Hana's Appearance Day

Listening to Classic Vinyl on XM this afternoon when this came on:



Many of my daughter's friends have had birthday parties over the last month or so. One of the girls, a classmate and fellow chess player, invited the group to dinner at Govinda's restaurant here in the Central West End on a Sunday evening. I asked the Girl if she wanted to go, she said she did, I RSVPed for the two of us, and thought no more of it save to swing by the Chess Club to pick up a book as a gift.

The appointed evening arrived, and we drove down Lindell, parked across the street. We entered the foyer of the building, we were greeted by a wafting hint of incense and curry, a hodgepodge of shoes on each side of a narrow path through the center to two doors, and whirling music from the next room, growing louder as the eastern door cracked open. Hana's mother peeked around it, then slid out. She walked into the space smiling widely, revealing a glimpse of sparkling toes beneath the golden-orange sari. Hello. she said. Here, put your things down here. Would you like to go ahead and sit in the restaurant or go into the ceremony? It should only be a few more moments before they honor Hana. She gestured towards one of the two doors behind her.

The Girl and I looked at each other, shrugged. Sure, we'll go. We unzipped our boots, took off our coats, and put them all beside a table.

The room was crowded, and divided into two sections by a line of columns at the third point on the door side. On the larger side, men and children danced, whirling along with the music. We caught a glimpse of Hana, in a brilliant red sari, with two of her classmates near the shrine at the front. On the smaller side, most of the women stood, swaying gently and clapping. The tempo and the volume increased as more people slid quietly through the door, some other party guests, some obviously worshipers. Then suddenly, the music stopped, and everyone bowed low onto the floor while the leader prayed strong words in a language that washed over me almost as a song themselves.

A few minutes later, everyone sat up, and the orange-clad leader spoke. Today's celebrations are dedicated to a special member of our congregation, in honor of her Appearance Day eight years ago. For those who do not know Hana, she is the one up here wearing the most jewelry. He smiled, and there were soft chuckles throughout the room. She is ready to celebrate with her friends, but as she does, she, like all of us, must remember that it is not this life, but the everlasting one that must be our focus. As our friend noted in the lecture earlier, it is by following in the way of the Lord to the best of our ability that leads us to eternity.

He went on for a bit, but the words reminded me of the sermon at the Methodist Church we attended that morning, about the Parable of the Talents. Finally, he stopped, and walked into the shrine, gathering the flowers laid on the altar and placed in the arms of the figures, breaking them into pieces as the congregation lined up behind Hana. Each one took a flower in their hands, uttered a prayer recognizable only by the movement of lips, and ate it.

We walked back into the foyer and into the other room, into the actual restaurant part of the building. The girls were gathering around a table with a cake, and several teens led in singing the birthday song:

Hare Krishna to you,
Hare Krishna to you,
Hare Krishna dear Hana,
Hare Krishna to you.

May you suffer birth again,
May you never suffer birth again,
Hare Krishna dear Hana,
May you never suffer birth again.

and then we ate delicious curried vegetables and rice and salad, Hana opened her presents, the girls ran up and down the stairs in the entry while we adults talked, and realizing that it was getting late on a school night, we bundled up to go home.

As the Girl and I drove home, she yawned repeatedly in the passenger seat. Still immersed in the remnants of the incense, I mused over the events of the day. How similar we all are, and how very delightfully different.

Four Things I've Been Doing with My Time

Work. The contractor for my big project (see photos on the firm's Facebook page, here.) has been extremely efficient in getting all of the shop drawings (for the non-design and contruction types out there, those are the drawings that the subcontractors use to actually fabricate the various components of the project like steel stairs and beams, cabinets, and doors) to us for review. I mean, extremely efficient. Six weeks into construction, I've already had practically every set of submittals cross my desk, with only millwork (51 pages, received on Friday) and lighting cutsheets (waiting for missing pieces) still in the review process.

Homework. The Boy's Science Fair project was due January 19th. He turned it in January 25th. And then it was time for Book Reports. And now he's been selected to go to the MCTM competition in April, which is an extra 30-45 minutes of Math homework every night--which actually isn't a pain, because he loves Math. Where this was buried in our gene cesspools, neither the Husband nor I has any idea. Oh, and we're putting renewed focus on quizzing the Girl on her spelling words (one of which this week was reminiscent, which I can barely get right without spellcheck), drilling multiplication tables, and studying Science. They're learning stuff in grade school science we learned in high school. Seriously.

