Red Carpet Ready

What with the Oscars® tonight and all, Grandma Lynne felt it necessary to get the Hollywood hair treatment from two of L.A.'s hottest coiffeurs.

And the Oscar for best hair accoutrements goes to...

C.S.I. Harbor City

L's favorite toys at the moment are her tiny little "Polly Pocket" dolls she got from Aunt Karla. Unfortunately tiny little dolls and tiny little girls do not always good bedfellows make.

Stacy commented that cleaning up her room lately reminds her of certain beach scenes in Jaws...

What Motivated Us to Win the War

Stacy and I have been going through some old photos of her Grandma Bunny and Grandpa Lefty, scanning them and organizing them and trying to identify people and places. It's been a lot of fun, more so because Bunny and Lefty like the fact that she’s doing it and are eager to provide the stories and backgrounds of each. (We greatly regret that we never had the chance to talk with her maternal grandmother Ann before she passed away – there are so many pictures we have of that side of the family that we can’t identify or place.)

One of the things we’ve noticed in going through Bunny and Lefty’s photos is what a babe she was, and what a stud he was! Stacy comes of good stock. Good news for L and N, because they’re not going to get a lot of help from Daddy’s side!

Lefty (on the left, of course) and a friend during the war.


Bunny, who should have been a pin-up girl.


No, really, a pin-up girl...


Beauties and the Booze: Bunny (left) and her friends making sailors across the country recommit themselves to the fight.



Lefty (center) and more navy buddies.


Wow! How did Hollywood miss these two?

Riding the Rails to Santa Barbara

Stacy loves Santa Barbara and I love the central coast in general. It is our usual get-away spot whenever we get a rare away. Since our anniversary was last weekend we naturally wanted to spend some time up there, but overnight stays are just not the romantic idylls they used to be. Something about the all-night screaming from the pack-and-play at the foot of the bed, and the not-so-gentle early morning aroma of fresh diapers tends to bludgeon any remaining warm, cuddly romanticism. And, most unfortunately, we’re not quite to the place where we can dump the progeny with the in-laws and disappear with a clear conscience. So our get-aways are taking on a more “family” focus. (Sigh. The truth can be quite painful to reflect upon.)

This year we took a family day trip by train up to SB and back. The family even expanded to include L and N’s beloved Aunt Claudia, who is for our children what massive quantities of sugar and caffeine are for many others. It was a beautiful day for a trip. We left the Glendale station right on time at 7:41 and arrived in SB about two and a half hours later. L and N were in a constant state of ecstasy/rapture. N echoed every “whooo whooooooo” and L managed to prattle and chat Aunt Claudia’s ear off – a considerable feat since Claudia is no wallflower herself.

We walked around State Street for a bit (the train station is right on State) and had lunch al fresco on the pier. Thanks to N and his French fries, no Santa Barbara pigeon will know want this winter.




After lunch we headed for the only logical place to confine our animals, the Santa Barbara zoo. All our trekking about was via the really cool downtown shuttles that cost only 25c a ride. On the way a lady on the bus thought L was so cute she gave her her straw flowered hat! I could immediately see Stacy’s mommy-brain reeling through the list of all possible communicable diseases transmitted via chapeau-sharing, but as of this writing L has maintained her glossy locks and general good health.

The zoo is always a big hit with L. She gets into all the animals, but her heart-felt favorite are the penguins. She was quite thrilled to see them well and honking contentedly in those near-Antarctic conditions of Santa Barbara. There was the general menagerie of usual suspects. L loved it all; N couldn’t have cared less.




One of the great things about telephoto lenses is that you can get some really silly pictures of people before they realize what you're doing... For example, Stacy's super-model hair tossing.

By the time we’d “done” the zoo we were all pretty wiped, so we hustled back to the station via the super shuttles and caught an earlier train home than we’d originally planned. N was out like a light on Mommy’s lap within 20 minutes, but L proceeded to work off Claudia’s other ear in the row behind us for the next two and a half hours. That allowed Stacy and I to pretend for an oh-so-short time that we were young, in love, and childfree. And our little mini-fantasy was blessed by one of the most beautiful starboard sunsets of all time.

A Mugging Victim

Today we mourn the passing of Daddy's favorite coffee mug. It moved on to a better ceramic existence in a tragic and heartbreaking incident earlier this week. The name of the alleged culprit responsible for the tragedy shall not be revealed, since she was ostensibly assisting her mother clean up in the kitchen and assures the coroner's inquest that it was truly an "assident".

Nevertheless, news of the passing is met with much grief on Daddy's part, and a little sarcasm on Mommy's. The pain is eased slightly by the fact that the deceased had an identical twin (kindly standing in for its brother in the above photo) who has so far survived many similarly violent incidents.

A Finished Portrait

I finished another painting in my oils class last night – a portrait of Stacy and N. I should take a better picture; the flash put a pretty bad glare on the image. I painted this one from a picture. I can't imagine how I would have been able to keep my sanity with live sittings! The frustrating thing with painting kids, even from photos, is that it takes so long to complete the painting (this one took about 4 months) that the kid has changed so dramatically from when you started that it seems like you haven't got a very current portrait when you're done.

Usually try to have two paintings in work at a time so I can shift back and forth between them as they get too wet to work on. Right now I'm working on an ocean scene for a friend at work, but I don't have a second. Need to come up with something.

Balloon Trauma Redux

Our daughter L seems doomed to a life of balloon victimization. A few weeks ago she suffered greatly at the hands of a run-away balloon in the Trader Joe’s parking lot. (See the January 23rd entry.) Last night, with only slightly more composure, she related another recent incident involving an orb that cut and ran in our own driveway. (This too was a Trader Joe’s aerial product, so I’m considering a class action suit.)

“Did it go way, way up in the sky too?” I asked her, “And did an airplane get it and take it to Mimi’s house?” (Mimi is L’s grandmother in Maine.)

“I can’t know,” she replied. “We’ll have to keep an eye on it.”

Dolly Lock-Down

This is a scene I see on a regular basis in one permutation or another. Sometimes it's all the little chairs at the kiddie table; sometimes it's N's highchair; sometimes its' the car seats in the minivan. (How does she get the keys!?!) Our daughter is obviously thoroughly committed to the health and safety of her charges. I've heard more than one frenzied caterwaul coming from the backseat because I dared put a car into gear before Piggy was completely strapped down.



Meanwhile today Stacy, L and N tackled the weeds in the side yard that I had been ignoring for, yes, years. All the recent rains had given this forgotten patch of abandoned property a rather Amazonian feel. Unfortunately N doesn't appear to have the makings of a wilderness aficionado in him.

A Plug for Pratchett

I finished reading Equal Rites yesterday. If you've never read anything by Terry Pratchett, I heartily recommend him. He was recommended to me by a friend a while ago (Thanks Dave!) and I feel obligated to pass him along. Not that I need to. He has the dubious honor of being the most shop-lifted author in the U.K.

He writes in the fantasy genre, but don't dismiss him on that alone. His books are really novel-length satires and parodies. (Equal Rites satirizes the feminist movement and generally mocks the whole witch/wizard realm of the fantasy genre.) The same dry British humor one would find in Douglas Adams - kind of a literary Monty Python skit.

His most famous books form the "Discworld" series about a disc-shaped world carried through space on the backs of four giant elephants who are, in turn, astride a humongous space turtle. Discworld is full of neurotic wizards, sordid townspeople, and monsters who want so desperately to be terrifying, but who in general don't quite cut the mustard. Goofy, silly - total brain candy.

I've read four of the Discworld books now (there are dozens, I believe) and will keep pulling them out whenever I'm sick of more highbrow lit.