Germany Week

It was Germany week at the pre-school. There are 2 (or maybe 3) other children there, who have at least one German parent, but they wisely stayed out of the way of the organizational juggernaut that is S. There was German food, and German flags, and S spent the whole week wearing red, yellow and black (like the German flag - I didn't notice until she told me on Friday).

S made a collage of German stuff from things she'd cut from magazines. One of the pictures was a German model of some sort (Claudia Schiffer?). When we went to pick up the boys from the pre-school, a sticker had been placed over her cleavage - obviously it was felt to be too revealing.

Here's the boys, in their German gear. A on the left is dressed as a fisherman from the North, and D, on the right, is wearing Bavarian Lederhosen.

Elected

I've written before about the pre-school that the boys attend and also here) If you can't be bothered to go and read that, basically it's a parent's co-operative, which means it's owned by the parents. We have to work there, and jobs - things like administration, or putting up the fence, or painting the classroom.

S went to the monthly membership meeting (attendance obligatory) of the boys' pre-school last night, and when she came out, she had been elected president, for the forthcoming academic year. She knew she'd been nominated, but so had a three or four other people.

She also said that she didn't mind being elected too much, as if it wasn't her, it would be some incompetent moron (referring to everyone else), she's trusting like that.

On the buses

We went to the Golden Gate Bridge this evening, on the bus. Sitting opposite was a woman who took our photo. (Don't know why, she asked if she could, and it seemed rude not to). I gave her my card, and when we got home, she'd emailed the picture. That was the third time since I'd worked at CoCE that I've given someone my card - they've been clogging up my wallet (and giving me a sore bottom) for 7 months, for that.

The Building

I forgot to write about the building where the course took place, in my previous post (which, if you read this on the web page, will be the next one, but if use the RSS feed, might be the previous one, depending on how you do it.)

The building is very guarded. Not as in shy, but as in security guards around. You can't get in a lift without permission, and if you did, it wouldn't be any use, because there are no buttons.

The guard, from the control place, (after checking your ID) asks what floor you're going to, then tells you to go to lift E (say). You get in lift E, and it takes you to the floor. It doesn't even tell you what floor you are at, so that when you pass the people you want to take hostage at floor 15, you can't crowbar open the doors.

We're on the 34th floor - it makes my legs go wobbly when I stand near the window (although it's an impressive view). Presumably, they've thought about earthquakes, but I don't like to think about them all the same.

Flowers in our hair

I'm writing this from a hotel in San Francisco - partly 'cos that's the kind of hip, trendy and up to the minute person I am, but mostly 'cos S and the boys are in the hotel asleep (or comatose might be a better description for S) and the nude male revue up the road didn't really appeal.

I'm here taking a 3 day course, and S realised that as CoCE were coughing up for things like hotels and taxis, all we'd have to pay for was the flight, and we'd have three days hanging out in SF. Well, they would. I'd sit in a classroom and learn about Proc Mixed (if you don't know what Proc Mixed is, you don't want to know. If you do know what Proc Mixed is, it's cool, isn't it?)

Anyway, we booked S and the boys flights at pretty much the last minute, and the flight was completely full. So full that there were hopeful people hanging around to fill up the last seats, and they didn't all get one. Because we'd booked our seats late, and when you buy your ticket, you get assigned a seat, all our seats were in different places. So we asked the flight attendant if we could sit together.

The flight attendant asked if anyone would be willing to move so we could sit together, and a lot of people mumbled at stared at the floor. So, in a stern voice she said "You move, or you sit with THEM", and pointed at A and D. Who smiled sweetly, but had a little glint in their eye which just hinted at the evil of which they were capable. There was a flurry of activity as people rushed to give up their seats, colliding in the corridor and receiving only minor injuries.

The flight was all fairly uneventful (at least from my perspective, as I was sitting about 4 rows in front of S and the boys). Then we landed and got a taxi to the hotel.

The hotel is fairly swanky and new and sells itself as environmentally wholesome in lots of ways - there are three bins in the room for different sorts of recycling, and that sort of thing. (I kind of feel like recycling is such a minor gesture to make when, by building a hotel you are encouraging people to fly/drive to places they might not otherwise have gone, but then I can't complain, having flown here.)

In the morning, I strolled off to my course, while S had the fun of being with the boys in a strange place for a day. We met up for lunch, and then I got back at about 4:30, and we went out.

We got a cable car to the harbour sort of area - I'd try to read about cable cars, but the internet connection here is so crappy, that I can't. But I'd guess that they were pulled by a cable under the road - they look a bit like a tram. There seemed to be two people driving them, and I couldn't work out their roles. One at the back turned a handle, and one at the front pulled two levers. The one at the front seemed to pull a rope to tell the one at the back to do something. I've got a feeling it was brake, but that made me too nervous. The one at the front seemed to pull really, really hard on a big lever when we were going down hills, which made me wonder what would have happened if he'd collapsed or had a heart attack or something.

The cable cars seemed to be about 100 years old, and made of wood. The brakes (which I looked at after we got off) looked like they involved pushing a piece of wood onto the track. (We got a taxi back, it involved less walking and waiting, was quicker and more comfortable, and only cost a little more. Everyone else on the cable car seemed to be a tourist too.)

Anyway, we got to the pier, by which time the boys were tired and hungry, and it was windy and they said they were cold, but they wouldn't put their coats on (they said that that would make them colder), and we looked at the sealions. The sealions were impressive - apparently (I learned from reading the poster) they turned up in 1989, after the earthquake, and have been there ever since. Almost entirely males.

Then we went back to the hotel, S collapsed after having a day with the boys, the boys shouted a lot, had a bath (no bubble bath though :( ) and went to bed. I came downstairs, checked my email, and wrote this.

Rain

S didn't realize it was raining this morning, until she saw the blog post (which appears automatically in her email), and then looked out of the window.

The Information

Not the book, but a new piece of lingo I learned. I overheard a conversation, where someone said "I got the 411 on him". Intrigued, I investigated further. Well, I asked what that meant.

It turns out that 411 is the equivalent of what used to be 192, which they don't call directory enquiries, they call 'information'.

Even if we did refer to what you used to get by calling 192 as 'information', that wouldn't work any more. You'd have to say "I got the 818.. errmmm.. 818, not 181, no, that one's too expensive, 818500."

Scoring (Conversational) Points

It rained here this morning, for the first time since we've been here. (Well, the first time that it wasn't night.) Proper rain, which meant I had to turn on the windscreen wipers in the car, and leave them on. (I've done a couple of swipes before, when I was up in some hills.) It wasn't ultra hard rain - I might have called it very heavy drizzle, but it was enough to make me very, very wet on the way here. (I'd been thinking about taking the mudguards off my bike, as they were never useful - I'm glad I didn't, but I still had to squeeze out my socks when I arrived at work.)

Rain here seems a bit like snow in England. When it snows, everything grinds to a halt, and the Daily Mail can moan about how dreadfully inefficient things are and look at Sweden where it snows all the time, and they do fine. And the people in charge of infrastructure say "Yes, we could spend massive amounts of money on infrastructure to ensure that on the one day every two years when it snows enough to slow down a few trains we could keep them running, but it's cheaper to let the country grind to a halt for a day or two." And, I'd add that having a random selection of trains canceled makes life a little more exciting, sometimes. (Or at least makes something to blog about - if you've got one.) Things are like that here, except for rain. I mean, why build things like drains that can cope with rain, when 99.5% of the time, they are going to sit there and do nothing (except look like someone wasted a lot of money on them). Better to let a few sections of road and bike path turn into small rivers, so that people on their bikes can get wet feet.

To return to the actual subject of this post, there are usually quite a lot of other cyclists around when I ride to work. Lots of people on posh, shiny racing bikes, wearing all the skin tight stuff. Some people pottering about on beach cruisers, a couple of people on recumbents (I think it's always the same two people), and some people on hired bikes and recumbents (the hire-able recumbents look really cool, but are actually very slow, with a single speed, and heavy). At the traffic lights, you pull up to the other cyclists, and can chat. You can only chat very briefly, because you're out of breath, and the lights are about to go green - so you get a sentence, or two if you're lucky, each.

