babysitter. no babysitter. is this a function of living in a city, or of the somewhat unusual situation of having a 41 year old husband who still plays shows until 2 in the morning? i would like to go out, but will have to be content with going to bed at 10 instead.

today was beautiful, right now the sky is light pink and purple, and thank god the kids conked out early. maya and i hung out in the starr king open space after dropping miles off at school. sitting up high looking at the hills and valleys covered with lines of buildings, different colors and rooftops, wisps of fog around the sutro tower, green peaks around us. right where we sat we found pineapple weed, a wierd sticky velcro plant, california poppies, tiny pink fairy flowers, purple thumbelina flowers, rocks that maya stuffed in a small hole, a pale spider, lots of wavy hay-like grass, shiny black obsidian, and a rectangular piece of glass. somehow the places where buildings, roads, and nature converge make me feel slightly hopeful about the future.

a blog telegram

cassie came and went, in a 3 day blur of being sick, laughing really hard like i do with no one else, getting teary about old friends, and finding myself toughened up a little and not bawling when we took her back to the airport. cassie, wish you were still here. we could go see browntown west at the eagle together thursday and think about tedd and laugh hysterically at my husband's band.

ajax the guinea pig was very ill, almost dying from seizures on easter sunday but the vet saved him. he is nibbling on a carrot right now. maybe it took a near death to make me love the little guy.

now the blog telegram, or maybe a bad poem...

big wheel race down vermont st last night, streams of 2o somethings racing down the hill on plastic tricycles, barbie cars outfitted with cheetah print pillows, the same small asian lady ninja turtle we saw last year, they reach the final stretch and jump up and out of the way so the big wheels following don't hit them. miles on my lap, checking out the outfits, the helmets, the sexy easter bunnies, the man slurping vodka from one of those hikers water tubes, the bikes. these riders are whooping with exhilaration, the ride down is so good. my sciatica hurts just from walking up the hill.

in sonoma my mom drove us around, bought us expensive pre-cooked food, played pick-up sticks with miles. we went to a trout farm and i threaded hooks through fat squirming worms and pulled in 2 10 inch and 1 11 inch trout. miles cried and yelled in the car going back to the city when he realized we left his fish skeleton in the refrigerator. he wanted it for science.

easter sunday ajax is in the animal hospital with rich and i am in gg park with my kids and brother and friends and miles is so hyped up about the upcoming sugar that he gets wacky and just smacks a big open bag of bagels right out of his uncle's hand onto the ground and barely notices. i am becoming a bad mother at times, and yank him up by his arm and tell him to go sit across the field for a minute and calm down. he does. i need to be aware that i am big and strong and i shouldn't yank anyone no matter how annoying they are being.

maya is being a baby, again and again. me want up she says. she falls apart crying, down on hands and knees in angst, several times a day. she screams and folds her arms in fury. she is going through a phase. she wants to be little again. littler. even when having an angst-filled tantrum she is adorable. miles says "i like the age i am, i don't want to get any older." miles asks "after i die will it still be monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday?" miles says "love isn't always a good thing because if you love someone and they have an accident or something then you can't love them anymore and that's when love is bad." a friend emails after his 40th bday and says he is getting old. we all want time to stop. i remember crying about growing up, around age 15.

i have a moment of pure pleasure holding my friend's tiny wide-eyed smiling baby boy.

and after school today i took the kids to check out warm water cove. people trying hard to make natural a place devastated by people. a patch of wildness with cement paths through it and lots of broken glass. butterflies and birds singing sweet songs on that scary curly sharp barbed wire. we eat bananas and tortilla chips on a table looking out over the bay. two large cement stones turn out to be parts of baby head statues our artist friend dave from the warehouse on third discarded years and years ago. they are still here. miles and maya stop to sketch on a bench and when i look down they are sitting on top of some graphic cartoon porn someone has sharpied on there. a beautiful young man and woman walk by and it turns out they are going to be trying to build a beach here. as an art project for california college or arts. they get my email and we talk about community building. there is glass everywhere and maya has another tantrum when her brother draws ariel's hair scribbly black.

i tied together some cool hard dried seaweed in a circle and hung more curvy pieces on it. black and white, odd shapes, this wierd mobile is hanging from our beautiful old light fixture. i like it.

