The Screaming Baby

Let me start by saying that I do not hate children.

Typically, I find kids to be cute and funny. Babies are sweet; toddlers and their endless curiosity remind most of us about something in ourselves… before we grew out of being fascinated by the smallest and most mundane things. With six younger siblings I spent my entire childhood surrounded by children. I like kids.

It was the screaming baby that got to me.

Yesterday morning, I went to a local restaurant for breakfast. I was minding my own business, attending to a frittata and coffee when in walked a couple with their small child. I’m guessing the kid was about a year old. He was cute enough, with his little outfit and a well-equipped stroller. Nothing that ensued was the baby’s fault; it was all the parents.

First the mother put the child in the middle of the table, bouncing him up and down and speaking some strange goo-goo language. Honestly, I’ve heard people exercise more dignity when speaking to their dogs. The baby didn’t do much, just shoved his little hand in his mouth.

Then the father took over. He picked the kid up, held him up in the air and shook him around a bit (at this point I’m wondering if this family has ever heard of foster care). The baby made a few noises and kicked his little feet. If that kid could talk he might have said: “Who are you morons?"

The baby sat quietly in the middle of the table and for a few minutes he was not the center of his parents’ antics. Then the scream came: a loud, high-pitched yelp. OK, this is when you put the kid in the stroller and give him a bottle to keep him busy. But no! The parents clapped and laughed. So of the course the baby screamed again. And again. And again. Mind you, the baby wasn’t crying; he didn’t appear to be in any pain; he was just yelping. He wasn’t about to stop because he’d figured out a way to get some positive feedback from the people who feed him. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, the little screams became unbearable.

A couple of patrons left. Then a potential customer walked in, heard the screaming, and made a quick exit before ordering. Finally, the father – and he started all this – got up and left, too! One might think that the baby would settle down but his screams got louder and more piercing. The mother laughed and started to look a little bit embarrassed, but not enough to leave or even give the child a pacifier.

I have to say, I feel for the screaming baby. I wonder, when he gets to first grade, how much of that bad behavior it will take before some other kid slugs him. And how old will he be before he realizes that the center of the table is where the food goes, not him? I’m not sure what the best term is for parents like these… the ones who use public places to show off just how cute, smart or "special" their little ones are. His parents remind me of the parents I see on the train, going overboard to (loudly) say to their children: “This is the Red Line. Do you know how to spell ‘red’?”

Give it a break, people. Children are not fashion accessories and no, the rest of us really don’t want to hear it.

Until next time,

Conna

Café Society

Last week I wrote about the closing of our café.

Now that's the sign that a café is real, and enduring: people can call it "our café."

Can you say that about a Starbucks? Or even a Peet's? (And I like Peet's.)

I'm here to report, six days later, it's still closed. The notice has been ripped away and all that is left is a corner spot in the middle of what could be the most expensive real estate in the Northeast. I cannot help but wonder what will come next. Will it be another café? (Good luck with that.) Will it be a little corner store? (We call them "conna stowas" here and they take work and personality to build, over the long run.) Will it be another boring boutique with $120 t-shirts? Oh, I hope not.

I have a good friend (love him, even though he has more degrees than a thermometer) who writes about what he calls "the cutesification of America." Remember Union Square in San Francisco? It used to be gritty; now it's an extension of well-known franchises. I'll bet that there are spots across the country that were once the center of somebody's hometown and now house yet another Starbucks or Rite-Aid.

As I mentioned earlier, I am in favor of the free market. I'm all about competition, and bringing jobs to depressed areas. And, trust me, after an excruciating engagement to someone who was stuck somewhere in the 1950s (with a wardrobe to match), I am entirely in favor of progress!

So the question is: how do we move forward without becoming caught up in being "cutesified"? Is there a way to grow and make progress without becoming so cookie-cutter that we are retro before it's cool to be retro?

I miss what's real.

Until next time,

Conna

Farewell, Paradiso

Oh, I never expected this.

My favorite café has closed. Not for remodeling, not for a summer break, but for good.

The other day, which happened to be a day when 25,000 extra people were wandering around Harvard Square (some guy named Bill Gates was speaking at commencement) I had to go to the post office. The post office and I have a tangled relationship. Anyway, on the way I like to stop at “Paradiso” – short for “Caffe Paradiso” – for an iced Americano and a little breather. But no: this is no longer an option. As I approached the café I noticed that the windows – and these are windows from which I have watched a world change during two decades – were covered with paper. There was a notice from the owner: the time had come, the lease was up, and it was over. I stood there, stunned. I felt like I’d lost a friend.

Caffe Paradiso has been a fixture on a corner of Harvard Square for as long as I can remember. In fact, I separate my years in this area of the world by my approach to Paradiso: when I was a student it was on my way from late classes; later, when my first office was in the heart of the square, Paradiso was on my way to work; when I started working at home, it was on my way to the post office; during my brief and ill-fated engagement when I didn’t work at all, Paradiso was on the way home from the ritzy gym where I attended the hated Pilates class. Lately, it’s been a place where I meet friends and have real, in-depth conversations that seem 1,000 miles away from the lonely reality of a writer’s life.

There were the evening espressos that should have kept me up but never did. The pre-dinner meetings at a place that was more sure and steady than any dinner plans. The early-morning walks through the snow to a place that stood steady and warm and welcoming. Ah, it’s gone now.

Oh, please, I hope that this spot is not filled with another Starbucks or Verizon store. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the free market and I happily shop at Target and would go to WalMart, too, if there were one close enough to my city home. But there’s something sacred about a corner café, and the memories there. There is a lot to be said for choosing a favorite spot and trekking there, even when New England weather was unbearably cold (I remember all those years when I swore, “This is my last winter in New England!”) or hot like a sauna. Boston’s never-ending roadwork meant only a slightly longer walk … around the block, past the jackhammers, who cared?

What was outside never mattered as much as what – and who – were inside did.

Until next time,

Conna

A Day Off

Ferris Bueller had the right idea: there's nothing like a day off.

A regular day of rest or Sabbath (the term "Sabbath" is derived from the Hebrew word for "to rest") is an almost universal observance. I say "almost" because for some people it's hard to stop long enough to take a day off, let alone to be able to relax and enjoy it. People like me.

The concept of taking time off has long been elusive to me. As a kid, I would pack up a tiny suitcase full of books and crafts to bring along wherever I went -- even the beach. All through school I studied for as many hours as I could stay awake. I've been making daily to-do lists for decades now, with a complex system of checks and arrows to move what did not get done to the next day or the day after that. All of this makes resting a little overwhelming. Somehow, it seems I wasn't programmed for "down time."

Yesterday, I took a full day off -- from work, from writing, from projects, from chores… I even got take-out for lunch and dinner. My entire to-do list went untouched (and unread) for 24 hours.

It was awesome!

I can hardly begin to explain how odd it felt to not have anything on my plate. (And with the take-out meals, I didn't even have a plate to worry about.) There was no place I had to be, no schedule to keep. I realize that most people reading this will think, "Yes, that's called a weekend." For some of us, though, weekends are extra days to catch up on to-do lists, to get ahead of the game for the coming week, and to relieve a bit of our sleep deficit.

Now that I've given taking a day off a try, I can highly recommend it. If, like me, you are one of the people who have not made a habit of taking a break from it all, definitely give it a try. The world will keep spinning, the laundry can wait, and the emails will be there in another day.

And somehow, it will all seem less urgent and more manageable.

Until next time,

Conna