Category: travel

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aw hecky naw

No harm meant.Happy Wednesday folks.

Night’s nearly over now; at leas the part I’m typically awake for.  And Thursday’s coming… right around the corner from now.  After that, Thursday will beget Friday and Friday Saturday.  Then, we’ll pile into one of those flighted metal cigars and zoom-swish! away to Mexico.  While there, I will try and do my typical vacation-style writing, which consists chiefly of pictures and short sentences about the awesomeness of our stay.  Look for it; it’ll be a happening.  A-list.

For a few months now, Keaton’s expressed interest in picking up and holding our cat, Keeper.  Until recently, however, she’s been unable to find a way to 1) do this without the cat running away from her, and 2) muster enough strength to physically lift her.  This all changed in the past couple weeks when she figured out that she could reliably lift Keeper via an under-arm bearhug style hoist, and also that she’s now strong enough to ferry her around in this position.

It makes for some hilarious moments, because, despite being incredibly docile about the whole thing, the cat clearly dislikes being carried around this way.  Out of the back of the house somewhere Keaton’ll come, her arms encircling the poor cat’s body just under her front legs, squeezing her tight to keep her grip. This makes the cat’s head look all squanched up into her body… as both try to succumb to gravity.

She lets out these little half-meows (probably can’t get enough volume of oxygen to make anything appreciable) and we’ve told Keaton that this is her way of saying, “OK, I’m done now; please let me down.”  We’ve told her she has to listen to kitty when she “talks,” or else she might get scratched or bitten.  But, in the end, I don’t think the cat has the balls to do anything.  At this point, I think she’s been bested by the three year old… and she’s submissive.

As an aside… I’ve decided I don’t want our cat anymore.  I think I’ve evolved into a “no animals” kinda guy.  Not that I don’t like them, but I’m done with all that.  When we wear this one out, it’s over.  Is that heartless?  Whatever.

Oh yeah, just before I go… I wanted to mention how much I enjoyed Pitchfork’s “Top 500 Albums of the 2000s” feature (not to be confused with the”Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s” feature I wrote about a ways back).  Particularly, and I’ll try not to ruin it here by telling you where this review lands just in case you want to read it in order, I loved the review of the Arcade Fire’s incredible album Funeral. I’ve written about Funeral myself more than a few times, professing my profound love for the record, but the reviewer on P4K captures my hindsight thinking perfectly:

Will there ever be another album like Funeral? …

… besides being a turning point for indie rock, Funeral was one for the indie community as well. Whether it’s due to increasingly fractious listening habits or the increased ability for dissenters to be heard, Funeral keeps on feeling like the last of its kind, an indie record that sounded capable of conquering the universe and then going on to do just that. The consensus hyperbole that met Funeral resulted in any record that threatened to reach that level becoming met with severe scrutiny or even outright derision. And still, we wonder if there will ever be anything quite like Funeral — something tells me that as music becomes even more readily available to us in the next decade, we’ll still go through it all in the hopes we can find something with the unifying force and astounding emotional payload that only albums like Funeral can provide.

Yeah.  Really.  When do we get the next Funeral?  I think a record that good ruined me for everything else.  C’mon someone, do it again.

Goodnight.

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sunset on her breath

Tesnus.Busy nights Monday and Sunday, no time to write. Or, more accurately, writing eschewed in favor of other things.

I’m busily working to get two weeks of work done this week, in eager anticipation of our coming week getaway in Mexico, which begins Saturday. We’ll be jetting off with friends for a stay in an all-inclusive beachside joint, where our week is sure to be filled with early morning poolside chair-claiming, umbrella drinks, tacos, and lots of time spent doing nothing. Well, something… reading, dozing, playing with Keaton, swimming, lounging… but really a lot of nothing. It’s not been a particularly hectic week at work, so I’m not dying to get there… but, as always, the prospect of a surf and sun vacation has my mind drifting ahead in time.

Back in real life, Sharaun returned home from her weekend away with girlfriends in Florida (must be hard for her, going from a Gulf beach to a Pacific one over the course of a week). I managed to keep Keaton clean, fed, and happy while she was gone… single-handedly dispelling literally hundreds of dad ineptitude stereotypes in the process. She was greeted home by a clean house, empty laundry hampers, and a very thankful husband and daughter.  And, while we had fun just Keaton and I, it was a welcome homecoming for us too.  Moms do a lot, y’know?

