After Christmas

Everyone's least favorite time, sigh. Actually, the boo bears are having a ball, because they didn't really know it was Christmas anyway, and now they have all these great new toys to play with. The toy kitchen was a big hit, the parking garage was a big hit, the shopping cart was a big hit, the wooden train was a big hit, the doodler was a big hit, the broom and dustpan for heaven's sake were a big hit. From one aunt they received what I thought was an odd present: cubes with pictures of animals or vehicles on them that fit into a little tray, and when put together properly they make the sound of the animal or vehicle. Well, this was a HUGE hit and continues to be. They keep bringing me a tray with cubes on it, arranged incorrectly, and I have to fix it so it makes the sound of a fire engine or a pig or whatever. Another favorite is the wild turkey that was in Baby B's stocking. They keep bringing me the turkey so I'll squeeze it and it'll make its funny sound. I put it in the kitchen's little oven, but they didn't understand. Today it's riding around in the shopping cart.

But for those of us who DIDN'T get a lot of cool presents, after Christmas is kind of a dull time. I only got one small present this year and I have informed Rocket Boy that it was not a hit. He has a hard time with presents: I should give him more assistance.

The last couple of days I've been so miserably depressed that it's been hard to function. Shades of when we first moved to Ridgecrest. So yesterday RB surprised me by arranging for a babysitter and taking me out to dinner at Ridgecrest's version of a fancy French restaurant, Mon Reve.

I put on a dress, tights, and shoes with a bit of a heel. The babysitter arrived and off we went to downtown Ridgecrest, which is the most unlovely downtown that could be imagined. Plenty of street parking, since almost nothing is open in the evening. Our reservations were for 7:30 but we arrived at 6:30 and that was OK too, since only 2 other tables in the restaurant were occupied.

First impressions: paper placemats instead of a tablecloth, entrees all at least $18.95, and "seasoned fries" available as a side dish. Our waitress did not introduce herself or discuss specials or ask us what we wanted to drink, just left us with our menus and water glasses. It's been so long since I've been in a nice restaurant I don't even remember what's normal, but I don't think this is. On the plus side, the food was pretty good. We both had French onion soup (yummy), and a glass of delicious Riesling. RB had sole and I had an interesting chicken dish, also yummy. The cream for our decaf coffee was in those little plastic thimble-size containers. My creme brulee was just OK; RB enjoyed his chocolate volcano. Price with tip: $106. Hmm.

After dinner we walked up and down Balsam Street, attempting to look in shop windows, except that so many of them were vacant. Some tough teenagers were hanging out by the skateboard shop, smoking, but they didn't bother us. I suppose I should comment on how nice it was not to worry about getting mugged, but actually I was slightly worried. It's so empty downtown, and there is supposed to be quite a bit of meth in Ridgecrest. Ah well, nothing happened. We made it home safely.

And now onward into the new year. In six weeks we will celebrate our one-year anniversary in Ridgecrest. But probably not at Mon Reve.

Lights

We have put up our tree! This year it was so easy, it seemed like it was done almost before we started. Because of our little wanderers, we decided to assemble only half the tree (it's fake, obviously) and put it on top of the baby grand piano, out of their reach. Rocket Boy put it together and wound 2 strings of lights around it. Then I added a few dozen ornaments. And then we were done. Actually there is room for more ornaments, and I added a few more today and maybe I'll add a few more tomorrow. But it's also fine as is. No pressure.

I set up my creche beneath the tree. My nativity scene is such a mess. I have 5 wise men but only 1 camel. I have 7 sheep, a cow, and a llama, but no shepherds. Also no angels. The holy family are made of clay, and they are inside a round clay "stable" along with another cow, a donkey, and some dried greenery. Each year I think I must remedy this situation and at least get a shepherd or at least get an angel or at least get another camel. But I don't. Usually I just add more livestock. How is this going to make any sense to the babies, when they get older? We 5 kings of orient are. The livestock will turn feral and start knocking down the stable. And what about an angel. This year a Santa Claus ornament is hanging very close to the creche, looking like a fat red angel. I suppose he could play that part, but it seems confusing.

Well, what is there about Christmas that isn't confusing? It's Jesus's birthday, except that he was really born in the spring. Santa Claus brings toys to good little girls and boys but he isn't real, your parents were lying about that. It seems so much simpler just to celebrate the Winter Solstice, but then what about all that beautiful religious music? I think I went back and reclaimed Christianity for myself just so I could sing the carols without feeling like a fraud.

Carols are one of the best things about Christmas and one of the other best things is the lights. (Also on the list: peppermint ice cream, mint M&Ms, and all kinds of Christmas cookies. Also Christmas cards arriving in the mail, preferably enclosing long, detailed Christmas letters.) I just love walking or driving around looking at light displays. I DO NOT CARE how much energy it wastes. I DO NOT. I will conserve energy the rest of the year. It turns out that Ridgecrest is very big on light displays. Perhaps that could have been predicted (small town atmosphere, very very Christian). The local newspaper printed a map showing the locations of notable displays, but we found many more by just driving around. The babies thought it was great. We're not sure how much they can see from their carseats, but I guess it's enough. "Doe bi-tee!" Baby A exclaimed, which we finally translated as "So pretty!" And it was.

Christmas, continued

December is passing quickly, as it always does. The babies and I have 3 Advent calendars and most days I remember to open the windows. First we look at the real calendar and find the date, then we look for that date on the Advent calendars. Actually I believe the babies have not the foggiest idea what the connection is between the two types of calendars, but that's OK. When I say "We should open the next window on our Advent calendars," they get excited and run to the kitchen and point at the calendars. And they love watching me open the little windows.

The rest of Christmas is moving along, as it always does, even in Ridgecrest. I'm working on my cards, almost done with gifts. The toy kitchen arrived today, so that's going to be a project to put together. Other than that, we're just going to do stockings for the babies, since they'll get lots of presents from other family members. Haven't baked any cookies yet, haven't put up the tree.

This week at the babies' daycare we helped celebrate "Jesus' Birthday Party." That was quite something, involving a snow machine, a craft project that was totally inappropriate for small children, and pepperoni pizza (which none of the kids ate). I believe that my children have no idea who Jesus is, nor do they see any connection between his birthday party and all the glass ball ornaments hanging from the ceiling of their daycare room. (Nor do most people.) But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they're absorbing all of this, making connections. At what point will they start turning into Republicans?

Just when I was really missing Boulder a lot, we got a call: a water pipe in our house burst due to the extremely cold weather they've been having. Also our furnace is out (that's why the pipe burst) and we may have to replace it. So I've been dealing with insurance adjusters and emergency clean-up people and plumbers. It's so hard to do from so far away. That's using up my energy -- nothing left for baking.

And of course, December is a sad month too. The days leading up to the winter solstice are so long and dark. The happy month is also the month to remember those who are gone: my mother, my father, all four grandparents, all my aunts and uncles on my mother's side, and my oldest sister. Also Rocket Boy's mother, father, grandparents, and all his aunts and uncles. It sometimes seems like there isn't anyone left alive, but then I remember that's what reproduction is for. Making more. And our two more are asleep in their beds, but tomorrow they will remind me again to smile and maybe even make Christmas cookies.

Darwin Falls

We were taking our walk this morning (all 4 of us, since it's Saturday) and Rocket Boy said, "Do you have anything planned for the weekend," and I said no, not really. He said, "Do you want to go anywhere?" I said sure, always. He said, "What about Darwin Falls?" I said OK, why not? So we went home, got ready, and headed for Death Valley.

It's funny, we waited all summer and fall for it to get cool enough to visit Death Valley. Now, in December, it seems to us like the perfect time to go, but apparently no one else thinks so. From Ridgecrest to Trona to Panamint Springs, there was NOBODY on the road. We cruised along. It was cool and a bit overcast. The desert has this wintry feeling to it, hard to describe because there's no obvious sign: no snow, no major shift in coloration. The desert plants haven't lost their leaves. Everything just has this sense of dormancy, different from the sense of dormancy that everything has in the summer. (When does this country wake up? Only in the spring?)

It took us just over an hour to drive 70 miles to Panamint Springs. We had lunch there; it was almost deserted. RB commented on this to the waitress and she said this is their slow season. What's the busy season, we asked, thinking probably spring. "Summer," she said. You're kidding, we said. No, she wasn't kidding. I remember reading that a lot of Europeans come in the summer, because they want to experience 120 degree heat.

The Darwin Falls trailhead is about 3.5 miles from Panamint Springs and we found it without too much trouble. For this hike we thought we'd carry the babies in backpacks. We hoisted them up on our backs and began walking. Unfortunately, either we got lost or the trail is not good at this time of year or the trail needs work. We soon found ourselves wading through a fairly deep stream with very cold water. Of course I was wearing my Nikes. Then we had to cross the stream again. Then again. Then we were going to have to scramble up some rocks. If we hadn't had the babies, we probably would have gone on, but we did have the babies. I could just see myself falling off a rock into the stream and dumping Baby A out of the pack on his head. So we went back without ever seeing the Falls.

To go home, we headed west to Olancha (and then south on 395 back to Ridgecrest). The drive to Olancha was almost spooky. Such barren countryside and almost no one else on the road. It's all so gorgeous, in this weird, deserty sort of way. I am really getting to like the desert (but unfortunately not, as RB said, the people who live there). The dark, towering, snow-topped southern Sierra Nevada mountain peaks loomed ahead of us. When we got to Olancha the sign said the population is 39. RB was hoping for a restaurant, but there was nothing. We went home and had scrambled eggs.

