Alaska: Day 3

(There may be some time travel involved in the next two posts. I am transitioning from one job to another AND I'm sick, so I'm allowing myself the gift of procrastination of pre-dating posts.)

Katmai Lodge is a true icon of old-fashioned park lodges. There's a big 360-degree fire place with ancient arm chairs around it. Old-school benches and tables in the dining room. And a permanent hot drink corner.

Darcy missed school for this trip, so we signed her up for independent study to avoid having her listed as absent for 10 days right at the beginning of the school year. She was ready to take a break from the rain and we were bear-jammed on the lodge side of the river anyway. Here she is doing her math homework with the Katmai poster behind her and a cup of cocoa in hand. About 15 minutes later, we rushed out to watch a mama and two cubs walking down the beach.

NaBloPoMo

Ah, November. The air gets cooler (and wetter, here). The days get shorter. And National Blog Posting Month once again rears its head. I had only the vaguest thought about doing this because, um, I'm starting a new job on Friday. "But," I thought to myself, "we DID just go to Alaska. If I posted a photo a day with a brief description, it wouldn't be THAT much work."

And then a friend asked me on Facebook and reminded me that I got her involved last year. 

So here I am. And here you are. Let's just do it, shall we?

Picture #1: One very happy Alaskan-born chicklet very, very early in the morning, waiting to board the first of four flights to get us from Medford, OR, to King Salmon, AK, on the first day of our Alaska adventure. As you can see, she is sporting an Alaska shirt for the journey.

Happy Birthday, Darcy Jo!

In honor of the end of Darcy's eighth trip around the sun, here are some pictures of Darcy for you to enjoy. Vaguely chronological, but fairly otherwise fairly random.

Ok. Now the computer made me do non-chronological, so you'll have to deal with it. Sorry. I've apparently broken it because it's being weird about letting me add even more photos of Darcy's first eight years. You might have to be satisfied with her first 3.5 years for tonight.

Hmmmm...What Was I Doing Eight Years Ago?

For those in the know, the answer might come quickly. At about this time eight years ago, I was being moved from the birthing center at our midwives' office to the hospital because our girl was being stubborn about coming into this world.

Can't blame her -- it was twenty or thirty below zero! Who would want to leave a private heated swimming pool for that kind of weather?

Darcy Jo is turning EIGHT tomorrow! Our girl is getting so big! Stay tuned for some pictures through the years.

The Braces

Day 2 of NaBloPoMo features a photo I wanted to post about a month ago, when Darcy first got her braces on! Our girl has been so tough through the whole process. Her orthodontist commented on it after he installed (?) her braces and she has adapted to the metal in her mouth amazingly well.

Apparently, the only person traumatized by her braces is me. Having never had orthodontics, I don't understand them and they look like they should hurt. Michael and Darcy hardly give them a second thought these days except for brushing time. 

According to Michael, the reason I couldn't post this earlier is that iPhone 6 broke his iPhone 4S. Ever since the new release, his photo stream hasn't been working properly, so photos aren't getting transferred from his phone to our computer. It's annoying, but a very first world problem. We had to do this the old new-fashioned way: Michael emailed me the photo from his phone. Or is that the new old-fashioned way?

Either way, it's NaBloPoMo, so rejoice!

Darcy Jo's First 5K!

I'm betting it won't be her last!!

We all joined in for yesterday's Mother of All 5Ks to raise money for our local domestic violence shelter. Del Norte County has the highest rate of domestic violence per capita of any county in California -- by a lot. Raising awareness of the problem is an important step.

So we took 5 kilometers worth of steps. Michael was planning on running the race, I was planning to walk, and on the drive to the start we told Darcy Jo that she could choose whether she wanted to run it or walk with me or some combination.

It will come as no surprise to those who know her that she chose to run her own race. We weren't sure what to expect because she's never run that far before or even done much organized running.

But she ran the whole thing in just under 34 minutes! The more-or-less official photographer for the race got some great pictures of Darcy Jo and Michael as she was coming into the finish line. These are pulled from Facebook, so the quality might not be all that good, but here they are:

Darcy Donates Her Hair (A Photo Essay)

A month or so ago, Darcy's music teacher donated her hair to Locks of Love and came to school freshly-shorn. Darcy decided she wanted to do that, too. She persisted in the desire, so we made an appointment and today was the day.

