Things I'm Glad I Did Before the Pandemic Hit

October 5- Took the kids to see the Kehinde Wiley sculpture in Times Square.  Once I saw that on the news, I knew I had to see it before it moved to its permanent location in Richmond VA.

October 12: Schomburg Center Conference on Enduring Slavery

I got myself up early to take the train to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem to attend this free conference.  I got off at 125th Street and walked up Malcolm X Boulevard to 135th Street.  I learned about slave uprisings in Lousiana and digitizing slavery archives.  The Schomburg has a great museum and bookstore and a nice outdoor sitting space.  It looks like this conference was put on by the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery, a research center based out of the Schomburg.  The Schomburg is actually part of the New York Public Library System.

 October 19 : Teachers College Reunion Days
Again, FREE learning! My coworker and I took the train in, then she showed me how to use the bus to go crosstown from 125th St to Columbia Teachers College.  I heard Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul talk about teaching about racism is a mostly white school, and that's what inspired me to start my Anti-Racist bookclub with coworkers.

October 26: African Burial Ground National Monument and Brooklyn Bridge

Daughter and I took the train and subway into Lower Manhattan because I wanted to visit the African Burial Ground National Monument.  There was a Junior Ranger badge that my child refused to do.  We also walked over the Brooklyn Bridge on a nice fall day.

November 2: Hamilton Grange National Memorial  in Harlem

Son and I drove in because I'd heard about Hamilton's home but had never seen it. It was pretty interesting and fun to see another part of the city.  It's a National Park Service site so there was a Junior Ranger badge that we did.  

November 15: Got my Taekwondo Black Belt!

November 16: Went to my cousin's baby shower in Revere, MA.

November 22-24 : NCTE Conference in Baltimore
This conference was incredible and I hate myself for not going to these earlier.  My coworker and I drove down to attend this whirl-wind of all day seminars and events.  It's beyond words how excellent this event is.  There are SO MANY types of seminars for teachers from K-College, but every session I attended focused on race.  I think I was laser-focused both because of Dr. Cherry-Paul's talk and because when I went to the funeral of my professor of African-American history this fall, I felt like I'd failed him by not learning and doing more, so I want to make up for lost learning. Not just learning, but connecting over changes that need to be made, and making change, and teaching others.  I'm a good student and a good connector of people and I need to use that to publicize issues of race and racism.

December 28: Visited Richmond
I was in Virginia visiting my parents after Christmas and wanted to take my kids to see the Kehinde Wiley sculpture again. I also drove them by the Confederate Monuments on Monument Ave so they could see what the Wiley sculpture was in dialogue with.  We also visited the American Civil War Museum. It's a new museum and very well done.  Had dinner with two different high school friends in King George.

January 26 : Saw Hadestown on Broadway 
This was my Xmas present to Quinton.  It was so good, not as big and triumphant as Hamilton, but just as emotionally affecting and the music is excellent.  If it still runs when Broadway reopens, I will see it again and this time take my 9yo as well.

Feb 29-March 3 : Last Pre-Pandemic Trip

Feb 29: Met sister in Virginia when she flew in from Nebraska to tour colleges with her 5 of her 6 kids.  I took her middle 3 and my 2 kids around Richmond while she toured with the baby and the 17 yo. We visited the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts because by this point I was aware of COVID and thought a children's museum would be bad, but an art museum, where you can't TOUCH anything, would be better. I think I was right, and what a GREAT art museum. We happened to be there on African American Read Aloud Day, so there were cool events for kids. 

March 2: Took my 2 kids and my sister's 3 kids to Mount Vernon where I did not let them touch anything, because by this point I was getting a little frenzied about Covid but was thankfully unaware of how airborne it is or I would have already holed up and missed out on the fun.  

Hamilton #6- Angelica Tour in Hartford CT

Eliza- masterful. Had us in the palm of her hand. How she snuggled up to A on the bench in “that would be enough.”  This was the only Eliza that has me singing the songs afterwards.  She did more with that role than the 2 Elizas I'd seen previously.  

Alexander- how he grew from young to old. Ambitious to world weary.

Burr- very human. Just trying to hold it together. 

Angelica- she had real emotion after Reynolds Pamphlet. I’d never seen that. And just so good in Satisfied. 

How she snatched the letters out of Eliza’s hands during that second round in a totally different way.  I don't think I'd ever seen an Angelica do it with that much emotion- almost desperate but in a sad, helpless way.  

King- great. So nerdy and cute.

