Journal of a Sabbatical

April 20, 1999

what exactly is boring?

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Matsuo Basho

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April 20, 1999
Kevin's back yard

6 black-capped chickadees
2 American goldfinches
2 tufted titmice
1 northern cardinal
4 blue jays

         
                                          R  H  E  LOB
          Boston           000 100 000--  1  3  1    6
          Detroit          000 000 000--  0  3  0    6
          WP Martinez
         

My vision of spending the whole day with the kids was a fantasy of quality time: perhaps a movie and lunch out, or a field trip to a museum or the cat shelter or something. I was momentarily insane I guess. They were sacked out in front of the tv when I arrived in the morning and I found it hard to tear them away to at least get outside in the morning before the rainy afternoon set in.

We did finally get outside. Lizzy put on her rollerblades and skated in the driveway. Andrea set up a snack table on the porch with water and peanut butter on Ritz crackers. It was inconceivable to them that rollerblades did not exist when I was a kid. I tried to describe the kind of roller skates we had, which fit over your shoe and adjusted with a key. Does anybody know what a skate key is anymore? Why do I feel like a creature from the early Jurassic? I'm only 48 and I feel at least 2000 years old.

Lizzy drew funny faces on us with gel pens. Apparently this is the big thing in 5th grade. She drew all over herself, but Andrea and I only got one purple and red face each. They assure me it washes off in the shower.

There were lots of birds around, this being spring and all, but I couldn't get the kids interested in them beyond a passing glance. While I was scoping out the local bird life, they decided to build a tower of Better Blocks. I joined them on my knees in the driveway sorting the Better Blocks by color so each story of the tower could be one color. There seemed to be some green blocks missing, so the green story was a lot smaller.

I've got to do something about my knee. It's way too stiff for sprawling on the ground to play with the kids. The orthopedist who looked at it originally said nothing could be done short of total knee replacement, for which I'm way too young. He claimed physical therapy would just tear up what remains of the cartilage, and hence didn't prescribe same. He prescribed DayPro, which made me dizzy, for the pain/inflammation. My regular doctor switched me to Lodine, which has worked really well unless I spend a lot of time squatting or walk down a lot of steep hills in cold weather. I keep hearing they've invented artificial cartilage. I wonder where I can get some? And will it help me crawl around on the driveway with the kids? Oh, I'm just feeling old because I didn't have inline skates as a child.

As it started to cloud over, I offered them a choice of movies: either The King and I or Doug's First Movie. Boring according to Andrea. Actually according to Andrea going out to any movie is boring. Boring boring boring. Lizzy wants to rent My Best Friend's Wedding, which I saw on an airplane and hated, or The Wedding Singer. These don't appeal to Andrea either.

What they really like to do is watch tv. We watched Animal Planet all day. By the time Kevin checked in in mid afternoon, we had watched every Animal Planet show twice. This isn't boring? I'm not sure I understand how going to the nice big new theater in Lowell and seeing a brand new movie you haven't seen before is more boring that repeatedly watching the Pet Line hosts answer the same question about why somebody's pet hedgehog bites them. I did kind of like the hairless cat though.

Finally they switched to Nickelodeon for Doug, Rocco's Modern Life, and The Wild Thornberries. This was my first encounter with The Wild Thornberries, and I love them! They're an animated family of loony wildlife filmmakers. In today's episode they were in the Galapagos to film the sea turtles laying their eggs. It was the sub plot that I really liked though. One of the daughters gives the woodpecker finch a needle to use instead of a cactus spine for digging larvae out. Environmental catastrophe ensues as all the other finches demand needles, all the larvae get eaten, hence no bugs for the fish to eat, no fish for the penguins to eat and so on. I tried to connect with the kids by sharing that I'd seen those finches for real, and the penguins and sea turtles too, but it was lost on them. So much for my fantasy of being the eccentric old maid aunt who shares exciting adventures from all over the world with them. Unless I make a video of my adventures...