Happy Birthday, Theron!

6 years! More and better pictures later. Now we must rest up to turn the kitchen into a rice crispy treat factory.

Aaaggghhh!!! Need more time!

Cake - check
Now he's asking for jello, too!
Harry Potter costume - not meant to be
Oven - no, but Miss Leslie says rice crispy treats are fine. 5 trays of them
Present wrapping - will commence shortly
Capes - need to be tidied up
Thursday - scheduled for 2 interns who need 100% of my time and another who needs to be talked off a ledge. Fortunately it is a good excuse to miss two whole meetings where I'm really not needed anyway.

Tonight Theron asked Ashley if he could have ice cream, and Ash said, "Well, I think since you stuck your tongue out at your teacher today you won't be having ice cream" and Theron said something like, "You said you 'think', that means you have doubt about it". I think, something like that. Also he and Ash were having a silly conversation this week and Theron says, "Do you want me to wear a DRESS??!! Because it would be my pleasure!" Ash can't remember where that came from.

To Do List

Order cake - asap
Wrap presents - before Wed am
Find a Harry Potter costume???!!! before Wed!!!???
Take back library books - today!
Finish sewing new capes for Theron and his two birthday guests - asap
Get stove fixed- by Thursday
Bake 10 dozen cookies for Theron's school fundraiser - Thursday night
Take cookies in Friday morning
Work at school fundraiser Saturday
Plan for a pinata Theron told me he wanted today, but that Miss Leslie says would be better done next week.

In between: Have a nice glass of wine, finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Catching Up

Sorry for the lag in posts. It's been very busy around here, but in fine ways. Here we are last Friday night at the Edendale for Lalena's birthday. That's Theron's light saber on the table. It was a big hit though other people were disappointed they didn't know ahead of time that they could bring their light sabers, too.
This is last Saturday night at Echo Park, 3 blocks away. Fireworks at the park for the Lotus Festival. Low stress and so fun. Earlier in the day we saw the new Harry Potter movie!!! Theron and I are reading 3, Prisoner of Azkahban now and, of course, the new one we pre-ordered BETTER be here Saturday!!!

Sunday Rebecca and I went to the Felt Club craft fair. Here's another one of those chicky murals that was across the street. We went early because we heard that the first 250 would get a gift bag and we wanted that bag. When we got there the line was around the block. We figured we missed out.
But we were wrong! Here's only some of the free stuff we got. There were also lots of stickers, and buttons and a pattern, and lime popsicle lipgloss. Oh, boy, were we happy. Then we went to the lab so Rebecca could get caught up on a treatment and I could work on the group quilt we made for Terri's going away present.
Here is the finished product. The party was today and I finished it this morning.
Here's a detail that shows the totem pole backing fabric, which everyone seemed to love as much as the front. I'll post details on Flickr - there were some really fun contributions. I actually can't believe it ever came together. This was the hardest thing I've ever tried to do. For some reason I could not get the math function in my brain to work so it is sheer dumb luck that I had enough fabric to pull it of. The purple fabric - I only had tiny scraps left over. I had to eye it. I kept trying to do the calculations, or drawing with graph paper, etc, but in the end I had to guess and just believe. Also, there is no where in our house I can lay out a queen sized blanket except for our bed so poor Ashley had to remake the bed every night to go to sleep (and hopefully neither of us will run into any stray pins but if there are some I hope they're on my side!). I haven't done anything this big in a about 5 years so I was also seriously undercalculating the time needed to finish. When Rebecca and I went to the lab I figured three hours and I would be done. Instead I came home with an armful of fabric pieces and at least 4 more full days of work. Ashley nodded patiently and said "You never learn, do you?". No I don't. However by the last day I accurately predicted 6 more hours to finish and I was right, almost on the dot.
And really it was worth it because Terri was overwhelmed with joy. Her mother was a quilter and I know of all people she will appreciate it forever. And we love her truly. Working on the quilt and stressing out over it everyday has been good stress displacement because I couldn't stop to think about the great loss. But now I can. Tomorrow is her last day and there is no replacement yet (as if) and things are just going to be very hard for awhile because she did so much, not to mention that she has been one of my most dearest friends. But she is off to Texas, to a fabulous new job and a piece of land her Randy is going to build a house on for her. So we have to be happy for her.

The Circle of Life or Something

Well, the possibility that Alan can join us for festivities the night of Theron's birthday looks really good. It is a Wednesday, but Alan's mommy suggested a location near their house that will make it easier for them and Ash and I would drive anywhere to see those two together. One more suggestion for a gift would be the video called James and the Giant Peach. We checked it out of the library this weekend and he is just falling all over himself - he acts out the scenes, it's so funny.

Saturday I actually left the house by myself to go to a concert with the intern extraordinaire, Rebecca. The headliner was the Decemberists with the LA Phil, playing with Band of Horses and Andrew Bird. We went to see Andrew Bird, but the rest of the show was great, too. It was at the Bowl so both of us went to the Bowl two times in one week. We bought the cheapest seats and we were in the LAST row, but it was really fun. We brought a bottle of wine and the night was beautiful. Also Rebecca is really funny and inspiring. Lately she's been re-doing all her clothes, either tailoring them or dyeing them. She has a cauldron-sized pot. Last week she did indigo. I love Rebecca because I have a lot of ideas but they're not fleshed out. Rebecca can take a good idea and run with it. She's actually helping me work on a project I've had on the backburner for years. Anyway... There were a bunch of 16 year old girls next to us, obviously the Decemberists biggest fans. They must have stopped at Trader Joe's on the way. The had two bottles of sparkling water sodas, a bag of chips, a whole angel food cake they were eating out of the container and a large jar of what looked to be spaghetti sauce, though I'm sure it was salsa, it was funnier to imagine it was sauce. They were dancing on the bench in their high heels and singing along. Like the old and practical person I guess I am now, I said we had to leave when the encore started to ensure an easy exit and the girls were very sweet about letting us by. It gives me hope, there are good kids out there.

Sunday we found a baby bird that had fallen out of a nest. At first I thought it was dead, then it sat up and shook its head like a miniature marionette. While I was on hold waiting to talk to someone at animal control I touched the baby with the antennae of the portable phone. I did this because I (MISTAKENLY I now know) thought if you touch a baby bird with your hands the moms will reject them. This turns out not to be true, touching the bird is not bad for them, but it might be bad for you. The instant I touched him about 100 teeny, tiny mites swarmed over the phone. So I hung up. The phone is now in a plastic bag to make sure I actually got them all. In the meantime we went inside to see about making a little nest out of a butter container and some paper towels, but he didn't make it. Fortunately we were able to keep Theron out of the whole thing. We wondered if maybe the fact that the baby was crawling with mites had something to do with why he ended up on the ground or that he didn't survive it for long. But it was still sad.

Fireworks
Lucky us, we got free tickets from my work for the Hollywood Bowl to see a tribute to John Wayne and Gene, along with a fireworks spectacular. We packed a nice little dinner: fried chicken, cheese and crackers, angel food cake and strawberries, a bottle of Prosecco and a thermos of beer. It was a beautiful night. It was easy getting there using the shuttle from the zoo, we brought cushions and jackets. In the picture Theron is sitting there watching cartoons on the Ipod to get us through the last 20 minutes before the show started. The bad part was leaving. Poor Theron in that sea of people that seemed endless. It was about 11 when we finally got home and he petitioned for a condensed bedtime routine that included book reading, but not toothbrushing. Request denied. It didn't matter anyway because he basically put on his pajamas and closed his eyes, fini.

This last week I looked into getting Theron signed up for soccer. We finally got word that space was available and we could register him. We thought we'd better ask Theron to be sure we weren't imagining that he would like it, and he told Ashley "I can hardly wait!".

Busman's Holiday

Friday was so great! A few of us took a field trip to visit Kate at the Hammer. Here's an action shot of her showing us this awesome ceramic car.

The new show Eden's Edge is AMAZING. The only thing I hated about the art is that I didn't think of it first. I also hated that we didn't have more time, but I'll go back. I told Ashley he HAS TO GO, too - it is very inspirational.

Anyway we all went to lunch at a Persian restaurant and shared a variety of dishes. The table was so full of food Terri had the bowl of pita in her lap. When it was all over the total per person with tip was only $9! Oh, and did I mention it was DIVINE???

The rest of the weekend was full of household tasks and quality of life improvement. Theron and Ashley got the kiddy pool set up today. Ahhh... But hey, how did it get to be July? Do I say this every month? Oh, here are a few things Theron would like for his birthday:
- he likes tank tops, but he only has 1 - he is a perfect 4T. Also he needs shorts and pants, and he prefers them to be pull-on.
- extras would be gummy candies, especially assortments from those places that sell by the pound.
- sunglasses
- summer hat, not a baseball cap.
- He says "anything Spiderman, or Superman, or Batman, or Fantastic Four, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or anything else interesting".
- a subscription to a Nickelodeon magazine, or a children's magazine called Spider.
- probably impossible, but if anyone can find good kid's sheets in Queen, he would like that. I've never seen Spiderman bigger than a Twin.
I'll think of more...


Happy Birthday, Michael! Welcome to 40!