We’re heading to Southern California for a long weekend, and in the airport security line, Angela asks Jan to take out something from one of the girls’ backpacks. (Each girl has their own backpack with stuff for the flight.) Jan asks: “Which backpack?” Angela: “The pink one.” Jan (looking around): “They’re ALL pink.”
Jan meets up with his brother Chris for a weekend on Catalina Island. Angela and Bree drive them down to the Long Beach boat terminal where they catch the boat over to Avalon, one of the two towns on the island. It’s a warm sunny afternoon, Jan and Chris spend the time poking around the cute little touristy area around the harbor while catching up on stuff.
Jan and Chris go sea kayaking. We have great sunny warm weather for it. We paddle for about an hour up the coast, and eventually put it a small quiet beach called Wilson Cove. We have our sack lunch there (the rented dry bag thankfully worked as promised), then make our way back. We occasionally meet up with seals that poke up their heads to check us out before splashing away.
Last full day on Catalina. Jan and Chris spend most of the day hiking a portion of the Trans-Catalina Trail. We leave straight from Avalon, walking up a twisty road to the trailhead, then walk along the dusty trail as it winds around East Mountain. The slightly overcast day makes for a good hiking weather. The terrain is very dry. Much of it is covered in cactus, mostly prickly pear, including some in flower. The trail loops back into Avalon via a back entrance to the town’s botanical gardens. Since we came in the long hard way, entrance is free!
Jan likes lobbing occasional bits of absurdity at the girls to keep them on their toes. After dinner tonight, Anya and Liya want dessert. Angela says they can have whatever they want, as long as they get it themselves. The girls decide to prepare bowls of ice cream with chocolate sauce. They get the sauce from the fridge, but it’s cold and needs to be warmed up. They’ve never used the microwave before, so Angela steps in to instruct them in the very important life skill of nuking food:
Angela: … Okay, now close the door…
Anya: Okay.
Angela: Now press “Time cook”, “1”, “5”, then Start.
[Anya presses the buttons. The microwave begins its countdown.]
Jan: Now run away to a safe distance and cover your head.
[Anya and Liya laugh, get down on the floor, and cover their heads. Angela and Jan do too. We all shout out the final seconds of the countdown.
Microwave: Beeeeeeeeeeep
All: Aaaaaaaaah!
Bree loves to splash in puddles, and today’s sporadic downpours make this a perfect day for puddle-jumping. On the way back from lunch in the village, Bree splashes in every puddle. The only way to get her to walk on is to point out the next puddle. She finally gets to a big, deep puddle down the block from our house, and spends ten minutes running back and forth through it. When she gets home and sits down on the floor of the foyer, a sizable amount of water pours out of her boots onto the floor.
Making it right: Jan spends a chunk of the weekend guiding and assisting Anya through the process of fixing the bedroom door she damaged last month. Since she broke it, she can fix it—and, hopefully, thereby gain some appreciation for the work that went into the house that surrounds us. We go to the hardware store to pick up wood putty and sanding paper. We fill the dents she’d made, let the putty dry, sand things down, then apply several coats of paint. (Thankfully we had plenty of latex trim paint left over from the remodel.) By Sunday night we’re getting pretty close, just another coat or two left to go. Jan’s hardest task is trying not to make the project seem like too much fun.
Anya turns eight! For her birthday dinner, she chooses to have gnocchi from Cafe Lago, followed by brownies for dessert (baked in Jan’s Edge baking pan). Her actual birthday party will come in November, with some friends coming over for a sleepover. Negotiations continue on whether she’s allowed to invite two friends or three.
Anya and Liya are nearing the end of their soccer season. The weather holds today for two good games. Anya’s team faces a formidable challenge in their afternoon game, but Anya still scores three goals!
We make our annual pilgrimage to South 47 Farm in Redmond, WA, to make our way through their giant corn maze (perhaps a couple of city blocks in area). Following a week of hard rain, the maze was really muddy! The maze contains a number of hidden locations at which you can read a “corny farm joke” and punch a card. The girls punched their cards at the hidden locations, and won a free little pumpkin each.
If you mention goldfish crackers to Anya and Liya, there’s a chance you will hear them start talking about “Goadfish”.
One day this past summer, while the girls were snacking on goldfish crackers, they began playing word games on the word “goldfish”, imagining other kinds of fish crackers that might be for sale: boldfish, moldfish, oldfish, soldfish, toldfish, etc. Jan proposed “goadfish” and explained that “to goad” meant to prod someone to action. He suggested that there might be fish in Lake Washington that liked to goad people into doing things. The girls thought this was absolutely hi-larious. Since then, we’ve invented a rather elaborate lifecycle for the theoretical goadfish, which goes as follows:
Goadfish are native to lakes near urban areas. Born in the early summer, juvenile goadfish learn from olderer goadfish to congregate near beaches, where they shout at human people on the shore. Individual goadfish will target a specific person, yelling various encouragements or provocations, generally suggesting that the person enter the freezing cold water. “Come on! The water’s fine! You can do it! What’s the matter?! Are you chicken?” These are all common calls of the goadfish.
In late summer, an older goadfish will begin prodding human individuals on shore to take the fish out of the water and bring it home. The goadfish will make various promises or threats in order to incite the human to do this. Once situated at home, the goadfish will further encourage the human to place it in a fish tank, ideally one where the fish has a clear line of sight to a television. Goadfish love watching TV shows and movies related to underwater activity, as well as programs that feature obnoxious characters. For these reasons, goadfish particularly enjoy watching, “Spongebob Squarepants”.
As fall approaches, young goadfish remaining in the lake gradually become aware of the cooling temperatures, and launch ever louder entreaties to the dwindling numbers of passersby on shore. Only the most artful juveniles will manage to secure themselves a comfortably warm home for the winter. Once spring returns, the goadfish will prod its owner to return the fish to the warming waters of the lake, where the goadfish can resume its summertime habit of provoking humans to enter the water.
Lake Washington is reported to be full of goadfish.
Anya gets braces. Her dentist and orthodontist agreed that doing some work now would avoid a lot more trouble later on. Following the braces, Anya’s well served by her impressive/alarming tendency to ignore physical discomfort.
Jan’s brother Chris is in Seattle for a quick weekend visit. He arrives on Thursday night (and is the first visitor we have who makes his way into the city on the new light rail!). In the morning he joins Jan in the car driving Anya, Liya, and their friend Kaila to school. Liya and Anya enjoy showing their Uncle Chris their classrooms, where their desks are, and some of their schoolwork.
Jan’s mom Lyn has been kept in the dark about Chris’ visit. Jan invites her to the girls’ school for their Halloween costume parade in the afternoon, where Jan, Angela, and Chris are waiting. Chris wears a mask to disguise himself, then calls Lyn on her phone. Lyn tells Chris that she’s at the Halloween parade, and Chris asks whether she sees any interesting costumes—like maybe someone in a mask. She turns around to see Chris smiling at her.
In the evening Chris, Lyn, and Lyn’s friend Larry all join us for a great meal at Chinooks at Fishermen’s Terminal.
For Halloween, Anya and her best friend Jane decided to make matching dresses. (Not that any of us knew anything about dressmaking.) No one’s really sure what the girls “are”, but the dresses came out great!
Beautiful weather for Halloween. Uncle Chris and Grandma Lyn join Jan at soccer games for Liya and then Anya. Afterwards we meet up with Angela and Sabriya for trick-or-treating in Madison Park. We’re also joined by the Nakanishis. Anya’s worried she won’t have time to get enough candy in the afternoon, and opts to just go as a (ahem) soccer player. Liya goes as Kiki, the witch from “Kiki’s Delivery Service”, complete with little black cat Jiji on her shoulder. At the last minute, Sabriya refuses her bunny costume, and goes as a “mommy”, pushing a little stroller with a baby doll down the sidewalk. Anya spends the night at her friend Jane’s, while Jane’s sister Katherine reciprocates by spending the night at our house.