Back at home, after having spent seven of the eight nights around Christmas and New Years sleeping out of home. Spent the 22nd through the 26th in Connecticut for Christmas with Cathleen's family, and the the 27th through the 30th in Yorktown for a belated Chanukah gathering with my family. The schedule was roughly as follows:
22nd: Drive to Bloomfield. Participate in Claudia and Walter's annual Caroling Party. Eliza spent almost an hour sitting next to Walter at the piano, quietly toying with the right side of the keys, and pushing away Walter's hand any time he tried to play the high notes. Earlier in the day we went sledding in the back, and discovered that Max had turned into this kid who loved the snow, loved sledding, loved playing around in the snow. Parenting doesn't just allow you to enjoy your kids' lives, it allows you to relate back to your own childhood; as we sped down the hill in the toboggan, I channeled the rush I would feel sledding down the Lim/Zuliani hill as a kid. Loved it. Regrettably, our digital camera spent the night of the party outisde. On the snow. In the rain.
23rd: Attended church service at the Unitarian church Claudia and Walter like to attend (Walter played the music for back-to-back services). I spent most of the service down in the playroom with Max, Eliza and Alani. We dined at Macaroni Grill afterwards, and then hung out at the house.
24th: Went sledding again, but the snow had frozen over from the previous day's rain, and the hill was slick and fast. I brought Max and Alani halfway up the hill and, early in the descent, I discovered that I could neither slow down nor control the toboggan. We wound up hitting a bump and spinning around backwards. "This," I thought, "can not end well." The next bump jammed the edge of the toboggan, and Max and Alani turned into projectiles. As I held the two crying kids on my lap, I unconvincingly tried to sell them on "wasn't that crazy and fun?" Cathleen and I then built them a snow fort that they didn't use at all. Late in the day we went to (Great) Aunt Catherine's for tea. It was a bit stressful this year, with Max hyped up on a combination of sleep deprivation and cookies, running around and being loud (like a four-year-old), but Aunt Catherine remained unfazed and as charming as ever, and I had an interesting talk with her son Steven about the hot air balloon ride that he and Sheila took for their 50th wedding anniversary. Later that night, back at the house, the adults exchanged gifts. I presented my "spring subscription to BAM" gift to Cathleen by way of a Mad-libs which pretty much worked.
25th: At Claudia and Walter's, we sleep in a humongous bed. Max loves that bed, and it is the only place that we allow him to sleep in bed with us. That morning, Cathleen got up with Eliza at around 6:30, and I remained in bed with Max until he woke up around 40 minutes later. As consciousness slowly washed over him, I quietly asked him, "do you know what today is?" He didn't jump up, or even perk up. He just looked at me and replied with a question: "I wonder if Santa left us two notes (in response to the one that he and Alani wrote the night before)?" I then got out of bed and began to get dressed. Max remained in bed and told me that he wasn't quite ready to get up. A couple of minutes later he announced that he was ready. Having never celebrated Christmas as a child, I have no personal experience with the "wake up early and run downstairs to rip open gifts" phenomenon that one sees in Christmas movies. Chanukah's a night-time event, and so the excitement of gift opening is preceded by the tension-killing wait for the sun to set. But here was Max, content to lounge in bed for a few more minutes before calmly going downstairs to check out what gifts lay in wait. I thought that was cool. He was less cool by the time the small cadre of guests arrived for Christmas dinner, but a good dinner was had nonetheless. Ann Chilton still makes a mean trifle.
26th: Woke up, packed and drove home. Unpacked slightly. When I turned in for bed, Max was asleep in our room, on the floor, and I spotted a bedbug crawling across his pillow. I killed it, and then brought out the vaccuum. Still wound up with three bites on my right arm by the next morning. Those motherfuckers.
27th: Woke up, packed and drove up to Yorktown late in the afternoon. Mike and T and the kids were already there; Lorri and John et al. arrived later that evening. Eliza is obsessed with Jacob and Ryan and if one of them was not paying her constant attention, she would stand and shout one of their names repeatedly until due attention was provided. But damn if she is not cute doing so.
28th: We packed into cars, drove to Croton and took Metro North into Manhattan, to then head up to Rockefeller Center to see The Tree and other sights. It was, in civil engineering terms, crazy-ass crowded. Max, despite his firm urban roots, does not like thick crowds, and so he began yelling at all of the people to leave New York City. It is with great pride that I note that he has developed a precocious distaste for tourists. Maybe we'd like you better, people, if you didn't stand in the middle of the sidewalk. Duh. We also saw the Penny Harvest at Rockefeller Center, where NYC schoolkids -- Max among them -- had collected $1 million in pennies to be used for charitable causes. Thems a lot of pennies.
29th: We exchanged presents for the kids in the morning, and then Mike, John and I headed off with the kids to the local bowling alley. Other than some technical upgrades, that place has not changed in 30 years. Oh shit, I have become a guy who can say "that place has not changed in 30 years." Oh well. Max was pretty much wasted by this point. With the exception of the night of the 26th, he had been losing on average 2 to 3 hours of sleep each night for a week (getting to bed late, not sleeping in late), and then had been playing at full pace with his beloved cousins non-stop. At the bowling alley, it all came crashing down. There was impudence, defiance and eventually screaming. With a crying Max hanging onto my left arm, I still managed to bowl a strike in one frame. That night the adults exchanged gifts. Lorri and John gave me, inter alia, a stuffed Giardia doll. You know, something to cuddle with when I want to reminisce about crapping away 13 pounds of my bodyweight in a month's time.
30th: Apres breakfast, we packed up and headed over to the cemetery to visit my dad and grandparents' graves. Lorri figured out that she is four years younger than my mom was when my father died, a fact that drove home how young he -- and we -- all were when he died. Or maybe it drove home how old Lorri is? Probably the former. We then poured into our respective cars and departed. Not "departed" in the traditional cemetery sense. We all went home. I think that it is interesting that as notably different as I am from the remainder of my family, how happy I am when we are all together. And it is not just that I cannot get enough of my nieces and nephews. I come home from family gatherings exhausted because we adults insist on staying up late talking with each other. Imagine! We are a pretty lucky family. I stayed up that night to watch the final football game of the regular season, between Indy and Tennessee. I don't care about either of these teams, but it was in this game that I dropped out of first place in my winner-takes-all ($350) season-long NFL Pick 'Em pool. I led the pool all season, until the last game (of over 200 games) of the entire season. I suck that much.
31st: I woke up illin, probably a healthy dose of actual exhaustion. I tried to rally for a family dinner party at friends' house, but I left 30 minutes into the shindig, leaving Cathleen behind to contend with both of our kids and dinner party conversation. I was in bed well before midnight, the first New Years that I didn't witness the ball drop or the clocks change in close to 30 years. Here's to 2008...
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
A Boy and his Dogbite
As I approached our front door this evening coming home from work, my cell phone rang. It was Cathleen. She started talking to me in pig latin. She was saying two words, and I couldn't figure them out. My linguistic skills are pretty bad, but even I was embarrassed that it took me several "whats?" to understand what "og-day ite-bay" meant. I swear I was once a pretty smart kid, honest. After we were able to move beyond "dog bite," I was able to glean from her that Oscar had bitten Max, on the face, near his eye. "Be prepared for it to look bad," she advised me.
So I came in through the apartment door and Max rushed me for a hug as he (and Eliza) normally do (hands down, my favorite moment of the day), and then I saw his face. It was stunning that Oscar could do such damage. Nothing deep, but a pronounced scratch and cut just under Max's right eye, and another scratch-ish cut on his cheek. Max, apparently, had been cornering the dogs in the kitchen, preventing them from moving away from him, and despite several warnings from Cathleen that he was scaring the dogs and to back off, he didn't. And Oscar bit him.
Oscar is not a good dog, and by most standards is a bit of a bad dog. But this was new territory for him. Now what do we do? Turn the other cheek?
As for Max, Cathleen called our pediatrician's office. We now have the answer to the question, "what does it take to get a doctor on the phone?" The answer is, "my dog bit my child's face." She prescribed antibiotics, so he is now on amoxycillin for five days, and we smeared his face with bacitracin. He doesn't seem to be experiencing any level of discomfort, so either the bitemarks were indeed superficial, or Oscar severed Max's facial nerves. Most likely the former, but I'm no medical expert.
So I came in through the apartment door and Max rushed me for a hug as he (and Eliza) normally do (hands down, my favorite moment of the day), and then I saw his face. It was stunning that Oscar could do such damage. Nothing deep, but a pronounced scratch and cut just under Max's right eye, and another scratch-ish cut on his cheek. Max, apparently, had been cornering the dogs in the kitchen, preventing them from moving away from him, and despite several warnings from Cathleen that he was scaring the dogs and to back off, he didn't. And Oscar bit him.
Oscar is not a good dog, and by most standards is a bit of a bad dog. But this was new territory for him. Now what do we do? Turn the other cheek?
As for Max, Cathleen called our pediatrician's office. We now have the answer to the question, "what does it take to get a doctor on the phone?" The answer is, "my dog bit my child's face." She prescribed antibiotics, so he is now on amoxycillin for five days, and we smeared his face with bacitracin. He doesn't seem to be experiencing any level of discomfort, so either the bitemarks were indeed superficial, or Oscar severed Max's facial nerves. Most likely the former, but I'm no medical expert.
Eyewitness to an anomaly
A coworker who has season tickets to the Knicks couldn't make it to last night's game, so she offered me the tickets. I actually had to think about it for a second. But a game in the Garden is a game in the Garden, and despite my loathing for Isiah Thomas, once I realized they were playing against Lebron and the Cavs, I had to go. Sameer wound up as my date, so we dined on some Be Bim Bop at Kum Gang San and then made it to the seats about a minute after tipoff. It is good hanging out with that fella. We've only been friends since the eighth grade.
The seats were pretty good, and the Knicks kept it close in the first quarter. Then they built a 17-point lead by halftime and wound up winning the game in what had become a laugher by midway through the fourth. Hooray, all is right in Knicksville.
The seats were pretty good, and the Knicks kept it close in the first quarter. Then they built a 17-point lead by halftime and wound up winning the game in what had become a laugher by midway through the fourth. Hooray, all is right in Knicksville.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
The Indignities Mount
After Ben the Exterminator visited this past Monday, I went five consecutive nights without a bite. "A few more nights," I was thinking, "and we can cautiously conclude that this is over." Last night, however, the bedbugs were up and at em. I woke up with a bite on my upper right arm, three on the back of my neck, and one on my lower lip.
My lower lip.
A bedbug got me, right on the kisser. Talk about adding new meaning to the notion of sucking face.
I have tried to convince myself that I was probably laying on my side, with my mouth pretty much touching the pillow or the bedsheet, and so my luscious, Botoxish lips were the most accessible flesh for some random bedbug in search of a meal. The other option, that a bug crawled onto and across my face, gazed lovingly at my impish-yet-pouty smile, and planted a tender chomp on my lower lip...it is almost too much to bear.
Today I vacuumed the room, the bed and the bookshelves with the intensity and anger of a frat boy who has realized that he had sex with the dog last night.
My lower lip.
A bedbug got me, right on the kisser. Talk about adding new meaning to the notion of sucking face.
I have tried to convince myself that I was probably laying on my side, with my mouth pretty much touching the pillow or the bedsheet, and so my luscious, Botoxish lips were the most accessible flesh for some random bedbug in search of a meal. The other option, that a bug crawled onto and across my face, gazed lovingly at my impish-yet-pouty smile, and planted a tender chomp on my lower lip...it is almost too much to bear.
Today I vacuumed the room, the bed and the bookshelves with the intensity and anger of a frat boy who has realized that he had sex with the dog last night.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Hey, guy I fired
"Rick, I'm ready for some more cases if you have any to assign," typically means, in modern office parlance, that you've actually done work on the cases I already had assigned to you.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
38 Special
38, today am I. I think that I was born at like 9:50 a.m., and Mike came out ten minutes later? I know for a fact that Mike came out ten minutes later. Hell, that has been a fact that I have lorded over him for, oh, about 38 years now. Of all the ways that I psychologically tortured him as a child (and an adult), among my favorites was saying, after he sought clarification on some passing reference that he likely had merely not heard, "oh, I can't explain it now. In ten minutes you'll be old enough to get it." I'm good, no?
Today was a roller coaster ride of a birthday. Morning celebration with Cathleen, kids and the Entin Bells featured a "doughnut cake" -- Max's genius alternative for normal cake. At his behest, Cathleen bought three Dunkin Donuts, uh, doughnuts, piled them up on each other and implanted candles. A bit much of a sugar jolt for me pre-coffee, but the kids seemed to like it. Miriam made me a great card ("You are the jokiest boy I've ever met.").
I arrived at work late and over the course of the day I had to fire someone for the first time ever, and I learned that a former client of mine, whom I had worked with many times and liked, had died. Firing the guy was a no-brainer, as his screw-up was monumental and was not, unfortunately, unprecedented, but it was stressful nonetheless. Fortunately, to his credit, he was gracious and professional in accepting his dismissal, but that in the long run may have made it all that much harder for me. In a sense it would have been easier had he screwed up and then had been angry with me for holding him accountable. I mean, I wouldn't be worth shit as a program director had I not fired him, but I can't escape thinking about the impact it had on his life. As for my former client...well, a few times every year I am reminded that my clients have AIDS and, despite the amazing advances in treatment that have been made over the past decade, it is still a terminal illness. I remember this client as a friendly, vibrant, chatty woman who would get all dressed up to attend what I considered low-level administrative hearings regarding her benefits and whom, despite the number of times I asked her to call me Rick, would always call me Mr. Kahn in her thick, high-pitched, Puerto Rican accent.
After work, I met Cathleen in Manhattan for dinner at Casa Mono, a Spanish tapas restaurant opened by celebrity chef Mario Batali. It was smaller than I had expected, and the tables adjacent to ours were practically on top of us. And it was loud, with music booming over us as if we were in some hipster bar. But once we had ordered our food, and began consuming our bottle of wine (something red, I cannot believe that I have no recollection of what it was), and adjusted to our surroundings, I realized that I was hearing Up the Junction coming from the speakers. Oh my god, they were playing Squeeze! A really good restaurant just became sensational. What are the odds of walking into a semi-trendy Manhattan restaurant on your 38th birthday and having the night's soundtrack be one of your favorite bands from 20 years ago?
The food was great: bacalao croquetas with an orange sauce; mussels with chorizo; duck with cranberry mostaza; lamb shank with jerusalem artichoke puree; grilled brussel sprouts; sauteed mushrooms with garlic. We polished off the bottle of wine by the end of the meal which meant that either Cathleen finally had gained the capacity to drink a half bottle of wine at dinner, or I was a bit cocked. She alleges the latter. For dessert she managed to make it through only half of some amazing chocolatey chocolate thing, and I managed to wolf down my entire burnt vanilla custard (sort of a creme caramel) which featured battered and deep-fried bay leaves on the side (you eat the fried dough, but not the leaves). We headed home and spent a while talking with Claudia who had put the kids to bed; she regaled us with tales of how Max was this incredibly helpful, caring and thoughtful older brother during the entire process, supplying her with ideas and assistance in trying to pacify a congested and ear-infected Eliza.
I can distinctly recall the days when 38 seemed old to me, and yet I still feel like a goofy kid most days of the week. It's more of an "in denial" thing than a "young at heart" thing, but old is as old does, I suppose. Back in those days of actual youth, I'm not sure I had any sense of what 38 would be like for me, but I imagine that had I had some measure of focus, I would have hoped to have married my true life partner, and perhaps have fathered two amazing kids whom I cherish more than anything. Regrets, I've had a few, but I could not be in a happier place.
Today was a roller coaster ride of a birthday. Morning celebration with Cathleen, kids and the Entin Bells featured a "doughnut cake" -- Max's genius alternative for normal cake. At his behest, Cathleen bought three Dunkin Donuts, uh, doughnuts, piled them up on each other and implanted candles. A bit much of a sugar jolt for me pre-coffee, but the kids seemed to like it. Miriam made me a great card ("You are the jokiest boy I've ever met.").
I arrived at work late and over the course of the day I had to fire someone for the first time ever, and I learned that a former client of mine, whom I had worked with many times and liked, had died. Firing the guy was a no-brainer, as his screw-up was monumental and was not, unfortunately, unprecedented, but it was stressful nonetheless. Fortunately, to his credit, he was gracious and professional in accepting his dismissal, but that in the long run may have made it all that much harder for me. In a sense it would have been easier had he screwed up and then had been angry with me for holding him accountable. I mean, I wouldn't be worth shit as a program director had I not fired him, but I can't escape thinking about the impact it had on his life. As for my former client...well, a few times every year I am reminded that my clients have AIDS and, despite the amazing advances in treatment that have been made over the past decade, it is still a terminal illness. I remember this client as a friendly, vibrant, chatty woman who would get all dressed up to attend what I considered low-level administrative hearings regarding her benefits and whom, despite the number of times I asked her to call me Rick, would always call me Mr. Kahn in her thick, high-pitched, Puerto Rican accent.
After work, I met Cathleen in Manhattan for dinner at Casa Mono, a Spanish tapas restaurant opened by celebrity chef Mario Batali. It was smaller than I had expected, and the tables adjacent to ours were practically on top of us. And it was loud, with music booming over us as if we were in some hipster bar. But once we had ordered our food, and began consuming our bottle of wine (something red, I cannot believe that I have no recollection of what it was), and adjusted to our surroundings, I realized that I was hearing Up the Junction coming from the speakers. Oh my god, they were playing Squeeze! A really good restaurant just became sensational. What are the odds of walking into a semi-trendy Manhattan restaurant on your 38th birthday and having the night's soundtrack be one of your favorite bands from 20 years ago?
The food was great: bacalao croquetas with an orange sauce; mussels with chorizo; duck with cranberry mostaza; lamb shank with jerusalem artichoke puree; grilled brussel sprouts; sauteed mushrooms with garlic. We polished off the bottle of wine by the end of the meal which meant that either Cathleen finally had gained the capacity to drink a half bottle of wine at dinner, or I was a bit cocked. She alleges the latter. For dessert she managed to make it through only half of some amazing chocolatey chocolate thing, and I managed to wolf down my entire burnt vanilla custard (sort of a creme caramel) which featured battered and deep-fried bay leaves on the side (you eat the fried dough, but not the leaves). We headed home and spent a while talking with Claudia who had put the kids to bed; she regaled us with tales of how Max was this incredibly helpful, caring and thoughtful older brother during the entire process, supplying her with ideas and assistance in trying to pacify a congested and ear-infected Eliza.
