The incredibly sane mad eagle man

I walked past the little gnome hunched over, carrying a cane and mumbling like a mad man until he looked right at me and the most sane words I'd ever heard began pouring out of him, "you're hair is so beautiful, long and blonde like that, and your purple vest, so perfect for the royalty that you are, a queen in purple, yes, when God was done with you he just kissed his fingers and said voila, my work is done here (here he demonstrated this dramatically) God bless you and thank you."
I was standing in an empty playground getting footage of a wet, soggy public play area for a short political satire I was working on for a class. I turned the camera on the little man half way through his speech so I could replay it over and over again later if I wanted. I was wearing a cute purple down vest, and he appreciated it. He was my new best friend. He helped me with my filming and I made him the star of my movie. He impersonated an eagle so well, he said that eagles answer him.
Please see my work in progress to the right.... I will be doing a voice over that says(read like a dramatic movie trailer ad...
Juneau Alaska
A rainforest
with empty playrounds
children have no shelter
Cause CBJ (City and Bureau of Juneau) won't pay
Where are the children?
CBJ, won't let them play

Wedding, whipped cream and Iron Maidens

FRIDAY- 11/16/07
8:00 a.m.
I'm walking around my clean kitchen. Floors mopped, clutter cleared, every dish clean and put away, counters wiped down with organic lemon verbena cleaner. Laundry done, house picked up, floors vacuumed. I thought to myself, I would love a cup of coffee right now. A little ding from the coffeepot signals that a fresh pot is ready. I'd programmed it the night before, and for the first time ever, I'd guessed the right time to brew it. I'm organized, on top of the world. Mulling over our weekend plans: play date, wedding rehearsal, wedding, co-worker roast, Iron Maidens concert. No problem...
9:45 a.m.
Play date arrives, Ivy, Shannon, Porter and Bodhi are running around the house screaming and laughing. Tiffany and I are chatting, drinking coffee. (When they leave later, Porter says to Ivy, "I love you", she says "I love you too!" then Porter said, "come back later and we can take a nap together!")
10:45 a.m.
My editor and his wife Megan show up. She's due with her first child and ready to have it any second. She grills me on birth and "did they come on their due date?" I told her when I was 6 days overdue I was outside yelling at the full moon to throw me a bone. "Enjoy these last few days of sleep and each other" I said. I gave them some baby things.
11:45 a.m.
I'm in class discussing the media's influence on war and propaganda, how we should just call the media what it is now. Corporate influenced and imbalanced.
5:45 p.m., Wedding rehearsal
I'm trying to keep my kids well behaved while we're at the wedding rehearsal. The flower girl is perfect, my kids are fighting over who gets to carry the pillow. At one point I thought the lovely satin ribbon was going to be ripped off. The pillow turned into a ball, and they ran down the aisle and tackled each other. The father of the groom shushed Bodhi at one point. I was under incredible stress. The rehearsal dinner was an hour late because the restaurant forgot about the order completely. My kids were starving so the church ladies and I raided the church refrigerator and came up with tortilla chips and cheese. Bodhi was in rare form. All the stimulation and excitement had him bouncing off the walls. He was very focused on the beautiful flowered silk skirt the mother of the groom was wearing. She was at the buffet dishing up when Bodhi decided he wanted to immerse himself in her skirt. He dove head first into her butt, planted himself and started swishing her skirt from right to left with both hands. He alternated this with poking the flowers and saying "this one's bwoken". She was very surprised and was giggling and saying "ooh! Ooh! over and over while trying to balance her plate of food and I tried to pull him away. All I could seem to grab was his sweater. After that no one sat with us. Every single person sat at a separate table. Then Gene and the boys went in the hallway leaving me all alone at a huge table, hungry and exhausted. One of the church ladies came and sat with me. "Abandoned I see" she looked sadly at me. We'd bonded while we raided the church kitchen earlier. I'd told her nightmare stories from my Los Angeles host helper days. Good parties gone bad. She had jet black hair that sprouted spiky and crazily in all directions and seemed to be lifted up, suspended abnormally high above her neck. I couldn't be sure if it was a wig. I looked at her between bites of tofu broccoli and lamented "I guess that's what happens to families with small children" shrugging my shoulders to convey over-dramatically how hardened I'd become since having kids. In a world that doesn't want kids to be kids. They hadn't intended to sit as far from me as possible, it just sort of happened in all the chaos. Hunched and glaring at the other table, I'd lost my way. I'd gone from the top of the world, to a private pity party with a church lady in just 12 hours.
10:30 p.m. The Iron Maidens
After waiting for Iron Maidens to show up and play since 10:00, (they were late due to their plane being delayed and losing all their guitars somewhere between Fairbanks and Juneau) the band finally arrived and said they wanted to meet me before the show. I'd written an article in our paper about them which they loved. Backstage we talked and took photos together. They gave me their signed CD. Aja, the lead singer, took me aside and said, "thanks for the ink", with a wink. The girls and I went downtown after the show, listening to Iron Maiden's cd and banging our heads in the car, then danced to Brown Haven, the brewery band. My babysitter was sound asleep on the couch when we got home....

