shout out to lily

around the corner is a tiny little drycleaners/tailoring shop with a hand-lettered sign saying "Beverly Hills Cleaners". the shop is run by a teeny (i'm talking well under 5 feet) woman in her late 60s
named lily. she has a very cute and excited high-pitched voice and a broad smiley face, she has always been friendly but much more so since we had the kids. she would entice miles by flying out of the space where she somehow crams herself, lots of thread, lots of clothes, a stuffed clifford, a few sewing machines, and out into the doorway when she spotted us walking by. "oh, you come say hi to lily! lily loves you! come, come come," waving us into the store. she would then part the hanging drycleaning and emerge with some cookies or unidentifiable treats and put way too many of them into miles' greedy little hands. of course he learned to smile and wave each time we went by.

then one day lily was gone and the neighborhood gossip travelled fast. the star-trek lovin' older man (in his wierd drag--mostly he dresses like a man but sometimes throws you way off with some bright orange lipstick or big tall heels) who manages her building told us she had been assaulted in her store. soon our next-door neighbor whose friend works in the er at sf general told us more details. she had been stabbed repeatedly in the head, so hard her skull was fractured. she had been stabbed through the eye. she might die. the store hadn't even been robbed. it sounded like the work of someone mentally ill. we were all shocked and scared for a while. another older woman, nice but quiet and reserved tool over. lily's husband showed up occasionally but didn't speak english well enough to tell us how she was. just better, better.

then one day lily was back. her eye was permanently closed. her husband is now mostly there with her. her business survived and so did she. rich gets extra orchids from work and brings them to her in the shop. in return she won't accept money from us, which we wish she would. last week the zipper of miles' prize bright blue wool eagle sweater broke and he told us we would have to throw it away. but we took it to lily and she put in a brand new zipper. a better one, says miles, because now he can do it himself. free.

as far as i know they never caught her assailant.

thank you to lily. you are adorable and amazing.

summer is over now boo hoo

hi. these photos are from a hip and multicultural kid event i took miles to today while rich and maya snoozed. it was a fundraiser for 826 valencia ,
an organization that promotes literacy and the writing arts for kids. they have a store on valencia which sells pirate supplies (you know, lard, hooks), and in the back they tutor kids from the neighborhood, mostly from latino families. they host field trips, and do tons of work in san francisco unified. we arrived at the fundraiser just as it opened and got first pick of many booths including face painting and hair braiding, become a pirate, make mexican paper art, dunk a writer (dave eggers i think, michelle tea, beth lisick). all the activities had these beautiful banners in spanish and english, everyone was super kid friendly. it's all volunteers. there was good homeade mexican food made by the parents of some tutorees. a climbing wall reaching up into a clear blue sky. and a good little jumpy castle with no line, in which miles had some moments of ecstasy. his spiderman face just covered in joy as he boinged all over the thing.

i got some good sugar from my son who told me he loved me more than getting a new toy every single day. nice to remember when he is refused to brush his teeth later on in the evening and made me headlock him still to get it done like i used to 2 years ago.

i am starting to feel super anxious about the upcoming school selection process. it seems to drag on for a full year. i'll be writing much more about this as the year goes, but i am in the information-gathering stage, mostly meaning i quiz every parent of a young school-age child i meet and ask them about their kid's school. the dad behind me in the face-painting line today told me they didn't get any of their SEVEN choices. we know some kids who were JUST assigned in late august to schools they applied for in december, after second rounds, waiting pools,etc. and i'm realizing i don't even know what kind of education i want for miles...do we go after the school with the best art/music/science/extras? best academic test scores? proximity? k through 8? a progressive creative arts charter school? spanish immersion?
i am someone who has chased down waiters after placing my order as i become overwhelmed with concern that i have ordered the wrong entree. this is going to be really hard on me. it's not just choosing a school--it's a big gamble as the most desired schools are mostly the hardest to get into. yikes. maybe we will homeschool.

last night i went to see rich's cover band play at el rio. my fabulous cousin and cousin-finace babysat. there were a lot of friendly faces from my past and it was a top-notch rock show. i met a friend of rich's bandmate who was a member of the punk band flipper (exciting for me). he told me his daughter was a senior at mission high, had been through sfusd k-12, and they loved this high school that had such a bad reputation. he said they had done a ton of work with her schools. i guess that's pretty punk rock, right? you learn despite what they teach you is what he said (i guess i've heard this before), and i think back to my school experience--i'd say 90% of the facts i learned in school are gone. use it or lose it. kids learn by following their interests. so how much does school matter anyway? i'm realizing i work in the field of education but i need to do some research to get past the NCLB brainwashing crap and find out what really is the best way to teach my kid. we will make sure to try and supplement his poor school with zoos and museums and classes (i'll write soon about the "achievement gap" in my district)--but then when will there be time to just be a kid?


i'll be babbling on about this subject much more as the year goes on. any comments about your own school experience/opinion about what schools should provide is very very very welcomed.

goodnight, love, jamie

homeless friend

when we lived in philly there were a lot of people getting involved in trouble. we had some amazing friends die directly due to drugs, and that was hard to live around. after we left a lot of things changed. the places we and friends lived gentrified, and a lot of money poured into parts of philly for a while. many of our friends in bands and bars bought businesses, went to grad school, had kids. i haven't been back in many years. we had one friend there who was more of a frequently seen acquaintance. we'd go get coffee at this cool little place, they had old-fashioned looking machines and roasted their own beans. our friend worked there and was a funny, kinda manic coffee guy. i won't describe him too much for privacy...a few years after we moved out here he came to visit and stayed with us once. a good guest.

i won't get into details here but he was involved in some risky business (risky to him) that was lucrative enough that he had seed money to buy a house in philly and a big warehouse for a small business. he hired a bunch of friends and things were going quite well.

this is a guy from a family of teachers and lawyers. maybe a little bit eccentric, but not mentally ill, i really don't think.

anyway, rich ran into this friend the other morning and told me he was living in the city,that he looked pretty much the same but with a big beard. today after i returned from my 2nd work day the bell rang and i heard rich greet him. instead of our friend coming in as expected i heard a wierd little conversation with the words bag, behind the hospital, shower. then he left. i knew something was up. rich told me the friend didn't look so good today, his arm was swollen from a spider bite and he looked dirty. he was homeless. he looked like one of the army of homeless guys in our neighborhood. he asked rich if he could leave his bag here while he went to the hospital for the bite and then went to get the bag.

we had to run a little errand in the car and left a note that we would be back soon. we saw the friend walking by the hospital and i just got a glance but he did look bad. i felt freaked out. what if he was crazy now? what if we did him a favor and then he wanted more and more. my mom brain started going into little scenes, a guy in our house making things dangerous for the kids somehow. a dirty guy, a crazy guy, a needy guy, an unclean guy.

i don't want to think this way. i don't want my kids to think this way. we picked up our first eatwell farms delivery at the neighborhood house up on potrero hill and when we got back the friend was waiting outside. he ended up coming in. it was a little wierd at first, but we ended up on the back deck and he told us the riches to rags story and a little bit about how he was living on the hill above the highway, being a homeless mountain man, basically biding his time until he could make some more money in the fall with the risky business plan he implemented years ago. right now he is collecting recycling and making thirty dollars a day. he said he didn't need anything.

it sounded like everyone turned their backs on him in philly when he lost all the money. a finagling lawyer who moved to germany was involved. he lost his fiance. the whole scene depressed him and he did some drugs which made people mad at him. i'm sure there is much more to the story but he did say our good friend and social worker in philly was the one friend who stood by him and we trust her. i'll be calling her tomorrow. he didn't ask us for anything and didn't want any of our dinner, but did take the chocolate ccovered banana miles offered. rich gave him our number and said he could come over if he needed to use the computer or something. the friend said he might. he hadn't communicated with his family for a few months and wanted to email them. he said he might want to take a shower sometime because that was one thing he hadn't been able to find here. this made me a little anxious but less than earlier because he was just a real, live, sad and beat down looking friend, not a totally unknown quantity.

he left after a half hour or so. he said it was the most he had talked to anyone in a while. he didn't seem too keen on his homeless buddies but said he was getting tougher, and that was good for him. he said one night after he first got here (he said he was robbed of his last money) he bumped into another old friend from philly very late who treated him like a leper because he was homeless. he was trying to be kind of neutral, not embarrassed, but i could tell this incident had depressed him further.

it was a pretty unreal encounter after a day of chit chat and inservice with my new and old co-workers at sfusd. i'm sure there will be more to this story. it makes me a little jittery that there might be more stress in our lives but i'm also glad we weren't afraid to open our door to an old friend, dirty and homeless as he might be.

whoa.

pajamas no problem

hi
i'm tired, very very tired. i think the kids are sensing my return to work. this is a good reason for maya to be up from 3-5 this morning crawling out of bed, resisting lying down, and wiggling out of a swaddle repeatedly like baby houdini so she can wave her freed hands in the air yelling delightedly "doo,doo hand!". also for miles to spend almost an hour of pennying time asking more fun questions. "is another way we can save the cheetahs by growing a whole new africa?" "does an eagle see underwater in the dark?" "can daddy buy me a guitar case tonight while i'm sleeping and you are cleaning the kitchen?" at least we have moved on from human mortality.

last night as i dashed out of the house to buy some walgreen's sugar for the final stage of my homeade peach schnapps (well, homeade if pouring peaches and vodka in a bowl and leaving them in the fridge for 2 weeks is really making anything. we did grow the peaches i guess) i realized that my neighborhood gives me a lot of room for dressing options. i was wearing my pajama pants, rich's long-sleeved shirt and the aforementioned expensive down jacket with fringe (cassie, see how many times you can work this vest into your writing!). very muddy old dansko clogs and no socks. no idea how my hair looks, but most likely it looks pretty bad. and no one around here gives me a second glance. i am nothing special, as here comes a speed freak with mascara and eyeliner dripping down her face, crazy dreadlocks, a dayglo shirt, and pants hanging down to reveal way too much of a thong. at the bus stop is a large and muscled mad wearing only jeans, suspenders, and a burger king crown, perched atop an upside down shopping cart. in front of me in line is a friendly looking guy with some kind of crown of thorns tatoo, a big dark one, around his neck. there are hip young abercrombie and fitch (sp?)couples, some large ladies wearing very tight dresses and bling bling jewelry. plenty of people just blending in of course. and i guess it's nice to not have to blend in to blend in.

some fine art

here are a few examples of miles' first photographic efforts. believe me, there are many more! i think they are kinda' cool, probably because i am his mother, but also because of the unique height and age perspective. i just love photography. don't miss the graphic realism of crumbs and toys all over our home, and of course we all got a good laugh over the hilarious juxtaposition of plant and pirate hat.

all kinds of stuff and potty hilarity

today felt like a calm kind of day, it was, really, but we checked out a lot of things. first this morning we went to buy a dresser i found on craiglist as the beautiful hand-painted one suling made for us has pretty much been destroyed over here. we noticed kids of all ages entering the building next to the craigslist lady's and went in...it was the fabled acrosports.
even the acrosports staff commented on how active my daughter was as she darted around the office examining power strips, banging on glass doors, and pushing a rolling chair over to a desk in an attempt to get to the computer. this place looks very cool, huge rooms with big kids upstairs doing some kind of dance and toddlers below swinging on rope hammocks, rolling on mats, and jumping on a gigantic trampoline. then we went to citykids to buy an expensive new backpack for miles (sorry grandma josy the spiderman backpack fell apart) and a little potty for maya. i know she is young but i am tired of picking her on and off the toilet so she can laugh and make, well, expulsion sounds. i WISH the photo series of the kids on the potties wasn't so revealing, it is truly hilarious. this is the only decent one.

after nap we went to the water park which was kind of a dud. miles whiny, kids from a french camp eating pastries everywhere we turned, the fountains off and a city work very pissed off at the city for not dealing with them properly. miles wanted to go home soon after arrival but there seemed to be way too much left of the day before bedtime to head back. i redirected us somehow to the galeria de la raza
which is a few blocks from home. we were the only guests there and saw an amazing interactive exhibit about immigration. check out the website or better yet go to the gallery. there is a film series there that i will try to sneak out to one night after bedtime. maya enjoyed listening to the field-recordings made by people dressed in these incredible knit facemasks ( hippie raver, office worker, clown, young black guy from the hood) as they infiltrated various cultures around the city. miles listened to (in spanish) and watched a sad documentary about families separated by an immigration wall--dads hugging kids through a fence, sharing sandwiches in two different countries. he looked sad but did that fast wipe the tears away gesture and said it was a happy story.

then we were passing the brava theater and peeking in and i heard a voice call my name.
it was my old roomates' good friend who used to spend some time in our apartment during the party for 75 hours straight days. i strolled us into the theater where she now works doing something with the youth theater training component, and she showed us the elevator up to the last act of the kids shakespeare camp production. it was amazing. sorry to use the words amazing, incredible, etc som much here, i don't have much of a vocabulary for describing art. little kids, maybe aged 7-11 were performing a midsummer night's dream (duhh, great english major i am, i probably got the words wrong in the title) with not an obvious mistake and adorable little characters. i felt a tad freakish there with my stroller full of bags and kids and my bra straps hanging out and a very intense crowd of well-off and educated looking serious parents, but soon miles was standing on a bench with his jaw hanging open and even maya was getting into it, laughing when everyone else did. i did have to take her in the hallway when she started making those potty noises again.

home was fine. we played chipmunk and did a little gardening, and then it was almost time for bed. maya said i ub oooo about ten times with big open mouth kisses and baby monkey hugs, which made me feel fine. summer is just about over. now looms work and the beginning of kindergarten tours. i think it will be ok. i am in a place right now where i can see a lot of positions fairly clearly--the rich families in shakespeare camp, the immigrant families in our neighborhood, our friends who have moved to suburbs and small towns, our friends and family who are still here, our neighbors. and it is good to be able to see so much without moving from where we are.

a little rant

just read my friend kim's
blog about listening to olivia newton john and realized i like reading what she writes because it is a good mix of the past and the present. i used to write a lot about my past. i would take events, small or large, and make them into vignettes, poems, or short stories. they were distilled, composted, whatever you want to call it. now that i am a mom the past is barely allowed. there are a few "before you were born"s, and maybe when things slow down there will be more, but right now the future feels huge in my mind. the future, large and small, as in, how are we going to get the kids to daycare and school without a ton of stress in the morning when i return to work next week? should we sell our apartment in case there is an earthquake soon? will i get any sleep tonight? and thoughts about miles and maya as teenagers, in a city or a small town, doing....???? i shouldn't even go there because it is just too scary and unproductive to imagine your now 1 and 4 year old making responsible decisions about drinking, driving, being safe and on their own, etc. yikes!!

what is starting to feel like a productive worry is the future of the planet. i have finished some of my light summer reading about climate change and it seems to boil down to politics. so i guess i am reaching the outraged stage, outraged that things are as bad as they are and could be quite a bit better. i don't want to be a preachy wierdo, but i don't want the future of our lovely world to be awful, and it sounds like we are on that path and need to get off it, immediately. things are going to change, in a bad way, soon. so, for all you 2 readers out there, please think a little more about global warming and what you can do about it. the best and biggest thing would be to get the conservative government out, and greener people in, right? and the way to do that, i guess, is to spread the word, and annoy people by making them consider a nasty future, and press for a better one. i think about my poppop, who had some causes, and how it seemed to bother certain people, and make him seem childish, or idealistic, but i am identifying with him more now. of course it feels more urgent because i have kids, but i want to do something, urge others to do something to help get onto the right path. if you haven't yet, read some serious stuff about global warming. the predictions and proposed solutions are becoming more uniform and there is some real scientific consensus. read, watch the al gore movie, and the more you know the more you will want to make some change. and if you want to talk to me about it, i'm here.

