In no particular order

This is what we do in stores.


This is what she does on stairs (and she says "step, step, step" while doing it).


This is her cuteness eating a scone.


This is the kind of thing you can see in the Portland airport.


This is what happened to Auntie Maryam's marionberry cheesecake from Sweet Life.


This is what happens when Uncle Sweetie challenges Jacob to eat a whole serving of wasabi.


This is Zadie feeding auntie her oatmeal.


This is some Grandma time.


This is Zadie saying "whee!" the whole time she was on the carousel.


This is the fort her cousins made.


This is the tunnel on the playground at the park where the family played volleyball.


This is an artsy tunnel shot.


This is Zadie's bootie in 40 year old Levi jeans.


This is sleeping in.


This is what home looks like (and Zadie tried to make Grandma stay by bringing her books and saying "book, book!").

On grossness

Two fingers
Originally uploaded by countmockula

Just for fun, here's a picture of Zadie with fingers up both nostrils.

The other day, she said "Daddy." He said "what?" She paused, then said "poop."

She has been doing her best to get gum wrappers out of the garbage and eat them.

I found confetti in a poopy diaper.

On the airplane she wanted to nurse. She finished, then started chewing. I investigated and discovered that she'd had Cheerios in her mouth the whole time.

One year olds are fun.

A few new Eugene pictures

With Grandma.


Unclue Brucex takes her to look at windchimes.


Can everybody make some noise?!?!?! (She picked this microphone up and said "la la la.")


Grandpa reads Zadie "Mittens."

And they call it puppy love

Last night in a fit of extreme cuteness, Zadie decided she loved her cousin Kellen and wanted to lavish attention on him. She gave him two hugs and two kisses, then proceeded to hand-feed him bites of his own food from his dinner plate. He was a good sport about it. We were all dying of the sweetness.

And more new pictures.

I guess I did get a few at the park. Here's the fountain.


With aunt Michelle.


I probably shouldn't post nakey pictures of the baby on the interwebs, but look at this cheesecake shot! I just love it!


At dinner.


Sleeping in this morning.


Cousin Kelsey reads Zadie a story.


Ann reads Zadie a story (she's kind of a story whore). She's in a diaper only because she got water and orange juice all over herself.


Zadie gives Teddy the dog a hug.


All for now!

Got the internet DTs

Hi all! I would have updated more, but this is the first time we've had internet access.

So long story short...

Airplane ride was fine. She barely made a peep. We bribed her with Cheerios and Puffins. Actually got complimented on how good she was.

Car ride was fine, too -- she fell asleep.


Got to Eugene on Friday late morning, and met up with my SiL and family. First thing we did was go to Toshi's ramen. Zadie liked it.

Then we hung out at the house most of the evening. Maryam made us all ravioli and my MiL brought a veggie pizza, so we had a feast.

Here are some shots with the family.






On Saturday we went to breakfast at Brail's, a strange maze of a greasy spoon that had great food. Then we spent time around the house, and in the afternoon Zadie and I got to go shopping with Kelsey and Maryam for Kelsey's graduation dress. While she was running around the store, Zadie found this flower headband and tried to put it on. Auntie put it on for her, and she stood in the mirror and said "hot baby, hot baby!" (Admittedly, she was probably trying to say "hat."


Auntie Michelle had made her three outfits for her birthday, so she wore one to Kelsey's graduation. She was very tired after the graduation ceremony, and she slept through the whole thing.


Here's some of the family waiting to leave for the ceremony.


The next day was Sunday, and we were getting ready for Kelsey's big party. We brought coffee and bread and jam and Grandpa brought some fruit, and we all hung out. Actually, everyone else cleaned and I tried to keep Zadie out of the way. Zadie wore another of Auntie MIchelle's dresses.


She assisted in making rice.


And she stayed out of the way by playing ball with cousin Kellen.


Here she is with Grandpa.


The party was a success and there was lots of wonderful food. We went to our new vacation rental afterwards, and it's cute and quiet.

On Monday morning we went to the Glenwood for breakfast -- I love their food. I had a Greek omelette. Yum! Zadie had most of Maryam's eggs benedict. Then we went to Smith Family Bookstore and I got a couple Sherman Alexie books. Finally we came back and took a nap. Then it was off to Cafe Yum with Grandpa, Ann, and Jacob. They make these rice bowls with cilantro salsa, beans, a tahini-based sauce, avocado, and cheese, and they're super-good. Then we met up with the whole family at the Rose Garden, a beautiful park with all kinds of different roses in colors I'd never seen. Some were fragrant and some weren't. Then we walked a path along the Willamette River to a cool playground with slides and swings and a miniature town and a fountain and a little wading pool. She had a blast. Unfortunately there are no pictures because while we were in the Rose Garden, Sweetie had the camera, and when we got to the playground and I got the camera back, I was wiped out and just lay in the grass with the family while Auntie Maryam chased Zadie around.

There are pictures of our dinner at Sweet Basil, a Thai restaurant, last night, but I haven't gotten them off the camera yet.

So far today we had breakfast at Metropol, an awesome bakery, and now we're hanging out at Maryam's until later, when we'll go to a wave pool!

Anything else of note? She's been saying lots of small sentences, like "baby eat" and "baby sit." She has not been sleeping well, taking a long time to get to sleep, then waking in the middle of the night and wanting to toss and turn in our bed. If I wait until she falls deeply asleep again (which can take hours), then try to put her down again, she'll stand up within minutes crying and screaming "mama." The one night I let her cry for a while she broke my heart, saying "mama all gone. Mama all gone." I brought her three books and two small toys, but we didn't need to; everyone has been bringing books and toys for her. She's in love with this weird little man doll, and she calls him her baby, kisses him, then throws him downstairs. Nice, huh?

I guess that's about it. I'll update again now that we're officially online!

Here she is in our vacation rental in Daddy's hat.

Super-fun Saturday

Well, I read the paper and had my coffee and fed the baby a couple times, then handed her off to Sweetie so Monkeygirl and I could go to the spa!

They start you out with a warm foot soak and a warm wrap thing on your neck, and I had an orange-jasmine tea. Then some of the spa ladies come in and do a "foot rescue." This consists of a foot and lower leg massage and a paraffin dip. Usually the heat doesn't bother me, but this time it was a little burn-y on my toes. Still nice, though. Then they lead you off to your hour massage. The CMT asked if there was anything she should know, and I said "Well, I tend to carry stress in my upper back adn shoulders." Apparently, that was an understatement, because whereas they usually spend time massaging your arms and legs and stuff in addition to your back, she spent the entire time on my back to get all the knots, because, as she said, she doesn't like to leave a job half-done.

Then they bring you back to the lounge for a few minutes before the facial. I sometimes opt out of the facial, but I got it this time. I just don't quite get what a facial does for you. They slather some stuff on your face, wipe it off, slather, wipe, slather, wait, wipe, slather, scrub, mist, wipe... What could all that possibly be doing for your skin? But it comes with a shoulder and arm massage, so it's not unpleasant or anything.

Then we went back to the lounge for a minute before our pedicure ladies came to get us. I love the pedicure. This is only my second one, and I really think I should do it more often. They trim or file your toenails, scrub your feet and lower legs with an exfoliating scrub, sort of file off your dead skin, then paint your piggies. I chose a shiny hot pink.

Two friends had been unable to meet us for spa day, so we called them to meet us for lunch. One didn't make it, but the other did. We shall call her my doppelganger, since we are very regularly mistaken for one another at work. Anyway, I knew Monkeygirl had been to a nearby restaurant called Roxy, and I hadn't been there (it has a cowboy theme, which doesn't sound particularly vegetarian friendly). She assured me that I'd like it, and that she was sure they at least had salads. As it turned out, I really liked it! I had two delicious cocktails (a Cowboy Mary and a mango margarita) and was intrigued by the sound of another (the prickly pear margarita). We ordered the guacamole appetizer, and it was a very generous portion and the chips were fresh. I had a hard time deciding on what to have, as it was a brunch menu, so there were both breakfast and lunch choices. A couple salads and a soup (green garlic) sounded good, as did the French toast, but what really appealed to me was the farmer's market omelette. It had asparagus, button mushrooms, grape tomatoes, and jack cheese with greens on top, and it came with sourdough walnut toast (one of my favorites!) and a potato cake. I was really pleased with my meal and I'll definitely go back to try dinner, maybe soon. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the front of the restaurant is almost all fold-away windows, so we got to eat right by a big open expanse, and the weather was perfect for it.

Then I came home and Sweetie had had such a rotten time with Zadie that he was barely speaking to me. I whisked the baby off for a nap.

