Friday, October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween! And NaNoWriMo!

Well. In less than 25 minutes I will set off for uncharted territory. Last week we brought home an uncarved pumpkin and now a sweet little owl sits on the porch, created in a mad dash to pack as much Halloween fun into the few hours between naptime and bedtime as possible. It was my first experience carving a pumpkin under the time/space/supervisory constraints of having a young child nearby, throwing pumpkin guts on herself, myself, and the dog. Less than five minutes, it took, and the results are more than satisfactory, in fact it is my favorite Owl-O-Lantern I've ever carved! I think it provides an apt metaphor for the weeks to come.

Sitting in front of me, in the ether, is what the zen people call the Uncarved Block. An Unwritten Novel. I just have to uncover it by hitting a bunch of random keys until the word mark has been reached. Then I'll have surprised myself. Maybe I'll even surprise the novel, who was sitting around drinking whiskey inside of the whale's belly, fully aware that it may never live to see the moonlight or feel the wind on its beard ever again, before I maced the whale in the eyes and caused it to heave the contents of its guts all over this computer screen, or something like that.

Before I begin, however, I want to take a couple of minutes to tell you about the fabulous day we just had.

Kenneth installed a new child seat on my bicycle. We bought a wee little helmet for Edie, yellow with chickens. I'm sorry there is no picture. I forgot to bring the camera. So there are no pictures of Edie's first bike ride, but I have words for you.
Seagulls pecking at mussels
Pelicans diving beak first
Doggies, doggies, and doggies.
Cheering with the exhilaration of FINALLY going fast! On a Bike!
Edie cheering along, "WOOOOO!"
And waving to doggies.

In Venice we lost the trail. Rode a little way down the boardwalk and back, met the King Overlord of All That is New Age. Really. He was amazing. I'd tell you about him but I think he might show up in the novel, and do you know how much stories hate to be repeated before they are shown to their rooms for the night? Oooh, there is ten minutes left.

Quickly now, there is the pumpkin carving marathon that I mentioned, and then there is us taking Edie out "Trick-Or-Treating" in a shameless ploy to relive childhood and amass vast quantities of cheap sugary treats. My half of the loot is dedicated to the Noveling process, a very important cause. In the nine minutes I have left can I just tell you that the first place we trick or treated at, an apartment building with big open doors and sidewalk chalk arrows pointing the way, the tenants were gathered in the courtyard around a candlelit table filled with sushi, wine, various other dishes, and jello shooters. That's right, I said Jello Shooters. They were for the parents. That's us. Parents got jello shooters. Grammy didn't believe us when we came home but then the tiny plastic cup with jello remnants fell out of the treat bag. The woman who gave us the jello shooters told us that her husband used to take the kids trick or treating with a shotglass for himself.

Sometimes the best parenting advice comes from the most unexpected places.

Okay I think I'd better rest my fingers for FIVE MINUTES!!!!!!

Let the Novel Writing begin!

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Aw, the great Inglewood Adventure continues.

you see, we don't actually live in LA. LA County, yes, but LA proper, no. We live in a suburb of LA called Inglewood. We live right by a nursing home, a church, IHOP, Quizno's, McDonald's, and Vons, which is Californian for Safeway.

Last night we went to Vons to pick up some ingredients for chicken soup and a pumpkin. Edily rode in the cart. She is learning to wave. A woman said hi to her and waved and I saw Emily's little hand waving back, down at her side and not at all visible to the woman.
"Up high, kid. You gotta show off that fancy wave."
And then. And then, this guy rolled his cart real close and looked me straight in the eyes. He opened up a black binder which was perched on the baby seat of his cart and silently flipped the pages, one at a time. Was he trying to sell me a magazine subscription? I shook my head with the same apologetic-but-not-really face I use to say I'm all out of spare change (there hasn't really been any such thing since before the Child arrived) and pressed on through the meat department before I realized what he was selling. Those were miniature movie posters!
I hurried to catch up to Kenneth. "Hey, I just saw my first Inglewood bootlegger!"
"Oh yeah, they're in here all the time, or out in the parking lot." He was unimpressed, having grown up with such exotic things, but I still felt like something significant had happened.

When we came home I told Grammy and Grandpa about it. "This guy at the store tried to sell me bootleg DVDs!"
Grandpa said, "What titles did he have?"

