No one expects the Spanish Inquisition

My favorite part of Christmas has always been Christmas Eve. I love the anticipation in leaving a note for Santa along with a plate of cookies and a mug of milk. I love hanging the stockings over the fireplace, and placing the presents under the tree. And I love that it's the same year after year like a dance you used to know and almost forgot you loved. And, step number one of that dance for me has always been - Go To Church.

Yes, I'll admit I'm not particularly religious, and yes, Christmas Eve is usually the only day of the year I go to church, but really, I love the children's mass. You know the one that starts at 4pm where the little kids at the church's school put on the nativity play? I am such a sucker for the nativity play! My eyes even get a little misty when little 10 year old Joseph and 7 year old Mary walk down the aisle asking for room at the inn. They are so serious and so cute in their modified bed sheets and sandals!! I can't stay away, I am compelled to attend every year.

This year, we thought we'd try a new church closer to our final evening destination, my parent's house in San Jose. We went to St. Joseph's Catholic Church which is associated with Mission San Jose. It's a huge church that holds a ton of people. As we sat through the mass I began thinking how much I've missed this, that I really enjoy church. I was even think maybe I should think about coming more often....then it came to the communion part.

Brian and I decided we would go up and receive communion. Now many might say from a strict Catholic perspective that we really shouldn't since we only attend church once a year, and haven't been to confession since - I don't even know how long, but it's Christmas and it's easier for everyone not to have to step over us on their way up and I really haven't been doing a lot of sinning in years, and Jesus is a forgiving guy anyway and he won't mind.....I'm thinking it's going to be ok.

Anyway, since you're probably not Catholic I'll explain how communion is supposed to work. You walk up to the priest (Eucharistic minister if there aren't enough priests). He says "Body of Christ?" like a question. In response you say. "Amen." The priest puts the little wafer in your hand. You eat it, then cross yourself. Done. Easy. And being raised REALLY Catholic I can tell you that I not only know this drill, I could probably teach Holy Communion Sunday School. 9 years of CCD would make anyone a pro.

But, when I walked up to the Eucharistic minister on Christmas eve he did not say "Body of Christ?" like he was supposed to. He said, "Are you Catholic?" in what I'm going to call an accusatory way. At this point, a couple hundred smart ass responses pored through my brain...

"No, I'm just really hungry and those wafers look really tasty."
"I sooo am. Just quiz me!"
"No, I just had an hour to kill before dinner."
"How DID you guess?"
"Yes I am. Are you?"
"No, I'm Buddhist, but I come every year for the incense. Hmmm, smells almost like ganja!"

But, I was able to bite all my nasty comments back and respond with a dumbfounded, " Yyyeess." At which point the rest proceeded as normal. Once back at the pew, I watched the minister had out the rest of his little wafers. Shoot! it's been a year since I've been to church, maybe the drill has changed, but no. He did not ask anyone else. In fact Brian's dad has been a Eucharistic minister for years and neither has he asked anyone this, nor has he heard of anyone every asking this at mass.

Now if your Catholic you already know that the churches are only really full on Christmas and Easter. I was not the only person visiting. Was I wearing some kind of sign? Maybe I've got "smote with lighting now!" tattooed across my forehead. If you were a church trying to welcome new people who might not often attend regularly, don't you think you might try to make them feel welcome and not like they were trying to sneak in to someone else's family reunion??

Drat! The rest of Christmas Eve was fantastic and fun, but church did not bring with it's usual comfort. It made me feel set apart from something special and it made me a little sad.

Evil Cookies et. al.

So, originally I was going to describe in full gory detail the evilest cookie to emerge from this year's round of holiday cookie exchange parties. I had it all planned out. The soft chocolate chip cookie batter baked to perfection surrounding not chocolate chips, but one perfectly centered thin mint girl scout cookie. But wait, not evil enough. Damn straight! But what could elevate the cookie within a cookie to truly evil status?? A whole miniature heath bar atop each individual cookie. No really. It sounds impossible, but there it was, one delicious cookie. I even took pictures to include in my blog, but....

A couple of weeks ago I sat on my digital camera and broke the viewing screen. I can still look through the little view finder window at the top of the camera, and I can still take pictures, but just like with a pre-digital or disposable camera, I have no idea what my shots look like until I download. The end result being, the Christmas card photos I ordered online - totally blurry, Drew's picture with Santa - eyes closed, and my cookie picture - Voila!And here I was thinking I might finally be able to kick my amateur food porn career "up a notch" (if you know what I mean.) And if you could only see this cookie in all it's perfectly golden, chewy, crunchy, nutty, sweet glory, you'd understand it has achieved a level of evil one step beyond the Satan Bar which up until this point reigned as the almighty evil for over a decade. Especially when you replace the butterscotch chips with Skor candy pieces. Yum!

And my camera....my poor poor camera! I planned to ask for a new one for Christmas, but then well.....I washed my cell phone in the clothes washer. Yeah, the new one I got just a few months ago, and opted not to go with the damage insurance, and signed a two year contract, which allowed me to purchase the phone for only $10, which will cost LOTS more than that to replace. Sorry honey! At least I have yet to accidentally toast my ipod. Although if it makes it through to January I'll consider it a mini Christmas miracle.

Come and trim my Christmas tree...

Tis' the season. We'll hang Christmas lights on our house. We'll go to the neighborhood tree lighting to have cookies and hot cocoa with Santa and all our school friends. We'll head over to the Thomas' for our annual Christmas lights walk and cookie exchange. We'll watch holiday piano recitals and choral presentations. We'll shop and wrap and address and stamp, and while all this bustle is tons of fun, my favorite part of Christmas each year is the trimming of our Christmas tree. Why? Let me just show you a couple of my favorite ornaments.
This is the little angel that my mother-in-law made for me out of the leftover sash material of the flower girl dress she made for my wedding. Look, the angel even has my hair.

This is the creepy Q-Pee doll elf that Brian hides in our tree each year for the rest of the family to find. He's posable and has wicked-witch-of-the-east green and white striped stockings. As you can tell, he's usually placed really close to the trunk and each year I try to see that he remains in the tree as we take it out to recycle, but alas, the sneaky elf always seems to end up back in the ornament box.

This is Brian's orange burlap tree stocking. And that's not felt glued on top, it cotton most likely cut from old shirts and dresses. Someone spent a lot of time on this one. Brian always hangs this ornament front and center on our tree saying, "This way Santa will see it. I'm sure Santa will fill my tree stocking this year." But honestly Santa always forgets. I mean really, you have to be a good boy ALL year to get your tree stocking filled. And anyway, I don't recall him ever looking inside it Christmas morning either. For all we know there is an old chocolate coin rotting in there from 1974.
And the last I'd like to share with you today, the spooky eyeball. I'm not sure where this came from or why it's on the tree, but it sure does look festive staring out from the pine needles. It's blue iris provides such a nice color contrast to the red plastic faux felt bows. Ahhh, isn't our tree bootiful!

I've got a gig!

I took my very sad flute to the flute doctor today. Drew has a holiday piano recital on December 8th and Brian and I have been asked to play a couple Christmas-type pieces at intermission (while everyone gets up and helps themselves to cookies and punch.) So a couple weeks ago I pulled out the flute I haven't played for-anyone-else-to-hear since 1992 and Brian started brushing up on his mad holiday piano skillz. Holiday music can be tricky on the piano, but it's super easy on a flute keeping the melody, unless your flute is in terrible disrepair like mine and then it can get kind of screechy. So, today I took it into the local music repair shop...

RSG: "Yep, yep I can adjust this up for you and recork the top."
Me: "Great! When can I get it back though, I need to play at a holiday thing."
RSG: "Yeah, If you've got a gig you'll want to practice. I can get it back to you by Friday."

Yeah, man, I've got a GIG! A "gig"! Hee hee hee. Thank you repair-shop-guy for giving me the gift of feeling like a rock star today. I needed that.

Getting Inked?

This is the Spinmaster Tattoo Set for Boys. I received an email from my sister saying she purchased this for Drew for Christmas and I laughed out loud. I mean, she's totally joking, right? But...what if she isn't?? What if she really bought it, what if a vibrating electric pen with 3 washable markers and 30 stencils makes a great 8 year old boy Christmas present? What if I think she's joking and send a "ha ha very funny!" email only to find she was totally serious? It wouldn't be the first time I guessed wrong and totally hurt her feelings. Unfortunately. So, in response I think I'll be going with "where in the world did you find that?" because honestly, with my family, it's always better to be safe than...well, anything else.

Meanwhile, if Drew does get this for Christmas you can expect to see some really regrettable ink coming from our house. And although the ink may be washable, the image of Drew giving his sister a tramp stamp I'm sure will prove indelible.

Won't you bee my neighbor.

By request....here is a pictorial representation of the eviction of our latest neighbors.