It’s nighttime on Tuesday now, Keaton and I are watching Alice In Wonderland… the smoking caterpillar is on.  Keaton thinks Alice’s name is Alison Wonderland, first and last just like that.  A pretty reasonable misconception if you ask me.  After I put her to bed (which I just did) I plan to put some music on (which I also just did) and listen to it while I write (which I am doing right now; time and tenses get really messed up as I write in bits over the course of the evening).

Anyway, I’ve got the newish record by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros on.  I grabbed it a month or so ago on the band name alone (I do this somewhat often), and, at the time, ended up digging about 50% of the tracks and filing it away as something with prospect.  For whatever reason I spun it again yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to hear it aged very well, and I think I may have judged it kinda low originally.  Been listening with gusto today, and I like what I hear.  After looking up the band (which is one of hose Polyphonic Spree style two-digit member cult kinda hippie collectives) I found out that the lead singer is a dude from a band Ben and I used to like called Ima Robot.  Small world, this LA indie music biz… small world.

At work the other day I booked a coming trip to China and Taiwan.  My first travel to the Orient in nearly two years.  Not sure how I’ve managed to not be there in all that time, but I guess I tend to offer the international trips to the troops moreso than take them myself these days.  Will be good to get back to Shanghai and Taipei though, I do miss the frequency at which I used to visit both those fun cities.  And it’ll be good for me to re-invest in my work network while over there.  Oh and of course there’s the excellent food.  November comes the day I’ll take off; and I’m sure I’ll go into the whole pre-trip “I don’t wanna gos” here on the old blog about one week prior to travel… look for it.

Goodnight folks.  I wrote.

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what might’ve been lost

Goodbye America!Good evening friends.  Good morning friends.

Back from Oregon.  Up at 4am to catch the train to the airport, I tried to build a “better” public transit schedule to the airport, ignoring the trains and times the website recommended and instead “discovering” a better route on my own, buying myself another half hour of slumber.  All worked well until the train which, just ten or so stops prior, had been marked “Airport” instead changed its destination sing to read “Not In Service.”

It was right around then that they kicked me out.  Miles from the airport, I asked the conductor who was turning me out why the train was no longer bound for the airport.  “Another train’ll be along in a few minutes,” was all I got.  Fifteen minutes later I boarded that “another train.”  Long lines at check-in and security found me sprinting (on dead-sore post-hike legs) to my gate, where I managed to board just before they closed the door.  Whew.

Common sense says I should be tired; should maybe be in bed already.  But instead I had all this nervous energy I had to vent.  After landing I went and got a haircut, then went into the office for the afternoon.  After that I came home, unpacked, cleaned the garage, and transplanted Pat’s hops into my backyard to tend while he’s away.  Our friends Pat and Cynthia were over, spending their last homeless night in the USofA eating dinner and waiting for their departure amongst friends.  Around 9pm we walked them to the car and waved goodbye, and they drove off to a new life in another country.  Before he left, and even though it started out as a handshake, I gave Pat a real hug.

A busy week ahead, and I’m all alone with Keaton for the last bit of it.  Sharaun’s off to Florida for a bachelorette party and it’s up to us to fend for ourselves for four whole days.  Payback, I suppose, for my weekend hiking in Oregon perhaps. I’m sort of excited about playing Mr. Mom, being responsible for every moment of the day… and then I also feel daunted by the task of doing what Sharaun does with Keaton.  I guess I can think of it as training for the weekend of the actual wedding… which is also this month.  Hat’s off to the guys raisin’ they kids, huh?

Goodnight.

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disneyland!!

For real magical.Hey internet.  You still here?  Cool.  Hope you saw to things while I was away.

Hold tight, this is a seriously unreasonably long entry about our past weekend.

We spent this weekend family-style down at Disneyland.  I borrowed the mobile broadband card from work, juiced up the bluetooth, and worked from the road on Friday’s long-haul drive down south.  Rubber to the asphalt around 9am, we rolled into southern California around 6pm – with a lovely two hours of LA traffic to cap off the drive.  After a nice meal to settle us before bed, we tucked in for the night with designs for an early start to day-one in the park.

Since our time would be limited, and because I’m a huge nerd, I decided to do some online research into good ways to “attack” the park; in hopes that someone, somewhere had done some research into traffic patterns or ride wait-time statistics or something, in an attempt to make an efficient “itinerary” for the day.  Now, I know that previous statement may border on heresy to some – but rest assured I was looking to do this planning as transparently to the “fun” of the day as possible; last thing I wanted was to suck the frivolity and spontaneity from our time there.  Anyway, some quick Googling landed me on the page of some software called RideMax.  Curious, I explored.  I’ll let the product pitch write for me here:

RideMax is a computer software program guaranteed to help you save time waiting in line at Walt Disney World and Disneyland.

RideMax allows you to specify the attractions you wish to ride during your visit, then uses a sophisticated scheduling algorithm to order your attractions so that the amount of time you spend in line is minimized.

Using historical wait time statistics for each attraction as a foundation, RideMax analyzes millions of different ride sequences in order to create a minimum-wait-time itinerary. This schedule is tailored to the expected crowd patterns on the day of your visit, for the attractions you want to ride!

Well what do you know… other nerds like Disneyland too!  After some additional research on some Disney forums, I decided that, for $15, even if the application was a complete bust it would be an OK risk-buy.  So, I sprung.  Sharaun and I sat down and walked through the attractions, picking those we’d like to see in our marathon two-day visit to both Disneyland and California Adventure.  A few clicks and optimizations later, RideMax generated what looked like a plausible set of schedules, one for each of our park days.  In addition to the minute-by-minute walk-through, the software also provided a bunch of tips on things like how to get the best seats for parades, fireworks, shows, etc.  We were both a little skeptical, but figured that, at the least, we had an organized way to hit the park prepared.  So… we went with it.

Now, to our time at the park.  I think it’s best to do this going ride-by-ride, in order of our actual fifteen hour day at the park.  For posterity, I wanted to remark on how Keaton reacted to each attraction.  You, readers, get to share in my OCD-like obsessional with documenting minutiae.  Here we go:

Day One:

Story Book Land Canal Boats: We did this bright and early on day-one, and Keaton mildly enjoyed the quick boat trip around a set of miniatures.  Probably a “skip” for future visits; although she did like going into the whale’s mouth.

Alice in Wonderland: Keaton loved this one.  She’s a big fan of the movie already and so she recognized all the scenery and themes.  Probably one of her favorites.

Buzz Lightyear: Again, Keaton loved driving the little car with the joystick and shooting the targets.  Good stuff.

Peter Pan: Keaton loved flying over London and getting to see Tinkerbell.

Dumbo: Keaton had a blast on this with Dad; making our Dumbo go up and down with the switch and spinning around.  A perennial favorite.

A Small World: I think I enjoyed this more than Keaton, but she did like the song a lot and was singing along by the end.  The way they’ve integrated the characters into the different areas made a fun game for her trying to spot them all.

Teacups: Keaton adored the teacups… and wanted me to spin us faster and faster and faster.

Autopia: Underwhelming for Keaton; might be more exciting once she’s actually able to drive the car herself.  Probably a “skip” until then.

Tiki Room: I always love the Tiki Room show… and Keaton marveled at the 360° animatronics as well.  The fake thunderstorm at the end gave her a start, but she left talking about the cool birds and fountain.

Thunder Mountain: Believe it or not, Keaton did really well on this roller coaster.  She caught onto the fact that you’re supposed to scream when it’s scary and channeled all her nervous energy into making her screams count.  She was a trooper, and we think (based on our later learning) that the outdoor theme of the coaster helped a lot.

Mickey’s House: Photo-op with the Mouse; long wait but worth it for Mom and Dad…

Pixie Hollow: Meet-and-greet photo-op with Tinekrbell and another fairy.  Keaton loved meeting Tinkerbell, and the photos and video Sharaun and I took made the wait more than worthwhile for us as well.

Matterhorn Bobsleds: Keaton was terrified on this ride.  She sat with me, in my lap, and I held her close with my arms around her.  Since a lot of the ride is in darkness, and there are crazy-loud, growling yeti’s with death-red eyes popping out around corners… she really had a bad time with it.  She cried the whole time, and left us feeling like mildly bad parents for giving it a try.

Celebrate! A Street Party Parade:  We staked out some decent seats, bought some frozen lemonades, and watched the show.  Keaton sat on my shoulders and we danced the entire time.  She bopped around up there shouting “Hi!” to all the characters she recognized in the parade.  An awesome show.

Finding Nemo Submarines:  Our longest line of the day, RideMax was only able to get us down to about a forty-five minute wait (a testament to RideMax right there, being that it was our longest line-time of the entire day).  By now I think Keaton’s skittish on any ride that’s 1) dark and/or 2) loud.  She was scared on this ride at the climaxes (it is actually really loud at points), and it didn’t end up being worth the long wait for us because of it.

Winnie the Pooh:  As we walked in, Keaton’s building fear was apparent: “It’s dark!  I don’t want to go in!”  Turns out that the mildness of Pooh was just what she needed though, and it calmed her until we hit the next ride…

Haunted Mansion:  The culmination of Keaton’s fear… dark, loud, and scary to the max.  I don’t think she opened her eyes once the entire time, she was absolutely terrified; wrecked.  Instead, she buried her head in Sharaun’s lap and cried softly, while shivering… actually shivering.  If we felt kinda bad after the Matterhorn, we felt downright negligent after this one!

Pirates of the Caribbean:  A bit leery after the Haunted House, we decided to tackle Pirates anyway – despite the fact that it’s 1) dark, 2) somewhat scary.  Surprisingly, she ate this one up, and actually reveled in the little stomach-dropping flumes (she liked getting splashed a bit).  A good last ride of the day.

Fantasmic:  On the night we went, the show broke down about halfway through.  A bummer, since we had good seats after dinner in New Orleans Square.  What she saw, she totally loved.  And man, I wish we could’ve seen the whole show… it looked crazy awesome.

Fireworks: Fireworks happen in the dark.  Fireworks are loud.  Keaton watched, but she plugged her ears and complained that they “hurt” her chest (the shock of the booms, I guess).  Sharaun and I loved watching them though; a perfect cap to a perfect day.

Day Two:

Princess Faire: Meet-and-greet photo-op with three random princess characters.  By the grace of God we got Ariel, and this was probably the highlight of Keaton’s entire weekend in the park.

A Bug’s Life Show: Keaton cringed in fear at this 3D show.  The “interactive” nature of the effects, puffed-air, water spray, etc. coupled with the 3D stuff and dark, loud, theater made it unbearable for her.  We had to leave out the back just minutes after the thing started.

Heimlich’s Chew Chew: Simple and fun, Keaton enjoyed it.

Francis’ Ladybug Boogie: Teacups redux, so she enjoyed it as well.

Monsters Inc.: She really likes these ride-though things when she has the context of the movie from which the scenes are drawn.  This one was no exception, although she was scared of the “bad” monster when she spotted him lurking around one dark corner.

Flik’s Flyers: Another Dumbo-style ride, but not controllable.  Fun and well-themed, so Keaton had a good time.

King Triton’s Carousel: Merry-go-round, Little Mermaid, no-brainer.

Mickey’s Fun Wheel: Keaton and I liked this immensely, Sharaun gets freaked out on ferris wheels, especially high ones, so she clung on for dear life while we rocked the cab a bit to antagonize.

Boy; reading over that, Keaton comes off kinda wimpy…  Owell, she is a three-year-old girl 🙂

Know what I loved about our time there?  The fact that Disney takes advantage of modern technology.  At the beginning of the day, you can pickup a PhotoPass card that you carry with you throughout the day.  Whenever you see a professional photographer roaming around, they’re everywhere, especially tagging along with all the wandering characters and at the popular photo spots, you give them your card and they scan it and take your photos.  Then, instead of the old-school before-you-leave-the-park stop off at the photo place to purchase prints, you can go online up to thirty days and peruse all the professional photos taken of you and your family that day.  From the website, you can order prints, digital copies, etc.  They even do fancy Photoshop stuff for you, like on the example image I jacked from their preview site below.

Wow!

Neato!  In addition, on the Buzz Lightyear ride they snap patrons’ photos as they travel throught the attraction, not unlike most modern roller coasters.  But, at the end, instead of buying an instant print of your photo, you can look up your snapshot, enter an e-mail address on a touchscreen keyboard, and zip the thing right to yourself over the internet.  I had our picture on my iPhone as we before we even exited the ride.  Amazing.  Good lookin’ out, Disney.

