happy, happy birthday, baby

My Livie was out for a visit just before her birthday during the end of September and the beginning of October. She is now the age of the 10th prime number..... I had to say that cause Al Kelley mentioned prime numbers three times during his father of the bride speech on October 4 and I thought that it was very cute. It was great to have Livs around for several days this time. Incredible to reflect how thirty-one years ago my life was transformed by her arrival. I remember holding her in a rocking chair once, after she was about a month old, and imagining how if a bear were to suddenly come (into the living room, I guess) and threaten her, I would jump up and face that bear. Weird image to suddenly get while peacefully rocking a sleeping infant....? So here is one of the shots of little Liv, who my obstetrician said ought to be a Gerber baby or something, she was so adorable. Can't you just see her personality already?

Aloha All Ovah da Place

A magical week in Paradise. That's pretty much what it was like at the end of August when me, momma Sylvia and sister Lucy escaped to Maui to hang with Angie and her fella and get to know her new family. That would be her Insta-Family, three lively blond tykes Nini, 3, Paytn, 5 and Shea, 7 years old and all little fishes at heart. We all three braved the waters to go snorkeling and it was wild out there. Lucie saw her turtle and Sylvia was right in there with us every step of the way. We saw bunches of different fish, those amazing boisterous colored fish in the reef. We saw the dancin hula girls and boys. We went to Hana and stayed at a very nice place for a day with the whole passel of us. While we were in Kihei we stayed at the uber-fancy Grand Wailea, which I couldn't even imagine. I had this quaint thought that I would hate the excess, the manufactured luxury of staying in the king of Maui's resort hotels but it was pretty asem. Meaning awesome.

chi town adventure

snatching another week away from summer work projects to connect with my beloveds...here with liv and josh for some amazing days in chicago without the oppressive heat and humidity that you might expect here in july. chicago is a city to make a country gal like me consider going urban for all these and more reasons;

• there is so much to see and do,
• it is surprisingly clean and garbage-free,
  
• it has interesting history and architecture,
  
• it is easy to get around by foot or public transport,
• much of the town feels very safe,
• the ethnic neighborhoods are very much intact,
• there is much in the way of the arts and culture going on, much of it cutting edge,
• great restaurants and food traditions,
  
• plus, obama lives here!
  

but the sheer numbers of people still stagger me, and we got a chance to experience that a few times: once at a fireworks display in the park with our 100,000 closest neighbors, and then at a white sox ball game on the 4th with a nearly full stadium, and then at ravinia, where we set up for picnic under the shade while listening to prairie home companion along with seas of other fans of garrison keillor. josh and mom, diane, livie and i also got to talk to him after the show. he was so gracious to wait afterward while lines of people wanted to chat with him, take a photo or get his autograph. while i waited in line i had plenty of time to think of what i might say and to count back how many years i have been following his program--over 30, it turns out. so by the time my turn came around, i was so excited that i just blabbed on and on so there was hardly any space for garrison to say anything back to me. diane and josh acted as paparazzi for us with their video cameras, and livie got displayed as having been approximately in utero when i began to be a fan. anyway, it was a signal day, and the show, as usual, was great.

north to alaska

early june in alaska...hangin' with mom, vern, deb and the kids, lots of hours of light. little archie made his first sale as part of Archie's Artic Chickens. he is normally so wound up, but if he is holding a chicken, he becomes all soft and tender. evie has a chicken-killer reputation, not out of intention, but excess enthusiasm and affection. vern is still making steady progress in his physical therapy and we saw him stand up out of his wheelchair and step up a stair of a couple inches height. he is my hero. this visit i felt that he was much more his old self for the first time since his nightmare began. he was full of stories and jokes and ideas for the future--crackpot ones and good ones both. i got used to going to sleep when it was still pink in the sky and staying asleep in the light. mom's garden was in the initial stages, it being early in the season, but in the week i was there, the lobelia grew a few inches! Her little house and big yard is an oasis of order, neatness, cleanliness and beauty and we both slept in as late as we could and worked on relaxing....on learning that wonderful thing the italians call the ' bel far'niente' which translates as the 'beauty of doing nothing,' not necessarily that easy to do for some of us driven Americanos.

The Kinfolk Descend

Mom, Sylvia, cousin & mother-in-law, Betty and I dropped on brother Rhys and his wife, Christy, and kids, Rhys (aka Bub) and Dom this week. Taking advantage of the one day off brother Rhys had to recover from surgery, the grand dammes and I (grand damme-in-training) made our way over to the Sierra foothills, which were resplendent in greens and flowery carpets this time of year, to Plymouth for a couple of days. It was amazing to see the boys...Dom with a red goatee and braces, but some of these things are temporary...Rhys the younger safely back from Iraq and now in his own apartment with good, if slobby, friends. While we were there, we had lots of homey pleasures. Note: in the photo where Rhys and Christy are trying out their "shakas," the Hawaiian hand sign for greeting and all good things, my goofy brother is purposely trying to get his hair to look as weird as possible. Good job! We assisted in a junk removal/driveway makeover project one day. Betty got worn out watching us from her post in the lawn chair.

Beer Garden Party

The usual all-family mix went to a little German pub, the Tyrolean Inn, for a last get-together before Sylvia flies home to Anchorage and Angie swims back to Maui. We had kartoflpuffer, wild boar, jagerschnitzel, apfel strudel and some "interesting" beverages, like sprite mixed with ale. I liked it and Sylvia and Stan gagged. This little restaurant will be right around the corner when Debbie and Gary and Parker relocate to Ben Lomond in June, so it was a good chance to check it out. Stan managed to join us, but Gary was too wiped out from a week of what amounts to 2 jobs....his regular one and then working on the new house.

Recumbent Gals

This week my mom, Sylvia, and daughter Angie came to visit and I had the week off. At one point we took a test ride of some bikes at the Easy Racer showroom in Watsonville. We rode around the parking lot on these trikes and some recumbents and generally had a bunch of fun goofing off. We also really liked these things for transport, though. It is so comfortable on the "tadpole" trikes that Angie and Sylvia are on here. You would really have to be careful about the sunscreen riding these, though, cause it is just like laying out in the sun in terms of exposure to UV. You can see I am having a little difficulty getting started on the bicycle model I am testing. The usual tricks of riding a bike don't apply as well to these cause your leg action doesn't go up and down, but in and out.

It's Your Birthday

On Tuesday Angie turned 27 years old...three times three times three she has been a delight in my life, and in the lives of many others. From the very beginning she was determined to do things in her own inimitable way. I think I was giving her little books on manners up until she was about 10! But in some bumbling way, I helped raise this girl to be a responsible, vivacious, intelligent, accomplished, compassionate woman, who just happens to be stunning. I am more proud of my two daughters than I am of anything else I have managed to achieve in my life, which is not inconsequential. Buon compleanno, tesora! Here she is in Maui, where she is happily ensconced for the present.

A Visit From Livie

Last weekend was a special treat, cause I spent it with daughter Olivia, who flew in from Chicago for a special friend's baby shower. That would be Lisa, the barefoot and pregnant one in the middle of the group. We had a little technology session, getting to be a standard feature of any family visit wherein a member of the younger generation gives some important usage tips to a member of the older generation. I do this with my mom when I visit her, and my girls do it with me when we get some time together. Livie and Laura had a nesting theme for the shower. And there had to be cupcakes, one of Livie's new passions. I instantly booked a visit to Chicago this summer after she left. I am becoming one of those caricatures--mothers who just can't get enough time with the kids. How did that happen? Life is just full of these little ironic twists. You just gotta laugh.

A Cat Can Teach Itself New Tricks

Baker used to be such a frivolous cat. She specialized in chasing dust motes, imaginary prey or gnats. That's OK, cause we have a very serious cat, too, Blue. She is in charge of mice, moles, also birds, sadly, and on occasion a squirrel or a snake. She offers most of these up to us, her feeders, although she can't really resist munching most of the mice beforehand. So when Baker waltzed into the room last week with a mouse in her mouth, you might imagine my surprise. She did let it go and fail to recatch it, though. Only natural for a beginner. I was so impressed! This week I found more evidence of Baker's new skills. It was another mouse, completely unmunched, with its little eyes open and every body part in good order. I know it must have been Baker, because Blue would at least have eaten the yummy head. So, what do you know? How funny the little thing looked, just like the toy catnip mice that are scattered about the floor.