Before:

During:

After:

Way after:

Ah, Christmas On The North Coast

Four years ago, when we moved to Crescent City in the fall (for the first time), we stayed here for Christmas and spent Christmas day on the beach. Darcy still had curls (I miss them!!) and she played with a stick on the beach:



So today we made it into a tradition: Every time we move to Crescent City in the fall, we're going to spend Christmas day on the beach and take a picture of Darcy with a driftwood stick:

Yes, it was warm enough to be barefoot on the beach. I didn't even bother to bring shoes at all. She's taller, her hair is straighter, but she is still our beach-loving girl. With an afternoon visit with friends, she got her feet in both the Pacific AND the Smith River for Christmas. Life is pretty darn good.

Merry Christmas to all, and I hope you are making great family traditions, too.

It Was An Almost Perfect Day...

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon yesterday, I started thinking about what a great blog post I was going to have for last night. It was a gorgeous day, I had a very productive three hours of work in the morning, attended a lovely Thanksgiving potluck at Darcy's school, had a little free time while Darcy enjoyed herself at a birthday party, and then Darcy and I spent some time on the beach.

We wandered the sands and wondered about the odd arrangement of LOTS of seaweed, just in two small sections of the beach. And we watched an amazing sunset over Castle Rock.

It was all going so well. 

And then an hour after Darcy went to bed, we heard noises upstairs where there should be no noises. It was not a pretty sight. Poor girl was covered in vomit and we had a miserable three or four hours before her body was done getting rid of whatever had tried to invade.

That's my excuse for not blogging last night. 

And I'm blogging early-ish today because puking for half the night wears a child out and she fell asleep on the couch just before 5. I carried her up to bed without an eyelash moving and I will keep my fingers crossed that she can sleep straight through until morning.

Oh, But She'll Be SEVEN!

Three years ago, almost exactly, we went with Darcy for a hike around Mill Creek Campground. It's closed in the winter, and so empty, and we shared pictures of Darcy playing a leaf-tossing game and the amazing world of moss and fungus.

Yesterday, we took Darcy and a friend to the same spot for some scootering. It was sunny and they had a great time, and once again, there were mushrooms everywhere:

For one of the first times around here, we also saw lots of puffballs, long past their prime. The first batch were on this stump:

But then we were on the lookout for them and found them on the ground in several different places. There was some puffball-stomping; the cloud at Darcy's feet is the spore cloud:

But our girl isn't four anymore, like in the first picture. Tomorrow morning, she will wake up and be SEVEN. How did that happen? Our little girl is disappearing into a grown-up body, but at least she still thrills over seeing banana slugs and stomping on puffballs and riding her scooter through dry leaves. She's moving on to other things, too, like helping our friend Michelle-the-baker make the chocolate cupcakes with chocolate mousse filling, chocolate buttercream frosting, and chocolate shavings that are going to school tomorrow. (Sorry, KRECR!!) But here she is, two days from her seventh birthday:

Bubble Gum

It's possible we are somewhat restrictive parents. Darcy didn't eat cake until her second birthday and then it was an applesauce cake with almost no sugar in the cake or frosting. (We've made up for that -- she's had more than enough sugar in her life, but we started out well.) 

But one thing she still hasn't had is gum. I think. Although now that I'm writing this, I think I remember someone saying that she'd had a piece on an airplane at some point? Not sure about that. She got a piece of bubble gum during the trick or treat bonanza last week. Tonight, she got Michael to eat it and blow bubbles for her. She was unreasonably tickled by the whole thing and tried to touch each bubble he blew.

It's worth clicking on the picture to enlarge it to see her tongue sticking out of her mouth.

Our Girl!

It's a rainy day out there this morning and I thought I'd get my blogging done for the day before even getting out of bed. I have no idea how I'm going to entertain the girl today and I'm sad because my rain coat is out in the car, which is not helpful.

A few weeks ago was California Indian Day. Darcy had it off from school, but the day before, they had a great day learning about Yurok and Tolowa traditions. The newspaper gave it some nice coverage, including a great picture of Darcy on the front page. It was how a few people learned we were back in town! 

As I said last night, Michael's getting closer and closer with himself and access to cameras and such. Maybe tomorrow, definitely early Monday! So you won't have to make do with links to interesting things for much longer.

The Missing Picture

Michael claims the picture was on the computer all the time. I still have my doubts. Either way, here is Darcy reading at the library on Monday afternoon:

And here's a picture from the hike Michael and I took a few hours before the library trip:

It's a little washed out, but that's a cute red eft hanging out on the moss. We took a "hike" a few weeks ago that ended up being a tiptoe through the over-200 efts on the trail. This time, we saw a dozen or so. Very nice amphibians they are.

Better Late Than Never? And Better Random Than Not At All?

