Alex fell out of bed ...

... but didn't wake up.

They insist on sleeping with the light on. In the future they're going to regret that, because it means we can take photos like this one.

Viewing Statistics Quiz

I use Google Analytics, to see just how many people aren't reading this blog.

In the past month, there have been 408 page views, by 253 unique visitors.

One entry has been massively more popular than the rest. It's had 159 views (of the 408). The entry in second place has had 13 views. (That's ignoring the 113 people who looked at the home page).

We could make a quiz about that. Which entry was it? (Clue: almost all of them were sent here by Google.) But then I might forget to give the answer, and you might not notice it. So I'll post it below.



























It was the entry on sledding in Big Bear. It's hard to find information on where to go sledding in Big Bear.

What to say to realtors

We went to look at a house today, which was for sale by owner.

Both a seller and a buyer can use a realtor. The purpose of a realtor when you are buying a house seems to be to look on the internet for you to see if there's a house you might like, then drive you to the house to look at. They charge something like 3% of the purchase price to do that. As we can use the internet, and have a car, we don't see the need for a realtor.

The owner asked Susanne if we have a realtor representing us. They didn't have a realtor - so we felt a bond. They too had rejected these people who seem to me to be unnecessary parasites. As houses cost a lot, and you get 3% for buying OR selling a house as a realtor, you don't need to buy (or sell) a lot of houses to make a reasonable amount of cash. I read somewhere the other day that there is one realtor per 76 people in Southern California.

No, said Susanne. We don't have a realtor. They're pushy and obnoxious and serve no purpose except to irritate us. And they are parasites on the face of the planet. (Actually, those weren't her exact words, but she did use the word pushy.)

I asked the owner if she was selling the house herself. "Yes" she said. "I'm a realtor."

Luckily, we've realized that part of the job of being a realtor is to ask lots of questions which sound like you're being friendly. But in actual fact, you ask those questions to everyone and don't listen to the answers. So realtors just ignore everything you say.

"Well" she said, "If you need someone to represent you ...".

Enough ...

Sometimes I get behind with this blog. Sometimes I have to make an effort to write about something before it gets pushed out of my brain by the next exciting thing that happens. (When I download photos from my camera, there are occasional bizarre photos, I remember that I took the photo because I was going to blog about it, but I forget why it was interesting).

Anyway, on a blog called Boobs, Injuries and Dr Pepper, the author has similar woes. In a post called New Year, New Deductibles to Meet she writes:

"As I stumbled to the bathroom in the middle of the night, the corner of my foot encountered the resistance of the metal wheel on the bottom of the desk. I heard an unnatural crunch and then a high, reedy whistling sound. As it turns out, the whistling sound was the my brain informing my toe that it was fuuuuuuucked up.

As I fell to the floor in a fetal position, I wheezed, "But, I don't need more blog material."

(Deductibles are tax deductibles. The tax year ends on December 31st, so people are thinking about tax; health care costs are deductible.)

Fire

Inspired by things like The Dangerous Book for Boys (which Grandma bought for Christmas for the boys) we decided to go to the beach and have a fire. This being America, you can't have a fire just anywhere (that's not just American overcautiousness - substantial parts do burn down on a reasonably regular basis), but there are 'fire pits' on the beach.

So we went there to cook lunch and singe our extremities.

We learned a number of lessons, for next time.

1. Bring some water. It's better than apple juice or diet coke, when you burn yourself.
2. Bring a small table. That way, when you leap away from the fire (when you burn yourself) you don't scatter sand onto everyone's food.
3. It might have been better to do it in the evening, or on a colder day. It was quite warm (23 degrees, on the 13th of January, he said smugly), and a fire was unpleasantly hot, rather than pleasantly warming.

Martin Luther King

Continuing our occasional series about American history, here Alex explains about Martin Luther King.




Since they've learned about Martin Luther King, they now know about race, and can identify who of their friends is black, who's white (like them) and who's brown. I preferred it when they didn't know, it's like they've lost a little bit of innocence. One day they won't believe in Santa Claus either. But I won't mind that.

Our Complex

Fiddling about on Youtube, I found this video, advertising our apartment complex. It's very well shot, making it look a whole lot swankier than it actually is.




