Tuesday, May 17, 2011

May 17th

May 17th, 2004. Midnight. Cambridge, MA.

Same sex marriage has been legal for seven years now.

And the world has yet to end.

To the plaintiff couples who bravely stood up for equality, you are extraordinary. Thank you for paving the path.

www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2003/11/18/sjc_gay_marriage_legal_in_mass/

Monday, May 16, 2011

The Joneses...

....and keeping up with them.

Arden and I had to go to the dairy this evening. Our dairy is a couple of towns over in Dracut, MA. I am intrigued by this town. It's small town farm country just steps away from the congested city in which we live.

For some reason, I think the homes we wind by are happy homes. There is nothing spectacular about most of them. The simple cape with the meticulous garden out front ... the ranch with the carport and the funny looking lawn jockey...the house that flies the NE Patriots flag and hosts game day for the neighborhood.

Deeper into Dracut though, the farms are being taken over by McMansion-ville. Giant, cheaply made, soul-less houses. We know. We looked at one about a year ago. Yep, it was all shiny and new, but I think I could have put a finger through the dry wall. But these...these are the houses of the Joneses, aren't they? We live in a world where the happy little capes just aren't enough. We must have bigger, we must have better than our friends and colleagues. We compare our houses and cars and lives to the ones our high school friends have ... thank you, Facebook, for making that possible. High school competition revisited in adulthood.

Echo Lake Productions captures the world in which we live in brilliant fashion with The Joneses. We stumbled across this movie on On Demand recently, and it is worth the watch. It is insightful and, frankly, frighteningly accurate.




www.imdb.com/title/tt1285309/



Maybe one of these days we'll buy one of these happy little homes...well...happy little farms in Dracut, and the cow grazing next to the road will be ours.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Goal

Most nights I think to myself...man it's been a long time since I blogged. But then another night goes by, and another day, and well, here we are weeks later. We've been back from vacation just long enough that I'm bordering on desperate for another one. Already.

It doesn't help that it appears we are just skipping spring this year. But for a few days smattered here and there, this has been a grey, chilly, rainy spring. I'm not gonna lie, it's depressing. It rained all day today, and apparently is the start of a full week of it. Know what this means? A week of 2.5 hour commutes each morning. Because when it rains, people forget how to drive. Even though these are people who are (supposed to) know how to drive in things like snow.

Lest this be an entirely downer of a post, let's talk for a moment about Arden's latest sport...soccer. She loves it. Well, she loved it starting the second week. The first week she spent crying about getting tripped, kicked, and her knees dirty. Our child. It was as if she had been taken over by some other girl. Through her tears..."this (hiccup) is not like it is at school." Oh. Right. School. Where the seas part upon her arrival...where no child dares challenge her. These soccer kids don't know of her Madonna-esque...do not make eye contact with me you underbeings...existence. They're learning.

Dora joined us on week two. Not a tear has been shed since. I think it's a combination of not daring to cry in front of Dora about getting kicked, but perhaps also the promise of Cracker Barrel for breakfast upon a job well done. What? Bribery gets you far in life, doesn't it? Regardless, it's worked. This was week four or five and she loves it. It is one of my favorite things each week, because she is so happy on the field. And she is running for a full hour straight, which leads to a calm, cool and collected kid for the remainder of the day. When will she be old enough to do this everyday?

Pictures from this week:

Running. In case this picture needed clarification.

Front and center ... no longer afraid of getting kicked.




Soccer for the U6 crowd shouldn't be called soccer as much as it should be called semi-controlled chaos.


SCORE



SCORE AGAIN




Battling the blonde kid who is a fierce soccer competitor. Future Mia Hamm.




Down the field...for yet another goal.


So the question now...soccer or swimming scholarship?