So, yeah. I've been a little lazy with the ol' blog recently. Sorry about that. Moving to Pennsylvania and job-searching for months on end apparently does that to me. I know that pictures are the easiest path to forgiveness in this situation, so here are some recent stories and pictures.

Our small beast (feline variety) was recently ill. Last week, she was listless and stopped eating, and when I took her to the vet, her temperature was more than four degrees above kitty-normal. We didn't get an actual diagnosis, but the vet said that it happens frequently to cats and they DO know how to fix it. Paige got a shot of antibiotics and a shot to bring down the fever. It took many more days than I'd like, but she is finally back to normal, as judged by my 4:30am wake-up kitty snuggle today. In better times, Paige is very fond of bags:

Darcy, in the meantime, has turned into a full-time bookworm. She reads constantly and FAST. In truth, many of her chapter books aren't very long, but she often finishes one on the drive home from the library. Or in the library, as seen here:
(Well, you would see that here if Michael had sent it to the computer from his phone, but since he didn't, you'll have to wait patiently while I get him to do that for a future post.)

In the meantime, you can have this picture of Darcy at her bridging ceremony. She is moving from Daisies to Brownies next year and these transitions are celebrated in style. Each girl walked over the bridge and then shook hands with all the Brownies, who welcomed them into that level. It was very hot (third floor of an Elks Lodge with over a hundred people), but very cute.

Many weeks ago, all of us volunteered at a Hands-on-History event at historic Millbrook Village, on the New Jersey side of the park. I told visiting students all about food preservation methods, Michael worked in the mill, and Darcy helped churn butter. Sort of. Mostly, she wandered wherever she wanted and harassed teenagers who happened to put on Beatles t-shirts that morning. But in theory, she helped churn quite a lot of butter. We were all in costume (mine was of the oversized-flour-sack variety, with an apron to give it some sort of shape) and had a family portrait taken:

A good time was had by all. I warned students about the dangers of scurvy on long sea voyages and explained that one way to keep bad bacteria OUT was by letting good bacteria eat your food first. I'm not sure they all bought it, but they paid attention. Except the kindergartners who were on their sixth station; they paid attention to the spider crawling on the sauerkraut. It was pretty.

And there is a very random blog post that gives small glimpses into our lives. In other random news: Darcy has hit the first pitch in both of her last t-ball games (they pitch to them in late innings, but go back to the T after five or six pitches); I picked 3.5 pounds of beets from our community garden plot today and many pounds of potatoes are not far behind; we had a full house with grandparents, aunt, cousin, and friends for my sister's birthday weekend; Darcy has become friends with both cicadas and fireflies this summer; we are having insane amounts of rain here, including some thunder now; Michael is brewing beer at a steadily increasing pace this summer; and if you haven't tried the game Qwirkle, you should.

I May Just Be A Careless Mother

There's a photo I've wanted to share of Darcy and Paige-the-kitten for a while. It is absolutely adorable -- a picture I will love forever. The problem is, the photo was taken just after Darcy got out of the bath and she hadn't yet stood still long enough to get clothes on her. Any clothes. So it seemed like a bad thing to put on the internet.

But it keeps taunting me in the photo stream. So I've cropped it and decided to share:

Paige, as you may be able to tell, will tolerate almost any action of Darcy's. She routinely gets flattened to the ground when Darcy gets home; gets carried around like a sausage, held tight at the middle; and manages to avoid biting and scratching through it all. Maybe the extra toes (seen so clearly in this picture) give her extra tolerance. Or maybe she just knows that Darcy is the One Who Must Be Best Loved.

Paige has had a hard day today. She got scolded by a squirrel for five or ten minutes while she was sunning herself on the deck. Then her terrible mother brushed and cleaned her. And then her even more terrible mother managed to (almost completely accidentally) pour water on her while watering plants.

Luckily, Paige has Sluggy to soothe her. Her favorite toy, for several days running now, is a plastic banana slug. She carries it around, tosses it in the air by its tentacles, and bats it all over the house. I'd say she's probably played with it for a cumulative two hours already today and there will no doubt be more. She's a cat obsessed. Do you think that she would hunt down real slugs if she lived in Crescent City? 

Oh My, How Time Flies

For anyone reading this who does not already know, we finally have a house! It's a townhouse, which wasn't really what we were looking for, and it's a rental (also not exactly what we had planned), but it is ours and it has all our stuff in it. After the almost-three-months of being what is classified as "warm" homeless, it is wonderful to come home to the same place every day and not feel like we're living out of suitcases.

The reality took a while to settle in: four or five days after we'd taken delivery of way too many moving boxes, I noticed my phone charger plugged into a not-very-obvious outlet and thought, "Oh! I'd better move that now so we don't forget and leave it here." And then I realized that we're not leaving! Whew!

I have a blog post planned about my recent reading. Between the book collections at the two vacation rentals we dallied in and my Christmas Kindle, I've made some progress on the infamous list of 100 books. It's all very exciting, but I'll wait to tell you about that sometime in the next few days. Tonight, I'll just present some pictures of Darcy and how she has entertained herself and us over the past few months:

During one of our stays at a comfy Staybridge Suites (we stayed at this particular hotel three different times, once for about a week and a half), we got some real snow. Darcy and I made a snowman. Really, I made it, because Darcy wouldn't wear gloves or mittens and so her hands were too cold to handle the snow. It was, according to Darcy, just about "Theo sized". It hung around for several days, even after the snow around it had mostly melted away. This photo was taken almost a week after we made it, when it had devolved into a snow cat. The next day, Darcy declared it was a snow turtle.

Sticking with our theme of winter fun, we had overnight park service friends as guests while at our first vacation rental. There was a large puddle/small pond that we had to drive through to get to the pedestrian bridge that led to the house. For several of the days we were there, it froze over with about 3/4 inch thick ice every night. Four adults and a six year old spent about 20-25 minutes breaking and playing with the ice. Because we really know how to show our guests a good time. Here are J, S, and Darcy with ice balanced on their heads, walking back to the bridge and house.

This has nothing to do with winter fun. We made a day trip to an aquarium to give our ocean-addicted child a fix in mid-November. Here, Darcy and Michael are in a bubble in a reef tank. The ocean addiction, by the way, having lasted longer than her usual obsessions, is waning. It's replacement: the Beatles!

There were weird trees in the community that held our second vacation rental. This one is growing over and around this leaning rock. Others grew straight out of seemingly solid rock. And at the entrance, two trees were hugging each other. One had grown completely twisted around the other over the years -- and they were not small trees!

That vacation rental happened to supply Darcy-sized snow shoes and we had PLENTY of snow, so she took a couple tries at that. 

And then last weekend, Michael and Darcy went to see the New York Philharmonic for one of their Young People's Concerts. It was my brilliant mother's idea for Michael's Christmas present. I walked up Broadway from Lincoln Center almost back up to Columbia, window shopping, and actually shopping at Zabar's and a couple other foodie destinations while they were concerting. Darcy got to compose a short melody during the pre-concert Kids Zone time, and a violinist came by and played it for her when it was finished! We ate bagels and rode the subway (a lot). Other than the joy of being with family and friends for the holidays, this was the first weekend that reminded me why we wanted to live on the east coast for a while. After the concert, the music-lovers detoured over to Central Park to indulge Darcy's newest obsession:

Resiliency

That's our word for today: Resiliency. 

When we picked Darcy up on her last day of school at Klamath River Early College of the Redwoods (KRECR), she came with bags of gifts from her class and after-school program, and a pea seedling in a plastic cup. The pea had five or six leaves at most and barely peeked over the top of the cup. We didn't have high hopes of keeping the pea alive as we drove straight from KRECR to Ashland, OR (Bed #2 for those keeping track), and beyond across this great nation.

The pea mostly lived in one of the back seat cup holders, where it got a little sun most days. On the first desert-y days, we watered frequently and took it into hotels at night to prevent freezing. In St. Louis, it found a cozy kitchen window with our friends for two days, high above the reach of curious cats. It lived for almost a week in my parents' south-facing windows and for a week and a half in the shadowy light of Bed #16 with the great view.

Over the five weeks (FIVE WEEKS) since the pea joined our traveling circus across the country, it has survived and occasionally thrived. It wasn't getting enough sun at Bed #16 and had grown pale, but it is soaking up the rays in abundance at Bed #17. I expect it to make a full, deep green recovery.

Like the pea, the pea's caretaker-in-chief has also demonstrated her resiliency over the past five weeks. She misses being in school and we hope to have her registered next week, as soon as we know which house will become our next permanent bed. She has put up with all 17 beds with grace and (mostly) good humor. She has entertained herself with a limited collection of her own things and has taken opportunities as they've been presented (anyone else been massaging fan-tail pigeons recently or riding their bike around a hotel's empty parking lot?).

We hope to hear today whether our offer on our first-choice house is accepted and then the pea and the girl can settle in for the long haul and put down more permanent roots.