I've never seen that fountain - although I've heard it exists. Notice that the gardener has black trash bags on his mower. That's because they put the grass into black bags, and throw it away. The grass they show is watered so furiously you can never actually sit on it. It's too wet and muddy. The last minute (of a 2.5 minute video) is about a mile away. Walk there, it says. But don't walk home again, cos it's up a steep hill.

Nose Job

The piece of selloscotch tape above came out of Daniel's nose. We're not quite sure how it got up there. Daniel says that he doesn't know, Alex said he was smelling it. (My finger is there for scale, I've got quite a big finger and he's got quite a small nose).

We discovered that Daniel had a piece of tape up his nose shortly before it was time to leave for school. We spent a while trying to make him blow it out, which got nowhere - mostly because he's not much good at blowing his nose, and partly because he tends to sniff immediately after.

I took Alex to school while Susanne started to dig with some tweezers. I was all for sending him to school - I figured it would work it's way out, and it wasn't really toxic. But I sought the advice of other parents, who said I should ask the doctor.

However, on January 1st we changed health insurance plans. To register with a doctor you need your health insurance card, and for reasons that I suspect are due to someone's incompetence, we didn't have them for the boys yet. (I had one, Susanne had one with my surname on, which is no use because they always want some other form of ID). So, we didn't have a doctor. We rang the NurseLine (think NHS Direct) and asked them what to do. Just like with NHS Direct, they told us to take him to the Emergency Room.


I had visions of glamorous doctors and nurses rushing about shouting things like 'clear' and sitting on top of trolleys pumping on people's chests whilst dealing with the crowds of people in the waiting room with heart attacks and gunshot wounds and car accidents and drug overdoses whilst exchanging the sort of looks that people exchange when they slept together for the first time last night, aren't sure if it was a mistake, and don't know if anyone else knows.

But before we could experience this excitement for ourselves, we had to find the ER. Our nearest hospital is called the Centinela Freeman , and is the place that Kanye West's mother was taken, when she died. I knew where the hospital was (we go past it quite often) but not where the emergency entrance was - so we circled the block until we found it.

I stopped the car outside the entrance and took Daniel in (I was practicing for when there was blood spraying from him). The waiting room was not really like the waiting room on ER. For a start, it was rather small - maybe 15 chairs, in total. There was a window where you registered, and a large fish tank, with only 4 fish in it (there could have been more hiding). There were two other people in the waiting room - what looked like a mother and her (about) 10 year old daughter. We were in their for a while, and I think one other person came in. No one was bleeding. No one was on a trolley (I didn't even see a trolley). The doctors and nurses didn't exchange any kind of looks, except slightly bored ones. An ambulance drove in, fairly slowly, and then drove away again.

Despite the lack of people, the main feature of the trip to the hospital consisted of waiting - just like in England. First, I had to see someone to fill out the insurance forms (I felt slightly foolish filling in the section that said "Nature of problem"). Then we took Dan to see a nurse who did things like weigh him, and take his temperature and pulse - that seemed a little unnecessary given that he'd had a bit of tape up his nose for a little over an hour at that point, but I suppose they need to be sure.

Then we went back to the waiting room and waited. Then we saw another nurse who took us to a triage room where we waited. (With a bizarre bed that seemed to double as some sort of cage; and several magazines to read, but all on quilting - really, I didn't know there was one magazine on quilting). Then another person came to see if we were there, and we waited some more. And then the doctor came, with a small entourage of 3 people. (Daniel was very impressed, because the doctor was bigger than Daddy).

He had brought with him the "getting things out of children's nose kit". Got a pair of long, blunt nose (which made me happier) tweezers, had a member of entourage hold a light, and hoofed out the piece of tape (pictured above), which was much larger than we thought it would be.

We filled out more forms and went to school. Daniel was very excited, and kept his identification bracelet on to show his teacher. He told Alex about it, at some length, which made us slightly nervous in case Alex thought that it so exciting that he should stuff some tape up his nose too. But that hasn't happened (yet).

What?

At about 8pm on Christmas Eve, in Oceanside (on the way back from Legoland) we decided that the best thing to do for food would be to find a supermarket and buy something like sushi, or failing that, some microwave meal. We couldn't stand the thought of more delivered food at our hotel, and we had a room with a 'kitchenette'. Trader Joe's was shut (they have some bizarre idea that their staff might prefer to do something other than sell me ready meals on the evening of December 31st), so I went to Vons. Vons was closing at 11pm that day (but was back to 1am on the 1st of January, so the sign on the door told me).

