Escribiendo en Español

So I can use google translate. Viva! But Evan can really write in Spanish. I am pretty darn excited.

Meanwhile this is what morning recess is looking like these days. Alas these days are numbered. While in Santa Fe, we agreed that Vivian will be going to a dyslexic specific school next year. Happy that I won't be teaching that little brat. And sad that I won't be teaching that little brat.

Spring Break

After a week in Boston visiting a dear friend in hospital, I was ready for Spring Break. On a Thursday afternoon we swooped in and collected Evan from school and kept driving west through the emptiness till we got to Santa Fe.

Jo had found us an amazing home nestled in the Santa Fe National Forest about 25 very bumpy minutes from town. By Saturday morning we were on the slopes at a tiny ski place called Sipapu. Evan and Vivian kept the jokes flowing.

"Why did tigger put his head in the toilet?"
"To look for Pooh!"
"Why did the ski instructor put his head in the toilet?"
"To Sipapu!"

Sipapu would be what I would imagine a small family ski place from the 50's to be like. I was introduced to skiing in my mid thirties at mega ski resorts like Breckenridge. Multiple peaks, a few dozen lifts, thousands of skiers. Sipapu is different. That Saturday morning they were in the midst of their cardboard derby - a fun hippy family event watched by almost as many people as participants. Vivian and Evan joined the other kids and happily played in the snow and skied and watched the derby while Jo and I skied a little. By mid afternoon we had to retire to the shade because it was too hot in the sun.

Tim, Karen, Ava and Z showed up later that weekend and the kids went wild. We repeated the ski experience a few more times at Sipapu and one day Tim and I went and skied the Santa Fe mountain. The kids did some death defying sledding on ice. Vivian, it turns out, is a extreme thrill seeker. We took the kids to the Georgia O'Keeffe museum and an amazing crazy place called the Meow Wolf that is impossible to describe. We met other Austin friends, ate fantastic New Mexico cuisine, chilled in the hot tub, watched a movie at the Santa Fe Violet Crown, and felt a bit like we were visiting Austin but not quite.

The kids spent many an hour playing and flighting with each other. One memorable quote is worthy a mention. Evan was describing to Karen how is likes the Percy Jackson book that he is reading. "It's the best book in the world" he said. Vivian was with him. And being keenly aware of her writing partner's published work, Vivian gently said "Well Evan, it might be the best book you've read so far", trying to get him to leave room in the future to be able to say the same thing about Karen's books.

By the end of the week I had more than my fill of being in a house with lots of children, though individually they were mostly darlings. And if the snow isn't always so slushy I could be pretty easily convinced to make a spring trip to Santa Fe an annual pilgrimage.

The drive back was desolate as expected and we mostly listened to Harry Potter Book 6 and a lovely story called Esperanza Rising and got only one speeding ticket. We arrived back at the white wooden house close to midnight and were out back on the road next morning to visit Grandma and the cousins.

It was almost impossible to wake the kids up for school on Monday morning. I'd say that's a sign of a good spring break.

History Lessons

One evening when Alu and Michelle were in town, they sat the kids while Jo and I dressed up from the 20's and went as guests of Karen and Tim's to the Ballet Afrique dinner fundraiser. We were taken back in time to the (very racist) Cotton Club of Harlem with amazing performances from Duke Ellington's house band (Austin's very own Hard Proof plus some music faculty from Huston Tillotson University), and performers pretending to be Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Lena Horn, Ella Fitzgerald, and the fabulous dance performances of the Cotton Club.

At about the same time I started reading Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad, and while it's fiction, it gives one an amazing look into the terror crazed mind and world of a runaway slave girl from Georgia.

Then on the way to Santa Fe for spring break we stopped and spent a couple of hours in a remote corner of New Mexico and history - a place called Fort Sumner, and today the Bosque Redondo Memorial where, between 1863 and 1868, while the rest of the United States was fighting for or against slavery, the US Army was quietly killing hundreds of Navajo and Mescalero Apache - men, women and children, in captivity.

I am hoping that Vivian's education this year at home, and our travels are showing her something not always discussed in school. Slavery and genocide are not side notes in the history of this country. The founders of this great nation had to wipe out one race to take their lands and then enslave another race to work those lands in their quest for the American dream. 

No Carlo

Evan and us are trying to zero in on what to do for his birthday. We don't really want a Vivianesque crowd of sixty children thundering through our home so soon after her birthday. So we floated the idea of a sleepover which Evan just loves because he sees Vivian going to or having sleepovers all the time and he has never had one himself - not counting trips to Grandma's or his cousins'.

Who to invite? We are looking for a small group - 4-5 boys. One name that came up is Carlo. To which Evan said exactly this: "Carlo? No Carlo. Carlo and I have had several disagreements."

It sounded so Trumpian that it sent shivers down everyone's backs except Evan's. Anyway, no Carlo. Sad. Very sad.

Here's Evan showing off his version of the Dark Mark. Like we need that....

Glorified Taxis

This was one of those weekends when Jo and I felt like we were glorified taxi cab drivers. We split up and still barely kept up with the kids' schedules.

It all started on Friday morning when I went to Evan's school to teach the first graders about light: a touch of everything from why is the sky blue to Special Relativity. Jo took Vivian to her vision therapy. Then we (except Evan) met for lunch at Tarka and Jo dropped Vivian off at school for her Spanish class while I met Simran for a coffee. I picked Vivian up. Jo picked Evan up. Jen came for dinner. I drank too much wine and ate Evan and Vivian's cookies because they were already asleep.

