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Oct 29

timbers ho!

Tom and our friend Ethan have season tickets to the Portland Timbers, an MLS team. If you don’t know who the Timbers are, you are probably, like me and 98% of the American populace, ambivalent about major league soccer in this country.

Today was the last game of the season, against the San Jose Earthquakes. When Ethan can’t go, Tom likes to take Finn. But Tom was in Seattle for business, and Ethan had just returned from a trip, so Finn and I put on three layers of clothing and trudged out into the rain to watch the match.

Finn had me stressed long before we got to the field. When I told him I was going to take him to the game instead of his dad, he very politely, but very firmly, declined. As the kid loves nothing more than Timbers games, I was totally offended. After I cajoled him into going (“Why don’t you love Mommy as much as Daddy?”), he spent all morning looking anxious. “Mommy. Do you know any of the Timbers songs?” I was aware the Timbers fans chanted different songs during the game. I lied and told Finn that I did. “Which one?” Oh shit. “Uh, the one that goes like this: ‘Portland Timbers, here we go. Portland Timbers, here…we go?” Finn stared at me, unblinking, and then shrugged. “I guess, Mommy.”

On the way to the game, Finn kept asking if I knew where the seats were. So much so that I kept looking at the tickets, assuring myself that the seats were indeed numbered. I felt victorious when we sat down in our seats with time to spare. Finn immediately broke out his program to study the lineup. I took advantage of the extra time to use the vanishing batteries on my iPhone to zoom in on the deep stretches of the visiting team. And then, with the whistle, we were off.

I expected I’d have to entertain Finn for the game, but he wanted nothing to do with me. You know that boring relative who invites you to games but you never want to go because he’s so into it that he keeps his own stats and brings a transistor radio to listen to game commentary? Finn is going to be that guy one day. He wasn’t interested in chit-chat, least of all his mom’s. His eyes were glued to the players, only looking away to match up new players to the photos in his program. When he started cheering and I took his lead to contribute some “woo-hoos,” he turned and pressed his index finger to my lips and mouthed a silent “NO.” When I asked him what you call it when there’s one guy in front of the goal and he gets to take a shot with no defenders, he rolled his eyes so hard I thought they’d get stuck in the back of his head.

At some point, I got tired of trying to look credible to my almost-six-year old, and just took in the surroundings. Tom and Ethan’s seats are square in the middle of a tight nest of hecklers who know their art. The two women who sit behind them look like they got lost on their way to their knitting circle, but nonetheless managed to provide blistering commentary throughout the entire game. In my head, I named one The Timekeeper, and the other, Pancake Patrol. This is what they sounded like, for the full 90 minutes:

The Timekeeper: “Well that’s just ridiculous. They’re just trying to run down the clock.”

Pancake Patrol: “Look at this guy. This guy is a flopper. Just look at him flopping around!!”

The Timekeeper: “He’s just wasting our time. Wasting it!”

Pancake Patrol: “The whole San Jose team should just play laying down. Because all they do is fall down. Stand up!! FLOPPERS!!!”

chaz and chazzers

The Timekeeper and Pancake Patrol, while annoying, were completely benign compared to the two guys who sit in front of Tom and Ethan’s seats, who I have named Chaz and Chazzers. Chaz, on the left, is the milder of the two. Chazzers, on the right, looks normal, but is insane. During the game, he screamed nonstop at the referee on our side of the field, calling him “Pussy,” “Bitch,” and, for a change of pace—“Pussybitch.” It would have been an entertaining experience, this hysterical misogyny—but for the fact that this is how close Chazzers sits to Finn.

I don’t know which was more alarming: Chazzers, or the fact that Finn seemed completely unfazed by the language, which he’d clearly heard before. I mean, how ironic that I’d been biting my tongue at home for “damn,” when Finn’s been hearing “Pussybitch” all season.

We had fun, my Finny and I. I got to escape my increasingly shrill 3-year old for a few hours, and it was awesome watching Finn develop his own passion for the game. And let’s be honest, from the perspective of a 35-year old hetero female, there’s a lot to appreciate at an MLS game. The legs. The sweat. The aforementioned stretching. I felt like I needed a cigarette after the game.

Go Timbers!

Oct 22

19 Comments

the getaway

We just got back from a 24-hour trip to Oregon wine country. With best friends. And no kids. Amazeballs.

