End of December reading update

Well, it is done. We are back from all our holiday travels and I have finished my 100 books. Yes, that's right, at the same time that I was experiencing all the Christmas hullabaloo, I was busily reading the last 10 books. This afternoon, on our way home from Escondido, I sat in the passenger seat reading away, while Rocket Boy drove. Normally I always want to be the driver (when we're in my car), but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Now that it is all over, what have I accomplished, really? What have I learned?

I have learned that I do not want to do this again. I don't have to have a goal like this to read a lot -- I love to read. Instead, this goal often prevented me from reading what I wanted to read -- I felt bad about reading magazines, or short stories, or dipping into books to read a bit of this, a bit of that, because it wouldn't add to my list. I also, to some extent, chose shorter, easier books. In 2011 I look forward to reading many really long, dull books!

This experience has also been a warning to me not to set other goals that would turn a pleasurable experience into a chore. I will soon be getting to work on my resolutions for the coming year, and I must keep that thought in mind.

But, on the other hand, it is very satisfying to set oneself a difficult goal and then achieve it. (That is especially true for me now, when the rest of my life consists of such mundane work as changing diapers and cooking dinner.) When I was sitting here this evening, frantically reading the last section of book number 100, I was reminded of what it was like to finish my dissertation. Don't get me wrong, finishing my dissertation was a LOT harder than reading 100 books in a year. But there was that same frantic feeling that I HAD to get it done, pointless though it might be. Rocket Boy said to me, tonight, "Why don't you just finish that book tomorrow?" I almost hit him over the head with it, while at the same time acknowledging that no one but me cared about what I was doing. But it was important to me. And I did it.

Edited to add: one other positive thing about this experience was that I could defend my endless reading by saying "I have to stay on schedule! I have to read one more book this month!" etc., etc. I realized this morning (Jan. 1st), as I started reading a new book, that I no longer have that excuse and will have to think of some other way to justify my favorite hobby.

Here is the final list:

91. The Ballad of Beta-2 by Samuel R. Delany. A short book, more of a novella than a novel. I decided to read more of Delany, even though I am not a scifi/fantasy buff, because he does such neat tricks with linguistics, as in this book, which I found at our local used bookstore. A nice little story.
92. The Land of Little Rain by Mary Austin. A group of essays written about the Owens Valley and nearby areas, including ours, in the early part of the 20th century. Her prose style is hard to get through, but the book was worth reading. I should probably buy a copy for our collection.
93. The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany. Another short novel, not as interesting to me as the other one.
94. The Best Revenge by Stephen White. Another enjoyable White mystery, set in Boulder and elsewhere in Colorado.
95. Shattered by Dick Francis. I'd never read a Dick Francis novel before, but picked this up at a rummage sale to see what he's like. Awful! But to be fair, this was one of his last books, if not the last, and supposedly his earlier books were better. I'm not going to worry about them, though.
96. The Soldier's Art by Anthony Powell. Book 8 in the series, I liked this one very much. I can understand why these aren't much read anymore -- they're so hard to follow, and so closely tied to the times they were written about. But I love them. Finding this series might be my favorite thing about this reading year.
97. Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas by Elaine Pagels. I found this book at the Salvation Army thrift store -- a nice hardback copy for 50 cents. It just called to me, so I bought it and read it immediately. Such an interesting book about the history of early Christianity, so thought-provoking.
98. Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan. I liked this post-modern mystery set in Ann Arbor, but I wanted it to be better! I know I haven't lived there in 13 years, but I still thought the local color would mean more to me. Instead, he focused on the story. Oh well.
99. Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro. I like Munro's short stories a lot, but there wasn't one in this collection that really grabbed me. Maybe it's because I had read about half of them before, in the New Yorker, but actually the one that grabbed me the hardest, "Deep-Holes," was one I'd read already, so that isn't it. I feel as though she's repeating herself. I also was disappointed in the title story, a longer piece about a (real) 19th century woman mathematician, which seemed to me to be too much about her romantic feelings and not enough about math. But that's just me, always wanting there to be more math.
100. The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell. Book 9 in the series, and what better place to end the year. I enjoyed this one, but it was read under such difficult circumstances (from 3 to 5 am in the hotel bathroom, in the car as previously noted), that I don't think I fully appreciated it. No matter -- I have decided I'm going to collect the whole series, and then I can re-read them at my leisure.

And there we are. What will I read next? Anything I want. It is about 10:30 pm and I need to go do a few things to prepare for 2011. Happy New Year, everyone!

Farewell for now

It's been a lot of fun writing these Christmas posts, but now I must stop for a little while because Christmas is FINALLY ACTUALLY HAPPENING and we are going away to celebrate it, along with what must be at least half of Ridgecrest. The town already feels deserted.

I'm looking forward to our trip up north, but there is one thing I'm really disappointed about. Winnie-go-house is having an Open House! Or sort of. They're going to hand out candy on Christmas Eve, so it's like Halloween all over again, and it would be a chance to meet the owners. I want to stay and go to that! But then we would be stuck in Ridgecrest with no one to have Christmas Eve dinner with. So it's better we leave. Still, seeing as how we're Winnie-go-house's biggest fans, I think we should be there. So I'm bummed.

But other than that I'm feeling pretty good. The presents are all wrapped and now that the twins are in bed I need to stow them in the car in our Trader Joe's and Whole Foods shopping bags. The stockings are in a Target bag along with the new Christmas PJs and the new Christmas books -- all to be opened when we get ready for bed in our hotel room on Christmas Eve. The stocking stuffers are in a SEPARATE bag, a BLUE bag, which I have already decided Rocket Boy will mix up with the other bag and thus the twins will get all their stocking stuffers without having hung up their stockings first. I got so mad thinking about that possibility today that I almost got in an accident. Must focus and remain in the real world, not a fantasy world where everything goes wrong.

We haven't quite finished the cards, but maybe we'll do that tonight -- we've only got about 6 or 7 left to do. I packed the boos' suitcase this afternoon and also mine. Still have some other random packing to do, and cleaning. Have to write out the instructions for our pet sitter. Have to write some checks to stick in the mail on our way out of town.

Christmas is so different when you're a parent. It's so much work! Not only do you have to do all the usual stuff, decorating and baking and shopping and writing cards and all that, but you also have to explain everything you're doing, why you do it, how it works, what they mustn't touch. You have to teach the traditions. Also, you have to pretend that Santa Claus is a real person who is going to come into our hotel room on Christmas Eve and put presents in our stockings. This is all very tiring. But it's fun, too. Very meaningful.

Thanks for listening, everyone. See you -- probably not till January, or close to it. I'm at 97 books and counting, so I'll be checking in to report on whether I got to 100 or not. Have a happy Christmas, if that's what you do, or even just a happy vacation. Take care!

Giving

So I'm checking things off my holiday list -- shopping is done, baking is done, cards are almost done, presents are almost all wrapped. And today I worked on another thing on my list: giving money away.

I've written before about the unbelievable number of begging letters we get from an unbelievable number of organizations, due to Rocket Boy being the executor of our dear friend Clifford's will and thus getting all his mail. I have contacted so many of those organizations telling them that Clifford is dead, and they still deluge us with mail. And stuff. We have received eight full-size 2011 calendars so far, three attractive fleece blankets, and literally thousands of address labels. Actually, one of the blankets was from an organization that I sometimes give money to and one or two of the calendars were also mine and yes, some of the address labels were ours too. But most of the stuff is due to Clifford's kindness in the past, and it really gets to me -- it just seems horrible the way some organizations waste their money trying to get yours. Case in point: The American Diabetes Association. I will never give those people another dime. All they do is send you stuff and beg you for more money.

