Part 2

We left Seattle via ferry, and went to Port Townshend to visit more friends. The weather remained cold, but we'd reconciled ourselves to it by then. Dutch loved the ferry. I remembered how much I loved riding ferries as a kid. I still find it pretty darn exciting. This is one excellent selfish reason to have a kid; you can be excited all over again about things.
Port Townshend was slightly less cold and slightly less rainy than Seattle. We had a lovely visit, including a trip to the Best Park Ever. I also remembered how much I love beaches! Dutch found out how much she loves poking sticks on beaches.
We took the scenic route home. Gosh, they do some nice scenery on the Olympic Peninsula. I did not do it justice with the camera. (Cook helpfully pointed out that this may be due to my failure to follow the practices of successful landscape photographers. Ansel Adams, for example, did not take his pictures out the window of a moving car.)
Thank goodness for vacations, and for opening my horizons a little bit, and remembering that there's a whole world outside my tiny little circuit. I can't think of a way I could possibly live somewhere so beautiful (mountains! ocean!) and rural, since I'm not independently wealthy (yet), and I'm not sure I would actually to, what with all that driving and my personal distaste for everything related to cars, but it was sure nice to visit.Then we came home. It was sleeting while we unpacked, but the sun came out just in time to illuminate the tree outside our bedroom, which had burst into full bloom in our absence, and welcome us home.

Vacation, Part 1

This is pretty much the equivalent of the proverbial boring vacation slideshow. You'll have to settle for photos and boring commentary, because (eek) school starts tomorrow, and I've got a lot to do tonight! To make it a more exciting travelogue, I'm doing it in TWO installments!

First, we went to a state park sort of near Mount St. Helens (we couldn't get any closer, due to the season), and we spent the night in a yurt. It had electricity (which powered a light, a heater, and a clock - it was the lap of luxury!) and waterproofness, which proved to be VERY helpful.We tried to tourist. The visitor center was interesting; I learned a lot about the 1980 explosion, and we watched a cheesy movie. The weather was horrendous; it started to sleet and snow just after we started a little walk along a very pretty lake. Dutch immediately collapsed into a wailing ball of misery (see resilience, lack of). We retreated to the yurt and hid there for the rest of the afternoon. We went to bed at 8. Dutch was thrilled to sleep in the top bunk in a sleeping bag.We got an astonishing amount of sleep, in spite of the crowded quarters in the bottom bunk (in which all three of us spent the second half of the night) and the scary yelling guy we heard in the evening (the only people there that night were us and the campground hosts, on the other side of the campground in their RV). Dutch had a hard time sleeping because of the sound of the rain on the roof, and when she woke up in the night, she freaked out because it was so DARK. Urban kid. Rain pattered on the roof on and off all night, but in the morning it was quiet... because it was snowing.
Dutch threw her first snowball. She had acquired that balloon on our way out of town, and treasured it for two days. She named it Garth.

Then we went to Seattle, where we rendezvous-ed briefly with Rockstar Uncle and stayed with some friends. The weather remained miserable, but we had a pretty good time driving around the city and got pummeled at card games. In spite of the cold, the city was blooming beautifully. We saw a troll. Ducth was NOT convinced that it wasn't real, and refused to get any closer to it than this.
Tomorrow, the next and final installment, covering our adventures on the Olympic Peninsula!

The weather on vacation

Our vacation is almost over, and the overall effect has been cold and damp. The weather has been crazy - snow and sleet and general chilly dampness. I forgot my hat, and neglected to bring long underwear, and I regret this deeply. However, it has also been beautiful, and excellent for tea and sitting inside chatting with friends.

Self-Pity - the cure!

1) Three old issues of People magazine, read at the library. (Many important details about the lives of Angelina Jolie and Owen Wilson were revealed.)

2) One cardamom shortbread biscuit, bought at the bakery, and brought home to be consumed with #3.

3) Large cup of chamomile tea with honey and lime (no lemons were available - you do what you can)

4) Liberal dose of LOLCats. Seriously. Cook hates them, but they make me laugh SO HARD. Soon I think I'm going to have to get a mug with pictures of kittens on it.

5) Some sort of medication that claims to address congestion along with about ten other things. Actually, it hasn't really kicked in yet, but I have high hopes. If the label claims are any sort of guarantee, in an hour or two I should be able to fly while solving advanced mathematical equations.

My daughter is so beautiful that sometimes it hurts.

Things that make me want to lie in bed all day.

It's not the doing of the laundry that wears on me, or the washing of the dishes. It's the doing of the laundry for the 90 billionth time, the folding of the pair of pants that I've folded 90 billion times before, the finding of space in the overcrowded drawer for the pair of pants that I've put away 90 billion times before, the finding of the space for the folded-up clothes rack. It's the putting away of the dish I've put away 90 billion times before, and the knowledge that I will put it away 90 billion more times (I hope).

Also, it's the follow-up with every single thing I do. Sometimes it feels so difficult to do things that seem to be so simple for Normal People that I feel I should just be able to rest on my laurels - "Wow! Way to go, me! I cooked dinner/set up an informational interview/set up a vacation/finished the quarter/etc.!" - but somehow, it's never possible. There's always the follow-up dishwashing/thank-you note for the interview/packing/cleaning out the shelf covered with academic detritus to prepare for next quarter/etc. etc.

I'm not sure how I turned out to be the sort of person who is completely exhausted by the effort of making the main dish, and never has the energy for the garnish or even the side dish, but I am. And phew, that main dish totally fries me, every day.

I'm feeling just a tiny bit sorry for myself today. Maybe you can tell..

But hey! Vacation! Hooray! Must go pack.

Damn immune system!

ARGH! I'm sick! Right in time for vacation!

More whine with your meal?

Yesterday, all three of us were... hmm... not exactly at our best (jolly bike adventures notwithstanding). There was a lot of whining. Dutch has been even more of a drama queen lately, and when things go wrong, she usually bursts into genuine tears and appears to be utterly crushed. She sometimes announces that her heart is broken.

I think I've talked about resilience (the quality that allows people to persevere in spite of obstacles), and the fact that Dutch appears to have very little of it. Yesterday, that was extra-apparent. Her response to any challenge is to crumple up in whiny misery, and that's been the case all her life. Her playmates, to varying degrees, have always seemed to be more resilient (plucky, game, perseverant, tough, etc.). Not my girl.

Which is fine. Not everyone is plucky. Anyway, plucky people are kind of annoying, right? All that glass-half-full crap.

I'm pretty sure that Dutch's predisposition to nonpluckiness is genetic, and I'm pretty sure that we're not somehow driving her to it with bad parenting. I just wish that there was something I could do to help her learn some mental habits that would make her better able to problem-solve. Whiny-despair-crumpling isn't, in my experience, a very good way to get through life.

I figure, though, that she'll work out some strategies herself. She may not be plucky, but she sure is stubborn.

Finally, celebrating spring properly

I give you today:

Hello!

I'm back! The quarter is over, my brain is utterly fried, my teeth are ground down to tiny nubbins and I got five hours of sleep last night and spent all day today squabbling with Dutch over ridiculous things.
Because I am barely able to form sentences, I will use bullet points to catch you up on the excitement of the last few weeks:

• This year we are making our first attempt at Easter (the pagan variety, emphasizing gluttony and spring - Jesus is off the radar) as parents, and I discovered some key things about egg dying (things that presumably would have been obvious to anyone with more than a driblet of brain cells remaining in her skull). One, COVER THE TABLE WITH SOMETHING WATERPROOF. Two, don't refrigerate the eggs first, because they get all dewy, and the crayon trick won't work. Three, use white eggs, you idiot.
• I'm going to have a sister-in-law! Actually, I'm not sure that's the right term. Sister-in-law-in-law? At any rate, Cook's brother (Antarctic Uncle) is engaged (to Green Thumb Girl), and we're pretty excited.
• My office orchid (inherited from my former boss) which has been mangy and neglected since arriving in the office 14 months ago, is in full bloom! Four beautiful purple blooms, and I am so proud. I feel like I personally generated those flowers.
• Granddad came to visit for 36 hours. Dutch was so thrilled that she was speechless when he arrived, and then pretty much didn't stop talking until he left.
  
• Rockstar Uncle came to town! I went to the show, and took the opportunity to add to Cook's excellent collection of Rockstar Band t-shirts. (This is also why I got five hours of sleep last night. I told Rockstar that I was going to leave before the end of the show, and he said "But you don't have to work tomorrow, do you? You can sleep in...", indicating a blissful ignorance of the average wake-up time for 3-year-olds.)
  
• Cook and I both had job interviews. Unsuccessful job interviews, but still exciting and nerve-wracking.
  
• We're going on vacation! Mount Saint Helens, Seattle, and the Olympic Peninsula in five days. I'm so looking forward to it. I'm also looking forward to the one day when Dutch is in daycare and I am on vacation.
  
• I got all my textbooks for next quarter, and I think I should probably start reading them now.
  

I think that about covers it, approximately. I will write more when I find myself with a better grasp of English.

Urban girl, living in an urban world.

It seemed to me today that I encountered an unusually high proportion of noticeably peculiar people. On the bus this morning, I counted two people reading wacko religious tracts (sitting next to eachother but apparently unaffiliated), one transvestite, and three people behaving in ways that crossed the boundary of"normal" public behavior (including the guy sitting next to me, compulsively rocking back and forth, moving his hands in complicated repetitive ways, and occasionally growling in an oddly charming feline way). But none of them crossed the boundary of acceptable public behavior - nobody was cursing or screaming or being mean to anybody else, or ranting incoherently or even just being stinky (all of which I've witnessed fairly frequently on the bus). They were just a little... different. Even the lady in the white tracksuit who glanced suspiciously around at everybody else for the whole trip didn't see any reason to panic.