Home Repair. The previously noted electrical issues have not yet been repaired. We still have no heat, which is less of a problem now that it's warmer and the immediately downstairs neighbors have returned from their travels. We finally, after having three different electrical contractors visit the house, found one whose philosophy on how to fix the problem aligns with ours. That they happen to be the same company who installed the equipment in the first place and that I'm working with on aforementioned project is probably coincidental. The problem now is that we need to get similar quotes on heating/air conditioning systems to make sure that the new electrical panel will deal with the loads when we have to replace that piece of the puzzle, which considering the HVAC units are ~35 years old is likely to be any day, perhaps a month ago. So that's on my list to deal with next week.

Battlestar Galactica. I've been such a vegetable in the evenings that I've spent most of what passes for free time sitting on the window seat watching TV. Yeah, really. To paraphrase Harlan Ellison, The Dinosaurs are Dead, and You Don't Look So Terrific Yourself ....

Not Single Anymore

Spring semester, my first year at the University of Arkansas, I took the required course in U.S. History. Among the myriad sections available was a 2:00 1870-1965 course in the old Geology building next to Vol Walker, so I chose that one, and found my usual seat in the back corner of the class occupied by one of the starters on the basketball team.

The class was, of course, staffed by a TA--a woman about 40, PhD candidate, with grey hair pulled back into a bun and a particularly twangy Oklahoma drawl. The first day, after the perfunctory chores of roll call and syllabus review, she picked up her copy of the textbook and asked, Does anyone in here think this book presents history in a factual, unbiased way? A few hands, scattered throughout the room, raised slowly. She nodded. We're going to discuss history in a way most of you didn't experience in high school here. This book is our guide, but like all guides it has a point of view. The most important skill I can teach you here as how to dissect that.

Much of the class was spent doing exactly that. She put original source material on the overhead to compare, and drew analogies to everyday life to help us see things more clearly. While I don't think I learned any actual history in her class, I learned a lot about other things.

The other day, our friend Joe emailed us a video of a 1960's prototype car--a wagon with a curving sofa and third row seating accessed by tailgates that raise and lower, and all kinds of other weirdness. After the first 30 seconds, I gasped, Oh, I want one.

Twenty years ago when we were discussing the consumer goods explosion of the 1950's and colorful plastic goods of all sorts in that U.S. history class, the TA quipped, almost as a throwaway comment, When Tupperware starts looking good you aren't single anymore.

I'd guess that counts double for seven seat station wagons.

Decade in Review: 2006

Now this gets easier, because I at least have some blog posts to work with.

The Boy, now 6, signed up for basketball at the Y. Our first--and last--regular weekend activity. We don't do weekends.

The Girl turned 4, I think while we were visiting friends in Dallas although that might have been her 5th birthday. We all wore party hats on our faces as noses while singing Happy Birthday. The Husband and I, concerned about her academic because her older classmates treated her like a doll and she had no connection with the teacher she would have for three more years, had her tested for the Boy's school. She missed the cut by 2 points because of the way that the Stanford-Binet weights Analytical and Verbal skills.

Both children said hilarious things throughout the year. Look here and here and here and here and here and here.

In March, I accompanied the Husband on a trip to Montreal.

In April, we got the fish tank. I decided to battle City Hall over my children's playground. This went on for months and months. In the end, the hospital gained control of the property and my son vowed never to play there again. And he hasn't. He'd rather ride a mile into the park to the new playground.

In May, we brought home our Arkansas Alleycats. They were about 8 weeks old, and very cute.

July was the MIA summer. My mother-in-law fell and broke her hip the first weekend of their move. Daddy Fred died. I drove more than I slept, back and forth between Mountain Home and Conway, Little Rock and St. Louis.

In August, the Friday before school started, we got a phone call from the Recruiting Department for the school district. We're opening a Preschool class at the VPA. Your daughter has been selected for the class. Do you want the seat?

The Husband and I had planned to apply for a spot in the kindergarten the following year. There was no hesitation.

In October, the Husband and I went scuba diving in Cozumel. It was amazing.

In November, we voted again, and did our first major school project.

And then it was the usual rush of Thanksgiving--the first big Thankgiving with everyone here, the in-laws, Mom & John, the Shrimp & Tiny & their kids, and Granny and Aunt Carrie & Uncle Rick--and kid birthday parties and Christmas.

Decade in Review: 2005

I didn't quit.

I didn't just walk away and never look back.

I wanted to.

I wanted to so, so very badly.

But ...

It wasn't responsible.

It wasn't the right example for my students.

It wasn't the right thing for my budget.

So I wrote a letter of resignation effective May 15. The Human Resources manager called me. You know we would offer you a contract for another year, don't you?

