writing day, co-housing

friday morning i met with a friend of a friend who is a writing coach. what i should really be doing is going to bootcamp and running 3 miles each morning, but instead i talked to this nice lady about finding some direction and focus for writing fiction. we will see!

that afternoon the kids and i went to a fundraiser write-a-thon at 826 valencia, aka the pirate store. maya ran to hug and hold on to her ex-pre-k teacher who had been there writing for four hours, and dictated a story to her which included jet packs and hot lava suits. miles sat down and went to work for an hour with a writing prompt to describe an alternative origin of the universe (he included a nice sensory description of a god's sandal). when maya and i went to look for a bathroom there was a little wait and a nice man told us there was a bathroom out in the back if we were desperate. i'm desperate! yelled maya. the nice man took us out back and chit chatted about 826 valencia and maya starting kindergarten and his own little girl starting kindergarten and we made some jokes and i was totally star struck because it was dave eggers! a real live famous writer!

last night we went to my brother's for a bbq with an old high school friend who now lives in a co-housing community in oregon with her husband and little girl. the focus of their co-housing community is sustainability and it sounded really interesting and good. along with sustainability and sharing resources there is also being able to walk out and visit a friend across the way while your kid is asleep, and to walk home safely after a few drinks. the kids go out and play in a pack kind of like the old days, but different. it brought up a lot of feelings about the people i love who have scattered and how i still wish i had this kind of community in my life, with these people i love. i guess it is not meant to be so i have to make the best of what i have...which is a lot.

haven't said this in a while, but i miss and love you, far away friends. wish you were a short walk away across a safe and quiet field of kids playing, waiting to have a drink and a laugh in the dark. maybe watching some fireflies on an end of august night.

report from the first week of 2011-2012 school year, snacks

well, we made it through the first week of school and are into the second. this is a wierd post, i feel it coming...

my daughter has sailed smoothly into kindergarten and says she loves it. maya has not questioned the fact that her teacher speaks chinese 90% of the day. today she was chanting "hong suh, lee suh" and when i asked her what it was she said that it was a pattern (of colors, in mandarin). her class is the SFUSD dream of diversity. she has two very good teachers. i helped a little at lunch today and saw maya just chilling out in the huge loud room, eating her lunch slowly, pretty smiley. outside in the sun during the too short recess she got to play an exciting game of cookie monster with her cousin and the fabulous coach d.j. of playworks. a few stumbles and trips but she is keeping up with the crowd.

miles' entry into third grade has been a bit bumpier. this is a public blog, so i won't say too much, but there have been some clashes between his new teacher and the kids and parents. i am trying not to get too sucked into the negative thoughts and worry, and be supportive instead. the principal asked if i would help make posters from the caring school curriculum for all the classrooms with some basic norms and rules and expectations. for kids AND teachers. how we all need to treat each other. we are all learning this stuff, but to get along in the same building, and really in any public space, there have to be some ground rules. poor kid also hurt his legs at soccer camp and i can tell he is deep down worrying about a possible damper on his professional soccer career. i am waiting to hear back from his doctor. we are all missing the very long and lazy days of summer.

this was an especially good and lazy summer and i need to hold onto those sunny memories as we move into the high gear of the school year.

(and let me say or the record that i am personally against benching kids unless it is a last resort, and even then it should be an opportunity for teaching and relationship building, not punishment. as in, let's sit down together and make sure you know why you are sitting on this bench and let's figure out a way it won't happen again. kids need to run around!!!)

as for me, i have a full caseload already, and there is a lot up in the air as to what will unfold at my sites this year. i guess i can't divulge any details as this is a public blog, but the special education redesign in this district really does seem to be happening. i think it is a step in the right direction, but hope that there is more systematic implementation of the next steps. one teacher was bawling on me at the end of the day, her class so full of needy kids, she loves them all and wants to teach them well but on the 4th day back was feeling it was "a cluster f**$#".

there is a lot being asked of people without many resources to support them.

today i cruised the bulk aisle at safeway and walked out with bags of whole wheat goldfish crackers, pretzels, cranberries, graham crackers. i made three big packages of snacks, one for my daughter's teacher, one for my son's, one for the after school program. i gave money to the teacher i work with to buy snacks for our preschool class. the food bank can't supply snacks anymore.

we are all in this together, this creation of every new day here, the kid raising, the kid feeding, the votes for parks and schools and clean environment. ask someone who takes care of other people what he or she needs tomorrow. don't eat any meat if you can. do what you can to spread the wealth.

sorry to be preachy and rambly. i promise my next post will not be so.

p.s. here are a couple of photos from the annual folsom street food festival. beautiful, fun, tasty. among the gourmet delights miles managed to find a cheeseburger (a REALLY GOOD cheeseburger)

first day

here is my little girl on her first day of kindergarten. she walked right into school with the line of cute little strangers. i came home and called my mama who recommended i watch the beautiful and cathartic documentary "the cats of mirikitani". i have cleaned and shopped like a good homemaker on my childless day off and i am itching to go pick up my babies.

