Father--Daughter-Cat-Mouse-Bike Bonding

So for those of you who were unaware, my dad is in a wheelchair, and has been so for nearly 8 years, due to a broken neck after a fall from the attic staircase (people, check your homes--it's true what they say about accidents in the house.)


Anyway, this blog is not about that. This blog is about how much fun I've been having re-connecting with my dad. My mother is on a 2-week trip to Alaska, cruising and viewing glaciers and basically taking her first vacation in about 3 years. I am playing her role, giving care and cooking meals and scooping the cat litter and all that. I've done this for her a few times in the past (and have also traveled across country with the both of them a few times) but something clicked these past two weeks that I guess happens when parents and children reach a certain age.


Dad and I have a lot in common. The man who was once so soberly noncommunicative and the daughter who was once so incongruously dramatic have both found a middle ground. We have been having such an adventure these two weeks, plotting out bike routes on google satellite, setting off the generator with the circuit breaker, re-assembling old Comp USA hard drives, pimping his stander, and pimping my new bike (he was instrumental in my basket/rack assembly, the two of which were completely incompatible without some new hardware).

If you haven't met my new bike, by the way, heeeeeeere's Iggy!


And here's the aforementioned cat, Mr. C:


And here's the gift he left us this morning:


It's never a dull moment, being a housedaughter. It's been fun. Sincerely. And I'm sincerely looking forward to returning to my regular life. Things could have turned out very differently after the accident, and I am currently very grateful that dad and I (and Mr. C) have had this time together. That's a good feeling.

Dear Bluebell:

It's been a good year. I've really enjoyed your company. But we both knew when we started out together that this wasn't going to be a long-term thing. It's gone on longer than either of us really anticipated, partly because you're just so awesome.


But I need more from a bike. Suspension. Tougher rims. A lighter frame (not that you're fat--far from it! You're just--dense.)


Listen, I'm going to go out of town for a few weeks. I want you and I to see other people and bikes. If, when I get back, we want to have another go at us, that's cool. But I need to look at my options.


Thanks for being you. I still love you, no matter what happens.

PS--I'm gonna need that ring back.

Thanks.

Oh, it's only a paper moon

Well, a cardboard tree, actually, and a paper lunar calendar. And corn husk dolls and dissected peanuts and pre-algebra and poetry and book reports and western expansion.



If you didn't already know, I've been in a long-term sub position at a French-English bilingual school since the end of April. It has been insanity. I am teaching nearly every grade, every subject from art to music to theatre to science to math to social studies.



It is awesome. The beauty/challenge of working in a tiny, tiny school is that everyone has to wear ten thousand hats. Some teachers find this overwhelming. I bathe in overwhelming. Overwhelming thrills me.



I just got done painting our set for the theatre club's play (a ten-minute bilingual rendering of 'The Ant and the Grashopper'). Two days ago I was at the planetarium examining models of the earth and the moon. On Tuesday, I will accompany the entire school in singing a song whose lyrics were penned by the 4th and 5th grades.



It is tons of work, at times incredibly frustrating and high-stress. I LOVE that.



A seven year old says to me "I learned my two lines!" and it's the happiest I've ever been. I'm more impressed by her achievement than by anything Idina Menzel has done. Does Idina Menzel know Arlene Ant's lines? I think not. I am greeted by these two lines everytime this seven-year old is in the same room with me. What has Idina done for me lately? I get no hugs from her, that's for sure. I get hugs from Arlene Ant.



In a year or two, I may actively hate my job again, but who knows? I might just still like it. At least I'll have the chance to find out, since I've been hired next year to teach kindergarten and third grade.

Off the sauce

I am not catholic, or any flavor thereof, really. But Lent came at an appropriate time this year to try an experiment I've been wanting to do for a while.

Since Ash Wednesday, I've not had a drop of wine, beer, whiskey, or any other spirit distilled, fermented, brewed or aged. No booze.

For those of you who don't drink much or at all, this may seem like no great feat of sacrifice, but I have been known to clutch my nearly empty (but not quite) wine glass away from looming waiters eager to clear a table, shouting "I need this to live!!" Some of you can relate, I'm sure.

