In April 2014, I stood outside my apartment building for an entire afternoon, watching firefighters douse flames.
Today, only a few days off the actual anniversary, a home mere blocks from that building caught fire, closing Roland Ave (an essential thoroughfare for people taking kids to Roland Park Elementary, Roland Park Country School and Gilman).
To get the kids to school, we walked past the firetrucks, and through the smell of diesel (trucks) and woodsmoke (burnt building).
I feel very unhinged. It's right there, that panicky feeling of vulnerability, that feeling of swirling in a current of fate totally out of one's control, that combination of luck (I am not in mortal danger, I am not trapped in the fire) and unluck (fire takes everything).
Friday, April 22, 2016
Thursday, April 21, 2016
(Dante's) Seven Circles of Stress
1) You don't sleep because (it's a full moon, you are anxious, BF is snoring, you have PMS)
2) Smiles gets a nosebleed and wets the bed.
3) The puppy wakes up at 5.17 AM
4) Breakfast is rushed, and there's laundry to get in ( see 2))
5) You leave for school 5 minutes late
6) There's roadwork
7) You yell at a child for not getting out of the car fast enough.
2) Smiles gets a nosebleed and wets the bed.
3) The puppy wakes up at 5.17 AM
4) Breakfast is rushed, and there's laundry to get in ( see 2))
5) You leave for school 5 minutes late
6) There's roadwork
7) You yell at a child for not getting out of the car fast enough.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Elemental Man
We tried Assateague in the spring this year.
In sum: darned COLD (so windy even under the clear blue sky. In fact, so windy that one of the tents wrenched itself out of the sand and rolled, like a tumbleweed. Voice kept it from rolling into the fire--good thinking, girl!-- but from there it rolled, ever faster, all the way down to the porta pots where a startled user of the facilities helped me stop it. All in all it rolled a good 250 meters, at speed).
Plus side: no mosquitos.
Also, and my main comment here, Smiles was able to demonstrate his obsessions: running in the wind ("it feels like you are running so fast!" he says), and the warmth of tarmac which he desperately needed after playing for too long in the cold waves, and of course, nothing is more compelling than a camp fire.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present Elemental Man:
Earth, Wind, Water and Fire.
In sum: darned COLD (so windy even under the clear blue sky. In fact, so windy that one of the tents wrenched itself out of the sand and rolled, like a tumbleweed. Voice kept it from rolling into the fire--good thinking, girl!-- but from there it rolled, ever faster, all the way down to the porta pots where a startled user of the facilities helped me stop it. All in all it rolled a good 250 meters, at speed).
Plus side: no mosquitos.
Also, and my main comment here, Smiles was able to demonstrate his obsessions: running in the wind ("it feels like you are running so fast!" he says), and the warmth of tarmac which he desperately needed after playing for too long in the cold waves, and of course, nothing is more compelling than a camp fire.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present Elemental Man:
Earth, Wind, Water and Fire.
Friday, April 8, 2016
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