maya told me this was a bee-YOU-tiful day.

this is not a telegram at all. i don't know what it is. we flee the city and return and do it again. i'll be more organized next time. how many times have i said that in my life?
love you, jamie

long weekend

rich away this weekend making music in mendocino county, and i've got one borderline sick kid and one quite sick coughing mucous-filled kid but we worked it out. saturday we met our good friends at the library downtown, where we checked out no books but played sorry and the strawberry shortcake game, then ran around at the park in front of city hall, walking past the most joyful loud laughing totally crazy person ever on the way. her head thrown back and huge huge laughing mouth with shining white teeth in the sun. said friends came over afterwards and the kids puttered around together so well, miles and jonah drawing skeletons and monsters, z and maya dressed like tinkerbells and parallel playing in parallel small worlds. these friends are moving to the east bay, but i won't get too sad about it because, well, i guess i am becoming hardened and tough about losing friends to distance.

yesterday evan came over and we took the kids to hipster st francis for a fabulous brunch and returned to find i had locked us and evan's bag with his keys out of my house. upstairs neighbor in sacramento, rich 4 hours away. evan kept cool and we walked to my neighbor's bday party one block away. i left the kids there and cabbed it to my brother's, got his spare key from the hiding spot, found the set of keys to our house in his basket of mail, bought a bottle of bushmills whiskey and some ice at the corner store, and went back to the party. soon the kids were watching pokemon, evan was facilitating shots for all, there were ribs and chicken and cookies and the day flew by until bedtime.

and today our backyard became part of a decentralized urban farm, myfarm. we hired a bunch of young eco-warriors to crush all our grass, haul in tons of dirt, build beds with drip irrigation, put up a huge trellis and a potato tower. for the next nine months our farmer will come each week to weed and harvest and leave us a box of veggies, taking another box to a member of myfarm not as lucky as us with our sunny mission yard. yes, i wish i could do all this gardening myself, but times are wierdly busy, my back and leg have been killing me, and this is all good, right? allll gooood. the farmers ride their bikes around the city and the food is only transported from yard to kitchen. it is supposed to taste better too. we will see!!!

miles asked tonight if i was going to die first since i am a grownup. i said i didn't really want to talk about it (bad answer), and that we should enjoy our time together. he replied that we spent a lot of time not together, and that made him sad because i am his best friend. lord, he is a pain in the you know what, but i love that crazy little dude SO MUCH. maya then spent an hour driving me nuts not going to sleep and then threw up from coughing ten minutes after she passed out. i washed her gross milky vomit hair in the sink and she smiled up at me with her red cheeks and exhausted eyes.

i know i am lucky right now, even if i often forget. my life has terrible and wonderful parts. the terrible are not on this blog. it is possible to turn towards the wonderful, and writing, growing things, kids and friends help.

you know what i mean, right?
love, j

more themeless details, this is headed somewhere, right?

thursday morning i discovered that when rich test drove our car the night before to check out the sticky clutch it had become completely stuck and was squatting at our mechanic's across the street. aaaahh. i had to get miles to school up the hill, maya to bernal heights daycare, me to work in the western addition in an hour. a seemingly impossible feat, but it was done. after some phone calls ana from ana's daycare came racing over in her humongous suv and took maya and her car seat away to ana land in bernal. miles and i ran up the hill and two classmates stopped to offer us rides. after drop-off i hitched a ride down the hill. grabbed my bags from the house. ran down the steps. snuck in a tasty two-shot rocket coffee from 24th street for moral support. the 33 miraculously appeared. a cute baby stuffed in some kind of snow suit on a 70 degree day made googly eyes at me. i got off at 16th and mission. wham! the 22 appeared. i got off in the heart of the fillmore, walked two blocks and made it to work on time to see my first little friend. after work i got the 22 to jackson park, enjoying my seat as the man next to me snoozed and then dropped a huge plastic to go box of chow mein noodles of the floor. scooped up miles just in time to hitch another ride to our house with a departing schoolmate. he was in heaven (silent, shy heaven) but heaven anyway to be in the backseat with a second grader he idolizes. we were dropped off at home just in time for maya's little daycare mate's mom to drop her off with her carseat. adventures of carless urban mom. i don't know how people do it. i depended on a lot of kindness and favors. and a freakishly good day on muni.

