Yesterday we bought ice skates. Oh, and we went ice skating too. But first came the big SPLURGE at Good Footin’,
the active shoe store on Seventh Avenue near Second Street.

My sister called first thing in the morning wondering if we wanted to go ice skating, which we all thought was a perfect idea for a snow covered day. Then my daughter said,  "Mom, let’s go buy those pink velcro skates they have in the window at Good Footin’."

Now this wasn’t completely out
of the blue. We’d been talking about buying skates because
having your own skates is just so much better than renting those awful
blue skates they rent out at the rink. Awful just awful those blue
rental skates are.

We all met at the shop, which was having a BIG SALE. As my daughter tried on the skates, I decided to buy myself a pair of skates.  Then my sister, decided to
get in on the act. Suffice it to say, the three of us left the
store with NEW SKATES ready for some icy fun in Prospect Park.

And
what a difference good skates make. They really make the whole
experience so much better. In fact, I  felt like I was twelve
again: really light on my feet, twirly, swirly and fast. Figure eights, going backward, I was spinning and skating smoooth. 

Yours from Brooklyn,
OTBKB

It’s so quiet this morning. Snow fell Sunday night and left a soft cover everywhere:  sidewalks, tree branches, rooftops, and cars. Rain and warmer temperatures are expected to wash it away so no one is shoveling, and there are no snow ploughs on the street (they’re not really needed).

It’s "snow day lite" and there are just a small number of foot prints on Third Street.

Snow or no snow, the Slope would be quiet anyway The public school kids have a week’s vacation and the private school kids have Monday and Tueday off. People who can are on vacation — off to Caribbean beaches, slopes in Vermont, long lines at Disney World in Orlando. Those with the extra moolah can use vacation time as an opportunity to escape this slushy season that just trudges on.

Even the kids upstairs who are usually up early playing extreme tag over our bedroom seem to be sleeping. Or maybe they’re at the beach.

But who needs the beach? It’s quiet in the slope and the children are sleeping.  I’m up early and alone in our dining room with my iBook, my coffee, and a bowl of Medley cereal. This is vacation enough for me.

The 10th Annual Cherry Tree 10-Mile Race for the Hardcore went off without at hitch in Prospect Park yesterday. Except for the fact  that the wind chill factor made for one cold morning, it was a gorgeous day for a race.

In our pre-race pep talk, our fearless coach,  Jon Cane, urged us to "run your own race. Don’t pay attention to people passing you." For the Jack
Rabbit Half-Marathon Group, yesterday’s run was a dress-rehearsal for the Brooklyn Half
on March 19th.

The group joined over 300 runners at 12th Street and we were off and running – three laps around the park — by 10 a.m. The cold was a non-issue almost immediately. Running down the hill toward the lake on the south-west side of the Park I was already feeling sweaty and overdressed in my two shirts, two jackets, face mask, hat and gloves.

My husband, son and daughter were there to cheer me on as I finished the second lap. Seeing them cheer was a HUGE motivational boost. As I ran past I screamed hello to them and Coach Cane screamed, "Don’t stop to say hello to your family. Keep running!"

I was high from seeing them for much of the third lap. I saw them again less than a mile from the finish. At that point the kids were cold from standing around in the freezing temperatures. As I ran past I could see whining on their faces. I even heard my daughter cry, "Mommy, we’re freezing, we want to go home."  I felt myself begin the transition from 10-mile runner to mom. But I caught myself and screamed, "I can’t be anyone’s mother right now!"

Nearing the finish line, a lovely French man that I’d been running with got ahead of me. An annoying guy on megaphone blurted out: "Take him, you can beat him to the finish line." I found some last minute energy and sprinted the French runner to the finish. As I passed him I said, "I’m sorry. It’s been really nice running with you." We shook hands.

There were no cups left but lots of huge jugs of water at the water station. I grabbed a jug and  drank to my hearts content. It was almost anti-climatic to reach the end and hard to believe that I’d just run ten miles. But boy did it feel GREAT.

Yours from Brooklyn,
OTBKB

I am bracing for next week’s school vacation. On the one hand, I love the break from the routines of school. The kids can sleep late and that’s a good thing. They need the rest and we won’t have to pull our difficult-to-wake teen out of bed in the morning and push him out the door. Honestly, everyone, including parents, could use a respite from the relentless pressure of homework, school admissions, and the daily grind.

It’s also a great time to expose the kids to the wonders of the metropolis. The fantasy city vacation includes trips to Central Park to see The Gates, the museums, Broadway shows, sights of interest, and places they’ve never been to before (see Vacation Brainstorm below). Congrats if you can get the kids on-board for such ambitious and edifying excursions.

On the minus side, the mid-winter break is a sudden break from MY routine and that’s tough. I like my routines and I need them. When the kids finally get to school in the morning I sing a quiet, "Halleluah!" Not because I don’t love being with them. It just that morning drop-off  means I can devote myself to my work and some of the other  things in life that matter to me.

I am a private self and a public self, a family self and a single self. All these selves manage to co-mingle rather nicely most of the time. But vacations sometimes throw me for a loop. That’s when I need to be all my selves at once. It’s a challenge to find time for scintillating vacation activities, work, errands, and other responsibilities. ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

It can be pretty schizzy and can lead to a quiet longing for my normal routine: A counting the days until the kids get back to school and we can all get back to what we were doing before the vacation.

I still can’t believe I have a thirteen year old son. It seems just yesterday he was bundled into a stroller bound for Mommy and Me, a toddler exercise class we used to attend on Sixth Avenue near Lincoln Place. One of the girls we met in that class just had her Bat Mitzvah. Another girl looks impossibly hip slinking down Seventh Avenue with her friends.

It’s like someone pressed the fast forward button and all those cute babies became cute teenagers at a too rapid speed.

All this comes to mind because today will be an important and not altogether pleasant day for many of these former toddlers: the acceptance and rejection letters from the specialized high schools will be handed out at my son’s middle school.

Yay or nay: Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, LaGuardia and the others have decided who’s in and who’s out. A rite of passage of childhood in New York City, it will be a day of pain for some and exhilaration for others. Hearts beating fast as they open their letters, I can only imagine what must be going through their minds.

And at school there’s no one there to remind them that it’s just a test, just a school, just a stupid education system.

In the coming weeks, the other high schools will be sending their letters out. Fingers crossed, fingernails bitten to the pulp, parents and teens wait, their futures in the balance.

In the midst of this Darwinian shake-out, the thirteen year olds of Park Slope exist in a universe of their own. They instant message each other, hang out on-line at Xanga, eat pizza at Pinos.

They walk down Seventh Avenue feeling the force of their emerging selves: independent and so very alive. It’s a mixed bag these teenage years.

Yours from Brooklyn,
OTBKB

A seed grows in Brooklyn. And it could grow into something great. There’s no way of knowing. But last night a group of administrators and teachers presented their visionary ideas for a new high school that’s opening next year on Henry Street and it sounded very exciting to me, a veteran of many high school open houses.

An outgrowth of the Brooklyn New School, the Brooklyn Secondary School for Collaborative Studies is designing a fascinating program for their first class of 108 high school freshmen. These students will spend their mornings engaged in an interdisciplinary, inquiry-based curriculum that "sparks curiosity and creativity." This part of their day is  project-oriented and the students will be evaluated through portfolios and presentations to a group of faculty members.

The afternoons will be devoted to more traditional skill-based classes like Math, ELA, Science and Spanish.

A visionary school like this will only suceed if it gets the right kind of students. They must be motivated and willing to work. The school also needs to be rigorous enough to ensure that the kids pass all requirements for a New York State high school diploma. BSSCS says that they will be interviewing prospective students to make sure that they understand this and  want to particpate in creating this growing school.

What I heard last night was exciting: a small school with humanistic values, where students can grapple with big philosophical questions and learn a great deal in the process about themselves and the choices they make. It’s an experiment for sure and it’s not for everyone. But a vision fueled by energy, expertise and intelligence was palpable in that Brooklyn classroom last night.

Yours from Brooklyn,
OTBKB