at Washington park

at Washington park
Originally uploaded by Mrs. Piggs

What Sweetie thinks of Saturday market

What Sweetie thinks of Saturday market
Originally uploaded by Mrs. Piggs

Zadie in the cheese

Zadie in the cheese
Originally uploaded by Mrs. Piggs

Last day

Well, the last day is always bittersweet, isn't it? It was a really lovely day, though. We slept late again (I can see it's going to be hard to get back to our usual routine), then went to the Hideaway Bakery. Sweetie and I both had an egg and potato platter and Zadie demolished another egg and cheese sandwich (well, all but the bread).

After that, we stopped briefly at Sweetie's favorite coffee shop for some sort of "extreme" beverage (extremely sweet, I say), then back here to... figure out what to do. The family convened and we all just hung out for a while, then we decided to head downtown to the Saturday market. I believe I wrote about it last year. It's an affair that takes up two city blocks. One block has stalls for cheese, vegetables, fruits, bread, and flowers mainly, whereas the other is all crafts, from keychains to pottery to children's dresses. In a central area there are also several food vendors. Sweetie hates it. It makes me laugh how much he hates it. I took several surreptitious pictures of white-guys-with-dreadlocks, had a bolani, and bought some cheese for later. I also got Zadie a yummy-looking all-fruit popsicle. Sweetie had already gotten her a watermelon juice. In the area where we stopped to eat, there was a band playing. It started off promising -- they were fairly successfully playing a Green Day riff -- until they started to sing. Now, I SHOULD be nice; most of the kids on stage seemed about twelve years old. But gosh, it was pretty bad. My brother-in-law is currently describing the kid as having that Dana Carvey guitar face. We all had to hide our laughter when they did "Welcome to the Jungle" and inserted the line "Do you know where you are? You're at the Saturday Market, baby!" The whole thing was terribly off-key.

While there, I actually had the revelation that Eugene would be a really perfect place for my dad and stepmom. Seriously -- they could buy a cheaper house, make crafts, sell antiques, and have deer in the backyard. Plus, no sales tax. Of course, no grandbabies, either. So, not yet!

Then we poked around downtown just a bit and Sweetie bought a couple more books for Z. Then we went to Smith Family Bookstore. Actually, we split up a bit. I wanted to see the American Apparel store (odd), Maryam wanted a cold drink from Starbucks and took Z with her, and Sweetie went to the bookstore. I joined him there after determining that I did not need a see-through maxi-dress or a thong leotard, and we browsed books for a while. But M and Z didn't come. It turns out that Z had begged auntie for a hummus plate and then a cake-pop. This kid is going to be SO spoiled when she gets home.

We decided to have a picnic dinner, so we all went shopping and got some fruit, bread, cheese, prepared salads, and chips. My MiL met us with cookies in the park, and we all enjoyed a lovely dinner while the kids played. Pics of that later -- it's a cool park.

Now most of us are downstairs, Auntie Maryam laid down with Z and fell asleep, and our last get-together is planned for 7am tomorrow so we can get an early start. It's sad to be leaving, but we've had an extra-long trip this time and have really gotten a lot of good family time in. Our last picnic, though not everyone was there, was just about perfect -- 88 degrees, a little breeze, a shared buffet of nibbles, and the kids laughing and playing.

Wish us a peaceful drive home. Last year I had an altitude-related sinus headache that bordered on the I-wanna-die side. I actually packed both Tylenol and Advil in my purse just in case. #whyI'mnotclimbingEverest

Morning pout

Morning pout
Originally uploaded by Mrs. Piggs

I don't like fresh air! I don't like the outdoors! I don't like the sun! I don't like the color yellow! I don't like frogs! I don't like the color green!

Bowling dude

Bowling dude
Originally uploaded by Mrs. Piggs

I'm apparently not the only one with a passion for vintage fashion! We've been back to Oak Street Vintage three times now, and this morning we went to one called Nobody's Baby, where Sweetie got this shirt. Later, at Treasures From the Heart, I found Zadie a vintage dress that we'll wear on our next tweed ride.

Cottage Grove and more

We slept surprisingly late again today. In fact, I confused the heck out of myself by taking Z back to her bed in the middle of the night and laying down with her. I promptly fell asleep, and when I woke up I had one of those "where the hell am I?" moments.

By the time we were all ready to go, it was after ten. We went for breakfast at a crepe place (my suggestion: for some reason I remembered that they had good coffee, but also thought they had more variety in a display case of baked goodies), and my older sister-in-law, who was working, called to say she was already off! We all ate some breakfast and went on a shopping expedition together. We went back to the vintage shop where we bought the chair and Sweetie lusted over a coffee table (honestly, depending on how much it might cost to ship, it might end up at our house), and I tried on a couple dresses. Two were super-cute and fit nicely, so I got them. One has an alligator on it, and the clerk wrote it up as a Lacoste, but I'm not sure... the label says something like "David Crystal." Whatever; I care way less about labels than whether something looks fabulous, and this does. Sweetie even got a vintage shirt!

Then we went to the rock shop a few doors down. It had a lot of nice little crystals and minerals and whatnot, but absolutely reeked of burning sage, which I cannot stand. I don't really think of myself as a hippie, but if there was a checklist, I admit I'd check quite a few of the hippie boxes. Still, I draw the goddamn line at sage, patchouli, nag champa... I am kind of sensitive to smells anyway, and those three in particular are just so strong and awful. Couldn't the hippies enjoy, oh, citron? And not burning, but gently wafting somehow? Anyway, Sweetie bought a cool fish fossil and Z got a purple rock and I got out with my sinuses intact.

We went to another store that was an eclectic mix. There were some vintage clothes, but also some repurposed clothing, some steampunk stuff, some stuff that was clearly meant for the Burning Man crowd, and a few new items. I bought a pair of really cute socks, but some of it left me shaking my head. We peered into a few other shops (one of those "everything is handmade from bamboo and costs $150" places") and a glass shop my dad would have liked, and then we split up.

(I'm tired of nicknames for now. My sisters-in-law are named Michelle and Maryam, and I'm just going to use their names.) Michelle and I picked up her mom and headed out of town to Cottage Grove. I was leery. My MiL had said there was a book of genealogy about her family in the Cottage Grove library, and I had figured out enough to know that there was a Cottage Grove genealogical library. But the numbers on a page I had didn't seem to relate to any kind of charts I'd seen, and there was no mention on the pages of any book. It was all about this one great-aunt's personal records, and it seemed she had made up the numbering system herself.

Cottage Grove was lovely. I mean, talk about your charming little towns, Cottage Grove is one of the prettiest I've been to. We passed a covered bridge, several murals on the little main street, which was filled with cafes and book/garden/gift stores, not to mention a multitude of little Victorians, Bungalows, and transitional homes, mostly with quaint little gardens bursting with gladiolas, shasta daisies, sweet peas... I know my mom would love it. We parked across the street from the museum, a two-building affair filled with odds and ends from military uniforms to buggies to arrowheads and woven baskets, to a fainting couch and an old wheelchair. It was small, but nicely arranged and obviously lovingly cared-for.

Then we went into the library. I was really surprised to see their filing system. Common names had their own manila folder, and less-common ones were filed together. Every paper was a sheet of white typing paper with either handwriting on it or cut-and-pasted (old-school, with scissors and glue) obituaries, marriage and birth announcements. There was no order, no chronology. If you died, and your last name was "Smith," someone just cut out the notice, glued it to the "Smith" paper, and moved along. You might be glued next to someone you're not even related to -- it doesn't matter.

I asked gently, "Wow, so are there any plans to put all this on microfiche or on the computer?" The ladies laughed a little. No, there were not.

As you can imagine, this was not that useful for me.

We found a book that MiL's great-aunt had compiled, and I was AWESTRUCK by what it contained. She had apparently spent about forty years compiling everything that ever happened to anyone named Hayes, Haynes, Hanes, Hains, Haines, Hain, etc. There was a gazette she published periodically, and each issue was just like this:

Haynes, Benjamin. M. Clara Benjamin. 1962.
Haines, Jerome. D. 1962.

Now imagine holding an eight-pound book of that. There was an index, but it didn't seem to include many people outside the Haynes clan and sadly, that was her father's side of the family -- not related to my husband's family at all.

