Guest Post from Erika: My Uncle Bill

It has been a year of death. Birth too, thank goodness, but more people that I know have died this year than in all of my previous years combined. On Sunday, my Uncle Bill left us forever, and without any warning except a premonition that I had at our last visit in September. This death has hit me harder than all the others, partially due to its suddenness and partially because I knew and loved this man my whole life.

How to describe Uncle Bill? He was so many different things to different people. This is what I observed: Fiercely independent, committed to living life his way, for better or for worse. Although he lived alone his whole life, and could be gruff and ornery, he deeply cared for other people, especially those who were at some sort of disadvantage. Walking with him around the tiny coastal town of Pescadero, his adopted home for the last 50 years, he seemed to know everyone we ran into. Most knew him as the school bus driver, but he also regularly drove members of the large immigrant farm worker community to meals, church, wherever they needed to go.

Bill also loved and cared for animals, wild and domestic, especially his dear departed cat, Bobcat. All animals that he encountered gravitated towards his gentle nature. He knew how to be still and connect with them.

He was intensely spiritual, and studied energetic healing for a time. In his youth, he was apparently something of a hippie, studying art at UC Berkeley, riding his bicycle all over California and beyond, and attending Rainbow Gatherings. I learned about these days on the walks we used to take together around Pescadero and down Old Stage Road. Bill could talk your ear off, especially about family history or his philosophical theories, or he could be silent for hours, depending on the situation. At most family gatherings, he would sit quietly except to come up with simply awful puns every once in a while. When I think of him now, I see his eyes twinkling. He wasn't exactly mischievous, but he found the humor in situations.

My cousins and I remember him most for his infamously bizarre gifts. He was extremely generous with all three of us, but we were always surprised by what he would present to us. Our "uncle bill gifts" were always memorable. They were consistently accompanied by a rambling, heartfelt, always poetic note in his elaborate curly cue handwriting. The writing frequently took up the whole card, and beyond, and the content was often as confusing as the gift.

I am sure others have very different impressions of Bill -- these thoughts are just my experience of him. I still can't believe he is gone, and will be processing this loss for a while. There is a hole in my life now.

Fortunately, I have a very tangible reminder that not only does life go on, life is happening Right Now. Her name is Karolina, and she will be one month old tomorrow. I will be sure to tell her stories about her great uncle Bill when she is old enough to understand them.



And just for comparison...here is Peter at one month old. Yep, they are definitely related. And definitely Kosinas.

We Have a New Baby

Well, through the wonders of Facebook, e-mail, Skype, and the good old-fashioned family grapevine, most of you have heard that there is a new baby in the house. Karolina Annalaura Kosina. Karolina is pronounced Kar like "car" and lina rhymes with Kosina. Anna was the name of Martin's maternal grandmother, and Laura was the name of Erika's maternal grandmother. Laura named her daughter Laurene (Erika's mother) after herself and her sister Irene, so we have lots of female relatives packed into that middle name.

So far, I like the new set up. Erika is not allowed to go downstairs for at least a week while her (extensive) stitches heal, so she spends 98% of her time in bed, which is GREAT for me, not so great for Martin, who is responsible for transporting anything that Erika needs (food, water, dental floss, water for a bath, etc.) upstairs. Luckily, the midwives are letting us hold onto the birthing tub and the potty chair for the foreseeable future, so we have created a lovely temporary bathroom on the second floor. My bathroom was re-located to Martin's office (Are you starting to think that Martin got the short end of the stick here? Yeah, me too.) But at least he did not have to push an 8lb, 11oz baby through any of *his* orifices. Hmmph.

We have been blessed by many visitors over the last few days, and the master bedroom has been converted into a sort of cocktail lounge/dining room for the duration. Last night we hosted Aunt Brooke and Tony for champagne, beef stew (thanks MOM!), and chocolate cake (for Karolina's birthday). Here is the set up:

And here is Erika in her standard position:

What? You said you didn't come here to see pictures of people eating dinner? Where the heck are the cute baby pictures? Ok, ok...
Here is Karolina's second bath (the first one was not fit for photos due to all the screaming):

And here she is sleeping:

And we still think Peter is pretty cute, even when he is doing his fake, hammy smile:

Guest Post from Erika: Many Hats of Peter

Well I have a lot of time on my hands lately, and only one child (so far) to occupy those hands. So here is...MORE about Peter. It's fun to try and figure out what he is going to be when he grows up.

Fire fighter?


Kitty cat? Or maybe this is Actor?


My vote is for artist, like his Papi:

No Baby Yet

The late stages of pregnancy can do funny things to a person.

Erika just started spontaneously cleaning out the refrigerator, a task she has *NEVER* willingly undertaken in her adult life unless there were thousands of dollars in rent deposit riding on it. You would be amazed (horrified? sickened? disgusted?) to see what she found lurking under the vegetable drawers.

She has also developed a near-insatiable appetite for cheesecake, a dessert she formerly despised (except for Junior's Cheesecake of NYC for some odd reason). She traces the strength of her original aversion back to the day her father presented her with a plate of cheesecake but called it "banana cream pie" (one of her very favorite desserts) in an effort to get her to admit she actually liked cheesecake. She realized his deception after that first, unexpectedly sour bite, and never forgave him. Also never liked cheesecake. Until the third trimester of this pregnancy. And now she can't get enough of the stuff, especially the newly in season pumpkin variety.

We are hoping to make it through Halloween before baby moves to The Outside, if only to take advantage of the many unique costume options available to extremely pregnant women. Basketball and Jack O Lantern have been suggested, and Erika came up with the very clever "Pregnant Lady!" Ok, maybe not so clever. She is going with her favorite suggestion (can't remember who suggested it -- another curse of late-stage pregnancy): Black Widow Spider! Think all-black with a strategically placed red hourglass cut-out.

She is really tempting fate, though, by purchasing theater tickets for Friday night for a "Last" date with her dear husband. (Is there dating after a second child? Inquiring minds want to know...) A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by one of Nevada City's finest theater people, and playing at the Nevada (formerly Foothill) Theater, a venue she grew quite familiar with on trips to Nevada City in her youth. Couldn't resist.

And now she is off to a much-anticipated pre-natal massage, but not without one for the English majors out there. This will probably only be funny to English majors who are familiar with California's Central Valley (Andrew? Are you out there?) but here goes. Found in the advertisement section of AAA's Via magazine: Experience the "wonders" of Solvang!

All About Peter

I blame The Bump, but the amount of neglect this blog has gotten over the past few months rivals only the amount of neglect *I* have been getting lately. Erika can no longer bend down to pet me, and when I try to make up for the lack of petting during daylight hours by making myself un-ignorably PRESENT in the pre-dawn hours of the night, I get shafted. Swept off the bed. Removed. Unloved. Ignored. This will all change when breast feeding starts up again -- those were the days! At least 20 minutes of good petting while the baby gets fed, and every few hours!

And then Peter will learn what it means to share the spotlight, the attention, the undivided love that used to be all mine before he arrived. And so, this blog post is devoted to Peter and Peter exclusively. It's probably the last exclusive blog post he'll get if this baby shows up in a timely manner.

Peter is officially three and a half years old! He stays busy in pre-school four days a week now, while mama gestates, writes, and tries to get healthy food into Nevada County schools. The kid LOVES trucks, especially fire trucks and dump trucks that he can load with whatever is handy. He also loves dental floss. Not sure where he picked that one up, but upon departing his first Real dental cleaning with a balloon, a new tooth brush, stickers, and a container of dental floss, he said: "Mom, I have ALWAYS wanted to have dental floss!" Whatever kid, keep it up.

