Five deep

I had to apologize to a friend today for missing an appointment that I had promised I would attend. I didn't realize I had missed my 9:30 until several hours after it was over. I looked at my calendar with my jaw dropped in that slightly stupid expression. How could I have missed it?

Maybe, just maybe, because I was scheduled five deep that morning. I had a 8:30 that went late; I had to be home since the house was swarmed with contractors-with-questions; I had to get the morning deliveries; my husband needed me to drive him all over SF and Oakland to get his car back; and, yes, the fateful appt that I missed.

I got three out of five. Not bad. That's my new motto: "Not bad = success". Sometimes all you have to do to solve a problem is lower the bar.

Locked in

At the end of the school day today, I peeked in Jee's classroom and saw him sitting in the story circle with his jacket on. This particular jacket is a stunningly cool yellow windbreaker that looks just like sunshine and Pikachu wrapped up together. We got it for Vee when he was in The Pokemon Phase. It is a thin jacket, but it great for cold weather since it heats up inside quickly. I wondered why Jee was wearing a jacket -- it is hot out today. When he turned around, red-faced and obviously overheating, his little hand motions explained his peculiar over-dressing.

He grabbed his jacket zipper and did a little Tug-Tug and made a big frustrated smile that showed all his wobbly teeth. He couldn't take his jacket off because he was stuck inside it.

Ha.

Things you never thought you would say in the average course of the day

Lately, I have been enamored with shifts in perspective. You know how one minute you can see something one way then in a heartbeat, your perspective shifts.

This evening, with no actual time to accomplish this task, I finished up my price checking on refrigerators, tried to buy a fridge at a local shop (but pretty little lady in pink wasn't going to get a good price, so...). I zoomed over to Costco, found one on an incredibly good sale, got it, loaded it into the minivan (yes, it was one bizarre squeeze), and then called my men to unload it. Eee tore a muscle in his shoulder early in the game. Vee and Kee did most of the lifting / pulling.

At one point, we had the fridge carefully positioned sliding slowly down the stairs to the lower unit. Vee and Kee, my babies were on the under side of the refrigerator and Eee and I were on the upper side of the stairs, keeping it from falling on them. Aee was inside the upper level of the house and she screamed like something is horribly wrong, "MOM, COME QUICK!"

What do I do? Leave my two young men to be squashed by a 400 pound refrigerator? Or go help my youngest child who is crying for help?

I pushed the fridge down quickly, encouraging all the men to "hurry it up!" and with the fridge at a relatively non-deadly spot, I run full speed upstairs, "What's wrong? What's wrong? Are you ok?"

Aee, in tears says, "My paper ripped!'

I experience a brief whiplash, then spout, "Aee, your brothers are being squashed by a refrigerator. Come help!"

The paper is forgotten and we go help the straining men.

It was a great day. When I woke this morning I would have bet a million dollars that I would not use the phrase "squashed by a refrigerator" today.

Counting pennies

I was cleaning up the kitchen tonight, realizing that my breakfast cost only 27 cents, my lunch only 75 cents and dinner for the entire family was only 3.50 (about 60 cents per person). Yes, I like to calculate out the percentages used, and yes, I do remember with surprising accuracy the cost of each item in my cupboards.

Breakfast = Indian lentils over sticky rice (amazingly yummy, especially for breakfast)
Lunch = a monster salad, my favorite kind
Dinner = (note that my teenagers made dinner since I was out) Hamburger Helper and rolls

For about 10 seconds I felt like pretty hot stuff, one careful cooker extraordinaire and then I realized *why* the food budget has been going well. Could it be because we just had to unload about $6k on new dual pane windows? Or because we dropped $1k on a new fridge for the rental unit? Or maybe because we have a looming big expense, probably about $30k for a new vehicle for my beloved.

Those lentil beans had better be good for the long haul.

Seriously, this might be the best diet plan ever.

What did you say?

Jee is in a Mandarain Chinese class and his teacher, an adorable teacher wtih 30 years of teaching under her belt, told me the other day:

"He has a good tongue."

All I could think was, "What the heck? You mean, maybe, he has good math skills or his writing is coming along nicely, right? What has his tongue got to do with it?"

She noted my look of confusion, and since her English is still heavily accented, she repeated, "He has a good tongue."

I had a look of utter bewilderment on my face, I'm sure.

She laughed, politely of course, and explained that most English speaking children have a hard time moving their tongues in the proper way to make certain sounds. Jee's tongue didn't have those limitations and he was learning the language easily.

The other day I picked him up from school and his teacher was speaking to him in full sentences, about 4 or 5 sentences worth by my untrained estimation. Jake responded with an equally complex answer, not a repetition of what she had said, but a unique, truly communicative response to her question.

I stood their with my jaw on the floor.

My immediate vision was of travelling to Shang'hai with him as our guide. In that little interaction, I saw the world open up a bit.

Aee is learning Spanish which opens up quite a few countries.

I know French which opens up Canada, France, and quite a few islands.

Vee and Kee are learning Latin so we can go to ... the Vatican city?

Doh.

She shoots; she scores

So, as it turns out, Aee is quite a baseball player. Eee took the little ones to the park today and when he came back, he said, "Hey, did you know that your daughter is a natural baseball player?"

Yup!

She's also a natural scientist, cook, publisher, writer, painter, teacher, etc.

Her strongest current interest is science, anything about "performing experiments" and "testing hypotheses".

The other day I was working on my laptop and she came over to me, brushed my hair back so she could whisper in my ear: "Mom... I'm a scientist. Did you know that? I love the world."

Then she pulled back and I saw that misty look of awe in her eyes.

Yup, she's a natural.

Paralleling the cyclist

On our way home from a party tonight, we had everybody in the car, plus two bikes and loads of gear. We had the windows wide open to the brisk evening air and the radio playing great dance music. We were coasting down Virginia, a nice straight road with a slight declining slope and intermittent stop signs. It was fully dark with the occasional street light. There was a cyclist in the biking lane right next to us and we noticed he was going at a good clip, about 30 mph. We know his mph because we paralleled him most of the way.

Aee read the speedometer and piped up. "Mom! Speed limit 25!"

I hear this from little Aee often, usually when I'm going >25.

Me to no one in particular, "Hey, biker, you're speeding."

Kee from the very back seat, "So are you."

Snickers of laughter.

So (remember, windows open) when we were fully parallel to said cyclist I said in a regular voice, "Hey, you're speeding."

With the cadence of a stand-up comedian, he said without turning his head, "So are you."

Ha.

We followed at a respectful distance for the rest of the way down Virginia. Go bikers!