Habeus corpus

I have a little while to put up a blog entry, but I'm so angry over the law that congress passed yesterday that I can't manage anything coherent. "The revoked habeus corpus" just keeps going over and over in my head. So I'm not going to say much of anything.

The poem that Mary wrote for May

What May Should Know

The whole catalog of greens,
confusing gold and liminals of light.

Plumage from olfactric wings
unwafting in a certain slant of light.

How the berry bells chime
when caressed by a hand of sunlight.

That all prologues end
in the glare of June noonlight.

Mary Alexandra Agner

Picture this!

May, the muse

So in one of those weird quirks that makes my life so interesting, I found out today that two different women have been inspired to art by our little May.

My friend Mary has written a poem (inspired by the last post) titled "What May Should Know", which I will post here as soon as I get the OK from her. It's short, since I'm a mom, says Mary.

And one of our fabulous baristas -- whose name alas I can't remember, but who saw us at the Burren with Donna yesterday -- is writing a song named "Little Miss May."

Hee.

Things May Should Know

I meditate a lot on the sheer weight and volume of information that Christopher and I have to try and transmit into May's head over the next, say, thirteen years. It's a daunting task, made all the harder by the fact that we are approaching what the sci-fi types and the futurists call "the singularity." (Basically, there will be a moment when technological advances and changes in the world happen so fast that it's impossible to keep up. Some people say it's already happened.)

But there are some basics. I keep trying to distill them into a series of witty bon mots, but then I remember the very first thing I think she needs to know:

Never, ever, trust an idea that can be transmitted, in its entirety, on a bumper sticker or in a slogan chanted at a rally.

Nothing is just one thing.

Always have at least two plans. And never forget that no plan survives contact with the enemy. (although that's no excuse for not having a plan.)

Justice and rule of law are two different things. Which is more important to you depends on how much power you have.

If a guy ever tells you that you're stupid, defective, ugly, bad in bed, or otherwise belittles you, dump him before the words are done echoing in the room. If he hits you, call the cops and dump him while they are arresting him.

Always have a flashlight. And duct tape. And some string.

Even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility. Do what you must and accept the consequences.

Don't lie. But you don't always have to be wholly honest.

Think. Then act.

Righty tighty, lefty loosey.

...swimming in a fishbowl....

Busy week, busy weekend

Sorry about the lack of posts. It's been busybusy for us here. Amanda lost her phone and we had to get a new one (spiffy sleek black with a camera!) and Kevin and Nikki both came to visit and Christopher had to go to Billerica to count boxes for work. (Nikki, ever the fabulous Godmother, held May and helped pull together the two birthday cakes for the party on Sat., more on later.)

We also signed the p&s agreement for the condo on Monday. It's essentially a down payment (5 percent) and a big long 35-page document that we had to sign and initial every page of. For five copies. Took friggin forever.

We haven't had it inspected yet, which is unusual but it's us, so what do you expect? We do have a get-out-of-jail-free clause in the agreement that we get all our money back if we inspect it (or read the condo bylaws, also not supplied) and don't like anything. Our lawyer is working overtime on what's usually a basic boilerplate agreement because the developer is a bit of a p.i.t.a.

And then Tuesday, our garbage dispos-all backed up into our tub, causing us some small amount of consternation. Our plumbing has never been fabulous, but that was a bit much. Still, Rose fixed it with a gallon of bleach down the drain. As it followed an application of Drano, we were a little concerned with chlorine gas build up but ran about a million gallons of water down the drain.

Saturday, we drove to Conn. for Cathy's 60th birthday party, a delightful shindig pulled off with grace and aplomb by Barb. The menu was two kinds of stew (Ina's chicken stew and Christopher Kimball's beef stew) and two kinds of cake. (Chocolate truffel tort and apple cake.) We also made caramel sauce. And then didn't share, as is our perogative as adults and cooks.

Donna Parisi is coming tomorrow and C has Tuesday off so we can do laundry and whatnot.

Finally, the fabulous photos of this post have been supplied by brother-in-law Mike LeBlanc. If you want to see more of a longish slideshow, please click this paragraph. As always, ignore the log-in (if you want to) and click "View This Slideshow" once the website opens up.

Thinking about Christmas

Barb usually yells at me for thinking of Christmas this time of year, but this year, she called me! She mentioned that with six grandparents, four great-grandparents, numerous aunts, uncles, and adopted relatives, May is likely to get a HUGE HAUL for Christmas. And, there's a chance that there might be... Overlap.

We don't mind overlap. May is half Nielsen and we Nielsen's (Conn. branch only, mom excepted) are hard on things. Two is often better than one. But!

If you're worried that you might be buying something that someone else is buying, Barb (who called me this year!) has agreed to be....



So please let her know if you want to buy May something, say, out of the L.L. Bean catalog that arrived on everyone's doorsteps this week. (And don't want someone else to have bought it already. Like I said, we are happy for duplicates.)

Also, a new feature in the blog. Amanda's favorite bumper sticker for the week. This week, US out of VT

Finally, some lovely photos of my lovely daughter.

A short but impassioned digression

Mid-term election primaries (in Mass., anyway) are Tuesday. If you don't vote, you're a bad person.

I'm not being funny. Seriously. You're a very bad person. You're as bad as the people who stand by and watch someone get beat up and don't step in to help. Because the country is being beat up pretty badly and it's our own (collective) fault.

We're living the exposition of every damned sci-fi novel in which the US has devolved into a totatlitarian regime. It's eerily similar to 1984 or V for Vendetta or a hundred other stories. A massive attack. A "long-term war" against a nebulous enemy in a far away place, to keep our homeland safe. Violations of civil rights in the name of security. Secret camps, torture, and an atmosphere of secrecy aroudn what the government does. Protesters being arrested without charges. Dissidents being squashed because they aid and abet the (still nebulous!) enemy.

And then citizens start to dissappear.

This is where we are now. Whatever else you think about Padilla, he is a US Citizen and has been held without charges, without representation, without a chance to face his accuser. And, here's the thing, he didn't do anything! Okay, he is probably a scuz bag of nigh epic proportions, but he didn't actually do anything. He was planning to do something, but hell, I'm a novelist and have thought about how to overthrow governments. Okay, I don't plan to do it, and he probably did, but that's an awfully fine hair they are splitting.

(Big shout out to the NSA, here! Please note that I am advocating voting, not violent revolt! Loved your work on Purple.)

The next step is to monkey with elections. And we need to see if they are doing that. And to see, we need to be there. So get out the *^%@%# vote on Tuesday.

Digression ended.

Baby steps

May has made several small but significant cognative steps this week.

Literally, in one case. She's been standing (holding onto something) for quite a while, but this week she managed to "cruise" a foot and a half along the length of her crib. Not a lot, but it was definite locomotion.

She's also capable of pulling herself up... almost to her feet. She gets to her knees often and easily, but yesterday I noticed that she'd also gotten one foot under her, planted flat. She was essentially in the "will you marry my" pose. It's only days until she can pull herself up for real, I imagine.

Finally, an advance that has cause much philological debate around the Ferry household. May has been babbling for quite a while and, much as the infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of keyboards will eventually type "Hamlet", some of her babbling has sounded like English words. (Her adoring Grandmothers have been very quick to attribute meaning to these sounds. Her skeptical parents have been less sure.)

But in the past week or so, we've noticed a pattern to some of the babbling. "Ma. Ma. Ma. Ma. MMMMMMMa!" Specifically, she uses those words when I -- Amanda -- am not in the room. So now, the philosophical and philological question becomes... does she know that "mama" means Mama (meaning me, breastfeeding, cuddling, cooing, etc.) or does she just know that if she makes that noise, the comforting person of myself comes running?

And, on an even more abstract level, is there a difference? When does that immense cognative leap to language come and does it all come at once or in subtle shadings. Is it "Mama" = my mother, bang, like Hellen Keller at the well? Or is it.. well, if I make this noise then that person arrives. I'll associate this noise with that sensation of comfort that usually arrives with that person. Eventaully that noise beomes the name for that person. Eventaully its understood that you, there, are "Mama."

It's all very interesting.

Autumnascure

Autumnascure was this week. Monday, we think.

Autumnascure is a word that Christopher and I made up. It's that first day in the fall when you wake up at your usual time and have to turn on the light. It's different for every person every year -- depending on when you wake up and which way your windows face.

The opposite is the wonderful day of Vernalux, when the morning sun is is up before you for the first time in the spring.

Yes, we are strange people, but we rather like it that way.

Random photo of May

Bronze Glory and Burnt Sugar

Today was, despite the colorful title of this entry, a fairly low-key day. We had breakfast at The Yolk and then after May's morning nap, went to Babies R Us to pick up a convertable car seat. She's outgrown her infant one. In one of those twists that Christopher Kimball loves, the best carseat (according to Consumer Reports) is also one of the cheapest. Though we paid a little more than the CR price listed.

The car seat only came in one color. Bronze Glory.

We'll make an appointment with the Somerville police later in the week to get the car seat properly installed.

After May's afternoon nap, we went down to Central to put in an order for the soon-to-be-realeased Terry Pratchett Discworld novel, Wintersmith. "Wintersmith" is the latest Tiffany book. During May's nap the other day I re-read "Hat Full of Sky" and re-affirmed my belief that Pratchett is one of the best writers in the English lnaguage alive today. And his Tiffany books are pretty much his best work. I'm glad that May has been born into a world in which Pratchett heroines go after the Queen of the Fairies with a cast iron skillet.

On the walk back from Central we stopped and got ice cream at Herrell's. Herrell's rocks. I tried a new flavor -- Burnt Sugar and Butter and think that it's supplanted Choc' Chip Cookie Dough as my fifth favorite flavor. We'll have to see how it stands up to the test of time, though. (Bittersweet chocolate, chocolate, Mexican chocolate, and Cookies and Cream, in case you care. In that order.)