He is constantly in motion, but has a gentle, sweet side and is finally learning how to pet me properly. He also has a great sense of humor. He frequently cracks himself (and mom) up (see dental floss quote in previous paragraph).

Here he is flying his Barbie plane.

And here is how he used the dozens of ink stamps at the shield decorating activity at the Children's Fair. Mom still says no tattoos until he is 40.

He almost learned how to swim this summer -- next summer for sure. Hopefully he will be potty trained by then as well. Sadly, he didn't get to spend as much time in the South Yuba as he did last summer, as mom was having a hard time clambering around the rocks. But he had a lot of fun weekend days with dad and a picnic from SPD.

The family did get a couple of mini-vacations late this summer, one to the beach in Pescadero...


Where we met up with Peter's San Francisco buddies Mateus and Carter AND Uncle Bill (not pictured).

And another to Pagalonthia, an epic festival with a bunch of other families, on a secluded private lake in Mendocino County. Peter got to hang with another San Francisco buddy (Paxton) and hone his fishing and painting skills. Not napping for five days took its toll, but it was worth it...



Here is what Peter will look like in 60 years or so (There was an actual BATHTUB at Leonard Lake!).

And finally, we had a nice birthday celebration for mom with Nevada City friends "LindyPiper" (Amy, Lance, Lindy, and Piper). Don't be fooled by the innocent smile -- look where his fingers are.

Peter seems ready to become a big brother -- he gives "his" baby lots of hugs and kisses and kind words through mama's belly, and has volunteered to share several toys and outgrown pieces of clothing with his little brother or sister. We'll see what happens when Baby is actually on the Outside.

He notices more and more about the world around him (the leaves are changing colors!) and has become quite articulate, when the dreaded whiny voice has not taken over his vocal cords. He loves to tell stories about his day, what happened, what he learned. And he LOVES music. He makes requests now, for the "Hello Song" on his Music Together CD (ad nauseum) and for "angry" or "sad" songs. Mom introduced him to a capella and then punk rock the other day. He is very interested in which instruments are present in each song he hears, but he seems to prefer banging on a drum (or several of mom's pots and pans) to any other form of musical expression.

Mom is getting a bit nostalgic about her time with Peter and just Peter, especially now that she is able to take him grocery shopping, and out to restaurants almost without incident. But life goes on, and that's a good thing.

Guest Post from Erika: Martha Stewart Outtakes

I have a brilliant idea for a new (reality) TV show. Outtakes and Bloopers from Martha Stewart. Call it schadenfreude, but wouldn't it be satisfying to see one of those "good things" turn into a complete disaster for a change? And the parting shot would be Martha slugging back a glass of cheap Chianti.

That's kind of what my evening looked like tonight. Single-minded, gorgeous culinary vision meets hubris. I blame Martha. And Barbara Kingsolver. Ever since I read "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", I have sought to emulate her family's Friday night routine of taking random bits from the garden and turning them into beautiful, healthy pizzas. Pizza night! Never mind that my husband does not eat pizza, nor does he, with his current work/commute schedule, have dinner with us on Friday nights. Despite these realities, Friday night pizza is something I have been trying to instate for years.

And so, on the hottest day of the summer (so far), I decided to turn the oven up to 500 degrees, and bushwhack my way through my terrifically overgrown vegetable garden in the 95-degree heat to select some choice vegetables for our pizza. Peter amused himself by transporting a large portion of our winter firewood from one side of the house to the other, using his stroller as a sort of truck.

I excavated several feet of potato vines to find quite a lot of kale left underneath. Perfect to saute with garlic and top the pizza! I ignored the earwigs on the pepper plant and harvested our first two tiny purple peppers. I removed one dessicated ear of corn from our stunted, dried-up corn plants. Not sure what happened there. I ignored the legions of rattlesnake beans and green beans that are surely getting too tough to eat (beans on a pizza? no.), and snipped a few basil leaves from the tiny plants that have been overtaken by the enormous tomato trees.

I had to force my hand through the deer wire from the outside of the garden fence to collect a precious few cherry tomatoes. The other cherry tomatoes, sadly, are quite inaccessible to anyone over three feet tall because the plants are so huge that they butt up right against the fence on two sides of my poorly designed square of tomato plants. Unfortunately, Peter refuses to enter the garden ever since the squash plants scratched his little legs, and so the majority of the little Sungolds remain tantalizingly out of reach.

I returned to the house to find the dough rising well enough, which was surprising since I definitely did not get the water warm enough to activate the yeast. It even smoothed itself cooperatively over the cornmeal-covered pizza peel. Perhaps a bit TOO cooperatively, in hindsight. Peter had moved on to amusing himself by filling the already full of water wading pool with dirt and firewood. It will certainly dry out by the time winter arrives.

Next, I raided the refrigerator for a serendipitous selection of leftovers: Kalamata olives, feta cheese, and Parmesan cheese. I mixed up a little garlic oil and began to put together my masterpiece. When it was assembled, I was so pleased with myself that I took a picture. Little did I know that I would be using it as a "Before" picture:


This all, of course, took MUCH longer than I expected, and I'd gotten a late start. It was suddenly much later than we normally eat. So, perhaps I rushed the next step just a bit. Visualizing a quick, graceful slide from pizza peel to pizza stone, I opened the blazing hot oven and tried, with a practiced jerk, to deposit the pizza on the stone. It did not budge from the peel. Not even an inch. A few olives toppled onto the oven floor and hissed.

Wiping sweat from my eyes, and from a few other places that it now collects on my seven-and-a-half-month pregnant body, I tried again.

Nada.

Desperate, I racked the kitchen utensil drawer for some tool to assist. In the end I just shoved the ingredients from the peel to the stone and all over the oven floor with no regard for aesthetics. I optimistically thought that it might turn out to be an inventive sort of half calzone, half pizza-ish creation. It was a disaster.


I've been surprising monk-like throughout this pregnancy, avoiding alcohol almost completely, except for a few sips on Easter and four ounces of very good wine on a recent date at a surprisingly good, almost-local (Auburn, 30 minutes away) wine bar. But tonight I opened a bottle of wine, and poured myself a half glass. I think Martha would have approved.

Peter sat down at the table. "What is this, Mom?" I brightly replied: "It's pizza, honey! Yum! Bon Appetit!" He tried it, ate a few bites. "Mom, I don't like this kind of pizza. I want another pizza." Actually, it wasn't bad for what it was. The crust turned out very nice in most places. And the good flavors were all there, at least the parts that didn't burn to a crisp on the bottom of the oven. But so much for family pizza night and garden bounty. I think I'm over it. Next Friday, we're going out for pizza.

Abandoned Cat Sulks, Neglects to Post on Blog While Family Vacations Elsewhere

Oh, neglected blog! Well, I've been neglected too while the Kosinas gallivant around San Francisco, Pescadero, Washington, France, and who knows where else.

At least I have some pictures to share.

Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington state! Who knew? Stunningly beautiful, fantastic food, even pretty decent weather. Here is how it looks from its highest point:


That's Peter and BFF Lindy running around down there, with mama Amy + baby Piper, and dad, of course. Here is a close-up of the cuteness.



Peter had to bring his lovey on the hike, of course. See it there in his hand?



And the family Kosina, with Erika fighting a terrible cold, trying not to look like death warmed over. At least the view was beautiful.



Peter enjoyed hunting for sea shells with dad on the beach...



But mostly he enjoyed all the BOATS! On the whale watching boat (no, we did not spot any whales):



On the ferry to Victoria...



And, DRIVING the ferry to Victoria! (Do you drive a boat? Sail it? Well, he was steering anyway.)



Not much else to report, other than hot, hot, HOT in Nevada City. Summer has finally arrived.