Thanksgiving Rambling Thoughts

before humans face extinction, the public schools and teacher unions will go first. Teachers will be hunter/gatherers for health and pension plans.

I don't want to be a total downer because I feel good and am looking forward to our trip to Pennsylvania today for a family Thanksgiving where there will be loads of good food and family fun. Many of us were together at a wedding in Washington DC last month and despite political differences things didn't get too heavy.

As I approach my 72nd birthday in March I am trying to spend more time living for the moment -- working at the Rockaway Theatre Company building sets, taking a Sunday morning acting class and a Weds evening water color class, hot yoga and maybe soon Tai Chi, planning my next spring moves in my creative garden, working on my basement this winter - making work spaces for creative projects - can't wait to get that 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle, a family cruise in February. I've been in a writing group for about 10 years and my colleagues have encouraged me to restart a novel, which I started 5 years ago and so I have and have 6 chapters complete. And catching up on my reading escape fiction. And playing with my cats. I've reached the age where thinking of the future takes 2nd place to living for the moment -- which is why after experiencing the Sandy hurricane and the early deaths of a couple we were close too, following the dictum that you can't take it with you, we decided to finally use some of that TDA money to get a backup apartment in Manhattan as an escape valve. As we were signing the papers I thought - what if you can take it with you? Can you still get a mortgage in hell?

In the political sphere I decided to bring back a limited edition of hard copy of Ed Notes for the Delegate Assembly and I will attend some Ex Bd meetings to support our great EB people.

How much do I want to allow political angst to get in the way of good karma? I've tried cutting back on my political work in MORE and the UFT. It's not easy to escape the pull of almost 50 years of UFT gravity. But an infusion of helium has given me some lift. Some of that helium has come from some sense that MORE has too many limits but it is still fun to be involved to some extent - more now as an observer rather than trying to influence its direction. But I'm not unhappy I went to Minneapolis to the AFT convention in July and can see going to Pittsburgh in 2018. So I am not cutting the cord but being more selective.

I'll write more about this but the stuff you read about class vs identity politics regarding the recent election - I have been putting them up on ed notes because that same issue has been playing in MORE since the day it began almost 5 years ago.

I no longer think of myself as a teacher, though when I've gotten a few opportunities it is always exhilarating. But so much work.
But I stay involved due to personal relationships - I want to support the people who do work that can make a difference but I don't want to actually do very much. I really enjoyed doing the ATR event and we are having an ICE meeting next Friday -- as  much social for me as political.
 
There's no question that some passion for the ed wars has dissipated. Like I'm not outraged at Trump's appointment of Betsy DeVos like so many others - I never expected anything less than her. In some sense I prefer her to the Duncans and John Kings or the alt Moskowitch or Rhee. DeVos makes the lines of struggle clear. Maybe the anti-deformers will engage in the kind of local battles needed - or not and the public schools and unions will become extinct like the dinosaurs -- Is DeVos/Trump the equivalent of the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs? Randi has been railing about the appointment -- while 30% or more teacher union members voted for Trump - does she take any responsibility for that?

So many people are dreading Thanksgiving family events over the possibility of food fights breaking out. I've been told to keep my mouth shut today by my wife, who has never exhibited such passion for politics until this time and she is way angrier than I am  -- but in fact I am more interested in talking football today than politics with pro-Trump family. One of our liberal cousins is a Dallas fan. I may argue more with him than with the Trumpets who I will smile at and say let's look at where we are in the next 2-4 years when I expect to be saying "I told you so."

I am reaching the point of not wanting to waste psychic energy on being angry or spending my life trying to change things. I am a dystonian, expecting disaster to strike from numerous directions -- climate change, a meteor, nukes, plague, locusts -- who knows what else? I'm having trouble trying to worry about humanity, given that I think humans will one day be left in small hunter/gatherer bands - if there's much left to hunt or gather, while the rich escape to outer space. Maybe I'm lucky not having my own children to worry about so the worry about the future is more intellectual than emotional. If I had kids I would be a basket case.

But before humans face extinction, the public schools and teacher unions will go first. Teachers will be hunter/gatherers for health and pension plans.

And I can guarantee that whatever fight the undemocratic union hierarchy puts up the leaders will not change or modify the way they do things because it is in their DNA - thus watch them line up with those opposed to any move from the left to take over the Dem Party. Our leaders have known the end is coming with vouchers which everyone feared Regan would institute - but since the early 80s have compromised in so many ways with ed deformers to postpone the inevitable. If they had fought the very idea of charters they had a chance - though even that was slim.

Think of this -- since I began teaching in 1967 - the old BOE and the Bloomberg and de Blasio DOE has sucked - from so many angles. Is this what we are defending when we defend public education?

I leave you with this happy Thanksgiving thought:
Will we reach the day when Eva Moskowitch actually looks better running the NYC school system than the alternatives?

UFT Election Respite: Volunteering at Brooklyn Botanic Garden Plant Sale

This is the time of the year when gardening comes to the fore. For the past 30 years I have been volunteering at the Botanic Garden plant sale which always starts around the first Wednesday of May - preceding Mothers Day.

During all this time Lois Carswell ran the event with an iron hand - she was like a general -- the complexities of doing this massive event in the cherry blossom area was like a military operation requiring hundreds of volunteers and much of the Garden staff. After her death last year some people have stepped up to fill her shoes and this is the 2nd year they have managed to pull it off even though they cut one day off because it is just too much for people who have other careers. I worked there on Tuesday and yesterday setting up for the 4:30 opening which ran till 8 - but by 7:30 I was too chilled to stay.

But today it runs from 9 AM - 8 PM and it will be drizzling all day and I am taking changes of clothing. And my checkbook. Every year I end up spending hundreds of dollars for my garden - there are just so many interesting things being offered. Since the Sandy hurricane I have had to rebuild my garden and have come up with a unique idea -- my version of the high line - which I am dubbing the Low Line - or Norms Line. I'm heading over soon to spend the day and bring home another batch of plants.

If you happen to come by look for me in perennials which I prefer over working inside the tent with the annuals and house plants.

I spent $250 yesterday as I filled an entire wagon. I consider this twisted stem willow the star of the show -- there were only 2 of them and I managed to get one.  Now I have to plant it - on my front "lawn" which as you can see no longer exists.

And here are the other 7 plants I bought yesterday.

Below is a beach plum I bought last year just as it was blooming. What a thrill to see this at the entrance to my house. I got the only one they had last year. This year they have another one and I was contemplating getting it but (luckily) someone grabbed it and made my decision for me. I learned that it bears edible plums so here's hoping for a crop this year.

As a teacher Brooklyn Botanic Gardens was one of my favorite trips to take my class to. I used to take them for a series of 3 or 4 week classes there - they would plant something the first week and take the plant home on the 4th week.

My love of plants and gardening came from Mrs. Feinstein my 5th grade teacher who had plants all over the room and did the lima bean growing project with us where we started with a bean in a milk carton and watched it spout and grow into a full size plant. I did that same project with my class every year.

One of the complications was that they did not allow eating lunch in the Gardens so you had to get an appointment and use their lunch room. So instead I would take them across the street to Prospect Park to eat. Of course, good weather was essential.

In the years before I retired I also volunteered during the summers to work with a gardener and that was a great experience - he was a right wing conservative and we had such a blast arguing politics. I had hoped to commit to a regular volunteering gig at the garden but my other activities and my focus on my own garden has made that difficult. There is no better place to escape from the world than Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, one of the great oases in the midst of a major city.

Maybe this year if I can manage to lower my activity in the UFT political scene -if you see my at a Delegate Assembly next year ask me why I'm not at the Gardens.

An Absence Note

Updated: Weds. May 16, 10 AM.

About 20 days ago the google counter, operating since July 2009 topped one million page views. Other counters from the early days of the blog in 2006 show different results based on numbers of "unique" visitors, a term that might indicate "weirdos."

Anyway, who's counting? One think I know it that when you don't post, readership drops. When I broke my wrist last July 14 and could only do minimal blogging for weeks, there was a major drop that lasted for months. I guess once unique weirdos get in the habit of going to certain blogs is lost it is easy to forget.

Well, this is probably the longest stretch of my non-blogging since I started in August 2006. Four days. Even during vacations, including New Zealand with little internet access, I managed to schedule something go up at least every two days. This time I even received some emails and phone calls of concern from some readers wondering if Unity Caucus or their sometimes cohort, WalBloom, had not bumped me off. But it seems the last 4 days have been either crammed with things to do or I've just been avoiding it. Maybe a sign of sorts that I should lay off more often before this becomes a chore rather than fun.

I guess one of the reasons for the reluctance to jump back in were the number of choices of issues to post about. Don't tell WalBloom and the ed deformers, but too many choices paralyze me. I've tried to keep up and often don't get to blogging because I am reading all the other great blogs and twitter feeds. There is so much information that I can't make up my mind what to share.

So instead of writing about all the enormous issues out there, I'll leave you to peruse the Daily Blogs on the blogroll. Instead I'll ignore them all and just give you facts, ma'am, just the facts.

Bernie at 5 weeks when she thought she was a he.

One of the shocks of the last 2 weeks was the discovery that Bernie the cat was really Bernice. Two independent vets had told us he was a boy but I kept telling my wife that at 7 months of age there were still no signs of the expected male flotsam and jetsam. Two weeks ago we finally took Bernie to the vet and confirmed the news and Bernie underwent a hysterectomy. I think he is handling her new status pretty well, though we are still adjusting.

I guess I feel a need to make this into an absence note of sorts. We have been busy with projects around the house with a focus on finding a contractor for redoing our 1960 era pink bathroom. Since my dad claims he is feeling so good at 94 due to the daily one hour hot baths he takes, one of my main goals is one of those air jet bathtubs where I can sit for hours blogging on a waterproof  ipad.

And then there is the intense gardening over the last two weeks starting with my annual stint at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens plant sale - I think I've been doing that for 30 years. There has been lots of work to do in the garden at my house and I'm amazed I can walk around upright after scratching around in the dirt after buying loads of plants at the sale and at a few visits to garden centers.

My wife keeps reminding me that I owe her for taking care of me when I smashed up my wrist last July (this week is 10 months and I am still not back to normal without some pain) so I have lots of chores. And a pretty large garden for a city plot. (I have some pics but an too lazy to go up and get the cable to hook up my phone.)

Last Friday afternoon there was an ICE meeting which started at 4:30 at the diner but for some reason I didn't get home until after 10:30. How did that happen? Well, we sat around talking for hours. ICE meetings never officially end. The conversation just keeps flowing until I'm the only one left, talking to myself. Oh, and I had to stop by my 94 year old dad's apartment on the way home to make sure he was doing his training for the triathlon.

Despite a short night's sleep I woke up early on Saturday intending to go to the teacher data report seminar where Leonie Haimson was on a panel at Bank Street College from 8:30-12, but just couldn't get that together, especially with a MORE Caucus meeting at noon which I did attend. I want to do a separate post on what has been going on with MORE. The meeting, unlike ICE meetings, actually ends on time so I was home before 5, in time to once again lament the passing of Pete Fornatale whose Mixed Bag ran between 4 and 8PM.

Sunday was a hot yoga morning, after which I feel like doing nothing -- mentally and physically but did do some gardening for the entire afternoon. I bought a large Knockout Rose with yellow/white flowers --- the only knockout that has fragrance. It was a bit of a chore planting that sucker. I only had time for a quick shower before we headed out to Long Island for take-out Chinese dinner at our best friends' house. Then back for Sunday night TV with The Killing and Madmen.

Monday was back to my dad where I spend a good part of the day fixing some lamps for him. We were supposed to go to the retina specialist for our twice a year visit but when I got there he wasn't feeling up to the trip. So it was home in the afternoon to work in a light drizzle on one of the planting boxes which was falling apart and I had to use a sawzall to cut some spike-like nails down to size before I could start fixing it up. A prize crape myrtle was planted in the box last year so I want to make this spot look as good as that baby, which last year bloomed for 2 months with white flowers on purple leaves. Nothing like working with power tools in the rain. I still have to go back and cut a 6x6 beam to size with the sawzall, one of the best tools ever. I can''t wait to turn that sucker loose on some thick branches. I think a Sawzall can cut Tweed down to size.

So, here we are on Tuesday. My wife had a minor medical procedure this morning and I am told I sill have a lot of ground to make up for her care during my wristology adventure. I have a whole lot of owing, so I may not be back for months. Honey, what is it you want? Sorry, gotta go.

January 25 Update - It's Only Personal

Let me catch up on some of the personals - I get requests (occasionally) for updates on what I do outside of the educational/activists sphere. Yes, I do other things.

This is the annual family birthday week extravaganza and we're planning a gathering of all the B-day people in the next few weeks.

