It has been years since I’ve
seen an owl in the wild, and it has only happened a couple of times in my life. I think the owls may be getting ready to take over the world because they seem to be coming out of hiding. Last week when I dropped Adlani off at school, the teachers were all pointing at the trees beyond the playground, where there were 2 big owls up in a tall tree. One of my coworkers who lives in the wilds of New Hampshire was attacked by an owl who was interested in his Bluetooth headset and its flashing light (at least he claims that’s where the scratches on his neck came from). And yesterday Ben saw a big owl in our neighbor’s tree. What’s the deal?

The other day, Aliya and I were talking about someone we met who was in school to be an architect. I asked if she knew what an architect was and she said, “Um…someone who works with you?” YES! Architects work WITH ME! Though I think they consider me their servant, judging from the last-minute demands and disparaging comments. I’ve been called the “anti-fairy godmother” and accused of “ruining the whole design.” Amazing, since all I do is pick out door hardware that meets functional, security, and code-related requirements, while balancing on the high wire between the aesthetic requirements of architects. Don’t get me wrong, some architects (well, at least one…Sherry) are nice and have ideas based in reality. It reminded me of a letter by Annie Choi that was printed in PIDGEN, A publication of the graduate students of the Princeton School of Architecture.

Here’s a link (Caution, there are some words you may not want to explain to your 6-year-old):

http://www.partiv.com/2007/07/19/dear-architects-i-am-sick-of-your-shit/

And in case the link ever gets broken, here is the text of Annie’s letter, since I doubt any of the kids will go back this far and see the swear words (I’m adding this on 7/18/09):

“Dear Architects, I am sick of your shit.

Once, a long time ago in the days of yore, I had a friend who was studying architecture to become, presumably, an architect.

This friend introduced me to other friends, who were also studying architecture. Then these friends had other friends who were architects – real architects doing real architecture like designing luxury condos that look a lot like glass dildos. And these real architects knew other real architects and now the only people I know are architects. And they all design glass dildos that I will never work or live in and serve only to obstruct my view of New Jersey.

Do not get me wrong, architects. I like you as a person. I think you are nice, smell good most of the time, and I like your glasses. You have crazy hair, and if you are lucky, most of it is on your head. But I do not care about architecture. It is true. This is what I do care about:
* burritos
* hedgehogs
* coffee

As you can see, architecture is not on the list. I believe that architecture falls somewhere between toenail fungus and invasive colonoscopy in the list of things that interest me.

Perhaps if you didn’t talk about it so much, I would be more interested. When you point to a glass cylinder and say proudly, hey my office designed that, I giggle and say it looks like a bong. You turn your head in disgust and shame. You think, obviously she does not understand. What does she know? She is just a writer. She is no architect. She respects vowels, not glass cocks. And then you say now I am designing a lifestyle center, and I ask what is that, and you say it is a place that offers goods and services and retail opportunities and I say you mean like a mall and you say no. It is a lifestyle center. I say it sounds like a mall. I am from the Valley, bitch. I know malls.

Architects, I will not lie, you confuse me. You work sixty, eighty hours a week and yet you are always poor. Why aren’t you buying me a drink? Where is your bounty of riches? Maybe you spent it on merlot. Maybe you spent it on hookers and blow. I cannot be sure. It is a mystery. I will leave that to the scientists to figure out.

Architects love to discuss how much sleep they have gotten. One will say how he was at the studio until five in the morning, only to return again two hours later. Then another will say, oh that is nothing. I haven’t slept in a week. And then another will say, guess what, I have never slept ever. My dear architects, the measure of how hard you’ve worked and how much you’ve accomplished is not related to the number of hours you have not slept. Have you heard of Rem Koolhaas? He is a famous architect. I know this because you tell me he is a famous architect. I hear that Rem Koolhaas is always sleeping. He is, I presume, sleeping right now. And I hear he gets shit done. And I also hear that in a stunning move, he is making a building that looks not like a glass cock, but like a concrete vagina. When you sleep more, you get vagina. You can all take a lesson from Rem Koolhaas.

Life is hard for me, please understand. Architects are an important part of my existence. They call me at eleven at night and say they just got off work, am I hungry? Listen, it is practically midnight. I ate hours ago. So long ago that, in fact, I am hungry again. So yes, I will go. Then I will go and there will be other architects talking about AutoCAD shortcuts and something about electric panels and can you believe that is all I did today, what a drag. I look around the table at the poor, tired, and hungry, and think to myself, I have but only one bullet left in the gun. Who will I choose?

I have a friend who is a doctor. He gives me drugs. I enjoy them. I have a friend who is a lawyer. He helped me sue my landlord. My architect friends have given me nothing. No drugs, no medical advice, and they don’t know how to spell subpoena. One architect friend figured out that my apartment was one hundred and eighty seven square feet. That was nice. Thanks for that.

I suppose one could ask what someone like me brings to architects like yourselves. I bring cheer. I yell at architects when they start talking about architecture. I force them to discuss far more interesting topics, like turkey eggs. Why do we eat chicken eggs, but not turkey eggs? They are bigger. And people really like turkey. See? I am not afraid to ask the tough questions.

So, dear architects, I will stick around, for only a little while. I hope that one day some of you will become doctors and lawyers or will figure out my taxes. And we will laugh at the days when you spent the entire evening talking about some European you’ve never met who designed a building you will never see because you are too busy working on something that will never get built. But even if that day doesn’t arrive, give me a call anyway, I am free.

Yours truly,
Annie Choi”

Last week on the way to the bus stop Aliya said she felt like she might throw up. Having just survived the pre-departure hell known as “crunch time”, I was in no mood to deal with vomit. I said, “If you’re going to throw up, try to do it in your hat or something. I don’t want it all over everything.” Sensitive, huh? A minute later I looked in the rear-view mirror and the poor thing was holding her hat in front of her face, preparing to fill it. After questioning her to determine whether she was just avoiding school or actually ready to vomit, I decided to let her stay home. We loaded up the car with the DVD player & movies, snacks, drinks, a sleeping bag & pillow, markers & a coloring book, and drove to my office where she spent the day recuperating on our training room floor.

Santa brought tickets to “Nemo on Ice” for Adlani and “Princesses on Ice” for Aliya. Coincidentally, he also brought Nemo tickets to Shane, so Karen and I took the boys at the end of December. After surviving the bickering of the Hannah Montana wannabees, the boys were a piece of cake. Two $7 swords and some overpriced snacks and they were all set. We had lunch at the Fours and then called it a day.

I was a little worried that Aliya would notice the multitude of size 2T-4T princess dresses but we made it to our (front-row!) seats without her asking why Santa didn’t bring her tickets to “High School Musical on Ice” instead. I had another scare when the crown that came with the $10 cotton candy didn’t fit on her head, but Norah broke it about 10 minutes after we got home so she hasn’t had a chance to question it.

I actually thought the show was great! Although some of the *magic* she might have experienced a couple of years ago was replaced by questions like, “Why isn’t it called Belle and the Beast? What’s a beauty anyway?”, I had plenty of uninterrupted time to ponder how they keep their wigs on during the spins, what the princes are holding onto during the overhead seated lifts, and the fact that belly hair on Princess Jasmine’s (male) court was just wrong.

There were a couple of parallels between the two shows…during intermission Adlani stood up on his chair and screamed excitedly, “LOOK MOM!!! A ZAMBONI!!!”, while Aliya said, “What the heck is that?” The strangest was that the family sitting directly in front of us at Nemo (at the Fleet Center in Boston) was sitting next to us at Princesses (at the DCU Center in Worcester). Coincidence? I think not.

Tonight we attended a really fun event at BLOCKS (Adlani’s school). Big Joe the Storyteller was there (some of you may remember him from Aliya’s 4th birthday party) and the kids loved him. The kids had juice and snacks, and on the way out they got to trade one of their gently used books for a book from someone else. It was great!

Aliya and I updated the wish list board yesterday since there would be a lot of parents in the building today, and we’ve gotten a lot of compliments on it.
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