Author: sajbat

School of Rock

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The other day, on a walk, the boy looked up at me and asked, “Hey, Mom, what’s ‘misery’?”

“Well,” I said, “It’s when you’re very, very sad about something. Why do you ask?”

“’Cause it’s in that song, you know,” and here he began to sing, “‘Put me out, put me out, put me out of misery.’”

And then today, while having breakfast, another one.

“Hey, Mom, what’s an owner?”

“Well, an owner is when you have something that belongs to you, you are it’s owner. Like you are the owner of your shirt because it’s yours.  Why do you ask?” I’ve learned to ask that as a followup question for basically everything.

“‘Cause it’s in that song.”

“What song?” I asked.

And here he broke into song again, “Jojo was a man, who thought he was an owner.”  After I stopped laughing, I gently corrected his lyrics.

All I know is I can never listen to “Blinded by the Light” with him in the car again.

Hair Salon

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The other day, at work, my phone rang. It was the girl’s school calling.

The first thought that ran through my head was hoping that everything was okay–I mean, they usually only call for emergencies.  My second thought was that I hoped it wasn’t some stupid trumped up emergency requiring an immediate pickup, only to find out that she was entirely fine, such as the nonexistent “fever” after playing outside, or the “vomiting” after someone drank too much milk at once.

My daughter’s teacher answered when I picked up. “Okay,” she began, “first of all, the girl is fine, you don’t have to pick her up or anything.”

Glad we got that out of the way.  She continued: “So, something happened that I just thought you should know about. The girl and a friend were playing hair salon with scissors, and each managed to get one good cut in before the teacher saw them and stopped it.”

“Oh,” I said, glad that that was all.  I mean, I don’t really care about that.  I know that something like that happens in an instant and doesn’t mean that they were being neglected. “How bad does it look?”

“Wellll,” her teacher said, “It’s not too bad, really.  There’s just a little hole missing over her left ear.” I thanked her for calling and went about my day.

When I got home that night, I asked the girl about it. You could, by the way, see where the cut had happened but you had to be looking for it.

“So,” I began. “I hear you were playing hair salon with your friend today.”

“Yah! I Weesa!” She said, excitedly. Lisa is the name of the woman who cuts my hair.

“Oh, you were Lisa? Who were you playing with?” I asked.

“Woosey.”

“Lucy? Did you cut Lucy’s hair, too?” I asked.

She nodded, a big big smile on her face.

“And how did Lucy’s hair look after  you cut it?” I asked.

With that, the girl puffed up her chest, got a big, proud smile on her face, and said on an exhale, “Byooful, Mommy. Woosey’s hair wooked byooful.”

 

*sheepish garden*

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I’m almost a bit reluctant to post this, to tell you the truth. The last few weeks of weather have not been kind–severe late afternoon thundershowers have kept everything a bit too drenched, though that’s really the least of it.  Last week a hail storm ripped through the city, and friend after friend was posting on Facebook about how their entire gardens were destroyed.

I didn’t get any hail at all.

I haven’t wanted to post anything about the garden because a)it seemed a bit in-your-face to those who have tatters left, and b) I felt like I was challenging the weather gods.

Well, I think enough time has passed and I’m hopeful that the worst of the storms are over.

The little grass circle around the plants looks awful.  We’re going to reseed it this fall and hope for the best.  Somehow, the grass seems perfectly willing to invade into garden space but has no interest in growing into the brown patches.

The corn is growing nicely, though shorter than I’d anticipated.  There’s two varieties–the tall ones to the back are a popcorn and the ones in the front are some usual yellow corn. Maybe I planted a compact variety? I can’t remember. It’s fun to see them finally tasseling and flowering! They were initially leaning far, far over so you can see where I constructed a little twine support for them.  I staked the ends of the rows and then pulled twine across the front and around the back of the stalks to hold them up while they grew.

Here’s how they looked 15 days ago. Kind of unbelievable how fast they grow:

The squash have taken over their little rectangle, as expected. Next year probably 2 mounds will be plenty. There’s even a few baby butternuts on the vine, safely nestled under the lilypad leaves.

We even have a few red tomatoes!

