27 Sunday Apr 2014
Posted in Humor/humour, US vs UK
After hammering Britain and Ireland with his clever stereotypes, Tom Phillips of buzzfeed has now turned his wry eye to the US.
The US, stereotyped.
And here’s my own region of the US–New England plus a bit more lower down–getting its own hammering:
New England stereotype map.
All I can say is, there’s a lot of truth here! Follow this link for a region-by-region stereotypes of the US.
22 Tuesday Apr 2014
Posted in Back in Boston, How we're coming along
Memorial for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing: Martin Richard, Lingzi Lu, Krystle Campbell, and Sean Collier.
A woman near the finish line who had been at that same spot last year when the bombs went off was asked this afternoon how she was feeling, and she said, “Wicked sad, but I had to be here.”
Apparently a lot of people felt that way, because there were a million people along the 26.2 miles of the 2014 Boston Marathon, there in tribute to the four people killed, and the 260 people who were badly injured. The Richard family lost the most: their son Martin, aged 8, died; his younger sister Jane lost her leg, both parents were wounded, and his older brother Henry, though not injured physically, witnessed all the devastation and loss.
There were a lot of t-shirts in blue and yellow that said, “Boston Strong,” and even some with a quote from Mr. Rogers, a beloved minister who had a children’s program on PBS. The quote said: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'” And at last year’s Boston Marathon, there were a lot of people helping after the bombs went off.
At the race today, security was very tight: there were three times as many police officers as before, a number of whom were undercover, with some on rooftops and over 100 surveillance cameras. Last night we were told by the news stations that helicopters were flying along the route, checking radiation levels in case a dirty bomb went off during the Marathon, which was very chilling to think about. This is the first view I had as I neared the route at mile 24:
Security for the 2014 Boston Marathon, two miles from the Finish Line.
But despite first impressions, things at mile 24 were not as tight as we feared; we were able to walk up to the barricades without being “wanded,” which was being done on Boylston Street near the finish line. People had been told not to bring any backpacks, and I didn’t see a single one. New barricades had been positioned at the far side of Beacon Street, where last year there had been none. But I have to say that they were not forbidding; they were almost decorative and it would have been easy to slip through them if necessary.
The new barricades.
The towns all along the route have planted daffodils, one of the official colors of the Marathon, and they were a lovely sight.
Daffodils along the route.
The wheelchair runners were first, followed by the women’s frontrunners, and then the men’s frontrunners. In all, there were 36,000 runners, 9,000 more than last year, in order to give additional people the chance to run and finish the race, in case they had not able to complete the course last year.
The women’s frontrunners at mile 24, going so fast I could barely photograph them!
I decided to go to the finish line to see where the race ended, and the bombs had gone off last year. Luckily, the “T” ran along Beacon Street for part of the way, so I could view the race from my seat. The first thing I saw when I came aboveground from the T was this truck sporting the word “Hazardous” which probably had something to do with biohazards that they were checking for last night. 
Even a lifeguard chair was brought to help with surveillance though, as it says, “No lifeguards on duty.”
The streets near the finish line were barricaded off and you needed a special pass just to get near the runners.
Half a block from the FInish Line.
I wasn’t able to see any of the runners from my position in a large crowd behind the security barricades, so I had the brainwave of going into Lord and Taylor’s, which has huge windows overlooking the race.
View from Lord and Taylor. At the left, the Forum Restaurant, where the second bomb went off.
Later, as I went toward the Public Garden and a T station that was open (the two closest to the finish line were closed for the day), I saw floods of runners who had just finished the race, wearing silver capes.
Runners with their post-race “capes.”
Rapturous greeting at the left under the Meeting Spot “T.”
An exhausted marathoner.
When they had finished the race, the runners were guided towards the open space provided by the Public Garden, the start of Boston’s “Emerald Necklace,” and a beautiful, peaceful place.
Runners and their families and friends in the Public Garden, post-race.
Public Garden: horses to the right; swan boat to the left.
The 2014 Boston Marathon was a hard day, particularly for those who had lost loved ones or been injured themselves, but it was a great step towards paying tribute to those who suffered so grievously, and taking back the race for ourselves–the runners and the people of Boston to whom it rightly belongs.
15 Tuesday Apr 2014
Posted in Back in Boston, How we're coming along, US vs UK
Courtesy, Charlie Krupa/AP
It’s been a very somber day here in Boston. The sky was unrelievedly grey, rain pelted down almost unceasingly, and church bells throughout the city tolled at 2:49 p.m., for the two bombs that went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon exactly a year ago, killing three people and maiming 260 people, some of whom lost limbs, and many of whom will live with life-long injuries and continuing trauma. A police officer was later killed by the two terrorists, whose names I hope never again to have to hear.
Former Boston Mayor Tom Menino, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, Vice President Joe Biden and Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Here are several posts I wrote last year, right after it happened:
The Boston Marathon Massacre: Why would anyone do this?
The Boston Marathon Bombing: Bucket brigade of flowers
Here are some photographs I took last year of the memorial:
The Boston Marathon memorial. Copyright Virginia A Smith.
Items at the Boston Marathon memorial. Copyright Virginia A Smith.
Copyright Virginia A Smith.
Running shoes on the barricade. Copyright Virginia A Smith
06 Sunday Apr 2014
Posted in Back in Boston, US vs UK
New Hampshire
Whenever I travel, even just one state away to New Hampshire as I did yesterday, I always see something that makes me think. Sometimes, my thought is, Why aren’t WE doing things this way? And other times, it’s, Why ON EARTH are they doing THAT???
New Hampshire got its name from emigrants from Hampshire, England, who settled here in the early 1600s. It has the White Mountain chain running through it, many conifers, and eighteen miles of coast. It is known as the “Live Free or Die” state.
The phrase “Live Free or Die” was said by General John Stark, the state’s most distinguished hero of the Revolutionary War, and you might think that he said this to the British during the American Revolution of 1775-1783. Not so.
According to the official site of the state of New Hampshire, “the motto was part of a volunteer toast which General Stark sent to his wartime comrades, in which he declined an invitation to head up a 32nd anniversary reunion of the 1777 Battle of Bennington in Vermont, because of poor health. The toast said in full: ‘Live Free Or Die; Death Is Not The Worst of Evils.’
The following year, a similar invitation (also declined) said: ‘The toast, sir, which you sent us in 1809 will continue to vibrate with unceasing pleasure in our ears, ‘Live Free Or Die; Death Is Not The Worst Of Evils.'” So in creating the immortal phrase, “Live Free or Die,” he was proposing an anniversary toast in absentia, not eviscerating the Redcoats in the heat of battle. Still, a soaring state motto was born.
In New Hampshire, there is no state sales tax or personal state income tax. Consequently, quite a lot of people live in New Hampshire and commute to Massachusetts for work. This has helped give those of us in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts–who pay sales tax, personal income tax, as well as all the other taxes: property tax, federal tax, etc.–the nickname of “Taxachusetts.”
This great variation in tax-paying, among other things, from one US state to the next, will come as a huge surprise to many people who are not American and who are used to one central government.
In America, there is the federal government in Washington, D.C., as well as 52 mini-governments, comprising the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, which can pretty much go their own way and do what they want on most matters unless reined in by the federal government. Hence, micro-politics on a town-by-town and state-by-state basis.
New Hampshire has a not insignificant number of people who are Libertarians.
The logo for the Libertarian Party. Prickly, anyone?
These are people who want “government off their back,” don’t want to have to pay any taxes, and believe that the only role of government is to “help individuals defend themselves from force or fraud.” They don’t like the “nanny state,” by which they mean the UK and Europe, which they see as controlling peoples’ lives.
Like Libertarians, Moose (meece?) are big in New Hampshire. By big I mean populous, or relatively so, and you often see signs saying, “Moose crossing.”
I love moose. I would love to see one on this trip, but haven’t, for decades, though my son who goes to school in NH says he knows people who have seen moose on his campus.
On the trip to NH yesterday, I saw a car with a license plate saying 1 MOOSE. I guess the guy likes moose, too, and is willing to pay extra for a plate saying so, unless he was referring to the fact that he once drove into or shot 1 moose and wanted to commemorate it. Hard to tell. More about moose at the end of this post.
Little cottages for elves
In the White Mountains, I saw the sweetest little settlement of cabins that appeared to be for elves. Take a look at the two chairs in front and imagine how many people you could fit in the house–several children, or an adult at a half-crouch?
And how about this sign on the Visitor Center? Visitor Centers offer information to tourists on the area’s history, hotels, restaurants, etc., and they always have restrooms available. However, this visitor center on Route 93 isn’t sure which should take top billing–the visitor center or the restrooms. Clearly, the restrooms won.
Which is most important, the restrooms or the visitors center?
In the category of What Were They Thinking?, it’s nice to see storefronts in rural areas in New Hampshire offering physical therapy, but you have to wonder about this one, called “Inertia.” You have to hope that it’s not the PTs (physical therapists) who are being “inert”! And, the little graphic of the figure in action looks the opposite of Inertia. Maybe someone has the tiniest problem with knowing what “inertia” means?
Inertia!
On Route 93, every 20 miles or so there are these signs on the highway:
Road sign in New Hampshire. You’re just going to have to trust me that this one says “Hands on wheel.”
The neon message flashes two commands:
MIND ON ROAD
HANDS ON WHEEL
It’s kind of weird that a state has to tell you to keep your hands on the wheel when you’re driving. It makes you wonder if a lot of New Hampshirites drive with their hands NOT on the wheel? And what do the Libertarians think about being told to do so? Too much of a “nanny state”?
Once you get to Massachusetts, the signs say something along the lines of No Texting and Let the Sober One Drive and Don’t Get Caught with an OUI–much more threatening and menacing, nowhere near as uplifting as being reminded to keep your hands on the wheel.
New Hampshire has the 3rd fewest fatalities per 100 million miles driven which I find surprising because although Bostonians are, in my opinion–and don’t get me started–some of the worst drivers in the US, the cars you see with New Hampshire license plates being driven in Boston put Bostonians to shame in the bad driver sweepstakes. Maybe, after all, it IS necessary to say to New Hampshire drivers, Mind on road, hands on wheel?
Courtesy, Shuttershock.
Of course, I had to take one hand off the wheel to take a photo of “HANDS ON WHEEL,” but please know that I quickly put it right back.
But, after several days of thinking about New Hampshire’s highway slogans, I have come to the conclusion that they are brilliant.
Because with your hands–BOTH hands–on the wheel, you’re not punching in cellphone numbers, talking on a handheld phone, or texting. And with your mind on the road, you’re not jabbering on the phone, mentally drifting away or, God forbid, falling asleep. It’s a very positive way of keeping you from doing something dangerous.
Now I think that all states should adopt New Hampshire’s method of trying to make driving safer.
The best part of the trip was watching my 17-year-old son playing lacrosse. Lacrosse is a truly original American game (the Brits and the Yanks have argued over who can claim baseball as their own since, well, the start of rounders/baseball, but no one besides the Americans can claim lacrosse). Lacrosse was invented by Native Americans and is a very fast, slashy-type of game which is a lot of fun to watch. Yesterday, despite it being April, there were still piles of snow around the lacrosse field: 
But a good time was had by all, and it was lovely watching my son’s team win their first game of the season over a much bigger school. And that’s a quick, and quirky, look at New Hampshire!
******************************************************
MORE ABOUT MOOSE:
There are some interesting aspects to Moose. As the National Geographic website says, “Moose have long faces and muzzles that dangle over their chins. A flap of skin known as a bell sways beneath each moose’s throat. . . . They are so tall that they prefer to browse higher grasses and shrubs because lowering their heads to ground level can be difficult. . . . their hooves act as snowshoes to support the heavy animals in soft snow and in muddy or marshy ground.” Despite their ungainly appearance, they can run up to 35 miles an hour over short distances, and trot steadily at 20 miles an hour.
One of the most famous American moose, after Bullwinkle, is Dr Seuss’s Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose. If you haven’t read this book yourself, or read it to your children, you should (all the Dr Seuss books are, without exception, wonderful).
Thidwick, being a big-hearted moose, allows a bug to take up residence in his antlers. The bug invites a spider, the spider invites a–well, you get the idea.
Before Thidwick knows what’s happening, there’s a big party going on between his antlers.
Pretty soon, poor old Thidwick is burdened by an entire menagerie of guests, all taking advantage of his big-heartedness.
“Poor Thidwick sank down, with a groan, to his knees. And then, THEN came something that made his heart freeze.”
You will have to read the book to see how Thidwick resolves this problem, but as a hint, I will tell you that everything turns out OK because of something that happens every fall:
And here’s a fitting end to Thidwick’s unwanted guests:
(They and the tossed-off antlers are now above the fireplace in the home of a hunter.)
21 Friday Mar 2014
Posted in Back in Boston, Humor/humour, Writings and writing
Tags
Me and Harlan. I’m hoping all my success will rub off on him. He gives a great shoulder rub.
So New York Times bestselling author Harlan and I were hanging last night in a Boston-area bookstore, chewing the cud, shooting the sh**, talking about books and publishing, you know, like old writing buds do whenever they get together.
He’s in Boston tonight, and of course he called me a couple of weeks ago to say that I had to come to his interview at a local theatre, and then to a book signing across the street. I brought my mother and best friend with me so he’d sell at least three books.
He’s just written a new thriller, his 25th. Given that he’s written so many, maybe this time he’ll get it right. Keep hope alive, I always say.
Harlan knows that I’m an expert on getting great publicity, so he asked me for my ideas about how to promote his book. Then he suddenly clapped his hand on his forehead like he was a total dummy and said, “Your blog! The perfect place!”
He’s quite right, of course, considering I have over 4 kajillion readers. Maybe with my help he can get on better bestseller lists than the one in the Paducah shopping mall, or the one on the site, “I really like this book,” which I believe goes to around 30 people in the quilting circle at Shepard of the Hills Lutheran Church in Duluth, Minnesota. There’s only so much I can do, but we can hope!
He said he couldn’t do this without me, but hey, I like to help aspiring writers, especially ones who work as hard as my friend Harlan.
I happened to mention to him that I needed to find a new agent since my previous one, the wonderful Bob Lescher, passed away, and he of course said I should try his agent, so I told him that I queried her two weeks ago and was waiting to hear back. He told me that she turns everyone down, even writers he recommends to her.
I didn’t want to say this to him, but of course she turns down writers he sends her way! But what I was thinking was that his agent doesn’t know ME (yet) and I’ve got talent up the whazoo, but of course I didn’t say this since he’s such a nice guy and, as I said, he works so hard.
Did I already tell you that he’s a mensch?
Harlan has just published Missing You, which I haven’t read yet but will soon. He said it’s darker than his previous books, and righteously scary. The protagonist is short and female; in his previous thriller the protagonist was tall and male. He likes to mix things up, he says, do the opposite of what he did before.
Well, whatever. Try the scattershot approach, and maybe something’ll hit, is all I can say.
If he ever hits the big-time I’ll tell him he’s got to upgrade his wardrobe, get out of the oversized shirt, jeans, and Keds without laces and into a nice pair of Dockers and a dress shirt so he looks like a real writer.
One thing he said in the interview is that the thing that all writers have to have is empathy. I know, I know! If there’s anything anyone would say about me, it’s that I have too much empathy! Just thinking about how it is for Harlan to struggle so much with his books just makes my heart bleed for him, and if that’s not empathy, I don’t know what is!
Harlan also mentioned in the interview that he really loved his parents, who died relatively young.
If you read his Myron Bolitar books, you’ll see a man who lives in his parents’ basement and adores his mother and father. If you have kids yourself and/or if you’re just overflowing with empathy like I am, you will find this almost unbearably heartwarming that your kids might one day feel this way about you!
A mensch indeed. Go buy his book. Believe me, it’ll thrill him like nothing else! And tell the bookstore manager that I sent you.
My next job is to try to help another writer, Lee Child. He’s been stumbling around for quite a while, but I’m sure I can get him on the right path.
Okay, I have to admit: he and I had a little “thing” a couple of years back. We kept it pretty hush-hush, but I guess he couldn’t keep his emotions in check when he signed my book:
What Lee Child wrote to me.
I hope he’s gotten over me! He really needs to concentrate on his writing, not pine for me. Maybe, if he works hard enough, his books will take off. Who knows what might happen, in this crazy business of writing and publishing? I wish Harlan and Lee all the best. As I said, I’ll do all I can for them.
13 Thursday Mar 2014
Posted in Back in Boston, How we're coming along
Tags
During my whirlwind 48-hour-long stay in New York City, my 11-year-old requested that I bring her back some of the magnificently colored M&Ms from the huge M&M store in Times Square (the Hershey’s store is just across the street).
As it was her sole request, I granted it. One pound of M&Ms cost $12.95. I hope she enjoys them immensely at this price! These are colors that you can’t get anywhere else (I think they all taste the same but I’ll need to do some major sampling in order to say this definitively).
There are some new statues . . . with signs saying “Do not climb” . . .
. . . and old statues that would be hard to climb . . .
Columbus Circle is completely different . . .
. . . but a block away there are the traditional horse-drawn carriages in Central Park.
If you want to ride in a horse-drawn carriage, you should get your ride in soon; there’s a movement afoot to ban all horses in the city for their own well-being.
I stayed in my old building at 82nd and Riverside in the apartment of my friend Steve, whose apartment is four stories above my old apartment and who was the reason I moved into the building in 1994.
Here are the views from his apartment, which are similar to the views from my old apartment, only higher up and more spectacular.
The sun setting over the Hudson River and New Jersey Palisades:
And the view east towards Broadway, the water towers like huge beasts crouching over Manhattan.
God, how I love water towers!
More comments in tomorrow’s post about changes in New York due to the administration of the new mayor, Bill de Blasio, and whatever else I come across!
13 Thursday Mar 2014
Posted in Back in Boston, How we're coming along
On a lamp post at the corner of 77th and Columbus, there’s this sign:
The new mayor, Bill de Blasio, and his Police Commissioner, William Bratton, (both from the Boston area) are already making changes. Recently, three people were killed by cars at or near the same intersection of 96th and Broadway on the Upper West Side within nine days. (I used to live two blocks away, and can remember seeing the aftermath of two pedestrians who were killed outside my building on Broadway. It’s a sobering thing to witness.)
There’s a general feeling in New York that enough is enough. Too many pedestrians are being killed by cars. NYPD has put up signs asking people to wait for the walk sign before crossing the street, which of course is only dealing with part of the problem. The biggest part of the problem is the two tons of steel coming at you despite the fact that you’re crossing the street with the walk sign.
But I will say, speaking as someone who has experienced both New York and Boston traffic, I was stunned–and impressed–by the changes to New York traffic since I lived here. I remember a lawless place where drivers and cabbies drove like maniacs. I remember cabbies cutting across four lanes of traffic to beat out other cabbies to pick me up, and that every single day I had close calls with cars barreling their way through hordes of pedestrians who were crossing legally, missing me and other people by inches.
