In my 40th year

...I took a lot of selfies, which I noticed as I tried to collect those pictures of the kids a couple weeks ago.

Anyway... here they are.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Sea Ranch visit, January 2017

Or as Lochlan calls it, Sea Banch.

Well, we did our best to clean up the house before the housekeeper comes (what a cliche!), then packed and headed out of town. We were on the road a bit after 11, which is just what we’d planned. 

The GPS kept telling us there was slow traffic, stopped traffic, and obstructions in the road, but actually it was pretty smooth sailing. We stopped in Santa Rosa and ate at the “Warm Puppy Cafe,” which is attached to the Charles Shulz skating rink. It was decorated with Peanuts characters, but otherwise was pretty unremarkable overpriced skating rink food. 

Most of the rural drive was over, and we quickly got to the old Coast Highway part of the drive, which is LOVELY if not relaxing. I mean, it’s along the coast, and just green and ocean waves off to the left, but there are a thousand curves, and a lot of them are meant to be taken at 20.

We got our key at the rental office, then popped into the grocery store for some dinner stuff (rigatoni, sauce, and a baguette). Then it was another fifteen minutes or so back to the actual house, which was hard to find. But we settled in, and it’s lovely! A big living room with comfy chairs and a long window seat with pillows. There are a ton of books, DVDs, games, and CDs all over the place, and actually rather a good selection (well, most of the books are schlocky, but the DVDs have a plethora of choices).

The kids watched a little TV and Sweetie snuggled in the bed while I made dinner and listened to Elvis Costello.

Note to self: the cider we tried tonight, Strongbow cherry blossom, was a treat!

We tidied up and relaxed a little again, then popped into the hot tub! It was really nice — I think we all enjoyed it, but then it started to rain, so rather than getting our towels and things soaked, we ran in.

Now it’s cocoa/ginger ale/bitter lemon cocktail and some more cartoons before bed.

Tuesday:

We had a rough night’s sleep, as we often do on vacation (and somewhat less frequently, but still fairly often at home, sigh). We were up for 2-3 hours in the middle of the night, all of us, and this morning found Lochlan in the king bed with Reza and me in a twin in the room with Zadie. I got up first and made coffee, but everyone else was up soon after (I might have — oh, I’ll just say it — I farted really loud and woke them all up!). 

We went out for breakfast at a place in Gualala called Trinks, and it was really good! I was initially thinking we might grab some bagels and eat breakfast here, but we only have three more mornings, and I’m hoping to try the Two Fish bakery as well, so I think we might just continue having breakfast out! Lochlan had a scone (delicious — I ate a healthy chunk of it, as he seemed uninterested), Azadeh had eggs and toast, Sweetie had eggs and toast and bacon, but gave his bacon to Lochlan. The coffee was good, and the menu was really interesting. My breakfast sounds crazy, but it was terrific: warm lentils with two eggs any style (I went with over easy), avocado, feta, green onions, cilantro, and pickled radish. I could eat another bowl of it right now!

We stopped in the fancier grocery store (Surf) and got crackers, bread, cheese, olives, hummus — just stuff to snack on around the house. Then we decided to go to the beach while it was still only sprinkling, as the forecast called for heavier rain later. 

We saw a sign that said “Shell Beach,” so we pulled in, but the small parking spot was just off the highway, and the GPS seemed to indicate that we were actually still a ways from the water. We tramped down a path for a quarter mile or so, and Lochlan was slow, so I picked him up and carried him. We hit a street with the walking path marked on it. That seemed… odd. Like, could we have driven down that street and gotten even closer? The path wasn’t heading straight to the water, either — it was at an angle. I decided to see if we could get closer to the beach by car, and we would try to meet Sweetie and Az, who were going to keep walking. If it didn’t work, we’d meet back at the little parking lot.

