Out and about in Ridgecrest and Trona

So Memorial Day weekend is flying by and we have been very busy, despite being still slightly under the weather. Today (Sunday) we were in Los Angeles all day, but the first part of the weekend we spent in town.

On Friday after dinner we went out for coffee. Going out for coffee was always one of our favorite things to do in Boulder, so we keep trying (and failing) to recreate that experience in Ridgecrest. The cafe that seems to come closest (though not very close at all) to our favorite cafe back home is Casa Java, which is in the half-empty shopping center at the corner of Downs and Drummond. It's miles from where we live so we have to drive there. It closes at 7:30 pm, so we have to rush over right after dinner. But it's kind of funky, and it's baby friendly, so we like it pretty well.

We took our treats (a mocha for Rocket Boy, iced tea for me, and a scone for the babies) to a table outside (because being baby friendly only goes so far), but were disturbed by several teenage boys smoking near us. Sometimes I wonder whether Ridgecrest is solely responsible for keeping the tobacco industry going.

Afterwards, we walked across the parking lot to Hollywood Video, which is closing, and bought a few classic DVDs. Are all the video stores in the world closing? Ridgecrest lost its Blockbuster a while back and now here goes our other video store. Theoretically we shouldn't care, because we are now Netflixians, but it was nice having a video store as a backup.

And we're such bad Netflixians. We've been members for about 2 months now and have watched 3 videos. The third one, "Inglourious Basterds," we kept out for a full month because we couldn't bring ourselves to watch it. "Let's just send it back," I kept saying, but Rocket Boy couldn't handle that idea. So it sat around and sat around and sat around and FINALLY we watched it, over the course of 3 nights. God, was that awful. Not recommended (unless you like to watch dead people being scalped). Bleah.

Saturday morning (after hurriedly mailing back "Inglourious Basterds") we mowed our front lawn. This is a huge undertaking because (a) the lawn is essentially dead, (b) it's infested with weird tall weeds, and (c) we have a push mower. What we do is (a) push the push mower all over the lawn, fruitlessly (b) get out the weed whacker and whack all the weeds, and (c) do it all over again because the lawn is still covered with weird tall weeds. Eventually the weed whacker broke, so we had to stop. That evening our next-door neighbor complimented Rocket Boy on the lawn, so we must have achieved something, but not much.

After doing the lawn we went to Trona, because they were having a "Fly-In" at the Trona Airport. We saw it advertised in the newspaper, and also one of Rocket Boy's coworkers invited us (he keeps a plane there). It was taking place all weekend, Friday through Monday, but they were serving lunch on Saturday, so that's when we went. We drove the 22 miles to Trona, plus a few more to get to the airport. The airport is pretty small.


When we arrived we saw a few planes parked out where you could look at them, but no planes seemed to be flying in, as one might expect at a Fly-In. We went into the Pilots' Lounge to see what was going on.

It turned out that not much was. No other planes were expected to be flying in that day. So we followed everyone else over to one of the hangars where they were serving lunch. For $5 you could get a hot dog (either boiled or grilled), a bun, and some chili, which you could have over the hot dog or separately, in a plastic bowl. Rocket Boy and I split a grilled hot dog with chili and the babies split a boiled hot dog without.

After lunch we walked across the runway to examine this giant weather vane thingie. It has lights on it so it can be seen at night by planes flying in.

After examining the weather vane for a while, we watched a little plane take off and go flying away. The babies thought that was very interesting. And then it seemed that we had exhausted the offerings of the Fly-In, so we drove over to the restaurant in "downtown" Trona and had a second lunch. While we were eating, we chatted with an older couple who were also having lunch. As is usual for Trona, the older couple turned out to have lived there for at least 50 years and remembered when everything was fabulous there, as well as all the dates of when everything closed down (the movie theater, the old swimming pool, etc.).

Really, how could Trona ever have been fabulous? I don't care how much money it might have had, it still would have been horribly hot and smelly, with a dirt football field at the high school because grass doesn't grow in the soil there. Of course grass doesn't grow at our house either, so maybe I shouldn't talk.

But it occurred to me that we've come a long way since the first time we visited Trona. It still seems pathetic, but it's a comfortable pathetic. The people are always friendly and I have yet to be accosted by a meth addict. Ridgecrest has such an angry vibe, people are so militant about everything all the time. Tronites are a lot more laid back.

