Thursday, November 30, 2006

Things you wouldn't think would be complicated

We decided not to get Robin's ears pierced when she was born. Most Costa Rican parents routinely pierce the ears of newborn girls, but I figured (and Alex agreed) that it was a personal decision and that we'd have it done at such point as she asked for it. Some women never do. And, aside from having to clarify to some people that our newborn child was in fact a girl, that was that.

So here we are, eight years later, and Robin has decided she wants pierced ears. We agreed to let her, but since it only came up a month or so ago, we figured we'd tie it to her eighth birthday, partly as a symbol of growing up, and partly as a way of putting Julia off when she says she wants to get hers done too. (She doesn't say it as often or with as much assurance as Robin, and I've seen those hands. They are just not clean enough often enough to share a body with newly pierced ears.)

I asked the mothers of a couple of Robin's friends where--outside of the neonatal unit--one goes to pierce ears, and nobody seemed to know. One of the other mothers is actually looking for the same information, so I told her I'd let her know what I found out.

In the states, my first stop would be the mall - Spencer Gifts pierces ears, right? And probably most jewelry stores. So when Alex and I were at a strip mall a few weeks ago, we stopped by a tiny little jewelry store to ask. Sure, we were told, there's a lady that does that, but she only comes in on Sundays. I asked what time, looked at the studs they had, and then, for some reason, it occurred to me to mention the piercing gun.

Oh, no, she doesn't use one of those.

Excuse me?

No, no. She just pushes them in.

Alrighty then. You have yourself a nice day.

After getting out of there, I kind of forgot about it for a while. Or maybe I blacked it out. Last week we were at a bigger, better, nicer mall and Alex reminded me that her birthday was coming up, so we stopped at several jewelry stores and kiosks there. Not a single one of them pierces ears or knows of anyone that does, although a couple of them asked why I didn't just do it myself. One of them said she's been looking for someplace to get her daughter's ears pierced, and has had no more luck than I.

On the way home, we stopped at a nice jewelry store - the kind of place where they speak English if they think you need them to, and where Alex and I got our wedding rings lo these many years ago. Again, very friendly, but again, no. They had heard, though, that a nearby pharmacy offers the service.

We didn't have time to stop by there that day, but I went in this week and, finally, was rewarded with a Yes. The lady who does it wasn't in at the moment, but she is available during regular business hours and, yes, she uses a piercing gun. The customer supplies the earrings.

Today I set out to buy the earrings, so first I stopped by to see if there was anything special I needed to know. I asked for the lady and was directed to a back room where I found an actual nurse in an actual medical office. Better and better. I asked about the earrings and she said any kind would be fine, although it's helpful if they have a pointed tip. I asked how it's done and she said she applies a topical anesthetic first. Excellent. I asked to see the gun and she said Oh, no, nobody uses those. You just push them in.

Square one, why do you look so familiar?

Apparently, people used to pierce ears with the gun, but because of the risk of infection, nobody does anymore. How, exactly, pushing any old earrings (and not even pointed ones) through a kid's ears with your hands is supposed to reduce infection, nobody has said, but the nurse actually mentioned HIV.

Fine. If that's the only way to do it, it'll have to be done that way. I'm certain that the nurse will use all medical precautions, and the topical anesthetic is a plus. But is she good at it? Can she get them straight and even, shoving an earring in with her thumb?

I know I can't change Costa Ricans' views on the subject, but y'all will indulge me for a moment here, won't you? The CDC knows of no instances of HIV transmission through tattooing or body piercing. No instances. That would be none.

So what to do? Well, we'll go to the nurse, I guess. But on the way, we're going to stop by Heredia's only tattoo & body piercing studio. If it looks clean and professional, we're having it done there. HIV is a non-issue. Regular infection is possible, but is more likely to come from her own hands than the rubber gloves of whoever does the piercing. And whether they use a piercing gun or simply do it by hand, at least at a tattoo studio it will be someone who has some experience, and who is used to being held accountable not only for the sterility of the environment, but also for the aesthetic of the final result.

And like Alex says, if she's watching some hairy guy tattoo a skull and crossbones on a biker, she'll be so distracted she won't feel a thing.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

...or do I?

The phrase "The Meal Formerly Known as Pizza" keeps going through my head as I microwave my leftovers. I wish I had a good story to go with it.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Put a word in

OK everybody, here's where you come in.

I just got off the phone with the owner of an online travel agency, who knows the owner of another similar agency, who both want to promote the quilt retreat.

The retreat, for those of you who may be new here, is a project that my partner Rita and I developed together.

I first met Rita over the phone (she responded to an ad Alex made me put in the newspaper, but that's a story for another day) about two and a half years ago. We must have talked for close to an hour on that first call, and we discovered that each of us had already been toying with the idea of creating some kind of quilt retreat.

We met in person at a meeting that was being held to organize an international quilt show, but didn't have much of a chance to talk that day, so Rita invited me to a social gathering at her house the following week. I stayed on when the other guests left at noon, and by the end of the afternoon, we had the retreat pretty well mapped out, including the tours we would offer and a first pass at the menus. Rita's property already included three cottages that she rents to tourists, so the lodging was a non-issue. I designed some Costa Rica-themed quilt blocks, and we had ourselves a retreat.

Of course we wouldn't know how it would all come together until we actually hosted one. We were prepared to have to make some changes after the first time out, but you know what? Our biggest "problem" turned out to be that we had chicken two nights in a row. We have made some adjustments since then - moving the workspace, getting the patterns into electronic form and switching one of the tour destinations for a better one - but the core of the thing really hasn't changed.

Rita and I both love doing it. We've got pricing that guests find fair and that works for us. Everyone who has ever come has gone home happy.

But. It has been soooo hard for us to get the word out. A week-long vacation in a foreign country isn't an impulse buy, and although we get a small but steady stream of visits to our website, actual reservations are very few and far between.

So when I say that I just got off the phone with the owner of an online travel agency who wants to promote our tour (and who, by the way, particularly works with church groups which, hello, are pretty much the ideal clients for a quilt retreat), you understand that this could represent a turning point in my fledgling career.

What do I need from you? Whatever you've got. Happy thoughts, if that's your style. Prayers, if you prefer. Good vibes, if you swing that way. Send 'em if you got 'em, people. Baby needs a new set of retreat reservations for Christmas!

Monday, November 27, 2006

So? Was it worth it?

This whole posting every day thing hasn't been too big a deal, most of the time. But it's beginning to look like three weeks may be some kind of limit. I swear, I just don't have anything to say - and I'm not sure how many more times I can get away with recycling old photos.

But it's not quite over yet, so here's what I've got:

  • We had a flat tire yesterday. We changed it. My white shirt got dirty.
  • The girls had to take their immunization records to school today so a nurse could come in from the local clinic and give any shots that were due. They were both pretty freaked out about it, but Alex helped them calm down by offering cake. And ice cream. And videos. And a movie in a theater.
  • Alex's computer got a virus last week. It was so bad that all they could do was format the hard drive and re-install Windows. I'm glad that's never happened to me.
  • We went out for lunch with the girls yesterday. There was a swing set outside and a golf course nearby. The girls each found a golf ball and had a contest to see whose could go the farthest after rolling down the slide. Alex and I played the last round and I beat them all, but not by much.
  • We saw March of the Penguins last night. It was as good as they say, and it sure made me glad I'm not a penguin.
  • Robin's birthday is next week. She's having a sleepover.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Grow [up] with me, the best is yet to be



















































Saturday, November 25, 2006

Easily impressed

I guess it's nice to know that if I ever feel the need to look like "a real mommy," all it's going to take is jeans and a sweater. All I can figure is that since all my other jeans are light blue, these ones not only looked different, but maybe newer as well. Or maybe it's the lower-cut top - although they've seen me in it before, and without a sweater over top of it.


(For some reason I keep thinking about toddlers who get a big, expensive present and spend the rest of the day playing with the box...you never know what'll strike a kid's fancy.)

Friday, November 24, 2006

Guess whether they were allowed to have candy after lunch. Go ahead, guess.

I got a new pair of jeans at the thrift store yesterday. They're not exactly painted on, but they are tighter than the ones I usually wear.

I decided to wear them to Rita's Thanksgiving party tonight; I usually wear a dress--it's the one time all year that I do--but it's been chilly and Rita's version of Thanksgiving dinner is served outdoors at 10:00 pm, so I figured the jeans would make more sense this year.

Wanting something nice to go with them, I went to a larger thrift store after the gym this morning. I picked out a red sweater that somehow manages to be not only soft and floppy, but also somewhat form-fitting. I thought I'd wear it with a stretchy black top with spaghetti straps that I already had at home.

When I got home, I decided to go ahead and try it all on, just in case something didn't look right. It looked fine, so I went downstairs to show Alex. But I couldn't because before I was even off the stairs I was surrounded (you wouldn't think it would be possible for a grown woman to be completely surrounded by two small girls, but it is) by Robin and Julia jumping up and down and running circles around me in opposite directions.

Girls: Mommy! Mommy! You look so.... So....
Me: So...what?
Robin: You look so... You look so...
Me: Yes?

Julia:
You look beautiful, Mommy.
Me: Thank you. I didn't think I looked very different.
Julia: You don't look different. You look good.
Me: Well, thank you.

Julia:
You look like a real Mommy.
Robin: Can you wear that for my birthday party?

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Oh, Boo Hoo

It's cold in Costa Rica this week.

Last night the human-interest news show Alex was watching did a segment on what they tried to call a little fashion trend in scarves and gloves. They had shots of people walking around with hoodies and scarves and things. It lost a little of its impact when one of their examples was a tank-topped mom adjusting the knit hats & scarves on her two little kids. But still.

I was glad to hear it, because I was really cold yesterday. I usually put on a flannel shirt in the evening, but I finally went to the closet and topped that off with fleece. It's really windy outside, which of course makes it feel colder, but all the windows were shut and I don't think wind chill can actually lower the temperature inside a house.

I felt like such a wimp until I heard on the radio this morning that yesterday they did have the lowest November temperatures of the past 11 years. So that's something. It went down to 12 degrees Celsius in San Jose which, since 0 is freezing, must be pretty cold, right? Umm. Yeah. I just checked. 12 Celsius is 54 Fahrenheit.

I'll be shutting up now.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

All together now, "Wha...?"

So I'm standing out by the car, doing my best to help Alex get out of here quickly so he won't be late to pick up the girls.

I'm contemplating whether it's worth trying to talk him out of checking the oil (Now? Right now? Really?) and loading up three tree stumps. (He's been wanting to take the stumps down to his mother's house for over a week now, but thus far has only ever managed to mention it twice; the first being last week when it was dark and pouring rain and I gently [well, you know] suggested that there might be a better time for it. [Clearly there was, and it was this afternoon, when he was already running late to pick up the girls (having just barely made it through his grueling morning schedule of talking on the phone and asking me for favors.)])

I decide that helping him do it quickly will probably work better than trying to convince him that anything that's waited all week can wait one more hour.

(I know, there is nothing at all extraordinary about the picture I've painted here. Bear with me for just one more line if you would.)

So then Alex walks out of the house with the spare quart of oil, hands me a snake bite kit, and heads over to pour the oil into the reservoir, which I have opened in anticipation and efficiency.

Now he's over there, visibly accomplishing something productive while I'm left standing in the yard with a snake bite kit in my hand.

*whimpers*

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Things that don't happen every day, but did, today

(In addition to getting junk mail in my sleep)

  1. Small earthquake during breakfast (really just a tremor).
  2. Weather report calling for 50-60 mph winds in parts of Costa Rica.
  3. Garbage truck picked up garbage at our house, proceeded down street, had accident on one-lane bridge just before main road (out of sight and earshot). Still there 1.5 hours later, requiring roundabout way to school.
  4. Equipped with working scanner and manufacturer's installation disk, I was unable to install new hardware on my computer. Me! Unable!
  5. Phone call from my sister, who has been keeping an eye on ticket prices for her trip down next year, and who suddenly found tickets for 40% less than she expected to have to spend.
  6. Biggest, fattest rainbow EVAR in the sky this afternoon.
  7. Two-car collision on main road, requiring careful maneuvering off shoulder, around accident and back onto road on way to pick up girls from school.
So. What's different about YOUR world today?

A bit much

Last night I dreamed that someone sent me a stupid joke in the mail. It was in Spanish. I spent my dream reading this stupid joke. I don't remember the joke or the punchline, which I think was in English for some reason, but I do remember thinking that it wasn't very funny.

I wish people wouldn't waste my time by sending me things like that, but in this case I'm not sure who to complain to.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Not much to say

So let's look at pictures instead.

Baby Robin


Baby Julia


Robin age one-ish


Julia age one-ish


Robin age two-ish


Julia age two-ish


Robin age two and a half-ish


Julia age two and a half-ish


Robin age three-ish


Julia age three-ish


Please note the new "Photos" tag, for any post containing pictures.

(Er, never mind. I just tried it out and you only get the first however-many [out of 111 posts with the "Photos" tag], so I don't know about that. We'll probably figure it out eventually.)

(And now we have. I had to update my template [which, it turns out, didn't require changing the style much at all]. Now when you click on a tag, you get ten or so posts with that tag and, at the bottom of the page, links to older or newer ones.)

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Remote Inquiry [A 60-second play in four acts]

[Telephone Rings]

Jennifer: [On phone] Hello?
Yolanda: Jeni. Can you ask Julia where she left the remote?

Jennifer: [Covers mouthpiece] Julia! [Walking downstairs] Julia!
Julia: What?
Jennifer: Abuela wants to know where you put the remote control.
Julia: What remote control?

Alex: I know where it is.
Jennifer: [Looks at him expectantly]
Alex: [Holds out hand impatiently for phone]
Alex: [On phone] Mamá, I put it on top of the... [walks out of room, still talking on phone]

Robin: [Runs into room from other direction] Papi, papi, I took the remote!
Robin: [On phone] Hi Abuela. I took the remote off of the...

Pretty painless

Well, that was simple enough. For a while now, Blogger has been inviting me to switch to their Fancy! New! System!, Blogger in Beta, and the reminders were getting pretty insistent.

I didn't do it before because there was a bug that made it hard for Blogger users who have not yet switched to Beta to leave comments. But that's cleared up now and I don't think the remaining issues will affect anyone. Actually, I don't think most casual readers would have noticed at all - most of the differences have to do with features related to posting, formatting and managing the blog, not reading it.

There is one new thing, though, that you may enjoy. Posts can now be tagged with labels, and you can click on a label to find other posts that I have put into the same category. I assume I'll be able to go back and retroactively tag existing posts, although we probably shouldn't assume that I'll do it. But I might!

Edited to add:

Well, I've added labels to a lot of posts, and learned a couple of things.

First, if you click on the label (which I would rather call a tag) at the bottom of a post, it won't take you to a list of similarly-tagged posts, like I assumed it would. Instead, it will filter the blog so it displays every post with that tag (all on one page), and none of the others.

Second, I will be able to add a list of tags to the sidebar, but not until I update my template to the new system, which will probably involve at least a minor change of style, and possibly a redesign (if I feel like it at the time). But I'm not doing that today.

Tags I have applied retroactively so far:

  • Bandwagon (32)
  • Blogging (14)
  • Car Trouble (15)
  • Costa Rica (40)
  • Day in the Life (8)
  • Kids (108)
  • Quilting (17)
  • Translation (8)
Most are self-explanatory. Bandwagon is for memes, quizzes, and posts where all I do is link to something someone else wrote.

Feel free to let me know if you notice a mis-tagged post, or one that should be in a particular category but isn't. I did it on the basis of a list of all posts (289 to date, in case you've lost count), but I didn't pull up and re-read each and every one. I peeked into the ones I didn't recognize by their titles, but I could have missed something.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, actually, it's a bird.


Click here for photo credits

This is a motmot. In Spanish, it's called a pájaro bobo, which I don't think is very nice, since it pretty much means "dumb-ass bird."

We see them around the neighborhood sometimes. Not as much as the little sparrow things and the clay-colored robins that come and steal pieces of dog food, but if you take a walk around and look up into the trees, they're out there.

There was one sitting on our front gate yesterday morning. Right at dog nose level too, but the dogs were busy lying around the front steps and didn't notice.

I got to hold one once. It hit our front window and fell to the ground, where it was scooped up by Emily (that's the dog). Fortunately, I heard the crash and went outside in time to remove it from her mouth.

It was limp, but breathing, so I took it inside and held it for a while. After 10 or 15 minutes, it seemed to have recovered, so I took it down to the gate, put it through the bars, and opened my hand. It looked around for a second and then flew away, swooping a little toward the street and then lifting effortlessly up and over the wall on the other side.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Can you hear me now?

Dear Dad,

It is our considered opinion that you might find a way to check E-mail or this blog in the course of waiting for one or more flights to arrive, depart or become available.

Should you, in fact, read this post at a time when it would make a difference, please be advised that your wife, both daughters and son in law are in agreement re the following: Go to Kentucky. Go directly to Kentucky. Do not pass NC. Feel free to collect $200 should the opportunity arise.

Mom is at home and expects to get to Lisa's around 8 tomorrow morning. Lisa and Scott will be home as soon as they get back from (not) picking you up in Charlotte. If you have anything to report and can't get in touch with any of them, they suggest leaving word at the hotel. (I have the number too in case this ends up involving me.)

Happy trails!

Love,
J, L, S & C

There might be something to it after all

We seasoned international travelers get a little blasé about the whole "two hours before the flight" thing. I mean, you don't want to cut it too close or anything, but two hours and, in some cases, three...it's a pretty significant cushion.

There's the whole "what if a lot of flights are scheduled around then?" roulette. There's the "what if we get stuck in traffic?" chapter. But on the whole, you know it's a rule made with the worst-case scenario in mind and, after 20 years of international travel and who knows how many flights, you take that into account.

I'm not even sure what the official word was on how early Dad was meant to be at the airport for his flight today. We decided on a departure time from the house that would get him there a little less than two hours ahead, but nothing extreme.

But this morning he went online to check the flight status - something I've finally learned to do when picking someone up, but which I rarely bother with before a departure. Turned out they already knew his flight would be leaving late, because it had left late from Nashville, or wherever it originated. Normally, this wouldn't make much of a difference, but it cut his layover down to something like 20 minutes, which clearly wouldn't be enough for customs, immigration, baggage (re)check, and security to get back to the gate area.

He got on the phone to the airline (and my sister, and my mother) and eventually worked out a plan. By the time he had it figured out, it was pretty much time to go - past the original departure time, but about right for the delayed flight which, it turned out, was a little less delayed than originally reported. But still, he would be there about an hour and a half ahead, which is comfortable enough.

You can see where this is going, right? There was a traffic jam on the way to the airport, and we lost about 20 minutes. When he got to the airport he had to pay the departure tax before getting in line to check in.

The check-in line was easy to find, but very long and not moving. And then after 10 minutes, the signs up front changed from US Airways to another airline and another flight, and the line started moving again. He asked around and eventually found a US Airways office where he, along with six other people in the same boat, was told that, although the flight had not yet left, they were unable to check anyone in within the one hour leading up to flight time. (Not a US Airways policy, by the way, but a Costa Rican Airport policy.) They were veddy veddy sorry, but there was nothing that could be done. And that was it.

Because he doesn't have the flexibility to leave tomorrow, he had to go buy another ticket on another airline. He'll get to Miami sometime tonight and see what he can do from there.

Let's all wish him good luck tonight!

The girls rode along to the airport. Julia doesn't take regular naps anymore, but afternoon car trips do still have this effect on her.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Retraction and update

Retraction
Well, I think I may have lied to you about the Thanksgiving turkeys, which I said the other day are imported specially for the expats and priced at close to $100. Yesterday I was at PriceSmart and they had frozen turkeys for $35. They weren't very large, but I'd hate to be responsible for all of you going around thinking that Costa Rica was price gouging on turkeys, so there you have it.

Update
Also, yesterday I asked the guy at the pet supply store about the cat. All three guys in the store thought it was a pretty funny story, but none of them had any ideas. I went ahead and bought the cat food, and last night I put out both - cat food in her regular dish and dog food in a little dish off to the side. She dived right into the cat food, ate her fill, and ignored the dog food. And yowled twice during the night. I'm thinking about doing a little experiment - cat food for the next few days, and then dog food one night to verify the correlation. You know, scientifically.

Emjaybee, I've actually come to the same conclusion - that she yowls so loud partly because she can't hear herself very well. She does meow at a normal pitch once in a while, but not very often. It doesn't help that our living room has a vaulted ceiling and hard tile floor. It's the echo that gets you.

Sandy, don't worry, they're actually only 50-pound bags, and we buy them for the dogs anyway. Your theory about the cat caring about the dogs is sweet, but I don't really think that's it. First of all, the dogs never come in the house and the cat (ever since we got that last dog) never leaves it. And secondly, aside from humans, the cat pretty much hates all living things (including her own kittens, back in the day).

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Any thoughts?

I've mentioned this before, but I'm going to say it again in hopes of some actual input. Please, don't hold back. Any and all suggestions are welcome.

Here's the thing. My cat is bonkers. For a long time I thought she was deaf, because she doesn't respond to sounds, including the sound of me shaking the cat food container. After a while, I did see her occasionally twitching her ears or casting a bored glance in the direction of certain sounds, so I concluded that she's not deaf, she's just a cat. OK.

She's gone through a number of irritating habits, but fortunately most of them have been self-limiting. Walking on the kitchen counters. Sleeping on our beds and clawing the quilts. Even throwing up hairballs has diminished lately.

But her most obnoxious habit is never-ending. Several times a day and, more to the point, two to three times a night, this cat starts screaming. It's not a meow. It's not a howl. I've called it a yowl, which it is, but it's a yowl that sounds like she's giving birth to Rottweilers, three at a time. She only ever does it for 20 or 30 seconds at a time, so by the time I get over to where I can see her, she's just sitting there placidly, looking bored. If I approach her, she perks up and leads me to her food dish, which is invariably well-stocked. (The yowling is more frequent if she has a food of which she disapproves or on the odd occasion that she has run out of food or water, but that's rare.)

All of that we knew before. Here's the latest development: two days ago, I discovered we were out of cat food, and it was already too late to go to the store. The whole cat thing has become a very sensitive issue for Alex lately, so I resigned myself to a long, curse-ridden night. I did put some dry dog food in the cat's dish, since I've seen her sniff or nibble that on occasion, but I knew she wouldn't go for it, not really.

And that was the first night in a long, long time that she hasn't woken up the entire household with her agonized yowling. And then, I actually failed to get cat food yesterday (what with the volcano trip) and, although she did pipe up once before bedtime last night and once this morning, we all slept through the night for a second night in a row.

What to do?

(Dad suggested we go right out and buy a 100-pound sack of that dog food. If that fails, I couldn't help but add, we can always drop it on her.)

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

My big, green neighbor to the east

So yesterday we learned that the Irazú Volcano is just 16 miles from my house, as the crow flies. Not having a crow available to us, we took the long way around - 45 miles, to be exact, which makes for a trip of about 2 1/2 hours (that's not including the photo ops, coffee breaks and, er, possibly a wrong turn at one point.)

This first picture is when we were maybe halfway there - see the dot I put near the middle? That's about where my house is.


These large plants (known, unsurprisingly, as "poor man's umbrella") are a common sight at the volcanoes. I think it has less to do with the fact that there's a volcano nearby than that the elevation of the craters creates a climate that's good for this species. (I've seen larger ones, by the way.)


Walking up to the crater's edge...


...and the view from the top.



Actually, this is the view from the top - we drove around to a point far above the crater, where you can look down on the big stretch of volcanic ash and, if you look closely, the fence along the left hand edge of it, where I stood to take the other picture.


Monday, November 13, 2006

What I learned today

Dad and I are planning a day trip for tomorrow and chose the Irazú Volcano as our destination. (He's already been to the Poas Volcano, which is also one of our stops on the Quilt Retreat.)

If you know Google Earth and you know my Dad, you know they're a match made in heaven and this was the perfect opportunity to introduce them.

After we had fun flying to my house, Lisa's house, the house Dad grew up in, etc., we checked out the Grand Canyon and, eventually, tomorrow's destination. Once we found it, I zoomed out a little and was surprised to see the placemark for my house pop up on the left side of the screen.

I figured I had zoomed out farther than I intended, but of course took the opportunity to measure the distance between the two. Imagine my surprise to find that Irazú is just 16 miles from my house in one direction, and Poas 15 miles in the other. (I knew we were close to the Barva volcano [6.5 miles, as it happens], but that's dormant so it doesn't count as much.)

So what I learned today is that, if you were to take a 25-mile-long string, tie a pencil to one end and pin the other end to the roof of my house, the circle you could draw would enclose five volcanoes (the red triangles in the photo below) and the epicenters of one or two seismic events (the white circles with red squiggle) ranging in magnitude from 4 to 6.2 on the Richter scale.

(Click on the photo for a larger view.)

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Field trip

Alex and Dad took the girls and one of their cousins to the Children's Museum today. (Same place as in this post from Dad's visit earlier this year.)




















(OK, I know it does seem to be missing some fingers, but I swear that relative has been dead for years and I know nothing...)

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