Our babies take flight

In the past week, so many things have changed.

Our oldest daughter has moved, and will be attending graduate school, our youngest has graduated from preschool, and as of tonight, our middle daughter has graduated from high school.

How's that for a busy week? 

from here^

I always say that I could not possibly have more wonderful children. It's true.

They are all beautiful, smart, funny, clever, kind, sharp, witty and talented.

 from here^

For the week preceding graduation, Clementine told me in solemn, quiet  tones that  she did not want to graduate and leave her friends. She loves her teachers, and didn't want to leave them either. She insisted that she didn't want to leave the goldfish or the butterflies, or the ladybugs, or anything at her school.

We tried to reason with her.

 from here^

  
But your new school with have those things and so many more, and you loved it when we visited. She did not want to hear this.  

Your teacher is retiring this year, so even if you were there next year, she wouldn't be. Clementine did not want to hear this, either. No thanks.

from here

So we told her that we knew that moving was scary and that leaving was scary. But that if we never moved, we'd never see or do anything new. That she couldn't read well at the beginning of the year, but she could now, and she needed to move to a new school to get a new teacher who could teach her even more. And that we'd make sure she saw her friends and got to make new ones.

That seemed to help, at least a bit. But she still didn't want to go, and the night before, told me that she was afraid to go. I held her and we hugged. Dan held her and they hugged. She decided she would try to go after all.

from here^

The next day, she went to school and bravely walked across to get her diploma. She was happy to see her teachers and her friends. She was happy to have graduated.

We were so proud. She is so brave.

from here^

As we were proud last night when Caroline graduated from high school. She was accepted into the college of her choice, and will be attending in the fall. It requires a little bit of travel, and this is the first time she'll be living away from home for any period of time. We could not be prouder or happier that she is getting this opportunity. She has always been our sunniest child, and I hope that the students and faculty at her new school know just how lucky they are to get to see her every day.

from here^

And we are so proud of our oldest. She is going to be going to graduate school and has a job working with children, the most important sort of work there is. She has always been my toughest-yet-most-tender, always helpful, pragmatic, and sensible in the best way possible. She is funny, wry, and loyal.

I consider myself the luckiest mommy in the world, because anything I can say about any one of my daughters I can proudly say about all of them.

from here^

Our daughters are the never-ending joys of our lives and we are so proud and happy and blessed to be their parents.

The Friday Five, Birthday Edition

Sitting up late tonight, listening to a hard rock on the radio (All Along the Watch Tower by Jimmy Hendrix, at the moment), waiting until Dan is deeply asleep to join him, because my coughing keeps him up. He's very kind and sweet about it, and he insists it doesn't bother him. But it does, and he needs his rest.

 

Jimmy Hendrix, All Along the Watch Tower  

I'm still pretty darned sick (but slowly getting better). I had plans (characters developed, plot outlines, everything) to take part in NaNoWriMo (aka National Novel Writing Month^), which encompasses the entire month of November, but I've been too sick to hold my head up for most of the month so far, much less write anything coherent. So instead, I'll be postponing NANOWRIMO until I feel better and trying to blog more often during the month of November.

 

NaNoWriMo^

Today's Birthday-themed blog assist (my addled brain needs it) comes from:

The Friday Five^

1. Do you really make wishes when you blow out the candles on your cake?
   
   Always. I don't know why, because I'm not superstitious, but I always do.
   
   
   The cats love this stuff whenever anyone has a birthday.
   Used with permission, by cohdra, from Morguefile^
   
   
2. Have any of the wishes ever come true, if yes?
   I can't think of any that have. Ever since I was a kid, I've mostly wished for intangible things like "world peace". Maybe I'd have a better chance if I wished for more material things? I probably won't, though. How awesome would it be if some of the intangible wishes actually happened?
   
   
   
   My cake has waaaaay more candles than this.
   Used with permission, by lorettaflame from Morguefile^
   
   
3. How do you feel about birthdays? (e.g. love the attention, just another day, don't want anyone to know my real age, etc.)
   
   As long as people continue to tell me that I don't look my age, I'm okay with my age. As soon as that changes, I'll probably be more sensitive about it. Although honestly, when you look at the alternative to aging, all of a sudden another birthday sounds pretty good.
   As for attention, it's okay as long as its from people I know... I don't ever want to go out to a restaurant where the staff sings to you or anything like that.
   
   

   Time marches on, doesn't it? 
   It's better than the alternative, I guess.
   used with permission, by grafixar from Morguefile^
   
   
4. Tell us a favorite gift you've received, or something you'd really like for your next birthday.
   
   Three things I've received over the years really stand out.
   
   My oldest daughter spilled all of my favorite perfume once, and I was really disappointed and a bit angry. The next Christmas, there was a bottle under the tree from her to me. She paid for it herself and I've never forgotten how she remembered, long after I'd forgotten. I felt so privileged to have such a wonderful daughter (and I still do). 
   
   My middle daughter once gave me a figure from my favorite video game. It struck me as incredibly thoughtful. She'd gotten me something she'd observed that I enjoyed. I still have it on a shelf and smile every time I see it.
   
   Again, I felt privileged to be a part of such a wonderful, sensitive, thoughtful person's life. I'm endlessly and happily amazed at what wonderful daughters I have. I don't know what I ever did to deserve them, but I am humbled to be in their presence.
   
   Finally, my husband gave me a very pretty  fáinne Chladaigh (a Claddagh ring) a few years ago. I love it. I should wear it more.
   
   
   A Claddagh symbol
   

   
   

   If I could have any one thing, it would be a Blythe doll^, which is totally silly and frivolous and not like me at all, yet... A full sized Blythe is about a foot tall (minis are much smaller), frighteningly thin, with huge heads, and their eyes change colors when you pull a string. Pretty in an ugly way. Or maybe ugly in a pretty way. I have no idea why I want one, since I don't collect dolls. I've just always wanted one (like, since the 1970's).
   
   I want a full-sized Blythe^, and it would almost certainly have to be a reproduction. Reproductions aren't that much, but originals are outlandishly expensive.
   
   

   

   Used with permission, by cohdra, from Morguefile^
   

   
   Like I said, silly and frivolous.
   
   Speaking of which, Blue Öyster Cult's Don't Fear The Reaper is playing on the radio now. It's not a frivolous song - it's rather depressing when you get right down to it. But the Saturday Night Live skit about the making of the song totally ruined it for me and now all I can thing of is Christopher Walken. And every time I hear it, I hear cowbell. Nothing but cowbell. They took a perfectly depressing song and made it silly and frivolous. 
   
   Blue Öyster Cult, Don't Fear the Reaper
   
   
   
   

                                                                  
See? Nothing but cowbell now.
5. What flavor cake?
   
   Gluten-free cake tends to be a bit dry, so I prefer cupcakes because they have a smaller surface area when cooking and don't dry out as much. As for flavor, a basic white or yellow cake with lots of pure vanilla and butter-cream icing.
   
   
   What a cupcake might look like
   Used with permission, by mconnors from Morguefile^

Finally, and speaking of birthdays, Dan's birthday is in a little less than two weeks. I've made plans, which I can't share here for obvious reasons, but I'm really pleased with what I've managed to come up with so far. I have an awesome cake planned and two spiffy gifts I know he'll love. I'm usually so bad with this sort of thing, but I've put a lot of thought into this and I'm so excited!

Until later...

Namaste.

Thursday Thunks on Friday Night

Always At Least A Day Late is my new motto when it comes to completing writing prompts, but I really couldn't step away from my family on Christmas Day to write, so being late this week was inevitable.

As inevitable as taxes, the passage of time, and not being able to find your keys when you're in a hurry.

That kind of inevitable.

I didn't want to miss a single moment of our lovely Christmas. So I simply didn't.

Christmas Day was a quiet, slow sort of day. We didn't start opening presents till almost noon; later we had a wonderful dinner (turkey, pumpkin and apples, delicious homemade stuffing, cranberries, with a crust-less pumpkin pie for dessert). The in-between time was spent playing with the SuperCat and enjoying each other's company. It took SuperCat hours to open her gifts; she needed to play with each thing extensively before she could consider moving on to the next thing. It was great watching her play, showing us how things worked.

The last several Christmases have been difficult. My Dad's health was going downhill around Christmas of 2003, he died a month and a half after that. Because of that, and for other reasons, Christmas has been difficult to celebrate for a long time; some years I've had to force myself to do anything at all.

This year, for the first time in a long time, mostly in response to the unbridled joy that the SuperCat has brought to us and continues to bring us every single day, I did quite a bit more, felt quite a lot better, and have been pretty happy the whole season.

Life goes on, as they say. So...

From the Thursday Thunks(^).

This week we will answer some crazy questions brought to you by Berleen, the color white and the number 78.

1. Have you ever started your Christmas tree on fire?

No. And how scary is it that that even happens? Can you imagine sitting there, watching the lights twinkle, and all of a sudden, whooosh?

2. How many rings do you wear?

Always the first two, and in various combinations the next three:
* my wedding bands, which started out as two rings, but were connected by the jeweler after our wedding. I'll count those as one.
* a tanzanite and diamond ring given to me by my husband the Christmas after we were married.
* a silver ring with feathers on it that I wear on my thumb.
* a silver poesy ring that my husband gave me.
* a silver ring with a Greek meander (aka key) pattern which looks like this:

3. I say "dog barking", you say _________ ?

He doesn't. My dog almost never barks. He just stands there and looks at you. He growls at people in this really low voice if he doesn't know them at the door, but almost never barks.

4. How many pictures are in the room that you are in.

Two on the wall; old Chinese paintings of birds. Too many to count elsewhere, on shelves, etc.

5. Do you decorate the outside of your house for Christmas?

Some years, yes. Three or four inflatables, lights around the front of the house and in the bushes, a retro plastic Santa...

plus mechanical deer illuminated with white lights, blue and white flowers in the flower boxes, and a winter-themed flag. It's a regular Winter Wonderland.

6. What's your favorite Christmas song?

Carol of the Bells, Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych, 1916.



7. What do you fill your Christmas stockings with?

I don't. My husband fills mine, and I fill his. Dan grew up in Holland, so I fill his stocking with candy from there like salted licorice (yuck yuck yuck) and marzipan (yummy).

8. How many times a week do you charge your cell phone?

Every night and I usually top it off during the day. I have the G1 Android, and the battery life isn't great, but the phone is beyond spiffy, so it's worth it.

9. Do you own any exercise equipment? What are they?

A treadmill, an elliptical, and those plastic stair stepper thingies used in aerobics class. Plus two of those rubber balance balls, a yoga mat, and some small weights. A bicycle I almost never ride, too, but I'm not sure that counts since (as I said) I almost never ride it.

10. What's your cookie jar look like?

I have 30 or so. Which one would you like to know about?

This is what my favorite cookie jar looks like

Namaste.

currently listening to: Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, the theme from Casino Royale:

current mood: contemplative

More Sopapias, Please

We are expecting snow today. Right now it's cold and rainy. I spent part of the morning trying to persuade SuperCat to let me read to her. Today, for whatever reason, she wants to play on the computer. Mean mommy (me) has other ideas, though, so we've been having a tug-of-war over what we're going to do. While she was working on her computer, I was arranging photos on Picassa(^), labeling photos of Casa Bonita.

Every time we go to Casa Bonita(^), I feel as though I should be taking more pictures.

Casa Bonita, known to many people because of the South Park episode(^) of the same name, is a real place. A huge, cavernous Mexican-themed restaurant with cliff divers, rampaging gorillas, Black Bart's Cave, a volcano and all the other stuff Eric Cartman schemes to go see.

The food is, at best, so-so. But you don't really go for the food; you go for everything else.

Casa Bonita is a few minutes west of downtown Denver, but is actually in Lakewood, Colorado. It's on Colfax Avenue, not the best part of town, in a shopping center. So, you're driving along one motel after the next, gas stations, liquor stores, and so on, until all of a sudden, on your left, is the garish, bright pink facade in the corner of a half-empty shopping center.

After our last visit, it was still bright outside when we were done with dinner, and I took a lot of pictures of Colfax itself, which will be in my next post.

We make a point of taking the kids once a year, or when someone from out of town wants to visit. I always take tons of pictures; the colors are bright and garish, there is a vintage puppet theatre and old gaming devices (think: tall wooden love tester and the Zoltar Speaks fortune telling machine in Big(^)). Between the vintage artifacts, the colors, the lights, the people in costumes, and the rest, there is the sense of stepping into a freaky perpetual carnival.

I take a lot of photos in Casa Bonita. It doesn't matter how many times I've been, I take tons of photos and have a special fascination for the puppet theatre. It's wooden, carved with angels and jesters and strange little faces with a zillion layers of paint.

Here is a photo of the jester on the puppet theatre:

From Casa Bonita Interior

That was taken with flash. I don't like photos taken in the dark with an unfiltered flash, and this is no different. The room is normally dark, lit only by tiny light bulbs and some neon, and this not how it looks in real life. Standing in front of the puppet theatre, you notice the dark shadows and the blinking marquee lights that briefly illuminate features on the face of the center jester.
Like this:

From Casa Bonita Interior

Or this:

From Casa Bonita Interior

or this:

From Casa Bonita Interior

or this:

From Casa Bonita Interior

or this:

From Casa Bonita Interior

They aren't perfect... I guess that 'perfect' would be to be able to photograph what I see. Does anyone ever happy with their photographs? I am rarely, unless they are photos of my children or my husband. Those are always perfect.

More of the puppet theatre:

From Casa Bonita Interior

Angels positioned on the side. I am guessing that these were added later, since the jester and the grimacing faces seem a bit more sinister and mean than the angels.

From Casa Bonita Interior

Never wonder why I have a clown phobia (which is called Coulrophobia(^), in case you were wondering. Which you probably weren't. But still.

Clowns.

Yuck.

From Casa Bonita Interior

If you've seen the South Park episode, Black Bart's Cave is mentioned (Cartman: Come on, you guys! Black Bart's Cave!). This skull is carved into the outside of the cave. Inside is a narrow, dark passageway that winds its way around and around.

From Casa Bonita Interior

I don't know why the following few came out the way they did. They look almost double-exposed, but that's not possible on my camera, as far as I know. Even setting the camera on a hard surface didn't fix them, so the camera wasn't shaking.

From Casa Bonita Interior

From Casa Bonita Interior

Close up of a skull on a tree:

From Casa Bonita Interior

I was really disappointed with the next photo. It's of the "Love Tester" machine, which is really cool. All wood and glass and metal. Proto-video game, I guess. Anyway, it's spiffy and deserved a lot better than the out-of-focus blur I ended up with.

From Casa Bonita Interior

Next summer on our annual trek, or sooner if someone visiting who wants to go, I'll take more to add to the hundreds I already have. There is a neat jail cell I'd like to photograph, other old machines, lots of things.

By the way, if you'd like to see the Casa Bonita episode of South Park, here it is at South Park Studios(^). It is South Park, so here's your naughty language warning.

Namaste.