1000

A while ago, I bought a new speedometer for my bike. Today I did my 1000th mile with it. Because S and the boys are away, I could go on a bike ride, for fun, not just to get somewhere. And that's the first time I'll have done that for a little over 5 years and two weeks (if you missed that reference, the boys are a little older than 5 years and 2 weeks old).

When I'm riding to work, I sometimes chat with other people cycling (these chats are usually short) but one thing they say is "It's really nice riding South from where you live, but you must know that". I don't know that, but I nod in agreement. (Otherwise they win). So today I decided to do that. I rode South on the bike path, until the bike path ended, and then I rode on the road. I went about 25 miles, and almost reached Long Beach, but it was time to go home, so I turned around at the Donald Trump Golf Course. The route is here, if you're interested. I took a lot of photos on the way. Enough to make you bored. Here's a selection. of pictures.

This is Dockweiler beach, near where we live - near to the beach and then maybe a mile south of us. The airport is very near, and planes take off over the beach. When there's a big one (like this) they seem to come very low. A few years ago (before we were here) some bits fell out of the engine of a plane, and landed on the beach.

This is at Redondo Beach. There were pelicans diving for fish, and I spent ages trying to get a good photo of one, so I could win a BBC Wildlife Photography prize, or something like that. I didn't quite succeed.

This was a splash that was made by a pelican. I know, you're going to have to believe me. The person in the foreground is sitting on the beach (although you can't see the beach, the pelicans weren't far out.)
This is a bit hard to tell, but it's a pelican with it's beak full of fish, and doing that sagging thing that makes pelicans more interesting than seagulls.
This is a pelican diving, and another one thinking about it.
This one is just thinking.
And now it dives. (Or did I just turn the camera sideways?)
I can't remember why I took this photo. It might have been the highest point - a sign said that was 1600 feet. I don't have a reference to know how high that actually is, but it felt very, very high, after I'd ridden up the hill.

This is Redondo Beach pier. It looks like a normal pier, sticking out into the sea and stuff, but then it turns a couple of corners and comes back. I didn't think that was, strictly, a pier. But they seem to call it that, and who am I to say they're wrong?This is the turning the corner and coming back bit.
There's my bike.
This was a sign on the pier. Why? What's he going to do? Hahaha.
A tanker, of some sort, on legs. No idea why.
This is me and my bike at the San Vicente Interpretive Center. It's the best place for seeing whales from, when they migrate. Except not in June. They finish in May, and they come back again in November.

Tanker in the distance. Although it's all beachy and nice, there's also some fairly serious industry about. It might not be a tanker, it might be a freighter.

Huh?
Oh, it's true.
That might be Manhattan Beach pier, but it might be Hermosa. I forget.
If that was Manhattan Beach pier, this is Hermosa, and vice versa.

More industry - this is Scattergood generating station - it runs on natural gas.

This is possibly the same freighter/tanker, or it might be a different one, on the way back.
That's just a view of the beach on the way home.

I went into this pizza place, at Hermosa Beach.
And I saw this guy. His name was Marcello, and if you managed to eat a whole tray of pizza (16 slices) you got your name on the wall (you're not allowed to throw up, or go to the bathroom, until you finish). Here he is, almost finished. He'd been eating it for an hour and 20 minutes, which might explain why the person sitting next to him looks a little bored, and is fiddling with her cellphone. He was dipping the last bits of crust into the water, to help them slide down a little easier. He managed to eat about 2 bits in the 10 minutes or so I was there.
This is me, at the Trump National Golf Course, which was the end of my ride (well, the half way point, it didn't end until I got home again).

Detachable Penis

One of the nice things about living here is there are lots of radio stations, playing all kinds of stuff. I usually listen to KCRW, which is an NPR station. In the morning they have 'Morning edition' which is almost like the Today Programme, in the early evening 'All things considered', which is almost like PM.

From 9 until 12 there's Morning Becomes Eclectic. I don't listen to that very often, because I'm usually at work. Which is good, because I tend to have the urge to buy CDs after listening to it (I usually can't remember what they were).