end of an era

today was maya's last day of preschool. yes, i cried. partly it was sadness at the relentless march of time that has made my babies grow so big so fast. there was a party where the teacher read stories written by the big kids in literacy group ( all five of them) and the kids acted it out. it was an amazing creative collaborative, with kids just jumping in to take parts and no one fighting over who got to play who and how they should do it. they worked it out with just a tiny bit of help. and you could see the end result of two years of preschool--little kids who can cooperate, create their own narratives (with some elements lifted from movies, video games, and pop music--all gamely accepted by the staff which refused to let kids wear commercial characters on clothes), sing, dance, have fun, and express their feelings.

and now it is on to the world of public school, where i have been overwhelmed the past few days with the reality of the need to raise test scores, the need to be in compliance with special education law,and the grim budget scenario. mandates to do lots and lots of things with very little money.

but somehow the kids still seem pretty happy.

politics these days are so scary and the problems seem related to some real basics. not to sound like that person who wrote about all she needed to know she learned in kindergarten, but can't we have a little more creativity and cooperation in congress? if the preschoolers can do it, can't you guys?

at the end of the preschool graduation a beloved teacher (who will now forever be even more beloved) handed out candy necklaces she had made for all the big kids. we had advance notice, and had prepped our 8-year-old with some ice cream before the party. i expected the little kids and siblings to start dropping like flies on the floor crying and yelling as their big friends walked around with shiny candy draped around their necks. but nothing at all. and the big kids started opening their necklaces up to share. miles scored two pieces.

we will miss you very very much room to grow preschool.

xo

wildflowers, wood line

we managed to spend a lot of time outside this weekend, which is a very good thing.

saturday we all went to starr king to help water trees and weed the garden. even with a mild hangover it felt sweet to be in a garden with seven kids who were excited about pulling the most weeds, finding big radishes, and washing carrots to eat. walking through the starr king open space we saw all kinds of wildflowers. later maya and i went to the nursery and came back with a shovel, aphid eating ladybugs, and some geraniums to cheer up the deck. the compost pile was chock full of big roly polys and we spread them around. the garden has been a little forlorn lately, and needs some tlc.

today we met our friends at the presidio, and walked (on top of, only fell once) andy goldsworthy's wood line. very worth checking out, maybe it will become a birthday tradition. continuing on we saw a very big bird of prey we could not identify in the grass near the path. then we hit presidio bowl for a few hours of '70s rock, strong drinks, bowling (i was awful, boo hoo), turkey burgers and shooting and driving arcade games. we walked back up the wood line and i was pleased to see miles with his friend talking about different birds they had sighted, and dragon books they are reading. she is one of his few girl friends...i like that he has at least one!

tomorrow my summer ends, with professional development that starts at 8 am. i will really miss these wide open days and weeks.

ok it has been a while

hello friends

we are back in the city, and i have just returned from a night out with my starr king moms for our first friday night home in the mission. whiskey, wine, talk talk, and oysters and pate at a pop up restaurant in sugar lump cafe.

it was a fantastic few weeks out of the city. we were at camp mather for a week, where miles learned ping pong and we all got a healthy dose of RELAX. no cleaning, no cooking,no driving. we spent our days under tall redwoods, swimming and eating (and playing ping pong). maya rocked the talent show with it's a hard knock life. we swam (and played ping pong) and met friends and it was mell0w and beautiful out under the redwoods, climbing rocks and no traffic or crazy people. after that we spent two weeks in sonoma, just me and my two beautiful kids. ice cream, the bookstore, pizza, swimming,the chocolate cow. sun, trees, sun, blackberries,wine, reading, playing on the stage, grandma, wine, soccer. our dog ran free, the kids and i a happy threesome. i watched disfunctional tv all night. we looked at real estate ads before we bought lattes and baked goods on the square in the morning. we saw the stars every night. we caught crawdads and a tiny trout in a creek and swam and it was quiet.

now we are back. and i am thinking, why live in the city if you are not devoted to social justice, or improving urban ecology, or the arts. am i to be inspired by the city, or depressed by it?is it time to write my novel? today we went to the park and miles played soccer with a little boy who just moved from nicaragua. swam in martin luther king pool. and tonight i met my starr king mom friends for an awesome 24th st night of wine, whiskey, pate and talk, talk talk. we all flirted with the curly haired 43 year old waitress with braces. school will start soon.

my baby starting kindergarten.

so had some serious where should we live thoughts this weekend. should we live where it is calm and peaceful? quiet with no garbage on the ground, wine at the park and friendly faces? inverness and point reyes were so natural with trees and sky and beach all around. today we saw a woman lying on her side outside walgreens in handcuffs. was she an escaped murderer? miles wanted to know. i had no answer, only a clear image of her vulnerable back, lying on the sidewalk, a man slipping a hand into her back pocket, hopefully to find her identity and help her. a fire truck, police car and ambulance were soon on the scene, so i could tell the kids she was taken care of.

anyway, we are back. thanks to my starr king mom friends for this buzzed night. back in the city for now, with lots of plans for getaways to places where we are closer to the land, the plants, the animals, where the population is not so dense and intense. i need it, i want it, this time with nature.

love you guys,

j

4th parade photos

lots has been happening. night out on 24th street with my new girl gang. kids in camps singing songs on stage about greasy grimy gopher guts. fireworks. peaches. much summertime behavior regression.

we spent a good weekend with my family in sonoma. took the ferry up and back, and spent our three hot days there swimming in various pools, chasing bullfrogs again, eating much delicious BBQ, playing with cousins, having city friends up for a visit, and cramming 11 people into the two bedroom condo. on july 4th we watched the sonoma parade. it was a lot of fun but i had many non-patriotic feelings ( these feelings are not pretty, they are somewhat superior and not very open-minded--"hah! you think our country is so great? you know nothing!" and so i should keep them to myself) and identified most with the super freaky "mutants for molecular energy" contingent. at one point an old grey war plane flew slowly over and as people yelled "awesome" i felt queasy inside. turns out it was a transport plane but it looked like a bomber. at another point a little girl from starr king moved past us in a boat on wheels--starr king is everywhere!!

we just left the front door open and the kids kicked a soccer ball around outside the condo and miles tried to teach his little cousin lacrosse. rocket could just bound right out the door to run around on the lawn. we watched fireworks with a bunch of my mom's friends who all sounded very stoney to me as they commented on the display. i bumped into an old colleague from sfusd who lives in my mom's condo complex now and hangs out with a bunch of speech therapists in sonoma, one of whom retired last year and now works as a wine hostess. i will knock on her door next time we visit.

maya said she wants to move to sonoma. her reason: the tv is bigger.

photos:

amazing amazing amazing lucky shopping cart!!

"the gathering" christian rock band float

more of the amazing lucky cart, is it conceptual art commenting on the greed and luck of the american, guzzling gas as we fill up our carts, or just someone's idea of a good time? i love this thing!

random friendly panda

captain america

emergency chocolate delivery, yum

good eye at potero del sol

i don't think of myself as a bird person, exactly, but there are a surprising number of posts on here involving birds. nests, eggs, baby birds,library chickens, empty lot roosters, hawks, and of course that little dead pigeon maya had to pick up off the sidewalk. at the park for the second time today, miles and friend being loud and obnoxious, pit bulls frolicking on the field, the smell of weed drifting over pleasantly from a group of teenage dudes maya whisper screamed "come here!" with an excitement that seemed too much to be real. "it's a bird in a nest!!!" and there it was. a little nest tucked into a straggly honeysuckle vine about four feet off the ground, with a small mama bird and her loud peeping featherless baby with beak open wide. i hope we did not scare her too much, but i had to lift the kids up to take a peek and i just had to take a picture. the mama stayed in the nest and just kinda looked at us. if you look closely it appears that this urban bird has used some of the abundant local materials--garbage--to construct her home.

maya remarked that usually birds build their nests in trees, but now we know that that is not always the case. buena suerte, pajaros.

let's pretend we are poor

this morning at the park maya wanted to pretend we were poor and lived there. "see this table? that's where i sleep." she told me, lying on the picnic table bench. "let's go play in my bedroom," she said, running up the grassy hill to the playground. kind of wierd, but she is trying to work things out. there has been a lot of conversation lately about the homeless and half-naked man who is living under a dirty sleeping bag on the sidewalk by the walgreen's parking lot for the past few weeks.

today i bumped into an old friend, who looked great, and was happy, but who is really living on the edge income-wise, and who has faced eviction recently and lives on food stamps. she is very tied to the neighborhood because they don't have money to take trips out of the city. she wasn't complaining. she showed me some photos of her beautiful daughter, and told me about some of the social justice activities she has been up to with her band, the brass liberation orchestra. when she spoke about her daughter it was in the most glowing terms--she is the most amazing girl, so not-entitled, so appreciative. my friend really does not have money for indulgences, and her daughter really does appreciate what she has, and is living a pretty different life than most kids. they actually wake up every morning and meditate for a few moments.

i have to say, i fantasized i would raise non-entitled, non-materialistic kids, but between my own weakness for buying them stuff and peer pressure on them to have what their friends have i have not done a great job. these kids want a lot, and are not afraid to ask. they have a strong sense of justice about when they think they are being treated unfairly. translation: a lot of whining, begging, arguing. i wish it was a little more peaceful around here.

i want to figure out a way to channel that energy and sense of justice into caring about the larger world, not just who gets what when why around here. can we do this without being dirt poor? does seeing the man living under the sleeping bag create appreciation for our apartment, or just insecurity about ending up on the sidewalk with him? we have tried modeling a life where we don't buy too many things we don't need, and give some of our money away to help kids and schools and hungry folks. but reality is, they have a pile of toys sky-high.

their little hearts and brains are still so soft and malleable. it is just impossible for another generation to grow up and want as much stuff as the last american generations have. any ideas?

solstice-ish 2011

look at some of the crazy energy i photographed on and around the summer solstice and pride week in sf. i think miles was influenced by all the outfits he has seen recently and he looks pretty awesome in this wig he found in maya's dress-up. according to the zoo artists maya is a bug about to be devoured by a tarantula but she is obviously not going to go down without a fight. and i just liked this art on a plywood wall by bi-rite ice cream ( i finally went--yes, delicious). the days will start to get shorter now, which will hopefully lead to a little more sleep for us all.

today maya wanted to find her old sling for her arm and it is no longer here. i splurged and we went to walgreen's and bought two ace bandages and she hugged me and whispered that i was the best mommy in the world. i will try to remember to help my kids and myself be happy in tiny ridiculous ways like this. tomorrow she has firm plans for me to wrap up her arm like it is broken and hanging in a sling and wrap up her knee from calf to thigh. she has packed a little purse with gauze and bandaids and will be showing off her injuries and tending to others at preschool.

took rocket to fort funston today and met an old friend. the sky was gray and we found a sculpted dune with a black line running through it looking perfect against the sky. we climbed up and sat and talked looking from high up over the pacific ocean, rocket charging up and down the dunes, rolling in plants, digging, and coming up to us every few minutes overjoyed, looking crazy with his scruffy hair and wet nose covered with sand. our dune sloped down to create a valley of sand between us and the next dune. i considered log-rolling down like a kid but was a little too lazy for the hike up. not lazy, tired. maybe next time.

xo

tadpoles

up in sonoma where as usual all seemed suspiciously idyllic. happy kids of all ages frolicking on the green grass in the square, fountains trickling, bargains at the church mouse, a quiet pool to swim in, ice cream at the chocolate cow, maxwell's miniature golf course, no litter to be seen. fragrant flowers at every turn. my mom drove us less than a mile out of town to this tiny pond near ravenswood winery where there were bullfrogs croaking loudly through the sunny afternoon and it was just fine for miles to strip down to his underwear and capture many tadpoles in a frisbee.

this morning the kids and i ventured into the lisa kristine gallery i have walked by many times and i was surprised to find a lot of powerful images of people in slavery at the back. i had to pull miles away from the slavery photo book and was surprised by a little tear in my eye. there was a pleasant but obviously mentally ill man hanging out with us by the miniature golf course, who the manager mentioned was someone she had to keep an eye on so he didn't scare away guests. and a funeral. so all is not perfect, even in sonoma.

here is maya, taking a photo of herself with gum hanging out of her mouth. lately she is all over the place, sweet and funny, incredibly silly and loud, and even a little mean and sneaky. sometimes i am overwhelmed by her, she is changing faster than i can keep up with, but i am trying. testing, testing, "can i do it?" "what will happen if i do?" "will i still be loved if i do bad things?" i get mad a lot, and wish i was more patient. she took this photo of herself with gum hanging out of her mouth, and i can hear her saying, in a contrite but almost hopeful voice "i know you're going to be really mad at me." she sometimes cries "you don't love me" in a pretty anguished little voice. of course i do, more than you can know.

worries, peaceful

working with my hands, listening to music, these things can take my mind off the ever present worries. yes, this blog is partly about devising ways to fully experience life without being miserable. not denial or escape, but let those worried thoughts come and go right through me. yes, the anxious brain is trying to problem solve in the face of a perceived threat, but there is a point where it is not problem solving, but pointless worrying that is going on. let those thoughts flow right through!

one kid at preschool, another lying in my bed reading shonen jump comics from the library for the last few HOURS. i have been in my sunny garden, where i get lost pulling young weeds from the vegetable beds, adding compost and working it in, making tiny furrows for seeds and planting them. i have become much better at rolling my fingers in a way to drop one seed at a time. i took a break for a big green lunch of sauteed collards, lacinato kale, and arugula from the garden. there are a few artichokes back there, lots of cut and come again greens. the wild blackberries are all along the back fence, full of white flowers. the wierd pimento bush is thriving with some small fruit. i picked one plum, but the fruit trees are fairly devoid of fruit this season. little roses are blooming, nasturtiums. the chayote squash has climbed up the bougainvilla--two stories high. some small green tomatoes and strawberries are doing ok but wishing for more sun. lots of plants growing and birds all around. i am lucky to have this space and time.

very much liking the itunes radio station afriki djigui theatri these days. i have no idea what the words mean. check it out, it will make you feel good.

this morning we were out of milk and i had the idea that i could send miles around the corner, just right around the corner to buy some. do people in the suburbs and small towns send their eight-year-olds out to buy milk? i didn't, because of some sibling issues this morning. but maybe tomorrow. i will just have to trust that the one big building in the way, the lack of my eyes on my boy, will not cause anything bad to happen to him.

i think i will go lie down next to my little boy and rest. better get it while i can.

xo

another new person

maya took this picture. if you look closely you will see several roosters walking aimlessly around this weedy lot on alabama and 19th. hmm.
this morning i took miles away from a playground full of his buddies, chasing each other around aggressively under a blue sky--to attend a writer's workshop. so proud of my once so anxious boy. he sat with a bunch of 8-10 year-old writers of all shapes and sizes around a big wooden table and said "no way" when i asked if it was ok to leave--but said it smiling. so for two hours i sat in the cozy corner at 826 valencia with a big coffee and read a collection of memoirs written by incarcerated women in writer's workshops taught by wally lamb.

the workshop is called "diary of a young whale" and i tuned in now and then to hear the kids asking and answering questions about predators, decomposers, prey, producers. two hours of brainstorming and writing, to be repeated next sunday with a finished product of some sort that will be typed up and published in a chapbook. anyone remember those? i had to drag miles out of there and he took his paper home to work on. he asked me to read it aloud in the car several times as we drove to carl and ellie's house and then counted the little blue lines. it is about a lump of dirt named bumper who lives in hawaii. now he wants to be a writer and an athlete.

