cure for pain

on my lunch, i varied my usual walk to pier 14 near the ferry building and instead, trekked through the 'loin to nob hill. groovy urban hike.

i walked the labyrinth in front of grace cathedral in the bright sun, a walking meditation. then i went inside where i was absorbed by a grim photo essay about survivors of gun violence. a pretty strange sight to see inside a gothic cathedral!

it was while reading about these unfortunate victims with these sad, haunted eyes (the portraits were all b&w and quite beautiful) and listening to morphine's 'cure for pain' when the phone rang. i was it was edith. the nanny who got away. my stomach curldled.

i have been meaning to delete her from my phone. the last time she called i didn't answer. i feel like a jilted lover. it's been a year-and-a-half and it still sears straight through me. this time i take the call.

in heavy-accented english she tells me her daughter misses mine, her mother passed away, her son is doing well in school. then she says she's leaving M&M, the friends that poached her. when she told me this in the past, i got excited, promised to give her more money, more hours if she came back to us and took care of nino. but this time, i listened for a while, promised half-heartedly to get the girls together for a play date, then said goodbye, turned morphine up and headed down nob hill to the 'loin.

I propose a toast to my self control
You see it crawling helpless on the floor
Someday there'll be a cure for pain
That's when I'll throw my drugs away.
- Mark Sandman

took parks and nino to a cool exhibit of interactive art at MOMA on friday -- the art of participation. roman's photo is now preserved till 2030 in a time capsule by ant farm. parker loved the curtain of shiny gold beads and the microphone circle that records a snippet of speech, then plays them back randomly and from previous recordings. creepy and cool.

the chron stumbles on, though we're losing my fave designer, jessica. she's going to greener mountains in vermont where she accepted year-long residency at an art community. how sweet to be 30, untethered, with all sorts of creative possibilites before you...

rented 'the sound of music' for parker, in another attempt at introducing my childhood pleasures in hope that she, too, will appreciate them. we danced around to 'my favorite things' and 'do re mi,' but it was the nazis that captured her imagination more than anything. especially the part when the nuns dismantle the nazis cars, allowing the von trapp family to escape. she keeps asking me about why rolf went bad and turned his back on austria.

"mommy, why is rolf a nazi?"