Saturday Morning, 7:30 a.m., On the Bay

Amazing Bay Day, Sept. 29, 2007 at the Marine Science Institute in Redwood City.

Girl Scouts Save the Bay. Yes, we will!




We arrived at the Marine Science Institute a half-hour early, expecting to the first ones there. Instead, the parking lot was overflowing and girl scouts were roaming the grounds, brimming with excitement. We were attending just as a family, but the rest of our boat were two or three troops along with lots of parents. Being by ourselves had an advantage, but I'll get to that in a minute.

It had been cloudy and drizzly all night, but today there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The only other boats out at that time of morning were the rowing teams.

After a safety briefing, they started the program. Wini's first assignment was on the otter trawl crew.






The net is thrown into the water and dragged by the moving boat for a few minutes to catch fish. During the dragging, the MSI staff instructed the girls on what types of fish to expect and explained the physical characteristics of fish from different strata of the bay. Here, the buoy floating in the distance shows how far back the net is dragging.




We were pretty far out by then between the Dumbarton and the San Mateo bridges. Two other crews of girls hauled big ropes that dragged the net most of the way to the boat, and the otter trawl crew finished hauling it up. The catch: mostly anchovies, some sort of spider crab (I didn't see it, but heard the girls talking about it) and some flat-as-a-pancake bottom dwellers. The girls were allowed to touch them with two fingers, avoiding the eyes. Turns out anchovies eat plankton and their jaws expand to a huge size. Staffer Jayo demonstrated by sticking his finger behind the jaw of a a deceased anchovy.



A volunteer counts, measures, and catalogs every fish that is caught. This bin contained the anchovies that had already been measured. About a quarter of the anchovies were dead, probably killed by the net.



It was time to wander the ship a bit and look around.



This is where not being with a troop was an advantage, as Wini went up to the wheel room and made friends with Captain Jackson. He let her turn the boat.




Next was a mud grab. Again, they had a system that gave every girl a job. The contraption is a box that they lower to the bottom of the bay. It snaps open on impact, then snaps shut when it's pulled up, grabbing mud and other goodies. Two girls monitored the ropes on the side, giving slack or tightening as needed to swivel the arm sideways. The other girls lined up and lowered the heavy box, then pulled together to haul up the even heavier mud. Wini was one of the side girls, and she had to tie off her side by herself.



Here's the box being lowered.





And here it is on the way back up. You can see a sponge hanging out of the bottom! Other cool stuff were some blood worms caught in rocks, shells, and lots of mud.



We looked at plankton under a microscope, but that was indoors and too much for my seasick-prone stomach, so I was busy staring at a fixed point in the distance for the last 20 minutes. All too soon, we were back among the rowers and taking off their life vests. Then we all took the Girl Scouts Save the Bay pledge:

On my honor I will try:
To protect and restore
Our San Francisco Bay,
My home.
I will do my best to:
Use water wisely,
Recycle everything I can,
Appreciate the beauty of The Bay,
and Make the world a better place.

Wini turns pyro!

At Girl Scout camp, Wini learned to strike a match by herself. Quite exciting for a 6-year-old. They also learned how to handle pocket knives, carve wood, build a fire, tie knots, and bake a cake on the grill.

This match didn't work.



This one did.







From excitement to RUH ROH in 10 seconds.

She also learned the proper way to open and close a pocket knife, and to make sure she has a "circle of safety" when using one. Then she made wood shavings for firestarters.





I'm still taking ice skating lessons in a "drop in" fashion. It's fun and challenging both physically and mentally (fear keeps you from progressing).

Martin Luther King Day, 2007

Monday, we rode the Freedom Train up to San Francisco, where we were expecting to march in a parade to the Civic Center. Nick and Wini did this a few years ago without me, and he had the day off, so we decided to give it another go.








The day was brisk, and we waited at the San Mateo train station for the Freedom Train to arrive. Now, I knew better than to expect a special engine or anything, but I was expecting a banner at least. Instead, the Freedom Train was a regular Cal Train, commuters and all - but they ushered us to the front of the train.

Wini got tired of waiting and demanded a human chair.



Then we gave her the camera as entertainment, which resulted in a lot of unflattering under-chin shots that I'm not going to post here. Plus, this:



Which is a little better when you turn it right-side up.



We sped off on the train, happy to be warm. It's a short trip from San Mateo to the end of the line in San Francisco.



When we got off the train, people were standing with megaphones announcing that there was no parade this year. Instead, we were ushered onto buses. We didn't really have any better plans in that neighborhood, so although we were disappointed there wouldn't be a parade, we rode the buses over to the Civic Center. The rally had a large line to get in, so we decided to just enjoy a day off in SF. We walked over to Market and stopped in Old Navy to eat lunch. Surprise! They don't have a cafe in there anymore (we were dreaming that they once did?).



The view from the 3rd floor of Old Navy:



We found a 50's style diner for lunch, where Wini lectured me about grains and vegetables. She didn't need to have one of the cucumbers from my salad because she was eating tomatoes in her spaghetti, and even though tomatoes are really a fruit they are still healthy. "Because I said so" just doesn't cut it any more.

We went by Powell Street and saw that the cable cars had absolutely no line. Nick was amazed by this fact, but I wasn't surprised considering it was in the 40's and anyone with a lick of sense was warmly tucked up in their house with their heater going full blast. And as a native San Franciscan, he tends to poo-poo riding the cable cars because it's $5 one way these days. But I talked him into it. I think it's safe to say he enjoyed it!



Nick is standing on the outboard runner here - I'm sitting facing him. I haven't been on a cable car since that time when Sherry & the kids were visiting. Remember that? Somehow Sherry and I ended up standing and everyone else was sitting. I think Nick has been jealous ever since, and finally got a chance to rectify that injustice.




When we reached Fisherman's Wharf, we were near-frozen. We stopped at one of those stands selling the $8 fleece jackets and each bought another layer to put on over our clothes. Within an hour, Nick had zipped the camera and his cell phone into the pocket of his new jacket, which then refused to unzip so stubbornly that the zipper pull broke off when he tried. I guess that was an $8 lesson - don't use the pockets.

We took a streetcar back instead of the cable cars. I left my baby alpaca wool gloves on the trolley but we figured it out very quickly, and Nick was able to chase down the trolley and get them back. What a superhero!

We called Nick's mother Virginia and agreed to meet at Wini's favorite park in San Francisco, the "Boat Park" (actually, Dolores Park). As is typical in San Francisco parks, someone showed up with a drum and kept a beat. Wini enjoyed dancing and we enjoyed watching the dogs chase remote-controlled planes.



We took a rest, then looked for a couple of geocaches. The first was taking us into a few places I didn't like where there were discarded clothes, numerous piles of trash whose contents I did NOT want to recognize, and fresh urine all over the place - so we gave up on that one. That's the pitfalls of urban caches, I guess. The second geocache was at an interesting landmark on one side of the park, but I don't know how to talk about it without giving away too many geocaching hints. This geocache was by far the smallest I'd seen, about the size of 3 pencil erasers, maybe a tiny bit wider. I'm holding it in my fingers in this picture, but you can't see it.

This is one of these pictures you dread because putting up because you've got a weird face in it. But let's face it, the people are not the subject of this photo at all, are they?



Virginia gave us a ride back to the train station (thank goodness, because we were zonked) where we bought Wini a ginormous cookie and ourselves some coffee. I don't think the caffeine could save us, at that point, though.




Wini was one wild wiggle-worm the whole way home. Tired + sugar = squirmy, giggly girl.

Happy New Year!

Done! Enjoyed! Here's Nick, Wini and Virginia in Union Square sometime before Christmas. They were also lighting a menorah that night in a public ceremony. We went from here to the St. Francis hotel to gawk at the huge gingerbread house and zip up and down the glass elevators.

In fact, there were a lot of gingerbread houses in our holidays this year. We made them out of graham crackers and Royal icing with the Girl Scout troop. Nick came up with a design improvement (the diamond-tilted cracker to strengthen the walls and support the roof) and it turned into a project even a pack of six-year-olds could handle with little supervision.



We made several of these houses over the holidays, but I resisted the temptation to pig out on them. The icing is powdered sugar and egg whites - pretty much straight sugar with something wet to make it flow. Not the best snack for a diabetic by any means.

That is, I resisted until we made this one, from a Trader Joe's kit. We were all mesmerized by this cute little a-frame. Wini pretended to take a bite.



The little tree and the bell on top were hiding hershey's orange chocolate kisses. Somehow, they were improved by the royal icing into something completely sweet and decadent, mmm. There were also a couple dozen of these around to add to the holiday temptations:

















This must have been the night we were in Union Square. We walked through downtown to look at all the decorations, and one of the department stores had given their window displays over to the SPCA. There were cats and dogs with their own private, expertly-designed rooms available for adoption.








We also encountered a strange statue.














These pictures were in downtown San Francisco at a concert of Peter & the Wolf. We had to zip up to the city after a long morning of rehearsals for Wini's ice skating show, and I felt horribly underdressed all night! Most of the children were in fancy Christmas dresses and looked adorable. We dressed more sensibly because we had to park in Daly City and take BART into the city, and there was lots of walking. Oh well, there's always next year.






