Weekend Update

>Our weekend kicked off on Friday afternoon when Tom rode his bike home from work and found Hot Wheels sitting in the driveway waiting for him, counting.

>Found this on the floor in the art room:
racingdrawing

>Saturday morning I got to go to ballet. And make ricotta pie. Not simultaneously.

>Saturday afternoon we went into the city for a sleepover at Amy and Peter’s house. It was awesome. The kids played like maniacs, we made pizza, we got caught up.

<The kids were up before 6am.

>We had donuts with Amy and Peter and the gang. Jelly filled, white frosted /  half sprinkles, old fashioned, maple and chocolate glazed. I had the chocolate glazed.

>Played this afternoon with Amy and Andy’s kids – Tom took an entire crew to the park like the champion he is. Then the girls and I made a fairy house in our neighborhood park. Learned that fairies are “one inch and five centimeters tall.” Found that surprising, but was informed that “if they were shorter they wouldn’t be able to carry an umbrella.” 

>Talked to Mum and Dad.

>We bought our tickets for Boston!! July 8-25.

<Found out they’re closing our high school for at least 3 days because of the swine flu.

>Had pancakes for dinner.

Now that’s a weekend! Here’s what’s coming up this week. Do you see this disaster?

stash

 

Turns out I have three fabric bins that are threatening our home with a hostile takeover, so this week is Face the Stash week here in my house. I have to make at least enough of a dent to get the lid back on. If you don’t hear from me by Tuesday, call the mounties, would you?

And We’re Back

Thank you for standing by – we were experiencing some time management difficulties out here this past week, and although I don’t really like to point fingers, it’s all Harry Potter’s fault. You see, Honey is 8 and a half, and it seemed like she was in a good spot to try the early books, with the explicit understanding that we would not be reading all of them – I believe that it’s worth the wait to grow with this particular series if you start at her age. I, however, took it upon myself to read ahead so that we’d know when to stop, and that was my downfall. These books should come with some kind of surgeon general’s warning about their addictive properties and guaranteed disruption of workflow. The good news is I just closed book seven last night and I can head into detox now. The bad news is I just closed book seven last night and it’s over. Those books are some serious fun, and the writing is terrific. 

We were sitting around the table one day this week, talking about the books. I mentioned that Claire and I had a quick chat about what a great writer J.K. Rowling is, and Honey suddenly came out with, “It’s amazing that she has that gift!” She paused and added, “I have the gift of making great plans  – and then forgetting them!” Looks like someone isn’t headed for Ravenclaw house, if you know what I mean. I actually asked her that the other day – which house would she like to be in, if she got to go to school with the characters – and she wasn’t sure. I thought certainly she’d say “Gryffindor,” since the heroes of the book were in that house. But she said, “I don’t know. Not Slytherin. Maybe Hufflepuff – they have a great name, and they’re really kind.” And that is one of the things that I really love about that girl. She doesn’t seem to have the need to go with the cool thing. She still trusts her instinct over appearance, and I’m trying to figure out how I can help her keep that as long as possible. Is it something I can even help with? I think maybe my goal might be more like trying not to interfere with that trait for as long as possible.

The dance community took a hit this week – Frankie Manning died on Monday. For those of you who didn’t know him, Frankie was one of the original Lindy Hoppers from Harlem – an extraordinary man and a truly phenomenal dancer. I was fortunate enough to spend some time with him over the years when I was doing a lot of swing dancing. He was witty, kind, innovative and fun. His stories about the Savoy were ones you just could never forget. He’d talk about walking up the stairs to the ballroom, the quickening of his pulse as he’d hear the music, the way the whole floor would be bouncing under the movement of all those dancers, and his whole face would shine.

Here’s another thing – Lindy is like any subject, and the people who fancy themselves good at it can bring an equal amount of talent and ego to the conversation. During a dance, they’ll be testing your vocabulary, throwing out complicated phrases to see how you react, and scanning the room the whole time for observers or subsequent partners. I only had a few dances with Frankie myself, but I was amazed to discover that he paid as much attention to me as I did to him. He didn’t dumb down his conversation or stop being funny and smart with his movement, but he really seemed to care about what I had to say about the music or the phrase. He taught me a great deal about listening.

