The Khooler Report

End Petlessness

2012-02-17T21:15:00.000-08:00

We spent the last New Years Eve (and surrounding weekend) in Portland. It was fun- we rode the light rail, visited the children's museum, saw the OMSI, went to Powells, and had a number of free drinks at the manager's reception at our hotel.

Just as an aside, I am watching a Pink Panther movie on the crappy old movie channel (does anyone else get this channel? It's the second digital channel of...ABC? CBS?), and Patsy from Ab Fab is playing a newscaster. As an aside from my aside, the commercials that air on this channel are targeted toward two groups, old people, and jobless people who either need vocational training or need to collect some lawsuit money. Lots of "I've fallen and I can't get up" type commercials, prostate health supplements, lawyers with very specific case pitches, and cooking schools.

Anyway, while we were in Portland, I noticed several awesome billboards from the Oregon Humane Society sporting the "End Petlessness" slogans. And this is the year that we end our petlessness. The problem is, our neighbors are still working away on their home renovation project, and we are still without a fence. I have this idea that a fence is a prerequisite for bringing home a pooch. So, we wait.

But! Today when I picked up Naomi, she told me she had an important secret. She is, wait for it, next week's star student! Every week some kid is the star student, and they bring in their favorite book and toy, and ten favorite photos, and fill out a questionnaire about themselves. One of the questions is: "For a pet I have..." There was a minute or two where we all reflected on the inappropriateness of mentioning Luna, but in a jokey way (really). I guess we're all better. And there was some clamor that we would need to acquire a pet before the star student week kicked off (we have an extra week thanks to some newfangled invention called "winter break"). But as committed as I am to ending petlessness, I think I'm going to have to hold out for a fence.

Cultural Night!

2012-02-16T21:32:00.000-08:00

I am so sleepy I can barely hold my head up, so please do not hold me to my usual extremely low standard. Tonight was cultural night at Naomi's school, and it was so fantastic. There was a show! Last year I was a bit grumpy that our local school was a school that wasn't going to put on a show every year (talent show doesn't count), and then this year, lo and behold- a show. There was a narrative frame about traveling around the world by way of the universal language. (Hint: it's music.) The entire student body, wearing white shirts and blue jeans (or if you are my kid, jeggings, because heaven forfend that you would ever wear a non-legging pant in your entire first grade year) and additional costumey props, was up at the front of the gymnateria, singing songs from around the world. Long, beautiful songs, accompanied by complex, fun to watch dance moves. Naomi and her peeps sang first, with the Kindergartners as well. It was an African welcome song. The kids danced and sang so well. I was practically in tears the whole time (which was a little embarrassing). Not just for my kid's song, I hasten to add.

I should add that Muriel was wearing a new set of Chinesey clothes (shirt and pants) and she looked like a million dollars. I should also take this opportunity to confess that I completely spaced the part where I have to REGISTER HER FOR KINDERGARTEN. Here is how badly I spaced it. Every day for a week or two I walked right through a door at school to pick up Naomi from her after school program, and saw a flier for Kindergarten registration night, and EVERY time I thought to myself, aw, cute! New little Kindergarteners! And not once did I think, I have one of those! This should reassure any doubters that two is the right number of kids for us. If I had any more I would be leaving them here and there.

Hearts and Flowers

2012-02-14T21:01:00.000-08:00

I missed two days, noooooooo! Here is what happened Sunday that I should have posted on quickly and knocked one out. After church we went to the conveyor belt sushi place for lunch. It's kind of a thing. So much so in fact that the kids that used to plead and wheedle for that place are all bored and aggravated when we suggest (announce) eating there. On the way we stopped for a months-overdue car wash. The kids really like going through the car wash. You'd think we would go more often. Huh.

Anyway, 0ne of the many fine features of the conveyor belt sushi place is 80s Sundays, by which I mean the overly loud muzak mix skews heavily 80s. Time After Time! But this past Sunday, to our surprise, it was all 70s, and the second song they played was, wait for it, "At the Car Wash," or whatever that song is called. You know the one. Where they say, "Working at the car wash!" over and over. Naomi heard it and was amazed. "We were just at the car wash! And now here is a song about it! It's like one of Jesus' miracles!"

So, Monday's post would have maybe said that I ran my first meeting as the new me at my job, and it was only so so. Whatever, I'll figure it out. Short post!

And now, Tuesday. Lovely Valentiney Tuesday. Red Velvet Pancake Mix from Cost Plus World Market is a buy. Buy, Buy, Buy! We had them (clumsy, heart-shaped) with strawberries and Reddi Wip. The girls opened their little Valentine gifts, the crocheted heart scarves (which I finished yesterday) were revealed, many handmade Valentines were exchanged. Rover the (toy) dog ate cake made from beads and lentils with his animal homies. (Valentine's Day is his birthday.) Tonight after gymnastics we ate heart-shaped pizza and an overly sweet strawberry shortcake that no one could finish. It's the kind of dessert that makes you anxious to get your teeth brushed.

So I am putting my sweet beloveds to bed, and Naomi says, is Eff You See Kay a bad word? I say, why yes it is. She says, but what does it mean? And I say, huh, well, and she says, does it mean like (and she leans way in so she can whisper in my ear) Stupid? I told her I need to think about how to explain what it means. She suggests that I Google it.

So, um, Happy Valentine's Day!

I Wanna Dance with Somebody

2012-02-11T21:36:00.000-08:00

I have no time to post- too sleepy and so forth, and have the last third of a movie to watch and the last fifth of a scarf to crochet. But I will say that I remember SO fondly that video of Whitney in her gray jersey knit dress wanting to dance with somebody. She wanted to feel the heat with somebody. Somebody who loved her! I was officially a Talking Heads fan, and a Clash fan, but I totally loved her. That's probably not the way she meant. Anyway, R.I.P. Whitney.

Ballet Friday

2012-02-10T20:49:00.000-08:00

Today was the ballet field trip. I worked at home for a little bit, then rushed to the local Korean market to ask if they have an ATM. The cashier took his earbuds out, heard my question, and the very generously didn't laugh as he reminded me that there was a BANK OF AMERICA sharing the same parking lot. Duh. So, ATM for my chaperone admission fee. Wait, ATMs only give twenties, and the fee is ten. So to the ATM, and then inside to get the nice Bank of America teller to change my twenty for two tens.

And then of course I thought of this SNL skit.

So, the bus. Our class got a bus all to ourselves. There are three first grade classes. Two fifth grade classes were going as well. You don't want to split up class groups, with the teacher-organized delicately balanced chaperone/student formations. So our class got a bus. Sweet. The driver, Irene, was super worst-case scenario, and briefed all the moms on the location of the fire extinguisher and the Bodily Fluid Cleanup Kit. We got to the Seattle Center, walked up our twelve flights of stairs, fit ourselves into the allotted rows, and watched us some ballet.

The company wisely shortened the production, down to an hour. Even though there was a guy explaining what was happening, it was hard for me to follow the plot. I loved the dancing toreadors, though- there were lots of them, and except for the main one, they all had pink capes. During the anti-intermission, they showed how they move the scenery around to make an outside scene into an inside one. They demonstrated differences in lighting. They demonstrated some percussion instruments, then a violin and a French horn.

My favorite parts were when they tossed Sancho Panza into the air repeatedly, and every time the lights went down, because that would cause the three thousand kids in the audience to scream like mad. I wonder if the performers enjoy the kids' matinee. I enjoyed it!

I'm Your Puppet

2012-02-09T20:31:00.000-08:00

For one of the plot points in the book project that we are rapidly running out of time on, the dog main character goes to the library in search of his cat friend and encounters... a monster. Remember recently when all the toy stores had sweet and not especially scary monsters for sale? They were the size of medium size teddy bears and had one eye or three eyes and were strange colors. They were overpriced, because they were so amazingly creative or whatever. The point is, they were everywhere. So of course I thought I would encounter one, one of these days. Or, when I called around to all the toy stores in the area, that one of them would say, sure, we have a couple of those. But no! No Monsters!

So today at lunch I rolled the dice and hustled on over to Goodwill. At Goodwill, they have an aisle of toys, and half of the aisle, on one side, on four or five shelves, is filled with stuffed toys. I felt a crackle of excitement. This is a locally famous Goodwill. They get a lot of good stuff at this Goodwill. So I had to think that they would have a handful of sweet, amazingly creative one-eyed blue monsters in the assortment. I began to search. Hurriedly. Start at this end of the top shelf, work to the other end. Down a level. So. Many. Stuffed toys. And while many of the toys were in fact monstrous (I'm looking at you, lifelike gorilla wearing a leprechaun suit), none of them were monsters.

I was down to the very bottom shelf, working across, wondering if I could swing some kind of DIY custom job to turn this extremely ugly orange bulldog into a convincing monster. The Goodwill soundtrack, I swear this is true, was playing a song I do not know from the seventies (judging by its adjacents) in which the chorus proclaimed, "I'm your puppet..." And then, I saw him. Green. Googly eyes. Horrible teeth. Worn out fur. Not amazingly creative. Not soft, cuddly blue microfiber, vintage 2010. Not even a little bit cute. And yes, a puppet. This is like a sign from the universe that we have to complete our creative project. The universe, or the seventies.

Highs and Lows

2012-02-08T23:15:00.000-08:00

I am elated, no exaggeration, because I had this little swirl of yarn left, and had to get all the way around the scarf with my cheesy scallop border in order to finish up Muriel's pink scarf. I can't believe it made it. It made it!

I am also glum, a bit, because the pink scarf (very light pink) with the kind of red velvet color border around it just does not look that nice. And Naomi's is going to be the same dark red color, but with the light pink around it. I thoroughly enjoy crocheting, but how I wish I were better at the color choosing. It's not my strong suit!

And, I'm tired. It is past my bed time. That was a lot of yarn work. Also: will I ever get less rusty at this? I can't believe how out of practice I am. Oh! Before I forget, I set up an after school program at Naomi's school- a science class that runs once a week for six weeks. Today was the first one, and it was mobbed with little future science nerds. Woo hoo! Ok, g'night.

Like Weeds!

2012-02-07T21:55:00.000-08:00

This morning Jim had the girls stand up against the wood side of the oven cabinet thing, where he measures them. I'm not sure how this got started, but there are progressive notches all up the side. You can't see the marks unless you get very close.

Anyway, the point is, it has not just been our imagination. The kids are sprouting! Both of them have grown an inch since December.

Today I ran out at lunch to the Cost Plus, where in the extremely well-stocked candy department I had previously run across those candy buttons on long strips of paper that we used to get at Farrell's ice cream parlor, way back in the mists of time. I was hoping to find them again, since Naomi and I were planning to make these valentines this year. They were not hanging where I saw them last. But upon frantically summoning a sales associate, I immediately stumbled back upon them. Happens every time.

So...gotta get to work on those valentines! I should have bought some for Muriel- her teacher mentioned something about no candy, and the candy buttons are definitely candy. Hmm. In the meantime, Happy Tuesday!

Monday Again?

2012-02-06T21:40:00.000-08:00

I should tell you first that Jim has taken a number of photos for the kid's book, and they are Cute. I can't wait to finish up and put the book together. He has also acquired some kind of keyboard thing that hooks up to the computer, and that you can sing into and record. It is a creativity explosion up in here.

I should tell you second that I just read an article that someone just linked to about the five regrets of the dying. Of course one of them was, "I wish I hadn't worked so much." Sigh.

So now I will tell you that I have a new role at work. Same project, same product, same team, new release, and new role. I am excited about the change, kind of. I admit that I am worried that I am inviting extra stress into my life. And I am almost sure that I am inviting extra work into my life. But it's a good change, and will be interesting and challenging. Wish me luck.

We are reading another Boxcar Children mystery, and I love the way the girls surprise me every night with their attention and comprehension. Also, we found the half-finished James and the Giant Peach behind the bed. We can solve our own mysteries, thank you very much. Though we would have fewer if we tidied up more often.

3D Real

2012-02-05T20:39:00.001-08:00

Another weekend over already? And I have about ten minutes to post, because I have to crochet and watch Downton Abbey. And take my damn Geritol.

Today while Jim went to Home Depot, the girls and I went to eat frozen yogurt and watch Beauty and the Beast in 3D. The kids got "commemorative" take home 3D glasses, and Muriel managed to absorb the name of the 3D brand (is that right? Can 3D be branded?), except she got it flipped around, so she called it 3D Real. Which is squarely in the broad category of "why correct?"

"Beauty and the Beast" shows its age a mite, I'm not going to lie. There are bits of it that are so goofy, old-school animation (mostly the chummy violent bits that involve townspeople and Gaston). And I cringe a bit at the cultural elite angle in the opening song. Read a book, for heaven's sake, people! Heh. But I still loved it. Muriel sniffled in the appropriate spots (that girl), and was terrified most of the rest of the time. Still a fun outing, and we got back just in time to see Madonna's half-time show. Super.

Storyboard!

2012-02-04T20:20:00.001-08:00

What should I be doing right now? What will I be doing, when I stop doing this? Actually, a couple of things. I should be finishing the border on the cheesy valentine scarves that I am crocheting for the girls. I should be enjoying some green tea. I should be scrounging for some dessert food that I know is not in my house. I should be sleeping. But the real thing I need to do- storyboarding!

Oh, look. Jim just brought me the tea. Perhaps I can outsource the dessert scrounging as well?

Anyway, we are planning a birthday present for Naomi- a book starring her two favorite stuffed toys. Can you believe she will be SEVEN month? Wow! But tomorrow I have the kids away in the afternoon, and Jim has agreed to shoot as many of the pictures as he can for the book. So I have to get the scenes put together tonight, while scrounging for dessert and watching some dreck on the watch it now. Hmm. Should be quite a Saturday!

Donkey Ho-tay

2012-02-03T19:25:00.000-08:00

This is going to be short, as I am headed out for a raucous night of chip eating and margarita drinking. But let me announce, with great pride, that my name was chosen from the hat, and I get to accompany the first graders to a BALLET! Which until this evening, Naomi thought was about a donkey. Hee Haw!

Privacy

2012-02-02T21:12:00.001-08:00

I just got home from a PTA meeting. It was OK- more interesting to me than the last one. I was starving, so the free pizza was extra delicious. I was flummoxed as usual by how they all seem to know all the rules you have to follow in order to do anything. I have a lot to learn.

One of my roles at the PTA is that I am a "rep" to the local foundation that raises money to plug "funding gaps" for the school district. Ah, air quotes, going from air back to actual printed words. Anyway, I actually prepared for once and blathered on to the other attendees about all the good work that the foundation does. Plugging gaps!

Anyway, they (the foundation) have a FB page. Our PTA has a FB page. One other organization that came and blathered a lot more than I did has a FB page. When I got home I tried to explain to Jim why some part of me wants to get an alter ego FB account, because then I would feel more comfortable engaging with all these other FB entities, without having to expose my own real life to a bunch of people I don't know well. He said, what are you posting to FB?!

But that isn't it. I just want to be able to learn and connect and all that, without thinking twice about posting photos of my kids napping on the Ikea showbed. And yet, someone who played saxophone in the band who I barely knew and never speak to, virtually or otherwise, needs to see those photos, while the nice moms of the PTA get my as yet nonexistent secondary slightly fake self? I need to think about this one a little more. Or read up on the privacy settings.

Seven Months and Change

2012-02-01T20:48:00.000-08:00

Well, it's February, and this must mean it's time for daily posts. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, what? This is still a living, breathing site? Can that be true? And you are reading this months after I post it, because you really gave up ever coming here and only stumbled upon it quite by accident when you clicked the wrong link. I don't hold a grudge. I was overly absent. It's on me.

So anyway, it seems like I should be able to pull off daily posts, because after all, I haven't told you guys anything that's been going on for like, EVER. But for tonight, we'll stick with tonight. Tonight was Skating Night at the local rink, sponsored by the PTA and for our elementary school only. Ironically, they spelled the name of the school wrong on the sign. Sigh. We skated in circles, listened to pop music, reveled in black lights, hokey pokied. Naomi is very, very keen on skating. It is so fun to watch her. The first few times we went, she looked like a little marching robot. Now she has gotten the hang of it, and glides around pretty convincingly. I still look wobbly. Skating is new when you haven't done it in, mmm, 25 years or something? It doesn't say anything good about me that I seemed to get better when they played the Bee Gees.

See you tomorrow!

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

Although there is much catching up to do, I wonder if that would even work. Seems like not. Yesterday (I'll go all the way back there!) was Father's Day, and Jim dutifully lounged around in bed with the laptop, pretending that he had no interest in getting up, while the world's slowest cook and her two young scullery maids put some breakfast-in-bed together. We had bacon-wrapped arugula frittata with homemade foccacia bread. In the interest of full disclosure, the focaccia bread began its life as a tube of refrigerated pizza dough. Still, it all came out pretty yummy.

In the afternoon we took the kids across the street to hang around with our neighbor, Sheila. She is a retired school teacher, and Grandma-aged, and the kids think she is the bees knees. She agreed to let them plague her for a bit while Jim and I went for a run together. (Wheeze.)

When I went to pick them up, they had just started a book, so I hung around with them for a while. When the story was finished, Muriel said, "Sheila, did you make your dad breakfast in bed? Because I did!"

Sheila was only a tiny bit thrown. She said, "My dad isn't here."

"Oh," said Muriel. "Where is he?"

Sheila raised her eyebrows at me. "Do you want me to tell her?" she said. I shrugged. My kids are chillingly cavalier about death.

"Well," she said, "The last time I saw him, he was in New Jersey."

May Whee

2011-05-18T21:42:00.000-07:00

In one of the many driving-in-the-car scenarios in which the children entreat me to tell them a story and I lazily turn it around and compel them to tell me a story, Muriel was up to the task. As usual, we all clamored that it should have a scary part. Here is what Muriel said:

"Once upon a time there was a mean and scary ghost. Every day, he would go out and steal someone's puppy."

That is both mean and scary! Wow.

Lots and lots has been going on. Like, um, let's see, oh, right! The ENTIRE month of April! I did finally donate blood. I had a lovely girls' weekend with my homegirl from Boise. Jim and I went to a Paul Simon concert with our friends. Naomi participated in her first ever science fair. The guys who are working on a huge renovation to the neighbors' house next door have magically removed our patio, the patio cover, all the grass in the front yard, and our decaying extra parking space. We're getting ready to hire someone to re-do our bathroom.

And...the dog died. It was the first of May, very early in the morning. I was fast asleep, and Jim came in and said, Honey. Honey. He never wakes me up, so I knew something was wrong. It's Luna, he said. She died.

She was where she always sleeps, where the living room meets the bottom of the stairs, and looking like she always looks, but with her eyes a little open. She was so soft, and beautiful, and I petted her and cried and cried of course and am crying again right now writing about it. The kids finally woke up and came out, and Muriel was a little teary when she saw how upset I was, and Naomi immediately started to strategize about how to make the situation better, saying, We can get a goldfish, we can get another dog. We all said goodbye to her and then Jim took her to the emergency vet clinic where they cremate your pet for you.

This past Monday I walked down there to pick her up, thinking it would be good exercise and I would be able to distract myself, keep my head clear, and just think about everything. Turns out what I was able to do was sob openly half of the way there and the whole way back, with the little box of Luna's remains in a sunny yellow fabric bag in my hand. I'm so glad I thought to bring my sunglasses!

Anyway, I am half considering writing a post about Luna, who really deserves it. It would be the longest post ever. Girlfriend was with me 15 years! But for now, this is it, Happy May, see you 'round.

Duh

2011-03-31T19:56:00.000-07:00

I had a blood donation appointment over the lunch hour yesterday, and I went to it, and filled out the questionnaire with the mildly intrusive personal questions, but I left the one at the top blank. The one at the top was something along the lines of "Are you feeling well and healthy today?" Yes or No? Seems like an easy question, right?

But I was not sure. Because I am not feeling 100% well and healthy. I woke up the day before yesterday with a bit of a sore throat, and I've had a little groggy haze on me since then. On the other hand, I was feeling better yesterday than I was the day before, and at no point did I feel like I was truly sick, or consider staying home from work, or anything like that.

And, maybe I'm flattering myself here, but these people really, really want my blood. They call me ALL the time. So in some part of my head, as I was studiously filling out little circles about tattoos and anticoagulants and partners, and dreaming up a little teeny version of those bingo parlor markers to speed up form completion, I was thinking that there might be a pretty low bar for feeling well and healthy.

Which is, of course, ridiculous. As soon as I started to explain that I wasn't sure about the VERY FIRST QUESTION on the form, I realized that I should have stopped right at the first little circle and approached the counter. Better yet, I should have called them and asked, before I drove down there. Geez. To the credit of the lovely people at the blood center, they did not openly mock me. They even went so far as to say it was up to me whether I thought I was too sick to donate.

So, no blood donation for me yesterday. No grape juice box, no Keebler cookies. And to the person who does not get a low-grade cold with their blood transfusion, you're welcome. I will bring my healthy self back next week and hook you up.

Slow Down!