Ah, but wait! One of the women remembers that there might be something upstairs! She heads up and comes down a handful of minutes later with two slender file drawers. In each are five nearly cubic rubber-banded sheafs of note paper. One is thick like card stock, while the other is like vellum. A five-inch-deep stack of these probably contained 500 sheets. Each paper was hand-written. They were in no order but alphabetical. There were no reference numbers. Almost non contained the names of parents or children. A few had spouses. Most just had birth and death dates. These, like the Haynes book, contained every possible spelling of the selected last names, leaving me to wonder whether these slips of paper contained anything useful at all. Is a Stanley Ayde born in 1880 related to a Catherine Addy born in 1910? Who knows? Well, the woman who compiled them would have, I suppose, but she's dead. In short, it was pretty fruitless.

But then we went back to the main street and found a cafe with retro 50s chairs and tableware, and we had some really delicious pizza (if only I could get my crust to do that!), and we sat in perfect weather and listened as a young guitarist (with whom Zadie fell instantly in love) played, and we looked at the murals and the passers-by and used a clean and well-decorated public restroom, and then we took the old highway back to Eugene. So you know, it wasn't a waste of a day. It was lovely.

Even better, when we got back I discovered that Sweetie had bought me a gift! Two cards (I'm a sucker for stationery) and a big box of Euphoria truffles (worth the name, I tell you).

At home, we decided to try a new place for dinner called Laughing Planet. I asked if they had any locations in California after we ate, because I LOVEd it. Pretty much everything is based around beans, rice, and various toppings, but they had lovely little salads, a couple dishes with plantains, it was all fresh, the iced tea was delicious, a glance at the pie made me drool a little, and the whole place was decorated in super-awesome outsider art.

And finally, to Prince Puckler's! We all enjoyed some ice cream and sat on the playground in the twilight.

More pictures soon, I promise. I hope things are well with you all.

You'd think we were in a different time zone

And finally adjusted today or something. Zadie woke up at 7, but I coerced her into a snuggle with Sweetie, read for a bit myself, then laid down in her bed, where I slept until we all woke up at almost 9.

We had a quiet morning with bagels, coffee, and fruit (all from different places right near one another), nipped into a bookstore, then checked out am antique store that had a lot of near stuff. sweetie fell in love with a 50's chair, and I liked it too, but we didn't get it.

We went to lunch at our usual ramen shop and discovered that we actually like the one back home better now. Then we went back for the chair. I hope we can pack everything on the way back!

Then we met everyone tomgo to the pool. Their public pool here is enormous. There are two wading pools with depths from 2 to 3 feet, a baby splash area, several sprinkler/fountain things, a sand area, diving boards and platforms, a floating obstacle course, and a giant water slide, besides the regular pool. Zadie had fun, although this wasn't what we would consider swimming weather in Sacramento.

We had Mexican for dinner, then came back to our rental. My intention was to lay down with Z long enough for her to go to sleep, but I just woke up after conking put for two hours! Now I intend to Conklin out again. Good night.

Schnitzer art museum

photo.JPG
Originally uploaded by Mrs. Piggs

My SiL kept telling us we'd like the Hideway Bakery, so we tried it this morning. She was right! I'm trying hard to keep to normal eating, so I had oatmeal, but later we split a pain au chocolate and I tasted Z's turnover. Everything was good. Z had her turnover, then a breakfast sandwich with eggs, then asked for another. (We said no.)

On campus at the U of O, there's a lovely small art museum. We saw several exhibits, and I am torn between what my favorite was. I like the Japanese room a lot, and they have a HUGE jade pagoda, but there was a room of modern art that included a couple beautiful, hazy, reflective metallic window-type things that were just kind of calming. I dunno.

Then we dithered for a bit and went to the park to play. I was cracking up at the water/sand play area. They have this big structure, and every ten minutes or so, water comes running through this central channel and into the sand. The kids were having this serious state-government-type conversation about whether to build a dam, where, with what materials, and who could do it the fastest (no word on the lowest bid). Then there were conservationists who worried about the flow of water downriver of the dam and a couple eco-terrorist toddlers who kept knocking it down.

Then it was sort of a kick-around evening. Z and I went to watch M play volleyball and I chatted with my father-in-law. Every time I ask him a direct question about his youth or Iran, he has an interesting story to tell. He first came here in 1958, and he had to take a prop plane all the way from Iran. It stopped all the time, including in Beirut, which was at war. The stewardesses told him to stay in the airport and where to get food.

And Zadie actually admitted that she was tired (I tried not to show my shock), so we came back here and I put her to bed.

The weather has been lovely here. As cousin J and I were walking towards the park, it was 80 degrees, and he complained, "It's really hot." I said, "You think this is hot? How quaint."

Zadie has been getting a LOT of mileage out of her jokes, one of which is: What do you call cheese that doesn't belong to you? Nacho cheese! But I'm not entirely sure she gets it, because she's been imposing a lot of other words onto that structure, and it has gotten pretty Dadaist at times. Tonight's joke was "What do you call a person without any clothes on? Naked!" Yeah. I'm warning you people -- when we get home, do NOT laugh, or she'll repeat this nonsense over and over ad nauseum.

I'm not getting much reading in, but when i am, I'm getting all sorts of ideas for our front yard landscaping. I'm also tired as heck, so goodnight, sweet princes and princesses.

Monday, Monday

Today was quiet-ish. We went to breakfast just the three of us, then we did just a bit of shopping (got Z a new dress and us a few books and a game at the Down to Earth store, which is AWESOME). Then we sort of split up. Sweetie went to play basketball while SiL, Z and I went to play at a park which had a splash-play area. Then many of us reconvened for lunch at the grocery store, which has a great deli. Then Z needed a nap (as did I), so we came back here for a bit. Finally, we went out for Chinese for dinner. Sweetie seemed to think it was awful, but I thought it was pretty standard Chinese fare and a little less greasy than some.

Then we came back here and goofed off, which included a game of Butterfly Bingo (which Sweetie picked up at Down to Earth, and which was pretty fun, actually). And now I'm ready for bed.

If this doesn't show up tonight, it's because the internet is a bit spotty.

Sunday

I noticed several typos upon re-reading, but I can't seem to fix them on the iPad. So I apologize... I usually do try to keep that under control.

Zadie and grandpa
Originally uploaded by Mrs. Piggs

This morning we got some breakfast at a coffee shop. Zadie was being extremely three years old. She asked for a croissant, then refused to try it and told us that we hurt her feelings by buying it for her. SHe got better.

We got some fruit (somehow, we tend not to eat nearly as much fruit and veggies when we're visiting here, so we have to make an effort to grab some), and sat and ate it, then headed over to my SiL's house. M and I went shopping, then Grandpa came over, and Z played with her cousin for quite a while. Then she got really whiny, and I know it's because she hasn't been getting enough sleep, so I took her back to the rental for a nap. She wouldn't lay down in her room, wouldn't lay down in my room, and said she didn't want to even rest or cuddle. So she went downstairs where Sweetie and her older cousin were playing video games, apparently did a funny dance, then immediately passed out.

I woke her up at three so we could go to Cousin J's graduation party. My two sister-in-laws made the food, and they are GREAT cooks, so it was all wonderful. I've been just a touch under the weather, and I really didn't think I was hungry, but I ate a plate of food anyway, and it was delicious.

I haven't been doing much on Ancestry.com lately, but I had kind of hit a wall. But Grandpa H said he's send me a file with a bunch of information (going back to the 1700s in Iran), and I took a bunch of photos of Grandma J's family. She also let me borrow a page that lists all her family members with numbers that correlate to a book in some local library -- Cottage Grove something. I suspect Sweetie doesn't want to go there, but apparently it's only about 30 minutes away, so maybe I can get there and do some photocopying one day this week.

Zade's middle cousin (by age) was on a road trip, so we saw her for the first time today, and as always, Zadie' had a fantastic time playing with all her cousins. Then she put on a fashion show that consisted of two pairs of underpants, neither one of which was covering her nether bits, and I suggested we call it a night.

I hope you had as lovely a weekend as I did.

