natural consequences

maura @ 9:30 pm

Today we got up, got ready, and got in the car to drive back from my sister’s place in Delaware. My sister, brother in law and 2 nieces followed in their car. Along the way Gus slept for 2 hrs.

When we got back to Brooklyn we said hi to the cats, changed into fancy clothes, and hopped on the subway into the city to go see The Nutcracker. It was a great time, though Gus’s attention did fade in parts. But everyone loves champagne and gummy bears at intermission, and Lincoln Center is so fabulously retro.

After the show we headed to a fancyish restaurant in a nearby fancyish mall. Just inside there’s a big (like 10 feet tall) metal statue of a naked man, and of course the kids ran right over so they could get all Finding Nemo: “he touched the butt.”

The restaurant was lovely. We had a great seat by the window and the kids watched the city go by. All of the kids got complementary cotton candy for dessert, and Gus had ice cream too. Probably not the best idea.

We went to some sort of weird electronics showroom in the mall afterwards where nothing was for sale. When we were looking at the netbooks Gus accidentally on purpose pried up the security tag, which immediately started beeping. We hustled him out of there quick.

Once we got home the kids played Super Smash Bros Brawl for ages. Feels like we’ve only just now gotten them to bed, and I’m pooped.

Moral of the story: extra sleep + no physical activity + loads of refined sugar = crazy kid. Hope he sleeps it off.

i got nothing (well, okay, very little)

maura @ 10:10 pm

Observations About Some Things:

– I was on the reference desk for 2 hrs today which was really fun. Desk hrs are one thing I never feel like I have enough of — it’s such an immediate, tangible way to help the students. Today’s random highlight was a student in line behind the student I was helping find articles in scholarly journals who insistently suggested that student #1 use the internet because the library resources are too complicated. I tried to explain that you can’t usually find scholarly articles for free online, but she wasn’t having it. Luckily what she really wanted to know is where to find the books in the BF call number range, so she headed upstairs and student #1 and I found a few articles together.

– I’ve had terrible bloggers block for the past week for the academic library blog that I write for, but then I picked up a great article yesterday and now I think the block is gone, yay!

– Gus is No Longer Sick, and in fact is so well that he didn’t even complain about homework tonight, even the extra stuff he’d missed yesterday and Monday! At bedtime he asked me if I loved him “more than life itself,” not sure where that came from.

– I felt all better and stuff today so after work I came home and cleaned the house and did the laundry and did the dishes (Jonathan cooked all day for tomorrow) and took out the trash. Now I am tired, and it’s time to catch up on TV.

i am tired

maura @ 9:13 pm

Short entry tonight because it was a long week. Lots of teaching and the faculty poster session and hanging up posters all over the place for our new course (which has two [2!] people registered for it already, hooray!). And then helping to run a bake sale at the talent show at Gus’s school tonight. And also I’m still sick. Because it’s good to have a sick person selling baked goods to children at dinnertime. Achoo! Have some brownies.

Now Gus is sick too, which kind of scuttles our plans to get him a flu shot this weekend. But it does support the new plan of me lying on the sofa all weekend getting better. So it’s a draw.

into a parallel world somewhere

maura @ 9:52 pm

The other night Gus had a nightmare that woke him up. He usually goes back to sleep pretty easily after nightmares, and (thankfully) he did that night. The next morning at breakfast we asked him whether he remembered the nightmare. He rarely does, but this time he spun this crazy yarn about a video game in which you’re on a boat being chased by zombies riding bicycles, and to try and escape you have to climb the mast of the boat but pigeons keep flying into you trying to knock you off. One of those things that sounds pretty silly in the light of day, though I could see that it might be scary in the middle of the night.

