Small reprieves of coffee and birdsong

Today is a good day, the rain falling and falling, finally, all the bags of compost dispersed this weekend making even bare patches in the garden look lush and happy. True, rain is falling on a wheelbarrow heaped with items headed for the trash, but I am content in the knowledge that both garage and shed are tidier than they've been in years. And someone stopped to pick up the huge wooden toboggan we left on the curb, hoping a passerby would fall for it the way Mark did years ago (it's lived in our garage, yearning for snow, for years).

But most of all, today is a good day because Mark and I started it by consoling a crying boy in the park who had lost his phone as he rode to middle school on his bike. We asked where exactly he'd been riding and promised to deliver his phone to the school if we found it. "Oh no," I fretted, slowly searching a block of damp sidewalk. "We have to find it!" Reader, we found it. And we got to tell him we found it and see his smiley, relieved little face. 

I found you some things:

Artificial yes. Intelligence? Not so much.

Alliumphobia, perfectly rational.

Here's to October, the month of months! If you're reading this, I probably love you so, so, so much. 

RIP

I asked Mark if he would please dispose of the corpse in our back yard if he has time before he and Isaac leave for New York (where Isaac is moving into a Washington Heights apartment for his Union Semester semester!). After forcing myself to gaze at the thing with teeth, I determined that it is definitely the body of our former friend, Mr Groundhog, who was cute and fat and waddly, also rarely seen.

(I was thinking about "corpse" versus "carcass," how one is generally used for people and the other for animals, which made me think about the German verb "essen," "to eat," which apparently only applies to humans--animals "fressen" instead. I am absolutely guilty of anthropomorphizing--in fact, I kind of love it--but I've known some animals way too well to think of them as just eating like animals until they turn into carcasses...I mean that even at my most rational, I grant them some emotional lives and some individuality.)

Anyway, I don't want to deal with the remains of the formerly adorable gentleman known as Mr Groundhog.

31415

Happy Pi Day, lovey doves. I crowd sourced ideas for the best kind of pie to make today, but I plan to disregard all the great suggestions (pecan, sweet potato, cherry, etc) because I've got four ripe bananas and a creamy dream of banana cream pie in my head.

Lulu is visiting for two weeks while my parents gallivant around northern California and Portland-the-Second. I hesitate to mention this, for fear of jinxing it, but she has been quite civilized so far, waking me at 6:45 or even 7:00, rather than, say, 4:45 in the freaking morning. We mince around the block, Lulu sniffing each individual brick, me breaking every bit of ice that my feet can find. Later in the morning, Mark and Gus head off to the beach while Lulu and I settle in for a long walkabout. Mostly, I let her decide which direction to go, and I catch up on my ever-expanding podcast list.

Don't let my glad expression give you the wrong impression.

Isaac is also here for two weeks, for a luxurious spring break! Zoë, meanwhile, is using her break (only one week) to visit Berkeley, one of the grad school possibilities. Did I mention that at least two grad schools have pretty much offered to shower our girl with money, attempts to lure her to study with them? She is weighing her options right now, but what looks certain is that she won't need to take on any debt whatsoever to get her PhD. So, so proud of her and curious to see what she decides! As of now, it looks like she'll either be in California, Chicago, or India next year.

This weekend's kitchen plans include building a pendant light fixture that will hang over the sink. I'll show you when it's done.

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!

It's chilly out there--for comparison, here is the Atlantic Ocean, steaming like a sauna. The water was so beautiful this morning, sending tendrils of smoke into the cold air, surrounding the islands and lighthouses you can see when you stand on the East End Beach. Gus is in love with a little spaniel, maybe a Brittany? He wrestles her with gentle, devoted enthusiasm and guards her fiercely against the attentions of other dogs. Today she wore a sweater with a squirrel on it.

Isaac has been volunteering at the Shack this week, lending his help with the filmmaking intensive he took several times in high school. Today it was so cold that they canceled school in the city (some of the buses wouldn't start at 6am).

Zoë studies Sanskrit every day, works on Kannada and grad school applications, and puts off plunging into her thesis. Last night we went to see Wild, which we both liked--I enjoyed it a bit more than she did, if by "enjoyed" you mean "bawled." Today she is getting acupunctured, at my insistence. I hope she loves it as much as I do!

Work on our kitchen is at a temporary standstill, as things like eating biscuits and drinking coffee and taking chilly walks and playing games and doing billable work seem to be taking precedence right now. Actually, Mark and I hastily installed a section of backer board (where the subway tile will go) the other day, then stepped back and realized it was completely crooked. We have to slow down and do it again, slow down and put up the rest of it, paint the moulding, install the moulding, and then get to tiling. And then, and only then, will we start contemplating CABINETS and COUNTERTOP and a new SINK, perhaps!

Twenty-nine

They all leave this morning, but wonderfully (and alarmingly), they'll be back in just a couple of weeks! What a lovely long holiday weekend, as preoccupied as they were with finishing work for the semester, and in Zoë's case, finishing grad school applications. We had time for TV-watching, tea drinking, game playing, and many delicious baked goods.

Nest: September Second

The status of my nest on this Tuesday evening is: empty(ish). Look at this boy, he is at college. He is installed in his dorm room, with a roommate and a desk and a "shower caddy" and so on. This week at his school he will participate in a long, intensive process of interviewing all the professors whose classes he'd like to take (the professors interview him right back!). It sounds like he's leaning toward history/politics/economics. He is a homebody at heart, so this is a lot, for him and for us.

And now: to fill the dumpster, which still sits all crookedly sited in the driveway, hungry for junk.

it is almost the season for cloaks*

i found myself in such a terrible mood last night, almost certainly due to my reluctance to let go of the summer and give in to the school year, which officially begins right now. even though fall is famously my favorite season of all. this weekend i cooked some delicious food and even documented it: penne with vegan vodka sauce, no vodka required. the creaminess comes from ground almonds, which blows my mind. and garlic roasted brussels sprouts, mmm.
 
























and i made a complicated, ultimately disappointing dessert that involved one pound of melted chocolate. see below if you wonder what that looks like. it was a pumpkin cake with ganache, except the cake was too heavy, kind of like a muffin, and the "ganache" was more like mousse, albeit a delicious mousse. hazelnuts were involved.

























oh, and we went to the pride's corner flea market too, so that isaac could obtain the vintage game system he'd been yearning for. i was attracted to collections of things like such as this bouquet of crutches.

























and this nest of baseballs.

as well as this guy's makeup.

.

maybe he's weird doug?

and finally, my boy just before he walked out the door toward his first day of tenth grade. he paused for a first day of school serenade (he can play this song on that thing, for real). it's also zoë's first day of classes as a college student!

























*"Tonight I stitch. The breeze off the bay smells of aria. It is almost the season for cloaks." from Waiting on the Reading by Samiya Bashir

sail through this to that

isaac is off on a kayaking/island living adventure this week with his school's freshman class. mark dropped him off this morning at the maine state pier, where we will pick him up friday evening. i predict he'll be wet and dirty.

he had kind of a terrible conflict, though; a few of his short films are going to be included in rated local, a screening of short works by maine filmmakers at the nickelodeon on wednesday. you know what's great? rippleffect, which is running the trip, is going to bring him back by boat on wednesday evening in time to get to the screening, and then pick him up again on thursday morning, so he'll hardly miss any time on the island!

here, you can watch the trailer -- look for a glimpse of isaac in a rabbit costume (sans head), getting shot while wielding a knife:

first day of school

yesterday i cried a little listening to this story about kids going off to college. i think it was because it was this kid's first day of high school. and he's my baby.

the sky was so strange after that.

summer, officially

 yesterday was isaac's last day of school, complete with eighth grade graduation ceremony. i didn't cry a bit, even though he's my baby and next thing you know he'll be off to high school and then the next thing after that he'll be all grown up and out into the world. i think i'm all cried out, and besides there are more than 150 students in his class and the ceremony lasted almost three hours. and i was distracted by these people sitting in front of me who didn't clap one single time. it was as if they'd randomly wandered into this middle school event and didn't know any kids there. and hated kids. they looked so bored.

also, isaac is very pleased to be finished with middle school and excited at the thought of a nice long summer stretching in front of him. i took a bunch of pictures of him with his friend anthony afterward, and this is honestly the one in which they look the least goofy.

various things that happened on friday

at some point, there were zombie hunters in my kitchen.























zoë, mark and i went to the library, where she got some books about learning hindi, complete with helpful travel phrases.



















i was going to get this book for minnow, but then i saw it was for people.























the main event at the library was isaac's eighth grade culminating event, based on the four freedoms*. this is his gorgeous collage, illustrating "freedom from want," focusing specifically on access to education.























*which was the theme of the poster stolen from isaac's social studies classroom by the knox county republicans last month, remember?

mental health day

one last mental health day for boo as he nears the end of middle school. we spent the morning part of it walking on willard beach with minnow (which we can only do before nine a.m. now that it's may).




























i took the above photo to demonstrate something that boo and i realized suddenly the other day while standing side-by-side in front of a mirror: he is taller than i am. yes, that's his shadow on the left and mine on the right.

also, his feet are bigger than mine, although that's not a new thing. and my feet are pretty gigantic. i wonder how tall this boy will be? he has one parent of average height, one of average/shortish height, a couple of tall uncles, and some tiny aunties and great-grandmothers (with teeny tiny feet, i might add). and m's mom, grandma nancy, is a tiny lady too!

the learning shack

boo found out yesterday that he did get a spot in the learning shack's class of 2014! hooray!

lapin vs. girafe

boo has been working on a video for a school project. yesterday, with the help of his friends anthony and enoch, he finished filming while i documented with MYphone.
























anthony is in the giraffe mask, boo (of course) is wearing the beloved rabbit head.
























enoch helped up the awesomeness factor.
























i have always allowed my kids to go on the roof, if it fulfills an artistic purpose. or even if they just ask really nicely. i can't wait to show you the final product, which is a french music video. the concept is basically a dance-off between the giraffe and the rabbit, shot all around our neighborhood, with a bit of dialog en français. here is a sneak preview.

pardon me while i brag

bean is officially the "how student of the week" (how = "habits of work") at her school (did i ever tell you that she refers to her school as "the learning shack"?). she is the only student at her school (ever) to simultaneously take three ap classes and a college class at usm. "also," said her principal, "she might be a jayhawk!"

meanwhile, boo made his official high school choice for next year. he chose none other than the learning shack! however, there were so many applicants that there will be a lottery to fill the seventy spots available. his second choice is also a great school.

inducted

isn't "inducted" a funny word? bean was formally inducted into the national honor society last night at school with a few other smarties. it was a lovely little ceremony, and it felt like practice for her graduation in a way. as in, practice restraining myself from bawling in public (tears on my cheeks = acceptable. sobbing = not).
























isn't she the prettiest little thing you ever saw? and isn't her nhs pin totally max fisher?
























her crew leader (kind of her adviser), who doesn't know her all that well, said that he imagines her in a woody allen movie. or a "french neorealist film that (he) hasn't seen." later he amended this to an italian neorealist film. still, it was a strangely flattering and accurate description.

comfort

pumpkin pie pancakes and veggie bacon for breakfast, to celebrate the last day of winter vacation. now boo is finishing some homework, bean is wrapping up the college applications, and m and i are hoping to talk someone into going sledding with us.

a first

bean is home sick today. when i called her school to let them know, the person on the phone said, "does she just have a cold? or...?" i've never been asked that question before when calling my kids in sick (honestly, half the time the answer would have been "no, just a little sick in the head today!" or "just sick of school!"). i can't help but interpret that ellipsis as "the-virus-that-shall-not-be-named."*

*she has a cold.

eavesdropper

do you know about my overheard in portland blog? it's my other love, aside from this virtual scrapbook of a blog we have right here. i was so pleased today to receive two emails and one verbal message from three of the spies i have out in the field. and they're all really funny overheards, just you wait. i only posted one today, overheard by m, because i like to space them out.

today was the last day of school, by the way, and tomorrow i shall celebrate by not getting up at six thirty in the a.m.


p.s. 24 days til bean comes home. just in case you didn't look at yesterday's post and then use your math skillz to figure that out yourself.

re: my kids

this kid
























*won a karaoke contest at school singing come on eileen and you spin me round. his solid education in the music of the eighties has come in handy at last!

*told his friends at school that yes, he only owns one pair of pants (which is not literally true, but might as well be, since he only owns one pair that he will wear), and came home with a piece of notebook paper which had been fashioned into a collection bag and marked "PANTS FOR BOO FUND $." his supporters collected a total of $3.95.

*has no more homework this year.




and this kid



















*is coming home one month from today!!! we are picking her up at 1:00 in the afternoon at a hotel in virginia near dulles on july 11.

*is looking like a german girl. for real.