12/18/13

Every morning Lydia and I walk to school. I drove her one time, when we were almost to the grounds and she slipped in the mud. We had to go home and change, she was then late, so we drove. Some mornings the walk is a bustle with others. Amy and her 4 out of 5 children, pushing the youngest in a stroller, Brenyick and Rayanna, sometimes Mom, my friend Lina. Late guy and his son, who if I see them walking the same direction, I know we are late, they are usually walking up the path after the bell has rung. I always find myself trying to visualize what their mornings are like, that they are so consistently late, and the Dad, while never smiling, never seems angry or rushed. And then there is Magda with her Dad Adam, the fencing instructor at OES, and their dog Oscar, and sometimes Mom, Brynn.
There are sometimes others, but these are mainly the people we see on our daily commute. This morning, we were alone. As I was coming back alone, I saw in the distance, late guy and son starting up the hill.
Lydia and I exit our bottom level/partially underground apartment, we head up the hill to the top of the complex and cross through part of Ed's school campus where we enter the woods. It's much less woodsy right now of course, with most of the trees naked. Ayla has a chance to do her business in a private setting. We pass through OES' ropes course, through a corner of their parking lot and then onto Montclair's playground.
For the first many weeks I was unable to bring Ayla, as Lydia had me walking her all the way onto the blacktop and waiting with her there until the bell rang. When she would look at me sadly, make sure I had given her "kissing hands" ( I kiss each palm so she has them to press to her face all day as needed) and would trudge through the door getting lost in the pushing crowd.
As you know, these were tough weeks for us both.
Today, 4 months in, Ayla and I left her by the big tree on the field and her newly 9 year old self walked off carrying her class project, backpack dwarfing her little self. I kept looking back to make sure she knew I was still with her. But that big kid just kept going, facing forward. Sigh.

The project was due today. I found the notice from her teacher, that was sent home last Friday, Monday afternoon in her backpack. This was our first taste of rushing to get a project done, letting her do it and have to go to bed on time. We were pretty stressed, but it got finished and she was in bed relatively on time. You may not know this, but Jupiter has 63 moons. I helped by straightening 63 paper clips and shoving 63 marshmallows on the ends.

12/16/13

It is almost 2 a.m. I fell asleep with Lydia by 7:30 and woke up when Ed came to bed around 11:30. Let me tell you why! We had Lydia's 9th birthday party Saturday night. She doesn't know yet, but we bought her some Uggs for her birthday, so I was trying to keep the party cost minimal to compensate, as well as the fact that we live in a small space right now. She decided a little impromptu gathering with a few girls at Chuck E Cheese and then a sleepover with two girls(all we could fit in our car) would be fine.
The combination of these two girls, as well as the dynamic of three little girls together, as I figured it would, backfired. We had some lotta drama. There were tears and hurt feelings all over the place.
The emotional whiplash! Ed and I were exhausted!
Lydia ended up sleeping with us, one friend in her bed and one in her closet/fort where they all started off.
Apparently the other two were up in the middle of the night sneaking clay into her room and playing.
Lydia got up at 7 and we were off again from there, until 11 when I drove them home.
After that we did some running around as a family and I was very surprised that Lydia held it together so well! She was great!
Holy crap what a couple of days.
The count down is on. School all week, then Saturday we will get on the road for the 16 hour drive to San Diego. We will be there for two days, drive to L.A. for the holiday, stay a few days, turn around and go back to S.D. for the remainder of the break and then turn around to do the 16 hour drive back.  Ayla will be with us, it's so nice to not have to kennel her.
We will miss being in Ct. with our people there, but are excited for the adventure that awaits.

12/5/13 Post Script!

Ed and I had the BEST time tonight! We saw The Moth at the same venue where we saw The Portland Youth Philharmonic play last month. It is a great hall! "The Arlene Schnitzer", it's beautiful as well as not too large. I can't remember the last time I was this excited!
The show opened pretty much on time with music from Gideon Freudmann on his electric cello. His music has been in some Weeds episodes as well as on NPR. It sounded pretty cool.
He played for just a bit and they kept the show rolling right along.
The host, Dan Kennedy was funny. There were three speakers, intermission and then two more. When the show ended we were out of there in no time. For those that are unaware, when I am done eating, I am ready to head for the door, I don't want to have to stand behind the same head for half an hour trying to get to the door.
Anyway, it was fabulous

12/5/13

I have certainly been remiss in my posting! Though to be fair, not a whole lot has happened. You don't care that we bought Lydia new socks.
Anyway, I got some pix organized and will share below. SO, last weekend we left at our usual late morning hour and headed for Seattle in time for dinner with Chris and Matt and Matt's sister Audrey. We checked into the hotel at about 5. We stayed at the Hotel Monaco on 4th street, near the Fisherman's Wharf, down a bit from Pike Market. Ed found the hotel on Hotwire, and it made our vacation a success on it's own! It was new and clean, beautiful and beautifully situated! We were across from the new library on one side and the water and new ferris wheel on the other, see pix to follow!
We met the family for 6:30, which is a late dinner for Lydia, but she did very well! It took some time, but she opened up and got silly with Chris. The food was lovely, as was our visit. We had hoped to get together again on our way back south, but the traveling turned out to be a little harder than anticipated. So we will have to make plans for another time.
We went back to the hotel and took Ayla for a walk and then returned for sleep. Ed and Lydia woke and went out for a walk in the morning and we got on the road, I want to say around 9. Not sure. In any case the drive to Vancouver was much longer than we thought it would be. We finally got to the border and while sitting in line, lost our coverage. There was to be no more until we drove back over Saturday.
Customs always makes me nervous, I have a guilt thing when accusations hang in the air, even if I know nothing! We had no GPS and no directions to where we were staying. We knew it was North Vancouver, so we drove through Stanley Park and found the Marina area, we drove around trying to get close to the water where the Floating home would be. We did have to stop and ask for directions, an electrician working on power lines, one would think they know the area. No. We drove 20 feet away from him and there was a large sign for the Mosquito Creek Marina. No mosquitos. Ed called the owner from the security mans phone and while we waited for him, took a walk to a nearby park. When we met Jeffrey Speed the Barrister, he opened his mouth and I swear I heard Norm MacDonald talking. He took us down to his floating house, gave us the dime tour and left us to it. It was really cute and just right for us. I found it strange that his things hung in the closet and his deodorant was on the sink and his soap in the shower. It felt like we were staying at a friends house while they were out of town.
The place had skylights in the living room,and kitchen, there was a loft above the kitchen with doors leading to the rooftop deck, where we ate dinner that night. The bedroom was smallish, but a had a high, very cozy bed. We all slept well. After the neighbor finished using his power tools.
Lydia and I were taking Ayla out after dark and heard something large plop into the water by the next house, nothing surfaced and we never figured out what it might have been!
There was a beautiful Heron who stood in the dark in the bay nearby, hoping no one would see him,  I watched him for a while, making him nervous.
The drive up was absolutely gorgeous, the mountains were huge and jagged and covered in snow, the sky was a stark blue. When we woke on Friday, we were surrounded by fog, and remained so until we left Saturday. The rain came in Friday around dinner time. We started the day by driving to the Lynn Canyon Park. Where we walked across the suspension bridge, Ed ignoring his strong fear of heights! And then walked through the woods. Afterwards we dropped Ayla off and drove through Stanley Park, stopping at the Hollow Tree, a 7-8 hundred year old hollow tree stump, one of the beaches where the water was clean and clear, and then over to Granville Island. It used to be an industrial section, and is still partially so. Now it is a funky area with shops and crafters, and a public market, as well as a seafood market. It was Christmassy and fun. They had a whole mini mall for kids stuff. We drove back to the Marina, let Ayla do her business and walked down the way to catch the Sea bus across to downtown. We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant, sitting at the window, watching people pass in the rain. Afterwards we did some walking, found an indoor mall, walked some more and then took a rainy walk back to catch the Sea bus home.
We woke Saturday morning and hit the road by 10 or 11 I think. It took awhile to find our way back to the border, but once we crossed it was easier driving and we discovered that we had phone coverage again!
We were too late for lunch with the boys, we drove into Freemont around 4 I think, Ed popped into Dusty Strings to look at the Mandolins quickly, we grabbed some lunch next door and after a quick climb on the Troll under the bridge, were back on the road. I can't remember when we got home, but it had been a long day on the road and it was nice to be home. We even found a parking space near our building! That doesn't usually happen after dark.
We are back at the grind now and getting ready for our Christmas journey to Southern California.
Tonight we have a sitter coming, Ed and I are going to see The Moth live. It is an NPR podcast where people tell a personal story based on the evenings theme. I have been looking forward to this for months!
Okay, I need to try to get some pictures up here. Let's see how it goes.