sierradog

every now and then owen does a sierradog check: "mom, sierra is OUR dog and he's my best friend and he lives with us. OK?". that dog's lucky the little guy has his back. i thought it was time sierradog got a little props and the oldschool fidfam fans got an update--he survived the "man clip" and his heart murmur and prostate have shrunk to give him a clean bill of health. looks like we get to keep that 85 pound dog for a while :)

here are a few of my favorite snapshots taken over the last couple of weeks:

if the bed looks a little snug it's because it belongs to my parent's 12 pound lhapsa-poo. but you know, sierra wasn't going to be left out.

waiting for owen to get his rain boots on. . .

after bath time--you can imagine who enjoyed this more. . .

sierra making himself comfortable in our bed. . .

these last two are my favorites--enjoying his favorite spots out on the patio, taking in sun like an old cat and keeping guard of the fort.

Fettisdagen or "Cream bun day"

actual email I received yesterday:

Tomorrow is a very important day in Sweden... It is Fettisdagen when we all eat a nice semla (a cream bun). Please join in for a "Semla party" in war room at 09.30.

sunday

lovely, lovely sunday. after what seemed an interminable three weeks michael is back home at the ranch and thanks to the mulhollands we had a date brunch--which i've decided is far better than a date night. what could be better than a leisurely morning over fresh brewed coffee, homemade blueberry coffee cake, crab hash atop smoked bacon scramble and beingets slathered with fresh strawberry preserves? perhaps enjoying it under a giant mulberry tree on the oldest residental street in california at the ramos cafe while swallows flutter (ok, they kind of dive) overhead making their way across the cobblestone streets to the old san juan capistrano train station. but really it's just the sharing a cup (or five!) of coffee with michael. after all, it is how our romance started (well, technically it was a breakfast burrito in the commons but i did sneak into the harrison house that one morning to leave a pound of daily grind hazelnut beans with a handwritten note on his desk...and there were those study dates at ihop...and the first french press i bought from the thrift store when michael came to visit). anyhow, after picking owen up after a playday with west we all worked the rest of the afternoon in the living room--me grading papers on the reading chair, owen and michael on their respective computers on the couch. that all work days could be this peaceful. . .

my growing gardener

while papa and i were potting and pruning some new lavender and lemon trees for the spring owen kept himself busy gathering all the lavender clippings and fallen soil. he then carefully "planted" and "watered" them in his own bucket. i see a new green thumb!

professor owen's mom

today i got my evals from my fall classes and i have to say they made me blush. really, they were awesome and a much needed boost to an otherwise sluggish quarter. this one i had to share because it's so not what i need on my cv but apparently one of my students thought owen worth writing to the dean about:

I really liked Cara, she was a great teacher and is very approachable. She made English 1C an otherise boring course, fun. she took things from outside class and incorporated into the course. I liked talking to her in office hours and she is nice to have a conversation with. I wish I could take her again. The essays were challenging but going to office hours helped a lot and she never got frustrated or annoyed and was always willing to be there. I will definitely come visit...and her son is SO cute!

so now when my file goes up for review it'll be known that i not only make a boring subject fun but i'm great for chatting with and have adorable pictures of my son lining the walls of my office. at least i had comments like "i learned how to develop a better essay" alongside--and i'm not making this one up either--"cara cardinale puts the c in cool." that last one though i'm having made into a bumper sticker ;) and these students haven't even seen racecar owen!

move over magnum

a couple of weeks ago there was a note in owen's preschool cubby that he enjoyed playing dress up for the lil' angels picture shoot. i thought nothing of it until today was the "viewing" and although nana had already picked him up from school we all had to go back after i left campus to see the racecar pictures. and all i have to say is somebody get this boy an agent already. . . because i think he outdid zoolander--he's got at least two looks! ok, two things: how the heck did they get him to hold those poses and look into the camera?!

