I left the house almost 8 hours ago and have not made it out of the country. Cville's weak link is defiantly escape.
By this morning I felt almost ready and even felt chilled out enough to make cookies with Rebecca to sell at a lemonade stand. She wanted to charge $2 which seemed stiff to me. Thing 1 and 2 were far too busy to even notice my leaving. 1 was distracted by the bake sale, which she assumed would make her rich. And 2 had his first soccer game. Thing 3 on the other hand had a full tantrum complete with locking himself in the bathroom. When I went up stairs to rescue him and say good-bye I found him in the suitcase with big sad brown eyes. I figured out in the car that I forgot my coat—hard to think about cold when it’s ninety degrees out. And I forgot the yummy chocolate I had stored in the fridge for my hostess. Manuel is happy about that.
Other than my usual snafu’s at TSA the Richmond leg of things was fine. (The nice man behind me called it the TSA massage…..) Detroit however did not go as well. I got off the plane and realized the monitors were high and small and impossible to read. After asking three stranger to help and getting nothing but looks that suggested they thought I was a sociopath I gave up and stood on line at the Delta counter. They told me Gate A 38. A38 seemed to be going to Tai Pai but when I questioned yet another condescending Delta person they informed me that Amsterdam was for sure next. So I took myself to the sushi bar across the hall for a snack and glass of wine. Having zipped through the hundred pages of reading for the seminar I’m speaking at I decided I’d organized the wrong talk and spent some time recouping a different one. I am in theory talking about Orfeo and Echo but the readings are all very theoretical and now I’m thinking castrati as Cyborgs and sonic effects as virtual reality might have been more appropriate. Whenever I’m invited to give a talk, especially in another country, I always feel like I pick the wrong one. Someone will have to teach me how to nail a talk. We can add this to the list of things they did not teach us in Grad School.
Strolling back to my gate feeling smug I noted that the crowd was still mostly Asian people—many of who seemed to have the same backpacks as the supposedly clearing out Tai Pai via Tokyo flight. I busted through the line and demanded to know where the Amsterdam gate was. The nice lady told me to “look at the monitor” I explained the can’t see thing which prompted her to look up the gate and say oh you are Gate A TWENTY 8. I said really because three of your agents have now told me THIRTY 8. So I ran, and I do mean really let it rip while feeling lucky that I chose to wear yoga pants and running shoes for this journey, to my actual gate. I got on the plane. However the plane has a punctured fusalage. I have no idea what that means or how to spell it. But
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Leavning on a Jet Plane
It never fails that no matter what happens the few days before I leave the country are totally spazzy. This time I’m going to Ireland to give a series of talks. Since I’m 100% sure that I do not have an Irish following I decided to do a mix of old and new talks with the new stuff coming from the chapter I’m working on. This seemed like it would be easy—and would take less time away from my book. I had until this week an explicit rule against working on talks before my kids went to bed. The coolest part of the gig involves speaking the Dublin Science museum at an exhibit called Body rhythms. It looks completely cool and is otherwise populated by experimental musicians, hip technology, and hipper scholars. After I looked at the web site I had a full panic attack about how I was not at all hip enough. Manuel talked me off the ledge I agreed to give a talk based on material from my first book. It is very nitty gritty anatomical and seemed just up their alley. Sadly the version of the talks that I have is twice as long as it was supposed to be. It’s never easy to cut something in half though I did find that cutting out all references to contributions to musicology and obsessive use of long quotations to drive a point into the ground helped matters. The legth was not my biggest problem. I wrote it two computers ago, one job ago, and a pre-technology as in no power point, no itunes music exampes, no bells and whistles. Oops. I enjoyed returning to some excellent illustrations and was reminded of some of my very favorite quotations from my research ever like when a woman has intercourse her voice changes because “her upper neck responds in sympathy to her lower neck” And in theory that I wrote a book once before suggests I can do it again. The video of the vocal cords in action is also always stunning.
So today I’m at two days and counting. Eli delightfully had the day off from school for the 15th Jewish holiday this month all of which fall on Manuel’s teaching days. In the morning he performed perfect child and played quietly, did an art project and sang songs while Emily and I worked on music examples and power points. He has a new gritty rock voice that he uses for everything. He became a devil child around lunch time and ended up in time out where Matt, the second grad student who came to my house for a meeting was treated to throwing things, wining, yanking my shirt off etc..