california is doing a lot of good things with energy policy
environmental defense fund

housewarming

everyone here is passed out after a day of fun in the sun at laura lee, byron, che and darby's new house in albany. there were many naked children, talk of kindergarten lotteries (those not living in sf seem amazed and confounded by the lottery which, as i talked about it today, is really mostly of benefit to educated and full of resource type parents like myself), folks who all used to live in the city and have now spread out--fairfax, sacramento, albany, alameda, champagne, fruit trees, and a quiet street with flowers growing in front of everyone's house. rich and i stayed way beyond the end of the party, dreading the bridge traffic. as the sun started heading down the backyard became cool and shady. miles held a demanding stuffed toucan and darby catered to the bird's whims by yanking up about 10 salads worth of vegetables to feed him. sorry laura lee and byron! darby and miles still seem to love each other, and miles announced that he wanted to move into darby's house with him. does my 4-year-old know something i don't? would living in albany be better for us all?

little che and maya posed for this photo when directed to "say 'i love my pee-pee'".

we finally left and my brain started obsessing about whether it was better to live here or there. then, as we travelled i-8o along the water and i gazed at the sun setting on pretty condos that i assume will be underwater in 25 years, i had, not an insight, or realization, but just a glimmer of a thought, that --it doesn't matter where we live.
people will still come and go. laura lee's grandmotherly neighbor told me all her friends had moved from albany just as ours have been leaving the city. miles and darby will still cause trouble. the bridge will still cross over the bay. the kids will still keep growing. we will be friends with our true friends, wherever they are and however little we see them. we came back to a cool city and parked pretty near the house. no driveway. just a few pieces of trash swirling in the evening breeze. miles summons up a little energy from somewhere and says i'll beat ya and i race him as fast as my screwed up back will let me, carrying laughing maya, and just having to trust that there is nothing bad around the corner as miles disappears, and beats me again to the front door.

muchos peaches

skin a few peaches, wash hands, upload photo, skin more peaches. the backyard is booming. hard to see, but nasturtiums, blackberries, fuschia berries (thanks nat bletter), and PEEEEEEEEAAAAAACHESSSSSSSSSSSS. please come over and get some peaches. especially if you are tall or have a ladder. i'm talking about 20 a day for over a week now. went to the randall museum today and had a strong fantasy about setting up a little duck, chicken and rabbit land similar to the museum's right in our backyard. i'll set the salad beds next to it. i think growing food gives me the same little thrill the thrift shopping and hand me downs do.

where should we live, in the city or the country? where should we live, near the mountains or the sea? reader in the midwest, miles LOVES this song. it has to be the big number for the musical.

and other reader: mom, will you write about my urban farming heritage? i know it is there somewhere, in the new york city past.

must stew more peaches. cloves,peaches and sugar are filling up the fridge.

love you

stuff stuff

our house is a fountain of stuff. it bubbles up the stairs in bags and boxes. every tiny new toy now comes in a huge cardboard and plastic sheath, with little infuriating twist ties holding each limb of mr potato head down still. we weed through the clothes and pack up bags for chloe's closet or to put outside for the homeless neighbors, but by the time the laundry is sorted 2 hours later the drawers are all stuffed full again. we clean out a closet and in days it is stacked high with flippers, coats, various baby carrying contraptions, plastic tricycles.

when my mother was freshly divorced a big weekend activity was to go garage saleing. my wedding dress for her second wedding was from the newark goodwill. we did the library a lot. and she is a VERY generous lady. my parents and culture instilled in me a love of things, but also a love of bargains, and of used things. now we have chloe's closet consignment, and craigslist, and libraries all over the city. i love these things. much of our furniture was found. there is a thrill in cruising home from work and stopping short to hop out of the car and grab a perfect deck chair sitting sadly by a garbage can on the sidewalk. i love to bring our bags of clothes (not needed or wanted by friends of course) and old toys into the consignment store and write my name on the bag with a sharpie. later i can come in and browse the awesome racks of i suspect fairly well-off people's used clothes and get things for free, with my store credit, while the kids play freely with the toys set out for them to enjoy. this makes me feel so successful and clever. not at all the feeling i get while punching in my PIN at target with red circles staring at me from every direction. i like packing up the most-loved dresses and baby toys and sending them to my niece isabella in texas, and saving little shirts with embroidered helicopters for my little man niko in la grange. when my downstairs neighbor or cassie or miles' schoolmate's mom hands me a bag of hand-me-downs for maya i dig into them so happily and greedily.

