Hairy-Kiri

I had planned to give N his periodic hair-buzz in the kitchen this weekend, but things took an unanticipated detour when N was all done.

Have you ever seen Sweeney Todd?...

L immediately goes for the scalp gouge.

No, hold it like this.

And go in gently sideways!

That's better!

I guess this is a good back-up plan if, for some reason, Oxford and Cambridge aren't accepting 5-year-olds into their astrophysics and engineering programs this spring...

Random Reports and Reminiscences

A few of the recent goings-on within the territory of our general migrations.


N was given a new suit a month or so ago - well at least it is new to him. It was given him by his cousin J, and it still bears some growing into. We hog-tied him into it for the first time on Sunday and marched him outside to take Easter pictures a couple odd months early. L, who I swear can smell photons impacting a digital photodetector, immediately barrelled out to get her fair share of the spot light. (Her fair share being substantially close to 100%.)

We've been getting a lot of rain in Southern California over the last week and the kids have been fairly consistently cooped up in the house the whole time. The kids don't seem to mind, but it has been driving their Mother and Father moonbats. Last night, in an attempt to burn some energy, Stacy and I took advantage of a rare dry spell and took the kids on a walk through the neighborhood, puddle hopping and enjoying the freakishly cold and blustery California night.

OK, I admit it. I did not take this picture.

Rain clouds were rimming the horizon, but directly above us the sky was perfectly clear and the stars looked like they had been glued onto a velvet theater curtain. The sliver of a moon was so ridiculously clear and bright that it was obviously a stage prop. As we walked I decided to "dispense knowledge" to my children, which is an arrogant undertaking that usually comes back to haunt me. At one point as we walked we had a face-forward view of the constellation Orion and I began explaining to L that the three stars in a row were Orion's belt, and the two bright stars above them were his shoulders. The two bright stars below the belt were either his hips or his legs, however you wanted to imagine them. (L was quite disturbed that this heavenly giant had no discernible head.) We even discussed the faint row of stars descending from the belt that was Orion's trusty sword. I restrained the urge to clarify that most of them were not, in fact, stars but gargantuan billowing clouds of hydrogen and other assorted galactic belches. I could not restrain, however, one especially nerdy play on words at my daughter's expense.

"See that star there, L? It's name is silly."

"What's it's silly name?" she asked.

"It's name is Sirius!" I chortled. (It was too dark to see for sure, but I know I felt Stacy rolling her eyes.)

Evidently L rolled her eyes too. Our neighborhood is not known for the city's fine attention to infrastructure detail. Just as L was staring skyward trying to figure out what Daddy thought was so self-congratulatingly clever, her feet found a buckle in the cement of the sidewalk and she took a forward stumble, just barely catching herself and avoiding disaster. Her brother, however, who was following behind with his Mother, and who I've long suspected has some lemming blood in his pedigree, wandered obliviously over the same eruption that so nearly bankrupt his sister, and fared far more poorly. I was watching L's recovery at the time, so I didn't see it "go down," but I did actually feel the shockwave roll though the cement as N faceplanted, arms out at his sides like Greg Louganis halfway into a dive. N's cement-loving skull found romance once again. (Strangely enough, right below his left eye, directly on top of the last welt he was just showing signs of recovering from.)

How many forehead contusions does this make? It would be easier to count the stars overhead.

Last summer I put in a couple of citrus trees - dwarf varieties, of course. I don't want my orange trees growing too tall since I doubt my orange pickers ever will. I put in one navel orange, a Meyer lemon and an Oro Blanco grapefruit. All three trees seem to have made it through the fall alive. (Amazing things, automatic sprinklers!) The grapefruit tree has been teasing me with little smatterings of blossoms over the course of time, but has, as of yet, not delivered the goods in terms of any fruit. The lemon and the orange both did surprisingly well for the first half-year under my any-hue-but-green thumb. This morning the kids and I marched out into the slush that is our rain-soggy side yard and had the ceremonial first orange picking. We picked five oranges, which only left about three on the tree. ("Tree" seems such an overstated term for this particular plant. "Shrub" is still open for accusations of exaggeration.) We breakfasted upon the fruit of our labors (OK, the automatic sprinkler's labors) and I must say, they were delicious!

