Career Ambitions
I think I could have a kick-ass future as a computer-science cartoonist. I've got the great little metaphorical stories all framed out in my head, the dialog, the actions, the gestures. I've got a wealth of material from my day job. Too bad I can't draw.
MOO Stickers!
About a month ago, I was mailing off a letter, and the envelope didn't seal all the way. I searched around for a sticker to seal it with, but I could find none—so I used the cover from a book of self-adhesive stamps. I thought at the time, "man, I should really get some cool stickers to seal letters with." (Yes, when I think to myself, I end my thoughts with prepositions.)
A few days later, Laughing Squid posted photos of the new MOO stickers. Needless to say, I rushed right to the MOO site. Their cards are BRILLIANT, so I had full faith that the stickers would be as nice.
People, I am here to tell you that the stickers are EVEN MORE BRILLIANT. You know those little stickers you get from Japanese photo booths? Well MOO stickers are like those, only a billion times better: slightly larger, sturdier, and—because they're printed from your own high-resolution digital photos—much sharper and with better color than anything that could be taken with a cellphone-quality camera in a curtained booth. See for yourself, though honestly, these photos don't do them justice:
If you're expecting a letter from me, you can also expect to get one of these on the back of the envelope. Woo!
The Man Has a Point
Me: These billboards are starting to freak me out. It's like Atlantic City is where all the bands we grew up with go to die.
Al: Yeah, all the twentysomethings are probably like, "George Thoroughgood? Who's that???"
Lori: I know! Look, there's one for Aerosmith and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. I remember doing modern dance to "I Love Rock and Roll" in my 8th grade gym class. Who knew she was still around?
Al: I remember driving to the shore with my parents when I was a kid, and there'd be all these billboards for Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, and I'd be all, "who'd want to see Tony Bennett?" Now I get it: they were catering to the middle-aged folks looking to relive their youth...and now we're the middle-aged folks they're trying to lure.
Lori: Oh my god, you're right.
Al: I mean, tell me Pat Benatar isn't the Liza Minelli of our generation.
Blog Backlog
I have a sticky note on my monitor and a sheet of notepaper in my purse with a list of things I need to blog about, and I've been trying t decide whether to stick them all in one post or spread them over separate ones. I think I'm going to go the latter route mainly so the posts are easier to categorize (and for readers to scan). I'm also debating about whether I should post in chronological order; I think I'm going to go with the things that are most important to me to get down, regardless of when they happened, in case I run out of steam before I get everything out. Stand by.
How Many Calories Does a Jog Home Burn?
Here I am with a long list of things to blog about, and Lori just reminded me of another one by commenting on the Flickr photo below.
On Saturday, after a long day for both me and Al (I'll get to that in two other posts, both on my list) and a bit of dinner together, I proposed that we go for a family walk to Capogiro. Al said he was too tired to go, and the Beaner and I should go without him. (I think he was dying to get rid of us so he could nap.)
We usually take the tricycle to Capogiro, but tonight I took the black stroller because Al had mentioned that the Beaner was wiped out from playing at the water park. I figured if he dozed off while we were out, I'd just get a cookie somewhere and walk back.
The Beaner didn't doze off, however; he seemed as hyper as ever, and couldn't wait to get out of the stroller to pick out his gelato when we arrived at Capogiro. He asked to taste some Fig, and then decided he would have a small cup of 1/2 Fig, 1/2 Papaya. (He asked for chocolate, but since the chocolate has dairy in it, it was a no-go.) I should have told the gelato woman to go easy with the scoop—how big a small is really depends on how heavy-handed your server is, and since it was just the two of us and I wanted something different, it would have been better if she'd skimped a bit.
Anyway, I set the Beaner up at a table with his overflowing Fig/Papaya cup while I tried to decide whether I just wanted a cookie, or an ice cream sandwich. The guy behind the counter recommended the ginger gelato-spice cookie sandwich, so I went with that. He was right: it was EXCELLENT... but it was also HUGE, definitely enough for two people. (Al and I have gotten the smaller round cookie sandwiches that come two to a pack and been totally satisfied with one apiece, and this rectangular confection was at least the size of two round cookie sandwiches.)
The Beaner ate part of my cookie and all of his gelato; I couldn't help him with it, as Al usually does, because I was so busy trying to figure out how to get finish my cookie sandwich. Ideally I would have taken half home to share with Al, but it was over 90 degrees out, and home was a little over half a mile away, so that wasn't going to happen. I also could have abandoned half of it—that would have been the sensible thing to do—but the damn thing was so good that it seemed like sacriledge to leave any of it behind. I remarked to the Beaner as we shoveled our treats, "we're going to have to run home to make up for this."
