Mojave National Preserve and Zzyzx

Rocket Boy and the twins have been quite sick the last week or so, but they're finally on the mend, so we decided to do another road trip today. Last spring I read about Mojave National Preserve on a list of good places to go to see wildflowers -- but when I realized it was so far away we went to the Poppy Preserve instead. But since then we've gone on some much longer drives and we've all survived, so this weekend we decided to tackle Mojave.

To get there from here, you take Highway 395 south for 47 miles to Kramer Junction and then turn left onto Highway 58. Already this was exciting, because we've never turned left onto 58. We've turned RIGHT to go to Boron, and we've gone straight through to Victorville many a time, but never left. OK, so we turned left and drove 35 miles to Barstow.

I hadn't been to Barstow since we moved here, and the first thing that struck me -- struck both of us, actually -- was how much it looks like Ridgecrest. Only worse. It's about the same size, but no Navy base. One thing it does have that Ridgecrest doesn't is a Radio Shack, so we went there because Rocket Boy needed something. But otherwise, Barstow, hmm, not high on my list of places I'd like to live.

Onward we went. From Barstow we got onto Highway 40, headed for the Preserve. We had been planning to eat lunch at the Preserve (there's a little coffee shop at the Visitor Center), but it was already noon when we left Barstow and we had a long way to go. So instead we drove 52 miles to the "town" of Ludlow, where there is a cafe.

Quite a good cafe, actually. With no customers to speak of. We all enjoyed our lunch and Rocket Boy got a piece of cherry pie to go.

Then, since we realized we were actually on the old Route 66, we decided to continue along on that, which we did for (I'm guessing) maybe another 25 miles, until we reached the Kelbaker Road, which would take us into the Preserve.

(An aside: I didn't want to take Route 66, but Rocket Boy shamed me into it. He said, "People in Germany would KILL to take Route 66." So we took Route 66. It was fine and we saw a lot of trains.)

The Mojave National Preserve is 1.6 million acres of land bounded by Interstate 15 to the north and Highway 40 to the south. It goes all the way to the Nevada border. This place is HUGE. Third largest National Park entity in the contiguous US (Death Valley is first). And it's so very dry and deserty, and not really a lot of manufactured "attractions" for visitors to look at (though of course there's lots we didn't see). I guess that's because it's a Preserve and not a Park?

All I could think, as we drove through it, was how many desert tortoises must live there. I could almost feel their little pulsing souls all around me.

The Preserve was not busy today -- probably because it's January, too early for flowers. We drove maybe 40 miles on the Kelbaker Road to Kelso and saw maybe 3 cars the whole time (I think most people enter from the I-15 side, though). As we drove through this utterly barren, bleak landscape, I started thinking what if there were a big earthquake in Ridgecrest today and when we got back, our house was flattened? I have a tendency to imagine disasters all the time anyway, but something about that desert...

When we reached Kelso we found a very attractive Visitor Center and coffee shop housed in the old Kelso depot.

We all got out and explored the place, I bought souvenirs at the gift shop, and the twins ran all over the exhibit rooms and up and down the stairs. I asked one of the rangers for a suggestion on a nice little hike we could take, but he didn't have any good ideas for the direction we were headed (northwest -- by then it was already 3pm and we really needed to be aiming ourselves back toward Ridgecrest). Clearly this is a place we need to come back to. You could spend your whole life exploring it.

But then Rocket Boy thought to ask about Zzyzx, and the ranger said that was a good idea -- on our way home and a nice little walk.

So we drove on across the Preserve on Kelbaker Road another 35 miles to the town of Baker, where we left the Preserve and got on I-15 headed west. About 6 miles down the road is an exit called "Zzyzx Road" and Rocket Boy, since he was a child, had always wanted to take that road. So we took it. It leads you back into the Preserve, because Zzyzx is now part of the Preserve.

Zzyzx has been various things over the centuries, but from 1944 to 1974 it was a spa, a "religious spa" according to one sign we read. Now it is a Desert Studies Center for various CSU campuses. But it's been extensively restored and it looks like a spa -- like you could just check in and start using the hot springs.

