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!