A Super * fantastic Evening

Last night I went to my friend Sara's incredibly cool apartment for dinner and music practice. I'd asked her to sing Carrie Newcomer's A Gathering of Spirits with me on Sunday. Little did I know we would be creating an arrangement that involves me playing the glockenspiel!

I cannot overstate how much fun I had last night. My abs were aching from laughter even before she let me play her authentic Italian accordion. Midway through my noodling, I realized that I was involuntarily swaying side to side like some sort of 30s polka master. Only... not.

Sara recorded one of our run-throughs. And even patched in a little bit of my soliloquy on the difference between nerds and geeks at the beginning. Be forewarned: I go completely off-key at the end, something I will try to remedy by Sunday.

There’s a gathering of spirits
There’s a festival of friends
And we’ll take up where we left off
When we all meet again.

Is this not the perfect song to sing on my last day of preaching at my church? And with a dear friend and collaborator. Thank you, Sara!

A Familiar Injury

When I was little, I fell flat on my face onto a concrete road while my family was on vacation in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Everyone remembers that I was scared by birds, except for me, who clearly recalls hearing a car and spinning around to get out of the road to avoid being hit. Whatever. No skin off my nose.

Except that's exactly what it was... skin off my nose. And underneath my nose. It wasn't pretty.

Yesterday morning, I took a picture of Juliette before school. Photographs have been few and far between lately, what with everything else going on. I love this picture.
And then at school yesterday she had a run-in with some sort of ride-on truck toy. Or rather, a run-in with the pavement after she fell off of it. It's pretty much exactly the same injury I had. Poor thing. It will be at least a couple weeks before she's back to looking like herself.
Even with the scabby mustache look, her face is still the most beautiful thing I've ever laid eyes on.

Ten on Tuesday

1. We've decided we do not wish to haul our orange sectional couch across the country. Note to couch-shoppers: do not rush to select a couch in 15 minutes when one of the couch shoppers is incapacitated by a migraine headache. You might end up with an orange sectional couch. We like those nice Pottery Barn couches, but they are priced pretty steep. So we're going to check out the CB2 Movie Sofa - it's called the Movie Sofa because it's supposed to be really comfortable for curling up on to watch movies. That sounds like our kind of couch.

2. A couple weeks ago my Mama sent me a photo of me from my childhood; Gracie had seen it and noted that there may be a slight family resemblance going on. You be the judge.

3. Juliette is quite the fan of this game. For some reason, she doesn't call it riding a horse, or a wildebeast, but a cow. Hmm.
4. Last week I walked smack into a big yellow fire hydrant that was inexplicably placed in the middle of the sidewalk (at the CIVIC center, no less). I was walking westward at sunset with sunglasses on, glare galore, and completely didn't see it coming. Even on the way down I was confused as to what in the heck was happening. I have bruises all up and down my legs, especially my left knee, and my beloved Frye boots took a hit. It didn't tear, but there is a big dark gash where my right foot hit the hydrant. As it turns out, I think I would rather do wildly klutzy things unobserved instead of have people walk by exclaiming, "I SAW YOU FALL!!!" as I'm trying to regain a modicum of composure.

5. I did regain my composure in time for the big fashion show put on by the high school fashion club and hosted on a real runway at the civic center. One of my parishioners did an entire collection by herself - design, construction, styling, the whole nine yards of chiffon. It was, like, a million times cooler than Project Runway to see all these amazing pieces made by high school students. Amazing.

6. The coolest thing about my iPod/PDA so far? The fact that it downloads all the latest New York Times articles so that I can access them without a wifi connection.

7. Someone I know probably just smacked his forehead that I went from reading the LA Times to the New York Times. Just so long as he didn't accidentally ding himself with the large Russian watch on his wrist. That might hurt.

8. I had a really tough time writing my sermon last week, and ended up writing about something I wasn't sure was wise to do. I think it's Anna Carter Florence who talks about how sometimes you have to be willing to pull the rug out from underneath you. That's kind of what it felt like on Sunday. It ended up being just right, and was one of those times that has Holy Spirit written all over it. Of course, I'm going to be remembered as the weepy preacher, because I can't get through an entire sermon these days without tearing up.

9. Because next week is Pentecost and we're worshiping with the Korean congregation, and we're doing an anniversary hymn sing on June 6th, I have one more sermon to preach at SBCC.

Pardon me while I go get a box of tissues...

10. I saved the best for last: BEN FINISHED HIS SENIOR THESIS! I surprised him with dinner at a fancy restaurant last night to celebrate (which means not only two dates in two weeks, but also doubling up on my fantasy to do list about going to a swanky restaurant). The food was so-so, but that was sort of besides the point. Congratulations, my dear husband.

The Tacky Plastic Fish Ring

Ben has been spending long hours working on his senior thesis and I was burnt out on packing, so I decided to scratch off #6 on my Fantasy To-Do List - take Juliette to the Aquarium of the Pacific. I picked Juliette up from school and headed to Long Beach, reading in the car until she woke up from her nap. We toodled around at her pace, squealing about the sharks, pointing out the Nemos ("There's a Nemo, mama! Two Nemos!"), getting mesmerized by the sea turtle.



Before we left, we stopped in the gift shop. I almost skipped it; after seeing a leafy sea dragon in person, all that junky souvenir stuff is even less compelling. But we moseyed through, looking at the various and sundry pens, stuffed fish, and plastic sting rays that help pay the bills. Juliette didn't ask for anything until we got to a tiny model of a sea turtle, and then she asked so nicely (and it was so cheap), I said yes.

We went over to pay for it, but by the cash register Juliette encountered a tacky pink plastic fish ring - sort of a miniature snow globe except with little sea creatures inside. It was just the sort of thing I roll my eyes at. All that talk about conservation and not using plastic bags, and then all this tacky junk destined for landmines. Or, ironically, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. (The turtle, on the other hand, wasn't as tacky. It had a sort of educational aura about it, you know?) But I let Juliette decide between the turtle and the ring, and you know she picked the ring.

Not moments later on our way back to the car, we were standing by the harbor looking at the boats. The ring fell off of Juliette's finger and promptly fell into the ocean. My first thought was something to the effect of, "I knew that piece of junk was going to end up polluting the ocean!" And my second thought was, "No way am I buying a second ring." I could tell immediately how disappointed Juliette was. She didn't have a fit, but she was sad. I had a flash of wanting to make it better. It was in my power to spend $3 to replace the thing. Instead, we sat on the bench for a couple minutes talking about how much "it stinks" that the ring fell into the water.

Ultimately, the reason I didn't replace it isn't because it was tacky in the first place. I decided in that moment that I can't always be the kind of mama to immediately fix it. I'm sure there will be times when I will. But there will also be times when I need to be the mama who commiserates with a disappointed kid. After all, there are disappointments I can't fix even if I wanted to, and it's probably good to have some practice on tacky plastic fish rings first.

Juliette talked about her ring, forlornly, for a few more minutes. But soon enough she played with her spinning top and laughed when I asked her if there were any jellyfish or sea turtles in her bag of fish crackers.

I think I made the right decision. But the alternate decision might not have been wrong.

At any rate, it was a really good afternoon.

Ten on Tuesday

1. Juliette discovered old photo albums from a pile of things to be packed. One was our wedding album. She immediately pointed to Ben and identified him as Daddy, but it took her a second to recognize me... after all, I was platinum blond. When she figured it out, she pointed excitedly and said, "Mama Princess!!!" Is that not the sweetest possible compliment from a two-year-old girl?

2. We Skyped with Lila and her family for the first time last night. The girls just went bonkers... especially Juliette. I don't think I've ever seen her quite so wound up. She cackled, screamed, ran around in circles, and otherwise demonstrated that it doesn't matter that she hasn't seen Lila in four months, they are still besties. "It's my Lila!!!"

3. Ben got me my "PDA" (i.e., iPod Touch) for Mother's Day. I'm trying to track down a good to-do app, as I learned the hard way that if you add things to the iGoogle to-do list when you don't have an internet connection, instead of adding them to the list when you get a connection, it will delete them all. Awesome. Other than that snafu, it's been great.

4. We went on a wonderful date last Thursday night - our first since January. Dinner at a fancy schmancy Mexican restaurant in Manhattan Beach (great enough to satisfy #9 on my fantasy to-do list). I had mesquite-grilled pork in peach tamarindo sauce, red pepper polenta, and braised kale. There are no words for how good it all was. Yummmm.

5. One of my vivid memories from childhood was having to go to a childcare room while my Mama went to an event for girl scout leaders. I was probably in the room for all of two hours, but I hated it. (Just like I hated school in general for years and years.) I wanted my Mama. Well, fundamental difference between J and me. I've taken her to the gym childcare room twice now, and yesterday she was practically begging me to hurry up and leave so she could go "play with the kids." She has a great time, even though I spend the whole hour fretting that she must be completely freaking out. Of course, she's delighted when I walk back in the room.

6. I have always had a special place in my heart for Betty White, who looks so much like my beloved Grandma Watson that when I was little I thought they might be the same person. I haven't seen all of SNL yet because I fell asleep while it was on (not on Saturday night at midnight, but on Monday night at 9:30).

7. In 2002, I got married and moved across the country three weeks later. Planning wedding stuff and moving stuff all at the same time was, shall we say, moderately stressful. Now I'm in the midst of planning 100th anniversary stuff and moving stuff all at the same time. It is, shall we say, moderately stressful. And instead of three weeks, we have more like three days in between.

8. Ack.

9. We canceled our subscription to the LA Times. I miss it, but I'm pretty sure I miss the heyday version we read in seminary, not the gutted version with more advertisements than content we've been reading for the past couple years. Still, it's strange to have to make a decision what to read during breakfast.

10. When I pick up Juliette after school, just as we're about to leave, she turns around by the door and shouts, "Bye friends!!!"

Dear Dillows,

Thank you for my new Sky Ball (especially Bridget, since she's the one who picked my name out of the basket). My Mama and I had fun playing with it today. I also love all my "new" clothes, especially this pretty lavendar ruffled sweatshirt.

Love,
Juliette

Fantasy To-Do List

In reality, my to-do list is currently cluttered with a seemingly endless number of moving-related tasks. Stuff that needs to be closed up or handed off at church, boxes to pack, addresses to update, and so on and so on. This is my fantasy list of things to do before we leave Southern California. The likelihood of any of them happening is woefully slim - even if I did have the next five weeks "off". That's why it's just a fantasy to-do list. Maybe I can shoot for one.

In no particular order...

1. Visit Allison & Anthony in San Jose
2. Rollerblade on the beach
3. Visit Catalina Island
4. Go hiking & camping in Yosemite
5. Go on a whale watching trip
6. Take Juliette to the Aquarium of the Pacific
7. Make one last pilgrimage to Amoeba Records
8. Worship at FCC Pomona
9. Eat at some fantastic five-star restaurant in LA
10. Get discovered

Ha. I'm not entirely sure what I would get discovered for. I think I secretly would love to write for a television series, though. Anyone out there want to give me a chance on a dramedy pilot? That, and I'm still waiting for KCRW to call me in to be the new night DJ.