Futzing

I just spent way longer than necessary futzing around trying to make something work on PicMonkey when I have no actual idea on how to do it. At least 90 minutes on something that in truth, no one would remember and most probably won't notice anyway, so now I'm giving up. It was silly to work at it for as long as I did, but I am proud of myself for cutting my losses and not sinking further time into the effort.

Because it's daylight savings and already getting dark and I slept poorly despite having the bed to myself and I've already done enough today and there is still probably more left to do and Google lets things be only so easy but not entirely easy and I'd really rather go watch the latest episode of "This is Us."

I'll get back at you another day, PicMonkey.

Max and Me

Being home alone with Max has meant we've gotten some quality time in together, but I also caught some time alone.

Pavement Coffee, near Berklee

I took him for a haircut and out to dinner last night, and then he put up with me falling asleep at 8:30 while he watched a movie beside me. Then this morning we got up early and took the T into the city so he could attend a music festival at Berklee College of Music. He spent the morning playing the bucket drums and ukulele, folk dancing and singing, while I checked out a very hipster coffeehouse for breakfast and had some pad Thai for lunch. Meals out alone don't happen often, so Thai is real treat for me.

I picked up Max after lunch and we headed over to the Christian Science complex just a few blocks away, which houses the publisher of the Christian Science Monitor. I wanted to take him to see the Mapparium (please click on that for images--you'll want to see it), a spherical glass globe room with a bridge through the middle, frozen in time as the boundaries were in 1935. The globe was commissioned to depict the global focus of the publication. It's fascinating to see the beautiful artistry to the glass panels, but also to see how the world has changed, and try to decipher country names many people have never heard of before. The acoustics in the room are also fun to play with, as voices bounce around and you can hear whispers from strangers on the other side of the room. It's only a 20 minute tour, but Max was totally entranced. Before we headed home, we went inside the Christian Science church as well. The organ pipes were unbelievable. Max took an extra reflective moment there, probably happy for some quiet after a loud and busy morning. Then we made one last stop in the city, at Guitar Center, where Max has picked out what he's sure he wants for Hanukkah this year: a new acoustic guitar.

Max at the Christian Science Center

It was fun to spend some time in the city together, but also fun for me to spend a little time exploring on my own too. I can see Marc and me having more time to do that again in the not-too-distant future, as the kids seem to be spending more and more weekend time away from us. Maybe we won't be limited to our usual suburban spots with a little more time to explore.

Today? Really?

As someone obsessed with my calendar, I'm always looking ahead, plotting things out and theorizing about how life is going to unfold over certain especially busy times. That leads me to feel a sense of discombobulation when those dates actually arrive, and I find I question myself with, "Today? Really?" It's like my mind can't comprehend that enough time has passed to actually be here, in those theorized moments.

This weekend is one of those. When Hannah got the invitation to attend a camp friend's bat mitzvah in Connecticut, we thought about how it might be able to work out. We thought about seeing if other locals could join her. Emails were sent, plans were made, RSVPs were sent, and somehow they're leaving this afternoon to have this weekend away. Hannah's excited, of course. But I'm left asking, "today, really?"

I first noticed this tendency in myself on June 21, 2002. I was up early at home in Ohio with my family, and getting married in two days. The "Today Show" was just coming on, and it started with its usual "today is" and the date. "Today? Really?" This date that I'd been planning towards for the past 13 months wasn't just some date on a hypothetical schedule anymore. It was real, very real--and amazing and terrifying and exciting.

But not something out in the future anymore. It was present, and all-too-soon to be past.

Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire

Lindsey from "A Design So Vast" recently published her answers to the Vanity Fair Proust Questionnaire, which she said provides answers to some of the "minutiae" of life. I love minutiae myself, so I thought I'd take a stab at answering these too.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Back pain. Something I know all too well. 

Where would you like to live?
I really like where I live now, but eventually I'd like to live someplace where snow removal isn't a major concern.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?
My kids singing "The Cup Song" together in the backseat of the car. 
 
To what faults do you feel most indulgent?  
Harboring high expectations.

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction? Who are your favorite characters in history? Who are your favorite heroines in real life? Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?  
It was this series of questions that made me want to NOT do this quiz, but then I thought my answer here is kind of interesting after all.

I don't really have any.

Maybe Meredith Grey, of Grey's Anatomy, but that's because I've watched her for so many years mostly. But it's hard for me to choose because there is good and bad in everyone, and whenever I think of of someone, I can't invariably say I love everything they've ever done, fictional or not.

Your favorite painter?  
Jackson Pollock. And not just because of his last name. I had this up in my office until they replaced all my walls with glass and turned it into a fishbowl.

Jackson Pollock's "Convergence"

Your favorite musician?  
Early Counting Crows. I can't say I've kept up with them much over the last decade.

The qualities you most admire in a man?  
Compassion

The qualities you most admire in a woman?  
Compassion. Because I'm not sure what gender has to do with this question.

Your favorite virtue?  
The ability to let things go. I'm not good at that.

Your favorite occupation?
I once wanted to be a playwright.

Who would you have liked to be?
A singer on Broadway. Maybe someday.

Where I Live

Lincoln Street in Newton Highlands

Today is one of my work at home Wednesdays, which I told you in a recent post that I've just begun having after years of working from home in a very chopped up way on Tuesdays. So far, I've really been enjoying these Wednesdays, with a longer stretch of quiet time at home where I'm able to do some deeper thinking about work stuff with fewer interruptions. It's been really good for me.

