All Hail Alexander Flemming

When the millenial nonsense was rolling around six years ago, I remember the questions was "who is the most influential man of the century?" being one of the favorite philosophical conversations.

I submit to you, Alexander Flemming.

He's the guy who figured out about penicillium. Antibotics have done more to change the face of the world than almost any other 20th century marvel, including (arguably) the car, computer, or telephone.

Then again, I might be biased. Because after just one day on the big honking green and blue pills my docotor prescribed, I feel much better. Science defeats mastitis. (I also did the hot compresses, massage, etc. that the books all prescribe.)

Will write more tomorrow, but for now, I'm offski.

Crank monster

I'm a crank monster. The closing has been put off because of incompetence on the part of our weenie-head mortgage guy. We'll close later in the week, likely.

I've got mastitis. Mastitis is tremendously painful. Just so's you all know.

I'm so pathetic that Nikki is coming down tomorrow to help me.

In more interesting news, May has decided she wants to learn to freestanding standing. For a solid hour today, she would pull herself upright on the crib, take a step backwards, let go, fall down on her butt. Then haul herself upright, take a step back.... An hour, this went on. I timed it. Something like three times a minute.

She doesn't take after her father or anything.

Friday morning

Many things, in brief.

Kevin Frankl's father has died. Mr. Frankl has been ill for a long time but this was unexpected and we're all very upset. His funeral will be Sunday.

May has five teeth and her godmother thinks she looks like a jack o lantern.

Jennifer Hoberman has a birthday today! Happy birthday Jen!

I feel like a snot monster.

The N.J. State Sumpreme Court rocks.

The F.D.A. has banned vegemite because it's got folic acid in. I'm thinking that orange juice and beans are next to go.

Tomorrow: Welcome to the singularity.

More photos of my daughter

Gotcha! I'm going to make a little suggestion and then let you see photos of May. Go here, to Slate and put yourself on a carbon diet. Christopher and I have a very low "carbon footprint" but we're working to lower it even further. (We thought at first we were really low -- like, less than a Kenyan, low -- but that was a computer error.)

Carbon gasses = greenhouse gasses. You've seen "March of the Penguins." Every pound of carbon you put into the environment kills baby penguins, folks. Don't be a baby penguin murderer.

Here are the promised pictures of May. Try to reduce your carbon footprint for her, too.

More photos of my daughter

Gotcha! I'm going to make a little suggestion and then let you see photos of May. Go here, to Slate and put yourself on a carbon diet. Christopher and I have a very low "carbon footprint" but we're working to lower it even further. (We thought at first we were really low -- like, less than a Kenyan, low -- but that was a computer error.)

Carbon gasses = greenhouse gasses. You've seen "March of the Penguins." Every pound of carbon you put into the environment kills baby penguins, folks. Don't be a baby penguin murderer.

Here are the promised pictures of May. Try to reduce your carbon footprint for her, too.

The secret language of children

Today at the park, I heard a little girl say (to her nanny), "I want to see how high I can go with an underdog." Wow. I'd forgotten underdogs. For those who have forgotten even what one is, it's when someone pushes you on the swings so hard that they come right out from under you on the apogee of the push.

I wonder what else from childhood I've forgotten? I still remember all the words to "Miss Lucy," at least.

Here are some adorable pictures of my daughter:




And one scary one of my husband.


Tomorrow, you're all going to be subjected to a discussion of how to help the environment. Sorry.

Things I didn't know I was supposed to stress about

I'm reading "The Overachievers", a book about the extra-ordinary pressures that high school students these days are under to get into the perfect college. I spend a lot of my time contemplating the problem of education, now that May has arrived. (Before May arrived, I contemplated it, but from a purely abstract point of view. Now it's become very relevant.)

The public school system has massive gaping holes. I don't think that's any big-wow epiphany. But I'm not terribly worried about May not getting an education. With Christopher and I as her folks, she will learn. She may learn some weird stuff -- the molecular science behind egg whites in a soufflé or the economics behind WWII torpedoes -- but she'll learn.

However, the "good schools" seem to be nothing more than pressure-cookers, turning kids into test-taking robots trying to get into "HYP" -- Harvard Yale Princeton. Again, not a revelation. I've thought about this.

But I've got a couple, ten, years before I have to take a serious stand on the issue, right?

