The Bees

People run and laugh and play.  Me, I watch the bees. 

They lounge in chairs, drowsy with the mid-day sun or enveloped in books.  Me, I watch the bees. 

They swing paddles, bob whiffle balls high over the nets.  They soak in the cool energy of the icy, still pool.  Me, I watch the bees.

Tiny yellow flowers dot the expansive dip in the lawn.  A long inverse ridge running just below the sloping rise of the main hill.  Barely noticeable save for something for the mover to run over, to cut down, to sever flower head from flower stem.  Yellow petals from blades of grass. Does anyone notice the flowers?  See how they’re only in the dip?

Is there something special about this low point?  Does the rain gathering here provide extra water?  Do the sloped sides add needed shade?  Or is it just that the lawnmower isn’t equipped to handle subtle changes in terrain and the blades rotate above the flowers but do not catch them, none but the tallest, the proudest cut down, the smallest left to flourish?  Do we see what we do not look for?

The bees scuttle from flower to flower, spending no more than a second on each blossom.  A schmorgasboard of delight, bright, beautiful dinner. Do mid-day flowers need a name?

Chubby bodies, all five tiny petals disappear below as the bees drink up the inside nectar.  How many?  Two?  Four?  Seven?  There’s another, and another---or is that the same one?  They move so quickly, flitting from plate to plate, it’s hard to tell.

The people grow louder, the day taking off, the pool tranquility replaced with splashing, the din of conversation echoing until it dissipates in the pure blue sky.  The bees, the bees go on eating.  And me, I watch the bees.

Adventures with Ivory and Munchkinhead: German Fest

One of the best parts about Milwaukee is the weekend ethnic festivals down at the lakefront.  Back in June, Munchkinhead and I headed down to check out Polish Fest.  In July, we headed to German Fest.

German Fest had lots of fun adventures.  We started in the culture tent where we learned about different German groups in the area, perused some fancy crafts and practiced our colors auf Deutsch with one of the local immersion schools.  We also entered a raffle which resulted in us being on the mailing lists for darn near every county in the state.

We went through the various shopping plaza areas.  Munchkinhead got some sort of adorable shirt.  For a moment, I wanted a drindl; then I saw the price tag.  I was also eyeing up a very non-German handkerchief dress, but decided not to get one.

There were a lot of patrons in lederhosen and drindls, which was pretty awesome.  The music was fabulous – lots of trombones in the various large bands on stage.  And all around, happy, smiling, rather large folks enjoying the best Milwaukee’s Germans have to offer.

The best part of the summer ethnic festivals is always the food.  Mmmm… German food, so many options for a vegetarian.  Wait. What?  Well at least Munchkinhead found some super good eats and shared her sauerkraut wit mir.  I found my own deliciousness from the roasted nut haus.  Mmmm.

Fireworks Blanket

16 skeins. 16 skeins of yarn.  Does it sound like a lot?  It certainly feels like a lot.  That’s how much yarn went into my new fireworks blanket.  16 skeins of Red Heart Vivid in Neon Mix. It’s a super bulky yarn that comes in only 39yd skeins (compared with your standard 100-200 for less bulky yarns).  No wonder it took so many skeins.

I picked up a few skeins of this yarn back when I was living in Cali.  I thought it was really fun and wanted to make a tube-top out of it.  I tried that, on size 8 needles – ouch my fingers.  It didn’t really work.  I tried some other things with it, used some to make a card hanger for our Christmas cards, and finally decided it would be best put to use as a large, thick blanket for laying on the grass to watch the fireworks.

Because this variegated yarn changes colors quickly, garter stitch looked messy.  I decided to go with a nice stockinet stitch,  giving my blanket a front and a back. 

However, I didn’t want the sides to curl, so I did four stitches of garter stitch on each side.  It gave the blanket a nice-side border.  The top and bottom roll didn’t bother me that much.

I also found out partway through that I was purling wrong!  I was wrapping the yarn around in such away that I was actually purling twisted stitches. You can see that in the picture above.  Once Mommy pointed that out to me, I switched to doing it correctly.  Neat to know for anytime I want to purposely purl twisted stitches.

The nice thing about super bulky yarn is that it knits super fast.  My fireworks blanket took about a month to knit and came out fabulous. Munchkinhead and I enjoyed sitting on to watch the fireworks this Fourth of July.  It sort of glows in the dusk.

 

Adventures with Ivory: My Own Nation’s Capitol

It started as a trip to visit Mzzzz Jones (who’s no longer Mzzzzz Jones, but will stay so on here), and morphed into a giant adventure.

Mzzzz Jones is going to have a baby!  And the baby is due when Mzzzz Jones and I were going to be our 5 year law school reunion.  I clearly needed a new way to see her.  Add to that a sale on Amtrak, and a trip to DC was hatched.