Anyway, I suggested to him that he write that video game. And then when he makes his millions and all the cool game bloggers want to interview him and ask him where he got the inspiration, he can say to them: “it came to me in a dream.”

i don’t need the daytime

maura @ 10:11 pm

So I thought I’d write about TV, how disappointing it’s been recently which is making me grumpy. But then I realized that the end result of disappointing TV these days is that I’ve been reading more, so I thought I’d do a (some of) what we’re reading post.

Me:

The Cloud Atlas, by Liam Callanan
Someone recommended this to me ages ago, then I forgot about it. Recently I saw it mentioned again, just in time for a wave of intense fiction longing. So far (I’m about 1/3 of the way through) it’s a great story about WWII set in Alaska, with rice-paper bombs and personal intrigue and religious mystery. Ever since Smilla I’m a sucker for fantastical mysteries set in snowy locales. I’ve had it for a while but haven’t finished it yet because I had to pause when a new book I’d requested came into the library (which I assume I won’t be able to renew, unlike this book, which is older and thus less in demand).

Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger
This is the new book. I seem to be reading it fast (150 pages yesterday, I think), because I don’t expect that I’ll be able to renew it. Also I keep reading bad reviews of it and I guess I’m eager to get to the bad part. I’m about halfway and it’s decent so far. Not as good as Time Traveler’s Wife, but I think that some people only get to write one great book. TTW is definitely nothing to sneeze at — if I were Niffenegger, I’d be happy to sit on my vast piles of cash and paint (apparently she is an artist as well). Anyway, this one’s about identical twin sisters who are the daughters of an identical twin who was estranged from her identical twin who dies and leaves the daughters her flat in London. It’s also a mystery. She does write some nice, dreamy, descriptive prose, which I like.

Jonathan:

Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely
This book has a fetching blue and orange cover, and is an exploration of the variety of reasons that people don’t always behave rationally. Sometimes Jonathan will recount bits of it to me, like the part about the experiments in which people were given money and no money to perform tasks and they more willingly helped people out when no money was involved. Which, to me, proves that money is evil.

The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia, by Laura Miller
I remember reading about this when it came out but then it dropped off my radar. I don’t think that Jonathan’s started it yet; we will probably need to renew it if we’re both going to read it. I read the Narnia books multiple times both as a kid and a (now, agnostic) adult, and lately I’ve been thinking about when Gus will read them, so this book should be interesting.

Gus:

Dragon Slayers’ Academy, by Kate McMullan
Gus LOVES this book series, which is sort of a Harry Potter for the younger set with dragons instead of wizards. They’re pretty good, too, funny plots and reasonably complex language with a fair number of pictures interspersed throughout. Plus, they’ve taught him Pig Latin. He’s on book 14 (of 19) which for some reason the library only has ONE copy of, so we bought it and plan to donate it to the library when he’s finished.

Calvin & Hobbes (various), by Bill Watterson
Jonathan gave Gus his old C&H about a year ago, but now that Gus is older he’s really smack in the middle of the C&H demographic. So we got another 3 books from the most recent Scholastic flyer to come home from school. We did have a little bit of a splashing problem in the bath tonight when Godzilla destroyed Tokyo, but otherwise it’s been fun to watch Gus devour these, laughing all the way.

i stole your time, made it mine

maura @ 5:33 pm

Last weekend Gus couldn’t stop talking about My Sims, which he’d watched his friend play on the schoolbus. So Jonathan broke out our 9-yr-old copy of The Sims and installed it on his computer. Gus was extremely obsessed for about 72 hours, though it’s since faded. The interface is actually kind of difficult to manipulate, and I’d forgotten how clunky it is to move furniture around, build new rooms, etc. Ultimately I think the intensive mousing required got Gus down.

Short as it was, the obsession was intense, and brought me right back to my own obsession when we first got the game years ago. It’s true that Gus was much more amused by certain aspects of the Sims than I; of course it cracks him up that the sims forget to relieve themselves and have accidents. And he didn’t care as much about decorating as I did. He was always annoyed when his prissy sims complained about the blue formica table that Gus bought for them. (The simplistic consumerism of the game is kind of hilarious — they are happy when you buy them nice stuff! How realistic!)

But I was surprised by some of his inventive strategies. He bought his sims a computer before getting a TV, explaining: “they can use the computer to play games and look for jobs.” Ultimately, he had to buy them a TV because his woman sim didn’t want to play video games and needed something fun to do (blurgh, Will Wright, I lost a little respect for you on that one).

Somewhat alarming was the realization that in many ways Gus and I played the game very much the same. Just like in real life, Gus hoarded his money and bought his sims something expensive only when it really seemed necessary (e.g., when he realized that the fancy computer breaks less often than the basic model). And he spent lots of time really scripting every move for his sims. The sims will take care of some, but not all, of their “needs” automatically, and if you really want to do well in the game you need to control most of their actions. Gus realized this pretty quickly, as did I, and we both got kind of obsessive in trying to make them do the “right” things. So it was kind of weird watching him play.

This week we were both back to our regularly scheduled games: Gus and friends can’t get enough of Super Smash Bros Brawl on the Wii, and I’m still rocking Harbor Master on the iPhone.

moving, watching, working, sleeping

maura @ 11:10 pm

So, I bought a bike. It’s funny, I’ve wanted a bike for ages, pining after the ones I walk by on the street, and then I finally get one and I don’t even mention it. Partly that’s because I haven’t ridden it as much as I’d like. We got them (one for Gus too, a used one for $40!) in late July but have been so busy that we’ve only really ridden them a couple of times. Gus essentially taught himself how to ride his. It came without training wheels: he just jumped on and pedaled away like he was born cycling. This past Sunday he and I rode the entire loop in the park, 3.35 miles!

Even though we haven’t ridden much I love my bike. Love love love it. It’s an older, used girl’s bike in pretty good condition, with 3 speeds and both coaster and hand brakes. It’s sort of a cloudy gray color, nothing fancy, but very dependable. Solid, you might say. I have yet to ensticker it but rest assured that’s coming soon.

I am still a little nervous about riding it on the street, but it’s getting better. Today was a work-from-home day and I decided to take my lunchtime to do a trial ride to work and back, about 20 minutes each way (so fast!). There’s a good route from here to there with bike lanes on most of the streets, and other than the occasional pesky van or delivery truck parked in the bike lane it was pretty easy. I even stopped to practice locking the bike up. I do admit to a tinge of nerves, still, when I think of leaving the bike locked up all day while I’m at work. I hope that it’s too old + boring to steal, but what if not?

On the bright side, I am already making a list of the bike accessories I will need to get. The bike has fenders (a plus), but I could use a rack over the rear wheel with those awesome folding side baskets to hold my bag + stuff. And a bell, of course. And maybe one of those gel seat covers, oooh, squishy.

“But,” you may ask, “whatever will you do with your scooter?” Never fear, there’s still a place for the scooter in my transportation stable. I’m not really prepared to ride the bike into Manhattan, so when I have meetings I will bring the scooter instead. And one good thing about the scooter is that I can fold it up and bring it to my office, so I don’t have to worry that it will get stolen. On the other hand, since the wheels are plastic it can be nearly unusable in even a light drizzle.

Maybe changing it up a bit is the best way to go: a couple of scooter days and a couple of bike days each week. Sounds like a planonus.

if you must degrade, do it quiet

maura @ 10:07 pm

Today was Gus’s last day of camp and my first day of the new semester, so it feels like summer is officially over.* I have to admit that we were a little worried at the outset. He’d rejected his camp of the past two years which left us scrambling around way back in February to find suitable alternatives (it’s insane how fast camps fill up). We finally decided on three different camps for a total of 6 weeks of camp, interspersed with (and determining) our 3 separate weeks of family visiting + vacationing. Three camps sounded like a lot to us grown-ups, but since he’d rejected the one camp with the flexible schedule that goes for the entire summer we didn’t really have much choice.

I was painfully shy for much of my childhood. We moved houses and I changed schools a bunch, and I remember feeling like it was so hard to make new friends time + time again. Jonathan moved a lot, too. Gus was pretty shy as a toddler + preschooler, so we naturally assumed that he’d continue to be shy as a kid. Transitions to his new classes have been easy the past few years, but then again he’s been in the same school since kindergarten so he’s super familiar with it by now.

One of the things that continues to shock me about being a parent is the extent to which our kid is, in certain ways, actually not like us at all. I probably spend too much time gnashing my teeth about the bad traits Gus has inherited from me: stubbornness, temper, lack of physical grace (yes, we are both clumsy), small feet (hmm, is there a connection?). But I rarely think about the good stuff he’s got that I don’t have.

And it turns out that Gus had a great summer. He loved all three camps, even though they were very different and he only had one prior friend at one camp. He came home with contact info for a friend from each camp, too. This year he seems to have been especially popular with the ladies. At his first camp he showed me how to stand on the edge of his locker to open the locker on top of his for S., a little girl in his group. At his second camp he told us of his friend C.: “she’s a talker.” On the last day the kids + counselors signed each others shirts and C. wrote her phone number on the back of Gus’s shirt. And at this last camp he discovered that S. also plays the online Harry Potter-esque video game that Gus is totally into. They’ve friended each other and he’s helping her level up (what a gentleman!).

* Except that it’s not! That moaning sound you’ll hear emanating from the NYC metro area sometime in the middle of next week will be directly attributable to the public schools not starting until September NINTH. Yes, that’s right, this year Labor Day is as late as it can possibly be, w00t! Tune in next week for tales from the trenches, Camp Mommy + Daddy style.

everything you say, everything you do

maura @ 9:48 pm

Okay, that last post was kind of a bummer. Sorry about that. We finally turned on the air conditioner which helped enormously with the sluggishness I was feeling (and now it’s cooler again, phew). It’s been on so little this summer that I kind of keep forgetting that we have one (duh).

Last week we took a short but lovely vacation. We drove up to my dad’s in Vermont, stayed overnight, then left Gus there to frolic in the nature with my stepmother’s brother’s kids (who are about his age) while we hightailed it north to Montreal. Bonjour!

After driving an hour or so in the green hills it cracked us up that everything seemed to flatten out as soon as we crossed the border. Who knew so much mais sucre grew in Canada? We passed a hilarious pizza place called Arrete Papa! but went by too fast to get a picture.

We left a little later than planned so by the time we got to the hotel it was past lunch and I was starving. Montreal has a petite but tres charmant Chinatown that seemed about 50% Vietnamese restaurants, so we popped in for some pho + spring rolls, yum. Across the street was this awesome graffiti. Yay for recycling! If only my toilet paper was this happy.

After lunch we went to the library, of course! It’s a really cool huge library, 5 floors and very modern. An entire floor is devoted to music + movies (w/listening + watching stations), and another floor to the kids collection (also watching stations, kid-sized!). There was an art exhibit in the basement and loads of comfy-looking chairs and tables w/desk-type lighting + wifi everywhere. If I lived in Montreal I’d be there every weekend, seriously. Plus there was some more excellent graffiti in the alley near the back door.

We stayed in a small hotel in the historic part of the city (a birthday gift!). Among the lavender-scented soaps-n-things was a box of Everything. I know, seems small, right?

The next day we explored the city. This is the Palais de Congres (Convention Center) which looks like a kaleidoscope.

We walked through downtown which is just like every urban downtown (Starbucks? Non!). But on our way up the hill to see McGill University we passed this crazy sculpture of a crowd of people looking at something. All of the people in the front of the crowd are intently peering skyward, but as you walk towards the back of the sculpture things get kind of weird. Voici le petit homme mysterieuse! (I think I’ve got some gender issues in that sentence, oh well. High school was a long time ago.)

OMG there is an actual mont right in the middle of the city. After hoofing it up intense hills through McGill’s campus we got to the Parc du Mont Royal. These cool stripey rocks were near the bottom of the mont, and begged me to take their photo. How could I resist?

Then we climbed stairs/hiked practically straight up the mont, quite a workout. Luckily it was a gorgeous day, sunny but breezy and not too hot. The reward was this awesome view.

Then we had a little Mont Royal snafu. We wanted to head northeast out of the parc to the Plateau neighborhood to have lunch. But the parc is not very well-signed so in our efforts to not go back the same way we came up we kind of messed up and ended up walking forever only to emerge all the way on the other side of the parc BUT about the same distance from our destination as when we’d started, doh. All hail public transportation! We waited 15 minutes for a bus and were eternally grateful that it accepted paper money as well as coins.

I was starving (again) and exhausted by this point, and happy that we’d planned to eat at Cafe Santropol, a sort of funky crunchy crafty lunch place. There was an enormous garden and we snagged a table so far back next to the little pond that it was nearly hidden. And there was a tuba planter on the fence behind Jonathan.

This is my amazing and delicious sandwich, the Sweet Root: carrot salad with raisins and walnuts and curry on brown bread. Plus lots of extra fruits + vegetables. I’m getting hungry just looking at this, it was so good.

After lunch we thought about going to the archaeology museum, but I was too tired to read exhibit signs so we just went down to the river and hung out and read and watched the boats and people. There were some segway tours so of course we gawked at them, how could we not?

The next day we were headed back to the US, but not before going to the depanneur (= bodega) to buy a whole mess of chocolate bars in varieties not available on domestic soil. On our way out we stopped on two island parks in the St. Lawrence River. One was natural and one created for Expo ’67 (the world’s fair). Some of the old pavilions are still there and used for various purposes. This Buckminster Fuller-designed one was the US pavilion and is now a small environmental museum.

And then it was time to say Au Revoir, Canada. I’d like to go back sometime with Gus — we didn’t hit any museums and it seems like there’re lots of kid-friendly things to do. Not that he missed us, what with all of the canoeing and swimming in the pond and riding the alpine slide and making ice cream he did with his grandparents.

On our last night we made smores over a real campfire, though Gus preferred his toasted marshmallows solo. Because I hate marshmallows I just ate chocolate and graham crackers. Together we make a smore!

everything looks beautiful on video

maura @ 9:43 pm

It’s been a crazy kid week in the mauraweb! household. Gus learned to make farting noises in his armpit (thank you, private school day camp!), and has of course been showcasing this newfound talent at every opportunity. Tonight I had to act like a parent and bust out with “no farting noises at the dinner table!” On the other hand, he’s really quite good, so I can’t help but feel a *little* proud.

He also got a haircut yesterday for the first time since last September. In our crunchy, progressive-school corner of Brooklyn it’s pretty common for boys to have long hair. But on our recent trip through a non-NYC airport the security guard used a female pronoun while referring to Gus not once but *three* times (though it didn’t seem to faze him). And it’s gotten increasingly difficult to comb, esp. since we’ve entered the shower-every-day camp phase of the summer.

I really liked his long skater kid hair so initially I was sad, but when I got home from work last night I was relieved to discover that the cut turned out really well. It always surprises me how much older he looks with shorter hair. I tried to take a picture, but he was all moving and weird faces and everything.

We accidentally let him stay up too late tonight and he started to get a little rammy in the shower. Suddenly he was rapping: “yo yo yo, my name is Joe, I like to wear my pants down low.” It sounded like something he didn’t make up on his own, so I googled it and looks like it’s a YouTube meme. For kids. Very odd. I couldn’t find the exact words though (the videos I watched all had the same beginning but different ends to the rhyme, e.g. “I stubbed my toe on a cheerio”). So maybe he did make up that part.