On the road in the Lean Machine

I had long wanted to explore the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains along Highway 395. Mono Lake, Mt Whitney, Manzanar, and lots and lots of dramatic mountain scenery. I figured that since the boys would be 5 and almost 7 in 2012 it would be a perfect summer to do it.

I investigated RV rental options, and found the cost to be about $2,000 for 8-9 days, plus gas, plus the cost of campsites along the way (and in prime locations, sites at RV parks with power and water hookups can climb to $80 or more). It seemed like a lot. So Nathan had the idea to buy a cheap RV on craigslist! So that's what we did. We bought a 25-year-old "Lean Machine," made by Georgie Boy, which has since been bought by another RV manufacturer. I'll just say that it wasn't long before we had the number of the RV repair place memorized.

But we got in several practice trips at Bay Area campgrounds and by July 19 we were ready to roll.

I'd planned our route to have us only drive about three hours a day: Our first night we would be in Angels Camp, along Highway 49 (runs through Gold Country, naturally). Then we would drive over the Sierras to 395 and down to Mammoth Lakes, where we would meet up with my friend Jennifer (from way back in my ANG softball team days) and her husband and son, whom I hadn't met. Two nights in Mammoth and then we would drive a couple hours for two nights in Lone Pine, which is near Mt Whitney. The one night at the southern end of the Sierras at Lake Isabella, two nights in Sequoia National Park and one night in Mariposa before driving home.

The first day was uneventful; we drove about three hours to Angels Camp and had a very pleasant evening there. The boys played in the pool and I cooked spaghetti in the RV. 

Day 2 of our  trip was very memorable. We had a good start from Angels Camp RV Park to Highway 108. We left at 9 and figured we’d be at Mono Lake by lunch time. The road was well maintained and smooth and wide for a good while. It seemed like it would be a good alternative to Highway 120 through Yosemite, which we had driven many times and would probably be pretty busy.

The scenery along 108 became pretty dramatic. We saw a sign for a vista point and decided to pull in. By the time we saw the sign that said “No RVs or Trailers” it was too late. We had a horrible time backing out. I watched while Nathan backed and a tree caught on the ladder and ripped a piece out of it. But I completely forgot about that a minute later when the side of the RV scraped against a road sign and water started gushing out! The sign post had sheared the drain outlet spigot clear off. Nathan pulled to the side of the road enough that we were not blocking the entrance to the vista point so he could help me try to stop the gusher. This was the drain to our fresh water tank, which we had just filled and didn’t want to lose, since we’d be spending the next two nights without hookups. Nathan had just been eating some saltwater taffy and smeared some around the outlet. It worked! Of course it was a temporary solution. But we plugged on, thinking we might try to find a hardware store in Lee Vining and get some spackle or something.

But things were about to get more interesting. Before long we saw a sign that said “Vehicles over 25 feet not advised on Sonora Pass.” Our RV is 34 feet. Next we saw a sign that said we would hit a downhill grade of 26%. My stomach sank. We pressed on a bit further, though. We came to a short but very steep upgrade, where the RV was going about 20 mph with the gas floored. After a couple of those we stopped to discuss. Nathan was thinking of going on, but I had a very bad feeling, especially when we got to a vista with some foreboding looking mountains. 

You don't mess with the Sierras.

There was enough space there to pull over and turn around. It was decided that we would backtrack to the nearest town, called Dardenelles, and ask for advice about the route. Then Nathan noticed the taffy had sprung. He found a rubber spider toy in the RV that one of the boys had gotten as a prize at Chuck E Cheese. He cut a piece off and crammed it in there, and it worked for a bit, but then it went in too far. Then he decided to cut a piece of fabric off a cleaning towel and crammed it in there with a screwdriver, and that’s what stuck.

Trying to plug the leak.

Back in Dardenelle’s, there was an RV park, which we figured would be a good source of information. The friendly man at the office/store listened to my question about our proposed route with our rig and simply said, “No.” I said, “OK, we thought so.” He went on to describe some scary switchbacks. I asked about going through Yosemite, and he said that should be fine. So we set off down the hill.

It was a little bit sad to drive along the Tioga Road on a beautiful day and not have time to stop for a hike, but we may not have been able to find space to park the Beast at any of the trailheads anyway. And I felt bad that we would only drive past Mono Lake, because Arthur had seen a documentary about it and was very eager to go there and see the tufa and alkali flies.

We made it to the pass with little difficulty and then down toward 395. We stopped once when the brakes started smelling to let them rest, and soon Mono Lake came into view. We whooped with joy when we made it to the 395 intersection. We had finally reached the backbone of our trip!

It was about 35 scenic miles down to the town of Mammoth Lakes. We drove through town and past one lake to Mary Lake and into our campsite, finally arriving a bit before 7 to a steak, sweet potato and quinoa salad dinner cooked by our friends. Yay! We slept well in the Beast’s queen bed.

Day 3 started off slow but tasty with breakfast burritos again cooked by our friends. Around 11 we set off on a hike that started directly from our campground. We hiked past a historic mine site and began the uphill climb. 

With a 7-months pregnant woman, a grandma and some inexperienced hikers with little legs, it was slow going. After about 2 hours (over about 1.5 miles) we reached our destination, Heart Lake. The boys enjoyed splashing around with their pants and shoes off. It was in a beautiful basin surrounded by amazing trees and a jagged mountain pass. We walked another five minutes up above the lake to the vista, which some other hikers told us about, and we got a view of much of the Mammoth basin, with Mary Lake and other amazing mountains. I could hardly imagine a more beautiful spot. My “California Hiking” book said the highlight of this hike was the wildflowers, but for me it was the mountain vistas. 

Yowza!

There were some beautiful flowers and a lovely aspen grove about halfway up, plus some butterflies, but the vista was the star of the show! As usual Arthur was a trooper and hardly complained but Noah was slow and complaining on the way up. When he was splashing in the lake he said he was glad to have done the hike.

That night we made English muffin pizzas over the fire and the following morning Nathan and I made pancakes and bacon for the group. After packing up we walked back to the mine to take a good look at the ruins.