Zadie and Katie

Zadie and Katie
Originally uploaded by Mrs. Piggs

today: metropol bakery, tour of SEHS (ohmygodthey'resorich), to grandma's house to tidy for tomorrow's party, to the mall for a gift, to our new rental to check in (ohmygodit'ssoluxuriousandspacious), to Auntie's to drop off Z, then to the reunion dinner, where I totally kicked off the dancing (more on that story later, but it includes the line, "I don't care if I embarrass myself: I don't know any of you fuckers and you can't find me on Facebook 'cause I didn't put my last name on my name tag.")

Z got to go to Roaring Rapids pizza, spend some time with her Grandpa and Grandma Anne, and assault her cousins with more love.

On campus

On campus
Originally uploaded by Mrs. Piggs

Long day, tiny box to write in. Ate bread at Metropol with my Sis-in-law, then walked around U of O campus, went to a bookstore or two, met my other Sis-in-law and kids for lunch and some playground time (and they are SO sweet to Z), then off to the cocktail reception part of the reuinion, where Sweetie talked to about 6 people. To my surprise (he usually exaggerates), there were, in fact, a lot of people who had to check his name tag to see who he was. Not a particularly social guy. =) But we did talk at length with some very nice people. It was, in fact, a little hard to get him to leave. We got back to pick up Zadie rather late, and by the time we hit the hotel she was CRANKY. Like, she had a meltodwn of Supernanny proportions. And then three minutes later she fell asleep. It was a good day... mostly.

State Fair pic.

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Originally uploaded by Mrs. Piggs

Dang! I forgot to post yesterday.

I actually didn't take many pictures (sorry, bowSaw), because I didn't want to dig in my fanny pack too much, plus I didn't want to drop my phone while on a ride. But this picture cracks me up. She saw this thing from the back only, ran right towards it, and stood in it with this stoic face on, refusing to move until I took a picture.

Incidentally, two other things -- salsa verde omelette from my garden is AWESOME.

Story from last night: Z is at Grandma's house with me and the family. Her cousin G is there (he's 4 months older). I ask if she needs to go potty, and she says yes. G says, "I'll go too!" So I take both of them, and both start whipping their pants down right away. I tell them they'll have to take turns, so Z goes first. She takes her underwear all the way down, then flings them into the air with one foot. I catch them one-handed, surprised, and G looks impressed. Z does her business, and G flushes for her.
Z: Thank you.
G: You're welcome.

Then she lifts the seat for him.
G: Thank you.
Z: You're welcome.

G: I go standing up. Watch this!
Z: Okay!

She moves to get a better view, and thankfully soon we're all done but for the hand-washing. Good times.

Fair to middlin'

Naw, actually the State Fair was great! I was really disappointed to learn that it didn't open until 12 (I kind of had my heart set on going at ten), but then we worked around it. I got a good parking spot on a nearby street. I used to always pay for parking, but it always irks me. I mean, it's only $12 for the admission, so $10 on top of that really almost doubles the getting-in fee, just to leave my car in the sun. That's ten whole dollars, son... I earned that!

Anyway, I had also read that the midway opened at 2, which was seriously going to hamper our fun, because I wanted to leave by 4. But in fact, it opened at noon today. Plus, because it was Kids Day, all the rides were only $1. I got the 25 for $23 deal and we started riding first thing. Zadie rode on a Jeep-thing first that just went around a loop. Then she wanted to go on this thing shaped like hot air balloons, and it was one of the ones that she could ride only if accompanied. I hopped on with her. And ooh! It was one of those ones you can grab a wheel thing and turn it to make your basket spin around. She started in right away with the "faster, faster!" so I knew we were going to have some fun. Surprisingly, the Tilt-a-Whirl was also okay if accompanied, so we did that next. I swear to you, that kid was inventing new superlatives to describe how awesome it was. At one point she yelled "ZOOM!" She was laughing her fool head off, smiling, saying "whee." I decided right away that the $23 was worth it, even if we quit right then.

Which we almost did. Zadie's next move was toward livestock, which I have almost zero interest in. I like the pygmy goats, but the whole place reeks and is landmined with cowshit. Plus, it's pretty much just bigass cows lying around. But I let her lead the way, and eventually that led out to the garden/agriculture area, which always makes me imagine I could grow kiwis in this climate. And there was a kids area, and some nature-y stuff. Zadie petted a snake, but it was over so fast I couldn't get a picture. She wanted to walk through some of the exhibition halls. I like the county exhibits, but the shopping ones just irritate me. I made it clear that we were buying NOTHING.

And then we went on the annual search for a vegetarian lunch option. And found one. Like, right away. Not egg-roll-on-a-stick, either. Actual roasted veggie panini with pesto, and it wasn't half-bad. To supplement our order with something more like real fair food, I ordered the fried veggie sampler platter, with artichoke hearts, mushrooms, zucchini, and eggplant. Shockingly, Zadie loved the fried stuff.

Then we went to the bug exhibit, which was pretty cool but crowded. Plus, she was more interested in weaving through the crowd than stopping to admire giant animatronic bugs.

She had been begging to go on the monorail every time it went by. We hadn't been anywhere near the front gate, but we made our way there and got on. She liked it, and I always do. It's just neat to lean over and see all the attractions you've already been to and plan what you'll see next.

And then I said we could have a treat, so she had a shaved ice and I had a caramel apple. By then it was really pretty hot out, so we sat in the shade to eat. After some searching for a potty stop, we went to the main midway, where she rode a couple more kid things and we went on the Ferris wheel. I have to say, it took FOREVER to load that thing, wait for the ride to finish, and load it again, but when we were on it, it was totally worth it. They really let it run for a long time (maybe 12 or 14 passes?), and it's nice to see the whole fair and part of the city as well. It wasn't the giant one, as she's not tall enough, but it was still fun.

She went in a couple fun-house/maze/climbing things, and then we went back towards the kids' park, where it was much more crowded than it had been earlier. She did a few more rides, mostly by herself, but I went on the Tilt-a-whirl with her again. And then it was an HOUR past when we had planned to go, we were both hot and thirsty, and we somewhat mildly regretted having not parked in the lot.

Incidentally, here is an idea: The carnies with all those asinine games, like throw the ball in the floating saucer or whatever, always yell, "Only $1 to play. Everyone's a winner." And I was thinking how smart it would be to just give away cold damn bottled water as the prizes. The sucker prize is a small one, the real prize for popping the ballon or whatever is a standard-size bottle, and then you can work your way up to big bottles! I'd totally play then. Because you're going to pay $2.50 for water anyway, so you might as well shoot an air rifle as well.

Zadie does Patsy Cline

I adjusted the volume for you on the screaming parts. You're welcome.

Incidentally, I love Patsy Cline and this probably isn't in my top 5 songs of hers, but I think it's fun to sing.

Ever wanted to bitchslap some five-year-olds?

I try really hard to stay out of Zadie's social life. Sometimes I'll redirect her, or suggest that she introduce herself or whatever, but unless violence is on the horizon, I really try to let her work things out and not jump in.

Yesterday at REI, we were wandering around and Z spotted two girls lounging on the rolled-up sleeping bags. Immediately, she ran over and flopped down, too, trying to be cool and do what they were doing. They got up.

She got up and followed them. Several times, she said, "My name's Zadie. What's your name?" Their only answer was stony silence. They stared at her, then looked at each other and made goofy faces and rolled their eyes. They giggled. In short, they were bitches. It was like watching Seth Rogan hit on two hot sorority chicks. They wouldn't give Z the time of day. Finally she looked at them in a little bit of frustration and announced, "I'm trying to make friends with you!"

They looked at each other and giggled.

She tried again. "Let's play hide and seek! I'll hide over here." They rolled their eyes. They pulled faces. They shrugged. They didn't play, and they didn't so much as grunt at her.

She had disappeared into some hanging sleeping bags, and she popped her head out again. "Or we could go in here! We'll have a picnic. Come on!"

She clambered into another hidey-hole. They giggled and shrugged and rolled their eyes some more. I finally stepped in and told them quietly, "If you don't want to play, you can just say "No, thank you."

"We're not supposed to talk to strangers."

Okay, listen. I respect that. I really do. And as an adult, I probably normally wouldn't talk to unaccompanied children, either. And if it hadn't been for one thing, I'd have been mildly annoyed, but not pissed. And I ended up pissed.

