This and That

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

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

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

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.