December already

Yes, it's December in Ridgecrest. It's gotten much colder, into the 20s at night, the 60s during the day. It even rained once, lightly. The roses are still blooming, but the black widow spiders seem to have all died, due to the cold nights. But they've probably left bulging egg sacks hidden here and there around the perimeter of the house. There's a cheerful thought.

I spent November working on my NaNoWriMo novel, but now that is over and I am back among the living (as opposed to the fictional). I wrote 84,000 words and got to the end of my outline, but now I have to decide what to do with those 84,000 words. I enjoy editing, but is it worth it to edit these words, or should I just stick them in a (virtual) drawer somewhere?

I've been feeling pretty gloomy since November ended. I'm missing Boulder now. If I were in Boulder I'd be shopping for a gift for the Admin gift exchange, preparing a finger food for the Boulder Bird Club holiday party, making peppermint bark for the Open House at work, and studying up on birds for the Christmas Bird Count. But here in Ridgecrest I don't seem to have anything to do. That seems silly: it's the holidays, of course I should have a project. Let's think about that. What needs to be done for the holidays?

Cards: I got busy and designed our holiday cards last night, so they'll be arriving in a week or so and then I can work on writing and addressing them. I also wrote our xmas letter, though it could use a bit of tinkering.

Gifts: I ordered Rocket Boy a shirt yesterday. We don't usually give each other a lot of stuff. The babies are supposed to be getting a toy kitchen, but the one I wanted is out of stock. I'm on a mailing list to be notified when more come in. I should think of a couple more things for them, get those ordered. My family doesn't really exchange gifts anymore...

Cooking: Later in the month I plan to make some cookies, probably just sugar cookies. I don't think the boos are ready for Date Crunch, though we do have a lot of dates in the house. RB always likes it if I make some German cookies, especially Lebkuchen. I'll think about it. (I hate Lebkuchen!)

Decorating: The only place a Christmas tree will be safe from the boo bears is on top of the grand piano, so our plan is to put up half the tree. It's a fake tree, and the trunk goes together in sections, so we'll just put together half the sections. RB and I will work on that together. Maybe in a week or two. We probably won't do much other decorating. I hung the boos' stockings on the fireplace screen and they've already knocked it down once.

Charity: I need to sit down and make a list of who we'll give money to this year and how much. We're now getting Clifford's mail and he must have given to a lot of organizations, because the number of begging letters he receives is just unreal. Lots and lots of animal charities, which are of course heartbreaking, and then some odd ones, like one we got the other day for a rehab clinic for alcoholic priests.

Church: Normally we would be going to church for Advent, but I'm just really wary of Ridgecrest churches. I did pull out my Advent wreath and lit the first candle last Sunday. That might be all we do this year.

Hanukkah: We're going to Risa's Hanukkah party on December 12, that'll be fun. I would have gotten the boo bears a book about Hanukkah at the library today, but they only had about 4 books and they were all for much older kids. It's all right: boo bears don't understand anything about Christmas either. Next year, next year.

Music: I should start playing Christmas CDs so the boos can learn the songs. We should put the new cartridge in my turntable so I can play my old records too. And finally we should clean the cat vomit out of the piano so I can play some songs.

I'm not feeling inspired.

October is a busy month

So busy that I do not have time to blog! I just couldn't resist one quick post, though. This is a really busy month in Ridgecrest. The weather is delightful and thus absolutely everything is scheduled for this month. The weekend after the Gem-O-Rama there was something called the Maturango Junction, which I didn't understand, so we didn't go, but I guess it was quite the thing (whatever it was). This past Thursday, Rocket Boy and I hired a babysitter and attended a meeting of the Searles Lake Gem & Mineral Society (the folks who put on the Gem-O-Rama) and heard a young woman talk about her archaeological research in the area. Friday night was a Plotting and Planning meeting for the Ridgecrest NaNoWriMo group (more about that later). This weekend was the Desert Empire Fair, kind of like a county fair, out at the fairgrounds. On Saturday we and the babies parked ourselves at the corner of Norma and Ridgecrest Blvd to watch the Desert Empire Fair parade go by, and then that night we went to the actual fair for an hour, saw cows and pigs and goats up close, and shared a Funnel Cake -- a first for all four of us!

And of course Halloween is coming. This afternoon we attended a pumpkin-carving party at the home of one of RB's work friends. I had been a little iffy about going, since I have so much to do, but I don't like to turn down opportunities for socializing, since we have so few. It turned out to be not only pleasant company, but also extremely useful, as I got 2 pumpkins carved! They're out in our backyard now. The babies like to carry them around.

But the main thing taking my time these days is costume construction. Why on earth did I think it was a good idea to make costumes for the babies instead of buying them? I hadn't sewed anything in years and years and years -- how many years? Ten? Fifteen? Did I sew anything the entire time I lived in Colorado? And here I am making a bear costume and a mouse costume. It is October 25, or rather, it is 7 minutes into October 26, and the bear costume is ALMOST but NOT QUITE done, and the mouse costume is not even cut out. My sister told me to think of it as a term paper that I need to stay up all night to finish at the last minute. It is a lot like that, actually. Tonight RB decided to help, and he got the mouse costume all pinned to the fabric but not cut out. I might cut some of it out tomorrow afternoon, that is, if I actually finish the bear costume. The head of the bear costume is so adorable but we think it may be too small. I am going to try it on Baby B tomorrow, and if it's too small, I'll have to make another one. Or cry. Or both.

We were planning to go to Los Angeles for Halloween but now we're thinking we'll stay here, because one of our cats is very ill (in the hospital on IV fluids). The day after Halloween, November 1st, we'll go to LA for my grand-niece and grand-nephew's family birthday party. That day is also the first day of NaNoWriMo, which means that after we get home and put the babies to bed, I'll have to sit down and write 1667 words of a novel. But at least the costumes will be done.

Rocks

A few days ago, on a walk, I was thinking that one of the good things about Ridgecrest is the large number and variety of available rocks. Everywhere you go there are rocks. This is not something that would have impressed me a few years ago. Rocket Boy is a rock enthusiast (that's the "geo" in his geophysics background), but not me. But as I have mentioned before, the babies really like rocks, so it is nice to be able to provide them so readily. As we walk along, if a baby cries, I can reach down and pick up a rock for him. Sometimes we come home from a walk with a stroller full of rocks. Sometimes we go out with a stroller full of rocks from our yard and redistribute them as we walk.

Today we had the opportunity to interact with even more rocks. It is the weekend of the Gem-O-Rama (see http://www1.iwvisp.com/tronagemclub/GEM-O-RAMA.htm), put on every year by the Searles Lake Gem & Mineral Society in Trona (about 25 miles northeast of us). It is a huge event, with thousands of people converging on this sad little town. The highlight of the weekend is the three "field trips" to collect minerals. We decided to go on the Blow Hole field trip, which cost $10/car. The goal of this trip is to collect crystals that are found 30-50 feet below the surface of the salt flats. A few days before the field trip, the organizers dig little holes in the ground, put dynamite in them and blast deep holes, and then they put hoses down into the holes and blow out the contents.

The trip was to start at 2:30 pm. We arrived in "downtown" Trona a little after 2pm, and were directed to park near the front of line 14 in parking lot 2. There were about 15 cars in each line, and maybe 20 lines in each parking lot? Anyway, a lot of cars. Even though we didn't have long to wait, it was too long. The temperature was only in the 80s, but the sun was just fierce, and of course it was shining right on Baby A. And we couldn't move the car. And Baby A wouldn't let us hang a towel up to block the sun. He screamed and screamed. I rolled up all the windows, turned on the car and the air conditioning, and kept checking my watch.

Finally at 2:30 the cars started driving to the site, first all the cars in line 1, then line 2.... finally we got to go too. When we got to the salt flats, we parked, put the babies in the hiking stroller, and wandered over to the area where the blow holes had spewed their contents, already completely overrun with frantic rockhounds, all digging digging digging in the mud and salt and brine. It was quite a sight. Everywhere you looked -- and walked -- there were crystals. It was like being in a very muddy fairy tale. The crystals were hanksite and borax and halite, but it was easy to imagine that they were rubies and emeralds and sapphires.

The babies were not at their happiest -- hadn't had good naps -- but the strangeness of the scene calmed them down. After pushing them around the perimeter of the digging area, we parked the stroller and let them get out and explore. We had brought their sand buckets, and it was fun to watch them collecting rocks. Baby B collected some rocks and then dumped them on the ground. Baby A, however, filled his bucket.

At 4pm they blew another hole, as a demonstration. It was quite a sight. When it was through blowing, everyone rushed forward to dig through what had been deposited. Everyone except us. We went back to the car, scraped the mud off our shoes and the stroller wheels, and headed home. With our rocks.

A shopping trip

Yesterday (Sunday) we went shopping. We wanted to go to Bed Bath & Beyond, JoAnn Fabrics, and Whole Foods. Since none of those stores are anywhere near us, we drove to Los Angeles. And thus began a typical Ridgecrest shopping day.

We left the house at 10am, after spending an hour or so getting ready -- packing up everything the twins could possibly need (plus more), filling the back of the car with recycling (and the double stroller), changing diapers (and again). We filled the gas tank and were officially on the road at 10:07. A little over 2 hours and exactly 142 miles later we found ourselves at the Bed Bath & Beyond in Canoga Park.

You know, it's a nice store, but 142 miles? We bought two boards with rows of hooks on them, one for the entryway and one for the bedroom. Next door was a Carters store, where I spent almost $100 on sleepers and shirts and socks for the little ones.

We had lunch at a Coco's. The babies ate pancakes, scrambled eggs, and fruit. Rocket Boy and I both had quiche. The waitress was very nice, gave us lots of napkins and generally seemed to know what we would need.

Shopping trips always seem to include visits to family and friends, just as visits to family and friends always include shopping. It just seems like we can't drive that far just to go to a couple of stores/can't drive that far and NOT go to a couple of stores. Next stop was our friend Chris's new house. Chris and his wife were not home, they were on vacation, but we wanted to see their house. It took us a while to find it. RB got out of the car and knocked on the door, just for show. Then we visited Cousin June and her family, and spent a couple of hours there.

At 4:40 pm we headed for JoAnn Fabrics. I had wanted to buy material for Halloween costumes, but it was just too late for such complicated shopping. The babies were tired, I was tired, and it was a terrible store, hard to find anything. RB managed to buy a piece of velcro.

Then it was off to the Whole Foods in Northridge, which we eventually tracked down after quite a bit of wandering. I bought 4 boxes of my favorite cereal, a jug of Planet laundry detergent, grapes, muffins, and a few other little things. Unfortunately they were not accepting any recycling other than CRV items, so we had to bring all our recycling home with us (should have put it in Cousin June's bin, but forgot).

By then it was past 6pm. We got on the highway and drove for an hour to Lancaster, where we found a Carrow's (which is almost identical to Coco's). By now it was after 7pm, and I had the idea that we needed to eat dinner. Baby B had fallen asleep in the car and we had to wake him up. We carried the babies into the restaurant, got them settled in high chairs. They both began to cry. We ordered dinner, which took ages to arrive. The waitstaff were not helpful. To pass the time I took Baby A to the restroom and changed his diaper (no changing table, so I did this on the floor), took Baby B on a walk around the restaurant, and finally knelt on the floor between their two highchairs, put my hands on their backs and begged them to stop crying. The restaurant was not crowded, but there was a woman, eating alone, seated very near us, and a couple on the other side of the room. The food arrived: an omelet for RB, a turkey sandwich for me, chicken nuggets and fruit for the babies. The babies ate some grapes, Baby B ate some of my turkey and a couple of my fries. My turkey sandwich was on a croissant. Every time I took a bite, the entire contents of the sandwich fell out. Over and over I put the turkey, cheese, avocado, lettuce, and tomato, back inside the croissant and took another bite. Blurp went the contents onto my plate. Baby A threw some chicken on the floor. I sat there eating french fries, wondering if we would ever get home.

We made it home by 9:30pm and put the babies to bed immediately. Baby A cried as if his heart would break, but we couldn't figure out why.

Living in Ridgecrest, one often finds oneself posing the question: is shopping worth it?

October is the wonderfullest month

I just love October -- even in Ridgecrest! My Weight Watchers leader said that October is the best month in Ridgecrest, and I believe her. It is so wonderful to feel the crisp cool air after that long long long hot horrible summer. I'd say the only downside so far is that we've turned off the swamp cooler and immediately my skin dried out. I need to start using lotion again. I wash my hands about 50,000 times a day, due to changing diapers and doing dishes and whatnot, and my fingertips are starting to feel really scratchy.

If I were in Boulder I'd be sad, because Clifford's big oak tree would be turning color and he wouldn't be there to see it, and I wouldn't be able to carve him a jack-o-lantern as I've done for the past several years. At least I don't have to think of him being lonely in Boulder without us and without a pumpkin. He's moved on.

Today was Flex Friday, so Rocket Boy and I took the babies to daycare together and then went out to lunch, as is our wont. As we were driving, we had a huge argument about Rancho Cucamonga. One of RB's coworkers thinks I should move to Rancho Cucamonga and RB could live in Ridgecrest during the week and visit me and the boys on weekends. I said, "I don't want to live in Rancho Cucamonga!!! Why would anyone want to live in Rancho Cucamonga?!!!" I found myself attempting to defend Ridgecrest and failing just as utterly as letter writers to the Daily Independent do. "Rancho Cucamonga doesn't have mountains nearby!" (Actually I think it does.) "Rancho Cucamonga doesn't have nice places to walk!" (How do I know?) "Rancho Cucamonga is hot!" (What was my point?)

I actually know nothing about Rancho Cucamonga except that we went to a wedding there a few years ago, in August, and it was hot. But I don't want to live there.

I swear Ridgecrest is growing on me. Like a fungus.

After dinner tonight we took a walk, even though it was getting dark. The moon was ALMOST full. I sang moon songs: "Oh in the moonlight, I want to hold somebody's hand," and "I see the moon, the moon sees me, the moon sees the one I want to see." I also discovered that I can ALMOST recite "Goodnight Moon" by heart.

You probably couldn't even see the moon in Rancho Cucamonga, too smoggy or foggy or something. It probably isn't even October there.

The last day of September

We have made it to the end of September! Summer is over (in my opinion). And it was so cool and lovely today. Supposed to get to 78 -- only 78! (I don't know whether it really did, but it felt nice and cool all day.)

I have been pretty sick for a few days, maybe the piggy flu (???). The babies have had it for about 10 days and now Rocket Boy thinks he's getting it. Despite that, the babies and I did our walk this morning. I really wanted to experience the walk in the cool morning air. It was divine.

I did not see or hear any quail, but near the end of the walk I saw a bird I hadn't seen there before. It paused on the fence quite near us, long enough for me to dig out the binoculars. It even flew back and forth a bit, as if it wanted me to see all its field marks. It was some sort of flycatcher, but I wasn't sure which one. At home, I looked in my books, and decided it was a Western Kingbird (which is a flycatcher). Not an unusual bird, but the first one I'd seen in Ridgecrest! I will have to be on the lookout for other fall migrants.

It's driving us crazy that the days are getting shorter. The weather is so perfect all of a sudden, but it's dark before 7pm, so it's hard to do an evening walk. Tonight, though, I decided to wander out into the backyard for a little while before (the babies') bedtime. Of course the babies came out too, and RB, and both cats. I turned the patio light on to keep the black widows in their holes a little longer. RB decided to brush the cats, who always have clumps in their fur because Whiskers is too old and sick to groom herself properly and Pie Bear is too fat. I pulled the babies around the patio in their wagon. "Who wants a ride, who wants a ride, who wants a ride in my little red wagon..." The moon is about 3/4, I think? I pointed it out to the babies. "Goodnight moon" (they love that book).

Sometimes we are happy here.

The last Wine Walk

The last Wine Walk of the year was tonight. First we went to John's for dinner -- the usual scramble with the buffet, trying to choose things the babies would like, tossing them bits of this and that (like feeding animals at the zoo). Then at 6:30 pm we pushed the stroller down Ridgecrest Boulevard to the stores that were participating in the Wine Walk. However, we never actually drank any wine. We just wandered up and down the streets, listened to the music, went into a few stores, bought a few things, but never a wine glass. Obviously we do not understand the point of the Wine Walk (which is to drink as much wine as possible, all for the $5 you pay for the wine glass). It was warm, but not oppressively so, and by 7 pm it was dark. Very pleasant. Almost (but not quite) like being in Boulder.

One of the stores we browsed was Red Rock Books. I checked the adult fiction and children's books, bought a Halloween board book (as if we need more board books). As I looked through the adult books, I realized there's very little I'm looking for these days. In the old days I always had several authors with whom I was obsessed; now, not so much. I'm sure they're out there, my future obsessions, at least I hope they are.

My sole current craze is the Sherlock Holmes mysteries of Laurie R. King, in which the aging Holmes marries a young woman named Mary Russell who becomes his partner in detection. I have read 6 of these, just started the 7th, and am depressed about the fact that there are only 2 more after that, plus another coming out in 2010. As mysteries, these books are just so-so. Their charm is in the portrayal of the relationship between Holmes and Russell. While escaping into them, I have fallen in lust with Sherlock Holmes again. I remember how I adored Jeremy Brett in the PBS version of the Sherlock Holmes stories in the 80s/90s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Brett). From the Wikipedia entry, it is interesting to note that playing Sherlock Holmes basically destroyed Jeremy Brett, the heartlessness of the character. How nice it would have been if he could have lived long enough to play the Sherlock Holmes who falls in love with Mary Russell.

I suppose I should be looking for some great author who writes about the desert. At the Wine Walk we ran into one of Rocket Boy's coworkers. He asked how we were liking Ridgecrest and made some comment about whether we were going to be among "the people who adjust or the people who leave."

"The people who leave" I whispered to RB as we walked on.

We came home and found a sun spider in the kitchen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_spider).

Not as late as I thought

I guess that "80 degrees" thing was a typo. It's been corrected. Now NOAA is predicting 88, 89, 91 degrees for next week. Still, that's much better than 99, 100, 101 (the next 3 days). Gosh I'm sick of hot weather, or hadn't you noticed?

Today was a pretty wretched day. The babies are both sick, just colds, but we're trying to take it easy. Mom is heartsick, so ditto. A dull, miserable day.

But they took a good nap, and it was library day, which is the best day of the week. We got there quite late, around 4:30, because they took such a late nap. We go in the back door now, because it has a button to push that opens the door automatically. First we went to the front desk to return our books. Then we went to the children's section and I picked out a few picture books. I don't get the babies out of their stroller anymore, because they won't mind me and they can run so fast. They both grabbed board books off the little low bookcase. Baby B gave his up after a while, but Baby A read his all the way through, so we got that one too. It was about different kinds of trucks (sigh). Boys and their trucks.

Then we did a quick turn through the miniscule adult fiction section and I picked up a new-to-me Margaret Drabble novel. I can always read Margaret Drabble even though I don't consider her a favorite author. Then we went to the front desk to pick up two biographies that I had ordered through interlibrary loan. Gosh I love the library. All these riches for free.

We had leftover mac & cheese for dinner, homegrown tomatoes, and (after the babies went to bed) ice cream. Not doing so well with Weight Watchers these days, just trying to survive. After that I finished reading a novel I started yesterday. When I'm sad I read obsessively. Just trying to get through the days.

Tomorrow is Friday, my last day of work before the new guy starts and I become his advisor. It's really time to move on -- but to what?

Late September

I guess I can call it that, although there's still a week left. I'm wishing my life away, that's what I'm doing. So eager for the summer to be over. Here's a news flash: the predicted high temperature for next Wednesday (the last day of the month) is 80! They don't explain why, it's too far out. 102 Saturday, 103 Sunday, and then by Wednesday, 80. I keep looking at the NOAA webpage so I can see that number.

My sister visited this weekend to help me (because Rocket Boy was in Colorado again) and she got to experience our summer weather. At one point we stepped outside a restaurant into the blast of heat and the wind was blowing hard. "Oh," she said, "that's the blow dryer effect, isn't it?" It was actually fun to be able to demonstrate the things I've talked about.

But OK, fun is fun, time for all those things to be OVER.

Rocket Boy got back from Colorado and he was actually glad to get back to the heat. He said it was cold in Boulder, it felt like winter was coming. Winter, what a wonderful word.

I wonder if the black widow spiders will go into hibernation when it gets cold here. I just don't remember all these webs being here when we first arrived, back in February. We had cockroaches, but not so many spiders. There's a choice, huh? Would you prefer cockroaches or black widow spiders in and around your house? Actually the black widows seem to be pretty good about staying outside. The cockroaches know no boundaries.

With the end of summer comes the end of a lot of things for us. We've lost our best friend and neighbor, the person who really meant "home" for us. Now pretty soon I'm going to lose my job. I helped interview my replacement last week and he'll be coming on board next Monday. I'm going to help train him for a while, act as a resource person, but I imagine in a few weeks it'll be over. October 13th will mark 11 years for me in that job. Time to move on, but to what?

This time of year I should start to have more energy, gearing up for a productive autumn. I've always loved the fall. This year things are just a little different. I'm trying to stir up that energy but it feels like I need a little more quiet time first.

Special weather statement

That's what the National Weather Service is offering residents of the Kern County desert for the coming week. A special weather statement, informing us that temperatures will be 10-15 degrees above normal. It's supposed to be 104 Saturday, 106 Sunday, 106 Monday, 104 Tuesday. Of course it was a lot hotter than that in July, but this is mid-September.

I take comfort in knowing that in a normal year it might be 10 degrees cooler than this by now. But you always have to think: what about global warming? Maybe there will be no more normal years...

NWS offers some "Tips to help you cope with the heat":

1. Avoid prolonged exposure to the sun. When possible...stay in the shade or an air conditioned room. (Translation: hide in your house, like you did all summer.)

2. Wear loose fitting...light colored clothes. (Wearing white after Labor Day is not a faux pas in Ridgecrest.)

3. Drink plenty of non alcoholic fluids. (That is, try to avoid drowning your sorrows in booze.)

4. Never leave children or pets in a vehicle...even for short periods of time. Temperatures inside vehicles can climb rapidly to life threatening levels...even with windows partially open. (Ridgecrest is a dangerous place. It isn't even safe to leave the kids in the car in the garage -- with the garage door open and all the car doors open. It really isn't.)

5. Periodically check on children and the elderly (to be sure they haven't collapsed in despair).

Ridgecrest is a quiet place

Ever since we got back from Boulder, Ridgecrest hasn't seemed that bad to me. I know part of the reason is that the Colorado trip was so stressful. And part of the reason is that Boulder is now suddenly a sad place for me, because Clifford is dead.

Ridgecrest is a calm place. Ridgecrest is a quiet place. I don't know anyone here so there's nothing to feel sad about. Each morning I go out with my broom and knock down the webs that the black widows built the night before.

Boulder is a very active town. It just buzzes. The first night we were there, we went to IHOP for a quick dinner. And there was one of my coworkers, having a quick dinner with his wife and a friend. I went over to say hi. The next day, the babies and I went to the grocery store. And there was another one of my coworkers, pushing HIS baby in a stroller. We said hi. Although that was quite a few coworkers in a short time, when we used to live there it was not unusual for us to run into people we knew every time we went out to do anything. I think this was not because we knew so many people, but because in Boulder, people are always out and about. They do not hide in their houses, watching TV and eating, they go out in the world and do things. People go for walks, walk their dogs, ride their bikes, run, go to restaurants, go shopping, go to the library. Both the climate and the design of the town are very conducive to activity.

Ridgecrest is different. The climate is inhospitable and the town is too spread out. Although we don't know a lot of people here, we are starting to know some -- from Weight Watchers and the daycare and RB's work and our neighbors and the clubs we've attended meetings of. And there aren't very many choices of places to go. But we hardly ever see a familiar face in a restaurant or store.

Our house in Boulder seems much friendlier and more neighborly than our house in Ridgecrest. We have that beautiful front porch. When we were there last week I left the front door open most of the time (the screen was closed so the babies wouldn't leave on their own). People kept dropping by and we kept going outside. The big front window looks out on the street where people are constantly going by with their dogs and strollers. In Ridgecrest we also have a big front window, but we don't look out of it much. And most people's houses are dominated by a big garage, often with no front window on the house at all. People's lives seem very private here.

Right now I guess that's what I'm looking for -- a little privacy, a little quiet time. Ridgecrest is not a bad place to be if you just want to be alone for a while. As long as you don't mind black widow spiders.

Thoughts while writing an obituary

I've written too many of these. My mother's, my sister's, my husband's father's. I helped write my father's. I don't ever think I do a good job.

It's hard to sum up a long, complicated life in a couple of paragraphs, when you know the person is gone, possibly off to some unimaginable new adventure, or possibly just no longer in any sort of existence, and regardless, doesn't care what you write, while on the other hand you care very much.

When Clifford was at the Hospice center, that last day, the social worker asked whether he would like the TV on or some music. We said NO TV, but then I wondered about music. I remembered he liked classic country music, Hank Williams and that sort of thing. Then later RB remembered that the singer he really liked above all others was Joan Baez. How could I have forgotten that? He called her Joanie and was delighted that my family had known her family, long long ago. When RB and I took the twins and went off for a while, we went to the new Barnes & Noble in Boulder and I bought a Joan Baez Greatest Hits CD. I thought Clifford would like having his Joanie sing him out of this world.

RB said Clifford's relatives didn't really appreciate the CD and turned it off (this was after I left).

I brought it home with me. I'm listening to it now. The first song on it is "Diamonds and Rust," which keeps breaking my heart. It's about loss, and memory, and love.

I was looking through our electronic photo files, trying to find a good photo of Clifford for the obituary. Didn't find one. We have so many shots of him looking off to the side, not smiling, face partly hidden by a hat. A few falls ago we (me, RB, Clifford, and our old dog Molly) hiked a trail behind Silver Plume, Colorado to the Clifford Griffin Memorial obelisk. Such a cool hike. (See http://nathanabels.blogspot.com/2009/06/griffin-memorial-hike-silver-plume-co.html.) Below is a photo of me and Clifford standing next to the obelisk. It was such a beautiful day.

"...speaking strictly from me, we both could have died then and there..."

Of course, in that case, I wouldn't have had the twins. I have quite a bit of living left to do. Someday we'll take them on that hike.

I'm not getting anything done today.

Travail

Our trip to Boulder had an unthinkable effect on both Rocket Boy and me: we were glad to get back to Ridgecrest.

It turned out to be a difficult trip. Our friend who we were visiting probably began to die the evening we arrived, which was Friday. He "completed the death process" or "passed over" or whatever you want to call it at 6:45 pm Sunday. RB was with him. I had been able to tell him how much he'd meant to me. Then immediately we had to start dealing with estate issues, because RB is the executor. All of this was so hard to do while babysitting toddler twins, in our mostly empty, non-babyproofed house.

RB and I were in shock; we thought he'd live weeks more, even months. We were grieving. I wanted someone to appear and take care of us, but instead we were the ones taking care of everything. If we'd been Clifford's real family, if RB had been his son, people might have brought us food, but nothing like that happened. We had to keep finding food for the twins, rushing off to baby-friendly restaurants, stopping off at the grocery store for some more mac & cheese. We had to stay a little longer than we'd planned, so I changed our flights, extended our rental car (at huge expense). My credit card company responded by cutting me off due to suspected fraud.

The day we left, Tuesday, was crammed with meetings and errands. I babysat and packed, did dishes and cleaned. RB made it home by 4pm, at which point I loaded the twins in the rental car and went off to return our two borrowed cribs. I got home at 4:45pm. We left for the airport just after 5pm. As we drove down I-25, RB realized he had forgotten his keys to the rental car (we had 2 sets). I turned around at the Pecos St exit and drove back to Boulder to get the keys. That meant that we returned the car at 7:00 pm (it was due at 6:30pm). We checked in for our flight and discovered that they had put all four of us in different rows, and each of us in the middle seat of the row, despite the fact that carseats are required by the FAA to be in window seats.

Picture us in the airport (after checking 3 bags). RB and I each had a backpack, he pushed a rental cart with the diaper bag and the two carseats, and I pushed the twins in their double stroller. We stopped for a quick dinner, then rushed for the elevator. We were almost to security when RB realized he'd left the cart with the carseats and diaper bag back at the restaurant. He rushed back to get them while I banged my head against the stroller. We ended up in a security lane with some really prize TSA agents: they made the babies take off their Robeez. An obnoxious TSA agent told me I could not walk through the magnetometer until our stuff had gone through the scanner. "One of you stay with your things, the other stay with the children," she ordered. But RB had already gone through, so I had to stay with both the stuff and the babies (who kept running away).

At the United gate we explained about the seating problem and the gate agent found us legal seats, two and two, but they were six rows apart. We asked if we could board early, so that RB could set up the carseats, but that was not allowed. Finally we were on the plane, twins ensconced in carseats. Two women in the row ahead of me made some snotty comments about how their flight was now ruined. Of course that turned out to be true. Baby A (sitting with me) screamed off and on the whole flight. Baby B (with RB) did the same. In desperation, RB brought Baby B to visit me a few times. At one point I said, "Give him to me, I'll cuddle him," forgetting that in front of me on my tray table were a can of Diet Pepsi, a plastic glass of Diet Pepsi and ice, and a carton of milk. The glass dumped over into my seat pocket, the milk went on the floor. When Baby A wasn't screaming he wanted me to read "Goodnight Moon," over and over. This seemed ironic, because although we had departed over an hour past the twins' normal bedtime, neither would sleep until the very end of the flight. Poor Baby A. I had to wake him up after a mere 10 minutes asleep.

The luggage was late. We dragged everything to the car, fit everything in. The bill for four and a half days in the most expensive lot was $90. I was worried about what might be in the car, because RB had left the windows slightly open. As we headed for the highway, RB noticed that we had an ant invasion in the car. We stopped for gas and that's when I learned that my credit card had been cut off.

I drove like a madwoman the 122 miles from the gas station to Ridgecrest. We got into town just after 1:00am. We realized we had no milk for breakfast, so stopped off at the grocery store. It had closed at midnight. We went home. There was a terrible odor from the cat boxes, but our cat sitter had left us a sympathy card.

I was honestly glad to be home.

In Boulder

We made it to Boulder and my heart is breaking. It was an awful trip, 2 hours down Highway 395, which is not a fun highway, then I-15, I-10, the airport, got lost, got un-lost, checked in at the curb, dragged babies, stroller, heavy carseats, all our stuff to the plane, 2 hours in the air (Baby B awake the whole time), dragged all our stuff to the rental car place, took the long way home because it was rush hour... and then, as we came to that part of Highway 36 where you can see all of Boulder laid out before you... I thought I was dreaming. It was Brigadoon. It was Fairyland. Fortunately I wasn't driving, because I was swooning. That feeling of being in a dream continued as we drove through town. We were listening to KBCO on the radio and they were playing various classic rock/pop/whatever songs, and every song seemed full of significance and melancholy. Finally we drove up to our house -- our house! The most beautiful house in the world! It has been a very cool wet summer in Colorado, and Boulder is much greener than it would normally be in September. Lush, really. It looked more like Michigan than Colorado. All our trees and bushes are overgrown.

We went inside. The house is so lovely! The people who have been staying there this summer had left some furniture, and some bits and pieces of ours are still there, including the upright piano. It didn't seem empty. White walls, hardwood floors. The house was singing to us: welcome back, thank you for coming. The babies ran excitedly from room to room. I'm not sure they remembered it, but I'm not sure they didn't.

We went next door. Clifford is dying, I knew that. But I was not prepared for how he would look. He's lost all his hair, from the radiation or chemo or whatever. Otherwise he's not too much changed physically, but his face shows so much pain. So different from the old friend we left behind 7 months ago. I wanted to throw my arms around him, but that isn't our relationship and anyway I had to look after the babies, who ran madly from breakable thing to breakable thing.

Finally we took them outside. Clifford has a lot of rocks in his yard and the babies like rocks. They happily picked up rock after rock and threw them around. I wandered over to the low fence that divides his yard from ours. I looked into our yard. It is so green, so overgrown. Our elm tree, our oak tree, our maple tree. The times I would go into the yard and look over and see him in his yard. The times he would go into his yard and look over and see us. He and Rocket Boy have looked back and forth across that low fence for more than 50 years, starting when RB was younger than our babies.

This is the pain I didn't feel when we left, because I was too overwhelmed and too depressed. I hope it will stop soon.

It is like a dream. It is like when you dream about a person who's died, but there in the dream they are alive and well and you're so happy to see them again. I thought I'd lost my home but here is my home, waiting for me. At the same time, Clifford is dying, and he was a big part of "home." So home is really about to be lost. I get one more taste of it and then it will be gone. The next time I come here it will be all different.

This is where we used to live.

Smoke

Even way out here we are getting smoke from the LA fires. My sister just told me the smoke has gone to Las Vegas and now even on to Denver (and presumably everywhere else in between and beyond). That makes me feel more connected, both to LA and to Denver, instead of my usual feeling of total isolation.

And to Las Vegas. I have such a different attitude toward Las Vegas, now that I live in Ridgecrest. No longer do I think of it as a tacky, unhealthy, unnecessary kind of place. Instead, Las Vegas is where our classical music station comes from!

An advantage to living in Ridgecrest is that we are unlikely to lose our homes to a forest fire. There is no forest here. Could a fire survive for miles and miles on creosote bush? I think we're safe.

California's burning. "Patchy smoke" is predicted for the next few days. I look at the sky and think of the people who have lost their homes, the forest animals who have lost their lives.

Change

Well, we didn't go to Colorado because we all got sick, so we're going next weekend instead. I was struck by how devastated I was on Friday when Rocket Boy told me he just couldn't do it and we would have to change our plans. I mean, OK, there was a cost involved, but that's not what I was upset about. I wanted so much to be in Boulder the next day. I was just longing, yearning to be there. I wanted to see our house again. I wanted to go next door and see our neighbor, before he dies (I still can't get my mind around that). I wanted to walk to the park and on to the grocery store, where I wanted to buy some bulk food (which Ridgecrest doesn't have). I wanted to visit my old office and the boos' old daycare. I wanted to go to the library and the Pearl Street Mall and Chautauqua. I wanted to walk up into the mountains.

Instead I had to go to the grocery store in Ridgecrest. It was painful.

I've been thinking about time passing, and change. Earlier this summer, when I spent those 3 weeks in Palo Alto, I was struck by how different things seemed there. I've been visiting a few times a year ever since I left, 21 years ago, so how is it that it changed so much without my noticing? Of course the big change happened when we sold my mother's house and the new owners remodeled it. Now I have no "center" in that town, no home. There are probably still people in town that I used to know, people I went to high school with who have stayed around. But as my sister said, if I ran into them, they wouldn't recognize me and I wouldn't recognize them. It's been too long. We have aged and changed.

When I went back to Ann Arbor a few years ago for a conference, I was amazed by the changes. Even the venerable University of Michigan has put up many new (and ugly) buildings. The apartment complex where I used to live looked the same. My old best friends who we stayed with looked pretty much the same. And I had a wonderful reunion with the old friends who flew in from all over the world for the conference. But some people looked very different. And I expect I will never see most of them again.

I think I am dreading that Boulder will change too much while we are gone. We don't know how long we'll be here -- 2 years? 5 years? 20 years? Will too much time pass and we won't want to go back? We have a number of "older" friends -- will they all die while we're gone? Will there still be a Boulder Bird Club? I want to go back while it's still my Boulder, before it changes the way Palo Alto has changed and I don't feel at home there anymore. Ridgecrest is not home. It is where I live but it is not home.

Late Summer

It's still over 100 almost every day, but you can feel something changing. The days get off to a slower start, it's a little cooler when we first get up. And of course it gets dark earlier, making it easier to put the babies to bed. I believe we will have temperatures in the 100s through September, but interspersed with more and more days in the 90s, maybe even the 80s. Seems impossible. I'll have to go back to wearing shirts with sleeves. Maybe in October.

We have started going on morning walks again, and that feels really good. I thought it would be hard to get motivated, but it isn't. My body likes to walk. Why am I not a long, lean person -- I should be! Anyone who walks as much as I have for all these many years should be slender as a reed. I'm dreaming. Anyway, compared to most of my fellow Ridgecrestians I am skinny.

In late summer I always re-read the poem by Robert Frost called "The Oven Bird."

There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

What to make of a diminished thing, I guess this is my question these days, but it has been my question for years now. Life is still very interesting once "the early petal-fall is past" but it is less exciting, with that "highway dust" over all. Of course when one has toddler twins, life is always pretty exciting, mustn't forget that.

Late summer is a melancholy time. Last year in August my family lost our beloved Uncle Bob. This year RB and I are getting ready to lose our best friend and neighbor. I'm spending a lot of time thinking about the good times we had together, how much he meant to us. We're going out to Colorado this weekend to say goodbye, but I'm saying goodbye a hundred times over in my mind.

Home hunting

We've started thinking about buying a place here. The lease on our rental house is up in 6 months and we don't like renting. It might not be so bad if our rental agency actually responded to our requests for repairs, but this is Ridgecrest, so they don't.

It keeps going through my mind: why would I buy a house in a place I don't like? I have no answer.

We don't have a realtor yet, but we did get preapproved for a loan at the credit union, so we know we can buy something. Nothing fancy, but something. Today, as an outing, we decided to go look at some houses in our price range.

The first house was a few blocks away from us, so we pushed the boys over there in the stroller. The house was completely vacant, which I always prefer to "staging." Nice big living room with built-in bookcases and an attractive fireplace, high ceilings. "I just need to get these bugs cleaned up," said the realtor, reaching down with a tissue for some dead cockroaches caught in a spider web. The extra bedrooms were small. The master bedroom was large, with a huge walk-in closet. There was a giant cockroach on its back in the master bath shower.

The realtor offered us treats. Baby B grabbed a big cookie and we convinced Baby A to take half a chocolate-covered pretzel. Armed with this bounty, we ventured out into the big backyard. No lawn, but some very nice trees -- for Ridgecrest. Amazing how our standards have fallen.

The second house was in the north part of town, so we drove. It was on a lot about half the width of its neighbors. A two-car detached garage in the back of the lot, with a long driveway, the kind of thing where you could park about 6 cars, but you'd be constantly moving cars to get to the one you wanted. Small rooms, no space for the piano, but no visible cockroaches. Packing boxes everywhere. The owners were moving to Alabama.

The babies are currently very into rocks, in fact Baby B can even say "Rock!" In the backyard they found a selection and were very excited. The realtor was friendly and when he heard we didn't have a realtor yet, he said he'd like to give us a gift. It turned out to be a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

I can't stop thinking about our old house in Boulder. It's very small compared to our rental house here and even to these houses we're traipsing through. But it has beautiful trees, two driveways, a big front porch, a mailbox. We put in a new back lawn and a new sprinkler system the year before we left, so the babies would have grass to play on. I wonder how it's doing. Next door our neighbor, who Rocket Boy has known his entire life, is dying of cancer, without us.

I think it's going to take us a while to find a home in Ridgecrest.

In Walmart

Rocket Boy and I do NOT like Walmart, its policies and politics, how it destroys small town businesses, doesn't pay health insurance, all that kind of thing. But when you live in Ridgecrest, sometimes you just have to go to Walmart. There's a Kmart too, but it's much farther away from us and it doesn't have nearly the inventory. Many times I've gone to Kmart first, not found what I was looking for, and ended up at stupid Walmart instead. Oh well.

Today I stopped in at Walmart for a few items: some plastic containers for the bathroom, more wooden clothespins, and a new alarm clock. I found everything I was looking for and headed for the checkout lanes. As is usual at Walmart, all around me were hugely fat people, the kind you stop and look at because their fat bulges so peculiarly. I know I should not do that. I have been a Weight Watcher since I was 16, I should have more compassion. I do have compassion, actually. I don't look at these people and think "what fat pigs," I look at them and think, "oh how miserable they must be, they must feel so trapped by their weight." I also fantasize about being a Weight Watchers leader and helping them lose the weight. But I still stare at them. It's like staring at a car accident (which I also do, with great interest).

I got in a short line behind a nicely dressed old lady, who was behind a young, slim, Arab-looking man and his pregnant wife and two young sons. The Arab-looking man was buying tons of stuff in two carts, and the old lady was joking with him about how much time he was taking. One lane over there was a colossally fat white man (in shorts, natch) and he was talking to the old lady too. It appeared that they attended the same church. The man had been watching some sort of video, and he was telling the old lady that the church should buy a copy of it. He was talking about one of the people in the video, and he said "He's a Christian, you know," in that way that people do when what they mean is "Only Christians are worth my time."

At once I began a fantasy which involved not only being this man's Weight Watcher leader, but also helping him understand that people of other faiths such as Jews and Muslims, and even atheists, are also worth his time, and also that Christians can be bad people too, there is nothing about accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior that makes you any nicer than anyone else. This fantasy lasted me all the way out of the store and over to Albertson's, where I observed a young female clerk on a cigarette break, which got me started on a fantasy about watching her growing old before her time and having to go on oxygen (my fantasies about smokers are meaner -- I don't have much sympathy for them).

Albertson's was full of fat people too. I didn't buy any ice cream.

Why it's great to live in Ridgecrest

A few weeks ago the LA Times did a front-page story about Ridgecrest and how it's the only place in California that's hiring right now. Rocket Boy and I felt that the article was painfully well-balanced, hardly saying anything at all negative about Ridgecrest. But the rest of the town felt slighted by remarks like "this parched community... has become the land of opportunity... for those who don't mind isolation, searing heat and little entertainment beyond Wednesday night karaoke at the local bar."

Since that article appeared, Letters to the Editor in our two local newspapers have featured a number of outraged responses from residents. These readers try so hard to think of good things to say about Ridgecrest and fail so utterly that their letters are thoroughly amusing. Until this week, my favorite response letter was one that mentioned the "monthly wine walks" as one of Ridgecrest's cultural highlights.

This week there was another great letter. The writer talked about her family's decision to move to Ridgecrest 37 years ago. One of their reasons for moving was "to provide our kids with a safe environment where they could walk anywhere." Yes, except that there is nowhere to walk and it is too hot to go outside. But here's the best part: "We don't have malls in which to spend money we don't have." I had never thought of that. What a wonderful place Ridgecrest is to live! No opportunities to go into debt!

We love it here more every day.

Cleaning

One of my deficiencies as a female is my inability to notice dirt until it is really substantial. I did not get the clean gene. Like my mother, I have no interest in cleaning and can think of 150 things I'd rather do (at least!). However, when you live in a house for 6 months without cleaning the bathrooms.... let's just say that even I can see dirt like that.

I've been thinking about cleaning the bathrooms for a couple of months now. I even bought a book, "Speed Cleaning," after having it out of the library for a while. But I did not see how I could clean a bathroom when the boos were home, and I'm always too tired at night, and while they're at daycare I have too many other things to do, like working.

This week, finally, I had had enough. Yesterday I got the Comet, the Windex, and the all-purpose non-toxic cleaning solution, a roll of paper towels, a scrub brush, an old toothbrush, and the toilet brush, and headed for my bathroom. Of course the boos came too, because they follow me all over the house, and they PARTICULARLY like to follow me to the bathroom because that's where we brush our teeth and also where I rinse out their dirty diapers, which they find fascinating. Sigh.

I decided to clean only the toilet, the sink, and the mirrors. The boos were knocking each other over trying to watch me scrub the toilet with Comet. Following my book's advice, I sprayed the toilet, then the underpart of the seat, then the top of the seat, and then the lid, with the all-purpose non-toxic cleaning solution, and then wiped each thing in reverse order -- with a little help from the boos, who kept trying to put their hands in the goop and eat it. The mirrors were easy, but then I had to take all the stuff off the top of the vanity and put it somewhere, in order to clean the area. I put the cleaning supplies on the top of the toilet during that exercise, and next thing I knew, Baby A had the Windex and Baby B had the all-purpose non-toxic cleaning solution. "Oh, thank you," I said, taking the bottles away from them. Unwinding the paper towels was also a popular activity.

Despite all the bother, the results were so delightful that today I decided to do Rocket Boy's bathroom (he uses the main house bathroom, which is also where the boos take baths -- my bathroom is part of the master suite). Actually all I did was the mirrors and vanity top, but again, the results were stunning.

This gave me the energy to do some vacuuming. First I had to find the vacuum cleaner, which was not in either of the two places I remembered it being. Where could it be? Finally I looked in the garage. There it was, standing next to my car, which means I walk past it every day, sometimes several times in a day, without noticing it. So not only do I not notice dirt, I also do not notice dirt-removal implements. It's like a handicap!

In order to vacuum our bedroom, I first had to remove objects from the floor, like diapers, toys, and my backpack. I piled them on the cedar chest. Baby B immediately began throwing them back on the floor. I worked around him. Boo bears were startled by the sound of the vacuum and laughed. Note to self: MUST do this more often!

Then we did their bedroom, which required picking up their toys first. This was also greeted with great hilarity, and toys were put back on the floor as fast as I removed them. I worked around them.

Finally we did the family room. There is a box in that room for their toys, and I announced that we were going to put all the toys in the box. Wonder of wonders, Baby A actually helped put the toys in the box! Of course he also stood where he could hold onto the cord and jerked it up and down as I vacuumed. But I still got the job done and was pleased with the results.

So there you have it. There is so little to do in Ridgecrest that cleaning has become recreational. Pretty soon I'll be dusting.

One of those days

We didn't sleep well last night. The cats kept going out, and then meowing to come in again, and then running down the hall meowing... I had a headache when I got up and actually took a short nap later, which is not like me.

