Cape Cod

The rain that we woke up to made it very much feel like we were in New England. Cape Cod, with its shingles and weathervanes, curving roads and bodies of water -- small and large -- is a very special place. 

First on the agenda was grabbing breakfast at the Optimist Cafe -- a restored house from 1849. The Boy is in charge of the gnome on this trip (we have been so neglectful of him during the scheme for some reason!), and so he looked for many photo opportunities throughout the day. (He also insisted that we take a picture of the silly whale in front of the cafe.) 

Parnassus Book Service alone was worth the drive from NYC. Not just because it has amazing books (I'll share what we bought some other time), but because of the guy working there. The original owner who passed away last year was friends with Edward Gorey, and the Jack of Jack's Outback, and and by all reports was a character... but he couldn't have been any more of a character than Paul, the gentleman who greets customers now. Holy smokes. As we walked in he popped out of the side room that looks like a hoarders haven, and with his nicotine stained mustache, cat hair all over his sweats, and a bandaid on his forehead he croaked, "Ah. Children. Terrible things." Being as these particular terrible things love Roald Dahl, this type of humor was greatly appreciated. While we all wandered about he sidled up to us individually and chatted. In this way he somehow managed to pull more personal information out of the five of us then our neighbors know, and so by the time he was packaging our books he was also sharing all kinds of random tidbits about things like New York City, and Mormons. He looked at The Girl and said, "I see that dimple. I know it means chaos and mischief -- at least on occasion." Her dimples deepened. As we left he told the children: "You are wretched, wretched children. God bless you." 

An old New England house crammed full of books, AND a sweet Darby O'Gill-esque fellow all on a magical rainy day? God already blessed us, my fantastical friend, now keep yourself well so you're here when we come again. 

From Parnassus we headed to the Edward Gorey house. We've been before, and yet every detail was just as quirky and enjoyable. Edward Gorey is the antidote to an Orwellian society. 

Last time we noticed that there was a scavenger hunt for all of the Gashlycrumb Tinies and we found quite a few of the tokens that represented those poor children's unfortunate ends. This time we actually all did the scavenger hunt and found all 26. 

"H is for Hector done in by a thug."

"G is for George smothered under a rug."

Lest it appear that the entire family is macabre, I should record that The Girl does not think this alphabetical cautionary tale is funny at all. However, she does like the story of Gorey's man furs: he apparently had quite a few of them, and then one day had a great change of heart and decided to be done with them, and aside from the one that he continued to wear (with jeans and boat shoes... when he would go garage-sale-ing), he chucked them up in his attic. When a family of raccoons was discovered nesting up there, rather than having an exterminator come, he let them stay for as long as they wanted... Further, when he died he left his estate, including all future royalties, to be divided between four different animal charities. 

Gorey lived on 38th Street in NYC and loved watching the Balanchine ballets. On a picture of his apartment hanging up he wrote at the bottom that his apartment was about a 40 minute walk to Lincoln Center. It was interesting to think of him walking past our apartment building. I asked the man, named Rick, working at the front desk about the note (he had been a close friend of Gorey's). He explained that Gorey "never missed" a Balanchine ballet, and in fact would stay in the city throughout the season, only coming out to the Cape when the season concluded for the year. The year Balanchine retired was the year Gorey moved permanently to Cape Cod. 

Gorey said that Dracula bought him his house on Cape Cod. He did the setting design and costume design for the Broadway production of Dracula, and was nominated for a Tony for both (he won for costume design). The Gorey-Dracula franchise boomed. 

I'm glad that it did. The house is a fabulous thing to experience. For a magazine spread he was once asked where his favorite place was, and he answered something like: at home, looking out my window. So they took a picture of him looking out his window. And we looked out the same window. I told the kids: "Look, we are standing right where he sat for this picture." Having considered the house as a museum so totally, it was a cool reminder that he lived and created there. 

I remember being a kid and seeing the beginning of Mystery! one Sunday on PBS, and thinking it was really weird, but awesome. And then the actual show started, and I was like: What the what?!?  Then a couple of Sundays later: same thing. Finally, I figured out that I wasn't catching the end of something amazing, but rather the amazing beginning of something that didn't interest me. So I would happily watch the one-minute intro, and then turn the channel. 

