Stronger - Boston, MA

Boston Marathon 2016, Newton MA

Our family was invited to our first ever marathon-watching party a couple of weeks ago. Boston Marathon 2016, Patriot's Day, April 18. Our friends' house is in Newton, at about mile 19.5 of the 26.2 mile course, a half mile from the start of the so-called Heartbreak Hill. We brought a salad, some guacamole, some folding chairs and a big sign that said CAW! I'll get to that in a minute. 

The last Boston Marathon I watched was at Wellesley College way back in the middle of last century. Okay, not quite but it seems like that sometimes. Wellesley is situated about halfway through the marathon course and most students, having the day off for Patriot's Day (only in Massachusetts and even then there are those who don't get it--Harvard for one), come out to cheer the runners. 

Back in my day,  we just cheered by picking out things written on t-shirts--we yelled "Go, Maine" or "Go Blue" for the Michigan folks, or whatever was on their non-lycra shirts. Which reminds me: no one wears a cotton shirt anymore. Or shorts. Now we run in underpants. Is that bad for our environment? I mean lycra not underpants. But I digress. 

Now a lot of Wellesley women show up out on the streets with "Kiss me, I'm  XXXX" where "XXXX" might be Irish, bored or a senior. I don't love that but then again, I recognize I am old and don't know how to use snapchat nor want an unknown sweaty runner to kiss me. And they me, probably. Anyhoo.

One of my favorite races to watch (and run) is San Francisco's Bay to Breakers. Not a marathon, but a 12K from one shore to the other, and let's just say that clothing was optional when I ran it in 1991. I am guessing it is much the same. One guy cheering us on was fully clothed in the front, then turned around to show no back to his outfit, wagging his butt at us to motivate us. I did in fact run faster at that point. I miss San Francisco. No one was hanging their butt out in Boston--yeah, the weather has something to do with it.

It wasn't to show that I was "Boston Strong" that I wanted to watch the race, or even because I never refuse a barbecue and potluck. It is because of a guy named Gary and another one named Michael. While I have never met Michael in person, and Gary I have met only once six years ago, they are inspiration of a level that makes me consider running "competitively" again. Not as in trying win, but as in, actually going out to run more than once a week.

Gary is the director of the Mount Desert Island Marathon, the world's most beautiful marathon, coincidentally located on my favorite island. Haven't heard of MDI? What about Acadia National Park, one of our country's most visited parks? Or Bar Harbor, a town steeped in a rich past, now with really good ice cream and an eat-in movie theatre that completely makes my day. The theatre serves beer. And good pizza. It almost makes me amenable to watch Frozen, if that is the only movie playing there. I'd need a lot of beer.

I met Gary six years ago when a friend (and Bar Harbor native), my husband and I decided to run the MDI Marathon as a three-person relay.  It was an incredible experience--not only for the course's beauty but because Mainers are so danged awesome. Because we had gathered a bit of local Bar Harbor fame for coming all the way from Brazil to run as "Team Brazil", we were known at the breakfast spot (and greeted by a Brazilian server!), talked about by a friend who waits tables during the summer season, and I was tapped on the shoulder at mile 4 and asked if I was from Brazil by the passing runner--apparently her server had mentioned us the night before. 

Team Brazil at the start

The MDI race is so beautiful you almost forget that you are coughing out a lung on some of the hills. In and out of the October-colored trees, along the coast, through empty streets. Yes, a few people do come out to cheer you on but let's face it, at a year-round population of 10,000, you'd better be your own best cheerleader. I think I ran a race in São Paulo that had more runners than MDI has residents. Also I have to say that Brazilians are not great spectator-cheering folks. I don't recall anyone setting up a chair outside their house to watch. More like complain about the runners for messing up traffic.

On my MDI run, I was accompanied by a playlist chosen by friends who had donated to MDI Hospital, the cause we were supporting for the marathon. Not sure I'd make that rash promise again since Justin Bieber's Baby just about ruined mile 5 for me. At the end of that race, Gary, as race director, interviewed me about coming up from Brazil. And we ended up in third place of three-person relay teams and got ourselves a rock.

I kept in touch with Gary from time to time to see what was going on. A lot, really. Gary lives on Great Cranberry Island where the summer population reaches 300. Year-round population? 40. The island is two miles long and one mile wide --and it is where Gary trains for marathons. Not just runs them, but RUNS them--he has run five decades of sub-three hour marathons. And the Boston Marathon 2016 was his 100th marathon. I can't even make a joke here. It's just amazing. 

In December Gary was diagnosed with lyme disease, an extremely bad bout of it. Until three days before the marathon, he didn't know if he was going to run it.  But then he went to New York with another Crow Athletics (the local running club) runner and he too became inspired. The Crow that inspired him? Michael Westphal, who suffers from Parkinson's Disease, and was running the race as a fundraiser for Team Fox.