Oh and you may be wondering what we thought of RideMax’s plan.  Overall, the software was well worth its $15 pricetag.

We did have a few bones to pick, namely that the software doesn’t account for things like the Disney Princess Faire and Pixie Hollow character meets – two things which are big deals for the kids and also garner big crowds and long lines (we waited about forty-five minutes for each, using the “free time” built into our RideMax schedule).  RideMax also makes educated guesses on the FastPass return times for popular rides, but if the day is just a little slower than the software predicts (as ours was), your actual return time at the point you’re supposed to grab the passes may be much sooner.  This happened to us with Splash Mountain, and we couldn’t grab the FastPass without wrecking the rest of afternoon’s lineup.  Unless you’re willing to take advantage of the “late FastPass” loophole, this could mess up your plan.

But, in the end, the wait times the software predicted were dead-on, and, although I’m not certain if it was the schedule or that we just got lucky – but it really worked for us (we weren’t the only ones either, I saw a couple other folks consulting their RideMax itineraries while standing in line).  The schedule wasn’t so rigid that it detracted from the fun of it all, there was ample time for frequent three-year old potty breaks, sightseeing, and shopping, and it really did prevent us from wandering aimlessly and wasting precious time.  We were even able to fit in three additional attractions in the “between time” that shook out.  For us, we’ll definitely use it again.  Oh, and yes – they are working on an iPhone version… which I can only hope will offer “live” user-reported data like FastPass return times and attraction wait-times, all in real time.  To have an adaptive version based on actual in-park data optimize your route while you’re walking through it would be so cool… sign me up for the beta.

And, overall-overall, the trip was simply amazing.  Watching Keaton look around the park in wonder sparked something ultimately reminiscent in me, and there were literally times where I was enjoying our time so much that my eyes got a bit misty.   No, seriously… there were times where, watching her amazement, I nearly teared up.  Call me a huge sucker or sissy or whatever, but we really did have a fantastic time together at the park.  Kinda magic, in fact.

Goodnight.

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busted with spots of boon

Feast.Monday evening and I’m writing from my folks’ place up in Oregon.

One bright spot about having them way up north is getting to stay with them when work takes me up to the local sawmill up here.  Didn’t bring Sharaun and Keaton along this time as the visit is a quick one and wasn’t a good candidate for a weekend-buildout.

Yesterday you may have seen a spurious blog posted here for a few hours.  And, today, you may see the usable bits of that mistakenly published entry recycled here.  See, I schedule all my entries to auto-post at midnight on the day I intend to publish them.  Sometimes, if I’m fairly far along with a draft, to the point where I’m pretty certain I’ll be able to put the polish on it and make it a real entry, I’ll go ahead and schedule the midnight posting.  Occasionally, even being fairly well developed, I may not ever get to the polish and then subsequently forget about the scheduling.  Such was yesterday.

Sorry about that.

Today was the meeting that was the main motivator for me coming to Oregon this time around.  And, luckily, I scheduled other worthwhile activities tomorrow to coincide with the trip… because… today’s meeting, while having a couple worthwhile moments, was by and large a bust.  Well, I should qualify: Considering the sawmill-funded trip as a sawmill shareholder, today was a bust; considering the trip as an opportunity to do what “marketing” types do, today was a boon for “building rapport” with the customers.  I’ll leave it up to the shirts to tell me which of the two honors my salary more.

As I write, I’m listening to a record I “discovered” last Friday called Two Dancers by a British band called the Wild Beasts.  Not my typical kind of album, but I’ve become completely addicted to it.  It slinks and swaggers and the singer’s voice is high and odd… the combination works perfectly though.  The record isn’t out for a few weeks yet, but you can preview some of the leaked tracks over at the Hype Machine‘s aggregator.  I would recommend it, were I you.  Yeah, been digging on that and the new Mew record… finally some new stuff to listen to…

Oh man I’m sleepy.  Nothing much more to write today anyway.  I’m just going to call this a night and talk to you guys tomorrow.

Love ya, goodnight.

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parents of the year

In the dim light...Hey Tuesday.  Monday started off full of doodoo when I put the wrong guard on my beard trimmer and cut my stubble down to nothing instead of it’s usual healthy crop.  Eh, it’ll grow back…

Here goes a story.

At the cabin this past Independence Day weekend, we reveled alongside several of our good friends.  So many of them, in fact, that the sleeping arrangements at the modest accommodations were submarine style… packed.  Sharaun, Keaton and I shared the loft with, count ’em: six other adults and three additional kids (we totaled twelve, all told).

With adults and kids spread across two queen beds, four twin beds, a futon and two Pack ‘n’ Plays, it was like a tin of sardines (happy sardines, however, don’t misread my exposition as complaint, OK?).  In close quarters like this, you can imagine that any one family’s nighttime drama became the drama of the “loft family” collective.  So, what kind of drama did we experience?

Somewhat surprisingly, night number one in the loft went off relatively unremarkably (the dictionary says that last word is not really a word; humbug, says I).  Everyone slept, including the kids, and no one pillow-suffocated anyone else in their sleep. The second night, however, the sole non-kid-having couple decided they’d put in a valiant effort and cashed in their loft-family chips in favor of a two-man tent pitched on the lawn outside.  This opened up a larger bed in the loft, which Sharaun and I then claimed.  Subsequently, the futon we had been using was opened up by our bedtime upgrade and was in turn filled by yet another weekender in our crew (a brave one, at that).

OK, did you follow me?  The first night, we all slept where we all slept.  The second night, Sharaun and I moved into a new bed.  Throughout this game of musical sheets, Keaton’s sleeping accommodations remained unchanged – and on night two she bedded down on the same twin bed she’d slept in the night prior.  Anyone see where I’m going with this?  No, OK… here then…

Sometime in the middle of the night, unbeknownst to Sharaun and I, Keaton must’ve been roused from her slumber.  Now, I imagine waking in an odd and unfamiliar place would be confusing enough for a three-year old… but what about when you then get out of bed, walk over to the futon where your parents were the night before, and, after patting around in search of them, realize that they simply aren’t there?  How must that feel?  What must go through the toddler mind at such an occurrence?

For Keaton, I think it went something like this: 1) Wake up, have enough wherewithal to realize you’re not at home yet in that cabin like last night. 2) Remember where Mom and Dad were sleeping last night and, with the help of the near-dead flashlight your Dad purposely gave you before putting you to sleep (in a fit of brilliance he thought he could both satisfy your illogical yen to sleep with a flashlight and prevent you from flashing said flashlight around the room in the dark and waking the entire loft), navigate your way from your bed to the futon where they should be.  3) Pat around looking for Dad or Mom and then realize that they just ain’t there.

It’s at this point that the three year old brain must have reached a crossroads.  Awake, alone, and void of parents… I can almost feel the fear and uncertainty creeping in.  I’m actually surprised Keaton didn’t call out for us or begin crying at this point.  Instead, she must have figured that her folks were downstairs.  Logical, I assume, but her decision to the attempt the descent from the loft in the pitch black (or, with the aid of that near-dead flashlight) still comes as a shock.

But she did; she went right down those stairs.  And, of course, she missed the last step completely.

Thud!  Thump!  Clunk!

Everyone in the loft, and the lone soul sleeping in the hide-a-bed at the very foot of the stairs, heard our daughter pitch forward in the night.  They all heard her cries as she squealed and wailed.  Jeff, the hide-a-bed sleeper, actually awoke as she tumbled down, watching her fall and assuming, as most would, that she was being accompanied down by an adult… perhaps to use the potty or something.  He watched her as she righted herself and continued to walk.

Smack!  Bang!  Clang!

She caught her toe on the raised platform on which sits the wood stove and took a header into the giant iron beast.

Everyone in the loft, and Jeff who had a front row seat, heard our child’s cries escalate with pain and desperation.  Even Sharaun and I heard it.  She turned to me, half sitting up, “Is that Keaton?”  “No,” I replied, after listening, “that noise is coming from the other side of the room, Keaton’s asleep on this side.”  My aural triangulation skills seeming to satisfy her, we both settled in to return to sleep.  Meanwhile, Keaton continued to cry… and by now Jeff realized that she wasn’t accompanied by an adult at all, but that she was, rather, all alone and wandering through the cabin at night by her lonesome.

“Keaton, what are you doing down here?” he asked, “Do you have to use the potty?”  “No,” replied, half stuttering, sucking breath in the sharp gasps of a child mad with tears.  “Do you want to go back up to your parents?,” he asked.  “No,” our daughter replied, “I just want to sleep here with you.”  (I find that last bit completely hilarious, by the by, but it’s not the point of the story.)

