Unplugged

Posted on June 9, 2008 by onesanevoice

One of the most recognizable figures on television these days is the smarmy but attractive young man shilling for Optimum Online.  You’ve certainly seen him.  He’s the one who slouches across your screen in his black jeans and jacket over a crew neck tee while complimenting you on being intelligent enough to prefer Optimum over Verizon Fios, DirectTV, DishTV, Gino’s Pizza, etc.  Then he strokes his three-day stubble and slouches off leaving you annoyed that you’ll be seeing him again in 20 minutes.

I opened the mail one day in early May to see a notice from Optimum telling us that on June 3rd we would no longer be receiving six channels previously included in our Basic Family package.  We could certainly continue viewing these fine channels as long as we dropped by a Cablevision office and picked up a FREE cable box which would be FREE for a whole year.  And you know as sure as they’re planning a Starbucks on the moon that the bill for that 13th month will be a heart attack.

In the meantime, Cablevision will pick up some pennies charging their longtime loyal customers a nominal fee of $6.50 a month for each additional TV they’d like to see those stolen channels on.  Our house has five TVs.  My father was in electronics.  So I’m standing in the Cablevision office on June 3rd because I had to see the signal actually disappear before I believed they weren’t just jerking us around about snatching our A&E.  The Sopranos is on A&E.  FX is gone too and that means The Shield with it’s new season beginning 2012 or whenever so I have to be ready.  I’m relegated to watching these acclaimed but violent shows on one of the TVs that Husband isn’t watching because he’s engrossed in The Learning Channel.  They took that too.

I’m doing the math in my head to determine how much of a soaking we’ll get if we put boxes on all our TVs and why would I of all people even consider doing that since we were the LAST FAMILY IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD to even get cable.  I heard those words a hundred times as the kids were growing up and they were usually followed by “I’ll be at Jonathan’s watching his TV” if Son was speaking, and “We’re the Beverly Hillbillies!” if it was Daughter.

The kids and I had dinner the other night and I told them about this recent Cablevision thievery.  They reminded me that I only relented and agreed to get cable in 1999 because Daughter began appearing on the Metro Channel show School’s Out! back when the network was first launched.  This happens to be true but it also doesn’t qualify me as Neolithic Woman.

I told the kids at dinner that a little deprivation is good for the soul as well as the value system and it can even create a memory behind your back.  When I was 14, my father drove me over to my friend Maureen’s house every Monday night at 7:30 so I could watch The Monkees in color.  At the time, I thought our family was medieval for still having black and white.  Years later, I remembered the rides with my dad as being special and the gatherings at Maureen’s as much fun to look forward to as the show itself.

The kids said they could see that and even relate.  But they also agreed that I shouldn’t hold on so tight to things that are changing.  They reminded me that change is good.

OSV:  I think you’re right.  And after observing the other students in my school, I see I definitely need to embrace new trends.  So I’ve decided to have both your names tattooed above my butt.

DAUGHTER:  You’re kidding.

SON:  Whose is first?

The Green Thing is the subject of Daughter’s Featured Fotos

you are HERE

you are HERE

storybook wedding

storybook wedding

ubergreen

ubergreen

the chimp lobby

the chimp lobby

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Attack of the Killer Briefs

Posted on June 5, 2008 by onesanevoice

Each time I talk with one of my longtime friends, I reflect on the subtle ways they each influenced the kind of mother I became.  When we moved to the Brooklyn house where my kids spent their early years, I mentioned to my first husband that I’d need to make friends in our new neighborhood.  The next thing I knew, a woman appeared in my front yard pushing a stroller with a little boy in it and said in a melodic Italian accent, “You husband say you look for the friends.  He want you to walk with me and Giuseppe.  Come.”

That was over twenty years ago and Maria is my friend to this day.  Her old-world European wisdom and deep devotion to her large extended family was a compass for me as a new mother from a small family.  It was from Maria that I first heard the English translation of an old Italian proverb.  Talking about a dysfunctional family we knew where the parents were as difficult as the children, Maria gestured expressively while speaking in her native tongue and then repeated it in English for me:  The fish, it smell from the head.

betty taught me the Irish brand of wisdom.  In a house perpetually filled with children, friends, and laughter, I learned not to pick up every crumb that falls, not to correct every mistake.  People are more important than things betty would remind the mob of children playing in the basement when a squabble broke out over a toy.  She shared memorable quotes from elderly relatives over in Ireland.  Recounting a visit to cousins where she wasn’t offered any refreshments, Grandmother Bridey remarked in her brogue, “To be sure, we were there all day and they never noticed we had a mouth on.”

Ancient biblical secrets of child rearing were imparted by my friend, Caryn, who was born in New York but relocated to Israel in her teens.  A former soldier in the Israeli army, Caryn moves between English and Hebrew fluidly and often found the latter more efficient in conveying information to her children to make her point more emphatic.

Once when our four kids were all under ten, we descended on a department store on a school vacation day.  The store was mobbed with seasonal sales and shoppers and Caryn’s youngest was in no mood to be there.  In response to his relentless wail of “What are we here for?  What are we here for?  What are we here for?” Caryn turned to him and snapped sharply, “Tachtoneem!”

He shut up immediately.  Impressed with the militaristic sound of the word, I said, “Wow, I have to remember to use that, it really works.  What does it mean?”

Caryn responded with a shrug.  “I just answered his question.  He wanted to know what we were here for.  I told him underwear.”

I started to laugh but then noticed that it shut my kids up as well.  So for years to come, whenever they got on my last nerve I would bark tachtoneem! at them and they quieted instantly.  I never told them what it meant.  I figured any port in a storm.  Do you think that was wrong?  Then I have one word for you:  melafefon!

Look it up.

Daughter’s Featured Fotos give us Things to Look At In The Meantime

name tags gone wild

name tags gone wild

UFO truck

UFO truck

tights in the subway, part 2

tights in the subway, part 2

(see tights part 1)

reminder

reminder

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As Seen on TV

Posted on June 1, 2008 by onesanevoice

In olden days when news traveled by word of mouth or postal service, there was always the chance an account might be inaccurate or exaggerated depending upon the source of the information.  Paul Revere might be deemed believable considering the effort he exerted in passing along what he knew.  Loopy Aunt Rose from Jersey who hates her son-in-law anyway is probably speculating when she confides he might be trying to poison her.<

I used to write for a newspaper and the first question my editor always asked was, “Did you check your facts?”  Never mind that it was a weekly so by the time it hit the stands the news was something removed from fresh.  If it was in print it had to be correct.  Now newspapers are struggling for their very lives amid the immediacy of televised and electronic coverage.  As the horrible memory of 9/11 can attest, we often watch now as the very event unfolds.

Friday I was rushing to be on time for a 9:00 am physical therapy appointment so I hadn’t turned on the TV at all that morning.  I arrived to find the PT waiting room packed to standing room only with everyone’s attention riveted to the flat screen television tuned to CNN.  Another crane had collapsed in the city, the second one in three months, and this time it was on the Upper East Side.  The cable snapped sending construction equipment and debris falling to the street below.  They were looking for bodies.

The destroyed penthouse apartment where the crane first hit smoldered in rubble and I was sickened to remember a similar sight two years ago when baseball player Cory Lidle crashed his plane into the side of a building the week I published my first blog entry here.  With a rush of panic I realized this particular incident was happening in the Manhattan neighborhood where Daughter teaches school.  The crane toppled an hour earlier, just as students and faculty would be arriving.  I reached for my cell phone.

There was of course no answer since Daughter would turn off her phone during the school day anyway so I left a controlled message, something like “Please call me when you get this and tell me you’re not under a crane” because I never said I wasn’t crazy.  Then I called Husband who I hoped was in front of his computer and asked him to Google the school for their phone number.  He gave it to me without even assuring me Daughter was certainly fine because he knew I wouldn’t believe anyone who wasn’t standing right next to her.

