Shake It Like A...

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from an Oregonian reporter who wanted to talk Polaroid. He was writing a story about how Portlanders are dealing with the loss of Polaroid, now that the company is giving up production of its flagship product. I talked with him and sent him a copy of this picture:

It is one of my favorite Polaroids, taken in Chicago on a trip after I'd moved away. Al's, and his sign, are on a busy street just outside the neighborhood where I lived for several years. I drove by this spot regularly, but it wasn't until I left town that I got around to snapping this picture.

I loved this picture so much that it led me on a Polaroid journey of sorts. I started to take pictures of other food signs. New England is packed with fun signs, for red hots, Del's lemonade and roadside diners admonishing guests to "eat heavy."* Armed with my trusty (purchased on a Brooklyn street for $5) Polaroid, I snapped my way through several years and many signs. Once that camera kicked it, I turned to my Holga and cell phone camera for the immediacy and snap-shot quality I'd loved in my Polaroid.

I think the reporter was a little disappointed when I told him that I now own a Fuji instant camera. In talking to Polaroid fanatics, he'd met people who were vastly more committed to the form than I could ever be. He talked to one guy who said he'd keep shooting Polaroids until the film rain out, then he'd abandon his camera forever. I like Polaroids, but I like a lot of media. If I can get film from Fuji, I will. Once I saw the guy's article - which focused exclusively on Portland-based "artists' " response to losing Polaroid - I felt less bad about not living up to whatever idea he had about how Polaroid fans were taking the news.

In any case, to see some more Polaroids, and read some stories from fans of the camera, check out the online companion to the story, which was published on Friday.

*The reporter got the facts wrong in his story, and assumed my "eat heavy" picture was taken in Chicago.

Stories Repeated

When my mother saw this picture:

She immediately thought of this picture, of me and my first "best friend" Hema:

The photograph is dated summer 1974, which makes me 2.5 (as Ada is in the prior picture). The note on the back of the photo says "To My Nora, From Hemi".

Hema is someone I remember only as stories. Stories about how cute we were, how close we were, how sad we were when my family moved away. As a memory, she is more important to my mother than she is to me. She is tied into my mother's memory of the toddler Nora, a person I can not know.

I understand my mother's nostalgia for this picture and the girls in it. I already sigh over pictures of Ada from last year, heck, sometimes from last month. The pictures are tied to memories, and I am sure that like my mother, I will be repeating to Ada the stories of her early years, telling her about her early interest in word play or the first time she drew a circle.

The stories of our childhoods are not our own, but they still shape us. I know that Hema loved me, that I liked to sit on Paula's dad's motorcycle, that I was quick to speak and slow to stop sucking my thumb. These are facts of my life, and I hope to be a faithful reporter to Ada about the big things, but also about the small milestones of her life that are so easy to forget but so important to us both as they happen.

Random Quote and Unrelated Photo(s) of the Week

So many demographics united through the magic of consumption!

Sasha Frere-Jones
Amy's Circus

Lazy Updates - Haiku Edition

Pink eye Saturday
Two hour doctor appointment
No dinner with friends

On birth control pills
Ironic IVF start
Hormones in the mail

Northwest holiday
We should expect rain by now
Living room egg hunt

Work still kicks my ass
Nights to catch up on "The Wire"
Once taxes are done

Ada loves bacon
She likes to wear band-aids too
Two pleasures in one

Self indulgent blog
nonlinear girl dot com
Now belongs to me

Random Quote and Unrelated Photo(s) of the Week

It's her eyes that transform what might have been a frivolous Surrealist premise (Pinup in Penisland) into something unexpectedly somber and unsettling.

Alexi Worth
Kusama Dot Com

Because Ellen Does Not Blog

Monkey Boy's version of I Gave My Love A Cherry:

I gave my love a merry-go-round that would not cry;
I gave my love a house that had no pie;
I gave my love a chestnut that would not open;
And I gave my love a noodle that had no stone.

Random quote and unrelated photo of the week

As Moffat elaborated by email, "Blabla = blah blah blah."

Caroline Weber
Fashion Emergency

Scenes from Life in a Poopy Fog

Monkey Boy was over and he and Ada were busy placing wooden beads in two containers. I helped Monkey Boy put his beads into an empty honey bear. Once the top was on, Monkey Boy declared: "OK! Now we have everything we need to hunt for poop sticks!"

Off the kids run, yelling "poop sticks! poop sticks!" A few minutes later I notice Ada has a green tinker toy stick in her mouth. I tell her to take it out, and she asks if she can lick it. I tell her "no, that is not a good idea." She counters: "But it's a poop stick." Maybe it's me, but that seems to undermine Ada's stance.