While he was being good child and amusing himself he was extremely busy. First he called 911—yes really. And explained that “my gawilla is sick and I can’t help him”
He packed a suitcase to come to Ireland with me and put in clothes, toys, books, a hole puncher, an empty soda can, a few carrots, some pretzels, and a small plastic pink knife. He made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich “all by myself.” He listened to my ipod obsessively which was on PJ Harvey because makes an appearance in the gllery talk. He learned the following words “lick my legs I’m on fire” And finally he gathered ingredients for baking cookies, which involved an egg. The egg promptly broke on the floor.
I don’t have a good track record for these sorts of trips. When I did a similar adventure in France two years ago it began with Eli having a baby tantrum and flailing so hard that he wacked me in the face and bruised my eye. I believe he was trying to steel apples from a farmers market and I rudely picked him up. I noticed at my parents’ house the night before my flight (two hours from home) that I had Rebecca’s passport not mine. Something bad happened to my flight and I ended up stranded in Zurich for five hours watching other planes fly to Paris. When I explained in Paris that I could not see the signs to find my bagge I was given a wheel chair. And then for the kicker I lost my friends apartment number and only located her by sweet-talking some French construction workers into letting me use their cell phones.
So today I’m at two days and counting. Eli delightfully had the day off from school for the 15th Jewish holiday this month all of which fall on Manuel’s teaching days. In the morning he performed perfect child and played quietly, did an art project and sang songs while Emily and I worked on music examples and power points. He has a new gritty rock voice that he uses for everything. He became a devil child around lunch time and ended up in time out where Matt, the second grad student who came to my house for a meeting was treated to throwing things, wining, yanking my shirt off etc..
While he was being good child and amusing himself he was extremely busy. First he called 911—yes really. And explained that “my gawilla is sick and I can’t help him”
He packed a suitcase to come to Ireland with me and put in clothes, toys, books, a hole puncher, an empty soda can, a few carrots, some pretzels, and a small plastic pink knife. He made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich “all by myself.” He listened to my ipod obsessively which was on PJ Harvey because makes an appearance in the gllery talk. He learned the following words “lick my legs I’m on fire” And finally he gathered ingredients for baking cookies, which involved an egg. The egg promptly broke on the floor.
I don’t have a good track record for these sorts of trips. When I did a similar adventure in France two years ago it began with Eli having a baby tantrum and flailing so hard that he wacked me in the face and bruised my eye. I believe he was trying to steel apples from a farmers market and I rudely picked him up. I noticed at my parents’ house the night before my flight (two hours from home) that I had Rebecca’s passport not mine. Something bad happened to my flight and I ended up stranded in Zurich for five hours watching other planes fly to Paris. When I explained in Paris that I could not see the signs to find my bagge I was given a wheel chair. And then for the kicker I lost my friends apartment number and only located her by sweet-talking some French construction workers into letting me use their cell phones.
Friday, September 17, 2010
2nd grade theology
Last week one of my friends posted on Facebook that she was often reminded of how different her holiday preparations were from her grandmothers. I think of this more often when making latkes with my food processor, but it’s a good point. Our grandmothers did not for the most part crashing through their work days six hours before a holiday dinner. But they also didn’t have food processors, microwaves, and husbands who do some of the labor and in some cases all. The new year fell inconveniently on a weds this year meaning that Manuel had a meeting until 4:30 and I had various things to do during day which kept me out of the house until I picked up Eli at 3:15 leaving about two hours to get everything ready. The big kids were at play date and Eli and I set about to make a holiday meal which involved for starters him cutting his toy apple over and over again and pretending to be a shofar—a truly grating sound. (I promptly started blasting Velvet Underground to encourage another kind of expression) I turned into some combo of mad chef and hyperactive 7 year old and was running around the house trying to make kooogle, honey cake and other things in record time. The consequence of rushing and tired eyes from an eye doctor appointment was four cuts on my hands and burns in various places and lots of completely inappropriate cursing. At a low point Eli stirred the koogle all by himself and then put a batch to bake in his toy oven, dripping a delightful mix of eggs, sugar and butter all over the floor. Every third word was completely inappropriate for a preschooler and had a jump back from the toy oven move. While I cleaned up that mess he tried to tune the piano--this meant standing on the piano keyboard which he accomplished with a series of stepstool and banging on it with a "fork" and hammer. He heard the tuner explain to Rebecca about pitchforks and the hammers inside. I think he got the words but missed the content. Remarkably we pulled it off and Rebecca got home she set about a project of new placemats for the holiday—gorgeous hot pink felt with more glitter than I knew we had in the house. We tried out annual ritual of getting the kids to think about what they might do better next year. Apparently none need any improvement though they all had big advice for each other—missed the boat….. We did however have an interesting theological discussion which requires dialogue to translate the full effect.
