Somewhere between the dishwasher’s rinse cycle downstairs and the moment I usually fall asleep is a quiet time of night where I listen to nothing after a day’s fabric of noise. In the middle of this spell, the silence is usually broken by a pair of great horned owls. One has a perch near the deck, the other a block or so down, and they rally back and forth for several minutes over this and that. It always makes me smile. I enjoy this time. Sleep follows soon thereafter.

A few months ago, a little toy truck of Ford’s awoke me in the middle of the night (in my BEDROOM!) with a shorted battery going BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP chuggachuggachugga and, without opening an eye, I lurched for the toy and chucked it out the window. I didn’t care that Ford loved this truck so much that he took it into the bathtub with him (explaining the short). I didn’t ponder how he’d feel about it’s sudden disappearance.

Well, he didn’t ask for it after the toy disappeared. But I felt the bad karma might return to me. And it has, with the BEEP BEEP BEEP sound of a reversing toy truck rattling from the forest floor below my window. It’s a little elfin hardhat area hammering away at my nerves.

See? This is why I am getting rid of all the plastic, battery-op crap. What’s a Waldorf doll going to do to me? STARE me to death with two beady little embroidered eyeballs?

A roll of drafting paper. $8. Bought me ten minutes of time to post the previous entry.

Friday was Funday, and we went to the thrift store to hunt for treasure. Or postpone cleaning the house and catching up on laundry. Either way you look at it, we discovered (among several other great finds) another pull-toy gem: a bouncy, lumbering wooden Stegasaurus. Chas walked it like a little dog while Ford and I bowled in the front yard.

It was another cool day. Ford ground up juniper-cedar boughs and berries with mortar and pestle, making forest floor to mix with glue and make collages:

This morning we rallied with haste to meet Michael Berenstain, son and collaborator with the great Jan and Stan Berenstain at BookPeople for a Berenstain Bears storytime. But a big black felt marker “CANCELLED” on the calendar greeted us at the entrance, and the store clerk informed us all that Stan Berenstain is very sick in the hospital, and Michael had to go be with him. So instead we listened to a spunky, cheerful tale of a Siamese cat who thought he was a chihuahua while making get well cards with crayons and construction paper.
Alis and I agree the real draw for the Berenstan Bears, for us, was their enormous treehouse home.

This morning we rallied with haste to meet Michael Berenstain, son and collaborator with the great Jan and Stan Berenstain at BookPeople for a Berenstain Bears storytime. But a big black felt marker “CANCELLED” on the calendar greeted us at the entrance, and the store clerk informed us all that Stan Berenstain is very sick in the hospital, and Michael had to go be with him. So instead we listened to a spunky, cheerful tale of a Siamese cat who thought he was a chihuahua while making get well cards with crayons and construction paper.
Alis and I agree the real draw for the Berenstan Bears, for us, was their enormous treehouse home.

This morning we rallied with haste to meet Michael Berenstain, son and collaborator with the great Jan and Stan Berenstain at BookPeople for a Berenstain Bears storytime. But a big black felt marker “CANCELLED” on the calendar greeted us at the entrance, and the store clerk informed us all that Stan Berenstain is very sick in the hospital, and Michael had to go be with him. So instead we listened to a spunky, cheerful tale of a Siamese cat who thought he was a chihuahua while making get well cards with crayons and construction paper.
Alis and I agree the real draw for the Berenstan Bears, for us, was their enormous treehouse home.

In which somebody stole Ford’s artwork and Chas’ right arm turned into a fin.

I’ve jumped onto Modern Quilt-Along. I figure that if I can make a generous king quilt then my brawny husband can furnish a proper four-poster? (well, eventually, Dear.)

For two weeks the kids and I have been de-acclimated to the heat. When we visited Houston, we immediately became A/C-dependent because the heat and humidity there is brutal, especially hard on active little kids, add plenty of mosquitoes along with it and you have a nasty cocktail for a grumpy mood.

Austin is not the hottest place in the world, although local news will run stories to sensationalize the heat, and describe the city as unusually hot, compared to elsewhere in Texas. Really, this is nonsense. Austin has cold springs and trees, even caves, so finding respite during the day isn’t difficult. The key is to stay out of the sun, which I should be doing anyway, but it isn’t necessary to stay indoors. In fact, I have begun boycotting my A/C dependence because I find it depressing. It makes me feel perishable, like some sort of walking dairy product.

This morning we “kept it real” in order to re-acclimate and drove (windows down!) to Bull Creek for a hike. The water was low, the cicadas droned away and kids were diving from the cliffs, making it a party. Sure, it was hot, but Chas sung in the backpack and Ford, well, forded the creek over and back again until lunch, stopping to examine pollywogs and fry here and there.

It’s easy to become victimized by the heat when air conditioning is so accessible here. When I listen to the sound of a window unit or a blowing A/C unit, I’m reminded of my first summer job. I was babysitting, and there I was, wedged between the television and an A/C unit, idling the midday hours while my charge slept. It was the first memory I have of being utterly depressed. It was such a brain-suck, I felt like lard.

I can’t sleep because I am getting my hair cut tomorrow and I’m giddy as a schoolgirl and I can’t wait because my hair is driving me SO crazy that I’ve almost taken the safety scissors to it but I didn’t because Angelique is wonderful and worth the drive to Houston with two young children under the age of four in the dead heat of summer.