M2′s 9th birthday is Friday. I don’t know how that happened so fast.

Out front I saw a fat varied thrush and a smallish looking robin.

I may have bit off more than I can chew on something at work, but I think… It’s not that I can’t do it, I’ve just never done it and it’s a fairly ginormous recommendation for someone in my position to be making. The VP and Sr. Product manager leading the project are working together to figure out the other recommendation coming out of this initiative. I wish I had a buddy too. I think I have good resources that will be able to provide me with some guidance so I’m going to see what I can do and if i can’t get where I need to go because I don’t have visibility, I’ll have to (gah!) ask for help. Learning opportunity.

Watching Man, Woman, Wild. Missing half of it, so distracted by what’s on my mind and the cabin fever setting in with the snow. Oh. And it’s over. Time for the babies to go to bed, and then me to putter about a bit longer.

With the snow the last few days, I put out bird food on the deck. No one. This afternoon as I was shoveling our walk, I noticed two tiny footprints at the edge of the front step so I put another little bowl of food and warm water on the front step. I peeked out the window a while later and had two robins. I think they’ll be back tomorrow. I hung the seed bird feeder in front of the kitchen window instead of out the back window. The food is also still on the deck, and the front step.

I think until the little hummingbird, the only bird I’d seen in our yard since we moved was a dead varied thrush that we buried out in the only small bush in the back yard. I’m glad to see some birds. There have been a few squirrels too, but not many. I think better landscaping will help. The fellow that was the landlord here before we bought the house let the ivy go kinda crazy and then round-upped the place. There is almost no underbrush. I think we might want to have someone come out and help us with what to do with the yard. It’s big and has awesome potential.

Up too late. Again. Listening to Mark Lanegan. Again. So beautiful. If I lived alone, I’d play along, but I don’t and everyone is asleep & that’s ok because I would probably more think about it and not quite get around to doing it. Maybe. But it sounds like a good idea, like so many things this time of night. Gardening, going for a bike ride, candle lit bath, playing one of my guitars, singing…

Time to suck it up and go to bed though.

It went off without a hitch. This story requires a tiny bit of set up. Jaina and I met a zillion years ago on Lopez. Many years she goes back up to Lopez at various times of year, and occasionally helps out with their Community Shakespeare productions. This year the little kids (1-8th grade) were doing The Tempest, and the older kids were doing The Merry Wives of Windsor. I thought the girls would like The Tempest and love an adventuresome visit to Jaina so I got everything in order and P made trip reservations. Somehow I managed to keep this secret until…

6am (otherwise known as dark o’clock on a Saturday morning). We woke them up with “Time to rise and shine, young ladies, if we’re going to make it to Jaina’s in time for lunch!” Marian’s response was, “reallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreally!?!?!?!?” Yes, reallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreally. We told them to bring puppy & kitty, and Phil (M2′s beloved, bedraggled stuffed groundhog). M2 wanted to know what time the ferry was going to pick us up. I told her we had to drive to the ferry, and then drive the car ON to the ferry. Her eyes got wide, then wider as she took in the implications of driving a car on to a ferry. I told her the ferry carried lots of cars and was a really really big boat. She said, “I guess so!”Then we dropped the bomb that we were also spending the night at an inn. Jaina had plenty going on, and the girls never get to spend the night in hotels, so it would be an extra treat. I packed their suitcase the previous weekend so as not to trigger suspicions.

And then at 6:30, we were off to the Anacortes ferry dock. Which was cold. P mocked me for retreating to the car, but it was really really cold. He marched the girls up and down the ferry line and took them to see if they could see the ferry coming in. M1 eventually spotted it & then they came back and steamed up my car. As promised, we drove the car on to the ferry. Once we pulled away from the dock, P took the girls to the front to look out the window. It doesn’t seem like 17 knots/h (about 20 mph) is all that fast… until you’re standing at the front of the boat. Once he was done, I took them up to the second passenger level & pointed out that there was another level for the steering cabins too, just for the benefit of seeing M2′s eyes widen again at the size of the boat. And then it was time to land.

From Lopez

We drove off the ferry and proceeded to Holly B’s Bakery for cinnamon rolls (the best cinnamon rolls in the world). It’s an island tradition. And that was the place that baked P’s and my wedding cake too. Jaina showed up, we ducked into the little cafe next door for chai, then went and checked into the inn. Jaina waited while we unloaded our stuff, then we followed her to her house for the promised lunch. On the way we stopped at the tiny church that we got married in (top picture there, the cemetery across the street owns the church). The little church only holds about 50 people total, so between family and friends, we had it pretty well filled. Later we came back and found the microcache at the site too.

