Mother's Day Weekend

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

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

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

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.....

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

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

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.