Noah's Ark

Fall is a busy time in this area, but this particular weekend there isn't much going on. So we weighed our options and decided it was time to visit the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles and see Noah's Ark, an amazing 8000-square-foot "installation."

Before we left, I gave the kids a quick rundown of the Bible story. They might have heard it at daycare, but I was pretty sure they'd need a refresher course. So here I go, and I realize I have no idea how to tell the story. Do I tell it as if it really happened? Kind of the way we tell them about Santa Claus??? Or do I go the straight Biblical route and say "Once upon a time God decided he was mad at all the people except a man named Noah..." oh no, I could just imagine the weird questions that would follow. I decided to leave God out altogether. Instead I said, "Once upon a time there was a big storm and it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and made a big flood, but a man named Noah built a big ship called an ark and he let all the animals go on it with him, and they floated on the seas until the rain stopped and then they all got out. And we're going to a museum to see Noah's Ark." I'm sure that made no sense at all.

The Skirball Center is 140 miles south of us. You can't just walk into Noah's Ark -- you buy tickets for a particular time. So we had to figure out when we could get there. Oh, the endless joys of living in Ridgecrest. At 9:00 this morning I looked at the website and decided we could be there by 1:00 (4 hours), so I bought 4 tickets for that time. Then we packed the car and left at about 9:40. Two and a half hour drive, roughly -- we got to the Skirball just after noon.

The Skirball is just down the road from the glorious Getty Museum, and I was expecting it to be similar. I realized after we arrived that that was silly. The Getty is colossal, grander than all other museums. The Skirball is on a more reasonable scale. For example, we were able to park about 20 feet from the elevators. We went up to the main lobby and found the restaurant and food cart. Since we had time before our tour started, we bought sandwiches and ate a nice lunch in the outside courtyard. Boos were very bad: among other things they took off their sandals, walked on the rim of a pond (and got yelled at by a guard), and wouldn't eat the nice lunch. It was not an auspicious beginning.

Then it was time for us to go to Noah's Ark. We were given large stickers to wear that showed our time slot (you can only stay for 2 hours, so the staff needs to know when you went in) and the boos did NOT want to wear the stickers. I had to chase Baby A up and down a staircase to put his on. Rocket Boy tried putting Baby B's sticker on his back, which made him mad. Meanwhile all the other families headed for Noah's Ark were peacefully putting on their stickers, no worries. Sometimes I hate my children. Finally we got the stickers on. Here we are on our way to the gallery, all wearing our stickers.

I had studied the Noah's Ark website extensively beforehand, but still really had no idea of what to expect. One thing I read that kind of bugged me was that the animals in the ark are made of recycled materials -- flyswatters, piano keyboards, boxing gloves, you name it. That sounded too PC to me -- I wanted true-to-life animals.

OK, let's just say right up front that I was wrong, the animals are amazingly wonderful, and the whole Noah's Ark exhibit is simply fabulous. I was so impressed. There are a series of rooms -- the first room is the outside of the ark, the next two rooms are inside the ark, and the last room is a place to do crafts -- we didn't spend any time there. We spent the most time in the first room, where you can turn wheels and pull levers to make thunder, lightning, rain, and wind. Now remember, Baby A is afraid of storms, particularly lightning. This room was so good for him! He spent so much time working it, working out his fears. Here are the boys manipulating the rain machine.

In the second room there are puppets, little rooms to crawl in, and a giant toy Noah's Ark with lots of little animals inside. The boys played with that for a long time.

The third room had a sort of rope ladder thing that kids could climb into and then walk all around up above the adults. This photo shows Baby A walking down out of it and you can barely see Baby B up on the second level with the penguins.

My favorite part of the whole thing was the animals -- those animals made out of recycled and repurposed materials that I thought I wouldn't like. They're incredible! I couldn't stop taking pictures of them. Here's the lion and the lamb, at the door between the third and fourth rooms.

No matter how much of a pain it was for us to get there and back -- and believe me, it was a pain -- the trip back home was AWFUL -- this exhibit was worth seeing. If you happen to find yourself in Los Angeles with a couple of hours to kill, I HIGHLY recommend it, especially if you have a little person or two along. SO FUN.

Busy weekend

I'm happy to announce that I didn't go out of town this weekend. Rocket Boy and the twins did, today, on a nap drive, but I didn't go with them. And Friday and Saturday we all stayed in town. Fall is really here.

So what did we do in lovely Ridgecrest this weekend?

Friday night we went to the annual Star Party at Cerro Coso community college, in the hills south of town. The food was OK, the music was OK (not as good as last year but boos were delighted when the group played a song by Jason Mraz that he sings on a Sesame Street episode -- after that they kept asking me if the band would play more Sesame Street songs), but the weather was completely uncooperative -- a bunch of clouds came in from nowhere and covered up all the stars. So there was no actual star party. We walked all the way up the hill to the observatory and they were packing up their telescopes. Oh well. We got to ride down the hill in a giant golf cart, and between that and the Sesame Street song, boos were happy.

Saturday morning we went to the Family Fun Fair at Leroy Jackson Park. Lots of local nonprofits set up booths in the park and you can wander around getting information about the nonprofits, or you can just make use of the fun little things they set up, such as this wading pool full of bubble liquid. The tortoise club had a booth, the writers club had a booth, and I bought a couple of children's books at the Friends of the Library booth. It was hot, but it is September after all, not January.

Saturday evening we attended the annual free Pops Concert at Freedom Park (the musicians are in the gazebo). This is so much fun. Last year we had to leave pretty quickly -- this year we managed to stay almost until the intermission. Last year the theme was pirate music -- this year it was cowboy music -- we heard a medley of songs from Oklahoma, some Aaron Copeland, and a singalong to "Oh Susanna" among other pieces. Boos did not pay much attention to the music, but we sat in the back so they could run around and not be too disruptive. Here they are, not paying attention.

