Today: a breezy, sunny day, mostly spent by the pool. Dave read the New York Times. I swam laps and wandered idly through an Ellen Gilchrist book. Kids were in and out of the pool--they had friends there today.
My quality of life has improved lately since I started taking a Claritin in the morning.
Then: my mom's for dinner, where she fed us distractedly with delicious but oddly assorted dishes, I think she is dreading the upcoming LPGA tournament that is being held at their country club this week. She volunteered to help staff the event, because of all the Koreans coming, but she has this secret horror that many of the Korean golfers come from low-class backgrounds with some shadiness hinted at there, and now she has to actually HELP them OUT. She is funny, my mother. So generous, yet such a snob, really.
My nieces were there, and Kara announces to me: "I Googled you recently, and boy, there's a lot about you on the Internet!" I looked at her, somewhat startled, and she added sweetly, "I like to know a lot of information about my relatives."
Mia taught Annie another way to braid a friendship bracelet. Mia has a whole business going, and she taught herself how to make a whole bunch of different kinds. She takes orders, and donates the money to charity, and she can whip out one in about 45 minutes. We ordered one from her that has Annie's full name in it, Annabel, because Annie can NEVER find any sort of item with her name on it, with the proper spelling, if we ever find one, it's usually spelled Annabelle, not Annabel. I can't stand the "Annabelle" spelling of her name, but I LOVE the Annabel spelling.
I love the name "Annabel."
Despite the enormous Rainier cherries my mother gave us, and the sliced watermelon, my children still wanted fruit when they came home. We didn't allow them any more television at home, so they sat around quietly reading books until bedtime. This is my idea of heaven--being with my family, music playing softly in the background, full of good food, and all of us reading books.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Quiet Fourth
Eric and I are the only ones at home right now, because he hates fireworks. He doesn't like them, he has never liked them, and he will tolerate them "only if they are on television," he explained to us. Which is a pity, since I like fireworks, but I actually don't like the piddling local displays, I like the mac-daddy displays in DC or Boston or New York, despite the crowds, so I'm not entirely unhappy to be home while Dave and Annie are at the fireworks with the neighbors.
Yesterday's run was so satisfying, I went again today, only today was, of course, harder. Ten miles in two days is a lot for me; while I didn't break stride the whole time, my legs felt more rubbery and sore, and today, I've been walking a little stiffly.
We went to Peddlers' Village today to search out some fixtures, only the store wasn't quite right for us (not enough faucets to choose from), and then we browsed for a while in an amazing candy store that had all of the vintage candy which maybe doesn't taste so good anymore but still brought back memories. We had brick-oven pizza for lunch--sometimes I really like a white pizza with garlic and spinach and mozzarella and plum tomatoes--and then we trucked over to a local fair.
It was a rather lame-ass local fair, it had some rides going on, but my kids are at that age where they are still scared of the really big rides, but a little bored by the medium-to-kiddie rides. We stayed there for an hour, then we went to the swim club for an hour, and then we were home.
It was such a lovely day today, though--sunny, breezy--it was one of the few days I could really envision us camping as a family one day, there was nothing that seemed more appealing than finding a rustic campsite somewhere, packing a cooler full of food, setting up a tent, and then sleeping in the chill of the night with the entire family, like puppies. I am not likely to get that longing on many days--in fact, I am more likely to think: bugs. Where will I go to the bathroom? Boy this ground is hard. But today, just today, I wanted to go camping.
Yesterday's run was so satisfying, I went again today, only today was, of course, harder. Ten miles in two days is a lot for me; while I didn't break stride the whole time, my legs felt more rubbery and sore, and today, I've been walking a little stiffly.
We went to Peddlers' Village today to search out some fixtures, only the store wasn't quite right for us (not enough faucets to choose from), and then we browsed for a while in an amazing candy store that had all of the vintage candy which maybe doesn't taste so good anymore but still brought back memories. We had brick-oven pizza for lunch--sometimes I really like a white pizza with garlic and spinach and mozzarella and plum tomatoes--and then we trucked over to a local fair.
It was a rather lame-ass local fair, it had some rides going on, but my kids are at that age where they are still scared of the really big rides, but a little bored by the medium-to-kiddie rides. We stayed there for an hour, then we went to the swim club for an hour, and then we were home.
It was such a lovely day today, though--sunny, breezy--it was one of the few days I could really envision us camping as a family one day, there was nothing that seemed more appealing than finding a rustic campsite somewhere, packing a cooler full of food, setting up a tent, and then sleeping in the chill of the night with the entire family, like puppies. I am not likely to get that longing on many days--in fact, I am more likely to think: bugs. Where will I go to the bathroom? Boy this ground is hard. But today, just today, I wanted to go camping.
Lovely day
Yesterday was a very satisfying day.
I went for a long run in the park in the morning, and it was a very good run. I can't understand why some runs are terrific and some suck so much, I tweak things like what I eat and drink ahead of time, but this one was just great. I felt light, and free, and it wasn't too hot, and I wasn't thinking about the black bear that had been spotted in this state park several weeks ago. There were so many people and dogs in the park, I couldn't imagine that bear coming out of hiding, if indeed he was still there. But then I read this morning that a man in Vernon, NJ, had just gotten mugged by a bear in his driveway for his salami sandwich. Geez.
Then Kathryn and Grace came over with the two babies, and Dave took Teddy golfing, while the rest of us went to the swim club for the afternoon. It was a weird-weather day--black clouds would occasionally appear, and sprinkle us with a few dots of rain, but then it would clear up and we'd get tons of sunshine, too.
As soon as Kathryn arrived, and I took Tyler from her, and felt his chubby little arms fasten themselves around my neck, I felt like whatever else happened this long weekend, I'd be happy. He's that cute. He's five months old now, and still cooing and making funny little buzzing and raspberry noises, and if I hold him (which I did, constantly, yesterday) he will chew slightly on my shoulder because he's teething.
It was lovely at the swim club, although it was not particularly relaxing--I was holding Tyler a lot, Annie and Grace were off together, Kathryn was running after Harrison, who is such a fun-loving little devil, and Eric kind of did his own thing. Whenever Tyler napped, I played with Eric--he failed the deep-water swim test twice yesterday, because he misunderstood the instructions, but he's never going to get anywhere with swimming unless he lets go of his nose and starts to practice blowing bubbles out of it.
