Time it was, oh what a time it was

My husband's aunt is in town. She is the kind of woman who will always be the favorite aunt -- warm, affectionate, funny, interested in everything, and always open to new experiences. We wanted to have her over to dinner before she went back to her home in Florida, so we bit the bullet, cleaned the house as best we could, and got cooking.

Because she is on a restricted diet, I made some food especially for her:

chicken marinated in fat-free yogurt with onion and spices, then broiled and sliced and served with the baked marinade as sauce

potato salad with olive oil and apple-cider vinegar instead of mayonnaise

apple sauce

string beans lightly steamed and then tossed with olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and fresh basil

steamed corn

For everyone else I made

hamburgers stuffed with feta cheese

macaroni and cheese

lavosh rollups with cream cheese and smoked salmon

and lastly, a tossed green salad that was probably enough for about twenty people


It was a lot of food for twelve people. In fact, I had trouble fitting the leftovers into the refrigerator. At least I won't have to cook too much this week!

While I was putting the food away and getting desert out, Maya and Ziad played the piano and the guitar for their family. They sounded surprisingly good, at least the part that I could hear from the kitchen.

For desert we had the plum sorbet I made from Village Harvest plums, a chocolate cake from the bakery and elephant ears from Costco. With coffee and tea.

After dinner we all went out on the deck and looked at the moon through the telescope.

After everybody went home, my husband and I sat at the kitchen table for a long time, just talking about his childhood and his family.

It was a lovely evening.

Crazy days of summer

I found a summer camp I want to enroll my kids in. (Did she just end a sentence with a preposition? ZOMG!!!)

Anyway, money is a consideration. These are some pretty privileged kids, with the guitar lessons, the piano lessons, the tennis lessons, and god knows what else from time to time. Yet for some reason, I still think it's reasonable to send them to summer camp in Santa Cruz to cook for 5-6 hours a day (I'd be glad to tell you why I think that's reasonable, but really, how many digressions can one blog post support?)

So I asked my husband, "Well, how about if they trade some music lessons for cooking lessons?" my estimate being that about four guitar lessons would be the equivalent of the cooking camp. His answer? "No, that's OK. They can do it, but you owe me." Which made me realize how much I personally want this for them. It's not for me, it's for them, but still I really want it. Enough so that when my husband said, "OK, well, we'll just consider it your birthday present," I was actually on board. WHO SENDS THEIR CHILDREN TO SUMMER CAMP FOR THEIR OWN BIRTHDAY PRESENT???? Especially since this not one of those getting the children out of your hair kind of thing. I like being around them and miss them when they're gone, plus if I drive them to Santa Cruz, where the camp is, I'm not going to be coming home to get stuff done or anything. Is that the attraction for me? Guaranteed six hours out of the house for five straight days? Probably not. That actually sounds kind of tiring.

Being a mom is confusing, that's for sure. I still haven't untangled this all in my head.

How awesome am I?

You know how some days everything just clicks? You're efficient, you're energetic, you're getting stuff done, and then you write a blog post about how much you've accomplished and it looks really impressive and all your friends say how awesome you are?

Well my whole week has been the opposite of that.

Tired of nagging your kids?

Here's a line that works really well for me:

"Because I love you, I'm going to give you a chance to put that toy away before I throw it out. Next time I may not warn you, and if you see it in the garbage you're just going to have to leave it there."

The thing I like about this is, that not only does the kid pick up the toy, but they even, occasionally, thank me. And if they leave it there and I get to throw it out? Less clutter. This is a total win-win for me.

mother's day menu

Ziad made pasta with the new pasta roller we got yesterday. I cooked it up, then tossed it with extra salt and pepper, butter, olive oil and parmesan cheese.

Jenny made a vegetarian lasagne with lots of yellow squash sliced paper-thin in the mandoline.

I grilled some artichokes in a lemon garlic marinade.

Ziad made a Caesar salad dressing for our Caesar broccoli salad.

For an appetizer we had brie with fig jam, and crackers from Whole Foods. For desert, a lemon-meringue pie that a friend of hers makes.

We drank pinot noir from Chateau St-Jean.

It's been a long day, and I'm bone-tired, but what a delicious meal we had. And the best part is that so much of it was made by my children. It took Jennifer 30 years, but she finally cooked for me.

Rule of three

* Keeping my kitchen clean makes me really happy. More happy than I could have realized during most of my life when I wasn't keeping it clean on a regular basis. However, knowing this, I should really make cleaning the kitchen more of a priority. Note to self: get on it.

* If you're the kind of a person who, at any given moment, can think of three things you need to do, three things you want to do, three things that would be really fun, and three things that you've been meaning to get to for a while, but haven't; then, seriously make a schedule. Otherwise you'll spend the whole day going around in circles.

* A friend of mine once told me that when she finds she's having trouble keeping her house clean, it's usually because she has too much stuff. While this is true, and even relevant in my case, I find that when I'm having trouble keeping my house clean, it's because I'm not in it enough. Something to keep in mind when I'm getting that kid-in-the-candystore feeling about the plethora of cool activities around here. On May 9, for example, there are a solid five mutually conflicting but very intriguing activities to choose from. Maybe I should just stay home.

We're all about the crafts

You can keep your fancy woodworking kits. My son, clever, clever child that he is, has managed to burn the word MOM onto a piece of wood using only a magnifying glass and the light from the sun. I'll treasure it forever, of course.

I sense a business opportunity here, jumping right on the eco-friendly bandwagon. Mail-order solar-powered wood-burning kits!

The best laid plans ....

Ziad is sick, and my plans have gone agley indeed. Ever since Thursday, when his first waking thought was "Can we reschedule the playdate we have planned?" life has been on hold. Passes to the ballet dress rehearsal? Adieu. I don't so much mind having missed it myself, but by the time I realized that there was no way for me to be comfortable leaving such a sick child, it was too late to find someone who could use them. Not that I didn't try. Reservation-only, docent-led wildflower hike on private land in Santa Cruz not normally open to the public? Oh, man, letting go of that one hurt. Ballet tickets tomorrow? Well, those, at least, I can exchange.

I'm not by any means bucking for martyr of the year award. Part of me is perfectly content to hunker down and mark time waiting for him to get better. Plus, really, how many moms could really enjoy themselves knowing their child was languishing on the sofa, coughing pathetically?

Thursday he spent dozing off in odd situations. Friday he seemed better, but all of a sudden I realized at four o'clock that the weekend was coming, he had a high fever, and medical help was going to be limited to emergency rooms if I didn't deal with the situation a little more proactively. I called the doctor's office, and after talking to the nurse I knuckled under and took his temperature, something I try to avoid doing because it usually scares the hell out of me. Guess what? 104. Damn. Actually, I guess I can pat myself on the back, because my guess ahead of time was 103. Do I know my kid or what? Anyway, a long conversation involving three or four calls ensued, because my children's tylenol had expired, so I wanted to give him some adult Tylenol instead. Except that had expired, too, and all I had was some Advil. Plus there was an involved discussion of why three tablets with 160 mg. of acetominophen are better than one with 500 (the difference is 20 mg if you don't feel like doing the math). Isn't one pill that you swallow better than three that you chew, especially if you are a picky eater who doesn't like fruit flavors? He ended up taking 400 mg of Advil, leaving him 80 mg short, but it seemed to do the job. He felt much better and left off his imitation of a wood-burning stove.

And yet, here he is today, coughing lethargically while his temperature steadily rises again. Good times.

I find myself accusing myself of being incredibly self-involved, because I tend to think of this medical situation in terms of how I feel about it. Can I handle my little boy having a high fever, or am I going to freak out and need to rush around doing stuff? I keep forgetting that he's old enough now for me to ask him how he feels and what he prefers. Does it hurt too much, does he feel like he needs medicine, or does he want to tough it out (always the preferred option in my book)? Can he be persuaded to drink enough fluids to help his body cool down? Does he understand that popsicles are better than tea for soothing his throat? Yes, yes he can and does. Good times.

Self-esteem in action

My older sister recently moved here from Phoenix, leaving behind her grown children and newly-born granddaughter. It has been wrenching for her, to say the least. Her youngest came to visit her mother for her birthday, and although our schedules were not too compatible, we got to have dinner with them on Sunday.

After dinner, we adjourned to a nearby Peet's, for hot chocolate and cookies. And it was here that Maya, who had not realized it was her cousin's birthday, improvised a present. She borrowed a pencil from her aunt and got herself a hot drink lid -- the plastic kind that fits over those paper cups, and has a small hole surrounded by an indentation. The one that could kind of look like a smiley face if you stuck two holes in it with a pencil (those would be the eyes). So she did that, and then turned it over and wrote a small note on the inside, then gave it to her cousin. And I really couldn't help thinking how touching it was that she could give her cousin what amounts to personalized trash with the full confidence that her cousin would appreciate it.