Jonathan: Ok I have something to tell you that I’ve never told you.
Me Ok what
J (With gusto and speed) I don’t believe in God.
Me Ok why
J Because of evolution. God didn’t make the world evolution did. Got that man. (the last statement made while looking at the sky.
Rebecca Well Jonathan I understand what you’re saying but I think something differet. (she must have learned this in school her response to disagreement is usually less articulate)
Me. Hmmmm
Manuel Silent and trying not to choke on food from laughing at seriousness of the kids. And at Eli’s ability to just keep singing at the top of his lungs no matter what is going on.
R I believe in G0d
Me hmmm why
R Because of the stories. You know the burning bush how would it have caught on fire and not burned up.
J Can I have more milk?
And that was that. We can’t figure out why Jonathan thought this was some sort of secret or why a surprise. It turns out he’s been discussin his atheisms quite vehemently at Sunday School for quite a while and we were the last to know. Eli meanwhile repeated the conversation on the long van ride from New Jersey. I would have missed it had my mom not said “honey your kid is saying something to you.” I was deeply engaged in reading an Eloisa James Romance on my kindle and purposefully ignoring all of my kids and my parents. Eli’s version was shorter. “I don’t twust God cause of the evolutionary war.”
The kids hated the koogle and the honey cake causing me to wonder why I ever cook anything. Maybe they are old enough to fast this year.
Jonathan: Ok I have something to tell you that I’ve never told you.
Me Ok what
J (With gusto and speed) I don’t believe in God.
Me Ok why
J Because of evolution. God didn’t make the world evolution did. Got that man. (the last statement made while looking at the sky.
Rebecca Well Jonathan I understand what you’re saying but I think something differet. (she must have learned this in school her response to disagreement is usually less articulate)
Me. Hmmmm
Manuel Silent and trying not to choke on food from laughing at seriousness of the kids. And at Eli’s ability to just keep singing at the top of his lungs no matter what is going on.
R I believe in G0d
Me hmmm why
R Because of the stories. You know the burning bush how would it have caught on fire and not burned up.
J Can I have more milk?
And that was that. We can’t figure out why Jonathan thought this was some sort of secret or why a surprise. It turns out he’s been discussin his atheisms quite vehemently at Sunday School for quite a while and we were the last to know. Eli meanwhile repeated the conversation on the long van ride from New Jersey. I would have missed it had my mom not said “honey your kid is saying something to you.” I was deeply engaged in reading an Eloisa James Romance on my kindle and purposefully ignoring all of my kids and my parents. Eli’s version was shorter. “I don’t twust God cause of the evolutionary war.”
The kids hated the koogle and the honey cake causing me to wonder why I ever cook anything. Maybe they are old enough to fast this year.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Haircuts and Soundscapes
There’s nothing better than a good haircut. Especially if the stylist always remembers your nut allergy, gives a great head massage, and is a punk rock dj which means playing very cool music instead of the usual salon faux-relaxing stuff that is precisely the opposite of relaxing. Two summers ago I went to get my hair cut and announced that we had to rush so I could thing 1 and to swim lessons—no need to mess around with blow drying or even washing it. He said, “now if you’re just going to stick your hair in a pony tail, jump in the chlorinated pool, and stay in the sun all summer we might as well save your money and my time and just give you a little bang trim” So he basically told me to come back when I could treat my hair like a grown up. And while by big city standards anything in cvillle is cheap when the thermometer tops 90 I’d still rather buy beer and ice cream than a hair cut. We now have an arrangement which involves ignoring my hair for four months and letting it get disgusting from the pool and general summer grime and then chopping all the damaged crappy dread lock f stuff off at the start of school. He claims it’s a sassy style. So if you live in cville you should get your hair done by Christopher Hayes. You might even get to hear an old acoustic Sonic Youth tune.
It’s also always important to be well coiffed for the preschool parent orientation when you’re husband has already forbidden you to speak because your cynicism about the whole business will traumatize new parents. It’s also useful if you have already decided in advance that because you failed preschool and find arts and crafts traumatic there is no way in hell you will even approach the project that will for sure involves glue, markers, scissors and construction paper. (yes they did try to hold me back in preschool for failure to string cheerios which I still can not do.) But in the end nothing topped the mother, who after a long earnest discourse on the benefits of play based education by the teacher followed by parents who wanted their kids to learn to make friends, said that she really wanted her child to learn letters. I did not say that my kid went to that preschool and was the only child who didn’t know letters at the beginning of kindergarten but could still read Great Men of Rome by the end of the year. I also got a chance to continue activating my anti power point text guerrilla warfare. This involves aggressively texting on my very large phone when pages of text appear for the audience to read. I’m all for pictures and bullet points but the long illegible blocks of text drive me nuts. My phone, “the easy use” phone is specially designed for people over 80 who are not familiar with technology so texting is a large type affair which may be distracting to those around me. (it also has a red 911 button which is dangerous if you live with a preschooler who loves the phone) I began this during a completely ludicrous orientation about a new web based system required of the faculty in which some young thing from the Deans office stuck large text based slides on a screen.