Because the tone in which they said "We're not supposed to talk to strangers" was not an informative one. Imagine the tone like this: "Uh, helloooo, we're not supposed to talk to strangers, DUH." 'Cause it was like that.

Luckily, Sweetie arrived and we convinced Z to accompany us to look at some other stuff, but as we left, their dad arrived and they started telling him all about it. We heard them say her name, then "That's her, that's her!"

I know I'm a protective mama-bear, and I never would have *actually* choked them out, but you know... "Be nice to three year olds" should trump "don't talk to strangers." I think there's gonna be trouble when we get to middle-school Queen Bee bullshit. I'm gonna bring the pain.

An Afternoon on the Lake

As we approached Lake Natoma, I had concerns. This traffic is awful... how long will it take to get there? It's unusually cool today -- will we be too cold on the water? Life vests and still water aside, my child can't swim -- what if we capsize?

Even worse, as we parked, about 50 people were leaving, but we could see at least 100 more gathered around the center. Would it be too crowded? But we were determined to try it. We had talked about kayaking together as a family for a long time, and now that Sweetie has Fridays off, it seemed that the time was right.

We checked in, got our boats, and got onto the water. As it turned out, it was a little over 80 degrees. The crowd was almost all a summer camp, and they weren't on the water for the most part. The water was exceptionally still and the boats wide. Not to say that they couldn't capsize, but it would take a pretty stupid or careless maneuver.

And as we got about twenty yards out from the dock, Zadie exclaimed, "This is AWESOME." But awesome hadn't even started yet. We tooled around right in the area of the center for a while until it became clear that we could go pretty much anywhere we wanted. We slowly paddled out and out, and soon we approached a flock of murres. We got pretty close before they took flight, skimming the water. We leaned back to watch a raptor glide overhead. We left the company of men and paddled against the water, my tiny daughter in her sunhat leaning against my stomach as my paddle dripped lake water onto her tummy. She didn't mind.

We approached the shore on the near side of the lake and stepped out to dunk in the cool water. There was a shelf about six feet out, so we watched her carefully, but we got ourselves pleasantly cool, and then got back in. This time, Zadie chose to sit with Sweetie. They took off ahead of me and we slid through a line of leaves floating near the surface. We saw more birds and a mother duck and duckling, the baby scuttling over rocks and nearly skipping when he wasn't gliding. I took us to a concrete wall and we navigated around it, barely squeezing through the other side on the way out.

We didn't take a camera out, but the pictures in my mind of the next twenty minutes or so are all similar -- Sweetie in the boat, and Zadie sitting between his knees. No one else is on the water. They both have life vests and floppy sun hats, and in every picture, they are doing the same thing -- looking up to the clouds, holding the paddle, dragging one foot in the water, staring forward against the sun, or leaning back, her head on his stomach. Their positions are the same in each mental snapshot, and I find she is looking more like him these days, her eyes the golden brown I've long loved.

Sweetie suggested that we should try more backwater, so we went out further, then came back along the shore on the far side. We peeked into several coves, stopping in one briefly and poking around several others that went nowhere. I spotted one little alcove whose entrance was half-covered with a fallen tree branch. Sweetie had to turn around, but he followed me in. We slowed down to look around and I dipped my hands in the water. It was shallow, and therefore fairly warm. We talked about it being a good swimming hole. I looked to the left of the entrance and added, "Oh, and hey, are those berries?" There was one small bush, so I looked around to see if there were more. Oh. My. God. Were there ever!

We pulled the boats up onto the shore, stowed our paddles and climbed up the wobbling rocks. They clacked and cracked under our feet, but we didn't slip. Sweetie climbed on ahead and I stayed nearer the boats with Z at my heels. We picked handfuls of blackberries, eating them straight off the vines, carefully avoiding thorns. I would pick a dozen, eat a few, then hold my hand down at my waist for Zadie to grab. She would pluck them up in her finger and thumb one by one, putting them to her mouth as fast as she could. The berry juice ran down my palm and her face. We edged closer to Sweetie, who handed me his berries, which I held out for Zadie as well. I started packing them into my shirt and Zadie and I sat on the hot rocks for a while in silence, eating what must have been three pints of berries.

Sweetie got back in the kayak to clear an area on the edge that was unpassable, and he stopped again to pluck some more. We joined him and ate more as we looked at the flowers I'd never seen, pinwheels of white blossoms like perfect feathery spheres. We exchanged few words, mostly commenting on clusters of perfectly ripe berries just out of reach, the ants guarding certain berries, and the way nostalgia was ringing in our ears, separately, one of us in on the Willamette River and the other on the American. I wondered whether Zadie would remember this perfect moment, and I thought she probably wouldn't. She's only three, after all. But I hope she will. Or I hope we do something so like it enough times in the future that her memories will blend, and she'll think she remembers this first blackberry trip. Or perhaps we'll tell her this story enough times that she will think she remembers it.

Because this? This was the kind of moment that, when someday she is falling in love, she will lean close to her lover and tell them about.

Four secrets I'm willing to tell you

1. There's a Goodwill downtown on L that culls all the vintage and designer donations.

2. Plastic with the number 6 in a triangle in the bottom totally works to make Shrinky-Dinks without shelling out the money for Shrinky-Dinks, so dig through the recycling!

3. There is a hidey-hole on Lake Natoma that has hundreds of ripe blackberries ready for the picking.

4. Jamba Juice has a secret menu. Ask for a Red Gummi Bear.

Paint thing.

IMG_1728
Originally uploaded by Mrs. Piggs

Swimming in 70 degree weather

Yeah, that was our day.

Well, not the whole thing. We cleaned up the house, because an appraiser was coming at 9. He was friendly and pleasant, asking a few questions about the house but mostly going through his tasks quickly and efficiently. I had a pretty good feeling about it, and although I don't know what he actually set the number at, I got an email from the mortgage consultant that we had initial approval. That's a relief. It will make almost no difference in our monthly budget, but it's going to shave years off our payments.

Anyway, it was cold and gray and weird today. I had signed Zadie up for swim lessons at an outdoor, unheated pool. I wanted to get some variety in her swimming lessons and try out a few different places. This was through the city's Parks and Rec department (and don't get me started on how helpful those fuckers are). I didn't give a second's thought to the weather, as the normal high temperature in July is in the 90s. Not today, though. It was 71 when we pulled up, according to my car.

We had missed the first class on Monday (my fault, but certainly not helped by the impenetrable catalog), so today was our first class, and I seriously considered skipping. But I thought we'd soldier on. We went there, and I saw all the kids start to move in one direction, so I herded Zadie that way, too, but it turned out that it was the older group. She was the only "Blowfish" there so far. The instructor, Rob, looked at me in my fleece sweatshirt and said "Isn't this a Mommy and Me class?" I sighed. "Yeah, but I was kind of hoping I wouldn't have to get in. He actually offered to take her in himself without me, since she was the only one, but she sort of balked and another kid showed up, so I got in, too. Poor Mom, right? I was totally ready to dump her in, but wanted to stay on the side bundled up!

She wasn't super-comfortable at first. She refused to do some of the things she's done in the other class. She did crack me up on a couple occasions, though; he said she had to talk to the fish (by putting her mouth at the water level and blowing bubbles, basically), and she kept her lips about a half inch above the water and yelled, "Hello fishies! What's your name? I love you!" over and over.

I think Friday will be better, and then there are only two more next week. Well, the more experience the better, right?

My all-by-myself grown-up day!

One thing about having kids, and I supposed this may not be true for everyone, but it is for me, is that I am almost never alone. And being alone is refreshing, particularly if your alone time isn't filled up with stuff you have to do.

So yesterday, Grandma and Boompah took Z from about 10:40 to almost 4. And I? You must be wondering how I chose to spend my day.

Ah.

Well, first I went to a vintage shop I'd read about but hadn't been in. I was worried that I was wasting part of my precious time, because so many stores seem to think "vintage" means ironic kitten tee-shirts from the early 90s. That's not what I want. I like the occasional freaky 70s polyester thing, but my preferred sartorial choice is always a 50s or 60s cotton shirtwaist dress. In extra-large. Yeah, guess how easy those are to find.

But find them I did, and in sherbety colors, and two for only $27! Score!