Rats, I didn't see.

Monday, October 27, 2008

celebrity sightings are getting old.

gosh it's so BORING to see famous people all the time.

I wouldn't know, but I'm already totally unimpressed that today Kenneth saw Meg Ryan and Bob Saget in the same half hour. He even talked to Meg Ryan!

She said, "Is this the only bacon you have?"
and he said. "Yup. Although there is some Tempeh bacon over in the tofu case."
and she said, "um...Tempeh, huh."

Sunday, October 26, 2008

and

making the world shake

Thursday, October 23, 2008

videos!

We took a little trip to the pier at Redondo Beach.
This is from the car on the way home.

fun with colors

got this link from ZeFrank's blog.
Click the colors and see!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Banksy

Just found out about this artist.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Celebrity Sighting of the Day.

Kenneth called me from work again today. This time, he admitted his excitement. He almost asked her for Battlestar spoilers, but then again he didn't.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

When in LA...

Kenneth doesn't like to make a big deal out of the high ratio of celebrity : the rest of us in this Godforsaken He- I mean, in this fertile valley of avocados and lip injections known as LA. I can see why, I mean, it's very touristy and not at all cool to act like you care when you see somebody from the movies buying their caramel frappaccino two places up ahead of you in line, or to get overly excited when famous writers wander into your bookclub (It's an honest mistake, and it happens all the time around here.) Plus, celebrities are people too, and people have a basic right to go grocery shopping without every person they meet staring or fumbling for some awkward comment about loving the work they've done. That said, I firmly believe in milking this LA opportunity for everything it's worth, and if all it's worth is a few celebrity sightings and year-round farmer's markets, well, I say bring it. Since Kenneth believes in pretending not to care when Flea buys pet food at his Whole Foods store, then I believe in pretending to care. Which I don't. Not really (which is sort of a lie - I am a shameless namedropper. Did you know I used to date a guy whose best friend's older brother played in the same space-rock band as Eddie Vedder's wife, Beth? We practically spent Christmas together, Pearl Jam and I). But I ask anyways, "Did you see any celebrities today?" as a sort of public service, so that Kenneth can be geeky about it without bothering any of the rich and famous who buy wild-caught Alaskan salmon at his store (Catherine O'Hara). I asked him this morning and Kenneth realized that he hadn't seen any in a while.


But then he called me from work, and guess who was shopping today, pushing his daughter in a cart around the store?
That's right. Little Nicky the Wedding Water Gilmore Guy.

"Was he being funny? Did you ask him to say something funny?!"
"Not really...he was just being a dad, which I respect."


ps. this morning I had a dream wherein I saw Kevin Nealon at a party and told him how much I loved his book. It took him a second to remember that he'd written a book, but he recovered quickly and thanked me for reading.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Escape, one month at a time.

Last month it was family in Seattle. Next month it'll be NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. Starting November first, I'll be diving headlong into the sometimes luxurious, sometimes shark-infested waters of my own imagination, desperately fishing for the 1667 or so words that I'll need to type daily in order to meet the 50,000 word mark by the stroke of midnight, November 30th. What if I don't?

Well, most of my adult life thus far has been spent becoming adjusted to disappointment in myself, as I gracefully steer miles around any sort of finish line that I can see. I took the slacker approach to graduating high school, eventually earning my diploma through the local community college not by actually completing the American History course that I needed to cover the tenth of a credit my transcript was lacking, but by handing in one or two papers and then disappearing for the rest of the course. It was too sad for the academic counselor in charge of my case. She had already waived the P.E. requirements so that I wouldn't have to take archery. Months after dropping out of the Adult High School program, I received a diploma in the mail. Congratulations, it said. You slacked your way out of high school at last.

So then I tried some college. Then some jobs, then no jobs, then some more college, then less college and more jobs, and every combination possible. The latest attempt at reaching a goal found me throwing in the towel at the halfway mark, no longer so sure about majoring in Violin Performance while the residing professor deconstructed my bow arm and smirked at the Cello Professor when I skipped the entire Peanut Butter section of a Mozart Concerto during my audition. (As my childhood violin teacher explained song form to me, there is the bread and there is the peanut butter. The bread is the part at the beginning and the end, holding all the chewiness in the middle.) I barely made it into the music program, but then there was a snag in the residency status which I'd mistakenly thought two years in Oregon would have earned me. It would have, had I not attended school the whole time. I couldn't afford to pay out of state tuition for a degree I was no longer sure I wanted. So I got pregnant instead.

While growing a whole little person and ushering her safely (and with style!) into this world, then ensuring her continued survival by keeping her away from knives, broken glass, and Sarah Palin is its own kind of goal, which I meet with varying degrees of success each day, my daughter will never have the sheen of a finished product that I can hold up and say "Look! I wrote a book!" She is an ongoing process and while I can take some credit for her original adorableness and good sense of rhythm, she is her own creation now. But I can say that if I don't write this book, I might have to fill the creative void with another child, to remind me that I can achieve something. I can make something cool out of udon noodle soup and buffalo wings.

You might be asking yourself how you can stop me. How you can help me to reach my latest goal, one of the most unreachable and therefore most likely goals yet - 50,000 words in 30 days. What, does she want more money from me? In this crisis? The answer is a solid no, although I seldom actually refuse money. No, but there are some things you can do to ensure that Edie has a happy few years as an only child.

One, you can bug me about the novel. Ask me how it's going, how many words do I have. I may or may not decide to post excerpts of it here. It may be too embarrassing to share. The idea is not to produce a work of art, but to produce something. Anything. Typing fast is key. Not caring is also key. Telling all my friends and family about the Novel so I have more face to lose, should I decide to drop out and learn accordion instead, is perhaps the keystone.

Two, you can forgive another month of lite-blogging. If I blog, you'll know that I am procrastinating on the Novel, and then you can flog me with words. Flog and blog. Blog Floggers.

Three, I'll need music to write by. Tell me who I should listen to and I'll give it a try, really! I'll make a station on Pandora, but if you send me a mix of your favorite songs to write by, I guaran-frakkin'-tee I'll pop it in the stereo and give it a spin.

Four, and most importantly, you can JOIN ME! There is strength in numbers, even if only on a virtual space such as the internet. If we can't have an actual Noveling date at the cafe, we can at least commiserate online. Anyone can do this, you just have to sign up. And cancel many if not all of your engagements for November.

Fifthly, that's all I can think of for now. See you around!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

We are back!








What a quick month that was!

We are back in LA and do you know what?

The sky was perfectly clear today. Blue with a smear of clouds and not a sign of smog anywhere. We drove to Playa del Rey and watched the sun set. It was so perfect, it looked like a t-shirt. It looked like a soft jazz compilation LP cover. It looked like the movies.

It looks like we're wintering south. And the Hoppers are getting a puppy.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Good things.

Spending time at Jill and Paul's farm, chasing chickens, pulling weeds, eating dirt, finding all kinds of spiders and crickets, attending the farmer's market, walking the bay trail, petting Patches Kitty, drinking a wee bit of wine, visiting with Corbin and Erin and Adam, playing peek a boo with Auntie Jill and Uncle Paul, and eating the most delicious meals. Thank you guys!

Walking the weekly trail with Mom and her friend Mary, avoiding the squirrels and crows which lurk behind every tree, and running into an old friend, Liz, who invited us over for a visit next week. Before she recognized me, she said that Edie was leaning around me to wave at her. "Do I know this baby? I love this baby!"

Attending Robby's homecoming festivities. We went to the assembly and saw hundreds of people dressed in Orange! Green! Purple! and Yellow! and screamed and jumped (okay, Edie did. I just held her.) When I went into the hall looking for a place to change her diaper, the football coach unlocked the training room so I could change her on a massage table. I called it the muscle room because of the decorating scheme, posters of various kinds of hue man anatomy. We later followed the homecoming parade around downtown Edmonds (my brother plays the quads in the pep band, it's his senior year at EWHS) until I got bored and found a baby reeeeeetail store. They had affordable halloween costumes, and I got one. It's a surprise, which one. It was between the one I got and a shiny Lobster costume. A few hours later we were invited to our new friend Clementine's toddler Halloween party, in LA. Serendipity! We shall not weep in our fancy costumes, alone but for a pile of tootsie rolls, on the Saturday before All Hallow's Eve.

PS. Edie can crow like a rooster now. She is growing a tooth and she loves to practice biting things with it. Mostly parts of my body. Today I accidentally bit her finger, so now we're even. She's had fingers accidentally bitten by both Daddy and Mommy now.