I waited a respectable ten minutes for her to see I’d called and call me back and then I rang the school.  I told the secretary who I was and then asked if everyone was okay.  She said yes, they were all fine and she would let Daughter know I called.  Feeling relieved and slightly silly I said not to do that please, I had already left her a voice mail.

Just as I was going in for my appointment my phone rang.

DAUGHTER:  Yeah, we’re right around the corner from that mess.  The whole area is closed off and we can’t leave the building without a police escort.  Everybody’s okay though.

OSV:  You got my message?

DAUGHTER:  Which one?  The one on my phone or the one that came over the school PA system saying, “This is a message for Daughter:  Your mom called and I told her you were fine.”

OSV:  Oh, God.  I’m Amy’s mother, aren’t I?

DAUGHTER:  Kind of but don’t worry because everyone’s mother called.  It was cute.  Thanks, Mom.

Scenes from the Memorial Day Weekend courtesy of Daughter’s Featured Fotos

peace demonstration

peace demonstration

cop cruiser field trip

cop cruiser field trip

memorial day sky

memorial day sky

memorial day sky

memorial day sky

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Wordship

Posted on May 28, 2008 by onesanevoice

My respect for language began as a child when my father would sit at the edge of my bed and read from an anthology of famous poets.  If I closed my eyes, I could see the charge of the light brigade, the raven perched on my windowsill whispering ‘nevermore’, and the words of John Whittier Greenleaf that still define regret for me so many years later:  “For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been’.”

Language and its usage have taken a beating in times more defined by visual screens than written words.  I touched on this subject last year in One Down (comma) Two to Go about an English class I was required to take and this past weekend offered illustrations on opposite ends of the literary spectrum.

Husband and I rented two movies we’ve been eager to see which both received lively reviews and comment: Borat and Knocked Up.  We were pumped for some great comedy and sat down to see them both in succession.  Before long we realized we could not reduce our expectations enough to finish watching either one of them.  My finger point goes to the writers.  In lieu of engaging characters and involving plot development, they need to at least deliver good dialogue.

Then on a drive upstate, Husband put in a CD that featured old radio shows from the forties and fifties.  It reminded me of why I fell in love with books by Dashiell Hammett who wrote The Maltese Falcon, and Raymond Chandler who gave us The Big Sleep.  I’m not quite old enough to have listened to shows on radio back when they were popular, but hearing a pre-Dragnet Jack Webb play Pat Novak For Hire on CD reminded me of what it sounds like when writers focus on making words dance.

In one story, hard-boiled P.I. Novak encounters a femme fatale and tells us, “You knew the first time you saw her you were seeing her too often.”  He meets with an old man who has a job for him and says “he looked tired and a year older than the Bible.  His jowls hung around his face like an empty baked potato.”  The old man asks Novak to keep an eye on a young boxer saying that he’s a good boy.  Novak responds with, “Good boys don’t need watching.  Has he got some bad coming on?”

What situation would you want to know more about:  the beautiful young thing from Knocked Up who you’ve just watched sit on a toilet and pee on 10 different pregnancy strips accompanied by “Oh, shit!” or the guy Novak is tailing when he tells us “I found him at a bar down on West Street trying to talk a woman into giving up all men under fifty.”  Even pulp dialogue that’s well crafted beats out something going into a toilet no matter how lovely the one is who’s urinating.

You still want descriptive bathroom talk?  Here it comes.  Private eye Novak laments his disappointment over a failed effort with “It was like washing your kid’s face and finding out he was ugly to start with.”  You have to hate when that happens.

