Rooster Cogburn abides

Saw "True Grit." Some observations:

Jeff Bridges' best movie for not being reminded of The Dude a lot.

In the "This movie has been rated" screen at the beginning, one of the resason for the PG13 rating was "Western violence." As opposed to eastern violence?

I should watch more westerns. Any suggestions?

Who needs nutrients?

My almost-six-year-old has always been the picky eater (at least I can say he's not the pickiest eater I'm related to). But he's tall and seemingly always growing, so he's Always Hungry. And not just hungry, but "STARVING TO DEATH." Despite this, nothing every sounds good to him.

Last year we made him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch every single day. Now he refuses to eat them. He has never eaten vegetables, which seems relatively normal. But he refuses grapes and raisins. Raisins! Almost any other kind of dried fruit is great, but not raisins. They might as well be candy! Candy aside, the only things he reliably will willingly eat are cheesy triscuits, deli meat (always ham; even if it's turkey, we're calling it ham) and pancakes. Boy, does he go crazy when I tell him I'm making pancakes. We're talking running-around-the-house-flailing-his-arms-and-screaming excited. But he should really eat stuff other than pancakes sometimes.

Any thoughts from parents of picky eaters on getting your kid to eat more than five different foods? Or a recipe for pancakes with pureed cauliflower?

Multnomah Falls!

I am so proud of my two little men for hiking alll the way up to the top of the 600-foot waterfall. They complained less than the 8-year-old boy that was with his parents hiking behind us. Probably because his mom forgot the granola bars.

Mt St Helens

We learned many things today. Fifty-seven people were killed when Mount St Helens blew its top in 1980. One of them was a revered volcanolgist named David Johnston. Another was a cranky, drunk old jackass who wouldn't listen when the scientists told him to get the bleep out. No one in this area of the country does anything recreational between the months of November and April. But while we were at a nearly deserted visitors center, the clouds parted and we were actually able to view the flattened and hollowed-out center crater. It really was quite something. I'm glad we spent the day driving up I5 and into the forest.

For dinner we ate at the Grilled Cheese Bus. People here don't go hiking or visiting National Parks when it's not actually summer, but they eat outside any old time.

Downtown Portland

Apparently the Trailblazers are in the playoffs and it's a big deal.
Arthur's getting ready for his turn as a J Crew model.
Hippies carrying a mannequin leg.

Our home for the week

If you remember our last house swap, you may recall we had a tiny apartment with no heat and single-pane windows in a great location. This time we kind of have the opposite: A big, beautiful, comfy house in a residential neighborhood sandwiched between an industrial area and a district that made us kind of sad when we drove through it on the way to the house. But it's not too far from downtown and the river. We'll see how the location seems as we explore, but there doesn't seem to be anything real useful within easy walking distance.

Some time on the drive I realized we hadn't packed any Legos or board games for the boys. Thankfully our house, Cindy, had a stash she kept in the basement from when her kids (now in their 30s) were our age. We did make a quick run to Toys R Us for a couple soccer balls and Connect 4.

Oregon

On our way to our second house swap. Certainly the most epic drive we've attempted with our munchkins. It was a good day with minimal whining.

It won’t be quite as exciting as our last one: no driving on the wrong side of the road or mysterious coffee ordering problems (aside from the ones I usually have at Starbucks). Presumably the people whose house we’re staying in have a clothes dryer and a dishwasher and other American luxuries. We’re looking forward to spending most of the week in Portland, exploring sites like Mt. St. Helens and the Columbia Gorge and hopefully not getting rained on too much.

Why not to get poison oak

The latest in an occasional series of totally gross photos is thanks to my dear husband, who ran into some of the nasty weed in Mariposa last Friday. He went to the doctor yesterday and she gave him hard drugs (prednisone) and the healing seems to have begun.

I can't seem to find the totally gross picture of my pulled tooth from about 5 years ago. Very disappointing.

Kindergartenerisms

"Next year we'll have a new baby."
Me: "Will this baby be a boy or a girl?"
"A girl."
"And where will this baby come from?"
"Your tummy. Or we'll buy one from someone with some dollars."

"Most numbers are six hundred and fifty." (Our area code is 650.)

"Can you drink hand sanitizer when you turn 21?"

I want to believe

We have our own little Fox Mulder here, apparently. Yesterday our kindergartener told us "Leprechauns are really real, I know it!" We asked him how he knows this. "There was some writing on the back of a piece of paper." Hmmm. OK. We didn't press the issue.

Today he claimed to have more proof, and as we were walking home from school, he told his classmates that we passed how "leprechauns are real!" Evidently leprechauns are big in Mrs. Merk's class. Since we have intentionally not led him to believe in Santa or other such make-believe beings, this was a new one. He claimed that the writing on the back of the piece of paper was so small Mrs. Merk could not have written it. When I told Arthur that our copier/printer at home could make writing much smaller, he said, "I don't want to talk about this any more."

Calm Kathy

Apparently my resolution to quit yelling at my kids is working. Yesterday I was picking up my 5yo from a playdate with his best buddy and my kid was being a big grump and yelling and fussing becase I wouldn't let his friend's mom give him another cookie (he'd already had two). I calmly told him he needed to be nice and thankful for the cookies he got and say thank you for that and the playdate. He continued to act like a pill, but I got him out the door without yelling at him.

This morning the friends mom said he commented on how "patient and calm" I am. Who knew?

