My aspirationally weekly, realistically more like monthly email of books and enthusiasms will keep your #tbr full and make sure you know what's next.
I ripped Tom Bissell’s essay on David Foster Wallace out of the back of the Times Book Review on the plane last week–because it had a word in it that I didn’t know the meaning of, and couldn’t figure out from the context. Here’s the quote: “Transcription of the 2005 Kenyon Commencement Address — May 21, 2005†now has a proper title and colophon, This Is Water (Little, Brown, $14.99). In the book, the passage above has been gently elided, […]
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You’ll have to head over to Word of Mouth at NHPR.org to hear me still being funny about it! Today I’m feeling less clever, since rumors are spreading that China will close down adoption activity until things sort themselves out one way or another. Rory’s in good hands, though, and if things get worse–well, they get worse. And if they don’t, I’m confident it will pick back up quickly. I’m sticking to my vague June travel plans until forced to […]
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Here’s what I think: I think we’ll head out around 6/11. Here’s the tentative schedule I’ve planned for us: Day 1: leave Day 2: Arrive Beijing Days 3-4: Sightsee in Beijing. Lily tries to throw Wyatt off Great Wall. International incident narrowly averted. Day 5: Fly to Fuzhou City Days 6-9 Get used to Rory, one way or another. Day 10 Fly to Guangzhou Days 11-13 Various appointments Day 14 Fly home. I may have the whole date line mixed […]
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It’s a beautiful night here. I’d like to go for a walk with the dog. I would much rather be going for a walk with the dog–and even the younger kids–than babysitting by 7-year-old while he completes a project about New York state for his “state fair.” Go ahead, you say? Why don’t you? Why should you be stuck with hishomework? Well, if I don’t contribute at all, then what he will end up with is a posterboard covered in […]
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I have another NHPR bit, this time on delicious Theo Chocolate.
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One of the perils of visiting my folks is that the radio station they favor plays a lot of Carpenters. That has obvious issues, of course, but one of the biggest is that even the very happiest Carpenter song, what with the whole sad story of Karen Carpenter, the nostalgia factor, my lost youth–makes me feel sad. And since it’s not a specific kind of sadness, I just apply it to whatever I’ve got going on that I could possibly […]
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Mini golf course maintenance, originally uploaded by kjda. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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We are on Vacation!, originally uploaded by kjda. So of course, we are at Starbucks. You could say that is like going to Paris and eating at McDonalds, but I don’t think Dallas is really known for it’s local coffee. In fact, as far as I can see, it could be known for the abundance of…Starbucks. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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Fishing, originally uploaded by kjda. Right now, we are fishing in the yard, because Sam’s new fishing rid is broken. It seems to have come that way. I am having flashbacks to my childhood, when every single thing of this nature I ever received was always broken, and could never be returned and replaced until the stores opened, a seeming eternity later… But Lily is happy! Note the big plastic weight on her line. We are thinking that leaving that […]
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The three and I flew from Boston to Dallas today. It’s a four hour flight, but came in at 5 1/2 (plus) due to 1) delay on the ground but in the plane because of storms and 2) no gate when we finally DID land. And you know what? It was fine. Sam and Wyatt sat in the row in front of Lily and I. Wy napped for the first hour or so after takeoff (that would be hour 2 […]
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I’m contributing/blogging for Word of Mouth. A good gig!
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Wow. So, none of what I planned to get done this afternoon got done, although, oddly, I cleaned part of the vegetable garden. Because, what with packing for Texas, finishing Rebecca’s dvd and package, finishing a pitch for my conference next week, doing a new post for the NHPR site I just started writing for, finishing the article for Parenting I wanted to have done before we left Friday…well, clearly what I really needed to do was work in the […]
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Ok, nobody but another China adopting parent will know what that means. Suffice it to say it’s big news. It means our paperwork has been through the mill. There are no questions, there are no issues, and now we are just waiting for our permission to travel–which is a pretty standard and predictable process. This was fast. This is good. (This is real!)
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I’ve got about 1/2 an hour this morning before I go relieve Rob at TMO (Wyatt’s pre-preschool, where somebody has to be the parent volunteer). He’s #3 to go through it, and we–along with the five other families in the class with #3–finally figured out (or maybe that should be I finally figured out) that if you split the morning it’s actually kind of fun. Anyway, I popped in for my treat of the week: one Lou’s chocolate cruller. It […]
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A few days ago I found Rob noodling around on the Internet (what did we do with ourselves ten years ago?) looking at, of all things, artificial ice. We’d been talking, looking at pictures of Rebecca, telling the usual end-of-the-day stories…him talking about how funny Wyatt was during tooth brushing, me describing the day’s drop off and pick up adventures. And now he was looking at…ice. As in, synthetic hockey rinks. Really. Who knew? There were pictures–a big ole suburban […]
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There has been a lot of discussion in our household lately about the history of the two major religions that intersect here. Twice a year, sometimes three times, these things come up more often than they usually do. There was a time when there was some acrimony, with Rob blaming me for the ubiquity of Christmas and me demanding, shrieking even, to know why Sephardic Jews can eat rice during Passover but Ashkenazi Jews cannot, thus leaving us with 10 […]
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Tonight Sam and Lily were back in Mandarin class. Rob drew the short straw, so he came home with grumpy Wyatt to put him to bed (I can tell he’s peeved, because he’s on the upstairs computer, not the downstairs), while me and my laptop hung out at the Dartmouth arts building (nice view of the green, comfy chairs, excellent wireless). As I lingered, responding to email, syncing calendars, etc., a student came in to practice on the grand piano. […]
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I got an impulsive email from Guoji Familia this morning–she, Cupcake, Spark and her #2 son were heading our way! We met up at the Montshire, and hung for the morning. It was great to meet up “IRL”, but I’m finding the whole thing inspires me to talk in what I think of as “blogher” talk…lots of exclamation points and references to the ‘net. We had a good time, and bonded over plenty–adoption, of course, kids the same ages, yadda. […]
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There has been some recent discussion in the Beyond Nuclear household about how our children do not do enough for themselves. When Sam asked for a hot drink after dinner tonight (because it’s April in New Hampshire), it seemed like the perfect opportunity. He is a responsible child, and permitted to use, on occasion, sharp knives. I will show you how to make yourself some tea, I said. I put the tea kettle on to boil and showed him where […]
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My Postal Pickup, originally uploaded by kjda. So you have to picture me, at the post office, mailing my one little package (Rebecca’s book) and handing over my pick up slip. And then he said…I’ll get the handtruck. What is it? One comforter, two fans and a few assorted items of clothing. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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