Well, almost.

We enjoyed Zzyzx very much, walked all around the pond and out to the dry lake. (When the boos saw the layer of white evaporite on the dry lake they said "Pfeffernusse!") But by then it was nearly 5pm and time to go.

From Zzyzx we drove 56 miles on I-15 back to Barstow, where we had dinner at an IHOP. Saturday night dinner at the Barstow IHOP. There's just something so desolate about how that sounds. Actually it was fine, and kids now eat free every night, so not too expensive either.

And then 35 miles on Highway 58 to Kramer Junction and 47 miles on Highway 395 back to Ridgecrest. When we got home we discovered that there had not been an earthquake that leveled our house, but we HAD left the coffeemaker on. No fire, though. Maybe next time.

Reading the newspaper again

I've been reading the Ridgecrest newspaper again. I know I shouldn't, it's such a joke, but it arrives at our house 5 days a week, and I'm slow in the mornings, so I read it.

Yesterday's paper had a couple of interesting articles. First, there was a "Valley Voices" profile of the woman who processes the birth certificates at the Ridgecrest hospital. Of course, as always, there was a glaring error in the profile -- it said the woman was 64 and had moved to Ridgecrest from Camarillo in 1970 (when she would have been roughly 24, right?) and that her 4 sons had all graduated from high school in Camarillo but her daughter finished up in Ridgecrest. So that means the woman had four children age 18 and over when she herself was 24. I think she must have moved to Ridgecrest in 1990, not 1970, but never mind.

The interesting part of the profile came a little later, in a description of her job. Here is the relevant quote:

With half of the babies born at Ridgecrest Regional Hospital belonging to unmarried parents, Frances also works with the Paternity Opportunity Program (POP), which establishes a legal link between the father and the child. Unmarried parents who sign the Declaration of Paternity form help their child gain the same rights and privileges of a child born within a marriage.

HALF the babies born at the Ridgecrest hospital are to unmarried parents. HALF? I realize that this could be just another typo, maybe she meant to say 10%, but I don't think so. Of course some of these many babies could be born to adults who have chosen not to marry because they don't believe in it or whatever, but I think we're mainly talking about teen pregnancy here. Welcome to Ridgecrest.

So then we go on reading, and here's a nice letter to the editor from the President of the American Life League of the Indian Wells Valley, announcing that on the anniversary of Roe v Wade there will be "two local outdoor public events." The first event will be "on public sidewalks leading to the entrance to Burroughs High School" and the second will be at the hospital. The letter goes on to say that "both of these events will use graphic pictures to show what abortion is all about."

Please. If HALF the babies born at the Ridgecrest hospital are to unmarried parents, I think we can assume that abortion is not a popular Ridgecrestian activity.

Now, don't get me wrong, I would never encourage someone to have an abortion. I believe in choice. I really do. For example, adoption is a nice choice. But another REALLY nice choice is BIRTH CONTROL!!!!!

Someone might want to organize another "local outdoor public event" outside the high school where they could hand out free condoms. I'm sure that would go over well. Maybe the American Life League would like to get involved. Nothing stops abortion like condoms.

Oh man, I know Ridgecrest is starting to grow on me, but every time I read something like this I think, we need to get the hell out of Dodge before the twins grow up.

A perfect day with my mother

would include a visit to a fuchsia show,
where there might be a hummingbird, also visiting,
and then we might drop by Wessex, the used bookstore
in Menlo Park -- oh that’s right,
it’s out of business -- but my mother
is dead, so no matter -- we’ll go there anyway,
pick up some LPs,
and on the way we can visit
an elderly friend, someone who likes to be read to,
we’ll bring her some homemade baked custard
and a maybasket,
and then, let’s see, we need to stop by the nursery,
pick out some impatiens and lobelia
to plant in the garden this spring,
and then there’s a nice-sounding estate sale in Los Altos,
where we might find something we don’t need,
but of course we’ll take a short detour in order to drive by an especially beautiful liquid amber
crape myrtle
magnolia
bed of tulips
wisteria vine
I’m feeling wistful, no, hungry it must be,
shall we stop by the bakery? Harlan’s has been gone for years,
though that shouldn't matter (see above), but
you know, nothing really compares to homemade olallieberry pie,
let’s go home, there’s one just coming out of the oven,
also a pot of potato soup, macaroni and cheese,
actually I’m not that hungry, let’s just have popcorn in front of the TV,
we can sit all cuddled up
and watch Masterpiece Theatre,
or Mystery, if it’s on,
or if it’s not,
we could just sit and talk,
in fact, maybe I’ll just call you,
from wherever I am. If it’s Sunday,
then we can talk for an hour,
or if it isn’t, we can talk anyway,
for as long as we like.

Inspired by the beautiful piece my sister Barbara read at our mother's memorial service in 2008.

Back to the Pinnacles

We visited the Trona Pinnacles for the first time in February of 2009, in other words a week or so after we moved to Ridgecrest. I remember driving east out of town, bravely trying and failing to admire the desert landscape, my new home. The road to the Pinnacles is quite rough and I was very nervous about it, sure that a flash flood would come up out of nowhere, wash out the road, and strand us, because of course no one but us would ever go on such a road.

What a difference two years makes! Now I know that the Trona Pinnacles are visited constantly, that you can SEE Trona from them, if you were washed out you could WALK TO TRONA for heaven's sake, and in any case, someone would rescue you quickly so you wouldn't have to.

It's still a pretty rough road, though, and a pretty weird bleak sight, once you get there.

We were inspired to visit the Pinnacles again after watching that dumb movie, Just Add Water, that I mentioned in an earlier blog. The movie is dumb on so many levels, but the ending is so goofy you almost don't know what to do with it. After the good guys kick the bad meth dealers out of Trona, it starts to rain, and eventually Searles Lake (which has been dry for millennia, though the movie claims it's only been dry since the 1980s) fills up completely. The good guys open a restaurant on the lakeshore and also set up a desert tortoise preservation area next to it. Completely bizarre, but lovely shots of tortoises. (Oh, and sorry about the spoilers, in case anyone was going to rent it.)

But anyway, it does have some nice shots of the Pinnacles, so we decided to visit them again. Boo bears insisted on bringing their toy shopping cart, which they filled with all their Thomas trains, plus all their toy food, toy motorcycles, a stuffed Elmo, and their sippy cups. When we stopped near the Pinnacles to read some signs, they demanded that I get the cart out for them. Unfortunately, it was not easy to push across the rough ground, and this led to tears.

There were more tears soon after, when Rocket Boy decided to walk from there to the Pinnacles while I drove. Baby A elected to walk with RB, while Baby B went in the car with me. Unbeknownst to me, as soon as Baby B and I drove off, Baby A had a nervous breakdown. Rocket Boy had to put him on his shoulders and jog after me (and he has a cold and is in no shape to be jogging).

When I parked the car and got out, I could hear Baby A's screams -- it sounded as though he were being disemboweled. I couldn't see him around the bend, so I ran toward the sound. I thought perhaps the people in the white truck who had also been reading the signs when we were there had taken advantage of my leaving to grab Baby A and torture him.

But no, nothing was wrong, it was just my absence that was the problem.

And while I was running to save Baby A, Baby B went over to explore the little restroom and got his finger caught in the door briefly, so then he went running after me, screaming and crying. All in a moment, we had total disaster, and it was simply because I wasn't right there.

In three days it will be the third anniversary of my own mother's death, my own mother who I miss every single day.

It is a huge responsibility to be a mother, not just in the obvious ways. I have taken on an enormous psychological role in my two boys' lives. It is daunting, nay, overwhelming. If I think about it too much, I get dizzy.

The disaster at the Pinnacles was assuaged by a few hugs and kisses. Pretty soon we were all climbing around the tufa mounds and having a good time. And thus January continues.

