New Year's Eve+

The dentist office was my first stop this morning to see the hygenist and have my fangs cleaned. All clean and sparkly and just in time for the new year. A quick trip down Madison Avenue to see if any of my favorite stores had started paying customers to take away merchandise. No such luck today in spite of the snow which made Central Park and the City look very romantic. And then on to work for a couple of hours before I turn right around and high tail it home to start the gastronimic festivities for the New Year. My biggest shopping chore to was to make sure that I had green grapes in the house. 7 green grapes per person. You need to eat 7 of them on New Year's Eve and then if you're really prepared you will have collards and black eyed peas on New Year's Day. The grapes are a lesson from the French and we often run screaming out into the streets at 10:00 pm looking frantically for grapes that are not already raisins. But this year I am prepared. Besides we need to lock in good luck for 2010.

These Fly bye Holidays

Snow was the huge agenda item last week and had I managed to get myself to a computer, I would have waxed eloquent about the snow. There was plenty of it. Finally the snow. But that was a sentiment pretty much across the boards here where every weather forecast during the last year hinted at snow, teased at snow and even promised snow but never delivered. This time the snow started on Saturday night while we were having dinner with friends and the short walk home was magical. Cold but magical. And then Sunday we took Miss Murray to the local park and dog run which pretty much exhausted her. We were afraid to strike out for Central Park for fear that we would run out of energy before we got made the round trip. We were especially thinking that we would never get a cab -- either going or coming -- with the dog in tow.

No work for me those days and I enjoyed sleeping late, going to the gym late and just meandering around town. Also some last minute christmas shopping. Then with all the snow cleaned up, we took off for Columbus and spent our 9th or even 10th Christmas there. Wonderful and magical for everybody. Dessert parties, BBQ, a performance of Peter Pan at the Springer Theatre and then Christmas, wonderful Christmas. Everyone seemed in fine fettle and the kids who were suddenly shy with each other came around and had a great time together. We are always thrilled to go and then thrilled to come home. In the meantime I always like to consider how it would be to live in Columbus. But again on the way home we had air travel anxieties because we left the day after a crazy Nigerian tried to blow himself on a Northwest airplane up as they made an approach into Detroit. The airport was very well organized and much better run than LaGuardia would have been.

Back at work and the Museum is so crowded that almost all administrators are hiding in their offices. We had a record 30,000 people in the Museum on Monday. Too many people for me!

Christmas Parties

Tuesday was the building's Christmas party which is always well attended by those of us with children. And this year there are a ton o kids. When Kate was younger, she was one of the few kids in the building, but now with so many children I really feel sorry for residents arriving home from work who then have to negotiate incredibly crowded and noisy lobby just to get to the elevators. There are tables set up with home baked cookies, tables with chips and dip, and tables with drinks dot the lobby and then there are the groups of children who go skittering around the adults and using the tables as part of their hide and seek games. Santa's appearance caused tears with some of the tiny ones -- what is wrong with them -- then there was the jolly entertaining with balloons alien -- no more scary clowns -- and the musicians playing.

This year Santa conifided to me that he was a little desperate about what to get Kate because although she should be aging out of this party, we all know it ain't gonna happen. So they took my recommendation and Santa got her a pretty spiffy tool belt! All well made tools on a heavy weight belt. Great for Kate. MIT here she comes.

Even since Kate was sick I've been worrying about getting her cold and then fighting a series of symptoms for days and yesterday it all hit and I stayed home. I even called the doctor who usually looks at me and says take 2 asperin and stay home. But this time I made my plan and arrived looking pretty grim and sounding pretty grim. But apparently the key question that I answered correctly was: Are you feeling better? Hell, no, now I have swollen glands. That was the $64,000 question and the prize was a presciption of zithromax. Yes, Lord. I was up and out of my chair doing a high five about getting those pills in their pretty little box.

Today of course I feel much better because I am on drugs!

Almost Christmas

It seemed too cold to us for a jaunt to the Park this morning with Miss Murray who badly needs excercise and at this moment thrusts her chew toy in my direction and basically forces me to play with her. But after a reality check, we decided that getting a taxi home on a busy work day would be hideous and bagged the entire thing so I had a wonderful leisurely morning. But then I had an amazing experience here at the Museum when I answered a question for directions to the Frog Exhibition posed by a visitor to the museum who turns out to be a Sister visiting from Paris. In just our short walk to Frogs, it was clear to me that she was n amazing and charming woman but then I ran into her again because Frogs was too crowded with kids to be really enjoyable for an adult. So this time we had a chance to talk again about living and working in France as opposed to living and working in the States. Just a great chance encounter which will give me an up for the entire day. I kept trying to figure out how I could keep her all day and just keep on talking. Great.

Busy day and then too many parties tonight. Our office party and also our building party...

None of the Above

We're still not all healthy it turns out, certainly not wealthy as of this writing and therefore not wise or we would be both healthy and wealthy. Doesn't that make sense?

We went out en famille plus Miss Murray to get the Christmas tree on Saturday morning and I recounted for Kate, as I do every year, the way my father and I would buy a Christmas tree. He would wear a homburg, heavy gloves and an overcoat as this was before the days of baseball hats, sneakers and jeans wore everywhere. And he would make the guys take out a number of tree, untie them and shake them down until we had one that suited us. I went through this charade which I actually enjoy and then move into haggling over the price. Fortunately or unfortunately the process of buying at the local store is far too short. Next year I think we will go to a more obscure spot run my Canadians and go through our performance. Our ceiling is so high that we either get one that is too tall or too short. I think this year our tree is a little too little. Then we went back to the house to get ready for our dinner guests.

We had 10 people for dinner on Saturday and Kate experienced first hand the rule of the mob. Three of these 10 were kids who were out of control and Kate was aghast I think by the manners of these kids. They kept looking in the closets, jumped on our bed and in general acted like kids. She was in charge as the old woman and I think she basically had a relapse and slept most of Sunday and this morning, still tired, went off to school. I think she will perk up immeasurably when she feels the energy at school and sees her friends. I did shanghai the i touch so that she is more able to focus on what is going on around her like making up a week's worth of homework. And last night we watched the film Stand and Deliver which like Freedom Writers had this message: Set expectations high and your kids will succeed.

We are into the count down week of pre Christmas stuff and it's all about errands now.

Healthy, Wealthy and Wise

Well for the first time in 6 days, we are all healthy and Kate is fever free. I hope by this time of the day she has also taken a shower, washed her hair and dressed! Its been a rough week and this morning was definitely odd because I woke up at 5, dressed, took the dog out, came back and changed into gym clothes, went out to the gym, came back, showered and then dressed to go to out to an early morning meeting. During this entire time nobody in my family was awake. I left everybody still sleeping at 7:30 and finally checked in with them about 8:30 to make sure that everybody was still alive.

Finally wore a real winter coat today and also saw the first phase of the moon this morning which looked romantic and beautiful.

Newspaper Delivery

Kate still sick with high temperature and home from school. This will make an entire week of languishing at home. This is the most time that she has ever, ever been sick and now she is still sick but also bored. Think I need to swing past the library or book store to pick up something to break her concentration on the itouch!!!!That wretched piece of electronic equipment.

We've been having trouble with our newspaper delivery and almost every morning has brought a new twist. Either no paper or the paper doesn't come until too late to be important or it arrives with a nice note and then only half of the paper is there...This morning I had a phone call from one of the owners apologizing for lousy service without a real explanation of why. But the key thing here is that they thanked me for being a customer for 27 years. Holy Cow.

The week that was

Raining. Rain, rain, go away, come again another day. Clearly I'm not a farmer and don't want all this precipitation. I wore my yellow slicker, carried a bright blue duck umbrella and tucked my feet into fabulous Lady Bug boots that Spook gave me and splashed my way to work this morning. I looked very much like a kindergarten teacher with my palette of primary colors.

Kate is sick. Temp 104 and that's always unnverving in a kid who talks all the time and is suddenly too tired to talk, or eat, or do anything. Even the itouch lay dormant. Today she seems better and her fever is down. But it's looking more and more like she will lose a complete week of school.

Museum interuptus

We lured Kate to the Museum of Modern Art with the promise of seeing a show devoted to Tim Burton who is to my mind, crazed but nonethe less brilliant producer of Nightmare Before Christmas. However although I think he is mad, I too like his creations and think the music in his films is compelling. All this to say that MOMA with its free entry policy on Friday nights was positively a zoo and so we had to quickly re group and come up with Plan B. My family was not cooperative with my plan B which was to go down a block or so and see the Christmas Tree and skaters and since Arnie was having some pain in his leg, we shuffled along slowly to dinner. Because although we had not been clever enough to make reservations or buy tickets for MOMA, I am usually clever about food and so we had a reservtion at Peking Duck which is one of Kate's favorites. Grandma Dot came with us but frankly I have no idea what was said during dinner. It's the beginning of the Christmas Celebratory season and there were a number of big tables with women who drank too much and then screamed. I almost leaned over and shouted in the ear of the loudest young woman that she was toxic noise pollution. I imagined how much pleasure this would give me and how shocked she would be....

Christmas shopping was impossible on Saturday because it was cold, nasty and rainy. So I holed up at home and on Sunday I actually cooked and we had guests for dinner. Kate came down with a headache and a little fever which she was able to ignore so as to play hostess to a 7 year old guest. Then as soon as they left she went straight to bed. And she is still sick with some temperature but it's the cough that concerns me. You know one of those coughs that sounds like you've dragged it up out of the basement so she is off to see Dr. Sue this afternoon.

Pretty darn proud

On our girls night out Kate came up to the Museum to have dinner with me and hear our good friend Richard Ellis talk about Polar Bears and their status as endangered animals. I was amazed that kate agreed to come and it had to do with the fact that she loves Richard more than anything else. She is highly ambivalent about the Museum, inspite of the fact that she is virtually growing up in this place, and often blows off any attempt on my part to involve her in coming here to see new exhibits, go to lectures, or participate in programs, etc. When she does come, she has a great time but the effort of luring her in is often tedius. She and I both had a good time. The next morning when I asked about how her HUR class was shaping up, she said, "Oh, it's boring and we're talking world issues like global warming." "But," I said, "we just went to a lecture about global warming." "No, it was about Polar Bears!"

