It's Nice To Hear

It's nice to hear your almost 16 y/o daughter say she'd rather stay home than go out because home is so comfortable.

It's nice to hear your youngest son crack you up daily with witty, insightful jokes, making you laugh like your best friends would.

It's nice to hear your children decline an offer for dessert by saying, "no thank you, I've already eaten something with sugar in it today.  I think I've had enough" without any prompting from yourself.  (Maybe they will make good choices without you one day - whew).

It's nice to hear your 20 y/o son say "love you mom" and give you a hug before he leaves for the day.

It's nice to hear your children have an informed discussion of the merits and downsides to a movie over the dinner table.

It's nice to hear your daughter speak enthusiastically about how she approaches her sport and what she is getting out of it.

These are some of the things I heard in the last few days . . . it's nice to hear, because as we all know with families, as with life, we don't always hear things that put a smile on our face . . . but these things that we hear, these are the things that fill us up. 

Colfax had a strong team showing as Hannah West led the way, taking sixth in 2:44.56.

The season is upon us.  Hannah is in full snow board slalom form.  (Headline taken from the Auburn Journal January 13th, 2009).

She's also had her first close call, but narrowly escaped with a sprain.  Whew!  (This happened after the race while attempting a 180 off a box . . . what did I tell you about that!)

My friend Molly sent me this photo a few months back . . . she knows how much I like the colors and style of Edward Hopper's paintings . . . she also knows how much I like Legos (actually, I'm not sure she does).  But she does know how much her son Aidan likes Legos.  Did you happen to see the episode of That 70's Show where Red and Kitty go to Phillies for dinner?

A Complex Carbohydrate

Is corn a vegetable or grain? I wondered this tonight while whisking handfuls of olive-oil-popped popcorn into my mouth. After moving from my position standing in front of the kitchen counter to a seat in front of the computer, I decided to put down the popcorn and do some research for an answer . . . and jeez, what I found is that no one seems to agree on one. In fact, the research only validated me for even pondering this topic, rather than feeling like the only dolt in the world who would want to know. The closest I came to believing one explanation (despite the very many to choose from, such as: "It's a grain. End of story"), is that it is a vegetable, a grain, and a fruit. (And as well, the corn plant sprouts from a seed, which happens to be the dried kernels we eat, so I guess it is a seed too. And it is classified in the grass family. So . . . I guess it's grass. ???!). Maaan. . . talk about your complex carbohydrates . . . (badabum [drum noise]).

If you are dolt enough to want an explanation, here is the link for the vege, grain, fruit trifecta theory: http://www.extension.org/faq/17275. They're all just theories anyway. . . corn is the religion in the food pyramid.

Dinner Therapy

• Baby scallops seared in garlic, lime, and a dash of dill and steaming clams in the shell soaked in garlic butter served over capellini pasta.
  
• A blend of baby red and green butter lettuces and baby spinach tossed with fresh tomatoes lightly dressed with extra virgin olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar, fresh cracked pepper and course sea salt. Lay Parmesan shavings on top.
  
• Hearty slices of whole grain millet bread spread with fresh cream butter.
  
• Begin with a warm creamy tomato bisque.
  
• A nice glass of Cabernet sauvignon.
  
• Follow with a healthy piece of dark chocolate truffle and a cup of mint tea.
  

Dinner at home with the family tonight. . . all thanks to Trader Joe's. The ordinary Monday night family dinner that helps one face the week ahead - deliciously.

Hannah's At It Again

Buy this girl a camera and she wastes all her time.

Poll Workers (Note, I hear: Pole Workers)

It's finally Election Day.  An exciting day for so many reasons . . . and an amusing one.  Listening to the radio on my commute to Oakland, NPR heavily covered voter activity.  There were many interviews with "poll workers", which I stereotyped by their somewhat nasely, soft-spokeness as nerd-types, and now I envisioned them "working the pole."  Many discussed how long they have been poll (pole) workers.  One man said he brought home an application to his stay-at-home-wife encouraging her to become a poll (pole) worker.  "Honey," he urged, "you would get a lot of satisfaction from being a poll (pole) worker."  I chuckled to myself in my twisted little brain.  A news reporter said he was admonished by The Head Poll (pole) Worker not to take photographs. Hee-hee.

Ok, time to be mature now. . . the moment has come . . . time to go vote.  And check out my local poll (pole) workers.

Sleepless In Salt Lake City

It is almost 4 am and I have not slept a wink (well, maybe an hour which can be counted as a wink). I have been in SLC for five days and my sleeplessness is progressively getting worse . . . I believe I am going to die.