I love wine. But I’m not naturally suited to wine tasting, for two reasons. First, I have really low alcohol tolerance. I can go from cold sober, to drunk, to deep slumber, in about 35 minutes, given the right conditions. Second, I don’t have a refined nose. I can tell when wine is corked. Beyond that, it’s all kind of a mystery. Which is fine, because for me, wine is a means to an end. I like the feeling I get from a glass of wine. Like I can feel a knot inside of me unraveling. I don’t need my wine to be great. I just need it to be wine. In that way, wine, for me, is like pizza. When I want pizza, even Tostino’s gets the job done. As an aside, the last time I baked myself a Tostino’s, I was alarmed to read “Now Featuring: Real Cheese” on the outside of the box. What, exactly, were they using before? Man. It’s a good thing I’ve only eaten approximately 7000 Tostino’s pizza rolls over the last 35 years.

Anyway, low alcohol tolerance and an undiscriminating nose are great for drinking your Penfolds Shiraz at home in front of the TV. But not so great when you are wine tasting. Wine tasting requires that you stand in front of a wine steward and find something different to say about each of the five different Pinots they pour for you. And that’s where I run into trouble. Invariably, when pressed to describe a wine, the best I can come up with is, “That’s easy-drinking.” The line is always a safe bet. Because wine, like other alcoholic beverages, is generally easy to drink. But once I’ve said that, I have nothing, and am left to drink in silence, making thoughtful faces as if the emotions I’m feeling about the wine are too complex to distill into words.

Despite my natural handicaps, I had a blast tasting wine, because I was with Tom, Ethan, and Linds. It’s been a tough fall for the four of us. New jobs, new classrooms for our kids, family leaving, family passing away. The four of us blew into the first winery with the desperate air of convicts who had just broken each other out of jail and who expect to be dragged back at any moment. No elixir could have tasted sweeter than that first glass of wine, knowing that my children were miles away and incapable of finding me. I felt giddier and lighter with each glass. By our third winery, I was floating six feet off the ground. I was happy. So happy. To the outside world, and to the camera, I apparently just looked insane. Who knew.

But that’s the nice thing about getting away with the friends who know you best. They understand you. They don’t make fun of you when, desperate to sound like you know something about wine, you ask the wine steward whether your Riesling is a kabinett and the wine steward answers that she wouldn’t know because kabinett is a designation used only for wine made in Germany. Ugh. I, in turn, understood the gravity of the situation when Linds woke me up at 7:30 AM to ask in a scary, serious voice whether I’d brought a hair brush. She sounded so panicked that I thought something really bad had happened, like she’d forgotten her hairspray. No one gave Ethan a hard time when he asked for his burger at lunch without the bun. Tom just asked the waiter if he could have Ethan’s bun (“It’s a BRIOCHE bun, Ethan”), without missing a beat. And no one gave Tom a hard time when he revealed at the first winery that he didn’t “really like wine anymore,” and hadn’t, for months, and then spent the rest of the day surreptitiously dumping out the wine he was offered.

All in all, the weekend was so perfect that I didn’t even mind when I got home and Cuz casually mentioned that Finn had asked her some questions about death while we were gone, and that she had done her best to explain the difference between burial and cremation, and that Finn kept asking questions when she said that some people chose to get “sprinkled over mountains” after they died, and that eventually she had to stop answering because she didn’t know how to explain cremation without mentioning that you burn the body. I’m going to worry about all that tomorrow. Because right now, I’m still floating. Wine is groovy. Getaways are groovy. And having family like Cuz who love your kids enough to give it to them straight, and friends like Linds and Ethan who you love like family, is the grooviest of all.

Oct 18

34 Comments

stealing shampoo

I use “The Ethicist” column from the NYT as a moral barometer of sorts. It’s nice to check in every Sunday and verify that one is measurably less insane than the people who write into the column. Until, that is, you read a column and disagree with the Ethicist’s response. This happened to me last week, when someone wrote in about whether it was ok to take home the mini shampoo and conditioner bottles from hotel rooms. The Ethicist responded (basically) that those bottles are provided for your use under the condition that you use them inside the hotel room. Yeah, I know. WTF.