tuesday morning

momentum

so i've started and saved a few posts over hte last week or so and i've got a list of owen-sims and fabulous photos and moody revelations but i thought i'd better just put something out there before i get caught in that twelve-year-old-diary mode where i my hand hurts just thinking about all the dear-diary entries i'm behind and i miss out on the right-now revelations. . .
like how reading olivia together at bedtime--although we'd read it together dozens of times (and now she's ever all the rage) --really was the "and i love you anyway" moment. because i have an ever-growing list of monikers for owen--from mr. moo to sweetbug--depending on which "outfit" he's sporting. he got such a kick out of discussing the red stripey shirt and the red sneakers and where olivia should wear them and explained to me that olivia wasn't really naughty for painting the pollock on the wall after going to the museum because the painting was on the wall too and she probably didn't have a garage with paper in it like we did and so she didn't have any choice but to do her special painting right on the wall. and then the "i love you anyway" just made us both laugh and owen explained that he would keep growing until he was ten and as high as the top of the book shelf and not to worry because he'd still be my guy even if he were as big as grandpa and that even though everyone should still love everyone we all got "love machines"--illustrated as the little space between his thumb and pointer finger-- from disneyland and the bigger we got the bigger our love machines were until they exploded--emphasized as his fingers burst apart and arms stretched high over his head. and that's pretty much it in a stream-of-consciousness preschooler kind of way. which is why i get the you wear me out but i love you anyway; or you wear me out and i love you for it. . .

Löfbergs Lila

Happy Valentine's Day!

I was able to blow off work at about 3pm yesterday, so I arranged to get a private tour of the Löfbergs Lila production facility. This is the coffee served in all IKEAs -- produced right here in Karlstad, Sweden. It was extremely fascinating, where they took me around from receiving the beans via rail, roasting, and all the way to packaging.
We got to discuss the initiatives behind making the site more environmentally friendly, such as re-using the heat from roasting the beans to the type of packaging used. The tasters were all women -- apparently women can distinguish the smell/taste of mold a lot better than us men. It was also interesting to see that they were stressed sometimes because coffee is traded as a commodity, they must make quick decisions on whether to purchase a farm's beans. I also got to meet Anna Nordström, the third best coffee taster in the world.

maybe a sign of things to come

SAS has announced that they are canceling my favorite route to Europe. Maybe this is a sign that my European work days are coming to an end.... we'll see. But I need to start looking for a different airline -- I'm thinking either Northwest (which I take a lot also) thru Amsterdam, or Lufthansa thru Frankfurt, or go United (from Orange County) to Chicago then SAS directly to Stockholm.

Bill Gates' mosquito stunt

Cara mentioned the TED conference earlier with Nicholas Negroponte. Bill Gates delivered a great speech to highlight his issue with malaria:

what happens when papa gets the milk

add straw and drink:

time to renew our npr membership

back in november michael did a post on the XO computer we ordered for owen as part of the one laptop per child foundation. on my way to pick up owen from preschool patt morrison on local npr station kpcc was interviewing nicholas negroponte, the computer's designer, at the TED conference in long beach--it caught my attention especially since we'd become interested in where in the world our donated computer went. so much so that i sat in the montessori parking lot for a few minutes-- if you scroll down to the "A Small Machine with a Big Mission" and listen to the segment, about 27 minutes in you'll hear "Cara from Riverside" call in (unfortunately you'll need a realplayer plugin) but of course i'm just wondering--do i really sound like that (and do that much umming)? surreal.

martha would be proud.

so as owen & i were in the bathroom he was peeking in the drawers and asked "hey mommy, what's this drawer for?"

"oh, that's stuff for taking a bath."

pulling out an old box of wipes and a tube of toothpaste: "no it's not." this should go in here (opening the top drawer) and you should put the label "jelly beans and toothbrushes and wipies and other stuff."

"i guess we need to organize those drawers better."

"yes, then you need to put a label on this drawer [still pulling things out that don't 'belong'] washcloths and letters and bathtub stuff."

"yes, that's a good idea."

peeking in the bottom drawer: "and what's in this drawer?" satisfied: "oh, that's swim stuff. you better label that too."

sand and pixies

it's raining now and lovely. even lovelier is the beach moment we snuck in before the clouds came (and after michael left and we really really needed sunshine).
and here i am--now "officially" stella's fairy godmother blessing her with sea spray and pixie dust. so here's our beach baptism photo: