Back in the Bay Area

Yesterday I had lunch at a Monogolian BBQ place with a Chinese buffet sitting next to a bunch of guys speaking Hindi while American oldies played on the radio and a Spanish talk show was showing on the TV. Yep, I'm back in the Bay Area. :) It's actually one of the things I miss living in the great Northwest... we may have fun quirkiness, but we just don't have quite the same mishmash of people, races, cultures and languages jammed together in close quarters. The nearest grocery store to my parents' house here is a Chinese supermarket (in a shopping center where more of the signs are in Mandarin than in English). Yesterday's Mongolian BBQ place was in a strip mall full of stores advertising Indian and Pakistani fashions and halal groceries. As I made dinner last night I could hear some neighbors blasting mariachi music on the radio while they worked in the yard. There's something fascinating to me about so many different people from such different places and backgrounds living so closely together.

So much has changed since I grew up here and yet so much is the same. I remember my mom driving with us kids through Thousand Oaks on one of our vacations once and getting so sentimental while pointing out, "There is the house I grew up in, complete with the ivy just how it used to be" and "That's where so and so lived." I didn't really get it at the time. But I'm starting to get that way when I come back here and visit. Most of my friends have grown up and moved away, just like I have, but there are so many memories... driving past places I went on dates, taking my kids to the park that I played at growing up, talking to our long-time neighbors and realizing their "little" kids have all grown up and graduated from high school. (I still remember the gargantuan first birthday party they had for their daughter, complete with a whole pig roasted in their backyard.)

Now I'm starting to sound old.... :) I guess it won't help my case if I add, "I remember going to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk on Monday and Tuesday "1907 nights" when it was only 25 cents for a ticket. Can you believe that it is $1 per ticket now? That's highway robbery!" It reminds me of my grandpa and his storied about trying to decide whether to use his nickel for a bus ride or a hamburger.

Well enough ramblings... I'm excited to visit with all of my siblings as they filter in through the course of the week-- and for the kids to play with their cousins! Beautiful weather, fun activities planned... Camryn whining from going to bed too late.... I guess it's still real life, even on vacation. :)  

One Year Ago ...Alaska: Endicott Arm Fjord

I found this post from our Alaska trip last June that I forgot to post. So here is where Dave and I were one year ago: cruising Alaska, seeing Endicott Arm Fjord while I was pregnant with Adelyn. Fun memories!

Two years Ago: Pictures from Grampy's 90th Birthday

Here's another blog post that never got posted... this one is from two years ago at my Grampa's 90th birthday party (June 20th 2008). Jackson was the age that Addy is now. Wow, time flies!

Jared's Blast to the Past

Jared came up to me yesterday and asked if he could use the phone. I was a little bit suspicious and asked him what he wanted to use it for. He said, "Mom, do you know what a Game Boy is?"
"Um, yes." [How does he know about Game Boys?]
"It's kind of like a DS but it doesn't have two screens on top of each other."
"Oh, really."
"There's this number I want to call and I can earn my own Game Boy."

So it turns out that he is really excited because he has been reading some old "3-2-1 Contact" magazines that we got from grandma. [Do any of you remember that show-- "Contact, it's the answer, it's the moment, when everything happens, contact!"] He points to the back page of the magazine where there is an advertisement: "Earn Great Prizes and Cash! It takes only one FREE phone call." Jared says, "Look mom. It says you can call anytime. I want to call so I can earn a Game Boy."

Yes, my 8-year-old wants to call this number to sell stuff so he can earn a Game Boy. Yes, one of those Game Boys... the old black and white teensy screen things from my childhood. I try to suppress my urge to laugh and ask him to hand me the magazine. I look for the publishing date and say, "Jared, this magazine was printed in 1991. Do you know how many years ago that was?" He mentally calculates for a moment and then says, "Almost twenty.... But it says I can call anytime." At this point I lost it and laughed out loud.

I don't know if I should be proud of myself or ashamed that his hand-held video game deprivation is so bad that the prospect of a black and white Game Boy is exciting....  I don't know which is funnier: wanting the game boy or wanting to call the company from the 20-year-old magazine ad.

Check out the sweet AM/FM Cassette with Black and White TV and the hi-tech Emerson Video Cassette Recorder. Pretty sweet prizes... I'd be tempted too.

Last Day and Leopards

Today was the last day of school. I celebrated by trying to clean up the boatloads of papers and school supplies that the kids brought home and dumped on the floor yesterday. Camryn and Jared celebrated by having a massive 6-hour-long argument-and-teasing-fest, interrupted only by the 45 minutes that Camryn was in her dance class. The end of school simultaneously filled me with relief and dismay: no more mornings of trying to cram cereal down kids while combing crazy bed-heads in a sleepy haze, but if they fight like this the rest of the summer I may have to resort to covering their mouths with duct tape. Let's hope that today was just a transition day and that they will start settling into a summer routine soon!

