September 2009
8 posts
And who shall I say is calling?
Tomorrow night’s Kol Nidre, and Monday is Yom Kippur.
There have been times in my life when I’ve felt more observant than others. Preparing to become a bat mitzvah, for example, was a time when I felt very in touch with my Jewishness. In graduate school I began going to Friday night services every week. But mostly Judaism is a backdrop for me. Some years it has been a very pale,...
If you say so
Lila’s sick. Third day out of school. It’s the kind of sickness that I find especially confounding — she seems fine during the day, but once she goes to bed she spikes a fever. The especially cruel irony is that Lila wants nothing more than to be at school. Stella, meanwhile, would be overjoyed to have a legit reason to skip kindergarten. She has fun once she’s there,...
Apple pickin'
Fall in New England means school field trips to apple orchards. It’s unavoidable—not that I’d try to avoid it. I volunteered to “be one of the mommies” on Stella’s class trip today. I somehow managed to get lost (which upset one of my riders greatly — Stella kept telling him her mommy would be able to fix the situation, but he clearly had little faith),...
9/3/09
And then some days I hardly see anyone at all. Days like today, where I go so long without talking that when I do finally speak, I have to clear my throat to get my voice going again. I could probably do with more days like that. The weather has been most unfair this year in that just as the kids have gone back to school, the weather has turned effin’ gorgeous. Low 80s, no humidity,...
9/2/09
Dropped the kids for their first day at school — and suddenly the morning feels quiet and still. Not in a bad way — there’s just a calm, expectant feeling hanging in the air. Chris and I come home, toss the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, and I walk downtown to meet my old coworker Laura for coffee. A project from St. Martin’s awaits me on my desk, but…you...
9/1/09
Last day of summer vacation. It was crisp, clear, and sunny, and it put me in mind of a similar day eight Septembers ago. That day I walked downtown, too, with six-month-old Lila in the stroller. I had spent the morning frantically trying to get ahold of all my family and friends in NYC. After everyone was accounted for, I went out for a walk, hoping to clear my head. All along the way, people...
8/31/09
End of summer, two days before school begins again. The girls are at each other’s throats; I’m thinking lunch at Bueno Y Sano is cheaper than hiring a short-notice nanny. I toss Stella in the stroller, even though she’s well past five years old; I don’t want to dally, and I don’t want to listen to whines about how much farther. Lila grabs her scooter and we’re...