From 10:30am to 4-frickin'-am

We are Florida-bound. It would be particularly sassy of us if we were leaving behind bitter cold and drifts of snow, but while our friends and family are suffering such things out west, NYC has been rather temperate. Still, we are excited. About getting there. The 15-hour car trip does not excitement bring.

Hour one: Review of the states that we will be traveling through. The Dad reviewed the nicknames (I've mentioned before that he's a bonafide (i.e. the best kind) nerd, right? ). As he said the nickname I held up a finger (and wondered what the answers were?!?). "The Empire State" (New York); "The Garden State" (New Jersey); Delaware did trip him up -- he popped off "The Constitution State" -- but then backtracked and said he knew it was the first state to sign the Constitution… It's actually the "The First State"; The Dad advocated hard that it should be "The Crab State," but is in actuality something he considers disappointing: "The Old Line State " (Maryland); "No taxation without representation" (D.C.); "The Old Dominion State" (Virginia); "The Tarheel State" (looked that puppy up -- originated from the Civil War and the idea that if the soldiers had tar on their heels they might stick/hold their positions better. There seems to be opposing views on whether or not the reference was to the rebels needing to hold their positions better, or whether it was a rebel joke that Jefferson Davies should use it to make the Yankees hold their positions better… Anyway, it's North Carolina); "The Palmetto State" (South Carolina); "The Peach State" (Georgia); "The Sunshine State" (Florida). 

Hour two: One ginger cookie down. The kids used the laptop to watch Reading Rainbow: Ocean Life. It highlights the book Sam the Sea Cow. We will hopefully be sea cow caressing within 24 hours. I love LeVar Burton. I also love my friend who handed The Dad a gel seat for the car when he handed her the hermit crab. As we crossed the Delaware River the Dad asked: "Christmas Day 1776 -- who would we have seen crossing?" The boy drawled in a very bored voice: George Washington. 

Hour three: Maryland. The kids are tormenting The Sister. They said that her hair brushing across their arms makes their bodies tingle (keep in mind that her hair comes into contact with their arms because they are constantly grabbing at her and occupying every inch of her personal space). They kept squawking at me to pull up my sweater sleeve and thrust my arm into the backseat so they could demonstrate the tingles that her hair brings. I told them to stop being weird. Their voices are starting to grate. We have to keep telling The Boy that while in most cases naked people are indeed funny, it's no longer funny to keep talking about it. Also not funny anymore to keep calling people idiots under his breath every time somebody says something. History review: Baltimore's football team is called The Ravens because Edgar Allan Poe is buried here. The Boy has told us to stop calling it "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"  (which The Sister has been reminding them of because they are joking around with the Ziplock bags that we have for vomit emergencies). He claims that it makes it "too emotional for him" and that we should sometimes call it "The Girl Who Cried Wolf." 

"Most likely my bum smells." The Boy

"How much longerrrrrr?" The 17-year old Sister

Hour four: "A long time ago bums were flat with a crack. No cheeks or anything. The Human Body King made Zeus angry by dropping him, so Zeus threw a lightning bolt at everybody's bum. In order to better protect everybody more padding was added. Doesn't that sound real?" And then Judd the Red Chicken proceeded to take the padding/seat cover off his booster and tried to put it on like a life preserver. He accomplished pinning his shoulder blades together and screeching. 

Hour five: Back in the car after our first stop. We parked at the shopping center at the National Harbor. Our purpose (in addition to realigning our bodies) was to see the recently relocated "The Awakening" -- a very cool sculpture of a giant coming out of the ground. During our six and a half-minute stop we went to the bathroom and got cupcakes at Cake Love. My frosting fell off -- it was surely making a political/social statement after I said that it was not nearly as good as Georgetown Cupcakes. The Boy assessed the situation and plucked off his remaining frosting and placed it on my cupcake. We also had to go into the Peeps store because… well, there was a Peeps store. Against all parental common sense we said that they could pick out something to snack on later tonight when they watch a movie. Agreement was reached on the traditional marshmallow chicks -- blue. The three major road trip food groups have now been secured: cookies, cupcakes, and Peeps. We're NOW ready to attack this!

Hour six: An accident in Virginia by King's Dominion (an amusement park) backed up traffic -- a lot. The Girl fell asleep -- that really is the best way to travel. The further south we go, the more snow there is. Not that there's a lot -- I'm just trying to provide interesting commentary. Car-ride-specific blog banter.