Ensemble- so tight!!  So precise.  We were sitting far away so I had a great view of the whole stage and what each person was doing.  

However, the Philip Des Moines Iowa tour is still the most affecting ending I have ever seen. I also wonder if that had to do with the angle from which I viewed it.  I was 10 rows back, very close, and off the the right, so I could see both their faces, and the distance between their bodies, as Joseph Morales as Hamilton gave Eliza a gentle shove- to get her out of the world, finally, to join him.  

I am still amazed with how you see different things in that show depending on where you sit.

It added so much to "Eye of the Hurricane" when I could see Iglehart as Jefferson looking down on Hamilton- as if, even Jefferson, who hated his guts, felt sorry for him.  You just can't see that from most parts of the audience.  And how I could look up into the hurricane. That was an amazing viewpoint.  You can't beat the second row in New York, that's for sure.  

In the Hartford Co, I could really see the whole stage, and that was cool to be able to appreciate the lighting and just the whole effect.  Really such a brilliant show with so many layers.  

Kid Christmas Lists 2018

I found these very cute.
"Another dog" by Lane, especially!

Hamilton Episode of Twenty Thousand Hertz Podcast

The Hamilton episode of the Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast is everything I've ever wanted.

I keep saying, "Oh my god."

This podcast has the Sound Director of Hamilton basically giving away secrets about the music.

He makes explicit the details of the music that affect me so strongly as the story is told.  It's the explanation of why it affects us.  I appreciate this podcast because on my own, I don't have enough knowledge about or vocabulary of music orchestration and technology to do much more than just recognize that the music makes me think and feel very deeply.

Books Recommended by Daughter's BFF's Grandparents

The Hare with the Amber Eyes- DeWaal
Finding George Orwell in Burma- Emma Larkin
Sapiens- Yuil Harari
Orange is the New Black
Thinking Fast and Slow
A Visit from the Good Squad
The is the Story of a Happy Marriage
Also:Westport Playhouse

Quinton Quotes- Curses and Hand-him-downs

Yesterday:
Q: "Mom, is 'dumbass' a bad word?"
Me: "What?"
Q: "Is-- ohhhhh I get it, dumb ASS.  Yeah, that's a bad word."

Today:
I think I said the word "crap," as in, "If there wasn't so much CRAP in your room, that would have been easier to find."
Q got excited, and I thought it was because he was going to say I owed him money for cursing.  He might have been going to say that, but then he said, "Hey, Mom... can we curse, since just you are me are home?  Like, if no one else is home, can you and I curse?" He looked so hopeful.  I have to admit, it sounded kind of fun, but of course I couldn't agree to that.
Me: "No, that's probably not a good idea."
Him:  "The other day, I almost said a bad word, but I said 'FUNK.'  I said 'funk' instead of 'fuck.'  Oh shoot!"

Mom, it's so unfair.  All of Gregory's things are hand-him-downs.  They're all from Roderick.
- Q, May 2017

Looking at photos with my parents.  April 2017.
Q: Awwwww.  Why could I not time travel... and fix everything that's wrong with my hair.

The Kind of Reader I Am

I'm the kind of reader who starts a book and if she likes it, will choose reading it over most other things.
Why?
I want to learn as much as possible, is one reason.
The faster I can do that, the better.
I don't want to lose the story line.
In a way, I owe it to the book.  Right?

Books I've started recently and couldn't stop til I was done:
One for the Murphys (Fall)
Olive Kitteredge (earlier this month)
This current book I'm on, How to Survive a Plague.

I just have to see what happens.

The Kind of Learner I Am

The kind who has to write down all the steps from a Youtube tutorial.  

Kid Quotes- Baseball

C: Did you win?

Q: Mmmm it's hard to say... I think we... won, or we losed... I'm not sure.

This was from when Q was 7.  

Holdcroft Kids Smart Book

At one point I was caring for my sister's kids.  My brother-in-law left a manual so we'd know what to do.  He's a pilot.  I hear they are all about checklists!

Soy Yo

I mean, this just makes me happy.

Rats, and Stuff

It's such a horror show cleaning a house.

That feeling might have been compounded by discovering a dead rat (?) or something in the back yard where I was going to dump the water out of a junked little cooler that should have already been disposed of.  A dead rat right near my kids' swingset.  Just great.

I let out a little scream when I saw the animal (maybe it wasn't a rat- it was sort of plump- so maybe it was a possum?), which was kind of great because there were a couple guys next door who heard me.  Kindly, they asked if it was a snake. I said, rat, they suggested a shovel, which I thought was pretty genius.  I was picturing myself trying to scoop the carcass into a bag. Maybe instead I'll just bury the thing.