This morning (Sunday) we took a stroller walk to Albertson's (which has a Starbucks in it) for coffee and treats. Baby A, who is a tricycling fiend, insisted on riding his trike to the store. We were strongly opposed to this, since it is about a mile, but he made it. Once in the store, we did not know what to do with the trike, so Rocket Boy put it in a cart, and Baby A sat on it in the cart. No, I do not have a photo! Sorry! On the way home he got tired, had a meltdown, Baby B had one too, and Rocket Boy had to carry the trike for the last block or so, but at least the first part of the trip was good.

And in the afternoon they went someplace weird, while I stayed home and read a book. Here they are, someplace weird. Never mind where, just out in the desert somewhere.

Miscellany

September is moving along -- one more week. I don't feel ready for October, primarily because I haven't decided what to do about Halloween costumes this year. Boos are old enough to have opinions, but not really old enough to make good decisions. If I say, "Do you want to be X?" they say "NO!" but they don't have any better ideas. To be fair, Baby A has expressed interest in being a frog, so we might do that (I would buy it -- don't want to try to make a frog). Here's a cute frog:

I thought it would be nice if Baby B were a tortoise, but he says NO, and there we are. He HAS mentioned wanting to be a kitty, but that's a little problematic. It's assumed (by the business executives who decide these things) that only girls would want to be kitties for Halloween, so there's a lot of pink involved in the costumes. Here's an example:

Of course I could MAKE a kitty costume... or we could buy this kitty costume and I could do things to it to make it less girly.

Or I could force him to be a tortoise. Decisions, decisions.

One pretty cool thing about Halloween is that this year we'll be trick-or-treating without diapers. Yeah baby! We are not 100% potty trained yet, but doing so well. Boos wear underwear to daycare every day and in the past 3 weeks, Baby B has had only one accident. Baby A comes home in a different pair of shorts most days, so he's still working on this. But we're getting there.

They still wear diapers to bed at night and on long car trips...but but but last weekend when we went to Palmdale, Baby B said "No diaper. Underwear!" and he stayed dry the whole trip. Told us when he needed to go, made use of available facilities. No accidents. Baby A happily wore diapers, and we were relieved about that too, because he's not ready for undies on long trips. Anyway, we're getting there. Score one for naked potty training!

(Photo from http://www.itsnature.org/ground/creepy-crawlies-land/sunspiderwind-scorpion/)

Had a little excitement here the other morning. Boos and I were at home, as usual, doing chores and making puzzles and the like. I was in the kitchen and I heard them call me. "Mommy, come! There's a big bydo!" Well, gosh, just what I felt like dealing with, a big bydo, but I'm the mom, so I came. And there, next to the baseboard, just behind their puzzle table, was a creature that looked quite a bit like the one above. A sun spider.

Sun spiders are not really dangerous, but they look sooooo freaky, plus they will bite you if bothered and I'm told the bite hurts. So this sun spider needed to go outside. I went and got the 2 plastic cups we use for this purpose, got the critter inside them with no trouble, and took it outside, where I threw it into the grass.

Immediately, the sun spider ran right back toward me. And they run FAST. Much faster than any regular spider can run.

Horrified, I managed to scoop it up in a cup again and threw it into the grass again. And again it ran back to me. FAST.

So again I scooped it up, and this time threw it into a group of trees and rocks. Finally it stayed put, or rather, it ran into the rocks.

Sun spiders don't like the sun -- that's why they're called sun spiders, of course, duh, huh??? -- and so when I tossed it into the sun, it ran back toward me to get under my shadow. But oh man, it felt as though it was coming to kill me. It was a long time before I could breathe normally again.

And if you're wondering why I didn't just smash it, well, sun spiders eat black widow spiders. Nuff said?

I'm feeling a bit wistful as October approaches, because we just found out today that our poor foreclosed-upon house is going up for auction on October 14 -- that's three weeks from today. What happens after that is anyone's guess. Someone just told me about someone in Ridgecrest whose house went up for auction recently -- and nobody bought it -- but we probably can't count on that. One of these days I think someone's going to knock on our door and tell us to get out. And where the heck are we going to go then, I just don't know. Do we rent another house in Ridgecrest, do we give up and go back to Colorado, will Rocket Boy finally get a job offer that will take us somewhere else? Your guess is as good as mine.

Old West Days

The weather has started to cool down a bit -- in fact, it hasn't been in the 100's much at all this month, and that's weird for Ridgecrest in September. Day after day the thermometer gets to 92 or 93 and then turns around and goes the other direction. It's fabulous.

Cooler temps mean that events start being held again (in the hot summer, everyone just crawls into their little holes, like tortoises). And today was the annual Old West Days (though it's just one day) in Randsburg, a mostly ghost (former mining) town about 20 miles south of us, down Highway 395.

This is our third September in Ridgecrest, but the first time we'd attended Old West Days. In the past, what really stopped me from going was the thought of the parking situation. There's nowhere to park in Randsburg. Tiny little dirt roads snaking through the gentle hills of the town. I couldn't figure out how they could accommodate hundreds of extra cars. That was on my mind again today, as I drove down 395, but I'm a braver woman now than I was two years ago. It turned out that the "parking lot" was in fact those gentle hills. Here's our parking place:

And we were a very short walk from the main street of town. We were parked right behind the bandstand. Here's the band:

The main street of Randsburg has a couple of restaurants and bars (excuse me, saloons), numerous antique stores, and not much else. We arrived around 11 am, and along with everyone else we walked up and down the street looking at vendor booths...

...and local color.

You could buy hot dogs on the street, but there weren't many places to sit down and eat those hot dogs, so we went into a "restaurant." Where we had hot dogs.

Only $3 a dog, $3.50 for a kraut dog (I had a kraut dog). Rocket Boy had a pastrami sandwich, which I think was $5.

