rantum scoot

hi from denmark

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:59:00 +0000

hi from copenhagen. having a little trouble with the keyboard differences, so lets just ignore the typos, shall we? i can easily type æøå however...can you?

we're all well. lyra is not eating much - refusing much besides cheerios i brought and bananas. she finally ate a bunch of felafel last night and yogurt this morning but then no lunch. i think she's on a different time schedule still for eating. she did great on the flight. stayed awake longer than expected since Air France served dinner at midnight just after we got into the air, but she gets punchy and silly mostly so did okay. the kids meal she got was about twice the food of the adult dinners. i might order myself one next time, lol.

we have had a major hindrance care of air france. they lost our stroller. they got it here but then their courier service keeps screwing up getting it to us. glenn has made 8 phone calls and we've been promised our stroller 4 times. last time it was to be an urgent delivery at 10am. now it's promised between 5 and 9pm. if we call them again they are not hearing from my very nice husband. they are getting the full wrath of an angry mother. we luckily also brought our ergo carrier so we can get around, but it means we're always either carrying a backpack full of our gear or a 20lb baby. it gets a bit heavy after awhile.

we spent today eating open faced sandwiches, the danish specialty. gorgeous selections of various types of herring and salmon, and caviar and cured meats and raw meats and pates and smoked potato. delicious, though lyra was not happy to be sitting there. tomorrow or the next day we'll rent bikes and visit Christiania since I imagine it will be disbanded before long. I also want to go see some of the ancient viking stuff at the national museum. we're having an nice time exploring. i love the bike culture. And i have never seen so many blonde people at once. the crowds of kids coming into the youth hostel from denmark and sweden (i think) with all the sleek long haired girls and spikey gelled blonde boys are so fun to watch. the fashions are looking very eighties with pants tucked into high top sneakers, laced halfway. i appear naked here without a scarf. they are worn by both genders all the time. and danish people have such way better rain coats with wonderful patterns. maybe i should be out shopping now. :)

if we manage to be online again, we'll check in.

Hear Me on NPR- This weekend

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:36:00 +0000

My NPR piece was rescheduled to this weekend:

Listen to me tell the tale of my brother exploring his emotional topography through mud balls this weekend on National Public Radio's show "Living on Earth." You can find when the show is on in your area, or listen to/read it online here.

Do Your Part

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:48:00 +0000

I hope everyone read or heard Gore's speech today. We're running out of time.

If Kids Could Vote

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 02:54:00 +0000

I was thinking a lot the other day about the big bold organizing I did while in high school, the effective protesting, the change I could make happen, the things I thought might be possible. I shook things up in my tiny world. I made waves. And so do so many young people. And then so much gets beaten out of you by life. I'm really trying to fight that lately. I dislike adult inertia and lazy role playing. So I am very pleased to recommend to you some T-shirts my dear friend Pete is bringing to the world. They're for kids. They say things like "I Can't Vote, Don't Blow It." Take a look: www.ifkidscouldvote.com.

The Camp

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 02:00:00 +0000

The most constant place in my life is about to go away and I have some questions.

It’s camp. Like many New Englanders I grew up “going up to the camp” – a cabin my grandfather built on a lake in New Hampshire in the 40s when all around were woods and the lake was full of fish and loons. My grandmother washed out her pots on the edge of the lake. My uncle, a little kid at the time, signed the cement cornerstone with a stick.

My dad grew up going there and playing with the people next door. I grew up going there and playing with the next generation next door. I just had a kid and she will do many wonderful things in her life, but probably won’t know the camp or the wonderfully creative and smart kids of the next generation swimming next door.

Our camp is a two bedroom camping cabin with a gas tank and electricity. It pumps water in from the lake and has a dubious septic system now, though I grew up trekking to an outhouse there. It has very little land. From the lake it looks a bit shabby next to many of the updated homes. But you can see it so well because it is right on the lake. And as a result of this fact alone it has been assessed at a price similar to say, an entire real house in a fairly wealthy suburb of Boston. I own in Cambridge and my house is worth less. My taxes are also a third of the ones on the camp. In the CITY. In Taxachusetts.

None of us can really afford or even justify this. I could take my kid swimming around the world yearly for the taxes on the camp alone. Basically, because not all the owners are involved financially or otherwise (I am not one), it just can’t easily be kept. It’s looking like someone who wants to build their McMansion on the lake will end up with our camp.

