Pedestrian

Adventures of a 5-year-old

November 2, 2009 · Leave a Comment

A few recent adventures of 5-year-old Lucy. WARNING: dead bird.

I’m pretty sure this is her first original pun/joke: I slipped and fell on the stairs and Lucy said, “it’s a good thing you’re wearing your slippers.”

On October 25, 2009 while sitting in the backyard eating pizza with the neighbors, Lucy looked up and proudly grinned, “my tooth fell out!”  Moya and I scrambled to figure out what the tooth fairy would do (the result: a pretty marble and a $5 bill under Lucy’s pillow).

While trick or treating on Halloween evening, Lucy saw an empty bowl by a door (with a sign that said “have a cold, can’t come to the door, help yourself”) and poured half her bag of collected candy into the empty bowl.

Trick or treat!

There have been 2 dead birds on the street at the corner of Collingwood/18th recently, a corner that we often pass by on our walk to/from school.  The first was on the corner for several days and inspected daily by Lucy who was very concerned about how the bird died and whether or not someone would bury it and whether or not it hurt when it died.  It was eventually gone with a few feathers left behind and then another dead bird was added to the corner.  Lucy stomped her feet one morning while looking at the remains of the birds and declared, “I’m done with birds dying! I don’t want any more birds to die!” Then she picked up some of the feathers from the dead bird and put it on the ground near a tree because “the ground is soft and comfy for the bird, the street is hard.”

Lucy’s generally an advocate of kindness to all animals and also an inspector of all animal and insect death that she discovers.  Holding Lucy’s hand while she leans close to a dead bird in the crosswalk reminds me of the times in my childhood when our cows were butchered.  My younger sister wanted some parts of the cow so she could inspect and dissect them.  I had to hold her hand while she walked out to the field to ask the butcher for the eyes, or whatever gross dead animal part.  She was shy. I was brave but queasy.  Lucy’s shy.  I’m still brave and queasy.

Categories: happiness · kindergarten
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Deep Thoughts

November 2, 2009 · 5 Comments

Some thoughts that Lucy expressed during the year when she was 4 years old.  Leopard and Kitty are stuffed animals and also Lucy’s invisible animal friends who are a sage source of wisdom and advice, as in “Leopard told me …” or “Kitty knows …” or “Leopard already did that …” and Wanda is our elderly cat.

November 2008
“I have a date with Leopard. We had a fight. We’re going to talk.”

“If you’re zero years old then you’re just a seed that is put in someone’s tummy”

“I can’t take naps at home because my [stuffed] animals are talking and wake me up”

(looking at leaf on sidewalk) “That’s a footprint of a dinosaur made out of a leaf”

(in car with music playing) “My feet are singing”

(smelling the air) “My nose is stinky”

“Since I have food in my tummy I am not having a sad day”

“Did you notice I can jump and twirl my arms at the same time?”

When asked “Do you know how much I love you?” She answers, “yes, five.”

(near harrison/20th in the mission district in San Francisco) “This would be a good place to live because you can see the sun setting and it’s really beautiful.”

February 2009

“A long time ago, before I had a momma and mommy, it was just me and Leopard and Wanda and we were saving pigeons.”

Lucy sits down at dinner table and notices I made her a “cocktail” (fizzy juice with a maraschino cherry) and says, “You didn’t have to make me a cocktail, Mommy. I didn’t ask you for one. Thank you so much for making me a cocktail.”

She put the cap on her scissors and said, “Look at me! Now I can run with scissors because the cap is on and I’m protected”

March 2009

(after her great-grandmother died) “Dead people aren’t as fun because you can’t show them your toys or play with them, you can only remember them, not as fun.”

“I’m tired of running but I don’t want to walk so I have to run”

Listening to Obama read his book and Lucy says “Obama’s grandparents are from the same Kansas as Dorothy!” (devoted Wizard of Oz fan)

April 2009
“I’m thinking of what it might look like inside of a song – how is music made?”

“The clouds in the sky look like blurry thunder”

Lucy ate a sardine and asked, “Where did it come from? Does it know that I’m eating it?

At the top of Twin Peaks at night, looking at the city, Lucy gasps, “it looks like a toy! So pretty!”

May 2009

Woman with a child was shouting expletives on F-Market and apologizes to Lucy.  Lucy says, “she’s angry because didn’t sleep well.”  I asked Lucy if she heard every expletive and insult that was screamed for 10 minutes. She says, “No, I didn’t open my ears.”

June 2009
(talking about dealing with being afraid of the dark) “I can go under the covers in my bed and then I own my own darkness”

“I didn’t step on the millipede because I think it wants to live”

July 2009
Lucy’s invisible friends Leopard and Kitty (who are also stuffed animals) apparently had their first day of kindergarten today and Lucy has a talk with them about what it was like and how they feel about kindergarten.

“The spinney thing makes the dizzy part of my body go to my tummy,” says Lucy while spinning on playground equipment.

August 2009

“I know everything I already need to know. I never need to know anything else”

“Being smart means you know a lot of stuff and your brain is really strong and you can think of lots of things”

“Even if I already know how to do the whole thing I need to practice to get more good”

Categories: happiness · preschoolers
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My Special Gay Rights Thanks to Prop 8

November 2, 2009 · Leave a Comment

For years the right-wing has used a mantra something like “no special rights for gays” or “gay rights are special rights” to fight against and to legally deny any sort of protection or rights for LGBT people and couples.

In 2002, “President Bush announced that ‘gay rights are special rights,’ as his defense against criticism that came when he refused to enact various civil rights laws that would protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people from discrimination in their daily lives.”

March 5, 2009 in front of California State Building

 

The campaign for Prop 8 in California last year mostly used slogans of “marriage is one man plus one woman” and themes of “protecting” marriage and “protect the children” and so on.

However, by passing Prop 8 they unwittingly gave those exact “special rights” to a special class of approximately 18,000 couples who remain legally married, caught in time, in California in spite of Prop 8.

Yeah, sure that wasn’t their intent of Prop 8 but they didn’t include anything retroactive in their proposition language.

That’s exactly the “special rights” that these campaigns have been trying to fight against – to keep us from having any protection, from having any rights and responsibilities within our families, all in the name of “protecting children” and “protecting marriage.”

So then what’s my special locked-in-time-marriage status?  It’s special gay rights!

These anti-LGBT slogans and campaigns are slowly dying.  Even if, fingers crossed this doesn’t happen, Ref 71 in Washington is rejected and Question 1 in Maine is passed, the mantras of “protecting children from gays” and “keeping gay marriage out of school curriculum” and “saving traditional marriage” are being slowly dismantled because the anti-gay groups have no proof that marriages such as mine do any damage at all to the institution of marriage, to schools, and to children.

My special gay marriage protects my kid.  Before my special gay marriage was legal, domestic partnership protected my kid and me and my sweetie and helped define our family and give our family rights to each other that married people usually take for granted.

Approve Referendum 71 in Washington State!

Vote No on Question 1 in Maine!

Be kind.

Categories: civil rights · marriage · prop 8
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