Mining machinery.

I don't think it runs.

Then we packed up camp and headed to Devil’s Postpile National Monument. To get there we drove to Mammoth Mountain ski area where throngs of people were getting ready for bike rides down the ski slopes, rides on the gondola and zip line adventures. We bought tickets for the bus ride (no cars allowed) down to the monument and got in line. There were many backpackers on the bus (the John Muir Trail goes right through the monument). We walked the half mile to the Postpile. It was pretty interesting from the bottom, but even more so from the top, where Arthur and I saw the tops of the hexagons, like a tiled floor. 

Back to the bus we escaped before getting too rained-on.  The ride back was packed and Jen felt green by the end, being 7 months pregnant and not normally good on windy roads.

Up at Mammoth we said our goodbyes to Jen, James and Derrick. Shortly after starting the drive down the mountain to town we smelled a strong gas smell. It didn’t dissipate, and back on Main Street a passing pickup flagged us down and said it looked like we were leaking fuel. We pulled over and Nathan confirmed the leak. We grabbed our most important belongings and hustled out. The boys and I went to the bakery we were stopped in front of while Nathan called our roadside assistance company. It was already 5 on a Sunday and we soon realized this wouldn’t get fixed today. I called a few hotels and settled on one across the street with an indoor pool and included hot breakfast. Nathan and I had a restless night, envisioning some massive problem that would force us to abandon the Beast on this side of the Sierra.

The next morning we waited till a bit after 8 to find out a mechanic would arrive at 10:30. We discussed what the boys and I would do while Nathan waited with the Beast. We thought about renting a car to drive to Mono Lake. But by then we had already decided we would abandon the southern portion of our trip in favor of a route home that would take us only on major roads; the stress of the problems already faced on this trip convinced us we didn’t want to be on some narrow mountain road in case of breakdown. So instead of staying in Lone Pine (near Mt Whitney) driving to Lake Isabella and rounding the southern Sierra to get to Sequoia National Park, we would be heading back north past Mono Lake and up through the Lake Tahoe area.

The boys and I got ready to get on the free trolley shuttle that makes stops all along the main street and ride to and maybe around the lakes. Just as we were leaving the hotel room Nathan got a call that the repair man was already at the RV, half an hour early! Nathan took off across the street and we went to the shuttle stop. We had to change shuttles to get to the lakes, and shortly after getting on the second shuttle Nathan sent me a text message: “It’s fixed!” It was a simple loose hose. When Nathan had gotten out to the RV the guy was already under it and had found the problem. It was fixed in less than 5 minutes! Since he gets paid an hour at a time, he asked Nathan if there was anything else he could look at. So the broken straps on the microwave and water tank got fixed and the generator got a minor tune-up.

It had started pouring, so the boys and I simply stayed on the shuttle and rode back into town. At the Horseshoe Lake stop, I saw a handwritten sign that said “Geology walk, 1 p.m., meet here.” I realized this was the tour a woman I had talked to at the pool the night before had mentioned. It sounded fascinating, so we decided to come back later in the afternoon for that.

With the RV fixed, we drove back up to Horseshoe Lake and met the ranger. Carole from Friends of Inyo explained that in 1989 there was an earthquake that opened up a vent that released massive levels of carbon dioxide into the soil. Soon trees started dying.

Trees dead from carbon dioxide in the soil

The levels above ground are not enough to hurt humans unless you lay down in a “tree well,” especially in winter. 

She told us about the five kinds of conifers in the Mammoth Basin and how to identify them (lodgepole pines, for instance, have bundles of two needles, which form an L). 

We also learned about a wind storm that happened last November that took down thousands of trees in the basin. She said it was like a tornado, but pushed straight down, like a burst. 

We finished at McLoud Lake, which was beautiful, of course.

That afternoon the boys played in the pool some more and we had dinner at a pizza place that was a short walk from our hotel with gluten-free pizza!

Day 6 we woke to breakfast at the hotel and then packed up to leave. By this time I had concluded that Mammoth Lakes is one of the greatest places on the planet, between the lakes, mountains, trails, activities, amenities in town and public transportation. I told Nathan we should retire there. He said, "You know it snows here, right?" OK, maybe summers in Mammoth and the rest of the year in Mariposa?

Anyway, we reached Mono Lake around 10:45. Arthur was thrilled to see the tufa, the alkali flies and the brine shrimp the birds eat. We walked toward the shore after trekking the short walk from the parking lot to watch the flies swarm in black clouds close to the beach.

I love the dramatic landscape at Mono Lake.

Arthur finally gets to Mono Lake!

If the Mono Lake Committee can do it, so can Restore Hetch Hetchy!

Then it was the drive to South Lake Tahoe. We took Highway 395 all the way to Highway 50. It was a longer route than some, but the one we had researched and felt comfortable taking with the Beast. The scenery was remote and dramatic, foreign-seeming until we started driving alongside the Walker River, when it was strongly reminiscent of the drive from Mariposa to Yosemite on route 140.

We found our RV park a few hours later. It was comfortable, but about 10 miles south of the lake. I think the biggest lesson we learned about RVing on this trip (besides the importance of researching your route thoroughly) is that you have to have a tow vehicle. Sometimes there are locations where you can get around by bike or transit, or there are hikes and other recreational activities right at your campsites "door step." This was the case at Mammoth Lakes, where the Heart Lake trailhead and historic mine were steps from our site, we could have walked down to Mary Lake to swim or splash on the beach, and they have an amazing system of trolleys that will get you anywhere in town, in the lakes complex, up to the ski area, and down to Devil's Postpile. However, our South Lake Tahoe RV park was miles from everything and public transit didn't reach that far south. We had to book it at the last minute, so the parks with decent locations were taken. And a number of activities we might have chosen were out of reach for us because of the narrow, windy roads and the size of our RV. 

Eating s'mores at the South Lake Tahoe campground.

That said, we had a good time letting the boys play on beaches at Fallen Leaf Lake and Lake Barron while we were staying there.

