harvest party!

today was a blessed saturday, except for the latter part of the afternoon when someone kidnapped our child and turned her into a demon. the best part was that the portland fruit tree project was hosting a harvest party in our neighborhood, so we happily participated to prevent food from going to waste. is there anything worse than walking down the street and seeing pounds and pounds of produce rotting on the sidewalk? maybe colic, which our daughter has a rare, second case of, but it's a toss-up.
the portland fruit tree project was founded by two young people, and they, along with many enthusiastic volunteers, have registered about 140 privately owned fruit trees and are now responsible for their harvesting. the fruit tree owners give permission for people to come and pick the goods, and there are harvest parties almost every weekend towards the end of summer. it's a beautiful thing. in just a few hours, the group of 15 of us picked 370 pounds of pears and apples! half was donated to the oregon food bank, and the other half went to the pickers, who will turn these gems into jams, butters, pies, etc. tomorrow morning we'll be making baked pear pancakes, and in the days that follow, lots and lots of pear and applesauce for the winter.




adah was in heaven, as evidenced by this shot, and here she is about to fall into a pear and apple coma:

rainbow slaw,

if i had more time,

i'd write you a sonnet.

summer's dressed as fall

last week we were dying of heat for several days in a row and i had to sleep at my mom's, who is one of the three people in oregon who actually has air conditioning. initially i berated her for being such a CO2 hoarder, but i’ve had to swallow my words and spend lots of time in her kitchen, laughing and drinking coffee and having some camaraderie around how to deal with my dad, who moved in with her. they’ve been divorced since I was five, and he’s quite a character. i’ll leave it at that for now and save the details of his tenacious idiosyncrasies for another post.

it was an additionally agonizing week because it was my last full week off, and going back to work was looming right around the corner. i know, i know, i shouldn't complain-- i've been off for 2 months straight with teacher privilege and I shouldn’t get too much sympathy, but it’s been such an exhausting joy to be at home with the bugzerella mozzarella that I was beginning to develop the mama guilt pang, and was sorrowfully anticipating the loss of so much time to play and homestead and water the garden in our underwear. alex, the person responsible for a portion of adah’s cute genes, put my brain in check by asking, “is there anything you’re looking forward to about going back to work?” and it got me thinking, and the answer was yes. with the time off came some extra rejuvenation and energy to be present with my 19 other children. i pledged to use my planning period well, i pledged to get there early every day so i can really hear what my kids have to say in the morning, i pledged to not hate hyper vigilant parents, and some of the bureaucracy at work. i pledged lots of things, so watch me go.

the first day leaving part was not so bad, actually. it was pouring and felt like fall and i didn’t feel like i’d be missing out on too much fun. adah, who is currently obsessed with the prospect of preschool and spending her days with other little people who subscribe to the belief that everything is theirs, was happy to be headed down the street to progressive catholic bible camp (yes, the lesbians sent their kid to bible camp, although i did ask my friends who organized it, “did you have to call it that?) with her boots and raincoat on. as i was driving away, she looked like a walking umbrella-- all i could see was her feet under the black nylon umbrella sky, and my mom’s loving presence beside her. it was a sweet sight.

in other news, auntie amanda came to visit from the lonely st. louis. i met amanda at a hotel in the netherlands in 1997. i arrived there from dublin with a broken heart, and she was my primary heart fixer-upper through the 4 european countries we women’s-studied through. this is the woman who, after adah was born, began a onesie line with great phrases stamped on, such as, “already smarter than the president!”, “look at my biceps,” and in honor of our second generation of man-riding-bike-over-with-sperm-sample-to-help-the-lesbians-conceive: “created by generations of queer love.” it was a pleasure to see her and try to convince her to move here immediately to cure me once again of really good friend deprivation.

lastly, i broke down and bought an iphone after months of trying not to want one. i know, jesus might not be proud. i pawned off adah’s crib and sha-zam! became highly, highly distracted with my new technological magician. it even randomly calls sarah hunter at 2:00 a.m. (sorry!)

it's hard to raise a tv-free kid...

when you're this tired. adah strolled out of bed at a very unpleasant 6:00 a.m., after a night waking and me staying up way too late eating kettle corn and stalking someone's blog that laura got me addicted to. anne's out of town. my first thought when seeing adah's smiling face was, "who can i call to come over that can be here in less than 5 minutes at this hour?" no one. next thought: "today would be the perfect day to break our TV-free cycle. i could just plop her in front of a few videos and go back to bed!"

but i didn't. sigh. i let her crawl all over my head and barrage me with a bunch of questions: can you teach me how to read words? what are we going to feed my doll? was i borned in somebody's house? are we riding our bikes to zanna's? does she have 2 carseats? does she still have her new bed? can i bring her a bag of apricots? are we going blueberry picking?

finally i'm up and need coffee desperately. miss you, anne. there's none left over in the pot. but i miss you for more reasons than that.