In honor of the last day of school, I wanted to share a page from Jared's animal report on Leopards. We are not super-talented visual artists in our house, but I thought the report was really cute and the page entitled "About the Author" was classic.

Here is a quote from the page "About the Author":

Jared, age 8, grew up in [town we live in now-- I love how it is past tense.]. His birthday is [date]... 9:00 p.m. One book that he wrote that he remembers is "Two Cool Kids" based on the story by Spencer Adams. In his family, he has two sisters age 6 and 4 months. He also has a baby brother, age 2/3. His favorite pet he ever had was a female hamster. He's also had a praying mantis and a ladybug. And maybe trying to catch a bee wasn't such a good idea. [Wow, he almost makes it sound like his parents are pet-lovers!] His favorite school subject is Math. He just loves stacked addition. During his free time, he likes to make comic books. He likes making "Super Diaper Man." He also likes r.c. He wants to be an engineer when he grows up. he thinks his speciality is Humor. Too bad he couldn't add any in this book...

He finishes at the end of the report by saying, "Well, I guess it's time to wrap up. So, my three favorite facts were..." and then adds "Be sure to read my other books!" [He's learning self-promotion already....]

Kindred Spirits

"A bosom friend-- an intimate friend, you know-- a really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my inmost soul. I've dreamed of meeting her all my life." -Anne of Green Gables

Friendship means different things to us at different times in our lives. From the six or seven "best friends" of a five-year-old to the "co-parenting" buddies of a young mother, friendships grow with us and adapt to where we are in life. When I was a teenager, I wanted to find that one true "best friend"-- someone who really knew, understood and appreciated me. This person would have all of the same interests and hobbies that I did. They would like the same music, the same movies and the same activities. They would share all of the same opinions on important issues. While I had many good and important friendships, I never found the "one" person who fit all of these things, so my teenager-ly brain figured that it must be because all of those qualities would come together in my true best friend and "one and only," my future spouse.

I created the rosy picture in my mind: he would love classical music and be a music major, just like I was. We would while away the evenings playing chamber music together (sigh! so romantic!). He would love classic literature and old movies and we would discuss books together. He wouldn't really care about sports (I certainly didn't) and we would ballroom dance together on all of our dates. We would share a refined life of art and culture and raise little musicians, just like us.

I still have yet to find that friend who is just like me in every respect. And (please control your shock) even my husband didn't turn out to be exactly like me --and (more shocking still) I married him anyway. Until they legalize human cloning my friends will probably always have just as many differences from me as similarities--thank goodness. The goal to find people just like me was overtaken by the desire to find people who complement me-- and that category is much, much more broad than I had originally supposed. While most of my good friends have several interests that overlap with mine, friendship has become more about appreciating each other than mirroring each other.

Rather than the literary music major I envisioned in my teenage fantasies, I married a sports-crazy chemical engineer. But our love and friendship changed me in ways that would never have occurred to my romantic, book-loving teenage self. Because of my husband I learned how to follow (and enjoy) a football game, I know random minutiae about designing and building semiconductors, I learned to downhill ski (and conquered a black diamond), and I've tried (and loved) sea kayaking, scuba diving, snorkeling and Beatles Rock Band. Because of me, my sports-maniac engineer husband has learned to enjoy opera, has a mean ear for choral and piano music, can rock a couple of cha-cha moves and appreciate a truly fine blue cheese. He still hates old movies. And whipped cream. But I can live with that.

Pictures for "Perspective" or The Big Spill

The big spill.... OK, fine. It's not such a big deal compared to that spill. But this came on the same day that Jared was doing an "experiment" in the kitchen sink involving yeast. He had Camryn put the yeast away for him and she didn't close the ziploc bag all the way, so all of the contents of the lower half of our freezer had a lovely coating of yeast sprinkles. They had a lovely argument over who was responsible for the mess, Jared for getting out the yeast or Camryn for putting it away wrong.

Here is our most-of-a-gallon milk mess.

This was a full unopened gallon of milk....

One bright spot. I sent Camryn to her bed since she was only hindering the clean up and she apparently took me bursting into laughter upon the milk carton breaking to mean that this wasn't such a big deal. After drenching two bath towels, I went to rinse them out in the bathtub. When I came back, Jared was doing his best to clean up the remaining mess with a dish towel. He gave me a hug and said, "It's not fair that you always have to clean up the messes while we play, mom."

As I write this, the kids are all finally asleep. Last of all, Addy in a sweaty but happy post-nursing nap on my lap.