I can distinctly recall the days when 38 seemed old to me, and yet I still feel like a goofy kid most days of the week. It's more of an "in denial" thing than a "young at heart" thing, but old is as old does, I suppose. Back in those days of actual youth, I'm not sure I had any sense of what 38 would be like for me, but I imagine that had I had some measure of focus, I would have hoped to have married my true life partner, and perhaps have fathered two amazing kids whom I cherish more than anything. Regrets, I've had a few, but I could not be in a happier place.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Are the bugs winning?
If you can't tell already, this bedbug experience speaks directly to the obsessive side of my personality. Screw my other blatherings and falderal; I just might turn this blog into Bedbugs 24/7. Of course, then I'd be forced to compete for viewership with my new favorite website: http://www.thebedbugresource.com/.
Six days post-extermination and I'm still waking up with multiple new bites each day. This is not entirely unexpected. The insecticides do not necessarily kill on contact -- they typically wreak havoc on the bugs' nervous systems, eventually causing death -- but they require contact for death to ultimately occur. Because bedbugs feed only once every five to seven days and otherwise spend their time in their "harbourage," up to a week after a spraying adult bedbugs will still venture out for a night-time Rick meal. Also, eggs that were not hit with insecticide will hatch and eventually turn into bugs which will likewise seek my flesh. The goal with spraying is to coat the areas that the Rick-seekers will traverse so that they encounter the insecticide and, after leaving me with a new itchy welt, finally meet their demise. Indeed, the professionals recommend that you continue to sleep in your room after a spraying so that you can act as bait to lure the bugs out into the poisoned environs.
We, nonetheless, had concerns about the scope of Ben's spraying the other day, so we called and requested that we take another hit. I was at work, but Ben arrived before noon. He helped Cathleen disassemble our bedframe (separating the headboard from the mainframe), at which point they saw two bugs. Then, as Cathleen was moving items off of my small bedside table, they noticed two tiny little newbies scurrying off. Ben sprayed the entire bed and table directly with Bedlam. With each passing day our comfort level with the insecticides grows. In another week I will no doubt be willing to bathe in a vat of Ben's favorite pyrethroid mixture.
In the meantime, reality has forced us to cancel our annual holiday open house party, which had been scheduled for this coming Sunday. The bugs appear to be contained within our bedroom, but if someone were to come to the party and take a bug home with him...it would be an unforgivable act. On the one hand, our apartment is such a war zone right now: bagged clothing here, boxed up stuff there, that prepping it for the party would have been a huge effort. But I look forward to that party every year, and I'm bummed that we're putting it on hold. The new plan is for a bedbug free party maybe in January, but it won't quite be the same.
Six days post-extermination and I'm still waking up with multiple new bites each day. This is not entirely unexpected. The insecticides do not necessarily kill on contact -- they typically wreak havoc on the bugs' nervous systems, eventually causing death -- but they require contact for death to ultimately occur. Because bedbugs feed only once every five to seven days and otherwise spend their time in their "harbourage," up to a week after a spraying adult bedbugs will still venture out for a night-time Rick meal. Also, eggs that were not hit with insecticide will hatch and eventually turn into bugs which will likewise seek my flesh. The goal with spraying is to coat the areas that the Rick-seekers will traverse so that they encounter the insecticide and, after leaving me with a new itchy welt, finally meet their demise. Indeed, the professionals recommend that you continue to sleep in your room after a spraying so that you can act as bait to lure the bugs out into the poisoned environs.
We, nonetheless, had concerns about the scope of Ben's spraying the other day, so we called and requested that we take another hit. I was at work, but Ben arrived before noon. He helped Cathleen disassemble our bedframe (separating the headboard from the mainframe), at which point they saw two bugs. Then, as Cathleen was moving items off of my small bedside table, they noticed two tiny little newbies scurrying off. Ben sprayed the entire bed and table directly with Bedlam. With each passing day our comfort level with the insecticides grows. In another week I will no doubt be willing to bathe in a vat of Ben's favorite pyrethroid mixture.
In the meantime, reality has forced us to cancel our annual holiday open house party, which had been scheduled for this coming Sunday. The bugs appear to be contained within our bedroom, but if someone were to come to the party and take a bug home with him...it would be an unforgivable act. On the one hand, our apartment is such a war zone right now: bagged clothing here, boxed up stuff there, that prepping it for the party would have been a huge effort. But I look forward to that party every year, and I'm bummed that we're putting it on hold. The new plan is for a bedbug free party maybe in January, but it won't quite be the same.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Chanukah
The "Hannukah" spelling really irritates me. As a language, Hebrew's intrinsic value lies in its ability to not just forgive, but to encourage, a good gathering of back-throat phlegm in nearly every sentence, what with it's baruchs and melechs, not to mention its chutzpah and chanukah. Vernacularizing it further by dropping the initial "c" would be like spelling Christmas with a "G," people.
Chanukah has seemed a little extra special this year. Maybe it's that both kids are into the menorah-lighting -- Max, because he kinda knows what is going on; Eliza, because she is wide-eye entranced by the dancing flames. Maybe it's that we've been able to share the experience with others a bit more -- two nights with the Entin Bells, this night with Jeff and Laura (after I spent a great day with Jeff, catching up with him mano-a-mano for what seemed like the first time in years). On the second night, we gave Max a Playskool pirate fisherman set-up, and he needed my help assembling the pieces. As we sat on the livingroom floor putting the toy together, with the menorah flickering on the table next to us, I could feel and see myself 30 years ago, on the livingroom floor in Yorktown, excitedly putting together some new Micronauts figure, with the menorah lighting up the front bay window.
Then, last night, as we were herding the kids to go to bed, they wanted a last look at the menorahs (we have two). With Cathleen holding Max, I picked up a protesting Eliza, and to calm her down I suggested that we sing a Chanukah song. With the apartment lights off, and the candles casting a glow about the room, and two tired kids barely keeping their heads up to stare at the flames, Cathleen and I sang through our limited Chanukah repertoire. It was one of those moments when the chaos dissolves, and we're only aware of each other, and all we have left is our happiness.
Chanukah has seemed a little extra special this year. Maybe it's that both kids are into the menorah-lighting -- Max, because he kinda knows what is going on; Eliza, because she is wide-eye entranced by the dancing flames. Maybe it's that we've been able to share the experience with others a bit more -- two nights with the Entin Bells, this night with Jeff and Laura (after I spent a great day with Jeff, catching up with him mano-a-mano for what seemed like the first time in years). On the second night, we gave Max a Playskool pirate fisherman set-up, and he needed my help assembling the pieces. As we sat on the livingroom floor putting the toy together, with the menorah flickering on the table next to us, I could feel and see myself 30 years ago, on the livingroom floor in Yorktown, excitedly putting together some new Micronauts figure, with the menorah lighting up the front bay window.
Then, last night, as we were herding the kids to go to bed, they wanted a last look at the menorahs (we have two). With Cathleen holding Max, I picked up a protesting Eliza, and to calm her down I suggested that we sing a Chanukah song. With the apartment lights off, and the candles casting a glow about the room, and two tired kids barely keeping their heads up to stare at the flames, Cathleen and I sang through our limited Chanukah repertoire. It was one of those moments when the chaos dissolves, and we're only aware of each other, and all we have left is our happiness.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Away, ye critters
Yesterday was Extermination Day. We had spent the prior week washing all of our clothing and sealing it up plastic bags. Most of the clothing now sits in large plastic bags, to remain unworn for the next few weeks. The essentials -- a handful of shirts, pants, underwear, socks, running clothes -- are in large ziploc bags that will sit in our dresser drawers. When we have determined that our long, national bedbug nightmare is over, we can take all of the clothes out of the bags and resume normal living. Cathleen fantasizes about living in this downscaled manner in perpetuity, but she is crazy. We all know that.
Ben the Exterminator arrived at a little after 9:30 in the morning. Ben has been to our home a couple of times before to deal with what we like to call "the mouse problem." Ben seals up holes, and "the mouse problem" goes away. Bedbugs, of course, don't respect the seal-up-the-hole method, and they require a good dose of toxic juice. Ben came armed with toxic juice.
When we first scheduled an exterminator to come, Cathleen asked what insecticides they'd be using. We were told they'd be spraying something in the walls -- one of three frighteningly named poisons: Suspend, Bedlam or Tri-Di. Then they'd spray Steri-Fab on the surface areas in the room. I called my brother-in-law, John, who has a Masters in Industrial Hygiene, and asked him to weigh in on whether it was judicious to have these things sprayed in the midst of our young children. John, bless his toxicologically-educated soul, did some quick research and gave us enough information that we felt comfortable having our home so insecticided. John also seemed to suggest that we were doing a greater disservice to our children's health by raising them in the big city. John, you country bumpkin.
Well, when Ben the Exterminator arrived, Cathleen asked what he'd be using that day. "Onslaught" was his reply.
I am a total sucker for a good name. Onslaught, however, is not a good name.
We then set about calling John (no answer), researching Onslaught on the web, calling the company that makes Onslaught, and having a mini-conference call with Mike the Exterminator Boss. We learned little, except that Onslaught is a residual insecticide. This is a good thing to have when dealing with bedbugs, because when you inevitably miss the eggs or the larvae that are hidden in crevices somewhere, when they grow up and venture out the poison is still there for the killing. This seems like a bad thing when you have young children and small dogs who might venture amongst the poison. Like we do.
Ben the Exterminator does not have much of a bedside manner. He looks a bit like all of the kids in my high school that came from Putnam Valley, which is to say that he looks like he just came home from a Megadeth concert. Long hair and a dour demeanor, except that Ben is in his forties, and not an angst-ridden 15-year-old. He is a bit rough around all of the edges, and was unapologetically impatient with our chemicals-might-be-harmful paranoia. I eventually explained that we had two concerns: getting rid of the bugs, and protecting our children's health, and that he had better respect that. He finally calmed down enough to focus on working out a solution, and we ultimately decided that he'd spray the hell out of our room but nowhere else; he'd put traps in the kid's room and under our couch, and if we later found bugs in them, we'd have to revisit our gameplan.
I then worked with Ben in our bedroom, moving furniture and the like. First he unscrewed the lightswitches and outlets and sprayed stuff into the walls. Then he sprayed all over our bedframe, and throughout our dressers (in every drawer, etc.). I took apart our four-piece "lawyer's bookshelves" and spied a live bedbug sitting happily in the crevice where two of the component pieces meet -- eeeewww. Ben sprayed every piece. He then sprayed the base of the wall, where it meets the carpet, all along the perimeter of the room. And that was it. He then checked around in Sophie and Joseph's apartment for signs of bedbugs (nothing visible), and did the same in the basement. And then he sprayed in the rental apartment because they recently started seeing roaches. Total bill: $500.
Having confirmed that our lawyer's bookshelves were infested by at least one bedbug (and no doubt others), I was concerned that the 30 or 40 books in those shelves were perhaps laden with eggs. So I bagged up the books and stuck them in our freezer where they will sit for a couple of days. Bedbugs can't survive in the freezing temperatures, and so we have a little Francine Prose and Jonathan Lethem squeezed in between our sun dried tomato ravioli and our espresso-ground Gorilla coffee.
Cathleen and I had earlier talked about sleeping that first night in the basement, but I convinced her that it would be safe to sleep in our apartment. Max, however, was so excited to sleep in the basement that it really wasn't even up for discussion. Kids are weird. So we celebrated the first night of Chanukah and then slept in our basement. A great miracle happened there...
Ben the Exterminator arrived at a little after 9:30 in the morning. Ben has been to our home a couple of times before to deal with what we like to call "the mouse problem." Ben seals up holes, and "the mouse problem" goes away. Bedbugs, of course, don't respect the seal-up-the-hole method, and they require a good dose of toxic juice. Ben came armed with toxic juice.
When we first scheduled an exterminator to come, Cathleen asked what insecticides they'd be using. We were told they'd be spraying something in the walls -- one of three frighteningly named poisons: Suspend, Bedlam or Tri-Di. Then they'd spray Steri-Fab on the surface areas in the room. I called my brother-in-law, John, who has a Masters in Industrial Hygiene, and asked him to weigh in on whether it was judicious to have these things sprayed in the midst of our young children. John, bless his toxicologically-educated soul, did some quick research and gave us enough information that we felt comfortable having our home so insecticided. John also seemed to suggest that we were doing a greater disservice to our children's health by raising them in the big city. John, you country bumpkin.
Well, when Ben the Exterminator arrived, Cathleen asked what he'd be using that day. "Onslaught" was his reply.
I am a total sucker for a good name. Onslaught, however, is not a good name.
We then set about calling John (no answer), researching Onslaught on the web, calling the company that makes Onslaught, and having a mini-conference call with Mike the Exterminator Boss. We learned little, except that Onslaught is a residual insecticide. This is a good thing to have when dealing with bedbugs, because when you inevitably miss the eggs or the larvae that are hidden in crevices somewhere, when they grow up and venture out the poison is still there for the killing. This seems like a bad thing when you have young children and small dogs who might venture amongst the poison. Like we do.
Ben the Exterminator does not have much of a bedside manner. He looks a bit like all of the kids in my high school that came from Putnam Valley, which is to say that he looks like he just came home from a Megadeth concert. Long hair and a dour demeanor, except that Ben is in his forties, and not an angst-ridden 15-year-old. He is a bit rough around all of the edges, and was unapologetically impatient with our chemicals-might-be-harmful paranoia. I eventually explained that we had two concerns: getting rid of the bugs, and protecting our children's health, and that he had better respect that. He finally calmed down enough to focus on working out a solution, and we ultimately decided that he'd spray the hell out of our room but nowhere else; he'd put traps in the kid's room and under our couch, and if we later found bugs in them, we'd have to revisit our gameplan.
I then worked with Ben in our bedroom, moving furniture and the like. First he unscrewed the lightswitches and outlets and sprayed stuff into the walls. Then he sprayed all over our bedframe, and throughout our dressers (in every drawer, etc.). I took apart our four-piece "lawyer's bookshelves" and spied a live bedbug sitting happily in the crevice where two of the component pieces meet -- eeeewww. Ben sprayed every piece. He then sprayed the base of the wall, where it meets the carpet, all along the perimeter of the room. And that was it. He then checked around in Sophie and Joseph's apartment for signs of bedbugs (nothing visible), and did the same in the basement. And then he sprayed in the rental apartment because they recently started seeing roaches. Total bill: $500.
Having confirmed that our lawyer's bookshelves were infested by at least one bedbug (and no doubt others), I was concerned that the 30 or 40 books in those shelves were perhaps laden with eggs. So I bagged up the books and stuck them in our freezer where they will sit for a couple of days. Bedbugs can't survive in the freezing temperatures, and so we have a little Francine Prose and Jonathan Lethem squeezed in between our sun dried tomato ravioli and our espresso-ground Gorilla coffee.
Cathleen and I had earlier talked about sleeping that first night in the basement, but I convinced her that it would be safe to sleep in our apartment. Max, however, was so excited to sleep in the basement that it really wasn't even up for discussion. Kids are weird. So we celebrated the first night of Chanukah and then slept in our basement. A great miracle happened there...
Friday, November 30, 2007
Over the Hills and Far Away
iTunes recently obtained permission to sell Led Zeppelin songs, and so a couple of weeks ago I downloaded about 15 of my favorites. As I cleaned our apartment two Sundays ago, I listened to a little Led Zep on my iPod, and I was immediately transported back to high school.
Some time around my junior or senior year of high school, I officially entered my Led Zeppelin phase. It was short-lived -- I pretty much stopped listening to any of their tapes once I got to college -- but in the latter year or two of high school, after U2, they were my favorite band. Listening to a bunch of their songs now took me back to a small room in the basement of a Northwestern University dorm, Thanksgiving week 1986. Two of the larger high school debate tournaments of the year were held in the Glenbrook high schools (Glenbrook North and Glenbrook South) in the Chicago suburbs on the weekends that bookended the Thanksgiving week. During the week, the top 10 or so teams in the country participated in an invite-only round robin tournament. My partner Sameer and I believed that we were one of those top 10 or so teams, but we had failed to convince the right people. Indeed, in one of our last tournaments of the year as juniors, we debated in front of the guy who made the Chicago round robin invite decisions, and we had our worst performance of the year. As such, no invite to the round robin. So we spent the week in between the Glenbrook tourneys with the other team from our high school (my friends Rich and Bob), researching in the Northwestern library, and sleeping in a cramped basement room in a dorm where Sameer's cousin, Bimol, lived. Rich brought his boombox with him, and we listened to Zeppelin almost nonstop. We did some half-hearted research in the library, gawked at the unobtainable college girls, and got on each other's nerves. I discovered that the nearby campus cafeteria served an amazing Patty Melt, and I ate one for lunch almost every day. I have been searching for a Patty Melt of equivalent virtue ever since, and have yet to find one. I don't remember what we did for Thanksgiving dinner that week. Did our coach, Greg Varley, take us out to dinner? Probably.
Validating our opinions of ourselves, Sameer and I had the second-best overall performance by any team that participated in both Glenbrook tourneys (each tourney featuring over 100 teams from all over the country): we made it to the quarterfinals of the first, and the semifinals of the second . We figured that that performance had sealed our invite for the final prestigious round robin of the year, at Harvard, but when those invites were released, four New York teams were invited, and we were not among them. We were so crushed by this rejection that we went out the next weekend at the Lexington, MA debate tournament and beat two of those round robin teams en route to winning the tournament without losing a single judge's ballot all weekend (the debate equivalent of pitching a no-hitter). I suppose there was some valuable life lesson to have been learned there, or maybe what didn't kill me made me stronger or something. Mellow is the man who knows what he's been missing. Many, many men can't see the open road.