What I saw today and yesterday was mostly orderly traffic patterns, no speeding, no running red lights, as is done all the time in Boston. Clearly, a lot has already been done to calm traffic but clearly too, more needs to be done if pedestrians are being mown down so frequently.
Speaking of New York streets, the London artists Banksy recently spent a month in New York creating street art, doing one piece a day during the month of October. My friend Steve showed me one on a wall at 79th just east of Broadway. The owner of this building had installed a piece of plexiglass over the art and a security camera to preserve the art.
Take a look, below. Do you know what this child is doing? Any guesses beyond pounding a red pipe with a mallet?
Here’s a larger view. You will see how clever Banksy has been in incorporating his little figure with something that was already there to make his art:
With a wider perspective, you’re able to see what Banksy’s little fellow is doing: a “test of strength,” also known as a “high striker,” such as as you’d see at carnivals and at county and state fairs.
My time in New York would not be complete without a trip to the theatre. I was lucky enough to get one of the very last tickets to Sweeney Todd at Lincoln Center. Here’s the English actor Emma Thompson taking a curtain call. And yes, it was fabulous!
One last photo from this day: a boat on the Hudson, with the opposing view of buildings and water towers reflected in the sky above the river:
And that’s all for now! Have you spent time recently in New York? Is there anything about the city that surprised you? What is your favorite thing about New York? Your least favorite? Please comment below.
Here are three earlier posts on what I observed in New York, here, here, and here.
12 Wednesday Mar 2014
Posted in Back in Boston, How we're coming along
People always talk about the sense of energy in New York, and they are correct.
New York is a high-intensity place, with an implicit promise of great opportunity so that every waiter can become an actor, every lowly proofreader can become an editor, every person who is “good with numbers” can become a hedge fund manager. As the song says, “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.”
An ad on the subway summed this up very nicely:
“You moved to New York with an MBA, one clean suit, and an extremely firm handshake.”
Besides the sense of opportunity (which admittedly was battered by the recession of 2008), there’s also the fact that New York is always changing. You turn your back for a second, and old buildings are being torn down and new buildings are rising in their places to create a new city-scape.
For my overseas readers, New York City is comprised of five boroughs (mini-cities): Manhattan, which is what many people inaccurately think of when they say “New York City,” Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Manhattan has and always will be the jewel in the crown, but Brooklyn is now the place to live. In the past ten to twenty years, there’s been a huge exodus to Brooklyn as the Manhattan middle-class and artists were driven out by high prices, and Brooklyn is now where you will find much of the energy, arts scene, and people with children.
When I lived in Manhattan for fifteen years in the 1980s and 90s, you wouldn’t go to Brooklyn on a dare. Brooklyn Heights, on the waterfront south of the Brooklyn Bridge, was fine, but Cobble Hill and Park Slope were sketchy, Prospect Park was definitely iffy, and most of the rest of Brooklyn was just too dangerous to spend much time in if you didn’t have to. Artists were starting to move to Williamsburg, across the East River from Manhattan, in order to live in huge warehouse space and lofts that were much cheaper than in SoHo (South of Houston Street) which were being bought up by large numbers of celebrities and wealthy people.
In Manhattan, the West Village was gentrified in the 1970s and the 1980s by gay men. At that time, the Alphabets (Avenues A, B, C, etc., on the Lower East Side) were the place to get a foothold in Manhattan real estate, or at least a cheap apartment to rent. Later, Chelsea, on the west side from about 14th to 30th Streets, became the place to live.
What’s happening now, according to my friend Steve, is that people are getting priced out of Chelsea, and are moving north to Hell’s Kitchen, west of Midtown and north of Chelsea. This was the part of town where the Irish gangs historically lived and the murder rate was high. I remember looking at an apartment for rent in Hell’s Kitchen; it was a dark, dingy, depressing railroad-style apartment with a bath in the middle of a tiny kitchen. I didn’t take it. Prices are now soaring in Hell’s Kitchen.