SATURDAY 11/19/07 The Wedding Day
8:00 a.m.
Blur, blur... kids in bath, ironing clothes, picking out an outfit, helping Gene pick out one blur blur...
11 a.m.
At the church, high alert, wedding's late, kids on fire... flower girl, then boys, just like we planned...flower girl who'd been perfect during rehearsal while my boys misbehaved is caving and yelling "mama, mama" refusing to walk down the aisle without her mother. My boys, alone, walk side by side perfectly, (Bodhi won the pillow by reasoning that Porter had done it before). They tried to pass the paralyzed flower girl in the princess dress...
1:00 p.m.
Reception, announcement of the wedding party, sitting with Kim and Becky, eating, spilling, lemonade....first dance, Mike and Jennifer danced to Kermit the Frog singing Rainbow Connection, they were so cute. I sang along under my breath because I sang it in a second grade assembly and never forgot it. Highlight? The wedding planner took me aside as we were leaving, "I don't normally say this to women but you have incredibly nice legs! They are beautiful!" Must be tbe 4 inch strappy sandles I wore that my sister gave me even though the temperature was in the low 40's.
6:15 p.m. The Roast
Friends of Korry Keeker gather at the Alaskan Bar to say goodbye. A large banner saying "get the F*&%^ out Keeker" is hanging across the stage, put up while he was in the bathroom. He' s going to Chicago to follow love. He's wearing a fur coat and orange bandana, looking like a pimp daddy. He's obviously had a few drinks, permanently smiling. People begin to take the stage and slam him and his writing. Julie, Korry and I had been working on getting our "Three's Company" radio show together, a dream that will never be realized now. Korry told Julie that he wanted whipped cream, wax paper and people dancing on the bar for his going away party. The wax paper and bar dancing never happened but we arrived with whipped cream cans hidden in Gene's jacket. Julie and I took the stage and emptied them on him, he's helpless to fight back but manages to get it all over me as well.

SUNDAY 11/18/07 The aftermath
10:30 a.m.
Just waking up (Gene let me sleep in) the immaculate house just two days before is now strewn with toddler wedding clothes. Once pressed ties crumpled. I step on Bodhi's red velvet vest wedged partway under the kitchen cabinet while pouring a cup of coffee. Hardened play dough pieces and abandoned toast crusts are everywhere. Porter, asleep on the couch, sits up and throws up all over the couch, then announces he's never drinking pink lemonade again. I had a flash of him sucking down glass after glass at the wedding reception. Gene gets the extractor out (he loves using the extractor) cleaning all the cushions. I'm washing my purple shirt that's covered with whipped cream having a delicious cup of coffee.

