Phil's doing a graveyard shift...

and Sumner asked him, "When you're doing a heart transplant, do you just fall asleep in the person's guts?"

The Plan for Christmas Eve

Sumner's got a plan, a plot really. He is going to stay up until midnight on Christmas Eve and steal Santa's toy bag. Then he'll have "all the toys in the world". Phil told him that he'll be on the Bad List for a long time if he goes through with it. Sumner said that wouldn't matter because the only reason to be on the Good List is to get toys, and he'd have "all the toys in the world". Plus, he claimed, "Santa would forgive me in like a day."

I thought I'd start with dome lids

I've had a little bit of writer's bloc. I think about writing everyday. I compose sentences in my head, but I don't get to the key board to get it down or pull them together. I'm experiences a lot of things that I want to record. But I can't just right now.

So I thought I'd start with dome lids. Generally, I like them. I like them when I am having a Slurpee or Icee. I like them when I have whipped cream on top of some cold Starbucks drink. I like them when they are needed. I do not like them on top of a cup with coke in it. I do not like it when someone "accidentally" grabs a dome lid at a convenience store when they should be using a flat lid. In fact, I hate it.

The Bidet Broke

Our house came with a dining room set, a snowman cookie jar, and a bidet.

And I love the bidet. Love it! It is just what one needs for freshening up on a sticky day down here. It makes one (perhaps me?) feel clean all over.

And then one day we came downstairs for breakfast and the wall below the “pink” bathroom had a dreadful water stain screaming at us. Seven plumbers (not kidding, SEVEN!), a giant hole in our ceiling, children being bathed in the utility sink, and nearly two weeks later, it looks like the corroded pipe leading to the bidet is to blame.

I will not live in this city without a bidet. I simply cannot.

Same Conversation

The other night Phil and I were talking—okay I was talking and he was listening. Yet he didn’t seem to be taking what I was saying quite seriously.

“I love my job. I really like it. But right now I don’t have the time I want outside of my job to do the things I want to do. I want the kids to be happy. Are they unhappy because I am working or because we moved? Or both? Would me not working make their lives magically better. Probably not. But maybe. I love my job. I really like it.”

Phil was nodding—and not saying much.

“You don’t seem to appreciate the gravity of my situation.”

“I do. It’s just we’re having the same conversation all the time.”

And we have been. For years we’ve been working through the same issues that I think we will continue to struggle with for a long time. And that’s okay. It’s an important conversation to continue. And there’s nothing wrong with repetition.

Judo

Sumner has found a sport that suits him. As far as I can tell Judo is wrestling in white suits on a padded floor. Sumner loves it.

He told us at dinner that they were working on pinning each other down during class. Inevitably we asked, “Did you pin the guy?”

“No. Well, yeah, but not for long.”

“What happened?”

Sumner looked up and flatly said, “My partner kept going…” at which point Sumner started to hold his breath and make his face turn red, and then said gasping for air, “‘Let me go. I can’t breath. I am choking,’” just as his partner apparently said earlier in the day.

Concerned for the life of his partner, I asked, “Where you choking him?”

To which, he replied, “No, I was just kind of laying on his wienie.”

Like I said, I think our little brickhouse has found the sport for him.

The Fish Following Us

Amy and I took the kids and Amy’s new canoe to Bayou St. John yesterday, right in the heart of Mid City New Orleans and paddled around for a few hours. We had a blast. We paddled under bridges and past lots of duck families.

Every couple of minutes we’d see a fish jump about 2-3 feet out of the water. After a second it would jump again, and then again and sometimes even a fourth time. It was really fun to see. We all squealed when we saw the first jump, pointed to show the others where it would emerge again, and then squealed some more.

Near the end of our journey when the newness had worn off, the pretzel and dried mango bits had run out, and everyone was on the verge of getting really cranky, we saw another fish jump. Sumner then said in his signature bothered tone (a little louder than usual and slightly annoyed at the world), “Why is that one fish following us around?”

Proliferation of Oregonians

You can take the girl out of Oregon, but you can’t take the Oregon out of the girl.

In my various stops along the way from Oregon to New Orleans I have bumped into a few Oregonians. Just a few. I can spot them a mile away and most always I feel a kinship with them. They are plain and practical. Plain to me is a complement. Plain is not boring, it means someone who knows what is important in life. We know how to use a hammer, swim in cold water, like the color blue, and appreciate clean, crisp lines.

Aarti (and Ara) smirk when I begin to go on about Oregon. How could anyplace be so fantastically wonderful? And if it is all that, why aren’t you there? And to that all I can say is that I am not called to live there—just to spend several weeks there each summer. Back when Phil and I were “just friends” in college he found my Oregon-worship quite annoying, but I just can’t help it…it’s so GREAT!

So, in another bizarre turn of events here in New Orleans, we have noticed and anecdotally documented that there is an influx of Oregonians here. I teach with an Oregonian. Someone with a Subaru and Oregon plates just moved in down the street from Amy and Marlow and their Subaru with Oregon plates. I was working with a volunteer at school who is a law and MBA student at Tulane—Oregonian to boot! I could go on. Then just driving down the street I see them in their high-mileage-to-the-gallon cars with their cute little Oregon fir tree plates.

How did they get here? Why are there so many? What’s the link? Oregon to Vermont? I get that.

Amy suggests that the people, their friendliness and openness, is very similar. We feel at home here.

Even My Ears are Oily

I have never had a skin problem. Well, I thought I had had skin problems. In high school and college I would occassionally get a big red, unpoppable zit on my nose. They were awful, but I only got about one a year, so who cares?

Well, down here I have become an oily person. Go figure. And oil leads to zits--lots of little ones on my forehead.

When Aarti, a Louisiana native, was here taking care of our family a few weeks ago, just after she interrogated Phil about two giant zits on his neck and head, she gave me some kindly advice, "Wash you face." She had to clarify that I needed to wash my face outside of my every other day shower. I thought: I can handle that. Then she went on, "When you get up, when you come home from work, when you go to bed." That's a lot of Purpose soap.

Well, this morning I missed my morning wash. Phil slept in. As he was making his way out of bed, he glanced over at me and said, "What have we here?" Assuming he was going to mock my french braid or pick on the coach shorts I like to wear around the house, I was half-ignoring him. He got real close to my ear and stuck his finger in it as if it was a cotton swab, "These are really greasy."

I got out some rubbing alcohol and took care of that. But how am I to keep up with this new layer of slim that is covering my body several times a day.

Charts

We've been having morning challenges. Challenges=crazy, desperate crying and screaming by everyone. Actually Phil doesn't cry or scream, he just gets crabby and says irrational things.

So, we decided that the solution was to make reward charts for the children. No fits. No whining. No crying. No shouting. Say please. Get dressed on time. Brush teeth when asked. If the kids do these things they get a sticker on their new sticker charts. 10 stickers=a trip to the ice cream store. This method has worked morning improvement plan (MIP) in the past.

So, yesterday we put the MIP in place. While I still freaked out, the kids did much better. Phil said he wished he could have video taped me, because when I spilled my coffee he saw a textbook case of desperation. He also admitted that the day before he had spilled grits in the ninth hour and panicked.

Last night I made charts for both kids. Sumner put his sticker on his. Ramona flipped out because the chart was not made to her specifications. So she worked last night at making it just so and went through several drafts. Finally she gave up and went to bed. This morning, she set out to get it just so. I was loading the dishwasher. After about 10 minutes she came to show it to me, "Mom, I made a chart for you. It is a screaming chart." There were little squares and in one square was two stickers, layered on top of each other, "The first one is for when you yelled at me [She asked for half of a bagel and when I handed her half she freaked because she really wanted half of a half. I may have raised my voice when telling her to "JUST EAT AS MUCH AS YOU WANT! STOP SCREAMING!"]. The second one is for when you're good."

I need that reinforcement. Thank God for my teacher-children.

Making Friends

We are eager for our children to make friends. Knowing how to make friends doesn’t always come naturally, so we talk a lot about how to make friends and then they report to us how it is going.

Today I was delighted when Sumner told me he made friends with someone because Sumner gave him a “squishy”.

Afraid of the answer, I asked, “What’s a squishy?”

Sumner explained that it is a ketchup, mayo, or mustard pack.

“Why did your new friend want that?”

Sumner then explained that in the Captain Underpants book that he read today during his free time, he learned that if you fold up a “squishy” and put it between the toilet and the toilet seat and then wait for someone to come and use the toilet, the “squishy" will explode all over. He successfully attempted this with the mayo pack from his lunch today.

And he made some friends doing it.

The Saints

I’ve lived with Phil for a long time and the Saints have dominated our dominated Sunday afternoons. Phil doesn't take a lot of alone time, but Saints Sundays are sacred. He has been a fan in exile. There aren’t a lot of Saints fans in London. Or Boston. But Phil usually managed to find a way every Sunday to watch the Saints fail again in the ways that only they can fail. The Saints never just lose a game. They always give you hope that they just might be able to pull it together and then they screw it all up.

A strange thing happened on Sunday. It wasn’t that they won. That's not strange. The win was just a good sign of things to come. The strange thing was that everywhere I went people were talking about the Saints. At church they announced that the Saints games would be projected on the wall of the doublewide trailer we're meeting in. At the bar where Phil watched the game he wasn’t relegated to some random side room where no one else cared to watch the bigger games—the whole bar was cheering with him. And at the birthday party I went to with the kids the parents were wondering about and checking in on the game. This feels strange. It is strange that this whole city cares about a game that in my former lives only Phil cared about.

Chris, we beat you.

Guy, could the Saints be the next Patriots? This city really needs that.

Working Mom/Working Dad

This has been a huge adjustment for all of us. This is the longest I have gone without blogging. Ever. I know that I have received emails from those in withdrawal. The blog will not die. I did not die. My family will not die. We’re just adjusting and there hasn’t been time to blog.

My brown cords have been replaced with a wool herringbone skirt, 7:30 wake ups have been replaced by 7:30 drop offs, and my midday tea has been replaced with a diet coke. I just bought a kettle for my office to remedy the tea problem.

Phil is doing a good amount of adjusting himself. Thankfully his August and September schedules have been on the light side of things and he’s been able to pick up a little slack. He also has been doing some of the things I usually do around here. That has led him to say some of the things that I usually say around here.

This weekend he did the laundry and loaded the dishwasher a couple of times. At one point he said to me, “I’ve done a lot of tidying this weekend. Really, I have. Aren’t you impressed?” And I was. And he needed affirmation for his hard work, as I often do when I do that stuff.

When I was putting away my clean laundry I found a dainty shirt that had been ironed, folded and wrinkling up by the second at the bottom of my clothing pile. Appalled I stormed off to show Phil what a BIG mistake he’d made. He said, “I did all of the laundry and I make ONE mistake and that’s all I hear about.” I say that to him when he complains.

I got a message this morning on my machine that sounded a lot like me. Phil called to tell me that Sumner was resistant to being dropped off and he isn’t sure that the preschool Ramona’s at is good enough (it’s never going to be the Coop) and he was late to work (AGAIN) and he was really stressed out by the whole thing. I’ve left that same message (except in mine I am always crying) on Phil’s phone 100 times in the last 4 years. It is strange to hear an echo.

Yes Ma’am

Whenever we move somewhere I change up how I do things a bit. I arrived in NYC with Oregon birks and an anklet that jingled and I went home at Christmas with a lot more black in my wardrobe and no sound-making accessories. In Phoenix I started wearing tank tops. In Oakland I lost my iron and killed my ironing board and wore overalls to work, hugged everyone hello, and talked about the aura in a meeting. In London I learned to make much better tea, cooked bangers and mash for dinner, and bought a few clothing items that made my pregnant belly look a little more chic and a little less fleece. Back to the States and Boston I went back to the fleece, made fall apple picking a traditional family event, and tried not to use words like aura and vibe.

So, it would seem natural, or at least part of the pattern that in New Orleans I would do as they do—I like to fit in. I’m looking forward to semi-regular pedicures, I have thrown a y’all here and there, seersucker is looking pretty cute these days, and ironing all of a sudden seems to be a must. I’m ready to get Southern.

But I didn’t expect my kids to get Southern too. At least not this quickly.

The other day I was asking Sumner to do something—something complicated. As I was explaining it he said, “Yes, ma’am.” I smiled inside and went on only to be greeted with another “yes, ma’am” and when I finished he looked at me in all seriousness and said, “Yes ma’am.” I have never in my life asked him to say “yes ma’am” to anyone.

When in Rome…

Hobbies

School is supposed to do what? I’m still working that out. Sometimes I wonder if it is the best use of all of our time.

Sumner was working on writing paragraphs and the teacher asked him to write about his hobby. Here’s what the teacher asked him to do and what he wrote:

Topic Sentence to tell your favorite hobby

“Daydreaming is great!!!”

When do you spend time on your hobby?

“When my work is done.”

Where do you practice your hobby?

“everywhare”

Why is this your favorite hobby?

“Its a secrit Diory in my head.”

Retell the topic sentence in your own words.

“What I could do

what the world could do

what could happen

what will happen”

Thinking about what we could do, what the world could do, what could happen, and what will happen sound pretty edifying. So school is supposed to do what?

Sun Roof/Sun Veil

That’s what Ramona called her sun visor all weekend on the Alabama beach.

Cheer?

That’s right, they cheered. When the one year anniversary of Katrina was announced at Morning Meeting, the students cheered. Sure, later we considered those who lost their lives, watched a slideshow of post-flood New Orleans, which was created by students, and talked about the “new” New Orleans. But their first reaction was a cheer.

At first I was horrified. I mean horrified. How could they be clapping and whooping for Katrina? Then I realized…they made it. They made it through this year and they are back in school in New Orleans. They are home and that is worth cheering about.

Talking Gas

I know it's gross, but I passed gas the other day. In the bathroom. In front of Ramona.

She said, "Your fart just said 'God'. Farts say things and I hear them. Like 'roar'."

"Wow," I said, because there wasn't much else to say.

"Only grown up farts say things. Kids' farts don't," she continued, "Well, they do, but they are too low [to the ground] for me to hear what they are saying."

I wonder if she talks to angels too.

BTW

I figured out a way to make this blog un-google-able. So it will live on.

Living in a flat city: shortcuts, Friday afternoons, and pacing

One time I was trying to explain to my father that I thought living in New Orleans would be a good thing because I wouldn't have to work so hard. He didn't get that, after all, hard work is very good thing. It is a very good thing. The problem is I like to work so much that sometimes I can't help myself and I overdo it. I've sought therapy for this. No joke. I think what I mean is that I like the slower pace of New Orleans. I have not settled into it completely yet, but I want to learn to pace myself.

Take for instance the other day. I was with a bunch of teachers at a conference Downtown. Many of us live Uptown. Upon learning this, I asked them how they drove Downtown. They all sort of shrugged, it isn’t complicated, and told me the most obvious ways to get from Uptown to Downtown. I launched into a long explanation about several of the quicker routes to get Downtown from my house. “So, do you think that’s faster?” I asked with my eyes widening. I mean, by God, I could be saving these people three minutes tomorrow morning. They looked at me puzzled. “I guess so...” one of them trailed off. They just couldn’t really see what the point was of saving three minutes. I got their point.

On Friday, our Downtown conference ended at 3:30PM, and I thought that I better rush back to school to check in and sign some papers. Phil got off around the same time and we talked from our cars to each other. We each had agendas for the second half of our Friday work days. I called the school. No answer, no one to get me the papers I needed to sign. Then I got a call from Amy: did I want to meet her for a Margarita right now? I hesitated—wasn’t it the middle of the workday—and then I said yes. Oregon Amy and I have vowed to take on Louisiana customs. And when I got there, a bunch of her fellow physiatrists were there with her. At 4:15 the workaholic-perfectionist types rolled in. And we had a nice time.

So I have been mulling over this. Don’t get me wrong, I am working at a school that is busting (and I mean busting) its butt to get its building ready for students to come on Monday. Everyone, including me, is working really hard to be ready welcome our students into our community. I have never had such high expectations set for my teaching and my work. I am excited. But everyone paces themselves.

Some people chalk that up to the heat. And it is true that it is hard to move fast in the heat, but we live inside, in air conditioning. While I was on a jog the other night, I decided that maybe it has something to do with being in a flat city. When I took my first New Orleans bike ride, I expected it to be easy. There are no hills. But no up hills in New Orleans means that there are no down hills. My whole life, the terrain of the places I have lived has lent itself to bearing down and frantically pumping really, really hard on the up hills then coasting on the down hills to catch your breath. No longer. In New Orleans steady is the name of the game. I want to pace myself to be steady so that I can keep on keeping on.

Optimism in New Orleans

I have been shocked to find so many positive people in New Orleans. I mean, my goodness, this place is still a wreck. And then I started to think about it. You know how sometimes you hear people say that since Americans are the children of immigrants (which is of course only partially true), then it follows that we are hard working, striving entrepreneurs who are willing to take risks and get the job done (which is of course also only partially true).

Well, I think I have discovered another partial truth: the people who are left in the Greater New Orleans metro area are optimists. Maybe we are just in denial, but if you were living here and didn’t like this city and could go elsewhere, you would. If you are pessimistic in the slightest, you’d go elsewhere. So, we’re left with a bunch of can-doers. I like that.