To her everlasting credit, her cousin responded more than appropriately, even saving her birthday coffee lid from being thrown away when I was clearing the table without looking too closely.

More than anything else, though, I find myself admiring Maya's quick thinking.

BTA: Day Two

I think this the first party where the kids getting presents has had such a serious effect on our time over the next few days.

Ziad has been doing a jigsaw puzzle on and off since Sunday night. Maya has been engrossed in learning the ropes with her Webkinz froggy. If I'd really understood how time-consuming it would be, I'm not sure I would have been so "Well, OK," when her friends mom asked if it would be an acceptable present.

I remember when they used to make little electronic Tamagachi that kids would carry around with them. There was a big flap about kids taking them to school. Anyone else remember them? These little virtual Webkinz are in some ways much worse, being as they need feeding and exercising and that you have to earn the money to buy the food by playing online games.

Foodwise, we're still plowing through the leftovers. Macaroni and cheese, chicken and rice, blah, blah, blah .... Most of the cake is in the freezer now, just a few pieces wrapped up for desert tomorrow.

Housewise, we had another busy day (even without the Webkinz) so not much housework got done. All dishes, glasses, pots, pans, etc. are now washed and put away. When I woke up this morning I planned to get the garage car-ready, but I went downstairs to find that the garage fairy had been busy during the night. All the tables returned to their places, all the blankets folded and put away, and the floor swept to boot. I love the garage fairy.

A few more school-related items have found their way to the school table, but I am still staring at three stacks of paper and stuff that need to be sorted and returned to their proper locations. Until that happens, though, my kitchen is looking pretty good. Things could be worse.

Blogging the Aftermath: Day One

Here is a series I am beginning for my own enlightenment and edification. Having turned my house upside down and maybe even inside out, in order to accommodate a large group of children and their families, I am now faced with the prospect of returning things to normal. This is not a one-day process, and in fact some stuff that got thrown into distant corners of the house will probably remain there indefinitely (a good sign, I suppose, that I could even throw it away (gasp!)with few negative repercussions (not going to happen)) and actually, some of the furniture that got moved around actually works better for me in its new location.

Anyway.

On the food front, here is our menu for the day:

Breakfast:
Ziad and Maya had macaroni and cheese. I had chicken and potatoes. When Maya asked if that was all the macaroni and cheese that was left, I had to tell her, "No, that was all the macaroni and cheese I couldn't fit in the refrigerator." They will probably be eating it for breakfast all week.

Lunch:
Ziad and Maya had leftover rice and meatballs. I had chicken and potatoes. And leftover salad. I've been wondering whether there is someway to make broth out of leftover salad. Although I'm experimental by nature, for some reason I'm not willing to actually try this.

Dinner:
Well, we haven't had dinner yet, but I know what's on the menu. Leftover beans. Yumm. Really.

This morning I finished almost all of the dishes that I was in no condition to wash last night. We have cleaned all the stuff off the floor of the dining room and vacuumed it.

We have also decided that keeping the dining room table pushed up against the French windows is a good idea for now, since the dining room table is actually the school table. It turns out that three dining room chairs fit beautifully side by side along its length, and since the table is now up against a window we can look out over the valley when we need to pause and think.

Maya cleaned up all the costumes from her playhouse downstairs. We decided to put them into a suitcase, thereby emptying up the large drawer in her room where we had been keeping them up to now. So now she will move all her clothes out of Ziad's room, where they had been sharing a chest of drawers, which will make life much easier during Ziad's fits of temper when he decides that she is absolutely positively not allowed in his room ever. That floor, still festooned with the random pink feather, remains to be vacuumed.

We had to leave at 11 to get to guitar lessons in Santa Cruz. When we got home at 3:30 all of us were starving and exhausted. Piano practice and Latin are still on the agenda for today, so I don't know how much more energy we'll have for setting things to rights.

I am staring right now at a pile of periodicals and papers that was on the kitchen table that is going to have to at least be looked at, and some of them returned, no matter how much I like having the kitchen table empty. There are also several bags of school supplies in a corner in the dining room that need to be put out again, because we actually do use them. The garage has three tables with chess sets and assorted games that are going to need to be put away before we can park there again.

More tomorrow.

Scenes from a party

Neither Ziad nor Maya got a birthday party this year. There are lots of little reasons, and maybe even a big one, but those are not the point here. The point is, they never stopped thinking that was eventually going to be a birthday party, or anyway some kind of party, and even a party that they shared would be just fine. They just never gave up.

So we decided to have a Thank-you-for-inviting-me-to-your-party party. In other words, a party consisting of everyone who had invited them to a birthday party during the year. This turned out to be hard to distinguish from an actual birthday party, because everyone brought presents anyway.

They had a blast.

And for posterity, I am recording my three favorite memories of the afternoon:

Little girls literally everywhere, running hither and yon, all with colored silk scarves on their heads.

A debonair young man of eleven holding out his plate to be served, saying, "Ziad recommends the marble cake."

Ziad and his friend Emily on their stomachs under the dining room table, heads and shoulders poking out, folding origami.

It turns out that when you don't plan activities or entertainment for kids they are more than capable of filling the void on their own. Our house was a veritable beehive of activity for several hours. I realize that I am the very definition of an introvert, but I loved having all that happy energy around.

I proved my true introvert nature after the party, though, because once I sat down on the couch after most everyone had left, I couldn't get back up again.

Maya's Christmas

This year Maya got a china teacup in a box that said Royal Albert.

She got a penguin from the Aquarium.

She got an owl that I knit from a pattern in Charmed Knits. (thanks, Vivian)

She named the penguin Albert. She named the owl Owlbert. They go everywhere together with the bunny I made for her last year. His name is Harry, because he's a magic bunny.

I don't know what Ziad's bunny and owl are named.

Two menus and three jigsaw puzzles

Christmas Eve:
Homemade clam chowder
Crab Louis
French Bread
Acacia Chardonnay

New Year's Eve:
Penne with parmesan cheese
Ribeye steak
Sauteed spinach with tomato and feta cheese
Roast vegetables
French Bread
Mondavi Cabernet
Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs

And in between -- puzzle week!

Puzzle One

This puzzle is so much fun to put together.

Puzzle Two

This puzzle was very easy.

Puzzle Three

This puzzle is so hard! We've done it every year for maybe five years now, and there are still pieces that trick us or are fiendishly hard to identify. When it's all put together, though, we love it.

My husband, nice guy

Since I am more than ready to complain to all and sundry when my husband gets me upset, it seems only fair to give his good qualities equal time.

The computer is not the only electronic item in the house that gives us grief. Our DVD player is part of an elaborately jury-rigged system that needs to be run through a VCR, but unfortunately the VCR I had had since Jenny was a teenager broke. Which meant a new one. Which meant I didn't really know all the ins and outs of recording and timers and whatnot, so that in order to simplify my own life I asked my husband to please tape Mad Men for me.

What followed next was a somewhat amicable disagreement about our content provider (Dish Network), which I think is more or less on Eastern Standard Time, and in any event is not set up so that we get programs at their regularly scheduled time. I was expecting Mad Men at 7. Just to confuse the issue, we found out at 8:30 that it had started at 8, so taping it was temporarily out of the question. I just gave up and went to bed.

It was a nice surprise Monday morning when my husband woke up briefly to tell me that the recorder was set to tape it this morning at 8. He suggested just watching it, but I prefer not to have it on while kids are passing to and fro. I really appreciate his taking the trouble to figure out the scheduling and set the VCR, though, and when I checked the tape Monday afternoon everything seemed in order. So now I've got an interesting evening of television to look forward to.

Thanks, honey.

The sequel:

I woke up thirsty night before last, right around when my husband was getting in bed. Since he was still up, he got me some water. This morning I woke up to find him putting a fresh glass on the bedside table. Sometimes little things like this are all it takes to remind me that I'm glad we're together.

Vacation Blogging

Well, we're back! 17 days of hectic and educational sightseeing behind us, jet-lagged and fatigued, glad to be out of the humidity but unhappy about the sore throats from the smoky air, here we are in California again. As usual, I can think of many blog posts that could spring from the vacation that is behind us, but will probably follow through with only a small fraction, my innate inner sluggard being only enabled by the continuing technical problems that attend our pitiful efforts to get consistent access to the internet. Nothing more frustrating than losing your connection right as you attempt to save a particularly brilliant (ahem) blog post.