And maybe that’s better than someone just moving into our camp in some ways. I mean how could there be a stranger in OUR CAMP? Would they know my Grammie’s ghost is still there drinking tea out of a stained blue tea cup, chuckling and doing crossword puzzles? Will they know all the places to row a boat and swim or to find bird’s nests or blueberries? Would they know every rock between there and the next door camp and have names for them? Would they know how to time it right to get stuck next door playing cards during a big storm? Would their kids learn to swim, to spit watermelon seeds, canoe, kayak, sail, windsurf, chase beavers, imitate loons, rescue baby birds, find pet rocks, bike into town there?

Will they have any nostalgia for the stationery and gift store that once sold penny candy? Will they know that the restaurant on the way into town or on the dock is NOT Bailey's? Will their kid have a favorite flavor of ice cream from Not Bailey’s? Will they remember when the old town railroad station was a movie theater? Will they know what it meant to take Grammie there to see On Golden Pond? Will they have to get drinking water in town and will their dad know every single free spigot in ten miles because he refuses to pay for water?

Will their dog fall in the water barking at ducks or off the prow of the canoe? Will they have a “you catch it, you clean it” rule for fish? Will they know the legend of Sandy Claws? Will Sharky read them stories in the cove? Will they always swamp the canoe on purpose and paddle it around partially submerged or underneath it bellowing “Yellow Submarine”? Will they get to know their cousin by meeting up there for silliness and snacks? Will they have huge treasure hunts or water fights with the family next door? Do they know the secrets to seeing the fireworks on the 4th without being stuck in crowds? Will their dad present firework shows on the dock?

Will they come back as a young adult with boyfriends? Will they climb the tiny mountain at the top of the road? Will they bike all around the woods and hills and keep a map charting the trails biked and where they go on a topo map on the wall? Will they come up alone and write poetry and sing and put a gas lantern on the dock while they canoe out to the middle of the lake and watch the tree shadows rush toward them as the moon is eclipsed? Will they come as an adult and stay by the lake and write a sample chapter of a book about cabins that causes it to get published?

Sort of. I guess, like Lyra they’ll have their own version of all of this, even if it involves ATVs, JetSkis, and some place where they can’t really afford to park their Romney-stickered SUVs. But no matter what…they’d better be pretty incredibly cool to the neighbors. They’ve been my friends since before I could talk. The heads of that family sat with me at my wedding. This is going to alter their camp too.

Live Free or Die is the NH motto. I guess that covers taxing your house to death since it sure ain't free. I used to dream about moving to the Yukon, having a kid who played in the elements. Meanwhile most of my fun adventure friends moved away, my hiking friends died and moved away or got busy, my kayaking has been curtailed by having a kid, the camp is going away.

Even though I didn't make it up there much in recent years I wish it wouldn't have to go. It's just pointing out even more to me that it isn't the place it was when I was a kid. People have built houses along the dirt road and discovered the public access at the cove. The road actually has a street sign now. It's been Google-mapped. People have too many boats on the lake. And it's also somehow pointing out that here at home there are no woods within 20 minutes of my house, no clean beaches for more, and though I tricked out my mt. bike as a city street, baby-carrying machine I keep being afraid to take her on the crazy streets here.

Sometimes this all just hits me and I feel like I just woke up blinking to find I’m standing around with my kid on a cement slab while my husband works in a cubicle a few blocks away and my mom and a number of my friends are dead or gone. This isn’t how I pictured things, and so it is such extra work to make things change.

POSTPONED Hear Me on NPR

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:18:00 +0000

update 6/19: This week's broadcast was reorganized and my piece will be on in the near future instead. Stay tuned. :)

Listen to me tell the tale of my brother exploring his emotional topography through mud balls this weekend on National Public Radio's show "Living on Earth." You can find when the show is on in your area, or listen to me online (it will be posted later this week I think) at www.loe.org

Hail to the Strawberry!

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:59:00 +0000

Our hot sun/rain/sun weather lately has my garden in a happy frenzy of bloom. I thought I'd post a few pics. I would also just like to take a moment to celebrate the lone strawberry that I grew and ate this morning. Yay for haphazard urban gardening!

Seven Songs

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:25:00 +0000

By request:

"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they're listening to."

The tags: W.Coast Bethany, Pete, Ken, Cate, Jeff, Grace, Chris

The songs:

I’d like to write descriptions for each but I’m in a rush -- maybe I'll add them later. I mainly listen to music in my jewelry studio or when I’m singing it to Lyra. Here are some:

Don’t Tell Me To Do the Math(s) – Los Campesinos!