A Working Mom's Lemonade (AND COOKIES!) Stand

Sumner has been begging to have a lemonade stand for quite awhile. I didn't know how I was going to do the whole lemon-squeezing-sugar-hopefully-dissolving-and-water-adding homemade lemonade thing. I know it isn’t so hard, but how was I going to keep my classic-looking glass pitcher of homemade lemonade cold in 90 degree weather? The other thing is that my weekends are taking on a new priority these days: I have to rest and get organized. I used to try to rest during the week on the few hours I had when the kids were in school and I didn’t have to be somewhere doing something. Now, I have to rest on the weekends (like the rest of the world). So I followed the lead of my cousin Amy and bought a bunch Capri-suns, lemonade flavor. They are even "all natural" (yeah right!).

As soon as Sumner set eyes on the 30 "pouches" that I bought for his business, he calculated that at 50-cents-a-pop he’d make 15 dollars. A week later when he and his cousin each had one, he made an adjustment to 14 dollars. It took me a few weeks to actually get around to setting up shop, but for Sumner it was practically money in the bank.

So, we set out to do the stand on a sticky, hot afternoon (like all the rest). I knew Ramona would want to be a part of the venture, so we went and bought (again, not made) some cookies. When we go home, she set up shop on the kitchen island bagging cookies in 2 cookie “packages”, also known as sandwich bags. When she finished, I asked her to put the sandwich bag box back and asked her to also put the two extra bags laying the table back in the box. “But, mom, I need those for germs,” she told me as she slipped those onto her hands like a fast food server. Now all she needed was a hairnet.

All day long I kept calling this their Lemonade Stand and all day long Ramona had to loudly remind me “AND COOKIES”. This was important.

Sumner made two signs, one for the cookies and one for the lemonade. They agreed to share their profits evenly, a tough negotiation. We loaded our wagon with all of our supplies, and pulled it down to our corner. On the way to the corner, two guys working next door bought cookies and lemonade. At the corner, no customers.

So we headed one more block over, where there is a lot of car traffic. The kids held signs up and Ramona shouted at every car, but still no customers. After about 10 cars, Sumner decided to give up and Ramona started to yell louder. Then Sumner got on my cell phone and called everyone he could think of who lived in New Orleans. No customers. So we took our stand on the road. We walked all over the neighborhood and quenched the thirst of people working outside. We made some friends with our neighbors.

When we spotted someone up ahead, Sumner started anticipating, plotting, and discussing with me his approach and his pitch. Ramona just started shouting, “Lemonade and cookies”. Words were exchanged over this.

They both made over four dollars, which they spent that evening at Target. They plan to reprise their stand some time soon.

Ramona also decided to start marketing gift bags that she has been making. She likes making money.

New Roles

Ramona: What did you do today?

Me: I went to a principal's conference.

Ramona: (In shock) Are you a principal?

Me: No, but I may be one day.

Ramona: (With great worry in her face) Then who's going to be my mom?

I went grocery shopping in high heels today

I've seen it done. I never understood it. It was not a quick in and out. It was a whole shop. And I did it. Today. After work. They really weren't high, high heels, just a little high, but they are pointy. What will people think of me?

Funny thing is, I thought I was being so efficent and making my family's life just a little easier.

As I pulled into the driveway I got a frantic call from Phil. He fired away, "I'm in the check out line at the grocery. Just got your message [that you also went shopping]. What did you get? Milk? Yougurt? Fish for dinner tonight? What kind of fruit? Tell me now." He was watching his basket full of groceries inch down the belt, imagining a wilted head of lettuce in a week.

So we have a lot of food in our house. As Sumner pointed out, "We have 48 squeezy yougurts." And four boxes of cous cous and 12 cans of beans and enough salad for a party of 20. That's okay. My shoes are off and we won't go hungry.

The Beetle

This morning when I woke up, I found Sumner sitting in his giant, red beanbag listening peacefully to a book on tape. I asked him how it was going. He calmly told me that earlier he had killed a huge beetle. I saw the beetle. It was a cockroach. I informed him of this.

Later he said, “I can’t believe how strong those roaches are. I had to put my bean bag on top of it to kill it. Then I hit it with my book-light about seven times and then I smashed it with one of my biggest cars.”

We are living in a savage world.

Me in French

Ramona wanted to move here because she could learn French and French is fancy.

I shudder when I hear or have to say a word that is even remotely French. When people say things that have a French pronunciation I am at a total loss. Someone was telling me about a person with the last name DeJean. I wrote on my paper "DeJone" and then thought: oh, no, it must be like the mustard.

These little French somersaults have been happening in my head all week. I get very confused.

We know a guy with a French name and I call him "Jaw". That's not how you say it (or spell)...in French.

Today, at the end of the day, I had the most embarrassing moment yet. I was writing a guy's last name down. I had seen his name on a list several times that day and even typed it. It was "Richard", I thought. But I thought I'd better check if it was Richards. Richard or Richards? Like a bunch of Ricks or Dicks running around. "No 's'," he says with a smile, "It is Ree-shard."

I am going to have to go to speech therapy.

Six in French

Sumner: Mom, do you know what six in French is?

Me: No.

Sumner: Just replace the i with an e.

Me: Sex?

Sumner: (with a grin) Yeah.

Me: What is sex anyway?

Sumner: I think it is a swear.

Me: No, it's not.

Sumner: Then it must be a potty word.

Google me

If you google Emily and my last name you will find this page.

This is a problem when you are teaching 8th grade English.

So, on August 15, I will probably have to delete this blog.

Does anyone have another solution?

I am investigating ways to keep it going with my most dedicated readers.

You can't imagine going back to work when...

Ramona called me from her school and says into my voicemail, "Mama, my owie is hurting right now. I love you. Please call me back." I don't want to kiss owies over the phone.

You can't imagine going back to work when...you look around at the camp counselors that you son is spending two weeks with and you want to do a little professional development with them to get them up to snuff to be with your child.

You can't imagine going back to work when...you won't have enough time to do all of the creative projects (like making a unicorn popcicle or Harry Potter potions) your children suggest to you.


You can't imagine going back to work when...you realize that someone else will be owning your time.

You know it is time to go back to work when...

upon finding a small tear in her new tie-die dress Ramona said to me, "You must not have hand washed it right, Mom."

Then Sumner said, "Mom, you really need to sweep the floors. Little things are sticking to my feet."

And finally, perched on her breakfast stool Ramona pushed her breakfast aside and put her face real close to the counter and said, "Mom, you really need to wipe this counter down before I eat."

I want to be more than a housekeeper.

Phil actually said to me tonight...

"I think my look lends itself to classic things."

The Undones

When I finally get into bed at night, the undones start whispering in my ears. I hate them. They are things "to do" that won't take much time (most of them) but they somehow sink to the bottom of my priorities each day. Write change of address email. Get new Social Security card. Blog. I know I am not doing these "to dos", I understand that there are more important things to do, and I am glad to be doing the important things. But at night this reasoning vanishes and I can't understand how the undones are still undone and why I didn't gag them by doing them so that I can rest in peace and quiet.

But doing undones just makes other undones rise to the top of your worry list.

Undones are pests.

A dollar

I have been shopping alot. But we just bought a house and our finances are still settling and we need new gutters--you know the drill. So I try, I mean really, really try to buy the things we need, really need. Unless it costs a dollar. If it costs a dollar (or two), I can afford it.

The New Natural

Phil farts.

I say, "You are so disgusting."

He says, "I'm just natural."

Mourning Our Mornings

My kids are going places these days. Ramona's in her new school and Sumner's at a camp. I am glad to have the time to myself and I am getting alot of good stuff done, but I miss our mornings. I miss Ramona and I sleeping in until 8:30. I miss having the luxury of time so that I don't have to tell Sumner to stop playing and come to breakfast. I miss not having to rush out the door.

The thing is that the mornings were turning into afternoons of cabin fever. Sumner, Ramona, and I needed out and it was too hot to go out and we all ended each day frustrated or angry. There's been lots of bickering.

The first and second days of "going places" the kids were gung-ho. The bickering ended. But the newness wore off well before familiarity materialized. They plainly tell me that they want to go home to Boston, they don't have friends yet, and that they want to stay home everyday.

And I want them to stay home and I want our mornings back, but just because something is hard I don't think you should give up. So, we talk and we cry a little. And we make plans about how to make friends. And we talk with the counselors and the teachers and we learn the names of some new kids.

We're in mourning. We've got to work through it to get to the other side.

Red Mat, Blue Towel

Amy and I go to the same yoga studio. We showed up for the same class last week. It is so bizzare to see Amy, my middle school and high school pal, in my everyday life in New Orelans. We have never been adults who just hang out. There's been trips and visits and good talks and weddings and baby showers, but no yoga. As we hang out more, little things come back to us, which we had forgotten about.

As the class was about to begin, I saw Amy, who was several spots away from me start to smile suppress a giggle. I mouthed, "What? What is it?" She just shook her head.

Later she admited that she was laughing at my primary red mat and primary blue towel, "That's just so Sumner, not your Sumner, but Jim and Annabelle Sumner, it made me laugh."

I want to help.

Sumner told me I could share this and I just couldn't help myself.

We are driving through our neighborhood where small piles of debris have yet to be hauled away and we were about to get to the part of our morning drive where we pass by blocks of NO projects that have been boarded up since the storm.

Sumner: Mom, some kids on Nickelodeon said that they are going to help build New Orleans and I want to do that too.

Me: (Choking back tears.) What do you want to do?

Sumner: I think I could hand people the pieces of things that need to go back together. I'm good at putting things together.

I thought, poeticly, Can we please have more Sumners to put things together? Maybe T.V. isn't all bad.

Later that night I was retelling this story to Phil as Sumner listened. Sumner then added, "Yeah, [helping out] could even lead to a television appearance."

I am permanently unplugging the T.V.

Dream Car

My parents and my brother like to drive cars that say something. They like to have cars with some personality. In my memory parents have never owned an American car and they see Japanese cars as a little boring.

So when I got a minivan they just couldn't believe it. They would have opted for the Passat wagon.

One day I was driving Ramona and Jude to the pool. Jude was trying to tell Ramona about a little electric car my dad got for them to drive. Ramona had not laid eyes on it yet. He was having a little bit of a hard time getting it out and said, "I-I-I'm going to drive the red sports car."

Ramona looked at him and said, "When I can drive and I have my own car, I'm going to drive a silver minivan."

Dream big, baby.

Pilates

My mom is always telling me things to watch out for. Don't shop at Walmart; they support Bush. Don't let your kids play with bungee cords; they (these strong elastic cords with hooks) will maim their virgin skin or poke their eyes out. Don’t eat beef; it causes colon cancer.

It gets to be ridiculous. If there is a thing that she heard once had one negative side affect or involvement with someone or something slightly negative (in her view), then I need to do away with that thing. It is very silly.

The other day she asked me, "Did you hear about the lady who got really injured by doing pilates? She was crippled and laid up for years and I think she had to have surgery."

I replied, "Did you hear about the millions of people who have gotten in shape and healed bad backs and aches and pains with pilates?" I should have continued, "Did you hear about the cheap things you can get at Walmart? and that beef has iron in it, which you need."

"100% behind this move"

That's what my dad said. He was sitting next to my mom on one couch and Jake and I were sitting on another that was perpendicular to their couch.

Jake and I started laughing. My mom smiled. Did he think he was for real?

My parents are very supportive parents. They always back me up and usually they mean it. But my mom’s visit to New Orleans was emotional for her and when she flew out she hadn’t made sense of how she was feeling. So she was feeling all over us, while trying to be upbeat and encouraging and nurturing. It was confusing.

For my parents, going through this change with our family through phone calls and a blog has not been easy. I’ve kept them updated each step of the way, but the fact of the matter is that we are all sad because we won’t be living in closer proximity to one another as we move into a more settled time in out lives and my parents retire.

The thing is that my parents weren’t planning to feel this way. They lived in Salem with both of their parents at arm’s length and they have specifically told Jake and me (a million times) to fly away. They have said again and again that they don’t expect to live by us. They know that we will be close wherever we are. They want us to do what we want to do; what God wants for us and our families. They want us to feel free.

And we have flown and we do feel free.

But there are these pesky things called insecurities and feelings that get in the way of the party line. In one conversation (months ago) my mom said, “Why do you guys keep talking about this move like it’s long-term? You’ve never lived anywhere long-term. Why does this have to be it?” In another my dad puzzled, as many others had, about why we would leave the Harvard hospitals for the training. Then there were questions about the respiratory health of our kids, the public schools, the torn up roads, the poverty, and on and on. I tried to reassure them about every detail. The kids meds are down when they are in NOLA, Sumner’s school is a step up for him, etc. I reminded them again and again that I feel called to New Orleans. We want to help rebuild a city that has been teetering on the edge and is dying.

My mom’s cousin Judy told her, “You can’t argue with God.” And you can’t, but you can still feel really sad. You can be sad that your daughter is settling far from where you’ll be instead of a 1 to 4 hour drive that you hoped she’d be. You can be sad that your grandkids are going through transitioning and they are sad. You can just been sad.

So we were able to laugh at my dad. This ithing is that he is 100% behind this move, but he’d been going on for weeks as if he wasn’t. He had feelings. Thank God that we can talk and laugh about it. I guess that is what supportive comes down to: talking and laughing and feeling. It is certainly more than just saying, “Go for it.”

If your house is in order...

you'll just feel better.

At least that's what my mom and her cousin Judy profess. And we believe them. I'll get back to that.

Strode Rode by Sonny Rollins is playing.

I have a lot of cousins and cousins are special. They show you more about who you are. They are mirrors into yourself.

My mom's got these double cousins. My mom's dad's sister and my mom's mom's brother married and had five kids. Did you get that? No incest...you may want to read that sentence again to make sense of it: My mom's dad's sister and my mom's mom's brother married and had five kids. My mom had 5 siblings herself so you can imagine that the whole gaggle of them are quite a bit alike. If you've been with my mom and her sister in the same room and been stunned by how alike they are in mannerisms and physical appearance, then imagine being with the two of them and with their cousins Judy or Jerene or Jane of Jo. It is downright eerie.

Judy and my mom are the best of friends, they are closest in age. Her daughters, Jolie and Amy, are something like 10 and 12 years older than me, which when you are kids is a lifetime. They actually lived in the same street that we lived on about two blocks away, but they moved outside of Portland about the same time I started having memories. I remember visiting them at their house in Canby and being very interested in Amy's minatures. I also remember that when I was in high school Jolie married a guy from Salem and she moved into the neighborhood. My mom hosted wedding showers and baby showers for her. I also remember when Amy came home from LA (it seemed so far away and cool) to get married in her mom's backyard. So, I knew them, a little.

When I got married Amy and Jolie and Judy basically saved the day. They put almost everything together. I mean everything. I made a few choices on invitations, location, a cake and a dress and fled to California to start a job. A month later I showed up and had a wedding. For that, I am forever indebted to them.

The thing about cousins is that when you stumble into one another at some one time or another in life you find that you have a lot in common. Alot in common. Several of my cousins who have tuned into my blog here and there have commented that my favorites, as listed on my profile, are their favorites. Weird. Who knew that other people watch CSI and Zoom?

As I have had kids, Amy and I have had a chance to catch up a couple of times, never for very long. My most recent visit with her was virtually uninterrupted. The kids are big enough to fend for themselves most of the time and my husband wasn't there and her's was smoking ribs (yum!).

We covered alot: mean kids, petty annoyances of our husbands, family history, why we work, current family news, the secret ingredient in her cookies (white pepper), and what we wear to sleep in. But the thing I found myself thinking about as I feel asleep and then thought about for a week or so is our obsession with super-clean.

Amy and I are pretty neat and tidy people, if you compare us to the rest of the population. But in our families we have the reputation of being slobs. Dirty slobs. When I arrived at Amy's her house was immaculate--it took her two days of heavy labor to get it that way and it was lovely. It felt like home. You see, our grandmothers were crazy clean. My grandma used to scrub the walls of her house three times a year. I just learned that she used to collect rainwater because it cleaned better. She was clean and then some.

And my mom feels like a slouch compared to her mom.

Before arriving at Amy's, I came from a new home that I am furiously trying to get set up just so...so neat, so clean, so perfect. Because on some level I believe what our moms have been telling us "if your house is in order, you'll feel better." And that's true because a mess clutters your mind. And also, when you are constantly cleaning and tidying you don't have to stop and think about how you are really feeling and when you are done you are too tired to think beyond the satisfying feeling of having a clean, tidy house for a few moments before you collapse.

So I've been turning this one over in my head and I wonder what the off-spring of the other double cousins think. Do they, too, feel like if they are clean and neat they are okay? Do they feel like if you can't get it to mother or grandmother clean, what's the point? Do they sometimes feel unworthy because their kitchen table is full of papers and there are dust bunnies in the corners?

Lady Old Lane and Double Second Cousins Once Removed

itunes is working again. I can listen to music while I write. Yahoo! I'm shamlessly backdating the month of July.

Ashes to ashes by David Bowie is playing.