I've been reading about hoarding a bit, and I can see why it's common to accumulate so much crap. It is SO easy to buy stuff-- just click a few buttons!-- and so much harder to dispose of things.  I guess that's why we should avoid buying things in the first place.  Maybe I'll work on that.

Hate Speech in the White House

From its chief strategist, no less.  I'm sorry, where do we draw the line?

Referring to Ann Coulter, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin in a 2011 radio interview on Political Vindication Radio, he said: “These women cut to the heart of the progressive narrative. That’s why there are some unintended consequences of the women’s liberation movement. That, in fact, the women that would lead this country would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love their children. They wouldn’t be that came from the Seven Sisters schools up in New England. That drives the left insane, and that’s why they hate these women.”


I'm also left thinking, if this is how these men talk IN PUBLIC, what are they saying in private (besides laughing about they "grab 'em by the pussy?"  (To quote the President-Elect.)

I'm going to look up the legal definition of hate speech so I can make sure I have this right, but right now my 4 year old is freaking out, so I gotta run.

More on the new Chief-Strategist-Elect:
Turn on the Hate: Steve Bannon at the White House

Perseverance: How to Become a Hamilton Star

Or a star in any career, I suppose.

I watched Renee Elise Goldberry's Tony Acceptance speech.  She mentioned that she spent her child-bearing years pursuing both her career and motherhood, and that she was so happy to be able to stand there with a Tony and say that, and to also pay tribute to her parents. I looked up her history and found a nice article on Cosmo that shows the path to success is not easy.

On... What? Seizing the Moment.

Found a page of writing from last year to type up that's still relevant:

"...as I've been driving around Stamford-Greewich, feeling like, it's no longer me and MY future that matter, it's my kids. 
It's one thing to have that vague notion-- it's another to look back on your life and think, WOW- there was a time when it was all about me and I totally didn't appreciate it or make the most of it!"
And this brings me to my feeling about Lin-Manuel Miranda...

And if my time is up, have I done enough?
(Why Hamilton is so great.  There is so much of the universal in it, told through those specific stories.)

HOW did Lin write two great musicals?
What kind of a brain can do that?  How did all that music get in there?

Which brings me back to my brain, which I can feel just isn't as flexible and agile as it was when I was, oh, 22, when I did what I think was my best writing.

Bronx Zoo: Gorilla Toddlers

We were so lucky to get to the Bronx Zoo: Congo before it was crowded.  We got a good close look at a gorilla's foot:

And I was struck by how much gorilla toddlers act like human ones.

Lane is often sitting on me like I'm a couch:

Proud of Obama's Presidency, Blacks Sad to See Him Go

Looking at that photo... I think, My God, it has been a miracle.

That New York Times article captured a lot of what I feel and think.

What a gorgeous couple.  What a different-looking couple than has ever walked an inaugural parade.

Numerous times over the past 7 years, I've been driving and thought to myself, My God, we have a black president.  I just never thought that would happen, if I ever thought of it at all.  Good.  Lord.  

When your child learns to write

When your child learns to write, and writes on your favorite  jeans... while you're wearing them.

I felt something gently caressing my leg, and later realized it was these letters, being written in permanent marker.

I'd say that's the death knell for these jeans.  Jeans that saw me through meeting my husband and having two kids.  

My Writing Life is a Grasping Octopus--

Always searching and scanning.

Maybe it's like a scanner- like a security camera.

That's how I operate in the world.  I'm built to scan for writing topics.

That was honed when I was an English major, searching for topics, and also for my column and article topics.

I always made my life into topics: Nathan and eye contact.  The first graders.  Placentas.

Always alert.  I am an always alert person.  I'm on high alert for topics.

Good Read Alouds

Very short, good for Pre-K

Don’t let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

Bark, George!

Kindergarden

Interrupting Chicken

Bark, George! (How about the genus kid in Q's class who was like, "He ate the vet!"  I had never thought of that.  Geez.  This is why you need to listen to kids.  In many ways, their brains work better than ours!)

More 1st grade-y

Rude Giants

Great books to share but maybe not as good read alouds, or good read alouds but then give kids a chance to re-read on their own to see the visual aspects.  

Officer Buckle and Gloria

The Library Card (first story "Mongoose")

Favorite but has a pistol in it:

Custard the Dragon- Ogden Nash

Other favorites not everyone might approve of:

The Tushy Book