COMING SOON

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT.

We are still in New Orleans. Out flight yesterday was canceled due to weather in DC and the Louis Armstrong Airport kind of feels like the Des Moines airport these days--not a lot of flights in and out each day. Hopefully we'll make it home today.

There have been reports by phone from some of my sources that some of my readers are on the edge on their seats awaiting my next blogs about life in New Orleans. The question remains: Are they going to head South? The verdict is not yet in. The blogs I am working on about what we've seen are not just type-and-publish. And they are longish. So, you'll have to wait a few more hours until I make it to home to read about what I'm thinking.

The headlines to come are:

Got Water?: Mass Destruction in New Orleans
Second Line
A Hopping Popeyes
The Squish and the Scope
The Impulse
The Reality

And the stories

Today we sat around the Thanksgiving table talking about Katrina. Those of us who have not been here were talking about what little we know from TV, radio, and newspapers. Those who've lived though it listened as we tried to make sense of their reality. We all retell stories we've all heard before and know well and we all just say wow.

At one point Momoo, Philip's 91-year-old-grandma, said, "No matter how much or how little you have, it is a tragedy." Later she told me that all "this talk is for the birds. You have to go and see it."

Everyone is in shock. Momoo told me she wakes up in the night in disbelief. Today Sumner is lounging around Mema and Pop's house in a couple of very special PJs that Momoo sewed for him. Momoo told me that she started sewing the PJs before the storm. When she returned to her house and found them laying over a chair, she could not even remember who or what they were.

And it's not just the elderly. Everyone is in shock.

When we went to share dessert with some of Phil's cousin's the scene was much the same and very much different. Dessert was set out on the same buffet and it was good to see how much bigger the younger cousins have grown--a 13-year old in my memory is soon to drive (if he earns it, his mother adds) and a 10 year is now hitting puberty.

I was introduced to a friend of the host's who was joining us for the evening with, "This is Toby. She lost everything." Later, when a disbelieving-me asked Tody and her husband if they really lost everything, Toby and her husband told me that after the flood they each had four pairs of underwear, what they have taken with them for the evacuation. Toby's husband pointed to a little girl's rubber Croc shoes and told us he used to have a pair of those. Someone suggested that they probably could have survived the flood. He told us he saw one yellow shoe floating in his house, but he didn't search out the other one. This type of story is no longer extraordinary. Everyone has a story.

Philip's cousin Lauren and her husband David thought they'd made out fine. They live "across the river", which was spared by the flooding. But when they got to their house they found a big surprise. The roof of their house sustained damage and the ceilings in much of their house fell in. They can't live there for quite a while. Now David is living with his mother and Lauren and their three kids are spending a semster in Florida at David's sister's home. They have three weeks to go until they get to be together again. David's picked a book about Western Philosophy and read it, something he never had time to do before. They say their upbeat and seem that way.

Of course Momoo (and everyone else) says we are the lucky ones. We have resources/money/youth/energy to rebuild. Many just don't.

We are leaving at 9:30 AM tomorrow morning to tour the city.

Coming to Mema and Pop

We are in New Orleans right now. Philip and I slept from 9:30PM-9:30AM, that's 3x the amount of sleep Philip has been getting each night for the last month. This trip feels in many ways like other trips to New Orleans. Last night we had gumbo and barbecue shrimp for dinner. The kids got to choose between about 5 different dessert options and were served dessert exactly as they described it to Mema. Ramona had a big bowl of ice cream and Sumner had a brownie with about 8 strawberries. Mema announced with enthusiasm, "Every night is a dessert night here." (In Boston Tuesday and Fridays, in theory, are reserved for dessert) Ramona wants to be the center of attention. Sumner dug into his dad's old legos and went to town and then later was pretty pumped to find about 10 Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books that Philip read as a kid. When we woke up, we went down stairs and sat by the window eating bagels and drinking cold drip coffee (Philip) and tea (me). It feels like coming home.

