Don't stand so close to me...

We're headed to the Police/Elvis Costello concert tonight.

So excited, about both.

And feeling a little geezerish 

when I admit that I kind of hope 

everyone doesn't stand up

the WHOLE time.

{Can't we have a little designated rest time, people?

Just for a little while...

maybe during Message in a Bottle?}

I'll give you a full report 

on Sting's biceps

and Elvis's glasses

tomorrow.

De do do do, de da da da... 

p.s.

Remember this?

When they play Roxanne,

I'll be thinking of my nephew Jackson.

Poor little conehead

Turns out there is something worse than losing all your data on your computer*:

Getting neutered.  

(Just ask Louie.)

First they shave you in all sorts of undignified ways.

This particular look surprised us.

Then you have to wear a sad little collar

for 10 to 14 days

(They try to class it up by calling it an Elizabethan collar

but really it's just a plastic cone.

I'm pretty sure Queen Elizabeth I would be insulted.)

No running and playing.  For 10 to 14 days.

No bathing or getting wet. For 10 to 14 days.

Instead?

Bumping your cone against walls, stairs, the floor

as you adjust to your new width.

(Do we laugh? Yes we do.)

Very sad.

Ah, perspective.

When I went to pick up Louie, they gave me this kit: 

Spay/neuter kit?!

Whoa! I had no idea this was a self-serve neutering operation! 

I hope they give some pretty detailed instructions.  

Cause I don't know if I'm comfortable...

All day Louie looked at me like this.  

Finally I realized what he reminded me of. 

He's like the RCA dog and the victrola all in one, 

don't you think?

You're welcome, Bob Barker.

p.s. Thanks for your condolences and sympathies for my Clementine.  (As Allysha so perfectly put it: Clementine is dead.  Long live Clementine!) Things are looking up as I reinstall and reconfigure and upload.

Moment of Silence

Dearly beloved...

We are gathered here today to say farewell 

to the former contents of Clementine MacBook 

(from good Scottish stock, is my laptop computer).

Gone on July 26, 2008

Perhaps what I will miss most 

are the photos she so lovingly stored and displayed....

Or the hours and hours of music she played*...

{sniff}

No, I think what I will most miss 

are the many PhD documents 

that were safely (?) nestled within her bosom.  

Whenever I needed them, Clementine was there.

Until she wasn't.

* * *

The rest of the story?  I stupidly put my beloved laptop on a pile of magazines on the counter. As I walked away, I heard a sliding sound and turned to see the pile teeter and Clementine fall on the wood floor.

There was a slow motion "Nooooooooo!" moment where I dove with my arms outstretched. Louie the dog came running in from outside.  Children dashed from their rooms.  I don't know--you may have heard the wail from where you were on Saturday at 11:16 a.m. if you listened carefully. 

I held out hope until yesterday, when I had an appointment with the lovely men at the Apple Store Genius Bar (hi Court! hi James!).  But their deft magic wouldn't work on Clementine's innards.  She was too far gone.

But don't cry for me, Argentina (everywhere else, feel free). They replaced the hard drive for me.  I still have Clementine and she has been made clean as fresh snow. It's a new beginning, right?  Right?? 

* p.s. I lost my ipod in May and just hadn't replaced it yet so I really lost all my music.  If that ever happens to you, I have a helpful hint: iTunes can allow you to redownload all your purchased items!  Yay--a sparkle of good news in a bleak sea of  despair.  Where the waves of oh-no-I-lost-that-too just keep on coming.

p.p.s. Needless to say, I am new convert to the School of Backup. You know how you get a prompt saying "would you like to backup your files"?  DO IT. 

Sweet escape

With both daughters at sleep-over girls' camp this week and Greg ensconced in work projects, that left Sam and me at home this week. Which I was really looking forward to: quality time with my son, one on one. We could go to museums! Hikes! Make bird houses! Catch up on all the scouting requirements! I started whistling the Andy Griffiths show theme song just thinking about it.

But then I started noticing that we were having a lot of conversations like this:

Me: hey! We have a free afternoon. Do you want to go on a bike ride?
Sam: (after long pause) ...with you?
Me: yeah...I have a bike, you have a bike...we can ride them together.
Sam: Um (considering) no, thanks.