Michael Westphal, Team Fox (and Crow Athletics), photo credit: Chloe Emerson

In the good old days, it was pretty hard to find the person you were waiting for. Imagine the thousands of runners; even knowing which wave they are in makes it tough. Now there is an app for that. Type in your friend's number or name, and bingo, you can watch as they fly (or creep by) the 10K, 10 mile, 20K, 30K marks. The bad news is that is that when you don't see them check in when you expect them to, you start to get a bit nervous.

It is not my story to tell, but Gary had a tough race. Or not. He calls it his best race. He was not sub-3 hours. I made my kids wait for him--we patiently held our "CAW" for Crow Athletics (get it?) and watching my phone. 

First came Michael, slowly but efficiently making his way past the house. He was on the opposite side of the street and I am not sure he heard our "CAWS" or "Yay, Michael!"s. Then the mom of one of Lalo's soccer friends went by--smiling, waving without any sign of pain or exhaustion. Seriously she could have been in a homecoming parade, as long as lycra was the year's theme.

Then we waited again. Finally the green line on the app that was Gary crossed the 30K mark, and we pushed to the side of the road to cheer. He was on the opposite side of the street, but came over as soon as he saw my son and me with the sign and my Crow Athletics sweatshirt. He stopped and hugged me, chatting about how he felt, and how he had seen friends from Cranberry and other places along the route. He was going to finish that 100th marathon that day, and soon he turned and jogged up the hill, fighting off the lyme disease fatigue. I admit it made me a little emotional and I had to claim a gnat in my eye when my son asked me why I was crying. 

Gary Allen, inspiration. Photo is not mine, but I don't have the credit...

What drives a marathoner? I will never know. I hear it is an addiction, a high like no other. I can only imagine that Boston is a total addiction--so many people come out and cheer along the route. Many on either side of us knew multiple runners--it seems so much a local marathon, but of course it is world class. We had seen the Kenyan and Ethiopian (among others) elite race past earlier. Later, it felt like we were all out at a big Boston block party. Everyone wore pants. Both sides.

When we got home, I immediately went over to the MDI Marathon site to sign up. Alas, the three person relay team entry is full. I am not ready to do a half marathon again. Or am I? Hmmm. In any case, I renewed my Crow Athletics membership--the best $10 ever spent, and I'll be seeing you around, Gary. Maybe from the sidelines. Maybe not. 

Run MDI.

An Attempt to Ignore What is Really Going On.... Car magnets

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So, what to do on a day when you are horrified by politics in your home country (oh, all right, one comment: exactly how do you not let your president do his job because he is nine months from not having that job? I don't get it--no I don't want comments on this part) and nauseous from the St. Patty's day mini-cupcakes you stress-gobbled while reading that Brazil's former president who was arrested last week, popped out like ping-pong ball covered in grease, and now has been named a minister three days after millions of people protested him, the government, the sitting president? 

Well, in the absence of a margarita and the simple fact that you hate tequila anyway, you write a frivolous blog about your daily life in a lunatic country that grows more glaringly louco every day. Note to self: file for third nationality--how do the Dutch feel about someone who left their country two hundred years ago? Wait, no, I'm not that old... the descendant of someone who left Friesland during a plague in 1860? We have a plague here. So asylum in Amsterdam, here I come. 

Here it is: frivolous blog.  Car magnets. NO, seriously, I need to talk about car magnets.  I love them. I have five of them between two cars and I admit it's getting a little busy on the back bumper of the hooptie, my beloved 13 year old sedan. But I refuse to choose.

There are no car magnets in Brazil. Why? I don't know. Maybe they would be stolen. Maybe no one cares enough about their club team, summer home, college, national park or private school. Or maybe they don't want to show that they have the above because maybe they would get bonked over the head for it. Or maybe they don't feel the need to be show-offs and clubby insular types like we do here in the northeast. Because I think we're talking mostly northeast that does this, no? Calling all Alabamans who read my blog: do you have a car magnet?  What does it have on it?

I love car magnets because I love to try to figure out what they mean or which school or whatever they are from. Here's an example: white circle with PARK inside it. No, you are not getting admonished to pull over. That is a private school. It is nice. We sometimes get to go play soccer there when they need our rental money.  Ditto BBBBBBN. Wait, I think I exaggerated the Bs. Nice private school. Meadowbrook School has one and it is fancy-- some totem or what do you call those Veritas kinds of emblems? I could not get a shot of it last week as Mr. MDX with the Meadowbrook magnet attempted warp speed around the corner by the bus stop. Thank goodness it's private school spring break. Anyway...

Now, when you see ACK, that is not a comment on your driving either. I'd like to put an ACK next to a PARK and see what happens.  ACK! PARK! Achtung!  ACK is the airport code for Nantucket. If you have that on your car, I would like to be your friend. You have a nice second home, wear crawfish-emblazoned shorts, and possibly have gin and tonics. No margaritas. I am available most weekends in June.