Danny (right), brother Jared (left) and Rachel at Passover

My wife's cousin Danny hit 27 yesterday- and living the good life - I don't even want to tell you how good it is. And my cousin Rachel will be 24 or 25 next week. She is originally from Washington DC but living the good young life in Manhattan working selling ads for a cable company. She and her boyfriend came to see me in the Odd Couple and we went out to dinner afterwards. A great couple. He listens to WFAN all day like I do.

My dad hits 93 this Thursday - the day of the big rally at City Hall - I think I'll have him carry the sound equipment - and is also living the good life. Still lives alone and if not for being almost blind from macular would be out looking for women. He has recovered from having 11 upper teeth pulled (read my report of that horror story here) and at the last weigh-in at the doctor has gained 5 pounds using his new upper choppers. Now all we have to do is have 6 teeth removed from the lower jaw and he'll have a full set. Looking forward to that.

Pinky and Dad - he's on the right.

And then there is Pinky the cat, who is 19 and a half years old- older than my dad in cat years. Pinky survived being abandoned while we went on our 5 day trip to Florida 2 weeks ago. She went to the vet yesterday because we found a lump on her back when we got home - he said do nothing - he couldn't believe the health and feistiness of this old animal. But she has a urinary infection. Just gave her her meds - like the battle of the bulge.  Here are some samples of Pinky, the wrecking crew's art work (don't make me tell you about the mucho expensive reupholstering job that she destroyed a half hour after it was delivered.)

Pinky amidst the wreckage

Pinky original art work

Carol and niece Jordan at Passover

Of course, the major event this week today- my wife's &*^% birthday. I gave her a choice. Attend tonight's massive outpouring of protest against Eva Moskowitz' attempt to invade the upper west side at Brandeis HS or have dinner at the River Cafe. Amazing. She chose the latter. So I won't see all of you there. For the first time in 40 years I didn't get her jewelry. Just a massage and a Kindle - but I had a hook installed so she can hang it from her ear. We're going to a movie this afternoon at the Malverne - best little suburban art movie house and then a Broadway matinee tomorrow. What a life since she retired last year and discovered mahjong.

 On other fronts, I have recovered from my acting debut in the Odd Couple at the Rockaway Theatre Company and have started taking a class in theater lighting at the Theater in Fort Tilden so I can join the backstage crew. It is being taught by a laste 20-something public school high school teacher who has 12 years working on lighting in the theater - he does all the school shows - yes it is one of the few large high schools left - (I wonder what the state of high school theater is after the small schools movement.) In the small world department, one of my oldest friends came to see my play and her boyfriend is the Department chair of the lighting guy.

Last Friday was the gala annual Rockaway Theatre Company party at El Caribe in Brooklyn. I made a highlight reel for them of all the shows this season. It's a wonderful 22 minutes and up on Vimeo - link here.

And finally, there is - or was - the j-e-t-s. I won't even go there.

Capital City Band Appearing Saturday Night

As an old fogey, hanging out with young people can be like a transfusion. Call it "Dracula light," drinking up the energy. Now, many of the young activist teachers we meet don't have all that much energy left after a day of teaching and then heading off to more meetings. But we have some non-teacher backups.

We got a message from our good friends Dan and Robyn Scherr, who live in Perth Australia (you can't get any further from Williamsburg, Brooklyn where, Dan was raised in pre-gentrification days).

Their son Sam’s band, Capital City, is scheduled to appear at the CMJ New Music First Marathon in NYC October 20-24. They will appear at the Ace of Clubs on Great Jones Street in the Village on Saturday night the 24th at @ 10pm. Their new album, Keep it Stupid, Sucker will be out on October 17.

We're meeting Sam for dinner tonight after we see "An Education." Maybe he'll bring the entire band. Hmmm, that Keep it Simple, Sucker would make sense. But, no, he is coming alone- I think. We'll be heading to bed after dinner, while he will be off to do what musicians from far, far away hanging out in NYC do. Here's a blurb on the band:

"For those who came in late to the whole Capital City story, this Australian band fronted by a diminutive Israeli-born, Washington-raised Western Australian ball of energy (Sam), started in Perth in 2000. More

Looking for something to do Sat. nite? Check it out.

In the meantime, our touching bases with the young 'uns continues with a visit to Peter Lugers on Monday night with our three 20-something cousins. The two boys are heading to Michigan today for the Penn State game and then flying back for the Giants game Sunday night and if there's a Yankee game, they may hit that. What a life. I'm tired just thinking about it. Our young lady cousin is working selling cable TV ads, so she is not having as much fun, but as a non-native New Yorker, she is still having a blast living in the city and is looking forward to her first Peter Luger steak dinner. Afterwards, we may check out some surfer bands in the Burg. Groovy. Can I take a nap now?

