16 posts tagged “family”
Got in another ride this past Sunday. Better Half and Little One and I first stopped off at a tire store in Gdale to get BH's flat tire repaired and from there I started my ride. I headed toward the LA river bike path that runs parallel to I-5 and Griffith Park. Can't say there was much to it in terms of scenery. The LA river is pretty dismal and riding alongside the 5 with its constant hum of traffic is not exactly peaceful. That said, I did see some rather interesting birds in the river bed. Might have been some sort of Heron. At the end of the path, I circled back around through the edge of Griffith Park on Riverside/Crystal Springs and then wound my way through Atwater Village, Glassell Park and finally back through Eagle Rock. I definitely want to explore Griffith Park more, both by bike and on foot. All told, the ride was just shy of 16 miles on the Brommie. Doable, but as I've noted before, the Brommie is not really ideal for longer rides. So, yes, I'm starting to think I'd like to get a third bike, one specifically for recreational rides. My other two bikes are more utilitarian.
In other news, there's another cold front in relations with BH. Lots of bickering going on and then one evening about a week ago, she just completely lost it on me in front of Little One. LO got very scared, in fact. These outbursts are intense, but invariably we perceive them much differently. To me, they are signs of existential crises. To her, they seem to be no big deal. This difference in perception makes resolution difficult.
Saturday we hosted a Halloween Party for LO and her friends. Sent an evite to all the kids in her class and also invited a friend from after school program as well as some neighboring kids. Predictably, most of the parents did not even bother to respond to the evite. But, two kids from her class came along with the kid from after school program and the two boys across the street.
I had wanted to provide the kids some structure for the party rather than have them all run around wildly. To that end, I had prepared some arts and crafts projects and a couple of ideas for games. Unfortunately, in the end, chaos reigned. I got no support from BH on providing structure; instead she got to socialize with the adult guests while I tried to deal with kids and pick up the pizza (next time I'm definitely doing delivery, even though it was darn good pie). LO had multiple meltdowns when things weren't going as she had hoped, one little boy fell down the stairs (luckily no harm done), and another kid broke a glass pane in our coffee table (again, we were just lucky she didn't get hurt). On top of it all, the Schmaz shows up in a French Maid costume, and despite my expressed request to NOT lift up her skirt to show her panties when the guests were there (our neighbors across the street are fairly religious, and I was concerned that they might be offended, not to mention the inappropriateness of such behavior at a kids party), she did. So, all in all, I pretty much hated the party. Next party opportunity, I'm not lifting a finger.
There was some redemption in having one of the kids stay for trick or treating and then spending the night. She's a third grader and goes to the same after school program. Her parents are very cool and it is nice to see LO bond quickly with another kid. They had fun trick or treating and the following day. Hopefully, we'll be doing more with them in the future.
More craziness. Over the weekend we had a packed program with going to the PU's for Rosh Hashanah and then celebrating Radio Junkie's one year anniversary of going sober. Through it all, Little One managed to pick up a bug at school that had her in and out of fevers during the weekend, while Better Half was nearly crushed by huge 92" high wardrobe with mirrored doors that fell over when she opened one of the doors. It was in the laundry room where most of the boxes still are and had not yet been secured to the wall because I wanted to be sure first of where to put it. Very scary. Luckily, BH managed to not get hurt, though she was definitely scared. The wardrobe itself was damaged, though it may be salvageable.
We also went back to the vintage stove shop together and agreed to purchase the stove they had on special. It arrived today and I gotta say it looks mighty sweet. Very classic look. Fits exactly in our space. I'm way happier with this appliance than any modern stove we could have gotten, none of which would have fit properly. While we were in the shop, another couple was in and they mentioned how much they loved their vintage stove. They recently moved and the old stove didn't fit, so they bought a pricey Thermador, which they said has been nothing but headaches for them. So, now they were in the market for another vintage.
On Monday, I stayed home with LO since she had been sick over the weekend and we figured she needed the rest. We had a very mellow day together and it actually gave me time to get a lot of stuff done, since she slept late. Had to cancel class for that day, but not too sussed about that as I'm not really digging the class anyway. Met LOs teacher in the afternoon when we went to pick up the homework for the week. Apparently of the six kids at LOs table, four were out sick that day. Clearly something was going around.
No sign of Boo-boo since the day I brought her back. Hope she's okay. Guessing we won't be seeing her again.
Took a walk around the neighborhood yesterday evening heading east on Colorado. Saw lots more restaurants and shops worth checking out. It really is great to just be able to walk places again.
Of course, the downside is the commute. This morning when I got to campus I ran into another guy who bikes there. He comes from Torrance and it takes him 90 mins. I was envious, for sure. I need to get some good lights on my Brompton, and then I can try the bus/bike combo. Meanwhile, the morning drive is usually pretty smooth, but I try to hit the road by 6 - 6:15. Takes me just under 50 minutes driving around 60mph on the freeway portion of the journey. The return journey is the kicker, but so far it hasn't be too horrendous. Averaging about 1 hr to 1 hr and 15 mins. If I could find a way to circumvent downtown, that'd help, but I'm sure I'm not the first to have had this thought.
Was good to see folks at Rosh Hashana, including Little Sis coming up from SD. The celebration for Radio Junkie was nice. I think he appreciated that we marked the occassion. Schmaz had brought a cake and when were about to serve it, seemed like everyone felt like we ought to say something or sing. So, I sang "Happy sobriety to you." Gotta plenty of yuks out of that.
Just received Dr. B's new book in the mail yesterday. What a great first piece of real mail to get in the new home! This has been a long time coming and I'm really looking forward to reading it. I'm always very impressed by people's abilities to see these sorts of mult-year projects through to the end. Topically, this book couldn't be more timely and I hope it gets the attention it deserves.
Yesterday I made my last trip to the old pad to return the keys and clean out some remaining junk on the deck. Boo-boo was there. Last time I went by I succeeded in getting her into a cardboard pet carrier, but she managed to claw her way out of that, fortunately before I had her in the car. This time I had a proper pet carrier borrowed from Middle Sis. Got her in again (she was obviously hungry). Cried a lot on the way to ER. Little One was excited to see her. Let her out of carrier, she wandered around to explore new yard and then promptly scuttled up over a fence and into a neighbors yard with a dog. She fled up a tree. Haven't seen her since. Put out food this morning, so I'm hoping she'll find her way back and get used to the new surroundings.
We have a dishwasher! After nearly three years of spending way too much time hand washing, we finally have a dishwasher. Yay! What we don't have, unfortunately, is a stove. We ordered this on 8/22 to be delivered 9/12, but now Sears says it won't be available until 9/30. They claim the one they were going to deliver turned out to be damaged. I'm truly pissed off, but don't have the energy to go deal with them at the moment. Little One and I looked at some restored vintage stoves that would actually fit our non-standard 40" space. That is apparently what used to be in there. They are nice and they even had one at a reasonable price, but I don't know yet how BH feels about them, as it is quite a different look. Supposedly they last forever. Looks basically like this:
Today was Hamid's funeral. I just spoke with BH on the phone. She said it was really hard to leave him at the cemetery. She said there were about 200 people there. I sure wish Little One and I could have gone, both to say our goodbyes and to support BH. She sent some pix of him from the hospital on the day he died. He looked very much at peace, but also very sick.
Most of you probably already know that Better Half's brother died on Friday. Given what I knew about the form of cancer he had, I knew it was coming sooner rather than later. And, yet when it actually happened, it sucked the air out of me. Better Half came home Friday afternoon and just broke down sobbing as she told me the news. A few days earlier, a large tumor had been discovered in his kidney and doctors had told him there was nothing more they could do for him. We had heard they said it was now just a matter of days, but I didn't want to believe that and I don't think BH did either. BH's younger sister was with him in the hospital when he died and it happened in his sleep. Apparently just hours before he asked her, "Is this what it means to die?" (or something to that effect). It's not clear why his wife and two sons were not present and he apparently was asking to see them. I'm guessing they couldn't face it, but if that's true, they're likely to regret it later that they did not come. BH is really upset and wishes she had had a chance to say goodbye. Her last convo with him was after we had heard about the kidney tumor, but I guess it still didn't seem imminent at that point, so there was no formal goodbye. Lots of crying. Thanks to those who have called/emailed/stopped-by; it means a lot.
Not surprisingly, the move has been overshadowed by events and has not been joyous. I was in a packing frenzy on Friday before BH came home. Kept on packing well into the night, but it was tough going. The movers came the next day. The first picked up a bedroom set at the PUs and then hit our place round 10:30. Took 'em till 4 pm to get it all in the truck. Problem was the shitty narrow access we had made it really difficult to get larger items out. Then they made it to ER around 5:30 and spent the next 4 hrs unloading and re-assembling some furniture. Very expensive move (about 75% more than I had estimated it would cost!), but we could not have done it on our own. Regrettably, the contractors are also not finished, so we're going to be living with some crap for awhile. But it's manageable.
