Perhaps you have noticed a certain LACK of pictures on this blog lately. Our camera battery charger got lost in the move, and the camera lasted a good two months until the battery finally gave up the ghost shortly after we returned from our trip to the Midwest.
It's taken Erika this long to admit defeat and finally secure a new battery charger. She found all sorts of happy memories lurking in the camera (no pictures of ME, however). This one is her latest favorite Peter picture. Nope, not a baby any more. Two and a half next month.
Well, we've been here two and a half months now, and we are learning a few things.
1) The sun moves east to west. Now that it's down in the 80s, I've been following the sun from room to room in order to get 90% of my daylight sleep in a nice, warm sunbeam. This makes for a 3-part nap (guest bedroom to master bedroom to living room) but I try to take advantage of the transitions by incorporating fuel stops at my food bowl.
2) Deer will eat bird seed right out of a bird feeder. And lick it clean. Those of you who are "friends" with Erika on Facebook might have already read about this, but Erika thought it was worth repeating here.
3) Cedar trees (and China trees and just about any other kind of trees) grow much faster than you expect. Auntie Kristina came to visit yesterday and pointed out a "driveway" that we didn't even know was there because it had cedar trees growing right in the middle of it. Anybody need a cedar Christmas tree this year? We are taking orders.
4) Grown men take great pleasure in watching hundreds of Easter-egg colored plastic ducks float 100 yards down a creek if it's done in the name of charity. The Kosinas attended the Duck Race last weekend (I stayed home to follow my sunbeams) and it was...surreal.
5) Alpacas are not llamas. To the untrained eye (city folk), they may look identical, but alpacas are smaller, gentler, and cuter than llamas. Also less aggressive. Erika even got over her llama phobia and reached out to pet an alpaca on Sunday, at the strong urging of her 8-year-old neighbor.
6) And speaking of neighbors, it's awfully nice to have good neighbors where ever you live. When Peter rolled the Retro Rocket today and cleaned up the street with his face, the neighbors kindly turned off the sprinkler before it flooded the street (Erika was busy tending to her bleeding, screaming son) and even brought over an ice pack to ease the swelling. (Rejected. Cookies were the only medication that truly seemed to help.) Peter seems ok, although these battle wounds are worse than the time he tipped his stroller over and landed on his forehead. I could hear the wailing all the way upstairs, poor guy.
That's all for now. It's been a long day of following sunbeams. Send Peter some love; he needs it.
We arrived home last night after a fun-filled nearly 2-week trip across the country in the Apache to visit friends and relatives. It was a reprise of last summer's Midwestern Adventure, only this time we were aiming for a complete Willett family reunion. Unfortunately Uncle Bill took a bad fall just days before he was scheduled to fly, so we didn't quite get the whole family together. He was missed.
We still managed to have a good time together in a gorgeous "cabin" on one of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes. I had almost forgotten how silly and wonderful my cousins are, and it was fun mixing three generations together for a week. On the way back, we spent a day and a half in South Dakota with our dear friends, the Briggs, and made a quick stop in the Nevada desert to visit our second family. It was quite a trip. Peter is still processing everything that he experienced. We were pretty lame about taking photos, so here is a stream of consciousness narrative of our journey instead, representing three perspectives on our trip. Pawlene did not join us, but received regular visits from the neighbor girls. Martin's perspective is similar to Erika's, just with more emphasis on "plane", "fish", and "beer".
The skunks came back last night. Right in the middle of a discussion Martin and I were having about our grocery budget. Perfect timing. Only two again, and cuter than ever. Didn't see mama, but she might have been staying out of sight like a wise old mother skunk. Anyway, they reminded me that I haven't posted since the last time they visited.
I have more of the same to report, I am afraid. Mixed emotions about living in a new place. Peter has adjusted beautifully to pre-school and even requests to go back on his "off" days. One of the caregivers there found a cure for his runny nose. Homeopathic medicine. So much for UCSF. What a difference for him to be able to breathe clearly and me not having to carry Kleenex everywhere we go! It still runs occasionally, but Wow.