Fallen Leaf Lake

Arthur noticed this cool rainbow effect in the cloud at Fallen Leaf Lake.

Lake Barron, across the road from our RV park.

One of the best things about changing our plans was that we went right past Nathan's cousin, Dave, and his wife, Shawna's house, so we got to hang out with them and their two little boys. It was great to see them, and they even ran an extension cord out to our RV while we docked in front of their house. 

I loved our trip, and I think everyone in our family did, too. Nathan is working on repairing the nasty hole in the roof caused by the tree at the infamous vista point, so we'll be taking tents to Yosemite next weekend for Muir's March. 

Nathan is removing some of the rotted-out inner roof and is trying to decide how much of the roof to remove and how much to patch.

Who knows how many more trips are left in the old Georgie Boy. But we know we'll never forget our Sierra adventure with the Lean Machine!

The first-grade grind

This week my son got a break from homework. Just as a reminder, he's 6. Years old.

Here's the school's reasoning behind this one-week homework vacation, which they call "The Week of the Family":

During the week of January 23, Encinal and Laurel schools will celebrate the Week of the Family to honor the vital role that families play in supporting the growth and education of children. Traditional homework will not be assigned during this week, although students should continue to engage in nightly reading and fact practice. 

Strong family connections along with adequate sleep and abundant opportunities to engage in free play are some of the most critical building blocks for a child's success. This week provides an opportunity for families to enjoy a slower pace in the evenings, reserve some time for simple fun, enjoy a warm meal together or ask our children how they would like to spend this time together. 


The obivous implication here is that it's ok to NOT have time to enjoy your family, have a quiet meal, kick the ball outside or, you know, just play, because when you're 6, all the kid stuff is done and you better buckle down because next year you'll be in second grade.

I've made it known to the higher-ups how absurd I believe this to be and was met, on one occassion, with the following statment: "Well, everyone wants their kid to get into Harvard." Um, no, everyone does not. When our kids are in elementary school, we want them to color and play and yell be kids! 

Mexico!

We just got back from a fabulous trip to the "Mayan Riviera," just south of Cancun. None of us had ever been to Mexico, and Nathan has a friend from way back in Chicago days who lives in Playa del Carmen, so we decided to check it out.

Knowing no Spanish and wanting to have some relaxation as part of our vacation, we decided to try an all-inclusive resort. Nathan's friend knows a travel agent who lives in the area, and she found us a place that had drop-off activities for kids 4 and up and also had reasonable rates on "family suites" (aka adjoining rooms). The only other similar adventure we'd had was on a Hawaiian cruise, where the food was mediocre and very little was actually "included," so I didn't really know what to expect.

We were very pleasantly surprised. The food was mostly awesome, the rooms were big and nice and we never felt nickeled-and-dimed. Room-fridge items, room service and snorkel gear rental were a few of things I was delighted to find out were really and truly included.

Perhaps best of all was the kids' club, where you could drop your kids off any time between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. Twice we dropped them off during dinner time to have a grown-up meal at one of the many restaurants. It was also useful when 4-year-old was napping and 6-year-old was bored. (The kids club at Now Jade was for ages 4-12; I think you could pay $10 an hour for babysitting for younger kids, or if you wanted to leave the resort without your kids.)

We got into a routine of waking up, going down to the breakfast buffet (six different kinds of fruit-and-veg juices, mexican specialties, the works!), and heading to the beach for most of the morning. Nathan and I would sit and read or doze and the kids would play in the sand for hours at a time. Wait staff would come around a couple times an hour and take your order for any drink you could imagine. Then we'd go to one of two lunch option restaurants. Afternoons Noah would usually nap and one of us would hang out with Arthur. Evenings we ate together or the boys would have dinner and a movie at the kids club.

The boys made friends quickly on the beach.

Arthur got his face painted at the kids club

One day we rented a car from the resort and drove into Playa del Carmen. It was touristy but sweet and on a beautiful beach. We had lunch with Nathan's friend, John, and his wife, Libby, who have lived there for about six years and shared some of their experiences. They even run a web site about the area, intheroo.com.


Driving there was not as bad as I thought it would be. (Of course, hubby was the one doing the driving.) John advised us to just drive defensively and we'd be fine. We did witness some crazy driving. Ironically, people seem to use their turn signals more down there then in the Bay Area. And we had heard all about the topes, so we knew to slow waay down for those.

After four full days at the resort it was time to depart for Chichen Itza! I was a little bit sad to be leaving, but excited for our adventure in the Mayan ruins. We hired a shuttle for the 2-hour drive to our hotel, Mayaland, where we had booked a two-night stay. The idea was to have a whole day to explore the ruins.

Unfortunately, we somehow didn't figure out that they stopped letting you climb on the ruins about 5 years ago. That reduced the appeal of the whole experience a whole lot. Plus, there isn't really anything else to do there. The kids got kinda bored. We should have either rented a car, or stayed one less night, or both. It wouldn't even have been so bad to just take the day trip from our resort and be in Chichen Itza in the middle of the day. It was hot, but not *that* hot.

That said, Mayaland is incredibly beautiful. It's almost 100 years old, and the ground are gorgeous. The rooms weren't outrageously expensive, but the food was. I was really glad I brought my water filter or we would have been paying three dollars a liter for drinking water.

View of Mayaland grounds from our huge balcony.

Our first morning we hired a guide to take us around for about two hours and give us the inside scoop. He grew up in the nearest town and had gone away to study English and tourism, but came back for this job. He was incredibly knowledgeable and friendly and helpful.

Our awesome guide, Roamy.

Though expensive, the food at the hotel was excellent. The lunch buffet had local fare, including tortillas made while we watched. Breakfast also offered local and American fare.

Mexican dancers were the lunch entertainment; this boy and a group of men and women balanced trays on their heads while dancing!

"Don't go past this step." Iguanas bite.

View of some ruins from our hotel.

To sum up, my advice is to stay at Now Jade if you will be traveling with kids. A couple day trip adventures to Playa and/or Chichen Itza are recommended. If you're going in winter, a day trip to the ruins is fine. If it's hot, spend a night at Mayaland and hire a guide to show you around from about 8:30-10:30, before it gets too hot and crowded.

Learning about Mayans is exhausting.

Now there's your problem!

There has been much made of the Occupy Wall Street movement not knowing what it wants. There have also been many comparisons to the Tea Party movement in its grassroots nature. Of course the "liberal" media has derided OWS for being unfocussed and time-wasting. Hopefully at some point they will gel and figure out who's going to be their Bachman and get inside Washington and actually get something done. They would do well to listen to Tim Dickinson, who wrote a spot-on piece for Rolling Stone and said the following on Fresh Air the other day:

"I think I'd just like to make the point that we tend to think of income inequality in this country as though it were a force of nature, that people really don't have any control over. And certainly there are some underlying structural trends - the decline of unions, the increase of globalization and global trade - that are driving inequality to a certain degree.

But on top of that, and pushed by the Republican party, you have a tax policy that is favoring people who are getting more and more wealthy as a result of these structural trends and rewarding them with tax cuts that are allowing them to get richer still. And that is a new story in America and it's not the one that we like to tell ourselves."

The Occupiers know what they want, they just don't know it yet.

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.

Before and After

Both these xrays show same foot, my very own right foot. Is that amazing or what?

I had another doc appointment today and got my stitches out, which wasn't as uncomfortable as I thought it was going to be. He changed the bandages and said I can start taking showers without wrapping my foot in a plastic bag. I'm a little nervous about taking care of the wound myself, but he says it's healing fine. (Don't worry, I'll post a new pic when I change the bandages.) And in a week, I can try to wear a real shoe!

How cold is too cold?

Sitting here at my dining room table, wearing two sweaters and slugging hot coffee, I'm practically shivering. Why? $250 to PG&E last month, that's why. This giant rented box we're living in, with its single-pane windows and shoddy construction, is a sieve, and there's very little we can do about that. I've set the thermostat to 66. In the master bedroom, we've put a plastic sheet -- the kind you shoot with a blow-dryer to seal -- over the bathroom window. The vent in there is busted, so I use a space heater when I'm showering.

We can't put in new windows. We're stuck here more or less indefinitely. The males of the house don't seem bothered by the chill; my husband is content to put on a sweatshirt. Should I pick up some cheap longjohns? Or admit defeat, turn up the heat, and find another way to save cash? The new $2 wine at Whole Foods is half-way decent...

Frankentoe!

I went to the doctor this morning and finally got to see what's been under the two inches of bandages on my foot all week. The doc says it's healing nicely and it seems like I've been doing all the things I'm supposed to. This week I need to keep using my ice machine and gingerly putting weight on the foot. I am also supposed to wiggle my toe back and forth with my fingers, to make sure the healing happens within normal range of motion.

But the really exciting news is that I got a temporary handicapped parking placard! Basically, I can park anywhere I want for free until the end of April.

We sadly bid Aloha this morning to my mother-in-law, who was here for a week doing alll the cooking, cleaning, laundry, errands and miscellaneous pet- and child-care while I started recovering.

Now, if you are squeamish, don't scroll down, because there's an awesomely gruesome picture of my incision.

Ready?

Here it comes...

Keep going if you like gross stuff.

If you don't, close your browser window now!

It's almost here!

Behold, the Frankentoe:

surgered

My foot has been sliced on and the healing is underway for my formerly-bunioned right foot.

In case you're wondering, as I did, how they make sure they do the correct side, a nurse had me write YES in purple marker close to the spot that's to be worked on.

Basically the doc cut my foot open, broke the bone below my big toe, shaved some of it off, shoved it into place, and put in some kind of screw that disintegrates over time. Took about an hour and a half, during which time I was totally out.

The numbing medication is still in effect, but my toes are starting to tingle just a bit, so it's time to take a painkiller, per doc's orders. I have a cold machine that pumps ice water into tubes wrapped around my foot, and that's supposed to be on for 20 minutes and off again, so I don't get frostbite.

I'm supposed to say in bed for the first few days and then I'll be hobbling around a bit. My wonderful mother-in-law, who had the surgery a couple years ago, is here to help take care of the boys for a week.

I see much knitting and listening to audio books in my future...

Oh, and I didn't' feel the earthquake, or if I did I just thought I was dizzy from drugs and fasting.

At least we're not in New York

I've been spending most of the last couple days trying to remember why I used to like staying in hotels. There's just not a room big enough to make staying in one room with two hyper, out-of-their-routine little boys a pleasant experience. There is humor in the TV, which reveals the ridiculous "news" channel practices that get even more ridiculous during an event like the current east coast Snowpocalypsmagedon. While working out I watched a guy standing in a snow bank with the words "In the Eye of the Blizzard" on the screen. There did not appear to be any snow falling at that moment.

And just now I glanced over at the TV here in the hotel lobby, which is showing the Weather Channel, of course, and the current temperature here is 8. EIGHT. FAHRENHEIT. Naturally, I forgot to pack something we actually need (the three-year-old's swim trunks) so I'll have to venture out later to procure those. At least it's sunny.

Who needs tastebuds?

Faithful readers of this blog will recall that I have long struggled with a diet soda addiction. Fortunately I've been able to replace most of my soda consumption with coffee. At least at home. When I'm out, I default to pop, mostly because of the temperature. Every time I have coffee (non-iced) from a shop or restaurant I experience severe tongue damage. Yet I see people get a steaming cup from Starbucks and immediately sip all the time. Have these people so damaged their tongues that they are desensitized? Or do have a particularly sensitive tongue? I really would love it if someone could explain this to me.

A little less evil in the world this morning

Something magical and wonderful has happened in San Jose of all places. Yes, I know San Francisco banned plastic bags a while back, but that sort of action is expected from them, despite their unforgivable sinfulness. Marin is going for it, too. One county and city at a time, I guess.

I actually have a lot of plastic bags in my house right now, on purpose, since I learned how to crochet them into durable, reusable bags from a crafter/teacher in Redwood City. I saw these bags at the county fair over the summer and was so blown away, now I'm trying to collect the bags that are crochet-able and get more people to learn the craft.

Of course, all the crocheters in the world won't get a hold of the billions of plastic bags circulating, polluting land and water, threatening animals of all kinds and using petroleum. So hooray for places like San Jose and Marin. Until then, try making some plarn! And send me your plastic bags. I'm really hoping to get some of those big, bright red Target bags...

(At right is my first attempt at one of these bags; I still need to figure out how to do handles. And yes, it's a bit small; the lego man is there for perspective.)

PSA

If you are planning to rent a house any time soon, hire a home inspector. You may think this is only necessary if you are purchasing a house, but you would be wrong.

When we signed a lease a year ago, we were in a bit of a hurry, since we wanted to unload our old house and the rentals we were seeing were mostly hideous and overpriced. The home we ended up choosing is hideous and overpriced, but it's also huge and in a great location.

On our first walk-through after we got the keys, we noticed a little pile of what looked like wood shavings in the downstairs bedroom. Being California homeowners, we immediately identified them as termite droppings. Fab.

In January, shortly after moving in, the rains came. And so did The Drip. In the craft/guest room. Not far from my scrapbooks. Double fab. Our landlord had some guys come and clean off the flat roof and maybe do a bit of patch work, and the dripping stopped. When the rains started again this fall, the drips came right back, one in the same place and one in another. After several patch jobs (landlord has a number of lame excuses for not replacing the roof) it seems the roof is in sufficiently shored up. There have been no more drips.

The point is, all would have come to light with a reputable inspector and we would have continued our house hunt. Next time...

Where did I go wrong?

This guy and this guy have written books. Not just books, but successful books that people read. They don't necessarily like them, but they read them and make TV shows and movies out of them. Books made into TV shows and movies, for the love of pete.

Maybe I just need to pick something and write a book about it. There are always people on the Daily Show who wrote books about random stuff. Like waves or Cleopatra, and that's just in the last week!

Surely someone can help me come up with a book idea. Anyone? Bueller?

The ultimate purple issue

It seems that Americans on both sides of the cultural divide have found a common enemy: the TSA. No one wants to be groped or back-scattered or microwaved in the name of airport safety. We'd prefer to have dogs sniff our bags -- and we'd probably rather have them sniff our crotches than have our nether-regions grabbed by TSA hacks.

San Francisco progressives and Midwestern conservatives seem to agree that the government has gone too far in the name of safety, without actually making us any safer. Nothing like a common enemy to unite the persecuted masses!

The problem seems to be that the powers that be on both ends of the rainbow are too far above the fray to be affected. They charter their own flights or get a pass through security and don't have to be frisked or fried.

Something's gotta give here. The only possible winner? Amtrak.

Veggie tales

Feeding my kids has always been the single biggest source of stress to me as a parent. As an infant, my oldest didn't nurse well and I didn't make enough milk, and I had bought into the breast-feeding propaganda about how your baby would be ruined for life if they got formula from a bottle. (Luckily I managed to figure out that it wasn't that big of deal and was able to relax with my second one.)

Then when they were eating baby food, it was still me being personally responsible for every ounce of nutrition that went into them. I nearly had a nervous breakdown packing for a cruise when my youngest was 6 months old. What if I didn't bring enough rice cereal and pureed sweet potato? But at least then they ate veggies.

Now my oldest has it as a point of pride that he does not eat veggies. But it might be getting better. At a parent ed program recently the topic was nutrition, and I was inspired to try putting those veggies on his plate at least once in a while. Our weekday schedule doesn't provide a time for "family meal" (at least not with the whole family) but on weekends now we're all eating the same thing.

One night it was chili. "Are there vegetables in chili? Next time you make chili you should not put any vegetables in it," says the five year old. The three-year-old will try anything. The five year old complained some and only ate the meat. But the week before that we had risotto and he threw a full-on screaming rolling-around-on-the-floor fit about the onion in the risotto. Maybe we were making progress.

Then last night I cooked up his favorite food item: ravioli. He asked me what was in the ravioli. I said, truthfully, butternut squash. He started on a 20-minute fit that at one point became so overblown and dramatic I had to stifle laughter. Mercifully I was relieved by my husband to go to a parent ed session. The change of authority figure presented the proper setting for consumption of the food, apparently. Dad convinced him it was edible. Progress takes many forms, I suppose.

Slackingest blogger ever

Why can't I get myself back in gear here? The idea of writing something is a good one. But the something is the sticking point. When I read “Where I Was From” on a plane a couple months ago I wished for a computer to type at and get out all my thoughts. I scribbled out some thoughts in my travel journal about asking my mom about our ancestors and writing about my thoughts on the Donner Party and Yosemite Valley and HH Valley and my parents and parenting. Of course now that all sounds uninspiring. I wonder, if I just keep typing, will something interesting come out?

“Manic Monday” and “Top Five Friday” seem to get me to blog semi-regularly, when I'm thinking about it, though that's not really writing. Maybe if I pick a few themes for my writing and assign one to each day of the week, then when I have time I’ll be able to just write. And if I can manage to jot down those ideas that come to me when I’m driving or reading or watching TV then I can expand on them later.

I do feel a tiny push of motivation when I get yet another comment on my favorite of my blog posts, which continues to be the top hit when you google "Terry Gross Sucks," as I did the other day.

Top 5 Friday

Top 5 Things about my neighborhood that are completely insane

5) I can't see my hand in front of my face after dark on the sidewalk in front of my house

4) There are no sidewalks between my house and my kid's school

3) I live closer to the big park in Atherton than the one in Menlo Park, but I can't walk there, unless I pay $125 for a key to a special gate

2) I can't park my car on the street in front of my own house

1) Did I mention that there are no sidewalks? Thanks, Atherton.

Indecent Propositions

If you're a perennial absentee voter in California, you've already received your ballot and maybe you've even voted. Hopefully you voted Yes on 19 and No on 23.