Whether The Girl is a full-appreciator or not, I'm glad that my kids have had way more EG exposure then I did... namely, the same-minute snatch that I saw on Sundays, and the cover of the Freaky Friday novel that he illustrated (and I checked out of my elementary school library). 

By the time we were finished at the house the rain stopped. We headed to the Cape Cod National Seashore to get us some Junior Ranger booklets. As it turned out, today was Marconi day, so we were able to attend a demonstration focused on morse code and radio waves, etc. 

We rented bikes and rode about nine or ten miles down to Coast Guard Beach, and along the Rail Trail. The tandem bikes were perfect for the areas when the hills were aggressive (perfect in that the hills were a bit much for the kids to do alone, not so perfect on my quads). 

It was really fun, though there was the sad moment when The Girl was sure that she had seen a dead dolphin. We rode back to the area where she thought she saw it, and were all surprised that she was right. Somehow it must have washed into the bay during high tide, and stayed, marooned, in the marshy area off to the side of the Cape Cod Rail Trail. We knew that the visitor's center would be closing up, but we pumped our 10 collective legs as fast as we could to get our bikes returned and ourselves over to try to report what we had seen to the ranger. We were lucky -- even though the visitor center was locked, the ranger was just walking out to her car. She gave us the local number for IFAW and The Boy so maturely called them and gave them all of the information. He had told The Girl earlier, as we were racing back after she showed us the dolphin, "I'm so glad that you're here." And she was glad that he was there to make the call. We told them that they had made a difference, for telling the right folks about the dolphin might help other dolphins in the future. Still, it was clearly hard on my sensitive-hearted animal lover. 

We saw where Marconi's station was set-up, and then went on to Race Point Beach by Provincetown. We walked along the beach, The Boy buried the gnome, we ran down some dunes, and the kids rolled the gnome down some dunes. The sand was nicely packed and in some places still unbroken from being pelted smooth by the long rain last night and this morning. 

The pilgrims landed on Cape Cod first, stole some corn from the native people (I'm told that in fairness, they were pillaging out of desperation, and left some trinkets...), and then continued on to Plymouth. We drove through Provincetown and saw the Pilgrim Memorial, but couldn't find a place to eat (sometimes we go down really cranky rabbit holes when we're trying to decide on a place to eat while on trips), so we turned back and then just kept driving... 

Eventually we ended up at some random restaurant, and allegedly while The Girl and I were in the restroom a man in a chicken costume walked by the table and into the back room. The Sister sprinted to the car to get her phone to take a picture, but he never came back out. Shoot. 

On the Road Again

When a place is labeled beautiful, the reference can be to the natural surroundings, or the man-made plans and architecture. Brown's campus, and the surrounding College Hill area of Providence, is one of the prettiest spots when both criteria are considered. Surrounding the main campus area are gates representing different graduating classes. The above engraving is a verse written by a member of the class of 1887. While Dante's Inferno warns with that classic line: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," the graduating class of 1887 chose to welcome all future undergrads (the exact population who reads Dante) with the promise that they have found the gate into a place where hope endures... not because success is sure or rigor is upheld, but because of good fellowship, cheer, and help. 

We love walking around college campuses, especially in the evening when that titch of freedom falls and forms a layer on top of the day's expectations. 

We drove to Cape Cod today, and on our way we stopped in Providence where we enjoyed dinner on Thayer Street, quickly appreciated the historic houses along Benefit Street, took a picture of our gnome outside of the Smoke Shop, and of course strolled around campus (though we couldn't get in to one of the greens because of a student folk festival that required tickets). 

Though founded a few years earlier, Brown University has been at its current location since 1770. That was before we were even an independent country. American history is certainly easy to get excited about in New England. Our original plan for today was to stop outside of Boston to visit historic Revolutionary War sights (Lexington, Concord, etc.). However, due to the manhunt happening in connection to the Boston Marathon bombing, we decided to just keep driving. History in retrospect is almost always interesting to think about, history in the making can often be too overwhelming to make sense of. I read an article about a vigil held on Wednesday at Brown -- I value the optimism found in the conclusion:

"She [the university's chaplain, Cooper-Nelson] followed that with a call for silence, 'until our bells call us back to the happy and joyful chaos of the sounds of this green and of the love we share here.' The bells tolled for a full minute and then Cooper-Nelson declared, 'May joy return.'"

There did seem to be joy and optimism on the campus -- college students are like walking sparklers sending out little splinters of light and life... I think The Sister felt dorky walking around her peers with an entire family in tow, though we were vindicated when three cool kids smoking on a stoop said we were the most fashionable family they had seen (it might have been the dorms for the blind or something, because for the record: we aren't by a long-shot, but I'm grateful to them for their cute remark because it made The Sister feel slightly better about the gaggle she had to wander around with). We went and checked out the Van Wickle Gates. They only open twice a year -- inward in the Fall on the day the freshman come, and outward in the Spring when the graduating class leaves. Traditions are treasures. Teenagers graciously enduring their families are treasures. Having Van Wickle as a last name would be a treasure... 

Pass It On

We saw Yoda today after we went to MoMATH (where we pretty much did the exact same agenda that we did last time... the math moppets did earn their cups o' mac and cheese by actually exerting some effort to understand the concepts, as opposed to just treating the space like a playground). 

On our way home we of course had to stop by the enormous pet store across from Union Square, and look at every single animal there from the fish to the birds to the reptiles to the male rodents with the enormous you-know-whats (what's with that?). We always spend a great deal of time getting to know the cats. We would all love to have a cat, but can't because of allergies. Today we noticed one named Molly who had crawled under her bed and wedged herself between it and the side of the kennel, and just peeked out at us with beautiful, but nervous eyes. Her info card explained that she had been "rescued from a hoarder."  The Sister looked so heartbroken as she said, "So, she's doing that because she's used to being wedged between piles...?" We are shaped by our experiences. What a responsibility it is to be a parent.

I was talking to my dad on the phone yesterday because it was his birthday, and it struck me (as he was talking about a project he was working on that required a blow torch) just how much he was shaped by his father. His dry sense of humor that permeates most everything he says (unless he's pissed off), how he gets excited to share new bits of information he's acquired, his fearlessness in tackling a new project, even the way he posited that you pretty much have to go into every project anticipating that you will make mistakes (it sounded just like what my grandpa used to tell me... I can seriously hear his voice: "Well, kid, you just have to know it's not going to go well [and here he would grin at me], but you do it anyway. Sure, sure. You do it anyway because what else are you going to do? [chuckle, and the smile he had that pulled back his ears] And then you learn how to do it a little bit better the next time. See?"). We are shaped by our parents, who have been shaped by their parents. How lucky a person is when the people behind her, or him, have been well-intentioned. And funny. My kids think that my dad, their Papa, is hilarious. From the time The Boy was very little he would good-naturedly smile at his grandfather's teasing. For his birthday they wrote their daily poems for him:

(The Boy's)
Papa

Some eat cake others do not, It is way
out in Nevada
Where there's sagebrush that blooms endless.
It's Papa's birth Yeah! Yeah! I think
We need to celebrate
1, 2, 3 let's go get a birthday cake today
Happy Birthday, Papa!

(The Girl's)
Papa's Birthday

Papa's birthday
includes 3 cats or more
and yummy food
and things to build

I'm actually not sure if she was done with that poem (I kind of hijacked their little poetry notebooks), but I like that she included "things to build," as I think that that desire to always learn how to make new things is a part of my dad's identity that I hope has passed on to my kids. It's not so much any one project he's ever made, but rather the fact that he's always tried so many projects. 

In Return of the Jedi, Yoda admonished Luke: "Pass on what you have learned." Oh, Master Yoda, I learn at your feet! I'm thinking that our behaviors and modeling will probably pass on one way or another whether we want them to or not (let's face it, our kids are all going to be Molly-the-hoarder's-cat to a greater or lesser degree), but maybe the things that we learn -- that aren't often obvious externally -- are things that we need to make a conscious effort to also pass on? During dinner? In journals? On a walk? I'm so glad that I didn't have the internet or a cell phone when I was a teenager spending the summers with my grandparents... I fear that all those passing-on-moments might not have happened if I wasn't just hanging out on the couch slack-jawed, or perched and hunched up like a buzzard on the kitchen stool tracing the counter's edge with my fingertip. 

