Barely tenured

Toddler fashion

I. We will be going to a funeral this weekend, for a distant relative of Beaker's. After much consultation with the in-laws, we've decided to bring Miss T., of course expecting that she'll spend most of the service walking around a vestibule with a parent.

But what should she wear? I was thinking, solid colored dress or jumper, something dark but not too dark, maybe navy or burgundy corduroy? White tights, white shirt with collar if it's a jumper. You know, nice clothes, the kind of thing we might have worn to church on an ordinary fall Sunday back in the day, or like I remember all the 2-year-old girls wearing to Box-o-Tots back when Miss T. started there as an infant. (Really, they did. Even Beaker noticed the dresses, approvingly.)

We have lots of dresses for Miss T., but they all, and I mean every single one, are silly. Bright stripes, big flowers, ruffles, all three at once.

Serious dresses for a toddler? Almost cannot be found. I have tried. Baby Gap has one possibility, but all the other usual suspects, and lots of less-usual suspects, let me down. Everything out there is informal-silly, or bohemian-dippy, or baby-ho, or Christmas-velvet-and-taffeta, or flower-girl-princess, or pageant-ready (gack!).

I ordered from Olive Juice finally. We had a catalog from them deep in the recesses of our junk mail pile. Mostly the lifestyle implications of the catalog worry me a lot. But for right now: it's exactly what I was looking for. We'll see if they can pull off express shipping, and we'll see what the junk mail impact is---it is worrying that Google hit number 4 for "olive juice kids" was an offer to rent their mailing list.

II. Miss T. has crazy wavy hair like her dada. Despite my pre-birth resolutions to keep it cut short enough to not need combing until she was old enough to request otherwise, it's only been trimmed once. No bangs, either. Essentially all the hair on top of her head wants to fall in her face, so we'd have to cut an awful lot for it to be helpful.

Instead, she wears little ponytails. Sometimes one on top, mostly one on either side. Even when she's asleep. We let them loosen until hair is getting in her face again, then redo.

Often she comes home from Box-o-Tots with very sharp hair. Nice clean part lines all around each ponytail, hair pulled tight and flat over her scalp, bands wrapped more times than we can manage. On the one hand, this is great! Usually it lasts overnight, even! On the other hand, does this mean they think I'm a neglectful parent, who can't even manage her little daughter's hair? Also, I think they're using hairspray -- I can smell it -- which seems a little weird.

Recently Miss T. has started protesting violently when parents try to fix her hair. She'll let us put barrettes in -- they don't stay! -- but not ponytails. So her hair is even messier when we send her off, and the contrast when she comes home even stronger. I try to tell myself that women who have chosen with work with small children for a living probably like playing with little girls' hair. (But they probably also like noticing the little ways in which their charges' parents lose it...)

III. At dinner last night, Miss T. announced "I not a baby. I Beeta." Since then she's consistently answered "No!" to "Are you a baby?" and "Yes!" to "Is Beeta a little girl?" I'm so not ready.

Afterwards

I. The Yarn Harlot has gone to New Orleans. I'm not entirely sure why her post seems so worth reading that I'm linking from here, not the knitting side. Perhaps because so much of what we hear about New Orleans now is quasi-technical: it's about the specifics of the aftermath, what have the insurance companies failed to do, how many people have left, what does pundit x think should have been done differently by agencies y and z and what they should do differently in the future. This is just a Canadian with a camera going there on book tour, but she gives a little bit of the big picture, somehow.

II. We have a famous emeritus visiting us from New York. Giving talks about the days when giants walked the earth (at least in Los Alamos and Princeton). He's old enough that he came here from Europe, as a schoolboy, in the aftermath of World War II. Turns out we went to the same high school in the city, as have some of his grand-nieces and -nephews. But as soon as the name of the school was mentioned, he started talking about what the students, including his relatives, had gone through, had seen and heard, on September 11.