The first person to speak gets to say something witty. And then the other person has no time to think of a suitably witty response. For example, if there's a strong headwind, the first cyclist might say "It will better going home this afternoon, won't it?" and then the second cyclist can just say "yes". There's no time to think of a better response. The conversation ends there. In this situation, the first cyclist wins a conversational point. If the first cyclist says "Windy today", the second cyclist can say"yes, but it will be better going home", in which case the second cyclist gets a point. (Maybe in the first case the second cyclist can say "As long as it doesn't change direction", and then both can have a point.)

If it's a nice day, then the first cyclist might say "nice day for a ride", the second cyclist can just say "yes", and no one gets a point.

So today, as it was raining, I was immediately going to say "Weather like this shows you who the true cyclists are, eh?" The second cyclist would have no time to think of any kind of witty retort, would be forced to say "Yes", and I would get a point. But, it was raining. And there were no other cyclists, either at the traffic lights, or anywhere else. So I never scored a conversational point - but I'll save it for next time.

Not a Quiz

I was going to set a quiz, and ask what this was:

But then I decided that was too hard. To explain what it is needs a bit of background. A few weeks ago, the boys discovered how to make ice cubes. This was exciting for a while, they would freeze some ice cubes. Then they would leave them on the floor, sofa, TV, and that would be exciting. As is often the way, as time progressed, they moved on. First, they froze other vessels full of water bowls, cups, lego bricks, anything else they could think of. Then (and I don't understand this) they started to rip up paper and put that in the ice.

Next, they started to put other things in the ice - this was to help them to hold the ice, when it was frozen. They started with cocktail sticks, and when they ran out, they moved on from there.

So this is a block of ice, frozen in a cup, with some paper at the bottom, and a pair of scissors in it.

Easter food

Today I asked Daniel if he wanted some porridge, with strawberries in, for breakfast. He said "It's Easter. You are only supposed to eat chocolate. Yum yum yum."

Easter Egg Hunt

We went on an Easter egg hunt at a park near our house today, which had been arranged by a consortium of local churches. We were slightly concerned that they might have some sort of message about the 'true nature of Easter', but there was very little of that. I thought it might be some sort of church fete equivalent. But in England (and probably Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) church fetes are to raise money, and this seemed designed to get rid of it.

However, it was rather strange, for a number of reasons. The first reason was that everything was free. There was hair colouring, face painting, donkey riding, goat stroking (and rabbits and a sheep and some chickens), ice cream, cans of fizzy pop, hot dogs, fairground games (like ring tossing - with prizes, you got a crap prize if you didn't win, and a slightly less crap prize if you did), coffee, doughnuts, fire engines to climb on, a puppet show (more on that in a minute) and probably some other stuff I've forgotten. Oh, and an Easter Egg hunt.

Maybe I'm getting less radical in my old age, but it did rather successfully demonstrate the usefulness of a market economy. Because everything was free, it meant that everyone took it, whether they wanted / liked it or not. And because it was free, there was no incentive to give people what they actually might have wanted, they were taking it anyway, so a lot of it was a bit crap. Plus, there were really long queues for everything, and if they'd charged, the poor people would have got out of our way, and we could have had a go.

The main purpose was the Easter egg hunt. This was divided into age groups, so we had to wait our turn. The Easter eggs were plastic eggs which either had some sort of sweet or a small toy inside them (or sometimes both). There were, they said, just over 8,000 eggs per age group, and there were four age groups, making 34,000 Easter eggs. In the picture on the left, they are spreading out the eggs, ready for the hunt. Obviously it wasn't much of a challenge to find the eggs, but it's hard to hide one egg, when it's coloured and all you have is grass to hid them in, never mind 8,000. Children were given a bag, and sent out to collect the eggs in a special bag - you were only allowed to fill one bag. Luckily, there were plenty of eggs, 'cos A and D didn't really get the whole idea of hurrying. They'd pick up an egg, try to decide if they liked the colour, shake it to see if it sounded interesting, reject it and select another. Meanwhile, other children were rushing forward and hoovering up eggs. There were stewards around to make sure you didn't offer assistance to your children, and that you didn't put eggs in your own bag or pockets.






There was also a raffle - which was free. And it had LOTs of prizes, none of which involved tinned food. They started with bikes - there were 36 (count them) bikes. About 10 fluffy rabbits (which disappointed people who won), two Playstations, two $50 shopping vouchers, and two prizes of $500 in cash. It was an anonymous donor who gave the money for that - but why? Why would you decide that a random person who turned up for a free ticket is the person who is most deserving of your $500. I left before we got to that part of the raffle. Partly because that meant I avoided the quandary of what I would do if I won. But mostly because I was with D, he was very tired, and they were doing an awful lot of stuff about how church is great. (Not God is Great - church is great). They were handing out prayer cards, which you could fill in your, or someone else's details on, and they would then pray for you (or the other person).

The most religious part was the puppet show. The puppets sang songs about God. The video shows (bits of) them playing "We won't be fooled again" by The Who (that's the CSI: Miami theme song), except they sang "You must be born again". (There's also a bit of A and D eating their sweets - I couldn't be bothered to edit into two videos, sorry.)



Want to see some more photos? Oh, OK then.

Here are some Easter eggs.


Here's a photo of me, that was taken by either D or A.



This was the main stage, there were bands and stuff playing. This was a Christian rock band. Which reminds me of a story in The Onion - Bassist Unaware Rock Band Christian
I try to explain to people that we live near the airport, and they say things like (I'm talking about you, JD), "My parents used to live really near Gatwick (or was it Heathrow? I forget), like a 20 minute drive away". The photo below was taken from the park where the Easter egg hunt was held - it's about the same distance from the airport (runway) as our house. That's a plane (it's heading East, so it's taxiing).



That's a plane heading West, and taking off. It's harder to get the photo, because they're moving faster when they're taking off (obviously).

Bowling

I went bowling yesterday, at lunchtime. There's a CoCE bowling club, which I joined as a substitute. (If you're a real player, you have to be in a team, and you have to turn up every week, and if you don't turn up, you have to find someone to substitute for you - and you have to pay for them. So I don't even have to pay.)

I bowled with Alan. In my first game, I scored 124, and he scored 132, so I didn't feel too embarrassed. But I think I should have practiced less at the start, 'cos I flagged in the second game, and only score 58 (against his 119). Maybe no one will ask me again.

The scoring for the league is horrendously complicated - I found a document on the web, which is answers to common questions about how bowling leagues work (for when you've read the rules, and still don't understand.) It's 23 pages long, and it's here.

Question 160, for example, is:
If management has banned a league member from the center, do they qualify for
prize money through the league? Are they required to give two-weeks notice to the
league?

The answer, in case you're interested, is: When a league member has been banned from the center, it is considered a forced action. The member removed qualifies for a portion of the team prize money prorated on the number of weeks the individual contributed to the prize fund.

But how often can that happen? "You, you're barred!", they shout from that little booth that they sit in and give you your shoes from.

Anyway, today I'm very stiff, partly from bowling, which was surprisingly hard work, and I suspect partly from falling off my bike.

Again!

I've been riding my bike to college, university and/or work since I was about 16 (with occasional gaps when I lived too far away - e.g. 1990 to 1992, I never rode to work). And in that time, I can count the number of times I've come a cropper on one hand, with fingers spare. In (about) 1988, my front wheel slipped when I braked on a slope, and I slipped off, with no injuries. In about 1993 there were some roadworks on the way to work, and that made me fall off - I cut my thumb.

Until this week. First on Monday I took a tumble, and then today I was riding along, and I needed to go to the bathroom (as I now say). I rode off the cycle path, and across a paved area, towards the restrooms (as I now sometimes say). In this paved area there used to be some trees, but now there all big holes in the ground, full of sand. If you're looking at the big holes full of sand, it's obvious that they're not ground. But if you're looking at the toilets, to see which one is for chaps, and only looking at the ground out of the corner of your eye, it's not obvious. And then, when you hit the sand, sink gently into it, stop quite suddenly, and fall off sideways, it gives you quite a fright. At least in my experience.

Oh, and a grazed knee.

You can see the trees on this map. They're not there anymore. Obviously.

Sometimes the boys complain that their bedroom is too messy

Falling

I fell off my bike today. But in a very undramatic, perhaps even dull, style. I was riding up a wiggly path that goes up from the beach, and my shoelace got caught in my pedal. This happens occasionally - it's an occupational hazard - and usually one drifts to a halt, stops, and disentangles. However, two things were against me - first, I was going very, very slowly. Second, I was turning (and hence leaning) right, and it was my right shoelace that got caught.
So I fell to the ground (catching hold of a railing on the way, so I didn't fall too hard). There's a picture on the right of where it happened - that railing was the one I caught.

. It must have appeared to onlookers that I just stopped pedalling, and fell over. Someone just ahead of me on the path (he was pushing a table, which is why I was going slowly [a very small table, with wheels]) expressed slight concern, and asked what happened.

"My shoelace got caught" I said, from my prone position.
"Huh?" he said.
"My laces - in my pedal." He looked sort of blank.
"It got tangled."
"Oh" he said, looking enlightened. "Your shoestring. There's no cameras watching, so it's OK".

And so as a result of my mishap, I had a slightly sore bottom and a new piece of American vocabulary.

(Shoestring makes me think of this. But maybe it's my age.)

Finally ...

Los Angeles volcano
Originally uploaded by Homies In Heaven.

Finally found a picture taken from near our house. This is taken from about half a mile west of where we live.

Ask your doctor

There's ads for all kinds of medicines on the TV here - they suggest that you "Ask your doctor" about this medicine for people who are having chemotherapy for cancer. (Really, they do advertise medicines for people with cancer.)

The Onion did a story about this a while ago. But I've just come across this video on YouTube:

Hollywood is Burning

Hollywood is Burning
Originally uploaded by eecue.

Here's another one. It's an HDR pic, which makes it kind of interesting, and it appears to be taken from somewhere vaguely near where we live (I think it's further east than us, and I don't recognise the bridge.) Photo by Dave Bullock (eecue).

[Update, 31st March: There are now 512 photos of the fire on Flickr]

Hollywood hills on fire

Hollywood hills afire
Originally uploaded by unsure shot.

There was a fire in the Hollywood hills today. When I got home, and sat around for a bit, I thought that I should have gone to the top of the hill, because I could have taken exciting looking photos. But then I looked on flickr, and there were photos there already.

Still, as they said on the news, fire season has only just started, so there will be more opportunities.

All my CDs - ended

I was reminded today that I never updated the blog on my musical marathon. On November 28th, I decided to listen to all my CDs, in order, whilst I was at work. On Marh 4th, I finished.

I'll admit that I cheated occasionally. Once in a while, a CD would start, and I'd turn the volume down, and go for lunch (OG - Original Gangster, by Ice T was a good example of that one.) I've also been blessed with a large number of free CDs that came from magazine covers. What annoys me about those is that they don't tell you the name of the artist, just the name of the song. And as I didn't pay for them, I decided it was OK to fast forward them.

The Cat's Arse

The cat went to the vet, and it seems that she had infected anal glands. Which explains why she rubbed her pooh covered bottom all over the carpet. They gave her a range of blood tests too, and said they would contact us with the results. So they gave us some antibiotic pills, and some cream to rub on her swollen bottom. Well, for S to rub on her swollen bottom, 'cos I'm not have anything to do with it. And for this, we had to hand over the family silver, and our first born son.

A couple of days later, they phoned with the results of the blood tests. It turns out the cat has hepatitis (they didn't put a letter after it). When your cat has hepatitis, I'd have thought it was time to talk about the word that starts with 'youthen' and ends with a continent. But no, it turns out that all she needs is more antibiotics, this time to squirt down her throat.

That cat will outlive me, just to spite me.

Working for the Nursery

As I've said before, the boys go to a pre-school which is a co-operative. It's part of the California Council of Parent Participation Nursery Schools. They look after the boys, and we have to participate. But sometimes it feels like it would be easier if we just looked after the boys.

We have to work there, 1.25 days per week, between us. Then there are events that need more people, we need do stuff like paint, and recently they've decided that we need to do fundraising. The nursery needs a loft - which will cost $1500 dollars. (It turns out that what they call a loft is more of a glorified cupboard) so they have to raise money. So we parents have to seek out donations. Now why anyone at all should donate money so that a bunch of SUV driving middle class parents (not us driving SUVs, as you know) can have a slightly nicer pre-school. After all, those women who, with their children, have become homeless as a result of having alcoholic violent partners have got perfectly nice places to put their children.

Part 1

So S has to spend afternoons co-ordinating with others to find out which local businesses have yet to be harassed, travelling there, and then harassing them. So the other day S and the boys set off for a local restaurant. They ate lunch there (because you can't harass a restaurant for a donation with eating there first), and then harassed.

On the way out some Japanese teenaged girls saw A and D, and started to squeak. I don't know why, but A and D particularly have this effect with Japanese teenage girls. The boys sighed, and had their hands held, were cuddled, and generally poked (the boys draw the line at being picked up - and as Japanese girls are usually slight, they don't try much any more) while the other Japanese girls took photos.

They got to the car, which was handily parked behind some bushes, and D then honked up all of his macaroni cheese and orange juice.

And if we're lucky, we'll get a $25 donation. It would be much easier to just given them the money (there must be 40 children at the school).

Part II

There are two 'sessions' at the school. Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and Tuesday/Thursday. When there are special occasions at the school, they happen once for each session, and so our boys have to participate twice. And there are, of course, two of them. So that makes 4 participation events. This week was Persian New Year which unusually didn't seem to involve us doing anything (but you can see how many things there might be).

Soon it's "Spring Celebration", which is Easter by another name. (Although it sounds very pagan calling it Spring Celebration). So the children need to bring eggs, to paint and decorate the place with. (Two children are allergic to eggs, and will not come into school for the week). They need to bring 6 hard boiled eggs, 4 blown eggs, and 6 plastic eggs with 'treasure' (not candy or food, 'cos that's not allowed) in them.

So we need 6 boiled eggs, and 4 blown eggs. Times 2, 'cos we have two boys. Times 2, 'cos we go to 2 sessions. So we need 24 boiled eggs, and 16 blown eggs. Or a total of 40 eggs. (Plus 24 plastic eggs with treasure in.)

Avocados

When I was young (and perhaps when you were young too) avocados were eaten in a bowl, with a tomatoey vinaigrette dressing, and a spoon, with which you scooped the flesh out . (I once bought my mother a bowl for mother's day that was designed to eat avocados - it was green, and sort of avocado shaped. Some sort of argument arose between me and my sister about whose idea it was, or who it was from, or something like that, and mum said she never wanted a mother's day present again. Which is pretty much what happened.)

When I got older, one scooped avocados out, chopped them up and put them in a salad, or occasionally mashed them and made guacamole.

Here, you see avocados all over the place. I've never seen anyone eat one out of a bowl, or put one in a salad. You see a lot of guacamole though. (This morning, for example, I had a burrito for breakfast from a stand in the market - it had guacamole in it.) In England, I've only seen avocados in a sandwich once, and that was in a delicatessen, and people thought it was weird. (They also sold chili peanut butter and banana sandwiches, so they did have some weird stuff.) The place you see avocados the most is in sandwiches.

The standard vegetarian sandwich in the cafe at CoCE is avocado and cheese. Subway has avocado in every sandwich as an optional extra (50c). This is Subway, which competes with McDonald's. (McDonald's might do avocado too, but as they're an evil corporation, I wouldn't know. And I only went in a Subway once in England, that I remember, at Milton Keynes train station, and I think I'd have noticed if they do avocado). There's a place near us called "The Shack", which is a slightly seedy bar, which also sells burgers. Optional extra on your burger is, yes, you guessed it, avocado. When we go to Venice beach, there's a burger place we frequent (because it's completely vegan, but you'd never guess by looking), and they do a burger with avocados on. (They also have a pull up bar outside, and the more pull ups you do, the larger the discount on your burger.) S and I went for breakfast the other Saturday, on the third street promenade (so we could see if there were any celebrities about - I saw someone who looked a bit like Oliver Stone, but S didn't know who that was, and a lot of people look a bit like Oliver Stone). One of the options, at a fairly standard diner, was avocado omelette.

Bottom problems

The cat had some bottom problems. Specifically, there seemed to be blood coming out of it, which seemed kind of serious. So I rang the vet.