So on Saturday morning I got them cookies and cupcakes for breakfast from Upper Crust (to make up for my behavior the previous night) and we went to watch Vivian sing the National Anthem with her choir group at the opening of the baseball season for a neighborhood league (the amount of speechifying and the layers of bureaucracy in neighborhood baseball impressed and surprised me). Evan was completely oblivious to what was happening around him and sat on a rock and read about Greek gods. A quick stop at Tera Toys to buy birthday gifts, and then Jo took the kids to Esteban's birthday party. In the afternoon I went to Courtney's birthday party and then took Archer to Perry's for his 21st birthday while Vivian went to Rowan's birthday sleepover and Jo and Evan watched movies and ate ice cream at home.

Sunday was just as much fun. I took Evan to Suhan's birthday party while Jo took Vivian to her first team volleyball practice. Evan and I continued on to scouts where he had his first pine wood derby competition - he didn't place but did pretty well. Jo took Vivian and friends to Beauty and the Beast. And Evan and I went to climb. We met back at home a few moments before Evan's bed time.

Thank god tomorrow is Monday. 

Climbing

Both Evan and Vivian love to climb. I took Vivian for a "PE class" to Crux in south Austin last month. And when Vivian and Jo went to see a new Disney chick flick earlier this week, Evan and I went to the Main Event climbing walls. 

Om

I am in Boston for a week. This morning I have some time on my hands. As you can tell.

Looking through my computer I found this photo of the kids spontaneously sitting down in front of a huge stack of giant Costco-sized Oreo boxes and meditating. My mother would be horrified. And impressed.

My mother was somewhat of a pioneer. She was a doctor and researcher at a time a lot of women weren't. She was also a religious person. She woke up at the crack of dawn and meditated in her puja room (the chapel in the house for non-desis) for an hour. I was interested in the meditation part. But trying to make your mind silent when you are ten doesn't seem very interesting. Though I did occasionally try to sit and say Om very slowly.

Mamma - you would have been 89 today. I am hazarding a guess that you would be very proud of your grandkids even as they meditate to The Big Oreo.  And thankful that I finally "settled down" with Jo :) On this International Women's Day,  I wish you a happy birthday and hope that Vivian Bina carries forward the family tradition of beautiful strong smart loving big-hearted women.

Piercings....

Vivian now has pierced ears and wears bras. Bwaaaaah.

I love how matter of fact she is when talking about her biology. Many thanks to Jo and the way Magellan approached sexual education from the first grade. No silly giggling and weird names for anatomy. Just simply, "Hey Daddy - I'm going to need training bras now because I have breast buds". May be her generation will be able to reclaim their bodies from politicians and judges and garden variety pussy grabbers. 

Filling Food Packets

A few weeks ago I blogged about the posters I made for the Stop Hunger Now event at Evan's school. In the course of two hours a lot of little kids, parents and a staff or two filled, weighed and sealed ten thousand bags of rice, soy, dehydrated veggies, and spice/vitamins. Grace and neighbor Ava went with Vivian and Evan and were an integral part of the effort. Everyone pitched in, and while kids occasionally slacked, Evan worked every minute of the whole effort with a determined seriousness.

10

Your daughter turns ten just once.

I am filled with wonder and gratitude and hope and love and apprehension and purple and pink make-up all over the bathroom. If the world ends tomorrow I will cherish every moment of these last ten years as the very best of my life. Or if there is an eternity I would do it over and over and over and over and over for ever. But neither is. So now I must think about when she turns 11 and 17 and so on. 

Vivian - you are my treasure and my puzzle. You come jumping into my arms from ten yards away. You won't say "I love you". You can't spell "atom". You figured out how gravity and thermonuclear explosions cancel each other out to keep the stars burning. You lie about brushing your teeth. You lie to keep your brother from getting into trouble. You can't focus on what I ask you to do. You don't hear the world around you when you have your nose buried in your book.

As I type these words I look out over the Charles and see the glistening Great Dome of MIT. Harvard is just a bit further downstream. Before you were six months old we were in Boston for a holiday and I pointed to MIT and told you that I wouldn't be entirely unhappy if you went to college there. And played soccer. And sailed. Jo smiled. 

Soccer ain't happening. So I'm closer to understanding (the knowledge part was much easier) that you are your own person. And that I need to stop projecting my desires and dreams on your life. So I love you - anyway and always and even if you don't go to MIT.  

By the way, here's what you looked like when you were a tadpole.

Happy Ten. Reconsider soccer.

Love

-dad

Friends and Family

Alu and Michelle came to Austin for their spring visit. They have now been doing it for ten years at about Vivian's birthday. I picked them up from the airport a couple of Wednesdays ago. By the time we got home the kids were asleep and as Alu and I sipped whiskey I admitted to him that my goal was to have "a low level buzz" for the rest of the weekend.

Then Praveen and Renuka came in from Florida on Saturday. We hiked and sailed and Vivian gave Alu and new hair do and we grilled at home and ate out and visited the Mandola winery and had a great time.

Vivian took this group photo of the adults. Besides me looking like a gang member it's not bad. Neither was the "low level buzz".