I shopped, which was a moderately stressful experience, Susanne and the boys were waiting in the car, the sushi was all sold out, I couldn't find my way around this large, strange supermarket, and I'd just had two days at Legoland. When I'd finished, the woman on the register (who, incidentally, didn't seem to feel that working on a supermarket checkout was her calling, and particularly didn't seem to feel this on the last day of the year) said: "Helpow?"

"Huh?" I replied.

"Hell-Pow?"

I looked blank. She looked as if she was losing patience. "Help. Out?" she repeated, slowly and clearly.

Now I understood the words, but had no idea what she meant. Sometimes in Gap, they ask you if anyone helped you out in the store, but that didn't seem likely. Was she asking if I wanted to help out with something? If I wanted her to help out with something? If I wanted someone else to help out something? Or help me out? But help me out doing what? I didn't know what to say.

"Errrmmm.. No" I said, looking for any kind of reaction that this was really wrong and stupid, and I should change my answer to "Yes". But there was no reaction at all, and so I left the shop, relieved.

A Peculiarly Unpleasant Ride

This was a ride that we didn't go on. The big hydraulic arm thing swings you about in the air in an unpredictable, and potentially nauseating fashion.

Then, as if that wasn't sufficiently unpleasant, your friends, or random onlookers (in this case, Alex and Dan) can pay money to attempt to hit you with what they called a water bomb, whilst you are suspended and out of control.

Legolanded Out

We went to Legoland, on the 30th of December, and then again on the 31st, for the New Year's Eve party - the second day was free, if you went on the first day. My camera died part way through the two days, so you don't have to sit through as many photos as you might have done. In particular, there were some quite impressive Lego structures, as you can imagine (or if you can't imagine, search Flickr for Legoland).

This is the entrance, in case you're not sure where you are:
This was a signpost, which I thought quite clever. It said things like Legoland: Denmark, 17,342,232 Lego bricks, and Tipperary: Long Long way.
Family photo:
Earthquake zone. One of the boys' favourite things to do was to build structures on this special vibrating table, and then turn it on so that they collapsed (the structures, that is).

Lego Christmas tree - strictly speaking, it's made of Duplo, not Lego.



Train ride: Unfortunately, only one adult was allowed per carriage, so I had to miss out on my turn.


This was a very large maze structure, to be used when children had too much energy.

The other favourite thing of the boys was the Driving School, where they drove a car around in circles. This came in two flavours - the Junior - for 3 to 5 year olds, and the non-Junior (they didn't give it a name) for 6-13 year olds. The smaller one was a little too dull for the boys, but they weren't officially old enough for the big one, and each child was asked their age before going on. We had a brief period of moral turmoil (well, S did) before training the boys to say "Six!" when asked how old they were. I was worried they'd fluff it at the last moment, so I kept poking them and asking them how old they were. Alex almost got it wrong once or twice in practice "Fff..Six!", but when the crucial time came, they got it right.

The driving school was sponsored by Volvo - here's a Lego Volvo (except for the wheels).

On the second day we hired a stroller, which was a bargain at $12. It got us the odd strange look, but it made for much less tired (and therefore grumpy) boys (although slightly thinner boys, 'cos they had to be squeezed in it). It also made for less tired (and therefore grumpy) parents, because the extra energy we expended pushing them around in the thing was a whole lot less than the extra energy we would have expended telling them to hurry up, pleading with them not to sit on the ground, consoling them because of their sore knees/legs/feet, and picking them up when the other had pushed them over.

There had been some stuff on the website about bringing dry clothes, because there was a water play area. We ignored it - it was December, after all. But it was also Southern California, and so on the second day it was (just about) warm enough (which means that Susanne thought about taking her jacket off). The water play area was fairly large and elaborate, with water coming from all kinds of different places. Notice the big bucket at the top.


Every four and a half minutes a bell would ring and the bucket would empty its contents onto anyone standing below.
Which made anyone in the vicinity a little dampl

And here's a video of the earthquake zone: