The Grumblies

2011-07-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Bruce and I got away for a vacation in exotic Benicia! Bruce's tug has two home ports, San Francisco, pier 17 and the Benica Industrial dock in Benicia, so he knows the area quite well. We stayed one night in a new motel and one night in the historic Union Hotel in downtown Benicia. (cost about the same, accomodations about the same in general, everything was a bit larger in the modern motel, both came with breakfast). We went to the Friends of the library book sale (Bruce is a friend of the library. The sale had a great selection of books, very reasonabe prices and many helpful volunteers), the Historic Military cemetary (some very old graves, military, civilian, and even a few prisones of war), the Benicia Historical Museum housed in the Historic Camel Barn complex (there was a short military experiment to use camels for conveyance in the desert southwest, the experiment was cancelled due to the Civil War and the camels were brought to Benicia to be sold at public auction in 1864, so for one month, there were camels in the camel barn in Benicia!). Benicia was named for Vallejo's wife Francisca (many middle names) Benicia Vallejo. First named Francisca, when Yerba Buena changed it's name to San Francisco, they decided to change the name to Benicia to avoid confusion. Sra. Vallejo bore 16 children, 10 of whom lived to adulthood, and I made note of quote from Sr. Vallejo's journal: "The family is the only thing which keeps up society. Childhood has the right to joy." We spent two hours plus in the museum and only got through less than half. I got up the pony express days, then we decided to come back another time and see the rest. The museum is very well done -- I would recommend a visit if you like historical museums. We also visited several garage sales, and lastly the Historic First State Capitol Building in downtown Benicia. The state constitution was written in Monterey in tents and Benicia, San Jose and Saramento all started vying to be the capitol. Benicia finished it's building first and was the state capitol for about a year (1853-4), and remains the oldest capitol building as the only original part of the Sacramento capitol is from 1860. It was very interesting to see the small clerks and copy rooms and the large meeting rooms for the Senate (downstairs) and the Assembly (upstairs) with the raised and railed paltform for the speakers. It was built with locally made bricks because they didn't want to wait for bricks to be shipped from the east. Did you know that Mt. Diablo was named for a vision of the devil that a Spanish Father (not Serra, I can't remember his name at the moment (Haro?))had while in reverent comtemplation of the valley below? He was tempted to have the church leave so the Spanish could "inherit" the land. He did not heed the devil's temptation and now we know why it is called Mt. Diablo. There is a painting of this vision in the Assembly room upstairs. We really enjoyed our weekend getaway to lovely Benicia!

pneumonia =(

2010-04-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

Hello All, I have had pneumonia for the last 2 months or so, and it's all a blur. I am very nearly back to my old self now and am really happy about it!

Ginger's First Date

2009-09-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

For a couple of years now, Ginger's best friend Georgia has been bugging Ginger about the double date they were going to go on the moment Ginger turned 16. This has been a point of stress for quite a while--who to go with?!! It was with great relief 3 weeks ago that Ginger announced that she had solved the problem "I'll just go with Alex! He moved back just in time!" [Alex and Ginger were great friends before they even realised that one was a girl and the other was a boy. Four years ago Alex's family was stationed by the Coast Guard in Oregon, and great plans were made for a trip up north or at least constant pen-palling, neither of which ever happened. Luckily, about a month ago, they got stationed back to Alameda, just in time for The Date.] Alex is a very thoughtful and well-mannered young man; both sets of parents fully approve. In case you were wondering the date went very well; they all went to a nice restaurant for dinner, then to a movie, then back to Georgia's house for a birthday cake. Whew, that's over with ...

What's New?

2009-09-08T16:05:00.000-07:00

We kept busy this summer with Cub Scout Daycamp, Girl Scout Daycamp, ballet camp, Liahona Girls' Camp, piano lessons and two weeks of doing nothing. We got cable, faster internet and new phone numbers. This fall we went back to school, with Charlie and Esther starting at a brand new charter school modeled on the one the older girls go to (yay!). We are riding our bikes a lot and Mom and Ida are enjoying time together wihle everyone else is at school. Bruce is keeping busy on tugs and ferries and just qualified to work on the Rocket Boat! ["the San Francisco Bay's premier water attraction"; stop by for a free ride anytime Bruce is working] This is the second week of school and we are getting back in the swing of school, classes, lessons, scouts, etc. Don't forget, we love you!

Late Spring Update

2009-05-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

Just to update the update:
The spring recital went very well, I was impressed by the choreography, costumes, and performances. Ginger's spring concert went well and was a very enjoyable evening. She has a screening at a film festival at the real theatre here in town tonight and (this is impressive if you know Ginger) made arrangements to have a haircut and get a new dress shirt a few days ahead of time! Charlie has earned his Wolf and is well on his way to his 4th arrow point. Bruce graciously stayed home with the younger 3 while Vivian accompanied the older 3 to a girl scout camping weekend; it rained a lot and some troops had a rough time with mud, but we had a great time! Ginger and Erin are hero(ines) to the troop across the road for helping set up tents in the dark and rain; they had never been camping before. Kudos to them, too, for not giving up and leaving early in spite of soaked sleeping bags, etc! And Ginger found a new troop she can join after hers disbands (the others are all graduating and leaving for college), Yay! Bruce just finished an extra week off, in which he acquired 2 new dressers, a bunk bed, a set of shelves, a desk and 2 computers all alongside the road or at great yard sale prices. Needless to say, that was the easy part. Next came major furniture moving in and out. It was like moving without changing addresses. The kids all now have more age appropriate rooms without rickety furniture and we did a major spring cleaning, too. Esther and Ida are dwarfed by their twin sized bunk bed--they can each fit easily in 1/4 of their matresses! It is cute to tuck them in at one corner and by the next morning they have moved to a different quadrant. We are all well and hope you are too!

Spring Update

2009-03-26T09:54:00.000-07:00

Ginger is now 15 1/2 and we are getting ready to get her Learner's Permit (yikes!). She is always busy filming and editing. She will be attending JROTC Boot Camp during Spring Break.
Erin is rehearsing a lot for the upcoming Impressionist Ballet performance; Degas Dancers and Monet's Garden. She is also worrying about her grades: are colleges looking for consistent good grades or should she slack off for a while so she can show an improvement?
Ruth recently got to participate in a national study; a person with a laptop in a case came to our house and interviewed her for about 3 hours. In return, Ruth got a $20 gift certificate to the store of her choice. Ruth also participated in the school talent show last night; she showed her talent for flexibility in a routine she and Erin designed. She had to use different music, unfortunately, because they didn't have a cd player, only an ipod player, so she doesn't feel like she did her best. But she is one of the most flexible people I know.
Charlie is having a great time in cub scouts; by the end of March he will have completed all the Wolf requirements and a ton of the electives. He also recently moved up a reading level and is smarter at math than he realises.
Esther is also rehearsing a lot for the upcoming Impressionist ballet; she has advanced from Waterlily last year to Raindrop this year. She is really enjoying her Daisy Troop. Esther just got accepted from the waiting list into the new charter school, based on the model of the older kids' school, but k-12. Yay!
Ida enjoys preschool , as well as doing chores at home with Mom and going with Mom to all the places Mom has to go.
Vivian enjoys being the Mom and helping with ballet costumes, getting to lessons and rehearsals, completing wolf requirements, completing girl scout requirements, gardening, teaching Art Docent lessons in the kindergarten classrooms, and the latest project: organising the elementary school lost and found (we ususally have a few minutes to hang around after school starts, so I just sort out a few at a time and we'll see how it goes!)
Bruce is doing Deckhanding on a tugboat again; he enjoys being outdoors and being able to throw ropes as thick as your thigh accurately up onto ship's decks and onto bollards on docks. He can throw it so the rope wraps around the bollard in a criss cross in one throw. He really enjoys his week off to spend at home with his family.

Respect

2008-12-18T07:31:00.000-08:00

Charlie (8yo) announced at breakfast this morning "Mom, this milk is from cows not treated with respect!" (read rBST). I hope the cows get respect; they get respect from me.

What is really important?

2008-12-18T07:07:00.000-08:00

I was catching up on my friends' and realtives' blogs this morning wishing I were better about keeping up mine and doing cute pictures etc, when Ida who was on my lap announced "I love you!" in with her little song she was singing. I almost missed it! One of the secrets of life is to enjoy what you have and stop wishing for what you don't have. I enjoy all of your blogs--keep up the good work! But I have a sweet little someone in person to give me hugs and tell me that she loves me! I will enjoy it while it lasts and not feel too bad about my minimal blog. And try to do better about keeping in touch!

Ida turned 3!

2008-07-11T14:51:00.000-07:00

A month ago, Ida decided she didn't want diapers any more, and she's been doing very well! One of her birthday presents this year was more trainer underpants. Fortunately, payday came before the birthday (that's one advantage of being born on the first), so she got actual presents instead of some IOUs. She is enjoying her lighthouse stacking blocks, her alphabet puzzle and magnets, her toy animals (a camel, a squirrel, and a goat?! queried our friend Helen who owns the used toy shop we frequent for birthdays. They are the ones in the bin that Ida didn't already have!) , her cute summery outfit, candy from Erin and her new underpants.
Editor's note: I tried to publish this last month when Ida's birthday actually was, but somehow I couldn't get through. So here it is now.

Springtime!

2008-03-21T08:22:00.000-07:00

We have been hibernating all winter and are so glad it's spring! We've been planting lots of seeds; I am trying all kinds of new things this year that I haven't tried before, such as watermelon, cantaloupe, eggplant and lots of flowers I haven't grown from seed before. Poppies and portulaca have the eensiest threadlike sprouts I have ever seen, and I wouldn't have known they were there if I hadn't planted them myself. I saw watermelon, cantaloupe and eggplants in our community garden last year, so I hope I can get mine to grow this year. There is another huge pile of mulch in the community garden again, that nobody wants. I have had great sucess starting beans from seeds I saved last year; I start them in juice cans so I can bring them in every night so they don't get eaten down to nothing, and transplant them to a garden plot when they are big enough. So far I have planted out a batch of three different kinds (the fourth kind is waiting for it's spot to be ready) and started some more of each. (I can do 4 trays of 12 juice cans each at a time. BTW, plastic Welch's frozen juice cans (with the ridge cut off the top and holes poked in the bottom) have been the best starting pots I have ever come across. I have used some for three years now, and they are still in good condition). I could go on for too long about gardening, so I'll stop myself now. Happy gardening and happy spring!

The Tooth Fairy

2007-12-01T19:20:00.000-08:00

The tooth fairy will be visiting Charlie tonight; the tied a piece of dental floss to the pesky loose tooth, tied the other end to the door, slammed the door and it actually worked! It never worked for me. Welcome, Tooth Fairy!

What's New?

2007-12-01T19:10:00.000-08:00

You have probably died of impatience waiting for me to update this blog; sorry for the long delay. We are just getting on with life and all is going well. I have started a new hobby: beading. It is sooo fun. When a bead store opened up here in Alameda about 5 years ago, I knew I would be in trouble if I wwent in, so i delayed as long as I could. Then I would go in and intently examine all the beads in the store once a year or so and leave without buying anything. Well, this year I decided to spend some of my ornament money on a basic beading class, and it was really fun. You get to work with tools and colors, I love it! I learned how to fix all the broken necklaces and bracelets I've accumulated over the years! I plan on taking the basic earring class next, to learn how to make the earrings I like and can never find to buy. I was wary of starting a whole new hobby, but I am so glad I have!

Our Outdoor Adventure

2007-07-21T17:39:00.000-07:00

We decided to spend our vacation living rough in our backyard for a week.
Sunday Night: After our last indoor dinner we set up our tents in the backyard. We started our setting up 2 six-man tents, but one is missing it's poles and stakes, so... we put those away and got out the 8 man tent and the shade structure. We got it set up and moved in with our sleeping bags and pillows. Our friend Justin slept over int he "boys' room" with Charlie.
Monday: The day started off with a big pink box of doughnuts and juice in the shade tent/eating tent, all set up with table, chairs and camp stove by Bruce who got up early. We played a round of charades while eating breakfast in our sleeping clothes. The weather was very overcast and cold so we all had jackets on. Then hung out the laundry (today is the last day for machine-washed clothes-tomorow begins the washboard) and I worked a bit on the bricks over to the side of the yard to terrace a planting area. Then the sun came out and I was getting too much sun, so I set up the solar water heater and then we decided it was a good time to construct our solar ovens. I started one I'd read about and Erin mane one she'd made with Girl Scouts. Ginger helped me finish mine while Erin moved on the her sundial. It is finished and she will be calibrating it for the next few days. We're testing the ovens to see how they get with a candy thermometer in a jar of water. We will need two ovens, else how will we heat up our chili and cornbread at the same time? That will be tomorow's dinner. We've been invited to a BBQ tonight. Tonight Suzy (Ruth's friend) will sleep over in our tent with us.
Tuesday: Cancel the BBQ last night, we wound up having spaghetti at home in the kitchen. Suzy's mom said 'No" to sleeping over. It turns out that Erin, Esther and Ida really like washing clothes on the washboard. I do too, but it gets a bit tiresome rather quickly. Esther and Ida use too much soap, so it takes a lot of rinsing. I have a new respect for the washerwomen of the Old West-- denim by hand is hard to work with! I only did a size 2T pair of jeans and it was difficult. The clothes take longer to dry, too, because we cannot wring them as dry as the washer spins them. We used our solar ovens today-- for canned chili and cornbread. The chili was adequately warmed, but the cornbread only half cooked before the sun disappeared behind clouds. We finished cooking it in our real oven inside. I'm not sure how to improve the efficiency of our solar ovens; perhaps tipping it so the sun goes in more directly and a better seal on the cover would make a difference. What to try next?
Wednesday: It just barely rained last night. Enough so we could hear it on the tent, but not enough to keep the ground wet in the morning. I expected to exit the tent to a soggy yard, but it was perfectly dry. Washed more laundry by hand today; Erin was so enthusiastic that whe brought down more form upstairs to do outside. Leftover chili and cornbread for lunch. ?? for dinner. Finished my retaining wall (those bricks I've been obsessed about) yesterday and planted my bean sprouts in it today.Pulled out Ginger's peas in the community garden and picked a lot of purple string beans, and few yellow. Oh, we'll have green beans for dinner! My original plan to live off the land has fallen by the asyside -- the lettuce all bolted and all that's ready to eat is a few peas, purple green beans and a couple fo zucchini. A few of the ears of corn will be ready by Friday.
Thursday: We took a field trip to the library today (ur regular library day), then we had to folow the rule and keep the library books inside, so we wound up spending a lot of time in the house today. And we've wound up cooking inside today , too. Not enough recipes for the solar oven, and I dont feel safe using the camp stove with a two-year old running around. We are still doing laundry on the washboard, but not all of it. It is very satisfying to clean your clothes by hand, but time consuming. And we are only whaing everything in cold water. Imagine if we were bining the water, boiling the clothes, using lye soap, etc. We have it easy. We are using a glass washboard (wooden frame, only the scrubbing surface is glass!) (avaliable at our local hardware stire' now I know they have everything!) and old Rubbermaid storage tote (the crack that developed in the bottom corner turned out to not be such a problem, it leaks very slowly) and some unfinished hand soap given to us by a neighbor that he had rescued from a soap factory going out of business. They were just throwing out a large slab of soap (which would have been milled, fragrance added, etc and shaped into pretty bars. He had chopped up the large slab into roughly bar sized chunks and given us a bucket full a few onths ago when he realised that he had hardly made a dent in the othr bucket he still had after several years. It's great stuff. It smells like clean soap, not perfumey, and is not best for washing hands, but is perfect for hand laundry). I may leave the laundry things outside on the back porch and throw a few clothes in now and then just for fun. It is quite pleasant to sit and scrub after dinner, then rinse and hang things up t dry over night (for shame! Never leave things on your clothes line overnight!) and they are dry by the following evening. The dry clothes are stiff, but with a softer feel to them than those done with detergent in a machine and then hung out. Enough about laundry. PS I am glad I don't have to diapers by hand-- then I would have to boil water, etc. I've been wahing diapers in the machine.
Friday: Ginger and Erin will gone tonight at a sleepover, and Bruce will able to sleep out inthe tent tonight with us. He only slept out the first night, then he had to go back to wrok, so he's been sleeping inthe house so his alarm can wake him up! I had to kick everyone out of the house this morning after they all flowed in and plunked down in front of the television and computer games. I shoo'ed them all out, picked up the living room and vacuumed. OUr friends the Millwards dropped by for a little while on their way back to Idaho. They moved away from here about 4 years ago. OUr Esther had just been born and they had never seen Ida. We had never seen their Eowyn who is just over an year. Ethan is Charlie's age and Sammy is between Charlie and Eshter. We didn't even go in the house; the kids ran around on the grass in front and the Moms sat and yakked on the front porch. We miss each other! Tonight e had sandwiches inside with leuuuce from the garden. We'll have eggs, pancakes, and suasage tomorow for breakfast. Corn not quite ready, tomorow for corn.
Saturday: We must break camp. The grass needs to unsquish and get some sunlight and we don't want to wear out the tent either. Esther is very sad. So will Ginger and Erin be when they get home form their sleepover. I am sad, too, but maintianing two households (indoors and out) is too much work. We had one clear night for stargazing, thanks to Ginger who insisted we get up and look outside at 11:00pm. Ida did not sleep well in the tent, but did want to sleep in the tent, so I had to carry her in and tuck her in her crib after she'd fall asleep. She also did not like waking u in the house before I woke up outside. We did not find a happy medium for Ida. Everyone else loved sleeping in the tent, though. We were not able to spend as much time outdoors as I had wanted. And our corn was not very tasty when we finally ate it. But overall it was a good experience.

Turtle update--good news!

2007-06-05T16:26:00.000-07:00

And there was much rejoicing! We have found all 4 turtles, safe and sound. One of them was gone for a whole week and another one got lost twice, but happily we now have them all in their indoor cage, we are preparing a bigger and better indoor cage and working on a much safer and escape-proof enclosure outside. They can move pretty fast for being turtles!

Our Tiny Turtles

2007-05-24T08:26:00.000-07:00

Last fall we inherited 4 baby box turtles and have enjuoyed having them. We had to keep them in an indoor tank setup to keep them warm over the winter because they didn't yet have enough body fat to insulate them while they hibernated. They do need full spectrum sunlight though to grow well. We bit the bullet and bought a $40 light bulb which worked very well until it broke. By then the weather was warm enough to bring them outside during the days to get some real sunlight. They loved crawling around under the large milk crate we set on the lawn. Then yesterday they loved even more crawling around the whole backyard (and beyond?) when someone (Ida?) let them all out of their cage. We spent a couple of hours crawling around the backyard ourselves looking in all the good turtle hiding places and successfully found 2 of them, but the other two (as Erin put it) are having the time of their lives out in the big wide world, until a racoon finds them a tasty snack and they go have a better time in turtle heaven. Good luck little turtles, wherever you are!

Need any mulch?

2007-02-06T11:00:00.000-08:00

Our neighborhood is on a former Naval Air Station and is in a process of transformation. One part of this process is the removal of old/diseased trees and chipping them up into mulch. It has been used to cover walkways in the sommunity garden, the non-profit plant nursery, and other bare, muddy areas.
One also sees piles of mulch all around the base.

About a year ago a sandwichboard sign appeared bearing the mesage "No more mulch PLEASE!" , moving to various locations as needed.
At Christmas time a flyer for a Christmas tree pickup was distributed, bearing a small paragraph: Trees recycled by Boy Scout Troop 11 will be turned into mulch and used to beautify areas of Alameda Point" Oh no! we residents thought.
In January the sandwich board message was changed to read "NO MULCH WILL CALL POLICE !!
What will happen next? How will this saga evolve? Only time will tell...

The Grumblies

2006-12-05T09:41:00.000-08:00

Esther is #5 of 6 children and 3 1/2 years old. The other morning Ruth (9yo) was trying to help Esther pour her cereal and Esther was refusing help. She finaly shouted out "No! I need a Mommy to help me!" I have made more of an effort to spend more time with Esther by herself. Any recommendations for great books we can read together?
PS I'm glad that the older children help out so much!

I introduced Esther to our much used copy of NO, DAVID yesterday, and she made me read it 3 times. (In the book, a little boy is naughty in lots of different ways and his mother has to chastise him all day, but in the end she still loves him) . Later that evening she got Charlie to read it to her and then they played No, David, taking turns being the David or the Mommy or Daddy. Fortunately, they didn't really try any of David's actics!

Ruby Bridges!

2006-10-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, she is a real person and we have just returned from a very nice dedication ceremony at the new Ruby Bridges Elementary school, at which Ms Bridges was present, beautiful, and very gracious. There were of course many speeches from dignitaries (ie; school board president, mayor, publisher's representative, former principal, current principle, and of course Ruby Bridges herself), lovely welcoming songs, presentations of plaques, declarations, and proclamations, and a ribbon joining instead of a cutting, because we are bridging together 3 schools. She had held an assembly with the students before the dedication and answered questions (Charlie got picked to ask "Why couldn't all children be together?", and he had duly practiced at home). Scholastic books provided a free T'Shirt for each child and a copy of Ms. Bridges book for each family and a very nice framed poster to go in the school lobby. The audience was enthusiastic but respectful (no "Woo-hoos" along with the applause). It was a great privelege to see this great lady in person. I accidently met her husband afterward (she was ushered off pretty promptly, but a few people got photos with her--I got about four feet away (I genuinely wanted to thank her, not just hound a famous person) when I found myself near one of the singing groups and thanked them for their beautiful music;I overheard him say he was "Malcolm--everyone just calls me Mr. Bridges", so I thanked him for coming and he shook my hand and asked if I were a parent, and then said Yes of course, since I had Ida in my arms. Several other members of her family were there too, all the way from New Orleans. This is the first school to be named after her; I already cherish my memory of this gracious, dignified and friendly lady.

Introductory post

2006-09-27T13:08:00.000-07:00

Uh, hello. I'm in the future! Oh dear, I exist in cyberspace! Grumblies is a term of endearment we use for our wonderful children. It just means there's always something going on, usually rumbling underneath the surface. The g is just an appendage to signify that they're mostly girls. I may have overanalysed. I have to run off now and pick up from school; I will post intermittantly and unpredictably. Look forward to seeing you again! Viv