My first Swap!

OK, I have absolutely OODLES of vacation entries to write, but they all get pre-empted by this:

I signed up for a swap over at Morning Glories and Moonflowers, back in June. I've never done a swap before, but this is a blog that my cousin writes, and it's been positively AGES since we've connected. (Like, before we were married, ages! Well, except that I made her daughter a quilt when she was born, but that was way back in my crafty-and-productive phase when I only had one kid). I'm happy to be getting back into contact with her, and, through her, with her family, who reads her blog, and now reads mine, too.

Anyways, she hosted a blog-swap, and it was for 'daughters of bloggers'. So I signed Kelly up, and I was thrilled to be paired up with her daughter. So the second-cousins (or the twice-removeds, depending on if you use English or German genealogy lingo, apparently) will have a chance to get to know each other.

When we were up in Canada, Kelly and I put together a little parcel of goodies for Amanda. Some things we'd bought while we were still home in California, and some stuff that we picked up in Canada. And, since we were visiting with my Nana (also my cousin's grandmother), I got some of her hand-embroidered linens, and her hand-crocheted doilies to bulk up the package. Because it's NEVER too soon to start your Hope Chest.

Thanks, Nana. (You look pretty fly for a 94 year old chick. I hope I age as gracefully!)

Kelly's parcel arrived yesterday. She was in girly-girl heaven, as she'd (of course) forgotten that it was coming.

There was a great kid-friendly lantern, perfect for bug collecting at night.

Amanda and her mom had made Kelly a great tote bag. And inside, where you can't see, is a great animal encyclopedia. Honestly, you can NEVER have too many animal encyclopedias!

And they made her flip-flops!

And under a mountain of lovely purple tissue paper, there was a giant box of Nerds (her favourite!) and a Littlest Pet Shop baby butterfly pet.

So now Kelly is completely sold on the idea of gift swaps. I guess I'll have to keep my eyes open for the next one. Thankyou for hosting this, my best favourite cousin. This was a wonderful experience for both of us.

Not to be outdone musically

Kelly had her musical yesterday morning.

She's been practicing with the kids choir at her friend's church since January.  A few months ago, she was given a solo.  She practiced it really hard.

I was quite worried on Thursday when she started saying her throat hurt, and REALLY worried when I looked in her throat on Friday morning to find a white spot on her tonsil.  Ken took a look, and thought it looked more like a zit or a canker sore than the dreaded white spots of strep.  But still... a mother worries.

Of course, the weekend was SO busy that even if she HAD had strep, we wouldn't have been able to get to a doctor to have her seen before leaving for camp, and then Ken would've just had to put his foot down and say "You're not going to camp where you will infect a hundred other kids", and then she would've cried, and then I would've felt like crap.

But on Sunday morning she seemed to have most of her voice back.  And the mysterious throat spot was gone.

Hallelujah.

She just had the post nasal drip and the suddenly-squirty-runny-eye symptom that I find the MOST disconcerting when I have a cold.

But I told her to do two things while she was up on stage.  Do NOT adjust the barettes in your hair, and Do NOT wipe your nose or eyes on your shirt.

Hmm.

Skip and his buddy Cole got a bit concerned during the first performance, because she had the squirty-eye thing hit her, and the boys thought she was crying because she was nervous or something.  Yeah... Kelly... Nervous.  Har har har.  That's a good one, Cole.

But even with her head cold in full flower, she still managed to make her momma proud.  A couple of slightly flat notes, but she was mostly on pitch.  And better than the older kids that sang.  But that's just her proud mommy talking.

And, well, maybe I had a bit of eye-squirty action too.

 

Sound the Trombone

I'm trapped in River City, people.

Well, one seventy-sixth of it, anyways.

Ken was finally able to finagle out of Skip how the Honors Band Audition went.

---

Oh... back story:

This year, like several years in the past, the band at Middle School is heavy and thick with trumpets and flutes; trumpets being the masculine everyone-wants-me instrument, and flutes being the feminine counterpart. There are thirty trumpet players? Forty? That's a LOT of trumpets. And when you factor into it that one of those trumpets is a cornet-playing kid who's been RECORDED, you can see that the bar is pretty darned high.

Now, last year, I made a lot of excuses for Skip, and why he didn't get into Honors Band. The audition was right around the time that Ken's dad nearly passed away, and Ken was out of the country, and then Ken's grandma died, and we didn't know if we should all go to Canada to the funeral, and miss the last week of school, bla bla bla, and Skip did about zero minutes of rehearsal while all this swirling stress was rolling through the house, and so when he didn't get in, I chalked it up to stress, and the fact that Every Last Other Kid that got into Honors Band playing trumpet was taking private lessons, and we just couldn't afford the time or money to do that for Skip.

Yeah. I'm an enabler.

So, fast forward to this year's auditions, and Skip's more focused. He really REALLY wants to get into Honors Band, but not for the reasons most people think. He doesn't want the glory, or the accolades, or the sweet gigs around town. He only... ONLY wants to get into Honors Band because every year at Halloween, the Honors Band takes the morning off, and walks up to Ben Badger Elementary (where Skip went), to play for the little kids' Halloween Parade.

And this year? He's already told me that he MUST go this year because this is the ONLY time that he will be at the same school with BOTH of his siblings. Yes, Kelly and Nate will both be at Ben Badger starting this year, and Skip is all family-sentimental like that, and wants to have this memory of "all being in the same place". I get a little weepy just thinking about it.

But there's the pesky matter of the Trumpet Audition. And this year you throw in a bolus of 6th graders who are eligible for Honors Band, including the child cornet genius, and two dozen kids who are taking private lessons, and one boy who only wants to play in the Honors Band so he can play for his brother and sister at Halloween gets lost in the shuffle if you're not careful.

