I had a very nice birthday! Lots of love! Thanks for all the good wishes and phone calls. Kindergartners made me adorable cards and one even gave me a little bag of candy. They were so proud – I felt such a strong sense of community in our classroom today. I think my birthday should be an official part of the curriculum. My teacher friends bought me dinner at a Mexican restaurant where they put a sombrero on my head and serenaded me with what I assume are Mexican birthday songs. I also got some more sweet treats including fair-trade chocolate, I played my uke and got a beautiful gianduja cake hand-made with love that I ate while watching Glee with my BFF. What more could a person wish for? Off to bed!

 Good news, I went to the doctor today who feels certain I don’t have any neurological issues and am simply suffering from tension headaches. Therefore, I must relax my neck! Get massages! I’ll work on that. My vision actually seems to be pretty stable and the headaches have become less frequent. So, let’s hope that keeps going in the right direction.

Tomorrow I plan to have a very nice day being celebrated as the birthday girl. I’ve spent so much time thinking, “My fortieth is coming up” that it just doesn’t seem real.  It seems like a story someone’s telling. Scott took us out to dinner tonight and I let the kids eat whatever they wanted. It was very refreshing.  I think I’ll lighten up some of the food restrictions and see what the consequences are. Maybe none, in which case it isn’t worth killing ourselves and Sam being miserable over his dietary choices. We’ll keep our eyes open for stomachaches and weird behavioral stuff.

xxoo

• Sam is going back to school tomorrow! Think healthy thoughts.
• Kindergartners were very impressed with my magical 6-string uke today.
• Had a great meeting with some colleagues tonight to talk about educational philosophy and practice. Very important and inspiring.
• I hope I have something to put in the kids’ lunchboxes tomorrow.

Today Sarah pulled me out of the doldrums of the depressing-house-o’sickness for the first installment of Birthday Fun. Those of you who have known me for many years, my whole life, even, will be shocked to hear that Birthday Fun Day One involved jumping out of bed, getting into gym clothes and heading out for some excercise with my workout buddy, Sarah. (It’s a more realistic story when you take into account that this happened at like, 10:30am.)

After our thorough workout we headed to the fancy upscale acoustic music shop in Fremont, Dusty Strings. I had done my research and I knew they had at least two of the fancy 6-string and 8-string tenor ukuleles that I thought would make a lovely birthday present from my doting and romantic husband. (He had quizzed me about this choice: “Is this something you will think back on when you’re sixty and say What ever happened to that old thing? or will you be looking down at your trusty ol’weathered pal, with it’s road and tobacco-stains, and feel sure you’d made the right choice.”) Off to Fremont we went…

First stop, Homegrown, a sustainable sandwich shop. Who knew there was such a thing? That’s the kind of awesomeness that make Seattle a great place to live. Balances out the bleak darkness at 4:30 in the afternoon. After delicious and sustainable soup and sandwiches, we went to Dusty Strings.

The very non-pushy sales folks showed us a little quiet room with acoustic panels and had us bring our Ukuleles Under Consideration in there for some testing. (That would be OOk-oo-leles, by the way.) Right away, Sarah and I loved the sound and size of the two 6-string tenors. One was a “G-String” brand which gave us a giggle. It was there on consignment, second-hand. The second was a beautiful Kamaka that I had played at our last adventure to Dusty Strings. I did a bunch of research about Kamaka, and found their romantic story very compelling. Little movie from youtube:  

I also watched a PBS documentary about the company called Heart Strings. It tells how Kamaka has been run by this same family back to the days when Portugese sailors (I think sailors?) brought the instruments to Hawaii. They trace their lineage from this guy Nunes who is said to have originated the ukulele in Hawaii and taught the craft to the Kamaka patriarch. It’s a great story of how the family held onto their values and high quality workmanship, maintained their business, passing it through the generations. I was really excited when watching the documentary to learn that Deaf People play an important role in the Kamaka company! (You know how I feel about Deaf People, right?) They specifically featured a couple of Deaf, signing guys — one who has worked in the factory for fifty years – who play an integral role in the manufacturing process. It was so moving how the Deaf guys talk about being important members of the Kamaka family. One of the Kamaka family guys takes time to explain the valuable role they play, with clear respect and admiration.

So this romantic story about this historic company, and how everything is manufactured by them in their shop in Hawaii, plus of course Deaf People led me to buy the super-fancy 6-string Kamaka over the more reasonably priced second-hand G-String. Despite the fact I could get a lot of humor mileage out of hilarous comments like, “Hey I bought a second-hand G-String today,” or “Hey, someone pass me my G-String, I feel a song coming on!”

The whole negotiation and decision-making process was of course loads of fun because I was with my buddy Sarah, who always makes everything fun and wonderful. We made friends with David, an instrument-repair gentleman who walked us through all of the considerations and made it look shiny and new for me, despite having been on the wall where it was well-loved and frequently played by Dusty Strings customers. He called us “quirky” but was quick to note he didn’t want to offend customers. What, us? Quirky? Really? Nah!

Here I am with my new, super-beautiful-sounding Koa wood 6-string Kamaka ukulele. I am very happy with it. My boys are also very impressed, though Eli did say, “Hey, how can that be a ukulele if it has six strings!!” He was pleased with my explanation. (The c and a strings are doubled – each pair is tuned an octave apart. Neat, eh?)

 

I felt that it was the right choice, because even though I cut my husband out of the purchasing loop, I knew he would also value the story behind the instrument and having that story be a part of our history: the story of his gift to me for my fortieth birthday. He’s really romantic like that. Plus, the g-string jokes would have gotten old after a while, right?

I failed to blog yesterday as I was too busy being bored and crabby. Today I was also extremely busy with these endeavors, but I managed to pull through and post something. Lucky you.

Sam still has a fever.

My 40th Birthday is in 4 days. I plan to knit myself a crown/tiara to wear. That should be fun. I told all the kindergartners it was coming up and I expect each of them to make me a card. They pledged to bring me fabulous gifts, but I told them cards would do. I had them guess my age.  I told them I was 7, that got lots of laughs.  Guesses topped out at 100. One little girl whose daddy just turned forty guessed forty.  She was so proud to be correct. My teaching partner thinks it’s so funny that I make a big deal of my birthday with the kids, but I think it’s fun. Kids are the ones who really know how to make birthdays enjoyable.

Zzzzzzzz.  Oh, sorry, I fell asleep because this blog entry is so boring. Better let you go, then.

 

Well, it looks like a diagnosis of “retinal hemorrhage” was premature as today’s dr. appointment found none of any such thing. So we’re back to the other options: brain tumor or crazypants. Alternatively “migraines” was suggested to me.  I’ll go to my new doctor and find out. Good news, I got a neurologist appointment.  Mid December. Yeah.

So, Group Health. Weird. They have this fabulous fancy new building in Bellevue. There’s a deep parking garage under ground. First hour of parking is free.  So, after that, you pay. To park. At your doctor’s office. In the suburbs. That’s just wrong. Even the shopping malls will validate your parking if you’re shopping there, right? I guess they’re still paying for the building. And that’s just the beginning of the wrong.  I go up to the third floor for my appointment, and you enter the floor there’s a big long hallway along the window wall on your right. There is seating along the window, and there are cubicle stations set up to your left for receptionists. Behind the receptionists are the doors to the rooms where you are treated.  So everyones sitting in this hallway area, and folks walk up to the reception to check in. And the ladies behind the cubicles take your information.  In the middle of everything.  There were a bunch of elderly folks going up and checking in. From where I sat, it sounded like this:  

Receptionist: ARE YOU ON MEDICAID?

Patient: mumble mshmumpble

R: WAS THIS CAUSED BY A WORKPLACE INJURY?

P: Msmdmfmsf smfdfas

R: ARE YOU RECEIVING WORKMAN’S COMPENSATION?

P: smdfmf mpmble

R: ARE YOU ENTITLED TO BENEFITS UNDER THE VETERANS AFFAIRS BLAH BLAH BLAH.

If my eyes weren’t dialated I  might have been able to understand what the patients were saying.  I don’t hear well when I can’t see. So, I guess patient confidentiality wasn’t a consideration when they were designing this joint. Or maybe they just forgot how sound travels? It was really weird and embarrassing.

I’ll let you know how the brain tumor works out.

After several weeks of odd vision, dizziness and headaches, I took myself to the eye doctor. The tech pointed out to me a little blurred red spot in the photo of the inside of my eye. Optometrist says “retinal hemorrhage” – so what is that?  Some kind of broken blood vessel bleeding in your eye.  It was the tiniest little area, could very well have been a branch of the blood vessel in there. But after looking at it through a few filters, they decided that’s what it is.  Good news, I wasn’t imagining that something is wrong.  Bad news, something is wrong.

Of the three causes identified by my thorough search of the internets — head injury, diabetes and hypertension – the hypertension is the only one that really makes any sense. I think I can rule out shaken baby syndrome. I suppose there’s a possibilty I’ve experienced stress lately.  Perhaps a little? So, I’m off to a new Dr. tomorrow to get that sorted out.  Also, home with Sam while we hopefully prevent him from getting pneumonia.

Good thing I have a soft spot in my heart for the month of November. Because, really, so far… not that great.

Eli: Mom, you know you can take the word Tai Chi and switch the first letters and you get CHAI TEA!

Sam is sick and I’ll stay home with him tomorrow.  He is miserable… taking it much worse than Eli. He’s asking for tylenol.  Poor Sam. Today he missed a field trip and a class party and he was pretty sad about it. Scott brought him a gluten-free dairy-free chocolate cupcake. It cheered him up.

I’m kind of hungry for cake. In case you have any extra, feel free to bring it over. Tired of the rice crispy treats.

If you blog every day, it’s hard to make them all interesting. This will be one of the less interesting ones.

 

Sam has a fever.  I’m going to bed.

I’m saying this counts as a blog entry.  Don’t complain, you got two yesterday.

Oh hey, check out this adorable website where you can have grandparents or far-away parents read books to kids online, or the kids can read to the gparents or what-have-you.

http://www.astorybeforebed.com/  The site belongs to a friend of mine and I think it’s really cute.

 

Ah, the taste of freedom.  Enjoy.

Best Chocolate-Peanut-Butter-Vegan-Gluten-Free-Casein-Free-Crispy-Rice-Squares You Ever Tasted In Your Entire Life

adapted from a variety of recipes by me, Pamela Grossman  (you know I don’t eat yucky stuff, right?)

Ingredients:

5c rice cereal

1 10-oz container of Suzanne’s Ricemellow Crème

1 10-oz bag  Tropical Source Chocolate Chips(careful – soy lecithin!) (Not slave chocolate!)

2 tsp margarine

6 Tb Nut Butter (or to taste – I use more)

 Instructions:

1.      Line a 9×9 glass baking dish with parchment paper or spray with cooking spray.

2.      Melt the chocolate chips and margarine in a large microwave-safe bowl for about one minute.  Mix with a spatula until the rest of the chips melt.

3.      Mix in the ricemellow and peanut butter  until combined.

4.      Pour the rice cereal into the chocolate mixture and mix until cereal is coated.

5.      Plop the whole thing into the 9×9 dish and press it in with a spatula.  Let cool to room temperature. When it’s firmed up, pull out the whole thing by the parchment paper and cut into squares with a sharp knife.  Speed the process by putting it in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!