Black Friday is almost here, and with it the start of the Christmas shopping season. I'm sure the relatives back home will be wanting to know what the kids would like for Christmas. I was going to let the kids write up their typical Christmas wish lists until they all started talking about wanting things like iphones and puppies. Since they aren't really operating in the realm of reality, I decided I know what they need better than they do. So--here is our family Christmas wish list:
Flying alarm clock.
I am pretty sure this is what it would take to get any of us out of bed on the first try. I normally set three alarms to ensure I get up, while the kids need to be personally escorted out of bed. Sometimes repeatedly. I think knowing that there's about to be a show going on where the boys chase a helicopter around the room would be enough to get me out of bed on the first alarm. If anyone gets this for the boys--I promise to capture the fun on video, post it on facebook, and show it to current/future/potential girlfriends.
Shoe locator.
Yes, I realize this is a link to a key locator. Apparently technology hasn't quite caught up to my children's skill in losing things, because so far the only "shoe locator" I can find is a GPS-enabled shoe that helps track lost loved ones. Since my kids' shoes don't normally wander the neighborhood on their own, but do wind up shoved behind furniture, under clothing piles, etc., I need something that tracks over shorter distances with more precision. I figure I can tie these on to their shoes race chip style. Six of them means one per kid's shoe...which is totally necessary since both shoes in a pair stand an equal chance of going rogue when the school bus is due at the corner in less than a minute.
Kids' recipe book.
Because I am so over cooking dinner every night. They're old enough to earn their keep!
Dumped clothes alarm.
I have told the kids a million times not to leave their dirty clothes dumped on the bathroom floor, or on their bedroom floor 1 foot away from their hamper. Maybe if the floor starts shrieking when the clothes hit, they'll put them where they belong?
Shovel.
To assist the kids in cleaning their rooms.
Multiplication fact CDs.
Nothing makes a car trip more fun than song after song of math facts! Erin will be especially thankful for this one as she is currently learning her multiplication facts, and so far seems to want nothing to do with multiplication facts.
Winning lottery tickets will also be happily accepted, as well as all-expenses-paid trips to boarding school. Just kidding. Maybe.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Tougher than I look
One of the great things about moving to Texas, and having my sister here, is the time I have to develop new skills that help the kids take me seriously when I give them orders. Like shooting. I'm thinking of displaying my shooting targets prominently over the TV, as an ever-present reminder that maybe they want to not watch quite so many cartoons and clean the house instead since it's clear I can back up my threats to take them out. "I brought you into this world AND I CAN TAKE YOU OUT OF IT!" seems to strike a little more fear into the hearts of the kids when they're faced with a bullet-riddled silhouette on a target paper...
Also, lest Brian think he's the only athletic one in the house, I've taken up running again. It's always a good thing to be able to outrun the kids, and I'm up to 6 miles now at a decent pace, so if they ever decide to try to make a run for it after some offense against the household, my chances of catching them are looking pretty good. Usually I go for a few runs a week, anywhere from 2 to 6 miles, but today I've taken it a step further and completed my first Warrior Dash.
Warrior Dash is a 5k race with obstacles along the course. I wasn't too worried, since I can run double that distance fairly easily these days. My lack of upper body strength had me worried about a few of the obstacles--it's been a long time since I've tried scaling any walls or fences--but I've gotten pretty excited about adventure racing and wanted to see what I was capable of. My goal was to eventually do a Tough Mudder, and so as a preview of sorts, I tried Warrior Dash--kind of a "Tough Mudder Lite."
The race started off as a basic 5k over mostly easy terrain. We were out in the middle of the wilderness on some farm- or ranch-like property, running along a dirt path through trees. In some spots there were some pretty steep inclines and ravines, but that's apparently what "nature" is like, and it wasn't too bad. Then the obstacles started...
The first few really weren't bad at all. There was one where we had a series of waist-high walls to climb over, alternating with barbed wire to duck under--easy enough. There was a mud pit to walk through, but only my shoes were covered and as long as I went slow enough it wasn't too slippery. There was a field of tires to high-step through before coming to some wrecked cars to scramble over and then more tires on the other side. All easy. Then we came to this cargo net structure with horizontal netting that everyone was climbing over bear-crawl style. It looked easy but was actually SO. HARD. I was on my hands and knees for more of it than felt comfortable because my arms didn't want to hold my weight and my legs were rather tired from running. That one wore me out more than I expected and I wound up walking between some of the obstacles instead of running the whole way. There was also a teeter-totter-looking structure (that thankfully didn't move) where we walked up, then down, a series of angled planks. That one FREAKED ME OUT. It was up in the air and there was enough space between each plank "path" that it seemed a person who fell would fall to the ground and probably hit a few things on the way down--not fun. I started off walking but pretty soon was trying to crouch and hold on with my hands.
The obstacles that looked the worst, though, wound up being better than I expected and I felt all kinds of tough for making it through them! There was a steep incline to go up, and I got almost the whole way up before needing the available climbing rope. There was a tall cargo net structure, maybe 20 feet high (note: I'm terrible with estimating; it could have been 10 feet high or 100 feet for all I know) that looked like an inverted V--up the ropes on one side, over the top, and back down the other side. Piece of cake. The one obstacle that had me the most worried before and all through the race was the Warrior Wall...what seemed like a mile-high barrier with ropes. I am not Spiderman. I do not climb walls, or ropes, or really anything. I was pretty nervous I'd be the lame person not able to do it and having to go around. The built-in footholds were barely enough for the toes of my shoes and I had to rely on the rope to get up...and somehow I found myself at the top of the wall on my first attempt, without any trouble. After hoisting myself over the top of the wall, my feet found the ladder on the other side, and soon I was back down on the ground...wall conquered!
The best part was the final obstacle--a swim, yes swim, through mud at the finish line. We had to crawl into a pond of mud and stay under barbed wire or rope or trees (by that time I'd stopped looking at what was up there) which I soon found was deep enough that the easiest method of making my way through was the breaststroke. Through cold, slimy mud. I emerged looking like I could be a founder of Blue Man Group's dirtier-looking cover group...basically covered in what looked like brown paint from my neck to my shoes. The fire hose they had nearby got most of it off while making me look like a drowned rat in the process, but at that point, I didn't care how cold the water was, how hard it was hitting, or how much of a hot mess I looked...I had done it. I made it through the obstacles. I climbed that wall! I FINISHED WARRIOR DASH.
So watch out, kids...there may be three of you, but the one of me is toughening up!
Also, lest Brian think he's the only athletic one in the house, I've taken up running again. It's always a good thing to be able to outrun the kids, and I'm up to 6 miles now at a decent pace, so if they ever decide to try to make a run for it after some offense against the household, my chances of catching them are looking pretty good. Usually I go for a few runs a week, anywhere from 2 to 6 miles, but today I've taken it a step further and completed my first Warrior Dash.
Warrior Dash is a 5k race with obstacles along the course. I wasn't too worried, since I can run double that distance fairly easily these days. My lack of upper body strength had me worried about a few of the obstacles--it's been a long time since I've tried scaling any walls or fences--but I've gotten pretty excited about adventure racing and wanted to see what I was capable of. My goal was to eventually do a Tough Mudder, and so as a preview of sorts, I tried Warrior Dash--kind of a "Tough Mudder Lite."
The race started off as a basic 5k over mostly easy terrain. We were out in the middle of the wilderness on some farm- or ranch-like property, running along a dirt path through trees. In some spots there were some pretty steep inclines and ravines, but that's apparently what "nature" is like, and it wasn't too bad. Then the obstacles started...
The first few really weren't bad at all. There was one where we had a series of waist-high walls to climb over, alternating with barbed wire to duck under--easy enough. There was a mud pit to walk through, but only my shoes were covered and as long as I went slow enough it wasn't too slippery. There was a field of tires to high-step through before coming to some wrecked cars to scramble over and then more tires on the other side. All easy. Then we came to this cargo net structure with horizontal netting that everyone was climbing over bear-crawl style. It looked easy but was actually SO. HARD. I was on my hands and knees for more of it than felt comfortable because my arms didn't want to hold my weight and my legs were rather tired from running. That one wore me out more than I expected and I wound up walking between some of the obstacles instead of running the whole way. There was also a teeter-totter-looking structure (that thankfully didn't move) where we walked up, then down, a series of angled planks. That one FREAKED ME OUT. It was up in the air and there was enough space between each plank "path" that it seemed a person who fell would fall to the ground and probably hit a few things on the way down--not fun. I started off walking but pretty soon was trying to crouch and hold on with my hands.
The obstacles that looked the worst, though, wound up being better than I expected and I felt all kinds of tough for making it through them! There was a steep incline to go up, and I got almost the whole way up before needing the available climbing rope. There was a tall cargo net structure, maybe 20 feet high (note: I'm terrible with estimating; it could have been 10 feet high or 100 feet for all I know) that looked like an inverted V--up the ropes on one side, over the top, and back down the other side. Piece of cake. The one obstacle that had me the most worried before and all through the race was the Warrior Wall...what seemed like a mile-high barrier with ropes. I am not Spiderman. I do not climb walls, or ropes, or really anything. I was pretty nervous I'd be the lame person not able to do it and having to go around. The built-in footholds were barely enough for the toes of my shoes and I had to rely on the rope to get up...and somehow I found myself at the top of the wall on my first attempt, without any trouble. After hoisting myself over the top of the wall, my feet found the ladder on the other side, and soon I was back down on the ground...wall conquered!
The best part was the final obstacle--a swim, yes swim, through mud at the finish line. We had to crawl into a pond of mud and stay under barbed wire or rope or trees (by that time I'd stopped looking at what was up there) which I soon found was deep enough that the easiest method of making my way through was the breaststroke. Through cold, slimy mud. I emerged looking like I could be a founder of Blue Man Group's dirtier-looking cover group...basically covered in what looked like brown paint from my neck to my shoes. The fire hose they had nearby got most of it off while making me look like a drowned rat in the process, but at that point, I didn't care how cold the water was, how hard it was hitting, or how much of a hot mess I looked...I had done it. I made it through the obstacles. I climbed that wall! I FINISHED WARRIOR DASH.
So watch out, kids...there may be three of you, but the one of me is toughening up!
Friday, August 5, 2011
Guide to Texas, part 2
Weather.
Texas has three seasons. They are called Winter, Summer, and Holy Mother of God What State Have I Moved To. Winter has temperatures requiring the use of a light jacket and lasts two months. Summer is when it’s at least 90 degrees and is the entire rest of the year, with the exception of August, or HMoGWSHIMT, when even native Texans complain about the heat. During this month, temperatures remain well above 100 degrees every day. This is only while the sun is up, however. After nightfall, it is much more pleasant outside. For example, at 10 pm last night, it was a cool 97 degrees. There is rumored to be a rainy season here but I have not yet experienced it. The two times it’s rained in the past five months, it poured for five minutes and covered the streets in grease, or at least that’s what it felt like when trying to drive. I skidded out while pulling away from a stop sign. Going 1 mph.
Driving.
Driving in San Antonio is just about the opposite of driving in LA. Rush hour lasts about half an hour on some freeways, and 45 minutes on others. Traffic during rush hour actually moves, helping rush hour to end before you have been stuck reading bumper stickers for three hours straight. When road conditions worsen due to rain or poor visibility, drivers slow down. All of them. Every last driver. To about 10 mph. This is probably the only time, outside of the occasional bad accident, that there is actually traffic on the freeway. San Antonio has a love affair with speed bumps and has built about 50 of them in nearly every residential neighborhood. San Antonio drivers treat speed bumps as if they are stop signs, coming to a full and complete stop before proceeding over them. They also treat right turns as if there were a stop sign at the driveway they are pulling into. Merging into traffic and changing lanes is a delightful experience: to change lanes on the freeway, regardless of amount of traffic or time of day, simply turn on your blinker and within five seconds the driver of the car in the lane you are merging into will back off a bit, allowing you to complete your lane change. When two lanes merge together, such as at a freeway on-ramp, cars come together like a zipper, alternating one car at a time from each lane, in a smooth process that leads to minimal traffic backup. WARNING: driving with the standard California “defensive driving” technique, as in, “I am defending my right to get to where I’m going before you do, and nothing will get in my way!” is frowned upon here. Muttering “Not in front of me, you don’t!” and speeding up to avoid letting a car change lanes in front of you is impolite, and might get you shot.
A Californian’s guide to Texas/San Antonio
Texas is a beautiful place, and San Antonio is similar enough culturally to Los Angeles and San Diego that a native Californian shouldn’t feel TOO out of place. Still, there are a few things you’ll need to become familiar with to really settle in and feel at home:
Spanish.
Forget everything you learned in high school, it’ll do you no good at all. The Spanish here is pronounced so differently from the Spanish in southern California, it’s nearly unintelligible. Ls are apparently a rolled consonant, like Rs. Pretty much every other sound is blended together or omitted. Save yourself some time and a lot of name-butchering by asking everyone you meet to write their name for you; you’ll come off looking like a moron, but less of one than if you try to repeat what sounds like Swahili and turns out to be a simple name like Gutierrez.
Trees.
Trees are a mystery of Texas that I have not yet been able to solve. While San Antonio’s name evokes images of the Old West, the city has apparently been constructed in the middle of a vast forest. Unlike southern California, San Antonio was not constructed by leveling everything and then pouring concrete over it all. Instead, in between the areas where they built roads, neighborhoods, and shopping centers, they left all the trees alone. How these trees have managed to stay alive is beyond the scope of my comprehension. Texas is in the middle of a terrible drought. My lawn consists of patches of mostly-dead thorn grass interspersed throughout an area of hard-packed sand. When I mow the lawn, it appears I am running a vacuum in reverse over a dust field. No amount of watering seems to be able to revive my poor, dead thorns. Yet trees, five billion times the size of a blade of grass, are green and thriving even though they don’t seem to ever get any water either.
The Alamo.
No mention of San Antonio would be complete without talking about the Alamo. To Texans, the Alamo is the reason America is what it is today. I’m not kidding, it actually says that at the Alamo on a sign. What the Alamo actually is, however, is a mission. A small-ish one. Where a battle was fought. That was ultimately lost. If you’re a history buff and enjoy seeing old rifles and touring buildings so old you can’t touch the walls, you’ll probably want to stop by, but California has lots of missions and if you’ve seen a few of them, you really can skip the Alamo.
Texas.
No state has more pride in itself than Texas. Texans believe they live in the best place in the universe, and as such, fly the state flag all over the place—not just at government buildings, but at condos and hotels. They also like to decorate everything with the state flag or some star logo that is apparently the state symbol or something like that. And I mean EVERYTHING. Lawn furniture. Mailboxes. Blocks of cheese. Everywhere you look, there is something either shaped like Texas, labeled with a picture of Texas, painted to look like the state flag, or slapped with a great big star on it.
Freeways.
The freeways here are not called freeways. They are called interstates, and named by a number…and only a number. If you reference your drive along the 10, people will look at you strangely and know you are from somewhere else. Interstates have an IH- in front of them, so, the 10 is actually IH-10. The H, however, is silent, so you just say “I-10.” Do NOT, however, make the mistake of thinking 410 is an interstate. It has the red and blue interstate logo on its road signs, but it is not “I-410.” Nor is it “the 410.” It is technically “Loop 410,” because it goes around the city in a circle and does not actually take you anywhere except back where you started, but everyone just calls it “410.” 1604 is the same way, another big circle of a freeway, except this one actually has stop lights in some places and is a freeway in others. All freeways have access roads alongside them where traffic runs only in one direction, which makes getting to a business over on the left side of the freeway somewhat difficult. Which brings us to…
Turnarounds.
The turnaround is possibly the best concept any city/road planner has ever come up with since time began. It is a special lane devoted solely to U-turns at intersections following freeway exits…with NO STOPLIGHT. Pass your exit? No problem…get off at the next exit, stay in the leftmost lane, and what looks like a left-turn lane will actually take you through a U-turn right before the stoplight. The only drawback to the turnaround is that if you aren’t used to this concept, you will get into what you think is a go-straight lane, the lane next to the leftmost lane, only to discover that what you thought was a left turn lane is a turnaround lane, and you are in the left turn lane and being forced onto a street you didn’t want to turn onto. The turnaround would never work in southern California, for obvious reasons, but it is definitely one of the best things about San Antonio. It also makes getting to all the stores and restaurants on the other side of the freeway much easier, since you don’t even have to wait at a stoplight to turn and go in the other direction.
More to come...
Spanish.
Forget everything you learned in high school, it’ll do you no good at all. The Spanish here is pronounced so differently from the Spanish in southern California, it’s nearly unintelligible. Ls are apparently a rolled consonant, like Rs. Pretty much every other sound is blended together or omitted. Save yourself some time and a lot of name-butchering by asking everyone you meet to write their name for you; you’ll come off looking like a moron, but less of one than if you try to repeat what sounds like Swahili and turns out to be a simple name like Gutierrez.
Trees.
Trees are a mystery of Texas that I have not yet been able to solve. While San Antonio’s name evokes images of the Old West, the city has apparently been constructed in the middle of a vast forest. Unlike southern California, San Antonio was not constructed by leveling everything and then pouring concrete over it all. Instead, in between the areas where they built roads, neighborhoods, and shopping centers, they left all the trees alone. How these trees have managed to stay alive is beyond the scope of my comprehension. Texas is in the middle of a terrible drought. My lawn consists of patches of mostly-dead thorn grass interspersed throughout an area of hard-packed sand. When I mow the lawn, it appears I am running a vacuum in reverse over a dust field. No amount of watering seems to be able to revive my poor, dead thorns. Yet trees, five billion times the size of a blade of grass, are green and thriving even though they don’t seem to ever get any water either.
The Alamo.
No mention of San Antonio would be complete without talking about the Alamo. To Texans, the Alamo is the reason America is what it is today. I’m not kidding, it actually says that at the Alamo on a sign. What the Alamo actually is, however, is a mission. A small-ish one. Where a battle was fought. That was ultimately lost. If you’re a history buff and enjoy seeing old rifles and touring buildings so old you can’t touch the walls, you’ll probably want to stop by, but California has lots of missions and if you’ve seen a few of them, you really can skip the Alamo.
Texas.
No state has more pride in itself than Texas. Texans believe they live in the best place in the universe, and as such, fly the state flag all over the place—not just at government buildings, but at condos and hotels. They also like to decorate everything with the state flag or some star logo that is apparently the state symbol or something like that. And I mean EVERYTHING. Lawn furniture. Mailboxes. Blocks of cheese. Everywhere you look, there is something either shaped like Texas, labeled with a picture of Texas, painted to look like the state flag, or slapped with a great big star on it.
Freeways.
The freeways here are not called freeways. They are called interstates, and named by a number…and only a number. If you reference your drive along the 10, people will look at you strangely and know you are from somewhere else. Interstates have an IH- in front of them, so, the 10 is actually IH-10. The H, however, is silent, so you just say “I-10.” Do NOT, however, make the mistake of thinking 410 is an interstate. It has the red and blue interstate logo on its road signs, but it is not “I-410.” Nor is it “the 410.” It is technically “Loop 410,” because it goes around the city in a circle and does not actually take you anywhere except back where you started, but everyone just calls it “410.” 1604 is the same way, another big circle of a freeway, except this one actually has stop lights in some places and is a freeway in others. All freeways have access roads alongside them where traffic runs only in one direction, which makes getting to a business over on the left side of the freeway somewhat difficult. Which brings us to…
Turnarounds.
