Thursday, July 31, 2008

Did you get your tickets to the Gun Show? (flex)

Because I don't feel like writing about the mile-square cemetery where I practiced driving in loops around stone angels and funeral procession gridlock made from blingin' cadillacs polished to somber shades of eggplant, saffron, and tamarind, several of which had matching "Compton's Finest" logos spelled in gold on their rear windows, and imagined that whomever they were grieving was probably too young to die;

and Because all that happened today of note was that Edie and I rode the Metro bus which is a wholly different system from Portland's Tri-Met which threw me into the role I've been trying to avoid, which is the new-to-towner who doesn't know how much to pay or where to pay it or what the transfer's good for or where to catch the number 3, forcing me to Talk To Strangers, which is one of the baby's and my favorite things to do but which has recently become a bone of contention among the Representatives of the House but even more recently has been resolved with a promise to be cautious and an assurance that you can take the girl out of Friendly Neighborhoods but you can't take the Friendly Neighborhoods out of the girl, so why fight it?
Um...where was I? Oh yes, because of all that, and additionally because today one of the riders on the bus, watching Edie play with A Stranger, said, "You know why babies love Peek-a-Boo so much? Because that's the nature of everything. It's here and then it's gone!" and then after watching more Strangers watch her stare back at them and bounce and flip upside down and make a monstrous face followed by an adorable smile followed by bellowing at the top of baby lungs, this Particular Stranger got up to leave and said "Thank you, I believe she just made everybody here's day a little better," and without an ounce of Motherpride I can say that it is true. She does make people's days better, everywhere she goes! Super Baby. Another Stranger said it almost made him want to have kids and then I laughed a Terrible Laugh and congratulated Edie, "Our work here is done, Muahahahaha!"

Anyways, because I don't feel like writing about any of that, I present you with a random story which has for no apparent reason been nagging at me lately. I've been thinking about Trevor the Tiny Farm Boy.

We had just gotten all the children settled down for Circle Time, after bringing them in from the playground, removing stuck sleeves from twisted arms, replacing accidented pants with fresh pairs, taking the potty goers to the potty, and changing the diaper wearers' diapers.
"Here we are together
together, together.
Here....we are together
together a- "
"Trevor!" My co-teacher pointed at the window, where the smallest boy in the class was drifting past in his coat, in the gathering darkness, with his tree branch rifle shouldered and ready.
"Oh my God, we left Trevor outside!" It had been nearly a half hour.
I kept the circle going as Stacy ran outside to get Trevor.
When Trevor came to circle, bringing the chill of an autumn afternoon with him, I asked him what he'd been doing out there, knowing the answer before he proudly replied.

"Nootin' Caiyotes."

Trevor was the only child of a Farmer and a Farmer's Wife. They were archetypal in their Farmerliness. Trevor's dad was about 12 feet tall, wore muddy boots and red flannel shirts with suspenders, and had a hearty, booming voice which sometimes caught in his thick brown mustache. He was the embodiment of rugged country masculinity, and it was obvious that he was Trevor's hero in every way, though Trevor resembled his mother much more closely. She was short and stout, with a high melodic voice and a quick, easy laugh. She always wore solid colored dresses with brown boots, and looked like she'd be right at home canning fruit and baking pies, most days. Trevor loved to follow his dad around the farm, checking on the animals, fixing the heavy equipment, stomping in the mud with bravado. He and his dad even took their guns to the edge of the property to see if they could spot any threats to the livestock. Coyotes. Trevor's favorite thing to do was shoot at the Coyotes, and this carried over into his imaginative play at school. It was getting to be quite the issue with the other kids, though, because in the absence of real coyotes on the fenced-in field of gravel that we considered a playground, there was only one reliable moving target. The other kids. I don't remember how many times the other children came crying, "Teacher, Trevor keeps shooting me with his gun."

The preschool had an anti-weapon policy, of course. As teachers we were supposed to uphold a zero-tolerance policy regarding guns and other violent weapons, and we tried. We encouraged Trevor to build towers with blocks but they usually became guns which shot down other towers. We gave him playdough which became guns. Everything became a gun in the hands of this kid, unless it was a coyote. Nootin' Caiyotes was the only game Trevor wanted to play. He was bringing to school a big part of his life as a farmer. I understood that this family had a livelihood to protect, and that meant "Nootin' Caiyotes" every evening at dusk. (My sister and brother-in-law have taken a more gentle stance on the predatory deer that plague their fruit-trees, by hanging bars of Irish Springs from each tree, presumably because the deer prefer to stay dirty.) It was confusing to Trevor, who at the age of 3 had already learned to shoot a gun, to be in school and have everybody tell him that guns were bad and wrong. I felt for him, but I also felt for the other children, and most of all, the coyotes. It bothered me when he puffed out his little chest and boasted that he and his dad had shot 3 coyotes the day before. I didn't want to condemn his actions, since they were, to him and his family, a necessary part of life, but I did want him to consider another perspective.

So I made a trip to the Library (Public Libraries always save the day). I picked out a few books about wild animals, specifically coyotes, and brought them to the classroom. After lunch, as we were getting ready for Naptime, the kids were allowed to lay on their cots and read a book to help them settle down. Usually we let them pick out their own books but sometimes we'd pick for them. That's how Trevor found a picture book about coyotes on his cot.

A little boy wakes up in the moonlight. There are coyotes howling in the distance. The boy climbs out of bed, out his window, and runs to meet the coyotes on the hill. They greet the boy playfully, and spend the night running through the woods, having mystical coyote adventures. At the end of the night, the boy hugs the coyotes and returns to his bed, just as the sun is coming up.

When I made the back-patting/nose-rubbing/blanket-tucking rounds, I found Trevor lost in thought, staring at the cover of his book. He read it again. He was a child of few words, so I don't know what he thought of the story. I do know that he thought of it, which was all I'd hoped for. To plant a teeny tiny seed of something else inside that caiyote nootin' noggin of his.

the end.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Gender Bender

Boy oh Girl, does it ever mess people up when a baby is wearing the wrong color.
What is so mind-blowing about a girl wearing blue? Pink, for a boy, I can sort of get. Pink has been co-opted by the mass marketing monster as a beacon to the young girl - pssst...over here...away from the sporting goods....this here is your aisle, full of ribbons, and ponies, and barbies, and My First Makeup Kits! to the point where no mother with an ounce of love for her son could feel right about clothing him in pink dresses, unless for sport. At least, I don't think I could feel quite right about it, if my daughter were a son. It's much much much easier to challenge the gender coding system when your kid can pull off a blue plaid shirt and jeans one minute, spit up on it, then don a lovely summer frock in citrus hues without batting a pretty little eyelash. Thanks, universe, for giving me a girl to dress in a living representation of My Ideological Platform. May the whole thing never backfire in the form of Hannah Montana, High School Musical, or whatever ghastly incarnation lies ahead.

Today I noticed that Edie's Little Bitty summer frock felt a bit stiff, and scratchy. Starchy. Little Bitty is Costco's brand of retro styled infant clothing, designed to conjure up simpler times; Easy Bake Ovens and mountains of glistening Spam. A gorgeous, shellacked housewife, with her three darling, well-pressed children. I whisked the dress off and replaced it with a comfortable tee shirt, which Jessica sent from Tasmania. It has a picture of the island of Tasmania, a Tasmanian Devil, and a Tasmanian Tiger on the front. Oh, and it's blue. Because it's hot here, Edie's been rocking the no-pants look all the time, and no shirt whenever we can. Her diaper today happened to also be blue. Blue like her eyes...the ones with Maybe She's Born With It lashes, and oceans of charm. As we waited outside the grocery store for Kenneth, an old man sitting across from us struck up a conversation.

"How old is he?"
"Um, she's six months old."
"He seems sweet enough now, but wait until he's fifteen, then you'll want to kill him."
"We've agreed to renegotiate her contract at fourteen."
"I've had two sons, and both of them were wonderful boys, and gave me five grandchildren. But when they were fifteen, boy I tell you."
"I believe it."
"What is his name?"
"Edith Emily. She's a girl."
At this moment he sees an employee of the store and seizes his opportunity to ask the young man if he could look for a book in the lost and found for him. The DaVinci Code. I notice that he has several volumes resting on the seat of the walker next to him. One is a book of American Poetry. The store employee runs into the store to inquire about the book, and I change the subject to the DaVinci Code. He admits that he's gotten around to reading it a bit late, and then he left the book at this store about a month ago. He just moved here from New York and donated thousands of books and cds to the Salvation Army. He's been making trips to Border's Books to replenish some of his materials, but the selection isn't great. The store employee comes out to say that he couldn't find the book, or anybody who knew anything about the book. It's a shame, because the old man spoke with someone in Lost and Found on the phone, and they said they'd hold it for him, but the employee insists that he knows nothing.
We chat a minute longer, and then a van pulls up. On the side it says "Sunrise Senior Living" with a phone number and a logo.
"There's my ride. It's been a pleasure talking with you."
"You too, good luck with your books."
"That's a beautiful boy you have there, take good care of him."
I laugh.
"Okay, I will."

Later, we went to Trader Joe's to catch up on some groceries. I stopped by the sample table to pay my respects, and the woman behind the counter squealed when she saw Edie. In the highest pitched baby voice I've ever heard, the Mariah Carey of baby voices, she praised Edie's good looks and asked me how old he was.
"Um, she's six months old."
"Oh, he's a BIG boy!"

Then a little boy, about 5 or 6, spotted Edie and shouted, "BABY!"
He came right over, as if magnetized, with eyes like fishbowls. He grabbed her hand and studied the size difference between his and her fingers. "Look at those little fingers! The baby's squeezing my fingers!" The boy's father stood back, a little apologetically, and said, "Be gentle, now...don't touch the baby's face, your hands probably aren't that clean."
But the boy was unreachable, admiring every detail of Edie's little feet, nose, hair, and ears, touching her skin reverently, as if he'd never seen a baby before in his entire life.
"Do you remember being that little?" I asked him.
He looked at me with a deep knowing in his face and just nodded.
"Okay, that's enough, let's leave the baby alone now," said his father.
"I need to see the baby's tongue! Show me your tongue!"
Edie obliged.
"Hey, I saw it's tongue!" the boy said happily, then followed his father down the produce aisle.

As we were placing our overfull shopping basket on the shelf at the checkout stand, the little boy and his father were getting into line a few lanes over from us. The boy caught my eye and yelled, loud enough for the entire store to hear, "IS YOUR BABY A GIRL?"
I smiled at him and answered, "YES SHE IS!"

Mystery solved.

All we had to do was ask.

He's back. He came home this morning at 5 am, presumably after seeing the 50 odd signs we posted up around the neighborhood in earnest. There's 15 signs on our street alone. We're going to leave the signs up for a couple more days, just in case, and also, because it's embarrassing to take them down right away. Oops, wait, nevermind, here he is.

I knew he was just going to show up. Kenneth had 100 copies made of the poster he spent all morning trying to print with eventual success, and made me a secret BLT while I was napping with Edie, so that when I woke up, I wouldn't get mad at him for playing too much Grand Theft Auto. I didn't get mad until late last night, when Edie was caffeinated (honestly - caffeine in cream soda?) and I was unsuccessfully trying to get her to settle down for the night. I scooped her up and stomped down the hall to the room where it sounded like a war was going on - gunshots, screaming, panic, and a bad Russian accent - to lay on the thickest guilt trip yet.

"Remember when we both used to lay in the bed with our daughter while she was going to sleep, and we'd do things like read, and talk?"
"What? Oh. Yeah?"
"Just wondering. Enjoy your new life!"
As I walked away he promised he'd be done in 15 minutes.
So we picked out some board books to chew on: Goodnight Moon, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and the minimalist White on Black (sequel to the bestselling Black on White).
Then, to my surprise and Edie's delight, Kenneth did emerge from Liberty City without a scratch, and resurrected our long-lost Lyra Belacqua from Philip Pullman's Amber Spyglass. Oh, hurry, Will, get Lyra and get out of there!
Edie reached for the pages with single minded focus. Man, can that girl crawl now, especially when she wants to crumple and tear something. She did fall asleep, after chapter 12. No more caffeine for me, and thus her, for a long time, maybe ever. Although, she was being pretty funny.

Now Jinx is back where he belongs, knocking over water glasses and biting our lips when we give him too many kisses. He's going to get even more spoiled for a while.

One other thing about the cats: Siddhartha finally used the cat door this morning. He was whining to be let out and I just scooted him over to the semi-open panel and let him come to the realization that outside was just a cat's initiative away and all he had to do was push, on his own. He stood with his head against the door for a minute while all the pieces clicked into place, and then slowwwwwwly squeezed his body through the hole. When he was all the way out I praised him and he turned around, looking embarrassed. Oh, that's how Jinx and Gerty keep getting in and outside when no people are home. Yes, Sid.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Where's Jinx?