We did a bit of shopping: bought some candy from the Historical Society booth, and Rocket Boy actually found a hand drill that he wanted at an antique shop. He asked the woman how much and she said $8. I thought he should have bargained her down, but he just said OK, and we gave her a $10 bill. But she could only find a single $1 bill in her pocket of change, so we ended up paying $9. I guess I won't worry about it.

Randsburg reminded me of similar mining ghost towns in Colorado, and of course that made me think of our old friend Clifford, our next-door neighbor back in Boulder, who died of cancer in his 80s about 7 months after we moved out here, breaking both our hearts. Rocket Boy and I both adored Clifford and used to invite him along on most of our weekend journeys. He was a Colorado native, and spent his work life as a field biologist for the Colorado Department of Game & Fish. He was smart but folksy, opinionated and crotchety.

I told Rocket Boy I was thinking about Clifford, and he said he was too, so we started imagining what Clifford would say if he were with us today. What we came up with was pretty colorful. Clifford liked old things and old places, but he wasn't sentimental about anything.

The boys did pretty well during the two hours we were in Randsburg, but toward the end of that time they were getting whiny. What finished them off entirely was a mock shootout that took place a few feet from where we were standing.

"It's not real," I kept saying to Baby A, who was traumatized. "They're just pretending. No one is dead or hurt. The guns aren't real. Well, maybe they're real, but the bullets aren't real. They're just loud. No one will hurt you. It's not real," but to a three-year-old it was pretty darn real, so we hurried back to our car, and after several attempts managed to find a path out of town (many other cars were parked randomly around us by that time).

"What do you think Clifford would have said about Randsburg?" I asked Rocket Boy, as we drove off.

"He'd say, "What a dump," " Rocket Boy said, and we laughed, remembering our friend. Actually, Clifford might have been a little more charitable than that, because he did like old things. But he also called a spade a spade, and Randsburg is pretty much a dump. A nice dump, though. We had a good time there today (except for the guns).

And now, just because I can (it's my blog), I'm going to include a photo of Clifford. This is from July 2008. I think we were at the visitor center in Rocky Mountain National Park. Babies were four months old. I miss him.

What I did on my summer vacations

I said I was going to write about this, so now seems like a good time (before I forget everything). We took two vacations in August this year, both to the same part of the state (the Eastern Sierra), within a few days of each other. Not our fault, not our poor planning. It just happened that both groups of people we were going with planned their trips for late August and we decided to make it work.

I'm not going to write very much in this blog post, just show photos. My memories of the two trips are primarily visual, so it's appropriate. Suffice it to say that they were both wonderful trips.

The Eastern Sierra is so beautiful. For our first vacation, we drove 200 miles north on Highway 395 to June Lake. There we stayed in a cabin at the Big Rock Resort, with some of my cousins and other assorted relatives and friends (they had their own cabins). We arrived on Saturday, and on Sunday morning we took a hike. The photo above shows June Lake as viewed from the hike. And here's June Lake closer up, at the pier which was 100 yards or so from our cabin.

In this photo, Baby A is wearing a life jacket, but we never did manage to get either twin on any sort of boat. Rocket Boy went out on his own, and he and I went out together. That's OK, maybe next year. Here are my three men on the porch of our little cabin.

And here we are eating dinner with the group. All dinners were eaten outside the main cabin at these picnic tables. The weather was perfect -- not too hot, not cold, not rainy.

On Monday we all visited Mono Lake and the nearby ghost town of Bodie. Boos were concerned about visiting a ghost town, even though we swore there would not be ghosts. Here's Mono Lake.

And here we are in one of the old buildings in Bodie.

That evening we went up to Saddlebag Lake, where some of my cousins were camping, and had a barbecue. This is the sunset over the lake.

On Tuesday we drove back to Ridgecrest, and for the next two days we pretended everything was normal. Rocket Boy went to work, the twins went to daycare, and I did load after load of laundry.

On Friday we drove back to the Eastern Sierra, 125 miles north on Highway 395 to the town of Big Pine. There we met my sister and her husband and caravanned up to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. We took a lovely hike there...

...and afterwards relaxed in the parking lot (that's my sister in the photo). The boys did very well on the hike.

From there we drove another 60 miles north to Mammoth. We stayed in a fancy hotel there (my birthday present from my sister) for the next two nights. The next day, Saturday, we visited Convict Lake.

There's a good restaurant near the lake, but it wasn't available that day because there was a big wedding reception scheduled. So we drove on to Rock Creek Lake and found a place there that provided us with lunch food to take out (there were picnic tables nearby) and fabulously delicious pie.

Finally, I have to admit that one of the best parts of this vacation was the hotel pool, which we swam in each day.

This is actually one of the two hot tubs, not the pool proper. The "pool complex" was worth the price of the room (OK, easy for me to say since I didn't have to pay for it, but seriously, it was a wonderful set of pools). I do love a good swimming pool.

And the next day, Sunday, we drove back to Ridgecrest. Not as sad as it sounds, because think about it, we are only 200 miles -- or less -- from all these fabulous places. We live just a short drive from heaven.

Plum cake

Rocket Boy's birthday (we won't say which one) was yesterday, and so I made him a plum cake, which has become his traditional birthday cake. I first made a plum cake several years ago for my book group, because we were reading a Regency Romance that month (just to find out what that was), and I wanted to serve something from Regency times. I did a little research and discovered plum cake. I don't think my book group thought much of it, but Rocket Boy and I loved it. We were so sad when we finished it.

For his birthday that year, I made another plum cake, and I've made one on his birthday almost every year since. I'm not sure why I do this. It takes forever to make plum cake -- this year I spent all Sunday afternoon making it, and it didn't come out of the oven until 7 pm. Furthermore, Rocket Boy hates his birthday, hates to acknowledge that he's getting older. He would be thrilled if I just ignored it altogether.