this morning, walking to school, maya was jumping over pieces of glass, cigarettes, pigeon doo and other lovely stuff. she said she was garbage girl and made a superhero pose. yikes!! she is into the tiny titans. and being strong, fast, and powerful.

rich is down the hall making crazy guitar sounds. kids in dreamland. school event tomorrow night, cousin dinner the next, friday is walk to school day, this weekend a new friend's bday party i can stumble home from with my kids, monday is our farm installation, soon my best friend will be here.

is anyone reading this? and why, may i ask?

i promise something interesting soon. there are a lot of interesting things going on, but i'm not ready to share them here yet. don't get too excited, but that will bring you back again, eh?

wierd fun

there are many things i could be doing. instead i am spending my tuesday night alone time...
watching american idol and obsessively checking the sfkfiles blog (about school admissions in san francisco) EVEN THOUGH MY KID IS ALREADY IN KINDERGARTEN!

any analysis of what is wrong with me is appreciated. well, you know, almost any analysis.

i guess both obsessions are loosely connected to justice and fate. those are interesting, right?

maya's quote: there was a plate of noodles on the floor near her at miles' party. i asked her who dropped the noodles. "my butt!" peals of hysterical laughter. ai yi yi.

xo

joint birthday party

well, we made it through another birthday party. my baby boy is six. years. old.

we planned this one with another family from miles' school. we don't know them that well but the kids had birthdays in the same 2 weeks, it would be greener to have one whole class party for both, and less parties for parents to bring their kids to.

this morning was rainy, gray skies and maya up at 5:18 whispering in my ear about "remember when the hawk picked up tinkerbell?". a blurry few hours of princess music and some punk rock dancing and nerf basketball. i took miles up 24th street to return 2 videos, him riding fast and smooth on his new scooter, me limping along in the drizzle. we stopped at st francis and shared a sausage patty and a hot chocolate under the awning, surrounded by hipsters discussing their friends, watching dogs and drunks and families go by.

at glen park there was a glimpse of sun but then rain fell. the kids came in, many, many kids, the whole kindergarten class plus edison, calvin, emily, natalie, and more i don't know. they hummed and buzzed around in the big rec center room we had rented, making goofy faces, creating paper masks, eating potato chips, playing floor hockey, running spastically making animal noises, pulling each other in a wagon. maya was in heaven with her big friend lucy to follow around. my mom, my cousin, my niece, julia, todd, rebecca, suling. miles not yet overwhelmed with this marking of the passage of time, sugary food or bags of gifts (the angst hit later, around bedtime. he is definitely my son). the other birthday parents had hired a magician and our kids grouped up and watched him smack himself in the head with flying objects, make booger jokes, and at one point balance my son on his shoulders while standing on a board which rolled on a barrel. maya's laugh hit the ceiling every dumb joke he made.

i moved around the room checking in on my kids, my family, all the moms and dads talking about their kids, school politics, and started to feel a wierd feeling. kind of a feeling of joy. was this relief, having pulled off another party in the midst of work chaos? hormones? hmm. as the kids gathered around the birthday cakes (grandma-bought flourescent green ninja turtle for miles, homeade with a top hot on white icing for the birthday girl),and then sang twice, first in english and then chinese, and as many little fingers darted impulsively towards the cake i was trying to cut fast with a sharp knife i felt oddly calm and good.

i still lament the breakup of my urban tribe, my wonderful time and friends who played music together and camped together and had kids together and went to burning man and on and on. we had HISTORY, and intimacy that comes with it, and love. and that goes a long way and always will. but tonight after the party, lying in bed with maya waiting for the kids to drift off it hit me that, random as it is, my son's school is a new tribe we have joined. no history yet, but a wierd intimacy because those funny little people we are all more than intimate with, and so in love with, will be together for years. this tribe has a future, and i am happy to create it with them.

it's time to dive in. splash.

happy birthday miles love you SO MUCH.

xo
xo
xo

power nap

sleep struggles. maya has been waking us all up at night, and then getting up for the day between 4 and 5. in the morning. this morning rich was so annoyed and talking about her slamming doors and not sleeping enough that she started bawling listening to him, "you said i wasn't a good girl." and nap time was ugly. i tried to lay down peacefully with my yawning earlybird, eager to close my eyes and drift for a bit but her legs kept kicking around, she kept talking, joking to herself, playfully patting my head, inching away as i lay there becoming so so so grumpy wanting a break, wanting a little nap myself. i started threats, made her take off her princess dress because princesses go right to sleep at nap time, even helped her stay still by holding her tight next to me on the bed. i will go to sleep, i am, i am she would protest, and then after a few minutes of clenched eyes the twitching and whispering and squirming resumed. this repeated for an hour.

i am embarrassed to say at one point i cried and let her know how miserable she was making me by keeping me up. she cried too, after staring into my eyes hard for a minute, and we bawled together exhausted. pathetic tired guilt-tripping mother.

this is bad power stuff. i know better. i don't like threats and guilt tactics and using my power over people. i only do this stuff when i am very very tired.

just thinking about positions of power and how we act in them. the benevolence and caring and patience can go away so quickly. this is part of what is wrong with humans, even the kindest of us. it has become better among some people, some groups, but how will it ever go away when we teach it to our kids in so many ways? however you look at parenting there is no doubt that parents use their power in ways that are not just for the child's good. or our own, really. and so it goes.

maya woke up and smiled at me with red cheeks and crazy hair and said "remember when you were mean to me?"

i did.

i'm sorry.

xo

little things

hmm. the last weeks have been a busy rainy blur. i'm sure i have had some profound and interesting thoughts but they seem to have fled my head. discovery museums, tapas birthday brunches, very sick students, party playhouses, rich's music projects, preschool interviews, rediscovering The Cars with my children, a trip to round table pizza, the culture and excitement just don't stop around here.

the rain has made everything brilliant green. there are pink blossoms on our peach tree and white on the plum. maya is sleeping with a smile on her face under my blue and white quilt in a room filled with the scent of lemon geraniums. i had the day off to take it slow. stop and chat with my owner friend of the 23rd st cafe and her girls after dropping off miles. stop to pick many small flowers on the way home. stop to investigate streams of water in the gutter and painters on scaffolds and say hi to lily the dry cleaner and our neighbor dog little chicken. play cinderella on the back deck in the sun. lie down with my baby girl and listen to the traffic and the fan. ginger flowers in a vase on the table, left over from valentine's day. a tiny plastic bag of dark chocolate chips for lunch.

there is a lot going on that is heavy and complicated, but these little sweet things are what i am concentrating on today.

soon i will wake maya and we will hike up that hill again. i promised miles we would walk the circle maze up on the green top of potrero hill open space. there are wild flowers blooming everywhere there, and little rocks to be pocketed.

xo

year of the ox

lately i have been unable to keep in touch with people. there are a lot of important folks on my to call list. i haven't spoken with my sister in months. and you all know i love to talk.

i love to listen too. but the way things are, communication with far away loved ones becomes very one-sided. blog posts. a little facebook here and there. emails with photos of the kids. it seems like there is so much communication going on, but, and this is painfully obvious i know, reading and writing are not talking. not close. i know email and blogs and facebook are creative modern ways to communicate in our brave new world but sometimes i wonder what these developments are replacing, and how, and why. and if it's okay with me.

here is a photo of miles preparing to march in the chinese new year parade. he did it, he made it, he is a trooper. he had a breakdown before they left the school, and pretty much wouldn't take his eyes off me during the 2-mile march, but he made it!! i was quite proud.

and now miles' teacher is leaving to have her baby. he is sad. and i don't know if it is coincidence, but all the death questions are resurfacing. questions about who will die first in our family. if my grandmother is dead. if his great great grandfather is dead. what it is like to be dead. i'm so bad with this. i'm 40 and haven't figured out much about death yet except i'm painfully afraid of it. i can't lie anymore, like when this topic was approached last year, and say that we just aren't going to die. so my kid is feeling a great loss already, that the teacher he loves is going away, and i guess to him it is something like death. loss is loss, right? we can try to picture her happy with her baby, and know she will visit, but loss is loss.

i have been shedding some tears with him.

but we all know it will all work out all right.

hey people, if you are out there, say hello. let me know how you are. miss you.

xoxoxo

blog from the past

my former bandmate, accordion and guitar player extraordinaire,tall handsome tatar maker of elvis heart pillows and owner of many a cake pan mold created a blog of our old band.

i love the past, and love to revisit it. you are welcome to stop by too.

yusakuta.blogspot.com

more sunny weather

this is maya being cinderella.

went to our friends tiny bungalow yesterday to eat pancakes and bacon and meet their 11/11 newborn. i got to hold her the whole time, her big big eyes staring at me from under her hat. her dad took a tiny space, about as big as our bathroom, and customized it into the sweetest little bedroom, with a window looking out into a bamboo and stone backyard. we look forward to her growing up in our neighborhood.

sunny sunny sunny, wierdly hot and sunny really. the kids collected flowers and sticks in mckinley park and then miles and i made a weapon out of sticks and silver duct tape to match the one donatello has (is that the right ninja turtle?) maya and i made a six-inch sword for her made with sticks and pink duct tape, it's definitely cute. we saw the sun set yesterday at taco bell beach. today we played at the skate park and then went to the bottom of the hill bar for a nordic heavy metal themed chili cook-off/super bowl party. i don't even know who won. there were a lot of old friends and the kids hung in there, eating meatballs, jello and red velvet cake, and running around on the stage behind the huge tv screen, the stage where their daddy has played his guitar.

my mom and dad are both out of the country, and i am feeling it. the unknowns seem piled high right now--miles' new teacher starting tomorrow as his fabulous one is going on maternity leave, my credential and maybe my job in danger as the legislature considers a cheaper "language credential". sick students in the hospital, crazy headlines about droughts and recessions and the next big earthquake and california budgets blaring at me from newspaper dispensers even when i try not to look. other friends waiting for adoptee babies to arrive. my dad down some tiny dirt roads and across bridges i have never heard of in costa rica. i'm feeling the need to hunker down with some people i love and feel grounded.

i guess i can try and do that with my little family here. sometimes a lot of people i love seem so spread out and far away. if you were all closer i think i would enjoy this endless sun and heat more instead of wondering if it is a sign of unknown things to come. we could have a picnic at the beach and watch the ocean slowly slowly rise. things feel peaceful at the ocean's edge.

hope for rain soon.

posted at 4:00 am. xoxo

boom

well, it is the eve of the due date for miles' paperwork to participate in the san francisco chinese new year's parade. yikes. he's been attending the weekly practices, where they march around the schoolyard for an hour holding hands, and after these practices miles is (extra) teary/sensitive/angry/tired, but insists he likes it. insists he wants to be in the parade next weekend. i don't think he has any clue what he is getting into. here is the scoop: drop your five-year-old off at the school at 2 in the afternoon, where they get to dress up in cool little costumes. then they ride on a bus to chinatown and get ready for the 2 mile parade in front of thousands and thousands and thousands of people. fireworks, dragons, stops and starts. rain? then they get back on a bus and we pick them up at 9 at the school. two hours past bedtime.

i've been in a lot of parades. dressed as a orange paper painted pumpkin skipping down main st newark on a sunny halloween weekend, scooping candy off the street. marching in lines down a slippery boardwalk playing flute badly on a slippery boardwalk in atlantic city for the miss america parade. overheating playing trumpet badly in disneyworld. so, will it be fun?? i am feeling like such a mama. if i could march too and check in with my little dude, to see if he is overwhelmed by it all, and ready to blow up, his little face screwing up. because he really is still a little guy. but i can't march, and there will be huge crowds so i won't be able to keep up with his group. and his beloved teacher won't be there because 2 miles is too long for a nine-month preggers lady. there will be other nice moms and teachers and kids. it will be intense and beautiful and loud.

should i sign the forms? or should i play loser mommy who forgot to turn them in, sorry, my fault, you can't be in the parade...

i wish it was a tiny main street parade, a soft, gentle little parade with good access to my baby, but that's not what we've got going on here, is it?

sigh.

hot tub!

this photo was taken moments before i left my children and, poor pitiful me, had to go to an, ahem, conference for the weekend.