(Not having gotten the full hint yet)
Me: What about a movie?
Sam: Just you and me?
Me: (beginning to get the hint) Well, yes.
Sam: No, thank you. (One thing you've got to say about Sam, he rejects you with his best manners. And deep down I know I'm one of his very favorite people in the world. Just not one he necessarily wants to be seen alone in public with.)

Not to worry; I brainstormed a great Plan B. Thanks to a great last minute deal, we've headed to St. Louis for a few days to stay with some of our favorite people. It's a win-win. For Sam: terrific boys to play with (and the requisite distance from me, I suppose). For me: a good friend to talk/laugh/steal ideas from/watch movies with (and, truthfully, I've been just looking for an excuse for a Christie fix).

^
in the Chicago airport this morning on a layover.
Hmm.
Apparently being seen with your mom
at an airport
is completely fine.

Peace + quiet

I spent a precious 33.5 hours alone at home this weekend. Not that I'm counting or anything.

I've been trying to finish up a big project for months, my first solo program evaluation of a nonprofit organization. It's been a long and interesting (but only to me...I'll spare you the details) process but with the kids home full time it's been difficult to do the final data analysis and write the report.

The shadow of this expectation started looming large but my hearty procrastination skills rose to the challenge and I kept thinking "I'll get to it tonight, after everyone's in bed"... "I'll get up early in the morning"... "once I read up on this statistical procedure I'll be ready"...and so on. Some projects are just too huge for the usual multi-tasking, chipping-away approach! {Or at least that's what I told myself. Also, I really think I might have late-onset ADD lately. I cannot manage to quiet my brain but flit from project to project, thought to thought without much productivity. Please advise.}

Enter G {husband + father extraordinaire...dadadaDA} who kissed me on the forehead, packed up the kids, and headed to Vermont to camp and cook over a fire and tube down a river. As soon as they left, I decided my fridge needed scrubbing {curse you, productive neglect!} but after that I sat down for seven hours, went to bed, woke up and sat down and worked for eight more. Take that, Procrastination Vader and ADDish bright-shiny-object chaser!

Last year sometime I wrote about my great Grandma's philosophy of occasionally packing up and "going to live with the bears" (or, in my case, sending everyone else to the bears). I think we all need that now and then, whether it's to finish something up or to get a new perspective or to recharge. Even if it's just an hour. Or fifteen minutes.

p.s. It must be in the air right now. Once I resurfaced I read about a couple of others who are taking peace+quiet project vacations, too. I love what Brene says about taking the time and fighting the "who-do-you-think-you-are" thoughts (and I just had an almost identical conversation about success with some of my friends in my PhD program...I'll have to post about that another time). Tara the magnificent also rocked the home quiet while her kids lived with the bears elsewhere for a while.

To my pop: You're the top

My dad, bearing a striking resemblance to Sam (methinks)

You're the purple light

Of a summer night in Spain,

You're the National Gallery

You're Garbo's salary,

You're cellophane.

You're sublime,

You're a turkey dinner,

You're the time,

the time of a Derby winner...

~Cole Porter

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Sending all our love +

looking forward to seeing you soon.

Declaring bankrupcy

At first I was pretty good about staying on top of things.

Then they just kept coming, faster than I could keep up.

Then came the shameful day when I decided to ignore them entirely. Ignorance is bliss, right?

There was no going back after that. Did they stop? No. The debts kept piling up while my head was planted firmly in the sand.

But now I owe too much! It's hopeless!

Today I declare phone message bankruptcy and wipe the board clean. I hereby absolve myself of any owed messages on my voicemail but, in exchange for the clean slate, I promise to return calls from now on. Ahhhhh....It feels so liberating to come out from under the weight of owed phone calls and ignored callers. Free at last! The shackles have fallen from my...wherever shackles are placed!
I really must apologize to any of you who ever left a message on our answering machine in the last nine months or so. It's very misleading, that message that says "...we'll call you back as soon as we can." Not entirely true. I should have said "...we'll call you back if we ever listen to this message. But it's highly unlikely. Frankly the chances are zero."

It's not you, callers, it's me.

