C and I counted thirteen black swallowtail caterpillars on our parsely yesterday. We have had a plethora of different butterflies tickling our blossoms and gracing our garden with their presence this year, and it has made my children and I quite the aficionados of these garden pixies. I have tried to take some photos of them this year, and am also working to plant a very butterfly-friendly front yard filled with fun foliage for our frolicking friends!
...so stand by for snapshots!
jueves, 27 de septiembre de 2007
martes, 25 de septiembre de 2007
Scrappy the Super-Dog
He is the newest member of our family of stuffed animals, C's little doggy. He named him Scrappy.
Of course, being C, it comes out as "Crappy, the Super Dog"...
Of course, being C, it comes out as "Crappy, the Super Dog"...
domingo, 23 de septiembre de 2007
reaction?
Who knows, by this point in the game. It is so darned frustrating.
Last night as K and I got ready for bed (she had a fantastic little birthday party for B...and of course I accompanied her! Couldn't miss out on all the fun...I mean, Cheesecake Factory, for goodness sakes!) and played our "little-brother-isn't-around-to-destroy-so-let's-play" games, I felt the headache coming on. This was about 8:30 p.m. and fortunately K and I decided we were too tired to go on so we went to bed.
Throughout the night I could feel the headache getting worse.
I awoke this morning with such an intense pain that I tried to go back to sleep and make it go away. I tried sinus stuff, but it didn't help--although the hot shower this morning did, I can't stay in the shower all day long. By 10 a.m. I could not even move and was nauseous and in tears.
A perfect, sunny, 85º day and I completely wasted it away in an achy stupor.
Causes? Did I eat something I shouldn't have and reacted? Was it the "cold front" that went through today, causing "Me, the Human Barometer" to act up again? Hormonal imbalances? A mix? I don't know. I just know that I have taken some ibuprofen and, over the course of the past seven hours, become barely functional again.
Let's see if we can maintain functionality for a while! Today was not fun.
I guess I have always been a headache sufferer. My mother wrote in my baby book of, when around 2 years old, I would hold my head and scream, and she wondered if I could possibly be suffering headaches. I have had headaches since late elementary school that I can remember, but my worst times were in my 20s, when I would frequently suffer those akin to that which I had today, completely debilitating.
But that is nothing.
*--------------*
Today a good friend informed me of the birth of a new baby girl in the family--at 31 weeks, the mother was sent to the hospital with severe preeclampsia and they had to operate to get the baby out. She has yet to develop her external ear lobes. Prognosis for survival is not yet known. So sad...my prayers go out to that family.
*-------------*
Mom would like to come to visit in November. That is a nice month to visit, normally. Plus, being K's 6th birthday and Thanksgiving all together, it would be extra-special. We haven't celebrated Thanksgiving together in many, many years. I would like that very much. Now...what to do about the sleeping arrangements?
*-------------*
And that is my weekend round-up. Hopefully the week will be uneventful and pain-free for us all.
Last night as K and I got ready for bed (she had a fantastic little birthday party for B...and of course I accompanied her! Couldn't miss out on all the fun...I mean, Cheesecake Factory, for goodness sakes!) and played our "little-brother-isn't-around-to-destroy-so-let's-play" games, I felt the headache coming on. This was about 8:30 p.m. and fortunately K and I decided we were too tired to go on so we went to bed.
Throughout the night I could feel the headache getting worse.
I awoke this morning with such an intense pain that I tried to go back to sleep and make it go away. I tried sinus stuff, but it didn't help--although the hot shower this morning did, I can't stay in the shower all day long. By 10 a.m. I could not even move and was nauseous and in tears.
A perfect, sunny, 85º day and I completely wasted it away in an achy stupor.
Causes? Did I eat something I shouldn't have and reacted? Was it the "cold front" that went through today, causing "Me, the Human Barometer" to act up again? Hormonal imbalances? A mix? I don't know. I just know that I have taken some ibuprofen and, over the course of the past seven hours, become barely functional again.
Let's see if we can maintain functionality for a while! Today was not fun.
I guess I have always been a headache sufferer. My mother wrote in my baby book of, when around 2 years old, I would hold my head and scream, and she wondered if I could possibly be suffering headaches. I have had headaches since late elementary school that I can remember, but my worst times were in my 20s, when I would frequently suffer those akin to that which I had today, completely debilitating.
But that is nothing.
*--------------*
Today a good friend informed me of the birth of a new baby girl in the family--at 31 weeks, the mother was sent to the hospital with severe preeclampsia and they had to operate to get the baby out. She has yet to develop her external ear lobes. Prognosis for survival is not yet known. So sad...my prayers go out to that family.
*-------------*
Mom would like to come to visit in November. That is a nice month to visit, normally. Plus, being K's 6th birthday and Thanksgiving all together, it would be extra-special. We haven't celebrated Thanksgiving together in many, many years. I would like that very much. Now...what to do about the sleeping arrangements?
*-------------*
And that is my weekend round-up. Hopefully the week will be uneventful and pain-free for us all.
viernes, 21 de septiembre de 2007
my little "Juan Querendón"
Ok, I took the title of my current Univisión telenovela. It's so appropriate, though...
I had two class mothers comment to me on what a sweetheart my little boy is today. I guess that, while dropping their children off at the classroom, my not-at-all shy little boy went right up to talk to these mothers, completely initiating a conversation and leaving them with hugs at their departure.
His teacher, Mrs. F., smiled to me as the Young Prince was leaving, saying that he always kisses her hand.
What a little querendón.
Now if we can just perfect the pulling-down-of-one's-pants that are snapped and zipped and not simply elastic-waisted--well, then we'll just have the perfect little man, ¡a sus órdenes!
...and almost as guapo as Eduardo Santamarina himself! :)
I had two class mothers comment to me on what a sweetheart my little boy is today. I guess that, while dropping their children off at the classroom, my not-at-all shy little boy went right up to talk to these mothers, completely initiating a conversation and leaving them with hugs at their departure.
His teacher, Mrs. F., smiled to me as the Young Prince was leaving, saying that he always kisses her hand.
What a little querendón.
Now if we can just perfect the pulling-down-of-one's-pants that are snapped and zipped and not simply elastic-waisted--well, then we'll just have the perfect little man, ¡a sus órdenes!
...and almost as guapo as Eduardo Santamarina himself! :)
Econ 101
Last night's dinner conversation revolved around the library books that K had checked out from the school library since beginning Kindergarten three weeks ago. Last week she brought home a wonderful book titled Pictures from Our Vacation, a Newberry Award winner. I was telling her how proud I was of her that she could read so many words, even some of the big words, all by herself.
We then got onto the topic of motels.
The family in the story stayed in a motel called the Shangri-La. The sign out front said it had a pool, which I am certain the children in the backseat were very excited to see, but they soon found out that there was no water in the pool.
This talk about a motel began our Econ 101 lesson for the evening.
-What's a motel?
-Well, it's a place you stay when you aren't camping but you aren't at home. We stayed in a motel in Oregon when we went back to visit 'Amma this summer.
-Oh, that wasn't a hotel? I thought that was a hotel.
-No, that was a motel. It was a nice motel but it was still a motel.
-Well, then, what's a hotel?
-Well, a hotel is where you go and a person is there to take you luggage to your room and there is food that you can order room service and it is all fancy-schmancy and everything.
-Oh, well, what happens if that person takes your things and doesn't bring them to your room?
-Oh, that person is paid to bring our things to our room, and usually we give them a tip, a little extra money, to make sure that our things get to our room safely. But I don't like to go to hotels because only rich people can afford to stay at hotels and I don't feel very comfortable around rich people.
-Yeah, we're not rich, are we?
-No, we're not rich.
Then K stopped, thought a moment, and said,
-Boy, Sheila is rich.
I looked at K and asked, -Why do you say that?
-Because they have all those toys.
-Oh.
-Yeah, I bet if we were rich we'd have a lot more toys than we do.
Instead of immediately jumping to the defensive as I would normally do, I simply let the issue lie with that basic economic observation. Personal choice versus economics--how could she possibly understand that I might not actually buy her all that her little heart desires even if I had the monetary resources to do so? I hope she might come to understand so as not to feel deprived. She has toys, she has books, and she has a fantastic imagination that permits her to discover fun inside or outside without necessarily having any toys with which to play. That was a parenting choice that I made, and every single parent makes different choices. The respect for the different choices is important, but my hope is that she can look back on her childhood and see riches of a different kind that she was given.
We then got onto the topic of motels.
The family in the story stayed in a motel called the Shangri-La. The sign out front said it had a pool, which I am certain the children in the backseat were very excited to see, but they soon found out that there was no water in the pool.
This talk about a motel began our Econ 101 lesson for the evening.
-What's a motel?
-Well, it's a place you stay when you aren't camping but you aren't at home. We stayed in a motel in Oregon when we went back to visit 'Amma this summer.
-Oh, that wasn't a hotel? I thought that was a hotel.
-No, that was a motel. It was a nice motel but it was still a motel.
-Well, then, what's a hotel?
-Well, a hotel is where you go and a person is there to take you luggage to your room and there is food that you can order room service and it is all fancy-schmancy and everything.