Loch and I followed road after road, all of which had “no beach or bluff access” signs on them until we gave up and went back to the lot. Ten minutes or so later, Sweetie and Az joined us. It had been another quarter mile or so, but they did hit a beach and played around for a bit. I’m sorry we missed it, but tomorrow we’ll plan better to find a more accessible beach. 

We came back here, fooled around, had some lunch, soaked in the hot tub for a long time, and finally got Lochie down for a nap. Azadeh is watching Star Wars “The Phantom Menace,” which is so awful, but she’s happy. 

Lochlan was delighted to be in the hot tub. I’m not even sure why, but he just laughed and laughed, popped bubbles, and periodically announced “it tickles!” He bounced around on me, grabbed my boobs, called himself a baby kitty and baby airplane, and mimicked Azadeh, pushing off the side of the tub yelling “blastoff!” Once, in a high-pitched voice, he said, “The baby kitty fell in the water! Help! Help!” I grabbed him and he laughed.

Tuesday evening, it was revealed that we had miscommunicated slightly. Sweetie thought I was getting dinner stuff at the grocery store, and I thought we were going out for dinner. When I got the baby down for his nap, I drove to Gualala to grab some stuff. 

Back home, I made minestrone soup, and while it simmered we had an appetizer hour with crackers, cheese, hummus, olives, and ginger ale for the kids and cocktails for us.

In the morning (I drugged the kid, so we had good sleep), we had a little coffee at home, then went back to Trinks. Sweetie felt silly saying it, but had the “Big Boy Breakfast,” whereas I had the “Little Guy” version (eggs, potatoes, and toast, and his came with bacon). The kids had “the Standard,” eggs and toast, and split a side of bacon. It was all really good. I especially liked their jam. 

Then we went to the beach again. Last night I searched beaches that were easier to get to, and Stengel Beach and Pebble Beach both sounded good, so we tried Stengel. It was breathtaking — the waves crashing over rocks out in the surf, striated cliff rocks thrust up out of the sand, a waterfall, and little caves full of abalone shells, sea glass, serpentine… We explored a bit on the south end of the beach, but the waves looked like they were getting higher, so we walked a touch north to the sandy parts. There was one of those little creeks crossing the beach to the ocean, and the first time, I kind of waded across, getting my socks and shoes wet. So on the way back, I thought I might jump it. It was a little higher, and though the sand was obviously eroding away from the creek, I still assumed I could get a good purchase for a short jump. I was wrong. My last step crumbled the sand, I lost momentum, hit a rock with my right foot, and my right ankle gave way under me and I hit the beach. I stood up quickly but then I stood very still for a few minutes trying to assess the situation. I think I lightly sprained my ankle, pulled my achilles tendon a bit, and bruised my shin where it hit the sand. It’s not awful — lord knows I could have broken it — but it is painful and I’m hobbling around.

We made just one stop on the way home, at the Sea Ranch Chapel. Sweetie’s whole estimation of it (he stayed in the car) was a very deadpan “Oh. It’s whimsical.” Yeah, well, I like whimsy. The kids went in with me, and I admired as I did when I was a teen the abalone shells embedded into the plaster of the ceiling, the stained glass, the lovely fountain outside, the carved wooden benches…

We went back to the house and rested for a while. I iced my ankle (and tendon and shin), and after a little while, the kids and I went into the hot tub again. After a lazy afternoon and lunch, I got the boy down for a nap and drove to Gualala for dinner stuff (pizzas) and dessert (lemon cheesecake and fudge). Then I came back toward our place, but instead of going directly home, I checked to see where Twofish Bakery is. I had looked it up before we left, and I thought it was close, but I didn’t realize how close — we’re about half a mile off Annapolis on Timber Ridge Road, but the very next street off Annapolis is where the bakery is.

