thursday good fun stuff

+ today i wrapped up a project i've been working on for the last week. yeah!

+ i also went to swim lessons with my boy. he followed a little girl around the pool. his first love.

+ i took myself out for a huge bowl of pho today while i was in sf.

food read

i love this: a gazillion ways to use leftover pickle juice, via serious eats.
favorites are mixing it into tuna salad and freezing for bloody mary's.

monday was day 13 (of good, fun things). ollie woke up really sick and we ended up spening the day in the ER.






i'm too tired to write about it but the good news: he's on the mend. as much as monday sucked, i was just glad to have my guy home last night. i was glad to be home with both my guys last night. and, another good thing--the folks who work at oakland children's hospital are incredible. what they do every day is important.

after a very restless night, today (day 14 for those counting) i had to work. it was a busy day. it was wonderful to come home and see my guys. and tonight we read a really cute, funny book, called Bongo Larry.



as much as i've enjoyed the good, fun day stuff, i'm kind of bored of trying to find good in everything. (sort of kidding here.) we'll see if i continue or not.

fun link, from lost at e minor. artist, sacha goldberger took pictures of joggers after a sprint, and then asked them to come to his studio a week later.




pics by sacha goldberger, via lost in e minor.

good fun thing(s) day(s) 10, 11 and 12

pretty sunset

friday

+ g had a show with the orange peels at the make-out room in sf. one of the teachers from ollie's school watched him. i raced home, made them dinner, made myself something to eat, paid my fastrak bill (since my debit card was hacked i had to get a new card, which meant that fastrak freaked out), washed my face, changed and bolted out the door. of course, i had no gas, so i stopped for gas. and i tried to get money out to pay the sitter and i forgot my new pin number. i was a little frantic. by this time gabe was 10 minutes away from playing. i raced to the freeway and got off in emeryville like a dork. then i circled the mission for EVER looking for parking. i finally made it and saw three songs. they sounded great!

+ after the show we joined john and suzie for dinner at dosa. dinner number two for me. i couldn't help myself.

saturday

- in the middle of the night ollie woke up and i went in to get him and bring him back to our room. he was burning up. we went back to sleep for a while and when we woke up, he was still warm. we played for a while and then, at around 10, he fell asleep on the couch. this is very unlike ollie. we tried to move him to the bedroom and it didn't work. i took his temp and it was 101.3. we would not be joining daddy in the city for lunch. ollie and i spent the day in front of the tv. we napped in my bed for a couple of hours and watched a shit-ton of thomas the train. daddy and i loathe thomas the train.

+ by the time gabe got home, ollie's temp was gone and he was asking to eat at "the restaurant." we went to tacubaya. i'm in LOVE with their tortilla soup. LOVE.



little boy feels better

sunday

+ today was all about hanging at home, chores, and naps. i went and got my hair cut and then we went to little star for kyle's birthday. i think they're better than zachary's. their pizza and their salads are both so GOOD!



little star, i love your cornmeal crust.



i love summer. i love long days, lots of daylight and sandle weather. don't end summer.



happy boy, purple horse.

+ my youngest brother's girlfriend is having a baby in september. we're throwing the shower next saturday. i asked ollie if he wanted to come see uncle chris. he said he did. "and his baby?" he asked. i told him that the baby would come a few weeks before his birthday. he said, "dadda, uncle chris is having a baby for my birthday." yeah ollie, something like that. i asked him what kind of birthday party he wanted this year. ollie said, "a pink one." whatever you say little guy.

links

taylor stitch makes shirts by hand in san francisco, on valencia street. they have ready to wear and they also custom make shirts.

an excellent (and 10 day old) interview with miranda july. i love her.

once a week i take myself out for sushi. it's become a weekly ritual that i love. i get a diet coke, and sit and read google reader. i'm all about salmon nigiri. today at around 3:30 i realized i still hadn't had lunch and i was feeling dizzy. sushi it was.

also, louie is on thursdays and that's a really good thing. if you haven't seen it you're missing out. very funny.

pacing the panic room has long been a favorite read. you have to read this about fart salad. it's incredibly sweet and funny.

good fun thing day 10

often i'll get ollie down, then hang out for a few hours until i go to bed. tonight i fell asleep in ollie's room room until gabe woke me up at 9:15. then i came out to the couch and fell asleep until 11. it's now after midnight and i'm wide awake. go me!

i'm a pessimist and this good fun thing is making me change my thinking. so i guess that's good, right?

