update from the front

maura @ 9:29 pm

It’s day 3 of Midwinter Break, and we are all hanging in there. We’ve been to the dentist, the Hall of Science, and the Nintendo store (where they did NOT have Super Mario Sunshine in stock). Tomorrow it’s off to the Franklin Institute to walk through the giant heart, then to my mom’s, where Gus will ignore us in favor of the rays of grandpaternal love shining down on him (yes!).

In (probably) unrelated news, Gus’s sleep has completely tanked over the past few days, due to growing pains? Stuffy nose? Bad dreams? Who the hell knows. We are all walking around here like zombies from the eXtreme tiredness. We’re such wimps — I can’t believe we even survived those newborn days so many years (5!) ago.

Here’s a little vacation humor for all the other midwinter break-afflicted souls out there. After a week this busy, I can’t wait for the Pre-Spring Breather!

it just takes patience and an ear for what sounds right

maura @ 9:45 pm

Gus had two (2!) birthday parties to attend this weekend, because he has way more of a social life than we do. Yesterday’s was run by a science teacher from a school near us who’s got a nice little side business offering fun science afterschool, parties, and a summer camp. We’ve signed Gus up for 2 weeks of the summer camp this coming August so it was nice to get a preview. Apparently* Gus LOVED it, phew!

* J worked yesterday’s party and I did today’s. Often we both go, but we are a little strapped for time right now because Gus has this ENTIRE week off school. And like spazzes we kind of blanked on it, and thus are now scrambling to fill the time. Midwinter break, my butt, didn’t they just have a whole week off at the holidays?!

At the party they did crazy experiments like making a rocket with alka seltzer and fake snow. The science dude has lots of small animals like gerbils and a snake and some mealworms and maybe lizards. Gus even got to hold the snake, which made a big impression. Apparently the science dude said that anyone who wanted a mealworm could take one home as a pet. Guess which kid remembered that and asked for one at the end of the party? Go on, guess.

The first thing Gus said when he walked in the door was “Mommy, I have a pet!” Then he holds up the ziploc bag with a mealworm inside. Longtime (har) readers may remember the wormy-thing-that-we-thought-was-a-maggot-but-actually-wasn’t of ought-five. This bug is longer, and will supposedly transform into a beetle in 3 weeks. Yes, a beetle!

We’ve explained to Gus that after the magical transformation takes place, Apple** will really be more comfortable living outside (as opposed to his current home in Gus’s small plastic bug cup with attached magnifying glass), where he can stretch his newly lengthened legs. I’m a little nervous about the whole pupal-to-adult event, I must admit. The eventual beetle will have wings — what if it ends up flying around the house? That crosses my pet-to-bug barrier; I may just have to kill it.

** Its name is Apple. Because it drinks juice from apple slices (and eats oatmeal). You know, just like Gwyneth Paltrow’s kid.

Clearly Gus is destined to be a great entomologist someday. Make us proud, bug boy!

wanna grow, up to be, be a debaser

maura @ 7:26 pm

Yesterday we joined the podpeople: our new swell (orange!) ipod shuffle arrived in the mail. All day long I’ve been misquoting Sally in my head: “welcome to the twenty-first century.” Given how few people I see in the subway without little white wires snaking out of each ear, I’m sure that we are nearly the last souls in the metropolitan area to succumb to the ipod’s shiny tiny allure. Metaphorically shiny, of course, as the ipod is actually matte.

Today I took the ipod for a test drive to the gym. (Fitting, since the gym was the purchasing impetus: I’d complained over the weekend that no music playing = harder to work out, and Jonathan got a wild hair and ordered that lil’ pod right up.) And it went okay, though that I could still hear the thumping gym dance music over the Pixies. I’m paranoid about hearing loss so maybe I had the volume too low. Actually, I really hate those little earbud headphones, they kind of freak me out with their in-your-earness. Though these are more comfortable than others I’ve tried, and they didn’t even get as sweaty as I thought they would.

Really, the size of the thing is incredible. It’s about 2 by 2 inches, and a quarter-inch thick. It clips onto whatever you want, kind of like an expensive, musical binder clip. About three seconds after taking it out of the box I squeezed the clip to open it and the thing shot right out of my hand (thankfully landing on the table). And I hadn’t even recently applied hand lotion to my winter-chapped mitts! Hope that’s not a common occurance.

Bottom line: two thumbs up, because listening to Doolittle makes the workout time fly by.

the girl with the sun in her head

maura @ 8:33 pm

Last week I went on a field trip to the UN Library. Man, the UN buildings are so, so, so cool. I could just move right into the Woodrow Wilson Reading Room, with its swoopy wood-paneled ceiling and it’s incredibly gorgeous mod card catalog furniture for the old League of Nations cards. Plus they have a Chagall stained glass, of the beautiful bluish sort that the Art Institute also has. Of course I didn’t bring my camera, duh.

The buildings are scheduled to be renovated any minute now. I know it must be difficult to work in a ca. early 60s building: it’s much less energy-efficient, and probably things break a lot. But it would be such a shame if renovation = modernization because the whole place is just incredible. The promise of the future that we internalized from the 60s was flying cars and robot maids, and of course I’m still bitter about that. But it’ll all be okay as long as they don’t de-mod the UN.

While the UN renovates the library will move to a temporary location in Queens. I’m envisioning a library ferry traveling back and forth across the East River, bringing Ban Ki-moon all the books he could require!

What was also made abundantly clear to me during this visit is the extent of the waterfront development that’s going on in Queens and Brooklyn. My god, it’s just insane! I have already said this at least twice today (when discussing the huge ugly building going up down the block with some visiting former neighbors), but isn’t there a finite number of people in this city willing to pay a million dollars for a 2 bedroom condo? And if there isn’t, shouldn’t there be?

candy is dandy

maura @ 8:16 pm

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, so now’s a good time to wipe the glue and doilies and red glitter from your fingers and visit my sweetie’s pet project: the candy hearts generator.

New For 2007!
Do you HATE Valentine’s Day with a passion? Stick it to Hallmark: try a goth heart (click the link on the lower right of the page).

Sweet.

last time that we had this conversation i decided we should be friends

maura @ 9:02 pm

Dammit, Winter, I am seriously about to break up with you and give all my season love to Autumn! It is negative 8 bazillion degrees out there with a negative 20 jillion degree wind chill, and no end in sight. Gus was all bundled up in snow pants this morning, but JEEBUS my thighs were about to shatter and slide right off my body by the time we walked the 4 blocks from the bus stop to school.

Here are the reasons why you suck, winter of 2006-2007:

1. All that 40 degrees and rain nonsense of December and early January. Forty degrees and rain does NO one ANY good whatsoever. It’s cold and wet and dreary and very much NOT snow (which we all know is cold and wet and fun!)

2. Now it is FINALLY cold enough to really be winter, but there is still NO SNOW. Except for tantalizingly small amounts like 1.5 inches on a Monday morning, prompting Gus to hopefully ask if there would be sledding after school? No, sweetie, I’m sorry, no sledding because THIS WINTER SUCKS! Thanks a lot, winter, for making my kid cry.

3. Blargh, I am too angry to think of any other reasons.

the song went on forever

maura @ 7:13 pm

Michael Pollan had another big long food article in the Times magazine last weekend. We read Omnivore’s Dilemma, are pretty much in on board with the gospel of Alice Waters, and shop at the food coop and farmer’s market, and try to eat local. We’re not vegetarian*, but we do eat much much less meat than we used to and many more vegetables. So, you know, we’re down with the first sentence of the article: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”**

* HELL no! Before I die I would like my last meals to be the braised rabbit with oil cured olives and polenta from al di la, and the shack burger from Shake Shack, thank you very much.

** Except for Gus, who would subsist entirely on a diet of bread, cheese, meat, and sweets if we let him. He seriously has not touched a vegetable in longer than I can remember. But that’s a whole other post, by golly, and a rabbit*** hole I don’t want to fall into.

*** Mmmm…rabbit.

But the thing I’m realizing recently is that one can only truly follow the ways of the PollanWaters (har) if one resides in California or some other such year-round growing place. Here in the Northeast, it is damn hard to find locally grown green leafy veggies this time of year. I loves me some greens: spinach, chard, beet, arugula, watercress, radish, collard, kale, mustard, cabbage…yum. There’s nothing better than a little chard sauteed in olive oil with a little garlic.

So we buy the greens imported from Cali. I guess we could relocate to more ethically satisfy our greens habit, but I’m just not into moving to a tectonically active area. Until we retire, that is, and then it will probably be New Zealand or Iceland anyway.

Plus, man, those PollanWaters must have their own personal greens-washing slaves or something. Here we do not, and it makes me kind of grumpy to have to spend half an hour washing greens. We used to buy the prewashed bagged kind but the last time we did I opened the bag and a large, gorgeous leaf of spinach was pierced by a FEATHER. From a BIRD! So grody, so depressing, such a waste of money. We didn’t stop to check if the rest of the bird was in there somewhere, just chucked it in the garbage.