New York Food Journal

 Junoon

 Bouloud Sud

 Can't not do pizza on Times Square after a show.

 Mango on the Brooklyn Bridge

 Brooklyn pizza

 Looks like gritty street food, but it's a falafel from maoz, my favorite fast food falafel place.  And the only one I know of.  It's a chain.

 We found an Amareno gelato stand.  Ruby almost fainted.

 It was Italian street food, but it went fast.

 Peach-blueberry pie from the New Amsterdam market under the Brooklyn Bridge.  Delish, but not as good as Jennifer's pie.

 Cone at Yankee Stadium

 Golda finally got her cannoli

Tiramisu at the Guggenheim.

Bring Me Your Poor, Your Tired...

I don't know how this happened, but Scott and I should never get on the computer and start looking at airfares.  It always ends badly.  Or amazingly, depending on how you look at it.  I love to travel, anywhere, anytime.  But the more ensconced in life I get, the harder it is to pull myself away from my insulated little corner of the universe.  It doesn't stop me from planning trips, but it sure does make me a lunatic as the departure time nears.  9-11 changed everyone's worldview, of course, and there was that flight into Hong Kong where Scott and I thought we were going to die.  (We tried to land twice, unsuccessfully, then flew to another airport out of desperation.  It was so turbulent, my seatbelt came off and I hit my head on the overhead bin while holding Xanthe.  Scott and I, always cool under pressure, were mouthing swear words to each other across the rows, since we were seated apart.  Seconds from death, we were arguing about why my seatbelt wasn't fastened.  When we finally touched down, I was ready to row home across the ocean, but we had to take off and try Hong Kong again!  I thought for sure we were going to die.)  Every time I leave home, I have these panicky feelings that I might never see my kids again.  It's really uncomfortable.

Once we had safely landed in NYC, I felt better about possibly making it home alive at the end, and we were able to relax and have a wonderful time.  Once the magnetic pull of home is weakened by distance, it's easier to realize how exciting the outside world is.  It's hard to know at home when your groove has become a rut.  Funny though, even in New York, we noticed that people are totally wrapped up in their own little world.  Two blocks from the Brooklyn Bridge and two blocks from the Guggenheim, people who were clearly locals had no idea where those landmarks were when we asked for directions.  And in New York, the epicenter of civilization! 

After taking the red-eye, it was a heavenly surprise that our room was already ready when we arrived at 7 am.

We rested for all of eight minutes, then took the subway downtown to Battery Park where we caught the ferry for Ellis Island.

Ellis Island is haunting to me.  Every time I go there, I have chills the whole time.  The faces of all those brave, terrified immigrants are so powerful.  I have a book I bought at Ellis Island years ago with stories and pictures from people who were there, some of them for months.  Felice Taldone, and Italian immigrant, said, "I left my mother in Italy.  You cry for your mother all the time, so I wrote a letter to my mother from Ellis Island.  Told my mother I got off, I got a job.  And it made my mother strong."  Oreste Teglia, another Italian, said, "The second day I was at Ellis Island I noticed this old man.  He took two tongue depressors and he made a cross out of them.  And he got at the end of the bed.  And he would kneel with this for a long time, every day.  He'd just kneel and pray.  The poor man was so scared and lost.  No one to talk to."

So many people passed through Ellis Island, each with a powerful story, some heartbreaking and some inspiring.  On a funny note, there is an old Italian saying on the wall at Ellis Island:  "Well, I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold.  When I got here, I found out three things:  first, the streets were not paved with gold; second, they weren't paved at all; and third, I was expected to pave them."

And pave the streets they did, all these determined immigrants to whom so many of us - all of us - owe our good fortune.  Looking into the faces of New Yorkers, you see the immigrant experience, whether fresh or generations removed.  You see it in all its incarnations, and it gives the city an incredible energy.

Here are Golda and Ruby, channeling the whole "poor, tired, huddled masses" thing.  Tired, definitely.  And that was the first morning of our trip.

Xanthe's Tooth

Xanthe's teeth do not fall out.  The first two had to be yanked out by the dentist after the adult teeth had already come in behind them.  This tooth was finally forced out by the grown up tooth, although the two coexisted for quite some time.  On the bright side, she never has any cavities, because her teeth are made of granite or something.

Xanthe couldn't wait for that dollar.  With the rate she loses teeth, it's going to take her a hundred years to "save up for Paris" with tooth fairy money.  In the meantime, she can work on being adorable.  She is doing a good job of that, with the new gap in her teeth and her darling new pixie cut.  Sweet little thing!

Life With Kids, a Snapshot

Doctor's office, changing Tizzy's diaper.

Ptolemy:  "Tizzy doesn't have a pen*$!  Tizzy doesn't have a pen*$!"

It took two suckers and a roll of stickers to convince him that this was not newsworthy and to please stop shouting.  But not before everyone upstairs and downstairs at Tanner Clinic was aware that our baby is a girl.  Thank you, Ptolemy.  Thank you very much.

Wii Play

We got the Wii ostensibly so we could have family time together playing.  The family that plays together stays together and all that.  So Scott challenged Freestone to a game of table tennis or something.  To make it more interesting, he started a little trash talk.  Scott, scoring a point, taunted Freestone with,  "How do you like me now?  Ha ha ha!"  freestone was too involved in the game to respond, but I know he heard Scott because a few minutes later, Scott fell behind and asked,  "Free, how do I get my guy to move?

Freestone scored another point before he responded,  "Read the instructions, DAD!  How do you like me now?  Ha ha ha!"  Touche.  I bet Scott was glad he got that Wii!

24th

We timed the Chuckwagon breakfast perfectly so that we were dining on pncakes and eggs at the exact same time the rain started.  It cleared up right as we were leaving.  We didn't mind the rain because, for one thing, it wasn't hot, and for another thing we weren't at the Pioneer Day parade in Salt Lake.  Golda and the DHS band marched in the parade.  I don't know what came over Scott, but he offered to take the kids to the parade while I stayed home for the breakfast with my dad.  It worked out perfectly for me!  And Scott survived.

The home bodies watched Golda's segment of the parade on TV.  They cut to commercial just as the DHS band came onscreen.  They came back after the band had passed by.  Seriously!?!  Oh well...it serves me right for not bucking up and going to the parade.

Scott and I took a batch of kids to the pool and lounged around until it was time to change venues.  Then we got the kids loaded up and went to Grandma and Grandpa's to lounge around while the kids drenched the back yard with sprinkler toys and a slip n slide.  I love that we Utahns get this extra holiday, positioned just right on the calendar for lots of summertime fun.

Summer Concert

 The much-hyped picnic at the shop.

 Some audience members were more enthusiastic than others. :)

 Summer orchestra this year was much more fun than last year.  Last year, Freestone was in way over his head and hated every minute of trying his bow like the other kids, forget playing music!  This year, the music was easier and Freestone has improved quite a bit.  He never even complained about going to rehearsal, which was so out of character that I found it quite unnerving.  I kept finding myself staring after him skeptically as he cheerfully hopped out of the car and willingly went to orchestra.  It was the kind of change you would expect if you had a kid with behavior problems and then you put him on medication and he was a different person.  Except the only drug Free was on was music.  Ha ha.  I bet Jimi Hendricks said the same thing.  Was Freestone wearing a bandana?...

Anyway, after two weeks of rehearsals, the groups were ready to perform.  I sortof tricked Jennie's kids into going with us to the concert by promising a picnic at the violin shop on the way.  That sounds pretty lame, I know, but I used an exciting tone of voice and, well, kids are gullible.  Aunt Tricia came, too, out of the goodness of her heart.  Scott, not so much.  He was in pain during the concert.  With every squawk or stray note, he would look at me like, "See?  Bad."  Meanwhile, I was beaming.  The kids worked so hard and sounded so good!  And Freestone somehow ended up in the concertmaster chair, and Ari was seated as principal cello, which just means that they wandered to those spots instead of other spots, but it still made me happy.

If I raised my kids without teaching them an instrument, I know I would be terribly disappointed in myself when it was all said and done.  It's not for everyone, I know.  In fact, sometimes when people ask me about staring their kids on an instrument, I inwardly groan.  Depending on how practicing has gone that day, I sometimes want to tell them it's not worth it.  But we persevere, even though Carnegie Hall is not in our future.  The process and goal is different for each kid.  Araceli is highly emotional and extremely right-brained.  Finding the balance point is difficult for her.  I know she is going to need cello in the future.  She is going to need to own it for herself and be able to use her abilities as an outlet.  She mostly practices herself, so it's sweet when she asks for my help, or accepts it without rancor.  I love the process of watching her fall in love with music. 

With Freestone, playing the violin is about our time together.  I usually help him practice and it forces me to dedicate that time to just him each day.  He says he doesn't like it, but he is doing well nonetheless.  At the end of the day, no matter what happens with the violin, Freestone and I will have logged hundreds of hours together.  That's going to be worth something.  Just today, he suggested we play something together just for fun.  Wow!  I may not be a mom who shoots baskets with her son, but we will have some neutral ground together when we need it, in the form of music.

Quite possibly, I had more fun than anyone at the concert.  But that's good.  I've put in the most work to get to this point, so it's nice to sit back and say, "Look!  It's working!"