And here they come.... After much internet research, we determined the best course of action was to flood them out. We didn't want to kill them, Brian and I love little honey bees. No really, we hope one day to have a little hive of our own, but we can't let them live in our water meter. Plus, we couldn't really tell if they were European honey bees or the more aggressive Africanized varitey. Kids and Africanized bees probably don't mix...just a guess.So once they come out they gather themselves for an hour or so. I think the queen bee is taking attendance. What do you think?

Then they swarm to a temporary location, in this case our hopseed tree. Once they're in a formation that looks a lot like a Winnie-the-pooh honey pot, they hang there for up to 24hrs while they send scouts out to look for a new location, usually a mile or so away from the previous hive location, but Brian and I made a quick hive home out of a bread box in case they changed their mind and decided to stay closer to their newly flooded home.

Originally we were disappointed that the bees decided to move on, but really, I wasn't ready to rush out and purchase a beekeeping suit just yet. Meanwhile, I think the whole experience taught us a lot and probably affected Gwen's choice of Halloween costume for me modeled here by Gwen as she made a much cuter bee. Maybe next year she can be the bee and I'll be the beekeeper in my brand new suit.

Saturday Night Party

Last night, Gwen and I attended her friend Zara's birthday party. Having only met Zara's mother briefly I planned to stay and keep an eye on Gwen and make sure she behaved like a little lady with a cast, at a party where many of the adults might not speak English. Boy was I glad I stayed!! Everyone was so friendly and we had a terrific time.

We were the first to arrive at 5pm, but Zara and her little sister, dressed in their party dresses were excited to get the party started. Zara's mom, Sylvia, was so nice and right away made Gwen and I feel at home. We listened to Duran Duran songs in Spanish while the girls made paper crowns by decorating them with feathers and letter stickers. Sylvia hung three giant tissue paper flowers she had made in the backyard for decoration and still had her Day of the Dead tissue papers up on her kitchen wall (like these in the picture) because Zara asked her to keep them up to show her friends.

The food was fantastic. I was given one each of 3 types of tamales, a spicy chicken, a sweet pineapple, and one wrapped in a banana leaf that would take me an entire entry to properly describe. I was given a big red plastic cup of horchata to drink and after the first couple sips it really grew on me. I hadn't had horchata since I was Gwen's age. Gwen wouldn't try the horchata, but it does taste much better than it smells, so I don't blame her.

After eating, it was dancing time for the party-goers. Sylvia led all the kids in dancing. The songs were all in Spanish, but were very child friendly and hokey-pokey-esque where the kids kicked their feet, clapped their hands, and whistled on cue. Even though she didn't know the words, Gwen really joined in and danced around and tried to sing along. I wished I'd brought a video camera. The kids were adorable and Sylvia should consider a career in teaching, she was so good with them.

While more and more people arrived at the party, Gwen , her friend Zara, and Zara's friend Tony made up game after game that involved running up and down Zara's side yard, and trying to keep balloons of the non-helium variety in the air. Gwen loved it.

Then it was pinata time. Zara's dad held one end of a rope as he stood on the roof of their house. Another dad held the other rope end looped through the high branch of the tree in the middle of their front yard. A giant home-made paper mache lady bug swung from the middle of the rope so that Zara's dad could at any point tug the lady-bug to safety. The children took turns swinging at the lady bug while every adult present sang a pinata song and I worried about when Zara's dad would fall off the roof. When the song ended it was the next person's turn and everyone got a turn, Zara, Gwen, Sylvia and even me. By the end I was singing the song right along with everyone else and Zara's dad never did come crashing down.

We had to leave after the pinata. It was already 8pm and we had to pick up Drew from gymnastics, but again Zara's family was so nice and understanding about it. She offered us cake to go which I declined and a party favor for Gwen and Drew which I accepted (so sweet of her to think of Drew too.) As we drove away, more people were just arriving making me wonder just how late the party would go. We were bummed we couldn't stay till the end. Gwen has a great little friend in Zara and Zara has a great family. Thanks for the great party Zara! Happy 6th birthday!

Baby's got a blue cast on

Damn, I haven't written a post in forever, but tonight I definitely need to ramble on about the last 24hr.

Yesterday, I woke up with that shiny glowy happy feeling that lets me know it's going to be a great day. You know, the kind of day where everything looks fresh and clean. The little baby grass just starting to grow contrasting with the tree leaves turning their myriad shades of red, gold and brown. That beautiful day after a storm that makes you glad to be outside, even if it's at lunch yard duty with 200 screaming 1st and 2nd graders.

I was walking the beat, scaring the 1st grade boys out of playing in the A-wing bathroom while simultaneously mediating a verbal abuse accusation of the sydney-called-me-a-loser variety when a pack of kids ran up to inform me my daughter cut her lip and was in route to the nurse's office with a 5 friend escort. I gave her 5 minutes to obtain her standard issue ice pack and return to the classroom where I thought I'd meet her to check out her lip before moving on to monitor the 3-4 graders whose playground shift was just starting. Gwen had the littlest cut below her lip, but she was still sobbing and something about her just didn't seem right.

"My arm! Hurts mommy! It hurts!" She barely got the words out between gasping sobs.
Gwena loves the drama, but it's not like her to carry it too far, so I thought we'd go to the pediatrician and check it out. So a bit frazzled, we left school, forgetting to sign either of us out and leaving the school secretary in charge of the 200 3rd and 4th grade monkeys pretending to be human children on the playground.

I called ahead from the car to the pediatrician's office, but they didn't have an appointment available until 3:45pm....
"But I think she may have broken her arm. Should I proceed to Emergency??"
"That would be up to you if you think it's an emergency"
"And there's nothing sooner than 3:45pm?? She's in a lot of pain."
"Nope, our earliest is 3:45"
"I'll take it"

But I wouldn't really. I decided to stop in at the urgent care clinic first, I mean, it must be called the "urgent care clinic" for a reason right....like if say you needed urgent care? Somewhere between a blood gushing emergency and a routine pap smear? But what do I know?

"I think my daughter may have broken her arm. Can you see her here?"
"It depends. Have you called your primary care physician?"
"Yes, but they can't see her until 3:45 and it's just noon now...."
"If your doctor has agreed to see you then we can't see you here. Your insurance might not pay for the visit. You have an HMO."

Crud! Crud! Crud! I'm going to have to go to the ER. I hate the ER! They're going to make us wait forever! Walking across the lobby, while explaining to my six-year-old that health care sucks in warm fuzzy parent speak, I ran into another parent from Gwen's school. His daughter has been one of my school play students for the last two years. I think I've spoken five word to him in total since I met him 2 years ago and they were probably all months apart.

"Hey, what are you two doing here?"
"I think she might have broken her arm at recess today."
"Wouldn't they see you upstairs?"
"No, they said they couldn't...something to do with my insurance and my doctor being able to see us later today."
"Now much later?"
"3:45"
"That's not right. Let go upstairs and talk to them."

Ok, that's fine. We can go upstairs again...up until I ran into him I thought he worked as an engineer somewhere in town, but he must work at the hospital and he's definitely not the janitor either. He knew the receptionist by name, she stammered and stuttered "but her insurance!" So he asked if he could call over to my pediatrician's office. He knew the head nurse by name. I'd never even met her. Then he smiled. "Your doctor can see you now." And Jordan's daddy officially became my hero.

The pediatrician's office was closed for lunch. I forgot all about lunch! It was a ghost town, but the head nurse greeted us at the door. Offered Gwen water. Shook my hand. I have never in my life been treated like that in a doctor's office, but it must be just like a celebrity would be treated, like a princess with a paper cut. It was then that a black sticky dread started to fill my belly. Gwen's stopped crying, she's started to move her arm all around. People are going without lunch to help us, receptionist I spoke to early has been "talked to" and I may forever be known as the hypochondriac mom who pulled her child from school , involved a hospital big wig and made 3 nurses and one doctor miss their lunch over her child's mildly bruised arm. Yuck, yuck, yuck! Oh, dear god, let it be broken. "What! Did I even think that!" Let it be a bruise. Maybe a sprain......that's the middle, right?

So off to the X-ray lab for an hour to sit, to wait, to dread, and to watch my daughter being so good, so patient, so brave. She's trying to make me laugh, holding my hand and apologizing to me like I was the one sitting in pain. My Gwena can be the most amazing child when she wants to be. So I tickled her and made her laugh, and showed her funny pictures from a month old People magazine, until it was her turn to get her picture taken. The nurse promised she'd try not to hurt Gwen. I knew she meant while moving her arm for the picture, but Gwen didn't know what she meant. When the machine took the picture it made such a horrendous scary noise Gwen started crying again. Two more scary pictures and we were back in the car with x-ray film in our hand.

"Can I peek at the pictures, Gwen?"
"No Mommy. Don't peek."
"I'll just look for a second."
"Mommy, NOO! I don't want to know yet."

Back at the pediatricians office, I hand the film over to the receptionist, who hands it to the nurse, who hands it to the doctor, who brings us over to the bright white box where we see Gwen's little arm looking perfectly like a miniature version of the Halloween skeleton still up in our garage until the doctor shows us the little crack clear through the radius bone just above her wrist. Yep, that would be broken.

"Do I get a cast mommy?"
"I don't know it depends on the bone doctor."
"Kushi's cast was red and up to here on her arm, and Victoria's cast went down to her fingers from here."
"But I don't know if you'll even get a cast."
"What will I get?"
"I don't know let's go see the bone doctor."

We sat at the orthopedic doctor's office, once again waiting our turn, listening to a teenage boy complain about his wrist cast next door. I worried that his talk would scare Gwen, but it just made her giggle as the boy explained how he was just going to cut the cast off himself when he got home. As the boy argued with his mom, a new nurse came to see us.

"What color cast would you like?" And Gwen's face lit up like a sunrise as she pause to celebrate her good fortune. With the celebretory butt wiggle Gwen always executes when she's happy,
"Light blue." she said.

1040 not EZ

I never understood what the big deal was about tax time. I'd reported my own taxes with little or no pain from the time I was 15. Every year they'd get a little more complex with cohabitation and joint bank accounts and kids and houses, even ESPP and stock options plans, but it couldn't stop me from filing. Even two years ago when turbo tax went completely wacky - yeah sure I complained a lot but I got them done. But THIS YEAR....it occurred to me that we're adults now and I've been hacking at our taxes for over 10 years now. I'm not a trained professional, and with these new RSU shares all over our W-2 I decided to seek help. Really what could I know??

This morning I had my first appointment with a tax consultant. To prepare I ran through my tax paperwork and entered it into my at home tax program so I'd make sure not to leave any important papers at home. Tra la la.....wow! It says I owe an absurd amount of money!!! But alas that can't be right. Really what could I know?? So I sat for an hour and watched a man enter my information into a computerized tax program and found out that I could know an awful lot, in fact my numbers and his were identical. My first thought was I'm a complete moron, I have to pay this man $XXX to do what I should have done myself, but this was quickly overshadowed by my sudden need to breath rapidly into a brown paper bag. We owe the government WHAT!!!!

Bust out the Raman recipes - the Schoner spending spree is officially over. And my dreams of a new notebook computer join my copy of Turbo Tax 2006 in the trash can.

I've been thinking a long time about going back to school to become a teacher and I really do mean a long time. I picked up my first credential information packet from UCLA in 1992, but yet just as I'm about to enroll something always stops me. A good paying job, a move, I want to keep my children out of day care, I'm not ready to go back to work, it'd be easier just to get a part-time desk job somewhere, teachers don't make good money, but in the end they are all just excuses. The truth is I'm scared.....scared to try because I'm scared, completely terrified, of failing, of being a bad teacher, of letting kids down, or my family down. I've never been good at finishing what I start. I have a half crocheted baby blanket, half of a quilt, a dresser with one drawer refinished. I start and stop diets and exercise programs weekly...
Yesterday, my friend Tina told me she starts her teacher credentialing program March 5th and I'm jealous. We were going to start together, but I've been dragging my feet because I'm scared, because starting feels like a commitment that I'm not sure I can make. Its outside my comfort zone, that holding pattern I've been hiding in for a while now. But just maybe this is the push I need to finally dive into something head first instead of always testing the water and never really taking the plunge. Just maybe this time I can try and succeed or fail know that I gave it my best. And just maybe that's the best any of us can really hope for.

Check out Smurfette!

Gwen is sick with the same crazy flu going around our elementary school, but with an added twist today she decided to turn blue out of the...well, blue.

"Mommy I don't feel so good. Can you take my temperature??"
"You don't look so good honey. Let's see...."

95.1 - Ok that's really low. Maybe she didn't put it under her tongue all the way? 95.7 Ok maybe a different thermometer? 95.5 This is the point where I panic. I mean, she slept all day yesterday, but so did her brother when he had the flu, but at no point has either of my kids been under temperature. Turns out she's dehydrated. Turns out she needs 2-4oz. of Gatorade every hour. If she can't keep it down we proceed to the ER. If she turns blue again our doctor is on call tonight. And either way we'll be in his office bright eyed and bushy tailed at 8:15 tomorrow morning. Blech!