And I continue to meet new people, but nobody that I really Click with. The hardest part about leaving San Francisco was leaving my network of mommy friends and Peter's little buddies. I dread trying to replicate such a special situation. Better writers than I have compared looking for play dates to dating and the similarities are now painfully obvious to me. I met one mom who seemed Really Great, gave her my number, but...she never called. When I ran into her again (small town), it was a bit awkward and she made some lame excuse for not getting in touch. Then there is another mom whose husband (ok this is where it is different from dating) keeps suggesting that she and I go out for a glass of wine. I even got brave and made a sort of overture, letting her know that I would love to get together, but even though she is warm and always friendly (we see each other often), she hasn't asked me out. I'm trying not to let my ego get bruised here.
One of my new year's resolutions is to be brave and ask other moms out, but that's hard! Before I was married, I asked a guy out on a date exactly once in my life, when I was 20 years old, and while it went fairly well (he said yes), it took all my nerve and I never repeated it. And my ego is in a very fragile state right now.
Today I met a fantastic woman up at the river. I knew it from the moment I saw her and her little girl (who was born, coincidentally, 4 days before Peter, and had a VERY similar temperament). Best friends at first sight. We spent a lovely few hours together, chatting and herding our children. We had similar parenting styles, similar values, similar tastes in how to spend a summer vacation. But she is just here on vacation. She lives in Petaluma, of all places. (Petaluma was our SECOND choice after Nevada City.) It almost reduced me to tears on my way home. To finally meet someone that I knew I could be great friends with, just to have the possibility ripped away within minutes of meeting. Just not meant to be.
One of our best friends from San Francisco visited us this past weekend, and her visit brought into sharp focus both the reasons why we are here and what we are missing back in the city. The kids were ecstatic to see each other. We had a wonderful time just hanging out in the warm weather, walking around downtown and eating ice cream, dancing outside the bar where some live music was spilling out onto the sidewalk, and of course, splashing in the river and in the kiddie pool. She dreaded going back to 58-degree San Francisco on Monday morning. But she was going back to a network of warm, supportive, intelligent, fun women and their children who all get along even as they challenge each other. To day after day of the time passing quickly because the kids are playing and the moms are chatting, unlike the dog day afternoons we have been experiencing when I just want to take a nap and nothing will make Peter happy except taking all of the sugar out of the bag and spreading it all over the kitchen floor in the two minutes I spend by myself inthe bathroom.
Overall, I know we made the right choice. The lifestyle here cannot be beat. And it takes time for friendships to form. This is just a time of transition. At least I get to lean back against a spectacular, giant, white, granite boulder and gaze at sparkling turquoise water and pine trees while I feel sorry for myself. And I have plenty of time to mope during the 3 days a week that Peter is in pre-school, a luxury we could scarcely afford in San Francisco.
Luckily, in a few weeks, I will get to spend a whole week in the company of my favorite tribe -- my family. I am lucky enough to have a family that I really love spending time with. Unfortunately, since we are spread apart just as far as we can be (East Coast, West Coast, Midwest, the South, and the South of France) it happens much too rarely that we all get to be in the same place. I'm sure there will be bumps and bruises (both strong-willed and sensitive run in the family), but it will be a tonic for my soul to have us all together. And an adventure for our little family! This time, I'm going to be prepared for a bumpy flight, unlike our last trip to the Midwest.
The skunks came by again last night as Martin and I were enjoying a late dinner on the front porch. They really are magnificent animals, despite their stinky reputation. Those big fluffy black and white tails are as impressive as any peacock when spread to full sail. I noticed that only two babies followed mama this time, instead of the three I met last week. Probably road kill. Or coyote food. Or any number of other things. This is nature, after all. According to the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, "up to 90% of skunks die in their first winter," and skunks in the wild only live 2-3 years, as opposed to 15 in captivity. But it made me sad anyway. That poor mama is working as hard as she can to feed those babies and keep them safe, and she lost one.
She's a single mother, too. UMMZ again: "Males are typically polygamous and solitary. Males and females do not associate beyond the few days required for fertilization. ... Male skunks provide no parental care." So she nursed those little guys for a month or two, and was just getting them used to the Big Outside World, teaching them everything she knows all by herself, and she lost one.
Ok, so maybe I'm overreacting because I just dropped Peter off for his first day at his new pre-school. He cried and clung and made me feel just awful for abandoning him, but I left anyway. And now I'm dealing with a terrible case of guilt. In my head, I know I am not a bad mother for wanting him to socialize with other kids and wanting time to myself to engage in pursuits that are more intellectual than singing "Old MacDonald" repeatedly and changing poopy diapers. And the time alone does make me a better, more patient and balanced mother. I can focus more fully on him in the time we have together when I have some time to myself first. But there is always that nagging feeling that being Peter's mother is my Job and I am slacking by pawning it off on someone else for a period of time. It feels decadent and selfish.
The women who lived in this house before me and baked pies from scratch in a wood burning oven, washed the laundry by hand and hung each piece out to dry, and kept the whole dang thing clean week after week certainly did not have someone else watching their kids while they did all this. But they probably did have some extended family to help out, unless that family was all Back East still. At the very least, I'm sure neighbors helped each other out, and I'm sure the women sat down for brief spell together during the hottest part of the day (94 degrees yesterday!), drinking iced tea while the husbands were deep inside the mountain, looking for gold, and the kids were all napping. But they didn't have a choice. Day care hadn't been invented yet.
I'm embracing the modern housewife role today. After I finish watching a giant ant crawl down my (indoor) thermometer (72 degrees at 10am!), I'm folding laundry, running the dishwasher, sweeping the house (all 8 rooms), making Thai curry for dinner, and rolling the giant garbage can all the way down the driveway for tomorrow morning's pick-up (all by myself!). I'm also going to check in with my clients and hopefully get some (paid) writing done. And after that, I'm going to pick up my one precious child from a full day at pre-school and cover him with kisses before we go play in the yard and sing Old MacDonald together.
Have I mentioned that there are a lot more, uh, CRITTERS in the country than in San Francisco? I'm not just talking about the Behe Moths (thanks, Andrew), spiders, ants, beetles, giant bees, and mosquitos, of which there are copious amounts. Today was all about the furry kind of critter.
First, as I was napping upstairs at lunch time, some tough neighbor kitty came calling. He was all of 7 lbs soaking wet, but the kid had a black leather collar with punk rock studs sticking out. I decided to wait in the shadows, let Erika check him out first. This cat had the nerve to sneak into the laundry room and PEE all over Erika's shoes and some clean laundry! Thinks he owns the place. I'll show him, once I get back in fighting shape. For now, it's up to Erika to shoo him away.
Then, after the sun went down, an entire family of SKUNKS tried to move into the space under our house! Luckily Erika had been warned by the neighbors about this very possibility just an hour earlier, and had firmly closed the skunk door and put up a little sign that said "Skunks Not Welcome Here". Well they walked right up to the front porch anyway (maybe they can't read) and fluffed their little tails up at Erika, who was standing in the doorway in amazement that they would get so close (2 feet away). Undeterred, they ran around to the side of the house, where Erika had left the door open. She got there just in time to shoo shoo shoo the cutest little skunk baby away from the laundry room. The three babies shrieked their most vicious skunk screams, and fluffed up their little skunk tails just as big as they would go, while Mom urged them to follow her around the back of the house to safety. Or at least that's where I think they ended up -- they disappeared after they rounded the corner. I guess we'll know in a few days if they are living under the house. I think I'll leave that removal project up to Erika as well, and concentrate on the moths...