826 valencia is the brainchild of dave eggers, and full of pirate gear, tourists, a beautiful aquarium with a blowfish that can be viewed in a tiny tiny dark theater with two theater chairs, and eager earnest writers who want to help kids find their voices. there are lots of anthologies written by local kids, and by local adults. being there made me want to go home and write--i used to want to be a writer, too.

we went to carl and ellie's and met india for the first time. her big eyes are an almost metal grey, amazing curly hair and tiny doll hands. she feel asleep in my arms, all peace and trust.

another carless day

another carless day. i love this kind of existence, reminds me of those post-college days in newark delaware which in some ways were the best times of my life. just let it flow. we roll out the door with rocket and a vague plan to hike bernal hill and find some more secret slides but only make it one block before we stop for the kids to get their hair cut at stephany's. everyone speaks spanish and miles gestures to make his hair plan clear. we walk a little farther to casa sanchez where we are lucky enough to eavesdrop on a big group of traveling cool skateboard ladies from portland oregon discuss skate parks and the skate business while we eat rice and beans. we make it another block to the water park where miles entertains some kids running through the fountains. a little farther south to garfield playground, home of the purple dinosaur and the wierd moving balance beam. we watch a very professional looking soccer game and start to laugh hysterically as we avoid stepping in doo doo and hockers. we give up on the healthy hike up the big hill and head back for ice cream, stopping at the bookstore on the way where i read maya a book called king and king about a gay prince and buy virginia burton's book "life story". waiting for our cones i spot this cool woman and her twin girls we met at rancho cicada last year. we take our cones to the water park and soon the kids are soaked and sugared, chasing each other around topless and happy in the sun.

i topped off this day at our wonderful neighbor nancy's house, drinking a bottle of nice red wine and eating a delicious sandwich made with her home-preserved strawberry jam while miles and her son got awfully goofy. i put miles to bed with a nice wine buzz.

a day without the car is often a better day, i need to remember this. for so many reasons.

educational

today i took maya to preschool and what did we beehold? a bunch of kids swarming around the back window. sorry about that. anyway, a swarm of bees was resting on a wooden railing in the school's outside area. they had just appeared there. exciting. i guess this is not unheard of in these parts.

it was parent appreciation morning so i stayed a little while for the treats that had been provided for us bumbling parent folk. maya's teacher quickly dig through her bookcase and came up with a book about keeping bees and read it to the kids at morning circle. when i picked maya up after lunch the kids were all clustered at the back window again, watching the bee rescuer and learning how to capture a swarm of bees.

i love preschool because so much of it is incidental, wonderful teaching. how could you come up with a more interesting science lesson than a swarm of bees in the playground and a guest bee keeper removing them?

i wish this kind of teaching and learning could go on for many more years but reggio emilio is undervalued and (supposedly) harder to implement as the kids get bigger.

anyway, i was feeling a little sad about preschool coming to an end for my youngest. miles saved some allowance to pitch in to see kung fu panda 2, and it was raining, and i am a sucker, so we headed over to the 4 star theater on clement street after picking up maya. miles scored two free bags of popcorn from the concession stand after asking for it in mandarin, and we were the only people in our tiny movie theater. after the movie maya talked about china, and kung fu, and then dressed up like a kung fu lady when we got home and set up little kicking stations around the living room and then got a plastic stick and waved it around like a kung fu lady would and twirled around in circles and crashed into the couch a few times and made lots of hilarious kung fu sounds until she whacked her brother in the arm with the stick and then it was bedtime.

so, there is incidental learning going on all the time, whatever setting you are in. it is just so fabulous when things that are real and meaningful and interesting fall into your child's lap and there is a teacher waiting near her with the time and skills to go deep with it.

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.

more summer reading

there is finally a bookstore nearby! modern times bookstore has relocated from valencia street to the old china books building on 24th near harrison. i love the children's section full of books about different kinds of families, child memoirs about being a refugee from the congo, stories about martin luther king, the underground railroad, native american indians. there is a mysterious little gallery in the back which i hear might have art classes soon.

we bought a copy of freak the mighty, which i have in bed with me right now but will have to hide from miles until he gets older. somehow i remember books like this as mostly happy, but this one has a kid whose dad is a murderer and whose best friend dies, oops. luckily he is happy with little house on the prairie.

seward slides

day 5 summer vacation 2011

we found and rode the seward street slides. i had heard about these for years and finally checked them out. two old concrete slides dug into a hillside by a community garden, with a couple nice curves and drops. there was a community garden above and an old playground below. the one on the right is fastest, and riding on cardboard adds a little speed. of course i met someone there i vaguely knew--a fellow public school mom (sunset, an awesome school) and teacher (at alvarado). it made me wince inside to see her reaction about miles being at starr king--"the mandarin immersion program, i hope." i guess it will be a while before people consider starr king as a good school for kids in all programs. kind of sad.

we park-hopped to walter haas where we hooked up with two of miles' classmates and ate hard-boiled eggs and cherries and olives. the girls rollerbladed, miles played soccer and got loud, and...maya did several monkey bars on her own!!! something just clicked for her. very exciting.

grey sky, summer cold, miles at a friend's house, rocket sleeping on a pillow.

maya's the best

maya just woke up and wants to contribute to the blog:

maya: i love my mommy when she takes me to go get donuts. now it's your turn.

me: i love maya all the time.

maya: one time my mommy told me how to write it down, a poem, umm, and then my dad read the poem to me and it was great. and then i'll tell you the poem too. it said...

some fish are blue

some fish are red

some fish are sleeping in a beautiful bed

and then this is the next thing i wrote

some fish are red

some fish are blue

some fish are sleeping in a beautiful pool

me: i can't believe you remember that!