We had also noticed a sign that said “Annapolis Winery” with an arrow pointing down the street. I initially thought it might be fun to go do a tasting or buy a bottle, but I wasn’t set on it. But Sweetie had encouraged me, so I decided to check it out. It was farther than I thought, too — eight miles — but even that isn’t so far. However, on windy, hilly, cliffside roads, it took longer than normal. When I was thinking about writing this, I thought I would say that sometimes I need to get out of the house because I rarely get alone time, or because the kids had been loud, or something else. But the truth is, although I do like some alone time and some quiet, I also love driving winding coast roads with my music loud. 

It was a gorgeous drive! A lot of it was enclosed by dense trees, but at times, the view opened up over a huge valley with fog rising from the pine trees, grazing sheep in a meadow, and the platonic ideal of a farmhouse to the east. When I got there, a woman opened the door. I hadn’t checked the hours (the internet here is SO SLOW dude), so I called out, “Are you even open?” She said, “we weren’t, but we are now!” I walked in and she explained that they’re normally open until 6 (it was a little before 5), but no one had stopped by in a while, and she was having guests for dinner, so she was trying to sneak out a little early. I said I didn’t want to keep her, and I could just go, but she protested. “No! It’s a long drive over that hill! I’m going to make it worth your while.” And she did — she was charming and funny, and we did a lovely full tasting, from a rose to a Barbera to a Zin, a Cabernet Sauvignon, and finally a Zin Port. She kept saying, “this one is my favorite.” She even told me that she, upon tasting the Port, had quit her job and moved here to work for them.

I came back here, we had some pizza, the kids played for a while and we listened to Frank Black, and then I put Lochie to bed. We set up the game “Ticket to Ride” and played. Z was trying SO hard to be a good sport, even as she fell behind, but she did get in a couple unfortunate digs, like asking whether we had skipped her turn, or whether her dad had really earned all the points he’d moved his marker to.

She’s been kind of a pill this trip. I mean, it’s only… maybe 20 percent of the time? But when she’s being awful it feels like your life is on fire. I go from fantasizing about adopting her out, to fantasizing about sending her to boarding school, to just actually planning to send her to summer camp again so I don’t have to deal with her this summer. We’re trying to help her focus on using “kind words” (instead of verbally abusing us all the time), and today for whatever reason (or more likely, no reason) she said her dad was “being a jerk.” He gave her a time out, and the rule is that hers are 8 minutes. But being kind, he only gave her 4. Still, she complained, she yelled insults, she came out of the room again and again. We increased the time, started it over if she came out, etc. But she was in such a foul mood that even me saying “Dude! Just sit in there and read and relax. You LIKE to read” didn’t get through to her. The half-hearted and sarcastic-sounding apology she gave later may have included the phrase “but you were being a jerk,” which never goes over well. 

Things smoothed over a bit, so the kids and I went in the hot tub. She flung herself across it, bumping my hurt leg. I asked her to be careful, and she replied with, “well, my leg is hurt, too.” “I’m sorry to hear that. But I’m just asking you to be careful of mine.” It strikes me sometimes how narcissistic she is — she must be the center of attention. I can’t even have a hurt leg without her having a worse injury — debilitating! Her leg feels like it’s going to fall off! Shortly afterward, I twisted an unlabeled dial. It turned her jets down and mine on. She immediately complained that her jets were too low. We fussed with it a bit, but the only acceptable setting for her was full-power on her jets, none on anyone else’s. Okay, fine, who cares, right? But after about ten minutes, she was sitting on the edge, not even in the jets, just with one foot dangling near them. I scooted over to try them out and she complained that it was her corner. So ultimately, I can’t have jets on my side, and I can’t use her jets even when she’s not using them. She’s just selfish, quick to anger, cruel with her words, really thoughtless of others, and… well, kind of a jerk.

A few months ago I read a book called Neurotribes. There was a chapter about the movie Rain Man, and many parents of kids with autism thought the movie had been really helpful. If their kid had a meltdown in public, they could say, “Have you seen Rain Man? He has that.” But Hoffman’s character is charming, gentle… We need an Asperger’s movie about a character who’s a complete asshole. Then I can be like, “Have you seen American Psycho? She's got that.” Still wouldn’t help us, who have to live with her, but it’d be something.

Thursday:

Lochlan woke up pretty early, but he and I managed to chill without waking everyone else. They got up around 8, and I was hungry, so before long, I loaded up the kids and drove to Twofish Bakery. I got two sticky rolls, a morning bun, a pain au chocolat, and a scone. Sweetie had one sticky bun, and the kids and I split 1/3 of everything else. In my estimation, the sticky bun was in the top 5 I’ve ever had, as was the morning bun. The pain au chocolate was good, but not outstanding (the pastry was terrific — buttery and flaky — but the chocolate was sort of skimpy). The scone had good flavor but was a tad dry. We also got a couple coffees, since I can’t get the coffeemaker here to work properly.

Anyway, we relaxed here and read for a while. I commented to Sweetie that even though we don’t have an ocean view from this place, it’s really lovely to be surrounded by trees. The big picture windows have a long window seat, and the view is all trees. It was our first sunny day, so soon we headed to the beach. We went back to Stengel Beach, and I hobbled down the stairs (my ankle is still pretty tender) and we all went to the south end, where there are some little coves full of rocks and shells, and we just poked around, picking up interesting bits, and admiring all the mussels and barnacles and things on the rocks. We even saw one lovely anemone.

We used the castle and octopus molds to make sand creations, and Lochie stomped on them. Azadeh took pictures with the new camera she got for Christmas. Sweetie adventured just a little further than the rest of us to see another cove and got his shoes soaked. We walked back up north after a little while, past the waterfall, and goofed around in the drier sand under the sun. Soon, Sweetie and Azadeh called me. I came over, and he said he thought they’d seen a whale spouting. I looked for several minutes and didn’t see anything, and I was so sorry to have missed it. But then we saw it again! I was so excited! In all the time I’ve spent on the coast, I’ve seen all kinds of things, even dolphins, and once we saw a sea lion up VERY close. But never have I seen a whale. It looked like a small one, both because it was pretty close to shore, and because it’s head popped up a little and the head didn’t look that big. But still — COOL!

I told Lochlan, "I like to be very quiet and listen to the waves." He held up the castle mold and said, "I like to hold this and make sandcastles!"

The kids dug and rolled in the sand, and I looked at stuff on the beach (rocks, shells, a bit of coral, some jellyfish — one which looked just like a doll shoe — and crabs, and a strange creature that looked like a deflated navel orange).

From there, we went to Gualala again and checked out the toy store. It was cute, and we got away with only spending a few bucks on each kid. Lochlan got a Paw Patrol figurine (he says it like “Popeeto”), and Azadeh got some Pokemon cards. The owner of the store happened to mention that he had 15,000 Magic the Gathering cards, to which I had to summon a face that expressed that it was impressive but not abnormal. Inside, I was thinking “HOLY SHIT!”

We asked the proprietor if there was a bookstore, and he was very happy to tell us about Four Eyed Frog books, which was about two blocks down. The shopping center it was in was much bigger than it looked from the street, and we had to climb a set of stairs to get there (my ankle is protesting, and back here at the house, I’ve entirely stopped going in the loft after the kids). But the bookstore was so cute. It was small, but really nicely decorated, with several places to sit, carpeting, and nice displays of literary fiction and a charming little kids’ section. I found a few things I wanted (although all the literary fiction is already on my wish list, and my birthday is next week), and so did the kids, and so did Sweetie. He did NOT get out of there cheaply.

I left with Lochie first (Azadeh was having a hard time making a choice) and we stopped to look in “Anabel’s Boutique,” which had cute used clothing. I got him a little fleece one-piece suit with a sort of gnome hat. But he was dying for the much-too-big, silver lame girls’ ballet flats. He was so upset that I wouldn’t get them that he burst into tears and refused to come down the stairs. He must have been tired, because he fell asleep in the car almost immediately.