I don't want a contract for another year. I thought but didn't say, I have no interest in staying where I'm clearly not wanted.

I didn't attend a single faculty meeting, a single recruitment event, a single extracurricular thing. I taught my classes, I advised my students, I organized my files into stacks: keep/toss/leave here. I made a binder and a CD for every course I had taught--about half the courses in the program--with all my background materials, the syllabi, the lecture Powerpoints, everything. I packed my books, my personal items into boxes and carried them home one at a time in the trunk of the Jaguar.

In January, the Boy started at the gifted magnet school. The Girl stayed at the Montessori. Instead of hiring a new nanny, I arranged with one of the teachers to take her home for a couple of hours until the Husband or I could pick her up.

In February, the Husband decided that he had to have an RX8. So we bought one. I signed the papers with a furious flourish.

A couple of weeks later, I relented enough to make him a Valentine: a half sheet of trifold white cardstock, a path of red squiggles tracing across a twilight blue stripe that faded to white as it went up. Under the right hand leaf, the squiggles traced the path of a red RX8. Beneath it I wrote by hand, You make my heart go Zoom Zoom.

Our last remaining cat, Sasha, died.

In April and May I searched for a job, interviewing with architecture firms, lighting consultants, corporate real estate companies. In the end, I decided to go into business for myself full time to preserve my time flexibility for the kids. I picked up a couple of regular clients from my interview process, kept looking around for work.

In August we took a week off and pointed the Jag north, for a tour of new museums. We went to the Milwaukee Art Museum by Santiago Calatrava (say that twice. such a lovely sounding name.) The Girl loved it, called it "the Bird" ... fairly apropos, actually.

We stopped at dairies to eat cheese curds, and took touristy photos with oversized bovines. We went to Minneapolis, to the new Walker Art Center by Herzog & deMeuron, which bored the children, and the Sculpture Garden, which they loved. We drove south along the Mississippi through Wisconsin. As we neared the Quad Cities, the Girl looked out the window. Where are we?

Moline, Illinois.

Why?

Why do you think?

Another Art Museum? she sighed. I think I'm gonna turn into an art museum.

I started blogging in the fall. I took a boot camp fitness class three days a week. I ramped up my running.

We enrolled the Girl in the Montessori magnet school in the neighborhood just north of ours. A public school, no tuition, no drive to the suburbs. I rode her to school down Euclid, across the little Victorian mandorla park, on my bicycle, to the astonishment of her schoolmates, who flocked around me every morning.

One day I was standing on the playground before school, and one of her classmates walked up to me, a sad look on his face. What's up, Isaiah? I asked. Why the long face?

The police hauled my daddy off to jail last night. he said. Momma doesn't know when he'll get to come home.

I thought he was going to burst into tears then and there. And I had no idea what to say.

Four Things, Snow Day Edition

First week of school after the two-week Winter Break, in theory, at least. In theory because the geniuses running our school district decided to have a teacher work day (no students) on the first business day of the New Year, which made it a four-day school week. Then the Boy woke up vomiting at 2:30 Wednesday morning, so I worked at home in between project meetings and visits from the electrician regarding replacing our circuit breaker panel so we have heat again. Then it snowed 3 inches, so we had a Snow Day yesterday. Today the wind chills are into the negative numbers Fahrenheit, so children would be frostbitten long before the usually tardy buses show up. Another Snow Day. Another day of trying to work at home with both children. Ergo, this post:

Jeers:

1. It really sucks to have snow on the ground and kids out of school but it being too bloody cold for them to spend more than 10 minutes outside without worrying about losing their noses.

2. It also sucks that the circuit breaker for our heater core decided to go bad the day AFTER we got back from Arkansas, at the beginning of the annual cold as heck snap. It also sucks that its completely obsolete, meaning that replacing that one 90-amp 3-pole 3-phase breaker would cost ~$400, and that this brand of panel is known for being a fire hazard. So we've decided to replace it. And then we get to deal with the heater core. Did I mention that our HVAC system is ~30 years old and that the manufacturer hasn't made furnaces in ~20 years?

Cheers:

3. I love having an actual office. It's hard enough to focus on steel shop drawings and concrete and drywall submittals without being subjected to the post-Christmas, post-birthday chaos of my house. My usual hourly 5-minute internet breaks have become 15-minute internet and spot cleaning breaks. This is not nearly so productive for billable work.

4. I am thankful for my neighbors, whose heat rising from the three floors below me means my home hasn't yet dropped below 60 in the core of the house. I am thankful for my husband, who has been baking like a crazy man so that the ovens stay on warming the house. I am also thankful for my friends and mother who loaned me 3 space heaters, although this morning I discovered that the circuit for the front of the house will only power the stereo, one Xmas tree, 3 laptop computers, one external monitor, the network equipment, the Roomba charger, the fish tank, the hall lights, and one space heater. Not two space heaters.

