with your feet on the air and your head on the ground

maura @ 2:19 pm

For a few days last week Gus had an imaginary friend named Pickle. Apparently he was a giant pickle (duh) with big ears that curled up onto the top of his head. However, he was also small enough to fit into Gus’ pocket. Gus would talk to Pickle by yelling down the inside of his t-shirt, which made for some hilarious scenes while walking down the street. For a while it looked like Pickle would be the fall guy in our house: “I didn’t do that, it was Pickle!” And one afternoon Jonathan had to watch Pickle in the study while Gus and I went down to the courtyard to play in the kiddie pool. But then Pickle disappeared and we haven’t heard from (or about) him since.

Crazy kid.

the kids are coming back now

maura @ 1:57 pm

It’s 96 degrees here in Brooklyn, though it feels like 100 (so says weather.com) and it’s getting hotter still. I am dreading having to leave the apartment to get Gus from school, but I guess we can’t leave him there forever. Thank god for sprinklers.

Links! Links will keep us cool!

Fun summer music: Bunnygrunt – Jen-Fi

Fun summer comic: Penny Arcade’s classic ball of fire

but i haven’t thought of you lately at all

maura @ 11:45 am

Right now all three of us are completely in thrall to some kind of on screen entertainment. For Gus, it all started with the PBS Kids Arthur website. At first it was a huge pain because he couldn’t use the mouse to play by himself, so one of us would have to do it for him, with him ordering us around like a little tyrant (I’d try to read while he sat on my lap doing this, but would never get very far). But finally the mouse thing clicked and now he’s pretty self-service.

But this weekend his addiction is to Super Mario and Legend of Zelda on our old Nintendo 64. The good thing is that he’s getting better at using the controller (which is big + confusing to little hands). But I’m ashamed to admit that he’s clocked way more hours with Mario and Link than I’m sure is healthy for a 4.5 yr old. On the other hand, it’s 10 million degrees out this weekend, and we are going swimming this afternoon, so he will get *some* exercise.

And as for the grownups, we are obsessed, OBSESSED, with Veronica Mars. Well, okay, it’s mostly me. Jonathan is into it but seems to be able to exercise moderation, while I am a flat-out addict, unable to adhere to the sensible schedule of one ep/night. I would seriously stay up all night watching episode after episode were it not for the level-headedness of Jonathan, reminding me that Gus will be up at 7am and will not care if we are tired, not one bit. We powered through the first season (mostly in this past week) and finished a 3 ep marathon with the first ep of season 2 last night. And here’s what I have to say about it: ugh, *Duncan*, no! Poor, poor Logan. Yay for Charisma Carpenter!

It’s so interesting + scary to see the same obsessiveness in Gus that afflicts me. I guess it’s sort of a human nature thing: if you like something, you do a lot of it, then you get over it and move on. Still, it’s freaking me out a bit. As is the thought that just popped into my head: what if we just let him play video games all day while we watch Veronica Mars?

and i feel alright

maura @ 2:32 pm

Right now I want to be eating one of the super tasty peaches we got at the farmer’s market last weekend, but I’m waiting for the minty taste in my mouth to subside. Last month I had a cavity filled, my very first one ever. I have to admit that I’m kind of embarrassed about it. I haven’t even told my mom yet (though I suppose writing it here for the whole internets to see may put an end to my head-in-the-sanding it). I’ve been sort of egomaniacal about my non-cavity status over my adult years, and apparently it’s just that sort of hubris that mouth bacteria simply love to punish. My new Russian dentist claims that not flossing is the reason for this tooth decay. Jonathan, of course, has been a floss nerd for years, and finds my fall from dental grace to be quite amusing. Anyway, my dentist now wants me to floss at bedtime (no problem) AND to both brush and floss after lunch. I have SO many problems with that one, it’s hard to even enumerate them, which is why I’m guessing I’ve hit only a 40% success rate in the past month. It’s a pain to interrupt my workflow and go brush + floss. It’s an even bigger pain on the days when I’m in the office, and I’m sick of people giving me strange looks as I floss in the bathrooms (I mean, I only have a cubicle, where the hell else am I supposed to go?). But perhaps the biggest pain of all is where I am right now, waiting for that damn minty taste to go away so it doesn’t pollute the flavor of what I want to eat next. I mean, it took me 36 years and 364 days to get the first cavity, with nearly no flossing at all. Shouldn’t just flossing once a day get me to age 82 or so? By which point I’m sure I will not care at all if I have to have another cavity filled, plus will presumably have the time to floss two, three, even four times a day.