I was as good as my word. As we washed up and prepared to leave, the Beaner said, "I don't want to get in the stroller; I want to walk." I said, "honey, we're going to RUN, remember?" I grabbed his hand and said Go!, and the two of us took off up 20th Street. I paused at the intersections more because it was awkward to run while pushing the stroller with one hand, holding the Beaner with the other so he didn't trip, and wearing my purse (shoving it under the stroller helped) than because I was tired... at first. Eventually even jogging at Beaner pace became a little strenous, and the only reason I kept it up was because he was so obviously enjoying it. "Let's run some more, Mommy! Again!"
I finally wore him out at 20th and Arch, when, after a long downhill run, he grabbed the stroller and threw his body in front of it. "I need to get in the stroller," he panted. "But you can still keep running. Here, buckle me." I did, without demanding that he say please, though I did put my foot down and wait for the niceties when he yelled, "RUN, MOMMY!" He did eventually say, "please can you run, Mommy?", so I indulged him. I'm not sure it worked off the gelato sandwich, but now Al and I have a goofy shorthand for "gah, I'm tired":
"Phew, I need to get in the stroller."
More Drawing
I think I mentioned somewhere (though I can't find it now, so maybe it was just verbally to Al or a friend) that I was dying to see what the Beaner would draw next, but that I didn't want to influence him at all by suggesting that he draw. I especially didn't want to say, "let's draw" and then have him copy what I did; I wanted to see what he'd come up with on his own.
The other day, however, he asked me to draw something, so I drew him. I did as he usually does, and described what I was drawing as I did so. "OK, here's your head... it's kind of squarish. Now I'll put your ears on, and then your eyebrows go here..."
"And my face! Don't forget my face!" [Again, here he means mouth.]
"OK, I'll get to that in a second..."
"And my eyes! Put in my eyes!"
"Right, your eyes go here, under your eyebrows. And here's your nose..."
[Pointing] "And my face goes HERE."
"Right, here's your mouth."
"Is that my hair?"
"Yep. What do you think?"
"It looks like ME!"
On Monday, Jess brought the Beaner back from sharecare, and they played in the living room while I finished up a meeting that ran long. When I came down, the Beaner was drawing. (I should see if I can find that drawing now, come to think of it.) "Oh, cool," I said to Jess, "he's starting to put noses on now." She said, "yes, and EYEBROWS! I couldn't believe it when he insisted that his drawing of a face needed eyebrows when he and M were coloring earlier."
"Ah," I said, "I wondered if that would happen." And I told her about the drawing I'd done of the Beaner. "Right," she said, "he also added ears!" It seems my theory that I would influence him was correct... at least in the short term. I think I did the drawing of him on Saturday night; on Monday afternoon, he still remembered eyebrows, nose, and ears. Today, however, eyebrows and ears seem less important, though nose has stuck around. Two self-portraits that he drew today (and that Aura left for me):
Another drawing tidbit that was interesting to me: After Jess left on Monday, the Beaner and I sat drawing in the living room for a while. I tried another sketch of him; as far as I was concerned, it looked pretty much the same as the one I'd done on Saturday, only larger and in red pencil rather than green crayon. I also didn't walk him through all the anatomical parts as I was drawing them, and I had a bit more room for an upper body than I did when drawing in his handy-dandy notebook. When I was finished, I said, "who's that?", fully expecting him to say, "me!"
"It's Daddy," said the Beaner.
Do Do Do Do Doot Doot Do Do...
Thanks to Mrs. Kennedy, I cannot stop humming Lovecats by the Cure. I may have to download the damn thing off of iTunes if this keeps up.
What Happened Today
My company has an awesome benefit that started this year: Backup Care. We get 100 hours a year of home or child-center care at highly subsidized rates from local providers, for use when our regular child-care arrangements fall through for whatever reason (a nanny's vacation, a holiday week at the pre-school, etc.). I've used it before when Jess was away and Aura wasn't available (or vice versa), and Al needed it when I was in Germany in June and Aura got sick. Totally invaluable benefit.
Of course, with all backup situations, there's extra worry involved because you don't know the person who's going to be watching your kid for the day(s). You have to trust the service to provide someone who knows her shit, who's responsible, accessible, and very, very good with small children. The two women who've come when I was here fit that description to a T and were wonderful—the second one even more wonderful than the first, and I didn't think that would be possible. Apparently the woman who came when I was away was also great. All three women, I should add, were provided by the Philadelphia Nanny Network—the service we'd used directly for backup care before my company offered the benefit.
I'd had it on the calendar for at least a week that Aura would be out today, but I didn't remember until Friday to put in a backup care request. I filled out the web form at about 6:30pm on Friday night and got the standard "we'll call you within 2 hours" message when the form submission succeeded. I was thinking that they'd just call on Monday, since it was after business hours on a Friday.
On Monday I made a mental note in the morning to call the backup care phone number if I hadn't heard from them by noon, but then I got all caught up with work stuff and didn't remember again until 10pm. Eek! I fished out the backup care brochure to get the phone number so I could call first thing in the morning, and I noticed that it said they were available 24/7—so I called. It seems my web request hadn't gone through, so they initiated a request for me over the phone and said they'd get back to me if there was any news before midnight, or around 7am otherwise.
There was no word at 7, 7:30, 8, or 8:30am the next morning. I ended up calling them at around 8:50am to check on the status of the request (which had been for "8:30am or asap" because I knew it might be hard to get someone for 8:30am with such short notice) because the Beaner and I wanted to walk to Trader Joe's, and I didn't want the backup care people or a local service provider to call while I was out. They said they had calls in to two agencies, and to go ahead to the store—they'd call me on my cell if necessary.
The next call I got was at close to 10am, and it was from a woman whose agency had referred her. She asked about parking in my neighborhood (since we never park on the street here, I don't really know how hard it is to park, but I assume it's not easy based on the very few empty spots I see). I told her that public transit was the best way to get to us, but that if she insisted on driving and had a reasonably-sized car, she could park behind our garage as long as she didn't block any of our neighbors' garages. She said she had a Monte Carlo, that it was big, and that she didn't want to hold me up by taking public transit if I needed somebody right away. End of call.
About twenty minutes later the backup care people called to see if the provider had contacted me. I said yes, but to say that she wasn't coming. Apparently neither the woman nor her service had told the backup care people that, and they should have. So the backup care people contacted another service, and at a little after 11 I got a call from the director of an agency in Media (a suburb of Philly) saying that Molly (not her real name, but it's easier if I use *some* name here) was on her way. At around 11:30-11:45 I got a call from the backup care people asking if I'd gotten a call from the provider, and I said that I'd gotten a call from her service saying that she was on her way. The backup care agent said that she had it down that Molly would be there by noon. I said OK and fed the Beaner lunch.
At 12:05 I got a call from a woman who sounded fun, energetic, and enthusiastic saying that her service had referred her—but her name wasn't Molly. It seems that the first woman who'd called's service had worked to find a replacement when she'd bailed—without telling the backup care people—and the woman on the phone was the replacement. I felt sort of bad, because this woman sounded right up our alley. I took her number and said I'd call the backup care service to ask what was what. I did, and they said Molly and her service were definitely the ones they'd contracted with. I noted that Molly wasn't there yet, hung up, and called the enthusiastic woman back to give her the scoop. In the meantime, her agency had called to do the same.
Molly arrived at 12:30, and seemed nice enough. She had grandchildren about the Beaner's age, and after nodding in response to her first few questions, he opened up and told her what he was having for lunch, that he was two and a half, and that he had more teeth than she did. (Er. My first experience with my kid pointing out something to which any sensible adult would never call attention.) I wanted to say, "this is why we BRUSH OUR TEETH," but I didn't because I didn't know her story, and I thought it would be rude.
I asked the Beaner if he wanted to show Molly where all his toys were, and he said yes, so I helped him up from the table. He then grabbed the purple balloon we'd gotten at TJ's and tried to show Molly how fun it was to play with this thing, but she didn't seem to hear him, so he said, "Mommy, let me try with you!" I crouched down, and we each pressed our faces against the balloon and said to each other, "you look PURPLE!" The Beaner looked up at Molly and said, "see? See how we're doing it? Look! See?" She was digging for her glasses in her bag, though, and didn't realize he was talking to her.
Finally Molly found her glasses and the Beaner said, "the toys are all downstairs, in the basement." He pointed and motioned for her to follow. "You have to go down these stairs and then these stairs," he said. They were off and playing, so I dashed up to my office. I IMed Al to say that Molly had arrived and that she seemed nice and grandmotherly, if a little distracted. "You probably shouldn't let them out of the house," he said. I agreed; I figured they could play inside for a few hours.
About an hour later, after some laughter downstairs and an episode of Blues Clues (plus a request from Molly for a place to call to get some lunch—I suggested a pizza place/diner nearby), however, I did let them out of the house. Molly asked if she could take him to the playground down the street, and I said that would be fine. She asked if she should take the stroller, and I said "no, it's less than a block to the horsey park, and the Beaner can walk. Just go out the front door." I briefly considered asking for her cell phone number, but I thought, "eh, they'll just be at the horsey park, and the nannies are usually told not to give out their numbers anyway."
I had meetings for the next hour, and when those finished, I pinged Al to say, "they've been gone for an hour. Do you think I should worry?" No answer from Al; not at his desk, I guess. I figured I'd just walk down to the horsey park myself and fetch them. When I arrived, however, there was no sign of Molly or the Beaner. I ran over to the pizza place/diner and poked my head in, in case Molly had stopped in for lunch instead of ordering takeout. It was empty.
I dashed back to the house and flipped through the notebook where I'd written the number of Molly's service. I called and explained that Molly and the Beaner weren't at the playground they said they'd be at, and I needed to get in touch with Molly via her cell. The woman looked it up, gave it to me, and then said she'd call it herself. I decided to wait for a few minutes, because I didn't want poor Molly getting two calls at once.
When 10 minutes passed and I got no call back, however, I called the number myself. It'd been disconnected. I dialed again, just to be sure. Definitely disconnected. I called the service back and told them that Molly and the Beaner had now been gone for an hour and forty minutes, the number they'd given me was out of service, and I WANTED MY KID BACK, so they'd better do something. They assured me she was trustworthy and an excellent caregiver, and that she was probably still in the vicinity.
I walked up and down every street for 3 square blocks. I went into the Please Touch Museum and scanned the entire place. I stopped in cafes and inquired. I walked around the only other playground in the area—the one that's attached to the Franklin Institute and that has a locked gate—knowing that it was unlikely that they were in there because we've never figured out how to gain entry, but scanning just in case. I saw lots of kids in matching t-shirts (probably campers) and a few caregivers, but no Beaner or Molly. I called Al in tears, and after a few minutes' deliberation, he said he was coming home. I didn't try to dissuade him.
At two hours since I'd last seen the Beaner, we called the service again, and they said our only option at this point was to call the police. Al did that while I repeated the 3 block loop, again checking that other playground and sobbing and wailing the Beaner's name. When I came up empty again and returned home, Al said he would drive around in the car. I knew this was probably fruitless, but again, I didn't dissuade him. (Ask my dad sometime about the time he went out looking for me in the car. It's just what dads do.)
After a frantic 8 minutes or so on the front steps, I saw our car coming back down the street—with only Al inside. He pulled up onto the sidewalk in front of our house and shook his head. "It's hard," he said, and I knew what he meant. How can you drive slowly enough to spot your kid and not get creamed by another car, or hit something yourself?
Needing to DO SOMETHING, I called the backup care people to tell them what was going on. I was absofuckinglutely hysterical at this point; I believe I sobbed, "this has NOT been a good experience!" at them. I noticed a police car pull up across the street just as the backup care people were asking me if the police had arrived yet. I said they'd just gotten here... and then I spotted Molly about a block away, and I screamed. Al looked up. I pointed and yelled, "GO GET HIM!!!!!"
Al had left the car running, and I was still on the phone. The backup care people said, wisely, that I should hang up and go fetch my kid; they'd call me back in a bit. I jumped into the car (to put it in gear so I could turn it off and get the key out) and then followed their advice. Al said, "here, you take him, I'll deal with this." Molly saw my hysterical face and said, "oh Lori, I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!" I grabbed the Beaner and ran.
The Beaner was super dirty from being "at the park with the dirt and the rocks"—I had no clue what he meant, and he couldn't tell me where this park was—but he was happy and couldn't figure out why I was such an obvious mess. Rather unexpectedly, my hysteria didn't upset him; rather, he smiled at me and seemed to be thinking, "oh mom, there was no need to worry. I'm fine!" He submitted to my hugs and sobs that I'd missed him, and my explanation that I was only crying because I'd been concerned for his safety and unsure of his whereabouts.
Al and Molly came in a few minutes later. She felt really bad about making me worry; I felt bad for calling the police. It turned out that they *were* at the Franklin Institute playground—though I'm still not sure what entrance they used, and I certainly didn't see them when I looked, twice. She'd just disconnected her cell phone—temporarily—the day before until some fraudulent charges could be sorted out. The Beaner was having such a good time, and she figured she was on duty until six, so... It was the perfect storm of miscommunication, noncommunication, and misunderstanding.
Molly called her service to let them know that she and the Beaner were back, and, after (apparently) chewing her out, they asked to speak to us. The owner of the agency apologized profusely and said, "I assume you wouldn't want Molly to come back again." I admitted that I probably wouldn't, but that she was very nice, and that they shouldn't necessarily hold his incident against her. I reminded him of all the nice things they'd told me about her when the Beaner was missing: that she'd had a background check, that she was very reliable, that she'd worked as a live-in and gotten glowing reviews...