Some time around my junior or senior year of high school, I officially entered my Led Zeppelin phase. It was short-lived -- I pretty much stopped listening to any of their tapes once I got to college -- but in the latter year or two of high school, after U2, they were my favorite band. Listening to a bunch of their songs now took me back to a small room in the basement of a Northwestern University dorm, Thanksgiving week 1986. Two of the larger high school debate tournaments of the year were held in the Glenbrook high schools (Glenbrook North and Glenbrook South) in the Chicago suburbs on the weekends that bookended the Thanksgiving week. During the week, the top 10 or so teams in the country participated in an invite-only round robin tournament. My partner Sameer and I believed that we were one of those top 10 or so teams, but we had failed to convince the right people. Indeed, in one of our last tournaments of the year as juniors, we debated in front of the guy who made the Chicago round robin invite decisions, and we had our worst performance of the year. As such, no invite to the round robin. So we spent the week in between the Glenbrook tourneys with the other team from our high school (my friends Rich and Bob), researching in the Northwestern library, and sleeping in a cramped basement room in a dorm where Sameer's cousin, Bimol, lived. Rich brought his boombox with him, and we listened to Zeppelin almost nonstop. We did some half-hearted research in the library, gawked at the unobtainable college girls, and got on each other's nerves. I discovered that the nearby campus cafeteria served an amazing Patty Melt, and I ate one for lunch almost every day. I have been searching for a Patty Melt of equivalent virtue ever since, and have yet to find one. I don't remember what we did for Thanksgiving dinner that week. Did our coach, Greg Varley, take us out to dinner? Probably.
Validating our opinions of ourselves, Sameer and I had the second-best overall performance by any team that participated in both Glenbrook tourneys (each tourney featuring over 100 teams from all over the country): we made it to the quarterfinals of the first, and the semifinals of the second . We figured that that performance had sealed our invite for the final prestigious round robin of the year, at Harvard, but when those invites were released, four New York teams were invited, and we were not among them. We were so crushed by this rejection that we went out the next weekend at the Lexington, MA debate tournament and beat two of those round robin teams en route to winning the tournament without losing a single judge's ballot all weekend (the debate equivalent of pitching a no-hitter). I suppose there was some valuable life lesson to have been learned there, or maybe what didn't kill me made me stronger or something. Mellow is the man who knows what he's been missing. Many, many men can't see the open road.
Thanksgiving Recap
I've meant to post something about my Thanksgiving weekend ever since, you know, that weekend. If I don't do it right now...
So, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, just when I thought I was on the mend from an exhausting cold, I woke up with a stomach bug. The day before the one day when you have free license to eat an ungodly amount of food! My timing, in life, is terrible. By evening time I was feeling mostly fine, and so we packed our bags in anticipation of an early departure for Bloomfield, CT the next morning.
The next morning I awoke at 5 a.m., hoping that I'd fall back asleep. Cathleen got out of bed around then, and when she hadn't returned by 5:45, I got up to see what was going on. She had just packed our car (with assistance from Joseph, who was also traveling to Bloomfield, but by train , Sophie and kids having driven up on Tuesday). Cathleen suggested that I shower while she went back to bed. Boom, boom, boom, we're in the car with the kids in their pjs and driving by 7 a.m. I am the definitive not-a-morning-person person, but a strong cup of coffee can make me almost human. Problem was that I was on the rebound from a stomach bug, and coffee was not on the rehab menu. Bummer. Tea and a plain bagel for breakfast as we flew through open roads to CT.
Thanksgiving, itself, was nice -- a crowd of 20 family and friends. I thought I'd resent not being able to eat most of the offerings, but I barely had any appetite, so I was content to eat a few pieces of turkey and some mashed potatoes. I threw caution to the wind at dessert time, because Joseph makes a mean mixed berry pie (with an orange pecan crust!), so I had a small slice. I was still definitely in recovery from my bag of ailments, and so I barely helped with any of the set-up, cooking or clean-up, and I lacked the energy to socialize with any vigor. Oh well.
Claudia and Walter had purchased the Ratatouille DVD which the kids watched twice on Thanksgiving Day, and another one or two times before the weekend was out. It made me really want to go back to Paris. It made Max want to go to Paris and eat at the restaurant in the movie.
On Saturday, I left the house at before 8 am and drove down to Bridgeport for the Turkey Bowl ultimate tournament. I had played at Turkey Bowl for something like eleven straight years until Max was born. It used to be one of my favorite tourneys -- I'd scramble together a team of friends, we'd play ulti for a day, and end the day with a turkey dinner at the fields. Because Claudia and Walter were taking all of their kids and grandkids to The Hartford Stage's production of "A Christmas Carol," Cathleen suggested that I use that opportunity to play in the Turkey Bowl again. She can be brilliant at times. I submitted a bid, solicited friends to play with me, and lo and behold I had a team. Saturday was a cold, cold day -- highs in the low 30s -- but the sun was shining and we were playing disc. It was sort of competitive ultimate, in that good players were playing, but nobody was taking the games too seriously (alcohol is not typically consumed mid-game at most tournaments). We went 3-1, and wound up tieing for 5th among 20 teams. I am so far out of ultimate-playing condition that it isn't funny. I could run, catch, throw. Even play some defense. But I had no burst or stamina; none of that little extra that allows you to get the block, or to get that first step to get open on a cut. It is frustrating to be running on a player's heels, and have the disc thrown to him and realize that that used to be a gimme defensive block for you. Of the many things I miss about not playing ultimate regularly anymore is that when I do play, I can't play at the level that I was used to playing at. Mind you, I still had one hell of a fun time. I still do love playing ultimate, and especially when I am playing it with friends. My ultimate game might not be sharp, but I haven't lost a step in my heckling game.
On Sunday we left Bloomfield at mid-morning to head home (no traffic!). Eliza sang "Happy Birthday to you" for about 30 straight minutes. Nobody called her on it.
So, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, just when I thought I was on the mend from an exhausting cold, I woke up with a stomach bug. The day before the one day when you have free license to eat an ungodly amount of food! My timing, in life, is terrible. By evening time I was feeling mostly fine, and so we packed our bags in anticipation of an early departure for Bloomfield, CT the next morning.
The next morning I awoke at 5 a.m., hoping that I'd fall back asleep. Cathleen got out of bed around then, and when she hadn't returned by 5:45, I got up to see what was going on. She had just packed our car (with assistance from Joseph, who was also traveling to Bloomfield, but by train , Sophie and kids having driven up on Tuesday). Cathleen suggested that I shower while she went back to bed. Boom, boom, boom, we're in the car with the kids in their pjs and driving by 7 a.m. I am the definitive not-a-morning-person person, but a strong cup of coffee can make me almost human. Problem was that I was on the rebound from a stomach bug, and coffee was not on the rehab menu. Bummer. Tea and a plain bagel for breakfast as we flew through open roads to CT.
Thanksgiving, itself, was nice -- a crowd of 20 family and friends. I thought I'd resent not being able to eat most of the offerings, but I barely had any appetite, so I was content to eat a few pieces of turkey and some mashed potatoes. I threw caution to the wind at dessert time, because Joseph makes a mean mixed berry pie (with an orange pecan crust!), so I had a small slice. I was still definitely in recovery from my bag of ailments, and so I barely helped with any of the set-up, cooking or clean-up, and I lacked the energy to socialize with any vigor. Oh well.
Claudia and Walter had purchased the Ratatouille DVD which the kids watched twice on Thanksgiving Day, and another one or two times before the weekend was out. It made me really want to go back to Paris. It made Max want to go to Paris and eat at the restaurant in the movie.
On Saturday, I left the house at before 8 am and drove down to Bridgeport for the Turkey Bowl ultimate tournament. I had played at Turkey Bowl for something like eleven straight years until Max was born. It used to be one of my favorite tourneys -- I'd scramble together a team of friends, we'd play ulti for a day, and end the day with a turkey dinner at the fields. Because Claudia and Walter were taking all of their kids and grandkids to The Hartford Stage's production of "A Christmas Carol," Cathleen suggested that I use that opportunity to play in the Turkey Bowl again. She can be brilliant at times. I submitted a bid, solicited friends to play with me, and lo and behold I had a team. Saturday was a cold, cold day -- highs in the low 30s -- but the sun was shining and we were playing disc. It was sort of competitive ultimate, in that good players were playing, but nobody was taking the games too seriously (alcohol is not typically consumed mid-game at most tournaments). We went 3-1, and wound up tieing for 5th among 20 teams. I am so far out of ultimate-playing condition that it isn't funny. I could run, catch, throw. Even play some defense. But I had no burst or stamina; none of that little extra that allows you to get the block, or to get that first step to get open on a cut. It is frustrating to be running on a player's heels, and have the disc thrown to him and realize that that used to be a gimme defensive block for you. Of the many things I miss about not playing ultimate regularly anymore is that when I do play, I can't play at the level that I was used to playing at. Mind you, I still had one hell of a fun time. I still do love playing ultimate, and especially when I am playing it with friends. My ultimate game might not be sharp, but I haven't lost a step in my heckling game.
On Sunday we left Bloomfield at mid-morning to head home (no traffic!). Eliza sang "Happy Birthday to you" for about 30 straight minutes. Nobody called her on it.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Good night, sleep tight
I know, I know. I haven't posted in over a week. Been a bit under the weather. We've had two different illnesses running their course through the Bell Kahn clan this past week: a narsty cold, and a quick stomach bug. Eliza and I scored both, Max had only the bug and Cathleen only the cold. I missed three days of work for the first time (for health reasons) in quite a while (a few years?).
In any event, I have lots of bloggable stuff to write about, including our Thanksgiving weekend experience, but that will have to wait another day or two. Tonight, I am buggin'.
A couple of posts ago I described my flea nightmare. After a few more attempts at handling the nightmare ourselves, and me still being chomped on like a communal shard of laffy-taffy, we decided to throw in the towel and call an exterminator. Cathleen spent 45 minutes on the phone with our exterminator today and they don't think we have a flea problem. Great! They think we have a bedbug problem. Shit!
I spent the afternoon in denial, which included an hour of lunchtime reading up on bedbugs on the internet. Here's the deal with bedbugs. They were pretty much eradicated by the 1960s thanks to DDT. Thanks to Rachel Carson, DDT was pretty much eliminated by the 1970s. Thanks to a distinct lack of highly toxic and carcinogenic home pesticides on the market now, bedbugs are back on the rise, and they are reaching epidemic proportions. Anecdotally, we in the tenant advocacy business are seeing a lot more bedbug cases in housing court.
Bedbugs are flat little bugs, about 1/8 to 1/4 inch in length. They come out at night and feed on your blood, first injecting you with an anesthetic so that you don't feel their bite, and then they suck out a meal. You are left with a welt that later becomes itchy. Or you are like Cathleen and you have no physical reaction at all. Bite marks are often grouped together (breakfast...lunch...dinner). After feasting, the bedbugs recede to their hideouts -- creases and seams in furniture, fabric, walls -- where they can hangout and produce more bedbugs. They can go months (up to 18 months!) without eating.
How do you get rid of them? You have to wash every article of clothing and linen in the affected space, and then have your furniture treated by a pest removal professional (chemically or not, depending on your circumstances or preferences). Often it requires a couple of treatments for success to be achieved.
It seemed impossible that we would have bedbugs. Oscar definitely had flea dirt on him. What would the odds be that we would have a minor flea issue at the same time we were developing a major bedbug problem? Pretty good, it turns out.
After dinner I took apart our bed and inspected the wall behind the bed and the parts of the bed where the headboard pieces (covered with fabric) come together. I saw my first bedbug carcass on the floor, where the carpeting meets the wall. Its shape and color were undeniable -- 100% bedbug. I think I screamed, or cursed, or maybe both. I then vaccumed the hell out of the bed and room, ramming the thin nozzle attachment into every crease and corner. I think that it might hold things at bay for a night or two. We have exterminators coming on Thursday to inspect our apartment and develop a complete game plan, but we will at a minimum need to wash every piece of clothing Cathleen and I own, and likely will need to do the same for the kids as well. Friends of ours who had bedbugs said they kept their washer running almost nonstop for a week. The extermination will likely cost $1000.
I am so unhappy.
When I thought that it was fleas that were biting me, the concept didn't bother me too much. Fleas jump on you, chomp away, jump off. But bedbugs crawl out of their hiding places, crawl on you, bite and suck, and then crawl away.
Eeeeewwww. How am I going to sleep tonight?
In any event, I have lots of bloggable stuff to write about, including our Thanksgiving weekend experience, but that will have to wait another day or two. Tonight, I am buggin'.
A couple of posts ago I described my flea nightmare. After a few more attempts at handling the nightmare ourselves, and me still being chomped on like a communal shard of laffy-taffy, we decided to throw in the towel and call an exterminator. Cathleen spent 45 minutes on the phone with our exterminator today and they don't think we have a flea problem. Great! They think we have a bedbug problem. Shit!
I spent the afternoon in denial, which included an hour of lunchtime reading up on bedbugs on the internet. Here's the deal with bedbugs. They were pretty much eradicated by the 1960s thanks to DDT. Thanks to Rachel Carson, DDT was pretty much eliminated by the 1970s. Thanks to a distinct lack of highly toxic and carcinogenic home pesticides on the market now, bedbugs are back on the rise, and they are reaching epidemic proportions. Anecdotally, we in the tenant advocacy business are seeing a lot more bedbug cases in housing court.
Bedbugs are flat little bugs, about 1/8 to 1/4 inch in length. They come out at night and feed on your blood, first injecting you with an anesthetic so that you don't feel their bite, and then they suck out a meal. You are left with a welt that later becomes itchy. Or you are like Cathleen and you have no physical reaction at all. Bite marks are often grouped together (breakfast...lunch...dinner). After feasting, the bedbugs recede to their hideouts -- creases and seams in furniture, fabric, walls -- where they can hangout and produce more bedbugs. They can go months (up to 18 months!) without eating.
How do you get rid of them? You have to wash every article of clothing and linen in the affected space, and then have your furniture treated by a pest removal professional (chemically or not, depending on your circumstances or preferences). Often it requires a couple of treatments for success to be achieved.
It seemed impossible that we would have bedbugs. Oscar definitely had flea dirt on him. What would the odds be that we would have a minor flea issue at the same time we were developing a major bedbug problem? Pretty good, it turns out.
After dinner I took apart our bed and inspected the wall behind the bed and the parts of the bed where the headboard pieces (covered with fabric) come together. I saw my first bedbug carcass on the floor, where the carpeting meets the wall. Its shape and color were undeniable -- 100% bedbug. I think I screamed, or cursed, or maybe both. I then vaccumed the hell out of the bed and room, ramming the thin nozzle attachment into every crease and corner. I think that it might hold things at bay for a night or two. We have exterminators coming on Thursday to inspect our apartment and develop a complete game plan, but we will at a minimum need to wash every piece of clothing Cathleen and I own, and likely will need to do the same for the kids as well. Friends of ours who had bedbugs said they kept their washer running almost nonstop for a week. The extermination will likely cost $1000.
I am so unhappy.
When I thought that it was fleas that were biting me, the concept didn't bother me too much. Fleas jump on you, chomp away, jump off. But bedbugs crawl out of their hiding places, crawl on you, bite and suck, and then crawl away.
Eeeeewwww. How am I going to sleep tonight?
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Aaaaagggghhhh
My brand new HDTV finally arrived on Friday night. An Olevia 537h. I spent an hour and a half today at a Time Warner "store" exchanging our old cable box for an HD cable box. I then went out and bought the various cabling I'd need to hook this sucker up. I then tried to hook it up. Got the video going -- looks great. No audio. After futzing around a bit, I called me bro Mike, the only one in the entire family with a techno gene in his body (and as a computer engineer, it appears that he horded a bunch of them), and he gave me some direction. Still no success. I printed out the user's manual. I stared at the pages. I tried this. I tried that. I tried this and that several more times. I tried calling Olevia customer support (not open on weekends!). I downloaded the user's manual. I tried this and that several more times. Thinking the speakers just might be broken, I hooked up the DVD player and turned it on...audio sound came out of the TV! This, I think frustated me even more. The solution, no doubt, is simple and straightforward, and yet it eludes me.
Oh, cruel audio. Why do you taunt me?
If I had my life to do over, I would more carefully plan out my circle of friends so that I surround myself with folks whose talents and expertise fill in the gaps and shortcomings in my life. The top two friends I'd hunt for are 1) an auto mechanic, and 2) a techno geek who can get the effing audio on my TV to work.
Oh, cruel audio. Why do you taunt me?
If I had my life to do over, I would more carefully plan out my circle of friends so that I surround myself with folks whose talents and expertise fill in the gaps and shortcomings in my life. The top two friends I'd hunt for are 1) an auto mechanic, and 2) a techno geek who can get the effing audio on my TV to work.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
My God I've Fleas
A couple of weeks ago we noticed the dogs were scratching and biting themselves, and closer inspection revealed visible flea dirt on Oscar. I then determined that what I had thought was a mosquito bite or two on me was likely a flea bite or two. Cathleen went to the pet store a day later and bought some anti-flea shampoo, and we followed that up with that toxic anti-flea oil you put on the back of their necks.
And that is when the flea biting of Rick began in earnest. Two or so weeks later and my arms and lower legs are covered with upwards of two dozen flea bites. Last year the dogs had fleas, we bathed them in the shampoo once and that was the end of it. This year, not so lucky. When it became clear that the flea problem persisted, we washed every sheet, blanket and pillow case in our room. We've now done that another three or four times. Two days ago I sprayed the room with some undoubtedly carcinogenic anti-flea chemical, and we've vaccuumed a couple of times. We intend to maintain this vigilance over the course of the next week and hopefully our blood-sucking friends will cease to exist.
In the meantime, I am fairly miserable. I apparently fall into that category of people who are highly allergic to flea bites and have severe reactions. My reaction is following a classically-described pattern: small bites with red halos eventually turn into large welts; the itching at times is intense, and it takes days for a bite to fade away entirely. It is not even amusing to me to be able to look at myself in the mirror and say, "you sad, flea-bitten sack of shit." Well, it's a little amusing. The itching and burning, in and of itself, would be especially annoying, but what is driving me over the edge is that Cathleen has nary a bite on her. "I think I had one," she has mused. We sleep in the same bed with the same dogs, and I am being slowly consumed by a Biblical plague, and she is bite-free. Where's the equity in this partnership?
And that is when the flea biting of Rick began in earnest. Two or so weeks later and my arms and lower legs are covered with upwards of two dozen flea bites. Last year the dogs had fleas, we bathed them in the shampoo once and that was the end of it. This year, not so lucky. When it became clear that the flea problem persisted, we washed every sheet, blanket and pillow case in our room. We've now done that another three or four times. Two days ago I sprayed the room with some undoubtedly carcinogenic anti-flea chemical, and we've vaccuumed a couple of times. We intend to maintain this vigilance over the course of the next week and hopefully our blood-sucking friends will cease to exist.
In the meantime, I am fairly miserable. I apparently fall into that category of people who are highly allergic to flea bites and have severe reactions. My reaction is following a classically-described pattern: small bites with red halos eventually turn into large welts; the itching at times is intense, and it takes days for a bite to fade away entirely. It is not even amusing to me to be able to look at myself in the mirror and say, "you sad, flea-bitten sack of shit." Well, it's a little amusing. The itching and burning, in and of itself, would be especially annoying, but what is driving me over the edge is that Cathleen has nary a bite on her. "I think I had one," she has mused. We sleep in the same bed with the same dogs, and I am being slowly consumed by a Biblical plague, and she is bite-free. Where's the equity in this partnership?
Monday, November 12, 2007
Poop game, revisited
After I posted about Eliza's "Oscar pooped!" game a couple of weeks ago, she pretty much ceased playing it, a quiet form of resistance to serving as fodder for my blog posts. Tonight, however, she was walking around the apartment after dinner with a piece of toilet paper in her hand, bending over and picking up imaginary objects from the ground, which she would then hold up and pronounce, "I got poop!"
Ha, ha, we chuckled to ourselves...parenting is all about teaching life skills, right?
A few minutes later, however, she actually held out for me a piece of toilet paper with a small piece of dog crap in it.
Ha, ha, we chuckled to ourselves...parenting is all about teaching life skills, right?
A few minutes later, however, she actually held out for me a piece of toilet paper with a small piece of dog crap in it.
Foundations of character
We had a pretty good, if not unexciting, weekend. On Saturday, Max (with Cathleen and Eliza) attended the 4th birthday party of his former classmate, Kika -- a completely mercenary act for Max; he had little interest in engaging with Kika or any of his friends from school last year, and basically put in the appearance in order to a) get cake, and b) get a goody bag (which was, for him, disappointingly short on candy). Cathleen, at least, had an enjoyable time reconnecting with some of the parents of the kids. On Sunday, after a morning excursion to Fairway, Max and I went out for a run in the afternoon while Eliza napped. He goaded me into making it a long-ish run (5.8 miles, as opposed to the standard 4.2), while also insisting that we stop along the way for him to get a bagel. He's one hell of a training coach. On Sunday night, Cathleen and I finished off Season 2 of The Wire....sooooo good.
The highlight of the weekend for me, however, occurred on Saturday evening, as we made our way to a dinner invite at the house of Max's friend, Henry, the only Rivendell classmate whom Max still sees for playdates, mostly because Cathleen and Henry's mom, Annabelle, developed a real friendship over the past year. Our families have gathered together a couple of times before, but I still can't remember their last name. On our way to their home, we stopped to acquire some accoutrements for the meal: Cathleen and Eliza went into Sip to get a bottle of wine, while Max and I went into the high-end bodega on the opposite corner to get some vanilla ice cream to have with the apple crisp we were making. We grabbed the ice cream and got on line at the register behind an older man who was carrying a boom box which was playing Elvis Presley. This struck me as a slightly unusual sight, and my eyes followed the man as he stepped out of line and promptly dropped his boom box on the floor, the CD popping out and the batteries splaying about. The man looked like he was bending over to pick everything up, but then it appeared to me that he was actually hunching over. I touched him and asked, "Papi, are you alright?" He swayed a little big, and staggered a step or two away from me. I could see now that he was drooling profusely, and I grabbed him with both arms to keep him from falling over -- a not easy task, as he was much larger than me. One of the guys working in the store brought over a stool, and I guided the guy onto the stool. Everyone else in the store seemed to be doing nothing, so I turned around towards the counter and said, "perhaps someone should call 911." The guy behind the counter said, "He'll be OK. This happens all the time." And sure enough, within moments the guy was standing back up and refocusing hiimself. I looked down at Max, and he looked pretty scared -- not terrified, but he had a very worried look on his face. Not only had events in the store been inherently scary for him, but I was intimately involved in those events, and not there for him to hold onto. I told him that everything was OK. He asked what had happened to that man, and the guy behind the counter explained that he has seizures all the time. Not a clear answer for Max, so I reduced it to, "the man was not feeling well, and needed help sitting down." I then paid for the ice cream, and we started to leave the store. Max then turned to me and quietly said, "I feel sorry for that man."
That was an incredibly powerful moment for me. Not the collapsing man -- I think I inherited this sort of "crisis cool" from my father (an EMT for many years), but dealing with that guy didn't phase me at all. What was powerful was hearing my little boy, overwhelmed by a scary and dramatic sequence of events, and in the immediate aftermath while he was sorting it out in his head, his honest and most pronounced reaction was one of compassion. It spoke volumes to me about his developing character, and I was proud beyond words.
The highlight of the weekend for me, however, occurred on Saturday evening, as we made our way to a dinner invite at the house of Max's friend, Henry, the only Rivendell classmate whom Max still sees for playdates, mostly because Cathleen and Henry's mom, Annabelle, developed a real friendship over the past year. Our families have gathered together a couple of times before, but I still can't remember their last name. On our way to their home, we stopped to acquire some accoutrements for the meal: Cathleen and Eliza went into Sip to get a bottle of wine, while Max and I went into the high-end bodega on the opposite corner to get some vanilla ice cream to have with the apple crisp we were making. We grabbed the ice cream and got on line at the register behind an older man who was carrying a boom box which was playing Elvis Presley. This struck me as a slightly unusual sight, and my eyes followed the man as he stepped out of line and promptly dropped his boom box on the floor, the CD popping out and the batteries splaying about. The man looked like he was bending over to pick everything up, but then it appeared to me that he was actually hunching over. I touched him and asked, "Papi, are you alright?" He swayed a little big, and staggered a step or two away from me. I could see now that he was drooling profusely, and I grabbed him with both arms to keep him from falling over -- a not easy task, as he was much larger than me. One of the guys working in the store brought over a stool, and I guided the guy onto the stool. Everyone else in the store seemed to be doing nothing, so I turned around towards the counter and said, "perhaps someone should call 911." The guy behind the counter said, "He'll be OK. This happens all the time." And sure enough, within moments the guy was standing back up and refocusing hiimself. I looked down at Max, and he looked pretty scared -- not terrified, but he had a very worried look on his face. Not only had events in the store been inherently scary for him, but I was intimately involved in those events, and not there for him to hold onto. I told him that everything was OK. He asked what had happened to that man, and the guy behind the counter explained that he has seizures all the time. Not a clear answer for Max, so I reduced it to, "the man was not feeling well, and needed help sitting down." I then paid for the ice cream, and we started to leave the store. Max then turned to me and quietly said, "I feel sorry for that man."
That was an incredibly powerful moment for me. Not the collapsing man -- I think I inherited this sort of "crisis cool" from my father (an EMT for many years), but dealing with that guy didn't phase me at all. What was powerful was hearing my little boy, overwhelmed by a scary and dramatic sequence of events, and in the immediate aftermath while he was sorting it out in his head, his honest and most pronounced reaction was one of compassion. It spoke volumes to me about his developing character, and I was proud beyond words.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Where the lights are shinin' on me
It occurred to me this evening, as I was singing Rhinestone Cowboy while doing the dishes, that it is probably the song that I've liked for the longest amount of time. My musical tastes, of course, have changed over time (oooh, did I actually once know the lyrics to not one but two REO Speedwagon songs?), and Glen Campbell would certainly not make it onto my list of "the five CDs I'd want with me were I stranded on a remote island," or even "the 62 CDs I'd want with me were I stranded on a remote island," but I really liked that song as a young kid, and I still like it.
And I'm not the least bit ashamed to say so.
Funny thing is, I barely know any of the lyrics, except the chorus. I should learn them.
If I ever make a feature-length film, the odds of which happening seem fairly remote, you can bet your money that "Rhinestone Cowboy" somehow makes it into the soundtrack.
And I'm not the least bit ashamed to say so.
Funny thing is, I barely know any of the lyrics, except the chorus. I should learn them.
If I ever make a feature-length film, the odds of which happening seem fairly remote, you can bet your money that "Rhinestone Cowboy" somehow makes it into the soundtrack.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Watching Athletes X 2
Sunday was Marathon Day in New York. I, of course, ran it last year (for the second time) and the fact that at this time last year I was in substantially better physical condition than I am now has not eluded me lately. When I've huffed and puffed through four mile runs in the past month, I've gently reminded myself that on the weekend before the marathon last year I *coasted* through a ten-mile "easy" run. Sigh.
In the spirit of pre-race carbo-loading, we went out for bagels early in the morning and by the time we returned home, Fourth Avenue was closed off. Just walking across the wide open boulevard of Fourth Avenue shot me right back to last year. I was immediately jealous of all 39,000 runners who were, at that time, still huddling in Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island.
Cathleen and Max took a bunch of baked goods over to a bake sale to raise funds for our Community Garden, and Eliza and I made it back out to the street by a little after 9:30, just in time to see the wheeled athletes coming by (the marathon runs right by the end of our block, just short of the eight-mile marker). If you can watch these folks in various forms of wheelchairs working it and not be incredibly moved, you just do not understand the human condition.
By a little after 10 we joined up with Sophie, Miriam and Rachel to wait for the elite runners. First came the elite women (Paula Radcliffe, 8 months post-partum!), and a half hour later a pack of elite male runners. If you watched the TV broadcast and froze the still frame of the elite men as they passed our block, and if you knew what clothing we were wearing and roughly how our bodies were positioned, you could see blurry little images of people that were definitely us. We were on TV! Gradually, pockets of fast runners gave way to thicker pockets of fast, but not as fast, runners, which gave way to hordes of average joes taking on a big challenge.
At eight miles, the runners are feeling really good. They've only been encountering a long stretch of thick, supportive and loud crowds for about a mile or two and so there is a newness and an excitement for them, and their bodies aren't even close to experiencing the pain that will be leveled upon them by the time they hit Mile 20. I tried to cheer for as many people individually as I could, based on names or other information written on their shirts. Each "Go Rick" cheer that I received when I ran the race lifted me greatly, and so I knew the mitzvah I doing. I did not anticipate the visceral reaction I would have watching the race -- I was completely in touch with the exhiliration that I had felt running it, and was almost completely overcome at moments. When it was time for Max and me to leave, I didn't want to go. But we had Jets tickets, ya know?
A coworker offered me the tickets for free late in the day on Thursday, and after confirming the weather forecast (sunny, high 50s), I jumped at the opportunity to go to a game with Max. He does not bother himself with the nuanced differences between football and baseball, but he has said to me for some time that he'd like to go to a Jets game with me. So we grabbed a few layers of clothing and headed for the subway to Port Authority. There, we boarded a bus for the Meadowlands. Max was very, very excited to be riding on a big bus. He had never done so before (beyond an MTA bus), and th experience was, apparently, significant. When we emerged from the Lincoln Tunnel, he asked if we were on a highway. When I confirmed that we were, he spurted, "I can't wait to tell Mommy that I rode a bus on the highway." I have got to get my kid out more.
Our seats were in the fifteenth row of the upper deck, right behind one of the endzones. We reached our seats just as Leon Washington was running the opening kickoff back for a TD. Sweet! The sun was shining, the view was great, the Jets were winning. Hell, even the Bud I was drinking seemed flavorful (that didn't last much beyond about five sips). Like baseball games, Max was not at all interested in what was going on in the game, but he really seems to like the stadium experience, particularly the consumptive part of it. Hot dog, hot chocolate, Cracker Jacks, soft pretzel, chocolate chip cookes. I spared no expense or trick in keeping him there for three straight hours. When the Jets sent the game into overtime with an end of regulation field goal, Max informed me, for not the first time, that he wanted to go home. Good parenting won out over devoted sports fan, and we left. This enabled me to a) keep him happy, b) beat out the crowds leaving the game, and c) miss the inevitable Jets loss.
It is almost embarrassing to me what pure joy I derive from attending sports events with my children. It is not just a simple matter of "I enjoy spending time with my kids." Duh, of course I do. But there is something else about being at the game with my boy, just looking over at him sitting next to me as I am shouting at the players or the refs, he enraptured at the raw density of his hot chocolate...I just cannot get enough of those moments. On the way home he told me the game was boring ("there's nothing there to do") and he ranked his favorite moments of the day as follows: "I liked the bus ride the best, then the marathon and Jets game."
In the spirit of pre-race carbo-loading, we went out for bagels early in the morning and by the time we returned home, Fourth Avenue was closed off. Just walking across the wide open boulevard of Fourth Avenue shot me right back to last year. I was immediately jealous of all 39,000 runners who were, at that time, still huddling in Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island.
Cathleen and Max took a bunch of baked goods over to a bake sale to raise funds for our Community Garden, and Eliza and I made it back out to the street by a little after 9:30, just in time to see the wheeled athletes coming by (the marathon runs right by the end of our block, just short of the eight-mile marker). If you can watch these folks in various forms of wheelchairs working it and not be incredibly moved, you just do not understand the human condition.
By a little after 10 we joined up with Sophie, Miriam and Rachel to wait for the elite runners. First came the elite women (Paula Radcliffe, 8 months post-partum!), and a half hour later a pack of elite male runners. If you watched the TV broadcast and froze the still frame of the elite men as they passed our block, and if you knew what clothing we were wearing and roughly how our bodies were positioned, you could see blurry little images of people that were definitely us. We were on TV! Gradually, pockets of fast runners gave way to thicker pockets of fast, but not as fast, runners, which gave way to hordes of average joes taking on a big challenge.
At eight miles, the runners are feeling really good. They've only been encountering a long stretch of thick, supportive and loud crowds for about a mile or two and so there is a newness and an excitement for them, and their bodies aren't even close to experiencing the pain that will be leveled upon them by the time they hit Mile 20. I tried to cheer for as many people individually as I could, based on names or other information written on their shirts. Each "Go Rick" cheer that I received when I ran the race lifted me greatly, and so I knew the mitzvah I doing. I did not anticipate the visceral reaction I would have watching the race -- I was completely in touch with the exhiliration that I had felt running it, and was almost completely overcome at moments. When it was time for Max and me to leave, I didn't want to go. But we had Jets tickets, ya know?
A coworker offered me the tickets for free late in the day on Thursday, and after confirming the weather forecast (sunny, high 50s), I jumped at the opportunity to go to a game with Max. He does not bother himself with the nuanced differences between football and baseball, but he has said to me for some time that he'd like to go to a Jets game with me. So we grabbed a few layers of clothing and headed for the subway to Port Authority. There, we boarded a bus for the Meadowlands. Max was very, very excited to be riding on a big bus. He had never done so before (beyond an MTA bus), and th experience was, apparently, significant. When we emerged from the Lincoln Tunnel, he asked if we were on a highway. When I confirmed that we were, he spurted, "I can't wait to tell Mommy that I rode a bus on the highway." I have got to get my kid out more.
Our seats were in the fifteenth row of the upper deck, right behind one of the endzones. We reached our seats just as Leon Washington was running the opening kickoff back for a TD. Sweet! The sun was shining, the view was great, the Jets were winning. Hell, even the Bud I was drinking seemed flavorful (that didn't last much beyond about five sips). Like baseball games, Max was not at all interested in what was going on in the game, but he really seems to like the stadium experience, particularly the consumptive part of it. Hot dog, hot chocolate, Cracker Jacks, soft pretzel, chocolate chip cookes. I spared no expense or trick in keeping him there for three straight hours. When the Jets sent the game into overtime with an end of regulation field goal, Max informed me, for not the first time, that he wanted to go home. Good parenting won out over devoted sports fan, and we left. This enabled me to a) keep him happy, b) beat out the crowds leaving the game, and c) miss the inevitable Jets loss.
It is almost embarrassing to me what pure joy I derive from attending sports events with my children. It is not just a simple matter of "I enjoy spending time with my kids." Duh, of course I do. But there is something else about being at the game with my boy, just looking over at him sitting next to me as I am shouting at the players or the refs, he enraptured at the raw density of his hot chocolate...I just cannot get enough of those moments. On the way home he told me the game was boring ("there's nothing there to do") and he ranked his favorite moments of the day as follows: "I liked the bus ride the best, then the marathon and Jets game."
Friday, November 2, 2007
Spectral Sugar High
It was Halloween a couple of nights ago, but I haven't had the chance to post anything about it. Until now. Boo.
Two years ago, when Max was two and a half years old (was he really that young so recently?), he was in the waning days of his ceiling fan obsession -- he'd recall the exact number of ceiling fans in homes he had visited once the prior year, and we'd have to stop in the fan section of Lowes on every trip there; the obsession died down when we moved to Brooklyn, into an apartment with four ceiling fans -- and so Cathleen figured she'd create a fan costume for him for Halloween. But when Max learned that his cousin Miriam was going as Batman, he wanted to go as Batman also. He had no idea what Batman was, but that didn't matter much to him. Cathleen wasn't ready to part with her ceiling fan vision, and so she created a brilliant Batfan costume for him. I can't describe it, but you've got to trust me that it was brilliant, and he loved it. Last year, Max was in direct touch with his obsession, and said he wanted to go as a TV. Cathleen made him a clever TV costume, and he was psyched.
This past year has all been about pirates for him (ask him to sing "The Pirate King" from Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance" for you), and so we naturally assumed he'd want to go as a pirate. Nope, wasn't the least bit interested. He wanted to dress up as...a whole musical band, and Eliza could be the singer. Cool idea, we thought; we could deck him out in several instruments, he'd have fun creating a ruckus, Eliza's inevitably derivative costume wouldn't be too demeaning for her. A week later he decided he wanted to be a fire-breathing dragon. Oy. That would require an effort, but we could have Eliza go as the marshmallow that he was toasting (not sure if that was his idea or Cathleen's). Mercifully, he moved on from that idea after a week, and finally settled on wanting to dress up as a ghost. My boy and his classic sensibilities. Cathleen. who normally reserves her well of creativity for her writing, started describing a semi-elaborate costume plan that involved flowing strips of white cloth and clear plastic and the like. I turned to Max and asked him what a ghost costume looked like. "You stick a towel over your head and cut out holes for eyes," he explained. Bingo. The kid had completely internalized "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." We decided that Eliza, too, would be a ghost, but given her legendary resistance to any form of restraint or cover, she'd be a ghost that resembled more of a cute little girl with a flowing white cape.
When it was time to don the costumes for trick-or-treating, Cathleen could not find the ghost cape she had sewn for Eliza, and so she quickly put together a new ghost costume for her, which basically left Eliza looking like she was dressed in a white potato sack toga. I left work early that day and met up with Cathleen and the kids on our block, where they had just begun there trick-or-treating. Max was in full costume for those five minutes, and then he decided that he was having too much trouble seeing out of his eye-holes; his costume morphed into the cute little boy ghost with a flowing white cape.
Sophie and Joseph, decked out in almost luminescent wigs, with Miriam (Supergirl!) and Rachel (Screw your costume fascism!) joined us for the long haul. Max began a little meltdown tantrum action, and I was naive enough to try to reason with him about what was irking him in life. Just when all looked lost, Cathleen dipped into his plastic trick-or-treat pumpkin bag and produced a lollipop for his consumption. Let the sugar begin!
Trick-or-treating in Brooklyn is a vastly different experience than doing so in Yorktown. Growing up in a 60-lot housing subdivision, we would go to every single house, ring the doorbell or knock on the door and acquire a haul of candy. Well, you didn't knock on the Gans' door because their son allegedly had committed suicide, and it was risky to go to the Kronen's house because Mrs. Kronen actually might have been a witch, but definitely go to the Fatigates because they have money and no doubt will give big candy. In Brooklyn, you only go to the houses where people are sitting outside on their stoop with a bowl of candy. No knocking on doors or ringing doorbells; it's simply approaching people who are already out there, hoping to be approached. It simplifies the transaction and reduces everyone's anxiety, and allows you to measure a block's worth by the number of stoop-sitting candy providers (our block, for those keeping score at home, sucks).
We trick-or-treated down Dean Street in Boerum Hill (including along the block featured in Jonathan Lethem's "The Fortress of Solitude"), down to Hoyt Street. I was carrying Eliza pretty much the entire way, as she got her money's worth out of a sticky pink lollipop, and as we walked down Hoyt we fell behind the rest of our crew who had crossed the middle of the street to gain access to the only candy available on the block. By the time we caught up, I found the kids receiving candy from Hope Davis. Hope Davis! I've always loved her in all of those movies that I can't remember that she was in, though I do remember seeing her act live in a production of Tennessee Williams' "Camino Real" at the Williamstown Theater Festival almost a decade ago. And here she was, having beckoned us to come across the street to her home, chatting up Sophie and Joseph to the point that I quietly asked myself, "Sophie and Joseph know Hope Davis?" She was crazy friendly, and as pretty as you'd expect. Brooklyn, folks, Brooklyn. Take that, Hollywood.
We completed our candy gathering tour up Wyckoff to St. Marks. Eliza wanted to walk a lot of the way home, she being so jacked up on tootsie rolls and lollipops that she was running and levitating at times. We returned to our stoop, met up with Claudia, brought out our building's five jack-o-lanterns and began distributing candy to costumed passersby. Max, at first, balked at the notion that we would actually give away candy, but then he got into the routine, alternating ingestion with dissemination. Miriam was really into giving out the candy, and ultimately who held the candy bowl became a power struggle. By 7:30 we decided that we had set back our children's nutritional development sufficiently, and we took them inside to get ready for bed. Crash! That was the sound of Max's blood sugar, followed by his inability to cope with the world (after his stories were over, he cried that he hadn't seen me tuck him in, and twice cried that he hadn't seen me turn out the lights).
After dining on some Cathleen-made pumpkin soup, we watched some TV and called it a night.
Two years ago, when Max was two and a half years old (was he really that young so recently?), he was in the waning days of his ceiling fan obsession -- he'd recall the exact number of ceiling fans in homes he had visited once the prior year, and we'd have to stop in the fan section of Lowes on every trip there; the obsession died down when we moved to Brooklyn, into an apartment with four ceiling fans -- and so Cathleen figured she'd create a fan costume for him for Halloween. But when Max learned that his cousin Miriam was going as Batman, he wanted to go as Batman also. He had no idea what Batman was, but that didn't matter much to him. Cathleen wasn't ready to part with her ceiling fan vision, and so she created a brilliant Batfan costume for him. I can't describe it, but you've got to trust me that it was brilliant, and he loved it. Last year, Max was in direct touch with his obsession, and said he wanted to go as a TV. Cathleen made him a clever TV costume, and he was psyched.
This past year has all been about pirates for him (ask him to sing "The Pirate King" from Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance" for you), and so we naturally assumed he'd want to go as a pirate. Nope, wasn't the least bit interested. He wanted to dress up as...a whole musical band, and Eliza could be the singer. Cool idea, we thought; we could deck him out in several instruments, he'd have fun creating a ruckus, Eliza's inevitably derivative costume wouldn't be too demeaning for her. A week later he decided he wanted to be a fire-breathing dragon. Oy. That would require an effort, but we could have Eliza go as the marshmallow that he was toasting (not sure if that was his idea or Cathleen's). Mercifully, he moved on from that idea after a week, and finally settled on wanting to dress up as a ghost. My boy and his classic sensibilities. Cathleen. who normally reserves her well of creativity for her writing, started describing a semi-elaborate costume plan that involved flowing strips of white cloth and clear plastic and the like. I turned to Max and asked him what a ghost costume looked like. "You stick a towel over your head and cut out holes for eyes," he explained. Bingo. The kid had completely internalized "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." We decided that Eliza, too, would be a ghost, but given her legendary resistance to any form of restraint or cover, she'd be a ghost that resembled more of a cute little girl with a flowing white cape.
When it was time to don the costumes for trick-or-treating, Cathleen could not find the ghost cape she had sewn for Eliza, and so she quickly put together a new ghost costume for her, which basically left Eliza looking like she was dressed in a white potato sack toga. I left work early that day and met up with Cathleen and the kids on our block, where they had just begun there trick-or-treating. Max was in full costume for those five minutes, and then he decided that he was having too much trouble seeing out of his eye-holes; his costume morphed into the cute little boy ghost with a flowing white cape.
Sophie and Joseph, decked out in almost luminescent wigs, with Miriam (Supergirl!) and Rachel (Screw your costume fascism!) joined us for the long haul. Max began a little meltdown tantrum action, and I was naive enough to try to reason with him about what was irking him in life. Just when all looked lost, Cathleen dipped into his plastic trick-or-treat pumpkin bag and produced a lollipop for his consumption. Let the sugar begin!
Trick-or-treating in Brooklyn is a vastly different experience than doing so in Yorktown. Growing up in a 60-lot housing subdivision, we would go to every single house, ring the doorbell or knock on the door and acquire a haul of candy. Well, you didn't knock on the Gans' door because their son allegedly had committed suicide, and it was risky to go to the Kronen's house because Mrs. Kronen actually might have been a witch, but definitely go to the Fatigates because they have money and no doubt will give big candy. In Brooklyn, you only go to the houses where people are sitting outside on their stoop with a bowl of candy. No knocking on doors or ringing doorbells; it's simply approaching people who are already out there, hoping to be approached. It simplifies the transaction and reduces everyone's anxiety, and allows you to measure a block's worth by the number of stoop-sitting candy providers (our block, for those keeping score at home, sucks).
We trick-or-treated down Dean Street in Boerum Hill (including along the block featured in Jonathan Lethem's "The Fortress of Solitude"), down to Hoyt Street. I was carrying Eliza pretty much the entire way, as she got her money's worth out of a sticky pink lollipop, and as we walked down Hoyt we fell behind the rest of our crew who had crossed the middle of the street to gain access to the only candy available on the block. By the time we caught up, I found the kids receiving candy from Hope Davis. Hope Davis! I've always loved her in all of those movies that I can't remember that she was in, though I do remember seeing her act live in a production of Tennessee Williams' "Camino Real" at the Williamstown Theater Festival almost a decade ago. And here she was, having beckoned us to come across the street to her home, chatting up Sophie and Joseph to the point that I quietly asked myself, "Sophie and Joseph know Hope Davis?" She was crazy friendly, and as pretty as you'd expect. Brooklyn, folks, Brooklyn. Take that, Hollywood.
We completed our candy gathering tour up Wyckoff to St. Marks. Eliza wanted to walk a lot of the way home, she being so jacked up on tootsie rolls and lollipops that she was running and levitating at times. We returned to our stoop, met up with Claudia, brought out our building's five jack-o-lanterns and began distributing candy to costumed passersby. Max, at first, balked at the notion that we would actually give away candy, but then he got into the routine, alternating ingestion with dissemination. Miriam was really into giving out the candy, and ultimately who held the candy bowl became a power struggle. By 7:30 we decided that we had set back our children's nutritional development sufficiently, and we took them inside to get ready for bed. Crash! That was the sound of Max's blood sugar, followed by his inability to cope with the world (after his stories were over, he cried that he hadn't seen me tuck him in, and twice cried that he hadn't seen me turn out the lights).
After dining on some Cathleen-made pumpkin soup, we watched some TV and called it a night.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
He just might be a prophet
Crazy man on the N train on the ride home tonight, preaching up a storm about 1000 years of damnation in hell and other good stuff. I couldn't hear him too clearly - he was at the other end of the subway car, and he had a reasonably thick accent -- but the buzzwords were adequately punctuated so that I could get the gist. I seem to be seeing/hearing a lot more of these folks lately; not sure if it's me, them or the times. I recall walking past a short, stout woman in the Atlantic Ave station a few weeks ago, she belting out a whole lot of religion. "I bet," I remember thinking at the time, "that she'd be a feisty dance partner."
In college, I sort of minored in Religion. Well, we didn't have "minors," but I took enough Religion courses such that if we did, I'd have minored in it. I took two or three courses at Bryn Mawr with this amazing professor named Sam Lachs. He was a professor and an ordained rabbi, and looked a little bit like what you might imagine God might look like (full gray beard, face wreaking of wisdom). And he had a wickedly sharp mind: he'd lecture for three straight hours without a single note or reference in front of him. He'd mix in Letterman references with scriptural analysis, with a booming yet melodic voice that you never really tired of. He retired after my senior year because he found himself having to pause to think of the next word he wanted to use, and that was his sign to himself that it was time to call it quits.
I will never forget Sam Lachs' lecture on the Book of Amos. Ever read it? Amos was a minor prophet whose "book" in the Old Testament is a rant against the sins of Judea. I read it before the assigned class, and found it to be an archaically-worded sermon, as boring as any my own rabbi had delivered at a drawn-out religious service. Then I got to class, and an animated Sam Lachs set the stage...Amos is working the crowd, railing on Damascus for its wicked ways, then Gaza, the Ammonites, and so on, describing the punishment that God has coming for those sinners. The Jews are buying in, nodding their heads, maybe shouting a few "Amens" in agreement...those nasty Ammonites, they've got it coming. After a few rounds of this, when he completely has their attention and support, Amos zings them with a shot to the gut: "For three transgessions of Judah..." and then "For three transgressions of Israel..." What? What did he say? Is Amos coming after us? And Amos takes it from there, and delivers the big warning: shape up, bad Jews, or it is going to get ugly.
It was some of the best theater I had in all of college. Sam Lachs was some good professoring.
The thing about Amos the prophet, like all prophets, is that he likely looked and sounded like every other crazy man ranting on a hillside. You were never unkind to a crazy man ranting, Sam Lachs explained, because he might be a crazy man, or he just might be a prophet.
In college, I sort of minored in Religion. Well, we didn't have "minors," but I took enough Religion courses such that if we did, I'd have minored in it. I took two or three courses at Bryn Mawr with this amazing professor named Sam Lachs. He was a professor and an ordained rabbi, and looked a little bit like what you might imagine God might look like (full gray beard, face wreaking of wisdom). And he had a wickedly sharp mind: he'd lecture for three straight hours without a single note or reference in front of him. He'd mix in Letterman references with scriptural analysis, with a booming yet melodic voice that you never really tired of. He retired after my senior year because he found himself having to pause to think of the next word he wanted to use, and that was his sign to himself that it was time to call it quits.
I will never forget Sam Lachs' lecture on the Book of Amos. Ever read it? Amos was a minor prophet whose "book" in the Old Testament is a rant against the sins of Judea. I read it before the assigned class, and found it to be an archaically-worded sermon, as boring as any my own rabbi had delivered at a drawn-out religious service. Then I got to class, and an animated Sam Lachs set the stage...Amos is working the crowd, railing on Damascus for its wicked ways, then Gaza, the Ammonites, and so on, describing the punishment that God has coming for those sinners. The Jews are buying in, nodding their heads, maybe shouting a few "Amens" in agreement...those nasty Ammonites, they've got it coming. After a few rounds of this, when he completely has their attention and support, Amos zings them with a shot to the gut: "For three transgessions of Judah..." and then "For three transgressions of Israel..." What? What did he say? Is Amos coming after us? And Amos takes it from there, and delivers the big warning: shape up, bad Jews, or it is going to get ugly.
It was some of the best theater I had in all of college. Sam Lachs was some good professoring.
The thing about Amos the prophet, like all prophets, is that he likely looked and sounded like every other crazy man ranting on a hillside. You were never unkind to a crazy man ranting, Sam Lachs explained, because he might be a crazy man, or he just might be a prophet.
Clothesline Project
Monday was the twice-postponed-for-rain Second Day of BAS' Traveling Clothesline Project. This is an "event" that we hold every year during Domestic Violence Awareness Month (October). We string rope up between trees, poles in a public setting and we ask passersby to stop and write or draw some anti-domestic violence thoughts on a tee-shirt (we provide the shirts and the markers), and then we hang the shirts on the lines. The more shirts that go up, the more folks become interested, and it feeds on itself. The idea is to enable folks to air their dirty laundry, and to make public what was once considered a private issue.
On the 18th we ran the project in the Monsignor Del Valle Plaza, outside our Southern Boulevard office (at the juncture of Southern Boulevard, Hunts Point Ave and 163rd Street) and yesterday we ran it at Fordham Plaza (Third Ave and East Fordham Road). We hung 161 shirts the first day, and another 269 yesterday. Some of the shirts bore simple messages ("Stop the violence"), others included elaborate messages to former abusers. Some were in Spanish, some advised a turn towards Jesus, some had pictures or poems. It is powerful stuff to see a collaborative project like this, collaborated on by complete strangers who happen to be walking through a public plaza but who are interested in taking five or ten minutes to make a statement against domestic violence.
After seven years of watching DV survivors come through our office, seeking legal assistance, the cases still make me cringe. You just cannot get into the head of a DV survivor to understand why she (most often she) is where she is. This week's "case that defies the imagination": our client "Sue." She first came to us two years ago, pregnant with her second child, and tired of being beat on by her boyfriend. She was in our office every day for weeks, but ultimately decided not to follow through with the Order of Protection we helped her obtain. And then we didn't see her again until about six weeks ago. Still with the same abuser, and he had now moved several of his family members into their apartment, and they had locked Sue out of the apartment, depriving her not only of shelter, but of access to her kids, her HIV meds, and her psych meds (she is bipolar). We helped get her back into the apartment (which involved getting the family out), and she and boyfriend "came to an understanding," until he continued to withhold her psych meds, and then had her hospitalized when she inevitably had a psychotic episode. He then moved out, took the kids with him, and has now filed for an Order of Protection against her (a bullying tactic to keep the kids away from her). We're probably going to help her defend against the Order of Protection and fight for custody, but ACS might also have filed a neglect petition against her? Unclear as of right now.
You just can't make enough tee-shirts to deal with this kind of shit.
On the 18th we ran the project in the Monsignor Del Valle Plaza, outside our Southern Boulevard office (at the juncture of Southern Boulevard, Hunts Point Ave and 163rd Street) and yesterday we ran it at Fordham Plaza (Third Ave and East Fordham Road). We hung 161 shirts the first day, and another 269 yesterday. Some of the shirts bore simple messages ("Stop the violence"), others included elaborate messages to former abusers. Some were in Spanish, some advised a turn towards Jesus, some had pictures or poems. It is powerful stuff to see a collaborative project like this, collaborated on by complete strangers who happen to be walking through a public plaza but who are interested in taking five or ten minutes to make a statement against domestic violence.
After seven years of watching DV survivors come through our office, seeking legal assistance, the cases still make me cringe. You just cannot get into the head of a DV survivor to understand why she (most often she) is where she is. This week's "case that defies the imagination": our client "Sue." She first came to us two years ago, pregnant with her second child, and tired of being beat on by her boyfriend. She was in our office every day for weeks, but ultimately decided not to follow through with the Order of Protection we helped her obtain. And then we didn't see her again until about six weeks ago. Still with the same abuser, and he had now moved several of his family members into their apartment, and they had locked Sue out of the apartment, depriving her not only of shelter, but of access to her kids, her HIV meds, and her psych meds (she is bipolar). We helped get her back into the apartment (which involved getting the family out), and she and boyfriend "came to an understanding," until he continued to withhold her psych meds, and then had her hospitalized when she inevitably had a psychotic episode. He then moved out, took the kids with him, and has now filed for an Order of Protection against her (a bullying tactic to keep the kids away from her). We're probably going to help her defend against the Order of Protection and fight for custody, but ACS might also have filed a neglect petition against her? Unclear as of right now.
You just can't make enough tee-shirts to deal with this kind of shit.
Friday, October 26, 2007
It's not about me, after all
For the second time in about a week, someone connected to Cathleen but not in daily contact with her, while searching for news of her or her book, came across my blog. Turns out that if you Google "Cathleen Bell," this simple but honest little blog comes up as the seventh result listed out of 365,000 results. If you Google "Cathleen Davitt Bell," my blog comes up as the third result (out of 568). The first result there, of course, is cathleendavittbell.com, the spectacularly template-ish and pachydermy website I "created" for Cathleen as a Mother's Day gift this past year.
What will happen, one wonders, if Cathleen's book does well, and young, impressionable kids start Googling her name, looking for information about their new favorite author? They'll find this blog. My visitors counter would skyrocket.
As I sit here in the nude, clubbing baby seals and listening to iTunes songs with explicit lyrics, I am humbled by that prospect.
What will happen, one wonders, if Cathleen's book does well, and young, impressionable kids start Googling her name, looking for information about their new favorite author? They'll find this blog. My visitors counter would skyrocket.
As I sit here in the nude, clubbing baby seals and listening to iTunes songs with explicit lyrics, I am humbled by that prospect.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Natties
Today was the first day of the UPA Championships in Sarasota, FL. I have several friends playing across all four divisions (Open, Womens, Mixed, Masters) and today they collectively went 1-11. Wow, I think I need new friends. Hopefully they'll have better second days.
I went to Club Nationals once, in 2001, with a Mixed (coed) team called Tattoo Hottie. It was just after 9/11, and we were riding some sort of a bizarre NYC survivors high. One of our players literally had sprinted from his worksite around the WTC as one of the towers fell; he happened to have his camera with him that day in an effort to document why he didn't deserve a parking ticket, and so he has these amazing shots of the tower collapse that he took as he ran away from it. He would give these pep talks in team huddles, urging us to play our hearts out because you literally did not know what life had in store for you tomorrow. It sort of motivated us. I mean, I could laugh ironically at the hubris of it all, and yet I also took it to heart. We wore FDNY shirts and made ourselves the loudest team on the field, and we swept through sectionals and regionals without a loss. At Nationals we won our first two games by relatively commanding leads, and then we proceeded to lose seven in a row. I was injured in the finals at Regionals (bruised rib) and saw limited playing time at Nationals (though I deserved to get more PT, right?), but I'll never forget the feeling of being there, on what for the tiny world of ultimate frisbee is "the big stage." When I got a sweet, but meaningless, diving block in our penultimate game, our captain said to me, "you can tell your grandkids some day that you got a big diving block at Nationals." Well, no, I won't, but I still remember that block pretty darn clearly. The game has evolved dramatically in six years, and the teams are much more athletic and well-balanced now, and I doubt -- hell, I know -- that the 2001 Tattoo Hottie would not stand a chance these days.
But damn, I wish I were playing disc right now.
I went to Club Nationals once, in 2001, with a Mixed (coed) team called Tattoo Hottie. It was just after 9/11, and we were riding some sort of a bizarre NYC survivors high. One of our players literally had sprinted from his worksite around the WTC as one of the towers fell; he happened to have his camera with him that day in an effort to document why he didn't deserve a parking ticket, and so he has these amazing shots of the tower collapse that he took as he ran away from it. He would give these pep talks in team huddles, urging us to play our hearts out because you literally did not know what life had in store for you tomorrow. It sort of motivated us. I mean, I could laugh ironically at the hubris of it all, and yet I also took it to heart. We wore FDNY shirts and made ourselves the loudest team on the field, and we swept through sectionals and regionals without a loss. At Nationals we won our first two games by relatively commanding leads, and then we proceeded to lose seven in a row. I was injured in the finals at Regionals (bruised rib) and saw limited playing time at Nationals (though I deserved to get more PT, right?), but I'll never forget the feeling of being there, on what for the tiny world of ultimate frisbee is "the big stage." When I got a sweet, but meaningless, diving block in our penultimate game, our captain said to me, "you can tell your grandkids some day that you got a big diving block at Nationals." Well, no, I won't, but I still remember that block pretty darn clearly. The game has evolved dramatically in six years, and the teams are much more athletic and well-balanced now, and I doubt -- hell, I know -- that the 2001 Tattoo Hottie would not stand a chance these days.
But damn, I wish I were playing disc right now.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Keep Chopping Wood
We spent the weekend in Bloomfield, CT, at Claudia and Walter's house. It is a 19th-century farmhouse (circa 1875, I believe), down the street from where Claudia lived as a little girl (and where Claudia's father also grew up). It is a very rural area, though in the past decade it has started to succumb to a lot of new development. Claudia and Walter have about six acres of mostly-wooded property that abuts a state park, so unless you venture out to the street, you still feel like you're in the country.
We drove up Friday night. Both kids fell asleep in the car, but Max woke up upon arrival at the house at 10:30, and he didn't fall asleep for another two hours. Claudia got Eliza when she woke up at just after 6, so the rest of us could sleep in. Eliza, apparently, spent the morning praising Claudia and Walter's German Shepherd, Tatum: "Booboy, Tatum." She, of course, spent the rest of the weekend terrified to be on the same floor as Tatum, and needed to be picked up if he was visibly within the house.
I went on a 4.5 mile run in the morning. I love the run up there in cooler weather because so many people have wood-burning stoves or fireplaces; you run along in the cool, crisp air with the distinct smell of firewood smoke mixing in. While I showered and ate breakfast, Cathleen, Claudia, the kids and the dogs went for a little hike through some surrounding meadows. We then hung out, had some lunch, played some more, and then Eliza went down for her nap.
I then set about splitting wood. My subject heading, of course, refers to Jacksonville Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio, and his backfired motivational ploy in 2003. I was not actually chopping wood, as I was splitting it, using Walter's wood splitting machine: you lay a log down on the machine, and it slowly pushes the log against a stationary blade which eventually splits the log along the grain. It is far less effort than weilding an axe, and you can split about five times as much wood in equal time. I worked for over an hour and, despite the machine's efficacy, I worked up a real sweat. Max hung out with me for the first 20 minutes, wearing an oversized pair of ear-protecetors (the machine is rather loud) and sucking his thumb while sitting on a big log next to the machine. Finally he told me he was going inside.
After Eliza's nap was over, we drove to Gramby to pick apples at a local orchard. We picked Cameos and Jonagolds, but for some reason none of the apples were particularly sweet. I think this is because there hasn't been a frost yet, which for some reason is needed for the sugars to come out. Nevertheless, we took home a full bushel, and we pounded some yummy cider donuts before hitting the road. Kick-ass grilled steak dinner, with roasted potatoes, creamed spinach and broccoli. That meal and the wood splitting made me feel rather testosteronic, which was nicely offset by the fruit-gathering interlude in the mid-afternoon.
During the night Max woke up with a croupy-cough. I took him into the bathroom and sat with him during a steam bath. As his throat cleared, he was suddenly all a chatter, and I was like, dude, its 3 am and I'm sweating like a fat man at the local sauna, please give me a break. There is something about bathrooms that brings out the contemplative side of Max. He'll sit on the can at bedtime and begin to engage you in these deep, thoughtful discussions about life, or death, his plans, his friendships, his ideas for the world. He stops making corny jokes, or interjecting the word poopy into every sentence (ironic, no?), and he even gets a little serious look on his face. I absolutely love those discussions (but for the inevitable odors that accompany), but at 3 am, in the moist heat no less, even I have little capacity to appreciate my child on that level.
On Sunday Mike and T and their kids drove down to spend the day with us. We brunched outside in the glorious sunshine (mid-70s on October 21st!), and then set off for a hike through the State Park up to the not-really-a-tower Fire Tower. We put Eliza in a kiddy-backpack that Mike and T had borrowed from neighbors. It sucked, and by the time we made it up the mountain my body was killing me. The one that we own (an expensive model that old neighbors gave to us, having never used it themselves) is so much better, I will never leave it at home again, even when my kids are full grown. The view at the top of the hike was gorgeous -- lots of trees beginning to turn color, the town of Simsbury (where we were married!). I am never going on a hike with my nephew Jacob again, unless it is at sea level. The kid has no fear whatsoever, and he was not only walking along the edge of cliffs, but jumping from one cragged rock to another. Had we spent another five minutes at the top of that mountain, it would have been a race to see who died first: he from a disastrous fall, or me from a heart attack.
Before and after the hike, all five kids played together around Claudia and Walter's barn, far away from where the adults were hanging out. When Claudia went over to check on them at one point, Eliza proudly proclaimed "I playing!" Playing with the big kids; how cool is that? When they packed into their minivan to go home, a very tired Max burst into tears, explaining that he wanted them to come back so that he could play with Jacob, Ryan and Kelsey some more. I felt sorry for him, but those kind of tears make you feel good, to know that your kid loves his cousins.
We drove up Friday night. Both kids fell asleep in the car, but Max woke up upon arrival at the house at 10:30, and he didn't fall asleep for another two hours. Claudia got Eliza when she woke up at just after 6, so the rest of us could sleep in. Eliza, apparently, spent the morning praising Claudia and Walter's German Shepherd, Tatum: "Booboy, Tatum." She, of course, spent the rest of the weekend terrified to be on the same floor as Tatum, and needed to be picked up if he was visibly within the house.
I went on a 4.5 mile run in the morning. I love the run up there in cooler weather because so many people have wood-burning stoves or fireplaces; you run along in the cool, crisp air with the distinct smell of firewood smoke mixing in. While I showered and ate breakfast, Cathleen, Claudia, the kids and the dogs went for a little hike through some surrounding meadows. We then hung out, had some lunch, played some more, and then Eliza went down for her nap.
I then set about splitting wood. My subject heading, of course, refers to Jacksonville Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio, and his backfired motivational ploy in 2003. I was not actually chopping wood, as I was splitting it, using Walter's wood splitting machine: you lay a log down on the machine, and it slowly pushes the log against a stationary blade which eventually splits the log along the grain. It is far less effort than weilding an axe, and you can split about five times as much wood in equal time. I worked for over an hour and, despite the machine's efficacy, I worked up a real sweat. Max hung out with me for the first 20 minutes, wearing an oversized pair of ear-protecetors (the machine is rather loud) and sucking his thumb while sitting on a big log next to the machine. Finally he told me he was going inside.
After Eliza's nap was over, we drove to Gramby to pick apples at a local orchard. We picked Cameos and Jonagolds, but for some reason none of the apples were particularly sweet. I think this is because there hasn't been a frost yet, which for some reason is needed for the sugars to come out. Nevertheless, we took home a full bushel, and we pounded some yummy cider donuts before hitting the road. Kick-ass grilled steak dinner, with roasted potatoes, creamed spinach and broccoli. That meal and the wood splitting made me feel rather testosteronic, which was nicely offset by the fruit-gathering interlude in the mid-afternoon.
During the night Max woke up with a croupy-cough. I took him into the bathroom and sat with him during a steam bath. As his throat cleared, he was suddenly all a chatter, and I was like, dude, its 3 am and I'm sweating like a fat man at the local sauna, please give me a break. There is something about bathrooms that brings out the contemplative side of Max. He'll sit on the can at bedtime and begin to engage you in these deep, thoughtful discussions about life, or death, his plans, his friendships, his ideas for the world. He stops making corny jokes, or interjecting the word poopy into every sentence (ironic, no?), and he even gets a little serious look on his face. I absolutely love those discussions (but for the inevitable odors that accompany), but at 3 am, in the moist heat no less, even I have little capacity to appreciate my child on that level.
On Sunday Mike and T and their kids drove down to spend the day with us. We brunched outside in the glorious sunshine (mid-70s on October 21st!), and then set off for a hike through the State Park up to the not-really-a-tower Fire Tower. We put Eliza in a kiddy-backpack that Mike and T had borrowed from neighbors. It sucked, and by the time we made it up the mountain my body was killing me. The one that we own (an expensive model that old neighbors gave to us, having never used it themselves) is so much better, I will never leave it at home again, even when my kids are full grown. The view at the top of the hike was gorgeous -- lots of trees beginning to turn color, the town of Simsbury (where we were married!). I am never going on a hike with my nephew Jacob again, unless it is at sea level. The kid has no fear whatsoever, and he was not only walking along the edge of cliffs, but jumping from one cragged rock to another. Had we spent another five minutes at the top of that mountain, it would have been a race to see who died first: he from a disastrous fall, or me from a heart attack.
Before and after the hike, all five kids played together around Claudia and Walter's barn, far away from where the adults were hanging out. When Claudia went over to check on them at one point, Eliza proudly proclaimed "I playing!" Playing with the big kids; how cool is that? When they packed into their minivan to go home, a very tired Max burst into tears, explaining that he wanted them to come back so that he could play with Jacob, Ryan and Kelsey some more. I felt sorry for him, but those kind of tears make you feel good, to know that your kid loves his cousins.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Eliza's new game
She walks around the apartment, declaring in a concerned and whistleblowing tone, "Oscar pooped!"
Oscar is one of our two not-quite-completely-housebroken miniature dachshunds.
When you point out to Eliza that, no, on this rare occasion Oscar has not actually soiled an area of the apartment, she walks over to a new area to announce that "Oscar pooped!" This goes on and on. This afternoon she was making false exclamations in her room, in the bathroom, in our bedroom, even under the bar in the livingroom. Each declaration as convincing as the last.
This game, I trust, is not played in many other households?
Oscar is one of our two not-quite-completely-housebroken miniature dachshunds.
When you point out to Eliza that, no, on this rare occasion Oscar has not actually soiled an area of the apartment, she walks over to a new area to announce that "Oscar pooped!" This goes on and on. This afternoon she was making false exclamations in her room, in the bathroom, in our bedroom, even under the bar in the livingroom. Each declaration as convincing as the last.
This game, I trust, is not played in many other households?
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Roll me in designer sheets
With covers on my mind, and with Deborah Harry releasing a new album, I harken back to the lyrics from Blondie's "Call Me" ("Cover me with kisses baby, cover me with love").
Tonight, Cathleen's editor emailed her the cover design for her book. It is quite beautiful -- a deep blue water background with a boy seemingly floating/drowning/slipping in it. The title letters are in bold white at the bottom, but appear to be fading (or slipping) away. My eyes, however, were completely drawn to the letters at the top of the cover -- cathleen davitt bell, in the same bold white. Hey, I know that name. Cathleen was so pleased with the design, she was simply beaming...it is so refreshing to see her enjoying this process after having seen her deal with the self-doubt and struggle of the unpublished life.
I had no idea what to expect of the cover because, as I have long known, I have very little in the way of aesthetic vision, if any aesthetic sense at all. At work right now I am spending considerable time on creating a new brochure for our program and I am completely dependent on our development director and my staff for the brochure's actual look. Cathleen pretty much wanted to pull her hair out two years ago when we were trying to design our apartment because I had so little ability to not only visualize possibilities, but to even understand ideas that she was describing to me. Luckily, I can make a pretty good omelet and throw a frisbee pretty far, or I'd have almost no measurable utility in this world. Thus, up until tonight, every time I'd try to imagine what her cover might look like, I'd see nothing more than a Harry Potter book with her name on top. It is so unbelievably cool to finally see what the book is (most likely) going to look like. It makes the whole thing that much more real.
Tonight, Cathleen's editor emailed her the cover design for her book. It is quite beautiful -- a deep blue water background with a boy seemingly floating/drowning/slipping in it. The title letters are in bold white at the bottom, but appear to be fading (or slipping) away. My eyes, however, were completely drawn to the letters at the top of the cover -- cathleen davitt bell, in the same bold white. Hey, I know that name. Cathleen was so pleased with the design, she was simply beaming...it is so refreshing to see her enjoying this process after having seen her deal with the self-doubt and struggle of the unpublished life.
I had no idea what to expect of the cover because, as I have long known, I have very little in the way of aesthetic vision, if any aesthetic sense at all. At work right now I am spending considerable time on creating a new brochure for our program and I am completely dependent on our development director and my staff for the brochure's actual look. Cathleen pretty much wanted to pull her hair out two years ago when we were trying to design our apartment because I had so little ability to not only visualize possibilities, but to even understand ideas that she was describing to me. Luckily, I can make a pretty good omelet and throw a frisbee pretty far, or I'd have almost no measurable utility in this world. Thus, up until tonight, every time I'd try to imagine what her cover might look like, I'd see nothing more than a Harry Potter book with her name on top. It is so unbelievably cool to finally see what the book is (most likely) going to look like. It makes the whole thing that much more real.
Slambin'!
I love it when a social event creeps up on me unexpectedly, in the middle of the week, no less.
Sam Bell is Cathleen's cousin. Next week is Sam Bell's 38th birthday. Tomorrow Sam starts his new job at Spot Runner, a new-media advertising company. Last night Sam wanted to celebrate his birthday. Last week he emailed friends and family about gathering for a dinner at a restaurant in Brooklyn Heights. I had planned to stay home with the kids while Cathleen went to the dinner, but when Claudia appeared at the house to stay over for the night (like she does pretty much every Tuesday and Wednesday), we handed her the babysitting reins and Cathleen and I took off for the Heights.
At 8 pm we met up with her other cousin, Madeline, outside the restaurant, on Atlantic Avenue, and we then headed across the street to the Waterfront Ale House for pre-dinner drinks with Sam, Crazy Uncle Frank and Linda, and some of Sam's friends. At around 8:45 the fifteen of us headed back across the street (well, down a block if we're to be honest) to the Yemen Cafe and Restaurant.
Sam had pre-arranged dinner: we were having the lamb. Not "a lamb dish" or "the lamb dish," but the lamb, as in the entire lamb. We were first served a soup -- a lamb consomme which was outrageously flavorful. This was accompanied by plates and plates of flatbread, a few platters of hummus/beans/babaghanoush, and then salad. Just when you were wondering if you were getting too full, they plopped down four humungous platters of roasted lamb parts on the table. A single lamb, it turns out, makes a lot of lamb. We gorged ourselves, and there was enough left over for pretty much everyone to take home a substantial lambie bag of food. Then came dessert -- pieces of the flatbread soaked in honey and sprinkled with nuts. The place needs to get a liquor license, because we could have used a few bottles of red to go along with the eats, but that was one hell of a meal. And had Frank not generously treated everyone, it still would not have been an expensive meal for anyone.