First, I'm not a big phone talker. Love to chat in person, I'll even join in on a good text conversation, but I'm not so great on the phone. I can't hang up fast enough. [I can't count how many times I've told G "...okay...yeah...well, let's talk about this tonight when you get home."]

So when we moved into this house last summer, I noticed that the message indicator on the phone didn't work anymore. I used to come in, glance at the phone, dial in to voicemail and listen. But with no indicator, I could go days without listening to messages and then when I finally checked there would be an insane number: "You have...1498 messages." If you think I proceeded to listen to each and every message, you are sadly wrong. Better people would have done that. Me? I just hung up.

At some point, somebody told one of the kids that our voicemail was full. I was so happy! Now when people called, they wouldn't be able to leave a message and would call back instead. People wouldn't be roaming the country believing that I was spitefully ignoring them! [Quite often I would tell people our phone message system was "broken" and to use my cell phone if they needed to reach me but unfortunately I'm sure there are some people who thought I was giving them the cold shoulder. My shoulders are warm, I promise!]

You might ask why didn't I just cancel our voicemail system? That's a good point. Well, that would involve making a phone call to the phone company, wouldn't it? And, even worse, waiting on the phone for hours! So on and on it went.

Until.


We bought a new phone this last weekend with a built-in answering machine, an old-school solution of listening to the taped messages out loud. It works! It really really works. I listen while I put away the groceries or putter around the kitchen and it's almost like the caller's right there in the room. Sometimes I even talk back. But--so far, fingers crossed, wood knocking--I've returned every single one.

And that's why I had a chocolate banana shake for lunch today. It was Phone Message Bankruptcy celebration day. Feel free to raise a glass in my direction today and join me!

Good for what ails you

Did you see the scene in the movie Cinema Paradiso where Salvatore watches the reel of film left to him by Alfredo, his beloved childhood friend who was the local movie projectionist? As he watches, he realizes it's all of the movie kiss scenes (the ones that the church required to be cut out of the films) now spliced together. (Click here to see, as long as you don't mind a quick bare bosom shot. I'm just saying...in case you prefer a warning.)

Well, in that spirit I introduce you to my new obsession: montage movie scenes posted on YouTube. I may or may not have spent the better part of this morning watching them. Or I may have spent the morning cleaning and gardening and scrubbing the baseboards--I'll never tell!

Are they kind of cheesy and corny? Well, yes, of course! Bring on the cheese! And the corn! The cheesy corn! But I challenge you to watch these and not get that foofy romance feeling, especially if any of these movies are ones you remember fondly. This one's all period pieces (mmm...yes, please) but there are more. Many, many more. I think someone may need to stage an intervention for me...

Sigh. [The only thing I might change about these are the music selections, but that's just because I'm kind of picky about my tunes.] Okay, where was I?

How did I find these, you ask? My mom (who herself assembles a great montage of favorite clips using the trusty VCR) forwarded me a great clip (you should watch it...it's good) of Diane Keaton talking about the magic of filming the train station scene in Reds. Then a few more clicks on YouTube, trying to find the train station scene in Reds, led me to the black hole of movie montages.

Have fun but be careful. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Overheard

Remember how I'm spending every day at the pond? I figured there would not be much to write about since, let's be honest, how many different ways can I say I'm reading on the beach and my kids are swimming? But it turns out there is great eavesdropping to be had!

* * *

Lifeguards call out: 11:30 lessons! Come warm up! Get in a circle and stretch.
[kids assemble.]

Lifeguard 1: Okay. We're going to go around the circle and say our name and...our spirit animal.

Lifeguard 2 (and half the class): What? What's a spirit animal?

Lifeguard 1: Well...it's um...the animal we have spiritually inside us.

Other lifeguards: guffawing and mocking poor Lifeguard 1.

One kid: I don't get it.

Another kid: What if you don't have a spirit animal? I don't think I have one.

Lifeguard 2: Exactly! Let's do our favorite animal because not everyone is aware of their spirit animal or even knows what one is (looks meaningfully at Lifeguard 1, like 'what are you thinking, dude, these are 6 to 9 year olds here?'). By the way Lifeguard 1 chose "hawk" as his spirit animal. If you're wondering.