-Oh, well, what happens if that person takes your things and doesn't bring them to your room?
-Oh, that person is paid to bring our things to our room, and usually we give them a tip, a little extra money, to make sure that our things get to our room safely. But I don't like to go to hotels because only rich people can afford to stay at hotels and I don't feel very comfortable around rich people.
-Yeah, we're not rich, are we?
-No, we're not rich.
Then K stopped, thought a moment, and said,
-Boy, Sheila is rich.
I looked at K and asked, -Why do you say that?
-Because they have all those toys.
-Oh.
-Yeah, I bet if we were rich we'd have a lot more toys than we do.
Instead of immediately jumping to the defensive as I would normally do, I simply let the issue lie with that basic economic observation. Personal choice versus economics--how could she possibly understand that I might not actually buy her all that her little heart desires even if I had the monetary resources to do so? I hope she might come to understand so as not to feel deprived. She has toys, she has books, and she has a fantastic imagination that permits her to discover fun inside or outside without necessarily having any toys with which to play. That was a parenting choice that I made, and every single parent makes different choices. The respect for the different choices is important, but my hope is that she can look back on her childhood and see riches of a different kind that she was given.
miércoles, 19 de septiembre de 2007
settling in
It is now the third week of the new school year and I am finally feeling as though the children and I have settled into our routine. They pretty much wake themselves up at the appropriate time each day thanks to the fact that I have them in bed at the appropriate hour each night. They know what to expect each day and where they are going. I have my student schedule that is becoming routine, and will be adding new classes around those which I already have.
Coupled with a rather predictable weather pattern in which we currently find ourselves, the routine is understandably comfortable--and comforting to those of us who thrive on routine, pattern and The Predictable.
*-------------------*
My student this morning mentioned that a supposed meteor hit the altiplano of Southern Perú over the weekend, making those who went to investigate this very UNPREDICTABLE event very sick due to extraterrestrial gases, according to the experts, accompanything this meteor. That part of Perú is where I visited in 2000, close to where Lake Titicaca joins the two countries, in Andean highlands that are between 10,000 and 12,000 feet in elevation. The air is crisp and clean, the skies are blue and it feels like you can actually peek into Heaven there. Imagine having your day violently interrupted by a huge steaming rock that fell out of that sky...
They have had a lot of interruptions to Life As Normal in that country lately.
*------------------*
I dreamt about Thailand the other night. It must have been a dream triggered by the recent news regarding the plane crash on Phuket of all the tourists in the middle of a torrential rainstorm. I was fortunate enough to visit Thailand in December/January 1995/96 when the weather tends to be more stable.
I was walking along the beach of Koh Samui. The northwest beach was built-up in what I imagine to be Phuket-style, with the touristy hotels and pools and activities for the tourist trade. Not interested in this side of the isle, I left, walking south, in search of the Koh Samui that I knew, with the rustic bungalowes with no electricity and toilets we flushed with buckets and the vast beaches upon which I could lay on warm, white sand and have fantastic massages by the local ladies and watch pirated movies in small, dark restaurants serving steaming, spicy prawns...
The beach curved sharply to the east, and I was walking now away from the "Phuket" side and what I thought to be closer to the Koh Samui side. The beach seemed to go on forever, but I then realized that, to my left, there was a wall that was partially washed away. I understood then that this area was where all I had previously experienced used to stand--all the stands filled with natives peddling their wares, trying to find the tourist that would pay the highest price and not show too much bartering prowess. The dirt roads upon which you had to avoid the car, or the tuk-tuk, or the elephant that sauntered by. All gone.
-What happened here?- I wondered.
It then dawned on me that this area must have been hard hit by the tsunami of a couple years ago and has never rebuilt due to the fact that this side of the island became ocean, that all was washed away and covered with sand and water, returning the commercial side of the island to a pristine natural beauty that the natives decided to leave henceforth untouched.
*--------------------*
I have been revisiting my former voyages...wishing? Perhaps. But more than anything, in extreme thanksgiving for the great opportunities with which I have been presented to know our World.
Coupled with a rather predictable weather pattern in which we currently find ourselves, the routine is understandably comfortable--and comforting to those of us who thrive on routine, pattern and The Predictable.
*-------------------*
My student this morning mentioned that a supposed meteor hit the altiplano of Southern Perú over the weekend, making those who went to investigate this very UNPREDICTABLE event very sick due to extraterrestrial gases, according to the experts, accompanything this meteor. That part of Perú is where I visited in 2000, close to where Lake Titicaca joins the two countries, in Andean highlands that are between 10,000 and 12,000 feet in elevation. The air is crisp and clean, the skies are blue and it feels like you can actually peek into Heaven there. Imagine having your day violently interrupted by a huge steaming rock that fell out of that sky...
They have had a lot of interruptions to Life As Normal in that country lately.
*------------------*
I dreamt about Thailand the other night. It must have been a dream triggered by the recent news regarding the plane crash on Phuket of all the tourists in the middle of a torrential rainstorm. I was fortunate enough to visit Thailand in December/January 1995/96 when the weather tends to be more stable.
I was walking along the beach of Koh Samui. The northwest beach was built-up in what I imagine to be Phuket-style, with the touristy hotels and pools and activities for the tourist trade. Not interested in this side of the isle, I left, walking south, in search of the Koh Samui that I knew, with the rustic bungalowes with no electricity and toilets we flushed with buckets and the vast beaches upon which I could lay on warm, white sand and have fantastic massages by the local ladies and watch pirated movies in small, dark restaurants serving steaming, spicy prawns...
The beach curved sharply to the east, and I was walking now away from the "Phuket" side and what I thought to be closer to the Koh Samui side. The beach seemed to go on forever, but I then realized that, to my left, there was a wall that was partially washed away. I understood then that this area was where all I had previously experienced used to stand--all the stands filled with natives peddling their wares, trying to find the tourist that would pay the highest price and not show too much bartering prowess. The dirt roads upon which you had to avoid the car, or the tuk-tuk, or the elephant that sauntered by. All gone.
-What happened here?- I wondered.
It then dawned on me that this area must have been hard hit by the tsunami of a couple years ago and has never rebuilt due to the fact that this side of the island became ocean, that all was washed away and covered with sand and water, returning the commercial side of the island to a pristine natural beauty that the natives decided to leave henceforth untouched.
*--------------------*
I have been revisiting my former voyages...wishing? Perhaps. But more than anything, in extreme thanksgiving for the great opportunities with which I have been presented to know our World.
lunes, 17 de septiembre de 2007
morning chill
Autumn arrived early. I'm not quite ready for the nip in the air, although there still remains something glorious in twiriling around in the leaves that swirl with wind gusts on their journey to the ground.
That point has not yet arrived, however. It is the awkward stage, the straddling of the two seasons, the warm and the cold, the daily wondering which will win out over the other but knowing full well which, in the end, will win the war. It is Mother Nature. It is time for our summer to end.
Dressing like an onion has never been a strong point. I had a friend in Japan who taught in the high school that my host-sister from my first orchestral trip to Japan in 1990 attended, and he was affectionately named "onion-boy" by the student body. In Japan, these cold days did not mean that we could seek refuge from the outdoor chill in the warm embrace of our workplace; indeed, the only heated areas of the schools were the teacher's room and the individual classrooms. Hallways were a brisque slap-across-the-face of the reality of the outdoor cold. We thus had to dress appropriately, wearing layers upon layers that, over the course of a class period while teaching, would be inevitably shed, as the rooms were not only heated but the heat was maintained by 40 uniformed bodies.
Hence the name "onion-boy."
I am thankful that I no longer have to tread outside each chilly morning to fill my kerosene tank for my heater and turn on my heated toilet seat. I don't miss frozen sponges in my kitchen sink and frozen shampoo in the shower. Certainly, experiences like these make one much more thankful for that which one does enjoy, while reminding me that I really do not have room for complaint!
That point has not yet arrived, however. It is the awkward stage, the straddling of the two seasons, the warm and the cold, the daily wondering which will win out over the other but knowing full well which, in the end, will win the war. It is Mother Nature. It is time for our summer to end.
Dressing like an onion has never been a strong point. I had a friend in Japan who taught in the high school that my host-sister from my first orchestral trip to Japan in 1990 attended, and he was affectionately named "onion-boy" by the student body. In Japan, these cold days did not mean that we could seek refuge from the outdoor chill in the warm embrace of our workplace; indeed, the only heated areas of the schools were the teacher's room and the individual classrooms. Hallways were a brisque slap-across-the-face of the reality of the outdoor cold. We thus had to dress appropriately, wearing layers upon layers that, over the course of a class period while teaching, would be inevitably shed, as the rooms were not only heated but the heat was maintained by 40 uniformed bodies.
Hence the name "onion-boy."
I am thankful that I no longer have to tread outside each chilly morning to fill my kerosene tank for my heater and turn on my heated toilet seat. I don't miss frozen sponges in my kitchen sink and frozen shampoo in the shower. Certainly, experiences like these make one much more thankful for that which one does enjoy, while reminding me that I really do not have room for complaint!
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