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You've got questions, she's got answers. Be among the first to read Elise Mac Adam's new etiquette guide.
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I wanted to go back and see them together with me not watching. I wanted to know.
They don't write deliciously Oedipal voice-over like that anymore. The line is from one of my favorite movies, the luscious and weird Gilda (1946). The man pronouncing these sticky words is Glen Ford, discussing the urge he has to see his ex-lover and her new husband when they are alone. Sadly Glen Ford just died and even more sadly the New York Times obituary has the temerity to say nasty things about the movie, which is one of those pictures that captures something essential about movie-ness- the complete strangeness, the uncanny world that of sound stage Buenos Aires, the exquisite beauty and the characters who always have the perfect zingers at the tips of their tongues.
It's going to be a damp weekend here on the East Coast. I suggest indulging in a little Ford tribute.
This has been a bad week for movie lovers, since Joseph Sefano, the man who wrote Psycho, also died.
posted by Elise at 8:58 AM
2 Comments
Cross
Wakeups around here have suddenly shifted, and not in the direction that I would consider ideal, or even preferable. This may be the result of traveling and Felix's excitement to not only greet the dawn, but cheer its approach from some distance, as if it wouldn't feel welcome otherwise. Or it may just be pique.
Anyway, the thing about the dawnish hours and entertainment is that the Felix has his own things that he does and really only requires that I observe him and ply him with snacks of his choice (which sadly have lately been the white peaches I selected for myself and are now nearly out of season... and the occasional waffle). So I've taken to keeping myself awake with crossword puzzles, inspired by the pretty charming crossword documentary Wordplay.
Now, when I mention that I like crossword puzzles, everyone reveals himself to be an expert. How did this happen? One friend said he does the New York Times puzzle every day and pretty much always finishes it. Someone else said that she can do the incredibly tricky ones that I haven't even seen where there are no black spaces at all. "Diagramless," is the puzzle genre, if you're curious.
Impressive. Everyone is impressive. Suddenly the world certainly feels that much more competitive. I've been snuggling with my "200 Easy New York Times Crossword Puzzle Omnibus" (complete with a picture of a slice of PIE on the cover, making its point very clear) and feeling neither here nor there about it, just happy that I'm intrigued and awake enough to keep Felix from investigating the electric sockets, when actually I am far, far behind. When was I supposed to have started doing the puzzles? Is puzzle accomplishment as helpful as, say, mastering the art of cocktail party chatter? (This isn't a rhetorical question really, since the summer has been entirely devoid of cocktail parties at which I could exercise my skills, the ones I have tried to hone in lieu of crossword mastery.)
If you're a beginner, and I have a hard time believing you are, since I have encountered only Advanced Beginners and Intermediates since I started this hobby, here are a few Constant Clues that you may as well learn now.
Margarine = Oleo
Part of a Church = Apse
Early Gas Company = Esso
Most Likely Bible Name to Appear in a Puzzle = Esau
Government Agent = T-Man (not often G-Man, strangely)
Hockey Great = Orr
There. Now you have a leg up.
Do I sound defeated? Just you wait; the countdown is on to the hideous phone marathon for preschool applications. Right now I imagine my dialing skills are about as sharp as my crossword ones compared with the expertise around me. I'll need some luck.
posted by Elise at 6:51 PM
1 Comments
Yakkety Yak Yak Yak
"I can't believe I spent so much time wishing they would talk sooner."
A friend of mine with older children happened to be feeling the noise one afternoon when I quizzed her about speech development and which consonants are most treacherous.
As in so many areas, I sometimes feel I've been a bit of a slacker as a parent. The vast arena of tot chatter is one example. I have encountered people who work on kid noises, do whole programs of baby sign language, teach second languages, and I admit to having done none of this. There is a lot of talking and reading aloud around here but nothing programmatic.
But very occasionally, the media coughs up some comforting tidbit that makes me feel less like a lazy millstone, hindering my kid from reaching ace potential. Emily Bazelon has an interesting piece in Slate all about childhood language development, and there is a ton to be said about it, and I am toying with reading the book that inspired her article (The Infinite Gift by Charles Yang). But I was grateful for her penultimate paragraph:
"And while I'm all for neurons firing away (who isn't?), the intense focus on young talkers often seems to me overblown. "She has so many words!" we coo about precocious toddlers—code for "she's smart" or "you're smart too, since you're her mother." Then there's all the comparing of notes about how much or how well our children speak compared to other children. But if early speech is more like a party trick than a measure of intelligence or aptitude, then the cooing and the comparisons generate more anxiety than light."
Yep.
posted by Elise at 10:37 AM
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Where I'd Like to Go
My sibling told me recently that out of everyone in our family, I am the one who seems to enjoy travel most.
This observation surprised me since I actually have a very hard time separating from my rigid routines and getting organized. Spontaneity doesn't fit me very well.
In some ways I'm still recovering from my brief Canada sojourn of a week ago, and that hardly speaks to my adventuring spirit, though I do enjoy the exotic and will travel some distance to encounter natural curiosities.
But what really claims my wanderlust is a yen for something like time travel tourism. Certain moments have fixed themselves in my mind. What must it have been like in decadent pre-war Berlin, or Henry James's Manhattan, London under Elizabeth I, the Galapagos Islands when they were first "discovered"? I'm also not above wanting to travel to places I've only imagined because of rumor. Many years ago I managed a trip to Lisbon, inspired primarily because it is the place in the movie Casablanca where everyone is desperate to go (and then only because they can escape to the Americas). The White City fulfilled its promise. I'm dying to go back to Lisbon for non-cinematic reasons now.
I just saw a picture that reminded me of another time-place longing of mine: Vienna in the late 19 th century. No one has much to say about Vienna now, but something about the combination of coffee and Freud, marvelous storytellers and some decadence again prods my interests. So the movie is The Illusionist, based on a story I haven't read, and I won't say much more than if you have a mind to be amused by magic tricks, strategy games, romance of various sorts, and a fascination for old Vienna, you could do much worse, especially when the current moment in time is rather lacking.
posted by Elise at 10:41 AM
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New Fascination
One lingering longing from the trip to Prince Edward Island is a glowing attraction I have developed to the miniature horse. We met one at a 4H display I insisted we all visit. For his part, the Felix was most intrigued by some extraordinarily friendly black and white sheep, but my heart was lost to the hearty little horse.
And having studied the New York City Health Code again, I see that my fantasies of snuggling up with one in my living room aren't so wildly impossible. The only mention of horses at all comes up in article 16 of the forbidden list: "All odd-toed ungulates (Perissodactyla) other than domesticated horses (Equus caballus), including, but not limited to, zebra, rhinoceros and tapir."
It is but a dream, of course, but they are beyond adorable, and it would be so much easier to take the Felix to school (if I can ever get it together to make THAT happen) in a little cart than it would to trundle him into the subway every morning. And judging by the little logo at the top of the curious website for miniature horses on Prince Edward Island, little terriers also love these tiny ungulates.
posted by Elise at 9:43 AM
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Welcome Home
I wasn't gone for long, but for a few days I was on an island in Canada, without television or newspapers handy and only fleeting snatches of Internet access.
The reason for this brief sojourn was to witness something one can't see in New York, or the rest of the United States for that matter. One of my sisters-in-law was marrying her partner. It was wonderful that they could get married legally and deeply saddening that such a thing is only possible so far from home.
Back in New York, I grumbled into a bookstore in Grand Central Station, looking for some distraction and noticed with some amusement that the place sells a few anti-Bush humor impulse-purchase items by the registers.
"This is disgusting!" A woman on my left was picking up little tins of "National EmbarrassMints" and slamming them around. "How can you have these here? I hate that you would do this!"
Two cashiers sort of blinked at this creature in Kelly green and black but pretended not to know what she was talking about.
"I only come to this bookstore because I love the neighborhood and I can't believe you're selling this disgusting stuff!"
There was some more blinking and staring (from me).
To her credit, the angry woman completed her transaction and left.
And I remained, pleased that the woman's politics did not at all interfere with her capitalism, and curious about what she finds so mesmerizing about the East 40s.
posted by Elise at 11:10 AM
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Terror In a Small Town
A quaint avenue in a touristy fragment of a remote Canadian city nearly witnessed a homicide of impatience.
I know I have complained endlessly about noseybodies who feel obliged to point out what they feel are my failings as a parent (witness: "he needs sunscreen") but only now can I appreciate how easy my spleen has had it.