adah's discovery

maddy the dentist is getting the cherub ready for bed and i'm supposed to be cleaning up our delicious mess from dinner, but i just wanted to mention that our little darling has made a new discovery. last night, 2 whole months after she began sleeping in her own bed, she discovered that she could, in fact, get right up out of bed and leave her room if she wanted to. she of course thought this was hysterical, and she was laughing and gasping so hard about it that we couldn't help but crack a smile and then both burst into laughter ourselves. but not for long. we then had to lay down the line. her response to us laying down the line? more escape artistry. she continued to maniacally run back and forth down the hallway while we tried to quickly problem-solve about what our non-threatening, yet stern approach would be. fortunately for me, i had a massage appointment scheduled, and had to leave anne upstairs with the kid dizzying herself with the joy of freedom. when i got home she was asleep on the rug on her floor, finally having resigned after lots of loving rigamarole. wish us better luck tonight!

we're home. but only for 5 minutes!

we got back late last night after a 13- hour travel day. i have to say that yesterday, despite its length, we were able to experience multiple bouts of loveliness that carried us through our day. ace and i woke up early to pack-- us for leaving, him for work, and we were on the same page to quickly hide the rubber stingray that adah had gotten so attached to on the trip. it belonged to the grandchild of the woman upstairs, and for 8 days, adah played, swam, slept, bathed, and ate with it. it was a scary moment a few days earlier when uncle ace realized, on a windy country road, that stingray had just flew off the roof of the car, where i had accidentally left him while putting bug in her car seat. fortunately he was recovered. so we thought we were being sneaky when we hid stingray yesterday morning, but immediately upon waking, adah wondered, "where's stingray? he must be hidin'!" we acted very confused, and some distractions surprisingly worked. once she fully understands that he's gone for good, into the hands of another loving keeper, we may have to get her some grief counseling.

it was pouring outside when our journey began, so we drove to the fantastic restaurant down the street. their menu was local and healthful and it was tiny enough to make artisan everything. it was a perfect meal to end our trip, and afterwards we headed to the burlington airport with a bizarre mix cd we made that began with "teach your children" by crosby stills, and nash, and then went on to such gems like "gold digger" by kanye west, and other hip hop songs we were half bouncing out the car to.

it seemed like a fast trip to o'hare, and mesmorized adah loved the lights. we were horrified to realize the day before that we had a 4 hour layover there, but bess saved the day by visiting us and bringing a picnic. for those of you who know bess, i'm sure you know that she has a history of outdoing herself in every creative capacity, so this is what she brought for our simple picnic: a chicago-style pizza, which is impossible to achieve in portland, braised kale and onions for my greens fix, celery and carrots with spinach-hummus dip, a watermelon, canteloupe, and blueberry fruit salad, macaroni and cheese, a ladybug cookie frosted with beet juice dye, play-doh, paper, stickers, markers, and a whole other host of art supplies for adah to enjoy. unbelievable. the people passing by were absolutely amazed by the beautiful spectacle she made. (the picture below, by the way, does not even begin to show the extent of it.)
on the flight i was shocked when adah fell right asleep for the the entire 4 hour flight. this is unheard of, people. in a way it was lovely, but then again, i could hardly move an inch for that entire amount of time, so i had my elbow neighbor digging through my crammed bag so that i could quench my thirst and take a picture:

many, many thanks to my family of friends who made our travels seem so easy. i can't imagine a more perfect trip. now it's onto the next one: i spent the day unpacking and re-packing because in a couple of hours we're off to eastern oregon to spend some time with anne's fambly. more soon!

france in vermont

we just got back from the park after a wonderful day of visiting france in vermont. the reason why i say that is because every single day since we've been here has been utterly leisurely. i can't really deal with the ringing of 2 adverbs strung together, but that's the only way to describe it. in the spirit of france, we're having baked brie and a baguette and fruit and a huge salad for dinner. and in the morning we're having crepes. and to get the vermont feel, we're going to douse some things with maple syrup. i love the fact that most things here are infused with the stuff: whipped cream, lattes, cookies, jams, ice creams, and not just desserts, but things like salad dressings and meats and mustards as well-- all things we've been enjoying in the past week, some of us in more moderation than others.


but back to our day. we spent most of it at the river--playing, reading, collecting rocks and singing songs. and that's almost the same thing we've been doing every day-- swimming in clean ponds in rain or shine and coming home sand-and-gravel dusted. over the weekend we were also graced by our dear friends erica and alicia who drove up to celebrate ace's birthday, which was spent well. it culminated with a candle-lit barbecue on the porch with lots of excellent food and a collection of ace's friends who i've been hearing about for years. we got meat from hollister farms, which was a highlight for me because of what the transaction was like. they have this tiny little store you go into, with 3 or 4 freezers full of responsibly raised meat, and you basically just go in, take what you want, and leave some money. there's a box full of cash that just sits on the counter (no cashier) and people just casually go in and support this farm directly. they also have a huge barn full of animals that you get to go and visit, and the piglets have tire swings to play with in their pens. i also took the opportunity to explain to adah, after witnessing the nursing sow turn over almost onto her 10 or 12 piglets, that sometimes the milking mama just needs a break. we're working on that currently and are experiencing much disequilibrium.

in conclusion, and on a totally different note, here is some spoken word by adah, an exact transcription of what she said as she was carefully coming down a huge flight of slide stairs:

i found a leaf.
it's our lucky day!
it's our lucky day!

i found a leaf
it has my name written on it!
it has my name written on it.
it has my name written on it!


i found this leaf.