This year we collectively seem to have become sort of embarrassed about remembering. How big should commemorations be? Isn't it awful how every blogger under the sun needs to tell you where they were, and what they felt, on that day? But I was struck by how the topic had come up so naturally, so inevitably, for someone who had lived through some of the epic horriblenesses of the twentieth century. He lives in Manhattan, and he's watched his relatives grow up there. Perhaps he worries about how they'll be remembering their youth?

(Perhaps I'm just oversensitized; I'm coming up to the end of The Emperor's Children, and various crucially important events are all planned for September 10 through 13, 2001. Don't tell me anything. Please.)

But what about the archives?

I am sad about TimesSelect going away.

Let me explain. For many years I've been paying for Nanna's Sunday Times subscription. For most of those years home delivery wasn't available in Granolaton. Every month my credit card statement would have a little reminder of just how far out in the boonies I'm living. Yes, I can read it online (and I do), but it's not the same as having an actual paper along with my coffee in the morning.

Then Times Select came along. I got access to it for free, thanks to the paper subscription that I paid for (and that up until then had just been making me bitterer and bitterer). And sure, the columnists, whatever. But, the ARCHIVES! The search tools really sucked, but still. No nickel-and-diming per article. Just click right on through. Oh, I loved that access. From my point of view: I never had to send in money I wasn't going to spend anyway, and I was suddenly able to read all sorts of stuff that had been behind a paywall before.

Now I can get the Sunday paper delivered to my door. I'm less angsty about giving the company money overall. But the new system for the website? Only opens the archives back to 1987. Which SUCKS!

UPDATE: Jody went and actually read the fine print; see her comment below. Those of us who send them money for the dead tree version still get our 100 archive articles per month, it turns out. YAY!

Strangely, I got a piece of junk mail from the Times this morning, the paper kind of junk mail, addressing me as "Dear Former Subscriber" and outlining the new set of paper-subscriber online benefits... the New Yorker has been good about applying discount offers to extend our current subscription, but I fear that the Times will start sending two papers, and double-billing, if I try to sign up for this $3.25 per week for 6 months offer.

Smell the, uh, redwoods

I know how startled everyone was when their parents suddenly got e-mail. Heck, I'm still startled to see my mother-in-law hovering on my buddy list, in between students whose usernames might as well be pierced and tattooed. But to get e-mail from Ray's little brother (yes, the one who is willing to take him in, but lives in a tiny apartment and has lung cancer) who I most remember from a long ride in a VW bug in about 1978, coming down from Humboldt State Park back to Marin, 5 adults and 3 kids all in the bug because the minibus had broken down... well, at least the style doesn't jar those memories in the slightest.

Hello Emma:

I have such fond memories of you as a child, it blows my mind to check out your present incarnations, websites, et al., Emma. And also, congratulations on the creation of Tabitha. Yes, Ray's a Grandpa, isn't he? Tee hee, tee hee. My gal has a 3 year old granddaughter who refers to me as "Grampa" and it is so very endearing. And we all know how Ray absolutely adores little girls, as well we all should!!

So Emmy, without getting into the dynamics of your present relationship with your Dad, your response to all this has been so suddenly heartwarming and refreshing. As regards rental costs, once anyone gets shy of either coast, the monthly output decreases. Ray receives an automatic deposit to his bank account of about $900 or so monthly. I would like to assure you, Emma, that neither Jon nor myself had anything concrete planned as yet. No airline reservations have been made and no movers lined up. Lots of ducks hovering just above the water, ready to get into a row. Yet fowl have been known to suddenly change direction without even skimming the surface of the water and fly off in formation for a different place altogether.

Here where I reside, is the home of a State University, we have a wonderful new library and so it seemed that Ray might be somewhat stimulated, albeit it ain't no Manhattan. We were all at a loss for where Ray might like to reside and just exactly what kind of care he really needs. And yes, as I type, we are still awaiting the state ID for purposes of travel. Regardless, I am still available to travel to NYC to assist in any way I can.