Life Is Exhausting

I had this misconception that driving across the country instead of flying would minimize our experience of jet lag. But our driving schedule (and socializing schedule, to be honest) has meant that we haven't been able to take advantage of the gradual time change and keep Darcy's bedtime at a normal hour. And so, having crossed into Eastern Daylight Time earlier today, it was a struggle to get her to sleep by 10:15. Hopefully, we can start to fix this problem in Pittsburgh. It now looks like we may be there three nights, as all park employees are being told to ride out the storm at home rather than at work. We'll get updates about power outages, downed trees, and flooding and make that decision on Tuesday morning, I think.

And that's my extremely exciting blog post for the day. We had a great time in St Louis. Saw many, but not all of the folks we'd hoped to catch up with and some, but not all of the places we wanted to show Darcy. Pictures tomorrow unless somehow Pittsburgh is without power!

Darcy Jo Love

Our girl is an amazing person. We are her parents, so we would believe that no matter what. One of the things that has constantly amazed and touched me deeply is that so many other people believe that, too, and are quick to tell us and show her. She is truly loved by a measurable percentage of Crescent City's population. I say this not to brag about my girl (although I'm not adverse to doing so). I say this because I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of love showered on our Darcy Jo in the past weeks.

Michael said lovely words at our last dinner with friends on Thursday night. He claimed that he understands why people want to be friends with me, but is often surprised that people are genuinely and equally fond of him and his company. I think both of us could say that about Darcy. I sometimes think that our family is welcomed into society because everyone loves Darcy. We are merely her transportation staff.

Darcy's last day of school just confirms this view for me. After a wonderful evening with a dozen or so close friends and a night spent in the home of the ever-generous, gracious, and much-beloved Leonard-Rhodes clan (our house was empty), Darcy did early-morning yoga with our hostess and we all ate huckleberry pancakes (one last gift from our garden/yard). Then off to school, somewhat coincidentally in the same outfit that started this school year:

Her teachers and class showered her with gifts (which I have to find proper stowage for in the trunk this morning) and hugs. Our good friends at Vita Cucina shared their own daughter's birthday glory by providing cupcakes to the whole Cohort A that were for both B's birthday and Darcy's departure. More gifts followed from her after-school contingent, who has posed for a group picture earlier in the week that was framed and gifted yesterday.

Darcy's fans (well, one fan anyway) even met us at the school when we went to pick her up to be sure he could say a proper good-bye:

We have extended our fictive-kin family while in Crescent City: there is no doubt about that. Darcy will forever have extra honorary aunts, uncles, and siblings on the North Coast.

One of her friends went the extra mile, however. The beautiful elder Miss W was sporting a homemade shirt expressing her sentiment for the day:

And this proves my point. We all got bone-crushing hugs from Miss W. I personally got four, all of them long-lasting. But only Darcy Jo got the t-shirt.

Oh, how we will miss you, our Crescent City friends. Never doubt that. You will be welcome in our home always, no matter what national park is outside our doorstep at the time.

The Cake

Several months ago, Darcy mentioned that she wanted her birthday cake to look like a sea star. I figured that should be doable. I had thought about farming out the task to our local fabulous cake-maker, but she was unavailable, so I went in search of a star-shaped pan. That didn't work out. Nobody wanted to sell me one and I couldn't find anyone who owned one to lend out. I did find a silicon pan that makes six small star-shaped cakes. So I decided that the plan had to become a tide pool seascape.

Let me digress for a moment. There is a blog called Cake Wrecks that pokes fun at professionally-made cakes for various crimes. Like terrible mis-spellings or bizarre themes ("Sorry I peed in your bed" anyone?). Some of the cakes are very seriously disturbing, so if you like cake and don't want to have to bleach your eyeballs in order to enjoy your next piece, just take my word for it and skip the blog.

In between having all the elements for my cake complete, but before starting to put them together, a friend happened to post a link to a Cake Wrecks post. Suddenly, I had some fear that I was about to create a Cake Wreck. While the cake didn't turn out exactly how I'd pictured it, it was not a wreck.

Here's the main cake. It's a brownie cake with blue water frosting and an ochre sea star gracing the top. I should have taken a picture once the candles went in. About five or six months ago, we saw some really cool shark candles at a toy store. Hoping that Darcy's obsession with the sea would last this long, we slid some onto the counter while she wasn't watching. Surprisingly enough, the small ones mostly asked for pieces from the other cake:

Again, the cakes are brownies frosted with cream cheese frosting and the "sand" was three kinds of crushed cookies to get the mix of colors and textures just right. One of the party guests came back for seconds of sand, so I think it was a hit.