Some have no letters. Like this one:

Yep, this is on my car. It is a black dog. I got it because I too have a black dog. His name is Coal. Most people have that magnet because they have a house on an island called Martha's Vineyard where there is a shop called The Black Dog. That was a heap-expensive magnet. I think I paid more for it than my rescue dog. Wait, did I say rescue dog? I meant pedigreed black lab. 

The other magnet on my suv is for NEFC. New England Football Club, or NE Futbol Club. So yes, we just translate that one little "F" word so we appear international. One son plays for this club team. The magnet was free with me agreeing to be the manager. All glory, I tell you. Well, quite a few losses. But it's pretty, no?

On the hooptie, we also have a magnet that I have seen a version without any writing on it. That is the totally top secret version. So it looks like a set of green lungs but is actually Mount Desert Island which harbors the incredibly lovely Acadia National Park. Or ANP if you prefer that magnet. If any of you were privvy to my facebook post about my Mercedes-SUV driving handyman, you will know that he said to me, when he saw the magnet: "hey we have to talk about MDI sometime--I have a house there." Please note the use of "a" house.  I have "a" house too that is bankrupting me on mortgages and paying Weston-living handymen with houses in MDI. Sigh.

Yeah, if you're a great athlete you probably also have some crossed oars or 13.1 or 26.2, distances that make me throw up just thinking about them. Well I could put a 13.1 on my car from the Rio half a few years ago but well, things are busy on the hooptie.

So, what's on your car? Besides road salt and squished bugs? No, I don't want to hear about your political bumper stickers. Speaking of which, why are most political stickers actually stickers not car magnets? That takes quite a bit of commitment when the Republicans are dropping out like flies, no? Maybe you could just stick the next one on top... CARLY.... wait, no,.... CHRISTIE...no, JEB, oh crud, just go with KASICH and then I won't feel the need to scratch your paint.  Just kidding. I would never do that. Seriously. 

Okay, so I can only hope that this fluffball of a blog has diverted at least my mom, my most loyal reader, from an afternoon of political chaos. I'll let you know when I print up my car magnets that read "WCPGW?" - I'll let you have one free.

Loafin' ... part deux - Carrabassett Valley, Maine

Partial view of Sugarloaf from the Base Lodge

One of my favorite highways signs ever reads "Maine: Life as It Should Be." It's on Interstate 95 as you cross from New Hampshire (don't blink! That is one teeny state on the 95 trail) to Maine. I see it at least a couple of times every summer as I visit friends near Acadia National Park and a friend's camp near Freeport. Don't get me started on the word "camp" as a northeasterner's word for anything from a cabin on a lake to a CAMP like Camp David is a camp. Anyway, not my point.

On Saturday afternoon, we saw this sign as we headed up to Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine. And so, I should warn you all that this is my blog love note to Sugarloaf. No, not the Pão de Açucar (Sugarloaf in Portuguese) in Rio which is pretty awesome but covered in my old blog called Brazil in My Eyes. No, this is our American Sugarloaf: a ski mountain and so much more.  If you have read my blog before, you will see part one here from last year. This is part deux.  La Revanche.

I am not so worried that this second blog-ode to Sugarloaf will mean that there will be a traffic jam on the way up next time. It is 4 hours from here in Weston--it is not for faint of heart. It is also, in my opinion, the only place in New England ski country that you can experience all four seasons (well, okay, three, summer misses it) in one day. Or half day. This is not necessarily a plus on a ski mountain. 

We started going to Sugarloaf a year ago during the Snowmaggedon winter. Why Sugarloaf? Our neighbors were going for the four-day MLK weekend, and I convinced also a Wellesley classmate who lives in Freeport (yes, she of the "camp" reference) to come for a couple of days. Last year, Snowmaggedon started on January 22 more or less. MLK weekend was four days before snow. Instead, we got one day of -9 windchill, one day of perfect sunny weather and ice (no New England ski adventure is complete, or even started, without a great deal of ice), and then it rained all night and we skied on slush and grass. It was THE BEST.

Before you think that I have vodka in my coffee this morning, I will tell you why it was the best (or you can read last year's blog post...but let me bullet point it).

1. Ski in, ski out. Since I grew up in Connecticut, we never ever went away for a ski weekend. We got up at the crack of midnight to drive up and then drive back in one day. Ski in, ski out of a condo means you can have a nice lunch for less than $30 and it tastes much better than cardboard. Sorry, Sugarloaf, but your restaurant is terrible.
2. Widowmaker. This is the bar with a view at Sugarloaf where we gave up on icy day and sat and drank yummy $400 beers. 
3. The ski school. Sugarloaf's is the best. My beginning skiers last year learned to ski without fear, got hot chocolate approximately every half-hour on the freezing cold day, made new friends, and I got to ski with my friends on the "real" trails.
4. Fewer New Yorkers. Nah, I'm just kidding, especially since I was born in NYC. In general, there are just fewer people than the mountains within 2-3 hours of metropolises (metropoli?). Sorry, Portland, you are not a metropolis: you are adorable. 
 5. Friends old and new. There is nothing like a ski vacation with 8 kids of varied ages. It's freakin' fun.

