And since I'm at it

Here're the rest of the photos I wanted to share. Not feeling into captions so just comment with questions.

Yeah yeah yeah

My FB friends know I'm a year older. 34. I heard from a certain woman that 35 is really hard. I could say I'm not looking forward to it, but since I am looking forward to 40, I guess I could say I'm looking forward of it. I helped the kids' nanny study English this afternoon and so "of" is significant since we discussed how "de" in Spanish can be "of" or "from" depending on context.

I would post photos as I have tons of cute ones but I can't find my camera. Oops. My losing things drives my mom crazy. I try not to tell her about it but she's so good at locating stuff that it's usually worth it to confess and bear the disappointment de mama.

My sister has been using only one crutch the past two days, so she is recovering. I think I'll be here through mid-February as she and her husband both have work travel and will need the help. My friend Carrie (from Las Vegas post) will be visiting Richlandia next month so I will try to make it back to see her.

A shout out to Anna U. for reading and for cracking me up by telling me about her 'kids'.

I went to Mars Hill Church on Sunday for a birthday treat and wound up meeting a nice young woman who invited me to her small group. So last night I went and it was nice. Should be a good thing for at least a month. Mark Driscoll went to Haiti and preached on giving and loving the church.

Today I covered my sister's volunteer shift at my nieces' classrooms. I was pleased that some of the boys' writing was really focused: Magic Man, the spinning chess pawn. Go with what they find interesting, right? Anyway, that's a random sliver of my current life. :)

Oh, and I finished "Tree" and have moved onto "My Life in France" by Julia Child and her great nephew.

Reading

I've been in Seattle for the past ten days taking over driving duties for my temporarily invalid sister. This includes piano lessons, violin lessons, gymnastics practice, karate, and possibly most importantly Costco. My niece accompanied me on my most recent trip and was a great companion, only getting distracted once by the fountain sculpture of a Boy and Sailboat. My days begin by being woken up by two little faces, those belonging to the eldest two over whom my bunk sets. They climb the ladder every morning not before 7 am and then hang out with me until 7:30 when it's time to get ready for the day. As my brother-in-law says, I'm living an extention of their life. Not really my own. But it's not a bad life as such. I'm reading "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" and have a laptop available to work on the play. But not much progress made in either.

My sister's surgery was fine but I did swing into full Florence Nightengale mode when she returned still getting over anesthesia and pain meds. Since then she's been well enough to crutch around though I don't believe she's left the house since Monday.

So that's my update. Still hoping to get to Tucson. Maybe I'll be there for the hot hot season.

Six days you shall do all your work

For me, the fourth commandment begs the question: does taking care of kids count as work? Well, after seven days of watching my Seattle set of 4, I am very ready for today's rest. I left Tucson last Saturday and arrived to Seattle in time for a three-hour briefing on the week's activities from my sister. She and her husband left for Paris in the early hours of the following day and I became in charge, along with my mom who was official Meal-Maker and Keeper. I have no photos to post today because I left my camera at their house and now am at my other sister's house in Bellevue.

What to say about the last week? I can liken it to working on a pitch for Deutsch: all hours, many hours, lots of surprises, few rules, high impact, stressful, constantly short on time. I can also liken it to touring "Flicker" with Big Art Group in France back in 2002: go-go-go, corralling several rowdy and obstinate humans, lack of sleep, barrage of questions--sometimes in a language I couldn't understand, and an abundance of body fluids.

But fun, oh, what fun! Rolling around on inflatable tubes with my nephew waiting for his little sister to finish her soccer session was exhilarating. Doing the youngest's hair with no screaming on her part--I learned to laugh and she would follow suit--was a great accomplishment. Figuring out she was saying "helmet" and "yogurt" from "heh-meh" and "o-gur" was as good as telling the bus driver, in broken French, to turn down the heat. Walking the older two to school, hand-in-hand, "SQUEEZE!"ing past the overgrown shrubs along the sidewalk was hilarious. And plenty more.

Even after they were all tucked in at night, I got the bonus to chat with my mom about my grandparents and her family history. Great great stuff. Yes, I'm tired. But it's a sweet fatigue.

Happy Thanksgiving, all. I am thankful for you, my family and friends.

Richland and the Olympic Peninsula

Lots of pictures from June and July!

While in Richland, my mom cooked for me. Here I am enjoying a salad on the front steps of the house.







Also, my hair has gotten so long (I'm pushing a year since the last cut) that I've taken to double looping it. Looks vaguely Japanese to me.






So I went to visit my refugee friend in Prescott, on the apple orchard where she works. This is the long, straight road between.







Here's mom and dad at lunch. :)

And here's peaches from the tree in the backyard that my dad tends. Yummy, juicy!








OLYMPIC PENINSULA:
This is Rialto Beach. My first time touching the Pacific from the Washington State coast.















Ruby Beach:













Rainforest near Lake Quinalt/Maple Grove (Nancy wisely took pictures of all the signs so she wouldn't have to rely on memory to place photos, wish I had.):















Forks signage. Nancy's humor.


Order window at Sully's, Forks retro burger joint. Forks is the setting for the popular book/movie Twilight. I know nothing about it except that one of the actors has been in the tabloids.









Cape Flattery, the northwestern most point on the continental 48 states. I loved this place. None of the guide text talked about how dramatically beatiful it is, just the location.
























Crescent Lake









Hurricane Ridge













Rock shop that was Nancy's only Must See, outside Port Angeles.


Annual sand castle contest in Port Angeles that we paid a dollar to sneak peek.







Visited my best friend from high school, Meggan, and her family in Port Angeles. Her Swedish husband, Mattias, also spent high school in Richlandia so we all go way back. The last time I saw their little one she was 2. Their elder daughter was spending a few weeks in Sweden so I missed her. It was a great, short visit. We chatted and played Euchre!












We went to dinner at her friend Joy's restaurant, called Joy's. Nancy treated and said it was the best meal she's had in a long while. The food was great. Cheesecake...














We left the Peninsula on a Saturday and drove to Camano Island where my sister's friends invited us over for crab!



































Back in NYC. I'm freelancing at my old company, Deutsch. I'm subletting a room in a 2BR near Columbus Circle and posing as a Manhattanite. This is the MoMA special exhibit by a Chinese artist who collected all his mother's belongings and arranged them as an installation piece. Meant a lot to me, in terms of my own saving, spendthrift mom.

This caught my eye, narcissist that I am.








And this is called "Huggable Mushroom Cloud" which also was a great meld of my spheres.