The day after a family wedding and following a trip to see prize-winning livestock, my husband, one of my sisters-in-law, Felix and I staggered into town looking for books and food. After dawdling a bit too long, Felix exploded, which can happen when one gets up at 5:30 in the morning and bucks all naps because of the allure of 4H displays and carousels.
As he screamed and we wound our way back to the car, someone approached our merry band braying in that singular way that any mother whose "You'll be fine once we get on the road" monologue gets interrupted by a stranger who can read children's minds knows well and dreads, and started:
Stranger: He's wet.
Me: Just changed him.
Stranger: He needs a hat then.
Husband and Sister-In-Law (Stereo): He won't wear one.
Stranger: Well you CAN get the ones with strings.
Husband, Sister-In-Law, Me (Surround Sound): He'd rather strangle himself with the strings than wear a hat.
Stranger: He needs a soother. You can't give him a sucker at that age.
Me: He's fine. He's just tired.
Stranger: He won't stop crying maybe I should cry with him. Wah, wah, wah.
And then we nearly ran into traffic to get away from her. If we had killed her, it is probable that we wouldn't have finished our jail terms before having to return to the United States today.
So what was this? Did we just look like morons? Did she think I was just going to smack my head and say I forgot that babies need to be changed and not fed lollipops? I could even understand this lady better if I had been alone and looking dithery, but there were three adults to the one child, which surely should have suggested that the three brains together should have been able to navigate the shifting spirits of an 18-month-old.
Is this just some kind of nasty culture shock for people who spend much of their time in New York, where people are so rude they're polite?
Anyway, there she was, yammering away, oblivious to our collective rage. Have I just been living a sheltered life or was our Canadian encounter just some sort of freak thing?
She lives, at any rate. But she has no idea how close a shave it was. Remember, if the kid gets up at 5:30, his parents do too and they aren't even given an invitation to nap.
posted by Elise at 7:02 PM
4 Comments
Oh, my. This Guy Died.
He may not be familiar to you if you aren't fond of mid (20th) century British movies or are a fan of film studio logo sequences, but I have always been a fan of the Gong Man (who represented the J. Arthur Rank Studio), especially when he is combined with the bullseye hitting arrow logo for The Archers (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger). And sadly, he just died of a heart attack.
This little link of logos always excites me in a way that the contemporary chains of slick animated images that get stacked up before credit sequences doesn't quite manage. There is something so human about them. The Gong Man is so clearly a fantastic image that makes you feel you're being heralded into another world.
I recently caught a glimpse of the Gong Man (whose name, Ken Richmond, I now know, thanks to his obituary) because I watched the fresh Criterion Collection DVD release of A Canturbury Tale.
The Powell/Pressburger movies are absolutely wonderful. I love them and I love them for their weirdness. They all have strange tones, mixtures of awkwardness, extraordinary beauty, a real interest in people and a genuine embrace of the supernatural. A dead man falls in love while Heaven longs for Technicolor (A Matter of Life and Death); nuns get driven mad in the Himalayas (Black Narcissus); the Scottish Hebrides serve as matchmakers ("I Know Where I'm Going!"); killer shoes (The Red Shoes).
These are wonderful things to watch during episodes of humid despair, which the summer regularly triggers.
So I'm sad to see Mr. Richmond is no longer with us. He is always a welcome sight around here, and seems to have been a nice guy to boot.
posted by Elise at 8:53 AM
1 Comments
Sunday Dread
No. No I haven't hit the road yet. I tend to carry on my business out of order so instead of making lists or checking out what sort of carry on restrictions will be in place when I do get to the airport (will Magnadoodle be verboten? How about crossword puzzles? Which part of my optimism amuses you most- that I think they'll let me settle into my seat with those items or that I think Felix will actually play with a toy long enough for me to even furrow my brow over a puzzle or turn a few pages in a novel?)
Usually Sunday Dread of Monday is just a morbid anticipation of the impending week. I am now concerned that this feeling that has set in, a feeling that feels a lot like run of the mill Sunday Dread, is actually a Fear of September.
The day after Labor Day Weekend ends, you see, is the day that one must have one's act together when it comes to preschool applications. All around town, people will be manning multiple phones, frantically pressing redial buttons in order to get through clogged lines so that one can request applications to preschool. The competition is fierce and miserable, apparently. I wouldn't really know. I haven't done this before.