But then, there are the little things. When we got off the airplane, the airport felt much the same. The Lucky Dog stand was open and there was even the same guy with a big bald white head at the security exit. When we left the terminal, I noticed that several of the big stores were closed at 4:30 on a Tuesday. We couldn't help but think about the thousands of people who made there way here during the flooding to be taken to new lives in a whole other region of the country. Imagine getting on a plane to somewhere safer, but totally unknown. There were also the people who slept at the airport. I remember the pictures taken of the sick and elderly right were we walked to get our luggage.

On the wall along the escalator to the baggage was a sign that stated the EPA's recommendation for cleaning your house: Don't let elderly and children back until clean up is done, don't mix ammonia and bleach, don't take off you mask and gloves until you've changed clothes, etc.

Also, most of the people in the airport were white. I saw a few black people who I guessed were middle class based on their dress, talk, and luggage. I noted this and told Phil, but he thinks I was exaggerating--we will see as we tour the city: who's back? Ramona commented, "Look at all these people coming to see their memas and pops.” People are people to Ramona.

Then we got in the car and drove straight to Mema and Pop's house. As soon as we exited the airport we saw trailers lined up along the highway. We saw fences down and boarded window. This is all along the part of the city that made it, the burbs. I mentioned a blown over fence and Mema said, "That's nothing." We saw a lot of blue roofs. FEMA has put up blue tarps roofs on people's homes that lost their roofs to the storm. As we passed one pile of wood, I realized it was not just a pile of wood, but a disassembled house.

I also noticed traffic, a lot of it, going the other way on the freeway. Mema explained that it is people commuting back to Baton Rougue or their temporary homes somewhere else.

And the stories. Every time someone Philip's mom and dad know or we know comes into the conversation, we hear yet another incredible story of how people are making out after the storm.

We didn't see much. We haven't been to New Orleans proper yet. We haven't made it out of the house after sleeping for half the day, but we will. Philip and his sister want to tour the city together so that they can share their reactions and memories of what was their childhood. We’re waiting for her and her husband. So I think we'll go out on Friday, after spending Thursday eating and eating and giving thanks for what we have.

Charades

A few weeks ago our friends Ara and Aarti and Phil and I went head to head in a game of charades. Just like in church youth group, we listed movie, book, song, and TV show titles and then ripped our list into little pieces and folded them up for the other team to draw and then act out. We played one round and while we were not "keeping score" we were keeping score and Ara and Aarti were winning. I hate to lose and I usually kick ass in charades, so this was unbearable. They were giddy and wanted more blood.

We went into separate rooms to create the list for our second round of charades, we each became more ruthless. Since Philip doesn't watch TV, read billboards, or play much attention to pop culture beyond glancing at my People magazines now and again, Ara and Aarti stuck to TV shows on UPN or FOX or some such thing that Phil'd have no context for. Since Ara doesn't obsessively listen to NPR, we chose books that we knew about (and want to read, but haven't read, but have a general idea about because we ALWAYS listen to NPR) and he wouldn't. Aarti and I listen to NPR and watch TV, so we were the bridge between these two polar opposites (and close friends).

They still won.

A week later Ara and Aarti were over for dinner and Aarti told me that Ara was on an NPR strike. He said NPR is for snobs. Snobs, that's right, like Emily, who like to bring up what they hear with a "Did you hear that story on NPR...?" so that they sound smart when they take a far left position. Ara had had enough of this pretentiousness. No more NPR for the Pani's (and a winning round of Charades for Philip and I in the near future).

This cultural divide came up a couple days later. A friend of mine, who has no TV, was describing her job at a local non-profit. There are a bunch of white-liberal-Harvard-people who work there and they are struggling with the need to have a more diverse staff. An African-American staff member was trying to describe how her trying-to-be-intellectual colleagues sometimes seemed to be a little out of touch at times. She said to my friend, "These people don't even watch T.V.!"

It reminded me that when the hurricane hit and we wanted to watch some CNN we could not think of anyone--ANYONE--who we know who had full cable. Most everyone we know has basic cable and basic cable has no CNN. There are a few people who have a TV just to watch the occasional rental and still a few more who have no TV at all. We've been through all of these stages of TV.

It's all a big charade, this anti-TV sham. There are bad things about TV: commercials, dull actors, recycled stories, perpetuation of stereotypes, etc. But when NPR loving folks isolate themselves from TV they also isolate themselves from what everyone else is experiencing. They lose fluency with a common American language—television.

Ara’s NPR picket line? Well, I think that’s a waste of his energy and a snobbery of its own. He’s just a little rebellious. Once he moves out of this NPR Mecca he’ll shift. He can then listen to NPR, because no one else is.

I love TV and I love NPR. I love stories and both of these Medias tell me stories and so I will be hooked on both forever.

Skinned Knees

On Friday Ramona fell a lot. She fell down a couple stairs on our way out the door in the morning, she nearly fell on the stairs leading down to her school, she reported that she got bumped twice at school, and after school, as she and I were on our way into a store, she fell while running. On the move, I scooped her up and keep walking, while trying to comfort her with kisses and a soft voice. My hurry, my clogs, and a step leading into the store got in our way and the both of us tumbled once more.

It was really awful. She cried, I wanted to cry, and I skinned my knees. Both of them. I got a hold of myself, picked Ramona up again, and teetered into the store. The people working there got us a pile of bandaids and a wet paper towel. I put the bandaids on Ramona's owies, which didn't really need them. Then, without checking my knees, I gave the people in the store their bandaids back.

I was thinking and moving too fast. This is one of my worst faults and I have a hard time putting on the breaks when I am speeding. I am getting better at slwoing down and have been practicing going the speed limit, but when a body is in motion, it stays in motion--right? The thing is that when I go the speed limit, people pass by me and I feel like it is going to take soooo loooong to get where I'm going. And then there's the true facts that sometimes you need to speed and sometimes it is okay to speed. But most of the time it is not okay to speed. As I have learned time and time again, I eventually crash when I speed.

So I stopped. I sat with Ramona and tried not to think about other things. I tried to just listen to her cry and calm her down. This calmed me down some. Then I felt that my knees were wet with blood, so I pulled up my pant legs and Ramona and I saw that I was oozing some. We got the bandaids back and fixed me up good. Then we did our business and went on our way.

I just want to slow down.

Ramona and Sumner are my best material

I can try to write about the things I think and do, but really, if I just stick to the things the kids do and say, I write things ya'll want to read.

Ramona asked me today if she could sit by the open window (today is predicted to be the last nice day of the year for Boston) and eat lunch and watch the workers building a porch on the house next door. I wasn't eating with her, so I agreed and she set her little bowls of grapes and crackers and cheese on the window sill and greeted the men. She asked them what they were doing and when they told her she asked why they were cleaning up and when they' be back, "Next Tuesday, Mom, they'll come back and finish." Glad she's keeping tabs on neighborhood business.

Then she turned and gasped, "Mom. Mama. That man with the red shirt kind of looks like he has boobies. He has boobies."

"Okay, Ramona, he may, but don't say that too loud."

Whispering, "He really looks like he has boobies. I'm not saying it loud. I'm just telling you: he has boobies."

"Alright."

"Mom, I had a dream about college the other day."

"Really? What happened?"

"It's a secret."

"Okay."

A few minutes more of watching Boobie Man and then, "There was a tickle monster and he didn't have a face. Then we realized it was just a hood."

"Okay."
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Sumner gets a Lego "magazine" every couple weeks. It should be called a catalog, because it is one. Sumner counted up his money the other day and brought me $5, two of which were his one and only $2-bill. He asked me if I could use the money to buy him a Sir Knight Kingdom Knight online. He asked me to use two of my one dollar bills instead of actually spending the $2-bill. I can keep the $2-bill, but only in a safe place. I think he plans on buying it back one day.

So tonight Sumner sits me down at the computer to buy this thing. We look up the toy and find that on every online toy store it is between $8 and $10. This baffles him, "In the magazine it says $5." He is getting worked up. I am puzzled too. Sumner can read. He usually doesn't get this kind of thing wrong. He also can't find the "magazine" that proves the $5 price. He's frustrated and is getting on his shoes to go and see if he left it in the car when he says, "It says 'All 6 Sir Knight Kingdom Knights for the price of 5'. I promise you, Mom."

The poor, poor thing. Learning a harsh lesson the blur of marketing and then the harsh buying reality so young. Wanting something so badly and finding that what you think the good deal is, is no deal at all. I hate that, but I guess it is not such a bad thing to strengthen your disappointment muscle.

Jacob too

I spoke with my brother last night. He was a child who threw tamtrums if his t-shirts weren't neatly tucked into his underwear and he came home from college with a suitcase full of cleaned and folded and ironed clothes. In college used to have my mom wash and iron my few things that needed to be ironed and wear them only several times a semester, so that she could clean them next time for me. My duffle bag was always full of all the dirty laundry I could stuff into it.

I asked him if Mom used to tuck him in like her dolls and he said, "Of course." And now he tucks his two year old and his two year old's stuffed animals in in the same way, every night.

The last time Jacob came to visit me he saw a pile of clean laundry in my bedroom and offered to fold it for me.

It brings peace. Real peace to some.

If Cleanliness is next to Godliness, then Neatness must be next to Nirvana.

I can get into mopping. I like to have things tidy. I really like to organize, classify, and group things. But I am an amatuer compared to my mother and my daughter. They are naturals.

My relationship to art and cleanliness and neatness are similar. I like to look at art in museums and galleries and friends' houses. I also dabble in a few crafty/arty things with my kids, but I am not an artist. I like neat and clean places, they feel comfortable. I like to clean and be neat--to a point. But cleanliness and neatness are not me at my core--I have other things to obsess about.

My mom often tells me a story that once she couldn't sleep because she hadn't ironed my doll's clean clothes. She got up and ironed them until 1 in the morning (and I am sure folded them neatly and put them in their wicker box). When she tells me this story I think: washing doll clothes? Did the doll spit up or get her knees dirty on the playground? How do doll clothes get dirty? The ironing part is way beyond even trying to figure out.

Annabelle also appreciates neat things. They give her divine pleasure. A bed well made with a pillow properly aired, puffed, and placed or a cup of tea in a white mug or precise handwriting really turn her on. Like I've said, I can get into these things, but they don't turn me on.

When my friend Amy was in medical school, her professor asked the class what diagnosis they’d think if they interviewed a patient who had knee and shoulder injuries from cleaning. Amy thought: I’d think Annabelle Sumner. (My mom has no cartilage left in her knee from using them a lot—to do lots of things) Amy’s classmates thought OCD. You can draw your own conclusions.

My mom also used to like to tuck us into bed as she tucked her dolls into bed as a child. We had to lay flat on our backs for this ritual. She'd lift our arms above our heads and then pull the sheet squarely over our faces and cover the sheet with the quilt, which she pulled just up to our chins. Then she'd fold the sheet evenly back over the quilt and bring our arms down over both. As soon as she'd finish and given me a kiss goodnight, I'd kick and my legs and twist all around. We'd giggle.

Ramona also really likes neat things. The other day she posted a post-it on the window that faces out on our porch and asked me to list her and Sumner's "playdate rides", otherwise known as carpools.

If she washes her hands in public, she loves drying her hands with the paper towels, but it bothers her that we have to crumple it up and toss it away. She often asks for another paper towel when her hands are dry. This paper towel, she will "keep nice". She doesn't want it to be folded or let it get wet. She just wants it untouched.

At night, she like to get herself organized. She lines up her dolls and books and music just so.

Do you see how the speakers are at a perfect 45 degree angle and the doll is parallel to Ramona just so? With things set up just like that she can rest. She can sleep peacefully with her world in order.

World, watch out...one day Ramona will learn to iron. She may just start the Church of Clean.

I miss my mommy! (and daddy)

The Obvious Child by Paul Simon is playing.

My parents are out of the country from November 4th to November 20th and as quick-math Sumner said right away when he heard their travel dates, "That's 16 days!" GASP.

Unlike Philip and his parents, I do not have a standing, sacred day and time of the week when I generally talk to my parents. It is about once a month (if that) that my mom and I really taaalk, as in talk for more than 15 minutes. But we talk all the time, often when I am on the go, in between a pick up here and a drop off there. I talk to her for about 5 to 10 minutes every other day, at least. Sometimes I talk to her a couple of times in one day. The thing is, she's there. I think she genuinely likes talking to me and being bothered by me. I really like these little check-in chats. I didn't really know how much I appreciate them until she left the country.

You see, my mom has always been very present for me. She was there for me when I came home from school and she was there for me when I broke up with my first boyfriend. She has also been there when I needed help buying a home and when I needed a babysitter for the first week I went back to graduate school. She is really good at supporting me. I really like crying on her shoulder and calling her to tell her funny things that the kids told me. After Philip, she and Dad are the first people I like to share my victories with. Isn’t it great to have family that you don’t have to be modest with?

Talking to my mom is a little like looking in a mirror. The most ridiculous things she says are often things I too believe, but coming from her end of the phone they sound just outrageous. I need her to keep my crazy gene in check. We both tell each other to take better care of ourselves. I am/she is very concerned that she is/I am working too hard and not pausing to take care of herself/myself. We're both right.

Usually when she's unreachable, I can call on my dad. He tries his best and listens and gives some good advice too. He is another mirror into other parts of me. He sounds just as insane as my mother does when he says things that I say and think. But he's gone too.

I really miss them.

A Grunt

Ramona has been telling me alot about how things work lately. The other morning she told me that babies can not only come out of vaginas, but boobies too. "Floppy babies can come out of boobies, but hard ones come out of vaginas."

Then she told me that her teacher Beth is a man. Then she revised her assessment and said that Beth was a wo-man, but her teacher Rosie is a plain girl, as am I. Sue, another teacher is a woman. Alex, yet another teacher, is a smooth girl. Sumner was in on this little mini-lecture from Ramona. He seemed to be contemplating her descriptions. I asked him if he knew what she meant and he agreed that Alex is a smooth girl. Why do I have to be a plain girl? I'm pretty smooth.

Finally, the other day she wanted to show me the bottom of her tailbone. It basically ends in the top of the crack of her butt. She asked me to feel it. I did, worried she might have some sort of problem there. She said it was fine and went on to tell me that it is her "grunt, a bone shaped like a little sword". Where does she get this?

I love seeing her making sense of her world. I hope she keeps coming up with answers. We need some.

Make a doll. Give some money.

These days I am really into getting the word out about good things. It is a little scary to put myself out there, but I just want to let people know about good things. Here are two projects that people I know are involved in. You should check them out.

1. The first one is at least worth a click. A guy I know, Daniel, who taught with Teach for America with me in Phoenix is part of a project to encourage people to express their opinion of the president by making a doll. It is clearly left leaning, as am I (shock!), but I think it'd be great if some Bushies make pro-Bush dolls too and sent them in. Check it out: www.wethepeopleunited.org

2. Kira Jones Orange is a classmate of mine. Philip and I are having a fundraiser for a film she's making. Here's the story:

Right Quick Productions was founded in Baton Rouge Louisiana by public school educator and filmmaker Kira Orange Jones in order to create a forum for students' diverse voices and perspectives. Their mission is to bridge the gap between unheard voices and informed social action. They do this by creating documentary works and media curricula that have the capacity to engage, inspire and educate audiences towards social action.

To this end, directly inspired by the youth impacted by Hurricane Katrina, Right Quick Productions is producing a media initiative called "I'm Still Alive: Youth Voices Impacted by Katrina". We intend to capture reflections of race, class and catastrophe in the wake of hurricane Katrina from youth who have survived the storm itself, but who will feel its aftereffects for years to come. Over the course of the next three months, we will interview and record the experiences of 150 youth who have migrated to other cities and are building their lives in Baton Rouge, Massachusetts, and San Antonio. We are also in the process of developing a secondary curriculum that enhances the video and provides a visceral and educational experience for secondary students across this country that calls for future civic action.

She still needs money to fund the rest of the production of the film. If you can give, please do.

I had this dream

that is a little fuzzy around the edges. Maybe if I tell the story of the dream many times the edges will become clearer.

Philip, Sumner, Ramona and I go to New Orleans for Thanksgiving, as we are planning to do in real life next week. We go and we see my in-laws and we eat lots of good food. We see extended family members and everyone is quite jolly. Delicious food and lots of it. We sleep late and induldge in hour upon hours of cable TV watching. We do some pleasure shopping. Suddenly we are packing our bags to go home and I have the feeling that we've forgotten something. Was it a gift? Did we forget to "see" someone? What is it?

Something clicks: the hurricane, the flood. We were supposed to go and look at affected areas and we forgot to go! I start to panic. I feel helpless and I just don't know what to do or where to go from here. Dream over.

Analyze that.

Just some funny shots

Family Values

Heart of Glass, Blondie is playing.

The other day, in the van where most of Sumner's profound thinking and sharing takes place, he retorically asked me, "Do you know why people kiss when they get married?"

Playing along, I told him, "No, why?"

He said, "So you can give each other germs. You know, you share your germs and then you're family."

"Oh, I see. That makes sense," and it did. Sure, you're getting married and you're going to share a bed and a house and maybe children and a lot of trials and tribulations and joys and triumphs and at least 50 years, why not swap some spit--share some germs--to seal the deal. There was quiet as Ramona and Sumner and I pondered this idea.

After a minute, Sumner said, "What would you do if you were married and you decided to break up?"

"You mean, like if you decided to get a divorce," I asked for clarification.

"What's that?"

I was astonished when Sumner said this. He had no idea what a divorce was. I searched my brain trying to think of anyone, someone, who he knows who is divorced and I could not come up with anyone. Here we are, living in Jamaica Plain, a place where Nader nearly won as many votes as Gore in 2000, and my son's experience and our dinner-as-a-family values have insulated him so much that he doesn't even have a frame of reference for divorce. Don't some claim that all these crazy liberals around us are supposed to make this place without a moral foundation?

So, I carefully tried to explain to Sumner and Ramona what a divorce was and how it worked to get one and how sad it was for everyone involved. They listened intently and asked a lot of questions. Ramona kind of liked the idea of us having two houses as part of a divorce, but she understood that this thing I was explaining was supposed to be a bad thing. She said, "Can we just have a tiny crack in our family and Sumner and Daddy could live right next door to us, or on top of us, in a different house?"

Sumner was still stuck on the germ thing. How can you get a divorce once you have shared germs? This was an impossible concept.

I was still stuck on the divorce thing. I am so pleasently suprised that my kids see marriage as the way things are. Divorce, what's that?

Sumner's school

I really love Sumner's school. I wrote a description of it for a paper and just wanted to share it. While it is rather academic (I wrote it for a class), I thought it may be of interest.

If you drive along American Legion Highway towards Franklin Park and Boston, one of the first landmarks will notice is a low-end strip mall. The mall includes a McDonalds and a Dunkin Donuts, dollar stores and a discount clothing store, a Save-a-Lot grocery, and a no-frills fish market that also sells fried fish. Down and across the street a bit is a church that does not look like a church, but a large garage or warehouse. There are several plant nurseries across the street from the mall. Along this four-lane highway with a green neutral ground dividing traffic, across from the church you will find the Haley School. There is a new red, white, and black mural that wraps around the corner of the school, which depicts birds and plants that are native to this area. The new playground is near the school and sits next to a basketball court and a small soccer field. On the far end of the school grounds is a wetland that the students observe for science education.

To enter the school, you must buzz an intercom and within moments the door buzzes open. While you wait for the buzz, you will check out the bird houses and rain measurement behind you. As you enter the school you are greeted by four or five aquariums, with everything from turtles to a Madagascar hissing cockroach to komodo dragons in them, and a digital weather system. To the left is a table labeled “Parent Information” with flyers about Haley and wider community events and opportunities. The Main Office is straight ahead and everyone who walks in the front door will receive a warm welcome from Mrs. Turner, the school secretary. In the office you may hear crickets chirping waiting to be eaten by the lizards under the heat lamp in the lobby.

The Morning After

As I write Ramona is in my lap, lobbying to eat a piece of candy for breakfast dessert. It lemon candy. Here are some of the thing she is saying:

"It's only oatmeal buttercup." [=butterscotch]
"Its only a suckermint." [=a cough drop, the only "candy" ever eaten in the morning]
"It is open on both ends. It will pop out if I don't eat it."
"I really want to eat it."

I stood my ground.

"I guess I'll give all my toys away and die. You should put the candy up high so I won't want it."