We Got the Beet!

The Go Go's have nothing on us!

A couple of days ago I picked up some fresh beets at the farmers' market and tonight I made a beet and fennel salad with them. It was really good, but the kids took one look and would have nothing to do with it; the poor lonely beets sat untouched and unloved on both of their plates. Much fruitless begging and pleading accomplished naught. (I considered beating them, but decided it would be redundant.)

Finally, in a moment of inspired brilliance, I came upon the motivational nugget I was missing.

"Hey, kids," I said nonchalantly. "You know if you eat a lot of beets your pee turns purple."

"No way!"

"Way! But the only way I can prove it to you is you have to eat all your beets."

A beet gorging ensued. The rest of the evening has been spent in the bathroom with the kids giving themselves near-strokes trying to squeeze out every last drop of pee to see if it truly is purple. (None as of yet, but I told them wait till morning!)

Hang 'em High!

My new home-away-from-home.

On Wednesday I received the dubious honor of being sworn in as Juror #2 for a civil case in the Los Angeles court system. The kicker: it's expected to last 30 days. <sigh>

L was quite concerned about why I was going to court. (She's well aware that when the policemen stop you they can take you to jail or to court.) Mommy had to explain that I wasn't in trouble, but that I'd be helping the judge.

Herring Today, Gone Tomorrow

It is with great sadness that we report that beloved pet, Ariel Perkins, has swum off to that great kelp bed in the sky. Her passing is observed with mourning by all those who knew and loved her deeply. Ariel was a gentle fish, a fish of few words, but we know that her heart was as big as her bowl. If you ever needed a fish to get you out of a tough spot, or even just a fin to cry on, you could always count on Ariel to be just that kind of fish. We all know that if you needed them, Ariel would have given you the scales off her back.

Ariel is survived by her owner and namer, L, who at the time of death was reported as saying, "Daddy, why is Ariel lying down on the bottom of her bowl? Is she tired? Maybe she ate too much and needs to rest."

Yes, L, Ariel is indeed resting now. And she deserves it! After all, when the going got tough you could always count on Ariel to rise above it all, much like she rose to the top of her bowl just a little while ago. Her parting will leave a fish-shaped hole in all of our hearts and to us she will forevermore be a holy mackerel.

Swim with the fishes, Ariel.
Swim with the fishes.

Storming the Castle (Repeatedly)

I have been dreading this post with a passion: a full week of family in town (Mimi, Grampy, sister Sue, brother-in-law Vic, niece Aubrey and nephew Garrett), with every day packed with some overly-adrenalated activity. This could either be a tome, or an exercise in literary minimalism.

Minimalism it is!

Saturday:
After a rather brutal travel day, the family arrived in Burbank at, like midnight. They are on their own. No way I'm going all the way to Burbank at midnight. That's what rental cars and GPS are for. (In our household unconditional love is off the clock at 10PM.) They had rented a vacation bungalow in Redondo Beach and went there directly, so aside from the phone call in the wee hours saying they'd landed, we didn't get to hang with them.

Sunday:
None of the world travellers are awake enough to go to church with us, so we grouped up at our house for dinner that afternoon along with all of Stacy's family - Grandma, Poppa, Aunt Claudia, Aunt Joyce, Mr. Jay, and honorary Grandma Flo. (16 people in all.)

It was nigh-unto Aubrey's birthday, so we used the gathering to commemorate. Cake and bubbles and hyperactivity!

Thank goodness for beer.
...and sangria.

...oh, and scotch.

Monday:
The games begin in earnest. Disneyland in all its crowd-controlled glory. Spring break has sprung and the Mouse is glutted.

We started with a "character breakfast" where we were fortunate enough to eat French toast and Eggs Benedict while periodically being interrupted by large woodland creatures who insisted upon hugging our children. Fun.

After that it was the park full-bore. The Disney Deathmarch! Lines deterred us not, for we were on a mission. No teacup unridden, no small, singing, ethnic stereotype unheeded, no bathroom unvisited.

It was here that Aubrey battled the forces of evil incarnate and N first began to betray his unorthodox fondness for goats. (We had to ask him several times to stop kissing them.)

Sue and Vic are avid Disney-doers; us, not so much. Our immediate family and Mimi and Grampy were done well before the fireworks, but Sue and Vic and their young-uns had to be forcibly extricated from the park at closing by armed security guards (presumably all wearing cute, cuddly cop costumes, of course). I tried my best to instill my bad attitude on all those around me, but alas, the Happiest Place on Earth^® won out and everyone seemed to tragically have a good time.

Tuesday:
Hardly a day of recovery - a picnic at Redondo Beach with plenty of time to embed our bathing suits with fine-grit sand at the waterline so that the ride home was especially tearful.

Wednesday:
A jaunt to sunny South Central LA, land of USC, gang shooting and (unfortunately) the California Science Center. We got to see a really cool IMAX 3-D movie^* about sea critters - the highlight was watching two cuttlefish mate. Quite fascinating. I guess that's why they call them cuttlefish.

After that it was a brisk walk over to the Natural History Museum where we got to see some pachyderms a la taxiderm, a pretty amazing collection of gem stones, both natural and cut, and got to see real-life paleontologists as they chisel away at an honest-to-goodness real T-rex skeleton recently uncovered. (Tommy the T-rex! Whoo-Hoo!) I have to turn off my sarcasm generator for a moment to admit that it actually was pretty cool.

Do-it-yourself Dinosaur Dig

Once again my immediate family's inherent whimpiness was made evident. Mimi, Grampy, Stacy, L & N and I were walking zombies by 3pm and hit the road for home. Sue and Vic and team burned it up with another couple of hours back in the Science Center.

We all met up later at a Brazilian churrascaria in Redondo with Uncle Ray and Aunt Karla to further explore the animal kingdom with some well-roasted members of the Bovinæ subfamily.

Thursday:
We are officially declared old-fogies. Sue, Vic, Aubrey and Garrett are off to Disneyland for Day 2. Mimi and Grampy, still somewhat catatonic from Day 1, came over and napped at our house all day. It was a good day. Nary a picture taken!

Friday:
Back to the front lines! Disneyland Day 3! (Actually it was California Great Adventure, which we'd never seen.) What can be said that hasn't already been stated?

I'll just leave it with pictures.

California is very considerate to have both my kid's initials within its panoply of letters. Can you imagine the whining and moaning if it were not so?

Saturday #2:
The fam's flight to Atlanta was at 7:00AM out of Burbank. (The unconditional love schedule constraint kicked in again.) Having endured a week of non-stop sugar and adrenalin, L and N moped and cried most of the day. Melt-downs abounded so bedtime was blissfully early.

Let the recovery begin.


^*SIDE NOTE: Just now, as I was putting this page together L saw the photo of the IMAX film poster (which I downloaded from the IMAX website, by the way). She was immediatly all seriousness and furrowed brows, and she glared at me accusingly: "Daddy, they said no flash photography! Why did you take it?"