Captivating describes Daughter’s Featured Fotos taken in Jamaica, mon

cool seating

cool seating

colorful leaf

colorful leaf

elegant table

elegant table

private rock pool

private rock pool

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Angels Wear Prada, Too

Posted on May 24, 2008 by onesanevoice

I am scentsorially challenged and yes, I know I made that word up.  Anyone who has an allergy to fragrances is welcome to borrow it and everyone else can consider themselves lucky they don’t have to.  There are very few perfumes I can wear or even be around without my throat closing like a sphincter.  Husband will contest as to how often we’ve changed seats in movie theatres and restaurants because some dowager submerged herself in enough Estee Lauder to make our calamari taste like Youth Dew.

Going back to school has certainly been an education.  I’ve learned that elderly ladies trying to hide the mothball smell in their wool cardigans aren’t the only ones abusing fragrances.  Bath and Body Works has released several scents adored by young women at my school and one of the favorites smells like roasted vanilla drenched in syrup.  I don’t know the formal name the company has given this scent but I call it Migraine.

The irony is that I LOVE perfume and wish I could wear all of them.  The woman in me thinks there is nothing more sensuous and alluring than smoothing scented lotion all over my body.  The allergy sufferer in me fears a result similar to rolling on a rug made of cat hair.  When I test out a potential new cologne in a department store, I spray some on a fragrance card and walk around the store with it.  If I hit Housewares without feeling like a furball is lodged in my throat, I celebrate that I may have found a winner.

There aren’t many winners.  To date, I wear Obsession and Chanel No. 5 (sparingly), Oscar de la Renta and Lovely (bring ’em on), and the evocative fragrance Husband favors that I wrote about in The Pipeman Cometh.  Design by Paul Sebastian had a brief run but started showing up on everyone else smelling like cotton candy.  Germaine Monteil’s Royal Secret, a comforting old standby, began to remind me of dead queens.

I was on line at a health food market recently and the cashier told the woman ahead of me that her fragrance was heavenly.  And it was.  I realized I was standing there just sucking in her air.  The woman thanked her and said it was Prada Iris.  I heard it as Prada Iri$ but I kept breathing deeply in case I would never smell it again.  I went home and Googled where I could get it at a discount.

It’s interesting that one of the common threads among women who are also mothers is that we don’t hesitate to buy our kids the hundred dollar sneakers they long for but we go into standby mode when it comes to splurging on ourselves.  L’Oreal made a fortune telling us we’re worth it.  Why do we need convincing?  Since my recent infatuation with eBay, Husband likes to say I don’t buy things anymore; I win them.  It somehow fits with my noble veil of self-denial.  Well, I wasn’t winning any Prada Infusion d’Iris and I also wasn’t getting it wholesale.  The lingering scent inside my head haunted me.

Soon it convinced me.  The gift set from Nordstrom.com arrived today in its sage green box and feathery tissue wrap.  As you read this, I am gliding through the rooms of my house on a soft cloud of fragrance only the mother of hundred dollar sneakers could know.

Daughter’s Featured Fotos provide a glimpse of Montego Bay, site of her friends’ recent destination wedding

local wildlife

local wildlife

underwater life

underwater life

still life

still life

the good life

the good life

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At the sound of the beep

Posted on May 20, 2008 by onesanevoice

Several of my blog entries reference phone conversations I’ve had with my kids such as in the recent Initially Yours.  I don’t know where I stand in the national average as far as the frequency of phone calls to my children goes, but I suspect I fall short on the Jewish Mother Constant Contact Index.  Both my kids are in their twenties now and live on their own with jobs and lives I only know about from what they tell me.

Daughter tells me much, often more than expected, occasionally more than I’m ready for.  She lives in the city and we speak on the phone about twice a week, more often if it’s crisis time or there’s something exciting to share.  Many of our phone calls are like drive-bys with glancing bullets of news or power point presentations covering the main topics.  But once a week we have a real talk, and for those conversations I find a comfortable spot and a glass of wine or iced tea and settle back.  If I close my eyes while Daughter is speaking, I can picture her facial expressions and even the hand gestures she uses to punctuate her words.  I can see them clearly because they’re so much like my own.