Cathleen and I walked back home, arriving at 10:45. On a school night. We crazy.
Sam Bell is Cathleen's cousin. Next week is Sam Bell's 38th birthday. Tomorrow Sam starts his new job at Spot Runner, a new-media advertising company. Last night Sam wanted to celebrate his birthday. Last week he emailed friends and family about gathering for a dinner at a restaurant in Brooklyn Heights. I had planned to stay home with the kids while Cathleen went to the dinner, but when Claudia appeared at the house to stay over for the night (like she does pretty much every Tuesday and Wednesday), we handed her the babysitting reins and Cathleen and I took off for the Heights.
At 8 pm we met up with her other cousin, Madeline, outside the restaurant, on Atlantic Avenue, and we then headed across the street to the Waterfront Ale House for pre-dinner drinks with Sam, Crazy Uncle Frank and Linda, and some of Sam's friends. At around 8:45 the fifteen of us headed back across the street (well, down a block if we're to be honest) to the Yemen Cafe and Restaurant.
Sam had pre-arranged dinner: we were having the lamb. Not "a lamb dish" or "the lamb dish," but the lamb, as in the entire lamb. We were first served a soup -- a lamb consomme which was outrageously flavorful. This was accompanied by plates and plates of flatbread, a few platters of hummus/beans/babaghanoush, and then salad. Just when you were wondering if you were getting too full, they plopped down four humungous platters of roasted lamb parts on the table. A single lamb, it turns out, makes a lot of lamb. We gorged ourselves, and there was enough left over for pretty much everyone to take home a substantial lambie bag of food. Then came dessert -- pieces of the flatbread soaked in honey and sprinkled with nuts. The place needs to get a liquor license, because we could have used a few bottles of red to go along with the eats, but that was one hell of a meal. And had Frank not generously treated everyone, it still would not have been an expensive meal for anyone.
Cathleen and I walked back home, arriving at 10:45. On a school night. We crazy.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
J-E-T-S, wretch, wretch, wretch
Twas a pretty good weekend. A lazy Saturday morning led into a bike ride up to Prospect Park with the kids, a stop at the Green Market in Grand Army Plaza (bought some cheese made by Haverford classmate Mark Gillman), received a visit from Sameer and Shruti (finally), and then Cathleen and I saw another movie (in a movie theater): The Kingdom. I think it had good intentions in providing a more nuanced take on terrorism, but the first half was pretty dull, and the ending just settled for heart-racing, but unimaginative shoot-em-up conventions. Oh, if you happened to be at that movie last night and you are reading this by some random occurrence, ummm, it is not OK for you to bring your 8-year-old child to a movie like that. Really.
Claudia and Walter (my beloved inlaws) stayed over last night, and took the kids for the day: first out to breakfast, and then out to Staten Island to visit with Walter's daughter, Polly. Cathleen and I each got in a run, and then I headed into Manhattan to meet my college friend, Schweitz (nee Jen Schweitzer) at Port Authority to head to the Meadowlands for the Jets game. Jen had received tix to five home games as a birthday gift (17th row in the corner of the endzone!) and had invited me along. My first football game in a good four or five years.
The Jets looked terrible all game, and somehow managed to lose only by 16-9 to the mediocre Eagles. I have finally gone over to the "dump Chad Pennington" camp, as he looked ineffectual all game. With a running game working, and getting good field position over and over again, he could not get the ball in the endzone, or even near it. But the weather was beautiful, seats were great, and it was good to catch up with Schweitz after several months of being incommunicado.
Some other game related thoughts:
First, the conversation I overheard in the crowded bathroom, right after the announcement is heard that the Jets have won the opening toin-coss:
-- Guy #1: "At least they won something."
-- Guy #2: "C'mon, they're going all the way to the Superbowl." (chuckling among the urinators)
-- Guy #3: "Try taking your hand off your dick and saying that."
Obesity an issue in America? I have never seen so many thick-necked, XXXL-wearing dudes as I did in that stadium today. I weighed probably a third of the average dude there today. Or maybe green just makes you look exceptionally fat.
I signed up for season tickets with the Jets about three or four years ago, at which point there were over 10,000 folks ahead of me on the wait-list. Now that number is down below 7,000, and with the new stadium due to open in 2010, I can reasonably expect to get tickets by then. Today I allowed myself a few moments to fantasize about coming out to the games on a regular basis, tailgating with the kids (and Mike, who will no doubt come down for games), and coping with the crushing disappointment of being a Jets fan from a more live perspective. That will be cool.
Claudia and Walter (my beloved inlaws) stayed over last night, and took the kids for the day: first out to breakfast, and then out to Staten Island to visit with Walter's daughter, Polly. Cathleen and I each got in a run, and then I headed into Manhattan to meet my college friend, Schweitz (nee Jen Schweitzer) at Port Authority to head to the Meadowlands for the Jets game. Jen had received tix to five home games as a birthday gift (17th row in the corner of the endzone!) and had invited me along. My first football game in a good four or five years.
The Jets looked terrible all game, and somehow managed to lose only by 16-9 to the mediocre Eagles. I have finally gone over to the "dump Chad Pennington" camp, as he looked ineffectual all game. With a running game working, and getting good field position over and over again, he could not get the ball in the endzone, or even near it. But the weather was beautiful, seats were great, and it was good to catch up with Schweitz after several months of being incommunicado.
Some other game related thoughts:
First, the conversation I overheard in the crowded bathroom, right after the announcement is heard that the Jets have won the opening toin-coss:
-- Guy #1: "At least they won something."
-- Guy #2: "C'mon, they're going all the way to the Superbowl." (chuckling among the urinators)
-- Guy #3: "Try taking your hand off your dick and saying that."
Obesity an issue in America? I have never seen so many thick-necked, XXXL-wearing dudes as I did in that stadium today. I weighed probably a third of the average dude there today. Or maybe green just makes you look exceptionally fat.
I signed up for season tickets with the Jets about three or four years ago, at which point there were over 10,000 folks ahead of me on the wait-list. Now that number is down below 7,000, and with the new stadium due to open in 2010, I can reasonably expect to get tickets by then. Today I allowed myself a few moments to fantasize about coming out to the games on a regular basis, tailgating with the kids (and Mike, who will no doubt come down for games), and coping with the crushing disappointment of being a Jets fan from a more live perspective. That will be cool.
Sugar Mommy
It's official. Cathleen Bell is a cash-generating fiction writer. Sure, she made some pocket change when she published Oatmeal a few years ago, but yesterday the first check, from the publisher via the literary agent, arrived for "Slipping," her first novel (for children/young adults) which is due out in summer '08.
I remember reading the first draft of "Slipping" two years ago, finishing the last 100 pages or so on an Amtrak to Hartford for Christmas. It was this amazing experience, reading what I knew to be a fantasticly written story...by Cathleen. I mean, I think everything she writes is great, but this manuscript seemed to be on a different level. And so there I was on the train, basking in the warmth you feel after you've just put down a good book, but also exploding inside with pride at the fact that Cathleen had written it. I knew then, and I told her so when she picked me up at the train station that night, that "Slipping" was going to be published, no doubt. I was so right, and I am so getting an HDTV by the end of this week.
I remember reading the first draft of "Slipping" two years ago, finishing the last 100 pages or so on an Amtrak to Hartford for Christmas. It was this amazing experience, reading what I knew to be a fantasticly written story...by Cathleen. I mean, I think everything she writes is great, but this manuscript seemed to be on a different level. And so there I was on the train, basking in the warmth you feel after you've just put down a good book, but also exploding inside with pride at the fact that Cathleen had written it. I knew then, and I told her so when she picked me up at the train station that night, that "Slipping" was going to be published, no doubt. I was so right, and I am so getting an HDTV by the end of this week.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Salutations, oh grandiose sphincter!
There's this building on Fourth Avenue that I walk past every night when I walk the dogs which bears two different billboard-sized advertisements. Actually, maybe they are billboards. For the past few weeks, there was this McDonalds ad that had a huge picture of a burger, and then the words: "Hello New York. Meet Big Angus."
Almost every single time I would glance up at that sign, my eyes would fail to see the "g" in the last word, and I would do the same double-take over and over again. The ad has finally been replaced.
Any thoughts, Dr. Freud?
Almost every single time I would glance up at that sign, my eyes would fail to see the "g" in the last word, and I would do the same double-take over and over again. The ad has finally been replaced.
Any thoughts, Dr. Freud?
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Must they?
Be such assholes?
I don't think that I had been in Bronx housing court for almost two weeks, and so returning there this morning felt a little numbing. It is easy to forget that the world inside that building operates on its own rules, where it is OK for dim-witted and sleazy landlord attorneys to exploit every angle in manipulating low-income, uninformed, and often under-educated pro se tenants into signing crappy and abusive settlement stipulations that are eagerly rubber-stamped by corrupt or disinterested judges.
Maybe I'll share stories some other time, as the stories often horrify, but it is the day-to-day injustices that are doled out in the hallways and courtrooms there, and the utter lack of professionalism regularly displayed by the majority of the landlord's bar, that continues to make my blood boil after more than seven years of legal practice there. Grrrrr. I do, however, love to fuck them up. Rarrh.
I don't think that I had been in Bronx housing court for almost two weeks, and so returning there this morning felt a little numbing. It is easy to forget that the world inside that building operates on its own rules, where it is OK for dim-witted and sleazy landlord attorneys to exploit every angle in manipulating low-income, uninformed, and often under-educated pro se tenants into signing crappy and abusive settlement stipulations that are eagerly rubber-stamped by corrupt or disinterested judges.
Maybe I'll share stories some other time, as the stories often horrify, but it is the day-to-day injustices that are doled out in the hallways and courtrooms there, and the utter lack of professionalism regularly displayed by the majority of the landlord's bar, that continues to make my blood boil after more than seven years of legal practice there. Grrrrr. I do, however, love to fuck them up. Rarrh.
Girlz got werdz
Eliza turned 20 months old today to little fanfare. She went to the playground with her babysitter, Aartie; helped Cathleen make a tamale pie for dinner; and splashed water on me as I bathed her before bedtime. All the while, no doubt, she was talking up a storm. The standard language development of a 20-month-old child is 15-20 words. While it is not uncommon for a child to possess a vocabulary larger than 20 words at this age, that's the baseline you should be expecting if your child is developing along a standard trajectory. At dinner the other night, Cathleen and I figured that Eliza probably has a working vocabulary exceeding 100 words. If we sat down and listed the words that she completely commands, I suspect she's closer to 150 or more. On top of that, she speaks in two and three-word sentences (again, not uncommon, though the regularity with which she does impresses me), and she asks questions appropriately -- not just "what Max doing?" or "where Mommy going?" but she's even asked "why" in its proper context, a pretty heady concept for her age, methinks. Always question authority, little girl, always.
On the one hand, it makes a certain sense that a lawyer and a writer -- and a couple of Chatty Kathys, at that -- would produce kids that were language-accelerated (Max, too, for the record, was an early and advanced talker), but I can't deny the role that chance plays in it all, and I am awed by the smallest of achievements, linguistically or not, that she displays on a daily basis.
On the one hand, it makes a certain sense that a lawyer and a writer -- and a couple of Chatty Kathys, at that -- would produce kids that were language-accelerated (Max, too, for the record, was an early and advanced talker), but I can't deny the role that chance plays in it all, and I am awed by the smallest of achievements, linguistically or not, that she displays on a daily basis.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Soccer got no succor
I'm beginning to come to terms with the fact that I just may have started this blog thing solely for the cheap thrill I get out of creating painfully bad entry titles.
Wow was today not so autumnal. High in the mid-80s on October 6th? WTF?
We made our second attempt to inculcate Max into the world of organized sports by bringing him to his second Super Soccer Stars practice (class?) this morning in Prospect Park. Well, I guess it wasn't his second -- he had gone to 3 or 4 over the summer, but this was his second of the so-called autumn season where the group size is much larger. Super Soccer Stars, for the uninitiated, is soccer initiation for the pre-school set. Every Saturday morning, for 45 minutes, three or four fairly-talented soccer dudes run the kids through goofy drills as a means of teaching them basic soccer skills and concepts. The class begins and ends with a singing of the Super Soccer Stars song, sung to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it." ("we never touch the ball with our hands.."). Max had seemed not too into it when Cathleen had brought him over the summer, except for once when it was just he and his friend Henry there. We figured he'd be into it this fall, maybe, because Henry and another friend were going at the same time. Three weekends ago was the first class. There were over a dozen kids, and Max was visibly overwhelmed from the get go. He insisted on having either me or Cathleen stay with him (not at the field, which all parents have to do, but physically within the class), and he pretty much refused to participate in any of the drills/games. We stuck it out for the entire class, with Max basically watching the other kids kicking the ball around, and then after much debate decided to give it a second try. Today was that second try and produced the same result, and I threw in the towel ten minutes into the class. It is not on my agenda to make my son miserable if it can be avoided. Max takes a while to adjust to new groups of kids (a concern he clearly articulated to me this morning as we were getting ready to go), and I think that in the back of his head he was probably thinking, "what is up with a game that deprives me of use of my frisbee-catching hands?" He had much more fun sitting in my lap, observing an ant that was crawling all over his hand and arm. When the class was over, he still wanted to go and get some stickers that the coaches hand out at the end. No play, all reward. That's my boy.
We returned to Prospect Park in the afternoon for a get-together with our neighbors Jessica and kids Sophia and Jack and had a significantly-improved experience. Sophia is a few months younger than Max, and they simply love each other. They played nonstop for a couple of hours, allowing me to beg off on a tough run around the Park loop in the sweltering heat (after I had biked Max to and from the Park this morning, and then had run Eliza up to the Park in the jogging stroller for the afternoon get-together).
Wow was today not so autumnal. High in the mid-80s on October 6th? WTF?
We made our second attempt to inculcate Max into the world of organized sports by bringing him to his second Super Soccer Stars practice (class?) this morning in Prospect Park. Well, I guess it wasn't his second -- he had gone to 3 or 4 over the summer, but this was his second of the so-called autumn season where the group size is much larger. Super Soccer Stars, for the uninitiated, is soccer initiation for the pre-school set. Every Saturday morning, for 45 minutes, three or four fairly-talented soccer dudes run the kids through goofy drills as a means of teaching them basic soccer skills and concepts. The class begins and ends with a singing of the Super Soccer Stars song, sung to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it." ("we never touch the ball with our hands.."). Max had seemed not too into it when Cathleen had brought him over the summer, except for once when it was just he and his friend Henry there. We figured he'd be into it this fall, maybe, because Henry and another friend were going at the same time. Three weekends ago was the first class. There were over a dozen kids, and Max was visibly overwhelmed from the get go. He insisted on having either me or Cathleen stay with him (not at the field, which all parents have to do, but physically within the class), and he pretty much refused to participate in any of the drills/games. We stuck it out for the entire class, with Max basically watching the other kids kicking the ball around, and then after much debate decided to give it a second try. Today was that second try and produced the same result, and I threw in the towel ten minutes into the class. It is not on my agenda to make my son miserable if it can be avoided. Max takes a while to adjust to new groups of kids (a concern he clearly articulated to me this morning as we were getting ready to go), and I think that in the back of his head he was probably thinking, "what is up with a game that deprives me of use of my frisbee-catching hands?" He had much more fun sitting in my lap, observing an ant that was crawling all over his hand and arm. When the class was over, he still wanted to go and get some stickers that the coaches hand out at the end. No play, all reward. That's my boy.
We returned to Prospect Park in the afternoon for a get-together with our neighbors Jessica and kids Sophia and Jack and had a significantly-improved experience. Sophia is a few months younger than Max, and they simply love each other. They played nonstop for a couple of hours, allowing me to beg off on a tough run around the Park loop in the sweltering heat (after I had biked Max to and from the Park this morning, and then had run Eliza up to the Park in the jogging stroller for the afternoon get-together).
Tricked Out
I added a "visitor counter" to the blog page today. It counts each visit to the blog. I'm not sure why I added it, except that I envision grand parties when I hit some significant numbers, like "10" and "11."
Mom, you need to visit the blog repeatedly, every day, so that I feel good about myself.
Mom, you need to visit the blog repeatedly, every day, so that I feel good about myself.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Let's Go
I hate to write about this so close to the conclusion of the 2007 Mets debacle, but tonight as Cathleen and I sat in the livingroom, preparing to watch an episode of The Wire (Season One), Eliza was yapping away in her crib in joyful defiance of her absolute fatigue. Cathleen turned to me and asked if I understood what Eliza was saying. I listened carefully, and I heard my 20-month-old daughter chanting "Let's Go Mets" from her crib.
Max, bless his innocent soul, has taught Eliza how to cheer "Let's Go Mets." They also like to cheer "Let's Go Cyclones" together (which I've heard them do). I feel like a totally shallow cad, but I cannot quite explain the depth of the warmth that I feel when I think about Max teaching Eliza this cheer.
The circle is complete. The curse, bestowed upon me by my father, has now successfully enveloped both my children, and with much less effort than I thought would be required.
Max, bless his innocent soul, has taught Eliza how to cheer "Let's Go Mets." They also like to cheer "Let's Go Cyclones" together (which I've heard them do). I feel like a totally shallow cad, but I cannot quite explain the depth of the warmth that I feel when I think about Max teaching Eliza this cheer.
The circle is complete. The curse, bestowed upon me by my father, has now successfully enveloped both my children, and with much less effort than I thought would be required.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Sunday Bloody Sunday
OK, I know, two U2 references in a row. I'll stop that for a while.
Well, it has taken me a good 48 hours to be able to write about this past Sunday. The Mets completed their late-season collapse with a lifeless loss to the Marlins which, coupled with the Phillies' win over the Nationals, jettisoned the Mets out of the playoffs on the final day of the season. The game was almost unbearable to watch. Even when Tom Glavine vomited up seven runs in the first inning, I still thought they had a chance, and I spent the next few innings living and dieing with every pitch. My heart was pounding, I was eating compulsively. It sucked. Eliza awakened from her nap somewhere around the fifth inning and, for some reason, she was cranky, crying and inconsolable. I was standing there like, "little girl, I have no emotional resources left to make you feel better." But I did anyway. She's really cute. I watched all the way through the penultimate out, and then turned off the TV because I couldn't bear to watch the conclusion. I can stare at a gruesome car wreck for only so long.