When I went to Chicago to visit my brother's family and my parents, I stopped by my cousin Amy's house for a night. I love seeing cousins and I love seeing my kids connect with their cousins.

We use the term cousin rather loosely. Cousins are people related you. Some of them are in their nineties and some of them are babies. Since our kids have just two first cousins, we don't spend a lot of time differentiating between the types of cousins. Cousins are people who feel familiar in some way or another. First cousins feel more so.

Sumner and Ramona loved visiting their cousins Olivia and Joseph. Sumner was ready to move in for a few weeks with them. At one point he said, "Can we just move to Illinois [instead of New Orleans]?" He felt safe and comfy with Joe and Olivia.

Ramona loved the cookies in abundant supply, which I let her eat before noon, and the fireworks, which made her dance and run in wide circles around the driveway. She also felt comfortable. She was herself after about an hour warm up.

I remember my chance encounters with cousins, some older, some younger, throughout the years. They always make an impression, even when they are few and far between

About a week after we were there I noticed that Ramona's Neighborhood of Make Believe paper puppets had been labeled on the back side. There was "X the Olwe", Denieal Striped Tiger", "Meow Pussycat", "Queen Sarah", "Tim Son", and "Lady Old Lane". I asked Ramona who wrote this, because I could tell that it wasn't Sumner's work. She looked and said, "My cousin," with a like-obviously-mom tone.

These little labels may be the impression this visit with Olivia leaves with her, like Amy's tiny minatures on a tiny shelf made an impression on me when I was a little girl. And one day Ramona will be traveling thru someplace, somewhere and decide to bunk with her cousin and it will all come back. That familiarity.

Jude

is one of my nephews. And he is one of the funniest little people you've ever met. With my brother's very blond, shoulder length hair and Miranda's smile, the squat body of a future goalie and the ever quiet voice of a librarian, he wins you over in a second.

He loves pink and yellow and is just about to turn two. He takes long naps in the late afternoon and when he wakes up my brother takes him to one of the restaurants my brother's company owns and gets him some rice and beans for dinner. He isn't a fast or perky riser from these naps. The first night we saw him, he was a little wary of us until he had his rice and beans.

Two days later we met up with him in the late afternoon at a resort for a family vacation. Ramona said, "If he is just waking up and not used to us when we get there, we should give him some rice and beans."

Reasons

I went to Chicago-Galina-Grinnell to see my family. It is reasonable to go see your brother's family and your parents during summer vacation.

I also went to rest up from all this moving.

I also went to get a chance to make peace with (or maybe make sense of) my parents' feelings about our move to New Orleans.

I am was nervous setting out to see them.

First a day with my brother's family, then one with my cousin, then some with my parents and my brother, then more with my parents.

Change

Ramona liked her new school. We visited last week. It is much more school-y than the Coop, but it isn't like school-school. Ramona was a little puzzled when she was asked to clean up for singing even though she was in the middle of a drawing. When she was told to "take a seat" during meeting, she was confused too. It just didn't feel natural to this little Coop spirit.

Before we visited, I told her that she shouldn't just rip off her clothes when we go there because I wasn't sure of the rules about that (this is legal at the Coop). I assured her that at home she could still run around in her undies whenever she wanted to. As we walked into the classroom she was quiet, a rarity. She stopped and asked, "Do you think I can even take off my shoes?" Well, in the end it turns out that the kids all bring their swimsuits and by 9:30 they had one by one, in thier own time, stripped down to nothing and changed into their suits. Thank goodness.

If you uask Ramona about it, she says she liked everything except for when they talked about nap...she doesn't want to rest.

I read somewhere

that if you haven't seen the ChroniWHATcles of Narnia rap that you dan't have friends. That made me feel pretty lonely. Hope you enjoy it. Once you are on this page look at the bottom right at "web favorites".

Times Picayune Letter to the Editor

Over the weekend the kids stayed with Mema and Pop, Phil went to work and I got to read much more of the Sunday paper than usual. I also had some quiet and time to write to the editor and they printed my letter today!

Go see the original article.

Then read my response.

Mr. Rogers vs. Everyone Else

Ramona made some puppets, Neighborhood of Make Believe Puppets. I printed up from the internet cutouts of King Friday and Queen Sarah (where I now think Ramona's name change originated) and Prince Tuesday and the rest of Mr. Roger's gang. She colored them and cut them out and taped them on the end of markers. Then she began a puppet show for me while I cooked dinner from behind the other side of the kitchen island. It went something like this:

Daniel Striped Tiger: Hello, Henrietta Pussycat.

Henrietta: Hello, I am meow going to poop on you meow.

Daniel: I am going to poop on you too.

ME: Ramona, I don't think Mr. Rogers talks like that.

Ramona (who's purple glasses broke the wall between audience and performer and were just barely peeking over the edge of the counter with the puppets flanking her in each hand): No, Mom, he doesn't. But everyone else does.

Everybody else! If only I could keep her locked up in a world of Mr. Rogers. I guess that would be the Mommy's Neighborhood of Make Believe.

Timid

I'm feeling a little timid. It is a very strange feeling for me. Especially since I wrote the book on putting yourself out there and going for it. But I feel downright timid. I'm not in the mood to make friends (and influence people). But making friends seems to be the next "to do" item on my settling in list.

I mean, I have Amy, the original. Amy one of my dearest, bestest friends in the world. And she knows me so well. So why do I need to go out and meet neighbors? The short answer: to facilitate community for my family.

Well, as with other "to do" items, I think making friends will slip to the bottom of the list. We can do that later. I'm feeling timid today.

Shapes

The other day, I was laying bed with Ramona as she fell asleep. She gently took my face in her hands and whispered, "Did you know that you can poop in the shape of a ribbon?" She went on to explain how she thought this could be done, which involved a little bit of bathroom gymnastics.

Just now she hollered from the bathroom, "Hey mom, my poop is in the shape of a moon or a banana."

And I thought I was talented because I can tie a cherry stem with my tongue.

Cogs

I have a friend who feels very strongly that she doesn't want her children to be "cogs" in the great American machinery that turns us all into human-robots and lulls us to a place where we don't question the things people tell us to do or the way our life is going. I see her point, but I also want my children to fit in. I want questioning cogs; we need to keep this machine going for God’s sake.

Well, I like how they each questioned things this week:

I was telling Ramona that her new school won't have parent helpers, like the Corner Coop, a parent cooperative, in Boston did. She started to tell me that they should and then she stopped herself. She said, "When I am at my new school I am going to give them suggestions. Whatever they don't have that the Corner Co-op has, I will suggest to them."

Then last night at bedtime, I shouted at Sumner for putting his toothbrush in a germy, gross spot. He told me he wouldn't have done it if I told him why. I told him [shouted at him] that he had to stop what he was doing and then I could explain. Then he said, "Instead [of reading one of my] books tonight, can we talk about this? Can we talk about why we [you] all get so angry and frustrated at bedtime?" I was blown away.

Of course when we all met up on Ramona's bed 15 minutes later these ever-so-reasonable children had a huge negotiation about whether he could sit on her bed because she was worried he would wrinkle it and fart on it and make it stinky. He later told her that he'd like to dump "a bucket of hot lava on your head from the place where the hottest lava comes from."

Cogs they are not.

Flags

The storm and flood brought out people's true feelings about the city. Some people had control over if they stayed or left. Of those people, those who were tolerating the city, left. People who liked it, love it now and they want to sing it from the mountaintop. Or from the flag pole in front of their house. There are these flags that people have placed on their porches that have New Orleans colors and fluer de les and say "NOLA Rebuild" or something like that.

Sumner said to me today, "If we are going to help rebuild this state, we better get one of those flags for our house."

That's the spirit.

Why did you name me Ramona?

Ramona has renounced the name Ramona.

She will now go by the name Sarah, but not the Sarah she knows from the Corner Co-op.

Sumner says that we won't ever remember to call her Sarah because Sumner's friend Nikhil decided to change his name to Leonardo and no one remembered so he's still Nikhil.

I had a friend, Sarah, Sarah Pool, who used to have a new name everytime I saw her. In fact, she was very Ramona-esque.

More Little Things

I can't really leave fruit out in my fruit bowl for a week. The fruit flies swarm.

It took only two hours to make hibiscus sun tea in our backyard.

No recycling post-Katrina. I am throwing away glass bottles, newspapers, tin cans, etc.

At least four neighbors stopped by, most of them with food or drink (and one offering us a sleeper bed he was getting rid of) to welcome us to the neighborhood.

Three of the eight or so moms I have met at the kids' swim lessons have returned post-flood, only to have to move away because of work-transfers or lay-offs.

My in-laws live up the road 10 minutes and can take the kids for a sleep over on Saturday night.

Half of the people I meet, in the grocery, at school, on the street, know Philip or his friends or a friend of a friend some how.

Welcome to the Third World

My mom was here in New Orleans to help us get settled and I think to settle herself a little bit more with the idea of us living here. One of the first days she was here she said that New Orleans reminded her of Ecuador, where Jake and Miranda and their boys lived. She said that it was hot, like Ecuador and the people were SO friendly. And there is the poverty, the potholes, the poorly maintained and crumbling buildings, and pitiable schools and social services. At first, I told here that comparing New Orleans to a third world country may not go over with the natives. That night, Marlow, an Oregonian living here, reminded me that there are t-shirts and bumper stickers that say, “Third world and proud.”

Why are people proud?

I think maybe they (soon to be me?) are proud of the friendliness of the city and feel like they don’t need perfect streets and buildings because they have good food and music and lots of people have access to that. I’m not so sure I agree. But there is some sort of pride in it.

I then tried to tell my mom that maybe it wouldn’t offend anyone...I dunno the answer yet.

But things certainly don’t seem to run quite as smoothly as in other parts of the U.S. We ordered the paper. It was supposed to start the next day. It started a week later. Many people don’t use email (business and the like) and so I have been using the phone to contact people much more. It took 10 days to get our internet up and working. The library system has laid-off 90% of its staff. Phil and I keep asking ourselves: Is this a post-flood thing or is it a Louisiana thing? We’re not sure. It is both.

Imagine if it wasn’t the paper you were waiting for, but a rental subsidy or word on when or if you could return to your home.

I did a little google-study of the term “third world”. I guess it isn’t PC any more. Less Developed Countries (LDC) is now the proper term in some circles. There does not seem to be one specific indicator that puts countries in the LDC column, but one definition indicated that it has to do with a lack of infrastructure and a large amount of poverty.

According to the census Louisiana does have nearly the highest rate of poverty in the USA, 17%. Wow. That number’s a couple years old and I am sure that post-flood it is higher. Click here to check out your state in comparison.

The National Guard was just called in because there has been a rise in the per-capita murder rate, especially in the last few weeks. The NOPD can’t quite handle it—they’re stretched. I think that 17% is hot and homeless and hungry and angry and killing each other.

What can we do? We’re getting to work in the next month or so. Please pray for this city. Or send some money to after school programs and churches and community organizations that keep kids off the street. Or keep us on the minds of your friends. OR email your congress people. Make sure they’ve visited here. Urge them to.

We’re really not in the third world. I think a trip to Zambia would prove that. But I sure see a lot of work to be done.

On Harvard

Before I move on to new New Orleans, I've got to get my two (or three or four) bits in about Harvard. When you grow up "way out west" you learn that Harvard is supposed to be a really great place. Really smart people go there and think important things and then go on and do important things. Maybe that's true, but for me it wasn't exactally all I thought it could have been.

Don't get me wrong, there were amazing moments. The School Leadership Director, Tom, and his assistant, Deidre, were very supportive, gave me great advice, and pushed me along when I needed to be pushed. My teacher leadership seminar with Heather Peske was fantastic. Most careful feedback I have EVER received and a great group of peers. Orfield?--What do you say, Sarah? I guess I got some research skills and a fantastic reading list.

And of course the great professor Elenor Duckworth changed the way I think about everything. She really pushed us. She shared in one class about when she was a student at Harvard working on her doctorate. She felt she had to keep up "a pretense", the pretense of knowing and understanding when she wanted to be able to get frustrated and really learn. That comment changed the way I looked at my learning and my degree and even led me to quit school for a while. I don't want to take a class or have a job or do something with or for my family as part of some sort of pretense. I want to do things that I honestly think are valuable and I don’t want to send my whole life trying to make it all look easy. That takes too much needless work. I just want to be real.

That gets to the downside of Harvard:

At times it seemed to be a lot of people trying to keep up the pretense of being smart and knowing something and a lot of professors unintentionally encouraging this. One of my take-aways: Looking "together" does not mean you are learning.

Another downside:

The administration often treated me as though I was a little bit of a nuisance and like they were doing me a big favor. It was odd.

And finally, the greatest downside:

They have ALOT of money and they don’t give enough of it away so that the place can be a more diverse community where all of us can benefit from having peers with many perspectives...not simply shades of our own.

A Blur

Graduation was a very sad day and week. We stayed with good friends. We had our families with us. And it was really sad to see our friends and say good-bye one...last...time.

When our friend Guy toasted to us he said, "Here's to the longest good-bye tour since the Rolling Stones." And he was right. All of those good-byes wore me out.

When it was time to go, Sumner laid on his friend Nikhil's couch in protest and asked me, once again, through his tears, "Why do we have to move?"

And I was asking myself the same thing. Our things were already in New Orleans. Our job contracts were signed and the house officially belonged to us. BUT...Why are we leaving my friends and community? Why am I starting over? How am I going to make it through medical residency without my medical wives trio? And it is so flat in New Orleans. Why do we have to move?

My friends were all around to let me vent and process each piece of leaving and starting over that was freaking me out. That helped. But it was a blur.

A blur of our friends' spare bedroom, futon, and air mattresses. A blur of late nights and early mornings and family meals and official events. Looking back it just seems like it went too fast. That week, those years.

I like what I learned and how we did it. In Boston I learned how to be a grown up. I learned how to take care of myself and my family a little bit better. I learned how to make space for me. I learned how to say no. I learned so much from my kids. I saw them "work through" so much stuff that we as humans have to figure out and I learned that we need to make room in our lives to "work through" things--otherwise we become programed humobots. I learned that I like to write and I want to take it more seriously. I learned that relying on God, praising Him for everyday and everything, praying a lot, and praying some more bring me peace and purpose and sustains me.

Like I said, it was a blur. But I like the colors I see.

We're in.

So we moved into the palace and it really feels like one. Phil and I get uncomfortable when our kids are on a different floor from us. It seems so dangerous to us parents who have always lived in four rooms with our children. We tried laughing this off and told ourselves that we are being ridiculous.

Then Saturday night, as we finished our dinner, we heard them running around in an unfinished and still-packed playroom and decided not to fret because they weren't arguing and playrooms are for playing. Right? When Phil finally went upstairs to put them in the bath he was shocked at what he found. Sumner and Ramona, each with a screwdriver in their hand, froze when they saw him. Sumner hit himself in the forehead with his palm and said, "You should probably punish us." Phil asked why and Sumner and Ramona confessed that they had been running across the room at full speed and jamming their respective tools into the wall. Aih, aih, aih!

Magazines, Trees, Chicken, Levies, & Talk

Highlights today: Hurricane season officially opens. Got our driver licenses, got our new plates, opened a bank account, and I acquainted myself with my new Target when I bought cleaning supplies for the new house.

Highlights tomorrow: Move into and sleep in new house.

A couple things I noticed today:

Do you know that the people of New Orleans have been living without magazines for months? They simply have not been getting them in the mail and I guess that local stores didn’t have the up-to-date mag.s either. It seems kind of like Hawaii when my parents lived there in the 1960s: in Hilo the television shows aired a week or two after they aired in the mainland. New Orleanians have been getting, if at all, their magazines about a week behind the rest of us. Weird thing is, while some Americans may try to disassociate with what happened down here (“that couldn’t happen here”), unlike Hawaii, we’re still attached to the mainland down here. And yet we can’t catch up on celebrity gossip very easily. I can’t find a damn People magazine and Brad and Angelina just had their baby and I want to read about it. (Alex and Julie, save this week and last weeks’ mag for me, please.)

Trees:

Phil and I had to drive to St. Charles Parish to get our DMV stuff taken care of because the lines in and around New Orleans at the DMV can take all day. As we were driving to Hanville, which is “across the river”, I was admiring the green on both sides of the rode. The trees were pretty. Then all of a sudden, I’ve seen this before in Louisiana, the trees changed and I was looking at what seemed to be giant sticks stuck in the ground with thin, light-green moss draped over them. I don’t get that. Phil suggested I have my sixth graders next year figure that one out for me.

Chicken and the Levy:

By the end of our stop at the Hanville DMV, we were famished. Popeye’s seemed like a good solution, so we asked for directions and made our way to the closest one. It was a strictly takeout or drive-up Popeye’s and there was a sign just inside the door that said, “This car isn’t big enough to hold all that Popeye’s flavor.” It took Phil awhile to understand the meaning of this, as he will not eat in our car and believes no one else ever should. Once we got our chicken we had to choices: eat in the car like normal people or sit on the levy, which was across the street from Popeye’s. Phil chose the levy, so with new Louisiana driver’s licenses in our pockets, we sat on the top of the levy and ate some really good chicken and avoided getting too hot by drinking ice cold root beer. And I thought: I live here. I really live here. And this levy is just a seat right now.