* ** * ** * ** *

While watching Chris play in his annual basketball tournament, Ada asked: "When does Papa get the ball?"

I explained, "They all have the ball."

Ada: "Yeah, that's sharing. Sharing is caring."*

* ** * ** * ** *

Ada: Why is this my unbrella?
Junie: Because you are the only one in your house who uses it.
A: You and Sarah have one.
J: Yes.
A: Why do you live with Sarah?
J: Because we love each other and we wanted to live together.
A: Yeah. Like Mama and Papa.
J: (no doubt considering how to explain difference between "roommate" and "girlfriend")
Yes, except that Sarah and I are not a family.
A: (pause, considering this) Yeah, because you don't have a kid.


*By the way, "sharing is caring" is one of those random things people tell young children, even though toddlers have no way to really understand what it means. I got it from Ellen, who learned it from her sister-in-law. Ada and Monkey Boy routinely parrot it back to us, but since they do seem to be actually getting the concept of sharing (not just of 'waiting semi-patiently until it is my turn') I won't worry too much about it. They certainly were sharing whatever poop sticks they found. Which is fine, as long as they don't share them with me.

I Heart Portland, Revisited

It is almost spring, when a woman's heart turns to thoughts of . . . how much she loves her town. Yes, that again.

I love walking Ada to nursery school (a mere 7 blocks from our house), past our neighbor's yards, hipsters heading to the coffee store for that first cup, trees starting to bud. Ada and I speculate about what is in the delivery trucks, aided by the pictures of donuts or milk jugs painted on the trucks' sides. Ada engages the orange-clad construction workers, informing them that we are going to school. She and I discuss the kids and their parents. (Ada sees a second grader and her toddler brother. She wonders aloud, "is she going to school? is he?") On the walk home I call out to a neighbor and smile at other parents herding their children to school.

I love that for the price of a cafe au lait or three, my colleagues and I can work for hours at a local cafe. The space is only half-full in the morning, and no one looks askance at us for staying too long or not buying enough (or shamelessly talking like the policy wonks we are). Plus, we get to admire the toddler with the beautiful curls eating breakfast with her mother.

I love walking down the street and seeing this:

It isn't my thing, but I love that Portland is still not over the hippie, earth-worship pagan fest. Can someone else go and let me know if they really raffle Michelle's heart?

I love that every year, in the middle of our notoriously rainy winter, for a week or more the rain is replaced by sunny skies. This year we had almost three continuous weeks of sun and warm weather. I keep telling our thrilled neighbors (recently relocated from San Francisco) that a reprieve lasting this long is NOT NORMAL. Three weeks is a amazing stretch of good weather in February and early March. Not that I'm complaining; it has been really nice.

Every day that it does not rain, Ada runs out the door and down the street to see her pal Lila. Even when they argue or Ada has a meltdown because she wants the mama monkey, no not the baby monkey! she still wants to run down the block for more time with her friend. Lila charmingly runs back and forth yelling "Play! Play! Play!" It is part exclamation, part instruction. All this outside time offers me a chance to work in the garden, a bonus on an unexpectedly sunny day.

What do you love about where you live? (I am interested, whether or not you live where I do.)

Random quote and unrelated photo of the week

Even philanthropists don't want to look greedy.

Rob Walker
Extra Helping

Favorite

Getting ready for bed a few nights ago, Ada asked: "Will do you me a favorite?"

My girl plays favorites. When I am headed out to work, she refuses kisses. When she and I are sitting on the floor playing and Chris says he is headed out, she barely acknowledges him. (Until he leaves. Minutes later she asks if Papa is going to have oatmeal with us, or if he wants to hide too.)

I am used to being Ada's favorite, her go-to playmate and support. Sometimes that role is a burden, the mama-love weighing on me. Much of the time I revel in her love, knowing she wants and expects my attention, my kisses, tickles and hugs. When the love that usually comes so naturally and so intensely is held back, I feel the sting.

This morning at breakfast, Ada repeatedly announced "Kiss!" and leaned over to plant a jam-coated smooch on me. When I gathered up my bag to go upstairs for work, Ada didn't bat an eye. Then I picked up the laptop, announcing "ok, I am going upstairs to work now."

That's when the wailing began. Not because I was leaving, but out of protest that I was taking the computer with me.

"Nooooo! I need the 'puter! I need Sesame!" Ada cried.

I think we all know what the real favorite is.

It feels way too early to be asking this

The blog, she's a toddler. No longer a baby, but not as old as my neighbor down the street, who recently declared that he could take care of himself, because he's four. (Oh, if only the blog would take care of herself. Or if she'd at least she'd update her own blogroll without my intervention.)