I signed Molly's paperwork, but she was becoming visibly upset, and she said she'd probably be fired. We assured her we'd call the service again and put in a good word for her. After she left, Al did do that. It seemed a reasonable misunderstanding—"the playground down the street" obviously meant the playground that is actually on our street to me, while it meant that cool gated playground I passed on my way here, a block and a half away to Molly—and that if her cell phone had worked, we wouldn't have been in such a mess. (I didn't go into the scenario I'd run through in my head while frantic, that perhaps Molly had fallen ill and the Beaner didn't know where he was or what to do; a cell phone wouldn't have helped us then.)
I've been thinking about this ever since it happened, and as much as I want to say, "god, I was silly; he was only gone two hours!", I can't. I honestly feel utterly justified in my fright. I thought my kid was GONE, and I was FRANTIC. The fact that he was fine the whole time is a great relief, of course, but I didn't know that at the time. I've always worried when he's gone out with backup nannies (or even just new nannies) before, but they've always come back within 10-15 minutes of me thinking, "should I be worried?" This was an hour and fifteen minutes past the point where I'd first wondered "should I be worried?", they weren't where they said they'd be, and nobody could reach them. No, I don't think I was completely unjustified in freaking out.
It was 4:30pm by the time we got the whole mess straightened out, so Al and I just disconnected for the rest of the day. The backup care people called back and walked through everything that happened with me, post-mortem style, so we could figure out how to make sure something like this didn't happen again. We decided together that it really comes down to the nanny being accessible by cell phone, either by me directly or by her service. They were super nice and supportive, and definitely reaffirmed my original assessment that backup care is an invaluable service.
The Beaner is totally fine and had a lovely time with Molly, but we've since talked to him about telling Mom when someone suggests that he go somewhere new. It never hurts to say, "oh, I've never been to that park before. Let me just go back and tell my mom that's where we'll be." He's a little young to understand, I think, but it can't hurt to start talking about personal safety sooner rather than later, either.
Don't You... Forget About Me
The Beaner's been saying "don't forget for me!" a lot lately. He says it whenever we leave the room, go up or down the stairs, or even turn away from him. He wants to be included, dammit! Don't forget for him! Other variations: "Can I come wit you?" (yeah, it seems he's getting a bit of the Philly accent :-/) and "Can I come TOO?" The answer is usually sure... as long as we don't move at this weird .25 mph pace he's been espousing lately. Luckily, he also likes to run, and if we can make a game of it (as we did when running back from Capogiro), we can make good time *and* get some exercise.
...Which reminds me: The Beaner seems to have dropped a couple pounds in the past month. I think this marks the first time he's *lost* weight since the days after his birth. (It's been a steady climb since about day 6.) When I plopped him on the scale in his jammies the other day, he weighed in at 37.5 lbs.
Mini Weekend
It'll become obvious in a minute, when your RSS feeds get flodded with posts, that I'm in the process of clearing out the blogjam I'd intended to clear out last week. Yay for moving Tuesday's drama off the front page with more frivolous things!
So one of the things that was more topical a couple weeks ago but that I'm going to persist in writing about now was our weekend adventure to Atlantic City. Earlier that week the Beaner was raving about the maroon convertible Mini that Aura's husband had bought for him, and it occurred to me that perhaps the car share had a real convertible Mini that we could reserve for an hour. I looked it up, and it'd only about $15 to rent one for an hour on Sunday, so I made a mental note to mention it to Al.
I forgot to mention it, of course, and as the weekend drew near, Al told me that the team off-site he'd be attending in Atlantic City on Monday and Tuesday started at 8:30am Monday morning, and that some people were getting hotel rooms for Sunday. I said, "maybe we could go with you, just for the day!" It was kind of a goofy idea, but I was thinking: seaside resort, two swimming pools, woo! The Beaner would love it, and it'd be a fun family adventure. That's when I remembered about the convertible Mini. I checked the carshare website to see if we could reserve the Mini for Saturday instead, but it was booked.
Meanwhile, Al and I were trying to figure out how to swing all of us going to AC on Sunday -- either he or the Beaner and I would need to take the train back -- when it occurred to us to see whether a non-convertible Mini was available. The idea of driving two cars down there seemed a bit wasteful to me, but it appealed to Al, and the Beaner would get a longer Mini ride. Long story short: the Mini was available, the price was affordable, and off to AC we went.