In the interests of completeness, while I wait for pictures to be downloaded by someone other than myself, I will start with an overview of our itinerary:

1) Fly into Atlanta, spend the night.
2) Drive to Tennessee, about a five-hour trip, so we can go to Dollywood.
3) Go to Dollywood. Drive back to Georgia through the Great Smoky Mountains. Stop briefly at a place where the Appalachian Trail crosses the roadway, which is actually in North Carolina. It turns out there are places where North Carolina is in fact west of South Carolina. Spend the night at a state park in Georgia.
4) Because Ziad is getting obsessive about it, go to Dahlonega and pan for gold. Then drive through the mountains to a spot where you can hike into the Appalachian Trail, and hike on it. Continue on to Atlanta.

While Nabil is at his business conference in Atlanta, take the kids on three days of intensive sightseeing.

5) Day one: American Girl Place, History Atlanta. This may not sound like a lot, but take my word for it, it is.
6) Day two: Georgia aquarium, World of Coca Cola, Cyclorama, Atlanta Zoo.
7) Day three: Mississippian mound culture, Cherokee city, house of wealthy Cherokee leader, all in Northern Georgia (we practically wound up in Tennessee again) requiring hours of driving, but very very worthwhile.

8) Drive from Atlanta to Charleston, SC. Stop briefly in Augusta to stretch our legs on the Riverwalk, which is pretty but not necessarily worth the detour. Spend the evening doing laundry on the hotel's single washing machine while someone from a semi-professional soccer team is breathing down my neck because she wants to wash their uniforms.

9) In the morning, visit Fort Sumter. In the afternoon, during lunch, get caught in the first of many intense thunderstorms featuring rain that causes impressive flooding of the city after only 1 1/2 hours. Spend lots of time trying to avoid driving through water up to our hubcaps (it is a rental car, after all) and no time at all seeing beautiful historic homes. Alas.

10) Visit Charles Town Landing, a state historic park and archeological dig on the site of the original settlement. Highly recommended. Then take off for Hilton Head in South Carolina. Huge thunderstorm drives everyone off the beach and out of the pool in the early evening. Right after we got there.

11) Spend the day at the beach, where Nabil and I get horrific sunburns. Maya's face gets a little red, and Ziad, who uses no sunscreen ever, seems to get a light burn on the back of his ears. Drive on to Savannah. Impressive huge thunderstorm in the clouds over Savannah as we arrive.

12) Visit the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low in the morning. Then stop by the Maritime Museum of Ships of the Sea. In the afternoon, walk down by the river, a commercial touristy strip that reminds me of Pier 39 in San Francisco.

13) Drive to Orlando, stopping briefly in the non-historic part of St. Augustine, and a Florida state park I remember from my last visit to Florida, Washington Oaks. It is every bit as magical as I remembered. While we are at the park, guess what weather we encounter?

14) Disneyland (thunderstorms).

15) Disneyland. Drive to Mt. Dora, another place I remember fondly. Also still wonderful. Thunderstorm en route.

16) Spend the day at Mt. Dora recuperating from two exhausting days at Disneyland. Thunderstorm in the afternoon.

17) Drive back to Orlando and visit with Nabil's cousin who has four kids, some of whom are about the same age as Ziad and Maya. It is a nice visit, unfortunately all too brief. Get lost in Orlando attempting to find the rental car return, then spend frustrating hours trying to take shuttles to the hotel airport.

Then up at 4 the next morning to get everything organized for an early morning flight. Return home after several hours spent in some odd non-sleeping, non-waking, headache-inducing fatigue zone and feel completely disoriented. Notice that Lesley has very kindly gone way above and beyond merely watering the plants and has left my yard prettier, neater and way more organized than she found it. Thank you so much, Lesley.

Yesterday was spent indulging in fogginess, and today we're back to reality. Guitar lessons and dentist appointments loom on the horizon. Ziad and Maya are really happy to be back, and I am too, I guess, but part of me wishes we could spend more of our time in unknown places, learning about their many wonderful secrets. It really was a great trip.

Like water for empty air

We were up at Train Town in Sonoma one time. It was my dad and our family, getting ready to board the miniature train that runs through the miniature town on their little plot of land.

Maya chose a seat toward the back of the train. Nabil wanted her to sit up front with the rest of us.

"Maya, if you come and sit here with us I'll give you some chocolate," he offered.

My dad managed not to say anything, but I could see he was horrified. The whole concept of bribing a child into compliance goes way against the grain for him.

Maya was fine with it, though. She came and sat with her family. Then Nabil stretched out his empty hand and gave her some imaginary chocolate. Which she took and pretended to eat. My dad was blown away. I was pretty impressed myself.

Maya's not the only one in our family who looks at things from a different angle.

The Italian chef

My younger sister is known in our family for her creativity. She's artistic, and stylish, but also deeply different. Her mind makes leaps that leave me goggling. She's also pretty funny, and fast with a quip. One of my favorite remarks of hers goes back to when we were both in high school.

Our family had this little paperback Italian cookbook. She used to cook dinners with it, I remember; she was really a good cook. One day she decided to make the recipe for veal parmigiana. Naturally, she threw herself into it wholeheartedly. She made the sauce from scratch, bought the best veal she could, the works. Since she tends to be on the exuberant side in her actions, there was a lot of tomato sauce all over the place when she was finally ready to put the veal into the oven to bake. She looked around at the messy kitchen. "Ah!" she exclaimed, "Kitchen cacciatore!"

After all these years, I still think it's funny.

Serendipity

"What do you want to do for dinner?"

"We could go for pizza."

"That would be fun."

So we go for pizza. But the pizza place is really, really crowded. Way too crowded.

"Maybe this would be a good time to try that other pizza place that just opened around the corner."

So we try the other place. But they have TVs right up in your face everywhere you turn. One is showing a sitcom my husband deems inappropriate for his innocent daughter. We get in the car and start driving around aimlessly.

"We could go eat downtown."

"That sounds good."

Downtown it is. After a pleasant dinner, we take a stroll around the downtown plaza. And this is what we see:






The artcars are downtown. Ziad, who only moments before had been complaining about being cold, immediately forgot all about the temperature. There was a dragoncar.







Many of the owners were holding court near their cars. They were all extremely friendly, and encouraged people to touch, or even get in, the cars. Maya spent a good amount of time prowling around the cat-themed car:






This car got a lot of mileage out of the whole "pussy" double-entendre, although there was nothing so explicit that I had to drag her out of there. She was really intrigued by the fur-lined handcuffs dangling from the inside doorwell, but we slid right on past that with the non-committal, "Yeah, wow, look at that. That's really funny."

My favorite was Flivver, so it gets the most pictures.






The artist, sporting blue hair for the occasion, was extremely friendly. The car was just way over the top, in a sparkly, silly kind of way.






The dashboard was particularly encrusted, but I couldn't find any good pictures (all of these pictures, by the way are downloaded from Flickr, but are pictures of cars we actually saw.) This picture of the wheel well gives you some idea, though.






We walked back to our non-artcar through the plaza, where the grass and walkway were littered with purple jacaranda blossoms, and I remembered again how much I enjoy living in San Jose.

Tagged by Vivian

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
Ten years ago I took my five-month-old son and went to visit my sister. The visit ended when we got into an argument that ultimately didn't settle down for about six years or so.
Apart from that, I was just hanging out with Ziad. We used to sit together on the kitchen floor and share warmed up canned chicken soup, we used to sit together in the rocking chair and listen to music. I remember one time my Mom came over to visit and we sat on the porch and talked while he played in the yard. It was mostly just the two of us, though; Maya wasn't even on the horizon yet and Nabil was usually at work. I was lonely sometimes, but it was still a special time.

2. What are 5 things on my TO-DO list for today?
Today is over, but I'll tell you what I did: Drop off the kids at their piano lesson, then run errands until they were finished, come home for lunch with Lesley, then work on the computer until taking them to their assessment for chorus next year, then lunch with Jennifer (uh-oh! Two lunches in the same day?), then more errands, and now it's time to make dinner. Except I'm not hungry.

3. Snacks I enjoy:
Carrots and celery, crackers and cheese, CHIPS! Snacks should be crunchy.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
I can't even imagine. I like the idea of buying land and returning it to its previous state -- maybe I could set up a trust fund to be used for actual staffing in parks and libraries.

5. Places I have lived:
Sudbury, MA; Santa Cruz, CA; Billings, Montana; Paterson, NJ; Shingu, Japan; San Jose, CA.

6. Jobs I have had:
computer board assember, short order cook, secretary, tutor, dance instructor, martial arts instructor, math teacher, parent.