Manic Monday

What a full, productive day! I started off with my usual Monday morning appointment at the home of my 95-year-old friend, Sol, where I spent a couple hours helping him balance his check book, write a New Year's letter, and get to the bank. Next, I came home and because I've been working so hard at getting the house organized (as evidenced by the complete mess in nearly every room) I was able to watch a movie ("Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown") in the middle of the day, absolutely free of guilt. Next I tackled one of the fullest, most intimidating boxes in my office. I had even decided to forgo my "Awesome 80s Dance Party" class (which I love!) in favor of going through the boxes. But, guess what!? I finished the box at 6 and class starts at 6:30. So I made it! When class was over I crawled home, checked my e-mail, and got a call from Warren saying he was almost home from work--at 8:00! (Yes, that's cause for celebration in the movie business.) And even though Warren had just said yesterday that we shouldn't spend money eating out, he agreed that we should walk down to the dosa truck (which conveniently parks a block from our house every Monday night) to get some dinner! So, we bought way too much food (including dessert) and stopped in at the wine shop to get some of the beers off of our list of 50 Beers to Try Right Now. Then we came home, ate our dosas, drank our beer, and watched an episode of Doc Martin. It was a near perfect day. Oh, and Jerry is having a sleep over at a friend's house which is really great because he hasn't seen much of this friend lately, so I know he's got to be really happy about it. There you have it. A round up of my first Monday of 2011. I hope to have many more just like it!

Magic Happens

Call it magic, serendipity, or coincidence. No matter what name you give it, when people, places, and things align themselves to grant your wishes it's really cool. Yesterday morning I was on the phone with my sister, lamenting the fact that I have no close female friends in Los Angeles. I was telling her (again) how I feel so isolated and explaining that I wanted to start up some neighborhood events so that I could build a closer community here in the neighborhood. We're having an outdoor movie night for the homeschooled teens this weekend and I had been thinking that a regular neighborhood movie night would be really cool.

Cut to a few hours later. Jerry and his friend Kyle are on the couch playing video games and I'm loading the car with boogie boards and beach chairs for our first homeschool beach day of the summer. I was on my driveway and saw a woman with two kids (they looked to be about 2 and 4) across the street. I said "Hi," and almost left it at that, but then I asked if they lived in the neighborhood. She said they did and we started talking. I told her about how there were no kids at all when we first moved in, and we shared notes on which houses have kids and how old they are (they're all much younger than Jerry) and how long they've lived there. I invited her and the kids in for some iced tea (figuring homeschool beach day could wait) and we spent the next hour happily chatting while the kids played with sidewalk chalk. I even broke out the old Thomas the Tank Engine tracks.

It was amazing! I felt like I asked for something and it appeared. But, what I realized–and what I'm sure I should have thought of long ago–is that, while the answer to my wish was right there in front of me, if I hadn't put myself out there and spoken to the woman I would have missed the moment entirely. How many other things that I've longed for have been right in front of me only to pass out of my vision because I was too blind (or shy, or lazy...) to see them and grab hold!? I'm not dwelling on the things I may have missed, but I will certainly try not to let this lesson go to waste. From now on, I talk to everyone I see! We're going to plan some neighborhood events and I'm really looking forward to seeing her and her kids again. Finally, a friend with kids in the neighborhood!!

And that was just the beginning of a fabulous day. After Rebecca left, I finished loading the car, then Jerry, Kyle and I headed for the beach. I wasn't sure if we'd know anyone, but we did–two of Jerry's good friends were there. It was really great. Kyle spent almost the entire time in the water while Jerry hung out on the sand and I talked to the other moms and one of the teen girls. Then we went down to the Santa Monica pier with another family for some video games and a couple rides.

Fun was had by all.

Photo Catch Up

I have lots of photos to share today. First of all, I found a picture of the cargo ship that will be taking the books I collected to their destination in Malawi (via Swaziland, I think).

This is a photo I don't think I ever showed you. It's the stacks of boxes at the post office here in L.A. 22 boxes in all!

Here are a couple pictures from Summer's 16th birthday tea last week. We invited the girls from our knitting group and had tea sandwiches and cake. It was such a nice way to spend an afternoon.

And now, the photo you've all been waiting for the completed quilt!!! (Along with some close-up detail shots.)