But I just can't do that. I understand his feelings, and I NEVER mention how old he is on his card, or to the twins, or whatever. But to me, a birthday is always a celebration, because it's so wonderful that you've made it through another year -- you're still here with us. I just have to do something to show him how glad I am that he's still here. So I make a plum cake.

All the plum cakes I have made have been delicious, each a little different. I use a recipe from the Barbara Pym Cookbook (I am probably the only person on earth who owns this cookbook). Here is the recipe, with my alterations in italics. Incidentally, you will note that there are no plums in plum cake.

PLUM CAKE

3/4 pound (350 g) butter
1 1/3 cups (225 g) sugar (I use super fine sugar)
4 eggs
2 cups (350 g) flour (DON'T use whole wheat, not a good idea)
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice (Pumpkin Pie spice is the closest American equivalent)
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup (110 g) chopped glaceed cherries (yuck yuck yuck, I usually substitute dried cranberries)
3/4 cup (110 g) raisins (I use golden raisins)
3/4 cup (110 g) sultanas (whatever those are -- I use currants)
3/4 cup (110 g) chopped almonds (my main variation is to use more nuts -- this year I replaced them with 3/4 cup chopped walnuts AND 3/4 cup chopped pecans, other years I've had 3 kinds of nuts)
3/4 cup (110 g) chopped candied lemon, orange, or mixed peel (yuck yuck yuck, this year I substituted chopped dried apricots and dried blueberries)
Grated rind of 1 lemon and 1 orange
Glass of brandy (optional) (I usually skip it)

Preheat oven to 300 F (150 C). Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition until mixture is stiff and uniform. Sift the flour with the spice and salt, stir well into creamed mixture, then add everything else. Combine thoroughly and bake in a tin (I use a springform pan) lined with greased paper (I use parchment paper, buttered) for about 3 1/2 hours. (I usually take it out after 3 hours.) Do not let top burn. (I put a piece of foil lightly over it when it's getting dark.)

I add one more step after the cake has cooled a bit -- I squeeze the orange and lemon (the ones that gave up their rinds for the cake) and mix all that juice with powdered sugar to taste (we don't like it too sweet). Then I take the cake out of its pan, peel the paper off, set it on the glass plate that you can see in the picture, and slowly pour the glaze over it. This year I also sprinkled a little powdered sugar on top, but that's quite unnecessary. When the glaze has soaked in completely, the cake is ready to cut and serve. It's heavenly. Really. Even Baby A liked it this year.

Maybe next year Baby B will like it.

Patriots Day and Oktoberfest

We tried to have a simpler weekend, with just one activity planned, and it almost worked. Tehachapi was having a little Oktoberfest on Saturday afternoon, so we thought we'd go to that. But the first Salon of the fall was Friday night, so then we thought we'd do that too. And then our babysitter mentioned that she was going to the Parade of Flags on Saturday morning, so we added that to the list.

Ridgecrest, not at all surprisingly, goes all out for Patriots Day (I hate that name), with a parade of hundreds of people carrying 1000 flags. Patriots Day, of course, was today, not yesterday, but everyone in Ridgecrest except us goes to church on Sunday, so you can't be having a parade then.

It started at 9 am and we didn't even get out of the house until 9:15, so we missed the parade down Ridgecrest and China Lake Boulevards. We drove straight to Freedom Park, where the parade ended, and watched all the people walk in with their flags. MORON that I am, I had forgotten the camera. Actually, I don't think I realized how photogenic the event would be. It really was very dramatic, not to mention creepy, with a substantial portion of the population carrying these enormous flags. They marched into the park and mounted each flag on pieces of concrete rebar that had been stuck in the grass at regular intervals. We left as soon as the flag people finished marching in, because there were going to be speeches by our (Republican) state senator and state representative, and gosh, we thought we could skip that.

I don't know, I have such mixed feelings about this whole thing. As I've said before, I remember 9/11 as being a terribly sad occasion. I will never forget -- however much I might want to -- the sight of those buildings collapsing, the people jumping out to their deaths. Nor will I forget the "coming together" that happened afterwards, when I happily stood in a long long line at work to give blood -- closely followed by the patriot paranoia, when people covered their cars with flags and if you opposed the war in Iraq you were accused of "not supporting the troops."

I don't understand why the sad anniversary of that sad day has to be called Patriots Day. What does that even mean? Are we saying that the people who died were patriots? Or are we saying that the events of 9/11 turned us all into patriots? Or is it just a way to justify the continuation of the Patriot Act?

After lunch, we drove to Tehachapi, which is only about 70 miles away, in the mountains toward Bakersfield. We had been there the previous weekend as well, and a huge fire had just started burning in the mountains the day before we went -- we watched it with interest. Now, as we approached the city, we saw a fire in the mountains. "Hey," I said. "I thought the Canyon fire was pretty much out."

"That fire's not out," Rocket Boy said. "I see flames!"

"Wait, that's not where the other fire was," I said. "It's a different mountain."

We pulled off the road and took the photo above, which does not begin to show how dramatic this fire was. Sure enough, we found out it was a new fire, caused by lightning. Actually three fires, all rapidly spreading. We watched with interest.

Oktoberfest was not nearly as exciting as the fires, but it was pleasant. An ethnic celebration for white people, and just as bland as that sounds. Here's the lederhosen contest (won by the guy second from left -- I thought the guy with the long beard should have won).

We spent most of our time playing in the park -- there's a little train to play on downtown near the festivities, and we also walked a few blocks to another park. Around 5 pm the sky was looking really threatening, so we decided to have dinner.

For $10 you got a gigantic brautwurst, a brotchen to put it in, a scoop of potato salad, a scoop of sauerkraut, and a non-alcoholic beverage (beer was extra -- we skipped that). We bought 3 plates and encouraged the boos to share. What would a good Weight Watcher do with this, I wondered. Even the sauerkraut (the vegetable, right?) was full of bacon. After we finished, Baby B said to me, "My tummy hurts," and I had to agree.

