Hot Lava Girl

So what do you do when your daughter tells you she wants to be an exploding volcano for Halloween? First you give her some time to change her mind. When she doesn't, you get creative.

First, I made a newsprint pattern and then tried it on the kid, cutting and adjusting as necessary. (She's being scary in the photo, like a volcano.)


Then I cut out a huge piece of brown fleece. It's worth noting here that I don't sew. I cut, I glue, and I make liberal use of that fusing material that allows you to iron fabric together.


Then I made shiny lava floes.


Then I made a crown of flames.


When she put it on she looked a lot like the Pope -- pointy red hat and all.

She loved it, so I loved it. I don't know that she looked like a volcano, but I also don't know how else I could have done this without resorting to paper mache. I made the space between her arm holes too wide, so the fabric bunched in front. She didn't notice, and I wasn't about to try to fix it. I kept telling myself, she's FIVE. If she thinks it's an excellent costume, then it is. This holiday is all about making the kids happy.

O alternated between wanting to be a ladybug and wanting to be a fairy. Since we had both costumes already, there was no problem with her indecision. I think she really wanted to be a fairy, but early on she'd told so many people she was going to be a ladybug that she felt she had to be a ladybug. (People who have been following our family for a while may remember that the girls were ladybugs when they were two. The ladybug costume was recycled from then, but they don't remember Halloween when they were two.) This was one of her first experiences with expectations and social obligations, beyond the rule-obeying type of instances. I let her figure it out, telling her she should do what she wanted. In the end, she went to school as a fairy, but wore the ladybug costume for trick-or-treating.


O tries out her fairy costume.


Just before trick-or-treating. The night was beautiful and mild, but three days earlier we'd had 18 inches of snow. Notice how little is on the ground now -- this is typical of the front range of the Rockies. It snows, but it melts fast.


Their pumpkins. As in years past, we let them draw on the design and then we carved it best we could.

Storytelling at its Finest

I went to hear Ira Glass speak last weekend. Do you listen to This American Life? You may, because it’s an insanely popular show. Every week it’s NPR’s most popular podcast download by a longshot. If Ira comes to your town, you should go hear him too -- it's a 90-minute NPR love-fest hosted by a funny guy with a keen eye on America and an unparalleled talent for putting together a compelling story. What more could you want?

He opened his talk in the dark. Unexpected and funny right off the bat. Who sits in a dark theater and listens to someone talk? It’s radio, he said, you can’t see people. Voices become more powerful and expressive when you’re not caught up in the way someone looks. Radio allows people to listen to those whom they might not otherwise pay attention to – as an example, he cited some high school girl gang members with colored hair, baggy clothes, and black lipstick whose stories he once told on the air.

His point made, the stage lights came up. Ira Glass is of course, a storyteller, and for an hour and a half that night he spun his storytelling magic. He led us from place to place seamlessly. He kept us entranced explaining his theory of most journalism today (fake, segmented, reliant on hyperbole, falsely grave) and what his show is trying to do (entertain, but still be objective, serious journalists). Serious stories that shoot to the root of the matter – you can laugh AND you can report on the larger meaning of an issue at the same time. Some have called This American Life, under Ira’s leadership, “the vanguard of a journalistic revolution.”

Ira went into some detail about how the show finds stories, and the music in each story. He recounted some recent spots that never aired; he played clips, and then explained why they fell apart. A This American Life blooper reel. As an aside, he mentioned that he is the composer Phillip Glass' cousin. A talent for pushing the envelope must be genetic.

Not familiar with This American Life? Here are two episodes to try (click on the icon that says “full episode.”) This one is about the financial crisis, and though it sounds boring, it's accessible and so well done that I kind of think everyone should listen to it. Or, go to this link and listen to a this episode that re-aired this summer. The bit by Mike Birbiglia (the first piece, it begins at about 7:53) had me buckled over in laughter. A friend from work and I look at each other whenever a crisis hits that we don't want to deal with and say, "Or, I could have dinner. Because that seems more convenient." Listen to it and be on the inside of the joke.

Two Years

We've been out of Brooklyn for more than four years now. That's the way I think of it. How long has it been since we left New York? Not how long has Boulder, or Minneapolis, been our home. We closed on this house almost exactly two years ago exactly. And so, I'm a bit introspective.