Here’s another one, growing tall:

If you compare this year’s plants to last year’s, you’ll notice that the tomato plants I had last year were complete monsters. This year I was diligent about picking out the suckers, and I think my plants are a lot healthier, though a bit less bushy, than they were last year.  I also had a lot of problems nearer the end of the season with fungus and aphids, and so far that hasn’t been an issue which I think is because the plants aren’t as crowded.  I’ve also been feeding them fish emulsion once a month to fertilize them. It’s a bit stinky, but the plants don’t seem to mind.

The pole beans and cucumbers don’t seem to be doing quite as well this year, and I’m not really sure why.  I planted both scarlet runners and purple pole beans around all 4 poles, hoping that they would snake their way up and create a profusion of color, but it hasn’t been all that great so far.  It may just be a bit early, or perhaps I didn’t water them enough initally.  And the cucumbers are languishing, though again I’m not entirely sure why.

We do have chard coming out of our ears and have been eating it at least twice a week, though you’d never know it by how big the plants are.  It still cracks me up that both kids love to eat chard, not knowing that they’re not supposed to. We’ve also been eating a bunch of carrots, almost too pretty to eat.

The peas are pretty much done and I got behind on the harvest so I let the remaining pods dry out and now have a handful of dried peas to throw into a soup. The cilantro also bolted fairly early as it usually does.  This year I realized that cilantro seed is coriander, and if I let my plants go to seed, could I possibly harvest coriander seed? The answer is yes, and the first seed that I plucked and broke open to sniff blew me away.  All of the other packaged coriander seed I’ve ever used tastes like cardboard compared to a fresh one.  I’m considering planting more of it next year–it draws a ton of bees to the garden and then I can collect the seeds as well.

The other thing I need to be better about is planting stuff in crops so that we’re not trying to finish 10 pounds of spinach in a week.  I say this every year and fail to be more organized about it, because it’s too hard to restrain myself from planting all the seeds at once, which I should just accept is the kind of gardener I am.

Next time–maybe more ripe tomatoes to show y’all?

What’s on first

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The boy and I, in the car to the store. We pass by a wooded bike trail.

“Hey,” I say, “we should come here for a bike ride! Would that be fun or what?!”

“What what?” he asks.

“What are you talking about?”

“What? You said ‘what.’ What is the what?”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand!” I’m getting a bit frustrated. “What what are you talking about?”

Exasperated, he spits out, “You said, “fun or what.” What is that what?”

“Ohhhhhh,” I say, finally understanding. Smiling, I reply, “It’s an expression, kid. It just means that it would be really fun.”

“Oh, but why do you say ‘or what?’ ”

“I don’t know. You just do.” I’m also a bit tired of relentless questions all morning long.

“Okay. Well, can you say it again?” he asks.

“Sure. Let’s go biking! Would that be fun or what?”

“What,” he deadpans.

The Girl, According to Herself

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Age: I little.

Eye color: Brown

Hair color: Golden

Likes: Fwimming at the pool, weading Knuffle Bunny, widing pink bike, ‘tay home day (“stay home day”)

Dislikes: I not wan’ go ’chool.

Favorite food: butter.

When I grow up: I wan’ be doctor. PURPLE doctor.

Favorite phrases: “Dat’s okay!” “I so mad at you!” “Brudddeeeerrr!” (Brother) and most importantly, “I do it myself!”

Emotions, illustrated:

Farmer Jane

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The whole time I was in New York, I had quite a bit of anxiety about my garden. It was cold and gloomy in Denver, and I was worried that my little plants wouldn’t survive. As you know, I’d already planted too early. When I returned, the tomato plants were droopy and spotted. I began to panic. I hastily took off all the walls of water, convinced that they were making the plants too soggy.

I brought a few leaves into the local nursery. The two ladies at the “Plant Doctor” stand looked at me suspiciously. Both are older Caucasian women with close cropped, no-nonsense haircuts and expressions that show clear fatigue of idiot questions from novice gardeners such as myself. “When did you plant these?” one of them barked at me.

“Umm…two weeks ago…” I lied. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell them I planted three weeks ago.

“Mmm-hmmm” they both said and nodded in unison. They reminded me of those Sesame Street aliens that go “Yipyipyipyip. Uh-huh. Uh-huh” “Ya planted too early. It’s STILL too early to plant.” (This was about 2 weeks ago) “Nighttime temperatures have to be over fifty degrees consistently to plant.”

“What about the walls of water I used?”

They gave each other a knowing look. “When did you set them out?”