This really is all about Ray and where he could resume a more struggle-free lifestyle and rejoin his natural joy of nature, birds, life and love. I leave you with the words of John Lennon who once wrote, "...there's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be, it's easy. All you need is Love", Ken

I've been pricing apartments, thinking about what's really within walking distance, trying to find out about services for seniors. And panicking.

Continued murkiness

I talked with Ray yesterday. He sounded better than Barb and Jon had made him out to be; perhaps our conversations have had so many omissions for so many years now that I just couldn't tell. He was vague and abashed. Everyone said he can tell when he's having short-term memory problems, and it's true, he can. He says he noticed his hand tingling as he was walking past St. Vincent's and went to the emergency room. They only kept him one night. No one can tell me how long ago that was.

I can't tell how solid the plan to move in with his younger brother Ken is. I haven't spoken with Ken. Barb pointed out in email today that, even if they have a plan, it won't do much good if Ken up and dies. There seems to be a functional deadline of the end of the month. Ray can't fly until he gets a state ID, and that's when it's expected.

I've done a little poking around for information on rentals here. Barb seems very interested. I was afraid to even mention the possibility to Ray. Jon thought it would overwhelm him, after all the effort that's gone into convincing him to go back to California.

Meanwhile, I tried calling Nana. She refused to come to the phone. Uncle Ricky sounded depressed and angry as he told me that her palpitations have been getting worse and they're taking her to her cardiologist on Monday.

------------------------

Oh, and Beaker got called away on a business trip again -- two hours between the call and when he got on a plane to California, maybe back Saturday, more likely Tuesday -- and Miss T. has a cold and is covered in horribly swollen mosquito bites, most noticeably around her eyes (think bar fight aftermath).

Tomorrow is her second birthday. For which she'll get early dropoff, late pickup, and cupcakes made from a Betty Crocker mix, all at Box-o-Tots.

Teaching Ergo 101 again

It's been nearly seven years since I did. Back then I taught a whole lot of sections; it was how my department tried to make my life easier, by giving me lots of reruns early on. Yes, it's a service course, but a place to recruit majors too.

I like teaching first-years. They're so hopeful! You can get them to try anything! (Let's not think too hard about how that's probably even more true outside the classroom...) And during my first three or four years, I got to watch lots of students come in and grow and change (the haircuts! the confidence!) and graduate.

I'm teaching 101 again now. Back in the day I'd put together a pretty structured course, including a sharply choreographed first day: introductions, breakout groups, mini-presentations, discussions. So much activity planned, in fact, that it's now clear that going through the syllabus and expectations only used to take me 10 minutes.

This time around? 35 minutes. Yes, faculty grow and change too, and not always for the better. Those mini-presentations will happen at our, um, next meeting.

It's been way too long

Here's the e-mail I got from Ray's half-sister yesterday:

Hello Emmie:

I tracked you down on the Internet. I hope you and your family are well. It's been a long time.

I wanted you to be aware of what's going on with Ray. He had a stroke a few months ago. He is OK, but definitely slowing down. His balance is off and he has difficulty maintaining thought patterns. Obviously, he is no longer able to live in a 5 floor walkup. Unfortunately, he had to stop his freelance work and thus is struggling financially. His friend Jon has been to visit him often and to help out. We have decided that there is no other solution than to move him to California...which he has slowly and resistently resigned himself to. We are looking for low income housing for him. We hope that he can continue to live alone, but this is difficult to access until we see him. Ken will be flying to NY in late September to accompany him back to CA.

My best to you....and sorry for the difficult news about Ray.

Love,
Barb

Jon is an old old friend; they worked at the same small publisher for a long time. Ken is another half-sibling, much younger, but with lung cancer himself.

I haven't seen Ray since we visited when Miss T. was two months old. We've spoken maybe three times since then. I've tried calling today, but Jon tells me that he's screening calls because of bill collectors... or maybe he's just out birdwatching, this lovely afternoon.