Apparently not. Apparently, the whole "good school" track begins now. Or soon. When I start making sure that May gets into one of the private, selective, expensive preschools. I read about this in "The Nanny Diaries" but I figured it was just a joke.

No joke.

A quick Google of local preschools in my area turned up the Agassiz Preschool, a co-op preschool for 2 year olds with a five-day-a-week program that runs just under $8K.

They want my two year old to go to school five days a week and they want me to pay $8,000 for the privilege.

And you laugh, and laugh and laugh and then you read this chilling statement:

Kindergarten Placement: Agassiz children have gone on to public school kindergartens, Shady Hill School, Buckingham Browne and Nichols, Fayerweather Street School, Cambridge Friends, and others. Teachers are available to help parents with kindergarten choices.

Oh my God. I have to worry about where May is going to go to Kindergarten? She needs to get placed?

And you start to laugh again, but suddenly there's this sick feeling in your belly that maybe this really does matter. I'm not stupid. I know that knowing people is more important than almost anything else. Maybe going o the right preschool is the way to go to the right elementary school (via kindergarten) and then onto the right high school and then suddenly May is one of these poor tormenter, tortured kids in this book I'm reading with her hair falling out from tress, getting five hours of sleep a night, running 5K races two hours after she takes the SATs and popping Ritalin and No-Doze to keep up.

And suddenly, home schooling sounds like an attractive option. Because opting out is always more interesting than doing what everyone else is doing, and she could get into Harvard with an essay like, "I learned the basics of biology while working at Polyface Farm for two months when I was 16."

Right about now, in these little mother-panic moments, I usually come up for air. But I'm going to eat some chocolate instead.

Less-fun firsts

May has her first cold. Combine that with Christopher's cold, my sinus hell, and her teething, top with the house-buying stuff, and it's been fun here in Somerville.

So isntead of boring you all with my grumpiness, I'll put up pictures of my adorable daughter.

No brick termiites!

The inspection has been completed and we are going forward with the pruchase. (We'd better -- we finally told Rosa and she's going to try and fill the place for Dec. 1. $1000/mo. for a cute 1 bedroom 5 minutes from Davis. Help her out here folks. She promises to get the loo fixed, first.)

Let's see... details. (Skip this 'graph if you don't care.) The roof is about 4 years old, the furnace 20. The kitchen is slightly smaller than we'd remembered. Hell, everything is slightly smaller than we remember. But the windows are actually bigger. Our inspector was a nice Irish guy from b-sure inspections, last seen on Trading Spaces and This Old House. If it's good enough for Norm, it's good enough for me.

We're still aiming to close on Halloween, and planning to see Arthur Banks, our mortgage guy, this afternoon. After that, our plans run something like this: Get the led inspectors in. Get the lead mitigators in. Knock down the wall to the pantry (which, alas, is also smaller than I remembered). Paint the place. Go to Ikea, buy many hundreds of feet of shelving of the library, the storage area, and the pantry.

Then move in. Before Thanksgiving, if the Gods are kind. Most likely after.

Than begins the long process of retrieving our stuff from the attics and basements where it has been stored for years.

If anyone can recommend a decent moving company, Christopher and I have decided that we're over 30 and have a baby and the "get your friends to help you out" doesn't work any more. Though, since we've moved David Hobeman sixteen times, we're going to make him help pack all the books. (Joking!)

Let's see... anything else you might be interested in? Oh, we're painting May's room a pale green, the living room bright buttery yellow with red highlights, the kitchen will be white with dark blue accents (this blue, in fact!), and our bedroom will be a very pale blue.

The color of the library is much debated. But we'll be using the Billi bookshelves from Ikea because... well, because they are cheap and modular.

Fianlly, I'd like to announce a brother blog! Christopher has decided to start a blog about all thing WWII. And if you're thinking that WWII is over and there's nothing new, you're wrong. Not about the war being over, but about there being nothing new to think about. Or so Christopher assures me. So check out Doolittle's here. And please note that the misspelling of Doolittle is my fault, not Christopher's.

Good news!

We're full of good news this weekend! Let's see, in no particular order:

We got about one third of our Christmas shopping done yesterday!

Steve Sacco, May's godfather, has planned an around-the-world trip for next summer that starts in Lisbon, continues across Europe, catches the Trans-Sib Express in Moscow, which will take him to Beijing and from there he continues south through Vietnam, and possibly up the Mekong to Angor Vat, leanding him, eventually, in Bangkok. He promises to take notes on the food.

And finally, most excitingly, we're finally getting the condo inspected! This MOnday at 9 a.m. Think good thoughts at us.

May still doesn't have her fourth tooth in, but her thrid tooth (upper left incisor) is will through the gum.

May goes to the doctor

May had her nine month check up with Dr. Bershel today. She weight 19 lb. and 6 oz., and is 29 inches long. All is well.

Sprouting teeth and shrinking brains

May has her third tooth as of yesterday! It's the front left one, just barely broken through the gum. The front right isnt' far behind. The teething explains why she's not been sleeping well lately. Which means no one's sleeping well lately. Sigh.

She and Christopher and I all went to the Chirldren's Hospital today for another developmental lab experiment. (Faces and memory.) Because she hasnt' been sleeping well, she fell asleep on the way over there and woke up cranky. It meant that she had a short experiement.

Not much else going on today. Except that I found a place I might be able to get chickens and eggs locally! I found it through a new magazine called "Edible Boston". Actually, from the woman handing them out at the Davis Sq. Farmer's Market today.

That's all. Our camera batteries are shot (again) and so no photos.

Warning: Deep food geekery

Christopher and I have been (together) reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and he's been reading "Collapse" and I've been reading "The Best Food Writing 2006". And Frances Moore Lappe is in Belmont this week.

For those who don't obsessively follow the politics, trends, science, sociology, etc. of food, Ms. Lappe wrote "Diet for a Small Planet." The book is ... well, I like the theory but the practice of her ideals resulted in much of the culinary sadism of the 70s. The general idea is that we should eat lower on the food chain. Meat, beef in particular, is bad for the environment because it takes some alrge number of plant colories to create one meat calorie.

The result, alas, was vegan carob-chip cookies made with wheat germ and safflower oil.

Ick.

Omnivore's Dilemna is a more cogent book on the same lines. The author -- Michael Pollan -- talks about how ridiculosu the American farming policy is and how it encourages a glut of Type 2 Field Corn and hwo that corn is being milled into cheap, bad-for-you food. How it takes 3.6 gallons of oil -- in pesticides, fertlizers and whatnot -- to make one bushell of corn. Even so-called "organic" food is for the most part enormousely wasteful And how we're killing the environment to get all thsi cheap food.

Collapse is about how abusing the environment traditionally leads to the downfall of civilizations.

You can see where this is leading.

And, here's the thing, I know it's not news. This is stuff we've been talking about for decades. But now I have a daughter, damnit, and I've got to do something about it.

The solution seems to be eating locally. And organically, but locally seems just as if not more important at this moment than organically. So I'm trying.

Not a whole-sale ban on non-local food, fo course. And certainly not this winter. If there's one thing that Yankees (the people, not the baseball team) have known for centuries, it's that it takes a lot of thought and preparation to live on the land through a New England winter.

So I'm going to buy shares in a CSA come spring. And I'm going to buy my red meat -- beef and lamb -- from River Rock Farm. And I'm going to lok for a local source of eggs, milk, and chickens. And cheese. (Please let me know if you know of one!)

And I'm going to tell you all that you need to read these books. In particular "The Omnivore's Dilemma." Or borrow it from me. It should be mandatory reading for ... well, everyone who eats. I was going to buy everyone a copy for Christmas but Chrisotpher made me promise not to. So this is the compromise. But my daughtyer is about to inheret this world and it is, to quote Terry Pratchett, awfully manky. So I need you people to haul your own freight if I'm going to change the world, damnit.

That's terribly depressing I know.

Apple picking

Christopher and I love apples. We love them the way that some people love cars or wine or coffee. We get seriously into our apples. So every year, when apple season comes, we have a tradition of going apple picking not once but twice! This weekend was the first.

Every on Columbus Day weekend, we go to Applecrest. It's a PYO apple orchard in Exeter, N.H. with the usual harvest festivities. (Applecrest is, incidentally, the apple orchard where John Irving worked summers when he was a boy at Phillips-Exeter and bears a striking resemblance to the orchard in "Cider House Rules.") We usually get several gallons of cider, a couple pecks of apples, and have lunch.

Lunch is hot dogs and grilled corn. It's really good grilled corn. And cider doughnuts in cinnomon afterwards.

May, obviously, didn't have the hot dogs or the corn or even the doughnuts, but she did enjoy the crowds and the music and gnawing on an apple core. Christopher and I discovered a new apple -- the Milton. It's an old-fashioned apple not so much for out of hand eating as for baking. Soft flesh, complex flavor, lots of grassy and floral notes, and not terribly sweet. We bought half pecks of those and some Cortlands for a batch of apple butter, four gallons of cider, and some quince jelly.


We also got her a most excellent hat.

After the apple picking (and the drive home and May's nap) we continued our harvest festival theme with a trip into Harvard's big street fair. It was a lot loud, so we didn't see much, but we did get May another excellent hat (we've been losing hats lately) and pick up stuff for a nice fondue later in the week. The guy with the candy apples who is usually at that fair wasn't there this year.

Busybusybusy

It's been a mad week here at Chez Ferry. So mad that 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday is the first time I've had to post in a week. (May and Christopher are asleep in the other room.)

Let's see.... Last Saturday, Sept. 30, the Hobermans had a pie party. Many people came and brought, well, pie! Chicken pot pie (mine), Shepherd's pie (Rick and Georgy), quiche (Josette and Mike and Sebastian), and sweet pies like apple clouftie (Julia), and David and Jen bought a cranberry and walnut from Petsi's. If you'd like, you can see photos of this fun party here. But here are some May hightlights:




Then on Sunday, the LeBlancs came to visit. They were in town to watch the Sox lose (sigh) on Saturday and then hit the MFA on Sunday. We met them for brunch halfway between their hotel and our apartment at the Park St. station. Since Park St. has very few kid-friendly brunchy places, we decided to have dim sum in Chinatown. Chrisotpher and I have always wanted to try dim sum but never quite managed it before.

Being very much ourselves, Christopher and I did a massive pile of research the night before, including finding a blog on this very service that did detailed reviews of all the places in Boston to eat dim sum! We decided Hei La Moon was the best bet.

(Dim Sum, for those who don't know, is a Chinese traditional Sunday brunchy thing. You are seated at a table and women pushing steam carts roll by every few minutes. This woman has dumplings and that one has custards and there the lady with the barbequed ribs, oh thank goodness. Since they don't speak English and you don't speak Mandarin, there's a lot fo sign langrage and eventually she'll put a small dish of whatever on your table, mark your bill with a chop and move on. The dishes are like tapas -- small bites, maybe four dumplings the size of a golf ball or two lotus leaves packed with chicken and rice. Eventually you accumulate a big pile of empty dishes and a much smaller bill than you'd imagine.)

We all had a great time, though I'm afraid the overwhelming otherness of Chinatown, including the very Asian sense of personal space (or lack there of), may have freaked Nathan out just a tiny bit at the end.

Wednesday we had dinner at Benjapon's with Mary Agner and learned certain words in Hawaiian.

The rest of the week was busy with getting ready for our own party on Saturday -- a picnic in Powderhouse Park. Jen and Nikki both dropped by during the week to hang out with May while I worked on the food. (Potato chowder, beef stew, two kinds of cornbread, squash and beet salad, and apple cupcakes.) The party yesterday was a success --- cool and bright and lots of fun.

In other news, we thought that we would finally get the condo inspected when they told us that the condo was ready on Wednesday. "Just a couple more hours a work," says the man. Friday at 4, we get a call from Annemarie. Not so much. We're a little impatient is all.

Fabulous family news! Allison Morgan Vardi entered the world this week on Wednesday Sept 27 at 9:55 a.m. weighing in at 7 lbs 15 oz and 20.5 inches long. (She is the daughter of my second cousin, Margaret.)

News that's less fabulous. My cousin, Noel, has just lost her father-in-law this weekend. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her and her family. And to Mrs. Lane, Terran's mom, who fell and was hurt earlier in the week, though it seems like she's making a speedy recovery. Still, she has our best wishes.

And finally, big shout out to my parents who will celebrate their 35th wedding anniverdary tomorrow. And the Hobermans who will celebrate their first! And Emily Toplin, who has a birthday!