Today Stacy's extended family celebrated her Grampa Lefty's birthday. "GGPa" had a pretty sizable family turn-out at the celebratory lunch at Clancy's Crab Broiler in Glendale, including Grandma Bunny (a.k.a. "GGMa") who was able to get a pass to come have lunch outside her convalescent home. While it is always sad to see how much frailer and tired-er they both look with each passing year, it was nevertheless wild and wonderful to see Bunny and Lefty "out and about" with the family they love so much once again, like they'd done all their lives. Stacy told me afterwards how much fun it was to watch them both (when they weren't aware she was watching) gaze out over their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and visibly well up with joy and happiness. Although their fading years have been painful and difficult, Bunny and Lefty certainly have a legacy they can yet look back on and enjoy, one that I hope Stacy and I can mimic as we age together.

Lynne, clearly in utter disgust
over her Russian tea cake.

To Brian, Janet, Laura, Allen, and Don:

My apologies! With all the flashes going off, I'm not
sure how I managed to never get a picture of any of you!

N Knows Noses

At dinner tonight N posed a random stumper, as he is prone to do. "Why did God make us with two eyes and two ears?"

Not being able to contain my more nerdy impulses, I immediately launched into all the physiological reasons, helpfully using lots of terms like "binocular" versus "monocular" in the process. "God gave us two eyes to help us see distances and tell how far apart things are," I relayed to L and N's fervent nods of approval and general ascent. "And God gave us two ears so that we can tell what direction sounds were coming from." L immediately suggested that having two ears would be a tremendous advantage if a dinosaur were to roar beside you because then you would know where it is coming from. I agreed but chose not to go into the practical discussion of the likelihood of ever needing to distinguish the angle of incidence of a dinosaur roar.

Then N asked, "Why did God give us two nose holes?" And there my brilliance hit a bump. As I sat there and pondered, N offered his own suggestion. "So we can pick our nose better?"

He's probably got a point.

"Crazy Day" and Other Daily Insanities

L's school appears to go all out for the theme day thing. A month or so ago we had "Pajama Day." Last week they had "Crazy Day." Crazy day evidently teaches all the children the fine nuances of silliness and irony. (Like L doesn't get enough of that at home.) L celebrated the event with a reversed sweatshirt and trousers, mis-matched gloves, shoes and socks, and Mommy's coup de grâce, a forward-facing ponytail. Stacy thought it looked like a fountain head. I just thought she looked like a vintage 80's pop wanna-be.

Like totally.

Later, after L was at school, N was discovered in some less-than-fully-sane attire of his own. Evidently he managed to find L's Pretty, Pretty Princess game.



While Stacy insists that he is wearing a tiara, I am choosing to believe that he is wearing a Greek laurel, commemorating the virtues of wisdom, honor and sanity.

Our kitchen remodel is well underway, and it is scandalous. Our cupboards are bare and our walls are stripped; we have pipes that have no shame in showing a little copper. Our dryer took advantage of the chaos to die on us, so now we are joining in on the exhibitionism, flaunting our undies for anyone who wants to venture into our backyard to see. At least the lights are all in, so you have a bright, clear view of the brazen nakedness all about.

Stacy was feeling rather under the weather tonight, so rather than cook, we decided to take advantage of the love, kindness and cholesterol of the Good Colonel. Back home at the table with our plenitude of poultry, we dished out each plate and fell to eating. L, inspecting her plate asked what kind of chicken she got.

"You got two wings, because little girls are like angels and they'll help you fly," I said. She considered this skeptically for a moment, then asked about N's allocation.


"He got a drumstick, because boys like to beat on things and play the drums." Of course then she wanted to know about Stacy's piece.

"She got a breast,..." A withering look from Stacy ensured I could explain no further, but was not quite effective in preventing a somewhat naughty snicker. Our daughter's attention was then turned on my plate. "Daddy got a thigh," I said.

Her response was immediate and the epitome of innocence. "Is that like a big belly piece?"

Anything You Can Wear I Can Wear Better

Why is it that anything Daddy wears is so blooming fascinating?