We were overdue for naps, so we headed home without visiting the Trona museum, but that's OK. We'll be back.

A quiet afternoon

Today is Friday, flex Friday, which means that Rocket Boy (and everyone else who works at China Lake) has the day off. The best thing about flex Fridays is that the twins, who I love with all my heart and soul, go to daycare. On a normal flex Friday, RB and I play with the twins during the morning, take them to daycare together at 11:30, go out for a leisurely lunch, and then spend the afternoon working at our computers or doing other things that the boo bears do not like us to do in their presence, such as read or nap.

Sadly, today is not a normal flex Friday. Baby A is sick, so he stayed home from daycare, and Rocket Boy is sick too. Baby A wouldn't eat any lunch and he's been asleep for about 3 hours. Rocket Boy ate a little lunch and now he's been asleep for at least 2 hours. Baby B is alone at daycare and I am alone at my computer.

I have so many things to do. I have a to-do list a mile long. Have I done anything off it? No. Have I even looked at it? No.

I have always loved to-do lists. I enjoy writing down all the tasks I think I need to accomplish -- in a day, a week, a year -- and then crossing them off as I finish them. I remember in grad school some of my friends gave me a notepad that said at the top: "Another day, another damn list." That was me.

These days I make weekly to-do lists. My daily lists are too dull: change diapers, make snack, change diapers, make lunch, change diapers, make dinner... The weekly lists are fantasies about what I might get done if the twins would give me a minute and if I could come up with the necessary drive and enthusiasm.

One thing I know is on my current list is this: Bring out my summer clothes. Can you believe I have not done this yet? It isn't summer here yet! Today is May 28th and it is not hot. Summer is supposed to begin on Sunday (it's going to be 93). Maybe I'll get my summer clothes out tomorrow.

Another thing I know is on the list is this: Dig another tortoise burrow. I have been really remiss about that. The two tortoises are sharing our one burrow and seem perfectly content, but this can't be allowed to go on. Maybe tomorrow I'll work on that.

(Tomorrow is starting to look like a very busy day. Never fear, it'll all get put off to some other day.)

Rocket Boy has his own to-do list for me, and it involves things like scanning my old college transcripts and applying for jobs. Fortunately he's asleep.

Here's a fun one that I know is on MY list: revise my novel. I can get a printed copy of my NaNoWriMo novel if I request it before the end of June, but that means I have to revise it first. (OK, I don't HAVE to, but I want to.) Watch, I'll probably be working on that on June 29th.

A whole afternoon to myself and I didn't get one thing done. Well, I wrote this blog entry. I balanced the checkbooks. I sent a few emails. Now it's 4 pm and I need to start dinner.

Sometimes it's so lovely to do nothing at all.

Boron

On Sunday we all slept late, because it was cloudy -- very unusual in Ridgecrest. When we did finally get up, around 8 am, it was raining! This meant, we felt, that we couldn't possibly work in the yard, and since the twins interfere with all work done in the house, we decided to go on a trip.

Our first plan was to revisit the Trona museum, but it isn't open on Sundays. We next considered going to Manzanar, the former Japanese-American internment camp, but it's about 100 miles north of us and that seemed too far. Finally we decided to go to Boron, which has some museums and is only 50 miles south of us. We got a late start, but were finally on the road around 1:30 pm.

Boron is a company town, like Trona, and like Trona it is named after a substance that is mined there (actually boron is an element and borax is what's mined there, but same difference). Apparently the (open-pit) mine is enormous. Earlier this year the miners went on strike against the company that owns the mine, for several good reasons, and just recently the strike was settled. My understanding is that the company backed down on most of its demands. I thought people in the town would be in good spirits, having just won this big battle, but I guess that shows how naive I can be.

As we drove into town, I noticed that the buildings were modest and in some disrepair, but not like Trona. Much more functional than Trona. Boron is just off Highway 58, between Mojave and Barstow, in other words, out in the middle of nowhere, but not AS MUCH out in the middle of nowhere as Trona.



Our first stop in Boron was the 20 Mule Team Museum. Apparently the products of the mine used to be put in wagons and pulled by a team of 20 mules. I'm just guessing about that, really, because the boo bears were not in a museum mood and would not let either of us stand still long enough to read a display. But the museum is chock-full of pictures and models of 20-mule teams pulling wagons, like this:



Unfortunately this model had signs all over it saying "Do not touch!" If the boo bears could have played with it, I could have read the display and found out what this was all about.

Finally we gave up and left the museum. Before leaving we bought several postcards. Boo bears both chose postcards of desert tortoises. Then they chose a few more. We ended up with 7 identical postcards of desert tortoises and 1 of a tarantula.

We tried to explore the museum's yard, but the wind was blowing a million miles an hour, as usual. All the old equipment in the yard was in terrible shape and there were no displays (for me to not read). Then we tried to go to the aerospace museum next door, but it was closed.

We decided it was time for a snack (it was about 3:30). Across the street was a Cafe, at least that's what it said on the sign. We went inside, hoping for lattes and scones, only to find that it was basically a Mexican restaurant without a single dessert. So we left and went to a little park down the street where there was an enormous dump truck. I don't know why.



Then we went to another restaurant down the street, that did have desserts, and the four of us shared several. I think we were the only out-of-towners there. People kept coming in and greeting the waitress by name. I heard several people make reference to being "tired." No one was celebrating the recent settlement with the mine. I began to realize that the months-long strike had been really hard on these people.

There is a museum at the mine too, but it was probably closed by then. We decided we could see that some other time.

We drove back to Ridgecrest rather soberly. Manzanar might have been a little more upbeat.

Election fever

So we've got a primary election coming up in a few weeks and I was really looking forward to going to my polling place and requesting a Democratic ballot. Just like last year, I'll bring the twins in their stroller, and people will oooh and ahhh at their cuteness, even while looking askance at my choice of political party. I love to vote in person anyway, and this all just gives it that little extra zing.

Then I got my sample ballot in the mail.

OK, so I get to vote for Jerry Brown for Governor, that's fine, and Barbara Boxer for Senator, that's fine, and I'll have to learn more about the candidates for some of the other offices, that's all fine. But then we get to the local primary races. US Representative: NOBODY running (on the Democratic side, that is). State Senator: ONE person running. Member of the State Assembly: ONE person running. Oh dear.

Our current (and future) US Representative is Kevin McCarthy, darling of the GOP and just about as lovely as that makes him sound. Our current Assemblyperson is staunch Republican Jean Fuller, and she's now apparently a shoe-in for State Senator.

But then there's the race for Assembly, since Jean Fuller is moving on and up. BIG nasty contest between Republicans Ken Mettler and Shannon Grove -- and another Shannon, Shannon Holloway, who announced a few weeks back that Ken Mettler had asked her to run in order to confuse the voters with too many Shannons. Oh yeah, Ken Mettler is a charmer. Shannon Grove is the normal GOP-type person. Ken Mettler is the TEA PARTY person. In other words, the Rand Paul of Kern County.



I've been seeing a lot of big signs around town. First it was Shannon Grove here, Shannon Grove there. Then the Ken Mettler signs started appearing. I don't think you can read it (sorry about the photo), but her sign says REPUBLICAN for State Assembly and his sign says CONSERVATIVE for Assembly. What is the difference? Is "Conservative" secret code for "Tea Party Nutcase"? Interesting things are happening on the Right these days.

There have been several letters to the local newspapers about how wonderful Ken Mettler is. Ah, Ridgecrest, how we love you.

I googled the Democratic candidate for Assembly, Holly Spohn-Gross, and it turns out she's a podiatrist in Lake Isabella, sounds like a great person -- except that she withdrew from the race a few weeks ago. Although apparently you CAN'T actually withdraw from the race at this point, she's not going to campaign. I guess I don't blame her, but it seems a shame.

Yes, yes, it keeps going through my mind that I should have signed up to run for one of these offices -- I could have listed my occupation as "Housewife/Blogger," so trendy! -- but I'm completely unqualified, not to mention slightly busy with those devilishly charming two-year-old twins.

Speaking of which, and also speaking of fever, I was terribly sick this week, with what turned out to be strep throat. As the week wore on, I started feeling really put out that I had to continue taking care of two-year-old twins and my various other responsibilities while feeling this bad. I felt as though there ought to be a special law prohibiting this. The law would state that when mothers passed a certain point of sickness, someone HAD to step in and take over. Preferably an outside person (not the father, who would then hand it all back to the mother to do as soon as the police officer went away). These feelings came to a head Friday night (after I'd finally been diagnosed and started taking an antibiotic, but before it had had any effect on me) when I told Rocket Boy that I did not want to be the twins' mother anymore, I would like to be their AUNT. I would visit them often, shower them with gifts, but I DID NOT WANT TO BE IN CHARGE!