Baby pictures

So today was Thursday again, which is work-on-photo-album-and-baby-book-day. Once again I pulled out the twins' baby books, and this time started at the beginning. Right at the front you are supposed to paste a 5x7 photo of the child. So I decided my task today would be to choose a picture for each boy's book and order it from the Kodak site. I thought that might take 15 minutes.

But how does one choose? What ONE photo best represents each of my sons? Should it be a newborn picture or a toddler picture?

I started looking through our collection of digital photos. Two things quickly became apparent.

1. We never take pictures of the boys alone, only the two of them together, so I have nothing to choose from.

2. They were so cute when they were babies that it BREAKS MY HEART to look at their pictures!

For example (one of thousands)...

And then there's this one...

And how about this one...

I just freecycled that little pair of white fleece overalls! What was I thinking? I should have framed it or something.

Looking at their baby pictures makes me terribly upset to think that I could ever be mad at them, or yell. Never mind that Baby A hit me in the face with a piece of Thomas train track (on purpose) or that Baby B dumped his bowl of cereal all over the floor (also on purpose) or that Baby A stole all of Baby B's Thomas trains (also on purpose) or that Baby B hit our cat Pie Bear with a book (yes, also very much on purpose). They were so cute when they were babies! Thus, no one should ever get angry at them!

No one ever told me about this part of motherhood -- the insanity part. Or maybe it's just me.

After an hour or so of agony and guilt, I suddenly remembered Mitzi and Molly's photos from Mitchell Park in the summer of 2009. Mitzi and Molly are PROFESSIONAL photographers and they actually took photos of each boy individually. Many many photos. I managed to find the disk they gave me and started looking through it. An hour or so later I had narrowed my choices down to 6 photos, 3 of each boy. I uploaded them to the Kodak site and then began agonizing over which was the cutest. Finally I gave up and ordered 5x7 prints of all 6 photos. Whatever I don't use in the baby books I can frame or something.

Little by little, things get done. As January passes by.

January, continued

I'm trying to remember whether I have ever liked this month, and I don't think so, not really. In high school I kind of liked going back to classes after the Christmas break -- there was always someone I was in love with who I would have missed seeing. But other than that, nothing much good comes to mind. Growing up in the Bay Area, January meant rain, which I did like, so there's a positive. In Michigan and Colorado, January meant snow and ice and cold. In Ridgecrest so far this year, weirdly, January has meant snow and ice and cold. At least the wind hasn't been blowing.

I am not doing well with my resolutions, and already there is that temptation to chuck them all. But I must not do that. Not writing every day in January doesn't mean that I might not write every day in February. And planning to quit Weight Watchers is just silly, since I know I will go back. Today I spent $118 at the grocery store and did not buy any chocolate. Gotta be a record, for me. It was mostly fruits and vegetables. I may not eat any of them, but I bought them.

January also seems to be the time when people die. Sometimes people who are very ill hang on until Christmas and then they let go. Other people catch pneumonia from their relatives at Christmas and die from it in January. My little mother died of pneumonia in January, three years ago.

Today we found out that Rocket Boy's cousin in Germany has a tumor on his thyroid. He is having an operation on Wednesday to determine whether or not it is cancer. Since he is a ferocious smoker, I am not looking forward to the results, though I know that thyroid tumors can be benign. We both really like this particular cousin. Baby B is named for him, just as Rocket Boy was named for the cousin's father. He is younger than I am. We are not ready for him to be sick or dying. Yes, I know I always kill everyone off before I even know they're sick.

On a more cheerful note, we are watching the movie "Just Add Water," which is set in Trona. Note to anyone thinking of renting this movie: eh, maybe not worth it. It is quite a ridiculous story, not to mention just simply wrong about Trona -- they pretend it is in the Owens Valley and has no water because Los Angeles stole it -- sorry, folks, wrong valley, wrong story. But the movie has an unexpected pleasure: the main character has a tortoise! I wonder how many movies feature tortoises. I would happily rent them all.