Well we've been here a whole 5 days and since we decided not to unpack any boxes, we've had a lot of free time on our hands! Here are a few ways we have spent our time that never would have happened in San Francisco:
1) Trimming the tree in front of the mailbox. I finally caught the mail carrier on Saturday as he was driving past our house (again). He looks kind of like a blonde, muscular Alec Baldwin if you can picture that. My concern had been rising since we hadn't received *any* mail at all (not even an annoying supermarket flyer) since we moved in. He informed me that if I intended to receive any mail at this location, I needed to remove the tree that was growing over the mailbox. I gave him a blank look and he back-pedaled a little bit to allow for at least removing the branches that were blocking his vehicle. Apparently they don't actually get out of the truck to deliver mail in the country, they just sort of glide up to the box in their little mail trucks and throw the mail in. I told him I'd see what I could do, and then hunted Martin down to find the saw. Since I was still sulking about an argument about unpacking boxes, I couldn't deign to ask for his help, which meant it was up to me to clear the branches. And I did. I learned a few things in the process, too.
Number one, I need some of those ugly brown lace-up work boots. Chacos just don't cut it when you are doing battle with a prickly tree in the middle of a big bush on the side of a hill. Ditto for my cute shorts and tank top. Bring on the tough work pants with the monkey logo or whatever that critter is supposed to be. I have a few scratches to show for my woefully inadequate wardrobe.
Number two, it is kind of fun and addictive to cut branches off of a tree. I've been criticizing my friend Chris for years because he cuts down trees willy nilly on his property, just because they are "blocking his view" (of more trees). But now, I kind of see why he does it. I got a thrill out of removing branches! I didn't want to stop! And I call myself an environmentalist... However, I draw the line at:
2) Removing black widows from the mailbox. Yep, I had to call in Martin for this one. Luckily we were on speaking terms by the time I discovered this big old spider in our mailbox. I tried inviting her out nicely, but she had quite the set-up going on inside that poor old abandoned mailbox. I am still trying to get on the mail carrier's good side, and I figured getting bit by a black widow the first time he delivered mail to our house probably would not help, and so Martin gently and very carefully escorted her out and to a new home somewhere in the bushes near the mailbox. Good thing I was finished working on that tree.
You might think we have nothing better to do than to make our mailbox more attractive to passing letters. [Author's side note: Hint! hint! Now that Tech-free Day is over (at least for this year), my next project will be something along the lines of Slow Communication, doing for letter writing what Slow Food did for heritage pig breeds.] But that is not the case. There are many other joys of country life that we have been experiencing. I'll skip over washing the front porch (twice) and putting up our brand-new American flag (thanks Martin), to get straight to...
3) Getting down at the 4th of July party at the fairgrounds after a spectacular 4th of July parade! Peter really tore up the dance floor to the sounds of the Ophir Prison Band and the Chillbillies. The kid can dance! There were also corn dogs (we had to buy two), sales of which benefited Job's Daughters, and soft serve ice cream (of which we also had to buy two), sales of which benefited one of the local fire departments, and organic crepes with locally grown produce inside (yep, two), which apparently just benefited the place selling them. We stayed for the fireworks, which we could actually see (No Fog, San Franciscans!!) Did I mention the warm summer nights? You are all invited for next year.
The only slight culture shock I experienced was trading stories about our children with a woman who was no more than half my age, if that. And her daughter was at least twice Peter's age. This scenario is not atypical in this area. The mothers here are YOUNG! Women my age are mostly grandmothers by now. Makes me feel more than a little old.
At any rate, those are just a few examples of how we have been passing the time, now that all of our favorite playmates and play locations are 150 miles away. I've also started to learn how to cook in a cast-iron pan (see previous note about not unpacking any of our stuff like pots and pans), scheduled no fewer than six pre-school tours between now and Wednesday, and am finishing up some interviews for an article that is due Friday. You can read about that one in the Tech-free Day blog next week.
