Bilot

If you happen to be along London Road or McDonald Road in Edinburgh on Saturday morning, or Portobello Road/Moira Terrace/Inchview Terrace (I don’t get why the name of the road changes so frequently) on a Sunday morning, you may see me and my crew.

Me, in front, on my red bike, my yellow reflective vest and my (terrible) grey helmet; our 6-year-old, in the rear, on her blue tagalong, with her pink reflective vest and her pink/white helmet; our 2-year-old, between us, in his bike seat, wearing his white helmet, that used to be a pink Disney Princess helmet, until the outer cover fell off.

We ride. Or, as our kid’s tagalong’s name is (no joke) Wee Ride!

Riding with two kids is hard. There’s the wanting to have a conversation while riding uphill and I’m completely out of breath; the nursery rhyme singing; the tantrums.

The hardest part though, is balance. One kid wants to see the police car going by and leans to the right and whole bike goes rightward. One kid decides he wants to act out the ‘The children on the bus jump up and down’ and the bike rocks. Both kids what to see each other (which I don’t see how is possible with out setup) and the bike sways from side to side.

It’s a skill to get around with them.

To add to it, I got a ‘new’ (used) bike about a month ago and the centre of balance with the kids on is higher than my old bike, so it’s been taking some getting used to.

As we were riding to Portobello a couple of weeks ago; as I was avoiding bumps in the road I saw coming up, avoiding glass and other debris on the the edge of the road, moving out of the way and waving cars to pass by us, I was thinking that to some very, very, small degree, this is what it must be like to be a pilot a commercial plane. A bilot, if you will.

The kids can’t see what I can see; they can’t steer, or break, or make the decision of when we leave from a stop. I am the one who does all that. But, because they are my kids, my goal is to get them from Point A to Point B, with as little pain or stress as possible, and hopefully no accidents along the way. This is what the aim of airline pilots is, is it not? Get passengers from Point A to Point B, with as little pain or stress as possible, and hopefully no accidents along the way.

I’ve been biking since I was very young (3 or 4), and I love it. I love the freedom and the speed. I’ve always been a bit reckless when I bike by alone. I have yet to tell our 6-year old the kind of bike stunts I was doing when I was her age, and don’t think I’ve told my parents either. I’m still a little reckless, but stay within the law; I don’t mind going over bumps; I often try to go as fast as possible, even to the point of regularly breaking the speed limit (20 mph) when riding down Leith Walk. I weave through traffic, when I think it’s safe enough to, and have been known to give a finger or two to drivers who think they own the road. I don’t do any of this with my kids (although our older kid likes to race other bikers when the toddler is not with us, so we do go fast from time to time).

With this mindset, I wonder what it would be like to be a commercial airline pilot, when they fly alone. Do they care about avoiding turbulence? I’m guessing not. Do they care if the plane tilts to one side sharply as it turns? Again, I’m guessing not. I’m guessing, as long as they know what they are doing isn’t going to lead to a crash, a little recklessness while flying solo, isn’t that big a deal.

So, last week, while biking to school with just our older kid, the bike slipped on the ice, and we fell off. I saw the ice, I saw the turn. I probably should have walked around the corner instead of trying to bike it. I was thinking like I solo flyer, and not one with a passenger.

The bilot messed up, and we had an accident. I got a number of cuts on my legs, as they scraped a pedal, the chain and the road beneath us; the wrist that broke my fall is still stiff.

Our kid was not hurt at all. I asked if she was ok and she said she was scared. She said she was scared to keep going, but I said it would be ok. I got her from Point A to Point B -- even with an accident -- without physical injury, but with some stress. I felt terrible.

As I picked her up from school at the end of the day, I asked how she was doing. She looked at me like she didn’t get why I was asking the question. I guess she was ok, and that made me feel better.

So, the next morning, even though it was still icy, we went to school the way we always to.

We(e) ride!

Me Blog Post!