My calls with Son are more concrete and defined, with less meandering opinion and digression.  We speak most often to convey information such as plans to meet for dinner.  When I attempt to imagine where he is while we’re speaking, I’m usually given one word to go on, like “home” or “work” or “my car”.  I’m left to conjure up darkness or sunlight or heavy traffic by the inflection in his voice and the hands on the clock.  Whereas his sister might rattle off a dozen symptoms with accompanying detail, Son goes right for the base hit with “I’m sick.”  I relish his measured banter and sly wit as well as the crumbs of perception he drops without warning.  In our conversations, I give him investment without investigation because it feels like that’s what he needs.

All this introspection about phone calls with my children is a result of discovering the website Send Amy.  Amy is a thirty-something woman who has been saving her Jewish mother’s phone messages on her answering machine for over a decade.  She has turned them into a career in stand-up comedy and even released them on CD.  My local radio station played one the other morning and I wiped out.

When you click on the link below, you’ll be sent to a page where you can listen to select messages.  The ones I loved are titled Red Robe and Lambskin Condoms.  You’ll need RealPlayer or something like it.  And if you’re listening at work, watch the volume because Amy’s mom bolts out of the gate loud and clear and hits the ground running.  Probably all the way to Boca.

http://sendamy.com/

Daughter’s Featured Fotos take us on City Outings

ad hoc art show

ad hoc art show

fun at the museum

fun at the museum

extinctly amusing

extinctly amusing

family day

family day

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Initially Yours

Posted on May 16, 2008 by onesanevoice

When we all got together on Mother’s Day this past Sunday, I looked to see if Son was using the engraved key ring we gave him in March.  It had been his 24th birthday and also the first year in his new job and home away from our home so Husband and I wanted to acknowledge his achievements in a special way.

I tend to give cash to the kids unless I’m aware of something they really want.  Husband prefers to give anything BUT cash because he feels it’s impersonal.  The dirty truth is that Son and Daughter usually go out of their way to encourage us to be impersonal.  Their hints can either be subtle or as obvious as, “Boy, I wish I had some cash.”

This year, though, Son began a new business venture apart from his regular job and it seemed to call for a celebratory token.  I thought I’d go to the local jeweler and pick out a sterling silver key ring to have engraved with his new company’s initials.  I ran it by Husband first for his approval and then asked Daughter’s opinion while we were on the phone.

DTR:  It’s a great idea but is it really those three initials?  Somehow they remind me of a highly avoidable virus.

OSV:  I think they’re similar but not the same.

DTR:  Are you sure you heard him right?

I called Son and worked the subject masterfully into our conversation.  I was correct about the company’s initials.  They sounded like the viral call letters but weren’t the same.

The jeweler I use is family-owned and operated.  It feels great in this world of warehouse shopping and online catalogs to walk into a store and greet the proprietors as Pop and Pop Jr.  Pop Jr. listened to my request and then broke the bad news about the current price of silver, which at the moment was double that of just a month ago.  As luck would have it, Son was born on time and not a month early so I’d be paying the inflated price.  I picked out a good-looking key ring and wrote down the initials to be engraved.

POP JR:  Isn’t this a disease?

OSV:  Apparently it’s other things as well.

I made one last phone call before placing the order.

OSV:  You know honey, people might confuse your company’s name with a rampant virus.

SON:  Then I guess they’ll remember it.

Passing Observations are the focus of Daughter’s Featured Fotos

breakfast

breakfast

ad hoc communism

ad hoc communism

tights in the city, part 1

tights in the city, part 1

war time

war time

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Reality Checks

Posted on May 12, 2008 by onesanevoice

I don’t know where you live, but here in the suburb of New York City that we call home, there are hundreds of gorgeous white blossom trees that come into bloom this time of year and cause as much misery as ground glass on Raisin Bran.  My school, neighborhood and downtown are all surrounded by this lovely foliage and everyone within sneezing radius is sneezing.

