Thursday, February 28, 2008



The birds

Yesterday at Theron's school I saw a flock of wild parrots. Of course it was the one day I didn't have a camera. But we have our own beautiful birds at work. The native gardens around the building attract the most gorgeous little creatures. Here is a flowering bush.


What you can't see are all the little yellow birds going crazy on the blooms. When I got closer they flew away but until then it was like a fairy tale Christmas tree. Here are some grainy closeups from the same picture. My heart... they are so sweet.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008


Pictures from Scott's pirate birthday party.

Theron started harmonica lessons and learned the scales. If he works hard he gets to have a real chromatic harmonica. I hope he can hang on and do it. He really wants to be good NOW.

Not much has really been going on: Theron has a new loose tooth, Ashley had a birthday. Theron was excited to find a card that had a donkey with jiggly eyes that said Happy Birthday from your smart ass kid. I replenished my library hold list and started reading a recommendation from Naomi, Kafka on the Shore, which is already, just a few chapters in, so amazing.
Otherwise ho hum, not much of note...

Monday, February 18, 2008

President's Day
I would say Saturday and Sunday were pretty good overall considering neither Ashley nor I had to go to work. Since that has not happened for a while things were off to a good start. Sunday we all took a long walk and took pictures. Monday Ashley had to work while Theron and I were off, so I planned a surprise outing to Kidspace in Pasadena. When I told him we were going out he wasn't really that happy since he was in the middle of his online pirate game where he was trying to get to Cuba to pick up a voodoo doll. But he got over it. Here he is at Kidspace pretending to be an ant...
Climbing a tower



Serving up food at the Bug Cafe. Those kids were working hard. No sooner had we finished the Water Beetle Sushi than they were bringing over a fresh Dung Beetle Poo Poo Platter. They were busing the tables like pros.
Here he is in the water pretending to be King Kong looking for fish.
Then we came home and I bottled up some of my homemade grog for Scott's Pirate birthday party - Apple and Blueberry. Just joking! I buy my grog at Trader Joe's and paste my own label on it.


Friday, February 15, 2008


Art and Culture Week

these lights at night

This week many of us at work went to the member's opening of the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum, BCAM, at LACMA. You know, it's pretty much the exact opposite of the collection we normally see everyday, and it was very fun. Probably everyone's favorite was a Robert Therrien piece that is a giant table and chairs. Giant. You walk underneath and it's so delightful.

Wednesday after school I took Theron by the music school to meet my teacher. We've been a little worried about Theron's musical abilities, but my teacher says it's all just work and the most important thing is to get him started on something he really wants to learn. One thing he has talked about a lot is the harmonica and this is one of the many instruments my instructor teaches. So, it was very cute. Keith gave Theron (gave him) an inexpensive harmonica and told him it was his but he had to promise to play it. Then he taught him some fundamentals, such as that harmonica players don't suck, they draw. When Keith opened the case with his beautiful chromatic harmonica Theron looked like one of those cartoon wolves with the bulging eyes, heart-shaped pupils, tongue hanging out. He was told that if he's serious about playing this is the kind of instrument he will be using. He played some music for him and Theron spun around and collapsed in giggles. He will start lessons next week. In the meantime he's been using it a lot. He's composed something he calls The Popular Song and he is inventing a code: hole 4 means I love you, hole 6 means I understand, and hole 10 means I'm sleepy.

For Valentine's Day Ash helped Theron buy me a very thoughtful card and chocolate. Ashley and I made each other cds of our favorite new songs. I LOVE the cd he made me, probably my favorite track is Chuck Prophet's Freckle Song.

Monday, February 11, 2008

And now it's too hot... Saturday it was 86 degrees so we went to the park where they had 70 tons of manmade snow.



Monday, February 04, 2008

Can a person freeze at 50 degrees? We're beginning to think so, what big babies we are. This morning Theron and I bounced out of the house into the glorious sunshine and half a block away we realized we were icicles. Theron zipped up his coat and announced he was now bullet-proof.


In spite of the fact that both Ashley and I had to work this weekend it was still fun in places. We spent a few hours at the Natural History Museum per Theron's request. He was getting mad at us though because we failed to give the appropriate responses. The correct response was "Cool!" , etc. Also, we were rushing through the dioramas of mammals and Theron yelled at us for not giving him time to "read the inches and diets". He was mad at the coyote for eating a house cat.


Sunday I got to go to my orchestra lesson. I'm four times older than many of the participants. The teacher makes me laugh, though he's not trying. It's not all music instruction. A lot of it is him saying, "Stop kicking. Stop kicking. Stop kicking. Put your hand down. Turn off the phone and put it away". I know it's not really funny, but I'm amused. Also, though, it is really fun.

While Ashley was at work Sunday, Theron came out of his room and asked when his birthday is. I told him, he said thanks and went back to his room, shutting the door. After a few minutes I went to see what was going on. Theron was trying to sign up for an online Pirates of the Carribean game. He would have never managed it, but we did have to have the little talk about using the internet. He's 6! It's bad enough that time passes so fast we can barely keep up with one emergency to the next. Theron's advancement to second grade makes us feel like we've literally lost a year of his life. I know it sounds unreasonable, but in 7 months he starts 3rd grade!!! ??? Sunrise, sunset! Oh, well, maybe later this summer he can finally get us set up for wireless printing.

Oh, I finished all but one of my library books, so any recommendations, I'm ready for more. There's only one pending on my hold list now.