The adventure required that we get an easy-to-move-from-one-car-to-another booster seat, which we'd been wanting to get anyway, so that was a nice bonus. It cracked me up when the Beaner asked, "Where did we get this boopster seat?" We used to—and still sometimes do—call him The Boopster, so it seemed fitting to call it the Boopster Seat. He's not totally sold on the lap belt—he prefers the 5-point harness on his old seat—but once we discovered the pop-up arm rests, his other objection to it was silenced.
We ended up having a nice day at Seaview in Galloway, NJ; the Beaner got to swim with me in the outdoor pool and with his dad in the indoor one, and he even got to try out his putting. The drive back to Philly on Monday morning was easy, and I was able to drop the Beaner off at sharecare, drop off our bags and boopster seat, return the car, and stop at Trader Joe's on the walk home, and still be at my desk before 11am.
I did wonder why my shoulders were so sore for a couple days afterwards, however; finally it dawned on me that it was from catching the Beaner as he jumped into the pool oh, about 100 times. The belly laughs were worth the shoulder aches, though—I found that I couldn't help but bust out laughing every time he made the leap. As I pulled him out of the water for about the 12th time, I said, "you CRACK ME UP!" He said, "no, YOU crack ME up! Hee hee!" Joy.
Rollergirl Review
I read Rollergirl: Totally True Tales From the Track forever ago, and I've been procrastinating about writing about it ever since. I wanted to do it justice, and the words just weren't coming to me. I'm not sure they'll come to me now, but I'm writing about it anyway because saying SOMETHING is better than saying nothing if I want anyone to ready this book—and I definitely do. (I've already passed my copy on to a friend, with instructions to pass it on to another friend when she's through.)
I've never met the book's author, Melissa Joulwan, but she's married to my friend Dave, whom I've known since he joined the Dreamweaver advisory council back in 1997 or 1998, when we were working on the way early versions of the product. Dave and Melissa moved to Austin, Texas around the time I was learning to play ice hockey, and Dave and I have been comparing my experiences on the ice with Melissa's on the track off and on ever since. When Dave told me Mel had written a book about those experiences, I went straight to Amazon to order it.
The cover of the book is incredibly sassy, and it's been reviewed in Penthouse, so you might get the idea that it's "all icing an no cake" (as my 12th grade Sociology teacher said of my oral report on Sex in Sweden). While there's definitely plenty of icing, in the form of the sex-kitten-meets-Rosie-the-Riveter personas of the skaters, there's also a fascinating history of the sport and spectacle of roller derby and its latest resurgence as a flat-track phenomenon.
I'd known that Mel was a founding member of the Texas Rollergirls, but I'd had no idea how close roller derby had come to being a flash-in-the-pan spectacle again. The drama! The intrigue! (The cool rockabilly fans that could only have come out of Texas!) If it weren't for the true grit of some tough, organized, inspriring women who issued a rallying cry of "by the skaters, for the skaters!", the sport never would have spread across the country the way it has. (That's right, in case you hadn't heard: Roller derby isn't just in Texas anymore. Philadelphia has a league, so does Baltimore—check out epmd's cool photos of the bouts on Flickr—and, in a weird coincidence, our friend and former nanny Hannah ended up writing about Portland, Maine's fledgling league during her stint at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. There's probably one in your area, too.)
I was so inspired by this book and attracted to the derby fun that I gave serious thought to trying it myself when I finished reading. I finally decided that for me, ice hockey is the perfect sport. In many ways it's similar to roller derby, except that instead of putting on a persona, I put on a lot of pads. The transformative power is the same, though: I feel *different* in my gear. Stronger, tougher, more assertive... and yep, even sexy, despite all the curves being bundled up. Now, if we could just get the kind of beer-drinking, fun-loving, you-go-girl-spouting fans that roller derby enjoys, we'd be all set!
Prophetic
I was reading through my archives the other day (invariably I go to look something up, and I end up lost in there, reading sequentially, until the phone or an IM ping bring me back to reality), and I happened upon this post from January 2005, in which I described a dream:
I was lying in bed one morning, with the Beaner on his back next to me, looking like his normal six week-old self. He turned to me and said, "Mommy, can we please cuddle?" followed by another phrase I can't remember now. I do remember telling Al what he said later on in the dream.
The reason it jumped out at me is that "Mommy, can we please snuggle?" is something the Beaner says all the time. I turns out I was one word off from prophecy.
A Clue, A Clue!
I got out the camera after the Beaner played a marvelous little ditty on his harmonica, but of course once he saw the camera he was more interested in watching the videos I took than playing another song, and so he only tooted out a few half-hearted notes. After several attempts to capture the harmonica playing I said I was giving up...at which point he want back into play mode and did this, hardly aware that the camera was on until it was all over:
[I originally uploaded a Flash Video of this directly to my server, but the sound kept cutting out about 1/3 of the way in. I finally resorted to Vimeo, where the encoding of the video seemed more successful.]
my harmonica is the second clue! from Lori and Vimeo.
He also tipped over backward in that chair later; he didn't hurt himself, but *man* did he have the scare of his life when he couldn't unwedge himself from between the bookcase and the play table. He was pretty panicked by the time I ran down the stairs from the kitchen to rescue him—so much so that no sound was coming from his mouth, and it took me a couple seconds to locate him (I'd only heard the thump and the yelp, and did not know what had happened). Once I realized that the chair was down, I fished him out, and after clinging to me like a little monkey for a few seconds, he recovered. He didn't learn his lesson, though: Despite my warnings about keeping all four chair legs on the floor, I caught him tipping back in the chair again within the hour.
Where Best Friends Come From
Tonight my best friend (and the Beaner's godmom) is coming to visit. We've been talking about Godmommy Sandy coming for a while, so the Beaner knows exactly whom we're picking up at the airport tonight. He's just not so clear on where she's flying in from.
Aura: Where does Godmommy Sandy live?
Beaner: [uh...]
Me, stage-whispering: Where are the Red Sox from?
Beaner, stage-whispering to Aura: The television.
[This entry somehow got deleted -- wtf? -- so I re-posted it. It was easy to do, since it was still sitting, SAVED, in the Movable Type entry-editing screen on one of my browser tabs. When I tried to re-save it from there, I got a "no such post" error, so I just cut and pasted into a new entry in another tab. I *know* it went live yesterday because (a) I saw it, and (b) my sister e-mailed me about it. Again I say, WTF?]
It's Football Season
OK, I'm so behind with work and life that I haven't even BEGUN to edit my pre-draft rankings yet (or even looked up to see who's hot this year and who's not), but I figured I'd better get on the stick and join a fantasy football league sooner rather than later.
Since I prefer the non-default 2 WR, 2 RB, and 1 WR/RB roster format, I set up a custom league. It's called the cherrypickers (yes, again), but we'll be going with an autopick draft this year instead of a live one. Autopick suits me fine, as my style is to make a gazillion waiver wire moves throughout the season anyway, and I'm a bit too busy to plan for a live draft (see first paragraph, above).
In any case, if you feel like playing a little fantasy football and don't have a league yet, just click here to join mine. It's free (though I do recommend the optional $9.99 Stat Tracker add-on :). Hope to see you on the virtual gridiron!
Dutch Wonderland
Just a quick post tonight (because school starts on Wednesday, and we're preparing for the new routine—which involves an earlier start in the morning—by going to bed a bit earlier, and according to my schedule I should have been in bed two minutes ago) to say that we went to Dutch Wonderland this weekend, and I've posted photos of the outing to Flickr.
click to see a slideshow of all the Dutch Wonderful photos
Also, I can't remember if I mentioned here that I started a Flickr set for our family adventures in and around Philadelphia (of which many of the D.W. photos are now a part). In case you're looking for family-friendly activities in the Philadelphia area, it's a good place to see what's going on. I'll obviously be adding to it over time, especially now that the Beaner is getting older and we really are doing more activities together.
Pretend Cellphone/Modern Life
A colleague asked me the other day, "how did we find stuff without the web? Seriously, I can't remember." I couldn't remember either. We're so used to Googling and just typing in whateverbusinessname.com and even checking the weather forecast and our bank balances online, it's hard to remember how we did those things before. I do remember using the phone for the last two, and the yellow pages for the first two, but the best I could come up with for a wikipedia substitute was the library. (I make it sound like a poor substitute, when obviously it's a much better resource—just slower.) Once I made this leap, the memory of researching cases I'd heard about on Law & Order on microfiche sprang to mind—and this was in 1995 and 1996, when I was already working as a webmaster.
In any case, I mention this because I also have the same thought about cellphones sometimes. What did we do before cellphones? We used pay phones, certainly, but I think the more accurate answer is that we just communicated less. When we went out to the grocery store, we got whatever was on the list (or whatever struck our fancy); we didn't take orders on the fly from folks at home. We didn't call to clarify which brand of shaving cream was wanted; we just picked one and hoped we were right. We didn't call home for a count of the bananas already in the fruit bowl; we just tried to remember how many we'd seen before walking out the door, and made a guess about how many more, if any, we should buy.
I'm not saying that cellphones are inherently good or bad; what I'm saying is that they make our lives different than they used to be. But for our kids, cellphones everywhere, anytime is the norm. This is probably why the Beaner fished my glasses case out of my purse yesterday and announced it was his cellphone. He stuffed it in his pants pocket just like I do (though he looked way more gangsta than I).
He took calls every few minutes—like Al's been doing lately—to the extent that I finally quipped, "tell B_____ to just check it again, and not to call so often on weekends." The Beaner did as requested and gave B_____ an earful about calling him all the time, but he decided to take a call from Daddy after we entered Wegmans, land of the "no photos, please!" Sorry the first photo in the sequence is blurry; I was shooting blindly from around knee height so as not to attract the attention of the Wegmans produce workers.
click through to Flickr to see captions
The Schedule
I'm starting a new category with this post (for the moment I'm calling it "school", for lack of a better label, but I reserve the right to change it when I'm feeling more creative). The Beaner starts Montessori school tomorrow, and we've been practicing going to bed earlier and getting up earlier for a couple days now. For the most part it's worked well, but Al's been a bit confused—which makes sense, because the schedule I've been working off of is mostly in my head, and I can't expect him to just know where he's supposed to be and what he's supposed to do.
Something else that has been in my head is the idea that I would draw up a color-coded schedule showing where each of us needed to be, when, and doing what. I just hadn't gotten around to it by this morning, and so a bit more chaos than usual ensued when we both ended up trying to dress the Beaner at the same time, and neither of us was getting ready ourselves. (Of course, it didn't help that we all overslept by 20 minutes, and that the Beaner wet the bed—not a common occurrence, and the first time he's ever slept through it.) Good thing today was a dry run, and not an actual school day.
Thus is was a high priority on my to-do list today (along with a gazillion other WORK things I needed to do) to get at least a first draft of the schedule drawn up. It's particularly important WHERE each of us is during each 15-minute block because our master bath remodel still isn't finished. This means we're all still sharing the upstairs bathroom, and logjams at the sink or toilet could totally fuck up the plan.
school readiness schedule, draft 1
This is just a first draft, of course, and thankfully there's a phase-in period at the school (which means the Beaner goes for just 30 minutes tomorrow and Thursday, 90 minutes Friday, and 90 minutes all next week before the real 3 hour, 45 minute, earlier-starting schedule begins the Monday after Labor Day). That'll give us a chance to work the kinks out.
Note also that the schedule only goes until 12pm; that's when Aura will arrive, and I'll go back to work. At first I was thinking that an earlier start to the day would mean a bit more work time for me in the morning, but I decided to use that time for some exercise instead. I need it for physical and mental fitness, which have both been lacking lately. So essentially my day will be the same, except with a forced 15-30 minute break in the middle.
Before My Eyes
I was almost hit by a car this morning. I've had near misses before, but this was the nearest, scariest miss ever. I'd been out for a morning walk and was on my way back from a stop at Whole Foods when I reached the northernmost side of the Ben Franklin Parkway while walking south on 21st Street.
The light turned green, so I started to run (you can't make it all the way across in one light if you walk), first crossing the small side road and then the Parkway itself. I had just crossed the median when a car turned in front of me. It wasn't a turn I would have made had I been driving; a moment's pause, and that car could have turned behind me. It turned a good four paces in front of me, though, so it wasn't a big deal.
The next car that turned is the one that nearly hit me. Al said later that I should have kicked it, but I even if I'd had the presence of mind to do so, I didn't have enough room. I'm not sure how the tires missed my toes, in fact, nor how I managed to go from a running stride to a dead stop so quickly; I think it was probably that I naturally recoiled in fear when I saw the car enter my peripheral vision. I shrieked, "JESUS CHRIST!" like an insane person, and then just stood there in the middle of the road, staring after the car as it sped away. I was so shaken that I then yelled, "YOU COULD HAVE FUCKING KILLED ME!", but by that point the car was already at the next light.
I didn't think to get the license number of the vehicle—too much fear and adrenaline for logic—but I've never been more sure in my life that it was a very light blue metallic BMW 325 sedan (I think an xi). I couldn't see the driver at all because of the reflection from the morning sun, so I don't know whether s/he was on a cell phone, how s/he could have missed seeing me, nor whether s/he noticed my hip bones outside the driver's side window as s/he floored it, tires squealing.
Twenty-first Street is one-way, southbound. There is no oncoming traffic to distract left-turning drivers. The only obstacle in those drivers' paths would be a pedestrian in the crosswalk. Today I was that obstacle, that pedestrian. And I was almost mowed down.
I finally reached the other side in safety, still shaking in anger and fear, and noticed a homeless man on a bench. He waved. I said, "did you SEE that?" He pointed at his eyes with his first two fingers and replied, "I saw the WHOLE THING. Can't believe it." We shook our heads at each other, and then I called Al and burst into tears. I. Could. Have. Been. Killed.