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!

 

 

     

 

 

November is national blog writing month!  I am going to attempt to write every day.  Wish me luck. Your comments provide fuel for my daily-writing stamina.

Right now I am dealing with my annual bout of crazy, brought on maybe by lack of sun and general stress this time of year. To manage the crazy so far we’ve got daily uke playing, knitting, vitamin D3 and St. John’s Wort. In good news, I feel better now than I did several hours ago.  Clearly it is working like magic.

Ten more days of being in my thirties. Wow.

 Scott took some Halloween pictures.  Click photo below to hop to his photo gallery.  Sam was a Ninja (after much frustration and distress) and Eli was, happily, a monkey in a too-small monkey suit.  With a sword courtesy of Tim and Sarah and Henry.  The Sugar Sprite brought them a cool origami kit and a book-binding machine in exchange for their candies. Good old Sugar Sprite.

We did the reverse trick-or-treating too.  Sam handed out little cards with fair trade chocolate attached to them and said, “This is a thank-you for the candy!  It’s fair trade chocolate.  You can read about fair trade chocolate on the card.”  We helped him keep his presentation short and sweet. No one shut the door in his face, and everyone was actually quite nice.

Eli survived the aporcalypse last week with fevers over 105. He wound up with a case of pneumonia which was diagnosed early by our savvy pediatrician. Almost two weeks out of school for him, a week out for me and four days out for Scott, to take care of Eli. Eli remained in good spirits the whole time, watching tv and playing video games. For him, I think it was pretty much a delightful vacation. Silly monkey.  In good news, high fevers seemed to knock out his warts which have been hanging around a while. Yay?

Yesterday I took my v. v. grumpy self to the guitar store to see if a 3/4 size guitar might be a good choice for me.  After much wrestling with my musical identity, I think I’ll stick to the ukulele. I’m hoping to get a 6-string or 8-string variety for my birthday. You play them like a ukulele, but the sound is fuller, like a guitar. I think I can be more successful on the uke, and the size is really a good match for lil’ old me with my lil’ old fingers.

For our thirteenth wedding anniversary this week my delightful husband wrote me an epic poem in limerick form.  It was perfect. I got him nothing. He also got me a book called, “I Judge You When You Use Bad Grammar” or something like that.  We are well matched.

Ok, starting small.  Here’s to a blog-worthy November.

For Sam’s birthday we took a small subset of his friends on a tour of the local, organic, fair-trade chocolate factory, Theo. (All the chocolate you can eat! Not produced by enslaved children or underpaid farmers! The sweet taste of fairness! Yum!)

Click the picture above to go to Scott’s photos.

The kids had a great time, and the tour guide was so impressed that Sam knew (and could explain) what “organic” and “fair trade” meant.  Ah, Sam.

On the Sam note, I’ll end by sharing a morning conversation that took place yesterday, as Sam tried to get all his crap together to get out the door…

Me: You know, Sam, you might think about getting all of your stuff set out and ready to go the night before.

Sam: But, Mom.  All of my best ideas happen overnight.

 

Thank you and goodnight.

Click here for: Humorous photos from family life. Just a few.

Sample: Henry sleeps on Sam’s face:

Sam loves Henry.  He has started a crochet project for him, some sort of anthropomorphic pillow doll.

He’s also started a village of tiny creatures made of discarded electronics. (Those are for himself.) He is saying it’s part of his new business: Junk Un-Junkers.  Think that was the name.  The photo link features some examples of his work.