Scenic Routes

Smelt

2011-05-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I took Kelly over to the coast for an early morning ride.

We got there a bit late, thanks to a bit of my dilly-dallying, and also getting stuck behind a truck that was doing a brisk walking pace over the hill. 12 miles at a walking pace will put anyone behind schedule, let me tell you. And as we got to the ranch, we were just in time to see a giant group of folks riding out of the place. Whoopsie. Looks like there aren't any horses left. What a bummer.

But I sent Kelly jumping out of the van as soon as we stopped, and told her to go see if there was any chance of a ride. If she wanted it that bad, she could beg. And beg she did. Turns out there were three other people who came while the big group was getting saddled up, and Jorge told them he'd take a second "early bird ride" out, in a few minutes, so Kelly was able to get in with them. And there were a few horses hiding in the back, just waiting.

Kelly got to take a turn on KC. She hadn't ridden him for a long time. I think it might have been Labour Day the last time she was on him. He's a lovely horse, though, and treated her really well.

Kelly led the way on the trail, with the guide bringing up the rear.

Things got a bit hinky on the beach when a parachute-ultralight aircraft buzzed them, but they were able to keep their horses calmed, and in line until the noisy distraction passed.

On the way back, the guide suggested that Kelly could hang back a bit, and then catch up to the group, to give KC a little bit more exercise. No galloping, but a little bit more exciting than just the walking pace that the rest of the group was willing to take.

Every ride is different. Every ride is fun in its own way, and Kelly thought this was one of the best ones.

I'm glad she's getting my money's worth out of these rides.

When they got back to the ranch, and she'd helped water the horses and loosen the saddles, it was time for some carrot snacks (of course)

Even the ponies and the mule are not left out of the orange windfall.

And Wrangler? He just gets hugs and kisses.

And she always saves him the last dance.

"Mom? Before we go home, can we do something? Tilly threw a shoe as we were crossing the last road, and I want to see if I can go back and get it and keep it as a souvenir."

Of course. If it's still there. But honey, that's a pretty busy driveway, the road to the State Beach, and it's had a lot of traffic of folks heading to the shore. Don't get your hopes up...

What do you know!

Well, while we're here at Venice Beach, why don't we go down to the water, and take some photos?

Oh look! What are those guys doing?

I asked the yellow-hatted guy (wearing sandals on the outside his waders). He was very willing to teach Kelly all about Surf Smelt. Apparently, it was the running of the smelt, and you could come out and toss your nets in to catch them. They spawn in the surf at high tide, I guess. We watched, fascinated, for nearly an hour, while these two guys (and a number of others) filled their buckets with smelt.

I have no idea what they did with them, if they just went home and feasted, or if these two were some sort of commercial operation. While the older guy wearing the sandals seemed to be just doing it for fun, the guy wearing the blue-tooth earbud really seemed to be a professional. His nets were often quite full, and his bucket had a company name on it. I wonder if he supplies some of the local fish markets. And he seemed very determined, and not dissuaded by the big waves crashing up the front of him.

Brrr!

As the nets were dragged up the bank, sometimes fish would escape. Usually the fishermen would toss them back into the surf as they came back down to the waterline. Kelly finally got brave enough to step in and help with the 'tossing back' activity.

Of course, it's an acquired skill... to do it without screaming, and dropping the somewhat slimy fish back onto the sand.

And then when you get really brave...

You bring them back up the beach, and drop them in the bucket.

Catch up. Remy-7

2011-05-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was Remy's last day in California.

Earlier in the visit, I'd asked him to tell me some things he would like to see, and he said that he would really like to see Alcatraz. Even after I said that a ticket was $26 (about 17 Euro), he still thought that was a great idea.

So I'd gone online the previous week, and was ONLY able to get us tickets for the Wednesday noon sailing. It was already super booked up.

Of course, I was a nervous wreck, driving up into the City, hoping that some sort of natural homing instinct (which I do not possess at all) might kick in, and I'd be able to find not only the Pier that the Alcatraz Tours left from, but also a parking space. In my brain, the Alcatraz Tours left from a spot west of Pier 39, so I was totally not believing my GPS when it sent me to some place much closer to AT&T park. But I'm glad that I listened to it, because sure enough, the Pier that we needed to be at was NOT where i thought it was. Also, fortunate was the fact that I just stumbled onto some all-day parking just in the nick of time. Even if the signs didn't instill a great deal of confidence...

We arrived with an hour to spare, so we went on a little walking tour.

Hello, Coit Tower. We will not be climbing the zillion and three stairs up to your lofty heights today.

Hello smelly sea lions at Pier 39

Hello excited French boy who is going to be going to Alcatraz. See? The Golden Gate Bridge really does exist!

Even though the weather was threatening, and the skies did open as we scampered onto the boat for the trip to the island, we were still treated to some lovely views of the city.

(Hello again, Trans America Building.)

Alcatraz really was something else. I'd never been there, and I think the kids even enjoyed themselves.

Even though it probably would be frowned upon by the chaperones, I told Remy that he should take the Audio Tour in French. No sense wasting the cost of admission. Let him actually get a ton of good information out of the event.

The audio tour was really top notch.

I told Remy he should send this next photo home to his family to show them where he stayed, and what good hosts we were.

(in truth, Nate's room isn't much bigger, and is almost the same color, but I like to think I decorated it a bit better.)

It's just such an ominous place, inside. I can't imagine spending ANY length of time in here.

Look! It's Al Capone!

The weather was always JUST on the verge of raining. Or it was sprinkling. It kind of cut our little outdoor tour short..

I tihnk those big spiky tree-things behind Kelly's head are agave blooms.

I don't know how many times I have seen my mother looking the EXACT same way as Kelly does in this shot. I guess it's in the genes...

Hello 'wildlife'

I loved this sign!

And soon it was time to leave. And just in the nick of time. The skies just opened as we were getting back onto the boat.

Goodbye, Alcatraz. Remy actually was looking sad. I tihnk he could really tell that the end of his visit was approaching.

So to perk him up? We took him to experience the SECRET MENU at In-N-Out burgers.

Yes, that would be the infamous "FOUR BY FOUR" that is not found on the public menu. I never took a photo of the Animal Fries (A basket of fries, topped with chopped fried onions, caramelized (yum!), melted cheese, and Thousand Island dressing. Oh! The calorie load!

And we got home just in the nick of time to head off to the Farewell Potluck Supper.

Catch up. Remy-6

2011-05-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, we got up bright and early, and then lazed around a bit before heading south towards Santa Clara, and a little place called Sky High.

We had Cole and Carrie with us, too, and the six kids had a great time bouncing around on the trampolines.

But I tihnk the boys had the most fun playing in the dodge-ball court.

Then we ditched the girls, and I took the boys home.

Cole hadn't tried the tightrope yet, so we had to get that on film.

Then we thought we'd take another shot at seeing if the Golden Gate Bridge was fog shrouded.

Well... better than last time, but still not a full bridge.

We may have done a little bit of very loud singing on the rocks... It's fun to stay at the...

Catch up. Remy-5

2011-05-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

In the first week, we'd sat down with Remy to ask him what sorts of things he wanted to do.

He indicated an interest in shopping. Specifically, he wanted to get "levvy zheen" for his sisters. Levvy Zheen, turns out to be Levi Jeans. I kind of like how he called them Levvys. I am tempted to do the same some days. It just sounds more sophisticated, somehow.

Anyways, he wanted Levvy Zheen, and he wanted to go to "Guilderan Auchlette"

I'll let you steep a bit on that one.

Guilderan Auchlette.

He'd even written it down. That's how I know how it's spelled.

I was at a loss as to what he might want to do.

And then I saw that it was part of a bulleted list::

TJ Maxx

Ross

Guilderan Auchelette

I'll let you steep in this a while.

Got any ideas?

(cue the music from Final Jeopardy)

Aha!

GILROY OUTLETS!

Apparently, their fame had spread all the way to France, and it was something that he wanted to experience.

So at the butt-crack of dawn, we were out the door, a van on a mission to Gilroy, containing one 16 year old boy who does not like to shop, and who made it VERY clear that he didn't know why HE had to come along, and this was DUMB, and he was just going to make our lives (including that of our guest, argh!) hell, to the point where I nearly pulled over (during RUSH HOUR) in the middle of San Jose and kicked him to the curb with a "Find your own damn way home, then!" final cut. But I didn't, you'll be happy to read. I didn't want my Mother of the Year Crown to tarnish, or anything.

We got to the outlets just as they were opening, and I drove around, to give Remy an idea of the lay of the land, and then we made our plan of where we would shop first. And then Skip decided to stay in the car, because he was being an ass, and the rest of us shopped.

First stop: Levi Outlet Store.

In the Levi store, he scored a pair of skinny jeans for his older sister. I hope they fit. Apparently the sizing is different between Europe and US. Who knew? He knew her size there, though, and there was a very helpful clerk who knew the conversion factor. He paid $30 at the outlet, which was a deal, considering that they were $59 in the regular stores. And Remy looked like a cat that ate a canary, because the same jeans would be over $100 in France.

He also scored a very nice Levi t-shirt for himself.

We went to all the hipster-brand stores. But mostly Remy just window-shopped. I don't know if the prices were still a little higher than he hoped, or if he was just not a shopper. I know that I found the prices still really quite high, even though they were 'outlet mall' priced. I wouldn't have bought anything at most of the places we walked into.

But in the Vans store, we did find some value. And Nate and Kelly walked out with new shoes.

Kelly's feet are now nearly as big as mine. And she's only 11! Wah!

After we'd exhausted all the hip stores, it was time for our visit to our favourite eatery.

Skip had really perked up by this point. Maybe it was the nap in the car while we were shopping, maybe it was the multiple refills on his Coke at In-N-Out, or maybe it was just relief that teh shopping portion of the day was nearly done. but he was a happy boy after this point. Remy was intrigued by our talk of the "secret menu" at In-N-Out. We introduced him to Animal Fries, but he didn't go for any of the scary secret burgers, opting for the simple Double-Double.

On the way home, we stopped at a place called Nickel City in Cupertino. It's an old school arcade, where everything runs on nickels.

The boys had a great time shooting things, and had a few really good runs in the win-ticket acquisition. So much so, that they ended up with over 1000 tickets to redeem. Skip decided to use his 400+ tickets to purchase 93 little plastic army men. And then he gave the cashier an aneurysm when he said that he needed to pick out each one individually.

We got home in enough time to grab a snack, and then turn around to get to Kung Fu.

While Skip was having his class, we'd arranged for Remy to have a private lesson.

I think he enjoyed himself. Immensely, even.

Nate may have enjoyed himself during the private lesson, too.

After SKip's class was done, and Remy's private lesson was finished, he was invited to join the class of Yellow and Orange belt adults. And Skip was invited to help teach it.

I think they both enjoyed themselves. Immensely, even.

And after they were all sweaty and tired, we went back to our house (with Cole, too) and played with fire.

It might have been a bit loud. And a bit smoky.

And then we heard sirens, and saw flashing lights, so we ran inside like the cowards we are.

But hey, it's got to be a pretty exciting night if it ends with the fire department getting called, right?

(turns out the fire trucks were responding to a different emergency. But it COULD have been the neighbours finking on us. Really, it could have. There truly was a LOT of smoke and noise.)

A successful end to an ON FIRE day!

Catch up. Remy-4

2011-05-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

Sunday. It was Remy's last weekend-day with us, but do not fear. It was spring break, so we actually had three more days of intense tourist-business ahead of us.

Skip was scheduled to be in the band, so Remy got to see him in action.

I wish I could remember what we did after church, but I'm drawing a blank. Maybe we just forced him to sit on the computer, I don't know.

What I do know is that shortly after we got home, I sent the kids out into the front yard to get ready to use a skill they'd need when they ran away to join the circus...

Yup. It's a tightrope.

Ahem, Remy. Your purple underpants are showing.

Potential Plum Injury in 3... 2...

She's got nerves of steel, walking out on that tightrope...

Just like her mother, you might say...

Catch up. Remy-3

2011-05-13T13:58:00.000-07:00

As Saturday rolled around, we began to realize that our time with our French Exchange student was more than half-gone. This was sort of the last chance to really show him around.

So we got up really early in the morning, and headed out to the coast.

Kelly wanted to show him what SHE likes about California.

And that would be horseback riding on the beach.

Look! Even Nate got in on the action!

But we didn't stay long, because it was time to go up to explore San Francisco!

First, we went to Ghirardelli Square, for sundaes as big as our heads. (and is it me, or are these things shrinking? When we first used to take friends here, those sundaes were MASSIVE, and now they're just looking sort of ordinary...)

It was a windy and blustery day, but it was National Park Week (or something like that), and all the ships at Hyde St. Pier were free to tour.

I've always wanted to peek onto the Balclutha, but I'm too much of a cheap-skate to buy a ticket.

Um, yeah, just a bit windy...

Alcatraz was shrouded with fog. Ooh. Mysterious!

Golden Gate Bridge was looking like it was going to be vanishing pretty soon, too.

We went on a bit of a city hike. Up into the hills, and along Filbert Street (super steep!) and Lombard Street (super bendy). We watched the cars take on the challenges, but we stayed on our feet.

After looking around a bit, we hopped back into the van, and headed for Chinatown for some early supper.

Hello Fortune Cookie Factory. Why yes, I will pay 50 cents to take a photo. Here's a dollar. I want two.

We ran into a little Chinese man who wanted to correct my tourist-guiding (such as it was - I know about 3 facts, and I wasn't even going to go into the details on those because Remy couldn't hardly understand), and so now I know that Waverly Street isn't called Waverly Street by the REAL Chinese, but is something like Temple of Queen of Heaven. And then he told us not to go to the restaurant we were going to go to for supper, because only "ABC" go there. What? ABC? "You know... American Born Chinese" (and he spits on the ground). Um. Yeah. And then he gave us a business card, saying "Here's my card, and a recommendation for supper. You can have it for free", and it said "Call me: Jackie Chan" with a phone number on it. Nowhere on the card did it say anything about where to eat. We just said "Thank you" to our new friend, Jackie Chan, and ran away quickly, taking a different route back to the restaurant.

Yum!

This was in the cabinet behind Remy's head. He found it quite amusing.

We gave him a little taste of Chinatown (and I may have bought a large amount of sparklers and fizzy fireworks, too)

But he seemed more captivated by the TransAmerica building. I guess it's quite the Symbol of San Francisco in Europe, or is prominent in some movie that he's fond of.

On the way out of town, we drove to the coast, hoping that we'd be able to see the Golden Gate Bridge from China Beach.

No luck. It was stolen. Or maybe it's just a figment of our imagination. Heh.

And then I stole some aphid-infested rose buds from the garden at China Beach because the praying mantis egg case hatched, and I needed to feed all the little newly-hatched critters before they ate each other.

Nah, this isn't creepy at all...

Catch up. Remy-2

2011-05-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

Thursday, we were back to being busy-busy-busy.

Skip and Remy had a half-day (because of State-wide testing), so I met them at the local sushi place.

Remy assured me he really liked sushi. It was one of his favorites, in fact.

So I was surprised that he couldn't figure out his way around chopsticks.

(les baguettes-chinoise, if you're curious).

Oh well.

Once again, Remy was a big hit at the youth event at church. Alas, I didn't get the photo of him crashing mightily when he thought the flimsy plastic fence was something sturdy and strong. He went down with the fence like a ton of bricks. Got a nice bit of road rash, too.

Friday was another half-day at high school. I picked the boys up at 1130 (golly, that's early. Why bother going to school?) and we headed down to Google for one of their legendary Employee Lunches.

Take THAT, chaperones! Who else got to get a private tour of Google? Hmmm?

And on the way home, I stopped at a car dealership, so Remy could see some American Muscle cars.

This hot rod had a nasty oil leak gushing out the far side. I felt compelled to go into the dealership to tell the sales guy that his car was dying out front.

And while we were inside? What about a few more photos...?

Later, I was determined to NOT get taken to task for abandoning Remy, so when the littles got home from school there was NO sitting around. NO snacks! It was time to go outside.

First, some basketball...

Then a hike!

See the sign? Maybe we'll get lucky!

Or maybe we'll just have a nice hike through the woods...

There was almost no water in the lake.

(the water used to come up to the top of that intake pipe under the dock. Sheesh. I guess the city's expecting a flood, and they want to be ready with lots of reservoir space...)

But it still made for some nice photos before heading home.

Man, this is reminding me that the kids are sure missing Remy.

Catch up. Remy-1

2011-05-12T13:51:00.000-07:00

Yikes.

It's so easy to let a habit slide. Like I say "Oh, I should write every day", and then one day goes by, and I say "No problem. I'll write about x, y, and z when I write tomorrow" and then tomorrow comes and goes, and the next thing you know, a MONTH has gone by.

Sheesh. I need a desk job. One where I have a computer, and my supervisor goes on long smoke-breaks, so I can sneak onto this place, and write little entries, so when my early-onset Alzheimer's kicks in full-blown, I can just read this diary to find out things like what my kids names are, or what I did on Thursday.

Part of why I just shunned this place, I will admit, is that I got totally SPANKED by the French Exchange Chaperones, and I didn't know if I was more outraged, or embarrassed about it. That story will come later. Here's a bit of catching up:

As you may recall, Remy arrived on April 7th (a Thursday), and hit the ground running. I got as far as talking about the trip to Santa Cruz on Saturday before I lost my momentum.

On Sunday, after church, we took him to In-N-Out burgers for the first time (there would be THREE more trips. It was a big hit), and then took him to Google.

Technically, Google guests are not allowed to ride the Google-bikes, but on Sundays, there aren't as many security guards, and they can't catch us.

Of course, we had to visit Stanley...

And play with all the Android Operating System Mascots...

Remy was starting to speak a little bit more, and I will confess that we did pepper our conversation with little bits of French, just so we were sure that we were being understood. He still was looking pretty worn out by supper time, though, and bedtime was pretty early.

Monday and Tuesday were school days, and Skip had a virus attack his laptop (I have a slight feeling that it might have been a result of Remy visiting some French web site, but I'm not sure) He had to take his laptop completely apart, and re-install everything. It's the first time that we've had ANY virus on ANY of our computers in this house, and it was quite the surprise. Alas, it also attacked just as Skip was finishing off a very large research project that was due on Wednesday, so he basically was glued to the computer all of Monday night and Tuesday night.

Remy asked us if it would be possible for him to go onto Facebook to leave his mother a message. Of course, i thought, even though we were told that the exchange students were not supposed to be given access to computers, because they would just go to French web sites, and kind of undermine their English immersion experience. But because Skip was so pre-occupied with this big project, I thought it would be better than leaving Remy adrift. He went online, and I could see that he was active, as I passed by the computer. He had about 15 chat windows open. Oh well, I thought. Let him have a bit of fun.

A little bit later (on Tuesday), he asked if he could go for a walk. One of the other exchange students was staying with a girl that lives about half a mile from our house. I was a little bit worred (they're ALSO not supposed to be fraternizing with their classmates, because they'll speak French), but Skip was so busy, and I had stuff to do, and he'd already played with Nate and Kelly, so I sent him off on his way, hoping that he didn't get lost on the walk. I also hoped that he'd end up speaking English because the host would be there. He seemed perkier when he finally returned from his walk, and told us about all the wild animals they'd seen (they ended up walking out into the open space hiking area, and had seen 'les chevaux comme Bambi" - "Horses like Bambi" aka deer, 'et boucoup de lapins' - and lots of rabbits)

Wednesday was a kung fu day for Skip and Nate. But before that, I finally got Remy to agree to go shopping. He'd asked to go shopping when he first arrived, but for three days running, when I'd say "Today is a good day to shop", he'd say "Not now. Maybe later?"). So while Skip finished fiddling with his computer, Kelly and I took Remy to the Mall.

He mostly looked around, and just took in the sights, but we did have some success at Hollister.

Then, while Skip was in his class, I arranged for Remy to have a private lesson the following week, so he could get a bit of the Kung Fu experience, too. He seemed cool with that. While we were in the lesson, he asked if he could phone his chaperones. I assumed that they were required to check in occasionally, so I dialed up the chaperones, and handed over the phone. He walked out of the room, and was chatting away in French (too fast for me to parse what was being said, but he looked cheerful enough). A few minutes later, he handed the phone back to me "The chaperone would like to talk to you" he said.

Oh man.

"Mrs. Parker. We are VERY CONCERNED that Remy is not getting an American English immersion experience. His family has entrusted him to the care of this program so that he will experience English, NOT be sitting in front of a television or a computer. French children are NOT like American children. When they come home from school, they go outside to play. You need to be giving Remy more outside experiences, and not just making him sit in front of a computer. Do you have a bicycle that he could ride on? He needs to be outside..."

Um... say what?

I was totally blind-sided.

Did *NOT* see that one coming.

Of course, I was unprepared for a rebuttal, and didn't have the wherewithal to defend my position. Instead, I nearly started to cry. We'd been busting our butts doing way more than we would normally do, and it felt like whatever we had ALREADY given him was being tossed aside. The thing that totally chapped my hide was that he had ASKED if he could go on the computer, and we had ALLOWED it (to be fair, I kind of knew I was doing a 'forbidden thing', but when I went onto Facebook, I could see DEFINITELY that all the other French kids in the program were updating their statuses about a dozen times a day, so it wasn't just ME that was breaking the rule). And then she started talking about how Skip wasn't spending enough time with Remy. Good grief! Skip was nearly at his wit's end because of all the time that he *DID* have to spend with Remy. He really, really, REALLY likes his alone time, and having to host him around at school all day, and then (heaven FORBID!) talk to classmates, and introduce him around? It was Killing Skip. He just needed some alone time, not to mention the fact that he has homework every day, so I finally said "I'm sorry that Remy's host isn't being social, but you need to realize that this is WAY outside of his comfort zone, and he's had to take care of some work that MUST be done on the computer, and we have done what we can as the remainder of the family, to entertain Remy. We will cut off his access to the computer, but please know that we are filling his days, and he is falling into bed completely exhausted by 8 o'clock every night. I don't know how much more immersion we can give him."

That was tense.

But Remy seemed oblivious to what had just gone on. In retrospect, I wonder if he just was reporting on what he'd done, and he let slip that he'd gone for a walk by himself to find his classmate, and that we'd given him access to the internet, without explaining that he had BEGGED us for that access. Hmm.

Oh well, bumps in the road. Bumps in the road.

More Animal Antics

2011-05-11T13:48:00.000-07:00

Nate had a field trip yesterday. Off for a whole day at a sustainable farm, wilderness hike, learning about the native people, working in the farmer's garden, and eating a lunch (frantically prepared at dawn) consisting of NOTHING that creates trash. I could write a whole lot about the politics of the thing (including some wonderful guilt-inducing emails from the class mom), but instead I will say this:

Many moms brag that their son is a Chick Magnet. Awww, look at the cute little 8 year old with all the ladies cooing over him, and saying what a charmer he is...

After the field trip?

My son will now be known as a TICK Magnet.

Yup, The teacher even PHONED ME, to let me know that ALL the ticks yesterday were found on Nate. "It was like he protected everyone else from getting ticks, because they were just crawling ALL OVER HIM."

I shuddered a bit.

He even got to bring them home in a genuine bona-fide authentic FILM cannister. I didn't think those even existed any more.

Only one of the ticks had actually installed itself on Nate's skin, and it was unceremoniously removed by a docent who (and I quote the teacher) "...didn't have really good fingernails, so it may have left a mark...". Ick. We have the tick, should we want to have it tested for Lyme Disease.

Blargh.

I think I'll just keep an eye on the spot on Nate's shoulder where there is a set of fingernail marks, and watch for any possible bulls-eye marks. It's doubtful, as the tick was only attached for a minute or so, but still.

Usually, I would post a photo.

I don't want to take a picture of a headless tick.

So here's a random shot.

