Christmas 2010

We took this picture to celebrate
the beautiful work
of our fantastic Wrapini (aka Tama)...

...and this one,
to show off the splendor of Sassafras Mama's
holiday home & tree
(note yummy snacks in foreground).

We had a wonderful Christmas,
complete with pleasure reading for the grownups...

...and the joys of catnip for the younger set.

Everyone was in agreement about
the joys of a shared feast.

(Warm thanks to Sassafras Mama & her crew
for once again sharing the holiday with us.)

Merry Merry

That was then...

...this is now.

The freeing the Christmas tree has become
a time-honored tradition in our family. I am
especially fond of the traditions that we've started
without even knowing it.
After that first year of cutting through the tree netting,
Mr. D had a pretty clear idea that it was his job.
And so it has turned out to be.

(Hope you all are enjoying
the gifts of the season!)

eBay and Beginner's Mind

Mr. D has gotten some great play out of his hand-me-down Bey Blades (thank you, Feldini's), and has long scorned the newer generation of this spinning top toy. Recently, though, he's started to realize that the older ones are harder to get (they don't sell them in stores anymore), and his friends have all moved on to the newer generation. "I think maybe I'll try to sell some of my old ones on eBay," he said to me matter-of-factly, "so then I can try the new ones out with some of that money."

"Great idea, buddy," I said. Then I said, "But I don't actually know how to SELL something on eBay; we've only ever been buyers. So we'll have to figure that out." Well of course it turns out that eBay makes it SUPER easy to sell stuff via their site, so within a half hour or so of poking around I was confident that I'd be able to help Mr. D achieve his goal.

The fact that I didn't know what I was doing meant that I was truly able to stay in that place of "beginner's mind." This led to all kinds of great conversations. Which Bey Blades should we offer? Should we do a "these are the actual Bey Blades you'll get" listing or a "You'll get two Bey Blades like these" listing? Mr. D and I talked about why some auctions are less specific than others about the actual items you'll receive. We also talked about the reputational ranking system that eBay uses to help buyers uncover less-than-trustworthy sellers; we'd been very aware of it as buyers, but it was quite different to think about what it means to EARN those ratings as a seller.

Once Mr. D had decided to opt for a full-disclosure, "this is what you'll actually get" style of selling ("because I don't like it when they don't tell me what I'm getting," he reasoned), we moved on to talking about presentation. Mr. D staged and art-directed this photo, which he felt showed off his offered Bey Blades in the best possible light:

Then we talked about how to describe the tops, spinners, and rip cords. Who would be reading the ad, the children, or the parents? People who knew about Bey Blades, or people who didn't? Probably all of the above, we decided. We wrote several drafts of "ad" copy before we came up with a final version.

Then we had to decide about shipping. Would we charge separately for it, or fold that cost into the total cost of the sale? We remembered that we sometimes sort our eBay searches according to asking price, and so we decided to take what felt like a little bit of a risk and list Mr. D's Bey Blade lot with a starting bid of $.99, free shipping. This meant that we might lose money if the winning bidder came in under the total cost of shipping (which we estimated would be about three dollars). Mr. D was confident that it was a risk worth taking, and his goal with this initial sale was "not to make money, but to build up our good reputation!"

Finally the big day came. We posted our carefully staged photo and meticulously edited description and opened up the bidding. If you click on the picture below you can see how the bidding unfolded, but first... how much do YOU think someone offered to pay for those Bey Blades? (We were thinking the total might come in around $8.00.)

It was so exciting to be on the receiving end of those bids! We knew from having been eBay buyers that some folks were actively bidding while others had set a ceiling limit and then let their computer do the rest. But we were pretty surprised when the bidding went above the $7.00 "Buy It Now!" option we'd built into our sale and then kept on climbing.

Mr. D. insisted on packing up his own merchandise:

And when the winning bidder, who lives in Oregon (we looked it up on a map), received her package, she gave us full marks for service, so our eBay seller rating is currently 100% positive; just what we were going for!

This entire process clearly made an impression on Mr. D; later on in the week he opted to give away a few Bey Blades to a close friend of his at school. It will be interesting to see what he decides to do with his remaining "old school" Bey Blades. I am looking forward to doing a lot more side-by-side learning with him over our upcoming break. Next up? SketchUp!

(I would love to hear about
some of your side-by-side learning moments
as a parent, friend, or colleague...)

The Alumni Notes Version

(Alumni Notes)

I had a fantastic time participating in a combined Twitter chat last night, with folks from both the Parentella (mostly parents) and CampusChat (mostly counselors) communities chiming in.

One of the things I love about these chats is the free-ranging nature of the discussion, even though that can also sometimes be a real challenge. I am grateful to both Amanda (of Parentella) and Kelly (of Smart College Visit fame) for their work in making it happen, and am still trying to wrap my brain around all of the interesting perspectives that were shared last night.

Several "take aways" for me came several hours later (have I mentioned that I'm a slow thinker?), as I continued to muse about the stream of comments that were related to what parents can do in support of their children achieving excellence.

Of course I thought of this Erich Fromm quote: "Few parents have the courage & independence to care more for their children’s happiness than for their success."

So one question is, what kind of excellence are we talking about?

It being mid-December, I also started thinking about students dealing with disappointment in the college search process (and in life), and that led me to thinking about the true-life stories we parents tell our children.

If you're a college graduate, do you remember the first time you read the alumni notes section of your school's alumni magazine? I do. I remember the sinking feeling I felt as I mentally compared my life's accomplishments with those of the people who had sent in descriptions of their triumphs. They were running their own companies, being named to advisories boards, welcoming beautiful children to the world, publishing novels... I was just trying to learn the admissions ropes at UPenn!

Of course then I quickly realized... it's only the people who are having amazing years who submit their class notes to the alumni magazine. Not too many people sends in a class note that says, "Spending every other weekend in NH with my ailing mother while struggling to make both ends meet since my partner lost her job in the economic downturn."

Do the true-life stories we share with our children represent the "alumni notes" version of our lives? Or do we let them see our struggles, too? Have your children seen you work and work at something that doesn't come easily to you? Have they seen you receive bad news and bounce back? Have they witnessed you clawing your way back up from a knock-down? Are we modeling persistence and resilience? I wonder.

(Cross-posted over on Relax. No, really.)
Kelly has already posted
takeaway tweets and a transcript,
so go check that out, too!)

A Show for the Wide-Minded

Planning for anything more than a day or so "out and about" has been a challenge this fall. Still, I had been holding out hope that I MIGHT get to treat myself to Scot Wittman's solo show this weekend, and was thrilled when it became clear that the stars seemed to finally be aligning in my favor. (Throughout this post, clicking on the photos will enable you to see a larger version of them.)

I'd never been to the Millbrook School before, and was glad to have detailed directions as well as a navigator (hi, Brigid!) to help me find it in the dark. The two gallery spaces were gorgeous and well-suited to Wittman's wide-ranging meditation on science, humanity, and the ways in which we make sense of our world, and if it hadn't been for the threat of impending snow and an hour's drive to my ultimate destination, I would have stayed much longer. (I was at the show for probably a little less than two hours, which was nowhere NEAR enough time to take it all in.)

(The artist & two of his subjects)

The opening was happily crowded, and included in the crowd were several of the subjects of Wittman's mischievous "re-combined" portraits of identical twins. These larger-than-life photographic studies appear at first glance to be uncomplicated "head shots" of individuals, but are in fact each a merged image created from two different portraits of a pair of identical twins. Several of the people in attendance knew the twins in question, and when I got there, a cluster of Millbrook students were excitedly talking about the print that combined two of their classmates. "He says that this is his eye," said one. For those who didn't know the twins before the show, the opening night treat was that the twins were there! So there were ample opportunities to look from the work, to its inspiration, and back again.

In the background of the above photo you can see one of the panels of another work, a separated diptych in which a non-twin student is pictured in two projected images. Most of the images were stills, but every now and then Wittman interjects a moving image (the girl on the right holds a leaf, which suddenly falls to the ground), which is gone again almost as soon as the viewer notices. This resulted in one of my favorite art-related sensations... the feeling of looking at the non-exhibit world with different expectations. Still life seemed less reliably still after this work.

The two students at the rear of this photo have just realized that one of the twin pairs are in the room and are excitedly craning their necks in order to get a better view.

Some of the pieces in the show were both engaging and unsettling, as evidenced by this Houdini-inspired piece. The straightjacketed and hooded "bodies" (there are two, which is somewhat difficult to see in this shot) had a kind of creepy allure. For me there was also a bit of Abu Ghraib resonance, which made me wonder how long it will be before hooded figures don't have that. As for the chained stump... well, what do you think this is all about? What is inescapable in our lives? How are we connected to and disconnected from the natural world?

Questions about our connection to the natural world were also raised by the collection of pieces shown in the background in the above photo. (Easier to see if you click to see the larger version of the photo.) In these pieces, several silouetted images of birds were coupled with an audio recording which participants could listen to via earbuds dangling from each frame. The recordings were sometimes bird song, but at other times... well, I don't want to spoil the piece too much. Suffice it to say that this work, with its play on expectations and the tension between live & recorded sound, was another one I could happily have spent a lot more time with.

This chocolate-covered skeleton was one of the pieces that gallery visitors tended to stop and stay in front of for a while. We are accustomed to thinking of skeletons as medical specimens or as reminders of the inherently finite nature of our existence. A chocolate-dipped skeleton seems at once irreverent and transformed. In my world, chocolate is for eating. But no one is going to eat a skeleton, right? Can a skeleton have a second life? Skeletons are meant to be clothed in muscle and flesh, but in light of the show's cloning theme, this one "takes on" a more flexible set of possibilities.

I didn't take any pictures in the second gallery space, mostly because I knew from previous experience of Wittman's richly detailed work that the images wouldn't do the work justice. Wittman has taken the unfolding progress of stem cell research as one of his inspirations for this new work, which features large "twinned" silouettes cut from maps of "twin" cities connected to research or other developments in the field. The figures all represent mind-bendingly contrasting combinations of skill sets, e.g. a figure doing a yoga stretch has three medical syringes protruding from her raised leg. The juxtapositions sometimes have a whimsical feel, while at the same time inviting a more serious second look. As is so often the case with Wittman's work, the tensions inherent in the work generate questions in the mind of the viewer, which is part of what made this show so engaging. And there's at least one piece I didn't even have a chance to talk about. I left the show wondering how long Wittman had been thinking through the ideas underlying this complex and rewarding show; when I asked him, he confirmed that some of the seeds of these works were planted over a year ago. It was wonderful to have a chance to see those seeds come to fruition...

(Some more photos of this show
by the fab Ian Bates are right over here.
This solo show is only up through January 6th,
I'm hopeful that between now and then
lots of people will take the time to
to visit the Millbrook School and see it. Well worth it.)

Breathe Again

Last year, our "big" birthday present to Mr. D was a Joan Osborne concert. This year, he's been grooving on Sara Bareilles, so when we found out she was coming to The Trocadero in October, we got right on it! Tama ended up not being well enough to attend, so D and I made sure to have an EXTRA great time so we could come home and tell her all about it.




Even though this last photo is on the blurry side, I love that it seems to capture the exultant feel that both we and she had during her show. It was a great night.

Grim Reaper

In case you were wondering how our Hallowe'en went, here's some pictorial evidence. I guess we should be glad we survived!

It Got Better

(Photo by Jamee C on Flickr)

I changed my mind.

Those of you who know me well will be unsurprised to learn that my original plan to let our Mr. D and his school friend play together at school while we all tried to ignore the larger picture left a bad taste in my mouth. (If you're coming in late and feeling like you need the backstory, it's over here.)

"Would you like me to try to talk to your friends' parents?" I asked Mr. D, not really thinking it through, just wanting to make sure he felt supported. "I think I would like you to," he said after a pause. Gulp.

"Even if that ends up being like stirring up a hornet's nest?" I asked him.

"I think it would be worth it," he said solemnly. "Just in case it might help. Even if the odds are really bad, like a hundred to one." (Math boy strikes again.)

I had no idea what the odds were, but I could tell that our boy had some kind of faith in my ability to move mountains.

So I took myself over to the mountain... the home of his friend.

I aimed for after dinner, but before bedtime. When Mr. D's young friend came to the door, I told him I'd like to speak to his parents. He told me that his parents were praying. "That's fine," I said, "I can pray, too. I'll just wait right here."

So I prayed on the porch, and eventually the indoor praying was done and the friend's father came to the door.

I quietly explained the reason for my visit and wondered if the father might have any idea as to why Mr. D's friend would think they couldn't be friends any more. The father had a few ideas, but none of them really made any sense to either of us. "Let me talk to him," said the father. "I think this might be a misunderstanding."

"I can tell Mr. D that there's nothing to worry about?"

"Yes, of course," said the father.

So.

I came home and told this story. Mr. D's face shone with happiness. "A misunderstanding!" he exclaimed joyfully, as if it were his new favorite word. "Maybe it was the mom who thought we shouldn't be friends, but she only told my friend, and not the father," he mused.

We don't know. We may never know. But no one is crying themselves to sleep at our house tonight, and that is a very good thing.

(Thank you all
for your continuing kindness and wisdom.)

(PS: Do you know the superstition
that if you happen to glance at a clock
when it's 9:09 or 12:12, it's good luck?
Well, we happened to look at the clock today (10-10-10)
at 10:10am. Seems like a LOT of luck!)

Corning Museum of Glass

Growing up as the child of two Corning Glass Works employees meant that I have visited the Corning Museum of Glass MANY times.

Luckily, it's a fantastic museum that I never tired of. During my last visit with my folks, we decided it was time to introduce the next generation to the wonders of glass:

(Here's hoping you all
had a wonderful weekend!)

A Hard Day

(photo courtesy of Stuart Seeger, via Flickr)

Yesterday our son came home with terrible news.

A dear friend and fellow third grader had explained that his parents had said the boys couldn't be friends anymore.

Both boys are confused and sad. We don't know what precipitated this declaration, but based on our son's story and some other prior interactions, we suspect that homophobia may be at the root of it.

As a lesbian parent, I'd been warned that this day was coming. But nothing really prepares you for trying to explain the inexplicable to your wounded child.

I'll be reaching out to my Muslim and African-American friends today for their advice and support. There are too many of us who live in fear of the day our children will come home with a broken heart.

And we'll be talking with our boy about civil disobedience again... for as much as we want him to respect the adults in his life, we also want him to understand that he is ultimately in charge of who his friends are.

Mostly, though, we're going to listen with love and empathy as he tries to process this.

If you know our son and you're reading this, please don't mention it to him unless he brings it up. We think there's a chance that the boys will "forget" the nonsensical edict and continue to enjoy each other's company — at school, at least.

This is the kind of private situation I would typically refrain from blogging about. But in honor of the memory of Tyler Clementi, who should have been celebrating his first month as a college freshman today, I am speaking out.

Homophobia and other forms of prejudice are fueled by fear of the unknown. As much as I believe, as a Quaker, in the power of centered and prayerful silence, I also believe that we have a responsibility to speak our truths as we are able.

So this is my truth: we all deserve to feel safe, respected, and loved.

Please join me in taking a stand against racism, homophobia, sexism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and other forms of soul-chilling discrimination in your schools and communities. Talk with the people in your life about the challenges you've faced and the steps you've taken to overcome them. And hold a good thought for my son and his friend.

(See the good news update here!)

Glasses of Undeniable Gayness

Earlier this summer, my partner discovered and quickly became enamored of the Mexican telenovela "Las Aparicios." My partner does not speak Spanish (or at least she didn't, then), but she seemed determined not to let a little thing like incomprehension stand between her and her appreciation of some seriously fun and queer-positive storytelling.

Enter Ingrid Diaz, novelist and blogger extraordinaire, who has been posting recaps of Las Aparicios episodes on her website.

Even after discovering that she could pay to have the show streamed to her computer with English subtitles, my partner continued to read Ingrid's helpful and often hilarious recaps. And little bits of Ingrid's world view started to make it into ours.

So, for example, here's one of Ingrid's recaps that inspired us:

To finish off the ensemble, Julia throws on some Glasses of Undeniable Gayness, because otherwise she might’ve not been believable as a lesbian. And then the two of them parade down the street trying to pass themselves off as a lesbian couple.

So can you guess where this is going?

Last week, we picked up our new glasses. Which we have of course now declared to be our glasses of undeniable gayness.

Beautiful, no?
And so gay.

(Many thanks to Ingrid Diaz
for her continuing fabulosity,
and to a certain young photographer
for knocking his usual rate down for us.)

Photo by ecstaticist, via Flickr

low morning clouds –
seeming, for a moment,
like a mountain range


(A day that begins
with a haiku
is a good day.
A haiku that I know
I will be able to hold
in my mind all day
is a good haiku.
For me, anyway.)

Sunflowers

1. Sunflower 1, 2. Sunflower 2, 3. Sunflower 3,

4. Sunflower 4, 5. Sunflower 5, 6. Sunflower 6,
7. Sunflower 7, 8. Sunflower 8, 9. Sunflower 9

(This is what we did on Friday.)

Mesocyclone?

It has been a tough year for trees in Mercer County, NJ.

No rain. High winds. And then, Tuesday night,
a freaky-strong micro storm
(one of the emergency workers on the scene
called it a mesocyclone):

Looks like it's been a tough year for cars, too.
(These poor neighbors are away on vacation.)

This is the street corner closest to our house.
The street was quickly closed due to downed wires.
Smoke was still hanging in the air.