I recently changed companies (same job, new and improved company) and realized I don't neccessarily like change. I think I need to warm up to things, but this warming period is taking an exhausting toll. I am going back home in two days, and hopefully, I can rest easily there, with my cats on the end of my bed (or sometimes tucked up around me) and my kids asleep in the other room. Although, it's not just being away from home that is causing my insomnia, because sometimes we all need to get away from home. There is just a lot going on . . . and it's an election year.

Wish I could say "good night," but I'm afraid I'm not feeling it.

Duathalon

This Sunday I will be participating in a local duathalon event. Not to be confused with a biatholon (pictured). I will NOT be carrying a rifle and shooting at targets along the course. I will, however, be running and mountain biking through the beautiful American River Canyon. With a few good rains, the trail conditions are perfect. The ground has nice give to it and the gritty dust been dampened down (not muddy at all) allowing for more control on the bike by diminishing the slide effect.

It is important to note that I will be participating (not racing) in an event (not a race). Although, I anticipate the enthusiasm will kick in and "race pace" will inevitably take over. This makes me nervous about maintaining good energy levels -- any suggestions sports fans?

Palin's Joe Six Pack - Who Is He?

I know where Main St. is, but who is "Joe Six Pack"?

Is he an alcoholic?

Or an unnaturally sculpted male?
(I understand that "Joe Six Pack" is supposed to be a euphemism for the average American male.  I'd be offended if I were an average American male).

Ahhh, too much to think about. My new career goals. . .

My Cup Runneth Over

Actually, my plate has been very full (I wonder how many ingestion analogies can be applied to just being really, really busy, or as in the King James reference in the title, "more than enough" to do? No time to figure that now). I have been here and there, and Salt Lake City, Utah for a job interview. Although I have a good job, an opportunity has arisen for another and has left me analysing, debating, and researching for which position will suit me best.

Until the negotiating is final, I will try and enjoy being taken to mulitple dinners by a potential and current employer. . .

Rock Around The Clock

Tonight Cole was playing with the innards of a music box that Donna had bought for me on her trip to Europe years ago ('my friend went to Europe and all I got was this lousy innards to a music box,' I think that's what the t-shirts says). This musical device looks like a miniature piece of what is inside a player piano; it plays one song and you crank it by hand, or with your fingers really. Cole asked me how fast should he be turning the tiny crank to get the tempo right. So we opened up You Tube to play the song "Rock Around The Clock" by Bill Haley and The Comets. I knew Cole had heard the song when he was very young because I had it on a CD we used to listen to often, but he hadn't heard it recently enough. None of us have . . . anyway, here's to you! Enjoy.




Soccer Season Is Upon Us

Thanks to my friend Steve Levine (husband to my awesome mt. bike partner and friend Marianne), I was able to capture a few photos of the first game of the AYSC soccer season 2009, Auburn, California, USA. Woohoo!I love soccer season -- standing on the sidelines in the (soon to be) Fall weather with a cup of coffee, the sky is usually the crispest blue, the leaves are just beginning to change to gold, brown, and red as a slight breeze loosens them from their tenuous stems on trees that line the field, and the excitement in the air generated from the players buzzez about while parents chat convivially and occasionally stop to cheer on a player.

We have a great team of players this year, a great coach, and (a fact I am happy about) a great group of parents to mingle with. That's always and added benefit.But what I am most happy about is times like yesterday, when driving home with Cole he said "I think that was the best game I've played so far." And he had that mixture of satisfaction and excitement you get when know you hit your mark -- you pushed your body, tested your talents, focused your mind, put them all together and achieved success. It is a fantastic feeling and a hard earned privilege of an experience that comes with participating in sports.

I look forward to the unfolding soccer season . . . I apologize, but I must quote "the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat (read, personal defeat)." This sports idiom has not persisted for years without reason.

The Seventh Sense

Humor.  

Rock N' Roll: The Devil's Music

This photo is of my daughter and one member of the musical duo 3OH!3. If you haven't heard of them, that probably means you're my age, or close by. I only heard them because one evening while my daughter had itunes playing, foul lyrics were hip-hopping out of the Mac. (I read that their music is a sort of satire of rap music, but sheesh, satire can be so heavily veiled sometimes).  This is how the scene went:

What!? Hannah, please turn this music off.

Huff. I like the beat -- that's what I listen to, not the words (or something very similar, I've heard it several times).

You hear the words subliminally. You're hearing the words whether you think so or not (is what I usually say).

So how did I end up asking this character from this band who described their music in a recent "Rolling Stone" article as 'Celine Dion on ice - not the skating ice, the meth ice' if he would pose for a picture with my daughter back stage at his show?