Let's Review

In the forms that I fill out for the Office of Home Schooling there is a box on the planning pages for health curriculum, and having looked at some examples from other parents, I noticed that many include dental health as a part of their plan for elementary school students. So I did. And we bought a model of a set of teeth and talked about making proper tiny circles on every surface of the tooth ("Not an aggressive back and forth motion!"). We have hit flossing harder this year then ever before, and we even invested in a Waterpik (which Judd the Red Chicken likes to use to squirt at things across the bathroom). 

Perhaps the most important lesson my kids have learned that was taught via dentistry is to read reviews carefully. At the beginning of the year we started going to a new dentist because she took our insurance and the very lovely office was very close to our apartment. Although I haven't had any dental problems to speak of for years and years, I was told that I needed a lot of work. And so I did it over the course of a gazillion appointments.  My healing process has been forever slow... One night, on a whim, on a lark I decided to look up the reviews on our new dentist to see if others had noticed an extended healing time. What I found was review after review of how the office lacked integrity and scammed patients every-which-way-to-Wednesday.  Most reviewers talked of having an inordinate amount of work done, or suggested, only to find out down the road, or because of a second opinion (brilliant people!) that it was unnecessary. Further, some reviewers talked about shoddy work that required continued expensive dentistry the following year. The next morning I made an emergency appointment with my friend's dentist across town, and it was confirmed: shoddy work AND from what she could see the work I had done did not seem necessary. 

Because of all the time we spend together my kids have endured my kvetching about going to appointments (even had to hang out in the waiting room and be freaked out by FOX "news" a couple of times when The Sister wasn't available to babysit... FOX?!?... I just discovered a thread... I should have known then that drama was on the horizon), they have witnessed me sagging on the couch holding my jaw and about in tears because of aching teeth, they've been shocked and saddened to see me repeatedly pass up ice cream, they've suffered me slamming laptops shut, phones down, and pots and pans all about while muttering about huckster-shyster-charlatan-dentists, and they have observed me shaking my own fist at myself for not reading the reviews first... for not getting a second opinion... for not following my gut instinct. 

I think we can consider this unit about done.  

Big Brother Needs to Actually Read Bloom... Not Just Give Parts to the Masses

Rigorous standards. Bloom's Taxonomy. Common Core State Standards. Best Practices. 

A couple of years before Orwell published 1984 he wrote an essay titled, "Politics and the English Language."  In it he posits: "Modern writing [communication to a room of parents] at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together longs strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and then making the results presentable by sheer humbug." Yes, he said: humbug. 

As I type this parents are hoping their little ones have fallen soundly asleep for their full ten hours, for luck is certainly against them if this night is one of those nights. Please, no bloody noses, no illness, no nightmares... for any of those childhood events could change the outcome of test results. In the city we live in test results largely determine middle school options... and of course the middle school that one attends largely determines the high school one gets in to... and if you don't go on to a good college (admittance and proper preparation for success of course being largely determined by the high school one attended), then you might as well just start amassing your cardboard, your black markers, your abandoned cart, and your listless, yet still adorable dog. 

The all-powerful tests are happening this week and next. The tests dominate public education. And yet, for all the space that they demand, I have yet to adequately understand how it is that they offer a proportional contribution to the learning experience. I was an active parent in the parent association last year, so I sat through a few meetings that were supposed to help me better understand how the tests, by steering the curriculum, would help the children become better critical thinkers, etc. The thing that gagged me was the Orwellian flavor that permeated these meetings. Words and phrases were strung together -- always the same words and phrases -- and we, the masses would start nodding. Bloom's Taxonomy? Handouts were given with very basic diagrams -- imagine flowchart like boxes and arrows. What the?!? Part of my education actually dealt with education, and I couldn't make heads or tails of how the damn diagram fit in with the new "rigorous standards" of the "common core" -- yet when I looked out at the sea of accountants and lawyers and artists bobbing their heads and looking properly impressed/interested I was flummoxed. 