When we got up, I made stir-fry for dinner, and we ate, then nursed, then got punkin' ready to go out again! There was a Pops in the Park concert at our local park (the one where we always go to the playground). I had never been to a Pops in the Park concert, so I had no idea what a big deal it was. We wouldn't have driven anyway, but if we'd wanted to, we would have practically had to park at our house! As soon as I rounded the corner onto the street leading to the park, the cars were parked bumper-to-bumper. They also filled the side streets and the junior high parking lot. We joined the crowd descending on the park, and practically the first person I saw was my neighbor. He invited me to join his wife and son at the edge of a clearing, so we parked the stroller next to them. I let Zadie down and she immediately started walking around. The poor thing -- I kept telling her "No, that's not our blanket/bottle/ball/juice box/strawberry..." Blankets were spread out covering most of the large park, and there were little pathways between them that she led me through for, oh, an hour. Every time she came across a temporarily abandoned ball, she kicked it (her kicking skills are getting stronger). She was having a great time just wandering around through all the people. Did I mention the band? No? Well, we never actually saw them. The park was so large and so crowded that we never got near the stage. We could hear the strains of "Brown Eyed Girl," "Let's Dance," "Glory Days," "Sweet Home Alabama" and other hits, and occasionally Zadie would clap, but mostly she was interested in the contents of other people's blankets. Luckily, every time I'd go "No! Stop! Don't walk across their blanket; that's not ours" the owner of the blanket in question almost uniformly said some version of "Don't worry about it, she can walk on it." People were generally very nice and in a good mood.

Our only brief negative moment was when we were walking behind a family with a dog. A kid threw a stick for the dog to fetch right over Zadie's head, so the dog turned around to run after the stick and body-slammed Zadie, completely bowling her over. She cried for a minute but I think she was more startled than hurt.

Finally we walked home and put her to bed. Then I went grocery shopping, because I have a busy day today, too. I have to go to Ikea and the Co-op before 2, when I call Mom so she can help me with my hair. I also still have two loads of laundry to fold and put away (actually, 2 1/2, since Zadie threw to the floor most of the laundry I had already folded).

I'd like to get started on my day, actually, but Z is asleep on my lap, so we'll wait.

Action

IMG_0089
Originally uploaded by countmockula

An action shot seems appropriate for these days, as Miss Zadie is all action. She goes down the slide by herself, goes to swim class, pets the cat, drags my shoes around... She has increased her vocabulary that it's getting to the point that I really can't keep up with all her new words anymore. She says sushi, pizza, open, door, I see, I know, easy, booby*, magazine (okay, it comes out like ma-een, but she says the same thing each time and means "magazine")...

She said "Keys, door, open" several times the other day, and "open door" today. I know she still needs some articles, but damn, that's pretty much a sentence. She's really putting ideas together.

On the annoying front, she's a food thrower. She looks straight at us, takes a hunk of whatever she's supposed to be eating, and casually throws it over her shoulder. Today she threw most of her spaghetti noodles, Wednesday it was almost all of a sandwich... It frustrates the hell out of Sweetie, and we figure she's too young for the "starving children in Darfur" talk.

Hey, how am I, you ask? Pretty good! We only have four days of school left, and one week from now I'll have a bellyful of Toshi's ramen and be wrapped in the loving embrace of our Oregon family. Tomorrow I plan to have a spa day, then come home, have dinner, and take Z to a concert in the park. Sunday I need to go to Ikea and go grocery shopping. Then Mom's going to help me with my roots.

I'm looking very forward to summer, even though I'm pretty busy (in addition to two trips, I have jury duty). Right now I'm reading a great book, "The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." The only issue I'm having is that the author uses a LOT of Spanish, a language I happen to know very little of. I tend to recognize curse words, so I'm getting some of it, but I could use a Spanish-English dictionary while I read.

As a matter of fact, it's about time to brush my teeth and curl up with that book now.

Take care, all.
CM

*Oh yeah -- I was trying not to teach her "booby." I tried "breast." I tried "nurse." She never picked it up at all. I said "booby" exactly once, and she was like "Booby! Booby!" So booby it is. I'm looking forward to being out in public when she starts demanding booby.

The banquet

Every year, the honors kids throw a "banquet" (read: pot-luck) with awards for the teachers and then a dance for the kids. The awards are funny, the food is decent (a lot of home-made Asian food), and the dance is always nice.