Here's Wini in her costume from the ice skating show. Unfortunately, we took videos but not pictures of the performance. They looked like a set of spinning Santa tops.
















After Christmas, we headed down to visit Redondo Beach. We had heard that they had set up an ice rink in Pershing square in downtown Los Angeles. How could the city of angels with its temperate climate sustain an outdoor ice rink? We had to check it out. We combined it with Nick's love of public transportation into a day of taking trains to the city center. (Walter's comment: he was shocked that we could find anything fun to do in downtown LA.) The skating was awful (tiny rink packed with people in the blazing sun) but the novelty of it was worth the trip. It made a nice day outing for everyone, and we even worked in a geocache at the downtown branch of the library. All our pictures came out with squinty eyes because it was so bright that it was hard to see.



My daughter nabbed grandmother's sunglasses for the duration.




















On New Year's Day, we went to the polar bear swim at noon. Even though it was a little colder than normal, we figured it couldn't be too bad considering we're used to Northern California weather. Then again, we're not hanging out in swimsuits! We had plans for the afternoon, so Nick and I stayed dry while Wini and grandma actually got in the water. The sand in San Pedro had some odd black patches that attract 6-year-olds looking to get as dirty as possible.



From swimming in the ocean, we changed clothes and zipped north 40 miles to meet Nick's aunt Kay who likes to -- you guessed it -- ice skate. Nick caught a picture of me skating backwards. The reason he took the picture? This is the first time I've really "got it" about backwards skating. It was a lot of fun and now I can't wait to get out there again so that I can cement it in my legs and feet. Kay gave me the tip that I wasn't bending my knees enough. She was right, I'm not bending them enough right here!




With all the driving, the transition from the beach to the rink in a few hours, we were completely zonked that night. But it was a memorable way to spend our twelfth wedding anniversary!

Ice Skating!

I did some crossovers yesterday! I've been terrified to try, but I did alright. Wini has had two weeks off of school, and she's having trouble passing out of Beta level, so I decided to cash in all the free rink time cards that have been piling up because we're too busy to get to the rink. A side effect of all the skating is that I've gotten better at it myself. Wini is hung up on T stops, where your foot is shaped like a T, and you stop (duh). It's a little trickier than it sounds because on the foot that goes behind, you use the outside edge of your blade to stop. But once you get it, it makes a snappy little stop and you spray a satisfying little path of snow behind you.

Wini is still having trouble getting it, unfortunately. All the other elements to pass out of that level - which are very hard, if you ask me - she has down pat. She has to do backwards crossovers (6 in a circle), backwards strokes with a lifted leg, and those darn T stops. We may have to quit lessons for a while because they absolutely won't let her advance until she gets the stop.

On the first day of the new class, all the other kids were new and Wini was beginning her third pass through Beta. They worked on backwards crossovers and Wini was skating circles around them literally. But when the teacher lined them up and they did T stops, every other kid did the stop but Wini. So the class is focusing on the backwards work and Wini isn't getting the coaching she needs.

These days I can skate backwards a bit and I'm actually pretty good at T stops from all the extra practice.

Nick is Nearly Normal

Nick has been eating healthier as I eat NS. A lot of what he has changed has to do with eating smaller portions and cutting down on treats at work. Today he weighed in at 190! Way to go, hon! We checked his BMI and he's 15 or 20 pounds from being considered "normal" weight. Looking at him, I can't even see where those 20 pounds would be coming from. He's got a tiny pooch but it doesn't seem like 20 pounds worth. (Click to enlarge)



Yay for Nick!

I'm enjoying these weeks off with Wini with no vacations planned or special trips. We have met with friends a few times during the week, and other days we've puttered around the house working on projects and crafts. She's attempting her first paint-by-number (kittens, no surprise there).

Yesterday, a friend that lives about a mile and a half away called me to say that her remodeling project is proceeding and they were going to be repainting or tearing out most of the walls in her house; did we want to come over and paint silly stuff on the walls? We answered a resounding "yes!" Instead of driving, Wini rode her razor scooter and I biked. What a gorgeous fall day it was, the kind of day that is cool and crisp yet you still get warm in the sunshine. Every now and then the wind would pick up and leaves would fall like golden snow as we rode through the ones piling up on the sidewalk. There's something so satisfying about crunching leaves, especially on a scooter or bike.

As far as exercise though, it was fair to middlin'. Have you ever biked along with a 6-year-old on a scooter? They're not that fast, and at the slightest sign of a hill they go into heavy dramatic I-can't-scooter-up/down-that-hill mode. The neighborhood must have been interested to hear that my daughter thinks that I'm trying to kill her. But it was a wonderful way to slow down and enjoy the afternoon. The painting on the walls was a blast, too.