Backstory: The choir teacher I'm volunteering for also plays for the SF Ballet Symphony. He's not allowed to pay me (because I'm a volunteer, and also because there's not an extra DIME in the school's coffers right now), but he asked me if I'd like to go to the Ballet, and he'd comp me a pair of tickets.

So this was my Mother's Day Adventure with Kelly. We took public transit (scary and exciting, for us first-time noobs), and walked to the War Memorial Opera House...

...and had a great view (sorry for phone-camera shots. No cameras allowed inside)

(alas, this was NOT where we sat. This is where the President sits, or the Queen, or Larry Ellison, or someone else who can afford a private box. We snuck in here after the show, to see how the other half lives.)

Our view was not that bad, all things considering.

It was a great show. And it was the FINAL presentation, so they pulled out all the stops.

Animal Antics

2011-05-10T13:40:00.000-07:00

A few things lately in the animal realm.

1. Cheerio finally bid us all adieu yesterday. She's been a bit wobbly on her feet the last few days, but still was happy to climb into our hands for treats right up to the end. I was almost a little bit surprised to see her lifeless form in her cage yesterday morning. But she had a good life, and Kelly wasn't nearly as upset as she has been in the past over hamster deaths. She's turning into a pragmatic kid.

2. Last week, Kelly was a bit more distraught in the morning, when she woke up to discover that Tofu had escaped from his cage. Of course, her room looks like a tornado hit it, so there was no way to check out the zillion and seventy-two hiding places before I had to take her to school. I was thinking that I would have to cancel my day of appointments, but fortunately, after about an hour of cleaning (the house needed it anyways), I found Tofu, hiding out in a nice little hidey-hole nest he'd made among Kelly's Webkins collection.

(bad phone-camera photo)

And how nice of him to show up in time for me to get to my piano gig at the local Middle School (and peek in on Kelly's class to give her a thumbs-up that the prodigal hamster had been found)

3. Last weekend it finally became summer. And on Sunday afternoon Kelly had her BFF over, and they frolicked around in the backyard testing out her two new bathing suits (how nice that her 2-years-older and 1-foot-taller BFF is also a bean-pole that wears the same size as her). Alas, there are no photos of the hilarity, but it was quite a lot of fun packed into a sunny afternoon.

About 10 minutes after BFF went home, we noticed the neighbour's very skittish cat sitting in the back yard. Usually she bolts at the first sign of activity, but this time when she saw us at the windows, she just looked at us, and then back down at whatever had taken her attentions in the grass. "It's a mouse!" I said, to which Skip replied "Nope. From this angle it looks like a snake."

Well, of course, I had to go out and find out if it was really a snake. I opened the back door, and only then did the cat scamper off. Kind of odd. I ran out into the yard in my socks, only to come face to face with...

IN MY SOCKS! What was I thinking????

I went bolting back into the house, and had a choice... get my shoes, or GET A CAMERA!

Of course, you know which one I chose.

(there's his rattle... rattling! He's about a year old. Only 1 or 2 moults, because the rattle grows a new chamber every time the snake sheds his skin)

Hmm. I think I need to use the telephoto lens...

At this point, Skip came out (IN BARE FEET! What is up with my family and Lack Of Common Sense?) and said "I'll hold this hose here, and you can get photos of the snake striking at it. Maybe you can get some good fang shots!"

Oh ack. I realized how bad my reflexes are compared to a snake's. That snake must have struck 5 times at the hose, and i didn't get a single shot.

Oh well. At least he got rid of some of our yard pests before we removed him. See the big bulge?

Now stop coming into my yard and scaring me about how nasty the results would be if one of my kids stepped on you.

Saturday in Santa Cruz

2011-04-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a fun, full, exhausting day.

But fun. Mostly fun.

We got up relatively early (for a Saturday), and waited for Toni and her kids to arrive. We were going to convoy down to Santa Cruz, and maybe do a kid-exchange in the cars. Toni and the kids showed up early, and of course I wasn't ready (thinking "oh, we've got plenty of time for me to do this One. Last. Thing"), but we still got going at an early hour, and were in Santa Cruz before 10. Way early enough to get a prime parking spot in the boardwalk parking lot

The Beach Boardwalk doesn't even open until 11, so we had plenty of time to go to the Beach Street Cafe for French Toast. Heh. Remy couldn't figure out why it was FRENCH toast, but he was game to try it.

While we were waiting for the ticket booth to open, I sent Remy and Kelly down to the beach, so Remy could dip his toe (or his finger, depending on how adventurous he was) into the Pacific Ocean.

And then it was time for the rides to open.

We were the first ones on the Bumper Cars.

And then we were the first ones on the carousel!

After two trips around the carousel, we decided to hit the Giant Dipper (The 6th oldest roller coaster in the USA) before the lines got too long. Remy had never gone on a roller coaster. I hoped his French Toast wouldn't suffer the consequences...

(I made this big so you can see his face. He looks terrified and exhilarated all at once) Nate, on the other hand, just looks terrified and concerned.

Anyways. It was a big success.

The seaswings were a nice way to cool down after all that excitement...

And then time for some more tummy churning.

Cole took great care of Nate.

Churn the tummy!

And then take it easy in Ghost-Blasters.

Churn the tummy in Cyclone!

Cool off a bit in space blaster bumper cars...

churn things up in the Hurricane...

Please, can we stop for a bit now?

of course. Let's go walk out the pier.

Where an enormous sea lion came sauntering by to say hello to our French Guest.

The wind was ferocious and cold, but it sure was pretty.

When offered a choice between coffee and Coke, Remy voted with the kids.

He was captivated by all the typical American vehicles, and of course we had to take his photo beside the viper.

The wind died down (FINALLY!) when we got back to the beach.

But the water was still frigid.

One more time on the bumper cars!

Do I really want to do this????

Point of no return...

(even Frenchmen can scream like a girl, apparently...)

And the boys saved the best for last, so they said. After a long wait, they were finally on the FireBall!

Yup. They're on there.

It was not very hot, but the sun was intense, and the wind was relentless, so I was pretty much done by 4. We decided to get an early supper. Off to Pleasure Pizza (run by a former Google Chef) in southern Santa Cruz.

And then a quick stop at the beach on the way home.

(it was very windy!)

Frisbee!

And playing in the waves.

The (exhausted) children were pretty quiet on the way home, but still found time to rock out before bed.

It was a good day.

Today with Remy

2011-04-08T23:28:00.000-07:00

Today was Remy's first day of 'school' in California.

He and Skip had to get to the High School early in the morning (740), so Remy could get a visitor badge and lanyard, and then he went with Skip to his first two classes of the day. We're doing standardized testing this week and next, so there is an odd schedule, and lunch went from 11 to 12. I showed up at school at 1145 to get Remy, as Skip's entire afternoon was going to be an exam.

I will confess that hosting an exchange student is rather exhausting at the beginning. Mentally exhausting, rather than physically. I feel like I have to formulate everything that I say into short, direct present-tense non-complicated sentences and questions. And that is difficult for me, because i usually pepper my conversation with obscure words and non-standard idioms. Remy is still getting his feet under him, so he's a lot of listening, and not a lot of speaking. I'm happy to let the silence hang in the air, but I don't want it to get awkward.

So I thought that a good way to spend some time would be to go to Starbucks, and have our patsor/barrista take care of him for a while. Whoopsie. It was a slow day at Starbucks, and he had gone home early. So I took him home, and did a very, very bad thing. I let him go online and check his facebook. We're not supposed to be allowing internet access to our students because it causes them to revert to French Thinking, but I was just kind of tired, I needed 15 minutes, and he just seemed so very, VERY happy to be checking in with his mom online. Maybe this can just be our little secret, ok?

Then I stuck him back in the car, and we headed off to Nate's school.

Nate was so proud to show Remy around!

But then it was time for him to go back to play, and we were off to Kelly's school.

Kelly was suddenly the most popular girl on campus, as all her classmates suddenly had to talk to her about something pressing... oh, Kelly I have a question... and WHO IS THIS that is walking around campus with you???? I love how very transparent 12 year old girls can be.

Then it was time to go grab Skip from the end of his exam, and we went back to Kelly's school, so Remy could peek in on a class or two.

But first... let's scare Remy's mother!

Kelly was catching up on a science experiment that she had missed yesterday:

And then Skip spotted his old guitar/social-studies teacher, who invited him to join the guitar class for a few numbers.

We picked up Skip's buddy Cole (who was coming over for supper), and I dropped the boys off at the house.

And then I went and grabbed Kelly, and we went off (back) to the high school to watch her friends compete in the district track meet.

We had Toni and Ken (and Carrie and Cole) over for supper to meet Remy (Carrie has quite the crush on Remy. As do all of Kelly's friends, I think), and then we played in the back yard.

I sent these photos to Remy's mother. I hope she trusts that we're taking good care of her son.

We decided this was one of the best photos of the night. Doesn't it look like Kelly has drawn a dragon in the air?

Remy had a good time playing with fire.

And now we are shutting down for the night because we are heading to Santa Cruz in the morning.

Roller coasters, here we come!

It's how the French do things...

2011-04-07T20:12:00.000-07:00

Well, our lovely French student is getting ready for bed. It's nearly 6am tomorrow, his time. I think he has performed admirably, for being completely turned around on time, and experiencing culture shock (not to mention the stress of having two uncontrollably-giggly girls sitting in the van behind him, making even ME uncomfortable.)

Aside... I am beginning to realize why I don't write much these days. I just get uneasy when I read blogs of these folks who do a zillion and seventy things, and then give themselves praise by doing the "Humble Brag" (thank you, NCIS:LA for finally putting a name to that in my brain). And when I've sat down to write something, I think "If I write this, does it sound like the humble brag?" and it usually does. I don't come here to write about the bird poo that's piling up on the floor under Jewel's cage, or the fact that we could film an episode of Hoarders in my garage... I'm coming here to document one of those "I can't believe I did ALL THIS in one day!" sorts of things. Ick. I wouldn't want to read me.

But here's my new year's resolution (again). I'll just write. And maybe I might drop in the humble brag or two, but it'll be tempered by the photo of my kid picking his nose, or something.

So, anyways... our Exchange Student.

Today was one of those days that you hope will work like clockwork.

Skip is writing exams at high school. Exams ended shortly after noon. Kelly had an in-school concert for a local old folks' home. Nate's class was due to do the Math Games with me at 1030, I had ice cream to sell at lunch, then get Kelly, swing by and get Nate, grab Skip, and then Remy arrived on the 1250 flight from Paris.

Except that I got a call last night from the choral director at Middle School "Are you going to be at the in-school concert for our elderly guests tomorrow? Would you be available to play piano for the choir? Um, and we'd like to sing this one song that we've never sung all the way through, is that OK?" So while I was laundering what felt like every last piece of clothing (and bedding) in the house, I was going over American Folk Tunes. And re-arranging my schedule.

So this morning looked a bit more like this: Take Nate and Kelly to the corner half-way between their schools and dump them out of the car. Race back to the house to do one last load of laundry. Vacuum the hall (again - just in case my extensive collection of vintage dust triggered an asthma attack). Run the dishwasher. Clean the sink. Wash the counters (because 14 year old French boys (with jet lag) will care if there is a sticky film on a corner of an unseen counter?) Play several rounds of Feevo on Facebook (I am weak!). Gather up camera gear. Run (late) to my Moms in Touch meeting. Leave meeting early, so I can get to the Middle School. Help elderly folks find their seats at the school during the instrument warm-up session. During the orchestra portion of the concert, have a panic attack, and run off to the choir room to go over the song ten more times. Come back to the concert to see Kelly setting up the piccolo. She'll have a solo. Photograph the concert. Watch as the choir comes in. Make eye contact with the choral director, who now has that hunted look when he finally says "They took a vote. They won't sing the song you practiced". He thought I would be upset? I was happy. There were 8 bars that i was absolutely dreading. After Kelly's portion of the concert, I felt the walls starting to close in, and I thought "Screw it! I'm not cutting things close. I'm going home!" and I pulled Kelly early (she was thrilled), and we went home so I could charge my camera battery (down to 5% charge? That would never last through the airport!). I flipped the laundry while Kelly cleaned up her bathroom. We put away laundry, and had a snack, and then we went to get Nate from his school. I totally blew off selling ice cream at Middle School, and suddenly I was free! We even had enough time to pick up some groceries at the little market near the high school while we were waiting for Skip.

Then, yippee skippy! We were off to the airport. I'd found out that the flight from Paris was delayed a bit, so we weren't even feeling rushed.

Of course, once we got to the airport, the kids started getting restless. "Is he here yet? Is he here yet? Where is Remy? Why isn't he here yet?"

Blarg.

(camera phone, so I could email Remy's mother to let her know we were at the airport)

And then, barely a half hour later (but that would be six hours later in 'Is he here yet?' years, I suppose) we saw him on the closed-circuit TV. Those shots are on the camera, still, but I do have the next photo that I sent to Remy's mother with the title "Now we will go play!"

A funny story, and then I must go:

Remy comes out of the secured area, and Skip is holding up the sign. You can tell that Remy is relieved to see us, and he bee-lines for us. I try to make him feel welcome, so I do the motherly thing, and give him a big hug, and do the very French kiss-on-both-cheeks thing.

Then I introduce the kids. "This is Skip..." and the boys shake hands. "This is Nate..." and Remy shakes Nate's hand. "This is Kelly..." and Kelly holds out her hand to shake it, and Remy moves in and does the Very French kiss-on-both-cheeks thing.

I wish I'd had the presence of mind to snap a few photos, because her face was PRICELESS! She was totally not expecting it, and she just froze. And then she looked at me in horror. As Skip and Remy went off towards the parkade, she said "Did you KNOW that would happen?????" And I nodded. "It's French, honey. That's how they greet people".

"But mom~! If you'd KNOWN... YOU SHOULD HAVE WARNED ME!"

Priceless, I say.

Now I'm going to get all the photos off of my camera, and put together a "First Day in California" album for Remy's mom.

A moderately cautionary tale

2011-03-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

A little backstory: One of Kelly's BFF's has a dad who is a mortgage banker by day, hard rock tribute band front man by night. He and his wife are good friends of ours, and our daughters are still great friends, even though they're in different grades, and more than 2 years apart in age. A couple of years back, he invited us to see his band perform on a local stage, and we went to the concert. It was a great show, and i was kicking myself that I didn't have a camera. I took a few photos on my phone, and shared them with him, and he was very gracious (as was the band), and I got a couple of FaceBook friend requests from various people that we had met at the concert. I swore that the next time, I would bring a better camera!

Fast forward to last week. His band is playing again, and i just HAPPEN to have rented the spectacular Nikon 70-200mm f/2 lens for a different gig. Hooray, I will get extra use out of the rental, I say, and I get out my biggest purse, and put that bad boy in the bottom of the purse, and strap a teeny 50mm f/1.8 lens on the camera for the 'getting in the door' portion of the evening.

We get to the concert early, and have no problems getting choice seats in the balcony, where we settle back and get ready to do an hour of people watching before the concert starts. We're there with friends, and we're having a grand time labeling people (because I am all about being judgmental). "There's the woman who's gonna let her shirt slide off her shoulders just a BIT too much after 2 more drinks." "That chick is gonna do something embarrassing before the night is done" "That guy looks like a shop teacher from 1950's middle America. He looks so out of place!" "See her high heels? She's gonna break her ankle before the night's over." "That is the most outlandish cleavage I have EVER seen" (followed immediately by "That's not cleavage. that's fat") etc, etc.

Soon, the concert was beginning. It was a grand show. There was a band on before our friend's band, and I warmed up by taking photos of them on stage. Just testing out the gear, of course.

And then I got a little bold, and moved away from my balcony view, and went down onto the dance floor. The bouncers didn't seem at all fazed by me. In fact, they held the drunken mobs out of the way, so I could get a better view. I guess this time, the giant lens said "I'm with the band" instead of "I'm a poseur that doesn't deserve your time". I liked it.

Soon, it was time for them to get off the stage, break it down, and set up for our friend's band. Fun times. By this point, the 'shirt-slippage chick' had not failed to entertain, and Plaid-shirted Shop Teacher dude was on his fourth beer (that we could count), still standing at the edge of the stage, and making devil horns. It was SO incongruous.

Ah, here they are!

Their lead guitar guy makes all the guitars for the band. He's quite the craftsman.

Bass player seems very Los Lobos to me.

Rhythm guitar guy is channeling Santana

I love coloured lights!

Drum bokeh!

It was getting to the end of the night, when suddenly "Lady who wouldn't be able to hold her booze" staggered towards the stage, and managed to climb up before the bouncers caught her. She was rocking out, and our friend was doing his best to be good natured about it. He kept on singing, while she gyrated, and then started stripping. Ok, she didn't strip totally. But she did take her sparkly scarf off, and wrap it around his neck.

This is what I like to call the "I am as FAR away from you as I can be without taking my feet off my mark." photo.

At this point, the bouncers managed to gently lead her off the stage, and escort her out of the building, everyone cheered wildly, and the music continued. We were in the last song, anyways, so it wasn't like she was gonna miss out on too much action.

Apparently, though, she had come with a 'date', who took offense, and followed the bouncers out of the theater.

When we left the venue only a few minutes later, it was to a scene of much activity for 1am. There were police cars, and lots of action on the sidewalk. And there was Overprotective Intoxicated Boyfriend giving the police officers a piece of his mind. "That bouncer is the one that should be arrested! He took a swing at me!"

Well, I couldn't resist! I had the camera with the low light lens, and I hadn't put the lens cap back on, so I just shot from the hip as we walked by the action. Ken was having kittens that I was going to get in trouble, but I just fired off a few shots as I walked by. Nobody was any the wiser. I didnt' even know if they would work. But lo and behold! One did!

Later that night, I couldn't resist, and when I was posting photos for the band to Facebook, I added this shot, tagging it with "Over protective Intoxicated Boyfriend" and "Friendly Bouncer" and "Diligent Police Officer"

That photo got a TON of comments. And lots of LIKES, and it was a hoot to watch the conversation. One guy couldn't get enough of the shot. First it was just a LOL. Then it was a LMFAO. Then he was "like"ing the comment that I should tag "overprotective intoxicated boyfriend", and then he was saying "That would have been TOO MUCH to see! Great shot!"

And then I thought "Hey, wait a minute. Who is this guy commenting on this photo?" When I friended him two years ago after the concert, I'd thought he was the band's drummer, but at the concert, it was obvious that the drummer was a completely different person. I went back to his profile (his profile photo was a pair of drumsticks, and he always posted on my wall about the concert information, hence the confusion), and when I finally found a photo of him...?

HE WAS OVERPROTECTIVE DRUNK BOYFRIEND, who is in the process of being detained by the police.

About an hour later, after I'd called my friend (the band front-man) who had indeed confirmed that my suspicions were correct (and had added "He's your FB friend? We all blocked him AGES AGO!") Overprotective Intoxicated Boyfriend must have sobered up, and realized that it was HIM IN THE PHOTO!

Suddenly, he cleared all of his "like" tags, and erased all of his comments on the photo.

I was mortified.

But at the same time? I couldn't stop laughing like a HYENA!

What are the odds?

Kids, let this be a lesson to you. Make sure you KNOW WHO YOUR FACEBOOK FRIENDS ARE.

This is a public service announcement from someone who should KNOW BETTER.

(*also, modestly amusing: Did anyone else notice that Overprotective Intoxicated Boyfriend is only wearing one shoe?)

French Exchange

2011-03-10T13:02:00.000-08:00

Skip got into the car this afternoon with a silly little grin on his face.

He likes to pretend that he is this aloof guy that has deep thoughts, and never speaks, but I see his face, and it is betraying him.

On the outside, he is Mr "I am not interested in anything outside of math and computer gaming", but I see that he really is quite taken with the thought that he will probably get to go to France next year with his class, and things that are happening in the next little while are paving the way.

You see, today he got to PICK his Exchange Student. The information packets came to the school this week, and in class today the teacher read out the letters that the 15 students from France had written to introduce themselves. So when Skip got into the car with this little smirk on his face, he was quick to reach into his backpack, and pull out this fat info packet.

So, next month, we will be hosting a boy named Remy. He is almost 15, and has an older sister and a younger sister. He plays football (soccer for the uninitiated Americans), and he likes computers and video games. He's allergic to pets (probably a big bonus in Skip's eyes), and his family looks like the typical 'beautiful people' you might see in a French magazine. I'm not kidding! His parents could be movie stars. Maybe they are! I'm probably nearly as excited as Skip is. I've been on Google maps, looking up the place where Remy is from (Bayonne, France), and am seeing if I can find street-view of the area around where he lives. Now I'm composing an email (in my head) to send to his mother, letting her know about our family, and how excited we are to host him.

Kelly took one look at the packet, and said "He's cute. And he's not THAT much older than me... Hey! If I take French in high school, I could go visit him, right?"

Good grief!

But now I'm off to use my limited French skills, and the mad genius of Google Translate to compose a welcome letter to Remy's mom.

I'm such a nerd.

Anyways. Now I also want to do a big purge of all the crap in our house, so we don't look like hoarders when he comes to visit.

I've got 4 weeks.

He arrives on April 7th.

This choir-piano gig is really kicking me in the butt.

I'm away from home so much, and more and more I feel like we live in a dump. I need to schedule in time to do housework, because this whole "I'll do it when I get to it" is just not happening for me. I honestly do NOT know how actual working mothers do ANYTHING. My hat is so much off to you!

Here.

Have some photos:

Kelly had a few friends over on the weekend. And I'm currently renting a great 24-70mm f/2.8 lens that i needed to test out with FIREWORKS!

And Nate took this opportunity to light one of the big flying flower spinning-fireworks-of-doom. What an eye-opener. I'm glad we didnt' burn down the house. Enough said. Heh.

Kelly's basketball team is coached by two college ball players, and the team was invited to come to their coaches' final home game of the season, and play at half time. While the women were in the locker room, several men from the men's team coached and reffed the girls. It was a hoot to watch. The girls were so excited to be on a real court that they had trouble putting on their game faces. Big grins were the order of the day, whether you were on offense or defense. They just split the team in half, and had half wearing the jerseys, and the other half wearing white t-shirts. Of course, Kelly took that opportunity to lose her school shorts, so she had to borrow a pair of Nate's leftover from the summer. Hooray for younger brothers that are the same size as you.

Here is one of the coaches, going up for a lay-up. This was her final game for the team, as she's a senior, and leaving the school in May. Man, she was fun to watch. She really pulled out all the stops:

And here is the other coach, after getting fouled.

These two women were great role models for the team. I am very happy with Kelly's basketball experience this year, even though they have lost every game (except for the first one).

And now a last photo.

We went to the beach yesterday.

I know. I shouldn't say anything. Don't hate.

I'm still doing the dailyshoot.com photo challenge. I've missed a few days, but otherwise, I'm still in the game. This was shot for yesterday's "Make a photo that features water". Today's is "photograph a simple shape". Um...?

And I would talk about the fun in Chinatown (I feel like such a tease when I say this, but I *do* want to tell the stories, and this way, I keep reminding myself to do it... eventually), but Nate is asking to make "puffs", and it's time to put the dinner in the oven , too. Man, I didn't think I was all THAT busy, until I realized that i haven't played Bejeweled Blitz for about 2 weeks. And I used to play 100 (or more) games of it a day.

Cold Turkey. It works.

Ten True Photos

2011-02-27T12:56:00.000-08:00

Sheesh, it's been a while since I was here.

Ten True Photos. Because words sometimes just seem like too much work.

1. Roll N Write. This is how I spend my Thursday (late) mornings now. Working in Nate's class with the 3rd graders, doing 'beat the clock' math drills that have a bit of a video-game feel, as you have to beat your score to advance to the next level.

2. Basketball. It's what's on tap for Kelly these days.

3. Camera stuff. I've been shooting fairly regularly, and I like the prompts of the dailyshoot.com folks. But maybe I'm shooting too much, and not giving myself time to tell the stories of the pictures. This is Kelly waiting at the local Starbucks for her drink to be made. She sits in the corner by the barristas, and watches the espresso machine work through the glass.