Then I went to Magpie Cafe for lunch. People have been raving about it for as long as it's been open, but it isn't open on Sundays, which is when Mom and I go try new restaurants, so it's pretty much been off my list of possibilities. But not on alone day! I love a good sandwich, and two on their menu looked great, but I was actually making a muffuleta for dinner, so I opted for the salad sampler. It was great. No wonder people rave about this place. The textures, the flavors, and the cooking were all to perfection. I sat outside in the sun with an iced tea and wrote a little.

Then I headed home, eschewed the lure of the internet, and took a long, long nap. Is that what I'd do if the world were ending or something? Surely not, but naps are about as rare as alone time around here, and I wanted one. I woke up refreshed and went to pick up Z.


Sherbety dress one.


Sherbety dress two.


Salad sampler.

No pictures of nap, sorry.

The garden!

Our raspberry is a great deal bigger, and we've had several raspberries to eat.


Strawberries are healthy and spreading.


Green zebra tomatoes will be ripe soon... I think. (They're green, so there's a bit of guesswork involved.)


We watched this pumpkin de-escalate from a little nubbin about two feet off the ground until it was big and heavy and grounded.


The pear tomatoes are plentiful.


We will have ripe cherry tomatoes soon (we've already had about twelve).


Tomatillos are a discovery -- I had no idea the little husks blew up and grew first, then they filled up with the fruit later.


It's fun. I'm not sure we'll get many peppers, as they've been dwarfed by the tomatoes. A couple of our basil plants have survived (relatively few), and seem healthy. I have chives and parsley growing, plus there are blossoms on our kumquat. The blueberry is hanging in there, although I think I'm going to re-pot it in one with better drainage.

And that is today's look into my world.

Anticipation is...

Tomatoes that will be ripe tomorrow.

I wanted to write about our garden, but I think I'll wait until I can add some pictures.

We've been super-social this weekend. Last night we went to Mom's house for Birthday-Anniversary-Palooza -- Boompah's and Monkeygirl's birthdays and Sweetie's and my anniversary. We had a lovely dinner with some friends from Rio Vista, a great dessert, and hours of pleasant conversation.

This morning after the farmers market we stopped by Monkeygirl's friend's house, and there we enjoyed a magazine-ready spread of girly beauty for MG's birthday brunch.

Then to Coffeeworks this afternoon to celebrate my Leafy Green friend's birthday, and finally to Mom's for our standing Sunday dinner date. By the way, Sacto folks, Star Ginger is now open on Sundays, and the Jungle Curry is GOOOODDD.

Tomorrow, Mom's taking Z to hang out for a while. Part of me wants to do one thousand things I never get to, like get a mani-pedi or a massage or sit peacefully in the hot tub at the gym without pretending to be a sea-witch. Or I could do house stuff that would be hard to do while keeping an eye on her, like re-paint the front door and shutters. Hell, even just reading a magazine or doing some errands that don't involve getting a reluctant three-year-old in and out of a carseat twenty times and packing extra underwear. But there's a pretty big part of me that just wants to take a nap, then find a shady spot and write or read. What's best for my soul?

Cat pics

It's late and I'm tired.

Here is Mina. She is fat and old and neither playful nor cuddly.


This is Luther. He's dumb as a bucket of mud, but very cute and playful.






Fat, old, and if the picture is any indication, skeptical.


Young and moronic, but a little love, too.


There you are. Real posting again tomorrow.

What's that you say?

It's been eight years that we've been together and 6 years married? I guess time flies when life is awesome.

The precious beast

It's hard to admit that as much as I love my daughter, she is also a royal pain in the ass sometimes. Yesterday was a perfect illustration of that.

I had heard about Wee Wednesdays at the Crocker Art Museum, an educational program for younger kids. I have really been wanting to take Z, but it hasn't worked out yet. This was the first week we had a Wednesday free, and I was really excited.

So naturally, I told her, and she was excited, too. I wanted to leave at about 9:45 to make sure we had plenty of time to get there when it opened.

And she was excited. Except that she had to have barrettes in her hair. And she needed to find her shoes, but she got distracted and had to go into her room about four times before coming out with a matching pair. And then she desperately needed all the barrettes out of her hair. And then I asked her to try to go pee, and she refused, and then three seconds later* she said that she "leaked." So then we had to clean her up and change her panties. It's so frustrating to know that I'm trying to do something special for her that I know she will enjoy, but then she makes it SO DAMN HARD.

Anyway, then we went to the museum, which has recently expanded and has some FABULOUS exhibits up. But I couldn't see any of them, because she wanted to run down the halls. So we ran around for 45 minutes, then went to the kids' program. Which she FREAKING EXCELLED at. Seriously, she's such a superstar. They were supposed to look for circles, and Zadie was the first one to call out. There wasn't anything obvious in sight except for a sort of baker's hat on a statue. I thought, "she can't have noticed that. I wonder if she's only pretending to have seen a circle." The teacher asked her where, and she said "the hat!" Then another kid saw a pretty obvious one on a sign, and then Zadie saw another one -- the can light in the ceiling. I was so proud of Her Royal Abstractness.

Then they sat on mats in front of a painting. Zadie identified what it was and answered a few other questions correctly as well. Then she took her shoes off and brought them to me (huh?). She also didn't raise her hand when asked to, and she got up and walked over to me again (except this time it was to give me a hug) while all the other kids sat on their mats.

Then it was time to identify circles and spheres, and she got like an A++ with extra credit. She also cracked me up: she had gotten to pick a picture of a doughnut, and the girl next to her had picked a lollipop. She announced loudly to the girl, "You're lucky that you got a lollipop!"

She also identified spheres like a champ, being the first one to yell "Not a sphere!" when the instructor pulled out the football. The instructor then asked, "did you all know there's a letter of the alphabet that's a circle?" Zadie yelled "O!" before anyone else could nod their heads. (I couldn't help it -- I leaned over to the intern and said "That's my GIRL!") And when they read the story about peas, the teacher asked a couple questions like "Who would eat spinach for dessert?" and Z was like "ME!" She was also the only one to enthusiastically shout that she loves peas.

And then we had a great time in the educational center with free play and books for kids. She curled up in my lap as we read a book about peace twice. And then I bought her an overpriced noodle salad that she hated and we walked out into the blazing heat, where she fussed and hemmed and hawed about getting into the seat, leaving ME standing in the sun.

In the afternoon we went to Sweetie's work and checked out some kids' books about India. She was decent and pleasant in the library, but fidgeted and fussed and ran all over the parking lot (now 101 degrees out), insisting on taking a zig-zaggy route even though I was laden down with heavy books and dilly-dallying for minutes at the car again. I actually finally just closed the door on her and sat in the driver's seat to turn on the A/C. At that point she agreed to sit in her seat.

See what I mean? She's SO awesome and so much fun, and at the same time, so maddening. What the crap doesn't she understand about HURRYING UP so we can get out of the heat? Why won't she just admit when she has to go pee? She's like the queen of geometry, but can't find matching shoes in a box.

I am happier much more often than I am unhappy, but it's almost shocking how much she can get on my damn nerves, too. If an adult made me stand in the heat, I'd be like, "hey, I'm sorry, but fuck you, I need some air conditioning." But with her, you have to use your chipper voice to say, "Okay, hippity hop! Let's pop up in there! You can do it! I believe in you! Any time now would be good! Ooh, yes, the things on the floor are ever so interesting, but could we get going? Mommy wants to head out now. I'm thinking about how much cooler it will be once you're buckled in and we can start the car. Ohh, won't that be lovely? Let's do it! Yay! Oh, gosh, whoops! You overshot the seat and now you're playing in the other side. Oh hey, you found the shoes you kicked off yesterday. Neat, but can we get going now?" I lose my Florence Henderson chipperness when my internal temperature reaches 100.


*This sounds like one of my usual exaggerations, but it's totally not. She was like "I don't HAVE to go potty! (1...2...3..) I leaked."

Caylee Anthony

I'm so sorry to bring this up, but having had a couple days to think about this, I think I can reflect and I think I need to.