I’ve noticed that people are very sensitive about being told you think they have allergies.  They’re convinced they’ve contracted a cold and stand by that assertion no matter what.  Something about the specter of suffering from allergies seems to imply weakness of the spirit as well as the immune system and nobody wants to hear it.  You’d think you were telling them they had herpes instead of something seasonal.  “ME?  I don’t have allergies. (achoo!)  I would know if I had allergies.  This is just a cold.  (snort-sniff-sniff)  Trust me.  I get colds like this about twice a year.”

Like maybe in the spring and fall?  Wake up and smell the pollen.  I used to be one of those defensive souls but now I take Alavert or Claritin every day of my life because I have not only breathed the dust mites, I have seen the light.  Interestingly, I noticed that the pharmaceutical companies are on to the general public’s denial and have formulated their strategy.  The box of Alavert I just purchased suddenly says Can Now Be Used To Treat Colds.

They’re very clever these drug empires, always flexing their tentacles to reach a myriad of sufferers.  They tell us that aspirin relieves pain, inflammation and reduces fever.  Take it every day to prevent heart attacks.  Take one WHILE you’re having a heart attack and chase away Death.  Who wouldn’t want to do that?  Better buy the industrial-size bottle.  But first consult your blood because if it’s shy about clotting, here comes that pesky Death again.

When I began this entry it wasn’t my intent to have Death make an appearance.  It came in the back door, though, via an emotional phone call from Daughter.  She just received word that a friend of hers from high school didn’t wake up this morning.  In their teen days, I saw this young man several times and I recall the hardships he lived through during those years:  an injury in high school from a traffic accident,and his father’s death after graduation.  There was word that his life had been unraveling of late, and in spite of all he had to live for, he just stopped doing it.

It’s the Friday before Mother’s Day as I write this entry.  Our plan is to meet for dinner on Sunday as we always do for this lovely holiday that I adore because I adore being a Mom.  I will be joined by Husband, Son, Daughter and her out-of-town guest, and my own young friend from school who has become part of our tradition.  And sometime either before or after dinner, Daughter and I will go to this lost boy’s wake and pay our respects to his mother on the worst possible day of her life.

Daughter’s Featured Foto is for all the Families

reality 1 sailboat_family

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People Who Need People

Posted on May 8, 2008 by onesanevoice

Human interaction is a complex phenomenon made even more interesting by the setting in which it takes place.  In my last entry I told about starting a student council at the school I attend.  My co-founder and I went room-to-room first period introducing ourselves and our ideas for the council and inviting students to add their own via our suggestion box.  The first written suggestion we received was from a student who blasted us for being demanding and insensitive to the privacy of others by invading her classroom and requesting participation.  Wow.  Thanks for sharing.  Now see if you can fit any more of your hefty issues through that suggestion slot.

At the same time that week, I was attempting to line up physical therapy appointments at the orthopedist’s office where my broken arm had been treated.  The cast was removed and the doctor wrote a prescription for PT to aid in my healing.  His PT staff evaluated me for treatment and the request for subsequent visits was submitted to my insurance company for approval.  Since we just switched coverage to a new carrier, I asked the PT receptionist what the protocol was.  I’m not omniscient, but sometimes I can tell right away that someone is either having a bad day or just doesn’t like me.

PT LADY:  What do you mean ‘how does this work?’  We make appointments for you and you come.

OSV:  I understand that, I’m just wondering how long it takes to get approved.

PT LADY:  All different times depending on your insurance.  There’s no way to tell.

OSV:  Well, since it’s one of the major carriers and we’re new to their plan, maybe you can give me an idea based on your experience whether they respond quickly or take their time with approvals.

PT LADY:  I think I already told you.  There’s no way to tell.

Alrighty then.  The phone rang and she answered it in the most pleasant manner possible after which she smiled genially at the patient behind me since I had become invisible.  I was forced to accept the evidence that it was inexplicably ME.

