...garden city..

The final night of summer vacation. Another school year ahead. I swear I will do all in my power to be as supportive as I possibly can of my girls. They're excited to go back. They're like me at their age. I loved having my mind stretched. Thursday evening the teacher assignments were posted and my girls were eager to go and see who they'd have for the year. Friday was open house so they got to see which of their friends would be in their class this year. I love the clear thinking of the children. I guess Christ had it right when he said blessed are the little children. How lucky they are to be in that space before hardened habits of rationalization and the vengeful grip of hormones set in. Were we all like children, forever, in that time before the Cro-Magnon burst of intellectualization set in? Granted, the ballooning of abstract powers of reason are probably what got us through the last Ice Age. Still, it is that same ability to shift our focus from the eternal present to the never-never land of self-referential abstraction that brought us the Egyptian priestly class, holy wars, the caste system, Machiavelli and trial lawyers. Can we be said to be better off? I have my doubts. Anyhow, at three, six and eight, my girls are still on that far side of the river, yet to cross the Rubicon that lies between the jaded world we must deal with and their simpler world, Eden to our eyes. I remember though that it was an Eden with thorns and brambles.

I still recall how kids can be cruel to kids. I can at least console myself to think that my girls are better adjusted than I was at their ages. Though of course I think girls are practically always more mature than their male age-mates. Spent quality time at the pool with the girls this weekend. Today was the season's end neighborhood pool party. Either I'm getting used to them or this year was marginally better run than last year. Or maybe there were just less people this year owing to the chaos that typically rules. One of the past presidents of the neighborhood association is always emcee. Not the sort of guy who relinquishes a microphone once it falls into his grasp. At least the sound was not as loud as we're subjected to his voice-over singing of classic rock standards. And maybe we've learned to come later, after the line dance contests, the competion to see who can most quickly name tv show theme songs, and teeny boppers singing their favorite precociously racy pop lyrics. Frankly I cringe to see how many little kids recognize the songs from Knott's Landing and L.A. Law just from hearing the first three seconds. Bourgeoisie is the word. Couldn't they for once do a geography quiz? But no, I enjoyed myself, and more to the point, the girls enjoyed themselves at the pool this weekend, as well as at the new South Germantown splash playground.

I spent much of tonight after they went to bed on the phone with Bangalore trying to fix a home networking issue that's cropped up with the new desktop. The problem's not fixed yet, the tech suggested maybe some spyware has messed up some of my system files, but suggested I speak to Comcast tomorrow since the issue is that my girls' user accounts on our XP system suddenly are unable to access the Internet. Since they do so primarily to play Flash games I don't consider it an urgent matter, still, I hate to think that something is amiss with our new machine already. Probably the most amusing part of that was the time I spent on hold and I was able to enjoy this wonderfully weird bhangra-inflected syncopated electronic Muzak that was otherwise reminiscent of a cross between Brian Eno, Henry Mancini and Sigur Ròs. A nice little concrete problem on which to focus, on a par say, with doing one's homework. Lord knows I am seized with so many larger and more worrisome dilemmas these days. For once, I truly wish I could reset my clock back to being nine years old. Now that would be some system restore.