Since all of that is long and dull and not much about May, here are some May photos:

Squirrel bombadiers

Fall is on its way. The acorn bombing has begun. May and I got beaned by squirrels with good aim and too many acorns today on our way to the T.

Squirrel looks weird if you type it enough. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel.

We went to the Harvard Developmental Labs again and May watched a train play "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" about a dozen times. Then we got another "Harvard Baby Scientist" T shirt and headed home.

Jen Hoberman came over today and played with May while I made dinner. (Skillet Lasagna! All the taste of slow-cooked lasagna, in 30 minutes. No, really.)

That's all.

Baby jail!

Dr. Sears condemns cribs as baby jails. Moms who live in small Somerville apartments with no way to babyproof them call them lifesavers!

My mother and father came up this weekend and they helped us finally assemble May's crib. (To be totally honest, they assembeled May's crib and Christopher and I assisted.) We also showed them the outside of the condo -- the inside was locked away and our fearless realtor Annemarie was in Maine on vacation.

Here's a picture of May standing up in her crib! Thanks Grammy and Grampy Nielsen!



She's gotten quite good at standing, often for ten or fifteen minutes, as long as she has something to hold onto. Crusing will come soon, I'm afraid.

Speaking of photos, Jen Hoberman, our official family photog, and May and I went to the Boston Public Garden on Friday and went a little mad. Check out all these great photos. There are many many, so many that I couldn't pick just one to put here, so you'll have to click. As ever, just click the button that says "View Slideshow" if you want to see the photos without creating a log-in.

A less fabulous photo, I took this one myself:



Other small items of news, mostly about other people, of various import:

• Seth and Sarah went to Montreal last week and had a good time.
  
• Steve Sacco finished his comps and then slept all weekend. Yay Steve!
  
• Donna Parisi, Nikki's mom, will be coming to visit us from Lake Placid at the end of September.
  
• Nigella is finally coming to the Food Network!
  
• The shop cat of Harvard Liquors died recently.
  
• May is going back to the Harvard Labs on Thursday at 1, for further brain shrinking!
  

That's all for today.

Quilts!

Totally unrelated to everything else in the universe... Christopher bought me quilting software for my birthday and I've been entertaining myself in rare spare moments by designing quilts. I've got lots, but some are better than others.

I thought y'all might get a kick out of seeing them. As ever, you can click on the smallish pictures below and load up a bigger and better copy of the photo.

It's the fall raspberry season and I designed this one while thinking of Nikki and her affection for raspberries and chocolate:



My friend Mary is very much a blue person. Not blue, depressed all the time blue, but sea and sky and the color of sapphires blue. I was thinking of her -- and the sea and the sky and stars -- when I designed this one:


Everyone who knows Wendy knows she's a purple person:



My mother likes these colors:



Finally, a sunburst for summer:



I've found the name of a decent beginner's sewing machine made by Viking for a reasonable amount of money and I'm going to buy it with my birthday money and maybe actually make some of these. Probably not the Sky and Sea one right away, though. That looks complicated.

New Apartment Layout (approximate)

For those of you wanting more information about the condo that we have the offer in on, I have a few pictures.

First, an aerial shot of the building and area (I love Google Maps!). Not greatly useful, I know.



OK, so to show the building, I don't show much of the area.

Here's a map showing more of the area (like where our current house is and Porter & Davis Squares).



Finally, a sketch I made of the layout. If you can see the graph paper, one square equal about 1 foot.



For any of these (and the photos of May) you can click on the picture for a larger version.

The students are coming! The students are coming!

It's Labor Day Weekend here in Boston, also known as the invasion of the freshmen menace. Non-Bostonians have trouble understanding the breadth and scope of the sheer chaos in Boston this weekend. Something like 76 percent of all housing in the region turns over between August and September -- it's a madhouse in slow motion.

Christopher and I have a little game we play this weekend every year: Boston Bingo! (One year we actually printed up cards but this year we're just playing it in our heads.) Sights that can get you a square on the Boston Bingo Card:

Three different moving trucks (from different companies) all visible from one location.

More than four couches being thrown out on one block.

People asking for directions to Tufts... while standing in front of Tufts.

People asking for directions to Tufts... while standing in front of MIT.

Guy with three cases of beer walking home.

Strange things on the T! Worthy of its own category, we've seen people carrying some strange things on the T this weekend. Seven foot tall lights. Bookshelves. Rugs. A twin mattress.


Speaking of mattresses: the central gimme-square on the Boston Bingo card is: Car driving down street with mattresses strapped to roof.

Hand-lettered sign in the window of the local beer store that says, "We have boxes."

The freshman guy in the Fez who wants to be known as "the guy in the Fez."

The Guy in the Fez meeting one of the other fifteen guys every year who buy a fez at the junk shop in the garage.

The faces on the folks from Kansas as they try and wrap their Cartesian-grid minds around the non-Euclidean roadways of Cambridge and Somerville.

And that's not including the fun that is Freshmen in the Grocery Store! We avoid all grocery and hardware stores this weekend.