This is my favorite detail on the quilt. Instead of quilting the borders with the machine I embrodered little flowers over the blue flowers on the fabric.

And here is Charlie, all scrunched into a box.

And, I don't believe I ever introduced you to Lily. She is my neighbor's psychotic cat.

I was feeding her last week while my neighbor was out of town. I started out going over to feed her in my bare feet, and by the end of the ten days I was wearing long pants, boots, and using an umbrella to provide a barrier between my body and her claws. She has serious issues. She purrs and rubs against your legs, but if you move she turns on you and hisses. She also does this low kick, kung fu thing when you're trying to walk past her (I have scars on my ankle to prove it!). Thankfully my neighbor is home now, though I don't know how she can relax with that cat in the house. Lily is a recent addition to her household–she came from a friend of my neighbor's who had to move into a nursing home–so hopefully with time she'll mellow out a bit.

And now, since today is the first day in months that I don't have any previous commitments, I'm going spend it giving Jerry my complete attention. So, I'm off to watch him play Borderlands, and maybe even try it myself.

Spitball Warfare

When we were at the Maker Faire I bought some awesome books. So far, our favorite is Mini-Weapons of Mass Destruction: Build Implements of Spitball Warfare by John Austin. After the cops and helicopter left the other night, Jerry and I ventured out into the front yard and he made a catapult out of clothes pins, rubber bands, a plastic spoon, binder clips, and tape.

Charlie watched from the sidelines. (So did Warren, but I didn't take a picture of him.)

Here's the finished product.

And here is the opposing army (as you can see, they have no weapons–we took them by surprise).

And, just for the heck of it, here's Jerry peering through a roll of duct tape.

The other books we bought are also really cool. They are The Way Toys Work by Ed and Woody Sobey and Stomp Rockets, Catapults, and Kaleidoscopes: 30+ Amazing Science Projects You Can Build for Less Than $1.

I forgot to mention in my post yesterday that I have a new laptop! I had been waiting for Warren to get another job before I bought a new one. My previous computer was really old (in computer years) and was almost completely out of space. Actually, it did run out of space while I was working on my group project, which was what inspired me to make a trip to the Apple Store to upgrade. We got a free printer and iPod Touch in the deal. So, Jerry was ecstatic and so was I. And now that I have space on my computer I can put photographs on my blog again! Yippee!

In other (sadder) news, our dog, Patsy, has Cushings Disease, which isn't deadly but is deadly expensive to treat. I found a natural remedy for it online, though, so we're going to try that out first. She also has a urinary tract infection, poor thing. And is now taking two different meds for arthritis. Needless to say, I'll be on the look out for discount veterinary pharmacies online–just as soon as I recover from the shock of paying for this first round of medications.

Sorry, I'm even boring myself here. I was just about to tell you about the minor surgery Jerry will be having on his big toe very soon but, lucky for you, new computers still have delete buttons. I won't bore you (or gross you out) with the details, except to say that we love his podiatrist because, not only is he a fabulous doctor and a nice guy, he's also an XBox gamer.

And now, finally, I will say something about unschooling. I know. You forgot this was as an unschooling blog, didn't you? Well, I've been reading the most wonderful, unschooler-friendly book called The Mathemetician's Lament by Paul Lockhart. You can read the first half of the book online here, but I highly suggest you buy the book so you can underline key passages and share it with family members who worry that your children will not be able to function in the world without taking a math class. The book is informative, funny, scathing, and explains the beauty of mathematics (something I've never quite understood until now). I love some of the things Lockhart writes about teaching:

"Teaching is not about information. It's about having an honest, intellectual relationship with your students. It requires no method, no tools, and no training. Just the ability to be real. And if you can't be real, then you have no right to inflict yourself upon innocent children."

"Teaching means openness and honesty, an ability to share excitement, and a love of learning. Without these, all the education degrees in the world won't help you, and with them, they are completely unnecessary."

I won't quote anymore of it here, since you can read it online. But please do read it! You won't regret it.

Well, I could go on to tell you about my tennis elbow, but I think you've had enough excitement for one post. I'll just leave you with one final quote from The Mathematician's Lament. He's writing about trigonometry as it's taught in school:

"Two weeks of content are stretched to semester length by masturbatory definitional runarounds. Truly interesting and beautiful phenomena, such as the way the sides of a triangle depend on its angles,will be given the same emphasis as irrelevant abbreviations and obsolete notational conventions, in order to prevent students from forming any clear idea as to what the subject is about."

Sad, but true.

Now I am off to study!

Blog? What Blog?

Sorry. I know it's been a while, but there's been a lot happening. However, I will now bring you all up to speed. First off, the Maker Faire was awesome, as expected. The one hitch was that a friend of Jerry's was supposed to fly up and go to the fair with us and two days before we were meant to leave he canceled, claiming he was "too stressed" about school. Of course, he wasn't too stressed to attend two concerts during the week before the fair and one that weekend (the dark side of Facebook--you know when people are lying to you). So that was really hard for Jerry because this boy has been his best friend since preschool and he's not being a very good friend lately. And it was a bummer for me, because if I had known he wasn't going to come with us, I would have invited Summer, but since we didn't know until two days prior, it was too late to buy a plane ticket at a reasonable price. Luckily Jerry didn't dwell on it while we were at the fair and we all ended up having a terrific time. There was so much to do and see!

 My nephew, Carson went with us on Sunday and had a great time playing with Legos and making marble runs.

At one point on Saturday, we were standing in a crowd waiting for Adam Savage from MythBusters to speak and Jerry struck up a conversation with the guy standing beside us. Jerry told him about how he watches MythBusters every night until 3 a.m. while he's playing WoW on the computer. I was all ready for a disapproving look from the guy, but instead he said, "Up until 3 A.m.!? Let me take a wild stab in the dark and guess that you homeschool like us." What a relief! 

So, the fair was great. We flew home Monday afternoon. I went to class, then Tuesday morning Warren helped me take the boxes of books for Malawi to the library. So I got those shipped, stopped in for a celebratory breakfast burrito at my favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican place, packed the car for LIFE is Good and headed North.

We stayed at my mom's Tuesday night (I skipped class), then left early Wednesday for the last portion of the trip. We made a stop in Ashland and were just in time to visit my friend (another unschooler), Becky, during her few free moments of the day, then got back on the road and made it to Vancouver around 8.

The conference was marvelous. Jerry and his friend, Senna, hosted a Pokemon funshop that was a big hit.

I brought Pikachu cut outs for the kids to make into hats and it was great to see everyone wearing them. Here's Violet looking adorable in her Pikachu hat.

I can't really explain in words how fabulous the conference was, but Ronnie has done just that in a list of nouns from A to Z. I highly suggest you take a look and then make plans to be there next year.

So, LIFE is Good. Return home. Rush to class. Spend the rest of the week preparing for a group project and finals while Jerry played his new favorite XBox game, Borderlands. Jerry was really focused on the game until he beat it and was sorely disappointed in the ending. Still, he thinks he might buy one of his own (he'd been playing a rented copy). Jerry seems to be coming out of the gaming bubble a bit more these days and I really like that.

A couple nights ago Jerry and I had gone into the front yard to start drawing some sidewalk art (because you're never too old for sidewalk chalk), when Patsy started barking. I looked across the street to where she was staring and saw a police officer, with her weapon drawn, heading up my neighbor's driveway. I rushed Jerry into the house, called my neighbor to be sure his daughter was inside, then looked out the window to see another cop with a long range weapon aimed up the driveway of the next building over. Then there were two others, also with guns drawn, inside my next door neighbors trash can enclosure. I took this picture of some of the cops across the street, but it's through the window so it's not very good.

So anyway, we went to the room of the house where we thought we'd be least likely to be caught in the crossfire and just hung out for an hour or so. We cleaned. We played a card game. Warren was home so he joined in. It was a little nerve wracking and it really made me feel for the people who live in the inner city and experience this kind of thing more regularly. We've been in this house ten years and this was a first.

When the police finally left we learned that a couple in the apartment across the street were having an argument and the guy pulled out a gun. Nice, huh? Nice to know our neighbors are packing heat. Ugh. I hate to even think about it, really. Still, no shots were fired and we did really enjoy our time together. We kept the family vibe going that night. Jerry and I did our sidewalk art (partially inspired by the police encounter, as you might guess.).