It's been about 2 weeks now, and I'm getting used to it. I won't lie and say I like it. I don't. It's been pretty much miserable. Standing at parties surrounded by glasses of libation is like a roomful of bare necks to a vampire who has given up blood for no other reason than he wants to see what it feels like. I'm not saying I was a raging drunk, but I certainly had a nightly wine habit of no less than one, no more than three glasses. It was nice. I liked it. So why take away my comfy crutch?

Because a few positive things have happened. I sleep better (less trips to the loo in the middle of the night). I feel slimmer. I'm spending less money. Waking up is easier in the morning. I have a bit more energy.

And, whether or not this is positive or negative depends on your attitude: I have been forced to actually face my stress and fears. At the end of a rough day, there's no glass of dry, red therapy to relax in. There is, instead, dealing. Coping. Talking. Sometimes not sleeping at night.

But just like any muscle, your coping muscle only gets stronger with practice, and what seems like a lot of work at first gets easier over time.

I'm looking forward to breaking this fast.

But I'm looking forward to taking some of this learning with me back into my drinking life. Maybe my nightly habit will become a weekendly habit. I certainly won't welcome back the extra inch in my belly, the restless sleep and the sluggish mornings. So maybe I won't welcome back quite the quantity that I bade farewell to.

Behind the Wall

There is a family. They have lived in the same apartment for a very long time. Their neighbors moved in about 7 1/2 years ago.

Some nights the shouting was impossibly loud. The banging. The young daughter came to the neighbors' door in tears to say that her brother was beating her mother.

The cops were called. And again.

Over the years, the shouting receded.

And then anew, different. Broken glass, and

A Silence That Chilled My Soul

The cops again.

The daughter is nearly a young woman now, and the mother's chronic illness makes it harder and harder for her to walk, though she always greets her neighbors with a cheerful voice and a smile so genuine it cannot be real.

In the elevator, another neighbor tells the news.

The son stepped off the roof last night after taking a bottle of pills.

If I had known years ago what I learned this week about NYC's social services and intervention programs for troubled families, I would have called a different number after 911. And again and again and again.

Maybe it would not have changed anything. But maybe it would have.

Please. If you hear the screaming. Call. 1-800-342-3720

Behind the Wall

Tracy Chapman

Last night I heard the screaming
Loud voices behind the wall
Another sleepless night for me
It won't do no good to call
The police
Always come late
If they come at all

Last night I heard the screaming
Loud voices behind the wall
Another sleepless night for me
It won't do no good to call
The police
Always come late
If they come at all

And when they arrive
They say they can't interfere
With domestic affairs
Between a man and his wife
And as they walk out the door
The tears well up in her eyes

Last night I heard the screaming
Then a silence that chilled my soul
Prayed that I was dreaming
When I saw the ambulance in the road

And the policeman said
"I'm here to keep the peace.
Will the crowd disperse?
I think we all could use some sleep."

Last night I heard the screaming
Loud voices behind the wall
Another sleepless night for me
It won't do no good to call
The police
Always come late
If they come at all

Mi nueva amor

Christmas was super this year. Just the right amount of tension and drama, just the right amount of giggles and cookies, just the right amount of children and wrapping paper and Manheim Steamroller.

Adam got some of the coolest schwag, chief amongst the haul being this beauty:

And I don't know what came over me, but I decided that I MUST learn how to play it. So he taught me three chords, I learned 'Louie Louie,' and it was like the first freebie from a dealer. I practiced and practiced and a week later was haltingly able to do 'Puff the Magic Dragon.' Still working on 'Big Blue Frog' (by the way, if you ever buy a kazoo at Sam Ash, make sure you tell the shopkeeper that you don't need a bag. You'd rather keep it warm in your pocket so it won't go out of tune) and can more or less muddle my way through 'Walking on Sunshine.'

Within a week and a half I decided that it wasn't fair to Adam to keep hogging his instrument, and besides, I found it a little too massive for my as-yet untrained fingers (that's what she said). So I got one of my own.

World, meet Juanita:

She's a 3/4 size guitar. 'Fun Size,' if you will. And the fact that I can play 'Head Shoulders Knees and Toes' and 'If You're Happy and You Know It' made me a rock star to the kids at Hudson Guild. Wait till they hear me wail on 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm.'

Here she is next to Adam's behemoth:

Adam says we'd better not leave them alone too much or we'll come home to an apartment full of ukeleles.

Family Portrait

Happy Holidays!!