+ this afternoon as i was leaving the city, i got a phone call from a former colleague. she happened to be in berkeley and wanted to know if i wanted to meet for coffee. we went to guerilla cafe. i really look up to this person and it was nice to catch up. i left feeling like i had things more in perspective.

++ also, i am sorry if ollie is hogging this blog lately, but i have to share. hand dimples make me happy. they just do.



+++ this morning, before work and daycare, my dad called and said he was coming to say hi to ollie. it was an unexpected (10 minute) visit.

++++ link. beth spotswood makes me laugh.


-
today while sitting in traffic on the bay bridge, thinking of changing this blogging thing into shitty bad things, i saw a car with 2 bumper stickers. one said redneck. the other said orgasm donor. i did a double take. there was no way i could take a picture because the car was in a lane that was actually moving. and i was driving. but i did want to share this. i'm sure that sticker gets the guy a lot of donor opportunities.

good fun thing(s) TO READ (day 9)

let's make that good things to read elsewhere.

is there anyone who doesn't read dooce? i doubt it. just in case, i read this while i was holding ollie (trying to get him to sleep) and it made me laugh so hard my entire body was shaking.

elizabeth is the reason i've recently peppered every conversation possible with "no big whoop." she's always a good read.

this blog is a good read. speaking of, this is sweet.

if you read yesterday's post, you'll understand why i was so happy megan of not martha linked to this.

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inspired by Maggie Mason

i think i mentioned i found pinterest recently. i'm addicted. i always star things i reader with the intention of going back to read them. now i can post them and delete them. or share them here. YAY!

good fun thing day 8

he is the best. i could eat him.



So we went to the movie with Ollie. I think it was pretty much what I expected. The minute the movie started he began to cry. Sometimes the sound in movies is so loud, I feel it in my chest and my heart skips a beat (more in a delighted, riding a roller coaster sort of way), but I had a feeling he’d get upset. He cried and I didn’t want to ruin the movie for everyone, so we walked outside and sat on the bench. And we talked. “I scawed Mama.” Finally I convinced him that we should just go inside and peek at the screen. We did. The Muppets were on. Then it was back to the bench. Back and forth—we did this for a while.

I got Gabe’s attention and Daddy joined us in the hallway. I made Gabe hold Ollie. Then I went and sat down. They joined me. He burrowed into me and peeked at the screen. He got into it. Then the small diet Coke, that was Big Gulp in size, caught up with me. Ollie insisted on coming with me. We came back and watched more. Then I had to pee AGAIN. (If you know me then this is NORMAL. I peed three times during Bridesmaids. You can imagine Dances with Wolves. 16 times. (NO, not really 16 times. But yes, 3 times.) Imagine me pregnant.)

When we got outside for bathroom break #2, two of the three kids we were with were running laps. We never made it back into the movies. The three little boys did laps for the last ½ hour.
I think next time we go he’ll do fine.

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Inspired by Might Girl.

Good fun, day 7

I had birthday money burning a hole in my pocket and time to go shopping, all by myself, with no specific time I had to be home. There wasn’t a whole lot that floated my boat, but I did score a shirt, sweater and some earrings. Not so sure about the earrings but I’m looking for an excuse to wear the shirt.

Saturday night we ate dinner at Addie’s Pizza Pie. I really like it there—the pizza is good, the service is incredibly nice and it’s Ollie-friendly.

We got a pizza with prosciutto. Ollie loves prosciutto—he calls it “shooto.” He ate the prosciutto off of every piece but two. Whatever keeps him quiet. Sodium in this case.
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Also, I finally joined Pinterest. Things might be a bit quiet around these parts. I tend to get obsessive.
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Good fun inspired by Maggie Mason.

good fun things day 6

+

l u a u tonight at ollie's school. all week i've been on the fence and then yesterday i decided we weren't going, so i didn't sign us up. one of the moms in his class emailed me asking if we'd be going, so i decided we would go. i asked the director if we could crash the party and she gave us the thumb's up. i'm glad we went. in the past there hasn't always been a big turn out from parents of kids in his class, but tonight was pretty good. it was fun to meet some of the parents i never see due to different drop off/pick up schedules. and tonight there was music and beer. even better.

after the party s. and ollie decided they'd shoot some hoops before going home. too cute.

++

today when i arrived at ollie's school one of the teachers told me she had to give him a sponge bath today because he had somehow been covered in dirt while they were playing outside. i can only imagine what he was doing. dirt in his hair, his diaper, etc. i was only half joking when i asked her if this meant i wouldn't have to bathe him tonight. she told me i'd definitely need to bathe him tonight and mentioned that there was still dirt in his hair. i wonder if the teachers are catching on to me. you see, his last bath was last saturday at my folks' house. is that gross? don't answer that. today is friday. it is gross. i've been slacking on bath time because he had swim lessons two nights this week. and he's in a stage where he doesn't ever want to take a bath. i promise to be better about your hygiene, ollie. here is he smiling in the tub. that's because i told him we could watch dinosaur train and eat popsicles after the bath. (yes, i resorted to bribery. i was weak. )

- - - - - - - - -

on the agenda for the weekend? chores, shopping, haircut and o's first movie, cars 2, with a handful of kids from his class. actually it's o's first cars movie period. i doubt we'll make it through the entire almost 2 hours. (thank god.)

good fun thing(s) day 5

people's donuts are insanely amazingly delicious. i could eat 3 in a sitting.




i could write an entire post about the jewelry i've lost. it would probably be too painful for me. my baby ring. my brother's baby ring. (what?) the jade earrings my grandmother gave me for my 16th birthday. the list goes on. and on.

at one point my parents gave me a ring like the one below, but it was two bands, knotted together. the other day, at the temescal street faire, i bought a ring like the one pictured. today my 12-year old cousin bought one from a vendor on telegraph avenue. we have matching rings.

good fun thing(s) days 3 and 4

driving down 280 is a good thing. there's never too much traffic and the scenery is pretty. yesterday i went down to palo alto with leonard cohen cranked up high. sometimes i really love driving. the clouds were so amazingly beautiful, i pulled over to photograph them.

maybe i went to too many dead shows as a teenager. i love fluffy, marshmallowy clouds and the way the light plays off of them.

i love the still quiet of libraries. and the way books smell. today i explored the uc berkeley campus with my cousins and aunt. one of my cousins is considering ucb for college next year. (she was born when i was a freshman in college. really, i don't think anything has ever made me feel so OLD.)


cousins and aunts (as mentioned above) came to visit. they spent the night and today i took the day off to hang out. ollie tried to boss the cousins around (he called them his friends.) we ate and talked and laughed. my aunt is amazing and the cousins, aged 12, 14 and 16 are the cutest. last night, before bedtime, gabe put on an ella fitzgerald album and we sat around and listened to music and talked. i made the girls licorice tea. my 12-year old cousin updated her facebook status: "sitting around, listening to ella fitzgerald, drinking licorice tea and looking at the sf bay. it's delovely." cute.

good fun thing, day 2

i have fond memories of swim lessons as a kid, at the ymca. i mostly have a pretty shitty memory but i can still remember the way the pool smelled and the way the sun would shine through the leaves that surrounded the pool at the end of the day. and my teachers named cindy and sally. i wanted my name to be cindy or sally, or better yet, cindy sally.

today was ollie's very first swim lesson.

i was anxious because i didn't know where we were going, i wanted to feed him in between daycare and his class, traffic was awful, and to be honest, i get a bit nervous when i do something like this for the first time. i like to be early to new things, so much so, that i'm usually painfully early to things. when i fly i usually end up at my gate 2-3 hours before my flight boards. my dad is the same way and i make fun of him.

i didn't want o. to be nervous or pick up on my anxiety so i tried to be cool. you know, for my two and a half year old. no big fuckin' deal, olls, your mom is cool.

once we got there, it was fine. totally unpretentious and cute to see all the parents and kids.

ollie thinks he already knows how to swim. when i hold him in the water, he tries to shake me off, like i'm cramping his style and just being annoying. little does he know. he wanted to jump in and go under water. he also kept asking to go to other lanes, with bigger kids.

before his lesson, in the ladies' locker room he met a young gal who ended up being in his class. he tried to pick up on her during the class but she wasn't interested. thank god he took a hint.

it was FUN! we both can't wait until the next swim lesson.

the state health department requires that all children 42 months old and younger, wear non-disposable, washable swim diapers. i don't recall it being like this when we were young, but then again, we never wore sunscreen either.

if you haven't noticed i'm a big fan of mighty girl. i'm pretty sure i'd be a bumbling idiot if i ran into her in public.

maggie has started a project, which involves making time to do something fun each day. i'm going to do my best to play along.

here are some fun things since friday:

getting my guy aguas frescas. he finished it in under a minute. (i should tell you about the train in the picture. ollie loves it. gabe and me, not so much. oy, the tantrums this train has caused. but this post is supposed to be about good things.)


pretty sky over the uc berkeley campus.


my mom watched ollie on saturday night so gabe and i could have a night out. i drove ollie down to my folks while gabe stayed home and did chores. here's ollie sitting in my folks' backyard, eating strawberries. i love how much he loves my mom and how much she loves him. da, as he calls my mom, can do no wrong and he'll do anything she tells him to do. also, strawberries have been delicious lately. another good thing!


dinner and drinks with g. we went to gather for dinner. it was fun. i highly recommend the bee sting. and the vegan charcuterie. also, i don't have a picture but i also got to sleep in until 10 the next day. that's a good 4 hours later than usual.


my handsome husband, me and my eyebrows. they desperately need some attention. (ugh.)


little man sleeping in his tuxedo t. 'nough said.


beers, bbq, birthday, loved ones, gorgeous weather, and time outside. so relaxing!

yeah, remember the baby shower i mentioned i was throwing at the end of the month? i handmade each invitation and guess what? i forgot to put the time on them. so awesome.

need a new book?

what should i read next?

type in an author's name or a book title and this will generate book suggestions.

via a cup of jo, here.

ollie lately

i was chasing him around the car, trying to keep him from climbing in. anytime we're near a car he tries to open the door and climb in.

anytime anyone comes to the house he asks to see their car. he'll walk around and around the car, as if he works for a rental car agency and the car is being inspected upon return.

we lock our car doors in front of our house because of him.


making himself comfortable at my aunt's house.


riding the carousel at vasona. still a bit unsure.


popsicles with nono.


train with mom at vasona.


playing drums on the back deck.


walking at garber park with dad, looking for "leafwiches."


swimming with uncle a.


playing in his pool on the back deck.

drums

when i met gabe he had 4, 5, maybe 6 (!) organs.
he's moved on to collecting drums.

g has started restoring vintage drum kits. he's doing a damn fine job. behold:

1. before




after



2. before

after

this hand painted blouse is lovely.






from here.

(i've seen this around on a few blogs, but i can't recall where...stumbled on it tonight on etsy.)