In case you don't know, Casey Anthony was on trial for the murder of her daughter Caylee. This all went down in Florida. The girl had been "missing" for a month before anyone reported it (and even then it was the grandparents), the mom had been out partying and shopping (and participating in "hot body" contests) during that month and lying about the daughter's whereabouts (she invented a nanny who lived in a fake address), she had been lying about her job, she probably wrote a diary entry about having made the right decision, evidence points to a dead body having been in her car (multiple people reported smelling decaying human remains in the car, plus there was a hair with evidence of "banding" that occurs at death), she borrowed a shovel from the neighbors around the time the girl disappeared, and there were multiple Google searches on her computer for how to make cloroform. One of the theories was that maybe the girl accidentally drowned, then Casey tried to cover it up. But her skull was found with duct tape over the mouth. Oh yeah, and it's a rare kind of duct tape that, coincidentally, the family had and used on the missing posters and a gas can. Yeah. Anyway, she was found not guilty.

And there was outrage, because the court of public opinion had pretty much found her guilty. And then there was backlash to the outrage, because shouldn't our courts err on the side of caution? Isn't letting guilty people go sometimes better than putting innocent people in jail? And after all, the backlash liked to include, there was only circumstantial evidence. Oh yeah, and we weren't in the courtroom so we don't know everything the jurors do.

Well, I disagree with the backlashers and I'm still outraged. I'm sorry, and I know there are good points to be made on the other side, but the chick is guilty as sin, and circumstantial evidence is TOTALLY good enough to convict based on. The other kind of evidence is direct evidence, and direct evidence is when somebody SAW the crime occur. How often does that happen?

Take the Scott Peterson/Laci Peterson case: There was bleach all over the house, a corpse-sniffing dog traced the scent of Laci's body from their house to the dock where he kept his boat, he made a bunch of anchors that are all missing... The dude killed his wife and dumped her body. It's reasonable to take all that evidence into account and find him guilty. It would be NICE if some random paperboy saw him shoot her through the window or something, but it's not necessary in order to convict. I believe the circumstantial evidence in the case was overwhelming, just like in the Casey Anthony case.

Also, we don't know everything that went on in the courtroom? Psshh. There are people living for tweets about this shit. The trial was shown on TV. I have to call bullshit on that.

I think it all comes down to jurors watching too much TV. On every episode of CSI and SVU and WTF, there's DNA evidence, a secret cache of pictures of the accused taking self-portraits with the dead body, a written confession hidden in a secret chamber of a hollow walking stick and a bloody murder weapon with fibers from the accused's stunningly unique Himalayan sweater. Jurors think if they don't have all that, they can't convict. But they can.

I also think they misunderstand "reasonable doubt." I was on a jury for a trial a few years ago where the guy was accused of selling pot. Among the evidence were enormous amounts of pot, baggies, twenty little hanging scales, and lists of the people who owed him money. The defense's argument was that he was a really heavy personal user and that the scales were for weighing food on Weight Watchers. One or two jurors really thought that might constitute reasonable doubt. No, dude.

Anyway, I agree that I don't want innocent people jailed. I agree that it would have been awfully nice to have direct evidence. I even agree that it's weird that kids get killed all the time and we don't get this into it. But what happened was wrong, and I think the jury fucked up.

There. It's out of my system. Tomorrow I'll tell you about the fun day we had at the Crocker Art Museum.

Hey look!

I guest blogged over at Yep, They're All Mine.

And Kimberly -- I completely agree, let's have a beer!

The mighty chickpea

I like garbanzo beans (and I prefer their cuter name, chickpeas), and I will cook with them, snack on them, put them in salads, or chow down on some hummus. So when I saw something in a magazine recently about fresh ones, I thought that might be interesting.

I saw some at the farmers market on Sunday and bought a bunch. After all, they were only $1. Yesterday I picked off all the pods, then shelled all the beans. And that sentence is SO inadequate to describe the amount of work that went into it. Think shelling fava beans if they were fricking tiny and you had to pick them off the bush first. It probably took me a good 35 minutes, and at the end I had... a small bowl of raw chickpeas, roughly the same amount you would get in a can for around 89 cents. And I still had to cook them.

My fingers were filthy, and it was the first time I've ever taken out the compost in a full-size paper grocery bag. Also, there was a huge mess in the kitchen.

With all that said, it made a pretty tasty dinner, and Z especially liked snacking on the raw ones, actually. But seriously... some things are worth the effort to make from scratch, and some things we ought to let the professionals take care of.

Happy 4th!

I think I'm going to write a food blog post about my experience with fresh green chickpeas. It will be entitled something like, "Well damn, that was a lot of work."

Z and I went to see the 4th of July parade in East Sac. It was really hot out, we read that it started at 10 rather than 11, and we sat on poky pine needles. Nevertheless, we had a pretty good time. It's almost entirely made up of just people on bicycles or walking, with most of the bikes fancied up with streamers and bunting and such. I actually saw a TON of people I knew, from one of Sweetie's co-workers, to the owner of ArtBeast, a woman who works at my gym, two of the parents from Z's pre-school, and finally a very old friend I used to work with at Tower Books.

I took some pictures, but I'm exhausted this evening. Zadie was being extremely three today, and I'm worn out.

Partyin' Partyin', Fun Fun Fun Fun

My neighbors are awesome. I mean, our neighborhood would be nice just geographically, but I have the pleasure of living near some of the most neighborly neighbors since Mayberry. With considerably more booze.

Anyway, a family from our street recently moved away, and a new couple bought their place. We were all skeptical, especially when they made the old neighbors re-home the koi in the koi pond because of some sort of fish-phobia. Fish-phobia? Right. We were concerned.

But I wanted to welcome them, so we invited the folks on the street over to our driveway for a potluck. Yesterday was incredibly, blazingly hot, but after 6, our driveway is in shade, at least. We had plenty of cold drinks and many lovely dishes (I made a grilled sweet potato salad that was marvelous, some margherita pizzas, and ice cream sandwiches), and lots of people came over. I had Sweetie drag Z's tiny baby pool over, and within minutes, we had three naked toddlers trying to fit into a 3 square foot wedge. Another neighbor dragged over a bigger baby pool, and then it was a little less comical (but not much).

It was a lovely evening, especially as the sun set and it cooled off some. (By 9 it was only about 80, and it felt great in comparison.) Today Z and I met my friend and her almost-one-year-old son at the farmer's market. She's pregnant with her second, and it's a cliche to say that pregnant women are glowing, but she looks awesome. I made a funny -- she and her husband called their son "Lucky" while he was in utero. It took them a LONG time to come up with a real name, so Lucky was his name up until birth, really. I asked if they had a nickname for the new baby yet, and she blushed and admitted they didn't have anything. I suggested Not-Quite-as-Lucky. I think I really cracked her up.

Later, I made a blackberry pie to take to Dad's. I screwed up the crust a bit, but it actually still tasted quite good. We went to my dad's house for a couple hours for a cookout/pool party for the fourth, and it's always lovely to see everyone, particularly my cousins. I grew up being pretty close to them, and now I only see them a few times a year. I know you're under no obligation to actually like your family, but I happen to. Plus, swimming on a hot day is boss.

We saw my mom for our usual Sunday dinner, tonight at Dos Coyotes, and now we're doing not much of anything at home. We surveyed our garden and found many wonderful things which I will share with you soon.

And now I hear calls for "Mama Bear," so off I go.

Here's what's going on in my kitchen today...

Grilled sweet potato salad.



Bread dough rising. I'm going to try grilled pizzas for the first time. I took this extra-special extreme close-up so you could see those big holes. The big holes mean super-light bread.



Ice cream sandwiches made with cardamom sugar cookies and rose ice cream. Yes, they are a little funky-looking. I think they'll taste good, though.



And in the living room, here's my girl in her brand-new pink Converse Chuck Taylors. Luckily, she likes them as much as I do.

Sunrise, Sunset

Welcome to NaBloPoMo! Actually, I think they have one every month, but I just decided to hop on the bandwagon today. If it's like last time I did this, I won't quite make it (come on, a blog post a day is a LOT), but it's a fun challenge.

Anyway, this month's theme is "swim," and so I'll start of with some swimming, but then I want to talk about how *sob* MY BABY'S GROWING UP! *Sniff* I think there was something in my eye.

I enrolled Z in swimming lessons because DAMN, she needs to learn how to swim. I am incredulous when I meet people who can't swim. This is California, people. Anyway, I love the way she learns. On the first day, she would kick her legs, but wasn't too keen on blowing bubbles. Day 2, she could blow bubbles but wouldn't float on her back. Day three, she floated on her back but wouldn't hang on the wall. Day four, still no wall, but she could put her nose in the water. Day 5, she held on to the wall for a millisecond. Day 6, she held on long enough for the teacher to let go.

It's like she just needs a day to think about it, but then will totally master a new skill. I like that she's a risk-taker, but that she's still somewhat cautious about it. She is willing to try new things, she just has some wait time. And think of all that progress in only eight lessons!




Today was kind of a hard day. I really want to help her become more independent (I know -- she's three), and so we did a couple things today toward that end. First, I had her do a job -- she picked up lemons and loaded them into a bag for $0.35. Actually, it was 25 cents, and I added a dime bonus if she did all the ones on the side of the yard as well. She was REALLY excited about the bonus. Then we counted the money in her piggy bank. There was just about $7. I made her a deal -- we could go to Toys R Us and pick out something she wanted, find out how much it cost, then start saving toward that goal. We would match her savings. Well, as it turned out, what she wanted was only $10, so we just got it today, which undermines the savings lesson, but it still teaches a money lesson. When we got home, I actually opened up her piggy bank and took out the $5 to repay myself. It felt awful! Like a violation of her trust. She knew I was doing it and watched me count, but it felt really, really weird. It's like there's this disconnect in my mind where on the one hand, I want to teach her about money, and on the other hand, I can totally shell out $10 for a Barbie.

It's a mermaid Barbie (she still calls them Barbaras, bless her heart), and her name is Sealilly.

And then she made lunch. Really. From a cookbook. I have a cookbook for kids called Pretend Soup, and I picked the easiest recipe and just guided her a bit. I also flipped the quesadilla and turned on the burner, but that's all.




So she did all these really awesome, grown-up, independent things today, and at bedtime she had a FREAK-OUT of massive proportions. I won't go into all the details, but at one point she was begging for a knife, so Sweetie gave her a soft wooden sort of sword-y shaped thing, and the next time I went in to check on her, she was sitting bolt upright, eyes wide in terror, with the sword held in both hands and raised above her head.

I suspect they're related. I know it's some sort of thing she can't name, but it goes something like "Gee, I was really grown-up and independent today, so I need to be reassured that my parents are still there for me."

Why the beach is better than the snow.

1. Specialized clothing for the beach: none.
Specialized clothing for the snow: Snow pants, ski cap, goggles, waterproof boots... And if you don't have them, you quickly end up freezing and damp.

2. Specialized equipment for beach activities: blanket (although you could bring a kite, flippers, snorkel...)
Specialized equipment for the snow: available at better used sporting goods stores for only a few hundred dollars.

3. Driving to the beach: If it's a particularly nice day, you might hit some traffic.
Driving to the snow: At some point, men flag you down, instruct you to pull your car over to the side of the highway, and have you put expensive chains on your tires so that you don't go skidding to your icy death.

4: Walking on the beach: flip-flops.
Walking on the snow: tennis rackets, cold, wet, and periodic bouts of falling on your ass.

5: Cost of beach: Up to $5 for parking.
Cost of snow: A really good lift ticket/ski rental package can be as low as $80.

6: Adjusting to altitude at the beach: home is at sea level, beach is at sea level. Done.
Adjusting to altitude at the snow: Takes six days, involves drinking lots of water, can involve headaches and trouble sleeping.

It kind of goes on from there. To be honest, any place where you can lay on a blanket and read a book in the sunshine kind of beats the pants off any place where you can't for me.

With that said, though, I went to Tahoe this weekend for a conference, and it was really lovely. I've only been two other times in my adult life. Once I had great fun with two good friends -- most of that fun involved sledding and Kahlua. The second time was for a wedding, and the company was wonderful, but the lodgings were pretty shitty. So I just wasn't really sold.

But now I'm actually thinking there are reasons to go. I hiked, put my feet in the lake, ate good food, gazed at the brilliant stars, and enjoyed an unparalleled view of the lake from up on a cliff. So anyway, if I had four chances to go on weekend trips, I would have previously suggested San Francisco, Point Reyes, Bodega Bay, and Santa Cruz. Now I would consider swapping out Bodega Bay for Lake Tahoe.

Also, my conference was really useful and I learned a lot. But that's a side note, right?
I'm glad to be home now with my family and cats.

Granlibakken

For a conference, I'm in Granlibakken, which is Lake Tahoe.

Good: great weather, easy drive, good company, actually entertaining first night's speeches, free wine, comfy room, reliable internet, food that is vegetarian and Weight Watchers-friendly, and a coffee maker in the room.

Weird: Postcards of this place include one of a nipple-pierced viking. The trails around here randomly have pictures of squirrels posted to the trees. It takes 6 days to acclimate to 6,000 elevation (which it is here) from sea level (which my hometown is), and we'll be here for three.

Bad: My upstairs neighbor is apparently one of these guys...

and the floor of his room is made of drum heads. Also, he wakes up and does calisthenics at 4.

Okay, off to breakfast. I miss my home and family and cats. You guys should all give each other hugs for me.

A very unusual week

So here's the main thing that was strange... my husband and mom were BOTH out of town last week. Zadie spent three days with Grandpa John, and by all accounts, everyone there had a good time. I was on half-days, which was awesome, but obviously Z's routine was ALL jacked up. At about the end of the day each day, she'd have a mini-meltdown. One night she had to put her feelings of missing Daddy into her piggy bank after a brief miscommunication where she thought I was giving my missing-Daddy feelings to her.

We did a bunch of fun stuff, though. We went to Mighty Kong Cafe for lunch one day and had a milkshake and a nice talk about Godzilla vs. King Kong. On another day we went to Bertha Henschel park in the evening. On another, we went there for a concert and she ended up in the wading pool in her underpants (so were half the other kids). We made dinners together and went to the gym together. We had a few treats like popsicles. We hung out in the hammock. It was odd but nice.

Our long, long, cold, gray spring suddenly turned to summer. It was actually a little reassuring: I always say that I'm not bothered by the heat until it hits 100, and yesterday it was 93. I was fine. Today it was over 100, so we sat in the air conditioning after noon and enjoyed the wonders of TV.

Father's Day was super-fun. I bought Sweetie some DVDs of Dr. Who, but I also made him fresh sriracha hot sauce. Then I made my dad a pineapple upside down cake. My stepdad was out of town, but when he came back, I made him a Portuguese marinade which is spelled Vinho d'alhos and which is pronounced vinya dazh or something. I don't get Portuguese.

I met with a personal trainer at the gym. I felt kind of awful saying it, but she was like "And what's your main fitness goal?" and I responded, "I just want to lose weight." I know that's not supposed to be your goal -- you're supposed to want to be healthy and fit and have low cholesterol or whatever, but the truth is, except for being overweight, I have all those things. I rarely get sick, I have lots of energy, I have low cholesterol, low blood pressure, a healthy resting heart rate... I'm just fat. And although I sort of believe in "health at any size," I don't want to be any size. I want to be smaller and not have a big fat gut and back fat. So she said I was doing things right, but thought I should add some circuit training, so I am, starting tomorrow morning. Wish me luck.

On the cat front, the cats are finally getting along. Luther pretends to be super Beta -- Mina and he get close and he flops onto his back -- but when food is delivered, he throws himself bodily in front of her to get it. He's very sweet and cuddly and loving, but he pisses everywhere, which is going to be a problem. I think once we have him unmanned, perhaps that will get better, too. Also, I could do without his middle-of-the-light love-fests with my face.

Zadie is taking swimming lessons, which I'm glad about. I really want her to know how and to feel more comfortable around the water. She likes it, but she clings to me and won't even hold onto the wall. But in two lessons, she's already made progress. She is kicking and blowing bubbles, and will easily go up to about her nose in the water. She absolutely cracks me up, though: the instructor puts these shark-shaped weights on the stairs and encourages the girls to pick them up. I think he's getting them used to going a little deeper in the water. Well today, Z was sitting on the right side of the stairs and he kept moving the shark farther left so she would have to reach farther, therefore getting deeper in the water. Well he got to a point that she was like "okay," and stood up, walked up two steps, scooted to the left side, walked down two steps, and picked up the shark. I love her problem-solving, but I'm not sure his pedagogical goal was met. I have a feeling we're seeing the very early stages of "But why do I HAVE to show my work?" and various other school-rule-related minor rebellions.

The other girl in class is the most stone-faced kid I've ever seen. She NEVER smiles. And when he floats her along and tells her to kick, she just does a dead-body float. Zadie, on the other hand, is kicking wildly and yelling "WHEE!" The other girl has burst into tears once each day, and Zadie has been fine. About ten minutes before class got out today, she told me she wanted to get out, and climbed out on her own. I thought she was asking to leave, but then she announced "I have to go potty." I took her, still not really thinking she had to go, since we'd gone only about 25 minutes earlier, but she promptly peed and went back to her lesson. So she's kicking ass, basically.

My writing group is tomorrow and I haven't written a thing. I should have done it tonight, but I just didn't have it in me. Anyway, I have to get going to feed the cats and go to bed so I can go "circuit train" in the morning.

I hope you're all well, and I know life is good today, because everyone I love that lives here is here, and it's really summer time, and I don't have to work.

Almost done!

For the first time in all my years of teaching, almost all my classes are seniors. And if you don't know, seniors check out of school a bit early. Which means, for me, that I have almost no teaching to do this week. I had almost four hours free yesterday, two today, and the next two days involve no students at all -- eight hours of me-time.

Of course, I'm using it for school stuff. No, don't laugh! I've actually been working my ass off. I caught up on all my grading, created a new web site for my classes, packed everything in my room into boxes, moved about 75% of them to what will be my new room, took pictures of some of the art on campus and turned those into a slide show for a special project I'm doing.

So I'm busy, but in the kind of way where I'm actually getting interesting, useful new stuff done instead of catching up on old stuff. Kind of cool.

This is a weird week: my sweetie is at a work conference and my mom is in Iowa (well, as of tomorrow morning). So my dad is taking care of Z for the next few days while I'm at work, and then she and I have a bunch of mostly free time. I'm sad that everyone's away, but glad my mom's seeing my grandma -- she fell and broke her nose and sprained her ankle, plus she has a few other things going on. It's bad stuff, but a good time for Mom to be there for her.

Our new little kitten, Luther Furbank, is really fun. It's been so long since I had a cat that played! He's fattening up nicely, and he's just adorable. He and Mina have a tenuous relationship. Mostly they stay away from each other, but he's just so interested in her that he can't keep away. Then she hisses. Today I took this photo, because for the first time, they were hanging out next to each other with no trouble.


Then a moment later, he batted her tail and she FREAKED out on him, swiping at him for the first time. But she still wasn't trying to hurt him -- it was more of a "DUDE, GET OUT OF HERE!" motion.

Last summer, Z and I had lunch in the park with Monkeygirl, who suggested that Z and I should have matching outfits. My reaction was along the lines of "gag me with a pitchfork." But then I asked Z whether she'd like us to have matching outfits. She thought it was dreamy, so I bought patterns and fabric, but then I never did it. I busted all the stuff out yesterday and am on my way to making two dresses. It feels hecka Amish or something. Like I should just go ahead and make the dresses with high collars, puff sleeves, and a lace inset or something, then get a family photo taken in front of a fake Autumn leaves backdrop.

I guess that's about it. I hope you're all as happy and healthy as I am!

The things she says...

We were bringing our new kitten, Luther Furbank, home for the first time, and he was clearly nervous to be in the car. I suggested that she could talk to him to make him feel better, so pretty much the WHOLE way home, I heard this: I like your nice head, Luther Furbank. I like your blue eyes Luther Furbank. You're a nice cat Luther Furbank. You have pretty fur Luther Furbank. (I'm not sure why she felt she had to say his name in every sentence, but it was cracking me up.)

Yesterday we were driving around, and we were talking about clothing. It went like this...
Z: I like to wear dresses.
Me: I know.
Z: And I like shirts.
Me: Oh, do you? What do you like to wear them with?
Z: Dresses..
Me: Hm. Do you like to wear skirts?
Z: I like to wear skirts with tank tops.
Me: Ah. Do you like to wear pants?
Z: Yeah, I like to wear them with dresses.
Me: Do you like to wear shorts?
Z: No. I like to wear tank tops with shirts.
Me: Oh. Then what do you wear on the bottom?
Z: [laughter] I'm going to tell you a joke.
Me: Okay, go ahead.
Z: I like to wear cream!
Me: Cream?[more laughter.] I'm going to tell you another joke.
Me: Okay.
Z: I like to wear a cream cheese sandwich!

Last weekend, she narrated a story while I typed. It went like this...

I love you. Cinderella didn’t love her sisters and also she didn’t like her stepmother. But her sister loved her stepmother. Then she was very mean to Cinderella and she almost hit Cinderella. And then when she was walking outside she saw Cinderella and she said, “Do your chores” and she said “I already did my chores.” And when Cinderella went outside to play, run and chase leaves and chase butterflies and chase butterflies again and everything she liked to do and not die. But then she didn’t like it because she didn’t like it again. But she laughed! But she didn’t laugh and she did all the things she wanted to do and she went happily off to bed.

And then she did something really naughty, and she did something really naughty again and the stepmother laughed. And then she did something really, really really naughty. And then she stopped being naughty and she went away to go fishing. And she tripped and fell and hurt her knee. And then she fell down into the river. And then she didn’t like it because noone was happy, and then she got to have fun and then she went to go outside and her stepmother wasn’t there but her stepsisters were there. And then she hit her stepsisters. And then she hit her stepmother. And she hit her stepmother so hard that her stepmother died.

[mom] Uh-oh, I don’t like stories about killing or dying.

I like to have stories about dying and killing. And then her stepsisters went off to bed, and the stepmother was worried about the stepsisters, but Cinderella wasn’t. No one loved Cinderella – she was alone. No one except anyone liked her. No one liked her except anyone. And anyone did it again. And Cinderella got a huge pot of peas and no one ate the pot of peas except her stepsisters and her stepmother. But they didn’t like the peas, but they had fun playing with nobody. They had fun eating dinner, and no one seemed to love her.

Pretty butterflies aren’t fairies. Fairies and butterflies aren’t fair. But fair-keys are. No one is happy about that. No one. No one.

(I really like that e.e. cummings-esque section toward the end with the "no one except anyone liked her" thing.)

Gloomy June, but high spirits

I love sunshine and warm weather and picnics and swimming, and this spring is really not allowing for that sort of thing, but nevertheless, I'm looking forward to lots of things, most especially, our July trip to Oregon.

I'm having a lot of fun with my new food blog. I don't know if anyone's getting any benefit from it, but I'm enjoying writing it, and I actually feel good about the content. I think a novice cook could utilize it and make some decent food.

Zadie just had her last day of her first year of pre-school. She loves school. She's a real extravert, and she loves being around other kids. Next year, she'll be in a four-day-a-week program, which is a little scary for me, because it feels like that's too much, too soon! Isn't she just a baby? But no, I think it's perfect for her and she's really going to enjoy it. Here's her first day and last day.




In other news, we're getting a kitty! I wasn't exactly ready, but this one wandered into my classroom at school three times. I kept shooing it away, but it kept coming back, so I figured it needed something. It was very small and skinny, and I picked him up easily and put him in a cardboard box. He mewled unhappily, so his sister came wandering in to see what the fuss is about. With a little more difficulty and some help, I caught her, too. My dad was kind enough to pick them up (I didn't want fleas in my car), and he and my step-mom are nursing them back to health. Anyway, I've fallen in love with the little gray guy, and I am pretty sure they are in love with the caramel one, so my initial concerns about how to adopt them our or whether to fix them and return them to the colony were unfounded. They both have homes. I'm naming the gray one Luther Furbank.


My school is almost out, but not quite. Sigh. It feels like it's a long year.

I was updating (okay, completely re-making) my web site for school, and I decided there ought to be a page that has my education and some of my writing credits. But there aren't that many, and so I decided to submit more of my writing for publication. I went to my writing group last night, and the other gals really supported that idea. Then, this morning, I read one of my local poetry blogs and they had an announcement that a journal's submission deadline is tomorrow. So I threw something together, attached it to an email, held my breath and hit "send" before I could change my mind. Wish me luck!