New cars and naps

I'm exhausted and exhilarated all at the same time. We just bought a new car and we couldn't be more thrilled.
All the worries we had about the other car were just swept away like smelly salmon carcasses. The rattling in the engine, the mysterious leak that continually filled my trunk with water, breeding some horrible mold we were inhaling daily. The trunk hydraulics were long gone so when loading and unloading groceries, I had to lift what felt like a 200 pound piece of metal, then find the long piece of wood we were using to prop it open. If the wood were to somehow fall, the trunk would land on my body probably killing me instantly. This made grocery shopping an unpleasant and dangerous errand. No one works on Saab's in my town and my last mechanic, Fred, turned me away last time I tried to throw money at him to fix my car. "No, I won't work on your car anymore - too much headache!"
When the rattling could be heard from a block away, I took it back to the mechanic who refused me. He peered at me through his little window when I pulled up, shook his head at me and started yelling something in German to his partner. I went in, head bowed, and said I knew he wasn't going to work on it, but I said "would you just listen to the noise and tell me anything?" I was desperate. He looked at me down his nose past his thick glasses, "another Saab story..." He obliged.
His diagnosis? "I'm sorry to tell you this, but that is a bearing loose in your engine. At any moment, the car will just stop working, for good. Drive it quietly to the dealership and trade it in right away." That made me feel a little uncomfortable considering it has already started snowing and I cart around 2 and 3-year-olds in Alaska.
I took the car home, emptied it out, (no small task) vacuumed it and cleaned the seats. I waited til dark so the imperfections wouldn't show and drove to the dealership.
When the sales manager wanted to drive my Saab with me to assess the value, I blasted the radio, the fan and then talked a mile a minute about all the great features the car had. Heated seats, leather, power sunroof, blah blah blah. As the engine rattle grew greater, I talked louder until I was at a manic pitch. Finally he simply said, "what's that noise in the engine?" My shoulders sank, and I just whispered - "I don't know." I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window - liar! I thought. It's for the kids I rationalized.
Once I picked a new car out, I negotiated a deal then sent for my husband. "What are we buying?" he said. A 2008 Subaru Forester I said, silver. We both new it was perfect and we feel like new people. Grownups really. And they say money can't buy happiness.... I need a nap.

Glacier glacier what do you see....

I see a big boy standing in front of me....
We all went to the glacier today. Bodhi said he dreamed that we all went together and then there we were! The boys picked up sticks and pretended to fish for salmon. We walked through sticky silt and green puffy plants and Porter walked through a large rock river bed all by himself. He tested each rock to see if it was stable. When he made it across he said TADA! I did it all by myself." The glacier had obviously receded since we were last there.
We went home and they took a three hour nap. Then papa went outside to work on our hottub platform. Porter insisted on helping him even though it was really cold. I made spaghetti and set the table with small bowls for Porter and Bodhi and big plates for papa and Lucky. Porter came in and said, "Mom, I need a big plate tonight because I'm a big boy." Walking on rocks, helping dig in the yard. I had to agree and gave him a big plate.

Pillow talk and grape juice obsessions

One of our favorite pasttimes is lying in bed and talking. Yesterday Bodhi woke up and told me about his dream. "I had a dream that Mama and Papa and Porter and Bodhi... we all went to the glacier and saw salmon and sea otters and whales... it was sooooo pretty!"
We also had some unwelcome pillow talk in the middle of the night after a long Halloween night. We went to a storytelling at the museum that was very un-kid friendly. Her story was boring even to the adults and the story-teller was totally un animated. They had a big table full of cookies and brownies which Porter and Bodhi kept sneaking off too. I caught them trying to pull all the M&M's out of the cookies. Then we went to the mall which was a ZOO! It was pouring raining outside so it seemed everyone was there. We had a hard time keeping track of the kids so it was a little stressful. Then we went to dinner with our neighbors and friends Becky and Kim to Mi Casa mexican restaurant. The entire cast of Wizard of OZ sat at the table next to us with the cutest baby lion. Then we went home to trick or treat in the neighborhood as the rain subsided slightly. After a particularly scary house with a pirate and a coffin prop with a skeleton and scary music they wanted to go home. I begged them to go on (I wanted to meet some of my neighbors) so I enticed them with more candy. Porter said, "mom, I have tons of candy already" (he apparantly doesn't know what tons of candy is because his bag had a measly 20 pieces in it.) I dragged them to one more house, then we went home. In the middle of the night, Porter woke up screaming for grape juice. He repeated it over and over again and I kept saying no. (grape juice at 2 a.m.? no way Jose.) It was a nightmare and it seemed like he was possessed. I guess that's what you get when you eat tortilla chips and candy for dinner!
Today we had our first parent teacher conference. They had nothing but rave reviews for Porter. He is brilliant, end of story.