He's not at home.
Hasn't been since some time yesterday afternoon.
I love him a lot.
I hope he comes home.

Gerty loves him too, she came with us down the street to look for him. Usually she stays put.
My friend Jen's missing cat came home while she was playing his favorite song on the piano.

I was cranking the little music box (La Vie En Rose) just now, Edie was rocking back and forth and there was a meow at the door. It was Siddhartha.

But maybe Jinx will recognize the song if we play it during the quiet part of night, like now. Kenneth put the little music box, which wasn't really a box at all, but a throat, a voice, just the mechanism with a handle for cranking, into a little wooden box that used to house tea. Blueberry Tea from Canada that Sarasvati gave us in a set. Now it plays La Vie En Rose and smells like blueberries.

Jinx, please come home. We need you to keep nuzzling the baby when she cries. We also need you to follow us, meowing pitifully, when we go for a walk. And Jinx, if you don't come home, who will find the tiniest, remotest hiding places to curl up in, only to look up, annoyed, when we find you? Seriously, kid, this is a tough neighborhood and you can't be out running the streets like this. Get your furry tail back here and I will even let you drink from the toilet, unlimitedly.

she is MOBILE!

oh, the horror. Suddenly there are death traps at every turn. This morning she very cheerfully scooted off the bed (not so fast...we sleep on the floor to thwart head trauma) and lay with her head propped on the mattress, chewing something. She looked like Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer, lazing in the grass with a stalk of wheat between her teeth. Only upon closer inspection it was an electrical cord, plugged right into that gummy little mouth of hers.

We've been working on her, laying her down on her belly and putting things out of reach, then watching her turn red and flop around, grunting, then whining from the frustration. Then we walked to the holy tree at the hospital, the tree with long roots dangling from the uppermost branches like the gnarled beard hairs of an ancient monk. We found a place clear of the strange little fruits it sheds, something between a plum and a fig and small enough to choke on, and sat down to relax. Edie sat scraping her hands on the rough grass (it feels like astroturf here - it's gotta be tough in order to survive the weather) for a while, then crawled over to where Kenneth held out a dinosaur book. Wait, crawled? Yes. CRAWLED.

And because we haven't taken any pictures down here yet, I present you with some from Leann's camera, taken a couple of days before we left Seattle for LA.


Friday, July 25, 2008

By the way...

Thank you to everyone who is reading this blog. Thank you for all the encouraging words and thoughts. It has meant a lot to me to stay connected in such a big noisy road-ragey place. Sometimes the stress is palpable, so I dive into the laptop screen to pick out what I want to from the chaos of the day, and while a simpler, quieter version of events unfolds, everything around me drops away and there is silence! Or, at least, the sound of waves constantly erasing and rewriting time and time again.

"Didn't you hear what I just said?"
"Uh....no. I'm working on the blog."

Thanks, Blog.

LA is both better and worse than I expected. Which is always to be expected, when expecting.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

It was the best of days, it was the worst of days.

There is no reality check in the world that compares to trying on swimsuits. I made four trips to the dressing room today.
"Maybe just one more size up this time..."
And then it dawned on me.

They're making everything smaller now.

The next big reality check came in the shape of some waves that smacked me in the face and I flailed my arms like a monkey who has seen people swim on television a few times. How long has it been since I've swum- no, swam- no...swimmed? I can remember an instructor demonstrating the back stroke with one leg and both arms, while standing on the other leg, a crowd of dripping nine year olds shivering around her, waiting to cannonball back into the pool. So, a billion years, then. I haven't been in a body of water bigger than a bathtub in four years. I think maybe we'll check out "Swimming for Dummies" or see about some classes. Surfing is a far off goal, yet. Gotta swim first. I can still do somersaults, anyways, and a pretty good Frog Stroke. It was FUN.
Edie thoroughly enjoyed the sand. She spent an hour grabbing handfuls and letting it stream out from her fists. When it was my turn to watch her so Kenneth could play in the water, she tipped over forwards and came up sandy-faced, but unfazed. By the time we left, salty and tangled and burnt, we all had a little sand in our diapers.

We walked down the boardwalk where people can ride along the coast and talked about finding a baby seat for Edie so we can bike to Venice Beach and buy trinkets like the little blue bird whistle we bought last time. Then we saw a baby riding on the front of his dad's bike and Kenneth chased him down to ask about the seat. It was an iBert. Then a kamakazi squirrel ran right by us and we headed for home by way of bubble tea. Which is when tragedy struck.

