east village mama

mama's got balls

2011-09-26T11:25:00.000-04:00

a Sunday afternoon project.
inspiration courtesy of Tiniest Kitchen,
the adorable new food blog of a friend.

missing miss america

2011-09-24T22:52:00.000-04:00

My beloved maternal grandmother would have been 84 today. She's been gone for three and a half years, and I still miss her like crazy. She lived well, loved hard, and didn't mince words.

Her nickname for me was "Miss America"--I'm not sure why. It was one of the many ways she always made me feel special.

scenes from life with boys

2011-09-23T21:13:00.000-04:00

"Plan A"
the boys Friday morning scheme to capture the cat

scenes from life with boys

2011-09-21T21:51:00.000-04:00

Rainy Wednesday night after soccer practice.
L train platform at Bedford Avenue.

september 12

2011-09-12T13:28:00.002-04:00

Beverly Mitchell via here is new york

For the weeks leading up to yesterday, I didn't want to remember. I acknowledge the losses, grieve for the families of the dead, recognize the sacrifices of the rescue and relief workers, and hope for the continued safety of my city. Two thousand and one is a lifetime ago. For most of us, life looks completely different than it did then, and I felt the need to stay firmly rooted in the present.

Despite all of this, late yesterday morning, I felt compelled to dig up an email I had written to friends and loved ones on September 17, 2001. I spent 20 minutes trying to remember the password on a long abandoned Hotmail account. As I reread the email, it all come flooding back, and I regretted that I had opened it. But, as I thought about it, I realized that that didn't make it unimportant. It serves as a time capsule for me and though it may, now, not be one I need to revisit, it is part of my narrative and the events that followed it have surely shaped my world in the last ten years. Some of my thoughts at that time are now riddled with irony. And, ten years later (and wiser?), with two children, I can't imagine I would venture that close to Ground Zero six days later.

I had forgotten many of the sights and smells described. I had forgotten the disdain I had been feeling for New York that previous summer. I had forgotten the deep commitment I felt to my NYU students that week and in the weeks after. Many of those "kids" now have spouses and families, remarkable careers and lives.

So, here it is. A window into my 26-year-old self and the only personal encounter with terrorism I hope to ever have. If that young woman could see what life would look like ten years later, she would be baffled. Just as I am baffled at her resilience and hope during a period of time I would now rather forget.

**************

When I woke this morning, I knew I had to get out of the house, of the neighborhood, out of the "skin" I've lived in for the last 5 days. Leighton and I talked about walking uptown to the Armory where people are reporting missing loved ones. Then, maybe up to Times Square where I've heard the display of flags is impressive.

Leighton and I like to walk, and we love to walk in New York City. Leighton has explored most every nook and cranny of this city on foot and on bike and he has taught me so much about my adopted hometown over the last (nearly) two years. This summer, as we prepared for a lot of schlepping through England, we walked several miles, several times a week, down the west side of the island along a beautiful greenway the city has created along the Hudson. This walk would take us down past a large boathouse and into a park and marina near and below the World Financial Center, on into Battery Park City. Battery Park is my favorite area of the city. It has the serenity of Central Park, but the added bonus of being located on the water with a wonderful view of the Statue of Liberty and sporadic, whimsical sculpture gardens.

This morning, I pulled out some photos of my dad's trip to New York in May of 1999. There are many of the Financial District and the lower Manhattan skyline from Ellis Island and the Staten Island Ferry. I have a couple looking up the WTC towers and the entrance to #5 WTC. There's a picture of the sweeping lobby near the TKTS booth that was located in the towers. We visited the observatory, and I have photos of all the views from that place.

As we prepared to leave today, one of our tenants (who is also a student) returned from a journey downtown. He has successfully negotiated his way below Canal Street and had seen areas of the destruction. Knowing it was possible to get into the vicinity, I felt I had to go. To see what I could see. To try to wrap my head around the reality of this thing that had happened so close to my home. I loaded my camera with film, and we left.

Today was a beautiful Saturday. Fall is in the air and the sun was shining brightly. Leighton and I would have been walking today no matter what the state of the world. There are flags everywhere. The further south we moved the more you could sense the police presence. It was easy to get below Canal Street as we wove our way through Chinatown where the markets were in full swing. We walked down several more blocks. We saw people of all shapes, sizes, ages and colors wearing their 4th of July best. More flags, ribbons, banners, posters. Some celebrating our country's unity, some mourning those that have fallen, some encouraging our firemen and other rescue heroes, some defiantly cursing those that brought this nightmare upon us.

It was difficult to see much "destruction". We could smell it though. It's electrical. Like burning rubber, wires, and metal. It smells toxic and alive. It comes in wafts in other areas of the city. It permeates the air down there.

We came into a neighborhood that seemed more ashen than others. We encountered police barricades and were clearly on the "perimeter". National guardsmen are everywhere. So are their trucks and their hummers. I took a picture of a uniformed guardsman, particle mask hanging around his neck, leaning against a sign that said "New York Stock Exchange" with an arrow pointing up the block into the part of the neighborhood beneath the smoke plume.

We rounded another corner and saw awnings, windows, ledges, and streets covered in a thin layer of dust. How far did it reach? We wandered all over lower Manhattan tracing the perimeter. It was like looking into a movie set. I had to keep reminding myself that I had spent time in these neighborhoods, done business in these neighborhoods, been a tourist in these neighborhoods, been a citizen here. We heard the sewers surging below the sidewalks. This made Leighton nervous. At one point, we were herded off the street we were standing on. Shortly after, the smoke seemed to darken and increase. We don't know what caused this. No additional collapses have been reported on the news.

We saw vehicles that were evidently dragged out of Ground Zero and left on the streets of TriBeCa. A Cadillac, a taxi, a Con Ed truck, police and fire vehicles. All were crushed and covered in ash and dust. Crushed. I can't explain it. I have photos.

As volunteer rescue workers staggered up Broadway, after presumably working a long shift, they were cheered. We continued west to Church Street. The perimeter line was at Reade Street. We were standing on the corner yards from the theatre where I worked during the summer of 1999. My mother, grandmother, and aunt stayed in a hotel a few blocks down from here. MaryAnn's on that corner makes a great post-show margarita. From this vantage point, we saw the small remaining skeleton of one of the Towers. You've seen this on the news.

Heading west to Greenwich Street, we were a short distance from the West Side Highway, which is being used as a primary access for rescue vehicles. There was a significant increase in the presence of rescue and utility workers. We stood on Greenwich Street and watched the smoke, the media, and the National Guardsmen using a bullhorn to keep New Yorkers on the sidewalks. We watched a petite woman in a Statue of Liberty costume, watched a young man carrying a flag like a Revolutionary War soldier, clapped for the firemen, and became weary. We decided to head uptown, and as we did we crossed the street and got a completely different view down Greenwich Street than we had had from our previous perch. What we think was World Trade #7 lay crumpled at the end of the avenue. It was incredible. The building was broken like a fallen soldier. Perhaps pictures can't tell the story of this disaster.

We continued uptown and recrossed Canal Street. Security on the west side was much tighter than where we had entered lower Manhattan on the east side. People had to show ID proving residence to get below this point. What about those people? We saw people pulling luggage north all day long. Where are they going? When will they return? What do you choose to take with you when you don't know how long you'll be gone? How many cats have owners that haven't returned since Tuesday morning?

As we came up into the West Village we saw, on the sidewalk, a pile of coats, helmets and shoes belonging to, probably, a dozen firemen. They all must have stripped down before entering a restaurant to eat and relax. We went and bought more film.

As you get out of the Financial District, there are flyers with pictures of missing people on them everywhere. Phone booths, windows, doors, light posts, trees. Everywhere. We encountered these throughout the evening and I can only believe that as we lose hope for these people's lives, the city itself will become a shrine to the dead. We will be surrounded by images of those who are gone. A woman in a wedding veil. Men with their children. Old ladies with their dogs. Beautiful people, young people, old people, black people, gay people, Asians, Arabs, Americans, New Yorkers.

We went and had some Chinese food. It was a quiet neighborhood and we were quiet while we ate.

I was feeling better when we left the restaurant. As we crossed through the Village, a police car escorted a large truck uptown. As it got closer I saw the truck had a lot of graffiti on its sides and on the panel over the cab it read "Bellevue Morgue". As the truck passed, I saw that the rear door was open and the truck was empty.

From downtown, the glow of the work lights is very eerie. The city grinds on while the tip of the island glows and smolders.

Everywhere we walked today, people spoke of only one thing. At one point we were walking near a woman speaking on a cell phone. Her young teenage daughter was with her. She was speaking to someone about her husband who must be part of the civilian rescue effort downtown. She was listing the things he needed...cash, his glasses, a
razor, socks, and a medium man's T-shirt. She also indicated that she knew people who were missing and that her daughter had friends whom were never picked up from school on Tuesday.

I thank God that I am not aware of anyone I know being missing. I have students and colleagues who saw the whole thing. 1,800 NYU students live below Canal Street. Some saw people leap to their deaths. Leighton saw the first tower come down. We had a clear shot of the towers from behind our work building. Friends in Brooklyn had pristine WTC stationary land on their roofs and streets. A student of mine has an uncle that works in Tower 1. He and his wife were in the Catskills on vacation. No one from his office has been located. There's the story of the CEO that took his son to school on Tuesday and was later than usual to work. No one from his company, including his brother, has been located. My stepfather owns a business. I cannot imagine the crushing blow of losing your entire team.

On a brighter note, there have been vigils, candles, singing, hugs, first conversations with neighbors, benefits, and first laughs. We will survive.

In recent months I have been a bit anti-New York: ready to think about being out of the race, the pollution, the mania. At this moment, there is nowhere in the world I would rather live. I do feel safe here, and I feel more connected to a community than I have ever felt. I struggle to justify my return to work and theatre making, but am finding solace in whatever routine and purpose we have been able to reconstruct over the past couple days.

You are all in my thoughts and I so appreciate that we have been in yours. Please take care of yourselves. Be with the ones you love, and tell them often that you love them.

Yours,
Bev

hiatus

2011-03-26T15:17:00.001-04:00

Dear Reader:
For reasons related to needing to finish out my education with gusto and other various personal goings-on, I'll be taking a break from EVM for an unknown period of time. Rest assured, I'll still be writing, and I will be back. I hope you'll check in from time-to-time to see if we've resumed broadcast, and if you put your email address in the subscription thingy down there on the right, you'll receive notification of the next post.

As always, you can reach me via eastvillagemama(at)gmail(dot)com.

Bev

back to the books

2011-03-21T00:16:00.000-04:00

I've been off the radar. Spring Break arrived here in NYU-land last week, and though I had great intentions of writing prolifically (and going to the gym and sleeping 9 - 10 hours/night), life got full and frenzied. The boys spent the week in Florida with their dad so I was footloose and fancy-free and, as with most vacations, now feel I need another just to recover. Or I need to get back to class so I can rest.

My week was packed to the gills with friends and adventures: some expected, some less so. As it is a rare gift that I should have the house to myself for five straight days, it was also a time of much-needed thinking and head-clearing. I'm not certain how much I accomplished, and the stress of the remaining five weeks of the semester feels as if it may have already overtaken any zen I might have danced around in those five quiet days. However, there were moments last week when I willed myself to remember that I was feeling peace and calm and centered. And some of those moments even came before happy hour!

In between those moments, I was subsisting on texted photos of these guys:

and trying to figure out how to miss them less while also rejoicing in the fact that I didn't trip on a single toy train, make a grilled cheese sandwich, or say "where does the poo poo go?" once all week.

because it's monday

2011-03-07T00:33:00.004-05:00

Times Square, July 1961. Source: Wired New York

People. It's Monday, it's March. In like a lion, baby....

I'm tired. I know, you are, too.

I'm in the midst of midterms.

I think I've started grinding my teeth.

Winter won't end, gas prices are skyrocketing, and Charlie Sheen is still an asshole.

