blog malaise of summer

It's just too hot to write anything good. I realize it's only June. I realize I live in Houston. I realize the futility of complaining. But there it is. We watched "Charlie Wilson's War" a few nights ago and it got me thinking about some things. Not the actual events depicted in the movie, because I'm pretty immune to Aaron Sorkin and his agenda, though the guy is masterful with dialogue. I had read a few articles pointing out the overt creative license that had been taken. It's Shakespearean (see Henry IV and V) and biblical (see Abraham, David, Jonah, Paul..) to dramatize a man's ascent from depravity to nobility. But Sorkin seems to think it necessary-- he makes the depravity seem like an integral part of the greatness. Like if Charlie Wilson hadn't been so fond of cocaine and the company of disreputable women it wouldn't have been quite as impressive for him to be concerned about the Afghan rebels and their desperate attempts to fight off the Soviet army. So, that annoys me. Then the movie ends with Wilson, who had convinced our government to bankroll the war effort for upwards of $500 million, unable to get anyone in Congress to give him a measly million to help rebuild schools in the war torn country once the Soviets finally got out. It ANNOYS ME NO END when people romanticize Education (I capitalize it so you'll say it out loud in a dreamy voice) this way. So we're led to believe if we had JUST gotten those schools built the Taliban never would have taken root as they had and we'd all be visiting the World Trade Center this summer and Bin Laden would be teaching Business Ethics at the new NYU branch that's opening in Abu Dhabi next year. If only it were that simple. I don't honestly know how Americans can look at the (mostly) sad state of our education system and think that we have much of anything to offer there. On a less pessimistic note, the next night I caught most of a documentary about David McCullough, the historian behind John Adams and Truman and 1776. If you haven't read any of his books you just should because they will entertain you and make you smarter. It turns out, he is the opposite of Charlie Wilson. He writes and he paints and he studies and he loves his wife of 54 years and their five children. He writes his books on a typewriter in a little wooden shed sans computer and telephone. He writes about history and it is compelling and far better than anything Aaron Sorkin could write. Muck wallowing is not a prerequisite for greatness. That should be a high school debate topic: "RESOLVED. That muck wallowing is not a prerequisite for greatness. " I was on the debate team briefly my senior year. It was an extreme departure from my other activities of hair teasing and high kicks and decorating the locker of my football player, and was, not surprisingly, a dismal failure. It's depressing in so many ways that our topic was immigration. All that's new is old again.
Today Harper was doing something that Hudson thought was funny and he was giggling like crazy and she shouted, "STOP LAUGHING HUDSON! YOU MAY NOT SMILE HUDSON." He defied her and laughed even harder. I had a parallel Peanuts to show you but I don't know how to make it fit. It makes me want to go write in a shed with my typewriter.

Nomads, we

Sorry for the unannounced hiatus. We moved. And by 'we' I mean to say that the kids and I stayed at my parents' and the husband did absolutely everything. He's a wonder. We got home Friday afternoon and walked in to the new place and even the pictures had been hung. Everyone has a bedroom here and it's so massive (around 1300 square feet, I think) that we had to buy our first baby monitor so we could hear Hudson. True to his Batboy beginnings, he refused to go to sleep until we moved his crib into his closet. But at least he's out of our closet. In a few weeks we're going to move him out into the vast expanse of open space that is his room.

I went to a party a couple of weeks ago for my friend Lauren's birthday and guess what we did? That's right!! We square danced! How did you guess that? It was really, really fun even though I had to pretend to be a boy because my boy was home with my sleeping children.

I finally saw the documentary "My Kid Could Paint That" that I mentioned a few months ago. It was really compelling. And sad, really. You should watch it. Interesting questions about the nature of art and inspiration. And marriage. And parenthood. And whether or not documentary filmmakers can be impartial.

I never used to read "Peanuts" when I was a kid, but I really enjoy it now. I've decided that Harper and Hudson are like Lucy and Linus. Hudson has even taken to toting his blanket around. My favorite one was a few Sundays ago and Lucy had put together a felt story board and was entertaining Linus and he was so appreciative and complimentary right up until he realized she had cut the felt characters out of his blanket. Seriously funny. I could SO see that happening around here.

We get "free" cable at the new apartment and night before last, this actual sentence came out of my mouth as I was watching "Man vs. Wild":
"Bear has diarrhea! Do you want to watch??"
Not surprisingly, the husband politely declined. I'm also finding the Home and Garden channel particularly addictive. The one show where the couple looks at the three different houses in their price range?? That is high drama.

You say it's your birthday

Harper turned three on Sunday and she celebrated by rocking out on her new piano. And wearing her Real Ballet Shoes:

We rode the new train at Hermann Park which she's been excited about for months. She sang "I've been working on the railroad" and "Get on board, little children" during the entire ride. Then we rode the carousel at the zoo, said hello to some animal friends, then came home and she blew out the candles on her very own watermelon:



How I love this shiny, happy, bouncy, singing, dancing girl who has filled our lives with joy inexpressible.

Anthropologie

I got some money from my parents on Mother's Day and decided to go to Anthropologie. There's lots to love at Anthropologie but I didn't buy anything and here is why: it's ridiculously expensive and even when I have "free" money, as it were, I just can't stomach $58 for a t-shirt, AND I am just done with the whole smocky, flowy, babydoll trend that has insisted on lingering for at least three or four years now. It's fun wearing maternity clothes when you are pregnant. People smile at you because you are a Bearer of Life and all that. And I was actually pretty grateful for the trend those first couple of months after the babies came. But enough already.

I thought it was interesting, anthropologically speaking, that there was a girl trying on clothes in the dressing room next to me and she had brought along a little dog and he was sitting in his very own stroller. It looked more expensive than the stroller I use to transport my actual human children. I also noticed in the pet aisle at Target the other day that I can buy an Isaac Mizrahi seersucker doggie dress. We love dogs around here, even though we don't own one yet, but I'm going to be dogmatic about a few things.
1. Dogs shouldn't ride in strollers
2. Dogs shouldn't wear clothes
3. Dogs shouldn't be in weddings/mentioned in wedding announcements, i.e. John and Eleanor will be residing in Bellaire with their two beloved dogs, Carnegie and Mellon.

One other thing that happened at Anthropologie is that the dressing room attendant asked my name so she could write it on the little chalkboard outside the door. I must have swallowed the second syllable because she wrote "PAT" and then asked four different times if "PAT" needed anything. I have never been PAT. Patti has never even felt like a very appropriate name but it is infinitely better than PAT. Margie wrote a few blogs back about introducing herself and her husband (who is Wayne) and saying, "We have old people names." I was thinking about that while I was at my parents' house and realized that my mom (Bonnie) has friends who, like her are in their 60's, who are named Tootsie, Cookie, and Sparkle.

So I didn't buy any clothes but on the way home I stopped at Paciugo and got some gelato. There was a tiny old lady in front of me and when she got her ice cream I said, "Oh, that looks really good--what flavor is it?" and she replied, "I'd give you a bite but I am 89 years old and I have to be very hygienic and I just don't know what germs you have!" She pronounced it hyGENIEic.

One last thing. I think I've mentioned Harper's speech impediments. Two words have proven especially hilarious in the past couple of weeks. She can't make an 'l' or 'r' sound and uses 'w' instead. "All cweatuwes of our God and King... Ah way woo jah! Ah way woo juh! Ah way woooooo jah." And we got this trail mix from Whole Foods that's called Hullaballoo Mix. "Mommy may I please have some Huhwuhbuhwoo?" It's too bad I didn't go to A&M because I hear the fight song has a similar word in it. Oh, wait. I did go to A&M. How does that song go again?

That's what she...sang

So I finally had to tell Harper she was forbidden from telling Hudson 'no' ever again. And what do you think that eager little mind has done to evade the prohibition? Sing, of course. This morning it was to the tune of "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes": NO...no-no-no-no-no...nonoNO! came wafting from the backseat on the way home from the park. Then when we got home, it was "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"-- no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-nonononoNO...NO,nonononononononononononoNOOOOOO..NO!"
I should have loosed the fateful lightning of my terrible swift sword, but I was too busy laughing my head off in the other room.

To add to the air of musical comedy/disobedience around here, we were out for a walk yesterday and Hudson got a little ahead. He turned around to see if I noticed his daring-do. I asked him to come back and he smiled and broke into this little soft shoe dance. Perhaps he was trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. Again, the cute factor precluded any sort of meaningful discipline.

Let there be blood

Hudson got his second bloody lip yesterday trying to walk down some steps in the Tot Spot at the Children's Museum. Depth judgment comes much later than it should really. On a note less bloody, we got to see our friend Izzy's dance recital later in the afternoon. She did a fantastic job. My favorite part was the moment of contemplation she took in the middle of the tap routine to "Good Ship Lollipop." Harper was very excited about the recital until we got there and she remembered that she had planned to wear her "ballet shoes" but we had forgotten. I'll confess that I had not reminded her because I didn't really want her wearing her too small white patent dress shoes in public, but I felt pretty sad when her eyes welled up with tears of disappointment and she kept saying, "Oh Mommy, I can't dance with the ballerinas without my ballet shoes." She recovered and managed, much to my surprise, to actually sit in a chair and watch quietly while the girls danced. She did get a chance to dance with Izzy when the recital was over, though it was more Twyla Thorpe sort of galloping and flexed toes than anything classical per se. Probably because of the shoes. She is getting an actual pair of ballet shoes for her birthday in a couple of weeks. Though after having seen them in action, she also would like some tap shoes. I'm going to get my mom to dig around in the attic and try to find my old ones. I took lots of dance classes but always preferred gymnastics. I was a decent tumbler in my day and, to impress Harper and Hudson, decided to do a cartwheel in my parents' backyard while we were there over the weekend. Just a plain cartwheel, mind you, not the aerials I used to be able to do. Oh, it hurt. Like fire. All the way down my leg. I really, really need to start doing some yoga or pilates or something. Anyway, they did look awfully impressed that Mommy had twirled around like that.

The snipers made me do it

I lied. Our current apartment is actually 988 square feet. My fact checker, who is, incidentally, also my legal counsel AND spouse, discovered my prevarication while looking online for a way to get around our rate hike. Understatement is a valid rhetorical device, probably not seen quite as often as its good friend hyperbole, but I was basically trying to get you to feel sorry for us which is just ridiculous considering that we still have more living space than approximately 98% of the world.

I read this actual sentence in an obituary a few weeks ago: (I changed the name)

"Louisa may have had many ventures but her true love lay with Jazzercise."

I read them mostly because I think it's interesting how many euphemisms there are for the word 'died'. I think 'expired' is my least favorite.

We got some money to buy a new television for Christmas and we finally got around to actually buying one a couple of weeks ago. Our old one was eleven years old and was deeper than it was wide. It required rabbit ears. When the new tv showed us its sparkly high definition, the husband and I chortled with glee. It must be like what it feels like to get glasses for the first time. Of course, it is also precisely the kind of nonsense Ray Bradbury was warning us about in Fahrenheit 451. Why engage in the real world when the virtual world is so accommodating?

Harper is a pretty even-tempered kid most of the time. She does, however, tend to get frustrated quickly when she can't do something by herself, like get a toy that's really wedged into the corner of the toy box. She usually lets out this high pitched grunt/scream. Yesterday she took it up a notch. She was trying to ride her tricycle through a too narrow pathway in her room and the wheel got tangled in a corner of her tent. I was washing dishes and heard the grunt/scream and was walking over to render aid (and encourage her to ask for help before the grunt/scream instead of as a last resort) just as she threw herself backwards, a la Mary Catherine Gallagher on SNL of old, into the side of her tent. To add to the comedy, she had earlier taken off most of her clothes and was wearing these white patent dress shoes with ankle straps that she calls her "ballet shoes." So there she was on her back in the middle of her wrecked tent crying, yelling, and waving her ballet shoes in the air in utter frustration. I had to put her in her bed for five minutes just to compose myself.
Hudson thinks it is hilarious when I blow my nose. He is also entertained when I am putting my hair in a ponytail. He starts talking in the high pitched voice he uses when he sees animals so I can only assume that he thinks I have suddenly sprouted a puppy on the back of my head.