I took the day off yesterday and had time to have a leisurely breakfast, play with Miss Murray, to the gym after the early morning rush there and Miss Murray and I walked kate to the Bus stop. Always makes me feel very suburban but of course if that were true I'd be driving rather than walking. At 12 noon I met Arnie and we went to her parent teacher meeting with her advisor Eric Quinones. He said this will be simple and easy: She's doing a great job. Everybody knows and loves Kate. She is doing well socially and academically. She is doing well in every subject and I'm happy to hear that she loves Latin.

How can you not qvell....?

Arnie and I went on to enjoy a celebratory lunch together at some wildly esoteric restaurant that I could find by using Google directions. Freemans restaurant is down on the lower east side tucked into an alley that runs off of Rivington Street. when you finally get there it's like being in a London mews. I thought immeidately: oh oh too charming and so the food will be terrible. But the food was really excellent and I would go back again providing that I could do it during the week at an off time. Then we ducked into a New Museum down on the Battery. A totally satisfying day.

Today we are going to take Kate and Grandma Dot out for a celbratory dinner to acknowledge her good work in school which is basically life...

The rituals of the season

Christmas cards are bought. Now it's up to me to go ahead and address them! The ingredients for a plum pudding are almost in hand and I signed up for Twitter. oh, that doesn't sound like one of the rituals of the season? It amuses me that we continue to do the tried and true: christmas cards and plum puddings and explore the new: Twitter. But I can't imagine tweeting every day...

Christmas shopping comes next and then kate and i always go to Radio City Music Hall to see the Christmas Show. Perfection.

The Long Weekend

Not the longest weekend mind you but a wonderful long weekend. It was wonderful to have 4 days away from the office and to chill out without having to travel any place further than 75th street nor to cook. Macy's blows up all their parade balloons on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving right outside the Museum and right outside my window. So cold weather with Irish mist not withstanding the entire neighborhood turns out to watch this annual event. I love it. I don't love coming to the Parade because it's crowded, cold, anticlimatic and I always worry about how I'm going to get home. Don't ask...

Thanksgiving Day was sunny and warm and the friends that we joined for Thanksgiving Dinner have an apartment with several fabulous terraces and so we were able to wander about outside enjoying the skyline and the sunshine. We so enjoyed being guests at their dinner: we came on time, were polite to everyone and came home at a reasonable hour with doggie bags. How thoughtful is that. Actually while I won't ever cook a turkey for Thanksgiving because I think it's too labor intensive for what it is, we did cook the turkey lurking in our icebox the next day and enjoyed that. Now for the sandwiches. The rest of the weekend was very laidback with trips to the Park with Miss Murray, ice skating and some time for all of us to chill out.

We also went to Chinatown with some friends who were in China with me in 1999 and we hadn't seen since the weekend before 9/11. We went to Chinatown for dinner with them and it's one of my great regrets that Kate doens't like anything about Chinatown; it's smelly, it's crowded, it's boring....not.

Then Kate had a playdate with her good friend Lile which made it possible for Lile's mother and me to have a a girls day, too. We went shopping at Lord & Taylor and had dinner at home with the girls safely tucked away in another room.

Heaven

Murder Most Rare

Murder most rare or something like that was the dream that Kate had. So if I remember what she said correctly, it was an adventure good against evil dream based on a fantasy book series she has been reading where she had to kill somebody with a grenade. How did you feel about your first killing, I asked. But he was evil and so I had to do it. How did you wake up from this dream? Oh, the noise of the grendade. I asked her to write it down so that she wouldn't forget the best parts of this nocturnal ramble.

Independence

When I was a camper at Treetops we all had double blade knives so that we could become champions at the game of mumbledy peg which I think dimly involves flipping your knife around and driving it into the ground. or that's what I remember about it. So when I thought about giving my daughter a knife at age 12 I had to acknowledge that perhaps I have infantilized her or at the very least am not helping her take responsibility for her own actions. How will she ever learn how to be responsible? I immediately scrunch up my shoulders when she wants to help chop something in the kitchen. Maybe she should just cut herself and then it wouldn't happen again. She wants contact lenses and i want her to keep her Metro card for longer than 2 months. I've told her now that if she loses the phone then it's gone. And if she loses her metro card again then she pwill pay for her own transportation to school. Or she could walk. And maybe I don't have to walk with her. See, that's where I think I become over protective. I don't feel comfortable with the idea of her walking to school alone because although she is 13 she looks as if she is 8!
So if she wants more grown up stuff , such as contacts and a face book account, then she has to be more responsible. Maybe I could just give her a pocket knife and see how that goes first.

Who We are

I can't quite remember why we started hauling out photo albums but much of the evening was spent dusting off big old leather photo albums that live right next to my bed in an old marble top chest which was probably used in the 1800's to store a slop jar. When we couldn't find the picture we wanted -- no clue at this moment about what that might have been -- we brought out the step stool and started bringing albums down from the higher storage areas. We have plenty of these jammed with photographs of me from infancy through adulthood, then with Kate's infancy and our expanding and continuing family life. But it was so interesting to watch kate leaf through these visual records of her life and exclaim every couple of minutes about how cute she was or how little she was.....She was totally disinterested in anybody other than herself. But isn't that the way we all are when we see pictures of ourselves? Everybody else in the picture may look great but if we think we look fat or we're having a bad hair day, then we pronounce the picture a clear failure.

Osso Bucco

Last night Arnie cooked a delectable meal of Osso Bucco and my contribution was risotto. Which Kate, our picky eater, wouldn't touch. i finally told her that everytime she deletes a food from her approved list, she has to add a new food. Talk about useless dictums.

This morning I took Kate to school which requires the bus and then a short walk. We have time to talk on the way to school and this morning she offered me her right earphone so we could share her music. I realized as I spun off from her school to go on my way to the subway that I had been doing this route for 8 years. Day by day it has sometimes seemed tedious, especially when it is cold and rainy, but on a sunny day it seems impossible that this has been going on over a span of 8 years.

Spaghetti Carbonara

Spaghetti Carbonara happens to be my most favorite pasta dish. It is actually my only favorite pasta dish. Many years ago I ate the best Spaghetti Carbonara ever in a fabulous chateau-like hotel in the South of France, and then kept trying to make it taste just like it did on a cold March night. I've recently been quite successful as a result of watching a french chef tackle this dish. So, long story short, we had spaghetti carbonara on Friday night to kick off the weekend and I was quite happy to have Kate declaim that it was a favorite dish of hers. Who knew! Especially she has just removed hot dogs, peanut butter and chicken soup with meatballs from her list of approved foods.

Saturday after soccer she went off to a bar mitzvah in Tribecca. Luckily we had dinner with friends who drive Kate to her bar mitzvah and then even luckier were able to pick her up when the party was breaking up. That was lucky because our Cinderella lost her shoes and came padding down the street barefoot. We heard this morning that the shoes had been found!

Role models

Last night Arnie cooked dinner for me and for Kate. Plus he made a delish dessert served warm that came out of the oven timed to be ready right after our main course. How is that for being taken care? Chicken with some kind of spicy rub, salad and potatoes followed by a cranberry/walnut souffle kind of thing.

All good as far as I'm concerned. Do I dare ask what's dinner tonight?

Veterans Day

A holiday for me and not a holiday for Kate. These are the good times. I wasn't able to sleep really late because Arnie and I took Kate to school so that we could be there to participate as Middle School reps at the 8:00 am. Waste of time but then we are just doing our good parent thing. I actually miss spending time at the school in marked contrast to the amount of time and social interaction I had with teachers and other parents during Kate's Lower School Career. In middle school there is almost a pushing away of parents which i think doesn't make fund raising sense.

Anyway we had a chance to wander through the Green Market, make some wonderful impulse purchases and walk home together which was really nice. I wouldn't want to do this every day because it would mean that we were retired! Aaagh. The city was getting ready for the Veterans Day parade and our conversations were occasionally interrupted by the roar of motorcycles streaming up Park Avenue to get into position for the Parade. A trip to the gym and then off to lunch with a friend. Again a perfect day but not one that I would want on a regular basis. A quick trip through Saks to see what the other half is wearing and then I walked home down 5th Avenue and watched some of the Parade. The bag pipers always make me cry because their sound is so mournful and speaks so eloquently of loss. More people were watching this Parade than in recent years...

Behind the Scenes

Our new exhibition on the Silk Road will be opening in the next week and all things professional are focused on the launch and promotion of this show. And on Friday a group of employee children were allowed access to the exhibition in return for the right to photograph them. I see now that the younger the child the more interest the photographer has in shooting them. So, kate at the ripe old age of 13 is no longer a favored model for either our in-house photog or for a New York Times photog who was also there working. We went on for a family dinner in the nabe and had a great time. Saturday was all about soccer for kate and Arnie and I went off to a conference and then we all hooked up again for dinner with friends.

Sunday was a trip to Chinatown to meet two sisters from New Jersey and to have a first lunch with them as part of a big sister-little sister event. And last night we watched Fame which was a mixed bag. Incredibly foul language which always make Kate freeze and a sampling of everything from sex to drugs and rock n roll. The question was whether or not this was TMI for kate. Hoowever I thought that every deviant act had a touch consequence so for me it wasn't optimum but ok.

Bugs

I haven't actually acknowledged this before but we've been having bugs in the house. It's probably not earthshaking but it's not always what you want to say upfront. Hello, we have bugs. Although I remember being about 4 or 5 years old and visiting my grandparents in Roanoke, Va and when I was introduced, I apparently told everyone that "I have bugs in my head."
Head lice knows no boundaries of age or geography. And god knows we've had run-ins with head lice since then. But not this go round. Rest easy everybody who has seen us recently.