Unlike some folks who were described in newspaper articles, I did not cry and I don't feel like this was the greatest disappointment of my life. But, for some reason, it stings. Why would I do this to myself? Why would I come back for more? Because although this sucks, I also know how good the good times feel, and like an addict seeking that amazing original high, I'll be there next spring hoping that 2008 is the magical season.
Of course, I thought that watching the Jets game would make me feel better. I had taped it and watched it that evening (that seems to be the way I watch football these days), and suffered through their loss to a formerly-winless Bills team that was starting a rookie QB. Uggh.
Thank goodness the news about the Thomas/MSG sexual harassment suit verdict didn't come out until two days later, or I might have packed the bags and moved to, uh, some other place. Man, if they don't fire Thomas it is going to be really hard to root for the Knicks this year. Not that they've made that a particularly easy thing to do within the past decade anyway.
The coup de grace for Sunday? At around dinner time I took the dogs out to the backyard to do their business (which, if you know anything about economics, isn't actually "business"), and I discovered a dead rat lying on the ground. The rat was around 10-12 inches long --- easily half the size of Oscar, if not bigger, and was somewhat reminiscent of a Warg from the Lord of the Rings series. I screamed. Well, it wasn't so much a scream as an, "Ahhhh!!! Ohhhh. Oh fuck. Ahhh, Eewwww. Ahhhh!!" That big-ass dead rat scared me more as dead than it might have if it were alive. I'm not 100% convinced of that, but I can't imagine being much more scared of it than I was. I took the dogs inside before they discovered the mammoth, fetid carcass, and went upstairs. I returned downstairs after the kids were in bed. I donned gloves and grabbed a shovel and two plastic bags. I doubled-up the bags and set them out in a bucket shape. I then approached the mighty beast and, summoning every ounce of courage I had, scooped it up and dumped it in the bags. It left behind a zillion little maggoty-creatures on the ground.
Are you puking yet? I was damn near close. I let out a few more loud and colorful protestations while pacing around in a circle, and then went back inside to get a bigger bag. I deposited the smaller bag of decaying monster rat into the larger bag and tied it up, hosed off the ground and the shovel, and brought the festering sack up and out to the garbage cans in front of our building. Not sure I breathed the entire time. Mercifully, the Department of Sanitation came and picked up our garbage this morning, because I was scared to go near my own trash cans.
Mets. Jets. Maggotty gigantic rat. It is so not easy being me.
Well, it has taken me a good 48 hours to be able to write about this past Sunday. The Mets completed their late-season collapse with a lifeless loss to the Marlins which, coupled with the Phillies' win over the Nationals, jettisoned the Mets out of the playoffs on the final day of the season. The game was almost unbearable to watch. Even when Tom Glavine vomited up seven runs in the first inning, I still thought they had a chance, and I spent the next few innings living and dieing with every pitch. My heart was pounding, I was eating compulsively. It sucked. Eliza awakened from her nap somewhere around the fifth inning and, for some reason, she was cranky, crying and inconsolable. I was standing there like, "little girl, I have no emotional resources left to make you feel better." But I did anyway. She's really cute. I watched all the way through the penultimate out, and then turned off the TV because I couldn't bear to watch the conclusion. I can stare at a gruesome car wreck for only so long.
Unlike some folks who were described in newspaper articles, I did not cry and I don't feel like this was the greatest disappointment of my life. But, for some reason, it stings. Why would I do this to myself? Why would I come back for more? Because although this sucks, I also know how good the good times feel, and like an addict seeking that amazing original high, I'll be there next spring hoping that 2008 is the magical season.
Of course, I thought that watching the Jets game would make me feel better. I had taped it and watched it that evening (that seems to be the way I watch football these days), and suffered through their loss to a formerly-winless Bills team that was starting a rookie QB. Uggh.
Thank goodness the news about the Thomas/MSG sexual harassment suit verdict didn't come out until two days later, or I might have packed the bags and moved to, uh, some other place. Man, if they don't fire Thomas it is going to be really hard to root for the Knicks this year. Not that they've made that a particularly easy thing to do within the past decade anyway.
The coup de grace for Sunday? At around dinner time I took the dogs out to the backyard to do their business (which, if you know anything about economics, isn't actually "business"), and I discovered a dead rat lying on the ground. The rat was around 10-12 inches long --- easily half the size of Oscar, if not bigger, and was somewhat reminiscent of a Warg from the Lord of the Rings series. I screamed. Well, it wasn't so much a scream as an, "Ahhhh!!! Ohhhh. Oh fuck. Ahhh, Eewwww. Ahhhh!!" That big-ass dead rat scared me more as dead than it might have if it were alive. I'm not 100% convinced of that, but I can't imagine being much more scared of it than I was. I took the dogs inside before they discovered the mammoth, fetid carcass, and went upstairs. I returned downstairs after the kids were in bed. I donned gloves and grabbed a shovel and two plastic bags. I doubled-up the bags and set them out in a bucket shape. I then approached the mighty beast and, summoning every ounce of courage I had, scooped it up and dumped it in the bags. It left behind a zillion little maggoty-creatures on the ground.
Are you puking yet? I was damn near close. I let out a few more loud and colorful protestations while pacing around in a circle, and then went back inside to get a bigger bag. I deposited the smaller bag of decaying monster rat into the larger bag and tied it up, hosed off the ground and the shovel, and brought the festering sack up and out to the garbage cans in front of our building. Not sure I breathed the entire time. Mercifully, the Department of Sanitation came and picked up our garbage this morning, because I was scared to go near my own trash cans.
Mets. Jets. Maggotty gigantic rat. It is so not easy being me.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sing with me, this is 40
If your close friends are getting old, does that mean you're getting old?
Mark Bertin turned 40 today (9/30), and he marked this transition to manhood by hosting a gathering of his closest friends at his parents' weekend home in Medusa, NY, up in the Catskills. It was a terrific time.
I started the weekend on Thursday night. First, Cathleen and I attended "curriculum night" at The Brooklyn New School, where we sat on tiny little (ridiculously uncomfortable) chairs and listened to Max's pre-K teacher discuss what the class structure, philosophy, goals were. The experience confirmed for me many of the reasons why we stayed in New York / moved to Brooklyn -- his class is stinking with diversity and he will be learning in a progressive environment. That, and Cathleen discovered on Friday, one of his classmates (his favorite classmate, it would seem), is the daughter of an accomplished novelist, Myla Goldberg. Cathleen read her novel "The Bee Season," and I really like to listen to "Song for Myla Goldberg" by The Decemberists. After the one-hour meeting at school, we headed home, put the kids to bed, I quickly packed a bag and than hustled to Grand Central where I caught the 8:52 train to Katonah, armed with a pulled pork sandwich and a bottle of Boylan's Birch Beer.
Mark picked me up at the train station at 10 pm, and we then stayed up until 12:30, sipping a few glasses of the Clynelish single malt I had brought him for his birthday ("notes of buttescotch," the guy at Smith & Vine had told me), and we just shot the shit about everything and nothing (the scotch facilitating the discussion of both). We used to have time to do a lot more of that, especially when we would just hang out at ultimate tournaments (or practices, or summer league games), or on runs together or dinner parties or whatever when we lived three blocks apart, but now life changes have changed all that. It was nice to just be hanging out again. And a little drunk.
Zach got us up the next morning at around 6:30, and by 9:00 or so we were on the road to Medusa. We arrived at the house about two hours later, with Zach asleep in his carseat. Elizabeth agreed to stay alone with him while Mark and I went for a run. By the time we had changed our clothes, inserted contact lenses and stretched, Zach woke up from a disappointingly short nap, but Mark and I took off anyway. It was, after all, his birthday weekend...
Medusa sits just north of the Catksill mountain range, about 45 minutes southwest of Albany. It is, by most yardsticks, the middle of nowhere. Mark's parents bought 180 acres of that nowhere about four or five years ago, and constructed a modest but comfortable house on the hillside top of a meadow in the middle of the property. They have spent the past few years carving hiking trails around the property (the northern side of which abuts a state park), and Mark and I set off on one of those hiking trails, then crossed over into the state park before reconnecting with paved roads. It is the Catskills, and the run was uphill and downhill the entire way. The final half mile of the run (which in toto was probably in the neighborhood of about four miles) featured a killer uphill climb that led to an amazing view of meadows, mountains and valleys. Breathtaking by all possible understandings of the term.
After the run we lounged around in the house and then the four of us (Mark, Elizabeth, Zach and I) set out for a short hike in the woods. We spotted many red efts (yes, spotted is a pun!), and Zach and I had a nice time bonding over the water spigot from his Camelbak. Upon our return to the house, we ventured into the garden and ate sugar snap peas right off the vine, picked a small bucket's worth of sweet cherry tomatoes, and pulled a dozen squat carrots out of the ground. Country livin'.
Elizabeth and I then invented a new game called "Squid," where we sat on a couch on a screened-in porch, facing a stone fireplace; you had to pick a stone on the fireplace and then, while seated with your back against the back of the couch, throw a whiffle ball off that stone and catch it. If you made a successful throw and catch off of the pre-called stone, your opponent would have to replicate the effort, failure to doing which would earn him or her a letter spelling out the game's name. First to SQUID loses. It is with pride that I report that I took home the championship trophy. Making "squ" you jokes midway through the game was a highlight.
By mid-to-late afternoon, Mark's college friends Don and Stefan arrived from, respectively, Richmond, VA and somewhere in the East Bay (CA). Mark's parents also arrived from a week in the Adirondacks -- as babysitters for the weekend, they left for home with Zach in tow at his bedtime. That is when the drinking began in relative earnest. Opening beers were followed by the four or five bottles of wine that Mark had been stowing away for a decade or so for the right occasion; they were steadily consumed through the late afternoon, dinner of fish burritos, and late-night lounging until another college friend, Dave, arrived from Fort Collins, CO at a little after midnight. I finally went to bed at a little after 1 a.m.
I awakened at around 8:30, determined that sounds of life existed somewhere else in the house, and was out on the back deck with a cup of coffee by 8:50. Mark, Elizabeth, Dave and I (eventually joined by Don and Stefan) sat on Adirondack-style rocking chairs for about four straight hours. The view, looking south, is magnificient: a meadow surrounded by trees beginning to succumb to the beckoning autumn, and giving way in the distance to the Catskill mountains (approximately 15-20 miles away); looking southeast you could see clearly for probably 100 miles. Over this entire expanse, signs of industrialized living were few and far between. Hawks intermittently flew by. The sun was shining bright, the air was crisp but warm. There was no reason to move anywhere else.
A bit past noon, Dan Katzive arrived from Manhattan, and then Cathleen and the dogs arrived from Brooklyn (Max and Eliza under the care of Sophie and Joseph for the day/eve). We booted up and took a one-hour hike around the property, wending our way on trails through the forests, across old stone walls and small, dried-up river beds, and through the meadow which was blazing with the colors of small wildflowers.
Back at the house, we had a small horseshoes tournament (Cathleen and I were smoked by Elizabeth and Dave), tossed the disc for a bit, and relaxed some more. Mark's friend Elio arrived (from California), rounding out the well-traveled group of revelers. Eventually we motivated towards dinner (veggie lasagna that our hosts had prepared beforehand) with particular joy in the air at the news that the Mets had re-tied the Phillies for first place that day. While waiting for the endlessly-poaching pears to poach for dessert, I delivered a rap "toast" I had written on the train-ride up, the highlights of which included my concluding a verse about Mark's move to Katonah with a line about that town's having "houses so pretty they give me a bonah," and then using 31 different words to rhyme with Zach in another verse. Cathleen and I packed into our car by 10 pm and hit the road for home, arriving in Brooklyn at about 12:45.
It was a pretty darn good weekend as weekends go and I am certain that it transpired exactly as Mark had desired. If you can truly judge a man by the company he keeps, Mark Bertin at 40 is doing alright for himself.
Mark Bertin turned 40 today (9/30), and he marked this transition to manhood by hosting a gathering of his closest friends at his parents' weekend home in Medusa, NY, up in the Catskills. It was a terrific time.
I started the weekend on Thursday night. First, Cathleen and I attended "curriculum night" at The Brooklyn New School, where we sat on tiny little (ridiculously uncomfortable) chairs and listened to Max's pre-K teacher discuss what the class structure, philosophy, goals were. The experience confirmed for me many of the reasons why we stayed in New York / moved to Brooklyn -- his class is stinking with diversity and he will be learning in a progressive environment. That, and Cathleen discovered on Friday, one of his classmates (his favorite classmate, it would seem), is the daughter of an accomplished novelist, Myla Goldberg. Cathleen read her novel "The Bee Season," and I really like to listen to "Song for Myla Goldberg" by The Decemberists. After the one-hour meeting at school, we headed home, put the kids to bed, I quickly packed a bag and than hustled to Grand Central where I caught the 8:52 train to Katonah, armed with a pulled pork sandwich and a bottle of Boylan's Birch Beer.
Mark picked me up at the train station at 10 pm, and we then stayed up until 12:30, sipping a few glasses of the Clynelish single malt I had brought him for his birthday ("notes of buttescotch," the guy at Smith & Vine had told me), and we just shot the shit about everything and nothing (the scotch facilitating the discussion of both). We used to have time to do a lot more of that, especially when we would just hang out at ultimate tournaments (or practices, or summer league games), or on runs together or dinner parties or whatever when we lived three blocks apart, but now life changes have changed all that. It was nice to just be hanging out again. And a little drunk.
Zach got us up the next morning at around 6:30, and by 9:00 or so we were on the road to Medusa. We arrived at the house about two hours later, with Zach asleep in his carseat. Elizabeth agreed to stay alone with him while Mark and I went for a run. By the time we had changed our clothes, inserted contact lenses and stretched, Zach woke up from a disappointingly short nap, but Mark and I took off anyway. It was, after all, his birthday weekend...
Medusa sits just north of the Catksill mountain range, about 45 minutes southwest of Albany. It is, by most yardsticks, the middle of nowhere. Mark's parents bought 180 acres of that nowhere about four or five years ago, and constructed a modest but comfortable house on the hillside top of a meadow in the middle of the property. They have spent the past few years carving hiking trails around the property (the northern side of which abuts a state park), and Mark and I set off on one of those hiking trails, then crossed over into the state park before reconnecting with paved roads. It is the Catskills, and the run was uphill and downhill the entire way. The final half mile of the run (which in toto was probably in the neighborhood of about four miles) featured a killer uphill climb that led to an amazing view of meadows, mountains and valleys. Breathtaking by all possible understandings of the term.
After the run we lounged around in the house and then the four of us (Mark, Elizabeth, Zach and I) set out for a short hike in the woods. We spotted many red efts (yes, spotted is a pun!), and Zach and I had a nice time bonding over the water spigot from his Camelbak. Upon our return to the house, we ventured into the garden and ate sugar snap peas right off the vine, picked a small bucket's worth of sweet cherry tomatoes, and pulled a dozen squat carrots out of the ground. Country livin'.
Elizabeth and I then invented a new game called "Squid," where we sat on a couch on a screened-in porch, facing a stone fireplace; you had to pick a stone on the fireplace and then, while seated with your back against the back of the couch, throw a whiffle ball off that stone and catch it. If you made a successful throw and catch off of the pre-called stone, your opponent would have to replicate the effort, failure to doing which would earn him or her a letter spelling out the game's name. First to SQUID loses. It is with pride that I report that I took home the championship trophy. Making "squ" you jokes midway through the game was a highlight.
By mid-to-late afternoon, Mark's college friends Don and Stefan arrived from, respectively, Richmond, VA and somewhere in the East Bay (CA). Mark's parents also arrived from a week in the Adirondacks -- as babysitters for the weekend, they left for home with Zach in tow at his bedtime. That is when the drinking began in relative earnest. Opening beers were followed by the four or five bottles of wine that Mark had been stowing away for a decade or so for the right occasion; they were steadily consumed through the late afternoon, dinner of fish burritos, and late-night lounging until another college friend, Dave, arrived from Fort Collins, CO at a little after midnight. I finally went to bed at a little after 1 a.m.
I awakened at around 8:30, determined that sounds of life existed somewhere else in the house, and was out on the back deck with a cup of coffee by 8:50. Mark, Elizabeth, Dave and I (eventually joined by Don and Stefan) sat on Adirondack-style rocking chairs for about four straight hours. The view, looking south, is magnificient: a meadow surrounded by trees beginning to succumb to the beckoning autumn, and giving way in the distance to the Catskill mountains (approximately 15-20 miles away); looking southeast you could see clearly for probably 100 miles. Over this entire expanse, signs of industrialized living were few and far between. Hawks intermittently flew by. The sun was shining bright, the air was crisp but warm. There was no reason to move anywhere else.
A bit past noon, Dan Katzive arrived from Manhattan, and then Cathleen and the dogs arrived from Brooklyn (Max and Eliza under the care of Sophie and Joseph for the day/eve). We booted up and took a one-hour hike around the property, wending our way on trails through the forests, across old stone walls and small, dried-up river beds, and through the meadow which was blazing with the colors of small wildflowers.
Back at the house, we had a small horseshoes tournament (Cathleen and I were smoked by Elizabeth and Dave), tossed the disc for a bit, and relaxed some more. Mark's friend Elio arrived (from California), rounding out the well-traveled group of revelers. Eventually we motivated towards dinner (veggie lasagna that our hosts had prepared beforehand) with particular joy in the air at the news that the Mets had re-tied the Phillies for first place that day. While waiting for the endlessly-poaching pears to poach for dessert, I delivered a rap "toast" I had written on the train-ride up, the highlights of which included my concluding a verse about Mark's move to Katonah with a line about that town's having "houses so pretty they give me a bonah," and then using 31 different words to rhyme with Zach in another verse. Cathleen and I packed into our car by 10 pm and hit the road for home, arriving in Brooklyn at about 12:45.
It was a pretty darn good weekend as weekends go and I am certain that it transpired exactly as Mark had desired. If you can truly judge a man by the company he keeps, Mark Bertin at 40 is doing alright for himself.
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