* * *

Kids are playing in the sand, digging channels for water.

Bossy girl: We need a lake over here! Somebody has to dig a lake right now. Right here!

4 year old girl nearby: Don't get ME involved!

[Amen, sister. Just say no.]

* * *

Behind me, two women discuss their household help.

"Oh, I'll give you her name. She's Brazilian. But she's a really good woman, someone you'll feel good about having in your home around your things. And she does laundry. And makes the beds!"

[Just a piece of advice, prejudiced-sounding lady: try eliminating the word but from that sentence. It would make you seem so much more open minded and less harsh. Just a thought.]

* * *

Isn't eavesdropping great? And it's especially easy at a beach because you can pretend you're reading when really you're straining your ears to catch the whole conversation. As I recall, my mom is pretty good at it. Sometimes at restaurants, she would fill us in on the situation going on one table over. {I must take after her because sometimes I do that for G, too.} Next time I'll bring my notebook and be Harriet the Spy, thirtysomething edition.

What good stuff are you hearing?

Where you'll find me for the next two weeks

...at our beloved pond
where Sam is taking swim lessons
every day this week and next

mmm...my pulse goes down and shoulders relax
just looking at the photos

Maddy & Sam on the dock with their friends
playing games
{something about yelling and throwing a stick
and jumping in}

my favorite: reading on the shore
it has to be really hot for me to actually get in and swim
but I love to read + watch + give thumbs up to new divers
+ chat with friends and neighbors

Now it feels like summer.

Independence Day

It feels like Seattle weather here: a bit overcast and pleasantly cool. We went to the town celebration this afternoon--a homegrown, folksy time with cotton candy, three-legged races, a kids' obstacle course, hot air balloon rides courtesy of a local realty, the town band playing marches and ragtime. My camera took the afternoon off, poor thing deserved a break.

Also, earlier:
pancake and sausage breakfast
too many cherries (but they're so good!)
a Twilight Zone marathon

And now:
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
napping to prepare for the late night fireworks
making potato salad for dinner tonight

I wanted to pause and be grateful for family (it's been great having my parents here), kids holding balloons, oompa tubas, lawns, sparklers (sadly illegal here in MA), and especially for the freedom to speak out/believe/worship/choose your own direction/vote/travel and for those brave souls who sacrificed to secure these things.

Have a great one, friends.

p.s. It's hard to believe that it was a year ago we put Lauren on the plane to Ireland (and we moved into this house). Where does the time go, anyway?

Made in Manhattan

Yoo hoo! Psst. Over here. No, not there. Down the coast a bit. Here I am, in NYC. I'm stretched out on the foldout sofa bed on the 27th floor of a hotel with the glow of Times Square seeping through the sheer drapes. My parents are in the next room + I'm enjoying hearing one of the sounds of my growing up: laughter from their room as they watch the Tonight Show (in fact, one of my brother Chris's first phrases was "Here's Johnny!" True story.)

I was born here a few dozen blocks away and several decades ago. I think my cells remember my Big Apple beginnings because I love to make the pilgrimage and soak up the city. Even the stinky summer sewer smells don't dampen my love of this place. This time I'm here with my parents for a few days then we'll head back up to Boston for the 4th of July weekend with the fam.

Yes, this is a kid-free (thanks to G for holding down the fort at home), just-me-and-my-parents getaway. Evidence: I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. Funniest moment today: watching my mom be interviewed by CBS News for a man-in-the-street interview about travel. Don't know if she made it to the broadcast, but if you see someone on that show ask about boutique hotels, that would be my madre. Besides that brush with fame, we walked around, ate dinner at a cafe (delish) in the West Village with my sister (who lives here) and her boyfriend, and saw the movie The Visitor (very good).

Di Fiori Marquet photo courtesy of NY magazine
don't you love that mustard yellow on the outside?

Tomorrow is a theatre-packed day: August, Osage County for the matinee and South Pacific at night. I know, lucky am I. I'm thinking I need to find some way to pay it forward to balance out this trip. Does anyone need their toilets scrubbed? Their wallpaper stripped? Let me know.

[I wrote this last night but, in my sleepy haze, forgot to post.]