Sorry for the slowdown--many factors (my jury duty last week; Arthur being out of town and making us work for him; Ella's "Horny Toad" shorts) have delayed us. There's been a lot going on here; for instance, Miki got a new yellow "Plasma Car" and Ida not only got a new big girl bed but a new bike with training wheels. None of which you'll see in this post. Be patient. Meanwhile, here's some shots of Miki on the red horse at Tumbleweeds:
There's some excellent video of this on the Tumbleweeds Flickr page, but I don't know how to steal it. Rock girls!
When I went to school with my sister, Jen, she used to tease me relentlessly--so much so that the counselor at school had to contact our mother. But these sisters don't do any of that.
There's still plenty to share about Miki's birthday--it's coming!--but we got slowed down by Ella's dress in San Francisco:
Meanwhile, Miki and Ida stayed here in Portland and Maggie took care of them. Four girls! We're hoping there's more documentation of the sleepover, of which I have heard plenty.
Proximity to Arthur seems to help people sleep in. Each morning back home, they move another half hour closer to their regular hours. So we may have them spend every third night on Martins St. while we hang out in hotel rooms...
This past weekend we (mostly Ida and I, though Ella and Miki made an appearance, and on Sunday Ida, Elsie, Theo and I had some adventures) went over to Reed College's notorious "Renn Fayre" celebration. it was pretty rainy and cold, but fortunately there was a tent over the old steam vent:
The reason I called it "the old steam vent" is that Ida and Elsie have some history over there. Here's a picture from about 3 years ago, in June of 2008:
These guys were quite interested in the many things that had fallen through the vent. Pens, a dusty phone, cigarettes, glitter, gold ribbons... They were also interested in the naked people we saw, and the man in the tie dyed diaper who was so interested in dancing with them while the crazy xylophone band played...
...not to mention the bug-eating. Ida and Elsie could have watched all day, but Theo did not want to see this young lady eat a wax worm or a hissing cockroach, and then it began to rain, so we retreated...
The mud and the rain prevented too much photo documentation; also, these three were pretty busy trying to get to the chocolate fountain and wanting to do outdoor pees, so I rarely had time to go for the camera. These old pictures, by the way, are by dear old Chandler!
All this happened on Mother's Day! Insufficiently recorded, but the mothers were having a great time, I promise.
If you were to run into Miki, that's what she'd tell you. And it is comin up.
That there, above, is a picture she herself took. She's getting some skills and some serious attitude. Maybe her skills aren't quite as advanced as Ida's, as the picture below attests:
Here, Miki is roughhousing with her friend Jonah at Tumbleweeds. Boy does she love her some Jonah!
Allegedly, Jonah likes this.
Another thing Miki likes? Headbands! Hairbands! (Hey, Chandler!)
Steve Jobs of Apple Computer Corp has offered us much gold if we'll allow him to use this image for a new iPad advertising campaign. In a family meeting we decided against it.
In the past, we've treated you to some of Ida's photography. Well, she's branching out and making full-fledged movies, now. Sometimes, it's documentaries, like those made by Uncle Arthur (we think that's what he's doing, wherever he is--hey, bro, I've had to start doing the Davey Crockett dance since you're not here to do it). Here's one about our cat, Ichiban. Some of you know him to be a fierce and combative feline; for the rest of you, you might just want to skip this ferocious display:
Ida's desire to have a little more control over the drama is evident in this clip, in which she directs two "cows" (rocks with eyeballs that she made at an Earth Day celebration she and I stumbled into last Friday. To make these "cows" cost about $300). There's also some talk about Percy and Jack, trains who come to save the day:
Hard-boiled eggs, chocolate bunnies, jelly beans. Many questions about the Easter bunny and how often he tells people to do things, how he knows as much as he knows. Which is a lot.
A very short film taken just before I went to get a hairband for Theo and Elsie and Ida smeared mud all over our back windows. "We're being bad guys!" they said. Uncool.
After all the action died down, and after about four hours at Berkeley Park (Ida mistakenly called it "Birthday Park") (it was sunny, for Ida), we got to have some sweet, quiet time at home:
Now that we're back in rainy PDX, it seems all the more surreal, those sunny days in San Diego...
That first night, after Miki, Ida and I took a pretty non-dramatic flight (thanks, suicidal makers of the iPad) by ourselves, we got dolled up and went to a fancy dinner at old friend Alison's restaurant, Cafe Chloe. Check it out the matchy-matchy:
Miki was excited! Miki was also quite excited about the BUNKBED in the house ERV procured for us!
So was Ida, who slept (wearing clothes) in the Top Bunk!
As my best kindergarten friend John Aldous said, "Lots of bird-watchin and beefcakin going on on that boardwalk."
This is a rare picture...
...since it turned out that Miki's beach-tolerance was about five minutes. Then she said "I want to go inside" and toddled off toward the beefcake-intensive boardwalk. Ida, on the other hand,
spent about seven hours on the beach and could have lasted longer.
Some would like me to only work on my novel about Arthur and blog about him relentlessly. Of course, one reason I do all this work on Arthur is just to win over Maggie, something I've been trying to do for about fifteen years. It's tough.
But she had a birthday! Everyone got excited about it, for certain.
It was a nice, sunny day and of course Maggie herself was working late and then riding her bike across town while wearing her famous (to other bike commuters of PDX) tennis skort. Meanwhile, we were trying to keep these scalawags somewhat under control. Cocktails on the deck!
Back when I wrote that last blog about Miki, I wanted to include a little section on how often--ten times a day?--she requests that we try to contact GrambeeJim. This is via Skype. The funny thing is, Miki insists on calling them every hour or so, and then gets afraid of them, or over-excited, and proceeds to run circles around the house, screaming "GrambeeJim! I far away! Far away, GrambeeJim!" so I hang up and then she cries.
I tried to recreate that, but maybe she's growing out of it
or maybe Ida's presence gives her courage.
We're getting our swimsuits ready for San Diego...
