Canine Coffee Habit

Some mornings my schedule coincides with the woman driving the car in this picture. I identify her by the excited yipping, and other strange begging noises her Austrailian shepherd makes. Everyone waiting in the Starbucks' drive through hears him whine excitedly, tail whipping back and forth. It's hard to ignore -- and if you haven't gotten your coffee yet, hard not to feel that he's empathizing with you. Once his owner pulls up to the window, he goes silent and accepts the daily biscuit from coffee crew.

I wonder what they put into their doggie biscuits. I wonder if they would give me one. Maybe I should get a prop dog so they won't suspect....

Anyhow, this picture was taken in those wonderful foggy seconds of warm, indoor camera meets frigid, winter air -- and facing into the rising sun. We can pretend it was all done with artistic ideals rather than impromptu amusement.

Maybe I should have called the picture "Sun Dog".

Theo's Cookin'

When I was looking to procrastinate, Theo was preparing a very picturesque meal. He joked it was just like a cooking show down to him wearing product placement (his shirt is a Cafe Press t-shirt with my photo of a praying mantis).

Congrats Dad!

 

On November 28, First Lady Laura Bush unveiled the annual Christmas decorations including the painting for the official White House Christmas card. And here's the painting with my Dad, the artist. (This is the press conference photo picture was sent to me by my step-mom, Priscilla.) It's so cool. :)

His painting will remain in the White House collection with paintings by Norman Rockwell and John Singer Sargent; that has to be a huge thrill for him. (My sister and dad came up to Denver a little while ago just to see the Sargent exhibit at the Denver Art Museum and invited us along.)

There have been a number of "local artist" stories in Albuquerque where he lives, here's some links and press releases:


The most thorough article, by the University of Colorado Alumni Association
http://www.koat.com/news/14735576/detail.html
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/265929nm11-30-07.htm (Click on the Free Trial button)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/11/20071129-3.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/holiday/2007/tour_book2007.pdf

Gallery and Artist Links:
http://www.brazosfineart.com/taos_artists/david_drummond/1
http://www.drummondart.com/
http://jkdrummondart.blogspot.com/2007/11/david-drummond-white-house-christmas.html

Sweet and Innocent... or a Really Good Fake Out?

Jasmine really liked the fairy ring headbands at the Dealers' Room at Mile High Convention. It's the kind of souvenir we can afford and she's a difficult girl to say no to. Li Mei really knows how to turn on the cute.

Photographing Jasmine with the standard flash is really tough. Her eyes don't exhibit the normal, easily corrected red eye because they are transluminescent. Look close at the top raw photo and you can see the light passing straight through the outer ring of her iris almost as easily as it goes through her pupil. It's not hard to understand why she loves sunglasses. When she's older, we can get contact lenses that have an opaque iris that may help with that... not to mention the nearsightedness.

Rock Star

Jasmine came up to me and said, "'Tar." She waited a second or so and then requested again, "tar." She's been watching a lot of Laurie Berkner lately, so it wasn't that hard to figure out what she wanted. We don't have a real guitar around here anymore, but we did have something a bit more her size: Guitar Hero!




I think I know what to get her for her birthday (November 19). I wonder if Fisher-Price makes a Flying V and an amp that goes up to eleven. Here she demonstrates the power stance for rhythm guitar.

Wow, she's going to be 4. That's hard to believe, but she's certainly looking more her age than she used to. She's now wearing 2T and 3T clothes and a year ago it was 9mos-sized clothes. Notice the skull and crossbones belt; that's Kai's but she likes to wear it and say, "Aarrrrr!" It's also the only belt we have that's completely adjustable and therefore fits her.




She's got the artistic, Jimi Hendrix, lotus-eater, guitar expression going on in this last pic.

Eventually the boys wanted to play the game and Ms Mei was really not in the mood to share. She went to bed after a bit of a crying jag. Poor thing.

Awwwww, Zebra Butts!

Last Saturday the weather was beautiful and we went to the zoo. I should have known something was wrong when I saw, in a steady stream, people walking to the zoo from many blocks away. It was free day. UGH! Just finding a bathroom without a mile long line is a nightmare on free days. Crowds really stress me out in general, but my kids have all inherited my tendency to absent-mindedly wander around. Cat herding on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.




We did meet a beautiful little girl, J_____, and her mom when they spotted Jazz's cane. It turns out J_____ has monocular vision and we had many vision stories to exchange. We were seperated in the crowds a little while later, but if you're out there, drop me a line. Hope to see you at Anchor Center!

Pumpkins

This is my first attempt at creating a stencil and then carving it. I used a pic of a big lubber we found in a nearby open space, printed it on an 8.5" x 11" paper, traced the main elements using my light box, then altered some blocks as I was actually carving. I think the antenna needed some greater width, but overall I was happy with the result. It really didn't show up well until we had it outside in the dark and lit.

The rest of the pumpkins got stencils that we downloaded from free places on the web. The boys agreed Jasmine should have this Banshee design. I didn't inquire into their choice.

Pirate Skull for Kai.

Classic skull for Rowan.

This year they did a great job pulling out the pumpkin guts. Kai was still a little squeemish, Rowan was pretty gung ho and Jasmine just wanted to taste them. The boys poked the stencil designs into the pumpkins and then I carved them. Kai REALLY wanted to use my little pumpkin jigsaw, but I was worried about broken blades. I'd broken about five of them just getting the hang of it the year I first got it. Next year though, I think I'll buy some extra blades and let them carve out the tops.

Sugar Weasel Number Three

As always, it's hard to get a picture of Jasmine's face outdoors. Here she is on the trail with her cane. It wasn't a good cane day. She was copying her brothers' behavior of whacking things with their walking sticks instead of finding the path with it. At least at Roxborough the paths are fairly flat and sandy rather than rocky and unpredictible. She still has the tendency to ask to be carried when the ground is uneven and I have to insist that she walk. This day she eventually settled on letting me be her guide rather than using her cane. She did walk close to a mile which is very impressive on uneven ground -- that in itself takes a lot out of her. We walked about a mile and a half, in about two and a half hours.

Jasmine really participated in this Halloween. Last year's she was still getting used to being with us, eating regularly and walking. Jasmine did a great job saying Trick-or-Treat and Thank you or Bye-Bye. Now she regularly says, "Candy?" She has gotten exceptionally good at getting her brothers to share whatever they have after she scarfs hers down. They're sweet and she's simultaneously shameless and cute.

Sugar Weasel Number Two

You might be wondering what a sugar weasel is. If you have kids and you've dealt with them after Halloween, you might not be wondering at all. Our kids had their candy confiscated after 24 hours because they were absolutely insane... not just the average insane that we've grown used to, but full-body mood swings with hyper-roller coaster kinetics.

Here's Rowan with his hair combed. It's a hard situation to document. Gads, he looks so grown up already.

Sugar Weasel Number One

We've made it through another Halloween. I felt like a bum of a mother since we purchased costumes for the second year running. It's for the same reason that my Blogging has been non-existent this past couple of months. School and job search. I graduate December 15th with my Master's of Science degree in Applied Mathematics with a Certificate in Computational Biology. Woohoo. Just a few homework assignments, on presentation and a final exam and I'm finished. Hard to believe. Now I'm exploring the careers that exist in the crossover between Biology, Mathematics, and Computer Science and trying to find one that fits me.

I took a little break a went to Mile High Convention with the kids and then the past two days went to Roxborough State Park and crunched through scrub oak leaves with them. Here's Kai with his best smug look.

Bubble Tubes

I think I can already guess at how Jasmine would redecorate our house if she could. It would involve lots of water.

Bubble Boy

Kai playing with the bubble exhibit at the Children's Museum in Boston.

Rowan's Tale

I like taking pictures of my kids talking. They make the greatest faces, especially when telling a story. Sometimes I catch the same expressions on their faces that I have seen on my siblings or parents, or worst (gasp), my own.

Levitation

Another shot from the Children's Museum in Boston. Jasmine liked inserting the plastic balls into the tubes and then was utterly fascinated that they would come back and float.

Blue Rowan

We've had a bit of a Blue Man Group thang going on around the house since our trip to Boston. The kids got a chance to see the musical instrument exhibit at the Boston Children's Museum and later in the trip my mom took me to see the show live. I bought the DVD of their Rock Concert Tour and accompanying album Complex and that was all it took to make us all fans.

When I was in Home Depot, I detoured to the plumbing department. Rowan was amazed that they had a whole Blue Man Group section of the store.

Mermaid

I think she'd spend all her time in the water if she could.

Jasmine's climbed her way on to the growth charts, under 5% for both height and weight, but on the chart, gosh darn it.

She also is moving up to three days a week in preschool which should give that mighty brain of hers more to do than watch me try to get back into the swing of school myself. She's picking up words at a phenomenal rate and very carefully practicing her enunciation.

We also just got her latest eye checkup, we do it every six months or so. I was wondering if her prescription had changed since she suddenly lost interest in her glasses. At first, she would wear them from the moment she got up till she fell asleep, but the last couple of months, I couldn't keep them on her at all. Turns out, her prescription has gone from the -3 diopter range to the -9 diopter range, much more near-sighted than before. The doctor said it was a typical part of albinism and not to worry. So, sometime this week her new glasses should come in (rose-tinted even) and she should be able to see a fair amount more.

I wouldn't have guessed that she could see less than before. She's pointing out many things in pictures: clothing, gender of people, activities, parts of the body, etc. Even in fairly low contrast situations, she's correctly identified bowls and belts and so forth. Jasmine watches her brothers and has an uncanny knack for imitating not only their words, tone and voice, but also their body language. She also seems far less light sensitive than before. The doctor said those advances were probably due to her using and practicing using her eyes and coming up with effective coping techniques. Wow.

Content Kai

Kai has had an exceptional week. He's successfully undertaken some major self-improvement tasks. He even received a certificate from his teacher, "Most Improved Behavior" at the end of the week. I'm not exactly sure what spurred it on, but I'm certainly glad for it and he seems happy about it as well. Sometimes I think his biggest struggle is for the rest of his attributes to catch up with his great cleverness.

His schoolwork was at it's usual high level, so he received four other acknowledgements as well. He told me that he felt like he'd cheated on the bonus question of his spelling test: spelling the phrase "boiling point". I asked him why and he said that he had seen and remembered the phrase from a book he'd read rather than purposefully studying it. Isn't that a funny thing?

On a completely different subject, he's wearing his own tie-dyed creation that I alternately call "The Eye of Sauron" and "The Bullseye".

Table Base

I loved the carved table base we saw at the museum in Plymouth's first courthouse.

Important Massachussettes Landmarks

While walking around in MA, one is reminded of Americans' historical determination, stubborness and independence. The tea may have been dumped, but we yanks weren't stupid either.

Goth Girl

Jasmine hangs out in the graveyard on Burial Hill in Plymouth, MA.

Auraria Campus Lockdown

I go to school at the Unversity of Colorado, Denver Campus. We share facilities with Metro State and the Community College of Denver. The Friday before school started, Jasmine and I went in to talk to my advisors and figure out if this would finally be my last semester of the MS degree. Yeah, it would, but I would have to take a class I had thought I'd replaced with another class. I'll be a 40 hour MS, rather than a 30 hour. Biostatistics here I come. Oh well.

So, I had a few bits of paperwork to give to the Admissions and Registrar. When I left for the administration building (for UCD, that's the North Classroom), I found it locked and police detaining everyone at the crosswalks. Speer Blvd. was all blocked off. I thought it was an accident at first. My minivan was located in the lot to the left there, behind lines of police tape. Some folks hanging out and noshing on free commencement food told me as much as they knew. Other than a few big SWAT guys hanging out, nothing much happened around us. Yea!

You can read here why my car (as well as some 400 others) was locked up.

Jasmine and I went to The Market (located logically on the street next to Market street) and grabbed some lunch while we waited for the buildings to reopen.

Marsh

The marsh of marshfield in low tide.