the little dog laughed

Tail End

2009-08-11T22:51:00.000-07:00

N: ...blahblah...last three weeks of summer vacation.
H: Three weeks!?! But I want to go back to school now!

I reported that conversation to office manager at the kids' school and she informed me that school cannot start until she's done with her paperwork--so Hannah's now offered to go in and help with paperwork. She really wants to get back to school.

j (from the backseat of the car): I just read something without trying to!
N: Wow, that's awesome! That means you're really getting to be a great reader.
j: But.... I don't want to know how to read.

I don't quite know how to convey how devastated he sounded.

**************************
My summer home renovation project is nearing completion. That's another post though.

Start Somewhere

2009-07-20T21:00:00.001-07:00

Future Astronaut, originally uploaded by nrbp.

Today in the car I asked if anyone knew what had happened 40 years ago today.

J: Me! Me! Pick me!
N: Yes, John, then.
J: Men walked on the Moon.
j: (tuning in) What? Today? Why didn't anyone tell me? I would have wanted to watch that on NASA TV.

So Many Parentheses

2009-06-29T20:52:00.000-07:00

Wedding photography (speaking from my vast experience, hah!): fun, but a whole lot of work. I enjoyed myself for the most part (I love taking pictures), but it was hot (ceremony was held outside, high-noon, no shade) and I was close enough (through ties to most of the folks in the wedding party) to the center of activity to get pulled into some of the tensions. And I came home (tired) worried about my performance--doubting, in particular, that any of the shots of the ceremony had turned out well.

I didn't feel like going through the more than 1200 images I had had to scramble to store in 3 different places (long story with 2 heroes: my over-packing and my knight in shining armor, John). I knew I had some wonderful shots (a child mid-laugh; the bride's reflection in a mirror; the groom biting his lip; the bridesmaids scolding one of the flower girls in unison--this is where I shine), but those weren't going to be enough if I had botched the shot of the bride and her son walking down the aisle, the exchange of vows, the kiss--the things one hires a wedding photographer (one who knows what she is doing!) to document. At lunch, a friend went on and on about how beautiful the ceremony had been; I couldn't remember anything beyond how unusually fast my battery was draining and how that (stupid) guy's head had been in the way when I was trying to get a shot of the ring bearer handing over the rings.

(Figures, the one and only time I was without my camera over the weekend a family of river otters went swimming by.)

However, one does what one has been paid to do. And one discovers, to her utter delight, that things could be worse. I'm no wedding-wizard, to be sure, but there's not much I wanted that I didn't get (and I'm confident the bride and groom will be very happy).

(Given the right set of circumstances, I'd even be willing to do this again.)

With excitement like this, who is needing enemas?

2009-06-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

First: name that movie! We watched it with the children last week and they loved it.

Second: Hey! I know! I should blog more! Or, well, at all.

So. Summer. Here we are again. The kids are out of school. John is not teaching, but, as Jonah pointed out the other morning, "Dad's not really getting a summer vacation, is he?". University politics and budget woes don't take a break for the summer.

I am about to shoot my first wedding. A couple of friends asked me if I would do this for them some time ago and the big day is Saturday. They are getting married at a neat spot, right around the middle of nowhere somewhat East of here. We are camping out there Friday night; the kids are beyond excited; I need to get camping and camera gear together.

Other summer plans? No travel. Possibly some more short camping trips. Swimming lessons for the kids. Painting the dining room. Cleaning the barn. Blogging.

Suddenly, it was Inauguration Day

2009-01-20T21:01:00.000-08:00

We moved the television downstairs yesterday so that a couple of friends and I could watch the inauguration from the comfort of the living room couch like civilized folk. [Incidentally, I've been wanting to paint the salvaged piece of furniture we are using as a TV stand up in the bedroom for some time now and this proved to be the perfect opportunity. Also, the paint color? New Hope Grey.] I'm a sucker for pomp and for circumstance and for peaceful transfers of power even when we haven't been waiting for this day for so long; it was moving, delightful, fun.

Do you think "tis the gift to be simple" was meant in part as a tribute to the outgoing president?

I think all of the classrooms at the kids' school kept their televisions on until 10am (that's 1pm DC time). When I asked Jonah about watching Obama become president today he said that yes, they had, that he watched Yoyo Ma play the cello and that he liked getting to watch TV while they were doing their work. "Then," he told me, "we got to watch the workers tearing down our old playground. That was FREAKIN' AWESOME!"*

Heavy equipment scooping up pea gravel and yanking out metal structures; he will not soon forget what he saw on the day Barack Obama became president.

*For the record, that is not an expression we use in this household. When I relayed this story to his teacher, knowing she'd find it amusing, she said: "That's public education for you."

Election Season

2008-11-05T17:28:00.000-08:00

Winter :: Super Tuesday 2008 :: California Primary

H: Dad, who did you vote for?
J: Well, I don't have to tell anyone who I voted for, but did you have someone in particular you are hoping I voted for?
H: Ummm, yes, but I can't remember her name.

Spring :: Partisan Politics :: It comes down to one or the other

The kids and I are sitting at the table working on some project or another; NPR is on in the next room.
NPR: Blahblahblah Barack Obama blahblah.
j: Barack Obama. I like that name. (pause) What is Barack Obama?
N: Hannah, do you know who Barack Obama is?
H: He's a man who wants to be president.
(long-ish pause)
j: But I thought only womans could be pregnant.

Summer :: Convention :: Brainwash with care

In a speech at the Democratic National Convention, the phrase "Barack Obama is right, John McCain is wrong" is repeated many, many times. Jonah latches onto this and fits it into just about any conversation--whether or not it has anything to do with the topic at hand. I limit our exposure to the Republicans' convention for fear of what he might pick up from it.

Fall :: The End Is Within Sight :: We try to focus on the issues

Scene 1: In the car, on the way home from Hannah's soccer practice.
H: Mom, how can you tell when a country wins a war?
N: ... Um, well...
j: When all the army guys in the bad country are dead, then the good guys win!
N: Oh, it's more complicated than that. Lots of people who aren't part of the fighting die in wars too. And sometimes, the leaders of the countries who are fighting talk to each other and find a way to stop fighting before everyone gets killed.
H: John McCain thinks we should keep fighting the war in Iraq, but Barack Obama thinks we should try to end the war.
j: Oh! So that's why they say Barack Obama is right and John McCain is wrong!

Scene 2: A table in Jonah's Kindergarten classroom where I am volunteering. M is the youngest son of a Mormon family at the school--his mom has a "Yes on 8" sticker on her Suburban; C is in fierce competition for the title of Class Busybody; K is another girl in the class.
C: M, you have a crush on K.
M: What's that?
N: Hey, C, we don't need to talk about things like that at school. You can save that for home. Let's focus on our work guys.
Pause while everyone gets back to their coloring.
j: Girls can marry girls you know.
C: Why would they want to do that?!?
j: Because they love each other very much.
C: Oh. But they can't have babies.
N: Well, they can adopt babies and be a family.

Election Day :: We vote :: It's the start of something new

I love taking my children to vote with me, especially as they are becoming more politically aware. Four years ago, I held Jonah (wasn't he the most adorable little thing?) while I voted and Hannah stood next to John; afterwards, they picked up leaves from the huge tree right outside our polling place. This year Jonah sat at my feet reading his Lego catalog and Hannah stood right at my left elbow, reading along, making sure I voted for Barack Obama; afterwards, they picked up leaves from the huge tree right outside our polling place.

In the evening, we printed out maps and colored them as the returns came in; we listened to coverage on the radio then switched to the television to watch Obama's speech; my brother-in-law, teering up, told Jonah "Oh, you have such an exciting life ahead of you".

Pretend

2008-11-05T17:26:00.000-08:00

Pretend that back in November of last year I said I wouldn't blog again until we'd put a Democrat in the White House. Pretend you've been waiting all year long for me to start blogging again.

Update

2007-11-29T21:13:00.000-08:00

Long overdue, this is. The tooth got so loose she could turn it backwards in her mouth (gross. shudder. ew.). Then she finally pulled it out one day at school. The Tooth Fairy left a gold dollar.
The other middle one's loose now and one of the bottom ones is very, very loose.

That's all for right now. We're busy with stuff and life. All of us healthy.

Induction

2007-09-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

Hannah has another loose tooth, her third. In the car the other morning she took a break from wiggling it to inform me that "When this tooth comes out, the Tooth Fairy is going to bring me $2!"

Really? How do you know that?

"Well, when I lost my first tooth, I got 2 quarters. Then when I lost my next tooth, I got a dollar bill. Every time I loose a tooth, I get twice the amount of of money I got for the last tooth. So I'm getting $2 for this tooth."

I almost almost asked her how much she figured she'd get after she lost her, say, 12th tooth. But I don't think I want her counting that far ahead (though I was curious whether she could figure it out--she keeps surprising me with her intuitive grasp of arithmetic).

What she doesn't know is that the Tooth Fairy grabbed that dollar bill in a panic when she remembered--on her way to go wake Hannah up for school--that she hadn't taken care of the tooth the night before.

History: A Conversation on September 11, 2007

2007-09-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

Tonight at the dinner table (John was at a late meeting, so he missed out on this):

H: Mom. It's September 11.

N: Yes.

H: Do you know why today is a sad day?

N: Yes. Do you? (thinking: It's been kind of a long day, I don't know if I can do this conversation. And, please, please don't ask me what this has to do with the war in Iraq.)

H: Six years ago, in 2001, planes crashed into buildings and people died. Lots of people. Mom, why would a plane crash into a building?

N: Well, there are people who think that Americans are awful people and some of them decided together to get on big airplanes--just like if they were going on a normal trip--and when the planes were in the air, they went into the cockpit and told the pilots to let them fly the planes or else they would kill the pilots. That's called hijacking. And then they took over flying the planes and flew them right into the biggest buildings around because they wanted a lot of Americans to die.

H: Those people should go to jail!

N: Well, Hannah, they died when they crashed the airplanes into the buildings. And in one of the airplanes, some of the passengers were able to overtake the hijackers so the plane didn't crash into a building, it crashed into a field instead.

H: So, the people on the plane died, but it didn't kill any other people?

N: That's right. Some of the people on that airplane were very brave. (thinking: Man, my daughter's sharp!)

H: That's good! It's sad for people to die, but it's still good that more people didn't die. It's too bad that airplane couldn't just land like this--she makes her hand swoop down and land gently on the table--on the field.

Jonah's been listening to this exchange, wide-eyed.

j: But why would the guys want anybody to die? Why would they fly airplanes into buildings?

N: You know, we don't really know why they did it. They were angry and they wanted everyone to know how angry they were and they thought that killing people would be a way to show how angry they were. But we don't really know what they were thinking or why they did it.

H: Kind of like the dinosaurs: we have ideas about how they died, but no one knows for sure how it happened. But we do know that it did happen and the dinosaurs are extinct now.

Argiope aurantia

2007-09-09T20:08:00.001-07:00

Argiope aurantia, originally uploaded by nrbp.

This Yellow Garden Spider has been hanging out right next to our back door for the past couple of days. She's impressively big. Makes me thankful I'm not afraid of spiders.

Back

2007-09-07T20:27:00.000-07:00

I just noticed: all of August I only posted here once. I don't know that I can say very well why that is (well, aside from laziness). I've a list right here next to me of things to blog about. Who cares, really, if they all happened last month (or, uh, the month before that)?

I sat down last night and turned the TV on and realized I haven't sat down and turned the TV on in the evening in well over a week. It's been perpetual motion around here. Everyone's back in school, and suddenly we've got soccer practice twice a week. We had a terrific and lovely visit over Labor Day weekend with dear, dear friends; I found myself part of a project with a very short deadline; the washer of my dreams was delivered to my back porch and I've been washing everything in sight. Plenty to keep me busy and make me forget to take some time for myself, sit in front of the TV, read one of the books from the ever-growing stack on my bedside table, post to my blog.
I'm keen on keeping my feet planted firmly on the ground and I don't dream of being in another place, but I do crave solitude, quiet enough around me that I can listen to and feed the ideas that tickle me and time to linger in thought so deep I find it hard to be roused. The act of mothering is one that demands absolute presence; it's at odds with the way I usually want to be.

It's easy for me to shrug away from that kind of tension by making excuses as I complain, by pointing out that between the exuberance and frustrations of raising my children, there's no room for anything else. Harder is to face the lack of balance head-on; when I do, I start to feel like I am seeking out the very thing I'd like to avoid. I get crankier because thoughts won't stay put, I have to set down the book I'm reading mid-chapter, I snap at my children to give me just one minute.

Could it be that I should embrace the tension instead? Not push against it, but let it stretch me? See where that leads?

And So It Goes

2007-08-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

I was surprised to see eggplants at the Farmer's Market on Saturday, surprised that it's suddenly turned August, that the academic summer is just about over, that we're at the very end of the string of days that seemed to stretch out to the horizon way back in June, that I'm looking back on two months full of doing and of blissful not-doing.

We had a parade of family through our place last week: my mom and my youngest sister spent the night with us on the way home from a soccer tournament near San Francisco, then my other sister was here helping her fiance move into what will be their first home (Em will be joining him here in January). I'm still not sure how it got to be Thursday evening.

Tomorrow we're off to the county fair where Hannah and a bunch of kids from her school will be performing fiddle tunes on the main stage. We'll look at animals, eat cotton candy and caramel apples and wave goodbye to summer from the very top of the ferris wheel.

Bring On The Strawberries

2007-07-30T22:29:00.000-07:00

Somewhere, somehow--I have yet to get a straight answer on this one--Jonah heard the expression "open a can of whup a**". Except he didn't really have any idea what he was saying. He didn't really know how to pronounce it either.

j: I'm going to open a can of roopah!
N: What? Did you just say "can of ..."?
j: Roopah! I'm going to open a can of roopah!
N: ....
j: Mom, what's roopah?
N: Roopah?
j: Roo. Pah. B.
N: Rhubarb? It's a vegetable that thinks it's a fruit.
j: !!!!

One day he was my sweet blue-eyed, blond-haired son, generous with the hugs and kisses, the next he was threatening everyone and everything in sight with a can of strange, vaguely toxic foodstuff.

Where We Were

2007-07-24T21:08:00.000-07:00

Just about every time I've sat down to work on the blog this week, I've started out with "So...Where were we...?". It's summertime and I'm feeling scattered. John's teaching, the kids have a couple of hours of scheduled activities every week and I've got some commitments to keep--it's not that we have no schedule, it's that the schedule changes so frequently, I feel busy all the time and I want bedtime to be at 7:30 just like during the school year. 8 o'clock then. OK, OK 9. What are you kids still doing awake at 10:25? I can't quite bring myself to take off my watch and dive headfirst into summer, but it's clear it has swallowed us whole.So, where were we?

Much of the last 2 weeks has been unseasonably, record-settingly sunny and warm. Mid-70s at the coast (some 10 degrees above average for the season) and well into the 80s at our place barely inland. Acclimated as we are to very small variations in temperature (high-40s in the dead of winter, high-60s in the height of summer), this is sweltering. Especially when our power went out over the weekend and it was just too hot and sticky and stuffy to do anything but seek relief at the beach. Our bedrooms, without the fans we've usually got running on warm days, were unbearable even after nightfall so we camped out--to the children's immense delight--in our playroom downstairs.Every time we go to the beach, the kids act like tourists who have heard tell of a wonderland of waves and driftwood and seashells and crab carcasses and dead birds and sand but who did not believe that such a (sandy) paradise could truly exist. It's the most incredible, fun place they have ever been--even when we go twice in one week. These children of mine are easy to please. I'm grateful for the way they remind me to be open to the adventure and awe of it all.
Then they bicker all the way home from the beach, there's sand tracked all over the car and into the house, wet, sandy clothes need to be washed, I listen to the news on the radio while I make dinner: the mood can change so quickly.Thank goodness I took my camera. More on flickr, of course.

Vocabulary

2007-07-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

We dogsat for some friends over the weekend and while our cats were less than impressed, the kids (and John and I) really had a good time with Sandy. He's a young chocolate lab/springer spaniel/all-American mix that our friends got from a family who had not paid much attention to him. He was well-fed and healthy, but he had lived outside in a pen all of his life. He's affectionate, sweet, gentle and very eager to please, but, as his owners put it, he doesn't speak much English.

We reminded Jonah of this as he was trying, rather ineffectually, to get Sandy to settle down some after they had been playing. Resourceful child that he is, Jonah immediately tried "Ça suffit, Sandy!" Turns out the dog doesn't speak much French either.

Headed To The Alps

2007-07-13T21:32:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, I wrote about how much Jonah and I have enjoyed watching the Tour de France together on TV every year. We're doing it again this year, of course. Jonah asks to watch the race and he'll sit there, absorbed in what action there is, for a good half hour at a time. I'm not exactly sure what the appeal is for him--guys riding bikes day in and day out is really not all that exciting--but it delights me to no end that he's so into it (perhaps it's just that we watch so little sports on TV that he's desperate).

Part of the appeal for me is watching the countryside go by, especially when the race goes through parts of France that I know well. Tomorrow the riders pass within 2 miles or so of the last house my family lived in in France; I wish I could be there.

But then I wouldn't be here:

Next To Godliness

2007-07-10T19:23:00.001-07:00

Through my kitchen window, yesterday, originally uploaded by nrbp.

I think it's time to clean my kitchen windows.

More summertime pictures over at flickr.

This Is The Week That Never Ends...

2007-07-09T16:44:00.000-07:00

(Yes, it goes on and on my friends...)

Last week was just too much, wasn't it? What with a holiday smack in the middle of it and the days all disguising themselves as each other--Wednesday was Saturday, or maybe even Sunday, Thursday was Monday--by the time the weekend rolled around (at least, I think it was the weekend, but really, who knows anymore?), I'd lost track. And it's taking us far too long to recover. I blame Jonah, whose summer cold and cough have keeping us from getting much sleep the past few nights.

Today in the car:
J: I was about to ask you if I should buy a NY Times today for the food section.
N: But then you remembered that it's not Wednesday. It's Tuesday.
....long pause....
J: Today's Monday, right?
N: Oh dear.

Aside from that, we've been having a very nice, rather luxurious summer. The last 2 weeks of June were taken up by visits from my family. My parents and sisters were in town for a couple of days right around Jonah's birthday.

After he blew out his candles, he told my dad: "Having you all come for my birthday is my best present." Yes, my sweet little guy turned 4.

The older of my sisters stayed on for a few more days, joined by her fiance and a friend of theirs. Steven (the fiance) is moving to the area next month for school, so he and Auntie Em were scoping out places to live and checking on job prospects. The kids love them; we are very excited to have them so close!

John's pretty much settled in his new office. Fewer books, more view.The building's slowly filling up; there's a little more academic-style hustle and bustle every time I go in. We've moved lots of books around at home, but there are still booooooxes of them out on the back porch...

John's teaching a summer school course right now and by the end of it, summer will be just about over. Before then there will be more low key trips to the river, bike riding, fiddling, the county fair, lots and lots of reading and I'll finish up at least a few of the posts I've started and then abandoned.

Happy Father's Day

2007-06-17T20:32:00.001-07:00

Alternate Skate Park, originally uploaded by nrbp.

Time Enough

2007-06-14T21:28:00.000-07:00

Because so many people asked me so nicely, I took pictures at Hannah's school's 8th grade graduation last night. There were 10 graduates, all of them handsome, interesting kids. I took lots and lots of pictures: individual portraits, shots of families, candid shots while everyone was getting ready, group shots and then pictures during the ceremony. (Next year I'm making myself a press pass that says National Geographic on it so the local "newspaper" photographer will stay out of my way.)

I'm a sucker for pomp, for circumstance, for rites of passage anyway, but last night's ceremony was particularly sweet and wonderful. It didn't feel at all like a sudden, final spurt of sentimentality and goodwill and best wishes the way this type of ceremony often does. Rather, it was a clear expression of how nurturing this school is, how every student is taken seriously, how tight-knit and close the community is--not just on the last day of school, not just right before a crop of kids are sent off to high school and the great big world beyond, but every single day. It's no surprise that everyone knows everyone else and that they've all grown close over the years; this is a very small school in a tiny little town. What's striking is the teachers and parents wanting something and working together to attain it, the students responding by involving themselves in making the school what it is.

I've had a bittersweet feeling at the top of my throat all day long. It's Hannah's last day of Kindergarten and like her teacher--who waved me off with an "Oh no, please don't make me cry" when I thanked her for a great year--I'm one gulp away from tears. Sifting through the 608 pictures I took last night isn't helping much. In a few short years, that'll be Hannah and her friends all dressed up, laughing, nervous, excited, that'll be John and I and the other parents swelling with pride, still wondering where the time has gone.

Career Paths: A Pair of Dialogues

2007-06-05T20:39:00.000-07:00

The other day in the car, Super Dog* was shooting at something through his window (with an entirely imaginary gun, of course).
N: You know, Jonah, I don't really like you shooting when you're in my car.
j: I'm not Jonah, I'm Super Dog!
N: Yes, right, Super Dog, please hold your fire until you're outside playing in the yard.
H: But we have to get the bad guys!
N: How can you even tell they're bad guys?
j: They just are.
H: They were born that way.
N: They were? How do you know? Were you born a good guy?
H: Of course!
N: But how do you know that?
H: Mo-om, I'm going to be a space veterinarian when I grow up and veterinarians are good.
j: Yeah, space veterinarians take care of animals in space. They are good guys.

*For the past, oh, year or so, both of the kids have been spending much of their time being superheroes of some kind or another. Jonah is usually Super Dog, a dog with super powers--my favorite being the power of bandaging--and a cape and who can fly (and who has an office under our diningroom table where he grades papers). He made this super-character up long before we learned of the existence of Krypto the comic book character and animated television series, but they've pretty much become one and the same. Hannah is all kinds of super, sometimes an animal, sometimes just Super Hannah, always with an inventive array of powers. Together, these superchildren of mine keep the world safe from bad guys.

------------------------------

Yesterday on the way home from school.
H: Hey! O [H's best friend] and I decided that we are going to be forest rangers instead of space veterinarian surfers when we grow up.
N: Oh, that's great.
H: Forest rangers take care of the forest and protect it.
N: What do they protect it from?
H: Fires. And...[pause]...lumberjacks. If lumberjacks cut down all the trees, the animals won't have a habitat any more. O and I can still help animals when we are forest rangers.

Just This Side Of Dizzy

2007-06-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

Another busy couple of weeks around here. Not so busy that I feel like I'm hyperventilating, but enough that I'm left inarticulate by the end of the day.

While the kids are both at school, John and I have been packing up books and sorting piles of papers in his office, getting ready for the big move to the shiny new building. It turns out it wasn't ready to move into in May after all--surprise, surprise. Word on the street is that people start moving in next week. Not that I would actually know how close the offices are to being ready because I walked right into the building and took a look around despite signs posted on the unlocked doors telling me that the building's not yet open to the public.

Although I hate hate hate packing, it's been nice, really nice, hanging out with John for a couple hours everyday. We work well together, and we've got enough time that we aren't having to rush the job. We keep slowing down just to chat or to laugh over book titles or to read out loud years-old to-do lists one or the other of us wrote up. And anytime is a good time to take a coffee break.

The conundrum of what to do with all of the books (6 boxes so far, probably 3 more by the time we're through) that we need to bring home is vaguely stressful. Our house is full of books already. The living room has at least one bookcase on each wall, there's a bookcase in the playroom (kid's books), one in the dining room (cookbooks and food writing) and bookcases in the bedrooms. A colleague suggested putting a bookcase behind our couch, not knowing that our couch is already in front of a bookcase. Getting rid of piles of books--the obvious solution--is just not going to work. Neither of us can stand the idea of letting books go, even books we know we will never look at again. Besides, who would take the books we don't want? No one, that's who.

If John builds a new floor-to-ceiling bookcase in the living room and we juggle categories around (our books are sorted: poetry, fiction, nonfiction, reference, textbooks and ordered alphabetically by author's last name), we may be able to avoid having to cover up one of the windows. Anyone visiting here any time soon better brush up on alphabetizing skills. I'm just saying.

On Friday night John and I were invited by an artist acquaintance to a preview of her current show (with 2 other artists). For such a small, rural county, we've got a rather lively "art scene". There are a whole lot of local artists and plenty of galleries and giftshop/galleries and coffeeshop/galleries that take themselves very, very seriously. This show is at one of the few places that takes itself seriously and deserves to be taken seriously. So, we dressed up a little and we left the children--people kept asking us where they were--with the family I lived with while I was in college. In particular, we left them with the family's youngest daughter. She's in highschool now, and learning to drive and taller than I am, but I used to take her to preschool; leaving my kids with her was kind of surreal. I'd like to see someone try to paint a picture about that.

Tuesday Talk: Principal's Office

2007-05-31T21:27:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, it's not Tuesday. Three day weekends throw me off schedule.

I'm standing in the school office and I can hear the principal talking to a student (at least, I'm assuming it was a student, I hope it was a student and not a teacher; it could have been several students, I guess).
Principal: Was biting him the right thing to do?
[If the student responded, it was too quiet for me to overhear.]
Principal: Was biting him the right thing to do?
[Again, I don't hear a response.]
Principal: Was choking him the right thing to do?
Parent Standing Next To Me In The Office: What does she expect the kid to say? Yes?
Me: Well, it seemed like the most reasonable thing to do at the time...
Principal: Was hitting him the right thing to do?

School Days

2007-05-31T20:30:00.000-07:00

The school year is winding down here; hard to believe Hannah's just about through with Kindergarten.Last week was the Spring Concert. Music is very important at Hannah's school (one of the reasons we chose it over some of the other terrific schools in the area). There's weekly music instruction in the classrooms for the lower grades and then a whole range of electives: a choir, an Orff ensemble, a tiny band, a teensy jazz band and a solid strings program--Suzuki violin starting in Kindergarten for the kids who want, and a serious string orchestra from 4th grade up. Hannah and her class sang together and her Suzuki group played some Twinkle Twinkle Little Star variations. For a school that doesn't have a very big pool to draw from (120-ish students in K-8), the concert was really quite impressive.

Another thing we immediately loved about this school was its setting. It's all Little School In The Big Woods right there in the middle of nowhere; evergreen-covered hills all around; cow pasture on one side and goats and horses on another.Today the school was locked down--yes, locked down, no one leaves the classroom--while a mother fox and her babies (cubs? kittens?) were evacuated from under the school's tool shed. What's not to love?

Human Powered

2007-05-28T20:08:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day Weekend here in Humboldt County: we've got the same parades and speeches and flag-waving and gravestone scrubbing and super sales events as everywhere else, but we've also got the Kinetic Sculpture Race (due to legal shenanigans, it's the Kinetic Grand Championship or some such this year)--the Triathlon of the Art World. An event designed to let adults feel like they've never, not really ever, grown up. Or maybe it's that kids get to see adults having so much fun, they'll want to grow up.

Whatever it is, it's one of the county's most colorful, well-attended events. And a reminder, every single year, of how much I dislike crowds.

We got the Plaza at about 10 am; John likes to get a good look at all the engineering and this is the best time to ask the riders about their machines. Besides it's just the most exuberant, vibrant part of the race with everyone excited to get started, none of the racers yet wondering what in the world they were thinking would be fun about this, even the most seasoned participants feeling like it's going to be: Jonah was uncharacteristically freaked out by the sculptures at first, but warmed up after a while and by the time we left, was referring to them as Miracle Sculptures--which is an apt description, really. You can see pictures here and here and here of this year's contestants on pavement, sand and water.
The kids both loved this one--from engineering students at UC Davis--because of all the water noodles they used. I don't know how well it floated.
Some years we've gone to see them in the Bay in Eureka and at the finish line in Ferndale, but this year we just went to the Plaza and admired the details.By the time I saw Elvis (he's taken up cycling and is friends with the mayor of Arcata--who knew?), it was time to duck into a bookstore to take refuge from the crowds and head for home to spend the rest of the weekend with a new book.

Sharp

2007-05-17T10:39:00.000-07:00

The county's most famous athlete (what? no Wikipedia entry?) came to Hannah's school on Monday to do a presentation on the upcoming Tri-Kids Triathlon. He started out by telling a little about the history of triathlons, told the kids about being in triathlons, about swimming with dolphins during Ironman, blah blah blah. Then he told about the local triathlon for kids and partway through, Hannah raises her hand:
Mike Pigg: Yes, you have a question?
H: So.... Is a triathlon like some kind of race?

The Kindergarteners are too young to participate anyway.

Mother's Day: Out-takes

2007-05-14T20:08:00.000-07:00

Well, that was sweet wasn't it? Short on Hallmark sentiment--which, for the record: gack--and very, very sweet. I sure do love these guys. (One of Hannah's classmates told me today that she had gotten her mother "the sweetest thing" for Mother's Day and I asked her what it was and she said: "Cereal bowls!". When I told the mother about this later on, she laughed and rolled her eyes and said that apparently Target was the only store open late Saturday night. As far as sweetest things go, I'd say I win.)

When John mentioned at the dinner table that they were working on this interview, I asked what kinds of questions he was asking.
N: Do I do a good job of keeping up with the laundry?
H: Laundry?
N: Do you always have plenty of clean clothes in your dresser?
H: Almost always.

I've been wanting to get a little digital recorder thing-y so that I can record some of our dinnertime conversations. It's priceless stuff.

I loved how Hannah said that I never cuddle her because the truth is that she rarely lets me cuddle her. She's never been very affectionate in any physical kind of way. Never.
Here's a recent exchange. I'm driving her home from school and she's been telling me about the awful day she had and how some of her best friends were being very mean to her and it was rather heart wrenching.
N: Hannah, that sounds awful. Would you like to snuggle with me on the couch when we get home?
H [flabbergasted, looks at me like I've lost my mind, says very soundly]: No.

..............................
We did have a very nice Mother's Day. The Blue Lake Grange was holding their monthly breakfast and we went to that and then for a nice walk along the river. Hannah was very proud of the card she made me at school. She'd been making a big show of keeping its existence a secret and I had fun playing along--she didn't know that her teacher had had me sort the cards into each child's cubby.

While Jonah was napping and John was grading papers, Hannah, uh, convinced me to wash my car with her: "I know! We should wash your car: it's Mother's Day!" It's all sparkly now. And when she brought out the rags to dry it with, she gave me the bigger one "because it's Mother's Day!"

Most of the day was just like that. We did what we usually do on a nice Sunday in spring: we spent time together, we picked up around the house, we read the newspapers, I cooked dinner, I did a couple of loads of laundry, the kids played outside, John got stuff done that needs to be done. But, if my children are to be believed, it was all much more exciting and special because it was Mother's Day. Works for me.

Performance Review

2007-05-13T12:39:00.000-07:00

For Mother's Day, a guest post from John and the kids.

Mothers, Narcissism, and Love Nevertheless: Fragments of a Dialogue

J: You know Sunday is Mother’s day, right?

H [coldly]: Yes, everybody knows that.

j: Sure.

J: So I thought I could give her an interview–write down some of the things you say, and give those to her. That sound good to you?

H: I’m going to give her a picture. She’ll like that better.

j [looks at John, looks at Hannah, weighs the odds and credibility of the people suggesting]: I’ll do a picture too.

J: Okay, fine. Do a picture, but I’m going to ask you some questions, and we’ll give her some of the things you say too. [pause for getting out materials–brushes, watercolors, paper, scissors, markers]

J: So now what’s something nice about your mom? Can you say some of your favorite things about your mom?

H: She asks me what I want for lunch the night before.

j: You let me do the dishes. She never lets me do the dishes. She makes lunch for Hannah but not for me. I’ve got a lunch box too.

H: Jonah, you get lunch at school. You don’t NEED to have Mom make you lunch. Lots of times you get to eat lunch at home with Mom. I don’t. At least hardly ever.

J: Okay, let’s change the subject. What are some of the things you like best about your Mom?

H: What are we doing exactly?

J: I thought a nice thing for Mother’s Day would be if I could put some things you guys say up on Naomi’s blog. So I’m going to write some of these things down and put them on her blog.

H [skeptical]: Do you have her password?

J: Huh?

H: Does she have a password? She has a password, right? I guess she could give it to you. Okay.

J: How old ARE you, anyway? Just say some things you like about your mom for me to write down. What are some things you really like?

H: My favorite thing about her is that she takes us swimming.

j: I like swimming too!

H: I like it when she and I speak French together. None of the kids at school know French, so it’s like she and I can give each other messages. When she comes to the school sometimes I say French to her.

J: Really.

j: Je t’aime, Hannah.

(Pause)

J: Je t’aime aussi, Jonah.

j: I was talking to Hannah.

. . .

J [at this point we are at the Mad River fish hatchery, sometimes called ‘the patchery,’ walking from the fertilization/incubation building and the ladder to the oyster shell filters and shell midden and then to the river; we have just gone over lunches again]: But what about, like, other stuff? Anything about cuddling or violin or her letting you help cook or that she is a really, really good cook? How about the ant hill? Or her driving you places and playing your music in the car?–or going for trips?–You like her car, it’s a nice car, right?

H: She doesn’t cuddle me but she tickles me. That’s nice. [pause] She gets me pretty clothes. And shoes.

j: She got me a Super Dog shirt with a cape.

H: When she takes me to school I’m never late.

. . .

H: I love her. That’s why I write I love you Mom on pictures. I do that all the time.

j: I love Mom. I wrote it in the sentence book. Not today. It was a different day.

Heat Wave

2007-05-07T21:23:00.000-07:00

I don't know if we're supposed to call it a heat wave if it's just one day, but it was really, really unexpectedly and unseasonably warm today. This time last week, we were complaining about how it is May and we are still wearing fleece jackets and heating the house. According to the thermometer on the side of our house, it was 87.6 degrees (F) here. Or, as Hannah put it as she begged for something cold to eat (read: a popsicle), "as hot as the surface of the sun".

Pedant that I am, I took this as an opportunity to talk about how hot the surface of the sun really is (that'll teach her to exaggerate!). I nearly went and looked up exact approximations in the encyclopedia, but, well, it was too hot out and a popsicle was sounding mighty fine.

This did remind me of an episode from back when I was a TA in a Physics For People Who Hate Math But Want To Be Able To Tell Their Friends They Are Studying Physics class. The instructor was talking, in very general terms, about how hot the surface of the sun is and the irritating, wannabe-know-it-all in the front row, furiously scribbling notes--you know the one--raised her hand and asked: "Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?". The instructor, bless his long-suffering heart, gritted his teeth and told her it didn't matter, really, we are talking about THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF DEGREES HERE! I only wish he had let me field that question, because I would have thrown down my piece of chalk for dramatic effect.

Super Jonah

2007-05-06T22:06:00.000-07:00

At breakfast this morning, Jonah--make that Super Jonah in his beloved shirt with attached cape--told us: "At my work I have a stove and a computer and papers and a pen so that I can do my grading."

BusyBusyBusy (BusyBusy)

2007-05-06T22:01:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged all week? Are you sure? Huh. Well, sorry about that.

We've been busy. The academic year is winding down for John. In addition to his regularly scheduled teaching and office hours and grading, every single committee he serves on is trying to sneak in one last meeting--or two or three. So he's had a lot of early mornings and late evenings at work the past couple of weeks and I've had a lot less time that's my own.

Oh, and he gets to move into his new office in the brand-spanking-new building this month. That Hannah referred to the building when they first began construction (when was that? like 2 years ago?) as "Dad's new apartment building" is perhaps telling. But anyway, he needs to pack up all of his books and papers and useless floppy disks and molding coffee cups. Of course, the new place is considerably smaller than where he is now (and he will no longer have his own bathroom, though I'm told he does have a terrific view) so many of those books will wind up at home. We do love books around here. It's a good thing we've got the barn.

When John is busier than usual and less available to our family, I find myself doing more stuff with the kids than I typically do--being more SuperMom-ish. We've been to the swimming pool just about every other evening for the past 3 weeks, we've been working in the yard, we've done a couple of fun art projects, we're all getting along with each other. All of the having fun and being mindful and nurturing and staying busy is hard work. It's good for all of us--I've truly enjoyed focusing more on what the kids want to do and they respond well to being more involved in the things that I'm doing--but, it's wearing. And I don't always remember to take time for myself, and that's just crazy-making.

Those blog awards, you know? Is there a category for Best Blog Where All The Blogger Ever Blogs About Is Why She Never Blogs? I could totally win that one, don't you think?

This weekend was very nice: the weather was spectacular, I got caught up on house-keeping stuff while the kids stayed busy outside and worked and ran errands with John, the kids finally talked him into going to the pool with us, I made delicious fish tostadas for our Seis de Mayo dinner and here I am typing away. Finals start tomorrow, we'll send John off dressed up in his cap and gown to watch students graduate before the week is out.

Memory

2007-04-29T13:59:00.000-07:00

Twenty one years ago today, my family moved to Europe. We flew from Chicago to Luxembourg and drove from there to Munich to spend a few weeks with friends before heading off to settle on the French/Swiss border. I was nine years old.

News of the disaster at Chernobyl was just trickling out of the Soviet Union.

Whenever someone mentions Chernobyl, I think of how close we were. I remember how the produce section at the grocery store in Germany was empty: everything had been contaminated. I remember the pictures in the newspaper. I remember not understanding radiation, nuclear meltdown.

Mostly I remember this: my brothers and I and our friends playing in the sandbox at the neighborhood park and our mothers running down the street yelling at us to "Get out of there! Quick! Get out! They just said on the news that we need to stay away from sand!" and rushing us home to scrub us in the bathtub, trying to clean off what no one could see or smell--what made us all afraid.

Sweet

2007-04-23T20:50:00.000-07:00

Jonah pulls his chair over to the kitchen counter where I am making lunch. He climbs up onto the chair and leans over to give me a kiss.

j: Hannah and I think this [kissing] is gross. But I like it!

I'm beginning to think I should have waited around and married him.

Lint

2007-04-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like I am very slow to figure things out about myself. Maybe I don't spend enough time navel-gazing. Maybe I'm out of touch with my own feelings. Maybe I'm just slow. I'll be driving or reading something or listening to the radio or talking to a friend and an insight will hit and--duh, I can't believe it took me so long to figure that out!

I spent Monday morning as I always do, in Hannah's classroom, attending the school's weekly assembly, sorting papers, helping kids with their work, attempting to herd a bunch of cats through a violin lesson. After lunch, we went to pick Jonah up from school. One of our friends was dropping his son off and, in passing, said: "Those are some headlines today, huh?"
"What? I haven't listened to the news at all today. What happened?"
"There was a Columbine-style shooting. Something like 30 people were killed at Virginia Tech..."
"Oh. Wow. That's awful."

Natural disasters, genocide, psychopaths: I don't really know what to say. It is awful, it's not fair, it's entirely real. There's suffering and pain and grief. This particular event hits close to home. Our lives are closely tied to a university--one attended by troubled students who could do crazy and violent things. The idea that my husband could be shot in the middle of one of his lectures, or while he's walking to a committee meeting or, or, or...is present now.

People want to talk about these kinds of events. They need to talk about them. It's talk I've never been comfortable with. I can't believe it's taken me so long to figure out why.

The discomfort that comes with empathy, with feeling sad and helpless when others are suffering, the way we shake our heads because we can't imagine what it would be like to have a devastating hurricane hit our town, to live in a war zone, to have our children slaughtered at school, because we don't even want our imaginations to go there--all of that I can handle. Not knowing what to say is perfectly fine. But people don't just want to talk, they want to talk about What It Means. And usually what it means is that what they've been saying all along? Is right.

If just one person in one of those classrooms had been carrying a concealed weapon, maybe so many people wouldn't have died.

If we had tighter gun control laws, this never would have happened in the first place.

You get the idea.