By then the raindrops were starting to fall and the sky was full of lightning, so we went home. Baby A is terrified of lightning, so he wore a towel over his head all the way home. We put them to bed and a few minutes later the storm hit Ridgecrest. Nice to get some moisture, I must say.

This morning (Sunday), the real Patriots Day, we went back to Freedom Park to look at the flags again (they survived the storm unscathed). Unencumbered by Republicans, I was able to see them a little differently. Instead of a fascist display, each flag seemed to be standing in for one of those people who died. And honestly, a flag seemed like a nice way to represent them. I like my country, I like its flag. I hate what people turn it into -- wielding their flags like weapons. But in that quiet space I was able to feel my own little memorial. Sad for the people who died, glad they could be a flag.

A good mother

Maybe you haven't noticed, but I spend a lot of my time evaluating myself as a mother. (That was a joke, OK?) Taught children about the wonderful world of desert tortoises (good mother!). Let children watch two hours of TV (bad mother!). Baked homemade banana bread (good mother!). Bribed children with handfuls of gummi bears (bad mother!). Etc., etc.

But for quite a while now I've been thinking that the key to being a "good" mother is to get enough sleep.

Everything seems to stem from that. Well-rested mothers don't need to have their children anesthetized by the TV for two hours (one hour is plenty). Well-rested mothers have the energy to cook real food (and the sense to ask their spouses to help out). Well-rested mothers *might* be able to think of more creative solutions to problems than bribery. Well-rested mothers don't lose their tempers every time their children do something annoying (just every other time). Well-rested mothers are pleasant to be around. Well-rested mothers are able to make good decisions.

Granted, I can't take a nap every two hours, so I'm going to get tired during a day spent with the twins no matter how long I sleep at night. But a good night's sleep (a mysterious foreign concept to me) would be a good start. I'd say that's half the problem.

The other half of the problem is a mixture of things. Not getting any exercise during the long hot summer months (June to October). Choosing to drive hundreds of miles on the weekends in order to buy underwear at Macy's instead of at Walmart. (Yes, we did that yesterday. It was not a good decision (see above).)

Also, the more tired I am, the more I let the twins get away with things, which makes them harder to deal with, which makes me even more tired. I am getting tired just thinking about that one.

When I'm tired, I'm still a good mother, just not a very effective one.

I mean, let's face it, most mothers who aren't totally psychotic and sociopathic are pretty good mothers. Even those of us who don't get enough sleep. We all have roughly similar goals for our children (i.e., help them grow up to lead good lives), and we all work toward those goals to the best of our abilities. I use my own mother as my model, and I know other people who use their own mothers as anti-models. Whatever works.

MUST TRY TO GO TO BED EARLIER. MUST TRY. MUST TRY.

Welcome back to Ridgecrest

We've been back from vacation for almost a week -- two lovely vacations in a row -- and I'm still planning to write about them sometime. But the last few days have felt so Ridgecrestian, it seems more appropriate to write about what's been going on here.

We're anxiously waiting for our foreclosed rental house to be sold at auction, checking the notices in the newspaper every day. So far the auction hasn't been scheduled. But another house on our street (a couple blocks west) went up for auction, so I looked it up on the Kern County Recorder's website, and if I'm reading this right, it looks like it went into foreclosure TWO YEARS ago. Does that mean we have two years until we get kicked out? In some ways that would be nice (two years paying our rent into an escrow account -- we'd have a lot of money saved!), but in other ways it wouldn't. For example, this house REALLY needs a new roof. Hmmm.

It's weird to be living in a house for which no one is responsible. The other day, Baby A was banging a toy against the wall and I said "Don't do that, you're scratching the wall." And then I thought, who cares? Our security deposit is long gone. The bank doesn't know what the condition of the house was when we moved in. We could do all kinds of things to the house if we wanted to. We could trash it (intentionally, I mean). But that's so dull. We could paint the walls interesting colors. For that matter, we could paint murals on the walls. We could replace all the switchplates in the house (deducting them from the "rent" of course) with ones that look like this:

or this:

and who would care?

We could pull up the horrible front lawn and replace it with rocks (I'd really like to do this). We could... well, gosh, we could do anything. Or nothing.

**************

Ridgecrest has been having garbage/recycling problems almost as long as we've been here, and I haven't bothered to write about them much because they're so tedious. But this week things finally came to a head -- the old garbage company's contract ended Friday and the new interim garbage company's contract begins next Tuesday. Garbage collection occurs on Friday for us, so Thursday night we obediently wheeled our garbage and recycling bins down to the curb. The next morning, at the usual time, we heard the sound of a big truck, so we told the boys "The garbage truck is coming, go look out the window" (they love watching it do its thing). But the garbage truck didn't come. Instead, a crane came, and drove into our next door neighbor's back yard. It turned out that they were getting a new furnace (something else our house REALLY needs...hmm...). We watched with great interest. (All Ridgecrest houses have their furnaces on the roof -- I don't know why.)

After a few hours, when the garbage truck still hadn't appeared, Rocket Boy decided they weren't coming, and pulled the bins up to the house again. We decided that Benz, the old garbage company, must have quit a day early.

But around the middle of the afternoon, we finally heard the sound of the garbage truck, so Rocket Boy put the bins out again. The truck dumped our garbage... and then it also dumped our recycling (normally they send a separate truck for each). And then a man grabbed our bins and put them on a truck and took them away. Goodbye Benz.

Rocket Boy was livid. "They're just going to throw it all away!" he said. "I'm going to write a letter to the paper."

"Maybe they'll pull out the glass and metal," I said, trying to appease him. "Some companies do collect everything all together and then pull out the recyclable parts."

Rocket Boy was not to be appeased. And really, I'm sure he's right. They're going to dump all our nice recycling in a landfill.

A few minutes later we heard another truck, and it was the new garbage company, bringing us new bins. Onward and upward.

**************

And then today, Saturday, we took a trip to Lancaster and Palmdale. We hadn't been able to go there in a few weeks, due to our vacations, and we were low on lots of things, like Trader Joe's cat food and my favorite kind of cereal. Unfortunately, I didn't get enough sleep last night, so I was really tired and cranky this morning. Baby B would not allow me to put his shoes and socks on him, so I did what I sometimes do, and let him get in the car barefoot, setting aside his shoes and socks to bring along with us.

Thirty-eight miles later, at Jawbone Canyon, we stopped to use the bathroom (OK, latrine) and change a diaper. That's when I realized that I hadn't brought Baby B's shoes and socks. OK, what do you do then? If you drive back home and get the shoes and start the trip over again, you've added 76 miles to an already-much-too-long trip. So instead, we drove on. "I'll buy him some flip-flops at Target," I said. The only problem was that before we went to Target we had to go to (a) a garage sale in Lancaster to buy a used carseat (to have as a spare in Rocket Boy's car), (b) a pharmacy where Rocket Boy had to pick up a special order, (c) a Wells Fargo, because Rocket Boy needed to close an account and we don't have Wells Fargo in Ridgecrest, and (d) Red Lobster, because it was way past lunchtime. Baby B attended all these events in his stocking feet (I had extra socks in the diaper bag).

Finally we made it to Target, but they didn't have flip-flops. I found some cheap slip-on shoes, but Baby B would not even try them on. He ran up and down the toddler boys shoes aisle and finally grabbed a pair of blue and silver sneakers, size 5. I looked at the price -- $22.99 -- OK, not flip-flops, but he could use a second pair of shoes. So I found a pair of size 9s (his current shoes are size 8, but they're getting cozy), he tried them on, said he liked them, and that was that. He wore them to Trader Joe's and the coffee shop where we had a snack before heading for home.

Welcome back to Ridgecrest. It's supposed to be 104 tomorrow. Maybe I'll paint a mural.

California City

We had a very busy weekend, and if I have some time in the next day or two I may post about what we did Saturday too. But our experience on Sunday was so odd that it's still very much on my mind today.

We were trying to think of something to do CLOSE TO HOME. I wondered whether there were any swimming pools within an hour's drive of us (that's what we call close to home), since the Ridgecrest city pool is always horribly crowded and we're a bit fed up with the base pools. We considered Trona's pool, but somehow that just sounded so hot (it was predicted to be 105 in Ridgecrest and Trona's often a bit hotter). Then I suggested California City, about 50 miles south of us.

Cal City, as most people call it, is a very peculiar place -- I know, I know, the pot calling the kettle black, but really it is. Founded in 1958 by a college professor turned developer, it was planned as an enormous city that would rival Los Angeles in size. And get this, they LAID OUT the whole enormous planned city. Most of which -- the vast majority of which -- was never built, most of the roads not paved. Most of which is still there -- you can see the grid marks if you look on Google Earth -- and the city actually maintains the unbuilt, unpaved sections of itself. In geographic terms, Cal City is the third-largest city in California, though its population is only about 14,000.

It has some jobs -- a prison, a Honda proving ground (I think), and lots of people who work at Edwards Air Force Base live there. But overall, the town has a very depressed feel, almost like a ghost town. California City Boulevard, the main drag, is a BIG wide street -- with almost nothing on it. A few businesses here and there. Empty storefronts. Vacant lots. If you wanted to live in that part of the Mojave Desert, you could have your pick of where to build your dream home. But then you'd have to drive 50 miles to Ridgecrest to go to Walmart, so maybe it's better just to live in Ridgecrest. If you wanted to go to Denny's, though, you'd only have to drive 15 miles to Mojave (another jewel of the desert). I don't know, the choices are tough out here in eastern Kern County.

But Cal City does have one amazing feature -- a huge park with an enormous lake in it. The first time I saw the lake, I was looking at our part of the world on Google Earth, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. "Look at that!" I said to Rocket Boy. "It looks like a lake!" "It can't be," he said. I looked it up online, and sure enough, Cal City has a lake. A 26-acre artificial lake, according to Wikipedia. In the middle of the Mojave Desert, in a town of 14,000 people (more than a third of them renters) and almost no businesses.

More to the point, Cal City also has a pool. So this weekend I looked up the hours for the pool, and on the Cal City Parks & Rec page, under Aquatics, I found this:

PADDLE and CANOE BOATING
Marina offers paddle boat and canoe rentals to the public. 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm. Saturday, Sunday and Holidays. Memorial Day thru Labor Day.

And then it gave the fees for the different kinds of rentals. Hey, we thought, what fun to rent a paddle boat! Much more fun than just boring old swimming. So we told the twins we were going to do this and it would be sooooo fun, and we got all packed up and drove to Cal City, arriving a little before 3 pm.

There were very few cars in the big lot. We parked, got out, and walked toward the lake. Ducks and coots, hoping to be fed, swam up to us. To our right was the pool and to our left was an extremely decrepit building with a sign on it saying something like "Community Center Building restoration in progress." Uh huh.

We walked down to where we thought the boats would be and there were no boats. We walked down the walkway to the island thing (see first photo), which had picnic tables and was just very attractive altogether. No boats. No canoes. No sign that there had ever been a boat or canoe in or near the water in the last 50 years. Rocket Boy and I both experienced the feeling that we have gotten so familiar with in the last two and a half years -- the realization that the real story of whatever we've gone to find is oh so very different from what we've been led to believe. It's a very desert-y feeling.

Rocket Boy walked back to the pool to ask someone about the boats and came back with the news that the pool attendant had lived in Cal City for 6 years and had never heard of any boats going on the water.