Roses Are Red, and So Are a Lot of Other Things

Here's the second of the two paintings I finished last week. I painted this one for our friend and beloved church secretary, Pattie Mendez. She wanted something bright and colorful. I think this meets the criteria. I don't think impressionism is my strong suit, but it sure was fun to paint anyway.

It's a copy and I don't know who did the original. If anyone out there has seen it before and knows the original artist and can let me know, I'll add an attribution. (i.e. "S. Perkins, after John Doe.")

Why Buy the Farm When You Can Paint It?

Back in mid-September I started two new paintings in my painting class. This week, almost four months later, I finished them both in the same class.

This one is a painting of the boyhood home of a good friend of mine, Mr. Dennis Gnadt -- the farmhouse he grew up in in Minnesota. The painting was commissioned by his daughter-in-law, Dawn, as a gift for him. I had hoped to have it done by Christmas, but classes ended mid-November and I don't get much painting time when I'm at home -- so I was a little slower than I anticipated. I guess that makes it more of a Happy New Year's gift...


I'll post the other one as soon as I can.

Meol Call

L has taken to intercepting the day's mail and sorting it by addressee. I think she's either making a thinly veiled attempt to secure a position as a personal assistant, or is just plain nosey. In either case, she had this note waiting for me when I got home tonight.



(For the spelling unchallenged, it reads, "Dad, You have all of the mail, Daddy.")

Becoming Botanical

We are now a highly botanic family. Over the Christmas break we finally broke down and got the family membership. The South Coast Botanic Garden is just a couple of miles away on the up-slope of Palos Verdes, and the memberships are much cheaper than the more renown Huntington Library and Descanso Gardens, and the best thing is that it is usually almost empty. Stacy has been bringing the kids here for a couple of years, usually on their occasional free admission days, and they love it. I'd been there once before many years ago (in my pre-Stacy days) to attend a "Shakespeare in the Park" type production. I remembered being impressed with the size of the garden, considering its rather urban setting.



It's not particularly in-your-face dramatic (especially not last week, a few days from the drab winter solstice), but it is big and peaceful and has a lot of trails and huge trees and you can get momentarily lost and pretend for a few minutes that you are not in Los Angeles. There's a good sized duck pond, a children's garden with little fairy-tale figures and constructions scattered about; there's a large rose garden, and several wide open manicured lawns. While there are a few of these "maintained" areas, in general it isn't an English garden where everything is trimmed and tidy, but a botanic garden where dozens and dozens of species are preserved and pretty much allowed to grow as they see fit. It's pretty in its unkemptness. I'm looking forward to seeing it in the spring and summer to see what the gardens hold for color.

The kids are most excited about the duck pond. They make a point to hit the lake each time they visit and go "fishing." This basically amounts to getting a long stick and dipping the end into the pond and just standing there. Can't say it captured my sense of adventure, but hey! - L and N have unique tastes.

The garden is a particularly good place for N to indulge another of his hobbies: stick hauling. A visit to the garden with out dragging a large piece of wood hither and yon is a visit sans point. He acquired a couple of good ones that day and carried them proudly. It is especially fun, he found, to run ahead of the group and get to a narrow spot on the trail and to whip around and bar the way with his stick, yelling "Caution! Caution!" I'm not sure if he thinks he's a railroad crossing, or a knight guarding some remote access to a hidden castle. At any rate we are not permitted to cross until we identify our favorite vegetable. (And evidently we don't get much of a choice for favorite vegetables either, since the right answer was already decided upon for us by the valiant Sir N before the query was given.)

"Caution!"

At one point in our walk around last week, we rounded a bend in the trail and came upon a stunning evergreen of some type that was glistening silver. On getting closer I realized that the dew of the morning had totally bathed the tree and, for some reason, wasn't evaporating away. The picture does not do it justice: The tree looked positively bejeweled. Everyone else somehow managed to walk on by it without much ado, but it floored me.

There may not be a world class art gallery adjacent to a world-renown tea house at the SCBG, but it's quiet and laid back and the kids can run and holler and (don't tell) even pick a leaf or two without Mommy and Daddy being swooped up by security guys in dark suits, sun glasses and ear pieces. It's more our caliber.

End-of-visit Burnout

And despite what Sir N might think, my favorite vegetable is not broccoli.