We made a measly 13 dollars at the yard sale today. Afterwards, since the older kids were at their dad's, we all took naps. Outside, it was hot again, with a bit of wind to temper the temperature. Inside, there was lots of stuff on the floor, so with my energy regained after my nap, I cleaned up a bit. It made me feel better.

Here's a photo from the archives, taken at work on Halloween sometime during the 90's. Impromptu costumes are always the best - It took a whole roll of toilet paper to achieve this effect.

Individually, people are usually okay. It's when they get together in big groups that the problems start. Look at religion. Look at popular culture. Look at the government. Look at all governments. Look at the decay inside that bursts outward like the contents of prodded pustules, taking down innocent lives and altering landscapes. Look at the hatred and fear on all sides as groups of people lash out at each other, begetting more hatred and fear.

Stop identifying with groups. Start thinking. Start feeling. Start living.

I just read that tonight there was a mushroom cloud reported in North Korea. People continue to die in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many other places all over the world. It's not going to stop anytime soon. What happened three years ago in the U.S. was really a pretty minor event in our long history of bloodshed. Those people shouldn't have died. All of the people who have died since, as a more or less direct result of that event, shouldn't have died either. All of the people who in the future will die because of that event (and let's not forget all of the other events that led up to it) should not die either. Every one of these people who have died or shall die leave behind grieving friends, lovers, and relatives. And the cycle continues... This is not about politics. It's about who we are. Who are we?

I'm reminded of the kids. It's always a pleasure to have one on one time with them. Whenever we try to take them anywhere in a group it usually results in a scene of some sort. Whining and tantrums. It's kind of a microcosm of how the world works. People just can't seem to get along.

There is evil out there, but it is spread evenly throughout humanity. Everybody has the potential inside them. Don't give in to it.

I got to visit yet another hospital today, because Lexy, not content with breaking his arm at school a couple of years ago, broke it again today. This time it was much worse. Bent at a right angle - very painful to look at, let alone experience. He was very brave about it, all things considered. It seems he was accidentally knocked over on the asphalt playground. Tonight he is sleeping with a cast, which he will be wearing for quite some time. I'm sure Jen, who stayed with him at the emergency room while I went home to feed the girls, will fill in all of the little details on her blog.

On the positive side of things, I got another response from a potential employer today. Now, in addition to a phone interview next week, I have an hour long test to take. Jumping through hoops in the mad scramble towards gainful employment. How thrilling!

It's hot inside tonight, but cool outside. I'm sitting near an open window.

Oops. I spoke to soon. I'm now sitting near a closed window. Right after I posted the above, the unmistakable odor of pissed-off skunk came wafting in. I went so far as to poke around the yard with a flashlight (after a comical episode of trying to find a working flashlight and discovering that even one of the brand new never-been-opened ones didn't work) to find the culprit. No skunks were sighted. Just that abominable smell. Jen has put some aromatherapy oils in the kids' rooms, and we have incense burning in here. It's getting warm though. Dammit.

The sticky weather continues to torment us. I noticed today that the air has once again taken on a brownish tinge along the horizon, like a monstrous dirty diaper. Maybe it was this dirtiness that kept people away from the museum today. I found myself nearly alone at my table, where I would have been showing people how to make rain guages had anybody been interested.

This morning, before the heat struck, I took my mother to the hospital for a hernia operation, and sat there with her as one of the hospital bureaucratic types shuffled papers around and asked for the same information several times.
After work, I picked her up and drove her home. Just like that. It was her first operation too. I have yet to have one myself, and am not looking forward to the day. The idea of being "put under" while people I don't know cut me open just doesn't appeal to me.

I'm currently listening to Ilgi "Speleju Dancoju" (I Played and Danced). It's a musical based on a play by Latvian poet Janis Rainis (1865-1929), and the music definitely covers a lot of ground, with scores of singers singing the character parts, backed by Ilgi's blend of Latvian folk and rock. Willow was in here earlier dancing to it. I wonder what kind of music she'll like when she's a teenager. Most likely something that all of the grownups hate, but you never can tell. Maybe she'll be the exception to that particular rule.

Here's another picture of a snake. This one I caught up near Pinecrest Lake in the Sierra Nevada range. It's a Mountain Kingsnake. Red on black. Friend of Jack. Whoever Jack is.

Another potential employer called to schedule a job interview with me today. It's a phone interview, to take place on Monday morning. I hate talking on the phone. I'm glad they called though. It's always nice to have a few options. The salary for this particular job is unknown ("send salary requirements"). The commute looks kind of brutal, and I don't quite have the previous experience that they're looking for. However, it looks like a fun and rewarding job. And they did call me, after all.

The problem is that, shortly after I do this interview, I should know whether or not I have the other job - the one that I've already done two interviews for. Not to mention the part time one that I've already been hired for (although they haven't called to schedule me yet). I have a feeling that this is how job searches often end up - a muddle of possibilities. I guess I should be thankful that at the grand old age of 36 I've never had to deal with it before. All of my previous jobs just kind of snapped into place like a lego set (the little kid kind, not the complicated ones for older kids). This is partially because I kept the night job for 16 years. With those nocturnal paychecks rolling in, the daytime paychecks didn't really matter, giving me the freedom to work for proverbial peanuts, or in some cases nothing. Things are a little different when the bills and the rent are hanging in the balance. It makes me more nervous during interviews.

We're participating in another garage sale on Sunday, just in case. I've still got a handful of Canadian dollars, British pounds, and Euros to exchange as well.

The interview went pretty well, I think. Now more waiting...

The boys and I went for a hike this evening. Of course, the first person we ran into on the trail (right after stopping to look at some deer) asked us if we had seen any Mountain Lions, which is the one animal I try not to mention around the boys because they're a bit scared of them. The man was actually out there with his little binoculars hoping to spot one. He went on to say that a friend of his had seen one in the gully next to the trail we were on. I had visions of the boys simultaneously wetting their pants. To their credit, they didn't, and we continued on, with the man's parting words, "look out for Rattlesnakes!", ringing in our ears. I love finding Rattlesnakes, but I once went on a hike with Lexy during which he whined the whole time about the possibility of running into one. Again, perhaps because both boys were there together, they managed to hold it together. Further up the trail, a couple walking their dog were staring into the brush while the man made loud noises, as if trying to scare something off. I asked them what they were looking at, and the woman sheepishly replied that they thought it might have been a Mountain Lion. As they left, I peered into the bushes and witnessed a family of Quail hightailing it downhill. People are a bit jumpy, aren't they?

It started getting dark well before we got back, and we saw a large bird that I couldn't identify in the gloom. It had a habit of flying a short distance every time I got close, so I never did figure out what it was. I looked young, though. Afterwards, we saw an owl (flying into the distance), and some bats. Another owl hooted from somewhere out in the dark.

We also saw these:







It was so dark at this point that I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of. We didn't clearly see the toads until we looked at the pictures. The boys had a lot of fun. The toads peed on me.

It's just as hot today. Maybe hotter. I'm drinking iced coffee with half-frozen ice cubes because I just couldn't wait for them to solidify. Tomorrow promises more of the same. During the late morning, I have a second interview for one of the positions I've applied for. I'm confident and nervous at the same time. I hope the confidence is more obvious than the nervousness.

I spent Labor Day laboring at the museum, mainly because a great many people spent Labor Day visiting the museum. At least it was air conditioned.

Here's a snake. Snakes are nice. They also occasionally help pay the bills around here.

It's the kind of weather that makes your clothes weigh heavily upon you and your fluids leak slowly from your pores. We're all just flopping around the house today, because even without air conditioning it's still cooler inside.

Did I mention that I got another part time job? I'm unsure what to tell them next week when they begin scheduling hours, because the jury is still out on the full time one. I'll think of something, I guess. Maybe I'll know more in a few days.

M. and I went and saw Sleepytime Gorilla Museum at Mills College on Saturday, meeting G. who publicly transported himself there, on the steps outside. Carla Bozulich opened the show and sounded nothing like somebody who recently recorded a re-make of Willie Nelson's "Red Headed Stranger" would be expected to sound. Not Country, in other words. Much more jagged and jarring. The inappropriately monickered Death Ambient (Fred Frith, Ikue Mori, and Kato Hideki) were next, and did interesting things with guitar, laptop, and bass. Fred Frith was especially fun to watch as he played his guitar with the help of a table full of gadgets. The very appropriately named Toychestra was next, and performed a set using children's instruments and toys. If my pockets had contained anything other than lint, I would have bought some of their cds. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, looking a bit out of place on a well lit school stage, were as incredible as always. The only sobering bit was Moe!'s official announcement of his departure from the band. A replacement is currently being trained.

One more interview behind me. Actually, it was kind of a group interview, with three interviewees present. The drive to the interview took about half an hour, which is fine by me because I have a cd player in my car. I think I'll find out pretty quickly whether or not I get this job. In a way it reminded me of my job interview at YSI - very relaxed and friendly. It seems like an exciting place to work. An old coworker of mine (well, from earlier this year, anyway) already works there. More on this soon.

Jen got a call while I was at work from a woman who wants to have a Halloween party with reptiles and spiders and such. Extra money next month. As if any money we take in is extra... Every little bit helps though.

For some reason there were lots of people in the Early Childhood Center at work today. And they were all playing with the gak (a rubbery, slimy mixture of borax, glue, water, and food coloring). While clowning around with a large group of preschoolers I discovered that it is possible to jump rope with the stuff. It usually ends up coming apart, sending slimy green segments across the room, but the kids sure enjoyed it. A mom even requested a repeat performance for one of her daughters who had missed the initial tomfoolery. It was one of those days that made me marvel at the fact that I get paid to do this kind of work. Too bad it's not enough to live on.

I've been shortlisted for one job position, and my follow up interview is next week. Wish me luck. I also have an interview for a part time job tomorrow morning. I'm still trying to decide how I'm going to juggle this. I don't have enough time to do both, and we don't have enough money to do neither. I need to jump on every opportunity that presents itself though, so I guess I'll just sort it all out later. I'd hate to pass up the part time job if the full time positions that I've applied for go to other people.

I think it was in the seventies today, which is lower than the numbers that the forecasters have been spitting at us all week. Maybe that means that it won't really be anywhere near one hundred degrees this weekend. One can hope.

The rat is still in the compost. He jumped up again when I was watering it down. This time I was able to see where he went, and when I squeaked at him in my best rat voice he actually stopped and came back, perching on top of the wooden, rafter-like beams above the compost bin, probably thinking to himself, "you ain't a rat, so why the hell you squeaking?".

The boys have completed their second day of school, and seem to be enjoying it. Jen took Lexy this morning, and later on we all walked Nate to school. The girls managed to displace all of the water in several puddles outside of his classroom, laughing and smiling all the while. And getting very muddy, of course. Next time we'll stop them before it gets so out of hand. But dammit, it was so cute.

There are signs up in the neighborhood warning people about local coyotes. It seems that the partial remains of several cats and dogs have been found littering peoples' yards. The town paper had an article about it as well. Gives a whole new meaning to the term "pet food".

No new news on the job front. And to make matters worse, it's supposed to get hotter by the weekend. That's insult to injury. Poor and sweltering. At least the nights are cool.

The patchy clouds have done little to cut down the heat, at least during the middle of the day. I'm finding that one of the benefits of actually getting up in the morning is that it's nice and cool for a few hours. This is a good time to get things done, before the heat sucks all the energy away and all I want to do is sit in the shade.

I'm nervously checking my bank balance, waiting for that last summer camp paycheck to appear there. I like direct deposit, but sometimes it seems like just one more way for things to go wrong. What if my paycheck gets electronically transferred into the internet equivalent of a dead letter office? What if a retiree from Des Moines was the recipient of my e-mailed timesheet? I'll check again tomorrow.

I took Willow to a barbeque at an old friend's house on Saturday. That's right. House. You know you've hit some sort of temporal plateau when your childhood friends start buying houses. Especially in this area. That's more of a feat than having kids. Anyway, Willow had a great time pulling up the decorative pinwheels stuck in the dirt out back, chasing the small dogs, and eating handfuls of mini chocolate chip cookies. She also expressed fondness for one of the doormats - the one emblazoned with pictures of small dogs. As for me, I got to try barbequed portabello mushrooms (with soy sauce and garlic) and barbequed rice balls (also with soy sauce and garlic). Yummy. I also admired the hardwood floors that my friend was crazy enough to put in himself. I left when Willow started acting tired. Not that she was about to admit it, of course. She was having too much fun. She pointed to the rising moon as we left. She always notices the moon. She was asleep before we were off the block.

(Slight pause while I go and rescue Nate from the really large, apparently fearsome, spider in the bathroom)

Almost September. Hopefully it will be a good month.

I saw a guy driving on the wrong side of the road on the way to work today. I think that he realized his mistake at the very moment I spotted him, because he came to a stop and started directing traffic, making little "after you" gestures with his hands, all the while studiously avoiding any eye contact. Drunk or just really confused? From the UK? Reckless performance artist? I'll never know.

At work, I discovered that a large rat had moved into one of the compost piles in the garden. It shot straight up into the air while I was hosing down the pile, vanishing into the large rosebush above. Try as I might, I couldn't find where it was hiding.

The weather was boring today - cloudless and warm. It's hard to be inspired about anything under these conditions. I need some fog, or clouds with the threat of rain. Maybe one of those freak storms where it rains fish.

It looks like our financial situation is going to get pretty grim before it gets better. I have a few job possibilities on the horizon, but things on the horizon always seem to take their sweet time getting right up next to you. I've done one interview for a full time position, I have another interview (for a part time position) scheduled for next week, and I just filled out another online application. This last job looks really good, but doesn't start until the middle of October. This last fact relegates it to "plan C" status. There's at least one other place that I haven't heard back from at all.

I hate that lag time between the interview and the final decision. I know it's necessary, but I still hate it.

Hopefully soon I can look back on this with the contented smile of a person with a full time job. Or at least a couple of good part time ones. If I was independently wealthy, I would just volunteer at wildlife centers or Hidden Villa or wherever the hell else I felt like working. Money is just an abstraction. It's just dirty little bits of metal and paper. It has no intrinsic value.

Bring back the barter system!

Below: Would you shake hands with this cat?

I once got severance pay for a job that I didn't lose. Today I had a job interview at my current place of employment. Life is funny.

There is a reason that I'm drawing pictures of myself. Really.

The boys' bedtime story tonight was another biography about the Wright Brothers. After reading a bit about early flight experimentation with hot air balloons, I decided that the boys had to see the opening scene from Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev, which I am now certain must have been inspired by an incident in France when a pair of inventors got their balloon to fly for around a mile, only to have it torn apart by frightened peasants after it settled to earth. Both of the boys found it interesting, even though the film is in black and white, and subtitled - two nearly unpardonable sins in the eyes of the young. Kids these days...

We should never let our fear of the unknown inspire brutish behavior. It's just uncouth. Loutish, even. Oh, wait, the president does it. Must be okay then. Imagine all of those french peasants with the face of George W. Bush - semi simian, and not quite comprehending what it is that they're in the process of destroying. It's a frightening image to be sure.

I had planned to park in the loading dock on friday morning, but they had chosen that day to start putting in a new gate, so I parked on the lawn next to the garden instead, which is the best parking place I've ever gotten. I wish I could always park there, but sadly that just isn't going to happen. They let me do it only because I had all of the reptiles and bugs and such with me.
It didn't take me long to discover that it doesn't matter how often or well I wash my hands - if I've been holding other critters, the Water Monitor is going to try to take a bit out of me. Consequently, he spent the morning in his cage. The python spent the morning in the plants in the garden. All of the creatures were popular, so I spent hours rotating them in and out of their cages.
Author Gary Bogue (see previous post) and illustrator Chuck Todd showed up at around 1:30 or so, and I had a good time talking to them in between answering questions and getting out animals. Gary had lots of interesting anecdotes about strange, exotic wildlife encounters, including a time when he had to rescue a Wallaby from someone's garage. Sounds like a dream job to me. At 2:00 they gave a short talk and handed out some cool posters to the assembled children. At this point, I was already packing up so I could make it over to my next engagement (this makes me sound busier than I actually am somehow) at the church summer school. Too bad. It would have been fun to stick around longer.
The church presentation took place outside, with small groups of small children coming and going. The python kept trying to sneak off while I wasn't looking, but since he's slow I always caught him. The Monitor remained in his cage.
I was delayed going home by heavier than usual traffic, which I found out later was caused by a freeway closure that came about when a woman threatened to jump off an overpass. It took hours for the police to talk her down. I'm not sure why they needed all of the helicopters though.

Last night I went up to Berkeley to see The Mysterious Mr. Looney, a play about the controversy surrounding the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Sound by G. An enjoyable evening out, as is always the case with Central Works plays. Next weekend is the final one. Go see it if possible.

Today I cleaned the yard. Wahoo!

There were a few wispy clouds punctuating the blue today, but not enough to make it much cooler. The air conditioner at work did the trick though.

It's strange only working one job - kind of like being on vacation. It's funny that while I'm enjoying not having to set my alarm clock, I'm looking forward to having to set it again. Actually, I will have to set it tonight because I'm working the morning shift tomorrow so that I can present another animal program for the church summer camp people. I'm really going to have to rush though, because I'm staying an extra hour at the museum so that my shift overlaps with the arrival of Gary Bogue, who wrote a book called The Raccoon Next Door - Getting Along With Urban Wildlife. I'll be on hand with my wildlife. Should be interesting.




Here's a drawing I did for my Wild Images camp last month. It's a Water Monitor skull, which illustrates why I don't let kids hold my Water Monitor. He's got a good sense of smell, and if you've been holding or eating something that he likes, he'll smell it and try to eat you.

The post I just wrote fell victim to an "internal server error". Figures. There's something to be said for paper and pen. Handwritten stuff never gets sucked into the ether.

I made another convert to the "snakes are all right" club today, which always makes me smile. I had the Milk Snake with me today at the museum, and a girl who was terrified of snakes found the courage to touch it (with some help and encouragement from her mom). It's always heart warming to see somebody work through their fears like that.

Then, looking up, I discovered that the "felt art" sign had been tampered with again. The sign is made of felt stuck to a felt board, and the idea of the exhibit is to create your own art by sticking little scraps of felt onto the pre-framed spaces on the wall. I've lost count of how many times I've looked up to find that the sign has been changed to spell out "felt fart". Kids.

Here's a picture of a Horned Toad that was taken on the same trail as the last lizard picture I posted, but two years earlier.

I went to a couple of shows this weekend. The first was the Cowboy Junkies at the Mountain Winery. I'm not sure whose idea it was to put a winery at the top of a narrow, winding road. On the plus side, all of the larger tree trunks are painted white to help the drunks navigate on the way down. There were plenty of people wandering around at the show with little, plastic wine cups, comfortable in the knowledge that the white trees would see them safely home. But I digress - the show itself, which started minutes after we (Jen, Lexy, and I) plopped our butts down on the wooden bleachers, was quite good. They've added an accordian player, who lends a little extra something to the songs, making them perhaps even more melancholy than before. The sky darkened above us as they played, which is an added bonus. Outdoor shows in the hills are great, even if the damn corporate venue charged us ten dollars to park our van. Oh well.
Having only Lexy with us, I was reminded that he's still quite a little kid. He always looks so big when compared to the other three, who were home with granny. Willow, who had never been left behind before, did well. She's starting to realize that those grandmother people are part of the family, and so must be trusted. She even cried a bit when my mom left the other day.

The other show was last night, and featured three bands, two of which I saw. I went with a couple of old friends, Allan and Steve. We got to the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco in the middle of the first band's set, but stayed outside talking until after they were done. The second band, Earthless, did a two-song set comprised of one monstrous seventies inspired instrumental jam and a shorter song with vocals. The drummer was pretty incredible. The guitarist wheedled on a bit though. Minor quibbles aside, they were enjoyable.
Om headlined. This time, unlike their show last month, I could hear the vocals, which had a mantra-like quality to them. The absence of a guitarist is not an issue here. The wall of sludge created by the bass and drums is more than enough to satisfy. I'm looking forward to hearing the cd when it's released in February on Holy Mountain records.

Today, it was hot and I worked at the museum. No more summer camp. Too bad.




These are the final two pictures in a series of 125. At least for the present.

I forgot to mention that I finally found out what the instrument I always refer to as "that wooden recorder-like instrument" is actually called. It's a tarka. People had been asking me what it was so often that I finally got online and researched it. Pretty easy actually - I just typed in "Bolivian musical instruments" and ten minutes (or so) later I had my answer. I feel pretty silly that it took me a decade of owning the damn thing to find out what it was.

And now, you must find the lizard.

The sun has set on the last day of summer camp. This morning, the fog that has kept me company on the way to work for the bulk of the week was mostly missing. We started things off by making small compost columns out of plastic bottles - a portable compost pile! What will they think of next? The rest of the day was largely given over to hiking and playing a variation of hide-and-seek called camouflage. The seeker had to stay put, and could do nothing more than rotate in place. The hiders had to hide in such a way that they could be visible, at least in part, to the diligent seeker. Afterwards, with very little time to spare, we went and visited the Pacific Giant Salamander larvae in the creek. The kids wanted to name the one we caught, so I told them that it was a wild animal and didn't need a human name. They persisted, so when I put it back in the creek, it was saddled with a name. "Squirmy". Good God.

One of the girls told me that when I played music that it made her happy and glad to be alive. Everybody had a great last day - even the immature genius. We had more good discussions about the need for wilderness and the need for wilderness protection. This was the only camp all year that was old enough to really get into this type of discussion. It felt good to really get deeply into the matter and not just scratch the surface like I had to do with most of the other camps.

So now I'm semi-unemployed. I only have one part-time job. This has to change soon. Tonight I wrote yet another cover letter for a position that looks like it won't start until late September. I don't quite meet the qualifications either, but I think the experience I do have substitutes quite nicely. We'll see. I will apply for others too. We're a bit stressed though.

Times are interesting. It's too early to tell whether it's a curse or a blessing. I've just noticed that I can do all sorts of crazy stuff with the text too. ha ha.

Once a year, towards the end of summer, the more or less monthly staff meeting at the museum becomes a party. This year it was a karaoke party, which made me less than enthusiastic... until I noticed that there were some Black Sabbath songs in the karaoke book... A co-worker joined me in a rousing rendition of "War Pigs", which hopefully won't ruin my chances of securing one of the coveted full-time positions there (As a member of the floor staff, I work less than 20 hours a week) that recently got posted.
Jen and the kids were all there too. Lexy, with the help of a musuem staff member, sang a couple of songs - "Zip a dee doo dah" and "All Star" by that band Mushmouth or Fatmouth or whatever they're called. He did a really good job too - much better than most of the adults. Nathan, with a little help from me and some hinderance from The Dickens, sang "Twinkle, twinkle little star". The Dickens pouted and shouted and threw her inflatable microphone to the ground before stomping off stage - all because nobody would let her near the real microphones. Somebody commented that she was acting like a real rock star. Willow splashed in the decorative fountain, which is really more of a decorative rivulet, perfect for floating those little pencils (at every table for signing up for karaoke songs) in and watching them go over the waterfall at the end.

Okay, gotta go get cookies out of the oven. Bye.

The computer is being extra slow tonight. I'm sure a species became extinct somewhere in the world during the time it took to load the blogger page. That's sad in many ways.

Speaking of extinction, the deer population at Sanborn Park is one individual closer to it. There was a dead deer out in front of the visitor center this morning. It didn't look like it had been attacked - it was just sort of laying there with its head thrown back and its eyes half open. The ranger came and removed it before the kids arrived.
This week, I have nine campers, although so far only eight have shown up at the same time. There seems to be some kind of illness going around again. One of the kids is sort of surly and fed up with being shipped off to various camps every week for the whole summer. Another one is really intelligent, and reads Scientific American when he isn't tackling complicated calculus problems (or so he says). He does seem to know a lot of things that I'm surprised an elementary school kid knows. He's also an athiest and hates the president, which is fun. As a whole, this group seems to like discussing politics, which I allow as long as it doesn't stray too far from the environmental issues we're studying. Now if I can just keep the surly kid from needling the smart one and making him shout, maybe we'll make it through the week with our collective sanity intact.
At the end of camp, we found half a rat. A Yellowjacket had bellied up to the open end and was feasting away. Some of the kids thought this was interesting...

It's hot.

We did end up going to the beach after all, but not before we stopped in at the new library so the boys could check out a stack of books and videos. The Dickens threw a minor, "you're a stupid poopoo and I hate you," fit when denied vending machine goodies, and Willow decided that all of the books in the children's section looked much better on the floor.

We left the 90 degree heat of the valley and headed over the hill to the beach, which was fogged in. A steady wind blew mist and sand across the beach while the girls shivered. I gave The Dickens my sweater to wear, and it was so big on her that she could tuck her feet inside it. I tied the sleeves around her to keep it in place. We met up with some friends there, who went and got a large pizza for us to share. The seagulls thought that this included them, so hovered above us waiting for an opportunity to make off with anything that looked unguarded.
We decided to pack it in and convene back at our friends' house for ice cream and a fire in their outdoor fireplace. I finally got to try garlic ice cream, which is much better than you might think. The banana ice cream was pretty good too. The kids (between the two families, there were 7) all had a great time. The whole scene brought to mind a tribe sitting around their campfire at night. We sang songs and told stories and relaxed (as much as you can relax when 7 small children are bouncing all over the place, anyway). Good times.

Tomorrow I start the final week of the summer camp season. It's a camp called Wild Wonders, and is kind of a general overview of subjects that naturalists study.

I was so wet after the last day of the Wet & Wild camp that it took me several hours to dry. Since it was warm, I didn't mind much. This came about because we played with water balloons, and because of an activity that is meant to show kids how we all take our water supply for granted - in other words, we hauled lots of water up a hill, pretending that we were villagers taking bathwater to a very smelly chief who lived up on top of the mountain. Of course, the kids discovered that there was a faucet at the top of the hill (an expansive lawn on a slope) and used it to keep refilling their cups so they could soak me. Definitely a good way to keep cool on a warm day.

Today, we're just kind of hanging around until we figure out what to do. The boys don't want to go to the beach for some reason. We might go to the library instead.

I'm listening to the new Eleni Karaindrou soundtrack for Theo Angelopoulos' The Weeping Meadow. This has the same lonely melancholy feel that her other scores have, with drifting sounds provided by violin, piano, accordion, harp, lyra, double bass, french horn, violincello, and the Hellenic Vocal Ensemble. Jen says that every time she hears Karaindrou, she pictures Harvey Keitel, due to his appearance in Angelopoulos' Ulysses' Gaze, also scored, of course, by Karaindrou. Beautiful music for gray, rainy days or, as the case is here, imagining gray, rainy days.

Two more pictures. I only have two more to draw after this, and then I'm done illustrating the 125 stories I have so far written for the OAC. Then I'll have to go back to thinking about what to draw next.

I caught a Gopher Snake today - a really beautiful one with some orange along the sides. One of the campers spotted it crawling onto the asphalt of the private road near our table, so I picked it up and showed it around before letting it go in the garden. One of the little boys nearby reached down after it, but it vibrated its tail and hissed at him, thus giving everybody a demonstration of how Gopher Snakes mimic Rattlesnakes.

I also handed over a couple of resumes in the hopes of getting a job or two. Fingers crossed.

I took the kids on a longer hike today. We went up past the campgrounds and on up the hill. The same two girls as yesterday were up in front most of the time. I caught a small scorpion that I found under a board near the apex of the hike. It ran up and down my arms with its little pinchers held out in front. They're so cute when they do that. Most of the kids thought it was really cool. A couple were a bit less sure.

We buried Lucky the rat in the backyard today. The kids are still really upset about her death. It's funny in a way. They think it's really cool when the Python or the Water Monitor are eating one, but if you name one and put it in cage of it's own, it quickly becomes a member of the family. R.I.P. Lucky.

Two more days of camp this week, and five days next week. Then it's over.

I'm listening to T.A.C. "Twilight Rituals" right now, softly so it doesn't keep the little ones up. I saw them in France around nine years ago, and can't believe it's been nearly a decade since I first went overseas. I remember the guitarist kept apologizing because he had recently broken his arm (or something) and felt that his playing wasn't up to snuff. It sounded fine to me, but what do I know?. The music on the cd I'm currently listening is kind of glitchy, but vaguely nocturnal sounding. Distant voices, mostly female, singing behind fractured melodies. Quite calming, actually. It sounds a bit like Coil in spots.

The Pacific Giant Salamander babies still populate the cold, mountain creek up at Sanborn Park. I took the campers on a hike today to visit them. Two of the campers are strong hikers. Most of the rest are not. They did think the salamanders were pretty cool, although at least one of the kids seemed to think that the Water Striders were cooler. Oh well. I try.

I got a couple of new tires today, and got the leak fixed. I also wrote a couple of cover letters, mailed the rent, and sent some money to a friend on the east coast (for spare tickets sold in Toronto in June), picked up the backyard, read some books to the boys... The boys needed some gentle book reading time because Lucky the rat finally succumbed to old age. At least I assume it was old age. The boys are pretty broken up about it. We'll bury her in the backyard tomorrow sometime.

Nate says my job makes me fart because I work for the Youth Science Insti-toot. The boy's a comedian.

The girls outnumber the boys 6 to 1 in this week's camp, so you'd think things would be a little calmer. Not so. The girls seem to delight in trying to climb me and the camp aide, or jumping on our shoulders when we least expect it. The boys seem a little dubious about being in a camp of mostly girls. Water is the main focus of the week, so we did the introductory stuff today, with detours to look at newts and millipedes and frogs - all which can be easily linked to the subject at hand. Then again, so can anything living.

The littlest girl kept belching really loudly, as if trying to make up for her lack of height with sheer volume.

I had a flat tire this morning which defeated my bicycle pump. Time to throw the pump away. It leaks worse than the tire does. That's what I get for using it to pump up car tires for the last decade or so. This is only as a last resort. If I have any of that "fix-a-flat" stuff, I use it. I would have thought that this particular tire was filled solid with the stuff by now. No such luck. Perhaps I'll actually go get it repaired tomorrow.

We stayed close to home today because, let's face it, the only time we can really get anything done is when the older kids are at their dad's house. We spent the whole day cleaning, typing, and running little errands. I feel more or less prepared for this week's camp, and more or less prepared to send my resume out into the hands of prospective employers. This month is going to be a little stressful, since I probably won't know towards the end of it whether or not I've gotten a new job. I feel sort of like I used to feel in college, with finals approaching. Hopefully, in a month or less, I'll be able to replace this feeling with the one that follows the end of finals - giddy relief.

The crickets are madly singing in the scorpion cage. Not all of the kids are asleep yet. Willow's teeth have been bugging her. I can hear her fussing in the other room. It's almost like everybody else is becoming nocturnal now that I'm finally on a diurnal schedule. Perhaps I should become strictly crepuscular. I like sunsets. It's the in between times that are the most interesting, because they lead to something new.

More images, both from autobiographical vignettes - one involving a venomous snake, and the other involving fanaticism.

Camp is over for another week, with only two weeks remaining. I had a good group this week, with no kids standing out in a bad way. As with the previous week, they really liked making art from whatever was at hand in their immediate surroundings. The paper mache masks came out much better too, because I didn't let them use paint. The previous group used paint almost to the exclusion of all else.

Jeremy the computer doctor came by to take a look at our ailing computer, and recommended that we download all of the Windows updates that we'd been ignoring for the last year or so. He also found a virus, and said that at some point soon he's going to take our computer home with him for a day or two to really fix things up. That should help. In some ways, with the updates all updated, things are working a little better, but things are not perfect yet. We luddites continue to blink stupidly in the overwhelming glare of technology.

I've been listening to lots of weird hippie pagan folk type stuff lately. Banjos are cool. Anything that evokes the back porch of a cabin situated somewhere in an isolated mountain range under a waning moon slowly sinking into the predawn mists... you get the idea. Somewhere where life can be lived according to natural cycles, not alarm clocks or time clocks or any other sort of clock. I'm tired and still battling a cold. We've all been taking turns being grouchy so far this weekend, although there have been bright spots. I drew a picture over a few days during the week, mostly to demonstrate different drawing techniques for my camp, using a marker, charcoal pencil, crayon, and paint. Today I asked Lexy if he would like to add to it, which he did. He was complaining about how he didn't like what he was doing, so I told him that he should never worry about the end result of his art - just have fun and relax. It helped him, and he drew a great tree, with accompanying bee hive (spilling honey) and bees (preparing to sting the smiling woman standing nearby). Pretty cool.

We did a multi-family garage sale over at K's house (on a busy street) and managed to offload a few more bits an pieces of clutter. One of my coworkers from the museum stopped by, lured by the playstructure in the driveway that had unfortunately been sold already.

Granny came over last night and set up a large tent in the backyard so that she and the boys could camp out. Normally, I would have been out there too, but I was feeling tired and grouchy, so I went to bed early. Only Granny and Lexy slept outside all night, with the younger kids all opting for the comforts of beds. I miss camping, but I think I'll wait until we can go someplace with stars and the smell of the woods.

It looks like the windows updates may have fixed my inability to upload images. Let's see.

Today was a day when campers found many small objects on the ground and wanted to take them home. The bits of bark and leaf we used to make little picture frames for the polaroids we had taken (multiple shots of a hapless family of coots), the fish hooks I made them hand over to me... and the dead lizard - I never thought I'd have to tell somebody that they couldn't take a dead lizard home. That's just common sense, isn't it?

At the museum, we combined several types of paint, some shaving cream, corn oil, and gak (borax, clear glue, water, and food coloring) with our hands to make an unholy concoction that resembled, both in texture and color, pond scum. The kids absolutely loved it!

The job gods have offered me a glint of light at the end of the tunnel. It may even not be a train. We'll see.

I have a cold. I hate that.

Now, not only do some parents pick their kids up late from camp, but one dad brought two kids 25 minutes early, right in the middle of our prep time. He asked if he could leave them at the table, to which both I and the camp aide replied that he couldn't. He left them anyway. That shows a considerable amount of disrespect, if you ask me. It doesn't matter if he's late for work either. I took the kids into the center so that somebody could watch them until we were ready for them. The lady who runs the office got right on the phone and laid down the law to whoever was on the other end. I'm not sure if it was the mother or the father. I'll bet he doesn't try that stunt tomorrow. It's always nice to have merciless office folk do your dirty work.

Later, I found myself on the campus where I went to college. I wanted to check out their career center for job postings. For a mere 25 bucks, I can now check it out online. It was strange, though, being back there. I walked past the concrete bench where I had been sitting when the '89 earthquake happened. I remember that day quite well. I had been drinking a slurpee and got knocked on my ass when I stood up in surprise.

Ah, memories. The campus looks much better now. All of the construction that seemed to be constantly interfering with my walks between classes has been completed.

Goodnight.

It looks like another week of campers who like to draw, so things should go well. I had the kids do several different kinds of drawings today, and we hiked around the lake a bit, discovering some turtles and some sort of Kingfisher-like bird along the way. It was pretty hot, and the kids were feeling it. One boy came with a backpack full of water, complete with a drinking tube slung over his shoulder so he could constantly sip. The only drawback was that he had to pee every 20 minutes or so. I hope he doesn't bring the damn thing tomorrow because I don't want the whole week taken up by bathroom breaks.

I've been noticing that most of the kids in my camps seem to have every summer week taken up with some camp or other. Some of them have several activities every day. One boy today told my that he not only plays violin, but has done so at some sort of concert in Europe. I can believe it. Why is it that parents feel the need to push children to learn so much so fast? Why do they also shuttle them off to multiple camps every summer? A lot of the kids seem pretty burned out by all of the activity. Of course, letting them rot in front of the TV for three months isn't acceptable either. Where's the happy medium? Perhaps it has been chased away by the angry extreme.

I'd better post this before it disappears.

Another week has gone by somehow. The mornings, for the most part, have been pleasantly overcast, with fog drifting over the hills. This week's camp was called Wild Images, which I also taught for two weeks last year, and will be teaching again next week. It's one of my favorite camps to teach because it brings art into the mix. We spent a lot of time drawing, making paper mache masks, and creating strange structures in the woods using large redwood branches. The latter was the near unanimous favorite.

I went and saw Neurosis on Wednesday, and found myself immersed in over two hours of doom-laden sludge, tempered a bit about halfway through by the sultry vocalizations of Jarboe. This is doom with a purpose though. It's a cathartic attack against the spiritual emptiness and soulless consumerism so rampant in mainstream culture. Time well spent, I say. I was so energized by their performance that I managed to drive home without coffee, despite the fact that I had worked a ten hour day between my two jobs.

Last night, M. and I went to see Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Moe!kestra. the Moe!kestra were crammed into every available cranny on the main floor and balcony of the club, so as to surround us with a cacaphony (interspersed with some quiet, droning bits) that culminated in the wailing sounds of air raid sirens. I've got to remember to bring my ear plugs. I hadn't seen Sleepytime Gorilla Museum in quite some time, so nearly half of their set was new to me, and all quite fantastic in their usual lunatic fringe sort of way. More time well spent, I say.

We washed our cars today, which is something I got out of the habit of doing during one of the water shortages during the nineties. The things that the stress of imminent poverty will drive you to do... The job search continues.

Let's see if this post will be lost or if it will, wonder of wonders, actually be published.

We finished the second Jurassic Giants camp by "exploding" volcanos all over our table, using the baking soda/vinegar method, mixed with enough red food coloring to make the porch around our table resemble the scene of some horrific slaughter. The kids all screamed so loud with excitement that people came out of the center to make sure everybody was all right. I also did an animal program with the other Jurassic Giants instructor. She brought her coffee drinking cockatoo, Jackie Chan, and I brought my Water Monitor, who made Jackie Chan so nervous that he puffed up his feathers in order to make himself look like he was of inedible size.

On thursday, M. and I went up to Oakland to see the live debut of Om, who are a duo consisting of Al and Chris, late of the band Sleep. The amplification was excessive in all the right ways, with enough snarling bass and crashing drums to completely satisfy everybody's need for loudness. In addition to seeing Al, who I've known since he was a kid and worked with at two different jobs, and Chris, who I hadn't seen in a decade or so, I ran into Doug, who I used to sing backing vocals with in a band that was fronted by one of my current co-workers, Mary, who we had last seen in Toronto and had just gotten back from the 32,000 mile solo road trip that had taken her there, Jeff, who I hadn't seen since last year's Current 93 shows in San Francisco, and Allan, who I had worked with at Tower Books nearly a decade ago, and who was just recovering from a botched vasectomy that had left him unable to wear pants. Lots of talking was done. Especially interesting was the fact that Doug lives up in Willits (am I spelling that right?) at the end of a 30 minute drive down a dirt road, in a small community where everybody actually cooperates with one another. It was good to see all of these people again.
We also popped up to Berkeley, where I got into a discussion about hair with an old hippie who just happened to be walking the same way as us. His hair was actually a good foot longer than mine, which is unusual.

Okay, I'd better publish this before the computer freezes up and I have to start over again. Goodnight.

Our computer is still ailing.

This week's group of campers is even more rambunctious than the last group, but the location is better, being up in the hills and in amongst the trees. I even had a "teachable moment" (as they say in the education business) with half a dead newt. One of the kids walked up to me holding this little, dried out husk of a newt, minus back legs and tail. I got all of the kids to pretend that they were paleontologists, and that the newt was a new discovery. We then reconstructed what this "discovery" must have looked like by substituting bits of twig for the missing appendages, in much the same way that many scientists must fill in the blanks with dinosaur skeletons.

Near the end of the second day of camp, as I was juggling two activities at our table, a woman approached me and asked me my name. I told her, and she responded by telling me that she'd just been stung by an insect (a yellowjacket, she thought) and was having an allergic reaction. I quickly walked her inside to the office attached to the visitor's center. By this time, she had raised welts all over her body, and was having difficulty breathing. I found out from her that this was the first time she'd ever been stung, and that she wasn't sure whether it had been a wasp or a bee. The woman who was in charge of the center called the ranger, and 911. I could tell she was afraid, and my heart went out to her. She said that she'd been trying to deal with it herself, but it had just kept getting worse. I can relate to that. When I get injured or sick, I'll do my best not to involve doctors (this is only partially due to the fact that I don't have medical insurance). This woman was swiftly coming to (or had already come to) the realization that this was a bit too serious to keep to herself. The paramedics showed up quickly, and I had to get back to my campers, and then on to my afternoon duties at the museum.
Today I found out that the woman's husband had stopped by the center later on in the afternoon to say thanks for helping save his wife's life. It turns out that she'd been camping up the hill at one of the parks campgrounds, and wasn't the mother of one of our campers, which is what I'd assumed. At any rate, I'm glad that she's okay, because I was pretty worried about her. It feels good to have had a part, however small, in helping somebody like that. It makes me want to go take CPR classes so that I can be of use in similar situations in the future.

Time to go for now.

Another quick post, in order to get it published before the computer seizes up...

The van has now made it there and back again on not one, but two longish trips. Yesterday we went to Santa Cruz to splash about in the water at the beach, and today we went to San Francisco to see Algerian singer Souad Massi and Mexican/American singer Lila Downs at the Stern Grove festival (free concerts for 67 years and counting...). Both were excellent, and Willow very much enjoyed it, especially since we were seated next to some kids who were close to her in age. Stern Grove itself is a beautiful area, surrounded by huge Eucalyptis, Laurel, and Pine trees. The attendees were varied in the way that only a coastal city can provide. The atmosphere was relaxed and joyful. The weather was nicely overcast, with fog drifting through the treetops.

I went to the church again today, and wearing the cool bug hat that Jen's mom got me, taught small children about insects, arachnids, and snakes. One little boy roared at the cockroaches, sounding for all the world like The Dickens or Willow, who also enjoy roaring. That reminds me of when I was leaving the church yesterday. Right after handing the local cockroaches back to the administrative assistant, I got in my car and what should be playing? La Cucaracha, of course. The new version by Lila Downs, who we plan to see up in S.F. this weekend.

Okay, let's see if this posts...

The girls are shrieking and running up and down the hall with Willow's new "B", or ball, as the adults call it. The grownups wish that they'd go to sleep.

I got paid $75 to teach a church summer camp about bugs today. The administrative assistant brought in a couple of bugs that she'd found in the neighborhood, to see if I could identify them. It only took a glance. "Cockroaches," I told her. She didn't look to pleased with that particular bit of information. They want me to come back tomorrow for the classes that didn't get to see me today.

The computer has been acting up, and I've lost a few posts before I could publish them. So you might never read this. We'll see.

Is the third time actually the charm, or am I just wasting my time here? The last two times I've attempted to publish it hasn't worked, resulting in my post being sucked away into the informational vortex, to be lost forever from the sight of human beings. Our computer at home is suffering from petit mal seizures, and who knows why it didn't work when I tried it at work...

I got to see somebody accidentally reveal their concealed weapon at the pet store the other day. A woman was using her ballpoint pen to sign for her purchase when it broke in half, revealing a rather nasty looking knife hidden within. She sheepishly fumbled it back together while maintaining, "you didn't see that!". I laughed.

Once I got home, I started feeding the reptiles. As I was dangling a large rat in front of the python, he struck and missed, falling halfway out of his cage and latching onto my knee while the rat continued to dangle unscathed several feet above. There followed a period of time during which I lurched around the room with a snake trying to eat my knee and coiling around my head and neck. I shouted for Jen to get the camera so I could add to my collection of "how not to hold your pets" photos, but Jen was too worried about me to comply, and instead brought me some water which I dumped on the python's head to make him uncomfortable enough to let go. I had to help him unhook his teeth, and then Lexy filmed the aftermath, with running commentary.

I worked today, and got paid twice as much for it because of the holiday! That helps. I now have to park in a parking garage a couple of blocks away because the neighborhood I've been parking in is now "permit only". At least the parking garage is free for museum employees, and the walk from the garage takes me along the river. I saw a large Heron sitting on rock on my way back to my car after work. It's good to see Herons hanging around.

My first week of camp is over, and next week will be relatively calm since I will actually only be working at one job (as opposed to three, like the first few days of this week). I do have one little extra bit of work this following week though. I have been asked back to a summer camp at a local church to teach the kids about bugs.

Today, I brought the Water Monitor, and both Jurassic Giants camps got a chance to see him. I'm a little bit more reluctant to let kids get too close to him since he bit me at that birthday party earlier this year. It's better to play it safe. Despite the fact that the kids couldn't closely interact with him, he was popular. They thought it was pretty cool that he eats hotdogs. Our group also got to see a large red-eared slider in the lake. Yet another non-native species blatantly basking in the California sun. Nearby, the large wasp nest by the spillway was missing its lower half. I wonder if kids with rocks are responsible.

Over all, these kids were pretty knowledgable about dinosaurs, but since the average age was 5, they tended to wander and toss rocks and sticks when they thought that I or my camp aide wasn't looking. The two girls felt a bit outnumbered by the eleven boys. One of them kept pointing out that I had hair like a girl, and then trying to braid it at every opportunity. One of the boys needed his hand held whenever we went down paths where poison oak was present. One boy went home with a stomach ache, and then the next day had a nosebleed that dripped all over his jacket. One boy had an obsession with dirt and rocks, and was forever picking up large handfuls of dusty dirt which blew everywhere. He also shouted a lot.

It was a lot of fun though. On one of the windy days I gave up trying to do any activities involving paper, and ended up just throwing handfuls of shredded newspaper in the air and having the kids chase it like velociraptors chasing prey. I haven't yet come up with an activity to illustrate how ambush predators hunt, but I'm working on it.

Next week should give me a chance to catch up on sleep.

It's strange not having to go to work tonight. It just feels like the weekend. I'm sure I'll get used to it though.

I'm too tired to really enjoy the extra time tonight, but am looking forward to days to come. We have great plans to whip the house into shape and get organized around here. And while we're doing that, I'm going to be hunting for a job. I think I'll have to take the same approach to job hunting that I take when I play music or draw - don't worry about the outcome, just do it. It's so easy to get wrapped up in worry, and when that happens the endeavor suffers.

Overheard in the Early Childhood Center at the museum today, as a little boy played with the new plastic dinosaurs: "This one's killed. It goes in the killed pile."

The scorpions are rattling around in their cage, no doubt annoyed that I dragged them with me to not one, but two jobs today. I took them to science camp because they tied in with the "living fossils" theme I had planned for the day, and then on to the museum afterwards. They've been around for roughly 400 million years, which predates the dinosaurs by over 150 million years, and outlasts them by another 65 million. It's kind of comforting to share our room with such a successful lifeform. It is possible that the trick to their longevity as a species is that they haven't changed much. Of course, by that reasoning, one might infer that the human race is doomed.

Goodnight.

At exactly 1:08 am, I threw my last paper out the window and watched it bounce across a parking lot. I am no longer a paperboy.

The accompanying ritual for this event involved listening to Hellhound's "Ice Age" cd. This is because their bass player was instrumental (pun probably intended) in me becoming a paperboy in the first place. This was back in 1988, when he mentioned to me that he was quitting his Wall St. Journal route, and wondered if I'd be interested in taking over. So here I am, 16 years later, listening to him play music on my last night of work. During this time, Hellhound (who haven't existed in almost as long a time) went from being a cutting edge heavy metal band (the thrash metal genre was still in its infancy) to sounding "old school". Not that this is a bad thing, of course. Real music defies genres. Real people defy genres as well. ...and tired people ramble.

cds I listened to as I emptied my car of newspapers for the last time: Eric Mcfadden "Devil Moon", Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter "Oh, My Girl", Steve Von Till "If I Should Fall to the Field", Hellhound "Ice Age", and Tim Eriksen "Every Sound Below"

The first day of the Jurassic Giants science camp was a whirlwind of energy. The camp contains 2 girls and 11 boys, all of whom like running. One of the girls kept reminding me that I had long hair and looked like a girl. This didn't stop her from trying to braid it though. One of the boys gave me a hug when it was time to go. The wind was blowing hard enough to prevent us from doing any activities that involved paper. The boys mainly wanted to play with the big rubber dinosaurs I had placed on the table. I think I'll leave them inside tomorrow because I have a feeling they're going to end up being a distraction otherwise.

Only 1 more night of delivering papers. I'd better get some sleep now.

cds I listened to while wrapping up a 12 hour work day: Ex-Girl "Luna Rose", Circle "Guillotine", Cruachan "Pagan", Pharaoh Overlord "The Battle of the Axehammer (live)", and Stone Breath "The Silver Skein Unwound"

The paper route already seems like a memory, even though I'm still doing it. There's a distinct sense of unreality involved, as I suppose there is every time any major life change happens. Some of the carriers are busy learning routes up in San Francisco, and I'm glad I'm not one of them. I think this job has held me back in a number of ways over the years, even though the pay has been nice.

Okay, I'm going to sleep now. I work all three jobs for the next couple of days. Only two more nights of paper delivery!

cds I listened to on the first day of the last week of nocturnal employment: Current 93 "Crooked Crosses for the Nodding God", L'Orchestre Noir "11", Devendra Banhart "Rejoicing In The Hands", and Akasau "s/t"

On Saturday, our last full day in Toronto, we wandered around. We met Steve down the street at his hotel, and then set out for the Eaton Center, which is where the Church of the Holy Trinity is located (where the first Cowboy Junkies album, the aptly titled "Trinity Session" was recorded, making it a music nerd attraction that we just couldn't pass up). The church was in the courtyard of the Eaton Center, in the shadows of towering glass and chrome monoliths. It was strange to see this beautiful, rustic little building surrounded by the cold architecture of the current age. Inside it was quiet, as if the hustling shoppers and city sounds weren't permitted entry. A true sanctuary, if only from crowds and noise.
We ate breakfast across the way, and then went back to Steve's hotel to fetch the moose eating barbarian known only as Kugelberg. This accomplished, we set out again, only to be sucked into a series of record stores. I only succumbed to my addiction in the last one, where I purchased three cds, all used, and all with Canadian money which, as everybody knows, isn't worth the paper it's printed on (some German record collectors once told us that about our own currency, so I just had to turn around and do it to somebody else). Right before we visited this last record store, we went to the Bata Shoe Museum, which proved to be more interesting that it sounds. There were shoes from all eras. The ancient ones were the most interesting to me - I think because it's one of those things I don't often find myself thinking about. History books often leave out information about every-day items like shoes. The low point of the museum was the room full of the shoes of prominent people. Not interesting. ...And they only had one pair of Imelda Marcos' shoes. If they had all of them, it might have been interesting. But one pair? Not really.
As we walked around, several people (members of a fiesty octogenerian tour group, I think) commented on Willow's shoes, giving them their approval.
Then, all of a sudden, it was time to head back towards the venue for a third night of music. Near the venue, we stopped in some stores. Willow decided that she didn't want to be inside - in fact she seemed determined to walk into the street. We walked for a bit until we came upon a large circle of drummers. They weren't exactly taiko drummers - they had what appeared to be oversized marching band drums, and there was a guy conducting as well. Willow loved it. She danced and clapped, and then sat down and polished off the rest of our blueberries.
Soon we were back at the venue. Current 93's set was again markedly different from the previous nights, which is a good thing because at previous groups of concerts the set hadn't varied much from night to night. Another surprise was that Mary, who we had met last year at the Current 93 concerts in San Francisco, and then again in Portland, had driven out from Portland. Current 93 has always attracted people who will go to great lengths to see them. These concerts were no exception, and well worth the travelling.
Afterwards we hung around for a bit, talking and just generally being glad to be on vacation. Matt, Greg, and Dawn, along with Steve, went off to another concert (Green Milk from the Planet Orange), while Jen, Willow, and I went back to the hotel to get a bit of alone time.

And all of a sudden we're all back home, and as usual there are a million things that need being done. I think first on the list is sleep. Next week I only have to deliver three editions of the Wall St. Journal, and then no more. My first YSI camp starts monday as well. Not to mention that I'm working at the museum four days. I think I forgot to leave time to sleep. Blog entries may be sporadic at best next week.

cds I listened to while still being tired: Salty the Pocketknife "s/t", Mourning Cloak "In Dreams You See", Lubricated Goat "Paddock of Love", Michael Gira "I Am Singing to you From My Room", Nurse With Wound "Angry Eelectric Finger (Spitch Cock One)", and Thee Silver Mountain Reveries "Pretty Little Lightning Paw"

Where was I? Oh, yeah...

On friday we met up with the recordists, and after rides on trolleys, subways, and a ferry boat, found ourselves on an island in Lake Ontario. While waiting for the ferry, Willow partook in her latest passion: chasing pigeons. From that moment on, she pointed out every pigeon we passed. The island itself was green, with drifting clouds of fluff giving it a magical quality. Sherry entertained us with a story of the time she saw a cat covered in little drifts of the stuff - it had evidently been sitting in the same place too long. I'm not sure which type of plant it was coming from.
We wandered a bit, swung on some swings, and splashed in the water. On the way back to the ferry, the place that sold ice cream closed just before we could get to it. Those evil, evil people.

Current 93 played longer than the previous night, including more new material in the set. The pianist, Graham, who I found out was David's neighbor (which meant I'd met his kids) even played one song on the church's old pipe organ. Jen had to spend the majority of the time outside with Willow, who couldn't quietly contain her excitement about the proceedings. I felt a little guilty about this, but she turned down my offers to switch places with her. She got to sit on the lawn and drink beers with Steve, who was also lurking outside. Willow continued to attract admiring attention. On the way back to the hotel, the prostitutes who were hanging out down the street said she was a "cute baby". It just goes to show that people from all walks of life are in agreement about Willow.

More Toronto tomorrow. I now only have 4 more delivery days left. Next week will be interesting, since I start science camp as well. There is a three day overlap, which means for the first part of the week I will get very little sleep.

cds I listened to while realizing that at the end of next week I won't be a paperboy anymore: 50 Foot Wave "s/t", Simon Finn "Silent City Creep", Rasputina "Frustration Plantation", Demi Semi Quaver "???/After Cherry", Christdriver "Everything Burns", Cowboy Junkies "In the Time Before Llamas", and The Does/Breathe Stone "Sleep Deprivation Blues/Crow Omens"

It had stopped raining by the time we all rousted ourselves from our stupors, so we decided to venture out onto the streets of Toronto. Our first impression was that it was kind of dingy - all of the local architecture seemed to have sprouted during the sixties. Later we would discover that this was due to the neighborhood we were in. The city is actually an intriguing hodge-podge of the old and new, with beautiful old buildings (mostly churches) resting in the shadows of the sleek, modern glass edifices of some of the tallest buildings I've seen, and presided over by the blinking finger of the CN Tower. Down below, we cast about for a restaurant, but the only one that looked like it held promise turned out to be dingy and virtually deserted inside. We kept walking, heading towards St. George the Martyr Anglican church, where Current Ninety Three were due to perform later. We trudged down Queen Street, which seemed to be the place for aimless groups of young people to gather - with its bars and establishments such as "Condom shack" to entice people in. Finally we arrived at John st., and the church, which proved to be a nice, old brick structure complete with a lush green courtyard and ivy covered tower. A few people already milled around outside. We decided to check out the courtyard, and were quickly spotted by David, who let us in. He introduced us to (among others) Simon Finn, who was also slated to play later. These were his first gigs in roughly thirty years, and somewhere along the line he had attracted a TV documentary crew, who barged around the church with their equipment, seemingly randomly interviewing attendees for the first two nights. Willow got filmed, so will be seen on TV in Canada at some point. Maybe. She sure was excited to be there though.
As the doors opened and the hall filled, we ran into more people we knew. Some of them came from quite far away. Nigel, who drives a tube train in London, was there. Jose came from Portugal. Some guy came from Mexico, but didn't have a ticket for friday night, which meant I could sell one of the extra tickets that a friend who couldn't make it to the show had sent me. Steve wandered in and regaled us with tales of cod, the fishing and preparing of which is the only industry on the island he's been staying at up in the arctic circle. He has been making sound art using whatever is handy on the island, such as ship graveyards and whatnot. The works in progress are then broadcast over the island's one radio channel, interrupting broadcasts of bingo games and other exciting things, and no doubt really pissing off anybody attempting to play bingo. He clued us in on an interesting occupation as well - cod sniffer. The island is apparently home to a champion cod sniffer, whose job it is to smell cod and sort it according to quality. All of the best cod goes to Italy.
But I digress. The show itself was great. Simon Finn opened, and reminded me of Leonard Cohen. Jen thought he sounded a bit like Nick Drake. He played songs from his 1969 record and some new ones as well. Next up was Six Organs of Admittance, which for these shows was just Ben Chasny, who is an amazing guitar player, but appears very humble and shy on stage. He was wearing a summer science camp shirt, which is kind of funny since I'm going to be teaching summer science camp next week. He said he got it in Santa Cruz, where he currently resides, but has never taught science camp. His set was short, possibly due to his desire to see Current 93, who he had never seen before. Current 93 also did a relatively short set, which included mostly old songs, a rousing rendition of "Lucifer Over London," and David singing a couple of Simon Finn's songs while Simon played guitar. Right before the encore, Willow shouted out, "yeah! yeah! yeah!" and received applause from the audience.
Afterwards, we decided to go eat. The recordists, William and Sherry (sp?) took us to a nice chinese restaurant. The staff took a liking to Willow and gave her lots of fortune cookies and a green lollipop, which made her sticky.


to be continued...

Oh, and only five more delivery days left...

cds I listened to while delivering: Current 93 "The Courtyard/Jerusalem", Ex-Girl "Endangered Species", Orphaned Land "Mabool", Simon Finn "Pass the Distance", Finntroll "Nattfodd", and Sainkho Namtchylak "Who Stole the Sky?"

Willow slept most of the way to Newark. The plane was pretty full, and very cramped, so neither Jen nor I got any sleep. The trip from Newark to Toronto took just under an hour. Matt and Greg had beaten us there, but we had beaten Dawn, who was due to land at another terminal. We found her in due time, and soon found ourselves on a shuttle heading for the city proper. The air was sticky and rainy, with humidity levels one would expect to find in the tropics. The shuttle driver, like many professional drivers, was loudly contemptuous of the skills of his fellow drivers as we wound our way towards our destination. As we passed the massive, phallic CN Tower, he opined that the microwaves emanating from it were cooking the brains of his fellow bus drivers. The tower itself is quite impressive, even if one discounts our driver's theory. It looms over the city like a lightning rod.
The shuttle dropped us off, not at our hotel, but at one down the street (we would later find out that various friends are staying there). We grab our bags and slog through the rain. Our hotel looms ahead. It is a college dorm masquerading as a hotel during the summer months. Dawn and Greg are on the fifth floor. Matt, Jen, Willow and I are on the tenth. In our room, somebody has written the words, "hello" and "batman" on the bulletin board. College life in Toronto must be rather dull, if this is anything to go by. Underwhelmed by the graffiti, we promptly collapsed on our beds and fell asleep.

More later...

cds I listened to while suspecting that I'm still a little jetlagged: Lilium "Short Stories", Vixen "The Works", 16 Horsepower "Sackcloth 'n' Ashes", Brightblack "ala.cali.tucky", Bohren & der Club of Gore "Black Earth", Deep Turtle "John Peel Session", "Turkele!!!" and "Tutina!", and Tara Jane Oneil "Bones"

We're home again, with the trip already seeming like some sort of dream. However, the beginning and end of this particular trip weren't particularly dreamlike. The beginning involved the van breaking down on the way to the airport. It's the same old story - stalling without warning on the freeway. The only difference was that this time we hadn't been driving the hour or so that it usually takes to trigger the problem. Jen's mom and stepdad bailed us out, ensuring that we got to the airport and the van got to the repair shop. As of this writing it is still not repaired. Willow was the only one who enjoyed this part of the trip, smiling and laughing as she was buffeted by wind from the cars whipping past us on the freeway as we all piled into Jen's mom's car. We also got to watch some crumpet-head use the shoulder as a passing lane, which instilled in us an even greater desire to remove ourselves as quickly as possible.

The trip ended with Jen's suitcase deciding to stay in Houston. Maybe it liked the 90+ degree weather and the swamplike humidity. The airline is supposed to deliver it to us tomorrow, so no real harm done.

I'll write more about the fun part of the trip when I'm less tired. I've been on the go since 6:00 am (pacific time) yesterday. After deplaning and coming home to say hi to the bigger kids, I ate, got in my car, and went to work. On the way there I saw a Hummer (or SUV - kind of hard to tell) engulfed in flames by the side of the road, helping make our car problems seem a little less severe.

cds I listened to while wishing I just could have crawled into bed: Radio Tarifa "Fiebre", Six Organs of Admittance "Compathia", The Gathering "Sleepy Buildings", and Bonfire Madigan "Plays for Change"

I'm losing my paper routes at a good time. In my delivery area there are at least four new apartment complexes being built. They're all being erected on lots that once contained office buildings, long vacated by businesses that couldn't keep their heads above the floodwaters of the recession. But those jobless individuals who made up the workforces of these businesses still need places to live, so why not build a bunch of new complexes for them to live in?

Complexes that I will never have to deliver to. Ha!

Only eight more editions to deliver. I'm not delivering any more this week because we're going to Toronto to see Current Ninety Three. I've got some extra tickets for friday and saturday night, mailed here by a friend who can't make it to the show. If anybody needs one, meet us outside the venue. We're the ones with the small child, who currently has no idea that she'll be in Canada very soon.

cds I listened to while deciding that it's too hot out: V/A "Death's Last Life's Breath", Diamanda Galas "La Serpenta Canta", Jolie Holland "Catalpa", and Penelope Houston "Snapshot"

I tried to deliver someone a Skunk Paper tonight. That's when you throw a paper so that it lands directly behind a skunk. Startled skunks sometimes stink. I'm not sure if this particular skunk sprayed the paper or not. It's kind of hard to tell.

Near home, Nate got stung on the hand by a bee. He spent a good deal of the afternoon with his hand in a bowl of ice water watching a Gamera movie.

Only nine more days of nocturnal employment left. How nice.

cds I listened to while startling skunks: Paul Chain "Unreleased vol.1", Faun Fables "Family Album", Ghost "Hypnotic Underworld", Agalloch "The Grey", and Bathory "Destroyer of Worlds"

As I got into my car to leave for work this evening, I noticed something crawling on the floor of the passenger side. It was then that I realized that they hadn't shorted me a mouse at the pet store. It had somehow managed to escape from the bag, leaving the four other mice behind. I thought for a brief moment that I should reward the little rodent for it's cleverness, but then remembered the hungry King snake. This in turn reminds me of an earlier King snake incident, involving a different snake...

On Saturday, I took the boys on a hike. We took a loop trail, upon which we found a beautiful King snake - it was chocolate brown with white bands, and was only a little irritated at being caught. It broadcast this irritation by vibrating its tail, which can sound a bit like a rattlesnake if done on dry leaves. The boys both held it, and then we watched it slide over the edge of the trail and disappear beyond a fold of land. There's nothing quite like the gracefulness of a snake in its natural habitat.

A bit later, Nate spotted a chipmunk. He's proud of that. Later, when some kids hiked past us, Lexy not-so-subtly boasted about the snake we had found. I think it's safe to say that a good time was had by all.

Tonight, I saw a whole family of skunks, with the little ones all following behind their mother.

cds I listened to while having only 10 more delivery days left: Manilla Road "Spiral Castle", Cowboy Junkies "Open", Bondage Fruit III "Recit", Ex-Girl "Luna Rose", Akasau "s/t", Bathory "Hammerheart", and Current 93 "Sleep Has His House"

I'm tired. Being at Sanborn park is good for me. I love the way the forest smells. But I'm still tired. I'm teaching one day of summer camp next week because the person who is supposed to do it isn't doing it. It's called Tiny Beasts, and will be attended by tiny children. In keeping with the theme of the camp, I will get a tiny amount of sleep the night before.

11 more days.

cds I listened to while being sleepy: Cowboy Junkies "Pale Sun Crescent Moon", CMX "Rautakantele", Circle "Guillotine", Current 93 "Earth Covers Earth", and Ether "Music For Air Raids"

I've just been looking at the calendar, and my countdown isn't correct. I actually now have 12 editions of the paper to deliver. That is, unless I'm too tired the night we get back from our upcoming mini-vacation. Some of my co-workers are contemplating delivering papers up in San Francisco, since that's the only place around where you can get a Wall St. Journal route now. I'm sure their brakes and transmissions will love them for it. I passed on that particular opportunity - I'm looking forward to cleaning all of the plastic bags and rubber bands out of my car, and being home at night. That's important.

I have to get up in few hours for another orientation meeting at another park that I'm already familiar with, but what the hell - they're paying me for it. Goodnight.

cds I listened to while looking forward to next month: Devendra Banhart "Rejoicing in the Hands", V/A "Five Lullabies from the Axis of Evil", Ragnarok (UK) "Domgeorn", B.G.K. "A Dutch Feast", Pharaoh Overlord "The Battle of the Axehammer (live)", and Bathory "Twilight of the Gods" (R.I.P. Quorthon)

I went to meetings at Youth Science Institute and the museum today. The first one was an orientation, or in the case of those of us who have been there in past years, a refresher course. There was a big wasp nest hanging way up in a tree near the dam. Inside the center, a pair of tortoises looked for a way out, and a pair of chinchillas ran circles around them in their extra large chinchilla balls (you know the sort - place small animal inside hollow, brightly-colored plastic ball and watch the fun). Cool meeting. The guy who did the outside portion of it had to leave directly afterwards to go teach a group of military types how to use M-16s. I had to leave directly afterwards to go to the museum and eat pizza, followed by some work in the garden and a video about worms.

Better than both of these was the sunset I saw on the way home. Sharply delineated sun rays pierced the clouds near the horizon, and seemed to set them on fire around the edges.

I didn't get to see Jen and the kids much today. Willow has a cold. The rest of us are a bit under the weather as well. I need sleep. Only 12 more delivery days though.

cds I listened to under cover of darkness: Eric McFadden "Devil Moon", Caspar Brotzmann "Mute Massaker", Cowboy Junkies "Waltz Across America", and Swans "Children of God/World of Skin"

I went down to the police station to get fingerprinted, which is one of the requirements necessary for working at Youth Science Institute. Actually it was more like a police annex. Of course, no type of police station is complete without a loutish man in the corridor muttering the dreaded "f-word" to himself as he clutches a manilla envelope. No doubt the contents of the envelope are less than pleasing. We will never know.

Later, I took the boys to see the newest Harry Potter movie. We were entertained, although a lot of the connections between characters, so vividly spelled out via flashbacks in the book, are missing. The film looks beautiful though, since much of it was filmed in the Scottish highlands. You just can't go wrong with the Scottish highlands in the background.

13 more delivery days...

cds I listened to while feeling tired: Greg Weeks "Awake Like Sleep", Sopor Aeternus & the Ensemble of Shadows "Dead Lovers' Sarabande" and "Dead Lovers' Sarabande (Face Two)", Thee Silver Mountain Reveries "Pretty Little Lightning Paw", Stapleton & Tibet "Musical Pumpkin Cottage", Circle "Raunio", Timesbold "Woe Be Gone...", and Skepticism "The Process of Farmakon"

I went to the initial Youth Science Institute meeting on friday and indicated my willingness to work as much as possible. Hopefully I can make some extra money. An old friend of mine is also teaching there this summer, but not at the same park. It looks like I'm going to be teaching about dinosaurs for a couple of weeks in July. I'd better brush up on my dinosaur knowledge, since I've probably forgotten most of the stuff I knew as a kid (dinosaurs were one of my first loves). Of course, there have been lots of new discoveries since then as well.

It's going to be a rush getting to the museum on time after teaching camp, but once I'm home from the museum I don't have to go out again until morning. Ha!

We threw a party for The Dickens at a park today, with cake, partially melted ice cream, presents, and more presents. I don't think that she has had time to get to everything yet, but the bubble shooter and the pez were early hits. Willow was very disappointed that the huge beach ball nearby belonged to somebody else. The Dickens, after tearing open presents, ran around the park calling hapless park visitors "poopoo heads". To her credit, she was nice to some people, and even shared her bubble shooter.

I could write more, but I'm tired. I'm doing three routes all week this week as well, keeping in mind that there are only 14 more delivery days...

cds I listened to while not seeing any owls: Sally Doherty and the Sumacs "Black is the Colour", Calexico "Feast of Wire", In Gowan Ring "Hazel Steps through a Weathered Home", Trees "The Garden of Jane Delawney", Finntroll "Trollhammaren", and Sol Invictus "Sol Veritas Lux"

As I got out of my car tonight I looked up and saw a satellite silently passing by overhead. It reminded me of going camping, of lying on my back in my sleeping bag and staring at the stars.

The Dickens is now well and truly three, even if she won't admit it. The real party is on sunday, but the strawberry bread that Jen made was quite acceptable in lieu of cake. The Dickens, who I hope doesn't grow up to be a pyromaniac, obsessively blew out the candles again and again as she basked in the warm glow of "happy birthday to you..." over and over again.

Willow has a new purple ball, which she calls "bee". This, apparently, is what all balls are called.

Only fifteen more days, but they'll be busy ones.

cds I listened to while cutting a mere five minutes off of last night's delivery time: Brightblack "ala.cali.tucky", Woven Hand "s/t", Mari Boine "Eagle Brother" and "Unfolding", The Fixtures "Dangerous Music Defect", and Tim Eriksen "Every Sound Below"

It's a full moon again, with a side helping of clouds. A fine day for The Dickens to turn three. Happy birthday Sophie!

I got pulled over tonight. Maybe it will be the last time this happens before I lose this job (16 more delivery days). The cop informed me that one of my license plate bulbs was out. It seems that having only one functioning bulb is not enough. I must have two! He then blathered on about how license plates must be visible for a distance of 50 feet. I refrained from making any smartass comments about measuring tape or binoculars, so didn't get a fix-it ticket.

I've managed to cut the time it takes me to do the new route down to an hour and a half. The first night I did it on my own it took two hours. That means I'm getting twenty bucks per hour instead of fifteen. Not bad. Unless I hit a duck or something. I actually almost did hit a duck, who didn't seem at all bothered that a car missed him by mere inches. I've seen a barn owl for the past couple of nights as well. There was a rather befuddled looking baby opossum crossing the street too. I hope he made it home all right. Let's hear it for wildlife!

time for bed now

cds I listened to while swerving around ducks and ducking under owls: Nurse With Wound "Angry Eelectric Finger - Spitch Cock One", Osso Exotico "Musica #1", CMX "Discopolis", The Spectral Light & Moonshine Snakeoil Jamboree "Scarecrow Stuffing", and Shirley & Dolly Collins "Love, Death & the Lady"

We had our last BioSITE day today. I hope that the kids remember at least some of the concepts we tried to get across to them. We need more people to take care of the world, especially now since the U.S. government seems to excel at doing just the opposite.

Willow is walking more and more, and sliding down the slide virtually by herself. I still have to catch her at the bottom, but the rest is all her. I could have sworn that at the store today she pointed to something and said, "I want that." They start so young.

The Dickens is going through a phase where she insists on showing people her butt. I hope it's a short phase. She turns three in a couple of days. Maybe if we tell her that three year olds don't subscribe to this kind of behavior...

Nate accidentally whacked me with his wooden sword, creating a small gash over my left eye, along with some swelling. It's dangerous around here.

Time to sleep, with 17 more days to go.

cds I listened to while once again doing three routes: Bathory "Nordland I", and "Nordland II", Clive Palmer & Bob Devereux "Suns & Moons", Tom Waits "Blood Money" and "Alice", and Current 93 "Horsey"

We have a new mouse pad, which considerably facilitates computer usage. After noticing in their newsletter that british punk band Blyth Power was selling mouse pads, I was joking with Jen that I would just pick one up at japanese punk band (actually somewhat uncategorizable, but what the hell...) Ex-Girl's show on friday, since Ex-Girl, in addition to being strangely obsessed with frogs, have one of the most comprehensive merchandise tables I've ever seen. Little did I know that they would actually have two different styles of mouse pad, and enough other stuff that I was able to find some birthday gifts for The Dickens - a glittery little purse and a frog-shaped bottle holder. I didn't buy any of the ties or underwear. Ex-Girl themselves, who had gone through some line-up changes since the last time I saw them, definitely passed muster. There were of course frogs everywhere, and plenty of loud guitar, beautiful vocal harmonies (all three members sing, usually together) and strange lyrical tangents. Directly before them was a japanese comedian, who was brave to perform in a language he wasn't too familiar with, but quite incomprehensible.

Saturday, Jen, Willow, and I went to the Youth Science Institute's insect fair at Sanborn park. I initially hadn't realized that this was the first time Jen had been back there since we'd gotten married there in 2002. We stood in the grove where the wedding had taken place and smooched, each with one eye on Willow, who was teetering around on the deck like a drunken pirate. We also went on a short hike so Willow could get good and dirty. Before that, I helped out a bit inside the visitor's center, explaining the differences between centipedes and millipedes, and exposing a scorpion to black light so people could watch it turn green. Good fun.

18 more days of delivery.

cds I listened to while only doing two routes because I have to wake up too early to do three: Sol Invictus "King and Queen", G-anx "Flashbacks", Circle "Alotus", Kristin Hersh "Murder, Misery and then Goodnight", Salty The Pocketknife "s/t", and Buffy Sainte-Marie "Little Wheel Spin and Spin"