Being a parent is about letting go. From the moment that umbilical
cord is cut, it’s all about making more and more space between you and
your child.

Here’s how it goes: breastfeeding gradually ceases to be the main
source of sustenance. Then the baby learns to crawl, then walk, then
run from you. Pre-school and kindergarten takes them farther away as
they make friends. And those connections only widen and deepens.

And then they go parasailing.

It wasn’t something Smartmom ever expected. In fact, it wasn’t
really an activity on her radar at all. It was just a day at the beach
on Block Island with Hepcat, the Oh So Feisty One and her friend,
Luvbud.

And then OSFO noticed a tiny yellow parachute with a smiley face on it flying high above and behind a speeding motorboat.

“There’s a person attached to that thing,” she said.

And so began the longing to be that person flying high above the Atlantic Ocean.

“Can we do that?” OSFO asked with just the slightest amount of pleading in her voice.

Smartmom didn’t even answer because she figured the urge would pass
and OSFO and Luvbud would soon settle on a safer beach pastime, like
collecting seashells or burying each other in the sand.

But the urge didn’t pass. And, believe it or not, Hepcat started to egg them on.

“You really want to do it? You want to give it a try?” he goaded.

Smartmom was shocked. Hepcat was usually the hyper-cautious one.
From a family of engineers, he knows how everything works and,
therefor, just how dangerous everything is. He’s the parent who always
puts the kibosh on kooky ideas that will result in emergency room
visits or major surgery.

The fact that he was encouraging this was irksome — and it made Smartmom mad.

“It’s ridiculously safe,” he told Smartmom. If the string breaks
there’s the parachute, if the parachute breaks, they just fall into the
water.”

Smartmom put the whole thing out of her mind as they walked along
the beach. She figured it was a remote possibility until she heard
Hepcat say.

“Let’s walk over to the harbor and see how much it costs.”

Smartmom was game only because she figured the cost would be prohibitive.

But Smartmom didn’t factor in salesmanship. When they got to the
motorboat, a woman selling tickets on the dock was determined to get
the girls into the boat.

“It’s the experience of a lifetime, girls. You’ll love it. You can
go up together. The captain has been doing this for 20 years. Nothing
to worry about. Everyone loves it. We’ve got a boat leaving in a few
minutes.”

When Smartmom found out that it cost $75 per person for a
seven-minute ride or a 14-minute tandem ride she was dead set against
it. This trip to Block Island was already costing them plenty. Why did
they need to add this unnecessary expense? But Hepcat felt differently.

“This is one of those confidence-building activities,” he said. “One
of those things that makes you feel like you can do anything. It’s
great for girls.”

Smartmom hardly recognized her ever-cautious husband. Then again,
hadn’t he regaled them with tales of a youth spent riding motorcycles,
hot-dog skiing, skateboarding and driving sports cars?

He wanted his little girl to fly and there was no way around it.

Reluctantly, Smartmom said yes. But first she wanted to call
Luvbud’s mom back home in Brooklyn. In a moment of crystal-clear great
parenting, Smartmom thought it seemed right that she should call
Luvbud’s mom for a signoff on her daughter flying 500 feet in the air.
Luvbud’s mom gave her OK. The girls cheered.

As the girls got on the boat, the captain said that Smartmom and Hepcat could ride along for free.

Smartmom was pleased. Of course she had no intention of letting her
baby fly up in the air without her being on board — free or not free.

By the time OSFO and Luvbud were strapped into the harnesses,
Smartmom had a lot of confidence in the captain. A lovely guy licensed
by the US Coast Guard, he’d flown more than 40,000 people since 1989.

Smartmom stopped herself from asking OSFO if she was feeling all
right, if she really wanted to go up there, if she wanted to change her
mind. She and Luvbud didn’t seem to have any reservations. They looked
excited and ready to go as they watched the previous tandem couple
being lowered down.

Smartmom watched nervously as the girls were slowly released into
the air like a kite. Before she knew it, they were soaring high above
Block Island’s waters.