The turnaround is possibly the best concept any city/road planner has ever come up with since time began. It is a special lane devoted solely to U-turns at intersections following freeway exits…with NO STOPLIGHT. Pass your exit? No problem…get off at the next exit, stay in the leftmost lane, and what looks like a left-turn lane will actually take you through a U-turn right before the stoplight. The only drawback to the turnaround is that if you aren’t used to this concept, you will get into what you think is a go-straight lane, the lane next to the leftmost lane, only to discover that what you thought was a left turn lane is a turnaround lane, and you are in the left turn lane and being forced onto a street you didn’t want to turn onto. The turnaround would never work in southern California, for obvious reasons, but it is definitely one of the best things about San Antonio. It also makes getting to all the stores and restaurants on the other side of the freeway much easier, since you don’t even have to wait at a stoplight to turn and go in the other direction.
More to come...
Howdy...or something like that.
It seems I’ve completely abandoned my blog since moving to Texas…it’s to the point where I’ve been considering closing this one down and starting over with a more Texified theme. But since that requires effort, something my extended hiatus would indicate I’m lacking, I guess I’ll just pick up where I left off.
This spring, California’s economy being what it is and my finances getting more dismal by the day, I decided to jump ship. Within a month of making the decision to go for it, I quit my job, packed up my house, and hit the road. After a rather nervewracking two months of unknowns, I landed a job (no longer teaching—now I’m in an office, working with grownups, which is exactly like working with children except the people are larger) and a house that, compared to my heaterless-for-three-winters shack in CA, is totally, like, A MANSION. The best part? I have somehow managed to convince my youngest sister to do the exact same thing! She’ll arrive today, with a carful of clothes and other belongings to squeeze into my house, and absolutely no idea what she is in for here.
So, to aid her in this transition, I’ve decided to write a handy reference guide to the things she’ll encounter here that threw me for a loop when I first arrived—like trees. Real trees, not palm trees planted down the center divider to distract you from the traffic you’re stuck in. My Texas friends will probably be laughing at me for this…but really, this is an entirely different world here. Stay tuned.
This spring, California’s economy being what it is and my finances getting more dismal by the day, I decided to jump ship. Within a month of making the decision to go for it, I quit my job, packed up my house, and hit the road. After a rather nervewracking two months of unknowns, I landed a job (no longer teaching—now I’m in an office, working with grownups, which is exactly like working with children except the people are larger) and a house that, compared to my heaterless-for-three-winters shack in CA, is totally, like, A MANSION. The best part? I have somehow managed to convince my youngest sister to do the exact same thing! She’ll arrive today, with a carful of clothes and other belongings to squeeze into my house, and absolutely no idea what she is in for here.
So, to aid her in this transition, I’ve decided to write a handy reference guide to the things she’ll encounter here that threw me for a loop when I first arrived—like trees. Real trees, not palm trees planted down the center divider to distract you from the traffic you’re stuck in. My Texas friends will probably be laughing at me for this…but really, this is an entirely different world here. Stay tuned.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Auschwitz, California
I was talking on the phone tonight when I heard a noise behind me that made me turn my head. Erin had gotten some milk out and was about to pour it into a cup when she saw me looking at her. She froze. "I'm thirsty," she explained, with a deer-in-headlights look on her face. "I'll just have a little bit. And then I'll rinse the cup in the sink and put it back!" Her voice had the pleading, desperate tone of someone trying to avoid trouble. "Uh, okay," I responded, puzzled at why she'd be so nervous about being 'caught' pouring herself some milk. "You can have a drink. What do you think I'm running here, a concentration camp?" She giggled but didn't respond, and I realized that of course she had no idea what that was. I tried to explain my joke. "A concentration camp was like a great big jail where people had to work all day, had hardly anything to eat or drink, and a lot of them got sick." Without hesitation, her eyes lit up and she exclaimed, "Yep! That's what you're running! This is a concentration camp! You always make us WORK!"
All I can say is, I'd really expect this house to be cleaner, then....
All I can say is, I'd really expect this house to be cleaner, then....
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