40 Days of Birthday: Day Forty {End of Days}

My 40^th Birth-Day came and went and instead of writing about it, I took a day off. I hope the suspense hasn’t been too great. The day began with taking my son to Kita. The day before, I had asked if there would be any sort of Halloween festivities, but beyond having a Jack-o-Lantern in the lobby, the answer was no. It’s still catching on here, as you may have read. When we arrived, however, there was one child who’d come in a half-baked Darth Vader costume. I say half-baked because he was missing his mask, the ultimate accessory for any Vader. Nonetheless, this made me wish I had put Lennon in his Beagle costume for the day. Discussing it with Nicholas later, it was determined that we did the right thing by bringing him sans costume: The Beagle costume is still a little big on Lennon and it might have been annoying for all parties to have him tripping on it all day. In addition, it had already gotten some good play this costume season. I reminded myself that there is always Fasching in February—his bigger fitting Beagle costume should still be in working order then as well.

I received a couple of last minute birthday gifts on my final Birth-Day: Eight hours of uninterrupted sleep the night before from Lennon, and in my mailbox when I came home from Kita drop off, a lovely bracelet from my sister-in-law, Kim.

A couple of weeks ago, I received a large package from my sister, Erin, stuffed with fun bath toys for Lennon and a birthday gift for me: Artisan wool felted cuffs handmade in Northern California. I wanted to wait until my last Birth-Day to show them off—giving them their proper due. So pretty.

I did some gifting myself, this being a holiday beyond just Birth-Day Forty. I made some extra banana sweetened “acorn” muffins for our upstairs neighbors, the family that includes Lennon’s buddy Otis. I reckoned since the boys are too young to go out for Trick-or-Treating—or eating candy—they could enjoy a healthy “treat” at home. Lennon would have his “acorn” muffins with cream cheese for breakfast the rest of the week. Incidentally, the muffin recipe is the same one I used for his birthday cake. No sugar but lots of love.

When I retrieved Lennon from Kita, his teachers informed me that Lennon had walked from the playroom to the bathroom all by himself. When we got home, I tried to recreate what had happened at Kita: he walks! He walked all the way down our hallway. Then he walked across the living room. I tried to film, but realized this was a two person job so waited until Nicholas got home. It was literally overnight that he went from taking just a few steps beyond our arms to truly walking on his own!

After filming the boy and his new amazing feat (or is it amazing “feet?”), I put him into the tiger costume that I had worn on Halloween when I was his age. I talk more about it here. As always, our photo shoot did not go as planned. Our independent little boy isn’t interested is posing—certainly not when there is walking to be done. Miraculously, we captured some shots of him that mirrored the ones of me wearing the costume—completely by accident. Finally, Lennon was happy to be freed from the acrylic confines of the 1970s baby romper and into his own cotton pajamas.

The main activity for my Halloween Birth-Day was to do a Native American-esque smudging ceremony of our apartment. Truth be told, I had meant to do this directly after we moved in, but there was still so much commotion, it just never seemed the right time. On this last Birth-Day, as I put my transition into this new decade behind me, it felt right to cleanse. I had purchased the sage smudge stick in Half Moon Bay, California this past summer. I love that it wrapped wrapped in a pretty orange, cotton twine. After the smudge was lit, I started clockwise from our front door and visited every room, letting the smoke waft throughout. Many people had lived here temporarily in the months leading up to our moving in and the place needed a clearing out. In addition, whatever stress or fears we brought with us regarding the move or the financial jump we’d made to the larger apartment could stand a cleansing as well. With all my esoteric good intentions, the first change I noticed after I smudged was that my cold-turned-sinus-infection seemed much worse. Even the gentle, aromatic smoke from the smudge was irritating. Small price to pay, I suppose, for clean house.

Later that evening, unexpectedly, a small group of Trick-or-Treaters rang our bell. We hadn’t purchased any candy, not having had any visitors on Halloween for a couple of years. We buzzed them in thinking they’d go to someone else's door in the building. When they knocked on ours, Nicholas was standing, frozen, by the knob, signaling to me not to make a sound. One Halloween, before I moved to Germany, Trick-or-Treaters knocked on Nicholas’s door and he was mortified to not have anything for them. I assured him it would be all right and grabbed my bowl of acorn muffins—at least we could offer those. At the door was a group of four twelve year olds dressed in classic witch and goblin attire. Nicholas explained, rather defeated, that we did not have any candy but asked would they like a homemade muffin, baked fresh today. Three of the kids took a muffin. The other, perhaps, had been warned by her parents not to take any homemade treats. In general, that’s probably a good rule.

Nicholas then ran out to a convenience store to grab a bag of candy. I put the contents in a bowl by the door, proper Halloween style. Luckily, we did get one more small group of Trick-or-Treaters who were thrilled by our selection: Haribo Maoam.

Side Note: On the way home from the store with the candy, Nicholas informed me that one of my muffins had been found half eaten on a window ledge in our building and another was perched on the pumpkin outside our door. I really can’t blame those twelve year olds. How can banana possible stand up to all that delicious sugar?

40 Days of Birthday: Day Thirty-Nine

Just one day till the end of days—Birth-Days, that is! I’ve been given a reprieve from being inventive lately as pre-scheduled events, meetings, and holidays provide me with my extraordinary activities. Today is no exception. It is the day before Halloween and our pumpkins were carved.

Lennon isn’t so skilled with a knife yet, so all the actual carving was left to my husband and I. Lennon is also not fond of gooey stuff—he got very upset at Kita when, on the first day, they tried to have him create a print by dipping his hand in paint. He stood as an observer today as we cleaned and cut.

 We began carving in the late afternoon, when my husband got home from work. We borrowed a day old newspaper from our neighbors to use as a surface for the messy pumpkin massacre and were happy to see that is was printed with pigment-based inks, the kind that come off on everything they touch. All of the big papers in the U.S. no longer use this type of ink. Though we had smudge marks on our table, we were happy to know that we could grab a German paper and a spray bottle of vinegar any old time for spotlessly clean, streak-free windows.

Lennon did have a snack at the beginning of the carving and his dinner toward the end, but still was excited to nibble on the cut-out top of his miniature pumpkin. His little pumpkin had been in his room for a few weeks now. When Nicholas put Lennon to bed, they said goodnight to pumpkin. Today, Lennon got to see what we do with pumpkins around these parts.

Nicholas did most of the pumpkin cleaning and sorting of the seeds for roasting. I was in charge of the carving. This is definitely not my medium. I experimented with one of the pumpkins, trying to create the San Francisco Giants logo, but miscalculated my lines and ended needing assist from a toothpick. To my eye, it turned out far better than I imagined but is still sad looking. Lennon’s little pumpkin and our bigger pumpkin faired better with classic Halloween faces.

It was our intent to watch the 1966 classic, “It’s the GreatPumpkin, Charlie Brown” while we carved but the iTunes store let us know that it would be thirteen hours before the movie would be fully downloaded. Luckily, our internet troubles are being dealt with tomorrow, but for today, Lennon friendly music would accompany our festivities.

We lit the pumpkins, turned off the lights, and all gazed at what we’d made. It was time for Lennon to go to bed and for the first time when I went to pick him up, he pulled away, not ready to say goodnight. I did this the same thing all the time as a child. So did Nicholas. We just wanted to stay up and have fun—not miss anything. It seems that neither does our little boy.

40 Days of Birthday: Day Fourteen

The hardest part about writing today is that my (to-be)revised dissertation proposal glares at me when I open my computer, reminding me of the enormous amount of work I need to do just to dig myself out of my current rabbit hole. I could just close my dissertation document—or write my blog on a typewriter—but then I might ignore it altogether. This past week, I’ve put in several hours a day reworking this proposal that I’m meant to hand into my advisor sometime before we meet a the end of the month. Each day I’m more confused than I was the previous. I try to believe that all this confusion means I’m on the precipice of revelation and not doom.

After a frustrating day in the Theatre Studies world, I kissed my family and headed out on my own for adventure. I’m set to teach a performance class in a couple of weeks at Tatwerk, an acting studio here in Berlin, and I asked if I could sit in on one of their regular courses to get a sense of the students’ skill level. The class starts at the incredible hour of 8pm which left me time to buy fabric for the Halloween costumes I’m making for a couple of small humans. I’m building cozy animal costumes for Lennon and his upstairs neighbor and friend, Otis. Also, Otis’s birthday is next week and his mommy is throwing him an animal themed costume party. Guess who will be the best dressed?

Fabric is expensive in Berlin. It’s days like these that I long for Fabric Outlet in San Francisco. I’d even settle for a JoAnn. For my limited searching in Berlin—I buy most of my fabric when I’m in the U.S. and haul it back on the plane—the best bargains can be found at the markets. When you need something specific, however, the markets can be hit or miss. Stoffland is where I headed this evening. The prices on their small, awkward online store seemed reasonable. They claimed to have fuzzy animal type fabric in their brick and mortar outlet, and while they were wildly out of the way of where I lived or where I was going tonight, I made the trek.

Once there, I spent about an hour pondering over fleece versus velour, the difference between auburn and light brown, and how dark a grey I should purchase. Additionally, I started sweating trying to convert my pattern from yardage to meters. The woman who cut my fabric did her best to help but my poor language skills made it rough. I went with my instincts and got slightly less off the bolt of each color than was called for. These are very small humans after all. I came in under budget, stuffed my “Stoff” in my backpack, and headed into the downpour that began as I was being rung up.

My years in Seattle taught me to never forget my umbrella.

The real star of today was the class I observed, however briefly I discuss it here—I’d rather not say too much for fear of diluting its deliciousness. The group was small, just a handful of students, improvising in an open space. The studio looked magical at night and any reservations I had about having to teach at this hour vanished. This was clearly the most ideal time. There was a lot of fruitful discussion and challenging work. I was grateful to have contributed. Really looking forward to not just observing, but teaching. Will be going back again soon.