Our Bold Adventure Continues

I have been keeping all kinds of humor to myself. Hoarding it. Laughing here at my computer, and you've known nothing about it. Now, my friends, it is time to share. Below are some silly websites and blogs I sometimes visit. Laugh with me. And if you know any similar sites, please share. This is the first of this "people watching" genre I discovered. It's hard to know which photo is my favorite, though "the closeness of you" is probably a good choice. Would you want to be in that relationship? If so, which person? Really, it's the collection as a whole that makes me chuckle so much. There's not much one can say about this that the site's title doesn't. It is called "People of Walmart." Be sure you go back a few pages to get the true flavor of the people of Walmart. This is not a site to visit just before lunch. Which, for some reason, is when I tend to check it out. Every single sandwich looks so freakin' good. The funny is

This is a painful time at our house: our kids THINK they know how to tell jokes. Tonight, Jon got them going with an old standby, and then, well, you judge: Dad: Why was six afraid of seven? kids: I dunno Dad: Because seven eight nine! M: Why was 10 afraid of two? Mom: why? M: Because of six and seven. Mom: That doesn't make sense. M: Yes it does, and it's funny. Like this one: why did eight nine ten? Mom: why? M: Because of three. Mom: Sweetie, the reason dad's joke is funny is because of eating, like the number seven actually ate... M: Why did the napkin cross the road and jump over the fence? Mom: why? M: to get to the other side. And it went on like this for at least ten minutes.

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 t

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 cour

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 jus

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. H

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 4.6 bi

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 (!) wa

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. I

Verbatim, as made up by M during a recent hike. (We're not sure what "including" means here, but this is the way she said it.) 1) Be careful, including. 2) Don't fall down the mountain. 3) This rule tells the other rules what to do: Be careful, including, and don't fall down the mountain or you could die.* 4) Be kind to animals you meet on the mountain. 5) Trees give us oxygen, thank you. * the origin of this rule may lie in that at school they are learning that silent letters tell other letters to say their names. As in, the silent "e" in home tells the "o" to say its name.

Our girls were born on THE cut-off day for kindergarten in Boulder. They will either be the oldest or the youngest in their class – anyone born a day later in 2004 will have to wait another year to begin kindergarten. At first, back when they were small lumps crawling around our apartment, I advocated waiting. People said it was better. People said they knew kids who grew up timid as the youngest in their class and kids who grew up strong as the eldest. “If you want leaders hold them back. If you want followers put them in early.” My mother-in-law teaches seventh grade and said she can tell who is older and younger in her class without looking at her pupil’s birthdates. It matters, and we wanted our kids to be their best, so we’d wait. Funnydad agreed. I was so sure that’s what we’d do. Now I put that decision in the same category as when, as a childless woman in my 20s, I saw preschoolers in mis-matched clothes and swore my children would not look like that. You just don’t know how y

Another post about being insanely busy. Feel free to skip, since you’ve heard it before. I swear I don’t like living this way, despite the fact that I can’t seem to change. (This is another post of 50-word-or-fewer paragraphs. Seems appropriate for the subject matter. Plus, you all seemed to enjoy it last time.) When I was younger, before kids, being busy meant that maybe I skipped going to the gym. Or I worked late instead of meeting a friend for dinner. Now, it’s an entirely different game. Been spinning in circles trying to stay balanced. During a recent trip to Virginia my sister-in-law, a mom whom I respect greatly, talked about the ways she works to build “margin” into her and her family’s schedule. That’s the word for what I’m missing: margin. Every minute is accounted for, busy, and if it’s not, there’s something slipping. I forget forms for school, I handwash undies the night before lest I go commando to work because I haven’t done laundry. People actually call to ask if I’m s

• Half a plot is less than half the work of a full plot • The second year really IS easier • Four-year-olds are better at playing by themselves while you garden than three-year-olds • There is no good way to work compost in around a drip irrigation system • It's not worth the fight against bugs to get beans to grow here • Everyone who has rhubarb has too much of it, so don't plant any yourself • Weeds are intimidating, even five months after I last fought the good fight against them Did anyone notice that after a rousing start to last year's gardening season there were NO posts about my community garden plot? This was not coincidence. This was me sparing you from my sinking depression over how Not Fun my Gardening Burden became. Turns out that 528 square feet of weed-infested garden with poor soil in an arid climate is too much to take on while working half time and raising three-year old twins. Weeds in my community garden plot last year. There were several problems, and

Sock puppets! Take a stray sock, some extra buttons, a bit of scrap yard, a dab of Elmer's, and you're good to go. The girls' sock puppets talk to each other. M's is named "Sparkle" and O's is named "Diamond." A close up of Diamond. Diamond had facial arrangement issues until her eyes fell off and O glued them back in a different place, this time below the hair. The cool thing about making sock puppets when you're four is that there aren't any rules.

My kids are growing up in Boulder, which means it's practically a right for them to learn to rock climb. (It's pretty much a right to learn to ski here, too, but we're delaying that for reasons that could fill a whole other blog post.) In this small, one-movie theater town there are two rock climbing gyms -- I mean gyms with nothin' but rock walls -- and apparently that's not enough because they're building an Olympic training facility here, too. When we go hiking on a nice weekend, most anywhere we go will be lousy with folks and ropes and people on a high climb. Rock climbing is big here. Way big. Parks and playgrounds have fake boulders to climb and rock walls on the sides of playground equipment. Our children scramble up those like they're nothing, so we thought it was time to take them climbing for real. They loved it. We met a friend from their school and their mom at a rock climbing gym. The mom just happens to have spent 16 years on the U.S. Women

At work these days I’m spending a lot of time writing exhibit text. The research phase ended a while ago, the outlines and concepts have all been approved. Now it’s the nitty gritty work of finding ways to make the text make sense, connect with the artifacts and images, flow through the story line, and be lively. And, each text block is generally between 35 and 50 words. Sometimes it’s easy. Sometimes it’s impossible. Somehow it all gets done. Since I’m thinking in short paragraphs and I’m feeling behind in my blogging, here are some short catch-ups about our lives. All in 50 words or fewer. ****** Our trip to the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua simply rocked. Eleven family members and we all got along. The 400-acre organic farm we stayed on kept surprising us, and we swam every day. There were cool wild (and some tame) monkeys, but there were also big bugs. ****** It’s been in the 70s all week, which has brought on spring fever. Daylight savings time is almost here, which means kiddos wil

Tonight we sought out a traditional "Lion Dance" to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The girls have been learning about it at school and were very excited. They kept explaining that red was the color of good luck in China and they had to put lots of red things in our house for the new year (this didn't happen, though I offered red construction paper for crafts). They also said the house had to be clean for the new year and took it upon themselves to use the wet wipes we use to help make four-year-old hygiene easier (AKA Butt Wipes) to wipe down every bathroom in this house. It may have used a lot of wipes, but who am I to stop my children from voluntarily cleaning bathrooms? The girls' school told us about a Chinese restaurant in town that offers a "Lion Dance" to celebrate the Chinese New Year. We heard it gets crowded, so we got there at 5:30 for a 6:45 dance (both girls sporting red shoes). But despite our early arrival (they don't take reservations) t

The other day a mom of older kids gave M+O each an old cassette tapes of kids' music, so now we have some vintage Raffi and WeeSing going on at our house. Woo hoo! The most amusing part is that the girls are fascinated with the cassette tapes. They want to hold them constantly. They try to take the cases apart. They put the little folded covers out and put them in again incessantly. Once one of them pulled the brown magnetic tape out a bit, looked up at me and said, "oops mama." They can't seem to remember the word "tape" so they call them "those small CD thingys." This weekend when we set out for an errand both girls protested taking the minivan. NOOOO! SUBARUUUU! They never ask to take the Subaru, it's harder to crawl into and the carseats there don't accomodate winter coats well. But, I quickly figured out, the Subaru has a tape deck. No, I promised, opting for driver ease and preschooler comfort, we'll listen to them on the totally

We had an exciting day here in Boulder yesterday. Just a two miles from our house a wildfire burned 1400 acres and seven "structures." It started when 80 mph winds blew down power lines. You could see the smoke for miles, smell it too. An entire side of a mountain appeared to glow orange -- we could see it from the end of our street. It's a mountain very close to our house, one we drive on regularly, and one we hiked on just the weekend before with a visiting grandma. More than 11,000 homes were evacuated along with a lot of livestock. Mostly horses, but I saw a photo of a llama. They brought all the four-legged evacuees to the Boulder County Fairgrounds, which struck me as brilliant, but of course must have been part of the county's standing emergency plan. The Red Cross set up a shelter at a local high school, but in a statistic that illustrates Boulder's wealth, most found friends or hotels: of those 11,000 households, only 75 people spent the night at the sh