a long slow weekend

Thanksgiving dinner in Belen was good. Cyndi had done a lot of work in preparation. The turkey was still roasting when we arrived. Janey and her daughters were there already, and all the rest of the family from out of town arrived at about the same time, along with Michael. I brought some smoked salmon David and Sandra had sent me from Alaska that I had saved. I put it out almost as soon as we arrived, and it was a hit, along with the spinach dip Cyndi made. Garrick arrived, and later Marti and Cristina. There were chips and cheese out, the wine was opened, and then the turkey was finally ready. The dinner was very good. The kitchen was filled with pots and pans and casserole dishes. Most of it got eaten somehow, including several kinds of pies. The boys ate some turkey and croissants. As an afterthought, I had made some jello with fresh orange pieces that the kids ate. Jeff carved up the turkey. There were sweet potatoes, with a pecan sugary crunch on top, mashed potatoes with enough lumps to make you think it didn't come from a box, smooth hot gravy, Bleicher Girls green beans, corn, stuffing, red chile, rolls and croissants, salad, and cranberry sauce. (Don't think I forgot anything.) Clean up came in waves, with a final push to divvy up leftovers and put everything away so you couldn't tell anything so grand had happened.

Jack took the Wii and hooked it up to see if Papa could use it to play some golf onscreen. Some success with that, and Nicholas spent some good time with Papa helping him. We played a little touch football outside with the boys. Ry got the handoff several times and ran straight ahead, cradling the ball. He made a touchdown, and that made him very happy. It was cold, so we didn't stay out long. Still, we made two attempts at it, before and after dinner.

On weekends, the boys typically crawl into bed for a cuddle. Ry asks me if this is a work day, and when I say no then he asks if we can cook breakfast. He'll have a list that includes eggs, bacon, pancakes and waffles. And like Jackson before him, he'll get out all the ingredients and help me stir the batter. Now he pours the ingredients, too, and I let him crack the eggs into the bowl. He insists on pouring his own syrup. Jackson reminds us to put in the secret ingredient. Sometimes it's French toast, if there's some good hard artisan bread left over to soak up the egg and milk, or sometimes we make oatmeal. Jackson likes mine, he'll say, mostly because it has a pad of butter and some brown sugar on top an island of creamy oatmeal surrounded by milk. Something I learned from my childhood, I'm certain.

It was a good weekend for eating. Lots of good pears and oranges available, which Rylee requested all weekend in addition to chocolate milk. We went one evening to Five Star Burgers. During its Happy Hour, you can get sliders for $1 each and draught beer for half price. In fact, just about everything is half-priced, including an order of batter fried green chile. The boys got a chocolate shake, also in a sense half off because it was split between them. We also went to Monroe's, mostly so Cyndi could get a bowl of red and green chile to supply her with an overload of Vitamin C, and the boys had their new mainstays, whole bean burritos with cheese, and lettuce for Jackson.

Ry and I went to the skate board park again on Friday. He has fun riding around the concrete park. He shoots down a ramp, over a bump, and circles around again. He's been trying to get up a short half-pipe. It's fun to watch him. He's clearly the smallest one out there on a skateboard. He wears his black helmet, his sweatshirt often falling off of him, and carries his board over the more difficult spots and climbs. A few boys ride bikes on the course and there's several Razor scooters. We called Brendon, and he and Pete joined us there for a bit. Both Ry and Brendon made some buddies while they were there, and that was fun to see, too. After about an hour, Ry is tired and thirsty, and we go home.

I talked with Pete about possibly going to Jemez to get a Christmas tree, but heard that Costco was selling beautiful trees for $43. So the boys and I went on Saturday morning and brought one back. It's a Noble Fir, very dense and full and lush, trimmed perfectly, and stands eight feet high to the ceiling in our living room. Jackson picked it out and helped me tie it onto the truck. We trimmed a few inches off the bottom when we got it home and got it in a stand that Jack had hosed off. It drank up a lot of water. Jackson started putting the lights on. I always thought Cyndi was reluctant to have a cut tree inside, but it turns out she loves it. It smells good, and Jackson wondered if it fills our house with good oxygen. He may have a point. It must give off some water vapor, too. Cyndi and the boys decorated while I went to the office for a few hours.

We heard from Ariel, too. She was on the train after flying back from France, and when I talked to her again, she was about to have dinner with Chris.

I helped Cyndi rake a few leaves from our cottonwood and we got a couple of movies from Borders with our online discount coupons and old gift cards. Jack and I spent a lot of time trying to upgrade his IPod. That Verizon Mi-Fi turned out to be a big disappointment. Sunday I called Comcast to get our internet back. Once I found a modem, it was pretty easy and instantaneous to hook up that day. That may have been the highlight for Jackson, having full internet access again. Even Netflix worked again, which the boys watched after Jack and I reconnected the Wii. Jack got on the internet and wanted to download a program to create apps. Ry could get back on internet on our old desk top computer again to research all the Lego sets he wants for Christmas. Jack has been a bit quieter about his wish list ever since he found out the secret of Santa.

Happy Thanksgiving

We're already up early this morning, and the plan was to leave for Belen before mid morning. We got a light dusting of snow during the night. It is below freezing now and not likely to get above freezing until noon. And now there are reports that the roads are shut down due to ice and accidents. It may be a bit of a challenge.

I just dropped a couple of notes to Ariel, who is spending her birthday and Thanksgiving in Paris. It must be almost evening there. I've been watching a live web cam at the Eiffel Tower. The lights are already coming on, and there's dark stormy clouds covering the city. Looks cold there, too, and a chance of snow. Ariel was very busy when we traded notes earlier in the week, but she thought she'd find some time to visit places there. I think she's found a place in the Montmartre, 18th Arr., part of the city.

Cyndi has been busy this week getting the food for the Thanksgiving meal in Belen. She must have made three shopping trips at least. She's been making the sweet potatoes, a spinach dip, and a salad and passing out food for others to prepare. I hear the turkey is in the oven. Janey is there and Jeff came over, too, I just heard. There is an abundance of food. I even got a few extra items.

As I was writing this Ariel came on Skype, and we video chatted for a few minutes. She was in her small room, eating a croissant she bought earlier in the day. The room looked exactly like I saw it online. She was thinking of going out for dinner, maybe after she has a chance to talk with Chris. She has been busy, interviewing scientists and visiting the National Library. She said she managed to get away yesterday to visit the Louvre (she found a good breakfast near it), Nortre Dame, and the Basilique du Sacre Coeur in Montmartre, near where she is staying. Mixed reviews on dining. She says her French is good enough to get around the subways, ordering meals in restaurants, and asking directions, but her interviews have been in English. She did say it snowed for a minute today. It was sunny when she first arrived. She looked good. I think she was a bit overwhelmed by her writing project, and she was probably wondering how it would all come together. She also mentioned that the city was less overwhelming than it might have been had she not been living in NYC. The subways, she remarked, were similar. She leaves Saturday.

fall video I

fall video II

soccer & regatta

    

a week before Thanksgiving

I was watching the boys sit together on the couch. They were so quiet, sitting straight on the edge, Jackson taller than Rylee, almost touching, and then this morning it was back to fighting. The morning begins with cuddling. Then one boy rolls over on the other, and one thing leads to another. "Get off me."

Ariel should be in Paris about now. We'll be going to church this morning, then some time in Belen to deliver the turkey from Costco, and then I need to get work done before Monday morning. The boys have off all week. Thursday, the boys' school had an early Thanksgiving meal in the cafeteria, and the parents were invited to join. I went for Ry's while Cyndi went for Jack's.

Jackson got his glasses last week. According to Cyndi, the first thing he said when he put them on was, "Everything is so pretty."  Jackson denies saying this word-for-word, but the gist of it was about the same as my first time seeing with glasses, when I noticed the leaves on the trees. David when he was here remarked how he first noticed the individual blades of grass. Cyndi remembers the lights no longer glowing with halos.

Friday we splurged for dinner. For months now we haven't gone out, except maybe for a pizza. Jackson has been asking for shrimp and crab for a long time. When Ariel was here last she recalled the first time she had crab.  She and I went to place in Atlanta. Of course, our best crab feast was with David and Sandra, either in Maryland or when we gathered crab from the pots in the Alaskan sound off Juneau, yanked off the legs and claws on the beach as we took them off the boat, and threw the legs and claws into a big steamer, all the while being bombarded by mosquitoes and flies.

So I thought maybe we could get some crab this weekend. There's not many seafood places in Albuquerque. There's Pelican's, a local place, and just a couple of chains. Pappadeux's is popular and near us, a chain with a Cajun/Lousiana/Gulf of Mexico take on seafood. Cyndi likes it. When Cyndi came home from restorative yoga with the boys, who played in the Junior Room at the gym with their cousins, we left.

It was late for us but not late enough. The place was packed, with an hour wait. Folks were gathered outside and inside. The bar was packed, too, but we walked around it, found a place along the wall to claim a spot with a little ledge and a single chair. I ordered a martini and a beer for me and Cyndi, two root beers, and a shrimp cocktail, with pico de gallo and avocado.  Yummy, but too spicey for the boys to enjoy. They ate the crackers and drank a bottle of root beer.

We could watch the numbers on the wait list on a red digital display on the wall, and our number was far away. So we ordered a round of draught beer and coconut shrimp, also a little spicey for the boys to have too much. Cyndi and I ended up with more than our share of the appetizers.  We struck up a conversation with some people at the bar, and for a moment Ry lined up his toy soldiers on the edge of the bar. 

When our number came, Jackson ran to claim it, we closed the bar tab, and walked to our table. Our table was next to the traffic and the wait station, so I asked if we could have the cleared one right next to it but closer into the dining room and out of the traffic.  The hostess paused just long enough to say it was for the next customer and I barely said, well, before she moved us. I thanked her.

We had fun. We ordered a small platter of crab with some sides of clam chowder, pasta, onion rings, and bread. The waiter was wonderful. He brought out the hot butter and the bibs, a cracker and a little plastic implement that worked like an old can opener to cut through the shells.  Jack and Ry were unsure at first but after soaking the bits in the hot butter they loved it. I ended up cutting the crab free for the boys, with a few choice pieces for Cyndi.  When it was gone, everyone said they were so full, even the next morning.

Jackson had religious ed the next morning, a long Saturday session to try the host and wine before he has First Holy Communion on December 5th with his cousin, Nicholas.  I took Ry to the skate park that morning. It was pretty crowded with lots of big kids, but Ry held his own out there, going up and down ramps, trying a few tricks, and he even tried to go up the half-pipe. He had to be among the very youngest. A few kids near his age rode Razor scooters, but Ry was the lone 5 year old on a big board. It won't take him long. He didn't quit until about an hour later, when it was time for Jack and Cyndi to be home.

Ry is drawing many pictures and playing intently with any toy figure, especially the little figures that come with the Lego sets. Jackson is still planning to develop his website, but I'm still trying to figure out the basic code.

I wonder how Ariel is doing in Paris.

My Day at the Balloon Fiesta

By Jackson

On October 1st my dad wanted to go to the Balloon Fiesta tomorrow. We all said OK. It was a bad route to the balloon Fiesta. I think we arrived somewhere around 6:30. I was so cold, and I was freezing. My dad got the tickets and we went inside.

When my family got inside we were all hungry, so we went to get some food. My mom and dad got a burrito and my brother and I got a hot chocolate. Then we got a lot of Balloon cards. Some cards we could not get, so I took a picture with our camera.

We were about to go but my brother, Rylee, wanted one more card. We went to get it. Then we got it and went home. At home, my mom and dad got food poisoning from their burrito.

some excitement

I got a call this morning from first-time great grandparents, telling me that Terra had a baby boy this very day, named Roscoe Philip. All must be well. When I told Cyndi that she was a great-aunt, she made the same joke as my dad: well, I knew I was great.... Wonderful news.

Ariel just gave me a call. I knew from a message she left me that she was in Hartford, Connecticut this weekend. For what exactly, I don't know. She called to tell me she got an assignment to report on some program at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (the National Library of France), along the Seine, in Paris. For a week. In two weeks, just before Thanksgiving. I'll have to get more information from her, but it has to do with the fact the library is the official repository of everything published (in all media) in France, a monumental undertaking. So she's looking into a place to stay in Paris and brushing up on her French.

And the week before, she travels to Georgia to report on sustainable design at the community organic farm she worked at before Fairbanks. (You may remember: Serenbe, near Palmetto, just south of Atlanta.)

These are part of her work at IEEE. I know she's also producing radio podcasts. There may be some connection to Science Friday or the National Science Foundation, or both. I'll have to get that sorted out and let you know.

In any case, Ariel is very excited. This is all very new news.

And David told me all is well with Terra and Roscoe. Sandra is there already. David won't see Roscoe until March. Everyone is excited. Both Cyndi and Ariel were delighted when I passed on the news.

quicky notes & a photoshow

Below is a photoshow for the season. Do I mention the boys often enough? I've been very impressed with Jackson this week, so cooperative and mature. He can be such a delight. In the gym shower last night, after we went in the hot tub, he washed, dressed, and handed me his suit, all without the usual antics. Ry followed suit. Jack carved his own pumpkin this year and he made it doublesided. He used a pattern for one side, which took some time, hand drew a design on the other side, and he made clean cuts. On Halloween, he went out with the older boys to do a second go-round of trick or treating, and, man, did they ever score. No hard candies; mostly little bags of the good stuff. Large candy bars, one Play-Dough, one popcorn ball, and one Capri Sun midway on our route. While the other adults manned the haunted house at the cousins', I took the kids around the first time. Ry was getting desperately tired by the end and his pumpkin pail was heavy. (He added a small rock to his pail, just for a joke.) Jack usually made small talk at each house, often asking them, How's YOUR Halloween? And when he got back, he dumped his candy loot on the floor, sorted out everything with peanuts, and the trading began in earnest. He's got the attention of his soccer coach, who was trying to give him some pointers at practice this week. And he learned something a couple of weeks ago about the jolly round fella from the North Pole who dresses in red. He did say he wished he'd gotten through one more Christmas. Ry is such a sweetheart. He drew some nice pictures last night with a tree on the right and a sun on the left, the blue sky above, and the green grass below. He talks a lot about left and right. Then he read some words to me, sounding out all of the letters. He's always asking me about subtraction. We did all the jungle gyms at school while Jack was at practice. It's a very nice playground. We often cuddle at night and in the wee hours he'll ask me, Can I go to the other room? Our version of musical beds still. Jack and Cyndi often are in the other bed. When I ask Rylee a question, his favorite reply these days is, I have no clue. And he's been addressing Cyndi as "Mother." Ry always asks for a special breakfast on Saturdays, and the boys both help to make pancakes, waffles, or French toast. We've been making fried eggs, too. Last week I used my poaching method, which turned the eggs a little more done, less runny, for me. Ry ate the yolk of his; Jackson ate the white of his.

Some beautiful days this past week. Sunny, low 70s during the day, with a gentle breeze. The air is clean and crisp, and occasionally I'll catch a wift of someone's pinon log fire in the evening.

And the election is over, thank goodness. Nothing too offensive here in New Mexico, but nationwide seemed very stressful.