Our toddler is now at a stage of language development where almost everything he says is in two-word sentences:

‘Daddy bike’ (Daddy is going on the bike)
‘Mommy office’ (Mommy is at her office)
‘Isla pasta’ (Isla has pasta)
‘Me anna’ (I want some banana)

The ‘Me’ thing is at the stage where it drives us all a little crazy. He wants to do everything himself, even things he’s clearly too short to do, like drive a car (‘Me car’). He then gets upset, sometimes to insane tantrum levels, if he can’t do it, or worse, if he can’t do it, and someone else does, like open the door using  door knob he can’t reach (‘Me door’).


He’s also at a stage where he has a one-track mind, and pays no attention to anything going on around him. I have to say, there are times I like this side of him, which our daughter has never had. I’ve been able to put away laundry, for 15-20 min, while he’s focused on some toy, or ball, or box, or something. While at dinner, he can be so focused on building a tower (‘Me tower’) with his cup (‘Me cup’), uncooked spaghetti (‘Me pasta’), a piece of pineapple (‘Me bapple’), and a plate ('Me plate') that still has food on it, that he doesn’t realise we are telling him to stop because the food is going to fall all over the place. When we have to grab the plate to prevent him from getting food everywhere, he will have a tantrum, shouting ‘Me plate! Me plate! Me plate!’.

He’s also at the stage where everything has to be just so. For the past several weeks, he only wants me to put him to bed, giving him his night time milk (‘Daddy milk’). Almost every night, we ask ‘Mommy milk?’, he says yes, then as soon as he’s in his room with Lauren, it has to be ‘Daddy milk’.

This is a long-winded blog post to get to a short story that happened about a week ago, that’s not even that funny, now that I’ve written all this.

About a week ago, we were at the kitchen table, our older kid was eating an orange. While eating, she asked him if that night it should be ‘Daddy milk’ or ‘Mommy milk’. He wasn’t paying attention; he was focused. She asked again; no response; he was staring dead on, completely focused on something. A third time she asked him and he finally answered: ‘Me orange!’

She didn’t give him any.

Tantrum ensued.

My Shir-Roma

For years, I have been writing about how much I don’t enjoy reading.

The only reading I regularly do these days are kids books (to my kids), sports articles, and film articles. I really enjoy following sports and film, even though I have very little time to watch either.

A couple of months ago I started hearing (via podcasts) and reading about two films that critics seemed to like. The thing about these films was that they were both available on Netflix (the only way I can watch films these days). I thought, I can actually watch these, even if I have to watch them in 20-min segments over several days.

Roma was released on Netflix on 14th December. I watched it on 17th December, and I was actually able to watch the entire film in one day (though in two segments). The film is in black and white, the opening shot is amazing, but then....I didn’t do anything for me. I can see how ‘film people’ would talk about the cinematography, the directing, how the the director was making a film in honour of the woman who took care of him as a kid. I get all that, I do, but, to be honest,  I thought the film was boring. It was slow-paced, didn’t have much of a plot, and I just didn’t think the main character was particularly interesting, for the film to be a good character study.

Needless to say, I was somewhat happy when, for the first time, I heard one critic who wasn't completely glowing over this movie, on a podcast I was listening to that she was a guest on. Thank you, Tasha Robinson.

Shirkers was also getting a lot of buzz. It won at Sundance; it’s been getting a lot of award nominations; it currently has a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. So when I saw it was also on Netflix, I thought, let’s do this.

This I could not watch in one day, but was able to watch in two.

It’s a fascinating story, and, on paper, should be a great documentary, but I found it very hard to get into it, mainly due to the narration. Something about the narrator’s tone (I should mention she’s also the director and the documentary is about her) was so annoying. I couldn’t put my finger on it, then I happened to come upon this review, which describes her narration as ‘self-pitying’ and that was it. That’s the issue I had with the film. I think, if she got someone else to narrate it, who was not so involved with the story of the documentary, and was narrated in 3rd person, it would have worked better for me.

That's my 2 cents on 2 films. I'm hoping I get to see more films in 2019 than I did in 2018.

I don’t know why my first blog post in over a year is about film criticism, but better that, than about books (since I’ve not read any non-kids books in over a year).