The Capitol Limited from Chicago to DC feels super short after so many California Zephyr trips, less than 24 hours.  It was a pleasant ride and I was easily able to navigate my way from DC’s main train station to a park near Mzzzz Jones work.

(—> me on the train)

Mzzzz Jones and her husband graciously let me stay with them an entire week.  Originally, I was just going to visit for the weekend, but as I mentioned, my trip morphed. 

Soon after planning the trip, I noticed American University was offering a number of IP courses for lawyers and law students from around the world.  There was one that particularly caught my eye and it was to be held the week I was going to leave DC.  I decided to go out on a limb and apply for the course.  I got in!  And my weekend trip became a week trip.

Mzzzz Jones and I had lots of fun.  We went to (catered!) happy hour at her aunts’ house, sampled delicious foods from many restaurants, accidentally wandered into an African street festival where a steel drum band was playing “Moves like Jagger,”  checked out a new church in Maryland where they sat us in the handicap seats cuz Mzzzz Jones is expecting, and watched 3 movies.  I finally saw Coming to America.  We also watched the remake of About Last Night with Kevin Hart at her place and went to a cute little theater to see Belle.  I really liked all of them and am glad I went to Africa before seeing Coming to America.  I was shocked to learn that the lead actress in Belle, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, is in one of my favorite movies, Lost in Austen.

Mzzzz Jones also sent me off exploring on my own.  I went to the Newseum, which is huge and pretty neat.  The Pulitzer Prize Photo exhibit is intense and very emotionally draining.  I checked out a few of the Smithsonian Art Museums (because I needed to use their restrooms) and walked, like a dumb-butt, from nearly-at-the-Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial because I didn’t know how far it was.  Then I had to get my tushie back to Chinatown for dinner with Mzzzz Jones and her husband.  (<—Canadian paper example at the Newseum)

I missed the MLK memorial on my long trek because I didn’t realize it was far from the paved path.  But, thanks to a very nice gentleman I was able to see it before I left.  Mzzzz Jones and her husband threw a BBQ while I was there and lots of their friends and people from their wedding who I had met but didn’t really know came, including the best man.  I met up with Best Man my last night in town and we went exploring.  He took me to see both the MLK and FDR monuments.  It was so, so, so awesome to see them at night under a full moon with the warm summer air and a light breeze.

(—> Back of MLK monument and the moon)

The whole trip was absolutely delightful and one of the few times I wasn’t ready to go home by the time it was time to go home.  Mzzzz Jones and I spent a lot of time hanging out in law school and it was wonderful to get to hang out like that again.  I also loved DC.  I’ve been there before but never this long and in a manner where I’m getting around by myself.  I realized one day as I was walking down the street in the downtown area that I’ve spent more time in both the capitols of Zambia and Nigeria (Lusaka and Abuja, respectively) than I have in the capitol of the US.  That struck me as very crazy.  I hope I get to go back soon and spend some more time in DC.

Me and Eleanor Roosevelt.  She makes me look so tiny!

Oh, and in case you were wondering – the class was excellent.

Adventures with Ivory: Iowa

It’s a common response when someone tells me where they grew up, “oh! I’ve been there on vacation.”  It seems to be especially true for random towns in Iowa.  This summer, my little vacation to Iowa was a tad less random.  I went to visit Orgfish, one of my dearest and bestest friends.

We met a long, long time ago.  My family had just moved to Cudahy and I was down at the park enjoying the giant swingset.  According to Orgfish, I was jumping off the swings, landing on my head, and going back to the swings to do it again; and she thought, “that’s great. I want to be her friend.”  And we’ve been friends ever since.

Orgfish and Mr. Orgfish welcomed me gladly to their awesome home and we spent the weekend relaxing and having fun.  There were two barbeque parties, a cute movie, some games, and plenty of exploring.  We did some antique store pursuing in Kalona, quilt capitol of Iowa.  The sidewalks are decorated with “quilt squares” made out of bricks.

We even checked out the African American Museum.  Now, you’re probably thinking what we were thinking, “An African American museum in the middle of Iowa?  How good can this be?”  Well, it turns out the answer is “very good.”

The museum was created by Cedar Rapids’ African American community to showcase the history of the local community.  It does this by placing the local history within the wider African American history and within the even wider African-rooted culture.  Half of the museum is the permanent exhibit that takes you from the slave trade through today.  The other half is temporary exhibits.  We were lucky enough that the temporary exhibit was on African American music.  (And the hip hop display featured lots of Creative Commons licensed photos!)

It’s very well done and very interactive.  You hear about how awful slave ships were and see illustrations of people crammed together, but it doesn’t really hit home until you lay down on the planks and realize the person above you is going to poo all over you, and you’re going to poo on you and the person below you, too.

In addition to laying on the slave ship, we played African drums, participated in a sit in, added graffiti to a wall, DJ’d, tried on football helmets, pretended to fly an airplane and plunked around  on the piano.  I had a little trouble getting out of the airplane.

 

(Orgfish is participating in the sit in. I’m the mean cafe worker refusing to serve her.)

It was a fabulous trip and a great time hanging out with great friends.

My First Insta-Dress

I call it “Insta-dress fabric.”  Munchkinhead probably knows the real name for it, if there is one.  It’s the fabric that’s pre-smocked up top.  Usually, the design is some sort of one-way pattern with lots of stuff going on at the bottom.  I call it insta-dress because all you have to do is sew one seam joining the two-sides of your fabric and you instantly have a dress.  You don’t even have to hem it; the printed pattern goes all the way down to the salvage edge.

Last summer, while visiting home, Mommy and Munchkinhead helped me make my first insta-dress.  It was a little more difficult than it was supposed to be.  Either the fabric was improperly cut at the store, or we didn’t quite have enough, or my legs are just too long. 

When you buy insta-dress fabric, the cutter is supposed to cut through the smocked part and then tear down the remainder of the fabric.  This is so the tear follows the fabric grain and you get a straight edge.  Because of the smocking up top, attempting to cut the rest of the fabric tends to result in a very crooked cut and much narrower fabric at the bottom of the dress.  Narrower bottom means more difficulty walking.  For whatever reason, my insta-dress had a bottom too narrow for me to walk.

Mommy helped me trouble-shoot the narrow bottom.  We had more fabric than we needed at the other end of the dress.  So we, trimmed some from the top and middle and added a gusset to the bottom.  It’s a fairly narrow triangle, about 6” wide at the bottom and 14” high and it’s set into the bottom of the back (and only) seam.  It provides enough room to walk comfortably, though not enough to effectively carry a couch up stairs.

Insta-dresses, by default, are tube top dresses.  I’m not a great fan of tube tops, so I wanted some sort of strap.  We made two long straps and tried them out in various positions.  I decided on having the straps come from the center in the front and go to regular strap spots in the back, rather than tying.  Munchkinhead gave me a beautiful bead from her bead collection that perfectly complimented the black and white floral pattern of the dress.

I love the dress. It fits wonderfully and is super comfy.  Unfortunately, it’s mostly a travel dress as it’s rarely warm enough in the Bay Area for such a summery dress.

I’m working on a new insta-dress fabric dress now, but this one’s much less instant.  Stay tuned ;)

The Road to being Stuck in Your Room is Paved with Good Intentions

It was June, the summer after 6th grade.  My sisters and I had some sort of fake slumber party on the hide-a-bed.  I don’t remember the details.  The middle of the day on Saturday, Mommy and Daddy had gone out for a walk.

My sisters and I wanted to make Daddy something for Father’s Day but we needed supplies.  There was a JoAnn’s not too far away; Alfred and I rode our bikes there frequently, just over a mile.  Munchkinhead was too          Us, a few months later
little to  ride that far; she was only about 3 years old.  We decided we’d walk.

We cleaned up our slumber party.  Sort of.  Figuring we’d want to play again later, instead of folding the hide-a-bed back into the couch, we made the bed up and tucked all our stuffed animals into it. 

We cleaned anything else we’d been playing with.  We left a message for Mommy and Daddy in the living room, checked that all the doors were locked, took our house key and set off for the store, pulling Munchkinhead in the little red wagon.  We took an umbrella with us in case it rained while we were away.

We were pleased with ourselves, feeling we had remembered to do everything we were supposed to do.  We were having fun together and excited about making something nice for Daddy.  How were we supposed to know Mommy and Daddy hadn’t taken a house key with them?

They couldn’t get in.  They couldn’t get our message.  They didn’t know where we were.  And, it had started raining.  Apparently, these circumstances make parents freak out.

Mommy and Daddy found us with the little red wagon, next to the McDonald’s, heading out of the Plaza parking lot.

I don’t remember what Daddy got for Father’s Day that year.  It couldn’t have been good because I remember we spent a lot of time looking at puffy paint supplies.  I know what I got though.  Grounded.  For being irresponsible by not anticipating the facts I didn’t know.  And for making my sisters go with me.  They didn’t get in trouble at all.  “They’re too young to know better.”  Harumph.  And yes, 20 years later I am still bitter.

But I’ll tell you this much, as a grown-up, I’m pretty darn good at anticipating a whole lot of “what-if” scenarios and preparing for most of them.

Bungee Fun, or Not-So-Fun

There was a comic in the paper the other week that made me chuckle quite hard; one of those ones that’s super funny because you see your own experiences in it.  It was from Baby Blues by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott.  Mom and Dad are in their bedroom trying to figure out why their pajama and sweatpants  are missing the elastic from around the waist.  Hammie and Zoe, their son and daughter, are in the back yard.  Hammie is high atop a ladder with a string of elastic tied around his waist, wearing a football helmet and saying “I’ve always wanted to bungee jump.”

