The last day of the decade

On the last day of the last decade I somehow got wrangled into selling these silly glow-in-the-dark 2000 glasses. You know, where the two middle zeros are for your eyes? Seriously. I was living with my boyfriend in Israel at the time and a guy I knew, the boyfriend of a friend, had this idea to make lots of money selling these things around the country and he convinced me to be his "Southern Region Representative." I don't even remember what the split was but maybe I made a buck for every pair. So imagine this American girl standing in front of the mall trying to pawn these things off. I won't even make you imagine. Here's a picture.

I mean people must have thought I was a total lunatic. Toward the end of the day I called the dealer guy and told him I was still sitting on a giant stack but I was done because this was not how I was spending the last day of the friggin decade. The MILLENNIUM, for the love of ginger! And he was annoyed. And I was like, back off mon frere (he was French). He actually wanted me to stand outside the clubs downtown at night and sell these things. Um, no. I made one final attempt to offload in bulk at one of the clubs to no avail. So I washed my hands of this venture, went home to finish making my dance mix CDs for the party that my future brother-in-law was throwing, and, freed of my obligations, I partied like it was 1999.

Flash foward ten years. On the last day of this decade (a great one by the way) we decided to take our kids skiing for the first time, an equally ridiculous notion. We piled on the clothes, piled them into the van and drove over to rent our equipment. Except there's a giant line and no one has our reservation  and it's a hundred degrees in there and unfortunately the 12-person family of first-time skiers from Mexico has walked in before us. Fantastico.

We finally get our stuff and go out to the van except my brother-in-law can't find the keys to the other car (we took two cars fully expecting my son to hate skiing and want to come home). We look everywhere. No keys. So we drive home in the van. As he walks in the door he realizes the keys are in his boot. Apparently he missed his bib pocket and the keys slid all the way down his ski pants. I'm not sure how you don't feel something like that but ok. We fuel up on protein and carbs and pile the kids back in the van.

Finally around 2:00 we make it to the slope and, after some initial concern, both my kids learned to ski. It was actually totally incredible. My daughter went down a few times held by her armpits but my son actually learned how to ski by himself and stop by himself (more important). We were completely amazed. I love when that kid surprises me.

Later that evening we went out for dinner and ended up at cocktail party discussing New Mexico's budget crisis with the State Secretary of Finance who was very interesting but could not pick up on social cues, like the one where you look at your watch and yawn. We also had lively conversation with a sexologist and his partner who does PR. Get me out of here! The evening ended with me going to sleep at 11:30.

Flash forward another ten years. I'm sitting with my husband at our favorite restaurant in the yet to be determined place where we finally settled down. Our son, who is FIFTEEN is at home watching our daughter, 13 and our twins (just kidding chamud, only one more...) because we paid him $300 since the going rate for babysitters is now $50/hour (holy crap). We're celebrating the success of my third book (a novel about a mom who has a very active imagination - somewhat autobiographical) and my husband's most recent invention (a hearing aid that wraps around your head like a turban because after years and years of devices getting smaller and smaller, giga is the new nano).

Can you hear us giggling? It's because we still feel like we're 26.

Confined

That's what we thought when we bought our house six years ago. Just get in this crazy San Francisco Bay Area market. It will go up. You'll triple your money. Who cares if you're leveraged up the wazoo. You'll just mortgage your wazoo. So we bought our little birdhouse and it was great. And we could afford it since we paid NO INTEREST. And we were just the two of us so it felt kind of spacious even though I was the size of a whale pregnant with my son. In fact, we loved our little house. We still love it. But now that we're four and not two, it's a little tight. And even though there's a giant park across the street, it's not like we can just send our two small kids over there to play by themselves. It's not the seventies after all. Plus, we need a second bathroom. It's time. My kid's are starting to ask questions when "Aunt Flow" comes to visit. What's that mommy? A diaper? I can't deal.

Not to mention needing a proper studio. I need space! I don't want to put away my art supplies all the time. I don't want to only use one kind of art supply because there's no room for any more. Feeling kind of stifled artistically. CONFINED.

Eye candy

What is it about little kids in snow clothes that makes you want to pop one in your mouth and eat it? Maybe it's the resemblance to salt water taffy.

And in case you're wondering Where's Waldo?

He's spoken for.

The Other Happiest Place on Earth

Before we got married my husband and I traveled around the world for nine months. I would send very long emails to my people every couple of weeks. Once, while we were in Kathmandu, I wrote the mother of all emails about our journey through Thailand and then the power went out. Bye bye email. So me and the Welsh guy at the next terminal spent a few minutes cursing Nepal and the fucking ox that probably just tripped over the city's main electrical power line. And then we met my husband for a drink and I wrote an even better email the next day.

So let's just say that a lumbering ox named Blogger just deleted the blog entry I'd been writing for the last 45 minutes. Somehow the whole thing got erased just as it was auto-saving. Thanks for nothing auto-save. But let's assume that this version will be even better than what I just wrote. And I'll be able to write it in only ten minutes. Blind typing.

And let's also assume that my New Year's resolution was not to write in my blog every day. Obviously. Or even once a week at this rate. But I've been away visiting family in New Mexico. And I have a million stories to tell from the trip which is why I haven't been able to write because there's too much to write and isn't that always how it goes? So I will get through the stories slowly and probably not chronologically because that would feel like work. And I'm lazy.

I will tell you that on this trip I discovered heaven. Until now I've only really had a clear vision of hell. It's muggy in a way that leaves my hair permanently frizzy; there are thousands of two year olds  having tantrums; it is very dusty and full of state employees; I can only wear polyester; I always have my period and there are many, many cats. But, until now, I did not have as clear an image of heaven. My happy place, if you will. The place where I could go when I needed to shut out everything. There have been contenders. A lake by a mountain. Too many mosquitoes. A tranquil beach. Sand in my tushy.

But on this trip I found it. It's called Jackalope. Feast your eyes on this treasure of trove of handmade. Handsewn. Handcut. Handcarved. Handpainted. Handed over from an assembly line in China. This is a giant warehouse of chingaderas (little fucking things). Paper cut flags, oil cloth by the yard, lanterns, pottery, blown glass, worry dolls, day glow skulls, Frida magnets, baskets, furniture, embroidered everything, anything you could possibly need for a Dia de los Muertos celebration, carvings, lucha libre lunch boxes and sombreros.

 

And you bet your culo I bought my daughter one of these little embroidered dresses which I, against my better judgment, let her wear to preschool her first day back and which came home in a baggy smeared with paint. But I washed it out and she is ready to reprise her role as Frida for Halloween 2010.

And lucky me, I got to share heaven with two favorite women, my mommy and my sister in law. We left our husbands at home with our kids and spent the afternoon patrolling the plaza, drinking Mexican hot chocolate and finally arriving at this marvelous retreat. And as we are admiring a stack of woven carpets, I hear a faint cry. Mommy. That must be in my head.

 

But behold! It was not in my head. It was my kids! And my niece and nephew! In a wagon! Apparently their fathers, not knowing where we had ended up, had taken all the kids to see Alvin and the Chipmunks but it was sold out and in an act of desperation they came to Jackalope because not only does this place have every tchotchke known to man, it also has a petting zoo where you can feed donkeys. And a glass blower. Well you don't feed the glass blower. Just the donkeys.

And I thought, huh. Who invited my kids to my happy place? But there they were. Jumping around, screaming with glee and nearly bowling over a row of three foot St. Francis de Asisis. But I was very happy to share my happy place with them. And happier still when their father took them home in a separate car.

The prodigal daughter returns

We're back home now and off again tomorrow to spend a snowy week in Santa Fe. Thought I'd share some of our visit to southern California.

Smog makes for killer sunsets. Though the smog was not as bad as I remembered it growing up.

I brought a car load of toys which we piled in the corner but my kids found these plastic bags in the garage and decided they were more fun. They are actually zipped inside. With a peephole for air. I call these immigrant bags since they're the kind you see in the international baggage claim. I bought them for a buck each in Israel and gave my mom a few. Good for storage. Or time outs. Scratch that. Way too much fun for a time out.

I bought my daughter these rad Vans shoes with neon colored skater monsters on them.  When I was ten my friend Andrea and I used to paint our Vans in all kinds of crazy colors and we told my mom that Vans wanted us to start selling them in the store. Well Andrea thought that would be funny and I knew my mom would believe us and that it would end badly, which it did. I saw Andrea on this trip and told her that I'd designed these for Vans. She almost bought it.

Required trip to a cafe with Grandma.

Classic southern California. My husband and I did see a movie while in town (he flew down for the last day of the trip). We saw Up in the Air. I liked it. Could have waited for video though. High fives to Jason Reitman though for making some pretty good movies, almost rivaling his dad's Ghostbusters.

We spent a lot of time at the art gallery where my mom works because my son thinks he works there too. Thankfully there's also a carousel nearby.

I call this one Two Cherubs.

One amazing discovery on this trip was the Bowers Museum Kidseum. When I was about five or six years old my mom sent me to day camp at Bowers Museum with Jason Stern and I hated it. We both did. We both still talk about it. I'm sure it was awesome in theory. I remember we learned about bees. But I just wanted to get home every day. Sound like someone else we know and love from this blog? About ten years ago they opened a kids museum that's only cultural dress and play from around the world. Imagine giant bins of international dress up clothes and masks the size of your preschooler. It was outstanding and we were the only ones there (on Christmas eve day) and the kids had a ball.

  

More when we return from New Mexico. Happy 2010!