last week of the year

the strangest week on the calendar. a mere skeleton crew at work. people nursing the post-christmas blues - all that build up and now it's over. the wad has been shot. gifts unwrapped, calories consumed, family tensions ignored. but we're not yet ready to take down the tree. we want to revel in the pretty lights a little longer.

new year's eve looms with promises of how we are going to be so much better given another year to waste. thinner, tauter, happier, with more money saved and higher FICO scores. maybe i'll finally lose those 15 pounds and make it to seattle. maybe this year.

saturday morning before christmas

dan is out fetching breakfast at the good luck dim sum takeout joint on clement street.

parker is overdressed in layers upon layers of princess garb. now, she just got in to my favorite mac viva glam lipstick.

nino is alternatively trying to get at my keyboard or mastering his new shape sorter.

i'm still in my pjs getting ready for what will be a busy day of last-minute christmas prep, addressing of cards, stopping at the post office, wrapping gifts, shopping, getting organized. tonight derek and heather are hosting a southern-style christmas party.

the christmas plan?
we're having a crab and champagne gathering here on christmas eve -- hopefully there will be plenty of crab to he had. then a leisurely christmas morning with the kids before we head up to lake tahoe to hang with dan's family. i plan to do some lodging research for uptake.com while up there.

oy, so much to do!!

delancey street christmas tree

whether it's a douglas fir or a spruce, we always go to the same place to get our christmas tree. call it tradition.

there's a christmas tree lot on the edge of the bay at pier 32 run by the inhabitants of delancey street, a work-release program for addicts, felons and the like. it's right beneath the bay bridge. the dudes are usually burly and a little rough around the edges, which i guess goes with the addict/felon territory, but they're also helpful and sweet.

it's beautiful there at night with the twinkling necklace of lights strung across the bridge and the intoxicating scent of evergreen. i'll be on my way soon to find the perfect tree for our turret window.

we were going to stop last night at a different lot, but there's something about that location -- on the embarcadero at night by the glittering bay -- and supporting our favorite ex-cons in their big christmas fundraiser that keeps drawing us back.

waiting for the man

dan is on his way to pick me up. then off to nursery school to grab parker and across town to get little nino. i'm thinking a cold glass of chardonnay is in order.

the weather has been remarkable, eerie. i've been wearing my clubmed flip-flops for three days. yesterday we went to ocean beach, played in the sand. miss parker splashed in the frigid waves.

i can't help but to flashback to last november in massachusetts. stark, grey, cold, dark at 4 p.m. i watched my father descend into madness. after one particularly disturbing jack-nicholson-in-the-shining episode, i committed him to the geriatric psych ward at beth israel hospital in boston. he never came home.

i had an infant and an almost three-year-old, a relentless case of thrush and a sinus infection. i managed to pack 40 boxes with dad glaring at me from behind or peeping at me from around corners so my flailing mother could move out of our family home. it was dreadful. all she could do was her crossword puzzles and watch bad tv. she was paralyzed. walking on eggshells. fearing the next outburst of the madman that had ceased to be her husband. my dad.

i managed to get parker to the playground in cochituate every day that it was above 30 degrees and since mom doesn't cook and there was no decent food in the house, we spent hours at the starbucks down the road. god, i looked forward to sitting in the sun at a corner table at starbucks with roman in the stroller and parker drinking hot chocolate.

it was nice to be able to say goodbye to that house though. i certainly got closure. it was nice also to hang out with jules every day and see my aunt jan and uncle george and all my boston peeps. thanksgiving in new england was fun, i helped with the menu and dan, my rock, came up from nyc and extended his stay to support us during those very dark days for the crovo family.

i go back next week for my high school reunion and another thanksgiving at home.

a birthday post

yeah, so it's my birthday and i'm sitting behind a computer. just bought myself some skinny leg h&m pants and a remainder copy of daphne du maurier's "rebecca." hard times and all.

i started celebrating last thursday with dinner and an overnight stay at hotel vitale at the foot of mission street in sf. much fun, but they didn't have the yoga class i was looking forward to in the morning.

over the weekend, my amazing girlfriends threw me a party and lavished me with gifts. details toward the end of the night are hazy, but i know we closed down cresta's and i had a great time. paid for it most of sunday.

tonight, dan is picking me up and we're having dinner with the kids and my brother and heather at gamine, our friends sue and stephan's french bistro on union street.

i'm looking at places for crovofest 2009, our family reunion, on cape cod. this is a contender.

a kinder, blacker america

gobama! what an amazing accomplishment -- both for barack obama and this country which i suspected would show what a fearful, bigoted lot i suspected it was. but, i'm pleasantly surprised. elated, even. i love that come january, there will be a black woman raising her two adorable daughters in the WHITE house. and it will be nice to travel abroad again and not have to pretend to be canadian.

today is a stunning, sunny, fall day in SF. i'm downtown at the chronicle where we even got a big shout out/thank you from frank vega, our publisher, for work on the election special issue (which looks great and is sitting on my desk right now).

i have the office to myself and it's quiet. very nice. when i leave here, i'll be checking in to the hotel vitale on the corner of mission and embarcadero for an early birthday celebration. i'm meeting dan, but we're pretending we're having an affair, so maybe i should call him james. his mom will stay over with the munchkins and we will lounge in the rooftop tubs looking over the city and reveling in our good fortune.

for the first time in so many years, i'm actually proud to be an american.

simple pleasures on balboa @ 35 ave.

i love discovering a groovy new cafe. new to me, that is. this place has been around for more than 30 years. it was described to me as having a similar vibe as java beach, but in the richmond rather than the outer sunset. really good, strong coffee, wi-fi, tables out front, beer & wine, couches in the back, and is filled with locals. i've seen some really long, nappy-looking dreads.

right next to me is the resident blowhard who has been weighing in on everything from obama and mccain to colonial tobacco plantations in virginia, geneology (his own), the evolution of this neighborhood and medeival london to anyone who will listen. one poor asian guy actually got up an moved away, so he went on to his next victim. i feel kinda sorry for him and actually learned some interesting tidbits about the bubonic plague.

slow food saturday

i got up early with nino and managed to get in a powerwalk up through buena vista park. the morning was still heavy with mist and it was pretty ethereal there, with no one around almost the entire time i meandered through the woods.

i stopped at the panhandle playground to visit with lorna since she returns to london tomorrow. all the 'bean there' mamas crews were there with their broods, it was great to see them all. i'll miss lorna so much and hope we can get together one last time tomorrow.

after, i rallied at home, zannah came over and we took the kids to the slow food marketplace/garden at civic center. nice, but tough with a three-year-old and the little guy in a stroller. parker got interviewed by some woman taping for slow food nation. she was in kind of a snit and didn't show too well on camera.


after well over a year of planning for it, we finally started pre-school this week. i say "we" because we're at laurel hill nursery, a co-op where much parental participation is expected. we had our sites set on getting parker into belvedere motnessori, but that didn't pan out, despite our letter writing and photography efforts. LHNS seems pretty groovy thus far. there are a couple of writers there, including aidin from the chronicle and the big girl with the pink hair who did the blog about her daughter violet for babycenter. parker's first day was wednesday and i worked my shift. it was actually quite fun and i look forward to the work days. the meetings, not so much.

also, this week, i had my corneas lasered and reshaped by the amazing Dr. Ella Faktorovich and now have better than 20/20 vision. it's like a miracle. for the first time in memory, i can open my eyes and see across the room...

kung-fu beyatch

so this is the bitch who served me papers last night. actually, it was a dodgy-looking, slob of a process server who showed up at the door, greeted by 3-year-old parker in lavender footie pajamas, and tricked us into thinking he had a package for me. sweet. she's suing me after running a red light sans insurance and totaling my subaru.

she actually looks pretty bad ass. guess it's a good thing she didn't get out of the car and take me down with some nunchucks or a high kick to the temple. she's definitely got some moves. she's ugly though, mean looking, tough. just like i remember her from my dazed post-airbag-deployed state of shock (on her cell phone). even the paramedics told me she was a twunt. aren't they not supposed to tell accident victims stuff like that? oh, well...

relationships all around me are crumbling. last weekend eric dumped alex by handing her a note upon returning from comic_con after 12 years and a relationship that survived two cities and a year's worth of commuting. she's a mess. my heart breaks for her.

moody

i'm alone in my office at the san francisco chronicle. my officemate/colleague/daytime husband on vacation.

life's little irritations piling up today. scheduling conflicts with dan, listening to everyone gripe about the state of this newspaper, the continuous unresolved saga of preschool, not allowing myself to indulge in a specialties wheat bran oat chocolate chip cookie that used to get me through the afternoon.

mellow weekend despite the fact i embarked on CIO (crying it out) for anyone that doesn't speak infant. roman screamed for half an hour, which was an eternity, while i cowered with a glass of wine, waiting. he stopped though, and slept all night. and for the first time in 10 months, i had the california king-sized bed all to myself.

i did miss that sweet boy, though.

blessed naptime

san francisco

wow, you blink and a year goes by! here it is july again — grey, cool, beautiful — but now there is an extra person in our lives.

nino (ne: roman james) arrived quickly on a sunday night last september and is a massive gorgeous chunk of a boy, with electric blue eyes and a sweet dispostion. the birth was fast and furious, just like you see in the movies — with my water breaking, then rapid-fire contractions, then rushing straight to the ER without being able to drop parker at my brother derek's first. she was with us in the delivery room till derek and heather arrived.

typically, i was still packing at the time even though he was five days past his due date. despite the rush to entry, he's laid back — not to interested in moving around much, content to sit and play with his plastic electric guitar.

dan is away working the 'just for laughs' festival in montreal and i'm holding down the fort with the shorties. parker just rose from her nap to find that the tea party fairy arrived while she slumbered. she loves when that happens...