We tried that once, too.  Only instead of stealing the elastic out of our parents clothes – which as someone who sews, I can tell you would be a lot more trouble than it’s worth – we got a bunch of bungee cords from the garage.  We climbed onto the top of the large monkey bars in the back yard and hooked one of the bungee  cords’ metal ends through a hole for the swing’s S hook.  Then I held onto the other end and jumped.

Monkey bars and S hooks for swings.

It didn’t work.  The bungee cord hook came out of the S hook hole.  *Thud*  I hit the sand hard. 

Luckily, the swing set wasn’t that high, only about 8 feet or so, and we fell and jumped off it so often that it didn’t hurt.  Well, it hurt, falling 8 feet hurts, but we didn’t get injured.

Alfred jumping from the swing and missing the monkey bar grab

Next, we tried making bungee swings by putting bungee cords into the swing S-hook holes and hooking the other end of the bungee cord into the swing’s chain links.  That sort of worked but wasn’t nearly as much fun as it seemed it ought to be.  In the end, we decided the swing set was far more fun without bungee cords.  Now I only use them for moving furniture.

 

 

Adventures from Home: Leon’s!

The smooth, creamy deliciousness slowly emerged from the spout, making a long tube of glistening delight.  Sliding down the tilted metal pans and into the open freezers waiting below, the fresh custard filled the stainless steel containers.  The young man in his white paper hat reached his scoop into the tubs, piling the frozen custard high on top of cones for the waiting customers.

Melaxid and I stood near the window, watching the frozen trails and the scoop man, reminiscing about our college days, sharing stories of our latest adventures and wondering why the mint custard was coming out of a churner labeled “Butter Pecan.”  Alfred and Munchkinhead stood nearby, slowly devouring their own cones of rich frozen custard.

The reflections of ourselves as we peered into the long, boxy building.  The young man in white with his white paper hats.  The metal freezers and custard churners.  The long lines of patrons stretching from the walk-up windows deep into the surrounding parking lot.  The neon lights at the top of the tall sign-post in the parking lot, blazing “Leon’s.”  It all had a beautiful and surreal 1950’s quality about it.  That’s one of the best things about Leon’s.  The other is, of course, the absolutely amazing frozen custard.

Vanilla, chocolate, butter pecan and the flavor of the day.  Two scoops through five scoops posted on the sign, ranging from less than $2 to just under $5.  Of course, you can always ask for a single scoop, the light-blue clad cashier will turn to the scoop man and say “1 down” meaning one, one-scoop cone.  When I was in high school, I got the five-scoop cones.  Now-a-days, I’m content with the regular two-scoop.  It’s better for my pocket book, too.

We always go to Leon’s when we’re home.  It’s an absolute must.  Sometimes we don’t even go home first; we go right from the airport or the train station.

 

Adventures from Home: Munchkinhead has a Job

Pretty Little Munchkinhead, she’s got the pretty little museum bug.  I suppose we all have it, thanks to Daddy’s summer vacations, but some of us got it worse than others.  Alfred’s got it pretty bad, what with her masters degree in museum collections stuff.  Munchkinhead’s just working on discovering hers, and she’s had the perfect summer job to help her do it: Trimborn farms.

One day, while Alfred and I were both in Wisconsin, we went with Munchkinhead to the farms, to explore while she worked.  And explore we did, every adorable and crazy photo op we could find.

We stood in the limestone kilns, before we knew they were limestone kilns.

We peered through fences,

 

 

 

 

ran through the grassy green meadow.

found things to play with,

and, rested for a bit in front of the museum house.

                                           

Only for a bit, for there was so much more to explore.  Like the barn,

and, well, that’s not actually the barn.  Munchkinhead straightened us out later.  The barn is much bigger and has some holes in its roof where the rain gets in.

Munchkinhead actually taught us a lot about the farm before we left for the day.  She taught us about the plants in the garden and which ones we could eat.

There was lemon mint, anise and chives.  I liked the lemon mint the best.  The fuzzy texture was fun.  All we needed was some rum.

By the end of our adventurous morning, running across the yard, climbing up hills and wanting to roll down them, we were quite tired and opted to take a nap on Munchkinhead.

She was not so pleased.

Adventures from Home: Batons, Balls and Bugs, pt. 3

A long, long time ago, when Alfred was still a Schultz and we hadn’t yet left the safe bubble of St. Francis, a little girl picked up a flyer at a parade.  “Leslynettes Baton Twirling Corps.”  Alfred was delighted – she already had a friend from school in the corps - and it wasn’t long before she was marching down the street in a little blue leotard with red sequined sailor collar and small sequined anchor on her hip.

Twenty years and more costumes than you can count later, that little twirler still knows her parade routines.  So do her sisters, who also eventually joined the corps, although never becoming close to as good as she was.  Fishtails with two batons simultaneously, only Alfred.  Regular double and occasional triple toss-turn-arounds, only Alfred.  Crying in the corner in her hula skirt, a very cute little munchkinhead.  Almost hitting the judge with her baton, yeah, that’d be me.