4. Nate and Kelly were off this past week. Skip was not. So he missed out on the trip to the Exploratium on Thursday. This is a great magnet display where you try to 'float' a metal disc down a chute by positioning a larger powerful magnet over top of the chute. He'd probably still be there if I hadn't made him move on to the Next! Fantastic! Thing!

5 & 6. Also on Thursday, our church youth did a Chinese New Year themed "Chill Night". I provided the sparklers from Chinatown (did I ever mention the hijinks that went on when I chaperoned this year's trip to Chinatown? I must talk about the old guy with the joint, and the direct view into the public men's room urinals from the Tai Chi court. Boo yeah.) Anyways, after they played a rousing game of Kill Ball (I don't want to know.) I fed them all, and then took them out into the middle of the parking lot to play with sparklers.

(yes that's Skip)

7. Kelly is making herself an updated version of the Infamous Cow Pants.

8. Tofu.

Tofu is a young Djungarian hamster, aka Winter White (Phodopus sungorus). This is the place he wants to be: going for a ride-along in someone's hand. He climbed into Kelly's hand in the pet store, and looked her square in the eye. Freaky, actually. But how can you say "no" to a hammie who obviously is a people-person.

Here. Have 9 and 10, too.

You would even say she glows.

Tofu is a little boy. I think we will be on the lookout for a little girl with a similar people-person personality (Wasabi, perhaps? Or Miso?), and see if they can't have one little family. Kelly already has 4 friends (plus our Starbucks Barrista) who would adopt a critter as personable as Tofu.

Accompaniment gig.

2011-02-08T22:02:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally went to the middle school to volunteer as a pianist today.

I was so nervous. I actually had to stand by my front door, and talk (out loud!) to myself to make myself get in the car and go to school on time, and not chicken out. I am such a big baby. And my big concern? I was wearing a new (to me) pair of jeans that I've just shrunk into, and I was most worried that maybe they were still a little too snug in the legs, and what if the seam on the right leg, where there's some great applique, split while I was playing the piano???? Oh! The horror!

Sheesh.

I can't believe I even confessed to that. Why did I write that down?

Anyways.

I showed up at 915, and 2nd period started about 5 minutes later, and I walked in, and I was worried that the teacher would want to work on pieces that I really hadn't practiced all that much (oh, I didn't mention that I ran into him yesterday while I was selling ice cream at lunch, and he said 'oh, here are 10 other pieces that the various choirs are working on. I hope you didn't think we were just doing one song...' Eek! And so I had about an hour yesterday to quickly go over the other songs... ok, there were only 6)

The first choir spent a bunch of time working on this Aaron Copeland number that I didn't know at all, but in the end, it was a perfect piece for me to start with, because they really just needed their vocal parts mirrored at the piano, and so that was basically one finger on each hand. Whew.

The second choir had Carrie in it (daughter of long-time local friend, and girl who Kelly considers her BFF, even though they're in different grades.). But my GOODNESS, what a chatty Cathy that girl is in class. I'm going to put a private word in her ear before our next session, because I think she could really be a leader to encourage the other girls in her section to PAY ATTENTION! which was rather lacking during the rehearsal. They spent a good chunk of the rehearsal working on a choral arrangement of Africa (the Toto classic), and I nervously played mostly accompaniment, and some vocal lines when they were getting thready. Then, once I got a bit of my piano-legs under me, they moved onto the Rodgers and Hammerstein piece, and, with my confidence inflated only a little bit more than I deserved, I jumped right into full-on accompaniment. Which, I will say, was a little less stellar than one might have hoped for, but I did remind myself that this was a group of 12 and 13 year olds, and they were probably too busy chatting with each other than worrying about whether I played every note in that one chord correctly.

After lunch, it was the third choir's turn with me. I was thinking "ok, this is the 6th grade chorus. They're going to be WAY more basic, and probably need more help with their melody lines"

Um...

melody lines? Musicality? Turns out that what they needed help with was GETTING PUNCHED IN THE FACE.

Oh, whoops. Did I say that out loud? I swear, I was getting ready to stand up on my piano bench and shout at them to PAY ATTENTION. Good lord. I guess there is a down side to selling ice cream at lunch. You get 40 kids on a sugar rush at 1pm.

But discipline isn't my responsibility, so I sat at the piano and noodled around, while the choirmaster gave them a stern talking to.

And then they settled down.

And then they started working on a piece that I kind of NEVER PRACTICED, and the director said "Oh, they know the tune, so if you could just play the accompaniment..."

Egads!

Nervous sweat glands go into OVERDRIVE.

But it was not nearly as bad as if that had happened during my first session of the day. I was getting a little bit more comfortable at the piano, so I was able to cover the fact that I was TOTALLY OUT OF MY DEPTH.

And then! THEN!

They're doing a version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. It's the version done by IZ, this Hawaiian guy with a ukulele, and the director said something like "If you could sort of play the accompaniment, and then plunk out the melody, but I'd like this one melody line to go less like it's written, and more like the way that Judy Garland did it in the Wizard of Oz, can you do that? Or maybe we could do BOTH melodies at the same time..."

And something in my head broke. And some primeval piano-playing neanderthal took over, and I guess there is something hard-wired into my fingers after years and years (and years) of lessons, because if I didn't actually MANAGE TO DO WHAT HE ASKED!

And now I have two days to figure out exactly what it was that I did, because I'm going back there on Thursday.

Oh.

Time!

Gotta get Kelly from basketball practice.

Oh, and can I just say that she had her first game yesterday?

Score?

24 to 6.

I don't think she'll be complaining for a while about how she was sure she was put on the WORST team in the school... (last week she wanted to quit because all her 'good' friends were on the other teams. Heh!)

Anyways, I took photos. They're still on the camera, Along with photos of Nate and his first smoke bomb (I'm so proud! ahem), and shots of the food the kids made for the Superbowl party on the weekend.

Later!

Flowers! And bees!

2011-02-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

I am still doing the Daily Shoot.

This afternoon, I popped out into the driveway after school, and played around in the golden-hour light.

Ah, my three-dollar Christmas cactus from last year is blooming AGAIN! I feel like I've gotten my money's worth out of that purchase.

The rosemary was a-buzz with bees. I guess you would call them Rosemary's Bee-bees...

Reprieve

2011-02-01T21:58:00.000-08:00

I don't know whether to jump around and pat myself on the back, or smack myself upside the head, but last week I was approached by one of the music teachers at the middle school, and asked if it was true that I was a piano player. Instead of just looking at my feet and mumbling something about messing around when nobody's listening, I said "Why yes, I am..." and before you know it, I was being given sheet music, and a schedule of the rehearsal blocks for the three advanced choruses. "Now, I don't expect that you can make it to all four rehearsal times for each of the three choirs, but it would really help them a lot if you could get in there when you can. Trust me, anything's better than me plunking out a few notes, and making them repeat it" he said, when I started looking like I'd bitten off more than I could chew.

So since last Thursday, I've been pacing back and forth in front of our piano, looking at the Rodgers and Hammerstein compendium sitting on the music stand, and thinking "WHAT HAVE I DONE?????"

Truly, it is above my pay grade, when all is said and done. Oh, the first page lulled me into a false sense of security. It's a solo voice, and she's singing "The hills are alive with the sound of music" and there are FOUR NOTES underneath her. I can totally do that.

And then you turn the page. And all hell breaks loose.

Why didn't I look at the music before he gave it to me, and I walked out of his office, crossing the Point of No Return?

So of course yesterday, I thought "ok, it's time to BUCKLE DOWN! I've gotta beat this music into submission. Either I've gotta get completely familiar with the tunes and the gist of the accompaniment, or I've gotta get all the vocal lines under my belt, so I can say "Why don't I just play their phrases for the various parts until they get the hang of how the music goes together?""

And then Mr Migraine came in for a landing.

Argh.

So I did a grand total of about 3 minutes of practicing. Even when I was 11, and could fake my way through the easy book, that wouldn't have worked for me.

I woke up this morning with sweaty palms. It's do-or-die time.

But first, tutoring!

I'm tutoring a high school senior through his AP Chemistry, and it's really being a brain-burner for me, because I swear I didn't do most of this stuff in COLLEGE! But he comes to my house, and he's a wonderful young man (I remember him when he was 7... here, let me see if I have a photo...

Here he's just duct-taped Skip to the wall. I can't believe those little guys are all in high school now. Time flies!)

Anyways, tutoring went from 8 to 915, and then I had to race over to the middle school because the first rehearsal block started at 930.

It was when I got to the school that i realized that i only had a vague idea of where the chorus room was. Skip never took chorus, and Kelly's doing band instead of chorus, so I just started wandering in the general direction, thinking that i would hear the music as I got closer.

Silence.

:crickets:

Hmmm.

I poked my head in one door, and it looked promising, so I went in, and down a short hall, and poked into a room that was, indeed, the Chorus rehearsal room.

But the music teacher was nowhere to be seen.

It was a sub.

And a last-minute sub, too, if I guessed right by the looks of things.

Fortunately, I saw one of Kelly's best friends sitting right by the door, so I snuck in and checked. Sure enough. It was a last-minute sub.

So I quickly tip-toed out of the room, hoping not to be noticed, and raced all the way home.

Where I promptly sat down at the piano and went over the music for a good half hour.

I don't know that I'm any better at it, but at least now, I'll feel a bit more prepared.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go exercise my lungs while I sing along with the schmaltziest bits of "You'll Never Walk Alone".

Dailyshoot update

2011-01-24T16:55:00.000-08:00

I have been keeping up with the dailyshoot.com prompts.

Even I don't believe I've been able to go for more than a week without fizzling out. Good intentions paves the way, and all that.

Here's the recent activity:

#7: Triangular composition. I mentioned that I used the shot of kelly and Nate and the sparklers. It was a stretch, but I was tapped out by the time I got around to processing the day's photos.

#8: Path. I used the path to the beach, with Kelly and Nate running off into the distance, meeting the waves. I've already posted that here in "meanwhile, back at the ranch"

#9: Low. We went to the beach again, and I ended up going with the double meaning. Both a low point of view, and a 'low blow' as I made my friends who are shivering through an atrocious winter storm see ANOTHER photo of the beach.

#10: Monochrome. Laziness prevailed, as I just pushed myself away from the desk and pointed the camera out the family room door close to sunset.

#11: Stripes: The Peninsula Orchid society show was this weekend in Redwood City. Kelly and I went, and she bought her first orchid from the fellow who grew it from birth (or from seed, or from fluff, or however those things come). he was a new vendor this year, and grew the orchids in his house, and he gave her a lot of great information, and helped her pick out the best one of his stock. So this was my submission for 'stripes'

Although I also posted this shot, of her with her purchase, or as she likes to say "Mr. FlowerPants".

#12: Beauty. This was tough. You were supposed to photograph "the most beautiful thing you see today", which is so open for interpretation and hard feelings "you took HER picture, but not MINE? Do you like her MORE than me? Whose are you going to put as the MOST beautiful?" or the thought of "This is a great photo, but I'm sure there are more beautiful things to see" bla bla bla.

In the end, it was getting late, and i just went for the beauty that I see when kelly is taking care of her pets. How she's turning into a compassionate care-giver, and will make a great parent (or vet) some day.

(bounce flash. I'm getting the hang of it)

I also posted another light-painting photo. Kelly and I had a bit of fun in the back yard before bedtime.

Oh yes, and for those of you who've read this far, and were wondering about my super spy name...

#13: Hard Light shadows. And now we come to today. I should have gone out this morning with the camera, as the sun was brilliantly shining, and the shadows everywhere had crisp hard edges. But I didn't. So I took Nate into the bathroom with a flashlight, and had a bit of fun. I'll be posting one of these:

Oh phooey, speaking of Nate, I just realized that I won't be able to get him to Kung Fu in time. Oh well. Tomorrow is another day.

And now I must go and intervene in a fractions-and-ratios homework kafuffle.

Thought we lost her

2011-01-23T21:52:00.000-08:00

I was putting Kelly to bed the other night, and we were looking in on the remaining 2 hamsters, Kashi and Cheerio, making sure they had water and extra treats, when I noticed that Cheerio was trailing something behind her.

A long... red... string.

Say WHAT?

Now, Cheerio is our brain damaged Roborovski Hamster. She's had what we thought was a nervous tic since we got her, which has caused her to only turn left. As she's gotten older her head-twitch has gotten more pronounced, and her barrel-racing ways have gotten more obvious, and a little more frenetic. If she's not actively turning left, she's twitching her head like Justin Bieber adjusting his bangs.

My first thought was that she'd run into something, and had repeatedly run into it because of her disability, causing a wound. But I would have thought that the wound would be closer to her head, and this seemed to be originating from somewhere in her hind quarters.

Sure enough, when I was able to corner her, and pick her up (good grief, those girls are fast!), I could see that all her left-turning (seriously, we should have called her Nascar. "Just turn left! Just keep turning left!"), and her ramped up speed recently, was causing her to pivot on her left rear foot, and somehow all that pivoting had caused her to spin some of her bedding into a strong string that had managed to form a tourniquet around that pivot foot. The blood was bright red, so I knew it was fresh, but I really didn't know if it had already cut off circulation to the foot, or if it had twisted enough to actually cut the foot off, period. My stomach was churning as I looked at the thread around her foot, and the sticky blood on the thread. How was I going to get that off her foot?

Kelly had a pair of craft snips on her desk that she's been using to make jewelry, and they looked tiny enough, and sharp enough to get in close without crushing any tiny hamster bones. *shudder*

Cheerio didn't like being held, and she was spinning around in my hand, so it was kind of hard to pin her down so I could get access to her rear foot. I managed to snip the thread fairly close to her foot, and I hoped the twisted bit around her foot would wiggle loose as she started tooling around in her tub again. Kelly wanted to make sure she would be OK (the foot was swollen, and bright red), so we took her into the bathroom, and I put her on a hot wet washcloth in the sink, where she could wander around on it, and moisten her wound. I had a wet Q-tip that I was trying to swab her foot with, and Kelly sprayed some Neosporin onto another Q-tip, and she was trying to medicate the foot, so it wouldn't get infected.

I did dread looking into her cage in the morning. Would she be missing a foot? Would she be dead? She is getting old, almost exactly 2 years old this week, and I wouldn't be surprised if this trauma would be enough to put her into shock.

But I was pleasantly surprised.

Hello, Cheerio. Ready to spin for another day?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

2011-01-19T22:49:00.000-08:00

After school today (Wednesdays are half-days), I motored over to the coast with Nate and Kelly (Skip, at highschool, is stuck in full-day purgatory), and a bag full of Wendy's take-out.

We got to the ranch by 1, and it was looking pretty deserted. None of the horses on the line were saddled up, but that's OK. Usually week-days are pretty quiet.

Eddie was not on the line, but soon our poking around got the attention of Jorge, and he said that Eddie was out in the pasture, and Kelly could get him if she wanted. Did she want to ride him? he asked. Um, no. Kelly's getting a little bit afraid of Eddie, actually. All this time not-riding him has made him head-strong and extra spook-ish. But the ring would be available, after they moved the mare and her colt back to their stall.

Kelly grabbed her lead rope, and headed out to the pasture. Uh oh. Eddie's managed to shed his halter, and his head is naked. There's nothing to clip the rope onto. I went to tell Jorge, and he gave me a rope-halter that would work in the interim. Well, Eddie can smell a trap a mile away, and he'd come near for the sugar cube in my hand, but bolt away the minute he caught sight of the halter out of the corner of his eye.

It became apparent that he was slipperier than Kelly was able to deal with, and I could feel Jorge watching us from his porch. Soon, I could see him walking across the yard. I was ready to call it a day. Some days, you just can't catch the horse, you know? But Jorge was coming over with a little bucket full of tasty, tasty grain. I have no idea what was in that bucket, but ALL the horses perked up their ears, and started moving towards the gate.

I felt bad for Jorge. He wasn't wearing his work boots. He was wearing sneakers, and that pasture, by the gate, was ankle-deep mud. Ouch! I should probably get him a Jamba Juice card, or something, for all his trouble this afternoon. But soon he'd managed to snag Eddie, and make all the other horses mad because they didn't get the snacks.

I was in charge of the bucket of oats for the walk back, and i must say, I was Eddie's Best Friend EVER!

In the ring, Kelly would walk him around, and every time he came to the gate where I was standing, he'd want a snack. Perhaps I was a bit of an enabler, but I did offer him a handful of oats on nearly every lap. Maybe that's why he wasn't really paying attention to the instruction that Kelly was trying to give him.

"Eddie! You are being a butt!"

She was shooting lazer beams out of her eyes at him.

But then two seconds later, she was in love again.

This does not bode well for any young men in her future.

Happy:

Signs of trouble...

Angry:

Finally, the clock told us it was time to go. Kelly took Eddie out to the line-up, and we vacated the premises.

But it was SUCH a lovely day, I decided that we'd be just a little bit late picking up Skip from school.

(oh, and this was my submission for dailyshoot.com today. A photograph with a path)

The beach was glorious.

Perfect for going barefoot.

it's too bad we couldn't stay there all day.

And now they want to know when they can go back.

Coming at you from Kung Fu

2011-01-19T21:47:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I never thought to bring the laptop with me when I was going back and forth interminably to Kung Fu lessons these last 4 years. Jeepers. Slow learner, I guess.

So Nate's class is nearly done, and I've spent the time editing photos from this afternoon. Kelly went out to the ranch again, and tried to work with Eddie. It was a literal goat rodeo at first (ok, it was a horse rodeo, but Kelly's skill level is more akin to that of a goat), with us out in the pasture, up to our ankles in stinky mud, trying to get a halter on Eddie, who is a champion halter-loser, apparently. Finally, Jorge had to come and rescue us, and I felt bad because he was actually wearing nice shoes, and not his usual ranch boots. There are (sadly) no photos of that fiasco, which is probably a good thing. If I'd had my camera (I ended up having to go out into the pasture with kelly, as she attempted the snaring of Eddie), I probably would have suffered one or more of the following:

Falling in the mud

sliding in the mud (involving dropping the camera)

being attacked by a horse and dropping the camera

being trampled by hungry horses and dropping the camera

Come to think of it, several of those things did happen, but at least I wasn't having to worry about ruining my camera in the fray.

Turns out the horses like whatever it is that I use on my hair. I had several of them muscling each other out of the way so they could get in really, REALLY close and whisper sweet nothings in my ear. Alas, even though Eddie loves my shampoo as much as the next gelding, he noticed that i had a rope-halter in my hand, and he was on High Alert. Even the bribery of sugar cubes couldn't drop his guard.

Oh well.

Anyways. Kung Fu is almost over, and i just wanted to record that yesterday's dailyshoot.com assignment was to make a 'triangular composition'. I didn't take the camera out yesterday, so I cheated a bit, and used the last photo that I took the day before, of Nate and Kelly with the sparkler. It's triangular if your eye tracks from their eyes to the sparkler. Subtle. Yeah, that's what I was going for...

Today's assignment is to use a path or road to lead the eye into the photograph. I'm not sure how good the pirated net connection is that I'm currently using, so I haven't uploaded any of today's photos to my picasa stream yet. That'll wait until after supper.

Also? Funny photos of Kelly, as she decides that she is angry with Eddie for being, and I quote "such a butt". The faces that I see in these photos are very reminiscent of her stubborn streak that I photographed the year she was two. And the year she was three. And maybe the next year, too.

Oh, the class just got ordered. it's time for everyone to switch, and it's time for me to go home and make supper.

Toodle-oo.

Light Painting

2011-01-18T22:45:00.000-08:00

Last night, just as I was getting ready to kick all the kids into bed, Nate reminded me that I'd *promised* that we would 'do sparklers' before bed.

Argh.

So, with Nate and Kelly in their jammies, we headed out into the dark back yard. I'd found a pack of sparklers, and had used some of them for Skip's birthday cake on Saturday. It was time to empty the package.

But first, let's do some test shots with this little pen light I found in my purse.

See the elephant?

Yeah... i don't really, either. I always was a little behind the crowd in art class.

How about this pony, drawn by Kelly?

Well, at least I'm feeling a bit better about my elephant...

OK, let's see what we can do with a simpler shape...

This makes me feel happy. Yes it does. And you can see the trail of a passenger jet in the top right corner of the frame. A 6-second exposure will do that.

Now for some sky-writing.

Oh right. This was supposed to be about sparklers.

Dailyshoot.com "soft"

2011-01-18T21:44:00.000-08:00

Busy day yesterday, but of course, none of the photos I took ended up meshing well with the dailyshoot assignment, which was "Make a photo with a soft look today". I ended up tossing something together at night, while I was working on finishing up another prosthesis for my mom.

Here's a bit of softness for my mom. From left to right: pima cotton yarn, waiting to be made into a knitty-titty, a titty waiting to be sewn up (this is in bamboo, primarily so I could tell mom that I knit her a Blue Bamboob), and a silk prosthesis waiting to be put in the mail today. Which reminds me, I need to get to the post office this morning.

Dailyshoot.com "blue"

2011-01-16T21:42:00.000-08:00

I do think I am getting into a bit of a routine with this dailyshoot business. Either that, or I'm getting better at making 'what I have' fit into 'what I need'.

Today's prompt was "Blue. Make a photograph dominated by the color or that otherwise illustrates the theme."

At first, I was thinking about rifling through my yarn stash, and pulling out a bunch of skeins. Goodness knows I have an overabundance of blue yarn (of every color of yarn, truth be told)

But then life got in the way, and our day began, and we were go, go, going.

This afternoon, instead of waiting around the house, and being a stalker-pest when Skip's driving instructor showed up in the two-steering-wheel-equipped sedan, and trying to take photos of him embarking on this new part of his life, I headed over to the coast, so that Kelly could give Eddie a bath.

Eddie being the recalcitrant pony, you may recall. He's eighteen shades of dirt-colored these days, and the mud is caked on so that any hairs that he shed (it's about time for their winter coats to start shedding off) would be trapped in the mud, making him itchier and itchier.

Yikes, that is a dirty pony.

Oh, Eddie! You are going to have SUCH a great bath this afternoon!

Spray, spray, spray!

And there on the right you can see the vat of Mane and Tail that Kelly got for Christmas. It's going to come in handy.

See?

So shiny, you need shades.

And this is the shot I submitted for the dailyshoot:

And then she and Carrie toweled Eddie off, while the light of heaven shone down and said "Well done, shiny pony"

And then, because he was SUCH a good pony while he was having his bath, Kelly let him graze in an un-mowed patch of the ranch.

Once Eddie was back on the line, the work wasn't over. There were more horses to feed, and the girls were willing to work.

But soon enough, it was time to open the gate and send the horses back to the pasture.

Get out of their way.

We'll see you tomorrow, ponies.

And you too, Wrangler.

Birthday photos and Beach Rides

2011-01-16T21:37:00.000-08:00

Wow. 5 days in a row. Wonder how long I'll keep this up.

Of course, I didn't end up posting it yesterday here. But it still counts because I posted to daillyshoot, right?

Yesterday was Skip's 16th birthday. So we were kind of distracted. Pretty low key (I didn't even make a cake. I am a sucktacular mother), but still...

I let him sleep in, but got up early to make croissants that would be ready when he got up, then went out at 730 to grab Kelly, (who was at a sleepover) and her two friends (who she was sleepovering with), and we headed out in the brilliant sunshine to the coast.

Ahem. For those of you stuck in nasty winter, you may wish to look away at this point.

It was SIXTY TWO DEGREES at the beach at 9am yesterday!

Can you believe it? I mean seriously, what month is this? I grabbed a winter coat, because I was thinking "January... beach... waves... cold wind... fog" and by the time I got there, and after leaving the jacket in the van, I was still thinking "Why did I wear this black T-shirt? I'm melting!"

Hmm. Someone didn't get enough sleep at the sleepover, and her name starts with a K...

