The girls had their piano Festival of Ribbons the first day of November. They both played well with both their ensemble pieces, where they play with another person, and their solos. We were a little worried, but they both did well. The adjudicator wrote nice things about each. The rest of the day, though, the girls were pretty screamy. We did go to Powell's to pick up books. We have a books for candy program in our house where if the girls refuse candy, they can have books instead. It works pretty well so far. It's lucky for us that they love books so much.
Sunday was a stay at home day. Ellen had a bad day. Phoebe spent a large chunk of time doing her piano practice. We visited a friend to drop off some things that the girls have out grown, then by Gramma's to see her. We didn't stay too long because she had said she was sick. We also stopped by PetSmart to get kitty litter, an alarm for the kittens to keep them off the counter in the kitchen, and a play structure for them. They really have been enjoying the play structure.
The week continued with me in the jury box for 3 days. I take the MAX out to the Washington County Courthouse. It's pretty tiring listening to testimony all day, and then trying to get a couple hours of work done in the evening. The girls continue to enjoy chess club. The person who is running it sent home a move to try to help Phoebe not get routed (as he called it) called castling. I never knew how to do it before, so I got to learn something new. Unfortunately, while we had the girls practice it at home, Phoebe managed to beat Ellen twice which triggered some very unsportsman-like conduct from her. As a punishment, she is going to miss chess club next week, and she wrote an apology letter to the leader of the club explaining why. We're trying to figure out how re-enforce these lessons since she doesn't appear to be learning that she can't blow up like she does and still expect to get what she wants. The kitties are getting into everything. Flower is still chewing everything she can, but we've started moving them out of the play room so they aren't closed up in there any more at night. We place the electric mat out around the house in places where we want to be sure to keep them off during the day and at night. We haven't heard it trigger so we're not sure if they already know how to avoid it or not. They both like jumping up to the fireplace mantle and on top of the book shelves in the front room.
Let's see, what else happened this week...Oh yeah, on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States in what could be called an actual mandate from the people (not the pretend mandate the current POTUS claimed in the last election). Jada was downtown in Portland hobnobbing at the Democratic celebrations as they swept change through the Oregon races as well. It remains to be seen if Obama will really be able to make any change with the mess he was left with, but people seem to be optimistic after 8 years of being told to be scared all the time. Of course, we've still got a little over 2 months for the current administration to make it even more difficult.
On Wednesday, we got a call from New Seasons Market telling us that Phoebe won 2nd place in the coloring contest for her age group. The prize was a $10 gift certificate which she used to purchase a crown. Jada asked how they select, and apparently, they really do make their selections based on artistic merit. That's her second win in that coloring contest.
Friday was a day that I was able to go to work since the judge had other things to attend to. I had a doctor appointment to get my inhaler refilled in the morning, so I drove to work. When I came out from work, the car doors wouldn't unlock, and I realized I had left the lights on all day killing the battery. Luckily, Jada had already decided to drive out to my end of town to meet me out for dinner, so she was able to come out and pick me up.
Saturday morning, we went grocery shopping in the morning. I went out to rake in the rain while the girls were working on piano. Afterward, I finished moving the kitty's stuff out of the playroom, I went to vacuum the room not knowing that Ellen was cradling Scarlett in her arms. As soon as I started the vacuum, Scarlett panicked and scratched Ellen on her face near her eye and on her side above her hip. Ellen is ok, but she was hurting a bit. Phoebe had a birthday party to go to from 11-1pm, so Ellen and I stayed home together. I rested on the couch while she read a couple of books, and then we played some games of chess. I managed to win pretty quickly on the first game, but she played me to a stalemate in the second game. She got me down to just my king against her king and queen. Once Jada and Phoebe were home, as I was getting ready to leave, I accidentally closed Scarlett's paw in the closet door. I don't think she's permanently injured, but she definitely limped around for the rest of the day. I rode my bike out in the rain to get the van jumped. Unfortunately, the Intel security guards don't provide jumps any more, so I called AAA roadside assistance. I was able to get home just in time to head out to dinner where we met Papa and his girlfriend. Sunday morning, the girls got right to their piano with very little argument. After breakfast, we visited Gramma and did some errands. We were relieved to finally have an entire day without a terrible struggle or meltdown from either girl. Sometimes we get these gifts.
I was in jury duty all the way until Friday the 14th. We spent a little over 5 hours deliberating and delivered our verdict just before 5pm. Man, that was a long time to be sitting in a courtroom and, more often, in the jury room waiting to go back into the court room. It was definitely an interesting experience. What I thought was interesting is that they tell you both at the beginning of the trial and at the end that what the lawyers say is not to be taken as testimony. Only the direct statements from witnesses and evidence can be used in deliberation. Then why is it that we have to sit through opening and closing statements that, in our case, took around 3 hours in total? Nice drama? Sure. Chance for the lawyers to stretch their acting muscles? Absolutely. Worth our time listening to as jurors? No. Save it for TV, and let us get on with it. We could have gotten out of there at least a day earlier with out all the jibber jabber (Ah, Clubber Lang. Is anyone as eloquent as you?).
The weekend of the 15th, we took some friends of the girls out to OMSI with us. We split up Ellen with her friend, and Phoebe with her friend. I took the older set down to the turbine hall where we played with the air hoses and tried to get the balls to move through connectors. Then we went to where they have the earthquake tables to build Lego and wood towers before trying to knock them down with shaking surfaces. We finally landed on some bridge building computer simulation stations that allowed the kids to design bridges to carry different loads. By doing it successfully, they were able to move up through the ranks of engineers. Jada took the younger set upstairs to the Discovery Zone where they spent a long time playing in the sand before heading into the arts room to play with flubber and create 3-dimentional art. We finished up the morning in the traditional way - watching the steel balls roll around the Gravitram. All four of the kids were standing in front of it, nose to glass, watching the different machinations that occur as the balls roll through gates, wagons, and spinning wheels. After dropping off the boys, we returned home for a nap. Well, everyone napped except for Ellen who sat and read quietly instead. In the evening, we had Ellen's Godfather and one of his sons over for dinner. Ellen's Godmother was out of town with the newborn. It was nice to see them for longer than a quick visit. This year especially, since we hadn't even been able to make it to PorkFest where we are usually guaranteed to see them in the summer.
Sunday we went over to visit Gramma for about an hour. After lunch, since it was another sunny day, we took advantage by going on a bike ride. There were high clouds, so it ended up being a little cooler than we would have preferred, but it was still in the mid to upper 50's. We put in 28 miles. For the rest of the time, we did piano practice, played some games of chess, and read.
The week's weather was chilly and rainy. I was able to ride most days except for Wednesday. The facilities folks at work closed down both of the locker rooms for maintenance. But that worked out since we had tickets to the Blazers/Bulls game that night. We had the really good seats from the silent auction again this year - 7 rows up behind the Blazers bench. It was a game in name only. The Blazers blew out the Bulls from start to finish. The Bulls have a lot of injuries, but they still wouldn't have been able to fight back against a Blazers team that was firing on all cylinders. Every Blazer scored. Phoebe's Godmother watched the girls for us that night. We sold our Burley trailer on Thursday...signaling the new paradigm shift for the whole family on bike. I had driven to work Wednesday with the trailer in back so I could sell it to a co-worker. Jada picked me up for the game and dinner. I rode to work on Thursday, and drove home on Thursday night so I could make it to the Kindergarten to Second grade literacy night at the school. They provided a dinner and several activities. The girls enjoyed reading poetry and playing with puppets. They also had a improv-type skit, I mean, story creation in one room where you pick up a bag with 5 items in it, and the kids had to come up with and act out a story using all the items. Phoebe worked with a friend to do a day at the beach. Ellen's group did a story about planting a garden.
The weekend of the 22nd, on Saturday morning, we did our usual grocery shopping. While Jada did that, Ellen and I went across the street to the Subaru dealer to get and replace the brake light. Gas this weekend was down to $2.03/gallon. It's all a little fishy that suddenly, the prices are lower than they've been in 2 years, in just a single month. We napped in the afternoon because that evening we attended a wedding reception for our neighbors 3 doors down. They had gotten married in Hawaii earlier this month, and they invited us out to their local reception for friends and family. It was a Hawaiian themed party at a golf course club house north of highway 26. The food was good. Several of our neighbors were there. Phoebe even knew a girl from her day care. We stayed until almost 9pm, but the girls were up before 6am again Sunday morning. Sunday was another beautiful day. Jada made French toast prosciutto and cheese sandwiches for breakfast. We visited Gramma for a bit, and then went out to do some errands. We kept thinking about going for a bike ride since it was so nice out, but the temperatures barely made it above 50 degrees, and it was pretty windy. The girls don't have gear for riding in that kind of weather, so we regretfully skipped the ride. Not to be completely thrown off doing something active, we instead walked the power lines trail down to the Murray-Scholls shopping center and back. Then Phoebe helped me rake leaves while Jada and Ellen cooked her sugar free snack bars.
We had a short week for the week of Thanksgiving. It was hard to believe it was already here, what with all the stores zeroing on Christmas before Halloween even hit. Thanksgiving day morning, we decided that we would repeat what we did last year which was head out to the Zoo for a morning walk. It was in the 30's, but it was clear and sunny at the time. What we didn't realize was that the Zoo had made that a free day for everyone as a thanks for passing the bond measure they had on the November ballot. With the annual Turkey Trot also going on, the parking lot was a zoo, too. It took us almost 10 minutes of trolling before we found a place to park. Once inside, we sought out some of the lesser traveled areas, but finally ended up at the elephant house so we could finally see the new baby elephant (was that Quincy Jones I just heard?). I couldn't get a good picture of it with all the people there, but I'm sure we'll have other times to do that. In the afternoon, Papa came over for a little while to visit. He learned how to play chess from Ellen and Phoebe's display. Then we brought Gramma over for dinner. Jada was able to find a recipe for pumpkin pie with very little sugar added so Ellen and Jeannie could still enjoy a desert (Ellen for her sugar sensitivity, and Jeannie for her diabetes). We had chicken with mashed yams, green bean casserole (of course), and a salad as the main course. Everything was yummy as always.
For "black Friday", we didn't do much except some grocery shopping and a couple errands in the morning. The day itself is my favorite holiday - Members Only Zoo Lights Night. We arrived at the Zoo around 5pm and got a spot near our normal parking spot. They had a new organizational system this year where they had a completely separate line for people only going in to walk around so we didn't have to wait in line behind everyone trying to also get train tickets. When I had looked online, it had said everything started at 5:30pm, but we found that the buffet had started at 5pm so we got to walk right in and eat as soon as we got there at our favorite table in the corner by the windows which was nice. We all ate well...except for Phoebe, who ate the bare minimum required to still get her Jell-o dessert. Ellen got ham and turkey. I ate a little too much, but I didn't go overboard. We definitely needed the walk afterward through the Zoo. The lights were great as always. They moved some things around, added others, and removed some. They have expanded the display on the great lawn near the elephant house over the last couple years. It's an African Savanah with a river containing crocodiles, hippos, elephants, lesser kudu (those poor lesser kudu), and a hawk flying across and picking a fish out of the river. Unfortunately, one of the things they removed this year was their Wizard of Oz display which the girls always liked to watch. The weather was perfect for Zoo Lights too. Temps in the upper 40's and no rain. The girls liked walking around with these cardboard glasses that turned all the lights into snow flakes.
Saturday was a lazy day. We did grocery shopping in the morning, both of the girls got their piano practice done, and then we let them watch a movie. It was the Kit Kittredge American Girl movie that came out last year, I think. Ellen still got too worked up towards the end. She isn't accustomed to the usual plot of character introduction, conflict, some form of chase (foot, car, speed boat, airplane, whatever is on hand), and happy ending. I like to call it the Scooby Doo story line. They enjoyed it otherwise. Phoebe got nervous, but she doesn't have to get up and leave. Jada and I pre-screened the movie before showing it to them to make sure there weren't too many scary spots, but we knew Ellen would have a little bit of a problem with that last chase. She made it through after going to the bathroom though. Ellen had been reading the American Girl series, and she much prefers the books to the movie (she's already one of "those people"). She also started learning that Hollywood doesn't think books are exciting enough, so they have to "liven" them up with unnecessary tension and the aforementioned chases. They also tend to combine characters and events to keep the movies to a more reasonable time limit and because they believe the American public just can't handle too many characters. Ellen noticed that there were several differences between the book and the movie.
Sunday we had breakfast, visited Gramma, and did some errands. We have to go back to work tomorrow, but the girls don't since it's a report card day. We're just going to try to not do too much. It' ended up being warm enough for a bike ride, but we weren't prepared for it because we believed the weather report in the paper, so we lost probably our last day of this year for a ride. I thought about putting up the lights, but decided it was just too early. We're still a few weeks off from needing to get a tree. It's my own little reverse rebellion against how early every year Christmas appears in stores. We'll see you at the end of the year.
Random tangent. The radio station we listen to (http://kink.fm) has been celebrating its 40th year on the air by playing the songs from each year they were on the air. Each day is a different year. It's been fun reliving the songs that I remember listening to on the mono black and white radio that we had up in our room in grade school on the AM WLS dial in the 70's, and later on the FM stations for Casey Casem's top 40 on Sundays trying to record songs off the radio by holding our tape recorder up to the speaker. It's been especially fun since about 4 days ago when they entered the '80's when the airwaves were ruled by Genesis, the Fixx, Thompson Twins, The Clash, Rick Springfield, Men at Work, Huey Lewis and the News, and any number of other one hit wonders who graced the airwaves in the '80's. Apparently, I really started listening and remembering a lot of music around 1982 since I recognized so much from that time. I always enjoyed the year in review the stations would do. This radio station is doing 40 consecutive year in reviews starting from 1968. It also got me thinking back to the days when record stores still roamed the Earth. In the days when we used to go to the mall back in Illinois, mom and dad would set us loose on our own to meet back up later. I'd always hit the same 5 places: the piano store to look at sheet music, Walden Books, K-B Toys, the arcade, and the music shop. It's sad that I can't remember the name of the record store in the mall any more since it changed names every few years. I'd go look at the cut out LP's since I still had a turn table, and they usually only cost $2. I hardly ever bought any, but there are ones that I remember thinking about but didn't get since I didn't have enough money (the Fast Times at Ridgemont High soundtrack sits foremost in my mind for Joe Walsh's "Waffle Stomp" alone which I still can't find anywhere else). I would just walk up and down the aisles looking at what was out. I don't even remember looking for anything in particular. I liked looking at the band and album names, pictures on the front, seeing if any of the current groups I was looking at had older albums. I'd look in pop, rock, and jazz mostly. I didn't get into funk and R&B until college. In college, I'd go to the Record Swap on Green Steet in Champaign, IL looking at the used CD's since I had even less money than I did when I was a child, it seemed. Now, I cruise iTunes looking for those old albums and songs that I don't have on CD. I still buy lots of full albums instead of just single tracks because I always find songs on the album that I like better than the single that was released from it. When I listen to a CD, I still listen to the whole thing, though I do enjoy using the shuffle. I wonder what the girls will do as they come into the age where they start listening to music. There aren't any real record stores around any more. The last true record shop in Portland has been on the verge of going out of business for the last several years. iTunes has a lot music, but it isn't the same since you have to know what you're looking for. I want Ellen and Phoebe to enjoy music as much as I do, and that tactile experience is going to be missing. Maybe that's why I still try to buy CD's whenever I can so when they're ready to start listening to other things and branching out, they can listen to a wide assortment of music from my collection (like I used to listen to my dad's jazz records) to come to their own musical identity. I guess I don't really have a point. It's just a tangent.
Journal Entry: November 30, 2008