Today I'm so much better and I'm in charge again and I'm fine with that. But I think for now I will forgo attempting to be in charge of any part of Kern County. If we stay here long enough, though, hmmm.

Building a tortoise burrow

I haven't been posting much because I've been preoccupied with various projects -- one of which is training my permanent replacement at work. Pretty soon, in about 3 weeks actually, I am going to be officially out of a job. Just in time for summer.

Another -- less serious -- project we've been working on is building a tortoise burrow. When I was a kid in northern California our pet desert tortoise didn't have a burrow. Even in the winter months, when it hibernated, it just found a place to hide under some leaves. In the summer it walked around the yard all day. Of course, it doesn't get very hot or cold in Palo Alto.

As we all now know, the Mojave desert is a little different. And desert tortoises, being reptiles, don't like extremes of temperature. In the wild, they dig themselves 6-foot long summer burrows and up to 30-foot long winter burrows!

We're not going to provide any 30-foot burrows for our foster tortoises, but I'm very proud to say we have now created a 6-foot burrow.

In case anyone reading this would for some reason also want to build a tortoise burrow, I'll describe how we did it. On Friday we began digging a trench halfway across one of the pens, under the cement rim that borders the pen, and 4 more feet out into the dirt yard. (Since the burrow is underground, it is OK for it to extend outside of the pen.) Here are my "helpers," watching as the trench takes shape.



The next day (Saturday) we bought a pick axe to help us dig. Our soil is terribly hard to dig -- very compacted. Also, even though Rocket Boy's broken elbow has healed, he still has to be careful with it. So I actually did most of the digging. I tested the burrow's size by putting a tortoise in it to see whether she would walk up and down it. She did.



Then, when the trench was almost 2 feet deep at its lowest point, we added a length of 12-inch PVC pipe, cut in half. (Incidentally, finding 12-inch PVC pipe in Ridgecrest was NOT easy, and the tale of how we found it is worthy of its own blog entry except that I forgot to take any pictures.) The PVC pipe formed the walls and ceiling of the burrow, so that the whole thing wouldn't collapse. At the end of the trench we put a plastic laundry bucket, cut down and with a half-circle cut out of it so the PVC pipe could fit in it. That formed the "turnaround" part of the burrow, which is where the tortoise turns around so it can head back up and out again.



The next day (Sunday) we filled the trench with dirt. Here is one of my helpers, watching the trench fill up.



And then we let the tortoises try it out. This is a terrible photo because of the glare, but basically this is the entrance to the burrow (inside the pen).



This tortoise sat there for quite a while before it deigned to go down the ramp into the darkness, but eventually it did. Later in the day I went out to check on them and there was not a tortoise to be seen! They were both in the long burrow. (I should note that we have temporarily removed the divider between the 2 pens.) Then one tortoise came out again. In the early evening the other one poked its head out of the long burrow, but then went back down again.

We think we have a winner here. Tomorrow I have to start digging the second burrow. It got to 94 today. Summer is coming, we must be ready.

And now we have two tortoises

So here she is, tortoise number 2. Isn't she lovely? She looks a lot like her sister in the other pen, but this one is a little bigger. I call them sisters, but I assume it's by adoption not blood. They, and a male, were all adopted by the same little old lady, who died and left them to, I think, her daughter, who turned them over to the tortoise club this spring. I have the original adoption papers which show that two of the tortoises were adopted in 1961 and one in 1976, but it doesn't say whether the two females were from 1961 and the male from 1976, or what. Still, I think it's fair to say that these are rather senior tortoises -- because of course they may not have been babies when they were adopted.

So sweet.

It's delightful having two tortoises, but I think it was somehow more fun for the babies to have only one. They could focus all their (unwanted) attention on her -- now their effect is diluted. They run back and forth between the pens. It makes them cranky. Today Baby A actually threw some little rocks at the tortoises -- OK, not really AT them, but into their pens. I stopped that in a hurry.

Finally I set the boos up to play with their water table and that occupied their little minds, so the tortoises could go about their own business undisturbed.