But she soon shakes off the sleepies, and is up and ready to go.

Wrangler would like to come with them...

At this point, I'm cursing my failing memory, because I have put all of my sunglasses in "Very Safe Places", and am squinting as a result.

Yesterday's DailyShoot prompt was "Make an image of two complementary objects, showing their relationship to each other"

So I chose "Horse and Rider" Yeah... not a big surprise... and used this image:

The waves were wonderful, too. Sometimes they're better when the weather is foul, but they were in fine form yesterday.

Back at the ranch, the girls had a bit of time before we had to race away. They went to work grooming some of the muddy horses, and if we'd had time, we would have given baths to them, but we were a little pressed for time. But one of Kelly's friends got to help Jorge longe one of the privately owned horses. that was fun to watch. Some day, Eddie will be polite enough to be longed out in the main area, rather than inside the ring. But not today. This is Cookie going through her paces.

I also toyed with this composition for "Two complementary objects and their relationship to each other"

Hoof pick and curry comb.

But, the horses need to say goodbye. We've got stuff to do.

Back at the house, we found someone who was a year older. (I left the camera in the car, so these are with the phone. I'm pretty pleased with how well it works, too.)

Come on, Nate. Get in the photo!

Kelly! You get in there, too.

A small haul, but I think he was pleased with what he got. Candy from Kelly, a Top Gear calendar and magazine from Nate, and another year of Xbox360 Gold from Ken and I. Oh, and he starts his driving lessons this afternoon. So if he wants to count 'money spent on me', he can add that cost. Although I know he won't. That kid truly does not WANT anything. I think he's figured out early that if he has stuff, he has to take care of stuff. Ergo, if I have nothing, I don't have to bother and pay attention to it.

Hmm. I should have less stuff.

Anyways!

Moving on.

We couldn't linger over the presents, because it was time for Basketball.

I love this shot of Kelly and her friends. They're all gangly-legs, and elbows, and skinny-growth-spurt awkwardness,

Ken is coaching Kelly's team, and it's been a good time.

Well, except for where I'm sitting on the sidelines, photographing, and don't notice when a basketball gets loose, and bowls me over.

Yeah. That was funny, actually.

After the outdoor practice, it was time for the indoor game.

Our team lost. No worries. Both teams, together, will merge to form the team for the middle school, which, I think, has the chance of being unstoppable.

We handed Kelly off to the other team's coach, so she could go home with his daughter, and work on their science fair project together. Their project is called "Faces or Vases", and they're asking people to say the first thing that pops into their head when they see the following optical illusion:

Their scientific method is full of holes, but they are in 6th grade, and they did it All By Themselves, so I'm proud of what they were able to accomplish. They will not be the team getting the gold medal for curing cancer, which is the level that some of these 6th graders bring to the table when their Genentech Executive parents give them 'a little advice'. *shrug*

When I went to collect Kelly, she was not quite finished, and they were thinking about the poster layout.

I had a brain wave, and asked if I could 'give them some advice' for the title.

I figure it doesn't count, seeing as it has nothing to do with their research, their method, or their data collection. And I love how it turned out.

Each one of those black blobs is a separate piece of paper. The title actually is in the negative space. I wonder if they'll get bonus marks for being SO CLEVER!

But then we had to jet off, because Skip had gone out to see the Green Hornet with Cole, as a sort of impromptu birthday party, and it was time for me to go find them at the theater. Easier said than done, seeing as both boys had forgotten their cel phones, so I couldn't contact them. Oh well. No harm done, and soon we were dropping Cole back at his house, and heading for Skip's favorite Japanese restaurant for his birthday dinner.

Skip inhaled his food, so you have to just see Ken's chirashi bowl (no ebi).

And then we went home for cake.

Must light ALL sparklers in unison! So everyone gets a match, and Ken goes over 'who will light which sparkler'. Quite the organizational spectacle.

And then we sing, quickly! because the sparklers are shorter than we thought.

Jewel flies in to see what all the fuss is about.

It was a good (long) day.

Dailyshoot.com "movement". Opinions?

2011-01-14T21:35:00.000-08:00

It's an embarrassment of riches today.

The daily prompt is:

Let's play with movement today. Get a shot of something in motion. Freeze it or let it blur. It's up to you!

So I went up to the school this afternoon. Took Nate a Starbucks (sometimes, I think that he gets the short end of the stick, what with being the third kid. I've left him behind, and forgotten to take him places, and he isn't doing nearly the same amount of 'enrichment' stuff that I loaded Skip and Kelly up with when they were his age, because now I'm approaching 50, and I'm Just. Too. Pooped. So on occasion, I try to make him feel a little bit special, and not an afterthought) and got to school shortly into the Lunch Recess play time. Everyone had finished eating, so it was time to troll around, looking for 'movement'.

Oh, here's Starbucks Dude.

And here he is in motion

A few of the girls were playing on the glider.

More movement.

After the bell rang, I was set to do some math enrichment with the 3rd grade half of Nate's class, but something came up, which really deserves its own entry (note to self: Don't lose steam before you get that entry written tonight). Also? Photos!

But when that was done, I went into Nate's old class from last year, and checked on Toady and Superman. There was almost a half hour before the end of the day, so I asked Mrs. Henderson if the kids had had a chance to hold the toads yet.

Nope?

Well, let's surprise them with a fun activity. A good way to end the week.

Toady:

And Superman:

This year's toads are just massive compared to last years, and seem so much more hale and hearty. They're a good solid handful, and active? So very, VERY active. Superman up there? he's on the rain boot of one of the boys... after leaping out of my grasp about a half dozen times. They're just hoppy-jumpy, and unflappable. I was worried that they might get stressed and start oozing the white goo that says "stay away! I'm toxic!" but they just hopped around, and hopped around, and hopped from hand to hand, and it was a riot.

Oh. This just in. Nate had a kung fu seminar this evening. Nunchaku. Yay weapons!

And more movement!

How about this one?

Or this?

OK, there's your assignment. Which of the 'movement' photos should I use?

1. Nate on the playground

2. Blurry girl on the glider

3. Nate kicking

4. Nate swinging that weapon.

???

Edit: Dudes! The other folks who follow along on this site? Some of them are BRILLIANT!

Look here. No. Go now. I'll wait. I mean that's just so out of my league it's not funny, but I can't help looking to stuff like that... or THIS!... for inspiration.

Dailyshoot.com "tag"

2011-01-13T21:33:00.000-08:00

Three days in a row.

I am on a roll.

But there is the thought that three times, (or seven, or twelve) does not a habit make. Apparently, one must do something 29 times to make it a habit. I do wonder who came up with that number. But here's to making it to 29. Three down, Twenty-six to go.

Today's prompt:

Illustrate one of the various meanings of the word tag today in a photograph.

I will admit that my first thought was "Oh, I wonder which of my kids I could pay to take off their socks, put their feet up on the table, and let me take a sterile-ish photo pointing at the bottoms of their feet with a tag on one of their toes..."

Is that too morbid?

I took a look at the first few eager submissions, and there were just far too many price tags, and size tags from inside garments, and I wanted to be different.

I wondered if I could troll around looking for graffiti on some abandoned building, but I live in the sterile burbs, and there are not too many abandoned buildings looking to be decorated around here. There is a pretty nice tag-able surface at the pond, but what with the mountain lion sightings (did I mention this? Did I mention to you, my friends, how Kelly's school was PUT ON LOCK DOWN last week because kids came face-to-face with a mountain lion while doing their 5-lap run? My heart, it was in my throat!) ... anyways, what with the mountain lion sightings, I didn't want to be out in the suburban 'wilderness' alone, with nothing but a camera to protect my tasty, well-marbled butt from being lion-lunch.

Instead, I thought about the whole "Tag! You're it!" calls that echo from my own childhood. I hoped to get up to Nate's school at recess to photograph him playing on the playground with his friends, but it was raining, and I was in meetings, and it just didn't work.

After school, Kelly was picked up by Gail's mom (usually, Gail comes to our place on Thursdays) and the girls went down to the local ice rink for Gail's skating lesson, and for a chance for Gail to give Kelly some informal lessons to try to get her to relax her iron grip on the boards. Yes, it is true, my non-Canadian Canadian child cannot skate. (Truth be told, she doesn't know any of the rules and regulations of hockey, either. Or, as we like to call it... 'ockey)

I went down to the rink after I'd gotten Skip and Nate home in the rainstorm. Brr. It was colder inside the rink than it was outside. I am a thin-skinned, thin-blooded California girl these days. I wouldn't survive a week if I was sent 'home' to the Canadian winter wonderland.

And there I found my inspiration.

Tag! You're it!

(of course, it was no contest. Gail can skate circles around Kelly. But they were willing to mug for the camera.)

Check it out!

A new job

2011-01-13T21:30:00.000-08:00

I think I had mentioned that last Saturday, I'd talked with the ranch manager about Kelly coming in on a semi-regular basis to visit with the horses (and one in particular), socializing them (such as it is) in preparation for the summer. And I may also have mentioned that I offered to pay for the privilege but had been waved off.

So, yesterday was Kelly's first day of "work".

After a little bit of my own 'work' (The mother of one of Kelly's classmates (well, actually, he's in special day class, so she doesn't have any classes with him per se) has asked me to drive her son to her workplace after school on Wednesdays because she can't get the time off, and she worries that he'll get beat up if he has to walk anywhere or take the bus - she's probably correct. The kid can be a bit of a weasel, but is mostly harmless. And because the mom usually sounds desperate, and really has no other connections at the school, I oblige her. No real skin off my nose, when it comes down to it), and a quick trip into a grocery store to get take-away sushi, Nate and I took Kelly over the hill to the coast, where the blustery day had turned into a perfectly glorious sunny afternoon.

There wasn't much action at the ranch. Jorge was sitting on the fence, shooting the breeze with a couple of friends, but when we showed up, he offered to get Eddie from the pasture for Kelly. I said "No, this isn't your job, it's hers. Make her do the work and go back to your friends." and off we went to the pasture, she with her lead rope in her hand, me with a pocket full of carrots, just in case the pony didn't want to come. Jorge called after us "Just please make sure to close the gate!" so I took that as my job to be responsible for.

Meanwhile, Nate was holed up in the van, basking in the sunshine streaming in through the windows, doing his homework.

Even though it had been really stormy the day before, the pasture wasn't nearly as muddy as it had been in the past, and Kelly wasn't up to her knees in mud (it was a possibility). She wandered out into the pasture, where all the horses were quite curious about what might be up.

(Poor Aladdin. he's the horse on the left. He's gotten so skinny this last year. He couldn't be ridden by the summer camp girls, but he was so sad when he wasn't put out on the line, that they'd bring him to the line, and hook him on, just so he'd be with the working horses, and feel like a part of the 'in crowd'. I hope he can fatten up come spring.)

Eddie is the horse she's after, though, and this time there's no drama in collecting him.

Maybe the sugar cube in the palm of her hand had something to do with it...

He was all happy and prancing...

Until he got to the ring, and realized that he was going to have to actually pay attention, and do a bit of exercise if he wanted to keep the carrot treats flowing.

Hey! I don't want to go this way. And I'm bigger than you, scrawny little girl...

After several laps around the ring, and a couple of times spooking as the cars went by, it was time for another treat break. You don't have to ask him twice...

She walked around the ring with him over and over, chatting into his ear the whole time. I don't know if he's getting any gentler, but if she does this twice a week for the next couple of months, at least he'll become VERY accustomed to the sound of her voice.

But my goodness, is he ever dirty. What he really needs is a bath. Alas, we didn't have enough time, even though it was probably warm enough, with the thermometer pushing 60F (after a week in the 30s, this is wonderfully balmy!). I'm going to try to put off bathing him until the weather really turns warm, come spring. I don't want him getting chilled, or anything. So instead, Kelly had to settle for giving him a good brushing, detangling his mane, and making sure his hoofs were in good shape.

And here's a special kiss for you, sweetheart. Right on your forehead. Don't forget about me. I'll be back on Saturday.

Dailyshoot.com "shiny"

2011-01-12T21:58:00.000-08:00

So here's the prompt for today.

Make a photograph of something shiny or glossy, but not transparent. Emphasize the effect of the surface.

Didn't think I'd come up with anything fun...

Until I got to the ranch, and it was so gloriously sunny, and all the horses were so gloriously frisky in the warm sunshine, and they ALL knew that I had carrots, and, quite frankly, sometimes you're just lucky to get out alive.

But here. I give you Cookie's Eyeball. Just before she did the TSA security agent frisking thing with her big insistent horse-lips, looking for a carrot in all the wrong places.

And yes, I know that eyeballs are TECHNICALLY transparent, but it just looked like a big soft brown marble coming at me there.

ooh. Time for supper.

GO check out dailyshoot.com. It's a fun place.

OPE 2: Rust

2011-01-12T21:28:00.000-08:00

I took the Littles out to the ranch this afternoon (half days on Wednesdays) and Kelly spent an hour with Eddie, the Recalcitrant Pony, while Nate stayed in the van, pinching his nose shut (he doesn't really like the scents of the great outdoors), and working on his homework.

There's a good story there, filled with photos, but what I wanted to mention here is that I found this great rusty gate to photograph while Kelly was starting to bombproof Eddie.

The One Photo Everyday weekly photo prompt this week was "Rust", and i was pretty sure I wouldn't have a chance to go hunting for it, but it got dropped in my lap.

Here's a great rusty gate-latch.

Here, let's get in a little bit closer. I love how they have repurposed the old horse shoes.

Dailyshoot.com

2011-01-11T20:26:00.000-08:00

I've been trolling around on the interwebs the last few days, mostly wasting time, but sometimes finding things that are really cool

(ok, pretty much everything I've been finding is really cool, but I need to start growing a backbone, and telling myself that not EVERYTHING needs to be looked at. One really cool thing a day is just fine, please).

One of the things I came across was this site called dailyshoot.com

It's pretty neat, and I like the baby-steps that I can take there. It's a daily prompt that you go out and shoot, and then tweet your response, which, through the magic of computers, shows up on their front page in a gallery of 'photos of the day'.

Apart from being a massive sucking time vortex, it's given me some great ideas, and I finally took the plunge today, and joined up.

Today's prompt was:

Make a photograph today that features or uses a liquid as a subject.

Of course, I hadn't taken my camera with me, but while I was waiting at the corner for Kelly and her friend to show up after school, the skies opened, and it started raining. I had my phone, and I was messing around with a Camera360 app that I'd just installed on it, and when I got home, I realized that one of the photos was pretty much as good as I could do to follow the prompt.

So instead of hemming and hawing, I just uploaded that puppy before I could change my mind, and linked it up.

It's a start.

More to talk about, but now it's time to put kids to bed.

Goodnight, Souffle'

2011-01-11T09:25:00.000-08:00

Over the last few months, Souffle', our Campbell's hamster, has been failing physically. First, he started getting this mange, and then he developed some weird neurological thing that made him all wobbly on his feet. He seemed to be able to eat and drink, and was social just the same as he always had been, so we just let things play out.

In the last few weeks, his fur has grown back all pretty (he had been pretty much nude from the waist down), and apart from the wobbly walk, he was looking hale and hearty.

Until yesterday.

Last night, Kelly told me that she thought Souffle had died. He didn't peek out of his den when she blew into his cage (the sign that treats were coming), and she thought it was more than just sleeping.

She was right.

Good night, Souffle. You were the gentlest of all the little hamsters.

More Penguins

2011-01-10T21:24:00.000-08:00

Now I'm kicking myself that I didn't save all the penguin shots that I took at Nate's classroom party last month. I probably could have made some hilarious little still-life dioramas, with funny dialogue underneath them.

Oh well. Next time.

But here are a few more shots of the penguins from Nate's classroom party.

I really like the 50mm lens.

There's something just quite hilarious about these little guys. I know it has a lot to do with the array of different googly-eyes that were available for the kids to use. I love the little guy on the left in this one. Like he got his beak shut in a door, or something. And he's still a little bit dizzy from the impact.

Hey... bay-beeeeee. Wanna come up to my iceberg, and see my etchings?

Talk to the wing, because the ears don't hear a thing!

Space Penguin from Galaxy 32 says "Take me to your Herring"

Whoa. Dudes! Feel the tremor?

Nate. Where's his other eye? Is he Cyclops Penguin? His depth perception is going to stink, and he'll go hungry, unable to hone in on the little fishies under the waves. But at least he'll have great hair while he's starving to death.

Photo dump

2011-01-10T09:21:00.000-08:00

So last month, I did a little photo outside-my-comfort-zone contest over at One Photo Everyday. Even made it into the finals, and came away tied for 2nd place, which thrilled me to no end.

The site is continuing, with a weekly photo extravaganza, where we post photos weekly, rather than daily. There is still the potential for a daily photo (I'm thinking of paying closer attention to dailyshoot.com), but the posting, and viewing will be weekly, rather than daily (which, I am sure, was a whole lot of work for the OPE admin person)

I haven't decided if I'm going to work with the prompts, or just post my 'best photo of the week', or 'some subset of daily photos', but when you come across an entry here, with that cryptic "OPE:xxx" title, at least you'll know that I'm not selling secrets to the Soviets, or anything.

This initial prompt was "Language and Rust", and seeing as I've taken my camera out exactly ONE TIME since this year began, I don't know if I can come up with something from this month that matches the prompts. So, in that respect, this time I will dig into my archives, and pull out some shots of things last month that never got shown.

For instance:

I chaperoned a youth event for our church that had all the kids descending on Sky High last month. It was a hoot and a half, as well as being chock full of Girl Drama at times. But we gloss over that, and give you my fave shot from that evening:

This was also my first little get-to-know-you session with the Nikon 85mm f/1.8 lens that I rented from borrowlenses.com, and ended up using to shoot parts of the New Year's Eve wedding.

And Nate had his Classroom Party on the last day of school before break, and I broke free from my pre-holiday ennui long enough to head down to school and take a few photos in the classroom.

Nothing says fun like a penguin made out of a toilet paper tube.

I just got a note from Nate's teacher thanking me for the lovely photos (I shared my picasa album with her), and saying how much fun it was to see the enjoyment that the kids got out of the craft, and how cute it was, 'especially that photo where one boy is making the penguins talk to each other". So I'm going to say that this might fit under the broad umbrella of "Language", when you know that the big picture has the boy on the right (out of frame) making what he considers to be 'penguin noises' as he bobs his toilet paper tube penguin up and down. You can tell, though that the girl penguin in the middle of the frame can see right through his act. She isn't buying what he's selling. Not for one minute, even if the guy with the purple eyes beside her is stunned by what he's hearing.

Nate's penguin stayed out of the fray.

He didn't want to mess up his penguin hair-do.

First Ride of the New Year

2011-01-08T22:02:00.000-08:00

The weather's been holding fairly steady the last few days, so yesterday, I suggested to Kelly that we might want to take a chance on the sun, and go out to the coast for a beach ride.

She invited her friend Anna, who was unable to come for a sleepover, so we arranged to pick her up on the way to the coast.

This meant getting up earlier.

Boo.

But I can count on Kelly to never sleep in on a day that she might get to go riding. I don't even need to set my alarm (but I do, anyways)

It was cold and miserable at the house. I couldn't even see the neighbour's house across the back yard because of the fog. But we'd promised Anna that we would take her on her first ride, and i didn't want to have to phone their house and wake everyone else up, so off we went.

It was glorious over at the coast, even though it was quite chilly.

There were horses ready to go. Kelly's favourite ponies were taking a break in the pasture, so she got a chance to ride Alex, a high-spirited part Arabian horse.

And oh my goodness, are these horses ever dirty. They get out in the pasture, and they roll in the mud, and it cakes on, and I shudder to think what's gonna need to be done once spring comes, to get them all pretty again.

Kelly was so pleased to ride Alex. During Horse Camp, Kelly's friend Carrie rides Alex, painting her with a brush of "This horse is too hard to handle for you". But Kelly's experience this morning? "She tried to throw her head a bit at the beginning, but then she calmed right down, and was beautiful for me. And she listened, and I hardly had to work at all. And she has such a beautiful canter!"

Yeah. I don't think she's too much horse. Do you?

While I was waiting on the beach for the girls to ride by, I thought I'd take a few photos of the local wildlife. There was a flock of about 500 seagulls on the beach ("and I ran... I ran so far away...") , just basking in the sunshine, and then I realized that at the edge of the flock, sitting up on a piece of driftwood, was a bird that was definitely NOT a seagull.

I walked towards it, and kept taking photos. Soon, it came into view.

A peregrine falcon!

And then it took off. Beautiful!

And I watched it head towards the flock of seagulls....

...who were IMMEDIATELY on high alert, and rose into the sky like a big cloud of "I don't want to be the falcon's breakfast" Or maybe I should say "gotta get away...."

SUPER cool to watch!

Oh, and then I looked down at my feet:

Oh look. A typical January morning on the California Coast. And so fragrant, too.

(makes up for the horse nuggets that get dropped with great regularity along this stretch of the trail)

I got back to the ranch before the girls, and talked to Jorge. I mentioned that Kelly is a little worried that Eddie (her favourite pony) is not getting ridden much, and seems to be regressing back towards the wild-type. Will he be ride-able come Horse Camp next summer?

Jorge assured me that they would have a lot of work ahead of them before horse camp, but that they'd be working with ALL the horses that would be used for horse camp, gentling them again. I said that if it was OK with them, I would be happy to bring Kelly out more often, to work with some of the horses, perhaps just starting off by walking them around the ring, getting them used to the halter and lead rope again. I said that I would even offer to pay for the privilege of letting Kelly come out to the ranch, perhaps not the full cost of a guided ride, but maybe some lesson-fee.

Jorge said "No cost! She's welcome to come out here and work with Eddie, or whoever she wants. Here, I'll get Eddie ready, and she can start today."

And before I could say anything, he was out in the pasture with a little bowl of oats, and a lasso.

So when Kelly and Anna got back from their ride...

She went straight out to the ring, where Jorge gave her a lesson in how to longe.

It looks pretty easy, she thinks...

But Eddie has a mind of his own, and pretty soon, he's broken free, and standing outside the ring, stubbornly pulling back on his halter.

So we'll take a step back, and start with just walking. Walking at a steady pace, and not stepping on the feet of the girl holding your lead rope.

Oh, and there you can see the half-chaps that she got from Nonie and Poppa for Christmas.

And then as a reward, some grooming, and treats.

And then we had to leave precipitously when I realized that Kelly and Anna had a basketball game (against each other), and we still had to get home and change.

But that will be another entry.

Christmas Morning 2010 Part 2

2011-01-05T10:00:00.000-08:00

Hey, remember that time I used to write here, and post photos?

yeah... me too.

Man, I'm glad I didn't have a "I will write more" New Year's Resolution. That would've sucked, because I already broke it.

Instead, I have resolved to gain 20 pounds and really let myself go this year. It's time to have an attainable goal this year, and I say "Aim High". Also, I resolve to not have my house constantly mistaken for Martha Stewart's this year.

All kidding aside...

I am at the age where I forget stuff if I don't write it down.

So here I am writing down Christmas. Nearly 2 weeks after the fact.

When last we left our intrepid family, the mother had demanded that the Eldest Child march immediately to the showers before any more Present Opening Photographs were taken, because the grease in the hairdo had reached critical mass. He was also instructed to USE SHAMPOO (because, you know, if you don't SAY he has to use shampoo, he probably WON'T use shampoo)

Interestingly, while Skip was off having a short shampoo-filled shower, Nate and Kelly entertained themselves quietly and happily, not whining about the presents that awaited them at all.

Ahem.

These are not my children, obviously.

Soon, a sweet smelling son emerged, all fresh and shiny, and ready to read the Christmas Story.

For the last 10 years (at least), Skip's 'job' on Christmas Morning has been to read this lovely book called "This is the Star". It is a beautifully illustrated book, and EVERYONE should have one in their home library.

Here, I took a little quickie video of him reading one part of it.

Anyways, good to see the boys getting along...

We wrap everything at Christmas. Kids get socks and underwear, and you never know what a box may contain.

You may think that you're getting the cymbal upgrade for your Rock Band X-box drum kit, when instead...

SURPRISE! It's a shirt! Don't you just love Nate's rapture and awe at this discovery?

We also have a tradition of handing squishy parcels to each other with the phrase "I wrapped the socks MYSELF!"

And sometimes? They actually ARE socks!

(Ken does a much better job of looking surprised AND happy.)

Kelly got Nate an origami calendar. A big hit.

And it's important to try to divine what is inside each parcel before you open it.

Nate opened a winter coat, and decided to wear it. (This will come in handy later, when he decides to HIDE one of his presents inside his coat, so he can be assured of being the LAST ONE to open a present at the end of things). Here, he is pontificating on what he thinks this next present will be.

"I think this will be a Night Light"

Nate, you ARE correct!

Time for me to open my present. Kelly picked it out, and Ken paid for it. It is from both of them.

It is a fireplace candelabra. I have wanted one of these for a long time, and it's perfect.

I still have to photograph it all set up.

Nate stashes a gift. He is not very stealthy.

It's like the Gift of the Magi! Kelly gets Nate a page-a-day calendar, and what does Nate get Kelly?

Fortunately, no watches were sold, and no hair was cut in the making of these presents.

Ken's lemon tarts will never stick in the pan again!

A special present for me, from Ken. Not to be shared.

Merry Christmas to all.

New Year's Eve 2010

2011-01-01T19:29:00.000-08:00

We were busy on the last day of 2010.

Kelly got a last-minute 'change of plans' phone call the night before. She was scheduled to go to a birthday party Early Bird Special beach ride for a friend who turned 13 today, but the mom had been diligently watching the weather, and realized that the storms were going to be moving in, and New Year's Eve morning would have much better weather. Could we possibly make it a day earlier?

Of course!

Anything for the horses (and her good friend, of course)

Because we were on a bit of a tight schedule, I offered to meet the other girls out at the ranch. I thought we'd left in plenty of time, but I didn't count on the delay of ending up behind a very slow-moving truck going over the hill between the bay and the coast, which slowed us down by at least 5 minutes, getting us to the ranch early, but not as early as the rest of the group.

Kelly's friends are all older than her, because she jumped a grade. So they're all going through (or nearly done) their growth spurts, and she has to do creative things, like jumping up when I say "Cheese!", so she can try to be as tall as them.

I was worried about being late, but all was well, even though everything was already in place. Horses were out, and the girls were on their steeds before the official opening time, anyways.

It was nice. They got to go out by themselves, with their own guide, and didn't have to wait, even though more people were arriving at the ranch as they were saddling up.

The weather was glorious. Kelly's friend (the birthday girl) has a dog, and her mom had brought the dog along, to play on the beach while we were waiting for the riders. We nearly lost the dog in the undertow, when the thrown tennis ball took a crazy bounce off a berm of sand, and went into the waves. But Zoe is a strong doggie, and only got completely drenched, although we had our hearts in our throats for a few seconds.

Good dog, Zoe.

I tell you, mornings don't get much better than this.

Back at the ranch, we had a few minutes to play with the horses.

And play with Wrangler, the new ranch doggie.

But then it was time to head for home. I had gotten up early to squeeze in a shower before the beach, and the wind had given me 80's teased-hair without any styling products whatsoever, and I had to tame it into submission before going back out into polite society. And Kelly wanted ringlets

Skip and Ken hadn't gone out to pick up his driving learner's permit by the time we got home, and they were still hoping to get there before the (one o'clock) wedding. I just shook my head. They'd had all morning, but didn't leave the house until 1130. I wondered if they were going to have success, but they took their 'going-to-a-wedding' clothes with them, and were planning on going to the DMV closest to the church.

I wanted to get to the church early to take some pictures, so we left the house at noon (after a frantic search for my high heels, which had decided to hide out somewhere that wasn't obvious. There I go again wtih my "Very Safe Places". Argh.)

With a half-hour to go before the wedding, I got to the church parking lot in time to see the groom in jeans and a t-shirt, taking the trash out to the dumpsters. He didn't look in the least flustered. I love that their wedding was so low-key that they could just putz around a bit before things got going.

Our friend Nick had completely restored an old Cadillac, and it was ready to go.

So shiny, I can see myself!

I staked my claim on a row in the church, and got the camera gear out.

Every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man. And there were many sharp dressed men this afternoon.

And there were some not-sharp-dressed men. If I ever become a famous wedding photographer, I vow to never wear a toque. And to tuck my shirt in. And to shave.

Ooh! And there's the groom!

Time for the wedding to start! And aren't these kids CUTE?

Love, love, LOVE her dress. And the little green rose petals she's dropping.

And aren't they cute?

It's official!

Ooh. And don't my pocket squares look fine!

Time to check out the Caddy.

And my favorites! (and maybe theirs, too, as their photographers had already zoomed off to the courthouse steps, where the wedding portraits were going to happen)

A friend of mine borrowed my camera, so here is a (rare) photo of me:

Their reception was at the restaurant where they first met. (She'd actually noticed him, and gone over to his table to introduce herself to him. That's BOLD!)

While everyone else was getting their panini, I wandered down the street to the courthouse, where the photos were happening.

Yes, outside, on December 31st. And the women are wearing strapless dresses. I still can't believe it, sometimes.

And in the realm of crazy and amazing things?

Skip and Ken made it to the wedding with 4 minutes to spare. He finished getting his DRIVING PERMIT at 12:55.

But even MORE crazy and amazing?

Skip, in honor of Starbuck's wedding...

Wore...

A....

SHIRT WITH BUTTONS!

I know! I almost couldn't believe it either! (oh, and by the way? We're sitting on the restaurant patio. Outside! In December! Also? That is not wine. It's Martinelli's. We may be bold, but we're not THAT bold.)

So much cuteness!

It was a beautiful afternoon!

And then I came home and crashed, and then took Kelly to a birthday party sleep-over, and brought Skip's buddy Cole back to our place for a sleepover, and then opened the house for a NYE party where our friend Tim brought over his new PS3 and Scott Pilgrim on BluRay, and Nick brought over THREE DOZEN leftover cupcakes from the wedding.

What am I going to do with three dozen cupcakes?

Driving.

2010-12-30T23:26:00.001-08:00

Yikes, people.

It's midnight, and what is my son doing?

He's laying on the floor of the family room, filling out his DRIVER'S LICENCE PERMIT APPLICATION.

He's been taking Driver's Ed this week through one of the local driving schools. A four-day short-course, (so he doesn't have to take the interminable after-school sessions), paid for by the grandmothers' generous Christmas Fund.

(And can I just say "Whew!" because he has GOT to be the hardest person on the PLANET to buy Christmas/birthday presents for)

Seems the 4-day short course might just become a two-and-a-half day short course, because the class is pretty small, and they're working through the material very efficiently.

And what do they do at the end of the course?

Why, they make a Field Trip down to the DMV to get their Learner's Permits.

YIKES!!!!!

At least now, I know how tall he is (5'11") and how much he weighs (130lb), because we had to put that information down on the application.

I just hope they don't want the ACTUAL social security card. I know where mine is, and where Ken's is, but the kids? Kelly's is still in the envelope it was delivered to us in, and Nate's is AWOL, somewhere in the computer room. Of course, the 'story' of the card might be enough for the DMV employee. Our three coming-to-the-USA social security card numbers (Ken, Me, Skip) are sequential numbers. And if Ken shows his, and i show mine, maybe that'll do. The driver school instructor says it's a bit of a crap shoot if they ask you for your card or not.

I suppose it wouldn't hurt us to have to wait a week or so, if I did have to go down to the SSA and get a replacement card for Skip.

Old enough to drive?

Say it isn't so!

More Wedding Prep

2010-12-29T19:22:00.000-08:00

So, tonight is Starbuck's bachelor party.

Hopefully, we won't hear anything about it on the news. You see, our friend Nick belongs to the "Go Big or Go Home" school of party-planning, and he was put in charge of the Bachelor Party.

*checks watch*

If things went according to plan, Starbuck was kidnapped in the last 15 minutes by a county sheriff and three veterans of Desert Storm. Hopefully, as the sheriff commented, without witnesses, because all it would take is one call to 911, and the whole plan could be stopped at gunpoint. But, again as the sheriff commented, he figures he could probably flash his badge and talk his way out of things, which would be awkward, with a capital AWK.

So we won't think that.

In the last week, Starbuck hasn't been allowed to go home. He hasn't been allowed to drive down his street, or see his house. You see, in the last 3 days, his house was turned into a scene from the first Star Wars movie. The scene where Luke and Obi Wan meet Han Solo. Our pastor has been working on his Han Solo costume for the last month, and threatened to wear it to church last Sunday because it was, and I quote him here, "So FREAKIN' COOL!" Nick is bald, and is hosting the party as Darth Maul. Fully costumed, of course. And the entire inside of the house is one big Tatooine Man Cave.

I contemplated growing a beard, and trying to crash the party so I could photograph it.

They were pressuring Ken to come as Chewbacca. But, alas, the costumes were VERY expensive, and my time was a little bit taken up with other things, so when Ken made the "um, it's probably too late for you to make me a costume" noises the day before yesterday (with hope in his voice, because he didn't want to be wearing a shag carpet at a big crowded party any more than the next guy), you know what my answer was. Instead, he wore Skip's long black cloak, black jeans, black shirt, and his black leather vest. That, along with a red light saber (thank you, kids, for never throwing ANYTHING away), and he was a stealth-sith.

Kelly and I have done a bit more wedding prep at the church.

On Monday, when we got the sanctuary ready, we didn't move the drum kit from the center back of the stage.

You can sort of see it in this photo:

Kind of an eyesore to be in the back of every photo of the ceremony.

We found some screening in the back room, and brought it out...

OK, so now you can't see the drums, but it does kind of look like the backdrop for the Dating Game.

And the one side of the screen droops kind of awkwardly. Someone better fix that.

Hello, my little duct tape engineer...

You OK in there?

But now we see big patches of red duct tape... That's not good.

How about eight yards of 108-inch wide black muslin?

(And yes, I used a coupon at Joann's. 40% off. Boo YEAH!)

Last night, we had a holiday open house at our place. Beef tenderloin sliders, massive cheese tray, and desserts.

Nick came over, and was dishing on all the wedding preparations, and all the chaos that had been going on at the tuxedo fitting that afternoon. Apparently, everything that could go wrong, actually did. There were bow ties instead of regular ties, and the pocket squares were the wrong colour of green. "Barf-worthy", I think was the shade that Nick thought they'd been given. I said "Well, if you just want pocket squares that are appropriate, I can take care of that. Do you have an idea of the colour?

And he said "Hey! Do you want to see the tux?"

Of course!

So he went out to his car, and brings in his tuxedo bag. It's a gorgeous thing. I can hardly wait to see the whole thing put together.

And then he says "Well, they gave us the bow ties, even though they're wrong. And they're the same fabric as the ties are going to be. Could you use this?"

So, this morning? After I dropped Skip off at Driver's Ed (eek!), I stopped in at Joann's, and found some silk that was as close as it gets. Ok, it's not actually silk-silk, but it's silky fabric. And over the course of the afternoon, I put together 6 pocket squares for the guys to use in the breast pocket of their tuxedo jackets.

I hope they're ok.

And now, I'm off to the airport to pick up the last groomsman, who's flying in with his wife tonight. I think I'm dropping him off at the Cantina... maybe I should take my camera... just in case...

Wedding Prep

2010-12-28T14:22:00.000-08:00

Starbuck, our youth pastor-slash-Starbucks barrista (hence his pseudonym) is getting married on New Year's Eve.

I've been puttering around a bit, putting stuff together for the wedding. And I've offered the services of my family, if there should be any need for heavy lifting, etc.

Yesterday, he put out the word that he needed help getting the church ready for the wedding service. You see, for the last few months, we've not had chairs-in-rows in our sanctuary. We brought in a bunch of bistro tables, with four or six chairs around each, and that's what's been filling the place. Sort of makes it kind of hip and fun, and yet also like sitting around the table with family. And different family every week if you want. I've met some great people, and turned guests into friends at the tables this fall.

But tables are kind of hard to process around, when you want to walk down the aisle in a big floofy white dress. (For the record, Starbuck is not the one wearing the floofy dress. He's wearing a tux with a white silk vest. Classy!)

Anyways, he wanted the tables moved, and the chairs put back into the more traditional row structure.

So we showed up with the troops, bright and early.

And within a very short time, the place was looking far more traditional.

Then Kelly and Nate helped Starbuck take down the big overhead screen. Scary!

(Skip was instrumental in cranking the cables out of the way, after all was said and done)

And then we got to decorate. They'd bought a bunch of little white Christmas lights, and we strung them down the outer walls of the sanctuary.

Look! I'm working!

ps. I am wearing the most awesome Christmas present t-shirt, too:

Then Starbuck took me aside. "Look!" he said, totally sparkling with excitement. "They're here!"

And he opened a little velvet box, and showed me their wedding rings. It was SO cool to see how excited he's getting.

I asked him if I could borrow the rings, just for a few minutes, and I took them up on stage, where the spotlights were shining down with some serious wattage.

At first, I thought they might look cool in the tree.

Nah. Not the best. But then I had another idea.

Someone! Get me a bible!

This is his ring:

This is hers:

And this is Skip, trying desperately to balance both rings at the same time:

Verdict: It can't be done.

So we settled for not-balanced:

The cool thing?

Starbuck just called, and asked if he could have copies of these photos. I have a tiny thought that one of them might end up on their wedding programs.

I'm totally stoked.

Christmas Morning 2010 Part 1

2010-12-25T23:19:00.000-08:00

You know, my heart goes out to you mothers (and fathers) who have kids who are so excited about Christmas that they wake up at the crack of 'dawn somewhere ELSE in the world', and wake you up with the bouncing on the bed, and the chanting of "pre-SENTS, pre-SENTS!"

This year, I thought, for just the shortest while on Christmas morning, that maybe my family had moved out overnight.

I got up at 845am, and the house was silent.

'Twas the morning of Christmas
And all through the pad
Not a creature was stirring
Except mom, who was glad.

I figured I probably had a bit of time to putter around, so I got busy in the kitchen.

I was pulling the last sheet of Lebkuchen Angels out of the oven when the first set of footfalls was heard on the stairs.

First, it was Stocking Time in the family room, while Ken had a shower.

(From l to r: Kelly's turquoise zebra stocking, Nate's Charlie Brown stocking, Skip proves his stocking is empty by wearing it on his head)

Stockings take a while because everyone tries to figure out what's inside all the little red-wrapped parcels.

"I think this is... candy"

"This present is not whispering any clues to me. I don't know what it is"

"Mom, this does not look or feel like something that I would like OR need"

OH... ha ha.

(I think he thought it was cologne)

The kids got head-lamps. Now they can read in bed.

Skip started his kitchen gadget collection, getting an ORANGE silicon spatula. (and in the background, Nate has unearthed the stash of Ghirardelli chocolate squares in the toe of his stocking)

A freshly-showered Ken joins us while the stocking action is still going strong.

That's the stocking my mom made him for our first Christmas together, celebrated at their house, and using stockings for the very first time (as stockings were the tradition in HIS family, not mine)

Ken also added to his kitchen gadget collection, when his stocking barfed up an offset spreading knife.

Soon, everyone had an empty stocking, and I noticed something...

"Skip, your hair is a greasy mess. Go have a shower before we open presents. I don't want any more photos of your hair dripping with anything other than water."

So, Skip headed up to the shower, and we went into the living room, and listened to Ken play the guitar for a while.

Merry Christmas to all.

Christmas Eve

2010-12-25T08:57:00.000-08:00

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,

and with fear and trembling stand;

ponder nothing earthly-minded,

for with blessing in his hand,

Christ our God to earth descendeth,

our full homage to demand.

Every year, our church has a late-night service on Christmas Eve. Things get rolling around 11pm, and wind up around 11:45, at which point, we all head outside, and stand in the dark parking lot, singing Christmas Carols until midnight.

This year, Kelly was going to play some music with me before the service began. So we practiced a bit at home, and Ken even got in on the show...

The church was so pretty, all dark, and just lit by candles, and the trees...

I didn't take as many photos this year because I was in the band. A little too distracting to take a camera up on stage. But I did sneak a shot when the music was done, as I was leaving the stage.

The service ended a little after 1145, and we all quietly went out into the dark parking lot with our candles.

One of our pastors had taken the center candle from the advent wreath, and he used it to start lighting the candles around the circle.

There's something just magical about a quiet candle-lit night.

Ken and Kelly were across the circle from the boys and me.

It was a little bit windy. Nate had to be vigilant to keep his candle burning.

Shhh. I snuck a photo while they were praying. Skip is in the 'don't take photos of me' phase, so sometimes I just have to take the chances that are offered to me.

And then it was midnight, and we sang Silent Night, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and it was Christmas Morning. And the quiet hush broke, and gave way to the excited conversations of friends and kids who can hardly wait for morning to arrive.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come.

(and why am I writing this now? Because my kids are STILL SLEEPING! and it's nearly 9am on Christmas morning. Talk about your Christmas Miracles)

A holiday message from Jewel.

2010-12-24T11:55:00.000-08:00

Dudes, you think I'm all perky, but see these feathers? They're bolt upright because that's the way I say "FEAR!" You have no idea how scary that plastic tree is to me. And is it just me, or is that sock monkey ornament twitching, and trying to get me...? Eek! I must RUN AWAY!

Mirrors? Who puts mirrors on a tree? And what's that scary gold thing? And that red line! You can't land on it. It's just scary and distracting! I am full of FEAR!!!!... oh wait. Is this Ruby here with me? Ok, maybe it's not all that bad. If Ruby is here, it must be safe...

Ruby? Is that you? How can you STAND being near this scary thing???? You are my rock, honey pie. Here, come sit with me, and I will cluck to you and make everything all better.

I will be brave for you, Ruby! Even though that sock monkey is waving at me. I will be brave. Don't worry, Ruby...

Goodness Ruby, you are SO BRAVE! How can you be sitting in that scary creepy tree without having a heart attack. I'd better join you...

Merry Christmas, all my invisible internet friends. May your tree not be nearly as scary as this one. And may you have a warm and loving time with friends and family.

And don't forget to put out treats for my homeless friends who have to live in BIG SCARY TREES OUTSIDE.

Honestly, I don't know how they do it. They must have nerves of steel, those finches and sparrows.

It's ok, Ruby. I'm right here. I won't let the scary tree get you.

Lazy-mom Construction Co.

2010-12-24T11:53:00.000-08:00

Every year, my sister-in-law (the one with the 5 kids) makes this incredible gingerbread-house masterpiece.

I mean, architects would be proud of what she accomplishes.

And every year, she gets better at it, and the projects get more involved and more fantastic.

And then, every year, on New Year's Morning, the kids descend and consume it. She figures by that point, it's got enough accumulation of dust and germs that it should boost their immune systems for the year.

I have always just been an observer of her skills, and have cheered her on.

This year, though, my kids got the better of me, and asked, asked, asked, and then begged, if they could make a gingerbread house, too.

Hello Trader Joe's! What do we have here?

My prayers have been answered. My children will not be 'homeless' for the holidays, after all. All this, and only $7.99? Truly, it's a Christmas Miracle.

It was something that was easily constructed by an 8 year old and a 10 year old, too (the 16 year old? He was too busy doing Starcraft, or Minecraft, or one of those other computer brain-burning 'crafts', and didn't have the bandwidth for Gingerbreadcraft.)

After I'd made the frosting (aka cement), I turned the kids loose with the instructions.

#1. Fill foundation holes with frosting.

#2. Insert house pieces, front and back, into foundation holes.

Hold in place until frosting hardens a bit.

#3. Run a line of icing along angled edges, and attach roof pieces.

(#3b. Let your brother have a turn on the second side)

#4. Plant the Christmas Tree.

#5 After cement has hardened... decorate!

#6. Enjoy the decorative results as part of your Christmas Display.

(bonus points if you can spot your Christmas Card on the holder)

But hmm.

What to do, what to do?

All that frosting left over...

Kelly has an idea...

Nate! Come here!

She has a future as a stylist, perhaps...?

As an aside, that frosting really DID harden to cement. And there are still globs of it in the bathroom sink from where Nate removed his goatee and eyebrows. I may need to get a chisel to dislodge them.

Homer Update

2010-12-22T23:48:00.000-08:00

So, when last we left our intrepid housewife, she was in the middle of assuaging her car-repair woes with tales of a grand morning of butt-freezing beach adventures.

Here's the scoop on Homer:

There are close to a thousand different ways that a Honda Odyssey's emission system malfunction indicator light can trigger. (says Dave, at Honda). He said one of the most common was a loose gas cap. I didn't hold out much hope that *that* was the cause, as I was dangerously close to empty, and hadn't touched my gas cap for nearly a week, but that's what crossed fingers are for, right?

Turns out?

Not the gas cap.

But!

Apparently, small forest creatures (and small woodland creatures that have invaded urban and suburban habitats) often seek shelter on cold stormy nights in the driest, warmest places that they can find. And those places might be under the hood of a vehicle that has just driven home late at night (or not so late at night) and left in the driveway with its front end radiating IR radiation, announcing to said little creatures that there is room at the inn.

And those same little forest creatures, which may or may not have naked little tails (shudder!) that make the likes of me shriek and head for high ground, seem to have a fondness for the wires that radiate out of the emissions sensor housing. So much so, in fact, that Honda keeps the one particular part in stock, they have so much call to replace it.

Argh.

So, as I'm forking over $384, Dave says, ever so kindly, "Well, I had a customer in here last week who had just had to pay over a thousand to have their ENTIRE electrical hub repaired, because of how the rats had chewed the wires. And then a week later? They had the same problem that you had. And they couldn't figure out why it wasn't covered under warranty. Unfortunately, warranties don't cover rats."

I shuddered, "So I have rats? Yuck. I guess this is the price I pay for parking in the driveway instead of the garage..."

He shook his head, "These folks with the double whammy? They kept their car in the garage. It was the engine damage that was their warning sign that they had a rat problem. Until then, they swore they didn't have rats. After this? They brought in an exterminator."

I shuddered again.

Rats.

I hate rats.

Anyways. There's my Epic Tale of Homer's Electrical Odyssey.

Back to horses. Which are much better than rats.

I truly thought I was going to turn into a foggy, damp popsicle while I waited for the horses to come back up the beach. Turns out it took longer than planned...

Mom! Guess what!?!?!?! When we got down to the end of the beach, that lady on the black horse? Her horse decided to lie down and ROLL! It was scary, and freaky, and kind of hilarious, too. That's why we're so late. I'm sure glad it wasn't Fiesta that rolled. I would be SO MUCH COLDER! Like, even colder than I am now. Why didn't I bring my gloves on the ride? I had them in the car? I can't believe myself.

So I stopped at Starbucks, after safely navigating my way back to the parking lot at the top of the bluffs, and got a tray of hot chocolates. Kids cocoas, extra hot. I love the $1.25 drinks. Everyone can have one, and warm up.

And then I went back to the ranch to wait for them.

I messed around while I was waiting. Hello artsy photographing with the shallow depth of field...

Ooh! Old horse-shoes. Love them!

They were late getting back. They must have really walked slowly. Apparently, the creek that they have to cross is really swollen, and is deep to walk through. Usually it's about an inch deep and a foot and a half wide.

But eventually everyone returned to the ranch safely, and full of stories.

I gave the girls horse-cookies (oatmeal, molasses and raisin) to feed to their horses as treats (after making sure it was OK), so now the horses like the girls best of all, too.

And we had such a good time, I'm going to head out there tomorrow, with a Christmas Card for the ranch.

What do you think?

Still to come: What we did after the ride!

Van woes, mitigated by happy horse fun.

2010-12-22T14:18:00.000-08:00

So, earlier this month, my alternator came off its moorings, leaving me stranded at the side of the freeway with no power steering, and ended up setting us back nearly a thousand dollars, once we paid the outlandish towing fee to the police-summoned tow truck ("we have to charge more, because we're required by law to be on call for police emergencies only") and the charges to have my alternator brackets re-attached. Yeah. Have a Holly Jolly Christmas there, Homer. You're getting coal in your stocking this year. No premium grade oil and engine treatment for you! And you can forget about that new pine air freshener to hang from the rear view mirror, too!

Imagine my absolute joy, then, when the little orange "engine block" outline drawing lit up on my dash board last night on the way home from getting groceries.

Let's check the Honda Odyssey owner's manual...

Oh! It's an Emissions System Malfunction Indicator. "Do not continue to drive your vehicle, or you will do irreparable damage"

Yippee, Skippy, Homer! You're making mommy so happy!

So I parked Homer in the driveway, and called Honda at 5:35pm, the minute I got home.

"Oh, I'm sorry, the Service Department closed at 5:30. Please call back in the morning."

I swear, I was batting a thousand.

So this morning, I stole Ken's car to take Kelly and her friend Adria over to the coast, to attempt a beach ride. It was miserable weather at the house. It had been stormy all night, and just as we left the house, the skies started spitting at us again. But Adria was going away for the rest of the vacation, and Kelly really wanted to ride with her. Fingers crossed, then, as we took the Purple Princess over the hill, hoping that the socked-in clouds would lift, or at least stop pouring torrential rains down on our windshield. The girls spent the whole 20 minute drive with their fingers crossed.

And we got out to the coast, and it wasn't raining any more, but it was pretty grey. And the ranch gates were closed. And there were no horses on the line.

Not a good sign.

But the kiosk was open, and there were lights on, so I had hope that at least I'd be able to talk to a real person as to whether there was a chance of a beach ride this morning.

Just as I had nearly given up hope (we'd gotten to the ranch gates at 7:45, because the web site says "You must be at the gates before we open, in order to take advantage of the Early Bird Special", and you KNOW that I am all about the early bird special), the ranch manager came to the gate, opened it up, and said 'Yes, there will be rides." And lo and behold, right behind her were the guides, leading a string of horses up to the line.

Yippee!

(note. 85mm f/1.8 lens, rented from borrowlenses.com. I think I'm in love. I used it to photograph the eclipse, too, and I'll be taking it to the wedding next weekend. And after the coupon, it's the best $30 I ever spent on a 3-week rental... I think.)

Kelly was given the manager's niece's favourite horse, Fiesta. Kelly rode it the other time she went to this ranch, too.

psst. I love you best of all of the horses on this ranch...

And Adria was given Estrella, a bigger horse than she'd ever ridden, but Estrella is wonderful and gentle.

It was threatening to rain, and it had rained a lot in the night, so the trail was muddy. It would be a slow and careful ride today. No cantering, and probably no trotting, either. They'd be getting their full 2-hour and then some. I like to think of it as 'getting my money's worth'.

Hmm. Looks like Fiesta has a mind of her own... I bet you wouldn't let Eddie get away with that, Kelly.

OK, and now I would like to talk about Poplar Beach.

This is the place that I drive to, and then run down a steep trail to the beach, so I can be on the sand, photographing the horses as they arrive.

Well, I hadn't factored in the rain. And the fact that the bluffs are primarily composed of clay. And that when clay gets wet, like super-saturated wet, it turns into gumbo.

Slick, slick gumbo.

I was up at the top of the bluffs, and I thought "I should just climb this two-foot slope to the edge of the high-high bluff, so I can have a better vantage point to watch for the horses", and i put one foot down, and then the other, and the treads on my hiking boots were immediately full of clay gumbo, turning my shoes into frictionless platform boots. My feet went out from under me backwards, and I fell fowards with a great deal of rotational momentum. Um, yeah.

Graceful=no.

Fortunately, I'd hidden the camera (with the rented lens) inside my jacket, where it whacked against my sternum, giving me a lovely bruise. It'll go nicely with the road rash on my left hand, the gumbo-caked disaster on my right elbow, and my new pair of gumbo-clay knee pads that are now firmly attached to the knees of my Levis.

After making sure there were no broken bones, I navigated the steep slope down to the beach at a crawl (I probably SHOULD have crawled. It would have been safer. And I did already have the dirt knee-pads in place), and waited for the horses. My heart was in my throat, though, because I truly thought "If I, with my fancy-pants hiking shoes with deep tread, slide down the slope and nearly kill myself, how in blazes is a horse with four slick metal horse-shoes going to do any better. This will be the day I lose my daughter in a tragic riding accident, and what will I ever tell Adria's mother????"

Yes, because I always go to the Worst Case Scenario.

The horses finally appeared at the top of the bluff, and I held my breath the whole time they came down the slope.

Oh, the kids looked cold!

Mom! I'm FREEZING! And the rain is dripping off of my helmet!

"Oh, do you want to turn around, and quit the ride?"

What? No way! This is GREAT!

Oh... the Honda guys just called. I'll have an update when I get back from getting the van.

Eclipse. (Not the movie)

2010-12-21T19:15:00.000-08:00

It's been a nasty week of weather.

The rain has nearly washed us away, and the wind that accompanied it is threatening to send our storm gutters into the next county. It's been dark and overcast and cold, and when it's not been raining, it's been depositing ice and frost on my car.

(yeah, I know, cry me a river, all you people who actually *have* a winter are saying)

So, hearing that there was going to be this great eclipse on the solstice night, I was thinking "yeah, but not for me, boo hoo"

Imagine my surprise, when, at 9pm last night, I peeked outside, and actually saw a star or two peeking through the cloud cover.

Of course, I had assumed that the weather would stink, so I hadn't rented any big long-lens bad boy glass, and was stuck with my own small collection... and an 85mm f/1.8 that I'd rented for a wedding that I'll be going to on New Year's Eve.

Hmmm.

I wonder what that 85mm lens would do with the eclipse.

Let's test it out.

Oh poo... there's still a lot of cloud cover at 8:55pm...

Clouds, clouds, go away!

Woo hoo! Clear skies at 9:04pm

The beginnings of the penumbral shadow can be seen on the lower left edge of the moon at 9:47pm

It's a little more distinct at 10:24

But here comes the umbra. Earth, you cast a long shadow at 10:46...

At 10:55, more of the moon is obscured.

11:03, Nearly half consumed by shadow.

11:19, and we're getting close to complete coverage.

At 11:37, we're down to a sliver of moonlight, and the orange cast of the shadow becomes visible. This is a longer exposure, so there's a bit of camera blur.

At 12:11, I took my last shot. The clouds were starting to move in, and within minutes, there was no sign of the moon (or any stars) any more.

Goodnight, Moon.

Church Without Walls

2010-12-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

Last week, our church closed its doors.

Oh, don't worry. It's not another blighted building, left to disintegrate because of the exodus of the faithful, or anything like that.

We do this every year.

One of the December Sundays, instead of coming to church, and sitting in the nice warm padded seats, and throwing back a few Starbucks while the music plays, we put on our work boots, and head out to get busy.

Last year, our family was part of a group that went to an Alzheimer's ward at a local Retirement Home, and we sang Christmas Carols for a bunch of people who started off looking like vacant shells of their former selves, and who ended up, for the most part, vibrant old people singing the simple old carols with gusto.

I guess it is true that the longest-held memories are the last ones to go, because pretty much all of the Alzheimer's patients were singing along by the end of the caroling session.

Or maybe it was that the sugar rush from all the Christmas cookies had finally kicked in...

Anyways, this year, we signed up to help CityTeam with a project in San Jose. A family who had moved to the Bay Area in the summer had fallen on hard times, were unable to keep up with the maintenance on their house, and were in danger of losing it, if the place got any more run-down.

There were probably 5 or 6 families who descended on the house at 930 Sunday morning, just as the home's occupants were piling into a car to 'get out of our way' and take the kids out for a fun day of going to the movies and a nice lunch out (courtesy of some anonymous donor).

The first order of business for the 'outside team' was getting rid of the accumulation of leaves in the yard and on the house.

Nate spent a lot of time holding leaf bags...

While Skip spent a lot of time raking the roof...

And Kelly and I went into the house, and took over the room of the eldest daughter...

Our first order of business was to organize the vast sea of clutter, trash, and salvageable toys and clothing.

It was quite the eye-opener for Kelly. This girl had a dresser with no clothing in it, and no closet. She had a plastic-wrapped mattress on the floor, with a case-less pillow (that would have to be tossed out) and a comforter that looked like it was being used like a sleeping bag. There were a handful of naked and limb-less Barbie dolls in various corners, and the cardboard remnants from some long-lost games and toys. Three black trash bags in the middle of the room yielded the girl's school work, dirty laundry, and garbage. There was broken glass in the carpet, left over from when a lamp had broken (we eventually found the lamp behind the empty dresser).

We started by using the broken lids of two small rubbermaid containers as scrapers/shovels, to take the majority of the debris and trash off the floor. Then I brought in my vacuum cleaner (How I love thee, Purple Dyson), and Kelly went to work sucking up all the stuff our scrapers missed. I went through the small mountain of debris, and pulled out the non-broken toys, school books, and laundry, and made places for those things. While Kelly was vacuuming, I went into the garage, and was assaulted by an absolute mountain of laundry. I will never, NEVER EVER complain about my laundry backlog, ever again. I didn't take a photo, I was so stunned by the magnitude. That explained why the kids didn't have any clothes in their dressers, anyways.

So I got to work running laundry through the washer and dryer, and then went back to where Kelly was working. She had finished vacuuming, and one of the men had come in and was working on turning a corner of the room (in the above photo, it's where I'd just organized everything onto that park bench) into a shelf-and-pole closet-type area.

And while they were doing that, I taught Kelly how to use the Rug Doctor, and she went to work with gusto.

We soon realized that the washer and dryer in the garage were no match for the volume of laundry that was waiting, so I volunteered to make a trip to the local laundromat. We loaded up all the bedding, as it was unlikely that the blankets and such would even fit in a home washer, and I stuffed the back of my van full of laundry.

Let's take a quick check outside:

Good work, Natey. Now that you know how to use a broom, you can use one at our house, too!

Um, Skip... maybe you should've made more than one trip to the van with the laundromat-laundry...

Hey! Who gave that kid power tools?

Ken, very kindly, put his phone to work finding me the closest laundromat...

And I grabbed my friend who is a Spanish immersion teacher (just in case we had to ask for directions, and couldn't find any English speakers in the area), and we headed off with Ken's phone giving us directions out of the neighbourhood.

Hooray for Elena. She was a Laundromat Goddess. She commandeered a whole bank of over-sized washers, and we loaded them up and went to town.

I think I ended up dropping nearly $40 in quarters just on the washers. I shudder to think how long it would have taken to get all that laundry done one load at a time in the home's machine. I probably would still be there.

As an added bonus, while the wash was going, she took me to a local Mercado, and introduced me to authentic street tacos.

OH man, people, I am in love!

It was almost like a little mini-vacation. I was the crazy gringa taking photos of 'ordinary stuff' while everyone around me pointed. Oh well. Who's gonna care, really?

The laundry took about an hour and a half, during which time we probably did the equivalent of 15 loads of laundry. That's efficiency, for ya. And when we got back to the house, Ken was just returning with lunch for everyone else.

Hey! Who gave that child power tools?

After Skip finished on the roof, and had consumed his Coca Cola lunch (because that's the only thing he'll eat from fast food restaurants), he was put to work wrapping presents for the family.

Now he will have no excuse when I ask him to wrap the presents for his siblings... hah!

Maybe I should have sent him outside to work with his sister. She did all the windows...

OK, I was going through my photos, and I found a shot looking into the garage, that shows some of the laundry that was left over AFTER I'd already taken the 15 loads to the laundromat:

Needless to say, I did NOT conquer Mount Washmore that day.

We worked from 930am until 430pm, when there was a sudden flurry of activity as the word had come down that the family was returning, and we had to clear out. I was nearly finished with the Rug Doctor in the living room and hallway. And can I just say how VERY satisfying it is to run a rug doctor on formerly-white carpets? You can see the line where you've been, and the line where you still have to work. I could have spent my whole day making Rug Doctor lines in the carpets... oh wait. I nearly did, come to think of it.

Anyways, we had to pack up all our cleaning supplies, and dump everything in our cars, and then quickly come back for one last photo...

I should've asked this team if they were available to come and descend on my house to whip it into shape for the holidays...

Party Pix

2010-12-16T09:57:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was Ken's company party.

Or rather, it was the party for his division of the company.

I'm happy that it's not a company-wide party any more. A few years back, it just got so big that it was an unpleasant crushing, like sardines, or lemmings, and neither Ken or I do well in a crowded situation, tending to have the panic reflex kick-in in full blown anxiety, which doesn't leave a lot of room for having fun and socializing.

Saturday night, then. We'd had a full day of fun, and we had been invited to a family game night with other friends that overlapped the Company Shindig, so Ken suggested that I stay home with the kids who didn't really want to go out yet again (and get myself all prettied up, or something), and he'd take Nate to the game night, as Nate had been invited particularly, seeing as he is the owner of Dominion and all itsexpansions, in our house.

Well, the two hour "we'll be back as soon as we're done playing Dominion" visit turned into a nearly-four-hour "Well, we got started with Dominion and then the hosts wanted to bring "London" to the table, and I knew it would be fast, but it wasn't" extravaganza, and Ken got home just as the Company Party was starting up in the city.

Not to worry, though. There is never a 'you will be late' vibe at New Hip Company, so he got out of his gaming duds, and into a pretty swank outfit, and we headed north to the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

(side note: While at the party, we realized that his dinner jacket was as old as his former intern.. As old as his former intern who was throwing back martinis with the studied experience of one who had done it many times before. I guess we've gotten our money's worth out of that purchase, eh?)

It was a lovely venue. I should have taken photos, but I just took a little black purse, and my big black camera wasn't going to fit into that at all.

But not to worry.

There was a photo booth.

I didn't realize the performance anxiety that could be built up as one is waiting to enter a photo booth, when one realizes that the photos are being projected onto the vast ceiling over the dance floor as they're being snapped.

But at least there weren't 15 thousand people at the party. Eight hundred is a much more manageable number.

Eight hundred?

Egads, the mind boggles.

So, on to more current events.

Skip has finished finals, and is currently sleeping in.

Nate and Kelly got up early with me, and we had 63 beaver tails made by 7am, as Kelly was 'begged' to bring them in to her English class first period, for their 'chillax morning'. Glad to see that we're actually learning stuff in school these days.

And it's pouring rain, so I guess that we will not be going riding this weekend.

The horses miss us.

...or maybe they just miss the carrots that we've loaded our pockets with...

Dumbest Homework Ever.

2010-12-09T21:54:00.000-08:00

I was out with Kelly this evening, and just came home to see what carnage the boys had wreaked in my absence.

Ah, the house is quiet. Not a creature is stirring, except for the boys' little fingers as they dance across the computer in the case of Skip, and as they fidget with a pencil in the case of Nate.

Nate is sprawled in the hallway, his homework laid out in front of him, and a blank sheet of paper staring up at him.

He looks forlorn as I ask him what's up.

Turns out he has just one more writing assignment to do, and it's due tomorrow (oh, it's always the thing that is due tomorrow that gives them grief, isn't it? Unless it's the assignment that is DUE TODAY, OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!)

Anyways, I ask him if I can help him, and he says, on the verge of tears, "I just don't know what to write!"

Now, this is a common complaint heard in our house, as neither of the boys claims to have much of an infatuation with the written word. But I thought I might be able to nip the word-hating in the bud with Nate, if I just give him extra attention, so I say "Well, let's look at what you have to do..."

Oh, look. It's simple enough. It says "Write a comparison of a DOG and a MOUSE. Write about the ways they are THE SAME, and the ways they are DIFFERENT.'

Now, doesn't that seem straightforward to you?

It seems pretty easy to me (but then again, I'm not in 3rd grade), until Nate says "But MOM! You have to USE THE SPELLING WORDS in your writing!"

And he says that like it's a bad thing. I think using spelling words is a GREAT way to reinforce the words, their meanings, and their spellings.

Now, let's take a look at this spelling list.

And here is where the mind boggles.

Ladies and gentlemen, how would you compare and contrast a DOG and a MOUSE if you had to use the following words in your comparison:

CLOWN
LAWN
TALK
SOUND
CROWN
COUNT
LAW
COUNT
SOFT
WOULD
ALSO
MOUTH

(and, for those over-achievers, we have the two Challenge Words that can be used:

BOUNCE and
OFFICER

I swear, I thought my head would explode.

If I had been given that assignment at his age, I'd probably be still sitting at my desk at school, head bowed, tears streaming down my cheeks (I didn't handle pressure well when I was in 3rd grade).

I do not fault the teacher here. This is an assignment on a sheet from their state-sanctioned (and mandated) Language Arts text book.

So, while trying not to look like I'd just been told to go hunting for aliens in the back yard, I gave him a few ideas, and set him loose. I really enjoy reading stuff that he writes in his own voice, as he has a way of writing that is complete different from his siblings, and a very nice conversational style.

Here's what he came up with:

Let's COUNT the ways a dog and a mouse are the same.

Are they both SOFT? Yes.

Can they both TALK? No.

Do they both have a MOUTH? Yes.

Do they have LAWS? No.

Not bad for coming out of an hour-long funk when you thought you'd never be able to write anything down, and then the teacher would keep you in at recess, and your week would be ruined, and everyone else will have done the work, so they'll all get to do fun stuff, and you'll have to repeat third grade.

And yes, my brain would have gone there in 3rd grade, too, so I'm glad to know that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

5am

2010-12-08T06:52:00.000-08:00

We stayed up too late last night. It's a curse. We sit down on the comfy red couch, me with a cup of tea, or my knitted boob (that will NEVER be finished, I swear!) and him with a cup of tea, also, and his laptop so he can keep track of streams of letters and numbers on his screen that look to me like horizontal versions of the Matrix code, keeping tabs on whatever is happening at New Hip Company that needs his attention, and the TV is on, and before you know it, it's after midnight, and we're saying "Why did we EVER start that second episode of Psych...? Oh, but wasn't it fun to find all the Twin Peaks references... let's just take a few minutes to look at imdb.com and see if we noticed all the cameos?" and then it's 12:30, and I'm crashing hard, and ouch, 7am is going to come soon, and just as we're drifting off, and I've had one panic attack when I realize that it's TOMORROW... which is TODAY... that the car insurance needs to be paid, but Ken reassures me that he'll do it online before he leaves for work...

I sit bolt upright in bed.

I've just realized that the same day that car insurance is due is the day that I signed up to bring in HOME MADE CHRISTMAS COOKIES for the Teacher Appreciation Week Teacher Cookie Exchange.

And how many home made Christmas Cookies have I made in the last year?

::crickets::

And not only did I sign up to bring cookies, I signed up to bring in my grandmother's Lebkuchen.

So, with the background sounds of the sweat squirting out of my armpits, I set my alarm, NOT for 655am, which is now 6 hours away, but for 555am. A colossal 5 hours of sleep, if I can fall asleep RIGHT NOW!

I'm not sure how long I stared, in a panic, at the ceiling before I fell asleep, but the next thing I knew, I was late for my International Bioethics final, even though I had *meant* to drop the course because it wasn't being taught in English, but if I didn't take the final now, I wouldn't get my degree, and what kind of an example would I be setting for the kids, and...

*bing*

I was wide awake.

And whew, it was 530, and I had nearly two more hours to sleep before my alarm went off...

Until I realized that it was Cookie Day, and I started to sweat again.

But at 530am, I was already 25 minutes ahead of the game, so let's get cracking.

The first thing I did after sneaking downstairs was pull out the recipe.

Can you see what it says at the top of the second column?

Why yes...

CHILL SEVERAL HOURS!

Oh well. we'll have to skip that step, seeing as the cookies need to be delivered to the teacher's lounge by 830am.

Then, panic at the disco, it calls for honey AND molasses!

Whew...

Thank you, impulse purchase at Costco this summer.

It's a freakishly stiff dough (even without the half-cup of peel, which was a rabbit that I couldn't pull out of the hat at 530am, oddly enough)... so I thought I'd take a chance on not chilling it.

So, at 617am, I was putting in my first test batch:

(hmm, what happened to the 5 in 325? It looks fine normally. I didn't realize the little LED bits flickered)

OK. They'll do. They're not full of surprise little citron nuggets, but I did jack up the allspice and cloves to compensate.

Time to get into production mode.

So, by 645, it was all over but the shouting...

And now we wait, wake up the kids, get them ready for school, and then glaze the cookies once they're not burn-the-roof-of-my-mouth hot.

Oh crap. It's trash/recycling day.

I guess I'll be doing that first.

Or I will...

Once I get dressed and wash this cookie dough off my hands.

And taste-test one. last. cookie.

No really.

Just one.

More.

How do you say "RickRoll" en Francais?

2010-12-06T19:16:00.000-08:00

On Friday, Skip announced that there was this extra credit assignment that he could do in his French class, if we thought it was something that, like, you know, might be something that... well, you know...

The boy, he is so eloquent.

But it is good to have an extra credit assignment, seeing as I managed to take a peek at his French notebook, and discovered that he has a D.

Yes, that's my straight A student, with a D on his French notebook. Certainly explains the surprise B- grade this quarter in French, when he said that he was doing 'fine' on tests and assignments. And while I'm hoping that the notebook grade is something that can be cleared up with a little more communication (notebooks are graded as 'responses to learning', where you have to produce something that shows you are paying attention to what is being taught. At the beginning of the year, a list was sent home of 'appropriate responses', and include things like "make a travel poster','write a short skit to perform with a classmate', and 'use glitter to advertise a French product', etc. You can see how it's dancing on that fine line of 'Interpretive Dance" that drives Skip nuts, can't you? Well, he chose, from the teacher's list, "Make a set of flash cards on a ring with the day's vocabulary", and has been doing that ALL YEAR. But you can't attach flash cards to the notebook, can you? So his notebook pages say "See Flash Card Ring", instead of barfing glitter when you turn the pages. Apparently, the teacher didn't accept anything that wasn't "attached to the notebook", so Skip's mark is woefully low. All that he needs to do is just GO IN AND TALK TO HER, and I am sure this will be ironed out. And I am trying not to get involved.)

Anyways.

That was quite the diversion from where I wanted to go here...

So...

Last night.

The Extra Credit Assignment.

"If you MAKE and bring in a Buche de Noel to share with the class on Monday, you will receive extra credit."

Seeing as Ken has been making this fabulous mocha log since 1984, he figured this was the sign that it was time to pass on the mantle of log-making responsibility to the Firstborn Son.

And seeing as Ken's mocha log is pretty legendary, I thought it best to document this passing of the torch. Also? I can email the teacher PROOF that Skip actually did the work.

While I took over 100 photos of the process, and 62 made it into the album that I emailed to the teacher, I will not bore you with all of them. But here are a few choice shots, with the Google Translate pseudo-francais captions.

"D'abord, je beurre la plaque à biscuits."

(First, I butter the cookie sheet)

Je n'aime pas le beurre sur mes doigts.

(I don't like getting butter on my fingers)

J'ai mis du papier ciré sur la plaque à biscuits.

(I put wax paper on the cookie sheet)

Je mesure le cacao. Notre boîte de cacao canadienne est presque vide.

(I measure the cocoa. Our tin of Canadian cocoa is nearly empty)

Le sel est de la France, de la Camargue, (ma mère l'a acheté le sel en guise de souvenir)

(The salt is from France, on the Camargue, (my mom bought it as a souvenir)

Je n'aime pas les oeufs sur mes doigts

(I don't like getting eggs on my fingers)

Je laisse la machine faire tout le travail.

(I let the machine do all the work)

Pas de photos!

