The never-ending program.

I am constantly haunted by my children's demands for programs on the weekends. And on holidays. And in the afternoons. Every day. Day after day.

To an extent, I am happy to oblige - many of our "outings" as a family end up being wonderful days and we all feel fulfilled, happy to have spent the day together, with family and sometimes friends.

The programs mostly include a meal outside, meeting friends, inviting friends, walks, bike rides, kite sessions, museums and parks and such. And according to the weather, and the fullness of the weekend schedule, they are more or less the same.

Add, however, the finicky basketball schedule of Arda's, a birthday party, someone (mostly myself) ill or miserable (with sun allergies), the terrible awful horrible no good senseless traffic for no good reason but the sun shining, the result is chaos and me screaming off the top of my lungs to just let me stay home. And sleep. Or watch TV. Preferably with a soccer game on.

After speaking to the boys about the limits of programs and my limits of sanity yesterday (ok, there was yelling involved, I admit) they were quietly playing with their toys and drawing today. Never even once asked for a program. My husband must have felt guilty that after basketball practice, he took them grocery shopping and bought the most unneeded yet essential items ever: almonds, ice cream cones, chocolate, a watermelon, 3 green apples and cocoa puffs.

We are determined to go to the beach or the forest next weekend close to the city. It's a 3 day weekend, May 1st is finally a legal holiday!

It's sad, I would have loved to take my children along to the protests, show them that the righteousness and purity of labor is something to celebrate, not frown upon or worse, look down on. No way. Never in İstanbul.

Sweet Home

When we moved into this apartment 7 years ago, we had a hard time going to sleep because it was so quiet. For many years, we lived in Midtown Manhattan, then for our last few months in NYC, we were on the Upper East Side, very close to Memorial Sloan Kettering and another hospital whose name escapes me. We were so used to the ambulances the clanking of trashcans the fire trucks the police cars and pointlessly loud and yelling people that for our first few nights in İstanbul, we were surprised to hear boat horns in the mist and stray cats and seagulls, whereas our mornings were filled with birds chirping and freshly cut grass.

The "ful" flowers in the garden smells sickly sweet in May and when we wind is blowing just right we even feel the salt from the sea just a few blocks away.

It's hard to even imagine moving. Though moving is the best way to get rid of stuff. My next project: clean the storage in the garage and give everything away so there'll be space for the bikes.

ps.; Karaoke night was awesome.

Keeping Busy

There are days when I think to myself "all I want to do is sit in front of the TV and watch reruns of EL Raymond." Really. I love that show. And those are the days when I barely have time to use the bathroom.

Take this past Sunday. Here's what happened:
-Take Arda to basketball practice (Burak takes Tunca to Freedom Park, at the same time)
- Go to a birthday party for Arda's friend from basketball team
- Meet relatives (waiting in front of our house for us to arrive because we had to watch the birthday kid blow the candles)
- Leave an hour later to another friend's house
- Ditch another friend whom we had promised to meet at the beach in the afternoon because of the traffic (and, they served us mini quiches and whiskey and wine and cheese platters - who could leave that?)
- Arrive home with two very hungry and dirty kids after driving in the usual Sunday evening traffic which makes a 10 minute drive into an hours drive.
- Feed, wash and put the kids to bed.
- Collapse after watching the last two episodes of Lost. What is the deal with Jack's dad by the way?

Fun fun fun.

My brother says my blog is pointless and not very informative. Here's what you should learn from this post: we have really cool friends who serve us whiskey, traffic in İstanbul sucks so don't go out unless you have to, and it's rude to invite people over and have them wait for you to arrive at your home. And make your beds in the mornings. Yes.

Mother's Day, Italian style, during Formula 1

Mother's Day came and went fabulously. The "new" tradition for the past few years have been to gather all the family in my sister-in-law Zeynep's mom's house in Sapanca, have lunch and just hang out. This year, there were 24 of us.

Here's the list of who's who:
My family (4)
My brother's family (3)
My parents (2)
Hubby's parents (2)
My uncle (1)
SIL's parents (2)
SIL's brother's family (3)
SIL's SIL's sister's family (3)
SIL's SIL's dad (1) (her mom passed away a few years ago)
Both my grandmothers (2)
One grandmother's caretaker/companion (1)

The lunch was wonderful, activities included eating a lot, then eating more, and after dessert, eating more. The children played soccer in the nearby field while adventurous adults made attempts to catch a frisbee in between 8 courses of salads, appetizers, meat, more meat, more meat, even more meat, fried zucchini and calamari .

Highlights of the day included getting stuck in traffic for hours because some smart ass thought that Mother's Day would be the greatest time to schedule a Formula 1 race in Istanbul, because, you know, all Turkish mothers would like a gift of a golden pass for Formula 1. I actually might have enjoyed it, come to think of it.

The necklace that Arda had made when he was in preschool 3 years ago now has a matching twin, made by Tunca, but this new one has feathers. "Feathers. Like bird feathers. But we didn't pluck them off birds. Teachers have to do that on their own."

I'm waiting for my brother to upload his pictures to .mac (my new favorite these days) so he can show off his new camera - more pictures to come.

Once Upon a Time in New York

I must have written about New York. I should have.

While cruising, from page to page, I came across Bryant Park's website tonight. The same park where my first son went to for his first "outing" when he was 6 days old and took his first steps when he was 11 months old. The same park we listened to a good friend of ours play Paganini's Variations, in shorts, just a few days before his debut at the New York Philharmonic, then a few months later, listened to Sarah MacLaughlin rehearse the night before her concert, just for us. The same park that I walked through at all hours of the night coming home from the Grace Building (because I worked right across the street from where I lived, you don't get that lucky anywhere in the world). The same park with incredible views from our first -and only- apartment we owned.