Ski school fun

So this year, we could not make it happen for MLK day weekend. So we went, with the usual suspects, for the second weekend of February winter break. And during those three days we got another Sugarloaf weather "surprise" along with a ride that would be envied by Universal Studios or Disneyworld. The suicide beginner trail. This was a green-circle (beginner) trail through the woods which is normally pretty and easy...but was on this day, sheer green ice. Never seen green ice? That is because normally there is white stuff on top of it. We were down to the glacier.

So what made it suicidal? It was impossible to stop, even for us intermediate skiers. So we literally screamed our way down it. I tried to stop once, hit a tree root and did a 360 into a mogul (that was not a mogul, but possible a beaver dam) and finally came to a stop to watch my friend Wendy scream to a stop right behind me and then we both bent over laughing hysterically. Not happy laughter--we still had half the trail to go. 

Without question, that was the worst double-black diamond I have ever been down, yet it was only a green. Why pay for Big Thunder Railroad when you have skiing in the Northeast? For the same price as a day at Disney, and no need for Fastpass, you can scream yourself silly. With a helmet, please.

For a good time of superlatives, make sure to read the Sugarloaf Mountain Daily trails report. I imagine the person writing it has been up all night blowing snow (inhaling smoke)  and grooming trails, because his/her reality is vastly different than mine. Like "moderate" snow gusts of 30 miles an hour. What exactly defines strong snow gusts?  A nor'easter? Tornado? It is not fun being on a lift with moderate snow gusts. Trust me. 

Then the report continues on to tell about snow squalls, ice, lifts closed due to winds, 30 trails closed for lack of snow, ya-de-ya, and then ends with the line "It's going to be a GREAT day on the mountain." I assume that was said with the exhale of a large amount of medical marijuana. Seriously?  My Freeport friend and her teenage kids did ski, as did my kids and neighbor's kids, but me, I turned in my ticket for a credit and watched the Weather Channel in the ski lodge. I am too old. 

So we got to use these credits yesterday. We drove up as far as Farmington (an hour from the mountain) Saturday night, had an enormous dinner, and then on to Sugarloaf on Sunday morning. We learned a trick--always, always ski on Sundays if you hate lines. 

We had the best New England ski day ever. Sun, glorious sun to begin the day. Snowmaking had created lots of lovely new snow, and the minimum of ice. By 1 pm, we could ski into the Superquad with no lines. Up and down the hill. The kids skied with us, then they skied alone (one is snowboarding now), then they built an ice sculpture, then we ate a bunch of cardboard food. 

Let's face it. We'll never be the family with the ski house, the ski team kids, and well, even our own equipment. We love rental equipment and wearing other people's smelly boots. We love screaming down ice chutes, laughing our butts off and renting crappy condos. We are the riff-raff of the mountain. But my son who had to walk down the scary hill last year? This year he smoked me on the same slope while telling me stories about lynxes (no I didn't hear most of them). The other kid can snowboard and ski now.

Disney can kiss my bindings on this whole surge pricing business: for $100/day and all the laughs and thrills you can imagine, I choose Sugarloaf. Life as it should be.
 

Riff raff on a snowboard with a view

Kids of Many Countries - Weston, MA

 

One Chilean-Brazilian and two American-Brazilians on a mountain.

This past long weekend we were visited for the second time by my son Nico's best friend Ricardo from Brazil. In fact, besides family, he is our only repeat visitor--apparently Weston has been put on some watch list that makes it dangerous for my friends to visit. It is true that we have really mean deer. But that's not my point. 

Ricardo (name changed for privacy) is a child of the world. His parents are both Brazilian, but he was born in Chile, and grew up in Mexico and Panama before moving back to Brazil. Our kids met in kindergarten at the small British-language school they attended for three years in São Paulo. Ricardo still attends that school, and has seen every one of his closest friends leave year after year--the result of having a lot of ex-patriate families in the school. 

The best part of this expatriate school, in my opinion, is  making international friends. Yes, it is a private and expensive school, so the diversity is in the cultural backgrounds, not the economic. My kids were friends with South Africans, Australians, Indians, among others. Many of the kids were on their second or third expatriate experience. 

After we moved from Brazil in July 2014, the kids keep in touch now by skype or through their parents emailing about their lives. And sometimes in-person visits--Ricardo was the second from the school, we also had a one-evening visit by friends heading up to Montreal from New York (how Boston was on the way, I will never know, but I love it!). We have also made an effort on two visits to Brazil to get the kids with their friends.