2011-03-28T20:20:00.000-07:00

The other day I was complaining to a coworker that I was never able to make this particular monthly work meeting because it starts at eight o'clock and I am on the hook to deliver a Kindergartener to her classroom between 8:25 and 8:40 every day. I can't remember if I was expressing frustration about missing the meeting (doesn't sound like me), or frustration about the inflexibility of Kindergarten start times, but whatever I complained about, my coworker came back with some wise, soothing words about how the important thing was to focus on enjoying dropping my kid off at school.

At the time, it felt like an Aha! moment, a gift from this wiser parent to me. Of course it should be a delight to drop my child off at school. Why focus on it as one more thing that I have to do that gets in the way of the other seventy-five things I have to do? And I thought about it that way for a few days. In fact, I put my whole morning focus off the constant hectoring to move and get socks on and brush hair and onto just hanging around and having pleasant conversation (which Naomi and I do, after Jim leaves with Muriel, quite often, and with sometimes funny results). The outcome, that week, was that we were very nearly late to school four out of five days.

The takeaway, I guess, is that simply being more mellow and less frantic doesn't make things run more smoothly, it just makes them less frantic. Which I KNOW is better for the kids. I know it stresses them out when I herd them from breakfast to clothes to socks to grooming to lunch bags, and so forth. They talk about it all the time. And just because I feel better being eight minutes early to school instead of 30 seconds early, it doesn't make it actually better. But how do I get those seven and a half minutes back while still leaving behind the frantic? And, to go back to the sage advice from my coworker, how do I make something like the daily drop-off into a meaningful thing that we do together instead of a to-do item we tick off every day?

Another Saturday Night

2011-03-26T20:32:00.001-07:00

Jim is out fetching me a frozen treat, so this will be a quick one. Which reminds me that I have a little tense agreement issue on the last post that I would like to remember to fix. Will I? We'll see.

No doubt I have already written about how having children illuminates the extent to which personality traits might actually be written right into your genetic material. Today it occurred to me that my stubborn belief that it is only my inability to adequately explain my position that prevents people from going along with it, and my tendency to therefore continue to explain and counter-explain in an effort to get it right, might actually be genetic. Because I see Naomi do it every single day, when I say no to her, and she argues tirelessly. Because she is so absolutely committed to the idea that if I only just understood her objection, I would have to change my mind. Sigh.

Tonight at bedtime the girls told me what sports they were going to excel in later in life. Basketball, field hockey, Foosball, Carrom, and Flaptacular. The last one is a Disney-branded Tinkerbell version of a card game I think we used to call "Spit," a deck for which we received in a birthday party goodie bag today. Flaptacular! I find Disney branding evil as a rule, but I have to give them some credit for that awesomely ridiculous name.

Here's a picture of us sledding in Arizona last month. More soon!

First Day of Spring

2011-03-20T22:19:00.000-07:00

Ahh, nice weekend! Sunbreaks! Supermoon! Leisure! We had a little break from the pouring, inexorable rain, and the kids actually got to play outside.

Plus, they had one of those days when their play is so very together, so harmonious and delighted, that it strikes an almost unbearably pleasant chord in me I wouldn't even have been able to hear before the two of them came along.

So, yeah, welcome, spring! Please to muscle through the rainclouds again sometime soon. Next weekend would be good.

Anecdotally Adults

2011-03-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

Where I work there are web pages that we make, with, you know, information on them, and people who are in search of this information have the option to provide feedback on the information. Occasionally they do, and when they do, the web page sends an email to someone with the feedback. Because I was one of the saps who learned how to make these web pages back when we first started doing it, often these emails get sent to me. Every single one is a complaint. It is my job to log some response to the complaint in the system that tracks this feedback, although the submitter never sees my response. I usually say, "We're working on this." or "I fixed the broken link." Helpful!

The longer my setups get, the more I lose faith in the payoff. Oh well. So a few weeks ago I got... a positive feedback form. "The material is clear and easy to understand." Sweet Mother Mary, positive feedback! The headline of the email even included the unusual phrase "(no action required)". I forwarded it to my team lead, with the incredulous note, "Not sure this has ever happened before." Then I forgot about it. Until the team lead, a few weeks later, forwarded it to ALL the writers in our group. With my super-encouraging note included. Excellent. Good work, everyone!

So that's the work side. At home, also known as "Where I Do Laundry," I was...wait for it...getting ready to start a load of laundry. I asked Mr. Khooler if he wanted me to wash the jeans and the gray pajamas that were on top of the hamper, which is kind of the demilitarized zone between obviously clean and obviously dirty. He says, The what?

Me: The gray pajamas.
Him: The gray pajamas?
Me: The gray pajamas.
Him: Wait, the gray pajamas?
Me: ????
Him: The gray pajamas?
Me: Are you trying to get me to gouge out my own eyes?

So I bring out the pajamas, which were a Christmas present from me, actually, and are flannel, dark gray (I might have invented this since, but I would swear that the price tag actually had the word "Charcoal" on it) with a white grid pattern. I say, THE GRAY PAJAMAS.

He says, Those are green.

So, the good news is that he is not trying to gaslight me. The bad news is that one of us might be colorblind. Hmm.

The kids are alright. More on them another time.

Un-Habituated

2011-03-06T21:27:00.000-08:00

I am so out of the habit of posting that it doesn't even occur to me, even when there is plenty going on. Apologies, ye last two loyal checkers of this blog.

The other evening, just after I picked up Muriel, we saw one of those wacky little single occupant cars that look like something from the Jetsons. I don't know what they are called so I can't even link to information about them. When Muriel saw it, she said, "But how can they pick up their dears?" A valid question!

Last weekend we capped off a trip to see my parents with a stay at a giant house in north eastern Arizona with my whole family. This trip was to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. 50 years! I remember around 37 of them. It was a good time- we went sledding one day and skiing another. There was copious snack food and uncomfortable rental home beds. Overall a very nice chance to spend time with the family.

This weekend we held Naomi's birthday party. 14 kids total, milling around our not quite large enough house, dressed in costumes and just generally, well, screaming. There seemed to be a lot of screaming, and also a lot of chanting. It was a long two hours.

Oops, now the computer battery is looking wan and red. Time to call it a night. I will not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Which means, hopefully, more boring pointless posts on the way!

Slow News Day

2011-01-29T19:27:00.000-08:00

5:21 this morning: Jim and I are awakened by a sound that I have been anticipating for weeks- the sound of an elderly dog falling down the stairs to the basement. For that single reader of this blog that has not actually seen our house in person, we have a wooden stairway to the basement that starts just next to the front door, and just next to the tiny stairway up to the upper floor where the bedrooms are. This area of the rest of the house is where Luna likes to sleep, because it's near where we left from (when we leave) and near where we went (when we head to bed). It is the same gap that used to sport a very safety-conscious safety gate, preventing our small children from tumbling down the stairs to the basement, but when the door and window guys came and replaced our front door (with one cunningly customized by none other than Mr. Khooler himself), they had to take out the installed safety gate. So now there is a big dangerous stairway, waiting for someone to fall down it, and the victim I most feared was indeed the victim it claimed, this morning.

So, heart attack at 5:21, but you will be relieved to hear that Luna was just fine, and upon being discovered at the foot of the basement stairs, was ready to prowl around the basement a bit and see what she had been missing. I attribute this resilience to these tasty snacky tablets that the vet prescribed for her at the recent teeth cleaning vet visit- she has been nomming these down every day and has been walking better, begging more shamelessly, and, weirdly, tearing up any kid pictures she can find that were colored with crayon. Make of that what you will. She was fine after the stair tumble. Woo!

One more funny story. We went to a birthday party today, far away from home at a gymnastics place. The kids had a ball, basically running in circles and bouncing on things and doing "forward rolls." (Don't call them somersaults!!!) I watched from the adult viewing platform, like I was on a gymnastics safari. When it was clear that Muriel was losing her ponytail and hair clip configuration, I went down to try to fix things up. When I was yanking her hair back into place, one of the young women who were "coaching" the party asked me, "She is so cute. So, what is she, like, half-Filipino? Half... Chinese?"

"Half Chinese," I said. "Oh," she said, "Half Chinese, and.... half white?"

Dude. I am right here, putting her ponytail in! I am the half! Whatever. It was funny.

Anyway, happy Saturday. I am loving weekends with a fervor usually reserved for Ziggy coffee mugs. Ah, the weekend! Peace out.

Proud Moments at Dinner

2011-01-20T19:57:00.000-08:00

Tonight during the ritual telling about one's day, Naomi claimed that she had begged her teacher for "more math." I'm leaving that one alone. Then Muriel taught us the lyrics to "The Chicken Dance" en Espanol. She also showed us a "hip-hop" dance that she had choreographed, which was not exactly distinguishable as hip-hop, but was definitely a cool dance.

Luna went to the vet to get her teeth cleaned today, and while there, had a thing removed from her head. A tumor? A growth? Some thing on her head. So tonight, in addition to uncharacteristically sweet-smelling breath, she has a big weird bald wound on her head, like a meteor strike. Poor thing. She has been drinking water like she could never have conceived of something so wonderful, and is now sleeping in much the same vein. Rough day!

January has been whizzing by, which is strange, because it doesn't really feel as though things have actually gotten started in this new year. Wonder what that will take?

Yuletide

2010-12-25T21:18:00.000-08:00

The children are nestled all snug in their beds. Jim is nestled all snug on the couch. Sugarplums are all consumed, stockings emptied, carols sung. It was a beautiful Christmas. One which I will describe to you after a brief trip back in time to last Saturday night, when Jim's sister and brother-in-law arrived from Ontario for a four day visit.

Or should I say, a four day eating tour of the Northwest. I am not sure why, when company comes, we feel obligated to eat like every meal is our last, but if you're feeling underweight, start making your plans to visit. We hit the schmancy brunch buffet, our friends' house for fake Christmas feasting, an Indonesian place, dinner out at a restaurant (grown-up restaurant!), dim sum, and hot pot. By the end of their visit they were begging for vegetables.

Jim hatched a scheme whereby instead of dropping our company at the bus station for their trip to Vancouver, we would rent a minivan and just drop them at Vancouver itself. So we got a hotel reservation and had a quick trip to the... I don't know what Vancouver's city nickname is. The awesome, neato city? The trip up there was silly in the sense that we relied completely on technology to guide us (modern technology, not the less-recent advances like cartography and printing on paper), and technology was all, whatever, you guys, I had somewhere else to be, and I didn't actually SAY I was going to be available on Wednesday. There was some bumbling, in the automotive sense. But we got there, saw my in-laws' in-laws (who were genuinely charming), and made it to our hotel in time to wander around Robson Street on a bustling Saturday night.

We got tourist Thai takeout, which wasn't bad, and ate in our hotel. The girls think every hotel is a combination of the Taj Mahal and Never-Never-Land. Naomi was excited about "breakfast service," which sounds even more snooty than room service, somehow. We spent the morning (post "breakfast service") in the super deluxe pool and hot tub. Now I am feeling sad, and missing that hot tub. Sigh. On the way back to the States, we made a way too quick stop at Granville Island to see if things were still hopping at the public market. Answer: yes!

Christmas Eve, I am sorry to say, there was some shopping. Not too much, and mostly groceries, but sorry, and thank you, retail workers. In the evening, we went to the children's service at church, which featured not only a living nativity, but also Muriel's first ever choir performance. I am happy to report that my stage mother routine was limited to instructing her not to suck her finger or pick her nose while on stage. And she nailed it! Singing good and loud, knowing all the words, no unfortunate actions with hands or dress. At one point two of her little choir mates were showing us their naked torsos. Fortunately Muriel was not influenced by them.

When we got home the girls put out Santa's cookies and went to sleep with remarkable alacrity, considering the number of church cookies apiece. Jim made us a late Christmas Eve dinner, non traditional in the sense that it was a seared ahi tuna salad, but traditional in the sense that it was super tasty and lit by tea lights in jars with glue-brushed wrapping paper on them. Blah blah, stockings, blah blah cinnamon roll dough, blah blah up way too late. But then... a Christmas miracle! Both girls slept in till SEVEN THIRTY! Sleep, the greatest gift of all!

We made it back to Christmas- I knew we could do it. Santa brought the girls what they asked for in their super cute letters to him- "glass" slippers, aka, those plastic sandals with the princesses on them. They are horrific (slippery, clonky, foot-deforming, and to me somehow emblematic of early female oppression training), and I am so grateful that Santa is around to bring presents that I could never in good conscience purchase and gift. I was gratified that they liked their cheesy bathrobes, a gift that cost me a good deal of time and frustration, because really, shouldn't there be a zillion kids' bathrobes around for Christmas purchase? Eh? I got Jim some practical garment-category gifts, some nougat (his kryptonite), and a carom board. He got me a beautiful necklace and an e-reader which I am not going to name because the last time I put the name of a gadget in here, I got a weird spam comment right away. If you are curious, it is the e-reader that is associated with a retailer that goes by the name of a big river somewhere that has lots of feisty crocs and whatnot. And so far I LOVE it. The e-reader, not the river. I am afraid of crocs.

Anyway, hours and hours of sweet harmonious play (the sort that makes you feel like having kids wasn't a bad idea, as it turns out), lasagna for Christmas dinner, more cookies, another screening of "White Christmas," nice long chapter of Naomi's new chapter book, second Knuffle Bunny book (which Muriel got for Christmas), everyone asleep, dishwasher humming, third cup of tea, and here we are. I feel like the happiest, luckiest person around tonight. Merry Christmas, Friends!

You Know, Stuff

2010-12-15T20:14:00.000-08:00

Let me begin by saying that I had a birthday a couple of weeks ago, and on the official card as well as several auxiliary cards, drawings, and signs, Naomi saw fit to refer to me by my first name. Happy Birthday, Jenny! Love, Naomi and Muriel. Hmm.

And speaking of stories that are now way out of date, I bring you, the Turkey Twilight Zone. Long ago now, Naomi's teacher sent home a big black and white turkey drawing with the words "Family Turkey Project" on it. The idea was that we were supposed to work together to decorate it and bring it in by a certain date. Naturally, on the night before the certain date, I scrambled around to put my oh-so-creative plans into action. I had them tear up red, brown, and yellow construction paper, I had them glue craft feathers on the tail. We found a googly eye to affix to the turkey head. We added a necklace of macaroni.

Naomi returned the turkey, and the next day we noticed that the turkeys were decorating the windows of the office. Neat! I went to find our masterpiece (which was totally janky compared to some of the super fly turkeys the other K families cooked up), and I found it. But then I wondered, who is this Timothy, and why is his name on our turkey?!

Oh wait, here's our turkey.

Holy crap! Timothy's mom, call me!! We are separated at birth! That, or you need to get those cameras you hid in our house out RIGHT NOW!

What other out of date stories can I come up with? In early November, I took Muriel to visit our friends in Chicago. So fun! It was great to remember what having a littler little was all about, as well as to spend some QT with Muriel. She did great on the trip, except for some inexplicable and very heartbreaking homesickness when we first got there. I believe, too, that it was good for her to be the big kid for a while. And really, it was wonderful to see our friends. Yea, friends!

We went to the Oregon coast for Thanksgiving. The Oregon coast is totally rad, I recommend it to anyone who likes stuff that is scenic and amazing. We even saw the Goonies house, whilst in Astoria, and it was, well, a bit anticlimactic. But yeah, the rest of it was pretty fantastic.

My parents came at the beginning of this month, and I over-scheduled the poor things. There was lots and lots of rushing from this awesome holiday experience to that. Sorry, Parents! But the kids were genuinely delighted to have their grandparents around, as was I.

OK, let's see. That big project that kicked me around from the end of summer and all through fall is FINISHED! At least, finished in the first part, version one is released kind of way. Woo to the hoo. Jim has now taken over as the harried, overworked one, but it's all good, because he is a. employed, b. working at a company that is on the upswing, and c. challenged like never before. Naomi is working hard at her job, which is being in Kindergarten, and Muriel is a productive citizen of preschool, like always.

Oh, Christmas Open House! These are the before pictures. No afters.

Yes, this is how they dressed for the party.

I am excited, enthused, delighted, gleeful, and jolly at the approach of Christmas. Jim's sister and brother-in-law are coming this weekend, and we can't wait to see them. Things, people, are good. Happy Holidays to everyone. Now I have to go find a replacement for the NY Jets Mr. Potatohead that I bought for my nephew but that is, alas, after all, out of stock. Wish me luck!

Nothing to See Here

2010-12-07T22:49:00.000-08:00

So many things have happened, and I should be writing about them and uploading the appropriate photos, but it just feels like there are so many other important things to attend to these days. I gotta build up the muscle again, I think. In the mean time, here's a snap from our trip to the Seattle waterfront over the weekend. My parents came to visit, and I woefully overscheduled their dear selves, though they got through almost all of it without complaining. In this shot, just before or after a carousel ride, but definitely before a harbor cruise and locks tour on a big boat, Naomi and Muriel get to know the carved denizens of one of Seattle's tourist traps.

Anyway, back at it soon. So glad December is here, but wishing there was some way to prevent the short little days from whizzing by so fast. Any suggestions?

Got One for Abby

2010-11-21T20:26:00.001-08:00

If you are anything like me and indulge in the occasional read of an advice column or twelve, you have probably encountered the Dear Abby letter trope in which someone receives a message from a dearly departed in the form of a lucky penny find. I am not sure why some choose loose change as their communication medium over radio static or curtain rustling. Here's what I do know: When I was a newbie technical writer at my very first job-job, I attended one of the monthly birthday cake gatherings in the hall between the cubes. Someone brought up the nifty, novel new quarters for each state. The first one had just come out. Because my social shtick is very often Seinfeld-esque, my input was something along the lines of, "What is the deal with Caesar Rodney? Does ANYBODY know who that is? Is that really the best you could do, Delaware?!"

I am older now, so I would probably not be so willing to mock a state for knowing its own history better than I do. But my enthusiastic snarkiness (a word that perhaps had not yet even been coined) caught the attention of one Liz, a supervisor on another project. She told me later that it cracked her up how worked up I got that there was going to be someone on a coin I had never heard of. Nice of her not to say that it cracked her up that I had never heard of Caesar Rodney. She became my first real mentor, an attendee (if not instigator) of some of the best happy hours of my life, and a very good friend.

Liz's body was something of a traitor to her, and for the last few years that we were in Minnesota, she wasn't working anymore. This was a loss to the technology industry, she was good at her job, smart and funny, and (just for the record) extremely well-dressed. When we moved away, I had less and less contact with Liz, getting too wrapped up in my own busy life. It had been, regrettably, a very long time since I spoke with her when her husband contacted me on Friday to let me know that she had passed away. I am so sad that she is gone, and mad at myself for not letting her know more often in the last few years what she meant to me.

This morning we were actually running a bit early for church, for ONCE, and I had time to remember to dig out some change for the girls to bring in for Jalineda, a Hatian girl that our Sunday school kids sponsor. Naomi said she wanted to look for the really shiny coins she had found the other day to bring along, but not wanting to squander our rare time edge, I told her I'd find the shiniest quarters from our change jar. The first one I pulled out shone like it was brand new. Delaware, the First State! Caesar himself riding across the front.

First Ever Post from Device that Shall Remain Nameless

2010-11-14T12:16:00.000-08:00

Jim is always encouraging me to use the "Device" and claiming that it is really easy to type on, etc. I have been, and remain skeptical. But here Muriel and I are in Chicago, with the "Device," so I'm taking a crack at it. I am enjoying the auto-correct...

We are visiting our old and dear friends, and a new friend, their one-year-old daughter. What fun to be away from home, see friends, and remember the toddler years. Muriel is mostly doing well, except for a brief and glorious fit earlier today, and a really very poignant and early bout of homesickness when we first arrived. I am doing a poor job of taking photos, and not doing so greet on this so-called keyboard, so let's just take this back up on the west coast. Good night, Chicago!

Originally, I named the device, but it has already resulted in my first ever spam-ish comment, so, forget it. It's a four-letter-word, rhymes with shmyshmad.

Harvest Dance

2010-10-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

I just now heard myself telling Naomi that Gramma would cry if she could hear the way Naomi talks back to me. My closer: "Don't make Gramma cry!" And, good night.

Just got back from the Harvest Dance, which is what passes for a school Halloween party these days. On the one hand, where did you go, bobbing for apples? Where are all the fun games and costume contests and cupcakes with big globby marshmallow ghosts on top? On the other hand, pizza, Costco chocolate chip cookies, 400 glow necklaces, and a dark gym full of super happy elementary school students dressed like Clone Wars characters and fairies jumping up and down to the Black Eyed Peas makes for a pretty agreeable evening, as it turns out.

Light at the end of the work tunnel, I bask in your glow. In November, NaNoWriMo. Think I can do it? More on that soon. Happy Halloween, friends!

10 20 2010

2010-10-20T20:24:00.000-07:00

So many neat dates this month. What with the ten and the twenty ten? Anyway. I am entirely habituated to working on my computer until 11:00 p.m., and it is so weird and exhilarating to be on the play computer at 8:30. Woot! Although yes, obviously, in my new found free time, I should be doing something that doesn't involve a computer. Agreed. Bye.