Anyway, today I wasn't listening to KCRW, I was listening to KROQ and they played "Detachable Penis", which, you'll remember, is by King Missile. When was the last time you heard anyone play 'Detachable Penis'? on the radio? Precisely.

Actually, before today I've only heard detachable penis once before today (except when I played it), and that was in someone's car, on a compilation tape that someone had made for them. And that was enough to make me buy it. (Sometimes I don't understand other people - first, it's got the title 'Detachable Penis' - which you would think would be enough to make anyone buy it. Second, it's even better when you hear it. So you would think it was a massive hit. But I don't think it was.

But today, they played it on the radio.

Thanks to the power of the internet, you two can listen to the song (and watch the video) below.




And while I'm on a King Missile sort of roll, another (excellent, you might say) song by them is 'Martin Scorsese'. (I guess this was taken from the telly, because they've removed all the times it says 'fucking' - that's why there's the odd weird pause.



Don't you just want to go and buy King Missile CDs now?

Alone

S and the boys and have gone to Germany, for 5 weeks, leaving me here (not for all 5 weeks, I'm off to England). My life has suddenly lost it's structure. For the first time in I've forgotten how long (actually, it's probably 5 years and 2 weeks) I don't have to get up in the morning at a certain time - like when someone shouts "Daddy, is it daytime?"

It's like driving around without a map lady. I'm unconstrained - I can go anywhere I want to go, but I don't know where I want to go. Some mornings, I get up a 6:30, and go straight to work - I shower, eat breakfast, drink coffee all at work. And there's no reason to go home. (I read another blog recently where someone wrote about infinite time - because of the nature of our jobs, it's never finished. If you gave us an infinite amount of time, we could use it all up.) So I can go home at 10pm, if I want to (and sometimes I do.)

I hope that's not making it sound all bad. Because, at least to start with, it's not.

Have you ever seen that email that people send around? I've just tried to find it, and I can't. It goes something like "Do you feel tired all the time? Listless? Lacking in energy? Do you feel that you are getting older, and there isn't enough time to do the things you want? Do you and your spouse spend time just talking any more? have you wondered what is wrong? The answer is: You've got children."

I thought I was just getting old or something, but sudden, I find that I don't have to fight the urge to go to bed, starting at 9pm, and usually succumbing by 10. I can stay up late. And I can still get up at the same time. I don't know how the boys manage to suck the life force from me - but I've realized that they do.

Tomorrow I'm going to go on a bike ride. Not to go somewhere, but for fun. Just to go out. I can't remember the last time I did that, but I'm prepared to bet it was slightly more than 5 years and 2 weeks ago.

Who am I?

I was walking past the swimming pool this evening, where some children were swimming (surprisingly). They shouted "Hello Alex and Danny's dad!"

That's all I am now. It's what I've become. It's like a few years ago, when women got married, and became "Mrs John Smith", or whatever.

(Bad?) Medicine

S and the boys (and Oma and Brigitte) are going on a flight to Germany, via London. (Well, strictly, the flight is to Amsterdam.) So today, I went to a travel stuff shop, which had all kinds of travel stuff. I went in, and slightly pessimistically asked for a German-US modem adapter plug. They asked if I wanted West German, or East (West) and new style or old (I'd already investigated this, and wanted new). They rummaged under the counter and said "Just the one". Which I thought was quite impressive.

So while I was there, I bought a step up voltage adapter thingy, so that our hand blender would turn with slightly more enthusiasm. On the counter they also had some travel pills "Reduce jetlag! Sleep better!" I investigated more closely, and in smaller letters it said "Homeopathic!" so I put them back.

Then we went to the pharmacy. Partly to buy more cheap toys (pharmacies have enormous quantities of cheap toys - I've bought one of pretty much everything they have for less than 2 dollars, so that every 10 minutes on the flight, S can whip out another toy that they have never seen before. At least for the first 4 hours) but mostly to see if there's anything that is non-homeopathic/non-herbal/non-illegal/ethical that we can stuff into the boys. I went to the 'consult' counter, and explained my problem. I expect a tirade about my parenting skills - something along the lines of "You expect us to sell you powerful pharmaceutical products, products which have been developed to aid sick people; you expect me to use my years of training in pharmacist school; and you want to drug your children , all to make your life a little easier?" But he didn't say that. He said "Benadryl - aisle 8, on the right."

So I looked at the Benadryl (it's an antihistamine), and it said "Warning: may cause severe drowsiness". However, the smallest bottle was 4 ounces, and you aren't allowed to take more than three ounces on a plane, so I bought the bottle, and some strips too.

When we got home, I read the rest of the warnings. The third one said "May cause excitability." Fantastic. So it's either going to knock them out, or give them ADD. And we don't know which, until we try it.

Wipers

I spoke to someone today, who had lived around here for a while, then moved away to Washington, DC, for a few years, and was now back. They said that before they moved away, they didn't realize that you had to replace windscreenshield wipers.

Toast

In Germany, they don't eat sandwiches. This might seem like a problem only when you are in Germany (what do people eat for lunch, if they don't sell sandwiches anywhere?) But it can also prove a problem when you have Germans visiting, who try to help.

The boys had a birthday party, on Friday (which I've nearly recovered from enough to write about). We wanted to make sandwiches, and B, Oma's pal (whom I am supposed to call Frau Kaiser; S thinks it's OK for me to go into her bedroom and rifle through her underwear looking for stuff I'm supposed to take to work, but not to call her by her first name) decided to help.

But (and I know this is hard to believe) she didn't know how to make sandwiches. She took each slice of bread, cut the crusts off, cut it in half, diagonally, and buttered it, and then tried to cut a slice of cheese so that it fitted. Then she put it on the plate. (Yes, that's right, she didn't put another piece on top). I think S tried to explain that sandwiches involved two piece of bread, so she then made sandwiches, but by basically the same procedure, cutting the crusts off each slice, cutting in half, and then cutting a slice of cheese so it fitted, and putting them together. I tried to explain in my rather feeble German "Erste machen, dann Schnitzen" but she just carried on. S thinks that that is because she was so shocked that I called her by her first name, she was unable to listen to anything else I said. I think it's because she didn't have any idea what I was talking about.

The German word for sliced bread is 'toast'. The German word for toast is 'toast'. This kind of makes sense - if you don't eat sandwiches, the only use for sliced bread is to make toast, but it's caused confusion before - such as when Oma writes 'toast' on the shopping list, and the only kind of toast that they sell in Sainsbury's is that hard French stuff, so I buy it, and she can't understand why there's no bread, and I can't understand why she didn't write it on the shopping list. Anyway, we all woke up late this morning (not quite recovered from the party), and so we were in a hurry. I usually get slices of bread from the freezer, leave them to defrost on the breadboard, and do other stuff while they defrost, then I make sandwiches for the boys.

So I do this, as normal. But when I turn around, Oma has toasted them. She thinks this is normal - after all, I got toast from the freezer. So, I try to explain that I didn't want the toast toasted, because even though she thinks it's toast, I think it's bread, and I'm going to make some of that weird foreign mysterious food called a sandwich. So I get more bread from the freezer, put it on the breadboard, andgo about my business. Now, with leaving time mere minutes away, I go to pack the boys' lunches. But, yes, you've guessed it, my bread is in the toaster, and is nicely toasted. I fling it into the sink (Oma gets it out again, a few bubbles won't allow her to let good toast go to waste) and get more frozen bread out of the freezer, which I make into frozen sandwiches.

If I were to go into a bit of self-psychoanalysis and introspection, the reason this offends me so is because of an incident that happened (naturally) when I was a child. I think that a number of incidents involving packed lunches have scarred me, and this is just one of them. (Another involves my yogurt breaking open, and me being upset about this, while other children look on and laugh because I pronounce if to rhyme (almost) with Bogart. My mother was Canadian, and so said yogurt this way - I've speant years fighting the urge to call it yoagurt, and trying to remember to call it yoggert. A f then we move to America, and I have to try to call it yoagurt again, so our boys aren't scorned at school for being weirdo outsiders.)

But I was going to tell you about the frozen bread. I was (I'd guess) about 13 and we were going on a caoch trip to Londom. (I think it was a own twinning thing, where lots of French/German people came to stay, and we had to do something to amuse them). So we made egg sandwiches. And we (well, mum, let's assign blame where it's due for the psychological damage this caused) thought we should freeze the sandwiches. That way, when we arrived in London, they would be cool and pleasant, not warm and disgusting. So, we arrived in London, and prepared to eat our cool yummy egg sandwiches. Except they weren't cool, they were frozen.

We left the sandwiches on the coach, thinking that when we got back for the journey home we would have cool, delicious sandwiches to eat. When we got back to the coach, the sandwiches had attracted enormous amounts of condensation, and were soggy balls of mush. And I was sad (and, obviously, damaged).

Names

Oma has come to visit, and she's brought a pal, Frau Kaiser.

This introduces one of those bizarre name problems that Germans have. S and the boys call Frau Kaiser, Frau Kaiser. I'm not sure what Oma calls her. But the question is, what does she call S? She can't call her S, because that's too informal. But she can't call her Frau H, because that's Oma. And that's too formal, when Frau K is older. And S isn't Frau H. She is Frau Dr H.

The solution is that Frau Kaiser doesn't speak to S directly, she can only address her through Oma. As in "Does your daughter want sugar?"

Frau K has yet to address me, partly because she doesn't speak much English, but mostly because (I suspect) she has no idea what to call me.

We were in a shop today (The Pinata Store, but that's another blog entry), and after I paid, the woman serving had looked at my credit card and said "Thanks Jeremy". It's like another country. Oh, hang on, it is.

Music at Trader Joe

Trader Joe's plays music in the shop. Nothing unusual there. What is unusual is the music that they play. I've recently heard:

• Big Time - by Peter Gabriel
• Our House - Madness
• She Sells Sanctuary - The Cult (when was the last time you heard that? When was the last time you heard anything by the cult?
• Take on me - A-Ha
• Save a prayer - Duran Duran
• Don't stand so close to me - The Police
  

(I keep meaning to write them down when I get home, so I remember.)

Notice any connection? First of all, they are all from the 80s, and second, they are almost all English (except for A-Ha, and they are Norwegian). I'd like to know who chooses this, and why. First, the staff mainly seem too young to be of that age.

My best theory is that it's the demographic they are after. Who spends the most in supermarkets? People with young (or young-ish) children. And that's people of about my age, who came of age in the 80s, and would say things like "She Sells Sanctuary - when was the last time I heard that? Or when was the last time I heard anything by The Cult").

But that doesn't explain the European-ness. I'm going to have to try to be more systematic. First, writing down all the songs that are played in TJs, and second, going to other stores (there are a couple of others that I go to sometimes) and seeing if they play similar music.

There's a good chance they won't - each store has a 'theme', ours is an airport theme. The checkouts are labelled "Runway 1" "Runway 2", etc, and there are model planes hanging from the ceiling. The other one I go to occasionally has a Hawaiian theme, and has canoes on the walls. The checkouts are called checkouts, and each has a little chalkboard with amusing quotes on it (which, I think, change. My favorite "before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you'll be a mile away, and you'll have their shoes". (Each TJs also has art on the walls, which is done by local artists.)

Reflections

Sometimes stuff happens, and it feels like an earlier memory is being replayed, except that I've shifted roles and turned into one of my parents, and D or A has turned into me. Like one of those training things that policemen do, when one of them has to be the criminal, and be interrogated, and then they change over.

Sometimes these are painful. Only because I think of what I put my parents through, but I guess they are getting a kind of payback now.

When I was little (let's say 5, I don't remember), I used to like doing the washing up. This involved standing on a chair, and pouring water into and out of things in the sink. I wasn't allowed to do it very often. When I got older (let's say 10, for the sake of argument), I didn't like doing the washing up. My parents would ask me, and I'd moan (and I'd imagine that I only did it rarely). Once I asked them: "When I was younger, I liked doing the washing up, and you didn't let me. Now I don't, and you won't let me."

They replied (words to the effect of): "That's because you were toss useless at it when you were younger."

[Sometimes I wonder if that episode in my life is why, when I first had my own unfurnished house, the first thing I bought, and I mean the first thing, before I bought a TV or a fridge or a cooker, on the day I moved in, was a dishwasher.]

Today, A asked if he could wash the plates. I said he could - there were a few in the sink, and having a bit of water sloshed over them before they went into the dishwasher wouldn't hurt. I was reminded of the episode much earlier in my life, when he picked up the washing up liquid bottle (which was only half full) and emptied it onto the counter.

Frat Boys

Here's D and A's pre-school photo (S says I'm not allowed to call it a nursery). D, in particular, looks like an American frat boy (S says he looks like an actor, but I think that's because frat boys try to look like actors), and both look beyond their 4 years and 11 months. Which, naturally, makes them very happy now, but won't when they're 40 and 11 months.

Santa Monica Festival

The day after the Strawberry Festival, it was the Santa Monica festival. At the Strawberry Festival, the boys had been sweetness and light, and had shown amazing stamina. They made up for it at the Santa Monica festival, where they were back to their usual evil selves.

The festival was interesting - it was designed to produce no waste. Everything had to be either recyclable or biodegradable. S went to buy some biodegradable plates and cups (for A and D's 5th birthday party, which is coming up). The people just wanted to tell her about how great the plates were - she just wanted to buy them. This seems to be a common problem in this sort of thing - I go to the Farmer's Market, and buy cheese. The woman at the cheese stall now recognizes me, and says "Oh, I don't need to tell you about the cheese, do I?" But I digress.

We bought some disgustingly coloured and flavored ice, so that the boys could be hyperactive. These came in biodegradable glasses - there's a photo below, but you can't really see them. The glasses looked and felt so like real plastic (hang on, real glasses, made of plastic, oh, you know what I mean) that I didn't believe they actually were biodegradable - I thought it was a con. I tried to bite the spoon, and managed to make a small mark, but that was all, so I wasn't sure about that either. However, there was someone standing by the bin to make sure that we put them in the compost - so then I was convinced.


They (naturally) didn't eat most of the colored ice, so I had to finish it (at $4 we weren't going to let it go to waste, and I was thirsty). A and D sat on police motorbikes - they were Santa Monica police motorbikes, not California Highway Patrol (as in CHiPs - who remembers Ponch and Jon). The boys didn't mind that though. (Incidentally, the California Highway Patrol is always called CHP).

Notice D's mouth is red, from the frozen ice thing.

Strawberries

V was visiting at the weekend, and wanted to go shopping. But she didn't want to go shopping just anywhere - she wanted to go shopping at the Camarillo Outlet Shopping Center. I have no idea how she knew this existed, but she did, and so we went there. It's like a Designer Outlet Centre, except bigger and more American.

Our initial plan was that V and S would shop, whilst the boys and I (the boys?) played at a park. However, there was no park.

What there was, was the California Strawberry Festival. Very conveniently, they had a park and ride system set up, and even more conveniently, the parking place was the Camarillo Outlet Shopping Center.

So we drove to Camarillo (every day I'm hugging my pillow, almost), and the ladies shopped while the boys rode a school bus to the strawberry festival. A proper yellow school bus, with the flashing lights.

The strawberry festival involved, well, strawberries, as you would expect. But these people took their strawberries seriously. There were strawberries for sale. (By the time we got around to thinking about buying some to take home, most had sold out, and the ones that hadn't had long lines.)

Strawberry lemonade.

Strawberry smoothies.


Chocolate covered strawberries from Oxnard Buddhist Temple. Buddhist temple. Strawberries being covered in chocolate. Boggles the mind.

Strawberry margaritas:

I'm not sure if that's strawberry wine, or strawberries with wine.

But that definitely says strawberry beer.
Strawberry pizza:
And if you weren't strawberried out, strawberry nachos.

Visits

I haven't been posting much in the last two weeks, 'cos we've had two visitors - M came for an interview at Corporation of Current Employment, and V had an interview at University of California.

They were both surprised by how simultaneously hard and easy the interview process seems to be (at least for academic, or quasi-academic jobs). It's easy because people chat to you in your interviews, sometimes you feel you should be trying to get a word in edgewise. You don't get asked a succession of hard questions, or any questions at all. It's hard because it goes on, and on. Both started about 8am - there are no breaks, lunch is part of the process. M was finished by 5pm - well, he wasn't because he had dinner with me, but that hardly counted. V finished with her evening meal at about 9pm, restarted the next morning at 8am, and finally finished at about 4pm.

M and I drove around to some places, so we could take photos of interesting things to show the folks back home. The first photo is of the Hollywood sign, the second is of the beach at Malibu, and the third is a freeway. I'm not sure why we took that photo - it might be because, if you look closely, the sign says Sunset Boulevard.



We didn't actually get out of the car to take any of those photos (as you can see).

V had less time to acclimatise (her interviews started the morning after she arrived), had two days of interviews, and on Saturday (her only full free day), all she wanted to do was shop.

She managed to out-shop S, and we were impressed by her stamina, but that's another blog post. (Or, if you read these in the traditional manner, starting at the top and working down, it's the one you've just read.)

Bedtime Snacks

At bedtime, A wanted milk. Well, specifically he wanted Better Milk (that's warm milk - as in "Daddy, my milk is too cold".. [Daddy puts it in the microwave] "Is that better?" "Yes, that's better milk") mixed with Daddy Milk (which is soya milk) - sometimes they want better milk, sometimes they want Daddy milk, and sometimes they want a mixture.

D wanted asparagus. So I cooked him some, and he ate it. (Even the really tough bits at the bottom of the stalk.)

Fashion

In England (and probably Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and all the other bits of the UK) it is (or was, when I was there) trendy to have t-shirts with stuff about surfing on them. The rest of what they said was usually nonsense. But that didn't matter, because no one cared.

Until someone gives your offspring t-shirts that say "Pasadena Beach Club" on them, and you move to California, and go to Pasadena. And your children wear the t-shirts. And you hope no one notices, because it's really obvious that there isn't a beach for a good 20 miles.

Kinderfest

We went to a "Kinderfest und Maifest" today, at Anaheim. (Anaheim is mostly famous for having Disneyland, but it so happens that it was founded by German settlers - it means "Anna's House".)

I'm not sure of the exact translation of "Kinderfest und Maifest" but it probably means something like "Lots of fat old Germans sitting around getting pissed on Bavarian beer and playing music which involves tubas". Despite the emphasis on kinder, there wasn't much for kiddies to do. There were pony rides, and a petting zoo, which had some bedraggled looking sheep and goats, a couple of chickens, and several nervous rabbits, and a bouncy castle.

There was a large tent (the "Festhalle") which had lots of tables and benches, and a stage at one end, where the tuba players congregated. When the tuba players got tired, there was some sort of male voice choir - there was a lot of shouting at the crowd to stop talking, but only from the choir, not from anyone in the crowd.

After the choir, there was the singing of the national anthem - they sang the American anthem first, just to show whose side they were on, and then the German one. Next, came a lot of announcements which involved people going up to the stage for some reason - I don't think it was the raffle, but the acoustics were appalling, and I had no idea what was going on.

The whole place was run and organized by old German people, mainly for the benefit of old, German people. They sold soft drinks from the beer stalls, but the old men selling it seemed to have no understanding of, well anything to do with soft drinks. When drinks overflowed, or they served the wrong one (which was quite regular) they dumped it into the container of ice. I ordered a diet Coke (with no ice), and one turned to the other and said "Ho ho ho, zis man haz ze fonny acsunt!! Ho ho!! He say Coke!"

Anyway, we ate Reibepfannkuchen and Bienenstich and Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte and drank Koestinger Schwarzbier. A parade went by, of people in various German dress, and then we left.

Oh, you'll want to see some photos, I suppose.

German fashion:



German ladeez:

A beer tent, with lots of German people with feathers in their caps:
This was kept at the back of the Reibepfannkuchen (potato pancakes, to you [probably] and I):
We've got a German flag, but we've got an American flag too, and it's higher. So that's OK. (And the one on the left is a California flag.)

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.