It's not that people have opinions--even when those opinions are clearly dumb ones--about what this kind of event means that makes me uncomfortable, it's that we get to talking about meaning in the first place. It just is: a tragedy.

PS: Credit where credit is due: Thanks Jon Carroll. Again.

Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been A Member Of The Communist Party?

2007-04-17T20:55:00.000-07:00

My children were recently introduced to the infamous camp game Truth Or Dare through a crappy Happy Meal-type toy (you press a button and either a (green) light goes off next to the word Truth or a (red) light goes off next to the word Dare; at least it doesn't make any noise). Normally these toys get tossed out as soon as the kids look the other way (though more often than not one or the other will catch me in the act and all of the sudden the little piece of plastic is my favorite toy--nooooooooo!), but Jonah's got this one stashed in his carseat and I keep forgetting to grab it when I take him out of the car.

The rules are straightforward enough: Truth and you answer a question truthfully, Dare and you perform a dare. Child's play really. By the time Hannah asked me what a dare is ("You just tell the other person to do something."), I had pretty much lost interest. But the children had not. Not at all. Thankfully, we haven't been in the car much the past few days--just back and forth to school--because it's been the same thing over and over, with little variation in the questions asked and the dares posed.

We've mostly heard about things we already know: favorite colors, names of our cats, best friends at school, trivia. And the dares have unfailingly taken the form "sing the alphabet song while patting your head/looking at the sunset/kicking the back of mom's seat/perform other random act". It's unclear to me where their continued enthusiasm for this game is coming from. What is clear though is that they are out of touch with the true spirit of the game, which is, of course, to embarrass your fellow players. And that's just fine with me.

Hannah: Jonah, what's two plus two? Tell the truth!
Jonah: Four! My turn! (presses button) It's dare! It's dare! Sing the alphabet song while you take off your shoes!

Read Me Online

2007-04-16T14:25:00.000-07:00

Oh. Wait. That's what you're doing right now.

Read the article I mentioned yesterday here.

Newsprint

2007-04-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

All over the county this week folks will be recycling some 1300 words I wrote for a Times-Standard special section on the state of the county's dairy industry (they're putting one of these out every Sunday for the next few weeks, each one focusing on one of the county's big industries). Oh, folks will also be recycling a very sweet picture of Jonah drinking a glass of milk. And a couple of typos. Then again, they do that every week. [Somehow they found a way to introduce typos into my article. That's right, me, the compulsive proofreader. Ack. Just so you know: I didn't write that cows eat "salads of fresh clover and us." I don't care how good that milk tastes, I'm not buying it.]

I think this is going to wind up online somewhere; I'll update with a link when that happens.

Hope you are all enjoying your Sunday. We're out mowing and weeding and planting in the sunshine.

Spring Green

2007-04-14T21:19:00.000-07:00

Don't forget to visit us at thedishandthespoon
New recipes and stories all spring long.

Pictures From Our San Francisco Trip

2007-04-14T16:31:00.001-07:00

Golden Gate Bridge, originally uploaded by nrbp.

Bunch of pictures over on flickr.
More to come once I upload the ones from the zoo.

I swear I didn't put him up to this

2007-04-13T22:44:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow our local Farmer's Market returns (it's true that it was year-round this year, but the winter offerings--in the parking lot of the new Eureka Coop--were pretty slim, sometimes only carrots). We try to go every week,Mid-April through the end of November. Not just to score some terrific produce, but because it provides opportunities to see and catch up with just about everyone we know around here. Kind of like church. The live music is usually pretty good too. Also tomorrow, Brio opens their highly anticipated cafe right there on the Plaza.

Anyway, Jonah and I were talking about how we were going to get to go to the Framer's Market on Saturday and he said: "The farmers are the most important part of the Farmer's Market."

"Why's that?"

"Because they grow all the food!"

Speaking of food: brownies, kind of, over at thedishandthespoon. Go get some before they're all gone.

Mystery Solved

2007-04-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

A while ago I asked whether anyone knew why Lorrie Moore would have named a character in a short story "Daniel Handler" (better known to some as Lemony Snickett). You people are no help to me whatsoever, by the way.

While the question hasn't exactly been keeping me up at night, it does turn out that it was more than mere coincidence. The San Francisco Chronicle's Leah Garchik (she's the kind-of gossip columnist) mentioned it a couple of weeks ago:
"Word for Word performed Lorrie Moore's "Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People" at the Cowell Theater last week, after which novelist Daniel Handler moderated a Q&A with the author. Handler said he is such a fan of Moore's that last year, he placed the winning bid in an eBay auction -- to raise money for a First Amendment cause -- to have a character in a Moore story named after him. The story, "Paper Losses," appeared in a recent New Yorker, and the Handler character was a masseur.

P.S.: In other news of fandom, The Chronicle's Keay Davidson informs me that Betty Hutton, who died last week, was idolized by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein."

So, a propos of nothing, there you have it. I'm a sharp reader, I am.

Back Home

2007-04-09T22:12:00.000-07:00

So, I thought we would have wireless internet access at our little place in San Francisco, but we did not. That's my excuse for not blogging last week. As Jonah says: It's always something.

We had a very nice time in The City. A few months ago I found us a little studio apartment just a few blocks from where the conference John was attending was being held. It turned out to be just perfect. We had more space than we would have at a hotel and we saved money--as well as that rarest of commodities: sanity--by preparing most of our own meals at "home" (we stopped at Trader Joe's on the way into town and stocked up on all sorts of goodies we don't get up here which made eating in a little more exciting too).

The children and I kept travelogues (Hannah kept referring to hers as "my travel blog"). I intend to share those here over the next few days.

----------------------------
We have been taking Hannah to the annual meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association since she was just 5 weeks old and every year when John registers and they make him his little name-badge thingy, they make Hannah one as well. This year when she was asked if she would like her own name-badge thingy Hannah responded very graciously: "No thank you, I'm going to be a veterinarian."

Tuesday Talk: Unbelievable

2007-04-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

Hannah and I had lunch at Los Bagels in Old Town this weekend. It was a busy weekend for the area, what with the Jazz Festival and all, and there were more tourists around that usual. There are these huge portraits hanging on one wall: Mother Theresa, Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr, Frida Kahlo (One of these things is not like the others...).
Woman (clearly an out-of-towner, not that that explains anything): Who is that woman in that picture?
Bagel-ista: That's Frida Kahlo. She was an artist. She was married to Diego Rivera.
Woman: And her eyebrows really looked like that?
Bagel-ista (looks up at painting and shrugs): Uh, yeah, I think so.
Woman: She wasn't? From this country?
Bagel-ista: No, she lived in Mexico.
Woman: And she really just had one eyebrow like that? Her eyebrows really looked like that?
Bagel-ista (thinks to self): I need to find a new job where I never, ever have to talk to people.

I recently participated in a fun (for me, and others too, I hope) event designed to encourage girls to take more math and science classes and consider careers in science-related fields. I was part of the Science Mall portion of the event where tables are set up with all kinds of activities and the young women can mill about, touch stuff, play around with science gadgets and do-dads, ask questions and so on. My little table was about sound waves. I had some tuning forks and resonator tubes and some other stuff, but the big draw was an oscilloscope with a couple of microphones that the girls could talk into and "see" their own voices. There were some adults there as well, for the most part mothers of participants.
Mother: So, what does this do?
Me: Well basically, the microphone turns the sound into an electrical signal and we can see what that signal looks like on the screen of the oscilloscope.
Mother: Really? Are you sure?
Me: Uh... Yes. The microphone captures the sound of my voice, or of your voice, or of the tuning fork and turns it into electricity--it's still the same information, though--and the oscilloscope shows us what that information looks like.
Mother (tracing the microphone cord to where it plugs into the oscilloscope): So...the electricity goes through here and then we can see it on the screen. Are you sure?
Me: Yes I am. It's pretty cool, isn't it?
Mother: It's amazing!

Both of these mde me wonder where these kinds of reactions come from--what explains them? I don't think it's just lack of education or lack of cultural literacy; it's something closer to a dogmatic essentialism: Sound could never be electricity! No one would let a unibrow grow like that and not take care of it! Call me an intellectual snob, but I find both of these reactions very, very bizarre.

Agreeable

2007-04-02T20:48:00.000-07:00

Things that have made me grin recently:

Watching the movie Wordplay with John. What good, nerdy fun. I try my hand at the occasional crossword puzzle, but I've never invested any time in becoming any good at solving them. (I'm a big fan of Will Shortz's puzzle on Weekend Edition though.) I especially enjoyed the bits about how the crosswords are made and found myself just grinning with delight at the whole thing.

Hannah telling me at breakfast: "I'm just not a cereal person, mom." Because neither am I.

Knowing that we are going to get to spend a day in San Francisco with our dear friends and their sweet little boy who can count to nine (or is it six?) at the end of the week. And knowing that Jonah, who is working on another of his darn colds will be all better by then.

Hannah's teacher showing me a spelling "test" where Hannah spelled every single word correctly except for her own name (which she has been able to spell and write perfectly since she was 2.5 years old, by the way).

Speaking of spelling, I kind of grinned at the argument Hannah and I had recently over how to spell letters. How do you spell "D" anyway? And why does "W" start with a d sound if you don't spell it that way? (More good, nerdy fun.)

Happening to be listening to the radio when Elizabeth Crane's story "Football" was on Selected Shorts. I dug around and found it so that I could share it with John; it's the second story on the show.

The way Jonah said of his imaginary friends: "They're going to the ocean desert for a picnic". Some of us might call it a beach, but I find that ocean desert has a certain undeniable allure (though I don't know whether this turn of phrase originates in my young son's awareness of how much global warming might change the planet during his lifetime).

Evening Constitutional

2007-03-31T22:00:00.001-07:00

A very friendly sheep, originally uploaded by nrbp.

It is Spring now: time to ease into all this daylight, shed our winter coats (I'm looking at you 3 cats who are covering every surface of my house with your fur), break out the allergy medicine, tune up the mower, put air in the tires on all of our bikes, turn over the dirt in the garden space, take leisurely walks at the end of the day.

Sometimes we'll drive down to the fish hatchery or to the river, on a rare summer evening we might make it all the way out to the beach, sometimes we don't get any farther than the anthill in our yard. Once the weather starts to clear up, and if we aren't running up against bedtime, we try to make a habit of getting outside for a little bit right after dinner.

More often than not, we'll head down our street to the next "Not A County Road" where there's a tiny little farm (chickens, friendly sheep, a couple of disinterested horses, a few cats and dogs). The children are learning that they have to stay close to us while we are on the main road (sidewalks? or even much of a shoulder? out here?), but once we've turned off of it, they're free to run ahead. They love feeding the very friendly sheep. The horses, however, are not swayed by promises of greener grass from the other side--which hasn't stopped us from trying to make friends. It's slow going sometimes: we have to stop to look at flowers, pick up bugs, poke sticks in slimy mud, point out our barn, our house, our cars parked in our yard just two houses over; we don't always make it to the top of the hill where there is a view of the river.

There are times when I wish we were raising our children in a big city--or even a small city, at that--because of the stuff urban areas have that we do not. The French immersion schools and the art museums and the Trader Joe's. Then there are times like the afternoon recently when a fellow showed up at our back door asking if we might be interested in selling some of the land we've got (about 3 acres, and I didn't mention that we don't own the place). He acted like it was foolishness to have all this space--to want to have all this space--around us. Times when what we have here is just perfect, just what we need, just what we couldn't do without.

More pictures over on Flickr.

Don't Take It Personally

2007-03-27T11:15:00.000-07:00

I'm not ignoring any of you, really (which reminds me: Whitney, I haven't heard from you--are we still on for the thing, you know, that you asked me about?).
Just awesome busy with some stuff and internet access has been spotty at best the past week or so and at some point, I'd rather just not deal with it at all (what kind of a dumb name is SuddenLink for an internet provider anyway?).

I do have a couple of posts lined up though. And next week I'll be blogging from beautiful (it better not be raining, too) San Francisco.

Proofreading Note: The spellcheck wants me to use internet as a proper name.

Distraction

2007-03-16T19:51:00.000-07:00

This daylight savings time business? I'm not so into it. I've never liked the Spring Forward bit, but this time around--uh, it's not even spring yet folks!--it's worse than ever. It's light out too late, it's still dark early in the morning. Things just feel wrong in a jetlag sort of way. I know it's just one hour, but is anyone else having such a hard time adjusting?
I blame the current administration for this.

I have spent a big part of this week taking pictures (with my beloved new camera) at Hannah's school. I happened to be in the school office when a couple of people were talking about how they needed more pictures for the yearbook and I piped up that I had taken some in Hannah's classroom and offered to burn them on a disk. A few days later when I ran into the woman who is putting the whole thing together, I was asked if I'd be willing to go to all the classrooms and take some candid shots of the kids and teachers at work.
It turned out to be a terrific assignment indeed. I truly enjoyed going into all the classrooms as nothing more than an observer. I didn't help anyone with scissors, I didn't ask any questions, I didn't answer any questions. I was just there with my camera, watching, looking for good light and being as little of a distraction as possible (ignoring the temptation to tell the 7th and 8th graders--who sit in large, comfy, aging office chairs, it was like walking into some strange kind of boardroom--that this will always be with them; more than highschool, more than college, the sudden surges of giddiness as a wider world opens up, the crushing cruelties and the naked ostracism of the middle school years stick around).