But just like my Tuesdays, I've been using my Wednesdays to get some errands in, and today was no exception...except that it was a particularly lovely fall morning. Okay, yea, the leaves are off all of the trees in the photo above, but that didn't matter. The temperature was perfect for a few walkable errands in my village center. Yes, village.

This morning I was able to go to the dry cleaners, stop at the post office, have a yummy breakfast burrito, buy a baguette for dinner at the local bake shop, and get a manicure all in about 90 minutes, on foot. Which is extra good, because our car, as Marc described it, decided to dress up as Frankenstein on Halloween by getting a bolt lodged in its tire, so I'm without access to a car today.

I love feeling so accomplished by 9:30 in the morning. Then I was able to dive right in to work when I got home, without all of those things nagging over my head for the rest of the day. Or, um, week, as can be the case when it comes to taking in the dry cleaning. ;)

Another #NaBloPoMo

So, Busy Since Birth seems to be barely alive. I've posted only 17 times so far this year, which is pathetic. But like almost every other blogger I've ever encountered, it seems to be getting harder to sustain this (non-paying) medium, and the psychic payoff for doing so is minimal. This March will be 10 years of blogging though, and I am committed to at least hitting that milestone, even if I barely make it to first base.

Oy. A sports metaphor. I'm really sorry about that. Too much time pretending to care about sports at the office. Though, since we're here now, go Tribe! (My Cleveland is showing.)

Anyway, it's another NaBloPoMo, which translates to "bloggers cajoling other bloggers into writing every something every day for a month because we think it's good for us until it actually drives us insane." I've done this a few times now, and those last few days of November are PAINFUL, but the month overall is fantastic. I do feel better when I make time for writing every day, and as my post count this year shows, I haven't been feeling my best this year. Definitely not enough moments of nacho happiness.

I'm still project-less. I mean, Hannah's upcoming bat mitzvah is a huge distraction/amazing thing, and I have some volunteer things that start up soon, but I'm still missing my Having It All Project/Listen To Your Mother side gig that's mine, all mine. I keep waiting for inspiration to strike, but I have yet to find it at the bottom of an episode of Real Housewives (though I'm really digging Siggy on RHONJ, anyone else?). So I am giving myself until mid-January for the idea to just come to me, and if it doesn't by then, I will find ways to actively seek it out.

And in the meantime, a little NaBloPoMo never *really* hurt anyone, right? Here we go.

What Happens to An Unloved Tree

The other week I felt a moment of profound sadness for a tree. This is rather uncharacteristic of me, because while I like trees, well, I don't always notice trees.

During autumn, around my birthday like it is right now, I notice them in their daring "look at me!" tantrums of color. I notice the leaves that get embedded in the rug at the front door, stuck wet to shoes hastily shrugged off. I notice the tree on the tree lawn of our house, with its huge branches that could break during a storm and crush a car below. But this particular tree, on another part of our property, I'd really never bothered to notice before.

It is/was wedged between our garage (something else I barely notice, as it is not wide enough to accommodate a car) and the fence that belongs to our neighbors and their garage. Per the survey done on our property during last year's renovation, it is/was definitely our tree. But given its location, a few feet behind where one could easily walk and the fact that it was just so large, it somehow just became background.

Over the summer, "my" car, our SUV, got less use while the kids were both at camp, and I took to parking it at the end of the driveway, near the tree. But then when I did go to use the car, I'd find it covered in bird droppings and other debris from the tree. After this had happened several times, I finally looked up and saw it, really saw it. In the middle of the summer, its branches were completely bare. The tree was dead, and based on the woodpecker activity, probably rotting away quickly.

My unloved tree--almost too big to fully fit in the photo

It took a couple of months for us to bump "tree removal" to the top of our schedule. Spending a four-figure amount just to get rid of something really didn't appeal to us, but it was the responsible, adult thing to do. It would have been worse for us to wait and see what the winter would bring, likely broken tree limbs and destruction. So on a Friday morning, a very brave man, in a bucket raised high into the sky, cut down the tree.

Coincidentally, both Hannah and Max are studying trees at school. Trying to appeal to seventh graders, Hannah's science teacher told the kids that they might some day impress love interests with their knowledge of trees (the kids were #notimpressed). Hannah had a leaf project where she had to gather, research and document a large variety of leaves from trees she found locally. They needed to be local trees so that they could be identified, so she was specifically told not to go to Arnold Arboretum in Boston, as they have trees from all over the world there. So of course that's where Max's class is going on a field trip. He's been learning about how tree trunks get their rings. And I can't help tying all of the stories together, as fifteen years ago, *I* was the one being romanced and getting a new ring in Arnold Arboretum. Well, Marc proposed to me there, under an unidentified lilac tree, though my ring wasn't ready for another couple of days. But it was the beginning of trees being special to me. We followed up with a tree on our ketubah (Jewish wedding license), and trees created at Hannah's and Max's Hebrew naming ceremonies, and more since then.

So you can see why I felt so sad about this long-neglected tree that had been right there, unnoticed by me for the last ten years. I only seem to notice special trees, and this wasn't one of them, until it was about to be gone. Only when it was about to be gone did I bother to see just how beautiful it was.