So, we could have gone swimming then -- we had our suits and the pool was not at all crowded. But we didn't want to, somehow. So we walked over to the playground area of the park, which was pretty well shaded, and let the boos play for the next hour or so.

We did take one little walk, up a nearby hill (probably built from the dirt they dug up when they built the lake). There's a complicated system that pumps lake water up to the top of the hill and then it flows down the other side in a waterfall -- maybe that's how they aerate the lake? It was interesting. Here we are at the top.

But most of the time we just sat on a bench and watched the boos play. It was over 100, so even in the shade you don't really feel like doing much. We watched the other people in the park, and they watched us. Not a very high class of people there (we did nothing to raise it), but I suppose the rich people were all at home in their air-conditioning. I watched two teenage boys with blue and purple hair walk across the grass, one telling the other about a dream he'd had. Another group of teenagers led by a man in his 20s with Michelle Bachman eyes went over to a secluded part of the park and had some sort of meeting (I figured they were part of a gang).

At 4:30 we dragged the boos off the equipment (they could easily have spent another hour there) and drove the 50 miles home. That night, Rocket Boy wrote an email to the California City Parks & Recreation Department, asking them to update their website. I won't hold my breath on that one.

Bribery

Potty training has been coming along very slowly, excuse me, potty LEARNING -- I'm certainly not training anybody. And it's August already. And I want them to be all learned/trained/whatever by the time it gets too cold to run around naked all the time (late November or thereabouts).

So this week I decided it was time to take steps. They're really really really good about going in their potties (or outside in the dirt) when they're naked. We just haven't been able to make the leap to underwear. I thought about saying: "Now we will wear underwear!" but they can take their underwear off by themselves and there's two of them and only one of me. I don't want to run around the house pulling up their underwear (though it sounds like good exercise).

No, something else was called for -- a reward system, AKA bribery. Wanting to keep it simple, I bought some candy. Wanting to keep said candy from being eaten by Mom while the twins were at daycare, I bought gummi bears (I'd eat them if I were starving, maybe, but not otherwise). On Tuesday I announced that if they would wear underwear until the timer rang, they could have a gummi bear.

Well! This was very successful... at first. As soon as they heard about the bribe, boos immediately demanded undies (Percy the green engine for Baby A, Bert & Ernie for Baby B). When the timer rang (after 15 minutes) they were thrilled to receive a single gummi bear.

But then it got more complicated. As soon as Baby B got his bear, he took off his undies. "No," I said, "Keep them on. I'm going to set the timer again." So he put them on. But after a bit he took them off again. Then the timer rang. I tried to give just Baby A a gummi bear, but Baby B threw a fit. Finally I agreed to give him a bear if he would put his undies on again. He did, and as soon as he got his bear, took them off again.

The second day, they were again happy to put on undies -- as long as it was the same ones they'd worn the day before. I DO NOT remember this being covered in any of the potty training books I read. What do you do when they'll only wear one particular pair? Wash them out every night?

Then they started demanding gummi bears BEFORE the game started -- in other words, one before I set the timer, and another after the timer rang. Then they started demanding TWO gummi bears at a time. I know I sound like a pushover, but I'm trying to be easygoing and undemanding (unlike them). Maybe easygoing-ness and bribery don't mix? I swear none of this was in the potty training books.

I had taken a few days off from tree watering because we got quite heavy rains last week, but on Thursday I started up again. And since I water three trees a day for 20 minutes each, I decided to use the same timer for the boos and their undies. I also decided that at the end of the hour of watering, we could also stop practicing with undies. So that made the morning a little easier. When I got them into their diapers and clothes to go to daycare, I said, "Pretty soon you'll be wearing underwear at daycare!" (There's only one other kid in their class still in diapers.) They said, "Nooooooooo!"

Thursday night after dinner, Rocket Boy went outside to work on the yard and Baby A wanted to help. I told him he had to wear undies. He agreed (same pair he'd been wearing all week), and happily raked along with Daddy.

This morning (Flex Friday), Rocket Boy went out to work on the yard again, and Baby A wanted to go out too, only this time he wanted to wear undies and shorts. Such a big boy! But a few minutes after he went outside, he was back, crying -- he'd wet himself. I quickly changed him and told him it was OK, no problem at all. He wore a diaper the rest of the morning (his request).

So, although we'll keep practicing, I think we've got a ways to go yet. Sorry, daycare ladies. Good thing I bought that big box of diapers last weekend.

Growing pains

My little boys are getting so big and old. Although I know this isn't an original thought, I have to say I find it terrifying when they develop a new skill, especially one I didn't mean for them to develop. Last week they learned how to use the mouse on my computer, which means that I can leave them watching a Sesame Street song video on YouTube, and when it ends, another video will begin, because they've moused over to it and CLICKED on it.

I used to be able to keep them off my computer by turning off the screen, but then they learned how to turn it back on again, and now with this new mousing ability I was afraid they'd never play with their toys again, just mess with my computer all morning. So I took action. Normally I just leave my computer on all the time, but now at night I turn it off. In the morning, when Baby B says to me "Let's do songs on the 'puter, Mommy," I say, "No, the computer is asleep. It needs its rest." This will work until they learn how to turn it on, which will be next week.

But for the last few days they've played with my CD/tape player instead of the computer. Previously they were not allowed to insert or remove CDs, because they kept scratching them, but this week I decided to give up and let it happen. I put my favorite CDs up on a high shelf and left the children's CDs on a low shelf. I was sure the player would be broken within 15 minutes, but it wasn't. They've gotten really good at using it, which kind of horrifies me. I mean, they're THREE. But I guess most three-year-olds these days can manipulate all sorts of electronic devices. This is just what it now means to be three.

I like most of their toys (if I didn't, I'd casually lose them), but my current favorite has got to be their train set. I like it more than they do, I think. I keep accidentally buying more trains for it (to Rocket Boy's horror). Last weekend we were in Lancaster and we dropped by ToysRUs to buy diapers -- but also to look at trains. I let each boy pick a new engine, plus we also got a station crossing thing, that has gates that go down and rings a bell and all that. So cool. So expensive. But when we were driving (90 miles) home, opening the trains in the car, we realized that stupid Mommy had bought an ELECTRIC James for Baby A but just a regular Edward for Baby B. Oh dear!

Well, there was no way to lose the electric James -- Baby A had fallen deeply in love. So on Monday I paid a visit to the Ridgecrest toystore, where I found an electric Thomas, and now Baby B has an electric train too. The electric trains pull all the other trains around -- we have already burned out one set of batteries (in what? four days?) -- and because the boos attach too many other engines and cars to them, the trains often fall off the tracks. It's very traumatic and exciting. Boos play with their trains every day anyway, but this week it's serious -- the first thing they head for when they get out of bed. I can actually work on something else -- do the dishes, read the paper -- while they negotiate their train business. Such big boys!

Of course, all the way home from daycare today Baby A was screaming at the top of his lungs, begging me to pull over so that I could PUT HIS TRAIN IN HIS SOCK (Baby B had successfully put HIS train in his sock and Baby A was jealous). So yeah, they're still babies. But not for long...

We lost it at the movies

A few weeks ago when we were in the Bay Area on vacation, we gave serious consideration to taking the boos to see their first movie in a theater -- Cars 2. But for various reasons it didn't work out and we thought that was probably fine, plenty of other things to do, no need to rush them to their first film.

But now we're back in Ridgecrest, where there's nothing to do. And another kids movie just came out -- Winnie the Pooh. And it's playing at the Ridgecrest Cinemas. So we decided to go see it.

We gave the boos plenty of warning, started talking about the movie about three days ago. This had the effect of scaring them, so that they started saying they didn't want to go to a movie, and it would be scary. "No, it will NOT be scary," I said crossly. "It's Winnie the Pooh! There is nothing scary about Winnie the Pooh!"

Still, we were all quite tense as we drove to the theater. The movie was to start at 1:20 and we got there at 12:50, in case there was a line. Ha ha. Actually there was a line -- there were 4 people in front of us, but they were a group and one person paid for all of them. So then it was our turn. "Two adults and two children for Winnie the Pooh," I said. The girl smiled at me. "Twenty-six dollars please." It costs $6.50 (adults and children) for a matinee at the Ridgecrest Cinemas. I have no idea how that compares to theaters elsewhere, having not gone to a movie in a theater in eons.

So now we had 30 minutes to kill. We went and looked at our theater -- Theater 4 -- it looked clean and pleasant and had absolutely no one in it. So we decided to buy some snacks. There were two snack counters. We went to the one closest to our theater, but there weren't very many people in line. To kill more time, we left and went to the other snack counter, which was busier. There I saw someone from my writing group and waved at her. "What are you seeing?" she asked me. "Winnie the Pooh?"

The line at that counter was TOO long, plus it had a bulk candy section that was attracting Baby A's attention, so we went back to the other counter and bought a sack of popcorn (with butter) and a box of Whoppers. Baby A insisted on carrying the Whoppers. Then there was nothing to do but go to our theater. We chose seats on the aisle, about halfway down. It was 12:55.

For the next twenty-five minutes we ate snacks, watched ads for various Ridgecrest businesses flash on and off the screen, and said "Shhhh" to the boos as they made loud comments about everything. They were concerned about their seats, which they were just barely heavy enough to hold open, the lights (whether or not they were on or not or would stay on or not), the projection booth, the snacks, and the other people who gradually filtered in.

Finally it was 1:20 and the movie started. Of course, first we had to watch several previews and the boos had no idea what the point of that was. "That's not Winnie the Pooh!" Baby A told me (loudly). "Shhhhh," I said. "Winnie the Pooh comes later."

After the previews there was a little cartoon about the Loch Ness monster. Very cute, but equally confusing to the boos. "That's not Winnie the Pooh!"

Finally the movie began. And within a few minutes I realized why Winnie the Pooh ISN'T the best choice for a movie for three-year-olds.

It's all about writing! And spelling! The whole Winnie the Pooh universe is all involved with jokes about how Pooh and the others can't read or spell very well. Think about "Trespassers Will" and all that. And of course all of that goes right over the boos' heads, since they can't read or spell even as well as Pooh and company. One of the major plotlines of the movie was about Christopher Robin leaving a note that ends "Back Soon" and Owl reading it as "Backson" which he says is an evil creature who has kidnapped Christopher Robin. Boos just didn't get that at all.

But they tried really hard. They were mostly very quiet and they mostly sat in their seats. Baby A ended up on Rocket Boy's lap. Baby B wandered around a bit, but he stayed in our aisle. And I ended up eating most of the popcorn. Do you know how many POINTS movie theater popcorn (with butter) is??? Argghh.

When the movie ended, of course we stayed for the credits, while almost everyone else immediately left. The lights came up, and the cleaning crew came in and started cleaning, and still the credits went on. Longest credits I EVER remember watching. When the cleaning crew started cleaning our aisle, we reluctantly got up and started to leave, but then I lingered at the back of the theater. I just can't bear not to watch all the credits. The cleaning crew had a loud, jokey discussion, back and forth across the theater, all about how there hadn't been a trash bag in the trash can. And still the credits went on.

And then suddenly the movie started again. I had been very puzzled by a line in the credits that said the Backson was played by Huell Howser. First of all, the Backson was a misunderstanding and therefore not played by anyone, and second, I was sure I would have noticed Huell Howser's voice if I'd heard it. But then all of a sudden here's the Backson and he's voiced by Huell Howser. Hilarious! Best part of the movie, in my opinion. Even though I could hardly hear it, due to the cleaning crew.

Oh Ridgecrest.

Anyway, if you happen to go to this movie, stay for the credits.