On the scholarly front this is likely old news to anyone doing interdisciplinary work I was struck again today by the perils of interdisciplinarity. An article I wrote was reviewed by a person who does history of sound as a Historian. He liked the article but thought in essence that I ought to tone down the music as in the stuff with scores and composers whose names we know. I have spent much of career attempting to think beyond the notes, to think about what the experience of sound was in the early modern period. And I’ve always learned a great deal from scholars working outside of music who taught me the value of thinking about broader sounds capes—thunder, speech cadences, wheels turning etc…. And indeed some of the things I work on involve productions with no scores so this is a useful tact. But I was hoping for a convergence—how did those sounds that stand outside of what imagine as music inflect the sound experience. But let’s not get rid of the music all together. Let me stress that the review was positive, thoughtful and helpful and I’d love to meet the person who wrote it. But as a rule I didn’t think it was especially tactful to insert verbatim at least five paragraphs of text from your own article. Such habits also do get in the way of anonymity, it’s best to assume that anyone who writes history or early modern Europe is probably pretty good as searching and identifying authors and ideas through key phrases and has probably learned to be a wiz with google. Back to the soundscape of a house with an almost four year old who imagines himself to be a rock star—loud!!!!!!!
It’s also always important to be well coiffed for the preschool parent orientation when you’re husband has already forbidden you to speak because your cynicism about the whole business will traumatize new parents. It’s also useful if you have already decided in advance that because you failed preschool and find arts and crafts traumatic there is no way in hell you will even approach the project that will for sure involves glue, markers, scissors and construction paper. (yes they did try to hold me back in preschool for failure to string cheerios which I still can not do.) But in the end nothing topped the mother, who after a long earnest discourse on the benefits of play based education by the teacher followed by parents who wanted their kids to learn to make friends, said that she really wanted her child to learn letters. I did not say that my kid went to that preschool and was the only child who didn’t know letters at the beginning of kindergarten but could still read Great Men of Rome by the end of the year. I also got a chance to continue activating my anti power point text guerrilla warfare. This involves aggressively texting on my very large phone when pages of text appear for the audience to read. I’m all for pictures and bullet points but the long illegible blocks of text drive me nuts. My phone, “the easy use” phone is specially designed for people over 80 who are not familiar with technology so texting is a large type affair which may be distracting to those around me. (it also has a red 911 button which is dangerous if you live with a preschooler who loves the phone) I began this during a completely ludicrous orientation about a new web based system required of the faculty in which some young thing from the Deans office stuck large text based slides on a screen.
On the scholarly front this is likely old news to anyone doing interdisciplinary work I was struck again today by the perils of interdisciplinarity. An article I wrote was reviewed by a person who does history of sound as a Historian. He liked the article but thought in essence that I ought to tone down the music as in the stuff with scores and composers whose names we know. I have spent much of career attempting to think beyond the notes, to think about what the experience of sound was in the early modern period. And I’ve always learned a great deal from scholars working outside of music who taught me the value of thinking about broader sounds capes—thunder, speech cadences, wheels turning etc…. And indeed some of the things I work on involve productions with no scores so this is a useful tact. But I was hoping for a convergence—how did those sounds that stand outside of what imagine as music inflect the sound experience. But let’s not get rid of the music all together. Let me stress that the review was positive, thoughtful and helpful and I’d love to meet the person who wrote it. But as a rule I didn’t think it was especially tactful to insert verbatim at least five paragraphs of text from your own article. Such habits also do get in the way of anonymity, it’s best to assume that anyone who writes history or early modern Europe is probably pretty good as searching and identifying authors and ideas through key phrases and has probably learned to be a wiz with google. Back to the soundscape of a house with an almost four year old who imagines himself to be a rock star—loud!!!!!!!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
First week of school—check. Rebecca and Jonathan pranced off to the bus stop on Wednesday nervous but excited. Everything was fine until 4 minutes before we left when it was determined that no one had the proper footwear. Next they had to revisit the issue of new backpacks, which I failed to procure. They have the idea that second grade will come with so much homework that it can not possibly fit in their backpacks. Second grade apparently comes with something akin to the intro bio text Manuel used which outweighed them until they were almost 1 and which they used as a chair until they were three. In the end they got on the bus without looking back and as far as I can tell the first week went fine. Jonathan’s class is about 2/3 boys and Rebecca’s is about 2/3 girls. She told us she’s looking most forward to “talking to my friends ALL DAY.” The second grade a very complicated disciplinary system involving green, yellow and red lights. All they can tell me about it is that “it’s the discipoine system” Both kids were thrilled to find that the school library had the Hardy Boys and that they get to check out two at a time. Jonathan is mad that they don’t have Tom Swift and has already “requested that the librarian increase the collection.”
