More Igloo Building

I spent yesterday digging out from a 14-inch snowfall. This was the most snow in a 24-hour period since 1954. It was heavy sticky stuff that broke the back to shovel, every scoop weighing at least 25 lbs. My neighbor was very kind and cleared part of the driveway and sidewalk with his snow blower in the morning. In turn I helped clear his walkway, steps and around his cars.

It was perfect snow for making heavy tightly-packed blocks and also sealing the blocks like mortar. I first added on an entrance way to our original igloo. It was so quick and easy with the fresh snow that I got carried away and started a completely new igloo as well. When it was nearly halfway done, Eva and the girls came out to help me. They brought me blocks and loose snow allowing me to complete the dome from the inside. I cut out a door and everyone crawled inside to share a family drink of icy Coke. Eva said that it reminded her of the Coke commercials with the polar bears and penguins.

My Daddy's Not an Eskimo

I decided to take advantage of last weekend's snowfall and this week's subfreezing temperatures by building an igloo. I figured the girls would enjoy playing in a "princess snow castle" and I could act like a kid again. I finally finished the igloo last night. Anna and I crawled through the little door I cut. We lit a small candle and told some stories. I asked her, "Did you ever think that your dad would make you an igloo?". She said, "Daddy, I never even thought of that! This is so cool!".

It's much harder than it looks. There are some amazing igloo building resources on the WWW. My favorite is a youtube video replay of a 1950's Canadian Film Board video of two Inuit Indians building a huge structure in about 2 hours. The video makes me feel a little nostalgic for elementary school social studies class and it has the same tone as the Troy McClure educational videos in the "Simpsons". It's full of politically incorrect language of another time.

I used a combination of snow blocks made from a block maker purchased on ebay and larger more custom blocks cut with a woodsaw from our 5 foot snow pile at the end of the driveway. (I didn't think to do this until after watching the Eskimo video and I successfully resisted the tempation to spend $50 on an actual snow saw). Anna and Julia were using this pile as a "snow slide" so it was packed as solid as a snow field. Anna helped me make the smaller snow blocks using the block maker and said it was like making a sand castle.

The whole experience gave me an idea for a children's book, "My Daddy's Not an Eskimo" about how a little kid recognizes that her parent does something less expertly than someone else but still appreciates them for trying.

Symphony Ensemble Up Close and Personal

We took the girls out for a cultural experience. The local symphony held a family, educational concert. There were four different ensembles featuring each of the major groups of instruments: strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion. They taught in an entertaining way using jokes, short songs and audience participation. At times this was a bit corny, even for me which says a lot. For example the string ensemble dressed up as the Stradivarius family and competed in "Italian Idol".

Before the concert there were different activity stations such as "instrument petting zoo" and make your own "shaker". Anna's teachers from Kindermusik put up a booth. Our favorite instruments? Julia: the violin and trumpet. Eva: oboe. Me: basoon. Anna: violin.

The last group was the percussion ensemble. They were all dressed in black and called themselves "Men in Black IV". My favorite number was a Brazilian samba tune that we all got to play along with using our little homemade shaker instruments.

The event was in a beautifully restored Art Deco theater built in 1931. It was the first air-conditioned building in town. I was happy to see that the place was completely packed with people even standing in the back. Maybe parents like us had nothing else to do on a cold afternoon with their kids or maybe they all love music.

We finished our outing by getting some cookies and hot chocolate at the local bakery/cafe. Good times!

Painting the Town Red

Last night was date night. We ate at a neighborhood Thai place that we decided to try on Jeff and Tami’s recommendation. By local standards, the food was delicious. I ate myself nearly sick on spring rolls, chicken satay and ginger duck. Eva had the red curry.

The décor could have used some work. The building looked more like a bank or some type of retail outfit converted into a restaurant. The ceiling was very low where we sat and the red walls were mostly bare except for a few sandstone seminude Buddhist dancer sculptures. Eva thought the cheap carpet was tacky and recommended wood floors with Asian throw rugs.

I enjoyed the meal so much that I asked the Asian-American waitress whether they cater for parties. She gave me this frightened look and said, “You want me party with you?” I guess she thought we were some creepy couple asking her to go out with us. My Zagat grade: food 20, décor 10, service 17, price $30.

After that we saw a play at the local community college. It was my first time there and I was pleasantly surprised. The campus was to the west of town across the river on a ridge surrounded by pine forests. The architecture was a unified modern Northwest style and like most community colleges there was plenty of parking. We saw “Rabbit Hole”, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a family coping with the death of a four-year-old boy. All of the actors were local and pretty good. Eva thought of recruiting some of them for her first local film.

I am not a theater critic and I can’t remember the last time I ever attempted to write about literature or art (probably undergrad 13 years ago). But for the sake of my new blog and for the enthusiasm of blogging, I offer a few thoughts to my audience of no one.

The “rabbit hole” in the first half of the play seemed to represent an escape from the world where the awful tragedy occurred and from which they start to emerge by the play’s end. Also there was a reference to the sci-fi idea of a worm hole or “rabbit hole” to another universe or an alternate reality, a place where happier versions of ourselves are living out happier lives. One of the most compelling parts of the story for me was the way the main character, Becca, copes with her son’s death as an atheist.

I found myself wondering as a parent how I would handle it. Even the act of imagining it was enough for me to practically breakdown. I also rememebered the loss in my family and what my parents went through. We both left feeling a bit sad but maybe a little more grateful for our little family.

Used Boots for Sale Part I

This is the craigslist ad that Rick sent me. I am providing it to put the previous post in context.

If anyone else has any poems to submit please do so in the comments section.

Anna's Post

I can't wait until I go to Disney Land!

Used Boots for Sale Part II

Rick forwarded this craigslist ad for a pair of old boots. It has the pathos of great art and is the source of inspiration for two poems.

#1

Craigslist: Farm and Garden

Used boots now for sale,
A new ad on craigslist.
What fool would sell this?
On what must he subsist?

Forty bucks is all
To walk in his old shoes.
A desperate fellow’s lot?
A life of loss and booze?

Rob

#2

Craigslist Haiku

Yours for 40 bucks
Used work boots size eleven.
Reduced to 20.

Rick

The ad reminds me of the proud old babushki (grandmas) of St. Petersburg, survivors of Stalin and the Fascist blockade, who became so poor in the early post-Soviet days that many would stand all day in the freezing cold, wrapped snugly in dark heavy coats and scarves selling little trinkets from their closets, moldy old potatoes from their dachas, and black bread from the government truck's morning run resold at a small margin. I would often buy something out of pity.

Links

There are some new links. I plan to add more in the future.

Both Catan and MGOBLOG are near daily addictions. I have brothers-in-law Pete and Paul F to thank, respectively.

University of Michigan Men's Glee Club is a good site if I'm ever in the need for a Michigan Song for a quick pick-me-up.

The BANYA site is a fascinating resource for bathing enthusiasts.

Anna's Post

I like riding my Barbie bike that I got for my birthday.

And I like sledding with my Daddy at the park.

Christmas 2007

In front of the hearth at the lodge in Vail, Colorodo on our last day.

Santa came twice this year.

The night before we left for Colorodo, I took the girls to "Old McDonald's Play Land" as Julia calls it while Eva put out all the presents and set up the big family gift: a "Princess" jumping castle. The girls were delighted to see a room full of presents and a huge inflattable bouncing structure. They loved their princess make-up kits and toy computers most of all. Eva got a new digital camera. I am the proud new owner of a Makita air compressor.

We left for Colorodo the next day. It was a beautiful drive from Denver to Vail. There was a lot of blowing snow over the passes but we made the trip without a hitch. We spent the next six days skiing in Vail. Anna learned how to ski and rapidly progressed from a Mogul Mouse to a Mountain Level 3 skier. She got a coat full of colorful buttons to prove it. Julia had fun in her "play school". It was a real treat to ski together. Fortunately my leg survived all the skiing without a problem.

Santa came a second time in Colorodo on Christmas Eve. After we all shared a traditional Austrian peasant meal of sausages, sauerkraut and potatoes plus the traditional French symbolic 13 desserts, we went upstairs to Oma and Opa’s unit where the girls were surprised by another stack of presents. Thank you everyone!

On Friday December 28, we celebrated Marlies' 60th birthday at a fantastic Austrian restaurant. I ate a delicious Veal Shank/Osso Bucco. All the daughters worked together to give her an anthology of her friends' and family's favorite poems. There were some original poems in there as well.

Here was my contribution to the collection.

TO MY FRIENDS

The chain of golden days and nights
Is still your heritage from Deity,
And, still, the languid maidens’ eyes
Are turned to you as well intently.
So, play and sing, friends of my years!
Lose very quickly passing evening,
And, at your heedless joy and singing,
I will be smiling through my tears.

Alexander Sergeivich Pushkin
Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, September, 1999
Edited by Dmitry Karshtedt, December, 1999

ДРУЗЬЯМ.
("Источник: Пушкин")

Богами вам еще даны
Златые дни, златые ночи,
И томных дев устремлены
На вас внимательные очи.
Играйте, пойте, о друзья!
Утратьте вечер скоротечный;
И вашей радости беспечной
Сквозь слезы улыбнуся я.

Laura made some beautiful earrings.We returned back to Washington and quickly cleaned up all the Christmas stuff. It always makes me a little sad to do it. All that cheer packed away in the dusty attic for another year and the bare Christmas tree laid to rest at the curb.

Introduction

Yesterday I took some time to look at all of my sibblings' blogs and got inspired to try my own.

Target audience: family and friends.

Purpose: to share news about us and our kids Anna (age 4) and Julia (age 2) in particular.

Secondary purpose: to function as an informal e-record.