The view was probably breathtaking for them. For Smartmom, it was
anxiety inducing to see her daughter in the sky. She could barely see
her face and kept asking Hepcat how they looked through the viewfinder
of his camera.

“Do they look scared? Are they all right?” she asked.

“They’re fine,” he said. “Can’t you see, she’s making the thumbs-up sign? They’re kicking their feet.”

It was true. The girls were flailing their arms and swinging their
legs like they were on the big girl swings in JJ Byrne Playground in
the newly misnamed Washington Park. They looked like they didn’t have a
care in the world.

Big deal. Smartmom was an emotional wreck the entire time they were
up there — not that she let on! She made small talk with the captain
and his young mate. She asked the previous couple how it felt to be up
there.

“It’s so quiet. It’s so peaceful,” the woman said.

On the boat, the captain played Steely Dan songs at high volume and
Smartmom felt a blur of feelings that included elation, pride in her
brave girl, and even shame. What mother would send her daughter 500
feet in the air? What a crazy thing to do?

But then she got hit with something like the world’s biggest
metaphor. Isn’t that rope up to the parasail the umbilical cord that
Smartmom has never actually been able to cut? Shouldn’t a mother let
her child soar (even if it is frightening and stomachache inducing?)?
If her daughter felt ready to do something new (within reason),
shouldn’t her mom go along with it and be brave. Isn’t that what
growing up is about?

Yes, dammit, it’s all about letting go.

When the captain’s mate started pulling in the string, Smartmom felt
her beating heart slow down. As the girls got closer she could see
their smiling faces. They didn’t look scared; they looked accomplished
and happy, especially when the captain let them dip their toes in the
water before getting back on the flight deck. They squealed with
laughter.

And so did Smartmom, who was happy to have her daughter in her arms as the motorboat speeded back to shore.

It felt like they both had accomplished something important

Let this iPhone photo  suffice until No Words Daily Pix wakes up.

The showing of Purple Rain last night at Celebrate Brooklyn was an unadulterated blast.

A really diverse, interesting. good-looking, multi-age and ethnicity, well-dressed and/or costumed crowd looked like they were having a ball.

It was a Purple Rain Sing-a-long and that's what everyone did. They sang-a-long to the sub-titled film. But who needed sub-titles? Everyone knew the lyrics to the songs featured in Prince's 25-year-old movie.

But it didn't feel like a nostalgia fest. It felt like a good time.

And the crowd was too young for nostalgia. Heck, my son was there with a bunch of friends.

There was dancing but whenever people in the seats stood up they were booed by the people on the lawn in back.

So much for dancing. Other than that it was a good- natured crowd who were happy to be bopping, clapping, singing, moving in their seats…

How can u just leave me standing?
Alone in a world that's so cold? (So cold)
Maybe I'm just 2 demanding
Maybe I'm just like my father 2 bold
Maybe you're just like my mother
She's never satisfied (She's never satisfied)
Why do we scream at each other
This is what it sounds like
When doves cry

The movie itself is so bad that it's good. "I forgot just how bad the non-musical sections were," Hugh said.

But I enjoyed just about every minute of the film and the atmosphere of last night's fun, sexy, Purple Rain sing-a-long.

My cousin Meg Fidler, Executive Director of the Petra Foundation, sent me this article about an organization that sends breast milk to South Africa. Read more at NEED. which describes itself as the "first independent magazine dedicated solely to global and domestic humanitarian issues."

"Every day, around 1,500 people in South Africa become infected with
HIV. This epidemic has led to about 1.4 million orphans in South Africa
alone. Many of these young children are malnourished and are in
desperate need of care. Jill Youse, founder of the International Breast
Milk Project (IBMP), is here to help.

"To date, IBMP has sent 65,000 bottles of breast milk to South
Africa. This amount of “liquid gold,” as Youse calls it, has the
ability to feed 2,188 babies for a month. If you do the math, it’s easy
to see that there’s still a need for milk. Youse and two thousand other
mothers are determined to meet this demand.