Eli’s start was not too smooth. He is in general the easy one, goes with the flow, other than potty training raises himself, wasn’t an undercooked puny raisin, no health and developmental issues and no ER for the first year of his life. (Yes I know he will need to discuss this at length with his therapist later but it’s good to give him material) After last weekend’s 1,2,3 strep punch it seemed we were in the clear until the little one woke up screaming on Tuesday night with hives and an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin. After a couple of hours of Benadryl, writhing in pain, calls from the nurse to ask us if he was still breathing ok, Manuel took him to the ER where they gave him steroids and apparently enjoyed playing with him. So Manuel and mini-well got home at 2 in the morning and we took him to the pediatrician in the morning where in addition to getting a new antibiotic I dropped him on his head. (yes really) In that exhausted parents of three way we dosed him up with the new medicine and dumped him at school. Despite the time consuming start up designed to prevent parents from accomplishing anything he proceeded to scream his head off at drop off every day. Eli also busted me on Thursday. We had a babysitter in the afternoon. I worked until the last 15 minutes when I got a phone call and decided to put away the three bins of kids laundry. I had heard Eli debating with Laruen about coming upstairs. He explained he needed me. She explained I was working. Then as I was chatting away I heard “thump thump thump” followed by a triumphant “I told you she wasn’t workin….”
I’m still messing with my new MAC. I seem to be down 400 tunes in Itunes. Not only am I for sure missing some particularly loud aggressive and dissonant piece of angry chic rock that I need to get through the day. But I’m probably lacking some eclectic music examples that I wont miss until 30 minutes before a lecture. I did move all of the documents successfully and as I expected the new machine solved all of my problems and the book ought to be done by next week. And in case there was any doubt that I’m on sabbatical I have lost the keys to my office so I literally can not go there. I had a mild panic attack when I was told that one of the trailers moved—was literally wheeled out of our parking lot. Thankfully I’m told it was the math trailer.
Eli’s start was not too smooth. He is in general the easy one, goes with the flow, other than potty training raises himself, wasn’t an undercooked puny raisin, no health and developmental issues and no ER for the first year of his life. (Yes I know he will need to discuss this at length with his therapist later but it’s good to give him material) After last weekend’s 1,2,3 strep punch it seemed we were in the clear until the little one woke up screaming on Tuesday night with hives and an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin. After a couple of hours of Benadryl, writhing in pain, calls from the nurse to ask us if he was still breathing ok, Manuel took him to the ER where they gave him steroids and apparently enjoyed playing with him. So Manuel and mini-well got home at 2 in the morning and we took him to the pediatrician in the morning where in addition to getting a new antibiotic I dropped him on his head. (yes really) In that exhausted parents of three way we dosed him up with the new medicine and dumped him at school. Despite the time consuming start up designed to prevent parents from accomplishing anything he proceeded to scream his head off at drop off every day. Eli also busted me on Thursday. We had a babysitter in the afternoon. I worked until the last 15 minutes when I got a phone call and decided to put away the three bins of kids laundry. I had heard Eli debating with Laruen about coming upstairs. He explained he needed me. She explained I was working. Then as I was chatting away I heard “thump thump thump” followed by a triumphant “I told you she wasn’t workin….”
I’m still messing with my new MAC. I seem to be down 400 tunes in Itunes. Not only am I for sure missing some particularly loud aggressive and dissonant piece of angry chic rock that I need to get through the day. But I’m probably lacking some eclectic music examples that I wont miss until 30 minutes before a lecture. I did move all of the documents successfully and as I expected the new machine solved all of my problems and the book ought to be done by next week. And in case there was any doubt that I’m on sabbatical I have lost the keys to my office so I literally can not go there. I had a mild panic attack when I was told that one of the trailers moved—was literally wheeled out of our parking lot. Thankfully I’m told it was the math trailer.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Last Day of Summer
Whoever said that the summer solstice was the longest day of the year had clearly not spent a day with three children who go back to school the next day. They are beyond ready and were literally doing laps around the dining room until thing 1 and 2 made enough noise to wake up sleeping beauty and we walked in the rain to the delightful Market Street Market for a breakfast treat of scones and a insanely sophisticated and expensive collection of cheese and baguette for lunch.
Yesterday’s series of open houses seemed really to get their juices flowing. I have to admit to having absolutely no enthusiasm for Eli’s start up. We have so far had a home visit, a meeting with the teachers, a visit to the classroom and a back to school picnic. This is his third year in preschool and over the weekend he informed me that he would get potty trained if I got him a new “waptop” I don’t think he needs to ease into things.
The big kids meanwhile do need some start up. When Jonathan suggested last night that maybe I should teach music history at their school and that he and Rebecca should both be in my class I knew we were headed for our usual fall transitional awkwardness. Rebecca thinks the school music teacher could use some help since she did not know that men can sing with very high voices so the music history thing made some sense to her. Once we move on from the home school fantasy though they both have lots of friends in their classes. Rebecca and two of her equally loquacious little girl friends already seemed to be taking control of the classroom. They had a lot of loud exploring to do before someone suggested meeting the teacher. He’s the new guy, extremely earnest, and looks about twelve. Best of luck to him. (and when did teachers and doctors become so young that they could be my children) The low point of that event involved loosing Eli. The kids were doing some moving between each other’s classrooms and Manuel and I each thought the other one had Eli. Suddenly we noticed he had gone on walk about. Thank you Tracy Weaver for locating him calmly and deliberately walking towards the door of the building way out of sight. She said something like “aren’t you Jonathan and Rebecca’s brother. Let’s just go ahead and find your family” before he took off into the mass of elementary school kids. The potluck in the evening meanwhile turned out to be a picnic. So after complaining all day about how much I hate potlucks, refusing to cook and sending Manuel to buy potato salad we arrived to find no food for our cranky kids to eat. (they don’t like potato salad)
In an effort to keep the kids and their equally enthusiastic friend busy today we have eaten expensive gourmet food, had a chamber music festival, started four bored games, put away exactly four pieces of laundry, and had various group meetings in which we discuss possible activities. As for the chamber music I need to send a shout out to Jim Ford who first introduced me to string playing in the public schools and must have tolerated an equally cacophonous joy on a regular basis. Ours was particularly delightful with Eli the hard rock guitar as accompaniment and Rebecca using the piano as percussive accent. Now they have settled on a game called Freedom Fighters which involves saying things like “Tell King George we’ll pay no taxes” Eli has inserted King Pharaoh into the mix.
In other exciting news I got a new Mac lap top on Friday. I finally might have the whole thing configured to my liking. Despite all of the fabulous things I’ve heard about Mac tech support I did talk to one delightful young person who suggested that if 16 was not a big enough font for my menus perhaps I shouldn’t be using laptops. I treated him to a rather extended bibliography of things I’d done on a laptop followed by a lecture about the hegemony of the visual and the inappropriateness of tech support people offering personal advice. I never got my fonts worked out but a little righteous indignation always feels good. So if anyone can figure out how to make Mac menu fonts bigger and how to find 400 tunes that got lost from itunes in the migration we will happily pay you in booze and cookies. I’m sure that in addition to the various kinds of therapeutic loud rock that must be in the 400 that there will also be hard to come by teaching and research examples that I will only miss the night before a lecture.
Yesterday’s series of open houses seemed really to get their juices flowing. I have to admit to having absolutely no enthusiasm for Eli’s start up. We have so far had a home visit, a meeting with the teachers, a visit to the classroom and a back to school picnic. This is his third year in preschool and over the weekend he informed me that he would get potty trained if I got him a new “waptop” I don’t think he needs to ease into things.
The big kids meanwhile do need some start up. When Jonathan suggested last night that maybe I should teach music history at their school and that he and Rebecca should both be in my class I knew we were headed for our usual fall transitional awkwardness. Rebecca thinks the school music teacher could use some help since she did not know that men can sing with very high voices so the music history thing made some sense to her. Once we move on from the home school fantasy though they both have lots of friends in their classes. Rebecca and two of her equally loquacious little girl friends already seemed to be taking control of the classroom. They had a lot of loud exploring to do before someone suggested meeting the teacher. He’s the new guy, extremely earnest, and looks about twelve. Best of luck to him. (and when did teachers and doctors become so young that they could be my children) The low point of that event involved loosing Eli. The kids were doing some moving between each other’s classrooms and Manuel and I each thought the other one had Eli. Suddenly we noticed he had gone on walk about. Thank you Tracy Weaver for locating him calmly and deliberately walking towards the door of the building way out of sight. She said something like “aren’t you Jonathan and Rebecca’s brother. Let’s just go ahead and find your family” before he took off into the mass of elementary school kids. The potluck in the evening meanwhile turned out to be a picnic. So after complaining all day about how much I hate potlucks, refusing to cook and sending Manuel to buy potato salad we arrived to find no food for our cranky kids to eat. (they don’t like potato salad)
In an effort to keep the kids and their equally enthusiastic friend busy today we have eaten expensive gourmet food, had a chamber music festival, started four bored games, put away exactly four pieces of laundry, and had various group meetings in which we discuss possible activities. As for the chamber music I need to send a shout out to Jim Ford who first introduced me to string playing in the public schools and must have tolerated an equally cacophonous joy on a regular basis. Ours was particularly delightful with Eli the hard rock guitar as accompaniment and Rebecca using the piano as percussive accent. Now they have settled on a game called Freedom Fighters which involves saying things like “Tell King George we’ll pay no taxes” Eli has inserted King Pharaoh into the mix.
In other exciting news I got a new Mac lap top on Friday. I finally might have the whole thing configured to my liking. Despite all of the fabulous things I’ve heard about Mac tech support I did talk to one delightful young person who suggested that if 16 was not a big enough font for my menus perhaps I shouldn’t be using laptops. I treated him to a rather extended bibliography of things I’d done on a laptop followed by a lecture about the hegemony of the visual and the inappropriateness of tech support people offering personal advice. I never got my fonts worked out but a little righteous indignation always feels good. So if anyone can figure out how to make Mac menu fonts bigger and how to find 400 tunes that got lost from itunes in the migration we will happily pay you in booze and cookies. I’m sure that in addition to the various kinds of therapeutic loud rock that must be in the 400 that there will also be hard to come by teaching and research examples that I will only miss the night before a lecture.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Rain and Puke
My son scolded me yesterday for not keeping up the blog. So here we go again. After a whirlwind August of family vacations we are all gearing up for, and in fact counting the minutes until, the beginning of school next week. The kids need structure and they need the heat to break. Rebecca and Jonathan may also need some space. Without the separate classrooms and different activities they spend almost every moment together day and night. If I spent that much time with my husband I’d probably kill him.
Today was one of those days vacillated between feeling like a totally in control super mom and a complete nutcase. I woke up and quickly wiped out a blurb on Kircher for an exhibit at the library and then helped the kids with some community activism. They are writing a letter to the builders of the apartment building threatening to go up next store asking for grass and trees. (more on this later) I left 6 kids in my house and zipped up to a cafe for 45 minutes with a friend to work. While there I managed to write three sentences of my book which left me feeling almost smug. At the rate of one sentence every fifteen minutes I should finish it just before my 56th birthday. I then had to zip back to meet Eli’s preschool teachers. The home visit supposedly makes the child feel more comfortable but mostly feels like a tacit evaluation of the home-front. As I left the café on my way the heat wave broke with a biblical rain storm--no thunder just rushing water on the ground. Within about 30 seconds my sundress and I looked like we’d been through the washer and my shoes squished so much I took them off and ran down the down-town mall, looking like a cross between a drowned rat and a homeless waif. I made it home to find the house as messy as I’d left it and the six kids upstairs listening to a book on tape. Eli, meanwhile refused to get dressed saying he wanted to show the teacher his nightgown which is a Brown Class of 1990 t-shirt that says “Can I take life S/NC” This also involved showing off his butt and family jewels as he finds underwear beneath him. The highpoints of the visit involved him calling the teacher poop, announcing he actually did not want to be in her class but wanted to be in the other teacher’s class, hitting his brother, refusing to speak in sentences, and clinging to my legs.
The start up for preschool is intense and at this point I’d much prefer to simply toss him in a classroom and hope for the best. Note to those planning third children save your-self a year of preschool by arranging for a summer birth not a November one that delays the process. When filling out my “goals” for him all I could think to write was potty training and astrophysics.