"The cat's bleeding out of her bottom." I told the person who answered the phone. "Bottom of her what?" They replied.

"Bottom".

"Bottom of her foot? Bottom of her head? Bottom of what?"

I was flummoxed. What could I say? Arse? They wouldn't understand. I felt like Borat, and wanted to say "ah-noos".

Birthday Fun

It was S's birthday on Monday, so she picked me up at work at 3pm, and we went to a restaurant called Geoffrey's of Malibu. Which has staggeringly attractive sea views, and is expensive. (Well, Americans think it's extraordinarily expensive, but more on that in a moment).

We went to Geoffrey's (which the waiters pronounced Joffrey's - apparently this was the original owner's wish, but he's dead, so no one can check that it wasn't some sort of joke. We arrived at Geoffrey's in our car - and drove into the car park. You can't park your own car - it's valet parking only.

In films, people get out of the car and throw their keys to the parker (or whatever they're called) and park their car. Having done this sort of thing before, I've learned that it's better to just leave the keys in the ignition. It doesn't look as cool, but I think it annoys them less. The car park was full of cars that made ours look small - there was a Ferrari, two Porsches, and a sprinkling of BMWs, Mercedes, and Lexi (that's what Douglas Coupland says the plural of Lexus is). (Or strictly speaking, one of the characters in the book Microserfs).

The food wasn't hideously expensive, if you only had salads and starters, which is what we did. Not really by choice - there was no vegetarian main course, but this was a snack 'cos we weren't going to be eating properly until 10 ish. We had desserts too - I had a passion fruit tower, which cost $8. I realized that I might be turning American when I started to recoil at the price. This is a restaurant that Americans say is staggeringly expensive - for very special occasions only. (It actually came up in discussion today, and 'expensive' was the first adjective that everyone thinks of). Salads were $11, and starters about $8.

The waiters were extraordinarily courteous and polite and nice. Instead of asking what we wanted to order, they asked "What would you like to enjoy?" When it came time to leave, the car was parked about 20 feet away from is (with the keys still in the ignition), but they ran over and drove it to us - then the chap had to leap out , run around the car and open the door for S, before she managed to do it. She was slightly surprised by someone jumping between her and the door, moments before her door reached the handle.

Then we went to the cinema, to see Music and Lyrics. Now, Google can do some clever stuff, like maths (I'm supposed to say "Math" now). But I typed the name of the film into Google (which was 'Music and Lyrics' ... I know, but it was her birthday. What was I supposed to say). And Google gave me the cinemas that it was on at, and the times, near our house. In one sense this was rather useful. In another, how does Google know where we live?

Anyway, we got to the cinema very early, and as it was S's birthday and she was allowed a treat, we went shopping and she bought me a pair of trainers and a shirt. It's part of the deal that I have to throw out an old pair of trainers and a shirt. But maybe she'll forget.

We went to the cinema to watch the film, and bought an enormous vessel of Diet Pepsi to share. S suggested that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to have such a large caffeinated drink in the evening, but we were going to share it, and it wasn't that late. And we watched the film. (Which had a fairly stereotyped storyline, but was quite amusing in places).

Our plan was then to go to a Thai restaurant, but we were too weary, so we went home. On the way home we decided we were hungry, so we stopped at Ralph's supermarket to get some snacks. Ralph's is an American supermarket, so it sells all sorts of prepackaged tasty food that's ready to eat, so I bought some sushi (with avocado inside), some spring rolls, and some salad.

Aside: Spring rolls aren't usually what we call spring rolls - they are egg rolls (for some mysterious reason - they don't have egg in them). Spring rolls are raw, and have beansprouts, and sliced vegetables inside a sort of soft rice paper. These had a big lump of tofu, and came with peanut sauce.

Then we had some champagne (it seems that S had been drinking it earlier) and went to bed. I lay awake twitching and listening to my heart race for a while, then I gave up and read a book, until 2:30, and the caffeine in the diet coke had worn off.

In laws

Oma and M (S's brother) have been visiting. Usually this would be a source for a veritable torrent of anecdotes, but this time they are rather few and far between. Oma doesn't speak English,.

Both of them have very little sense of urgency, which can rile me a touch. As it did last Saturday. I was due to take the boys to German school, and normally I leave at 8:30 with them. However, today we needed to take some windmills to the nursery school, and drop them off on the way. So at 8, I told them that we were leaving in 20 minutes ("Zwanzig minuten" - my German stretches to that). M said he was ready. Oma said she would be.

At 8:30, neither of them were to be seen, so the boys and I set off to the car, and waited at the lift. After some waiting, they hadn't turned up, so I sent the boys back to get them, and then I saw them taking another route (they took the stairs - I had the boys with me, their lunchbags, my bags, some empty shopping bags, random toys, and two containers of windmills - I wasn't going to take the stairs, and a couple of milliseconds thought might have led to that conclusion).

When they reached the stairs, they realised they couldn't get to the car park without a key (how this fact had escaped them in the past was a mystery to me), so I had to go down. But first I had to retrieve the boys.

Anyway, eventually we all got in the car. A and D hadn't eaten any breakfast, 'cos we were all running a bit late, but I had prepared (given that I'd had nothing to do for the while I was waiting) two bags with some Joe's Os in them (which are like Cheerios, but from Trader Joe's). I gave them the bags, and asked O to open them (well, sort of indicated).

Instead, Oma started to open a packet of shortbread biscuits. At this point I wanted to explain to Oma that whatever alternate universe she lived in where feeding 4 year olds shortbread biscuits, which have pretty much no nutritional value whatsoever, for breakfast, well, that universe wasn't one I was familiar with. But saying this was beyond my German (which, as we've seen tops out at "Zwanzig minuten"). So, actions speaking larger than words, I took the packet of biscuits and threw them out of the (moving) car window.

D didn't like that very much, and cried and cried. Oma didn't say anything. M didn't say anything either, but that's common.

D hadn't forgiven me by the time we dropped him off, so I bought him (and A) a toy car each (for $1.29, from Long's Drugs - pharmacies are great, aren't they?). However, by the time it came to pick them up, he'd forgotten, and was very pleased (and surprised) with his car.

Oma never mentioned it again, but asked S if that was the sort of thing I did often. A few days later it was S's birthday, and there were some pastries from the 24 hour Donut shop, that Oma was offering to the boys. "Aus Fenster?" I asked Oma. (Which I thought meant "out of the window?", but I've just looked it up on Babelfish, and it seems to mean "From window?"). Oma just looked at me. M didn't say anything.

Painting

The nursery that the boys attend is a parents' co-op. Partly this means it's a bit radical and lefty and possibly unAmerican, which appeals. But mostly it means it's slightly cheaper ('cos parents need to work there) and it means that parents (i.e. us) have to work there. In addition, when stuff needs doing, it needs doing by the parents.

It was decreed, by whoever it is that decrees such things, that the main classroom needed painting. The email said that it would take from 1pm to 5:30 on Sunday. So we duly turned up only slightly later than 1pm to do whatever we were told.

There were about 10 people to start off with - a couple were assigned to making sure the children who were outside frolicking, didn't injure each other. Or get hold of some paint and paint the climbing frame. (Actually, they failed on the second one, but it wasn't our children.) We duly sanded and masked and washed and were told that our sanding wasn't good enough so we had to do it again (well, that was just me).

An awful lot of jobs seemed to be needed to be done by someone 'tall', and I was the only person who satisfied the description, so I did a lot of standing on things to reach the ceiling - eventually someone went home and fetched a stepladder.

Anyway, we primed and painted and painted again, and it all went on for a lot longer than the promised 4.5 hours. We finished painting at 9:30, and it took almost another hour to put the room back together, and remember where all the noticeboards went on the walls. Someone had diligently polyfilla-ed all of the holes, including the screw holes for the things that were on the walls. They did such a good job that we couldn't find the old holes and had to make new ones. (Although we had an electric screwdriver, so I just screwed into the plaster).