I mention the blog's advanced age not because it has just hit an anniversary. That was, I think, in January. I mention this because I am finally thinking about going to BlogHer. The first year, I could not imagine going. The blog was only months old, and there were so many other things to do, plus my glass slippers were so dusty.... Last year I wanted to go (and got a lot of pressure from a local pal to attend) but in the end I decided that it was too great an indulgence. I immediately regretted it. Fine, she was right, I should have gone.

So now I am ready. And I might even have someone to stay with. But I am still a little nervous. Having read a zillion pre- and post-BlogHer musings by many of you, I know I am not alone. So what I want to know is, are you going? Are you thinking about it? I'm not asking you to hold my hand for three days, but it would certainly be easier for me to make the leap if I knew I'd see some friendly faces. Especially now that Debbie keeps threatening to stop blogging, which might reduce her interest in attending the conference with me. Damn her.

So, who's with me? (early registration lasts until the end of March...)

Random quote and unrelated photo of the week

Incidentally, I am at work on a weight-loss regimen that involves eating chili con carne twice a day, a theory about the Clinton marriage that is going to change the way everyone sees it and a campaign to stamp out the fish fork.

Nora Ephron
Four or Five Things You Don't Know About Me

Violet, You're Turning Violet, Violet!

I recently remembered that our refrigerator contained a ziploc bag full of blueberries picked and frozen last summer.* As those of you who were readers in the summer may recall, Ada is a berry fiend, eating her weight in berries at any chance. One of the saddest things about winter is going to pick up vegetables at our CSA farm and Ada asking hopefully, "are there any strawberries today"?

In the summer the farm has a sizable strawberry patch, with berries free for the picking for children dragged along with their veggie-happy parents. Add that to the extreme joy Ada has found in hunting for Wilma, the black bantam hen, and trips to the farm can be as exciting as the zoo or an unexpected cupcake.

But back to the berries. I remembered this bag of frozen blues, and pulled some out the other day to top off the yogurt-granola-banana breakfast. Ada was smitten, and I saw an opportunity. Now Ada is so thrilled to get blueberries that we can get her to eat practically anything with the promise that blueberries will be forthcoming at the end of the meal. This is an especially useful little tool now, as meal-times have been especially subject to two of Ada's toddler quirks: (1) extreme pickyness about food (including foods she ate as recently as a few days prior) and (2) "I'm going to control things" episodes featuring those four little words every parent loves to hear: "I DON'T WANT TO". With the introduction of blueberries, most food tantrums can be quashed with the promise that blueberries are only moments away from defrosting, and eating that egg/vegetable/meat/thing-she-loved-yesterday-
but-now-can't-stand-to-have-on-her-plate will facilitate the defrosting process.


Several days into Project Blueberry Bribes, I have remembered one downside of giving Ada high doses of this magic food. The poop. For those of you without blueberry obsessed children, suffice it to say that, even more than before, I am wishing she was potty trained.


*Actually, our fridge contains numerous bags of frozen berries from this summer, but I have not gotten off my ass to make anything with them. Blueberries retain their shape pretty well when unfrozen, while other berries do not. This means that unfrozen rasp- or strawberries need to be cooked into something. Soon, I promise. The nadir of winter calls for berry desserts.

Once Upon A Time...

A couple of weeks ago, at the end of a stretch that included some intense tantrums and insane toddler demands, Ada offered up her first independently conceived and recited short story:



Once upon a time, there was a pillow.

And she went into the forest. To pick some more pillows from the picking bog.

Then it rolled down the hill. And it cracked open!

And inside was a mother chick and a baby chick.


After a pause, I asked: Is there more? Or is that the end?


That is the end.

** * ** * **

Something in the combination of the words "pillow" and "hill" reminded me of the Robert Louis Stevenson poem The Land of Counterpane. When I googled the poem title, I found an ebook of children's poems and stories called "Project Gutenberg's Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories." This ebook is not only free, but given the copyright status of the material and the Guterberg project, the distribution and free use of the materials is allowed and encouraged. All of which is to say that I happily put that picture in this post, with no guilt whatsoever.

Random quote and unrelated photo of the week

Every now and again, I'll run into someone who claims not to like chocolate or other sweets, and while we live in a country where everyone has the right to eat what they want, I want to say for the record that I don't trust these people, that I think something is wrong with them, and that they're probably - this must be said - total duds in bed.

Steve Almond
Candy Freak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America

Sadness, Love, Joy

I am feeling better than I thought I would. Maybe this is because it is too exhausting to be sad. Beyond the physical toll of crying (which I do easily anyway), being sad takes on a physical form, like a heavy coat you can't take off. Thankfully, this weekend's sunny weather was matched by my mood; the coat was left crumpled in the corner by our pile of shoes.

I thought I would need to give the sadness more room before I could shrug it off, that it would demand my attention for longer. This time, what I feel is more like a shadow, a small companion that pokes up at unknown intervals. I was braced for a crushing loss, but happily this feels quieter and frankly more gentle than I'd feared. Even more so than this fall, the disappointment about not being pregnant quickly gave way to a feeling that this is not the end of the road.

Don't get me wrong; I hate traveling this road. But as much as I hate it, I am not ready to get off yet. I have frozen embryos, and despite the low probability that even one of them will one day become a fetus, I can't walk away from them.

I may be able to have another full fresh cycle, too. Hours after hearing from Jill, I called my parents to tell them the news. After expressing sadnesses for the outcome and my feelings, my father asked what we might do next. I told him that I could not stop trying while we still had frozen embryos. He remembered that a fresh cycle was more likely to have a positive outcome than a frozen, and asked if we would do that again. Chris and I do not have the money to explore this option, but before I could say that, my father offered to help. He explained that he and my mother have the money, and if we wanted to use it for another try, that they would want that to happen.

In my moments of need, my father is unfailingly and so graciously generous. In offering his help, he never suggested that he expects anything in return, that we owe him in any way. I am so lucky to have family support, both emotional and financial.

We will talk to the doctor in a couple of weeks, and see what he thinks about our options. On Thursday Jill told me that if we wanted to start a frozen cycle, we could go ahead now. I doubt that the doctor will try to dissuade us from a fresh cycle, which is a better chance overall. If the quality of my eggs is consistent with last time, I imagine he'll endorse this course.

The trick now is to both plan for a fresh cycle, and for one or two frozen cycles if the fresh one doesn't pan out, while simultaneously recognizing the strong likelihood that none of these attempts will work. I am not now at a place where I believe in that my future does not include a second biological child. I am still hopeful that this child will show up. To get through the attempts to make this happen, I need to believe that there is a chance this will happen, but also be ready to fully embrace life without that other child.

Last night Chris told me that over the past few days he has more strongly appreciated Ada than he did before Thursday's news. Coming off a rough new year with Ada, both Chris and I have been in survival mode. We have held on while she has been a screaming, whining whirlwind of tantrums and experiments in increased control over her life. Thankfully, those week have flowed into a new period that mostly features sweetness and interest in others. The return to an easier time, right as we learn that we did not get the second pregnancy for which we'd hoped, that was a gift.

Even if Ada had not returned to her "normal" self, I think Chris would still have an increased appreciation for her qualities. He is better at loving what he has than I am. Luckily I have a lot to love in him and Ada.

No. No. No.

Things that I no longer have to worry about:

1. Will I go back to my job after 3 months leave?
   
2. Will I go back at all?
   
3. What will we do about child care?
   
4. What if there are two?
   
5. What if the next one is as colicky as Ada was?
   
6. How will I deal with 10 more weeks of projesterone shots?

This feels as bad as I thought it would.

Hugs for the New Year

I know that Chinese New Year is officially over, but I am just getting around to looking at my photos. Ellen, Jiro and I took the kids to the Chinese Garden last weekend to see the Lion Dancers. The kids enjoyed the drumming and dancing almost as much as they liked staring into the pond.


We actually had a great vantage point from which to watch the dancers, at least from the kids' perspective. Ellen and I accurately guessed that Ada and Monkey Boy might be a little freaked out by the dancers or drummers if we were right up against them during the performance. Sitting across the pond was perfect - we could see and hear the performance without anyone screaming that it was too loud or too much to bear.

The dancing itself was fun. Once it was over Ada decided that she HAD to have water, and since I had not brought any, we walked across the garden to the bathroom, where I scooped some water from the sink tap into my hand. She had a tiny sip and declared she was done. Pressing our luck, we decided to get a picture of the kids in the garden. This took some doing. Witness:

Ellen: Just look up for 2 seconds, and THEN you can dig for worms.

(If you object to this photo of yourself, Ellen, just keep reading.
There is one of me that is WAY worse. I promise.)

Almost...

Success!

With that triumph under our belts, we retired to a nearby Chinese restaurant approved by Ellen's restaurant-owning brother. The adults enjoyed all kinds of good stuff, while the kids picked suspiciously at their noodles, turned up their noses at the Chinese broccoli, and were only convinced to eat when they found out that they would not be allowed to eat their New Year's cookies and candy until they did.

Oh, and while Ellen and Monkey Boy checked out the facilities, the rest of us made funny faces:

See, I told you.

Peeps Show

How I could have missed this, I don't know. I do know that I am incredibly amused by the idea of a contest that has people creating dioramas featuring peeps.

Last year the Washington Post ran a peeps contest. This year the Chicago Tribune has one. Deadline is March 6, so get cracking, er, peeping. In the mean time, check out the winners of the Washington Post's contest. Made my day.