Oh yeah, and then you add this into the equation: Skip discovered the Chapman Stick the week before Trumpet Auditions, and spent all his free time playing strings instead of brass. Yeah, "Smooth move, Ex-lax!" (as my brother used to say).

Things did not look good.

Err... that was a lot of back story...

---

So, anyways, yesterday Ken finally gets Skip to open up about the audition. They are in the car, heading to church.

Ken: So, Skip. How did the audition go?

Skip: I have a piece of paper to show you when we get home.

Ken: Sure, but how was the audition.

Skip: No, dad. I think showing you the paper will be better than me just telling you. It's a long story.

Ken: But did you DO the audition? Or what?

Skip: There were a LOT of trumpets auditioning...

Ken: And....?

Skip: Just wait. I really just want you to read this thing that the band teacher sent home with me.

So now Ken is stymied. WHAT could be on this piece of paper? Skip didn't look pleased. But he didn't look all "I just got suspended" defeated, either.

The piece of paper???

A letter from his band teachers. They're loaning him an instrument from the school for free over the summer. AND will provide it for free for the next school year...

*****IF******

If Skip will learn how to play it, and then play it in the Honors Band.

Seems there's a shortage of *good* trombone players in this generation.

Skip is just tickled pink. You see, when Ken was a kid, he wanted to join the band, and his dad said "Kenny, when you get in the band, there are going to be a hundred trumpet players, and you will NOT be the best one. BUT... if you ask the conductor what he NEEDS in the band, he probably will give you an instrument that nobody else wants to play, and you will KNOW that if you are the ONLY one that plays that, you are automatically the BEST one that plays that."

So Ken started off in the band as the ONLY/BEST Tuba player. He then went on to play EVERY instrument in the band (ironically enough, every instrument EXCEPT the trombone), and played so many of them that when his high school band went to a big foo-foo jazz festival/competition (complete with vendor displays), he felt confident enough that when a vendor offered to LOAN him a soprano saxophone (because they'd heard that Ken's band was going to be playing this one cool jazz standard that used a soprano sax, but they didn't have a soprano sax player in the band), Ken accepted the loaner sax, practiced for FIFTEEN MINUTES, and then played the soprano sax solo in the number and took home the gold! OR so the lore goes.

Yes, every family has its lore. And that's one of the old chestnuts that floats around in the Parker House. And Skip has internalized that story, and (even if he won't admit it), he wants to be Just Like Dad.

I don't blame him.

So we went to school this morning, Ken, and Skip, and Nate and I (Kelly is at camp. That's another entry), and the band teacher gave Skip a five-minute lesson on how to play the trombone, handed him a battered old Trombone Method music book, and a geriatric trombone in a beat up old black case.

I've been home long enough to write this entry, and Skip has already gone through the first 15 pages of exercises of the book. I'd say he's conquered about the first 8 months of Public School Trombone playing. That'd put him at about an early-fifth-grade Trombone Player level. I'd say by noon he'll have graduated from fifth grade, and will be as good as ANY sixth grade Trombone Player.

And he has the WHOLE REST OF SUMMER to conquer the instrument.

I guess that's the next you-tube video I should post: "Skip plays 'Flight of the Bumblebee' on Trombone after 4 hours practice"

Heh.

I kipped. Did you?

Today is WWKIP day.

Did you celebrate? Did you KIP?

What? You didn't? Shame!

Wanna see what I kipped?

Tough. I'm showing it, anyways.

Let's move in for a closer look.

Hmmm. Maybe that was a bit too close.

Oh, what's WWKIP day?

World Wide Knit In Public Day, of course.

I would've taken photos of the sticky Dairy Queen table that I was actually knitting at, but I think you get the idea.

It was a fluke that I actually knit on WWKIP day, though. I just naturally had my knitting on me, and I had a bit of down time while Kelly and her girlfriend were waiting for their lunch.

It was only when I got home that I realized the day. Whoopsie.

---

Good thing I had my knitting to distract me.

I nearly left Petco with the cutest little tan hamster.

As Kelly would say, "She was just SooOOOOOooooo cuuuUUUUuuuuute."

But I held my ground. This is not a good time to get a new hammie for Kelly. She leaves for camp tomorrow. And then she's got another week of day camp. And *then* we're going up to Canada, so she wouldn't be able to socialize it as much as she has done with Midnight, who is truly the world's cutest and cuddliest hamster.

---

Busy life in the Kung Fu department this week.

Goodbye, Green Tiger.

Hello, Red Tiger.

And, not to be outdone, on the same day, Goodbye Orange Belt, Hello Jade Belt Girlie.

My guess is that Skip will be moving from jade belt to green belt some time this summer. And that means that we go from two classes, three times a week, to three DIFFERENT classes, three times a week. And of course, the three class levels don't always happen sequentially. I foresee a LOT more knitting-in-public time.

---

Some of you (ok, ONE of you) asked for a photo of Nate's artwork in his books.

Here's a shot.

And I asked. He is not holding guns to the penguins. Those are air fresheners. Gun-shaped air fresheners.

---

Another one of my faves is having some cicada issues right now.

I guess it would be mean of me to show y'all my favourite souvenir from France.

Look. I asked for these all by myself, and IN FRENCH.

bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

---

When Skip wasn't looking, his bike was stolen right out from under him.

Oh Natey... you sly fox.

Good thing Skip is industrious, and soon will have earned enough to buy a nice new bike. One that's more his size.

Work, Skippy, Work.

Late for School

It's the second last day of school today.

