It's all in the details

Today we explore solar.

Yep. After fifteen years (or so) of thinking about it, we're going to get a bid.

Partly, this originates in our disgust at the layer of smog that accumulates in Salt Lake Valley every winter during inversions. It's gross.

But partly, it's a reflection of the enormous leaps forward in solar technology and financial incentives for solar installation. For example, you get a 25-year warranty that transfers with your house. So you don't worry about maintenance and you can pass that freedom from worry to the next owner.

Here in Salt Lake City the sun shines more than 220 days per year. Seems like a shame to let it all bounce right off our house.

London, Baby!

After months of waffling, talking about the new SkyCouch, and generally hoping prices would drop, tonight we finally did it.

And, thanks to Air New Zealand's sale (Happy New Year!) we managed a decent (ie, insane but not as bad as it has been) fare.

So button up, Blighty. We're packed and ready, and it's only January.

Coffee Table

At last. Not that it's the last thing. Not by far. But it was satisfying to identify a nice coffee table. Later that day I set my tea down on a surface other than the floor. Very pleasing.

The table rests on a triangular base made of lucite panels and aluminum supports. The top is glass. I'd never have seen it, buried as it was under a pile of CareBears and other 80s ephemera. But Charles spotted it right away.

It even fit in the trunk! Whee, no delivery. This is my new motto: no delivery.

So now the living room lacks only a rug and some illumination. Still no dining area furniture but that's ok. We can eat on the floor, ranged around a very elegant beach towel, indefinitely.

Yeah...So...

All over the news, lately: the Harvard Dialect Quiz. It identifies your linguistic origins! It can see into your heart (and history) by asking you about water fountains and sub sandwiches! Like, Wow!

Except.

I've visited San Francisco a couple of times. I've been to Albuquerque twice (both times for the ACA/PCA conference). I've been to Stockton once. For an afternoon.

Oh, well.

Playdate

Iain loves young ladies. One of his favorites lives nearby (and, in LA terms, nearby is an hour away). She came down here for a playdate on Wednesday.

One reason we like the LB place is that a park, library, police station, and city hall sit right across the street. So over there we went and the Young Lady and Iain played like maniacs for an hour while the grownups debated education policy.

Before that: Legos! Books! Plants vs. Zombies! iPad! Building a barricade in the hallway and giggling while trying to distract the old people with a "dance performance."

After: chocolate hippo cookies, juice, a public reading by our resident Reader-in-Chief, and a loving sendoff.

We can't wait until June. She's promised a pool-related playdate then. Iain is excited by the prospect.

Chalkboard

This door conceals the A/C unit. 

In our house, we use a small, magnetic chalk board to keep track of grocery lists, phone numbers, and items that can be easily forgotten (thank-you notes, usually).

So here we wanted the same.

Unfortunately, it turns out that magnetic paint doesn't really work. I mean...it works ok. You can get the magnet to stick to it. But if you wanted to stick something to the door using the magnet? Not really.

Chalkboard paint, though? That stuff is great. Two days of modest craftiness (as in: paint a coat, go on with your life, six hours later paint another coat, go to bed. Next day: pull off the tape and enjoy!) yielded a great surface for recording our schedule and to-dos.

Bean Bag (and other stuff)

Iain received a gift certificate to Pottery Barn Kids from his grandparents. He wanted a bean bag. Charles stood for a long time in front of the Darth Vader embroidered pillow and matching sheet set but Iain wanted a bean bag.

He also chose the cover. Madras, y'all. Because nothing goes with superhero mask sheets and an aquamarine bookcase like madras. It's all color all the time around here.

We've spent our last few days in shopping marathons, seeking not just furniture but the many, many little things necessary for a functioning life. Today, in search of a plug for Iain's bathtub, we also acquired cookie sheets, kitchen towels (and a rack), a better potholder, a knife block (sorta - one of those boxes with cork sheets in it), and some coasters (also cork - a theme today).

Oh, and we went to the Lego store. [Iain's brain exploded] [see photo above]

Furniture Shopping

Our casa in LB. Empty. So, so empty. Note the child eating his brekkie at the kitchen counter, sitting in our office chair. Very classy.

So we bought some stuff. Above, a credenza to lift up the television and hold some electronic stuff. It's not old. It's brand new. Because (as Elizabeth pointed out) our modern A/V needs don't really suit older media consoles.

Next, a pair of chairs. Also new, though made to look old. New upholstery, though. They're darker and more tweedy in person than this photo suggests.

We bought a sofa. I failed to snap a photo with my phone. Boo. I was distracted. Partly, I blame the pretty little side table above. Partly, I blame the rambunctious little tater tot below. Holy Toledo, Batman. That kid can wiggle. You try keeping track of the wiggle in antique and furniture stores all over LA.

He tried on a biker jacket. Under duress. Should I be pleased that he didn't like it, or sad? He wanted to pick out a sparkly dress for me, though, and a cowboy hat for himself. I'm pretty happy that the one item he really, really wanted to buy was a vintage typewriter (the kind with a carousel of letters that pop up when you hit a key).

The furniture arrives after lunch tomorrow. We'll finally have something to sit on. Still to find: a dining room table and chairs, a carpet, a coffee table, side tables for the bedrooms, and some lighting.

Not much, right? Easy peasy.

Menu

For the very first time. Ever: standing rib roast.

I had it, once, at a friend's house in California. It came off the grill and while it was "resting" we stood in the kitchen and picked bits off the edges. At least twenty people stood around upstairs, drinking, talking, and nibbling other dishes. Unlucky for them.

So I'm making one, hoping I can manage a result nearly as good.

Also: broccoli, asparagus, and latkes (made by Mother, so doubtless delicious). Christmas Eve is the last night of Hannukah so we're beef&potato-ing as an homage to both occasions.

Chicken Marbella

On November 22, friends joined us for dinner. These friends have three children so our combined families require food for 8 people. I thought I'd try Sheila Lukins' famous recipe Chicken Marbella.

Essentially, it's chicken pieces braised in white wine, olive oil, herbs, garlic (as in a head of pureed garlic), prunes, capers, and olives. Very tasty but because the prunes and olives are whole people who don't like such things can just pick them out.

I went to Whole Foods for my chicken because it's nearby and I figured I could get a better product. Remember, please that this shopping excursion occurred on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. A high-traffic time for groceries, you'd think. Lots of people. Wanting food. Because that's what groceries do. (sell food).

But you'd have thought, based on the level of readiness at WF, that it was a Tuesday in February.

What was in the butcher's case? NOTHING. Photo below. Not that the case is empty. As in: empty.

There's more. When I asked for chicken pieces, I went round and round with the butcher about it. How much? He had no advice to offer. Thighs and breasts? No opinion. Finally, I just told him how many I wanted and he popped into the back area.

He emerged with two plastic-wrapped parcels (the kind that regular groceries put into the meat section) which he pulled open. They had been frozen. He then weighed out the pieces I wanted and wrapped them loosely in paper (loosely wrapping chicken is the best way because then the juices leak out onto other foods, flavoring them).

While I watched him do this, I read the orange sticker below:

So true. So, so true.

Then I went looking for the other items on my list. Each and every aisle was blocked. Every aisle.

Above, a dolley with boxes. Below,  stacked crates and a cart full of broken-down boxes.

Boxes. More Boxes. Just laying on the floor.

Was anyone unloading them? No. Was this because the staff were quite busy with customers? No. they were, mostly, standing around the checkouts and customer-service desk, chatting.

I was...not amused. But I had chicken! And prunes (more prunes than anyone would ever need but they sold only one size and at that point my mood had turned sorta sour so I didn't think I should go anywhere else).

I made the chicken. It was good. I followed the recipe almost exactly (bought the wrong olives at WF so I had to use a slightly different olive) and the one thing I'd say is that another 20 minutes in the oven wouldn't be amiss. Otherwise, delicious.

Me, checking the dish by giving it the evil squinty eye. If it fails to flinch you know it's done.

Recipe.

Wow

So let's say you're working on an activity for students. You'd like to use a cartoon by an American political cartoonist. Thomas Nast, for example.

You use Google to find the cartoon you want but most scans omit the caption. It matters. So you look for a better scan.

Yay! The Library of Congress has one. Really hi-res, too. Double Yay! Except...when you click on the link, what do you get?

That's right. A massively pixelated, unreadable, ugly photocopy. Totally impossible to use.

The LOC is a beautiful place. I'm sure its collections hold impressive, rare, valuable materials. But this is just embarrassing.

Fun With The Mail

In the mail, yesterday. It's a flyer for a school. A school. They invite me to consider how important the first 5 years of a child's development can be.

I agree, of course, though if I've done that badly it's too late. Iain's heading down the home stretch toward seven.

But let's say I sought a school for another child. A friend's child, perhaps. What questions might I ask?

I don't think, actually, that I'd ask this question. And I hope, fingers crossed, that if I ever decided to mail total strangers a flier about my school I'd get someone really, really detail-oriented to proofread it. Twice. Maybe three times.

Snowbird

Pickles are great! Who knew, Mom?

Winter fun times continue. While I drove aimlessly around town, thinking about lunch but failing to actually decide on something, then shopping, then feeling discontented with the weather, Charles took Iain to Snowbird.

There, he joined his two friends - whom he met during his first year in Utah, at the JCC, when he was 2 years old - for a run down one of the easier areas of the mountain.

Iain failed to embrace the early-season conditions. But he loved lunch. He came home to tell me all about how he ate the ENTIRE hamburger. And this time - for the first time - he tried the pickle.

Wow, Mom. Wow.

Storage

Our kitchen lacks storage. Not just any storage - though it's not exceptionally generous on regular cabinets. The problem lies in the available space for anything deep. Platters, appliances, anything more than 10 or 12 inches deep has only one place to go.

So we asked our friend Michel to build in some new storage. It'll hold the footstool (required in this kitchen for someone my height) (short) plus a shelf for the fryer, the KitchenAid mixer, and...maybe a fruit bowl or something. That liberates space in the one other deep cabinet.

These are photos of the build. It's painted but not yet counter-topped because we're hoping to re-use the teak leftover from the bathroom. But eventually, it should look as though it's contemporaneous with the existing cabinets.

Movies

Coolest dude in the theater. We've been on a movie kick lately, seeing 3-D space films at the IMAX theater in the Planetarium, visiting the actual planetarium dome theater, and even submitting to the Gateway experience for Big Hero 6.

Iain loves to wear his hoodie in the movies. I'm forever tugging it down. He pulls it back over his head.

Oops.

1. We moved a lot of kitchen tools to Long Beach. I sent my old, no-handle pyrex there.
2. I bought new, handle-y pyrex!
3. I loved my new, handle-y pyrex and used it all the time.
4. Last night, for example.
5. But remember those stories about pyrex exploding sometimes? Like, when it heated or cooled too fast?
6. Yep. Those are true.


But the pork tenderloin was delicious. So...

Iain Builds a Time Machine

Last week, Iain and I saw Big Hero 6. It's fantastic. While we watched I thought, "This is as good as Wall-E," and, "Wow."

If you've seen the movie, you know that it revolves in part around an invention that allows you to transport materials through a portal. Iain apparently found that part interesting. Above, he built something similar but he wants it to transport through time, rather than space.

[Here are some pictures of the portal in case you want to see what I'm talking about. It's basically a circle.]

Note that he attached it to the electrical system originally meant for a Lego train set. So it moves. And stuff.

Shhhhh!

Iain woke before us this morning. He's been in his room, playing and watching Digimon on his iPad.

Just now, he emerged to make breakfast. I don't think he knows I'm in the living room. He's making something - "strawberries!" I heard him whisper to himself - to solve a serious problem. "I'm starving to death! It's an emergency!" he just whispered. Dramatically, of course.

An emergency! No breakfast and it's almost 9 o'clock! My god, what will one do? Stay tuned...

ETA: 9:08am: he comes in, rubbing his tummy, and announces, "I think I'll just let that settle." [pause] "How long until lunch?" I laugh. "No, but really. How long?"

Halloween 2014

Me, during the day. This is the first year without a full costume, but I think the spider was sufficiently festive.

Iain, as Bumblebee from the Transformers.  He took off the mask pretty quickly because going up and down steps in the dark is a bad idea when your eye slits are so tiny. Note the bat-and-pumpkin necklace. He got that at school.

Us, just before trick or treating. He's feeling his beard, he says. Not sure what to think of that. Now he's embarrassed that I've told the world he was feeling his beard. This is an improvement on last year, when he didn't understand what "embarrassing" meant.

To Whomever Stole the Pappy Van Winkle

Please get in touch. We want to talk. I mean drink. I mean talk.

We'll even help you carry those 65 cases. Must be heavy.