This time it was beetles. We suddenly began seeing small black things on the walls or a gaggle floating heads up in Murray's water bowl. We had no idea what they were and how upset to get. They didn't suck blood so not bed bugs and they didn't make us scratch our ankles in that frantic way so they weren't fleas. But what? We asked the doormen who had no idea. We consulted with the handy man who had no idea. And even when put on the spot the exterminator had no idea. Luckily he was fired and the second exterminator took one look at our cache of carefully saved bugs and pronounced them beetles and in the second breath without even seeing Miss Murray, asked where we kept our dog food. Apparently they travel with dog food.

Mystery solved. On to the next exciting chapter.

Family Dinner

Even the title makes you kinda shudder, doesn't it? Well, we've had plenty of those dinners too where everybody has news that they want to talk about and absolutely zip interest in listening to anybody else. Of course the dining room table has also been a great teaching ground for a demonstration of table manners as well as what makes up a conversation. You talk, then you listen. Someone else talks and you don;'t interupt.

But last night it seemed to me that everybody was in great shape. When Kate talked about school, everybody listened and when Arnie talked about business, he too received respect in the form of listening. i was happy to listen to everybody because dinner was cooked and the rice was perfect when I got home. Who wouldn't listen under circumstances like those.

The only fly in the ointment might be that Kate has suddenly gone green and went around turning off all electrical appliances. Maybe candles will be next.

More Cats and Ghouls

I had to go to work on Halloween and then collapsed on Sunday after spending most of Saturday greeting ghouls and goblins who came to the Museum as a safe place to trick or treat. Lile and her parents come over to trick or treat in our apartment building and then stay for dinner. Great evening once I could slip my shoes off...And Sunday as idillyic -- can't even spell it because I so rarely use it -- because Arnie and Kate went off to a chocolate fair, to lunch and then to the movies. I thought I was full of energy until I didn't have to exhibit it and so Im promptly slothed out for the day. De-vine.

And this morning back into the swing of things. As I was walking Kate down the street to the bus stop we encountered one of doormen on our route who said "Wow! You've grown so much and I've been watching you make this walk for close to 10 years."

I love those conversations because it's such a wonderfully strong indicator of just what a small town New York really is. People know you and they see you even though they may not be in your face all the time.

All Hallows eve

Saturday would be the Night for all this rambling about clothed as haints and other dreaded creatures of the underworld. However for some school children from my daughter's school, today was also the day to go about dressed as creatures from other worlds. My daughter has been allowed to watch NCIS -- don't ask me how this happened -- and so when the topic of dressing up for Halloween arose which stunned me because I thought it was OVER -- she suggested that she would masquerade as Abby, the goth forensic scientist on this highly popular TV program.

Lots of black eye make up, dog collars and wrist bracelets which she and her Dad bought during their recent shopping trip, and black everything. You get it. Totally goth. I also found a temporary tatoo of a DNA sample which she put on her neck and manipulated so that it looked like a smudgy DNA sample and just maybe a spider web.

My reward for all this was that our taxi driver was french speaking and as we pulled up infront of school, Kate was excited because she had understood all the directions I was giving him in French. Bravo for language study.

As we say in our house There will be parties and trips to Paris.

Clothes

I have a ton of clothes, many of them well tailored, quite expensive and ideally suited to winter weather but they are still stuffed away in a closet. My day to day closet in the bedroom is full of white summer slacks, orange linen pants and other items that positively scream summer. I think I've written about this resistance to change before. And all I wear is one pair of black trousers and whatelse? Oh, yeah black and white flats. totally retarded because I'm into only wearing one or two items of clothing. But at the same time I'm still looking at all the clothes ads. Partially this is because of some kind of alien ennui, partially I think I'm too heavy and partially it just is.

I've also taken to scuffing my feet as I walk through the wide halls of buildings, museums and other public places. When I did that as a kid my mother would scold me and now I kinda scold myself and yet I still find it difficult to pick up my feet. Is this the harbinger of a second childhood?

Dream time

when Kate was really little I used the shower as a retreat to get it together and re group rather than announce that I was out of control and sit in the time out chair. I was very very clean during those times and the shower was my time out chair. Now my time to muse over life's events or the morning's inexplicable whatever is during the walk to the subway when I ponder such important issues as why I am refusing to wear socks even on a day like today when its both cold and rainy, why I shouted at Kate when I opened the door to her room at 6:05 this morning and found her watching Lie to Me on Hulu, "Turn that off immediately. Do you think you can spend your time watching hulu 24/7? and also why there are moments when my life seems totally surreal. That's probably the least answerable question because everybody thinks their life has a surreal quality. At least I think they do.

I'm more focused on the socks issue. And the clothes issue. I have both socks and clothes but I am becoming uncooperative about both.

Babysitting

I no longer hire baby sitters for kate; however I do hire people to hang out with her. A subtle difference probably only a mother would notice. But now Kate is a bonafide baby sitter herself. She had her first baby sitting job over the weekend. Jam packed Saturday with Chinese lessons, soccer game in the rain and then off to dinner in even more pouring rain. She and 'the child' had met before and settled in nicely for their evening together, asking anxiously every 5 minutes, when are you, the parents, leaving. The pizza arrived and we, the parents, left for a dinner 2 blocks down the avenue. Actually I didn't think about them at all. Nevermind that I had my cell phone out on the table in the midst of our dinner. They had a great time together, cleaned up their mess and in general were models of probity. On the way home Kate kept remarking how smart this little was. Luckily for Kate the child said the same thing about Kate. Can you imagine if your charge goes back and tells their parents that you're dumber than dirt.

And oh yes, she got paid. Her mother asked me what I thought she should get paid and so the mothers negotiated the fee. I opted for less. Certainly less than what I pay my people who hang out with Kate.

the rain passed and Sunday dawned bright and early in a household that was for once quite soundly asleep. I got up late -- 7:30 am -- and then we rolled into action. Out to the Park for Miss Murray, lunch out with Grandma Dot and then a long walk home through the westside and then over to the smart east side. By that time I've had enough of this action stuff and it's a nap for me.

That was Yesterday

and today is today. And today is November gray with winds that make you hunch inside your jacket. But I was prepared today. No more nautical whites. I'm even wearing gloves.

Went to Open House at Kate's school which I enjoy because it allows me to put a face to put to teachers name. Actually it's not that bad, she loves school and actually enjoys most of her teachers. I especially like her Latin teacher who has a wonderful New York accent and is a superior curmudgeon. However I still don't get why they can't find a native French speaker to teach french. Oh, have I said that a million times?

The tenacious summer

It's supposed to be 70 to 75 degrees today and apparently I am the lone person in New York who believes the highly unreliable weather people. I am wearing a white skirt. That's already shocking because any well bred person knows that white is never to be worn after Labor Day or before Memorial Day. But I figure that people go out on the streets in frightful costumes so my small rebellion will even go unnoticed. White skirt, no jacket and an open spirit hoping that I don't actually freeze to death because it doesn't even get up to 50.

High hopes for high temperatures.

Indian Summer

The weather is wacky but gorgeous. So although Kate should be practicing to get herself to school, ensuring that she arrives at the bus stop on time, pays attention so that she gets off at the right stop and telephone us promptly to say that she has arrived at school....I still like the time spent with her in the morning. Radical to say that sometimes it's quite ugly with one or both of us cranky and unforgiving but often it's just relaxed down time. This morning she was reading as she walked and I had to pause to remind her to take a look at the incredibly blue sky....And, then I have to fess up, I really love walking over to the Farmers Market which takes over Union Square before I bolt down my hidey hole and disappear into the subway. And this morning I arrived at work quite mellow and happy because the abundance of beautiful foods at the Farmers Market is staggering. Multi-colored fingerlings in hues of brown, red and blue. Thyme, mint, fresh sage, wild arugala and some herb I don't even know about,,,Radishes in a variety of reds including my favorite french radishes with white radishes that are just tipped with red and would I think adorn a plate of french butter with some salt on the side. Why are those people looking at every small eggplant and should I be buying some too. Ratatouille, grilled or in soy sauce? Will we be home for dinenr tonight or will it all spoil. If I buy too many apples should I make a pork pie with them, applesauce or an apple pie that I will eat by myself. It's all crazy and wonderful, especially at 8:00 am when they are just setting up their stalls, organizing box after box of apples and making the potted plants look so appealing. Not to mention the pumpkins.....

The Shoe Festish ist

Kate reminded me that on Sunday she had asked me to look at what she was wearing before we left the house. So, clearly, it was my lack of due diligence that made it possible for her to wear flip flops.

This morning I was giving her the once over before Arnie walked her to get the bus -- everybody gets to be what I consider a suburban parent in this household -- and my eyes slid down to her shoes.

"What makes you think that my Robert Clergerie slides are appropriate footwear for school? (Rhetorical questions) Take them off. "

Everybody wears shoes like this was not an acceptable answer....

Where the Wild Things Are

I think I was the only person who really wanted to see this movie but I took everybody with me. a family outing. And, it wasn't until we were on the subway going downtown that I happened to look at Kate's feet and realized that she was wearing flip flops. It was about 40 degrees and we had already had a conversation about dressing warmly; Everybody else was wearing socks, boots and winter jackets. It just made me laugh to see this kid wearing flip flops.

And, oh yes, the movie was really nice. We all like it.

The next Day

Ok so we didn't take her phone away. My level of anxiety and therefore of anger was certainly high enough to have done just that. However more soothing voices than mine prevailed....For the time being. But she heard the threat and she knows that I'll do the deed.

I am about to go off to a PotLuck supper with other parents from Kate's school and it's raining and I don't wanna go. At all. Rain always makes me want to go home. Put on my pJs, sweat socks and just coze in...This business of wearing grown up clothes and basically working until 8:00pm and being pleasant to people is exhausting...

What a whiner.

