From Pumpkin Seed to Pumpkin Pie

A Story in Pictures.

Work and Play

Evelyn had a class at Lawrence Hall of Science, so Clem and a friend got to play with the kapla blocks.

In this case "play" meant stooping, gathering blocks and placing them over and over again. When the tower got too tall for them they had to stack stools to stand on. I was glad no museum staff walked in on this scene.

It took forty five minutes to build.

And but a moment to...

...destroy

We just finished listening to Tom Sawyer in the car and I thought of this passage on work and play. It comes during that scene where Tom tricks his friends into whitewashing the fence for him:

If he [Tom] had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement.

This, I think, is the secret of homeschooling, which I have to learn and relearn. If you don't oblige kids to do work sooner or later they will do it themselves and call it play.

Even math and the dishes, but not the latter often enough.

Hot Topics

Some of the glow of our Hawaii trip hasn't left us yet. Before the trip I picked up some new music for the car: Here Comes Science by They Might Be Giants. And we loved some of the songs so much the entire car was belting them out with the CD. Especially The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas, which is just a great song, even if it is--um--wrong.

Which is what They Might Be Giants thought, as I learned listening to this Radio Lab episode, so they kept the song, but followed it up with The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma. Which has the great lines:

Forget that song!
They got it wrong.
That thesis has been rendered invalid.

I got a real kick out of hearing the kids sing these songs, and they led to a discussion about the scientific process. And about plasmas. Kind of amazing that this undermentioned fourth state of matter is the state that 99% of the visible universe is in.

Greta was particularly taken by the whole idea of plasmas. Here was a conversation from yesterday. Even though we told her about plasmas she just can't help herself from retelling us about them.

Greta: (excitedly) Dad, if you get water really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really--
Mike: Yes, we get the point--
Greta: Daddy, stop annoying my reallys! Really really really really really hot, it turns into a plasma.

Greta was indignant about the line Even when it's out of sight it shines both night and day. You see, when she was an alien, it was her job to put out the sun every night.

Another beloved song is A Shooting Star is Not a Star, about meteors, which is great sung in rounds, and was interestingly appropriate yesterday when we were at a birthday party and a large meteor cut across the sky. Sad to say, I was oblivious, but I did get to see the contrail.

There is a song about the planets which is little more than each planet's name but...so much more.... Jupiter is sung with great thumping bass notes like a stomping giant.

Evelyn claimed that Jupiter was not big enough to deserve such pronounced stomping, but we checked this hypothesis out yesterday at Chabot Space and Science Center and found that while, as Greta can sing for you, the sun is so large a million earths can fit inside, only 1000 Jupiters will fit in the sun.

Jupiter is stomping big.

We got to peek at it through one of the telescopes and see it and the 4 moons Galileo discovered, and it was like seeing a friend.

Wow, education with a sound track. It really does make it more exciting.


Click on the mp3 icon below to hear, if not the most rousing rendition, at least an example of our car singalongs.

Tricks and Treats

We pulled some tricks on the grandparents this Halloween.

Little did my mom know when she came to visit for a week that she would be kept in third world sweat shop conditions, sewing night and day, fed only cappuccinos until the big night.

Ok, it wasn't quite that bad. And Ev and Clem sewed and cut quite a bit.

Here are the results: Clementine the anglerfish.

Evelyn the venus fly trap.

Aren't they a treat? If you notice a very subtle quality difference between the older girls' costumes and Greta's leopard shark costume it's because I made Greta's, except for the tail, which my mom made.

My dad joined us for Halloween, too. And handed out the treats at my sister's house while we all trick-or-treated.

Here's was Greta's trick for Grandpa.

Greta: Grandpa, what are you going to be for Halloween?
Grandpa: A grouchy old man.
Greta: No! You can't just be yourself.

What Tricks and Treats did Halloween bring for you?

Dyeing for Dirty Shirts

Kauai is famous for its bright red dirt. Red dirt shirts are sold all over the island. We saw them on sale 2 for $38. Last time we were here we made some ourselves, but they were pale compared to the commercially produced ones and I came to the sour grapes conclusion that they had thrown in red dye.

We decided to try it again this time. It is fun even if it doesn't work! We collected dirt from the Spouting Horn parking lot.

We used our rental unit's trash can as our dye bucket. And we did it all on our lovely lanai. Aren't we good guests?

In with the dirt.

In with the shirts.

We soaked them for 24 hours and then dried them out. Dry they looked like the shirt on the left. Like red dirt on top of a white shirt. Once again, it wasn't working.

Google to the rescue. It turns out you've got to set the stain with vinegar. Hey, sour grapes were just what we needed after all. After soaking them in white wine vinegar water they look like the shirt on the right.

Seven happy girls in homemade red dirt shirts.

Old Man Sea

In a park you might grab a kid's hands and swing her around. In a flash you've got a crowd, waiting. In the pool you might throw a kid. Every kid wants to be thrown. Over and over. You get tired. They don't. And you think, will they ever get tired of it? You suspect not.

I now have proof.

Old man sea is the rough and tumble strong guy who never tires of tossing, throwing, bouncing, rolling. He never tires, and, amazingly, the kids don't either.

Left to right Iain, Sasha, Mike, Evelyn

Over 3 days the kids spent 8 hours riding, ducking, swimming, running, getting knocked down, bowled over, and every time we had to drag them out.

I love the pic below it looks like Clementine is alone at the beach. Actually that wave is breaking on Mike. See him in the middle? And behind the wave and in it are at least 14 other people. Clem just had a big ride, but she's hitching up her drawers and heading out for another one.

Our friends' daughter Anya zipping in.

A dad and old man sea make a great pair.

The waves at Brennecke's Beach are so crazy you can't capture them in stills. You never know which direction they'll come from. Outgoing waves meet incoming ones in huges splashes. Ricochet waves sweep the beach from right to left.

Thirteen seconds into this video you'll see Clementine enjoying the crazy water. She zooms into the picture from the right, riding the outgoing wave, then turns and rides an incoming wave with Sasha.

We still have 4 more days to play with Old Man Sea, the guy who doesn't mind doing the same thing over and over again for thousands of years. Maybe one day we'll get out at dawn and stay till dusk and see if the kids ever do tire of his games.

