Scary at all ages

My friend, L, and her family have moved to a new home 100 kms from where they used to live. It's paradise but it's still scary. L writes:

"... tomorrow our real life here will start. To be honest I’m a bit scared.
What if the kids don’t like their new schools?
What if they don’t make any friends?
What if I don’t make any friends?"

I have a solution. It comes from Miss 16. Yesterday she started school in Chicago. 13,000 kms away. Over 4000 kids at her school. She tells me day 1 was scary. People were nice but at lunch time it was just too hard to go into the cafeteria and strike up a conversation with total strangers. How do you break into a group? There were hundreds of people. Who would want to talk to her?

Day 2 she talks to a few kids during class. Someone offers to meet her at lunch time. She gets introduced to a group of kids for lunch. They're all nice. They ask her to join one of their clubs. The Irish club. (She's not even Irish - but she does have red hair maybe that counts?) After school she gets invited downtown with a small group. They have dinner together.

Day 3 tomorrow. It's still scary. But she has friends.

The solution? It's a cliche but... just do it.

The Big Apple

I am back from a whirlwind week in New York accompanying little sister on a business trip. I absolutely loved it. Heaps of sightseeing, shopping, eating and walking.

Transport consisted of walking, the subway (yes, I braved it), the odd crazy New York taxi (tooting is their first language) and a horse and carriage ride in Central Park.

One morning K and I found ourselves walking in the Garment District. Lots of 'wholesale only' stores selling copious amounts of clothes (I assume to retail stores) and some amazing huge retail/wholesale outlets selling nothing but trims or ribbons or buttons. It was jaw-dropping and made me wish I could sew!

On my first morning I went with my penfriend from Chicago (who is going to be Miss 16's host family when she moves there in January) to a traditional New York diner. We each ordered an omelette that I could swear would feed 4 people. It must have contained 6 eggs and was stuffed with mushrooms, cheese and spinach and would have been at least 6 inches high. It was accompanied with a mound of refried potatoes. I almost felt sick upon seeing the huge portion but it was delicious and after eating about 1/4 of it I admitted defeat. Including coffee or juice
it came to the princely sum of $5.95.

From that day on we ate breakfast on 7th Avenue (just by Madison Square Garden) at a very cool and busy New York bagel deli called "Bagel Maven Cafe". To die for bagels and a standard size!

I was really impressed with the food - did not have huge expectations before I left. We ate in either funky neon-lit cocktail bars/restaurants or small candle-lit family owned restaurants (no more than 30 seaters). Prices were fantastic - no more than $15-17 for a main course which might be a huge bowl of linguini with huge scallops, prawns and mussels and a fresh salad on
the side. The thin crusted New York pizza was lovely - very simple - often just prosciutto and basil and again, $15 for enough to feed 2. I was surprised to see a lot of seafood - grilled calamari featured everywhere. I gave in one night only and had New York cheesecake (had to really!)

Shopping was amazing - Saks 5th Avenue was lovely and Macy's was hit hard. Christmas decorations outside buildings were fantastic -especially on 5th Avenue. Took lots of photos. Credit card saw a bit of damage (I blame Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein for making clothes in my size!). Huge floors containing warm winter coats - everything from furs to fleece. Sales
everywhere - possible to get a full length down coat with fur trim on sale for $200. Not that I need one in Wellington. (And I wouldn't buy fur!) Makeup and cosmetics were ridiculously cheap - the Bobbi Brown foundation I splurge on at $90 a bottle at home was US$45 - even with the exchange rate it was cheap. Suffice it to say I had to buy an extra suitcase to lug home all my purchases.

I did lots of touristy things including going to the top of the Empire State Building for the amazing views; Times Square was buzzy and neon (even the police station had a neon sign); the Ground Zero memorial was worth queuing for - a very sad place - and very calm and quiet amidst the bustle of the city; the Rockefeller Centre with its famous Christmas tree and
avenue of angels and iceskating; St Patrick's Cathedral to light a candle for dad. I had a day and a
half by myself (my penfriend had left and K was working) so I walked to Greenwich
and Soho which was a great afternoon. We went to a Broadway show one night - The
Book of Mormon - which I confess I had never heard of but which had just won 9 Tony Awards and consequently was practically booked out until 2013. We had to pay $299 for tickets (oops that's over $400 once converted!) but worth every cent - the funniest thing I've ever
seen. It got a standing ovation. Next time I will go to way more shows - there
was so much on it was amazing.

We spent a morning at MOMA (the Museum of Modern Art) - a bit of a quick visit but enough to get a sense of the vast range of work they cover - the collection area (painting and sculpture) held lots of works by people like Picasso, Monet, Warhol (the Campbell soup cans!), Kahlo, Matisse,
Cezanne etc ; there was a great architecture section featuring an exhibition on the architects who were invited to design a replacement for the Twin Towers; the photography section had a new exhibition of 6 American photographers with works from the 50s to 70s. My favourite, interestingly, was a display on typography which I found fascinating. Felloow scrpapers would have apreciated it, I think. I felt like we really just ran around it all to get a quick glimpse of what was there. Could have spent a day or two there. And I didn't get to the Guggenheim or the Met but there's always next time.

I had expected the people to be hard and brash but found the opposite. Occasionally they were indifferent but never rude but mostly they were very friendly and chatty. The streets were packed and frequently you'd get bumped just crossing the street but without fail people took a second to say "Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me, Pardon me" And "Ma'am" was heard hundreds of times a day. Most people knew where New Zealand was and I only had one person ask if it was "near New England?".

Anyway just a wee snip of my 6 days in NYC -hadn't expected to love it so much. Would I go back? In a heart beat.

(Blogger is doing silly things and I can't seem to load more photos)

Lane Tech

Albert G Lane
Technical College Preparatory High School,

Chicago, Illinois - this is where Miss 16 will be spending her school days in 2012.

More than 11,000 students apply for just over 1000 places at this school each year. The school has over 4000 students - that's 1000 kids in your year.

The school day starts at 7.40am. I think, that for Miss 16, that's going to be a culture-shock all by itself!

I've lived in the Hutt Valley for almost all of my 40-something years and we have never experienced snow like we've had this week. We see it in the hills around the valley quite often but in my memory I have never seen it in our back yard. Inches deep.

So this week's weather has been the source of much amusement, discussion and concern.

Miss Indie (our 3 year old choclate labrador - didn't know what to make of it and ran around and around the yard like a total nutter. Tomorrow school is closed for Miss 16 and Mr 11 is praying his school makes the same decision.

This is what we came home to find after work today...

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Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Science Fair

I have one kid who's good at the school stuff and another who hates it. So when Mr 11(the school work hater) runs to me after school with a big beam on his face I know it's good news.

Mother: "How was school?"

Mr 11: "It was cool. In science we dissected a cow's eye. It was really cool. Some kids thought it was gross but I didn't."

Mother: "Fantastic. I thought you were happy."

Mr 11:" Oh yeah, there's another thing. At the end of science we got to go and see all the science fair projects. And I couldn't find mine. And then R told me he knew where it was. And I came first in my class! And, even better, I came 3rd out of all the year 7 and 8 kids (130 kids) and, even better, P won the whole thing out of the whole school and he's only a year 7 like me. And we're both going to the regionals."

Mr 11's project looked at whether doing a blood test on clean or dirty fingers made any difference to blood glucose levels. (It did!) A totally relevant project for a type one diabetic.

But I want to know - do any kids actually do their science fair projects TOTALLY by themselves. Mr 11 did the research, the testing, the writeup - but I did most of the sticking to the display board. And helped him refine his topic. Come on parents - 'fess up!

Age

I was talking to a 20-something colleague last week and remarked that I needed to find a birthday present for my mother who was turning 70. She suggested a possum fur gloves and scarf "Gifts like that are always great for the elderly!".

I nearly choked. "Elderly?" Amongst other things my mother still runs around after us, picks up Mr 11 three days a week after school, is the secretary on a committee,has coffee and lunch dates with 'the girls' several times a week, does the accounts for her church and still gets blonde streaks in her hair.

And then it occurred to me. To my 20-something year old colleague I am probably old enough to be her mother. So my mother must be really, well, elderly.

This is what 16 looks like

Blinked and I missed it. On 27 April Miss 16 turned, well, 16. Her party theme was "A 6 year olds party". Tiaras and pink stuff galore.
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Check out the latest 'must have' daywear. The purple and black cargdigan I knitted for her father about 15 years ago (and which has probably been hidden in a closet for 14 years!)





And, incidentally, this is what 3 looked like (courtesy of a scrapbooking page by Granny who came to the rescue and decorated the house and made a birthday cake while we were delayed in Nelson. We got home 2 hours before the party!)