Sure, this is a drag, but I used to stand of absurd lines for New York Film Festival screenings. I participated in late night fax-a-thons at bank offices (no one had a fax at home) to request tickets for the Toronto Film Festival. I am no stranger to this kind of persistence.
But I'm worried.
I'm worried because I don't have my act together. I know I went to some information sessions in the spring, but they just gave me good intentions and sticky angst.
Here's where I am:
- I don't have a complete list of preschools to which I want to apply.
- Sad to say, luck is a major factor. Plenty of schools have random lotteries, where one doesn't even get a chance to apply unless one's kid's name is drawn at random from something like a hat.
- I completely forgot to attend a local preschool's "open house" last week and ate things like Vietnamese salt and pepper squid and hollow vegetables in Chinatown instead. I wonder if they'll feel slighted and put my name on a blacklist.
- All of my "connections" to schools (yes, one is supposed to have them) are either so wildly tangential that I'd be embarrassed to invoke them or are to schools that would require a pretty hefty commute (more than one someone has suggested that I consider moving).
- I develop strong opinions quickly. There is a preschool relatively close to me that I just can't bring myself to apply to. Even the things I've heard about the place from the happiest most enthusiastic parents make me strangely angry. It would be pointless to even dip my kid's toe in that process.
- The social aspects of preschool are daunting. This is universal, not unique to New York at all, no matter what you hear on television. Here's a recent review of Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads (I know I keep mentioning it) from the UK's Telegraph that comforts me (I'm not living in the lone city of awful parents) while it annoys me (why are people so appalling)?
Anyway, my time would probably be more effectively spent making the Traveling Lists that I scribble on the backs of envelopes and then lose in my bag, but it is Sunday, and this is the time for the purposeless fret.
posted by Elise at 4:51 PM
0 Comments
Tyke On a Plane
Here in the land of remedial organization, I get the worrying started early, especially when it comes to travel.
Already the terrier is enjoying his impending vacation more than I am mine. Every morning he wakes up and crawls under the bed, I'm sure to make another little "X" on his terrier calendar. He's counting down the days to the moment when he gets to spend some extended time with my parents and their terrier at what he calls "Camp Little Plates" (so named because, after dinner, my parents create tiny versions of their meals for each of the dogs and serve them with great flourishes.)
Anyway, I've been gearing up by reading a book I thought I would love but am now finding really annoying. The book involves quite a bit of travel and hiking around but the writer is constantly talking with some smugness about clever talented friends and the bright conversation they all have together while on quirky jaunts. And I think I'm just not cool enough for this crowd. I find myself rolling my eyes quite a lot and this really doesn't help me get into the spirit of travel or break me out of the (obvious) late summer misanthropy that has settled in quite firmly. No, I'm not going to name the book here because it will just prove what a complete sourpuss I am, when I'd really rather leave my sourpuss-ish-ness at the level of strong suspicion.
So in an effort to make traveling more palatable, I will ask for a bit of advice. I'll be on a couple of planes- no flight longer than two and a half hours (God willing)- and a layover with an 18-month-old. I'm taking any and all entertainment suggestions. I don't care if they're weird or obvious.
I know the general recommendation is to show kids DVDs and I'm willing to give it a shot, but I don't have much faith in the success of this plan. The Felix won't really watch television. He's been reasonably interested in weather reports and can occasionally perk up if there's some kind of image of a duck swimming in a pond on the screen, but beyond that he has no interest. Baby Einstein was a complete and total bust.
If you have any bright ideas, don't hesitate, even if they sound weird. I dread being the person everyone hates on the plane.
posted by Elise at 10:46 AM
3 Comments
The Fruitcakes of Summer
August is such a delicate month in New York City. On the one hand, absolutely nothing gets done, which means that if one is waiting for something to happen (professionally speaking), one will become frustrated and depressed at having to continue to wait for several weeks. This is complicated by the fact that this is the traditional month for psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, therapists and the like to go on vacation. This is surely why most of the city clears out.
In August I often glance around at fellow pedestrians and wonder how many people are silently giving thanks that their meds are finally working, or are clutching cards with emergency contact numbers to call should their dismal moods mutate into crises.
And then there are creative responses to the malaise of these dog days.