Hour seven (4:30-5:30pm) Finally found Richmond. The old downtown area has beautiful buildings, but it didn't look very alive. Perhaps it's on the cusp of revitalizing -- it has all the hallmarks (the building with the amazing signage for an old bookstore that is now a rotating gallery space). Or perhaps it's totally vitalized, but on a winter late-afternoon it cast a forlorn shadow. Winter can do that. Our Richmond goal was Tredegar Iron Works. Really beautiful -- the golden glow of the sun on the water across the way from the civil war ruins. Here they made cannons for the war. Due to the accident (see hour six) we were late and they were closing up (take a big fat guess about how happy The Dad was about this? I've said before that he's Clark Griswold -- he was totally channelling him as he was cutting people off. Who, pray tell, drives like a maniac to get to a National Battlefield on time? After one particular harry close-call I asked the kids if they would care if we weren't able to do the Junior Ranger program. They were both totally indifferent. "I care," muttered The Dad as he dodged an innocent citizen crossing the street, "I care"). Once we got to the visitor center the ranger gave us the Junior Ranger book that we can complete on our own time. More info on Tredegar when we do our homework.

Back in the car we talked about the Battle of Petersburg. After a nine month siege (there was a critical rail spur for supplies there) the die was cast for the Union to finally win the war. We talked about General Lee's allegiance to Virginia, that Lincoln asked him to be the general of his army, but Lee said he would be on whatever side Virginia sided with. This sparked the memory from the movie, Lincoln, when Lincoln shows great respect to Lee. That led to a conversation on what happened to Lincoln's oldest son, Robert, the only son to make it to adulthood. He had an interesting life -- perhaps the most sensational incident was a coincidence that happened just before his father's assassination when he was at a train station in Jersey City, NJ. Because of the crowds and bad timing, he fell between the train and the platform. He was saved by a man grabbing him by his coat collar and plopping him back on to the platform. He recognized him as a famous actor, Edwin Booth. So he was saved by the brother of the man that would, within months, kill his father. Later in his life Robert told the story to a fellow soldier, who passed it on to his friend, Edwin Booth. Booth had not known that the person he saved was Lincoln's son. According to the wisdom of the internet, finding this out brought great comfort to Edwin Booth after what his brother did. There is a lot to think about there.  

Hour eight (5:30-6:30) If there are civil war ghosts in Petersburg from all those bloody months we did not sense them in the grey strip mall where we found a Subway next to an auto body shop. Sandwiches to go -- back in the car.

Hour nine (6:30-7:30) Turning laptop over to the backseat for "movie night." They are watching The Fantastic Mr. Fox and consuming the Peeps. 

Hour ten (7:30-8:30) Movie is finished. For the past three years on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day we watch Gregory Peck play the most-perfect Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird. I feel like if you get a day off school you should know why. I figured that since we had all of this awesome car time this year we would read the book. Just finished  reading Chapter 1. It is a most perfect book. The craft of writing is nuanced and the humor is often subtle, but I'm not reading it with the goal of having them understand it all. I'm reading it for them to hear how a person can take words that we all have at our disposal  and line them up and create deep exactness and ethereal musicality. They will also have the full context (almost full -- I'll be editing a bit when it comes to what Tom's trial is about) for when we watch the movie again next year. And when the time comes for my own Jem and Scout to discover the book in the privacy of their own heads they will have the benefits that come from rereading a book -- which are many. Focusing on details, finding threads, and adding rich texture to the rough sketches that are already there from the first reading… It's been said that it's not the amount of books that you've read that matters, but the amount of books that you've reread. 

Hour eleven (8:30-9:30) My good golly golly. We are just almost-half-way.  The feeling of futility might make me pop. There will be blue marshmallow mixed with my body parts strewn about the front seat. The kids are snuggling down a bit in the back. It's almost time for me to take over driving .. 

Wow. Wasn't that hourly blow-by-blow fun? The thing that SUCKED was that by 9:30 we still had 6.5 hours to go. Those hours were a nasty-mean blur. And  by blur, I don't mean to convey quickness, but rather a loss of connectivity to external awareness. It was hell. I would see a sign: Savannah 168 miles and then aliens would come and wear me down -- perhaps with experiments -- for several hours, and then: what ho! in the distance a green sign coming up to let me know how much progress I made: I had sacrificed for a long time, and here was the payoff: Savannah 164. What the….??? As I endured this torture, and my family drifted in and out of sleep, I listened to a Christmas CD. It was the only thing that the moppets said that they could go to sleep to. I passed a school bus. Dark outside, dark inside with dark shadows moving about. I could see some sports equipment piled in the back seats. I wondered who was flirting with whom,: if they had won the game. I made up unique scenarios/family lives that different individuals would go home to after being dropped off at the school. I thought of how different my high schooled seemed at night. At another point I looked across the grassy meridian and saw a car going in the opposite direction with a silvery liquid flag waving above it. Just as I mused as to why they would have a flagpole attached to their car I realized it had been the back of a (very stationary) sign that had lined up just so for a fraction of a second. I pulled over and switched with The Dad at the next opportunity. We switched another time. "Mr Big Stuff" and "Grease is the Word" had been on the radio at some point in the soup. I missed a turn-off (poor signage) and if I wasn't grasping the steering wheel so tightly with both hands I just might have torn out some tufts of hair. 