And in other food news, the bounty of the farmer’s market has been particularly yummy this year (or maybe I’m just more appreciative of fresh fruit + veg in my advanced age?). My biggest discovery this year is peas. Yes, peas, full of their green peaness. You may know that I’ve historically really really hated peas. Snap peas were okay, but shelled and cooked peas? No thank you. Mushy, yucky, bland. But a friend had some fresh snow peas at the playground a couple months ago and I grabbed a few, thinking they were snap peas. And before I knew it I was crunching on sweet, fresh little peas. So yummy! So sweet! I could eat them like candy, I swear. In Indiana I picked + shelled a bunch from J’s mom + stepdad’s garden and J even cooked them up all french-like, braised with lettuces, and even those cooked peas were good! Who knew?

So, the moral of the story: fresh food tastes better. I know, I know, a big fat duh. But next summer I am growing peas on our windowsill, come hell or high water.

Coincidentally, I’m reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma right now. It’s good, as I knew it would be, if a little idealistic. More spew on that later, when I’ve finished it.

we used to be friends

maura @ 9:05 pm

Yes, we’re two years late to the party, but since everything’s summer rerunning and we cancelled Netflix (because we just could not get around to watching things — they would sit on our shelf for months) we are FINALLY watching Veronica Mars (season one, for now). Of course it’s as good as everyone says, duh! Our professional BTVS experience makes us super-skeptical of everyone — it was SO OBVIOUS that Troy was a vampire. The only ding I’ll give them is that everything is so super crazy speedy. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out, Troy!

And my nephew FINALLY deigned to grace the world with his presence, only 2 weeks late. We got to meet little James Frederick Newnam (aka Jamie) over the weekend, and he’s a cutie. As with his baby cousin Ellie, Gus really wanted to pet Jamie’s soft little head. Man, we need to get that kid a cat!

with a thousand miles of real estate to choose from

maura @ 9:57 pm

We’re maxing and relaxing here in the midwest, day 4 of Camp Grandma + Grandpa. In some ways I feel that I’ve gotten surprisingly little done. I *have* caught up on sleep, which is major and excellent. But I have all of these other emailing journaling reading writing goals and I haven’t met them yet. How silly to have goals for vacation. It’s vacation, stupid, relax already!

This year Gus is majorly into the pottery thang (Jonathan’s stepdad is a potter). He’s already made about 8 bowls on the wheel (assisted, of course), child labor laws be damned! Of course, the unfettered access to the garden hose is also a big plus. We have a kiddie pool at home in our courtyard but we’re always having to yell at him to keep the water in the pool, share the hose with the neighbor kids, etc. Here it’s crazy hose time, all the time!

On the down side, yesterday he got stung by a wasp. Sometimes it hurts to be so curious, poor kid. But he’s fine, and Jonathan and I got to learn what Gus’ I’m REALLY hurt (not just frustrated or angry) scream sounds like. Damn nature.

My first library class is over, sniff. As I’ve repeatedly said these past 6 weeks I really loved it — personality-wise reference is a good fit for me. I loved chasing down info. and learning about all those cool reference sources (though I wish I’d known about them in grad school the first time). Plus I realized that Gus is good reference training, too. I mean, my normal day already involves answering about 100 questions on a wide variety of topics. Our latest source is the “body book” — the Merck Manual, which we first consulted to see a picture of an appendix (because of Madeline, of course). Now I am thinking he needs an atlas of the human body for kids — any recommendations?

words fail me

maura @ 9:41 am

So the Times ran an article on breastfeeding last week that I’ve been meaning to comment on, but I just haven’t been able to find the words for it. Luckily, Bitch. PhD. always has the words. My sentiments exactly.

turn your head around

maura @ 11:06 pm

Nephew Watch 2006 continues here: my poor sister is now 8 days over her due date. We’re on pins & needles wondering if we’ll drive down this weekend to meet him. Hopefully he will come out tonight or tomorrow, because if not we won’t be able to meet him til early July, after my final and our annual pilgrimage to visit J’s mom + stepdad in the Midwest.

Yes, a final! This coming week is my last week of this first summer session, and MAN it was so speedy I can barely believe it! I feel comfortably caught up on homework and am still really liking the class (though I was annoyed to have to make a return trip to NYPL today because I hadn’t realizes that the “email this citation” feature on their databases wasn’t working on Wednesday and thus neglected to actually write down the info I needed, grrrr). I’ll be sad when it’s over, though I won’t have much time for moping: my next class starts on June 29. Wheeeee!!!

Tonight I started a reading journal, inspired by discussing them in class. Just a simple one: title, author, date read and a 1-2 sentence review. Of course, the problem is that I don’t remember many of the books I’ve read over the past few years. Really it’s my own fault — I’m a fast reader and sometimes speed comes at the expense of retention. Plus there’s the whole I’m old thing. I’m cobbling a list together from this blog and my journals, but I know it’s incomplete which totally bugs me. What the library needs is a feature where you can view the list of everything you’ve checked out over the past few years. How cool would that be? Nerds of the world would rejoice!

(Apropos of nothing, #1) It’s occurred to me recently that one of the reasons that the whole school thing is so stressful is that Gus’ transition to kindergarten is an us transition, too. We’ll miss his preschool community of three years, miss hanging out with the likeminded parents, miss the subway ride there and miss Romeo, the friendly cat who sometimes stops and lets us pet him when we walk by his house on State St.

(Apropos of nothing, #2) Madonna’s latest record is really much like her other records: two great songs, lots of mediocrity. It’s funny in this day + age of iTunes that she’s even bothering to do a whole album, she’s so clearly a singles-only artist. I’ve been sort of wishing lately that I could go to her show this summer — the two times I’ve seen her in the past have been so much fun. But stadium shows are too expen$ive and I don’t know that I want to hear all of those mediocre songs on the new album, anyway. (There’s some sour grapes for ya.)

your girl, she’s a renegade

maura @ 9:05 pm

So so so SO busy here, really it is incredible. School continues to be fun + a ton of work. Actually it probably wouldn’t be bad except for all the other things, like the preschool picnic and birthday parties and baby showers and trying to figure out if we’re saving enough for retirement and Gus’ college and freaking out about kindergarten (still no news) and dentist appointments and Father’s Day rapidly approaching and my new nephew due to be born any day now. Phew!

As usual when it gets so busy I don’t have time to sleep or clean, I owe everyone in the whole world email. I’m sorry! I promise I write soon, or if not soon then from our restful weeklong vacation in the Midwest during my break between summer sessions. That is, if I have enough time between napping and sleeping.

Thanks too everyone for all the birthday wishes last weekend! In the morning I’d completely forgotten it was my birthday (Jonathan reminded me), that’s what advanced age will get you. I spent the whole day doing homework at various libraries (which was actually pretty fun, except for getting brain-smacked by the Social Sciences Citation Index, which was Not Fun At All), then came home to yummy homemade chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting, courtesy of the bakin’ Miller boys, plus Mexcan food + wine with the neighbors. All in all, a lovely day.

Not much else to report here in I’ve-got-homework-to-do land. How’s that for a crazy Friday night?

find, find, find the secret

maura @ 11:57 am

Well hello, internets, how’ve you been? In my house we have been BUSY. Like you couldn’t have guessed that taking a class and working and spending time with Gus and all the usual chores wouldn’t keep me running constantly, but I must have been in denial because it totally took me by surprise. Busy, busy, busy. Too busy to blog. There could be a Dead Kennedys joke in that, but I’m too tired to make it.

Through the magic of time-lapse I am once again speaking to you from the past! Right now it is Friday and we three are on Amtrak train 56, “The Vermonter”, en route to visit my dad + stepmom in northern Vermont. How long does the trip on Amtrak’s majestic Vermonter take, you may ask? Eight and one-half (8 1/2) hours, I respond. We’re nearly at hour 3 and Gus has just passed right the hell out on Jonathan’s lap. He spent the time thus far looking out the window, providing a running commentary on whatever he sees. We take the subway nearly every day, but this is his first time on a big train and it’s kind of an understatement to say that he is very excited. Let’s hope we’re all holding up this well by hour 8, and that 2 days is enough time between 8.5 hr train trips because we do it all again to come home on Monday.

I’ve just finished my second week of classes and so far library school is a blast! I mean, probably it is not for normal people, but for me it is a party. I’ve done all kinds of super nerdy things in the past two weeks, like get a NYPL card (I only had a BPL card) and join the ALA and memorize acronyms (kidding) and spend hours browsing online library catalogs and databases and read TWENTY WHOLE PAGES about dictionaries, then another 20 on encyclopedias. Yippee!!!

It’s just about naptime for me too, but before I go I have to be an awful bragging mommy for just one minute: Gus is starting to read! It’s completely taken us by surprise, because of course like everything since birth he won’t do it if we suggest it. But the other weekend we were down at my mom’s and we heard him sounding words out to her, and picked up some bubbles and read “bubble fun” on the label like it was nothing at all. Now of course the challenge is to encourage him casually, so he’ll still want to do it because he’ll think it’s his idea. Which is hard when I’m so excited I want to get the t-shirts printed up that say MY KID CAN READ!!!