Recent works by Stella & Charlotte

Abstract, by Stella

Happy monster with big ears, by Charlotte

Bridge, by Charlotte




Kite, by Charlotte (this use to have a string made of yarn on it, but Hucky has since chewed it off)

Mama, Stella, and Charlie, by Stella  (the googly eyes are a hallmark of Stella's current art).

People from the garden

The Jerome Community garden has become one of our very favorite places.  We go every other week or so.  At first, S&C could barely be pulled away from the playground next door, and now they love turning compost, planting seeds, feeding the worms, and finding rolly-polies.  Yesterday I took my camera and Lara & I took some shots of people from the garden (there are a lot more people who go/work int he garden, I will keep taking pictures and adding them over time).

Meredith

Richard

Marco

 

Joey

 

Me

Lara

Charlotte

Charlotte's activity

Charlotte did something so rad last week.  We were at Meemaw and Pawpaw's house for Thanksgiving.  When we're there it is like the absolute lap of luxury for me because instead of climbing into my bed in the morning S&C get up and go get into bed with Meemaw and Pawpaw, and I get to sleep in, which is awesome.  So one morning I got up and went downstairs and Charlotte said Mama come here!  I have an activity for us!  On the card table she had prepped three spots (for her, me, and meemaw) to sit and do an "activity."  This is something they do at school every day, and I thought it was like the cutest thing ever that Charlie had put this together, using markers and various other crafty things-at-hand, including paper from the Taboo game we had played the night before.

The setup...


Charlotte's creation

 Mine

and Meemaw's.

My favorite altars from the Santa Ana Dia De Los Muertos

...and finally, the altar that we built ourselves for Mr. Pickles.  We did it in the parking garage (evidently you can't erect an altar just anywhere, even on the day of the dead).  Stella and Charlotte call it a "walter."  I can't bear to correct them. 

A small selection of hand-made cards from kids and adults for Stella and Charlotte's 4th birthday

Washington State Fair

Last month we visited the Washington State Fair with my parents ("meemaw" and "Pawapw," as Stella and Charlotte call them).  I love, love, love fairs.  Not so much the janky ones that spring up in parking lots (though I don't discriminate, if there are funnel cakes and crappy barf-inducing rides I'll probably be happy).  But the ones I really love are the whole package: livestock, junk food, games, rides, hot tub sales, pie competitions, amateur competitions of all types, miniature horse carriage shows, square dancing, Dokken concerts, whiz-bang gadget demonstrations, and on and on and on.  And the people!  where else do you see 4H kids, chubby pasty couch potatoes, horsey people (distinguishable because they wear Wrangler jeans of a particular cut), riff-raff of all types and backgrounds, yuppie suburbabanites, senior citizens, and carnies all in one place??  The state fair is simply amazing.  I have to say, I am highly biased because I grew up miles from the Ohio State Fair, which is absolutely, absolutely epic.  I will just say: every year they make huge sculptures from thousands and thousands of pounds of butter.  That's right, butter.  They literally set up a pond where kids can fish.  It is SERIOUS.  So I have to say west coasters don't really know how to put on a state fair like midwesterners do.  Have you ever read the essay by David Foster Wallace about the Illinois State Fair?  DFW is an amazing ethnographer.  I feel like reading his journalistic essays has improved my research.  The part where he describes the folk dancing literally made me tear up.  The rest of it just made my ribs ache from laughing.  I highly recommend it.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand.  Below, some photos, with brief commentary.

One of my favorite things to do at a fair is look at the animals.  As a kid, I bought one of my rabbits, Princess, at the fair.  Looking at the animals became even more awesome after that because as an 8 year old I had this sense that I could potentially actually take these animals home, even though we lived in the suburbs and my parents were obviously not going to let me buy a horse or a llama.  But it was the stuff of fantasies anyway.

     I was an absolute horse freak as a kid.  I really still am.  My mom and I took riding lessons together for years.  Even smelling the horses, standing close to them and looking at their eyelashes, I got lost in the wonder of them.  To me, horses are magical and beautiful creatures. 

 

S&C petting a bunny in a box.

Cow judging.  In Ohio, they televise the Sale of Champions every year, which is the sale of the animals that won each of the junior livestock divisions.  You might think this is cute.  Until the winning steer will be sold for like $35,000 or thereabouts.  In the past several years there have been endless scandals reported in the local papers related to doctoring of livestock by 4H kids or their hired animal "dressers."  These kids are not Fing around.  

some signs & posters...

I love that the fair is about being from somewhere and learning something and doing a project.  

Games.  I swear every damn fair has these same giant sad-eyed tigers.  The second pic is S&C with their loot.  I won those little hedgehogs by throwing darts at balloons.  It only took me two tries to win two hedgehogs!  I have to say, I was like ridiculously over-proud of myself for that.  I had this whole "hell yeah, what single mama can win her kids stuffed animals at the fair all by herself, THANK you VERY MUCH!" attitude all afternoon.  I am telling you about it because I am still disproportionately proud of winning the stupid dart game. 

What is a fair without super junky rides, which you worry may collapse and maim you or your children at any moment?  

Food.  Oh god, I looooove fair food.  My dad was all excited to get a scone, which is evidently THE thing to get at the Washington State Fair.  I mercilessly made fun of how bourgie this sounded and how Seattle-ie he is now and how they would never have scones in Ohio.  The I tried one and it was damn good.  In your face, Katie.  We also had amazing BBQ...

And to top it all off, my all time favorite fair food (no, not deep-fried butter!  they totally have that now.  barf.)...elephant ears!!!  

I can't wait for next year.

you are the cosmos

From Vena Cava's blog

pre and post

This is Stella very proud of herself holding Abigail, one of Meemaw and Papaw's chickens.