Been waiting a long time

To celebrate this Beatles Song.
With some Beef Wellington tonight at One if By Land, Two if By Sea.
Gotta go.
Better apply for social security while it's still there.

I Think I May Be Writing a Novel - Gulp!

...and starting work on a documentary film this weekend – Double Gulp!!

So if you don't see as much of me.....


Gotta get up early for robotics tournament, so I'll elaborate later this weekend.

The (Personal) Year in Review

Ed Notes staff waiting for assignment.

Happy New Year to all.

New Years Reso #1: LESS BLOGGING

"Why don't you really retire and enjoy yourself," I hear all the time? Sometimes it appears that my interests are limited to the education and political sphere and the work in the UFT. Sometimes I have to remind myself I have a life. I usually don't do personals, but today is as good a day as any, mostly in the attempt to recall any memory beyond yesterday. I'll do an ed/political year end review soon.

It was a busy year on a lot of fronts. Here is what I can recall.

Rockaway Theatre Company
I've been fascinated with the theater since I saw my first play as a high school student at Thomas Jefferson HS when we went on a trip to Stamford Conn. to see a Shakespearean play. I was awed when one of the characters who died came out for a curtain call. Ok, I was a bit gullible.

I never did much about my interest until I started volunteering at The Fringe Festival every August. Then I started going to plays at the Rockaway Theatre Company based out here in Fort Tilden at Gateway National Park. I signed on as a volunteer videographer, taping Annie (May), The Music Man (July), The Philadelphia Story (August), The Rockaway Cafe (Sept.) - A Salute to Paul Simon, and Prisoner of 2nd Ave. (Nov.)

RTC is very influenced by current and retired NYC teachers who worked at South Shore and Kingsborough HS, with some of the younger actors coming from classes they taught. And many of the musicians in some of the shows are teachers at Forest Hills HS.

RTC is a great mix of young, old and in between and the theater has become a great hangout for many of the kids. (I am pretty close to the oldest person involved.) One of the best young actors is Frank Caiati who at 23 has been involved for 8 years, coming out of the program at Kingsborough. Frank graduated last June from Brooklyn College and already has his Actors Equity card.

I took an acting class with Frank last winter. It was mostly improvisation. I am currently in another class with him where we have to pair up and do a short scene with our partner. I am doing a short scene from The Pillowman - I play a policeman - Tupolski - the Jeff Goldblum role. I'm working with a young fellow, Joe Lopez. My role calls for me to intimidate him. Joe goes to wrestling school at Gleason's gym. If Frank can get me to pull this off he gets my Academy Award.

Frank is not only a great actor, but his passion about acting and the theater also makes him a superb director – I tell him he could get a good performance out of a stick. The class still has 3 weeks to run. Last week, he sat us in a circle on the stage and we just talked theater and acting for an hour. I took the class not to try to act but to reestablish some of the sense of theater I got from teaching. In the process, my knowledge of the theater process has exploded exponentially. Jeez, can he really be only 23?

Frank is going to direct John Patrick Shanley's Doubt - the play - in March at RTC and auditions start Jan. 11. No, I'm not going to try out for the Meryl Streep role - I don't do nuns very well. But I am going to do some video with Frank with the idea of a documentary on how a small community theater tackles such a project.

One of the people in the class is a playwright and has suggested a playwriting and screenwriting workshop. I hope to develop a screenplay based on a community theater, which we hope to film ourselves. That project ought to keep me off the streets.


Active Aging
On the other end of the spectrum, I am probably the youngest person involved in a project I've been working on for a TV show for Manhattan cable access with a group of amazing people, many of whom have retired from the broadcast industry – producers, directors, performers and others from the world of fashion and advertising.

The TV program is called Active Aging and focuses on older people who either have a very active life or retire from one field and take on another major task. I recently produced and edited a segment with my partner Mark Rosenhaft on Howard Schwach, my editor at The Wave. Howie retired from teaching at 62 5 years ago, only to take on the massive job of editing a weekly newspaper that often reaches over 100 pages. Talk about jumping from the frying pan.

Check out The Furrier shot on location in Greenpoint - if you need a fox tail, you'll know where to go.


Robotics
One of the best things I've done is my work with FIRST and NYCFIRST with FIRST LEGO League putting on robotics tournaments for kids aged 9-14 since I retired 6 years ago. Most of the teams come from NYC public schools, but also from private and community based groups. These are worldwide events with 8000 teams and I went to Atlanta in 2007 for the World Festival, a spectacular yearly event. This year we have almost 200 teams here in NYC and are in the process of running tournaments in every borough. Bronx, Queens and Staten Island are done, with Brooklyn Jan. 10 and Manhattan Jan. 11. The citywide for the 72 finalists will be taking place soon. Come on down sometime and watch the action. You'll get hooked - and we really need volunteers. Details at Norms Robotics. Or just email me.


The Mumbles Writing Group
UFT flacks have been accusing fiction for years. But I actually put my toe in the water 4 years ago with a fiction writing course at the Gotham Writers Workshop, where I wrote my first short story since my senior year in college. I followed up with another course and one in screenwriting.

Through people I met in the courses we formed out own writing group which meets every 2-3 weeks at Mumbles restaurant in Manhattan. Despite some turnover, we now have 9 members and are approaching our 3rd anniversary. One person is working on a novel based on ancient Rome and another on a novel dealing with teaching the deaf set in pre-Civil War New England. Another is based on people of Jamaican descent living in London. A number of people who have passed through the group either have or are getting MFAs' in writing. Some people have been published – there's a hell of a lot of talent out there. I'm not one of them. Fiction writing is the most mind-wrenching writing I've had to do and I'm just a dilettante. Having a deadline to produce something for the group is the only thing that gets me to attempt to write fiction. Right now I have to work on my story "Rockaway Cold Case" which is due - yikes - yesterday. Better cut this short.



And then there was travel
One of the beautiful things about retirement is the ability to travel off vacation times for schools. Living in resort area like Rockaway, we never feel the need to travel during the summer.

January '08 - Puerto Rico at the El Conquistador to celebrate a significant birthday for my wife. You have to take about a 20 minute boat ride to get to an island with a beach. Lots of noisy conventioneers. Nice place but other than our last day when which we spent in Old San Juan, we were pretty isolated at the El Conquistador which is in top of a cliff on the eastern end of the island. We were on the bottom of the cliff at the marina and had to take a finicoli and multi elevators to get to the lobby and for most meals. Not all inclusive so we didn't go hog wild as we did recently in Mexico. We may go back to PR this year, but to tour the island.

March '08- London to see the Zombies - They did the complete Odessey and Oracle. We saw them in NY in July and we're going back to London to see them again in April. (Our best friends are Zombie nuts, so we humor them.) London is a pretty cool place to visit and maybe this time with the pound more in line with the dollar, we will actually be able to afford lunch. And the subway.

April '08- Tokyo as referee at the Asian Open FIRST LEGO League tournament. An intense and amazing 6 days. One of my travelling companions, an engineer at Credit Suisse, is of Japanese descent originally from Sao Paulo Brazil, but he lived in Tokyo for 9 years. What a tour I got. And meeting kids, their parents and teachers from all over the world reinforced the feelings I have about working with FIRST. I have pics and stories at Norms Robotics - search for Tokyo. When I came back on May 1, I was at the highest weight I have ever been and commenced a diet where I lost 15 pounds, which I managed to keep off for almost 5 months. See below for the bad news.


December '08 - Mexico - Riviera Maya at the Aventura Spa Palace, an all-inclusive resort guaranteed to lead to gain of at least 5 pounds. A few pics are here. The one that looks like a whale is me, as I gained back 10 of the pounds I lost. (New diet stared today.) I also brought back a cold, a cold sore and impetigo, which I caught from a life vest while snorkeling. The last time I heard of impetigo was in the 70's when kids seemed to get it all the time. It's contagious, so don't get too close to the screen.


XMAS Day '08: I must include the visit to my brother and sister in law in Jersey where our niece came from Philly with Jordyn, her year old baby, who was racing around the apartment. How do 13 month olds manage to do that with less stumbling than me?

Don't Fence Her In

We met Arabella on a cruise to Alaska when she was 3 and a half years old. No, she was not travelling alone. She was with her mom. Quite a kid then. Quite a kid now. She's 11 and is featured on a CNN blog due to her fencing prowess. Every so often she asks for help with a computer problem. I don't dare turn her down. She boxes too.

Arabella then – – and now


See a video on CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2007/10/05/ypwr.intv.arabella.uhry.cnn