But it's Christmas and Christmas is a time for giving -- right? Plus, it's almost the end of the year, gotta be thinking about tax deductions -- although something about the way our taxes work out means that we usually don't itemize deductions -- don't ask me, it makes no sense to me, it's just the way our CPA does it. So forget tax deductions. But I do firmly believe that people who have money should GIVE SOME OF IT AWAY, so when I get to the end of the year and haven't given much away, it's time to do something about it.

Rocket Boy actually gave away quite a bit before the election, to various political candidates and organizations. That's his thing -- I'm cool with it. But I prefer charities.

They say you should give larger amounts to fewer charities, rather than giving $25 here, $25 there, so that the charities won't run after you trying to get a little bit more and waste your whole $25 in the process. So this year I decided to give to 6 groups. This is my list -- what do you think?

1. American Lung Association. We like them for 2 reasons -- (1) I've now lost 3 relatives to lung cancer, which is a pathetically underfunded disease, research-wise, and (2) we hate smoking and they work to prevent it. They also send us address labels constantly throughout the year, which annoys me, but at least no blankets.

2. American Kidney Fund. I started giving to them after my nephew was diagnosed with kidney failure. They help kidney patients with funds for dialysis and also health insurance and that sort of thing. They almost lost me this year because they sent me a friggin' BLANKET, but I decided to overlook that. For the most part they're quite restrained about sending things.

3. Oxfam. I debated this one for a long time. I wanted to give to some sort of international aid group, and I like Oxfam's work, but they were really obnoxious to me this past year, all because I gave them some money to help with Haiti. So I considered Doctors Without Borders instead. But finally I went with Oxfam. If they're awful to me again this year, I'll do something different next year.

4. Nature Conservancy. I wanted a conservation group and I just like what they do, buying up all that land and keeping it away from developers. Now if I could only get them not to send me a tote bag.

5. Kern County Library. I wanted to do something local and I thought about the local United Way, but then I noticed on the library's web page that they had a wish list on Amazon. I chose 7 books to be delivered to the library -- 4 children's, 2 adult nonfiction, and 1 in Spanish. What fun!

6. ????? I want to do one more, and I want it to be a conservation group that would specifically support and protect the desert, but I'm not sure what to choose. One possibility would be the Desert Tortoise Preserve Committee. Another would be something like the Sierra Club (but they tend to deluge you with stuff). I'll have to do a little more thinking about this one.

Once you start doing this, you want to do more and more. It's very addictive. Now I'm looking around the house thinking about what else I could freecycle. At least with Freecycle, no one ever sends you address labels.

The reasons for the season

Reason 1. Axial tilt.

I like this reason a lot. It's so basic. Axial tilt causes the earth to have seasons. The winter season is cold and dark, so in ancient times various cultures celebrated the rebirth of the sun god at the winter solstice. This has evolved, over the centuries, into Christmas and other December holidays.

And yet, though axial tilt is the reason that there is a winter season, and the reason behind some of the things we do during the winter season, like drape little colored lights all over everything, it is not the reason we hang stockings by the fireplace, munch on candy canes, and insist on traveling long distances at great expense and inconvenience to spend time with our relatives. I mean, maybe there's a connection, but I think there's also more to it.

Reason 2. Jesus's birthday

Don't you just love that big candy cane J? Yes, I know candy canes are supposed to be shepherds' crooks, but check out snopes.com for the details on that one. It's so goofy to have Jesus be the reason for the season, since he was born in the spring (if the Gospel of Luke can be trusted, that is, since no one really knows). And yet, if Jesus's birthday hadn't been grafted onto the existing pagan winter solstice holiday, is it likely that we would make such a to-do about Christmas? Jesus may not be the reason for the season, but he has probably had something to do with maintaining the holiday for us.

When I was a kid, my family celebrated Christmas with great gusto, but we were not religious. My father was an atheist, my mother less clearly so. We didn't go to church. I wasn't given any religious training. It made me quite uncomfortable to sing carols about "born is Jesus the infant king" etc. I felt strongly that if I did not believe in Jesus, or God for that matter, I should not be singing these songs.

Later, as an adult (a grad student in Ann Arbor), just to find out what it was all about, I started going to church. First Presbyterian had a fabulous music program and a very intellectual minister, who liked to quote from New Yorker articles and the writings of people like Annie Dillard. During these years, my "religious period," I enjoyed Christmas a lot. I acquired an Advent wreath and started my own tradition of lighting the candles (my family had never done that). I liked the church services during Advent, the whole thing about making spiritual preparations for Jesus's birth, despite the fact that I didn't believe in Jesus (yes, he existed, but I don't believe he was God's only begotten son and all that), nor did I believe he was born in December.

(As an aside, I just finished a very interesting book by Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief, about some of the other gospels (the ones that didn't make the canon). Apparently there was quite a bit of disagreement among the early Christians about whether Jesus was a deity or not. In fact, only the Gospel of John (in the writings that made it into the official New Testament) really says Jesus was divine. The Gospel of Thomas (one of the ones that didn't make it) specifically says that the light of God is in all of us, not just in Jesus. I like that idea so much more than the standard Christian view.)

But even though learning about the Christian tradition and incorporating that into my own celebration of Christmas has been meaningful for me, I still don't think Jesus is the reason for the season. He's helped it along, he provided its current name, he's an interesting aspect of it, but he's not the whole story.

Reason 3. Family and tradition.

In my view, this comes the closest to being what it's all about.

This is a picture of my atheist father in 1981, calmly reading the newspaper in the midst of our Christmas detritus -- greeting cards, the tree, opened gifts, and even one of my famous gingerbread houses. The excess! The waste! The utter nonsense of it all!

And yet, and yet, it grips us. It calls to us. We need this. Every year, we need this. I personally need to send out 70 greeting cards and flavor all my food and drink with peppermint. You likely have other needs.

It's OK to simplify Christmas, to cut out the parts that drive us crazy. But be careful about cutting out too much. You might accidentally remove the piece that is the most important to you. Sometimes I think the stress and depression of Christmas might be one of those important parts for me. If it doesn't hurt, it isn't Christmas.

For me, the essence of Christmas is this: sitting in front of the fireplace with my mother at my parents' old house on Christmas Eve, no lights burning except those on the tree, listening to her tell the story of Christmas Eve 1945, when my father came home from the war.

My mother is gone now, my father is gone. The house has been sold. But I have my memories. And every Christmas is another chance to revisit them, on a more visceral level than I can achieve at any other time. This is why I put up the tree and bake cookies, why I spend money and time to visit what's left of my family, why I play carols and eat entirely too many candy canes.

It's to remind myself of who I am and where I came from. And to start giving my children their own traditions and memories.

Christmas in Ridgecrest

All these posts could be called Christmas in Ridgecrest, but I felt that this past week or so we have really been participating in the Ridgecrest Christmas experience, rather than the Anywhere-But-Here Christmas experience, the Los Angeles Hanukkah experience, etc.

First, on Saturday, there was the annual Christmas parade. It started at 10 am, so at about 9:55 we drove over to Ridgecrest Boulevard and parked on the street, oh, maybe half a block from the parade route, and pushed the twins in their stroller over to where we could watch. Couldn't have done that anywhere else I've ever lived in my entire life. There were about 50 entries in the parade (an entry meaning, e.g., the Burroughs High School Marching Band), so it went on and on for what seemed like hours, and we got pretty tired of it. But all in all it was a nice parade. No particularly special floats or anything like that, but lots of smiling people, some of whom gave the twins candy.

Second, also on Saturday, I freecycled a whole bunch of stuff. When we lived in Boulder, if we wanted to get rid of something, we just put it out in front of the house. We lived on a very well-traveled street, and most of what we put out vanished quickly. Rocket Boy used to put out just dreadful pieces of junk and I would get mad at him and say "NO ONE would ever want that!" and then look outside and it'd be gone. And better stuff we'd sell on Craigslist. Anyway, we don't live on a well-traveled street in Ridgecrest, and there's no Ridgecrest Craigslist unfortunately, so we've taken to using Freecycle.

I find Freecycle annoying, to be honest. Sometimes I post things on the website and no one responds, or else they say they want it, but then don't show up to pick it up. But sometimes it works.

I had a ton of outgrown winter clothing to move, plus some electronic toys that the boys received last Christmas that I didn't want them to have, plus some other stuff, so I posted 8 different groups of things and managed to get rid of 7 of them, which is pretty good. The electronic toys went like lightning -- I must have had 10 requests for them within 15 minutes. Everybody wanted to use them as Christmas presents. The clothes went a little more slowly but almost all of them went. One person said she could use them but didn't have a car, so I offered to drop them off. Oh, such a pathetically awful little hovel of an apartment she lived in. And she was so young. It upset me that a little baby was growing up there. Another person who came and picked up a box of clothes looked pretty desperate and thanked me profusely.

That's the other thing about Freecycle -- some pretty desperate people use it. I know that giving stuff to people is supposed to make you happy, but it often has the opposite effect on me. If I didn't freecycle stuff I wouldn't interact with these pretty desperate people -- I would think that everyone was as comfortable and secure as I am. So is that a plus or a minus... I'll let you decide.

Third, Winnie-go-house has lost its mind. Not only has the Wicked Witch on the roof acquired a red cloak, the Winged Monkey in the tree is now wearing Santa pants and has exchanged his monkey head for a man's head -- but what man? He doesn't look like Santa, he looks sort of like Ken (of Barbie and Ken). But he still has wings. Next to him, there's a Mrs. Claus sitting in a swing. It's all very odd.

We continue to visit Winnie-go-house every day, and I try to make sense of it. They now have set up a large TV in front of it and they show the Wizard of Oz movie every night, so we always stop by on the way home from daycare and watch for a few minutes. I've noticed other cars doing the same thing.

Fourth, tonight was the tortoise club party and it went well, very nice evening, though the twins were, shall we say, DISTRACTING? I kept reminding myself that no one else offered to have the party at their house, so this was better than nothing, but hmmmmmmmmmm. I don't think we'll offer to host a salon here, as we had considered doing. But such pleasant people are in the tortoise club. I'm glad we are part of that.

Earlier today I stopped by the toy store in town to pick up a box of See's chocolate for the party. I remember when we first moved here and I saw the sign in the parking lot saying "See's" and I thought "Ridgecrest has a See's? That's amazing!" Then I found out what it really meant: the Kiwanis club sells See's chocolate out of the toy store as a fundraiser. Stupid Ridgecrest, can't do anything right, was how I interpreted that. But this year I saw it in a different light: how convenient for the Kiwanis club to sell See's chocolate at the toy store. You see, I really am starting to fit in here. Sort of.

Fifth, Thursday is Jesus' birthday party at daycare. Oh sigh. Welcome to Ridgecrest.

Still haven't written a single Christmas card. Maybe tomorrow.

And on and on December goes

Now it is December 9th and I have decided that I am getting stressed. It's not the shopping. The shopping is done! Well, I do need to buy some "toys for tots" gifts, but that's easy. A few things have been ordered and may not arrive in time and all that, but really we're good. Shopping's not the problem. So what is?

1. The cards. OK, they arrived, all 75 of them. I made a rough list of who to send them to and that list has about 70 people on it (70 HOUSEHOLDS, I should say), so I ordered 75 cards in order to have a few extras. Tonight I put return address labels on 70 envelopes. Do you know how long that took???? Actually, I didn't time it. But it took more than 5 minutes, I'm sure of that. Tomorrow I'll start addressing the envelopes. Do you know how long it takes to address 70 envelopes???? I don't either, but I'm sure it is a long time. Then I have to think about each card. We do a Christmas letter insert (not finished yet, must finish it ASAP), but I also like to write a note on each card. Do you know how long it takes to write notes on 70 cards?????? And who are all these 70 people and their families? Do they really want to get a holiday card from us? And have I forgotten anyone? Anyway.

2. The party. OK, so we're having this tortoise club party next week. I'm looking forward to it, should be a pleasant evening. But Rocket Boy is losing his mind worrying about cleaning up for it. I look around our living room and I think, "looks nice, could use a little sprucing up, but overall looks nice." Rocket Boy looks at our living room and thinks "OK, if the twins could go on a nap drive ALL WEEKEND maybe I could start to make a dent in this disastrous mess." I swear it's not that bad, really. We don't use that room very much. But Rocket Boy was raised by a German hausfrau for whom cleanliness was way more important than godliness. Anyway, I am going to try to clean to Rocket Boy's satisfaction, while still enjoying the party. Stay tuned.

3. My 100 books! How can I possibly read 10 books this month! I have read 3 so far and it is December 9th. If I keep up this pace (1 book every 3 days) I will be OK. But how can I keep up this pace later in the month???? I just know that on December 31st I will be at 98 books, frantically trying to read 2 more.

4. Christmas candy! Ack! I haven't bought any in the past week but I am losing my mind because I WANT to buy more. Soon the mint M&Ms will be gone from the shelves until next November and I will have missed the opportunity to eat several thousand more of them. I am going to a wedding at the end of December and I would like to be LESS fat for that, not MORE fat, which is what I will be if I buy and eat more mint M&Ms. So must stay away from the mint M&Ms (and all forms of peppermint bark), focus on the joys of the new Weight Watchers, and... and what? I lost my train of thought because I was thinking about mint M&Ms.

5. It's past 10 pm and I need to go to bed and read!

Christmas stress, can't avoid it, gotta love it.

December is moving along

Here it is December 6th, and as always, the holiday season is whizzing along at breakneck speed. But I don't feel as stressed as I usually do this time of year. The holidays feel -- dare I say it -- under control. Of course that isn't right, the holidays are never under control. But it does feel that way. Maybe it's because I have a lot of other things to worry about right now. Maybe it's because I'm just too hungry (the new Weight Watchers kicked off on Saturday and I am STARVING). Or maybe I'm forgetting something. Let's help ourselves to a piece of zero-points fruit and go down the list.

1. Advent candles. We actually found our wreath in a box in the garage, bought some candles, and lit the first one on the first Sunday of Advent. This is almost unheard of. Of course, on Monday we lit two candles, and on Tuesday we lit three, and tonight we lit all five, and yes, I know, the colors of the candles are all wrong (this is Ridgecrest, give me a break, I couldn't find any purple and pink candles) so we're not observing the tradition correctly, but the twins are enjoying it, so it's all good.

2. Advent calendars. I bought these AHEAD OF TIME! Completely unheard of. We were in a children's bookstore in LA in October and they had Advent calendars, so I bought two. And I was able to find them on December 1st, TRULY completely unheard of. The twins and I open the little windows every morning.

3. Christmas cards. Ours are ordered -- might even arrive this week. Then there's all the fun of writing and addressing them. But it really is fun for me. Incidentally, I haven't received a single Christmas card yet. My cousin Kathy always gets her cards out right after Thanksgiving, so now I'm wondering -- is there a problem? did someone die? or did we just get dropped from her list? This is actually stressing me out, so OK, one teeny tiny source of stress here.

4. Decorations. We're going to put up the tree and all that this weekend. I'm not worried about it.

5. Cookies. I'm planning to bake ONE BATCH, probably sugar cookies that the twins can help decorate. Maybe this weekend. Not worried.

6. Gifts. I've bought a few things for the twins and Rocket Boy. I have just a few more people to shop for, then I'll be done. No worries.

7. Parties. We've already gone to a few. We've decided to host the tortoise club party next week, so there will be some preparation work for that. Not worried. Probably should be worried, but not worried.

8. Hanukkah. We went to my niece's Hanukkah party in LA on Saturday night. There are two more nights of it left, so I'm continuing to read the Hanukkah book that we got out of the library to the twins each night. But heck, they still want to read Halloween with Max and Ruby every night too. We'll probably go on reading the Hanukkah book until it's due back at the library.

9. Charity. I need to sit down and make a list of who we're donating to and get those checks sent off. But that's enjoyable.

10. Holiday lights. Maybe this weekend we'll drive around with the twins and look at lights. Last year they only had a few words and described everything as "do-bitty" ("so pretty"). This year I know already that everything will be described as "Winnie-go-house."

11. Music. We sing a carol (laboriously played on the piano by me) every night after we light the Advent candles. Probably ought to spend some time practicing. Probably ain't gonna happen. It's OK, there are always holiday CDs, records, and tapes to listen to instead.

12. Christmas candy, specifically mint M&Ms and all the different varieties of peppermint bark. We are DONE with this and are not going to buy any more. See note about the new Weight Watchers above, and have another piece of fruit.

13. The actual holiday itself. Well, it's not for a few more weeks. Cross that bridge when we come to it and all that.

What can I say? Things are humming along very smoothly, even pleasantly. I might even decide to make a gingerbread house. OK, no, I won't, because then I would lose my mind and that would defeat the purpose -- I wonder, is it necessary to get all stressed out at Christmas? Is it part of the whole experience? Never fear, I'm sure it will happen, but right now things are OK. Let's leave it there.

End of November reading update

Well, there are about 45 minutes left of November, so I'll post my reading update. What a sad showing -- I was too busy participating in National Novel Writing Month to read much. And yes, I did make it to 50,000 words -- today -- so I'm a NaNoWriMo "winner" once again --

but the novel itself is not quite finished, so I still need to write some more. I'm partway through Chapter 29 and I had intended to write 30 chapters. So almost there, but not quite. In any case, I have until next November to revise this one, so no worries. Of course, I am still revising the novel I wrote last November, so maybe I should worry.

Here is the pathetically short reading list:

86. Hug Your Kids Today: 5 Key Lessons for Every Working Parent by Michelle Nichols. Michelle was my freshman-year college roommate, so of course I had to read her book. It was heartbreaking but at the same time very funny and insightful. Also very well edited! No typos!
87. China Lake by Anthony Hyde. Of course I had to read a mystery set in and around Ridgecrest. Sadly, it was not the best book ever written, but it was still fun to read, especially since I was at the same time trying to write a mystery set in and around Ridgecrest.
88. Blessings by Anna Quindlen. I said I wasn't going to read any more Anna Quindlen books, but I found this at a rummage sale and decided to read it. I actually did like it very much, so even though I'm not going to read any more books by Anna Quindlen, I'll keep this one around.
89. The Valley of Bones by Anthony Powell. The seventh book in the 12-book series, this one finds our hero (anti-hero?) in the army, at the beginning of World War II. Things are a little less humorous and people are starting to die. I'm a little nervous about the next book, which is winging its way to me from the big library in Bakersfield.
90. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. This was one of my birthday books. I wasn't sure I'd like it, but it was actually very compulsive reading. Overall, kind of moody and sad, thought-provoking. Maybe in 10 or 20 years Lahiri will revisit these characters. I'd like to know what Gogol does next.

So, now it's December, or will be in half an hour, and I need to read 10 more books by December 31 to reach 100 for the year. Can she do it and also survive Christmas? Stay tuned...

Winnie-go-house

The title of this blog post may be confusing -- you may be thinking, didn't she mean Winnie the Pooh? Or... something else? Actually, what I should have called it was "Wizard of Oz House" but Winnie-go-house is what the twins call it, so I'll call it that too.

Winnie-go-house is a large interesting house at the corner of Downs and Church Streets in Ridgecrest. It's red, shaped like a caboose -- I've heard it called the Caboose House, so maybe it even really is a caboose? Or it's a caboose attached to a regular house? Anyway, it's interesting all by itself, but around Halloween each year, or at least last year and this year, which is all we know about, the owners transform it into a Wizard of Oz fantasy. And it stays up past New Year's! They put up lights, and lighted signs that say "OZ" and set up life-size figures of the characters from the book/movie. Last year the figures were all on the roof of the house, but this year only Glinda, the good witch, and the Wicked Witch of the West (who I can't help calling Elphaba, from Wicked) are on the roof. Dorothy (with Toto in basket) and the Scarecrow are on one side of the yard, and on the other side you've got the Lion in a tree and the Tin Woodman beneath him, with a Flying Monkey in another tree, and yet another version of the Wicked Witch/Elphaba inside a house.

I worried about the figures last year, sure that our terrible winds were going to blow them off the roof. They never did blow down, but I wonder whether the homeowners thought they'd be safer down below and that's why they moved them. Or maybe they just wanted to expand the decorations in their yard.



I have to apologize for the quality of these photos -- my camera doesn't take very good night photos. I should take some daytime shots and add them to the post later. I'll have no trouble finding the time to do this, because the twins and I drive by Winnie-go-house EVERY FRIGGING DAY, usually two or three times. Every time we get in the car they start yelling "Winnie-go-house! Winnie-go-house!" The homeowners must think we're planning something nefarious, the way we're around all the time.

I shouldn't complain. I love the house too. I never get enough of it (though I think that this year, by New Year's, I will have had enough of it). I play the CD of Wicked as we drive by.

I can't help wondering why the local newspapers don't do a big story on the house. Even if they've done them in past years (and I do remember a very short, uninformative article last year), the display is different this year, so why not do an update? And fill us in, we newcomers, on what the heck is going on with the house. Why do the homeowners do it? Do they just love L. Frank Baum's work?

Sadly, though, the local papers (especially the daily paper) never seem to cover what's interesting, and they NEVER NEVER NEVER fill in the blanks for those of us who just got here. I remember soon after we moved to Ridgecrest the local paper started writing stories about the closure of a local housing development? apartment building? some kind of place where people live -- called La Mirage. Never did they say where this group of dwellings was. It was at least a year after the whole mess was resolved that I finally stumbled across La Mirage -- former base housing converted to low-rent housing. Of course everyone who's lived here for years and years knew that already, but I didn't.

But I'm not the Daily Independent's intended reader. I read the paper obsessively, but it is not written for me. Nor is the News Review intended for me. Still, I wish one or both of them would write about Winnie-go-house. I'd love to know more about how this enchantingly goofy house came to be.

The Getty Center -- with toddlers

This weekend we went to Los Angeles for a visit with friends and family and I was reminded once again -- as if I needed reminding -- of how much my life has changed since having children.

The main purpose of the trip was to attend a "gaming party" at the home of our friends who live in Canoga Park (in the San Fernando Valley). They have a party every month to which they always invite us and we always politely decline, because (a) they live 145 miles away from us, and (b) we have two-year-old twins. These gaming parties go from 6 pm until sometimes 2 or 3 am, or possibly later, and the twins go to bed at 7:30. Even if we got a babysitter for the evening, the twins would still get up at 6:30 am, and then the next day we'd be zombies.

But this month we decided to give it a try. We planned to attend the party from 6 to 7:30, take the twins back to the hotel and put them to bed, and then trade off going back to the gaming party -- first Rocket Boy could go and play a game, and then he'd come back and I'd go and play a game, etc. It didn't work out very well and we were zombies the next day, but at least we tried.

But we needed something to do in Los Angeles before the gaming party started. Yes, we could have stayed in Ridgecrest until 3 pm and then driven down, but we had a better idea -- why not go to the Getty? The glorious Getty Center museum complex is an easy 20-minute drive from our friends' house. We had gone there together several years ago (i.e., before twins), and we knew it wouldn't be the same WITH twins, but we were still interested. If nothing else, we could sit by a fountain and eat snacks.



And that's about how it turned out. The Getty Center has a very attractive garden to explore, plus numerous plazas and fountains. The museum is free, but they're clearly making some money on parking ($15/car) and food -- many people seem to go there just to sit around and eat snacks. Our kind of place.

But the art, you say, what about the art? The Getty Center has an enormous collection and is constantly buying more. What did we see?

We saw one room of a photography exhibit before the twins started yelling. Later, after a snack, Rocket Boy urged me to go back and look some more while he babysat. So I went back and looked at that room again and then at one other room. And then it was time to buzz through the gift shop and run for the train back to the parking garage.

The Getty Center experience with toddlers does not have much to do with art. Architecture, yes, and gardens, but not pictures hanging on walls.



But for me the really striking part of the whole experience was not the fact that I didn't get to see any art. It was the other people at the Getty, and how different they looked from me. I first noticed this when we were standing in line for the train from the parking garage to the museum. It was a long line that snaked back and forth, so you got a good look at all the other people. And I started looking at their clothes. No one dresses up to go to the Getty, I thought, when choosing my clothes that morning. But I was wrong.

Almost everyone in line had dressed up to go to the Getty. I saw the most marvelous outfits and hairstyles and hair colors. I wished I had a camera in my phone so that I could take pictures of the line without being really obvious about it.

What were we wearing, you may ask? Baby B wore a Thomas the Tank Engine shirt while Baby A wore a Cars shirt. (When I was pregnant I vowed that my children would never wear shirts with licensed characters on them, and there were several families at the Getty who appeared to have made -- and unlike me, kept -- similar vows.) Rocket Boy wore his usual slacks and shirt. I wore an old cotton t-shirt and black cropped exercise pants, which is one of my uniforms, with my desperately-needing-a-haircut hair hanging limply down my back. We were no oil painting, as they say. In particular, I was disappointed with my own look, or lack thereof.

When did this happen? When did I lose all connection with any sort of personal style? Was it due to having twins, to gaining weight, to turning 50, to living in Ridgecrest? It is true that when you have children you tend to want to spend money on them, not on yourself. And when you live in a place like Ridgecrest and you're not working outside the home, it's hard to justify any expenditure of time or money on your own appearance. But geez, there's such a thing as taking a thing too far.

The next morning, after downing 4 cups of coffee at our hotel's continental breakfast (in order to deal with the zombie factor), we went to Bed Bath & Beyond and bought me a full-length mirror. It's hard to improve your appearance when you can't see yourself. And today I put away all my summer clothes and got out my winter clothes (and tossed out a bunch of stuff I don't like anymore). It's a start.

Manzanar

Yesterday we decided it was finally time to visit Manzanar, the WWII "relocation center" for people of Japanese descent that has been made into a National Historic Site. It's less than 2 hours north of us, just past Lone Pine. We've been talking about going for ages.

Why hadn't we gone before? I suppose because it sounded a bit depressing, like the kind of thing you'd have to be in the right mood for. Or if not depressing, at least very serious, not a place to have fun. Not a place the twins would enjoy. Most of these worries turned out to be unfounded. It is a serious place and you do kind of have to be in the right mood. But it's also very interesting and the twins loved it.

On my first trip to Germany, back in 1985, my great-aunt (with whom I was staying) asked me if I would like to visit Dachau, the former Nazi concentration camp, which was nearby. I had not even heard of Dachau, nor had I thought of visiting it, but I said yes, of course, and we went. Now Dachau was depressing.

But Manzanar is more puzzling and thought-provoking than depressing. Pretty much nobody was killed at Manzanar, except in one riot that occurred there. The "internees" just had their lives destroyed, that's all, and much of that happened before they ever arrived, when they were forced to abandon their homes and businesses. Once they got to Manzanar, they just lived what was left of their lives, albeit in very difficult, uncomfortable circumstances, behind barbed wire fences, guarded by sentries with submachine guns. The overall impression that I took away from Manzanar was: what absolute nonsense. How completely unnecessary. What was my country thinking.

And of course it's impossible not to compare it with the current hysteria against Muslims. But I digress.

One caveat: I didn't get to see many of the displays (too busy babysitting), and maybe if I had, my impressions would have been different.

The only buildings on the site that have survived since the 1940s are a couple of stone sentry posts at the entrance, and the former auditorium, which was several different things through the years and now houses an excellent interpretive center with a great gift shop. Here we are walking, or in the case of the twins, running pell-mell toward it.



The other people in the picture were two older couples who appeared to be "of Japanese descent." When I saw them I thought, oh maybe someone they knew was here. Later, talking to a ranger, I asked "Do you get many Japanese-Americans here?" I knew it was an idiotic question before I finished asking it, but he was polite. He said, "We get many former internees here. Almost every day."

That brought tears to my eyes. This all happened so recently.

The best thing in the interpretive center, as far as the twins were concerned, is a toy room, with examples of toys similar to those the Manzanar children would have played with. And the best thing about the toy room? You can play with all the toys! The twins and I spent most of our time in that room. When we left, Baby A attempted to pull a toy wagon full of the toys out of the toy room and off to the car, but we prevented that. In the gift shop they sell those same toys. I bought a set of alphabet blocks.



In addition to the interpretive center there is a driving tour you can take of the site. They have reconstructed some of the barracks, so you can see how the people lived. Other than that, most of what you see on the driving tour are building foundations and bare land, with signs indicating what used to be there. There were two interesting exceptions: the cemetery, which includes the monument in my photo at the top, and the gardens.



When Rocket Boy read aloud from the brochure that here was the "mess hall garden," I assumed that meant a vegetable garden. But then we got out of the car and read a display near the garden. This was not a vegetable garden, this was a traditional Japanese garden, with rocks and water. It was not for growing food, it was for solace and contemplation.

Yesterday was a fabulous day to be out and about in the Owens Valley. It was cool but not cold, breezy but not windy, and the sky was a fabulous blue. But to the west, over the Eastern Sierra, a winter storm was clearly taking place (as you can kind of see in some of the photos). So weird. Some of the literature I read said that what the people interned there liked best about Manzanar was the beauty of the mountains.

End of October reading update

We still have a couple of hours of October left, but I'm not going to be finishing any books during that time, so might as well blog my list of October books. I read 10 books this month, which leaves me 15 to read in November and December. Sounds easy, except that I'm going to spend all of November frantically writing a novel of my own, and December is, well, December. So I'm really thinking I may not be able to pull off this 100-books thing. But we'll see.

Here is the list for October:

76. Fire Sale by Sara Paretsky. I used to like Sara Paretsky mysteries but hadn't read one in ages -- and now I don't plan to read another for ages. It was fine, just not very interesting.
77. The Kindly Ones by Anthony Powell. The sixth book in the (12-book) series, this one takes place just as WWII is starting. Terrible title, but one of the better books in the series so far. The next three books are set during WWII, so that will be different. Book 7 is waiting on my bedside table.
78. Blood Lure by Nevada Barr. A reasonably exciting mystery set in Glacier National Park. The nature stuff was great, the mystery less so.
79. Cold Case by Stephen White. A so-so White mystery -- I guessed whodunnit way ahead of time -- but he's still a very good writer.
80. This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson. I waited so long to read this book -- I was on the waiting list for it at the library for 3 months -- and then it was kind of a disappointment. The author says she was motivated to write about librarians because when she was writing her previous book, about obituaries, the most interesting obituaries were those of librarians. Trouble is, the librarians she describes in this book are all online all the time, spending their free time in virtual worlds. I realize that's the life we're all more or less living now, but what will their obituaries say? An interesting book, but not what I wanted it to be.
81. Manner of Death by Stephen White. Another not-his-best White mystery, kind of silly actually, but I do like his writing so it wasn't bad.
82. Kill Me by Stephen White. A very unusual mystery, about a man who signs up with an agency that promises to kill him if he becomes very ill or disabled -- and then he suddenly becomes very ill but isn't ready to die -- and he can't cancel the contract. It was more of a meditation on life and death than a mystery, but quite gripping nonetheless.
83. Ghost by Alan Lightman. OK, I wanted to read some ghost stories because it was almost Halloween, so I got this book and the next one out of the library. What a disappointment! Not a ghost story at all, but a novel about the concept of belief in the supernatural. I didn't like the book at all. It should have had a different title.
84. Lost Boy Lost Girl by Peter Straub. This one at least tries to be a ghost story, but isn't scary at all, or maybe just a tiny bit here and there. Very disappointing. I should have just reread Shirley Jackson.
85. Providence of a Sparrow by Chris Chester. This was one of my birthday books and I'd been reading bits of it since August. Finally I decided to get with it and finish it. A charmingly whacky book about life with a tame house sparrow, then also some finches, then another house sparrow, then some canaries, then two more house sparrows... The writing is baroque, hard to read quickly, which is why it took me so long, but very enjoyable when you put in the effort. And then just now, when I looked on Amazon to see whether Chris Chester had written anything else, I discovered that he died in 2007. Not long after this book was published in 2002, Chester's first sparrow, B, died. Apparently that propelled him into a deep depression and he stopped writing, his marriage broke up, and eventually he developed tongue/throat cancer and died at the age of 54.

Colonoscopies R Us

Today was a challenging day. Rocket Boy had a colonoscopy. In Lancaster.

I have heard that they do colonoscopies at the Ridgecrest hospital, but Rocket Boy's doctor doesn't do colonoscopies there, he does them at his special colonoscopy warehouse in Lancaster. Colonoscopies R Us it's called, something like that.

What this meant was that I spent the morning keeping the twins out of Rocket Boy's way (because he was so weak and hungry from the "preparations"), then dropped the twins off at daycare at 11:30, got gas, and rushed home. Rocket Boy and I left for Lancaster at 12 noon sharp. His appointment was for 1:45 and it normally takes about 90 minutes to get to Lancaster, but I drove like a bat out of hell, just in case there was a traffic problem somewhere along the way or Rocket Boy needed to stop to use the facilities (at the Carl's Jr in Mojave or perhaps behind a creosote bush), so we got there early, at 1:15. But better early than late.

The waiting room had several rows of chairs, all lined up facing an enormous TV set which was showing a program called "Divorce Court." Many of the chairs were taken. Rocket Boy checked in and then we went to sit in the one little row of chairs facing AWAY from the TV (but you could still hear it). While attempting NOT to listen to a black lesbian couple try to get divorced, I read an article in a copy of the Atlantic that I'd brought with me about how 90% of all medical research is bogus and wrong. That was reassuring.

Rocket Boy was called in around 2 pm, so a bit late, which made me nervous, because of course when he was done we'd have to drive like bats out of hell BACK to Ridgecrest to pick up the twins from daycare before it closed at 6 pm. But what can you do. I set down the magazine and picked up my current book, which is about birds.

It was hard to concentrate on the bird book with the obnoxious TV program roaring along behind me, and my mind started to wander. On the way to Lancaster, Rocket Boy had confessed to me that the reason for the colonoscopy was not his age, but rather some "symptoms" he'd been having. Uh oh.

Always the optimist, I began to think of how our lives would change after he was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Probably all his appointments for chemo and whatever would be in Lancaster and I would have to drive him there constantly. The twins would have to go to daycare fulltime so that I'd have time to do all that driving.

I would try to get him to write his Life Story, so that he could leave that legacy for the twins.

After he died, the twins and I would move back to Boulder and live in our house again. I probably wouldn't be able to find a job, so we would have to sell a property. The most logical one would be the cabin in the mountains, which has a lot of land associated with it. I wouldn't have a clue how to take care of that land after Rocket Boy is gone. I'd have to sell it. But Clifford left us that land. If I sold it, I really ought to give all his nieces and nephews some of the money. I decided I'd give each of them, and each of their kids, $13,000 each, or whatever the maximum gift amount is now. But then there wouldn't be much money left, so the twins and I would be broke again.

I was mulling over that problem when I heard the nurse call my name. It was 3:30 and Rocket Boy was done already -- in an hour and a half? I went out to move my car over to where they bring patients out in wheelchairs. Rocket Boy was in good spirits when they brought him out and he told me they didn't find a single thing wrong with him.

We stopped at the Carl's Jr in Mojave for milkshakes and as we drove on, sipping, I told Rocket Boy about my worries and plans for after his demise. "You always look on the bright side, don't you?" he said, and I had to agree.

The twins are fed and in bed, the Giants won Game 2 of the World Series, I've been to the grocery store, Rocket Boy has gone to bed, and honestly, I should sew but I'm thinking maybe bed is a good idea for me too. It's been quite a day.

Off to the fair

Tonight was the first night of the Desert Empire Fair, and since we'll be pretty busy this weekend, we thought we'd better go now.

This is the 3rd or 4th time we've been to this fair, which is held every spring and fall. I remember having a lot of fun when we went last fall, then not so much fun when we went this spring. And this visit would have to be rated as even less fun, though perhaps that was due to the fact that we went on Thursday.

The fair runs Thursday-Sunday. Saturday is the day most people go, I think. Thursday isn't a popular day. There was almost no one there. Plus it was kind of chilly. It's been raining cats and dogs the last few days, and it's still cloudy and cool. Not really "fair" weather.

The first thing we did after we arrived was eat dinner. I got spaghetti for me and a grilled cheese sandwich for the boos from the Salvation Army booth. It was quite inexpensive, plus almost nobody was buying any food. I wondered how the Salvation Army could be making any money off their booth.

Rocket Boy got "shrimp on a stick" from the Chinese food booth.

There was hardly anyone else eating at the picnic tables. Of course, for us this is ALWAYS a good thing.



After eating, we visited the model railroad building. The boos remembered it from last time, and clamored to go in.

Last year there was a garden railroad out in front of the building too, but this year nothing. However, the trains inside were not a disappointment. We had to drag the boos out of there kicking and screaming.



We looked at some exhibits (quilts, art, baked goods) and also spent some time in the carnival section. Most of the rides had no one riding them. Rocket Boy was convinced that the boos would want to go down the giant slide. I was convinced they wouldn't, but I finally agreed to buy some tickets so that he could take them on the slide. Meanwhile the slide operator told him that the boos were too little to go on the slide.

So then we took our tickets over to the merry-go-round, but it was still being set up, tools everywhere.

We took a break from the rides and went over to visit the livestock -- sheep, pigs, goats, cows, rabbits -- all 4H projects that will be auctioned off later in the fair. Piggies were especially lovely. Baby B was interested but nervous, until we came across some girls holding baby goats. The goats were so darling, Baby B was finally convinced to pet one. I petted it too. So soft.

It was getting late, so we decided to head for the car. On the way out we passed the ferris wheel and considered it -- but it was pretty big, pretty tall. Rocket Boy and I would have enjoyed it. Boos probably would have been scared. Boos probably also would have been deemed too little to go on it. So much for our $7.50 worth of ride tickets. I looked around for someone to donate them to, but there just weren't very many people around. As in none.

We went to the car to go home to bed. The parking lot was crowded and we couldn't figure out where the owners of all those cars could be. Was there some section of the fair we'd missed entirely?

The moon was almost full.

Christmas in October

I remember this from last year. October is such a busy month in Ridgecrest that it starts to feel like December. Everyone either comes home from vacation or comes out of hibernation, and dozens of major events are organized. I think this year is especially bad because there are 5 full weekends in October. I can't remember anything major during weekend 1 (but the last weekend in September we had the Family Fun Fair at the park). And then...

weekend 2 we had the Star Party at the college and the Gem-O-Rama in Trona,
weekend 3 we had the Friends of the Library booksale and the Maturango Junction,
weekend 4 will be the Desert Empire Fair, Thursday through Sunday out at the fairgrounds,
and weekend 5 is of course Halloween -- there's a haunted house put on by the theatre group, and all the churches have their "Harvest Festivals" to try to prevent people from celebrating Halloween.

In addition to busily attending all these events (we do our part), I am also attempting to sew 2 little Halloween costumes. Also, there are 3 birthdays in my family this month (conveniently held on weekend 3, weekend 4, and weekend 5, which helps me keep track of them). And I really should buy, write, and send out a few Halloween cards. And of course I'm busily planning the novel that I'm going to write during National Novel Writing Month, which begins on Monday, November 1st, and trying to figure out how I will get the house clean for the houseguest we're expecting on November 2nd.

Not to mention the fact that Rocket Boy is trying to find a Democratic phone bank to help with, before the election (he might have to go to Palmdale, or beyond).

All I can say is, it's a good thing I don't have a JOB or anything like that. Who has time to work????

This weekend was pretty fun, I will say that, if a bit overwhelming. On Saturday, we got up early (the twins are in charge of making that happen EVERY SINGLE DAY, capably aided by our cat, Pie Bear, who has the advantage of having access to our bed). Our first destination was the park and the library -- Rocket Boy and the twins played at the park while I attended the Friends of the Library booksale. I went at a good time and found many books I couldn't live without. Then I played with the twins at the park while Rocket Boy went to the sale. Then he drove his car to Sizzler, where the Democrats of the High Desert were having a meeting with 8 of the 11 candidates for City Council, and he took notes so that he could fill me in later on what they all said. The twins and I, meanwhile, went to the grocery store and home for lunch (Rocket Boy ate at Sizzler). After he got home, we packed ourselves back into my car and went to the Maturango Junction, which is a sort of fair -- with booths and live music and the inevitable bounce houses. There were booths selling things, and booths distributing information about nonprofit organizations, and booths for each of the City Council candidates. We visited the Tortoise Club booth, of course, and Rocket Boy went to talk to a City Council candidate who he'd heard speak that morning, and we listened to a band play, and we wandered around. The most interesting sight at the Junction was, hands down, the large Sulcata tortoise on a leash, being walked by a kid who had a sign supporting a City Council candidate. Rocket Boy saw the kid feed the tortoise some nachos.

And after all that, what was left to do but drive to Olancha and have dinner at the Ranch House Cafe? (where nobody said "Shhhh!")



And on the way home there was another beautiful sunset.

Misbehavior in restaurants

My babies are growing up so fast. They are 2 years 7 months now, and their speech -- though still lagging -- is improving daily. At daycare, Baby A's teacher was amazed at one of his words: diarrhea. A very useful word if you happen to be Baby A, poor sweetie.

I am amazed by how quickly they pick up on "licensed" characters, despite not watching TV or videos. They've learned Sesame Street characters -- Elmo, Big Bird, Zoe, Cookie Monster -- from a couple of books, a puzzle, and a box of bandaids. Recently I got them a puzzle that has Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and Piglet in the picture, and the second time I brought the puzzle down they knew all those names. They call Piglet "Pigget" which I think is very cute.

They ride tricycles, they go down slides, they eat with a fork or a spoon. They are my big big boys. But sometimes I forget that they are really still very little.

So tonight, it being Friday and me wanting a break from cooking after having made dinner all of FOUR nights in a row (my grandmothers are turning over in their graves), we decided to go out to dinner. After we picked the boos up from daycare, we took them to Lugo's, which is a typical Ridgecrest restaurant serving typical whitebread food. Rocket Boy and I go there for lunch sometimes. It's not SUPER baby friendly, but you do see little kids there. And we thought dinner was probably a low-key time -- it's more of a lunch place -- so it'd be safe.

So we went in, and I stupidly suggested we sit at a booth, instead of at a table, which would have put us far from the other guests. Boos charged over to an empty booth by the window, between two occupied booths, so we sat in that one. It was very quiet in the restaurant. We soon took care of that. Both boos began pointing at interesting things out the window and announcing their names, loudly: "bike! truck! people walk! wow-wow!" and so on. And inside the restaurant there were lights and fans to point at and name, loudly. The waitress brought crayons and pages from a coloring book, so then there was an argument about who got which crayon, and she also brought crackers, leading to much ado about who would open up the crackers: "Let me help you with that." "Me do it!" "OK, you do it then." "Mommy do it!" etc.

My point is that they were not being quiet, they were being two and a half, but I didn't think it was going that badly. There was no screaming, no gratuitous yelling, nobody fell under the table, nobody ran away and jumped on all the other booths.

But then, after serving us, our waitress stopped by the booth to the east of us and asked the elderly couple there how their meal was going. "It would be fine if that kid would shut up," the elderly lady said, quite clearly. "Oh dear, I'm sorry about that, well, they're eating now," the waitress said, and then there was some more discussion that I couldn't hear. It ended with the waitress apologizing again for the noise and the elderly lady saying "well, it's not your fault."

Oh, we felt terrible! And of course, there we were, in the middle of the meal, what could we do? I started eating as fast as I could, but of course boos had no idea there was a problem. They stole the toothpicks out of my club sandwich and began using them to eat their dinners -- stabbing their grilled cheese sandwiches and eating the itsy-bitsy bits of cheese that stuck to the toothpicks. Baby A kept standing up on the seat and looking at the elderly couple on the other side of the booth wall, and then he began saying "hi!" to them. "Don't say hi!" I whispered fiercely. "Me hi!" he said indignantly, and did it again.

When the elderly couple FINALLY got up to leave, I quickly looked out the window so I wouldn't have to meet their gaze. They did pause at our table, but I continued to avoid eye contact (and Rocket Boy was still frantically eating his salad), so they went on.

I breathed a sigh of relief. "They're gone," I told Rocket Boy, who hadn't noticed. But then ANOTHER elderly lady, who had just come back from the salad bar, stopped at our table for a moment and said "Shhh!"

That did it. I stood up, grabbed Baby B, and threw some money at Rocket Boy. "I'll take them outside, you pay," I said. He handed Baby A across the table and I started for the door, gripping two little hands. And then, of course, all hell broke loose. "My bed!" Baby A screamed. Rocket Boy had a roll that he hadn't eaten yet and Baby A wanted it ("bed" = "bread"). Baby B began to cry about something else (we never figured it out). I dragged two screaming two-year-olds to the door, outside, and then into the car, where I gave them a long, pointless lecture about how to behave in restaurants. They listened to it with tears on their cheeks.

We're never going to Lugo's again. OK, at least not with the twins. But probably just never.

But then as we were driving home we saw the most incredible sunset. It was only about 6 pm, but of course the sun is setting earlier these days. As soon as we got home we grabbed the stroller, plunked the boys into it, and took off for the field north of our subdivision. We spent about half an hour wandering around in the field -- took the boys out of their stroller and let them run.



We'd already missed the best part of the sunset -- sunsets are really hard to catch on film, you know? Here's a shot from a couple of weeks ago:




Tonight wasn't that dramatic. But Ridgecrest has such a glorious big sky. As it got darker we could see the moon and Jupiter. And eventually I felt OK again.

Star party

Tonight we attended the annual Astronomical Barbecue and Star Party up at our local community college, Cerro Coso -- it was sponsored by Cerro Coso and also had something to do with the China Lake Astronomical Society, which normally sponsors star parties each month from March to November. I have been wanting to go to one of these star parties ever since we moved to Ridgecrest. What a great use of the phenomenal night sky we've got out here. But it never seemed possible, what with baby twins and all.

This star party sounded more do-able -- for one thing, food was involved. And since it's getting dark earlier, we could see some stars and be home by bedtime. Still, we dithered.

Last night when we were talking about it, I was googling astronomical things and I came upon a mention of Jack Horkheimer's death in August. I don't know how I missed that before -- well, yes I do. Jack Horkheimer died of a lung ailment on August 20th, the same day Rocket Boy went into the hospital with his own lung ailment. We were not paying a lot of attention to the news for several days there. But I was so sad to read about Jack's death last night.

Maybe that's the reason we finally pulled ourselves together to go to the star party. We didn't buy tickets in advance, just drove up to Cerro Coso to give it a try.

Cerro Coso is a small, but oddly constructed school -- I always get lost trying to find my way around. The "astronomical barbecue" was held on the lawn between the library and the main school building. The ticket-sellers looked at us and the boos and decided to charge us for only 1 child -- $25 total.

We took our tickets and went to the food line. The ticket-taker was not happy that I had 3 tickets for 4 people, even when I explained that it had not been my idea. I offered to let the boos split a hot dog, but she just shook her head grimly. We ended up with 4 enormous plates of food. Rocket Boy and I both had massive tri-tip sandwiches, even though we don't eat beef. Cole slaw, beans, chips, cookies. Greedy boos stuffed their faces with chips and cookies, then sampled their hot dogs and beans.

The Cerro Coso Community Band played throughout the dinner -- outer space-related pieces, mostly. Boos, who still don't quite understand how orchestras work, stared open-mouthed at the musicians.

Sitting at our table in the cool evening air, eating a large beef sandwich, listening to the band play the theme from Star Trek, I had a great sense of well-being. I was so glad we'd decided to come.

I bought $5 worth of raffle tickets, to make up for not having paid for a 4th barbecue ticket, but we didn't stay to find out whether we'd won anything. Instead, we started walking up the hill to the Observatory, for the star party portion of the evening. Boos began to complain about the hike, but fortunately just then a couple of golf carts whizzed up to us. Members of the Cerro Coso baseball team were ferrying people with "mobility issues" to and from the Observatory. Baby A and I climbed into one cart; Rocket Boy and Baby B boarded the other; and we whizzed up the hill to the Observatory.

At the Observatory there were several telescopes set up so that you could look at different parts of the night sky. One huge telescope was pointing right at Jupiter and you could see THREE MOONS around it, plus the shadow of another moon on it. That was cool. That made my night right there. We tried to get the boos to look through that telescope, but I don't think they understood that they were looking at Jupiter. They like to look at Jupiter with their naked eyes, but how to explain that the object in the telescope is also Jupiter...

Last night when we were out for a walk after dinner we saw a bright object in the northwest sky and wondered whether it could be Mars or Saturn. But according to the China Lake Astronomical Society's column in the local paper, Mars is low in the south southwest sky, and Saturn is visible just before sunrise. So tonight I spotted that same bright object and asked one of the roving astronomers about it. "That's Arcturus," he told me.

Oh, of course. Arcturus. That rang a faint bell in my mind.

"See the Big Dipper," he pointed out. "Follow the arc of the handle over to Arcturus. And then below it is Spica."

"Arc to Arcturus! And speed on to Spica! Oh, I remember Jack Horkheimer teaching us that!" I got a little choked up, remembering that Jack Horkheimer won't be teaching us anything else ever again.

But the stars and planets and other "evening objects" are still out there, and here in Ridgecrest we can see them all. It's exciting to think that we get to teach our little twins all about the night sky (I will be learning right along with them).

As Jack would say, keep looking up!

Glendale and Griffith Park

Today, it being Sunday and our home being Ridgecrest, we decided to go on a journey. We were sick of Palmdale and all that, so we decided to drive 145 miles to Glendale. You may ask, "why Glendale?" and the answer would be, "to visit a bookstore."

There's a used bookstore in Boulder that Rocket Boy and I are quite fond of, called the Bookworm. It's always been a great place to pick up cheap paperbacks, but in the last couple of years Rocket Boy discovered that they also have a good selection of children's books in foreign languages -- including German, which is what interests him. RB's parents were both native speakers of German, though I'm not sure how much German they actually spoke to him as a child -- but he can get by in German pretty well, if he has to. And he would like our twins to know German as well.

Of course what he should be doing is speaking German to them all the time, while I speak English to them all the time. But of course he's not doing that. Instead he reads them German children's books. He also will tell them the word for various things in German, but not consistently. And sometimes I tell them the word for things in German too, and then I say "and in English we call it X." Who knows what they're learning or not learning.

Recently RB taught them the German word for foam, schaum, and now they don't know the word foam, they just know schaum. They wash their hands with soap and say "schaum!" They look up at the clouds in the sky and say "ky! coud! schaum!" (translation: sky! clouds! (look like) schaum/foam!)

OK, anyway, whatever, so we wanted to find a bookstore around here that would be as fun as the Bookworm and would have German children's books. We got on the internet and looked for used bookstores in Los Angeles and we found a lot of posts about how there aren't any good used bookstores in Los Angeles because people around here don't read. That was depressing.

But there were a few bookstores mentioned as being pretty good, though not anything like bookstores in San Francisco or Boston. And one of these was the Brand Bookshop in Glendale. So that was enough for us. We got in the car and headed for Glendale.

We of course got a late start, so we had lunch at the Denny's in Mojave, and there we nearly had a disaster. Baby B would not sit nicely in his highchair, he kept unfastening the strap and climbing out of the chair and perching on the edge. A couple of times I jumped up from my seat to grab him because I thought he was going to fall off. Finally, for about the 100th time, I said to him "Sit in your seat, you're going to fall," and whoops, over he went. Along with the highchair. Crash. Rocket Boy was out of his seat a second later, rescuing him and comforting him, and of course Baby B was wailing away, but RB and I could not stop laughing. I mean, it was actually very scary, for all we knew Baby B had broken his neck, but there was just something about that WHOOPS -- CRASH that made us both get the giggles.

We're such bad parents.

And then I realized I'd spilled ketchup on my pale pink shirt, and even scrubbing it with soap in the restroom did not remove the stain, and as we sat in the Denny's parking lot, getting ready to get on the road again, I said to Rocket Boy, "Do you want to just go to Palmdale?"

But the fact was that we didn't want to go to Palmdale, we wanted to go to Glendale. So off we went.

The Brand Bookshop is on Brand Boulevard in Glendale, which I guess is kind of the main drag, because a little further on you come to not one but two huge shopping malls. I wouldn't call Brand Boulevard charming, but it was OK, quite pleasant to walk along. The Brand Bookshop is also not exactly charming, but it's a really nice, extremely well-organized used bookstore. With not a single German children's book. Oh well. But I found 4 books for myself, and if I'd had just a little more time to browse I probably could have found 20.

Boo bears did not like the inside of the bookstore and kept saying "Bye-bye car!" and "Go way!" so eventually we left. There were some of those Japanese cats in the window, the ones that wave their arms at you, and those were the hit of the day, as far as boo bears were concerned. We walked down Brand Boulevard a bit more, but wherever we went, boo bears kept saying "Kitty! Go back kitty!"

Our next stop was Griffith Park, which is an enormous park that I guess is actually in Los Angeles proper, but borders Glendale and other cities around there. I had vaguely heard of it, but it really wasn't on my radar. What a cool park! The Los Angeles Zoo is there, and a big museum, picnic areas and places to hike, a merry-go-round and a miniature train and pony rides. Since we didn't have a lot of time, we chose one activity: the little train. Here's a rather blurry (sorry!) photo of it.



We drove straight to the train area, parked, bought our tickets, and rode the train. And then left, before anyone had a chance to get too tired, cranky, etc. It was delightful and I definitely want to go back to that park. For one thing, we didn't even SEE the merry-go-round.

On the way home we stopped in Palmdale after all, to buy food at Trader Joe's, and then we found a Hometown Buffet and had dinner there. Baby B sat very nicely in his highchair and ate his mac & cheese and made absolutely no attempt to get out, so that was a good thing.

We were home by 8:15 and boo bears went right to bed. And now I must do the same.