Everywhere we looked,
there were huge chunks of tree on the ground.

Earlier this summer, our front yard's
street tree dropped this little "hint."

The township arborist looked at his records,
inspected the tree, and then said,
"I'm sorry, but that tree has to go."

We're feeling pretty lucky this week.
Especially since the new addition is just fine.

(Photos 2-4 of this post were taken by a certain
almost nine year old who wants "to be really good a photography.")

Lessons from Camp, 2010

Some of this year's lessons from camp

(And a big "howdy" to Mary, Brett, Jan, Bruce, & Tara
at N. of Highland Camping Area)...

Bring a friend, a bucket, and a shovel.

Let your friend test the waters...... and then you try it, too.

Make friends...

... with the locals.
(Why yes, that's Vicki Kennedy. At our campground.)

Teamwork...

... makes everything easier.

Get a little fancy with your camping self.

When captured, grin and bear it.

Act like every shot is "gettable".

Ride your bike to the ocean.


Shoutouts to our camping partners Sassafras Mama and JT,
who have helped put the special in this trip for years.
Thanks, too, to our families for putting up
with our relative inaccessibility,
and big smushy cyberkisses
to our folks, Auntie Nish, Wendy, Karen Schiff,
Jen Manion, Diana Conway, Tante Dorit, and Aunt Chelle
for their contributions (snailmail and otherwise)
to another fantastic stay at camp this year.
Can't get enough?
Sassafras Mama's
pics of the shark are pretty great, too!)

Unexpected Pleasures

I've got loads of catching up to do over here on the personal blog, so let's get to it! Even though Mr. D is currently enjoying the fabulousness that is Auntie Camp (read: he's hanging w/ the Feldinis down in MD), we still have unshared pics from his last camp, back before Cape Cod, even!

Can't you just hear the little girl asking,
"Can I hold a bunny?"

And here is the delighted Mr. D
helping a calf get its mid-morning snack.

This time with the roving petting zoo
was all the more sweet for the fact that
we had no idea it was on the schedule that day...
nothing quite as sweet as unexpected pleasures!

Outta Here

Yes, it's that time of year again... we've gotta boogie. Boogie board, that is. You can leave us messages in the comments below (although we probably won't read them until we get back), or, even better...

Send us snailmail at camp! Every year the camp staff at North of Highland is amazed by how much fabulous mail we get, and of course we are delighted with every note, so please keep it up! If you're reading this between July 3rd and July 17th, here's your big chance to make our day at camp.

Send a little note (and/or dark chocolate!) to:
Riendeau-Krause campers, site 35-C
c/o North of Highland Campground
52 Head of the Meadow Road
P.O. Box 297
North Truro, MA 02652-0297

If you'd prefer, you can call the camp and ask them to leave us a note on the camp message board, which is also a big thrill. That number (good from July 5th through the 17th or so) is 508/ 487-1191, and office hours are pretty much all day with the exception of meal breaks from noon-1pm and again from 6-7pm.

We know that you'd love to be there with us, and please do stop by if you're in the neighborhood! Otherwise, let us know you're thinking about us and we'll dedicate an afternoon's worth of laze-about reading or a morning of boogie boarding to you

And a special thank you to the excellent neighbors who are keeping watch on our little house until we get back.

Home sweet away-from-home

50 Years

We arrived at my folks' house midday on Saturday

to help put a celebratory feel in their
Golden Anniversary Weekend.
Mr. D disappeared almost immediately...
(you can click on the picture
to embiggen it, if you think that might help)

Look, up in the tree!
It's a bird! It's a plane!
It's Super D!

Here's a closer glimpse,
complete with his newly perfected
"I'm so totally cool" look.

The only thing better than one boy in a tree?
TWO boys!
(Grandpa needing a hand in building
a new, higher tree platform is pretty much
Mr. D's working definition of heaven.)

After dinner we played the tribute video
my sister had so painstakingly crafted.
A big hit, as you can see.

Sunday morning:
"Grandpa gave me his Field Guide to look at."
(Even when he's not in a tree, he's in a tree.)

Remember this game?
(Mr. D remembered the game,
but forgot to pack shirts.
Thus the borrowed extra-large one.)

We are so relaxed and happy
when visiting with Grandpa and Nana.

Even the garden got into the spirit,
offering up the first poppy of the season
as if to say,
50 years is worth celebrating...

(Terri and I will celebrate our 19th
anniversary this coming winter.
Plenty more years to grow on.)