Screw the Ethicist. In my mind, not only is it ok to purloin those bottles, you would be a fool to leave them behind. When I get into a hotel room, after checking the bathroom floor for stray hairs, my first order of business is to immediately put all the miniature bottles in my bag, so that the housekeepers will put out new bottles of product at turndown. The next morning, I wash my hair with the Garnier I’ve brought from home, and then put the turndown bottles in my bag, so I can get new bottles when they clean the room. And so on and so forth. And here’s the thing. The housekeepers know I’m doing it. It’s not like they can’t see that the bottles are gone, or that the bottles aren’t in the trash can, which the housekeepers empty. No one’s reporting me. Because, you know what? They expect me to take the bottles. They NEED me to take those bottles.

primo minis from a recent trip to san diego

I’m going to pause here for a second to address the hotels that have replaced the mini bottles with communal shower dispensers. First of all, nothing says luxury accommodations like communal dispensers. Second, you can stick whatever label you want on the outside of the dispensers, but everyone knows what you’ve got in those dispensers is bottom-of-the-barrel Suave Awapuhi and VO5, which just means that you are dirty, cheap liars. Third, you’re not using dispensers for the environment, you’re using them because you want to save a buck, so stop pretending otherwise. Communal hotel dispensers make me so mad that sometimes I am tempted to empty them out, in silent protest. But that would be wasteful and petty.

I just want to be on vacation. I’m already doing my part for the environment at home. I recycle. I compost. I turn off the tap when I brush my teeth. And I grudgingly do my part at hotels. I reuse the stupid towels and sheets even though the main reason I go to a hotel is so I can sleep in crisp sheets that do not smell faintly of my kids’ urine, and luxuriate in the weight of a fresh towel that I can’t afford at home. I turn off all the lights and AC when I leave my room, and do the rest of the hotel’s bidding. So give back the mini bottles of shampoo and conditioner, ok? Jesus, I feel like crying.

If you think I’m weird, consider that I use those mini bottles for the gym, and travel to places that don’t provide product (e.g. vacation homes). So I have a real use for them. I’m not like my husband, who takes the mini bottles to use at our house, where he has access to regular-sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner. For reasons unknown, Tom seems to prefer using products in miniature. Miniature bottles of product are great because they are free, but when you get right down to it, they are kind of a pain to deal with. I mean, they are notoriously difficult to open and squeeze, and once squeezed, they never stay upright, and end up spilling all over your shower. It’s a real problem for me, because as the only space in my house that my kids don’t have access to, my shower is my refuge. I sometimes shower twice in one day, just to escape my kids. Anyway, I like a neat and tidy shower. So it drives me nuts when I have to deal with something like this.

If you don’t think this is weird, let me just point out for you that the miniature bottles are all l’Occitane bottles that Tom brought home from the Four Seasons in Seattle. That big bottle is filled with the SAME PRODUCT that is in the little bottles. The labels look different but trust me, I know, because years ago Tom demanded that I ask l’Occitane what product they put in their hotel minis. Which I did, like the loving wife that I am. And the shampoo in their hotel minis is essentially the same stuff in that big purple bottle, which he demands that I procure for him at regular intervals, while I lather up with the Garnier. And still, he continues to use the miniatures. Is this not weird? I think it is totally insane. Every time he does this I stand in my shower with the water going cold, staring hard at the bottles, just trying to make sense of it. And I never can.

But whatever. I say nothing, because I want to support Tom’s hotel product benders, which probably save me at least $27 dollars a year in man-tastic beauty products, which I consider less fun to buy than even diapers or dishwasher tablets. As for any lingering qualms I might feel because of the Ethicist’s stupid column, here’s what I have to say to him, who as far as I know, lacks ethical credentials of any kind. He is not licensed in psychology or sociology, or morals. I, however, am a lawyer. As such, I might not know morals, but I damn well know conditional use. Those miniature bottles are mine. I paid for them with my hotel room, and if you want to say they are conditional even though those words appear nowhere on the bottles or on my hotel terms and conditions, go right ahead. But you’re wrong.

Oct 16

10 Comments

death by nerf

When I’m feeling like a crap mom, I like to remind myself that it could be so much worse. Like, “They might not eat vegetables but at least they eat Pirate’s Booty which is made partially of hydrogenated corn,” or “I let them watch TV but at least they don’t play Halo.” Or, “I let them watch TV but at least they don’t play with guns.”

Except now, they play with guns. I am laying this particular parental failure of mine at least in part at the feet of my friend Kathryn. We dropped by for a visit and were immediately surrounded by four neighborhood boys, all bearing Nerf guns that, had they not all been neon orange, would have been alarming in their verisimilitude. I observed as Kathryn attended to the situation with equal parts concern and resignation. And I observed Finn, wanting desperately to play, but having no weaponry of his own. And then it hit me. I get why moms, even exemplary ones like Kathryn, permit their boys to play with guns and swords and plastic nunchucks and throwing stars. Because we want our kids to belong, to have friends, to be able to speak the vernacular of the age they inhabit. I know Tom feels that he suffered because he grew up without video games. He was the only kid in his neighborhood without an Atari, and given how often I hear about it, is apparently still reeling from the deprivation.

I suppose fear that I’m depriving my kid of happy childhood memories is about 30% of the reason I bought the Nerf gun when we saw it at Costco. The other 70% is that the toys are way at the back of Costco, like two miles from the cashier, and I sensed that my kids might go AWOL before we could get to the checkstand. So when Finn begged for the gun, I dangled the carrot. “Let’s see if we make some good decisions.” For the next 30 minutes, my child behaved so perfectly that at one point, when I saw him standing patiently next to the cart—just standing there, not hanging on the cart, or whining, or pointing at someone’s motorized wheelchair and shouting “Mommy can we get one of those?”—I did a double take because I thought it was someone else’s kid. You know, like when you feel a kid tugging at your pants and you look down and it’s not your kid, and then the kid realizes that you’re not his mom, and totally freaks out. Anyway. I bought the Nerf gun, because we had a deal, my Finn and I.

The next morning, when I found Finn in my bed in his usual early morning snuggle mode, I wrapped my arms around him for my usual spooning, and touched my hands to cold hard plastic. Because Finn, in turn, was spooning his Nerf gun. With daybreak comes Nerf fun for the whole family. Like a real gun, a Nerf gun uses bullets, has a chamber for those bullets, and requires loading and reloading. Unlike a real gun, a Nerf gun requires that Daddy un-jam the gun at regular, 3 minute intervals. But it’s not just fun for Daddy. While Tom is unjamming the gun for the 800th time, I can go all Nerfy myself by digging out wayward bullets from behind heavy, immovable furniture. Here’s the dirty secret about Nerf guns–it’s not the guns that are worth anything, it’s the bullets, which are like styrofoam gold. Once you lose those puppies, your Nerf gun becomes about as useless to your kid as your Comcast remote would be to your husband, if the remote were to suddenly lose all its batteries. Actually, if that happened to Tom he’d probably run out of the house, wild-eyed and screaming.

Finn knows he has to guard those bullets, and account for each one. When he gets off a shot, he immediately scrambles to pick up his bullet and put it in his plastic bag. Between the plastic bag that he carries around and the inexplicably loud whirring noise that ensues once the Nerf gun is turned on, I end up feeling sorry for him because he looks so stupid. It’s all the more heartbreaking because I suspect that Finn thinks he looks really, really badass.

Nerf guns are extra awesome if you have a younger child for whom gunplay is patently inappropriate. Because as soon as your older kid gets a Nerf gun, your younger kid’s main goal in life is to lay his tiny toddler hands on that Nerf gun when the older kid is not looking. Tate gave up after a half day of loitering around Finn, and moved to active sabotage. I found Tate in the dining room with one half-chewed bullet hanging out of his mouth, dropping three more bullets down the heating register.

Out of the original 18 bullets, we’re down to about 7. At this pace, we should be done with the Nerf gun by Thursday. Here’s hoping.

Oct 9

19 Comments

eaten alive by toys

Tom and I recently went to a parent education thing at our kids’ school. Actually it was six hours over a Friday night and Saturday morning, so you know it must have been killer when I say it was worth my entire weekend. The Silent Journey, as it is called, is basically an opportunity to experience the work and materials that our kids experience in their Montessori classrooms, and to see it all from their perspective.

Throughout the experience, we filled out answers to questions designed to make us think more deeply about what we were observing. One of the questions was something along the lines of “How does this classroom differ from your child’s environment at home?” Something like that. I don’t remember the exact words, because as soon as I read the question, I started feeling hysterical laughter bubble up inside me, and had to concentrate on not erupting in a maniacal bray.

Here’s my kid’s school environment.

photo by an vu

Here’s my kid’s home environment.

Asking me to compare Finn’s home and school environments is like asking me to describe the ways in which an orange is similar to a monkey. There is no common ground. Actually, given that oranges and monkeys (Orangutans?) are both orange-colored, that’s probably a weak analogy. But I digress. Because here’s the sad truth: my kids’ environment at home, unlike their environment at school, is one never-ending mess that needs to be cleaned up. I don’t even mean that metaphorically. I mean it literally. From the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed, I am cleaning. Because, if I don’t, I will be eaten alive by my kids’ stuff.