there are so many people here in this city, the network for used stuff is so intricate. i heard about a new monthly market in delores park called the really really free market. no barter, no trade, just free. i want to check it out.

i just read an article, nothing earth-shattering, about green spending and maybe my love of hand-me-downs and consignment shops, and garage sales, and craigslist and at one time dumpster diving, is related deep down to the fact that these are all slightly subversive things.
why buy from a store? why can't more people share things and share their money? it's fun to get a bargain. it's exciting to share. maybe it's my jewish heritage (am i allowed to say that??)

i hope i'm not sounding like some idealistic wierdo.

anyway, i wonder how long the kids will accept used and borrowed. we are going to keep trying as long as we can. and if i can lose some weight there are a lot of clothes stuffed in these closets and i won't need to buy more for a long long time. maybe i can rip up my fat clothes and make curtains and sails and awnings and quilts and potholders and tablecloths and you get the idea.

bye

leo, 39

out this morning downtown to get a shockingly expensive eye exam and pair of glasses. i took the number 9 and sat next to a statue-like tall man whose impassive legs leaned into my seat. it hurt my back a little twisting to fit next to him. people greeting friends from the projects in the back of the bus gossiping and yelling at their kids. realizing that outside of work i'm so often with my babies, i don't quite know who i am without them. with them there are smiles, comments, questions, commiseration from others. i thrive on this attention. alone i am just an aging and overweight white woman with a bad back on the bus, going to get her spectacles at lenscrafters.

i'm allowed to be a little down on my birthday. i'm 39 now.

not sinking

this photo was taken on our last trip back east (by train) back in, umm, 3 years ago. here is miles in the middle of a long session of climbing out of the pool and jumping in and repeat, wearing his trusty waterwings. and now, as of yesterday, he can kind of kind of swim. from the wall to me standing about 6 feet away, but it is exciting. he has actually learned how to not sink! thank you to lindsey at the janet pomeroy center, and to my parents who always seem to live near a crystal blue pool.

we were in sonoma again this weekend, playing in the pool and river at the morton warm springs, the kids running in and out of the unchildproofed condo, maya at one point cackling with glee as she tried to pull wine glass after wine glass off the wine rack and miles became more and more excited about the dangerous happening and i pretty much lost my temper. there was an arts festival there, lots of people playing music,listening to music, the nice little parks, white tents of art all over the main square. i found myself asking why they didn't have more events like this in san francisco and rich said they did, they are just different because they are...in the city. so if i looked hard i could probably find a neighborhood fair or festival every weekend, right? and i think we did this more before we had kids. folsom street fair, with big men cracking whips and people on leashes and butts everywhere, the mime troupe, drinking wine on blankets in front of bluegrass festivals, night time art shows my friends were in, bonfires on the beach,all day rock shows, my band playing a show in the castro on halloween....whoa, i am going off into the past. these are all still here, i think, but they are too hard with the kids, too many lines to wait in and squirmy little hands trying to wring free and get lost in a sea of people, parking troubles, attention span factor, nap factor, bedtime factor. do i miss these city things? not really right now. i miss the people who have gone away more than any city goings-ons. i miss being free a little. could i be content right now with a little town, with fairly regular mellow little festivals full of somewhat predictable yet nice art and music and good food? would i want the whips and rock shows and mimes once the kids were old enough to come with us or stay home alone? will i be partying in my late 40s? i hope so. i'm still confused.

we returned from sonoma with a stroke of luck--miles and maya both passed out as soon as we got in the car. we decided to stop by our friend's 40th birthday party at the bay view boat club.
we thought it would be impossible with the kids but it was good. this place full of salty boat types, my dad would love it, mixed in with our friend's friends, and a bunch of good old and new faces. people from the warehouse where we used to go for big live music parties full of rideable art, giant woodland creatures, hoops and ping pong, now grown up and scattered to far-flung regions of the east bay, our point arena friends, new parents of miles' friends friends. a friendly open bar and friendly kind men cooking salty ribs and friendly oysters and greens and salmon. miles and maya actually play together for a few minutes and miles does a brief interpretive dance which amuses some regulars. a woman tells me 3 or 4 times that her son grew up here and he is great. she means the boat club but my wierd little brain thinks she means the city. we leave in search of cake as the party gets good and louder, and end up in a new safeway powered 100% by wind energy. there are young rockers buying 5 pound blocks of cheese
and tortillas and eggs and a huge jar of peanut butter and bickering politely and nicely about who will pay for it. there seems to be as little singles scene going on in the butter aisle, really. i ask about a spiderman cake figurine and a cool older guy gets it into my hands as i am checking out and somehow it ends up being free. we drive home and talk about how the city looks at in the dark. rich tells miles that some people live here because they like how the city lights look at night and i wonder if this is true. we eat our cake and sing to our still-partying friend and go to bed very very very tired. the ambulances and hissing brakes and car alarms don't keep us up at all tonight.

tomorrow is our 5th anniversary

today we went to the renovated playground at golden gate park. maya took off running with her arms dangling down in that primate manner, miles saying he thought it was a parade, but it's not, it's a park as we tried to move his sister as quickly as possible past the trot joe (maya's word for horse--i'm talking about the carousel that should be hidden from view under some redwoods far far away fromm persistent and tantrumming 18 month olds). nestled in some green hills there are kids of all shapes sizes and colors here checking out what the city has to offer. in this case: the old concrete booboo- making slides in the hill, a spider web of epic proportions, 2 modern play structures, one with a little cage-like room where miles found himself hanging out with some big kids (10,11?) who treat him nicely like a cute animal they have spotted. a sand and water feature with little barefooted boys and girls. two green wave sculptures rise out of the sand. crazy spinning chairs with upside down dizzy kids, legs sticking up in the air, looking at the blue blue sky. a house for a tea party. a disappointing barnlike structure with rusty locks. a sandy area with little concrete caves in the sand, good for being a cheetah who morphs into a shark. nihn, nihn, nihn mommy (swings). more. i feel like i am engaged in an extreme sport called where are the children. rebecca, gradiva and i don't even attempt conversation as the kids are swept into the storm of energy sliding, climbing, digging and we dart around making sure ours are accounted for. finally rich appears with green tea salad and nan gyi doke (i am sure i'm misspelling this one) from BURMA SUPERSTAR. we eat a little and throw a few noonoos (noodles) to the pigeons and then off to ride the carousel where for some reason i feel focussed on the young guy running the machine. he sits in the middle, typing on his blackberry, next to a old player piano and two snare drums attached to the wall with old fashoned devices to bang them automatically. these musical machines are resting.

the kids pass out in the car after some unexplained anguish on maya's part. walk, walk, we think she is crying as we make her get in the car. who can blame her? their slack small faces leaning toward each other as we cruise through the city and onto the highway. they are starting to follow each other more. crawling manically after each other on hands and knees at bedtime, growling, oblivious of their parents' presence. maya insists on a blue blanket tied around her neck just like her brother's (cape, masked defender--mispronounced by miles as masked offender, from brainless pooh video). when baby wakes up in our parking spot on busy potrero she starts to cry so hard. what is she thinking? about those spinning up and down horses and pigs and doggies, auld lang syne blasting at us? the tunnel slides through the dark with big kids above and below? she holds on to me crying and saying pitifully only mommy, mommy, and then big brother is there, making funny sounds with the bear puppet, (nooooo mommy), singing trot old joe (nooooooo mommy) until finally he brings in a bag of pirate booty and her sweaty fingers unclench a little and take one, then another and another and soon she is laughing and he is cuddled beside us, not whining for my lap, and it is a beautiful moment after a big day in the big city, a great ad for cheesy corn puffs, and it is all good.