Out of some 1200 pictures, about 150 are very good and a handful are very, very good. It's work I can be proud of. And it's going to be one upscale yearbook (I'm going to see my pictures in print, how cool is that?).

There was much oohing and aahing and exclaiming I love this one! when I brought the disks into the office after I'd sifted through everything, cropped and color-corrected. Good for the ego, that. One of the support staff is working on a slide show to play at the school's open house next week and I've been put on retainer for as many years as I want to keep doing this.

Goodbye to All That

2007-03-11T21:05:00.000-07:00

It's official! There is no longer any carpet in our house!

John and I--the kids sometimes making things harder, but overall doing a terrific job of staying out of the way--spent the weekend pulling up the old, dusty, icky carpet in our room. We've been talking about doing this ever since we moved in and now it is done. The floor underneath is not in the best of shape, but it is all wood (probably about 100 years old). It's going to be so much easier to keep clean. Whoever put the carpet and 2 layers of padding down sure was into their staple gun: my hands are all achy from pulling hundreds of them up. Of course now I want to paint. (And I've been talking about doing that since the minute we moved into this place too...)

We finished at about 3pm (what's that in normal time? gah, I hate the time change), moved some of the furniture back where it belongs, John took a shower and then, because ~~I am insane~~ I am the best mother ever the kids deserved a good treat, I took them to the pool, then out to dinner, then out to icecream. I am worn out.

Spinning My Wheels

2007-03-09T16:01:00.000-08:00

Whoa! Where did this week go?
Surely I've done something since last I posted?
I mean, besides laundry and reading a good, long book and cleaning up the house and taking care, taking care.

Let's see. The weather's been all over the place. We've had cold and rain and we've had pure blue sky and sunshine and short-sleeves, we've had blustery wind and we've had a plum tree in full bloom against a dull grey wintery sky.

I took the kids to the local park one of the sunny, blustery afternoons and had a park encounter of the vaguely perturbing kind. There's not much to it: no trauma, no one got hurt or anything. There was just no good reason for the only other parent at the park when we got there--a mother with 2 children clearly very close in age and much younger than my own--to villainize Jonah and shoot glares at me every chance she got. Though having kids and plain ol' growing up have lessened this tremendously, being judged is something I'm very sensitive to. Even when (especially when?) it's being judged based on nothing, there's still the nagging worry that she is absolutely right: I am not a good mother, my children are terrors, etc. I figured at the time that I would blog about this, about how preposterous this woman's naked judgement was, how her behavior fit so poorly with what I've come to expect from interactions with other parents. I found that the more I thought about it, though, the harder it was to shake the feelings of inadequacy. Instead, I've let it fade, let it help me become less harsh on myself, my parenting, my kids. We're all better off for that.

We keep a post office box at a tiny post office near here, the kind of place where all the postal workers greet everyone by name (and probably know all our business too). When I've got packages to mail (I just sold a bunch of the kids' clothes on eBay), I always take them there. On Wednesday, the friendliest postal worker (a man) remarked that I've been "shedding the pounds". Aw, what a nice thing to say. Not that it's entirely true, but I have been making an effort to get more sustained exercise. With a break while I was sick, I've been riding a bike on a stationary trainer a few times a week. I used to ride my bike a lot--at least 150 miles a week for quite a while--and I've been missing that lately, as well as missing being in great shape. Sure, riding inside, not going anywhere is not quite the same, but I bought the first 2 seasons of Grey's Anatomy (which I have taken to calling "my anti-bacterial soap opera") and I watch an episode while I cycle. I want to work my endurance up to the point where I wouldn't feel like a fool joining one of the spinning classes at the gym.

That's that then. John's on Spring Break next week. With grading to do. But we are working on a big project this weekend. If all goes well, I'll tell about that tomorrow.

Much Better, Thanks

2007-03-02T22:02:00.000-08:00

Jonah is finally coming out the other end of his nasty cold. Thank goodness for that. I've not done much all week but tend to his every cough and whimper and I'm ready to get on with other things already.
Jonah's spent most of today making up for all the chatter he skipped while he was not feeling well. That loud noise you heard around noon? My eardrums bursting. There are times when being around Jonah is like being in a cheerful, somewhat annoying novel what with all the constant narration he provides. I'm glad that he does talk to me and I want to make sure that he keeps talking to me, so the least I can do is listen to him (or, at times, make like I'm listening to him with a well-placed hmmmmm or that's nice in response to his telling me--for the fifth time in two minutes--"I just took my shoes off! And my socks!"). Still, it's been a long time since I've needed a break from my kids as desperately as I do right now.

Thankfully, John and I get to go see Leo Kottke play tomorrow night. Together, no kids. It's been a while.

The Uncommon Cold

2007-02-27T10:47:00.000-08:00

I'm in a whiny mood today. Life is not fair.

We seem to be in the only spot around here that did not get snowed on last night. It's been cold and rainy and we've had a few pretty heavy hail storms and we can see plenty of snow on the hills close to our place and chains are required just 7 miles East of us; that's all fine and good, the worst of winter in these parts. But driving Hannah to school this morning, we passed a few cars headed the other direction that had quite a bit of snow on them. There was still some snow (mixed with a whole lot of sleety stuff) on the ground at the school. It was melting fast, but still: snow. There was snow on the side of the road all the way to McKinleyville; Central Ave was one big, slushy mess. They are much closer to the ocean then we are. Not fair.

Also not fair: Jonah has another one of his awful colds. That makes, in just this month, 2 bad colds for him as well as an ear infection, one bad cold that John worked terribly hard to ward off, some sniffles and a slight cough for the wonderfully robust Hannah and a nasty cold and sore throat and laryngitis for me. That's too much being sick--especially when the sickest one is so whiny and clingy, up all night thrashing, carrying around a plastic bowl everywhere he goes because sometimes he coughs so hard he throws up (it doesn't happen much, but often enough that he's worried he'll throw up every time he coughs) . The lack of sleep and the feeling put-upon--that I'm not getting well because I have to take care of everyone else, leaving me with little energy to take care of myself--are making me pretty whiny too.

When I whined to John--in my pathetic croaky voice--a few nights ago about how I am so tired of Jonah's stupid colds and how quickly he goes from being fine to being really, really sick and how I am so tired and I don't feel good, he remarked that at least we don't have a kid with Down's Syndrome or autism. Wouldn't you know that in Monday's newspaper, there was a story about treatment possibilities for Down's? And in today's NY Times Science section there's a story about a "cure for autism"?

No cure for the uncommon cold though, besides time and rest and the kindness and patience of your mom. Get well soon, buddy. And please stop wiping your nose on my sleeve.

When Bad Colds Go Worse

2007-02-25T20:28:00.000-08:00

So, of course, right after I all but promise more frequent posts, things pile up, we have a birthday party for Hannah and Jonah gets sick and I get sick and we host a potluck for John's department at our house and and and.

Jonah wound up on antibiotics for an ear infection. A day on antibiotics turned the neediest, whiniest little guy in the whole wide world back into my sweet, happy little guy--thank goodness for that.

Hannah's birthday party was very nice. She had a few friends over and there was enough of a break in the weather that they got to spend most of the time outside. They enjoyed the treasure hunt I set up throughout the yard and into the house. Hannah effortlessly blew out her six candles.

I took advantage of Hannah's week off of school and not having to get up to take her to school every morning to get sicker than I've been in a while. The symptoms of a cold with a terribly sore throat that's lasted for, uhm, 6 days now (with no fever or other sure signs that it's anything more than a viral infection). With a family still to take care of and a house to get ready for a big to-do, today's the first day I've really been able to lie around and try to rest this bug to death. I do think I'm on the mend, though I've developed a croaky, squeaky voice that is less than effective in getting my children to do a thing I tell them to do since they are so busy laughing at me.

About a month ago, John came home from a department meeting to tell me that "the department decided that we are hosting the department social this semester". They did let me pick the date though. That event was yesterday evening. Our house was filled to capacity, there were lots of desserts, I got to meet lots of the students John mentions, I made enough small talk to last me for a while and, boy, I don't know if we have ever had so much brown glass in our recycling bin.

Jonah, unfortunately, seems to be coming down with another one of his colds, poor sickly little guy--wish me luck.

Happy Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T10:01:00.000-08:00

Lullaby

2007-02-13T20:11:00.000-08:00

So, I put a sitemeter on this ol' blog last week and lo and behold...there are a few folks out there who stop by every once in a while. And here I've been thinking I was writing all of this for my husband and for Dani (and, uh, for myself). In any case, it's made me feel like I should be making more of an effort to get posts up here at least every other day. My public needs me. (Also! I found out that I show up as the only result for a particular Google search. Go me.)

I am typing this while I am putting Jonah to bed and he is having me sing his current favorite lullaby, so if lyrics from "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" should filter into this post, you know why. [Some years ago, when my sisters were in elementary school, they taught me a version that includes little responses--such as "Had a very shiny nose/Like a light bulb!". Does anyone know the origin of this?] I am such a multitasker.

Right, where was I? Sitemeter. Public! Post more frequently. Then all the reindeer loved him.

My children have had some pretty bizarre favorite lullabies over the years. Around the time she turned a year old--when she was just starting to watch television--Hannah would ask for the theme to "Elmo's World" (you know, "Lala lala lala lala Elmo's world") over and over again at bedtime. And how could I not succumb to her drowsy "pleeeese sing lalalmo"? Especially since the song was so very effective at getting her to go to sleep. When we moved her out of her crib and into the toddler bed (when she was about 18 months old), John took over the putting-to-bed duties and before long, Hannah's song of choice was a version of "Down By the Bay" long on current events and short on rhymes. This was a wonderful way to recap her very busy days and make mention of her favorite friends, toys and places as she was falling to sleep. I made fun of quite a few of the lame-o lyrics John made up on the spot, but I sure do wish I had written some of them down because it was really a sweet, sweet thing.
There was a Pete Seeger song about a bullfrog jumping "from bank to bank" that was the sole soundtrack of our lives for a while. And then the Bonjour! song that opens Disney's Beauty and the Beast.
By the time Hannah was 20-ish months old, she could sing all of the lyrics to "Baby Beluga", the song she was requesting from me at every nap and bedtime (as well as at any other time of the day, typically several times a day). This one's stuck around. She still asks me to sing it whenever I put her to bed. Through countless repetition over the years, I've gotten to where I can sing it several times in a row without paying any attention to what it is I am singing. Jonah frequently requested it as a bedtime song as well until he became enamored of Rudolph and his shiny nose and his saving-of-Christmas back in December.

From a squeaky red monster to a red-nosed misfit--I wonder what they will remember of all of this, how every night they'd fall asleep to the sound of one of their parents singing whatever it was they wanted to hear.

Walk To Paradise Garden, 2007

2007-02-09T22:47:00.000-08:00

Watch out W. Eugene Smith. There are a couple of new kids walking in the woods, a parent following close behind with a camera. More over on flickr.

Don't Let the Random Hit You On the Way Out

2007-02-05T19:41:00.000-08:00

Jonah has been sick. And he is the neediest sick kid around and sure, I love snuggling with him and all, but not so much when he is hacking up his lungs and, as he started to get better and a little more lively, spitting because "spit has germs in it and I am trying to get all of the germs out of me".

Jonah was not well enough this morning to go to school, so John cancelled his morning classes so that I could go to school with Hannah for my weekly volunteering ("They need me there this morning [please, oh please, oh please I need to get away from Jonah]--I promised the violin teacher I'd help her do, uh, something...really important that she needs help with, that only I can, ummmm, do."). Then the power went out at the school before the first bell even rang and they wound up sending everyone home at about 10 am. The violin teacher and I never did get to work on our big project.

Jonah was, however, well enough by this afternoon to get his hair cut. Hannah surprised me by telling me that she wanted her hair "much shorter". All the better, as far as I am concerned. She has this gorgeous, thick hair that she's been growing out for quite a while and all attempts at keeping it fairly tangle-free are met with protest and tears. Besides, the shorter 'do just suits her better--and keeps her looking more like the nearly-six-year-old that she is rather than a short teenager. Well, see for yourselves.
I am enjoying my new camera quite bit. We finally went ahead and got the Nikon D50--I'd been wanting one since they came out. We briefly considered the new and less expensive D40 and then we very nearly spent more than we can really afford on the D80. I've been happy with the quality of the pictures we have gotten from our 2 other digital Nikons (both bottom-of-the-Coolpix-line), but I'm finding myself rather smitten with this new camera. The feel is so much more like our film cameras (which I've barely touched in 3 years, but it's all coming back to me). Taking pictures is more immediate and present, looking through the viewfinder instead of staring at the LCD screen and without the irritating shutter lag. And I love, love, love hearing that mirror click up and down. To me, that's worth the price of admission right there.

I have 2 recent conversations with my kids (genetics and homelessness) to report on--I'll make a point to get to at least one of those before the week is out.

You Thought We'd Never Speak Of This Again

2007-02-05T16:00:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking more about the dairy stuff I mentioned the other day--and more about how I make food choices for my family.

You'll find a piece of writing more sustained than anything you'll get here for a little while (Jonah's been sick and I need to catch up on cleaning this old house and the new camera is here) over at my other place.

This, That and the Next Thing

2007-01-24T19:46:00.000-08:00

OK, first of all: State of the Union Address last night. I listened to it while I was waiting for John to get home from a late meeting and I don't know about you, but I did not hear those World Peace Cookies mentioned even one single time. If anything is sure to draw applause from both sides of the aisle, it's the best chocolate cookies ever as agents for change.

The wedding and the trip up North were much nicer than I had anticipated. Before we left, I had been hoping that we would get a call telling us the whole thing had been called off, or at least delayed. Not that I didn't want the wedding to happen, just wanted it to happen at a time more convenient to me so that I wouldn't have to pack up the car and drive all the way up there (OK, John does 99% of the driving, but I still have to be in the car), try to keep my kids out from under everybody's feet, deal with the various stresses of a family gathering and then turn around and come right home and jump into a busy week.

Not to say I'm itching to do it again any time soon, but it turned out to be a rather delightful time. The trip up was without incident of any kind (remind me to tell you sometime about how much I love my new car). Most of the adults were well-behaved, just a touch of control-freaking here and there, but this was certainly one of those times when a control freak is exactly what's needed. Jonah looked like a very handsome midget in his tuxedo--although, for $100 to rent the thing for 2 days, I'd have expected it to come with a couple of tranquilizer darts. The wedding ceremony was short and sweet and my brother was truly thankful that we had come. The reception was small and simple and everyone (besides, possibly, most of the bride's family--I don't know what was up with them, maybe they need some chocolate cookies) had a good time. The kids were in bed and asleep by 8:30. The drive home the next day was long. We were slow to get out of town (we stopped to catch part of my youngest sister's soccer game then John wanted to have lunch at Ikea) and we didn't get home until well past my bedtime so Monday was a little bit hard on all of us. But the laundry's all done now and put away and January is nearly over.

More pictures you say?Hannah getting ready. I think her favorite part of the whole thing was when she walked into the room at the church where the bride and bridesmaids were getting ready and they all said "Oh Hannah, you look so beautiful!" at the same time.
The bridesmaids cracking up because the minister's boutonniere kept flopping around. Two of those women are my gorgeous sisters, one my sister-in-law.
Jonah's favorite part was taking picture after picture of his Aunt Jessica (married to my brother, Jesse--it was bound to happen) with a disposable camera because she "looks like a princess and she has a Batman tattoo".

Finally: we way overpaid our taxes last year (I give the government an interest-free loan and they can't be bothered to try some cookies--sheesh!) and I am probably getting a spiffy new camera next week.

Pick and Choose

2007-01-17T22:54:00.000-08:00

Blogging tonight from Eugene, OR where we are spending the night on the way to my brother's wedding in Seattle this weekend.

Before settling at the motel, we stopped to get some milk for the kids' bedtime fix at the neat grocery store across the street (their cheese section and bakery and deli go waaaay beyond anything we've got near home, sigh). I always find myself a bit disoriented in a grocery store away from home. It smells funny, the way things are set up just doesn't make sense, products that are familiar--that I buy all the time--look terribly out-of-place and downright strange in a different environment, and I never know which milk to buy.

I must have stood there for 5 minutes in front of the rather excessive selection of milks (all the while Hannah standing next to me complaining about being cold). There were the available-everywhere organics. But I can't remember...which brand is the "good" one and which is the one that exploits the rules so that most of the cows never really spend time out in the fields grazing on sweet, green grass? There's the milk in the glass bottles. I am a sucker for the gorgeous glass bottles. Then I get stuck on the price (besides, I don't need to be schlepping more stuff around right now). There's milk from the big Southern Oregon dairy. The packaging doesn't say where the milk they distribute comes from. There's the milk that tastes as generic as its packaging.

It's so much easier at home. I don't stand in front of the refrigerated case thinking about whether cows grazing on fresh pasture as much as possible really matters to me or if I've just been green-washed into thinking it does, I don't wonder whether Oregon cows are happy cows, I don't look for labels that tell me about hormones or antibiotics, buying milk's not some kind of existential exercise... I know what I want and I know exactly where to find it. And I know that we are lucky to have it so abundantly: authentic milk.

It's not that it's all fancy and trendy, it's that the flavors of particular farms and seasons come through so strongly. Sure, we buy it at the store in plastic gallon jugs and it looks like pretty much any other milk out there (you know, white), but to drink it is to taste the lush green, green, green that surrounds us.

Beyond savoring good milk is instilling in my children a sense of the ways in which the individuals who make up communities--Hannah and Jonah drinking milk before bed, the grocery store owner, the farmers, the cows--are connected to each other and connected to the place we all live. More to come on this topic.

(By this topic, I don't mean the many splendors of Humboldt County's dairy products. While there's plenty to be said, show of hands, who really wants me to keep nattering on about milk? You at the back and you over there... Right, that's what I thought. Rather, what I mean to return to is the topic of undoing the dammage done by the kind of talk I hear coming from my children, their teachers and their friends' parents that goes like this: "You need to tell your body to be still!", "Check whether your body needs to use the bathroom." Huh? Stay tuned.)

Right, so....

2007-01-17T22:50:00.000-08:00

That last post was my 100th.
Let's all give a cheer.

How about I resolve to make it to 200 posts by this time next year?

Winter White

2007-01-15T21:19:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the long absence. It's too easy for me to stop writing here at all if I give it up for even a few days.

We have been away, for Christmas with my family in Seattle. We have been home having nice, long restful days, getting things done (in particular a new bookcase in the playroom, thanks John!) and being lazy. We are about to be away once again, for my brother's wedding in Seattle.

Whatever happened to June weddings?

Wishing for World Peace?

2007-01-15T21:14:00.000-08:00

Look no further than thedishandthespoon .

It's Beginning to Feel A lot Like...

2006-12-19T20:37:00.000-08:00

...I'm sick. Uck.

Jonah's had one of his trademark marathon colds for nearly a week and the rest of us have been fighting it off--along with the myriad other bugs that are going around this time of year. John looked like he was about to succumb a few days ago and I told him I would take it personally if he did. Only someone terribly inconsiderate would get sick right as we are getting ready to head up to Seattle for Christmas. I would never do such a thing.

Or would I?

I've had spells today of feeling pretty awful, but I don't think it's going to get much worse. I managed to get a few things checked off my to-do list ("make a to-do list" being the first item on that list), made dinner, cleaned up, took a nice nap with Jonah. Most of the presents are wrapped and packed up into a big tub o' goodies (there are still the things I bought myself and that I insist John will wrap--I've got to draw the line somewhere). Tomorrow I'll be getting all the laundry done and start on the packing. We'll be out of here early, early Friday morning.

Otherwise I'll Forget

2006-12-16T21:21:00.000-08:00

Jonah and I took advantage of some nice early-afternoon weather (it's been pretty wet here all week) to take a little hike through the yard. On the way back to the house, after we checked on the ant hill, got the mail, threw rocks in a couple of puddles and picked up--then discarded--some sticks that were too dirty, Jonah told me "I science mud. I'm a scientist about mud."

One of those times when it is clear to me that we are doing something right.

I science mud.

Perfect.

Cookies

2006-12-11T22:00:00.000-08:00

Over at thedishandthespoon, some simple cookies for a blustery day.

My Kind of Nightmare

2006-12-11T15:55:00.000-08:00

We were always late to everything when I was growing up. I don't know if it's a reaction to the embarrassment I felt at being part of a big, usually pretty loud, group of people that was perpetually, I felt, barging into the middle of events already in progress, but I am now compulsively punctual. I am at my most uptight when, despite my best efforts to get us out the door, my husband and children are slow to get moving. Much as I don't like feeling rushed, I really, really dislike running late.

I dreamt last night that John and I were sitting in our living room talking to three Hasidic Jews who just would not leave. I kept looking at my watch and suddenly it was 8:35, meaning that I was already really late getting Hannah to school. I woke up in a cold sweat.

I meant to tell about this last night, but the emotions were still too raw: I tried to get a picture of my kids for a Christmas card. Hannah was mostly wonderful throughout, but Jonah would not cooperate. Maybe I ought to lower my standards (or have someone else take the picture), but is it too much to ask that he just sit still, look at the camera and keep his tongue in his mouth for 5 seconds? I'm giving it another try in a little bit, but I may be sending out this.

John, Hannah: Historiettes

2006-12-05T20:20:00.000-08:00

The First: John
Last night while we were watching the 11 o'clock local newscast, a fellow from PG&E was talking about how energy costs are expected to go down compared to last year--though it's still important to conserve energy as much as possible. "We recommend setting your thermostat at 68 degrees during the day", he said. The only thing I could do was put a hand over each of John's (um, rather cold) ears for a moment and, upon removing them, exclaim: "He said to set the thermostat at 58 degrees, just like I always tell you to!"

How about Put on a sweater when you're in the house? Now there's a great tip.

Heating this house is expensive. I can't imagine what it would cost to keep it at 68 degrees--the checking account and I are blanching at the very thought. We do keep it above 58 degrees all the time (though if John's not looking, it'll be 50 at night), but it's been an area of compromise; I want to be able to afford to buy food, John wants the house to be so warm we'll be wanting to play beach volleyball in the livingroom.

Still, he laughed last night.

The Second: Hannah
Earlier today, Hannah asked: "Why was seven afraid of eight?"
"I don't know. Why?", I said.
"Because seven ate nine", she replies gleefuly.
"I think you meant to ask me why eight was afraid of seven."
She looks at me. Says nothing.
I feel compelled to explain: "Eight was afraid of seven because seven ate nine and eight was afraid he'd be eaten next. Ate like eat and eight the number." I stopped talking before I said homonym, pun, these kinds of jokes don't make sense to me either or anything else.
She gives it another try: "Mom, why was eight afraid of seven? Because seven eight nine! Do you get it?"
"Yeah, I get it. Do you?"
"Yes."
Long pause during which she looks vaguely puzzled.
"Actually, no."

That's One Crowded Bed

2006-12-03T21:58:00.000-08:00

We have been trying to encourage Jonah to spend more of each night in his own bed rather than in our bed. He's three years old now and he and his foot abduction brace ("I wear it to keep my feet straight", he'll tell you) take up a whole lot of room. After he falls asleep in bed with me, I'll move him to his crib. Invariably, he wakes up saying "I want to be in your guys' beeeedddd" a few hours later--and half-asleep, who can resist or try to talk him out of it?
Now, I'm not much interested in fighting him over this--I like having him close and he seems to need the closeness--but I am interested in getting him to realize that a bed right next to our bed, see how close we are?, we are right here, is close enough.

So we were talking about this last night, Jonah and John and I, and I mentioned that we could move the crib out of the room and have him use Hannah's toddler bed right next to our bed. Jonah liked this idea.

As I was falling asleep, it hit me that if we switch Jonah to the toddler bed, it will mean that we are done using the crib forever. It will mean that my baby is all. grown. up.

I think that's why I had a dream last night that I was in bed with Hannah (who has never, even as an infant, had much interest in sleeping in our bed) and Jonah and another son (I think named James) and that I was pregnant.

Tuesday Talk: Vive La Revolution?

2006-11-28T20:51:00.000-08:00

A young couple and a friend were sitting at the table next to ours at Tomo last night. It's not that they were being particularly loud, it's that our tables were so close together, it felt like we were sitting with them. Which made me privy to the following while they were talking about children's names. Keep in mind that I am not making this up.

Female of Couple: Well, we know we can't give a kid a name that sounds like it might be French.
Friend: Why's that?
FoC: MoC's family is French, but they had to flee the country--
MoC:--Under the guillotine! My Grandfather had to flee during the revolution. He doesn't allow anyone to speak French, because it reminds him of the revolution and all his friends who were guillotined.
Friend: Wow! That's intense for your family.
MoC: Yeah, the French Revolution was really harsh for my grandparents. They still talk about it.
FoC: So, no French names for us.

Female of Couple is, apparently, about to get her Master's degree. I take it that it is not in history (or else that's one really, really old grandpere).

Happy Birthday--Me Too

2006-11-27T21:03:00.000-08:00

This is strange and this has never happened to me before.
I have gone 3 places today--my birthday.
At all 3 places, a group of people sang Happy Birthday to someone--but not to me.

I stopped at Wildberries for a chai on my way home from picking Jonah up at school. A group from Dell Arte was performing. As they were leaving, one of the store clerks pulled them over to the deli counter to sing for one of the cooks.

John and I went out to dinner at Tomo. A young woman a couple of tables away was celebrating her birthday with her family. Her waitress brought her a bowl of ice cream with a candle in it and everyone around joined in singing.

After dinner, we walked over to BonBoniere to get some ice cream to bring home for later. A fairly large group of people sitting inside suddenly burst into song.

What shall we make of this?

Word Problem

2006-11-27T14:29:00.000-08:00

A charming, somewhat older, fellow and his ~~trophy~~ wife each celebrated a birthday within the last week. If the husband's age is 200% that of the wife's and together they will reach a century in five years' time, how old are they now?

The Best Laid Plans

2006-11-27T13:30:00.000-08:00

It's a school night, one when John doesn't usually get home until after 6pm, the first day back after a lovely week off to boot. Also my birthday (I took tiny cupcakes to Hannah's class with me and the children sang to me, twice; it was very sweet)--one of those "big" ones.
My plan had been to make one of my favorite super-easy dinners tonight (Trader Joe's Green Curry sauce with tofu, vegetables and rice), have some cake (already made) and icecream (BonBoniere's White Christmas), get everyone off to bed early. Instead, John has arranged for the kids to go over to friends' while we go out for sushi (one of the only places open on a Monday and one that happens to be a favorite). He's even letting his class out early so that we can still get everyone to bed on time tonight. John's not one to think up this kind of thing on his own--we're planning on going out to a nice dinner this weekend, after all--and that makes it feel very special.

Turning 30. People make a big deal out of that. Like I am supposed to have some terrific angst associated with getting older. I do not. I feel like my life is very well anchored in my husband and my children and the life we have together that is only our own. I am deeply rooted in a community of peers and friends. Sure, it's not what I imagined it would be a half-life ago--I would have won at least one Nobel by now--but I didn't have the tools for imagining this back then. I'm glad to have made it to where I am today. The view from here is very nice indeed.

Icing on the Cake

2006-11-25T16:13:00.000-08:00

Hannah was rather disappointed that we did not eat turkey on Thanksgiving day. Not realizing that it was so important to her and since it was just us, I had made chicken. Today though we got to have a great, traditional turkey dinner with our dear friends.
They have been out of town all week (in fact, we lent--rented, is more like it--them our car so they'd have a little extra seating room on their trip and Santa made a couple of bucks). The kids were thrilled to see each other and played and played without our having to intervene nearly at all. John asked about our most memorable Thanksgiving/Christmas--a great way to get us sharing stories. The drama, the laughs, the pathos, the adult conversation.
We ate turkey and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and green beans and peas and stuffing and lots and lots of gravy and it was so very good. There was a bit of anxiety over some of the turkey being a tad under-cooked and the stuffing having been laced, perhaps, with salmonella. But the gravy was so very good.

I made these tiny apple turnovers (recipe over at thedishandthespoon). They were a bigger hit than I had expected; next time I will make more.

Jonah is taking his nap now, Hannah's playing quietly, John's grading papers. In about an hour, we take the kids over to our friend Anne Marie's, about 5 minutes away from our place, so that she can borrow them for the evening (when she asked, couching it in just these terms, I said that would be fine, but we have a 3-day minimum and stiff penalties for early returns).

Happy Birthday, Buster

2006-11-24T14:12:00.000-08:00

Click on over to the dish and the spoon to see what I made my husband in lieu of a birthday cake.(And no, it's not a model of Mount Rainier made out of flour.)

Family Tradition

2006-11-23T22:34:00.000-08:00

When I was very young, my family lived in Chicago and we would go to my (paternal) grandparents' place south of town for all the major holidays. For Thanksgiving, I can remember loading up in the car after my dad got off work on Wednesday, falling asleep in the car on the ride down to Ashkum and waking up as one of my parent's carried me into Grandma's kitchen.
One year, probably the year I turned 5 (my birthday sometimes falls on Thanksgiving, you
know), my mom had baked a bunch of pies to take with us. Pumpkin, apple--she put them on the floor of the car in front of my seat and told me I'd better be careful not to step in one of them. I don't remember putting my foot into one of the pumpkin pies, but I do remember my grandfather telling me that I'd have to eat the whole thing since it was my footprint. I was scared of the the man--on top of being a terribly literal child--and could not sleep that night for fear of what would happen when I couldn't eat the whole thing.

Last year, the kids were very excited to get to help make the pumpkin pies for our Thanksgiving dinner. They poured in the milk, beat the eggs, stirred and stirred--it's actually a great thing to make with kids because there is lots for them to do. About 10 minutes after I set the pie out to cool, I heard John telling Jonah "Yeah, that is really good." The little bugger had pulled a chair up to the counter and was taking spoonfuls of pie filling to his Dad. Nothing that couldn't be covered up with a little whipped cream.

This year's pie escaped with just a few fingerprint marks and a couple of pieces of crust broken off. And it was very tasty.

Finally!

2006-11-22T21:59:00.000-08:00

At work today someone finally, finally, finally recognized my laptop for the fashion statement that it is.
A fellow in a Utah Jazz jacket and a San Fransisco Giants batting hat (not a baseball cap, but one of those plastic helmet-type things) and his wife came into the store, walked around, chatted a little bit. They were friendly, if a little on the odd side (I guess he may have been wearing the plastic hat because it was raining out?). I had my laptop out on the counter (I'm working on a post, you better believe it) and as he walked past on the way out the door, the fellow said: "I really like your VAIO there. Great color."

At least I think he was making a statement about how fashionable ~~I am~~ it makes me look. After all, he was wearing a plastic hat for no obvious reason.

Thanksgiving Plans

2006-11-21T22:58:00.000-08:00

We have been having a lovely Thanksgiving break over here. The weather has been rainy but warm (colder temperatures expected tomorrow); we've worked a few walks along the river and an outing to the Mad River fish hatchery into some of the not-so-rainy spells. We are dog- and hot tub-sitting for some friends. That and the walks are about all we've left the house for the last few days. John's getting some work done and ever so slowly picking up the pace on his grading; the kids have been making up clever, inventful games to play together; I'm thinking about organizing boxes of pictures I've not looked at for far too long; John and I are spending the time we've been needing to spend giving that seven year itch the good scratch it deserves (seven years ago I was not really enrolled in one of John's classes, seven years!).

We have no plans for Thanksgiving dinner other than to be here at home on our own. While that feels a little bit strange and empty to me, it also feels like exactly what our family needs right now. In just a few short days we'll be back to the routine of getting up, getting out of the house, getting from here to there, back here, there again, eating dinner, cleaning up, reading, going to bed (this is why I never blog). On Thursday, I'll cook for my family (they are insisting on pumpkin pie, I am insisting on stuffing) on our little island. We'll clean up, read, go to bed, get ready to go back to the great big world out there.

Tuesday Talk

2006-11-21T21:54:00.000-08:00

Young Man #1: I could bring some Jack Daniels.
Young Man #2: I'm totally burned out on Jack Daniels dude. I mean it's good, but it's all my friends were drinking for a while. Nah, not Jack Daniels.

Conference

2006-11-20T15:05:00.000-08:00

In the past week we have had parent-teacher conferences for both kids.
Hannah's was on Friday, the last her teacher did before Thanksgiving break. It felt ever so slightly rushed. Hannah attended the conference with us (the idea behind this being to help the kids take more responsibility for their work/behavior at school). She read to us and showed us what they have been working on in math. Her teacher went over her little report card with us, talked about how hard Hannah works and how much she enjoys having her in class. You know, the usual.
While Hannah was showing John some of their art projects and little succulent gardens they planted in abalone shells, the teacher and I talked about the only real concern with Hannah: she is a leetle bit bored at school. Mrs C pointed out that Hannah is nearly always the first one to finish her work and that while there is plenty of stuff for her to do while she waits for everyone else to finish (she can use a computer or look at books or get out blocks or paint or pretty much do whatever she wants), what she really wants to do is keep working (now, fancy that, John's and my daughter wanting to learn). So the teacher's going to be setting up some extra things for the kids who need a bit more of a challenge to work on when they want to. "All I can do is try things out", she said, "and at some point, we'll think about moving her up a grade for certain subjects." (For Hannah, right now, that would be math--though she's "ahead" in just about every area.) It was a relief to have the teacher agreeing with us that being bored at school, even if it is only kindergarten, even if there are opportunities for keeping busy, is not a good thing. So, we will see how that goes. We can work with her at home, and we do, but I want for her to be reaching her full potential and that does not happen unless she is being pushed beyond what she already knows and towards things that she will have to work at understanding--and it is clear that she wants that too.

Jonah's already "skipped" the first preschool class at the Children's Center. He's the youngest and smallest in the class and by all accounts, including his own, he is doing very well. We had originally signed him up in the lower classroom, with nearly all of his buddies form the year before, but they needed a space in that classroom and in discussing who would be a good candidate to move up, the teachers all agreed on sweet, little Jonah. The first week was hard and John and I worried that we had, gulp, done the wrong thing and the poor fellow was going to spend his preschool career being trampled by bigger kids. He loves it now, he's eager to go every day. He gives us better accounts of his day than Hannah ever has. He is making friends, connecting with the teachers, knows the routines and rules, gets so deeply involved in what he's doing that he has to be reminded to go to the bathroom. Things are good for Jonah.

Bedtime Story

2006-11-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

Hannah, exhausted, was put to bed before we got around to reading her a book tonight (though she did ask me to sing to her as she fell asleep).

Jonah, who had a nap too late in the day, is sitting in bed in bewteen John and me.
j (holding up a current favorite): Let's read this one!
J: OK, but we are only reading it 4 times.
j (holding up 4 fingers): I call this 4.
J: Yeah, lots of people do.

little dog Book Awards

2006-11-16T20:47:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite authors (to be more precise: the author of one of my favorite novels) won the National Book Award this week. In honor of that (and because, uh, otherwise you would be getting nothing today), here's a quick list of books that I have read and read over again. It's been years since I have added a book to this list. I'm including books and series that I read over and over when I was a kid because they provided the kind of escape I needed then. Not that I had a horrible childhood--quite the opposite, in fact--but these books offered me characters who felt more like me than anyone around me did and who helped me become a more grounded person.

The Gold Bug Variations Richard Powers
A librairian, a once-scientist, a piece of music. Intelligent, a tad over-written, deeply moving.

The Double Helix James Watson
Scientific discovery is exciting. And fun.

Einstein's Dreams Alan Lightman
Anyone detect a theme here?

Some of the short stories from The Night in Question Tobias Wolff and Birds of America Lorrie Moore.
Because I find myself in awe.

Harriet the Spy Louise Fitzhugh
I've talked about this before.

Anne of Green Gables (series) and Emily of New Moon (series) L. M.Montgomery
The Prince Edward Island of these books would be the perfect place to sit and write a book.

Take a Closer Look

2006-11-15T20:50:00.000-08:00

Hannah lost her first tooth today. She's been waiting for this day to come for quite a while!
She noticed that one of her teeth was loose 2 weeks ago and has been wiggling it around since then. She pulled it out all by herself earlier this evening. The one next to it (in the middle) is loose now too.

Hannah's been asking me a lot of questions about when I was losing teeth (way back in the 1980s).

One of my teeth was so loose, it came out when I bit into a banana. My mom knocked out one of my teeth by elbowing me in the mouth (the tooth was very loose and the elbowing was definitely accidental). I remember losing at least one tooth at school. I don't remember ever believing in the Tooth Fairy, but I do remember putting teeth under my pillow and finding a quarter there the next morning (a whole dollar when I lost my first molar). I had an extra set of incisors, so I lost all of those twice. I have one of my baby teeth in a little box. My mom probably threw the rest of them away.

What's your best memory of losing teeth?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go negotiate with a fairy.

Because I'm Doing Such An Amazing Job With This Blog...

2006-11-14T20:48:00.000-08:00

...I've decided to start another.

I do like the idea of posting our weekly menu and recipes and such, but I don't want the little dog laughed to be that kind of blog (and what exactly do you mean by that, Naomi? Well, uh, I'm not sure, exactly, but I don't really want it to be a food blog and I want it to be about much more than what we are going to have for dinner and what we had for lunch). So without further ado I present the dish and the spoon.

(I harbor the secret hope that one of my cats will take up fiddling so that I can start yet another blog.)

One Thing Leads To Another

2006-11-13T20:49:00.000-08:00

I spend all of Monday morning in Hannah's classroom so that I can attend violin class with her and 8 other kindergartners. The violin class is a little bit nuts, but I enjoy myself quite a bit the rest of the time. The teacher keeps me busy; I'm getting to know the bunch of kids who will be my daughter's classmates for a long time; and I know enough about the classroom schedule and dynamics now to ask Hannah good questions when I want to find out what she's been up to at school (because heaven forbid she should volunteer any information, I have to dig it all out of her and I'm only allowed 2 questions before she clams up).
Today the violin class finally reached the point where they got to play their violins. The rhythm "pep-per-on-i piz-za" on an open E string. Ready. Play.

Recently someone asked Hannah how she was enjoying kindergarten. She said it was fine, "but I am getting so tired of the alphabet." When I told her about this exchange, Hannah's teacher laughed, then sighed an "Oh poor Hannah." Because, tiring though it is, she's kind of stuck with the alphabet.

In the poem Instructions to the Artist, Billy Collins wrote:
Never be ashamed of kindergarten--
It is the alphabet's only temple.

Not long ago I had a vivid dream in which I owned an Alphabet Shop. I sold alphabets. Beautiful, beautiful alphabets for people who collect such things. It was a tiny shop. Gorgeous, colorful banners filled with alphabets hung from the high ceiling all the way to the floor. Shelves full of letters of all sizes and shapes lined the stone walls. Everything felt peaceful and quiet; the people who visited me were delighted to have found my shop. It was the best dream I have ever had.

Weekly Menu - Week of November 12

2006-11-12T20:31:00.000-08:00

I've decided to join Danielle and others in posting our weekly menu. I'm usually very good at making out a menu every week and sticking to it. Typically I build on what I've picked up at the Farmer's Market on Saturday and do a weekly shopping trip on Sunday. Some weeks are better than others, of course, and in periods when we need to be a bit more frugal, it helps us to be more disciplined in our spending.
Sunday: Tostadas with beef and all the fixings
Monday: Teriyaki chicken, rice and Amy's cabbage salad (Hannah's choice)
Tuesday: Kale, tomatoes, shallots and feta over noodles
Wednesday: Leek and potato soup with chicken apple sausage
Thursday: Midwest-mex enchiladas (you'll have to stick around)
Friday: Falafel with all the fixings
Saturday: Probably out

Because nothing says "I don't feel like writing--I don't even feel like typing" quite like this does.

Blogger's spell-check just asked me if I wanted to replace "falafel" with "Falwell". As if.

Slump

2006-11-12T19:59:00.000-08:00

It was pretty easy not to post at all on Thursday. It had been a long day, I was fretting about a few things. I didn't get any down-time at all to let some writing happen until late, late in the day. By then I hated every sentence I came up with.
It was even easier on Friday not to post. I did think about how I was not posting, but, eh, it's not like you people are leaving me much by way of comments anyway. It was easy to give up on posting every single day this month, but not so easy. I didn't even turn my computer on out of feeling by turns guilty and frustrated.
Saturday, more of the same. Busy enjoying a beautiful, warm, sunny day at the Farmer's Market (shallots, walnuts, leeks and some beautiful kale), the river and home. All the while feeling like I had to make an effort to part the atmosphere around me so that I could keep going forward.

Today I feel terribly slumpy. The weather has suddenly turned cold and rainy--which helps some. The kids and I baked a whole bunch of muffins and froze most of them so that John can take them to work with him next week. That helped too. But I just do not feel like writing.

But

2006-11-08T21:45:00.000-08:00

Here's a little story provided as evidence that I was far too distracted to get any serious writing done today.
This morning when I got up it was sunny out and it stayed that way a good part of the day. I had opened the sunroof on the car, but totally forgot about it when it started pouring rain late in the afternoon. The front seats are soaking wet, but I don't think I've done any lasting damage.

That is all.

In Which Our Heroine Goes Back On A Promise

2006-11-08T20:55:00.000-08:00

That long post I promised you? Not ready. John's fault. Jonah's fault. The Republicans' fault. The weather's fault. Can't figure out a way to blame it on Hannah--but you get the idea: every one's fault but my own. I'm working on it though (longer, better quality posts, not my tendency to blame everything on other people)--please check back.

Tuesday Talk: Election Day

2006-11-07T21:18:00.000-08:00

If you voted at the same place I did, about 5pm, you may have caught the following exchanges between a young girl and her mother.
H: Is dad running for govenor?
N: No....
H: But you voted for someone named John. You should vote for dad. He should be govenor.
N: Dad's busy enough already. You need to be quieter please.

H (whispering): Yes, No, Yes, Yes... Can I fill some of those out for you?
Jonah can't believe 3-year-olds can't vote. And they call this a democracy!
Nice long post coming tomorrow, I promise.

Taken In

2006-11-06T21:10:00.000-08:00

Jonah is a small guy. I knew when I was pregnant with him that he was small--even though everyone kept telling me that my second child was bound to be so much bigger than my first. He weighed in at 7lbs 3oz at birth. A respectable weight, but downright puny compared to Hannah's 9lbs 7oz. (So, I knew that he was small even before he was born, but I still worried that everyone was right about the second child being bigger thing.)

He's a cute small guy too. People are often astonished at how well such a small guy speaks. Such a cute small guy whose pants are always falling down... The kid has a teensy tiny waist. I have the hardest time finding pants that fit him. I love the pants with adjustable waistbands, but those are all ones with zippers and snaps that he cannot run on his own and I get tired of doing that kind of thing for him. I also get tired of having to take in the waist on just about every pair of little pants, but he refuses to wear dresses.

*****

Conversation between John and Jonah while they were "doing the dishes" (by that I mean that John does the dishes while Jonah stands next to him at the sink playing with water).
j: Can I use that? (pointing to the bowl of my standing mixer)
J: No, we're trying to clean the dishes here, not get more of them dirty.
j: But I need that. I'm a chef!

Partay!

2006-11-05T20:11:00.000-08:00

The soccer party was lovely, really. We had about 20 people over: soccer players, their parents, siblings. Most of the children on Hannah's team are from families we have known since all the kids were infants (some of them from when the kids were in utero), so our get-togethers are typically easy, comfortable things with just a touch (sometimes much more than others, today on the light side) of melodrama in the playroom.

The Most Wonderful Coaches Ever (TM) made a special award for each of the players and gave a little speech as they handed them out. Hannah was "Most Consistent"--for showing up at every game and practice, for being such a reliable player and for scoring at least one goal in every game.
I've enjoyed watching her blossom as a player over the past few months (Thanks MWCE!). She loves playing and definitely shows some natural abilities--she's light on her feet, quick and stinkin' competitive. She's also showing an understanding of the game and how to play it with other people that I only see in a few of the kids.
After most everyone took off, Joel and Phoebe and Mickey and associated children joined us for a walk on the river. It was quite terrific--especially since John and Joel took all the kids down to the water while we women took a chatty walk on the loop trail. The kids kept busy building bridges across a little inlet and playing at whatever they were playing at. Only one child got sopping wet wading right on into the river (that'd be Jonah).

This evening has been quiet and calm. Hannah and Jonah playing happily in a fort made of chairs and blankets, John and I reading the Sunday newspapers. I just ate the last little sliver of the coffee cake-y thing I made for the potluck (cornbread from a mix with a cup and a half of blueberries [frozen from this summer] tossed in and a streusel topping [about 1/3 cup butter, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup flour and 1/2 cup oats])--turned out to be perfect with a tiny cup of eggnog. I'm about to go curl up with the Official Voter Information Guide. Wish me luck.

Are You Ready to Party?

2006-11-04T21:37:00.000-08:00

I am. Almost.
We are hosting a party for Hannah's soccer team at our place tomorrow. The house is clean (just need to sweep the kitchen and get John to clear his stuff off of the coffee table). We're doing this potluck style and I still haven't decided what I'm going to make. Quiche? Coffee cake? Deviled eggs?
More tomorrow, of course.

'Tis the Season

2006-11-03T20:31:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed the first glass of eggnog of the season tonight while I read the NY Times food section (that's been sitting around since Wednesday) and the Lorrie Moore story I mentioned last night (anyone care to venture a guess as to why she's got a character named Daniel Handler?).

Eggnog is one of those things that I suddenly crave come the beginning of November and immediately like a whole lot less as soon as Thanksgiving is past. Turkey is another. Stuffing to a lesser extent (because I always like stuffing). Pumpkin pie. Though I don't know that I--or anyone I know--has ever craved pumpkin pie. I don't know whether I'd drink eggnog if we could buy it in July--and heaven knows I don't roast turkeys or bake pumpkin pies at any other time of the year--but when I see the first batch of eggnog in the store, I just have to have some right away. And the very thought of a turkey sandwich on fresh bread, slathered with mayonnaise, thick with tomatoes and pickles and lettuce, is making my mouth water as I type.

Then it's over. Not because I overdo it, gorging myself on so much turkey and eggnog that I just can't bear the thought of facing another plateful/glassful ever again. In large part my reaction has more to do with a sense of something wonderful on its way. My tastebuds are doing the anticipating.

Growing up, we didn't celebrate either Halloween or Christmas, but we went all out for the holiday that comes in between. Thanksgiving feels more special to me, more important, more sacred in its own way, than any other holiday. Sure, Thanksgiving is about food. Good food. It's also the time when we gather around a meal not just for our daily sustenance, but to acknowledge that the gathering itself is worthy of celebration. For me, the taste of eggnog (cut by about a third with milk) is the rich and mysterious--how is it that I am so blessed?--and deeply satisfying taste of the many things I have to be thankful for: a roof over my head, a car I love to drive, the love of my parents, my husband's laugh, my children's good health.

Rain Rain Don't Go Away

2006-11-02T21:36:00.000-08:00

Just the second day of NaBloPoMo and the best I can come up with is the weather...
Much as I love those long summer days when we've got nothing better to do than be outside, I am happiest when it is rainy out. Fall is a funny kind of season here on the North Coast. When the Autumnal Equinox rolls around, we know that the best days of summer are still ahead of us; the mornings are very chilly by the middle of October, the skies are a pristine blue every single day and by afternoon it's as warm as it will get all year long (that's somewhere in the mid 70s at the coast, 10-20 degrees warmer a few miles inland). Come Halloween John is sick and tired of hearing me complain about how it never stinkin' rains around here. And it's true! Until we get that first, lovely, delightfully wet storm. The very one that blew in yesterday.

Forced indoors, the kids are discovering all these toys they haven't played with in a long time. They are playing together and playing alone and I haven't had to entertain anyone or break up any fights. I'm getting some cleaning done. OK, I'd be doing that anyway because we are hosting a party for Hannah's soccer team over here on Sunday, but it's so much easier to get things done when I'm feeling cheerful. It will wear off some after a while; I'll get sick of all the mud tracked through my kitchen (and my car!), sick of the clutter of raincoats and boots, the kids will get tired of their toys (but, hey, Christmas is smack-dab in the middle of our rainy season), I'll get tired of breaking up fights, I'll yearn for the days when I can send them outside and make them stay there all day long. Today though, standing on the back porch just watching--the rain makes everything much better. (Also, Lorrie Moore has a short story in the New Yorker that came today.)

Off to Join the Circus

2006-11-01T22:12:00.000-08:00

Real quick-like before I fall asleep over here. Tonight Hannah and her best friend got to go see the Moscow Circus perform (H: Have they already set up the tent? How many animals will there be? N: Uh....This is a circus inside a theater. No animals. But clowns and acrobats! H: I hope the clowns throw pies at each other.).
I found the circus to be not so hokey as others I have seen (not many, but some of them just terrible). Hannah enjoyed it very, very much. It was so much fun just sitting next to her as she clapped and gasped Awesome! and Cool! and laughed at the clowns. During the acrobatic routines, she watched very intently and as play-by-play would say either "I can do that" or "I can't do that" or "I could do that if I practiced". I'd have to say, that was my favorite part. I love when she is so confident and sure of herself while still being very aware of her limitations--it's one of things about her that I think is just perfect.

As we were leaving the theater, she turned to me and said: "I know what I can be when I grow up! I can be a circus veterinarian! That way I can take care of animals and be an acrobat."

Tuesday Talk: Trick or Treat

2006-10-31T20:58:00.000-08:00

If you had been on the Plaza this evening (where we got all of our candy gathering activities wrapped up by 4:45 pm and the kids were both asleep before 8 pm--oh yeah) you might have overheard the following exchange between Super Dog and a Random Store-owner Handing Out Candy.
RSHOC: Are you Super Dog?
SD: Yes! I'm Super Dog!
RSHOC: Do you have any super powers Super Dog?
SD: My leg has the power of bandaging! If anyone is hurt, I can put a bandage on them with my leg. And my eyes are laser eyes. I help people with my laser eyes. And I have the power of disappearing!

Who needs candy...

2006-10-31T20:03:00.000-08:00

...when you've got sweeties like these?
Halloween Madness 2006 finally came to an end this evening. When did Halloween become a nearly week-long extravaganza anyway? A carnival at Hannah's school on Friday, the very nice Halloween Walk at the Unitarian Church on Saturday, a parade at school today, trick-or-treating around town, a couple of trips to the local pumpkin patch and corn maze, the end of Daylight Savings Time. The fun never ends!
The kids are getting good use out of the costumes I slaved over with a hot glue gun. Hannah's costume is entirely recycled out of last year's costume. Last year's butterfly (Jonah was a caterpillar) became this year's Flower Fairy. Jonah is Super Dog, a character he made up some time ago. He insisted that I make his cape out of a towel.

And I've got enough candy stored up to fuel me through the first annual NaBloPoMo. That's right! Starting tomorrow, a post every single day.

Tuesday Talk

2006-08-01T23:20:00.000-07:00

John and I checked out the new fish and chips place in Eureka today at lunch. It was a pretty hoppin' place; in the section where we sat, everyone seemed to know each other.
A former mayor--now running for District Supervisor (or, um, something...honestly, I don't know)--and her husband were at the table next to ours. All I can tell you though is that they really liked the clam chowder. Both varieties.

John and I shared the crab cakes and the Fisherman's Platter. The crab cakes were very simple: lots of crab, not much else. They were good, though I would have liked a little bit more crunch (same problem with the tartar sauce; I like mine with lots of pickly goodness). The scallops and the shrimp on the platter were excellent, but the advertised 2 pieces of cod together barely amounted to a single piece. There wasn't enough batter on anything to stand up to vinegar, but the cocktail sauce was tasty (from a jar?). The fries were pretty typical skin-on fries. Service was quick and friendly. We'll take the kids some time.

Summer Evening: Salad

2006-07-30T22:55:00.000-07:00

Summer has finally hit the North Coast. We have had 2 weeks of beautiful, sunny days. While the rest of the state has been absolutely sweltering, temperatures up here have peaked out at about 70 degrees (inland just a bit where we are, we've been up in the very-tolerable 80s). A spell like this never lasts as long as I'd like it to.

Hannah was drawn to a mixed salad with lots of flowers in it at the Farmer's Market yesterday. At dinner, I turned it into a riff on a salad I have been craving: the Lazy Susan Cafe's hot seafood salad. I've often suggested that we make the trip up to Cannon Beach, OR just so that I can have this salad again. Instead, I made a vinaigrette with lemons and shallots, seared some scallops and sweet bay shrimp (fresh mozzarella for Hannah who's just not a seafood gal). A Brio baguette on the side and a tall glass of sun tea. Summer could last forever as far as I'm concerned.

Our big project for the summer has been putting down laminate flooring in our diningroom and playroom (stinky carpet--gone forever!). Putting the laminate down went pretty quickly. Now that that's done, we're moving slowly on the finishing touches. Take another look at that first picture--looks good, doesn't it?