But wait, I have to write a post! So let's see. In September, I went to Portland for a girls' weekend that involved dancing (Club Fez!), art fairing, running, pupusa eating, karaoke singing (Whatta Man debut!), and napping. Maybe some whiskey sours. Also in September, Jim heard that he would be getting an interview at his contract place. Then, sometime in the beginning of October, he had the interview, and got the job. Yea!

Also in October, we went to Boise for a long weekend. While there, I ran my first half marathon. Woo! I have been training for a while. It was easy enough for about the first eight miles. After that, not so easy. 11 and 12, really not so good. But then it was over! The kids had a good time pal-ing around with my friend's little boys.

This week I am in the midst of what feels like fifty school-related things. Cookie dough sale fundraisers, "spirit wear" sale, signing up for Kindergarten teacher conferences, signing up for preschool teacher conferences, visiting the book fair, figuring out whether or not we actually returned "The Dinosaur that Lost Its Roar" to the library. Yikes.

But! There is a light at the end of the work tunnel, and I am so relieved. I can actually do housework, and daydream about the holidays, and watch old Futuramas with Jim. Ah, the life I left behind. So, maybe see you again sometime, you guys!

One Month Later

2010-09-16T21:55:00.000-07:00

How can a month have gone by since my last post? This raises the question of whether, in the name of habit-building and accountability and whatnot, I should just post what we had for dinner or breakfast every day, or whether I should just take a picture of the same thing and post that. Man oh man have I been slacking.

I have an excuse, but it's a super boring one. I have been working like mad. Jim got a job, also, which means that the awesome epicurious dinners have come to an abrupt halt. Crap! I mean, Yea! His job is rather far away. So there is a new routine being built, of who drops off whom and when, and who picks up whom (and then the other whom) and when, and what will be prepared for dinner, except, oh, I needed to buy that before I prepare it, I guess, and then who will WORK TILL ELEVEN EVERY NIGHT?! Why yes, I am a mite touchy on the overwork issue.

But of course many great things have been happening. Naomi loves Kindergarten. I already blew my capslock allotment on that last paragraph, or of course I would have typed that Naomi LOVES kindergarten. She really does. She is so into it I feel like I am doing her a favor every day, taking her there. And this delights me up and down, except for occasionally when I am tired and hungry at the end of the day and she is there, digging in the dirt with some fifth grader at the after school program, and begging me if she can just stay a little longer. Ug.

We have already been to one ice cream social, which I bet you a hundred dollars both girls will remember for the rest of their lives, just because it was crowded with jovial people and there was ice cream with m-n-ms to put on top and they ran around willy nilly with their friends and hunted around for teachers Naomi knew so they could all shout hello. Tomorrow I'm going to a principal's coffee, whatever that means, and I've also received an email about getting involved with the planning and execution of the Harvest Dance (which I have to admit sounds pretty rad). So yeah, basically our whole family has joined a cult. Your tax dollars at work!

The weather has turned, from...enh... to eh. I mean, now it's gray and rainy. We're all reconciled. Whatever. There's something comforting about knowing that all hope is lost. In the weather sense. We are coming up on the fifth anniversary of our move here, so that has got to have some bearing on my reaction. Another sunny day or two (or, let's be honest, 14) might result in us getting another three or four cherry tomatoes from our sad little garden. I don't have high hopes, let's just say. And again, that's OK.

Speaking of the back yard, as we kind of were, there is a rodent living in our shed. This goes beyond blech and straight to horror movie, because I have seen the thing and though it is not quite as large as those creatures in the fire swamp, it is not exactly going to be winning the lead in any adorable children's books. Jim tried a medieval skewering trap of some kind, which the beast laughed right off. Last night our vanquisher set up something like a tray of super power sticky stuff, the idea being that the rodent gets trapped in the stuff. So large is our rodent, though, that even though he is stuck in the sticky stuff, the tray of sticky stuff is not where Jim left it. So, ugh ugh ugh, the thing is clomping around the shed with one giant foot. I have no idea what is going to happen next with the rodent. It can't leave through its little shed exit with that big thing on its foot, right? Pretty soon, someone is going to have to go in there and have a giant rodent showdown. Volunteers?

Muriel is finally getting the hang of preschool. She has really bumped the coloring and letter tracing up a notch. Seriously, though, she is always on her game in the cuteness department. She has a trademark wave she gives to anyone who makes eye contact. I don't think it's fair to all of you to go on and on about how cute Muriel is. Just take my word for it.

So tired. Not working any more tonight... But some day soon we will have some kind of family experience, and photograph it, and things will get back to normal with this so called blog. Till then, good night friends!

The Whole Story

2010-08-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

OK, so last week my friend is in town with her kids. Even though her kids are small, and ours are small, we decide to do the duck boat tour. For the uninitiated, this is a giant open amphibious vehicle that is driven around town, and then into water, just because it can. So we ride through Seattle with the predictably brisk air in our faces, listening to our actually quite hilarious captain/driver crack jokes and play song clips. At the end, she throws us one last quip, holding up a pair of staggeringly large tighty whities, and claiming that some passenger on the last tour left them behind.

This moment, perhaps not surprisingly, stays with Naomi. She has forgotten nearly the entire tour, so focused is she on the giant underpants. She asks me, whose underpants are they? Why did they leave them on the duck boat? So, in the first of many foolish decisions, I explain that they are novelty underpants, and that they come from a joke store. She asks what other kinds of things you can buy at a joke store, and all I can come up with (foolish decision the second) to tell her about are whoopie cushions and fake dog poop. Oh, and squirting flowers.

Somehow we get around to making plans to actually GO to the joke store, Saturday after nap. So the whole morning, they are scheming about what they are going to buy. Naomi chuckles to herself all day at the prospect of tricking someone into sitting on the whoopie cushion. Muriel walks around the house chanting "FAKE DOG POOP. FAKE DOG POOP." They both take a surprisingly good nap.

We head to the joke store, which is of course far, far away in Seattle. We peruse. We shop around. We see a lot of wares. But we have a very difficult time finding the specific things we are looking for. So Jim, all forbearance, asks the store employees for help. This store, by the way, is something of a Seattle institution. So the employees, not surprisingly, are of the painfully hip hipster variety. One of them points out the selection of tricks offering ($10.99!!!) that includes a fake ice cube with a bug in it, and super hot cinnamon gum (?), as well as the coveted whoopie cushion. He informs us that they do not carry fake dog poop. Similarly, they do not sell squirting flowers.

Naomi finds a squirting camera, and for Muriel, it's a magic wand not quite dissimilar enough from one we have at home. Whatever. We go to the counter. I give it one last try with the clerk, explaining that my three-year-old has been chanting "fake dog poop" all day, and she says, are you ready for this? "I have never even heard of fake dog poop."

To which I say, venerated Seattle hipster joke shop, that if your shop is so clogged up with bacon band-aids and "terrified pickle catapults" and "emergency yodel buttons" that you can't stock a squirting flower, and if your brand of jokey irony is so far evolved that you cannot appreciate such classics as fake dog poop and whoopie cushions, well then, shame on you. Shame!

On the plus side, the shop is right up the street from the most famous hipster ice cream joint in Seattle, which we hadn't yet tried. And in between was a really cute, tiny, extremely delicious sushi place. All's well that ends well.

Before.
After. Squirty camera and wand in possession.
And earlier, the whole gang. Love having visitors!

Slacker

2010-08-13T21:55:00.000-07:00

OK, it's not that nothing has been happening. Well, OK, nothing has been happening. It's been vaguely summery, we've had some regular times. School has been attended. Work has been attended to. Maybe that's it- I've been working a lot, it seems like. So there, that's my excuse, no posting because of all the darn work!

Jim, on quite the other hand, has been enjoying his free time in a way that is of course enviable, but also, pretty nice for the rest of us. By this I mean that he hunts around for a recipe in the afternoon, buys the appropriate groceries, and when I get home (late), there is a fabulous dinner waiting. Seriously, this guy. What a cook! He is also getting better and better at "Starcraft," or whatever that game is called. Woot!

Muriel is going through a period of bed invasion. This happens occasionally, and it doesn't last forever, and a few gentle kicks to the back of the head is a small price to pay for a happy child, right? Last Saturday morning, all of us were crammed in together, and Muriel was expressing her discomfort thusly: "I'm all bunched up with people!" Yep, that is what happens!

Naomi is newly entranced with the idea of summer camp, thanks to a visit to Camp Kookooskoos in The Trumpet of the Swan. She has set up their "cabin" in the living room, and has shifted her pretend play to include summer camp tableaux. The pretending part hasn't changed- she still says, Mommy, pretend I was at summer camp, and you were the director of the summer camp and I was a camper, and Muriel was my kitty who came along with me (Muriel: mew!), and it was time for bed, and you said, all campers, time for bed, and I took my kitty (Muriel: mew mew!) and we got into the bunk.... and so on.

Next week I am taking OFF from work and I am so HAPPY that I am capslocking it up in here. My friend is coming from Boise with her two sons, and there will be much cavorting and sunscreen and water play and so forth. Pictures from that, to be sure. In the meantime, this is all I've got- the kids out with Dad on a stay-home-from-school-just-for-fun day. Looks like it worked!

Hooray for Vacay!

2010-07-26T16:52:00.000-07:00

Vacation! Vacation! On Friday early, we took the interstate to the ferry and the ferry to Vancouver Island, home of Butchart Gardens and lovely Victoria. Because we are sentimental and predictable, we booked a room at the same hotel we stayed in last time, which was as delightfully shabby and relaxing as ever (though they no longer offered room service at breakfast- BOO!).

Here's what I liked about the vacation: Being away from work, computer, television, and home, in a lovely city, with breathtakingly beautiful weather, and frequent consumption of ice cream.

Here's what the kids liked about vacation: Being in the hotel, and running around on grass. I don't know how long this period is going to last, anybody else know? But in the meantime, I can plan all our future trips around having a hotel room and being within walking distance of a big grass field.

The first field was at Butchart Gardens, a place bursting with plants and flowers and tourists. The Victoria Symphony was rehearsing at a little bandshell near the carousel, and the lawn in front of the bandshell was lush and irresistible. Cue somersaulters! At the first field, we talked about cartwheels, and, after a super masterful demonstration by yours truly (ahem), Naomi took it upon herself to acquire and practice this most vital skill. So upon arriving in Victoria, and strolling postprandially down to the second field, in front of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Naomi's vacation destiny was sealed. We spent most of Saturday fielding demands to return to the cartwheel place. Also known as the somersault place. Also known as a perfectly grand place to lie in lush grass and be appreciative of beautiful surroundings, Canada in general, fantastic, amazing weather, and loopy, carefree children.

For the record, we also went to Miniature World, which I thought the kids would be more into- I think they are too miniature yet to fully appreciate the miniature splendor of the place. We wandered the streets of Victoria. We stumbled into a kids' concert put on by four members of the aforementioned Victoria Symphony, which involved Aesop's fables acted out and set to music. When they called for the kids to come up to the front, Naomi hung back, and Muriel jumped right up and found a seat with the crowd. We had some dim sum at a restaurant in Chinatown where all the cart pushers felt compelled to compliment Jim on his beautiful girls and then tell him their own life stories. All in Chinese, of course. Oh, and every time one would come by and chuck Muriel on the cheek, she would say, loudly, "Oh, she is such a nice lady!" Hee.

The Natural History Museum was great, once again. They have a new room called the Ocean Station, which features a fantastically realized steam-punk decor theme that would shame the set designers from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The woolly mammoth was impressive (though less scary since they discontinued the thunder and lightning effects). The First Nation exhibits were beautiful. The old-timey townscape was the most fun for the girls, I think. As with Miniature World, I think the museum is still just a bit over their heads. I am going to keep bringing them back, though, because when they do finally arrive the right age for this museum, it is going to be crazy museum bliss. And with a big green field right across the street!

And now, the photographic evidence...

Don't worry, everyone got their cone back. Sitting in the shade on the edge of the Italian Garden and eating the most indescribably delicious gelato brought me instantly and magically in touch with the feeling that I was really, truly on vacation. Ahhhh.

Check out the size of Naomi's mango sorbetto. We gave her a little help with that, loving parents that we are.

By far my favorite busker, and the source for Naomi's quote of the trip. She asked if it was the real Darth Vader, and of course because we are those irritating parents, we asked her if she thought it was. She said, "No. Darth Vader is the worst bad guy in Star Wars. If he was the real Darth Vader, he would have been a lot more bad to us." Fair enough.

These two got along pretty well on this trip:

To be fair, I must also include Muriel's quote of the trip, uttered upon smelling a flower at the elaborate gardens: "Oh, it smells just like ketchup! My very favorite thing!" Hmmm.

Vacation! I miss you already!

The Fourth and the Third

2010-07-11T20:50:00.000-07:00

Before I forget, tonight when I was reading Snow White to the girls, the straight up Disney Little Golden Book version, and we got to the part where sweet cheerful Snow White, oppressed by her wicked stepmother and slaving away as a scullery maid with a song in her heart, "dreams of a handsome prince who will come and carry her away to his castle," Naomi said, in her most dramatic voice, "PLEASE, Mom, don't say anything about Snow White going to college and getting a real job!!" Ha! Of course I started to laugh and could not stop, and every time I turned a page, I was reminded again of her exasperation with my tiresome moralizing, and kept on laughing. And every time I laughed she would put her hand over my mouth, which made me laugh harder. So that is the hardest work I did all day today, trying to get it together so I could make it to the end of Snow White. Whew.

I have been remiss in not posting about our big weekend at the beginning of July, and especially in not giving Muriel her birthday due. So, here you go.

On the Fourth, we took the ferry over to Bainbridge Island for some small-town Independence Day shenanigans. The weather was, in short, ridiculous. Here's us on the ferry, sweaters, hot coffee, gray skies. A lovely November day:

When we got there and the parade started, we actually had about 30 minutes of beautiful sunshine. I love this picture, because Muriel's birth story folklore always starts with the Fourth of July parade we went to the day before she was born, and here she is, rocking the parade with her awesome Murielness.

And this one is too nice not to include.

Muriel's birthday was a fun day. Of course it started with the ceremonial pancake face.

Please stop looking so grown up!

I had to make another cake, since I inexplicably ruined the one I made the day before. Oh well. This gave Muriel ample chance to play dress up.

OK, that's better.

Muriel's party was at a park one town over, on a beach on Lake Sammamish. Because I am a moron, I did not pack extra clothes for the girls, and after approximately one minute of beach play, Muriel's lovely birthday party dress was a wreck. Fortunately my friend is not a moron, and lent me her kid's extra clothes so as to prevent Muriel from wearing a towel to her own birthday party.

Muriel's chums from her old school turned out in force (OK, three of them came), and hot dogs and cupcakes were had by all. We even had partial sun! Which this summer is indisputably the best you can ask for.

I love the way Muriel stood up so solemnly and so pleased when it was time to sing Happy Birthday. I have the hardest time trying to put into words what makes Muriel so amazing. I really think, and I'm not just saying this, that she has a kind of inexpressible quality to her. I'll say what I can, though- she is funny, and brave, loving, and fierce, smart, musical, graceful, comical, and delightful. Oh, and 3!

Again with the Bullets

2010-06-27T20:15:00.000-07:00

You know if I have gone this long without a post, there is going to have to be a bulleted list. I know from my so-called career as a so-called technical writer that a bulleted list is supposed to consist of parallel items. This means that the items should be the same sort of items. So, what the following items have in common is...er, that they are things that I am now bothering to mention in the bulleted list blog entry of today.

I went to a charity cocktail party a few weeks ago in support of an organization that my friend is involved in. If you have never been to a charity cocktail party, it is basically a cocktail party where everyone is hipper and more Seattle-ish and more socially and politically active than I am (none hard to achieve, really), and where there is very nice wine and super snacks. And at the end, you write them a check. At least, this is my generalization based on the one event. But here is the interesting part: the supremely swank lake-side mansion where this soiree took place, lent to the organization by the owner for this event, belonged to... the guy who invented Pictionary. Awesome.
Speaking of drawing games, Naomi and Muriel have invented (and continue to try to engage us in) the world's most impossible drawing game ever, the working title of which is "Guess What I am Drawing with My Nose." As in, drawing invisibly in the air with my nose. So, it's a fun game, in that it is funny to watch your kid industriously draw something in the air with their nose, but it is not a fun game if you are the sort of person that enjoys succeeding at a game, because really, you are never ever going to guess. Wait, unless Muriel is doing the drawing, because she always draws Thomas the Tank Engine. Then Emily. Then Percy.
This maybe deserves its own boring post, but I would like to take this opportunity, while I'm thinking of it, to encourage people to consider super amateur backyard birdwatching. This involves buying the Sibley guide, or some similar reference, learning the five kinds of birds that normally visit your yard, and then when you see something out of the ordinary, cracking open the reference and adding another bit of bird knowledge to your world. It is a shortcut to nature awareness (for kids especially, but for grownups too), because birds are everywhere, and when you start looking for them a little more, it becomes a little treat when you see one. During a recent run, I saw some gold finches and a cedar waxwing (a pretty good looking little fellow!) besides the usual Red-wing Blackbirds and swallows by the lake. Yesterday we got to see and hear a murder of crows ganging up on a raptor (maybe a kestrel) in a nearby tree. We also recently spotted some quail, which are not supposed to be around here. I'm just saying, it's fun.
Jim subbed last night on a soccer team, and today has been walking around like an old cowboy at the end of a very long cattle drive. He had a good time, and played well, by his own modest account. This, in combination with the fact that someone was kind enough to hip us to the fact that we do get Univision on channel 51, and that Univision is kind enough to actually screen the World Cup games so Jim doesn't have to go sit in the "bar" part of the Mexican restaurant at the mall food court that we frequent, means that we are a little bit soccer happy around these parts. So right- Jim is Chinese, and grew up in Malaysia, and so of course is a lifelong fan of... Germany? We were happy to see them beat Inglaterra this morning.
At the end of this month, meaning, this very week, Muriel is going to switch schools and join Naomi's school. This way, they will be at the same school for the summer before Naomi heads off to real school at the end of August. I am just a teeny little bit in denial that this is upon us, not only because I haven't really bothered to have a conversation with the good people at the new school about what to expect from Muriel, and what Muriel should expect, but also because I think, embarrassingly, that I am going to be a little bit wrecked at leaving their baby school behind. We have been going to that school every day for almost four years now, and they have been extremely good and loving to our children. I remember when tiny little drooly Naomi was ready to move from the baby house across the street into the toddler class, it was weirdly emotional for me. I made the teachers these (I realize now) overly elaborate commemorative gifts, and had a hard time not crying when we said goodbye to them. (This is all the more embarrassing given that of course we saw them all the time afterwards.) Anyway, wish me luck, is all I'm saying.

This is getting long, and I haven't even gotten to the part where I get your help in cracking the karaoke code, or force you to endure a tireless rant on the crap crap crappy weather we seem endlessly saddled with. Something to look forward to, right? But since you have read, or skimmed (no blame!) this far, here are a couple of photos from the all girls Strawberry Festival Outing 2010. See for yourself on the weather.

Aw, sisters.

We got the cop pedal car. I had to sit up front to pedal, so I kept telling Naomi she was the perp. She didn't get it.

Bollywood dancers. I am so taking a class, you guys.

Jumping house: three tickets.

Smaller jumping house with ball pit: two tickets.

Photographing children through jumping house mesh: Priceless.

We did get some strawberry shortcake. And look, warm enough to take off our sweaters!

ZOID

2010-06-12T21:33:00.001-07:00

Naomi has a little mortar board that she sported last Thursday as she graduated from preschool in a wild not-quite-ceremony at a local park (an event I missed on account of being in Arizona). The kids' hats were made of white paper, and each kid decorated his or her own with markers and stickers. Naomi's has a smiling heart, stars, several stickers that say "Super Job!", and something that looks like a field notebook illustration of an agave plant. I picked it up while I was clearing off the table tonight (it made it into the house after a week in the trunk of the car), and for a few moments I could not figure out why someone would have written the word "ZOID" on the side of it, in black marker. Oh wait, 2010. Yeah, that makes more sense.

Today we had some friends over for brunch, and I did rather a poor job of having my act together in time to be any kind of hostess to them. Jim made a really delicious frittata and some bacon, which vied for first place in the yummy food category. My contribution was the doughnut muffins we made once before, and they did not come out well at all, never mind the part where they took forever to bake (?). I also forgot the fruit salad I had made, until about 3/4 of the way through the meal, promised a kid an English muffin and never delivered, and put my guest in the position of jamming up toast for my children. Oh well. I need to maybe practice a bit more on the entertaining. I'm feeling rusty. We still had a nice time, and they either did as well or are super gracious and good at feigning enjoyment.

Also, Naomi did me proud by marching into the house to show off the roly poly bug she had caught and was holding in her hand. Things got a little out of hand later in the day, when she amassed a half dozen or more roly polies and created a mini-dystopian nightmare ecosystem for them in a little tupperware dish, with smooth pebbles, sorrel leaves, and absolutely scale-proof walls. There was a weird interlude where she tried to convince us to let her poke holes in a jar lid and make a home for the bugs in there, or get a caterpillar and let it turn into a chrysalis, etc., and there was actually a point where she was on the verge of throwing the kind of fit that would seem more appropriate coming from a teen whose friends were all getting cars for graduation while she was not. Then we were in the dumb position of arguing about what comprises quality of life for a roly poly bug with a five-year-old who is convinced that a roly poly bug loves her and will be broken-hearted if she releases it to the wild.

In the afternoon it was off to Vince's, an Italian joint in south Seattle (or Renton?) that puts the Old back in Old School. It has faux brick wall covering, red-checked vinyl tablecloths, red glass jar candles, lasagna, gnocchi, spumoni, chianti, and most importantly, pizza, pizza, pizza. Our friend C. turned five today, and had the maturity and discernment to request a party at Vince's. The party room was decked out, the balloon/face painting guy was talented at balloons and just so-so at face painting (and weirdly, camera shy and not shy about it). I ate a lot of pizza, helped out with some pin the tail on the donkey, got briefly hit on by a very drunk retiree when I sneaked into the bar for a glass of red, handed out some cake, and emerged from the frescoed cave of Vince's party room into a brilliant evening still blazing with sunshine. In some ways, birthday girl C. is responsible for one great aspect of the life our family enjoys now, having dearest friends nearby who share so many of our experiences. Thanks for being born, little one.

Oh, one more. The girls were tired from the sunshine and pizza and cake and high jinks, and were more than willing to snuggle up in bed for a story (only a few chapters of Doctor Dolittle left!). Muriel sat leaning on a pillow, with a blanket over her lap, and Naomi leaned around me and saw her, and said, "She looks so beautiful. But she always looks so beautiful." Hee! And what? But so cute. OK, happy Saturday. Hope the sun is back tomorrow!

Away Game

2010-06-06T20:48:00.000-07:00

This past weekend plus I traveled solo to Arizona, to attend some graduation-related celebrations. It is hard for me to believe that my niece, a person in the same generation as my own kids, is now out of high school and into the adult world (so to speak). Two nephews finished up 8th grade this year as well. My kids are in the second wave of grandkids, which means I also got to see a three-year-old niece, an 18-month-old niece, and a ten-month-old nephew. Graduates! Teenagers! Parents! Preschoolers! Siblings! Babies! And all in the zillion degree comfort one can only find on the face of the sun, or Phoenix in the summertime. (When I arrived back in Seattle on Sunday, the temperature differential between the two places was right around...50 degrees. Yikes!)

As sometimes happens when you are away from your children, or when they have experienced something out of the ordinary, my kids emerged from the other side of their Dad-only weekend something like six months older, and in Naomi's case, really, it feels like two years older. She is bursting with these long, excited ideas about things, which just pour out of her. She's always been reasonably chatty, but the enthusiasm and clarity she has when she talks about all these ideas has me flabbergasted. I have doubts about this lasting, though I hope it does, but for now I am really enjoying her new persona.

Wait, though, not all of it. On Sunday afternoon she became convinced that we should go swimming. It was already too late to go- we had to figure out dinner and stay on track for the inexorable march to bedtime (especially since Muriel had eschewed her nap). She did not like my answer, and began a ruthless lobbying campaign. It wasn't a friendly one, either. She suggested we vote. I voted against. She and Muriel voted for. "We have more votes, so we should go swimming," she said. I am pretty sure I didn't teach her about voting, so...? I told her my vote was bigger than hers and Muriel's. The idea spigot opened, and she began explaining that if Muriel stood on top of her, they would be bigger than I, and that would prove that their votes counted for more. I was laughing out loud at this point, and of course that made her furious (this is a great problem of ours- when she gets really serious about something, it is often side-splittingly funny, in the most charming and wonderful way, and I have only so much control over my laugh impulse). So I had to go along with her plan, and held Muriel up on her shoulders. Sure enough! The two of them are bigger than I am. But we still did not go swimming.

Both girls were extremely tired after dinner, so we jumped into Muriel's bunk to read a quick story. Occasionally they ask me to make up songs before bed, which, like the results when they ask me to make up stories, are super random and usually ridiculous. They always involve some player from whatever we just read or looked at (an elf, a seal, a snowy owl) getting ready for bed and falling asleep. This time, because I was thinking about how glad I was to be back with them, I sang a song about two girls whose mother goes away for a trip. The refrain had "Come back to me, Mama" a few times, and I noticed after the second repeat that Naomi was rubbing her eyes. "That song is too sad!" she said, and then started to cry for real. Which of course made me cry. Dumb, dumb Mama. What was I thinking? And then Muriel said, "Mom, something is coming out of your eyes." Hee. I had a reasonable save with a song about Brown Bear, headed to his lair with his brown bear hair, and then some loud snoring noises. Whew!

The ladies out luncheoning with Dad at the German Deli. Javol!

Don't Let the Moon Break Your Heart

2010-05-27T22:59:00.000-07:00

OK, here's the latest. First, the girls have both started singing this old song from a k.d. lang album (Shadowland)- "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes." For the longest time, they only sang the first line of it... "Don't let the stars get in your eyes, don't let the moon break your heart..." over and over and over. Which was cute and weird and funny and maddening all at the same time. Which come to think of it is a reasonable summary of much of parenting these days. Now Muriel knows more of the words, and it is the bomb when she sings it.

Remember when Naomi was speaking faux Hindi all the time? Well, now she can write in faux Hindi! Is there nothing her preschool won't teach her? If I weren't so lazy I would scan the drawing of a bobble-head doll she made (which she insists on calling a bobby-head doll, and that's funnier anyway, so why argue?) which has all the relevant information along the top in faux Hindi. She also loves drawing paisley patterns, expanding her standard repertoire of hearts, stars, flowers, and swirls.

The other day when I picked her up, her teacher told me that Muriel had almost made her cry that day. During their visit to the diaper room, which, Miss Beth informs me, is where they often have a chat, Muriel told her that she was not going to be at the school much longer, and she wouldn't be seeing her anymore. Muriel is going to change schools next month, so she and Naomi can have a summer together at the same school before Naomi starts Kindergarten. I am never that sure what Muriel knows, though. With the second one, I find it is hard to ever believe that she is not still a baby, so when she starts walking and talking and demonstrating her capacity, I still can't believe it's anything other than a marvelous trick the baby has learned. But here she is, conducting a little therapy session with her teacher about the upcoming sense of loss both of them must face together. Yikes.

It seems like maybe I have written about something similar to this before, but it's happening so much lately, I can't resist mentioning it again. Naomi and Muriel get along very well together, but they are two very different little people (also, people like to say that they look so much alike, but to me, they really don't at all). And each of them is now old enough to observe the other, occasionally, with some distinct person detachment, if that makes sense. So a few times lately, one of them will do something, and the other will make eye contact with me, and we will acknowledge together something about the other. Mostly it goes like this: Muriel does something hilarious, like talking about something and then throwing a really theatrical face very smoothly into the narration. Naomi will look at me with a big smile, like, "Did you see that?!" Or, at the end of the day, during the tired and grouchy time, Naomi will become overwhelmed by her feelings of whatever (this happens, um, often), and cry and cry, and after a while Muriel will look at me and say, "She's still crying!" There is something about this acknowledgment of the other kid as a person having their own separate personhood that feels mysterious and monumental at the same time.

Now School, New School

2010-05-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

I didn't really post about Mother's Day, so let me say that it was a good, fun, weekend of sunshine and family hijinks. Friday night we had a real grown-up dinner date, Saturday we went to the farmer's market one town over, and later had a picnic at Kubota Gardens in Seattle. For both events I practiced not thinking about rushing on to the next thing, and I have to admit, it was worth the effort it took. Sunday I FINALLY got the little present Naomi had been agonizing over handing over or withholding since she had brought it home several days before- it's a frame she decorated, and drew a picture for.

In the afternoon, she and I took a bike ride around the new school she'll be going to. I can't believe I haven't thought of doing this before. She loved peering into the classroom windows, seeing the art work, reading some of the words written on large signs around the walls. And a few days later, we stopped in on the way to school, now school, to drop off her registration for Kindergarten. This girl, who seems so big and grown up at her preschool, who is clearly the oldest in her Sunday school class, who definitely runs the show when she and Muriel are playing, seemed so Little compared with the kids walking around at the elementary school. As an aside, when we talk about elementary school, she talks about Kindergarten, first grade, and last grade. Are they in first grade? Are they in last grade? Hee.

Friday I took Naomi to her five-year-old checkup, also known as her must do before Kindergarten check-up. She was super good and healthy, growing right up the curve like she is supposed to. She had a vision test, at which she stood up straight and tall and got around (after a slow start) to reading the letters in her actual five-year-old voice and not the baby talk voice that sometimes comes out when she feels the need to be silly as a mask for shyness. The nurse asked questions about what she can do: Can she name four colors? Can she count? A couple of other funny ones, I can't remember them now. The nurse also gave her a sheet of paper with three symbols on it that she had to duplicate, and on the back she was to write her name and draw a picture of herself. She got right to work with the ballpoint pen, and of course did not stop with a picture of herself- she had to be wearing a crown and a dress covered with stars and be accompanied by a cat and a smiling heart face.

When the doctor came, it was a joyful reunion- we haven't seen her in over a year, not only because our children have been remarkably healthy, but because she has been out on maternity leave with her second little boy. She is the nicest, best doctor ever in the world, to borrow the superlative favored by my children. Not only does she take very good care of our children, and support and reassure us copiously about our decisions around their health, but she also appears to take real delight in seeing them, and in how they are growing, and just generally gives the kind of sincere and believable positive family feedback that you need every so often. Even though Naomi hasn't seen her in a while, she remembered the doctor, and how much we like her, and immediately adopted the half-spazzy dork behavior that takes over when Gramma first shows up, for example. It was funny.

Then, the shots! I had told her she was getting a shot, but it turned out to be four. If it had been one or even two, she would have come through with her extreme courage intact. But with two in each arm, I can't really blame her for crying, which she did only for a moment. When it was all over we helped ourselves to a sticker (purse dog wearing a sweater won out over Thomas the Tank Engine and Spider Man), and headed to the mall food court for pancakes (her choice for lunch). I had sort of envisioned a chatty mother/daughter luncheon, but we both just sat there eating, paying maybe too much attention to the other people around us. Still, it was fun to be with just her. She ate a lot of pancake! Then it was back to now school, her little arms sticking out of her sleeveless dress, two bandaids each.

Found Some Flow!

2010-05-07T22:18:00.000-07:00

Well, it has happened: Muriel and I have been invited to partake in a play date with Muriel's little classmate and... her nanny. Her mom is the one who has been trying to set it up. She contends that Muriel is her daughter's favorite at school, despite the fact that she refers to her as Mario. I don't know that we will be able to make it happen, though I do feel a little compelled to try to accept the formation of some friendships through (and for) Muriel, since it occurs to me that we are amassing quite a delightful group through Naomi (something I didn't really anticipate...). And perhaps the nanny too is a delightful person and we will get along famously. I don't know.

Anyway, I am already a week away from last weekend, and partway into the new one, but I am still going to look backward to report on the kinds of grownup play I cooked up for myself. First, Saturday was May Day, so there were some cheesy May Baskets (paper cones) with bouquets cobbled together from our front yard. The flowers included lilac and lavender, and as a result were spectacularly fragrant, if a little garish and raggedy. Also, I finally tried out our good friend's bread recipe, which is of the wait around a long time, but don't do much manual labor variety. It was about ten times better than the bagels- delicious!

Last but not least- the sewing! Hand sewing is not something I am very good at, but I am just going to have to come right out and admit that it is ridiculously fun and enjoyable. I had a project in mind for Mother's Day LAST YEAR, and bought the fabric and cut it up according to the pattern. I just never got around to actually sewing it. So last weekend, with only a few days before the mailing deadline, I started to crank out the little birds (resulting in a total of 6).

Although the sewing was fun and relatively easy, the attaching of the birds onto the sticks, and the balancing of the whole thing was well nigh impossible. Jim was a huge help, and deserves a medal for coaxing me to keep trying with the final construction when I was ready to quit (and had in fact announced it officially). Even finding a box to ship the thing in was a pain. Oh well. It's there now, so like it, Mom!

My kids, of course, have no trouble finding their flow. I was thinking I should post once with all the "Pretend..." statements that I hear one or the other of them make in a day or two, and of course immediately after I thought that, Naomi busted out with the longest ever "Pretend..." statement. It was something like, "Pretend we were mermaids, and our parents had died, and we were under the water, and you were there, and we said, what the? Who are you? And then you asked us if we would come and live with you because you loved us, but then you had to make a spot where the water wouldn't come out, so we could live there with you, so you did, and then we came to live with you?" (Um, and so on...) Here's the "somersault court" that Naomi and Muriel constructed. The double somersault is quite something.

Busy Busy

2010-04-28T18:53:00.001-07:00

Have I been off my posting schedule! Sorry about that. We have had lots of nice things happening, so really, no excuse but busy for me.

Here in the PNW we are in that period of completely disjointed spring weather, where a day starts out glorious and leads to a torrential downpour, followed by brilliant sunshine, followed by gray foreboding, followed by hail, followed by sun, followed by drizzle. This is normal, and boring (yes, it is boring to talk about the weather, I know!), but I bring it up because its disorienting effect is amplified by my work situation, where I work for hours ensconced in my little interior office/cave, and then go to the kitchen to get some water, and look out over the lake. Visit 1, lake is blue, but it's dark where we are. Visit 2, lake is dark gray, but it's sunny where we are. Visit 3, it's pouring, lake is misty and vague, and so on.

This weather also makes it more or less impossible to dress appropriately, or more importantly, to dress one's children appropriately. The consolation is that at some point and maybe multiple points during the day, whatever you're wearing will be exactly right. As my friend likes to say, broken clock = right twice a day!

Weather grousing aside, hooray that spring is upon us, bringing with it the promise of longer days and more motivation and planting things outside and bike rides and the whole shebang. This past weekend, I went to visit my girlfriend in Boise. It was supposed to be a Girls' Weekend in the grand tradition, but it turned into kind of a Mom Plus One weekend when her family needed her back urgently. The lesson of course is that Girls' Weekends work better when enforced by distance, and also, that they are super trumpable, and appropriately so. While I was gone, though, there was some Dad/Daughter gardening going on, which is worth a picture:

This reassures me that they did not just watch movies the whole time I was gone, though, who am I to complain either way?

Going back in time a bit, here we are at the beach walk put on by our church a couple of weeks ago:

There was some kind of extremely low tide condition, and to celebrate Earth Day, a couple of our church members who are certified beach naturalists or some such thing invited everyone to bring a picnic to this lovely beach park in West Seattle and get to know some tidal creatures. At church before we left, there was a puppet show to help teach the kids how to handle (or mostly, to not handle) the creatures. This was terrific for me, as I was teaching Sunday school, and it was truncated for the puppet show. Woo!

We saw sea stars (WA has some rad purple sea stars, as you know), anemones, which is fun to try to get Muriel to say, fish, crabs, and the amusing telltale squirts of underground clams.

Naomi was also very focused on creating a collection- she started with white rocks but kind of went from there. The naturalist told us that this was a protected beach park- you can't remove anything. So Naomi arranged her collection and left it on a drift log.

And Muriel thought it was even funnier to do the same thing with our shades.

OK, and one more thing before I forget. I read an article yesterday on a parenting blog I visit once in a while (here's the article) that really spoke to me, about how being overly busy really does make you unhappy if there is no room in your busy for activities of play or flow (flow being, I think, a kind of grown up play). How's this for a quote:

"Busy-ness does not make us happy. Muller reminds us that the Chinese symbol for busy is composed of two characters: heart and killing."

Being too busy does make me unhappier. But the happy understanding I got from this article is that even though being busy is kind of unavoidable, if I make time for play here and there, the busy-ness doesn't have to prevent the happiness. Though it helps to know how to achieve the flow...

Circles vs. Triangles

2010-04-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

Today on the way to school, Muriel said, "Circles. Mom, I really like circles. But I don't like triangles." Good when you know your mind, right?

Here's some photos from Cali:

At Alex's house, you don't have to play music on your old saucepan!

Balcony view from the girls' bedroom.

This moment, brought to you by ice cream, happened while I was away at work. I miss all the fun!

San Diego Zoo, on a particularly beautiful Friday.

Yes, the cuteness. These three had a good time together! Also, check out my sweet backpack.

The beach in front of the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego. And more ice cream!

This was in Long Beach, near the aquarium. Something about this place- the hills, the grass, the sunshine?- made the kids run around like maniacs. Muriel rolled down a hill over and over, and kept stumbling around. Then there was the tree climbing, the wagon pulling, and the overall cutting loose. Crazy kids!

Yes, indeed, it was quite a trip. I admit, I see why so many people think it's a good idea to live there.

April's Starting Big

2010-04-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

I hate to resort to a bulleted list, but there has to be some way to impose order on the chaos of topics at hand, and I refuse to take the high road, a.k.a., editing myself. So, here goes:

- Sportimint Club: What is the Sportimint Club, you ask? What does Sportimint even mean? Naomi and Muriel have formed a club. The clubhouse is their room. There is a sign on the door, made by Naomi. There is a secret knock to get in (which I will not reveal, though I am lucky enough to know it). Other than that, people, I am as in the dark as you are. I *think* it's some amalgam of sports and experiments? Or something? Who knows.

- Little fish: Naomi passed her first round of swim lessons and was presented with a pink cardstock skill assessment and a piece of Laffy Taffy in a ziploc bag. My heart swelled with pride. More so when she shared the Laffy Taffy with her sister with no admonishment from me.

- Other little fish: I watched Ponyo with the girls on Friday night. It is a weird, delightful movie. Of course the girls' favorite part was the beautiful sea goddess (or whoever she was), Ponyo's mother. Those girls are a little predictable.

- Bagels: The first time I tried to make bagels (after declaring my intentions here), the dough was too goopy, and I gave up. I tried again this past Saturday, with semi-success. The process was fun, but the bagels browned too quickly and were not all that tasty. They were good enough to convey some cream cheese and smoked salmon to their final resting places, at least. I will try again, for sure.

- Egg Hunt! We were just late enough to the Easter Egg Hunt at church that we managed to miss all the chaotic coloring and egg hop and whatnot, and get straight to the egg hunting part. For the tinies, this process is much less hunting and much more gathering, so they just walked from room to room and harvested ten eggs (the limit). Fortunately, this year, there were no florescent permanent ink stamps for Muriel to decorate her face with.

- Five Miles: Also Saturday, I ran five and a half miles! Woo! Is this a good time to mention (did I already mention?) that Jim and I are half-planning to run a half-marathon in November? Of course, five miles is not even half-way there, but still, a long run for me.

- Cold water: Saturday night there was a loud noise in the basement, and since I had just been down there fetching up Easter basket supplies, Jim assumed I had knocked something over. But no, it was the hot water heater blowing a something or other. There was a fear-inducing burning smell and a little leakage. So now, NO HOT WATER. Which means, as it turns out, NO DISHWASHER. I never knew how keenly I loved my dishwasher, also, until I spent the whole afternoon cleaning up our breakfast dishes. Bleah!

- Mom of the Year: Only a truly awesome mom would be clever enough to enclose her two-year-old, AND her bag of Easter candy, in her room for a nap. I was so happy to hear how quiet it was for twenty minutes, and then Muriel emerged, a big ring of chocolate around her mouth. I said, did you eat your candy? And she said, just a little bit. Ha! She had eaten about two-thirds of her chocolate bunny and had somehow made a little hole in the carrot-shaped bag of orange Reeses Pieces. The worst part, of course, is that I couldn't act mad at her because I was laughing too hard, and I couldn't even really BE mad at her, because I am the dummy who left her chocolate in there in the first place. Naomi, even at two and a half, would never have helped herself that way, and thinking about that somehow makes me love both of them even more. They are so Naomi and Muriel, respectively. Hee.

This will be a hectic week, as we are leaving town halfway through for a more Vitamin D-friendly destination. More on that later... have a lovely week!

LATE BREAKING NEWS~ Jim had someone come and fix the water heater today. I am listening to the dishwasher whirring away in the kitchen. Happy!

The Face of Healthcare Reform

2010-04-01T22:31:00.000-07:00

April Fool's! Naomi really got into the spirit of April Fool's Day today, though her trickery was hilariously straightforward. "Mom, you've got a bug in your ear....April Fool's!" Hee.

We froze a couple of bowls of cereal last night, and served it up this morning. It was a good gag for about twenty seconds.

Then there was just a lot of scraping and chipping to try to eat the frozen milk...

Happy Easter, you all! Have a great weekend.

Kitchen Dispatch

2010-03-26T22:47:00.000-07:00

Jim has been on the ball with his camera lately, and apparently we spent all week in our kitchen, so this photo essay is the result.

I forget what was going on here, so, this is our kickoff picture.

This is the pizza dough we bought at Trader Joe's, inspired by a recent pizza night at our friends' house.

Muriel ate quite a lot of it, which is noteworthy only because of the very birdlike dinners she normally consumes.

OK, yes, the lighting in this is a little bit Touched By an Angel, but I include it to emphasize that if you are ever wondering why the poor Khooler children always have such sloppy hair, consider the source! Yikes. But we also liked the pizza.

This morning's conceit- pretending our worn-out saucepans were guitars. I was going to make a jam session joke, considering that Naomi was wearing a considerable amount of the stuff on her face from her morning toast, but instead I will relate that Muriel would actually check inside her pot to see if the audience-requested songs were in her "guitar" or not. Rad.

After dinner tonight, the kids shared a strawberry milk box. Naomi is pretty good at the sharing when she has a sense that it's her responsibility to be fair. But mostly they were just being coocoo. It really is too bad this isn't a video, because part of the fun is listening to them laugh when they really get going.

Tomorrow, in this same kitchen, I am *maybe* going to try to make bagels, my first time! If I do, there will be some pictures of that. In the meantime, have a beautiful weekend, friends!

Can You Tell I Started This on the Weekend and Lazily Didn't Finish It Until Today?

2010-03-19T22:04:00.000-07:00

What a long, strange week it's been. Well, not that strange, but long and a little strange. Here are the two weird parts:

- Dead racoon. Fun fact! I am kind of creeped out by racoons. They are bigger than you think, they RULE our neighborhood at night, and occasionally we hear multiples of them thumping and scuttling around on the roof. It makes my skin crawl. On Thursday morning, Jim did a "Psst, c'mere" and asked me if I knew what was about this big, has stripes, and is DEAD. Ha! and AUGH! I sneaked out and threw a few pebbles at it, through the fence, to verify that it was truly dead. When I came in I did a creeped out jump around dance, which made Naomi ask just what was going on?! Jim and I both said- "It's COLD out there!"

Which it was. But Naomi is a subscriber to a nature magazine that features a little racoon and his friends (a mink, a skunk, and a beaver) who have good times in the woods and learn about nature. And who am I to pass along my prejudice? I didn't want her to see the thing. Jim used our neglected, lonesome snow shovel to move the remains. Lucky for us it was trash day!

- Creature from the Black Lagoon. The other day Jim called me and told me he was on his way to REI to buy something, and he wasn't going to tell me what it was, because he wanted to see my reaction to it, whatever it was. He had seen a guy at the mall with it, and asked him where he got it, and was now off to start making his own impression.

It turns out his instinct was right on, because when I saw what he bought, I laughed and laughed. And kept laughing every time I saw it. "It" was a pair of...shoes? Feet covers? Jim is mildly obsessed with the notion of barefoot, ball of the foot-first running. He has been trying it out, reading up on it. It turns out they make special non-shoe shoes for this kind of runner, and it looks like a scuba diving toe sock. I will take a picture of that soon- I realize it is irresponsible to describe this and not give a visual.

And now the good- on Sunday, for the second party of a two-birthday-party weekend (the first one was great, as well), Naomi went to a bowling alley! First time ever! She wasn't bad- on one frame, she even bowled a spare. Of course, this is kiddie bowling we're talking about- there are bumpers blocking the gutters, making it more like slo-mo pinball. It's the ultimate Zen exercise- the kid starts the ball rolling, you go and order a burger, eat it, make a to-do list, call your mom, find out what's new, run to the bathroom, and just when you return the ball has finally made contact with the pins. Cue enthusiastic cheering! Naomi was totally into it, not because she liked the bowling, but she loved the turn-taking and the scoring. And I reverted right back to my amateur woo-bowler persona, cheering raucously for every kid on every frame. High Five!

Naomi is also taking swim lessons. She is really enjoying it, and this seems like a good time tout the "lazy parenting is its own reward" method that I default to, I mean, espouse. Before I even thought about potty training Naomi, her pediatrician said I could start any time, but if I started earlier, it would take longer. Which meant, of course, if you wait to teach a child something until the child is really ready to learn it, the child will learn it lickety split. Which was true when she was potty trained (at the somewhat late age of three), and true now as she takes on swimming lessons, a newly fearless five-year-old. Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that her scarcely-teenaged boy teacher is named Ryker. I am sure that really is his first name, and that it is not the case that his real first name is Commander and he just goes by his middle name. Make it so, Mom and Dad!

More good! Luna's lame owner finally got her to the vet for an update of inoculations and a nail trim. We went to a new vet, whom I like very much- no aggressive upselling based on horrible infliction of pet owner guilt! Now I am more than willing to take her back for the dental cleaning. She has been sick, poor girl, from eating trash, about which perhaps the less said the better, and has lost a lot of weight. But she seems to be nearly recovered, so, hooray! More good!

Everyone's getting some specific air time, but I don't have anything for Muriel. Oh wait- today on the way home from school, at the intersection near our house where we always have to stop for a light, she watched a crow swooping around, landing on the median, swooping back to the grass across the sidewalk. She said, "I wish I was that bird." Yeah! I love that so much. I asked her what she would do. She said, "Fly up to the top of that tree, and then swoop back down." She actually said swoop. She also was rocking a funny Three's Company sloppy high ponytail today, just as a bonus.

Thirty-Two Oh Five

2010-03-13T22:37:00.000-08:00

This morning Jim and I got up and dragged the children over to the local health club, where the first annual St. Paddy's Day 5k got underway at 8:15. The kids stayed at the "child care" facility at the club, at which, we discovered, $5/hour for two kids (and a not-really changed dirty diaper) later, you kind of get what you pay for. Oh well. Also, what gives with the St. Patrick's Day-related fun runs? What is it about St. Patrick's Day that makes people want to run five kilometers?

The point is, Jim and I ran a 5k this morning, and it was great. The weather, threatening showers, turned out to be sunny and clear and cool- just perfect. We puffed a little going up a particularly steep and long hill (probably neither, just seemed like it), but overall we did fine, and when the timekeeper read our time out loud (32 minutes, 5 seconds for me, 2 seconds later for Jim), I was pleasantly surprised. I assumed my pace would be around the 12 minute miles I can comfortably and pokily sustain on my occasional treadmill runs. So, yea!

After the run, we came home, and Naomi suggested she and Muriel should have a snack on the front patio, because it was just so "gorgeous." Hee. I couldn't argue with that. We went to brunch at our friends' house- a pair who met when she was teaching English in Turkey and he was just... in Turkey. So the brunch involved feta-inclusive brunch treats and Turkish tea. Mmmm. And the kids enjoyed playing with their adorable son (Naomi's age), but especially their older daughter, who is eight, and a sweet enough girl to make time to play with two little chicks who are much younger than her. It was a long, luxurious, very delicious brunch; I am almost worried we overstayed our welcome.

Our afternoon was actually kind of short after that. At dinner time, our friend and babysitting swapper came by, and Jim and I headed to Seattle for dinner. It was another long, luxurious meal, with a brief and wonderful interruption when an old friend stopped by the restaurant to show off his super duper cute 7-month-old daughter. Salt cod fritters, squid kebab, lamb, moussaka, and coconut cream pie. And now it is too late, and we have to spring forward, and I have to be awake and ready to teach Sunday school in a scant few hours, so I cannot even properly end this post. But thank you, Saturday, for being so delightful. The end.

Birthday Party Redux

2010-03-07T19:56:00.000-08:00

As I type this, the girls are summoning first one parent, then the other to their darkened, supposed sleep room for various nothings. They had late naps (even Naomi!) and an exciting day, and I think I will be hearing screaming and laughing and squeaking and "Mommmmmmmy. Mommmmmmy." for another forty minutes or so. Oh well.

In the past, we had talked about the tendency, which can come more easily than you think, to overdo birthday parties for kids. So we agreed that every five years we would throw a big one, a kid party blowout, and then the other years, not so much. Since Naomi turned five this year, this was the year for it. A few months ago we went to a birthday party for her friend from school at a "play gym." I would never have thought to have a party at a place like this, but Naomi had a fantastic time at that one, so we finally decided to shamelessly copy that shindig. Getting a reservation wasn't easy, which is why we ended up having Naomi's to-do at 12 on a Sunday, a week after her actual birthday.

Here's where I win a prize for my fabulous planning skills. Instead of just getting the cake and the sandwiches from the same place, and preparing the takeaway beforehand, I had to order the sandwiches from one place, the cake from another, and decide rather at the last minute to have balloons instead of goody bags, meaning, a third stop on the way to the party. And also: a car JAMMED full of balloons. Cuckoo!

Somehow, despite the many crazy stops, we still got to the party place too early, and had to wait outside in the March chill (yesterday's weather was a one-day only engagement, sadly), in order to save Muriel from further complaining about the balloon crowding in the car. When we got into the place, the balloons commenced with some kind of suicide pact- at least ten of them popped. Jim ran out to get more, kids started showing up, and the party got under way.

Our no-presents-please invitation request was roundly (sweetly) ignored. Also, every foreign-originating parent congratulated me and shook my hand (on the occasion of my child's birthday). In fact, one of the mothers, who is Russian, brought me tiny, sweet-smelling, yellow mimosa flowers, since it is nearly Mother's Day in Russia, and that is the traditional flower on this holiday. (I haven't felt inclined to fact check that one.) But of course, it wasn't about me! There were obstacle courses, games, a swing, a trampoline, and all manner of running around. I think the kids had a really good time.

I felt a little bad that there was only enough food for the kids (especially when I realized how hungry I was). The astronaut theme was...under-realized, I guess, but the cake was still cute. At the end, there was a frenzy of balloon grabbing, which I will freely admit was super gratifying. And then we went home, put the kids in bed for a nap, and ate the leftover deli sandwiches. And tonight, the girls have finally fallen asleep, I am eating Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies, and the birthday season has officially come to a close. Ahhh.

Good Day, Sunshine

2010-03-06T21:53:00.000-08:00

Picture Catch Up

2010-03-01T23:07:00.001-08:00

Urge to post....late at night...too strong...cannot be ignored. OK, just a handful of shots of the birthday bonanza.

Traditional birthday pancake face. She requested this one, so I guess it is now a birthday tradition? I give credit where it is due: Jim is responsible for this year's pancake face.

Naomi decided to wear all the mardi gras beads Grampa brought. You can't see it in this picture, but she has one gold string of beads around each arm. Fancy!

I just think Naomi is trying to prove how grown up five year olds are simply by making this grown up smirky five year old birthday face.

Naomi's cake is a big old mess, as you can see, but it tasted pretty good. And she said it was just what she wanted, though I think she was probably being charitable. I'll take it.

Date of Birth

2010-02-28T22:50:00.000-08:00

I think it is outright irresponsible of me to not post photos tonight, but I had to help Muriel fall asleep after all the excitement, which led directly to me falling asleep, and then waking up to discover it is nearly eleven. I am not inclined to hook up the hardware to make pictures move apartments from the camera to the server, but when I do, tomorrow, you will see Naomi wearing her flower girl dress (again), blinged up with mardi gras beads that my parents brought along, and basically cranked up to eleven. She had a really good time.

I had fun, too, actually. We put the extension in our newish dining room table for the first time, so in case you are wondering, 12 people total is about the best we can do at one seating, and that's if four of the twelve are kids. After dinner, Naomi seated herself on the ottoman as though on a dais, and waited patiently for everyone to find a seat so she could begin the present opening performance. Yikes. She was not, shall we say, appropriately slow and appreciative, which makes me glad we have asked for no gifts at her kid party.

Then there was the moment, when I had lit the candles on her cake (which she insisted on placing herself, after a fairly dignified acceptance that I did a terrible job writing her name across the strawberries in Reddi Whip), and we started singing, that I got completely choked up and could not finish the song. I can't begin to summarize my feelings in that moment, but I wonder if you ever stop time traveling back to the beginning when you celebrate the birthday of your children, or any child you have known since the day they were actually born. Beautiful, tiny baby Naomi is now beautiful five-year-old Naomi. Thanks, Universe!

Five Years Old

2010-02-27T22:14:00.000-08:00

I started messing around with this blog post before I looked at the clock, and now that I do, I see that I'm about five minutes past the actual 5 year mark. Five years ago almost right this very minute, Naomi was born. When she (finally) came out, the nurse said, "Well, Dad, what do you got?" And Jim said, "It's a girl!" I said, "Really?" That's all I could come up with. I was so sure she was a boy. "Does this girl have a name?" the nurse said. "Her name is Naomi," he said. Just like that, Naomi was here.

Two years later, on the morning of Naomi's birthday, our friend Sochi was born. It's a good day to be born! We had a fun time at her house tonight, eating chili dogs and cake and ice cream. Tomorrow is Naomi's party, I should say, her first party (not the awesome kid paradise party- that's next weekend).

Care to guess what her dad put together, and we then sadly, pathetically improvised wrapping for?

More Visitors Have Arrived!

2010-02-26T22:41:00.000-08:00

I don't know whether to make this cooking focused or child focus or visitor focused. What I know for sure is that it is late and I am sleepy, and this is likely to be not a bit focused as a result. OK, so I worked from home today, and took advantage of this fact to make a pork roast in the crock pot. I have never done this before, and have in fact never cooked a pork roast at all before. But the recipe was super simple (except I did have to go to the store- can you believe I didn't have a jar of apple jelly in the pantry?).

Also, let's say, over lunch hour, I made oatmeal cookies. I never remember to remove the butter from the fridge with enough lead time to have it be all perfectly softened when it's time to make the dough, so I checked with my friend the Internet, and sure enough, lots and lots of people want to tell me what to do about it. I tried one idea on the first stick- rolling it between wax paper with a rolling pin. It was tremendously unsuccessful. The other idea was to grate it like cheese, which I did, except that it kind of went all over the place, and unlike grated cheese, you can't just pick it up and move it around without getting a bit buttery. Of the two, I'd say the grating method is better.

Anyway, my parents' plane was a bit late, and we held dinner for them, so by the time they arrived, it was past bedtime. The girls were Super Kooky, especially Muriel, who could not stop narrating and making dramatic faces. They both did the kind of easily lampooned "look what I can do!" kid behavior. My parents were amused and overwhelmed, I think. For two small granddaughters, they can really make some noise.

Anyway again, the pork was pretty tasty. The cookies were pretty tasty. I'm pretty sleepy. Happy Weekend, friends!

Not Quite By The Numbers

2010-02-25T21:49:00.000-08:00

I was going to do a by-the-numbers post, but the only ones I could come up with were:

5: Number of samples I got during my Costco lunch outing. Sourdough bread, pancake, cheese on cracker, chicken chimichanga, chocolate. Stupid bread and pancake for messing up my alliteration.

30: Number of minutes later that I finally responded to an instant message from my boss sent while I was at Costco. Oops.

Oh well. Tonight Naomi and I put together her "goody bags" for her school chums. I was going to say I exercised considerable restraint in the goody selection, but that is only half-true, since in fact I am a cheapskate. That makes it easier to not go overboard. The whole tradition is so fraught, like so many parenting things, because I find goody bags to be extremely problematic (as does, I am sure, the garbage patch in the Pacific ocean), yet I don't want my kid to be disappointed. I should put a little more effort into working this one out, instead of just going with the flow.

Anyway, tonight when we were packing the bags, she worked out a system where she set out three sets of goodies, then got three bags, and packed them up. I gave absolutely no direction on this, she just did this because that is the way her awesome, systematic little mind works. I love it.

Tomorrow, she will be wearing her flower girl power dress to school to hand out the goodies. Ah, to be a fly on the wall, with a camcorder. Tomorrow night, the grandparents arrive. I am researching pork roast crock pot recipes and wondering what else I can manage to clean before they show up. We'll see!

Manic Wednesday

2010-02-24T21:32:00.000-08:00

I know, that is a flawed 80s allusion, but it was a flawed decade. I make no apologies. Today is one of those strange days where I am energetic and hyper-accomplishing one minute, and lethargic and extremely grouchy the next. I almost wish I had more days like this, though I am not enjoying the seething lethargy right this minute.

And yes, I did louse up my resolution by not posting last night, but there was nothing to say, and I felt too sorry for all four of you having to read yet another it's late I'm tired here's a tiny thing that happened today goodnight post. So, I am going to call a do-over on Tuesday. That will be covered by the Jim birthday pictures later in this post.

Before I get to that, here is the thing that happened today, at the exactly right point in the crest of my mania wave, that made me almost wet my pants from laughing. I will say up front, you kind of had to be there. I picked Muriel up from school, and as we were pulling out of the parking space, we saw her school chum's dad. "Is that Daddy's Ella?" she said. "Right, that's Ella's Daddy," I said. "I love Ella's Daddy," she said. "He has such a nice round head."

Bwah! She went on to say that his nice round head has a circle on it, by which she meant his haircut. I was laughing really hard at this (sorry, terrible, I know), which delighted Muriel, so she decided to try out the knock-knock jokes she knows. Ivana come in! Dwayne the bathtub, I'm dwowning! Ah, I laughed all the way home.

I hope that's what she remembers from today, not the part where I yelled at her for squirting tomato innards all over her dress and spitting out her dinner. Between the pair of us, we are like charm school dropouts with a bullet. Oh well. Naomi picked up the slack a bit, when I asked why she was distracting Muriel by making her laugh, and she said, maybe I just have the Giggles. She did, too.

OK, that was tonight's post, and here's last night's:

Naomi was allowed to pick one dessert from the absurd dessert bounty at Salty's on Sunday, and somehow she got the best one. These beautiful cupcakes tasted even better than they looked.

I wish I could remember the gimmick of these particular eggs Benedict- cayenne something or other. Birthday eggs!

Here, Jim displays his trophy in the protein shake making Olympics. Just kidding. I am enormously gratified that he likes his appliance.

Speaking of the Olympics, does our Birthday Crown not resemble a cheerful wreath of laurel? Check out the adoring fans.

Oh, and I just noticed that I blew past the 200 post mark earlier in the week. Zowie! See you tomorrow. For reals.

Birthday Boy

2010-02-22T20:35:00.000-08:00

There's only one boy in the house, so you may not have too much trouble guessing whose birthday we celebrated today. It was another gorgeous, sunny day, so I will consider that a gift to all of us. Jim played hooky from work, had some Seattle diner breakfast, read some (as part of his resolutions for his next year of life), did some shopping, and had a long run. Deluxe! We went together to pick up his cake and his daughters, went out for a steak (for him), and came home to play a Super Why-inspired letter puzzle that led us to his birthday present, a semi-industrial blender (to make his protein shakes!).

Jim is resilient, smart, kind, funny, good looking (see: protein shakes), I could go on and on. I can't wait to see what he does with the next year of his life- there are a lot of challenges ahead, and it should be interesting. But in the meantime I celebrate the birth of a very good man. Happy Birthday, other J. Khooler!

What a Day!

2010-02-21T21:02:00.000-08:00

It is not quite rational how the gorgeous and uncharacteristically enduring sunshine has made every day seem to be dipped in gold. I am used to the clouds here, it's normal for me. But seeing the mountains and the water and the evergreens all shining so brightly really is a tonic for the soul. My friend and I walked down to the lake early this chilly morning and watched the mist rising from the sunny water. It felt like a different life, somehow.

Of course it doesn't hurt that we then spent the late morning stuffing ourselves at Salty's. We met our friends (and brought our visitor along) to celebrate Jim's birthday, a little early. I was impressed by how committed Jim and our visitor were to getting our money's worth at the oyster and crab bar. Mmmm. Naomi had the most beautiful cupcake for dessert (I'll get a picture of that up sometime). Muriel ate bacon with gusto, and about a hundred strawberries.

After some sleepy stomach-clutching, I took my friend to the Bellevue botanical garden, which even in the pre-spring explosion phase was an extremely pleasant place to be. I overheard the beginning of some "old rose" association meeting in the visitor's center, and someone who had driven from Spokane quipped that they had left in February and arrived in June. Hee. After a stop at the airport (thanks for coming, L!!), I took the girls to the "good" park, with the two separate playgrounds. Home for soup, bath, and bed. And now here I am, thinking I had better end the day right by not staying up past 11. Yawn. I wish this weekend had about five more days in it.

Saturday Night!

2010-02-20T22:42:00.000-08:00

OK, this is going to be short. Today was a beautiful day- sunny and amazing, breakfast out at the 5 Spot in Seattle, a trip up the Space Needle and lots of other fun things. Now I am racing the clock to get a post up before the day is over, and I admit that I don't have much. But I had a fantastic time with my friend who is visiting from NYC, and instead of having a rockin' night out in Seattle, we had a kind of rockin' night out on the eastside. Woo!

Tomorrow, a surprise (for the other J. Khooler) with a birthday brunch. Mmm. Updates from that tomorrow. Happy Weekend, people!

Innovation Friday

2010-02-19T19:15:00.000-08:00

Maybe it is the fantastically sunny and beautiful weather, the visit from my smart friend, or the gracious refutation of my locked down non-creative character type by mommytude, but I am feeling happy, peppy, and bursting with love. And good ideas. Here are my innovations for the week.

capslock (verb, To type in all caps.).

This neologism sprang from an email conversation with my homegirl in which I had to cop to the fact that I overuse the all caps for emphasis convention in my messages. Of course, though, I didn't really invent it. Here's a little article about it from three years ago. Furthermore, a neologism about emailing is about as innovative as a neologism about shoeing your chariot horse. Oh well. Next try.

Choosing your clothes the night before

I didn't invent this, of course. Naomi did! All on her own, she determined that we should choose her clothing the night before so as to get the big argument out of the way and save precious morning minutes for playing with her sister (or telling on her sister). She reminds me almost every night. This is kind of an obvious strategy, I know, but it is working for us, especially because of the next one.

Giving in completely on wardrobe disputes

OK, maybe not completely, and to be honest, this has sort of developed over the last few weeks, but I have determined that it is a lot easier to just let Naomi wear ridiculously girly outfits if that's what she wants than it is to attempt to get her to agree to wear the clothing I have misguidedly purchased for her in the past that doesn't fit this model. If she wants to wear tights and be cold (it's not that cold here, don't worry), let her wear tights! So I have picked up a few extra pairs, including some "footless" tights that are a big welcome back to the 1980s, but in size 4-6x. Anyway, the point is, we are now on a team together, developing her wardrobe choices (the night before), instead of small child vs. authoritarian rule maker determined to make small child wear every piece of clothing in her drawer no matter
how unhappy it makes small child.

Internet filters

OK, I know these filters already exist as a way to keep the wrong content out of the hands of children or employees at work. And I know you can already block emailers, callers, and texters. But what I want to know is, can I still visit the sites I normally visit, but have all news related to Tiger Woods filtered out? Because THAT is the kind of filter I want.

Hmm, that's it for innovations. The slaw came out too sweet, which seems to be a theme with my old family recipes, so maybe I should start cutting out some sugar, eh? It's going to be another wonderful weekend, spending time with an old friend (known as Old Sol), visiting with my visitor, going out on the town, and a special surprise. I can't stop smiling!

What's (Not) Cooking

2010-02-18T21:11:00.000-08:00

Alright, here's my recipe for dessert:

Ingredients:

1 graham cracker
1 spread of "Decadent Fudge Sauce"
1 squirt of Reddi Whip

My parents sent us a gourmet gift basket for Christmas, or New Year's, I guess, this year, and one of the treats was a jar of decadent fudge sauce, which is really only sauce if you heat it up. When it sits in the fridge, it is spread. Or, decadent fudge spread.

Anyway, this weekend is February's dinner for the Tent City (provided by the people at our church). I signed up to bring a salad, and the woman actually asked me if I would make potato salad. It was pretty recently that I admitted to myself that I can't make decent potato salad (how hard is it? But I have never made good potato salad). So I counter-offered slaw. And that is how I found myself in the kitchen tonight, with the food processor and a head of cabbage. The machine works great on cabbage and pretty well on celery, but green peppers do not love the shredding blade, and I am not even sure where the scallions went. Oh well.

It's a recipe my mom used to make once in a while, sometimes if my dad had a potluck at work. It makes a lot, that's why I thought of it. And I remember that she would store it in one of those giant glass pickle jars, later to be known as sun tea jars. Also, I remember not liking it, when I was a kid, but really, what kid likes cole slaw? The dressing is sugar, vinegar, lemon juice, celery salt, garlic salt, and salt. I left out most of the plain salt, because three teaspoons of salt in any recipe, even if two of them have prefixes and are not just straight up salt, seems like too much salt.

Anyway, with the word "Overnight" in the name of the recipe, I have to assume that I can't really judge it until tomorrow. I'll let you know how it comes out.

Slaw for the homeless! I hope it's good.

Hooray for Visitors!

2010-02-17T22:13:00.000-08:00

This is a big month for us, not just because it's Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year and two birthdays and...oh, right, President's Day. We are also having two sets of visitors! I love to have visitors because it means we are seeing someone we like but don't normally see. Also because we tend to clean up the house a bit more than usual. Not this time, sadly. My friend from NYC arrived today, and has already been treated to the sight of a bit of worn-out pizza lying in the middle of the table. Classy!

Anyway, woo hoo! Visitor! More tomorrow. Peace out.

Be Yourself

2010-02-16T21:19:00.000-08:00

This is a random spot for this anecdote, but what the heck. In a recent training at work, I took a Myers Briggs personality type assessment, and although it was revealing, certainly, it kind of bummed me out a little. They write the type summaries like the most gentle and loving of horoscopes, of course, but it was hard not to read between the lines. My type is NOT creative, NOT spontaneous, NOT insightful. I don't like to endlessly puzzle over things to come to the most innovative or interesting solution. I LOVE to have a decision made, past tense.

Also at play in this source for musing is the book I'm reading, The Happiness Project. In her quest to systematically make herself happier (and write a book about it), the author discovers that you really do need to just be yourself. You can choose what you do (it goes something like this), but you can't choose what you like to do. So quit pretending you like to see art movies, or watch football games, and do something you actually like instead.

The sum of these two inputs, for me, is that I feel a little trapped in myself. I want to be a creative problem solver! I want to have intuition about things! The point, of course, is to learn to accept what you have been given, rather than glumly bemoaning the fact that you are not more intuitive and creative. I will endeavor to celebrate my mind-made-upedness, my straightforward data gatheringness, and so forth (short-cuttingness!).

Monday

2010-02-15T21:25:00.000-08:00

Is there a point to posting if I'm just doing it to stick to my resolution? I don't seem to have quite as much to say this February, although maybe it was like this last time around as well? Today, as you know, was President's Day. We did absolutely nothing to celebrate it, I'm sorry to say, after all the hearts and flowers and dragons and lanterns of the weekend. But I did work from home, since Muriel's daycare was closed, and we had a good day together. It is so fun to sneak up the hall and spy on her playing in her room. She is a tireless narrator, that girl. She built block cities and drank pretend tea and nursed tired and ill stuffed animals and who knows what else.

Oh, and she informed me that when the dizzy bus comes to her school (an old school bus made over into some kind of gymnastics gym on wheels), she's not allowed to go because she didn't ask her mom. Of course the real reason is because I didn't fill out her permission slip and pay for her to go. Hmm. Surely the entire class doesn't go to the dizzy bus? Augh, the peer pressure!

Anyway, back to the office tomorrow, but it's another exciting week. An out of town visitor is coming! Our basement will be clean! Oh the joys!

Happy Lunar Love Day

2010-02-14T22:34:00.000-08:00

Before I get to the pictures, two noteworthy things from church this morning. They had a trumpeter today (for whatever reason), and during the offertory, which as Jim pointed out is where they often throw in some not-too-accessible jazz or modern pieces, the trumpeter played loudly into the open grand piano, then paused so we could hear the strings resonating. Magical! Also, every week they read the names of the men and women killed in action in the past week. This Sunday, only two! It really stood out- usually there are more (and when we started at this church, sometimes the list went on for a really long time).

Anyway- here's the photo roundup for Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day. What a fun weekend!

Dim sum, Seattle style.

Lion dance in front of the Wing Luke Asian Museum

Dragon dancers coming up the block.

It was a typical Seattle day. Drip Drip Drip.

Jim decorated the kitchen with lanterns, and also brought home tulips and roses. Here he is, researching power washers online. Now that's romance!

OK, here are the teeny valentines that Naomi made. She hung Luna's over her bed.

Here's the lineup on our door. These Valentines are about an inch tall.

Finally, my little Valentines with the kooky dolls I made them for their V-day present this year. Love Love LOVE! I almost can't take it sometimes. Happy New Year, Happy Valentine's Day, Happy President's Day, Happy Week to you!

Everything Eve

2010-02-13T21:42:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, as you know, is Valentine's Day, but it's also Chinese New Year (OK, lunar new year). Today we went to Seattle's International District to see what was going on. Dim sum was going on, lucky us! So we tried a different restaurant from the place we normally go on the eastside, then headed out into the rain to enjoy the festivities.

It didn't take long for us to find something- a lion dance in front of the Wing Luke Asian Museum. We were still a few blocks away when the firecrackers went off, which is good, becasuse both of the girls are loud noise-averse. But the drumming and the dancing were right up their alley. We also caught the tail end (har) of the dragon dance, and got to see the performers, including another group of lion dancers, coming up the street.

We didn't stay long, and it rained the whole time, but it was a fun way to mark the start of the year of the tiger. If I were at home, I would be posting photos to back up my story, but instead I am babysitting for some Valentine revellers and trying to write a shopping list for tomorrow's (not well-planned) Valentine's breakfast. Tomorrow will be the photo catch-up. Till then, Sun Leen Fai Lok!

Why, yes, I AM watching the Olympics

2010-02-12T21:02:00.000-08:00

I am listening to what seems like a Christmas album version of the Canadian national anthem, and wondering exactly why this opening ceremony had to start so darn late. We kept the kids up for a while to watch the start of the Olympics, but all they got to see was a lot of quick-cutting sports footage (and some beautiful landscape shots in high def). It was fun to watch Muriel pretend to be snowboarding, to be sure. And they were predictably impressed by the ski jumping and the figure skating. But our kids love their sleep, and they keep to a schedule pretty rigorously, so it was hard not to feel a little bad when it was an hour past bedtime and their eyelids got all doubled and droopy. No opening ceremony after all.

Now they are fast asleep, and so is Jim, naturally, so it's just me and Bob Costas. Tonight, Jim hung the kitchen with paper lanterns for Chinese New Year, and also brought home a really amazing amount of flowers, so the kitchen is the perfect storm of February holiday decorations. I'll get some pictures of that tomorrow. I have a little more sewing to do on the girls' wacky little Valentine's presents, and then it's off to bed.

Wow, Macedonia's "real" name is the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. So educational, this parade of nations!

Book Report

2010-02-11T20:40:00.000-08:00

So, time for a book report, isn't it? I just finished a book called Old Filth, by Jane Gardam. The story is about an elderly man, a retired lawyer and judge, who had worked both in Hong Kong (Filth is a slang acronym- "Failed In London, Try Hong Kong") and in England. He retires to a small town in England, and the book follows his moves through the last years of his life, and in and out of his memories.

The childhood of this successful, accomplished, well-off (seemingly dull) man is heartbreaking, and the scope and the context of the heartbreak is revealed through his memories. He is a "Raj orphan," a term for children sent by their parents living in the far flung colonies back "home" to England for education and civilization. I just googled the phrase, and nearly all of the hits on the first few pages are related to this book, so who knows how widely this term is actually known.

In any case, the contrast between his relentlessly composed presentation and the hardship and sorrow-laden past he endured reminded me of two things: first, you just never know the whole story about someone, and it's a good thing to keep that in mind, and second, that it is lucky for me that I wasn't around in WWII Britain, because no way would I manage the brave stoicism the whole country seemed to own so relentlessly.

I liked the writing, and that is nearly the only thing that really keeps me at a book. Beyond that, though, and beyond even the introduction of this interesting minor historical and cultural archetype, I felt like the agedness of the protagonist helped me to know more about how growing old must be. You don't always get a main character in his late seventies. And at that age, age seems to matter significantly in the way that you feel, the way that you depend on others, the way others treat you, and the way you experience your days.

Next up: The Happiness Project. I'll get back to you.

Not Again!

2010-02-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

OK, I waited too long again, and have no time for a real post. Tonight I spent rather too much time uploading a photo and "designing" Naomi's fifth birthday party invitation. Her party is going to be at a play gym kind of place, but before we arrived at that decision, when there was still a possibility of having it at home, we asked her what kind of party she wanted, and she said "astronaut." RAD! So here's the photo I used for her invitation.

How's that for a cute astronaut? I can't believe she's going to be five. And sometimes, of course, I can't believe she's only five.

Call Me!

2010-02-09T22:02:00.000-08:00

I don't have much to write about this evening; it's late and I want to go to bed. But I already blew the easy photo-only post last night, and I didn't make anything unusual or interesting for dinner, so that's out too. So here's the thing that made me laugh out loud (inside) today: one of Naomi's classmates gave her his digits. She came home with a little square of paper with the boy's name and his phone number.

What are we supposed to do with this, I wonder? The image of Naomi having a chat on the phone with Timothy is cracking me up not a little bit. She has had a few presents from boys before, a little necklace charm, a picture. This is definitely the first time she's gotten a phone number.

If I were a little more awake, I'd muster up a book report- I finished that book from my friend, and it is great. So maybe that will be tomorrow's post, and I'll start it before 10:15. Night!

Playing Dress Up: A How To

2010-02-08T20:19:00.000-08:00

Fake Valentine's

2010-02-07T21:11:00.000-08:00

Allow me to open with the quote of the day, from Naomi, uttered as I was fetching various craft related items for her during her latest round of valentine crafting: "It's like you're my waitress!" Nice.

Tonight we went to our friends' house to celebrate Valentines Day a bit early, seeing as they will be out of town for the actual day. It was my job to bring dessert, so I pulled out all the stops (ha) and created a white trash masterpiece known as "dirt cake." This is a dessert made of pudding and cream cheese and cool whip and a bunch of Oreos food-processed until they look like dirt. The trick is to disguise the dessert as actual dirt, which of course works better when the tricked party consists of four-and-unders.

Naomi, Muriel, and I made some paper flowers, and I told them we were bringing a decoration for the party. We put the flowers in the bowl of dirt, which had been in the freezer for an hour or so. Here's the "centerpiece," in the foreground.

After a really tasty dinner of lasagna and salad, we told the kids I forgot to bring dessert (there was some dramatic acting with the hostess and myself), so we were going to have to eat the centerpiece. Naomi claims that she knew that it wasn't dirt all along, but the pictures don't lie.

Even Muriel looks, shall we say, skeptical over there.

The girls liked it after all. It's still a little early to say Happy Valentine's Day to you all, but Happy Fake Valentine's Day!

Daily Titling is Harder Than Daily Posting

2010-02-06T22:57:00.000-08:00

Ah, Saturday, how can you be over already? It's a race against the clock for today's post, so go ahead and lower your already low expectations.

This morning we went to IKEA for some cheap breakfast and some leisurely shopping. It's been a while, so the kids actually had a pretty good time, though Naomi is close to being too big to really enjoy the kids furniture testing/play area for more than a few minutes. We got a mortar and pestle, the better to make more authentic curry laksa with. We got a moderately crappy piece of kid room storage furniture. We got a frozen yogurt soft serve. Thanks, IKEA!

So, while Muriel napped and the grownups did housework, Naomi started in on the artisanal Valentine crafting. She created a set of Valentines for the members of her household that are so miniscule, you can barely see them. Then she taped them on the door of the recipients room (or in Luna's case, above her dog bed). As she was walking around with the tape in hand, she made the observation that here she is, making Valentines for everyone in her family, and does she see anyone making Valentines for her? So you can see that she has already internalized the message of the holiday...

I actually got to run OUTSIDE today, which was great and a lot more tiring than ye olde treadmill. What a beautiful afternoon. I took the girls to the playground at the health club, then for a swim. And now I will close with a piece of advice that I hope will be valuable enough to justify you reading this otherwise superyawn of a blog post: Never go to one of those conveyor belt sushi restaurants when you are completely famished, especially if they have the speed cranked up to enhance your feeling of panic that the little plate you want might get away. We grabbed a lot of plates, is what I'm saying. Night!

First Friday

2010-02-05T20:32:00.001-08:00

OK, to start things off, here's a picture of the muffins Muriel and I made this morning, using a recipe in a cookbook named Brunch that I got from my BFF last year for Mother's Day. The recipe is called "Doughnut Muffins," and I will attest that they are in fact quite doughnutty and junk-foodesque, but also quite tasty, so I am not complaining. I am not going to post the recipe, as it comes from a published cookbook, but I will send it to you if you want it. A lot of butter and some super fine sugar is involved.

And yes, I was a little late to work.

Tonight, it really felt like a Friday around here- the girls ate two pieces of pizza each (leaving their parents impressed, but hungry). We looked through Naomi's school work packet (they work that kid like a slave at her preschool). She is getting so good at writing her name in perfect little letters, which I know is not going to get her a job, but still, it's neat. Muriel put on Naomi's dress up dress, which was comically gigantic. Both girls did a poor job of visiting with my parents on the computer, as they were too busy trying to read stories to them.

Then the real high jinks started. For some reason Muriel decided to help Naomi get her pajamas on, then Naomi decided she was going to change Muriel's diaper and help her get her pajamas on. She managed to do it. There was a high volume of giggling. And that was just the parents. When they get going, those girls are pretty comical.

Anyway, happy weekend, you guys!

Yes, I Do Know That I am Lucky to Have a Job At All

2010-02-04T19:20:00.000-08:00

Today someone generously left some books they no longer wanted on the little table in the office kitchen. One of them caught my eye, a slim red paperback volume, because the title of it made me heave that big interior "what am I doing in this job?" sigh: Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Reviews. Talk about your page turner!

But after a little self-absorbed glumness on that account, I remembered a couple of the other little office oddities of late, and since this is a daily blog, people, this is what you're getting today. First, on that same table, someone left an US Weekly (I think) with pictures of the two Twilight stars on it. And someone else, I guess, thought it would be funny to write in some captions on the cover, what the stars were saying, or thinking. But they weren't funny at all, the captions, not even a little bit. It wasn't even clear that they were meant to be funny, which raises the question: is there any other point to this kind of minor vandalism? Other than satire or whatever? I wish I could remember now what they said. Something like "How does my hair look?"

Next, while the code review book at least makes sense in the context of my workplace, and the US weekly, while less so, is at least a popular publication in some sense, a few weeks ago someone left another piece of reading material in the kitchen, and it was... a catalog, the size of a monthly periodical, of the Christian Louboutin Barbie collection. The who and the what? Still no satirical or other captions added to the cover of the Barbie catalog, though to be fair to the artist, I should probably leaf through and see if anything thought-provoking has been added to the interior.

The oppressive beeping air freshener has returned to the bathroom. Beep! My very presence necessitates freshening. Beep! I am just washing my hands!!

Last, and absolutely least, for a week and a half or so, this spot on the way back from the kitchen, near a couple of lonely cubicles in the hallway, smelled just exactly like the pickly jalapenos you get on nachos at a sports arena. Although, to be fair, I haven't had nachos at a sports arena in a very long time, and my frame of reference is working at a sports arena to raise money for "band tour" in high school. Having had that experience, though, I have smelled many a pickly jalapeno (to say nothing of the joy of cleaning out a metal pot with nacho cheese sauce charred all over the bottom), so I knew what I was smelling. But there was no visible source of jalapeno odor. A little mystery to work on. Or I could just learn the best kept secrets of peer code reviews!

How to Have a Good Weekend

2010-02-03T17:42:00.000-08:00

I'm a little late with this, seeing as the weekend was a few days ago, now, but I have to say, it was a pretty good weekend. Friday night I finally made myself start a book I had been given by a friend (along with an exhortation to please read it already!), and it was so great to start one that was so good so fast. Sometimes I have to work my way into a book, and this often has the result of me not reading any books at all, despite wanting to and enjoying it when I do. More on that book when I finish it up, probably in the next few days. I have to add, though, that I love the way a good book stays in your head. The whole next day I was trying to remember what show I had watched on Friday night, but no, it wasn't TV, dummy!

On Saturday morning we made oatmeal cookies together (yum!), then headed to our friends' house for a play date, which means we got to hang out with our nice friends who have two daughters very close in age to our own (while the kids ran around with very little involvement on our parts), talk about Kindergarten choices and what it all means, and then hit the dim sum place. If you ever go to dim sum with us, please, be assertive, because Jim is the bossiest dim sum foreman in town. Not that I don't like everything he picks. I had some quiet drawer tidying time while Muriel napped, and Jim and Naomi hit the Home Depot (we're in the market for a new ceiling fan). Wow, drawer tidying! But really, it was fun.

Sunday we got up so early, we somehow found time to make (and eat) pancakes and have a fun, leisurely bath (the girls) before church. Usually baths are in the evening, and rushed, and lately also screamy, due to an impatient mother dousing already tired and whiny children when they are not ready for it, incessant quarreling over bath toys, and a slate of recurring scoldings for this and that. Delightful! But Sunday's was all mellow and playful and cooperative. Church involved no Sunday school teaching, and I remembered to pick up my cake pan (I get a lot of pleasure out of very small accomplishments!). Lunch at the Chinese bakery! Yes, we do eat a lot of Chinese food.

During Muriel's nap, Naomi and I went to the Bellevue Art Museum, which seems to lean toward fantastically artistic handicrafts, rather than straight up art, whatever that means. There were four main exhibits: ceramics, glass, wood block prints, and wood carvings. This was Naomi's first visit to a museum (as a sentient person) outside of the categories of "science" or "children's" (or "flight," since she has been to that one a handful of times with her dad). How did she like it? She loved the revolving door into the museum, going up the long, gentle stairs, giving me the impression she was about to touch something despite my repeated admonishments, rolling the wheel on the kinetic sculpture-benches, and riding down in the gigantic elevator. She recognized a dodo bird on one of the woodblock prints, and informed me that they are extinct. One of the wood carvings included an anatomically correct male torso, and there was some excited discussion and (ahem) pantomiming of how this anatomy differs from her own. Yep!

Oh, and that night, too, Naomi tried her hand at reading, and realized she could figure out some words, especially in books she already knows pretty well. It was funny to hear her brag about how great she is at reading, even though of course I countered her with how cool it's going to be to practice it and get better and better, blah blah focus on the process blah blah.

This is a long lead-in to the thing I wanted to tell you guys about, which is this DIY how-to website I found (www.instructables.com) when, inspired by our visit to the artsy craft museum, I did a search that night on woodblock printing. 'Cause woodblock prints are neat! I will confess I am a lazy internet user, and I don't find myself going down a lot of paths. But this site, I think, could keep me interested, not only because it tells me how to do stuff I will probably never try, but because all these interesting people are out there actually doing these things. And telling me about it! I love it.

Catfish!

2010-02-01T21:02:00.000-08:00

More accurately, steamed catfish with ginger and scallions. This is a super yummy dish that is very fast to make. It creates a lot of sauce, so start the rice before you start steaming the fish. We make this in a shallow enamel pan, but you could use any shallow dish that is somewhat heatproof.

Here are the ingredients you'll need:

1-2 pounds of catfish
fresh ginger root, 2 thumb size pieces or so, cut into strips
one bunch of scallions
1-2 teaspoons of sesame oil
soy sauce

Put the fish in the pan or dish, and put the ginger strips on top. Drizzle a little sesame oil on top.

Put the pan on a steamer in a wok or big pan with water in it. Cover and turn up the heat to get the water boiling.

Steam for about five to seven minutes, then pour a splash (1-2 tablespoons) of soy sauce on top. Cover and steam a minute longer.

Chop the scallions (just the green part) and sprinkle them on the fish. (We used to do this when it was finished cooking, but since that E coli scallion scare a few years ago, we always steam them a little.)

Cover and steam another minute or two.

Check for doneness- poke the thickest part of the fish and make sure it's opaque.

It really only takes a few minutes to steam this fish, and if it's overdone, it's not as nice, but it's still pretty good.

Here, with its good friend Napa cabbage. Mmmm.

Part 1 of 28

2010-02-01T19:59:00.000-08:00

Last year was the year of monthly resolutions, which for me worked pretty well. It turns out I could do a lot of things daily on a short term basis. I didn't completely build or change all the habits I was after (I still don't exercise every day, and I still don't eat 5 servings of fruit and vegetables every day, I must confess), but I went some distance toward the changes I wanted. This month we repeated last January's theme of no buying anything new (with two exceptions: Jim bought a camera-related app for his iPod touch, and I bought some dinosaur-related presents for a five year old's birthday party). And this February, I'm going to repeat last February's resolution of a post a day. Because it's a short month! And there's a lot going on!

We also have had a habit of eating out too much, which I was going to say was a bad habit, but probably not according to the restaurants who've been getting our money. We cut back on that a lot this month, and I even tried to do a week with no grocery shopping, cooking entirely with what had been lingering around in our pantry and freezer for an indefinite period of time. I didn't make it a full week, though our pantry does have fewer old oddities in it.

It's pretty easy to cook at home regularly once you...start cooking at home regularly. We have a lot of (yawn) standards, and those standards are matched by a lot of frozen meals from Trader Joe's. Jim and I agree it's time to add a couple of dishes to the menu. I got a Jamie Oliver cookbook for my birthday (thanks, J.!), and we have yet to try any recipes from that, and there's also the second Jacques Pepin fast food book, which has gone largely untested so far. Yep, lots of new cooking to do.

So, while I am not saying that my post a day resolution will result in a recipe and/or food report per day, I am hinting that I hope to include a couple of posts about food, including a couple of recipes. See, I have given myself something easy to write about! Now keeping my resolution will be a cinch! In that spirit, look for Jim's famous (and my favorite) catfish recipe tomorrow.

Backwards and Forwards

2010-01-21T19:50:00.000-08:00

When we put our dining room table on the free page of craigslist a few months ago, a church's social services person snapped it up, and asked us to please call them if we ever had any other items to donate. So today Jim, after calling them and arranging the pickup, put out on the front patio the crib, the changing table, the toddler bed, and about twenty bags of baby and toddler clothes. So long, babyhood! We didn't think anything of it, but when we were actually moving the things out this morning, we both felt a bit of a pang. There was this cute striped shirt that had been Muriel's, and was so Muriel, right on top of one of the bags. Not to mention the legion of little fuzzy sleepers. (I had kind of been hoarding the old clothes, too lazy for a trip to Goodwill.) Aw!

Through a random turn of fate known as a dead car battery, I had to work from home today, so when the church guy came to pick up the stuff, I was at the kitchen window, listening to my weekly install writers' meeting on the speaker phone. He took a few things down to the van, then I heard him talking on the phone, and the stuff just sat outside the window for the longest time. After a while I looked out, and I could see him crouched in the front yard, pulling tiny baby clothes out of a bag, one at a time, examining each article, and laying it on the ground. He did this for quite a while.

Finally, bested by my curiosity, I went out there to ask him if he needed help sorting, if perhaps he had been instructed to make sure he got only clothing for a certain age, something like that. He explained in his eastern European accent that he had been holding the key to the van in his hand, picked up one of the bags, and the key had fallen somewhere, he was pretty sure into the bag, but he had searched through every tiny item in the bag, and still no key. I started looking around with him, had one of those momentary realizations that this is exactly how women get themselves kidnapped- helping a gigantic stranger look for some missing thing right outside the open door of a van... We didn't find the key. He said someone was coming with the backup key, so he would just start loading the other things. I asked him if he needed help with the toddler bed, which was not heavy but a little unwieldy. He laughed. "I am former coal miner," he said. So, no then?

So the part of parenting that involves cribs has officially come to a close. And what lies ahead? Kindergarten. Last night I went to an open house for a Spanish immersion school, where kids learn completely in Spanish for all six years of elementary. I could understand the benefits they presented, enabling your child to be fluent in another language, earning college language credits in high school, experiencing other cultures, it all made sense. But I could tell that if we chose this school, it would mean a lot of challenges, and frankly, inconveniences to our family. And here's where it begins, where we have to start choosing things or not choosing things, knowing it's good or great for our kids, knowing that we might not love it (or we might). I bet for some parents this kind of choice is easy- you always choose what's best for your kid, in the long run. But it didn't seem obvious to me.

We'll be visiting the neighborhood school, too, to see how we feel about that one. I see this kind of thing stretching ahead of us, the stakes of our decisions raised a little more each year. I am not usually nostalgic for the bleary sleepiness of the baby years (though I loved them very much), but the heaviness of parenting older children makes me long for that feeling that I was a superhero just for managing to feed and diaper and soothe to sleep a tiny human just a few weeks old.

Although it didn't make me feel old, exactly, here's something that did: on the way home from the open house, hearing a U2 song... on the OLDIES station. Sigh.

Puppy Love

2010-01-18T20:57:00.000-08:00

OK, I admit that is a super corny title, and I'm a little late in posting this, but Luna had her 15th birthday last week. I got Luna from the dog pound in Tucson. It was a depressing place, concrete pens with chain link. The dogs were variously hyper or mopey, but in one pen was the most beautiful dog, red and white and black, with long silky ears, and eyes that matched her red gold hair. And her angle was to sit as close as possible to the chain link and BEG you with her whole self to love her. I gave in without a fight.

She lived with me in Rochester, in my perm-smelling walk-up over the beauty salon. She lived with me in Red Wing, where she jumped into the water and swam for the first time, in the freezing Mississippi on a day that was eighteen below zero. She lived with me in St. Paul. She cried for WEEKS when Naomi came home from the hospital. She moved with us to Washington, and reacted much less dramatically when Muriel was born. Thankfully...

Right, so, fourteen years of Luna, is what I am celebrating this month. She is the best dog ever.

Birthday Popcorn Trail!

The girl in all her glory.

Finally, Trip Photos!

2010-01-07T20:57:00.001-08:00

Flower girls in action. Right before the flower girl stop work action.

Can you see by the look on Muriel's face how smitten she is?

Wedding banquet fun!

Naomi and Daddy and the new promotional bear.

Putting out baskets, and cookies and milk for Santa, on Christmas Eve.

The awesome pool at Siloso Beach Resort in Singapore.

Luge, dude!

Singapore Giraffes- good and hungry. For sweet potatoes.

Mostly about Muriel

2010-01-04T19:42:00.001-08:00

I know I said there would be pictures... soon! In the meantime...

Things I am finding cute:

Muriel says, when she has a good idea, that she has a goodea. I have a goodea!

Also, she has taken to adding emphasis to things, like if something is huge (say, a monster), it is now really, really, really huge. Only she says "willy" instead of really. A willy, willy, willy huge monster!

Things designed to drive me crazy:

The chanting. I may as well just teach them some football cheers or WTO protest chants. These girls can't stop the repetitive chanting. They have now seen Mary Poppins twice and simply cannot stop singing/chanting about how a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down in the most delightful way. Wait, I don't mean the chanting is delightful.

Things designed to drive me crazy that I also find cute:

Muriel and I, eating a yogurt, looking at the lemon on the container:

Muriel: That's a melon?
Me: No, it's a lemon.
Muriel: A ...lemond.
Me: Right, lemon.
Muriel: A melon.
Me: ...

Naomi and Muriel, playing Queen and Princess or Queen and her cat or Queen of cats and her cat courtier or whatever:

Naomi: Say "Your Highness."
Muriel: My Highness.
Naomi: No, YOUR Highness.
Muriel: MY Highness.
Naomi: Not My Highness, YOUR Highness.
Muriel: MY HIGHNESS!
Naomi: MURIEL!!

Far East Trip, The Final Chapter

2010-01-01T16:06:00.000-08:00

I decided to wait until the horror of the plane ride home had a chance to fade a bit before summarizing the last part of our trip, but it turns out that jetlagged preschoolers are also not the greatest side benefit you can get from an international jaunt. Oh well. Things will be normal soon. Things will be normal soon. Things will be normal soon...

Naomi was fine, if a bit sleepy, after her Benadryled Christmas nap. We had our Christmas dinner at one of the local restaurants. Allow me to ramble for a few minutes about two random Malaysia-visit fun facts. One is that the Malaysian language seems to be written out more or less phonetically. So you can read signs out loud and feel like you're kind of speaking Malay, which of course is not true of Chinese signs. Also, though, it seems as though whenever a concept is in need of a word and there isn't an obvious Malay one, they just throw in an English word and Malay it up a little. (I am sure this has something to do with the fact that Malaysia was an English colony for a long while, right?) So, after your stop at the klinik, you may need to head to the farmasi for some medication. Hope you have insurans!

My favorite one of these, restoran, is the segue to my next fun fact: everyone eats out there all the time. It's hot all the time (so who wants to cook?), and restaurants (or restorans) are cheap and ridiculously tasty. All over the place, in every building, the bottom floor has shops and restorans- these restaurants are open air, brightly lit up with flourescents, with cheap plastic chairs and big round tables covered with chintzy cloth. The restaurants have wacky names- I wish I had just written up a list. The ones I remember, though, are Restoran Okay (didn't eat there), Restoran Shanky (did eat there- yum), and one near Jim's parents' house called Restoran Extra Super Tanker. So for Christmas dinner, we ate at the one around the corner, can't remember the name, though I do remember Jim's dad jokingly calling it "Regular Tanker."

So, day after Christmas, back to Singapore. Jim's sister's family has this Honda station wagon with a third row seat which miraculously accommodates ALL of us, even his parents, who came along on this jaunt. The day after we got there, we headed to Sentosa, which is like that Pleasure Island place in the Pinocchio movie, except we didn't see any kids turning into donkeys... it's covered with fun and they continue to develop the heck out of it. We went to a beach resort called Siloso for one night. It took me about half an hour on the beach to get a sunburn, but the kids had a great time. The pool at the hotel was extra super tanker dreamy- huge waterfall thing, water slides, and a long beautiful pool to stroll around in. The girls responded exactly as I remember doing, as a kid, to the combination of vacation and pool: they wanted to be in it every second.

The resort was on a beachy area with other tourist attractions. We decided to do the "luge" ride, which meant putting on a semi-smelly borrowed helmet, riding up a ski lift thing, and zipping down a hill in a go-cart. The luge part was over so fast, it was a little stunning. Hence the slogan of the ride- "Once is never enough!" Ha. We ate our meals at the hotel restaurant, which was not that great, but maybe it's because I'm spoiled by all the Malaysian joints. It was good enough, and convenient, and had Naomi's new favorite restaurant meal (besides rice with soy sauce, which she ate about ten pounds of on this trip): Fish and Chips!

It was hard to leave the pool, but we headed back to the apartment on Monday. Tuesday was the Singapore Zoo, which is so lush and gorgeous, you almost forget how hot it is. It was a better view of many animals than I have had before, but in a few instances I think that was because it wasn't so great for the animals. A cheetah let me know exactly what it thought of me. And Naomi and Rachel got to feed a giraffe!

One more night out, to eat Shanghai style dumplings (I think), which are like the Freshen-Up Gum of the Chinese dumpling world (but you know, not minty). On Wednesday, we had to be at the airport at 5:30 a.m., and our gracious host and tireless driver, Jim's brother-in-law, got us there in plenty of time. They fixed our seats so we were all together, the first flight was not too bad, the flight from Tokyo to Vancouver was pretty terrible for the first four hours, but OK for the last four. In Vancouver, the nearly endless security screening was a bit loopy, especially when I had to coax Muriel into letting the nice CATSA lady give her a full body pat down. Oh well.

Short plane ride from Vancouver, short town car ride from the airport, freezing cold home sweet home. I am glad to be back, even though our house seems so dark and cold compared with the warm, bright homes we left behind. Soon, Muriel will stop behaving like a deranged maniac, Naomi will go back to sleeping all night, and we will re-acclimate to this cold damp place. Next post will be pictures!

Feliz Navidad, Again!

2009-12-25T00:39:00.001-08:00

Christmas is here at last- hope you all have a wonderful day. Yesterday, on Christmas Eve, we had our third delightful visit to the golf club pool, followed by a pretty extravagant and wonderful sushi dinner courtesy of Jim's dad. We also concocted a Santa tradition for these parts where instead of stockings (which people don't really wear here) hung by the chimney (which we don't have at this house), we left wicker baskets out on the patio. Naomi wanted to make sure they were outside of the locked part, but Jim convinced her that if Santa can get down chimneys, he can fit fit toys through an iron gate.

The girls woke up, opened gifts, and were generally quite pleased. It turns out I didn't need to panic and buy one more toy for each like I thought I did- all the little minor toys I got as stocking presents seemed to be more than enough for them. Later in the morning we went to church, which I especially liked because I cannot get enough singing of Christmas carols. Also, hilariously, in this Methodist church nearly entirely made up of Chinese people in Malaysia, we ended the services with "Feliz Navidad." Hee.

After church we went to an open house for an old school friend of Jim's. It was great for Jim and him to catch up, for me to meet his lovely wife and get an Indian buffet lunch, and for Muriel to have the run of the place and eat a big plate of unbelievable Indian mango. For Naomi, it was not so great. She kept complaining that he stomach was hurting, and because she had eaten some cake before any other food, I thought she might just be tired and over sweetied. So she lolled about, with her mother meanly nagging her to please try and sit up a little, until she finally remembered our new holiday tradition for 2009, which is that on every major holiday, you must throw up on your mother.

Thanksgiving, you may recall, ended with Muriel vomiting on my head on my parent's sunny back porch. For Christmas, Naomi did her part by puking all over my lap. I had a dress on, and we were sitting on a chair over a beautiful Persian rug, so I (heroically, if I may say so) did whatever I could to make sure the spit up stayed in my lap. Fun! Credit to Jim, too, who grabbed a couple of plates when it all went down. What a mess. Naomi and I spent twenty minutes in the bathroom with a box of tissues (because paper towels are not widely used here), and then made a long awkward exit waiting for Jim's parents to come get us.

We came home and showered off- sure enough, Naomi has hives all over. She is allergic to some tree nuts, and must have had one in the piece of fruitcake she tried. I gave her a Benadryl and put her to bed. Poor baby. She seems to be feeling a lot better, I am happy to report, though I will also admit that I am checking on her a bit obsessively.

So, Naomi is sleeping, Jim and Muriel are out meeting up with a bunch of his old school chums, and I am eating some of the (insanely huge bag of) chocolate the kids scored at the open house. Tomorrow we had back to Singapore...leaving behind my new favorite place, the pool at the golf club. But the girls will be happy to be back with their cousin, and we with their parents.

Peace on Earth, good will to all!

What Day Is It?

2009-12-21T22:41:00.000-08:00

When I was sixteen, I went to Germany for a month, along with one student from every other state. It was a fantastic trip, but I will never forget hearing from two of my friends when I got back that I was different, not as much fun, something like that. This came to mind when I was thinking about what to post, because on a trip like this, out of my routine and away from home, my everyday self feels far away and quiet. No chattering inner monologue to tap. Lucky you guys. It means I should focus on the photos more, but I left the camera in the room with a napping tot, and I will not wake her for anything.

So, for the roundup- Sunday morning was the wedding of Jim's cousin. We had to be there at 8:30...early, right? It was a bit of a dash. The girls wore beautiful dresses Jim's mom had bought for them, along with some wreaths of baby's breath on their heads. Attaching those wreaths was no easy feat, I'm just saying. The flower girl part went reasonably well, if you don't mind your flower girls looking spacy or sullen or fraught with concentration. There was a little jam up in the middle, but they got moving again and everyone made it to the front. The bride was beautiful and kind, the groom was handsome and magnanimous. It didn't rain on the outdoor event. There was a little buffet after that included some tasty tuna salad croissants. All in all, a lovely morning.

The girls got quite sweaty and undone, of course- it's hot here, if I haven't mentioned it. We went home to change before the tea ceremony for the groom's side. When we came here for our wedding celebration, we had a tea ceremony too. The tradition is that the bride and groom serve tea to all their older relatives, starting with the parents and then the oldest on down to whoever is just above them. The groom serves, the bride serves, and then the relatives hand over a gift. When we had ours, it seemed like everyone was giving us (me!) jewelry. So we thought we had it all figured out, and went out the day before to buy a gold bracelet for the bride. At the ceremony for his cousin, though, everyone just kept handing over the red packets (Hong Bao), and we started to feel like we had really missed the boat. Jim's mom explained later that since gold prices were so high, most people were just opting for cash. Oops.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention at this time that Muriel has fallen in love for the first time, madly, deeply, with the brother of the groom. She referred to him as "the Big Guy" the whole time, and waved and flirted and was just generally obsessed with him the entire day and evening. When I get my act together with the pictures, I will post the evidence.

The best news of the day was that the girls took about a five hour nap. They got up in time to get dressed for the reception, which began at what is normally their bed time. Fortified by the nap, however, they were ready to party. The reception was quite grand and enormous, with a seven (roughly?) course meal, a giant curtain with the names of the bride and groom in sparkly gold letters, a slide show of photos of them looking like Hong Kong movie stars, and a visiting corporate logo bear who handed out stuffed toys and candy to the kids. That last part kind of put it over the top, but really, it was a good party. The kids went to sleep near midnight- a clear record.

Yesterday we visited Jim's grandfather at his house. The cool, clean terrazzo floors and relative lack of impediments in his house were irresistible to the girls and their cousin; there was a surplus of dashing around and chasing and screaming. And ineffectual shushing and scolding.

This morning we went for a swim at the golf club Jim's parents belong to. It's really a lovely place, and they had a kiddie pool, which meant I got to just wade around a bit and not really commit (I enjoy a swim but I sort of have to be in the right mood). Jim ran into a high school friend and her husband and children, visiting from Sydney. It was fun to chat with them by the pool. Afterward, we had lunch on the veranda of the golf club- alfredo noodles for the kids and curry laksa for the parents. I think this brings us entirely up to date.

I have a few things to figure out and accomplish before Christmas...which is in a few days. There will be more visiting, more eating out (always more eating out!), more shopping, and if I get my act together, some photos posted in the near future. Ho Ho Ho!

Malaysia Day Two

2009-12-19T05:38:00.000-08:00

Today: Wedding rehearsal at a lovely resort, dim sum, shopping mall, big giant rehearsal dinner type thing at the groom's parents home. The kids stayed up hours past their bedtimes and basically had candy for dinner, so wish us luck tomorrow as they participate (and play minor supporting characters) in an 8:45 a.m. wedding. Yee-ikes.

Who says a family of four can't fit in the back seat?

Sweaty children at a wedding rehearsal.

Sweet nourishing bao!

One delight of foreign lands is the sometimes wacky signage and marketing concepts. At the mall by Jim's parents' house, against the backdrop of "Sparkling Christmas," one sees the "Call of Duty" tournament. Merry Christmas- get ready to shoot!

(Full disclosure: actually posted on Malaysia day three...more on that day soon, I hope!)

Singapore!

2009-12-17T18:15:00.000-08:00

So much for my post-a-day ambitions. It's day two of our trip, and I'm writing this from the 24th floor of an apartment building in Singapore. There's a view of downtown from the living room window (when it's not too rainy to see that far), and an even better view inside, of two little girls playing with their super cute three-year-old cousin whom they met for the first time yesterday. It has been so good to stay with Jim's sister and brother-in-law (and their daughter), though I am afraid we are kind of awful guests, voracious and noisy and sleeping at all the wrong times.

The flights were...OK. I will summarize with bullet points:
- The international terminal at Vancouver, oh all ye Olympics-bound travelers, is pretty swank. Enjoy.
- Japan Airlines, please, please give your passengers on ten hour flights more food. We waited so long for that second meal to arrive, and when it became clear that all you were giving us was a half sandwich and two teensy cornichons, well, let me just say that it was a bit of a disappointment.
- All Nippon Airlines, while I am at it, if you are going to try to fix a seating issue, only to divide up a family with tiny children into one pair of seats and two singles (?), please, when you finally get the situation sort of resolved, be judicious about asking the tired, worried family to hurry into their seats. Good food, though.
- General advice for long trips with small children: you need WAY more snack food than you think. Go overboard packing snacks. At the Tokyo airport, in a sleepless haze, I ended up buying a can of Pringles to avoid that panicky feeling I was getting near the end of the last leg. They were the only food I could recognize that wasn't a cookie, or a distressingly named mystery food (like "Corn Chocolate").
- Obvious advice for international trips: you are supposed to know the address of the place you are staying. You can save yourself (and the poor relative who is picking you up in the middle of the night) a good twenty to thirty minutes of customs line time.

One more short flight this afternoon- to Kuala Lumpur. We are sad to leave our hosts behind, but happy to see Jim's parents and other relatives, and get ready for his cousin's wedding on Sunday. Plus, his sister and brother-in-law are coming for the wedding, so we will see them again tomorrow.

Hopefully the next post will include some pictures. Keep on keeping on!

Watch This Space

2009-12-12T21:30:00.000-08:00

In a couple of days we will climb on board what I truly hope is a luxurious jet plane and wing our way to the East. Except that of course we will be flying westward to get there... whatever. The point is, we're spending Christmas in Singapore and Malaysia. This is very exciting because we get to spend time with Jim's family, in particular his sister, brother-in-law, and niece (who is three and whom we have never met), and of course his lovely parents, who hopefully have forgiven me for being such a grump near the end of their last visit here. We will also get to see his extended family, because his cousin is getting married. Which reminds me that we are supposed to have bought some presents for some of the little relatives, and I don't know if we have yet... yikes.

The part I am not looking forward to of course is the plane ride. We keep pitching it to the kids as a super fun adventure, but I am not quite in that frame of mind yet. Better start working on that frame of mind... we have drawing pads and sticker books and unusual snack food and a new little computer that will play movies (and a headphone splitter for the girls). It's really only a ten hour flight followed by a seven hour flight- I can't really count the hour long flight to Vancouver.

We are going to have a computer along, though, so I am going to make an effort to post often. In the meantime- Happy Holidays, you guys!

Tonsillitis!

2009-12-07T12:46:00.000-08:00

As gleeful as it makes me to get a real diagnosis from a doctor, you would think I would choose to actually go to one more often. Today's appraisal of my wretched horror movie throat has me dancing to the pharmacy counter, because the charming Aussie-accented doctor I saw assured me that tonsillitis (what I got) is not only treatable with the awe-inspiring Z-Pack (or in my case, its generic cousin), but is also NOT THAT CONTAGIOUS! As he said, it's between me and the bacteria. All weekend I have been agonizing over giving this illness (that I thought was maybe strep throat) to my kids right before we start our 23 hour plane journey to the other side of the world. It has been yucky- I feel sick in all the traditional ways, but my throat hurts so badly that every time I swallow there is pathetic whimpering. I picture that times two on a full day plane ride, and it quite literally gives me heart palpitations.

But no longer! I have started my generic pack, and feel the full confidence of the pharmaceutical industry coursing through my veins. Both girls have finished off their own virus-induced maladies, enough said about that. We will be healthy and happy and bursting with love or whatever when the plane takes off. Whew!

Which leaves me plenty of time to brag about the kind of spectacular Holiday Open House. What a turnout! Dearest oldest friends, check. Neighbors, check. Friends acquired through kids' school, check. Church friends, check. Coworkers, Jim's and mine! Check! All total we had thirteen kids, and they ran around and begged for cookies and played with each other and made foam sticker ornaments and begged for punch and ate cheese and cucumbers and chocolate. Mostly it was my kids begging for treats and punch, actually. Two of the kids (7 and 5?) from across the street came, and stayed when their mom left, and at one point they announced to me that Muriel was their particular friend. Lest anyone think I am exaggerating her party girl affect.

And now, in the week remaining of home for the holidays, I have a fairly clean house full of flowers and pointsettias and snack food. Hooray! The only down side of the party is that I also now have FOUR half-finished bottles of wine in my fridge, and in my tonsillitised state, I am completely unable to do anything about them. I am working my way through the cookies and cake leftovers, thank you very much.

Sophie's Choice

2009-12-04T12:42:00.000-08:00

Naomi is home from school with the stomach virus thing. I will keep my feelings on the stomach virus to myself... She has kept herself mostly busy watching "Super Why" and drinking soup from a straw and dozing. Our extra time together has afforded her extra time to pursue her new hobby- giving me completely random choices.

The choices do NOT go together. It is frequently difficult to make any kind of connection between them. They are presented at unpredictable intervals throughout the day.

Real examples:

Do you like ice cream or cats?

Do you like oranges or stars?

Do you like number one or number 4?

Do you like water or broccoli?

Do you like chairs or markers?

The reassuring upshot is that I have figured out there isn't a penalty for liking one thing over another. But can't I like both water and broccoli?

Thankful Itinerants

2009-11-30T10:33:00.000-08:00

You know who has really spectacular weather of a Thanksgiving week? The Arizonans, those lucky lucksters. I enjoyed seeing everyone bundled up in sweaters and fleeces during the shivery 70 degree days. Brr!

I'm lazily relying on pictures, as is my habit of late. There are a few bits I don't have any good pictures of, though, like the night my parents and I drove the girls out of town in an attempt to get a better look at the stars. It was moderately successful- we saw Mars and Saturn in addition to the Pleiades, though neither my parents nor I could pin down the Big Dipper. During the singalong on the way back, my dad indulged in one of his endless novelty songs, "Found a Peanut." About six verses in, Naomi whispered to me, "Mommy, is he just making this up?" Hee.

In addition, I had a fun night with some high school chums at a local sports bar, dinner out with my sisters, and a trip to the zoo with my brother's family and my parents. Thanksgiving dinner was remarkably early, it seemed to me (12:01 p.m., approximately), but the turkey was delicious and we had a good time. I was toying with making the weird cranberry relish they are forever flogging on NPR, but I didn't. Anyone ever made that?

And now, the pictures...

I have already mentioned that my mom buys the best toys. Good job, Gramma!

On Tuesday morning, I took the girls to Hole in the Rock at Papago Park. They loved climbing around on the rocks, especially Naomi, who pretended to be a bear the entire time.

The Zoo! Remember when Muriel was all terrified of the livestock? No longer! She loved this goat with her whole heart.

I made up a name for the goat, Buttercup, before I realized that the nice Zoo people had put the name of each goat on their collar. (Its real name was CJ.) Muriel really believed Buttercup was hers, and kept objecting if any other child attempted to make contact with the creature.

Meanwhile, I was mildly obsessed with this giant bird, the Kori Bustard, an animal I had never heard of before. 42 pounds! Heaviest flight-capable bird!

Thanksgiving!

I got this idea from my friend, A.- the kids had a good time assembling assemblies from mini-marshmallows and uncooked spaghetti. Muriel just ate a couple of marshmallows.

Beautiful Thanksgiving afternoon- sunny, warm, and so delightful. Except that about ten minutes after this photo was taken, as I was sitting on the floor of the porch playing with the kids, Muriel decided to throw up down my back. Whee!

Muriel had been a sick little insomniac for the first three nights, had about two decent nights' sleep, and then in honor of Thanksgiving, picked up a nice stomach virus, probably from Buttercup. She was already in a lightweight phase, but three days of being sick and not eating followed by two days of throwing up and not eating has resulted in our little skinny thing being an even littler, skinnier thing. I'm trying not to worry. More vitamins and jello for her, maybe.

Here are the pictures I didn't post, because I can't get Lightroom to work in a recognizable way right now- one of Jim and Naomi in the plane on the way home- hooray for having another parent along! And one of our friends' new baby, D., who joined us (along with her parents! yea!) for a terrific former band nerd brunch the day after Thanksgiving. So wonderful to see old friends, and new little ones.

That's the trip roundup. The holiday open house is this weekend- Will I distribute the invitations to the neighbors on time? Will the power go out? Will anyone show up? Stay tuned...

Thankful

2009-11-20T20:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Muriel and her classmates made big paper turkeys, decorating the big fan feathers in the back, which their teachers then assembled. On the right-most feather, the teacher wrote the child's name and what they are thankful for, as dictated by the child. Charlie is thankful for strawberries. Ella is thankful for her Mommy. Muriel is thankful for... Vitamins and Jello.

Aren't we all? Tomorrow morning is the kickoff of a crazy travel season- we're off to Arizona to blink in the sunshine for a week, and try to remember how to play outdoors. And then of course there is the thankful feasting. Have I told you lately, friends, how thankful I am for you? You and vitamins and Jello.

Girls' Weekend Mashup. Or Sample.

2009-11-16T20:19:00.001-08:00

Imagine if you will that your girlfriend won a weekend stay at a geodesic dome on Washington's Pacific shore, and that she was kind enough to invite you along, buy you some cocktail makings, snack box, red-velvet petit fours, and for heaven's sake, a camel colored Snuggie to wear while you kick off the holiday season a little early by watching White Christmas on DVD and listening to the November beach wind howling outside.

Of course, I don't have to imagine it, only acknowledge my good fortune at hitting the weekend jackpot yet again. After the snack, cocktail, and Bing Crosby combo and a luxurious night's sleep in the geodesic loft, I had a long walk on the windy gray beach and time to catch up on back issues of the New Yorker. Liver, down, erudition, up slightly. In the afternoon we explored the nearest tourist/beach town, a place almost entirely devoid of village-type charm, with weird little strip malls bunched up along a rigorously divided highway-type road. We hit a souvenir shop enticingly named "Eye Candy," which was positively chockablock with seashell-themed merchandise. The homemade ice cream and fudge shop next door was also kind enough to stay open in the off season, and while we enjoyed a cone apiece, Ice Cream Shop Radio played a current song that uses the refrain from a vintage Hall and Oates hit. You know the one. Thus began the debate on what constitutes a mashup vs. a sample. I read (OK, skimmed) the Wikipedia articles on both mashups and sampling, and I still don't think I can answer the question with any authority.

Anyway, back to the dome for more snacking and magazines, and in the evening, back to the town to visit the Irish pub, which had advertised live music and implied fish and chips.

The live music was a guy at once loathesome and lovable, playing a truly random assortment of songs (Danny Boy? Yes. Take the Skinheads Bowling? Yes.) on the guitar and sometimes the piano. At one point he started "Blister in the Sun," and somehow the lyrics to "Might Like You Better if We Slept Together" crept in. OK, so, mashup? Sampling? At the last minute it switched to "The End of the World as We Know It," so ultimately we had to conclude it was...a medley? The highlight for me was a singalong to the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York," the lowlights I will refrain from cataloguing.

So, already a Saturday night to remember, right? But while the music played, two couples came in, pointedly dressed in their pajamas. My friend gave them a friendly interrogation on the way back from the Ladies', and that is how we ended up leaving "Galway Bay" and heading to the IGA (the town's grocery store) for Moonlight Madness. The IGA was hopping, the place to be in your pajamas and bathrobes, buying three pounds of Cornish game hen for $4.99, or, like the elderly man we bumped into on the way in the door, a half-priced case of Monster energy drink.

We spun the wheel of cheese (though we did not win the Emmenthaler), we bowled with a frozen turkey and eight two-liters of 7-Up (though I didn't even make contact with the soda, weakling that I am), and we jumped onto orange numbers taped to the floor whenever the lucky number announcement came across the PA.

Thus did I resurrect my streak, winning a ten dollar gift card on lucky number 9. What a weekend!

Back on the Eastside, every weekend is a Girls' Weekend. Muriel got her witch on, and Naomi, who already has considerable practice, was her cat.

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. Jim also got to take the girls to a princess party for one of Naomi's school friends. Apparently Snow White, the REAL Snow White, according to Naomi, was there, inexplicably doing magic tricks and painting kids' forearms instead of their cheeks.

Times are hard, even for the princesses.

Continuing Education

2009-11-09T19:43:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday was the second and final installment of a brief but interesting continuing education class I enrolled in through the local college. (It's not a community college anymore, yo- they've got bachelor's degrees now!) The class was about online writing, specifically blogging. I know what you are thinking- what more could the creator of this entrancing, engrossing web log possibly need to learn about blogging? Yeah, yeah, very funny.

The class was geared toward people who have a business or some other interest for which social networking (via blogging, tweeting, Facebook and the like) is an as-yet untapped opportunity. The instructor provided lots of ideas for how to make your blog more engaging, including such obvious yet oft-ignored advice as "update often." Apparently I should also be reviewing products, or books, or movies, staging contests with prizes, and conducting polls. (For the first contest, I am thinking about a wagering pool on how long we let our jack-o-lanterns moulder before we transfer their squishy persons into the yardwaste bin...)

The real reason I signed up for the class is that I have been fomenting an online writing project on a topic that interests me. I thought getting a little formal blog training (such as it is) would give me a confidence boost to get going already, since like many projects in my brain, this one has taken out a mortgage and moved into a solid little house in the idea phase. But what I learned, of course, made me not more confident, but markedly less so. Because social networking on the web, and knowledge networking, I guess, provides a staggering array of tools and sites and doodads you can use to make sure that your thoughts or your message or brand or whatever get OUT THERE! in a hundred different places and ways. So you can set up and write your blog, but no one is going to find it if you don't give it the right "Google juice," and get it stumbled upon or dugg or kirtsied or whatever.

OK, maybe these are just ways to encourage visits, not determine the life or death of your ideas. But still, there is a gravitas implied in the level of effort and technology to promote an idea (which ironically I would be perfectly willing to exert if I were helping my classmate get his building supply company's blog off the ground) that feels misplaced on some fun writing project I'm idly mulling over. Crap. Now I have to go back and read the Artist's Way all over again.

Speaking of education, we let the television educate our children a bit over the weekend, and we were all treated to an episode of "Dinosaur Train" that featured great green boulders of Brachiosaurus dung, feces, poop, and one other poop-phemism that escapes me. We were expecting more of a (snickering) reaction from Naomi, who is not immune to the refined toilet humor of the preschool set, but because she is a TV hothouse flower, I am never sure what she is even understanding when the shows are on.

Speaking of jokes, the knock-knock jokes are attempting to gain traction. The joke is a fascinating little neuroscience mini-project- little kids love to laugh, they love jokes, but they don't understand them, and they really don't understand how to tell them. (Of course, neither do I, I am terrible at joke telling.) It's amazing what mental abilities go into this genre of socializing. So Naomi can repeat jokes, but the ones she invents are more Dada than Catskills.

And speaking of more laughs to come, I am happy to discover lately that Muriel possesses the personality trait (which she didn't get from me) of being able to laugh heartily at herself. At dinner the other night she was holding her fork weirdly, upright by the tines on one hand, while doing some other engrossing thing with her other hand. She looked at her food, then said, hey, where's my fork?! When I told her it was in her hand, she looked at it, and back at me, and laughed and laughed.

Above Average Wednesday Evening

2009-11-04T20:47:00.000-08:00

Tonight Muriel saw on the foyer table a little box of restaurant crayons I found in the pocket of a coat I haven't worn since last winter, and decided she wanted to color. I found her some paper in the art drawer, and she drew a little shape she referred to as a love, by which she meant a heart, and in fact it was pretty close. Then Naomi got in on the act, and helped Muriel trace her hands. Naomi traced her own hands on a different piece of paper, and decorated them elaborately, as she does. She made two circles which she said were cheeks, and she decorated those too. Then she taped the paper up on the wall over the cardboard box they have been living in, got some chopsticks and the rice server paddle thing, and set up her henna and face painting shop. The chopsticks were the henna, the rice paddle was the hand mirror so you could see your painted face.

They also were playing with this flashlight/radio we have, that you can wind up to charge the battery. Jim did his usual science explanation of how a dynamo works. Do they listen to this stuff? Hard to say. He had to coach Naomi a bit on how to turn the knob just a tiny bit to tune in a station. She wound it and wound it, and found one of those song that starts slow and melodic, but that you know is going to pick up. When the beat started, she stood there holding this flashlight radio, bouncing to the rhythm, with this serious, un-self-conscious look on her face that was indescribably awesome.

Naomi climbed into the chair behind Muriel and played that her arms were Muriel's. Then Muriel decided that meant she was Naomi, so she climbed onto Naomi's chair and ate up her leftover salad. There was some play yoga (Muriel's idea), and a pileup on Jim (in which I took no part), and then off to the bunk bed.

Lazy Halloween Photos-Only Post

2009-10-31T22:43:00.000-07:00

Be-Flued

2009-10-26T10:44:00.000-07:00

OK, well, the flu seems to have made it to the Khooler house. I have no way to say for sure whether we have regular old flu or the far more interesting and newsworthy H1N1, but Jim was very sick all last week, and now Muriel has had a fever for three days and is generally miserable (though both girls are enjoying a marked increase in TV time). The timing could not have been worse- we missed not one but TWO Halloween parties on Saturday. Blah.

I have been a bit sick, but not terribly so, and hoping this is as bad as it gets for my iron-clad immune system (ha). This flu seems to have divided our family down a line- Jim and Muriel on one side, with yucky long-term fevers and more severe symptoms, and Naomi and I on the other, with flu-ishness and respiratory symptoms, but no fever. Naomi has more stalwart German/Swedish genes, maybe? We noticed not long ago that Muriel looks a lot like Jim's mom, which makes her a lucky girl, since Jim's mom is beautiful. But it doesn't protect her from flu fever!

I have to admit that the coverage and emphasis on this epidemic have given me pause. I wanted to get the vaccine for the kids, but I couldn't- it still isn't available at our pediatrician's office. One unwelcome gift of becoming a parent is the macabre ability for my mind to head straight to the absolute worst case scenario, and thanks to the media's various offerings related to the flu, I am well-equipped with scenarios. At the same time, of course, I am certain we will all be fine, and that's highly likely the real scenario. Our health-care professional friend says that although he can't say for sure, it's seems likely that we do have H1N1, since the seasonal flu doesn't generally make the rounds this early in the season. I hope he's right- it will be good to get these fears all put away.

So, today is another in a string of girls' days in, days that have included the afore-mentioned TV time, some butterfly wing painting (though again, we already missed two costume shindigs), sponge cake making, junk food eating, soup, more soup, the reading of seven hundred books, and a long and fruitless search for Naomi's magic wand. Where is that thing?!

Weekend Update

2009-10-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention in the bunk bed dispatch that poor Dad Khooler has been having nightmares (three or four) about things falling. The other day he lunged to catch the lamp on his bedside table, knocking it right over. And the other night, during one of his patented couch naps, he jumped forward with his arms out, to catch some other falling object. So although the girls are doing great in the bunk bed, clearly someone in our family has a little anxiety about it.

On the plus side, I have been getting quite a lot more sleep. Because our little roommate used to wake us up any time between 4:30 and 6:30, I haven't relied on my alarm in quite a while. But either she's sleeping longer in her giant twin bed, or we just can't hear her waking up and demanding things of us. Works for me. Though I have to start setting that alarm now, I guess.

We had a very nearly uneventful weekend (ahhh), but we wrapped it up with a visit to... Turkfest!

Lest you think I am making this up. The Seattle Center hosts a festival for just about everyone at some point during the year, and this can only mean fantastically dressed dancers who will captivate my children. This Fest had an added insider bonus- one of the dancers was the father of Naomi's classmate.

On Friday we had a conference with Naomi's preschool teacher. She had a two or three page report, with lots of Ms (mastered), a few Us (usually), and a couple of Ss (sometimes). We asked the teacher if Naomi's seeming anti-joinerism is an issue at school, but she didn't know what we were even talking about, so that's good, I guess. I never know how Naomi is going to respond when I ask her if she wants to do something. But at Turkfest, when we came across the henna artist, there was no hesitation. She sat right down, and held perfectly still. With favorable results.

Muriel is still too little for henna, so we compensated with a super fly Turkish cap (which also happened to be super cheap). This girl rocks a hat, I'm just saying.

Roommates

2009-10-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

Although there is still some actual decorating to do, I am pleased to report that Naomi and Muriel are now officially roommates. They are, as I type, snoozing away their third night in the same room.

We don't have a great "before" picture, because Jim only thought of it "after" we had cleared out the room. So the best I can do is the color and unfinished wood before, featuring the giant rented floor finisher and some moral supporters:

And now, the results- a new color, new trim, and the floor newly refinished. OK, so it doesn't have any furniture or decorations or plug plates. Sheesh. At least the girls like it.

And Muriel LOVES her new bed:

Just kidding. Jim put up the new bunk bed, and they love it. I hope the thrill of bunking together cements the bond they seem to be working on every day. Muriel looks so tiny in her big twin bed. But there's room for everyone during story time, so, yeah, it's all good.