One reason it was interesting was the chance to chat to some of the other parents. As they say where I come from"There's nowt as queer as folk", but I'm still surprised by people's queerness. One (white) woman was an actor (I looked her up on IMDB - there was nothing I'd heard of, and not a great deal I hadn't heard of either). She had adopted a boy, who was now about 4, and seemed to be (to put it mildly) quite a handful. She asked if I knew any 45-55 year old divorcees. They had to be active, she said. And spiritual. Definitely spiritual. I didn't really know what that meant, but she told us about the church she went to, which didn't really believe in the bible. (I wondered what it did believe in.)

Another woman was part of a gay couple, who had had one baby each (spaced a year apart). The second one required IVF, the first didn't. (I wondered how the, ermmm, seed, was introduced, but I didn't ask). They both worked as sound engineers - one of them had recently stopped being freelance, and started working for Fox, doing the sound on the trailers between programmes. The other mostly worked on TV and radio ads. (I wondered what they thought about working for Fox, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who isn't really known for his tolerance of what we might call 'alternative' lifestyles. )

They both worked in Santa Monica - a lot of 'the industry' has moved out of Hollywood, and into Santa Monica. (Hollywood is too "eeekkk", nowadays, it seems. I didn't know what that meant.

Note for anyone hanging around with showbusiness types. It's not called showbusiness - it's called 'the industry'. Santa Monica is an 'industry town'.

One thing I learned is that lots of words involved in DIY are different - it was often hard to know what people were talking about. Lots of things that are referred to by their trade name (like Polyfilla) had a different name. There was a lot of talk of something called TSP, which seemed to be a cleaning product, and Goo-B-Gone, which was for getting rubbery goo off things. Skirting boards had a different name too (trim boards? I forget).

Meet the Europeans

Two people from the European offices of CoCE were over visiting last week. We think of it as the European office - CoCE has 4 offices in the USA, the largest of which has something like 1500 employees. The European office has 30 people, and is in England. (There's also an office in Dubai, but I've never heard anything much about it).

Because they were from England, we went out with them - me, two of them, and M - who's actually from New Zealand originally, but lived in London for 5 years, so I count him as an honorary Brit. (He seems to live in Vancouver most of the time, it's something of a mystery to me how that actually works). It turned out that one of the Europeans was actually American, but we didn't worry about that.

Anyway, we took them to a Mexican restaurant at the end of the pier. Which was cold. Vast quantities of food were brought - when we sat down, they brought a basket of tortilla chips, and a little bowl of salsa (each). As soon as anyone's bowl of salsa, or the basket of chips, looked half empty, it was replaced with a full one. Before the starters came, we were all reasonably satiated, and could have happily left.

We ate starters and man courses (most main courses were barely touched, but I finished mine) and drank cocktails. When the bill came, they forgot to charge us for the drinks, so we feasted on fine food for about £12.50 each (in old money). This was a double bonus, because we'd talked about work, we decided that it was a work meal, and because there was no alcohol on the bill, CoCE could pick up the tab.

We left the restaurant, M went back to work, and J asked what music I liked. I said I wasn't all that fussy, so she said "Oh good, because it's hip hop night at this cocktail bar." So we went to the hip hop bar and drank (expensive) cocktails. Amongst others, I had a 'Paradise Martini' which was coconut milk, crushed strawberries, and vodka. And came with an orchid floating on the top.

I was planning to get the bus home, but it was cold and there was a row of warm, empty, inviting taxis just sitting there. So I got one of them. Then I discovered I hadn't got enough money to get all the way home, so I had to walk the last couple of miles, and the bus would have been a better idea.

The boys had their special "Daddy's been out drinking" detectors finely tuned, so they woke up at 4am ("It's too dark Daddy"), 5am ("Blanket not right") and 6am ("Is it daytime?"). Then the next day it was my turn to go to the nursery and be a working parent. Which actually wasn't too bad, which rather spoils the end of the story. Still, the next one is better.

Trader Darwin's

We went to a different Trader Joe's from normal yesterday (because we were looking for a Wholefoods Market - we found it, but it wasn't built yet). This meant that I looked at other stuff from normal, while I was trying to find the bread. Regular readers already know that Trader Joe's sells Chinese food under the name Trader Ming, and Italian food under the name Trader Giotto, but yesterday I looked at their vitamins and protein supplement and stuff like that section.

It's sold under the name 'Trader Darwin's'. Because (it says on the packs) it's for the Survival of the Fittest.

Crazy Day

It was 'Crazy Day' at the nursery. The children go looking crazy. It's more common than you'd think. There were a couple of requests on the 'parents' list at work asking where you could get pink hairspray, or similar things.

S sprayed white stuff on the boys hair, but when they came home, their hair was pink.

The challenge, as ever, was to make them stay still while I took their picture.

Watching whales on a Sunday

And watching Scotland on a Monday. Hahaha.

Today we went watching whales. The plan was to drive to Oxnard (where the boat was, which we would take to the place the whales hang out). We were planning to leave at 10, drive in a leisurely fashion to the harbor, have lunch and hang out, meet up with R and his family, and then check in at 1.

They told us to ring at 11, and make sure that the sailing hadn't been cancelled. We were well on our way by then, just past the Malibu Feed Bin (I'd seen that from the road, and thought that it would have been a really good name for a restaurant, but I looked it up on the interweb, and it sells horse food, and similar stuff). We rang, but it was engaged. A whole lot of people would be trying to ring, so we kept going for a while - we weren't worried, 'cos we'd checked the weather forecast.

Then Robbie rang, and told us that the whales were cancelled. It was, apparently, too windy.

We'd got halfway there, and further in that direction than we'd been before, so we decided to keep going and find something interesting to do. I'd always wanted to go to Zuma Beach - mostly because there's a Neil Young album named after it. (The album is called Zuma, rather than Zuma Beach.)

So we went to Zuma Beach, and found that it was (as the boat people said) incredibly windy. In the photo below, you can see the haze that's the sand being blown just above the surface.



We went to the toilet, and there was a cafe further down the beach (we knew it was a cafe, because it said 'FOOD' in red letters, which were about 8 feet high, and were secured to its roof), so we walked there, to find it closed. We'd walked with the wind, and walking back against the wind was quite a strain - such a strain that the boys couldn't do it. I had to go back to the car, and drive down to the beach.



Then we drove further up the Pacific Coast Highway, and followed the first brown sign that looked like it was to somewhere interesting. It took us to a park area, which seemed bizarrely deserted. There was a Nature Centre (which was closed) lots of picnic tables, some benches arranged into a kind of theatre under the trees, some restrooms (as I have to say), and about 4 people. We walked in a big circle (it was a relief that it was a circle - we weren't sure) and arrived back at the car.

We drove back along the PCH (we call it that, 'cos we're cool) and stopped at a Starbucks for coffee and cakes. I said it was boring and samey to go to Starbucks, 'cos we always go there, and we should go somewhere interesting and different instead. (Bill Bryson wrote about that in one of his books "Let's go to Macdonalds/Burger King / Pizza Hut, because we know what we'll get." "Precisely", he replies. S pointed out that we haven't been to a Starbucks since we went shopping with her mother and she was breastfeeding. Which was a good point.

When we got home I looked to see if the Starbucks was on Wikimapia - it was (here) and S was very upset to find that a number of actors, including Pierce Brosnan, are regulars there (or so it says on WM). She wanted to go back and stalk them.

Finally, we saw another beach with a parking space that looked interesting - it was called the La Piedra Robert H. Meyer Memorial State Beach - you took quite a steep trail down from the car park, and the beach looked sort of interesting - there's an aerial photo here. I thought it was a much cooler beach than Zuma, but La Piedra Robert H. Meyer Memorial State would have been a crap name for a record. We were too weary by then to go down the hill and look, so we went home.

Shoes

After we'd sorted out the tax, S went to meet her pal, and go to an exhibition of Magritte paintings, while the boys and I went shopping for shoes. We dropped S off, and tried to find the shoe shop. The map lady is normally quite good at finding shops by name, but this time she let us down. (Actually, last time she let us down too - S couldn't find the bike shop.) I tried to remember the address, but I wasn't 100% sure, and so I didn't want to risk it.

