Choosing a Choo Choo

Current mental soundtrack: "Beautiful Is the World" from Siddartha Fragments, by Jude Navari

Today's pre-Europe adventure was booking train travel. Twenty-one days in Europe, two countries, six travel days, sounds like a six-day Eurail France-Italy Saver pass is the way to go. But wait! The best way to get from Lyon to Venice (according to the schedule) is overnight. Since there's a change of trains after 7:00 pm, that counts as two days on the pass. Does that mean we need a seven-day pass? Well, no, because we can just buy tickets from Venice to Florence for less than the cost of an additional day on the pass, so we're back to the six-day pass. (I don't know how many hours of online research it took for me to be able to write this paragraph, but it was quite a few!)

I ended up purchasing a six-day Saver pass for four, reserved seats for three on the TGV from Paris to Lyon (DH will already be there), and two double-sleepers for the Lyon-Venice overnight leg. It's too early to reserve the other overnight leg (Rome to Paris), and we're going to wing it for the shorter daytime trips in Italy.

Naturally, after buying these, I found one snag in my plans: In order to use our Saver pass for the family, all four have to be present to validate the pass before use. In other words, DH is going to have to take the TGV from Lyon BACK to CDG to meet us before any of us can use the pass to get to Lyon!

At least the credit card company didn't blink at the charge...

Too Much Security?

We are planning a trip to Europe this summer: three weeks in France and Italy. DH acquired the plane tickets for us a couple of months ago, as he had enough miles saved up to buy two of the three tickets we need. (He will already be in France for a conference, so his airfare is covered).

After spending February and March reading guidebooks, I've finally decided on an itinerary, so I started yesterday by trying to book a B&B in Paris for the end of our trip. I promptly ran into the first snag of our trip. Our credit card company declined the online transaction, so I had to call them to confirm that we were indeed trying to book a room in Paris. Then I had to wait for the owner of the B&B website to reset the queue (I couldn't resubmit the transaction until she cleared it). Second try--still declined by the credit card company. Called them again to complain, emailed the owner to reset everything, and waited a few more hours to try again. It finally went through this time.

Today, I attempted to purchase some other things online (normal purchases for me), and discovered the card had been blocked AGAIN. Third call to the credit card company in two days--the woman I spoke to this time had to call her supervisor to clear things up. It seems that I made some sort of change to my account information (I'm presuming this is related to deleting the work number they had for me that hasn't been valid for four years) that threw me back into limbo.

I appreciate their attempts to prevent fraudulent use of my credit card, but I'm annoyed that it took THREE phone calls to them to straighten it out. It should only have taken one. And, I had to make a phone call to a retailer to tell them to try my credit card again, since my order didn't go through. I hope the rest of the planning goes more smoothly.

Random Stories From Today

Today, after Peter Pan rehearsal, B and I stopped by the house to pick up M, as we had plans to eat dinner with friends while B was at ballet class. He was ready to go, as promised, but he was puzzled by faint music that he was hearing inside the house. He said it was all through the house, and a little louder when he put his ear next to the toilet and next to the heater vent. I asked him what kind of music it sounded like, and he reported it sounded like a guitar. Once he got in the car, he decided to turn on his iPod, to drown out the mystery music. Lo and behold, his iPod was already on, and had been playing music in his pocket! (He ranked this one up there with the staple episode.)

B had a great time at ballet class, because no one showed up to teach her two-hour class until halfway through! The girls were very diligent and did their barre work, making up their own combinations as they went along. The school pianist was there for the whole class, and B reports that he thought they did a great job. (Their regular teacher is away this week--they had a sub on Tuesday, and a different one today.)

One more M funny tonight: he has a French test tomorrow, so I was helping him study by quizzing him from the textbook:
     M: What does "ou" mean?
     E: Where.
     M: There! (pointing to the word "ou" in the book)
     E: WHERE.
     M: There! Oh...

A classic "Who's on First" moment!

Sunny Sunday

Current mental soundtrack: Star Trek theme (kids were watching one of the movies earlier tonight)

Today's accomplishments:

• Laundry: First six loads washed, dried, and folded. Last load in the dryer right now.
• Garden: Didn't do much today, but did some weeding and picked up several buckets of yard waste.
• Baking: B saw our four overripe bananas and requested banana bread, so 1.5 loaves are now sitting on the counter (they don't last long around here)
• Treats: Matzo brittle made for S&P rehearsal tomorrow night. It was a successful experiment--I saw the recipe in the newspaper earlier this week and thought it sounded interesting. Four thumbs up from the family. Still need to pick up some hummus, as our Safeway was sold out today. 
• March Madness:  After seven years of entering a friend's pool, I actually won this year! Yes, I know the tournament isn't over yet, but our friend has calculated that no one else has enough potential points left to catch me. Woohoo!

Happy Sunday!

Growing Teenager

Current mental soundtrack: "The Brain is Wider Than the Sky" from An Emily Dickinson Mosaic, by Daniel Pinkham

Took M to Tarzhay this afternoon for a new wardrobe, since he's outgrown almost everything he owns. The final tally for the afternoon: four men's T-shirts, one nice shirt, two pairs of shorts, a Personal Pan Pizza, and a box of cookies. He consumed the pizza and several of the cookies on the way home, and declared he was still hungry.

Spring is Here

A nice, relaxing weekend, with nothing on the calendar for next weekend, either. Yesterday we planted some new flowers (to replace the ones that didn't make it through the winter), and I did a bunch of badly needed weeding. Today, I got up and found that DH had made us pancakes for breakfast. B heated up my lunch for me (we split a frozen pizza), and I'm cooking ham, asparagus, and scalloped potatoes for dinner.

Oh, and I correctly picked Cornell to advance to the Sweet Sixteen, along with St. Mary's, so I'm doing pretty well in the pool :-)

Dessert Tower

For today's Voci fundraiser, I bought a "dessert tower" to display the mini cupcakes I baked:

Closeup of cupcakes:

(Chocolate and white cakes, filled with raspberry filling, and topped with chocolate and white-chocolate ganaches.)

Spring Forward is Coming

I need to keep better track of when Daylight Savings Time begins. Silly me, I said "yes" to subbing at a church service this Sunday, not realizing that being there by 8:55 am means 7:55 am body time, or roughly when I get out of bed on a weekday.

It's going to be a busy weekend here (nothing new, I suppose, to readers of this blog!) Saturday, DH has a work event in the morning, so I will be out from 10:00-2:00 delivering kids to and from their activities, and fitting some shopping in during the down time. (The snake needs to be fed, B needs some craft supplies, and we always need stuff at Costco.) At 5:00, DH has another work event, but this one is happening at our house, so from 2:00-5:00 we will be frantically cleaning and organizing. While DH is having his meeting, I will be baking goodies for the next day.

Sunday morning is the aforementioned church service, then Sunday afternoon is the Voci fundraiser. DH is on setup/cleanup crew, I am providing desserts (mini cupcakes this year), and singing and conducting. Fortunately for us, M decided earlier this week that he wants to make dinner for us--he has been making croque madame sandwiches for himself, and wants to share. I suggested that Sunday would be a GREAT day for him to make dinner, and he agreed!

The Manic and Not-So-Merry Month of March

March is supposed to be a relaxed month, unlike the frenetic months of December and May, when everything happens. So why is this year so crazy? I haven't had any time to work in the garden (I usually start pulling weeds in the yard during February), and my taxes still aren't done. Two concerts last weekend and one fundraiser concert this weekend, which does explain a lot of the craziness. Plus I'm spending more time on B's musical this year than I have in past years--still trying to get the various scores pasted together in semi-final form.