By this point, Keaton had apparently been crying for a few minutes, and everyone, excusing Sharaun or I, was awake and listening to the events unfold.  In fact, come morning, we would learn that all of them had instantly recognized the distressed child as ours, and were each wondering to themselves when we were going to get up and do something about it.  Sharaun and I, however, continued to sleep, assured in the fact that our daughter was sleeping safe and sound in the bed across the room from us.

Shortly thereafter, another of the loft folk arose to use the restroom.  On his way down he noted Keaton in her state, and further noticed that neither Sharaun nor I were anywhere to be found.  Driven by what I can only guess was a strong parental instinct, this kind fellow scooped up Keaton from her refuge with hide-a-bed Jeff and carried her up the stairs to the loft.  It was around then that I was brought back into reality by a bright white LED headlamp shining down on me from the foot of our bed.

There stood Mike, holding Keaton in his arms, beaming his light into our eyes.  He’d nudged Sharaun’s foot to wake us, and the look on his face seemed to wordlessly say, “Hey guys… what the?… here’s your crying daughter.”  No words were exchanged, other than Sharaun smacking me on the shoulder and saying, “I told you it was Keaton”!  Once safely nestled in bed between us, Keaton recounted her harrowing nighttime escapade.

“I got up to look for you Daddy, and I patted your bed but it was empty.  Then I went down the stairs on my bottom and my flashlight didn’t work and I couldn’t see and I fell on my thumb!  Then I tripped on the bricks and hit my face on the stove.”  The story broke my heart, and it took a while before she calmed down enough to drift back off to sleep.

So yeah, we’re the parents who slept through their kid falling down the stairs then hitting her face on the woodstove.  And, in the morning, we sure heard about it.  Seems folks found a way to poke fun at our parenting prowess through the events of the night.

Sheesh… no one ever slept through their kid falling down stairs and hitting her face on a stove?  Come on… happens all the time I’ve heard.

Posted upon typing, no proofing.  Forgive me and goodnight.

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all about the kids

Ranch babe.Hey internet.  You have a good weekend?  Man, did we… did we ever.

Back from an all-American Independence Day weekend nestled in a high desert valley between rocky spurs of the Sierra Nevadas.   We went, for the third time now, to a little red cabin in the Owens Valley, set in what used to be a volcano ringed by the tallest granite peaks in this fair land.  The location is truly otherworldly… drenched and dripping with California history.

While there, I took time to note again how the nature of our “getaway” weekends has changed.  Nowadays, it’s nearly all about “the kids.”  Not that we have a plurality, not yet at least, but the ‘s’ is owed to the collective kids of the group.  And this time around, it seemed like “the kids” were in clover (or, at least, I sure was watching them enjoy themselves in such a pastoral setting).  I mean, seriously, there were scenes from this trip that played out like little movies in my head:

Sitting in camp chairs on the tarmac of the local airport, the place jammed with cars all lined up to watch the fireworks come dark.  One huge tailgate party in the hot, hot Sierra sun – everyone barbecuing, consuming fermented drink, and laughing.  In the dusk hour before the sun made its retreat behind the mountains, the place turned into a do-it-yourself alley of fireworks.  We positioned the kids’ mini camp chairs to watch the action and their faces lit up with each  multicolored fountain of sparks and fire.  They jumped and danced and clapped and sang “happy birthday” to America.

Standing in the long grass alongside a rushing stream, the breeze swelling and dying in fits as I tried for the first time in my life to fly cast.  I flicked the line back in a huge ‘s’ behind my head, using way too much wrist action and not keeping my arm movement as limited as I should.  Technique be damned, I brought the lure forward and slingshot it across the river and into the current on the far side.  Watching the line catch the flow and slide down and across the river as it rose in supposed temptation to supposed fish… for a few seconds, it was nirvana.

Watching Keaton fly a butterfly-shaped kite in the wind in front of the cabin.  Her neck cocked back so she could watch the yellow streamers trail out behind the thing, she’d walk backwards and pull the string to get it to move higher into the sky.

Yeah boy, what a weekend… thanks to King George for trying to govern us without any local representation, and to those early settlers for objecting to it.  My family and I salute you, and ate some watermelon and burgers in your honor.

Goodnight.