changing identities for the evening

So you are invited to a party. Who would you like to be for the night?
a)Clarice Lispector



b)Viera da Silva


c)Julia Kristeva


d)Eva Hesse


e)Carson McCullers



f)Gayatri Spivak


g)Angela Davis


h)Yourself

i)Someone else

I wonder what it would be like to write, create art, or interact as someone else. How would I see and experience things differently?

whales on the bed, community living

The whale stickers remind me of the time with Cary and her whale friends at SeaWorld.

Bedtime has gotten to be hard. Last week, our downstairs neighbor pounded on the ceiling two nights in a row when Marcello was up late sick, making me especially uptight about any sounds of dropping or moving furniture. I know this has changed our comfort level, and nights have become a struggle to sleep. More stories, cut my nails, and more juice are all delay tactics. So last night I tried to introduce the idea of sleeping like Ccs together. We fell asleep eventually.

From what I understand, whales swim in pods and many are matriarchal. I know much of this from conversations with Cary. My Aunt Bobbi, Cary's mom, was a brilliant community builder and activist. She was a truly visionary urban planner (& before the term existed). I clearly remember her humor and her take charge attitude, even though it has been 25 years since the end of her long struggle with cancer. She knit her family and community together.

It seems that my note to my neighbor had an effect. She is no longer banging at night. However, my behavior has been changed...I would like to be an agent of change and continue to create community in my building as much as I can.

Oranges on Tiles

So much like Gabriel Orozco. . .
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I came into the kitchen to find a surprise.

Here are some quotes: I want meat gloves. [Must be his Peruvian side.]
(Feeling my hair)These are feathers in the sky.

Milky Experiment

Last night Marcello wanted chocolate milk, but he weirdly requested the kind with the cow on it. It seems that the brandname gods have gotten to him in the organic milk marketing. So Mariano suggested that I draw a picture and put it on a cup and put my mixed up milk and chocolate in it. It worked like a charm.

Ampersand

I asked Marcello for his thought of the day to which he replied: &.

His other quote is when his papa asked about what he had in the lunchbox, cookies? Those are letters!

We used cookie cutter letters to make our gingerbread cookies today thanks to the friends in 4f!

thankgiving day on the way to & in Queens

thanks

There are so many thanks to give

to our families in Miami, California, Venezuela, New York, Peru and elsewhere--les queremos mucho we love you so much and are so grateful that you are there to love and support us

for our good health

for the abundance we enjoy (including working refrigeration)

to our friends that share so much with us (ideas like putting vicks vapor rub on Marcello's feet so he breathes easily with his cold)

for those in our lives who have taught us--our fellow critics pushing us in the right ways

to those who advocate for justice, equality, freedom and struggle against war and neglect

to artists who inspire with social action and by making our world more astonishingly beautiful

for our educations that have allowed us at times to find and make meaningful work

for the lessons of creative discovery we are learning from and with Marcello

for the beautiful environment we live in with so many trees and greenspace

for the close proximity of NYC and Brooklyn with all kinds of culture

for the conversations and support of one another during trying times

for Mayan Chocolate Haagen Dazs ice cream

Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire

A great chapter title from the Hobbit, which my mom read to our class (she was my teacher in 5th and 6th grades and principal in 8th), and it reflects our plumbing situation with regard to the flooding. Our unit evidently is the cause of some flooding on our front bathroom line now all the way down to 3K. We are getting a licensed plumber ASAP. I guess this is life in 6K--a nice view comes with plumbing issues.

sick day

Marcello is home with a cold and wants to see Sesame Street clips on youtube this morning. We got rid of the tv a while back. I indulged him and watched the strange genius of animation that was made in the 80s. The clip shows a country scenes, jazzy city scenes, and then a Mexican mariachi plaza version. These rich visual images with music are so satisfying to him. He also enjoys the slapstick of Groover.

I generally don't watch much besides videos, and I don't mind so much if he hears his dad listening to media in Spanish. How powerful the medium of television--really the content is what is questionable at times because it is so seductive and subliminal. I want to teach him to talk about and talk back to ways of representing or what resists representation.

Film is. .

King? Art? If you can think of something better voice it here [ ]. . .

Anyway, it was exciting to get a copy of A Working Man's Apocrypha in the mail last night from my Dad (aka Papa John). The film stars Sarah Beynon (aka Mana & Sally) as a retired widow and is the story of her relationship with John who is the caretaker of her ranch. He writes a running journal or instructions for his replacement, after his death. It is based on the story by William Luvaas, an interesting narrative.

ñ and K

As Marcello was going to sleep tonight, he was muttering about the letter R that he wanted me to make him out of railroad track. I actually did. At least he didn't demand I make the ñ. Mañana.

We heard that 4K may the root of the flooding problem. We've now met all the K people in the building. Funny. Marcello ordered me to make a K out of Flubber (Borax, glue, and blue food coloring thanks to Nanette) in the bathtub.

building lego letters

arg!

daddy love

sleeping ny yankees fan

creating blueberries in alphabet shirt

rocket socket pjs

maybe another day

I will post some photos of Marcello in his monkey gloves. For now, I am so happy to get some recent shots up of the boy.

snowy day

It's snowing! Marcello let me pull an extra shirt on before the beloved baseball shirt as he was distracted by the fluffy flakes floating outside his window.

I am so relieved that I don't have to go into the city today. Statistics homework on sampling is my project today.

We are still not using our kitchen sink as we are figuring out the cause of the flooding down in 4K, 3K, & 2K. Because 5K does not have flooding we did not yank out our cabinets, countertop, etc in search of the problem. What a relief (even if just temporary)!

I wish I had taken photos of Olyvia's birthday party yesterday where there was face painting. Stella got the coolest ninja turtle mask. It looked very striking and was not at all princess-like. Marcello opted for a ladybug with 3 spots on one hand and a golden and yellow flower (very specific about his colors) on the other. He discovered marshmellows (the birthday girl actually calls him that) and ate quite a few candy stars too while decorating a cupcake. He and Henry tangled in a wrestling/love embrace and banged on the piano quite a bit. Sleet falling, I had dragged Marcello to the fiesta, and it was so worth that effort.

Drain debacle, Uncle Bear

Late last night, around midnight, I finished embroidering the alphabet on a soft green shirt that Marcello wanted a Z on.

I knew Mariano was going to wake up early to get a snake for our kitchen sink that would not drain. After it was snaked, the water was leaving the sink so quickly Mariano quipped that it was going with velocity! What we did not know what that our branch pipe had broken and we flooded the floors below us. . . A rather grim picture presents itself now. Tomorrow we have to somehow yank out the cabinets in order to fix that pipe. Along with it countertop, possibly tile from the backsplash will be altered. Nothing major, just stuff. But without enough sleep, everything appears larger.

I am trying to move through the world cautiously, aware that actions have effects that are unpredictably written constantly.

My brother suggested maybe it was not the best time to read Satre. Good old Uncle Bear may be coming out to visit this coast in the new year! John is the best. We seem to both be slightly melancholy about the upcoming holidays that we are not celebrating together.

essence of change

Quick essence of recent changes.

Marcello is starting this week in a program in a small afternoon class and will be going daily for a few hours. This is in addition to his mornings at the Playhouse. What will happen there for him? We are giving it a try and observing how it is for him.

We moved up to floor 6 after renovating, and things are good. We just need a working frig--they are coming on Thursday--and internet connection that I have become too dependent on. It is kind of nice to be unplugged as well.

Last night M and I made cookies at his request. The chocolate obsession continues.

We are enjoying the trees and the leaves even as it gets cold. We have lots of leafiness from floor 6--a lit gold tree stands out from the view from M's room that is the color of some of our walls.

Attending a symposium on educational equity, lots of policy people think standards and getting rid of bad teachers will make things happen. So many subtle differences are not really addressed in the language of policy that is linked to the quantifiable and measured. I do believe we have to do things on macro and micro levels and move back and forth between them.

long distance love

This is a big appreciation to all my girlfriends. I am missing my crafty friends who inspire and share

tea
what to put on salad
how to let children play like puppies
music
passion for teaching
sarcasm and wit
breastfeeding tips
fears about toxins
books
clothes
thoughts on what is worthwhile
good films
what kind of boots fit my kind of calves

Wishing that we lived closer. . .

naming symbols

I'm learning all kinds of new symbols for statistics. And I now know that octothorpe is the name for the the symbol #; I have been calling it pound for a while.

A few months back Marcello became interested in the question mark. He needed to know that & is called the ampersand and asks about other punctuation marks. He recognizes the symbol for pi. I wonder where his symbol lust is going.

double chocolate donut

Chocolate has been a major obsession for a while. It is the color Marcello really prefers for footwear. In the summer, his sandals were all chocolate sandals.

He woke up yesterday and wanted a donut. So on the way to see our friends, we got one, double chocolate. I should have know that would lead to a double chocolate sugar crash. He started to get mad at NiNi about fake food that he had trouble sharing, so I took him into the kitchen where he spotted the mini brownies. Two minis later, I was cutting him off, so we had a tearful good-bye.

Walking through the park we saw 57 geese, 12 ducks, and 4 swans that took our breath away as they entered the pond. Marcello was barely mumbling about the "chocolate cookies" at that point. We ran into Olyvia at the park and had a great time with her and her caregiver from Columbia who is sweet and very capable of soothing her when Marcello pushed her coming down the slide. It was an accident! he announced sweetly after he said sorry. He missed a step and had a prolonged dramatic cry. As he finished, he searched her out, and the two of them sat in the tire swing until it was time to head out.

He was frantically hungry for goldfish at that point. He channels the tragic arcs of an opera singer on the days he wakes up wanting donuts.

joyful day

We are loving many things these days:

crunchy leaves
letters
the black baseball tshirt (ideally worn with orange shorts)
mango juice
dried mango spears
clementines
patti labelle sings the abcs gospel style
mimi (still working on weening the left side!)
cheese pizza
chocolate!

We went into the Playhouse, an amazing play-based preschool. What sweet, lovely kids and teachers! Marcello knows 2 kids from his class from a daycare & has 2 other friends in another class. He has really been smiley and having good days. His lead teacher, Maria, is a loving, crazy, fun woman originally from the Azores islands, a native Portuguese speaker. Lily is Ecuadoran, speaks to M in Spanish & loves to bake. The other assistant teacher is young, with platinum spikey hair and so sweet with Marcello and the kids. It was so cool--they had baked apple pie and had it for snack. The class is diverse in age range, background, and probably socioeconomics. They're big on animals--ants, Madagascan hissers, and a turtle named Froggy are all a part of the classroom scene. Next door they have a bunny.

We love the outdoor playground area with a sandbox, a big firetruck, and a circular merry-go-round powered by the kids on bikes. Ultra fun. Leaving, a girl who has twice been my fast friend told me that when I come back we'll make broccoli chicken together (as we did today out of sand and leaves).

Five

Today the number of the day is five! We woke up at 5am because Marcello fell asleep at an unprecedented 7pm last night. So the morning was spent with mama wearily making pancakes and Marcello watching a youtube Sesame Street clip of famous opera star Renee Fleming sings "1, 2, 3, 4, 5"--and she was singing up to five and down again as Mariano left for work. We are usually in bed for the goodbye kiss!

Making spaces

I am concerned about children (and Marcello in particular) and making their lives at school less rigid and more flexible.

What would I like to make school for him? Unschooling? I want schooling to be an opening up of possibilities--educational practices that build on what Marcello's strengths and resources are to help him with the expressive language he needs.

Where that language is learned is necessarily in situations that are important to Marcello--during play and interacting social with friends.

Z!!!

The boys are sleeping, and I am going to use this luxurious daylight savings time to do some yoga. I hope that they don't crash my yoga party. When Marcello does, he just sort of lands on top of me and then says YOGA! After that, he generally dismisses my dvd and demands his. . .

The latest news is that last night we went to see the Bee Movie, funny at times but nothing to write about, and he seemed to feel a little hoodwinked that it was not about the letter. We had to leave part way through when Marcello proclaimed he was ready to go home. I was relieved because he was yelling out a lot and getting very restless. I think he wanted to go running up the aisle to touch the movie but we stopped him.

The folks at the theater have known Marcello since he was one because Mariano used to take him there weekly.

Obsessive and Resourceful

I want the B! Marcello searches the house. He has been a destroyer god. Insatiable. He has me cut out the letters of the alphabet and then rips them up. He also rejects the C that is not round enough, quality control. I tried to push the limit and made an R out of two pieces of pink, but they were promptly ripped to shreds. He said bye-bye R!

He loves to stamp notes. I put one of these cards in his lunchbox daily with a little love note. He often asks me what letter it is in the morning. If I don't answer him, he'll open up his lunchbox to check. The other day his lunch was spilling out in the elevator as he searched for it.

He is using a spoon to get to the letter stamp that went under the stove right now. Resourceful. . .

Gossamer threaded J

We are mending letters this evening as we created construction paper ones last night that ended up in the bath. A big cardboard B needed tape and the J sponge is threaded with lavender gossamer thread.