And what is the business of a 50-year-old desert tortoise? Well, they take a lot of naps. "Night-night," the babies chant, as the tortoises retreat to the corners of their pens, where overhanging boards provide shade and shelter from the wind. When it isn't hot, cold, or windy, they go for walks, exploring their 12-foot long pens to see if anything has changed. They walk in their water dishes, spilling out all the water. They munch on grape leaves and hollyhock leaves. They move their bowels. They stare into space, thinking about something, or perhaps not.

Today would have been my mother's 88th birthday. She loved the desert tortoises we had as pets when I was a kid. Even in her 80s she talked about how she wished she could have one again. I would so love to tell her about the ones I have living with me now. At least I know she'd have been happy for me. Or, come to think of it, envious! Maybe she would have come down for a visit to see them, despite the bad by-du in the kitchen and the rattlesnakes on the roads.

Or I could have taken them to visit her -- driven up to the Bay Area with two elderly tortoises rumbling around in the back of the car. I could have walked into Palo Alto Commons, her old assisted living facility, with a big plastic storage bin, and if the lady at the front desk asked me what was in the bin I could have said "cookies." I could have taken them up to her room and unpacked them and we could have watched them walk around her living room.

It's probably just as well I can't do that, since the tortoises would probably not like it at all. But my little mother and I would have had fun.

We have a tortoise!

We have a desert tortoise living with us! She arrived today and was installed in our new tortoise pen.

She is of course a foster tortoise, and will only be with us a few weeks, probably, until someone else adopts her. So I am trying not to get too attached.

Of course, I am already too attached.

When we put her in the pen she walked all around it, examining her new digs. We gave her some leaves off various trees and the grape vine, but she ignored them, preferring to snack on the baby mustard plants growing in the pen, and also some old dry leaves. Crunch crunch crunch, old dry leaves -- delicious!



When the babies got home from daycare we took them out to meet the tortoise and they almost lost their minds. Their word for her species has evolved: now it's something like "tee-tole." It was so amazing to them that a tee-tole was in their backyard that they couldn't stop screaming. Fortunately the tee-tole did not seem to mind, and in fact seemed pleased to meet them. I can't imagine why.

I managed to keep them out of her pen, but just barely. Obviously this is going to be a challenge. However, she's a smart tee-tole -- when they poked at her with a toy frog she just pulled her head in, much to their surprise.

After dinner Daddy sawed a board to close off our second tortoise pen, so we may get a second foster tortoise soon. Then I'll have to think about where to put a third pen. And that might be it for the moment. Or maybe we'll build a fourth pen and a fifth. I'll see how it goes.

Around 7 pm the tee-tole went into a corner and pulled in her head. "See, the tortoise is going nighty-night," I told the boys. "Let's all of us go nighty-night too, and then in the morning we can play with the tortoise some more."



A home with a desert tortoise is a happy home.

End of April reading update

I must do a reading update before we get too far into May. Reading was more of a pleasure in April and I managed to read nine books, so we are still on track to read 100 by year's end. Here is the list:

27. Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips. Recommended by my sister Barbara, this was a very mystical sort of novel, which is Phillips' style. It takes place in the heat and humidity of summer, and in some ways it drags, just like summer. But here and there it's both heartbreaking and overwhelming. I've already recommended it to someone else.
28. Death's Half Acre by Margaret Maron. Another mystery.
29. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. Recommended by our cleaning lady, this is a juvenile adventure story, first in a series, where the teenage main character is the son of a mortal woman and a Greek god. Percy Jackson is no Harry Potter, but his story is very entertaining.
30. The Everything Potty Training Book by Linda Sonna. Read for obvious reasons (sigh). A good explanation of the various methods.
31. Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde. Another Thursday Next mystery. I enjoyed it much more than the previous book in the series. The next one is already in my bedside pile.
32. Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity by Rebecca Goldstein. Someone told me I should read Spinoza in order to understand my own belief system better, so I looked around for a good analysis of his philosophy and found this book. Goldstein was raised in Orthodox Judaism, became a philosophy professor, then a novelist, won a MacArthur "genius" award... she's quite amazing and I trust her to explain things to me. This was a fascinating book, but I still don't understand Spinoza very well. I'm thinking in a few months I should read the whole thing all over again; maybe then I'd get it.
33. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. Another mystery (sort of) featuring an 11-year-old girl in 1950 England who likes to cook up poisons in her chemistry lab. Quite amusing -- I have the second book in the series on my library "request" list.
34. Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich. My sister Nancy warned me this was depressing, and it was. A really bleak, frightening book about a marriage falling apart, but ultimately redemptive as well. Fascinating, because Erdrich is clearly playing around with the story of her own life and marriage. I can't get it out of my head. She's never been my favorite author, but now I have her previous novel in my bedside pile too.
35. Last Lessons of Summer by Margaret Maron. A really stupid mystery!

I've already finished my first May book, so onward we go.

Adventures at the Bakersfield zoo

Today we drove to Bakersfield to go to the zoo! Or, more specifically, the California Living Museum, which displays animals that are native to California and have been "rescued" -- injured or otherwise unable to live in the wild. I first heard about this little zoo a year ago from a woman who worked at the Ridgecrest library. Last month she turned up at the tortoise club meeting and asked me if we'd taken the twins there yet. Then she mailed me a coupon for $1 off the admission price. Enough already: we decided to go.

It's 109 miles from our house to the zoo and we made it in less than 2 hours. The zoo is just north of Bakersfield proper, kind of out in the middle of nowhere. It must be horribly hot in the summer, but today it was delightful -- just warm enough to skip the coats.

We had decided not to bring a stroller, figuring we could control the twins using their little backpack leashes. This turned out to be only somewhat true.

To enter the zoo, you walk through the gift shop, which sells mainly toy animals -- plastic, stuffed, etc. The babies began to exclaim and grab, but we hurried them through. I should note that they looked adorable today: red and yellow t-shirts, blue backpack leashes, green and tan sun hats. Everyone we passed noticed them. This proved useful later.

First stop was the reptile house ("reptile" loosely defined): lizards, toads, a tarantula, a bad by-du, and many many types of California snakes, most of which live right here in the Mojave desert. Last weekend when we were driving on the Garlock Road we saw two snakes; today, looking at the caged snakes, I was able to identify what we had seen. One was a king snake and I'm pretty sure the other was the deadly Mojave green rattlesnake. Lovely.

Next stop was the Desert Habitat: tortoises of course, but also an adorable and very friendly roadrunner. At the Children's Park we saw goats, bunnies, and a large male turkey. The bears in the bear exhibit were asleep, but the coyotes in the coyote exhibit were awake. At the Mammal Round I got so interested in the kit foxes and bobcats that I forgot to pay attention to the twins.

All of a sudden Rocket Boy said "where's Baby B?" We looked -- he was nowhere to be seen. We rushed out of the Round. The coyotes began to howl: for a terrible moment I thought Baby B had gotten into their exhibit and they were tearing him to pieces. But no. Here came a family we had seen earlier, and the large tattooed father was carrying Baby B! We fell on our bad boy with kisses and scoldings, thanking the family over and over for noticing him (those cute clothes!) and nabbing him.

We hurried through the next few exhibits, me holding Baby B's leash tightly, but as we left the raptor exhibit, he ran away from me. I didn't worry because he and I were headed for the zoo exit on two parallel paths. Baby A and Rocket Boy were maybe 50 feet behind him on his path.

Then Baby B's path went over a tiny bridge above a stream, and instead of crossing it, Baby B sat down on it, and then suddenly lowered himself into the water! RB and I both screamed and ran to snatch him out. He was soaked and filthy -- the water was muddy. And I hadn't brought any extra shoes and socks. I led him over to a grassy picnic area, pulling him on his leash instead of carrying him so I wouldn't get muddy, but I felt terrible because he was crying all the way. I stripped him down, wiped the mud off, and gave him a new diaper and new clothes. RB took his shoes and socks, washed them off in the restroom, and took them and him out to the car to dry off.

Baby A and I took our time walking back through the gift shop. They sold socks! So I bought some new clean ones for Baby B. Baby A also chose several toy animals which I obediently purchased (a mother whose son has just almost been lost AND drowned is not in her right mind). I would have bought several more but the woman at the counter said I could just give her whatever Baby A brought to me and she would put them back on the shelves later. So we came home with a frog, a skunk, and two tortoises, but not a squirrel, a horse, a bird, or a snake.

Eventually we pulled ourselves together and drove to old town Bakersfield where we had a delicious meal at a Basque restaurant called the Pyrenees Cafe. Baby B managed to cover himself with ravioli and meat sauce, necessitating yet another clothing change. And then we went to Trader Joe's and Radio Shack and then we drove all the way home to Ridgecrest, so very thankful that we were returning with TWO little boys, safe and sound.