In The Past Few Days . . .

Oliver has insisted that he really has had a broken leg (not) and that the speed limit in Africa is 200 mph. He also woke me up this morning with the news that his guinea pig was under my bed. This despite his being expressly forbidden from getting his guinea pig out without adult supervision due to rough treatment and the fact that I am sick of retrieving Enrico from under and behind things. Ah, the mind of a 5 year-old.

Location Lag

It's similar to jet lag but instead of your brain being puzzled by time, it's puzzled by location and time zones. I keep doing things like seeing a CO license plate and thinking, "Boy, they're far from home." Duh. I also got really frustrated the other day when the east coast company I was calling wasn't answering. I kept getting an annoying voice mail telling me their business hours were 8 am-5 pm. So WHY, at 3:15 pm, weren't they answering the phone? Because I was no longer on eastern time like them.

My mom and stepdad's whereabouts haven't helped any. For the past 2 months, they've been in New Zealand so when we talked to them, it was always the next day--they were 16 or 17 hours ahead of us. Now they're back and in a matter of days have been in SF and now in Georgia. Given that I can't seem to remember what time zone I'm in, imagine my trying to figure out what time it is where they are.

Mom called the other day from SF and said, I wanted to call you and was trying to figure out what time it was in Baltimore--only you don't live there anymore. She called me this morning from Georgia. It was 9 am here and I thought. "Boy, they're up early." Well, yea, if they were on Mountain Time--but it was already 11 am there. So we're all kinda wacked out time-wise. Sorry if I call you at some strange hour--I cannot yet be held accountable for time or location related errors.

Toothless Wonder

Oliver lost his first tooth 2 days ago. It seems like it was loose just briefly. The kids came flying down the stairs shreiking and I braced myself for whatever conflict was brewing but it was just the falling out of the tooth, apparently aided by Levi's (requested) slapping Oliver in the face (!?).

We have a little silver container with a tiny gold fairy on the top that we put teeth in for the tooth fairy. Oliver was looking at it yesterday and exclaimed, "Oh, so that's what the tooth fairly looks like!" Our tooth fairy brings gold Pochantas dollars and, much to his delight, Oliver found one under his pillow this morning.

What We're Up To

Well first, I'm overdue in introducing you to the two new members of our family, Enrico and Caruso, the guinea pigs. (They're girls but that's what happens when you pick names and then find that there are only females at the pet store.) Their names come from a series of books we've just discovered about a golden hamster named Freddy and his companions, Enrico and Caruso, the guinea pigs. We're having a good time with them. Levi sits on the couch with Caruso on his chest and watches TV. Oliver's guinea pig is a bit less fortunate--we've discovered that O really isn't ready for pet ownership! He has to be closely supervised with Enrico to prevent rough treatment! He intends to be sweet to her but it just doesn't seem to turn out that way yet!

As is typical of springtime in Colorado, our weather has fluctuated wildly between hot and sunny and temps in the 80's to days like today when it's cloudy, rainy and 50 degrees. During the hot days, the kids have been obsessed with water fights in the backyard.

From a book called Howtoons, a present from Grandma M, Adam and the kids made marshmallow shooters from PVC pipe. You insert the marshmallow, give a good hard blow and the marshmallow comes flying out. Saturday was spent between water fights and shooting mini-marshmallows all over the yard. The dog was very happy about this. The kids experimented with shooting them onto the roof, at each other, seeing how far they could propel them and seeing how many they could blow out without stopping up the shooter.

Beware of an ambush by water or marshmallow when you come visit.

Live Music

We are continuing to delight in our little town here. Last night we were the lucky recepients of 2 tickets to a live taping of "etown," a weekly one hour radio show aired on public broadcasting stations. Etown is s non-profit with a "mission to educate, entertain and inspire a diverse audience, through music and conversation, to create a socially responsible and environmentall sustainable world." They are based here in Boulder.

We were lucky enough to see performances by Jakob Dylan (yes, son of Bob) and Joe Ely & Joel Guzman. If you haven't heard Joe Ely (as I hadn't), take a listen via Amazon or iTunes. He's from West Texas and his music is a wonderful combination of all sorts of genres--rock, country, blues, folk, zydeco and more. He's recently been playing with Joel Guzman who can jam on the accordion, something I didn't know was possible. They were a particular pleasure to watch because they took so much pleasure in playing.

If you are interested in hearing this etown recording or others, visit their website at www.etown.org to find a local PBS station that airs the show.

It was lovely to leave the Boulder Theater (an old movie theatre turned performing arts space with the original old-fashioned marquee outside) and stroll down the Pearl Street Mall past people eating at outside, playing music on the mall, and gathered to visit and talk.

Are we happy? Yes, we are!

Altitude

Well, I'm standing here making pancakes and they look distinctly anemic--they're sorta limp and they keep coming out really dark but if I turn the heat down, they don't cook through the middle. (They taste fine though!) Now, I don't really know what the issue with my batter was b/c it stayed pretty runny too. The high altitude instructions caught my eye after it was too late to amend my ingredients. And, frankly, I probably would have ignored them anyway in a kind of, pshaww, could it really make a difference way?

You'll wonder if I learn from the past when I tell you the story that these pancakes made me recall. When I was a teenager, I lived in Aspen, CO with my mom and step-dad, Jack. When he was a child, Jack's favorite birthday cake was a chocolate cake with caramel icing. His grandmother would always make this for him and it made him feel special. I decided to make one for him for his birthday. By this time, I was experience at baking--breads, muffins and cakes. So . . . I made the cake and it turned out fine.

Then on the to caramel icing. I followed all the directions in the sage book, The Joy of Cooking. The icing finished, I put it onto the cake. And it slllooowwwwlllyyyy ran off of the top and down the sides to end up puddled around the cake. Hmmm. Not to be beaten, I scooped it all back up, spread it and quickly stuck it into the fridge, thinking the cold might help it harden a bit. 5 minutes later a peek into the fridge revealed the same scene. Once again, I piled it all up again, spread it, and rushed it into the freezer--with the same result. I was stumped.The cake was good if not pretty. You had to cut your piece, put it onto it's side and spread your own icing.

This was 1979 and Aspen still had what I will always think of as a "real" bakery. You hardly see them anymore--one with the glass cases full of pastries and cakes and breads. And a real live baker, wearing a white baker's hat and covered with flour. In Aspen, this was Mr. Cliff Little, owner of Little Cliff's Bakery. Shortly after my icing failure, I was in town and went into Little Cliff's to ask Mr. Little what had gone wrong. I explained to him what had happened and he laughed and patted me on the back. "Honey, you can't make caramel at altitude. The boiling point is too low and you can never get the sugar to the candy stage!"

Well, it made me happy to know that the icing failure was nothing I had done wrong--expect for trying to cook it at 8000 feet!

What's Wrong With This Picture?

We went to Target today and the kids each left with a new Nintendo DS cartridge. I left with a toilet plunger and a toilet brush. What did I do wrong?