We received some sad news at rehearsal tonight--one of our founding members is leaving the group, because her ovarian cancer has metastasized, and the prognosis is not good. And, since that's clearly not enough bad news for one family, her husband has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She's coming to the concert this weekend, and like the trouper she's always been, she's still bringing the food she promised for the reception. :-(

Update to a Busy, Busy, Expensive Week

Last night I came home from rehearsal around 10:45, and tried to check my e-mail. No Internet. Sometime yesterday evening, our router died, so we'll add that to the list of things to replace.

A Busy, Busy, Expensive Week

Yesterday evening, DH took B to her ballet class, while I went to a meeting at her school about fifth-grade camp. Our rule is that whoever has the kids gets the minivan, so I got to drive the Saturn. On the way to school I noticed that it was even harder to steer than usual: when I got home, both front tires were noticeably low on air. We've known for several months that the car needs new tires, but haven't gotten around to taking care of it. This morning DH went out to look at it, and the left front tire is entirely flat.

So, the schedule for today ended up starting with driving DH to work. Normally we carpool, but I was already planning to work at home because of some other things on the schedule. He would have taken the car in for new tires today, but he had an appointment with the optometrist. (Yes, he needs new glasses, and so do I--my appointment was yesterday.) Tires are on the schedule for tomorrow morning.

First planned stop of the day: B got her braces off this morning, and her upper teeth look beautiful . But, the orthodontist has referred her to an oral surgeon to have four ankylosed baby teeth removed a.s.a.p.

Next scheduled stop: Poppy gets to go to school this afternoon. M's science class is having Dog Day, when students bring in their dogs. (They're studying genetics right now.) At least this one isn't going to cost us anything, other than a $3.99 bag of doggie treats.

Then, a quickie house cleaning before the piano teacher arrives. Dinner will be a frozen lasagna (B requested homemade, but I told her it wasn't going to happen this week.)

I've spent almost all of my spare time this week balancing the checkbook. Every year we swear we won't wait twelve months to do it, and every year we end up doing it all in February and March. I do have to balance the checkbook before I can do our taxes, because of the myriad of work expenses and reimbursements and honoraria that DH accumulates every year.

S&P dress rehearsal tonight from 7:00-10:00. Come hear us this weekend!

Shakedown

DH & I just returned from B's school auction. Despite having moved here four years ago, this is the first time we've attended. We were very impressed by the organization, and the multitude of ways they've found to get more money out of the parents :-) We got off pretty lightly, mostly because we don't have enough $$$ to bid on the big-ticket items. In addition to the entrance price (which did include a tasty dinner and lots of wine), we purchased the following fixed-price items:

A set of note cards with B's self-portrait on them ($15). Yes, the school is selling us our own daughter's artwork.

A black & white 8x10 portrait of B ($65). A photographer shoots the kindergarteners and fifth-graders every year for the auction. Neither of our kids attended kindergarten here, but we also purchased M's fifth-grade portrait two years ago (without actually attending the auction). Now that we have two, I supposed I should probably get around to buying frames for them.

A ticket to the "Fifth Grade Girls' Farewell to G--------" party in June ($50). One of those things we wouldn't want her to miss, despite the price, since I'm pretty certain all of her friends will be there.

Some of the live auction items that would have interested us if we had the money:

Dinner & movie with B's teacher (sold for $1,500). (One of the other fifth-grade classes had two parents in a bidding war, and that one went for over $5,000!!!)

A week in a Florentine villa (sold for $3,200). We would have tried bidding on it if it had been available in July, since we're planning to be in Italy, but we couldn't have gone that high.

Since California's school-funding system is such a mess, parents in wealthy communities like ours have to dig into their pockets to pay for things like arts education, P.E. teachers, and librarians. And parents in non-wealthy communities just have to do without :-(

Emily's New Bed

B decided last week that she wanted to spend her savings on a third American Girl doll (Emily), which led to a discussion of where the new one is going to sleep. Molly and Kirsten, the two dolls she already has, have beds set up in her closet, but there wasn't room on the floor for a third bed. We had already decided previously to put in a shelf so that the girls can have a second floor to their living quarters, so we came up with the idea of making a hammock for Emily.

 

It never ceases to amaze me what can be found on the Internet. I have some basic crochet skills, so I googled "doll hammock" and quickly found two different patterns. B liked this one better, so we went to the craft store to pick up yarn and a crochet hook. B was kind enough to pick out fat yarn, so the crocheting went very quickly. The wooden dowels took a little longer, and I didn't drill all the holes straight, but I don't think anyone will notice.

 

We still haven't hung the hammock yet, but it's going to go underneath the white shelf as soon as I get to the hardware store to buy some hardware. DH kindly put the shelf up for us yesterday, and B wants to go to the fabric store to get something to use as a carpet for the second story.

Happy Holidays!

Gong xi fa cai, and Happy Valentine's Day!

DH did make to to DC on Thursday, and today he arrived home safely. I picked him up at the airport this afternoon, and discovered that he and I had bought each other identical boxes of chocolate (See's one-pound Nuts and Chews). Great minds think alike!

After the airport, we went to the Tech Museum in San Jose to see the Star Trek Exhibit. The kids have really gotten into Star Trek this year: we started the ball rolling last spring when we insisted they watch a few episodes of the original series before going to see the new movie. M has watched all of the original series now, and I don't think B is far behind. The exhibit was fun--we had our picture taken on a replica of the original bridge, although we declined to pay $28 for it at the end. They also had a transporter set up, and we watched ourselves disappear on the monitor. Lots of props and models, and a long timeline of happenings in the Star Trek universe. I hadn't realized before seeing the timeline that Star Trek: Enterprise (the one series we didn't watch) occurred BEFORE the original series in the timeline.

By the time we got through the exhibit, we were hungry and tired, so didn't stay to explore the rest of the museum, although it looked interesting. After some discussion, we agreed to have dinner at The Fish Market in San Mateo, since it was on the way home and we hadn't been to a branch for quite a while. (It used to be one of our favorite restaurants when we lived in San Diego.) The wait for a table was 45 minutes to an hour, but DH got us on the list upstairs at The Top of the Market, and we had a delicious seafood dinner in honor of the two holidays today.

And You Thought This Was a Good Idea, Because...

Last night, I was sitting on my bed reading with B, when M came in and said, "Mom, I think this is the stupidest thing I've ever done." That certainly got my attention! He then showed me his thumb, with a staple neatly stuck into the ball. I guess I'm just not a natural-born blogger--it didn't occur to me that I should have taken a photo :-)

Fortunately, the staple wasn't very far in (just the tips), so I told him to pull it out, wash his hand with soap and water (yes, both soap AND water), put some antibiotic ointment on it, and then bandage it so he wouldn't leave bloodstains around the house. Being a teenager, he had to argue with me about the ointment, so I let it slide (I'm pretty certain he's up to date on his tetanus shots).

Of course, we had to know how he did it. He said that the stapler was jammed, so he tried to push the staple back in with his thumb. B was astounded that anyone would try that!

Ripples in the Snow

The big snowstorm on the East Coast (a.k.a. Snowmageddon) is having its effect on our household in sunny California. DH was scheduled to leave tomorrow morning for a meeting at NIH. We got a call today informing him that the second leg of his flight (Chicago to DC) has been cancelled. They're still hoping to have the meeting later this week, but I'm not certain he's going to be able to get out there on Thursday, either. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. On the bright side of things, this means I don't have to get up at 6:00 am tomorrow to drive him to the BART station :-)

Neverland Redux

The spring musical at B's school was announced right before Christmas break, and guess what? They're doing Peter Pan this spring! (M's school did the play, not the musical, so it's technically a different show.)

I haven't posted much recently, because this spring I'm co-musical director, and I've been busy trying to get the music in order. The rental company provided scripts for the kids, an e-mail version of the score (because they didn't mail the hard copy on time), and a hard copy of the score by mail. Naturally, none of them are the same, even before the director started making his own changes! In addition, both versions of the score have the orchestration reduced for one piano. Since we have in the "pit" both a piano and a keyboard (and three pairs of hands to play them), plus a percussionist, I've been re-orchestrating the reduced score for our forces by listening to the movie over and over.

The Mary Martin version of Peter Pan is extremely hard to come by on DVD. Even Netflix doesn't have one to rent out! Fortunately, someone has posted it on YouTube (in fifteen segments), so I've been able to listen to it there. I had started by buying the CD, but the vocals are so loud that I can barely hear the orchestration, and they also left off the non-vocal selections, like the overture.

Splish Splash

We're having a bit of weather here this week. Yesterday morning, I went into the garage to get something before leaving for work, and stepped in an enormous puddle of water. I started bailing with a sponge and a bucket (the mop fell apart last week, and I haven't bought a new head for it yet) while waiting for DH to finish his shower and investigate the cause. After four buckets of water, I decided this was a ridiculous way to do it. Instead, I grabbed a bunch of "dog towels" (cheap white towels from Costco that we use for everything dog-related), sopped up the water with them, then put them in the washer to spin dry. Repeat until floor is dry.

In the meantime, DH finished his shower and took a look outside. He didn't find the puddle by the door that he was expecting. He then looked up and saw the waterfall coming down from the gutter. We hadn't gotten around to cleaning the leaves out of the gutter yet this year, so he got to do it yesterday in the rain, while I mopped.

Today it's raining even harder. Strawberry Creek runs in front of our building at work, and it's normally a little trickle. Today we walked over the bridge and looked down to see a raging torrent! Muddy brown water, way over the banks, rushing downstream.

Just got an e-mail from our town saying that the power is out to both B's and M's schools. Not any of the other schools in town, just theirs. Since our house lies between the two schools, I'm assuming we don't have power, either.

Update (10:21 am): Middle school is officially closing for the day. No word from the elementary school yet. 

Update to the update (10:46 am): Middle school has power again, so they will stay open.

Singing vs. Sports

I just spent a nice weekend on San Diego. Saw my parents, had a lovely lunch with my former choir carpool, and sang in the PWC concert this afternoon.

Am I the only non-football fan in the US? There was some big game today involving the Chargers: the singers were checking the score at intermission, and I went through airport security surrounded by fans in green jerseys. (I don't even know which team is the green one!)

Non-Furlough Furlough

You've probably heard about the budget crisis in California, and the furloughing of state employees. I work at UC Berkeley, but since my position is funded by federal money, I'm not subject to the furlough program. However, I'm being forced to take three days off without pay this week, because the campus is officially closed and I used up all my vacation time over the last two weeks. I have no idea why they chose these dates--everyone who has kids has ended their vacations already, because school started today.

I have to say, though, that I'm getting a lot done at home. Our annual New Year's letter/card is almost finished, I've reorganized two cabinets in the kitchen (prompted by the arrival of DH's new china), and today I completely reorganized the Christmas decorations.

For the past decade or so, we've had three medium-size boxes of ornaments (DH's mother loves to give us ornaments to mark occasions), a large cardboard box (with stockings, lights, etc.), and small cardboard box (the box that the stocking hangers arrived in). The ornament boxes had already been sorted into 1, 2, and 3, with selected ornaments from boxes 1 & 2 being used each year. I moved things around so that next year, we'll only have to open ornament box #1. The large box had a torn handle this year, so I moved the contents of both boxes into plastic bins (that match the zillion other plastic bins in our garage), one with outside stuff and one with inside stuff. The only thing that didn't make it into a bin is the Christmas tree stand. I also had the bright idea of putting each string of lights into its own Ziploc bag, which should reduce the tangles for next year.

Two more days to go. I supposed I should tackle the unpacking of my suitcase next. (I did the Christmas decorations today because tomorrow is tree pickup day; otherwise, I probably would have unpacked first.)