Renovations

We’ve lived in this house for more than three years.  We’ve made a few changes here and there as time has gone by.  

In the bedrooms, we painted, ripped out nasty old carpet and put in laminate floors (yes, we touched up the trim).

We took down the ceiling “decor” in the living room.  (Yeah, I don’t know why they did that either, but then, we painted our bedrooms orange and yellow, so…)  

Just this week we finally got around to fixing the hall.  I don’t have any photos, but there was a wallpaper border (The hall border).  And the walls were taupe.  Ick.  Before they were taupe, the walls were this color, with trim this color.  Yummy, huh?  

Well, we took about six partial gallons of whitish paint that have been languishing in the garage (only one of them was ours) and mixed them together to get a lovely, buttery, eggshell color of whitishness.  And painted all of that drab taupey color.  Oh, plus the inside of the front door is now Royal Blue (per sonars, who did not want me to paint it “that sick green” as in Barf green). 

The kitchen border used to look like this, but it is no more.  

And now the brick benchey thing that used to be in front of the fireplace and living room window is gone.  (See the post from yesterday for pics.)

We figured there was some kind of 2x4 frame in there supporting a brick facade.  Turns out there were eight million bricks stacked in there, though only the outside layer was mortared.  It took a masonry chisel, a three pound hammer, three hours and a lot of banging (watch iiiit), but Partner ripped out the whole thing down to the fireplace face (good thing that went to the floor, huh?).  

Now we’re not sure what we want to do.  The window there has some rot under it and so we may reframe it.  Or we might put in a sliding glass door.  There’s a sort of double door on the other side of the fireplace that we’d like to turn into a sliding door too.  We’d have a lot of window out onto a patio.  Whuddya think?  

Oh, and here’s another picture I was trying to post last night.  Sonar X8’s desk, inspired by this.  But now it sort of reminds me of a comfy pair of blue jeans.  

And here’s the boy reading the classics.  

 He was smaller then.  

Camera Camera !@#$%

Ok, the good news is that the digital camera has returned from its vacation in Illinois.  The nice people at the Canon Factory Resort claim to have returned it to its factory specifications.  And I believe them.  I’ve already taken a dozen pictures of things I’d been meaning to take pictures of and they’re sweetly uploaded onto the Mac here, and I’ve seen them and fiddled with them and they’re pretty.  

But I can’t show them to you because Blogger has a headache or something.  Try as I might, an “internal error” is preventing me from uploading any of these lovely new photos.  Or any lovely old photos.  

I’ll try again. 

!@#$%

One more time. 

*sigh*

I give up.  

So the fun post full of pictures that I had mapped out in my mind is sort of pointless right now, so I’ll try to distract you.  

Hey, my eight year old started reading the Aeneid tonight.  Yeah, the one by Virgil.  Only then I mentioned that the monsters in The Odyssey were way better, so he switched.  This was all prompted by these books.  We’ve been reading them out loud since we finished HP.  They are fun too.  Anyway, at a loss for what to read on his own before bedtime tonight, having finished this earlier today, I was browsing the bookshelves for something to suggest until we can get him to a library tomorrow.  The Aeneid sort of jumped out at me because of the Percy books, so I took it out and told him what it was.  “But it might be too hard, being this big, elaborate poem-thing and all,” I said.  He snatched it out of my hands before I could return it to the shelves.  Then I dug out the Odyssey and there was a discussion of Greek and monsters and prose and poetry and the prudent use of a glossary.  

They’re tough, but he likes them, and he immediately had an easier time with the Fitzgerald Odyssey than the Aeneid, whose translator I cannot remember right now and the book is in there with the sleeping child (Edit:  turns out it’s the Mandelbaum.  If you’ve ever ready Dante’s Inferno, or even the entire Commedia, there’s a decent chance you read Mandelbaum’s version.  Cream-colored covers with the black ink drawings of the torments of Hell.  Thank Barry Moser for those.)  Suffice to say it’s the one with the green cover and the pen and ink drawing of a person (also by Moser.  Dido?) bleeding to death.  I read The Odyssey for the first time in TWELFTH grade!!!  Who is this child I have spawned? 

One more try on the pictures.  

Gr.  

Next time:  Paint and hammers.

2008 World Tour--Special events

You thought I was joking about that boring you with details thing the other day, didn’t you?  

Here’s more boring details.  A few of the more memorable occurrences during our traipse across the Southwestern United States.  In no particular order, I think.  

Swimming with old friends.  Really lovely.  Especially when joined by a swimming pug.  Who can beat that? (excuse the post-swim hair)

New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Planetarium.  Cool Fractal film in the planetarium.  The boys were completely convinced that the planetarium floor was moving up and down during the film.  (It wasn’t)  The natural history of the personal computer was a surprising bonus that we wished we’d had more time to explore.  

Family barbecue with a city full of fireworks.  With a view to die for, we ate dogs, burgers, peach cobbler.  From the porch at my folks’ house we could see the fireworks in Rio Rancho, the Balloon Fiesta Park, Isotope Stadium, Four Hills, as well as random personal displays all over the city (these unsanctioned explosions risked $10,000 fines in a heightened fire-risk year).  Completely worth the trip.  And we fell right into bed when it was over.  

Road Tarantulas.  More than 20 of them, on the highway between Pecos, Texas and Artesia, New Mexico.  I think I squished a few of them, but only because, big as they were, I couldn’t see them until they were right in front of the van.  I have to think they were driven to cross the road by the thunderstorms since, our our rain-free return home I didn’t see a single one.  

Driving through the Jemez Mountains on a rainy July afternoon, peeing in the woods, collecting Ponderosa Pine cones for souvenir gifts.  Sweet fun, especially with three curious kids.  

Meeting a “Known Associate.”  Ok, we didn’t so much “meet” him as pass him and smile and say hello in a gas station.  The front of his t-shirt declared him a known associate.  Of what, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but the back told me it was the Banditos.  There must have been some kind of biker theme on this trip.  Perhaps it’s the price of gas?  

Hand-crocheted Sonar covers.  We were surprised by a sneak-attack gift of handmade lap-blankets for the Sonars.  I say sneak-attack because they were left quietly, without immediate direct explanation because the maker feared the Sonars wouldn’t like them.  Little did she know that I have three of the most delicious craft-loving little people in the world.  Enthusiastically, they wrapped themselves in their wee love-creations as they watched fireworks under the cooling desert sky.  

Kilt-hose.  I might get to make some.  Maybe.  

Partner Sweater.  Cast on.  Did hood.  Started shoulders.  Two+ skeins worked so far.   

Check Engine Light.  We are assured that this is just a problem sensor, and nothing to worry about.  Unless it starts flashing, and then it’s bad.  But seriously.  No one wants to have the Check Engine light come on in the middle of a 2000 mile summer trip.  Especially when you’re as far from home as you can be.  

Albuquerque Aquarium and Botanical Gardens.  Part of the Rio Grande Biopark.  We did the zoo last year.  Go to see the mouthful of teeth on the Sand Tiger sharks and the model boats.  But seriously, do NOT miss the Children’s Fantasy Garden.  We were so pleasantly surprised by the dragon, and that would have been enough for us.  To turn and find the giant vegetables, well, that was just the best kind of icing on the delight cake.  What if we could all have a dragon and some giant carrots in our garden???  We will repeat this one next time for sure.  

Desert Sky Wind Farm outside Fort Stockton, Texas.  These gigantic wind turbines sort of appear suddenly, in the middle of a vast expanse of rolling desert nothingness.  They remind me of starched soldiers, marching across the ridgetops.  While unimposing in a way, they do help me understand how Don Quixote could mistake them for giant aggressors in need of conquest.  

And there was so much more.  We had such a grand and wonderful time and we can’t wait to do it all again next time.  

Packing

We are about to pack ourselves and our children into the Eurovan and drive 900 miles through the desert.  I would not necessarily say it is the bleakest drive in the world (that stretch along the border through El Paso is pretty bleak, but we’re not going that way this year), not is it the most monotonous (SharpSticks wins that one for her drive through the wheat fields of, hm, Alberta was it?), but it does have a certain featurelessness that is typical of much desert driving.  

Just to make things interesting, we’re taking a hard right at Fort Stockton, Texas, detouring from the Interstate this year and going through Carlsbad and Roswell in New Mexico.  

For those of you unfamiliar with NM geography, Carlsbad has what are among the most famous caverns in the world situated nearby.  Aptly titled, Carlsbad Caverns National Monument.  (I love that web address.  The simplicity.)  And Roswell has made itself famous for association with extra-terrestrial life.  Our terminal point in this grand tour is Albuquerque, city of my childhood.  We are still deluding ourselves that we will make it there in one day.  

We are two drivers, and the drive from here to there is 14 hours, not counting pee breaks, leg stretching, dinner, and stops to appreciate the cultural/ educational/ social/ geographical/ historical/ silent and/or childless significance of any given place.

So today we are deciding what to pack into the van with us and the three Sonars.  So far we have packed two audio books and a bucket of car-appropriate crafty/fiddly things.  Oh, and need I say there will be a bucket of legos and a kilo of stickers?

Perhaps clothes and sunscreen would be wise additions?  And of course, some knitting.  I can’t decide between a very weird sock (I tried to link directly, but it was weird… it’s the Conservative sock, which will be decidedly unconservative in some actual colors) or a sweater for Partner (The Hacky Sack Hoodie from Son of Stitch and Bitch—though I tried to talk him into the totally hot Messenger sweater with the skull on the shoulder).  Go ahead and laugh.  Oh yeah, sure, ‘take the sweater,’ you might say, wiping away a tear of hilarity, ‘to knit in the 100+ degree (Fahrenheit) New Mexico desert.   Good plan.’  But I will need some knitting to wile away the hours, knitting that isn’t too challenging, so that I can follow the pattern over the wailing and gnashing of teeth (‘My butt hurts’ or ‘I know we just stopped ten miles ago, but I will not pee in a cup!’).  

So, what must you have with you when you go on a trip?  Sedatives?  A travel guide?  A nanny?  Earplugs? 

I have nothing good to say, so I'm saying it*

*From a song-in-progress by Brother-in-law (songwriter/guitar player)

The house is quiet just now.  After a chaotic weekend involving hot dogs, water balloons, watermelon and a wading pool filled with children under 9, only Sonar X3 and I remain.  Partner is at work.  The other two Sonars  abandoned us to spend a week being spoiled by Grandma and Granddad.  Sonar X3 could have gone too, but was daunted by the idea of getting in a car with his sibs and driving away to leave us here alone for a week.  Perhaps he thought I wouldn’t know what to do without him?  

With only one child in the house, I find that there is a lot more time in my day.  It is unnecessary to do a load of wash every day.  And there are half as many dishes.  Ditto half as much crap strewn on the floor.

So I’m working on Ravenclaw-ish socks for Sonar X5, and also started a lace scarf just for the heck of it.  I finished reading The Girl With No Shadow by Joanne Harris (her sequel to Chocolat).  Seriously, if you haven’t read any of her books, go find one.  Her development of character is great, and she is a master at pacing a book so that I am slowly pulled along, with the tension and the emotion increasing incrementally until she just blows me away in the last quarter of each book.  I find myself dabbling with her books for the first half, just reading a bit here and there, savoring her attention to the details of smell and taste.  But by the time I get to that last quarter, I can hardly put them down wanting to know how this complicated tangle of humanity works itself out.  Good stuff.  Really good stuff.  

Next on the stack is The Good, the Bad, and the Undead by Kim Harrison, and then Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin.  

This weekend we will retrieve the Sonars.  Partner has one more week of work before his six week vacation.  Just today we contrived a plot to visit family in New Mexico the last week of June.  Gas prices, hash smices.  If we can drive the whole fourteen hours in one day, we won’t have to dish out for hotels.  That’s right.  I said fourteen hours of driving with the three Sonars in a car that is equipped with neither personal DVD players nor video gaming of any kind.  

I’ll try to remember to pack the sedatives.  For me.