Let's start with 23. It's pretty much a no-brainer. Unless you're a global-warming denier (I actually heard a news clip in which someone said global warming is probably a scheme to make money for the solar panel companies, cause apparently *those* are the energy companies with huge lobbying budgets and scientists in their back pockets because they have bottomless pits of money). So basically you need to vote no on this so that California can continue leading the way in reduction of greenhouse gasses.

Prop 19 is the pot legalization prop. Not *quite* so much of a no-brainer, but the arguments against it are pretty weak. Here are the pros:
-we stop wasting money on busting pot smokers
-we get money from taxing the pot, like with liquor or cigarettes
-we avoid having people go to drug dealers to get pot, which makes it no longer a "gateway drug," if it ever actually was
-we greatly reduce the amount of gangsterism, which happens to be destroying Mexico, in case you didn't notice

Fwiw, I don't smoke pot, or even eat it in brownies, but there's no good reason not to let any adult who wants to do it.

There are lots of other propositions, some good, some bad. Someone asked me the other day if I was in favor of Prop 21, the state parks tax on vehicles. It has its problems but the parks need the money so bad I have to vote for it.

On another election -related topic, I really wish I had started saving all of the fliers I've been getting in the mail related to this election. The Menlo Park City Council race alone could fill a large box, I'm sure. I would really enjoy weighing said box and taking it to a city council meeting and waggling my finger righteously at those knuckleheads for sending x-number of pounds of dead trees to every single household in town. Next time.

Top 5 Friday

My five most-hated MLB teams (in order):

5. The Dodgers. Just because I have lots of friends who are Giants fans.

4. The Yankees. They just win too much.

3. The Braves. Godspeed, Giants. I won't be watching the rest of the series because I can't handle those redneck fans and their tomahawk chop. And too much winning.

2. The Angels. Three words: Rally Monkey. Thundersticks (one word afaik)

1. The Cardinals. I'm pretty sure I don't need to explain this one.

Top 5 Friday!

Top Five Things you can do for me if you forgot to get me a birthday present (it was Sunday, silly!):

1. If you live in California, vote Yes on Prop 19 and tell three friends to do the same
2. Leave your car at home for one trip this week and bike or walk instead
3. Donate $50 (or more!) to Restore Hetch Hetchy
4. Bug me if you don't see a post here in more than a week
5. Use your turn signal for EVERY turn and EVERY lane change

Steal this post

I just read a blurb in a magazine about a book chronicling the myriad movements for secession throughout the US. It’s a topic I’m interested in (there are certain states we could really live without, aren’t here?) but the review was luke-warm on the execution. I know myself well enough to know that I won’t make it through a whole book on any topic if it isn’t well-written (case in point: this book about how in the world it was possible for the Cubs to go almost 100 years without winning the World Series -- a topic I am, or was *exTREMly* interested in -- that I couldn’t get finish because of mediocre writing and roughly one typo per page). If I ever write a book, it may not be the Great American Novel, but I’ll at least run spell check on it.

And yet, I feel compelled to write a book. I have this sense that I need to write a book. At some point. Maybe before I turn 40? I could do that, with both kids in school. But about what? And why?

Manic Monday!

Yes, I'm attempting to blog again.

I can not WAIT for the new recycling regime to start Jan 1. I don't know which I'm more excited about: the weekly pick-up, or the yard waste containers that will take COMPOST! No more throwing the food scraps into a pile in the side yard and waiting for it to disintegrate.

Prop 19 is ahead in the polls! Is it possible?? Common sense prevailing in the polling booth?

I am sick. I'm going to bed.

So lost

Lost lost me when the time travel started. Today on facebook somebody revealed that a major character died, and I did not feel sad at all. I think this is a good thing. It seems that dramas these days have to get more over the top to keep viewers, but then they end up losing people because they are so bat-guano crazy. Big Love (really Bill?) and 24 (chicks will never learn that sleeping with Jack Bauer is a death sentence) are other examples. Then there was this little show called X Files. West Wing remains my all-time fav drama series partly because it never went off the deep end. Peered over with the whole daughter-kidnapping, but recovered nicely.

Maybe we should stick with comedies? 30 Rock is the best one we've started catching up with recently. The IT Crowd is a great Brit one. Love the Roku for this stuff!

Manic Monday!

I took my first class at a new exercise studio in MP, The Dailey Method. It's mostly light weight training and core work with pilates and dash of yoga, and boy did it kick my butt. I will be so sore tomorrow.

I finally got an external flash for my D70. Better test it out before Saturday.

Tonight I made a delicious meal from many ingredients with NO RECIPE! This is a big deal for me. I've never been a natural cook. But I was hungry and had little time. I also had a bunch of shrimp, some leeks and broccoli from the CSA and bell peppers from the Farmer's Market. I whisked together soy (free, gluten free) sauce, rooster sauce, peanut butter, ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes and a bit of white wine for an Asian stir fry. Yuuummm. So proud of my self! :-)

Manic Monday!

With all the houses being built by people with unlimited budgets in Atherton, you'd think some of them would be just a bit different. They all seem to have this vaguely Mission style but are huge and loom over the street. I did see one on my ride along Greenoaks and Oak Grove today that looked just like a mission would have looked 150 years ago, but without falling over itself trying to be Mission style: a reasonable setback from the road, with native or drought-tolerant plants partially screening the street from the house, and vice-versa. I would love to see more of it.

I really hope I don't criticize others' parenting decisions without realizing it, because when other people do it to me it's really friggin annoying.

Caltrain hardly runs any trains middays and on weekends. So why does it seem like there's always one going by our house?

Commedy of errors

Today was the quarterly Restore Hetch Hetchy board meeting. Usually it's in SF, but this time I had to go to the East Bay. Trauma. I left a little late, as usual, and was half way to 101 when I realized I forgot my purse. Hah! I went back and grabbed the purse along with my outlet phone charger, just in case it was low on batteries, since I knew I'd need it for the meeting.

Got back in the car, and the phone is totally dead. No juice. This is a problem bbecause the address of this crazy Emmeryville location is in my Google calendar on my phone. I entered the name of the company whose offices were hosting the meeting in the GPS, but Ms. Nuvi was not giving up the info. So I stopped at a Starbucks in Emmeryville to plug in my phone for a minute and get the address and call someone in the meeting to let me in.

I finally made it to the meeting about 20 minutes late after some funky directions from the Nuvi. What's the moral of the story? Android should make a freaking car charger.

Slightly less random

Than Manic Monday (though somewhat stream-of-consciousness)

I wish people wouldn't send messages to the mothers club about stuff like spanking and circumcision. Honestly. It just clogs the forum and pisses people off. What is with the Menlo Park-Palo Alto people? I'm hoping these kinds of messages are coming from the latter. I didn't have this problem in Redwood City.

Speaking of Redwood City, I wonder if the parents could somehow revolt and turn all the schools into charters? Or maybe secede with West RC and East RC districts to remove the transient population and possibly switch to basic aid funding?

I can understand how parents fall into the trap of overscheduling. This summer both boys will be in summer school (together! in the same place at the same time!!!) Tues-Wed-Thurs for four weeks. I could conceivably sign both of them up for soccer, swimming and gymnastics. It's just down the street, but still. In the end, we plan to sign them both up for swimming and let each choose soccer or gym.

Manic Monday!

After my first three experiences with seaming, I may quit working straight needle projects.

What a day. Is it too late to sign up for the MLB package?

I have now owned a total of five devices for conveying children via bike. (Don't even ask about strollers; Linda had to help me with those.)

Top 5 Friday!

Top 5 tasks I really want to accomplish this weekend:

5) Unpack CDs

4) Reorganize the garage

3) Repot the basil and jalepeno plants I bought last week

2) Hang a curtain rod I bought in January

1) Make candy

Manic Monday!

It looks like there is FINALLY some physical movement happening on the future site of the Redwood City In N Out.

This is disappointing, but not exactly surprising. At least it frees up Kiefer to be in lots more terrible movies.

I truly hate Heidi more and more every year.

Top 5 Friday!

5 things Caltrain needs:

5) Trains that run past midnight (who comes home from SF at 12?)

4) More mid-day trains (once an hour? Come on.)

3) Conductors who don't act like total jerks

2) Bar cars after 3 p.m. (Wait, what's that about a deficit? You're welcome.)

1) A hole in the floor enclosed on all sides on each car (cleaner than the existing bathrooms)

I'm about to blow your mind.

Wow I've been blogging slacker, but that's a post for different day. Today I have something extremely important to tell you.

Aspartame is more addictive then caffeine.

You know how caffeine is this highly-addictive drug? Well, it's got nothin on the stuff they put in diet pop.

As you may remember, I started on this journey toward freedom from the drug more than a year and a half ago. It was not pretty. There were withdrawal headaches, which were not ameliorated by replacing the caffeine in pop with that in coffee and taking lots of Excedrin. Then I got bronchitis, which was very suspiciously-timed, and it may be a crackpot theory that the two are related, but withdrawal can do weird things to your body. (The bronchitis morphed into walking pneumonia, but I think that was because the doctor didn't give me strong enough antibiotics.) Even though I was getting as much or more caffeine then when I was just drinking diet pop, I was cranky on days when I didn't have any pop. My weight was up and down like a yo-yo.

At first I was on an every-other-day plan and gradually scaled back till I could go a week without pop. Today I have it 2-3 times a week, almost always when we're eating out. When I've gone two or three days without pop, I don't think about it, but if it's the day after I've had some, I crave it. As for caffeine, right now I just have one, maybe two cups of caffeinated tea a day, plus the occasional pop. And I never miss coffee.

OK, so this is not a scientific sample size. But it's pretty obvious that, at least in my case, the aspartame is way more addictive than caffeine.

Manic Monday!

I dig the way links open in tabs next to the one you're working in in the new version of Firefox.

I bought a new mp3 player so I could listen to audiobooks, since for some crazy reason my walkman doesn't support it, and am enjoying The Help.

Apparently 4 is the age at which males start holding long, narrow objects in front of them and declaring "I have a big penis!"

And behold this, the video of the week: Baby Hates Miley Cyrus, digs the Classics.

The customer is always right

Except at Celia's, apparently.

Recently I was upset with a couple of my favorite dining establishments. First I wrote this email:

I have enjoyed eating at Fresh Choice for a long time. Recently I
found out that I have a number of food sensitivities, so I have come
to appreicate the allergen info posted by almost all of the food
items. However, it's disappointing that every single soup has soy. I
am wondering if you could have one or two soups at a time for those of
us who are sensitive to soy?

To which I got this reply:

Thank you for your visit to our Fresh Choice Restaurants and for taking the time (yadda yadda yadda) ...

To address your concern regarding soy content. I've posed the question to the company that manufactures our soup bases and challenged them develop bases w/out soy. It's been amazing the response we have received in providing the nutritional and allergen information on our signs. This information has truly been well received from our guest and allows you to make an educated choice as to what to put in your body. It has also allowed us to make necessary changes such as what you are suggesting.

Thank you for dining with us!!!

Sincerely,
Ingrid Walatka
Fresh Choice LLC.

Not too bad for a national chain! At least they're listening and thinking about trying to fulfill my request.

Then, I wrote this letter, which I had to actually mail with stamp and everything because there's no contact email on their web site:

Dear Celia's Manager:

Last night, Friday, Feb 5, my family and I had a very disappointing experience at your restaurant. We were seated in the back room, and after about 10 minutes, the mariachi band started playing to the table right next to us. They stayed there for the rest of our meal. It was very loud; we had to shout to speak to the other people at our table and our ears were ringing within about 20 minutes. I asked the hostess if the band could move or if we could move, and she told me that neither option was a possibility. We ate and left. As we were walking to our car, we saw that the band was moving to a different part of the restaurant.

It was very frustrating to have our experience ruined in this way. Two or three songs would have been nice, but at the decibel level they were playing at, it was unexpected and very unpleasant. I hope you and your staff and the band can be more considerate of diners in the future.

No response.

The moral? Eat at Fresh Choice, but not Celia's.

"Which of these preschools will get my kid into Stanford?"

Saturday I attended the local parents' club's preschool fair. It's a tradeshow for preschools where they all come and set out brochures and pics of the kids doing cute, fun stuff and even drawings and projects by the kids. Both our kids are in lovely preschools now, but we need to figure out what to do with the older one if he doesn't go to kindergarten in the fall (that's a whole other story). Unfortunately, the one that appealed to me the most is the German school, but it seems counterproductive to put Arthur in an immersion program for one year in a language that almost no one around him speaks fluently.

The other schools fall into one or more of the following categories: not academic enough, poor location, inconvenient schedule, and priced for the Steve Jobs set. We're talking $15-20k for preschool. As I was looking at one booth, I overheard the administrator at the next one say, "We don't look at applications in the order they come in, we evaluate the child and interview the parent and base enrollment decisions on those two factors." Can you imagine your kid's school options being based on how someone else judges you? No thanks. Then there's the fancy-pants "alternative" (read: hippy) school that charges "only" $12k or so, but is already done taking applications for fall 2010. I guess I missed the memo that in this fancy region of the Peninsula you need to register your kid for preschool before they start walking.

Turn that noise down!

I know the decade's been over for a whole six weeks now and everyone's forgotten all about it, but I have just gotten around to listening to most of Rhapsody's "Top 100 Songs of the Decade." As I started listening to it, I thought to myself, "this is at least 50 percent crap!" As I listened to more, that number went up. I now believe that it's about 75% crap, 15% listenable, and 10% actual good stuff ("Music" by Madonna, "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World, "Beautiful Day," "Don't Let Me Get Me").

Granted, this is a comprehensive list encompassing all genres, including stuff like the hip-hop-rap-crap I would never in a million years listen to, plus country (though the boot-in-your-ass song definitely belongs on the list) and teeny bopper pop. So maybe I should check out the rock best-of list before passing judgment on the musical value of entire decade. That said, one of the "rock" songs on the top 100 is "Photograph" by Nickelback, an utterly worthless bit of sentimental drivel that was one of the final nails in the coffin for me with contemporary music. It came out in 2005, right about the time I stopped listening to non-public radio entirely. Obviously I'm not alone as a hatah of this song. But am I on to something with my belief that the music these kids are listening to today is no good, or am I just getting old?

Mommy hungry!

So it's Week One of the zero-allergen diet. So far so... ok. This weekend I went off the wagon a bit with a cheeseburger (protein style), some red wine on V-Day and blue cheese on a salad. (And maybe a serving or two of you-know-what.) Replacing coffee with tea has caused some more headaches. I have the sniffles, too, but that's probably related to weather changes and blooming. Excedrin has been my friend.

Now I need to start a spread sheet where I record every single processed food and possible allergen I consume and then record my mood/physical symptoms and see if there's a connection. Unfortunately, my nutritionist says reactions from reactive foods can take three days to appear.

As I've mentioned before, my main goals are to increase energy and improve digestion. Eight-10 years ago I needed only 7-7.5 hours of sleep a night to feel right. Now it's more like 8.5-9. That just doesn't seem right.

Progress

It seems like in the last few years there has been an increase in the success of Mexican food chains that are "fast" food, but a step or three above Taco Hell. Una Mas, Baja Fresh, Chipotle, and more. This is excellent news for me, since Mexican food is awesome, and it's my three big allergens (soy, gluten, egg) are easily avoided in such establishments. I wonder what it is about Mexican food vs, say, Thai or Italian, that lends itself to this kind of franchise?

In the category of progress-yet-to-be-made, I have a prediction/suggestion for a future car gadget: a sensor built into, perhaps, your dashboard or your GPS that senses when the cars in front of you are moving so that you don't have to look up every few second or be startled by the unpleasant honking of the car behind you while writing emails or Facebook updates on your Android phone. (would probably work for Blackberry users, too)

out, allergens!

Well, I'm pretty sure I've been gluten-, egg- and soy-free for at least a month. I'm still eating out, but avoiding Asian restaurants because soy is likely to be pervasive. I made muffins from a mix made by a company called "1-2-3 Gluten Free," and they were mediocre. Candy-making with the soy-free baking chips was very successful. Tastes just like the kind made with Nestle or Ghiradeli.

But I feel like I could feel better. So my next step is to cut out all possible allergens. That means no nuts, beans, dairy, coffee, alcohol...just fruit, veggies, super-organic meat and tea. I know there are lots of people that do it. Remains to be seen if I can. Even for a couple weeks...

Soy annoyed

Well, it turns out there is something to this gluten thing, after all. A couple weeks ago I decided to add gluten back in to my diet. First I ate a piece of bread with dinner. Then a donut. Then Cheerios. At first all seemed well. A week later, I noticed that my occasional breathing problems had returned. It's not really asthma, and it's not really shortness-of-breath, but it's like I can't take a really deep breath. It just happens occassionally. I saw an alergist for it a while back and inhalers didn't really seems to help. Anyway, I didn't notice it had gone till it came back.

The whole gluten-free thing isn't really that tough. Since it's a big fad right now, there are lots of gluten-free foods floating around. I am fine with the gluten-free rice bread from Trader Joe's (though the only way it's really very good is toasted with jam -- luckily, I was never a big sandwich person anyway). I can still eat potatoes, rice and corn. And there are many options for rice/corn/quinoa pasta at Whole Foods.

It's soy that's the real sticking point. As i mentioned earlier, it's in evreything, most notably chocolate. I have made some of my fantastic candies with the soy-free baking chips (which I just ordered a 5 lb bag of from Amazon, along with a case of gluten-free cheerios and allergen-free bars.

Today I got two kinds of gluten-free baking mix in the mail from "Gluten Free Mall" and there are currently blueberry muffins in the oven. And I got to enjoy my favorite part of baking: licking the batter out of the bowl...