See where it says 32 West 40th Street? That's the Engineer's Building. That's where we used to live.
I miss New York so much sometimes, especially days like these when I struggle to find an entertaining, informative, and logistically not impossible activity for the children.
Or days when I seem to search and search for that perfect little something and I am sure it must exist in New York, and yes, maybe it is here in İstanbul as well but traffic, chaos or simply faith forbids me to find it (yes, we do finally have Manolo here, and no, that's not what I'm talking about).

I will post about the incredible stuff we do here in Istanbul as well - we play tourist a lot, and enjoy Istanbul to its fullest extent. Just don't make us drive too much.

THE vacation.

Well, it was an interesting one.

It started out with my brother calling and saying both he and my nephew were sick, so they would probably arrive two days later. Then our flight was delayed for more than two hours in the shittiest airport seen on the face of the earth. Then we arrived to NOT drizzling, but pouring rain, at the hotel, exhausted, and found out the rooms we requested right in front of the playground were being renovated and we were to stay somewhere else in the village... All this aside, we got our towels, bathing suits and walked under pouring rain to the enclosed pool - with every step we got closer, Burak said he had a bad feeling and guess what - NO POOL! Well, the pool was there but the cover ceiling thingy flew off in a storm four months ago and they never got to fix it and yes, forgot to mention it.

So here we were in pouring rain, with stupid towels in our hands and our bathing suits underneath. Instead of the pool we decided to have lunch and take pictures while we looked for a- another hotel with an indoor pool, or b- a flight back home!

Check out the storm outside!

The kids refused both ideas vehemently, so we decided to ask the reception to send us a golf cart to take us to the pool in the spa. Now this is a very hoity toidy spa that has a nice indoor pool, lots massage and facial/treatment rooms, a big Turkish bath, saunas, jacuzzis and what have you. And you're supposed to be quiet there. Ha ha good luck with that one with my children! Might as well ask them to read Peace and War (edit - thanks dad, see how well read I am? War and Peace). From memory.

Upon entering, we asked whether we would disturb anyone (usually, no children under 18 allowed, and that's not because of naked people walking around) but they assured us that since the other pool was closed we were more than welcome to use this one and no one would mind.

So our adventure began, and the kids were actually very quiet (compared to their usual decibels). Oh, they were also the only children in the whole hotel anyways.

The next day was the same, lots of rain, lots of time alternating between the pool, the jacuzzi, the hamam, but they opened the mini club for the kids and they made t-shirts, painted and played mini golf and board games with Tanja, a very nice Belgian woman who spoke English as well as a little bit of Turkish.

Let there be sunshine. Now! Please!

Tunca had various mishaps, as did Arda, lots of falling, getting muddy, splinters etc but we were able to only picture Tunca's wonderful fall into a pool of mud after a jet speed slide ride, being the wonderful parents we are. I still can not stop laughing. We should have taped it.


The next two days were wonderful and sunny, and we even got to make dams (no, my children are truly realistic and do not build castles, signed, sanctimommy) in the sand.



My brother and his son Ali joined us on Monday and as my brother put it, the whole vacation was like a three day (five for us) birthday party for the kids - they have a great time and you just sit around being bored. I actually had a very relaxing time, even finished a whole book, but my sun allergies did not help at all, have always been very adamant about making me miserable. But such is life.

Luggage

I love the mayhem in luggage claim areas in airports. A recent terrifying experience I've had was this: while trying to get the boys to sit still (yeah, right, they've been sitting still for hours!) I was frantically having day-nightmares (what's the word for that?) that a stranger would mistake my suitcases with his/hers and I would be stuck with someone elses bags minus all the stuff I meticulously packed. And believe me, I really packed - two separate suitcases for 4 people for 8 days, three hotels, skiing etc. So the thought of losing our stuff wasn't what freaked me out, but the thought of having to go through the whole packing process and not getting anything good out of it did.

Someone found a somewhat applicable solution to ease fears such as mine. It's not a phobia. Really.


My favorite is "you won't look good in my clothes." He hee.



They're very cute and available for purchase from Bright & Bold - but when everyone buys them I would be left alone with my (no matter how baseless) fears of mistaken suitcases. Again, it's not a phobia. And it will never happen to me.

All By Myself

The total amount of "me" time in my life is increasing exponentially. This has to do not only with both kids going to school, but also through my own recognition (at the ripe age of 33) of the fact that I, actually, am happy hanging out by myself. I, actually, do not guilty about not doing housework (or any kind of work for that matter) anymore.

After three days of being stuck at home due to the wonderful snowfall in İstanbul, I went to a movie. People look at you strangely when you're at the movies by yourself. A couple, obviously more interested in making out than watching the movie ("get a room," I could say, but didn't, 'cuz hey, this is Turkey and you can't get a room if you're not married, and I can just scoot over a few seats and not be bothered), looked at their tickets, looked at my seat, looked back at their tickets, looked to the empty seat on my right, looked back at me again and just as I was contemplating whether I sat at the wrong seat, said that "oh, we didn't know you're alone."

Instead of a teary trailer of lonely days, having tea by myself with a sad face, looking at books and magazines in a store all alone while "All By Myself" plays in the background, a similar trailer came on with me dancing in Carrefour aisles humming "Patricia the Stripper."

I love hanging out by myself! I don't have to wait for anyone else looking at books that I'm not interested in, or nail polish shopping for that matter. There are times that I spend with friends doing exactly those as well. Just not all the time. (OK - I never went nailpolish shopping with a friend, but it could happen with my kokoş friends one day. Soon!)