Touch tank at the New England Aquarium

Here the kids played like crazy. They made up fantasies about superheroes and Star Wars, animal tales and dance shows. While three is often a difficult number to get to play nicely, the arguments and tears were few and far between. For five days, the kids played in the snow, went for a day trip skiing, went to the science museum and the aquarium and laughed and talked in two (and sometimes three--my kids massacre Spanish pretty well) languages. 

The kids remember their lives in Brazil in funny ways. During yesterday's make-believe session, Lalo was a superhero who was bullet-proof. Unless you shot him six times in the exact same spot. Somehow Lalo had remembered that the bullet-proofing on our Volvo in Brazil was Level 3--and that this could withstand up to five bullets shot in the same spot on the car--the sixth would penetrate. That made me more than a bit sad to think about early childhood and bulletproofing, but also made me smile to know that once in a long while, my kid listens to me. :)

One of the only things that bothers my kids about Ricardo is that he is in fourth grade while they are in third-- when he is almost six months younger than them. No amount of reiteration that the cut-off of ages is different between Brazil and the US will help. All they know is that Ricardo will graduate high school before them, and that "sucks". The only way I could make them feel better was to remind them that they will drive before Ricardo (driving age in Brazil is 18, here 16). 

Repatriation is a long process, and more difficult emotionally than I expected for reasons I have talked about before. But then in talking with Ricardo's mom, I realized that there is really no such thing as re-patriation. You can never re-patriate. Because living in a different country for years changes you indelibly. You are never happy in just one place again--you miss certain things about different cultures in any place you have lived. 

I miss the familiarity and sociability of Brazil. I miss our weekend house with no phone or internet, just the forever sky and woods. I see the US with new eyes and have less patience with the gun situation, with the legal sue-everyone-for-everything and the rules for everything. Yes, the latter is what makes the US work, but wouldn't it be nice to have a breakdown or two once in a while without a lawsuit or a gun being involved?

On Tuesday, we also received an automated message from the school superintendent about a bomb threat made against schools in Weston. Fortunately there were no kids in school on Tuesday. Sweeps were made of the schools; nothing was found. At least 15 other school districts were also hit with bomb threats and had to evacuate. 

What a world. My world. 

For now.

Love Herself Has Rest - Weston, MA

Haifa, age 12, Maine

On the first day of 2016, I had to say goodbye to my rock, my Haifa dog. She was just 17 days shy of her 13th birthday, and three months shy of celebrating four years in our family. Haifa is the dog who convinced me of the joy in rescuing animals, and especially the love of senior dogs. She was nine years old when we adopted her. 

In 2010 we were living in Brazil, and we had lost our yellow lab Chopp to laryngeal paralysis at Christmas time. Our chocolate lab Caju, then 12 years old, went into mourning. He moped around for four months before I decided that we should adopt an older dog to be his companion. I didn't think Caju would appreciate a puppy, but I was somewhat worried about a rescue dog since my kids were still young (five years old) and I thought of the risks of a dog with unknown aggression issues. I decided to pursue a senior labrador.

After talking with the vet, I sent a message to Brazil's largest labrador breeding kennel. The owner called me later that day to express her shock that I wanted a senior dog--she had never been asked that before. She said she would think about it, then she sent me a note later that week saying that she had three retired breeding females, one of each color, and all available for free. 

I went online and looked at each of those beautiful females. Then I got to Coffee Haifa (you can see the link here) and noticed that her grandfather (Power of Love) was also the father of Caju (my 12 year old lab). Crazy dog generations. It was fate: we had to adopt Caju's "niece". 

Haifa came to our home a week later, and she was in shocking condition. Dirty, confused, half-deaf, exhausted. For days she slept and lost her fur. She lost almost all her fur within two weeks. I have to give full credit and love to my husband BH for not making me give her back. She was ugly--a teat hanging almost to the ground and a giant growth on one paw.  But she wagged and wagged with that stubby tail, and light came into her eyes when she saw me. 

Haifa, 2012, after operating on her leg. Joanopolis, Brazil

Slowly she came to herself. Her head came up, her fur grew back, we operated on the teat and the growth. She played with Caju. Caju came back to life. We were going to rename her Daisy or something happy, but in the end she stayed Haifa. We once asked the old kennel why she was named Haifa and they couldn't remember. She bonded with me and would never be far from my feet. We took her with us to our weekend house in the country or to the farm in the interior of São Paulo state. She didn't care where she went as long as she was with us. Her tail wagged even when she could not hear us (her deafness became stronger with age). She was the happiest dog on earth--there were no bad days.

Haifa, 2013

Caju died in June 2014 of old age, then Haifa came with us to the US (story is here). She slowed down, eventually not walking much-- just a sniff around the front yard, or a stroll to the bus stop. I drove her twice to the trails at Lincoln conservation--she saw the beautiful lake, the wooded trails. She developed laryngeal paralysis, she suffered from tiny strokes that would make her fall over spontaneously; she got bladder stones and UTIs that were unstoppable. But she still clickety-clicked on her long nails to greet me at the stairs in the morning. She wagged her tail so hard that it would hurt if you were in the way. She pawed me for scratches in the morning, grrrrring with happiness.

She went downhill quickly when I traveled for three days in New York for the holidays. My amazing neighbor had to pretty much carry her outside to do her business--first Haifa lost use of her back legs, then on the day I returned home on December 31, she could not stand even on her front legs. She stopped eating. We stayed home on New Year's Eve--me knowing in my heart that she would be leaving us the next day.

In the early afternoon of January 1, I took her to Blue Pearl vets in Waltham. They could not find anything completely wrong--but she was breathing like Darth Vader due to her laryngeal paralysis and could not walk. I declined an MRI for her. I declined to think of surgery on the old girl. Steroids were not possible due to her bladder issues. It was time to let her go.

We went to the lounge where you say goodbye to your pets. Rugs and sofas, and a little remote with a button you press to call the vet who will put your dog to sleep. I put the Girl from Ipanema music on my phone--olha que coisa mais linda, mais cheia de graça. She was not full of grace, but I will say that everyone did smile when that girl passed by. She was love itself.

It was just me and Haifa. I cried and cried while she wagged at me and gave me a big slurp on the chin. I pressed the button. It was over quickly--first a sedative for her to sleep--she quickly dropped her head to sleep as if she were thankful for the rest. The vet hugged me as I cried. I went home to tell two devastated little kids. Coal, my other dog, has not left Haifa's bed until today. Today we are all a little better.

And Lord Byron's best poem echoes through my head several times a day. The heart must pause to breathe...and so it did...

So We'll Go No More a Roving

By Lord Byron (George Gordon)

 

So, we'll go no more a roving

   So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

   And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

   And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

   And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,

   And the day returns too soon,

Yet we'll go no more a roving

   By the light of the moon.

Town Scrum - Weston, MA

So, I may have to change my name after writing this blog. Possibly move out of town. Today I need to talk about the town meeting. Or as I like to call it, Town Scrum. I am no rugby fan but this is how I understand a scrum (after looking it up on my friend google): 


Scrum: (noun) an ordered formation of players... in which the forwards of a team form up with arms interlocked and heads down, and push forward against a similar group from the opposing side. The ball is thrown into the scrum and the players try to gain possession of it by kicking it backward toward their own side.

I will tell you why I consider town meetings a rugby match in just a moment. First I need to set the stage…ummm, field. Town meetings. I have never attended a town meeting in my life. Not even sure we had them in San Francisco, Burlingame, Evanston, Miami Shores or São Paulo which are the places I have lived in my "adult" life. Okay, possibly in New Canaan (where I grew up) which is really Weston in a different state, more pink and green, ACK stickers and twice our size. But I was 18 and didn't care about that stuff.

Town meeting is the legislative body of our town. Yep, it's up there front and center on this, our "Brief Guide to Weston Town Meeting Procedure". The brief guide is two pages long and has everything from how to participate in a debate (line up at the microphone) and how the voting is done (a display of official voting cards). It's like auctions gone wild. We got green voting cards at this last vote. I was going to take it home but it was collected by the powers that be. 

This particular town meeting was a special meeting called because of some pressing matters such as additional funding of a playground (now this is the ball that gets thrown into the scrum…wait for it), a new sidewalk to and from school so kids don't have to walk on the road, and appropriating spaces for "community housing" (who does not love this euphemism? I do.). 

Let me note that the latter item was "passed over" but I don't know why. It was not discussed in the meeting (okay the moderator did say why we wouldn't be talking about it but I didn't hear it). That discussion will not be a scrum. That will be a mosh pit. No one wants "community housing" near them. This is a blog post for another day.


So I got there about 6:50 for the 7 pm start and the high school auditorium was about a third full. It would become about half full. I did note that there was a demographic that I don't often see--older folks mostly (I have to watch it with this term now that I am middle-aged. Older than me. Retired perhaps) then a group of younger parent-types, some with kids in tow. Remember the 7 pm start. And kids' bedtimes, if you have kids. Kids who are not vampires. 


Stage set. 

First up was approving the budget. Quick discussion, over in about 10 minutes. Passed unanimously.  Passed because we were cutting money from budget due to a decrease in school salaries. I must investigate this one a bit. I abstained; I know nothing. 

Article 2 required a full hour. An hour to decide whether or not to increase the number of signatures needed to get an item up in front of town meeting. The petition was to change it from 10 signatures to 100. I am not going into why this measure was on the ballot here in town. I got the feeling it was a targeted measure to try to resolve an issue with one resident who keeps on taking up town time over wanting to take over her neighbor's house for a parking lot. I may have that wrong. Anyway I voted yes on requiring more signatures, but the majority said no, we like only 10 signatures because, as one gentleman commentator said "it can be really hard to get signatures with such a spread-out town and we're all busy." Yes, we are all busy. Why then are we taking an hour for all this back and forth? Sigh.


And then the heart of the heart. The scrum. Here goes. Article 3 was about Additional Funding for Lamson Playground. This will take waaaaaay too long to summarize here but the Lamson playground project has been around for a while apparently. We have one teeny-tiny playground in this town called Tavernside. It is literally at the side of a tavern (not in service--whoo, that could be a lawsuit!) and small though shaded and pleasant. My kids (age 9) term it as "lame". We've been once in the 18 months almost we've lived here. It is also along the Boston Post Road which splits the playground from the town green. There is some justifiable concern about getting kids in and out of the place without being smushed like bugs. 


Lamson Park would be our new playground. Right next to the town hall and on the other side of the town green (not on the Boston Post Road). The playground was approved in May 2014 before I moved here to Weston. I can only imagine that town meeting now that I know about this one. Playgrounds cost money: $225,000 in fact from the town budget, and $40,000 more was raised privately. I admit that this planning and designing of the playground has gone on without me paying much attention. My kids will be aged-out before this comes to pass--and frankly, my kids are open spacers. Free-rangers. Ticks in the woods. Playgrounds are for recess in their minds. 


I was aware of the battles in the background though. Revolutionary War has nothing on this. Well, actually it does, as I will tell you shortly (I really had no intention to go on so long but well, here it is). Plans were changed, trees are being felled, ziplines being added, a play structure that is visible from space (just kidding--but it's not necessarily small) and our Weston Town Crier added fuel to the fire by leading a September front page with "Most Expensive Option Chosen for Lamson Park". In case you were one of the last souls on earth to think the media is unbiased, guess again.
So the article at the town meeting was about asking for $25,000 more to make the park better. Safety was the number one stated change in mission. And so here we go:


The players: 

--Parent Team, mostly younger parents who wanted kids to have a safe playground

--Historic Team, mostly ummm seasoned individuals who don't want a playground at all at Lamson Park. 

There was probably a third team that was unorganized. A third team who said yep Lamson, but not the way it was proposed.
 But a third team ruins my analogy so let's leave them on the sidelines.

First up, a resident who explained the need for funds. This resident was a forward for the Parent Team-- he explained how wonderful the park would be and what a great community-building thing an integrated park and town green would be, not to mention that we'd have fewer issues with kids crossing the street and being smushed like bugs.  More funding was needed to address some new learnings about the property.


Then the moderator (the Ref?) dropped the ball into the middle of the scrum. Historic Commission, forward for the History Team, and Planning Committee, another forward, then linked arms and stated opposition to the ENTIRE park, not just the updated price tag. 

And then the Historic Team went big time: a Daughter of the American Revolution came up to speak.
I admit the existence of the DAR organization cracks me up. Seriously, what? So American. I guess it doesn't exist in many countries, such as Brazil, my foster country, since that would be a Daughter of the Really-Just-a-Peaceful-Split. DRJAPS. No.  And I guess I personally would be a Daughter-of-the-Dutch-people-fleeing-plague-there-in-the-1860s. Wow that is so not catchy.

Okay here is the explanation of the organization, from its site:
The organization Daughters of the American Revolution is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in United States' independence.The DAR, founded in 1890 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a non-profit, non-political volunteer women's service organization dedicated to promoting patriotism, preserving American history, and securing America's future through better education for children.

Okay, keep this "non-political" organization part in mind. So the DAR comes up at the meeting and says she is opposed to Lamson Park in general because it is an important historical site. In fact when the new town hall was built in 1917 ("new" in Boston-type age) everyone was opposed to that, because it also took Lamson land.  She mentioned that Samuel Lamson was a colonel in the Minutemen and it was from this farm site in 1775 that he led the Weston Minute Men from the mustering site to the battle in Concord. Okay he was not a colonel in 1775, but that's quibbling with something that is frankly, cool. I am so wowed by where I live. The heart of US history (yeah, okay not native American history, I get that).

But I digress. DAR says that Samuel Lamson would NOT have wanted this park--she spoke almost as if she had known him (no, she was not that old). Then she goes on from this nice history lesson to say and furthermore, this site is probably "somewhat illegal" (her words) since Lamson stipulated that a structure should never be built there. I guess the jungle gym is a structure. Sigh. I would like to point out given my research here that Lamson had seven kids with one wife and three more with a second and I'm guessing the respective Mrs. Lamsons would have LOVED a playground there. Maybe not the zipline. 

Then a Parent Team forward came up and expressed why playgrounds are so important for the community building. Then a Historic Team came up and said she suggested we "build Disneyworld Weston at another time." Yes, I hummed "It's a Small World". I have to change the words. It's a small town after all…

For the next hour, the scrum moved up and back. One Historic Team player called the building inspector "full of baloney." One seemingly neutral player did make a statement on not being opposed to a new playground, but perhaps thinking of one that was in a less historic location--he suggested kids needed "lessons in cultural and environmental stewardship."  One lovely woman said she walked around the town green every day and did not want to be disturbed by the sounds of "screaming children." I'd like to editorialize that a bit more but right now I am trying to find out her address so I can send my 9 year old twins to play on her front lawn.  Just the part owned by the town.

Then my favorite comment of the night came from the next speaker who basically said that if you tried to preserve every supposedly historic site in eastern Massachusetts, you could not build anything ever. Also he said that he certainly hoped that the space would not be needed again as a mustering place, which made me laugh out loud. I got a couple of nasty looks from the Historic Team players on either side of me. I was afraid I would become the ball. 

Finally a vote was called. Full disclosure: I abstained. That will not make some of my friends very happy with me but I really didn't know enough to vote on more money. The cards were raised for and then against the article. The request for more funding failed. When it was announced at 9:10 pm, applause broke out from the Historic Team. The Parent Team (and abstainers--me) made a break for the door--I think less because they were angry but more because it was time to get the users of the playgrounds, those kids, to bed. 

My takeaway from this meeting is that our town has quite a rift between the parents and the historics.  Only time will tell if the parents can re-group and find a way to make their playground. No, I'm not getting involved. Except possibly on the task force for making votes in our town a little less biased to those who can be there at 7 pm on a work night. Let's make an app. 


What could possibly go wrong?

{Note: blog amended February 8, 2016 to reflect correct result. Thank you to my careful readers for the correction}

The upside of small town - Weston, MA

Wait, it's September 28 and I haven't posted in two months? Yep, true story. I can't possibly catch up now except to say here is how August and September went: kids camp, New Hampshire, Maine, soccer, Brazil, more Maine, PTO chaos, back to school, back to activities, homework, superblood moon...and that brings you up to date. 

Back to school means that crazy morning breakfast, get changed, get your stuff, get out is in full swing. Our bus stop (as you have met before here) is about three houses away, and across a dead-end street that we share with the next town over. As in it's Weston for about five houses, then changes to Lincoln town. With a separate bus route, residents who I largely have not met and maybe nine more houses. Lincoln's total population (without chipmunks and deer): 5,000. With deer and chipmunks: 300,000. Weston's total population (without Audis): 12,000. With Audis: 250,000. We are talking small town and smaller town.

But, there are two little issues with us sharing a street with Lincoln. One is their bus, or specifically their bus driver, who likes to drive as if he is testing the large yellow bus for stability. At 40 mph around the blind corner that is right above our Weston bus stop. The other issue is a dark blue Acura MDX (whose plate I have memorized) with a Meadowbroook sticker (that's a private school here in Weston) which also seems to always be late to school at 7:35 when 10 kids from age 5-10 are at our bus stop. No nasty looks will stop this dad. 

So, you will ask me: why do I not confront this mad Acura driver? Because, dear readers, (if I still have any after two months away), I am a CHICKEN. The thought of ringing a doorbell and saying "dear neighbor, could you please slow down?" makes me a little woozy with fear. What if he slams the door in my face? What if we start an enmity that does not go away for the next decade I plan to spend in Weston? Yeah, chicken.

I did write an email to the Lincoln bus company to ask that bus driver be counseled to slow down. That felt right to do: in writing and not anonymous, but without a door slammed in my face. So far, the driver has not seen fit to run me down and stick me in the grille. In actuality, the Lincoln bus seems to have changed times or routes as I have not seen it in the last week. Uh oh. Hope I didn't kill off bus service for the neighborhood.

So what to do about Mr. MDX? This is what I did. I called the town manager. And the town manager said to send an email to the traffic@weston commission which is populated by the police captain, and several other important members of the community. And I thought, okay, I shall do that and then wait for their response.

I sent an email at 1:13 pm. At 4:25 pm, I got an email back from Police Chief Michael Goulding saying they would get signage and patrols to try to fix the issue. Later that evening, I told my neighbors that I had done this and got an email back from one saying a patrolman had already stopped by and hung up the sign you can see in the photo above. The "SLOW" changes to a lighted-up picture of kids on a see-saw. Three orange cones further draw attention--it's right on the blind curve above our bus stop.

I am so completely impressed. The upside of small town is things get done. Quickly. Now the downside will be if I am caught speeding elsewhere in town and my name gets picked up as someone who has complained about others speeding! Fortunately I am more likely to be ticketed for driving too slow (yep, one of those looly-loos enjoying the ride) than too fast. 

I sent a thank you note to the captain. What a town. Let's see what Mr. MDX does now...