Now, back to the laundry, the dishes, the homework bullying, the computer coaching. Oh, and the billable work.

Decade in Review: 2004

I don't want to talk about 2004.

The Girl, at two, was breathtakingly beautiful with creamy skin and corkscrew curls. People stopped me in the grocery store to gape at her. She started in the two-year old class at the Montessori school.

The Boy, at four, was making the transformation from little kid to little boy. He tested into the gifted school, but was placed on the waiting list.

I went to Spain in March, leading a small group of students in a History of Art & Architecture Seminar. (this was the second year, actually: I had taken group to Italy the previous year.) I spent every spare moment at internet cafes, dealing with the chaos that had taken over at home.

The contractor on one project--my first decent commercial commission since going on my own--took a progress payment and smoked it--literally. Crack. The contractor on another project--my first decent residential commission--defaulted. By June, I had to face facts and fire my assistant--a young architect I had fostered and mentored since her freshman year of college--two weeks before her wedding. We both cried.

One nanny graduated from college, got married, got a real job. The other graduated and moved to Hawaii.

In August, I took the children to the polls with me. I hired a new nanny, recommended by one of our regular sitters. I wasn't really convinced that it was the right fit, but I was desperate.

I spent many long nights staring into the monitor at home, long nights alone in my office that semester. If I just work harder, it will all turn out all right. If I just work harder, it will all turn out all right.

One day in mid-October, I leaned on the door frame of my faculty mentor's office. Can we talk?

Sure. She turned from her computer as I walked in, shut the door.

Someone has been assigned to my committee who is hostile to me. I don't know what to do. I'm afraid she's going to blackball me. I'm afraid of her period.

And at the end of the year, my fears were realized. The Husband answered his phone. It's over. I need to leave. Now.

He was there in five minutes. We drove into town, stopped at the Cheshire Inn, sat in their dark paneled bar in red leather wing chairs with pints of deep amber ale. As the level dropped below the bump in the glass, my phone rang. Our nanny. The Boy just bit me.

Decade in Review: 2003

I look at my resume for hints on 2003: two paper presentations, attending two other meetings, chairing the regional conference, new architectural licenses in Georgia and Arkansas. I had given up the Program Director's chair to focus on the recommendations of the tenure committee.

The Girl took her first steps in the spring, long after her first words left her extrovert mouth. Yes, it was obvious even then how different she was from the rest of us.

The Boy started Montessori preschool. He blossomed. He said many odd, funny things.

During the summer, we accompanied the Husband on a business trip to New York. He dropped us off at a subway station on his way to Westchester County. As we took our seat on the train, the Girl's umbrella stroller wedged between my legs and the divider in front of me, I looked at my 3 1/2 year old. Okay, we only have one stroller, so you're walking. If you need to stop and rest, tell me. If you need to go to the bathroom, tell me. If you want to look at something, tell me. If you want something to eat, tell me. You're in charge for the day. We wandered the streets of the city all day, traveling from hot dog stand to hot dog stand. We window shopped, and found a 1970's concrete water sculpture and park where other children ran and splashed. My pair joined them and played with delight. A couple of hours later, still damp, we took a bus to our hotel and sank into blissful naps until the Husband walked in, ready to find dinner.

In late summer, the Husband read new safety ratings and realized that my SUV had the annoying habit of throwing the driver out of the car--despite seat belts--no matter how it was hit. He insisted on buying me a new car.

One August afternoon, we test drove an Infiniti, a Nissan, tried another RX-8. We weren't satisfied with any of the choices. As we turned towards home, the Husband said, I'd like to try one more thing. and pulled into the Jaguar dealership.

There's one of these in our price range. Let's just try it.

We told the salesman we wanted a stick shift, and he first brought up a white car with a tan interior. I was not impressed. I looked out into the lot, saw a charcoal grey sedan. How about that one?

He went and looked. It's a manual. I'll go get the keys.

Two hours later, the deal was set. The Girl brought a stuffed animal to me, her eyes pleading. The salesman walked back into his office. One more thing, I said. Can you throw in a couple of Jaguars?

His eyes grew wide. I waved towards the one in the Girl's hand. He smiled, walked onto the floor and grabbed another for the Boy.

We drove away in our new grey sedan, and sold the SUV to my stepfather, who later gave it to Daddy Fred, who loved it.

The rest of the year has disappeared into the ether.