It's a short movie but we only watched half of it tonight because Rocket Boy has a mild flu, so he couldn't even sit through an hour of it. Another thing to love about January: the flu.

So as not to end on a low note, I will include a photo of our trip to Death Valley yesterday. There's one good thing about January: Death Valley is cool and nearly empty of visitors. Here we are taking a GPS reading at Zabriskie Point -- such a nice father-son activity.

Note to anyone trying to decide whether or not to rent the movie "Zabriskie Point": skip it. OK, the scenery is nice, but the real thing is much better.

Resolutions

I'm a little late with these this year, but that's because I needed time to think about them. Some years I just scribble down a long list and never look at it again until the year is over. (I keep all my lists, going back to 1984, on a clipboard that always manages to surface around December 31st.) So many things are on the list year after year: lose weight, manage my finances better, write a novel, read 100 books. But in 2009 I did finally write a novel. And last year I not only wrote another novel, I read 100 books. So I'm starting to think I might want to take these resolutions a little more seriously.

This year I have 15 resolutions on the list. I think that's too many. I'll never keep 15 resolutions. But the thing is, I don't know right now which 1 or 2 I will keep. If I narrow the list down to 4 or 5 items, I might miss the one whose year it finally is. So 15 it is.

Here they are, grouped into 4 categories:

Health and beauty
1. Stick with WW. "Lose weight" has been on my list since I was 10 and will be on my list until the day I die. No worries, things could be worse. Thank goodness WW exists.
2. Exercise. The sad thing about this is that for years and years I didn't have to put it on my list -- it was a fun and constant part of my life. But now I live in Ridgecrest. So my resolution is to walk several times a week, perhaps resume lifting weights, and take advantage of whatever opportunities to exercise arise.
3. In bed by 11 PM each night. By far the hardest resolution for me. Definitely worth pursuing, however.
4. Develop or regain my personal style. How I might go about doing this is unclear, but I want to remind myself that it's an issue, and my sassy new haircut does not obviate the problem.

Self-actualization (the smallest group this year, or perhaps the most focused, because I think I know what I want).
5. Write or edit (my own writing) every day. At least 15 minutes. Also, I'm planning to set a specific writing goal each month, like "write a poem for X writing contest."
6. Find a part-time editing job. I think it's time, or it will be at some point during the year. Remember, if I find a job on December 31st it still counts. Need to think about this one.
7. Read! Anything I want! I was going to set a more serious specific goal, but clearly I need some time off. My first book of the year was a young adult novel called The Dollhouse Murders, that should tell you something.

Family life
8. Work with Rocket Boy to figure out where we want to live. This is important. It means don't wait until he gets a job offer and then whine about having to move somewhere I don't like.
9. Figure out a solution for our problematic Colorado properties. We're working on it. Two seem OK, the other two not OK. If we're going to be land barons, we need to be good land barons.
10. Baby books, photo albums, photo storage & organization. I don't especially want to work on this, but the guilt associated with not doing it is really dragging me down. I decided I could work on it for 1 hour per week, tentatively scheduled for Thursday afternoons. Today was my first attempt and I managed to glue a photo of each boy's first salon haircut into their respective baby books. QUITE an achievement, and a significant subsequent reduction in guilt. Just think, if someone asks to see their baby books, I can display that page!
11. Potty training! Oh yeah...

Personal relationships
12. Maintain friendships. The Christmas card orgy always reminds me about this. I have so many wonderful friends and I don't want to lose them. So the current plan is to write an email, birthday card, etc., to at least one friend every Tuesday. Sounds pathetic, but it would be an improvement over last year's record. And NO, I am NOT going to join stupid Facebook, NOT NOT NOT. There are other ways to stay friends with people.
13. Date night once a month. Rocket Boy and I have such a hard time with this. But we had maybe half a dozen nights out without the twins last year and they were really good for us. Once a month sounds doable.
14. Try to fulfill my volunteer commitments. (One of which is currently driving me batty.) I said I'd do it, I'll try to do it.
15. Enjoy the twins. Maybe I need to make this more specific -- or maybe not. Last year I put down that I should do music and art projects with them. Oh yeah -- or not. I think it's more important to live in the moment with them, rather than plan activities. Though the moment can be quite horrible at times. Maybe enjoying them means working more on discipline. I'm not sure. But today while looking for things for their baby books I came across the photos my sister took during their first week of life. I can't remember them being so tiny! And then I found some photos of them during our move here. They were so precious! So the bottom line is that I want to find ways to enjoy them, even though sometimes it seems impossible.