Undoubtedly, the other parents are brighter than I am, and so perhaps they truly understood the connection. My limited understanding of Bloom's business was that there are multiple ways of learning, roughly categorized into three main headings: thinking, feeling, and doing. HOW, how, how do the months of prepping for the tests address the feeling and doing categories? Fine if the test is focused on the knowing/thinking part of the taxonomy only. I get it. I really do -- THAT (thinking/knowing/analyzing/creating/remembering information/etc.) is what a test would be testing (and for the record, should be testing -- assessing and benchmarking are critical components to education)... BUT, isn't anyone asking (shrilly... hysterically...): Yoo-hoo! When is there time for the other Bloomin' parts??? Can you pull out a part of a whole and use it as if it's whole? That part and parceling and taking out of context seems really... ummm... Big Brother-ish. 

(Note: I just Wikipedia'd Bloom's Taxonomy to make sure that I wasn't way, way off... and I found something funny -- speaking of his own handbook Bloom is quoted as saying it is: "One of the most widely cited yet least read books in American education." Yikes. And yes, I do get the irony of having gone to Wikipedia -- the MOST Orwellian cite on the web due to it's ever-changing/constant rewriting of "facts".) 

Granted, I just reread 1984, so my brain is teeming with present-day connections (i.e. how my computer has tracked my habits and pops up ads specific to me -- that's gross), but even after peeling away a layer of paranoia, it still remains that our kids are being taught for the seven months faultless formulas and specific strategies to respond to some tests that will spit out a number that will then determine the track of their future (Inner Party? Outer Party? Prole?). And do we go along with it because we are that confident that professionals are always acting in our best interest (never mind that the world of testing is extremely lucrative)? Or because we are afraid of looking like a "prole," or being found out by the thought police? 

The inherent looking-to-the-future problem with a revolution is that whatever is torn down must be immediately replaced with something better. And since I don't know what this "better" is right this moment, I can't pull together a revolution in time to help those babies that are (hopefully) sleeping right now. But in the interim I can continue doing what Winston did and appreciate nostalgia... because journals with thick creamy paper, and paper weights of coral enshrined in domed glass can remind us that sometimes, in some ways, our concept of "progress" can be misguided. Sometimes "progress" is nourished and nurtured by fear and ignorance (and money and power and a desire to seem smart), rather than courage and common sense (and beauty and kindness and a willingness to be authentically taught). 

I will also remember (and teach my girl and boy) to NOT be like Winston -- the dumbnut trusted O'Brien just because he seemed cool and had cajones. 

You Can't Send Felt Via the Internet

The Loch Ness/Snake monster thing is heading to the West Coast! Per our plan, a story was written about its exploits here in NYC, and it will now go and spend some time with The Cousin. The Boy and The Girl could not settle on how the story should be written, so finally it was decided that The Boy would write this story, and the next time we host the snake-monster it will be The Girl's turn to chronicle some exciting (made-up) events. Without any further lead-in, I will share the story that will travel with the patchwork beast tomorrow:

The Lockness Monsters Pie

When our Lock ness monster was in New York City he tried to bake a pie. He went to Trader Joe's to get his flour and other stuff he needed to bake the pie with. When he got to are house he started to bake his pie. In the end he ate all the dough for the pie and all the spoons. So he had to go back to Trador Joes to get spoons and new dough. When he got back to are house he made a pie. It was full of pork, peas, carrots, beef and catsup because Bigfoot, the invisible man, knombs and lockness monsters like meat better than sweets. He invited his friend Mr. Big food and his friends the Roswald aliens. They ate and they ate and they ate. They were still hungry so the lock ness monster got the pretzels [The Girl] got from her birthday party to feed all them. Next they ate the spoons, plates, matches, forks, knifes, cupboards, fire alarm and garbage can. They than went to the store to get eggnog and cranberry juice. They got in line with the cranberry juice when Mr. Bigfoot said, "We did not get the eggnog!" The only problem was that eggnog was not in season. The looked in lots of stores and could not find them so they called there friends the flying carpet monkeys, the dodos, and the giant flys. They looked everywhere until they got to the milk company. The worker felt sorry for them and made them eggnog. Everyone was happy and refreshed. 
The end.

"I incorporated some creative writing in with the facts." 

I get an eye-twitch when The Boy says stuff like that. I'm hoping that the "facts" that he was referring to are that there is indeed a Trader Joe's, and we do have some pretzels. 

Travel safely, our felted beauty... and stand as a reminder to our family that we love and think about them.