"The
idea of donating milk first came to Youse after her daughter was born
and she had a freezer full of breast milk. Not wanting the food to go
to waste, she turned to Google. Youse soon found an orphanage in South
Africa that needed donor milk. After personally sending her milk to
Durban, South Africa, Youse had no idea that her actions would turn
into an international nonprofit.

"“I didn’t think, ‘Oh I’m going to go start a nonprofit organization
and start a worldwide movement. I just thought, ‘This is a simple
solution. I have a whole lot of something, and here’s this baby that
has nothing. Certainly this is least I can do,’” says Youse.

News of this unique donation quickly spread, and mothers started
calling Youse asking where to send their milk. When the Oprah show
called and left a message on her cell phone Youse didn’t believe it. “I
didn’t return their call because I thought it was my best friend
playing a joke. When I got the second message I looked at the area code
and thought, ‘I better call back.’ And it was a good thing that I did,”
Youse explains. After Oprah gave her approval of IBMP,
the 10 donating mothers turned into 1,500, the IBMP website quit
functioning and Youse’s inbox was overwhelmed with new inquiries."

Is it typical for national politicians to endorse City Council candidates? This year it certainly is. First we had Howard Dean endorsing both Josh Skaller and Brad Lander in the same race in the 39th district.

And now Senator Charles Schumer will endorse Stephen Levin for City Council in the 33rd district.  I'm wondering how this came about.

You know, of course, that young Levin is the nephew of both Carl Levin, the Senior United States Senator from Michigan and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Congressman Sander Levin, Democratic representative from the 12th congressional district in Michigan.

Levin is also chief of staff for Assemblyman Vito Lopez's probably one of the most demonized—and powerful Democratic figures in Brooklyn.

Today there's a press conference at Borough Hall. More later.

Celebrate Brooklyn has outdone itself this time. Tonight at 7:30. Gates open at 6:30. Hope the rain stops. But it is purple rain, after all.

Gates at 6:30 pm

Though only taken yesterday, something about the crude basket (basketball's origins) seemed evocative of a bygone era.

Photo by Tom Martinez

  The Brooklyn Botanic Garden Greenbridge Community Horticulrural Program announced this morning that Lincoln Road between Rogers and Bedford Avenue in Lefferts Gardens is the 2009 Greenest Block in Brooklyn in the residential category. The award goes to the Lincoln Road R&B Block Association for all their hard work and good gardening. 

And boy does that block deserve the award. They do some serious gardening over there and I've got the iPhone pictures to prove it.

What I liked best is that they've created curbside gardens meaning they've cut out large areas of sidewalk and planted there. Not only is this gorgeous but it reduces storm water overflow and that's a good thing.

Borough President Marty Markowitz was on hand to lend some clever word-smithing:

Second place tie in the residential category:

East 25th Street Block Association for East 25th between Clarendon Road and Avenue D. in East Flatbush

Vanderveer Place Block Association for Vanderveer Places between Flatbush and East 23rd Street.

In the Commercial Category:

1st place: Mid-Atlantic Block Assocation for Atlantic Avenue between Bond and Nevin Streets, Couth Side, Boerum Hill.

Best Street Tree Beds:

1st place: McDonought/Macon/Stuyvesant/Lewis Block Association for MacDonought Street between Stuyvesant and Lewis Avenues in Bed-Stuy.

Greenest Storefront:

1st place: General Greene, 229 Dekalb Avenue at Clermont Avenue
2nd place: Burrito Bar on Flatbush Avenue
3rd place: Tom's Restuarant
3rd place tie: Habana Outpost in Fort Greene

Verse Responder, Leon Freilich, saw this in the Daily News. It was the second emergency landing in three days and a faulty light is being blamed.

Hey, if you were there, send us your report.

A helicopter made an emergency landing in Prospect Park on Tuesday, its second unscheduled touchdown in three days.

Police said the "precautionary landing" happened just before 1a.m. yesterday in one of the park's ball fields.

The
pilot noticed a light blinking on the control panel and, rather than
continue flying, chose to land and have the chopper tested, a police
spokesman said.

"Most of the people thought it was for a movie because so many movies are filming in Park Slope right now," said dog-walker Johanna Clearfield, who lives nearby.

