SEPT 11 2010

Sept 11 is a special day for Americans, and especially so for people who were in New York on Sept 11 2001. Yesterday, the 9th anniversary, was just surreal for me, partly because I was still congested - see Apron Congestion blog post - and also because it was another beautiful day, clear blue skies, not a single cloud, just like 9 years ago. And I am back babysitting again on Saturdays on a regular basis, because my favorite little girl has resumed her ballet lessons. I woke up good and early, read the 4th Discourse of the Bhaghavad Gita, meditated, did a little stretching yoga, and drove to my little girl's house, just surreal and congested in my ears and head, still contemplating action and inaction, desires and selfish purposes and trying to "abandon attachment to the fruit of action":

"Content with what comes to him without effort,
Free from the pairs of opposites and envy,
Even-minded in success and failure,
He is not bound."


I arrived and the child immediately dragged me to the park to play. I will be 60 next June, and she will be 5 in December - do the math. Remeber my recent knee surgery? I had just said to my good friend Jan that it was pretty well all healed, like it never happened - HAH!!! I played with her, climbed play towers, went through tunnels, slid down slides, swung on the swings. Today I can barely walk! We had a great time though, and she really helped ground me in physical reality, here and NOW.


We went back to her house and played with my aprons. I needed pictures to list on etsy, and asked the child to take my picture with the aprons on . That didn't turn out so well:




But we did get this one




So then I asked her mother to model for me for etsy, and she was very nice about it.




"They're all the same pattern" I told the child, "just different colors". "No they're not" she said. "Yes they are, see?" Meanwhile, the mother is blind and couldn't say either way.








Like I said, it was surreal, and a little stressful too, taking the mother's pictures. The child of course did her best to help:














After that it was the usual Saturday routine, which we hadn't done since spring when ballet lessons were over for the summer. Drive to the school, change into leotard and tights, see familiar faces again and be amazed at how the children have grown, McDonald's on the way home for a happy meal, singing "Old McDonald had a farm, E I E I O" at the top of our lungs, lots of "MOOOS!" and "BAAAA" and our favorite "SNORT SNORT" piggies, laughing and carrying on. After lunch I tried to teach her how to write. She can sing ABCDEFG... but can't write or read them. She's in pre-K now, and I wanted to give her a head start as they say, so I said "Let's play school!" and brought out crayons and paper, and she brought out dolls and toys to be students, and I tried to teach her to write A a B b C c, but she is still lacking in eye-hand coordination, and frustrates easily if she can't do something well. She knows her name though, so I tried spelling that out, and saying each letter really loudly as I wrote it, and she would repeat yell it after me and then scribble all over the paper. (Sigh) I decided we are Calvin and Hobbes, and she's Hobbes and I'm Calvin.

Meanwhile, we're out on the porch and can see the jets coming in on the flight path to JFK, low and slow, one after the other. Like I said, a surreal day.