On Friday (early in the month for August Syndrome to hit so hard), the mail yielded a remarkable artifact: an envelope addressed to someone called "Elsie" at my address and the name on the return address was my own. Well, that's not true. Apparently the mail was being sent from my "conscience." (But I knew better. My conscience left for vacation on the 31st of July and is incommunicado. I'm supposed to take messages for it until September 2nd).
My conscience, as far as I know, also doesn't live in the taxi that bears medallion number 1P31.
Apparently, some wrapping from a magazine was found by an enterprising woman in the back seat of a cab and she took it upon herself to return it to me with a long scolding letter (with the magazine wrapping enclosed) about how I don't deserve a second chance at not littering but "the Universe, through me has seen fit to give you a do-over."
This is good news because so few people have this kind of "in" with the Universe. I bet she never ever gets stuck on the subway or misses a plane because she was stuck in traffic. She probably has never needed root canal either. I wonder if I can get into her good graces and scam some of this benevolence.
Anyway, I contemplated this business with some confusion because I really don't litter and am much more likely to carry old papers around in one of my bags for 6-8 months before I'm forced to purge everything. Still, I did have two particularly complicated taxi rides with Felix and the Terrier a couple of weeks ago and it was possible that Felix had pulled the junk out of my bag. I was willing to leave a message for my conscience to take the blame next month... except someone else in my household confessed to the litter.
So, now I am contemplating this lunatic letter writer. I don't feel guilty (and won't even in September), since I had nothing to do with the offense. But what about her?
She did sign her letter, so I know her name and it only took a minute of casual searching to find out that her conscience should be a little wrinkled. Her place of business was revealed by her Corporate Challenge running time. That she isn't a lawyer at her place of business was easily confirmed as well, and since she clearly sends her angry missives using her office's mailroom, one wonders if she feels bad about filching postage (and paper and supplies- though maybe she feels she is sticking it to the Man, with the Universe's approval of course). Other little details emerged, about her family, about her position on the war in Iraq (pro, it seems), and she seems to have signed every online petition she can get her little fingers on.
Someone else receiving this letter, which is written with all the obnoxious self-righteousness of someone who has too much time and too much energy, might be freaked out, since it seems so personal, but I know it is just the City, just the summer, just madness.
Perhaps the litter with my name on it performed a service- let her exorcise her demons on the woman she calls "Elsie" (whoever she is) than someone standing near her, sipping coffee on a subway platform.
posted by Elise at 8:22 AM
1 Comments
And For My Next Trick...
Contrary to what my child may tell you, good days do not begin in the five o'clock hour. Excessive daylight makes me murky- my brain and reflexes not as jittery as they should be.
But today was a day begun too early and while nothing terrible actually came to pass, there was too much opportunity. I opened doors to disaster, fell down on the job; select the metaphor of your choice. And of course, it all began with fun.
Visitors were in town and I was complicit in cooking up a schedule of events designed to appeal to children of all ages: toys, burgers, subway, chocolate, playgrounds, even the odd taste of technology for the kid in everyone. But as seems to happen more and more frequently, I kept getting pulled out of the fun by visions of the future, not a long-range future, just the furrowed brow that worries whether my kid will make it through lunch before exploding from exhaustion.
Clearly I failed, but the failure was supreme. The kid did make it through grilled cheese and tomato but was quite miserable on the subway and even through we were almost home, I foolishly felt it was necessary to ether quiet him with some cookie fragment, or put some cookie fragment into a bag before it formed that weird cookie-plaster that solidifies on skin and clothing. Anyway, whatever I was doing, I was stupid because at that distracted moment the subway doors opened and Felix somehow got his fingers caught in them.
Do I need to say I panicked? I did. Some gentle stranger, undaunted by my alarming barks and my kid's howling assisted the digit extraction (and I realize I'm saying this as if he wouldn't have gotten free naturally when the doors closed) but even though his fingers mysteriously weren't even bruised, I'm still cringing.
I obviously didn't learn my lesson because mere hours later, while trying to prove that I hadn't lost my ability to handle the things I usually juggle every day, I nearly let Felix's stroller (yes, he was in it) pitch off a curb while the dog had wrapped his leash around a tree.
I have acquaintances, who make no bones about pointing out that Felix is hatless and tan and don't like the idea that I let him eat slabs of tomato that haven't been cut into tiny slivers, would have called Child Protective Services if they knew. Fortunately, it's August, and no one's around.
So while I can't let up, my mother did offer absolution. "You don't know how lucky you've been. There are so many things you haven't let happen. You didn't drop him up a flight of stairs. I think I used to leave your head behind when carrying you through doorways. It's just the way it is."
Are you thinking her words explain a lot? That would be the obvious punchline.
posted by Elise at 6:35 PM
3 Comments
Swimming & Other Necessities
So after extraordinary effort to overcome my reluctance to put on a bathing suit in the city, I signed Felix up for a few weeks of swimming. The last time we saw this pool it was 40 degrees cooler. We had diligently attended all fall, and while I tend to be something of a goody-two-shoes and reluctant to cut class, the high winds and my reluctance to freeze my ass off (though a gander today made me seriously wish I had) made me bail on the last meeting in December.
Half a year later, the pool has lost none of its allure for Felix and another mother whose son is three commented over my kid's happy shrieks that I should stick with swimming if he likes it. She said that if I keep it up, when he turns three or four he'll be less likely to suddenly decide he's frightened, refuse to learn how to swim as a manipulative gesture and if that happens, getting him into a pool will be an exercise in humiliation, futility, and possibly bribery.
Just when I was thinking this was going to be a surgical strike class in a slow stupid summer, I had to be reminded of the future.
Swimming, you see, is one of the things on my very short Must List. I wrote about this last year and I'm surprised to see it is back to haunt me so soon.
(The Must List actually has an Origin Story: Years ago, a friend of mine whose child was already in grammar school told me that there are a few things she felt her kid had to learn before leaving her exquisitely furnished home where delicious food is served.
Swimming was on her list as was a foreign language, a racquet sport and a few other things that you can't expect me to remember. I don't recall what I ate for dinner three nights ago. For the record, mine also includes learning to play with dogs and animals generally, bicycle riding and irony mastery.)
And here is where my little internal struggle is lodged: I do think the kid should learn how to swim and I am well aware that things that are easy now can get difficult and tricky if postponed. (The memories from last fall of the echoing wailing of the two-and-a-half-year-old who didn't want to get in the pool and his beleaguered mother's sad, sad face are still with me.) So do I administer another semester of chlorine-flavored fun or do I coddle my natural tendencies towards torpor and fully-dressed-ness and sit it out?
I suspect I know which side will win already.
posted by Elise at 7:52 PM
1 Comments
Crazy or Careful?
Last week I had dinner with my parents and somehow the conversation rolled around to the topic of Things I Have to Worry About That Never Occurred to Them When I Was Small.
We talked about all the childhood issues that have cropped up in the news (apart from the heat): developmental disorders, speech therapists, reading delays, physical therapy requirements, etc. My mother began musing about the proliferation of these syndromes and why they seem so ubiquitous now. My father said they were certainly around in the dark ages of his children's childhoods and mentioned a couple of my brother's preschool acquaintances who he was sure had some kind of issue "You don't remember? That kid could climb the walls like some kind of lizard."
I volunteered that a couple of my friends' brothers had odd allergies or sensitivities. One was allergic to red food dye. My mother said she always wondered about that one.
Who knows? I certainly know plenty of adults with severe food allergies (not sensitivities), especially to peanuts, mushrooms and shellfish. (I've met no one else who can't handle food coloring.) None of them makes particular demands of hosts and friends and all of them find ways to navigate menus and foreign kitchens (while carrying epi-pens around).
So something must be in the ether because Emily Bazelon has a piece in Slate this week about children and food allergies that gets at something that percolated underneath my dinner table chatter: when is a child under the constant threat of anaphylactic shock and when are parents being crazy? When is too much caution stifling and when does dragging the lives and practices of every other parent into the mix excessive?
Of course this is the thing that would hit me. I'm socially skeptical and quite aware of how creepy parental dynamics get. (And this week's Washington Post is only feeding my paranoia. Blech.) My mother tells me that people were always awful, and that the only thing new here is that people have more avenues they can take to be self-righteous and holier-than-everyone.
I don't imagine there's a parenting utopia out there, but the hair on my neck is already bristling, readying itself for a defensive future.
posted by Elise at 11:12 AM
4 Comments
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