What a difference a day makes.

 Today at 8am Lincoln Place between 7th and 8th was quiet as a clam. Compared to yesterday when it was in police lock down because a mentally deranged woman barricaded herself in her apartment at number 225.

The tense situation was resolved by 1:30 p.m. yesterday when the police were finally able to remove the woman from her apartment. Her name has not been released.

There were more than ten police vehicles on the block, including a SWAT team and a hostage van. Neighbors, reporters and passers-by stood across the street from the building talking about what was going on.

A tenent of the building  told me that the woman, who is said to be an opera
singer, was in an accident 20 years and suffered some kind of head
trauma. "When she's on her meds she's fine. But when she goes off…"

The woman shook her head. "I don't think she has a gun. I feel for her husband. He looked terrible when he came out."

You know that tiny storefront on Berkeley Place between 7th and 6th Avenue?  For a couple of years it was Zuzu's Petals (they called it Little Zu). And before that a furniture store. And before that…

I forget.

Now one of my favorite Slope cafes, Cafe Regular, has opened a second branch in that spot. The 11th Street Cafe Regular has been quietly thriving for at least five years now. It is also in a tiny storefront on the south side of a residential street (11th Street between 5th and 4th Avenues).

They obviously go for tiny storefronts on residential streets.

The Berkeley Place Cafe Regular, like the one 11th Street, has casual/elegant, Euorpean vibe. The walls are painted dark brown, there's a funky chandelier, the ceiling has a wild distressed paint treatment and there are a bunch of tables inside and out.

The 11th Street Regular offers back issues of the Times LIterary Supplements for perusal and other interesting magazines as well.

The menu is simple. Excellent coffee, breads and sweet rolls, hard boiled eggs and that's pretty much it. It's all written out on a mirror a al a French bistro. Today the cafe on Berkeley was quite crowded at 8 in the morning.

That's right. At 10 am I will be reporting from the Greenest Block in Brooklyn.

It happens every summer. At least it's been happening for the last 15 years. And today's the day. Last year it a block in Park Slope (8th Street between 8th and PPW) got the award. This year?

I know, you don't. Because I'm sworn to secrecy until 10am.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s GreenBridge community environmental horticulture program will announce the winners of the 15th annual Greenest Block in Brooklyn Contest.

This year more than 250 blocks—the most ever—participated in the borough-wide greening effort.
Contest winners were selected through a rigorous process by an expert panel of judges that included professional horticulturists from Brooklyn Botanic Garden, metro area horticulture professionals, gardening journalists, and other New York City greening organizations.

First Prize is a $300 check for each top residential and commercial block winner. All other finalists will receive cash prizes ranging from $100–$200. Best Community Garden Streetscape, Best Window Box, Greenest Storefront, and Best Street Tree Beds winners will receive cash prizes or gardening tools, and all participants will be awarded a recognition certificate.

 
 Published August 3, 2009

   CYCLER REASONING

A really big wheel

Told me something that I like:

Buy a hundred-dollar lock

And a fifty-dollar bike.

I did as he suggested

–Already I’m reminiscing —

Day 1, the bike was secure,

The lock, however, was missing.

                            Leon Freilich

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/nyregion/03diary.html?ref=nyregion

Update at 1:23 p.m.: The situation is still tense on Lincoln Place. Police cars and trucks fill the street and in the courtyard of 225 Lincoln Place police are setting up netting to add to add to the air mattress they installed hours ago. 

Police are trying to communicate with the woman who is barricaded in her apartment. Police officers on the roof of the building are dangling a microphone down in front of one of her windows.

Reporters and photographers from the Daily News and the Post wait on the street below for something to happen. Neighbors are shaking their heads saying how sad this is. Many are asking the same question: why do they need so much man power for this situation, which is basically a suicide watch.

Earlier: This morning at 8:30 when I walked east on Lincoln Place between 7th and 8th Avenue in Park Slope, I noticed a few police cars and an ambulance. I asked one of the cops what was going on.

"Someone's not feeling well," he said with the brevity of a New York City police officer.

It's 11:30 am and the street is now closed to traffic; there's a police line on the north side of the street closing the sidewalk off pedestrians. There are more than ten police, ambulance and fire vehicles crowding the street. Another police officer was willing to say, "There's  a problem with a crazy lady." A bystander laughed. "I think they've overreacting unless she has an Uzi."

As I got closer to 233 225 Lincoln Place, a tidy brown brick coop with a Chippendale style entrance, I spoke to a man who lives in the building.

"She's crazy," he told me. "This morning at 7am I heard banging. It was her and her husband. It's very sad." This man, who lives downstairs from her, told me that the police were in his apartment to learn the layout.

It's amazing the amount of police power that is on Lincoln Place right now.

Another neighbor told me that the woman, who is said to be an opera singer, was in an accident 20 years and suffered some kind of head trauma. "When she's on her meds she's fine. But when she goes off…"

The woman shook her head. "I don't think she has a gun. I feel for her husband. He looked terrible when he came out."

Apparently she's been committed to mental institutions numerous times. Ray, a local dog trainer, who has a client in the building saw the woman, who lives in apartment 4E, last week. "She was knocking on doors on the 5th floor and bothering people," he said. According to Ray, who says he has a degree in Forensic Psychology, "the woman behaves like someone who is schizophrenic/bi-polar." She told him that her husband has cancer.

Clearly, the police seem to think she's a real threat to herself, her husband or her neighbors (although they have not evacuated the building). She may have been holding her husband hostage because a hostage vehicle is parked front of the building and neighbors saw him being ushered out into the vehicle where he is now. They've set up an air mattress in the courtyard (in case she jumps) and there are two gurneys set up in front of the building.

Some kids in the building next door said she was banging the pipes with a hammer. Everyone seems to know about the crazy woman in that building.

The doorman of 235 Lincoln Place told me that his building hired this woman to garden their tree pods. I remember seeing a heavy set woman with a shopping cart who used to work for hours on those tree pods. Apparently when tenents complimented her work she would curse at them and say very nasty things.  

She no longer gardens their tree pods. 

The Brooklyn Paper just posted this list of changes on Seventh Avenue.

• Cohen’s Optical opened near Seventh Street in what was formerly a gynecologist’s office.

• Big Apple Cleaners has opened between Fourth and Fifth Streets, replacing Knotting Slope, a knitting supply store.

• A new Turkish restaurant called Istanbul has opened in place of the defunct NoNo Kitchen near Seventh Street.

• The Cabinet Shop on the corner of Eighth Street has closed.

• Chickadee Chick, a fast-food-like poultry purveyor, is coming soon near First Street.

• The Laundromat that stood on the corner of Eighth Street for
decades is being renovated and will open as a seafood restaurant this
fall.

• Ha Na Bi, the Japanese-Peruvian restaurant at First Street, and the Grecian Corner diner, at Fourth Street, are undergoing renovations. Both claim they will reopen.

• Elementi, an Italian restaurant near Garfield Street that replaced the decades-old Snooky’s Pub only last year, has shut. A “For Rent” sign in the window hawks the location as suitable for another restaurant.

• Little D Eatery
near 15th is gone, and a Mexican restaurant called Fonda, owned by Chef
Roberto Santibanez of the Rosa Mexicano restaurants in Manhattan, is
moving in.

AUG 6-20 at the BAM ROSE CINEMA:

August 6-20: Cary Grant Festival at BAMcinematek, includes I'm No Angel, Holiday, Notorious, Suspicion, Philadelphia Story, To Catch A Thief, Only Angels Have Wings and more.

AUGUST 8 at HISTORIC PLYMOUTH CHURCH IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS:

First day back  at my office in Park Slope. After two weeks in Block Island and Sag Harbor, re-entry is hard. I was so focused on my book that I had to pull away from the blog a bit.

And now there's so much to report on I don't know where to begin. Luckily it's the middle of the summer and there's usually less news. But there's always news in Brooklyn.

Here's my list of upcoming stories:

–More on Post Office closures

–Mayoral candidate Tony Avella's Breakfast-of-Candidates profile.

