hey you 80s kids! remember this?

look what nana & papa uncovered in the garage--and it still works and still rocks! owen's favorite of course is the mystery? button and after an hour of avid letter-ing he was showing me how it works: "okay mommy, now you listen and try to spell the word YOLK." awesome!

don't endorse hate:

the new grading

so i've been accumulating a list of things that change when you teach with a toddler... and as i finish the 2nd of 3 batches of essays to grade (in record late time) i quickly learn that grading is more about creative management. there is no more reading chair with the ambient music and a casual latte (with some microplaned dark chocolate on top) to prepare you for seventy three essays on why the new toyota corolla ad is appealing to "modern society" through "gender roles that nowadays have changed." or maybe that is just my fantasy, along with the typed comments for each student. but now i wonder: how many essays can i grade in thirty two minutes while sesame street is on, can i finish one while sitting on the stepstool on the bathroom while owen does "big poops," and will owen play with the empty office trash can (contents now strewn up and down the hallway)long enough for me to write "the most compelling part of your essay" blahblahblah "suffers from a lack of a clearly articulated thesis statement." ok, only twentytwo minutes left in sesame street and i still have two batches to go before tomorrow!

planet talk with owen

after watching the magic school bus rocket into space, owen's been dropping space facts all over the place and quizzing me about which planets are habitable and which are not. here he is working on our big space floor puzzle and chatting about why we couldn't live on mercury and why neptune is his favorite planet:

mommy: you are crazy, crazy crazy
owen: crazy, mazy, mazy

hockey night

Yesterday I went to a match between the local team -- Färjestad versus Brynäs, who are in first place at the time. The atmosphere was great, with the local team winning 5-1. Hockey is definitely the national sport here in Sweden, so they take it very seriously. Unlike the NHL, the game seems faster, the ref's don't tolerate fighting and step in immediately. The game was held at the Löfbergs Lila Arena, which people may recognize as the coffee supplier to IKEA. Pics:

the arena

sea stella

from 97 to 73 in 61 miles

so the dust finally settled on our week--and although we didn't find the rain (or make it to seattle) we found the sea. instead of coming home after school today we kept driving until we hit pch, cut due north a few miles and stopped at our favorite grassy park perched above laguna beach. after tiptoeing on the beach we picnicked at dusk with our wednesday friends and had a much needed friday night date.

a very blustery day

today i found myself digging on my bookshelf for joan didion on the santa ana winds. i'm pretty sure i did this last year as well, and yes, she had the answers and the affirmations i needed.

from "some dreamers of the golden dream"

The San Bernardino Valley lies only an hour east of Los Angles by the San Bernardino Freeway but is in certain ways an alien place: not the coastal California of hte subtropical twilights, and the soft westerlies off the Pacific but a harsher California, haunted by the Mojave just beyond the mountains, devestated by the hot dry Santa Ana wind that ocmes down through the passesa t 100 miles an hour and whines thorugh the eucalyputs windbreaks and works on the nerves. october is the bad month for th ewind, the month when breathing is difficult and the hills blaze up sontaneously. There has been no rain since April. Every voice seems a scream. It is the season of suicide and divorce and prickly dread, wherever the wind blows.

and i feel wind whipped, chapped, beaten and dry. this morning as i drove through the 241 that carves up the mountains between corona and irvine i blasted my way through dust storms, gripped the steering wheel as my little jeep swayed side to side as those santa anas slapped me silly. and when i got to class i felt for no explainable reason lonely and sad. one snarky comment from a student had me devestated. everyone i loved seemed desperately far away. the seventy papers i just collected seemed like the onslaught of a nasty desert storm. then i grabbed the didion and i remembered, chap lipped: right, october.

so i made an intense french press pot of some blue bottle coffee and cried for most of my office hours and sorted through all that guilt, fear, and anxiety. mostly though, i just needed some rain (and it didn't hurt to hear m.'s voice on the other side of the phone). and now i need to pack up and get back home--perhaps i'll watch some winnie the pooh with mr. owen.

antidote to wind:

here's owen's first school picture. really, could he look any more joyful? the preschool director told me it looked like he was riding a roller coaster, and his teacher laughed and said this is how he looked from the minute he ran out on the playground until he crashed out on his thomas blanket at nap time.

the economy is bad...

except here at Rolls-Royce. The orders just keep rolling in. It seem surreal that the day the US/Europe/Asia stock markets took their worst beating, there was a party (meaning cake) for employees celebrating a giant order from the British Navy. I took a picture from the local paper:

ummmm. ouch?

so while i was posting pictures of dinosaur poses owen was in the bathroom doing his "peeps." we've had a few conversations about gently closing the toilet lid, especially with his peepers so close by.
and then i hear a slam.
"owen! be gentle!" t
hen another exaggerated slam.
then a scream. "i smashed my peepee!"
and then hysteria.
so i rush into the bathroom to see owen naked and red and sniffling "my peepee i smaashed my penis."
there wasn't much to do but scoop up a naked and sobbing owen and pat him on the head and explain that some parts of our bodies are more sensitive than others.
"let me look at my penis. nope, it's not broken."
and then he rushes back in the bathroom (still naked) and very very gently open and closes the toilet seat.
whew.

dinosaur yoga

while sitting out on the patio, owen came up with these new hatha? poses:

ankylosaurus yoga:apatasaurus yoga:
tyrannasaurus rex yoga:

there was also centrosaurus, teranodon, and troodon (can you tell we've been reading our dinosaur books?)

because we could all use a little hope

the word in the house: SPOOKY

mom, owen tells me yesterday after preschool, it's october now and october means it's halloweentime! spooky means, according to owen: 1) "halloween in spanish" (yes, we've been watching mucho sesamestreet) and 2) "it's what ghosts are when they are trying to be scary and we just say BOO!"

so today on our tuesday at home we hit michaels and got our crafting supplies. we're all set for a month of spooky activities and today we not only hung our spooky pumpkin lights and our spooky wreath (ok, this is more mommy's craft--idea stolen from b.--but owen did pick out the butterflies for me), but we also made this awesome spooky house:

say UNCLE!

the last few weeks have been a bit crazy--the new quarter starting, michael's quick week home and the third crash of my increasingly tempermental laptop (naughty naughty vista). but we've had some great family adventures as well--my favorite of which has been lots of uncle time!

dancing with uncle sal around the roses:


playing monkey with uncle ryan:

stockholm

I spent last friday morning tooling around the city of Stockholm until my flight. I spent most of the time in Gamla stan or Old town. Really beautiful and fairly empty in the morning... Just the early morning commuters on their way to work. Here are some pics: