We're not up in Berkeley today for the annual breastfeed-athon because we just have too much to do, not to mention the fact that our van has left mechanics scratching their heads as to why it randomly stalls on the freeway. I just did a search online to see if I could find any clues, and all I could discover was a recommendation that owners of vans with this particular make and year seek out an exorcist. The site also mentioned that these vans tend to stall unexpectedly around airports and military installations. Huh?

Okay, why aren't my posts being posted? And where did my archives go?

I almost forgot to mention that I took a small side trip away from vegetarianism earlier today. When people ask about my dining habits, I always tell them that I won't eat anything with a spine, which means, of course, that invertebrates still get the green light for ingestion. Especially when they're covered in one of my favorite foods - chocolate! I got this delicacy from one of the other YSI teachers, who must have overestimated the number of chocolate covered crickets she needed for her group. I couldn't really taste the cricket. I'm not sure if this is because crickets are bland, or because the chocolate coating masks their taste. I could experience the cricket texturally though. It's sort of crunchy, but not like rice crispies - more like celery that's been left out overnight. Yum!

The kids solved the mystery I laid out for them this morning. The outline for the mystery in the curriculum binder involves a raccoon dumping trash and scattering it around before being scared off by gusty winds. I made it more involved by having the "raccoon" tear open one of those little lemon-shaped lemon juice bottles (I cut claw marks with my pocket knife), walk across some paper (leaving lemon juice tracks that could be revealed when subjected to heat), drag a bag of trail mix over to a table, and then try to wash some trail mix in a container of cabbage juice. The cabbage juice, which turns pink when mixed with any kind of acid, reacts to the lemon juice on the raccoon's paws. To make things authentic, I scattered trail mix all over the field and left some floating in the cabbage juice.
The kids thought it was pretty cool, but solved it relatively quickly. There were two teams working on it, divided along gender lines. The girls figured it out first.
Later, one of the boys got stung on the palm by a bee, so after removing the stinger, I took him over to our table and had him rub baking soda on the wound. This was a good way to illustrate a point I had made earlier in the week. Bee stings are acidic, and wasp stings are basic. This is why the folk remedy for bee stings is to rub baking soda (a base) on the wound. Vinegar (an acid) works for wasp stings. The baking soda helped neutralize the acid in the boy's wound. Applied science!

Next week is the last week of science camp for the summer. I'm teaching a camp called "Wild Wonders".

Cds I listened to while wondering where all the air in my front passenger side tire had gone: Nest "Woodsmoke", The Tiger Lillies "Farmyard Filth" and "Shockheaded Peter", Mary Timony "Mountains", and Mia Doi Todd "Come Out of Your Mine"

We got the new snake yesterday afternoon, and it's quite beautiful. It's some kind of Mountain Kingsnake - you know, the "red on black, friend of Jack (or venom lack)" kind. If somebody hands you a "red on yellow" snake, don't accept it, because the end of the rhyme is "kill a fellow". Anyway, the rather large cage is wedged into the corner behind the stereo, but will probably end up in our bedroom if we decide to ditch the crib. I just have to learn to say "no" to free snakes.

We hiked into the hills today, where we saw several skinks, an Alligator lizard, and some Fence lizards. In fact, there were all three kinds of lizards in one bush. For once, I managed to not catch any of them. I made up for it later by catching a small, blue crayfish. I also finally found the big anthill that the ants have been quietly building on the forest floor for quite some time (probably decades, from the size of the hill). The kids refrained from poking at it with sticks, but only after being asked not to several times.

Jen just informed me that Nate screamed so loud this morning after being denied Oreos for breakfast that one of the neighbors from the apartments in back of us yelled, "shut up, kid!" He complied with this rather rude request, probably more out of shock than anything else.

Now it's time to go be productive.

cds I listened to while once again being later than I wanted to be: The Tiger Lillies "Births Marriages and Deaths", "Low Life Lullabies", "Bad Blood & Blasphemy", and "The Brothel to the Cemetary", and Kathleen Yearwood "Ordeal" (she covers one of my favorite Leonard Cohen songs! Yay!)

I had forgotten how fast plaster hardens. We had only gotten through filling about half of the rubber animal footprint molds when the remaining plaster became to hard to use. The kids waiting for their turn looked downcast, so we made more plaster. Tomorrow, we'll make animal tracks all over the place. I wonder if I could use the big hunk of leftover plaster to make bucket tracks? If I placed it alongside human footprints it could look like somebody had gotten their foot stuck in a bucket.
I took the kids up to an area that I knew would be muddy, and one of the boys actually spotted deer hoof prints there. There were also a couple of banana slugs, which never cease to fascinate. After that, I took them up the stream a bit, to a point where we could see a thin waterfall trickling over the edge of the leafy slope looming up in front of us. We had a couple moments of (almost) silence as we listened to the sounds around us. It's very hard to get thirteen 2nd and 3rd graders to all stop talking simultaneously.

At home, Nathan has come up with his own definition of God: "The King of all ghosts." Sure, why not? Everybody should have a unique idea about what "God" means anyway. Who's to say if any of them are right? If I want to think that "God" is the oil stain on the neighbor's driveway, then that's my business. I don't want some bozo telling me that God is actually the third pigeon from the left on the telephone wire two blocks over. Maybe God is that spider dangling in your face. Better watch out. Don't make him/her/it angry.

The weather continues to be pleasant. I can hear the trees rustling outside. It has been in the seventies all week too. Can we make it into autumn without any more excessive heat? Stay tuned.

cds I listened to while contemplating theology: John Murphy, et al "28 Days Later" soundtrack, Thule "Frostbrent" and "Graks" and Unto Ashes "Empty Into White"

A couple of things I forgot to mention yesterday:

I had made a couple of extra nametags for the camp, and since the title of said camp is "Science Sleuths", the nametags ended up being "Sherlock" and "Watson". I was wearing the Sherlock one when the kids were being picked up. A boy's grandmother looked at my nametag and actually thought my name was Sherlock. I convinced her it wasn't. This all came about because she was attempting to get her grandson to thank me by name for the fun-filled morning he had just participated in. He did this as they were leaving. I would have reciprocated in kind, but he had already taken his nametag off, so I just said something like, "bye. See you tomorrow!" When I have a camp of thirteen kids (one never showed), I can never remember all of their names by the end of the first day. I hope the grandma doesn't think I'm undermining her efforts to raise a proper gentleman. Then, on the way home, there was a cop behind me for what seemed like several miles. It's at times like these that I become acutely aware of the fact that my speedometer doesn't work. It also didn't help that we were driving through a snooty, low-speed-limit part of town. I breathed a sigh of relief when he turned off.

Today, we played around with acids and bases, mixing them and painting with them. We also did the "unnature walk", where I hid items along a trail for the kids to find. Nobody found everything. They then convinced me to let them hide the same things for me to find. I didn't find all of them. Of course, they showed no restraint when it came to hiding things directly behind trees and out of sight under rocks.
While I was waiting for them to set this part up, I was sitting at the bottom of the trail playing my wooden, recorder-like instrument. A doe popped her head around a rock, as if to say, "what the heck is that?" I'm not sure if she was enjoying it or not, because at that point all of the kids came back and she bounded away through the underbrush.

I think I'll go have a nap.

cds I listened to while being slightly later than I would have liked: Throwing Muses "In A Doghouse", "University", and "The Curse", Skyclad "Swords of a Thousand Men", and Roy Harper "Lifemask

I started the Science Sleuths camp with a long hike, during which we spent time being aware of our surroundings. We saw a family of deer by the fairy ring. They quietly circled around us through the trees before vanishing down one of the trails. We continued up the trail and visited the creek with the Pacific Giant Salamanders. Another camp group had beaten us there, and who should be in that group but Salamander Girl, who had spent her week in my camp obsessing over amphibians. She was busy again catching salamanders.
In the end, we spent most of the day in the woods, playing little games and observing its denizens. It seems like a decent group of kids so far. Time will tell.

We saw Whale Rider yesterday and, as Jen has also stated, it is excellent. Lots of great performances and well rounded characters. It could have been full of cliches, but these were wisely avoided. It might be a good film to show the kids when they are older (if they don't get too upset at the lack of "bad guys".) It's a moving film, and deserves to be seen by more people than it will.

I keep having this idea that if we could only get organized things would run so much smoother around here. We're planning on starting with the garage. We're also going to need to come up with space to accomodate the King snake that our snake connection is bestowing upon us later this week sometime.

cds I listened to while wondering where the summer went: Thrones "s/t", Throwing Muses "Counting Backwards", Tarnation "Gentle Creatures", and Earth Monkey "Audiosapian"

Here's a couple of pictures from last Wednesday. I don't think I could ever have a cubicle job. It just wouldn't be right. Have you ever tried to take an interesting photo of the inside of a cubicle? They're small and squarish and isolate the hapless worker from all of the other poor souls esconced in their own identical little cells nearby. Shudder.

Today we made musical instruments and recorded ourselves making a racket. We had shakers made out of toilet paper and paper towel tubes, various sticks, drinking straws cut into reeds (which make a horrendous bleating noise), various sticks, rubber band guitars, and a few "real" instruments. I started out playing a ruler held against one of the picnic tables, but soon moved onto jaw harp, penny whistle, and this wooden recorder-like instrument that, according to the sticker on the back, originated in Bolivia. The resulting din sounded like a middle eastern market at midday. Then the parents came and all of the campers went away, leaving a mess for me and my camp aide to clean up. It wouldn't be summer camp if there wasn't at least some mess involved. As I type, my arms and legs are covered with multicolored dots, which is what happens when you hand out "tattoo markers" to elementary school kids and don't run fast enough afterwards.

Now I have to spend the rest of the afternoon getting ready for next week, when I will be teaching a camp called "science sleuths". The Dickens is sleeping in front of the TV set in the other room, and Jen has taken the the boys, with Willow in tow, off to swimming lessons. Alright, off to work for me.

cds I listened to while trying to remember what a full nights sleep feels like: The 3rd and the Mortal "In This Room", Throbbing Gristle "The Second Annual Report of...", and Fred Frith & Larry Ochs, Charming Trilectic, Ben Goldberg, Noe Venable, and 2 Foot Yard at the Freight & Salvage, Berkeley, 5/31/03

I forgot to mention earlier that today marks the one year anniversary of this site. That makes it the most thoroughly documented year of my life, since I was never very regular in my journaling/diarying habits when I used to use a pen and paper. I think I must have a need to have an audience, although I'm aware that my audience is small, and includes people who enter the most bizarre things into search engines. What's the big deal with portable stripper poles anyway? When I mentioned them a few months back, I was kind of joking about getting Google hits on that particular phrase. Apparently people are searching for them.
Of course, the flip side of writing for an audience is that I find myself editing what I write - this, at the moment, is a bit more surface level than the journals I used to keep. Being happy helps though. It'll be interesting to see how this evolves over the next year. It's also interesting for me (and probably me alone - okay, maybe Jen too) to look back into the early archives. It's like a window into a long gone slice of a day-to-day routine.

The boys are still ill. Jen isn't feeling so well either. The sky is cloudy and the air is humid. I cleaned the backyard today. I'm going to go have some coffee now. Until next time...

It's still overcast, but less windy, although there were moments of breeziness today. The kids made frames for their Polaroids today, and later we wove mulitcolored yarn through small branches. I have been giving the kids basic instructions for the various crafts, and then letting them run wild with ideas. Some of the kids spend a lot of time asking if it is okay to do things a certain way, as if they are not used to having control over their own projects. Some of the kids just do whatever they please. The end results are usually pretty good. If they have learned anything this week, I want it to be that doing things differently is a good thing.

Lexy is sick today, and Nate, who was throwing up a couple of days ago, is now leaking at the other end. Willow is on my lap, so I'm going to go pay attention to her now.

cds I listened to while enjoying the clouds: Thelema "Night of Pan", Kari Rueslatten "Mesmerized", and Current 93 at the Great American Music Hall, 5/9/03

I can hear the wind tossing the trees outside as I type. For some reason, today feels more like autumn, albeit a warm and humid one. It is overcast, and I heard several people say that rain was forecast. This morning, the wind spit oak leaves and brown pine needles across the park, which made the day feel much different. The wind always energizes me. Maybe it's all of the added motion - trees whipping back and forth, dust devils etching spirals in the dirt, leaves and other detritus skipping and dancing across the ground, hair and clothes being tugged this way and that...
We hiked right away. The kids seemed to have extra energy as well. Then we discovered that it is possible to make sun prints (using photosensitive paper) even when it is cloudy. Afterwards, we got out the river rocks and made art with them, laying them out in patterns on the ground, and balancing them on top of each other. One girl, inspired by the photo on the front of the Andy Goldsworthy book I had with me, made cracks down the middle of each of her rocks (with a pen, though, since it wasn't within our means to make accurate cracks of the genuine sort - I tried a couple of weeks ago and ended up with little splinters of rock).

When the sun peeked through the clouds, it painted the wind-rippled lake a sparkly gold.

cds I listened to in the night: Test Dept "Beating A Retreat", Thelema "The Vision and the Voice", and Current 93 at the Great American Music Hall, 5/10/03

We added one to our number today, so I had thirteen kids to lead around the park. For once, we actually spent the majority of the time doing crafts and painting. We made paper mache, leaf hangers (leaves dangling from a twig with a string tied to it for convenient hanging on a wall or ceiling), and paintings (using "natural" paint brushes - mostly reeds and feathers). Nobody could tie slipknots except me (or at least claimed they couldn't) so the leaf hangers ended up being assembled by me while the kids were in various stages of doing the other activities. Chaos! There is still a great amount of paper mache slopped all over one of the picnic tables, making it look like it is a meeting place for birds with diarrhea.
On our hike, we saw a turtle in the lake. It seemed to know we were watching, so ducked beneath the water before we could get a good look at it, rising for air amidst the flotsam that collects by the dam, which made it harder to see.
At the end of camp, a parent informed me that there's a picture of me in the Los Gatos Weekly, our local free paper. I'll actually have to pick it out of the driveway this week. I remember when the photographer visited the park a couple of weeks ago, but hadn't really been thinking about it.

cds I listened to while making sure I saved some papers to make paper mache with: Test Dept "Pax Britannica", Roy Harper "Folkjokeopus", and Faun Fables presents: The Transit Rider, 9/6/02

The weekend... The weekend. Wherefore art thou, weekend? Monday morning, like a crocodile on a chicken farm, arrives without warning to wreak havoc amongst us sleepy chickens. Okay, maybe it's not that bad, but it was good to just lounge around and read yesterday. I don't get enough time to read. I really don't. Here's what I've managed to read lately:

Shardik - Richard Adams
Never Trust A Rabbit - Jeremy Dyson
The Thomas Ligotti Reader - Darrell Schweitzer, ed.
Crampton - Thomas Ligotti and Brandon Trenz
A Fine Dark Line - Joe R. Lansdale
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling
England's Hidden Reverse - David Keenan

I started a new week of camp today. I'm teaching the same camp as last week, but with slightly younger kids and at a different location. I think, due to the location being less interesting, that we will be doing more art projects and fewer hikes. Today we made journals, hiked, did leaf rubbings, created leaf and snakeskin prints, and told stories. Again, the girls outnumber the boys - I have four boys and ten girls (although two of the girls weren't here today). It's too early to tell if any of them will need extra attention (how's that for a euphemism?). That said, one of the girls seems to like wandering off. They all created cool art though, and really got into decorating their journals.

cds I listened to while being up while you were asleep: Test Dept "Ecstacy Under Duress", "New World Order", and "The Unacceptable Face of Freedom", and 2 Foot Yard "live at 21 Grand, Oakland, 5/7/03"

Yesterday's camp consisted mainly of one long hike back to the creek where we found the young salamanders (Pacific Giant Salamanders, I now know). We found more salamanders resting on the bottom of the cold, clear creek. One girl is absolutely obsessed with them, and I had to keep her from injuring any amphibians in her enthusiasm. We also found a beautiful Alligator lizard that looked like it was either gravid or a very efficient bug hunter. On the down side, the kids fought a lot, and I had to mediate a number of times to help patch wounded feelings. One boy kept picking up sticks and threatening people, especially the one girl (the salamander enthusiast) who seemed to delight in teasing him. By the end of the day the boy decided that he didn't want to come back the next day.

The Irr.App.(Ext.) show, which was part of the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, went by in a bit of a blur. I hitched a ride up with M. and R. in a minivan full of equipment, and we met up with G. at the venue. I had some great Vietnamese food in some hole in the wall place near Market st. with G., Jim (who was presenting and performing in the evenings festivities) and Sigtryggur, who had flown in from Iceland to headline the evening.
Jim's set was a nice drone, lit by little lights in colored jars attached together so that when he left the stage they all dragged behind him. I was pretty tired at this point, not having found a nearby coffee vendor, so I was a bit nervous about how things would go when we got on stage.
Before we knew it, we were all stumbling out onto the stage, groping around for our stuff, and putting on a show that was a bit rough around the edges. Some of the microphones stayed off when they should have been on. The sequence of things seemed mysterious. Timing was not always precise. The film from the projector bypassed the take-up reel and piled up on the floor behind G. The scorpions, who are miked for the cool scuttling noise they create when moving across cellophane, ended up merely being a visual element. Still, in reviewing the video, it didn't sound too bad. People clapped too. M. said that the whole thing was a blur - probably because he had been awake for two hours longer than me. I think the main problem is the complexity of our various props and sundry makes it a little difficult to set up and check everything quickly. We did get positive feedback, although most of it was from people we know.
Sigtryggur ended the evening with a solo set using a mixing board, some cd players, and a few other odds and ends. The hat and the large bottle of alcohol he kept swigging from were amusing, and so were his humorous pantomimes. The music ranged from gentle drones to savage waves of noise. His pelvis even impersonated Elvis. Silly.

Today, camp went much better. Everybody got along. We made musical instruments, followed by ruckus. Then we took pictures of everybody holding newts. Salamander girl hugged hers. Then we made frames for the pictures that came out pretty cool. We finally used the river rocks that I hauled up to our table a couple of days ago - I had the kids lay them out in a line that meandered through some of the plant beds near our table.

I still haven't gotten my car looked at. The place I usually go, which I like because it's open on weekends, doesn't fix transmissions. They recommended a place called Tranny Man, but I don't know if I could go there with a straight face. It sounds gender conflicted. It's almost as bad a name as this linoleum place that used to be in the area - a place with the mirth inducing monicker of Linoleum Dicks.

cds I listened to in between times of much business: "Clear Spot with Steven Stapleton" - a two hour radio show of Steve playing stuff, including one hour of different versions of Mack the Knife, and Test Dept/Brith Gof "Gododdin"

Here's some art from earlier today. The first picture is a collaboration with a couple of Turret spiders, whose homes can be seen near the top.



The second pair shows a sculpture by some of the girls in my camp. They built a framework of twigs across the gap between trees, covered it with leaves, and sprinkled it with charcoal they had scraped off of a nearby piece of burnt wood.

Today we all pretended we were Andy Goldsworthy and wandered into the woods to create art out of whatever was on hand - leaves, branches, rocks, etc. Most of the kids really enjoyed it, and there were some creative results, which I'll post here later. The two boys were more interested in harassing a banana slug than making art, so the girls came up with more impressive pieces. On the way back, one of the boys, upset at being called names by fellow campers, sulked and hung back. I let him have some alone time, provided he didn't hang back so far that I couldn't see him. It's kind of funny to watch the social dynamic, and how it evolves over the course of the week. There are definitely some conflicting personalities in this group, but over all they're pretty good at working together. I think the boys feel outnumbered though.

My car, which had been behaving pretty well lately, is showing signs of imminent transmission collapse. It is shifting strangely, and shudders when put into reverse. I'm going to try to make it through the next couple of days. Fingers crossed.

I spent some of the money I got from the church yesterday on another jaw harp (it's always good to have a backup, especially since I'm using one in performance tomorrow night - provided I'm not sitting on the side of the road in a pile of transmission pieces) and a little "rock a bye baby" music box for The Dickens (or "awkababy", as she says).

cds I listened to while warily shifting: Tehom "Dispiritualization of Nature", Hedningarna "1989 - 2003", and Test Dept "Proven In Action" and "Atonal and Hamburg - live"

I think I planned to many activities this week for camp. This, of course, is better than planning too few. Today, in the midst of it all, we told more ghost stories while seated beneath the trees that Jen and I got married under. Then we made little pendants out of creek rocks. Earlier, while down at the creek getting the rocks, I spotted a tiny little tree frog. It jumped into the water when I tried to gently lift the rock it was sitting on. The girl who had been so keen on catching salamanders yesterday probably would have spent the rest of today in the creek looking for the frog if I had let her.
We have been trying to stay away from our assigned table in the afternoon. The sun seems hotter there than anywhere else. Today it melted all of our crayons into a sticky, multicolored lump.
It's funny how this camp seems to be over much more quickly than last week's camp, even though it lasts an hour longer. I must be having fun.
On of the moms of one of my campers from two weeks ago stopped by to tell me that her daughter had enjoyed my camp much more than the one she was presently in. I like hearing that sort of stuff, although it's too bad she isn't having as much fun this week.

And then, this afternoon I went to church. This all came about because a woman from the church had seen my name on the museum's calendar, in association with a blurb about how I introduced people to "wild things" or some such. So, after some phone calls and some phone tag, I talked with the woman, who asked if I could bring some bugs to show the church's preschool summer camp. I told her that for twenty bucks an hour I would. So today I arrived with my cockroaches, scorpions, millipede, and tarantulas and spent an hour showing them to hordes of little kids. They were quite an excitable bunch. Some of the teachers were a bit freaked out by the bugs. When the director was paying me, she said I could get away with charging a lot more. I told her I would after I had done this sort of thing a bit more. Like I have time. I suppose I can always find the time somehow. I could be the start of a business. Who knows?

cds I listened to while transporting the news and later some bugs: T.A.C. "Ouvrez vos Auditifs Canaux", "La Nouvelle Art du Deuil", and "Hypnotischer Eden", Howden/Wakeford "Wormwood", and Tangerine Dream "Zeit"

Now that's more like it - I'm back at Sanborn Park this week, teaching a camp called "Wild Images". I only have seven kids (2 boys and 5 girls), as opposed to the fourteen (11 boys and 3 girls) I had last week at Vasona. These kids are a bit older too, in the 4th - 6th grade range. We hiked up past Ghost Rock (a large Ohlone mortar that at some point was turned on its side so that the holes resemble the eyes and mouth of a screaming ghost - although some people claim that it looks like Elvis) today, and I asked the kids to imagine a story about it. For the rest of the hike, we all took turns telling ghost stories, and some of them were pretty grim. One girl told a story about a man who ground up his wife and turned her into sausage. One of the boys told a story about Jack the Ripper. One girl told several stories, all beginning with "It was a dark and rainy saturday night...". I told one about the fairy ring where we ate lunch, in which a group of campers are trapped by the roots of a large, old tree, which then disappears into the ground and sends up trees in a ring where the campers are held prisoner, enclosing them inside the trunks to wait for centuries until another group of campers sits down on exactly the same spot. The spirits are then released from the fairy ring and follow the campers home, where they take up residence under their beds.
After this cheerful little lunch break, we went up to a creek beyond the hostel and caught salamanders (not sure what kind, so I'll have to do a little online research). Most of them still had gills, so we didn't take them out of the water. The little creek, which seemed extra clear and refreshing after a rather hot, buggy hike, was also home to a number of dragonfly nymphs, some about to make the final metamorphosis into their adult forms. While there, we also ground up rocks and used the resulting paste as face paint. In other words, we got dirty and wet, which is what you're supposed to do at camp.
It seems like a good group. Hopefully the rest of the week will be as fun as today.

I'm supposed to go to a church tomorrow with a selection of bugs. Some sort of church camp thing. Should be interesting.

cds I listened to while lamenting the name change of Highway 666: Etant Donnes with Michael Gira "Offenbarung und Untergang", Blackmouth "s/t", Thread "Abnormal Love", C17H19NO3 "1692/2092", and T.A.C. "A Circle of Limbs"

Remind me to never buy another watch on sale. Our camp went a little over time today due to the fact that my watch ended up being an hour slow. I should learn to listen to my internal clock and ignore the one on my wrist. The kids were all pretty worn out after a long day of hiking around and catching bugs. Several of them managed to find some old fishing line and a jar of something called "power bait". They fashioned a fishing pole out of a stick and pretended to fish off of the pier. Out beyond their range, large carp floated lazily near the bottom of the lake. Nearby, a noisy coot was making a nest. We caught a couple of minnows and put them in our bucket, where they floated dejectedly near the bottom until we tossed them back in. The air was thick and hot, and I was actually glad when when one of the moms tracked us down and let us know what time it actually was. There followed a chaos of goodbyes and the kids all went their respective ways. One girl had her mom take a picture of us together. Oh yeah, that reminds me, a photographer for one of the local papers came by a few days ago and took pictures of our camp. I wonder if any of the photos will actually end up in the paper.

Lexy keeps coming in and asking me to go close the screen door. It seems that he's afraid of raccoons. Well, I guess they do wear those masks - it makes them look kind of like burglers. Burglers are scary because they take things without asking. Of course, Lexy sometimes takes things without asking too, and he's not scary. Therefore, if we follow this logic, maybe burglers aren't really scary either. In which case, raccoons shouldn't be scary just because they look like burglers. Can you tell that I need sleep?

cds I listened to while needing sleep: Jarboe/Telecognac "Over", Current Ninety Three "Live at the Teatro Iberico, Lisbon, Portugal...", Swans "Public Castration Is A Good Idea", Michael Gira with guests "Benefit cd - Jarboe emergency medical fund", Jarboe "Sacrificial Cake" and "Disburden Disciple"

You would think that kindergarten and first-graders are old enough to know that they aren't supposed to eat paint. Apparently they're not. The boy who performed this little experiment said that it tasted, "yucky". Earlier, on our daily hike around the lake, we went out on one of the little piers and discovered that nearly every available corner space in the railing was home to little Garden spiders. Their perfect little webs billowed like miniature sails in the gentle breeze. The kids, while somewhat intrigued by this, were more interested in the family fishing nearby.

I'm pretty tired this week. There's this headache that has been going around as well. Jen and I both had it. One of the boys at camp has it. Perhaps it's some sort of bug, or maybe it's all coincidental. Who knows? Next week I have a longer camp, but fewer campers. So far it looks like there will only be seven of them. They're also a little older (4th and 5th graders) and will presumably not eat paint.

cds I listened to while needing sleep: Bohren & der Club of Gore "Midnight Radio" disc 2, Young God Records: Compilation 2000 A.D., and M. Gira "solo/acoustic cd 2001"

Shit, I just lost a post...

To recap: On sunday, we awakened once again to the sound of The Dickens dumping things out on the floor. Less that two hours (and very little breakfast) later, we hit the road, filled up with gas, and gingerly eased onto 404, headed north towards I-5. We navigated the Grapevine in the slow lane, and descended once more into the Central Valley where, after driving for awhile, the van shut itself off again. It started right up, but it's still stressful to suddenly have no power while driving down a hot freeway in the middle of miles and miles of farmland. The kids complained. After the third semi-stall (rpms dropping from 2000 to 1000 for no reason) we elected to stop using the air conditioning to see if it helped matters. It did (or seemed to - maybe it was a placebo effect). This, of course, meant that we had to lower all of the windows while driving past the Coalinga cow yards. Thousands of cows! All just standing there in their sad, barren pastures with nothing to do but chew cud and manufacture tons of cow shit. We breathed in this heady aroma for a couple of miles.
We stopped briefly at a gas station to watch the green liquid pooling under the van and scratch our heads in puzzlement at the fact that we weren't low on any of our fluids. Oh yeah, The Dickens walked over and roared at the large, white metal Allosaurus with the bird's nest in its mouth. It didn't roar back.
Back on the road, we made pretty good time until the van stalled on the uphill grade on 152, near the San Luis reservoir. I cursed a bit, and the van started up again. A short time later, and not far from where we had been stuck in traffic on the journey out, we got stuck in traffic again. At least this time there was a discernable reason. We could see helicopters in the distance dumping some sort of fire retardant onto a smoking patch of ground. We inched forward. At one point I looked to my right and saw a lone doe munching contentedly in the shadow of a huge Oak tree. That seemed to me to be a lot more appealing than sitting in traffic. Of course, if we all got out to eat grass, we would never get home, so we waited. Some time later, we passed the clusters of emergency vehicles and some helpful farmers pitching in to make sure the fire was out. The kids thought it was pretty cool.
We did finally get home, with the van behaving for the final leg of the journey. We walked in the door sometime after 7:00 pm. Two hours later I went to work.

This week I've been teaching at Vasona, which isn't as interesting as Sanborn, but we're making things work anyway. It's back to Bugology, but without the wooded trails and without the huge selection of critters in the visitors center. I have fourteen kids. This time there are three girls, as opposed to the one girl the first time around. Nobody really stands out as being really unmanageable, and there are a couple of kids who seem to have a pretty good knowledge of the subject. One girl keeps giving me hugs, and a couple of the boys get a little teary when their moms leave. One boy keeps trying to catch bees and yellowjackets. I keep telling him he has great bug catching skills, but poor judgement. I hope he doesn't get stung. Today we made Paper Wasp nests in the forks of twigs, using the left over paper mush from last week. It's getting kind of stinky, but the kids, for the most part, had a good time doing it, and the other staff members who saw the results thought they were pretty neat.

Time to nap.

cds I listened to while being sleepy: M. Gira "Drainland", Jarboe "Dislocation", and Bohren & der Club of Gore "Midnight Radio" disc 1

We awakened on saturday to the sound of The Dickens dumping things out on the floor. After picking up the mess, we ordered an in-room breakfast that set us back nearly as much as a nights stay. The young 'uns showed their appreciation by eating very little of it (not that I blame them - it was very average fare).
After making ourselves presentable, we began the long trek to the elevators. Then, after a long wait while people on every floor got on or off, we descended to the second floor to drop off the three older kids at the official mamagathering childcare center. Then we snuck away to listen to Ayun Halliday talk about autobiographical writing. This was helpful and enjoyable. Lexy showed up towards the end because... well, because he's like that. Then came the long process of trying to get certain members of our party to nap. I ended up going to the panel on feminism in the media by myself. Music was represented by Kristin Hersh, print was handled by the editor of Bitch magazine, visual media was presented by... a gorilla (actually a member of guerillawomen wearing a mask), and film was handled by a screenwriter (who somewhat sheepishly admitted to being currently employed writing for sitcoms). They got a good discussion going about the insidious influence and general crappiness of popular media and popular culture, with general agreement that "things gotta change, dammit!" The gorilla had some cool pictures of billboards that her group was responsible for - the anatomically correct Oscar stands out: a hairy, middle-aged, white male. Kristin Hersh came up with the best two-word definition for top 40 that I have yet heard: "fashion sounds". Of course, I had to leave in the middle because Lexy once again wanted to check to make sure we hadn't decided to leave without him.
Later, we went to the beach so that the kids could run around in the sand and get sandy. The Dickens decided that she was "scared of the wawa". The boys decided that they weren't scared of the wawa, at least until the large, dead jellyfish (the size of a hubcap, I kid you not) started appearing at the tide line. Lexy moved away from the water at this point. I looked around for something to scoop it up with so we could examine it more closely, but the ocean took it back.
Then, sandy and tired, we went in search of the Veteran's memorial auditorium, where the dinner was to be held. We found it without too much trouble, and a good time was had by all. The Dickens charged up and down, and at one point liberated a fake baby from the doula table and loudly refused to give it up every time I tried to give it back to its rightful owners. Lexy ran around with a boy he had met in the childcare room earlier (and whose mom has actually read this - she recognized Jen earlier in the day from our blogs - If you're reading now, I'm sorry, I forgot your name. My memory isn't what it used to be. Of course, I forget what my memory used to be, but I digress...). The food was good. The people were cool. The product on sale was radical, which is a good thing. I'm only sorry that we couldn't buy anything from Ayun Halliday's table (we already have everything). The table was manned by none other than the famous Inky for a good part of the evening. I was too starstuck to talk to her.
Willow now owns a little jumper that reads: "I would rather grow up than be born again".
Later, tired and still sandy, we drove back to the hotel and began the long journey to our room. Outside our window was L.A.'s attempt at public art - a large circle of 100 foot (or more) columns plopped down in the spaces around a freeway interchange. They looked like huge, glowing sex toys. As we watched, they gradually changed colors. If there was a pattern to it, I couldn't figure it out. It was kind of cool though, and it sure held the kids' attention for awhile.
At last, exhausted, we fell asleep.

tomorrow: the journey home.

cds I listened to while enjoying another night of small papers: Roy Harper "Come out Fighting Ghengis Smith", Dar Williams "The Beauty of the Rain" and Beautiful People ltd "s/t"

There and back again. (or, "a papa's journal of a mamagathering")

I started the day out on friday with one last, chaotic day of Mighty Forest camp. We netted some really damn big crayfish in that little pond! At the end of camp, we ceremoniously released them. By the time I got back home, Jen had things pretty ready to go, although the young 'uns were being less than cooperative. With various complaints emanating from the back of the van, we hit the road. On highway 152, the road hit back with a traffic jam that didn't let up for miles. On I-5, it hit back harder with the van stalling. We briefly contemplated turning around at that point, but I knew that Jen had been looking forward to this trip (one of the rare times where she was getting to do something for herself) so we elected to continue. After all, we had already been on the road for a couple of hours. I slowed down a bit, and we stuck to the outside lane where we could quickly drift onto the shoulder in the event of another stall. The new Gillian Welch cd helped me keep our speed down. Ahead of us, the moon rose. I told the boys that it was watching over us. I put on a cd by Bohren & der Club of Gore, who play languid, spooky nocturnal jazz (sort of similar to some of the music on Twin Peaks), and it set the mood perfectly as the sky darkened - a long stretch of highway cutting a beeline across the central valley, with scrub and farmland receding into the distance on either side. Occasionally we could see old, wooden farmhouses or strange piles of cast off equipment in the gloom of oncoming night. Sometimes dust devils danced along the median, illuminated by the lights of passing cars. The kids, being kids, didn't appreciate it at all, and asked the stereotypical questions that kids always ask on road trips. "Are we there yet are we there yet?" In fact, early on, while we were still on 152, Nathan, upon seeing Casa de Fruta (sort of a glorified fruit stand with a bit of nearby forest) asked, "is that Los Angeles?" Lexy kept asking if we were closer to home or closer to L.A.
Finally, after a rather nervewracking drive through the Grapevine, we descended into the L.A. basin and wound our way towards the hotel near LAX. By this time all of the kids were asleep. I quickly discovered that our room was on the 12th floor, all the way at the back. There were no luggage trolleys in evidence. The air conditioning didn't appear to be working either. I grumpily made a rather large number of trips back and forth with our stuff as Jen watched the sleeping kids. I even more grumpily discovered that there was no in-room refrigerator. We made the best of it, even though we had to call down and remind them to bring up the roll-away bed that they had promised. Oh, and we also had to let them know that the wine and fruit plate in our room were not ours. Finally, we sweatily went to bed in our less than airconditioned room. The air quality can best be described as "swamplike". We did have a pretty good view of the airport though. The Dickens thought this was pretty cool (or at least she would the following day, since she was carried into the room asleep).

to be continued...

cds I listened to while all of a sudden being back at work: Jarboe "Thirteen Masks" and "Anhedoniac", Beautiful People Limited "Three Mixes by Michael Gira", and M. Gira "The Somniloquist"

The Youth Science Institute office at Sanborn park has, like most organizations, someone in charge. She wasn't there today. Unfortunately, in addition to overseeing the various camp-related activities, she is also in charge of feeding the cat who hangs out on the porch. None of the rest of us knew where the cat food was. The table where my camp meets is on the porch near the cat food bowl, so I spent the morning being glared at by the cat, who seemed to think that I must be to blame for his missing breakfast.
After the campers arrived, the cat slunk off in digust. For our part, we spent a lot of time in the shade, making leaf print shirts and paper. Earlier in the week, we had made model trees out of old copies of the Wall st. Journal. Today, we turned the trees back into paper by ripping them into little pieces and submerging them in water until it resembled porridge. Then we sprinkled in liberal amounts of leaves, petals, and lichen. The resulting greyish, color-spotted circular patties of moist paper were a definite improvement over the newspaper we had used to make them.

I'm juggling wrapping up this week's camp with preparing for the upcoming one, so I think I'll go get busy. Tomorrow after I get home from camp, we'll all pile in the newly repaired van and hit the road for L.A. Wish us luck.

cds I listened to while finally being on time: Swans "Soundtracks for the Blind" and "Swans are Dead"

We hiked past the campgrounds and up into the hills today, and everybody held up pretty well. On the way, we found a tiny, jewel-like, Blue Tailed Skink. It could have curled up on a nickel. Two and a half hours after we started, we arrived back at our table and proceeded to inspect owl pellets, carefully clearing away matted rodent fur to discover the fragile little bones inside. I found feathers in the one I took apart, but no bird skull. It was almost as if some lucky owl had eaten a feathered mouse. hmmm. Feathered mice are quite rare. Most of the kids enjoyed doing this. The kid who doesn't listen spent another day wandering off and trying to climb things.
The Gopher snake that I had relocated to the garden has stubbornly found his way back over to the lawn. He was discovered with his head in a small hole, looking for small hole dwellers. One of the other instructors pointed him out to me, and I reached down and touched him, causing him to back out of the hole to see who was bothering him. As we stood over him and talked, he looked uncertain about whether to go back to inspecting the hole or not. By the time I left, he had made up his mind and was back in the hole. I hope they don't mow the lawn often.

The van has a broken air intake and needs the transmission fluid changed. That's a lot better news than it could have been.

cds I listened to while being even later and staying up way past my bedtime: Swans "Children of God/World of Skin" and "Die Tur Ist Zu", and Skepticism "Farmakon"

It's a bit warmer today, and those who make their livings predicting such things promise that the next few days will bring yet another rise in temperatures. I just got back from taking the van to get it looked at. It just wouldn't do to have it quit working on southbound I-5 next weekend, in the middle of our insane plan to drive for six hours with four small children. Some people climb mountains. We go on road trips with small children.
There's a boy at camp who, while being artistic and intelligent, seems to share one of Nathan's less endearing traits - his name has to be repeated five or six times before he'll stop doing whatever it is that he isn't supposed to be doing. I think we'll manage somehow though. At least he isn't getting in people's faces like one of the other instructors said he did during the previous camp. Most of the other kids are a bit easier to guide through our brief four-hours-a-day camp. We ended the day today with a friendly round of dice - using my Tuvan sheep knuckle dice. Don't worry, I wasn't teaching them to gamble. I was instructing them in the fine art of fortune telling. The idea is that the bones, depending upon which way they fall, symbolize different animals. Horses (as anybody who knows anything about Tuva could probably guess) usually mean good fortune. Sheep, goats, and cows are more ambiguous. Camels and yaks are so hard to get that they aren't included on the interpretive chart. One girl claimed she got a yak, but I couldn't confirm this because I was doing about five other things at the time. I rolled them myself and got a fortune that said, "your thoughts and ideas are bad." One of the girls very nicely told me that my thoughts and ideas were very good. I think I'll believe her over a little bag of sheep knuckles.
We got the bonus surprise of catching a Gopher snake today. After a period of inspection, we let it go in the garden.
Tomorrow, thanks to my new knowledge of a long loop trail, we hike them into the ground.

cds I listened to while running a bit late: Firewater "The Man on the Burning Tightrope", Swans "Cop/Young God - Greed/Holy Money", and Thomas Ligotti "The Unholy City" (thanks David!)

My weekend had one extra day in it but Monday still came. Most of the weekend has been recounted in Jen's blog, so I won't commit redundancy here. I did have fun taking Lexy and The Dickens out on friday night to watch the neighbors light fireworks. Lexy loved it, and The Dickens had fun too, although she wasn't too sure about the loud ones. She kept asking "what dat?", "what dat?' everytime any fireworks went off. By the next morning, of course, she was an authority on fireworks. It all kind of reminded me of being a kid and running around in front of the house with sparklers and lighting those little "snakes" - you know, the ones that expand from a little black button into a snaky pile of ashes... Holidays always tend to bring out a nostalghia for childhood.

I started week three of camp this morning, and I'm teaching kids who range in age from 6 to 9. We created journals, and some of the kids really got into decorating them and writing about their days. The good thing about teaching the older kids is that they know how to do these writing-based activities, and they can hike for longer distances than the little ones. On the way back from our hike, I caught one of the big "pond" crayfish (not to be confused with those wimpy little "creek" crayfish). It took exception to being caught and dug both pinchers into the soft part of my palm, only to let go when released.
I also got crapped on by not one, but two snakes. The first one was the center's Mountain King snake, who didn't feel like being taken out to visit kids. The second was a Garter snake who was hanging out by the juniper bushes outside the center. He voiced his displeasure at being caught by voiding his bowels all over my arm.
I keep seeing one of the kids I had in my camp for the first week. I guess his parents must have decided to have a summer to themselves by signing him up for camp every week. He seems to be having fun though.

We have a lot to do this week, so I think I'll go do something besides typing now.

cds I listened to while wondering why long weekends last no longer than short ones: Swans "Filth/Body to Body, Job to Job", and "Various Failures"

I keep forgetting it's only thursday. I get the night off because of the holiday. Funny holiday it is too - just one more excuse for people to get drunk and blow things up. How many people will take the time to actually sit down and have discussions about just what patriotism means? Probably very few. Everybody is going to be too busy waving their little flags around and barbequeing vast quantities of meat - and then, after they've all gorged themselves, they're going to either light small explosives or go to some gathering place and watch professionals light vast quantities of large, colorful explosives. There won't be much talk about the concept of "countries" and "borders", or what "national pride" really means (Question: how can you be "proud" of something that you had no direct hand in helping shape?). Nope. Just another excuse to go party. Of course, if you're the average american, everything is about partying, isn't it? Oops, there I go again, painting with a broad brush. We cynical armchair commentators often do that.

The iguana eats toast. That means that I now know that I have two lizards to help clean up the mess that grows every day under the kitchen table. Toast-eating lizards! What next?

cds I listened to while musing about the state of the nation: Swans "Omniscience", "Real Love", "White Light from the Mouth of Infinity", and "Love of Life/Amnesia" (great music to wallow by, if you should feel the need to wallow), and Ida Kelarova "My Home is Where I am..."

So here it is - three in the morning and Jen and I are sitting around the computer. Willow is sleeping on the bed behind us, and the other kids are in the other room, also sleeping. If I listened more carefully to my own body, I would also be sleeping. Why do we do this? I think it's a societal thing, this forcing ourselves to stay awake when we're tired, or to eat when we're not hungry ("it's dinner time, so I must eat!"). We work when we don't feel like it too, just because we're told to. It would be much healthier for all concerned if we didn't force ourselves to keep going. We need to become more in touch with our natural cycles.

Earlier, I cleaned the old sand out of the sandbox and poured in some brand new sand. The old sand was full of lumps of finely aged cat poo, left there by the opportunistic neighborhood felines who always seem to know when somebody has left the lid off of a sandbox. We'll do our best to prevent it from continuing to be a kitty commode, especially since The Dickens seems to confuse poop with chocolate.

cds I listened to while wondering what my natural cycle is: Sun Dial "Other Way Out", Bohren & Der Club of Gore "Black Earth", Sulfur "Delirium Tremens", Swans "Anonymous Bodies in an Empty Room", and Tor Lundvall "Under the Shadows of Trees"

It was cool (relatively speaking) and breezy today. I took a nap after Jen, Nate, and Willow got back from the dentist. When I woke up I lounged around the house and helped Jen and Nate plant some lavender plants in the yard.

Lexy spent the day watching Harry Potter movies, except for a brief moment or so when he tried to get Willow to smile. This backfired on him, so after he had washed the spit-up off his arms and legs, he went back to watching movies.

The moon is a sliver lurking above and beyond the layers of crap that blanket the valley. I wonder if one day we'll wreck the moon too.

cds I listened to while thinking negative thoughts about humanity: Eric Serra "La Femme Nikita" soundtrack, Somtow Sucharitkul "Symphony no 4 - Pridi Gitanusara"/Phra Chen Duriyanga "Sri Ayudhya", Howard Shore "M Butterfly" soundtrack, Paul Chain/Johar "Split", Somtow Sucharitkul "Mahajanaka Symphony"/Simon Wallace "People's Acclamation of the Great and Glorious King Symphony", and Suka "Spitwinterspit"

Here I am, up in the morning again. Jen took Nate to his "laser dentist" appointment a little over an hour ago. The Dickens is in the front room watching "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (the last time she saw it, she grabbed a handful of diaper muffins and was found in the kitchen proclaiming "gockolate!"). I am definitely going back to bed when Jen and Nate return. Oh yeah, and Lexy is still asleep, no doubt worn out by yesterday's Harry Potter marathon.

Jen and I, accompanied by a sleeping Willow, went and saw "28 Days Later" yesterday, which proved to be a lot of fun (although afterward Jen noted that her muscles hurt from the strain of being tensed up for the duration of the movie). The film is a worthwhile homage to Romero's lovely zombie trilogy, containing elements of all three of those films, and adding a few new twists (running zombies!?!!!). I've always loved films that depict deserted cities (especially if they're major cities like London). I've always liked ghost towns too. How long does it take things to fall apart if everybody leaves? One good touch in the film was the burning skyline of Manchester, and the comment of one of the characters, who observed that there were, "no fire crews to put it out." Without people a city becomes like an old beehive empty of bees, hanging on a branch or inside a forgotten wall - just one more artifact of something that was, to one day be discovered by people who care about that sort of thing (entomologists or archeologists...). Maybe this train of thought could give us insight into how beings from the distant future would view us if they were to come upon all of our... well, all of our stuff. And just how long would it take for the plants to split up the concrete and asphalt? How long would it take the leaves to blanket the buildings? How long would it take for the moisture to rust the metal? What kind of animals would move into our vacated homes? When would the last Twinkie finally biodegrade? I'm not sure if I'm doing a good job of conveying this fascination of mine or not. Perhaps I'll try again another time.

cds I listened to while back on my elongated nocturnal schedule: Ennio Morricone "The Thing" soundtrack, Strafe F.R. "Ochsle - Bad People Have No Songs" and "Pianoguitar", and Somtow Sucharitkul "Kaki" (you gotta love a person who has both "horror novels" and "ballets" in his resume)

I passed a sign on the way to camp this morning that said, "Hug yard sale!". What strange things the yuppies do... It sounds friendly though.

The last day of the Habitat Hunt camp went by in a flash. We saw a puppet show, ate our snacks, and caught crayfish. Then we rushed back just in time for the parents to arrive. Like last week, one kid brought me a home made card. I like that.

And now for the weekend...

cds I listened to while cursing the elevated temperatures: Paul Chain "Relative Tapes on cd vol. 7", Strafe fur Rebellion "Lufthunger" and "Moor", and Simon Boswell "Hardware" soundtrack

Today we met a Great Horned Owl. He is a rescued animal, and can't fly due to a wing injury sustained during a sudden confrontation with an automobile. He seems resigned to his new semi-diurnal schedule (as am I, I guess...) and stared impassively from his perch as small children looked up at him. He didn't seem to notice as bits from other less fortunate owls were passed through the crowd. The kids took turns holding an owl foot and an owl skull, often forgetting to pass the foot along stump first (so the talons wouldn't poke anybody). The skull smelt of mothballs.
It gives me an idea for a story...

It is hot today (as it was yesterday) and I'm looking forward to the promised drop in temperatures over the next couple of days. We ate lunch within the grove of trees that Jen and I got married under. I like that. We also got to watch a Fence lizard hunting for and eating some miniscule bugs in the dirt outside the restrooms. It's not often you get to watch animals hunting (okay, so it wasn't exactly a lion or tiger, but that's life...).
After tomorrow, I get a week off from camp. I wonder if I'll get up early anyway. Probably not.

cds I listened to while hoping the temperature would drop: Paul Chain "Relative Tapes on CD, vol. 4, 5, and 6"

I sang and rocked Willow to sleep for the first time yesterday. Usually she needs a draught of warm milk to do the trick, but she's at the age now where she responds to other things as well. She kept closing her eyes and opening them again, as if fighting sleep, but finally she dosed off... There's not much better than that - seeing her respond to gentleness.

Camp continues - the kids were a little harder to settle down today. I brought one of those portable misters along to help cool them down (and to illustrate ideal Redwood tree conditions...) and it proved to be very popular. We did leaf rubbings and spent more time with critters. We got to march past a hapless Wood rat who, sometime overnight, had been struck down in the act of crossing the road. One of the girls thought it was sad. Several others thought it was gross. That didn't stop anybody from playing with the taxidermied rat later on. It is kind of soft and, truth be told, shaped a little like a football (excepting the tail, of course.). At least nobody actually threw it.

Here's a funny mangled english story, courtesy of one of my co-workers: He was talking about his bankrupcy, and mentioned that Nordstrom's had taken him to court because they were "detesting" it (maxed out Nordstrom's card, I assume). I piped up and asked him if he planned to plead "no contest", but he didn't get the hint.

cds I listened to while throwing out the news: Paul Chain "Relative Tapes on cd, vol. 1, 2, and 3"

I watched the kids all day so Jen could be at the hospital. Nathan was a handful, and so was The Dickens. Lexy mostly just gloated about how much better he was behaving than the other two. The Dickens now knows how to turn door handles (and also how to pull a chair up to the kitchen counter so she can yank all the knobs off of the stove). On one of her handle turning expeditions into the bathroom, she decided she wanted to brush her teeth. While she was so engaged, Lexy came in to pee. The Dickens, seeing this, flung the toothbrush into the toilet. It turned out that this was Lexy's favorite toothbrush. In his agitated state, Lexy flushed the toilet and the toothbrush swirled out of sight. Later, it came back up. Nobody is going to use it to brush their teeth.

At the hospital last week, during a quiet moment, I thought I heard a frog. Last night I dreamed that Jen and I were visiting a frog in the N.I.C.U. It was a small, green treefrog with an orange belly. I wondered what he was doing in the N.I.C.U. since he obviously wasn't an infant. He also seemed pretty healthy.
I also dreamed that Jen and I had another wedding. It was outside again, but we weren't dressed up.

A few nights ago I dreamed that some trashy newspaper had printed a propaganda article about how evil the Iraqis are. It stated that they flayed their enemies but kept them alive by placing them in clear plastic suits. I could see pictures of skinless people with lidless eyes and lipless mouths walking around in agony as their tormentors laughed. I somehow knew that it was all made up by the U.S. government to make their war preparations look more necessary, but I still wondered where they had gotten the pictures. Were they airbrushed, or doctored in some other way?

cds I listened to while relaxing at work: Forrest Fang "The Blind Messenger", Lustmord "The Monstrous Soul", Madredeus "Ainda", Stikky "Spamthology Volume 1", and Magma "Retrospektiw I - II"

now: Unblocked disc 1 - Eastern Voices, Northern Shores

I find it hard to remember my pre-YSI work schedule now. It's funny how quickly a long held routine, once abandoned, becomes like a dream of a past life. I think that routines, by their nature, are meant to be forgotten like this. A routine is something we do with very little thought. They're the skeletal systems of our lives, existing underneath the surface and causing very little excitement. We always remember when the routines are broken, but have no need to remember them when they are serving their function.

I haven't worked at YSI long enough for it to become routine. The fact that I have a different bunch of kids every week keeps me on my toes. This week's group continues to be relatively easy to manage, although the most energetic hiker often has to be reined in so that the tired younger kids can keep up. In the end we all get where we are going though. The girl who got stung yesterday was understandably reluctant to venture back into the visitor's center, but decided to join us when I got the Gopher snake out.
We also let a newt go in the pond, which was a lot easier to do than reaching into the murk to catch the slippery little rapscallion first thing in the morning. The newts now all cluster out in the middle of the pond, as if they know it's summer camp time.

cds I listened to while fighting off a cold: Eduard Artemiev "Zerkalo (Mirror)/Stalker" soundtrack (more bootleg Tarkovsky), Green Crown "Washed in Her Blood", and Strafe Fur Rebellion "Vogel" (with umlauts that I can't include because I don't know how to - luddite me...)

this week I have fewer children, and they are younger than last week's camp. There are 6 boys and 3 girls. Being preschoolers, they can't hike as far as the kindergarteners and first graders. We stayed pretty close to the center, scrutinizing trees, gopher holes, and piles of poop. We are supposed to be learning about habitat, and perhaps by the end of the week some of the kids will remember what "habitat" means. So far, this group seems to enjoy the visitor's center the most, as opposed to last week's group, who only wanted to hike and hike (when they weren't running around in frenzied circles). Of course, the little girl who got stung by a bee today inside the visitor's center has probably formed a different opinion. Other than that, I think today was a much better first camp day than the chaotic one I had last week. I'm beginning to learn where everything is.

This weekend we managed to clean a good portion of the house, and it really helps lower stress levels when we can find things immediately rather than having to dig for them. The boys are once again promising to keep the playroom clean for more than a day. Maybe they'll actually do it this time.

I think I'm getting used to getting up in the morning, although I was pretty tired over the weekend. I actually got up at nine on saturday without the aid of an alarm. Sometimes I feel like I have jet-lag. But, darn it! I haven't even flown anywhere! No fair!

cds I listened to while driving though the faceless miles and miles of suburban sprawl: Stone Breath "Lanterna Lucis Viriditatis", Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov "Andrey Rublyov" soundtrack, Eduard Artemiev "Solaris" soundtrack (japanese bootlegs of Tarkovsky soundtracks), and The Spectral Light & Moonshine Firefly Snakeoil Jamboree "Scarecrow Stuffing"

One week of camp down, seven to go. We caught a couple of crayfish, a newt, and more millipedes today. One of the kids brought me a handmade thank you card, and another brought a Black Widow in a jar. We spent a lot of time around the ponds and down by the creek. Right now I should be preparing for next week, but instead I'm sitting here typing...

There's a little container in the visitor's center with a Brown Recluse inside, just so people can see what it looks like. They don't live in this area, but I have heard reports of people who claim to have been bitten by them. From what I've read on the subject, there are other things (types of infections, etc.) that are often misdiagnosed as Recluse bites, but there has been no conclusive proof of local Recluses. That said, the spider I picked off the porch at YSI a couple of days previously looked really similar to the little dried one in the container. It must have been a cousin...

Yesterday at the park, while I was sitting with The Dickens, a woman walked up to me and compimented her, as people often do. The Dickens loudly lectured the woman and told her to go away. That's why we call her The Dickens.

cds I listened to while pondering spiders: Stone Breath "Songs of Moonlight and Rain" and "A Silver Thread to Weave the Seasons", and Roy Harper "Born in Captivity/Work of Heart"

We navigated our way through the exciting world of spiders today, stopping on the way to scrutinize the skinks and toads. The skink was in the garden behind the shed, and the toad lives inside a comfy cage in the visitor's center. The latter took exception to being handed around the circle of small children and let loose his frustration in a steady stream of toad water (water that's inside a toad) that spattered my socks and puddled on the floor. The kids all thought it was the coolest thing they'd ever seen - even cooler than the Desert tarantula, vinegaroon, Sun spider, and the variety of phosphorescing scorpions I set before them. Of course, one must remember that any incident involving pee and/or poop is always popular with the young, as long as it only gets on the adults.

Several of the kids know a lot about bugs already. Two of them brought their own bug books to camp. Several other children start wanting to eat their lunch/snack after only being at camp for forty five minutes or so, but all claim to have had breakfast. If they could, they would do everything at a run. If we could harness their energy the world's power supply problems would be solved.

Tomorrow we explore the creek and the ponds and see the play that the Nature's Drama camp has been working on.

cds I listened to while being glad I took a short nap yesterday: SPK "Auto Da Fe", Steroid Maximus "Gondwanaland", Stoa "Porta VIII" and "Urthona", and "The Baby of Macon" soundtrack

Okay, now you should be able to see the picture I tried to post several days ago.

The first week of camp is half over. I only have two more days with this group of kids, which means I'll just be starting to get to know them when they'll be replaced by next weeks (even younger) campers. This group really likes to run and does so at every opportunity. Today we went on a longer hike and ate lunch in the woods near an old tree stump left over from the days when the area was still being logged. Apparently this particular tree, while being cut by one of those old-timey two person saws, fell the wrong way and took out some of the loggers. you can still see the relatively clear swath of forest where it fell. Back then the trees had to do that kind of thing once in awhile. There was no Earth First! to speak for them yet.
While eating, we saw a doe wander through the forest, browsing as she went. On the way back I found an Ensatina under a board. We also got to look at a bunch of little Turret spider homes and a Banana slug.
Inside the visitor's center, we held the Walking sticks, Jerusalem cricket, and some giant Millipedes. We even got out the old one-eyed King snake, who had lost an eye due to infection.

cds I listened to while planning the arachnid day: Simon Fisher Turner "Blue" soundtrack, Sorrow "Under the Yew Possessed" and "Sleep Now Forever", Gillian Welch "Soul Journey", v/a "The Final Solstice" (all groups featuring Rose McDowall), and Spell "Seasons in the Sun" and "Big Red Balloon"

Day two of camp has come and gone. I learned from day one that it would be a good idea to do my best to wear the campers out early so they'd settle down for the more sedentary activities. We did a metamorphosis relay race which proved to be just another excuse to run in ever widening circles. Then we went on a hike and turned over logs, finding a variety of millipedes and a fat spider who had recently eaten the better part of a caterpillar. Like yesterday, the kids started getting hungry before 10 am. It turns out that at least some of them hadn't eaten breakfast. Come on parents! Don't you know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day?
I used a variety of tricks to get them to pay attention. My favorite was telling them to pretend to be bugs, so that whenever they heard me do a bird call on my nose flute it meant that they had to be still and silent in order to escape getting eaten by the "bird". It kind of worked. Nothing is ever totally effective when you're dealing with kindergarteners.
Later, we made butterflies out of coffee filters and clothespins, using colored markers and water to good effect. While these were drying, we went inside and the kids got to hold Bess bugs, Mealworms, and Hissing cockroaches. A few of the children decided that they would rather just look. Later, I discovered that YSI has an overabundance of Hissing cockroaches, so I brought some home. Jen will be pleased.

cds I listened to while driving a little faster and getting home a lot earlier: Lech Jankowski "Institute Benjamenta" soundtrack, Sopor Aeternus & the Ensemble of Shadows "Songs From the Inverted Womb", Spasm "Meating Disorder Three Point Turn", Nina Nastasia "Run to Run", and Sorrow "Let There Be Thorns"

Here's another Photo taken up north. In this picture, we can be seen checking out one of the local dwellings. It proved to be a bit too rustic for us.

The first day of science camp held no surprises. I actually managed to be awake and more-or-less alert at the previously unheard-of hour of 7:00 am. I arrived at the park early, but then again so did most of the kids. We hiked and caught bugs, including a pill bug that was carrying babies. I'd never seen baby pill bugs before - they're about the size of mites. Oh, I caught a newt too, but then again I always catch newts. Tomorrow we invade the visitors center and hold bugs from the impressive collection on display there. The kids, being kindergarteners and first graders, were all quite active. I've got to make sure to keep their incessant talking in check.

The day before, while Jen, Willow, and I were going out for Father's Day breakfast, we saw somebody crash into and knock over a stoplight - or, to be more accurate, we heard the light hit the asphalt and quickly turned our heads to see the aftermath. Apparently a teenaged driver had switched lanes without looking and had forced a van off the road. Luckily nobody was hurt. This all happened right down the street from where somebody plowed right over a new crosswalk sign a few months ago. Maybe it's a conspiracy.

cds I listened to while getting home in half the time: Godzilla soundtrack (details in Japanese. Sorry), Zbigniew Preisner "At Play in the Fields of the Lord" soundtrack, Sopor Aeternus & the Ensemble of Shadows "Dead Lovers' Sarabande (face two)", and Frifot "Sluring"

Sometimes I think life is like a time-lapse film. A lot of the frames are missing, given over to routine tasks and tedious obligations, leaving the few memorable events engraved in your memory for later viewing. If the lapses get too long, you can suddenly find yourself in the middle of next week without knowing quite how you got there. It seems to me that the older we get, the quicker everything is left in our wakes. I think this also applies to level of activity. The busier I am, the faster everything seems to go. Do things keep accelerating as we get older? All evidence points to "yes". Ah, well... Our eternities are but moments, and our children's moments are eternities... The wait my younger self experienced between the beginning of December and Christmas seemed longer than the last few years have.

Monday I dive headlong into my new schedule. Maybe the newness of it all will slow things down for a time. The routines will all change, at least.

cds I listened to while wondering whether to speed up or slow down: Devendra Banhart "The Black Babies (UK)", Howard Shore "Symphonic suites from the films of David Cronenberg - Dead Ringers, Scanners, and The Brood", Godzilla soundtrack compilation (all in Japanese, so details elude me), Sopor Aeternus & the Ensemble of Shadows "Voyager: the Jugglers of Jusa", and The Decemberists "Castaways and Cutouts"

Oh the fickleness of the young...

Jen left to go get Lexy this afternoon, leaving Nate home with me because one of the car seats was still drying after yesterday's puking incident. Nate was extremely unhappy to be left behind, screaming "I want my mommy! I want my mommy" until she was out of earshot. At this point his screams abruptly changed to "...oh, I mean I want to watch giant monster movies!" I put in a Godzilla movie, but Nate didn't like it, explaining, "it's even black and whiterer than the other one." I put in a more recent Godzilla movie, in full color. That solved the problem. It's always important to have a good selection of japanese giant monster movies in the house.

In the afternoon, I found myself at Sanborn park, which is where we were married last october. This time I was getting trained for my YSI job. I discovered that they have a great selection of bugs in the visitor center, and some good hiking trails. I have a feeling that when I actually start teaching the science camps that my blogging time will have to be cut down in the interest of getting enough sleep. We shall see.

I got pulled over tonight for "running a stoplight." I figured I'd get a ticket for that one, even though what I actually did was not come to a full stop while making a right turn against the red. I ended up not getting a ticket. My luck is holding.

cds I listened to while running stoplights: Patti Smith "Peace and Noise" and "Gung-Ho", Sofa "Grey", Sopor Aeternus "s/t" and "Todeswunsch", and Georges Delerue "Black Robe" soundtrack

I'm feeling lazy tonight, so here's 2000 words worth of pictures:



Nate had surgery on his eye today in order to bring it back in line with the other one. It went as well as could be expected, although it was hard on him. Jen will fill you in on the details, since she was there with him. I picked him up a "surgery consolation" toy on the way home from my YSI trail training (actually, I ended up getting something for everybody).

cds I listened to while motoring around in the dimness: Patti Smith "Wave", "Easter", and "Gone Again", Myshkin's Ruby Warblers "Rosebud Bullets", Mychael Danna "Exotica" soundtrack, and Six Organs of Admittance "s/t"

It's a bit cooler this week. The night skies are overcast and leaves skitter across parking lots. I much prefer this to last week's hot, sticky weather. Let's hope it stays this way for awhile.

I made a rookie move sometime over the last day or so. I didn't notice it until this afternoon. The latch on top of the snake cages had been pushed down incorrectly, and the cage top had slid open a fraction of an inch. That was all that was needed. I put down my soda, got my flashlight, and started looking for the Rat snake. I didn't find him. When Jen got home with the boys, she was not happy with the news. The boys weren't either. They love watching videos of large reptiles stomping cities, but when small reptiles are loose in the house, it makes them nervous. I shrugged and went back to looking.
It wasn't until hours later, when we had just gotten home from the grocery store, that Jen came running up to me with the news that she had found the snake. There he was, inspecting my cd collection, and acting as if he hadn't a care in the world. I picked him up and put him back in his cage, ignoring his protests. It's properly latched now.

Earlier, while I was in the kitchen, I heard The Dickens exclaim, "eeeeeww!", from the other room. I went in and discovered that she had removed her diaper and was holding it up for inspection. The sounds of disgust she was making were aimed at the solitary poo that rested within. I gently took it from her and prepared to dispose of it. She got upset with me and demanded to, "see poopoo." Being kind-hearted, I allowed her to accompany me to the bathroom. Jen joined us there, and we had a solemn viking funeral for the poopoo, sending it swirling into the watery darkness.

cds I listened to while remembering that you can't almost latch a cage: Kendra Smith "Five ways of Disappearing", Patti Smith "Dream of Life", "Horses", and "Radio Ethiopia", Pharaoh Overlord "II", and Mychael Danna "Kama Sutra" soundtrack

Well, okay - One more week of working the same old hours at night. The YSI training during the upcoming week is in the afternoons, so I can work late into the night and not have to worry about setting my alarm. I do have to start putting together a curriculum for the bug camp I'm teaching next week. I have a kit full of crafts and games to choose from, not to mention my own store of bugs and things related. It feels good to be turning my attention to something new, even though in some ways it's the same kind of thing I've been doing all along. The main difference is that I'm more in charge of setting up the curriculum.
My training this week seems like it will mainly consist of learning the trails at the two parks where I will be teaching. That should be fun - it sounds like I'm going to get paid for hiking.

This weekend flew by. I had the teachers' meeting at YSI on friday, where I was fed too much information to digest all at once. It's a good thing they handed me lots of printed information to digest at my leisure. Friday night Jen and I sat down and watched a movie (on video) for the first time in awhile - Bela Tarr's Almanac of Fall, which was lit like an Argento film (both lighting and set design reminded me of Inferno) but veered more towards Tarkovsky in general tone and subject matter. Think grim, with odd touches of humor here and there. Saturday M. and I went up to the city to see Heaven's Radio, which was billed as an "absurdist Butoh play" and definitely lived up to its billing. It featured lots of great music by some of the more talented locals. That night Jen and I watched yet another movie - this time Skins, which is based on a book by Adrian C. Louis and stars Graham Greene (one of the few actors whose presence in a film will tip the balance for me when I'm deciding whether or not to see it). The short version of the synopsis is that it's about two brothers who live on the Pine Ridge reservation; one is a cop and the other is an alcoholic. Trouble ensues. Two movies in one weekend. I can't believe it!
Today we just puttered around town doing little things that needed to be done and drinking frozen chai drinks.

cds I listened to while still having two routes: Sky Cries Mary "Fresh Fruits for the Liberation", Hana "s/t" and "Omen", Azadi! - a benefit compilation for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, and Slap Happy Humphrey "s/t"

Here's some pictures from the Portland trip.



This was in the middle of our nineteen hour drive up the coast, in a field next to a little deli with a better than usual selection of comestibles. No snakes were harmed in the creation of these pictures.

Today was the last day of my accustomed work schedule. I'm only going to be working every other saturday at the museum for at least a couple of months - and that doesn't even start until July. Sunday night I will only have one paper route, even though they seem determined to give the other one back to me after YSI is over and done with. Can't they see I'm trying to segue my way into some sort of alternate employment? Is it too much to ask for a job that: 1) interests me, 2) has health benefits, and 3) pays well enough to live on in an admittedly expensive area? I'm probably dreaming, but everything starts with dreams...

At home, Willow discovered that there's a baby inside every mirror in the house. She's not sure what to make of this new revelation. The Dickens discovered that no matter how much she screams, sometimes adults' arms just can't take the strain of repeatedly tossing her up in the air.

cds I listened to while realizing that jobs as we know them sometimes change: Skyclad "Folkemon", Sky Cries Mary "A Return to the Inner Experience" and "Moonbathing on Sleeping Leaves", Roy Harper "The Green Man", Michael Stearns, et al "Baraka" soundtrack, and Simon Fisher Turner "Nadja" soundtrack

My night job is trying to hold on to me. It looks like they're going to try and hand me back the route I'm quitting after the summer job at the YSI is over. It makes financial sense for them to do this - if one of the floaters can do the job for a couple of months, then they don't have to hire and pay a new carrier. Of course, they'd like it best if I'd just keep doing both routes and splitting my sleep schedule in order to be rested enough to do everything. I'll admit it's a bit tempting - it would mean an extra eight hundred dollars a month. The only problem is that I hate splitting my sleep schedule. It stresses me out. I'd also have less time with my family. But think what we could do with the extra money... Maybe there's some sort of middle ground. Maybe I could do it every once in awhile. It would be nice to ensure that I have a route to come back to in the fall if my other options (unknown at this time) fall through.
I think that, in this case, time is more important than money. I'm still thinking though...

There's this duck on my route that has a harem of nine. I've seen them all marching side by side across the lawn, eating god knows what along the way. Strange creatures, ducks. The world "duck" has a comical ring to it. So does the word "quack". I'm sure they all view themselves very seriously though.

cds I listened to while contemplating the summer: Yearning "Plaintive Scenes", Skyclad "The Answer Machine?", "Outrageous Fourtunes", and "Vintage Whine", Zeni Geva "Maximum Money Monster" and "Nai-Ha", Chu Ishikawa-Der Eisenrost "Tokyo Fist" soundtrack, and Darrin Verhagen "Soft Ash"

Another slow day at work, so while the python was sleeping under a bush I drew this:



Hopefully this will mollify all of you who don't like looking at zombies. ...and it was part of the official project we were doing today (botanical drawing)!

Here's some pictures I drew today while having a slow day at work:







I was asked to come up with a story that links the three pictures, so here it is: A ship visits a mysterious island where voodoo rites are held, and then sails for home. A woman waits on the shore (like in all of the old folk songs) for her sailor lover to return home, but since he went and visited the spooky voodoo island, he's a zombie when he arrives... but it's okay because all he'll eat is fast food, so they live happily ever after. They sleep in seperate beds though.

I was driving to work earlier and I saw a van up ahead of me that appeared to have a logo across its back doors that spelled out the word "pimp". I thought I must be mistaken, but as I passed it, I saw that indeed I wasn't. I was sharing the road with a genuine pimpmobile. The ad on the side of the van was for portable stripper poles (oh no, that's going to get me all sorts of disgusting Google hits, isn't it?). I didn't know such a thing existed. You can now have a stripper pole in the privacy of your own home, and it will be driven there in van with the word "pimp" emblazoned on it in big blue letters so that all of your neighbors will know just what sort of entertainment you go in for. Shame on you.

In more family-oriented news, we had a small get-together for The Dicken's birthday party. There was cake and ice cream. Life is good. It's too early to tell yet which one of her many presents will become her favorite.

This is my last week of working my current schedule. Next week I'll be starting the training portion of my Youth Science Institute job. This means my museum hours are dropping to only about eight hours a month, and my paper route hours are being halved. We'll see how it goes. It's not every day I get a new job. This month marks my five year anniversary at the museum, which means it's been that long since I got a new job.

cds I listened to while contemplating upcoming changes: Skyclad "Prince of the Poverty Line", "Irrational Anthems", and "Oui Avant-garde A Chance" (say it out loud to get the full impact of this awful pun), Warfare "Hammer Horror" (the british film studio, not the tool), Nurse With Wound "The Musty Odour of Pierced Rectums", and Witchfinder General "Death Penalty"

The Dickens turns two today! Whatever shall we do? I'm hoping that when the sun rises it's a little cooler than it was yesterday. I would be perfectly happy if the temperature never rose too far above 65 degrees. We've gotten the fans out and plugged in. I feel that there wasn't much of a segue between winter and summer this year. Spring must have forgotten to set her alarm clock.
Speaking of alarm clocks, mine is set, so off to bed I go.

cds I listened to while hanging my head out the window to catch a breeze: Skyclad "Tracks from the Wilderness" and "The Silent Whales of Lunar Sea", Voivod "Kronik" and "Lives", Barbez "s/t", Warfare "Crescendo of Reflexions", and Eric McFadden "The Un-official Non-Japanese Import of the not so Secret Northwest Club Shows"

M. and I went to see what would have been a Tin Hat Trio show at the Freight and Salvage coffee house this saturday. It wasn't a Tin Hat Trio show because the guitarist's wife, Lauren Orton, was killed in a river rafting accident in April. The show ended up being a memorial to her, organized and MCed by fellow band member Carla Kihlstedt. The music, by Carla and a host of others, was wonderful and the tributes were touching. I didn't know Lauren, but her death has reached out and touched me anyway. I can't even begin to imagine being in her husband's place, and my heart goes out to him.

On the home front, I went and got a lot of film developed on friday, including a couple of disposable cameras that the kids had used up. When I got the photos back there on one of the disposable camera rolls, amongst random photos of our hall and other parts of the house, was a picture of Nathan grinning like a loon and wearing no pants. I wonder if I'm on some sort of list now. I think from now on I'll be a little more wary of used up disposable cameras I find around the house.

cds I listened to while wishing it was cooler: Voivod "Phobos" and "Nanoman", Skyclad "Thinking Allowed" and "Jonah's Ark", Mychael Danna "Music for the films of Atom Egoyan - The Adjuster - Speaking Parts - Family Viewing", Roy Harper "Commercial Breaks", and Myshkin "Why do all the Country Girls Leave?"

I've been tired this week. It may have something to do with the heat, but it more likely has something to do with never getting quite enough sleep.
I led my last Hidden Villa tour of the season on tuesday, and caught an Alligator lizard - no doubt to make up for the one that got away while we were rushing around catching snakes last weekend. I'm not sure what my work schedule is going to be like when tours resume in the fall, so this may indeed be my last tour for the indefinite future.
Attendance at the museum has hit the summer doldrums, and I find myself keeping busy at work with drawing or playing the tin whistle. After next week, I'm cutting my hours down to an all time low of eight hours a month. This is so I can work at the Youth Science Institute for the summer.

At home, The Dickens has decided that she hates baths. This is an abrupt about-face, because up until very recently she was our household's biggest bath fan, often staying in the tub well after all of the water had been drained, and emerging somewhat prunish. Now she kicks up a fuss if we try to give her a bath. This must work on the same principle as a child deciding to really hate a certain type of previously loved food the day after you stock up on said food.
Willow was quite fussy today. Poor little girl.

It was a little windy out tonight, and a very light mist was drifting down from the sky.

cds listened to in the mist: Shinjuku Thief "Medea", Sixth Comm/Mother Destruction "Archive 1" and "Archive 2", Voivod "The Outer Limits" and "Negatron", and Skyclad "The Wayward Sons of Mother Earth" and "A Burnt Offering for the Bone Idol"

Even more Portland...

We woke up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 am on Sunday, and in due order staggered downstairs (okay, it's kind of hard to stagger while taking the elevator, but you get the idea...) for our free breakfast. The dining area of the hotel was surprisingly well stocked, and soon we were hunched over coffee, eggs, fruit, croissants, cereal, and the like. M. even made his own waffle. G. and Steve were especially groggy due to their late night shenanigans the previous evening (if you can call signing autographs and attending a gig "shenanigans, that is). Surprisingly, we were all finished with breakfast and in the van by a couple of minutes after eight. Then the long journey homeward began. The view from I-5 isn't as fantastic as it is along the coastal route, but we were treated to morning mist drifting slowly across low hills, and beautiful yellow clusters of gorse.
We ate lunch in Ashland at some Italian restaurant whose name escapes me. While there, we found time to drop into a couple of stores and purchase more stuff. Then we continued south, passing over I-5's highest point (forty three hundred-and-something feet), denying we had any fruit at the California border, passing the snow covered splendor of Mt. Shasta, and slowly descending into the dull boredom of the Central Valley. Our van decided to make this stretch of our journey less boring by suddenly stalling while in the fast lane. At first I didn't even realize it had stalled. The giveaway was that it was slowing down as I depressed the accelerator. I pulled over onto the shoulder, and the van started again after a couple of tries. After that, I decided that we could do without the air conditioning. This made the remainder of our time on I-5 somewhat stifling. Then, on 80, just as we started ascending the first of a series of low foothills that border the East Bay, the van stalled again. Apparently the strain of hauling around a full load of people on such a long journey was proving a bit much for it. I got it started again and we made it another mile or so before it stalled a third time. This time some rather rude police were watching. They took exception to us sitting on the median, and ran a traffic break so a snappy policewoman could use her car to push over to the shoulder. Then, instead of helping, they all rushed off, leaving us sitting in the van with even less room between ourselves and the traffic whipping by. Steve was amazed at the rudeness of our local police. It was his fourth encounter with them during his stay in California, and none of the other ones painted a rosy picture of our law enforcement personnel either. I waited ten minutes or so and got the van to start. We limped into Berkeley and said goodbye to G. and Steve. M., Jen, Willow, and I arrived back at our place at 10 pm. Fourteen hours had passed since we started our journey.

The first words we heard upon arriving were from Nate: "Where are my presents?"