Anyway, that's the list. We'll see.

I hate January but I love January. Everything's so new, especially my resolutions. Even the one about Weight Watchers. And now it's nearly 11, I must go to bed!

Snow

I admit it, when I looked out the window on Monday morning I thought -- it's Colorado! Ridgecrest actually got 3 inches of snow from Sunday morning to Monday morning. Last year when it snowed we were told it hadn't snowed in 6 years -- and last year's snow wasn't as deep as this one.

This is what it looked like the previous afternoon, when it had been lightly snowing for an hour or two:

I took the photo because I thought this was all we'd get, silly me. It just kept snowing and snowing and snowing.

At 6 am Monday morning our phone rang. Of course immediately I thought someone had died and the survivors had kindly waited until 6 am to call and tell us. But then I thought -- who? All our parents are gone. If one of my sisters died, would the surviving brother-in-law in question call me at 6 am to tell me? If one of Rocket Boy's remaining relations died, would anyone even remember to tell us about it, much less call politely at 6 am? While I was puzzling about that, the phone (which is on Rocket Boy's side of the bed) stopped ringing and went to voicemail.

I lay there worrying. The phone rang again. This time Rocket Boy woke up enough to answer it. It was his boss, telling him the base was going to open 2 hours late. I sat up in bed and looked out the window, observing the Colorado scene.

Only thing is, in Colorado nobody's going to close a base for 3 inches of snow!

We still don't know our way around this place, that's for sure. Apparently you're supposed to listen to 102.7 FM to find out whether anything else is closed for weather, but we didn't do that. Imagine my surprise when I drove up to the twins' daycare at 11:30 to find the parking lot COMPLETELY empty. Turned out, all the schools in town closed, and of course the daycares. For 3 inches of snow, which began to melt as soon as the sun came out, mid-morning.

So the twins and I went to the park instead, at their insistence. Sorry, no photos, because I didn't have my camera with me -- I wasn't on my way to the park, I was on my way to drop them off at daycare. But you improvise. Boo bears don't have proper snow attire -- no warm coats, no warm boots. They do have mittens, from last year. Baby A insisted on wearing his in the car; Baby B insisted on not wearing his at all, ever. When we got out of the car to go to the park, Baby A decided to leave the mittens behind. I figured we wouldn't be staying long, what with our inappropriate clothing, so didn't press the issue. I didn't have gloves either -- what can I say, I thought I was on my way to daycare!

We walked around in the snowy grass. Boo bears complained, and went to walk on the path instead, until they encountered a big puddle of melting snow. Several snowpeople had been constructed in the park, so we went to look at some of them. Then I wanted to show the boos how it's done, so I started rolling a ball. Just as on that memorable day back in January 1962 when it snowed in Palo Alto, the snow rolled up like a carpet, though in Leroy Jackson Park it also brought with it a lot of dry dead grass and some bird poop. And I had no gloves, so my hands immediately started to freeze. I rolled one ball, for the snowman's bottom third, and then gave up. I made a quick little ball with my hands, put it on top of the big ball, and said "OK, there's our snowman, now let's go bye-bye car!" The twins were happy to follow me, as they too were cold and wet.

That night I got online and ordered them some warm, waterproof, winter coats.

Today we had fog and the roads were icy, but daycare was open. There's a tiny bit of snow left in our yard. It should all be gone by tomorrow or the next day.

An old friend from Colorado called me today -- she'd gotten our Christmas card and hadn't sent out any of her own, but wanted to keep in touch. She mentioned that a few days ago they'd finally had their first good snow.

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.