Last Day!!!

There are two great things about teaching high school. They are Christmas and Summer.

Actually this may be a little too cynical, but right now I'm really appreciating our breaks. Yesterday was the last day of class before Christmas vacation, and I think everybody was about ready. I think every person in the school is sick, and the students have been, shall we say, disiniclined towards pedagogy. Anyway, here are some pictures from our last day of 2008.

It was COLD out. There was a lot of snow on the mountains, which might be kind of hard to see in these pictures. It was very beautiful, but it didn't help to make one feel any warmer. Those of you in Oregon and Maine may scoff, but it felt pretty chilly - you can even see the frost on the football field. The picture with the trees in front is from the stairs in front of my classroom.

I do have a mantle in my room, but, unfortunately no fire - the school disapproves of open flames in the classrooms.

Here's a picture of my 11th grade American Lit class (or those who showed up). They had some pretty good Christmas spirit. Only one of them did the final homework assignment (memorize the Gettysburg Address - can you believe it?), but the mood was good & I'll be happy to see them next year.

The 9th graders were in the computer lab for the day finishing an essay. Amazingly, almost all of them finished it (they're not as jaded yet as the juniors), but I think the look on Johnny's face here about sums up how everybody was feeling about school at this point. They're good kids, but I think that we will all enjoy these three weeks apart.

Meanwhile, our family is moving to a new place!!! It's only about 5 minutes away, but it's pretty exciting for us. So there may be fewer posts in the next little while as we move, but I hope that everyone is enjoying the season & staying warm!

Peace & Love to all,

Patrick

Questions!!!

Well, many people (Eric) may stop reading my blog after this, but sometimes I have to let my hippie flag fly. If you're in New-Agey kind of mood, check out this post in the blog Goodness Gracious. Sometimes Jennifer is a little much, even for me. But I liked this one:

The Most Important Ten Questions to Ask Yourself

At:

http://goodnessgraciousness.blogspot.com/2008/12/most-important-ten-questions-to-ask.html

And don't forget to dig the rainbow font and the sparkley stars coming from your pointer!!

Peace & Love all!

Food!!!

Here's a little story that I liked from the blog of, of all people, Melissa Auf der Maur. And if you know who that is, give yourself 20 pop culture points.

THE WOLF INSIDE
An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me... It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, pride and superiority. The other wolf stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside of you and every other person too." The grandchildren thought about it for a minute and then one asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one I feed."

Shopping!!!

Usually I am not a shopping fan and avoid it whenever I can. So when Christmas roles around and there's just no way around it, it helps to make it as fun as possible. I got to travel to Topanga with the Gambles this weekend to look for odds and ends. Topanga is a great place to find interesting things that you're just not going to see in the Glendale Galleria. And just being there is a big part of the fun!

Speaking of Glendale, sometimes you just have to go. Well, the boys and I made the best of it, and we even had fun at the Americana, next to the Galleria. Say what you will about the "Grove" style malls, they do know how to get fancied up for Christmas, and having a playground in the middle made it much more enjoyable. We did have a good time, got some shopping done, and even got to see an amazing sunset!!! This was on Sunday night - did anyone else see this? Hope your shopping is going well.

Tujunga!!!

We had a really nice Saturday night this last weekend in Amy & Jamie's new neighborhood of Tujunga. They had a great little Christmas celebration complete with icy snow, flashy cars, and tiny horses. It was so nice to spend the evening with their family and with mom.



There was only a small patch of snow, and it was getting slushy and dirty quickly, but it was fun for the guys to play around with it. It was Jack's first real time in any snow and, not too surprisingly, he enjoyed throwing it. I have a feeling that he's going to enjoy heading up to the mountains in a couple of years!



We had a good time looking at the assortment of fancy cars. There were some pretty nice ones there, but we all especially liked the Batmobile! I'm not sure if it was the real one from the TV show, but it did seem to have the power to turn normal people standing next to it into bats.



After a fun little train ride, we went back to Amy & Jamie's and had the first dinner party at their new place. It was really nice, with Middle Eastern food and kids running (and crawling) around. A great ending to a nice night, and a good beginning to the Christmas season!

God Save Kate Rusby & Ray Davies!!!

We are the Village Green Preservation Society
God save Donald Duck, Vaudeville and Variety
We are the Desperate Dan Appreciation Society
God save strawberry jam and all the different varieties

Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do?

We are the Draught Beer Preservation Society
God save Mrs. Mopp and good Old Mother Riley
We are the Custard Pie Appreciation Consortium
God save the George Cross and all those who were awarded them
We are the Sherlock Holmes English Speaking Vernacular
Help save Fu Manchu, Moriarty and Dracula
We are the Office Block Persecution Affinity
God save little shops, china cups and virginity
We are the Skyscraper Condemnation Affiliate
God save tudor houses, antique shops and billiards

Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do?
God save the Village Green.

Jump For Joy!!!

This one's for Bell - check out the last song!

The Sultan's Elephant

While you were sleeping last night, this came through your bedroom.

Bob Dylan!!!

Here's a good one for you. As you may have heard, Bob Dylan has been doing a weekly program for satellite radio for about two years now. Bob plays music and does a goofy/deep stream-of-consciousness DJ routine - pretty much as you would expect. It's very great, and you can download each and every one of them at this site:

http://www.mp33pm.co.uk/2006/07/updated-links-for-all-of-bob-dylan.html

Oh, and here's a nice essay about it:

http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/?p=2066

Enjoy!

No Garfield!!!

Thanks to someone at Arthur Magazine for

discovering that the Garfield comic actually becomes really cool if you simply remove Garfield. Here are some examples.

Thanksgiving!!!

As Ryan said, it's the obligatory Thanksgiving post! We had a great Thanksgiving this year at the home of some friends of my mom and Petur. We have been going pretty regularly to the Goldsmith's for a few years now, and they always have a great Thanksgiving celebration.

Their house is in a beautiful part of the Agoura hills, really near to the site of the old Renaissance Faire! This is a great place to go for the day, unless, as my friend Eric said, you happen to be agouraphobic. But otherwise, it's really beautiful. There are horses all around and amazing oak trees and it basically feels a million miles away from the city. Although we don't know some of the people there too well, we always feel very welcome, and much of our L.A. family was there, including Felix celebrating his first Thanksgiving. Also, special thanks to my sister Annie for watching Jack & letting us eat in peace!

The food is always delicious, and one of the treats is multiple turkeys cooked in different creative ways. Our own contribution was cranberry sauce this year, which came out pretty good and is about the easiest thing in the world to make.

After the dinner, some of us went for a walk in the hills. I decided to go with Finn, and little did I know that this would actually be strenuous forced march up and down hills for miles and miles (well, maybe one mile). If I had known , I would have been very hesitant to take Finn, but he was amazing; he ran up steep hills and went down again on his butt. We had a great time and he never complained (although at the end it was just the thought of pumpkin pie that kept him going). I was so impressed by him & can't wait to go on some more hiking trips in the future. Here's a victorious shot of him at the peak of our climb.

We have much to be thankful for this year, and really appreciate the hospitality of the Goldsmith's in sharing their Thanksgiving with us!

Nice Weekend!!!

We had a nice joint birthday celebration for Em & Jamie this past Saturday. Petur made fantastic omelets & we had a beautiful fruit tart. Presents were opened and I love all of the colors in this picture of Em with her gifts! Also, I got to see both of my awesome sisters, which is always a treat.

It was great to see the little cousins building trains together. Well, Finn built, Jack played, and Felix supervised. The only downside was the attack of a horrible orange tube-like creature. Otherwise it was a great birthday brunch.

Later in the weekend we went for a hike in Griffith Park and I got some nice shots of the family in the woods. I can't wait until the guys can do some real hiking in the mountains, but in the meantime Griffith Park rules!!!!

I thought that this was interesting. A quiz was given to America's elected officials by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. It tests basic knowledge of American civics and politics. Apparently the officials didn't do so well - on average they scored a pretty miserable %44 while the average American citizen scored %49. If you want to try it, you can take it here:

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

How do I act so well?

A little birthday gift from your sick husband.

Happy Birthday!!!

Happy birthday to my beautful, amazing wife!!! I love you sweetheart!!!!!

Up, up and away!

At the end of Jack's birthday extravaganza, we bid a fond farewell to Jack's binkie. He's slowly been throwing them away one-by-one until we were down to his last, favorite binkie. So...we held a sober ceremony out on our front porch. "Goodbye binkie! You've been a good binkie. Thank you for your many years of loyal service."



Then we tied Jack's binkie onto a bundle of balloons (sorry Mother Earth. We usually recycle, really!) and whoosh - Jack let go of his binkie.