Here’s a scene from Hellzapoppin’ that shows some crazy Lindy Hopping – Frankie is the one in the overalls. If you’re like me, this clip will leave you feeling like you need a sit down and perhaps an oxygen tank…

 

 

Frankie could do all that crazy dancing – he invented some of it for crying out loud – but he’d start his advanced classes with the basic Lindy turn, because it all came back to the basics for him. It was quality of movement, integration with the music, and connection with your partner. Here’s to Frankie, then, for showing us all how it’s done.

Great Ideas

Tom and Hot Wheels were riding to school this morning when Hot Wheels had a great idea. “I have a great idea” is what he said. “We could sell our house and buy a Bugatti Veyron!” 

The first letdown of the day is always a bummer. Even if we were to green light that particular plan, we still couldn’t afford the Veyron. At least not this year.

Not to be deterred, Hot Wheels moved right on to the next question – “Then how many Porches could we buy?”

His final plan? “Could we get four Porches and one rusty Ferrari?”

Speed

As I’ve mentioned before, Hot Wheels is pretty consumed with cars. He has nested obsessions, though, so within the greater theme of cars he has questions and stories that can last for weeks at a time. One recent sub-obsession was, “Is a Porche ever faster than a Ferrari?” No matter what we said, he’d come back to that same question time and again. We’re talking weeks of rumination here. Finally, the morning we drove to the airport to pick up our friend Ellen, something remarkable happened. We had just gotten on route 280 when Tom said, “SIMON! Guys! You Won’t Believe This!! Look to the left!” 

It was like a textbook illustration – a Ferrari passed us, closely followed by – you guessed it – a Porche. Simon started to go bezonkers, and just as he was declaring the question answered for all time… the Ferrari joined our lane, and the Porche PASSED IT. It is difficult to describe the jaw-dropping significance of this moment to anyone who doesn’t live with our son. And Tom and I gaped as we saw a tidy resolution to an incessant conflict obliterated before our eyes. It was pretty spectacular.

Next up in the query queue was this; “What is the fastest car in the world?” Hot Wheels and I googled it the other day and it looks like it might be an SSC Ultimate Aero, although I didn’t do an exhaustive search, so don’t quote me on that. The great thing was that in our hunting around we found an awesome Top Gear video of the Bugatti Veyron that I think I’ve now watched about fifty two times. If you have a few moments and you like cars, it’s really cool.

 

That makes fifty three for me!

Weekend

This was a weekend of anniversaries. Yesterday was Carmen’s Anniversary of Profession! Yay, Carmen!! A year ago on that wonderful day, Carmen and I were here:

machupicchu1

Yep – Machu Picchu. Not a shabby way to celebrate, eh? Want to see it again?

machupicchu3

machupicchu2These photos aren’t very fancy, but I like looking at the scale – people, structures, mountains. It’s impossible to truly capture on film, particularly with my little camera, but if you squint and use your imagination, it might make you say wow. (And no, these weren’t the only photos I took on that trip – I did post about them last year. But chances are you’ve already seen them and are All Set in that department.)

So that was a pretty nice way to celebrate her anniversary. This year we decided to go to Mount Everest. BOY was that chilly! Ok, just kidding we didn’t actually do that at all. We were together in spirit, though!

What I actually did on the 18th this year was go to gorgeous Limantour beach with our great friends Amy and Andy. It was a unseasonably warm weekend here, and we packed a picnic and stayed all day. Limantour is a superb beach because it’s a little ways north and off the beaten path – not hidden but not swarmed on a warm Saturday. It’s also where Tom and I got engaged 22 12 years ago. Woohoo! 

As we approached the coast, we could see it was completely fogged in, which usually means that once you go up and over the dunes you’re blasted away by a cold wind and not exactly tempted to settle in for a long visit. However, we lucked out and the beach was a great temperature (although a bit windy) and the fog gave us a perfect, moody backdrop. Here’s our friend Andy playing catch with their son:

limantourball

 

Wouldn’t this make a cool painting?

Here’s Tom and Hot Wheels down by the water:

limantourdig

 

Somewhere out beyond them in the ocean is a whale we saw spouting off from time to time. A whale! Sweet!

And here is Amy and Andy’s dog Gus:

gus

 

 

It was Gus’ 10th birthday, and he was as happy as a dog can possibly be. At least until the ranger strolled up and issued him a citation for being off-leash. He wasn’t too happy about that, I tell you. 

Other than that – it was a picture perfect day.

Today is the 19th. It is my wonderful Great Aunt Winifred’s Anniversary of Profession today, as well as my other Great Aunt Carmencita’s birthday and Joe and Kristen’s wedding anniversary. That makes this one heck of a good day. I wish I could be there with you all to celebrate, but I’m sending lots of love and hoping your weekend was as lovely as mine.

The Taxman Cameth

And hopefully wenteth away again, right? How’d you do? With any luck you’re breathing a sigh of relief and beginning the receipt neglect that will carry you happily through the next [fill in the blank – mine’s about 340] days or so, until it’s time to panic again! 

For those of you who don’t live in California, I have a moment of zen. Consider it my gift to you, this Thursday morning. Massachusetts and New Hampshire, you might want to sit down, because this might be a whopper for you – but in a good way. Our sales tax here in my county just went up to 9%. Are you laughing yet? In San Rafael, just ten minutes north of here, it’s 9.5%. 

But it gets better than that. In all your friendly generosity, you might be thinking, “Aw, honey, just come out here and visit. We’ll fix you up – we don’t have any sales tax!!” And I appreciate that, I do. It’s just that out in California, we also have this cute little thing called Use Tax. In a nutshell, California residents have to pay our local sales tax on any purchase made anywhere in the world. 

According to the California State Board of Equalization, they want to “make it easy for you to report and pay use tax.” They even sent out a nice brochure that stated at least three times that this process is easy! Don’t fret, California, here’s what you do:

1. Look at every purchase you made in the past year from out-of-state or Internet sellers (worldwide) without payment of California sales tax. (Don’t worry! You only have to pay use tax on items for which you would have paid sales tax in California.)

2. Now for each purchase, find the CA tax rate for the location where you used, stored, gave away or consumed the item. (Because the sales tax varies from city to city, and heaven only knows where you’ve been storing and consuming those purchases of yours.)

3. Multiply the purchase price by the CA use/sales tax rate.

4. Subtract any use/sales tax you paid to another state.

5. Make note of this amount, and move on to the next item on your list. Repeat steps 1-4.

6. When you’re finished, add up all your step 5 totals, and that’s what you owe in use tax. Wasn’t that easy? In most cases you can simply put this on your tax return, instead of filing a separate use tax return with the State Board of Equalization. But you’ll have to look that up! We’re not sure! And foreign purchases follow a slightly different set of instruction, but you can look those up too! And couples filing jointly can split it, which is swell!

The brochure they sent out encouraging Californians to do this easy bit of calculation had a nice little worksheet included, which had about 5 lines to enter out-of-state or internet purchases and work out the use tax. For the percentage of the California residential population that is on complete bed rest with no internet access, this probably works quite well! 

So there you have it. I hope this was uplifting. Happy April 16th!

Happy Easter

eastergoodness

Well we’ve had another lovely Easter. Lucky one, as last week was grey and gusty, and we were a little concerned that the hunt would have to be called for rain. But the weekend was stunningly beautiful and warm, so all went according to plan. Mum’s coffee rolls came out great and Lena’s ricotta pies were gone in a flash. Boy I love Easter treats! 

easterhunteasterhunters

Our friends had definitely been practicing looking for things, because they were efficient hunters! I’m feeling confident we won’t find too many eggs lurking in the garden in the months to come. There’s usually a couple though, which always makes me think we should bump up our home insurance policy at this time of year. 

daffodilsHave a look at this unbearably lovely daffodil that Joan gave us – it’s a tiny little plant in the coolest twiggy base… it looks like something out of a fairy tale. Stunning. We had a wonderful time visiting with everyone, and couldn’t believe how fortunate we were with the weather.

Now it’s the 14th, and it’s our friend Anne Marie’s birthday. For those of you who don’t know her, Anne Marie is one of our most remarkable friends. She’s generous, endlessly kind and smart as the dickens. She remembers everything you tell her, and is insanely well read, so consequently she can have an informed conversation on pretty much any topic you can fire her way. If she wasn’t so kindhearted she’d be really intimidating.

The major bummer is that Anne Marie has MS, and can’t move below her neck, which means she needs a lot of assistance. (Good thing we have such a great healthcare system in this country, right?) Things have been really tough for her this past year. You may have heard that California has had a slight bit of trouble managing its allowance, and consequently Anne Marie has lost a major chunk of funding for her care. She also lost income from other sources, so things are always right on the edge of scary for her.

This makes me really mad. It makes me mad because even if she weren’t brilliant and funny and thoughtful, she would still deserve better. It makes me mad that her energy and experience are not being shared with the world as they should be, but are being drained by worry and the scramble to make ends meet. It infuriates me that this woman can speak something like six different languages, and can’t scratch her own nose if it’s itchy. Have you ever had a really itchy nose? Can you imagine having to wait for hours for someone to come to your apartment to scratch it for you? I can’t. It makes me all prickly just to think of it, and that’s got to be the least of her discomforts.

I belong to a group of volunteers who originally formed to help Anne Marie out by feeding her dinner on the weekends. That volunteer group is now really a fan club as well, and we try to help out by holding one major fundraiser each year, although we’ve begun adding more since one doesn’t cover the need anymore. If you’re local, and you’re around on April 25, we’re hosting a dinner fundraiser  – I’d be delighted to hand on details. But even more importantly, if anyone out there has any tips or ideas or suggestions on raising money for individuals with serious illnesses, please leave me a comment! I’m convinced that someone out there has the know-how to help Anne Marie out. I just have to find out who.

Happy Birthday, Anne Marie! And Happy Spring, everybody. Have some lollies.

lollies

Tweetness in the House

This weekend, our good friend Ellen stopped in for a whirlwind visit on her way back to Boston to see her family. Have a look at her blog for a glimpse of her work and life up in BC. I got to live with Ellen and my friend Sam up in Ithaca a few years back, and it was a really wonderful time. Well. Turns out she brings us good luck, because the day before she arrived, we won the Marin County lottery, in a manner of speaking. That is, our friend Elise called to ask if we might be interested in spending Saturday night in one of the cabins at Steep Ravine, which is right on the coast near Stinson Beach. 

steepravinewindowThis might not sound earth shattering, but around here, Steep Ravine, and the cabins particularly, are legendary. Built in the 1930s, they were originally privately owned and leased out for beach holidays. Dorothea Lange used to go there with her family and took a few photographs around the cottages. They were pretty good. Years later the cottages became part of the state park system, and now you can reserve a cabin or tent camping site at Steep Ravine if you get online or on the phone bright and early on January 2, when they open reservations for the year. The cabins book out for the whole season (weekdays and weekends) in the blink of an eye, so it’s an unbelievable opportunity to get to go.

We stopped in at the Safeway to pick up some provisions (marshmallows) and were chatting with Curtis about the weekend. When he heard where we were headed, he just started saying, “Aw, MAN! Aw, MAN!” He grew up around here and said he’d wanted to go to Steep Ravine since he was in high school. 

steepravinecottage

 

Pity it’s not that beautiful a setting, eh?

Here are some shots coming back up from the beach:

steepravinecottages1

 

steepravinemoonsteepravineclimb

steepravinedoor

The cottages themselves are rustic – solid wood worn soft and smooth with use. The main room of our cottage had a wood stove, a table with two benches and a sleeping platform tucked into an alcove. There was a narrow bedroom with platform bunk beds opposite a small closet, and then one bedroom with two sleeping platforms. Simple but pretty luxurious for a camping overnight! 

Stinson often gets foggy and cold at night but Saturday was clear and calm – very lucky weather. The kids were actually hoping for it to get colder so we could light up the wood stove and get the marshmallows going! 

It was a stunning night. Mainly I couldn’t stop staring at the beauty around me – I felt like we’d stepped into a storybook.

 

On Sunday afternoon, we took Ellen to the California Academy of Sciences since she’s a museum geek, and we wanted to show her all the cool things they’d been working on there. It was a bit of a whirlwind, since there’s so much to see, but the museum didn’t disappoint.

calacademyaquarium

 

Here she is checking out the fish. I love the ethereal light around those big tanks.

We also got to see the craziest darn thing I’ve seen in a long while. We walked towards this round tank in the center of one of the rooms in the aquarium, and it looked like there were a bunch of branches floating around in the water.

When we took a closer look we discovered they were ALIVE. They had heads that resembled sea horses, but their bodies looked like twigs with random branches and leaves sticking out. They’re called Leafy Sea Dragons, and they’re completely nuts.

Hold onto your hats, people. Here’s a photo from the Academy’s online gallery…

 

leafy_seadrgon_phycodurus-eques_juvenile

 

Now I’m not trying to lift their photography – we were not allowed to take our own pictures because the sea dragons are very sensitive and have aggressive agents. So please go straight away to the California Academy of Science site to see the other photos in the proper size and context. They’re fantastic.

 

All in all, it was a terrific weekend. Thanks, Ellen!

Something Funny Going On Around Here

Yesterday things were a leettle topsy turvy in our house. The kids’ clothes were all in different drawers. The milk was pink. There were odd messages on the blackboard. And the food was just a bit backwards, if you ask me.

Breakfast: macaroni and cheese, spinach, sausage

Lunch: cereal, muffin, banana

Snack: mini sandwiches, jicama

Dinner: ice cream

icecreamdinner

 

Amy brought her kids over, saying they were only going to stay a moment, but somehow Tom talked her into letting them go to the park with our kids for just a little while. After they left, we got to work making the dinner. Whew! That was taxing. 

When the kids came home and saw the table, I think they might have been the happiest people on the planet. It was a good, good night.

 

 

Here’s a shot of my dinner:

dinner

 

Now that’s what I’m talkin about.

What A Week!

Whew! Has it been a week? Unbelievable. This one went like a rocket. Here are some highlights:

RHYTHM

Our friend Andy plays drums in a band called Cheap Therapy (I know – such a great name), so last Friday we had a babysitter for all the kids and went out and danced all night. The band was fantastic, Andy was inspiring, we all had an amazing time. One of the songs they play is Feelin’ Alright, and every time I hear the opening keyboard for that song it makes me crazy happy because it reminds me of a favorite mix from Joe, years ago. 

RAINBOWS

We went for a walk last weekend in the morning with our neighbors. This is what we saw:
doublerainbow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It turned into a double rainbow and was simply spectacular. We chased it down but all we found in the pot was a snarky little note about how all the gold had gone to the bailouts. Bummer.

 

soccer1

 

 

 

 

 

CLEATS

Hot Wheels started his first soccer thing, and at 5 he was one of maybe a third of the group who hadn’t played before. There were some serious ringers in this group. Yikes! They were all kinds of cute, though. We were particularly grateful to the Orlandis for giving Hot Wheels some cool Puma gear last summer so he looked like hot stuff out on the field.

soccer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PLANES

There’s always a moment in the life of a Lego kit when the owners can finally release the ideal of the kit object and let all the pieces go into the big lego collective. It’s a great scene when the astronauts meet Indiana Jones and the medieval knights on the playing field. In our home, most kits are quickly assimilated by the borg ottoman that houses our mixed lego collection. The only holdout right now is the airplane. It took so long to put together the first time, Honey’s not quite ready to let it go into the wilds of the loose lego. 

This week a friend of hers from school came over, and he spent a good amount of time trying to put the plane together, and he did a great job. The bummer about the big Lego plane, though, is that it takes ages to assemble but milliseconds to break. So all his hard work ended up all over the floor just before he went home. Such a shame. Honey revised the plane later in the week, though, and made this:

legoshortplane

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So much more stable – I love the proportions on this guy.

 

TAKE OUT:

This week we were on the schedule to bring dinner to our friends whose daughter is quite sick. I’ve always been curious about what the best foods are to bring to people after a baby or a sickness, etc. Here’s what I came up with this time around: 

– Container of raw cut veggies (I always throw one of those in because I detest cleaning and chopping veggies when I’m tired, so I think they’re handy)

– Mum’s dinner rolls

– Penne with roasted butternut, leek, zucchini, chicken and brown butter sage (with some goat cheese to crumble on the top)

– Mixed greens with basil and orange

– Gingersnaps

There were a few more odds and ends – drinks and spare snacky things – but that was the main idea. Plus some orange gerber daisies because they’re gorgeous. Have some good dinner delivery ideas? I’d love to hear them…

 

CHEEPS

The chicks are getting bigger and bigger. Here they are having a little jaunt in the garden:

chicks

 

Susie and Finn told the kids they could name them, which was both kind and brave. Hot Wheels named his (on the left in the photo) Crystal Chickie, and Honey named hers Opaquea (that’s Opaque with an ‘ah’ at the end). Now Hot Wheels, I get – he names everything Crystal. Why? Not sure. Maybe it’s the most magical sounding thing he can dream up. But Opaquea? Heaven only knows.

The chicks are growing like mad – you can see their feathers filling in more each day. Twice we’ve come home to find them standing in the middle of the room wondering what happened. I’ll tell you what happened – they flew out of the box, that’s what! They’re getting stronger and sleeker every day and are darned cute, which is lucky for them, the tricky little things.

 

Happy weekend, everybody!