–A special report on Berkeley Carroll plans to build new building where their one story gymnasium is currently housed on Lincoln Place.

–Tidbits on the 33rd and 39th City Council Race, including news that Green party candidate Pechefsky has 3,000 signatures, he needs 4,500.

The Brooklyn Paper reports that the mayor wants to see express subway service on
the F line. Trouble is he has no control over the MTA. 

Mayor Bloomberg called for the creation of express subway service on
the F line, one of the most crowded routes in Brooklyn, as part of a
larger campaign announcement calling for a multitude of mass transit
improvements around the city.

“Now is the time to act,” the third-term-seeking mayor said in a statement.

Physically, the mayor’s F-line call could be enacted relatively
simply by the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority because
there’s an unused track for a zippier ride through stations in Cobble
Hill, Carroll Gardens and Park Slope en route to Coney Island.
Bloomberg also called for the extension of the V train, which
terminates in Manhattan, to run on the F line out to Coney Island for a
one-two punch that Brooklyn hasn’t seen since Jim Gilliam and Pee Wee
Reese were at the top of the World Series-winning Dodgers lineup in
1955.

Express trains could stop at currently unused platforms at Bergen
and Carroll streets beneath the existing ones, but they would skip
Smith-Ninth Streets and Fourth Avenue before stopping again at Seventh
Avenue in Park Slope. From there, they would bypass the Prospect Park
and Fort Hamilton Parkway stations en route to Church Avenue in
Kensington.

Read more at the Brooklyn Paper

At the Gateway Wildlife Refuge, a red-winged blackbird flying out over the marsh (the trail leads
through dense undergrowth and then opens up to an expansive vista).

Photo by Tom Martinez

According to the Postal Service, there is only one post office (probably that means in Brooklyn but it's not completely clear) that is currently being considered for closing but no decision has yet been made.  If a decision is made to close a post office, elected officials will be advised and a public forum will be held before the closing is final.  The post office is being considered for closing is probably not in the 11th Congressional District (that's Congresswoman Clarke's district), which includes the 7th Avenue Post Office. 

All this information comes from correspondence between Rami Metal, Community Liason of Council Member David Yassky's office, who contacted the office of Congresswoman Yvette Clarke in response to an inquiry from RK Dillion, a constituent, about the possible closing of the Post Office on 7th Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Streets.  Deanna Bitteti of Congresswoman Clarke's staff passed along Congresswoman Clarke's response.  That chain of correspondence is below:

[From Rami Metal]: Hello Mr. Dillon.  Thank you
for writing to us regarding the potential closure of the post office on 7th Ave.  As the post office is a federal thing I
reached out to Congresswoman Yvette Clarke's office for some
clarification.  Deanna Bitteti forwarded her response to me and I've
attached it here for you:

Please let constituents know that our
office has been in touch with USPS and they are conducting a feasibility study
to determine if any post offices should be closed (based upon revenue streams,
foot traffic and other criteria) but USPS has told me that the number is grossly
overstated and that as of now they are looking at only ONE post office for
closure (but would not release the name as the decision has not been finalized,
however they do not believe it is located in the 11th Congressional
district).  Also, once a decision is made they will notify electeds and the
public and a public forum must occur to garner feedback from the community
before anything is done or any closure takes place.

I have asked that as soon as any
decision is made for USPS to call me and fax over the decision letter and I will
keep in touch with them on this issue. I know I have received calls regarding
Newkirk Station and I have received calls regarding Prospect Park West Retail
station and have made inquiries but been told the same thing by usps on several
occasions. The Letter Carrier Union is publicizing this to local news media and
constituents and asking them to call their Congress Members, and we are aware of
these concerns and are watching this with great
attention.
Please feel free to pass along my email
and contact if people would like to reach out to me to discuss this further. I
know the member will do all she can to prevent this from occurring for our
constituents and the letter carriers that could potentially lose their jobs if
this occurs.

Best,

Deanna

If you have any further question
please feel free to reach out to either myself or Deanna.  She can be
reached at Deanna.Bitetti@mail.house.gov.