“Ummm…” I tried to think of a good lie, but couldn’t. “Well, I just set them over the plants when I put them in.”

“Wrong!” She gave me a bug-eyed look. Now she sort of looked like Large Marge. “Ya need ta put ’em down a few weeks before to warm the soil.” This drubbing continued for a bit longer until, gardening ego battered, I retreated to my car. The last piece of useful advice was to keep picking off the spotted leaves and give the plants a few weeks more in the walls of water.

I went home, put the walls of water back on, and checked on the little plants every day. I also got an essential oil spray to help with aphids and powdery mildew which has always been a problem with my squash and cucumbers and gave everything a nice drink of fish emulsion, hoping to combat the nitrogen poor soil I’m told I have (also by the snooty plant ladies).

A few weeks later…and everything has survived with minimal casualties! I did lose an eggplant, sadly. As you can see, I mulched the plants with newspaper and then covered it with straw mostly so it didn’t look ugly.  It holds in place fairly well except when it gets very windy.

The peas have just exploded and we already ate a few!

The squash is coming up nicely, as is the watermelon. And the corn looks strong, though leans forward to get the sun. The cilantro and spinach already bolted and I’m going to let them go to seed and see if anything comes up in the fall.

The tomatoes are growing nicely, too, and seem to have recovered completely. See the little wooden stake next to the plant? That’s how big they were when we brought them home! And now look at them.

Take that, you snooty garden store “doctors,” you!

 

NYC day 5/6

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We woke up the following morning. At 10 am. I haven’t woken up at 10 am in God only knows how long. Somehow another hour passed before we actually decided to do anything, and for some unknown reason I agreed to go for a run in Prospect Park. 3 miles? Sure, why not. I made it for a mile and a half before I started walking, and considering when I’d gone to bed, I think that qualifies as heroic.

After that we went out to “brunch.” By now it was 1:30 in the afternoon. I had done exactly one thing by 1:30. It was a bit surreal. I guess this is how single people spend their mornings. I mentioned this to my sister, who narrowed her eyes and said something along the lines of, “Yes. This is why I’m exhausted by 11 am whenever I come to visit you.”

The rest of the afternoon was a pleasant stroll through the Village, some shopping, and then a mad dash through another short lived rainstorm to go to a movie.

Afterwards we met up with my cousin Meghana and her boyfriend Sumeet, at another chic speakeasy with exceptionally delicious drinks–bay leaf martini, ginger lime mules, and some fancy version of a dark and stormy.

Walked out on to the street for some late night pizza (that claimed, like every pizza place in New York, that theirs was the Best Pizza in New York City) and then back home to Brooklyn.

You will note I haven’t mentioned the boy at anytime since he left with his grandparents. This is because I didn’t speak to him at all during this time. Partly because my phone was out of juice and couldn’t be charged (for uninteresting reasons), though I was clearly reachable through my sister’s phone. My son, who has never spent the night away from his parents in another home, was entirely uninterested in speaking to either myself or his father. I had a twinge of sadness but was also happy that the little guy was so comfortable there and is independent enough to not need us all the time. This is how it starts, I suppose. One day they can’t even poop on their own and then the next thing you know you get a call from Botswana telling you that they’re moving there permanently.

The boy was having a blast with his cousins, staying up late, fishing, having water balloon fights and far too busy to be bothered with us.

The next day he came back, somewhat reluctantly, for a cab ride to the airport and a thankfully uneventful flight home. On a side note, I have decided that a plane is the perfect place to watch Jennifer Lopez movies. They’re light, fluffy, mildly entertaining, and it doesn’t matter much if a bit of the movie is cut out by announcements. You know what’s NOT a good choice to watch on a plane? “Air Force One.” Even scanning through it to get to “Monster in Law” gave me palpitations.

Some of the little things I want to remember from this trip–how the boy brought a few handfuls of oak seeds and tucked them into his pocket. Whenever he found a little patch of dirt in Manhattan he would surreptitiously pull one out and throw it in. Riding the subway back after a long day and singing “Let It Be” together to pass the time. Those delicious drinks at Pegu Club.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention the knock knock jokes. The boy kept trying to tell us these jokes that were awful. By the end of the trip, the exchanges went something like this. “Hey Mom,” he would start. “Can I tell you a knock knock joke?” “Honey,” I’d reply, “No. You can’t tell knock knock jokes.” Now this may sound harsh to you out there reading this, but you’ll see–I’m right. He’d pester and pester, insisting that this time he’d get it right and I’d eventually give in.

