Blog Theme.

I just noticed that in the last three posts I refer to 'peeing my pants.' I don't know where this comes from? To your relief, I'm sure, I don't actually pee my pants. It's just my way of saying that I'm REALLY EXCITED.

Anyway. I'm going to try and stop peeing my pants.

Holiday Patina.

I just wanted to shout out to my sister-in-law's etsy shop. She is an amazing artist and you're going to die when you see her stuff. I seriously peed my pants when I saw the Shakespeare. She also has some great stuff for Christmas decor.

She has been creating amazing stuff for years and is now selling her little figurines in the Sundance shop. You heard me, SUNDANCE people. Anyway. I'm excited for her and if you're looking for some really creative, great gifts...check her out.

And Trieste, as Shakespeare would say:

" 'Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady: we may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such another herb."

Orange & Black.

The kids ready to trick-or-treat.
Aviator, Elfaba, Princess Leia (Hoth persuasion), Snow white
(Sorry for the bad picture)

Today was Halloween. Yesterday was our HUGE Halloween party at the Barn. We had a spook alley and apple bobbing, donuts on a string and a cupcake walk. We had a costume contest and Frankenstein and his Bride won. His boots had 6 inch platforms and her hair was 12 inches tall. The spook alley was terrifying. Full of all the things spook alleys should have: fog, moaning, screaming, spider webs, disembodied heads, jumpy skeletons and a coffin rising vampire. I went in during the day, in the light, knowing everything that was going to happen, and I still peed my pants. Practically. Also, don’t underestimate apple bobbing. I know it seems gross, and it sorta is, but the kids LOVE it. They cheer and clap and I made sure that I took all the stems off the apples so that no one can cheat. By the end the apple water has turned all colors of hair dye, makeup, and—hate to say it, but it’s true—spittle. Kids were running around with drippy faces and soppy hair. Needless to say, we had a spectacular time.

The Barn: before the party.

Tonight was trick-or-treating. We went in Grandma’s neighborhood, because she has more sidewalks and street lights and houses that give away full-size candy bars.

I love Halloween. I love all the people out going door to door. I love the costumes. The Jack-o-lanterns. The crickets chirping. The fog coming in. The stars coming out. And the kids, cautiously at first, and then with reckless abandon yelling, “Trick or treat!” Jane saying, as she’s trying to keep up with her older siblings, “These houses sure are scary, but we’re getting a lot of candy.” We only fell once (Jane), had to pee once in the bushes (Jane), and had to ride on daddy’s shoulders once (Jane).

The best part about tonight. The orange and black. Not the orange and black of pumpkins and witches’ hats, but the orange and black: colors of the San Francisco Giants. At every house, people in their orange and black t-shirts handed out candy distractedly, with one eye on the score—and one ear listening for the sounds of the crowds on the TV and radio. They called out the score as we offered our “Happy Halloweens,” and then hurried back inside. It’s a good time to live in the Bay Area. Everyone has a smile on their face and we are pulled together with a sense of solidarity, a common ground, a shared cohesiveness that Halloween can’t do on its own. So, for us, orange and black lasts a little longer, and even if we lose—hey, we made it to October. And that’s got to count for something.

The spoils.

If you want to pee your pants…

I have been doing a lot of google schlepping lately in an attempt to finish up costumes. In the effort to finish Canyon’s costume of what he calls, “old-fashioned pilot” and what is determined as “aviator,” on google, I ran across some incredible sites. Most of the sites are devoted to ‘steampunk,’ my new favorite genre. What is steam-punk you might ask? Let me explain it to you as I understand it. (My source of information is mainly from our new nightly reading/listening of this.

Ok. Here we go: steampunk is set in the Victorian Era, with a little ‘punk’ added to it. The ‘punk’ comes from the obvious; this is a Victorian Era of an alternate universe. The steam, well—most everything is powered by steam in this era. Get it? Wow. I learned about steampunk one day and for the next weeks afterwards, it seems that’s all I see. It’s amazing that I’d never even heard of it before.

Anywho. The point is, that there’s a lot of steam-punk websites out there with instructions on how to make aviator hats and goggles. So it’s been extremely helpful for me and the completion of Canyon’s costume. So in addition to patterns for aviator hats, I ran across this website.

Go ahead and look and then come back.

You might need to change your pants first.

Ok. Very funny, right? As much as I feel I need a helmet to keep aliens from telepathically controlling my mind, the fact that it’s $30 for the material, well, that’s just priceless. My favorite, of course are the testimonials.

From a happy purchaser in Austria:
"I have been abducted by aliens for years and found stopabductions.com by a happy coincidence.

The Thought Screen Helmet, invented by an expert, has stopped the unwelcome visitations and has raised me and my family`s quality of life. Therefore I highly recommend it."

Really. My family and I have not had this alien abduction problem, yet—so it’s difficult for me to see the value of this product. I can imagine though. Only imagine.