Queen's Bath

We have been to this natural swimming pool on the lava bench before and heard tales that it is dangerous, but now a plaque with a death tally awaits visitors at the trail head.

Signs posted every 30 feet warn of the hazards. You can see 3 of them in this picture. The final sign is accompanied by a life ring.

There was even a woman standing on this bluff overlooking the pool who told us about a boy who'd been paralyzed. Awful, but we were undeterred.

Isn't it gorgeous? Ok, I was nervous, despite having been here before, and knowing that the surf was small today, and that we were not going to stand on the rocks near the ocean or swim near the little channel by the ocean where the waves come in and out.

But Mike was completely unmoved. So in we went. There are only a few different kinds of fish, but the water clarity is unsurpassed.

Convict tangs and some silver fish we did not identify.

Clementine.

Surge wrasse.

Sasha.

Racoon butterfly fish.

Mike holding a brittle star. It is amazing how fast they move. Watch till the end, it is not that long.

It really is a place worthy of royalty. And also worthy of a healthy respect and caution. Sad to think of the 28 people who came out for a dip here and never went home.

Into the Swamp

After several days on the beach the brilliant sunshine was turning the kids from pink to red even with sunscreen, sun shirts, hats. So we set off for Alaka'i Swamp. It is in the backyard of Mount Wai'ale'ale, the wettest place on earth. At 4000 feet it is above Kauai's mosquito line.

We took the Pihea trail from Kalalau lookout.

On our left lay a dizzying vista of the Kalalau Valley, through fog. Greta kept shouting, "You don't have to hold my hand so tight!"

On our right, the high plateau where the swamp lies. Here she was shouting, "Clementine is too close to the edge!"

The Pihea trail is slippery red mud, steep in spots, with root ladders.

After a little over a mile we reach the boardwalks. Now it is easy going. You can even run.

1.8 miles in we stopped at the crossroads of the Pihea and Alaka'i Swamp Trails for lunch.

Judging by our visitor it was a popular lunch spot.

The swamp has many birds, but they stay out of sight. Also many ferns in plain view.

And mossy trees.

This native plant is a relative of the pepper.

The boardwalks turned into steps. 263 of them. We counted.

Back to mud, but now it is gray.

The path descended to a lovely brook where we soaked our toes.

And looked at lichens. Well, I think it is a lichen.

Then we were off again, back up the staircase, through the ferns.

Greta had to pause to unfurl fiddleheads.

Past the ohia blossoms.

Back to the red dirt.

And mud.

Pst the sticklike trees filtering the light.

Which gave way suddenly to the vista of Kalalau Valley, now free of clouds.

Greta stopped for a quick self portrait in the mud.

By the time we made it back to the lookout our shadows were getting long.

And the fast kids were waiting for us.

We hardly saw the big kids on the trail. Each time we caught up to them, they'd close up the pocket knives they were whittling roosters with and be off again.

And when we got home our friends had grilled steak and lobster tails waiting for us. Ah, life in paradise.

Surprising Oahu

We ended up on Oahu half by chance. I have never really wanted to go to Honolulu. Too big. I like Kauai--small town and lots of wild. But the flight from Oahu to Kauai was so late...getting in a 1am California time.

So we decided to break the trip in Oahu. And it turned out to be full of surprises. In the car we are listening to Mark Twain's letters from Hawaii. On Honolulu he says the whaling trade is everything, and that "shorn of it" the city would fail and "real estate become valueless." He was surprisingly wrong there I think, as I look out from our 24th floor lanai over the city.

One surprise is that you don't have to get far from Waikiki to have the ocean to yourself.

Even though I know it is lush in Hawaii, it is always a surprise, coming from California, how lush it is. Has anyone read The World Without Us? It imagines that humanity suddenly disappears. How would nature take over and what would be the lasting evidence of human activity? The Old Pali Highway reminded me of that book.

Here it is before the Nu'uanu Tunnels through the mountain made this winding road over the mountain obsolete in the 50's.

And here it is today. Half overgrown with vines and fragrant flowers, its walls beginning to crumble.

We ignored the many signs warning of falling rocks and ambled down the road. The girls enjoyed the falling water. It poured off the cliffside from where the fringe of vegetation ended, an all natural shower.

Some of the surprises were surprisingly small, like this sand dollar Greta found on Waikiki beach.

Others were surprisingly large.

Yes, everyone knows Hawaii has giant cockroaches, but seeing them is still surprising, especially when they turn up in the hotel room. I remember the last time we were on Kauai the kids couldn't get enough of holding and petting the giant cockroaches.

I hate to move right from cockroaches to food, but what the heck. There is a lot of good food in Honolulu. This none-too-creatively-named joint dished up too much good food for 6 for less than $30. And the parking was very convenient. That is the hood of our rental car in the pic.

This place is actually in a former garage. You can see the rolled up garage door at the entrance.

When we pulled up I said, "Wow, this really is a hole in the wall."

We got out. Due to the proximity of the parking as soon as we got out we were in the restaurant.

Greta: Where's the hole?
Me: (Not getting it.) There's no hole.

Greta: In the wall.

Me: (Getting it now, whispering.) There's no hole in the wall.
Greta: You said there was a hole in the wall.
Me: (Hoping we can drop it) I meant something different.
Greta: (Screaming) You said there was a hole in the wall! You lied!

Other surprises. At Pearl Harbor:

Spotted doves:

Sand castles in strange places:

Pit traps. Evelyn loves to dig. The latest passion is pit traps in the sand. She knows I am on to her, so she has taken to building elaborate structures whose only purpose is to entice me to walk over and take a look...and fall in the pit trap.

The vistas around every corner. You never know what might be waiting for you.

I started with Twain getting it wrong, so I'll end with him getting it right.

"That peaceful land, that beautiful land, that far-off home of solitude and soft idleness, and repose, and dreams, where life is one long slumberous Sabbath, the climate one long summer day, and the good that die experience no change, for they but fall asleep in one heaven and wake up in another". -- Mark Twain

Oстранение

Did I surprise you with that title? I didn't even know I could write a title in Cyrillic. The miracles of cut and paste. That word, ostranenie, is from my old grad student in Russian literature days. It means making strange, or, as the idea is called in English, defamiliarization. It's the artistic technique of making familiar things strange so that the audience can really see them again.

One of the most delicious things about having kids is how they make the old familiar world strange again. I especially enjoy how they make me see English with fresh eyes.

Mike and I were playing Dinosaur bingo with Greta a few nights ago. She was in her glory because Ev and Clem were off at a birthday party and she had both of us to herself. She got 5 in a row and she shouted out, gleefully, "DINGO! I got DINGO!"

So close, and yet, so far. Too many David Attenborough videos for that kid, I guess. We've been eating up Life of Mammals. Greta is, for some reason, particularly taken with the 8 foot long blue whale penis in the Back to the Sea episode. She tells everyone we meet about it.

Last Monday a friend and I took three little girls to the Little Farm at Tilden Park. Greta saw the cow and shouted, "Look, that cow is a female! You can tell she's a female because she's got gutters!" I guess udder is a strange word, and it makes sense that gutters would channel the milk.

Evelyn trying to make strange tracks that would confound trackers.

Back when Ev was five and Clem was three Mike told them when they were getting out of the car that it was a good idea to roll the windows up, so cats wouldn't jump into the car.

A few days later we were traveling on a 4-lane road at 40mph or so. I noticed a bug in the car and rolled down the windows to let it out. The girls started screaming, "Roll up the windows! Roll up the windows! A cat might jump in!"

I laugh every time I contemplate a world where cats come flying in your car window at 40 mph. Not that it wouldn't be dangerous. It is so sad that I forget so many of the wacky things they say. I really need to keep a notebook in my purse.

Dingo! Why didn't I think of that before?

Look...

...what Clementine did with my camera.

We were at the U.C. Botanic Garden and she wanted to get a shot of the baby newts in the pond. So...she stuck the camera in the water.

Good thing it's our new waterproof camera. We're testing it out before we take it to Hawaii next week.

Here's that baby newt.

Then I thought we should get a newt's eye view of our group. I shot up from in the water at the girls and Mike and his mom and dad here for his brother's wedding on Sunday! Greta didn't lean out far enough so I only got the top of her head.

It would seem newts have a better view of us than we do of them, at least without the aid of technology.

Put on your lipstick humuhumunukunukuapua'as, we've got a camera and we know how to use it (at least a little bit).

Balance

Doesn't Balance Man make it look easy? Standing there, surrounded by nature, insouciant, on one foot. The everlasting rock beneath him, the seasonal and nourishing pumpkin behind him, the sun on his shoulders. The weighted bar he holds pulls him down, and yet lets him balance more easily.

Evelyn made him as a birthday present for a friend. It is hard to see the work when he balances there with such apparent ease. She whittled him out of a branch.

Then she stripped and whittled a supple branch to make the balancing rod he holds. The weights are two circles of a hollow stick she sawed off with her leatherman. They are filled with clay from Williamsburg.

To hold his balancing rod on she needed glue. But Balancing Man is an all natural kind of guy. So Evelyn combed the backyard in search of soaproot. She peeled it, boiled it, mashed it and strained it to make glue.

Here she dabs on the glue. But not before moving the bar left and right, turning it slightly backwards and forwards, making tiny microadjustments until he balances just right, on one foot. She needed some help, because before the glue balancing man would drop his bar, and then she'd have to start all over again.

Evelyn gave her balancing man to her friend. I was so sorry to see him go.

But, Evelyn, if you are taking orders, I think I would like a balancing woman with three children on her shoulders.

What balance would she strike as she tried to stay standing and provide balance in their lives and in her own?

Time for free play.

Costume and photograph by Clementine

And time for coloring Medusa heads on Grecian urns.

Time for whittling balancing men, and time for writing balanced arguments.

Time for her children and time for herself.

I got some time making new friends and meeting in person friends I knew from their blogs. The girls were pulling me to leave, but I resisted, enjoying so much conversations taking place in real time instead of ever unfinished in posts and comments.

Friends are life's balancing rod. The longer the rod, the easier it is for balancing woman to stand.

I am so glad to add these women to the balance:

maya: urban organica

amy : diary of a domestic animal

sarah : urban. prairie. forest.

molly : a foothill home companion

tricia :: wonderfarm

tara : tara.mama.wendy

But as I think about it I am not sure where the children should go. Not only on Balancing Woman's shoulders, for sure. They are also part of the rod and the weight. Their joyful smiles and silly tricks, their hugs and kisses, their imaginary friends and bedtime stories are the counterweight to the woes of the world.

And as they get older they are even a lot of help around the house.

After dinner we were out on the court playing sharks and minnows. Evelyn and Clementine are faster than I am now. I'm only good for a few seconds. In between rounds I went and balanced, panting, on one foot on the rock that balancing man was standing on in the photo.

It didn't seem so hard.

Pillow Talk, or Therapy Needed

A couple years ago I read that many kids who struggle with reading have a focusing problem called convergence insufficiency. It was so sad, the article lamented, that these kids weren't getting treatment when CI could be diagnosed simply by watching the eyes track a pencil eraser in toward the bridge of the nose. The eyes should track together smoothly.

I grabbed a pencil and I tested Ev. Smooth.
I tested Clem. Raggedy.

And I shrugged it off. Probably a chicken and egg thing. She doesn't focus up close, so she can't. When she spends more time reading her eyes will learn to coordinate.

But they didn't. And I forgot about the study for a while.

But at 9 the girl who loves to listen to Dickens on CD won't read anything but Calvin and Hobbes. So I took her to the eye doctor and they do the same test I did with the same results. Except it was even clearer this time. The doc did it three times. Her left eye at some point would just jump ship and look straight out while the right stayed on track.

I should probably schedule some couch time with a therapist for having not acted on what I learned years ago.

Clem went in for the comprehensive testing yesterday.

It was at a university center where they have doctors in training. We get led into a narrow room with chairs on both sides. The four of us are sitting knee to knee with four doctors (three of them in training) opposite us.

"So, you brought the whole gang!" says the doctor in charge.

"We homeschool," I explain. It is always the whole gang.

They nod.

They explain the testing. She'll need to have her eyes dilated to find her "true prescription". She could be farsighted, the doctor explains. Her young eyes could be compensating enough to pass tests, but not to maintain concentration.

"Have you ever had your eyes dilated?" the doctor asks Clem.

"No."

They look at me. "I think she has." I have a vague memory of disposable sunglasses.

"You have to protect your eyes from sunlight after the dilation," the doctor says.

"Oh yeah! I have had that," Clem says, brightening. "Remember, mom? That time you made us wear pillowcases over our heads."

I see a shadow pass over the eyes of the four doctors across from us.
I can just see them thinking. Homeschooling mother makes children put pillowcases over their heads.

I am thinking where the heck did she come up with that? When she was a toddler she used to wriggle herself inside a pillowcase behind the pillow. Then she'd bumble all around the house bumping into things and falling down and laughing her head off. But I distinctly recall weighing in on that activity and I was not pro.

Though when she did it wearing her dad's giant shoes I had to laugh, too.

There are more tests next week, including the dilation (note to self: bring pillowcase). After that she'll start vision therapy. I have my fingers crossed that it brings everything into focus for her.

She's grown up so much from the little girl, who, if I left out any three container type objects in no time would have one on each foot and one over her head. Boxes, mixing bowls, plastic pumpkins, and yes, pillowcases.

But no matter what she might say on the therapist's couch one day: I didn't make her do it.

No Talking Allowed

So Clementine was working on her math and getting frustrated because she now has to copy some problems from the computer screen and work them out on paper. She draws well and has excellent fine motor skills, but she has always chosen to write very little.

Instead of writing words and numbers, she draws them. They get fancy doodles. She spends a long time making a one with a flag and base.

I realized that our push for math was going to require a push to write as well. I browsed through my groaning shelves of unused books. I was about to put my finger on a Handwriting Without Tears (my own handwriting experiences in school were full of tears) when I stopped on Games for Writing instead.

I flipped through it and stopped on The Silent Game.

So I wrote to Clem.

"We are going to play a silent game. No talking allowed for 15 minutes."
I had no idea how she would take this. An hour and many pages later I got this note:

Sometimes silence is golden.

Calculating an Education

Ev and Clem do math online. It comes in manageable 20-minute bites. This afternoon I asked Clem to do a second session.

Clementine: But I already did math.
Me: At school you'd be doing more than 40 minutes of math every day.
Clementine: Yeah, but at school I'd be able to not pay attention.

Research agrees with her. A meta-analysis of studies of online vs. classroom learning found online learning more effective.

I was planning to skip right over my yearly September ritual of questioning my approach to homeschooling, but then I stumbled upon Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. I know, I'm a year behind on my reading. But his analysis of why Chinese kids excel at math has me nursing scraped shins. (Psst...if you haven't read the book it's because....they work hard. But read the book, the whole story is fascinating.)

Five years ago when Evelyn was in first grade at the beginning of the year she said her favorite subject was math. By the end of first grade she said she hated math. I blamed myself for killing her love. But five years of taking it easy has not made the kids embrace math. So I figure 40-60 minutes of math a day can't hurt.

The more they do the easier it will be, right?

And heh, with the online math, they can't not pay attention.

And it is not as if Clem won't still have time to invent Marie Mantoinette (which comes out of studying the French Revolution and keeping a pet praying mantis at the same time).

Or to set up a romantic dinner for two. (They look like they might devour the flowers, or each other, for dinner.)

And Ev won't have time to whittle wooden whistles.

Or construct bird traps out of handwoven baskets.

At least, that is the calculation I am making, for now.

Huckleberry Preserves

It is at least ten degrees cooler in Huckleberry Preserve than it is at our house. We escape to its mossy trails overhung with bays and bordered with swordferns and bracken.

Glimpses of the view across the canyon reveal how different this microclimate pocket is from the surrounding area.

We are here for huckleberries.

The first we find are not yet ripe.
But then we find them.

Ripe, their color is somewhere between Greta's eyes...

...and her boots.

For a while not many make it into our cups.

Greta pouts about not having as many as her sisters. They pour some of theirs into her cup and her smile is this big.

Now she can't see the bottom of her cup.

Back at home the huckleberries are so small some pop right through the masher whole.

Eventually we get them all.

It is our first time making preserves. Our berries yield 1.5 cups of crushed fruit. We need two cups. Evelyn leads me down into the backyard where she has found wild blackberries. We return victorious with just enough blackberries for 1/2 cup, crushed.

One of our jar lids didn't pop. It will have to go in the fridge.

Might as well have some now.

This Comic Interlude Brought To You By...

...Greta

We were camping this weekend. The kind of camping where you have to bring your own water and the toilets are the pits. In other words, pit toilets.

A friend's son said he preferred the smell of the rotting sea lion on the beach to that of the outhouse.

So I take Greta in there. I have visions, however unreasonable, of her falling down into the pit. And I have to...jump in after her to save her from drowning? Let's not think about it.

She assures me I can release the death grip on her arm, she is ok. I stand nearby trying not to breath.

After a few moments:

Greta: I love this bathroom. (sighs) I wish we had one like it.
Me: What do you like so much about it?
Greta: (indicates railing for disabled) It has this bar I can hold on to. And it has a window...(looks up, pauses)...with flies on it.
Me: (I burst out laughing....I can't help it)
Greta: (indignant) What? I like flies! They're cute.

This is from today. We're home from camping and packing to leave again tomorrow.

Greta: (very sad) My friends in my imagination won't play with me.
Me: Why not?
Greta: (after deep sigh) They're on vacation.

From a few weeks ago:
Greta: I had a horrible nightmare.
Me: What was it about?
Greta: All the princes in the world died.
Me: (sensing where this is heading) So there was no one left to marry?
Greta: (sadly) Only normal people.

See you next week!

Still Life

These fragments I have shored against my ruins.
-T.S. Eliot The Waste Land

It is amazing what the camera can see. Watching Clementine with my naked eyes, I had the fleeting impression of an arc of water. But here you can see a frozen spiral, as perfect as the spiral of a sea shell.

Greta had a go. Her water horns and spikes of hair were invisible to my naked eye.

Later, we tried other things.

Big rocks.

A skipped stone.

I wonder what we miss as chemicals migrate their way across our synapses.

Oliver Sacks talked with a Parkinson's victim after he had been "frozen" for several hours. Sacks showed his patient a photo of himself and asked why he had held his arm out, frozen, for so long. The bewildered patient said he wasn't frozen, he was wiping his nose.

The next time the man was "frozen" Sacks set up a camera and took photos of the him at one-minute intervals over two hours. When these stills were assembled into a time-lapse film the man could be seen smoothly bringing his hand up to wipe his nose. He had no sense that this had taken him any longer than usual. The man could wipe his nose 12 times and call it a day.

How fast his life must pass.

And how long our lives would seem if we were fast enough to see drops of water going over the falls or the iridescent beating wings of dragonflies.

On the river I am always confronted by my mortality. It is not just the bleached crayfish legs.

Or the huge trees, trees that welcomed Spanish missionaries and 49ers, trees that have lived three times as long as I can hope to, felled by the river.

It is the flow of the river itself, relentless and neverending.

The American is no longer a natural river. The Chili Bar dam controls the south fork, the Oxbow dam the middle fork, and the Clementine dam the North Fork. But we can never completely control the river.

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable,

Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in cities—ever, however, implacable.
Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
Of what men choose to forget.

-T.S. Eliot The Dry Salvages

The American may be a tame river, and yet, the remains of bridges, the undercut banks surmounted by trees awaiting their fates, remind me always of what I would choose to forget.

The flows on the American are brought up each day for the pleasure of boaters like us. But if we dawdle too long skipping stones or picking berries, the water will slip away from us, leaving us a bony river to bump and drag our way along. A reminder that time will get away from us.

I don't usually take my camera kayaking. The river is also destroyer of electronic devices. But this time I pack my camera in the dry bag, wrapped in a towel. I will not let the river carry away all our memories.

Of little feet.

Getting bigger.

Of skipping smooth stones and soaking hot heads.

I put away my camera and we get back on the river. The air is so hot that the herbs are giving up their spicy aromatic oils to the air. It is like a dry sauna. The water is deliciously cold. Greta, sitting in the front of the boat, holds up her hands with excitement and recognition.

"Mom," she whispers. "This is where we landed."

I don't think I have mentioned here before that Greta is an alien. It used to be her job to carry water from Pluto to put out the sun every night.

Evelyn has discovered that cottonwood bark makes good cordage. Whenever she isn't paddling she is making string. Clementine is sailing her crocs by the boat.

I am sieving moments out of the river of time and preserving them so one day I can spiral back and re-examine them, spiral back to the 100 degree day when the air was spiced with eucalyptus and fennel, when the spotted fawn lifted its dainty hooves in the shallows, when Clementine stuck her head in the river and tossed her hair.

These fragments I have shored against my ruins.

The Point

On our way to Berkeley's Jewel in the Sierras we'd passed a sign that said:

Point of Historical Interest

I wanted to see the point, so on our way back I hung a hard left when I saw the sign. We did not immediately see the point, but we saw a sign for the state trout hatchery. It said Open to the Public.

I didn't know what to expect. What we found was an empty parking lot, four long ditches full of trout, and this.

It was scorching hot. There was not another soul in sight. It was sort of like coming upon a pay phone in the middle of the desert. We dug out our dimes and began feeding the fish.

After a few minutes this truck rolled along and assured us we were not overfeeding the trout.

There were little fellows and big ones.

Afterwards we kept looking for the Point of Historical Interest. I kept saying, "We're missing the point!" and "I still don't see the point!" The kids groaned at me.

Finally we found the point. Moccasin Power House. Part of the Hetch Hetchy water system that quenches San Francisco's thirst. The Hetch Hetchy valley is said to have rivaled Yosemite in beauty before it was flooded. So we saw the point.

The girls found this a pointless detour.

They enjoyed the fish, though.

The City of Berkeley's Best Kept Secret is a Three-Hour Drive Away

Berkeley Tuolumne Camp is a parents' paradise in a breathtaking setting.
Each cabin boasts a big deck, so take your pick: A bed under the stars...

...or inside the cozy cabin.

Don't worry about lugging: Strapping young guys known as Mait Dogs lug all your luggage from the car to the cabin.

Entertaining the kids? Taken care of. Here's Ev taking in the treasure trove of possibilities before signing up for macrame, pottery, archery, talent show, hiking, et cetera.

If nothing appeals there's always just playing and having the run of the 14-acre wooded oasis.

For preschoolers there's Kiddie Kamp. Three sessions per day of crafts and stories and a children/staff ratio to die for.

Greta never wanted to leave.

Bells announce the three fantastically delicious meals each day. Ok, I'm lying. The meals were not fantastically delicious. And I'm going to stop trying to use all of the 10 Tiredest and Cheesiest Phrases in Travel Writing even if this is a sun-dappled must-see vacation destination. (That's eight out of ten!)

Really, this place was so awesome I'm as gooey as the cheddar on our tacos about it.

The food was fine camp food and the kids bolted in at the bell so hungry they bolted everything and bolted out to play again. It took them four days to realize that dessert was served every night. They'd never stuck around long enough to get it.

Coffee was available all day. I was actually biting my nails about this before I got there. What if I'm up at 6:30? Will I have to wait for breakfast at 8am for coffee?? I needn't have worried. At Berkeley's jewel in the Sierras (that's 9!) they get the coffee thing.

And there's even cereal and pbjs for kids who don't like the meals. And a store where you can open a tab and the kids can saunter up and order one popsicle or box of nerds each day.

This oasis near Yosemite boasts luxury resort touches (sorry!), but also a bona fide camping experience complete with obligatory big bugs in the bathroom.

Ev and Clem immediately identified this exotic lady as a parasitic wasp. (I had to resort to calling a wasp exotic, but I got all 10. I guess I was lying that I was going to stop. But now I'm done.)

Anyway, that long "stinger" is a zinc-tipped ovipositor for laying eggs in the larvae of tree beetles. She was 5 inches long from tip of antennae to end of ovipositor. (For more info watch Life in the Undergrowth.)

There was a Talent Show and Bingo Night.
Here are Ev and friend Sasha stage fighting.

There was swimming at the swimming hole and jumping off Beaverhead Rock.

All of which gave me plenty of time to work at my desk in the woods. And I did not work on cheesy travel writing. See my manuscript on the desk? And there was coffee aplenty to fuel the work. And no internet connection to distract me from my work. The only activity that really tempted me was ping pong but I couldn't find anyone to play with. So I got a lot of writing done.

It was like the Writers Retreat I have often dreamed of, except that when I was done writing I got to play with the kids and hike to waterfalls. And help them save a baby bat.

This near paradise lacked: Mike, cappuccinos, a good bed. I'll bring a better bed next time. And maybe my espresso machine. And Mike if he promises not to talk me into playing ping pong instead of writing.

All Four Love

We've been away camping for most of a week. We spent part of it at an earthly paradise called Berkeley Tuolumne Family Camp. More about that later when the van is unpacked.

Clem brought along her Wreck This Journal journal.

She enjoyed burning it...

tearing it...

...making tongue paintings after eating jolly ranchers and otherwise indulging herself in the mildly transgressive invitation to deface a book every way imaginable.

Actually, I am not sure she got the transgressive nature of the book. It was just a fun activity book.

She was startled to find a "spit your coffee on this page" page. I had to explain that this was actually a book for grownups. That it was supposed to help free their creativity to treat a book this way. After she threw the book from a high place she said she had a hard time imagining a grownup doing that.

I was flipping through her journal and I came across this transgressive invitation and her response.

She caught me snapping a photo.
Clem: Why are you taking a picture of that page?
Me: I liked your four-letter word.
Clem: Oh. It was the only one I could think of.

Imagine a world--a world of traffic jams, computer glitches, lost keys, telephone solicitors--where the only four letter word people could think of was love.

Go on. Imagine. I'll wait.

I asked Mike to imagine such a world and he said it would be @#*&-ing boring.

Greta (who is 4) also doesn't have trouble thinking of four letter words. After cooler water spilled in her car seat she stamped her foot and said, "The darn and the heck!"

Where could this angel hear things like that?

Heck and darn, it must be from me. I gave up all my other four letter words for love.

Tentacles!

A friend and I took our 6 kids on a ferry trip and an octopus wrapped its tentacles around the children's heads. Entirely true. Read on.

And it was not the only monster to snare us.
We started off at Jack London Square. The ferry to San Francisco takes you right past the Port of Oakland where huge cranes drag cocooned cargo off ships like praying mantises snatching caterpillars.

Our destination was the Maritime National Historic Park. Yes. I am still stuck on the history thing. Trying to turn over all the stones right here.

Greta tried out her muscle against Rosie's.

First stop, a submarine, the U.S.S. Pampanito.

You can actually spend a night on this sub...but I'll pass. P.U. it still smells like 75 guys are living there for 80 days at a time without seeing the light of day...or a shower. Even though there was a shower. The Underwood typewriter was the only thing that really called to me.

Next stop Hyde Street Pier which has several historic ships. Even the bathroom has maritime facts like: sailors' time honored dislike of inside toilets and preference for answering the call of nature by hanging off the bowsprit remains a major cause of drowning at sea.

The Balclutha is packed with the cargo it used to carry and other engaging exhibits. I was a sucker for the old canned fruit labels and the story of California's second gold rush (exporting wheat).

This is when a monster ensnared me. Everyone was tired, my friend suggested we go home. But I couldn't stop--we had to do it all.

We fortified ourselves with the obligatory bowls of clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls and swam through the crowds to the Aquarium of the Bay.

I love the Aquarium of the Bay. It used to be a Tourist Trap called Shark Attack! You can still see a chewed up surfboard in the first room. But it was bought by a non-profit and hey, admission is half off if you have a membership with a reciprocal zoo or aquarium.

My favorite thing is the top right photo below. They've put a window in a skate egg so you can see the developing skates inside. The little skates have yolk sacs attached to their bellies. Greta loved the pink anemone decorated crab at top left.

Everything was going swimmingly...well, the kids were obviously tired and trying to stop the moving walkway by gripping the railings and pressing their feet against it...but still, things were going pretty well when...an octopus engulfed our children.

The octopus tank has a tunnel beneath it with a glass bubble. As the kids were looking the octopus came out of hiding and wrapped itself around the bubble. Greta was a little alarmed, then thrilled. Clementine saw the octopus's beak. A lady next to me oohed and aahed and said it was a once in a lifetime experience. Well, it was pretty great.

After that we had to go see the sea lions. Yes, even after the octopus released the kids I was still ensnared by a drive to do it all. Well, not really. I would have taken pirates up on the offer of a ride. But we had some time to kill before the ferry left anyway.

The ferry ride home was at least 10 times long as the one there, ok, maybe just 10 minutes longer. It had an extra stop. But it felt like forever.

To keep the kids from running all around the ship (because they'd already been reprimanded 3 times) we played 20 questions on things we had seen that day.
Greta did the skate in the egg sac, Ephraim, the torpedoes on the submarine, Evelyn, the bay, Yasha, a big paddle wheel, Clem the chowder.

Yep. We had seen a lot. Too much for one day.
Note to self: Know when to call it quits.
It'll still be there.

A Fish Story

Naturally it was right at bedtime when Greta came running to us saying, "Evelyn's guppy has given birth! There's babies in the tank!"

The big guppies ate most of the babies, but two are now in the breeding net, safe from their hungry parents.
I am amazed at their tiny transparent fins.

And huge eyes.

This is not two, it is one looking at its reflection.

Can you see it in this jar? It is the little thing on the left near the bottom.

We wonder if they'll grow up to look like their mother:

Or their father:

Evelyn plans to breed them for traits she'll select. She got a 50 gallon tank for her birthday from her aunt and uncle and grandparents. Which is large enough that one guy claims to have kept more than 17,000 guppies in such a tank.

That doesn't seem quite humane, so thank goodness the parents eat so many of the babies.

In other Evelyn news...a long time ago the kids entered the Doodle4Googler contest. Evelyn was a finalist and got a Nintendo DS and what is much more exciting, her own logo printed on a shirt.
Here she is sporting the logo she designed. The theme was "What I Want for the World."

"I want the world to get bigger. My doodle shows people leaving earth to colonize other planets. We need to go to other planets so that we have enough room to expand while preserving and even restoring habitat for the animals that we have been pushing out of their homes."

Gold Mine

It was Jan. 24 1848. One worker wrote in his diary, "This day some kind of mettle was found in the tail race that looks like goald, first discovered by James Martial, the boss of the mill."

I don't know about you, but I have a weakness for the days before spelling standardization. Mettle and goald add a glimmer of richness to the story. Even Marshall's name wasn't a matter for standard spelling. And why should it be? I've never understood why my 8th grade teachers objected to me spelling my name Psiouxsan. They soon found it wasn't a battle worth fighting. Unlike the miners. They kept digging and panning and hoping, though few struck it rich.

The museum at Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park makes much of the horrible conditions endured by the miners who flocked to the American River. Scorching heat...frigid water....

which is exactly why we come here. The scorching heat, 100F last weekend, makes the frigid water feel pleasant...

...as we paddle the South Fork of the American River.

The kids have their own ideas about why we go.

High on their list are the blackberries. We eddy out and gorge on them many times during the 4.5 miles of class II whitewater. But there is also the one lane bridge that connects the campground to the heart of Marshall Gold Discovery Park.

The kids cram their pockets with a few dollars and cross the bridge to another time. They pan for gold, lick $1 ice cream, suck 5 cent candies, watch sparks fly at the hot as heck Blacksmith's Shop, and pretend to grind corn on a rock bluff overlooking bark dwellings.

(Go ahead, click on it!)

Stray kittens at the campsite added to the excitement. We can't have them at home (achoo!) so the girls thought it was heaven to put out dishes of milk for the scrawny beasts.

We arrived home late Sunday night and turned around the next morning to drive to Monterey. We usually go there to see the aquarium and this time was no different.

I love these barnacles attached to a glass buoy.

But because we are on a history bender we caught the 10:30am tour of historic Monterey.

Where we learned that when James Marshall spotted that nugget of goald California was not yet a state.

It had been less than two years since Commodore John Drake Sloat ran the American flag up this pole in Monterey claiming a territory 3 times the size of present day California for the United States.

The flag was a 28-star version.

When the United States staked its claim to California there were a few thousand non-native people here and half a million head of cattle.

For a time before the U.S. claimed California every single item imported to California passed through the Custom House in Monterey.

The lentils and beans and desks and tea kettles and soap came in...

...and the cow hides went out. See them stacked in the back there?
And what do you suppose they were used for?
Shoes?
Saddles?
Belts?
Well, yes, but not the kind that held up the pants of rancheros.

Big strapping belts like this...

...that turned the wheels of Europe's Industrial Revolution.

Of course, Monterey was not untouched by James Marshall's eureka moment. When word spread American soldiers, the sailors in the ports, the rancheros, basically everybody of sound body, ran for them thar hills with gold in 'em.
One Monterey resident griped that there wasn't a bowl left in Monterey to wash your hands in. They all headed northeast as gold pans.

Monterey's abandoned homes were bought or leased by whalers...

A kettle for melting whale blubber....

The bricks give you an idea of its size.

Whale bones lie about all around in Monterey. This sidewalk is even made of them...

..made of whale vertebrae cut into diamonds.

One of the things I like best about learning history is how it brings place names to life. I always wondered what was up with Placer County and Placerville. What is up with it is placer mining.
And I never stopped to wonder why we have a Portola valley.
But I feel so happy to know. It makes me feel connected to the past. It makes my everyday life richer to think about the people who were here before.

Sigh. History is such a gold mine.

Piles and Piles

It was a day of dealing with piles.
There was the dish pile.

It was a happy dish pile. Yesterday we celebrated Evelyn's birthday early because her grandparents were in town.

For her birthday dinner she chose a Cheese Souffle and salad, followed by pot roast and potato gratin. Ev made her beloved souffle with some help.

The pot roast was my job, but Greta peeled the carrots and Ev peeled the pearl onions. Clementine took charge of her specialty, the gratin.

It was wonderful to cook together again, but boy did we make a mess! It was a funny menu for July, but perfect for the funny blustery, cold, foggy day.
We even lit the fire.

I did not tackle the dish pile first, though. I pulled my capuccino and escaped to the office where I confronted this:

Another happy pile. It is my novel about teenage aliens. Seriously. It is 250 pages long right now. And it isn't finished. Even though it frustrates the hell out of me, I feel happy to have written 103,884 words.

I need to fill it out here and there, figure out some plot problems, get rid of all the inconsistencies, and cut, cut, cut. My hope is to get this draft done by Halloween. Then I can start another novel on Nov. 1 for Nanowrimo.

In December I'll return to my extraterrestrials for a final draft. And maybe at the beginning of next year I can move this pile of papers from my desk into the slush piles of agents.

The final pile is a happy pile, too. Because a big pile of stinky dirt that blows into your eyes is so happy making. Well, it is if you've spent a month constructing a raised vegetable garden and it is your soil/compost/manure mix. And a huge truck dumped it on our driveway, which is always exciting.

I made a little dent in my story.

A larger dent in the dish pile.

And look at this!

We filled it.

Gridded it.

And put back the deer-proof wire. It is all set for planting.
Each girl gets 6 squares to plant in.

Here's hoping we harvest a big pile of veggies.

The Honey Flow

The nectar filled flowers are a-blooming the sun is a-shining and the bees are a-gathering. It's the honey flow. When frames fill up fast.

I found this formula for how much nectar the bees can gather during the honey flow.

7000 forager bees X (10 trips/day) X (70 mg of nectar/bee trip)X (1kg/1,000,000 mg) = 5kg nectar/day

Our girls aren't making honey that fast.

But we still had plenty of full frames like this one...

Full and capped for storage.
Friends and family help us uncap the comb.

And get the honey flowing again...

With a little help from centrifugal force...

It goes from the frames into the sieve and into jars.

Of course, some of the honey never made it into jars. Our guests arrived laden with homemade scones and bread, crumpets and greek yogurt, and brie and fig jam.

Some honey made it onto these goodies...

And some got eaten straight...

There may be a formula for calculating the theoretical yield of a hive during the honey flow, but the joy of sharing the fun and bounty with family and friends is incalculable.

Country Club: Vietnam

There are lots of way to travel. We're globetrotting at home with our homeschool co-op. We've created a Country Club.

No golf or tennis at this Country Club.

Instead we all put the names of countries we were interested in studying in a hat and drew several out. We do one country per week. Everyone learns a fact about the country to share with the group.

A fact-hunting trip to the Asian Art Museum turned up more information on Japan than Vietnam.

