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

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

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.

Silly people are naming different products with virtually undistinguishable names again, and then the product groups who call these things even *less* distinguishable names freak out when customers get confused about the difference between the virtually indistinguishable *other* product & demand name changes. You’d think someone in legal & brand would catch these things, no? You know, when you manage to confuse the taxonomist for two hours about the difference between two different products because the names are so similar, that’s *bad news* for your brand identity, people.

M1 is hemming her own pants these days. Or rather attempting to. I still have to pin, thread, knot, tie off, but she’s content to do the basting stitch that holds the hem in place. This latest pair of pants is boot cut & she wasn’t happy with how the hem was turning out. I convinced her to just roll them up though, I think. I know, dorky, but her legs are growing so fast that the pants we hemmed at floor length five months ago are now distinctly high waters.

TimTheCat seems to have forgiven me for clipping his fingernails yesterday. I don’t do it often because he really hates it, but… dude gets scythes & he’s a burly dude. I still have scars from the first time I tried to clip his nails when he was about five months old on the top of my hand. The span of his paw then with everything extended was nearly as wide as my hand. My father-in-law said while they were fresh, “Looks like the cat won.” Nope. I won. I got my way & kitteh didn’t. Heh.

Yada yada ya. Woo!

After everything stopped gushing, P went upstairs to read & listen to music (big headaches + noisy splashy swimming pools just don’t mix), and the girls & I went swimming. M2 is getting braver about the whole getting her face wet, I think a few more times noodling around in the pool & she might be ok with swimming lessons. I hope. I know. So domestic.

Tomorrow such exciting things as fish tank cleaning & general house cleaning. And then going back to the Y so the little girls will stop begging. It’s new. You know.

In other completely unsurprising news, I <3 Dethklok.

I finished the book I was reading, borrowed from a friend at work: The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature. It was interesting, mostly for the natural world facts along the way. Kinda preaching to the choir as far as the message goes — yeah, sustainability. I don’t need justification for sustainability. I get it. So, it was an interesting read, but not really world view changing. Now I have to decide what to read next. I have a huge stack of books to read. I have the original Girl Scout handbook which I’ll probably read in bits and pieces interspersed between the other stuff, but the three I’m trying to decide between that I just can’t seem to settle on one — Information Ethics: Privacy, Property, and Power by Adam D. Moore, Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition by Umberto Eco, or Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences by Bowker & Star. I want to read all of them at once & that… I think that would just be not good. Since I have been trying to decide what to read next since, like, Xmas, I’m going to go alphabetically. No, I think actually I just want to start with Info Ethics because that’s where I think I want to start, because when I thought about going with LoC classification, which would have given me Sorting Things Out, and I decided I preferred to go with alphabetical, so I seem to have *some* preference here. Info Ethics it is. Woo! Been a while since I read any Eco, but after 18 years, I’m still a little stung from having a professor snidely say ‘oh semiotics is so two years ago, now it’s all about deconstruction.” Pretty sure he said it to be a jackass, but w’evs. Both are interesting theories.

ANYWAY. I’ve apparently decided what to read next. Did I mention I love Dethklok? I love Dethklok.

From M2LostToof

Yep. Them’s my girls!

From ChristmasAndNewYears

Then I rushed home from that to take the little girls off to their first Girl Scout field trip. They went to the Experience Music Project (EMP). It would seem that my girls aren’t the only girls that rock there. They got to play instruments… one little girl while playing guitar says, “It would be better if this thing had a whammy bar.” I didn’t get to play anything but I didn’t whine about it. I helped various girls poke & pluck at things though & messed around with a lot of amps adjusting things though. They all got to make a music video. They picked out “I Love Rock & Roll” & didn’t even let the guy finish his list of song options. When asked for the band name, they started out wanting Flaming Skulls & Snakes (serious!) but ultimately decided on Girls Rule, which the guy changed to Girlz Rule because the Z at the end of Girls was more “rock”. After that they went & wandered through the Sci-Fi museum in the bottom. It was a fun time. M2 fell asleep two minutes from home wouldn’t wake up to come into the house, so I carried her in & she slept on the couch for an hour & a half or so. I’m so glad they’ve got the troop leaders they have. They’re really good at what they do & I believe they’ll be excellent role models for my girls to look up to. They already are. M2 did her best to copy one of the leader’s tattoos (an =) on her leg (troop leader’s is on her arm). And in general, they’re just so excited to have the opportunity to work with the girls that it’s really awesome to see. So often the troop leader is an exhausted parent who is doing it because no one else is doing it, rather than because they’re excited about the program and excited to be working with girls. And that’s clearly not the case here.

Other accomplished things this weekend, I cleaned the fish tanks Friday night (woo, I know). They were disgusting. I really can’t let it go more than two weeks. I have bread I should make. I need to henna my hair in the Very Near Future, whether that’s tonight or not, I’m not sure just quite yet. I was hoping it would get done this weekend, but… we’ll see. This morning I did some stuff, helped the little girls finish up their Girl Scout “homework”… I should start on the bread, but… I want to take a nap. I was in the middle of this dream when I “woke up” where I was fixing something electrical & it was requiring a lot of concentration in the checking to see if the wires were live, figuring out which switch turned the power to the live wires off, making the required changes to the wires and refastening them appropriately, then turning the power back on… I think I get electrical work in concept, but my confidence in doing something like switching out an electrical fixture is not all that great, so the concentration was very high. Which is likely why I had trouble waking up this morning…

Yeah. So bread… and stuff… but maybe just a little nap first to take the edge off…