I made a new resolution last week: not sitting in front of the computer surfing when I don't have a specific task to perform. That one hasn't been going so well. The problem is that I sit and don't feel like getting up again, so I browse around for random news stories or blogs to read. Trying it again this week...

this is why

this is why I'm spending my weekend in meetings. This pictured valley is under 300 feet of water. This can be another Yosemite Valley. this is why.

asceticism

Mostly based on an Outside magazine article I read recently, I've decided it would be fun(?) to try giving up one thing a week. Just to see if I can do it. Or for something to do. Or whatever.

This week it's yelling at my kids. When I get the urge to yell, I'll whisper. I've heard this works. Um, we'll see?

Other things to give up:

Alcohol

Diet pop

Coffee

Judging

Red meat

Buying items that are not essential for health and hygiene

Buying ANYTHING (how many meals can I make with the stuff in the cupboard and freezer?)

Driving (after my foot is allll better... and the kids are in school)

Off the table:

Chocolate

No one bakes during winter.

My dear husband, with shopping list written by me in hand: "I can't find baking powder."

Trader Joe's employee: "Let me go check."

(Husband waits with 3-year-old)

Employee: "We don't have any right now. It must be a seasonal item."

Yet another reason Trader Joe's is completely stupid and a total pain in my butt.

My aching back

The good news is that my foot is feeling a lot better. went to the doc yesterday and the wound is great, motion is good, I should start trying to go for walks around the block. The bad news is my back is making me feel like I'm roughly 94 years old. This took me by surprise, since the surgery was 6 weeks ago and this just popped up in he last few days. It felt a little wonky Tuesda and Wednesday, and all of a sudden Thursday I could barely lift a half-full laundry basket. It's stiff and weak and whenever I bend over I feel like I'm going to do a faceplant. The doc says I need massages, assisted stretching and a jacuzzi. He attributed it to inactivity, even though I've been riding my exercise bike and doing crunches and planks for weeks. So anyone with jets in their bath, invite me over.

Last night my wonderful hubby helped me out with stretching and some muscle kneading. It's possible that it feels slightly better today.

Manic Monday!

Wow, I looove how Will Arnet plays Magic Max on Sesame Street, and his intro music is the same as it was for his illooosion shows on Arrested Development.

It's totally not my fault I found out some lousy new random Cub is wearing #17; I'm babysitting and when I turned on the Tivo it was on WGN because their 2 year old loves the People Falling Down Show.

I totally want one of these:

National Holiday

Why isn't "Super Bowl Sunday" a standard listing on my calendar? It's at least as important to most Americans as Valentine's Day, or St. Patrick's Day, right? Go to June on your calendar, and on the 14th you'll see Flag Day. Flag Day! Who celebrates that?? Even if you don't "celebrate" the Super Bowl, if you go out to your favorite store or restaurant, you'll have it mostly to yourself. Doesn't that count as a national holiday?

For the past 10 years or so, our family has celebrated this great American event with good friends Matt and Sheila, and in recent years, their sweet kiddos. This year and last it was at their new home, with room for kids to run around out side. It's one of my favorite days of the year.

I wrote this!

Scroll down to page 16. It takes a bit to load; I wrote the story about the dirt-bike-racing kid :-)

http://www.spectrummagazine.net/pdfs/2011_02_SpectrumArchive.pdf

Top 5 Friday

Top 5 Random Things that make me Happy:

5. The word insouciance

4. The word corporeal

3. The intro to the Colbert Report (yes, I've seen it a hundred times, but it makes me smile every time)

2. Making my own background on google:

1. This collection of "treasures" at the Menlo Park library:

Not shown are a slide rule and high school diploma from 1957.

Menlo Park's Once-ler

The Menlo Park City Council voted 3-2 last night to let a developer cut down one of the biggest redwoods in the city so she could extract the most possible profit from her investment.

In tree vs. cash, cash wins.

This developer, Kim Lemieux, referred to for the rest of this post as The Once-ler*, bought a house on University Avenue in 2007 with the intention of tearing it down and building a bigger, "better" house to then sell for a huge profit. She has done this about a dozen times before in Menlo Park. Because of her experience she knew about Menlo Park's Heritage Tree Ordinance, which says that you have to get permission from the city to chop down any tree bigger than 12 inches in diameter. From the beginning it was her intention to chop down the tree, and she assumed her request would be rubber-stamped. (She has not said this publicly, but it's pretty obvious to anyone who has followed this saga.)

As is their right, the next-door neighbors (my new colleague on the Environmental Quality Commission, Christina Smolke, and her husband) filed an appeal after the planning commission approved her house design, with the tree removal included. The Once-ler said she couldn't possibly build a viable house on that lot with the tree in place, right in the middle of the deep, narrow lot. We on the EQC said we didn't believe her. In October the city council listened to her sob story about how she just had to bigger her house in order to bigger her money. They decided they couldn't possibly make a decision about this without paying some experts $7,500 to tell them if a house could be built with the tree there.

These experts said it could. The Once-ler said it would be too expensive, and no one would want to buy the house under the redwood tree anyway, because it would make the house oh so sad and dreary. The council (or at least three of the five present) bought it and said, "OK, Once-ler, it's only one tree."

I hope the city is working on a new logo this morning.

*The Once-ler is the villain in the great Dr Seuss book, The Lorax. In it, the Once-ler discovers the beautiful Truffula trees, and uses them to knit Thneeds until they are all gone and he and all the animals who lived in the Truffula forest are ruined.