And now for Becket the Children’s version whose moral is that when the kid is clingy he may actually be sick…...Eli who regularly has at least 15 ailments a day had a tummy ache which he described to his father just before it erupted into a Vesuvius style puke. It seemed that this may have come from drinking a gallon of his sisters “made from scratch” lemonade. After much kurfluffle, including canceling the evening playdate and me wandering around the house shirtless because shirt is soaked and I have not put the screaming kid down and Rebecca screaming that she needs me to help her practice relative calm ensued. An hour later despite the volcanic puke and a fever of 103 Eli was fine and ate a huge dinner. A one hour bug?
Here’s the dialogue
Manuel: Bon take him to the Toilet (after Vesuvius has erupted)
Eli: Nooooo not the bathwoooooooom I’m not really puking it’s the sugar.
Rebecca: MOMMY ELI NEEEEEEEEDS YOU
Me: I need to shower before Yoga I’m covered in puke
Eli: I’m weddy go to the wine stowe since I already puked. they have mow Motwin there”
Jonathan: Mommy did you REALLY GET PUKED On. “ (note the entire first floor is covered in puke)
Rebecca: How many minutes did I practice? I can’t believe you didn’t set the timer
Jonathan: How could you finish watching Dr. Dolittle without me. Mommy turn on the TV.
Eli: We need mow papa towels in case I puke some mow
Jonathan: Mommy where IS YOUR shirt?
Eli: I’m all betta now. Ooohhhmmm (with a very aggressive yogic pose)
Today was one of those days vacillated between feeling like a totally in control super mom and a complete nutcase. I woke up and quickly wiped out a blurb on Kircher for an exhibit at the library and then helped the kids with some community activism. They are writing a letter to the builders of the apartment building threatening to go up next store asking for grass and trees. (more on this later) I left 6 kids in my house and zipped up to a cafe for 45 minutes with a friend to work. While there I managed to write three sentences of my book which left me feeling almost smug. At the rate of one sentence every fifteen minutes I should finish it just before my 56th birthday. I then had to zip back to meet Eli’s preschool teachers. The home visit supposedly makes the child feel more comfortable but mostly feels like a tacit evaluation of the home-front. As I left the café on my way the heat wave broke with a biblical rain storm--no thunder just rushing water on the ground. Within about 30 seconds my sundress and I looked like we’d been through the washer and my shoes squished so much I took them off and ran down the down-town mall, looking like a cross between a drowned rat and a homeless waif. I made it home to find the house as messy as I’d left it and the six kids upstairs listening to a book on tape. Eli, meanwhile refused to get dressed saying he wanted to show the teacher his nightgown which is a Brown Class of 1990 t-shirt that says “Can I take life S/NC” This also involved showing off his butt and family jewels as he finds underwear beneath him. The highpoints of the visit involved him calling the teacher poop, announcing he actually did not want to be in her class but wanted to be in the other teacher’s class, hitting his brother, refusing to speak in sentences, and clinging to my legs.
The start up for preschool is intense and at this point I’d much prefer to simply toss him in a classroom and hope for the best. Note to those planning third children save your-self a year of preschool by arranging for a summer birth not a November one that delays the process. When filling out my “goals” for him all I could think to write was potty training and astrophysics.
And now for Becket the Children’s version whose moral is that when the kid is clingy he may actually be sick…...Eli who regularly has at least 15 ailments a day had a tummy ache which he described to his father just before it erupted into a Vesuvius style puke. It seemed that this may have come from drinking a gallon of his sisters “made from scratch” lemonade. After much kurfluffle, including canceling the evening playdate and me wandering around the house shirtless because shirt is soaked and I have not put the screaming kid down and Rebecca screaming that she needs me to help her practice relative calm ensued. An hour later despite the volcanic puke and a fever of 103 Eli was fine and ate a huge dinner. A one hour bug?
Here’s the dialogue
Manuel: Bon take him to the Toilet (after Vesuvius has erupted)
Eli: Nooooo not the bathwoooooooom I’m not really puking it’s the sugar.
Rebecca: MOMMY ELI NEEEEEEEEDS YOU
Me: I need to shower before Yoga I’m covered in puke
Eli: I’m weddy go to the wine stowe since I already puked. they have mow Motwin there”
Jonathan: Mommy did you REALLY GET PUKED On. “ (note the entire first floor is covered in puke)
Rebecca: How many minutes did I practice? I can’t believe you didn’t set the timer
Jonathan: How could you finish watching Dr. Dolittle without me. Mommy turn on the TV.
Eli: We need mow papa towels in case I puke some mow
Jonathan: Mommy where IS YOUR shirt?
Eli: I’m all betta now. Ooohhhmmm (with a very aggressive yogic pose)
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