I put into law a new rule in our family. NEVER will we drive more than 8 hours in one go. When I made this announcement (I kind of slurred it -- I got to that tired point when talking was almost too much to ever consider doing again) The Dad visually clenched his jaw. I'm pretty sure that he has at least 46 vacations already planned out, and most likely there were marathon car trips built in to them. It had to be done. At 4am, in the elevator up to our room that we would only be in for THREE hours he had the audacity to say something like: I know it was hard, but look we did it!

"I am not validating that you said that." I looked around at the kids with narrowed eyes and slurred, "Noboy in this elevator is to validate that."

Preparations Are in Full Swing

Today the Sister and the kids made those ginger cookies because we are (pathetically) hoping that they ward off the vomit genies that live in our car and possess my children. For we are going on a crazy-long road trip tomorrow. 

The Girl created some games that we can play in the car and/or the hotels. One of them is comprised of a bunch of postage-stamp-sized pictures. In case you are wondering, these are pictures of The Sister -- now, and when she's old. 

The Boy had to pull things together for his pets. He helped clean his fish tank and then ran the key and a feeding reminder poster up to our neighbor who so kindly agreed to fish-sit (say that one ten times fast). He also helped clean the hermit crab habitat and created this tri-fold "manual" for our friends who invited Winter to be a guest for over two weeks (particularly kind considering he's a rather naughty hermit crab). 

Reporting from the field for the next two weeks. 

Subway Curriculum

We paid $4 for music lessons today.

On our way down to the Strand Bookstore there was a man playing an erhu. When the kids each dropped a dollar into his pile and he inclined his head in a certain way I was, for the merest fraction of a second, a graduate student traveling in China. Like those polaroids that flip forward in Run, Lola, Run I saw stills of a 24-year old me: stepping out of a velvety Beijing night and into a brightly lit grocery store where surprised faces turned towards my friend and I, and abruptly stopped talking -- frozen; walking under flapping laundry and past Chinese patients wandering around outside of a hospital with bandages wrapped around their heads; sitting in the front of a small boat with some boatmen navigating the river -- looking up into the passing trees and seeing monkeys. Flash-flash-flash-flash. I was there, and then I was back standing on a subway platform with my kids. 

We ran our fingers along spines, cracked open new books and carefully let fall open old ones. We read flaps and backs and considered. Both children eventually chose a book for the long car trip we have coming up on Friday. 

On the subway platform coming home we listened to three gentlemen harmonizing and crooning along with their keyboard. Another well spent two dollars. Right before our train arrived and we stepped through the automated doors they began "Unchained Melody." Flash-flash-flash. I see my older sister on her wedding day -- she's barely lifting up her gown to show somebody her brightly-colored floral tights; she and her husband are driving down a freeway in Reno -- I'm in the backseat and see their profiles turn and look at each other; my brother-in-law sitting in my grandma's living room with shorts on -- I wonder if after 20 years of being related I'll ever see him again after the divorce is final. The subway doors shut and we are projected forward through the dark tunnel. 

I've been thinking about those ice cores we learned about yesterday. Similar to tree rings, the strata that stripe the core represent time. Within each layer tiny bubbles of trapped air tell the stories of what was happening while that time was passing. Layers of days and bubbles of nuances. Minutes and moments. And always the layering. We march forward day by day and right now my kids are collecting little bubbles -- little snapshots that will get trapped in time that will escape again into the ether when a layer gets melted away. 

While the kiddos were home with The Sister working on un pequeno Spanish, finishing up piano, and organizing the books in their room I was at tea with some moms from "school." Smothering my scone with jam and cream I felt content to know that kind-hearted, smart, fun women will be there to ground me when we return to the grid next year. Walking with one of my friends after tea, she told me that she had asked her middle school-aged daughter what she thought of the memories that my family is making this year, and her daughter pointed out that she and her two siblings also created shared memories by having attended the same elementary school. I think that she is very insightful. Twenty years from now when her brain shows her a snapshot of her elementary school cafeteria, or third-grade teacher, she can find comfort in knowing that her sister's and her brother's brain will pull up the same image. Experiences are what make life life, but shared experiences make life eternal. 