Right Hand on My Heart – The Whigs

That Summer I Had Become the Invisible Boy – Twilight Sad

Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe – Okkervil River

Head Rolls Off – Frightened Rabbit

Barfly – Ray LaMontagne

Eyes – Rogue Wave

Seven Lives Left

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 14:17:00 +0000

We do not have child safety gear on our windows. It's not that we don't know that kids fall through them, it's that our kid is not tall enough, mobile enough, or unsupervised enough to have dealt with it yet. Our cats, however, are like toddlers who can jump and yet get left to their own devices all day.

This morning we couldn't find Moki anywhere. Moki is not a subtle roommate. He's a very big, galumphing, doofball of a tiger kitty who follows me around and plays with Lyra all day. Moki wasn't anywhere. Finally I dared yell "Are the screens intact??!" No. I went running into the backyard in a flash of adrenaline. I saw no sign of him. Suddenly there was a yowling.

I'd heard this yowl only one time before. Moki slipped past me once and I closed the front door without knowing it and he was faced with OUTSIDE. He backed into the stoop and yowled in terror until I heard him and opened the door.

This morning he was crouched against the corner of our house behind our grill, about five feet from where he must have landed. Once back inside he was strutting about, eating, drinking, pawing at things he's not allowed to have, letting Lyra clumsily pet him, staring at the backyard through the door, trying to catch a fly in the house, and busting open the bathroom door to use his litter box upstairs. He fell a story and a half and was fine.

Over breakfast we realized that both of us had noticed our other cat, Luna, in the window Moki fell from both times we'd passed by looking for Moki. Was she sitting there looking down at him sticking her tongue out? Was he down there telling her to just jump, it's not so bad?

We ticked one of the nine allotted lives off both cats for whatever they survived between before and during the shelter where we got them at three months old. Moki fell at least fifteen feet and landed on small rocks. He's lost another life. It's also worth wondering if besides being able to deliver my kayaking boots up four stories of stairs, play in the shower, play happily with a human baby, open latches, and other funny tricks...he can fly?

Don't try this at home. I think he and we got very, very, very lucky.

Can't Touch This

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 02:33:00 +0000

Since the question comes up every single summer, here's a reminder. This is poison ivy.

Get a Hamster for $200

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 02:27:00 +0000

Beacon Hill is an expensive neighborhood, but geez...

I won! I won!

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Tue, 20 May 2008 03:32:00 +0000

I thought I was going out with a friend from CA tonight, but plans changed. So, I went out anyway to the big annual bike benefit at Redbones (BBQ joint near us with free bike valet!). I people-watched the bike geeks and bike punks, and various gangs of riders amazed that I didn't see anyone I knew. I then realized I'm a lot older than half the people I was watching. I bought myself six raffle tickets for $10. I won myself a set of Velocity 700c bike wheels with snappy black spokes that must be worth a few hundred dollars. I ended up out in a pub with a friend and got given free cake. It was a pretty good night.

So, biker friends...these wheels. Can I put them on basically anything that takes skinny tires? Like can I make myself some spiffy bike with just some old ten speed frame now? Or do these wheels deserve better? I could always sell them. . . but we only just met!

Boston Globe Article

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Mon, 19 May 2008 01:24:00 +0000

Today I had an article in The Boston Sunday Globe. I have written for a bunch of magazines, a gazillion web sites, published a column for years, written for TV, radio, catalogs, and published a book. This, however, was the newspaper I grew up knowing as THE paper. As a kid it was the Globe that I lay open on the gold shag rug in the living room to read "the funnies" side by side with my brother and dog. And, this is the first thing I've published since Lyra was born.

So, I was excited. This morning I decided it would give me a thrill to take a paper out of a city newspaper box and open it to see my byline. Glenn, and I each held one of Lyra's hands and we toddled a couple of blocks away on a gorgeous spring day to the nearest box. I put in the quarters, glenn pulled out a camera. I pulled and pulled. I put in more quarters. I got the quarters back and tried again. No dice. That damn box would not open no matter what we did. At least it gave me back the quarters.

Anyway, here it is online, where no quarters are necessary.

If you like, you can add on the funny last line I originally wrote for the article that was cut: "And visiting the Athenaeum was always morally acceptable."

(And yeah, I got some print copies later from the drug store. Had to read the funnies, after all.)

Carnivorous!

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Fri, 16 May 2008 21:23:00 +0000

Noticed some pitcher plants in the woods today. I love plants and trees with such obvious adaptations.

