Snapshots in the City

There is no unifying theme to the following snippets from this past week, except to say that I guess our little family in the city is unlike any other:

* While Aaron's classmates' parents raved on and on about how articulate, creative, and progressive their kids are (the question posed at the back-to-school orientation was "what are you proud of about your child"), Amy said, "Aaron had to go to a special school because of behavioral issues, and I'm proud that he was one of the few kids to actually graduate out of the program."

* The other night, I went to the Y for a swim after the kids went to bed. Even though the bus there comes every 10 minutes, somehow I had to wait 22 minutes.

* Speaking of bus snafus, it took 22 minutes for my bus to go less than three miles last night, because of massive traffic. I arrived at my kids' school two minutes late. Note to self: walk the extra few blocks and take the subway if I'm ever cutting it close.

* Probably because our kitchen remodeling project has unsettled everything on the western side of our house, we had a major mouse infestation in our basement, which sent me out of the house on Amy's orders to go find some mouse traps. Even though it was relatively early (9:00), walking around some parts of our neighborhood is a little scary. By the way, I never did find any mouse traps.

* Sitting in Jada's desk at her back-to-school night with all of her classmates' parents, I could not help but notice how diverse her class is, with a pretty balanced mix of blacks, whites, Asian Americans, and recent immigrants from East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East.

* Amy's synopsis of her day at work as we all arrived home one evening: "Well, I got sexually harassed by an inmate again."