“Ok. Knock knock,” he’d begin.

“Who’s there?” I’d ask, warily.

“Why was the pancake sad?”

“Why was the pancake sad who?”

“Because of the waffle!!” He’d say triumphantly.

“Honey, that’s not a knock knock joke. That doesn’t even make any sense!”

“Really? Can I tell you another one?”

Over and over and over again.

And last but not least, these incredibly creepy ads that they have all around New York on the sides of bus stops. Far away, the boy has his eyes closed, and when you get closer his eyes open and he has an orange in his mouth, to advertise that a certain prepackaged high-sodium artificial food product sold to feed children now contains fruit. Wahoo. At one point, though, the boy would only have one eye open and it was incredibly weird.  You’d see everyone walk by recoil slightly, and this is what I must now share with you.

NYC day 4

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The next day we took the train back to Grand Central. We got into the big atrium, looked at the constellations on the ceiling. I expected the boy to be wowed by it all. He looked around at the place, looked up at me and said, “Mommy, this place is kinda small.” I guess you can’t impress them all. I also begged for just one reasonable picture, but was denied.

The least crazy shot I got

Then to FAO Schwarz, which looked a lot smaller to ME than I remembered it. The boy had no trouble tracking down a Lego Star Wars book and a little kitty for the girl.

Then we met up with my in-laws and after  a fun lunch with the cousins and grandparents, they all whisked him away to their house for the weekend.

Zachary and his cousin

Grace, the boy, and Zachary

I stood on the corner of 5th avenue and 50th street and watched his green dinosaur raincoat disappear into the crowd. He didn’t even turn around. And I started to miss him.

I think when we think about having children, we all have something that we can’t wait to share with them. For Eric this has been taking the boy to baseball games and listening to music. For some maybe it is cooking with them or riding bikes. For me, I always dreamed of the day I could travel with my kids, take them to new places and introduce them to the rest of the world. My parents made it a priority to have my sister and I travel to India as frequently as possible when we were children, and I am incredibly grateful for it now. It made me realize that the rest of the world does not live the way we do, and it made me a much more flexible person when it comes to travelling. While New York is still clearly the Western world (at least the part that we visited) it’s a decent first real travel trip.

Back on that Midtown corner, I realized that this was the first time in years that I’ve been alone in a different city. It felt great, so freeing. I stopped missing the boy.

I headed into the subway to find the Habu yarn shop. Habu is a Japanese yarn company with only 2 retail stores–one in Tokyo and the other in New York City, and I just had to check it out. They make some beautiful, unique yarns–silk wrapped stainless steel, bamboo wrapped copper, and fine merino. It’s on the eighth floor of  a nondescript building. You have to know it’s there to find it, which adds to its allure. I walked into a small room filled with beautiful colors, laid out rather precisely.

Many delicious colors of silk wrapped stainless steel

There was no one in the front but in the back room I could hear what sounded like a sewing machine rattling away (I’d later learn this was a yarn winding machine) and women chattering in Japanese. I looked around for a bit and then announced myself.  A woman popped her head in front, told me to look around and ring the bell when I was ready, and then popped back into the back room. Unbelievable. I could have taken anything I wanted, really.

Crazy looking straw yarn! For Rumplestiltskin, perhaps?

I finally settled on yarn that looks like paper but is made of linen, a fine cotton and a pretty thick and thin silk. I tried not to buy anything in orange, but couldn’t resist.

Then I headed a few blocks over to meet a friend that I studied abroad with many many years ago and whom I hadn’t seen in well over ten years, a fact that we figured out by dating her tattoos. It was so, so fun to hang out, catch up, and find that she is the same heartfelt, caring and sweet person that I knew back then, just all grown up.

After that, my sister met up with us and after saying goodbye to my friend, we headed out for a night of bar hopping at chic speakeasy lounges, which Sapana tells me is the “new hot thing.”

Pouring into bed at 3 am, I slept happily, knowing that I had nothing to do in the morning except take care of myself.

NYC day 3

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After a few days of trying to figure out exactly where we should meet up with Rebecca and her family, we finally settled on meeting at the New York Hall of Science out in Queens. I figured, why not? Maybe I should try to hit all the boroughs during this trip.

An hour later, there we were. I should know this by now, but I always forget how long it takes to get around New York. I mean, it looks so small! And in Denver, no trip takes an hour unless you’re going somewhere, like to the mountains. It certainly doesn’t take an hour to go 12.5 miles on a normal day, unless you’re a true Denver person and insist on running, and then complain about your slow 4.8 minute mile pace because you really should have been able to get it down to 4.75.

The Hall of Science is pretty cool-the big draw is the huge outdoor science playground.  Technically, there are laminated cards explaining the science behind all things in the playground. In reality it’s packed with children run amok. The boy took to Rebecca’s kids as if they were long lost friends and they scampered about. In the back of the playground area is a small area with trees–they loved getting lost among them and exploring the forest.

Water wheels

 

Big Spidery Web Thing

 

Fun with prisms!

We then piled into the car and headed up north to Scarsdale. Rebecca’s house is beautiful and it was so incredibly quiet. It was like a vacation from the city, and was nice for the boy to be able to run around to his heart’s content. It was also so wonderful to see Rebecca. There’s something about old friends that is comforting and easy. I wonder sometimes if it’s even possible to make the same types of friends after a certain time–I will never spend as much time with any people I know now as I did with people from college and medical school. Your life becomes focused on your family (to borrow a phrase) and that is certainly where my  energy goes. Back then you have hours of time that you spend with other people–those hours now largely go to my own family, which I love, but sometimes lament how hard it can be to make friends. It just seems to take so much longer than it did back then.

Before I left, we got one last picture together, and asked the boys to get in the frame with us.  They technically obeyed, though not quite how I was picturing.

And then, back to New York!

NYC day 2

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Today was a very, very full day.

The boy is doing great through all of this, though I’m realizing that he has no sense of crowds or how to navigate in a dense urban environment. In Denver, where it doesn’t much matter where he gads about as long as he’s going in our general direction, he has a lot of freedom in public spaces. He doesn’t quite understand exactly why he can’t hop about like a rabbit on Adderall at the subway station and why I nearly pull his arm out of his socket when he does so. He also has NO conception of personal space. I think he’s so used to sidling up to people that want him to be next to them that he doesn’t quite get that most of the world does not want a small child underfoot. That said, I find that New Yorkers are not particularly accomodating of children who are in their way.

Today, we had to take a little detour as a result of my forgetting our Lion King tickets. FedEx promptly delivered them to Sapana’s office this morning so we took a little side trip to the Flatiron district to retrieve them.

That done we went to the Natural History museum where they have a very, very cool exhibit all about sauropods. While it’s not large, it is one of the most intriguing dinosaur exhibits I’ve ever seen because it just makes the creatures come alive. There’s a lot of focus not just on the skeletons but on the lungs, heart, stomach, muscles and growth of the animals. Did you know that sauropods had storage sacs in their lungs?! When they breathed in air it would go into the lungs and the storage sacs. Then when they exhaled, the storage sacs would exhale that frest air into their lungs. How efficient! Otherwise all that air has to go up and down that long neck too much. And their teeth! Not as grindy as you would think–much sharper for stripping plants of their leaves instead of chewing them up. I could go on and on. I love dinosaurs.

We then went to the Ocean Life section to see the big blue whale.The little speck in front of the TV screen at the far end is the boy.

After that was a cab ride to the Theatre district/Times Square. The most exciting part of this was that the boy got to ride in a car without any sort of car seat. He was giddy.

Then….

Now, I’m not a big musical person, but this was delightful. The opening number in particular is so captivating! I must confess, I always cry when I see the “Circle of Life” scenes in the movie, and the musical was no different. Tears, people, tears streaming down my face. The boy was transfixed by the trampling scene in particular.

Then a quick trip to the Upper East Side for Dylan’s Candy Bar! The boy was, well, like a kid…

My sister pointed out to me that in the space of two days, we have been to 1) the Upper East Side, 2)Brooklyn, 3)Flatirons, 4)Upper West Side, 5)Times Square and 6)Midtown. And we have done this with a 5 1/2 year old in tow who is proving to be a very sturdy traveler.

It is so fun travelling with him. He has a few moments, but for the most part he is engaged, interested, active and never, ever complains.

Rainy day in Times Square--note all the umbrellas

Tomorrow, up to Westchester!