Dan and I started watching the fourth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm last night. The first two episodes were ok – in fact the second was typically painful. But I think nothing can even come close to the third season finale, with the restaurant opening, and so these are suffering in comparison. I am sure they will hit their stride and I will return to alternately laughing my ass off and cringing, unable to watch, as David makes an ass of himself yet again. Brilliant.
My new issue of Brain, Child came yesterday; perfect timing. It’s the only “parenting” magazine I really like, and I read it cover to cover. This month had some timely articles on “lactivists” and also an essay on how much of how you feel about yourself as a person is tied up in how you feel about yourself as a mother. So to add to my natural inferiority complexes, my mothering skills leave me feeling like I am impatient and unloving and unfit to care for small children. (Which is not true – at least not always.) The essay really made me feel some support and understanding, which is nice at this juncture.
We are off to B&N today to pick up the Moomintroll order for Si's Xmas present, purchase a baby book for James, and buy Salman Rushdie's new novel. That's our big excursion for the weekend.
*********************************
October 1 was the seventh anniversary (what a macabre use of the word) of my mother’s death. I am so glad James wasn’t born on October 1. But I did find myself thinking how much my mom would have enjoyed her grandsons, and how sad it was that she never got to see any of them. One of the last things she said to me was (very wistfully for someone who had never expressed any interest in grandchildren at all), “I do wish I’d gotten to see my first grandchild.” At the time, Dan and I were at a very rocky place and children were not even discussed; nevertheless, I felt horribly guilty and like I had let her down.
********************************
Dan did his volunteer stint on the neighborhood house tour yesterday afternoon. I managed to see three of the houses, since we had already arranged for a babysitter for the boys since I was supposed to be working yesterday afternoon. I fed James, put him to bed, and wandered off to look at other people’s houses. Such voyeurism, I love it. I got some terrific ideas for my own house and came away feeling both depressed at how little we’ve managed to get done in the year and a half we’ve been here, but also completely inspired, since my house has great bones, it just needs some TLC. One of my friends from my theatre days is working as a muralist at one of the true mansions on the tour, and so I got sort of a behind-the-scenes look at it, which was fun. But what was best was that most of the houses were just normal everyday-people houses, with kids’ toys, and food in the cupboards, and work in progress. It wasn’t all House Beautiful.
*********************************
Monday morning is tied up with the peds’ appointment, to make sure the boy isn’t too jaundiced, and with driving to the school of our choice and putting Si’s application in for kindergarten next year. Keep your fingers crossed for us – we do have geographic preference, and weirdly, we should get some preference because we are white. (The public schools like to make sure their schools are diverse, and in this neighborhood, they need more white kids for that balance.) Anyway, like I said, keep your fingers crossed; we won’t find out till December if he’s in. I will pretty much be a mess worrying till then.
*************************************
I am probably going to be (mostly unashamedly) self-centered for the next few weeks or months, since I won’t have a whole lot of time to be cruising other people’s blogs. I’ll try to keep up with my usual ones, but I can’t promise anything. (I’d miss you all if I couldn’t catch your blogs at least occasionally…I just may not be as active commenting.) I also hope I don’t bore you all to tears with minutiae about the baby and my SAHM life for the next three months. And thanks again for all the good wishes. James sends some spit-up and slobbers of gratitude.
**********************************
I know what you are all dying for is James' pics, but due to our lack of a digital camera, you will have to make do with pics from the beach two weeks ago. James photos ASAP (although our friend Phyllis was all ready to snap a pic of James with her flash camera, while he was sleeping, and I had to threaten her with death if she woke him up, so she decided against the pic...).
Dan and the boys:
Simon guy:
Judeman (in his Wyeth pose):
5 comments:
Excellent, excellent pics! I have my digital camera sitting on the the table along with James's book, so I can take a bunch of pics when I visit. I'll e-mail them to you, and you can post them. 'Kay?
Where's the pic of you in your maternity swimsuit? Don't be shy!
Woo hoo! Pictures! Look at those boys. The one of everyone in silhouette turned out really nice, too. Of course we're anxious to see little Baby James (the hopping-up-and-down kind of anxious) but writing about him is a good thing too.
And now for something completely different. BB I know you haven't read Frank McCourt yet... what about Roddy Doyle? (Gina?) I'm 200 pages into A Star Called Henry and I want to put it down because I really don't like it, but there's another part of me that loves, loves, loves this book. It's very odd. He certainly does have a way with words.
Nick Hornby waxed ecstatic over Roddy Doyle in The Polysyllabic Spree, and I've been meaning to pick up something ever since . . . but tell me more about this not liking the book while loving it. How very interesting!
Well...
A Star Called Henry is a brutal book. I don't want to give any of the story away in case someone actually wants to read it. The first paragraph bluntly and beautifully tells you right away what kind of story you're in for. It pulls no punches and delivers lots of them. So it's a hard book to read; you're basically reading a bleak and unhappy story with not so much as a hint of "it's really going to be okay in the end." For me it's not the easiest thing to do.
However, the writing is gorgeous and unique and authentic. Doyle must have channelled the spirits of real people to write this book; either that or he went back in a real time machine. And I was surprised to realize the other day that I was caring about the characters.
And you know, the crumbs of happiness he throws in there every now and then just resonate all the more due to their surroundings. They *mean* more, you know?
So I'm really not liking this unhappy, determined book, and at the same time I really am loving it. I've never felt quite like this about a book.
Post a Comment