brer rabbit, work your charms

maura @ 11:09 pm

I should be writing a real post now — it’s been so long — but I’m tired and still need to get a bit more packing in tonight. We’re off to Florida soon to see Jonathan’s family and take Gus to SeaWorld. Hopefully it will be fun + relaxing — Gus tends to ignore us when Grandma’s around so J + I are dreaming of lots of poolside cocktails.

I’ve been ruminating on a big ol’ post about consumerism and anti-consumerism, but you’ll all just have to wait a while longer for that one.

Some things:

- Spring is nearly here, the daffodils and hyacinths have bloomed, and the crocuses in front of our building are even over. It’s time for us to get back to the botanic gardens for a visit before the cherry blossoms hit and the whole dang city invades. Looks like the strawberries and chives survived the winter in our courtyard, but the mint and lavender have not. We’ll need to get on that now if there are to be mojitos in the summer.

- An old friend made some mp3s of a mixtape made by another old friend, and I am really enjoying the indiepop wayback machine that it is. Passmore Sisters! French Impressionists! So very nice.

- Reading Anne Lamott makes me feel so much better about everything. She’s like a nice warm blanket and fresh baked cookies.

- The article by Calvin Trillin in last week’s New Yorker about his late wife Alice nearly made me cry.

- I also read this new book by Marrit Ingram last week, and it is really really good for stopping child-related pity parties of any sort. 4 yr old with an attitude? Better than a projectile-vomiting, excema-covered infant any damn day of the week!

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oh, and p.s.

maura @ 10:55 pm

MAN, how good was that Battlestar Galactica season finale?!?! So amazing, everything is just so totally different now. I will be so very cranky if they really make us wait til October for new eps, as the internets have been rumoring. Esp. since Lucy Lawless has reportedly been signed for 10 eps next season. And how perfect is Lucy Lawless + Battlestar Galactica? SO DAMN PERFECT, like cookies and milk.

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the sun a small star

maura @ 10:38 pm

Attention fellow residents of Prospect Heights:

Now that the weather’s warming up (not that it was ever really that cold this winter to begin with, stupid global warming) my offspring and I will be spending much more time out and about on the mostly lovely streets of our neighborhood. So it is with much neighborliness that I implore you to

CURB YOUR (damn) DOG AND SCOOP THE (damn) POOP (please!)

Let’s break it down, shall we?

CURB: This is the very edge of the sidewalk, right next to the street. It’s most courteous to have your dog do its business there, because most people don’t spend a lot of time walking on this particular bit of sidewalk. The curb is not the building side of the sidewalk — please note that when you let your dog pee on that side then there’s a little river of pee all the way down to the street. Nobody likes pee river jumping at 8am.

YOUR: Possessive pronoun which indicates that the canine(s) in question do, indeed, belong to you, presumably a responsible adult who realizes that dogs don’t use the toilet and thus need cleaning up after.

DOG: The animal in question. Four-legged and furry, often very sweet, yet must deposit waste products somewhere (as must all animals).

SCOOP: Using a plastic bag, pick up the excrement left so thoughtfully at the curb by your dog. Simple and neighborly, why not do it today?!

POOP: The waste product in question.

Seriously, it is DISGUSTING the amount of dogshit in my neighborhood these days. PEOPLE, let’s get it together!

Thank you.

In other news, there’s really no other news. I’m hard at work on not one but two top secret projects, but I can’t tell you about them yet because they are TOP! SECRET! Gus has been watching a lot of Pee Wee lately. We made chocolate cookies for a friend’s birthday last week and there were too many for the box, so now the extras are in our freezer, mocking me with their irresistible chocolatyness. We had a very fun surprise visit from a friend of ours from college over the weekend. I’m sort of caught up on email, but I haven’t talked to anyone in my family for a long time. We’re considering taking the train to visit my dad in VT — it’s an 8.75 hr train ride as opposed to a 7.5 hr car ride (driving time, not including stops) and much cheaper than flying (even on JetBlue, bah). But man, that’s a loooooong ride. Thoughts?

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walked down the street looking at my feet

maura @ 6:44 pm

Here’s another time warp post: as I type this I’m at a conference for work, but by the time you read this it will be tonight after I get home. Not really a big deal, except that the conference is an internet conference and I have been completely unable to actually connect to the internets the whole time I’ve been here. First I tried to get online in one of the session rooms (*before* the session started, honest!), but no dice. Then it took me a million years to find the poorly-signed (People! Where are the directional arrows?) “wifi lounge” (<snort>). THEN I finally connected only to be redirected to some weird proxy page which came up blank. Not that I should bemoan the lack of internets here, I mean, I am listening to these sessions most of the day, it’s not like I need to be surfing. But it’s the principle of the thing: WHY AM I UNABLE TO CONNECT TO THE INTERNETS AT AN INTERNET CONFERENCE? Sheesh.**

In other news, Jonathan’s sick with a chest cold again, and Gus had pinkeye last week (missed 1 day of school) and got strep throat (with bonus scary swollen neck glands!) over the weekend (missed 2 days of school). The pediatrician said Gus needed to stay home from school a second day, and I should have sent her over to her house to run screaming up and down HER hallway because that boy was clearly better. Not that we didn’t have any fun — we went into Manhattan for an errand and had lunch at his favorite restaurant*, which is always a hoot. He orders grilled cheese and a side of carrot-ginger dressing and proceeds to dip the sandwich in the dressing before each bite, enthusiastically proclaiming his utter and undying love for the meal. It’s insanely cute.

Afterwards we took a special crazy inefficient subway route home that required riding THREE trains, which pretty much blew his mind clean away. As he grows up I will miss these days when just riding extra subways can make his day.

On the down side, it appears that Gus is really, truly giving up his nap these days.*** This is not a drill. It was a precipitous plummet from about 90% weekend**** nap success about a month ago to maybe 30% now. The kicker was the bad strep day when he constantly had a fever and didn’t sleep AT ALL. Yesterday he got really tired and fell asleep on the table while having snack around 5pm, which actually was quite hilarious, as he kept lifting his head and yelling “I’m not asleep!” every time Jonathan and I accused him of sleeping.

Anyway, I still miss the nap. Personally I have always been a fan of the siesta, and I rue its passing in my own life (at least until I get so old that it becomes unavoidable).

* And as a lunchtime treat for me, I discovered a new thing that I love there: the tofu-hijiki burger. It’s mashed up tofu with hijiki + scallions, deep-fried (uuullgghh) and served in a wheat pita with japanese bbq sauce, plus a side salad with carrot-ginger dressing, all for a measly $3.25!!! As Einar would say, so delicious!

** Also, why are they playing this awful mindless alt-rock here in the lunchroom? Why???

*** I fully realize that, as the mother of a 4.25 yr old, I have ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT to complain about the nap-giving-up thing. I completely understand if parents of younger children who no longer nap not only stop reading right now, but indeed never read this site again. I totally deserve it, and because I am so well-rested compared to you I can completely accept it.

**** On the weekdays, it’s school’s problem, not mine.

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