Snow! (and last blast of vacation!)

It has finally snowed here.  It's a reasonable (and not unreasonable) snowfall.  Lucy and Jake were sledding in the back yard, Carter was grudgingly trundling through it, and I was shoveling (twice).  But it's light and fluffy, and things haven't been icy.  And it all came on Saturday, so there was no crazy rush about everyone trying to get to work.  It's been a nice day of baking gingerbread (YUM!) and drinking hot chocolate (Lucy is a HUGE fan) and hanging out about the house playing games that Lucy has been making up.  Awesome.

Tomorrow, we're heading to the Museum of Science with cousins Cole and Bianca.  We're very excited. Afterwards, it's dinner with Matt & Mary & Ruth & Woody.  Again, totally excited.  Sounds like a perfect day to me!  The semester starts on Monday, but for tomorrow, it's still VACATION!

Darn you, Rick Perry!

So I try to avoid both religion and politics for the most part on this blog.  But today the news cycle caught up with me in a big way.  Rick Perry pulled out of the race.  I am neither surprised nor saddened by this, but here is a piece of what he said in his endorsement of candidate Newt Gingrich:

". . . . And Newt is not perfect, but who among us is?  The fact is, there is forgiveness for those who seek God and I believe in the power of redemption. . . . " {I checked this quote transcript on a few sites and all seem to have it this way}

I was listening to this on the car radio (yes it was NPR).  I did an immediate knee-jerk think in my head of "really?  forgiveness only for those who seek God? Might it also be necessary to seek out, say, those you may have wronged and maybe ask their forgiveness?"  I was in the middle of this thought when a voice piped up from the back seat:

"What's God?"

My thought: "Oh Crap."  I haven't prepared for this one.

So Lucy and I had a little talk about God.  Thanks, Rick Perry.  Thanks, Newt! 

I started by asking what Lucy already knew.  Here's a rough transcript of the conversation:

Lucy: Sometimes we say "God" when we say grace before dinner.

Me: Yes, that's right.  And what else have you heard about God?

Lucy: Beezus talks to God when she does the thing before bed.

[explanatory note: "Beezus" refers to a character in the Beverly Cleary Ramona series, which is very popular here.  She pays very close attention to these stories; me, not so much.  I need to pay a bit more attention, but I'm assuming she's not making this up.]

Me: Oh. I didn't know that.  Beezus is praying.  What else?

Lucy: God makes wishes come true. 

Me: Oh, uh, well, not quite....

Lucy (interrupting): He has a magic wand!  He makes dreams come true!

Me: Oh wow.  I don't know about that.  We should talk more about this.....

Thereafter ensued a lot of fumbling trying to sort out the notion of different people's beliefs and separating them from a sort of Disney fairy tale.  It was all a bit awkward.  And quite confusing, for both of us.

Later, we had this exchange:

Lucy: Mommy, what's a lawyer?

Me: What makes you ask that? 

Lucy: Miss Judith [a teacher at school] always asks me if my mommy is a lawyer.  And today she asked me if my daddy is a lawyer.  But I told her that my mommy is a teacher and my daddy works at Seven, the bike place.

So I explained what a lawyer is.  It was slightly easier than attempting to explain God. 

I can't imagine why a teacher would think that she's related to lawyers.

Here's hoping no one has to be cross-examined by Lucy.

Home again, home again

We're back from our western adventures.  No doubt more adventures await.   I know it's been a flurry of posts lately, while I had the time to sit down at the end of lovely days of visiting and being a tourist.  The pace of posting will surely slow a bit, but I'll try to keep the blog-light on for you.

For now, there are syllabi to write, laundry to do, and a general settling in for 2012.  Wow.

Thanks to all our hosts during our Washington trip.  We had a lovely, lovely time!

Lord Love a Duck

The title of this post is compliments of Donal Sullivan, Rose's dad, who used to exclaim this as a response of disbelief.  "Lord Love a Duck" is really a wonderful phrase, and I try to use it whenever I can.

Today was a perfect day for it: we got to hug a duck.

We went to Sequim's Museum and Arts Center, where on Fridays, one of the docents brings her pet duck, Peeper-Squeak.  Peeper-Squeak apparently enjoys hugging humans.  Or at least, he has been trained to allow this to happen.

Also, notice the mastadon in the back.  The mastadon is awesome.  They found it here.  It's actually the Manis Mastadon.  It's a pretty exciting discovery of a Mastadon here North America -- most notably, they were able to determine that it was hit with a human arrowhead -- the first time they had evidence that humans and mastadons lived at the same time!  Here's some more info on the Manis Mastadon.

Unfortunately, we did not have the opportunity to hug a mastadon.

But Peeper-Squeak, well, he's a bit of a local celebrity.  He has a Facebook page, too. I don't even have a Facebook page (still).  Clearly, the duck is part of the ongoing conspiracy to attempt to shame me into joining.  If a duck can have a page, surely I should?

Nope.  

Still more Washington Wonders

Thursday started with a necessary task: a car wash.  If you're wondering why, read the earlier post about the Olympic Game Farm and you'll understand: buffalo, elk, zebra, and llama spit, in addition to seagulls hanging out on the roof of the car make quite a mess!  It was in fact Lucy's first visit to a car wash.  She was delighted.  It was *almost* as exciting as the trip through the game farm.

After that, we went up to Hurricane Ridge, where Lucy did some sledding.  She loved it!

On the way home, we stopped at Feiro Marine Life Center in Port Angeles, where we got to watch an octopus eat a crab!

It was amazing.  And we felt VERY lucky, because they don't feed the octopus every day, and we happened to be there at just the right time.  Hooray!  I heart octopi!

We also got to see (and touch!) cool creatures like sea stars and sea cucumbers.  Totally cool!

Here we are outside:

It's been a busy day. 

Lucy has been enjoying listening to Bunnicula on audiobook.  It's a book I loved as a kid (I believe it was my favorite in the second grade).

She's now onto the sequel, Howliday Inn.

We're getting her trained up early on the basics of the Gothic, and literary studies in general.  The other evening, when we got into the car and we realized that we didn't have an of the CDs with us, she protested until we asked her to tell us a story.  She started in with her apparently epic, The Nineteen Vampires.  It even has chapters. 

Olympic Game Farm

File this under "Wonders of Washington."  Seriously.

Today we visited The Olympic Game Farm.  You get to drive your car through a large animal farm.  You have to sign a waiver, pay them some cash, and then, miraculously, you're off.

It starts out slow, with peacocks.  They're pretty lovely.  Also, there are bunnies running around everywhere (though they are not pictured here).

But pretty quickly, they start to chase the car.

And there are LOTS of them.  Also, there are the seagulls, who quickly start following the car, largely because we have bread.  Oh, did I forget to mention that?  A key aspect of the game farm is that you buy a couple of loaves of bread at the gate, and you get to feed it to the animals.

Next, you get to the Prairie Dogs.  The poor prairie dogs are tough to see because the seagulls are really pushy and excited about the potential bread.

All this is nice, but after this, things get serious.  This serious:

Yes, the Zebras like to take bites out of your side mirrors.  Look out.

At first, it seems like it's going to be OK.  It's just a llama or two, and they seem pretty chill.  They like the bread, but they're not too crazy.  The smaller ones especially are sort of docile and wait for you to hand out the bread:

Then, the llamas start to circle.  Lots of them.

They seemed to maybe have a plan where one would stand in front of the car while the others would all attempt to shove their heads in for bread at the same time.

Then there are the elk.  They are beautiful.  And HUGE.

And they WILL have your bread.  Don't even think you can hide it from them.

They seriously crave carbs.  Do not try to hide from the elk.  They will sniff you out.

They're also surprisingly photogenic! 

There's some video of me freaking out about the elk, but we can't figure out how to get it off the camera and onto the computer.  Actually, there were TWO cameras filming my freak out.  No one was able/willing to help me while I was wedged between a car seat and the nuzzling elk, but by golly, two people were able to film it.  Thanks, John & Jake!

There's also an area with bears:

 I believe the bears are actually what started this whole game farm -- the people used to train animals -- especially bears -- for Disney films back in the day.

Then there are the deer -- some young ones -- that are totally adorable.  I really liked these two:

Oh, and I almost forgot the buffalo.  I didn't get any good pictures, but at least in this one, you can see the tongue:

Yes, that's his tongue sticking out.

So next time you're in Sequim, Washington, you should visit the Olympic Game Farm.  But if you're driving a rental car, make sure you have the wild animal insurance.  We really need to hit a car wash -- buffalo slobber is really nasty!

Books

So we spent a bit of time at a local thrift shop called Serenity House, where we found a few great books.  The first was
Matilda, Who Told Such Dreadful Lies...

Written by Hilaire Belloc and illustrated by Posy Simmonds.

The plot of the book is a sort of "boy who cried wolf" scenario, with Matilda telling awful lies and then.....well, here's the title of the ORIGINAL version of this story:

Matilda, Who Told Lies and was Burnt to Death.

I am not kidding.  Hilaire Belloc was not messing around.  I have vivid memories of reading Belloc's Bad Child Book of Beasts when I was a kid.  Hilaire Belloc (1870 - 1953) was a French-Anglo writer -- and he wrote a lot -- and his "Cautionary Tales" are really quite terrific -- in the sense of really terrifying!

So I was very pleased with my purchase.  When we got it home, I looked at it a bit more closely and noticed an inscription on the inside of the front cover, reading "To Melissa: On Dec 2 1995 -- First Confession at Queen of Angels in Port Angeles!"

For readers unfamiliar with the specifics here, "First Confession" is a rite of the Catholic Church that comes before your First Communion -- typically when you're in about the first grade.  While First Communion is often an occasion for celebration (lots of folks invite families and have a little party and the young person receives gifts such as books, a bible, a rosary, etc.), First CONFESSION, at least in my experience, is a rather somber moment, and certainly not one that involves parties or presents.   In fact, in my own recollection (and that of some of my Catholic friends) First Confession was a somewhat terrifying experience, because you had to sit down and remember all the sins you had committed and then tell a priest ALL of them, and not forget about any of them, or that was another sin, and then you had to go to Confession again (or at least that's what we thought).  And again, we were first graders.  We didn't really HAVE much to confess.  (Yes, Brendan, I know I had locked you in the closet several times by this point, but really, a sin?)

Anyway, the person who inscribed this book to poor little Melissa was commemorating what was possibly a scary thing by giving her a book in which the young, female protagonist tells a lie and then is burned up in a fire.  Wow.  Now that's a heck of a gift!

In slightly less terrifying book purchases, we also acquired a copy of Eric Carle's Pancakes, Pancakes!
 

It's one delicious read!

More Wonders from Washington

Hummingbirds.  Just, you know, hovering around.  Several times a day.

Exploring Washington

So we're on the West Coast, visiting with the Bridges and the Livingstons, and having a quite lovely time.  Every time we're here, it never ceases to amaze me how different the terrain, the sky, and the vegetation are.  It's like moving to another planet.  It's distinctly Endor-ish here (and yes, Brendan, I know Endor (the forested one) is a moon, not a planet).

Today we hiked around at Port Williams, where Lucy collected numerous specimens to bring home.

We were able to prevail upon her to not bring this home:

Yes, I also thought it was a bloody tissue.  But no, it turns out that it's a local kelp, and it's called a Turkish Towel.  Yup.  So those of you who have been paying big bucks for your fancy 100% cotton Turkish bath towels should be aware that you can just pick them up -- for free -- on the shores of the Olympic peninsula.

Here's another specimen that we did not bring home:

I should have something in there to give you a sense of scale, but these things are huge, and very, very long.  They're called Bull Kelp, or Bullwhip Kelp.  The bottom end attaches to a rock in the ocean, and the top -- the big bulbous end -- is filled with gas so that it can float.  I remember seeing them the first time I was out here and they really freaked me out.  They are creepy.  They still creep me out.  Today, which I mentioned this fact, John asked if I knew what they were filled with.  I suggested that they might be filled with evil, and John said, no, they're filled with toxic carbon monoxide, so that when some little creature bites into them....well, let's just say, they don't get a second bite.  So to be clear, this is a kelp that grows to over 100 feet long, has a bulbous head-like thing, and IS FILLED WITH POISON GAS.  Clearly, this kelp is Evil.  Also, I just read that this stuff is the fastest-growing seaweed in the world: it can grow up to 2 feet per day. Evil has enormous growth potential.  Beware.

We did see lots of lovely, non-evil things.  Lucy delightedly collected lots of shells, including some that once belonged to some crabs.  I rather liked this one:

 

and I liked this uprooted tree quite a lot:

 

 Also, the trees out here (when they're not uprooted and lying on the beach) are HUGE.  Here's one on the land where Nellie has her cottage:

Trees!  I tell you, they're amazing.

We hope to do some further exploring in the next few days and I'll try to post again. 

Happy New Year!

Welcome, 2012.  Hope you're as excited as Lucy about heading into a happy and healthy New Year!

Lucy is working on a painting project, Jake is out for a bike ride.  It's a beautiful, almost unbelievably warm day here.  We've been reading Lucy Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary.  A nice start to the year, indeed.

For the afternoon, we had some fun taking care of our friend Sue's kitties:

And yes, there are kitties, but the picture only features one (Ickle) because Dorian is clearly terrified of Lucy. Ickle is the brave one.  Lucy LOVES these cats.

After a family walk on the riverwalk (shown above), Jake made us some lovely cocktails:

Not to worry, that one is a kid-friendly cocktail. 

Lucy wore her lovely party hat and hosted a fete for some of her stuffed animals.

 

We particularly enjoyed sipping our first fancy cocktails using our Christmas presents -- Jake got me these lovely vintage martini glasses.  They're a light green color -- "Depression Glass," I think?  But surely someone else out there (Sadowski?) knows better than me.  Rose got me these lovely cocktail napkins, too.  Delightful!  I declare 2012 "Year of the Cocktail"!