Everyone is invited to bring food or fun. It is pretty casual. After sharing our facts we read and acted out Vietnamese folk tales and the kids illustrated the folk tale The Man in the Moon. And we ate noodles and tropical fruit.


The idea is not to learn a whole lot, but just to bang a peg into our heads, so to speak. A peg to hang new information on, so that the next time Vietnam comes up, what is being said doesn't whiz in one ear and out the other, but instead gets snagged on that hook of familiarity and bounces around in there a few times.

I put together the kids and moms sharing their facts with a bit of music from the Sing 'n' Learn Vietnamese CD. Click the box to listen. You'll hear counting in Vietnamese first.

The Restaurant of Resourcefulness

Do your kids love to play those alphabet games like:

A my name is Allison and my husband's name is Arthur. We live in Alabama and we sell antiques?

Mine don't. At least, we usually peter out before P my name is Pam and my husband's name is Peter.

But today while waiting for our burgers and Belgian fries (sure, Eccolo has the best burgers in the East Bay, but Luka's Tap Room gives the best total experience, best fries, best game room) we came up with a more captivating alphabet game: names of terrible places.

I'll list them all below, but Crevasse of Certain Calamity is among my favorites, as is the Maw of Monsters, and Zoo of Zombies. We hit silly notes at times with Igloo of Indignity, Orifice of Olfactory Offensiveness and Underwear of Uncomfortableness.

If you try our alphabet game, tell me favorites you come up with. Or you'll be sent to the Netherlands of Nothingness!

Axis of Attack
Barrel of Badness
Crevasse of Certain Calamity
Dungeon of Doom
Entrance to Eternal Exile
Funnel of Furious Fortune
Gallows of Gloom
House of Harm
Igloo of Indignity
Jail of Jealousy
Kingdom of Killing
Land of Languishment
Maw of Monsters
Netherlands of Nothingness
Orifice of Olfactory Offensiveness
Place of Peril
Quay of Queasiness
Room of Rampage
Salon of Sorrows
Trail of Terror
Underwear of Uncomfortableness
Vortex of Viciousness
Whirlpool of Whipping Winter Wind
Xray of X-acto knives
Yurt of Yearning
Zoo of Zombies

Tunnel Vision

Ev has visions of tunnels in sand, in snow. Her tunnels tend to be mischievous in intent. She likes to make a network of tunnels under undisturbed sand and cackle when unsuspecting strollers find the ground giving way beneath them.

One day she tunneled under the back legs of my beach chair so that I toppled over backwards when the sand gave way.

On a recent trip to the beach her tunnel vision captured the imagination of 10 friends. They collaborated on the grandest vision yet: a tunnel big enough to crawl through. At last she saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and it was not a train, but the lit up face of a friend.

The Sunshine Parent

Reasons to Travel #3:
The Summer Soldier Has More Fun

These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it Now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. -Thomas Paine

Morale was rock bottom when George Washington ordered these words read to the troops in the winter of 1776. Enlisted men were barefoot, hungry and cold. One third were too sick to fight and the others were sick of losing and retreating. Their terms of service were up on December 31. They'd be free to go home New Year's Day unless they were killed in Washington's risk everything and everyone scheme to cross the Delaware on Christmas Eve and attack mercenaries encamped at Trenton.

But they were winter soldiers, not sunshine patriots, and they went and won and the rest is history.

On Thursday, when Clem's 104 fever refused to budge with tylenol, I took three kids on a hairraising dash to urgent care (it was closing in 50 minutes) located 40 minutes away in heavy traffic on low gas and returned victorious with antibiotics, for which I have pinned a mothering medal of honor to my chest. Ouch.

Yesterday Mike took Ev and Clem to make claymation movies at Zeum while I held back Greta's hair as she vomited into a bowl and changed the sheets when she missed the bowl.

I am the winter soldier of parenting.

I am not the parent who, in the time of vomiting, will shrink from the service of her children. To be fair, Mike isn't either. He has changed plenty a chunky sheet. He is, probably like many dads, more the sunshine parent because because I have staked out the bitter winter of parenting as my territory. If I had asked him to stay home with sick Greta, he would have, happily.

By my choice in some cases, necessity in others, I do the homeschooling, the medicating, the taking to the doctor, dentist, optometrist, the ferrying to classes, the scheduling, the home cooking. When I am brushing Greta's teeth I recount all the things she has eaten and brush them away. It makes her happy and I count the servings of fruits and vegetables so I can see if I need to do better the next day.

Mike does the reading stories at bedtime and the going to museums/hikes/parks. He takes them to Eccolo for gourmet burgers, and then across the street to Sketch for ice cream. By the way, when he says Eccolo has the best burgers in the East Bay, and Sketch the best ice cream, you can take his word. He's done the research. Of course, we do fun things all together, and I take the kids on field trips, though I try to pack nutritious and balanced lunches.

Winter parents feel compelled to make sure that a kid's every meal is square, that food is served on dishes not paper, that everyone gets to where they are supposed to be. Summer parents are a bit more casual.

Mike chose to take the kids fun places instead of their Saturday piano classes (a supplement to their weekly lessons) so often that the kids weren't allowed to play in the recital, which, since it takes up a whole weekend, he viewed as a victory on par with Washington capturing 1000 drunk Hessians.

When I took the kids on the road for nearly 6 weeks I thought it was going to be hard. But it wasn't. I was forced to be the summer soldier. Hotels and road food make their own demands. (And I did have my mom with me for a good part of the trip. Thanks, mom!)

We went to historical sites, museums and parks and zoos. We stayed in hotels and someone else cleaned our rooms and washed the sheets and towels. We ate in restaurants and someone else did the dishes. Our meals were completely imbalanced. Sometimes we even had ice cream for lunch.

Thomas Paine said that the winter soldier "deserves the love and thanks of man and woman" and so, of course, does the winter parent deserves the love and thanks of son and daughter. But do they get it?

Or do the kids just remember who was more fun? I was thinking about that tonight as I did the dinner dishes and looked out the kitchen window to see Mike playing frisbee with Ev on the court while Clementine rode the wagon down the hill and Greta, apparently completely recovered from her vomiting, ate raspberry sorbet on the curb.

I put down the sponge and went out, on a beautiful July evening, to be a summer parent.