On the upside, Little One (who has really had to put up with a lot because of our preoccupation with packing) enjoyed spending the late afternoon at our neighbor's across the street. They have two boy (6 and 3) and a pool! The kids got on great and the parents are very friendly.
I'd better get some sleep. Tomorrow more unpacking, cleaning and prepping for classes. A true Day of Labor.
Tomorrow Better Half and Little One return. It's been a strange two weeks here without them. While I was able to get some things done, I certainly didn't get as much done as hoped and I missed them. It wasn't like a painful, emotional missing, but their absence created a palpable void. In any case, I'm very happy they are coming back. I look forward to hearing more from LO of her experiences and perceptions of the trip.
On the house buying front, termite work was supposed to begin today. As far as I know, it did. I'm just praying they don't find additional stuff that needs to be repaired as they go along. Meanwhile, the lender finally got around to determining how they want the arrangement regarding the repair hold officially worded in escrow docs. So, hopefully I'll learn tomorrow just what we need to deposit into the escrow account.
The seller, in the meantime, is only now getting around to applying for a 9a report from the county. We've been bugging them about this since the second week of June. Not sure if it'll actually arrive before closing. I ended up having to FedEx them a signature today b/c the county won't accept faxed/emailed signatures and nobody from the seller's office bothered to notice that in the application instructions, so we lost another day as a result. Boneheads--every single one of them.
Gave two demos of the Brompton today to folks at work. I tend to stow it on the back side of my desk, which is facing the entrance to our office, so if there's no book truck in front of it, people definitely notice it. They are invariably incredulous. I'm more than happy to show them how it works. If I ever end up unemployed as a librarian, I'd probably be a pretty effective salesperson for Brommies.
On the subject of riding, what I don't get is why my ride never feels like it's getting any easier. I mean, it's obvious when you first start out after a long hiatus that the ride is going to be a bitch. But, you'd think that after a few weeks, your body would be in shape and, if not sailing up the hill, you'd at least not find it really tough each time. And, yet, such is the case. Each time I head up the hill, I'm giving it all I've got and the exertion level is pretty maxed out. The lack of a truly low granny gear is no doubt part of it. Be that as it may, the payoff is fantastic. After I've cooled down, showered and gotten behind my desk, I've got an incredible rush of endorphins that generally lasts well into the afternoon. You can't beat that.
Today I attended a memorial service for the father of an old friend from AZA, Road Runner. I'm not actually close to the guy anymore (hadn't even seen him in probably 15-20 years), but we were definitely friends back then and seeing as I live nearby, it seemed the least I could do. There was quite a turnout at the synagogue (incl. my PUs, whom I did not know would be there); obviously the guy had touched a lot of people. As the Rabbi and others eulogized, two main thoughts occupied my mind. I could not help but think about Better Half's bro and his ongoing battle with cancer (RR's dad also died of cancer). Second, I wondered about the legacy I will leave when it's my turn to go. Most likely that's still a long way off, but an event like this does give one pause. Am I living the life I want to be living? Will I be remembered in a way that I hope to be remembered?
Apart from such existential thoughts, it was interesting to see a number of old friends and acquaintenances there. I obviously expected to see RR and his wife M, who I also knew from way back when. But I didn't expect to see others, so I was suprised to see Heathbar (another AZAer), an old friend of Little Sis, the sister of Little Sis's prom date, and a guy who I literally did not recognize, but the name was familiar as someone I went to Hebrew school with. Bizarro.
What else? Well, BH and Little One left for Germany on Wednesday. Seems they are doing okay over there, all things considered. It's been rainy and cold (which hopefully serves to remind BH one reason why we left the place) and they've been mostly holed up in her brother's house. He, of course, is still very sick, so when she called me on Friday she was very upset. Apparently there is a meeting on Tuesday with the doctor(s) to discuss next treatment options and she was hoping I could do some research to prepare her for the meeting. So, I spent Friday night seeing if anything new had been published since last year on the subject. There has been, but it all comes up to the same basic result -- the cancer is rare, the survival rates beyond 12 mos are very low, and the treatment he has been getting is basically in line with accepted practice. They could try Yondelis, now that other chemo has basically failed, but even the results with Yondelis have been mixed. Finally, he could see about enrolling in a clinical trial, which is another very long shot. All in all, not very encouraging. I'm frankly surprised he's made it this far, and, given his quality of life these past months, I'm not sure that's such a great thing. But that is something for him and his family to decide and I can perfectly understand the need for hope and the desire to fight it.
It's certainly been weird being home alone. I thought I'd be super productive as a result, but I find myself easily distracted by other things. And it's lonely. I only have a couple of friends locally, so not much for me to do when the fam is not around.
Yesterday I did a trial run of traveling between SP and ER by bike and bus. Been considering that as an alternative to commuting by car after the move. It's technically doable, but it is certainly not ideal. The ride involves about 8.2 miles from ER house to downtown. That takes about 30 mins and goes through less than scenic portions of LA and a brief section of downtown traffic, particularly Chinatown. Then I would sit on a bus for an hour. Ideally, this would be a good opportunity to read, but the ride can be bumpy, especially the non-freeway sections of the journey with so many jerky stops and starts. Then there are the "colorful" other passengers -- yesterday an old guy in a goth-like outfit and a full-scale, similarily attired mannequin sat next to me. Finally, at the other end, there's the bike ride up the hill to the college. Short, but steep. Again about 30 mins. So, I'd be looking at about a 2 hr. commute each way versus about 1 hour driving. Here's the equation, as I see it: (lower carbon emissions + daily workout + daily 2 hrs time to read + significant cost savings) vs. (2 hr more time in my day + avoidance of encounters with oddballs). Long term, of course, the solution is to get a different job, but that could take some time.
Experienced some buyer's remorse the other day when visiting the house. Just feeling kind of overwhelmed by the work that needs to get done. Moreover, as it turns out, we have about $1500 of a ca. $10K credit that needs to be spent on repairs to the house before closing. Well, closing is in 17 days, so that's not a lot of time. Meeting with two contractors tomorrow evening and hoping I can authorize the work on Tuesday. That said, I then went to the nearby park and discovered there's a pool there, so it's yet another great local amenity. Also read a local rag and learned about all kinds of goings-on. I do sense there's more happening in this part of the city then in the South Bay.
A cute story from yesterday. On the way back from the park in the car, Little One and her friend J were finally getting a little on each other's nerves. Was bound to happen after being together for nearly 24 hours and running on little sleep. Anyway, I had J call her mom on the cellphone to let her know of our impending arrival. Her mother asked if LO would like to join them for dinner. Suddenly the bad vibes dissipated and LO was very excited at the prospect. But then she said, "Dad, the only problem is, they cook spicy food." J was still on the phone with her mom and heard this. So she says to her mom, "Mom, could you cook something German, 'cause she doesn't like spicy food." Both LO and I busted up laughing and LO said, "That's so cute."
A less cute story. On Sunday we went ice skating. LO started taking lessons and part of the price includes several admissions to the public skating times with a guest. While there, we saw her old Russian friend whom we have not seen in at least a year. LO is a huge fan of this girl, but try as I might, her parents just do not respond to requests for play dates. How do you tell your daughter that your sorry she can't play with her "bestest friend" since her parents are complete flakes? In fact, as it turns out, they moved to Irvine from Torrance in December, so now we for sure won't be seeing them. A shame for LO and the little girl, who really is very sweet. I really felt like telling off the mom for never returning our calls, but I held my tongue.
Everyone is celebratory about Obama's inauguration today. I must say, I'm certainly pleased that we are finally rid of Bush/Darth Vader and the lot, and I do like Obama. But, I'm a little concerned that people are expecting him to be a miracle worker. He's not and they're bound to be a lot of disappointed people when they slowly discover that. So, sure, let's relish this moment; it is momentous. But let's keep our wits about us, too. Not much will change unless there is a huge collective effort to do so, and that sort of political will is hard to muster.
So, just to report: the car is back. Picked it up at an impounding station in Marina Del Rey. Had to pay around $250 to get it out. I asked them why the officer who found it didn't just call me to come pick it up from the street instead of having it towed, since it was apparently not illegally parked. They gave me some cock and bull story about it having been a DOT officer, not a police officer, who found the car. She only had knowledge about the car having been reported stolen, but not contact info of the owner. And why she can't get that info from the LAPD? Could it be that the city gets about $100 out of that $250 fine, so they have little incentive to spare the victim of the crime any hassle? Crazy.
The car seems to be in fine working order. The boneheads who took it appear to have been on a joy ride or just wanting a cheap way to get to LAX. They seem to have tried to steal the stereo, but couldn't quite figure it out. I don't understand how you can know how to steal a car, but a stereo stumps you. They took everything in the glove compartment (incl the registration card. From now on, I'm keeping registration in my wallet, not in the car), everything from the compartment between the front seats (incl. the valet parking key!), my AAA maps, and all my burned CDs (ca. 200, none of which they are likely to like -- the radio was tuned to a Hip Hop station when I first started the car). They left the child car seat, various toys, the spare tire, and the bike rack in the trunk. Wondered whether it would make sense to have the locks changed on the car, given that they got the valet key. But, given that they could get in the car in the first place w/o a key, seems like changing the locks wouldn't do much good and it costs $350 to do so. Instead, I went with a brake pedal lock (like the Club, but supposedly a little harder to crack) and I may install a kill switch, too.
On Sunday we visited the Greediest Place on Earth. I had promised Little One that we would go sometime during her winter break, and Sunday was the very last day of the break. Had actually hoped to go earlier, but our old family friend who works there and can sign us in for free could not do it during the holiday period b/c of black out days for his sign in priveleges. We met up there with my Feline Friend and her family, whom we had bumped into at the Santa Monica pier a few weeks earlier. We didn't spend a long time at the park, but we got in some good rides and LO definitely had fun. Our last visit was around 18 months ago with Dr. B and family, and she's clearly moved on since then in terms of what kind of rides she's ready for. She just loved the thrill rides like Splash Mtn and Big Thunder Railroad. Only bummer was that the Haunted Mansion was closed and we didn't make it to Space Mtn. Small World was also closed -- I'd read somewhere they need to redesign it b/c too many boats were getting stuck b/c of the increasing average weight of the passengers!
Big Sis's FB status comment re: Israeli aggression in Gaza received some expected knee-jerk responses. You knew that was coming, didn't you? I just don't get the whole thing where people refuse to see Israeli actions in a critical manner. Sure, they live in a hostile environment and nobody condones the violence perpetrated by Hamas or Hezbollah or any other extremist organization. But how can you fail to look at the roots of the problem that encouraged such organizations to develop and gain support? -- the wholesale expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 and then the expansion of Israel and creation of the occupied territories during the 1967 war. You just can't do that sort of thing and not expect people to fight back. Get serious people.
Wow, it's 20 minutes to 1 a.m. and I finally finished and turned in my assignment. Wish I could say I feel like I got something out of it. The idea of the assignment was not bad, but the execution left something to be desired. Mostly that's my shortcoming for not being better organized.
At the outset of the course, we created reading plans for four different areas related to instructional design (educational theories, teacher/librarian collaboration, curriculum and assessment, and information literacy). Basically, the idea was to identify what you already know about these topics, figure out what you would like to know, and then read accordingly. So, in the end product we were to recap what we knew at the outset, discuss how we went about our reading (i.e. how did you search, what did you find), and provide a synthesis of our current knowledge of the topic. I made most progress in the educational theories section.
The problem was, of course, that I did not really get all that much reading done, so I didn't make great strides in my knowledge on these issues. Why did I not read? Well, time was one issue, of course. Another issue was the lack of a regular schedule for posting summaries of what we read (we were all expected to contribute to a course wiki, creating one long annotated bibliography). When this lack of due dates was brought up in class, the instructor just brushed it off with a "This is grad school. I should not have to impose structure at this level."
Well, I might agree if it was an academic graduate degree, but that is simply not the case here. An MLS is a professional masters and the people pursuing them are by-and-large doing it on the side of their otherwise very busy lives, not as the main thing they are focused on in their lives. Moreover, the guy is not practicing what he preaches in needing to recognize different learning styles. Some people need more structure than others. But, yeah, ultimately I should have imposed my own structure.
Radio Junkie took Little One to a model train exhibit this afternoon. Nice that they could have some time to bond. A very rare occurrence that I'm hoping will become more frequent. Meanwhile, Better Half and I walked around the neighborhood looking at houses for sale. Just getting a feel. Prices are still too high. Maybe another 6 months and we'll be ready. But it sure would be nice to get out of these cramped quarters.
