Is that Mick or Nadia?

In case no one had noticed, we start 'em young these days at learning, playing and even competing. I wonder if pre-preschools, Baby Einstein or private coaches are giving children a better edge than they had with The Electric Company. Hey, look at us! Yeah. Um. So! Anja became a gymnast today. Can you believe it? I couldn't actually find her in the gym. I just kept seeing a streak where she had been, and Daddy trailing after her. She ran acrossed the multicolored mats, jumped on the trampoline, crawled up the wide kiddy vault and launched face first into a massive landing pad. Her best event turned out to be a gated off play area with a pretend kitchen and Legos. Okay!

Cats Gone Wild

Have the kids been safely tucked in bed? I've traded in the cute cat sites for something ... more grown up. Really, go check on the snuggle-bums and then race over to Live Nude Cats.

Fruehlings Gefuehle

("Spring of feelings," to borrow an expression from a friend.) Why does Spring make us feel so much? For some, a feeling of literally being tumbled up, down and around in a washing machine of emotions.

In 2004 sometime in the first week of May, I remember jumping out of my bed loft, throwing on a skirt and catching a steel-wheeled trolly to the Embarcadero Farmer's Market. I bought a handful of large yellow sunflowers and some blown glass jewelry for my Mother. Very suddenly overcome with hunger, I needed something to eat right then. I stood in front of Noah's Bagels. Dark smoke billowed out of the front door as an employee jabbed the toaster for a fiery bagel. The world started to spin beneath me and I had to grab a post to keep from going down. Colors were brighter, smells more intense that morning. One week later I stood over my sink looking at the results of my home pregnancy test and then everything fell into place. A week after that my closet contained a new wardrobe, and my fridge was full of prune juice and figs.


Today we joined friends for an Easter brunch. Smells from the kitchen thickened the air with eggs, sausage, toasting bagels and fresh fruit. Everyone delighted in Anja, and she delighted right back. The company spanned 16 mos to 93 years. We're the newer members of "the family." I love gatherings at this home. Everyone has long, wiry hair and full eyebrows. Beautiful aging artists, intellectuals, subversives. Thinkers. Their humorous scenicism rejuvenates me. As brunch winds down, the ball game is turned on and the Eastern accents in the room come out. It is agreed that we'll meet up for a game of stickball next week. I can just see it - Converse hightops, flasks and the odd array of household 'bats.' It's good to know that at 60-something, perhaps beyond, I'll still be overcome with spring fever.

(Photo by Gabriel Biderman - taken with a pinhole camera mounted on a bicycle, Amsterdam 2003)

Froth

It's still raining. Time for another Cappucino. Since Anja was tiny, Daddy would dip a finger into his large Cappucino mug and give her the white foam. "Make sure you don't slip her the espresso" says Mommy-the-broken-record. Sometimes she would wind up looking like Burl Ives.

Lately Anja wants the whole mug. Rick gives her the last drops of froth and cocoa that has settled to the bottom. She carries off the mug, sits down and drinks with the cup nearly covering her face. She throws her head back and her feet come off the ground. So now she's The Joker with a wide brown grin.

I hear that some people let their children have coffee. What do you think about that?


Who Knows Where The Time Goes
Outside of Anja, our Odyssey, we have our things. Rick is making a work of art out of a 1980 MGB. I've been mixing & recording (learning) and working on literary projects. This year we're supposed to attend our 20 year high school reunions. Rick has ruled his out. I go back and forth. Everyone will want to exchange business cards and compare success stories. My successes have certainly been unconventional. The dream reunion to me is a large party in the fig orchards or in an old barn in the country, with kegs and a bar, a live DJ and casually being ourselves - a more refined version of an old tradition.

Twenty years is a long time. Then again, it isn't. When I see recent photographs of my peers, who I remember with braces and lop-sided wedge cuts, I feel like I'm looking at complete strangers. Yet, there is something wholly familiar in the eyes. It is a cruel trick upon your senses. How will we look to them? In another twenty years we'll be grateful to have all of our teeth. That does it. I'm going.