From:  RK Dillon
Sent: Fri 7/31/2009 5:15 PM
To: Yassky, David

Can  you make noise about the
proposed closing of the post office on 7th Av. between 2nd & 3rd St.s? 
I can't believe it's not a profit center: the queue is out the door almost every
time I go & there can't be many employees since so few windows (often only
one) stay open.  The little storefront gets traffic from both 11217 &
11215 & it's a long trek to either Plaza Station or Van Brunt just to mail
parcels or buy stamps if you don't have parcels to pick
up.

Thanks,
R. K. Dillion

Here's this week's Smartmom from the Brooklyn Paper:

When the Oh So Feisty One told Smartmom that she didn’t want to go
to sleepaway camp this summer, Smartmom wasn’t all that surprised.

OSFO had already endured two sleepaway summers — and lived to tell
the tale. The first camp was, Smartmom now admits, a tad too rustic. It
was the kind of place that Smartmom might have liked as a girl, so she
thought it would be a life changing experience for OSFO.

Transformational.

It was an all-girls camp in Vermont with wilderness training and
bunks that were basically lean-tos (no windows, no doors). Suffice it
to say, they told parents to pack mosquito netting.

Mosquito netting. Get the picture?

Oh, and it was a politically progressive, feminist camp with a daily
Quaker meeting. Smartmom was excited for the spiritual enlightenment
that would arise out of a summer like this.

During those two weeks, Smartmom got not one letter from her child.
She worried. She stressed. She wondered if she had been killed by a
band of mosquitoes.

When OSFO got off the bus in Manhattan after two rainy, mildewy
weeks at camp, Smartmom could tell that her experience was less than
stellar.

“We’ll talk about it later,” OSFO whispered as they got into a car service to take them back to Brooklyn.

In the days that followed, Smartmom heard more and more about this
special camp. According to OSFO, the food was “delicious,” the lefty
folk songs were “fun to sing” (Mom, did you ever hear of Kumbaya?) and
the backpacking adventure on the Appalachian trail was “a highlight.”

So what was wrong with the place?

Smartmom isn’t sure. But she wasn’t crazy about her bunkmates and
the girl she met at camp from Cobble Hill was unbearably homesick and
that can be contagious. There was also that bear-sighting that scared
OSFO out of her mind.

All in all, it was not OSFO’s kind of place — and she would not be returning the next summer.

The next year, a friend suggested a well-regarded YMCA camp in Rhode
Island. OSFO checked the pictures on the Web site to make sure the
bunks had windows and doors.

Window and doors: Check.

It wasn’t a feminist place or politically progressive. It didn’t
have a spiritual component like that Quaker meeting thing that gets
Smartmom and other parents so excited.

In short, it was your basic fun camp with your basic fun activities:
swimming, dodgeball, tie dying and archery. And there was other fun
stuff, too like color war, dress up days, jacks and bunk-wide pranks.

Most important, the girls in OSFO’s bunk bonded, and nights were
like an endless slumber party complete with spider sightings, shadow
puppets and sharing someone’s box of Cap’n Crunch.

So why didn’t she want to go back? Smartmom isn’t really sure. A
good camp friend couldn’t go the same weeks as OSFO so that might have
put a damper on it.

The Park Slope buddy who she went to camp with last year chose a different camp this year. Maybe that was the problem.

Or maybe she just forgot how much fun she had last year. Twelve months is a long time.

Whatever the reason, Smartmom wasn’t going to force her little baby to go anywhere she didn’t want to go.

No, no, no.

Except for one huge problem. Smartmom was so eager for OSFO to
return to that camp she’d paid for the camp in full. In December.

Smartmom was stressing. That was $1,200 bucks down the drain — money out the window if she didn’t talk her daughter into camp.

And what about Smartmom’s solo writing week on Block Island, the
week in heaven that was contingent on OSFO being at camp? Surely,
Smartmom couldn’t go away by herself if her daughter was hanging out
with nothing to do in Brooklyn.