maya: and now say, "you're the best"

me: you're the best

chicken, dog bite, spider family

will you look at this? our city friends own this land and home in the wilds of mendocino and we were lucky enough to go spend time with them over the weekend again. we walked through redwoods and sequoias to the fairy corral, the kids gathered kindling and played many ball sports. we drank a lot of wine and ate delicious meals. it is so beautiful up there. the kids can just move around and make a lot of noise and throw things and we are not all on top of each other. i was sad to leave.

what was not so fantastic was that our little foster dog was attacked pretty badly. our friend's dog picked him up in his teeth and shook him like he was a rabbit. he is healing ok but had to get antibiotics for the big puncture wound. he was already fearful. it is hard being responsible for a tiny dog. maya was right there and i think it was traumatizing for her, too as we all screamed at the big dog and finally his owner had to kick him hard in the head to make him open his jaws..

we hit two libraries today. the first was the portola branch where i went down memory lane remembering my days working at e.r. taylor elementary. this is a sunny working class neighborhood with way less garbage than our hood. i see e.r. taylor has several school gardens going now. the portola library was full of people, kids lined up to play on the computers and lots of garandparents. we went to a separate room so the kids could participate in a storytelling theater type thing. i am always surprised that my son especially is so open to these unknown quantities, but in minutes they were in costumes and part of a spider family, miles as cushion and maya as see trouble, acting out a story from africa "why the moon is up in the sky" with the very talented storyteller sally davis.

later maya and i ventured out to the bernal library. she really really wanted to go because she had heard about this event and that there would be cookies and chickens at the library. she imagined the chickens roaming free, just as she imagined this morning that all the kids in china were sitting in the backseats of their cars listening to the same terrible katy perry song as we were "in their land". a wonderful author-illustrator and 20 year bernal chicken and duck farmer, jane wattenberg, showed us lots of different eggs, let us pet her chickens, read a book, took a wide variety of questions from the audience, and gave away postcards. maya was very impressed with the way the author's clothes matched the cutest chicken's feathers, and i was impressed by her life, making children's books and raising animals right up there at the most beautiful part of bernal hill north.

my kids are getting a good start to learning over the summer. i hope that other kids are too.

last day

another last day of the year. at times the year seemed interminable, but overall my little students made amazing progress and i am proud of them and will miss them. one little boy said goodbye and then, as his dad tried to drag him out of the room, launched into a detailed explanation of all the different kinds of explosions that will take place at his backyard explosion party that i will be invited to. mentos and diet coke. baking soda and vinegar. some chemical i have never heard of. the explosions will go THIS HIGH. like mount saint helens up to the SKY. this little guy entered school having daily 45 minute tantrums if he did not get the BLUE THING and is now able to say, "it's ok, i like blue a lot but sometimes i have to have other colored (fill in the blanks)." he used to avoid other kids but will now sit next to his little buddy making playdough volcanos together and say "awesome" and mean it if his friend shows him a playdough island with a tunnel through it. if i get the invitation to the explosion party for sure i will be there.

reality is hitting about my daughter going to mandarin immersion kindergarten in the near future and i am in obsessive worry overload, especially as she is going through an especially "out of her body" phase and seems pretty out of whack and disregulated. hey, maybe she is having a hard time because her mom is overly worried...could it be? i just read her brother's report card and instead of feeling proud of his second grade achievements, which include speaking, reading, and writing in mandarin, i worry about my daughter not being able to hack it.

sometimes i feel like a terrible mom.

anyway, maya has been asking me lots of questions about what is important lately:

what is more important, a house or food?

what is more important, your house or a big building?

what is more important, your kids or your car?

what is more important, how a bandaid looks or if it covers your boo-boo?

what is more important, your kids or watching tv?

what is more important, going to work or your kids?

what is more important, your pet or someone crying?

what is more important, love or eating bednight snack?

my son asks different questions: (this is yu-gi-oh talk)

who would win, explosive magician or battle fader?

who would win, volcanic doomfire or cyberdark dragon?

who would win, voltanis the adjudicator or mystic swordsman?

who would win, guardian sphinx or injection fairy lily?

there are people on the radio talking about ascending and declining civilizations. republicans fighting democrats. here in our city there is a battle going on over what kids should go to school where and why.

it takes all kinds to try and figure out this world. what is most important? how do we decide? is it getting the color blue all the time? winning the yu-gi-oh game? i like how maya is thinking and i want her in a school which encourages the search for this kind of wisdom. it feels like too much to ask lately but i want to know we are moving forward towards determining what is important for all of on our big blue marble. otherwise, what??

secret garden

friday night we went and saw bossy dudes and rainbow moods, short plays by short people, performed at the DeYoung museum, which was once again wonderful and heartwarming and amazing. i laughed, i cried. there are people out there, and they come to MY KID'S SCHOOL who are teaching narrative skills through playmaking and we are all lucky to have them. go stagewrite.

saturday we hiked up potrero hill for our tree-watering team orientation. friends of the urban forest planted nine trees along the sidewalk on coral road by starr king and they will need lots of tlc this summer to survive. so we learned about the bucket and plastic bag method of irrigation, found out where the water could be turned on, and were teamed with a partner family who will join us once every five weeks or so in our quest to keep these slender guys alive. yet another commitment but how can you say no to watering baby trees?