(Knowing the road is no use, because many roads go on for an awful long time - Sunset Boulevard, is 22 miles long, and the streets will restart numbering when you go to different cities. It's like a bizarre version of the effect you get in England - when you are driving, you get to a road near where you live, and you feel like you're almost home. When you approach Derby from the East, you know you're nearly home when you reach the A38, but if you go West, you can be in Bristol and see the A38 - "Ooh," you think, "The A38, I'm almost home". And then you realise you're not. It's the same here, except it's streets - We can get on a freeway, drive 15 miles, and then get off on Sepulveda. Our local supermarket is on Sepulveda, so we feel like we're almost home.)

Shoe shops in the US are a bit different to shoe shops in the UK. In the US, you suggest that you might like to buy your darling offspring some shoes, and they point to the shop and say "Whole shop full." Whereas in England, we often didn't get out of a shoe shop for an hour. (Because D and A have strange shaped feet, and their shoes have to match - that is, be the same, or if different sizes, be different colours, but the same style. And they have to fit the right width, and the shop has to have that combination in stock. So I asked around at work (there's an email list for parents, called 'parents'), and there was agreement that we should go to this shop called Harry Harris.

Anyway, the map lady couldn't find the shop I wanted, but it could find another branch (there are three) in Beverly Hills. We were near Beverly Hills, so we headed that way. But first we had to eat.

We passed a slightly seedy pizza place, but it had tables, and pizza, so we stopped. For $9 (including tax, plus tip) you got a pizza, a salad, and a drink, so I had one and the boys had one. There was a chap who was folding leaflets sat on another table who insisted that we chat - he did promotions for the World Cup when it was in the USA, and now he did promotions for this pizza shop (and drank beer from a can in a brown bag). I ate D and A's salad, unsurprisingly, and then we left.

We got to the shop, in a swanky bit of Beverly Hills - we were surrounded by Lexus SUVs and BMWs and Priuses, and bought some shoes - they were very swift, but pretty efficient (it was Saturday afternoon, so we couldn't really expect leisurely service). It only took two trips to the back of the shop (each time getting 4 pairs of shoes) before we got a satisfactory combination. However, when it came time to pay, I didn't have my card, which was dull. And I'd paid with it at the pizza place. I had no idea where the pizza place was, or what it was called, and there was no way I was going to find it again, so I had visions of all kinds of bills for beer and brown paper bags being racked up on my card before I got home to cancel it.

Anyway we got back to the car under an hour - which meant that we didn't have to pay (first hour was free at the car park). The car park was so full by this time, that you had to leave your keys with someone, who then spent time shuffling cars about. I drove home, and cancelled my card.

S feels like it's not fair that we never see celebrities, as there are supposed to be so many living around here. (She found out yesterday that Pierce Brosnan lives nearby - in fact, we'll drive almost past his house tomorrow.) The problem is that we probably wouldn't recognise any. Anyway, if celebrities live in Beverly Hills (and only the tacky ones like David Beckham do - the others live in Malibu) then they'd buy shoes from Harry Harris. There was someone there who might have been a celebrity. She had a baby called Franky (Frankie? Phranckee?) who was 11 months old (they asked her age in the shop), but I didn't know who she was.

After we'd got home and cancelled my card, I listened to the answering machine message from S, that said she hadn't got a lift home, and could we go back (almost all the way) to Beverly Hills to pick her up. In those few minutes, A had taken off his new shoes and put on his scummy old sandals from Asda.

But S found a German book shop, which she was excited about, and asked someone what perfume she was wearing (the askee, not S, it wasn't like one of my exciting quizzes). Now we have to try to buy some from Amazon. Except we can't, because I've cancelled my card.

Tax

Today I sorted out my tax. Tax in the US is rather different from the UK. When I started work, I had to estimate how much tax I should pay. I rather thought that they should know, but they didn't. I got points for having different things (like children) and then they suggested that I add a point or two, to be on the safe side - it's better to pay too much than too little.

Then, from January 1st, until April, you have to work out how much tax you actually owe, and either pay it, or get it back. It seems that almost everyone has to submit a tax return and do this. However, for most people, it's relatively straightforward. Unless you moved to the country last year, and have a wife and children with no social security number, and then it's not straightforward. So I needed help.

There are computer programs you can get, which do it all online. S and the boys needed a taxpayer identification number. The computer programs (I tried 2) won't let you do anything without a taxpayer identification number (TPIN). (Well, actually, they'll let you do everything except press submit.) You get a TPIN by sending in a form, with your tax return. But you can't complete your tax return without at TPIN. I decided I needed professional help.

Given that everyone has to do a tax return, there are a vast number of people who'd like to help you. The cheapest seems to be called H & R Block. T, who I work with, said that they employ people from January to April who work as cleaners the rest of the year, but that they were still liable if they get it wrong. Conveniently, they set up desks in department stores, for the tax season, so this morning I trotted off to Sears, to do my tax.

The woman (who might have worked as a cleaner the rest of the time) was slightly flummoxed by the fact that I had arrived. At one point she downloaded the UK-US tax treaty document and started to read it. It wasn't as long as I thought it would be, but it was still 55 pages long. Together we decided it wasn't relevant. (She was quite good at pressing ctrl-F and searching for sensible words, to find the bit that meant that we didn't need to read the rest.) The computer also crashed at one point, but it seemed to have an auto-save feature.

We started at 10:40, and at 11:40, S had to go and get the boys from German school, and then come back to sign forms. We finally finished at 12:40. There are all kinds of things that are tax deductible that we didn't know about. Just for having a long distance phone line, for example, we got $60 (or so) of tax back. Anytime you give anything to charity - be it money or goods, you can get a receipt, and claim back the tax. This includes stuff like going to the zoo - because the zoo is a charity, or giving a box of tat to a charity shop.

We didn't have any of that, but we will next year. (If we don't lose the receipts.)

We also had to send off official copies of our passports, so we need to get them copied and notarized. (There is a thing on the web page at work that says where you can get a notary from. I never understood what it was, even after I looked it up on Wikipedia, but now I know.) Two hours later, and $220 lighter, we had our forms to post off. (They don't do that for you). But $220 seems like a bargain, as our UK accountant charges £75 to fill in a form - even if the form says "What is your name?"

Anyway, it turns out that the taxman (or tax men - you pay federal and state tax) owe us about $3800 - this is for the 4 months we have been here, and means that we paid $1000/month too much tax. Which seems like a lot to me. But it's better than me owing it to them.

Eatings 2

I realised that I ran out of enthusiasm before I described the second restaurant experience.

When G, the german speaking babysitter first applied to us, she gave us a referee to contact, who said that she only babysat once, and was a bit useless. But we employed G anyway - she turned out to be nice, but a bit useless. Well, she was OK when she turned up, but she had a habit of disappearing. Anyway, this referee, called B, mentioned that she owned a cafe - coincidentally a cafe that I went to for a beer when I came here for my interview.

Even more coincidentally, this woman sends her children to the same pre-school that we do, so we thought we should go to the cafe one day. So we did. I ride past it on the way home, so I met S and the boys at a playground, and then we went there.

They had interesting German beer, so I drank some of that, and the boys had apple juice. We ordered food, but they thought that we wanted it in batches (they seemed to arbitrarily decide that some things were starters). I had chips (which weren't chips, of course) and salsa, and guacamole. The chips were either impressively fresh, or alternatively they had sprinkled some oil on them, and then microwaved them. S had a salad (which was supposed to be a main course, but never mind).

Then for what turned out to be the main course, S had some cheesy potato things, and I had spätzle (which I've always pronounced 'spetchley', both of which are traditionally swiss. (They weren't called cheesy potato things). Spatzle is a weird food, a little like pasta - we used to have it occasionally when we were young, at my grandparents, and my father used to make it occasionally. However, what it was, and how to make it, had (I imagined) died with them. Obviously if I did want to have it, I wasn't going to get far asking for spetchley.

The first time I went to Germany to see S, we went to a wedding, and there was some weird pasta stuff to eat. And when I tasted it, it was spetchley! It was quite a revelation, I had this very vague memory of it in the mists of my memory, but when I tasted it again, it was exactly the same. Since then, whenever I've seen it in restaurants, I've ordered it. (Which is pretty rare - I'd estimate that that's the 3rd time I've had it since the time at the wedding. Once of those times was in Ikea in Bielefeld).

Anyway, where was I. Oh yes, the starters were quite tasty, but the main courses were pretty disappointing - the spätzle (as I should probably call it) was OK, but it was a really small portion. Cheesy potatoes were, well, cheesy potatoes. Anf the boys had a pizza. However, because they had had fries for their starter, they weren't desperately interested. And the fact that the pizza was disgustingly inedible probably didn't help.

Time dragged on, and the cafe turned into slightly more of a bar than a cafe, with the kind of people in it who hang around at Venice Beach when all of the tourists have left. Who aren't necessarily unpleasant, but might be thought of as a little weird. Some people were playing pool, which D and A were very interested in - although it had to be explained to them several times that they weren't to touch the balls. When the balls went in the holes, they ran around to watch them roll through the window.

When we left, without our asking, they packed the pizza in a takeaway box for us to take. We'll give it another day, to make sure it's completely impossible to eat, and then we'll throw it away.

Bicycle Breakdown

I was riding home on Thursday night, and I couldn't get first gear. I thought that maybe I had sand in the derailleur and that maybe it was all gunged up, so I stopped to wiggle it and see if that helped. It didn't. And then the wire that went from the gear switch to the derailleur came off in my hand.

Now, instead of my (frankly ridiculous) 27 gears on my bike, I had two. One that was too high, and one that was much too high. I phoned S on my cellphone, which had about 10 seconds of battery life left in it, and asked if she could come and get me from the bike shop, and then I rode there.

They said that they could fix it while I waited, but I said "Oh no, don't worry, I've got a ride coming." That way they could clean and service it, and stop that irritating clicking in my left pedal that's been there for ages. That was just before 6.

So I waited for S, and chatted to the people in the shop. It turned out that the original branch of the shop was in Berlin, and wife of the couple that owned it was German, whilst the husband was American. So we had a lot to chat about.

I phoned S from the shop phone, to see where she was, and the traffic was grim, but she was on the way. Anyway, S arrived at abotu 10 to 7. She hadn't been able to find the shop, and had taken so long that the boys had weed themselves. Meanwhile, I'd been making conversation for an hour with the people in the shop. When S arrived, she was tense, and the boys were wet (but I didn't know). I'd sorted out two bikes for D and A to try out, and there was a big, wet dog, and a very little puppy in the shop, that the boys were interested in.

While I was pottering in the shop, I remembered that D and A had somehow got hold of my speedometer from my bike. They had put it somewhere special to look after it, and then forgotten where. They remembered after about 3 days, and it didn't work any more. So I thought I'd get a new one.

You know when you go to a shop to buy a speedometer for your bike, and you say "I'd like a speedometer" and they say "What do you want it to do?" and you say "Tell me how fast I'm going. And how far I've been." And they say "For five £/$ more, you can have one that tells you your average speed", and that seems like a bargain. And they say "For 5 $/£ more, you can have a wireless one," and that seems like a bargain. And they say "... you can have one that can store two trips" , "... you can have one that measures your heartrate", "... you can have one that measures your cadence [that's pedalling speed, non-cyclists]", "... you can have one that counts calories", "... you can have one that shows where you were at the same time yesterday so you can race yourself", ... "... you can have one with a GPS device that shows where you are on a live satellite linked up map, and plots the position of other cyclists, nearby restaurants and a display of the weather". And you only really want one that tells you how fast you're going, and how far, but you end up with a small laptop computer attached to your handlebars?

Well, it was nothing like that. I said "I'd like a new speedometer." The man in the shop reached over, and gave me one. I said "What's that do?" He said it did everything you could want. I tried to explain that I might be able to want a lot. He said "It's got average speed". I said "It doesn't tell me what the weather is going to be in the next 5 minutes." He looked blank and said "It's got everything you could want. We don't sell any others." So that's the one I bought.

I got the bus to work this morning, and then picked up my bike when I'd finished. We'd chatted for a long time about houses - the shop owners are looking at buying a house near-ish to us, but the house they looked at yesterday wasn't so good - it was too near the freeway. They had looked at another today - they showed me the details and we chatted about that - it was nice on the outside, but a bit pricey (they said). ON the inside, everything was a bit old.

Eatings out

We've been to restaurants twice to eat out, in the last week. Going to a restaurant is much easier now that the boys are big enough that we can be pretty sure that they are not going to puke, with little warning. It seems that some children's response to choking is not to cough, but to vomit, and we were lucky enough to have two of them. On a number of occasions I've picked up a child and run for the door, leaving confused onlookers in my wake. Once, I didn't make it and A honked in the entrance of a pizza restaurant in Clacton. They've also vomited into a bowl in El Piano (we left a large tip) and a tray in a pub. Usually, because we know the warning signs, we managed to get them to a flowerbed, or gutter, or car park.

Anyway, the first one we went to was a place that I first went to when I came for an interview. It's a very rural sort of place, built on the edge of a valley. It's mostly outside (under cover) and there are two very large dogs which wander about. The dogs are completely oblivious to all attention, they just walk slowly and hoover bits of food off the floor. The boys were a bit sad about this - they chased the dogs and tried to stroke them; because the boys were slightly nervous, by the time they got around to stroking, the dogs had usually moved. And if they got one stroke in, they usually didn't get a second one, because the dogs had moved.

The service was epically slow (we knew that, it's renowned for it), and we were say by the kitchen, so we could see all the tasty things other people had. Next time, I'm having enchiladas. I had a veggie burger, which was a little disappointing. A and D had quesadillas, which they ignored and just ate their fries (as I have to remember to call them).

We went walking after that - which was the point of the trip to the country. We made very slow progress (as we tend to), so didn't get far. There was a woman with a baby on her back who got stuck behind D - every 10 feet he picked up another stick, added it to the bulging collection in his hand, and ran back to show her. She had to stop and say "OOh", but she was very tolerant.

She eventually got past D, and caught up with A, and got all distressed, because she though she'd got away, but I explained it was a different one, and he wasn't going to show her sticks.

As we were heading back the clouds descended, and did sort of blow along in wisps - with a very definite barrier. I thought that the boys would be excited about this, but they didn't really get the idea. I tried to explain that there were clouds, like in the sky. And they looked at me confusedly, and then pointed at the clouds and shouted "Fire, fire!".

I suppose you want to see some photos. Well, I'm going to put them here anyway.

Here's the cafe:



This is a lizard. R, who we've met here has a 9 year old son who is quite good at (a) spotting lizards, and (b) catching them. A and D always try, but never succeed.
Clouds.


That's the view. It's not a bad view. And what's even more impressive is that just over the top of those hills is an enormous city. The hills in the far background are a long way behind, and the city is between us and them. We are about 16 miles from downtown Los Angeles here.

Blu Tack

I asked someone if there was any Blu Tack in the stationery cupboard today. They looked at me blankly. I tried to describe it. "A post it note?" "A nail" "Two sided sticky tape".

I gave up. It seems to not exist here.

Palm Springs / Indio

On 24 last week, there was an exchange which went:

(Oh, hang on, if you are worried this is going to give some part of the plot away, it's not. Not that I'm gloating 'cos I've watched more 24 than you have.)

• Rita: I just want to get out of the city, and get to Vegas.
• Darren McCarthy: We're not going to Vegas.
• Rita: Oh, no, I'm not going to Palm Springs. No, no, if that's right you can just drop me off right here, that place is like assisted living for an entire city.

Rita's obviously never been to Indio.

Valentine

S came home from the nursery and asked what a 'Valentine' was. It's usually an adjective - Valentine's day, Valentine's card. I didn't know what a valentine nous was so I looked it up. Obviously, a Valentine is a sweetheart (as in 'be my Valentine').

That didn't help, because S said we have to buy a Valentine for every other child in the nursery. All 30 of them. So a Valentine is some sort of present. So we have to buy 30 presents, and (30 * 29 / 2) - 1 = 434 presents will be exchanged at the nursery. (The -1 is there, because A and D won't give one to each other).

Apart from the drain on the non-renewable resources of the world, does this mean that each child is going to go home with 29 items of tat. (Given that no one's going to spend much on each one, it's hardly going to be something that you are going to keep and hand down to the grandchildren.)

Well, this is America, and capitalism came to the rescue (with help from an artificially depressed Chinese Yuan, and a sweatshop near Beijing). S went shopping at the supermarket and came home with a box of "Valentines". 27 of them, for $2.99. They are little cards with 3D pictures on, the kind that change when you look at them from different angles. With pictures of dogs and cats.

Hooray for the globalization and the free market economy, that's all I can say.

Ride to work

Here's a video of my bike ride to work.


Some people (who shall remain nameless, but we'll call JD) have complained about the music in some videos so we'll have a change of style here.

I did it by taping a mini-tripod onto my handlebar extender, and putting the camera on that. It was a bit shakey though (as you can see). It's not absolutely accurate, because I started from the apartment, not from outside the garage where I keep my bike (because I forgot something, and I didn't want to leave my bike with the camera attached in the garage). I'd have taken a photo of the bike with camera on it, except that I couldn't, obviously.

Remember those books that you used to be able to get that told you where to fast forward your video to get to the naughty bits in films? (You don't? Oh. Well, someone told me about them). Well, in a similar vein, here's a guide to things in the video. Not naughty bits though. Interesting bits. Maybe slightly less boring bits is more accurate.


0:42 - You can just glimpse our yellow car - S was returning from dropping A and D off at nursery.
0:55 - normally there's a nice view from here. But not today, it was misty.
1:11 - Yum Yum 24 hour donut shop on the right. (Yum Yum being the name of the shop).
2:01 - if it wasn't a misty day, you'd be able to see the sea ahead.
2:17 - I'm looking in my handlebar bag for something.
2:37 - Marina is on the left here 'creek' is on the right.
3:19 - A bicycle jam
3:36 - Overtaken! He won't get away with that.
4:40 - I caught him. A brief traffic light chat, about why I had a camera tied to my handlebars.
4:51 - this is a park with exercise equipment. It's common to see people exercising here, very seriously.
5:33 - He did get away with that. (Note to self - don't try to keep up with people who are obviously fitter than you, and on racing bikes. Or legs will hurt. For days.)
6:10 - If I went straight on here, I'd be on Venice Pier.
6:15 - This is Venice beach, but it's not what people think of as Venice beach.
6:39 - There is an ambulance here, with it's lights flashing, and a lifeguard car next to it. I couldn't see if they'd just heroically dragged someone from the water though.
6:50 - This is what you think of as Venice Beach. There are courts (for handball? Not quite sure) in the picture. Muscle Beach is to the right.
6:54 - The red thing on the left is a homeless person in a sleeping bag.
7:03 - That's a man pushing a pram with twins in it, whilst rollerskating. (Rollerskating pram pushers are very common).
7:11 - Shops and stuff at Venice Beach, with shutters down.
7:53 - There is a caravan thing on the right, with aboutusnow.com written on the side of it. I've been to that website, and I still don't understand.
8:06 - about here we enter Santa Monica - I've never quite worked out where the border is.
9:00 - If it wasn't misty, you'd be able to see Santa Monica pier now - it's 2 blocks down, but I turn off the beach here.
9:32 - CoCE is on the left here.
9:35 - Mushroom cloud sculpture on the right.
9:40 - CoCE are a bit fussy about being photographed, and so here we stop.

Souplantation

Eating out here is cheap. (That, and Levi's jeans, I've discovered.) We went to a restaurant last night that excelled in cheapness beyond my wildest dreams. And it was quite good.

It started with a salad bar - I didn't measure it, but they claimed it was 55 feet long, and I believed them. It had salad. A lot of salad, of lots of different types - the special salad of the moment was spinach leaves with cherries. When you got to the end of the salad bar, you paid - I think the limit was what you could get on one plate, and it was a reasonable sized plate (although not huge). The price was $8.99 for adults, and $1.79 for kiddies - and drinks were $1.79. For four of us, the price was around $31 (tax probably got added somewhere there, so there's no point trying to make it add up), that's about £16, although I usually think of it as more like £20 (when I'm translating, in my head).

Once you were past the salad bar, you could eat as much as you could of anything. There was soup (4 kinds, including a very chunky vegetable soup, which I thought would be watery and horrid), 4 kinds of pasta (the boys were fond of macaroni cheese). There were baked potatoes and baked sweet potatoes and two kinds of pizza. There were desserts, tapioca pudding (when was the last time you saw that on a menu that didn't have a dinner lady standing next to it, taking your 25p off you?), jelly, watermelon, apples, cakes, muffins, apple and cherry cobbler and a frozen yogurt dispensing machine, with vanilla and chocolate.

The thing that surprised me is that they made a big thing about fruit and vegetables, and not just in a McDonald's-y lip service sort of way. (Well, they couldn't, with that much salad). They said what proportion of your 5 a day was contained in a bowl of soup (most of it) and things like that. It's seems weird that somewhere selling really cheap fast (ish) food does that - I can't imagine it happening in the UK. They said what was vegetarian or not (if it wasn't obvious, like with some salads).

The other thing that surprised me was that there was a supermarket next door. If I lived anywhere near that place, I'd never go shopping for food again. Except for cornflakes to have for breakfast.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

I bought a Flying Spaghetti Monster sticker thing for the car. S said that if she'd known how big it was, she wouldn't have let me buy it. And if she'd known I was going to put it on the car, she wouldn't have let me buy it either. (What else was I going to do with it?)

Anyway, here's a picture of it. Which also displays the fact that I left the car door open, and someone had to come and tell me to close it.

Two pics of our neighbourhood

Here's a couple of pictures taken near our house. The first is a panorama shot (I'm not bored of them yet!) of the lagoon near our house. You need to click on the picture to make it bigger. It goes nearly 360 degrees, so the playground at the left and right is the same playground. The lagoon is fairly stagnant, and is a wildlife reserve - you're not allowed to swim in it, paddle in it, or have any kind of toy in it. If you look extraordinarily hard, at the end of the lagoon there is a white triangle sticking up - that's a yacht, on the other side of the causeway, heading into the marina. (Which sounds pleasant, but adds 2 miles to my bike ride, 'cos I have to go around it).

Just to the left of where the sun is setting is the beach - there are some sand dunes in the way, so you can't see it (or the sea).

On the left are the public toilets - if I forget to go for a wee at home, before I set off, I usually go here. It's the most secluded restrooms (as I say now) that I pass, and you know by now that you're not going to make it to CoCE.

A and D were on the sand when I took it, but they seem to have disappeared in the merge.



In that picture, you can just about see the hill on the left, which we live on. The first thing to note about the hill is that it makes the last part of my bike ride home considerably less pleasant than it might otherwise be. The second is that it's an enormous sand dune. It's the sand dune that continues into the Sand Dune Park (which I've written about before).

And the fact that it's a sand dune, and the fact that there is the occasional earthquake in Southern California (and Northern too, so I could have just said California there) makes me feel nervous every time I see the house in the second photo.

Avocados

Also at the farmers market, there were avocados for sale. I grew up with avocados being eaten out of a pear shaped dish, with a dash of tomato vinaigrette, but I've never seen an avocado treated that way here (come to think of it, I've never seen an avocado treated that way in the UK since I was about 15, but anyway ...)

They way I've almost never seen an avocado treated in the UK is to put them in a sandwich (except for at Mair's, a delicatessen near our house, and they sold all sorts of weird stuff in their sandwiches, my favorite on the weirdness scale being chili-peanut butter and banana; they also did garlic peanut butter and chocolate). Here, avocados go in sandwiches and on burgers - in Subway, it's an optional extra on any sandwich, in The Shack, which is a bar that sells burgers near us, it's an option, it's standard in one of the sandwiches at CoCE, and always an option.

Anyway, where was I, oh yes, the farmers market. They had a stall selling avocados, and they had 4 kinds (bacon, hass, fuerte and zutano). They varied in price from $1.50 to $3.00 for an avocado. Does this mean that your average avocado buyer in these parts can (and does) distinguish between different kinds of avocado, as I might distinguish between different kinds of apples? But at least different types of apple look different - these looked like, well they looked like avocados. I bought $2.00 ones because I didn't want to look like a cheapskate, and I thought that maybe if they cost more, they were better, and because they were 3 for $5. And then the man threw an extra one in for free.

This last point was a problem, because if there's one thing that gets me in trouble with S (well, there are lots of things but this is one of them) it's buying too many avocados.

Quiz Time

We haven't had a quiz for a while, so let's have another.

I went to the farmer's market today, and I bought these:



What are they?