In the circles of introspection I realized that my life in New York is completely inseparable from my pre-kids life. We moved when the girls were 9 months old. At the time they felt SO old to us. They weren't newborns. We'd survived the hardest part. Now, when I see a nine-month kid they look so tiny.

So there were 13 years without kids in New York, and then a measly less-than-a-year with infants? My NYC memories are full of the things I did before kids, luxurious things like yoga classes, and harder things like working until 9:00 many nights. I never had to jostle for a spot in a preschool, I didn't have to learn which sidewalks were okay for trikes and which were too crowded. I just had babies in the city. In Minneapolis I had toddlers. And now, in Boulder I have preschoolers.

So, with all this Thinking, I've realized how much my life has changed. It turns out I know a lot more than I did four years ago.

I know about ice dams and roof rakes and that I never want to deal with either again.

I know water is a touchy subject in the west, as well as a common source of recreation in Minnesota. I miss the lake house culture. Not that we took full advantage of it, but wow, it's almost worth putting up with a Minnesota winter to spend a week at one of those lovely lakes listening to loons at night. But you can't move 10,000 lakes to the high arid plains, and water is a Big Deal out here. Until two months ago you couldn't even have a rainwater collection barrel in Colorado.

I know about open space and uff-da. I know that the Chautauqua Auditorium is the equivalent of the Lake Harriet Bandshell is the equivalent of the Prospect Park Bandshell. And they're all delightful places to be in the summer for an evening concert.

I know about "Minnesota Nice" (which isn't) and the bond that forms between transplants to a new part of the country. Neither can replace old friends with whom you have shared experiences.

I know about old friends with whom I have shared experiences, and that as time marches on the distance makes even those shared experiences no longer enough to hold us together the way I'd hoped. We visit, and it feels distant. The time/distance combo sucks away some relationships, and it's sad. But for others, time makes no difference. You can't always predict which friends you'll stay close to when you move away. (If you're reading this blog, you're probably one who's sticking, and I'm grateful.)

I know that having lived in New York is not the same thing as having lived in Brooklyn. But once you cross the east river that nuance is lost on everyone but me and funnydad.

I know that "back east" is good enough to explain where I came from because no one really cares. Unless they're from back east, too.

I know what xeric landscaping is, and I know how to install and run a drip irrigation system. I know that leafy greens like nitrogen and tomatoes like fish emulsion, and that the second season of a community garden plot is far more rewarding than the first.

I know that Boulder is pretty awesome. It's becoming a home, and it feels right when we come back from a vacation. But I still don't have those good friends you call when you have a really bad day, or a really good day, and until I do, it won't really be home.

Maybe it'll take another two years, or four. Hope not. But we're here, regardless. Moving sucks, and I don't plan to do it again.

Part 2: It's not just for Petsmart Anymore

It's hot in the Big Horn Basin. And the sun is relentless. There is no shade. These conditions are, in large part, what makes this a good place to find fossils. They’re also why Dr. Scott Wing wears huge wrap-around sunglasses fit for someone leaving cataract surgery. One summer a few years ago, a couple of his post-doc students secretly decorated them with crazy glue and gold glitter. This might be a you-have-to-see-it-thing to understand, but they’re pretty sweet sunglasses.

Scott Wing is a paleobotanist. He goes to Wyoming every summer to crack rocks and look for evidence of past plant life. He's spent 37 summers doing this, and says he'll stop only when he can't do it anymore. Dr. Wing isn't just a paleontologist, he's a rock star. Literally. Not only is he a premium scientist for the Smithsonian who has contributed greatly to the study of paleontological flora, he's a talented communicator. He has a gift for explaining the complex in accessible terms. He's one of our go-to people for the scientific nitty gritty. Any exhibition is a balancing act between, on one hand, really detailed, interesting things that people have written books about, and on the other, the visitor's attention span, available time, and interest level. So, someone who can sum up like Dr. Wing is very helpful.

These days, one of Dr. Wing's primary areas of study is a global warming event that happened 55.8 million years ago. Dinosaurs were gone, mammals were just getting started and suddenly a huge amount of carbon dioxide was released into the earth's atmosphere causing the earth's temperature to rise about 5 degrees Celsius. This event took place at the end of the beginning of the Eocene Epoch just after the Paleocene had ended. It is called the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum. It lasted for about 100,000 years.

Scientists debate what caused the release of CO2, with most theories settling on a combination of volcanic activity, a comet impact, a ginormous fire that burned a lot of peat.

There are obvious parallels between the PETM (as it is known) and what's going on today with Global Climate Change. The PETM was a much slower event than the rise in temperatures we're experiencing now, yet the change to the earth's flora was dramatic. Plants that are now found on the Atlantic coast of South Carolina thrived in the Big Horn Basin. Dr. Wing and his work will be highlighted in our exhibition, including a video of him explaining the PETM. Which brings us back to the Big Horn Basin, and me, downing gatorade.

On this particular day, we met at the small tent city Dr. Wing and his cohorts call home and drove (four wheel drive required) to Dr. Wing's dig site for the day. He then began excavating a pit they’d dug into a hillside, and students started cracking rocks with pick-hammers. The spot where a leaf once fell creates a weak plane in the rock, even 55.8 million years later. So a trained eye and a swift tap on the right fissure can reveal a leaf fossil – usually two fossils, one from each side of the leaf.

During a slow few moments, I started playing around with the discard pile. It wasn’t long before I found a small leaf impression. Really! Me, all by myself, with rocks from the discard pile! I showed it to Dr. Wing, just in case it was important, and wouldn’t you know it, it was! He said it was the best fossil found all day so far, whatever that’s worth. Here’s a photo of my leaf fossil, now in a box somewhere in the Smithsonian’s collection.



He did let me take home a couple other less impressive leaf impressions, though. Apparently, this is common. Paleontologists call them “party fossils.”

If you’d like to learn more about the PETM, you can wait until May of 2010 and come to the Washakie Museum in Worland, WY. Or you can watch this American Museum of Natural History video featuring Dr. Wing (and several other of our Guest Curators). Or you can just google it – it’s pretty interesting and fairly depressing.

Oh, and if you ever forget the initials PETM – just think about Petsmart. PETM is that store’s NYSE ticker abbreviation.

Part 1: Introduction to the Big Horn Basin

The Big Horn Basin lies in north central Wyoming, a northwest to southeast oval tipping its hat into southern Montana. It’s a moonscape. Funky-looking, desolate, stunning. Hot and dry in summer, bitter in winter. It’s isolated and easy to get lost in. It is distinctive enough to be readily visible on satellite images from space.

The badlands of the Big Horn Basin. Some geologists write it Bighorn Basin, but our client prefers the three-word version, so that's how I write it.

A few towns ring its circumference. You've probably heard of Cody, Wyoming, a tourist magnet just an hour from Yellowstone. It's the Basin's biggest town with 9,000 souls. The populations of other towns around its perimeter hover between hundreds and low thousands. Not much goes on in the heart of the Big Horn Basin, at least not now. But at different times in the earth’s history this area was immersed in tropical flora, an inland sea, and a lush forest.

The earth is approximately 460 billion years old, but it took until 600 million years ago for non-microscopic life to evolve. Trees didn’t show up until about 280 million years ago. Dinosaurs came on the scene about 200 million years ago and they stuck around until about 65 million years ago. Their extinction opened the way for surviving animals to diversify and evolve. Mammals flourished after the dinosaurs, and many of the species surviving today have ancestors from this time period. The first primates, tiny lemur-like creatures, date from about 55 million years ago.

Evidence of much of this is visible in the Big Horn Basin. The earliest primate found to date has been found in the Big Horn Basin, and here is a very cool PBS video you can watch about it. (It runs 13 minutes, and it's well worth your time. Fascinating.)

The Big Horn Basin is truly a perfect place for paleontological study. The earth has buckled and uplifted in such ways that layers from nearly every part of the earth’s history are exposed. Its dry climate has preserved what’s there, kept plants from covering it up, and has discouraged humans from building on top of it. Plus, much of Wyoming, including the Big Horn Basin, is federal land run by the Bureau of Land Management. It belongs to all of us, and the BLM is gracious about civilian use of the land for scientific study.


The Wyoming DOT has posted signs like this indicating which highway-side rocks are exposed and how old they are. If you think about the layers of rock like an onion, geologists call each onion layer a "formation."

There are fossils in countless places in the United States, but not all are this easy to access. Also, the Basin holds a nearly continuous record of time, practically an un-interrupted record of life on earth. The Big Horn Basin is a paleontological gem, a true treasure in the world of science unlike any other single place on earth. This idea is central to the museum I’m working on in Worland, Wyoming, a town of 5,000 in the Big Horn Basin.

So, my firm went up to interview and film some scientists in the field. Which is how I found myself standing with paleontology students in blinding sun and 100 degree heat, downing Gatorade, swinging a pick at rocks shards.

To be posted very soon: Part 2: My Paleontology Field Trip and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum

A different part of the Big Horn Basin

What I Learned on The Great Colorado Road Trip

No matter how well you plan, it's not possible to get five people into a car at the appointed time on departure day.

The speed with which a minivan with a roof carrier can go up a mountain pass and the speed with which it can go down the other side average about 50 m.p.h.

O on day 2, after doing some kind of coloring project in her seat: Does anyone have a stapler?

A roof box can open while going around a corner down a hill, spilling much of its contents, if you have not properly closed it.

Colorado is a big state.

There are a lot of hot springs in Colorado.

There are also a lot of mountains.

Funnydad could spend all day wandering in sand dunes. Dude likes moonscapes.

O on day 3, frustrated, Does anyone have a stapler NOW?

Four-year olds are not terrified by 32-foot ladders and small tunnels on cliff dwellings. They are, however, worried that the man with the hat [park ranger] will talk too long.

The most exciting thing about breakfast at the hotel for the girls and funnydad (!) was the waffle maker.

The most exciting thing about the car for the girls was the Magic Treehouse books on CD we had with us.

The most exciting thing about the car for mom and dad was grandma who was always at the ready to hand the girls dropped crayons, snack, or stuffed animal.

1055 miles in five days. Mom, dad, funnybunnies, and Grandma Mimi (funnydad's mom). Cool trip, loved what we saw, learned a lot about our "new" state. Have no desire to get in a car again for a long time.



There are more than 600 cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, a National Park in southwest Colorado. This is the largest. Known as the Cliff Palace it was once home to approximately 125 people. Each cliff dwelling was built into a natural overhang and near a water source.



Jon heads out to climb the dunes at the Great Sand Dunes National Park. These sand dunes are 750' tall, the largest in the country. There are several other sand dunes in the U.S., including others in Colorado.


There is a creek that runs near the base of the dunes. The bottom is sandy and the water is ankle deep. Perfect for kids.


M loves to pick bouquets of dandelions, and this field was a perfect spot. This roadside break was also one of our highest elevation stops of the trip, 9,500 feet (Boulder is at 4,500 feet, and tundra begins at 11,000 feet.)


O at one of our roadside jaunts.

The girls have started telling one another secrets. Here they're on the sidewalk of a mountain town called Ouray. It's in a stunning, steep valley, and attracts ice climbers in the winter and tourists like us in the summer.

Just in case we forget where the wall is

The girls love to spell things these days. They're on the cusp of reading -- they can read short words and special books made for very, very early readers ("Mat sat. Sam sat. Mat sat on Sam." That kind of thing.) They like to read the newspaper with us pointing out every "the," "and," "in," and other words they see that they know. This is all age-appropriate. I know kids their age who are more advanced, and kids older than them who aren't quite here yet. I feel strongly that this kind of interest in words should be organic, borne from their interest, not in a parental desire to have early readers.

Sometimes they ask us how to spell words as they write them out. Usually this involves silly, four-year-old sentences to caption a drawing. For instance, "This is a baby fairy and she likes her pet dolphin." It also involves a lot of mermaids and ladybugs.

But, last weekend the girls decided they wanted to label things in our house. It was completely their idea and a true joint O+M effort. We helped them spell the words, and they taped them up. Here's what our house looks like now (there are others not shown here, too):


Self-explanatory.


The scribbles on the bottom and side are the crank to open the window and the levers to lock it in place.


Sometimes M gets a little carried away making the letter capital E.


Once they'd labeled the obvious things, they moved on to other items.


They taped this one by the doorbell. It reads "May and Ophelia house."