Tonight a family chock-full of our favorite people came over for dinner and we had some King Cake here on the tail end of Epiphany. Last year when we all celebrated together the oldest girl of the family found la feve -- a tiny porcelain cow -- in her piece of cake. The Girl was crushed. That night she wept passionately. As she explained it, it's not that she didn't want her friend to get it (her friend is four years older and my daughter idolizes her), it's just that the cow was so cute it hurt her heart to not get one as well. Flip forward one year and that cute friend, who has kept that bean-sized cow well and safe, brought it tonight and accepted a trade for a plastic giraffe (her favorite animal). Fortunately, The Girl was able to meet the terms of the trade because she happened to have a small plastic giraffe that I brought home from Scotland six years ago. At the time the giraffe didn't mean much to her, but after six years of dormancy tonight was its moment. Someday I will record the story of why I bought that giraffe. I certainly didn't know then -- standing in the gift shop of the Kelvingrove Museum -- the role that it would someday play in my daughter's happiness. 

As The Righteous Brothers, and the brothers on the subway platform sing: "And time can do so much." 

I'll Take Mine With Ice, Please

Stop, collaborate and listen. 

Can anybody within a very small (and by small I mean small, and small) window muse on the word "ice" and not spawn an earworm?  Watch out... Ice, ice, baby... bhernt, bhernt, bhernt, bhernt, bhernt, bher-bhernt... 

You're welcome. 

If that did nothing to you then you weren't listening to the radio and/or going to (lame) dances in 1990. Twenty-three years ago? Time can do a lot of things (one look at the skin integrity on my neck can testify to that), and yet it has not erased the power of Vanilla Ice's hook. Crazy. 

On the topic of time passing -- seasons coming and going -- today from the bus window we saw that the dinosaurs outside of the natural history museum are about to disappear for a while.

Today we also had a science lesson taught by James Balog. If you've seen Chasing Ice you know that it's not hyperbole to state that it is shocking -- for its beauty and its message. 

A friend sent me an email with the subject line: "did you take your kids to chasing ice?" I'll be honest, we've been so busy around here with Groucho et. al, Chasing Ice wasn't even on my radar. How grateful I am to that friend for that email. (Note: please keep the suggestions coming! If you're a friend of a friend don't be shy -- send me your ideas (hellpigs101@gmail.com)) 

I'm also grateful for the usher at the Lincoln Center Film Society where the movie is currently playing. We handed him our tickets and he said something that expressed his approval.
"So worthwhile for a science lesson?" I asked.
"Definitely. Especially for you two." He pointed to the kids. "You're the ones who it's for. It will be up to you." 

Man. It totally takes a village. I could have told my offspring to pay attention because the material in the movie was important, but having some random man (in a uniform of movie-theatre-authority) tell them made the moment poignant and meaningful. And empowering. He made eye-contact with them. Pointed at them. Told them that it was up to them -- implying that they have it within them to make a difference. Man. I know that I sound like a broken record, but I am insanely grateful for this universe full of teachers. I'm so not doing this alone. 

So apparently this ice melting business isn't part of an enormous pattern that will eventually right itself.  Looks like it's not part of a season that is natural and will cycle back around. Even crazier, it might not even be something made up to support an evil liberal agenda. It's a big stinking casualty of the law of unintended consequences. There are ice core samples that show how carbon is directly linked to ice melting, and in all the ancient air bubbles trapped in that ice there's never been so much carbon. The ice has never receded at the rate it is receding and it could -- very soon, in fact -- pass a point of no return. And there will be consequences of the melting, namely the increased impact of natural disasters. It was eerie to watch the footage of the recent consistency of horrific storms, and know that since the movie was finished Sandy came and did exactly what was predicted.

Science aside, the visuals of the movie are stunning. As is the tenacity of Balog and his team. I asked the kids after: "What did Balog have in common with Hershey?" And they knew -- he tried and failed and tried again (you'll recall that our vast Hershey wisdom came from this trip). 

And so we keep trying. Last year I went with a friend to the rush ticket lottery for Book of Mormon. No dice. This evening, The Girl, Judd the Red Chicken, The Sister, and I stood in line for the Peter and the Starcatcher lottery.  It's going off Broadway in a couple of weeks and while our little family saw it several months ago, we really wanted The Sister to see it. Thanks to a kind lottery attendant who increased our odds by letting all four of us put our names in (it was The Girl's name that awarded The Sister and I our tickets -- she was proud of herself and earned herself a Levain's cookie), we got to go and hear Molly Aster say: "Things are only worth what you're willing to give up for them." Repeatedly her character champions the idea of starting over when you've failed if what you're after is important. Protecting the environment will take sacrifices, and in so many ways we are on trajectories that are headed for failure. And yet, it's so important to at least acknowledge that a) we have agency -- so we are empowered to keep trying and b) ultimately we will need to take accountability. There are things like the Christmas dinosaurs that leave, but come back. And then there are some things, like that g-d- Vanilla Ice song that once the damage is done, it can't be undone. 

I'm really happy that we were exposed to these principles today: empowerment, agency, accountability, friendship, trying again after failing, and sacrifice. Not too shabby.

We were also exposed to a lovely, if haunting song during the credits of the movie (before we had to tick off the elderly people in the theatre by climbing over them because both kids were frantically whispering that all the melting ice had made them have to go to the bathroom "baaaaaaad"). "Before My Time" is up for an Academy Award -- and it's slightly better than Ice Ice Baby.

(Yo, VIP, let's kick it.)

Movie Reviews

So I was a Marx Brothers maiden -- deflowered by Groucho, Chico and Harpo last Friday. At least I think I was? If not, the first time around wasn't so memorable. 

Of course I knew the general gist of their schtick, but as it turns out, my understanding was very general. For example, I didn't realize that there was so much quality (for the time -- perhaps a bit melodramatic by today's standards) singing/dancing thrown in. Nor did I realize that there were a lot of cultural/social things that they were messing with. (Here's a cool clip of a jazz/swing scene that combines both those things). Yes, there is the slapstick that I was expecting, but there's just as much clever satire (probably quite a bit that is so clever I didn't even see it/get it). They were the Stephen Colberts and Jon Stewarts of their time. Well worth watching. 

But you don't have to take my word for it...

Friday the kids watched A Night at the Opera -- a holiday gift from their piano goddess (we *heart* our piano teacher), and then Saturday we went to the film center and watched A Day at the Races. The kids then wrote papers comparing and contrasting the two.  Here are their working drafts:

1.

The Fascination of the Marx Brothers

     I like the Marx brothers movies! Both of the movies I saw, A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races are similar because both have the same brothers, both have a lot of sparky songs, and the police are involved in both of the movies. 
     A funny part in A Night at the Opera is at the end of the show when Grouch-o, Chick-o, and Harp-o are running from the police. Finally, the police catch the Marx brothers, but the opera manager lets them go. The funniest part in A Day at the Races is when Harp-o is playing the flute and all the people are are pointing at Harp-o and are saying, "Who's that man?"
     I was thinking that if I was the director I would have the dancers wear more modest clothes because some of the dancers were just wearing skinny underwear.
     You should watch both movies like I did. There is alot of funny parts like when Chick-o and Harp-o are covering Grouch-o in wall paper in The Day of the Races. I want you to watch both movies, just like Uncle Sam wanted people for the U.S. Army, and if you watch both movies I believe you will just love them.

2.

Movie 1 Verses Movie 2

     Today we are going to see what Marx Brothers movie was better, A Night at the Opera or A Day at the Races.
     The first thing I will talk about is animal cruelty. Movie one had no animals, so no animal cruelty. Movie 2 had horses and they were beating them. One point for Movie 1.
     The second thing I'm going to talk about is indecent exposure. Some of the dresses in the second movie were inappropriate and in the first movie a lady's dress fell off. No points awarded.
     The third thing I am going to talk about is excitement. The first one was good, but the second one was so exciting because we wanted to see who is going to win the race. One point for the second movie.
     The fourth thing I am going to talk about is what movie is more funny. I think the first one was because there were two people and they were both geting each other presents and they both brought each other salomies. One more point for Movie 1.
     The last thing I am going to talk about is the backgrounds. The first movie was in the city and the second was in the country. One point for each of them. The first movie has three points and the second movie has 1 point. You should watch them both and see whitch one you like better. 
     
I also think that kids' writing is worth reading -- they should do lots and lots of it and practice spilling their ideas and experimenting with what words/strategies best express what they are trying to say. I always thought more writing should come home from school. 

 ("Why a four year old child could understand this. Run out and get me a four year old child, I can't make head or tail out of it. -Groucho Marx).