On this, my second day in New York, I traveled down to Chelsea on a very clean subway to Chelsea Market, a huge renovated space with amazing food such as at this bakery.
YUM!
One store had the most compendious collection of spices I’ve ever seen. Have you ever seen such mouth-watering colors?
Spices from around the world.
Speaking of eating, I saw this sign in the Village:
Only in New York would the nineteen days from February 17 to March 7 be considered “a week.”
I met my best friend from high school whom I haven’t seen in many years because she and her family live in California. Her son, a constructor of crossword puzzles, is the second youngest person ever to have a crossword published in the New York Times. At the advanced age of 17, he was addressing an annual convention of crossword enthusiasts in Brooklyn.
After taking the subway back to Manhattan and walking another 50 blocks (you do a lot of walking in New York City), I saw this sign in a Barnes and Noble:
A Chinese laundry (and yes, they are called “Chinese laundries,” the same way you’d talk about “Korean markets,” or you’d say, “There’s a Korean on the next corner”) had a man working in the front window. He was ironing the shirts at the right of the photograph, then putting the finished, ironed shirts to the left. Great marketing!
Window dressing!
One more post to come!
02 Sunday Mar 2014
Posted in Family history, Humor/humour, Parenting
Of course, there’s chronological age, and there’s emotional age.
For years, my 19-year-old daughter has been “borrowing” (and not returning) things belonging to me: my bicycle, my t-shirts, my necklaces, my leather boots, my–well, you get the idea. Basically, anything that takes her fancy that’s not locked down. She’s now in college, so my access to my own things has dramatically and happily revived, once I went through her college-bound duffel bags last September and retrieved all my stuff.
My UGGs
But now my 11-year-old daughter has sprouted, and I am finding myself “sharing” my possessions with this new interloper: the pristine UGGs that I found at a thrift store for $40 two months ago, the t-shirts, the small bit of make-up that hasn’t already been acquired by the 19-year-old and, as of two nights ago, my nightgown, because she suddenly decided that she no longer likes sleeping in pajamas. I am now stomping around bootless in freezing weather while she walks to school in my UGGs, the sheepskin caressing her toes. Not to mention the fact that I’m tossing and turning at night in a pair of flannel pants and a sweatshirt instead of my comfy nightgown which now envelopes her as she gently drifts to sleep.
But, blessedly, my third child is a boy, so my possessions–at least my clothes–are safe. You would think.
No, this isn’t me, it’s a model from the catalogue, but thank you for thinking that it’s me.
I have two pairs of khaki trousers. Two. I love these pants; they fit well, and they look as good as they can on my middle-aged body.
The last time I saw my khakis they were upstairs in a box with all my spring/summer clothes. I was looking forward in the next month or two to shucking off the corduroys that I’ve worn throughout this god-awful, freezing cold winter, and breaking out the khakis.
But one night several weeks ago, I saw a pair of khakis on the lower half of my son. They looked familiar, and then it dawned on me. He was wearing my beloved khakis!
I told him in no uncertain terms to return my pants to the box, which he did. But I have just looked, and they are gone.
Ten minutes ago, my son called from the airport. And told me where my khakis are.
My khakis are sitting (or are being sat on) in seat 24B.
They are on a flight to the Dominican Republic.
More specifically: they are on the nether portion of my 17-year-old son who is on a flight to the Dominican Republic. My son, who is 6 feet tall and 180 very muscular, hunky pounds–seven inches taller and over thirty pounds heavier than me.
He is flying through the night, away from the snow that is blanketing New England and into the sun of a tropical island. Wearing my pants.
This is the teensiest bit misleading because my khakis will actually be spending their time in the poorest part of the DR and not on these amazing beaches.
Which he will no doubt wear while he works for the next two weeks with schoolchildren in Santo Domingo, stretching my lovely khakis all the while to fit his large physique. My beloved khakis will never be the same.
And you know the worst thing about all of this? Besides the fact that I’ve lost yet another cherished possession to one of my children, the very worst thing is that my son looks better in my khakis than I do!
Other musings on child-rearing: Stupid things parents do; The suckiness of having to model good behavior to your kids; Lies parents tell their children; The things she lost: sign of the times; Letting go and emotional rescue
20 Thursday Feb 2014
Posted in How we're coming along, Humor/humour
With thanks to Iota Manhattan, one of my favorite bloggers, for getting me started on this list:
Chocolate truffles, yum!
1. Guilty pleasure: dark chocolate truffles with chocolate mousse inside, dusted with cocoa powder.
2. Change one thing I’ve done in the past week.
I wish I’d booked a flight EARLY EARLY EARLY when they were so much cheaper so that this week I’d be meeting up with my dear cousin Julie and any and all of my English and Canadian relatives someplace HOT (Portugal? The Canaries?) and listening to my Uncle Frank do karaoke in the British bars
Even the Three Wise Men are snowed under!
during this school vacation week instead of battling temperatures in the teens and cascades of snow here in New England! This trip is a total pipe dream because we can’t afford to go on any major trips–saving our pennies for our summer trip back home to England–but I can dream, can’t I?
3. Middle name: Ann. Nothing wrong with that, yeah?
4. Can I say “Je regrette rien?”
Non, pas du tout, je regrette beaucoup! There have been so many things in my life that turned on a hair and that sent me in a new and sometimes interesting and sometimes not-so-interesting direction that it’s so hard to choose. . . .
Take, for example, my applying to business school. Going to business school was not something I had ever conceived of doing–I thought maybe I would get a Ph.D. in English or an M.F.A. in creative writing or maybe even be a farmer–but after graduating from college, going to business school was what you did if you were a relatively pulled-together young woman, and I was also getting a lot of pressure from my then-significant (insignificant) other to go to business school in order to provide a life of unending bon bons (see above, #1) and luxury at the expense of my own happiness, so to shut down this conversation FOREVER I said I would apply to ONE business school ONLY and then you have to SHUT THE BLEEP UP about my going to business school!
So I took the GMATS and thought I didn’t do well enough to get into the top business school which is the only school I applied to because I knew I wouldn’t get in and so this matter would be ended FOREVER, and then surprise surprise surprise I DID get in and I went because as everyone said you don’t say no to Harvard, and I had a miserable two years along with everyone else studying 15-16 hours a day and after graduation instead of working for McKinsey or going into investment banking (which would have been a total joke because I am an English-style socialist and I would have wanted to spread the wealth all around especially for the hard-working people at the bottom), I went right back into publishing, only this time it was New York book publishing, which was a real step up from before I went to business school when I worked as a lowly textbook sales representative in North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin and was sliding off icy roads most of the time so in some ways business school paid off big-time.
I got a really cool job as an acquiring editor for a top New York book publisher which I loved and several of my authors got on the New York Times bestseller list, but then five years after I started at this particular publisher I got a horrible, jealous, bigoted new boss who fired me when I was eight months pregnant, and then I had my first baby and also fell in love with New York, and I thought that this is the best thing in the world, looking after my daughter, then my son, then my second daughter, and I realized that what I really wanted to do in life was to raise my kids and write about England and America and family and farming and parenting and also maybe write manuscripts for two thrillers and most likely more so that’s what I’m doing.
Head of the Charles race and Harvard Business School.
5. Fairy story character I most identify with.
Snow White, because without over-thinking anything I’d really love having seven brothers, uh, dwarves, to hang out with.
I always wanted to be in a family of 12 kids like my grandfather (he was second youngest), or have 12 kids myself, neither of which happened, so having these dwarf-brothers would be the next-best thing, that is, if I were Snow White!
Back in Boston 