Well, it wasn't as hard as you think.  My good friend, Tina, (part of the Marianne and Tina mountain biking fame) brought Hannah and I as guests of her daughter to the Warped Tour. Tina's daughter works for Capitol Records and was at the music festival representing an artist signed by Capitol, a young woman who sings a song about kissing a girl and liking it. Tina's daughter got us backstage everywhere. We ate lunch with the bands, we went on Capitol Record's tour bus, we stood in line to use the restroom which doubled as the female artists showers. . . etc. But my daughter's best moments, she told me, were getting to be on stage with at least four or five of her favorite bands while they played to a teenage crowd. Days later it made me think how differently my daughter is growing up than I did -- in significantly more ways than just back stage passes to the Warped Tour -- and I wondered how differently this will influence her choices and her life than mine. Growing up in a different generation, raised by a parent with different beliefs than my parents had, and being shown a different outlook on life.

And even while I ponder, I need to go monitor what she is listening to. I can't believe what kids call music these days. Alas, I guess some things will never be different.(One of the musical influences of the members of 3OH!3 is the Beastie Boys. I hope these boys change their "party" image like the Beastie Boys eventually did, because in actuality they are two summe cum laude with a lot of humorous energy on stage. And they even seemed like nice young men back stage.  But their lyrics, ughh.)

Foreign Policy, It's What's For Dinner

Are you looking for something new for dinner that is tasty and stirs up conversation in one serving?  I heard of this cookbook at evilcuisines.com, "Cuisines of The Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States:  A Dinner Party," and it has whetted my appetite.

Hannah's Photos

I know some of you feel it is a cop-out of a post when I only publish photos that my daughter has taken. You are probably correct, I am not putting any writing effort (or thought) into the post; I did not pick up the camera and take the photos myself (mostly because Hannah is bogarting our old, cheap camera. BTW, the etymology of the word "bogart" is '1969 "to keep a joint in your mouth" dangling from the lip like Humphrey Bogart's cigarette in the old movies, instead of passing it on. First attested in "easy Rider."' Etymology.com); and I am not sharing any useful information I overheard or drawing any conclusions to help us all understand the world around us a little better.

However, I do love the photos my daughter takes and they inspire me in untold ways. So here are three shots that she took at my Aunts' house in Ventura -- and tweaked a little with our stock photo editing program on the Mac. Enjoy!

(I call these the "Muppet Flowers.")

Look Before You Blend

Have you ever been so groggy, because you were supposed to wake up at 6:00 am for a 6:30 am bike ride but you turned your alarm off in your sleep (partly due to the fact that you were so excited about an early morning bike ride that you kept waking up through out the night) and your friend who showed up at 6:30 am had to finally at 6:40 am come in your room and wake you up, that you stumble in to the kitchen to quickly make the protein shake that you had set all the ingredients out the night before but can't find the plastic insert to the top of your blender and you're in a hurry (because you're supposed to ride down and meet up with two others from your group and be at the confluence by 7:00 am) so you decide to just cover your hand over the gape in the lid of the blender and once you turn it on it is really making an obnoxious grinding noise (and you think, wow, that ice in the shake is tough and you wonder if you made the right decision to not get the new blender at Costco yesterday because you decided your old blender/food processor, which your mom gave you and is from the 70's, is still working and you don't want to needlessly consume) and so once the shake is blended you pour it into two cups, one for you and your friend, and you shortly realize that you are drinking shards of blended plastic and your friend accuses you of trying to kill him (Namanny) and you realize that inside the blender is where the missing plastic part to the lid was, why didn't you think to look there, but you can't worry about that or even nutrition at this point because your other two friends are relying on you to be at the confluence on time so you rush off on your bike spitting plastic out of your mouth thinking that now you really like your old 70's Moulinex blender/food processor even though it is the ugliest piece of equipment in your kitchen and the plastic is yellowing but you highly doubt you can find a replacement piece and may actually have to go to Costco and spend the money to buy the new one?  

Have you ever been that groggy?

Props to Butterflies

Shadowing after Cole while he long-boarded through the neighborhood streets of Ventura, CA I ran across a deceased butterfly laying fully intact on the sidewalk. It was lovely in its death and I decided to take it back because I thought Hannah might like to see it. It really was lovely. I set it on a porch bench by the front door and forgot about it until the next day when we were departing for our long drive home.

"Hannah," I said, "look at this butterfly I found." She paused to look it over and then took it from my hands. Without seeming hesitation she walked over to my Aunt Gerry's rose garden, placed the carcass on top of a rose, and began snapping photos as she contorted to get different angles.

What she produced are some almost surreal photos of a dead butterfly (is 'almost surreal' a description [almost a hallucinatory dream-like state]?). I say . . .