If you're not familiar with these plants, they grow in boggy areas and attract insects who then slip slide into the tube and are eaten. Yum!

One Year

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:35:00 +0000

Last year a PERSON came out of me. I still haven't gotten over how weird that is, or how wildly amazing she is. I've had some intense days in my life, but for sure this day last year was the most mind-blowing one of all time. May she keep her jolly disposition and continue to bring light into the world. I am grateful for every day of her life.

Idea for You

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:32:00 +0000

So remember my Style Sleuth idea about identifying tags in clothing that you could aim your cell phone at? My brother pointed out this article in the NY Times today. The means for this idea already exists! So go get rich already, okay?

Props to the Peeps

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:04:00 +0000

If you haven't seen the results of the Washington Post's second annual Sunday Source Peeps Diorama Contest, you are in for a treat. A friend sent this to me and I haven't stopped giggling anytime I think of it.

Lyra Earns Her Keep

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 23:38:00 +0000

Lyra will be 11 months old in a few days. She has earned $35 already. By the end of next week she will have earned $305.

Here is her breakdown:

She has participated in three ten minute experiments at the Cognitive Studies Lab at Harvard. She sat in my lap for these and observed various items. Which things attracted her attention and for how long was recorded. Whether she noted a person's preference for a particular item, whether she noticed whether sounds were matching items on a screen, and whether she could tell the difference between sand and a solid object were all involved. She earned $5 for each of these studies, as well as a snack container and two sippy cups.

She has had an eye exam in which no drops were used. She simply had to look at fun toys and note the stripes on a board while New England College of Optometry students learned what it is like to do an exam on a potentially non-cooperative wee person. For this she was entertained, had her eyes checked, and earned $20. She was also invited back next year for being just so darn cute. (She has excellent vision.)

Next week we will host several other first time moms and a representative from a children's furniture design place, care of a local marketing research company. We will play with our kids and answer questions about our opinions for a two hour focus group (not sales) on kid things we might have been talking about anyway. For hosting, Lyra and I make $200. For them postponing it a week we get an extra $75. Our friends will all earn $150 plus another $50 for rescheduling.

So how else can Lyra and I have fun and earn money (legally, please)? Any other creative suggestions?

Idea for You: Style Sleuth

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 02:03:00 +0000

Please take this idea and make millions:

Create a tiny thingy that can be sewn into the tags on clothing that transmits the brand/designer to anyone who holds their cell phone up to get it. Sell it to clothing companies.

For instance: Dude walks by in super sexy green and black striped hooded sweater...you hold up your phone "beep" and you've got the designer so you can buy one for your hubby.

I Thought I Was Thumbody

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:36:00 +0000

I was at the doctor again for a variety of things this week, including finally officially complaining about the insane arthritic-like pain in my hands and wrists. Apparently there is an official diagnosis for new moms with this -- it's a common kind of strain and it's particularly common in women like me who got carpal tunnel syndrome while pregnant. She wrote a prescription for wrist braces and had me take it to the Physical Therapy department. "Please restrain her thumbs," she wrote on it.

I spent the last two days laughing to myself imagining various Steve Martin-esque afflictions where my thumbs were jumping all around of their own wild and crazy accord. Then I imagined doing that seventies thumbs-up dance like Elaine on Seinfeld. When I went in today to get fitted for my braces, the physical therapist took out some standard wrist braces. "Oh no," I said, "you're going to have to restrain my thumbs," and then my eyes started watering because I was trying so hard not to giggle.

They took out their super cool plastic and heated it with warm water and molded wrist braces for me. We had a long discussion about the kind of plastic and how I could have all their scraps and use them to make things, remold handles on tools, keep bezels with stones in place while I set them and more. I was then given a stern warning that I was not to cut up my braces for art projects just because my wrists start feeling a little better. "You can," she winked at me, "decorate them with permanent marker if you like."

I agreed to wear them if I wasn't working and that maybe I'd wear one while taking care of Lyra. That mostly left sleeping, so I could deal with that. I was feeling pretty happy about things and I went to the cafeteria at the hospital before another appointment and tried to eat a tuna melt.

Somewhere between having the cashier put my change in my wallet for me and trying to clumsily pick up a dripping sandwich in my fingers I stopped smiling. It finally hit me: this actually sucks. I've actually been demoted down the evolutionary ladder. Even that thought was funny enough to get me through my next appointment. Then I tried to turn the key in the ignition of my car. This is the solution to high gas prices: restrain your thumbs.

When I got home I ate a big bowl of consolation ice cream and the post lady brought a package to the door and saw the braces and offered to bring me my mail, too. When I opened the package it was an unexpected present from the ever-amazing West Coast Bethany. The world was righted again.

Monster in a Box

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:28:00 +0000

Mnemonic Majesty

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 03:14:00 +0000

My very exciting magic carpet just sailed under nine palace elephants.

That's the winning mnemonic in a National Geography Kids contest to help you remember the planet names. My thanks to the 10-year-old in Montana who came up with that one, since I'm gonna have to teach this stuff to my kid.

(If you haven't been paying attention, Ceres and Eris are the new planet munchkins...)

Viral Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 02:52:00 +0000

I drove by a woman on the sidewalk. She didn’t appear to be on the phone. She hunched over with her elbows close and her face scrunched up and shook her hair around and then sprung her hands and her chin up to the sky and appeared to shout with glee.

It feels very intimate to share joy. And yet when someone else does it you don’t notice it as uncomfortable or confessional, you just feel happier.

Six Word Autobiography

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:57:00 +0000

I have seen a lot of posts lately about six word autobiographies. What would yours be?

Here's one for me:
I always have too many ideas.

updates...

noreply@blogger.com (bethany) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:10:00 +0000

I've been ignoring my blog. Well, I haven't been ignoring it per se, but I had some big ideas of ongoing writing projects I think I'll post and then just never got around to articulating them. . . . always...so...tired!

Anyway, Lyra is now nine months old. She makes jokes in her own ways. She tries to surprise me with sudden monster noises, laughs ridiculously hard at my lame physical comedy, plays a mean game of peek-a-boo, loves to be seriously bounced and jostled like a little adrenaline junkie, and will eat anything: She likes brussel sprouts. She likes lemons. She likes creamed smoked roe in a tube. She also eats great quantities of food. Entire avocados act as simply an amuse bouche for the rest of her courses. She says "num num!" when she's hungry. And she is still the cutest kid ever.

Her eating anything also applies to anything she finds on the floor, your shoes, the fuzz on a sweater. She can pick up incredibly tiny items. This, and her ability to suddenly find new ways to keep up with the cats, require constant vigilance. It is exhausting. She's acquired stranger-danger "separation anxiety" issues when in our house, but they are fine when people chill out and visit with glenn and I for awhile and she gets to see us all smiling together before she's expected to interact. She basically just watches our faces anytime anything happens or we see new people.

Lyra and I started a class today called "Sing and Sign," where we will sing songs and learn some basic sign language. We needed some fun and socializing, Lyra loves songs, and I cringe at many of the baby tunes. So this seemed like a good solution as it would occupy my brain some and entertain her. And if she learns some useful signs (Like "stop" so I don't have to scream it ever!) that's great. And, listen, I'm acquiring these really useful language skills -- so they next time you encounter someone who is deaf and you need to sing them "The Bear Went Over the Mountain," I'm your woman. Just call me.

It's fun watching Lyra with the other kids. She is a clearly super alert person. She also seems quite social. She crawls up to each of the babies and touches their faces and yells her barking hello and then moves on to the next kid. She rushes the teacher anytime the teacher has something new in her hand. When everyone sings, Lyra sits and looks at everyone and bounces up and down throwing her hands up and down with glee. Sometimes she sounds like she's singing along.

And in other news my other days of the week I'm spending more time at my studio doing some good work, and I'm getting a bit of writing done as well. I feel like I'm returning to myself again a bit. But really all I want to do lately is to play outside. Winter in New England with a less outdoors-oriented spouse is one thing, but with an infant it is just dreadful. I miss winter hiking, cross country skiing, snowshoeing in negative windchills...I find these things fun. I would love to try the skating rink that opened in our neighborhood, to ski into a yurt for a weekend, something. Meanwhile I have the aforementioned happy nutter to hole up inside with, so all is not lost, but it is indoors and inactive a lot more than I'd like lately.

My dad, however, is stuck inside this winter quite unexpectedly. He had a knee replaced (his second) in November to get him on the path to less pain and more mobility. He was doing really well until he fell on the ice about a month later while coming home from swimming. It was a terrible fall and he ripped his quad from his kneecap. Many weeks later he got the brace off his knee and after he stood he suddenly buckled. This week they found his quad is Not attached. More surgery, more months of recovery in his house with a walker and the TV to keep him company. If anyone has any tips for my house-bound dad to make this next round more bearable, post 'em!