My favorite testimonial:
“The Thought Screen Helmet is working perfectly. I have not had contact with the aliens since I first started using it. Though twice now coming back from work, I have noticed lights following to the rear of my car, so now I take the helmet with me in the car in case I am abducted. “

After reading this next one, I too was perplexed as to how the helmet continues to obstruct these beings that are supposedly so much more advanced than we are. Humph? Oh, well, point is that it works, right?
"The hat and helmet work very well and I have experience much relief wearing them. I am however, surprised that the aliens have not found a way to thwart this simple but effective technology. At any rate I am very happy with mine and thank you again for your work."

Make sure to check out their thorough page on Alien weaknesses, you never know when that might come in handy. And just look at their record of success, only three failures since 1998.

Wonderful.

Five Hours.

Jane on her way to 'Pretty-school'

Five Hours.
I have suddenly moved into a new class of people. It’s strange, exhilarating, and sometimes a little bit sad. I now, officially, have five hours a week sans children. Wow. Not having a baby around has been strange for some time, and having everyone (sort of) sleep through the night has also been weird, but nothing is more alien than having a few hours at home by myself. Jane is in, what she likes to call, pretty-school twice a week for a few hours. She is adjusting to finally being like one of the big kids by crying and hanging onto my legs with an other-worldly force as I drop her off. As soon as I’m out of ear-shot, she happily makes friends and influences the more naïve three year olds. Let’s face it, she has a lot to teach them, after all—she’s the youngest of four.

What do I do with this time? So far I haven’t been able to steer clear of laundry, dishes, bed-making and Costco tripping. One of these days I’m going to branch out and do something for myself. Old habits are hard to break.

In other news: Today at school the kids were supposed to dress up like one of their favorite characters from a book. I love this idea. I’ve always wanted to dress up as Emily Dickenson, but haven’t come across any white Victorian gowns lately. However, the kids were much easier to manage. I made Canyon a camp half-blood t-shirt. Our obsession with Percy Jackson is slowly moving down the ranks of kids. Lily had it, now Canyon—Alice will shortly follow. I also made Lily a Hunger Games t-shirt. I know what you’re thinking: “You let your daughter read the Hunger Games?” And the answer is yes. And she loves it. And I know it’s violent. There. I made her a “District 12 Tribute” shirt. She LOVES it.

Percy & Katniss

We’re just gearing up for Halloween. So far Canyon wants to be an old-fashioned aviator (don’t ask me where he gets his inspiration), he’s been wandering around the yard for weeks with his bike helmet and swim goggles making airplane noises. Lily wants to be Elfaba from “Wicked” (you know, the wicked witch of the West). Alice wants to be Princess Leia (shocker)—but we’re going to mix it up a bit—she wants to be Leia of the Hoth persuasion (you know, white boots and furry vest). Jane, bless her heart, wants to be Snow White. If any of you have ideas for costumes on any of these…let me know.

Oh yeah, disclaimer: These are apt to change. Several times.

It looks like I have something to fill those five hours.

With a Perspective.

Here I am in the recording studio.

I just wanted to leave a little note to tell you all I’m going to be on NPR. That’s right, I’m leaving the world with ‘my perspective.’

So our local NPR station has a series called ‘Perspectives,’ where they have local ‘regular’ people read their perspective about something. I always like listening to the perspectives and have thought that it might be fun to do it sometime. So last week, I thought, why not? So I sent in my perspective and they contacted me the next day to come in and record it. It was a pretty great experience. I got to go into San Francisco to the station and record in a real recording studio. For those of you in the Bay Area, I’ll just throw this out there… I got to sit in Michael Krasny’s chair.

The sound engineer, Howard, was extremely nice and talked me through my virgin recording experience. He said if I liked the sound of my voice that I would be like all the other ego driven voices at KQED and get a job there. I was nervous, but it was easy because it was just me, alone in the room, and Howard and Dustin in the control booth. I only had to read through my piece twice and we had to edit it a little to fit the time restrictions.

And guess what? I LOVE the sound of my voice.

Did I mention that they took a really, not so great, photo of me. Oh well. On the radio it’s all about how you sound, not how you look.

Oh, also, did I mention that I get paid. Yep. Just enough to cover the parking at the ferry building where we had dinner.

So, it airs Monday August 30^th at 7:35 am. They’re also going to re-run it Saturday, September 4^th at the same-ish time. I hope that you listen. Here’s how you can listen:

You can listen live, here.

And on the archives right here, for Monday, the 30^th. (Ignore my extremely close-up photo)

I know, it’s not an ironman, but it’s the best I’ve got.

With a perspective, I’m Emily.

I look so natural in Michael's chair, no?

School

I don't buy my kids new school clothes. Am I a bad mom? My mom always got us new school clothes, but I guess I feel like I don't need to. Summer weather hangs on here until October, so there's not really a clothing season change. Their summer clothes and clothes from last year seem fine. And if, during the year, they need some pants or shoes, we just go and get them. Alice and Jane have the advantage of the bins of clothes downstairs that used to be Lily's--so I almost never have to get them anything at all.

The beauty of it: they don't seem to even be aware that there is such a thing as new school clothes.

So, I'll posit this question one more time. Am I a bad mom?