I didn't see it happen, I only saw the man running at the crosswalk to scoop up a white towel in the middle of the road, and Kenneth said something about a dog. We made our turn and could see that the towel he was carrying was actually a broken dog, a wee tiny dog, the kind you can fold up and store in your armpit. Kenneth parked across the street and we ran over to see if we could help. The man was kneeling on the sidewalk, holding the tiny dog and looking kind of broken himself. There was nothing to say so we put our hands on his back. Another woman came running out of her car to see if she could help. There wasn't really anything to do. She asked him if he needed help and he said he didn't know what to do.
:(
It was his mother's dog. She was going to be devastated.
:(
:(
The dog's name was Obi. They had been at the park across the street, having some off-leash time, and Obi just didn't want to stop running so he tried to run home. What does a pocket dog know about LA traffic when there's running to be had?
We gave the man one of our beach towels to wrap him in.
He slowly walked his mother's dog back to her apartment around the corner.
We slowly walked the long way to the bubble tea cafe.
We talked about not knowing what to say or do.
Then I thought of something that I wished I'd said to him.

We didn't have enough money for bubble tea and a crepe, and we were hungry, so we split a crepe and just smelled the bubble tea. We always forget that the place is cash only.

On the way back we started whistling as we got close to the apartment building where the guy said his mother lived. Whistling past the graveyard, I thought, trying not to look to closely at the windows, trying not to wonder too hard what was going on in someone else's life. Are we interested in other people's tragedy because we feel genuine compassion, or because we have a morbid obsession with things that could have happened to us and didn't? Whatever our motives for gathering around it, I know that if it were me I wouldn't want to cry alone on a city sidewalk. If Jinx were suddenly limp in my arms, I'd be grateful for the hands of strangers at my back, letting me grieve not-alone. Whoever the driver was, they didn't stop. Maybe they couldn't face it just then. It was a busy intersection and to suddenly stop would likely have caused a worse accident than the tiny broken dog in the road. Maybe the driver had a screaming baby in the car, or an audition to get to.

It took me and Kenneth both a second before we noticed the young man sitting peacefully on his knees in the yard, folded beach towel laid out before him. We shared a moment of awkward silence, wondering whether to say anything or not, and then I grabbed my chance.
"Did you guys have fun at the park today?"
"Yeah we did."
"Make sure you tell your mom about that."
"I will. She's on her way home now. Thank you for your help, I appreciate it."
"No problem, man, sorry."

Sorry.
Today is Kenneth's birthday.

Last night we went to Alejo's Italian Restaurant and had spaghetti from heaven. Spaghetti Bolognese and Spaghetti Carbonara. Edie had a spoon. The bread came with garlic olive oil with a whole school of garlic swimming in it. I heaped it on so that I could breath fire. Edie had a spoon. She went through all four spoons on the table while we were there, each being retired as soon as it hit the God-only-knows-what floor, but she didn't cry like the waitstaff and the other diners obviously feared. I am pretty sure I heard an "oh, this oughta be interesting" from the table behind us as we walked in, and the service was phenomenally fast. One of the perks of parenthood is that your meal ticket always lands at the top of the pile.

Monday, July 21, 2008

busy day

This morning I found an inexhaustible source of joy. Not the baby...the joy she brings us ebbs and flows with her moods, and ours. I'm talking about the ocean. We drove to Whole Foods so that Kenneth could pursue employment there, and then we were close to the beach, so we went. After sunscreening our child to a pale shade of ghostly, then feeding, and burping, we walked across the soft sand just past the life guard station.
"Oh my god, it's just like that show, Bay...view?"
"BayWatch."
"Do all the life guards wear those red swimsuits?"
"Yes, and they're orange."
"Oh, as in, safety."
"Yeah."
Then the waves said, "Come and play!"
So I handed Kenneth the baby, dropped the sling, left my shoes, and walked directly into the water.
I don't really remember the last time I stood on a rapidly diminishing pile of sand, watching my feet sink deep as the water rushes past, making me feel like I am being pulled backwards by some impossible force which disturbs nothing but the sand. Maybe this was the only time it's happened. Whatever happened, it erased all my grown-upness and seriousness for just a minute and I played. Waves crashed into my ankles and made me dizzy with joy. Joy! If ten minutes of wading in the surf can bring such joy to a somewhat grumpy, uptight squarepants like me, then why do we dump so much trash into the oceans? We shouldn't. We should dump our sad, worrisome selves in the oceans instead and stay put until either we get buried in the sand or we emerge laughing, like I did today. I can't wait to get back in there with a swimsuit. Today cemented my intention to learn how to surf. If that's the only thing that goes right with this trip, then I'll be able to surf!

From there the day just got better and better, even on the rollercoaster of an expanded daily family life. We traveled across the city to Los Feliz, to see Grandmomma Jane, Kenneth's mother's mother. She printed out Edie's astrological chart and tried to tell me what some of the aspects meant while the rest of the family talked over her, around her, at her, and under her. Oh well, I can look up the rest of the chart in a book someday. :) We met Grandmomma's live-in George, who had a stroke and has difficulty speaking his mind. He is definitely aware of his surroundings, though. He spoke mostly to Edie, "Hey, man. Hey, man. Hey, man. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah right. Ha ha. Yeah, man."
She babbled right back. "Blah blah blah blah blah."
There was a flying saucer toy, just sitting on the table. It came with a remote control trigger. Kenneth found it right away. So, for much of our visit there was a hovering space craft, dipping, floating, weaving, falling, and flipping over. Edie LOVED it, and hated it a bit at the same time. She stared at it and said "Huh!" a couple of times.

We walked to a taco stand down the street, rumored to be one of Oprah's recommended eats. While we waited for our food, I met Warren "Bugs" from Liverpool. He'd come to LA in 1967 and never left. He introduced me to his gorgeous dog, Red Girl, who was half Chow and half Retriever. She was gracious enough to give my hand a soft kiss, then turned away in disinterest for the remainder of our conversation. He showed me the scar on his stomach where a 6 pound tumor had been removed, and told me that he'd just found out he would not have to undergo chemo treatments a second time. Then our food was ready and we took it home to enjoy with our delicious watermelon from the saturday market.

After lunch, Kenneth and I took a walk through the neighborhood. He promised me he'd show me his "old haunts", just as soon as we stopped at 7-11 for a slushie. Edie had been really fussy back at Grandmomma's house, hungry but too excited to eat. By the time we'd walked a few blocks, she'd settled down enough to nurse in the sling. This is a pretty obvious maneuver, with the sling we have. She sits up in the babyhawk while I hand her the boob as if we are at a lunch counter. Maybe I should wear a hairnet and a bored expression. Anyways, we walked by this guy in the parking lot, who was overseeing the installation of a white cadillac upon a tow truck's ramp. He had a captain's hat on, boating shoes, a navy blue jacket, white plastic sunglasses, and a yellow teeshirt that said "Breastfeeding is a gift of health" or something to that effect, with the universal symbol for breastfeeding on it. I know this, because he came into 7-11 after seeing our traveling picnic enter the store, and showed his shirt to Kenneth. I didn't believe Kenneth at first so when we left the store, I demanded to see the tee shirt. Sure enough.

Then, after making fun of Kenneth's lame "old haunts", he casually mentioned that we were headed for the La Luz de Jesus gallery. A few years ago I was really digging Mark Ryden, when he and other Juxtapozy artists were being shown regularly at the La Luz de Jesus. I remember sighing wistfully, to think that I couldn't go to the gallery because, sigh, I lived in Seattle. It never crossed my mind that I might actually go there someday, or that when I did, it would be free, and just because we were in the neighborhood. What a lovely surprise. Oh, and we picked up some oilcloth for our diaper pail while we were there, because the whole front of the gallery is a store filled with everything you never needed, but lusted after anyways. Bobbleheads, sideshow freak action figures, essential oils that you can mix by the dropperful, vinyl toys, a Frida Kahlo beaded curtain, and loads of delicious coffee table books about...everything. None of that stuff even matters, though, once you make your way back to the gallery section. The art is phenomenal.

The day ended with more loveliness, after Edie screamed and screamed to be in the carseat past her bedtime. (She hates doing anything but going to bed, past her bedtime, especially and most of all, riding in the carseat.) Nothing helped, not pulling over to feed her, not changing her diaper, not walking up and down the block we stopped on with her, not feeding her again, not until we employed the trick that Grandmomma had imparted just before we left.
"Press her close to your chest, sing, 'Ommmmmmmmm,' and make it resonate your whole body."
We couldn't put her to our skin, but we both sang "OM" to her for a while as her eyeballs rolled around in her sleepy, sweaty head, as she almost fell asleep, and then as she caught her seventeenth wind and started babbling happily.

"Did she just say 'f@*k'?"

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Another farmer's market

This one gets a green thumbs up.
This morning Kenneth woke up at the b. crack of dawn to convince Mama/Grammy (with much arm-twisting) that today was not, in fact, Clean House Day. Today was actually Go To The Santa Monica Farmer's Market Before All The Good Produce Is Gone Day. So after much arm-pulling and hem-hawing and a walk around the block and a lemme-take-a-shower and i have to feed the baby, we went. Grampa drove Grammy's car, which is mercifully equipped with oh-shit handles by all of the seats, even in back. I knitted for most of the drive in order to keep my eyes and mind off of the road.
We parked on level seven of a parking garage and waited a very long time for the elevator. Long enough to enjoy the beach view, and to play "Find the Fake Owl on the Building Across the Street." When the elevator finally came, we crowded in and went down to level four to pick up a couple of guys, then the elevator doors opened onto level six where we picked up a woman and her mother, then down to the second floor, and by the time we escaped on ground level, we were a crowded elevator, indeed.
We walked down the block, over, and over some more to find the farmer's market. Every stand had a sample table, with crispy, sweet watermelon, green "rocky mountain" cantaloupe, ripe strawberries that tasted like real strawberries, lush heirloom tomatoes, peaches, nectarines, and plums. We picked up a couple of green plums, a bunch of beets, fresh basil, purple fingerling potatoes that really looked like fingers, a flat of strawberries, a tiny green melon and the perfect watermelon. My only complaint? Again, with the bags. Plastic bags were flying everywhere and when I told Grandpa that he didn't need a bag for his tomatoes he made the point that they needed it to weigh the produce. So then I started thinking that since they have reusable shopping bags, there should also be reusable produce bags. They could fold up real small, and a person could carry a dozen produce bags with them to the farmer's market. Feel free to steal the idea for your own farmer's market, but I'm taking it to the Santa Monica Promenade. We'll sew up some reusable produce bags out of something light and water resistant like nylon, and sell them at the entrance to the farmer's market.

Anyways, we walked around Santa Monica for a bit and had some delicious brunch. When we got back to the house, Kenneth's aunts Sharon and Doreen came over with his Grandpa (Grandpa's Daddy - and they're all named Daddy - Kenneth, Eric, and William Jr, so he is Edie's Daddy's Daddy's Daddy) and cousin Daryl. We had spaghetti outside and it was delicious. Grandpa Daddy and his kids (Sharon, Doreen, and Eric) told some old family stories and they were also delicious ("She flipped the boiling water on me so I threw a fork and it stuck in her behind" kind of stories). I laughed until I cried. They grew up in a 10-kid household, so things must have been pretty chaotic most of the time. They have some delicious stories. Edie practiced her wave on everybody. She fingered Great-Grandpa's elbow wrinkles and grabbed Daryl's nose. Even when it was time to lay down and nap a while in our bedroom, she could hear the voices in the other room and kept waving for a while. She might have been waving to the ceiling fan. She's always loved those.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

La Vie En Rose

Ahhhh....now that's better.

We spent the better part of the day indoors. The best way to get a cat (or three) acclimated to a new situation is to keep them inside for a few days, so they know where the food is, and the litter. And the dog and the other cat, in some cases. It seems the same trick works for humans who have a big adjustment to make.

Today we let the heat have its way with the day and just stayed in. Washed some diapers, made aloe vera solution for the cloth wipes, cleaned off our new dresser (which was generously donated to us by Kenneth's young cousins, Ella and Mia, and covered with Mia's Dora the Explorer sticker collection.), put away some clothes, and had Trader Joe's chicken enchiladas for lunch. We set up the high chair and because it's missing a buckle we used some ties from an old housedress to tie Edie in.

Today was her 6 month birthday so we mushed up a sweet pear and gave her a bowl and a spoon. She handled that spoon like a champ. All that grabbing at Mama's food paid off. The pear made her face make a face like, oh....not so good. But she kept eating and eating and then slammed the bowl around and fingerpainted and licked pear off the side of the tray, so I think it was a success.

After the day had become tame and we'd all had a little nap, we went to the El Segundo Farmer's Market, which was much more like a farmer's market than the farmer's market from the day before. There were maybe 3 or 4 local vendors, and they were so eager to give out plastic bags. I'd pick up a plum, turn it over, and there would be a freshly opened plastic bag in my face. "Oh, no thanks, I'll just use the one I've got." Then we'd get to the next stand and they'd follow us around with an open plastic bag. Apparently once they get you to put the fruit in a bag it's official, you can't steal or change your mind about buying. And we were two blocks away from the Chevron Oil refinery, for what that's worth.

For dinner we shared a bacon-wrapped hot dog and a strawberry-watermelon agua fresca, then walked around El Segundo a bit at my insistence. I really like this part of town. Kenneth tells me that's because it's an exclusive white-people community, but really it's because this town reminds me of parts of Portland, with small independent restaurants and coffee shops and walkable streets. Apparently these things exist here only in the "white" neighborhoods. There isn't as much commerce in the "black" neighborhoods, like where we live. For the record, I saw a lot of different kinds of people when we were in El Segundo. All shades of brown, and some with accents I couldn't place. And yes, there were a lot of white people. But the best thing we saw was actually heard, not seen. Andean Pan Pipers playing Dust in the Wind.

We whistled La Vie En Rose all the way home.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

a few more things

Kenneth bought me and Edie a little Music Box diaphragm. This one plays "La Vie en Rose". It played in my head all day so that I wouldn't be sad for all the beautiful aspects of Portland we left behind.

There are windchimes somewhere outside the house, and gosh if that isn't a soul-stirring sound.

People are friendly here, they're just also more fashionable.

We passed a Plastic Surgery center on the way home, and Flynt Publishing offices. Talk about your one-stop shop.

And advertising everywhere. EVERYWHERE. EVERYWHERE! EVERYWHERE!
I feel a sudden burning neeeeeeeeeeed to go watch the new High School Musical movie.
But not really.
But really?
How big does your damn poster need to be?



Day One

About a month ago I was visiting my mom in Mountlake Terrace, WA, and she took me to Costco for something or other. It was my first time in years, so in the mad rush of oversized shopping carts flying around sample carts of bento beef bullion cutlets and margarine cracker sandwiches with polenta paste, I could only go slowly and stare. People darting into unofficial lanes of traffic, faces either contorted into masks of permanent road rage or dazzling smiles of apology as they bump together, alternately excusing themselves and mowing down stray children in a stressed-out shopper's frenzy. I made the joke several times, thinking it to be just the most clever thing, that Costco should install traffic signals for the intersections and maybe institute some kind of licensing test. Nobody but the baby laughed, and even hers was more sympathy than genuine amusement. She did reach out a tiny sausage hand and grip the cart for me so that all I had to do was walk while she pushed. But enough of that. We made it out of that concrete cave alive, and with only two family sized boxes of granola bars.

So after spending the better part of this first L.A. day in the backseat of the Honda, desperately trying to placate one steaming hot and sweaty screaming daughter and crying some myself, while Kenneth dodged and weaved and sped and braked and cursed, and other L.A. humans drove their cars too close to us and yelled at us and honked at us, we made it home; we sat on the bench outside a good long while, listening to sirens in the not-too-distant distance, calling out to our barely remembered cats (she laughed when I said "Gurty!" oh yeah...that word and that creature, together like always), and I'm getting to the point....Costco. First impressions of L.A. between "home" and the "farmer's market" at Orange Grove is that the city is one big, hot, smoggy Costco. But that's just because Costco reminds me of road rage.

It's not all bad.

This morning Kenneth made me a decaf latte with Washington coffee and we walked Peggy the dog a few blocks that way, a few blocks over, a few blocks back, and saw the most gorgeous, magnificent, humoungous, adjectivy tree of unknown identification in the Daniel Freeman Hospital park. People had climbed up its roots to carve their tags into the smooth silvery bark, but somehow that just added to its apparent holiness. I walked all around it with my mouth hanging open and almost tripped on a root (well, I did trip on a root- I almost fell down) with the baby on my back. The security guard on duty told us it was a special tree, alright. It has roots that go clear across the grass to the dumpster in the back.

And there's termitesinthehousewe'llhavetotentitandfumigate. Boards chewed through. A little sticker in the attic saying "this house was fumigated on July 15, 2005".
Emily and I arrived exactly 3 years later, to the day!

Oh, and one other thing. Airplanes are really loud when they are right overhead. So now I don't have to miss the Portland ThunderandLightning storm that waved us goodbye a couple weeks back in St. John's.