The Chaperone

Thank god for the chaperone. no,not the chaperone at the damn dances but the one embedded in Kate's phone which is basically a GPS. Yesterday after I put her on the bus for school, I went home and stared at the phone to see if I could will it to ring so that I could hear her voice saying that she had arrived at school safely. Waiting for the phone to ring is something all teenagers go through and it's one of the things I never want to repeat. in fact I would be a teenager again. Lucky for me it's also not possible. Maybe I would revert to being in my 20's but a conflicted teenager. NEVER.
But of course just like my teenage days the phone didn't ring so I called Kate to make sure that she had arrived at school. Oh yeah, Mom, just arrived.

Doubtful. But this morning she was supposed to call her Dad when she arrived at school and didn't. However just by checking the chaperone application, I know that she did arrive at school. So we are going to take the phone away and thank god for technology. That's todays prayer.

Suburban Mom

Well, that's certainly not me. But I almost had that title this morning because Arnie took an early morning train to Washington so I was forced to get up at the crackers of dawn to walk the dog, and then, what the hell. Go to the gym. And I had agreed to be at kate's school at 11 which effectively ment that I had the morning at home. So, wonderig around in my gym clothes always makes me feel like an at leisure mom. Miss Murray and I walked kate to the bus stop and waited for the bus to come. That's all it took for me to feel like a lady of leisure. Of course the kink was that the 11 o'clock meeting got cancelled so I had to run home, change my clothes and hustle off to work.

Breakfast

Had breakfast this morning with one of my favorite people since we met 8 years ago at a pot luck dinner for our children’s kindergarten class. I knew her as an individual before I knew her as part of a married couple with a united front and so while our conversations are often about our children, their experiences at school, they are also about us as people and what we like and don’t like about the world, ourselves, our husbands, etc. Her husband can be quite charming but at the same time when he doesn’t find you important enough or potentially helpful enough, his inability to mask that disinterest is quite rude. Several years ago they came to a dinner party that I had carefully created in order to introduce several women friends of mine that I thought would find each other really interesting. In short it was a women’s dinner with men the window dressing. And then because her husband is a vegetarian, I ordered a special and expensive vegetarian dinner for him. they had just arrived when he said that he couldn’t stay for dinner because he had to go interview an artist. As cocktails went on you could tell that this was a lie and that he found the other guests vastly interesting and potentially useful and was greatly regretting his prematurely announced departure. I was pretty damn angry and then I was also left with a whole lotta vegetarian lasagna. That's the back story. What brought that on?

Anyway after our stop at the local coffee shop this morning we walked over to the Green Market which is something I do more to experience the incredible colors and textures of the fruits and vegetables being sold than I do out of sheer food necessity. Wonderful white cauliflowers, stall after stall of pungent apples and the last vestige of heirloom tomatoes -- some quite expensive -- and corn. I hope to get back to buy some tomatoes in bulk so that I can make sauce.

Who Am I? Trick or Treat

We, that is Kate and I, have discussed at some length the various personanas she could assume for Halloween. Given that she is intent on trick or treating....the best suggestion that I made was immediately accepted. Today, Kate wishes to be Abby from NCIS. That would mean being goth.So this morning as she was assuming the hair position, Kate suddenly asked about cutting bangs. Abby has bangs. need you ask. Not a good idea.

Please.

Not a good idea.

Please, please

ok.

so she immediately cut bangs and she looks like Lydia. Or, the way Lydia used to look before she let her hair grow and started wearing contact lenses.

A whole lotta doubt was evident in Kate's face: Oh, how does this look?

It looks ok.

Just ok?

I like the other look better, but it's just hair and it will grow out.

Oh, I can't look like a nerd. That's serious.

A week without Alice

Alice has been in the Hospital since last Thursday having tests and whatnot to figure
out why she fainted in the middle of the night. Could be a seisure or low blood pressure or other things that I can't even imagine. But certainly we want her to be well and to know what happened. But certainly we want her back at work. Kate tackled me with what I wanted more: having Alice back to work or having her well. I want her healthy so that she can lead a wonderful life and take care of us. Because in the meantime I am coping with replacing a very efficient support system. And I'm cranky about it. But most of all it's Alice's relationship with Kate that is central to our household. I see that that is what I need to say to kate to help her understand the contect of what is going on.
So kate came home by herself yesterday successfully and this morning Arnie took her to the bus stop and she went off to school by herself and tonight she will do it again. I would prefer to have Alice pick her up but Alice is still among the missing. I had no idea that I would turn out to be such an overprotective mother. Who is this person who is such a wimp. I'm sure that at 13 I was wondering the streets of New York in a selective way. Actually I was tucked away at boarding school, oh god, it's been so long that I don't really remember.

Home Again

this is the other part of the post that I put up this morning. Kate came home alone this afternoon. Ok not a big deal but to me. A hughe deal. Of course I tried calling her along the way and she doesn't hear her cell phone. So why have one for chrissake. But according to the GPS we embedded in her phone all was copasetic.

Too much growing up going on here. Where is that cute little baby with fat feet?

Etan Patz

Even after 30 years this is a name that still strikes terror in the hearts and minds of New York parents. How could they have let him walk alone? As it becomes incr easingly clear that Kate can and should get herself to school, I am now coping with my serious reluctance to let her out of my sight. Like this morning, for instance. We got off the bus and I watched her cross 3rd Avenue and then suddenly I began to tear up. And quickly found a reason to call her with some dubious questions. But of course while she has a goddam phone it doesn't mean that it rings, or that she answers it or that it is actually on.

The Best Invitation

Kate invited me into her room to listen to music...how about that. I have bragging rights because thats hands down the best invitation ever to go into the inner sanctum and listen to the music and to the words. Of course now you can find the words on your computer....I kinda don't remember the words to songs when I was a teenager but while some of these songs are also inane and repetitive, some of them are high sexual. I hate to say it but Tipper Gore was right. God i hated her then and thought she was a jerk but now I gotta face up to it. She was right.

Great weekend with everybody in good form. We are in the middle of an experiment with Real Simple magazine that listed menus for 30 dinners and so we are in the middle of following them. It's kind of a low rent Julia and julie. My one concern is that the food is relatively bland but onward and upward. Saturday it rained just at the time that Kate had soccer -- can you imagine such great timing? -- and so I was happy. So happy. Slacker Mom. We watched a movie at home and had a great evening. And sunday we spent in Chinatown looking for Pork Buns and stopping into the new MOCA Museum. That was the deal: at least a half an hour in the Museum was worth 6 pork buns. We stumbled onto a program about Chinese Music and even if the mini concert didn't result in a conversation about it, I'm sure that the experience lived on.

Suburban Mom

That would be Arnie. He did the schlepping, picking up and feeding of Kate the weekend I was in Atlanta. Looked for the missing in action cell phone. Found the missing in action cell phone. Good job Arnie. And then today and yesterday because Alice was out of commission, he has been doing the same thing. Picking up the dog food, cooking dinner, getting some last minute ingredients and then emergency: Kate had no shin guards so she couldn't play soccer and that required an early pick up.

I am safely squared away at the office enjoying all of this mightly....

Girls Weekend

Not a little girls weekend but a big girls weekend. I took a weekend trip all by herself which in itself is pretty rare these days and I seem to travel as part of a trio. Not bad because Arnie always takes care of everything and I am just along for the ride like the family pet. However when its my turn to negotiate airports, new technology and the like, it seems large. Of course it's all quite doable and I like the freedom to wander through the airport bookstores and buy things I don't need. Anyway it was a last minute trip to Atlanta to hang out with Spook who is as working on a film full of fabulous stars that of course we never see on her days off. Nothing to trade as gossip unfortunately. It was a great fall day in New York but in Atlanta it was all about rain and several weeks of rain. We landed without incident and I got to the hotel easily and then stretched out in my new digs. I haven't been to Atlanta recently except to rent a car and drive to Columbus or no, a couple of years ago, we went to their amazing new aquarium. But this trip involved neither dogs, nor husbands, nor children. How many times have I said that? Saturday night Dinner at the Palm with Spooky which is in the hotel. It turns out that Atlanta has morphed into a pretty sophisticated town and all the many sky scrapers in the Buckhead area of Atlanta remind me somewhat of the crazy buildings that we saw in China. Both Beijing and Shanghai have amazing, truly out of this world architecture and several of Atlanta's building were constructed with the same intent: to amaze and delight. They have lit half arches, or tops that don't match the bottoms. I'm not an architectural writer but suffice to say it was interesting. It sounds relaxing this grown up time but it doesn't take into account the several conversations about how and where Kate might have lost her very new cellphone. She's only had it 2 weeks. I blew my cover by acknowledging that I had insurance on the damn thing but as she is also tracked by GPS we figured out that the phone could find itself. Which it did. It was just playing games in the apartment. Kate went off to her first bat mitzvah in a fabulous dress she got as an hand me down from one of our friends on the floor. She looked stunning and had a great time. The pictures Arnie took show Kate in all her finery and prove what make up can do. Sunday in Atlanta was bright and sunny so we went to Decatur for a garden tour and by the end of the day we were able to sit outside for dinner.

My single purchase was grits from Publix and my purloined item was a towel. Have you tried to buy what my mother used to call a thirsty towel recently? All the towels are these soft cotton things that seem to be coming out of Egypt or Turkey. They are caressable/kissable but they ain't thirsty tough towels. But Spook had a great white towel that was rough and made you feel like you had towelled off. So I asked if I could have it. So like Countee Cullen's wonderful poem about a trip to Baltimore where he says that he saw great things but only remembers being called Nigger, I saw great things in Atlanta but brought home a tough towel.

Feet don't fail me now

Most things about the start of the school year have been very calm but last night it was deja vu all over again.

Where is my science homework?

duh, dunno. Where is your science homework?

HELP ME LOOK FOR IT.

ok, but why are you dribbling a soccer ball around the hall. How about retracing your steps and look again,.

I HAVE LOOKED FOR IT.

Do it again. I am leaving to go to the theatre in 3 minutes....

Oh, maybe I didn't bring it home.

ok how about calling one of your classmates?

He's a nerd why would I want to call him?

Because he has the homework and you don't....Ok I'm leaving for the theatre and you are in the good hands of your sitter.

Just Keep on Truckin

Yesterday we bought Kate some black dress shoes to go with her gorgeous cocktail/evening dress. A superior hand me down from ouur neighbors that is fit for any and all Bar/Bat Mitzvahs that can possible come along. This dress fits Kate and looks sensational so along with the pearl earrings and these new shoes she will be a knock out. Yesterday I took care of the present situation and hope that all will work. Of course this weekend I am out of town for a girls weekend in Atlanta providing that there is still a place called Atlanta and it has not floated down the oakachobee river...Arnie gets to handle soccer and the evening portion of this bat mitzvah weekend....I want pix sent inmmediately to my phone because I can't stand that i won't be home although I'm very glad not to be home....totally clear, no?

The Black berries

I have this faintly romantic idea that when you call someone on their cell phone and it rings, then the callee should be available to you right then on the spot. Nobody else seems to function like that or even to have those expectations. I guess I should manage mine. Just to say that, not because I had a bad encounter with anybody being terminally unavailable.

I am still taking Kate to school which is sweet and I hope lasts for a while. And then in the middle of the afternoon after our housekeeper picks her up I check into the GPS we put on her phone and check her progress coming home. Kinda creepy but also kind of satisfying. No comforting I think is the better word.

Went to my first meeting at Kate's school for Middle School reps. Thats what Arnie and I are this year: Middle School reps. don't ask me yet what it means. Actually I think it means mandatory attendance at everything but more than that I don't know yet.

Steppin Out to Staten Island

While kate was safely tucked away at camp this summer, we tried to do some steppin' and to broaden our horizons. Quite an undertaking I would say. One excursion was to Governor's Island -- a snore we thought -- but our most powerful trip was to Staten island on the beautiful Staten Island Ferry where we discovered with the help of the New York Times a really funky and terrific restaurant. As we left Arnie kept yelping that our friends Anne and Steve would REALLY LIKE THIS PLACE. And so a plan was born. And after several weeks of unsuccessfully trying to arrange a dinner but coyly refuse to share the destination because after all who the hell goes to Staten island, we blew the destination and all agreed to meet at the Staten Island Ferry. In various stages of business dress and undress we converged on the Ferry and took a really wonderful 25 minute ride across the harbor. And then walked about 5 minutes up to Enoteca Maria which has become even more of a destination since our first trip there. Even Rachel Ray made the trek to Staten Island and promptly fell in love with Joe, a City work by day and the owner of a small 35 seat Italian restaurant by night. What makes this place special is that we uses a rotating list of Italian grandmothers or mothers to do the cooking and his music system gets louder and weirder as the evening rolls on.

A great meal, 2 bottles of serious red wine and 4 hours later, we all staggered out into the street feeling supremely pleased with ourselves. Anne and I were exhausted but pleased because we hadn't drunk as much as our husbands. I think we were also pleased to be leaving the incredibly loud sound system with random selections of joe cocker and opera. Always glad to consider going back and much conversation was had about what a great place this would be for New Year's Eve. I'm a little concerned that this romantic trip on the Ferry will wear very thin in sub zero weather but what do I know. I was also glad that we had no plans for Saturday until 10 ish and then unlike Anne and Steve our trip to Chinatown wouldn't be until the late afternoon.

Mercifully our soccer game was cancelled by the player herself who said it was not really a game and next weekend would be fine. Fine with me. More time to read and nap. I even started a chicken stock which is trully a commitment of many hours. then off to a Chinese brush painting class and dinner in Chinatown.

Splat The Cat

isn't that a fabulous title for a kid's book? I love kids books and wish I had more kids to buy for. I just read about this book which has a winning picture of a black cat wearing what looks like a fright wig. Fabulous. Laugh out loud stuff. One of the books that I loved for Kate was called the Maestro and was so helpful in getting her to speak English. I'm going to try and find it again.

Breakfast this morning with a friend who is a jeweller to sort through the knotty and potential expensive problem of gifts for Bat and Bar Mitzvahs. I just hope that the Doppler 4,000 so often wrong about weather will be wrong about how many of these events will be coming down the pike. My budget is about $50 per person and with Roberta's help it's all gonna look fabulous. Actually I'm hoping that Kate is wildly unpopular and gets very few invitations to these pot latch ceremonies aka occasions to throw around money uselessly. aagh I also have to buy Kate some more grown up shoes. She was given a fabulous dress which fits her to a T but even I understand that it would look better without sneakers.

First week of school

Apparently i coughed a disgustingly juicy cough with such vigor, regularity and enthusiasm this week that my office asked me politely to stay home. I've had this cold/headache/rushes of fatigue/running nose/cough for two weeks now and theoretically it should be over. OVER. So I had a clear day and I gratefully stayed home. Kate would be at school, Alice would be moving around quietly and I would be alone. Scheduling error! My husband would also be at home I realized. Reading, working, talking and having the interminable tv on in the background. What's a girl to do when she's given a pass from work but can't schedule a sick day on the right day at home. I slept in Kate's room most of the day and then slept in our bedroom some more. No, I don't have sleeping sickness I just needed some sleep. does that say about my life that I need to schedule my sick days....

And then last night both Kate and Arnie declared themseles some variation on sick. Not a surprise because although I've been clutching my purell it's all been a failure because I've had a cold. Not them. Until now. So last night I gave Kate some proprobably imapproriate cold medicine and she passed out. That was actually my intention and this morning she still felt coldy and tired. But by 9:00 sm she wanted to go to school and after a great deal of hestiation on my part but no fever for her I agreed that she could go. And to get her there in some reasonable time frame I suggested that special treat -- one time only -- she go by herself in a taxi. Would she want to do that? a resounding yes. So the doorman got her into a taxi -- I was of course hanging out the window -- and off she went. Kevin immediately called up with the taxi # and within seconds following instructions Kate called me and we had a nice chat as she went downtown. Is that kool or what?

Die Clique

By the time I had been at work for several hours I was as sick as the proverbial dog. I had been mainling sudafed for days and finally the headache moved in and whacked me good. I'm sure I looked pale and wan and everybody sent me home which I do now by subway because if I'm going to be sick then I'd rather be sick on the subway rather than spend $15 to be sick in traffic! But I desperately wanted to be well enough to take Kate to the first group of Chinese American kids who meet once a month and discuss I don't know what. It would also give me access to a group of Moms who are struggling or not with some of my issues. Kate agreed reluctantly to go and then to go on to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. So, it's one hour of chat among the girls and then off to St. Mark's place for what I thought was very good food. I had managed to drug myself into welldom and had thoroughly good time. I'm very comfortable with women who have also adopted because many of them are not 20 or 30 somethings. They are grown ups.

Saturday was Chinese with Yue and then soccer. For Kate. I was still feeling pretty lousy but whipped myself into getting to the hairdresser. Being unable to make a hair appointment would signal a terminal illness. And then once I arrived looking all snappy and putting on a brave face I had the wrong day. The wrong day. how pitiful is that. But something was done and then I went home and back to bed. In the end I decided that I was just making myself sick! And to get over it. To murder people in a righteous manner. of course I also managed to lose 2 pounds. A welcome loss.

But as I felt better I realized that I wanted to go back to Maine for a weekend. I;ve been thinking about the wonderful path down to the beach from the house and the smell of the trees and the ultimate opening in the trees with it's calming view of boats bobbing in the sound. Unfortunately it's a little early in the year for me to be feeling wistful about Maine. I'm supposed to be calm and centered because of Maine.

First Day of School

Kate was really excited to be going back to school, and you know what? Me, too. I was excited that she was going back but it was as if I was going back to school too. Clothes carefully selected for the first day and some sulkiness because the cell phone we finally got her hadn 't arrived. But all in all a very upbeat morning. When Kate is in school it totally changes the rhythm of our lives. We've spent a very luxurious summer in terms of being able to get up in the morning when we walke up rather than being shocked awake by an alarm clock. Get up a 6 and walk the dog, go to the gym, have a leisurely cup of coffee and go off to work. Now it's
get up, rush the dog around the block, gulp a cup of coffee and be ready to leave at 7:15. First stop school and then to work for me. But yesterday was really fun for me too. i saw lots of parents that I've been seeing aolmost every day for the past 8 yars because Kate started at her school in Kindergarten. And I saw all Kate's classmates and how they've grown and changed over the summer. Some of them are giants and some of them look normal.

First day of school was a two-hour orientation and today it's real school.

Kate's cell phone arrived yesterday afternoon and she was estatic, bananas, over the moon, whatever the phrase, that was she, her, the girl herself. I think she will get over taking the phone into the bathroom with her in a couple of days and then life will sort out. No games, no texting, no music, just a phone which is of course erroneous because these damn phones can do everything else short of cooking you dinner.

Labor Day Weekend

No knifings, stranglings or other end of life events. It all sorted it self out.

It was a weekend of birthday celebrations and included a trip to Blue Man Group but even better the walk to the theatre passed a very busy garage with the usual car detrius including broken metal parts, used tires and greasy mechanics, all of which fascinated Kate. So we used this as a launching pad to discuss what it was that she liked about this and what she might like to do. use her hands. Well, that could be many things we discussed including architecture or engineering. I am always happy to have a conversation where Kate can think of many things to do including going to MIT which certainly came up in this chat.

a trip around New York harbor in a clipper ship and then, the most important trip of all, to the Verizon store to buy a cell phone. All shoals mostly avoided and she came away with a cell phone with a keyboard although she will have no texting ability and I came away with a chaperone capability which is essentially a GPS so that anytime she uses the phone it flashes her destination to my computer.

Big Birthday party for extended family and now reality. School tomorrow. One of my oldest friends called today and when told that the first day of school was tomorrow, asked what kind of dress kate would be wearing !!!!!

I read a Time article characterising people who have migraines as those with excited brains. I have migraines and henbce I must have an excited, or was it excitable brain. I woke up this morning at 4 thinking and having thoughts unspool out of my brain like the new receipts that you get at the supermarket. just run on paragraphs about stuff, stuff and more stuff. I had a hot brain and excited brain.

This is the end of summer and my birthday usually marks it. We all had a great time in Maine especially Miss Murray who loved loping up and down the path to the beach and even went out happily in the rain. Amazing because here in the city, she like all other dogs in our apartment building, get to the front door, sense or see the rain, plant their feet firmly and refuse to move. It's endemic when it rains.

I can't reven remember what other excited or excitable thoughts I had this morning but felt as if I had to releive the pressure by writing. Does this really releive the pressure? Well part of the way to releive the pressure today besides lots of migraine medicine was to stay home from work.

Now i actually feel better and can enjoy the day. Enjoy the process of going out with Kate tomorrow to buy a cell phone for her. I still think it's totally unncessary for this kid who is trucked from place to place and hardly has a moment to herself, let along going anyplace by herself, but so be it. I want to give the false impression that she has some independence. Actually she had some independence in Maine with Lile when they could go out on their bikes and just be gone. Now as I told her I'm struggling with how to deal with the phone issue. And at one point I thought I would have to deal with a new computer, the itouch and a Nintendo DC. Somehow i've narrowed the focus to the phone for this week. Kate is excited as a flea about the phone and I'm just hoping that she doesn't lose it. Losing it well losing it.

Oh, i've discov ered how to recoup some of my costs with her. She charges me $1 for a random list of swear words and $5 for the "F" word. I was glad to agree because it's better if I don't swear which of course I do especially when I'm stressed. And I wanted to cooperate with Kate who hates swearing and feels that itis violence. Which it is. So I'm poorer but purer. But just recentlhy I've levied Kate a fine of $1 for cracking her knuckles and now I'm add a $2 fine for leaving her cereal bowl or any food in her bedroo m.

That's parenting in the big city.

The wrap up to our vacation

we made it up to Maine in 4 hours and the drive home took almost 6 hours because of ennui and terrible traffic.

I think we were all glad to be home although some of us more than others. Now we are back in the thick of the new School year with the apartment full of to do lists dealing with school supplies, clothes, shoes and order for Kate'[s birthday cake. She had a small cake on the morning, or was it the evening before we left and this Sunday we're having an extended family/friends party and I'm ordering a cake. or trying to. I should find another place other than the Cupcake Cafe because they have such incredible attitude and do't answer their phones in either store. i finally call the adjacent bookstore just to make sure that they had not gone out of business. Nope, just the business as usual ethos of NOT answering their phones.

We are on the precipes of getting a cell phone for Kate. Much ado about this.

The Voyage

So, we sat at the Casco Bay Lines for at least 3 hours waiting for the freight boat which was to take the 4 of us plus Miss Murray and untold boxes of food from Whole Foods over to Chebeague. I finally broke away to find a book store and stumbled on an outdoor air show which was great. i really like Portland and think it would be a great place to spend a weekend and just stroll around. It is a real sea port town with an active Front Street, a sensational Museum, an excellent bakery and some great restaurants.

we finally made it out of town on the boat and settled in for the trip. Originally I had resisted this trip but now agree with Grandma Dot that that the trip across and around Casco Bay serves as a transistion to island life. However I was already pretty mellow. Shopping done at whole Foods and brioche loaf collected from the Bakery.

The house I rented sight unseen turned out to be great. We all hated to leave the Aaron's Wharf house but it was sold. So we rented this house on Hamilton beach and Dorothy stayed with us when her rental was cancelled because of a malfunctioning septic system. That was very important for Kate and for me because it's all about Dorothy and the 8, or is it 9 summers that we have spent together.

We arrived at 7:30 pm after a full day of travelling and had a quick dinner and then crashed. Miss murray seemed to feel at home immediately. We knew this because she peed and went to sleep without hours and hours of pacing.

Sunday we went off to get bikes which are the life blood of our stay on the island. As usual the bikes while free are terrible and have no gears. I've decided that next year I have to have a newer bike that has gears so that I can bike out to Deer Point and don't have to spend more time walking my bike up hills than riding up them. The girls tooki off on their bikes and werent' seen for hours. This kind of freedom to just wander around an entire island is unimaginable for city kids who are taken from place to place and have absolutely no wiggle room. Even as I write this I'm looking at cell phones for Kate which have a GPS so that I will know where she is at all times. Yikes. Is this childhood?

One day they played tennis at the local courts, biked to the Rec Center and ran into one of Kate's classmates at the local grocery store. We had lunch at the Clam Shack and then were able to barbecue on Tuesday night. There was enough rain on Sunday and Monday that we couldn't barbeque. Our days followed an island pattern without consideration for time and tide. Arnie and I would take Miss Murray down to the beach early in the morning or we would hide under the covers until she smoked us out. Breakfast, reading, the beach, lunch, naps, reading on the beach, dinner. Do it all again. I had a great time cooking.

vacation

Its been sometime since i did this but I think I remember how. Arnie and I went to pick up Kate from the camp bus which was of course late. I tore out of work to be there pretty promptly on a suffocatingly hot day. The bus was late. But Kate was one of the first people off the bus which told me that she was glad to be home. Brown, OMG, she was so brown. She went through her I'm home again ritual which involves walking from room to room touching things and making sure that all is right in her firmament. Just time to do laundry and then head out for Maine again.

Lile came for a sleepover on Friday night so that we could get an early start on Saturday. I was possessed by the notion that I needed to be at Whole Foods in Portland so that I could do all my shopping for the week and get them to have it on the 5:45 boat to Chebeague. City shopping and my indecision about what we're eating dictates that I shop every couple of days and so I never do shopping for the entire week on one fell swoop. But I did it last year and really enjoyed this once a year event. My chauffeur Juan Fangio made incredible time and we got up to Portland in 4 hours. Mapquest indicates travel time of 5h40minutes. We had a quick lunch on the terrace of Whole Foods with the dog and then set to work. I had far too many helpers who were still grooving on the adrenaline of the drive and eventually got cranky with them because we finished in double quick time but then had to sit in the waiting room at Casco Bay lines and wait for the boat to Chebeague.

More vacation stories later....

It's all relative

and today I have to fess up that it's hot. Not Arizona style hot but New York style hot where you can life the air into loving spoonfuls and just standing in one spot will insure that rivlets of not cooling water will run down your face. We've travelled the boroughs this weekend with a sensational dinner at a funny little restaurant in Staten Island that we read about in the Times. The ferry over was very romantic and the ferry trip home was equally as romantic with a requisite subway ride home that I could have done without. Saturday was about making Miss Murray beautiful with a trip to the Groomer and then a trip to the Vet so that she now has a micro chip implanted in her back just in case she decides to go walk about on us in Maine. Then on Sunday we took another boat -- cause we're practising for Maine --
and went over to Governor's Island and biked around the perimeter. Again it was hot. Although the hottest I remember being recently was last summer in Xian where we biked the 13 or so walls of the City and neither Arnie nor I made it around because of the heat.

Air conditioning is beginning to look Real good

Summer vacation

So, Kate was on summer camp countdown and now I'm on summer vacation countdown, too. Next week we hit the open road for Maine with Miss Murray in tow plus Kate and her friend Lile. I'm already stressing that we will arrive too late to do the shopping that I love at Whole Foods and I'll have to do it on line. But this pleasantly panicy feeling is just part of the vacation experience. MMurray is going to the groomer to be cleaner and even more beautiful, if possible and we've having a micro chip put in her neck although there seems to me to very little evidence that she would go walk about by herself. Better safe than sorry because a lost dog would be an ugly moment for me.

Packing lists for essentials, clothes packing lists and I am in heaven planning menus and thinking about food...It's just a different kind of cooking that you have to do when you come home from work, tearing off your business clothes and attacking the kitchen in the hope that you can get dinner on the table in 30 minutes while everybody stands around and watches you. Then I have to gather my books and make sure that I have enough of them. I always like to have a selection that includes Mystery stories, some classic that I haven't but should read, a new author and other stuff. i kind of envy Arnie with his Kindle but I'm not sure that I really want a kindle. I do but I don't.

I'm taking tomorrow off and will just loll about. I hope it will be wonderful weather and we can go to Governor's Island but if not I could finally tackle the over crowding in our storage locker which might make it easier for Alice to really vaccum our bedroom.

The theme

the theme of course is what you get to do when your children are away. It's like losing the big kahuna, the boss....you get it. Brutal work week and then we went off hiking on Saturday with MM who turns out to be a fabulous hiker. We travelled to New Jersey with the various aids of google maps and some other incompetent thing to Bloomingdale, N.J. and then kept our eyes peeled for the train head. I maintain that no matter what they've told you, and no mater what the comments are about the hiking trails, the trail head has just moved so you have to get out of your car and make the inspection yourself. The first trail that we followed quickly became a serious hike under and over huge boulders which made Arnie think quite about the return as I was still considering sliding down several rocks on my rear. Recalibrating route. Another trail and far more doable. Gorgeous day and then back to the city for lunch and then another long walk.

Sunday we went to see Julia and Julie which was just wonderful, warm and funny. and here we are again on a Monday....

We are Alone

We are alone with Miss Murray and without kate. And we have done nothing significantly different EXCEPt go on a variety of day trips that would bored Kate silly. Last weekend we took off for Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan which had become something of a golden apple for me over the past couple of years because the tickets were impossible to get. But this time somehow it all worked and when we arrived in New Canaan it was to discover that we were the only people on a tour of this fabulous house. I think our pictures do not in any way come to grips with the amazing creativity that this man and his money were able to achieve. And in addition the weather that day was great and in general the rainy summer has caused everything to look unbeleivably lush. for some reason I keep remembering that historians had written that the summer before the start of World War 1 was very beautiful. Just a cautionary note in my own head about people who don't know history are destined to repeat it ala Santanya....We grabbed a quick lunch in New Canaan and just didn't have any time to really stroll through this very tweee outpost. Instead we had to hightail it back to New York so that I could cook dinner and be ready and amiable when the Sheftalls showed up for one of our requsite dinners on the roof. Then we all went off to the Highline to see and be seen on this very new New York Park high above the streets. Accompanying the Sheftalls was Le Petit Pierre, a teenager with seemiongly impeccable lineage, in other words he's a count or something. I had a chance to practice my french and then just learned that he's a heavy metal fan....

Sunday I didnt leave my bed or take a shower. Why should I? I was finished with people and cooking!!!!

Camp

Kate was up at the crackers of dawn because she was so excited and so we arrived at Lincoln Center to hook up with the Maine bound bus far too early. Next year I'm just not going to spend time dodging huge trunks, crying children and peeing dogs. Of course while I'm not a crying child, I'm a slighly weepy mom. So boring but Kate has the right approach with me and just tells me a joke which makes me laugh. Guaranteed. So after the young camp counsellors took her name and then took her temperature with one of these laser pointer things to make sure that she wasn't importing the M1N1 virus to camp, it was off on the open road.

For us too it was the beginning of vacation . We left for the subway and a fast trip down to the Union Square market to stock up on corn and tomatoes. This is my year for tomatoes...

Quick lunch and then off to the car rental place to pick up a car and hit the open road for Long Island and dinner with friends. We even took Miss Murray. The car rental was dicey because none of the cars started. So two cars later we switched garages and finally got out of town. Well worth it. These friends have an apporpriately dumpy house because it's a real beach house with all mod cons and a view of the bay. Purrfect. Everything was perfect including Miss Murray until we realized that she had not peed since we left the City. A restless night for me and for Miss Murray punctuated with random walks until the sun came up but to no avail. It was not until we got back to the city at 10 am on Sunday that Murray peed. What is she going to do in Maine?

Camp

It's that time of year again, and tomorrow morning, almost at the crackers of dawn, Kate will go whizzing off to upper, outer, far far away Maine for a month. She has been making lists and checking them twice. Alice has been making lists and checking them twice and there has been much stuff to buy such as shampoo and flashlights. flashlights of course are the some of the most exciting items. And this year we've had to buy shorts. Kate will never have to buy another top as long as she lives but apparently this year she needs shorts. I'm a little afraid that she's going to need rubber rain boots because I've heard from returning campers that these were an in demand item because it rained alot. I had to assert my authority to insist that Kate also take a sweater or a fleece in spite of her insistence that layering with long sleeve shirts would do the trick. Not. And of course purell handf sanitizer is another essential because of the spread of the N1H1 virus to many of the camps in Maine although hers has had NO cases. Primarily I think because they've been smart and careful. Lets see what happens with a new crop of campers coming in to change the ecological balance. Maybe they'll add a temperature check to the old head lice check.

Life is complicated.

The Big Discovery

Ignored Miss Murray pawing at my hand at 4:00am and hoped that she could hold it until I got up at 5:30 to take her out. Aptly attired in my black on black gym gear for a morning constitutional around the block with her, and then on to the gym. But when I came home for breakfast I found an open box of cocoa puffs on my kitchen counter nestled right next to the bran flakes. I continued making my breakfast of toasted white bread from striped white flour courtesy of that emporium of taste, Eli Zabar, and went right on to slather it with butter and jam. But how I mused did I end up with cocoa puffs in my house. Who am I? What have I become? 10 years ago I would have had pesticide busters take the box away and called the nutrition police. Yuck. Have such a chemical brew in my house and actually feed it to my daughter who was forbidden candy, coke, any chocolate at any time of the day, prepared foods of any kind. Never. I would have gone so far to call it stupid which was the swear word we never used then. Now of course, it’s in pumped up athletic use; New York state politicians are stupid, ultra right religious fanatics are both stupid and wrong and Sarah Palin is really stupid.

Cocoa puffs. What has my life become. How can i ever say no again?

Well the real answer to that is quite easily.

Behind the Scenes

I'm not sure that I'm doing the best pr job with Kate about the amazing Museum that she is growing up in. (Is that grammatically correct even?)I'm not sure that kate really appreciates the amazing access that she has to this world class Museum. That says it better. so I scheduled Kate and Lile for a full day of behind the scenes stuff here at the Museum beginning with a trip to the frozen tissue lab. It was a wonderfully entertaining science lesson which both girls loved. After aimlessly playing in one of the back allies of the Museum, I figured out that the bone guy was among the mission so instead we had an early lunch of yummy fried things and then went on to feed the giant tortoises and hold a snake. They held a snake. Time for them to tour three galleries including Gems and Minerals, Hall of Human Origins, Hall of Meteorites on their own and then off to the Exhibition department to see what kinds of things are being produced for the November Silk Road Show. They both had a chance to help sculpt the camel which was exquisite fun for both of them.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig.

Home Again

Great trip to Vail to see all of the Katz tribe. Wonderfully cool weather and no rain. We stayed at the Beaver Creek compund for almost a week and did very little except hang out which was the goal, I think. Well, lets be honest: I did very little. Kate went boarding with Kiley, really enjoyed being towed across a lake in a inner tube, went hiking, saw deer and christened a new bird the Colorada ack ack. We subsequently learned that it was a Magpie which brought on tales of Inkspell. These birds are gorgeous but have terrible personalities. Oh, yeah, it was sandwich time and we ate sandwiches morning, noon and night.

With the ghosts of the doomed Air France flight in my mind, we actually had a very easy and successful flight home, arriving back in the dead of night. Great dinner with the Sheftalls on the following night who were on pausing on their way up to Maine from Georgia. They are all in fine fettle and have done great summer stuff.

Kate is just hanging out --without the Itouch and the computer -- which she lost due to a major meltdown. I hope that she is at the Bronx Zoo at this very moment and then she Off to camp next week and then it's our turn to trip the light fantastic.

Just a Day like any day

The Museum was crazy crowded and the office was kinda slow. But towards the end of the day I went from the sublime to the ridiculous or vice versa.I took a group of very tall men on a overview scout of the Museum with an eye to using it in a movie. I always feel like Mrs. Danvers in Dauphne du Maurier's Rebecca when I say, "Welcome."

Then my last interaction had to do with one of our scientists who needs to be given limits and told no, Don't let a vampire bat drink your blood....

Kate was on a sleepover and so we adults had the run of the house. I can't say that it was all wild and crazy just different.

July 1

This must be summer. the beach, more rain, humidity, more rain....watermelon and more rain. Maybe even the beach again this weekend.

Had dinner last night with friends who have a new 4 month old puppy. Molly is So cute and so time consuming. I do remember when Miss Murray was just a little older and i watched her every move to make sure that she wasn't peeing on the floor!

Kate painted her fingernails black. Well clear with black trim...

to the beach, to the beach

Lazy weekend with not much planned until we woke up Sunday morning to find warm sunny weather and we all thought that we couldn't bear not to be outside....we finally figured out what that meant to all of us and then were able to get a car at the last minute and drive out to Long Beach. It was a
nostalgia trip for Arnie although he couldn't seem to remember his address in Long Beach, bagel lunch at his favorite place, time at the beach and playtime in the water for Kate and a road trip for me. I'm the one who just enjoys sticking my head out of the window and playing with the wind. Really it's just the change of venue which makes it all palatable.

We had time for a quick side trip to Pt. Pleasant for a bayside restaurant for a drink. Dinner on the roof. Purrfect day.

Life with Stieglitz

Well, not exactly life with Stieglitz. However it is life with an up and coming photographer who had his first show last night at a gallery on 14th Street. Arnie's photography class culminated in a celebratory show of his work along with his fellow classmates. It was great. Arnie looked like a very distinguished photographer and his B&W photos of kate were terrific. They have spent endless weekends going to Bryant Park in various costumes so that Arnie could photograph her. Hard work that....

Lucy Banks, Kate and I all walked downtown to see the show and found the street infront of the gallery crowded with people. Glitch. someone had forgotten to buy hooks for all the photographs! Delay!

Not any camp I ever went to

Post from Street Math Investigators:

We've had a great week so far: we created wonderful math problems on the High Line and our activities may get a mention in the West Village newspaper in July (we'll email you the link when we know for sure.) However, we had a great time at the Museum of Natural History, where we learned about the relative size of things using the "Powers of ten" exhibit, and then walked through 13 billion years of time. We then made our video and then, taking a page from the movie "UP!," calculated how many balloons it would take to lift your child off the ground. We also calculated that it would take over 13 hours to fill up enough balloons to accomplish this task, which was made all the more harder because the balloons only hold the helium for 8 to 10 hours!

Tomorrow we are off to the Trinity Church graveyard to compare the lifespan of people from Colonial America to soap bubbles, and survey the use of mathematics in Native American culture at the Museum of the American Indian. Thursday we will go to MOMA to connect mathematics with modern art, and create a mathematical piece of artwork of our own, courtesy of Sol LeWitt, and then Friday we will sail on the ferry to Governors Island, where we will learn how to find the area of an island by shooting it with cannonballs!

Math Street Investigators SMI New York

well, ok, so it's Math Street Investigators but I've been calling it Math Camp. Call it what you will it's basically the most fabulous opportunity for kids to use mathematical concepts in a day to day way as they go around the city. Kate was thrilled and spent all of dinner chattering about it. Which of course made me so happy. Yesterday the group of 5 went to visit the HighLine which is an amazing new park in Manhattan. They used this visit to estimate the height of the Highline which is built on some abandoned railroad tracks that run above streets in the West Village. then they estimated how much steel it would take to build it, interviewed visitors to the Highline and videotaped them about how high they thought they were off the ground, etc. etc. They in turn were all interviewed by a wandering local newspaper reporter and today they are off to MOMA to explore and talk about mathematical concepts in modern art.

The sun has just come out!!!!

Father's Day

Yet, again, another wet weekend. But it made for a relaxed time because no one had any energy to do anything. We got to take Miss Murray to the Park in an interim dry period but that was almost it. Fathers Day was celebrated with Chocolate sauce for Arnie, chocolate croissants and dinner at a Vietnamese Restaurant. Where strangely enough he didn't eat Chocolate Pudding for dessert!

I want Kate to do everything that I did, if I liked it, and then do all the other things that I was either afraid to do or didn't think i could do, like Math camp. I dropped her off this morning and Can't wait until tonight to hear what she has to say.

The Sun

This time last year we were in mid air on our way to China and this year the sun came out for the day.So that's a celebration initself....

rain, rain, go away

Alice has a couple of days off -- don't ask -- and so we are retrofitting kate's schedule to compensate. Today's Baby sitter of choice is our young cousin Lucy Banks and my extravagant ideas of sending them to the Brooklyn Aquarium have been downsized because of the rain. I actually wans't too sure that it was a sensible trip for LB and kate to make because I'm not entirely comfortable that either one of them are competent Marco Polo types and will do well on the subway. It's a long trip. But Let me be clear. This is not just rain. This is RAIN. And it has been doing this R thing for some time now and the early morning forecast is for this R substance to continue to come down through the weekend. Heretofore the weeekends have been sacrosanct and sunny but now it just keeps on coming down.

Kate had a hair cut which looks great and then we took her out to dinner at our favorite restaurant as a reward for a sensational report card. She was beat having walked most of the day. Apparently LB felt walking was the safer path for junioir Marco Polos.

Report card time

Good report card for kate! When I think back to what my parents went through with my
report card, it makes me said in retrospect for them. i know at the time I didn't care except I hated all those earnest talks about doing better. I know that Arnie and I are really lucky. Kate is a really good student who likes school and will actually go off, willingly, to Math Camp!

This weekend was the dreaded Puerto Rican Day parade and so on our way to Grandma Dot's for Sunday lunch we stopped off to pick up my new quilt. Gorgeous! You can look over it and tell stories about most of the squares.

Then Saturday night we had dinner with some friends of Arnie's who live out on Long Island somewhere. Very nice but very suburban. I can't imagine or actually, don't want to imagine that kind of life. Coming into New York must be such an incredible pain in the neck. However they took us to dinner at an Italian gun club on MacDougal in the Village that I've walked by thousands of time but didn't know was a private club and if I thought about it at all probably thought was a funeral home. Great 4-story private club with several bars, restaurant that looked like Rome in the 1940's and a shooting range. We all shot before dessert. That was quite an experience.

the Quilting Bee - the Modern Way

I'm so excited -- My quilt is ready. What quilt you might well ask: My quilt of course that is made up of treasured bits of fabric that i've been stockpiling over the last couple of years. Old napkins, placemats or T shirts that finally fell apart are part of my quilt. I took several large shopping bags over flowing with this kind of stuff and dropped them off with a doorman on the upper east side. It's a new way of homesteading,although of course I didn't sew a single thing. I hate to sew but I think this will be fabulous and I can't wait to see the finished product.

Our other news that Arnie and I are going to be class reps for Kate's 7th grade class. God help us all.

A little late

So, I'm a little late writing about the weekend which was beautiful. That's the new pattern this summer -- lousy during the week and simply splendid sunny for the 2 weekend days for us working stiffs.

Arnie was laid low and properly drugged for most of the weekend so Kate and I escaped the house and went to the movies and shopping to buy her bras. We went
to K-mart which is certainly cheap but leaves me grinding my teeth every step of the way. Is there one real person who works in the goddam store? I finally shouted out loud and immediately got service. That used to be the old wives tale about how to avoid scary looking people on the street was to act like you're crazy. So shouting in Kmart fits the bill to a T. Kate was wildly embarassed but that's my job to embarass her in public. actually I must remember to act even crazier.

Yearly check up

So, I'm awash in papers this morning for school. for camp, for god knows what...But the good news is that Kate has grown 3 or 4 inches. Still not taller than I am. And she weighs 70+ pounds. The last time we went through this rite of spring she weighed 53 pounds. The fabled growth spurt. and the even better news from the doctors office is that they are going to be taking my insurance!

Summer vacation

It began today with drenching rain, a sweet end of year ceremony at Kate's school and a totally reshuffled day of activities.

I had very carefully planned a road trip to Gouvernor's Island by subway and then ferry to this newly reopened Island which is beginning to attract droves of my fellow new yorkers. I thought an early summer Friday would be just the ticket. Nobody there, bikes to rent and plenty of space. And it would have been a great place to go right after Kate's Middle School end of year ceremonies to have a picnic, bike ride, etc, etc. but for the rain which was nrelenting and continuing. Back up plan was to go to the movies and Arnie would join us after the Assembly and we would grab a piece of pizza and be right on the front of the money line. Given that the movie grossed $44 million this weekend that was the right strategy. Plan C. Alice and Kate went to the movies and Arnie and i went to the Emergency Room. Diagnosis: Kidney Stone. It was almost exactly what happened in China and so now I'm prepared...don't know how to prevent it but being prepared will do wonders.

During the assembly Nurse Chris spoke as part of the Quaker open forum and the one thing she said that I remembered was Life is short. Eat dessert first.

Perfect Parent

As a single mother, I used to characterize my days as either perfect parent days or single mother mornings which meant that the dog threw up on the carpet, wouldn't pee or Kate would refuse to leave the house at the exact moment we were due to walk out of the door and hit me with a last minute request.

A Perfect Parent day is what you might expect: rare

So, this morning was for me something of a throwback to those days. The dog didn't do what it needed to do at 6:00 am,it was raining and Kate was churlish and laden with attitude. For no real reason. She was just overburdened with attitude and I started talking about attitude adjustments. And on the way to drop her off at school my cellphone rang and my boss started haranging me for something that had gone wrong. He apologized later. But the immediate result was that I started dropping all my possessions in the cab and tried to give the driver $2 instead of the $7 on the meter.

The fact that I can even write about it without dripping vitriol and self pity on the page is a great step forward for mankind.

Almost the end of school

I took Arnie for lunch yesterday before his surgery at one of my most favorite Euro trash restaurants where you can sit outside and pretend that you are in Rome. Then I sent him on his way to the near by plastic surgeon who was going to slice and dice his face and get rid of a basel cell carcinoma. He professed not to be scared. I kept wanting him to be nervous but that's me. Of course when I got home he was exhausted from not being nervous....Big white bandage on his forehead. But in very good shape and in good cheer.

So today I signed Kate up for Math camp and tried to get 4 other parents to do the same thing. We'll see what transpires but I think this will be fun for Kate. More to the point so does she. And now I'm trying to find a kid's fencing class....

school days

Well, kate has school days and last night i had mine, in a manner of speaking. We went to a photo exhibition and then had
dinner with 3 women and their husbands that I've known since first grade. Amazing to me that we are all still speaking and have stuff in common....Of course some of them live in LA now and so we had to get beyond the political correctness issue....It probably speaks to some deepseated issue for me but I can always remember everybody's mother and what they were like....

The contract

swearing is punishable by a $1 fine in our house which has to be paid immediately. No, I'm not going to list the words because everybody knows them. If it's the F word, then the fine goes up to $5. I pay this fine because it helps me not be so much of a trash mouth and it also makes it clear to kate that this kind of language in not accceptable. But Arnie doesn't pay and doesn't like to pay because as he said to kate last night, it's your fault that I swear. you provoke me. She wasn't buying it and just kept on message asking for her $1. The conversation went on for some time with me just watching this tennis match of words until they seem to have come to some resolution which is that Arnie would try not to swear and he would pay his fine. kate would try not to be in the grip of teenage hormones and behave like a wretch. And if she was a wretch three times during the week then she would pay Arnie $3.

My role: Arbitor of bad behavior and foul language.

But these two went to contract on these issues. And this morning they were still revising the contract with a termination clause that required them to keep talking and to negotiate a new agreement.

I'm saving money now for law school.

I touch and i spend

Arnie gave me an i touch as an anniversary present and Kate has practically bonded it to her skin. Lots of games, music, she can get e-mail OMG and suddently the other night she bounced into the living room shouting because she had discovered how to use the i touch like a kindle. Who knew? Well, now I know for sure. She ordered a book from Amazon, billed to me of course, and has spent the last several days glued to this small lit screen reading her new book. I also ordered a book for the i touch which I plan to read on our next flight to somewhere far, far away. Very kool.

My Hobby of the Moment

So...I'm taking a basic photography course on Saturdays, and loving it! Be prepared to be bored with arsty shots from time to time. My 9-week long course ends with an exhibit of my project in 3 weeks..the subject being Kate in Bryant Park. It's unfortunate (not!) I've landed a job, so will have to pursue photography a bit less vociferously, and marketing my CFO services enthusiastically. Life is good!

Is it June 8th yet?

Final concerts, school fairs, science projects. Almost the end...And then this weekend we've decided to kick off a family reading club and so our first pick for the season is to Kill a Mockingbird which I've never read. Clearly neither Arnie nor Kate have read it either.

It will be interesting to see if Arnie can kick the kindle habit and go back to just reading a book!

Double Triumph

Kate found her Metro card. The concert was great and next year she will be playing the trumpet in a jazz band at the school. I do have to check to make sure that she is still doing some other academic stuff.

And this morning she was able to use her wii board to get to school. It's like a skateboard but has only 2 wheels and she is really good at it. I was still lounging at home enjoying a solitary breakfast while she and her dad were hoofing and rolling toward school.

Then i discovered that a photograph taken of her at the Museum by the New York Times photog ran today in the paper as part of the review of the Museum's new exhibition on Extreme Mammals. Good pitcha. Also good review

Next Chapter

New Job. Definite. So we're moving on to a new chapter with different challenges and opportunities. oh, it's not me. It's himself. And we're all simultaneously thrilled and exhausted. Looking for a job, sensing that you need to look for a job,
and then biting the bullet about actually "doing it" is mind numbing, terrifying and electric all at the same time.

Now we can chat with certainty about the new job with the attendant conversations about stuff including new rugs, vacations and school. Yowsah.

Kate lost her 4th Metro card and I've decided that her preferred way to get to school will be walking. Or she will take her allowance money for the next 3 months and use it to buy another metro card. Of course if she walks, then we walk. So let's see how the drama will play out. She might find it at school today. And then tonight's school concert will be a joint triumph: great music and a metro card. Or it will be a single triumph....