Then we all ate dinner and watched the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie (thumbs down) because Warren is going start start working on the fourth (yes, there is going to be another one) on Thursday. So, hooray! Warren finally got a full-length job! Yippee! And that's not the only good news. He will be in London for two months! So we're going to London again. Wahoo! And we'll get to visit Schuyler and David and Simon and Linnea. And maybe I'll get to meet some blogging buddies (Lynn?). And we can visit the woman who saved Jerry's life after his bike accident four years ago. And now that we have places to stay for free in Paris, Geneva, and Bern (thanks to the house swapping) we may even be able to squeeze in an excursion to France and Switzerland!! I'm trying not to get too excited because the film business is so changeable, but it's hard to remain calm about it all.

In other good news, I survived the group project presentation in my Library 101 class. Now I just have a final tonight, another one next Monday, and then summer officially begins.

Bring it on!

Mother's Day Update

Sorry. I know sporadic posting is really annoying. I just don't have much to say on the ol' blog these days. After all, it was all about angst in the beginning and there's just not a lot of angst going around the house these days. Here's a quick update, though.

Mother's day was really nice. Jerry went to bed relatively early the night before, so he could spend the day with me without being zombified. Warren made me breakfast, then we walked around the reservoir, Jerry was up when we got back, so we all headed out to Manhattan beach where Warren and I shared a coffee and Jerry had a bagel. We walked out onto the pier, but the cold wind drove us back up to main street where we browsed at a book store (and I bought a few books for the book drive which I really have to stop doing). We looked at a rundown shack for sale near the beach and were flabbergasted when we heard the price ($2.9 mil). Then we drove up to Venice Beach and had lunch at my favorite restaurant, Gaby's Mediterranean, which is apparently becoming a tradition because we ate there on Mother's Day last year, too. Back at home we each did our own thing for a while (my thing was organizing book drive books--it makes me so happy). Then Warren and I walked down to the wine shop and bought several bottle of white wine, came home, sat on our lovely new deck furniture and drank a couple glasses of wine. It really was a lovely day.

In other news, the book drive is moving along splendidly. This Friday is my last day for accepting books, so naturally I've got several pick ups planned for this week. Then, this weekend will be all about finalizing the collection and preparing to box it up (with a brief intermission to attend the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest). By the way, if anyone has purchased books from the wish list at Amazon and had them sent directly to me, please tell me. I got some books the other day but there was no receipt so I don't know who sent them. If it was you, send me an e-mail so I can thank you!

We're going to see Ben Folds tonight (Jerry, too). So we're all looking forward to that. Classes are going well. I have to write a resume (due next week) which is a bit of a challenge since my paying jobs in the last 14 years have been few and far between (and extremely part-time). I'll just have to spin the volunteer stuff I've done into work skills.

Hmmmm. I feel like there was something else I wanted to mention. Oh, right! I have two articles to share with you.

This article is a celebration of slackers and a reminder that "once a slacker not always a slacker."

And Celebrate: Save a Mother, by Nicholas Kristoff on Mother's Day, is a call to change Mother's Day, a holiday which celebrates relatively few mothers, into Mothers' Day, a day to celebrate and make the world safe, for all mothers. He offers some great ideas for how to do this in the article.

Now, I need to get busy. No sitting at the computer for me today (unless I'm doing homework).

Jury Duty, Part 2

I'm sure being part of a jury is really interesting once the trial begins, but the jury selection process is mind numbingly boring. The only interesting part is finding out what people do for a living, if they're married and what their spouses do (all the jurors have to answer those questions). But after you sit through 14 people in one courtroom and 20 in another even that tends to get old.

Still, I made the most of my lunch break by leaving the courthouse and walking around some of my favorite places in downtown Los Angeles. And I took pictures for you. With my phone.

This is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.The Walt Disney Concert Hall.That's City Hall in the background, but the real reason I took this picture was the aloe plants that were in bloom. This flower is one of my favorite things about winter in Southern California. I love it.And I took this one just outside the courthouse. It's for my New Zealand friends. :)I'll be back at the courthouse on Thursday for the continuation of jury selection. So I expect I'll have more pictures for you on Friday.

By the way, have you checked in with the Redpath family lately? They're a family of four, from our homeschool group, who are traveling the world for a year. And they've just been to Stonehenge!