Talkin’: Phil saw a vanity plate in Tennessee that read “B-R-I-N-G I-T”. “Look,” he said to me when he spotted it and then he read it for me, “Brang et!” He keeps repeating this whenever I, or anyone else—including bank personnel and bad drivers, try to mess with him. Today he told me to go “git” something and later he announced that he was going to “fetch” something. After years of working to rid himself of his Southern accent, it all comes back so naturally for him.

By the way, there has not been one hurricane that hit New Orleans in June in 150 years (Times-Picayune, front page today). Why then is June still condisided part of the season?

And me.

So we've moved. And I am doing all right.

Those last few weeks in Boston were just how I wanted them to be. There were lots of dinners with friends and people stopping by and taking a few extra minutes to chat. I drank a lot of tea with friends. The packing was not rushed until the very end and I was able to keep a pretty level head about things because I paced myself. And I did myself a favor by doing a bunch of yoga those last few weeks.

I wasn't very sad. That was a weird thing.

I will admit, that at the Corner Co-op when they sang the good-bye songs I got sad and cried at the thought of "moving along", as the song says. I have been to that Co-op three or four times a week for four years. It has been such a supportive a nurturing place for all of us to grow and the things we've all learned there we will carry with us everywhere. (I've considered calling the Co-op several times in the last week as I have been puzzled by Ramona's behavior--usually I'd just ask them what they thought about this or that parenting issue as I dropped her off.)

I also cried when I said good-bye to the house. We can never return to it. It is the only home the kids remember and there are so many good memories in that house. Most of our friends have come there for our social time and it has been alive with people so much of the time. I will really miss it.

But I felt so happy saying good-bye to Boston. Not in a good-riddens kind of way, but it a celebratory way. Boston, the Co-op, JP, the Haley, and even HGSE and HMS have been great for us in this chapter of our lives. I feel that I have grown up a lot. And that makes me so happy. Our friends have been so wonderful. Just wonderful. And I feel so happy to have them. So happy.

So I wasn't sad as we hugged our crying friends good-bye.

Then we drove out of town and headed South. I was still focused on tasks and getting to our destination. At the "log barn" we finally had a chance to relax for a minute and I finally (FINALLY!) was sad. My heart got heavy--it swelled thinking of life going on in JP without us and I cried and then cried some more. I will really, really miss our comfortable community. I will miss knowing what to expect out of the day. Mainly I will miss all you people who I like seeing as I go about my days. No more talking to Amy nearly each day about coordinating kids' transportation. No more Aarti drop-bys or Ara cooking dinner at our house. No more spying on Julie and Aaron and cuddling Moses. No more calling Kira from the car. No more mom's group. No more seeing Sharon at the playground. No more grand entrances into the Co-op with one of the chorus of teachers warmly welcoming us. No more swims at Curtis Hall or overdue books at the library where all the librarians know you and your kids and what you like to read. Oh, it will be hard to let go. I am glad that I had a few days away from the "to do" list to let the reality sink in.

After the stay at the log barn and a visit to Dollywood I started to feel better. The heavy heart lightened. Driving into Alabama, then Mississippi and finally Louisiana felt so right. It wasn't just that a new line of tasks started to form in my head. This is the setting of the next chapter of our lives and I am chopping at the bit to get going on it.

It is going to be different. Really different. It is flat here and hot, damn hot. Oh, and that whole Katrina thing...this city is devastated. But there are signs of life; I can already see a lot of change from April when I was last here. Hope is in the air. At the closing for our house today, two of the people were wearing seersucker suits--for real. Sumner's toenails are painted and a woman asked me today if his father knew that I had done that. And Phil and I noticed when we crossed the Mason-Dixon line that people aren't really into maintenance of some of the public places here as they are in other parts of the country. And Phil’s mom has been saying for year that you can’t find good bread in New Orleans. So maybe in my future there’s a sparkly seersucker suit and a boys’ pedicure business and a public areas maintenance initiative and a whole lot of rice. We will see.

But tonight I am still feeling the excitement of anticipation and peace and confidence that we are where we are supposed to be.

A May Christmas-Cardy Summary

I know. You've been sitting on the edge of your seat. Checking a blog that seems to be dead. Dead as a doornail. The most recently published entries are pathetic. April and May needed some serious help.

Will the blog revive? Yes.

What happened in April and May? We didn't die (althought it has felt that way). The blog isn't defunct (although it has felt that way). We're just in the middle of moving. In fact, for the last 10 days I haven't even logged into a computer. And the ten days before that Philip was monopolizing ours day and night to tie up all the loose ends of our life.

So dry your tears! Start checking my blog again. I'm back. You will not be disappointed.

And this entry...this is the last blog of "The 8th Year". If you forgot, that's the title of my blog. This has been the 8th year that Phil and I have muddled through the world together as a couple. And it has been "a year of digging deep" and I am glad we did so much digging. Even thought we got really dirty and we haven't struck gold, I know Philip and myself better. I feel like we have had the time and taken it to figure out what we want in the next stage of our lives. And I will keep writing about how it all works out.

On June 1 the blog will have a new name and a new look. Do NOT be alarmed. It will still be little me, pecking away at the keyboard, trying to make sense of my life and pursuit of happiness.

Over the last few weeks I have experienced so much. It is more than enough material for twenty entries and then some. I wish I had a keyboard the night Phil and I stayed up all night to finish packing or the next day when Phil tried to talk to the movers and, although they were native English speakers, he could not understand a word of the Boston accents. I wish I had time to write about Ramona saying good-bye to her best friend Kate--they agreed to get married when they grow up and Kate pointed out that they'd have to be married in Boston because boys and boys and girls and girls can't be married in other states. If only I had a moment to paint a picture of Sumner's last day a school. He planted three plants in the school yard; his class toasted to him saying good-bye and good luck in English, Spanish, and Creole, over fruit punch and cheese puffs; they wrote him a book telling him how they remembered him; then they all shook his hand, one at a time, before one boy asked if they could hug him, and they did; Sumner read the class dino jokes while they waited for his bus; and then he chose to ride bus 078 home with his best friend for the last time. And the day that we were supposed to be packing up for our trip and cleaning the house, but we got locked out of our friends' car with Phil's phone on the driver's seat and had to spend our morning retrieving it and then spent the days hugging our friends good-bye. We left the next day seven hours later than planned and made it to Hartford...that's two hours from Boston.

And here I am tonight, writing in a business center in a Holiday Inn Express outside of Birmingham, on our final approach into New Orleans. As we've driven through CT, then PA, onto VA and into Tennessee for six nnights and then through GA and Alabama, I've come to realize that I am moving to the South. I know, I have been saying it for months, but there has been something about the gradual decent into the South that makes it real. Really real.

And how are we doing?

Here comes the Christmas cardy summary...

Ramona: In summary, she has logistics on her mind. She has to work out the logistics of our move and how she is going to manage it. For practice, over our last several weeks in Boston she insisted on carrying a suitcase, which was full of her toys, to school each day to distribute to her playmates. At school she also orchestrated several "moves". To move, she'd enlist the help of four or five of her peers. They'd move all of the toys from the play kitchen/costume area into the Block Room. It was a lot of work, yet Ramona accomplished it several times (with the help of her friends).

On the day we said good-bye to our house she sang a song, through her buckets of tears, that went something like this:

So long it's been good to know you 39 Ballard St.,
So long it's been good to know you 39 Ballard St.,
We've got to be moving along, but we can come back and look at the front of you.
And wave hello, but we won't live inside.
We'll live in New Orleans and live by our gandparents. (SHE'S STILL CRYING HARD AND SINGING)
And we will have sleepovers at their house sometimes.
And we will have sleepovers at their house sometimes.
And I might wake up with a present by my pillow at the sleepover.
So long it's been good to know you 39 Ballard St.,
So long it's been good to know you 39 Ballard St.,
We've got to be moving along.

As soon as we drove out of Boston her next question was: when will we get to the "log barn"? (The "log barn" was the log cabin we stayed in for six nights in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee) Where will Sumner and I sleep? How long will we be there?

And today, when we pulled out of the log barn she started in on the sleeping arrangements in the new house in New Orleans. "Do Mema and Grannabelle know each other?" This has been of grave concern to her. She wants to make sure that her grandparents all know each other so that they can all hang out with her at the same time, "If they do then when Grannabelle comes to visit she can sleep in my bed with me, if she doesn't wiggle, and Mema can have a sleepover too and sleep in my bed. But it might get a little squishy. And if Alex comes to visit she can also sleep with me. But not at the same time as Grannnabelle and Mema..." It goes on and on.

And she can't stand the clothes I packed for her, so she wore nothing the entire time we were in the log barn. When we went out she wore one of two outfits.

And she can't stand it when any of us so much as brush against a towel she if going to use.

And she's demanding a lot more of everyone. As my mother says, "When things are out of control, you need to control what you can."

Sumner: My sweet, sweet boy. He is doing just fine. Sumner doesn't seem to feel things in fits and spurts like Ramona. He is steady. Steady sad. Steady mellow. Steady content. His moods don't flash by they wander thru.

The last few weeks in Boston were stressful because nothing was steady. Each day a few more of his things would disappear into taped boxes. He'd storm around roaring at me for packing them away. Sometimes he'd cry. And refuse and then accept a hug and cry a little harder.

Like most kids, he lives in the now. He doesn't do a whole lot of anticipating. So the last weeks in Boston he went to gymnastics and played with Nikhil and went to school just like he always does. And he didn't think of each event as his last. When he said good-bye to Nikhil there were no kisses or hugs or tears, it was a see-you-tomorrow good-bye.

He's crying more than usual. And we're hugging a lot.

Philip: I won't presume to say how he is feeling and what he is thinking (at least not in print), but he still has a sense of humor.

He had a hard time parting with the homestead. I knew this long before he shared some tears with me and the kids at hour final farewell. He wanted to put our plunger in the dish washer and bring it along with us because "it is a really good one". He would have also thrown our toilet brush in the back of the van if I had let him. We were eating down capers until the last day and Phil was SO pleased to give away of nesting rum and tequila bottles as well as our racks for can food to happy homes.

For comic relief he watched Wedding Crashers about seven time in May and many lines from this fine film have become our anthems. Like, "Let's not take a turn to Negative Town" and "Living the dream" punctuated with some air punches to the sky and "It's be fun" "Yes, I am sure it will be fun for the people who are going [not me]" and "What an IDIOT" among many others.

He's taken care of a lot. For once we tried to divide and conquer and he took the paperwork and I took on the physical packing. This means he also took on the lion's share of worrying about money and bills and closings and mortgages. And he's done a good job. Ballard St. has new own owners and as of Wednesday Nelson St. will be ours.

There have been bad moods. Like yesterday when he had to listen to the Chronicles of Naria and then the tinny Music Machine CDs for about four or five hours straight. At the end of that he started to talk like God/Aslan until Sumner asked him to stop because he was afriad Phil may turn into a lion. Or the day when missed an exit after getting another late start, which led to a thirty minute detour. He bitched an moaned for an hour or two while I stayed cheery and then just as he was rising above it snapped at me for finally getting grouchy.

Mainly he's still laughing.

Me: I'll get to me later tonight. It is 11:01 and check out was a minute ago and I already extended it once. I need to go brush the kids' hair.

Race is a Construct

I'm heard that before. I have theorized about it. I've read it. I know it. But still, people look different and some look similar, so race is a convenient identifier. I often use it as a proxy for class and culture, which in my little world in Boston is sometimes accurate and sometimes isn't.

Sumner has fresh innocent eyes. Last year, he asked us who was white and who was black. We asked him what he thought. He told us that he and I were white. One kid in his class was black. Everyone else he knows was "in between". Ramona, Phil, grandparents, friends, teachers, and so on were all "in between", even though I would identify many of these people as white or black or Indian or Japanese or Latino or something else. He saw “in between” people.

The other day he said, "Mom, I think I may be the only white kid in my class."

"Really, why do you say that?"

"Well, I'm not sure about some people. Like Veronica, I just can't tell with her. And Sally. Mom, I just can't tell." (Veronica is bi-racial and Sally is white. Their names have been changed.)

I didn't respond to this. "How do you know you're white?"

"I know that," He said as if I had asked him the most obvious thing, like how he knew he was a boy. He continued, "People have said so."

People have said so, so he's starting to "get it". He is constructing knowledge about who is who and who he is and he is using his world as a mirror to figure it out. Race is one of his identifiers for himself, but not others. Yet. Race is a construct.

First it seemed to be just ordinary bickering...

Ramona was supposed to be brushing her teeth and Sumner was in the bathtub. Phil and I were sitting at the kitchen table talking. We could tell that they were arguing, but it was benign. We like for them to work these things out.

All of a sudden we hear Ramona's voice rising to a fever pitch. "It is NOT! Don't say that! DON"T CALL IT THAT!"

There was some murmuring from Sumner.

Now all-out, unintelligible shrieking from Ramona. I am a screamer and I could hear myself in her. Phil pushed out his chair and slowly moved to investigate. In less than a minute he had mediated the whole thing and returned to the kitchen.

"Do you know what they were fighting about? Sumner was calling the soap dish a poop boat. Ramona didn't like that."

A poop boat. It puts some of my screaming in perspective.

Fashionista

Ramona just told me, "Change your pants."

Granted, I am wearing post-Sumner-partum pants. I am packing. I am working in the basement today right after I drop her off at school.

"Why?" I asked.

"You look blurry. You look crumpily. You need to iron these pants. And...you look like a boy. I don't like those pants."

But I do and I am going to wear them.

ma

Making Plans for the Future

No one will ever be able to accuse Ramona of not setting goals for herself. She like to plan ahead.

The other day she asked if, when she grows up and moves out of the house, I would let her take her Corner Co-op CD with her.

This morning she asked me if I slept in the nude when I was a little girl. She told me she was wondering because she is trying to figure out if when she is grown up she will sleep in the nude except, of course, for when she has guests for sleepovers.

Haven't packed a thing

Supposed to be boxing things. All I can do is hang out with friends and chill. I am drinking lots of tea and processing everything that has happened to me for the last four, seven, ten years. It's been a good week. I am going to start packing tomorrow.

Job

I have a job. I will be teaching sixth grade Language Arts for half of the day and spending the other half of the day working with parents or teachers...to be determined later, as the school leadership team for next year forms.

Bald...

has never meant a thing to me. My dad is really, really bald. His head is shiny. Since I've known him he's been bald and it never really bothered me. Or him.

Philip, in case you haven't noticed, is bald too. When I met him, at age 19, he had a (just barely) receding hairline. It was a little tough to start losing your hair when you are still a teenager. I think marriage and two kids sped up the process. For a while he tried to slow down the process with some products, but I always thought that was silly. To me, he looks the same with or without hair.

The two main adult men in my life have been my experience with hair loss. I never really understood why people, men mainly, get so hyped up about going bald.

Until it started happening to me. I have this fabulous white streak right at the front of my part. Over the last month I have noticed that this spot is thinning. You can kind of see my scalp there. And I am not happy about it. I am downright troubled by it. I don't want to lose my hair! I think I have to stop wearing a ponytail--it probably puts undo stress on the hair. I wonder if it is too late for Ladies' Rogaine.

Sumner is growing his hair out. He's seven. He better hold onto these precious years of a full head of great hair. For those in our family, these days are numbered.

Jane Goodall

Our family was having an ordinary breakfast. Ramona had her cereal with milk (on the side) and was talking in bright chirps. Sumner was sitting sideways in his chair gorging on his one big meal of the day. Phil was methodically eating his routine breakfast fruit and I was slowly sipping my tea and reading the paper while NPR droned in the background. I vaguely heard one of those NPR-not-an-advertisement-but-really-is-an-advertisement advertisements. It announced that Jane Goodall was going to be at the Franklin Park Zoo to talk about her experiences in Africa living with the gorillas. It registered, but I didn't really note it on a conscious level.

Phil, who usually cannot do two things at once, like eat a piece of fruit and listen to the radio, looked up and said, "Isn't she getting tired of talking about that?" I had to cackle at that. When does one get tired of telling her stories? I don't think I ever will. Perhaps you tire when people tire of listening to you.

Ramona on the Easter Bunny

Sumner is a believer. He is all set to prove to all of his doubting friends that Santa is the real deal.

Ramona is suspicious by nature. She is trusts her brother about Santa, but she's not so sure about the Easter bunny. Before Easter she spent a lot of time trying to figure out if the Easter bunny is a boy or a girl. She then announced that it is neither or both. She also concluded that it walks on its hind legs and doesn't stay on all four like other rabbits.

Then Easter came. She loved the egg hunt. She ate some candy for breakfast. We went to church. She tried Peeps for the first time. She played with some spring stickers and she was happy with her Easter basket pull. Then Easter went.

About three days later she tells me, "Mom, I know the Easter bunny is pretend. It is you or daddy or Santa who hides the eggs."

Then a few days later she tells Phil, "Dad, that Easter bunny is just a paper bunny sitting on Santa's porch. I just know that the Easter bunny is not real. I can't wait until I am grown up and I have my own kids so that I can know for sure if the Easter bunny is real."