From Lopez

Lunch was wonderful. Yoram made a “roadside” salmon (Jaina said it was the weirdest roadside stand she’d ever seen with salmon, shellfish, and some other non-fruit or produce goods), an excellent potato salad, and broccoli. I baked bread to bring with us, so we had that as well. It was cozy & lovely & we soon found it time for Jaina to head into town, and we followed, M2 fell asleep in the car. We dropped Yoram off in town, then took M2 back to the inn to sleep (dark o’clock and lots of excitement is very early for a little girl!). Paul and M1 ventured into the village for a bit, then it was time for The Tempest!

The kids all did really well, despite three of the cast being knocked out by chicken pox (can’t get either more community than that, or more classic story about community plays!). The subs did a fine job and it was a lot of fun to see. Jaina was the stage manager. The performance was done ‘in-the-round’, and every time M2 heard Jaina’s voice behind the curtains, she’d say, “MOM! I hear JAINA!” And every time the lights dimmed, and the set was changed, she’d point Jaina’s dark figure out as well. It was all very exciting.

After the performance, we went and fetched dinner from the Galley, then back to the inn. I think we were all pretty much asleep by 9:45.

M2 with Phil in his “bed”.

From Lopez

Both girls curled up and giggling way too hard to go to sleep.

From Lopez

Alas, they did not sleep in. They woke up at 6:30 in the morning. Dark o’clock, as far as I’m concerned. On the upside, there was a Muppet movie on the tv to distract them while we tried to snooze a little more, and then we were off to Jaina’s for breakfast. Tasty local farm eggs, scrambled, and fresh from the oven ginger scones for breakfast. NOM. Then we walked down to the beach. Or rather, we walked to where the beach would be, had it not been a winter high tide. There was approximately two feet of beach. Quilty, one of Jaina’s cats, walked all the way down there with us, and back. Apparently she’s followed Jaina all the way down to another further away beach as well. Quilty is a funny and most adorable cat.

Eventually all good things must come to an end. We left and picked up a few more cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and then hit the ferry landing. Found one of the ferry godmother caches while waiting, then boarded our ferry for home. Eventually the sun broke through briefly, allowing M1 to take this shot as a beautiful end to a beautiful weekend.

From Lopez

In other news:

• I love my new job. It has it’s challenges, but they’re good challenges and I work with good people.
• M2 is finishing off the last of her medicine for a strep throat diagnosis that turned out to be staph instead. Not the whatsit resistant one, “they usually tell us when it’s that”, just run of the mill. Makes me wonder if that’s what it was the times last year when it was diagnosed as “Not Strep.” I might have to ask from here on out assuming treatment is required for it. It looks and hurts suspiciously similarly…
• Our back deck is now finished and stained. Hoorah! It looks so nice. Now that we’re past the dog days of summer and starting into my favorite season of fall. Not that I didn’t get a massive sunburn on my shoulders. UGH.
• Mmmmmm, fall…
• We went and saw Julie & Julia. It was lovely. We followed it with dinner at Persimmon where we were the only people in the restaurant until about five minutes before we left. The lovely owner brought us two candles to sit at our table with us, since we were re-attempting our anniversary dinner. The dinner was perfect & tasty. It really could not have been lovelier.
• The prior weekend I had a gyrokinesis class with the ever charming Mia. There wasn’t really any doubt in my mind that I would love it. Now I’m just plotting how to get a regular fix. The length of class I want is at the same time I *should* be sitting/exercising at the Y while the little girls take swimming lessons. I could take a class half as long, but… it’s half as long! Anyway. LOVE. No surprise. I am what I am, for sure.
• I gave the tortle a new home this weekend. She has responded by burying herself gleefully in the dirt. She comes out to eat, wade, bask, & wander around, and then buries herself under her little log again.
• Aaand, I think that’s about it. Probably stuff most of y’ins reading this already knew…

Next week I am free! FREE!! FREEEE!!!! I have to get the front bearings in my car fixed, go to the spa, try to find a home for various things in my house, get new fish for the bedroom tank (and a new right light for the living room one)… and more stuff than anyone should probably pretend to try to cram into a week. Which means I won’t get a bunch of stuff done. Ah well. Maybe at least watch some bewitched… Heh.

So I’m just off the BG Trail at home & 13 miles down BG is where I start work come the 22nd. I want an electric bike. Really badly. It just seems like a good thing to do rather than trying to find parking or bus an hour and a freaking half each way. I know. 13 miles — 1.5 hours. LAME.

Oof. M1 wants to know what the tooth fairy does with all the teeth. We also had the discussion last night about whether or not tooth fairies were like dentists — ie, not a single tooth fairy for the entire world, but a number of tooth fairies serving a local region. This whole fairy thing is starting to get complicated! We’re on our third envelope now, although lately they’ve been leaving notes on the white board we brought home from storage. Crap. I don’t know what the tooth fairy does with all the teeth!