You'd think that by now I'd have some sort of good routine developed for the mornings, but it never fails. We still end up running around like headless chickens, with me admonishing my kids to "please brush your teeth... yes, you have to do it every day... did you think that maybe one of these day's you'd get to stop? ...do we own a comb? Why are you choosing to not use it, then? ... no, you do NOT wash your face ONLY in the bath... every morning... is this some sort of revelation?"

You get the picture.

But today, with it being the end of the year I guess, I like to mix things up a bit.

At least, that's the only reason why I can think that my keys were NOT on the key rack in the kitchen.

So after the frantic running around for One Last This, and One Last That, and where are my socks, and can I put penguin-shaped ice cubes in my water bottle, and why don't my flip-flops work if I'm wearing socks, and, and, and... suddenly Skip says "I need to be at school in five minutes, and why aren't we in the car?"

Oh, Captain Obvious. Maybe if you'd gotten your stuff together BEFORE you sat down to play the stick for half an hour after breakfast, you wouldn't be asking this question.

So I run around behind the kids, clapping my hands together right by their butts, saying "Out to the car! Out to the car! Get your stuff and get out in the car!"

And then I reach for my keys.

And they are NOT there.

Now many of you know me. And you know that I am the exact opposite of organized.

But I have ONE thing figured out. One thing and one thing only. And that is that I KNOW where my keys are, because there is ONE hook in the kitchen, and it is the HOME for my car keys. If I did not have that home, I know that I would never be able to leave the house, because I would never have my keys, because I would never remember where I put them last.

Ergo, the hook.

And this morning, the hook was empty.

Cue panic at the disco.

Empty the purse. Check my pockets. Examine the dining room table. Look on the piano. Look in the fridge (shut up!). Look in the laundry room. Empty my pockets from last night.

The keys are GONE.

Fortunately, I know where Ken stashes his keys, because he's WAY more organized than I am. I finally admit defeat, and grab Ken's keys and race out the front door to where the kids are waiting.

And I see this:

Why yes, those ARE my keys, conveniently waiting for me in the lock of my Front Door. I must have put them there yesterday to make it easier for the robbers and thieves to come pillage our house in the middle of the night.

Go ahead. Laugh. It's good for your health.

First day of Kindergarten... again

We peeled out of the house early this morning, probably the first time that's happened in the entire school year.

I wanted to make sure that I was at school early enough to actually MEET the kindergarten teacher that I would be unloading Nate onto for the day.

I was all a bundle of nerves.

I shouldn't have been.

Turns out she's actually a retired teacher, come back to sub for her friend 'til the end of the year. She waved away all my "i'm so sorry"s and "I don't want to make extra work for you"s with "Extra work? What's that? it's kindergarten!" And when I said "If anything comes up, and the situation gets awkward having Nate in there, I'm working in the library all day, and you can just send him over." she laughed. "Nothing's gonna come up." was her reply.

Yeah. I like her.

And the first girl he met remembered me from when I used to drive her big brother in a carpool a few years back. And all the parents that I ran into (there were a ton), already knew me (hmm, I guess I do spend a lot of time at the school, don't I?), and thought I was just genius bringing Nate in when I did.

Whew.

---

Shh. Don't say anything, but I think Skip blew his trumpet audition for the Cream-of-the-Crop band for next year.

Turns out his audition was today, and, as you may or may not know, he's been completely obsessed this week with learning how to play the Chapman Stick.

Not a lot of trumpet practicing going on.

Not. A. Lot.

None at all, actually.

Oh well. We'll see what happens. He doesn't seem too broken up about it, anyways, as he raced into the house after school today to turn on the amp, so he could practice the Linus and Lucy theme from the Vince Giuraldi book that he found on top of the piano.

Oh, that's nobody we know. I just wanted the song in this entry.

And Skip's not wanting to play it on the piano, but on the Stick.

---

OK, two end-of-year events down today, uncountable ones to go.

But the Volunteer Thankyou Breakfast is over. And it was lovely. I had my ear talked off by a few parents, though. My goodness, the gossip is flying thick and heavy this spring. Juicy, too.

*eyes bulge a bit*

And then we had the Junior Librarian Luncheon at noon. All the kids that "helped" (and I *DO* use that term in the loosest possible way) were invited into the library for a party, complete with gifts and goodies. And then I kicked them out and put a bit "DO NOT DISTURB" sign on all the library doors.

Now the fun of organizing the collection begins.

I only hope that we'll be able to find funding over the summer to 'invite' the librarian back. Yuck. I hate that they're pink-slipped, but honestly, (*whispers*) if we have to cut something, I really think it SHOULD be the library, and not something like reading specialists or music. We've got a number of excellent public libraries within cat-tossing distance of our school, so honestly, there is no shortage of books. And I've looked in the classrooms, and each one is brimming with very well-stocked classroom libraries. So yeah. even though I *ADORE* working in the library, I do see the logic in cutting it first.

---

Nate's little Kindergarten Graduation was very cute. I have photos... somewhere.

I didn't stay for the reception afterwards, though, as I had a little touch of whatever has brought J-jumping to her knees. It's the Elton John diet... Rocketman!... burning to the bathroom every night.

I'm just glad I made it home from the ceremony without incident. Hooray for living 3 miles from the school. Any farther, and there's no telling what might have happened. But I will draw a curtain across any speculation that might become too much information.

In other Nate's First Kindergarten news...

I totally forgot to give his teacher a present yesterday.

I suck.

But I know she'll be in her classroom on Monday cleaning it out for the summer, so I've got all weekend to come up with something excellent... you know, that excellent thing that I *accidentally* left at home yesterday ALL THREE TIMES I went to Nate's school.

Whoopsie.

That is all.

Pachelbel, eat your heart out

A-HA! I have conquered the Dragons that inhabited my computer, and were trawling around You-Tube, as well. Here's the video of Sir Skippy, after a day of paying attention to what he was doing on the Chapman Stick. Heh.

Considering that Skip's probably been practicing on the Stick for about 3 hours total (in his life), I'm pretty pleased with what he's been able to accomplish. It's not concert-worthy yet, but good golly, he got close in an evening of concerted practice.

Mr. Snappy

Well, Mr. Snappy did his job, and he did a fine job.

Yesterday, we (and by 'we', I mean *I*) discovered that another mouse had been snatched up into the iron grip of one of the new Mr. Snappy traps that I laid out the other night. Straight across the neck. I'm sure Mrs. Squeaky didn't feel a thing. She has been properly buried, in a nice plastic Safeway casket, entombed in the faux marble stylings of the interior of our Rubbermaid Trash Can.

I sure hope this is the end of our rodent misery.

---

Today is Nate's last day of school... at his FIRST kindergarten.

I took in Starbucks to all the teachers. The rooms look so bare. They're all getting ready to be done. The walls are empty, all the art has been taken down, and once the cookout happens at noon, it'll be all over but the shouting... oh, and the commencement exercises this evening.

Yesterday, I screwed up my courage, and had Kelly track down Nate's "new" kindergarten teacher at the public school. How embarrassing that I didn't even recognize her? I felt (and looked) like some pushy new parent. "Hello, are you Miss Archer? My son will be starting in your class on Friday. I thought I better meet you and let you know what you are getting into." Yeah. Don't I look like the veteran.

But I hashed it out with her, and she looks like a lovely lady. I offered to pull Nate from the class any time that she thought it would be awkward for him to be in there (whether for him, OR for the rest of the class), as I'll be working in the library for the rest of the school year, getting it ready to either (a) reopen in September with new stock, or (b) shut down in September, when we find out that we don't have Library Funding, and our librarian gets the boot for good. She's already been given a pink slip, but it's an "interim' one, that could be revoked. I'd HATE to live like that, but such is the state of education in our state, that it's common practice. One of the Aides was in the library yesterday, and she said "oh, I'm just used to that. I've been "fired" 5 times now. Yikes! How can you live like that, and not go crazy???

Turns out that I have to meet ONE MORE Kindergarten teacher, though, as Miss Archer team teaches with another teacher, and it will be this OTHER teacher that Nate will meet on his first day of New Kindergarten tomorrow. Great. I hope the other teacher is as nice and roll-with-it as she was.

---

I have a video that I am DYING to show y'all, and youtube is being a putz about uploading it.

I have half a mind to go down to Ken's work and DEMAND that someone high up the food chain there find someone in charge at Youtube, and kick some Youtube butt. I want my video on that site, DEMMIT!

Of course, it might be a problem at my end, as my ISP keeps dropping me.

Oh, and joy of joys, our broadband internet is being cut off at the end of the month. Seems Sprint is in the bad books of the FCC, and is no longer going to be able to do satellite internet. Whoopsie. Time to go make nice-nice with the folks at AT&T. Just so long as I don't get Antonio, the telemarketer who knows nothing at AT&T, again.

---

I started knitting a piece of lace with some apple green Malabrigo lace-weight merino. For you Ravelry types, or anyone who wants to see what I'm hoping to re-create, you can look here.

Photos should be coming soon. I've only had to frog it once. Apparently, I can't count to six.

I am also knitting a garter stitch baby kimono in Peaches & Cream dishcloth cotton. Shades of turquoise. Makes me wish I was a baby, so I could wear it.

---

Well, laundry's in the machines, the mouse is in the trash, the dishes are piling up in the sink, and it's time for me to head to the library to get that whipped into shape before going to Nate's year-end cookout.

Mmmm. Cheeseburgers on the grill. NO wonder I'm not losing any weight in the weight-loss challenge. Well, ok, I've lost 4 pounds, but that's nothing compared to some of my competitors.

Nate's Magnum Opi

Is 'opi' the plural of 'opus', like cacti is the plural of cactus?

[well, would you look at that? It's 'opera'. I'm keeping it as 'opi', because I think it looks cool, and I don't anyone thinking that he's writing any operas about floral-shirt wearing Ferrari drivers in Hawaii]

Nate and his classmates tore down the classroom today, in preparation for the final day of school tomorrow (which is a cook-out). As a result, he brought home all his work for the year. Included in this pile of wonderfulness is a bunch of books that he 'published' over the year.

I will regale you with some of them.

First,

"My TV in My Head", a book by Nate Parker. (imagine that each of the following lines is at the bottom of a page, richly illustrated)

I have a TV in my head. My head is the remote.
My forehead is Captain Scarlet. My left ear is StarCraft.
My right ear is Battlefront. My chin is Star Wars.
My neck turns off everything. I haven't even done it yet. I am going to do that at my house.
My sister took my TV out of my head! I took Kelly's TV out of her head!
I have a computer in my head. I play StarCraft all the time. I will have a very good year.

Ahem. Not bad for a Kindergartener (or, as a friend of mine mentioned "Not bad for a kid that's REPEATING kindergarten), if I do say so myself. I think he'll do fine in Public Kindergarten, come Friday.

Here's another book:

The Teachers Don't Lock the Doors, a book by Nate Parker. (once again, each line is on a different page, richly illustrated)

My house says penguins. I like penguins. Bart likes penguins. My house SMELLS like penguins!
My school smells like penguins! Today Bart and I decided to spray air freshener.
Everything smells like penguins because penguins are walking in our school. Bart and me sprayed air freshener at the penguins!
The air freshener smells like anything you want. Bart and me chose the smell of lollipops.
The teachers don't like the smell of the air freshener so they ran away and they didn't lock the doors.
The children sang "Party, party, Puffle!" When it was recess all the kids played dodge ball.

For 20 years and a month this went on. I felt very good and I never wanted it to end.

All Quiet on the Western Front...

... or is it?

The second set of traps that I set out haven't seen any action.

Can I hear a "Hooray"????

Last night, though...

Ken's going out to take the trash cans from the garage to the street, and I'm putting things away in the kitchen when I hear him call from the garage. "Kem-ma"

Imagine Fred Flinstone, as he calls "Willlll-maaaaaaaaa"

(ok, so he didn't call like that, but humour me. It makes for a funny story.)

Anyways, he calls me to the garage, "Kemma? While I'm doing the trash, please set out the new traps"

Ruh-roh.

Apparently, when he went to grab the trash cans, a little mouse scurried under his feet and booked it for the safety of the zone under the freezer.

Waaaaaah.

And when we looked at the rat trap, all the peanut butter had been licked off of it.

Waaaaaaah.

So now the garage is re-booby-trapped.

And I'm afraid to go looking in it this morning before I take the kids to school.

---

In other news.

I registered Nate for Kindergarten yesterday.

I did ...WHAT???, you may ask. Isn't Nate finishing Kindergarten tomorrow? Doesn't he have his little Kinder-Convocation tomorrow evening?

Why yes. Yes, he does.

Here's the poop.

In our school district, the schools are very full. Full to capacity, even.

And even though Nate is a sibling of a student who is currently enrolled, he is NOT guaranteed a spot in First Grade next year. Crazy, yes? And all the times I've gone into the school office, the only answer that they can give me is that they'll PROBABLY know by some time in August.

I can't wait until some time in August to know whether Nate's got a space in our local public school. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue in the fall if I have to take Kelly to our local school, Skip to the local middle school, and then Nate to some overflow school 15 miles away? Oh, and that school has the exact same starting bell as Kelly's school.

I was chatting with Toni yesterday (she is truly a font of all knowledge sometimes), and she said that at her school in the district, they had a new student start on Monday. Apparently, someone had left the school to go to ANOTHER district (that is also full to capacity) to finish the year (2 weeks) there, so they would be guaranteed a spot next year, and before the kid's desk was even cold, ANOTHER kid had moved into it, thus guaranteeing HIS spot at that school next year.

Hmmm, the wheels of my brain were turning...

I went to Kelly's school (I'm there All The Time, anyways), and asked the secretary "Is the kindergarten class currently full to capacity?" She looked up at me, "Actually, it's not, right at this minute. There's one empty slot"

I looked her in the eye, and, after an eternity of internal turmoil, said "Not any more. I'd like to register Nate as a kindergartener for the remainder of this year."

She smiled a tiny little smile. But it was a secret smile. Officially, she has NO OPINION on this, and cannot counsel me one way or the other. She did rush the paperwork through, though.

And Nate starts at Kelly's school on Friday.

The new student.

I hope the kindergarten teacher doesn't kill me. It's gonna be a butt-load of work to bring a new kid into the fold at this late stage.

I'm going to try to talk to her today, and just let her know that this truly is just a formality, and I don't want Nate to be afforded with all the comforts of a 'regular' Kindergarten student. Think of him as a 'guest', or a 'visitor' for this last week. He rolls with things so easily, and I think he'll be pleased just to meet new kids.

Or this whole thing could blow up in my face, and I could live to regret it.

We'll see on Friday.

And now it's time to take the kids to school

Have a grand day, all.

Knitty content: The Haruha scarf

This is my first foray into lace knitting.

You can find the pattern for the Haruha scarf here.

Even though the Drops Alpaca that I was using shed like a samoyed blowing his coat in spring, I really like how the yarn knit up.

I'm sure eventually, the loose hairs will all fall off, and the finished object will be grand.

Here's the piece after the knitting was done.

And it's great just like this, but it doesn't show off the lacy bits. Let's give that a dunk in a sink, and a bit of a stretch out while it dries.

Drying.... drying...

And now look at it!

So here are the specs.

1 skein Drops Alpaca sport-weight. 50gm. 180m.
Finished dimensions: 20cm x 100cm. (8x39 inches)
Needles: 3.75mm

And it is Soft, Soft, Soft. I may have to wear it tomorrow, even if it is 80 F outside.

Busy night in the Parker House

And we weren't making rolls. Get it? Parker House... rolls? OK, it's a baking joke. And a lame one.

After years of putting up with the half-broken kitchen faucet (just ask my best friend. She broke the handle off nearly 4 years ago, and thought she was to blame. If I'd been more of a punk, I would've let her think it was her fault, but honestly, it wasn't the first time it had busted. And it's been broken EVER SINCE!) Ken went out yesterday, and, while getting a replacement halogen bulb for the kitchen light got this wild hair and came home with a new kitchen faucet.

And then he was all He-Man and burly, and FIXED IT!

See?

During:

Oh that? That's my little jerry-rigging. We couldn't turn the hot water all the way off, so I tied a baggie to the drippy end, and then wired the pipe so that the drips would fall out of the bat into the bucket, and stay out of the way of My Hero, the Computer Guru Slash Plumber.

And then....

Oh wow. No turning back. And someone? Get rid of all that gross caulking!

And the finished object?

Ooh.

Aah.

And it doesn't leak! And it doesn't squirt water to the ceiling when you turn it on. And the handle doesn't come off when you turn on the cold water.

WOOT!

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In other news.

It's the 25th anniversary of the movie War Games.

The director and a few names from the original movie came to New Hip Company last week. There was a private screening of the re-mastered Anniversary Edition.

And there were give-aways.

Woot again, I say!

Ken said he could have gotten any of the DEFCON levels from 1 to 5, but thought that Nate, Little Mister Swirling Disaster Zone, really deserved DEFCON 5.

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OH man, no WONDER I'm not losing any weight in this online weight loss challenge.

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The last concerts of the year at Middle School were last week.

Skip had to be there both nights because he was in the band AND in the jazz band.

Ken got a little bored.

I just knit.

And knit and knit and knit and knit.

Skip played well, but I think they played better at Disneyland.

But I think he played even better when he was playing with the Jazz Band.

Just like Doublemint Gum

it's two...

Two...

Two hits in one!

We hit the snap-trap jackpot today, ladies and gentlemen.

It's time to buy more traps.

Because two of the traps in the garage have served their purpose.

In one, the mother of all rats.

The trap was instantaneous. It cut her across the top of her head, and I had to mop up brain splatter. It was like a little bit of CSI.

In the other. The mother of all mice. This one was more traditional, getting Minnie across the neck and breaking it cleanly. I'm certain that neither of them suffered, and went straight to rodent heaven with the delectable scent of peanut butter on their breath.

My only concern now is that I didn't get everyone in this barrage. You see, both rodents were mommy rodents.

I wonder where the bambinos are.

Saw the Rat

Last night, after supper, I went upstairs to do a bit more reading in my Italian Fairy Tales book (Italo Calvino. What a writer!), and seeing as the Fairy Tale book is in the ensuite bathroom, you can guess where I took my seat.

It would have been a nice relaxing read, were it not for the sudden sounds of rustling and scurrying that nearly made me jump out of my skin. JUST outside the wall of the shower. Or maybe just INSIDE the wall of the shower. Was that a rat on the roof? Or was it under the roof? Or was it... INSIDE OUR WALLS????

I raced downstairs, and let Ken know that my tiny bit of garage cleaning over the last 2 days had not dislodged the rat. I hadn't scared it enough to make it leave the comforts of our garage.

It was time to get serious about the garage vermin.

So we went out, and Ken and I tackled the stuff in the Rat Corner of the garage.

I'll admit it. I was just a girly-girl, and couldn't bring myself to go exploring in there by myself. I'll just live with the shame.

He was all burly-man, though, and wading into the rat-chewed boxes, pulling stuff out (wow, I forgot that we kept Nate's crib. It was back there in pieces. Fortunately, not chewed by the rat), and handing it to me to be swept down (if it had rat poops on it, or seed hulls (hmm, the rat had been busy). He was pulling stuff out, taking down piles of boxes, unearthing stuff we'd forgotten about when I saw it.

Out of the corner of my eye, and with the stealth of a jedi, it scurried past me without a sound.

Yikes.

I commend myself for not shrieking and jumping up onto the ladder's top rung.

Ken picked up a fire extinguisher. "Hmm, I could shoot this at the corner where he went. That would certainly give him something to think about."

"Yeah" I replied "But it would also make a great big mess on those shelves that he just scurried under."

Instead, Ken passed me the three traps that had been left by Clark Pest Control the last time we'd had a mouse. That was almost 3 years ago. Amazing how time flies when you're not infested with vermin. I baited them with peanut butter, and reset them, and Ken placed them along the path that we saw the rat take.

Fingers crossed!

Oh, rats!

Tomorrow is trash day. Trash day and recycling day.

So at 11pm, just as I'm thinking "time to pack it in for the day", Ken says "I'll just take out the trash", and this little voice in my head says "Hey! You've gotta get your money's worth out of that trash can! You're paying for a full can, you should toss out a full can!" so I go running around the house, finding a few more things to toss out, and making sure that the crisper drawers in the fridge actually contain things that are crisp and not mushy.

Just as the fridge door alarm is sounding, Ken calls from the garage.

"Hey, Kem. Come out here for a moment."

Whoopsie. What did I forget to do? Did he find a bill that I absent-mindedly put down on the shelf out there, and is consequently months overdue? Is the door to Homer standing wide open? (wouldn't be the first time).

Nope.

He just wanted to show me something in the recycling bin.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Oh, Mickey, you're so fine. You're so cute and uniformly grey, and you've got those great big trusting eyes, but I told you NEVER TO CALL ME AT HOME again. Ken asked me what he should do with it, and I suggested that we release him back into the wilds... across the street in the neighbour's hedge.

I was just patting myself on the back for only having two mice in our house in 7 years when I heard a noise.

And this wasn't any wee little cute Mickey-Mouse noise, either.

And that's when I saw it.

A turd the size of Mickey's head.

Now, either Mickey was one constipated field mouse, or we've got trouble.

Right here in River City.

With a capital T, and that rhymes with P and that stands for poop.

Rat poop.

And then I heard the noise again.

And then I squealed like a girl, and ran into the house.

Tomorrow morning, I'm putting on the rubber gloves and the steel-toed boots, and I'm cleaning out the corner of the garage. The one that had Rat Noises.

And when you hear the high-pitched shrieking? That'll just be me, screaming like a girl when Rat Boy runs over my foot.

*shudder*

I can never guess the next obsession

Sometimes, Skip is an enigma.

An enigma wrapped in a mystery, to quote something that must've been said once, and was trapped forever in my brain.

And then other times, he may as well be wearing a sign that says "this is what I am thinking", because he's so easy to read.

Lately, I've been wondering what his next obsession will be.

He likes getting interested in something, and then CONQUERING it.  It started when he was very young.  I think he must've been around three.  Ken told him that there were other planets, and that most of them had satellites around them that were Just Like Our Moon.  And that was all it took.  Skip became obsessed with the planets.  I knew i was in for a bit of a challenge one morning over breakfast, when he asked me "Mom, what is your favourite moon?" and me, not knowing any better said "Full Moon", only to be met with the foreshadowing-of-teen-years eye rolling as he explained "No, I mean which MOON.  Like... for example, Mars.  Which Mars moon is your favourite?  Phobos or Deimos?" (Ack.  I just realized that I had NO idea what they were called, and had to Google them... and Skip had them in his brain when he was THREE)

Over the years, he's latched onto many topics, and conquered them one by one, insofar as he's been able to get his brain around them.

Last summer, it was Guitar Hero.  Not exatly the Intellectual Pursuit of Champions, but he stuck with it like a terrier with a rat until he had five gold stars on every song.

Nothing's really captured his fancy lately (the four re-readings of Orson Scott Card's Ender series over the last month notwithstanding), so I was starting to be on the lookout for topics to toss his way, to see if anything stuck to him like velcro.

Then this weekend hit.

First, it was Friday evening's Weapons Seminar at Kung Fu.

Skip and weapons, Skip and weapons...

Go together like a horse and carriage...

Could this be the new obsession?  Since the seminar, I've caught him going over the techniques in idle moments, even without weapons in his hands.

Also, this weekend is Kubla Con.  It's something that Ken and Skip do together every year.  I don't know that I'd call it an obsession, but Skip sure enjoys it.  This year, he's decided that he's going to spend as much time as possible at the Con just painting miniatures (joy!  More clutter!).

So with Ken and Skip away all day, I had the littles.  We went to Kung Fu, then out for breakfast, then off to church to set up for Sunday (they were great helpers), and then off for lunch.  The afternoon and evening were spent at a great barbecue party hosted by one of the Disneyland Chaperones.  All the chaperones were there, AND the two band teachers.  Most of them brought their families, but I was playing the role of single mom.  It wasn't tough, though, because the kids were well taken care of by all the other kids (and some nice responsible high-schoolers), so it was just like I was out on my own, having fun with other grown ups. 

We ate and ate and ate, and while we were eating and chatting, one of the dads had put together a slide show of all the photos taken on the tour, and they ran on the big-screen TV in the background.  A couple of the dads had gone to Disney with EXCELLENT cameras, and now I have major DSLR camera lust.  The photos were amazing.  Truly amazing.  I got to introduce Kelly and Nate to the two band teachers, who were very encouraging and warm, and made the kids WANT to pursue music, so they could have those teachers when it was THEIR turn to go to Middle School, and play in the band that got to go to Disneyland.  While we were chatting, it happened to come up in conversation that Ken plays the Chapman Stick.

(ahem.  No, this is NOT Ken)

 

Here's a wee video. (this is also not Ken)

Anyways, it's the sort of thing that, if Skip learned it, would be an EXCELLENT (there's the CAPS LOCK again.  I'm in a rut) addition to the Jazz Band.

After the BBQ party, we met up with Ken and Skip at our favourite sushi place on the way home (they'd had enough of KublaCon for one day), and while we were noshing (yay!  That makes two suppers on my plate tonight.  I can just see the weight cascading off of me!) I mentioned to Ken and Skip that I thought playing the stick would be a great Jazz addition. 

Ken agreed, and said that most good Stick players didn't start playing stick until they were in their 20s or 30s, and if Skip started at 13, and applied himself the same way he'd applied himself to Guitar Hero last summer, he'd easily be in demand and recordable in only a few years.

Skip got a far-away look in his eyes as he repeated "...recordable...?"

Oddly, I never thought of Skip as wanting the limelight, but he really seemed to catch a fire at the thought of being an in-demand musician on an obscure instrument. And it was as if I could see the gears churning inside his head.

We'd barely got home, and he went to work.

 First, Ken gave a little demonstration.

 

 

And then Skip picked it up while Ken showed him the instruction manual.

Hmm.

Looks like it's only a matter of time...

 

 

A very merry Mother's Day

Yesterday morning, I didn't have to get out of bed right away when my alarm went off.

The kids shuffled around all quiet-like, and I laid there, slipping in and out of consciousness for half an hour before getting up and having a leisurely shower.  Amazing.  I didn't have to run around behind ANYONE doing the clap-my-hands-by-their-butt and saying "Hustle, we're going to be late".  I did my hair, and makeup, and even put on a skirt before coming downstairs where the tantalizing smell of fresh baked croissants lured me with their siren-call scent.

And I saw this on the chalkboard in the kitchen.



...and this on the table


The croissants were gone before I could get a photo, though.  You'll just have to imagine.

And imagine this!  Without me running around hustling behind the kids, we ALL got to church early.  Yes, it was a good morning.  Ken got inducted/installed/whatever-you-call-it as an elder at church, making him officially "old", and was thoroughly embarrassed by all the great (and well-deserved) things that the board said about him.

After a nice lunch at home, the kids asked for some time at the local elementary school, so we loaded up the bikes, and off we went.

Nate tooled around on "the puny bike"


...and the Big Wheel.


While Skip rode around on Kelly's girly-girl bike.


I tell you, that kid just amazes me sometimes.  Ken kidded Skip about taking a photo of him on Kelly's girly Hello Kitty bike, and then showing it to all his friends.  His response?  "Oh, you've gotta show it to Cole, but make sure you show it to him in front of all HIS friends, because HE is the one that gets embarrassed about stuff like this, not me."   So true.  Skip just is not swayed by the idiocy of peer pressure.  Oh, he preens when the 8th grade guitar-genius acknowledges his presence in the jazz band, but other than that, he's not all kerfuffled about making sure 'I'm in the club!"

I should've been more like that when I was a kid.

Anyways.  While they were riding around, I was finding a sheltered corner, to stay warm (oh, it was sunny, but the wind was really fierce) and knit.

Oh, it doesn't look like much now...


But when it's stretched out and blocked, it's gonna look a whole lot better.


And it's soft as but-tah.

Fun in the sun.


And after Skip got tired of the Hello Kitty bike, he went off to do Man Things.




Oh, there's a new art installation at the school.  This year, the kids did self portraits.  It was just a matter of finding Kelly's in the sea of faces.  Hmm.  The freckles gave her away.


And it was sunny, and the deer haven't found Kelly's little garden area yet, so the plants are still uneaten, and I have a lovely Mother's Day flower at home.


And if you look really closely in the flower?  You see a leopard's head.

About a deer

I was driving home from church last Sunday with the boys. (not yesterday. That was Mother's Day, and I was pampered like a queen). Anyways, Kelly had decided that she needed to go "on a date" with dad, so she was off with her father, doing some daddy-daughter bonding.

Everyone, say it with me. "Awwwwwww"

So I'm driving home, and we don't take the freeway (which is where we see deer All The Time, although they're usually just on the side of the road gorging themselves on the new grass), and it's uneventful except for the fact that Nate Will. Not. Stop. Talking.

We're on this sleepy little WIDE road heading back to the house. It's marked at 35mph, but lots of time folks just go slower (except for the idiot in the BMW X5 suv that insists on taking it at Indy500 speeds). And sometimes I think we live in the Twilight Zone, because I can drive the whole way home in my neighbourhood and not see a single person outside. But Sunday was different. There were folks out working in their gardens, and at least 3 people walking dogs.

Nate: "...And for my 6th birthday I want to go to Pump It Up, and I'm going to invite ALL my friends from school, and my Sunday School class, and maybe some friends that I can have when I go to Kelly's school next year, and then when I turn seven, I want to have a skating birthday party, and we'll go to the place by the big Target and the Red Robin, and ..."

Seriously, I had one ear on him, one ear on the radio, and I was looking at the people on the street thinking "I really have to do something about my front yard, because we're starting to look like the Trailer Park family on the street" when I noticed that there was actually a DEER chomping down on the garden of one of my neighbours. And there were All These People all around her, too, and she was just STANDING there, chewing on something that was probably WAY expensive, and newly planted, when

SUDDENLY!

That stupid deer BOLTS from my right. Just BOLTS, I tell you!

Not even enough time for Nate to stop in his Birthday Monologue.

I did slam on the brakes, though, and it was ALMOST enough. The deer clipped off of my front bumper right at the driver's corner. So she ALMOST made it past me. But it was enough of a hit to knock her back legs out from under her, and make her cartwheel across the road and end up on her back against the sidewalk, with her legs twirling in the air, like a turtle on her shell. Funny, if it wasn't so traumatic. I should've had the camera.

I was pleased to see her finally right herself, and go sproinging off into the bushes (wild space on that side of the road) but I was still thinking "oh crap! I've got a crumpled car to deal with" as I slowly... SLOWLY... drove the rest of the way home.

But you know what? Homer must be the incredible self-healing machine, because there was Not A Scratch on him. Although as I went over him with a fine toothed comb, I did noticed that there is a TINY scrape on the back corner where I took out a Honda Accord in the gymnastics parking lot last year. But not even a smudge from where I took down Bambi's mother.

Lemon Tart

My daughter, the little tart!

No, I mean my daughter made a big tart.  A big lemon tart.


Shortbread crust.  Yum.

But she opted to have no lemon zest in the tart.  She didn't like how the little bits got in between the teeth.  Le sigh. 

Not that the omission of the zest made the tart last any longer, though.

Time=0:00


Time=0:01

(er, ok, so there were a few issues with the tart not having enough time to set.  This thing was TOO good looking, though!  We couldn't stay away.)

Time=0:02


Time=0:03


Yes, it was that good.  It was lick-the-plate good.

But the boy, he needs the extra sustenance.

He's going up against the big guns.


While his sister plants her garden.

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In other news, I have finished the SeaSilk shawl.


I still think I need to block it hard, but I don't know if the seaweed will hold a shape, or not.

I have moved on to a Haruha Scarf.  No photos yet.  I'm using some soft-as-a-baby-butt Alpaca that I bought last summer up in Canada.  Or was it the summer before?  Sheesh.  I will NEVER make it through this stash.

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In still other news, I have, this far, lost 1% of my body weight in the 8-week flab-to-fab challenge.   I think that number would have been WAY higher if I hadn't fallen rather hard off the wagon when I *accidentally* bought a pound of chocolate chip cookie dough the other day.  Oh well.  I'm doing the special Mother's Day Kung Fu class at Skip/Kelly/Nate's academy tomorrow afternoon, so I'm hoping that I'll sweat off all that chocolatey goodness then.

And sweat off my 1/3 of THIS luncheon pleasure from yesterday:


As an aside:  Did you know that you can get ANY three toppings on a banana split?  You don't HAVE to go the Strawberry/Chocolate/Pineapple route.  It's so freeing!  Yesterday, we had Strawberry, Cherry, and MARSHMALLOW!!!!

Oh! 
*swoons*

So you see, I *need* the Kung Fu class.  Maybe a few hard jabs to the cellulite.  And a swift kick to the jello-butt.

And maybe that'll knock some sense into me.

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