Jury Duty

That's where I'll be starting at 7:30 a.m. today--well, by the time most of you read this it will be today (Tuesday). I could have done an online orientation and reported later than 7:30, but because I'm lame and I forgot about it until this very second, I'm too late for the online orientation and I have to be there at the crack of dawn. Woe is me.

On the other hand, last time I had jury duty I met some really nice people who I've kept in touch with, so maybe the same thing will happen this time. Either way, I'll be bringing a few good books (I'm reading My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell at the moment--it's great!) and will spend the day doing some guilt-free reading, maybe a few crossword puzzles, and making new friends.

In other news, I've been going through our New Zealand pictures, trying to choose a few for a frame we're putting up in the hallway (a frame we bought for that very purpose over a year ago) and I found this one of our shadows in front of the Rotorua Museum of Art and History. I like it.

For Barbara

This is just a quick update for my Aunt Barbara because I know she hates it when I take a blogging break. I can't get over how busy we are all of a sudden! This week alone we've had dog walking every day, knitting circle, teen laser tag, a field trip to Rhythm & Hues (a visual effects house), Japanese class was canceled, so we went to the doctor's office instead (Jerry has a hang nail). Then, I had book club and worked for my 94-year-old friend, went to the library opening, interviewed someone (another 94-year-old!) for the local paper, and now my sister and her family are arriving tonight so I need to get our sadly neglected house back in shape and do laundry--lots of laundry. Oh, and we're starting LARP (Live Action Role Play) today!! And I wanted to go to a homeschool teen/parent meeting to talk about getting more social things going, but I may have to give up on that. Sheesh. We've only added two extra activities (knitting circle for Summer and D&D for Jerry) but I feel like I barely have time to breathe. It's been really good though. Jerry loves the D&D game and is making some new friends, Summer is finally getting to know some other homeschooled girls, and I've really enjoyed the company of the other moms I've met. Oh, and we're starting LARP (Live Action Role Play) today!! I really hope Jerry likes it.

So there you have it. That's all the news. I'm off to do the laundry!

What We've Been Up To Lately: In Photos

Yesterday we made a tub thumping vortex cannon. It's kind of like an airzooka but bigger.
And we bought a fog machine.
So we could see the air blasting out of it.
When we got tired of blasting fog into the air we blasted each other.
Then we made fog just for the heck of it.
On Friday we went to a park day for unschoolers in Santa Monica. I could have found out about this park day on my own, I guess, but it was through a New Zealand connection that we ended up going. See, in New Zealand I met Lishelle. This is me and Lishelle at the airport in Auckland the day Jerry and I left to come home.
So, when someone on one of the unschooling lists said she was going to be in New Zealand, I sent her an e-mail and put her in touch with Lishelle. Little did I know Alison, the woman I was exchanging e-mails with, lived only thirty minutes from my house! It took Lishelle to point out to us that we might live near one another. So the new park day was really fun. I met Alison and lots of other really nice people that I look forward to getting to know better. We were there until after dark, when we finally had to hurry off to meet Warren at the Wiltern where the three of us saw Ben Folds. It was a terrific show and, lucky for us, he played Jerry's favorite song.

Last week was Warren's first short work week. So even though Jerry and I didn't get back from San Francisco/Sacramento until Sunday, we still had two days to spend at home with Warren before he went back to work. During those two days we discovered the joys of hanging out on the roof.
Going further back in time, when we were up in Northern California for my birthday we spent an afternoon with one of our favorite people in the world, Lyssa.
She lived with us for a year when she was in college and is like a big sister to Jerry. Now she has a beautiful baby of her own, named Phoenix.
Jerry and I spent a couple days at the Marin Headlands youth hostel.
The setting was beautiful.
And we were very close to the beach. Jerry and I walked on the beach at sunset the second night of our stay.
Okay. I walked on the beach. Jerry sat on a log and played his DS.
The following day we went to a Bar Mitvah where it was all gambling all the time (once we left the temple, anyway).
I mentioned before that we visited the new California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco while we were up north. Here's a picture of the living roof.
And here's the freaky albino alligator.
I'll leave you with that image for now and post my birthday photos separately.

As you can see we've been keeping busy, but that's no excuse my recent blog neglect. Now that my birthday and Jerry's have passed and we're home with no plans to leave for a while I'll be much better about posting regularly again. I promise. Because, you know, I'm sure you've all been missing me right? Right!?