The ending game of tag in the parking lot was really entertaining. Towards the end of it, M2 went to my car to get a drink of water & she was rummaging around in the car trunk looking for it, crawling all the way in. I came over to see what she was after, and her Daisy troop leader came over too. She finally found what she was looking for, we goofed around a little bit, then M2 hops out of the trunk, looks up at her Much Loved Leader, gets that devilish, impish look in her eye like she’s up to something, and says, “I’m still IT!”, smacks her leader with tag & runs off giggling hysterically with glee at her sneakiness.

After we got home, there was dinner with M1′s best friend & her family. It’s so nice to live close enough to friends that we can just walk over. We drove over — by EOD, my feet were in no shape for walking even another quarter mile… which means I had to be ok to drive home & C mixes a pitcher of drinks when we go over. :) I mixed up The Blue Drink after that & because it’s all alcohol she & I couldn’t drink it on top of the previous pitcher so I dumped mine, I imagine she dumped hers, and P pounded his after accusing me of alcohol abuse. But I had to drive home & he didn’t. They’re a very sweet family & dinners with them are always so nice. It’s nice that they also have kids that get along with our kids.

I guess I’d better get up & look around & see what needs to get done today that got totally ignored yesterday. I’d rather take a nap. The hike-y thing was tiring! Sounds like the little girls just met the new neighbors next door. They seem to have a four-year old daughter. M2 is very excited.

I have a full 6×4″ envelope full of these little letters. I’m going to have to shift to a bigger envelope soon, or at least another one. Once M1 asked me if fairies really exist. The only possible answer had to be ‘as long as there are children to believe in them, of any age…’ Did I mention so sweet!?

Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies.

Peter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was night time; but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland, and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees.

“Do you believe?” he cried.

Tink sat up in bed almost briskly to listen to her fate.

She fancied she heard answers in the affirmative, and then again she wasn’t sure.

“What do you think?” she asked Peter.

“If you believe,” he shouted to them, “clap your hands; don’t let Tink die.”

Many clapped.

Some didn’t.

A few beasts hissed.

The clapping stopped suddenly; as if countless mothers had rushed to their nurseries to see what on earth was happening; but already Tink was saved. First her voice grew strong, then she popped out of bed, then she was flashing through the room more merry and impudent than ever. She never thought of thanking those who believed, but she would have like to get at the ones who had hissed.
–JM Barrie, The Adventures of Peter Pan

The little girls have been writing letters to the fairies lately. M1, ever inquisitive… & considering how little 19th century/early 20th century reading she’s done, she sounds funnily formal & Edwardian. “Dearest fairy friends… xoxo, lovely fairies, M1.” And M2, who is sounding words out, learning to write, and not always realizing that you can’t just write words any which way to get them on the paper…

I wishd at
I was a
yraf
2.”
[*adorable* picture of a little fairy-person.]

Each girl has a fairy they correspond with. The first night they wrote, M1 hid the letters outside in one of the rosemary bushes & in the lavender. The first night, “Rosemary” & “Bee” wrote back & said, “We hide inside at night because the cold makes our wings ache!” and left their response perched precariously in the little lemon bush. I am, of course, collecting as many of the correspondences as I can find when they’ve been read & set aside. They’ve also built fairy houses outside. It’s oddly sweet.

I’ve been very good since we joined the Y. Aside from the week that I was miserably sick, I’ve made my goal of exercising 4 times each week. I’m pleased by this. This is good. I’m probably not stretching enough. I’ll get there.

M2 just sounded out my shirt. “So what does this say? Goooo-gooooool Mooooorrrbelllloooooow. Gogol morbellow.” Gogol Bordello. “Oh. Gogol morbellow.” < runs off > Gonna have to start watching out for both of them reading email/etc over my shoulder pretty soon & not just M1.

Lots to do this weekend. We have an open house tomorrow & have noticed that our house is starting to look “lived in” again. I.e., not in showroom condition. It’s hard after two years to keep the house in showroom condition all the time with two kids. So on today’s agenda: clean. Clean the kitchen. Clean the bathroom. Clean the living room. Clean the girls’ bedroom. Dust our bedroom. Clean downstairs. Clean the fish tanks. Put away laundry. Sweep. Mop. All that other stuff that goes along with all that. Also need to run to my parents’ house & water their plants & pick up my sewing machine. And go exercise. Collapse in a heap at end of day…

Tomorrow we go see what’s on the market before the open house, then… something. I’m not entirely sure what we’ll do during the open house. Hopefully get some food & after a reasonable digestion time go exercise some more…

But for now, to get the whole thing started, I need to clean the kitchen, then find something to eat. Maybe do both things simultaneouslyish. A day filled with cleaning adventure & latex gloves. Why do I never get to use latex gloves for anything fun?