They are children. As such, their primary joy in life is to take shit out of shit, and explode it all over the place. I have two kids, so if I’m cleaning something up with one kid, the other is in the next room opening up the Candyland and throwing all the cards in the air like that scene from Scarface where Al Pacino throws all his $100 bills after snorting a line of coke. I don’t know if that’s really a scene from Scarface, but if it isn’t, it definitely should be. By the way, what the hell is with all the throwing? Today I watched from the kitchen sink as my three-year old calmly filled a glass with water, walked out onto the back deck to drink it, and then hurled the glass off the deck when he was done. He grinned from ear to ear when it shattered into pieces. They like the cause and effect, I guess. I’m going to go with that, because the alternative is just too scary.

Anyway, in the three hours it takes you to sort the 17,000 Lego pieces from the 12,000 Playmobil pieces, you really start to question life. Like, why do I even allow them to have toys? Sometimes I fantasize about burning everything in a bonfire and putting a gun rack on the wall with three Nerf guns on it. Simple. Minimalist. Like a Donald Judd. Nerf guns are all they want anyway.

So why not tell them to clean up, right? I do. But here’s the thing: my kids are really shitty cleaners. Like, SUPER not thorough. I mean, I have no doubt that they’re putting a spit and shine on the stuff they clean at school, but when they get home, it’s not happening. Here is my all-time favorite photo of Finn, from when he was four. I had asked him to clean his room. After a sulky 2.5 minutes, Finn proclaimed that he was done.

Look at his eyes. He clearly knows it’s not cutting the mustard. At this point it’s like a big game of chicken. He knows it’s a half-assed job at best. And I know he knows it. But do I really want to engage in another round of verbal sparring with someone who can barely conjugate verbs? Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll just save my breath and get back on my hands and knees and start separating the Jenga pieces from the Lincoln Logs.

Oct 3

62 Comments

changes.

I quit my job two weeks ago and took another. I’ll be working less at my new job, in a new area of the law. The decision was made quickly, decisively, and with little forewarning. I was as surprised as everyone else, because I was happy at my old firm. People always say they love their coworkers. But I really did. Folk like Berman, above. Plus I enjoyed the work, and the clients.

It feels weird when you get older and start making decisions that aren’t in line with what you pictured for yourself. As a kid, I thought I’d grow up to be the woman in the Charlie ad. Partner in a law firm. A smart suit, and good hair. Kicking my heels up as I crossed the street in my stilettos.

But the heart wants what it wants. And right now, it wants more of this.

My Finn is so tall. His feet are almost as big as mine. For months now, when I looked at him, I’d feel 50% lung-crushing love, and 50% sadness. How had I missed so much of it? When he slips into my bed for a cuddle and I wrap my arms around him and press my lips to the back of his damp head, he feels weighty, substantial. Like my regret.

More time for soccer practices, bike rides, afternoon cinnamon rolls. That’s the idea, anyway. As hard as it was to leave, the decision was a no-brainer. For me.

This post isn’t about justifying a choice. It’s about trying to explain the unexplainable. It gets me down when moms judge other moms for their choices–it’s brutal out there for everyone. There’s no judgment in my decision. And I hope there’s no judgment of me.

Don’t get me wrong. Extended periods of time with my kids still tend to give me a screaming headache and agita. And yet. The older they get, the more that’s changing. I like them. I want to hang out with them. I want to be there for this. For me, the rest can wait.

Oct 1

35 Comments

yoonanimous goes bike shopping

I still think bike commuters can be obnoxious. But I admit that I have long coveted a bike. It’s just worked out that every time I want to buy a bike, I don’t have the money, because I need it for other trifles, like heat, and water.

I started getting serious about a bike after spending $120 on a shitty rental over vacation. Buying a bike made a lot of sense. In Portland, the bike lanes are wider than the car lanes. Finn rides like a fiend, and is always asking why his parents walk so slow. I shop for groceries European style, which just means that I can’t predict what I want to eat in advance, and end up going to the store daily–a trip that would be more fun on a bike. But the last straw was when my genteel cousin Emily and her boyfriend Kevin bought a tandem. They have been riding jauntily around town toting baguettes and having impromptu picnics. I mean, I can barely picture Em OUTDOORS. That settled it. I was getting a damn bike.

Having made the decision, I perked up, as I always do, at the thought of buying something. But it’s been a slog. I’m usually an efficient shopper. I don’t equivocate, and I don’t waffle. But with bikes, I was like a retiree with all the time in the world—puttering around the shop, kicking tires, accidentally knocking bikes over, and asking annoying questions like “Can I put a bell on this? and “Why is this here bike so big?” I wish I had better questions, but I had no idea what to ask. When friends would ask “what type of bike” I wanted, I got tetchy. What the hell did they MEAN what kind of bike? The kind with two tires, a seat, and some handlebars. Duh. But I had to answer, and unfortunately, all my answers sounded really dumb. “I want a bike that won’t make my crotch sore.” “I want a bike that comes with the cool orange bags that hang on the back.” “I want a bike with medium fat tires.”

an early contender: the globe daily 2

Anyway, the technical stuff was besides the point. I wanted the bike for my kids and groceries, but my priority was to avoid buying an uncool bike. I’m no Jay-Z, but I like to think I at least know what’s not cool. With bikes, I had no idea how relatively cool or uncool my options were. But make no mistake, you can’t go into a bike shop in Portland and ask for a “cool” bike. I know this because I did just that at River City Bikes and the salesperson visibly cringed, which looked painful with the eyebrow rings. My general impression of bike shop employees, btw, is that they exist to make you feel lame and under-pierced.

I couldn’t even rely on brand names, because I have no idea what brand names are cool in the bike world. Don’t give me any of that BS about brand names not being important. Brand names are important. To argue otherwise is to mess with the penultimate value system in my life, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go there. I didn’t like the sound of some brands: “Giant,” “Surly,” “Globe,” “Cannondale.” Finn has a Trek and that sounded ok, but who wants to ride the same bike as their kid? It would be like buying a car made by Tonka, or Stride Rite pumps. I liked the sound of other brands: “Linus,” “Jamis.” I thought the brand “Specialized” sounded pretty special until a friend implied that Specialized is the Gap of the bike world. The Gap!! I didn’t want the Gap. I wanted A.P.C.

tate, my biking style icon

I knew a couple other things. I knew I didn’t want a girl bike—which, I was surprised to learn at Clever Cycles, is not the technical term for such a bike, which is instead known as a “step-through.” I wanted the crotch bar. Gotta have the crotch bar. To me the crotch bar is the difference between having curly streamers coming out of your handlebars, and not. Speaking of handlebars, I also knew that I didn’t want those tall, curvy handles that you see in old French movies.

But I was weak. Presented with curvy-handled, step-through options, I was tempted. A beautiful Linus Mixte 3-speed came in a color called “Rosewood,” a deep burgundy that called to the very core of my being. The salesperson assured me I could ride in a skirt. I nodded in appreciation, forgetting that the last time I wore a skirt in my downtime was…never. I wanted to buy that Linus, bad. And yet, something felt wrong on my test ride. I felt too upright, like a bear on a tricycle. Worse, I couldn’t shake the annoying feeling that I should be wearing mime makeup and handing flowers to passerby. It was cute, but I didn’t want cute. I wanted utilitarian. Functional. Something I couldn’t easily fall off of. A Linus might be in my future, but first, I needed to find out if I could really ride a bike.

the rosewood linus mixte 3

In the end, I bought the cheapest option–the first bike I tried, a Globe Work I, in plain black. Globe is owned by Specialized, but I prefer to think of the Globe as my Piperlime bike, not my Old Navy bike. The bike felt good, and solid, like I could run over it with my car—just saying—and it might still be ok. I jazzed it up with a seat for Tate, in chartreuse. With the child seat, basket, and bike lock, the whole thing weighs approximately 120 pounds, but it’s ok. I don’t plan to go up any hills.

If the biking thing sticks, I’m getting this dream helmet next. My boss Keith, a cyclist, helpfully suggested it because he knows that my primary anxiety about riding a bike is helmet hair. A helmet that’s really a scarf! Brilliant. Now I just need to save the $700.

Anyway, if you see Tate and me on the road, give a honk! Just don’t make any sudden movements, because we are newbies. So maybe a light, non-threatening beep. Or maybe just flash your lights. Or maybe, just wave. Or maybe, just ignore us.

Wish us luck.

i guess finn needed to pee

let go or be dragged

Archive for

timbers ho!

the getaway

stealing shampoo

death by nerf

eaten alive by toys

changes.

yoonanimous goes bike shopping

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