❅ Merry Christmas! ❅

❅❅❅❅❅❅❅

May the Lord bless you richly with His grace, 

peace, joy and faith in the coming year.
❅ The Perkins Family ❅

❅❅❅❅❅❅❅

The Clausian Hypothesis

N and I had an interesting discussion over lunch. He is conducting a sort of experiment, it would appear. One with potentially grave consequences.

“I DON’T believe in Santa Claus,” he said emphatically, as if testing fate. “And I’m going to see if I’m right.”

“How is that?” I asked, wanting to understand just how far he’d breached the security cover-story.

“I don’t believe in him, and I've said so,” he explained, “so on Christmas, if I don’t get any presents I will be wrong and he did exist.”

“I see,” I said. “Go on.”

“But if I DO get presents, then I will know I’m right and there is no Santa Claus!”

“How do you infer from getting presents that there is no Santa Claus?” I asked. “It would seem to argue the other point.”

“It says clearly that if you don’t believe you don’t get presents,” he explained, “so if I do get presents they couldn’t be from Santa. They had to come from someone else.”

“Like whom?”

“Hmmm. I wouldn’t be L, cause she still believes in Santa. And Mommy couldn’t do it because she sleeps in too late in the morning. It could be you, Daddy, but you work too much. So I don’t know. It’s probably you though. And anyway, he can’t be real because he is in all places at one time. No one can be in all places, only God can, and he isn’t God, he’s only a saint. Did you know his name is Saint Nicholas? – but really he’s just a myth.”

“Hmmm. OK."  I decided to test his dedication to his science.  "Now, is this an experiment you are really prepared to make? You could end up with no presents.”

“I could,” he admitted, “but I think that is highly unlikely.”

Documenting the Crimes of the Oleander Posse

I took the kids on a walk around the neighborhood this afternoon. As I was walking I realized I had my smart phone with me and started playing around with it. I sent Stacy a few pics from our walk, but that got boring quick, so I tried to make it a little more interesting.

First, some context needs to be given. You need to understand that Stacy has an irrational fear of oleander. She is convinced if you walk close enough to it, it jumps out at you, shoves itself down your throat and instantly poisons you.

I'm fairly convinced, on the other hand, that this rarely ever happens.

Business Trip Help

I have been fortunate over the last couple of years that I haven't had to do much business travel.  There was a while a few years ago where I had to travel several times a year, and I always hated it.  It looks like I'm getting back into that phase again where I will need to be traveling a little more.  I just had a 5-day trip to DC a month ago and expect to have a couple more similar ones next year.  It's hard on Stacy when I'm gone, but the kids get pretty worked up as well.  Before I left last time L was very sullen and just not herself for a day or two before I left.  As we were getting in the car to go to the airport she slipped me a letter without letting Stacy and N see her.  She said I couldn't open until I got to Washington.  I cheated and opened it on the plane.  This is what I found.

The Harmony of Great Minds

I took N for burgers today at Five Guys. We had a table near the open kitchen so we sat and watched the crew building the burgers as we ate. I had noticed that they label each burger with a little sticker with a number on it, indicating the burger in the sequence that you ordered it. The stickers were on a large dispenser in the wrapping area and each number had its own sticker roll to pull from. As the burgers would come off the line, the person wrapping them up would grab a sticker from the appropriate roll and fix it to the wrapped burger. I remember thinking that they probably have to keep a lot more rolls with the #1 on inventory than the others. Just as I was thinking this I noticed N looking at the sticker dispenser too. He turned to me and said, "Daddy, I bet they have to change the roll for #1 one a lot more than the others! 'Cause think about it - every order has a #1 but not all of them have a #3, #4 or #5."

I had thought about it, I told him.

Preparing for a Change of Scene

When we come home from a trip in the mountains, I am always struck with how quickly and suddenly the mountains end and the flatlands take over.  There is little that is gradual about it.  You twist and turn down the slopes and switch backs, pillowed by trees and cliffs and boulders, until, like a river finally bursting upon the ocean, you round a corner and there is the valley, long and flat stretching endlessly before you.

I'm glad I have traveled from the mountains to the flatlands many times, because I sense a change approaching that I might otherwise have never noticed until it was upon me. I expect a reorientation of the world is imminent, a shifting of the gears to accommodate a new terrain.  We will round a corner soon and have the road ahead restored to our sights, and we will see it stretch out before us, but it will be a different country, a landscape somehow essentially tied to the former, but of different ridges and hills and curves unlike those we've grown accustomed to negotiating.  The trees will be similar, bigger perhaps, but fewer and less shady. The road will still be clear and visible, but it will be opened up and uncomfortably straight and will require faster travel.  We will come out of our beloved gentle hills with all their meanders and rewarding corners, into a broader valley that will speak well of consistency and focus, but less of discovery and intimacy and charm. The road will promise progress and accomplishment, but it will not be as scenic and the traffic will slowly build.

Stacy came up to me this morning and in a quiet, professional, carefully metered voice, essentially said, "Would you go deal with her?, because I'm going to kill her."  I walked back to L's room to find her lying on her bed in an a defiant fetal position, her eyes all red and her lip quivering, stubbornness and frustration radiating from her.  I climbed up on the bed and slid up behind her, slipping my arms around her.  She momentarily stiffened as if to push me away, but then relented and let me lie there beside her, her disheveled mop of hair in my face. For two or three minutes we just lay there.  A little tremor would occasionally ripple through her body and there would be a brief, accompanying snort or sniffle, but nothing was said.  I sensed the pressure surging and coursing through her like it must under holes of a geyser, waiting, wanting to erupt, but the longer we lay, the gentler the ripples of preadolescent fury and angst sloshing through her became, and soon the fetal child slowly uncurled beside me and let me gently rub her back and shoulders.  After a bit her passivity melted and, as I lay at her back, she reached behind her, grabbed my arms and pulled me up against her,back-to-front, my chin resting in the nook at the back of her shoulder. She pulled my arms tight around her chest in her usual signal that she was ready to submit to a hug.  I obliged.  A few minutes later I got up and went back out to the family areas. A few minutes after that a crusty eyed girl with tangled hair emerged as well.  Only a few waning storm clouds followed in her wake.

The flatlands will be here soon. The terrain is changing. All the things I know about the hills and mountains won't serve me as well in the valley. I will have to learn new methods to handle the new country. Maybe the only viable technique is to just keep driving.

I'm still in the hills, but barely. I cannot begrudge the change of scene, and know the only acceptable road is forward, but it is with a heavier heart that I anticipate the final fleeting curves and prepare for the long trek ahead.  But in my soul I harbor the secret hope that on the other side, which, Lord willing, we all will reach eventually after logging many miles, there will once again be innocent hills and laughing curves and wonder and time and beauty.

Sabering the Moments

A couple of weeks ago I got to check off two bucket list items in one evening. On August 30 we got to go to the Hollywood Bowl to see John Williams conducting a tribute to Henry Mancini and Blake Edwards, hosted by Blake Edward's wife, the iconic Julie Andrews. Being both a sci-fi geek and a closet Sound of Music groupie, it was a not-to-be-missed opportunity. I slipped out from work when no one was looking and was able to pick up the family in time to get to the Wilson Park shuttle bus service with time to spare. John Williams always draws a crowd, so the bus was packed. We got seats, but ended up having the kids sit on our laps to free up space for others. It was a hot, bouncy, jolty trip, but we made it without incident, which considering the traffic our Mario Andretti impersonator of a bus driver had to negotiate, was actually an incident in and of itself.

Our seats were in the supplemental oxygen section, which is much better than the low-earth orbit seats we typically get. The kids were all hyped up. They love John Williams music and were all a twitter talking about dinosaurs and Ewoks and unshaven guys with whips. I explained to them that the fun Star Wars music would be at the end of the concert. The first half would be music from movies they probably had never seen. Figuring they wouldn't know or care, we didn't explain much about the Blake Edwards tribute that would be the first half.

After John Williams came out and conducted his never-fail National Anthem, he introduced the evening's narrator, Julie Andrews. The name meant nothing to the kids, but as soon as Ms Andrews came out on stage and was featured in the jumbo-trons scattered throughout the amphitheater, L's eye lit up.

"Daddy," she said. "She looks an awful lot like Maria from Do-Re-Mi!"

"Yes," I agreed. Then she greeted the cheering crowd and launched into the program.

"But Daddy!" L interrupted. "She sounds more like Mary Poppins!"

The kids sat patiently though the first half, enduring Victor/Victoria themes and music from Breakfast at Tiffany's. They were all squeals when John Williams cranked up The Pink Panther theme and the jumbo-tron showed classic Peter Seller's clips. When the lights came up and people started stampeeding to the restrooms, I reminded the kids that the moment they were waiting for was upon them. As I walked with N to the men's room, he was dancing and weaving in and out of the crowd humming John Williams themes and singing snippets from our favorite Moosebutter Star Wars video.

"Kiss a Wookie; kick a droid!
Fly the Falcon through an asteroid,
Till the princess is annoyed..."

I got several encouraging grins from other nerds, impressed that I was raising my child right.

We soon retook our seats and the lights went down. And then, as they say, that's when the magic happened. Over the stage Harrison Ford dodged rolling boulders and ET crested the moon while John Williams whipped the LA Philharmonic into a frenzy of French horns and fanfares. I started to get concerned because N was singing along so loudly, but then I noticed that most of the 40-somethings sitting around us were too, so I stopped stressing. The movie screen spiraled with sweeping aerial shots that only Steven Spielberg could film and John Williams could orchestrate. The audience oohed and ahhhed like they were watching fireworks. I think some of them were even getting teary. (I had a problem at one point with some dust getting in my eye for a bit, but I doubt many of the others had that excuse.)

And then, after a moment's utter silence to highlight the contrast, a blare of trumpets rocked the amphitheater as the John Williams launched into the Star Wars main theme and the audience recoiled back as if driven by a wind of brass. Then, you could almost hear the electric sizzle as all across the bowl thousands of light sabers ripped into action. As Williams pounded out the screwy cacophony of trumpet rhythms and percussion blastings that make up the theme, light sabers careened and clashed across the bowl floor in syncopated swirls of purple and green and red.

Three encores later and utterly exhausted, we made our herdlike way through the mass of humanity (with a few Wookies and other unidentifiable species thrown in) down the slopes and stairs of the Hollywood Bowl to our waiting buses. After a final Falcon-like ride through the alien landscape of late-night LA and South Central we landed at the Torrance Spaceport in Wilson Park. There was no fight left in our Padawans when we finally tucked them in.

The Rime of the Ancient Parenter

Last week I issued L a challenge. I left this note on her bed when she wasn't looking.

A short while later I saw her darting through the house, avoiding my eyes, but all a glow with a smirk on her face.  I went in to my bedroom and found my note on my pillow.  "Deal!" was hastily written across the bottom.  Just about every night since then I've found poems of varying length left for me on my bed.  N, captivated by the excitement, has even left me a few.  

See Me Mimi

To Mimi
A poem by L

I don't have much time to
ryme, but I can try. See me Mimi.
I can try, only if you do not cry.
See me Mimi here or there you
can see me Anywere! The End


Mom and Dad

My Mom is good my Dad is
bad. He is mean. He bites!
Even mice are scared of him!
When we have Ice drinks He takes
them away. He is BAD! My
mom is good. She is great!
She met me on a date!
My mom is Good. My Dad is
bad!

Dear Dad,
You're not bad, just
bad and dad ryme.
My mom is good. My Dad is good to!

I love you (Get it?)
L


The Flag

What's the flag's name.
I guss it needs
a name tag. I love
this flag. Whats
the date? Its
the 8th I cant
wait.

Here's one from N:

Rime Time

To mom and Dad

It is time to rime with crime. I want a lime.
It is time to rime with sit. He bit me and Hit me
He ust [used] a cit [kit] to nit [knit] a mit [mitt]
It is time to rime with dog look a log in the fog with a hog that has a nog in the fog

I Left My Heart North of San Francisco (Part 4)

The evening we got back from Napa we got word of a special treat in the making for K. “Mr. Tom,” Christine’s husband, was able to wrap up his Southern California duties early and had caught a flight from L.A. to San Francisco and would be joining us for dinner. K adores Mr. Tom, so it was kept a secret from her as a surprise. At dinner time we all walked downtown to McNear’s restaurant where we subtly got a table with one extra seat. As we were seated and reviewing the menu Mr. Tom came walking in. In an instant a shocked K leapt out of her chair and up into Mr. Tom’s arms and clung to him like he was saving her from ravaging wolves. Between K and Mr. Tom, and our kids chatting Miss Christine’s ear off about their Napa adventures, the dinner had a lively buzz throughout, and continued on the walk home as Mr. Tom and Miss Christine literally had their hands full with a gaggle of kids clinging to them and chattering on.

Miss Christine's grapes

Later that evening, after everyone but Stacy, Hiroko and I had gone to bed, and we were sitting around the kitchen island I got to try a cream liqueur I’d never seen before: Fulton's Harvest Pumpkin Pie Cream, a rich, sweet Bailey’s like liqueur with a lot of warm fall spices. It was phenomenal and it was all I could do to keep it to a polite sample. I mentioned it to Christine the next morning and she said it was a pretty hard-to-find bottle and whenever they could find it they bought out the lot!

Alas, the next day was Friday, our drive home day. We had no specific timeline to meet, so we lolly-gagged as much as possible – another leisurely breakfast with Christine’s mystical fruit and sausages, another couple hours of pool play, some poolside reading and chatting for the adults. It was, I think, the most stress-free end-of-vacation day I’ve ever had.

Note the sausages of infinite deliciousness
at the head of the table.

"Cue the John Williams theme... NOW!"

"Buddy," Miss Christine's right-hand man.

K!  Behind you!!!  <dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun>

A novel idea with a few noted shortcomings.

A better approach?

After breakfast and while the kids were playing in the pool or piled on Mr. Tom, I took advantage of the quiet to explore the house again. I’d been all throughout it during the week, but more or less in a utilitarian way – I saw the rooms only because I was passing through them to get somewhere else. I took some time this morning, however, to slowly walk through the house and the grounds and enjoy the rich architecture, detailed design and overarching sense of peace and away-ness that pervaded it all.

Deer scouting!  Christine has a family of deer
that live on her and her neighbor's property.

The original carriage house behind the main house.

Scrollwork detail

The coveted turret room.

Typical Petaluma morning fog. What a
difference an hour or two makes!

The carriage house attic.

Exploring the carriage house.

  

Miss Christine's fantastic apples.

The formal dining room could have been the setting
for innumerable Agatha Christie plots.

Col. Mustard in the Drawing Room with a Candlestick

Ladies, you should only go up or down this staircase if you are
wearing  a caftan and holding one of those long cigarette extenders.

For example...

Tiffany windows are distributed thoughout the house,
including a phenomenal suite ascending the staircase.

Hiroko's turret room.

"Daddy, I'm ready for my close-up now."

Eventually we could stall no more, so we emptied Balch Castle of the sizable freight we’d planted there and said our goodbyes. I remember thinking what a truly unique vacation it had been – by far the least troublesome and hectic one we’d spent together. The little anxiety we had about what to expect as we drove up had dissipated within minutes of our arrival. Christine (and then Tom), who barely knew us, had made us feel so welcome and free and included, it was rather stunning. N had summed it up well on our very first day there. We felt like royalty staying in Christine’s Castle.

Homeward bound.

In the late hours of the night, after the seemingly unending drudgery of I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley and dropping off Hiroko and K in Torrance, we finally staggered through our doors. Our unpacking consisted only of emptying the car into the house. As I was about midway through the extraction of the multiple strata of suitcases and carry-on bags, I found another little surprise. Surreptitiously tucked in among our mounds of luggage was a fresh bottle of Fulton’s Harvest that Mr. Tom had smuggled aboard while we weren’t looking. It’s seal didn’t last the night.