It’s a few hours after sunset, but I just found out about this. I’m posting it here and then turning off the computer. Click this link of embed doesn’t work.
Unplug!
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Category Archives: Social Science
A Future We Can Change
Life is competitive around here. It is everywhere, but I feel it especially here — in the play group, among other parents in general, especially when the topic of education comes up. Last year, four Gunn High School students in Palo Alto committed suicide by stepping in front of trains; already one child committed suicide the same way this year. Granted, Palo Alto manifests “the best of the best” — affluent, highly educated, highly successful Silicon Valley players who want their children to succeed and exceed the norm. Not all school districts are as packed with scrambling over-achievers.
We want a good school for Claire, but more than that, we want a good learning experience for her, and a good life. I want to see this movie when it comes out. And I want to be part of the solution.
If you can’t see the movie trailer, click this link.
New Year, New Hopes
I feel jazzed at the moment. Out of the blue, yesterday I received a lovely, gracious email from a blog reader — someone who has lurked around here for three years — and it made my day. I haven’t been feeling inspired much to write lately. Hearing from someone that she has appreciated this little world I’ve created nudges me to make an effort. So here is a post.
I recently cleared out the office, which has been the art room and the overflow room. It was cluttered and hardly usable. I’ve now reorganized all the art and craft supplies and labeled the drawers. I know where stuff is and can get to it. The vacuum cleaner fits in the closet. Now it’s ready for me to mess it up again!!
For Christmas I was given a gift card to a sewing store to sign up for lessons. I was given a sewing machine last June for my birthday, but it hasn’t been used yet! Now that the desk is clear, there is room to set it up and try a project. Soon.
We were recently referred to a new realtor by a friend. If you’ve read this blog awhile, you know we’ve been searching for a decent, affordable house to buy in the Bay Area since last January. Husband has been researching online for much longer. We were using a do-it-yourself discount realtor company, and we saw dozens and dozens of houses. We nearly made offers on three. But they didn’t work out, and I was discouraged. I’d lost hope and interest by mid-year.
So we met with this new realtor, and we like her. She has knowledge and expertise and connections with other realtors. Once she is certain about what we’re looking for, she’ll preview properties for us. She’s sending us listings we would not have considered before, because her sense of how soft prices might be means we might be able to buy a house that’s priced higher and negotiate down to our comfort level. She has even made a video of one house she viewed as a way of trying new technology this year. I’m enthused again.
Last year was a year of learning about friendship — how fluid they are. One close friendship from 2008, with a mom I saw almost daily and spoke with on the phone at least as often, ended. There was a misunderstanding, then repair, then a transition on her part to another friend. I felt abandoned and replaced, and it hurt me deeply. It left me reeling, actually, for several months. I realized during this process that I had concentrated my well-being in one relationship to the exclusion of other mother friendships. Since then, I’ve made more effort and thus more friends for me and Claire. I feel connected to a wider community. When I see this person at play group events and parties, we always chat and I enjoy it; but the part of me that broke and let go has changed. Paths diverge. It’s all right.
In November, I had hoped a long-time friend from Austin would arrange to visit with me so I could introduce her to Claire during our visit. (We’d met in 1999.) I’d been close to her when her son was born; I was designated an “auntie.” After I moved, we drifted some and had less contact. She got more passionately involved in other pursuits in 2007 and stopped following through on the small gestures and actions that nurture a friendship. I was a little hurt by this, especially because there was no response to my baby shower or Claire’s birth — and months after her birth, the friend sent a small package of hand-me-down stuff.
Well, the visit didn’t work out, and she was very blasé about it, and I wrote her about how I felt. She conceded she’d dropped the ball and mentioned wanting to connect again, and she pointed out that I had seemed distant as well. I was encouraged and looked forward to responding and trying to reconcile. However, I didn’t reply to her email quickly enough. It gave her time to reassess that she really didn’t feel it was worth it. She decided to “un-friend” me officially from her life: off of Facebook and Flickr, off my blog, everything. She removed my blog link from her blog. I imagine she has purged my contact information. I hate to think what she might have done to the artwork I’ve made and given to her in the past. It was thorough and unilateral, and it first it stunned me. But then, I decided to let it go. If that’s what she needed to do, it’s her loss. Considering the way things were, it isn’t much of one.
Lastly, someone who found my blog a couple years ago became a reader and felt inspired to start his own blog. He is a wonderful photographer and has interesting insights on the politics of our day. As my offline life got busier, I have stopped commenting on most blogs that I read. For some reason, this person felt it important to send me an email with a subject line of “Farewell” and to inform me that he was removing me from his list of blogs on his blog, because I don’t comment enough for it to feel like an exchange. He wasn’t going to read my blog anymore. He assured me that he knows I’m busy with a wonderful child, and this wasn’t meant as a slap to me. Yet somehow, it did feel like a slap. I didn’t dwell on it long, but I was reminded how tenuous our online connections can be.
So my hope for this year is that I manage to nurture the community I have offline, maintain connections with far-flung friends, and revive my online presence a bit. Somewhere in there I want to read books, make art, knit, learn to sew, buy a house, and do fun things with my family. Well, sleep is overrated, anyway.
Happy new year everyone!
Is It Even Possible?
The conception of two people living together for twenty-five years without having a cross word suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep.
–Alan Patrick Herbert
Pangs
I’m having an ego moment. Cruising the Internet, I find so many sites by people — especially women — who are creative and generating a living (or at least some income) from it. Friends are making and selling their art. Friends are designing clothing and selling the patterns, and knitting up gorgeous garments. A friend is starting fitness accessory business. Friends write books and hold retreats. Acquaintances are life coaches, writers, have award-winning blogs, make and sell jewelry, and so on.
And I’m here in my little corner of the world, dabbling away. I suspect I’ve always been a dilettante. I walked away from a fledgling career as a professional counselor with her own practice to move here with Husband. (To get licensed here would require almost going through the whole process again — at a cost in money and time that I just won’t spare.) Sometimes I think about setting up a life coaching practice, but what is that, anyway? Everyone seems to be doing it; Google produced 42 million hits for the term. Plus, I’ve been out of the work world long enough that I feel rough and rusty.
One reason I go through sporadic periods of creating is that once I’ve got something made, the question arises of what to do with it. I’ve got knitted stuff stored in my drawers. Art I’ve made sits in a portfolio. Space is limited, so I create less often, and it depresses me to create only to have it sit in the dark. Yes, I could knit for charity — and I do. But there is something satisfying in being compensated monetarily for one’s efforts, and it is validating and heartening to be recognized for one’s work.
I’m not complaining so much as I am musing aloud whether I could be doing more, if I am wasting precious skill and talent by not generating income in some way with all this creativity.
And I’m wondering where these women get the energy. Some of them, in addition to being mothers, work outside jobs, and yet still find a way to create, often at the expense of their sleep and perhaps health. Maybe they can actually function this way. I did it for years in my 20s and 30s, but I’ve found that I’m a crappy mother if I’m exhausted and sick, and I want to be a good mother. I don’t enjoy life when I’m barely able to move or think. There are no sick days available.
So I struggle a bit with… envy? Or maybe it’s worry… a fear that I have retreated into a passive state, almost infantile, in that I don’t generate income, especially from all the dabbling I do. I’m getting to play, while Husband is out there bringing home cash. I don’t have currency in a world where the question, “What do you do for a living?” is unanswerable because I don’t make an income. There was no place on the U.S. Census form that I filled out for our household for me to write that my current job is Homemaker and Mother and that no, I wasn’t laid off and seeking work. It — I — just didn’t count.
I know, wah wah wah. But I do wonder.
Have Fun
This is a neat idea. (See the movie here if it doesn’t embed.) More fun videos here!
Outrageous
A woman was shopping in a Walmart with a screaming child. A man approached and threatened the mother to shut her child up or he’d do it. A few moments later, the toddler was still screaming, and the man returned and slapped the child about four times. The incident makes me see red. I am careful to go out with my toddler only when she is well, fed, and rested, but sometimes toddlers throw tantrums regardless. They are learning and growing and have primitive emotional regulation. I guess I am lucky it didn’t happen to us. We just got a dirty look. And I got out of there, apologizing to everyone near us, just as soon as I’d completed our transaction.
Moment By Moment
Observations
Below is the New Yorker cover for June 29, 2009. Claire looked at it tonight, and this is what she said (note: she is still confused on gender pronouns):
“Man scared. Man can’t see, looking. He klunked. Yes, he’s looking, he klunked.” Klunked is Claire’s term for falling over. I can only guess that the look on the woman’s face seems like an expression of surprise, which is what Claire usually feels when she klunks. I’ve got an observant little kid on my hands!
Hanging Chador, by Barry Blitt
The Language Instinct
She spins in circles and says, “I’m getting busy!!” and laughs when she falls down.
She adds plural ending to words that are already plural: gloveses, shoeses, kidses.
She adds “ed” to verbs in current tense to make them past-tense: “It breaked,” “I eated.”
She sits in her wading pool, looks up at the trees blowing in the wind and says, “The trees are dancing.” She sees a butterfly and says, “It’s so beautiful.” She puts on her crown and says, “I’m very cute!”
Some day I will get around to reading Steven Pinker’s book, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, but right now I’m observing it in action. It’s wonderful!
Still Trying To Wrap My Brain Around This
Apparently it’s all doom an gloom still in the housing market. We’re still looking to see what’s out there that we can possibly afford without risking our necks and also feel comfortable living in. Please note in the quote below what is considered the “low end” of home values here. We’re talking about houses, condos, and town homes that are 1,200 to 1,900 square feet.
“Sales are up dramatically,” said Jim Klinge, an agent in San Diego. “There’s a group of buyers that need housing more than they need to pay attention to the doom and gloom headlines we see every single day.”
Many of his buyers are young people who are backed financially by their parents. Mr. Klinge noted that all the sales were on the low end, which in San Diego means less than $500,000.
—Record Drop in January Index of Home Prices
We went looking at new construction last weekend. I have to admit there’s a huge appeal to shiny new homes. Especially at these prices. If you’re going to spend that kind of dough, getting something fresh and new makes sense. These homes aren’t complete, so when you purchase you can choose what counters, paint colors, floors, etc. you want. So, shiny and new is attractive, unless you want a postage stamp yard (i.e., a detached single family home). If you want actual land with your house, you get much less interior space or house that needs some work.
One of the realities I am struggling to accept (I have actively resisted) is that we live in an urban area. I cannot recreate the neighborhood in which I grew up. We will never own a house with the size yard that I enjoyed. I cannot do this because it’s just so dense and intense here. Claire is having her childhood, not mine. It’s a fact of our lives that we live an urban existence. I need to find what is good about that for her sake and mine.
Drama We Don’t Like
A couple months ago, two blocks from here where I walk with Claire, a man brandishing a gun wandered the streets and was shot by police when he refused to drop the weapon. I think he survived. I haven’t heard anything about it since, but it’s disconcerting. We could have been taking a walk in that area at the moment.
Last night six people died in a family murder-suicide in an area of Santa Clara where friends live, and where we have looked at housing. Of course, these tragedies happen all over, even in rural areas.
We just had an earthquake here at 10:40 a.m. Not huge, but a reminder of a restless earth.
If Only I Were A Ladybug
Husband is a researcher. For months he has diligently tracked the housing market to see if house prices will enter a range we can afford. In the past couple of weeks, we have taken field trips to various parks in San Jose neighborhoods to see if we like the area, and to see what our money could buy. Unfortunately, this also means a much longer commute for Husband. He works in Mountain View, although this is not a given forever. Yet we cannot afford to buy a house north of Santa Clara.
So far, we’ve learned that the house we want (about 1,400-1,700 square feet, two baths, and a small yard) we can’t afford in certain neighborhoods (or we can only afford a town home, but those rarely have yards), and the houses priced so that we could buy are in neighborhoods that are run down or downright scary. It still galls me that $500,000 can only buy a shack. But we will continue to look, to eliminate areas and narrow down a few regions we might afford. Then we’ll see what happens to the market. It continues to move in our favor, but we’re still talking scads of money. Since we already pay $2,200 a month for rent — and since we know it will go up again this year — we might be better off at least getting some equity built up (though it will take many, many years for that to happen).
I took the photo below at the San Francisco Zoo. If only my housing issues were as simple as a ladybug’s. This looks like an inviting place.
What’s Cooking?
The first week of January is nearly past! I have only a few minutes to write this post, so it’s a bit scattered. I signed up to participate in Creative Every Day 2009, so here’s my first post about it. For Christmas I received some culinary items: a jumbo muffin pan, four really heavy cookie/jelly roll sheets, 6 tart pans, 4 mini loaf pans, and 2 mini cake pans, along with a book called Small-Batch Baking. I really enjoy baking (even more than cooking), but most baked goods are indulgences. And as we should know but have forgotten, an indulgence is a treat, something enjoyed specially; however, the quantities most recipes create are many dozens of cookies or large pies and cakes that a family of three does not need.
This morning I put the loaf pans to use by making more pumpkin bread. I’ve found that large loaves don’t get consumed quickly enough, and another point to baking small is to reduce the amount of temptation to overeat. I was really pleased with the results and look forward to making more goodies. The recipes in the book make very small amounts; for example, a recipe for a cake makes 2 little cakes (slightly larger than a jumbo muffin) or a half a dozen cookies.
I’ve also decided this year to get creative about food in a different way. I received three other books, some of which provide ideas to ponder and one of which also has recipes. One of my relatives has undergone a significant weight loss, and she and I discussed eating habits and the need to remain healthy, and how excess weight impinges on health. Eating differently — heathfully and in less quantity — is also a creative response to environmental issues.
I realize I have, for too many years, consumed food mindlessly in quantities that would shock a large percentage of the world population. As I watch my daughter learn to eat and to feed herself, I’ve felt my conscience poked and prodded. She follows her natural hunger and satiation. It’s been so long since I stopped at satiation. I know what hunger feels like but often eat as recreation, and I often eat beyond simple fullness. So many people live on much, much less. And in fact, as my relative and I discussed, our sense of proportion is extremely skewed. We have grown accustomed to large servings and lost the understanding of how truly little a body needs to thrive. By reducing how much I consume, I can save our family money, and some of that money will go to organizations such as Feeding America and Heifer International. So the books I will be reading are:
- Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating, by Mark Bittman (includes recipes)
- The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
- In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan
All Through The House
After reading three different versions of The Night Before Christmas about 20 times each today (which I did willingly and happily), sweet Claire is now asleep. She is too young to understand who Santa is or what Christmas is really about, but our little parrot spent the day repeating Santa and (with prompting) Merry Christmas. It comes out sounding more like Mewy Cwithmah. Quite charming!
She sampled two spoons of my clam chowder. A simple supper of French bread and clam chowder on Christmas Eve is a family tradition from my childhood which Husband has enjoyed adopting. As I write this, I’m listening to the radio, a classical music station with symphonic Christmas music. A small glass of eggnog is at my side. Husband is upstairs wrapping the rest of his presents to me. All of the others are wrapped.
I’ve also explored Norad Tracks Santa. It’s a lot of fun even for adults. Click on the small presents and a little box with a photo of the location pops up. There are places — little atolls and countries — that I never knew existed. There’s also video footage of Santa traveling and a narrative about what he’s doing. Oh! I must remember to leave out cookies and a glass of milk for Santa too.
Sweet dreams of sugar plums, everyone!