Pink Prickly Pear

I take it back!

What I said about having a trusty mechanic.

Who charges $165 for a new battery?

The AAA membership pays off!

We're lucky not to feel the unseasonable heat in our house.  I have the windows open and a couple of ceiling fans on and the ocean breeze keeps us nice and cool.  So yesterday, when our unschooling friends were meeting at a local pool, I almost bagged it.  A pool?  Who picked a pool?  Is it heated? 

By the time we got there, you couldn't have kept me away from that water, heated or not (it was).  Once we left our little micro-climate here on the hilltop, it was hot out there!  D'anjou's first dip into a pool and he loved it.  He kept trying to put his face in the water, smiling at all the kids splashing around us.  The only reason we got out was to avoid overexposure to the sun.  We retired to a shady lounge chair and watched Mini-Pear and her friends play for another 2 hours. 

I'm still adjusting to shepherding two children.  D'anjou's milky white chubby bits remained snowy, but poor Mini-Pear's cheeks were so flushed by the time we all walked over to the adjoining playground.  After braving the hot Santa Ana's wind for about half an hour, albeit under the shade of the lone tree, we decided to trek back to the sea breezes.

But there's a  Jimbo's right by the park!  I didn't have a dinner plan yet!  Why not pick up a couple of smoothies, a nice loaf of bread and some organic sandwich stuffin's?  Grand idea, mama, especially with my sun-tired children reaching the end of their respective days.

We made our detour, and were back out to the car in no time.  I was tired too.  The stop?  Maybe not such a great idea.  I turned the key in the ignition.  Nothing.  The car was hot from being parked in the sun all day.  We could't even sit in it long enough to make a phone call.  Everybody out, including our freshly purchased food.

Still, no catastrophe.  I called AAA, wisely returned our perishables to Jimbo's, and tried to find a coolish spot to wait.  No one's air conditioning seemed to work.  D'anjou was wailing inconsolably.  We dragged a couple of molten (who paints them black in this sun?!?!?) patio chairs over into a miniscule patch of shaded concrete to await the towtruck.

Truck #1 comes, jumps the battery.  Admonishes me to check and see what I might have left on in the car.  I pack up the kids, stroller, groceries, sit in the driver's seat, reach for the shifter and...the engine gives out.

Truck #1 is gone.  I call AAA again.  The dispatcher hears my wailing baby and puts a rush on a second truck.  I call Mr. Pear.  It's plain the car is going to need towing and I'm going to need a lift.  He arrives in a friend's car just as our car is getting hitched up to the truck. 

All told, we spent about two hours hanging out in the Jimbo's parking lot.  Truck #2 towed the car to our trusty local mechanic (I can't tell you how nice it feels to say that, after not having one for most of my adult life) and we headed home to eat sandwiches, de-chlorinate in the shower and flop into bed, completely spent from a very full day in the hot winds.

Our mechanic called first thing this morning, but hasn't called back to let me know what might need repairing.  Our car is getting old (OMG!  It's 12!).  Finger's crossed this isn't the death knell!  You know I hate shopping.  Don't make me have to buy a car!

I'm waiting for mini-pear to get out of the bath.

It could be a while.  She pulls a (very, very) long face when I suggest she get in the bath, but it's always just as hard to get her out of it.  Go figure.

On nights when Mr. Pear is away (he's been riding the velodrome) we usually have miso soup, but somehow we ended up having it last night (so easy for a tired old lady like myself) so it was breakfast for dinner this evening - mushroom, cheddar and egg tacos with cherry tomatoes.  Then I popped the boy in his bath and scooped him off to bed a bit early, thinking I would get to hang out with my girl...

but she's still in the bath;(

I guess I could finish the dishes, but that does not appeal.

Here she is!  Yay!

Here's a blast from the past...

(mostly for Kate)

Yay for the first bee-sting of 2009! </sarcasm>

Once again, I was totally minding my own business.  I wasn't molesting them or drinking sticky soda in their presence or stealing their honey, I was just raking the dirt into a little pattern on the path (so SoCal) in the front garden.  I felt the sting, looked down and saw the miserable little offender crawling around on my arm.  Bees!  What have I done to make you smite me over and over and over and over again?!?!?!?!?!  I have your image permanently inked on my body in homage to all the lovely things you do for us and this is how you repay me?

I suppose the silver lining is there are bees around to sting me.  I thought I'd managed to nip the swelling in the bud, but I woke up on Sunday morning with Popeye's forearm.

Thigh rolls! We have 'em!

Yoga just might win one of us over yet!  Or maybe he's just practicing his push-ups. 

There's a lot of co-operative building happening around these parts lately.  It looks like d-anjou is poised to carefully add his red block to the top of the stack, but he's just gearing up for the demolition stage of the game.  

***

It's all cloudy and wet today.  I shouldn't complain.  We get over 300 days of sunshine a year.  It's spoiled me.  Every rainy day feels like a personal affront.  I never seem to have an adequate Plan B for rain.  Actually today's plan calls for some shopping.  I seem to have melted our mattress cover (in the dryer, not via nocturnal spontaneous combustion or anything quite so dramatic).  Sharing a mattress cover-less bed with a baby?  Not advisable.  Especially with my fancy new mattress.

We're also looking at acquiring a portable air filter for the house.  Nothing like having another baby to kick fretful mother into full gear.  We should have bought one years ago.  Since moving to the left coast, Mr. Pear and Mini have had a lot more colds and things than they ever had (ie. pretty much going from none to a lingering thing every other month or so).  I'm thinking it's something different in the environment here.  Plus, as perpetual renters we don't have quite as much control over our interior environment as we'd like - off gassing new carpets and the like.  There are some pretty industrial models out there that purport to kill viruses in addition to sucking every last micron of dust, pollen and pet dander out of the air.  Ahhhh, to never have a sneezing fit again...

Mediocre.

For the most part, yesterday was a bit...meh.

I didn't get any sleep the previous night*.  We trudged inland for a underwhelming field trip.  I spent too much time preparing a gummy, tasteless meal in the slow cooker.

I did, however, get to spend 45 minutes on the beach by myself, reading my book.  And I went and got my hair did.  My stylist is very young.  She told me about her new hamster and about her third row tickets to see Britney Spears next week.  I don't think there was any irony in her excitement.   

^{* How irritating is it that my lack of sleep had nothing to do with the boy?!?  The one night he sleeps like a log for hours on end and I'm awake with...insomnia.}

Between my efforts to simultaneously rid our home of clutter while also procuring inexpensive second hand items of a temporary nature (ie. high chairs, baby gates and the like), I've spent a considerable amount of time online at places like craigslist and half.com.  People's descriptions are amusing, to say the least.

Someone, while attempting to put a positive spin on the condition of their copy of Chipp's Theories of Modern Art (I am scoping out the competition, not interested in aquiring another copy) noted that in addition to the "nice, tight spine" their copy had "useful underlinings and highlights".  Now, as anyone who's ever ended up with a marked up text knows, someone else's markings hardly ever correspond with what you probably find most pertinent.  Purely speaking for myself, I find other people's hot pink highlights and ill-formed marginalia most distracting.

A certain type of seller can't resist pointing out to potential purchasers how much they initially paid for an item.  I don't find this information useful, except perhaps in pointing out what a boob you were to spend $300 on a highchair you could have bought on craigslist for $50.

Seller's opinions don't hold much sway with me either.  I just want the facts (dimensions, condition, price), preferably accompanied by a good photograph.  I don't need to know how "cool and unique" you think the hidden cupholders are on your (IMO hideous) green corduroy couch.  Do alert me to its presence though, because there's a wealth unsaid in that detail - there are going to be crumbs galore in them there couch cushions, aren't there? 

Also, when taking a photograph, natural light is best.  The photo should be of the entire item, not just the un-stained portion.  You also might want to clean up your scruffy abode, or at the very least, crop it.

The grocery store where I do most of my food shopping has reconfigured its interior, with fancy new fixtures arranged in a different layout.  I'm sure we'll all get the hang of it sooner or later, but shopping there yesterday was a total bear.  Gridlock in the produce section!   Bewildered yogis bleating about the elusiveness of the tortillas.

The wine section's up front now.  Squee!  I'll never forget to pop a bottle of local in the cart again! AA thanks you in advance for my support.

I think they are running a bit scared about the new Whole Foods (currently a huge hole in the ground a few short blocks from my front door), hence all the wood and burnished metal.  Despite the suburban nature of my old house, I could actually walk to that particular grocery store, albeit along a rather busy roadway.  I can walk to everything else in the new neighborhood, but for groceries I have to get in the old Saturn, unless I want to go and get depressed at the dilapidated Vons a few blocks away.  It's totally walkable, but so Soviet it's not even funny.  Where do they get all that brown fruit?  It smells like roach traps.

Everyone needs a thneed.

D'anjou needed a little something to keep him snuggly on our misty morning walks.  I found a very simple little pattern and a stray ball of Debbie Bliss' Cashmerino.  For an errant leftover languishing in the stash, I'd say that is the perfect color for a certain little boy. 

Mini-pear had to try it on...full of mischief, that one...

Somehow, I manage to refrain from eating them up.  I'm baffled as to where I managed to unearth the time to actually knit something, but I did...