Then we got water ices on the way home, and waited for Dave and Teddy to get back from golf, and then Grace watched the kids while Kathryn and Teddy went home with the babies and Dave and I went out to dinner and a movie.
We watched the Hangover, and we laughed throughout it. We were in a small theater, and it was jam-packed, so it was one of those communal comedy-viewing experiences, although we had those rocking-chair stadium seats, and there were quite a few extremely large people who, when passing behind me, felt like they had to grab onto the back of my chair to steady themselves and squeeze through. If a person who weighs, like, 300 pounds grabs the back of your chair, which is springy and you happen yourself to weigh about 123 pounds, the effect feels not unlike someone trying to catapult you the hell out of it. It was irritating.
I realized that the Ed Helms character in the Hangover is almost exactly like the Will Ferrell character in Old School, which is the other Todd Phillips movie I know well--a guy who is trapped in some conventional notion of relationships and suburbia but has an inner child waiting to be let out. Judd Apatow is a little more forgiving about those man-children in his movies--his characters are sort of never-grown-ups, they are unapologetically the way they are and in fact, they sometimes DO grow up by the end of the movie, like Seth Rogen did. But, you know: I've seen I Love You, Man, and Role Models, and now The Hangover, all this year, and I think they were all funny movies, but now I feel a little saturated with the scenarios of how dumb and funny (but ultimately lovable) men can be.
One of the things that struck me as a little off was how sharply dressed Bradley Cooper's character was for a schoolteacher, the cut of his suit that he wore in Vegas was the sort that I would expect a super-rich guy to sport, although perhaps I noticed it because Bradley Cooper is a tall, well-formed guy. There are guys who are basically the equivalent of the male Gisele Bundchen, or Miranda Kerr--well-formed by nature with just a little bit of help from exercise--and Bradley Cooper is one of them, and Josh Duhamel is another (Daniel Craig, on the other hand, looks like he works at it a lot). I think Bradley Cooper is nice to look at, and effective in this part and others I've seen him in, but I can't help feeling like he's a little TOO convincing as an asshole. I was creeped out by him as Will, in the television series Alias, because I didn't really believe him as the good-guy friend of Sidney, and then I found him utterly convincing as the asshole fiance in the Wedding Crashers. He's just got that asshole swagger just a little too....down. And, you know, there's that four-month marriage to Jennifer Esposito, and the rumors that he's a dog about women.
The other thing that seemed slightly off is that I thought I would not have been as forgiving of the Vegas escapade as the bride, but, willing suspension of disbelief and all that.
I went for a long run in the park in the morning, and it was a very good run. I can't understand why some runs are terrific and some suck so much, I tweak things like what I eat and drink ahead of time, but this one was just great. I felt light, and free, and it wasn't too hot, and I wasn't thinking about the black bear that had been spotted in this state park several weeks ago. There were so many people and dogs in the park, I couldn't imagine that bear coming out of hiding, if indeed he was still there. But then I read this morning that a man in Vernon, NJ, had just gotten mugged by a bear in his driveway for his salami sandwich. Geez.
Then Kathryn and Grace came over with the two babies, and Dave took Teddy golfing, while the rest of us went to the swim club for the afternoon. It was a weird-weather day--black clouds would occasionally appear, and sprinkle us with a few dots of rain, but then it would clear up and we'd get tons of sunshine, too.
As soon as Kathryn arrived, and I took Tyler from her, and felt his chubby little arms fasten themselves around my neck, I felt like whatever else happened this long weekend, I'd be happy. He's that cute. He's five months old now, and still cooing and making funny little buzzing and raspberry noises, and if I hold him (which I did, constantly, yesterday) he will chew slightly on my shoulder because he's teething.
It was lovely at the swim club, although it was not particularly relaxing--I was holding Tyler a lot, Annie and Grace were off together, Kathryn was running after Harrison, who is such a fun-loving little devil, and Eric kind of did his own thing. Whenever Tyler napped, I played with Eric--he failed the deep-water swim test twice yesterday, because he misunderstood the instructions, but he's never going to get anywhere with swimming unless he lets go of his nose and starts to practice blowing bubbles out of it.
Then we got water ices on the way home, and waited for Dave and Teddy to get back from golf, and then Grace watched the kids while Kathryn and Teddy went home with the babies and Dave and I went out to dinner and a movie.
We watched the Hangover, and we laughed throughout it. We were in a small theater, and it was jam-packed, so it was one of those communal comedy-viewing experiences, although we had those rocking-chair stadium seats, and there were quite a few extremely large people who, when passing behind me, felt like they had to grab onto the back of my chair to steady themselves and squeeze through. If a person who weighs, like, 300 pounds grabs the back of your chair, which is springy and you happen yourself to weigh about 123 pounds, the effect feels not unlike someone trying to catapult you the hell out of it. It was irritating.
I realized that the Ed Helms character in the Hangover is almost exactly like the Will Ferrell character in Old School, which is the other Todd Phillips movie I know well--a guy who is trapped in some conventional notion of relationships and suburbia but has an inner child waiting to be let out. Judd Apatow is a little more forgiving about those man-children in his movies--his characters are sort of never-grown-ups, they are unapologetically the way they are and in fact, they sometimes DO grow up by the end of the movie, like Seth Rogen did. But, you know: I've seen I Love You, Man, and Role Models, and now The Hangover, all this year, and I think they were all funny movies, but now I feel a little saturated with the scenarios of how dumb and funny (but ultimately lovable) men can be.
One of the things that struck me as a little off was how sharply dressed Bradley Cooper's character was for a schoolteacher, the cut of his suit that he wore in Vegas was the sort that I would expect a super-rich guy to sport, although perhaps I noticed it because Bradley Cooper is a tall, well-formed guy. There are guys who are basically the equivalent of the male Gisele Bundchen, or Miranda Kerr--well-formed by nature with just a little bit of help from exercise--and Bradley Cooper is one of them, and Josh Duhamel is another (Daniel Craig, on the other hand, looks like he works at it a lot). I think Bradley Cooper is nice to look at, and effective in this part and others I've seen him in, but I can't help feeling like he's a little TOO convincing as an asshole. I was creeped out by him as Will, in the television series Alias, because I didn't really believe him as the good-guy friend of Sidney, and then I found him utterly convincing as the asshole fiance in the Wedding Crashers. He's just got that asshole swagger just a little too....down. And, you know, there's that four-month marriage to Jennifer Esposito, and the rumors that he's a dog about women.
The other thing that seemed slightly off is that I thought I would not have been as forgiving of the Vegas escapade as the bride, but, willing suspension of disbelief and all that.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Mata Hari, Junior
When Annie was very, very small--like, one and a half--she used to walk around with her pacifiers and juice cups, gesturing emphatically and talking gibberish, and what we found out was, she used to stash these items in holding places. We didn't realize why her juice cups and pacifiers kept on disappearing, until one time, when she was gesturing and talking emphatically at us, she stopped and opened a drawer in this butcher-block island cart we had at the time, and simply extracted a cup half-filled with orange juice and then kept on talking.
(We didn't actually understand anything she was saying until she was two and a half, and now, I confess, I sometimes long for the days when we didn't understand her.)
We were a) relieved that the liquid was orange juice, not milk and b) worried that someday she'd take up smoking, because you could just see her haranguing an colleague or an employee and in the midst of the monologue, she'd just take out a cigarette and light it.
Maybe smoking will be outlawed by the time she grows up.
Anyway.
This hoarding behavior still manifests itself when I occasionally buy her clothes, even though she gets a ton of stuff from her older cousins, she has somewhat different tastes than they do. She simply doesn't like sugar-sweet girly clothes, clothes that are embellished with flowers and ladybugs and the like, she likes clothes that I can only describe as Hello-Kitty/rocker-chick cute. And so when I come across something I think she'd really, really like--or I find something that she'd really like AND is super-cheap because it's on sale, I buy her stuff. This is what I did yesterday--the Gap was having an insane sale, and girls' shirts were, like, 7 bucks each, so I bought her a few things. I didn't tell her I bought her those things, I stashed them in the laundry basket to wash first and then started doing the laundry, but somewhere in between putting them in the laundry, and folding them and putting them away, she simply absconded with these items. She craves new clothes, and she hates it when I keep them away from her for the sake of washing them first or for punishment when she's been naughty, so this time, she simply took them out of the laundry, at some point during the process (I hope AFTER they were washed) and then when she got dressed this morning, she wore two of the new things I had bought her, a tee-shirt and a pair of shorts, and she allowed the other new things to re-appear in her drawers. She wanted them, she wanted to wear them, and so she presented me with two aspects of her personality: the hoarding aspect and the fait accompli, don't ask permission but beg forgiveness later.
Girls, as I've said before, strike me as so much more self-possessed, so much more driven, and so much more subtle and devious than boys are at this age, and actually, maybe that's true for life.
(We didn't actually understand anything she was saying until she was two and a half, and now, I confess, I sometimes long for the days when we didn't understand her.)
We were a) relieved that the liquid was orange juice, not milk and b) worried that someday she'd take up smoking, because you could just see her haranguing an colleague or an employee and in the midst of the monologue, she'd just take out a cigarette and light it.
Maybe smoking will be outlawed by the time she grows up.
Anyway.
This hoarding behavior still manifests itself when I occasionally buy her clothes, even though she gets a ton of stuff from her older cousins, she has somewhat different tastes than they do. She simply doesn't like sugar-sweet girly clothes, clothes that are embellished with flowers and ladybugs and the like, she likes clothes that I can only describe as Hello-Kitty/rocker-chick cute. And so when I come across something I think she'd really, really like--or I find something that she'd really like AND is super-cheap because it's on sale, I buy her stuff. This is what I did yesterday--the Gap was having an insane sale, and girls' shirts were, like, 7 bucks each, so I bought her a few things. I didn't tell her I bought her those things, I stashed them in the laundry basket to wash first and then started doing the laundry, but somewhere in between putting them in the laundry, and folding them and putting them away, she simply absconded with these items. She craves new clothes, and she hates it when I keep them away from her for the sake of washing them first or for punishment when she's been naughty, so this time, she simply took them out of the laundry, at some point during the process (I hope AFTER they were washed) and then when she got dressed this morning, she wore two of the new things I had bought her, a tee-shirt and a pair of shorts, and she allowed the other new things to re-appear in her drawers. She wanted them, she wanted to wear them, and so she presented me with two aspects of her personality: the hoarding aspect and the fait accompli, don't ask permission but beg forgiveness later.
Girls, as I've said before, strike me as so much more self-possessed, so much more driven, and so much more subtle and devious than boys are at this age, and actually, maybe that's true for life.
Thinking
I think that what one has for breakfast every day, and what one WANTS for breakfast every day, are very telling things about a person.
For example: almost every morning, I eat a whole-grain something: English muffins, bread, cereal. As of the last four or five years, most of it has to have high fiber content. I eat it with peanut butter, usually, never butter. I must have a cup of coffee in the morning, which has to be doctored with Splenda and fat-free half-and-half, and I don't drink orange juice, as a rule, anymore, although I might sometimes have a bit of fruit or nonfat yogurt. That's been my standard breakfast of the last, oh I would say, five years.
I could go on about the challenges of splitting English muffins in half--how when they are super-moist, the whole idea of "fork-split" goes by the wayside--and how they must be NOTHING like English crumpets, really--but I won't.
But what do I WANT for breakfast? I want scones--preferably with currants or cranberries. I like Danish, but only with cheese. I like breakfast breads, like banana nut bread and cranberry nut bread. I like to eat eggs with hot sauce or salsa and hot buttermilk biscuits with butter and jam, and then maybe have a bite of sweet breakfast pastry, too. I like big bowls of Honey-Nut Cheerios or Golden Grahams, with sliced bananas and walnuts and whole milk. I like French toast, especially if it's made with challah. I like pancakes, but mostly if they're the blueberry kind and they're served with bacon or fat pork sausages.
If I were to eat the breakfast I wanted, I couldn't eat it very early in the morning. I'd have to have a cup of coffee first and maybe a tiny bit of fruit, to help me empty out my insides and prepare to eat a lot. What I want for breakfast, actually, my body can't really handle anymore, so it would kind of have to take the place of two meals, not one.
Doesn't this tell you a lot about me?
For example: almost every morning, I eat a whole-grain something: English muffins, bread, cereal. As of the last four or five years, most of it has to have high fiber content. I eat it with peanut butter, usually, never butter. I must have a cup of coffee in the morning, which has to be doctored with Splenda and fat-free half-and-half, and I don't drink orange juice, as a rule, anymore, although I might sometimes have a bit of fruit or nonfat yogurt. That's been my standard breakfast of the last, oh I would say, five years.
I could go on about the challenges of splitting English muffins in half--how when they are super-moist, the whole idea of "fork-split" goes by the wayside--and how they must be NOTHING like English crumpets, really--but I won't.
But what do I WANT for breakfast? I want scones--preferably with currants or cranberries. I like Danish, but only with cheese. I like breakfast breads, like banana nut bread and cranberry nut bread. I like to eat eggs with hot sauce or salsa and hot buttermilk biscuits with butter and jam, and then maybe have a bite of sweet breakfast pastry, too. I like big bowls of Honey-Nut Cheerios or Golden Grahams, with sliced bananas and walnuts and whole milk. I like French toast, especially if it's made with challah. I like pancakes, but mostly if they're the blueberry kind and they're served with bacon or fat pork sausages.
If I were to eat the breakfast I wanted, I couldn't eat it very early in the morning. I'd have to have a cup of coffee first and maybe a tiny bit of fruit, to help me empty out my insides and prepare to eat a lot. What I want for breakfast, actually, my body can't really handle anymore, so it would kind of have to take the place of two meals, not one.
Doesn't this tell you a lot about me?
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Random thoughts and happenings
It has been a cra-a-a-zy week, and I'm so, so grateful that we're not going anywhere for the next three days. I'm glad that the kids don't have camp tomorrow, because they've been coming home so dead-tired exhausted, and I'm glad I don't have to work tomorrow, and we don't have to pack up the car for anything.
I've been mostly falling asleep at night right away, but one night this past week, I read a few stories from The Jungle Book, and I was completely enthralled, as always, by the story called Red Dog. I know I'm probably not supposed to like Rudyard Kipling at all--British colonialism and all that--but the writing in the Jungle Book is so beautiful, it is almost like poetry. You can see Mowgli and Bagheera and Akela in your head, when you read these stories. Red Dog is my favorite story because it takes place when Mowgli is older, after he has tried living with humans and gone back to the jungle, and he wages a fierce battle against the red dog pack by insulting them so that they follow him to a place where they get stung to death by bees. It is one of the most exciting stories ever written, and Mowgli and the animals talk to each other in very old-fashioned, courtly language (they call each other "thee" and "thou" and they are exceedingly polite except when they don't want to be) and I think it is one of my favorite stories ever.
I visited another dermatologist yesterday, who told me the same thing the last one had told me, about my raised brown spots, so I will have to try Retin-A after the summer is over, but he was willing to take off a few with his little laser. The last dermatologist had simply scraped a couple off with her very sharp curette, and it didn't hurt and they bled the tiniest bit and then healed without a scar. This one started coming at me with his laser wand and I got a little nervous and I said, "Will it hurt?" and he said, "It feels like a red-hot needle pressing against your skin, but I don't really think you need anesthesia."
He started removing the little moles, and boy, he wasn't kidding: it hurt like a motherf---er. It DID feel like a red-hot needle pressing against my skin, and I was sitting there not moving, not making a sound, thinking, Jesus, Botox must be NOTHING compared to this. But, you know, I have this belief that nothing could hurt worse than childbirth, and I quietly sat there while he fried 14 little brown spots off of my face with his laser. Although, labor pains sort of feel like a giant hand squeezing you relentlessly all over, whereas this stuff felt like lacerating pains scoring across my face. Of the two sorts of pain, I'd probably choose labor.
I think I prefer the curetting method, but to each their own method of spot removal. Afterwards, the spots started darkening and today I could simply scrape them off with a fingernail. Which makes me think that when I try the Retin-A, it might actually work.
I did a million errands this morning in about an hour, I went and got the car inspected, and dropped off some shoes for repair, and bought some fruit at the farmers' market, and dropped off a ton of dry-cleaning, and was home in time for my first conference call this morning. The shoe repair place was, I discovered, owned by Koreans--who asked me a few nosy questions--and then the farmers' market fruit stand is owned by Koreans--who ALWAYS ask me nosy questions--and the dry cleaning place is run by Koreans--who also always ask me nosy questions--so with all of my visits to nosy Korean merchants, I felt quite plumb out of personal information to share. (It is just a cultural thing, the way Koreans feel free to be nosy with each other like that.)
After my workday, I went to a new tile place to pick out tiles for our guest bathroom, which we are renovating later on, and this place had the loveliest tiles I've ever seen, really gorgeous ceramic glazed and raised ones, although that was not the kind I was looking for today. The woman who owns the place is British, and she is cheerful and cute and bouncy and was wearing a low-cut top that, er, displayed her ample fair breasts quite a lot. I was a) worried they would fall out and b) in my head, starting to imitate her British accent. I actually do have a fair talent for mimicry; I do a few impressions of people I work with, but only the people I don't like, or am not particularly close to.
Sometimes I can't stand how cute Eric is, still. He had to pick optional clubs for camp, and he picked things like tennis and basketball, but he told me wistfully that he actually wanted to give musical theater a go, except that he felt he'd be too shy to perform in front of crowds. And then he was packing his backpack this morning to go to camp, and he looked up at me as I was walking by, and then I stopped and he just ran and gave me a hug and a kiss. Because he's like that.
I had dinner in Princeton last night. There is something about Princeton's brand of liberalism that makes my teeth hurt, like the restaurant shared a parking lot with an organic foods store and there was a parking space with a sign that indicated it was a preferred space for hybrids or electric cars. I'm all for environmental policies, but there's just something so self-righteous about the way people go about doing it. It's like diversifying your workplace: just do it, quietly and with a minimum of fuss, and don't go around trumpeting about.
Anyway, the Thai restaurant we went to was extremely good, albeit a little damp and muggy in atmosphere inside. I usually like drunken noodles or curry sauce with rice, but last night I ordered my very favorite kind of Thai noodles, pad see-iuw, which consists of those broad flat noodles sauteed with broccoli and egg, and boy they were delicious. They were SO good, in fact, that I can tell you what's going to happen: I'm going to think about them so much that I will invent a reason to go back to that restaurant sometime soon. At least I know myself well.