But for us, not being good at something has never been a reason to not have fun doing it.  So when we found those old baton cases in the back hall closet this summer, we were more thrilled to pull out our old metal rods and do a few tosses.

“No, I think that was routine 4, routine 2 had something like this.”  We tried to sort out which routines we could remember.  “Well 3 is certainly the easiest,” one of us piped up, followed by all three of us in unison, “Up, up. Down, down. Out 2-3-4, out 2-3-4. Up. Out. Shoulder 2-3-4 and down.”  “And 6, we all know 6.”  It turned out we remembered a good number of them.  Of the 6 main routines, we knew 1, 3, 4 and 6.  So we had a little parade around the front lawn.

Always feeling more graceful than we looked, we took over the dirveway doing thumbflips, tour jetes, toss-turn-arounds and leaps.  Then we decided to have some real fun, a strut off!  With some more of our favorite routine at the end.  Daddy sat on the porch with his iced tea, laughing as we outlined an invisible square with our high steps.

Mommy’s not-so-little twirlers

 

Munchkinhead clearly won the strut off. 

Adventures from Home: Batons, Balls and Bugs, pt. 2

If you’ve been following this blog for the past 8 years, or if you happen to wander down to the toy box and explore old posts, you’ll know that another practically mandatory part of a trip to Milwaukee is a nice energetic game of roof volleyball.  (Fully explained in this 2003 post.)

An early morning downpour had left the grass shiny with moisture.  The wet blades squished between our toes and dampened our feet.  The ball was a little deflated, smaller and more pliable than it ought to be, but that will happen to children’s playground balls when they sit unloved in the closet 11 months of the year.  We’d be darned if we were going to use the hard soccer ball that was our only other option.

Lined up on the grass, one front row player, one back row, one picture taker from the porch, we were ready to start.  “Volley for the serve!”  The ball flew through the air and bounced onto the lower roof.   The roof almost never uses its back row, towering high above the front row that covers the porch and garage.

Even though we were only doing a 2 player team, rotating in, we still went full court, from the south end of the roof to the north end of the grass.  Half court has gotten to small as we and the tree at the south end of the court have grown.  Super court is too hard, both in terms of difficulty of coverage and in terms of playing surface; it includes the driveway.

“Whop!”  “Blat!”  “Thud!”  The ball bounced off gutter, ricocheted off our hands and occasionally slammed into the front window, or a cup of water resting on the porch.  “We’re Frosted Flakes, we’re great!”  Our old cheer went up, along with some very bad cheerleader-esque jumps.

It was a tough series – that roof never seems out of practice – but we came out a head, taking the series 2-0.  Don’t worry roof, you’ll get another chance soon.  Probably in winter, when you like to steal the ball and keep it for yourself.

Adventures from Home: Batons, Balls and Bugs pt. 1

I was hoping for hot weather. You know that beautiful heat wave the whole rest of the county’s been having lately?  Yeah, the Bay Area has it, too.  It means we get temperatures in the ‘70s.  So when I was heading to Wisconsin, I was really hoping for some nice 80 degree weather.  I wanted to go swimming, wanted to go swimming so much that we even helped Daddy open the pool.  Of course, opening the pool means cleaning the pool, skimming and vacuuming, getting rid of all those dead bugs.

(World take note, I’m not wearing shoes in that picture. Look hard now; you won’t see that very often.)

We probably could have actually gone swimming despite the cooler air temperatures if the filter hadn’t been broken.  After all, mid-70’s is decent pool weather when the pool water is also decent.  But the filter being broken meant the water couldn’t run through the solar heater.  Sixty degree water is not fun for swimming. 

The closest we got to getting in the pool was Munchkinhead and me playing Follow-the-Leader on the stairs.  The water near the surface was warmed a bit by the sun, so we were ok on the first stair.  The second stair wasn’t too bad either, but the third stair, brrrrrr, frigid.  That just made the adventure even more fun as we scrambled to get across the stair and out of the pool as fast as we could. 

Alfred was not interested in playing Follow-the-Leader with us, nor was she interested in getting wet, so she took lots of pictures for us.

Sufficiently soaked and amused, we wandered off to our next adventure.

Big Field, Small World

It was my second Giants game and I was excited, both because of the fun of baseball and because of the excuse to wear my orange pants.

A friend of mine had an extra ticket to an outing sponsored by his law firm, so he invited me to join the group.  This was extra wonderful because his daughter was going to be there and she and I had been trying to meet up for months without success.

I wandered down the long carpeted hallway and finally found the room where everyone was gathered.  It was a neat little room.  A few couches set near the back for those that were less interested in watching the game, regular baseball seats just outside for those who really wanted to watch the game, and stools behind large windows for the baby-bear folks who wanted a little of the game and the indoor warmth.

Bottled water and other beverages enjoyed an ice bath in the sink.  A table at the side of the room held all the fixin’s for do-it-yourself tacos, West Coast style.  Nothing like what we’d have on taco night back home. Small corn tortillas instead of hard shells.  No ground beef, but your choice of carne asada or soupy chicken.  Rice and beans, guacamole and cheese made up the other filling options.  On another table across the room, taco dip!  Almost exactly like Auntie Gail makes.  I especially enjoyed the little cinnamon covered bits of baked flour tortillas.

I made myself plate and scooted outside to catch the start of the game.  The nice gentlemen sitting near me and I began to small talk – after all, this was a fun group outing with lots of new people.  They were both attorneys and had come up from Vegas for the game. 

Then the gentleman sitting next to me asked that standard Bay Area question, “Where are you from originally?”  Because no one’s from the Bay Area.  (You should see the reactions people have when they meet Mr. Trizzle, who is actually from the Bay Area.)  “Milwaukee.”  His face lit up, “me, too!”  Then my face lit up.  It wasn’t long before we were talking frozen custard stands, Summerfest and familiar roads.

We were laughing about what a small world it was when we discovered it was even smaller; we both have connections to Vanderbilt!  Then we had more familiar streets to discuss and of course plenty of conversation about how beautiful Vandy’s campus is. 

I also got to spend a good amount of time chatting with my friend and catching up with his daughter, who I’d really like to get to know better.  (Due to our crazy schedules, this was only the second time we’d gotten to meet together.)  Plus, I got to meet several other fun people including one lady with totally awesome shoes.

Don’t worry, I still watched the game, though it wasn’t much of a game to watch.  The Giants lost 6-1.

Photo of baseball centerpiece from Crazy A Xi’s wedding.

Adventures from Home: Game Night

One of the best things about the Schultz house – and all my Wisconsin friends can attest to this – is game night.  Game night isn’t a particular night; it’s any night when we happen to play games.  Board games, card games, even Twister.

During my last trip this past June, one of the first things we did was have a game night.  And lucky for us, well lucky for him too, The Great Ecclestone joined us.  Game night is fun when it’s just part of the family; it’s super fun when friends are involved. 

The Great Ecclestone walked into the house as Daddy was yelling from the family room to someone in some other room and Katrina was stomping down the hallway muttering loudly to no one in particular while Mommy yelled back to one of them from the computer room.  The Great Ecclestone smiled, “nothing’s changed around here.”  He was right, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Game 1

We decide to spare The Great Ecclestone’s ears, especially since he’s a professional singer, and opted for board games over Beatles Rock Band.  First on the list, a new game that the family got for Christmas last year.  I spent Christmas in California so I hadn’t played this game yet, but Mommy and Munchkinhead had. 

“Last Word” is a boisterous game that involves quick thinking and shouting over your neighbor in order to be the last person to give a correct answer before the timer goes off.  Correct answers are words that start with the letter given on one card and fall in the category given on the other card.

I thought I had a pretty good “m” word for “things found on the internet” when I said “mommy.”  (She likes to play a lot of Farmville and Café World.)  But, I was really impressed when Munchkinhead tried to answer “Mozilla.”  I say tried because she couldn’t quite pronounce the word and had trouble spitting it out.  (Bay Area and internet-y friends, remember we’re playing this game far from the tech-focused coasts, where most people probably don’t even know what Firefox is, let alone Mozilla.)  I think we gave it to her anyway just because it was so brilliant an answer.

I have no idea who won, which means it probably wasn’t me.  But,  I do remember we had a ton of fun playing that game.

Games 2 & 3

As the night wore on and the Amarula began to run low, the standards started to come out.  Someone wound up with a giraffe on their head, sitting positions were exchanged for lounging and out came the household classics, “20 Questions” with Reifenberg Rules (the rules in the box aren’t as much fun) and “Whoonu”, the game from Cranium where you try to select the things you think your friends will like most. 

It’s amazing how much you can learn about people you’ve known all your life, or all their life as the case may be.  For example, I had no idea that mommy likes sailboats.  I put the card in the envelope to get it out of circulation and because I had nothing better, and then bam, she rates it super high.  She loves sailboats.  Who knew!?

Adventures from Home: Congratulations Grad!

One of the great things about going home over Fathers’ Day weekend, and one of the reasons I chose that weekend to go, was that I got to see a whole bunch of my relatives at my cousin’s graduation party!

Emily, one of the youngest cousins (and Mommy’s god-daughter), graduated from high school this June.  A great reason to have a party!  There were balloons and glow bracelets, both of which I put on my wrists.  The tables were scattered with bowls of snack food and little metallic graduation hat cut-outs that my aunties delighted in hiding in everyone’s purses, camera cases and knitting bags. 

The dinner spread was a true smorgasbord of standard Schlaikowski delights.  Little wienies, a pickle and olive plate, Auntie Gail’s taco dip, fruit salad, coleslaw, buns and some sort of gravy soaked meat to put on the buns, potato and tortilla chips, and a stack of crackers and cheese.

It wasn’t a super hyper dance-crazed party or anything like that, but it was still a ton of fun.  Our little first-cousins-once-removed provided so much entertainment only the most stubborn teenager could be bored.  They ran in circles, climbed up walls and played fetch with a large, neon pink, stuffed dolphin.  That was all in addition to their usual just looking cute.

I didn’t have a dolphin, but I was content to just play with my food.

(That worked better when my hands were smaller, or maybe I need bigger olives.)

It was a great party and wonderful to spend time with my large family. :)  Huge shoutout to my godparents for arranging it and being fabulous hosts!  And, Congratulations Emily!

Adventures from Home: Daddy’s Day

“Trains, planes and automobiles,” we would always say, laughing. Describing how all three of us had come home for whatever adventure or holiday.  Alfred would drive, Munchkinhead would fly, and I’d come choo-chooing in.  But not this time.  This time it was only planes and automobiles.  I suppose you could add feet if you count Katrina’s walking out of her bedroom.  But no matter how we all got there, the important part was that we were all home.  Home and going to church together.

You see, it was Father’s Day – which is a special enough reason – but, this was an even more special day.  Daddy was worship leader. 

Mommy, Alfred, Munchkinhead and I shuffled into a pew behind some familiar heads and beamed proudly at the back of Daddy’s head in the front pew across the aisle.  “That’s our daddy"!”  we thought. Well, not Mommy; but you get the idea.

Suit and tie, microphone in hand, Daddy stood up front welcoming everyone.  He always looks so spiffy when he wears his suits. I think I especially like it because seeing him in a suit reminds me of when I was little and he’d come into day care to pick us up. From across the room we’d spot him coming in the door, the tall guy nicely dressed in a suit.  And here he was again, easily spotted from across the room; the tall guy nicely dressed in a suit.

There was a guest preacher that day, from a different denomination.  She seemed pretty nice.  Reminded me a lot of a kindergarten teacher. Although, for some reason, most female pastors remind me of kindergarten teachers.  my current pastor in Cali may be an exception.  I was super excited to hear Daddy’s children message, but the guest pastor got to do it instead.  Oh well, Daddy still did a great job and it was wonderful to be back in church with my whole family.

 

A Real Summer Day

The day after visiting Muir Woods, I was once again barreling up Hwy 1.  This is not a usual area for me to come to, so I was quite amused by my being there two days in a row.  I was also a bit concerned.  If you remember, it had been quite cold in Muir Woods the day before and this time I was headed along the same road but to the beach, Stinson Beach.

One of Mr. Trizzle’s friends had arranged the outing.  A nice group of people spending the day on the warm sand.  A cooler full of beer, snacks and a frisbee.  What more could you need?  Ok, we appreciated the beach towels, citenge cloth and suntan lotion, too.

It was a little cold when we first arrived, but the beach was still crawling with people.  The biggest attraction was the bubble man.  Dipping a long string tied to wire poles into some soap, the bubble man raised his arms to the sky inviting the wind.  Beautiful large bubbles floated through the sky, elongated rainbows that shifted shape as they glided overhead.  Children scrambled and ran after the small bubbles that trailed behind.

The sun warmed the sand and the crowd on the beach increased.  It didn’t take more than a few games of Frisbee to find my layers unnecessary, and soon I was laying out in my bathing suit.

It was interesting, the group, how different our concepts of hot and cold were.  While I was fabulously comfortable frolicking in my bathing suit, Mr. Trizzle lay on a chair, sleeping under a citenge cloth in jeans, a t, a long-sleeved t, and a sweatshirt.  One of his friends lay next to him on the sand, similarly clad.  Meanwhile, the friend who had arranged everything was far out into the Pacific Ocean, diving into waves in his swim trunks.  (I had gotten as far as standing on the sand where the waves had splashed up.  The sand alone was so frigid, I’d gone scampering back up the beach to our base.)

Whether sleeping, swimming or sunbathing, we all had a fabulous time.

 

Well,  I did have a fabulous time at the beach, but when I got home and saw where I’d missed with the suntan lotion, it was less fabulous.  The tops of my legs were tomato red.  Luckily, I’d had Mr. Trizzle help me with my back, so I only had one missed patch.  Interesting shape though; reminds me of a continent I once lived on…

The Perfect Present

I think it is ok to use the proper word as Mommy would likely not find it vampire-worthy, in this instance: The Gates of Hell. To Dante, a reason to abandon all hope. To that poor armless, legless boy in the ICP song, something he never saw coming. To art fans, it is magnificence and beauty. And to me, to me it is a great story.

The Search

“I called Tokyo and Paris, neither of them have one.”

“Darn, and I called Philadelphia, and they didn’t have one either.”

“You, know it’s possible there just isn’t one made.”

My friend, Ant, was attempting to help me find the perfect birthday present for another friend, Mr. Maintenance Man.  I knew exactly what I wanted to get him, but it was starting to seem that the perfect present literally didn’t exist.  A poster.  It seemed simple enough.  A poster of his favorite piece of artwork, Rodin’s Gates of Hell.

The birthday boy and my goat, which I named after him (for reason).

Ant and I had started by searching online stores.  Though not as ubiquitous eight years ago as they are today, there was still a pretty decent selection of stores.  But try as we might, we couldn’t find anything.  So we started calling the Rodin museums around the world and inquiring about their gift shops.  Nothing.

The Plan

Then. An idea.  It was 2am, or some other ridiculous time of night when only drunks and college students are awake.  The Rodin museum in Philadelphia, the only one on this side of the planet, has a Gates of Hell, outside, in front of the building.  A road trip!  Yes, that’s it, a road trip!  I’ll just go there and take a picture myself and get it turned into a poster.

But work, shoot, I have work, and I can’t miss that.  A weekend!  I can go on a weekend.  Where is Philadelphia?  Ouch, that far?!  I can’t drive there and back, and get to the museum while it’s open in a weekend….  I know, an airplane!  I’ll fly there and back in a weekend.  How much are flights?  Oh, that sucks.  Hmmm……

And then, the most brilliant idea ever: Greyhound.

Oh, and I’ll need company.

It just so happened that my very good, and practically life-long, friend, The Great Ecclestone was on AIM.

Hey, wanna go to Philly?  On a Greyhound?  To take a picture of a statue?

What?  Ok.

Alright, so the conversation was a little longer and convincing him might have taken a bit more work, but soon we were set.

The Trip

Early on Saturday morning ,we stood at the Milwaukee bus station.  I had never been in a bus station before and had no idea what to expect.   People and luggage were everywhere.  Buses rolled in an out, trails of fumes behind them.  The Great Ecclestone and I looked at the stack of tickets in our hands.  One ticket for every bus we would board on our 24-hour trip eastward.  The strip of tickets reached almost to the floor.

The Great Ecclestone and our Greyhound tickets.

Many filthy bus terminals and bathrooms fit for a lead-in to CSI later, we arrived at our destination.   Backs sore, feet and legs cramping, groggy and damp with sweat, we disembarked from our last bus into the hot Philadelphia summer sun.  Sunday morning, welcome.

The Rodin museum was only about a mile or so from the bus station and would be opening in a short while.  Time for some breakfast, and a change of clothes.

My SLR camera and about a dozen rolls of film jostled in my bag as we approached the large iron gate at the foot of the museum’s walkway.  No tripod, not allowed in the museum.  And there it was, shining brightly in the sun, towering far above me, immense yet exquisite in detail.  The Gates of Hell.  I began to take my pictures.

All day I stayed at that museum.  All day, taking pictures of The Gates of Hell and of the art work inside.  The Great Ecclestone accompanied me through the small museum and then headed off to the large art museum down the street.  Perhaps he even ran up the steps like Rocky.  I don’t know, I had a job to do and shadows to beat as the sun came over the roof of the museum  and illuminated bits and pieces of the giant brass sculpture.

Rodin sculptures: The Shade.

When I had finally finished my pictures, and my film, I met up with The Great Ecclestone again and we went to see the Liberty Bell.  We had to.   I mean, you can’t go all the way to Philadelphia for the first time in your life and not see the Liberty Bell!  It’s a bell.  With a crack.

Dusk began to settle over the city.  We grabbed some Chinese food for dinner and headed back to the bus station for our long ride back.  Our day in Philly was over.

The Liberty Bell.

Getting Back

After the ordeal of getting out to Philadelphia, we thought we had a pretty good idea of what to expect on our twenty-four hour ride back.  Boy we were wrong.  24 hours later, when we were supposed to be back in Milwaukee, when I was supposed to be on my way to work, where were we?  Stuck in a bus station, in Gary, Indiana.

Never been to Gary, Indiana?  Good.  Keep it that way.  Let me give you some perspective, some places where it might be worse to be stuck.  ….  Places where it might be better to be stuck.  A bus station in Chicago, a bus station in Lusaka, a bus station in Oakland, a luggage locker in a bus station in Oakland.  You get the idea.

Five hours.  Five hours until the next bus.  Our bus to Gary had gotten stuck in construction traffic on the highway and we had missed our connecting bus from Gary to Chicago.  Five hours.  Needless to say, I had to call into work stranded-in-Gary.

We did eventually make it home.  And the present, the present turned out spectacular.  He loved it, and the Philadelphia Chinatown fortune cookie.

The photo that became the poster: Rodin’s Gates of Hell.

*Note: the white edge is from a crooked scan and was not on the poster.