(No photos!)

Le gâteau est cuit.

(The cake is cooked)

Pourquoi est-ce une plaque à biscuits si chaud?

(Why is this cookie sheet so hot?)

Mes doigts sont délicates. Ouch!

(My fingers are delicate. Ouch!)

Le premier rouleau!

(The first rolling)

Il est temps de dérouler la bûche.

(It is time to unroll the log)

Et voilà comment je roule... Ne va vous abandonner. Ne vais vous laisser tomber..

(and this is how I roll... Never gonna give you up. Never gonna let you down...)

Yes, French Teacher. You have been RickRolled! In French, even. I wonder if she will even look at the pictures, though... Oh well, it sure was funny at midnight, let me tell you.

J'ai coupé une petite branche

(I cut a little branch)

Il est presque fini.

(It is nearly finished)

Une erreur à minuit? Bof.

(An error at midnight? What-EVER)

(by the end - it was 12:30 when he was frosting the thing - we were all getting a little punchy. He kept dropping glops of the mocha whipped cream onto the kitchen counter, so it soon became a game. Of course, I had to photograph the mess, which I then put under a little 'interdit!' circle.)

Christmas Lights

2010-12-02T22:37:00.000-08:00

This evening, I took Kelly and her friend Gail to a street in San Carlos that is known for the Christmas Light display that they put on every winter.

Gail had never been there.

It was her first time seeing all the lights.

Kelly always looks at lights like it's her very first time. But she's seen them before.

The show really is something else.

And these ornaments? They're as BIG AS MY HEAD!

I would have more photos, but the skies absolutely OPENED on us while we were standing there in wonder, and we had to sprint to the car.

We'll be back.

Small Business Saturday

2010-11-28T18:35:00.000-08:00

Just wanted a little record of the fact that I managed to squeeze in a trip to my favourite yarn store yesterday, and that I now have 4 different balls of yarn that might be appropriate for me to knit my mother a boob for Christmas.

The lady that helped me at the yarn store had never heard of a thing, but became very enthusiastic when I explained what I was doing. She even was able to make several recommendations of yarns that I might try for making a perfectly itch-free version.

So. Small Business Saturday. I hope that my little purchase helped to keep at least one Small Business afloat this holiday season.

There are a few other places I would have liked to go, but I was limited by errands that were required. And besides, I shopped at those places on Black Friday instead:

So here's to you, Toque Blanc in Half Moon Bay. Thanks for your great customer service, and for having exactly what I wanted.

And here's to you Half Moon Bay Feed and Fuel. You also had a nice assortment to choose from.

And Crystal Springs Produce. That was a great price you had on passion fruit. I hope it's ok that I bought out your stock.

After I get lunch cleaned up, I hope to put photos up here of the yarns that I got.

(and wouldn't you know it? When I got home, I started decorating the house for Christmas, and the first box I looked into had three skeins of yarn that were completely appropriate for knitting a boob. It's a knitty-boob bonanza! If I could just get down to business, my mother won't know what hit her when the mail arrives in a few weeks.

Thanksgiving Ride

2010-11-26T18:32:00.000-08:00

I just realized that this diary is turning into a "Watch my daughter ride horses on the beach" tale of epic epicness that excludes our sons.

Deal with it.

Ahem.

It's just that this weekend is kind of a horsey extravaganza.

So, when last we spoke with our little girlies, they had kissed and made up (although I still need to debrief Kelly about this, because it sounds like, from Alice's mom, that there were forces afoot that I was unaware of, which paints Kelly in a less-than-good light, and doesn't unearth the underlying awkwardness where Kelly confided in me that she had caught Alice in some bad behaviour of her own. Which, when all is said and done, could be 'this is how a 10 year old perceives things that are really completely innocent'. Of course, when I chatted with Alice's mom while Alice was getting her overnight bag together on Wednesday evening, I was a complete chicken-liver, and didn't mention the bits where Kelly was crying that Alice was lying about stuff at school. We will deal with that later, when I'm certain that I have all the facts. But for now, they are all buddy-buddy, and I will be keeping an eye on two OTHER of Kelly's friends, who have told Alice (to her face, says the mother) that they don't like her, and they don't want her to be around Kelly. Eek! The drama. It's like a soap opera without the paste jewelry and constant stream of weddings)

The girls had a very successful sleep-over, and were up at the crack of dawn, raring to go. That's when I stole a few minutes to write the little entry with photos from their Wednesday afternoon ride.

Thursday morning?

Hello, single-digit (OK, it was single digits in Celcius. But that's still stinkin' cold) temperatures.

Fortunately, we were well-stocked with scarves and gloves (with little half-fingers, so the reins could be held)

And I couldn't believe it, but Kelly and Alice were the ONLY people at the ranch! I mean, people! What's up? You've got the DAY OFF! Surely not ALL of you are slaving over a hot stove all morning, on such a glorious morning, nursing the turkey into golden oblivion.

But I was happy that we had rushed out to get there early. The girls got their choice of horses.

And you already saw the wonderful moon that was parked in the nearly cloudless sky.

I do love me a good beach-photography morning.

I love this shot of Alice on her horse.

But this one is my fave...

OK, *this* one is my favourite:

Or maybe this one...

Although there's something fun about catching them just as they come back to the ranch, full of stories to tell...

Mom! You wouldn't believe what a BUTT Eddie was on the beach! but I still love him.

Mom!

OH mom. Eddie's being a butt again! Can you help me?

Oh wait. It's ok. I've got it. He's fine...

And this all happened before I even STARTED putting Thanksgiving dinner in the oven.

Imagine what I could do on Black Friday...

Black Friday

2010-11-26T04:29:00.000-08:00

It's 4am on Black Friday.

Do you know where your Canadian-trying-to-masquerade-as-an-American friend is?

Boo yeah.

I'm getting too old for this.

Horsey Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T06:27:00.000-08:00

Horsey Thanksgiving, everyone.

I am up at an unearthly hour, considering it is a holiday.

Of course, many of you American ladies may be already up, getting the ceremonial bird ready for its long sauna session, and preparing your house for the onslaught of guests.

I guess I have those tasks ahead of me. (Well, not the turkey part. I decided to tempt fate, and am in danger of deportation because I am doing the un-American thing of serving a beef tenderloin instead of the American Turkey.) But right now, I'm up early not for a Thanksgiving Reason, but for a Horsey Reason.

Yesterday, Kelly and her very BFF in the WWW (whole wide world) mended their fences, and have been getting re-acquainted.

It's been so freakishly freezing cold in the mornings that I have been cursing my 'gave away everything I didn't need when we moved 14 years ago' lack of fore-sight, because I don't have an ice scraper for my car, and I thought "I have offered to take Kelly and BFF to go horse back riding early Thursday morning, but honestly, it's going to be FREAKISHLY cold for these parts tomorrow morning, so maybe we should do an afternoon ride in the wonderful sunshine instead."

So after school (half day yesterday) and going out for lunch (the kids voted for the local sushi place), we collected Alice, and I dropped the boys off at home to play Halo, and I took the girls over to the coast for a (potentially warm-ish) trail ride in the late afternoon sun.

We got to the ranch, and a group was just returning. It was pretty un-busy, and Jorge was nowhere to be seen. But the guide recognized us, and, in his broken English (note to self: Really, you would be so well served if you just learned a FEW words of Spanish) pointed the girls to Jorge while he got the horses back on the line.

Soon, Jorge was back from the pasture, and I was signing the girls up for the afternoon ride.

"We came out today, Jorge, because I watned the girls to get a ride in this weekend, and i was worried that you might be closed on Thanksgiving"

"Oh no, we'll be doing the Early Bird Special before we go to do our Thanksgiving dinners. We have to take care of the horses every day, anyways. But if nobody comes, we'll just take care of the horses, and then go home."

I smiled, and decided to indulge the girls ever so much more, "Well, then, we'll be there with bells on. I know the girls love riding on the beach."

He looked at me, as I put down $120 on top of the paperwork ($55 for each hour-long trail ride, plus the tip) and said "Oh, keep your money. This ride is on us. Just make sure you tip the guide, ok?"

What?

A free ride?

Have fun, ladies.

So now, we're up at the crack of dawn (and a beautiful, chilly dawn it is), so we can get out there before all the horses are gone (assuming that there is a Thanksgiving Rush), and it's back to the ranch.

Time to start making new memories, ladies.

I guess it really is a "Thanksgiving Day" today, after all.

Laundry, Library, Lens

2010-11-22T12:24:00.000-08:00

This is my morning.

I have got to get stuff done.

And with a mnemonic, I am so much better at remembering.

So here's my morning:

Laundry:

I did 5 loads over the weekend, but didn't fold or sort anything. So far, I've folded 150 pieces of laundry (Why yes, I *do* count them when I fold them. I'm WAY too ADD otherwise, and I'll end up folding 1 or 2 things, and then see my feet, and say "I wonder what happened to those blue shoes that I used to have" and the next thing you know, I'm rifling through my closet, looking for shoes from 1997) When I count as I fold, I keep on task. And it makes me feel more of the Family Martyr when I can sit down at the dinner table and say to the children, "While you were dancing around at school, playing with your friends, I was folding EIGHTY FIVE pairs of underpants, so you won't have to worry if you get hit by a bus this week..."

Anyways. So... 150 items folded so far. Still a load in the wash, and one in teh dryer, and socks that aren't paired up (but that's Skip's job now). And I'm ironing. Three shirts down while on the phone with J-jumping, who is back from Bolivia with a butt-load of stories to tell, and 5 shirts to go.

Library:

I'm getting those stern automated phone calls from the library about over due books. I'd better get my act together. And I borrowed 2001: A Space Odyssey for Skip to watch last week, and forgot it was a 7-day loan, so that's gotta go back, too. Probably 25 things that need to go back. And when I finish at the library...

Lens!

Borrowlenses.com is having a Thanskgiving week sale where if you rent for 3 days, you get the item for SEVEN!

So I'm gonna head down to their World Headquarters, and see what's leftover. There's a lot of mail-order business, so I'm just going to be gleaning from what wasn't picked up. It looks like the weather should be nice by Thursday (it's bright and sunny now, but it's supposed to be raining until late Wednesday), and it would be fun to send Kelly off on the horses on Thursday morning before the giant food-fest that will be Thanksgiving supper at our house.

I'm thinking the Tamron 200-500. Nobody seems to be renting that (at least it never seems to be unavailable on their web site)

But before I get to go play with camera gear, I still have shirts to iron, and laundry martyrdom to attain.

Knitty Titty

2010-11-20T18:22:00.000-08:00

I just got an email from my mommy.

She's doing great, and her mastectomy site has healed enough so she can have a deep tub bath, which is something she'd been missing out on since she had her first partial mastectomy at the end of September. She's got such a great attitude, talking about the 'learning curve' for wearing clothes now, and what types of camisoles she can wear and can't wear, and how she's now thinking about a prosthesis (where she wasn't before) just because of the convenience aspect of dressing and wearing normal clothes. She said that she now sees the benefit of having *something* in that one side of her bra, and has found that a pair of ankle socks often fits the bill, but is a bit lumpy.

So she's now talking about how long it might take me to make one of 'those knitty titties that you talked about a while ago".

Hmm. I sure hope I archived that pattern way back when I made that first one for Jackie's friend.

Now, if you'll excuse me, the horrrible storm of the night has given way to brilliant sunshine, and I'm thinking of taking a quick trip over to the coast to see if the trails are passable enough for a horse ride.

And while I'm out there, I may look at picking up some baby-soft alpaca to make my mother a boob.

Wow, I never thought I'd be typing THAT sentence.

Detour

2010-11-18T18:18:00.000-08:00

So, the tile that I put in the back of the van yesterday is rattling around, and making quite the racket.

Skip is still home from school today.

I had a meeting this morning, and got there early, so thought I would make use of the extra time, and get in a little exercise, so I went for a walk in the hilly neighborhood... and lost track of time. Ended up semi-lost, with 3 minutes to make the meeting.

I was late. But everyone got a good laugh at my expense when I arrived.

I tutored at Nate's school, then pulled Nate from school early (half days, anyways for conferences), and went over to Kelly's school to sell ice cream during their lunch hour. Something is up between Kelly and her (former) best friend. I just hope it's the speed bumps of middle school, and that things will smooth over as they get older. But right now, it's awkward with a capital AWK! on the playground. Ah, girl drama, how we loves it.

Nate and i got home around 1:30, and had a little lie-around with Skip (whoops. I forgot to phone the school today, and just got a call from the High School District about his 'uncleared absence'. Ahem. Delinquent!) and watched Top Gear until it was time to go get Kelly and Gail (her friend that I take care of on Thursdays).

Well, that tile was rattling around so much that when the girls got in the van I said "You guys up for a detour?"

And off we went.

Gail had never been to the Horse Camp ranch, so Kelly got to give her a bit of a tour once we unloaded all the tile left over from our remodel.

Oh look, you can see Kelly's blue hair, too. Not the best shot of her, but she was having SUCH a great time with the horses.

The ponies KNOW that we have treats. (photo not uploaded yet - I had to use the phone camera today, and I'm having some connectivity issues) But it takes a while for the horses to believe what they're seeing.

And oh, Eddie. What a sweet heart you are. it's like the very light of heaven shines down on you.

Hello, Samurai. You smell the horse oatmeal cookies and carrots, don't you?

And so what if Kelly still has a mountain of homework... she got to have a surprise visit with you guys, and that makes it all better.

The weather was amazing.

I think it's going to be atrocious by the weekend, so I'm striking while the iron's hot.

Bye bye, fuzzy friends.

Horsing Around

2010-11-17T21:14:00.000-08:00

Man, I have got to get back into the routine of writing.

Lately, it seems that I just can't be bothered unless there are photos to tell the story around.

And honestly? There are WAY more stories in our house that are not photo-documenaries.

So here's a few things that I've been meaning to remember:

Skip was invited to a math competition at Santa Clara University on Saturday.

Of course, he managed to remember to tell us on Thursday evening. Good thing that Ken was free, and could drive him down to the Uni at Oh Dark Thirty on Saturday morning.

He thinks he did fine. Of course when I asked him if he answered the Tie Breaker, he said "but it wasn't one of the questions..." Yeah, Mr. I'll Come In Second Because I Didn't Read The Instructions. But considering he's still a Sophomore, he's got a few more chances to catch the golden ring.

Ever since Nate got promoted to Red Belt at kung fu, he's discovered a new level of internal discipline and concentration. He's setting an example for the brown and black belts that he's working with now. And he's one of the youngest kids in the class.

Skip, too, seems to have a renewed sense of purpose, now that he's just one belt away from that prized black belt.

(yup, it's true, sometimes I get lucky and can get a photo of my eldest child)

Maybe the math competition was too much for him, though. When I picked him up after school on Monday, he looked like death warmed over. He just flopped into the passenger seat, and was nearly asleep by the time we got home. And his forehead was hot.

Not good.

He ended up staying home from school on Tuesday and today, and I'm still debating about whether I'll send him tomorrow. I just don't know if he can stand to miss three days of school without falling pretty far behind. He's emailed his teachers, and has been working, off and on (more off than on, actually) on trying to keep up with what's being assigned.

**update** Well, Skip put himself to bed at 9pm, which is about 3 hours earlier than he usually tries to have his bedtime. I think, if he's got any sleepies in the morning, I'll be keeping him home again.

I took Jewel to school yesterday.

He was going to spend the morning with Mrs. Henderson's class (Nate's teacher from last year), but when I walked into the classroom, there was a sub. Whoopsie. Looks like I might have passed on the lung ick to her before I was totally healed.

But I know the sub (mom of one of Kelly's friend), so the kids got to have a little bit of time with Jewel, but I didn't stick around for long.

Jewel was very well behaved, and only pooped on the carpet (white carpet) and on Mrs. Henderson's favourite chair.

The horse camp place is getting a bit of a face-lift.

But it's nothing official. The ranch manager, Jorge, is a very self-motivated guy, and he sees that there are lots of things that need to be repaired before winter, so in his free time, he's been doing carpentry, and fixing up the place, building shelters for the aging horses that may not make it through the winter without a dry warm place to be, and he's also decided that the Horse Camp clubhouse is in need of renovations,.

When we were out there on Saturday with the girls, we noticed he had pulled up the (old, rotting) floor, and was re-joisting it. I asked what he was going to do, and he said that he'd been asking around, and was getting small bits of salvaged lumber here and there, and was hoping to cobble together something by the beginning of next summer.

I looked at what he was doing, and thought "I've still got leftover building supplies from our remodel. And all they're doing is taking up space in my garage', so I asked him if he'd mind if I brought out the leftover lumber. He seemed thrilled at the idea, and kept saying "You don't have to! You don't have to!" but as I looked at what he was using, salvaging, to put together the clubhouse for the girls, I thought "My daughter spends much of her summer here, and if I can hand over something I'm not ever going to even use, what's the cost to me? Nothing!"

So Toni and I started talking about what we had left at home from our remodels (Toni and her Ken redid their kitchen just before ours), and by the time I got home, I was all gung-ho to empty out the garage.

But then I looked in the garage, and all the lumber that I *thought* was there just... wasn't.

Over dinner, Toni and the Kens and i were talking about all the fun that our girls had had over the years, and we thought "Hey, why don't we just donate some good quality lumber, so that Jorge can work uninterrupted on the clubhouse, and at the end, have something that's going to last.?"

So that's how, on Monday, after working out at the gym (first day back after the whole pneumonia thing), Toni and I found ourselves loading up Homer with the sparse collection of stuff I found in the garage (leftover laminate flooring from doing Skip and Nate's rooms nearly 5 years ago - yes, when was I planning on using any of that stuff again?) and heading over to the coast.

When we got to the ranch, we found the guys working on a shelter in the small pasture. It's Jorge's idea to have a shelter big enough to house the ten oldest horses on the ranch, who will benefit the most from having dryness and warmth during the winter storms. We unloaded the van, and then grilled Jorge about what, exactly, he needed for the clubhouse flooring. Once he'd told us, we took the seats out of Homer, and headed over to the local lumber yard.

"Two women walk into a lumber yard." There's a hilarious joke there, somewhere.

Anyways, we were able to fit all the plywood sheeting into Homer, as well as a half dozen 2x4's, just for added fun, and when we got back to the ranch, I drove Homer right in among the horses to get close to the clubhouse so we could unload the van without having to trek the plywood across the parking area.

Today, I realized that I had about a dozen and a half tiles left over from our remodel. Nice big beautiful porcelain floor tiles. We'll never used them, so after I picked up Nate and Kelly from school (Kelly was supposed to be having basketball try-outs, but the coach was off sick), I dropped Nate with Skip at home, and Kelly and I loaded up the van with the tiles, and we drove over to the coast.

The fog is starting to roll in.

I don't think that the weather will be as nice, come the weekend. But it was pretty darned nice this afternoon.

Alas, when we got to the ranch, the gate was locked, so we drove past, pulled into a beach parking lot, and turned around. Kelly was a little bit sad that she wasn't going to be able to visit with the horses, so I'm tempted to pull her from school on Friday morning to help me deliver the tile. I could get her back to school by second period. i'm still toying with it.

Nate had his conference yesterday.

Ken came in from work, so it was the three of us with the teacher.

I'm just not getting ANY friendly-happy vibe from her. She's pleasant enough, but just not going to make any sort of personal connection. And when asked for input about his work, we got a lot of "hm-mmm, yes" from her, and very little "Here's what I would like to see happen" Which, I suppose, can be a good thing. I just kind of wanted to have some insight that I didn't already know.

Oh well.

I was playing guitar at the library this morning, and I kept getting distracted by my reflection.

Yes, I guess I was a little bit vain.

But who could blame me? The window I kept seeing myself in had been installed at an angle, or was slightly curved, and it made me look So Freakin' Thin! You wouldn't believe the effect. I couldn't take my eyes off my suddenly-slimmer self.

In fact, I was so distracted by Thin Me that I lost my place in a song, and had to feign that I was having a coughing spasm.

Somehow, I've gotten onto the mailing list for B&H photography.

Their winter catalogue just arrived in the mail.

Oh, if I could win a lottery...

There are 37 days until Christmas.

I have this sudden urge to rifle through my (substantial) knitting stash, and pull out some heathered orange wool that I stashed in there several years ago, so that I can make a sweater for Skip.

Um yeah. First? Hello, Mrs. Weaseley.

Second? Thirty Eight Days? Right now, I doubt I could make a dishcloth in that amount of time.

I have started writing reviews for trip advisor. I figured I should weigh in on a few places that I thought were good, but that were getting slammed with bad reviews, and I should weigh in on places that I thought stunk that seem to be smelling like roses for some reason.

We'll see how long I keep up that momentum.

Catching up on a backlog of DVR tv shows.

Oh man! NCIS is a To Be Continued...?

Argh!

Gorgeous Saturday at the Beach

2010-11-13T18:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, it looked like the weekend (or at least Saturday) would be shaping up to be a remarkably nice day.

Toni called, and wondered if we were up to taking the girls for a beach ride first thing in the morning.

Who am I to say "No"?

So we agreed to leave our house at 730 (don't want to be getting to the ranch when all the horses are already gone...), and Toni said that she and Carrie would be at our house around 720.

In my brain, I figured that I could get up at 710 if I had all my ducks in a row before I got to bed, because really, how much time does it take to get ready to go hike on the beach? And I would need all the extra minutes of sleep, as we had a house full of company last night. There were 17 of us for supper, and the last guests left close to 10:30.

So, imagine my surprise, when I was coming out of the bathroom at 712, and Kelly poked her head in to say that Toni and Carrie had shown up at 703.

Whoopsie.

Needless to say, we were able to leave early to head over to the beach.

We got there in plenty of time, and there were very few people there. In fact, there ended up being only 6 riders on the Early Bird ride. That's less than a third of what there was last week.

And the girls got to pick their horses.

No surprises with Kelly's choice...

Hello, Eddie. You have VERY dirty legs. Have you been rolling in the pasture again?

Such a shame that the girls don't like riding at all...

The girls went off down the trail, and Toni and i went to Starbucks, and Safeway (gotta get a big bag of carrots), and then went off to the beach to wait for them.

It was a gorgeous morning. Lots of spindrift.

(sorry for the drunken sailor angle on this photo. I don't think I can take a straight photo to save my hide)

And the waves were crashing!

Here come the girls:

Eddie is afraid of the water, so he makes sure that another horse is always between him and the water.

And here they are coming back up the beach, and you'll see that Eddie is still keeping Alex (the part-arabian horse) between himself and the waves.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Hello Wrangler.

Wrangler is the new Ranch Puppy. He's just young, and exuberant, and so full of energy. And he's got the softest coat ever. If he can survive all his ill-chosen dodging around the horse hooves, he will be a great addition to the ranch.

And here he is, playing with Lupita. Some of you may remember her from the summer. We called her Lupita the Poop-eatah, because she had a penchant for nibbling on the nuggets that the horses poop out.

She is teaching Wrangler her tricks, because we caught him sampling the wares...

Ick.

Here come the girls back from the ride. They're helping the ranch hands get the horses back on the line.

Eddie is blowing bubbles in the water trough. It's pretty funny.

The horses all have their shaggy winter coats, and the extra insulation makes them work up a bit of a sweat on the long beach ride. Kelly and Carrie's horses are quite sweaty and dirty, and it is suggested that maybe their horses need baths.

Oh! The humanity! The girls have to give the horses baths? Is there anything more tragic?

Alex is not so happy about her bath.

Eddie seems to really enjoy his, though.

And he wants to help. Or maybe he just wants another drink in Kelly's carrot-flavored hands.

And to thank the girls for their work? Why, do they have time for another ride?

Oh man, you don't have to ask them twice.

Eddie and Alex were still pretty wet from their baths, so Kelly and Carrie picked other horses to ride.

And while they were on their second ride, Toni and I went into Half Moon Bay and picked up some special horse treat cookies, and snagged a tray of tamales for the ranch hands.

Gotta keep your benefactors happy, right?

So the ranch hands got lunch, we got to have a lovely day of exercise and fun, and Kelly and Carrie got more than their money's worth of horse-time.

Oh, and the horses got carrots and oatmeal-raisin horse cookies.

Happy Birthday To Me.

2010-11-11T23:04:00.000-08:00

Being a Remembrance Day baby, I spent some large portion of every birthday growing up standing in the snow, or freezing rain, somewhere at a cenotaph, remembering.

It's a good thing to do. Remember.

But I don't recommend doing it while getting a head start on the season's frostbite crop.

There don't seem to be that many cenotaphs where we live now, so today, instead of remembering, I decided to give the kids some things to remember.

So you'll understand that there was no surprise when I said "Let's go SEE THE WHALE!"

But first, there were presents.

See? We are like tourists. And see how thrilled Skip is!

Oh look! I got a keytar!

Oh, tell me you're not having 80s hair-band flashbacks!

But there is no time to linger. Before Skip gets lured back to the computer, I insist that we head off to the beach!

All that is left of the beached blue whale is a deflated whale-balloon hide... and lots of residual stink.

Those waves have not been gentle to it.

And yet still, it floats and beaches with the throat facing up. Fascinating.

Ah look, only a few minutes away from the computer, and Skip's happy inner child starts breaking loose.

....

...excuse me. Suddenly there is a strong smell of decomposing whale about me, and I think my shoes must go and live outside overnight. Ick.

.....

Anyways...

The kids had fun at the beach, and there were no camera-happy tourists to be seen.

Kelly brought a friend.

Nate had fun digging...

jumping....

and escaping with his life...

Skip didn't need friends. He had Cheez-Its.

I re-created a photo that I'd taken 13 years earlier...

The original has Ken and Skip walking up the same beach. Ken's mom has it framed in her living room.

I think I just scored a great Christmas present for her.

.....

More cheerleading:

More running

Then it was time to go to another beach. Skip wanted to go to a beach with a creek, so he could re-route the creek, or dam it.

Gazos Creek seemed like the perfect choice.

While I was waiting for the girls to cycle through the outhouse, Skip went to check out the beach.

But before we were done, he'd already come back and said "I'll just wait in the van. Did you see the sign?"

Hmm. I should have taken a photo. Apparently, the creek is contaminated with coliform. It is highly recommended that you not come in contact with any non saline water.

Next!

So off we went to find another place to visit. The kids were starting to agitate for going home, but I wasn't done yet. So we kept going south. One of the guys in the Gazos Creek parking lot had said there were lots of cool things to see just a little ways down the road. Beaches, dunes, drift wood, etc.

I missed a few pull-outs, and was just thinking about turning around and heading for home when I saw a wide pull-out, and went in to take a look.

Hello Cascade Creek.

Skip decided he would just stay in the van. I mean really, how long would we be? He had the latest Discover, and Popular Science magazines, and he was ready for some down time.

So Kelly and Adria and Nate and I headed off down the trail.

Very cool ecosystem. I bet it's a HOOT in the spring. We will be back.

And at the end of the half-mile trail, a beach like none we'd seen before.

Now, if only we could find a way down the bluff from the dune to the beach below...

Oh, here's a path.

And what a lovely beach.

Not a lot left at high tide, but still...

OH look. They're not paying attention, and that big wave is going to surprise them.

Ha ha ha, it's really rolling in now...

Oh, this is good. I'm going to get a great shot when... hey... what's that sound... WHA...?

Ahem. I guess I should have realized that I was not standing THAT far up the beach from them, and was in just as much jeopardy as they were.

Everyone will be happy to know that the camera did not get wet.

And then I found this cool rock.

And then I realized that Skip probably thought we were dead, so we ran back to the van.

And then I nearly fell asleep on the way home, because that was WAY more exercise than I'd gotten in the last 2 weeks combined.

Or it could be that now that I am thirty-sixteen, I have to start taking naps.

Saturday Beach Trip #2

2010-11-10T18:57:00.000-08:00

With Kung Fu over, and Nate sporting a shiny new red belt (and us sporting a shiny new enormous dent in the wallet, when we had to 'upgrade' his membership to "Masters Club", so he could start training with swords (Swords? An eight year old with swords? I think I just got a little bit faint there, thinking about it), it was time to figure out how to spend the rest of the day.

Ken wanted to go do something "secret" with the boys (which supposedly involved finding me a birthday present, but which, I think, involved getting Rock Band 3), so I suggested to Toni (who had showed up at Kung Fu to pick something up that they'd left at my house earlier in the week) that it would be a good idea if she (and her daughter) finally got a chance to GO SEE THE WHALE!

(I always suggest to Kelly's friends that we GO SEE THE WHALE, and it is often met with great enthusiasm from the friends, and great moaning and complaining from Kelly, who remembers how atrocious the corpse smelled that first day. But that doesn't stop me from suggesting it.)

Toni thought it was a great idea, so we went back to my house (so I could get my inhaler, because I'd been kind of over-exerting myself since dawn, and was having trouble inhaling), and then she offered to drive! Score!

And so that saw us going over to Half Moon Bay for the second time that day.

First stop was at a place called Tres Amigos, a great Mexican food place, for great authentic (or, if not authentic, it sure was cheap eats, and tasty) fish tacos and burritos. And then we were off to find the whale.

We parked in the usual place, and then headed down the headland path.

As we came around the corner to get our first glimpse of the beach in the distance, I could NOT believe my eyes. The whale corpse was GONE!

All that remained was a single rib bone, and a few patches of stinky blubber.

SRSLY, three weeks ago, where Toni is standing, there was a giant upside-down whale corpse. What the...?

I mean it had been RIGHT... THERE...

Oh look. The surf has moved the whale!

Quick question:

Do you think YOU would need to be told NOT to climb on a rotting, stinky, oozing pile of vomit-and-decomp-scented pile of jello?

Me neither. But apparently there was a reason that this sign was posted.

The surf had jostled the corpse so much that it had become deboned, and now resembled a deflated whale balloon.

There weren't a lot of bones around, either. I think people might have been taking them, even though the sign said not to. On the beach that the whale was originally, there's one rib bone left. And in the above photo, you can barely make out another rib, just in the water to the right of the deflated whale balloon.

On another rocky beach, we found half the jaw bone.

Here, let's get in there for scale...

(sorry that it's all washed out. Weird weather, and I wasn't chimping my photos as they were being taken, so some of them have very skewed histograms... and I didn't do any post-processing, which is really showing)

Oh, and in a sea cave we found a single vertebra. I have entered the frame here also... for scale.

The girls were tired of the smell. They left, and went down the coast to find a 'beach that doesn't smell'.

While Toni and I were exploring the whale remains (but NOT climbing on them, of course, because we are rule followers), a tour bus pulled up, and disgorged about two dozen Japanese tourists. They descended on the whale remains, and were taking photos left and right. Toni and I took that opportunity to exit, stage right.

We walked down the beach, and soon found the girls, playing in the sand.

Toni and I took the chance to sit down on the warm sand, and just watch the girls and chat. It was a great time.

And then I noticed, back to my right, one of the Japanese tourists was heading back towards the bus. But he'd stopped, and had his camera down by his waist. I realized he was trying to be nonchalant about taking a photo of the girls.

Ahem.

Busted, dude. I called over to the girls, "Hey ladies! Smile for the camera!" And they looked up, saw the guy with the camera, and flashed their pearly whites. Don't think you can hide, dude. I see you.

The hilarious part? He looked over at us, and did that semi-bow that looks like an apology, and then held up the camera, and raised his eyebrows in the universal symbol of "Can I keep taking pictures?"

Of course, we nodded. Who are we to deprive this tourist from half way around the world the opportunity to take photos of actual California Girls (one white-blonde, and one with a massive crop of freckles) playing on a California Beach?

And it was as if we had Released The Hounds!

The next thing we knew, we were celebrities:

And then they had to get into the action. What's more American than making sand castles on the beach?

This lady must have dug around in the sand with the girls for 5 minutes, she was having such a good time.

I think Toni and I had tears streaming down our cheeks, we were laughing so hard. And the girls kept looking at us like "What the...?" and we'd say "Just keep smiling. You're 'typical Americans', and the tourists are fascinated by you!", so they'd keep smiling, and playing, and the shutters kept clicking at a rapid rate.

And then the tourists moved on, and the girls went down to play by the water.

CHEERLEADERS!

And then we looked down the beach, and nearly wet ourselves with laughter....

The surf was incredible.

But we did need to keep reminding the girls to watch the waves, lest they be swept off to Japan (where, of course, their lifeless bodies would be identified, because their photos will probably be spread all over the Japanese interwebs, as a result of our tourists and their shutter-happy cameras)

Turn! Run!

Whew. In the end, all was well, and the only problem was an excess of sand between their toes.

Saturday: Kung Fu

2010-11-10T17:56:00.000-08:00

Saturday was a pretty busy day.

First, we had that trip out to the beach, so Kelly could go riding.

Then, no sooner had we come back over the hill into town, than it was time to head to Kung Fu.

It was a special morning:

They were getting ready to line up at the end of class...

...when someone's name was called...

Nate! Come on down! (you can see Skip in the background. He's a brown belt now)

You're not going to be in this class any more. Your blue belt is finished.

It's time for your promotion.

Congratulations, New Red Belt! Now show us what you can do!

And now I have to go back to the schedule, and find out when the red/brown/black belt students have their classes. JUST when I got a bit of a routine down, too.

On the up side, Skip and Nate can now go to the same class on Saturdays, when red/brown/black belts both junior and adults work out together.

Saturday Beach #1

2010-11-08T17:51:00.000-08:00

There were rumours that the weather was going to turn ugly this weekend, and Kelly had been complaining of a headache and sore throat for much of last week, so I really thought that our chances of getting out to the beach were pretty minimal on Saturday.

But on Friday evening, when Kelly mentioned that it had been quite a while since she had been over to see the horses, I said "Well, if you're up and ready to go by 730 tomorrow morning, I'll take you, and we'll just check it out."

Heh. I figured that she'd not be able to get up. She'd been dragging herself out of bed just in the nick of time all week, and moping around about how sick she was getting (no fever... don't know what was up with her... maybe she liked the idea of having an inhaler like mom and dad, or something)

But alas, 7:15am saw me snort out of a deep sleep to see my daughter standing over me, dressed in full 'going to where it might be cold' riding attire, and asking "Mom, I just have to find my helmet, and I think it's in your car. Can I have the keys?"

Um... so much for mom sleeping in...

And we were on the road at 7:38.

It was pretty touch-and-go at our house. Cold, and foggy, but I couldn't believe my eyes when we got to the coast.

Looking back the way we came, once we got to the ranch:

And the sky was clear over the ocean. Unbelievable!

There were quite a few people that had the same idea as us, and when we got to the front of the line, Jorge looked at Kelly and said "We've run out of horses... but can you ride Eddie? he's in the pasture, and I can go get him"

Um... can you say "Mom! It's like I'm in a dream!"...?

So the whole big gigantic group of people got on their horses, and headed slowly down the trail, and Jorge went to get Eddie for Kelly.

(the horses are all so cute now. They're growing in their shaggy winter coats, and look all fluffy)

He got Eddie all saddled up, and Kelly jumped on. "You can catch up to the group, right?" he asked, as he looked over at me and said "I'm going to have to lock the gate, and catch up with the group. There aren't enough guides."

So I snapped this quick shot as I ran back to the van, to leave the ranch before the gates closed, and Kelly headed off with one of the other ranch hands who was going out also to help with the big group.

I still managed to get to one of the check-points before her, so I could watch her trot by...

She wasn't really alone. One of the other guides was with her, also trotting to catch up with the big group.

But look at that glorious early morning sky! it really was something else.

It was high tide, and a high surf day out at the beach.

There wasn't a lot of beach left for all the horses to travel on.

Here, Kelly's caught up with the big group, and they're gathered on a small patch of high-ground on the beach, waiting to single-file it down the narrow beach to the rocky place where they turn around.

You can see the water in the lower left corner. That's higher than I've ever seen it come up the beach, although I know that with the storms, it can come all the way to the cliffs.

And here they come back up the beach...

"Mom, it was the wildest thing. YOu know how Eddie is really spooked by the water? Well, we got down to the rocks where we turn around, and he decided he was more afraid of the rocks, so he ran toward the water, and then he realized it was WATER, and he went "oh no! What to do. Dancy-dancy-dance! ZOOM!" It was the funniest thing, but I think I may have scared some of the people. But I was in control..."

Yup. A great day to ride on the beach.

And off the beach...

Choppers

2010-11-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

After school, Nate and i picked up Kelly and her friend Adria, and we went off on an excursion to the local public library.

As I was leaving our neighborhood, I had to pull over for an ambulance coming into the neighborhood, escorted by a couple of police cars. Hmmm. Very interesting. It ended up turning into the large open space Cross Country track that's very close to our house. There's a big cross country meet happening (nearly every day, this time of year), and the road was a little bit clogged with cars, and buses. The kids and I speculated as to why the emergency vehicles might be coming to the cross country meet. I think I need to curtail Kelly's TV watching. Her idea was that one of the runners might have smuggled a knife into the event, so that he could poke anyone in front of him, and take the lead. It beat out my idea that a rattlesnake had struck one of the runners, and Adria's idea that someone puked.

When we finally made it out of the neighborhood, there were no parking spaces at the local public library (and a bunch of folks trolling in the parking lot like giant contestants in a game of musical chairs), so we went off to the not-quite-so-local library, where there were tons of parking spaces.... if you were voting. Fortunately, there were also a few scattered spots for those of us who are not allowed to vote.

I love the library.

I took out a bunch of Enola Holmes Mysteries (they're juvies. Great short reads.) and Nate checked out a bunch of Calvin and Hobbes. The girls went online to find their homework (how very progressive!), and got a bunch of work done, and then we checked our books out and headed for home.

Coming back into the neighborhood, we met a few fire trucks going the other way, and a couple of police cars. That's a pretty long time for emergency vehicles to be loitering around our house, I must say. And then I noticed that there were choppers in the sky.

At first, I was thinking "Maybe helicopter-flying lessons? Maybe the traffic copter?" and then I thought my second guess was right, because I could see the little "2" on the side of it. Hmm. What's up? And then I saw another chopper with a "7" on the side. Interesting.

Of course, there's no whispers of what's up online. What good is the ability to instantly search the collected writings of the universe in a nanosecond, if I can'f find out who's writing about what's happening in my neighborhood RIGHT NOW?

Oh...

There it is...

One Hospitalized At Belmont Track Meet

Posted: 5:01 pm PDT November 2, 2010Updated: 5:11 pm PDT November 2, 2010

BELMONT, Calif. -- KTVU has received reports of what San Mateo County officials were calling a "mass casualty incident" in Belmont where athletes participating in a cross country meet were being treated for heat exhaustion late Tuesday afternoon.

One person was reportedly transported Stanford Medical Center and an additional dozen teens were treated at the site. There were upwards of 15 emergency vehicles visible at the scene in footage shot by NewsChopper 2.

The high school students were competing in a meet being hosted by El Camino High School.

Yikes!

A mass casualty incident????

And I drove OUT OF THE AREA, and went to the library, when I could've been there WITH MY CAMERA!!!!!

Oh well.

If you've seen one kid puke in the bushes, you've seen them all.

I suppose the fact that it was over 80 degrees out there (in NOVEMBER? What's up with that?) probably had something to do with it.

Oh great.

Ken just called.

He's on his way home.

Said he had a little excitement on his way to work...

He was rear-ended.

This is messing with my zen in a big way.

But he managed to make someone's day in a big way, because when they pulled over to the side of the highway and got out of the cars, the other guy was already apologetically presenting license and registration and insurance stuff, and Ken just looked at his bumper (intact, but scuffed) and said "Do you really want to report this? Have a nice day." I bet the guy didn't believe his luck.

Good. Grief.

I just looked at the papers that came with my prescriptions yesterday.

Insurance sure saves you a ton of money.

Yes, the Zpack was only $45, and I only had to pay $10 of that, but the Advair?????

That thing will set you back nearly THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS. At two puffs a day, it'll last you a month.

Thank you, expensive insurance, for saving me $269. I probably only had to pay ten times that in premiums this month.

Phar-ma-co-poe-ia

2010-11-01T19:40:00.000-07:00

So I went trotting off to the doctor this morning, and the first thing they did when they saw me in the reception area was to run at me with this:

And then I got shuttled back into the warren of exam rooms right away, and was ministered to by a very caring nurse, who told me that I had VERY good blood pressure, and VERY good temperature... not a fever at all. Just 99, which was really not high at all.

Except that i usually run around 97.5, so it is a bit of a low-grade fever.

Oh well.

The doctor was great, and we get along so well, it's kind of a shame that I really probably won't see her again for 3 years, as she isn't in the 'see me every year' camp, for healthy patients.

She listened to my lungs, and watched my face flush, and the sweat break out on my forehead, and then she said "You need drugs"

Boo yeah.

So I now have a Z-pack of antibiotics. I've had those before (both times when I was pregnant... and let the record show that I am NOT currently with child)

And I have a ProAir inhaler. This is to open up my airways, which are all inflamed and closed up like some poor asthmatic.

And lastly, I have ANOTHER inhaler, this one's Advair. I looked it up. it's for people with COPD. Great. And if I don't quickly rinse my mouth out with water after i use it, I could get THRUSH! Argh, that just sounds SO awful.

But I should start feeling better in the next couple of days when the Z-pack kicks in.

And now it's time for Dancing With The Stars.

Minecraft Halloween

2010-11-01T17:35:00.000-07:00

On Thursday night, Skip finally mentioned that he MIGHT have an idea for a cool Halloween costume, and could I pick up some supplies for him.

Of course I will. This is a kid that NEVER asks for anything. He'd probably still be wearing his 3rd grade underwear if I didn't take it away and burn it. And school supplies for him are "Oh, whatever you've got, I can make work".

So Thursday evening, while he and Kelly were off at the church youth Chill Night, I was off at Joann's and Michaels, looking for SIX different colors of green card stock.

News flash: Card stock doesn't come in six shades in the main retail establishments. But I did find 4 unique colors of card stock, and it WAS on sale (because I think I would've completely balked at spending THIRTY DOLLARS on paper).. And then I threw in two colors of green duct tape (because it's fun, and who doesn't need duct tape?)

And then Thursday night, Friday, and Saturday, I tried not to kill him when he went completely OCD about the dimensions of his costume.

Tell me, wouldn't your eyes glaze over if you heard this: "Sixteen pixels represents a meter in the game, so I need to make sure that each of my card stock pixel squares is one SIXTEENTH of a meter square, and they need to correspond to this pixel-skin map, because there is only ONE skin for this creature in the game, and if I'm going to make this costume, it's going to be exact. And that cardboard isn't quite right, so can we go find cardboard that is a little bit wider?" and then, when I buy the science fair cardboard fold-out thingies, that to MY EYE look exactly right, he takes a box cutter to them, to shave off three inches in this one direction, and messes with the ENTIRE reason for their folding symmetry.

And then, when he's about 20% of the way through 'decorating' one side of the cardboard head of his costume, he looks like he's losing interest, so he goes and spends hours on the computer, playing games, while leaving a STORM of construction debris in the family room, RIGHT in the path of traffic from the garage to the kitchen.

I swear, someone needs to give me a medal for enduring this.

Anyways, with Ken coming down hard on him a couple of times (Honestly, teenagers have NO concept of time-management, or 'working to a deadline'. When I'd say "You *are* going to have this done for the H'ween party on Sunday?" he'd say "Well, if i don't, that's ok, too", like there were going to be ALL THESE OTHER EVENTS that a costume is appropriate attire for...? My. Wit's. End!), he ended up coming down to the wire, and getting a pretty decent costume out of things.

In fact, it's SUCH an exacting replica, that I should probably submit it to BoingBoing, because the current costume that they've got up on their web site for this is a serious JOKE compared to Skip's.

And with further ado, here is the Scariest Monster in the Minecraft Universe (or so says those in the know. For me? I think it's kind of cute and forlorn in a.... ssssssssssssssssssssss BOOM........ sort of way)

MineCraft Creeper:

The head:

The body:

(Note: that body is only 4 pixels deep - which worked out to 10 inches, after all the math was done, which makes it the perfect costume for a crazy-skinny kid, and not something his curvy mom could ever squeeze into)

The initial cobbling together of the Creeper:

And then he got packing tape, and made the entire thing waterproof:

(there was a chance that it might rain tonight. He didn't want all his meticulous pixel-map reading to go to waste.)

Then Ken got in the act, building the infrastructure. He put in cardboard shoulder straps, and a set of tabs and slots to keep the head perfectly aligned.

And then Jewel checked it out.

(ok, I get a little claustrophobic just looking at that)

A few fixes to the slots in the head...

And then it was time for Creeper to go looking in doors...

Creeper approaches the church kitchen...

Creeper navigates the stairs... kind of difficult.

Creeper checks out the pizzas....

Creeper is sad because he has no mouth....

Creeper goes and looks in other doors...

H'ween Redux

2010-11-01T09:31:00.000-07:00

OK, chide me now. I did get up at 6 Friday morning and make Beaver Tails for Kelly to take to school.

Really, though, I was getting up at 6 because Nate had this mountain of homework that I felt guilty about because I'd had his backpack in the van the night before so he couldn't do his homework, and I didn't want him to miss out on any of the Friday festivities. He got himself up bright (ok, dark) and early, and was working on "writing a poem about a celebration in your family", which sounds fine, unless you factor in the next phrase, which says "Use the words from your spelling list", and they're words like "always", "until", "cannot", and "for".

So, I may have cheated a bit and said "Hey, a celebration in our family usually involves Beaver Tails, so let's write a Beaver Tail poem", and then I sort of dictated something to him. Of course, there was the expected melt down when my first two lines didn't RHYME, but then I introduced him to the cheater's paradise of 'free verse', and told him it was basically just writing down 3 or 4 words on a line, but still writing what you'd write anyways. Heh. It went something like this:

I can't wait

For my birthday.

Beaver Tails!

We always make

Taste treats for a celebration.

They are really sweet

I cannot wait

Until my birthday.

Beaver Tails!

(underlined words are from the spelling list. I was pretty pleased with myself)

Anyways, the Beaver Tails got made. Kelly got decked out in her H'ween costume, Nate got his costume into a bag, Skip made it out the door with Ken, and we all lived pretty much happily ever after. Except that I just wanted to go back to bed.

Which I did, after dropping Kelly at school, heading back to Nate's school, and distributing the Healthy Living Water Bottles to all the students before 9:30.

But I got up again before noon, and went back to school for the H'ween parade and ensuing festivities. Even though another dad in the class scooped me in the "Class Yearbook Coordinator" position, I'm still going to be on the hook for filling in any gaps in the yearbook, as the woman who's putting the yearbook together this year has never done it before, and I helped out quite a bit with last year's edition.

I got to school, and the class mom saw me with a camera and pounced, "Oh! The guy who said he'd do the yearbook didn't even get his volunteer paperwork cleared this year. Technically, he's not allowed on campus except to pick up and drop off his kids. Would you take photos for us just in case?"

Happy to oblige, I thought.

And so, 569 photos later, I left the campus. Exhausted, but satisfied.

I've now set up an online repository for any photos from school this year (I'm getting smart in my old age), and anything and everything that I photograph (or that someone photographs, and then forwards to me) is going to go on that site. It's actually picasaweb.com (again!) but under a different account.

So here are some school highlights.

Wow. Some of the kids (parents) went all out on costumes!

And I would write more, but the doctor's office just called me back, and they want to take a look at me. Turns out when your husband has pneumonia, and you call your own doctor and say "I have a cough that won't go away", they take you RIGHT in!

There is more to write. Gotta show off Kelly's costume. Gotta show off Skip's! You won't believe it. Especially if you've played any MineCraft.