I've been mostly falling asleep at night right away, but one night this past week, I read a few stories from The Jungle Book, and I was completely enthralled, as always, by the story called Red Dog. I know I'm probably not supposed to like Rudyard Kipling at all--British colonialism and all that--but the writing in the Jungle Book is so beautiful, it is almost like poetry. You can see Mowgli and Bagheera and Akela in your head, when you read these stories. Red Dog is my favorite story because it takes place when Mowgli is older, after he has tried living with humans and gone back to the jungle, and he wages a fierce battle against the red dog pack by insulting them so that they follow him to a place where they get stung to death by bees. It is one of the most exciting stories ever written, and Mowgli and the animals talk to each other in very old-fashioned, courtly language (they call each other "thee" and "thou" and they are exceedingly polite except when they don't want to be) and I think it is one of my favorite stories ever.
I visited another dermatologist yesterday, who told me the same thing the last one had told me, about my raised brown spots, so I will have to try Retin-A after the summer is over, but he was willing to take off a few with his little laser. The last dermatologist had simply scraped a couple off with her very sharp curette, and it didn't hurt and they bled the tiniest bit and then healed without a scar. This one started coming at me with his laser wand and I got a little nervous and I said, "Will it hurt?" and he said, "It feels like a red-hot needle pressing against your skin, but I don't really think you need anesthesia."
He started removing the little moles, and boy, he wasn't kidding: it hurt like a motherf---er. It DID feel like a red-hot needle pressing against my skin, and I was sitting there not moving, not making a sound, thinking, Jesus, Botox must be NOTHING compared to this. But, you know, I have this belief that nothing could hurt worse than childbirth, and I quietly sat there while he fried 14 little brown spots off of my face with his laser. Although, labor pains sort of feel like a giant hand squeezing you relentlessly all over, whereas this stuff felt like lacerating pains scoring across my face. Of the two sorts of pain, I'd probably choose labor.
I think I prefer the curetting method, but to each their own method of spot removal. Afterwards, the spots started darkening and today I could simply scrape them off with a fingernail. Which makes me think that when I try the Retin-A, it might actually work.
I did a million errands this morning in about an hour, I went and got the car inspected, and dropped off some shoes for repair, and bought some fruit at the farmers' market, and dropped off a ton of dry-cleaning, and was home in time for my first conference call this morning. The shoe repair place was, I discovered, owned by Koreans--who asked me a few nosy questions--and then the farmers' market fruit stand is owned by Koreans--who ALWAYS ask me nosy questions--and the dry cleaning place is run by Koreans--who also always ask me nosy questions--so with all of my visits to nosy Korean merchants, I felt quite plumb out of personal information to share. (It is just a cultural thing, the way Koreans feel free to be nosy with each other like that.)
After my workday, I went to a new tile place to pick out tiles for our guest bathroom, which we are renovating later on, and this place had the loveliest tiles I've ever seen, really gorgeous ceramic glazed and raised ones, although that was not the kind I was looking for today. The woman who owns the place is British, and she is cheerful and cute and bouncy and was wearing a low-cut top that, er, displayed her ample fair breasts quite a lot. I was a) worried they would fall out and b) in my head, starting to imitate her British accent. I actually do have a fair talent for mimicry; I do a few impressions of people I work with, but only the people I don't like, or am not particularly close to.
Sometimes I can't stand how cute Eric is, still. He had to pick optional clubs for camp, and he picked things like tennis and basketball, but he told me wistfully that he actually wanted to give musical theater a go, except that he felt he'd be too shy to perform in front of crowds. And then he was packing his backpack this morning to go to camp, and he looked up at me as I was walking by, and then I stopped and he just ran and gave me a hug and a kiss. Because he's like that.
I had dinner in Princeton last night. There is something about Princeton's brand of liberalism that makes my teeth hurt, like the restaurant shared a parking lot with an organic foods store and there was a parking space with a sign that indicated it was a preferred space for hybrids or electric cars. I'm all for environmental policies, but there's just something so self-righteous about the way people go about doing it. It's like diversifying your workplace: just do it, quietly and with a minimum of fuss, and don't go around trumpeting about.
Anyway, the Thai restaurant we went to was extremely good, albeit a little damp and muggy in atmosphere inside. I usually like drunken noodles or curry sauce with rice, but last night I ordered my very favorite kind of Thai noodles, pad see-iuw, which consists of those broad flat noodles sauteed with broccoli and egg, and boy they were delicious. They were SO good, in fact, that I can tell you what's going to happen: I'm going to think about them so much that I will invent a reason to go back to that restaurant sometime soon. At least I know myself well.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Thinking
Last night, by 9 p.m. sharp, every single member of this family was in bed, lights out, sound asleep.
We were so tired. The kids from two days of camp, compounded by two late nights in a row of disrupted sleep, and Dave and me with our jaunt to Buffalo with the delayed planes and all that.
I woke up at 5:15 this morning, but I had gotten a solid eight hours under my belt. Which made me glad, considering the day I had.
I ran this morning, four and a half miles, and most of the time when I run outside, I run without my iPod, and think through the various work tasks I have to do. I find it helps me organize my days.
I got involved in two conversations today that were difficult, one having to do with work challenges and another having to do with someone else's personal life. Both conversations, I thought were important to engage in, meaning I thought I had something to contribute to those conversations that might have helped the other person--I don't know that yet. But both took a great deal of energy out of me. And I did not cry or break down during either one of them because somehow, I feel like I have some perspective right now that's enabling me to do my work and continue to move forward.
Things are busy, and tiring right now, but good moments come for me and my family and those just have to get you through the rougher patches. Which can always get a whole lot rougher.
We were so tired. The kids from two days of camp, compounded by two late nights in a row of disrupted sleep, and Dave and me with our jaunt to Buffalo with the delayed planes and all that.
I woke up at 5:15 this morning, but I had gotten a solid eight hours under my belt. Which made me glad, considering the day I had.
I ran this morning, four and a half miles, and most of the time when I run outside, I run without my iPod, and think through the various work tasks I have to do. I find it helps me organize my days.