My great respite today was reading to AJ and CT from "The Cricket in Times Square". Now, I'm as big a fan of JK Rowling as the next girl, but reading George Selden's tale of a (rural) cricket in the Big Apple reminded me of all e.e. cumming's kid lit and that these guys are really from an era-gone-by. We had started into Roald Dahl's "James and the Giant Peach" but when, after the first two pages, James' parents had been killed by a wild rhino and he'd been shipped off to live to two horrible aunts (way to preview that one, mom!), Auden informed me that we needed to read something else because "this is a little bit too upsetting". So we settled on a story of three talking animals and a young boy, in our hometown, at a time when eight year olds could man their parents' newsstand in the Times Square subway station on Saturday night, and the 1, 2, and 3 trains were still the IRT.

Shortly after his arrival, Chester the cricket ventures above the train station for his first view of Times Square:

...Above the cricket, towers that seemed like mountains of light rose up into the night sky. Even this late the neon signs were still blazing. Reds, blues, greens, and yellows flashed down on him. And the air was full of the roar of traffic and the hum of human beings. It was as if Times Square was a kind of shell, with colors and noises breaking in great waves inside it. Chester’s heart hurt him and he closed his eyes. The sight was too terrible and beautiful for a cricket who up to now had measured high things by the height of his willow tree and sounds by the burble of a running brook….

Gradually Chester’s eyes got used to the lights. He looked up. And way far above them, above New York, and above the whole world, he made out a star that he knew was a star he used to look at back in Connecticut. When they had gone down to the station and Chester was in the matchbox again, he thought about that star. It made him feel better to think that there was one familiar thing, twinkling above him, amid so much that was new and strange.

because it's monday (and i'm weather weary)

2011-02-28T21:45:00.004-05:00

Stephen Powers, 2011

I opened my eyes

And looked up at the rain,

And it dripped in my head

And flowed into my brain,

And all that I hear as I lie in my bed

Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.

I step very softly,

I walk very slow,

I can't do a handstand--

I might overflow,

So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said--

I'm just not the same since there's rain in my head.

--Shel Silverstein (1930 - 1999)

native son

2011-02-27T16:13:00.007-05:00

downtown number six train

I had the rare opportunity on Friday to spend much of the day with Auden. It was the last day of the public schools' mid-winter break, and he spent most of the week under the weather with fever. By Thursday, after mild complaints of ear pain, we had decided enough was enough and made a doctor's appointment for Friday morning. As always, the phone call was the best remedy and by Thursday night he seemed mostly well. I don't have class or clinical on Friday, so it had previously been decided we would spend the day together.

As the Mitchells are often (ok, always) 10 - 12 (ok, 20) minutes behind schedule, we headed out the door at 9:15 for a 9:30 appointment on 34th Street. There was a steady rain all morning and while it was not blowing sideways, it was substantial. As you may know or can imagine, getting a cab on First Avenue on a rainy Friday morning is as likely as getting a parking spot on Friday night. We drifted up to 12th Street trying to find a corner not already occupied by someone looking longingly, or desperately, into the uptown-bound traffic. After five minutes of waiting in vain, Auden patiently standing on the corner under his umbrella, he said,

"Mama, we should just take the bus."
"My Metrocard is dead", I replied.
"Do we have enough quarters?", he asked.

I dug through the wadded tissues, keys, and hair clips in my coat pockets and managed to scrounge nine quarters--exact change for bus fare. Auden is just past the cusp where he should be paying train and bus fare, but we continue to feign ignorance and confidently send him under the turnstile or down the bus aisle ahead of us. (You pay for kids based on height, and I just don't feel like I should be penalized that my kid is the tallest in his class.)

The bus stop was across the street and as we looked up we both recognized that a M15 was about to pull up to the corner. (Making sure we had the right of way) I grabbed his hand and we bounded back across 12th Street, dodging the puddles and the oncoming pedestrians, arriving at the stop just as the bus pulled up. An older woman with her pocketbook in the crook of her arm had been waiting there and as the bus door opened she suddenly seem to panic and said, "Oh, I dropped my change, can you please pick it up dear?" I bent to get her dime, but Auden beat me to hit handing it back to the woman: "Here you go!".

He waited for her to get on and then climbed the bus stairs, said "hello" to the driver and found two seats near the front of the bus. We chatted on the way to 34th Street, mainly about what a kook his brother is, that he is excited to get back to school next week, and happy he's feeling better. At 23rd Street, we moved to the back of the bus to allow the driver to load a wheelchair passenger on. We got off the bus at 34th Street, I opened his umbrella and handed it to him and we jogged across First Avenue as the crossing signal was flashing.

Once we got into the doctor's office he answered all her questions and agreed with the assessment that he's probably healing on his own, but that we should get a prescription for medicine just in case he got worse over the weekend. We left the building, back into the rain, and walked the four avenue blocks to the #6 train at 33rd and Park. We had decided to go to the movies but had to trek to the Upper East Side to make a showtime that would jive with our schedule for the rest of the day. When the train pulled up to the platform he waited while the exiting riders passed and then found a seat near a window, which he and Colton both prefer so they can watch the stations whiz by. We rode to 86th Street, back into the rain, and found our way to the theater.

After the film and a potty stop we were back in the rain and on the #6 train downtown. On this trip the trains were busier and we had to stand in a pretty dense crowd. We were in the first car, which tends to lurch on take off, but Auden managed to find sure footing and handled it without a problem.

Anyone who spends time with Auden regularly recognizes that he has undergone an enormous amount of emotional growth and maturity since his sixth birthday. He is coming into his own, making decisions about what is important to him, and making choices about his behavior. This is not unusual development for a boy his age, and it certainly makes life a lot easier as a parent (if only for a moment before the rush of hormones begins). It's rare that I get time with Auden alone. Typically when we're together we have Colton in tow, and he still requires a lot of attention and corralling. But as we rode the train to Astor Place I was able to look at Auden, without distraction, and recognize that he is also coming into his own as a New Yorker. His experience as a city kid is very distinct from the suburban upbringing I had and while his dad is a city kid through and though, New York is a very different town than it was "back then". And, as most of you know, there is a special brand of finesse, muscle, and agility that negotiating the city requires. (That said, while I can tote a loaded stroller up three flights of subway stairs, I could never successfully navigate a Target with two kids on a Saturday afternoon. We all have our own challenges.)

It took me a long time to truly feel comfortable in New York and to know how to work with the city rather than against it. When I first arrived, there were many days I felt as if the city had "won". I still occasionally have those days but, mostly, the city works for me. For Auden, this dance is innate as it is all he knows. And while I don't love that trash on the sidewalk outside his house is a norm, I totally dig that he's unfazed by the woman in a burka on the bus.

When we arrived at Astor Place he took my hand and we walked up the stairs to the street and I appreciated that he had managed himself under an umbrella all day. Never complaining and never whacking himself, me, or other passersby.

We walked toward home and as we crossed east on 10th Street between Second and Third Avenues, he suddenly pointed at the ground three feet in front of me and said, "Mama! Watch out for the poop!". Charming, I know, but that's the city equivalent of throwing your arm across your kid's chest when you have to stop too quickly while driving. Only he did it for me.

other people's stories

2011-02-23T01:21:00.002-05:00

Christopher Silas Neal via The New York Times

I'm going to drop this into the sidebar, but this is a link to a new series in the Well Blog of the NY Times Health section. Dr. Peter Bach is a physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center whose wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Here he begins to tell his story of crossing over from health care professional to patient.

because it's monday

2011-02-22T01:42:00.002-05:00

I forgot it was Monday. Technically, it's now Tuesday. Oops. Three-day weekends and all.

Auden has been convalescing with fever for three days, I was down with stomach funk on Sunday, we got three more inches of snow, and I'm looking down the barrel of a ton of work this week, that I had planned to spend the weekend getting ahead on....

I had a phone conversation with a friend today who has received some unsettling lab results and will require further follow-up. I found out today that a woman I was friends with in college died two weeks ago with a condition normally attributable to a person much older than she was. I've not been in touch with her in the fifteen years since we graduated, but have felt sadness well up nonetheless. But, after these two discoveries, suddenly my "lost" weekend didn't seem like such a big damn deal.

We're all familiar with these perspective-offering moments that usually show up when we least expect them, but most benefit from them. So, despite everything in that first paragraph that might have been the story I told of this weekend, let me offer you this:

My dear friend from school, Erin, took and passed her nursing board exam on Friday and is now an RN. Colton and I spent a delightful few hours this afternoon in Brooklyn at the beautiful home of a friend who is fabulous enough to invite a bunch of winter-weary 3-year-olds (and their winter-wearier parents) for a grand afternoon playdate. I've discovered the best remedy for my winter blues is to turn the boys loose with Photo Booth on my laptop and check out the pictures after they go to bed.

So, these are the things that got me through my Monday.

admire

2011-02-16T15:52:00.000-05:00

Check out this video about the work of my clinical instructor at Memorial Sloan Kettering, Wayne Quashie. A colleague of mine found it on the Sloan site and I've no idea how Wayne would feel about my further publicizing it here...

Wayne's a tough guy to read on first meeting, but I think you'll see why I've got a little bit of hero worship going on.

http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/100747.cfm

More on yesterday's patient over the weekend....

because it's monday (v-day edition)

2011-02-14T23:29:00.001-05:00

six things that got me through the last 18 hours…

**the irony (did anyone else get it?) that at 8:30am on Valentine's Day morning my Critical Care class was reviewing cardiac arrythmias (aka: broken hearts).

**the fire in my belly, my heart, and my head after doing some writing over the weekend about the way in which my education is beginning to make things gel and help me to see very clearly the work I want to focus on and the path I want to pursue.

**the email from my clinical instructor letting me know the profile on my patient at Sloan Kettering tomorrow (I know, you'll think I'm crazy. But this is the sexiest thing that will happen to me all week):
Diagnosis: Stage IV Colorectal Cancer. Status-post emergency perforated sigmoid repair 1/30/11.
History: HTN (hypertension), DM (diabetes), trigeminal neuralgia, liver mets (cancer metastasis), BPH (enlarged prostate)
Meds: Colace, Enoxaparin, Entecavir, finasteride, Fluconazole, Metoprolol, Piperacillin/Tazobactam, Morphine Sulfate

**the 2.5 hours spent with my friend Jean (rather than studying) catching up, sighing, rolling eyes and laughing (a lot).

**paul simon

**breakfast for dinner with my two favorite valentines, and this enthusiastic attempt at heart-shaped pancakes (just like mom used to make us)....and the realization that there are some things you'll just never do as good as mom.

v-day

2011-02-14T18:24:00.009-05:00

Venus and Cupid
Diego Velazquez (1599 - 1660)

Yeah, so I kind of left you hanging there....

I had a whole plan for the "week of v-day" project and then got hung up trying to write a post about what I feel it is to be a girl/woman in America today. It's a fraught subject for me and I couldn't write my way through it, so I walked away.

I got this far:

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it is to be a girl. About how it shapes expectations, responsibilities, power dynamics and opportunity. About how all of those factors shape our roles as partners and mothers and lovers and caretakers and nurturers. As I roam the campus of NYU and see swarms of women receiving high quality, high dollar educations, I certainly recognize we've come a long way from my mother's generation for whom opportunities, despite the advancements of feminism, could remain limited. But underneath these cultural and societal gains lie the ongoing politics of girlhood/womanhood....

I'll get back to it at some point. My main point in writing on this was to get around to letting you know about (or reminding you about) this organization:

V-Day, a movement to end violence against women and girls, started as groups of college girls on campuses all over the US mounting productions, on Valentine's Day, of Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues in order to raise money for efforts to stop this specific kind of violence. This started after I finished undergrad, but I can remember groups of women at NYU making me crazy at the beginning of every February looking for space and resources for these productions. What began as a popular activity for politically and socially aware university women (and a few men) has now become an international movement.

Check V-Day out HERE.

And (especially for all you mamas and papas of little (and not so little) girls), check out this VIDEO that fronts the webpage for V-Girls, a V-Day program designed to engage young women in an empowerment philanthropy model, "igniting their activism and providing them with a platform to amplify their voices". It's a well-made piece of media and Ensler's words (from I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around The World) are powerful. It captures for me the politics and the pressures of girlhood and becoming a young woman. I already see it happening on the playground with the girls in 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade....

a week of v-day: writing on the wall

2011-02-09T12:08:00.011-05:00

Check out graffiti artist ESPO's Love Letter project in Philadelphia. See comment below for more info.

a week of v-day: smitten

2011-02-08T00:08:00.007-05:00

a week long ode to that wily rascal, cupid

From orkposters.com via Street Anatomy.

Jam Tart

--W.H. Auden

I'm a jam tart, I'm a bargain basement,

I'm a work of art, I'm a magic casement,

A coal cellar, an umbrella, a sewing machine,

A radio, a hymn book, an old french bean,

I don't know what I am,

You've cast a spell on me.

I'm a dog's nose, I'm Sir Humphrey Davy,

I'm a Christmas rose, I'm the British Navy,

A motor, a bloater, a charcoal grill,

An octopus, a towpath, Hindenburg's will,

A villiage fair, a maiden's prayer, the BBC, a pram –

I don't know what I am,

You've cast a spell on me.

I'm a salmon, I'm a starting pistol,

I'm backgammon, I'm the Port of Bristol.

A Times leader, a child's feeder, an aspirin,

The Ritz Hotel, a boy scout, the wages of sin,

A shaving brush, a schoolgirl's crush, the letter B, a ham –

I don't know what I am,

You've cast a spell on me.

I'm an off–break, I'm a clump of beeches,

I'm a tummy ache, I'm Mussolini's speeches,

I'm Balmoral, I'm a sorrel mare, I'm a tug

A cigarette, an organ, a big bed–bug

A traffic sign, a rubber mine, a coffee tree, O damn –

I don't know what I am,

You've cast a spell on me.

because it's monday

2011-02-07T23:32:00.004-05:00

from the human calendar

six things that got me through the last 14 hours…

**walking out the door with no gloves and an unzipped coat (and choosing to ignore all the chatter about tomorrow’s forecast)

**approaching the corner of 2^nd Avenue and 9^th Street, I watched a very attractive man in his late 20’s step out of a limo, the door being held by his uniformed driver. He wore a beautiful suede coat and expensive dress shoes. He stopped on the sidewalk, glanced up at the blue sky contemplatively, and walked into Veselka, a popular Ukranian restaurant.

“What a prick!”, I thought. “He has a lot of nerve flaunting his affluence in this economy (especially in this neighborhood).”

Then I looked up, across 2^nd Avenue, and saw the television production crew filling the entire block from 9^th Street to 8^th Street, cameras pointing at Veselka.

**the guy who stopped me in the lobby of Silver Building to hand back the $10 bill that had fallen out of my coat pocket.

**an email from my dear friend, SB, reminding me how fantastic it is to be a work-in-progress.

**in spite of it already being the the 3^rd week (of only 12!) of the semester, I finally feel on top of everything I have happening.

**the fact that I was able to write this list before I even got to lunch.

scenes from life with boys

2011-02-02T23:44:00.000-05:00

me:

good night, auden. i missed you today while you were at school and i was at school.

(we do this routine every night)

auden:

i missed you too, mama.

me:

how much do i love you?

auden:

as much as the moon and the stars and all the planets.

me:

you better believe it, buddy.

auden:

mama?

me:

yeah, baby?

auden:

can i tell you something?

me:

of course you can.

auden:

i just farted.

because it's monday

2011-01-31T14:34:00.003-05:00

Click HERE to see it on youtube

snow day 2011

2011-01-27T23:39:00.001-05:00

It was another crazy snow storm in NYC, but a snow day off for all of us. All the white stuff you see here has quickly turned to drippy, grey slush this afternoon and evening, but the morning was glorious. The pictures tell the rest:

first day of school

2011-01-24T23:23:00.003-05:00

It was a rocky first day but everybody survived, and I even got in a trip to the gym.

Rather than bore you with those details, I wanted to share with you the six things that got me through the last 18 hours.

...this cup of coffee. because it helped me survive an 8:00am class and it was free because my favorite coffee guy had missed me during the fall semester.

...this poster, found on the side of a campus building. because sometimes NYC is just so random.

.....this red library stool. because all the others are black plastic.

...this typo (it's from my Critical Care course syllabus--you know, critical care, the kind of work Intensive Care Unit nurses might do). because it made me laugh.

...this study carrel in Bobst Library. because it's tucked in a quiet, hidden corner, and no one seems to have discovered it.

...this bottle of wine. because, well, because it's Monday.

an addendum on snow

2011-01-22T02:15:00.003-05:00

Ok, so I'm obviously down on the snow.

I picked up AJ and CT today and we decided to go to the park as they'd been unable to go all week, and surviving Friday nights without a good bit of physical activity under their belts is usually a recipe for disaster (and, therefore, too much wine for mama). As we walked from AJ's school to the park, many of the kids began playing in, throwing and rolling in the still-fresh powder along the sidewalks near the school. As I watched them I considered the fact that most of us grown-ups in NYC wear dark, drab winter coats. Meanwhile, we dress our children in bright coats and accessories. Yes, ok, Auden has a grey coat, but his turquoise and royal blue hat is a show stealer. Colton wears a bright yellow "Despicable Me" hat primarily so I can spot him in a crowd.

As I watched the kids play on the snow-covered playground we reside in nearly every afternoon after school, I was struck by how beautiful all the bright colors are against the white snow in the late-afternoon sun. It was one of those moments where you rediscover a space you know far too well (that normally makes you far too crazy) in a completely new way.

Color inspires me.

You gotta take it where you can get it this time of year.

four more inches

2011-01-21T11:28:00.005-05:00

Good morning, New York! Another coating to cap off the week. I woke just before seven to watch the fat flakes fall in the blue light of early morning. It was silent, just before the scraping symphony of the shoveling would begin. I found myself briefly regretful of all of my ire and wrath about our winter weather.

By the time I had Colton bundled up, out the door, through the mounds of snow and ice, to school, unbundled, shoes changed (to a barrage of complaints about wet feet and legs), I was, again, over it. My desire that it be spring is hardly unique, and I find there to be a certain solidarity on the street that is uplifting. Nothing brings New Yorkers together like all being pissed off at things we have no one in particular to complain to about.

Today is the end of the world's longest academic winter break. I'm finding myself anxious to return to school as well as anxious about the return to school. This is the home stretch--it's all over (or, rather, all begins) at the end of April. It's to be a very full, busy, and stamina-stretching few months, but I've certainly had the time through this (extended) holiday season to psych myself up for it. I attended an orientation for my final hospital rotation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center yesterday. The place certainly feels like The Ritz relative to many of the other sites where I've trained, but it's clear the institution lives up to its reputation. I'll be working on a post-op colorectal unit (which is exactly as glamorous as it sounds), but the instructor is a staff member, clearly held in very high regard, who has already made it clear we're to get a run for our money. Bring it, bring it, bring it, I say.

On Monday the whole rhythm of my days, the week, the house, and life changes, at least for the next three months. Calendars have been exchanged, child care arrangements made, syllabi printed and, on Monday, we're out of the gate like a shot. The really good news is that, heaven willing, when the finish line is crossed at the beginning of May, the weather may be warm.

I've enjoyed spending more time here in the last week and hope I'm able to keep up my consistency of posting into the next phase of things. People have asked me if "catharsis, part one" will be followed by a "part two" and the answer is "yes". That's all I know about it. Keep visiting, keep in touch.

how we roll

2011-01-19T00:05:00.005-05:00

Old Man Winter must be one pissed-off dude. We woke on Tuesday to sleet and a layer of ice on everything (including my fire-escape-garden ivy), but by the time the boys went to school it was raining with all the ice turning to slush.

It came down through the late morning and early afternoon. As 2:40, and the time to head out and pick up the boys, neared, I prayed it would stop, but to no avail. One of the many things I love about living in New York is the ability to survive without a car. I haven't been a car-owner in almost 13 years and don't miss it a bit. But when the task at hand is to....

pick up two young kids
one at 2:50p and one at 3:00p
almost half a mile apart
traversing, on foot, through rain & slush & cold & puddles that resemble lochs
and Kid A is in an umbrella stroller (just cause he'll never walk quickly enough)...

all a girl wants is an SUV. Or just a little hatch-back. Seat warmers would be fine, too.

So, we improvise and usually get through it with promises of hot chocolate and movies on arrival at home. Today everyone was content to have their pants thrown in the dryer and then put them back on toasty warm.