This is Stella after Abigail decided to jump out of her arms, scratching her arm in the process (though I think her pride was wounded more than anything). 

Life is tough sometimes.  She recovered well and was happily gathering eggs again the next day.

cassette tape party

I have a major post coming up on the Washington State Fair, which was epic.  But I have some deadlines to meet so I'm gonna do a shorter post until I can get around to it.  Trust me nonexistent audience, you will love it.

Anyway, last week Natalie and I had the fantastic idea to pull out our old cassette tapes and give them a listen.  Tapes are awesome.  I used to spend so much time (as did Natalie) making mix tapes.  I'd also request songs on the radio and wait til they came on and tape them.  Damn, I seem old, but I'm also just generally a very late adopter of any sort of technology so I was into tapes well after a lot of people had moved onto cd's.  I dated this guy who had a tattoo of a cassette tape and it said "mix tape my heart" under it.  I probably liked him just for that tattoo.  Anyway, we waited til Odette was in bed, then opened some wine and sat on the porch.  Unfortunately I could only find two tapes!  I was so bummed!  I know I have more around somewhere, and I didn't look all that hard.  Natalie had a whole pile (see above).  So here's what we decided to do: pick two mix tapes (both, as close as we can estimate, circa 1999 or so), listen to two of her songs, then two of my songs, and make a supremo Natalie/Katie cassette tape mashup playlist.  It is kind of hilarious, but only I guess if you are kinda familiar with this music and the hilarious contrast between our tastes.  Basically Natalie's music sounds like she wants to punch someone and mine sounds like I want to sit in a tree drinking cheap red wine and writing in my journal.  So...here it is!

N:
Reagan Youth (its a wonderful time for a barbecue)
The meatmen (toolin for anus)
K:
Jeff Buckley (so real)
Rachel's (handwriting)
N:
The Plasmatics
Harry Belafonte
K:
Indian Summer
Al Green (What a wonderful thing love is)
N:
crappy techno song by Natalie's crazy ex-boyfriend
The Ramones (I wanna be whipped)
K:
Philip Glass (opening)
Rainer Maria (Half Past April)
N:
Zuzu's petals
Martin Denny
K:
Elliot Smith (Angeles)
Leonard Cohen (who by fire)
N:
Huggy Bear
The Jesters of Newport (You're stormy)
K:
The Sea and Cake (?)
Tori Amos (don't remember what song this was.  this is the song I am most embarrassed of. It was not even one of the Torio Amos songs that you could argue is actually pretty good.)
N:
The Jesus Lizard
Boss Hog
K:
Flashpapr (first song on that record that has a picture of a bunny on the front)
Zbigniew Preisner (Lacrimosa) (yes, this is opera.  eat it.)
N:
***NATALIE CHANGED TAPES (though I thought this should be against the rules)
Los Catalepticos (Portungese rockabilly band...)
Astrid Gilberto
K:
The Secret Stars (Life of Submission/Eyelashes)
Bonnie Prince Billy (nomadic reverie)
N:
X
The Wire
K:
Patti Smith (Because the Night)
Edith Frost (Telescopic)
N:
Atari Teenage Riot
Aphex Twin
K:
Red Stars Theory (Parts per million)
The Smiths (some girls are bigger than others)

There you go!  Did anyone actually read all that?  Probably not.  OK, the big point here is inventing games of silly fun to pass the time with friends is awesome.

synching with animals

I recently watched this TED talk by Joshua Klein about crows.  I like crows.  I love how you can tell when there are baby crows because you see groups of three crows wandering around outside and one of them is almost as big as the others but is just kind of shaggy looking, with maybe some feathers sticking up on top of its head.  I have always thought it looked like the parent crows were literally taking the kid around and teaching them how to do things- here's how you catch a grasshopper!  here's where there's good water to drink!  here's  what you do when you find a shiny thing!  and after watching this talk my suspicions about the intelligence of crows are confirmed.  Joshua Klein talks about crows as synanthropes, a species that thrives despite or even benefits from living close to humans- think coyotes and cockroaches.  These species kind of co-evolve with humans- they adapt to the circumstances presented to them.  Of course, synanthropes are usually seen as major pests.  Joshua Klein suggests that we could actually find ways to cultivate inter-species relationships and develop new patterns of inter-related behavior that are beneficial to both species.  I found this to be a really interesting idea.

the huntington

Me and the girls had an absolutely epic Labor Day weekend.  Each day turned out super fun somehow, even when I didn't try to plan it that way, and even when it seemed like things might not quite turn out, they just kept working out.  It was kind of magic.  I'll post about an adventure on each day separately, but try to get them all up in pretty short order.  First up: the Huntington Library, a gorgeous library/botanical garden/museum in LA.

  The fountains were awesome 1) because it was super hot and 2) because the kids came up with and endless, endless stream of ways to play with the fountains that was fascinating to watch (and, well, participate in too).  Above, notice the dad in the back corner showing his kid how to swirl her finger to make interesting shapes with the water

                What does the washer do?

Then this little wire basket (another piece from one of the fountains?) was filled with flowers and added to the mix...

I was envious of both this kid's creativity and coolness in the face of the heat.  This is but a few of the ways they were playing with the fountains!!!

Another awesome part of the children's garden is this instrument thing made of a bunch of different sizes of nails.  You drop rocks down inside and it makes the most beautiful sounds.  The kids were tossing handfuls in, but my favorite sounds were the ones from a single pebble making its way down the nail-ladder inside the stones.  So beautiful, I wishd I had brought my recorder.

Finally, this is the very first tree S&C have ever climbed