Here's why: You might expect, having watched the news, that these kids would be sneaking in alcohol and then grinding against one another. In fact, most of the night was spent with them simply bouncing up and down. A breakdance battle ended in a hug. They did the cha-cha slide (a popular line dance). One kid danced with two leftover chickens. Another wanted to know how to ballroom dance. Two kids twirled each other around as though they were doing West Coast Swing. There were two conga lines formed. At one point, they all stood in a circle and held hands and did the wave. They're really just sweet, sweet kids.

The bad news is that I had to be away from home until well after Sweetpea's bedtime. It's so hard not to see her for 24 hours! (Before work yesterday until before work today.) I was telling mom yesterday morning, and she said "It's awful." Zadie repeated "Awful!" I mentioned that Sweetie was going to make quesadillas and Zadie said "dilla!" Apparently she also added "arm," "open," and "get" to her vocabulary yesterday. There are some words she's working on that don't come out quite right. She has a sushi play set, and I say "Oh, you have your sushi." She holds it out to me and says "ooti!" Okay, enough blathering.

(Hey, did I tell you I only have 7 days left of school, and then we get to go to Oregon?!)

A beautiful Saturday in Sacramento

Yesterday after breakfast and cleaning, I was messing with the printer when we heard a kid's voice outside. Zadie loves to watch kids, so we hurried to the door. It was our neighbors, so we popped outside to talk with them. The kids both ran to the door of our other neighbors' house, so all six of us adults and two kids then talked and played on their lawn for a while. It's nice to have good neighbors. We kicked a ball around, and Zadie tried very, very hard to keep up. Then the kids wanted to sit on the porch swing. Finally we went in for lunch and a nap.

Our neighbor had told us about a puppet show in Land Park, but we didn't get up from our nap until 2, so we missed it. Instead we went to Midfest. The newspaper had touted breakdancing demonstrations, skateboarding, art, live music, and a family-friendly atmosphere. What we found was a DJ and a beer garden. There were a few food vendors, too, but really, it wasn't much of a -fest. Luckily, there was a playground there, and Zadie had a ball. There was a tunnel between two slides on the play structure, and she was living it up in there. There were little portholes she could see out of, so we played peek-a-boo. She also went down the slide by herself for the first time. There was another little girl there named Aaliyah who was enamored of Zadie. She kept asking us questions, ("What's her name? What's your name? What's her middle name? What's her daddy's name? What's your daddy's name?") and at one point Zadie wanted to be held by her. Keep in mind, this kid is 3, and Zadie reaches her arms up and says "Up!" Aaliyah picked her up (don't worry -- I was right there) and took her to the ride-on dinosaur. Then they rode the dinosaur together. Zadie even said "Liyah." So although the festival was sort of a bust, we had a good time.

Then we went grocery shopping and came home and made dinner. I put Zadie to bed at her normal time, but she was screaming "mama!" A friend had invited me via Facebook to the first meeting of the "Bad Moms Club." We went to the Shady Lady and had drinks and talked. It was fun, if a little loud. It was cold last night, too! We had tried to sit outside because it was crowded inside, but it was far too cold. Finally we got a table inside. I liked the Shady Lady. It has an old speakeasy vibe and the bartenders and waitresses dress the part. My favorite drink is a whiskey ginger, but many bars don't have ginger ale, so I asked if they did. Apparently they make their own ginger syrup which they mix with soda for drinks. It was a great drink.

Today I'm not sure what we'll do, but it may involve a long-awaited trip to Home Depot for a planter bed.

Swim lesson two!

Well, we had a great second swim lesson. Zadie was able to dunk her head underwater many times. She blew bubbles for the first time. She let herself fall off the edge into my arms three times. We practiced paddling her arms. We even did some "releases," where I hold her away from me and whoosh her through the water on her tummy. One of the instructors was talking about how to deal with the "separation anxiety," since she was clinging to my neck, but as soon as he reached for her, she reached for him so he would hold her! The only thing she wasn't really into was floating on her back with her head on my shoulder. We tried it several times, and the last couple, she reached over, grabbed hold of my hair, and yanked herself around. Anyway, she was doing a great job. One of the instructors said "She's going to be an Olympic swimmer!" She gave another of the instructors several high fives. She also learned to cling to the side (a safety technique).

You should see her when she sees the fish painted on the wall and makes the fish sign, or when she realizes we're in an echo chamber and shrieks in delight, or sees the little Japanese baby crying and looks concerned, or comes up from underwater blinking in surprise. She's such a frickin' doll. I just can't wait to spend the summer with her.

Every picture tells a story, don't it?

Odds and ends

Apparently today she had a verbal mini-revolution.

