Life of Wry

The season of fallen leaves.

Sometimes, you have a lot to say. Sometimes not so much. Today’s just a picture and caption day.

My lack of creativity today seems not only to have affected my writing, but also, apparently, my dinner choice. To wit: tonight’s menu consisted of [way too many] Trader Joe’s roasted gorgonzola crackers and a Bison organic chocolate stout (found at the Davis Food Coop). Dinner of champions.

(I promise, this only happens when the boys are gone for the evening.)

But… I guess, as long as I’m here, I can comment on this: Whole Foods? They say they’re coming to town, but rilly Mr. Whole Foods? Rilly!? When we already have our long-awaited, just-opened TJ’s and our loyal neighborhood market and political favorite DFC? Much as I’ve loved my occasional visits to Whole Foods when in other peoples’ towns, I can’t imagine, in my wildest dreams, ever needing or wanting to shop there, given we’ve already got the Davis Food Coop, Nugget and Trader Joe’s.  In that order.

I’d much rather have an Apple Store.

Sigh.

Anyway, the picture? Shot down by the creek on a cold, crispy fall day.

In a fall kind of way.

I don’t know what others call this.. I call it the middle lake.  On Putah Creek, of course.

Was walking in this very spot this morning, having a soul-searching conversation with a friend and fellow mom about kids, about letting go of our own ideas about who they are, who they might become, what their interests, tastes and values are, how they view the world.

We talked about how much we know, how much we can teach them, how great our choices are for them.. and yet, how determined they are about choosing their own paths, if lacking judgment or missing the big picture. There can be a lot of heartache in that, even loss.  And lots of questions about whose needs are being fulfilled, or not, as parents’ desires go one way, and kids’ go the other.

She said, “the buddha taught that human suffering is caused by the desire for life to be different from the way it is… and so the key to peace and happiness is letting go of the desires, the longing…  it’s also in paying attention to what is sweet and precious and insanely beautiful in the kid right in front of us, right now.”

Smart girl.

I found myself achingly in love with my kid this afternoon.  Happens sometimes, today after: an uncharacteristic phone interaction and two icky pratfall-like incidents:

1. I tried not to listen, but heard every word of a phone conversation–actually, just his side –with a woman who will tutor him in spanish for the rest of this school year. He’s not taking spanish this year, but doesn’t want to lose all the proficiency gained during his seven years of spanish immersion.  (Don’t get me started about his experience last year in his first non-immersion spanish class, which lead to his opting out altogether from spanish this year).  In any case, he was having a phone interview of sorts with this tutor to determine if she would be a good fit for his needs and it was as though I was listening to somebody else’s polite, mature, and respectful child.  The conversation lasted about twenty minutes, during which time I heard thoughtful answers to hard questions, careful consideration of logistical details, and even some good humor and laughing.  He was focused and self-aware, offered reflective analysis of his experiences with spanish, good and bad, and clarity about what he wanted. (Wow, I thought to myself.)

2. Later this afternoon, he was standing just outside my office talking to me (about the spanish thing, actually) and began to do pull-ups on the bar that hangs in my doorway.  He got a little overzealous and the bar dislodged, sending him crashing to the floor, back first.  It was a horrible thing to watch, but he scrambled up quickly, like a cat that doesn’t stick its landing, saying he was alright.  But he wasn’t.  He agreed to lie down and seemed suddenly shaken and near tears.  For the next half hour we talked on the bed and pretty soon he felt okay. Nothing makes a kid more endearing than an injury, right? Or being brave in the face of an injury.

Then he wanted to do his homework. Not the usual. I think it was the conversation with the spanish tutor that made him feel responsible.

Now he’s endearing and responsible.

3. After dinner, I was doing dishes and he came up with a load from the table.  After depositing them in the sink, he turned abruptly to leave the kitchen and fell, a la Dick Van Dyke, right over the open dishwasher door.  It was an even more spectacular crash than the fall from the pull-up bar, and again he quickly got up and this time disappeared into the bathroom.  Came out a few minutes later with an embarrassed smile, saying he was ok.

All I wanted to do was hold him …and keep him from hurting himself yet again.

It was all funny, but not so funny. Painful, but okay in the end.  He’s earnest, independent, finding his way. Clumsy. Awkward. Embarrassed, yet okay with a little mom attention (definitely not always the case, but sometimes you score). He’s so in transition, so unrecognizable sometimes.  But so crazy lovable.

As my good bud said this morning: our “sweet and precious and insanely beautiful”  kids..

Bearings: Central Park community garden to the immediate left, UCD a block to the right, Occupy Davis a block behind, and downtown around the corner and to the left.

In the fall.

Remember the other day when I said I loved baseball games whatever the weather?  Yeah, well, almost, but not quite.

Crush’s tournament is in Vacaville this weekend, at the base of gorgeous, California-esque, rolling, oak-covered hills. After a wonderful 8:00am game in which the boys continued their winning and playing-fantastically-well streak, (and, incidentally, it was bone-chilling, but the sun did come out) we returned home for the world’s longest-ever break between tournament games.  Weird to be home in the middle of a tournament day, but we got lots done, went out to lunch, some of us (not me) took naps, etc.

Then we drove back to Vacaville for a 5:00pm and 7:00pm pair of games.. but instead, this happened:

Rain.  Here’s Jim waiting it out in the car, texting to pass the time.  Finally, tournament organizers decided to start the game anyway.

I took a seat in the dugout (under cover!), which was way worth the price of admission… being that immersed in teen boy team culture is eye opening, to say the least.

We’d gotten this far into the top of the first inning..

..Dustin got a single (a flare to left), Gavin and Ben walked: bases loaded, no outs!  (In fairness to the Hard 90 pitcher, the ball was so wet he had a hard time gripping it, making it very difficult to places his pitches.. thus the walks.) Then Pierce was up. The count was one ball and two strikes.  He took a practice swing, as you do, and, shockingly, he lost his grip on the wet bat and it went flying out of his hands and over the visitors’ dugout… causing all manner of confusion and surprise.  It was startling, unsettling and lead people to think hm, maybe it IS a little too wet out here.  

So, this happened..

.. a coaches and umpires powwow on the mound.

These are never easy decisions.  A little rain never hurts, in fact 13 and 14 year old boys think it’s pretty awesome (we in the uncovered stands think otherwise). And you never really know when the rain might let up. Probably the greatest factor in the choice to continue playing in the rain: tournament organizers hate to have to refund money.. so postponing or canceling a game just makes these guys sweat baseballs.

But… safety first.. flying bats=not a good thing, not to mention a serious liability for the organizers, so they called the game and we went home. We’re supposed to return at 8:00am tomorrow (yeah, another 8:00am start, which means arriving at 7, which means leaving Davis at 6:15 in order to fit in a stop at Starbucks, which means getting up at 5:30, and did I mention it will be a Sunday morning?) and if we win and keep winning, we’ll play 753 games tomorrow between the make-ups and the regular pool play and the championship rounds, and whatnot.

Not a fair-weather fan (right? I love it anytime anyway anywhere), but, I guess I have a slight preference for last weekend’s conditions–warm, dry, sunny, in-town…

Not that it wasn’t gorgeous out there tonight in a stormy sort of way. If you can make this out, you’ll see rain pouring down in the glow of a field light..eerie-ish.

And even if you can’t make that out, it’s still a pretty evening.

Just to finish this story off…

Recall I found a tiny troll last week.  I stashed him away, forgot about him, found him, cleaned him up a little and he’s been sitting on my desk ever since.  Longer version here.

Well, this whole troll thing got me a little nostalgic, having gone through a major troll phase as a kid. I did a little research and learned that these trolls had come on the market in 1963 and completely swept the nation, becoming the must-have doll for baby boomer kiddos like me. The craze lasted only a couple of years, but it hit me at the peak of my own doll mania; I was 7 at the time and pretty much went apeshit over trolls.  I had lots (and lots) of them, like everyone else I knew, and built entire shoe box compounds for them to live and play in.  High times, for sure.

So, I decided I needed to buy a real one for old times sakes, and began a search.  Turns out, they aren’t that hard to find.  You can get big ones on Amazon (like the 6″ ones) but I wanted one of the 3-4″ ones, since that’s the kind I played with. On Ebay you can find just about everything imaginable which I found too overwhelming.

Eventually, I turned one up on Etsy (“the world’s handmade marketplace”). It had the color hair I wanted (royal blue) and seemed less adorned than most (she, I think she’s a she, was wearing a simple red felt cave woman dress). I had to join Etsy to place my order, which I did and now I’m a member of that community.

Bonus!

I placed the order and a little while later got an Etsy Conversation from the woman who was selling this troll.  Obviously she didn’t make the troll, but I guess she must have made the dress.  Here’s what she said:

Hi Kari,

First of all, I am proud to provide
your first purchase on ETSY.
Welcome to this great community,
I am sure this will be the first of
many great purchases here!

Thank you for visiting my store,
and I am happy you found your
troll. She/he/it is SO excited to be
relocating to sunny Davis. [After the
snowstorm here on Saturday, she
just jumped into the package and
is ready to go. She only needs her
red felt tunic, very low maintenance…..

She will be winging to your home
via first class [mail] with insurance
for her value. Her estimated date
of arrival is just in time to join you
for your Saturday evening plans,
more or less.

Thank you, and

Best wishes,
Barbara

This was the start of a number of back and forth communications, equal parts silliness and professionalism.  And, three days after placing my order, the package arrived today, from New York. The outside of the package had flower stickers on it.  Inside was a gift wrapped box. I tore off the wrapping paper and found the troll packed in a beautiful, sturdy homemade box with a button on top (very cool and I’m sure will come in handy for something). Inside that was my new troll plus two bags of peppermint tea (nice touch).  Barbara and I exchanged another round of Etsy Conversation and that was that.

So now I have two trolls (and a neato box and some tea).  And they’re a pleasure to look at (yes they are!).

I’ll forgo the shoebox compound this time around.

Down by the creek.

Yesterday’s pic-of-the-day was a shot of Putah Creek–the north fork that runs through campus.

Far less groomed is this fork of the mighty Putah… which may be a tributary of the south fork, but I’m not sure. LL and I took a late afternoon walk here. I used to run along this trail in runnier days when I lived in South Davis, gasp, 19 years ago.

Curious about which fork was which, I did a bit of research at the Davis Wiki site.  The most interesting thing I learned was that the Credence Clearwater Revival song Green River is about the summers the band members spent on Putah Creek.

How ’bout that.

Well hell.  I have thirty minutes to come up with a picture-of-the-day and something to write about, and I’m way, waywaywaywayway too tired to pull it off. I have topics, I do, but I just took this long, very hot bath (achy back, you know), drank a glass of wine, and there’s this set of soft flannel sheets just howling my name.

I’m coming, Your Toastiness.

So.. I’m going with a pic from the archives. This is from a walk I take several times a week.. through the arboretum, along the creek, around Lake Spafford.. on an early Fall day, pre-leaf-turning, about five weeks ago.

Apologies to you new subscribers; this doesn’t happen very often.