He giggled for a minute as he watched it rise up into the air. Then...it dawned on him that it wasn't coming back down and his laughter turned into a howl. He continued to howl for the two hours that it took him to fall asleep last night and he is howling himself to sleep again tonight, as I write this. Poor little bubbie. I feel like a very mean Mommy, but I make myself feel better with the thought that his cute little teeth won't be all crooked.




Goodbye binkie. Thank you for comforting Jack for us. You were a good binkie, indeed.

Urban Knitting!!!

Where would we be without the Internet to inform us that things like this are taking place? I wish that I could write a song that sounds the way that one of these trees looks!

More here:

http://deputy-dog.com/search?updated-max=2008-11-03T13%3A38%3A00Z&max-results=1

Catch the Detroit...

For Jack's (extended) two-year birthday we went to the Los Angeles Live Steamers on Sunday. This is a great, kind of hidden place in Griffith Park where a group of very strange people build and operate scale replicas of steam and diesel trains. It's not (the much better known) Travel Town - those are real trains. This is a place close to Travel Town where, on Sundays, you can go and ride on these fantastic little trains for a small (suggested) donation.

It's so bizzarly cool that it's amazing that it still exists. It all began - like a lot of great odd things in Los Angeles - with Walt Disney, and you can still get a good hit of that Disney vibe at a tiny fraction of the cost of Disneyland. Anyway, Jack just reached the height mark, so we went for a ride with Finn and Peepa Petur and had a great time!

The pictures aren't great because one of their many strange rules is no pictures, so Em had to sneak one from outside the fence. I pulled another one off of the Internet just to give the idea.

We also had a nice little party for Jack in the park and Mama made a delicious train cake! Part of it took a fall in the parking lot, but there was still enough for the cake fans (including me). We were joined by Nana, Petur, Amy, Jamie, and Felix, and grandma Kathy later. It was a really nice end to a week-long birthday!

What a World!!!

Believe it or not, these are pictures of a huge series of caves discovered recently under the Mexican desert - those are people in those orange suits! At first I thought for sure that these must be photoshopped, but they're straight out of National Geographic. And if you can't trust National Geographic, who can you trust? Anyway, I thougt they were pretty amazing!

More here:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/11/crystal-giants/shea-text

Protest!!!

Well, I guess our parents’ hippie genes finally kicked in – we took the kids to their first ever protest last night. We made a sign that said ‘California has no room for hate – overturn Prop 8!’ and we got all bundled up and headed over to a huge anti-Proposition 8 rally that was going on near our house at the Sunset Junction. We were very excited about the whole thing. Our friend Michelle came with us and, as an added bonus, Finn’s best friend, Hana and her Mom, Kei showed up at the last minute and they went with us, as well.

At first, everything went great. Patrick and Jack got their picture taken with our sign and Kei was interviewed for some news channel or other. There were LOTS of people there and Jack was excited by the policemen on horses - although I have to admit, their riot gear made me a little nervous. We duly waved our sign around, though and chanted “What do we want? Equality! When do we want it? Now!” with the thousands of other people who were there with us. It was very interesting to be in the heart of the gay community at such a difficult time. There was a certain amount of anger palpable in the air, but there was also a tremendous sense of unity and a few people expressed their gratitude to us and a few of the other heterosexual families nearby who had shown up to support them.

One gay couple near us had blown up their recent marriage certificate and posted it on their signs. That got to me more than anything else and I thought about how I would feel if someone told me that my marriage to Patrick was an affront to God and was going to be invalidated. I told Patrick recently that one of the main reasons why I support gay marriage is because of the feeling I got after we got married. We lived together before we were married and I don’t think either one of us really expected marriage to be all that different, but I was surprised by what a profound feeling I had after our ceremony. That feeling has sustained us many times over the years and I really have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to prevent gay couples from sharing in that same experience.

Anyway, that’s it for my 2 cents about this subject. For the most part, we had a great time at the protest, but things took a bit of a sad turn towards the end when Mr. Jack started to get sick. We could tell he was a little out of sorts, but pretty soon, ‘out of sorts’ turned into a more violent and icky form of protest when he actually started throwing up. Unfortunately, he and Finn have a stomach bug that caused us to cancel Jack’s birthday party that we had scheduled for today. We’re bummed about that, but at least we got a good joke out of the whole thing. We decided that we should have changed our sign to ‘Prop 8 makes me sick!’ Ha! I bet that would have made the evening news.