Phoning it in series

It's time again to put the least amount of effort I can into a blog post. What. It's very daunting to update after so long.

Here are some pictures from my phone, that small computer I keep at the bottom of my very large purse. It makes phone calls, too. Oh, and I threw in some other photos from my real camera for good measure.

It was really hot out for a couple of weeks here. We kept cool with some yogurt, sno-cones and garden hoses. And by we, I mean some of us and all of us (sometimes).


Big spoon. Since Ira is five, he can choose five yogurt toppings. He always picks candy toppings that freeze into rocks when they hit the yogurt: gummies, bubblegum balls, etc. I used to do the same thing when I was a kid. It took a long time to master the art of frozen yogurt toppings.


Osaka Ya. Our first ever trip there after hearing about it for years. It was way worth it.


Garden hose + crazy face.

We also spent some time in the city, where it is infinitely cooler than our town in so many ways. We went to the Academy of Sciences, the Japanese Tea Garden and met some friends for dinner.

Academy of Sciences. All those little teeth! The two in the center on the bottom are loose.


Academy of Sciences + rainforest exhibit + dad hugs.


Golden Gate Park + sunny smile. When I was about to deliver Ira in the hospital some 5 years ago, I made sure to tick the box for the extra cute kid.



Japanese Tea Garden. A little tea before dinner. His eyes are so brown-green. Or green-brown. Not hazel though, right?


We also went to Japantown where I found this $1.50 store and hence, this $1.50 hat. It didn't make me feel too conspicuous, so I bought it. I hardly ever wear hats and so they feel sort of forced to me.


I'm teaching myself Photoshop, that's why this picture has words on it. It also has words on it because I really want to take a moment to lament that I don't know how to make a presentable face for pictures. Is there a skin cream for that? An online tutorial? A university extension class? ANYTHING? My life is in crisis. I stay up nights worrying that Ira will have no pictures of me to show his children where they got their unphotogenic faces from. Apparently in my worst nightmare here, his future wife didn't tick the box for extra cute kids at the hospital. I already hate her.

Big

This guy! I love him so much. What an all around great guy. Funny, charming, caring, sharp as a tack and ridiculously good-looking. Here's a sweet shot of him at Luigi's (old school Luigi's). We were waiting for pizza. Little by little, we are running the Sacramento pizza circuit. I forgot how much I liked old school Luigi's. Nice pies, even if we had to wade through a primordial stew of Hepatitis B, roundworm and used condoms to get there.



Last night was open house night at Ira's school. Each open house usually features some special
artwork from the students. This time it was a self portrait with the classic Montessori theme: Peace Begins With Me. I love how he drew his hair here, he's got the Eddie Munster widow's peak just perfect. The portrait also shows him holding a hammer (that's what he told me). I have since found out that he told the teacher it was a toothbrush. What a rascal! I love him anyway. Just remember, peace begins with Ira or else!

I wanted to write this down quickly before it became lost to time. It is so fascinating to me that Ira has no concept of aging and consequently becoming an adult. Not so much lately, but every once in a while he gets very anxious about growing up. His five year old brain is convinced that he's destined to grow up as fast as Tom Hank's character in Big. He's never seen the movie, but it's exactly what he fears will happen. He asks a lot about what we will do when he wakes up one day and finds he is a grown up. Where will he get his clothes?! We've been around and around in circles about this. I have tried many different ways of explaining that growing up into an adult takes a long time. First you're a kid, then you're a bigger kid, then you're a teenager and eventually you're an adult. I didn't realize until recently that he has no frame of reference for a teenager transitioning into an adult. He simply hasn't been alive long enough to have known anyone going through this. He knows plenty of adults, but they've always been adults to him. He isn't capable of thinking of them as being children or teenagers once. This all kind of blows my mind when I think about it. Anyway, I finally had to come up with a stock answer for when he's worried about suddenly waking up and finding grown up clothes that fit. I said he could borrow some of dad's clothes until we could go clothes shopping. It worked.

Running from scissors

I've made a terrible mistake: I tried to trim my kid's hair and I effed it up. This is not really the first time this has happened either. In fact, I should know better. I am not even sure why after the last time I effed it up, that I decieded to try it again. Clearly, hair trimming is not my best domestic trick (I cook a fantastic soup!).

It all starts out so innocently. Oh, look at my flaquito's hair. It's falling in his eyes! Just a quick trim won't hurt. I make the trim and satisfied with the instant results and complete absence of catastrophy, I press on. I continue the trim...every time! I never quit while I'm ahead with the trim. I should probably never start. Some people are great at this. I admire you people and that is why you are paid handsomely. I am not one of these good-with-scissors-types and I have no interest in changing that. I have many other useful party tricks. Have I mentioned the soup?

I must resist picking up those scissors again. P.S. We got it fixed by a skilled tradesman.

The many moods

Mood boards have taken the blog world by storm. I just got access to some nice design software and I'm trying to learn how to use it, so I made this mood board for a little cycling season style inspiration.

I'm outfitting my bike with yellow accents this spring because:

A) Ain't nothing wrong with looking good.
B) Easy to identify if stolen.
C) I need a new rear tire anyway because the one I put on last season was a tire-shaped piece of garbage.

I'm pretty sure I saw a guy bring a stolen bike into a shop last week. He came in on this very expensive, Felt junior road bike, which he looked ridiculous trying to walk with because it was so tiny and he was so adult-sized. He asked the bike shop guys for a pump to fill the tires, but couldn't figure out the bike's presta valves. All the while, he kept asking the shop guys if it was a nice bike. I had a pretty bad feeling about it since it seemed like such a shady situation. It bummed me out to think of some kid getting their sweet bike stolen from their garage, or worse, bike-jacked. I hope this never happens to my bike, which I love, so I'm going to make my already unique bike just a little more custom. This effort won't guarantee it theft-proof, but it will make it easy to spot in case it is stolen.