Moving five feet every ten minutes. People from all states in the crowd. Guy behind me reading "Dreams of My Father."  (Barack's book).

Photo by Betsy 8:41 am in DC.

Betsy at 8:33:

Betsy at 8:08 am

From Betsy at 8:07 am Washington:

Still in line. Hear mall is very full already. Gate is open. Very slow. 1-2 at a time.

Betsy by phone at 10:15

From Betsy at 1:42 p.m.

I walked past a window on 6th Avenue in Park Slope that had a Barock the Vote poster in it I didn't realize it was the window of a friend and OTBKB reader. She saw me and sent this. Pix left is of Ryan painting the sign in Ft. Lauderdale.

Please tell me how you are feeling on this historic day (louise_crawford(at)yahoo(dot)com or leave a comment) My friend Barbara Ensor texted the following to me:

Over at Park Slope Parents they're talking about kids using bathroom words. My friend and OTBKB reader Mary said I could post the advice she sent to PSP. She says her approach is akin to what animal trainers use.

Photo by Rudolph Vernaz-Colas.

Have you ever wondered what Alexander Technique is. Well, my friend
Jane Tomkiewicz of Alexander Junction is offering workshops in Park Slope. And it sounds like
just the thing if you have muscle aches, back pain, tendonitis or just want to feel better.

Musculo-skeletal pain?  Concerns about
posture? (spending too many hours in front of your computer?)
Performance issues? (i.e. losing voice, tendonitis, inability to get to
“next level”). Or just curious about how and why things (our bodies for
example) work or don’t work well?  These are the various motivations
that lead people to take lessons in the Alexander Technique. Learn
fascinating and immediately applicable information about how your brain
and body work together. “Experiential anatomy” and “fun physiology”
will provide many “aha” moments about our incredible design and
function.

Study on back pain by the British Medical Journal confirms Alexander Technique efficacy

Alexander Technique teachers recently received official confirmation
of what we have known to be true for some time now.  The British
Medical Journal announced on 8/19/08 favorable results of a study
conducted on back pain and The Alexander Technique.

Alexander Technique Series for our community: a great opportunity in Park Slope for new or continuing students in a small group (limit 5)

included in the series:

1 free introductory hands-on demonstration

4 classes (an hour and a quarter each)

1 private lesson (45minutes)

Fee:  $150

About Jane:
I have been teaching the Alexander Technique to
groups at the 92nd St. Y since 1992 and privately in Manhattan since
1990.  I’ve served as the Executive Director of the American Center of
the  Alexander Technique from 1996-2008. I’m very pleased to begin
teaching group and private lessons in Brooklyn at the Feldenkrais
Center of Park at 375 5th Ave (between 5th & 6th).

For more information about the Technique or class series please email or call 718)369-3092 or 347)387-2366.

Pastor Daniel Meeter at Old First Reformed Church is celebrating Martin Luther King Day with a full-day program for adults and kids called The Audacity of Peace. I think the "Four Traditions" service scheduled for midday sounds interesting. And the afternoon program called Peace Is An Inside Job:  An Introduction to Meditation & Mindfulness Practice has my name all over it.

THE AUDACITY OF PEACE   
Peace-finding and Peace-sharing For the Whole Family

Monday January 19th, 2009, 10:00 am – 4:30 pm
at the Old First Reformed Church (7th Avenue at Carrol Street)
-and- 
at the Spoke the Hub Re:Creation Center (748 Union Street @ 6th Avenue)
Park Slope, Brooklyn

For Reservations, Directions & Information: 718.408-3234

Workshops, drama, dancing, meditation, yoga, and artwork for pre-schoolers through adults.
Hosted by Old First Reformed Church and Spoke the Hub.
Co-sponsored by Congregation Beth Elohim and The Interfaith Center of New York

At midday: “Four Traditions”: interfaith prayers for peace (and for our new president) led by
Imam Salilou Djabi, of the Imam Ali Mosque in Bedford-Stuyvesant,
Rev. T. K. Nakagaki, of the Buddhist Church of New York,
Rabbi Andy Bachman, of Congregation Beth Elohim, and
Pastor Daniel Meeter, of Old First Reformed Church

MORNING WORKSHOPS
CardioDancing:  Strengthen Your Heart! (Teens & Adults)
Prana and Prayer (Teens & Adults)
Make Your Own Mandala (All Ages )
Jump On The Peace Train (Preschoolers)
Ahimsa Yoga
Chair Yoga

LUNCH FOR ALL

AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS
Peace Is An Inside Job:  An Introduction to Meditation & Mindfulness Practice
Jump On The Peace Train (ages 6 and up)
Make Your Own Mandala (All Ages )

Suggested Donation:
$ 10.00 Adults;  $5 Kids & Seniors  (per individual workshop or lunch)
$ 25.00 Adults; $10 Kids & Seniors (for whole day, including lunch)
$ 60.00 Family Rate (siblings and parents, for whole day, including lunch)

Please make advanced reservations by January 16th  if you will be joining us for lunch:
718.408-3234  or spoke@spokethehub.org

 
Photo by Rudolph Vernaz-Colas.

Send me your pictures and/or your words about what's going on in your neck of the woods on Inauguration Day.

Tell me how you and your friends, neighbors, and family are feeling about this historic events.

Keep me posted all day about what's going on.

Tell me now of any events I should know about.

Let's blog the day together!

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED:

I am hosting the January Brooklyn Blogade on January 25th at Delicious on the Slope (641 President Street between 5th and 4th Avenues) from 1-3 p.m

The Blogade is for bloggers of all stripes, blog readers, and those who are interested in becoming bloggers. We will spend some time discussing the upcoming Brooklyn Blogfest, an annual gathering of Brooklyn bloggers in May.

These monthly blogades are always a great chance to share information, network, and get to know interesting people.

So come on out:

The Where and When

Brooklyn Blogade hosted by OTBKB
January 25th from 1-3 p.m.
Delicious on the Slope
You can order brunch or lunch or just have a beverage
641 President Street between 5th and 4th Aves.
Question: louise_crawford(at)yahoo(dot)com

Rosemarie Hester is a learning specialist in Park Slope.

Here’s something that I did with my younger son which I think contributed in many ways to his well-being as well as to his enjoyment of reading:  he and I had “reading parties.”

A reading party was very simple.  He had a book.  I had a book.  Sometimes we had food—crackers, apples and cheese were his favorite for a while. 

We got comfortable on the sofas in our living room and we read.  Sometimes the parties lasted quite a while.  Sometimes they were as short as cat naps. 

This kind of “parallel reading” helped to promote a sense of peacefulness and joy in reading.  It was important that reading was not a “performance” for an adult, but that it was an activity that an adult found valuable enough to spend time on herself!

The key to this is to start “reading parties” early enough in the child’s life. Middle school, for example, would be too late! 

The art of parenting is, in part, finding the right developmental moment, and, as we all know, that moment is different for every child.

Perhaps even a pre-reader can be helped to feel grown-up by looking at picture books while his mom or dad reads her/his own book.  How much better even if you can share one thing about your reading with the child and the child can share one thing with you.  One thing is huge. 

Keep this activity short and quiet at first–kid-sized.  Over time, as the child becomes a reader, you can turn these times into parties.

And, please, if your child is already a reader, don’t feel you’ve missed your golden opportunity!  You can still introduce the idea or–better yet– even just decide to just pick up a book, get a cup of tea, put up your feet for ten minutes and see if after a week or two, your son or daughter joins you– or perhaps mimics you later in the evening!

If nothing else, the child will see you enjoying what you hope he or she will enjoy, and that alone is a very powerful thing. 

Working with kids is a lifelong endeavor.  Nothing changes over night.  Here’s a good mantra:  Drop.  Drop. Drop.  Ocean.

Park Slope's Rabbi Andy Bachman, of Congregation Beth Elohim, was at Brooklyn College on Friday, an invited guest to hear Mayor Bloomberg's State- of- the-City address. Here are some of his reflections. The rest is, of course, on his blog:

Yesterday I had the honor of being a guest at Mayor Bloomberg’s
State of the City address on the Brooklyn College campus. Despite the
freezing weather, ten students greeted people across from the entrance,
lamenting budget cuts in education and Israel’s incursion in Gaza.
People didn’t seem to “pay no mind.” There was a small bit of irony
that the road leading to Whitman Hall is called Hillel Place, named for
the campus Jewish institution which took its name from the early Jewish
sage who represented openness and dialogue with all people.

I
sat in the back section, with the masses, clicking away on my iPhone
while Blackberry and cellphone message lights glowed all around. A
great soundtrack played while people shmoozed and mingled, a Ric Burns
documentary about New York played, with its message about the
resilience of New Yorkers in hard times set the tone for the Mayor’s
speech.

Marty Markowitz shpieled about Brooklyn and the Mayor of Midwood High School had the honor of introducing Mayor Bloomberg.

The
speech was practical and tough–a kind of combination of past
accomplishments, plan for the next four years, and campaign kick-off
all rolled into one. He spoke law and order, guns off the streets, and
spoke boldly about not waiting for Washington to act in the face of
this terrible economic crisis. As New York University professor
Mitchell Moss said to the press afterward, “He reassured New Yorkers
that we are going to have a positive approach to dealing with the
economy, we’re not going to sit around and wait for the federal
government to take charge.”

Here's this weeks Smartmom from the Brooklyn Paper:

Smartmom and Hepcat are as spooked as everyone else by the recent
economic downturn. But as chronic, hard-working underachievers, it’s
not like they really got to enjoy the recent economic boom anyway.

Still, there’s loads to be nervous about. As freelancers, Smartmom
and Hepcat are dubious that they’ll ever get hired to do anything
again. As Dumb Editor pointed out in last week’s column, it’s not likely that President Obama will be setting up a WPA for writers.

So everyone is glum, but Smartmom, ever the cockeyed optimist, is
sure that there’s a silver lining to the world’s money troubles.

For one thing, the Depression of 2009 is bringing more people down
to their standard of living: life in a rent-stabilized apartment with a
minimal amount in the old savings account.

There are other benefits as well. Like coming up with creative and
inexpensive fun. No more $25 entrees at the Stone Park Café or $100
seats at the Next Wave Festival. It’s time for potluck dinner parties,
nights spent reading “Gravity’s Rainbow” or “Ulysses,” and extra
intra-marital sex.

It’ll be like the 1930s all over again, a time when everyone pulled
together and learned how to get by on a little — saving rubber bands
and using a tea bag for more than three cups of tea.

In other ways, too, Smartmom is grateful for the these troubled times:

• For one thing, she won’t have to eavesdrop on any more
conversations about kitchen fixtures while at Connecticut Muffin (she’s
already switched to regular coffee at the newsstand). She’s had it up
to here with those long-winded discussions about people’s kitchen
renovations. Sub-Zero refrigerators. Garland Stoves. Granite counters.
Enough.

As a renter, Smartmom never got to do a kitchen renovation.

Sure, she and Hepcat have bought their share of Metro Shelving at a
kitchen supply stores on the Bowery. But she never got to pick out an
expensive Miele dishwasher or a pretty backsplash.

• Now that there’s a real-estate slump, Smartmom can stop regretting
not buying one of those then-affordable houses in the North Slope,
South Slope and Ditmas Park they considered back in 1999. Maybe one
day, they’ll be able to afford something in the Slope …

Nor will she have to endure endless bragging about how much her
friend’s houses, coops and condos are worth and how rich they’ll be
when they retire.

Those conversations always make Smartmom feel like the real estate
loser that she is. It seemed like it was limitless how much her
friends’ properties were going to be worth one day while Smartmom and
Hepcat just sank more and more money into her landlord’s pocket.

Everyone knows that Smartmom and Hepcat are real losers when it
comes to the real-estate wars. But now she’s just glad that they have a
roof over their heads that they can afford, which will be big enough
once Teen Spirit moves out next year to go on his Gap Year.

• She also won’t have to feel foolish for having decided to be a
writer rather than a lawyer, a bond trader or a financial analyst. For
years, she kicked herself for not choosing a more lucrative profession.
Maybe it’s time to retire the envy she feels toward people who could
count on yearly bonuses that enabled them to live the high life like
second homes, ski trips and beach vacations.

• And Smartmom is glad that she won’t have to defend the value of public school anymore. Isn’t it obvious? It’s free. Get it?

• It’s also nice that Smartmom doesn’t have to envy those friends
who had enough disposable income to collect contemporary art and famous
name modern furniture. She can do what she’s always done: just frame
one of Hepcat’s photographs if they need something on their wall.

Frankly, the new Depression isn’t that different from life as usual
in their Third Street apartment. Economic insecurity, revolving debt,
and a never expanding standard of living.

Welcome to my life, Smartmom says. It’s not that bad, you know

Hunan Wok, the Chinese restaurant I've never been to on Seventh Avenue between Union and President, is out of business and soon to be Korean market.

When I was in Super Saver last week, which is also out of business now, a man waiting on line to pay told me that the Korean vegetable market on Seventh Avenue between Carroll and Garfield is also going out of business.

That may be a rumor because I don't see any signs to indicate that they are closing. Has anyone else heard?

In December there were a lot of complaining about Methodist Hospital's emergency room on Park Slope Parents. The group organized a get together and the Brooklyn Paper was there. Here's an excerpt from the coverage.

New York Methodist Hospital has pacified the famously irascible Park Slope Parents!

In response to a litany of complaints about emergency care posted on the popular Web site last month,
the Seventh Avenue medical center invited angry stroller-pushers to air
their grievances in a public meeting on Wednesday night — and even the
harshest critics walked away satisfied.

Hospital administrators stood by their ER docs, but told the seven
parents who showed up that they were working better to train
waiting-room staff to have good manners and resolve conflicts better.