the kids got a peek at the learning garden which is only accessed by 3rd grade at starr king for some mysterious reason. maya and a few kindergarteners were very busy pumping water from the rainwater catchment barrel and pouring it on the plants while miles and his buddies hunched over a table in the bungalow playing yu-gi-oh. it was a beautiful day with blue sky and wind. on the way up maya picked up a dead baby bird she found on the sidewalk by the parking garage. it was very sad, but she decided that if we took care of the trees the birds could make nests in them and the babies would be safer. we are seeing desperate nests all over the place lately, eggs on stone ledges, nests on parking garages. many little birds are flying in and out of the overgrown jasmine in our backyard. one nest of eggs was savaged by a big old raccoon.

then a preschool alumni reunion in glen park followed by the fireballs' last soccer game of the season which...they won. woo hoo.

summer is almost here and i am feeling the call of rivers and big trees and even a faint call for a child-free getaway to a hot springs somewhere up north. i have been obsessively worrying about how my daughter will fare in kindergarten, and trying not to. i think she is feeling it, or feeling the end of preschool,because it has been a time of much yelling and crying and "you don't love me anymore." she is a mess and i assume it is my fault. we need some quality time in nature, or at least i do, getting away from all the arbitrariness of weekdays and weekends and school years.

heard a guy on NPR today talking about how kids who grew up in the 80s were taught that government was incompetent and or bad by watching shows such as the a-team, dukes of hazzard, and even ghostbusters. it was scary how much sense his argument made.

and today in my garden i harvested a bunch of greens, carrots, onions. i planted some tomato plants just as a big wind kicked into the afternoon. whoosh whoosh. miles was picked up and taken to the house of air. maya acted out a story where a sculpey horse and a sculpey snail were cruel to a sculpey sheep. he was perfect and they were either broken or overcooked and they would not be kind to the sheep unless he broke off his ear. which he did not. i put her to bed early and then miles returned from his party. he lay in bed next to me, this often rude little dude, and rocket cuddled between us as i read him two chapters from his surprising new book of interest, the secret garden. i have held on to this copy since childhood. miles may be growing up, and may not want to water trees, or even come play in our own backyard garden often, but i can see that this book holds him in the same way it held me a long long time ago. and that is nice.

nonsense post

c'mon, people, can't we do better than this? seeing this litter and weed infested tree pit makes me think of how there is so much potential in humans. we can all throw our trash in the street, or we can walk one more block and throw it in a trash can.

see what these nice elderly people on 23rd street have done with their house? they keep up their garden and plant pretty flowers and staple and glue tacky little plastic toys all over everything to create an effect that is actually quite lovely and entrancing for the little ones.

sorry, i am a little off tonight. my car got hit during the night a few days ago and it is getting appraised tomorrow. who knows if we will be carless soon, i do not trust the insurance folks to do the right thing, whatever the commercials say. the person who hit me left a note with their number and my insurance has taken over. i am counting down the days until summer vacation starts as work has been very meeting-heavy with some administrative shenanigans i have been unwillingly dragged into.

summer! i will emabark upon a serious exercise routine. write my speculative fiction novel. enrich all the soil in my backyard garden. find an awesome planter to put on our sidewalk to combat the trash and general blightiness of our block. spend quality time with my wonderful children, enjoying each other and not yelling "i'm going to kill you!" (yes, i actually said this the other day. maya: "kill me?..." (breaks into sobs). overcome or accept my phobias. develp myself professionally as i have no time to do this during the school year. make plans to be super-volunteer at my kids' school and try not to panic about maya entering mandarin immersion kindergarten with all of its demands and who knows who for a kindergarten teacher. catch up with my far away friends, some of whom are only 30 minutes away.

take some deep breaths. stop watching netflix. figure out some s*(^%.

nighty night. mom, enjoy the on-deck hot tub for me.

xo

slightly apocalyptic

a year ago i wrote about the day of action march to the civic center to protest budget cuts to education. it was a very high energy hopeful kind of day.

perhaps it is just my mood but the day of action today felt a little more apocalyptic. i dragged miles and maya down to the civic center. exiting bart we heard drums--there was some kind of crazy sculpture made of a bunch of huge plastic drums attached to each other in a blob shape big enough for about ten people to walk around hitting the drums. which they were doing. nearby was a super intense looking young man with no shirt, sitting on a backpack in the windy sun with his eyes squeezed shut, all his muscles clenched. i was feeling a little like i was at a grateful dead show (yes, i mistakenly did that a long time ago). as we got closer to the civic center i felt a falling sensation, a swift decrease in optimism as i realized it was a very small, quiet crowd, not the energetic swarm of thousands and thousands who seemed to represent a sure route to raising awareness of the school budget crisis last year. this was a few hundred teachers and a few kids and parents. we made our way to the front and heard some loud and impassioned speeches which i had to explain to miles. basically, can't we just keep what we have in place with the tax extensions? "tax the rich" chanted a teacher organizer from berkeley. the chief firefighter in san francisco got up and spoke about republicans who were making our world less safe, empty firehouses and slow response times to crime. as he spoke a fire blazed away in the mission district. an angry sounding older woman asked repeatedly "if not us, who? if not now, when?" it all sounded true but felt more desperate than last year. are people going to give up and let it be this way? there does not seem to be any easy way to solve the financial problems, but i guess i just don't buy that keeping taxes low to keep businesses happy and in our state is going to make things better. what is the next level of protest and rally? do we rally the teachers to strike? do we storm the state legislators? are we going to have a revolution? or do we just make do and think about fleeing to finland. i really don't know but today seemed sad.

the kids had an awful soccer practice with lots of anger and out of control boy-ness. rock throwing and sand throwing and pushing and fighting and not listening. it felt very edge of the world up there at the potrero rec center. kind of crumbling and crazy. and on the bus ride home from the civic center on the 9 little miles squeezed into the middle back seat, maya and i a few rows up. it was crowded and then some aggressive sfmta guys got on asking for transfers and passes. soon the man next to me, with a big pizza box and two kids in strollers was furious, mf, mf, what the f you asking me for, on and on and he finally flashed two fast passes at the guys. a woman near him had passed him the fast passes, miles saw it all and was confused. so the guy had snuck on with his wife and babies, outraged as he seemed that he would be asked for proof. some dudes in the front of the bus started commenting about how he should have shown them the passes in the first place and soon there was arguing and ugliness and i really had the impulse to grab my kids and get the h.e. double toothpick out of there.

anyway, i did not, and we made it home just fine. miles is at his friend's house, staying up too late watching a kung fu movie. rich is playing apocalyptic space rock in the other room. maya is dreaming about...what? in the other room. fashion. mommy and baby creatures. things that all makes sense and have patterns and logic. she tries hard to find order and meaning in her world. i need to try and do more of that. right now it seems like a lot of messed up chaos that i can't do much about.

sunday streets again

mother's day. we were lucky to catch sunday streets and were out for almost the entire day, walking from our house to 18th and valencia with rocket dog. i saw a student i had when he was four who is now a junior in high school. his mom recognized me and i felt old. he told me about some mech droids they were building in japan and was very into rock the bike (music powered by pedaling bicyclists). later another student sped by on her scooter. when she left our pre-k program at 4 she was barely speaking, today she politely introduced my to her brother and looked like a beautiful about to be 2nd grader. of course we saw many friends from the neighborhood. there were a bunch of kids from miles and maya's preschool checking out these amazing dancers (imagine video of amazing dancers here, i can't seem to post the video right now) but my favorite was a little boy who was just learning how to walk when he was in preschool, and usually used crutches to get around--breakdancing!! he was inspiring.

painting part of a mural outside the brava theater.
we saw this before sunday streets really got going. it is conceptual art? did someone just throw their recycling bin through a glass door in a rage? did someone break a glass door and someone else push the bin through to make a statement of some sort? hmm...trippy...confusing. watch out for the broken glass.
also at the beginning of sunday streets miles and maya enjoyed lying on the asphalt in the sun, until a cranky cop suggested they get up because it might scare other people to think they had been hurt. c'mon.

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.

Dog Fest and school funding

my mom was in town and i wanted to do something fun with her that was very san franciscan, so we went to the mckinley elementary school fundraiser in duboce park, dog fest.

this is the best school fundraiser on earth, with tons of fun booths to win prizes (maya especially got a big old pile of booty while miles chose mostly perishable sugar prizes), jumpy houses, art activities good food, so many old friends and acquaintances i felt i was looking through some kind of time machine telescope, and lots and lots of dogs. the emcee was hilarious, and talked his hilarious way through various dog contests such as owner matches dog contest, best lap dog contest, and best ears contest.

you hear a lot about buying local, keeping money in our country, etc., but this is the REAL new local economy. we spent about 25 bucks and had a very fun, tasty, and entertaining afternoon--and all that money went right back into funding a very nice public elementary school. this was one step up from the usual school fundraiser, which is a fun event that has either entertainment or an auction--you get something for your money, but it is mostly within one school community. this was people from lots of different communities, different schools, dog lovers, neighbors. this should just be going on every weekend somewhere in the city. i guess it kind of is.

this is the way it is going to be until some kind of miracle happens and there is more money for kids and education. i will not get started on the equity issue because sooner or later all schools will have ptas putting on dog fests, right? right?

anyway, i am procrastinating getting to the main point of this post. at the end of the day, after being surrounded by dogs for four hours, and with a LOT OF ENCOURAGEMENT FROM MY MOM, i was pulled, sleepwalker-like to the northern california family dog rescue booth, where, all kinda' dreamy-like i found myself holding a very small white dog, and then taking him on a walk, and then signing some foster papers, and then walking out of the park with the little dog, and bringing him home.

he was rescued from a shelter one day ago, and passed some kind of test proving he is kid-friendly, is neutered and has his shots. that is all i know. so there was a little furry stranger who needed a home, and now he is sleeping in the bunkbed with miles and maya.

did i mention my husband is in europe, touring with his band, and will be returning to this situation whether he likes it or not?

i explained to the kids that daddy and i may decide it is not a good idea to keep him, and that we are fostering him, and have not taken him home to keep, just to think about. uh-huh.

there is not rational way to decide to get a dog,at least if you are a busy, working, urban parent whose backyard is solid vegetable garden and whose kids are a bit loud and bonkers. but he is here, at least for now. and where to draw the line? who do we help and how do we decide? it is all mysterious. i hugged the rescue lady with tears in my eyes as i rushed off to the starr king fireballs soccer game (we won again--play bad news bear theme song in your head).

what do you think?