All this must be the reason I put the peelings from 8 potatoes down the disposal. I was making scalloped potatoes for dinner. I remember feeling this vague sense of unease about all those potato peelings going down the disposal, but did I act on it? No. Did I think: oh that's right, you're not supposed to put massive quantities of potato peelings down the disposal? No. I put them all down and turned it on. It groaned and spun, and a lot of brown water came up into the sink and whirled around and whirled around and didn't go down and didn't go down, and suddenly I realized I had a problem.

It was 4:40 pm and I needed to put the scalloped potatoes in the oven and go pick up the babies from daycare. I quickly called Rocket Boy at work and described the situation. He thought he might be able to fix the clog, so I didn't try to call a plumber. I picked up the babies and continued making dinner, without a kitchen sink. I had to wash the fish in the bathroom sink.

Even though the scalloped potatoes were in the oven for 75 minutes, they didn't really cook (maybe not cut thin enough?), so the babies wouldn't eat them and instead threw them on the ground. RB then put the boos in the family room behind the baby gate so that he could address the two problems: the clogged drain and the potato-covered floor. I opened the door from the family room to the patio so the boos could play outdoors while Daddy performed miracles.

The babies are getting extremely adventurous. Tonight they climbed on a pile of junk in the side yard and picked up some broken garden lights that RB had tossed there. They brought the broken lights onto the patio and promptly dropped them, shattering the glass. I went to investigate and found them picking up pieces of broken glass and examining them (pause for Mom to scream). I got rid of all the glass, swept up the shards. Then RB came out with the kitchen sink pipes and blew the potato peelings out with the garden hose. "Don't let the babies eat the potato peelings," he ordered me, so I picked up all the peelings I could find scattered on our "lawn" (dry dead grasses). Meanwhile the babies had found a large puddle under the leaking hose and were sitting in it and attempting to drink the water. I decided to ignore that.

I keep wondering whether my inertia where our yard is concerned is related to (1) depression (2) the heat (3) some horrible Ridgecrestian ennui or (4) chronic laziness. Or (5) all of the above. Or maybe it's just because it's a rental house. The yard would be totally wonderful if it were ours and we could put in a new sprinkler system, and some grass, and some xeriscaping, and a vegetable garden. But it isn't ours, so we just barely keep it alive, watering everything by hand with the hose. And it's full of all this weird junk that the babies unerringly find. No matter how much we sweep up, there's always more. Baby A likes to dig in the dirt, and he keeps unearthing butts and other treasures. If a baby ate a cigarette butt, would he get addicted to nicotine?

Anniversary

Today is our 7th wedding anniversary. I was thinking 7 wasn't an important year, not like 5 or 10 or 15 (or 50), but honestly, 7 years, that's a long time. We've been married for 7 years. How did that happen?

Anyway, kind of at the last minute we decided to go out to dinner, to celebrate those 7 years. Back in Boulder we would probably have gone to the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse http://www.boulderteahouse.com/index.html. I vividly remember our 5th anniversary dinner at the Teahouse. I was 6 or 7 weeks pregnant, and so very nauseated. I made it through the dinner without vomiting, and then we went home and waited for some houseguests to show up. We can't remember what we did last year, but we think we went to the Teahouse with the babies. Sat outside, by the creek. Sipped a glass of sparkling tea. Oh well.

Well, OK, so now we live in Ridgecrest. Our very nice babysitter, from the boos' daycare, agreed to sit for us. Ridgecrest supposedly has a couple of "fine dining" establishments which we might have tried, but today is Monday, so they weren't open. Finally we decided to go to Farris' Italian Gardens, on East Ridgecrest Boulevard. The ads say "It's the perfect place to take the family for a delicious Italian dinner." It's right next to Farris' Diner, which serves breakfast and lunch. The Italian side has low ceilings and pale green cement walls, plus a dark floral carpet. Mismatched tables and chairs. Artificial plants in the corners. Large families enjoying Italian dinners. But since it was our anniversary, we pretended we were in a much fancier establishment. We talked about the babies and our jobs. At one point the waiter came by and apologized for the wait, saying my salmon was taking longer than expected. When it arrived, I could see why -- it was distinctly overcooked. But it was still pretty good, and the roast potatoes that came with it were delicious. Rocket Boy enjoyed his scallops. We each had a glass of Chardonnay and toasted ourselves: "7 more years!"

Afterwards we decided to go to Charlie's for dessert and coffee, just to try out another bit of Ridgecrest nightlife. Charlie's is associated with the Carriage Inn hotel. It has an extremely high ceiling, with flags of various countries filling up the empty space. It's kind of a sports bar, full of television sets. We ordered decaf coffee, one piece of carrot cake, and one piece of Godiva chocolate cheesecake. We split the two pieces of cake and proceeded to make ourselves sick. In retrospect, one piece of cheesecake would have been a better choice. But navigating dessert menus is hard for a Weight Watcher. We toasted ourselves again with the coffee: "14 more years! No, make it 21!"

Afterwards, Rocket Boy said, "Is there anywhere else you'd like to go?" I said, "You mean like Walmart?" We agreed there were no other choices and headed for home.

Randsburg

Our enthusiasm for exploring the area has definitely decreased since it got hot, but the hot weekend days are long, and very dull if we just stay home. Rocket Boy's suggestion today was to visit the museum in Randsburg, a small former mining town maybe 20 miles from Ridgecrest. He called and found out they were open until 4pm. I wasn't overwhelmingly thrilled with the idea, but it didn't involve swim diapers, so I said OK.

We went just a little before noon, with the idea of possibly finding food in the town of Randsburg as well. We didn't really know what we were getting into -- is this a ghost town? do people still live there? We took 395 south to a little road that led west briefly to our destination.

Randsburg does seem to be inhabited, although I'll bet it doesn't cost much to buy a ramshackle old house there. The downtown has been "preserved" so that the dozen or so buildings look something like they must have 100 years ago. We drove past a General Store and a few antique stores to the Desert Museum, where we parked. It looked a bit small to accommodate our twin stroller, so we each carried a baby on in.

We were hoping for something like the Trona Museum, but the Randsburg Museum is much smaller, only 2 rooms. Nice displays, though, including a glass case full of pale purple glassware (the glass has manganese in it, which turns it purple when exposed to the sun), and lots of cases of rocks. The babies were not, as Rocket Boy put it, on their best museum behavior. There was a lot of running around, banging on glass cases, and yelling. Baby A liked the case of purple glass, because it included a set of glass bookends in the shape of dogs. He kept running over to that section of the case and pointing, and I would say "Yes, those are dogs! What does the dog say? Woof woof!" and then he'd go look at something else, and then he'd come back and point at the dogs again and we'd go through the whole thing again.

Eventually Baby A ran out the front door of the museum, and I thought "Fine, go outside where you can't cause trouble." So immediately he discovered a receptacle for people's cigarette butts, selected a long white one, and put it in his mouth. God! Since my worst nightmare is that the babies will someday smoke, this was very upsetting. I grabbed it out of his mouth, threw it away, and carried him back into the museum.

Very soon we decided it was time to go, and we walked down the street a little ways, each of us holding on to a baby by his shirt collar. The man running the museum had recommended the General Store as a place to get food, so we went in there, but it didn't look baby friendly, no highchairs, etc. We'll come back sometime when the boos are older. We don't have to do EVERYTHING now.

We packed ourselves back into our car and drove to a Mexican restaurant in Inyokern where we had a nice lunch, and then we came home and did laundry. And thus another day in Ridgecrest passed by.

Swimming

We went swimming today, the whole family. I didn't want to. Rocket Boy suggested it, and I tried for about 2 seconds to be nice about it, and then I said "No. I don't want to." I should say that before we had kids, we used to go swimming together quite often and I liked it pretty well. Not my FAVORITE activity, especially not lap swimming in a rec center pool. I like to swim in lakes, backyard pools, anything but a formal lap pool. But I got used to it and eventually did enjoy it, especially after I took an adult refresher class and improved my strokes.

That was then, this is now. Now "swimming" involves getting two little ones out of their clothes and into swim diapers, usually with no help, because I'm in the women's locker room and RB is in the men's locker room. Then a few minutes in a pool, with both of them screaming their heads off. And then afterwards getting them out of their wet swim diapers and back into their regular diapers and clothes, and somehow also getting myself changed, and keeping track of two little ones, and IT'S AWFUL. No fun at all. Someday it will be fun again and that someday is not now.

But what the heck. The day went on, we had nothing special planned, we got various tasks done, it got later, and finally I said, "OK, let's go swimming." Sometimes I'm a nice person.

We decided it would be easiest to go to the base, because it would be less crowded than the Ridgecrest public pool. We also considered the Trona public pool but that seemed too scary. So we drove to the base and went to the "Community Pool" which is an outdoor pool. It cost $5 for RB and me (the boos were free). We could take their stroller in, which helped. I parked the stroller outside the women's locker room and took one baby in at a time to get him changed. By the time we were all ready, RB was too.

At that point we discovered a wading pool! A very small, very shallow concrete pool, off to the side of the big pool, for ages 6 and under. It was about the size of a hot tub and as shallow as a bathtub. Just perfect. Baby B is a little afraid of water right now, but he was willing to sit in my lap in the water and chew on Daddy's (waterproof) watch. Baby A was a little braver -- he stood up in the water and splashed the rest of us.

We spent about an hour in the water, accompanied by a number of other children. What finally drove us out was that one of the older children (he was 3) pooped in the pool! I was so glad it wasn't my two, as it so easily could have been. We got out (they closed down the little pool), RB watched the boys while I ran into my dressing room, and then I changed them over on the grass while he went to his dressing room. The mom of the boy who pooped had brought some cheese crackers, which the boos helped themselves to, and we chatted a bit. Then RB reappeared and we left.

I suppose it'll be a long time before I think of swimming as exercise again...

Passion

Gosh, we had nice weather today. A high around 92 degrees, sunny, a gentle breeze, it was delightful. (Tomorrow it heads back up near 100.) Rocket Boy and I had lunch at the Espresso Cafe, after dropping the boys off at daycare. Just an all around pleasant day. It goes without saying that I wish we had more days like this in Ridgecrest.

On our way home after lunch we stopped at Ridgecrest's one bookstore. Red Rock Books is not a Barnes & Noble, it's not a Boulder Bookstore, it's not a Kepler's. But for Ridgecrest it's OK. Some new books, lots of used books, some gift stuff, space for browsing.

On this visit I was looking for a book by a local author, a category which Red Rock is very good about carrying. I've been attending the monthly meetings of the Ridge Writers, the local branch of the California Writers Club. During each meeting there is a chance for attendees to brag about their writing achievements. At this week's meeting I heard a young woman announce that a publisher was interested in a book she's writing. She mentioned that she had already self-published a fantasy/sci fi novel for young adults that was available at Red Rock Books. This impressed me so much that I wanted to see it for myself. So there I stood in Red Rock looking at the book -- quite a sizable volume, with a full color, illustrated cover. See http://www.twinfang.com/. I thumbed through it, a bit dubiously. Fantasy/sci fi is not my thing at all. But I was so impressed that the young woman in the meeting had written this book and self-published it, that I did indeed buy it. I don't know if I'll read it, but hey, maybe I'll find someone to give it to.

I've also been thinking, this week, about a cousin of mine who is an artist and a writer. See http://yeddamorrison.com/
Again, I am more impressed by her having written than by her actual writing, which I find hard to relate to. I am entranced by some of her artwork, though. I don't know anything about art but I find her "floral arrangements" just fascinating. Do other people do this sort of work? Is it a known category -- sculpture, watercolors, etchings, floral arrangements?

I'm getting interested in this whole self-publishing thing, where once I would have disdained it. It seems to me to be evidence of passion. If you love your work and want to share it, who cares if you can't penetrate the formal publishing world?

I am impressed, finally, by the evidence of passion in people's lives. It would be good, I suppose, if everyone's passion resulted in wonderful works of art, but that's a bit much to ask. There are good writers with no passion, and there are passionate writers with no talent. At one time in my life I preferred the former; now I seem to prefer the latter. It's not that I want to read a lot of bad writing. It's that as I get older, and duller, and all around me I see people retreating into their quiet little lives, I'm so amazed that some people don't do this.

It has crossed my mind that Ridgecrest is not the worst place for someone to follow his/her passion. Lots of empty space, lots of nothing to do, lots of time to fill. Not everyone has to spend that time watching television.

Summer is not over

Just a quick post before bedtime. We are gradually adjusting to being home, vacation being over, and summer not being over. Rocket Boy is being especially nice to me because I am depressed about it all. It occurred to me that living in Ridgecrest is like living in Australia, someplace where summer has the horrid weather and you look forward to winter because then you'll be able to do fun stuff. We keep talking about all the things we're going to do when it gets cooler, maybe round about November or so. We'll go to Death Valley, we'll ... go to Death Valley again, we'll ... go to other places in the desert. The Salton Sea, maybe. I have a poster of a bit of the Salton Sea, I've had it since college. It hangs on the wall in our family room here. I wonder if we really will do all those things. When will the work get done? When will we buckle down, as one is supposed to in the winter? Do people in Australia buckle down in the summer? Should I be buckling down now, staying inside and working, not worrying about the things I can't do?

Today, thinking about it being 10 degrees cooler, predicted high of 102 not 112, I decided the boo bears and I could go for a morning walk. This was a mistake. It was very warm. The boo bears were excited at the prospect of a walk, presumably remembering all our lovely walks in the Bay Area, but they lost heart quickly. I cut the walk short, turned back halfway, hurried home for sippy cups of lukewarm water. The best part of the walk happened before it began: we were on the patio, getting the stroller organized, and a hawk flew through the backyard! I think it was a Cooper's Hawk, but I am not an accipiter expert, so could be wrong. The hawk landed on a nearby high wire, scaring away all the usual birds, then left.

This afternoon I gave up trying to be Good Mom, and just lay on my bed reading. The boos played fairly peacefully nearby for a while. Then they came over and dismantled my nightstand. Baby B looked at each book he removed, finally coming across a little coffee table book about the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse. He seemed to think this was a children's book (probably because of all the photos) and handed it to me with that desperate look that says "Please read this to me several times." I wonder whether this fascination with books will last. Having a board book read to one seems very different from reading a novel to oneself. I hope it transfers over. Reading is quite possibly my favorite thing in the entire world (walking is a little further down the list) and it would be nice to be able to share that with my children.

Something that I hope will NOT last is the boos' fascination with a certain gift bag that I was given on my birthday (I think it had an embroidered dishtowel in it). If you press a button on the bag, it plays "Happy Birthday" twice. The babies adore it and bring it to me to push the button many times every day.

Thinking, gloomily, about how we seldom get exactly what we want, I'm imagining a future where the (all grown-up) babies purchase singing gift bags for every holiday occasion but never crack open a book.

And home yet again

OK, now we are really home. After my wonderful three weeks in the Bay Area, I was in Ridgecrest for five days, just long enough for me and the babies to get stomach flu and be horribly sick. Then on Friday we all drove up to June Lake, in the eastern Sierra very close to the eastern entrance to Yosemite, for a long weekend with some of my cousins.

And now that's over and we are home. It feels a bit more like home this time. It was actually less than 100 degrees when we drove into Ridgecrest around 2:30 pm today, 97 degrees to be exact. By the time we reached our house, it had gone up to 101, but still, that's better than 111. There was an ant invasion in the kitchen, but that's California. There were only a few dead cockroaches on the floor (or maybe I haven't looked closely enough).

It's supposed to be "cool" all week -- highs around 100, even less than 100 some days. I can hardly believe it. I wonder how long it will last. I've been wondering how we were going to survive August. Maybe it will be possible.

I wanted to write about my earlier vacation. The babies and I spent a lovely three weeks in the Bay Area in July, while Rocket Boy stayed in Ridgecrest and worked. We rented a two-bedroom condo in Palo Alto right across the street from a little shopping center with a nice grocery store called Piazza's, a Peet's coffeehouse, and a heavenly ice cream shop. The condo was small, but the perfect size for us. One of my sisters gave me a one-month subscription to the San Francisco Chronicle and the other gave me a gift card for Peet's.

Each foggy morning I was awakened by the babies' cries around 6:30 or 7:00. I would give them each a bottle, step outside the condo in my nightgown and pick up my newspaper, then go back inside to brew a pot of tea and scan the headlines. After getting dressed myself, I'd get the babies changed and dressed, and then sit them in their highchairs for breakfast. While they ate and/or threw their food around, I'd eat my cereal and continue reading the paper, always finishing up with the Sudoku and the Jumble and the Cryptoquip (though sometimes I'd have to wait until night to do them all). The Chronicle is a shadow of its former self, but it is better than the Ridgecrest Daily Independent. Then I'd get the babies down and do a little cleanup (though I usually saved the dishes for evening -- the condo didn't have a dishwasher), and then I would announce "Let's brush teeth and get shoes and socks!" The babies would follow me to the bathroom to "brush" their teeth -- it mostly consists of sucking on the toothbrush at this point, but they let me brush their teeth a little and they watch me brushing mine. Then we would all put on our shoes and socks and go out for a stroller ride. We were about a 15-minute walk from Mitchell Park, which has a great little kids area, not too much changed from when I was a little kid. The babies loved playing there. On other days we would go to Piazza's and buy some fruit or milk, or maybe stop at Peet's for a latte, or just walk through the neighborhood, getting our exercise (me) or our nap (the boos).

We would be back at the condo by 9:30 or 10:00 for our snack, a scone from Peet's or a cut-up peach from Piazza's. One of my sisters would often show up around then, and we would get ready to go to a library for story time. We managed to hit story time at five different libraries (in Palo Alto, Los Altos, and Menlo Park). After story time we usually went to my sister's house in Los Altos for lunch. In the afternoon we might visit another park. I think we went to 10 different local parks while we were there, plus we went on excursions to some bigger parks further afield -- Rancho San Antonio County Park, which includes a small farm with animals, and Oak Meadow Park in Los Gatos, which has a train and a carousel.

Most nights we stayed for dinner at my sister's, but once or twice a week we would go back to the condo and have something simple like scrambled eggs or ravioli, and sometimes my other sister would bring takeout. I'm not sure I ever put a baby to bed by myself -- a sister always came to help. Then I would stand at the kitchen window doing the day's dishes, watching the sky get darker, watching the last shoppers at Piazza's hurrying to and from the store with their cloth bags, watching the workers shut the store down.

Going on vacation with two little ones is never going to be easy, but this was about as restful as it could have been.

It already seems like a long long time ago.