I got involved in two conversations today that were difficult, one having to do with work challenges and another having to do with someone else's personal life. Both conversations, I thought were important to engage in, meaning I thought I had something to contribute to those conversations that might have helped the other person--I don't know that yet. But both took a great deal of energy out of me. And I did not cry or break down during either one of them because somehow, I feel like I have some perspective right now that's enabling me to do my work and continue to move forward.
Things are busy, and tiring right now, but good moments come for me and my family and those just have to get you through the rougher patches. Which can always get a whole lot rougher.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Tired
We have been sort of low-key and quiet today, doing household chores in bursts of activity, with lulls in between. I put myself on the couch around 3 pm, and meant to just take a few winks, only I fell into one of those deep, velvety, almost suffocating naps that are hard to emerge from, they are so all-enveloping of consciousness. An hour later, I forced myself to open my eyes and tiredly dragged myself up again. Fortunately, the kids are being easy-peasy today.
They started their new camp last Thursday, and they come home from camp rosy and dirty and disheveled. When I look at their schedules each day, I am not surprised. This is the first full-service, full-on camp they have experienced, and even though it's not overnight, it is clear that the many dollars it took to send the kids there at least are buying us some exhausted kids by the end of the day. On most days, they swim twice a day--one for instruction, one a free-for-all--and they pick club activities that they want to specialize in, like theater or dance, and they play sports and go down to the lake and go fishing and canoeing and they play all sorts of games, like soccer and basketball. Dave was unable to share any details with me about the kids' experiences while I was gone in Cleveland, a combination I think of them being so tired and unused to the level of activity, and men being unable to ask the right questions. But when we were driving home from my sister's today, I extracted an awful lot of detail from them. The names of their counselors, the times lunch is served, the types of food they get, the kids in their bunks--they were quite forthcoming with me. I think it's a mom thing.
So, we're tired. We don't have a ton of weekend plans coming up in July, although we've been invited for a Block Island get-together at the end of July, and then in August we have weekends here and there. If the weather cooperates, maybe we'll be able to ease into a lazier summer routine after all, because June was a wash, as far as I'm concerned.
They started their new camp last Thursday, and they come home from camp rosy and dirty and disheveled. When I look at their schedules each day, I am not surprised. This is the first full-service, full-on camp they have experienced, and even though it's not overnight, it is clear that the many dollars it took to send the kids there at least are buying us some exhausted kids by the end of the day. On most days, they swim twice a day--one for instruction, one a free-for-all--and they pick club activities that they want to specialize in, like theater or dance, and they play sports and go down to the lake and go fishing and canoeing and they play all sorts of games, like soccer and basketball. Dave was unable to share any details with me about the kids' experiences while I was gone in Cleveland, a combination I think of them being so tired and unused to the level of activity, and men being unable to ask the right questions. But when we were driving home from my sister's today, I extracted an awful lot of detail from them. The names of their counselors, the times lunch is served, the types of food they get, the kids in their bunks--they were quite forthcoming with me. I think it's a mom thing.
So, we're tired. We don't have a ton of weekend plans coming up in July, although we've been invited for a Block Island get-together at the end of July, and then in August we have weekends here and there. If the weather cooperates, maybe we'll be able to ease into a lazier summer routine after all, because June was a wash, as far as I'm concerned.
Back from all that
The last few days were crazily hectic, and it's tough to go back to work after these days, but all of the things felt right to do, even though they were stacked up against each other, and this weekend we're not going ANYWHERE. We are staying put.
So.
On Thursday, I flew out to Cleveland to do a speech at an event. It is not part of my persona to enjoy public appearances--I love writing speeches, but I feel passionately about my byline and about being credited for the words, not for saying them. However, the people who were hosting the event were very grateful that I came--and dinner afterwards, with them, was quite fun. I had barely any time in Cleveland proper, the event was at the Botanical Gardens but it was stormy and raining like crazy, so it was mostly indoors. I could not believe it when they put out a tray of dark chocolate-covered strawberries midway through the reception afterwards, and I stood by the table and discreetly gobbled a few, until the hosts whisked me away for dinner. Delish, although I do hate the way that strawberry seeds feel against my teeth. (It always sort of reminds me of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, trying to floss her teeth after eating strawberries with champagne, and me identifying with the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold character in a cheesy movie like that is beyond shallow.)
I was supposed to come back on Friday early morning, and I got up before dawn and rode to the airport with a cheerfully voluble limo driver--EVERYONE in Cleveland seemed to be super-chatty--and he told me all about how he drove a whole day while having a heart attack, and we drove by the Cleveland Clinic, which looked big enough to be its own city, and then I got to the airport and found out that my flight had been cancelled because the airport had lost power during the night, due to the storms. That was not fun, and I was pissed at myself for not checking in advance, only by being there so early I got on standby for another flight and I was one of only two people they let on that earlier flight. Otherwise, I would have gotten in to Philly at around 3, which would have been a problem, BECAUSE....
....on Friday night, my mother and I hosted a dinner party together. I hardly ever ask my mom to do this, but once in a while I make good enough friends at work who I also think will really appreciate my mother's cooking, and so we organized a dinner party together where she made most of the food but I helped serve and organize and I made a few things. So if I had gotten back later from Cleveland, I probably would've been screwed, but as it was, my mom and I were able to do everything quite easily during the afternoon while I dealt with some fire-drill e-mails and phone calls form work.
The dinner itself, by the way, was spectacular. My mother made some things that she hasn't made in ages, really delicious things, and then I noticed that she left some things entirely to me, like making the sauce for the lettuce leaves and the grilled meat, and the asparagus, although she did stroll over and take a taste now and then. This is hugely symbolic--that she let me make some essential Korean things without hovering over me or giving me advice, it's a sign that she trusts my cooking more. She did quietly help with the butter layer cake with strawberries and whipped cream but I suspect that was more out of a desire to learn how to make that cake herself, because she loves it. I made the layers and then I let them cool, and then I went to do something else and when I turned around again the layers were all neatly sliced and divided and then I whipped the cream with vanilla and sugar and while I went to get the berries she started spreading the cream. I actually like that about my mom--no flies on her, ever. She just does things.
I am pretty sure that the guests enjoyed themselves--I know Dave and I did--and then everyone went home, full and happy, but my mother stayed the night, because the next morning...
