Does this child look like a mini menace? Looks can be deceiving, as Sara discovered this morning when Ari bonked her face. Upper lip to be precise. With his forehead. Thwack.
Feel for you, babe…
More New York June 27, 2009
We are thinking a lot about New York these days. Sara bought this set of wood blocks of various New York buildings. Since she then arranged them in more-or-less their actual locations, now I miss New York a little less.
Fathers Day/Outstanding in the Field June 25, 2009
Roy is a tough customer in the gift department. So coming up with a celebration of his entre to fatherhood was tough. I went (successfully I might add) with food.
Our planning could have been better, but at the end of our week in New York, before heading home, we found ourselves in Santa Barbara for an Outstanding in the Field dinner at Coleman Farm. This was preceded by a lovely lunch in Malibu the day prior (though I was literally so wiped out Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon I was literally sleep-walking), an early dinner and a movie (Twilight, LOVED it), and then an early Fathers Day breakfast in bed and several hours of lounging by the pool and another movie (Duplicity, didn’t even like it a little bit).
Let me tell you, it sealed the deal on our recovery, and really paid due tribute to all that I love about Roy and his fatherhood.
What an amazing experience. What an amazing father. I know not a better one, and I really hope everyone feels that way about their spouse. Its a great fortune to be able to say it and mean it. To many more!
On New York June 25, 2009
This last trip to New York was hard.
Hard flights, hard navigating town with a stroller (get out of my way people! I’m observing all other laws of the New York City sidewalk!), hard relying on the subway system (which has minimal elevators and a minimal number of users offering a hand), hard to not see any nannies I would hire and to feel that playgrounds were less than friendly (except in Jersey City), and hard being off-schedule from a sleep perspective (Ari didn’t sleep through the night one night while we were there– yesterday he took an unprecedented FOUR naps and slept 12 hours last night). Less hard to feel like the city we consider home is becoming less so, at least for now.
Great to catch up with friends and family, but hard for the logistics to be so exhausting.
WONDERFUL to be back in our west coast bubble of calm(ish).
This post has been deleted June 25, 2009
Yesterday, Sara wrote a lovely post. About Ari’s journey of self-discovery (physical). But then we decided it might not pass the “would you want the schoolyard bully to know that” test. I wonder if there will even be schoolyard bullies in this digital age. Cyberbullies, maybe. Anyway, the Ministry of Information has removed this post. Please use your imagination.
Union Square June 18, 2009
I’ve always loved Union Square, but I love it even more now that our friend Jenn is the Executive Director of the Union Square Partnership. Now someone I know can answer my strange questions. Things like: Do they use energy efficient lightbulbs? How many people can simultaneously use Wifi? How many non-grass seats are there? You get the idea…
Anyway, yesterday we played in the park on the soon to be old-and-dated playground (Phase 1 of the new one opening soon!). As many of Ari’s “aunts” and “uncles” are wont to do, Jenn took a few pics:
For our friends interested in our grand plans to get San Francisco to install a new playground in Corona Heights Park, I got some great ideas and tips!
Stream of Consciousness June 16, 2009
What a day Ari and I have had. Lots of thoughts to download.
We went on a long, lovely walk this morning in Central Park, which is a completely different place before 8am. Dogs off-leash, friends and neighbors running into one another. Wonderful. Then we went to music class with Anette and Rafi (with a rocker dad) and had lunch in Brooklyn Heights. I love Brooklyn Heights. What a great place to raise a family. Then we met up with Esme and went for a long, long walk in Chelsea, including a trip to the new High Line, which Roy’s already written about (he’s right- completely amazing and unique view of New York, so well done, something I never ever thought would happen relative to a lot of the other things we saw– so hard to get excited and visualize so many incredible things that don’t happen) and a chance run-in (or pedicure-bust!) with Marni. Then dinner, then a drop-in at the Heschel School for Roy’s last board meeting (gotta make sure they remember the kid!).
One topic came up a lot today (and the last couple of days really): how to balance a career with a family while living in New York. This balance seems something on a lot of peoples minds. I learned that in my friend Anette’s daughter’s class, there are SAHMs and full time professionals, but NO moms with hybrid, flexible careers. Its strange to me that my ENTIRE moms group in SF is actively pursuing work of this type, and that I don’t really know anyone in New York who provides a good proxy. I’m sure it has a lot to do with the culture of work in the Bay Area more generally. Score 1 California. At least for now…at least on this.
In related news…I have a new project! I heard back from the San Francisco Department of Parks and Recreation today that there are capital funds available for neighborhood groups applying for specific improvements to neighborhood parks. Enter me mobilizing the hood (and the rest of the hood) for a new playground in Corona Heights. Fun!
High Line June 15, 2009
Seven years ago, when Sara and I worked for the city, we saw a lot of renderings. Renderings are beautiful drawings of a project that’s been planned (or just imagined) — problem is, they all seemed kinda fake. Fake people frolicking in virtual greens and seeing illusory views. Could these flights of fancy ever fly?
Most didn’t. But some did. Enough years have passed that some of those seeds had time to sprout.
Today, I was a little early for a meeting in the Meatpacking District. And, lo, I saw the High Line. Seven years ago, it was just a rendering. An abandoned rail line, hovering just above street level, snaking through the West Side. Could be, one day, a floating park. And the real thing, today, looked just like the drawing. Magic.
The photos don’t come close.
First action injury June 14, 2009
A small scrape, in the scheme of things. But Ari hurt his chin, at Adventure Playground, his father’s old Central Park haunt.
Neighborhood Goss June 11, 2009
Word at the dogpark/playground is that San Fran Mayor Gavin Newsom and his pregnant wife Jen are moving to the hood. This has apparently been corroborated by the SF Chronicle.
The good news? We had just started mobilizing (as in, we’d all been talking and I finally made contact with Parks this week) to lobby the city for improvements to our local park and playground. That just got a whole lot easier. As, I suspect, will the permitting process for the Haight Whole Foods.
Nice!
Jos and Mike D: Now, whenever you come over, you can stop by the Mayor’s place. Corner of Masonic and Upper Terrace.
Wonder if she’ll join our neighborhood mom’s group (:? Poor thing, just having a kid and her husband’s running for governor, I mean Gavinator. If I weren’t so jaded/biased towards Mayors who actually do things, I might want to barf.