Unfortunately, that meant we had a hard time getting him down for a nap. It’s a ten minute drive between our place and Gualala, so his nap was about nine minutes, but that’s generally enough to make him think he has HAD HIS NAP and is DONE, thank you very much. Still, we eventually got him down, and got in the hot tub again!

We spent about two hours in there (and when L got up, we brought him in, too). It’s been so much fun to soak that we even started thinking up audacious plans to take a hot tub camping. 

We rinsed off in the shower, then got dressed and headed to Gualala again. We decided to try Taqueria del Sol. I almost missed the entrance — there are few street lights in the town, so if your headlights aren’t aiming at it, you can’t see it. It was nearly empty, but by the register was an older gentleman in a cooking apron holding a very small baby girl. A little boy stood near him, and Azadeh and Lochlan both tried making friends with him. The boy had the funniest stance — like a pro soccer player exhausted by the banality of the interviewer talking to him. And when they asked, “do you want to be friends,” he said no. Still, they got high fives. 

We ordered dinner and got it quickly. It was tasty, if pretty standard taqueria fare. We finished up and headed out the door (hurrying a little, as at 6 another man turned the “open” sign around). As we neared the car, the older man came out with the little boy (he was probably 3 and a half). He explained, “He does want to be your friend. He didn’t mean to say no. He’s been crying about it!” The kids both quickly said they were friends and he shouldn’t cry, and with one more round of high fives, we were off. 

We decided to head to the Gualala grocery once more, mainly for road snacks for the trip home and matches for the fireplace (story to follow). It’s kind of a strange place. Everywhere we’ve been in Gualala has been more or less filled with rich older white people, many carrying expensive cameras. The place is crawling with Volvos and Lexuses. But the Gualala grocery was filled with old guys with missing teeth, 18 year olds with waist-length dreadlocks, and a host of people who would have looked right at home at the Greyhound station. The upstairs (which just had some toys, candles, and vitamins mostly) was populated by a number of blond, lank-haired children running around with Splenda packets, snatching balls out of the ball bin, and then disappearing behind a small curtain. You could set a zombie movie in the Gualala grocery is what I’m saying.

Also, for whatever reason, Azadeh lost her gotdamn mind in the store. She was acting like the Coneheads* — like she was from another planet and just experiencing an Earth grocery store for the first time, but trying to play it cool. She’d see something like, I don’t know, Go-gurt and GASP in delight. We were like, “CALM THE FUCK DOWN, BRO” but in more appropriate parent-y language. But seriously. 

(*Autocorrected originally to Boneheads, which made me laugh, and was also accurate.)

Okay, here’s the story — we’ve been staying in VRBOs off and on since Z was little. We’ve done several in Oregon and one in Hawai’i. And every one has been pretty well-equipped. They had coffee makers, dish soap, extra blankets… And while this house is beautiful, and spacious, and comfortable, it’s somewhat oddly equipped. For example, we’re here for four days, and they gave us a shot-glass-sized thing of dish soap. They invited us to have a fire and left plenty of wood, but only two matches (and no kindling or fire starters). There are four of us here for four days, there’s a hot tub and showers, and we have four towels, no spares. They said to feel free to use the laundry machines, and also to please start a load before we leave, but left us one laundry pod. I don’t know if it’s just a matter of not having stocked up on things, but it’s been a little frustrating. 

Anyway, we then headed back here and put Lochlan to bed, then let Azadeh play and read for a while, and now she’s in bed, too. 

It’s been pretty dreamy to look up through the redwoods at a half moon, to spot Venus and Orion in a black sky, to see the sun blazing through the fog, cut into rays by the trees, and to relax in the real comfort and quiet with nothing to do. I was making a pro-con list in my head of this place vs. Santa Cruz, and Santa Cruz tends to have warmer weather and more stuff to do, but I have been pretty happy here with nothing much to do at all. The only real drawback is the drive. Oh, and that everything here is super-expensive. I wanted to pack food to bring, but Sweetie said we should just play it by ear. We have, but we’ve also spent like $60 on dinner ingredients from the grocery store each night. Ahem… the other grocery store. The one with the Volvo people in it. 

That’s pretty much the wrap-up, I think. Oh — a dog walker probably saw my boobs today. We’ve been skinny-dipping in the hot tub, and we had made some noise right before we got out (Azadeh keeps forgetting my leg is hurt, and, like, standing on it). I had told Sweetie earlier that the only people who could see us were one set of neighbors from a pretty high window, and the occasional vehicle driving by if they happened to look up. And that’s only in the 30 seconds it takes to get from the door down to the hot tub. Once we’re in, you can’t see anything. But…. I forgot dog-walkers. A dog walker is not in a vehicle with the windows rolled up, so he can hear you. And he will look up. And it’s going to take him two full minutes to completely round the corner, and he will look up the whole time. So I popped up, popped down, waved a friendly wave while pretending to be very short and standing still behind a low wall for no apparent reason, and then tried to wrap myself in the towel before my journey back up the stairs. Ah well — grandpa got a peep show. 

Last morning. We dressed and snacked and tidied and started a load of wash and one of dishes, and stripped the beds (we think of ourselves as houseguests in these VRBO type places, so we try to be good guests), and double- and triple- checked to make sure we hadn’t left socks under the beds, and then we packed the car and headed out. We stopped at Twofish Bakery again, because OMG the sticky rolls. Then we drove one last time to Gualala, gassed up the car, turned in the keys, and turned back around, heading south down the coast highway. The drive is a half-measure more terrifying in that direction because you’re on the ocean side the whole time, which means if you crash, it’s more likely to be a flipping-through-the-air situation than a bouncing-slightly-off-the-mountain one. However, for some reason (maybe the lack of rain, maybe the different route we took, or maybe the shorter lunch stop, the trip was about an hour shorter, so that’s good!

Anyway, we are all decompressing and putting things away, and we all miss the beach (and I think we all miss the hot tub, too).

Sorry this is so long. I still write this blog more or less for myself, because I just like to write, and I really enjoyed sitting in the comfortable chairs with the view of the trees through the windows, typing away.

New Year 2017

2016 has been sort of universally reviled, and for good reason. I'm not sure I'll ever quite stop being sad about David Bowie and Prince. I know celebrities die all the time, but until now, it had kind of been like old people (George Burns -- sad, but expected) or the occasional tragic young person (Kurt Cobain -- tragic but rare). But 2016 seems to have marked a point where a whole lot of artists who were icons to us Gen Xers are passing away.

Worst, 2016-wise, was the election of Donald Trump. I mean... I hate that guy. I hate that so many people in this country DIDN'T reject the hatred, Islamophobia, homophobia, misogyny, etc. that Trump represents. I fear the next four years.

On the other hand, on a personal level, we've had a pretty good year. Both kids were heathy (despite L's serious burn, which is now almost healed). Our jobs were safe, and we even both got raises! Our house has gained in value, slowly, and we were able to refinance this summer to a 15-year loan with a lower payment! (My main goal is to not have a house payment when we retire, and I pretty much made that happen with the refi.)  Azadeh started behavioral therapy in January, and she has made slow, steady progress ever since. We've gotten her an aide at school (perhaps temporary), which has helped a lot. She moved up to the Junior class in karate and did a seminar in board-breaking! Lochlan started pre-school and thinks his teacher is awesome. He is also pretty much the sweetest child ever to have lived.

We also had some great trips -- to the Academy of Sciences, to Santa Cruz, to the redwoods for camping with the family, and to Eugene for Thanksgiving. 

These are super-duper out of order. Enjoy.