...Dave picked up Annie from her sleepover, I packed up the kids, and my mom took them to my sister's, where she watched them for a while and then they had a sleepover with their cousins while Dave and I went to a wedding in Buffalo. We had a bit of a hard time getting there, and it was entirely NOT due to weather, but due instead to the sheer incompetence of the US Airways staff in Philly, who switched planes on us even though a small mechanical issue had been fixed, and who didn't bother to transfer the passenger bags from one plane to another until we were on the second plane and waiting on the tarmac.
When we got to Buffalo, I was sort of lamenting my second missed pedicure appointment, and Dave did not quite understand why. To him, my toes looked fine. I had an appointment on Friday that I had to cancel owing to my Cleveland delays--I had an appointment on Saturday in Buffalo that I had to cancel due to our flight delay THEN, and I know I'm a little obsessed with having nice feet, but I really DO care about having nice feet, especially for a summer wedding when I have to wear dressy sandals. So I was bummed, and starving, and exhausted, when we landed in Buffalo, and we went to Dave's favorite steak taco place to grab a bite to eat, and while he was ordering, I spied a nail salon next door--one of those horrid sort of cheap places with the Asian people who wear masks to protect them from the fumes--and I suddenly disappeared in there and got a quick pedicure. I know this will make me sound weird, but I actually find it very soothing to have my toes groomed. I don't understand why Nature gave us cuticles.
We gobbled steak tacos, drove to Dave's parents' house (who are traveling overseas right now), showered, changed, and caffeinated, and made it to the wedding just as the ceremony was starting. And I wore a very pretty Diane von Furstenberg dress that I had bought for fifty bucks in the Neiman Marcus outlet, a black-and-white graphic print on silk with fluttery cap sleeves, that I wore with black patent-leather shoes and big white mother-of-pearl hoops. And my newly red toenails. And red lipstick.
Now. The wedding.
I was the one who urged Dave to go, because this is one of his high school friends and it's a very tight group of guys and everyone else was going, and I knew that if Dave didn't go, he'd feel like he missed out on something. That being said, this is a very smart guy from a working-class background who went to an Ivy League college and whose first wife left him abruptly with their twin boys and infant daughter a few years ago. This was his second marriage, and I think he felt like he was making a better choice this time around, and we were all happy for him, that he had somehow found his way through a very dark time to happiness. His bride seemed very, very nice, and already well-meshed with his kids, but I must say this: this being her first marriage, she seemed to have put all of her eggs into the dress she wore and the photographs they were taking, they took millions of photos for hours and hours and Dave's friend was getting sick of it, but he went along with it for her sake, and meanwhile, the food and the drink were awful, awful. There were only four kinds of liquor (vodka, whisky, beer, and wine) and they ran out of tonic water and ran out of glasses and then they started running out of food, which was not so much a problem because it was horrible--overcooked roulade of beef and salmon and limp veggies and pasta. You know that scene in the movie Big, when Tom Hanks tries caviar and then ends up gagging and trying to scrape it off of his tongue? That was pretty much all of us, as we tasted the first hors d'oeuvre, crab salad on wasabi crackers, which tasted like pure fish.
But: as I said, I'm glad we went. I'm glad we showed up, because it was good to re-connect with everyone and say hi and wish everyone well, especially the groom. And when we got back to Dave's parents' house, at about 11, I we fell into an exhausted sleep and then woke up at 5 am for a 7 am flight--the only time we could get a return flight with our miles--and flew back and got deposited at the other end of the airport from where our car was parked, and then drove an hour to my sister's to get the kids, who were happy and very, very tired, and then drove an hour home.
And now, here we are.
So.
On Thursday, I flew out to Cleveland to do a speech at an event. It is not part of my persona to enjoy public appearances--I love writing speeches, but I feel passionately about my byline and about being credited for the words, not for saying them. However, the people who were hosting the event were very grateful that I came--and dinner afterwards, with them, was quite fun. I had barely any time in Cleveland proper, the event was at the Botanical Gardens but it was stormy and raining like crazy, so it was mostly indoors. I could not believe it when they put out a tray of dark chocolate-covered strawberries midway through the reception afterwards, and I stood by the table and discreetly gobbled a few, until the hosts whisked me away for dinner. Delish, although I do hate the way that strawberry seeds feel against my teeth. (It always sort of reminds me of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, trying to floss her teeth after eating strawberries with champagne, and me identifying with the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold character in a cheesy movie like that is beyond shallow.)
I was supposed to come back on Friday early morning, and I got up before dawn and rode to the airport with a cheerfully voluble limo driver--EVERYONE in Cleveland seemed to be super-chatty--and he told me all about how he drove a whole day while having a heart attack, and we drove by the Cleveland Clinic, which looked big enough to be its own city, and then I got to the airport and found out that my flight had been cancelled because the airport had lost power during the night, due to the storms. That was not fun, and I was pissed at myself for not checking in advance, only by being there so early I got on standby for another flight and I was one of only two people they let on that earlier flight. Otherwise, I would have gotten in to Philly at around 3, which would have been a problem, BECAUSE....
....on Friday night, my mother and I hosted a dinner party together. I hardly ever ask my mom to do this, but once in a while I make good enough friends at work who I also think will really appreciate my mother's cooking, and so we organized a dinner party together where she made most of the food but I helped serve and organize and I made a few things. So if I had gotten back later from Cleveland, I probably would've been screwed, but as it was, my mom and I were able to do everything quite easily during the afternoon while I dealt with some fire-drill e-mails and phone calls form work.
The dinner itself, by the way, was spectacular. My mother made some things that she hasn't made in ages, really delicious things, and then I noticed that she left some things entirely to me, like making the sauce for the lettuce leaves and the grilled meat, and the asparagus, although she did stroll over and take a taste now and then. This is hugely symbolic--that she let me make some essential Korean things without hovering over me or giving me advice, it's a sign that she trusts my cooking more. She did quietly help with the butter layer cake with strawberries and whipped cream but I suspect that was more out of a desire to learn how to make that cake herself, because she loves it. I made the layers and then I let them cool, and then I went to do something else and when I turned around again the layers were all neatly sliced and divided and then I whipped the cream with vanilla and sugar and while I went to get the berries she started spreading the cream. I actually like that about my mom--no flies on her, ever. She just does things.
I am pretty sure that the guests enjoyed themselves--I know Dave and I did--and then everyone went home, full and happy, but my mother stayed the night, because the next morning...
...Dave picked up Annie from her sleepover, I packed up the kids, and my mom took them to my sister's, where she watched them for a while and then they had a sleepover with their cousins while Dave and I went to a wedding in Buffalo. We had a bit of a hard time getting there, and it was entirely NOT due to weather, but due instead to the sheer incompetence of the US Airways staff in Philly, who switched planes on us even though a small mechanical issue had been fixed, and who didn't bother to transfer the passenger bags from one plane to another until we were on the second plane and waiting on the tarmac.
When we got to Buffalo, I was sort of lamenting my second missed pedicure appointment, and Dave did not quite understand why. To him, my toes looked fine. I had an appointment on Friday that I had to cancel owing to my Cleveland delays--I had an appointment on Saturday in Buffalo that I had to cancel due to our flight delay THEN, and I know I'm a little obsessed with having nice feet, but I really DO care about having nice feet, especially for a summer wedding when I have to wear dressy sandals. So I was bummed, and starving, and exhausted, when we landed in Buffalo, and we went to Dave's favorite steak taco place to grab a bite to eat, and while he was ordering, I spied a nail salon next door--one of those horrid sort of cheap places with the Asian people who wear masks to protect them from the fumes--and I suddenly disappeared in there and got a quick pedicure. I know this will make me sound weird, but I actually find it very soothing to have my toes groomed. I don't understand why Nature gave us cuticles.
We gobbled steak tacos, drove to Dave's parents' house (who are traveling overseas right now), showered, changed, and caffeinated, and made it to the wedding just as the ceremony was starting. And I wore a very pretty Diane von Furstenberg dress that I had bought for fifty bucks in the Neiman Marcus outlet, a black-and-white graphic print on silk with fluttery cap sleeves, that I wore with black patent-leather shoes and big white mother-of-pearl hoops. And my newly red toenails. And red lipstick.
Now. The wedding.
I was the one who urged Dave to go, because this is one of his high school friends and it's a very tight group of guys and everyone else was going, and I knew that if Dave didn't go, he'd feel like he missed out on something. That being said, this is a very smart guy from a working-class background who went to an Ivy League college and whose first wife left him abruptly with their twin boys and infant daughter a few years ago. This was his second marriage, and I think he felt like he was making a better choice this time around, and we were all happy for him, that he had somehow found his way through a very dark time to happiness. His bride seemed very, very nice, and already well-meshed with his kids, but I must say this: this being her first marriage, she seemed to have put all of her eggs into the dress she wore and the photographs they were taking, they took millions of photos for hours and hours and Dave's friend was getting sick of it, but he went along with it for her sake, and meanwhile, the food and the drink were awful, awful. There were only four kinds of liquor (vodka, whisky, beer, and wine) and they ran out of tonic water and ran out of glasses and then they started running out of food, which was not so much a problem because it was horrible--overcooked roulade of beef and salmon and limp veggies and pasta. You know that scene in the movie Big, when Tom Hanks tries caviar and then ends up gagging and trying to scrape it off of his tongue? That was pretty much all of us, as we tasted the first hors d'oeuvre, crab salad on wasabi crackers, which tasted like pure fish.
But: as I said, I'm glad we went. I'm glad we showed up, because it was good to re-connect with everyone and say hi and wish everyone well, especially the groom. And when we got back to Dave's parents' house, at about 11, I we fell into an exhausted sleep and then woke up at 5 am for a 7 am flight--the only time we could get a return flight with our miles--and flew back and got deposited at the other end of the airport from where our car was parked, and then drove an hour to my sister's to get the kids, who were happy and very, very tired, and then drove an hour home.
And now, here we are.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Today
It was one of those long days, when we went to Eric's karate lesson and waited for him to finish, he got his green belt today after his test on Saturday and he was soooo proud, and then we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant and Eric started complaining that he had a headache.
He sometimes gets headaches when he gets hot, tired, and dehydrated. He left his chair in the restaurant and came around to my side of the table and he climbed onto my lap, big boy that he is (I can barely hold him) and he laid his head down on my shoulder and announced, "My head feels better when I am with you."
(sentimental sigh.)
Annie barely paid any attention to us during dinner, she was devouring the last few chapters of the third Harry Potter book. I have created a monster, but it is a monster I like.
When we got home, I got a call from old friends, parents of a good college friend of mine who were always especially lovely to me. My friend's stepmother got a kidney/pancreas transplant ten years ago, a little earlier than they expected, so my friend called me and asked if I would keep her dad company at the hospital while her stepmother went through the operation, and I did, I remember I was pregnant with Annie and quite round at the time, I even remember that I was wearing a blue linen sleeveless maternity dress with mother-of-pearl buttons, and I kept on bringing my friend's dad things to read or things to eat, but he was too nervous and just chatted away about inconsequential things until she was safely out of surgery. It was sweet of them to remember me, on this anniversary--they've had marvelous times since then, they've retired, both of them, and started taking trips overseas for the first time, and it was good to catch up with them.
He sometimes gets headaches when he gets hot, tired, and dehydrated. He left his chair in the restaurant and came around to my side of the table and he climbed onto my lap, big boy that he is (I can barely hold him) and he laid his head down on my shoulder and announced, "My head feels better when I am with you."
(sentimental sigh.)
Annie barely paid any attention to us during dinner, she was devouring the last few chapters of the third Harry Potter book. I have created a monster, but it is a monster I like.
When we got home, I got a call from old friends, parents of a good college friend of mine who were always especially lovely to me. My friend's stepmother got a kidney/pancreas transplant ten years ago, a little earlier than they expected, so my friend called me and asked if I would keep her dad company at the hospital while her stepmother went through the operation, and I did, I remember I was pregnant with Annie and quite round at the time, I even remember that I was wearing a blue linen sleeveless maternity dress with mother-of-pearl buttons, and I kept on bringing my friend's dad things to read or things to eat, but he was too nervous and just chatted away about inconsequential things until she was safely out of surgery. It was sweet of them to remember me, on this anniversary--they've had marvelous times since then, they've retired, both of them, and started taking trips overseas for the first time, and it was good to catch up with them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