One of my quirks is that I like to be liked.  I’ve explored it in therapy, this desire to feel accepted even by people who aren’t interested in acceptance, and although it speaks volumes about my needs and fears, over time I’ve relegated this particular flaw to the blessing-and-curse pile.  That being said, I can still discern when I remind someone of the mother who didn’t love them enough, the daughter who questions everything they say, or the high school classmate who stole their boyfriend.  And then I have to settle in and realize it’s not just about me.

I did give it one last try though because therapy is just a suggestion.  After several days and no word about the insurance approval, I had a phone call with her in which she was so noticeably rude that I asked what it was about me she didn’t like.  The question startled her and her manner softened.  She didn’t give me an answer but she didn’t give me any more shit either.

The approval arrived and I went for my first PT session.  On my way out, I stopped to schedule another visit and I noticed the walls behind her desk were covered with children’s artwork and she wore a wedding ring.  So either she was a mom or she was holding kidnapped children in her basement and forcing them to draw.  I took a shot.

OSV:  I’ll see you on Monday and enjoy the weekend.  It’s supposed to be warm and sunny for Mother’s Day.

PT LADY:  How nice for you.

Okay, NOW I give up.

Let’s all give it up for Daughter’s Featured Fotos taken at the We Are Family Foundation’s 6th Annual Celebration Gala at the Hammerstein Ballroom

Chic with Slash

Chic with Slash

Patti LaBelle

Patti LaBelle

Mickey Dolenz

Mickey Dolenz

a little bass

a little bass

a little dance

a little dance

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Time, time, time is on my side, yes it is

Posted on May 4, 2008 by onesanevoice

For the six weeks that I had limited use of my damaged arm, I needed to do something more inventive during the day than scroll eBay auctions and watch Crossing Jordan.  In the end, let me say this about that:  winning sounds less expensive than buying but it really isn’t; and Jill Hennessy can’t carry a show alone.  It’s just one woman’s opinion but there it is.

The activity that presented itself as an outlet for creative purpose was forming a student council at the school I’ve been attending for over a year.  The administration was begging students to volunteer for this task since I started there, and with so much unexpected time on my hands I stepped up to the challenge along with another fellow student we’ll call Blondie.

Blondie just turned fifty which puts her in my rarified age range as far as the student body is concerned.  Speaking of the student body, she and I are among the few in attendance who don’t have some message tattooed above our ass.  Blondie is an Irish/Italian firecracker who doesn’t believe in unexpressed thoughts so she’s a hoot to work with.  Her children are younger than mine so she’s still doing the carpool-PTA-scout leader thing and it also happens that she is the correspondent who sent me the George Carlin forward featured in the entry Still Funny After All These Years which is a reader favorite.

And speaking of years, by the time this entry is published I will have turned 54 and also shed the cast I’ve been waving around since I fell on my side in Indiana and broke the distal radius bone in my wrist.  You would think there’d be enough shit to trip over in New York but it turns out I had to go to the Midwest to hurt myself enough to require immobilization.  So I’m proud to say I have never let distance or fear of flying prevent me from a rendezvous with destiny.

Implementing a student council where none existed before meant writing a mission statement, designing bulletin board displays, posting fliers, thinking up incentives for recruitment, and constructing a cool suggestion box.  This was a job for the arts and crafts gods, not an injured blogger and a scout leader.  Since Daughter is an early childhood special ed teacher and talented artist, I picked her brain without disturbing the Soho haircut and now everyone at school thinks I’m some kind of genius.

I adopted every single one of her ideas and told her up front it was too bad she wouldn’t be getting the credit she deserved.  I figured it was payback for all the nighttime runs I made to Staples when she ran out of adhesive backed letters for those science fair projects.  I even asked if I could use some of her keepsake bat mitzvah decorations stored away in our basement for the past thirteen years.  She said yes.  It’s amazing what a struggling Manhattan schoolteacher will agree to for a free sushi dinner.

In honor of Spring, Daughter’s Featured Fotos give a New York Salute to Naycha

a tree grows in central park

a tree grows in central park

birds during construction

birds during construction

folk rock

folk rock

field of play (girls on a roof)

field of play (girls on a roof)

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