She pointed at Mom, then herself, and said "girl, girl" and then said "Mommy girl."

She can now say "wheel."

She said "Bye bye Boompah."

She said "Mama school." (My mom always tells her "Mama's at school with the kids.")

Also, I took her for ice cream tonight. I have given her chocolate before, and she's eaten it like a starving Berserker, but tonight I got her strawberry to see if she liked it. She said "no no" to the strawberry and asked for water instead. She's my kid, I think.

She says some stuff she clearly doesn't know she's saying. "Agape" (divine love), "Miyagi" (sensei to the Karate Kid), "Darry" (eldest of the Curtis brothers in The Outsiders), and "umami" (the Japanese word for one of the five tastes).

On the word front, the other day she moved her favorite chair into the hall. Later, I was carrying her and couldn't see over her to my feet. I tripped over the chair and said "shit!" She immediately said "shit shit shit!" I said "that's right -- we SIT in the chair. Sit." For crying out loud - she's been trying to say "sit" for 6 weeks and still only can say "sss," but she can say "shit" with no practice at all.

Okay, I think that's it. Take care, all.

Camping: Saturday and Sunday

It was a little cold Friday night, but we slept okay. Still, we woke up far too early. We nursed (not long), had a bottle, got dressed, and got up, where breakfast was waiting. I made oatmeal, and then walked away to make lunch. In the meantime, Zadie took my spoon and was dipping it into the oatmeal and then licking it. One of the kids said "Baby, that's not how you eat!" She got oatmeal all over herself and I had to change her.


We went first to Hopkins Marine Station, a research facility associated with Stanford. In the parking lot, we saw a goose family.

We were there a little early, so we looked around the coastal area (we couldn't go down to the beach because of the sea lions). You may want to click this picture to see it larger -- there were about 26 sea lions, including babies, on and around this beach. There was one dead baby sea lion and one dying one up on the beach. The kids were really crushed that we couldn't do anything to help them. It was sad.

You can see how close we were to the aquarium.

At 9, we met two grad students who showed us their labs. My favorite were the wind tunnel and the machine that replicated high-speed waves. Our grad student/guide, Kevin, admitted that "for research" they had all stood in front of it and let the waves knock them down.

After our tour, we went to the aquarium. It was rough finding parking (I couldn't leave my car at Hopkins), and we ended up only having a little over an hour all told. I had to give Zadie lunch, and I really wanted something from the gift shop, so we didn't get much time looking at exhibits. We saw the new seahorse exhibit, which was PACKED. They had done a good job trying to make it visible, but seahorses are small, so when people are crowded around, you really can't see. I did see a weedy sea dragon, which was super cool.



We then went to the kids' play area, where Zadie spent about twenty minutes crawling in and out of a simulated whale blubber tube. Every time I thought she was ready to leave, she'd turn back around and head for the blubber. Other kids would go in and out, and she'd just stay there, lord of the blubber tube.


We then saw the outer reef area, where there are sharks and giant tuna mainly, and she was pretty into it. She made the fish sign over and over. We also saw the otters, and she got several good belly laughs out of their antics.

Then we had to rush to meet the group, and we all headed to Point Lobos. I've been there with Mom, but I didn't remember it, so it was like a new experience. We parked on the street and walked about a mile to the trailhead. Two teachers and half the students headed down the sea lion trail and the rest of us went in small groups down the Cypress Grove trail. It was lovely, like an enchanted forest with ocean views. About 1/4 of the way through the loop, we saw a doe and got pretty close to take good pictures.


Then we caught a glimpse of movement to our left and saw a buck coming closer. He got about five feet away from us. It was cool, even though I know that it means the deer are used to humans, which isn't great for them. Here is another view from the trail.


We were supposed to then switch trails, but we were running short on time, and the other group wasn't even back yet (they'd stopped to play in the surf), so we tried to gather everyone up and went back to the bus and car. By the time we got back to camp, it was time to make dinner.

We had a nice dinner, talked for a while (the kids played with Zadie), and then roasted a few marshmallows. Then Zadie and I brushed our teeth and retired, and everyone else had a campfire and sang and stuff.

We woke up early again and Zadie ate very little for breakfast.


Then we broke camp and went to Elkhorn Slough. I have to admit that of all the places we were planning to visit, a slough was pretty low on my excitement list. But it was wonderful. The visitors' center was very educational and well put-together. My favorite part was a display of freshly cut wildflowers in water, each displayed with a label of its name. It was very helpful for later when we were out on the trail. I was able to identify what I was seeing. Anyway, the trail was 2.2 miles, and it was just lovely. I mean, yeah, partly it was marshy yuckwater, but most of it was overflowing with wildflowers and birds. We saw probably twenty rabbits on the trail. It was brimming with plant and animal life, and was really a very pleasant walk. Here's a bunny.


Then it was a mostly uneventful ride home. Zadie ate a full bottle of soy milk, a breakfast bar, half a banana, half a pb&j, and then fell asleep and slept all the way from Casa de Fruta to home (about 2 hours). We did piss off a CHP officer -- there was an accident at the place we were trying to get on 101, and there were cones, but it was unclear what the cones were doing, so we thought we could still go left (I say we, because I gave another chaperone a ride home). The officer gave us a dirty look and gesture, and then directed us to turn right. We couldn't turn around, so we took a right off the freeway and ended up... wait for it... right back at the same intersection. We at least went right this time and avoided eye contact, but there were two other cars in the left turn lane, and he went over and yelled at the first guy. I was like "At least we didn't get yelled at!"

Anyway, then we got home and took a bath and saw Sweetie and went to dinner with Grandma. It was a very nice trip, and I'm happy to have been able to take her on her first camping trip.

Just a side note -- partly because she was so distracted and partly because her SNS wasn't working right, Zadie was not much interested in nursing this weekend. I really thought this was it -- she was going to wean. I was bummed, because even though I said I'd be happy to let her wean when she was ready, I wasn't prepared for it. But as soon as we got in the bath, she attacked my boobs, and then she wanted to nurse off and on for the next hour until we went to dinner. She also nursed to sleep. So we had a blip, but it looks like she's still going strong.

Phoning it in

Excuse brevity; using phone. Yep-- in a tent in the wilderness and on the Internet. Never would have predicted this in my childhood.
Good car ride-- lots of snacks. Z is world's newest superfan of McNuggets. Ate like a Viking and threw the box down. mission San Juan Bautista's gardens are lovely. Campsite is right outside of old monterey. Water, bathrooms near,nice playground. Had a hike, then burgers, salad, fruit, and toasted marshmallows. Mom thought Z might say "tent" but instead she said "cocoa" loud and clear several times. Now everyone is on a night hike. Z just passed out. I'm going to read. Good night all!

Be vewwy, vewwy quiet! I'm huntin' wabbits!

That was tonight's adventure. I went outside and saw my next-door neighbors across the street. I asked what was going on, and they said they'd seen a rabbit. It was in the bushes in crazy-lawn-lady's yard. (A quick recap for those of you who missed it: my across-the-street neighbor is obsessed with her lawn. It looks like a putting green. She waters every day and I have seen her on her hands and knees trimming it.) Anyway, Zadie and I went over mainly so we could see the rabbit. But soon we were involved in neighbor Ed Begley's dilemna -- what do you do?

It wasn't a wild rabbit. It was clearly domesticated. So do you catch it? And if you catch it, what do you do with it? I offered a cat carrier, but you can't just leave it in one. The neighbors suggested their backyard, but thought it might eat their garden. I thought of my backyard, but it would be easy to escape from. Their house, with a mean cat, was out. My house, with a cat and a baby, was also out. Animal control was out, since it probably meant certain death for the rabbit. Their garage was a possibility. I thought of putting up flyers, but finding a flyer that said "Hey, we saw your bunny a couple days ago in this area" probably isn't that useful. If you catch it and hold it, do you wait for someone to see flyers or try to find it a new home? Is there a Sacramento House Rabbit society? We decided to catch it, put it in the neighbors' garage, and put up flyers.

But catching it proved difficult. It allowed itself to be caught once by Ed Begley's wife, but it squirmed and kicked out of her grasp. We chased it through three yards, occasionally diving and falling to the ground in an attempt to grab it. It went under a car, and when we chased it out, it went under another car. We spent about half an hour between planning and running, and finally it ran under a fence into another neighbor's backyard. They knocked on the neighbor's door to see if she could help, but started with "You don't happen to have a rabbit, do you?" As it turned out it WAS her rabbit, so it was safely home.

Anyway, Zadie said "hop hop" and showed Ed Begley all her dance moves, and I got to walk on the sacred lawn! I walked across it a couple times for good measure. Ed Begley's wife pointed out that I was leaving footprints, so I made sure to walk off the lawn in the direction of their house.