This is one of the many things I like about living in a city. Freaky people are everywhere, and that's okay (usually). It's okay to ride to work squeezed in with lots of other people who are Seriously Different Than You. It's okay to have your comfort zone squeezed a little along with your shoulders. I like to think that this is a good thing for Dutch to see, to learn that people can be peculiar and still be included in normal life. Whether or not she turns out Seriously Different herself in some way (and hey, who doesn't, in some way?), then she'll know that Different people are part of normal life, and are not to be automatically feared or excluded.

However, it's also one of the many things I don't like about living in a city. Riding on the bus or walking around downtown means having LOTS of comfort-zone-squeezing encounters, and sometimes I feel a little too squeezed, by irritation, anger, fear, disgust, sympathy, pity, and all kinds of other awkward emotions. Also, it's hard explaining to a loud preschooler why that guy smells bad and has pants that are all wet around the crotch.

Two weeks, umpteen billion things to do.

I'm in the middle of a two-week period in which I have the following deadlines/events (not in order of importance):
- 1 full proposal to a funder
- 2 LOIs to funders (What!? You don't work for a nonprofit? That would be Letter Of Inquiry, you lucky soul.)
- 1 meeting with a potential funder
- 1 job interview
- 1 professional informational interview
- 1 scholarship application
- 2 final papers
- 2 final presentations
- 1 final project
- 1 quiz
- 2 important work meetings
- 1 daycare potluck
- 1 playdate
- 1 St. Patrick's Day party

I just want to say:

Yikes.

Kudos to one of my two readers!

Yup - the book is Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. She wants to read the chapter where the rats get caught in the marketplace over and over and over and over....

New dress. Same old song.

She's singing a song that goes "race me down the mountain, Bo!"

Extreme strolling

Yesterday Dutch and I went for a walk. We had to leave Cook home alone with the computer for a while so he could work on a school project, and I needed to take some photos of the wildlife refuge for a school project of my own (really), so I decided we would walk the length of the park, as a roundabout way to get to the commercial area about a mile south of us. (A commercial area containing two toystores and the library, which was key for luring Dutch to come with me.)
As usual, Dutch was game about walking in the park - I assigned her to "scout" nice views and signs of spring, so she trotted ahead and duly reported all interesting features and events.
Unexpected bird calls = scary.

We were having a lovely time until we found a little staircase leading up to a sketchy-looking trail up a steep slope (to the mortuary, which is one story high at the top of the bluff, and a spooky, fortress-like five stories high at the bottom of the bluff). Because my school project addresses connectivity and walking-paths, I decided that we should hike up the trail. We did, past the base of the mortuary, the trash, the broken beer bottles, the rusty metal scraps with sharp edges... Dutch started to cry when we were half way up, at the exact same time that I realized that I had made a Mistake. It would have been worse to go back down at that point, so I kind of half-shoved her up the rest of the way, trying to speak calmly and cheerfully while silently freaking out about the fact that I was struggling to find secure footing for myself while propelling my large, frightened child up a muddy cliff studded with puncture-wound hazards.

But we made it. No problem. We were both a little shaky, though, and Dutch refused to eat her snack until we were half a mile away from the Cliffs of Doom.

The impressive part, though, is that Dutch walked three miles and climbed a minor mountain in sequinned pink mary-jane-style shoes. (They're a little the worse for wear.)

Treehouse

It's spring. In a few weeks, our apartment (on the second floor) will be surrounded by flowers. Portland just explodes with growth in the spring; the first spring we were here, I was overwhelmed with all the greenery and damp fertility. I worried a little about getting pollinated somehow (this in spite of the fact that I allegedly majored in biology) and busting out in these beautiful pink blossoms I was seeing everywhere. Not that that would have been that bad, really.

Anyhow, it's really lovely, and I'm looking forward to it. So is Dutch, who's suddenly gone all girly and wears dresses every day in radiant shades of joy (mostly pink, red, and orange, I mean).

A fun game!

Guess What Dutch is Obsessively Demanding To Have Read To Her!

The Clues - these are some questions we have been hearing for the last two weeks:
1)"What is the difference between a lab and a laboratory?"
2)"Why do people not like rats?"
3)"Why do some rats have to die?"
4)"Why are mice afraid of owls?"
5) "Why do people plow up the dirt?"
6)"What is a mouse doctor called?"

Backstage passes

Dutch has been talking about how she wants to see her uncle playing in his band (which is coming to town, and she's very bitter that I'm refusing to take her to the show), so yesterday I showed her a Youtube video of the band. I got her all excited - "Come see Rockstar Uncle playing in the band!" and we sat down to watch it. After about thirty seconds, she looked at me, perplexed, and said "They're standing still." "Yup," I said, and there was another pause, and then she asked "When are they going to march?" and I realized that she has believed, probably pretty much since she learned how to talk, that her uncle plays in a marching band.

Filler

I'm behind. Two homework assignments, three final papers, one quiz, and two presentations to go, and I'm swamped. I have no time to think or write anything that doesn't involve statistics or negotiation or urban design. So I am posting three pictures from a month or so ago in lieu of actual creative content. Enjoy! I'll be back ... some time...