so the kids got to get spoiled by daddy and i spent my weekend in calistoga, under a perfect blue sky with a few clouds and breeze...(in chronological order)

going to two fantastic wineries where my girlfriends and i sipped lots of expensive varietals from big glasses in front of statues and fireplaces. eating raw oysters and drinking irish coffee at the main street bar. soaking in the hot spring pools for three hours, floating on my back and looking at palm trees and clouds. fancy farm to table dinner with more wine.
more hot springs and very buzzed talk. sleep. eggs benedict with crispy little potatoes. lots of good coffee. slow drive home past vineyards, hawks, bitterns, hills, the bay. survived trip over bridge with no earthquake. kids overjoyed to see me and everyone is fine.

why did i wait almost 6 years to take 30 hours for myself?

***********

for those of you who want kid quotes miles said this morning:

"mommy, sometimes i like homeless people because they can't GET stuff so they MAKE stuff."
(makes pained smile i'm-trying-to-understand-how-things-work face) "I know it's not good for THEM."

i like that he feels admiration rather than pity.

my best friend is coming to visit soon! hurray! get ready.
xo

kids with runny noses and dragon

a post in the format of the classic children's book "fortunately"

fortunately we got out of the house on time this morning
unfortunately it started raining halfway up the hill
fortunately the 48 bus came promptly right along
unfortunately the beeatch driver did not honor my request to get on the bus and see if someone had change for a 10
fortunately a man in a tree care van pulled up and offered us a ride
unfortunately i used terrible judgment and hopped in with the kids
fortunately it turned out he was the husband/dad of the our nice neighbor mom and maya's little friend
unfortunately after a sweet hour back home making banana bread and playing princess and ninja turtles with maya we went outside to find someone had shattered the car window and ripped out the car stereo
fortunately my daughter is a champ who told her crying mother that it was okay, she would read me a story and that would make me feel better


this could go on and on. what is really bad right now is that one of the little students i know is very very sick, so send your positive wishes to him. makes you hug your own kids tighter, feel lucky, etc etc, but it is true. all these little ups and downs are just fine. i don't even have bad feelings toward the window smasher. i know nothing about him (but i guess it's a him).

last night i speed read the rest of last child in the woods by richard louv. not a work of hard science, and the ideas are mostly familar, but it packs a wallop. a parenting book spliced with worldchanging and ecotopia. it's all so true, about this generation of kids missing out on nature. makes me want to just start pickaxing all the roads around here, tearing down the fences of our little sectioned backyards, quitting my job and going into the nature/adventure park business in san francisco, or, and i haven't thought this for a while, fleeing the city. to where? some little green village somewhere? again, i want to live by a river. how can i get this river time to my children? can i help dig up mission creek?

but fortunately i like that we have kind neighbors
and fortunately we have many beautiful green spaces we can bring our kids to if we get off ourlazy you know whats
and fortunately a car window is not bank-breaking

here is a picture of a dragon miles' kinder class made. i know this is not a great post but it has not been a great week, so excuse me.

happy chinese new year

sugar and potty picture

today was a swirl of old disney princess music, pink icing, pink balloons, little girls in princess dresses, tiaras, magic wands, little stickers and buttons and glue, flowers, pretend glass slippers, pink punch ladled out into little fake crystal cups, strawberries, and for a clean up break, mary poppins.

and of course maya, the star of the day, three-years-old. i know every mom is a proud one, but i just gotta say it, this kid is so freakin adorable, i just want to tell her i love her all day long, she's even great when she is acting up, she's just awesome. so cute and sweet and funny and nice and her imagination blows me away. and part of me is sad she is growing up so fast, but that's the way it goes, right?

to balance out this sappy post i will attach a picture from the other child i adore. i know the spelling is not so hot, but c'mon, he's still five, and in mandarin immersion to boot. if you can't read the caption it says rock poop guitars.

love and goodnight.

options

it was a busy day, my mom visited. the weather perfect, warm, sunny, a little wind. we took the kids to a hilarious magic show at the randall museum, then hiked up to the top of the peak there. we drove across the city and met mike and family at the legion of honor, where we checked out some art, heard a guitarist playing princess dance music outside, climbed the king statue and soaked in the the ocean and trees.

quotes of day:
maya (very loudly, a few times, looking at big bronze sculptures in the museum): i want to touch his penis!
miles (eating a tasty dessert, after hearing my mom rave about the museum lunch): it's not about the art, it's all about the food.

when we were at the magic show we bumped into an old acquaintance i met through a kid channel a few years ago. i asked how things were going with her child and was told things were finally going better, thanks to me. i had been concerned about this child after first meeting her, and had struggled with the decision to push this child's diagnosis and treatment forward by stepping in, or to let the parents and teachers figure things out on their own time. i decided to be brave and say what i thought, that this child was not just having behavior problems, or odd, moody, etc etc. but was on the autism spectrum. and he is. it is hard to combine your professional and personal lives, and risk alienating people. but it is a good thing to get this diagnosis when people think you are just behaving badly all the time.

sometimes i feel like my work is kind of worthless. but this made me feel good, that i have acquired some knowledge that can actually impact a family, can make things move in the right direction for them. not sure how to relate this topic to "should we flee the city". but maybe part of staying here is that i shouldn't stagnate and stop enjoying my job, but dig deep and see what it is i do love about it, and then take advantage of these big city resources and move in that direction. specialize. grad school? private practice? be a part-time consultant and spend the rest of the time doing greening projects, writing a book, who knows??

there are a lot of options in this big city full of beautiful children.

counting

maya is really into counting lately. counting not quite accurately, but for a long time. after 29 comes a mumbled 21 again, i think. sometimes she tries it in mandarin to be like her brother.
yesterday walking down 23rd street she wanted to "count the garbage" in each tree pit. she counted a lot of garbage.

all this garbage seems to represent something. draw your own conclusions, i don't want to rant like some middle-aged conservative about the people who just don't care, raised wrong, people not connected to their community, etc. it is deeper and sadder than that, really. a neighborhood full of people tossing their trash on the ground, and a little girl counting it on a foggy morning.

here is maya flying in the pink sky and channeling a mermaid at gg park.

i have insomnia again lately.

buh bye

listy post

i just wrote a lot and deleted it. what it said was---i don't want to work the job i have and raise little kids at the same time.

anyway, tomorrow things start up again, just after we finally found a little groove around here. modern life, sigh. yesterday i got inspired and finally made use of the aquarium i found on the street 6 months ago. the kids and i went to the garden store and paxton gate, where we saw many amazing things. stuffed (taxidermied??) creatures--stoat, raccoon, antelope, lion, mice in crazy costumes, bat and butterfly bodies, strange rocks and crystals (from outer space says miles authoritatively), raccoon and fox claws, orchids, electroplated devil's claws, bugs in amber, porcupine quills, old nature books, walking sticks, special knives, beach glass, the list goes on and on. somehow this place is comforting, not creepy, although i can't put maya down for a second without her fingers latching onto a delicate bird skeleton, a fragile glass bell, a 50$ orchid (pink flowers). at home we layer the rocks, charcoal, dirt, and then make a little tiny world for our new and old plants. miles completes the scene with plastic wolf and baby rhino which i can tolerate. good luck little plants. we will try to take care of you. maya please put down the spray bottle.

today we all went to the beach and built a giant sandcastle kingdom, complete with sandy wet roses from the tideline, stick bridges, a rock that said love which i found and miles told rich he had found but then admitted the truth, a fort for the bad guy (tigger), and rocks for cars to bring bad guys and good guys back and forth from various locations. of course it ended in someone crying with a face full of sand but for a while it was just me lying on a blanket with my hat pulled down low, feeling the sun and sand, listening to far away voices and waves and watching tiny clouds drift over the marin headlands.

and i used one of my xmas gift certificates tonight, at christopher's books. lately i am overwhelmed by bookstores and don't know what to go for. i found myself in the psychology section for a long time, holding books with titles like "happiness" and knowing i wouldn't buy. i ended up with the road (cormac mcarthy), the lorax (dr you know who), a small journal to carry around and write fascinating insights in, a book of short stories by lorrie moore, and last child in the woods.

time to go read now. nighty night.
xo

new year's day

on the 30th the kids and i rode bart to albany to visit laura lee and gang. we whooshed under the bay with only a little nervousness, and then travelled elevated rails over the soundless vistas of west oakland backyards, poverty looking pretty from up above. we ended up sleeping over at her house, completely exhausted by our kids who were pretty much holding back nothing, their aggressions, needs, every desire. at one point i was almost jogging through safeway searching for maraschino cherries to top the ice cream one child had been promised in return for cooperation, thinking, this can't be right, we must be out of our minds. i got my parenting book in the mail, how to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk.

on the return trip new year's eve day we walked out of the bart station and encountered the guy who plays johnny cash. big, tall, young, black leather jacket covered with semi-punk stickers, sunglasses of course, the kids gave him fifty cents each and wanted to stay and listen. his voice and guitar almost exactly like johnny cash. he asked for requests and maya said twinkle twinkle, which he tried and failed johnny cash style. he then played a song about a young skate pro and a princess which made everyone pretty happy. miles skateboarded the 10 blocks down 24th street.

and i ended up buying a ticket online to see the butthole surfers for new year's eve, rich's suggestion. of course miles cried when i left. i walked over to shannon's slowly, stopping for wonton soup at punjab where a woman waiting for take out told me her daughter's school woes and ended up telling me it was great to meet you as i filled her in about some good schools she probably wouldn't like anyway. she had chosen her daughter's school beccause it was clean and had a security camera. a cold night, christmas lights still on, disco blaring from one decorated window. ended up taking the bus and having a great time with a bunch of friends at the fillmore.

of course i felt a little ill at seven a.m., and told miles so. he came back to my bed with a plate containing a red apple with the sticker, a piece of bread with a tiny smudge of butter,and a big glass of water. i got healthy things for you, he said, because you said you were ill. i'm trying to care about you.

aww. happy new year.

p.s. the picture is a miles and jamie collaboration. i drew the tree trunk in foreground, tree with white leaves, red mushroom, fern, words "deer crossing", and the last bit of road going up the mountain. maya is the brave girl in the orange dress ascending the stairs to the crazy concrete slide in golden gate park.

gimme a break

ex band members, you will hear the title of this post in a loud and screechy cover song version of the hit show theme song.

so, here i am on my break but it just doesn't feel like a break. and i think i need one. i am planning a mom's night away (hot tub? expensive nice dinner? shopping? some happy juice?), but before i send the email invite to my buddies i hear my son's voice cracking into a sob as he hears the news that,alas, he will have to spend one night without me, spending time with daddy who will spoil him with hours of screen time and bowls of ice cream. this is why i really need a break--these kids need me awfully bad. miles had a realization tonight--"daddy can read me a story, he's the same as you," but it didn't last long. i guess i should be honored to be so loved, but honestly IT IS DRIVING ME NUTS.

so, this is my break from work. we are letting the kids watch lots and lots of high quality animation, especially looney toons and maya's favorite, mr. magoo's christmas special. lots of sugar cookies and candy from the stash kim and kimm gave us. rich is predictably sick with a bad cold on his days off. i browse the cultural offerings in the morning, but it is daunting trying to find something that makes everyone happy. miles would like to check out the museum of the african diaspora, but maya isn't there yet. maya would like to see some animals at the zoo but miles only wants to ice skate there and my back hurts. so, we can play some playdough for 5 minutes, let the kids wrestle. watch the kids fight about something, visit with some other kids and their parents who also seem to need breaks, and then it is time for some more looney toons.

anyway, more rambling. after everyone was asleep tonight i took a steaming hot bath with some tired old ass soak (a gift from my california parents), and read a book, drank some wine and ate a piece of apple pie while bathing. now there's a break.

i'm not complaining, exactly. today was nice. sunny and clear and cool. peter and lisa came over to visit with baby kevin. we ate whole grain pancakes and peter let miles and maya wrestle him and lisa and i chit-chatted. we went to the park and rich and peter and miles played net-less tennis and miles skateboarded and julia joined us with her little boys. back to the house for chicken soup and more wrestling and fairyland play, and then maya took her nap while miles and rich watched daffy and bugs and porky pig. i took care of sheila's cat. took miles for some grocery shopping and then back home for smoothies and turkey burgers, 5 readings of pop up cinderella, some fighting about mommy reading stories, and then the tired old ass soak with pie.

time to start planning the getaway!! i can do it, i will, i will. kids, you will survive without me for one night and i promise i will miss you, and return.