This exercise that Aliya brought home from school cracked me up. Apparently our family NEEDS jeans, cereal, sneakers, and an argyle sweater, and we WANT thigh-high black boots, a gold lamé purse, a sparkly silver dress, two digital cameras, a diamond ring, and a chihuahua. I’m starting to wonder if she’s my kid or another Hilton sister. I think I’m going to have to hook the classroom up with some Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple, and O.
.
After my 24 hours on the couch I was still in a lot of pain, so I hobbled over to my favorite chiropractor, Doctor Bob. He fixed me up and said that my lower back, pelvis, hips, knees, and ankles were all out of alignment. I felt so much better after my adjustment, and the best news was that he thinks he can help with my plantar fasciitis.
I had a follow-up adjustment today and I ended up with all three kids there playing with Doctor Bob’s cool stuff. He’s got a full-scale model of a spine and a real whale vertebra. I told them that Doctor Bob is a magician, so they were transfixed during the adjustment, waiting for him to levitate me. Afterward Adlani said, “That wasn’t magic…that was just a lot of rubbing.” Works for me.
He IS a magician though. When Norah was two months old she had an ear infection, and most exams after that showed fluid in her ears. It couldn’t drain because she was so little. Her pediatrician sent her for a hearing test, which was very unscientific and unconvincing for me, but the ear doctor said that I had to decide immediately whether to have surgery for tubes in her ears, or to buy hearing aids. She was 7 months old at the time. I took her to Doctor Bob for 4 adjustments. She had an appointment with her pedi on the day of the 4th visit and had no fluid in her ears. When I told the pedi that I had taken her to the chiropractor, he said, “Well, maybe it was just time for the fluid to drain on its own.” Ugh!
On Tuesday I waited in a line reminiscent of the line for Grateful Dead tickets I stood in back in the early 90’s. The difference was that when I finally reached the front of the line they didn’t hand me my tickets for the nosebleed section…they gave me the opportunity to sign Aliya up with the Park and Rec Department’s Learn to Skate Program. The length of the line is testament to what people will do to sign their kid up for 6 lessons for the low-low price of $30 total. Well worth the wait.
Last week a guy came down our street walking his dogs, and he noticed someone in the adjacent parking lot putting trash into the dumpster. He whipped out his cell phone and made it very obvious that he was taking a photo of the dumpster violator. I couldn’t believe he felt so strongly about someone taking advantage of someone else’s dumpster that he was willing to risk getting beat to crap to make his point.
The other day I was at the local Starbucks and was shocked that I didn’t run into Ted, Larry, any of the posse, or anyone from Barbieri. I think it’s been months since I’ve gone there without seeing someone I know. Anyway, I had to occupy myself somehow while I waited for my $4 coffee drink, so I watched what was obviously two people meeting for a blind date. When the man arrived, the woman stood up to greet him and her gigantic 
purse fell off the chair and dumped upside down all over the floor. Stuff was rolling everywhere. It reminded me of some of my dating mishaps. One time I met this guy from Africa and he asked if he could cook me lunch. It turned out to be a traditional dish from his homeland and right in the middle was a big hoof. I left abruptly and went home to vomit. Ick.
Today at my favorite bagel store (Cafe Fresh Bagel), a guy came in and ordered a coffee and a bagel sandwich with lox spread. Then he realized that he didn’t have his wallet. He went to the car to get the wallet and realized he didn’t have his credit card. The bagel guy told him that the only take cash anyway. He said to take the food and come back and pay for it some other time. I thought that was really great.
Yesterday I got an email from an architect that’s got to go in the Smile File…”Knowing your vast expertise in all things relating to everything, I thought that you could perhaps offer an opinion…” It cracked me up.
.
Last weekend Ben took the kids to one of our favorite holidays events, breakfast with Santa. One of my customers, Pasek Corp, has a close relationship with Santa (he works there in the off-season) and they host a fabulous breakfast with the big guy. I couldn’t make it to breakfast this year because I had accidentally scheduled the Pathways wrapping brunch for the same day, but I told Ben to take lots of video so I could watch later. Let’s just say that my position as family photographer and historian is not in jeopardy.
Here’s the sole piece of footage that can be watched without inducing nausea. As you can see, even though Norah had been telling everyone she saw for the last two weeks that she would be sitting on Santa’s lap, Santa’s in the same category with Elmo and Cookie Monster…nice to look at as long as they don’t get too close. She made sure to grab the gift though.
.
.Yesterday I asked Aliya what she put on her list for Santa, and she said, “A digital camera, an iPod, and a Nintendo DS.” Hold everything…where’d that DS come from? I told her that Santa wouldn’t be able to afford such expensive gifts and she said, “OK…you can cross off the digital camera.” Um…since the photo printer that came as a free gift with purchase has already been given away to Adlani’s teacher, no-can-do. Ho Ho Ho.
…
It’s been a really long time since I spent the day in bed, although Sherry and I used to sleep until mid-afternoon quite often during our single-girl-on-the-prowl days. Yesterday during the Pathways wrapping brunch I somehow hurt my lower back, which also affected my hips, knees, and ankles. I was a hurtin’ unit, as they say in the north country of Vermont. After everyone left I took to the couch around 2 p.m., and moved only as far as the bedroom and bathroom for more than 24 hours. Food was delivered periodically by my enthusiastic servant (who has now told me that since she has an upset stomach I’m her servant). Ben took over my position as chauffeur, and drove Aliya to a birthday party (stopping on the way to buy a gift card) and her dance workshop. I missed two parties but I just couldn’t get vertical. I’m feeling a little better but I think I’ll have to pay a visit to Dr. Gensler, spine-adjuster extraordinaire.
Normally, I would have spent the 24 hours in bed catching up on work, but I couldn’t sit in a semi-reclined position to use my laptop. So I finished a GREAT book I’ve been reading. It’s actually the second great book in a row, so here they are in case your spouse is looking for stocking-stuffer ideas for you.
From Publishers Weekly: Stunning, wrenching and inspiring, the fourth novel by Canadian novelist Hill (Any Known Blood) spans the life of Aminata Diallo, born in Bayo, West Africa, in 1745. The novel opens in 1802, as Aminata is wooed in London to the cause of British abolitionists, and begins reflecting on her life. Kidnapped at the age of 11 by British slavers, Aminata survives the Middle Passage and is reunited in South Carolina with Chekura, a boy from a village near hers. Her story gets entwined with his, and with those of her owners: nasty indigo producer Robinson Appleby and, later, Jewish duty inspector Solomon Lindo. During her long life of struggle, she does what she can to free herself and others from slavery, including learning to read and teaching others to, and befriending anyone who can help her, black or white. Hill handles the pacing and tension masterfully, particularly during the beginnings of the American revolution, when the British promise to free Blacks who fight for the British: Aminata’s related, eventful travels to Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone follow. In depicting a woman who survives history’s most trying conditions through force of intelligence and personality, Hill’s book is a harrowing, breathtaking tour de force.
.
From Publishers Weekly: Valentino Achak Deng, real-life hero of this engrossing epic, was a refugee from the Sudanese civil war-the bloodbath before the current Darfur bloodbath-of the 1980s and 90s. In this fictionalized memoir, Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) makes him an icon of globalization. Separated from his family when Arab militia destroy his village, Valentino joins thousands of other “Lost Boys,” beset by starvation, thirst and man-eating lions on their march to squalid refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, where Valentino pieces together a new life. He eventually reaches America, but finds his quest for safety, community and fulfillment in many ways even more difficult there than in the camps: he recalls, for instance, being robbed, beaten and held captive in his Atlanta apartment. Eggers’s limpid prose gives Valentino an unaffected, compelling voice and makes his narrative by turns harrowing, funny, bleak and lyrical. The result is a horrific account of the Sudanese tragedy, but also an emblematic saga of modernity-of the search for home and self in a world of unending upheaval.
.