Well, Smartmom tried and tried and tried but she couldn’t get her
feisty daughter to change her mind. The more she told her that she was
going to be oh so bored, the more determined OSFO was to prove her
wrong.

So Smartmom did what any smart mom would do. She called the camp and very nicely asked for her money back.

And guess what? She didn’t get it all back. But she did get half
back and the other half is a campership for some kid who really wants
to go to camp, but can’t afford to pay full tuition.

Smartmom thought the camp director was unbelievably nice and reasonable. She thanked him profusely.

So the matter was settled except for one itty bitty problem. What
was OSFO going to do while Smartmom was in Block Island for eight days?

She came along.

And that, dear readers, is the topic of next week’s column.

Eric McCLure, of Park Slope Neighbors, adds to the list of people to get in touch with about the post office closings;

Contact Yvette Clarke and Chuck Schumer.

Clarke: http://clarke.house.gov/contactform_zipcheck.shtml or (718) 287-1142.

Schumer: http://schumer.senate.gov/new_website/contact.cfm or (212) 486-4430.

Here are the names I posted yesterday:

Next:
Councilmembers David Yassky and Bill deBlasio, who both represent parts
of Seventh Avenue, should be on the case. They might also want to explain to locals what's going on.

And then: Craig Hammerman, District Manager of Community Board 6, could also be of help.

From there: The Mayor.

Maybe some of the City Council candidates have some BIG IDEAS about how to stop this from happening.

And then there's Bill C. Thompson and Tony Avella, candidates for Mayor.

Hellooooooooo out there. Anyone know how to stop this???? Anyone want to explain what's going on?

Once again Barnes and Noble has upped the ante and added another reason why people should go there rather than indie bookstores.

Complimentary free Wi-Fi.

According to a B&N press release, with complimentary Wi-Fi, the local bookstore is your home away from home. Check your email, have a cup of coffee, and most importantly browse ebooks in their new online bookstore.

Oh I get it.

Questions: Do Community Bookstore, Bookcourt and the upcoming Greenlight Bookstore in Ft. Greene want to be free Wi-Fi destinations? Is that what a bookstore should be?

It can mean people hanging out using their computers. But are they actually buying books? Do the indie booksellers need to copycat what the big giant is doing or can they just keep on keeping on. Maybe people will be happy that there are still traditional bookstores that aren't Wi-Fi media centers.

One of the Park Slope 100 and an OTBKB fave shop, Scaredy Kat , is celebrating its 10th Anniversary with a new location for their store.

Their new, bigger digs is located at 232 5th Avenue in Brooklyn right across the street from their previous location. The new store has almost twice the square footage, which means they have even
more fun cards and gifts. Plus that
new roominess comes with the added bonus of more space to move around
in –

How fab is that?

Best of all they are giving away FREE Moon Pies to all who come in to celebrate the opening until August 16th:

Here's the note from the owners Damond and Nora:

The 92YTribeca is celebrating its
first anniversary with a host of special events. A highlight will be a showing of BQE, a a film version of Sufjan Steven’s 40-minute symphonic and cinematic exploration
of New York
’s Brooklyn-Queens Expressway,

Of
course, at 92YTribeca, it’s not just about one element; we’re
making the whole night a Sufjan Stevens-experience. Osso, the string quartet with a modernist
pulse, performs interpretations of
Stevens’ eccentric electronica album, Enjoy
Your Rabbit (which is based on the animals of the Chinese Zodiac).
The group appeared on Stevens’ 2005 Come
On! Feel the Illinoise! and Songs
for Christmas albums, and has collaborated and performed with an array
of artists, including Jay-Z, Alice and Ravi Coltrane, The
New Pornographers, Antony and the Johnsons, The Polyphonic
Spree , The National, Devotchka and Kanye West.

For
more information about the event, visit www.92YTribeca.org

I just heard from my neighbor artist Bernette Rudolph that the Seventh Avenue Post Office is closing.

Questions.
Is it being renovated, relocated or what?

Hey it's not the most efficient P.O. in the world but it's still a P.O.

Speaking of Bernette, her wonderful graphic prints are on display at the new La Bagel Delight on Seventh Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets.