Kerry's Garden

Uniformly Lovely

2011-04-05T19:21:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about adopting a uniform. I read, and I'm sure it's true because everything I read is mostly true, that most people only wear about 20% of the clothes in their closet.
The other 80% is just filler. This is probably true for me.
My favorite daily outfit is composed of: jeans, t-shirt, and cardigan with three-quarter length sleeves. I feel like myself. I look presentable but not over dressed for my day (which, let's be honest, barely involves leaving the house), and those clothes are easy to care for. I have other items in my closet but those are the ones I keep going back to. So I'm thinking, why not just wear only what I love to wear and pretty much ditch the rest? I'd keep my suits and a few items for those times when I have to show my face in the office and a couple of dresses for special occasions. But everything else would go. Because, then, how easy would it be to get dressed in the morning?!! I'm going to stew on this until the weekend before I take the plunge and cull my closet.

The Digital Sabbatical

2011-03-31T19:26:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you can really say that you are taking a sabbatical if 1) you are not an academic or 2) are only taking it for two days, but I didn't come up with the term so I'm not going to be picky (I stole the idea from Rowdy Kittens). As part of my observance of Lent, I'm using the weekends to take a digital sabbatical meaning that I am avoiding my computer and smart phone (beyond making phone calls) on Saturdays and Sundays. The first and second weekends of Lent were easy because we were out of town the first weekend and the second weekends was consumed with laundry and house projects. Last weekend we finally had some down time and I felt the full force of my internet fast. I would typically have whittled away a good deal of time reading the the paper online, lurking on Facebook and catching up on some of my favorite blogs, maybe trolling Etsy or Craigslist. Last Saturday, I did this instead:

In case you can't tell, that would be a meticulously rendered drawing of Imperial Star ships and fighters duking it out with Rebel Destroyer Blaster Bazingas. Or something like that. When you draw the lasers, you have to say "pow, pow, pow" in a laser-y voice. The green stuff is from the slime shooters. One of the ships shoots candy canes and peppermint drops. You are NOT allowed to draw heart shooters. I would love to tell you that the two hours I spent doing this were the best of my life, that I learned deep and meaningful truths about parenting and creative play and exploring color and geometry while experiencing world through the innocent perspective of my gifted offspring. Truth be told I kind of missed the weekend paper and I didn't have enough coffee. And I had a cold. And also it is hard to be bossed around by an eight year old because your ARE DOING IT WRONG. And my gifted offspring likes Stars Wars a little too much and talks non-stop. But. Watching the wheels in my child's brain spin is absolutely delightful and fascinating and funny. Really, really, really funny.
I also used some time last weekend to read and on Sunday afternoon I slept for four hours (because I was sick). I can't say that I wouldn't have done these things had I allowed myself access to a computer, but somehow it was easier to do them. Sort of as if I had permission. It wasn't life altering or cathartic, but it was nice. And I'll always take nice.

Spring, Thou Art a Fickle Bitch

2011-03-21T19:03:00.000-07:00

We returned from a fantastic spring break trip to California to sunny days and temperatures in the mid-50's. Not spectacular, but I'll take mid-50's over mid-20's any day. The tulips in our back yard popped up and I began to feel the tingle of the slow thawing of my fingers and toes, and, dare I say it, a ray of hope for warm days and running outside. Then. Grrrr. Snow. Lots and lots of wet icky snow. Grrrr. This time of year makes me crazy and crabby. And also I came down with a cold, could not remember where the power button for my computer was this morning, and forgot how to log into work because I hadn't done it in over a week. And also-also, the dog ran out of food and my car is nearly out of gas.

But...ahh...... Spring Break. A whole week off. We decided that seeing how Garion is now 8, we had better take that poor boy to Legoland before he was too old to enjoy it or he died of envy because all his friends had been and he had not. Garion loved everything there, but most of all the new roller coaster that hurtles you down a big slope before chucking you back up another one.

I did not ride the down and up-chuck roller coaster. I did ride the dragon roller coaster and discovered that a roller coaster is made all the more terrifying by the sight of your baby sitting in front of you, by himself, with his hands in the air while the contraption that you are both stuck to hurtles around corners at 90-ish degree angles. It took everything I had to suppress the urge to yell "young man put your hands down right this minute!"

The next day we headed down to Cabrillo National Monument, where for once in our lives we were somewhere at precisely the right time, peak tide pool exploring hours. The tide pools were my favorite part of the trip along with the thrill of hearing Garion yell, "Mom! Look--a hermit crab!! Oh, Mom, over here!! Mom, look at this!" He even let me take his picture without making a face:

Possibly this sweetness is why we totally caved when Garion begged to go to Disneyland to ride more roller coasters. Thunder Mountain was his favorite of all the roller coasters and he was so happy to be at Disneyland that he even consented to riding Pirates of the Caribbean twice just to make his mother happy. Garion has informed us that next time, he would like to go to Magic Mountain, please, where they have real roller coasters. So that will be a very special father-son trip.

Looking for Distraction in Snow and Cold

2011-01-09T15:28:00.000-08:00

I started this with the intention of writing about yesterday's events in Tucson. But I don't think I can, much. I feel shock and anger and deep sadness for the families of the victims and am still reeling from the shock of the loss that effects so many people I know; a senseless loss that every single person I work and their families are trying to wrap their heads around.
So today I looked for some distraction and comfort in cold and snow. We took our snowshoes and headed out the Nordic Center for a couple of hours today. Cold air and clear sunlight and quiet and crunchy snow and the beautiful cathedral of the pine forest. They worked some of their cleansing magic and I am going to try to hang on to that feeling the rest of this week.

Do you know the way to Santa Fe?

2010-11-10T19:30:00.000-08:00

Because I do. You hop on I40 and drive for forever. Then you take an off ramp for a freeway that heads North and drive for another hour. Last weekend I went to visit my college and maid of honor, who now lives in Santa Fe with her husband and two children. I hadn't seen her in over three years. She used that time to produce not one, but two adorable boys who are now 2 years and 3 months old. I used that time to....um.....maintain course.

For whatever reason, we rarely talk. Neither of us is big on the telephone and e-mail just seems inadequate. Despite pretty much never talking, the instant I walked into her house we were chatting away as if we had just seen each other yesterday. She refers to our friendship as the low maintenance kind.

We had an awesome weekend. My friend's husband gamely took charge of both children for the entire day and we went off for some hardcore shoe shopping and gallery browsing. My friend works for a state program that purchases art for state buildings. So awesome is this job that when she asked about a couple of pieces that were not on the gallery floor, the woman working in the gallery went into the back storage area, found the pieces, and set them out for us to look at in a private room under the special lights. Sweet.

Also sweet: I bought cowboy boots. They are awesome. They make Moses roll his eyes.

I'm not sure when I'll get the change to visit my friend again, but I hope it's not another three years. You need to have that person in your life who just effortlessly gets you.

Geronimoooooooo!

2010-11-09T19:06:00.000-08:00

Garion has been on a serious Geronimo Stilton kick lately and apparently these books are all the rage among second grade boys. In case you are not hip to the 8 year old scene, Geronimo Stilton is a mouse who lives in, wait for it....Mouseopolis, and runs a newspaper called the the Rodent's Gazette. He has all sorts if improbable adventures and then writes books about them. That's right, the mouse writes the books. Try to keep up. Also, he is something of a reluctant lady's man--I mean lady's mouse--this totally cracks me up.

Anyway, today is library day. When I pulled up to the school I spotted three second grade boys standing around, each with a Geronimo Stilton book in their hands, reading. And Garion was leaning in to read over the shoulder of one of them. That would be four, 7-8 year old boys so excited about books, books for crying out loud, that they were reading them in public in full view of other children while waiting for their parents. Geronimo Stilton, you rock my world.

The New Old Bicycle

2010-11-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

Last month, my father-in-law gave me an old English-style 3-speed bicycle. The beautiful kind with fenders and a step-though frame and upright handle bars. The kind that you need a bell and a basket for and the kind that you can ride while wearing a skirt, if the mood strikes. I'd been trolling craigslist for just such a bicycle for some time, but couldn't find one in my price range when--voila!--one was magically transported to my garage. Magically as in Moses went out to his dad's place one day and came back with a surprise for me.

Wait. What was that? You don't care that much about my new bicycle? You want to know what my son was for Halloween and why I am such a slacker mother that I never post the Halloween picture until sometime in November? Okay. Fine. Here:

He was a wizard. He was a wizard because although he originally intended to be Indiana Jones, the thrift store did not have the perfect Indiana Jones jacket and a jacket that looked "good enough" for mom was not good enough for the boy. And if Garion can't do the costume exactly right, he's not going to do it all. Which is completely frustrating and monumentally irritating when you are in the middle of a busy thrift store a week before Halloween and all of the sudden he says "I don't want to be Indiana Jones....I don't know what I want to be." But it worked out in the end. He's wearing my law school graduation robe, which will give you an idea of just how tall my baby is. Also, in my defense, it is only November 3rd, and I think this is most timely Halloween post ever, so there.

Now we can talk about my old new bicycle, which I am thoroughly smitten with:

I forgot to take a picture before we took it apart. And yes, that is my dog in background thinking that maybe if he stares hard enough at the bucket, one of the tennis balls inside will come flying out and play with him.
I should have started my bicycle search at The Land (my father-in-law's place) to begin with because I think that my father-in-law is storing at least one of every mechanical thing ever know to man out there. You know, just in case the world ends and humanity will need the last [insert mechanical item here] to figure out how to make more. Unfortunately, time at the land also means that the bicycle needed a little love. Well, actually quite a bit of love. Here's the hub, after I brushed off a bucket full of red dust:

And the rims, with a not insubstantial amount of rust:

The rust proved to be overwhelming and after reading about some safety implications of riding a bicycle with rusted-out rims, I decided to order new rims and a new hub. These are harder to track down then you would think. But yesterday--oh joy!--my new rims came and they are shiny and beautiful. Now I just need to finish cleaning up the bicycle, and possibly painting the frame. Then, as soon as I have some free time, I can put it all back together and have a lovely, beautiful new old bicycle to tool around on. Just in time for winter and snow. Someday I will have better timing. Until then I will dream of beautiful English-style three speeds with new rims and wizards who were Indiana Jones in their previous lives.

Back of the Smithosonian

2010-10-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

How nerdy is it to have a subscription to the Smithsonian Magazine? Well, doesn't matter because Moses is the one who subscribes so either way you answered, I am still cool. The coolest. Ha.
Not the point, however. The point is the back of the magazine. The awesome part where they carry advertisements for weird crap that will transform you into a modern day Indian Jones without the guns and violence. You think I kid? Here's a sampling:

- Fisher Space Pen
-Authentic Artifacts and Coins
-Wireless Weather Station
-Athena Pheromones ("biologist's pheromones increase affection")--you know Indy was all over this
-Wold Discovery Box (Includes over 50 fossils, insects, marine life and minerals)
-Publish Your Book Now!
-Voyages to Antiquity
-Turkey Tours (the country not the bird)
-Upton Tea Imports
-European Beret (probably for the girl, not for Indy because he had the hat)
-David Morgan Unique Items of Lasting clothing (felt fedora, red check flannel, and messenger bag shown)
-World's Fastest Wrinkle Remover (even Indy ages)
-a Cell Phone That's a Phone (as in that's all it does)
-Gorilla Glue

No kidding, that's all in the back. Plus a bunch of other similar crap. I love it all. Yes, please, send me on a Voyage to Antiquity dressed in David Morgan's clothes, where I will write my self-published book with my space pen while smelling like Athena's pheromones. I can hardly wait.

My Funny Brother, My Roomy: Imogene Pass Run 2010 Race Report

2010-09-12T17:23:00.000-07:00

Let me begin this tale with the most important fact: I beat my previous Imogene time by almost 45 minutes (whatever 6:26 minus 5:45 is). Brussel sprouts! I TORE IT UP!!!!

Okay. Now that that's out in the open, we can move on. Or back to the beginning. Whatever. Moses and I did not want to go to this race. Did not want to make the six hour drive, did not want to get up at O' dark thirty on race day, did not want to stagger 17.1 miles for hours on end at high altitude. We began exploring excuses for not going early last week. In fact, if you had asked me last Wednesday whether we were actually going to go, I would have said, I doubt it. But. Thursday afternoon I got an e-mail from my brother titled "Pain & Agony" which said: "Have you thought of any good excuses to get out of running on Saturday? I'm thinking about cutting off a toe." Jerk. Making me laugh like that. I knew then that we were going because all of the sudden I wanted the chance to hang out with my brother and his wife, his in-laws, and friends--you know, the cool fit kids. (Every year, my brother's wife's family organizes the trip to Telluride for a big group of people).

So we deposited the various living things that we are responsible for at their respective weekend destinations (kid to school, then friend's house, then grandparents, dog to kennel, and plants to fend for themselves) and hit the road Friday morning. And you know what? It was okay. By the time we got to Cortez, Colorado, I was kind of into it. And by the time we started the climb into the San Juan Mountains, I was mentally there and glad we got out of town for the weekend. That last hour and half into Telluride is just gorgeous. I think it's nearly impossible to regret being there.

We pulled into town and found out that we'd be sharing a room with my brother and his wife. "You guys get the bunk beds," said my brother. Okay, I guess that's fair because last time we got the master suite with the jetted tub. We deposited our beer at the main house and headed over to our assigned condo where we met one of our house mates who, upon learning that I was my brother's sister, said "Oh, that's wonderful! He is SO funny. I mean really, really funny. I mean the whole way up here--SO FUNNY!" Yes, I know, you think he's funny now, you should have seen him when he was 8 and blew up that egg in the microwave. That evening we had a great dinner, and great conversation with great people, and my brother continued to be his funny self, fueled by a not insubstantial amount of beer. (Don't worry, at about 8:30 that night, he switched to Gatorade to get ready for the race. Yeah, I know. Instantly switching from beer to Gatorade is apparently his superpower).

We hit the sack early in anticipation of our early wake-up the next day: my brother and his wife in their bed and Moses and me in our bunk beds. "Goodnight, Kerry." "Goodnight, Lisa." "Goodnight Mary Sue Ellen." "Goodnight John Boy." Do you know how old I was the last time I shared a room with my brother? 12. As is my pre-race norm, I failed to sleep at all that night and laid there running the race in my head over and over again and trying not to think about my nervous tummy because I didn't want to be the bad roomy who had to get up to pee a million times in middle of the night.

The alarm went off at 4:30 a.m., Colorado time. That would be 3:30 a.m., Arizona time. That would be (mom, close your eyes for a sec.) really fucking early. And guess what? My brother is a morning person. Brussel sprouts. How can he be funny first thing in the morning after all that beer and Gatorade? My brother's wife was sick, and therefore not running, but still got up early so she could see everybody off and shuttle gear from the start to the finish line because she's awesome like that.

We had breakfast and slept-walk our way through the obligatory pre-race ritual: get on an over-heated, crowded school bus in the dark, ride some impossibly long time with bus full of impossibly fit people to the start, get off in the freezing cold and head immediately for the toilet line and then proceed to hurry up and wait. My sister-in-law's mother asked me how I was doing and then gave me a great pep talk about running my own race and just relaxing and reminding me that I already know I'll make it because I've done it before. This woman could talk me into anything (she's talked me into entering Imogene three times and I think the only reason she couldn't talk me into running it instead of going to a work conference last year was because I didn't see her before I left for the conference). The state department should hire her to negotiate peace in the middle east, she is that good.

Pep talk in mind, I decided she's right, I'm just going to run/hike/walk/crawl my own race and I'm not going to worry about anything else or how I'm doing compared to anybody else. I'm just going to finish and it doesn't matter what happens and I will make it because I've done it before. And that's what I did. Moses took off at a faster pace, and that was fine. I quit trying to keep up with him (at this point we were both walking) and it the end this was much better for both of us (Moses finished in under 5 hours). I prefer to suffer alone. I didn't worry that I had to stop running and start walking less than half a mile into the race. I found my pace and stuck to it. And it worked.

That said, about 5 miles into the race, I spotted my brother on the side of the road. He had a leg cramp and had to stop to stretch. I didn't stop because I figured he'd be fine and there wasn't anything I could do to help him anyway and I kind of suck as a sister. And also two years ago when were hiking Mt. Humpherys?, he totally left me to die. In the rain and hale. Also some lady had already stopped and was offering him pickle juice. (Apparently pickle juice is supposed to be the magic potion that instantly cures muscle cramps. My brother said it just made him want to vomit). After a swig of pickle juice, my brother caught up to me. We chatted briefly about the merits of pickle juice and hiked together for a bit. And then on the next hill......wait for it.......I DROPPED HIM. Because he had a leg cramp but, whatever. I didn't see him again the rest of the race and briefly toyed with the idea that I might have beat him in the whole thing but it turns out that he passed me somewhere along the way and neither of us noticed. Probably when I was in the port-a-potty-at-the-top-of-the-mountain. Regardless, for a brief shining moment, I was in front. Hah! Other than that, I was running my own race and not worrying at all about what everybody else was doing. Really.

The uphill part was predictably hard. Really hard. And steeper than I remembered. I did a better job of managing my liquid and food intake and although my heart and lungs were working overtime, I did not get altitude sickness. I just kept moving and that seemed to be the key. The top was beautiful. I took a few minutes to soak in the view and a volunteer snapped my picture at the summit sign. I then assessed my physical state. And, brussel sprouts!, I still had legs. Not only would I finish this stupid race, but I would finish it strong. At the 12 mile mark, I realized that I was going finish substantially better than two years ago and I hunkered down for the remaining five miles. I even finished early enough that my family and friends were still at the finish line by the time I got there. Sweet.

Post-race, everybody took the traditional gondola ride for late afternoon coffee and then we headed back to the main house for dinner, where half of Flagstaff joined us. We even had the winner of the whole shebang at our party because we were so cool. He finished the race in something like 2:19--I cannot even fathom how this is physically possible. I was a little disappointed that he just looked like a normal guy--it seemed like he should at least have had a super-suit.

Overall, I finished ahead of 83 other people. Last time, I finished ahead of 9 people and that was only because Moses let me walk across the finish line first. This really just means that I improved from "pathetically slow" to "slow," but I'll take it. I'm glad we ended up going and we'll probably do it again. We are constantly asked why we would ever endeavor something like this race, and honestly that's still a hard question for me to answer, even with the great experience I had this year. I think it comes down to the intense sense of satisfaction that comes from doing something really challenging, something that is so far outside of normal everyday life that its outcome is not at all predictable. There's also something great about taking on that challenge with a bunch of other people--whether you know them or not--and being part of this thing that was hard and scary and fun all at the same time. Or maybe the answer is really just the classic "because it's there" and also, now, "because I can." (And maybe also "because my brother might get a leg cramp and I will drop him on a hill.")

I've been thinking about:

2010-09-01T19:04:00.000-07:00

1. Imogene. It's one week and two days away and my prospects are bleak. Busy summer means not a lot of training means ohmygoodnessI'mprobablygoingtodieonamountaininColorado.

2. Wow, I didn't blog the entire month of August.

3. Holy cow, it is already September.

4. Holy cow, the weather is already turning cold.

5. Holy cow, my baby started second grade two weeks ago and he's brilliant.

6. I can't believe how attached I am to my dog. I expected to feel some mild affection for him, enough to tolerate all the necessary dog care, but I really thought my affection would be more of an off-shoot of Garion's affection. Not so. He follows me around everywhere I go and sleeps on my feet and I can no longer imagine life without a dog. 6 months--that's all it took.

7. My neighbors have chickens. Based on my understanding of the zoning ordinances and my extensive knowledge of chicken physiology, they are Outlaw Chickens. I can see them from my office window and hear them clucking around all day and I am COMPLETELY jealous. Maybe I will just get chickens and not tell Moses, and, probably, he wouldn't even notice. I'd keep them on the side of the house where he never goes and when they cluck and squawk, I will just blame the noise on the neighbor's chickens!

8. Last weekend we went camping with good friends and I absolutely love having friends who understand the very important skill of social reading--sitting around in proximity to other people while reading and not having to engage in conversation because it is not necessary to talk all the time.

9. Despite a ridiculously late start, I managed to grow tomatoes this year. Yay!! I cannot make them turn red. Boo!!

10. I am reading a book to Garion in which the main character pseudo-swears by saying "brussel sprouts!" I like this. I am going to adopt this.

11. Brussel sprouts! I'm only a couple of months away from 35 and therefore only 5 years away from 40 and, brussel sprouts!, this life thing is going too fast and I would like my money back please.

How to Cross-Train for Imogene in 25 Easy Steps:

2010-07-27T18:29:00.000-07:00

1. Hop on your bike and pedal down to the elementary school where your child is attending summer camp.
2. Sign child out and watch him take his sweet time moseying down the longest school corridor known to man and wonder if he'll make it to the end before you start going gray.
3. Place bicycle helmet on child.
4. Place your 50+ pound child on the back of your xtracycle:

5. Realize you must start the whole ordeal home by pedaling up hill. With 50+ pounds of wiggliness on the back of your bike.
6. Start pedaling.
7. Realize there is much uphill between school and your home.
8. Give a very sincere "thanks!" to the mom getting out of her car to pick up her kid who said to you "you're my hero!"
9. Realize you are only about 25% of the way up the first hill and have not even passed the school grounds yet.
10. Hope the mom with the compliment is already inside so she does not see you collapse.
11. Make to top of hill! Huzzah!
12. Realize top of hill is immediately followed by another hill (that is just so Flagstaff).
13. Get off and walk and make child walk too (it's good for him, builds character).
14. Resume riding when the hill is not so steep.
15. Realize that "not so steep uphill" is still uphill.
16. Wonder if you are too young for an exercise-induced heart attack.
17. Wonder if you are burning enough calories to work off all that ice cream.
18. In light of potential calorie consumption, keep going.
19. Despite a severe lack of oxygen, try to hold up your end of your child's conversation about..........something. Realize grunting will placate child and give up on conversation.
20. Confront the steep hill leading to your home and wonder who's dumb idea it was to buy a house at the top of a hill.
21. Get off bike and walk up the hill and make child walk too (it's good for him--builds character).
22. At child's urging, get back on bike to ride the last 100 ft of flat road at the top of the hill to your home.
23. Get off of bike.
24. Die a little.
25. Go make dinner.

I Wish It Would Never End

2010-07-22T18:31:00.000-07:00

Summer in Flagstaff is like homemade vanilla ice cream. You know, the kind you make in one of those old fashioned ice cream makers with the ice and the rock salt? And somebody has to crank and crank and crank while the cream mixture freezes? And when it is done you end up with a sweet, slightly salty, confection that is perfect in its creamy simplicity? That kind of homemade ice cream. The cranking part is winter. Over and over and over you shovel and pile on sweaters, and curse snow and although you know that, in theory, there is a season called summer that does not require wool socks, you are pretty sure it is never, ever going to happen. But eventually it does....and oh man, is it good. It is warm and sunny and everything smells like pine trees and you can wear your Chaco sandals everywhere to everything because in Flagstaff they pass for dress shoes (this is the sweet part). And then just when it starts to get a touch too hot, and fans are not quite enough to take the edge off the afternoon heat, the thunderstorms come and they are cool and dramatic and beautiful (this is that bit of salt that cuts the sweetness perfectly). And then there are just all the amazing things happening here in the summer. Like concerts in the park. The city books local bands to play in the park on Wednesday evenings. For free. And there are arts and crafts to keep kids entertained and everybody comes with their blankets, and dinners, and fallen brownies, and sits around with friends and family to shoot the breeze and listen to some live music. Last night it was reggae. My friend's dad remarked (with a dash of sarcasm) "wow, I wish the music was a little more political." And even though you'd think all that social justice would be a little for a heavy for Wednesday evening, it was okay. Because people were dancing, and kids were playing soccer, and the day's storm clouds were just starting to move along and there was an incredible rainbow over the whole thing. And that is just about as good as summer gets.

Imperfect Blogging and Fallen Browinies

2010-07-20T19:22:00.000-07:00

Ugh. My blogging has so ground to stunning halt. I am constantly thinking of things that I want to write about, want to share, but this particular time in my life seems to be one of immense busy-ness. And I do not love the busy-ness. I love having nothing to do. I crave time to play in the river at my mom's house (hi, Mom! I think busy-ness or no, we're coming your way this weekend). I crave time to read, to camp, to hike (without a time goal, damn Imogene training), to go somewhere just for the fun of it, or to have NOTHING to do for a whole weekend. And also to have twice weekly visits from the laundry fairy. Anyway, I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Walk Slowly, Live Widly this evening and she posted about imperfect blogging. And I think that's it. If I want to blog I should blog and forget about making every post a try for the World's Best Blog Post Ever. Of course, even imperfect blogging takes time so I am probably kidding myself, but I apparently need to kid myself about regular blogging or growing my hair on a rotating cycle of approximately six month intervals. Since I have presently given up on growing out my hair, I will work on more regular blogging. In six months when I've failed at regular blogging, I'll switch and start working on growing out my hair again.

So. Onward. This is what we've been up to:

As mentioned in my last post, Moses and I celebrated our 10th anniversary in May by heading to Moab. I got Moses a spiffy camera so that he could pose with it and make faces at me while I photographed him with my less-spiffy camera.
Moses also went to D.C. for a week to sit in hotel conference room and read grant proposals and then took Garion to Utah for a few days of field work. He's been busy too.

The first week in July we headed to Washington state to visit Moses's mom, step-dad, and assorted siblings, nieces, and nephews. This was the first time Garion had met many of his cousins and shenanigans ensued.

Here's a sampling of the cousins (notice the 2-year old totally doing his own thing off to the right--that is the totally adorable part of 2-year olds):

On the way home we went to visit Moses's oldest brother who lives with his wife near Lake Shasta. We visit them because they have a boat. Oh, and also we like them. And they gave us Harley. Garion would have ridden the inner tube thingy all the way home to Flagstaff if he could have.

The drive from Flagstaff to Washington took us approximate 3 days each way. Ohmygoodness. Garion and Harley were champs for the most part. This was on the way home after about a week of not enough sleep because it stays light until 10-freakin'-p.m. in the Pacific Northwest:
Between the traveling, Garion's attended Invention Camp (he invented a mind-reader), swimming lessons, and summer FACTS (basically a place to park your kid for the summer if you work) and that all requires dropping off and picking up and for some reason that is all more onerous in the summer. Seriously, why do we not have teleporters yet?

Tomorrow night we are going to the Wednesday evening Concert in the Park (yay for Flagstaff in the summer!!) We're meeting some friends and several other families and engaging in some sort of pot luck dinner. My assignment was dessert. I made peanut butter cup cupcake brownies and they sank. I think though that if I make everybody consider them from this highly artistic angle they will not notice:
As in, "yes you may have a brownie but only if you hold it over your head at this precise angle to look at it before you eat it."

A Decade

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

Last week, Moses and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. Ten years has the peculiar quality of seeming at once to be a really long time-as in, wow we've been married forever--and also a very short time--as in wow already?, that went fast. When we were preparing for marriage, we wrote letters to our future selves talking about what our expectations for marriage were and what we were feeling at the time. I confess that I was more than a little relieved to discover that we chose a crappy pen to write these letters and the ink has faded to illegibility. Thankfully we were better at choosing partners than choosing writing instruments. We were 24 when we got married. Last week we both had the same reaction when considering our 24-year-old selves: "24? What were thinking? We knew nothing, we were idiots, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves in for. We were still in school, for crying out loud. Our combined annual income was just over a tenth of what it is now. Did anybody try to warn us? Were we just not paying attention?" Thankfully our 24-year-old selves seemed to have stumbled into a pretty good life-I think that after 10 years we can officially count ourselves as in for the long haul.
I've been wanting to write something that reflects on ten years of marriage, what it means and what I've learned. On our eighth wedding anniversary, I posted our wedding vows and the ones that I would take had we written our own-after being married 8 years-and I hold true to those.

Well, I try. I don't manage it everyday, but I think I get there more days than not.
It turns out that, for me, our 10th anniversary was not so much a time to reflect on the deeper truths of marriage, but simply a time to revel in the years we've had together, and that is difficult to express. Then, today, we had a virtual conversation (Moses is traveling, thus the text messages, not that we haven't been known to text message across the living room) that sums it up nicely:

M: Flight from NC to DC delayed
K: Sorry about your flight. Miss you already.
M: I love you. Equal parts teq (tequila), tripsec (triple sec), lime, sweeten to taste, add ice wait 1 min.

In case you missed it, that conversation was about how draining it is to deal with a 7-year-old chatter-box non-stop all day without someone to deflect the 7-year-old's attention. And Moses got it, and he made me laugh, and that's what's great about 10 years.

Word to Yo Mutha*

2010-05-13T16:30:00.000-07:00

What I got from Garion for Mother's Day: a stuffed animal (from his collection), three pages of photos from his preschool memory book (need to sneak those back in before we lose them) and a beautiful necklace (pictured at left) that he made by drilling a hole through an enormous silver (plastic) coin and stringing it on a chain that I think he "found" in my jewelry box. On seeing this necklace, my brother remarked "oooh, Kerry, you got some bling!" 'Sright, bro.

Such was the craziness of the Mother's Day weekend, that I am just now, slightly, recovered enough to talk about it. My sister-in-law graduated with a doctorate in Physical Therapy on Friday so we went her way Friday afternoon to see if she could fix my sore foot. And to party a little. And to get talked into signing up for the Imogene Pass Run by her mom. (Note to self, need to avoid Nancy for approximately 30 days before June 1st if you are going to "forget" to sign up for Imogene).
We started Saturday by going out for breakfast with my dad who was in town for graduation. At breakfast, Garion asked Moses what a sinus headache is. Moses explained, complete with a quick consult of google (via phone) for a picture of a sinus cavity, to which Garion responded "you're giving me a headache" complete with eye rolling and head rubbing. The rest of Saturday was a whirl of cleanthehousegogroceryshoppinggetreadyformother'sdaydothelaundrychaos. I decided however, that since it was Mother's Day weekend I should not have to spend all of Saturday cleaning and that I would treat myself to a mani/pedi. Which is impossible to book at the last second on graduation weekend in a small town. So I decided to do it myself. And Garion thought it was a good idea, so we did him too. And Harley was not about to miss out on the action, so he laid down under my feet. Which is to say, that my mani/pedi did not go down quite as I had envisioned. But it was a beautiful afternoon for hanging out on the back porch and Garion sat and chatted my ear off for an entire hour while soaking his feet and waiting for his toenail polish to dry (clear on his fingers and pink and purple on his toes). Sunday we went down to my mom's house to celebrate and eat and take the canoe on its inaugural 2010 voyage. It was so windy that I think we spotted Dorothy and Toto and I'm certain I worked off most of the cheesecake I consumed that day just by paddling. At least, that is the story I am telling myself. Garion was less than enthused about the canoe (he remembers a certain windy day last summer when the canoe capsized) and pretty much informed Moses and me that he was done with us, he would like new parents now please, and why would we not just LET HIM OUT OF THE [explative implied but not used because this is from a 7-yr-old] CANOE? Because, it is Mother's Day and I want to go in the canoe, so dang it that is what we are going to do even if we all die from the misery of it. Garion also brought out the classic "why is there Mother's Day and Father's Day but no kid's day?" And did I say it? Oh, you bet I did: "because everyday is kid's day."

*This post was originally title "''Sup Homey?" My friend Stacy suggested that it should be titled "Word to Yo Mutha," and she is totally right.

The Apple did not Fall Far from that Tree

2010-05-03T18:37:00.000-07:00

Garion came home today determined to make Nerf guns for himself and his best friend. Out of cardboard. And scotch tape. I acquiesced, or rather, willfully ignored this endeavor because I still had about and hour of work left to do and I figured the Sisyphean task of building Nerf guns from cardboard would keep him busy for awhile. Garion was still at it while I was making dinner a couple of hours later. This was a project of epic proportions. And epic use of scotch tape.
All of the sudden, he came in the kitchen with big huge crocodile tears of frustration rolling down his face: "It's not going to work! All this [big sweeping hand gesture] and it's not going to work! It's not going to ever work!!!" And I did not tell him that I had no expectation of this idea ever working because I am a good mother. Or, today at least, I am a good mother. I gave him a hug and we talked about how sometimes things don't always come out the way you thing they're going to and he cried some more while not paying any attention whatsoever to my very good life advice. And then he stopped. Broke away from me and stormed out the front door without a word. Being the good mother that I am today, I resisted the urge to follow and make sure he wasn't hoofing it to the border in search of a better life with his dog, his gameboy and whatever bit of stickiness was in his pocket. Five minutes later he came back in with some black tubing he managed to scrounge up in the garage: "This will work much better!!!"
And this is just so like his dad it kills me. His dad who embarks on epic projects, spends the whole time cursing in frustration, frequently comes in half way through and says "It's not going to work, it's never going work," goes back out, and ta-da! makes it work. And then, ahem....leaves a huge mess.

Siren Song of the REI Catalog

2010-04-29T16:43:00.000-07:00

The REI catalog showed up in the mail the other day, as it does occasionally. I love everything in that little booklet of outdoorsy goodness. I love the clothes, the shoes, all that GEAR--even the gear for the outdoorsy things I do not do (although that list is getting smaller, did I mention I've been rock climbing?) I love it all. And I was sitting at my kitchen counter paging through its copious attractions, I realized something profound: the REI catalog is just like vampire novels. Yeah, vampire novels. Would you like to know why? I thought so.
They are crack on paper. Metaphorical crack. Not crack actually embedded into paper (but I bet they'd both do brisk sales if that were the case). They are addicting in the view they offer you of a secret world just off, by this much, from the world you live in. I have read so many vampire books in the last year or so, that I am ashamed to cop to the number. In fact, I don't even know what the number is. The book I'm reading now? Vampire book. I didn't even know it when I picked it up, I thought it was just another Deanna Raybourne book. But, no--vampires. I am subconsciously drawn to them. The REI catalog has that same seductive pull. And how many REI catalogs have I poured over in the last year? Lots. Not to mention time spent trolling their website. The catalog is filled with fit, attractive people who do things like travel the world and effortlessly climb mountains and run trails and endlessly hang out at the beach and always, ALWAYS, find that awesome camping spot that is not right next to the jerk and radio, and the girls all know how to wear those cute skirts for things like hiking. And also, they appear to travel everywhere on their bicycles or in their Subarus. Like vampires, you know they don't exist in real life (who goes hiking in a skirt?), but dang if that catalog doesn't make you think they could. And if you had those cloths and that gear you could be young and fit and effortlessly climb mountains, and travel the world, and trundle your totally cute and well behaved kid along for the ride. On your bicycle. If you reduce them both to their essences, I think what you're left with is escapism and that's why they are the same. Anywhere-but-here-and-now escapism. And that's why I love them. No, that's not true because really and truly I love my here and now. I know that I would not want to live in a vampire novel. Although come to think of it I am married to a man with a fierce temper who has a hard time sleeping at night and hates morning sunlight. Hmmm. And really, I almost live in the REI catalog (I think Flagstaff is as close as you can get). But, man the escape is appealing. The adventure. The get out and do something that is not Sitting At A Desk........Oh my goodness, I have a bad case of spring fever.

Ode to a Boy and his Dog

2010-04-26T19:47:00.000-07:00

Remember a loooooong time ago I said we were getting a dog? Well, a loooooonnng time ago (February) we did. Yes, I know. Not filling you in for nearly three months is a severe dereliction of my blogger duties. Bad blogger.

The dog's name is Harley, and Garion LOVES him. Possibly more than he loves me.

They play ball. They play spaceship (Harley is in charge of the escape pods). They play stuffed animals (or did until I told Garion that that game might result in the grisly demise of stuffed animal). They play tug of war. They play stick:

Except that Harley would greatly prefer that Garion not throw the stick into the water. Because it is his stick and he treasures it, and if Garion throws it into the water he is obligated, compelled really, to go rescue his beloved stick even if he has to get wet and he just would really prefer not to have to swim. And dang-it-all-to-heck, the longer he sits on the shore thinking about getting wet the farther away his beloved stick drifts and the farther he has to swim. And never ever does that stick float back on its own. Bad stick.

Harley is sweet and funny and very affectionate.

He also eats his poop.

Yes, Harley. I just told the entire internet that you eat your own poop (and the poop of woodland creatures). If you cut it out, I'll never mention it again.

This is how he sleeps when no one's really watching.

Did I mention Garion might love him more than me? Whatever. I buy groceries and make dinner. All Harley can do is sniff out poop. I think that if it came down to a matter of survival, and given the choice between dinner and a poop-sniffing dog, Garion would still choose me. I think.

Garion loves Harley so much that last weekend he gave Harley a "shower" with the backyard hose. I'm not really sure what triggered this, but independent thought from a seven year old is occasionally a little alarming. I tried to stay calm and explain to Garion why this was not an okay thing to do (aside from the wet dog in the house problem). And then I remembered that when I was small, I once tied a helium balloon to my (three-legged) cat and dropped him to see if the balloon would hold him up. (It did not, in case you're wondering.) I also remember that this was not a mean thing, but a "I just want to see what happens" thing. And so, with Garion I'm trying remember that some of this stuff is stuff you have to learn, how to treat to other living creatures and how to be respectful and how to care for the needs of something other than yourself. Garion is learning and thankfully Harley does not hold grudges.

Harley is very dedicated to his day time job: holding down the carpet under my desk while I work. None of it has gotten away since he took up his post. He also reminds me when it's time to go for a walk at lunch time and when it's time to go pick up Garion.

He knows how to put himself to bed.

And he really excels at playing in the snow, which as far as dog traits go, is nearly enough to make up for the poop eating. Every snow day this spring, he and Garion have played outside for three and four hour stretches which results in a tired a kid and a tired dog and time for mom to get a little work done--it hardly gets better than that.

This is Harley pre-noontime walk. And post-noontime walk. I'm telling you--dedicated.

Harley's favorite part of the day is picking his boy up from school. A car ride PLUS children and activity to watch PLUS his boy.
I was afraid that when Harley came to live with us, he would be a novelty for a few weeks and then the glamor would wear off. Thankfully, this is not what has transpired. Garion is as enthralled with him as he was when we first met him, is thrilled to see him in the morning, and always says goodnight to him before he goes to bed. Part of me wonders if this was a cruel thing to do. Harley is six and has had some illnesses earlier in his life that probably mean he will not live to be an ancient dog. We will most likely be lucky if we have five years with him and I can see now that Garion will be devastated when he is gone and what kind of mother does that make me? But that's life, right? You love and lose and that cycle repeats itself over and over again and if you do things right the loving makes the losing worth it. And we are happy to Harley here and for now. And when you are only seven, five years is a really long time.

On Being Sucked Dry

2010-02-08T16:08:00.000-08:00

In Garion's home folder today:
-a registration renewal form for next year that requires a $40 deposit,
-a reminder of our $200 "scrip" obligation--a mandatory fundraiser for the school,
-a reminder to return envelopes for the "math-a-thon" fundraiser for St. Jude's Hospital,
-a notice for "Jump Rope for Heart" and fund-raising envelope, AND
-a notice and form for donating blood at next week's blood drive.
That's right: your money is NOT enough and you probably don't have any left, so we'd like your BLOOD too. ok?thanks.

****
Also, just because it's that kind of day and there's no one old enough around to listen, I'm just going to put it out in the world: my back hurts, I didn't sleep well last night and I'm tired, I have a sore throat, it's cold, it's snowing AGAIN, I had to work on the longest, crappiest complaint in the history of the world today and it is STILL not finished, I have a sink full of dirty dishes, and I am all out of sorts and grumpy. We are so having pancakes for dinner tonight.

Not Gonna Happen

2010-02-05T14:05:00.000-08:00

This afternoon:

Garion: Mom, can I mix together milk, honey, and soap for a science experiment?
Me: Why?
Garion: to see what they make
Me: They make milk, honey, and soap mixed up. No, you cannot because it will make a mess and waste those things.
Garion: (starts howling) I'm going to tell Dad you won't let me do science!!!!*
Me: okay.
Garion: (immediately brightening at the thought) can I call him on phone?

Photo Experiment

2010-02-03T16:23:00.000-08:00

I just recently read about a new photography book of images captured with an iPhone. Something about "The Best Camera is the One You Have With You." The images are stunning and quite inspiring. So inspiring in fact that I am going to aim for a daily photo or two, which I will post on Flickr (since that seems to be the easiest way to publish from the iPhone). My friend Anali did a similar project a couple of years ago and I really enjoyed the day to day images she captured. Anybody have any thoughts on whether I should allow my photos to be viewable by everyone or whether I should issue invites? I'm a little chicken about putting my photos out there in the world for all to view, but then those types of photos are some of my favorite parts of the blogs I read on a regular basis. To the left is today's photo.

Sunday Afternoon

2010-02-01T10:29:00.000-08:00

I realize that given my last post, the next logical post in the story-of-my-everyday life would be a race report. So here it is in summary: I finished the race, not as fast as my last half-marathon but much of that time was attributable to port-a-potty visit at mile 1 (yes, bad planning); there were a gazillion people; despite the fact that there were a gazillion people, I had a hard time finding the starting line (they hid it); John McCain was there for some reason I have yet to puzzle out; and finally Deanna Kastor won the half marathon (yes, I ran in a race with Deanna Kastor...she only finished an hour and twenty minutes faster than me).

The next logical post after that would be to tell you all about how I survived the worst snow storm Flagstaff has seen in 30 years while Moses was out of town and school was canceled for a WHOLE WEEK. Yes, this year he has managed to miss both the swine flu and 4 feet of snow. That man is talented. Also, as a result of said snow, our roof is leaking.

But I'm giving these thing short shrift to talk to you about something really important, something I love, something that can almost make you forget there are still a solid 3 feet of snow on the ground everywhere you look and you will not be able to run, nigh even walk, outside for another two months at least. That thing is APPLE PIE. As in homemade. From scratch. With enough butter to require the Bessie the Cow at hippie-grass-fed farm to put in some serious overtime.
I mentioned earlier that one of my New Year's resolutions is to figure out to make an objectively good pie and I do believe this apple pie qualifies.
I, of course, could not have done it without my intrepid assistant and expert apple-corer:

The apple-corer thingermabob turned out to be not quite as helpful as I was hoping. For it to really work, I think you have to have perfectly shaped, non-wobbly apples. Our apples were wobbly. I had to do a little after the fact peeling, but it was probably faster than peeling by hand. Also, Garion really liked operating the apple-corer do-hickey and eating the long ropes of apple peel, so you know, cheap kid entertainment is always worth it.

This is the finished product:

Isn't it beautiful? Next to my child and the corners of my living room that I painted free-hand, that is probably the most beautiful thing I have ever produced.

And! Check it out:

NOT runny! I have given some thought as to why my peach pie was so disastrously runny and this pie was not. Here's what I have come up with: I have no idea. My theory is that I used fresh apples for this pie where with the peach pie I used frozen peaches. I think it's a good theory but one that I'll have to test out this summer by making a peach pie with fresh peaches. Yes, it must be done. The scientific method must be adhered to at all costs. Which also means that I will have to make another apple pie to see if my results can be reproduced. Oh, woe is me and everyone in my family who has to eat my experiments.

Pre-race Jitters

2010-01-16T19:45:00.000-08:00

I thought that I'd use my night-to-myself in my own hotel room to kick back and watch a sappy/corny movie and instead I am of course obsessing over tomorrow morning's race. I've worked out my wardrobe issues--I think. And I've also unearthed a couple of packets of GU (a food-like substance for running an exception to 2010's "real food" rule) which is lucky because I forgot the Clif Shot Bloks (other food-like substance) that I usually use. So, I will sort of be breaking the "nothing new" rule tomorrow--I've used GU but not frequently and I like the bloks bettter--I'm hoping that doesn't backfire. My various electronic gadgets are charging and I've worked out the always tricky pre-race breakfast dilemma. Now I just need to turn off my brain a go to sleep. Sigh.

Anybody Have a Recipe for Cheetos?

2010-01-10T13:48:00.000-08:00

Michael Pollan is such a considerate guy that when he heard that one of my New Year's resolutions was to only eat real food, he published a book called "Food Rules" which provides 64 straightforward rules about how to accomplish that very thing. Some of the rules I already had a pretty good handle on: avoiding things with ingredients I can't pronounce, avoiding fake sugar, avoiding "food-like substances"--foods so processed that someone visiting from, say, 1945, wouldn't recognize them as food. Michael Pollan uses "Go-Gurt" as a prime example-is is food? toothpaste? lube for your go-cart? Eat fruits and vegetables.
The rule that I really liked, and am going to attempt to embrace is: "make your own junk food." Meaning that it's okay to indulge in dessert, french fries, etc., as long as you make it yourself. The idea is that if you make it yourself, you're probably not going to go through the effort to make it all the time and it becomes what it's supposed to be -a treat. I like this idea. Although I know myself, and knowing that I can only eat a dessert that I made will really just mean that I will be making dessert more often, not that I will necessarily eat less of it. My sweet tooth is totally strong enough to overcome the problem of not enough hours in a day. That is its super-power.
When I told Garion about this new household policy, he was immediately on board: "Let's make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies!" That's my boy, always using his head. So that's what we're doing today--making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and a couple of other easy things (split pea soup from scratch and fresh bread in the bread maker) to get us through the parts of this week where we just won't have time to make real food.
I realized that although a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie is still a cookie, making them myself lets me tweak the recipe. I replaced some of the fat with applesauce, replaced some of the white flour with wheat and coconut flour and used dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate (I'm sure that change right there will add at least a 12 days to our lives). Still a cookie, but maybe a not-as-bad-for-you cookie. And this is how making my own junk food will be better for me--my junk food will not be as bad at the junk food that comes from the store in a bag. The major hitch being that I don't know how to make Cheetos.

Coming Soon...

2010-01-08T18:33:00.000-08:00

Over Christmas, we went to visit Moses's oldest brother and his family. My sister-in-law is a veterinary technician and by virtue of that profession, she rescues a lot of dogs. Right now they have six. Just to be clear: six dogs is a lot of dogs. It's pretty much a herd of dogs. I suppose "pack" is the technical term, but "herd" seems to describe it better.
Of course Garion and I fell in love with one while we were visiting:

This is Harley. He is pretty much just as sweet and friendly as he looks. He's also the world's most laid back dog. Garion hugged him, laid on him, and decorated him like a Christmas tree, and I don't think that dog even batted an eye. Harley also knows how to fetch and shake so that pretty much covers the necessary dog tricks. Harley's best trick? He is not-intrusive enough that Moses said "ok." Moses might also have succumbed to the dreamy look in Garion's eye whenever Garion talked about Harley and told us that Harley is the only dog he would ever have and wasn't Harley funny and if Harley lived with us he could sleep in Garion's bedroom, etc., etc. However, Moses is tough, so that is probably not at all what happened.
We could have brought Harley home after Christmas, but I wasn't prepared for Moses to actually agree to dog ownership and I wasn't quite convinced that I wouldn't be in the dog house (ha!) for the rest of Harley's life if we brought him home. And also the Prius was so packed that Garion had to stuff his kneecaps into his ears for the two day drive home, so I'm not really sure where we would have put the dog. This means Harley is still in California and we had a little more time to think.
This week, my sister-in-law told us that somebody else was interested in Harley, but that we could have him if we were willing to make a firm commitment because we have the family in. So Garion and I had a long talk about poop scooping, and taking care of animals, and how we will not be able to change our minds once he comes to live with us and about how pets will eventually die and how you feel sad about that and how we cannot have other pets like tortoises (or, ahem, chickens) if we have a dog. And Garion's eyes were so huge and hopeful at the possibility of a canine buddy that I knew we were in for good. Moses said that he would drive out to California to pick him up, and I am taking this as a good enough sign that he is actually ok with this dog. That, and Moses told me that this is about the only dog in the world that he can live with. Not that Moses is excited, just that Moses won't require prescription medication to dull the reality of his home life after it includes this dog. I think Moses will make the trip sometime in February or March to pick up Harley-- Garion and I are so excited!

Still Here!

2009-12-31T11:00:00.001-08:00

I'm back to beginning every blog post with "I know it's been a while....." I'm just going to accept that. Life around the holidays is crazy, crazy, busy and I am exhausted. I liked them better when other people did the work and all I had to do was wake up and find out what Santa brought me. I'm actually looking forward to Monday because I think things will settle down a little and Garion will be back in school. But! Today I'm going to take 5 minutes for a little 2009 reflection. I like listing all the great things that happened the previous year, especially the things that I did for the first time. I don't think I've ever dumped that into a blog post before, but it seems appropriate--another first for 2009.

This year I:
-Smote the olive green walls in my bedroom and now have a lovely buttery cream color that doesn't make me feel sea sick every morning.
-Smote the 80's-awful wallpaper in my entry-way and the pepto pink wall in my living room and painted the whole thing a nice caramel-y color...mmmmm......caramel......
-Painted the living room WITHOUT TAPING. Yes, I did it free hand. And it looks GREAT! It's like I've had this super power locked up inside me all these years and I never knew.
-Went to Australia! By far, the highlight of 2009. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the thought that I actually made it to the other side of the world. In Australia I also tried meat pies for the first time, saw weird (to me) animals, smacked into people while walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk, stairs, escalator, etc. and saw so many beautiful things I'd never seen before that I can't possibly list them all. And also, they have Minties there, which I just adore, but I think I've mentioned that before.
-Managed to go camping...twice. Hmm. Not as many times as I would have liked but both times were with close friends and were great weekends.
-Bought a canoe! So much fun. Except that now it's so cold outside that I'm having trouble remembering what it feels like to be warm enough to think that taking a canoe out on the water is a good idea.
-Fully recovered from a stupid back injury. I am so grateful for this--I don't seem to have any lingering problems and I am just so glad that I can still do all the things I love to do. Also, I found out that my husband is good at housekeeping and just wasn't letting on.
-Did lots of fantastic hiking and trail running and I DID NOT FALL!
-Enjoyed my job security--I know a lot of people who didn't have this last year and it makes me even more grateful for mine.
-Marveled at Garion's leaps in bounds (the boy is 7 and reads chapter books--freak of nature that one).
-Thoroughly enjoyed Garion's first appearance in a Christmas pageant--he was a detective shepherd and was brilliant.
-Made my first peach pie--an unmitigated disaster.

This year, I did not:
-Make to the top of Mt. Humphrey's, again. sigh.
-Complete any of the runs I signed up for. At least the money from the entry fees goes to charity, right?
-See the Great Barrier Reef when it was actually within shooting range. Huge mistake. If you go to Australia, go to the Great Barrier Reef, for crying out loud.
-Cry on Garion's last day of kindergarten (but it was close), or cry on the first day of first day of first grade. I did get a little teary when, a couple of weeks ago, he left a note on my pillow that said, "I love you mom."

Plans for 2010:*
-Grow out my hair. I AM doing it this time. Really. It's time for a change and I just need to muscle through the the year of grow-out. This year is the year. It IS!
-Eat real food, as in only eat things with ingredients I can pronounce. No more fake creamer in my coffee
-Learn how to make pie. I love pie. Why do I not know how to make one?
-Smite more ugly wallpaper.
-Make it to the top of Mt. Humphrey's, damn it.

* Bonus material:
Moses's Plans for 2010:
-Install the woodstove.
-Take his wife somewhere nice and warm for their 10th anniversary.

Thankful

2009-11-26T18:17:00.001-08:00

I've just about made it through the completely crazy chaos that is November in this family: four birthdays followed in quick succession by Thanksgiving. The run up started with my brother's birthday on the 11th (sushi dinner); followed by my Grandpa Jack's 80th for which I (unintentionally) made him probably the worst peach pie ever; Garion's birthday with my family, my sister-in-law, father-in-law, and new baby niece; followed by my birthday the next day (sushi dinner again). On to Thanksgiving which has meant three separate groups of company at our house for various time periods starting last week up through last night. My brother and sister in-law from Seattle came down with their two girls and another sister and brother-in-law came in from North Dakota. We also had Moses's parents (who live in the middle of nowhere about 45 minutes away) and our college-aged niece who lives in town. *Side Note: I swear I should not be old enough to have a college-aged niece. Actually, the really scary thing is that Moses's siblings are so spread out in age that I actually have a nephew who will turn 30 this year, but I just don't think about that because it's too weird. *
I could not have asked for a better Thanksgiving. We had a fantastic feast, the turkey came out perfect, Moses and I were organized AND! did not bite each other's heads off. There were no major arguments or, even more unbelievably, any kid melt-downs (baby excluded). We totally won the Thanksgiving lottery.
Tomorrow, we'll have breakfast with my dad and on Saturday we'll visit my mom's brother.
Whew. I feel like there ought to be some kind of finisher's medal for making it to the end of this year's November. But....I'm grateful for all of it. For my brother, who makes me laugh. For my Grandpa who is smart and meticulous and who taught me how to drive a stick and be careful with my money. For my baby boy who I cannot believe is already 7 and who has so many ideas firing through his head he can barely talk fast enough to tell me all of them. And for the 34 years I've been given so far on this earth and everything those 34 years have brought me. And for my husband and his family who are so different from the family I grew up with but whom I wouldn't trade for anything. And for my family, that I did grow up with, who shaped who I am and how I walk in this world. And finally, I'm grateful for this little bit of quiet time that I have before the the last few crazy days of November.

Derailed

2009-11-03T15:46:00.001-08:00

I was rolling along really well today--in the groove, gettin' junk done, and just generally chugging away and being an all around productive employee. Then I popped over to "Whatever" for a minute where I encountered this (takes a little time to load):

I was completely derailed for the rest of the day. Does that ever happen to you? You hear a new song and there's just something about it that sucks you in and implants itself directly onto your neural synapses and you're bopping up and down and kind of wishing that you were out running with the ipod because at least you'd be moving? This song will be replaying itself on in my mental jukebox over and over for a least a week. I don't even really know what it's about-- chickadees, archery, and if I'm not mistaken, something about a lifeguard all in the same verse or so. This afternoon I'm a little bit in love with Weezer. Track suits not withstanding. And hey, it's not country, so, you know, progress.

**11/04/09 update: as suspected, an excellent running song

khooooohhhh, khoooohhhh

2009-10-30T16:16:00.000-07:00

That there is the Darth Vader breathing sound, in case it's not obvious. I'm happy to report that this household successfully survived the flu and is pretty much on the mend. I'm fairly certain Garion and I had H1N1 since everybody I've talked to says if you got the flu in October you had H1N1. And also, I was sicker than I have been in many, many years; I had a fever for 4 days. That is pretty much unheard of in history of me and my kick-ass immune system. And Garion missed an entire week of school. So, I'm willing to grudgingly admit we caught a new virus. And really, I feel so trendy. Clearly H1N1 is the thing to have this fall. I'm just grateful that in the grand scheme of things, we had relatively minor cases.

Oh, yeah Darth Vader. Garion's going to be Darth Vader for Halloween. He tried his costume on yesterday and the first thing he he did was come up to me and hold out his hand in the force/choke hold thing Darth Vader does to keep his minions in line. I'm not kidding, that was FIRST THING. As in, "hmmmm, I am now dressed like a preeminent agent of evil....I think I will try using the force of my mind to strangle my mother." I played along and pretended to suffocate (I don't know-is that good parenting?) and Garion laughed hysterically. On the one hand, I love watching him play dress-up and he is clearly excited about his costume. On the other...he tried to strangle me! We might have to have a post-Halloween debrief just to make sure that the lines of morality are once again clearly delineated after the holiday.

Reinforcements!

2009-10-19T10:32:00.000-07:00

My friend Anne came over this morning bearing popsicles, a Jeff Corwin video, and pictures for Garion that her son drew. Saved! The wrapper theory proved correct--Garion immediately sucked down a strawberry popsicle and I am feeling much better about the state of his stomach. I think there is some DNA-level evolutionary impulse in every mother that starts beating out "child must eat . . . child must eat. . . child must eat" every time they go for more than about three hours without measurable caloric intake. Garion said the popsicle made his throat feel better so he'll probably be living off popsicles for the rest of the day and I am just fine with that.
Garion is sorting through the pictures from his friend right now and giggling. There is one in there titled "President Peanut" that looks like a cross between a cat and the Incredible Hulk--I have no idea what it is but apparently Garion gets the joke. My favorite is the one titled "P.J. Elkdorf" --again I'm a little murky on the visual but the title cracks me up.
Garion's doing better this morning, his fever is a little lower (although still hanging out around 100) and he's perkier than yesterday (thus the giggling). I'm guessing we'll have one more day at home tomorrow and Garion will be back at school on Wednesday. Garion's school requires a kid to be fever-free for 24 hours before sending them back...I strongly suspect that not all parents follow this, but I am nothing if not a rule-follower. I am so grateful to Anne and also to everybody else who offered assistance: my parents (who live in Camp Verde-that would have been a long drive for popsicles) and Moses's boss who offered to pick-up medicine or whatever else we might need. How great is that?

The Ick

2009-10-18T17:52:00.000-07:00

My friend Stacy frequently posts that whenever her husband leaves town, bad stuff happens. Ditto that. Must be part of Murphey's law. But only for moms. Moses is presently at a conference of geologists in Portland and will be off conferencing with other people who care about rocks until Thursday. At Garion's suggestion, we headed to the Grand Canyon yesterday and had a great time futzing around and looking at....rocks. Anyway, Garion crashed in the car on the way back. I assumed this was a typical bad wake-up from a middle of the day nap but he went to bed insisting that he was sick. He woke-up this morning with a sore throat and temperature and had been wilting in various places around the house (couch, floor, back porch couch) for the rest of today. The only thing I've managed to get him to eat was an english muffin this morning. I am therefore finding that most frustrating part about this is whole situation that we cannot go to the grocery store and I therefore cannot buy popsicles, which I think is probably the only thing I could convince him to eat. I could try making popsicles with juice, but nothing is so enticing to a kid as food you normally don't let him have that comes in a wrapper. I suspect he would take one look at the homemade popsicle and promptly return to disinterested wilting. The wrapper is critical. I'm hoping that tomorrow ice-y orange juice will appeal to him.
On a lesser note, all my favorite technology chose to kick the bucket today: my laptop battery has died (I am therefore rendered less mobile, although my desktop works just fine) and for some mysterious reason my cell phone will not call out, everything else works on it, but not the part where can, you know, CALL PEOPLE. We have a land line, so it's not like I'm cut off from the world but seriously, what gives?

Friday Photo

2009-10-02T07:17:00.000-07:00

I was feeling a little bad about not sharing the toothless grin, so thought I'd better toss that up here today. That's our friend Chris in the background on the left and Chris's brother, Peter, on the right. The photo was taken on our killer Saturday morning hike while camping last week. (We walked about a 1/2 mile up hill and started losing children left and right. We hauled them up another 1/2 mile and then turned around). Hey, look! A lost teeth and camping photo, all in one!

Home

2009-09-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

Kind of looks like "writing everyday" is quickly descending into "writing when the stars align." I should probably tell you about the great camping trip we had last weekend (it was great, the weather was nice, the company was awesome, and we sang songs around the campfire) or how we purchased a mosaic from Moses's stepmom that I am very, very excited about because it is beautiful, or how Garion has now lost both of his upper front teeth and it is super-cute. (When he lost the second tooth last week, he wanted me to call the dentist.)
But, instead I'm going to impart my more recent observations about Flagstaff, a town that a year and half on I am still loving (until it snows again and then I retract that statement.) Partly this post was inspired by the above picture, which I randomly found on my camera memory card while importing photos of the camping trip. It's a batch of home brew conjured up by my husband who is presently sporting the "lumberjack" look. Yes, that's right: Moses has grown a beard and is drinking beer. And not just drinking beer mind you, brewing beer. And brewing it well.
And I'm thinking that these are sure signs we've gone native. Or gone back to native (seeing as we are actually from here to begin with). And then I started thinking about all the other quirks of this place and how you know when you belong here:
-You start drinking beer and enjoying it. I think this must be a function the altitude--maybe it goes with the country music?
-You think hiking boots and flannel are chic and appropriate for all occasions.
-"Designer" brands are Patagonia and The North Face.
-Every cute guy you see, including your husband, has a beard.
-You see it's 35 freaking degrees outside and think "oh, good, I don't need the long running pants yet."
-You know its summer because you can wear the cotton sweater instead of the wool one.
-You know you're home because you can spell the pine trees.
-You hear awesome live bluegrass at the local brewery (where you are indulging your new-found beer habit) and watch some chick in a little running skirt and trail shoes (chic) dance with an old hippie dude who sports a flannel shirt and a beard that goes half way to his waist (cute).
-You feel really, really bad for people who have to live in Phoenix.
-You finally figure out the guy at "Late for the Train" looks so familiar because he's also the guy at "Babbitt's" and possibly was at Christmas dinner last year at your sister-in-law's parents' house.
-You are happy that your house is still 65 degrees at night and you haven't had to turn on the heat yet (going to try to make to Nov. 1st before turning on the furnance).
-You go woodcutting. You think this is fun.
-If you grew up here, you constantly see people you went to high school with and some times you really have to psych yourself up to leave the house because you know chances are good you're going to run into them.
-You have to buy cute boots to cope with winter. And then knee-high socks to wear with the boots.
-Your husband approves of the cute boots because he thinks they're kind of hot (and really what is up with that? What in the world does he think I'm going to wear them with?)

Probably Best not to Ask Why

2009-09-26T19:23:00.000-07:00

Me (after noticing a prolonged period of silence after the shower stopped): Garion, are you putting on your pajamas?
Garion: Oops- I forgot! Thanks!

Better Now, Must be the Boots

2009-09-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

The boots are really, really cute--I might have to wear them today even though it's going to be 70 degrees.

But really, after yesterday's rant, things are looking up. I managed to get laundry folded and put away, Friday dinner made, and clothes packed for camping last night. Moses cleaned the kitchen (I am embarrassed to tell you how big a job that was, but it was big), found the camping equipment, and packed the camping equipment. We fed our dinner guest leftovers. The bathrooms probably won't be clean before we go, but I will live. All in all, much better today.

And also, look, I did it!:

Registration:	Kerry ********			Quantity:1
	P.F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Arizona - Full Marathon
	#526: 2010-Elite Racing Session
	Class:	1	Course Time Limit:	7:20
	Days:	Sun
	Starts:	01-17-2010 7:40AM-3:00PM
	Ends:	01-17-2010 7:40AM-3:00PM
	Location:	Full Marathon Start Line, P.F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Marat

I'm a little concerned about that "2010 Elite Racing Session" part--what does that mean? I put my estimated finish time in at 5:00 hours--pretty slow. Or at least I think I typed 5 hours. Watch, I'll be lining up with the Kenyans...that's not going to do a lot for my self esteem come race day.

Chaos

2009-09-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

Things are hectic and I hate hectic. Really, really hate it. But I'm trying to stick to writing everyday, so I'm dashing off this quick post on how much I hate it when life is hectic. We're camping this weekend and the house is a disaster. So before we go, I would really like to:
-pick up
-clean the bathrooms
-put the laundry away
-clean the kitchen,
and I need to:
-make Friday dinner
-go grocery shopping
-find the camping equipment
-pack the camping equipment
-pack clothes.
But between now and camping, Garion has a dentist appointment and an open house at school and apparently we're having unexpected company for dinner tonight and nothing to eat but leftovers (and the house is a disaster). I'll also need to take time off work for the dentist and leaving early on Friday, which means I'll be behind at work, again, even though I haven't really caught up from being gone a couple of weeks ago and I also took on 4 extra-ugly case assignments this week. Argh.
On the up side, my new boots arrived today and they are super cute.

26.2: Thinking and Thinking and Thinking

2009-09-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

I'm still thinking about doing a full marathon this year, but am having a hard time pushing myself over the first mental hurdle of signing up. September has been a training-free month for me; I've been running but not with a specific goal in mind and nothing terribly long. It's been kind of nice, but I'm not sure how well I'll keep it up without some sort of feat of athletic endurance on the horizon. And so today, I randomly came across a couple of things that make me think I should probably just take the leap:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bow lines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -Mark Twain
(To me, this does not sound sarcastic enough to really be Mark Twain, but I suppose that when you are discerning the metaphorical tea leaves of your life and seeking guidance from the Great Out There, as well as the random crap you read on the Internet, you can't be overly picky).

And:
Inaction is the surest path to failure. You cannot succeed if you never try.
grrrr. I know. But it's so much work.

The inherently lazy me is still thinking "that is such a long distance, that is so much training, I don't know if I can do it." And also, for the race I'm considering now, the longest run of the training schedule will be the day after Christmas, which seems like a not terribly auspicious time to run 20 (!) miles. At that time last year, there was something like two and half feet of snow on the ground. Although, on further thought, "longest run on the day after Christmas" could be moved to the "pro" column, considering Christmas is a little stressful and I usually eat a good amount of crap on Christmas day and a long run is a good cure for both of those ills, and a good excuse to ditch my family for a few hours (family, I love you!). And really, even if I can't finish a marathon, I will have lost nothing but some time and I can't really count that as a loss because I love cranking up my iPod and hitting the pavement, or treadmill, for some uninterrupted time to swim around in my own head. And also, it is possible that this will be something I'm only able to do for a limited time in my life; if I learned nothing else from breaking my back, I now know down to my bones that physical ability is a gift, and one you don't necessarily get to keep forever. (And also that sliding down an icy slope on a cheap piece of plastic crap is bad idea.) So, probably I should run while I can, and because I love to run, and because I feel better when I do, and to find out how far I can go because otherwise I will never know. But, dang, that is a really long way.

The Opposite of Attachment Parenting

2009-09-20T14:38:00.000-07:00

We gave Garion a big boy bicycle, with training wheels, a couple of years ago for his birthday and of course had every intention of teaching him how to ride a two-wheeled bicycle. But we are busy people and it has seemed like we were either living in a place where there wasn't a lot of (safe) room to teach him to ride or the ground was buried under 3 feet of snow. Garion has recently made friends with a third-grade boy a few houses down who knows how to ride a bicycle, without training wheels, and the mastering of two-wheeled transportation has therefore become rather pressing. We did make one attempt a couple of months ago to take Garion to Buffalo Park to help him get the hang of two wheeled propulsion, but he was tired, somebody else was grouchy, and the whole thing was pretty much a bust. And the bicycle has sat in the garage, untouched, for two months (plus about 2 years).
Friday afternoon, after getting home from school, Garion said, "Mom, can I practice riding my bike?" Finally, we are living on both a non-busy street and one not currently buried in snow (yet). I said that he could practice but that I couldn't watch because I had some work things to finish up. He responded, "I know!", as is "duh, woman, that is the whole point." His friend from down the block was also out and riding his bike. Five minutes later, Garion came bursting in the door and said, "Mom, I did it! I can ride my bike!" I went out to watch and sure enough, he had it. Parental guidance, support, encouragement: completely, totally unnecessary. Toilet training and reading kind of worked the same way; pretty much nothing happened until Garion decided he was ready and then he just did it. So, I'm thinking that I now have official sanction to just coast, right? He's obviously brilliant, so I just feed him and water him for the next 12 years and he'll be good to go. Like a house plant, but more vocal.

Harry Potter and the Six Year Old Boy

2009-09-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

After much begging, pleading, negotiating, and wheedling, Garion finally contrived a way to get me to approve viewing of Harry Potter movies. Here are the terms of our contract. He could not watch any of the Harry Potter movies until he had read the corresponding book and he had to start with book one. Further, he had to read some of the book himself (he read about 10% and I read about 90% to him--that's what happens when the parent gets sucked into the book as much as the kid). I also it made it abundantly clear that under no circumstances would we be reading past book three this year (too scary) and therefore he would not get to finish the Harry Potter books until he was older. This of course set off another round negotiations on how old is old enough to read the last books in the series; we have tabled these discussions for now. Finally, I told him he has to absolutely, positively quit asking me what happens in later books because I am not going to tell him, he'll find out when we get there.
He agreed to the above, and having finished book one, we are scheduled to watch the movie together tonight accompanied by a pizza dinner and beer (regular for me, root for Garion). I'm looking forward to it just as much as Garion is. My mom thinks the movies are too scary, but I already let the boy watch Star Wars about 10,000 times so the damage to his delicate psyche is probably already done--why start holding back now?
I've really, really enjoyed reading the books to Garion. Three cheers for books with plots! I love it when he laughs at the funny parts or says "cool!" when some new bit of magic gets introduced. I love going into his room in the morning to find him reading in bed because he wants to find out what happens next before going to school and I get a huge kick out of watching him play wands and spells and contemplating his latent wizard nature. And, I go all soft and gooey when he snuggles up to me and begs me to read more (which is every night without fail--weather I read 2 pages or 10, it is never enough) and gets that funny little puppy dog look. I know this time is so short and, tired as I am some nights, I know this is the time to soak it up and enjoy. Pretty soon he'll be reading to himself, thank you very much, Harry Potter will be old news and the last thing he'll want is for his mom to tuck him in and kiss him goodnight.

It's That Time of Year Again....

2009-09-17T18:57:00.000-07:00

....where I start complaining about the cold. Temps are supposed to drop to 37 tonight and the leaves are already changing. I swear this happened practically overnight. I went to Coronado Island last week (where the weather was gorgeous and my mom and I had a great time, except for the part where I saw an 80 year old dude in a g-string at the beach--dude, after a certain point the world just does not need to see what you want to share), and when I came back....bang!, it was fall. I am not ready. I was cheated. Summer was particularly short this year: it didn't even start to get warm until late June, there was only one three-week run where I even considered wearing shorts everyday, then we went to Australia, where it was the dead of winter (I know, totally mine own fault), and now it's cold. It it won't warm up again until JUNE. Do you know how far away June is? REALLY FAR. And things are going to get way worse before they start to get better. I am going to have to buy some really cute boots to cope. Last year, I refrained from buying anything more that snow boots, but it's time to face reality; I am now mountain girl, no longer desert girl, and I'll be wearing that cute pair of boots way more than all my cute pairs of sandals put together (which will now probably last me the rest of my life because I hardly get to wear them). Cute boots will make it all better. I know they will.
***
I'm thinking about trying to post everyday for awhile, just to see what happens so you'll be seeing a lot of stupid posts like this. I'm something brilliant will bubble to the top with the junk. We'll see.

This and That

2009-08-18T18:45:00.001-07:00

Look! I grew tomatoes in Flagstaff! To the left is tonight's harvest. We've gotten about 4 similar sized handfuls before this. After last year's nearly complete tomato bust, I am feeling particularly pleased about these little suckers. I think that the plant is on it's last legs though. I suspect we will get one or two more handfuls and then it will be time for a trip to great compost heap of reincarnation.
On a somewhat related, and by "somewhat" I think what I'm really trying to say is "remotely," that lovely, blurry picture was snapped with my new iPhone. I totally completely caved to iPhone-itis, broke down, and bought the stupid thing. I am such a sucker for sleek design and general nifty-ness. And, although I recognize, acknowledge, and am mildly ashamed by my gullibility to the marketing tactics of the corporate machine--I am completely smitten with it! I can hardly put it down. I might have to have it implanted directly into my brain. Except that then I couldn't gaze at its loveliness, so I will refrain. Needless to say, Moses has had to roll his eyes so much over it that probably I will have take him to a surgeon tomorrow to have his eyes pried out of the back of his head. But I DON'T CARE. It is worth it.
Finally, and completely unrelated to anything else at all, I am not doing the Imogene Pass Run this year because it conflicts with the annual staff attorney conference. As I typed that sentence, I thought, "that looks like just about the lamest thing ever." I'm not that lame! I'm really not! It's not like I'm going to the conference just because Erwin Chemerinsky--constitutional law rock star--will be presenting the constitutional law review and I expect there to be a completely hot discussion on the implications of the Iqbal case just issued by the Supremes last spring! Seriously, why would you even think that? The conference is at Coronado Island, land of beautiful beaches. My mom's going to come with me and we're going to have a girls' weekend after the conference is over. And given the choice between "crazy mountain foot race at vomit-inducing high altitude" and "lounging at the beach with a good book," wouldn't you pick the beach too? Also, I haven't seen any of my co-workers or my supervisor since May, and it might be good to remind them that I'm still alive. On the other hand, not going to Imogene is a huge let down after the training I've been doing this summer so I'm shopping around for another race to gear up for. I'm thinking about the Tucson Marathon. The full thing this time. It's in December which would give me 16 weeks to train if I start next week. I'm having a hard time deciding though--26.2 miles just seems like a really, really long distance to run. And then there's all that training running that you have to do before doing the actual racing running. And a December race means that I'll be doing a lot of that training running in some pretty nippy weather up here and possibly even snow. So I'll have to stew on that a bit.....stay tuned.

That's Why I Get Paid the Big Bucks

2009-08-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

Garion: Mom, are you a muggle?
Me: Probably
Garion: Well, I think I'm either a wizard or a Jedi Knight.
Me: Maybe both.
Garion: I never thought of that!

First Day of First Grade

2009-08-12T18:16:00.001-07:00

Today was Garion's first day of first grade. Time continues to fly I continue to be amazed at how quickly--look at my baby! Garion started a new school today; last spring I/we decided to switch him to the local Catholic school. Garion, of course was reluctant to move to a new school and I've spent pretty much the whole summer questioning that decision. I want Garion to have the best education possible, and the public school he was at was one of the best in Flagstaff, but the recent budget woes and few other factors led me to the doorstep of parochial school. Garion was happy at the public school and I've been feeling like the world's meanest mom for moving him and not sure it would be worth it. Much to my relief, the first thing Garion told me when I picked him up this afternoon was, "Mom, you were right about the teacher!" (I kept telling him that I was moving him because I thought the first grade teacher would be really good and he'd learn lots of new things). Thank goodness. He seems to be excited about being back to school and told me that he made a friend today. I think Garion might be a little more resliant than I give him credit for and I think it's going to be okay. Whew.

Back

2009-08-05T18:47:00.000-07:00

I realize it's been quite some time, a near eternity in fact, since I last posted. The summer just turned out to be crazy, crazy busy and I just didn't have the blogging bug in me. To be perfectly honest, I'm not really feeling it now, but I'm hoping that if I start writing again, the juices will flow, and I'll get my groove back.

We've just returned from a two-week adventure to Australia. We had originally planned this journey for December, but then started pricing plane tickets. Turns out, it's way, way cheaper to go in July, when it's winter Down Under--so much cheaper that we did the whole trip for what the plane tickets alone would have cost in December. Hard to argue with that kind of math: we checked our calendars, figured two weeks of vacation was good enough, and off we went!

The flight from LA to Sydney is 15 hours, but the way the time zones work, you lose a whole day. So we left LA at 10:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 16th, were on the plane for 15 hours (ugh--I think long distance running is good training for long-haul travel, you just try not to think about how miserable you are and make it through) and landed in Sydney at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 18th. Totally skipped July 17th. Can't say that I really missed it though--probably because it's not my birthday. When we got to Sydney, Garion kept saying "is this real? are we really in Australia?" And I have to say, I completely agreed. There's something weird about ensconcing your self in a metal tube for 15 hours and then magically coming out on THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD. Discombobulated is the best way to describe my state of mind upon stepping off the plane: the sun was in the wrong part of the sky, it was winter--but still July, Saturday, but felt like Thursday, and people drive on the left side of the street, which is totally disconcerting until you get the hang of it. We crossed streets very, very carefully for a few days.

We spent the first week and Tasmania where we visited some good friends that we met when Moses was in graduate school. As an added bonus, another friend from Moses' graduate program was also there, so we had a little UofA planetary reunion. Tasmania is cool and wet, very similar to the pacific northwest, and very beautiful. I'd love to go back in the summer and really spend sometime hiking and backpacking there. Some incredibly large percentage of Tassie (everything in Australia has a nickname) is set aside as National Park or World Heritage land. In fact, the whole southwestern chunk of Tassie is completely uninhabited.

My favorite part of Tassie and the highlight of our whole trip was the night we headed to the beach after dark (because it's winter there, this was maybe 5:30 p.m.). At this beach, if you are relatively quiet, you can watch Fairy Penguins come in from the water to their nests on the beach. Our group consisted of four adults and four kids under the age of 6, so "quiet" was a little hard to achieve. We saw them though, and it was amazing. I so wish that I had a picture to share but, obviously, it was dark.

Our second week was spent in Sydney, where we discovered that we are not really so much cut out for big city life. Keeping track of Garion (who refused to hold hands) was exhausting and we ended up spending a lot of time at the beach. We enjoyed the city nonetheless and I can say that we've really BEEN to Sydney. The Opera House is beautiful, but I think like any iconic building, smaller in real life than you think it's going to be. Sydney was a little warmer than Tasmania and I imagine that in the summer the beaches there must be fantastic.

The trip home was tortuous. We had an August 2nd that was about 48 hours long. Jet lag hasn't been too bad though and it is oh so nice to be home!

Here's a link for photos of our trip.

Snif. Snif

2009-06-04T08:11:00.000-07:00

I just got back from dropping Garion off at the bus stop for his last day of kindergarten. I cannot believe how fast this year went and how much he's learned and how much he's grown. This is all going too fast--somebody make it slow down! I have some pictures from kindergarten graduation to share, but not enough time to post them this morning--they'll be up soon.

Do I Sound Like Chuck?

2009-05-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

This afternoon.....

Phone rings, I pick it up, "hello?"

Dude on the other end: "Is this Chuck?"

Me in my head: really?????

Me to the Dude: "um, ...... no."

Dude: "Ok."

Coconut Pits

2009-05-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

I've been kicking this blog post around in my head for awhile, wondering if I should write it, wondering if the Internet really needs to know. "Know what?," you ask. That for the last three weeks I've been using coconut oil and baking soda on my underarms instead of deodorant. See, you shouldn't have asked and you didn't really need to know, but I've decided to tell you anyway. Why? Because, oh my goodness, it actually works. I read about using coconut oil as a deodorant on Green as a Thistle. I've also read the accounts of several people who use baking soda straight up, but I couldn't imagine dabbing on baking soda right after shaving (ouch). So when a commenter to Green as a Thistle recommended using the coconut oil and then a little baking soda, I decided I'd give it a whirl. And I've been walking around for the last three weeks sniffing my pits (discreetly of course). It works. Now, I'm not saying you won't sweat, because you will. This is not a formula for do-it-yourself antiperspirant. However, you don't stink, and I consider this the primary purpose of deodorant type things. I have even checked with Moses to make sure my olfactory assessment is correct. (I believe that asking your husband to take a whiff and check for body odor is No. 2 on the list of "Top 8 Ways to Test Your Husband's Eternal Devotion" where No. 1 is the age old, "does this make me look fat?"; No. 3 is hogging the X-box so you can watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer thus preventing your husband from playing Left 4 Dead--which is supposedly the purpose of the X-box; No. 4 is keeping up a low-level but persistent campaign for backyard chickens; No. 5 is denying him the last cup of coffee in the pot when you've already had a cup, he's had none, and you could, in theory, make more; No. 6 is asking him "can I have that?" in reference to the shiny new travel coffee mug he just bought for the express purpose of conveying his coffee from home to work (when you work at home and could just use the ceramic cup); No. 7 is asking him every other week, "do you think we should get a dog?" when you know he'll say "no, but do what you want" and you yourself have not yet really decided if you want a dog; and No. 8 is making him tell you the name of every guy in high school who liked you (which turns out to be wildly entertaining--if you went to high school with your husband I highly recommend this.))
And now that I've discovered the miracle that is odor control you can eat, I feel the need to share with the world. Especially that long haired hippie dude who was sitting next to me at Star Trek the other night. (Not Moses. Moses was on the other side and just shaved his head a couple of weeks ago). If ever there was a need for a little coconut oil and baking soda, that was it. Or a shower. Ideally, a shower then some coconut oil and maybe a lot of baking soda.

Mother's Day Weekend

2009-05-12T08:05:00.000-07:00

My guys definitely took care of me this weekend. Saturday I headed down to the Verde Valley where I had a delightful pre-Mother's Day lunch with my mom and grandma--because you can gossip with the women who raised you like you can gossip with no one else. Saturday evening we got a call from our friends the Wallaces who were getting ready to head on an impromptu journey down Schnebly Hill Road (a winding dirt road that goes from the top of the Rim down to Sedona). We thought that sounded good and joined in. We had a picnic dinner about halfway down, overlooking Oak Creek Canyon and Sedona. We headed the rest of the was down and then took the switchbacks home where children were appeased with ice cream at the Dairy Queen in Oak Creek Canyon. We sat outside to chit chat, pick on Moses, and let our kids run around like hooligans. Something about sitting outside at night, when it's warm, always brings out the hooligans....and the picking on Moses.
On Sunday, Moses made a me a fantastic breakfast including homemade cafe mocha (delicious), and there was a beautiful bouquet of flowers waiting for me that Garion had picked out on his own (they were purple and lovely). Garion and Moses gave me two aspen trees for our yard as a Mother's Day gift. My favorite is now behind the kitchen window and will nicely block out the view of my neighbor's kitchen window when it leafs-out. I can hardly wait. After that, we headed out for an adventure to the end of Woody Mountain Road where we spent the afternoon enjoying the view and putzing around.

I took this photo (to the left) of Garion after which he asked me, "Mom, did you get my orange shorts?" Nope. Re-take:
Aren't you glad we captured the orange shorts? I mean, really, would your day be complete without this stunning image of fashion genius?
And last but not least, a photo of Moses and Garion trying to give me a heart attack:

A Whole New Genre Yet to be Explored

2009-04-17T08:30:00.001-07:00

I have read Austen. I have read the Brontes. Never in my wildest dreams did this ever cross my mind:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Yes, that would be Austen AND zombies.

This being my year of vampires and other freaks in literature, I will of course be reading "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies." In fact, I am giddy with anticipation.

Baboons

2009-04-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

Sigh. Garion came home last week with an assignment to choose his favorite African animal, write a report about the animal, create some kind of visual aid such as a diorama or collage featuring the animal, and prepare an oral presentation on the animal. The kid is in KINDERGARTEN, for crying out loud. Of course what all of this really means is that I had a ton of homework this week as I tried to lead Garion by nose through through the intricacies of academic research and writing. Since we were out of town last weekend, we were left with four nights to put this little project together. Garion chose baboons as his animal (narrowed down from "monkeys") and we spent Monday through Wednesday nights on research and "writing." Writing meaning that I fed Garion information, asked him a very pointed question about said information, and tried to get him to answer in a complete sentence, which I then wrote down, and he (laboriously) typed onto the computer. Example:
Me: oh, it says here that baboons eat grass, roots, seeds, and berries, a few shellfish, birds, and hares. So....what do baboons eat?
Garion: ummmmm.....what's a hare?
Me: a rabbit..but they only eat a few of those. Do you think they eat mostly grass, roots, and seeds?
Garion: I guess
Me: ok, so should we say 'Baboons east mostly grass, roots, seeds and berries'?
Garion: what can I have for dessert tonight?
And on and on and on.
Then, we (meaning me) had to come up with the visual. I thought, ok, cool we'll do a collage. We finish the report and I realize, much to my chagrin, that we don't really have any pictures of baboons just hanging around the house. Argh. Had I been thinking ahead I could have bullied Garion into choosing a giraffe for his animal and we could have plundered that issue of the Smithsonian that was sitting right there on our living room table, mocking me with its easy accessibility and gorgeous photos of giraffes in all their glory. But, alas I did not think ahead and it was way to late to start the report over again. So today at I lunch I headed down to Bookman's and embarked on a slow an tortuous perusal of National Geographics for the last 30 years, praying that someone working for the magazine had a sometime saw fit to profile baboons. And, praise God!, I found one from 1987. Good enough. As I sit here now, the report is finished and printed, the collage is drying on the kitchen counter, and Garion did one read through of his oral report. And I need a drink.

In Which I Confess a Newfound Affinity for Country Music

2009-04-08T08:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my little family and I sojourned down to Tucson to help my grandmother celebrate her 80th birthday. We had a nice visit with my family and Moses's sister and hit a couple of our favorite spots in Tucson: Blue Willow for breakfast and Sabino Canyon for a Saturday morning stretch of the legs. Sabino turned out to be a bust because the boy was sleep-deprived, cranky, and not in the mood for walking (I'm talking about Garion here, although the description applies to Moses too except that Moses was in the mood for walking, so we had a nice little scene on the Sabino Canyon trail). Anyway, as we were driving around Tucson, we had the sense that Tucson is huge. It seemed like we drove, and drove, and drove, and we were still in the city. I mean, really, we drove for twenty minutes to get from our hotel to the restaurant. As Moses pointed out, if we drove twenty minutes from our house in Flagstaff, we'd be halfway to his dad's place, which is out in BFE. I also found myself thoroughly enjoying the temperatures, which were in the mid-60's in the morning and I accordingly took my sweater off. At which Moses fainted with shock and declared the end of the world because hell must have just frozen over. "You're not warm are you?" he said. To which I replied, "no, of course not." But the fact of the matter is, it appears that after a year in Flagstaff I have adapted.

"So," you ask, "what's this got to do with country music?" Well......ahem.... it seems that since moving to Flagstaff I have developed an appreciation of country music. Yes, I find this as mysterious and unfathomable as the rest of you, but there it is. It might have something to do with the fact that the country music station is the only station in town that comes in loud and clear no matter what part of town you're in. I know, that's weird. But Flagstaff is small and next a really big mountain that seems to interfere with radio and the country music station is the only one that has successfully overcome this problem. Now, I feel I need to clarify that this new appreciation does not extend to all country music, there is still a good bit of it which makes me want to pull over to the side of the road and immediately vomit its ooy-gooy, sappy-sweet, cornily-patriotic taste out of my mouth. On the other hand, there's a good bit that I can now sing along to. Lord, help me. Dixie Chicks, Sugarland, and Allison Krauss are my favorites. And, I think I should point out in my own defense that Allison Krauss is really more bluegrass music, which is different. Isn't it? Suspecting that this appreciation may actually be the result of the something in the air up here, I asked my brother (who as a kid hated country music as much as I did) if he listens to country. He does. Ha! It's not just me. But he also said that it's required in Williams (where he lives) and that if you don't listen to it, the pick-up-truck-with-a-gun-rack-posse comes after you. Hmmm. Regardless, you have to admit this is a pretty darn catchy song.* And the air is thinner up here. It's not my fault.

*You might have to click play at the top of the page to hear the song. Just to be clear, the song I'm referencing is "It Happens." I don't know how long that song will be playing on their website, so if you go there and it's a different, not-at-all-catchy tune, you'll know I'm not completely off my rocker.

I Love Yoga in the Springtime.....

2009-04-02T08:26:00.000-07:00

Last night my friend Amy got me to go to a yoga class with her at a tiny little studio downtown. The studio is a fantastic space in a beautiful old building, except that I ended up picking a spot right on top of the squeaky wood floor which meant that every time I was struggling for balance the floor would squeak and give me away and I had to control my urge the shush the floor. The class was awesome and my back feels better than it has for months--I should have gone sooner. Or maybe not because it's only recently that I've really been feeling a lot better. But anyway, we did this pose that was basically down dog with help from a friend (you do the down dog pose and your friend pushes back on your hips/lower back to deepen the pose). The instructor came over a made a few adjustments and all of the sudden my whole back opened up. Amy said "whoa, you're back just got about three inches longer" and I could feel that that's exactly what happened. I have lots of sore muscles today, but no sore back. I find this absolutely amazing. I'm going back to the class next week, but now I'm wondering if once a week is going to be enough to make a difference. Yoga expert, any thoughts?
I've also started a running again, slowly and right now only about 25 minutes at a stretch. And swimming. Ahhhhhh--so nice to be moving again. I was debating about going swimming this morning but Moses kicked me out of bed saying "you should go"; I think maybe possibly I might be a little easier to live with when I exercise? Regardless, it's nice to be getting my groove back.

Nanny Goats Gruff

2009-03-08T19:24:00.001-07:00

Last Friday, Garion and his glass put on a stunning, absolutely fabulous production of "Nanny Goats Gruff." Garion played "Butterfly Number 1" and had three lines which he delivered with poise, clarity and feeling (i.e. he talked into the microphone and you could hear him if you were paying attention). Nanny Goats Gruff is a musical set in bucolic, pristine mountain meadows and centers on a group of six Nanny Goats who must leave their beloved field to graze on the other side of the bridge. I can't remember why, but I'm sure the reason was traumatic. A terrible troll lives under the bridge and threatens to eat each of the Nanny Goats that cross. I really wish I had a video of the troll's performance to show you, because it would knock your socks off (i.e. you would laugh so hard you might need a Depends). The Nanny Goats are clever and each group tells the troll something along the lines of: "you don't want to eat us, there are bigger goats coming." Finally, the last goat, Big Bertha Lee, crosses the bridge and the troll threatens to eat her. She essentially replies, "bring it," and butts him in the head. The troll rolls down the enormous mountain and the Nanny Goats live happily ever after in their new meadow. Oh, the drama!

For the next performance, I promise to be a better mother and bring a real camera (yes I forgot it this time and had to rely on the cell phone, hence the sketchy photos.)

Sweetheart, It's Not the Sweatshirt, It's the Grey Hair

2009-03-02T17:26:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, we went to get lunch a local sandwich shop that is close to the University and does a pretty brisk business in college students. Moses was wearing a Northern Arizona University sweatshirt that he won (in high school--somebody, ahem, has trouble moving on) as part of an academic T.E.A.M.S. competition. I was in that competition too and won the same sweatshirt but somewhere in the course of events, Moses adopted my sweatshirt. So now he has two, one of which he was wearing on Saturday. As a side note, or possibly the third or fourth side note in this tale, I cannot for the life of me remember what T.E.A.M.S. stands for. Anyway, we walk up to the counter to order lunch and the (college-aged) girl behind the counter looks at Moses's sweatshirt and says, "wow! that's like a vintage shirt!" Vintage. As in OLD. He, he, he that's what you get for clinging to the shreds of your clothing until they fall apart or spontaneously combust of their own volition because you refuse to put them out of their misery.

Valentine

2009-02-18T11:37:00.000-08:00

An original poem by Garion, as written in my Valentine's Day Card:

Roses are red
violets are black
I am sary [sorry] that you back is brokun.

********
Just for the record, my back is actually much better and only hurts when I do laundry. And when it snows. Possibly these symptoms are psychological. I think I'm going to give swimming a go tomorrow morning and start walking/running again in March.

Just Call him Larry Bird

2009-02-09T18:26:00.000-08:00

This winter, Garion is playing basketball in a local league sponsored by one of the churches. He has practices on Tuesdays and a game each Saturday from January through the end of February. When I say "playing basketball," what I really mean is that Garion puts on a uniform and joins a pack of other kindergarten-aged kids for a few rounds of loosely-regulated chaos that happens to involve a basketball and some baskets. Really, watching kindergartners playing basketball is liking watching....I don't know...a dolphin try to tie shoes? Something like that. Below is a clip from last Saturday's game. Garion is the tall kid the background who's just kind of standing around taking in the action. About halfway through the clip, he decides to get serious and guard his assigned kid from the other team. I'm sure we'll be hearing from the NBA any day now.

Tagged

2009-02-05T16:34:00.001-08:00

It seems that whenever there is a lull in my blogging, I get a little something from Stacy along the lines of, "dude are you ever going to blog again?" This time she tagged me with a game where you post the sixth photo in the sixth folder on your computer. Then you tag five more blogs. That's my photo up above. It was taken in February 2005 at Organ Pipe National Monument. Garion was two-years-old. I forgot how little he was. Sniff. Anyway, there it is.

I tag:
Grumpator
Nightshade Kittytoes
Steamed Puddings
Barbara (sorry Barbara, I forgot the name of your blog, I could look it up but then, you know, I'd have to look it up)
and G&D Discuss Science.

Look, I know exactly five other people who write blogs! Not counting Stacy, because she tagged me and it seems silly to re-tag; I already saw her picture.

Book a Month 2008 Wrap Up--November and December

2009-01-02T15:57:00.000-08:00

Hmmmm. Looks like I'm breaking my own record for laziness in Book-a-Month-Challenge-participation. I am, however, a firm believer in never late than never.
November's theme was "give." Good theme, I think. I intended to re-read "The Giver" by Lois Lowry, which for the record is a fantastic book. Instead, I ended up "giving" myself a birthday present by reading whatever I felt like reading in November. Accordingly, I "gave" the "Twilight" series by Stephanie Meyer a shot, just to see what all the fuss was about. I read all four books in the span of just over two weeks. Which is not to say that they are great works of fiction, but man they hook you in and are hard to put down. In case you live in a cave, the Twilight books are about a teenage girl who falls in love with a vampire. And although the vampire/heart throb of the Twilight series was very charming as vampires go, I maintain my previous assertion that I don't get the vampire-as-love-interest phenomenon. They are ice cold, drink blood, and are apparently on the verge of committing gratuitous acts of violence at any moment. Exciting, but not really what I think you'd want to apply the term "honey-bun" to. Also, I think the Twilight romance suffers from an un-resolvable flaw: why would a being who is over 100 years old (the vampire/heart throb) be interested in a teenage girl who is woefully naive and not the sharpest tack in the box? Probably this question doesn't bear thinking about too much, so I'm not going to.

December's theme was "light." I was so busy in December I didn't even bother to check to see what the December theme was until about 10 minutes ago. So, obviously I didn't read a book to fit the theme. I know, you're so shocked you could spit. I did read a most compelling book in December: "The Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman. This book is about two brothers whose father is a minor god (the spider god and keeper of all the stories) and a human mother. To be concise (and I like to be every once in awhile)--this book is weird. But in a good, funny, intelligent, and really interesting way. It's also chock full of quirky chapter titles, my favorite of which is "In Which Rosie Learns to Say No to Strangers and Fat Charlie Acquires a Lime"--and that's exactly what happens. This is an extremely difficult book to describe and even more difficult to do justice to in a short review. So just go read it yourselves and then we can chat. Please.

I feel like I ought to give the Book a Month challenge some sort of final summation, some sort of meaningful reflection and appropriate send off. I enjoyed participating in the challenge (to the extent that I actually did) but found that, like book club selections, I just didn't feel like reading what I was supposed to be reading. I also wished for some more focused themes, or maybe less seasonally oriented. Not that I would necessarily comply with them, but still I could wish. Overall I had fun, and of course I love any excuse to talk about books.

Hello, My Name is Kerry and I am an Idiot

2008-12-27T16:25:00.000-08:00

You've all heard me complaining about the cold and snow. A lot. Because it snowed a lot here and also it's cold and I do not find that particular combination of meteorlogical events to be particularly wonderful. You may not know that I have been attempting to improve my attitude about snow--or maybe I mentioned that. I can't remember exactly because I'm on pain killers right now (that was the upside of today--the doctor gave me the good stuff). Why am I on pain killers? Because in an effort to improve my attitude about winter, I went sledding today and broke my back. I thought that if I did enjoyable winter activities, I would enjoy winter more. Yeah. Thankfully, I didn't break my back very badly--I just have mild compression fracture in one of my vertebra. Not bad enough to require a brace or any kind of major medical intervention, just bad enough to hurt like hell. And now that that particular vertebra is compressed, it will never un-compress. This is the kind of fracture that old ladies with osteoporosis get and that make them shorter. So at the ripe old age of 33, I now have my first one and Moses estimates I'm about a millimeter shorter than I was before. All this because I was really trying my darnedest to have fun in winter. From here on out, I'm swearing off down-hill winter sports. If I can ever move again I might, might try snow-shoes on level ground. Otherwise, I'm just hunkering down some good books and few movies for the duration.
If you're wondering about the idiot part: I sustained this injury by sledding down and icy slope with a bump in it. I did my best to avoid the bump by choosing a path well away from the bump. When I noticed that I was heading toward the bump, I tried to steer by leaning away from it which had the effect of shooting me directly toward the bump--which now that I give this some consideration makes sense, but while hurtling down the hill at a million miles per hour didn't occur to me. I then failed to bail out of my sled in time which resulted in my hitting the bump, catching air, and coming down hard on my back. Not my most graceful moment (not that I really have a lot--or maybe any--graceful moments). Another interesting note: I am not the only idiot in town. There were at least five other people in the emergency room with an injury similar to mine and the nurse told me that in winter they average 22 sledding-related accidents per day. I also learned that when sledding you should lay down (back or stomach) and not sit up, and should also wear a helmet (just for the record, I did not hit my head).

TMI

2008-12-18T17:44:00.000-08:00

Tonight while Garion was taking his shower:

Garion: "Mom! Mooommmm! MOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!"
Me: "Yes, Garion, what do you need?"
Garion: "Can I use the peppermint soap from your bathroom? Because I keep farting and it's really stinky."

I'm Moving South, Who's Got Room?

2008-12-12T13:45:00.000-08:00

This is the 7 day forecast for Flagstaff as of this afternoon:

Wind Advisory

This Afternoon: Partly sunny, with a high near 51. South southwest wind around 13 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph.

Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 28. Southwest wind between 8 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph.

Saturday: A 30 percent chance of snow showers, mainly after 11am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 43. Windy, with a southwest wind 13 to 16 mph increasing to between 28 and 31 mph. Winds could gust as high as 43 mph. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

Saturday Night: Snow, mainly before 11pm. Low around 27. Windy, with a southwest wind between 25 and 32 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%.

Sunday: A 50 percent chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 29. West southwest wind between 16 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph.

Sunday Night: A 40 percent chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 18.

Monday: Snow, mainly after 11am. High near 32. Chance of precipitation is 80%.

Monday Night: Snow likely. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 25.

Tuesday: Snow showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 36.

Tuesday Night: Snow showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 25.

Wednesday: Snow likely. Cloudy, with a high near 37.

Wednesday Night: Snow likely. Cloudy, with a low around 27.

Thursday: Snow likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 34.

People, that is 7 DAYS worth of forecast in which the word "snow" is prominently featured. AND, highs that don't creep out of the mid-30's. I don't think there's enough hot chocolate in the universe to get me through.

The Best Parts of the Tucson 1/2 Marathon

2008-12-08T07:17:00.000-08:00

1. Having a change to visit with my Tucson family and friends. On Saturday, I had lunch with my grandmother and uncles who I have seen since my brother's wedding in May. It was great to catch up with them and made me wish I had some more time to hang in Tucson. Saturday night, I met up with my work buddies Kristine and Stacy for a pre-race, carb loading dinner at Gavi, a fantastic Italian restaurant in Tucson. Saturday morning, I met up with another work buddy, Heather, and Heather's friend Tracy, at the start line (well, actually in the porta-potty line). These people were absolutely the best part of my weekend.
2. Support crew! Kristine came out in the cold at a god-forsaken hour in the morning to stand around at mile 1.5 and take excess clothing when Heather, Tracy, and I came by. This was awesome--I got wear my long sleeve jersey while I was still shivering at the beginning of the race and then ditch it after I got hot without having run the rest of the race with it tied around my waist. Kristine was also at the finish to cheer and then she drove us all back to the parking lot so we didn't have to wait around for the shuttle bus at the end of the race. So nice.
3. I lost two pounds. I'm sure this is mostly water loss, but considering the enormous amount of food I've consumed in the last two days, this is still a shocking number. Let me lay it out for you. Saturday morning, I ate two eggs and a piece of toast for breakfast. I then proceeded to Starbucks and picked up a grande Peppermint Mocha Twist, with whipped cream thank you very much, for the drive to Tucson. For lunch on Saturday, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant where I had a Thai iced tea (you know, the one with real cream and a ridiculous amount of sugar), and some kind of delicious beef and noodle dish that I forgot the name of but tasted delicious. I devoured almost all of it. Saturday night, Stacy had the brilliant idea of sharing our entrees so that we could have a pasta dish and protein dish in preparation for race day (Stacy ran the full marathon--I can't even begin to contemplate adding another 13 miles onto what I did yesterday. Yay, Stacy!) The portions at Gavi are big, so it's not like half of two entrees equals two dinners. It's really more like I had two dinners. And I ate them both. And they were wonderful. Sunday morning was the dreaded half bagel and banana. After the race, I had a subway sandwich, chips (salt tasted soooo good) and root beer. Then, in Casa Grande I stopped at Dairy Queen, where I had a Blizzard with Snickers. THEN. I got home and Moses had made lasagna. mmmmm. So I had two pieces of that, salad, and a piece of pie that was leftover from something last week. See, I told you. A ridiculous amount of food. And I STILL lost two pounds. Awesome.

Tucson 1/2 Marathon Race Report

2008-12-07T17:10:00.000-08:00

My first half marathon: done. Woohoo! The race started as I think all races do: stumbling through the dark at 5:00 a.m. to get on an overheated school bus with a bunch of ridiculously and intimidatingly fit people to ride to the starting line, where you stand around outside in frigid temperatures waiting for your turn at the porta-potty. After the national anthem, the herd was off and although I was freezing, I did a very good job of reminding myself not to start too fast. Or what I thought was a good job. I ended up with a side stitch in the first mile, which is extremely annoying because: (1) I usually don't get them; and (2) all I had had to eat was half a bagel and a banana at 4:30 a.m. that I had to force down my throat. I definitely need to figure my pre-race breakfast issues. I usually run in the mornings before I eat. But, you can't run 13.1 miles on an empty stomach. Which requires eating. But, then I get a side stitch. So obviously I need a different breakfast and I will have to do some research on what that might be. Maybe some sort of smoothie type thing? I find it really hard to eat before a race anyway, so maybe not having to chew would work in my favor.
I also decided that for this race I'd trying listening to my ipod, since that seems to be the thing to do now. I had a Doctor Who story, narrated by David Tennant (who plays the Doctor in the TV series) that was 2 and 1/2 long-- just about perfect for the race. Unfortunately, I have no idea if this was a good story or not because I was so focused on running that I barely heard the story. I just had a vague sense of David Tennant yammering in my ear without a clue what he was on about. Which I guess answers the question of whether an ipod does me any good during a race: no.
After recovering from the side stitch issue, miles 2 through about 8 were fantastic. 8 through 10 were a little tougher both because I was starting to get tired and because there were a few long, gentle hills there. Nothing major, but hills nonetheless. And this, folks is where high altitude training totally, completely rocks. I, me, slow-poke Kerry, passed people on the hills. Oh, man that felt good. Miles 8 through 10 were also a little difficult because I had a snargler running behind me. The snargler was a rather large man who seemed to be having some kind of respiratory issue where he was sort of gurgling, sniffing, and groaning evertime he took a breath--he was snargling. And he was snargling right behind me. And snargling is really, really annoying to listen to. I think he was actually trying to pass me. I'm sorry Mr. Snargler, there was just no way I was going to let that happen.
Miles 10 through 13.1 were pretty much just hell even though I managed to ditch the snargler. I sang a little song in my head that was a variation of Dory's song in "Finding Nemo" : "just keep running, just keep running." I felt like miles 10 through 13 took as long as miles 1-10 and I just tried to focus on finishing one mile at a time. I crossed the finished line in 2 hours 21 minutes and my average pace was under 11:00 minutes, so I'm pretty happy with that. Here are my detailed stats:

Overall:	982 out of 1460
Women:	521 out of 889
F 30-34:	71 out of 106
Age/Grade:	46.85% Place: 1043
Finish:	2:21:17 Pace: 10:47
Tag Time:	2:21:17
Gun Time:	2:23:52

Birthday Celebrations

2008-11-25T09:46:00.000-08:00

The Saturday before his birthday, Garion celebrated with some of his friends from school. This was the first time that I've actually thrown a party for him with just friends. I am a complete slacker mom, but you knew that already. Embracing my slacker-ness, I opted for a party in the park, which conveniently meant I didn't have to plan activities or games because the park thoughtfully provides playground equipment. This was a bit of a gamble, considering it had snowed the week before, but I thought the payoff of possibly not having to plan activities for kindergartners was worth taking the chance of freezing our buns off in the snow at the park. The weather turned out to be beautiful and we had a great time. Unfortunately, I did not capture of any of the great time on film (I guess film doesn't really apply to digital cameras, but I don't know what the digital synonym of "film" is). I brought my camera. I just forgot to use it. Maybe next year. I also forgot to have everyone sing "happy birthday." Next year for that too! In my defense, the cupcakes were pretty much devoured before I even finished passing them out, so it's not like there was a lot of time to remember candles and singing. I did manage to capture the party aftermath though (above left)--visual evidence of another good reason to have a party at the park!
I think I mentioned in an earlier post that in my family, we have four November birthdays within one week of each other (my brother, grandpa, Garion, and me). We frequently have one big family party to celebrate all of the birthdays, and now that we live in Flagstaff this became a lot easier to do this year. On November 16th. (Still catching-up; good thing I don't write a current events blog.) Each of the birthday people get to pick something that they want for the birthday meal: my brother and Garion picked fried chicken; my grandpa chose jello salad; and I chose apple pie for dessert. We also had mashed potatoes and corn. Being the slacker that I am, I neglected to take photos during the traditional birthday moments, such as opening presents, but managed a few later in the afternoon. Up to the right is Garion on his new scooter about to run me over. After he opened it he said, "thank you for the scooter! Next year will you buy me a skateboard?" At least he remembered to say "thank you."
My Mom's birthday was in October, and as I understand it, my brother's present to her was fixing her mail box and moving it to a more convenient location. Moses, not relishing sitting around and visiting any more than my brother does, helped out. My mom, apparently seeking entertainment, set herself up to watch the show:

The show was so good that soon the audience quadrupled from one to five.
Or is that quintupled? I think that at one point they were literally watching paint dry.
We had a really nice afternoon and scrumptious meal. Especially the apple pie. Mmmmmm.

Squirrel

2008-11-24T09:29:00.000-08:00

I took this picture on November 15th with thoughts of blogging about it. Look! I'm almost caught up.
Assuming some physiological similarities between squirrels and humans, it would appear that if I were so inclined to eat the mysterious orange berries growing in my yard--now identified as firethorn berries (thanks, Shannon)-- I would not die. Good to know.

First Snow of the Season

2008-11-23T09:26:00.000-08:00

In keeping with my "better late than never" theory of blogging this month, I thought I'd share some photos of our first snow. Which happened on November 9th. But it's supposed to snow again this week, so in some ways, I'm really just letting you know what it's going to look like around here a few days from now. I am so far behind, I'm actually ahead.
Needless to say, Garion was beside himself with excitement to see white stuff falling from the sky. He put on his heavy coat and gloves and essentially wandered around the back yard for half an hour marveling at the miracle of snow. I wish that I could be more like that. Because I, on the other hand, was wishing for a warm cave within which to hibernate until spring.
I do have to admit, it is pretty. Maybe if I really bundle up and hang around Garion enough, I'll re-discover how much fun I used to think snow was. Maybe what we really need is a sled. And a parka. And lots of hot chocolate.

Halloween

2008-11-22T08:57:00.000-08:00

"But, Kerry," you say, "it's November. Thanksgiving is in five days. Halloween was three weeks ago."
I know. I am aware. I am a total slacker mom. But here's the thing: my laziness in posting does not diminish Garion's cuteness in a Superman suit and so I must share. Even if I share late. Although Garion managed to create his own super-suit over the summer, he was still adamant that he wanted the "real" thing for Halloween. So here he is in all of his official glory. If you look closely, you can see that he still has a sticker on his forehead from school that day. I think it gives him extra powers or something. I also think that maybe when I take photos of Garion in our front yard, I should orient him differently. That house in the background actually belongs to our neighbor. Maybe I should not be putting pictures of other people's houses all over the internet? It is for sale though. So if you think it looks nice and would like to have us for neighbors, let me know and I'll go get the number from the "for sale" sign.

Book a Month Challenge: October

2008-11-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

Ha! You thought I forgot didn't you? Just because November is 2/3s gone, doesn't mean I intend to shirk my Book a Month obligations. October's theme was "haunt." I didn't so much choose a book to fit the theme last month, but I did manage to read three novels (3! You can tell that I ran out of Dr. Who DVD's). So here's the plan: I'll tell you what I read and you can decide which one best fits the theme.

First up: Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. This is the novel that seems the most likely candidate for the "haunt" theme but the fact of the matter is, it was also the dullest. It's about a young woman who works as a waitress in a small town in Louisiana shortly after vampires have "come out of the closet" to live among humans with the help of synthetic blood. I've never read a vampire book before, no Ann Rice when she was all the rage, never read Dracula, so I don't really have a reference point for vampire books, but this one struck me as a little lame. It sucked. (Sorry, but who can resist that pun when talking about a bad vampire book?) The main character falls in love with a vampire while also trying to solve a series of murders in her town. That was about it. And not once during the whole novel did I understand why anyone would want to date a vampire. However, I listened to Kenneth Turan review "Twilight" this morning on NPR, and I understand that if you're a teenage female, dating vampires is now the thing to do. Perhaps I'm just in the wrong demographic.

Second: Midwives by Chris Boujalin. This was my favorite of the three. Midwives tells the story of a Vermont midwife who performs an emergency cesarean section to save a baby who's mother the midwife believes has died. The baby's father and midwife's apprentice later claim that the mother was not yet dead when the midwife performed the emergency surgery and the midwife is tried for involuntary manslaughter. The novel, told from the perspective the midwife's daughter, thoughtfully examines the life of the midwife's family during the trial, the trial itself, and the practice of midwifery. Boujalin does a fantastic job of describing the intricacies and process of a criminal trial. He avoids the trap of the overly dramatic cross-examination or the stunning bit of evidence that completely exonerates or condemns the defendant and accurately describes the long and complex process of constructing a criminal defense. I was also drawn in by the larger issues at the center of the novel and the trial described therein: namely whether we ought to view pregnancy and birth as a medical condition to be treated by doctors in the controlled environment of a hospital or whether it ought to be viewed as a fundamentally natural process that the human race has managed for thousands of years, and that occasionally and rarely requires medical intervention. My own experience with pregnancy and birth straddles this divide, and I found the novel's discussion particularly compelling. (While pregnant, I received prenatal care from a midwife and had planned to have Garion outside of the hospital, at a birth center. Garion turned out to be breech, and was born by cesarean-section in a hospital.) I'm not exactly sure how this novel fits with the "haunt" theme, but I'm sure it's in there somewhere.

Third: The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory. This is a work of historical fiction told from the perspective of Mary Boleyn, the sister of Anne Boleyn who was the second wife of Henry VIII. Mary is, as a young girl, mistress of the King. The King later sets her aside and her sister Anne moves in to not only become the King's mistress, but to play a significant role in orchestrating the King's divorce from his first wife so that she can become the second wife. Which, as everybody knows, didn't end so well. The book is well written and Gregory is truly talented at bringing the reader into the world of 16th century England and its monarchy. How does it fit the "haunt" theme? Well, there are a lot of beheadings, so I'd surmise there are few ghosts too. I mean, if you were beheaded, don't you think you'd hang around as ghost for awhile to make the King's life a little miserable?

****
Also, if you're looking at the time of this post and thinking, "wow, Kerry is really slacking off of work today!" , I am not. Garion came down with a mysterious vomiting disease last night so we're home sick. Well, he's home sick and I'm home blogging.

An Open Letter to Hollywood

2008-11-19T15:20:00.000-08:00

Dear Hollywood,

It has been my tradition each year on my birthday to take the day off from work and attend a cinematic matinee. Understand that I work full time and am the mother of a young child, so going to a movie of my choosing is a rare and delectable treat. This is a long held and sacred tradition for me and not just any movie will do. I rely on the talents of your industry to release a movie sometime in mid-November with the following criteria: not too stupid, not too depressing, not too vulgar, something funny or maybe something with some action, or maybe something with some novel ideas. If nothing else, something with nice special effects or a grouping of unusually good-looking actors will do. Let me give you an example of previous year's movies that I found perfectly acceptable for birthday-viewing: The Incredibles (interesting story, some funny bits, some action, stunning animation), The Harry Potter movies (nice visuals); Stranger Than Fiction (interesting story and starring Emma Thompson). I do not go to the movies on my birthday to suffer, to cry, to be enlightened, or to be grossed out. I go to be entertained and to indulge in the consumption of butter-enriched popcorn.

This year you have utterly failed me. Here were the options available at my local theater:
(1) Quantum of Solace. Yes, I know James Bond would seem to fit the birthday bill and I did not regret the last time I spent two hours staring at Daniel Craig. However, I have heard that this movie is even darker than Casino Royal (which I found to be disturbingly violent in some parts) and I've heard it's about revenge. Please take note: I am not into revenge on my birthday. I think revenge is a generally nasty, ugly emotion and I don't like to think about it too much on a day that's supposed to be happy. I am also not down with overwhelming gratuitous violence. A little gratuitous violence goes a long way. I will see this movie, but not on my birthday.
(2) Madagascar. As the mother of a young child I've seen gazillion trailers for this movie and I'm fairly certain it fits into the "too stupid" category. Also, I will probably have to watch it at some point in my life, so why waste the money and the day off now?
(3) Zack and Miri Make a Porno. While I have liked, and yes even loved, some of Kevin Smith's previous movies, I find that they have generally tested the limits of my tolerance for vulgarity. I have a feeling--just a hunch mind you, that this one might push me over the edge.
(4) The Changeling. I have no desire to spend my birthday thinking about children being abducted and then the police not believing the mother when she tells them that the child they return to her isn't hers.
(5) High School Musical 3. No.
(6) Saw V. Again, no.
(7) Max Payne. This is apparently a dark police detective flick starring Marky Mark as a dude of some sort who loses family in an unspeakably violent incident. I am not down with the murder plots on my birthday.
(8) W. Too stupid, too gross, too depressing, and not funny. At least not funny in a good way. I have no idea if this assessment applies to the movie, but I've no doubt it applies to the movie's subject and I have moved on.

Hollywood, I understand that occasionally everyone has a bad year. In light of your previously adequate mid-November movie releases, I will overlook this year's dubious offerings and forgive you for your failings. I look forward with hope and optimism to next November. Thank you.

Yours truly (unless you let me down again next year),
Kerry

Happy Birthday Garion

2008-11-18T07:39:00.001-08:00

Today is Garion's 6th birthday. 6! Who let that happen? Do you remember how exciting your birthday was when you were 6? Garion has been beside himself with excitement pretty much since last Friday and it's pretty funny to watch. He had a birthday party at the park with his friends on Saturday and on Sunday we had the big family birthday celebration (in my family, we have 4 November birthdays within one week of each other). He barely knows what to do with himself trying to decide whether he wants to play with his new legos, play his new Uno game, or read his new books. I know this will all wear off in a few days, but in the meantime I'm relishing his complete joy in his special day and the magic of turning 6.

Yes!

2008-11-04T20:20:00.000-08:00

For the first time in a long time, tonight I can say that I am proud of my country.

Excuse Me, What?!!

2008-11-04T18:29:00.000-08:00

Moses and I are listening to the election results on NPR. They are defining "young" voters as under 30. "Middle-Age" voters are 30 to 49. Apparently it's time to start shopping for my mid-life crisis.

Early Returns

2008-11-04T15:03:00.001-08:00

You heard it here first: Garion came home today and reported that his kindergarten class pretended to vote and turned in a decisive victory for Barack Obama.

Oh-Mama, I Love Election Day!

2008-11-04T14:24:00.001-08:00

This was a comment that I just left on a friend's blog and then it occurred to me that it was a good post-title. This particular friend has the best election day post I've read yet, so I'll just point you to it here. We must have had at least a dozen conversations like that at our house over the past two years. TWO YEARS--it's almost over!
I love election day, I love voting, I love waiting for poll returns. I am such a political science dork: I get all sentimental about democracy and the peaceful transfer of power and about how even the big dudes at the center of it all only get one vote, just like the rest of us. The cockles of my heart are warming just contemplating it. Here's to hoping that by tomorrow they'll be glowing.
On a side note, the below clip was sent to me by my sister-in-law as a get-out-the-vote reminder. It is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying. Just for the record, I had already submitted my early ballot before she sent this to me. Because I am a model citizen who gets all mushy at the thought of democracy in action and actually wants to be picked for jury duty (but never does--which is too bad because I would be an awesome juror--but that's another story). If tomorrow ends in disaster I am not responsible.

Just Shoot Me Now and Make it Quick

2008-10-21T12:10:00.000-07:00

My work e-mail program is evil, devious, demented, cruel, and out to get me.
Whilst sending an e-mail to a judge, I misspelled the word "inconvenience," as in "sorry for the." Spell checker suggested "incontinence" and I accidentally ok'd it. Then, and imagine this part in horror-movie type slow motion, I watched as the program replaced the misspelled "inconvenience" with "incontinence" and sent the message. TO A JUDGE. (**If you have sensitive ears or are my mother, this is where you close your eyes**) shit. shit. shit. shit. shit. SHIT! fuck. shit, shit, shit! Out loud: "SHIT!"
Yes, I sent a message to a judge that said "sorry for the incontinence."
Oh. My. God.

The Source of the World's Ills

2008-10-12T19:13:00.000-07:00

This morning, Moses drove over to the Coconino National Forest office to obtain a permit for cutting firewood. There are several permits for various uses issued by the Forest Service. However, the firewood permit is the only permit for which you cannot pay by credit card. That's right, you can pay for every other permit, except firewood cutting, by credit card. Of course, Moses did not have cash or a checkbook on hand and had to go find an ATM, and come back to the Forest Service office to buy the permit. Moses being Moses came home and railed (rightfully, but still, we all know how Moses enjoys a good rant) against the absurdity of the Forest Service not accepting credit cards for one kind of permit, but accepting them for every other permit.
So Moses is telling his story and going on and on.
Then Garion pipes up and you can see the light bulb go off in his head: "It's probably because of John McCain!" Yes son, I'm sure it is. And there you have it folks: brainwash early and brainwash often.

Yay Mom!

2008-10-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

That's my mom. She's standing next to her painting that just won Best of Show in the Northern Arizona Water Color Society's 2008 Experimental Water Media Exhibition. It sold about five minutes after the awards were handed out. I'm really excited for my mom and also so happy that I got to drive down to Sedona to watch her accept her award. Here's a close up of the painting (my picture is crooked, not the painting). Click on the photo for a larger view and to see the really remarkable detail.

1/2 Marathon Switcheroo

2008-10-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

Alight, I'm muscling through. I'm posting more because, in my imagination at least, posting more often will eventually result in better posts. I will be disciplined. I will flex my blogging muscles on a regular basis and I will hone my blogging skills. And I will become a brilliant blogger.
With that in mind, as promised: the 1/2 marathon switch. Long story short is that Imogene was really hard, I did nothing for about a week and half, then I went to Phoenix for a conference where I failed to get in a long run and then by that time I was too far behind to train for Big Sur as much as I would like. Also, running Big Sur requires buying a plane ticket, and booking a hotel and possibly renting a car, all of which for some reason cost money. Conveniently, Tucson has a nice 1/2 marathon race that is at a lower altitude (than Flagstaff) and is mostly downhill, and in December, which gives me another month to train. I love to run downhill. And, I know the course (or part of it) because I ran some of it last year in the marathon relay. So that's the story: I'm running the Tucson half rather than the Big Sur half. And now that I read it, it's not a very interesting story. I guess the better posts will not be starting immediately. Anybody want to run the Tucson 1/2 marathon with me?

Blogging about Blogging Because I'm a Dork

2008-10-01T20:19:00.000-07:00

I had this idea, and if you look at my blog archives you see exactly when this idea occurred, that I was going to make a concerted effort to post more often. Did you look at the archives for September? Yep, last week was when I had this brilliant thought. The problem is, and there is always a problem, that I have run out of steam. I have some post ideas--there a couple Short Stack lists I want to talk about, I need to tell you all why I'm not running the Big Sur 1/2 Marathon, but have opted for the Tucson 1/2 instead (tomorrow maybe), and I've got a couple of Garion related things. So, there's material out there. I'm just lazy. Fundamentally and irrevocably lazy and therefore I am blogging about not blogging or more accurately procrastinating on real blogging by doing fake blogging. Which also makes me, fundamentally, a dork.

I am Superman's Mother

2008-09-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

Behold:

Grow a Bike

2008-09-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

This is so completely awesome, I could cry. A man named Craig Calfee has developed a method for growing bamboo to make bicycle frames. According to Calfee, "bamboo is an ideal material for bicycles: It's stronger and lighter than most metals, but absorbs road vibration much better."
He uses lugs made from a hemp epoxy composite to hold the bamboo frame tubes together.
Apparently, the bike is similar in weight to an aluminum bike, but offers better performance. Sweet. Maybe I'll give up on tomatoes and start growing bicycles. Check out the full article from Wired here.

My Yard the Twilight Zone

2008-09-25T19:15:00.000-07:00

In my blog description, I claim to write about things flowering in my head, my yard, my life, blah, blah, blah. The yard's been pretty neglected for awhile and for some reason, I feel the need to share now. Last spring, my father-in-law gave me some tomato seedlings. I found out later that these were seedlings that he started from a grocery store tomato's seeds. An heirloom tomato, but a grocery store tomato nonetheless. My father-in-law has a special talent for growing all sorts of things (and, ahem, we're not going to go into that too much) and he also has a fantastic greenhouse. He managed to get a few (I think 3) tomatoes from these particular seeds. I, being possessed of neither gardening superpowers nor a greenhouse, figured my chances for getting tomatoes from these plants were pretty slim. My tomato plants got big and busy, popped out a few flowers, and then started a slow, dramatic death. This is how dramatic:

Somewhere around the first of this month, I decided this was a lost cause and quit watering the plants. Two nights ago, Moses called me outside. This is what he found:

One renegade tomato. A survivor. The little stinker--now I have to water this plant again. After taking into account the price of the pot, the compost, and water for three months, that there is probably the world's most expensive tomato.

Other weird things have been happening in my yard. Apparently in Flagstaff there is this season called Autumn and this is what happens to trees:

Notice that reddish tinge? I understand that shortly the red will prevail, all the leaves will fall off the trees, and I will be plunged into arctic hell until about June 1st of next year.

We also have a bush that produces copious amounts of a beautiful orange berry:

There is some little kid part of me that really wants to pluck one off and pop it into my mouth just to see what it tastes like. Don't worry, I have resisted. Perhaps though, I will find out what these are and see if, perchance they are edible. Mmmm, random-orange-berry jam.

Answer That

2008-09-24T18:43:00.000-07:00

Moses started up a new blog called "G&D Discuss Science" in which he attempts to answer Garion's various science questions. So far, we've gotten questions about rocks creating things (I don't know either, my kid is weird) and how people walk.
Tonight, Garion said, "oh, Dad I have a science question for today! How are people built, I mean how are they made? How does God make people?"

Yeah. Alrighty then.

Good luck with that, Honey.

Book a Month Challenge: September

2008-09-23T19:01:00.000-07:00

Please take note: I am so on top of it that I am filing my Book a Month Challenge report before the month is over with. Because I rock. September's theme is "Change." I read "Farewell My Subaru: An Epic Adventure in Local Living" by Doug Fine. Apparently Doug Fine is an NPR correspondent, but I have been slavishly addicted to NPR for about 10 years and his name completely fails to ring a bell. Not a single one. Not even a little jingle bell. Perhaps he is a periodic (wannabe) NPR correspondent. Anyway, Mr. Fine sells everything he owns in some big city on the east coast and moves to Silver City, New Mexico where he purchases a small house on forty acres of land (see, this book is all about "change"--I'm on time and on theme, feel free to bask in my glory.) Mr. Fine's intent is to live as locally as possible and his book chronicles his adventures in local living: gardening, rainwater harvesting, solar panel installation, and bio-dieseling. Mr. Fine is single (or was at the time of the writing of the book), does not have children, and apparently has an endless, mysterious source of income. And the dude totally stole my dream. But he did not steal it well. I was repeatedly amazed in reading this book how not with it Mr. Fine-the-alleged-NPR-correspondent was. I must have thought to myself at least 20 times, "dude, what were you thinking?" For example, he let his chickens run around his yard, without the protection of the dog (who was confined to the house for the night for some reason that had to do with the author's girlfriend or something), and coyotes ate the chickens. And he describes this as if it was completely reasonable to think that you could let your chickens run around your yard in the desert and that they would die of old age and not coyote poultry-icide. However, it's probably unreasonable of me to think that everyone who attempts this sort of lifestyle is going to have a knowledge base of someone like Moses and it's probably good to have an honest account of the pitfalls of sustainable living out there. And also, if I were to attempt this sort of thing on my own (without Moses) I'd probably be worse off than Mr. Fine, alleged NPR correspondent, so I probably shouldn't talk. Although, I wouldn't let my chickens run around willy-nilly as coyote bait. On the upside, the book is a light funny read on pursuing the sustainable life and is very entertaining, if not completely informative, read.

No Use Crying Over Spilt Shampoo

2008-09-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, my mom gave me an enormous bottle of shampoo. Yep, just randomly. Because nothing says "I love you" like a half gallon of shampoo (thanks Mom!). She scored the shampoo from her friend who is a hair stylist and gets major discounts on this kind of stuff. Or, at least that's what she told me. By which I mean she didn't say "Kerry, I'm concerned about your personal hygiene, here's an enormous bottle of shampoo, please use it."

Last night Garion emerged from his bath positively radiating the smell of said shampoo. Moses and I were sitting in the living room and we could smell him from the upstairs bathroom. The smell was so overpowering that Moses started sneezing, had to go sit outside for awhile, and we had to sleep with the bathroom and all of our bedroom windows open so as not to pass out from shampoo-smell-toxicity. This morning I investigated the half-gallon sized shampoo bottle. It was about 1/4 full. Before Garion's bath, I had used maybe a quarter of the bottle. That means my child used 1/4 gallon of shampoo in his bath last night. Further investigation revealed that he also used all of what was left in the liquid soap bottle (it was about half full), and a not insignificant amount of baking soda, which I normally use to wash Garion's hair because, up until last night, he has hated shampoo.

Garion and I then had a long conversation about appropriate shampoo and soap use. Looking to end the discussion on a positive note, I said to Garion, "but you remembered to wash your hair with soap?." To which Garion responded, "um, no, I forgot."

Book a Month Challenge: August

2008-09-10T18:18:00.000-07:00

August's (yeah I know it's been September for 10 days now) Book a Month theme was "cold." I read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Into Thin Air recounts Krakauer's experience's as part of a climbing expedition that attempted to summit Everest in the spring of 1996. Krakauer has clean, crisp writing style that is both straight forward and engaging. The book starts starts at the end of the expedition; Krakauer recounts reaching the summit, and gives a brief, vivid, glimpse of the complete mental and physical exhaustion he experienced by the time he reached the summit. In these first pages, the reader also meets the members of Krakauer's expedition group and we learn immediately that the expedition ends in terrible tragedy when three of the members of the expedition team, including its leader, and five other climbers die that day after a storm with hurricane force winds traps 17 people overnight on the mountain without shelter. Krakauer then leads the reader through the history of climbing Everest as well as some of the extraordinary preparation for a climb of this magnitude. His story moves gracefully to the present expedition and he carefully examines each of the factors--known and speculated--that contributed to the disaster of summit day. The book was fascinating not just for the train-wreck aspect, but also for its account of the enormous physical difficulties involved in summitting Everest. You hear "29,000 feet" and think, yeah that's high, but Krakauer's account of altitude acclimatization brings home just what an extraordinary feat it is to survive at that altitude. He reminds the reader that a person who was picked up in say, Los Angeles, and dropped on the summit of Everest without acclimatization would immediately pass out and then die soon after. I think that Krakauer's account of his own role in the tragedy was insightful and honest and that's part of what made this book so compelling. Krakauer admits at one point in the book that having a journalist on the expedition might have been not only unfair to the other members of his team--they weren't expecting to have their every quirk exposed for posterity when they signed up for the expedition--but might have, on some level, also pressured the expedition leader to have get all of his members to the summit or at least prompted some poor decisions. Krakauer's expedition team was on the mountain during the same season that IMAX filmed its Everest documentary and the IMAX film makes a nice compliment to Krakauer's book--I'd highly recommend both.

I WASN'T LAST!!!!!

2008-09-07T15:53:00.001-07:00

....which, considering how hard the Imogene Pass Run is, is just freaking incredible. I came in 1061st of the 1071 people who finished the race. I wasn't even last in my age group! I was second to last : ). And also, I didn't hurt myself in any way that involves blood or broken bones! My time was 6 hours, 26 minutes, and some change. Moses, my wonderful, loving husband stayed with me the whole race although he easily could have smoked me by a couple of hours; I think that maybe he isn't ready for single parenthood. Or possibly, he didn't want to have turn around and start hiking up again to identify my body. When I say that this race is really hard, I mean that it is the second most physically demanding thing I have ever done in my entire life, the first most physically demanding being childbirth. In order to finish the race, participants have to make 7.5 miles in 2.5 hours. I made it with about 10 or 15 minutes to spare and at that point, I was sort of wishing that I hadn't made it because then I could have turned around. At mile 8, I was wishing that I had turned around regardless because I was really feeling the altitude and I nearly left 3 half cups of Gatorade, a handful pretzels, and a few Cliff Shots in a semi-digested heap on the side of the mountain. I think the only thing that really prevented this was that there was nowhere to hide, I would have had to puke in front of strangers and I have a firm rule that I never puke in front of strangers. If I had had a sharp implement handy at mile 9, I would have used to put myself out of my misery. At mile 9 you turn a corner and can see the summit, which is still a mile away. A very long, very, very, steep, rocky mile away. Mile 9 posed a nasty dilemma: I really didn't want to go on. But, the only way off the mountain, besides air vac or search and rescue, was to go one more mile up and seven more down or turn around and go 9 miles back down and then have to find a ride from Ouray back to Telluride (because we were staying in Telluride where the race ends). There was no good way out, so I opted for just going forward. It also helped to have Moses there with me. After a short eternity (it took me as long to do miles 7.5 -- 10 as it did to do miles 0 -- 7.5) we made it over the pass and started working our way down to Telluride. The last 7 miles were, of course, much easier than the first 10, but my legs were really, really cooked. I couldn't even muster enough energy to run over the finish line. By that point I didn't care and we just walked over. Moses, still being super nice, made sure that I got to cross before him (I didn't actually notice this at the time because I urgently needed to pee and I was intensely focused on finding a bathroom, but when we saw the results, he confirmed that he stopped so that I crossed first). I'm going to nominate him for husband of the year.

The weekend in general was fantastic. We had a great time with my brother and his wife, in-laws, and friends. There were about 30 people in our group, 30 incredibly laid back, nice, people who were really fun to hang out with. Nancy, my brother's mother-in-law, did all the meal planning, shopping, and made the lodging arrangements and it was all top-notch (my brother definitely won the in-law lottery). Everybody helped with meal prep and clean-up and there were no catastrophes. In fact, I think that just about everyone from Flagstaff who was in Telluride this weekend ended up at our group's house for dinner after the race. And possibly we might have picked up a few random people who happened to be passing by, saw the keg on the front porch, and thought that "hey! this looks like a good place for dinner." Telluride is beautiful and someday we will go back there when we are not Imogening. After the race on Saturday, we took the free gondola (every town should have a free gondola) over to Mountain Village and had coffee and watched some kids doing some crazy bungee trampoline thing (which was also free); 30 tired people sitting in the square, drinking coffee, and cheering on random kids--and couple of people from our group--whenever they managed a flip on the bungee trampoline thing. It was awesome. I'm not sure that I really want to do the Imogene Pass Run again (I told Moses to not let me do it again) but the rest of the weekend was so nice I might get sucked in. So I should maybe start training.

Imogene Here We Come!

2008-09-04T19:55:00.000-07:00

We're leaving for Telluride tomorrow--woohoo! Moses decided that he doesn't like Gatorade so he concocted his own formula of electrolyte replenishing drink. It's composed of lime juice, fresh saved ginger, salt, honey, and water. I had a sip and it nearly killed me on the spot--there is no way on God's green earth that I could ever choke that stuff down on the trail. He's a tough guy though so he can handled that kind of stimulation (the overwhelming flavors--and I do mean overwhelming--where lime and salt but it had a sort of spicy aftertaste).
While we were discussing what to bring, Garion said, "make sure you have your first aid kit, and second aid kit, and third aid kit." The kid know his mom!
Stay tuned for the gory aftermath.

Netflix, Listen to Me

2008-08-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

I really shouldn't express my political views in public too much so I'm not going to tell you what we watched via streaming C-Span last night. I'm not going to tell you about how inspired I felt. Nor am I going to tell you that we read The Daily Show's live twitter feed while watching what we were watching and that I now think this one of the best ways to watch what we were watching (you get a nice juxtaposition between inspiration and humor). Finally, I'm not going to tell you that I totally wish that I could be a writer for someone who does the thing we watched last night. (I have always harbored a desire to writer for that kind of thing--I eat that stuff up and I think I'd be great at it. Maybe when I retire).

Instead, I'm going to lobby for a new Netflix rating system. The current system allows you to rate movies you've watched with one to five stars that correspond to opinions from "hated it" to "loved it." These are inadequate. I want an option for "didn't finish it." It could be a special option for tired parents of young children. Here's the problem: I don't watch my movies from Netflix until after the whole night-time routine of child maintenance is completed: this includes feeding, bathing, wrangling into pajamas, nagging until teeth are brushed, reading a bedtime story, filling the water bottle, and completing negotiations worthy of a G8 summit on precisely what level of light will be left on and for how long.

I frequently get movies from Netflix that I am actually interested in watching, we'll use the recent flick "Into the Wild" for demonstration purposes, but which require just a little more mental functioning than say "Legally Blond." So I sit down to watch "Into the Wild" and I find it interesting. And I can admire the skill in dialogue and cinematography and unique story telling that is in this movie. But....I can't keep my eyes open. I decide to go bed. The next evening, the momentum is gone and I can't bring myself to watch the rest of the movie. I enjoyed it, but I know the dude is going to die at the end and that kind of puts the chill on wanting to watch the rest. I then send the movie back to Netflix. And this is where the rating system breaks down.

One and two stars on the ratings system correspond to "hated it" and "didn't like it." Well, these are inaccurate because I actually liked what I saw of the movie.

Stars three, four, and five correspond to "liked it," "really liked it" and "loved it." Again not accurate. The movie's inability to keep me engaged past my bedtime is an indication that I probably didn't "really like it" or "love it," because if I had, I would have stayed up to finish it. I can say that I "liked" what I saw, but because I didn't see the whole movie, I can't really endorse it with a "like." I mean, what if the ending was total crap? I don't want my whole Netflix recommendation algorithm to be skewed by a movie that actually didn't deserve all three of my stars.

Hence, I need the sixth option "didn't finish it." This is the most accurate way for me to rate "Into the Wild" and other such films. Netflix could then use this rating to from me and others (probably other parents of young children) to generate a list movies "most unlikely to be finished." They could make a whole suggestion category for me titled "movies you might love if you can stay awake." I think this idea is brilliant. Netflix, you're welcome, and I'm looking forward to that big fat check you're going to send me for revolutionizing your ratings system.

The 3 in 1 Post

2008-08-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

Update 1: Kindergarten

Garion has now completed a full week of kindergarten and Moses and I are ready for vacation. That would be grown-up vacation, not family vacation. I think that Garion has been doing well in school, but he's been a total pill when he gets home. The highlight was a 2 hour screaming fit a week ago Saturday morning. I am not exaggerating, it lasted from 7:30 in the morning until 9:30. The highpoint was Garion lying on floor in upstairs hallway repeatedly screaming at the top of his lungs "I'M DYING!!!! IF YOU DON'T BRING ME WATER RIGHT NOW, I WILL DIE!!!!!!" My windows were open at the time and I was fully expecting the police to come knocking on our door. If fact, I was almost wishing that they would because then maybe the little fiend would quit screaming.
In response, Moses and I have decided to adopt a new parenting tactic inspired by the Warden of the United States Penitentiary in Tucson. While touring the penitentiary a couple of years ago, before it opened, the Warden explained to our group that the prison includes a lot of things like an indoor basketball court, weight room, and game room, because the more privileges inmates have, the more corrections officers can take away when they need to. So our little inmate now has the daily privilege of watching a half hour of something like Mr. Rodgers' Neighborhood or Arthur (we stole that idea from a co-worker of mine whose wife teaches kindergarten-thanks Richters!) if he can get through the day without tantrums or other unruly behavior. He gets one warning before he loses his privilege for the day. So far, this has been working well and I'm looking forward to a little more sanity around here. I still love Monday though.

Update 2: Imogene Training, also known as Preparing for My Doom

I've been training all summer for the Imogene Pass Run by gradually increasing my running mileage during the week and going for a longer hike on the weekends. This weekend, my brother offered to let me tag along on a long hike he and his wife were doing. By long, I mean like 20 miles. He said they'd take slow and not push it. I am an optimistic idiot and so I said okay.

Turns out that when he said "take it slow" there were actually two possible interpretations, neither of which occurred to me at the time I asked to go along on this hike: (1) the 8 year age difference between us is enormous and his definition of "slow" equals my definition of "blistering"; or (2) I was welcome to take it slow and if I took too long he'd call the mountain rescue to go look for my body, or the leftover pieces of it, and send it back to our mom and Moses for a proper burial.

We set out Saturday morning about 8:00 and after about 15 or 20 minutes of hiking we were on a nice rolling trail in gorgeous woods. I have fallen on just about every hike I've taken this summer, so as I was going along I was thinking to myself, "okay, got to watch out for these tree roots." Then, I thought "wow it's really pretty here." Then, SMACK! Oh, tree root. I was flat on my face and had scraped up both knees (remember that injury from last summer? yeah, all scraped up again) and my elbow. It was my most spectacular fall of the season. There was blood. So that was about a mile into the hike, with only 19 or so more to go. (I was covered in dirt after my fall--Lisa said I looked more "seasoned" and Robert said "good to get it out of the way early.")

I let my brother go ahead of me and watched the distance the between us grow. The monologue in my head went something like this: "huff, puff, huff, puff. must keep family in sight. have bad trail finding abilities. do want to get stuck on mountain by self. do not want to look too wussy. dang, can't even see Lisa. she is totally fit. wish I could run on trails without falling. can't even think in complete sentences. trail going to get really hard soon. huff, puff, huff, puff."

I persevere. I keep going despite the fact that my legs are ON FIRE and that I'm clipping along at a pace that I rarely achieve on my own. I finally get to the high spot in the trail (Doyle Saddle) where we're stopping for lunch, and I come up to my brother and his wife, who are waiting for me.
My brother says to me: "you're in pretty good shape, I couldn't shake you at all."
Me: "where you trying to?"
Robert: "yeah" (as in duh.)
Me in my head: well SHIT!, if I'd known that I wouldn't have just killed myself the last 10 freaking miles. I contemplate hitting my brother but instead say nothing in favor of pretending that yeah, of course I can keep up, whatever.

We slug along from this high point to the next high point--another three or four miles and I decide the only way I'm going to make it is to just ignore the pain, I just will pretend like this is how my legs always feel, and just keep going. Probably we're high enough at this point that oxygen deprivation is contributing my ability to delude myself into ignoring pain. We got to Humphrey's saddle just as some clouds and thunder started to roll so it it was now imperative to get down off of the mountain and at least into the tree line. My legs are totally shot by this point and I fess up to Robert and Lisa and tell them that I'll be descending very slowly. They take the car keys and that's the last I see of them until I get back to the trail head. I no longer think that the hardest part about Imogene will be the uphill. I think it's the downhill that's going to kill me--good to find that out now I guess. I managed to get down without falling again (although I did have a couple of nasty slides, but not nasty enough to go all the way down). The rain started in my last half mile. Then the hail started--that was extra special. Robert and Lisa said that the bad weather means I got the full Imogene training experience. I guess that means I'm ready. Imogene in two weeks--woohoo! Bring it on! (That's me trying to muster excitement rather than dread).

Update 3: Life in Flagstaff

I love Flagstaff. I actually love it more than I thought I would when we were still in Tucson and contemplating moving back. Probably this is because it is summer and the weather is fantastic and probably I'll be moaning about snow and cold in a couple of months. But right now, I am completely smitten. I love the small town, the mountains, hiking (even when it hurts), living closer to family (even my brother who tried to ditch me), I love the way people up here dress and are all outdoorsy in their different ways, and I love the laid back attitude. I am as happy as a clam. A high-altitude clam with really sore legs.

First Day of Kindergarten

2008-08-15T12:20:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was Garion's first day of kindergarten. We took this photo yesterday morning--a handsome little man if I do say so myself. And not a baby or toddler or even preschooler anymore. Snif. Garion was so excited that he was up, dressed, and had breakfast eaten by 6:45. He did great and seemed to enjoy the day and I managed to not completely fall apart.
Then last night I made the mistake of not placing Garion's backpack downstairs after I emptied it. That meant this morning it was not where he was expecting to find it and the world essentially ended. After a big break down, he said kindergarten was too confusing and he wasn't going anymore. I suspect this is because he did not want to take the bus this morning (which was another disaster that ended with Moses driving him to school). He's supposed to take the bus home this afternoon and I'm supposed to meet him at the bus stop. So yeah, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that that all works out today and trying not to be sick thinking about my little boy taking the bus when he's afraid to. I guess that Garion is learning resiliency, and I guess that's a good thing. But man is it hard on the mom end of things--I so want to jump in and save the day but I can't because I know if I do he'll never learn to do anything and he'll be one of those kids who never learns to cope. I'm hoping day two was better once he got to school and that next week we can start over again and pretend that this morning never happened.

Election '08

2008-08-07T10:10:00.001-07:00

Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Adfunny videosFunnyOrDie.com

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

This post is offered as a public service and should not be construed as an endorsement of any of the three major presidential candidates.

Book-y Things

2008-08-01T13:04:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to report that Garion and I have nearly survived our week together, and things have settled down nicely. We only have one more weekend to get through, but we've got a visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house planned, so I think we'll make it.

You might recall that I am, in theory, participating in the Book a Month challenge. You might also have noticed that I haven't posted on that topic since May. Here's my excuse: it's summer and I want to read what I want to read. Yes, I know, you've heard it before. This is my half-hearted shot at compliance for June and and July. June's theme was "Knowledge." I intended to read In God's Name: An Investigation Into the Murder of Pope John Paul I by David Yallop. This book was recommended to me by my Mom and since it's non-fiction, I kind of thought it fit the June theme nicely. The problem with this book is that it's depressing. It posits, quite convincingly, that Pope John Paul I (the immediate predecessor of Pope John Paul II) was murdered, probably by other higher-ups in the church who didn't like his liberal ideas on birth control, women as clergy, etc., and who were also not happy that JP was wising up to some very unethical money practices in the church. This is depressing because: (1) I think Pope John Paul I was totally my kind of guy, the kind of pope I think the church needs to pry it out of narrow-minded rut; and (2) the leaders of the institution to whom you turn for spiritual guidance are not supposed to be knocking people off just because they disagree with them. Anyway, I didn't finish the book because I was just getting more and more depressed.

July's theme is "Independence." I haven't really chosen a book specifically for July, but right now I'm reading Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. After getting lost on a K2 expedition, Mortenson is nursed back to health by people in a remote village on the India/Pakistan border. He sees their tremendous need and decides to repay their generosity by building a school. That's as far as I've gotten, but I'm enjoying the book immensely and it's topic is much more enjoyable and uplifting than pope-icide.

So what have I been doing while not living up to my Book a Month obligations? I've been wiling away most of the summer reading Diana Gabaldon's The Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, and Voyager. These are completely addicting, wildly entertaining, and reasonably well written. Escapism at its best.

Also, lest you think I've forgotten the Short Stack: this week's theme, courtesy of the Washington Post, is "Five Novels So Cold You'll Forget the Heat." Let me see if I can come up with five:

(1) Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson. Here's the Amazon description which nicely sums up the book, and I'm too lazy to write myself:
Set on an island in the straits north of Puget Sound, in Washington, where everyone is either a fisherman or a berry farmer, the story is nominally about a murder trial. But since it's set in the 1950s, lingering memories of World War II, internment camps and racism helps fuel suspicion of a Japanese-American fisherman, a lifelong resident of the islands. It's a great story, but the primary pleasure of the book is Guterson's renderings of the people and the place.
Also, the book takes place in winter and it's really, really cold.

(2) The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. This book imagines a life after death where after you die, you live in a sort of city of the dead where you stay as long as someone alive still remembers you. The book jumps between this city and Antarctica (which is really, really cold), where we watch the struggles of Laura, who by a weird turn of events becomes the last living human. This is a really good, thought provoking (but not in a way that makes your head hurt) book.

(3) The Mitten by Jan Brett. I have read this book probably a thousand times in the last five years. Because I love it? No. Because I am some body's mom and I cannot get his literature preferences out of my head. This book stars Nicky who goes out to play on a snowy day, loses his mitten (despite a warning from his Babba not to--typical boy), and unlikely shenanigans ensue.

(4) The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. This is a long, epic series of fantasy novels that, along with two other related trilogies, totally absorbed my reading life toward the end of 2005 and early 2006. A few years ago, I wouldn't cop to reading fantasy novels to anyone outside my immediate family. But since I've already confessed to you that I've read this book, you might as well have the whole story. Anyway, this trilogy makes the list because, although the books span several years and seasons, I think the author evokes winter and all its frigid harshness particularly well.

(5) Cryptonmicon by Neal Stephen. Just kidding! I associate this book most with sweltering jungles so it definitely doesn't qualify for the list. I just can't come up with a fifth book right now.

Your turn, I'm ready--hit me with your icy blasts of cold, chilly reads for the summer heat!

I Love Monday

2008-07-28T19:26:00.000-07:00

Moses is gone for a work meeting for a little while (in Hawaii of all places) so Garion and I are on our own. Just the two of us. Mom and son bonding time. We had a very busy weekend that included breakfast at Brandy's; a trip to the swimming hole at Beaver Creek (where Garion put up a good fight about leaving when it started to rain: "but Mom!, there are only 7 seven drops on my window, see we didn't have to leave"); two viewings of the Incredibles (Friday night and Saturday night); laundry; dishes; grocery shopping; seeing WALL-E; a game of Chinese checkers; a long walk around the neighborhood; one prolonged argument about why Garion could not have a new peanut butter an jelly sandwich just because he accidentally tore the top slice of bread while making the sandwich; and smaller "discussions" about how Garion is capable of cleaning his room by himself (b/c he's capable of making the mess by himself), how Garion cannot wear shorts to church, how he cannot have two desserts, and how, no, he cannot sleep in my bed because Dad is gone and now in there is room. To top it all off, we engaged in a practice know in our house as "torture by haircut" where Garion screams and cries as if I were using pliers to slowly remove his fingernails while, in actuality, I use clippers to cut his hair and try to make him look like a human being and not an English sheep dog. It was such an ordeal that I stooped to very-very-bad-mommy tactics and offered dinner at McDonald's and a partial viewing of Superman if he would just hold still and let me finish. (Notice the absurd amount of screen time Garion has had in the last three days, I am such a wuss when I'm on my own). I found myself wondering again and again this weekend how one single little person could embody both the love of my life, the person I would throw myself in front of train for without a split-second's hesitation, and also the person who, if I hear him say, "Mom" one more time will maybe make me stick that kitchen knife in my eye so that I will hopefully be distracted enough not to strangle him. I so want to be that calm, in control mom who loves every second she spends with her kid, but I was so, so glad today for Monday morning and daycare, and the prospect of 8 quiet hours in my house to, of all things, work on prisoner cases.

Breaking News

2008-07-13T19:40:00.000-07:00

Garion lost his first tooth tonight. He delivered the news to us, while getting ready for bed, with Walter Cronkite like gravitas. He said "My tooth is out," in sort of the same tone that that mission control guy used when he said "the Eagle has landed." Anyway it was all very exciting and I'm feeling a little befuddled because I remember how much sleep I had to loose when that tooth came in and now the stupid thing has gone and fallen out. And there's a big adult tooth in its place and my baby isn't a baby anymore. Sniff.

I still have not solved the problem of "what does the tooth-fairy do with all those baby teeth?" I think I'll just hang on to them for awhile until an answer presents itself. Also, I have to hurry up and figure out what the tooth-fairy is paying these days. I used to get a quarter. Seems a little chintzy for 2008, but the kid is only 5 and I don't want him to start putting on airs, what with all the riches he'll have. Maybe fifty cents?

Moses Runs

2008-07-13T18:05:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Moses started a blog to chronicle his training for Imogene. Yes, he's training! I think he was afraid of the 8 hours of evil looks he was bound to get on the way home from Imogene if he didn't train and was still alive at the end of the race. Anyway, Moses has been taking my Garmin with him for his training hikes and is documenting his training with lots of graphs and statistical analysis. It is very scientific, yet charming and entertaining. Just like Moses.

Swimming Lessons

2008-07-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

To the left is a really bad picture of Garion's first day of swimming lessons for this summer. Garion is the barely visible blob just to the left of the ladder. This is Garion's third summer of swimming lessons. Up until now, he has hated every second of them. I didn't even tell him he was starting swimming lessons this summer until about 4:00 yesterday afternoon (the lesson started at 5:00). Surprisingly, this tactic seemed to work. Garion gave me five minutes of the usual "I REALLY don't want to take swimming lessons." I have him a thirty second answer that boiled down to: tough pattooties, you're going and we're not discussing it anymore. He then asked me how many swimming lessons he had to take and I told him when he could show me that he could swim across the pool by himself, without touching the bottom and without a life jacket, he would be done. He seemed to be heartened by the fact that he might not have to take swimming lessons every summer for the rest of his life, and pretty much sucked it up. I was very proud. Then, miracle of all miracles, I think he actually had fun during his lesson. Whew!

We arrived at the pool about 15 minutes early because I have still not adjusted to the fact that Flagstaff is small and you can get all the way to the other side of town in 10 minutes. While we were sitting there, I told Garion that this was the pool where I learned to swim.

"Really?" he asked. And then eying a group of teachers in the corner, "Which teacher did you have?"
Me: "Well, it was a long time ago, so I didn't have any of those teachers."
Garion: "Because none of them were even alive yet?"

I started to say, "no." Then I stopped and looked again at the group of teachers. They all appeared to be maybe between 18 and 20 years old--college aged. I think I was 12 the last summer I took swimming lessons.....about 20 years ago.

Me in the agony of the realization of the passage of time: "Well.....yes, I guess they probably were not alive yet."
Garion, very helpfully: "Or they were babies."

Dear God, Please Save Me from Myself, Thank-you

2008-07-06T18:08:00.000-07:00

For the better part of the last year, I have been contemplating adopting a dog. I have asked everyone I know for advice and we even had a doggie-prospect come visit us for a day. The doggie-prospect didn't like us too terribly much and ate the wooden blinds off of our front door to demonstrate his feelings. He went back to his foster-family. Since the day of the ill-fated visit, I have been unable to commit to the adoption of a canine friend. I would very much like a running/walking companion and I like the idea of having another living being in the house with me during the day. I'd also like Garion to have the experience of caring for living things and the life lessons that go along with that care (although I realize of course that any pet will ultimately be my pet in terms of daily life maintenance and cleaning which is what makes today even more unbelievable--what was I thinking?). To be honest, I could live without the running companion bit and be very happy with a cat. But Moses and Garion are allergic, so cats are out. What I can't decide is whether I would really like to have a dog or if I just like the idea of having a dog.

Anyway, after the doggie-prospect went home, while trying to decide whether I have what it takes to be a dog-owner, I asked Garion if he really wanted a dog. He said yes. I then asked him, if he could have any pet in the world, what would it be? He lit up like a Christmas tree, and with a look of complete rapture said, "a mouse!" Dang. That is not at all what I had in mind. I said, "what about a hamster or a gerbil?" "No." A mouse, and no other creature great or small could it be. Sigh.

So a month later and after lots of big puppy eyes from Garion (maybe I really don't need a dog?), and a few chores later to earn the money for their purchase, this is what came to live with us today:

Ugh. Do you see its little mousy tail hanging there and taunting me with its not-at-all-charming, rat-like hairlessness? They would be so much more tolerable if they could have a nice little furry nub, like a bunny. This mouse also has a twin that's a bit camera shy. A little reading on the internet informed us that mice are social creatures and prefer not to live by themselves. Check. We went the pet store and asked for two male mice. The lady asked us if they were feeder mice or pets. Pets. She then tells us, "they are a little territorial so just keep an eye on them or they'll....basically eat each other." But they don't like to live alone. Lovely. And exactly what am I supposed to do if I notice them eating each other, I wonder? Because I really do not have a contingency plan for mouse-on-mouse cannibalism. I just was not born equipped with that skill-set. "What about female mice?" we asked. "A little better," she said. Hmmm. Not really confidence inspiring but, okay, give us two females.

The original plan was to name the mice Stuart and Ralph after Garion's favorite mice in literature. I have re-christened them Ralphina and Stuartette, but Garion is skeptical, so they might be re-named. Garion is, of course, elated to have his new roommates and I on the other hand am not sure I will be able to sleep tonight. They scurry around with their hairless little miniature rat tails, and climb the walls of their cage, and if they get out I think I will probably have a heart attack and then have to move out, housing market be damned. Maybe I will have to adopt a dog just to have something warm and fuzzy and not-willies-inducing, with a furry tail for crying out loud, to take my mind off the mice. That live in my house. That I am actually consciously feeding. (On the way home from the pet shop, Moses said I could always get a rat terrier--ha.ha.)

A Happy Father's Day

2008-06-16T15:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went out to "The Land," also know as "White Turtle Ranch," also known as Moses's dad's place, for Father's Day. We brought out lunch and fresh peach pie from the farmer's market and had a great afternoon eating and visiting. A little while ago, Moses's dad had picked up some wooden cars that he thought Garion might like. Garion was a of course ecstatic to get presents when it wasn't even his birthday and even more ecstatic at the promise of painting those cars if he brought them back out to The Land. So, Sunday afternoon found grandpa and grandson completely engrossed the project of painting four little wooden cars--they each painted two. This was the kind of afternoon that makes me grateful once again that we got the chance to move here and be closer to our families. I'm so glad that Garion's getting the opportunity to know his grandparents better and even if he doesn't remember painting cars with his grandpa in a few years, I will. And every time I see those cars I will think about their two heads bent over a table of cars and paint in very serious discussion about the merits of polk-a-dots and stripes and whether wheels deserve paint too.

So Exciting

2008-06-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

This morning, as per my usual Monday morning routine, I went into the local office to pick-up my mail. The stack of mail waiting for me was soul-draining-ly enormous and I felt that I needed an iced coffee to give me strength and sustenance for hauling that stack home and then summoning the courage to sift through it. So I trotted over to the Late for the Train coffee shop where I procured a delicious iced caramel latte. It came in this cup:

It says, "This cup is made from corn, environmentally sustainable, and 100% compostable." Yes! I have a compost bin! I will put this cup in there and in a couple of months it will be gone. I think that makes the whole process of buying a ridiculous--but oh so wonderfully tasty and sweet and creamy--coffee drink from a shop at least 10% less bad than it was before.